Page 124 of Grave Beginnings

“I don’t know that I trust myself. Does that make sense? None of you could see what I was seeing before. Can anyone see it now? Is it all in my head?”

He stared for a long minute as Wade and Victor jumped out, heading for a set of black SED vans lined up together. “I trust you.”

“Angel.”

“No, seriously. I do, and I need you to trust me. My job is to keep you safe in the field. If you see something I can’t, I need a warning.”

I exhaled an annoyed breath, mostly angry at myself for the hesitation, and described the building and the entire area in detail. From the crackling energy of the split, an ombre of purple and black tearing through the building, to the snaps of color wriggling through the air like supernatural insects stuck in a giant bug zapper.

Angel listened attentively, waiting until I was finished.

“Do you see any of this?”

“I see the basics of the split. Your description makes it sound a lot worse,” Angel said. He put a careful hand on my thigh. “We’ve got this. Our team is trained to handle this.”

“Except me.” His touch slid through my soul with a need to wrap myself around him and draw that soothing comfort inside me. I had to fight back the desire to leap across the seat. His soulful brown eyes met mine and held them without judgment.

“Don’t wonder whether or not I can see it. Assume I can’t anddescribe it anyway. That you’re seeing these pops of color a good distance from the tear could mean the whole building is going to be dragged across soon. We’ve never had warning like that. I’d like to see if we can use it to our benefit.”

I swallowed hard and stared at him.

“My sense of smell tells me there is ozone in the air, and magic. I can tell by scent who is on the scene.” He pointed at the line of trucks. “Most shifters can. I can also scent a change in mood, or a handful of NHVs who aren’t ours that might show up to a scene. But if you’re seeing something?” He waved his hand at the air. “I need to know. Not many can perceive more than the split itself.”

“No one else can see the magic in the air?” I stared at the waves of electricity, knowing what they were, mostly. Magic, or at least something science didn’t have a grasp on yet.

“Not that I know of.” He squeezed my thigh, then patted it gently. “Look at you, making a difference already.”

My biggest concern, I feared voicing for a lot of reasons. Mostly, I was afraid of making it come true. “What if I see Ezra and you can’t?”

He stared at me for a long minute. “It’s better to know than not. So tell me. We’ll work on recovering him either way.”

“What color are my eyes?” I asked, thinking for a half second that it was stupid. What if they were my normal blue?

“Black,” he said.

“Fuck,” I cursed. Did that mean demons? “Do you know what that means? Is it because of the split, or something else?”

“I don’t know.”

“DVs aren’t common.”

“Not since the war.”

“And I suppose they were on the wrong side?”

He stared out at the shifting lights for a few seconds, then said, “I’m not certain there ever is a right side.”

“Protecting people is the right side.”

“And if both sides need protecting? The NHVs didn’t ask for us to come through the Veil, nor did we drag them through. We’re forced to mingle.”

“How do you know, then? If something’s dangerous or not?”

“If it’s trying to hurt us, it’s not on our side. We are going in as search and rescue, not to destroy.”

“And beasties know the difference?”

He shrugged. “Best we can do. You’ve done breaches before?”