by G. P. Ching
“Too bad the only one carrying a torch is you,” Hope said, arriving beside Mike.
Finn had a visceral reaction to her appearance. Her skin was pale, almost green. Had she lost weight? She looked thinner than she had at breakfast.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“Let’s just say I’m changing in all the wrong ways.”
“What does that mean?” Finn scowled.
“Never mind. Come on. Show us where you went last night.”
Finn gestured toward the hall. “This way.” As unsettling as retracing his steps was, he led them to the stairwell, down to the basement, and through the windowless corridor he remembered. It was no dream. Other than last night, he’d never been down here before, yet he remembered every nuance of the hallway. When he reached the secret panel, he ran his hand in front of the glass sconce as he’d seen the clown do, but the door did not open. The card for unbind grew heavy in his inner pocket, but he couldn’t use it, couldn’t reveal his secret. The burn in his arm reminded him that wasn’t an option.
“Last night, the clowns did this,” he explained, waving a hand in front of the sconce. “A panel in the wall opened. There was a honeycomb and a glowing thing in a big glass bowl.”
Hope ran her hand along the wall. Her fingers searched the corners and along the carpeted floor. “There’s nothing here. It’s solid.”
Mike tried a door to his right. “Maybe you were confused and it was one of these other rooms. Check that one, Jay.”
“No, it was here,” Finn insisted.
“We’ll check anyway,” Mike said, disappearing through the door. Jayden entered the room on the opposite side of the hall.
“Maybe I was sleepwalking,” Finn said.
Hope shook her head, murmuring, “No. It has to be real. There has to be a reason.”
“A reason for what?”
“That I’m still here,” she said under her breath.
She wasn’t making any sense. He put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. Come on. We’ll go to dinner.”
But Hope twitched with unease. For someone who’d seemed skeptical last night, she looked at that wall like she could see what Finn had seen. “No,” she said firmly. “It’s here. We need to find a way in.” She continued inspecting the wall in earnest.
Mike and Jayden rejoined them in the hall. “Storage room. Nothing but props and costumes,” Mike said.
“Mine too,” Jayden added. “There were a few dummies in there. Maybe… in the dark?”
Hope stared at the wall as if she could knock it down with her mind.
“Maybe.” Finn shrugged. “Hope, we have to go. If we’re late for dinner, someone might come looking for us.”
“You’re right,” she said, her eyes glossy. “We’re out of time.” She charged past Finn and headed for the stairs.
25
Hope
The next afternoon, Hope faced off against Kirsa again. The woman was in an especially aggressive mood. Their morning session with Mike had been a welcome distraction, but now Kirsa was eyeing Hope like her own, personal punching bag. She’d ushered her into the sparring ring and was carefully perusing the selection of blades in the arsenal around them. She selected a bladed staff from the rack. It was medieval, the type of thing Vlad the Impaler might have used to impale and display his victims. This was going to hurt.
“Choose a weapon,” she said, running a thick hand through her shock of platinum hair. A smile played on her lips. Hope’s stomach twisted at that evil smirk. It was obvious she couldn’t wait to hurt Hope. She loved it.
Hope trembled. It didn’t matter what weapon she chose. Kirsa was indestructible. The only blood hitting the mat would be hers, the same as yesterday and the day before. The worst part was, her body couldn’t keep up with the healing. She was still sore from yesterday.
She chose a chakram, a circular throwing blade—the closest thing in the arsenal to the weapon her triquetra became in her hand.
“Always the chakram,” Kirsa said. “Why do you like that thing so much?”
“It’s familiar,” Hope said, putting her off. That was her goal. Put her off. Dodge. Limit the amount of time she was stabbed and beaten. There was no other choice.
Without any warning, Kirsa attacked, stabbing straight toward her middle. Hope swerved out of the way, using her superhuman speed to dodge the blow. Circling the chakram, she sliced the blade off the end of the staff, right through the wood. Kirsa tossed the ruined weapon aside and grabbed a long sword.
Kirsa stabbed. Hope flipped backward until she hit the ropes that surrounded the ring, then ducked as Kirsa swung at her head. She hurled the chakram. As expected, it bounced off Kirsa’s chest as if she were solid rock. Kirsa laughed at the small hole Hope’s strike had left in her uniform and tossed the sword she was using aside. She reached for a crossbow.
Hope leaped onto the wall, scaling the weapon rack until the reverberation of the bowstring warned her the arrow was coming. She flipped back into the ring, a move that would be impossible for a regular human student. She moved too fast, dropped too far. The arrow plowed into the wall where her chest had been.
“This isn’t going to help you adapt,” Kirsa yelled, tossing the crossbow aside and picking up her favorite dagger. It was a black handled monstrosity with a double-edged blade. “You won’t get stronger if I can’t make contact.” Her round face reddened with her anger.
“I need time to rest. I can’t grow stronger if you keep tearing me down,” Hope yelled, her anger flaring like a waking beast.
Everything about Kirsa was big and thick. She was layered with muscle, stronger than any man. And when she charged toward Hope, it was like being stalked by a freight train.
“Do not tell me how to teach my class.” She said through her teeth. “You are destined for resilience. I knew the moment I first saw you, so unlike the waifs I usually get in here. Stop fighting it. You have the potential to become an instructor, Hope, if you apply yourself. Give yourself over to the pain. Pain is what life is all about. Once you learn to like it, you won’t feel it anymore. You’ll love the pain. It will be the only time you feel anything.”
Hope dodged her slashing blade. “No,” she said through her teeth. “I don’t want to be like you. I will never ‘love the pain.’ And I would never want to do what you do. Who could enjoy inflicting pain on others?”
Enraged, Kirsa lurched forward, stabbed to the right but grabbed to her left. She’d closed in to the point Hope’s choices were either the dagger or her grasp. She should have taken her chances with the dagger.
Kirsa’s fist closed around her ponytail and yanked, tossing her to the floor. “I’ll show you what you want, you arrogant little twit.” The larger woman came down hard on top of her, straddling her. Even with Hope’s superior speed and strength, Kirsa’s unnatural abilities overcame her. Her knee, as hard as marble, slammed down on her arm, near her elbow, and Hope heard a sickening crack, pain radiating through her from the break. But Kirsa didn’t let up. Her fist connected with Hope’s jaw. Another crack. This time the Soulkeeper felt it through her skull. She spat blood.
Pinned beneath her, broken and bleeding, Hope had no choice but to absorb everything Kirsa sent her way. The dagger plunged into her chest, spraying blood across Hope’s face and knocking the air out of her. Another stab, this time to the abdomen. Her blood sprayed Kirsa’s shirt and face. Hope would have screamed if her lung wasn’t punctured. The dagger plunged into her flesh again and again. Always carefully placed to avoid her heart. Her cheek, her shoulder, her hip, her gut. Over and over the blood sprayed.
The taste of blood filled her mouth. She stared at the chakram, thrown from her hand when she fell, and lost herself in the pain. She wouldn’t look at Kirsa. Wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing the pain. Surely she would pass out soon. Tiny sips of air entered her lungs. Stars swam in her vision.
And then the door opened. All Hope could see was the peacock-blue hem of a dres
s, but that was enough to discern who it was. “Kirsa,” Juliette said from the door. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”
Kirsa froze midstrike, her face turning to look at Juliette, nothing but admiration in her previously cruel features. “Give me a minute. I’ll be right there.”
The dress hem exited and the door closed again. Hope sobbed, blood spilling from her lips.
“Don’t be a baby. You’ll be fine,” Kirsa said, rising from Hope’s bloodied body. “You’ll heal. You always do. You needed this, Hope. You needed me to take you to the brink to move you beyond this plateau. You’ll thank me.” Kirsa grabbed the healing kit. There was not enough balm to cover her wounds this time, but she swabbed the largest ones. Kirsa tossed a towel on her chest. “Once you’ve recovered, clean up the mess.”
Kirsa left her then, climbing the stairs and exiting the armory. When Hope was sure she was gone, she pulled the triquetra from under her shirt with the only hand that was working and breathed across the symbol. It was a pant really. That was all she could manage. But it was enough.
Light poured through the window as if the glass didn’t exist. It broke apart, swirled and expanded, until Gabriel stood beside her, looking as unangel-like as ever in a wrinkled T-shirt and jeans.
“Hope!” he said softly. He rushed to her side, placing healing hands on her abdomen to stop the wound there from bubbling blood. “Why aren’t you healing?”
Too injured to answer, all she could do was look at him.
“Never mind. I will help you.”
She could already feel the healing warmth flowing through her, feel the twang as the bones in her jaw knit themselves back together. She glanced at the door to the armory. “Careful,” she rasped. “She could come back.”
“She won’t see me,” he said.
Hope closed her eyes and concentrated on the light flowing through her. “I should have known something like this would happen today,” Gabriel said under his breath.
For several moments, Hope couldn’t think what he meant. What day was it? She hadn’t been paying attention to the calendar. Every day was the same here. Then she remembered and her eyes filled with tears.
“Happy Birthday,” Gabriel whispered. “I am sorry we will have to celebrate another time.”
Her sixteenth birthday. And the anniversary of the day her parents were brutally murdered by fallen angels. She swallowed hard, a tear escaping from the corner of her eye. Gabriel wiped it away.
“Can you move your arm? Can you speak?”
She could, although the pain she felt now was not the kind he could heal. “We have to try something different,” she said. “If I hadn’t been able to call you, I would have died.”
Gabriel scanned her from head to toe. “You can’t die, not permanently. You’re the last Soulkeeper and a Healer.”
She pushed herself up, her head still swimming. “The island is changing me. I’m not healing anymore. Not fully. Before you healed me, I had wounds from two days ago.”
Gabriel’s face tightened with concern, a line forming between his eyes. “I was afraid of this. This place, this island, is unholy. There are unnatural forces at work here.”
“Then get me out of here.”
He shook his head, as sad as she had ever seen him. “I can’t.”
“Don’t tell me that. You don’t get to say that.” She shook her head.
“You know I would if it were up to me. But I am only an angel, Hope. A servant. And this isn’t only a mission for you. It’s a test.”
“A test? Is He testing how much abuse I can handle and not hate Him with every fiber of my being? Too late,” she said through her teeth. She lifted her hands from the mat and showed them to him. They were bright red, caked with her blood.
Gabriel used the towel and water from the pitcher Kirsa kept beside the ring to clean her hands, rubbing them thoroughly until all traces of the blood were gone. “Don’t say things like that. It breaks my heart.”
“I’m afraid I can’t spare you that. My heart is as broken as my body these days. I can’t believe He’s done this to me. To us.”
Gabriel licked his lips. “He did not do this to you, Hope. It’s He who is trying to stop this evil, to work through us to stop this evil.”
She had to change the subject. If she thought any more about God or her fate, she’d lose it. “Why are you dressed like that?” she said, eyeing his rumpled T-shirt.
His lip twitched. “I’ve been living in the tree behind your room for days. As you noticed earlier, this island interferes with my ability to traverse dimensions. This is the best I can do. What’s the status on your mission?”
Hope sighed. “I have searched every corner of this place. I thought for sure Ravenguard and Applegate were stealing souls, but then Amanda and Paul came back. Different, but very much alive. I can’t put it together. They’re not demons. I’d sense that. Finn said he saw a clown steal a strand of my hair. Do you know of any demons that steal souls through physical means: hair, blood, flesh?”
Gabriel frowned. “No. And other than the last fallen angel, Damien, nothing from Hell can come to Earth. Not since God won the battle between Heaven and Hell. You’d know that if you’d done as I asked and consulted with the Immortals before coming here.”
She tipped her head to the side. “I knew that anyway. I don’t need a history lesson from Fate, Death, or Time, thank you very much. Still, something is stealing souls, and I’m no closer to finding out what.”
“Don’t give up. It’s here, somewhere. I can feel it,” Gabriel said.
“Well, angel, if you can’t get me out of here, what exactly can you do for me? You are about two days away from losing your last Soulkeeper for good and having no one to blame but yourself. Kirsa will kill me. And if I come back, she’ll kill me again.”
Gabriel’s usually angelic glow darkened. “Moses wasn’t allowed to give up and go back to Egypt, but he was able to split the Red Sea. You can ask me for help, but I can’t save you from hardship.”
Hope stood. The skin behind her knees was sticky with blood and felt stiff. She turned the problem over in her head. If she had any chance of solving this puzzle, she needed to free her body from Kirsa’s daily torture and gain greater access to the people who ran the school. There had to be a way.
“If I can’t leave, then I’m going to need your help to be effective. I’m going to need you to part the Red Sea,” she said slowly, an idea coming to her.
Gabriel ruffled his feathers, straightening to his full height. An honored smile spread across his mouth. “ I can do that. What do you have in mind?”
“Listen to me very carefully. This is going to take a miracle.”
26
Enchanted
Finn stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. Hope had entered the already full dining hall with a determined stride and a distracted expression. For some reason, she wouldn’t make eye contact. He waved to her and she acknowledged him with a quick nod, but instead of continuing to the buffet, she stepped onto the platform at the head of the room and cleared her throat.
“What are you doing?” Ms. D asked. The other teachers stopped eating and glared at Hope.
“I am in the wrong troupe,” Hope said.
Kirsa waved her hand. “Ridiculous. You heal faster than any of them. You are resilient.”
“Students are not permitted to question their assignments.” Ms. D’s eyes darted to Ravenguard, who took a step from his place near the door.
Hope straightened, clasped one hand in the other, and without even a glance toward Ravenguard, began to sing. The purest sound Finn had ever heard cascaded from her mouth. He couldn’t look away; she was enchanting. Ravenguard hesitated at the base of the platform.
The lights dimmed and a shower of green sparks exploded from Hope’s heart. The fireworks broke apart, forming stars, a galaxy that swirled above the table. As her voice soared and swooped with equal mastery, the galaxy morphed into a glittering, wispy cloud that gather
ed around the antler chandelier. A piece of the cloud landed on the table in front of Finn’s plate, then another. He held out his hand and a warm, fat drop slapped his palm.
Hope was making it rain… in the dining room.
The drops came faster, turning into a storm that transformed the dining hall and everything in it. The chairs became the bent branches of an enchanted forest, the table, a jagged crag of stone. A dragonfly buzzed past Finn’s face, zooming toward Hope. Exotic plants bloomed massive, dish-sized flowers that gave off a heady scent.
Finn reached out to stroke a red orchid and his fingertips kissed soft, wet petals. As far as his senses were concerned, this was real. Wendy caught his eye and giggled in awe. Jenny twirled, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Jayden and Mike murmured in wonder.
What language was Hope singing? He guessed Italian. It was definitely an opera piece. She was a solid, athletic girl, but the power originating from her dwarfed her physical presence. He couldn’t explain it, but he could feel it. Pure emotion flooded through him, binding him to the rain, the green, the fresh smell of the forest.
The music built, Hope’s voice soaring to a crescendo before her magnificent aria concluded. As her final note faded, her illusion came apart, the forest breaking into pieces that spun and dissolved into themselves. When the lights came back on again, Hope was herself once more. Human. Vulnerable.
No one made a sound. Every student, every teacher, stared at her, a unicorn in their midst, as if she held the secrets of the universe inside her lungs. Maybe she did. The simple memory of her voice caused Finn’s eyes to mist.
Ms. D cleared her throat. “That was unexpected.”
Juliette placed a gloved hand on the buttons of her peacock-blue dress. “You can’t be suggesting…”
“You saw what she can do.” Ms. D folded her hands on the table. “You will begin training her posthaste.”
A collective gasp rose from the instructors. Kirsa’s fist slammed on the table. “No! The next enchanter was supposed to be me. This one was to take my place. I’ve already been selected to apprentice with Juliette.”
