by Kate Hall
“What’s your name?” I ask, not even trying to sound kind.
Her eyes narrow.
“Nadia.”
All her familiar features click into place. The slope of her nose, the set of her chin, the pale eyes. Of course. She looks familiar because she looks so much like her little brother. I gape, and whisper, “You’re Nicolai’s sister.”
The brother that got her killed. The one whose place she took when Cain led them to the afterlife.
Here eyes widen, and the breath comes out of her in a rush. “How do you know Nicolai?”
Chapter Six
It’s the middle of the night when I’m finally able to try the printed spell. I skip the part about lighting candles and drawing a sigil on the ground. I’ve never seen a single angel use sigils to perform a spell. They’re mainly used to communicate. Maybe it’s a human thing.
I repeat it three times, my tongue turning expertly over the Enochian words that have become like a song to me. Even though I’m the one speaking it, it’s comforting to hear the mystical language of angels. Almost like being back at Theaa Academy.
Almost instantly, a bright, Heavenly light appears in my room, and I have to cover my eyes. I’m not used to the brightness of Angels anymore, just the plain normalcy of Earthen lighting.
The light fades quickly, and a young man is standing in my bedroom, his soft blonde hair and tall stature instantly familiar and comforting. I run to Nicolai and wrap my arms around him, and he cusses under his breath when my body slams into him.
“Hi, Avery,” he says just a little too loudly. I shush him as quickly as I can, then strain my ears to listen, but it doesn’t sound like Dad heard. At the very least, he’s not coming to investigate.
When I pull away, Nicolai looks around, a slow smile creeping onto his face. “This is your room,” he says. His features are open and boyish, and he has the pale blonde hair of his Earth form instead of his snow-white Heavenly hair.
I nod. “Yup. Anyway, more importantly, we need to talk about Desireé.”
He sighs and nods. “We’re trying,” he says. “It’s hard, though. Gabriel is suspicious of everyone since what happened to you.”
I nod. “I know, I know. But you sent me back to the point of my death. I thought you would do the same with Desireé.”
He doesn’t seem to have a response to that, so he goes to the bed and sits.
“Well?” I ask after a too-long silence.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. You know time is different in Heaven. And I sent you back to the moment of your death because I figured it would be safest. That…sounds like what I would do with Desireé, too.”
“Well, we’ll have to do something. Because if you do what you’re doing now, I don’t think you’re going to save her.”
He nods, closes his eyes, takes a breath, and then looks at me.
“Alright. What are we going to do?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea, but there is someone who might be able to help us.”
He quirks his head, but he doesn’t ask. My heart races in my chest, pounding like it’s trying to escape. I swallow to get rid of the lump forming in my throat.
“Well?” he asks when I remain silent for far too long.
I can’t keep eye contact with him for this, so I look at the ground. “Your sister.” I let out a shaky breath. “Nadia is here. On Earth. At my school.”
Chapter Seven
Nicolai looks like he’s just seen a ghost.
I mean, I guess I sort of just told him that his dead sister is alive. Ish.
“How can you be sure?” he says, his voice breathy and strained. His eyes are suddenly hollow and glazed.
“I saw her,” I say. “She’s one of the demons they put in charge of watching me.”
“They?”
Right. I haven’t told him about the situation with Lilith. I explain it as quickly and succinctly as possible, but he doesn’t appear to really be listening. Probably because of the life-changing revelation I just dropped on him.
“Nicolai?” I ask when I’m done. It takes him a moment to blink and look at me, and when he does, his features are shell-shocked. I frown. “Please say something.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “How is she?”
I sigh. “I don’t really know. I mean, it’s hard to tell.”
He nods. “Okay.” Changing gears, he says, “Well, what’s the plan?”
It’s my turn to be unsure. Through all this, I haven’t really come up with anything to do. The plan had been to summon Nicolai and ask him what the plan is. “I think the first step is to figure out a way for us to communicate, that way I don’t have to summon you or hope you show up or something.”
“Alright. I’ll get a phone soon. Or Huỳnh can. Or Gabe.”
I frown. “I don’t want them to get involved. It’s so dangerous already.”
He rolls his eyes and cracks a smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “They’re already involved. Just take the damn help.”
I make a frustrated sound and sit on my floor, which Dad must have actually had washed, because it doesn’t smell faintly of cat pee from the previous homeowners anymore. “Fine,” I finally say. “Fine.”
He nods, then his smile widens. “They hooked up last week.”
I gasp, and my eyes widen. “I knew it!”
He laughs, telling me all about it. How they’d been caught in one of the activity rooms by another student, how they’d been formally chastised by Gabriel and Azrael for being so inappropriate in a public space.
This conversation almost feels normal, and I almost forget about the target on my back and the ticking clock to save the love of my life.
Almost.
After chatting and gossiping for a while, the sky outside goes from black to a pale gray-blue. Somehow, it’s already morning, and Nicolai has been here all night.
“I should probably go,” Nicolai says, staring out the window. I lie back in my bed, which we’re both now sitting on, my legs propped over his.
“Ugh,” I say. “I have to go to school in an hour.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” he says, removing my legs from his lap so he can stand.
I roll my eyes. “Trigonometry is that bad. I promise.”
He smiles, but his eyebrows are tilted up with sadness. “Tell Nadia I said hello.” After an awkward pause, he continues, “And I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I say, gently placing a hand on his. I stand, and, in the small room, that means we’re practically touching. I wrap my arms around him, and, after a moment, he returns the hug. “See you soon,” I mumble.
“Right,” he says. “If we don’t get killed first.”
I sigh.
“Right. That’s all.”
I really hope we don’t get killed.
Chapter Eight
When I arrive at school, there’s a note spray painted on my locker.
I wish you’d died.
It’s written with red spray paint, and I glance down the hallway, but whoever wrote it is nowhere in sight. The note is already dry, so it had to have been done a while ago. Probably yesterday.
Whatever. It won’t matter soon.
I walk away from my locker and head to class, ignoring Marcus’s eyes on me as I pass him in the hall. How many other demons are in the school? I probably don’t want to know, but I can’t help but be suspicious of every student I can’t quite place.
I shamble through the day, waiting for something to happen, but nothing else does. I’m still ignored in all my classes, and I don’t catch anyone staring at me.
When I walk out to my car, though, there’s another note in the same red letters.
Die, bitch.
I take a deep, shuddering breath. I can deal with this. A tiny bit of bullying is nothing in comparison to the hardships coming up. My hands ball up into fists, and I have to shake them out before getting into the car. Dad had finally given me a new phone
last night, and I open it to find that I have several messages.
Are you coming in to work?
I know your girlfriend died, but I need you to come in.
Text me back!!
I sort of forgot that I had a job on Earth, one that involved serving greasy burgers to people who bought them and looked down on those of us who had to make them.
I consider texting my manager back, but, knowing the mood I’m in, it will not be a pleasant response. As an angel, I should at least try to be a decent person, right?
I’m definitely not going into work, though. That’s just too much.
When I get home, a small box is on my bed, shipped all the way from Kansas City.
I don’t recall ordering anything online before I died, but I was in Heaven for nearly a year before I woke up in that hospital bed. I rip the package open, and inside is a piece of translucent rose quartz about the size of my hand.
I guess Nicolai or Huỳnh or Gabe got my Heaven phone, after all. With the weird way time works, any one of them could’ve sent it well before I summoned Nicolai to my room.
Although I’m not fluent enough in Demonic runes to call anyone other than Lilith on the black phone—which sits unused in my sweater pocket—I scrawl Huỳnh’s name in Enochian on a sheet of paper and press the rose quartz device down.
Almost instantly, it glows, and an electric tingle runs up my arm.
“Avery, thank god,” Huỳnh says almost instantly. Unlike the Hell phone I’d kept secret in Heaven, Huỳnh’s voice is as clear as a bell, almost like she’s in the room with me.
“Huỳnh,” I breathe, my friend’s face flooding me with relief. Every day, I wonder, in the back of my mind, if I’d imagined everything about Heaven. Rationally, I know I didn’t, but still, the doubt creeps in. Seeing my friend’s face relieves that ache just enough that I can breathe again.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” she says. “Class starts in ten minutes.” Her strawberry blonde hair is pulled up in a loose ponytail, and her tan skin practically glitters in the angelic light of Heaven. I sigh with longing as I imagine being back there, in a world where everything was perfect and magical.
Everything except the part of my life that matters most, anyway.
“I need to find Desireé,” I say.
Huỳnh nods. “I know. Nicolai filled us in. We’re trying. It’s hard, though. The Archangels are keeping everything a secret. Nobody can get any information out of them. Not after what happened with you.”
I nod. That makes sense, of course. If one angel can defect because of a demon, why not all of them? “So what’s the plan?”
She looks off to the side, then back at me. “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when I have more information. I have to go.” Before I can protest, she’s gone.
I don’t have time to be sad about it when a knock comes softly at my door.
“It’s open,” I say, shoving the magical phone in my pocket. I hope carrying three phones around isn’t too noticeable.
Dad opens the door just a little, enough to poke his head in. “You have a friend here to see you.”
I frown. I don’t have any friends. Not on Earth, anyway.
“Who is it?” I ask. When he opens the door wider, Nadia is standing next to him, eyes smoldering.
Chapter Nine
“What do you want?” I hiss after she shuts the door behind her, blocking my dad out.
She doesn’t give me the same cocky smile that Marcus always seems to have, though. In fact, she’s a lot quieter than him. She almost reminds me of Desireé by her subdued demeanor.
“What do you know about my brother?” she asks, her voice soft, cracking on the last word.
Oh. That’s not at all what I was expecting.
“Nicolai?” I ask, but of course that’s who she’s talking about. Who else could she mean?
She doesn’t make fun of my stumble though. Instead, she just nods. She looks out the window, avoiding my eyes. What is she thinking right now?
“I know you two grew up in Saratov, Russia,” I say carefully. She frowns but doesn’t return her eyes to mine. “I know he was involved with a gang, and that’s how you got your apartment.”
Her face crumples, and a tear streams down. Even when Desireé was with me at Theaa Academy, I never saw her cry. Not once. This show of emotion from Nadia is a shock, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond. “I didn’t believe it,” she says. “When Cain told me. I thought it was a lie, or that she had it wrong.”
I shake my head. “No,” I breathe.
Finally, her eyes return to mine. “Thank you,” she says. I half expect her to turn around and leave, but she doesn’t. She just stands there and watches me. After a moment, she opens her mouth like she has something to say, then rethinks it.
“He didn’t want to hurt you,” I say. “Everything he did was to make sure you were okay. He didn’t want to hurt anybody.”
She doesn’t respond, just looks away. She’s not even breathing.
I sit on my bed, then pat the spot next to me.
“Sit,” I say. Maybe I shouldn’t be assertive with a demon I don’t know, but she listens to me, joining me on the ancient comforter. I tell her about Nicolai. Not the crimes he admitted to committing before his death, but how he was in Heaven. The kindness in his eyes, the jokes, the playfulness. At some point, Nadia’s head rests on my shoulder, her hair streaming down my arm. I don’t protest.
I keep talking, and, eventually, she breathes again. After that, her breaths turn soft and slow, and her head becomes heavy on my shoulder. I sigh and carefully maneuver her so she’s lying down, then cover her with a soft throw. If she’s anything like Desireé, then she probably hasn’t slept since she went to Hell. She needs this.
I scroll through the internet on my normal phone, the one Dad bought me, looking for any sort of information that could help, but I come up short. Dad doesn’t check in on us. He may be a better parent than before the accident, but he doesn’t seem aware that teenagers don’t usually stay the night with their friends on a school night. Oh, well.
Just as the sun is rising in the morning, Nadia sits up, her blonde hair like a halo of tangles around her. I smile gently, but she doesn’t respond in kind.
“I had a thought,” she says. Her voice isn’t groggy. Much like when I would sleep in Heaven, she simply went from being asleep to being awake. There is no in-between.
I tilt my head and lock the phone.
“Angels can sense each other on Earth, right?” Her eyes bore into mine, like this is the most important question with the most important answer in the world. I nod. “Demons can do the same.”
This is news to me, although it makes a lot of sense. While demon auras are like a void of nothingness to angels, they might seem different to other demons, much like I feel when I’m around other angels.
“So, if this is true, why hasn’t anyone tracked Desireé? If she’s so important, I mean?”
I open my mouth to answer, then close it again.
It’s that simple, isn’t it?
If Desireé were on Earth, then a demon should be able to track her. Even if it were really difficult, someone like Lilith should have no problem finding her, right?
“I have to make a call,” I say.
Chapter Ten
It’s only a few seconds before Nicolai answers my call.
“Avery, is everything alright?” he asks after taking in my face.
“Sort of,” I say. I don’t give him a chance to speak, continuing, “I know where Desireé is.”
He squints at the screen, then freezes. When I turn around to find out what he could be looking at, Nadia is standing behind me, no longer lying in my bed.
“Nadia,” he says, his word coming out choked.
She nods. “Hello, Nic.”
“I know this whole thing is important you you,” I say, feeling awful the whole time, “but we have a more pressing matter, Nicolai.” His eyes snap back to mine.
“Desireé isn’t on Earth. The Archangels must be holding her in Heaven.”
His eyes widen. “Of course,” he says. “They can’t risk her being on Earth, not when everyone is looking for her. Not when there’s a war at stake!”
I nod excitedly. “So we just have to get her out of there. And then it’ll all be okay.” I can’t be certain of this, of course. Lilith claims that Desireé’s death would trigger a war, but what if her freedom would do the same? How many beings would die and be sent to purgatory? And, sureley, we’d have to stay in hiding. We would never be able to leave Hell again, not with every angel in heaven looking for us.
“Are you sure about this?” Nicolai says. I want so badly to say yes, to be selfish so that I can have Desireé safely by my side, but I can’t lie.
“No,” I say. “Honestly, it could make everything a lot worse. But we have to do something. If Desireé is killed, there will definitely be a war.”
He hesitates, and Nadia says, “Nicolai, we have to do this.” He frowns, then finally nods.
We just have to come up with a plan.
I turn back to Nadia and utter words I never thought would come out of my mouth. “We’re going to need Marcus’s help to pull this off.”
Nicolai goes pale. He’s interacted with Marcus all of one time, which would be more than enough for anybody.
“Fuck,” he says.
I sigh. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
Chapter Eleven
The Archangels never did figure out how demons were getting into Theaa Academy. If they had, I’m not sure there would be anything I can do.
Marcus is the only surviving demon from the attacks that I can trust, and, even then, I’m not so sure. He’s always been at least a little intimidating, and, on our first meeting, hurt me so bad that I thought he’d tear my wings out of my back..
“You want me to do what?” he demands at the lunch table later that day. I shush him, and he leans back and crosses his arms. A few people are looking at him, mostly girls that seem attracted to him. He stares them down until they look away giggling.
