They Who from the Heavens Came (The Wisdom, #1)
Chapter 18

‘Why’re you so cross with me?’ Verdi moaned when they were back in the Jag.

‘Is yer head cut? Think about it,’ Aidan shot over his shoulder, to where Verdi sat in the backseat. He never rode passenger side; Melody still claimed it, even though they had recently agreed to severe their romantic ties.

Verdi continued to grumble. ‘What’s the big deal? It was an honest mistake. I thought she’d fight back.’

Melody rolled her eyes at her sixteen-year-old brother. ‘You idiot, anyone could see she couldn’t do it.’

‘But –’ Verdi caught Aidan’s hard expression in the rear-view mirror and shut his mouth. Then, quietly, he said, ‘We thought she would, right?’

‘Aye,’ Aidan acknowledged. ‘But ye saw how scared she was. She didn’t know what to do.’

‘Do you think she’s powerless?’ Melody wondered. She turned her ponderous eyes on her ex.

She was pretty, in a generic sort of way. Her hair was bleached white with black streaks, though pale brown showed at the roots. She regularly teased it, swept it over to the side and locked it down with half a can of extra-strength hairspray, giving the illusion that she had more hair than she did. It fell well past her breasts, which was a good thing because she tended to wear minimalistic efforts at clothing that barely covered her. And she had plenty to cover.

‘Not likely,’ Aidan said. His hands clenched the steering wheel. ‘Ya saw what her brother could do.’

‘So did she,’ Melody recalled. ‘Maybe she doesn’t know her own strength, yet.’

‘Maybe.’

He didn’t look at her. His eyes were on the road, which had started to look less countryside and more tarmac. An abuse of billboard advertisements appeared and other cars rushed beside theirs. Aidan struggled to keep at the speed limit.

‘You were worried about her, weren’t you?’ Melody observed.

Aidan wondered how he’d imagined he might keep this from her. Of course she would notice. While Melody was prone to what they had come to think of as the splitting, falling into embarrassing fits of anger and tears when everyone least expected it, Aidan tended to be more controlled. It took a lot to make him lose his cool.

But he had almost lost it in the field, and Melody knew him well enough to have spotted it. It didn’t help that another girl had been involved.

He signalled and headed onto the motorway. ‘We could do anything with these powers of ours. If we let things get out of control, like…who knows where it will lead? She could’ve been killed.’

‘But she wasn’t,’ Verdi insisted from the back seat.

‘That’s not the point,’ said Aidan, his tone hard. He took a breath. ‘My da thinks I’m a monster. My ma thinks I’m a monster. I didn’t leave home to prove them right.’

Melody pressed his shoulder. It felt good to receive affection. He just wished it came from someone else – maybe someone with long black hair….

‘You’re not a monster,’ she said. ‘And anyway, if you are, so are we. Right, Verdi?’

‘Whatever.’

She rolled her eyes and squeezed Aidan’s arm. ‘So those were Stephen Loveguard’s children?’

Aidan swallowed at the name. Each time he thought of Stephen, the grief threatened to overtake him all over again.

Melody released his arm and sank back in her seat. ‘Huh,’ she said. ‘What are the chances that we’d run into them, like that? Maybe it’s...destiny or something. You know?’

Aidan glanced at her in alarm.

You’ll replace a way, Stephen had said. Call it fate. Somehow, I think you’ll meet her. In fact, I don’t think you’ll be able to help it.

‘H’m,’ Aidan said, trying to regain his composure. He pressed his foot harder on the accelerator.

* * *

More than three hours later, Aidan dropped Melody and Verdi at the flat they shared together in Enfield, and then drove back to his own home in Ealing. It sat atop a tower of flats, joined together in a circle, surrounding a shared courtyard filled with constant flowers, wrought-iron benches and perpetually mowed grass no one was allowed to walk on, no matter how inviting it looked on a warm summer’s day.

Aidan’s front door opened into the kitchen, which was long and narrow, tiled in grey and white, with low lighting. The bathroom matched the kitchen. The lounge was floored in soft white carpeting, and one wall was lined with shelves brimming with old books on esoteric subjects like the ancient Egyptians, pre-Columbian pyramids and the Indian Vedas. The sofa was black leather, creating a zebra effect in the room. Above the sofa was a rather sinister looking black-and-white photograph of what Melody had once taken for an Indian chakra symbol on fire. In fact, it was the cover of one of Aidan’s favourite albums – and it was the iris of an eye.

The bedroom was as large as the lounge and just as full of books; only there weren’t any shelves, so the books were stacked in towers along the walls, wherever there was space. What made the room special was the window, half-covered with trees. It made Aidan feel like a bird in his nest.

It was a fraction of the size of his childhood home in Carrickfergus – but he’d finally found somewhere he could simply be Aidan.

When he got in, he poured himself a glass of water and took it into the lounge, where he flopped onto the sofa and drank slowly. Halfway through the glass, he realised he’d left his hoodie, torn and dirt-stained, wrapped around Itzy’s shoulders.

Itzy.

He downed the last of his water and held the glass in his lap as the day replayed in his head.

She’d looked at him strangely, like they had shared something intimate that he could no longer remember. More unsettling was that as soon as he’d seen her standing there, with her hair whirling around and hiding her face like raven wings, he had been filled with the uncanny sensation that he’d been waiting for her all his life, and at last she was there.

She was so different from Melody. Even while screaming and grappling with the unruly ground, he had seen a hard strength in her that his ex-girlfriend had never presented. In that desperate moment, she had looked at him like perhaps she was losing that battle, but she would be back, and when that time came, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Part of him had been disappointed at having to help her. Before Verdi’s tricks, she had overwhelmed him with her presence. He’d been convinced that whatever magic they could do, she would show them it was all child’s play.

He thought maybe she would show them yet. In fact, he wanted her to show them. It was a desire that was startlingly similar to his need to replace the black pulse of his dreams. More than ever, he was convinced they were somehow connected.

He didn’t need the hoodie back, but it made a good excuse to contact her. He drew his mobile out of his pocket and performed a search for Itzy on Facebook. As expected, it was easy to replace her.

Her profile picture showed her pulling a face at the camera. Even then, he had to admit Stephen had been right: she was beautiful.

He scrolled through her information. She was about a year younger than him, and just as precocious, if her favourite books were anything to go by. Her taste in music was little emo, he decided – but so was his. All she seemed to post were song lyrics and fragments of her writing. He liked it.

He scanned her photos. Apart from shots of herself, they were almost all of the same two people. Ashley Morgan and Devon Anderson, the tags read. For some stupid reason, he was relieved to discover Ashley was Devon’s boyfriend and not Itzy’s.

He took a breath and pressed the ‘Message’ button. He quickly typed something and hit ‘Send’ before he could think better of it. When it was done, he leaned back against the sofa and tossed his phone aside.

He wondered what an unholy can of worms he was opening up. For one thing, in the back of his mind he was a little frightened of the Loveguard girl. She’d already managed to invade Aidan’s thoughts – Aidan, whom nothing and no one really affected.

‘Help me, Stephen,’ he whispered to the memory of a man he’d only known briefly, and yet somehow he had become integral to Aidan’s life. ‘Ya said I’d replace her, and ye were right. What am I meant to do now?’