by Ali Cross
No fear.
No doubt.
No love.
Nothing.
I felt a hand on my cheek and cringed, afraid of being seen, afraid of being known.
“Desolation,” Knowles said, and my name sounded so sweet in his voice. Like a lie. Because I was desolation, and there’d never be anything sweet about it.
I shrugged away from him and opened my eyes. I lay curled in a ball on the cold cement floor. Blood streaked my arms, the floor, and the Door, though I didn’t feel injured. Fear bit into my heart. “No.” Pleaseohpleaseohplease don’t let me have hurt anyone.
Knowles crouched awkwardly in front of me and tipped his head so I could see his face. “The blood is your own.”
I let out a rush of stale air and took a deep breath for the first time in too long.
“One such as you can bleed. I’m afraid though, you will most assuredly recover.”
I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest, but couldn’t lean against the wall with my wings spread behind me. Why they hadn’t gone away, I didn’t know, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
“A demon, you mean.” I filled the words with hatred—I figured Knowles would understand.
“Oh, no Desolation—is that what you think?” A dry choking sound escaped his lips. It might have been a chuckle. It might have been sorrow. “A demon, you are not.” He shook his head, a sorry expression that spoke of something—regret, maybe. “Why do you think the Door wouldn’t open for you?”
I looked from him to the Door—dented and scratched, blood smeared across the surface, but closed shut against the world. Against me. Shouldn’t it have opened if I were a demon? Did my father’s subjects ever find the Door shut to them?
“But . . .” My mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood and disappointment as I tried to shape the words. “I Became.”
At first Knowles didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, sadness shadowing his eyes. “Ah, child. You have Become—”
I hung my head, tears rising with a crushing, strangling sob.
“But what you have Become—I cannot say. Something unheard of in all the passages of time.” He leaned forward and put his thick finger under my chin, just as Michael had done—how long ago now?—before . . . before all of this.
“Look at me,” he said, and reluctantly I met his gaze. I watched as he let the muted blue of his eyes be overcome with the black, fathomless orbs of a demon. I watched as my own image came into focus, reflected in the endless black.
I saw myself—shaking and bloody, desperate and alone. I saw myself—one jet black wing and one as golden as the rays of the sun. The wing of an angel.
I gasped, lunging back from Knowles and pressing my wings against the cold cement wall.
“So now you know,” Knowles said, slowly rising to his feet. “You are not a demon, Desolation. You are something entirely different. You have Become what no one else ever has. And so the choice is more yours than it has been for anyone in the history of time—in all the worlds.” He reached out his hand. “But you don’t have to be alone. I can help you—if you will let me.”
I gazed into the face of this aging man. Now that his eyes had returned to their human state, there was no trace of the Shadow lurking inside of him, no immediate clue of what kind of help he could offer me, or whether it would take me closer or further from my heart’s desire. Because if I did have a choice . . .
But I couldn’t even let myself think that thought. Because I couldn’t really choose to be good. Of course I couldn’t.
“And I’m here to help you, too.” The sound of Michael’s voice—oh, his beautiful voice—pierced my heart like a thorn.
He stood beside Knowles, his hand on his shoulder, his other hand stretched toward me.
From the shadows, two men stepped forward. Their voices reverberated through the dark, stone room.
“And I,” said a graying man in a priest’s cassock.
Victor Cornelius.
Catholic priest.
And there was so much light wrapped up in him I couldn’t see anymore.
“And I.”
Longinus.
A tall, muscled man with the face of a soldier—the man who’d taken Miri.
He was an anomaly. His mission in life was stamped on him like a brand: Odin had a purpose for him—he was a warrior, but so much more.
What he was doing here was beyond me—some bittersweet mix of tragedy and destiny.
And then another person disengaged themselves from the shadows clinging to the corners and walls of the crypt.
Miri stood beside Michael, tears shining in her eyes.
“I’m here, too.” So brave. So foolish. Miri smiled and it was like the sun shone on her face—even though she was just a girl, a broken girl caught up in a living, breathing, horror story.
I looked at these people, none of whom I really understood, and they certainly didn’t understand me. And yet I felt surrounded by the one need I’d never expected to feel for myself. The one need the selfish never knew was the one you couldn’t take but could only give.
Love.
chapter nineteen
I sat in a room behind the altar of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, my wings dissolved into shadows and a warm fleece blanket wrapped tightly around my (now human) body. Michael’s arms wrapped tightly around me, too.
I leaned into him, like we’d never been apart, as I listened to the introductions Knowles made.
“Father Cornelius,” he said, gesturing to the priest—a small man with a tidy gray beard and a face lined with kindness. The father stood and bowed his head—a gesture of honor I hardly thought I deserved.
“We have waited a long time for you, child.”
“And Longinus,” Knowles said, indicating the man who stood against the far wall, tall and stiff like a tree. He lowered his chin, and I figured it was probably about as much feeling as he could muster.
I listened as Knowles and Cornelius told me about the group of whose secret combinations I was now, apparently, a part.
“The Hallowed,” Father Cornelius said, “is as old as man, not much younger than the Earth herself. When Odin created Midgard—or, Earth as we call it—to be our proving ground, Loki was already complicating Odin’s plan. His tricks to confuse and interfere with our quest were more powerful than the humans born here were equipped to deflect—particularly before they had Ascended. How could Odin’s creations resist the temptations of a god? Loki knew it was forbidden, and yet, he did it anyway.”
Cornelius crossed the small room and stood in front of a painting of the Tree of Life—Ygdrasyll in my father’s language. He placed a finger on one of the white fruits dangling from its branches. He dragged his finger downward to the glow that wove around the roots of the great tree.
“Loki had taken up with Hel, the goddess of Helheimer, the world at the very roots of the World Tree, to drag man down into her realm and claim him for their own.” He tipped his chin toward me, pausing when his eyes met mine. “But he renamed himself Lucifer and chained Hel in the darkest region of his newly claimed kingdom. Surely you know this.”
I knew Father preferred Lucifer to Loki, knew Odin was his father, knew Hell was his kingdom, but I did not know about Hel. The idea that a goddess was imprisoned in the cold reaches of my world—and that I didn’t know it, had never even suspected—made my blood run cold. What else didn’t I know?
“Odin discovered those he’d cast out of Asgard for treason, those who followed Loki, were forcibly taking the bodies of man, those bodies created for Odin’s subjects, those Gardians who sought Ascension to the realm of the gods.” He picked up a giant book from the table behind him and turned to a page of illuminations showing two female Gardians walking beside a man.
“He sent his trusted handmaidens, the Valkyries, to establish The Hallowed—faithful servants assigned to preserve and protect the sacred relics and watch for the Fallen, and the evil they might do on Earth.”
“Watch
?” I asked, something like a laugh, but more like a snort, following. “What good is it to watch but to never be able to stop them? And aren’t you supposed to be a priest? A Catholic priest?” I thought of all the damned, eternally pining away for something they could never, ever have. I’d always wondered how Odin allowed such a thing to happen.
Cornelius chuckled, a warm, round sound. “I am a priest, it’s true. But there are truths much older than the Church. The truth, and what is acceptable today, are not so different, you know. Odin is God, Heaven is Asgard, Earth is Midgard. Thor has been recast as our Savior—by any name, he is the same. And your father . . .”
“You can’t really know who my father is.” I looked at each of them, daring them to meet my gaze. This was foolishness—if they really knew, they wouldn’t let me sit here with them, tell me all these things I already knew. Knew better than any of them. Except, I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at Miri. I still hadn’t figured out why she was there or how it could be she was allowed to know all these things.
I took a deep breath. “My father is—”
“Everyone knows who your father is, Desolation,” Knowles said from his seat next to me. “He is Lucifer, once known to all of us as Loki—Odin’s second son and my one-time friend.”
“We have been watching,” Father Cornelius said. “But Odin has not left us entirely without the means to fight back—when necessary.” He smiled at Miri, who returned his kind expression. What the hell? Cornelius walked around the table and closed the book, sliding it to the center of the table. “And then, of course, there is you.”
“Me?” Michael tightened his grip on my arm when I stiffened. I twisted around so Michael could see my eyes.
I flicked my gaze to Miri, certain I’d find her confused, but instead she smiled at me. Smiled!
It was safer to look at Knowles. Tired lines surrounded his eyes. The skin on his face sagged with age or wear or worry or burdens—I didn’t know. But I knew he didn’t look a thing like any of the demons I knew.
“Are you even a demon?” I accused him. “A First Order? Because . . .” And I couldn’t help it, but I found myself looking at him like my father often did to those he judged wholly beneath him. He should have cringed. Such a look of derision and scorn from Lucifer’s heir should have made him fight back, defiant—or bowing low to the ground, begging my forgiveness.
Instead he sighed. His lips curved ever-so-slightly into a smile that spoke of untold sadness and an eternity of loss. And something else—it was a smile of hope.
“Yes, Desolation.” He fixed his gaze upon his hands then. He opened them, tracing one finger along the path of a line on his right hand. “I am one of the Fallen. I, like Akaros, stood by Loki’s side when the Great War began.” He raised his eyes to mine, but kept his hands open, supplicating. “I spilled the blood of our friends in Asgard and I was cast out, never to return home again.”
I opened my mouth to ask how he could have stood against them to begin with, but he cut me off. “I’ve regretted my choice all the endless days of my existence—and though there can be no redemption for me, this Earth is worth fighting for. You are worth fighting for.”
My mouth shut with a click. I was utterly without words. How do you respond when someone says something like that?
Michael squeezed me to his side. I heard the beating of his heart—the steady rhythm oh so familiar, like it was my rhythm, my beat, my heart. I felt the strength of his arms as they enfolded me—his strength becoming my strength. And I knew his hope could be my hope—if I let it.
I breathed him in, hoping he could fill me, change me, claim me. Because I felt lost. Nothing seemed familiar anymore. Choice was never supposed to be mine—except the one choice I’d exercised my whole life. The choice not to choose. To resist and rebel.
I swung my head away from Michael, fear clutching me in its cold grip despite the warmth of his embrace. “Father . . . Does he know?”
Knowles hung his head, his hands falling idly between his knees as he leaned forward on his elbows. After long seconds stretched into a minute, he finally raised his eyes to mine. “I suspect your father knows, yes. How could he not? Yes, he most assuredly knows about—” he waved a hand to indicate the people in the room, “everything.
“Loki knows the choice I have made. He knows I regret ever joining with him. And,” Knowles stood, raising himself to his full height, for a moment revealing his hidden power, the suggestion of the Shadow that still lurked within, “he knows about The Hallowed and your place with them.”
Father Cornelius stepped forward to stand beside Knowles, and Longinus joined them. A show of solidarity. Or mass confusion.
“My place?” I laughed, a sour sound. “You just told me not half an hour ago that I have no place. I don’t belong in Hell—the only place I’ve ever come close to belonging—and I’m not human.” I snorted again, definitely not one of my attractive qualities. “So where do I belong?” I was on my feet, the blanket puddled on the ground, the safety of Michael’s embrace abandoned. “Not with her.” I nodded toward Miri. She opened her mouth to speak, but I turned my back.
“And especially not with him.” I wheeled toward Michael and willed him to see me for who I really was. I wasn’t what these people expected of me. I was nothing they wanted.
“I have no place.” I balled my fists at my side and closed my eyes.
I reached for the darkness, for the cold familiarity of my father’s world. I called to it, craved it.
I wanted to hurt. To bleed.
I wanted to show them I couldn’t be trusted. They wanted to pin all their hopes on me, to make me something I wasn’t—something more.
I wanted them to fear me.
I wanted them to hate me.
With aching need, I let the cold infuse every inch of my being. Let it feed my Shadow and sear away the warmth that had begun to take hold. I opened my arms, screaming, beckoning. Welcoming.
“Desi, please—” Michael’s voice. But he was so far away now. So far beyond my reach.
From the moment I left that place, the garden where he once loved me, he’d been lost to me. And I was forever lost to him.
“Desolation, you must listen!” Father Cornelius stepped forward and dared to touch me. He snapped his hand back as the ice of my skin burned him. I felt no regret. No sorrow for this man I’d just met who presumed to know me, presumed to tell me I had choices to make.
My truth: I had no more choices.
Not now.
I had made my choice long ago.
I was my father’s daughter, the devil’s daughter, and there was only one thing I had ever known. Only one thing I could ever Become.
I backed out of the room, my hands held up in front of me like a shield. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Desi, wait,” Miri said, getting to her feet and stepping toward me.
Michael didn’t move. He watched me with sad eyes and no smile, but he didn’t try to stop me. I turned and ran.
chapter twenty
James found me, walking along the dirt shoulder a couple miles away from Daniel’s house.
“Need a ride, princess?” he called through the open window, his car crawling along at my speed. I continued to walk, looking straight ahead. Then I sighed and veered toward the car. He stopped long enough for me to climb in, then continued driving. Past the mansion and up and up to the Peek—until he pulled the car to a stop in front of a guardrail. The view was spectacular—all the lights of the city below shining like a million candles. It all looked so peaceful from here.
I could see the bright lights of the stadium. The whole idea of regular life continuing, the crowd cheering for the next good play, the band getting ready for half-time. It was surreal. How could people not know the world was falling apart?
“Seems pretty crazy, doesn’t it? That for some people, life is just so . . .” he waved his hand loosely, “normal?”
I didn’t say anything. I mean, what could I say? Oh yeah, a
nd you don’t know the half of it—your girlfriend has visions, and the girl you make out with is a demon. So I didn’t say anything at all and James didn’t either.
We sat there, silent, watching the lights blink out in the stadium, and the city gradually grow darker. Eventually James sighed, turned the car around and drove us back home.
James walked me to my door, and I hesitated. Did he want to come in? Part of me wanted him to—to drive away any lingering doubts of how bad I could be. I could hurt Michael and Miri so easily—and hurt James, too.
That thought struck me. Would I be hurting James by inviting him in? And since when did I give a damn who got hurt?
James surprised me by pulling me into his arms and hugging me—not holding me like a lover, but hugging, like a friend, like a brother. And I realized: that was my problem. That’s why I’d never Become before, why I hated Earth-life when I was last here, why I couldn’t let myself forget Aaron.
It wasn’t because I didn’t care.
It was because I cared too damn much.
At school the next morning, I was waiting at Miri’s locker by the time she got there. She stopped walking when she saw me, then her face broke into a wide grin, all white teeth and shining eyes. She ran the rest of the way and threw her arms around me.
“You’re here,” she breathed when she finally released me.
“Where else would I be?”
But we both knew. I guess she knew everything, now.
The first bell rang and Miri opened her locker in a flash, threw her backpack in and grabbed out her things for our first classes. “Well, I wasn’t sure . . . you know. After.”
I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder, but didn’t say anything.
We walked in silence to class, until Miri grabbed my sleeve to make me pause just outside the classroom door. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
For a minute I looked at her, bright blue eyes shining, and I remembered James had called her bright eyes. I smiled. “So am I.”
