Fire

by Angelina J. Steffort

  The car door opened and he headed up the stairs to the porch, hand ready to ring the bell. His appearance was back to the teenage look I had seen before. The house did seem familiar somehow, though I was sure I’d never been there since my death. Was it possible I remembered something? Even if it was just the slightest bit of my past, I welcomed it.

  “Come in,” the girl’s voice echoed inside the walls and the guardian angel let himself in.

  “You should really lock your doors,” he criticized instead of saying hello. I watched him and his dazzling light disappear into the house from a safe spot across the street.

  “A simple lock won’t keep them out, will it?” the girl noted correctly.

  Not even the wall. I smirked to myself and imagined what it would be like to just teleport in there and continue where we’d left off last time. Would I kill her this time? Hunger welled up, reminding me I needed to feed. That was what I had come to the surface for, not to stalk the girl…or had I?

  “Pass me the butter, will you?” a new voice spoke, way closer.

  I jumped and glanced up at the window above me.

  There was the clattering of dishes and a meaningless conversation about the weather. An elderly couple I assumed from the sound of their voices. The neighborhood was buzzing with activity as people seemed to be returning home for dinner. Cars were pulling into garages, and families were chatting on their way inside. Washing machines and microwaves were humming, water was trickling…

  I tuned out all noises and focused on the girl’s house again, anxious not to miss anything.

  “This isn’t bad,” the guardian angel said after a long while of rustling with paper.

  While I was still wondering what they were doing in there, a car stopped at the girl’s house and a boy jumped out, carrying a bag. He bounced up the stairs, whistling a tune I didn’t recognize, and rang the bell.

  What did he want?

  There was the trampling of human feet and the guardian angel’s warning voice.

  “You stay here. Keep out of sight.”

  “I doubt demons deliver curry,” the girl commented, annoyed by the tone of her voice, but her feet had stopped.

  The front door opened and the golden-haired angel in the shape of a young man held out a few bills with one hand, taking the bag from the delivery boy with the other.

  “Keep the change.” He glanced around before he retreated back into the house and closed the door behind him.

  While the delivery boy was still counting the money with a smile on his face as he walked back to his car, the girl asked inside, “No one dangerous?”

  “Not this time.”

  The delivery boy had made it to the car and jumped in. He turned on the radio as he drove away and a classical piece with a violin solo touched my ear. Beautiful. It echoed in my chest while I waited for the girl and the angel to continue their conversation.

  “I need to take you back to the Gallagers’ soon,” he said after a pause.

  “Alright,” the girl sounded tired. “Let me take a quick shower, and I’ll be ready.”

  There were footsteps and then the sound of water spraying down onto tiles. I thought of the warmth of the pool in the caves and closed my eyes. While I dipped my own mind into the pool, I listened to her slow movements, the sound of her clothes as they dropped to the floor. I blinked my eyes open and searched for a spot closer to the house, so I could make out where exactly she was. Then another thought came to my mind. While she was getting ready, the guardian angel, who was supposed to protect her, was alone…

  Before I could think, I was inside, standing in the stairwell. I glanced down at the living room and saw an old couch and a scratched coffee table. No sign of the angel. With silent movements, I snuck up the stairs, following the sound of the water. It came from behind a half-open bedroom door. The angel was standing at the window, looking outside. He didn’t see me coming, my steps concealed by the rush of water in the bathroom, and so I used the opportunity and hit him in the back with a controlled blow. He dropped to the floor like a sack of sand, motionless but breathing.

  I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only had I caught him alone, without the other angels to stop me, but I had also managed to incapacitate him before he had noticed me. And now the girl was alone, without protection.

  For a moment I stood there, staring at the bathroom door. The sound of the water was almost hypnotic, and it startled me when it stopped with a squeak. Wet feet stepped on tiles and fabric brushed against skin. Some unexpected manners kept me from simply pushing the door open and confronting her. Who knew how long I’d have to get answers from her—before the angel woke up or before my hunger won over my curiosity and I eventually killed her.

  Keeping my ears on the girl, I teleported behind the bed, where the angel was sleeping on the floor. He looked positively delicious, star-like light radiating even while he was unconscious. I swallowed back my compulsion to suck the energy right out of him. I might have minutes with the girl…definitely more than last time when I had halfheartedly smashed the angel aside. As I stood there, glancing down on the angel, the girl’s wet footsteps went silent all of a sudden. I skipped into the corner by the window, where it was darkest, but too late. She was already in the doorway, petrified at the mere presence of me.

  I stared back, sweeping her body with my gaze. Her light was there, bright and strong, under a layer of skin and clothes. It was enough to push any hungry demon over the edge. But again there was more. The face I had seen in my dreams countless times. I almost expected her to reach out her hand, but she was too busy fighting her frozen state. I didn’t even dare move. What was she thinking? What was going on behind those grayish-blue eyes? What she felt, was clear. It radiated off of her almost as visibly as her light. She was going back and forth between heartache and relief for reasons I couldn’t possibly guess.

  When the tension was almost breaking me apart, she regained control over her body and released the breath that had been stuck in her lungs.

  “Adam,” she whispered my name, almost like in the dreams, just a lot more clearly, with a familiarity that was almost painful. I wish I remembered what she did. If only I could read what she was thinking…

  The angel stirred beside me. With a glance at his face, I made sure he was still asleep and I would have some time left to find answers to my questions—or one question, to be precise: would I kill her or not?

  “Jaden,” she gasped. “Is he—”

  “Incapacitated,” I cut her off, rolling the angel over so I could see his features clearly.

  The girl’s heartbeat slowed a bit when she realized I was telling the truth. I hadn’t killed him. I could any time if I wanted to. As long as he was incapacitated, he was an easy target.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, catching me by surprise with her tone. It was spoken with such familiarity, such trust that it hurt a bit inside my chest. What did I have to do to remember that Adam I so desperately wanted to be now that she was speaking to me? Her emotions were almost embracing me…for a second. Then she held back again, remembering not who I had been, but who I was now.

  When her emotions ceased, I dared look back at her face, hoping to find answers there. At least some kind of compass to navigate me through my mess.

  A flash of fear crossed her features, but the moment I thought it was fear of me, she proved me wrong. She seemed to pull up a well of courage and held my gaze, eyes full of determination,

  “Why did you come here?”

  Even though it wasn’t more than a whisper, it wasn’t a question, it was a demand. It triggered in me the urge to brace myself against her piercing gaze. I crossed my arms on my chest, shielding myself from her curious eyes.

  When I didn’t answer, she took a step toward me. It was so slow that it could have been mistaken for hesitant, but it wasn’t. Cautious maybe, but cautious bravery might be a better term to describe it.

  Why couldn’t I do Volpert’s bidding and kill her alread
y? At least it would release me from her stare. She lifted a foot to take another step when I couldn’t bear it any longer. My entire system prepared to strike in self-defense. Not that the fragile human could physically harm me, but my entire being was reacting to her in ways I had never experienced. The look in her eyes made me feel insecure, extradited, vulnerable—not at all like the powerful demon I was.

  “Stop,” I barked, hoping for both of us that she would come to her senses and follow my request. If she came any closer, I might lose control and devour her soul before she could even set her foot down.

  “Why?” Her eyes widened as she froze, confusion adding to that layer of familiarity.

  Familiarity—how I wished I felt that, too. After everything I’d learned, was it wrong to still hope I’d remember?

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” Her light was dancing before me with every shallow breath she took, tempting me with its delicate rays.

  As I was still pondering whether or not to give in to my primal instinct of feeding, grateful she had stopped, the pain in my chest, the image of the girl’s face behind the red, iron door flashed through me. But this time the one memory I had didn’t end there. It took me a little further back. We were crouching behind the red door and the girl was about to open it when I squeezed myself past her and stepped onto a flat roof, leaving her behind.

  Now it was I who froze, holding on to the pictures as if I could make them replay by sheer willpower.

  “You won’t,” the girl continued our conversation, which I had almost forgotten behind the vision of my past.

  For now, curiosity had won over hunger once more, and I didn’t stop her this time. I embraced the thought of being closer to her, to feel the warmth of her light on my skin like a ray of sunshine. Almost carelessly, I walked toward her, closing the distance until I was just one single step away.

  Something lit up in her eyes at our proximity. An echo of a craving I hadn’t felt in a long time. It wasn’t desire like it had been when I had played my games with the human girl before I had fed on her soul, or like Maureen’s lust and the heat that came with it. It was an aching for closeness, pure and sincere.

  She shook her head, reminding me of all the questions I had, most prominently the one of her role in my former life. My soulmate, she had said, but there was more to it, or I wouldn’t feel this pull toward her. I wouldn’t dream and hallucinate about her if she’d been just someone who I’d gotten along well with.

  While she seemed to have buried that flame from a second ago deep down in her chest, she continued to stare, attempting to read from my eyes what I was thinking.

  “Who are you?” I tried the same question I had asked her last time. She had given me an answer—not a satisfying one, but still an answer.

  She remained silent, pondering with herself whether or not to share something she’d been hiding from me all this time. The key to my memories, maybe.

  “Who are you?” I gave her one last chance to speak, but when she didn’t open her lips again this time, I lost my patience. I was ready to go to any lengths to get her to speak. I had learned from the best. Blackbird’s smirk crossed my own features as I raised my hand and let the girl’s strings snap into my fingers. I pulled once, and she fell to her knees.

  Demonic satisfaction spread in my chest as I realized I was still in charge of the situation. The girl hadn’t made me a tame baboon with her innocent stare. She would speak. Even if it was the last thing she’d do.

  “Adam,” she gasped in pain.

  It was the strangest sensation of joy and concern that flashed through me at the sound of her voice. It was right that I was making her suffer. After all, she was denying a demon information. And then, I was anxious for her to speak, so I could release her from the pain. I didn’t want her to hurt, did I?

  But she kept making me suffer with her attacks on my sanity, didn’t she? Every time she showed up in a vision, every time she appeared in a dream, reaching for me, leaving me behind without being any wiser.

  “Why are you haunting my dreams?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was desperate, and my fingers clawed more deeply into her soul, as if I could rip the answer from her like her soul.

  Her eyes rolled and she cried in agony, “I am your mark.”

  What? She was trying to fool me so I would release her, wasn’t she? It couldn’t be. I pulled my hand toward me, tearing on her soul even more strongly, intending to punish her for even considering lying to me. But this time, something was different. The pain I could see in her every muscle, in her eyes, in the distortion of her features, I couldn’t just understand it, I could feel parts of it. In the depth of my chest, an echo of pain resonated with every inch I was leading my hand closer. While I was still trying to understand what was going on, the girl opened her lips to speak.

  “You haven’t always been like this, Adam.” Every word was torture for her, taking away energy she needed to endure my hold on her soul. “You marked me... when you spread your angel wings... Part of your soul is in me... I am a part of you.”

  I heard the words, but I didn’t understand them.

  My hand dropped and I retreated into a corner to regroup my thoughts. Blackbird and I had interrogated too many marks to not understand what it was and what it meant. But was what the girl was saying the truth? Was that why I had died on that roof to protect her? Because she was part of me?

  “I am a part of you,” she whispered as if confirming my thought. Or trying to convince me. At this point, nothing made sense—and everything. The hollow ache in my chest resonated with its own rhythm, making it feel as if I had a heartbeat again.

  “I love you, Adam.”

  I looked up at her, trying to read the meaning of her words, but then it hit me right in the heart, all the bottled-up emotion she had been holding back, forced by my own intimidating behavior. Behind the suffering and the pain, there was love. And for the first time, someone had put a name to the feeling. Warmth spread through me from where her love had hit me, almost as if I was feeding on her soul, but I wasn’t. I sighed as my tense body relaxed, letting go of the doubts, the struggle of whether I should execute Volpert’s bidding. Her soul, radiating so beautifully with the feeling I could suddenly name, thanks to her, was all I could see, and that resonating part of me remembered where it belonged. It spread all over my skin, making me feel more alive than I had since I’d opened my eyes in the darkness, growing stronger by the second.

  As the sensation intensified, the girl started gasping for air. She blinked as if to clear her vision and swayed to the side a little. Her gaze held onto mine as if I was an anchor. My back was tingling now, shivers running up and down my spine. The girl seemed to be positively glowing now, her soul aching to reunite with the lost fragment inside my own chest. I could feel it now that I was finally acknowledging it was the truth.

  Had I said before my body had relaxed? It seemed quite the opposite was happening now. My chest was tightening and my arms reached closer around my torso, stabilizing myself. It was as if I was myself and yet I wasn’t.

  “Adam,” the girl fought for my attention, “why?”

  “What do you mean, why?” Had I lost track of our conversation? It wouldn’t surprise me. After all, I was having trouble staying upright.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, and I realized she was struggling the same way I was, only the sensation seemed to be affecting her weak, human body so much worse.

  The way she was struggling triggered the urge to hold her, and I didn’t find in me the strength to fight. I crossed the room, always focused on her breathing, her racing heart, her bright soul. They all were luring me toward her in an absurd blend of compassion and hunger for both her soul and her nearness. The sensation in my back was coming in waves now, increasing in frequency with every step I took, and the girl kept looking at me, her eyes pleading to stop whatever I was doing to her. But I wasn’t. This wasn’t coming from me.

  “I am not doing anything,
Claire,” I reassured her, but wondered secretly if I wasn’t, then who was?

  The room went blurry as I spoke the girl’s name and the sequence from the roof ran through my head again, more vivid, and in more detail than before. I could see the gravel on the roof, the rusty parts of the iron door, the fear on the girl’s frozen face. There were sounds this time, my own footsteps on the roof, the voice of the demon as it mocked me. Then the flash of silver light and the impact in my chest. The pain was numbing to both my body and mind. Before I could recover, the sequence turned and ran backward. The flash returned to the demon’s hand, I squeezed back into the building past the girl, we rushed down a corridor, stacks of paper on the sides, to an elevator. Fear ran through me, I tried to teleport, the door closed and the elevator went down. She asked why we were moving up. I tried to teleport again. Then the elevator door opened, we walked back into a crowded room and joined a couple of people at a pool table. Maureen taunting me for being with Claire…

  The sequence ran slowly at first but sped up with every new memory that added.

  We were laying on my bed, discussing, Claire shirtless, and so was I, then kissing. Heat ran through me at the gentle touch of her hands on my neck. We laughed about something… A fight about her safety, about the demons. Me picking her up from school, waiting in the parking lot with a tingle of anticipation in my stomach… Learning about a demon attack and searching for Claire at the library with panic… The guy who kept hoping for me to vanish from Claire’s life—Gregory… Jenna’s concert… Ben and his odd behavior… Flying through the winter sky with Claire in my arms… My family—Chris and Jenna, my brother Ben... My life at college, wanting to become a doctor, Claire’s sister Sophie… Spreading my wings when I’d first declared my love for Claire…

  It was all coming back. The date at the steakhouse with Claire… Her pain of losing her parents… Weeks of denying my ability to read people’s emotions… Searching for someone based on a pattern of emotions… My first vision of Claire…the sweep of emotions, love, pain, trust, doubt. It was all in a pattern, hard to describe. Everything clicked into place. There was beauty, purity, bravery, the ability to suffer, sacrifice. It was all there, enveloping me with perfection…