by Susan Ee
They pull her along the rough ground by her ankles. Her arms drag behind her head, and her tangled hair gets snagged on the spiky bones that tug at her. Her dress is torn into rags, and every bit of her is filthy and bloody. I want to help her up, to kick the hellions off her, but I am just a shadow here in Beliel’s memory.
I see faint smudges of the Halloween paint that the Watchers’ wives had on that night when I saw Raffe fighting for them. I don’t recognize this girl, but she must be one of the wives that the hellions were given. Raffe managed to save some but not all. I was there to see how much he tried. Maybe she was one of the ones who ran in panic.
The hellions drag the poor girl around all of the chariot wheels, staying far away from the demon while still being close enough to see the angels. They tremble when they have to come near the demon and keep looking up at him, as though afraid that he’ll strike out.
The demon hisses at them, and the air suddenly becomes more foul. Did he just breathe a whole lot of stinky sulfur toward the hellions the way a skunk might aim its scent? No wonder the air smells like rotten eggs here.
Half of the hellions run off in terror. But the other half stays, curling up and trembling until the demon loses interest.
They carefully resume their walk around the chariot. They’re looking at the expressions of each angel as they pass.
The Fallen tense up when they see the girl, staring with fascinated horror. They all look carefully at the girl as if they’re trying to see if they recognize her. Many shut their eyes when they see her, like their thoughts torture them even more than what’s actually happening to them.
When the hellions finally catch Beliel’s attention, his eyes grow wide in horror.
‘Mira,’ he rasps.
The woman blinks when she hears her name. Her eyes seem to focus. She turns her head. ‘Beliel?’ Her voice is vague, sounding like her inner self is still far away. But when she sees him, her face morphs from a blank mask to recognition. Then it turns to pure anguish.
She reaches out for him. ‘Beliel!’
‘Mira!’ he screams, terror in his voice.
The hellions sense it, and they hop with excitement. They chatter, nearly clapping their hands together in delight like little children.
Then they bare their sharp teeth threateningly, showing Beliel that they’re about to harm Mira in ways he can’t imagine.
‘No!’ Beliel thrashes against his chains, screaming threats against the hellions. ‘Mira!’
Then the hellions dive on the girl.
Beliel’s scream is horrifying. Mira finally breaks and screams too, her cries becoming wet and gurgling.
Beliel begins calling out in a broken, defeated voice, ‘Raphael! Where are you? You were supposed to protect her, you worthless traitor!’
I finally peek to see if I can get out of here. I can’t take this anymore.
The hellions have dragged the girl farther up to keep pace with the chariot to make sure that Beliel continues to see what they’re doing to his woman.
Beliel thrashes against his chains. He’s so frantic I think he might actually have a shot at breaking free. These are not the screams of an angry man. These are the nightmare screams of someone having his soul torn to pieces right in front of him.
Beliel breaks down and sobs. He sobs for his Daughter of Man. For the girl who even now looks to him to rescue and protect her. Maybe even for their children, who are likely being hunted and killed by someone he thought was his friend. A friend like Raffe.
8
I’m so preoccupied with watching the plight of the two lovers that I haven’t been paying attention to anything else. But now, the back of my neck prickles. My sixth sense is urgently whispering to me, trying to get through all the noise of what’s happening in front of me.
I look around. And that’s when I see that the demon lord riding the chariot is staring right at me.
How can he see me? I’m just a ghost in Beliel’s memory.
But he stares right at me. His eyes are bloodshot, looking like he lives in a world of perpetual smoke. His face is curious and angry at the same time, as if he’s offended by an intruder watching him.
‘Spy,’ he hisses. ‘You don’t belong here.’ His words sound like a hundred slithering snakes, but I can still understand him.
As soon as the demon says the word spy, the hellions all look at me. Their eyes widen as though they can’t believe their luck. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that I’m not invisible anymore.
The demon takes a good look at me with his bloodshot eyes. Then he whips his stick in my direction. The heads – the screaming, drowning, bloody heads – shoot out toward me at the end of his unspooling whip.
Their expressions are a mix of despair and hope. They’re desperately delighted to be heading my way, with their fractured teeth showing in their gaping mouths. Their hair, which should be flying back, reaches toward me.
At the same time, the hellions leap at me, all claws and fangs.
I stumble backward.
I try to turn and run, but the uneven ground trips me, and I’m falling onto the sharp glass and shards of bone.
The heads scream as they race toward my face.
I’m falling.
Falling.
I stumble backward and fall onto my butt.
I’m back on the island. Beliel, wingless and shriveled again, lies on the ground in front of me.
Then a hellion jumps out of Beliel’s back. It leaps at me with extended claws.
I scream, crab-crawling backward.
It swipes my shoulder as it flies past me. Blood flows down my arm.
The tip of my sword is still buried in Beliel’s back. I try to pull it out. There’s resistance, like someone is pulling on the other side. Revulsion reverberates through my arm as though the blade is an extension of me.
Two more hellions shove through along my sword like conjoined twins. They pop out of Beliel’s back, which is bleeding from the slit where the hellions came out.
They’re leaping out of his memories.
I finally yank out my sword and scooch back as fast as I can away from Beliel.
The hellions land in the garden with a thump. They roll and land on their feet, shaking their heads and moving drunkenly as they look around the small yard. They squint against the sunlight and lift their hands to shield their eyes. That gives me a second to get on my feet and catch my breath.
But then they jump. It’s all I can do to lift my sword and swipe blindly in front of me.
I’m in luck because they seem disoriented, and one even trips over its own feet. They change course and stay out of range of my blade.
But their disorientation doesn’t last long. They circle me until they get their bearings, gauging my moves with crafty eyes. These hellions are smarter than others I’ve fought in my sword dreams.
One feints while the other tries to get behind me. Where’s the third?
The missing hellion leaps out of a bush and comes at me from the side.
I spin, bringing my sword up to slice the beast. My arms adjust as I move – my angel sword wielding me instead of the other way around. The blade adjusts into a perfect position to cut through the hellion’s torso. It lands on the grass, shuddering and bleeding out.
I finish my spin and kick the one trying to get behind me.
It lands on the far side of the fence. It pushes itself up and hisses at me.
The two surviving hellions back off, keeping their eyes on me.
Then they run off and take flight, disappearing into the trees.
Beliel chuckles. ‘Welcome to my world, Daughter of Man.’
‘I should have known you were going to trick me,’ I pant as I put pressure on my shoulder to stop the bleeding. The blood feels slick on my fingers as it soaks through my shirt.
Beliel sits up, chains clinking. He’s a lot more mobile than I thought. ‘Just because hellions came after you doesn’t mean what you saw wasn’t the truth. How w
as I supposed to know they could get through?’ He doesn’t sound at all surprised.
‘What happened to Mira,’ he says, ‘that’ll be you someday soon. And your precious Raphael will be responsible for it. I once thought of him as my friend too. He promised he’d protect Mira. Now you know what becomes of people who trust him.’
I get up shakily and head for the house. I don’t think I can trust myself to be in the same space with that horrible creature for much longer.
I could kick myself for listening to him in the first place, but I guess I don’t have to. He already did it for me.
9
I’m washing the blood off my shoulder in the kitchen when Raffe comes back.
‘What happened?’ he asks, dropping a plastic garbage bag on the floor and rushing to me.
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ My voice is stiff and standoffish. I think about covering up the wound, but my shirt is torn, so I can’t. The old cropped T-shirt is hanging off my wounded shoulder by a thread. No doubt it would be sexy if it weren’t for all that blood.
He brushes my hand aside and leans into me to look at the gashes on my shoulder.
‘Are these from the dead hellion in the yard?’ He’s close enough that his breath caresses my neck. I step away, feeling awkward.
‘Yeah. And his two friends.’
He clenches his jaw so hard I can see his cheek muscles twitching.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘Being around you had nothing to do with it.’
He cocks his head at me. ‘What makes you think I was worried it had to do with me?’
Oops. Did he ever mention hellions to me? Or do I know he worries about them coming after me because I peeked into his memories through Pooky Bear?
I could lie, but . . . I sigh. We all have to accept our faults eventually. And mine is that I’m a terrible liar.
‘I – um . . . saw things through your sword. Not intentionally. Not at first.’
‘Things?’ He crosses his arms and glares at me. ‘What kind of things?’
I chew my lip as I think about what to say.
He then looks at his old sword lying on the counter. The shine on Pooky’s blade seems to dim a bit under his glare.
‘My sword showed you her memories of me?’
My shoulders relax a little. ‘So you know that she can do that?’
‘I know that she used to be loyal to me and that I trusted her.’ He’s talking to Pooky Bear, not me.
‘I think it was an accident. She was just trying to teach me how to use a sword. I mean, I had never held one before.’
Raffe continues to talk to his sword. ‘It’s one thing to be forced to give up on a bearer because you think he may have fallen. It’s another to expose his private moments.’
‘Look,’ I say. ‘It’s weird enough having a semisentient sword without being in the middle of an argument between you two. Can you please just let it go?’
‘What did she show you?’ He holds up his hand. ‘Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know that you’ve seen me dancing in my underwear to my favorite music.’
‘Angels wear underwear?’ Oh, man, I wish I hadn’t said that. I’m just digging myself in deeper and deeper today.
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Figure of speech.’
‘Oh.’ I nod, trying to get the image out of my head of Raffe dancing to some rock song, possibly buck naked. ‘Well, speaking of weird things, the hellions came through the sword.’
‘What?’
I clear my throat. ‘That hellion you saw on the lawn and two others crawled out of Beliel through the sword.’ I still have hope that I won’t have to confess it all, but he must have gone through angel interrogation school because he gets it all out of me.
He frowns and paces around the kitchen as I tell him what happened.
When I finish, he says, ‘You can never trust Beliel.’
‘That’s what he says about you.’
He rummages through the trash bag he dropped earlier. ‘Maybe he’s right. You shouldn’t trust anyone.’
He shoves a mix of canned food and first aid supplies out of the bag. He plucks bandages, ointments, and tape and walks over to me.
‘Where did you get those?’
‘Alcatraz. Thought they might be useful.’
‘What else did you find there?’
‘An abandoned mess.’ He probes his finger gently along my wound. I flinch. ‘I just want to make sure there’s nothing broken,’ he says.
‘Did you know that could happen? That hellions could come out through an angel sword?’
‘I’ve heard stories but always thought they were myths. I suppose a demon might have some insight into such things. Beliel must have figured he could try to lure some hellions out to help him.’
His hand is gentle as he wipes antibacterial lotion on the cuts. ‘You need to be careful. The hellions are going to be everywhere you are from now on.’
‘What do you care? You’ll be out of my life the second you get your wings back. You’ve made that pretty clear.’
He takes a deep breath. He presses a gauze pad on my shoulder. I wince. He gently strokes my arm.
‘I wish it could be different,’ he says, taping up the gauze. ‘But it’s not. I have my own people. I have responsibilities. I can’t just—’
‘Stop.’ I shake my head. ‘I get it. You’re right. You have your life. I have mine. I don’t need to be with someone who doesn’t . . .’ Want me. Love me.
I have enough of those people in my life. I’m a girl whose dad left, leaving us with an out-of-service phone number and no forwarding address, and whose mom . . .
‘You’re a very special girl, Penryn. An amazing girl. An I-didn’t-even-know-someone-like-you-existed kind of girl. And you deserve someone who treats you like you’re the only important thing in his life because you are. Someone who plows his fields and raises pigs just for you.’
‘You’re matching me up with a pig farmer?’
He shrugs. ‘Or whatever it is that decent men do when they’re not at war. Although he should be able to protect you. Don’t settle for a man who can’t protect you.’ He rips a piece of tape from the dispenser with a surprising amount of force.
‘You’re serious? You want me to marry a pig farmer who knows how to use his pig poke to protect me? Really?’
‘I’m just saying you should pick a man who knows that he’s not worthy of you and who will dedicate his life to provide for you and protect you.’ He presses another piece of gauze next to the first one. I wince again. ‘And make sure he’s kind to you and treats you with respect in every way. Otherwise, he can expect a visit from me.’ His voice is hard and unmerciful.
I shake my head as he rips off another piece of tape. I don’t know whether to be mad at him or to joke with him.
I move away from his touch, hoping that might take the edge off my confused emotions.
Raffe sighs. He reaches out and runs his fingers gently along the last piece of tape that he put on my bandage.
I wait for him to continue. When he doesn’t, I wonder if talking about what’s happening between us makes any difference at all. Maybe what I really need is a little space to figure things out. I grab the sword and a can of tuna and head out the back door.
10
Outside, I stand in the sun and let the warmth soak into my bones. I take a deep breath full of the scent of rosemary and slowly let it out.
My dad used to say there’s magic in the warmth of sunlight. He used to tell us that if we close our eyes, take a big breath, and let the sun soak in, we’ll see that everything is going to be okay. He usually said that right after Mom had a day-long freak-out session of yelling and throwing things around the condo.
Hell, if Dad’s technique can work for one of Mom’s marathon fury sessions, then it should work for the apocalypse. Guys, though, that’s another matter. I’m pretty sure that Dad wouldn’t have a technique that could handle what’s going on with Raffe.
There ar
e tiny yellow flowers dotting the hillside of the island, reminding me of the park that we used to go to with my dad before he left us. The only thing out of place is the small group of monstrous scorpion-tailed beasts and the little stitched-up girl with bruises all over her body.
Among the tall grasses, my sister puts a bandage on a monster’s finger as if it were her pet instead of a biblical locust designed to torture people in true apocalyptic style.
Beneath her oversized T-shirt, I know that Paige’s ribs stick out in clear lines. It hurt to see them this morning when I put her to bed. She has circles around her eyes, and her hands are nothing but bones as she plays nurse to the monster.
She sits in the grass beside her pets. I’ve noticed she sits every chance she gets. I think she’s conserving energy. I think she’s starving to death.
I have to force myself to walk toward them. No matter how much time I spend with the locusts, I can’t get comfortable around them. As I near, the locusts fly away, much to my relief.
I sit beside her on the grass and show her the can of tuna. ‘Remember the tuna sandwiches Dad used to make for us? They were your favorite before you became a vegetarian.’ I pull open the pop-top can and show her the pink fish inside.
Paige leans away from the can.
‘Remember how Dad used to plop the tuna onto the bread and make a smiley face with it? That used to make your day.’
‘Daddy come home?’
She’s asking when he’ll be coming back. The answer is never. ‘We don’t need him.’
Wouldn’t it be great if that were true? I’m not sure I’d come back if I were him. I wonder if he thinks of us.
She looks at me with doe eyes. ‘Miss him.’
I try to think of something soothing to say, but I just don’t have it in me. ‘Me too.’
I pick out a piece of tuna with my fingers and put it up to her mouth. ‘Here. Try a piece.’
She shakes her head sadly back and forth.
‘Come on, Paige.’
She looks down at the ground like she’s ashamed. The hollows in her cheeks and between her collarbones scare me.
