The Daughter of Zion

by Elicia Hyder

  “I’ll come find you later,” he said.

  In an unprecedented move, Fury hugged him. They’d served with Huffman for years before I was in the picture. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “Me either,” Kane said, emotion thick in his throat.

  The door opened. Fury released Kane and wiped under her eyes, sniffing back tears.

  “What’s going on?” Iliana stepped cautiously into the lobby.

  “I need you to come with me,” I said.

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  Nash walked in behind her.

  I looked at Fury. “Go to our room. I’ll have Anya come find you.”

  Fury lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t keep secrets from my sister.”

  I nodded and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Tell her. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” She and Kane walked out the door to the stairwell below.

  “Nash, have you seen any movement on the cameras outside?” I asked.

  “No, sir. Not since you all got back from the university.”

  “Thank you. Can you go find Anya and ask her to see Fury in our room?”

  “Sure.”

  Iliana followed me out into the decontamination room. “Appa, what’s happening?”

  “We have to find your mother. Even if we have to fly out there and blow the house down.”

  She took a step closer. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

  “I need you to keep a secret. I don’t want to cause a panic in the group.”

  She nodded.

  “They’ve killed our friend Huffman.” Emotion choked me. “And Samael.”

  Iliana’s throat closed with a squeak. Her eyes widened with horror. “Samael is dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like dead dead?”

  “Yes. They shot him with the same bullet that got Cassiel. I watched it destroy his spirit.”

  Her hand covered her mouth. “We have to save Cassiel.”

  “We will, but right now we have to find Sloan and Nathan. I need you to try summoning them again.”

  “OK.”

  We took off in a jog down the long hallway to the stairs. It was an excruciating walk up the stairs to Echo-5. My thighs were burning when Iliana and I finally reached the lobby. We were both panting.

  “We’ve got to fix that elevator,” I said, bending over to grab my knees and catch my breath. “I understand now why Ionis flies.”

  She recovered faster than I did. My body had been made better when I became an angel, but I was far from perfect. And I certainly wasn’t an Angel of Life. I could feel the death searing through my muscles.

  “Come on,” Iliana said, tugging on my shirt.

  I slowly jogged after her to the front door of the building. “Wait here.”

  She started for the door handle. “It’s fine. Those bullets can kill you too.”

  I clotheslined her with my arm. “You’re far more valuable than I am. Stay put while I check to make sure it’s clear.”

  She sighed. “All right.”

  I walked outside. The sun was sinking low in the sky. I spread my wings and soared to the top of the building. My spirit detected no human life, or angelic, as far as the Wolf Gap property stretched through the mountains.

  I returned to the ground and opened the door. “Come on out.”

  Iliana stepped outside and let the door close behind her.

  “That’s far enough,” I said.

  She closed her eyes, and a ripple of energy knocked me back a step.

  Whoa.

  I’d forgotten just how powerful she really was. Suddenly, her eyes popped open. “She’s there.”

  “Your mom? Where?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s out.” Iliana’s voice jumped up a few decibels. “I can feel her. I can feel them both.”

  “They’re alive.” I grabbed Iliana and hugged her. “Oh, thank the Father.”

  Iliana pulled back to arm’s length. “We should go tell the others.”

  “You’re right. I certainly need to focus on some good news.”

  She held back when I started to pull her forward.

  “What is it?”

  “If I go inside, my connection with Mom and Nathan will be broken.” Her eyes were on the building—the angelically secure building.

  I was confused. “So? When your mom was an Angel of Life, summoning someone was enough.”

  Iliana looked at me like I had three heads. It may have been the most “normal” moment of our father-daughter relationship thus far. “No offense, but Mom’s power was nothing like mine.”

  Of that, I had no doubt.

  I crossed my arms. “Please explain.”

  “As I understand it, Mom’s power almost seemed coincidental. Mine isn’t. As long as I maintain my connection with them, I can not only bring them here, but I can keep them safe.”

  “What?”

  “I control life and death.” She said it as matter-of-factly as she might have told me she ate bacon and eggs for breakfast.

  “You can control it from hundreds of miles away?”

  “If I’m focused enough…which I won’t be if we go back inside.”

  I looked at the building and then back at her. “It isn’t safe right now. You need to go back inside. I know your mom and dad would agree.”

  “You went to West Asheville and back today and nothing happened,” she argued.

  “Illy, those bullets aren’t meant for me. I am not a target like you are. By comparison, I’m a nobody. But you…” I gripped her shoulders and turned her to face me. “You’re the hope of this whole planet.”

  Her teenaged, quarrelsome face softened, and she took hold of my wrist. “You’re not a nobody.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a half smile. I cupped her face in my hands. “I promised your mother I would protect you. Please let me.”

  Still, she hesitated.

  I released her. “I certainly can’t force you. God knows you’re stronger than me.” I pulled open the door and waited.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “OK.” She closed her eyes one more time, and the energy around her rippled again. “They’re closer than before.” She looked up at me. “Maybe they’re on their way here.”

  “If they’re free, I’m sure they are.” I gestured to the doorway. “After you?”

  With a cute smirk, she walked inside.

  Our descent back to the bunker was, thankfully, less hurried than our ascent out of it. We took the steps one at a time, and side by side.

  “I’m really sorry about your friends,” she said when we were halfway down.

  “I am too,” I said, my heart heavy.

  “I never met Huffman, but Dad spoke highly of him.”

  “He was a great guy. So funny. Took me out for my first beer after I’d joined Claymore.”

  “When you got out of the Marines?”

  I nodded.

  “So you knew him a really long time.”

  “Yeah. I wonder who will tell his family,” I said almost to myself.

  Huffman had a wife and three-year-old daughter when Fury and I left for Nulterra. He could have easily had more children during our time away. It was gut-wrenching that I didn’t even know.

  “When will the Father be here?” she asked, perhaps trying to change the subject.

  “He was in Canada when Ionis made contact with him, so I doubt he’ll be here today.” Acid burned up the back of my throat. “He’ll be devastated to learn about Samael. Everyone will be.”

  “I really liked Samael. He taught me a lot about using my powers.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He visited often after you left.”

  “He was a good friend. Saved my ass a few times.”

  “Mom said he was one of the first angels you guys ever met.”

  “That’s true. The day your grandmother died.” I looked over
at her. “He’d come because he was excited at the possibility of you.”

  “Me?”

  “All the angels were in an uproar when they heard your mom and I were together.”

  “Because of the prophecy?”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “You know about the prophecy?”

  “I have heard the cries of a woman in labor breach the auranos, as the Daughter of Zion, light of the world, commander of Life and wielder of Death, is born unto man, the savior of us all.”

  “I’m impressed. Even I hadn’t heard of the prophecy until I got to Eden. Cassiel told me.”

  Iliana grinned. “Yeah. She told me too. And she said they didn’t tell you while you were human because they thought it might freak you and Mom out.”

  “They were probably right.” I laughed. “How is Cassiel? Jett told me about Taiya.”

  “Taiya’s really helping her. Helping us both, really. She’s keeping Cassiel stable for longer periods of time so I can rest. I slept for almost four straight hours last night.”

  “That’s good. We were all really worried about you.”

  “I was worried about myself. And about Cassiel. I couldn’t have kept it up. She would probably already be dead if it weren’t for Taiya.”

  When we reached the lobby, Nash was chuckling behind the desk, watching the security cameras.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Just watching an Angel of Knowledge get told off by a human. It’s pretty entertaining.”

  I opened the door to the main hallway. “Torman and John?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s a battle of wits, and the angel is losing.”

  “Bet that’s going over well,” Iliana said as we started down the hall.

  We heard raised voices before we reached the kitchen.

  “But the boiling point of water is two hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit,” Torman was arguing.

  “And I’m saying a hundred and sixty-five degrees should be plenty high enough,” John countered. “You don’t want it to release too much steam. The steam is where the alcohol’s at.”

  “There is no alcohol, you hillbilly moron.”

  “Hey, they called in an expert for a reason!”

  Iliana followed me inside. “What the hell is going on in here?” I asked.

  John and Torman were engaged in their shouting match across the kitchen island. On it was a camping stove, a kerosene bottle, a large pressure cooker, an orange five-gallon paint bucket, and some copper tubes. John was holding what I guessed was a thermometer in one of the many pots on the actual kitchen stove.

  All our friends were watching the show from a safe distance at the tables. Luca was filming with his cell phone. Ionis was eating popcorn.

  John actually looked relieved to see me, which was a statement in itself of how heated this conversation had gotten. “Warren, do you want me to do this, or what?”

  I put my hands up in defense and approached the scene slowly. “What are you two arguing about?”

  “Everything,” Ionis said, popping a kernel into his mouth.

  John waved a hand toward the large pots on the stove. “He says we need to cook down all these tissues until they start to disintegrate, but he wants me to turn it up so high that all the good stuff will float away.” He wiggled his fingers through the air.

  “He’s being overly cautious.” Torman rolled his eyes. “This would go a lot faster if he would turn. Up. The. Damn. Stove.”

  “Torman, stop talking. We’ve got one shot at this, and if John thinks we need to be overly cautious, we’re going to be overly cautious.”

  John flung his hand toward me. “Thank you!”

  “Never thought you two would be allies,” James said with a grin, at the table.

  I nodded. “You and me both.”

  Torman huffed and shook his head.

  Iliana and I walked closer to inspect the pots. Five of them were filled to the brim with cloudy water and floating tissue paper. John was alternating between checking the temperature of the water and stirring the pots with a long wooden spoon.

  He scooped up a spoonful of the dripping tissues. “See? The paper is already starting to dissolve.”

  I slapped the back of his shoulder. “Nice work.”

  “You wanna tell me exactly what the hell it is we’re doing here? This guy”—he cut his eyes at Torman—“says it’s none of my damn business.”

  “Didn’t Jett tell you?” Iliana asked, looking around for Jett.

  Rogan caught her eye. “He’s in with Cassiel and Taiya.”

  “Oh, OK.” She turned back toward her uncle.

  “All Jett told me was something about a poison deadly to angels. He said whatever has made that blonde sick could kill him. Could kill all of you. Said the cure could only be made with my still, and he asked me to bring it.”

  I jerked my head toward all the other seemingly random equipment. “Is that what all this stuff is?”

  “Well, no. It’s taken me a long time to perfect my setup. Didn’t want to dismantle it when this is capable of doing a small run.”

  I frowned. “Looks like a meth lab.”

  “You want to jump in with the insults too?”

  “No. I’m sorry. Thank you for coming. What’s the next step?” I asked, splitting a glance between him and Torman.

  “I’m keeping my mouth shut,” Torman said, swiveling away from us.

  He wouldn’t for long.

  “John?” I asked.

  “Well, if we were doing this the normal way with normal ingredients…” John scooped up another spoonful of tissues. “I’m not even sure what the hell we’re doing with Kleenex.”

  “We are extracting human tears,” I said.

  His head pulled back. “That’s creepy as shit.”

  “Yes. Now as you were saying,” I said expectantly.

  “As I was saying, if we were doing this the normal way with normal ingredients, we’d let our mash”—he nodded toward the pots—“sit and ferment for a few days, holding the temperature at ninety-five degrees. But I don’t know how to ferment tears and snot so…” He gave a dramatic shrug.

  Torman turned back around, just like I knew he would. “You don’t need to ferment it at all. You just need to extract it.” He got up, walked over to a large hard-sided cooler on the ground, and picked it up. He slammed it down with more force than necessary onto the countertop.

  “Empty all the pots into here, stir them around, then use this spout here on the side to drain the water into the pressure cooker. That’s it.”

  Because John was a little out of his field of expertise at this point in the process, he just smirked. “Then I guess we do that.”

  “Then what?” I asked both of them.

  Torman lifted the long copper coil.

  “Hey, don’t mess with that.” John shooed Torman away from the coil, waving his spoon. “The caulking probably hasn’t set yet.”

  I inspected the setup closely. The thin coiled copper tube was connected on one end to the lid of the pressure cooker, and the other end was fed down through a hole at the bottom of the orange bucket. A messy caulking job sealed the hole around the pipe.

  John tapped the pressure cooker’s lid. “We’ll lock this onto the pressure cooker, put the whole thing on the camping stove, and—”

  “You don’t need the stove for the next part,” Torman interrupted.

  “We need a heat source, and I can control the temperature better with the—”

  “Iliana is the heat source!” Torman almost shouted.

  John’s face snapped toward her. “What?”

  “She’s the only way this works. We don’t need kerosene heat. We need supernatural heat.” Torman seemed ready to start pulling out his hair. “Iliana will heat the mixture of tears, the steam will condense in the coils, and the crystal water will drip out of the pipe in the bucket, into the Mason jar.”

  “You forgot you have to fill the bucket with cold water to cool the liquid so it doesn’t e
vaporate,” John said.

  Torman shrugged, so annoyed. “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Those are the basics of the process,” John told me.

  “That’s actually pretty genius. I never thought I’d be impressed by a moonshine still.”

  “I told him he should have become a science teacher instead of a bootlegger,” Kathy said.

  “How much longer do you think on the tissues?” I asked.

  Surprisingly, John turned to Torman. “You wanna give your blessed opinion here?”

  Torman got out of his chair like his body weighed a thousand pounds. He trudged to the stove. “They’re translucent and starting to shred. I think that’s enough.”

  “I think it needs a few more minutes,” John said, stirring.

  Everyone at the table snickered.

  With a huff, the angel threw his hands in the air. “I give up. Do what you want.” Torman started toward the door, but I sent up an invisible wall of power to stop him. He bounced off it and back a few steps, swearing.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Rogan said.

  “Please, Torman,” I said calmly. “We need your help.”

  His eyes narrowed to angry slits. “I still don’t know what I’m getting out of all this.”

  Rogan suddenly stood. “Cassiel is crashing.”

  I dropped my wall, and Iliana took off running from the kitchen. I started after her, but stopped. “John, Torman, you should both come with us.”

  John grimaced. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m asking. Please,” I said.

  “All right.” He put the wooden spoon on the counter.

  “Torman?” I asked with a little more don’t-make-me-say-it-again in my tone.

  He begrudgingly trudged after us.

  Iliana was already treating Cassiel when we reached the infirmary. Taiya ran out of the triage room and into my arms when I stopped at the nurse’s station. She was crying. And trembling. “Shh,” I said, rubbing her back.

  Torman walked closer to the door. “My word. Is that stench coming from Cassiel?”

  “She’s rotting from the inside out,” I said. “Iliana and Taiya are barely keeping her alive.”

  “I-I not,” Taiya cried into my chest.

  I ran my hand down her hair. “You’re doing fine, sweet girl.”

  Cassiel’s eyes were partially open, but the irises were mostly indistinguishable from the whites—now, blacks—of her eyes. The black webbing had spread to her face and neck.