Page 11 of Cupid’s Flight

“Thanks for the help,” Leo called as he hurried around the front of the car and pulled open the driver’s door.

Hei was breathing shallowly and sweating, his face pale and red at the same time. Leo sped out of the parking lot, both because he wanted to avoid the oncoming police and to get Hei to help faster.

“We just have to get to the transfer spot,” Leo explained. “Five minutes. Since they were streaming this up in the clouds, our medical team should be waiting for us up there.”

“It’s just a broken arm, I promise,” Hei replied. “Don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” Leo replied, even though technically he definitely was. Luckily, they arrived at the empty lot before Hei could do more than snort in disbelief in reply. Leo parked the car and turned it off, then dropped the keys into a cup holder. He reached across the center console to wrap his arms around Hei, careful of Hei’s arm, and called on his wings. The human world vanished around them in a flash of white, immediately replaced by the portal area of the clouds.

The medics were waiting for them. They grabbed Hei and pulled him from Leo’s arms and onto a stretcher. The medics flew off toward the hospital, the stretcher carefully held between them. Leo moved to follow, but Elder Parnus laid a hand on Leo’s arm.

“He will be fine for the moment. They’re going to take him straight to surgery, and he’s coherent, so he’ll be able to advocate for himself. There’s something you need to see while you have free time.” Elder Parnus’s usually gentle voice was colored by a touch of anger, which stopped Leo’s automatic protest.

“What happened?” Leo asked.

“I have to show you. Come to my office. It won’t take more than an hour, I promise.”

“Fine, but let’s be quick. I don’t want to leave Hei alone.”

“I promise,” Elder Parnus repeated. He jumped into the air and flew off a little way, waiting for Leo to join him. As much as Leo wanted to fly after the medics, Elder Parnus was right. If this was something Leo needed to see, now was the time to do it. Leo jumped into the air and flew after Elder Parnus.

They arrived at Elder Parnus’s house a few minutes later. The door was locked, and there was no sign of his assistants, which meant this was something Elder Parnus didn’t want them to know. Elder Parnus unlocked the door and held it open for Leo, before closing and locking it again behind him. He led the way into his office, where he unlocked his desk and pulled out a datapad, which he started tapping on.

“We learned the hard way to have our livestreams on a ten-second delay, thanks to your charming nephew’s impromptu visit to a sex-toy shop when we were filming his and Wynn’s mission together. We were able to turn off the stream while you and Tennyo Hei went on your date and had just resumed filming when Hei went inside to check the location of the subjects. We therefore had a wide-angle shot of the parking lot when the incident occurred.” He turned the datapad so Leo could see the still shot of the store’s parking lot from overhead. “You’re here,” Elder Parnus tapped a car with a dark-haired person standing next to it. “Tennyo Hei is about to exit from the store here.” He tapped where the store’s doors were located. “And the car is about to come into view over here,” he finished with a tap at where the car had blown through the fence and hedge and into the parking lot. “Watch the car.”

Elder Parnus pressed Play. Hei rushed out of the store and cut to the right to get out of the way. Subjects one and two followed right after him. Almost simultaneous to the subjects coming into view of the camera, a car driving on the main road suddenly flashed red and then careened sideways. Leo tapped the screen to rewind and watched again as some sort of magic hit the car and forced it in a direct trajectory toward the subjects.

“That color is very familiar,” Leo said as he watched it a third time. “I expected sabotage from our visitor, Shen Shi, but not attempted murder. Did Hei flash silver when he used magic in the store earlier?” Leo hadn’t noticed at the time, but he hadn’t been looking either.

“Good question. The room was brightly lit.” Elder Parnus took the datapad from Leo and tapped on it for a moment. When he turned it back so Leo could see, the video of Leo and Hei surveilling the pharmacy was playing. Leo put down the humidifier and joined Hei; they spoke for a moment, then Hei pointed, and the pill counter moved. Leo zoomed in on Hei and rewatched the scene, but there was no flash of magic. For the third watch, Leo instead zoomed in on the pill counter and just before it started to move, the briefest flash of silver enveloped it.

“Hei’s magic colored what he wanted to move,” Leo said, playing the video again and pausing as the pill counter flashed silver. “Which means Shen Shi definitely attacked the car with his magic, forcing it to drive toward our subjects.”

“So it would appear,” Elder Parnus replied with a sad shake of his head. “If one or both of the subjects are dead, there would be no way to quantify whether Tennyo Hei passed the test.”

“Shen Shi intended to use that loophole to force Hei to leave,” Leo added. “Do we know where Shen Shi is now?”

Elder Parnus shook his head again. “The second I had my suspicions, I sent people out to locate him. Unfortunately, if he was on Earth to cast the magic on that car, then he was able to sneak away from the clouds without anyone noticing and will therefore be able to sneak back the same way.”

Leo ran a hand through his hair. “Since he’s obsessed with Hei, I think it’s safe to say he’ll be back at some point.”

“Agreed.” Elder Parnus sighed. “I’ve held you up for long enough. I’ve been trying to contact someone in the celestial realm about this issue but haven’t gotten a response. I’ll keep trying, and I’ll confer with the other elders to see if we can come up with a solution. I’ll contact you again once we have a plan.”

“Thanks,” Leo said. He didn’t wait to say goodbye, heading out of the house as quickly as he could. He threw himself into the air and arrowed toward the hospital. Hei would be waiting for him; he had probably wanted Leo with him while they fixed his arm, so Leo wasn’t going to make him wait any longer than he had to. Leo landed in front of the hospital and walked in. Word had apparently gotten around—gossip always got shared lightning fast in the clouds—since the receptionist smiled and waved him through.

“Third floor,” she called, pointing to the elevator.

“Thanks.” Leo pushed the Up button and the doors slid open. Inside he pushed 3 and a minute later walked out into the lobby there.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” a nurse called as Leo looked around. The nurse hurried over to Leo’s side, a smile on his face. “Your beau kept asking where you were. I told him you had to speak with the elders and would be here as soon as you could.”

“I appreciate that,” Leo replied. “How’s Hei’s arm?”

“No problems!” The nurse started walking down the hallway as he spoke, so Leo followed. “A bit of local anesthesia was all we needed. We set the bone and put him in a cast. He chose purple to match your wings. We want to keep him for observation for another hour or so to make sure we can prescribe the right pain meds, but you should be able to take him home soon.”

The nurse stopped outside one of the doors in the hallway, knocked briefly, and then swung it open. “Look who I found!” he called into the room. “Oh,” he added because the bed inside was empty.

Swallowing hard, heart thudding in his throat, Leo pushed past the nurse. The bed was empty. The bathroom was also empty. Hei wasn’t on the floor or hidden by the window curtains. He wasn’t there!