“The way I see it, you guys aren’t much different,” the words slipped out before I could stop them.
Something dark filtered through his eyes—Mom’s eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong, what he tried so hard to take from you, I can take just… like… that.” He snapped his fingers as he said the word ‘that’ and I jumped.
“But, it’s funny that He placed you in a human body. To keep you hidden from me? Or is it something else? But one of my entities found you so easily, and look at us now, standing together like this. Guess His plan didn’t work so well after all. I can’t have another one of you running around and destroying my evil. Grim’s been the biggest pain, ya know, balancing out my evil so that it never gets too out of control—he’s infuriatingly good at it, too. I just can’t let you be, Melanie, I’d like to make the end of the world happen sooner rather than later so I can crawl out of this place I’ve been trapped in and reign over the human world.”
“What am I then since you seem to know so much?” I asked.
“Human,” he answered. “But what’s inside you is very far from it.” I knew that but for him to be so intent on getting me here… “You’re like Grim.”
“What?” I just thought I was meant to be with him, I hadn’t expected me to be like him. I shook my head. “I’m not—”
“You are,” he interrupted me. “Grim’s been the only one God has ever made. Until you. You’re the newer version; the upgrade.”
“I’m his—”
“Light?” he finished for me. “What do you think that means? You are his equal in every way. Do you not trust what I say? Believe me, because I plan to take that part of you and hide it since I can’t destroy it. You, however… won’t be a problem to take care of.”
There was a lump in my throat the size of a golf ball. My fingers were numb and tingly, my anxiety was getting the best of me—for good reason. The Devil stood in front of me looking like Mom and my gut told me to fight, but what could I do against him. My life was on the line and those lines were funny even inside my head because how many times had I been in danger before? Killian always reached me in time but for some reason, I didn’t think that was the case now.
I was alone.
This isn’t being alone… alone is what we’ll know soon enough.
Why did my power whisper such an ominous thing at a time like this? I knew the voice could hear my every thought, and I knew it could hear my desperation to understand what she meant, but as always… she only spoke when she wanted and never answered.
Molly coughed and I had completely forgotten she was still here. “We made a deal and I came through, now it’s your turn to hold up your end.”
The Devil tilted his head at her, almost like he wasn’t happy with her. “I don’t like being interrupted,” he told her, and there was a flicker of fear flash through her eyes before she hid it completely. “But a deal’s a deal.” He snapped his fingers—Mom’s fingers really. I watched in amazement as Molly’s body began to rapidly grow. Her dress began to rip and she clung to it. The red of her eyes faded until she was left with brown ones and she was soon taller than me. Her skin lost the pale look it had as a ghost, and I watched her face as she studied herself—a smile touched her lips. I could still see a hint of the girl she once was, so he had only made her body grow instead of giving her a different look altogether.
I couldn’t hide my shock as she smiled, holding what was left of the dress against her naked flesh. She brought her hand out and frowned. “Wait… something feels different.”
The Devil laughed and she looked up. “Because you’re no longer a poltergeist and you no longer have any power Fear gave you.” Her face paled and her eyes widened. “Oh, and I added little something special—I made you immortal.”
There was a wariness to her voice. “Immortal?”
He nodded and Molly’s shoulders stiffened. “Yeah.” He laughed again, and it even sent a chill up my spine. “Really, what I’ve done to you is not much different than what I do to the souls stuck here with me. Let’s not forget all the demons you’ve angered over the years while you were with Fear—imagine what would happen when they find out how powerless you are now. So, I wanted to help you out. I figured you would need all the immortality you could get when your past comes knocking.”
“You,” she sneered at him. “You tricked me. I wouldn’t have made the deal if I had known I would lose what powers I had! How can I protect myself?”
He arched Mom’s eyebrow up at her. “Oh, wouldn’t you have, though?” He flicked a hand at her. “You can leave here with the portal chip you have, but I wonder how long you can even keep that in your possession? There valuable, especially now that Fear and Grim went around taking them from any demon that had one.”
What was even more surprising was the tears that started to form in Molly’s eyes. “What did you expect making a deal with the Devil? You should thank me because no matter what anybody does to you—how much they torture, kill—who knows what other unspeakable things that might do—you will keep coming back to life.” She never met my eyes once as she turned around—I couldn’t let her leave with the only thing that could get me out of here.
I jumped at her, knocking her to the ground. She punched me in the gut, but my focus was on the portal chip in her left hand. I pressed my weight against her and wrestled to get it out of her hand. I knew I had to be quick, but it wasn’t enough. I was yanked up by the cloak I wore.
Molly looked up at me. “Unless you want to stay here with me, I suggest you get a move on. That past is sure to catch up with you.” I stopped wiggling against his hold—I stopped breathing at the sound of his voice. Molly stood and took off running without another glance in our direction.
He released his hold on the cloak and walked in front of me. Ryan. He took the face and voice of Ryan now. “What’s wrong? Feeling guilty when you look at this face?”
“You must be pretty ugly if you have to use the faces of others to talk to people,” I said, not letting him know how I really felt.
“Nice, pretty admirable to be strong when you’re actually terrified.”
“If you ask me, that’s the very definition of strong. Being brave when your feelings are weak.”
One last time before we part ways.
I could feel the power coming to life at my fingertips, but all I could think about were the words she said. For some reason, tears were pricking my eyes. My hand was swinging out before the scythe even materialized in my hand. But he was gone before my blade could make contact. “Impressive, even to me, that you manage to wield the power right now.” I turned in the direction of his voice. He was grinning, I screamed and swung again. He caught the blade in one hand. “But you’re limited as you are now, you’re not fully one with the power yet, but I’ll be taking it now so that never happens.” His hand dug into my chest and I gasped. He touched something that recoiled from him—I sucked in air through my lungs as my head started to shake back and forth. He was pulling at something that didn’t want to leave, but there was no stopping him. I realized what the power was trying to tell me now.
Goodbye.
“Please, stop,” I cried, tears sliding down my cheeks.
And it seemed fitting that he took the form of Ryan—the boy that lost everything because of me—as he stole something from me. His hand came back out and I fell to my knees. In his hand was a golden silhouette of a woman. Everything about it, the shape, the size, and feel, I realized was me. That was why she took form as me in the dreams because she and I were the same. Then everything she said to me and the words Prince Cadence had spoken in the woods came back to me: Even though she and I were the same, I wasn’t supposed to be her yet. The tiny elf prince had been right all along.
I thought I might understand now how Grim and Killian had felt to be separated from one another. He took something from me that was only meant to be found. Never lost or stolen.
“Now that I have this,” he lifted the golden silhouette
up, “I have no reason to keep you alive.”
I couldn’t even feel panic; I was still trying to grasp the reality that he held a part of me in one of his hands. He flicked his wrists and my hands went straight to my neck. I started gasping for air but there was none. I met his eyes as he grinned while he slowly suffocated me.
Lights spotted my vision, I probably wouldn’t last much longer. “I don’t think that belongs to you,” a woman spoke somewhere behind me. My air came rushing back, and all around me, I realized my vision wasn’t spotted because the lights were actually people that were engulfed in a beautiful light.
The man next to her walked toward the Devil and took the silhouette from his hand. What was even stranger, the Devil let him without any resistance. Instead, he brought Ryan’s face to a smile. “How hard it must be for angels to stand in my realm. How long can you all last here before you’re tainted by my darkness?” These guys were angels? They were two, three… five of them in total. They all wore white clothing that covered most of their skin. The woman that spoke first held a tiny chest in her hand and the dark-skinned male walked over toward her as she opened it up—it sucked in the golden silhouette and my stomach bottomed out as a part of me was closed inside.
The angel that held the box was regal and beautiful as she moved toward me. “Must you use the boy’s face?” She looked upset.
“Why? You know I use the faces of others all the time?” He grinned at her. I watched as he changed into a different person before my very eyes. My heart stirred in my chest even though I knew it wasn’t Killian. The angel looked even angrier. “What? I thought you would have liked this one more?”
“You knew we wouldn’t have let you take what doesn’t belong to you. You can’t kill the light, nor can you use it in any way, so why did you try?” the male angel asked.
“No, I knew how important she was, but I didn’t think she was so important to Him that he’d risk tainting angels to come and get her from me.” He was looking at me when he smiled—it was Killian’s handsome face staring at me with such cold, heartless eyes. “Besides, it’d be better for me if I could have killed her and hid the power before she became a problem for me later, right?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t blame the Devil for trying.”
“Let’s go. We still have a mess to clean up in the human world,” the male angel told the others and they nodded. The female reached her hand out to me and I hesitantly took it.
“Yes, do have fun cleaning up after my demons,” he chuckled, and I couldn’t even look at him right now, not when he was using my lover’s body and voice. “For once, I can say I had no hand in this. Even the Devil has a way he prefers to do things.”
When I met the angel’s eyes for the first time, I was surprised to see peace in them—even love, maybe. Something about her smile comforted me. But the longer she looked at me, the sadder her smile became. “Let’s get you home, Melanie, there’s much that needs to be fixed.” She pulled me into her arms as her light engulfed us both.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Melanie
She took us back to my tiny town. It was a mess, but the Reapers were finishing off the last of the demons and there were angels lined up together as they closed the portal. I scanned the faces of everyone there, but I didn’t see Killian. But I did see Penny the very moment she saw me as well. She looked relieved to see me as she came running. “Good, you’re safe,” she said as she looked to the angel next to me.
“Where’s Killian?” I asked her.
Penny looked to me and then to the angel again. “He’s—”
“You can’t see him, Melanie,” the angel said before Penny could answer me. I turned around and faced her. “Thank you for everything you’ve done to protect this town today, but I must speak to Melanie alone,” she told Penny. Penny studied her for several seconds before looking to me. For once, I didn’t want Penny to leave. For what it was worth, Penny may have been hard to deal with but she was real and Killian was right, she came through more than once as a Reaper. I must have given it away with my facial expression.
“Killian’s right—”
“Penny,” the angel cut her off again. “She can’t see him, and I need you to let me do what I came here to do.”
“What did you come here to do?” I asked, my voice coming out harsh. “Killian wouldn’t just stand by when he thinks I’m still in danger. Is he looking for me right now? Where is he? Perhaps he doesn’t know that you guys saved me yet?”
“Melanie,” the angel’s voice was full of something I didn’t want to hear coming from her.
“He’s back!” Penny yelled. I followed her gaze and looked for him. I didn’t see him and I could always spot him anywhere.
“I don’t see him,” I told her. “Where?” My heart was doing a little happy dance at the prospect of being in his arms again and putting this all in the past.
“Melanie, he’s right here,” Penny said right before her eyes widened. She looked back in another direction. “She’s right here!” she yelled to someone, and something in me broke. I couldn’t see who she was yelling at. You know when you get a bad feeling about something that you want to ignore, but the truth is right in front of you? That was exactly how I was feeling in that moment.
“I didn’t want it to be this way,” the angel spoke right before her hand came down over my chest. It was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders the moment her hand touched me, but everything changed after that. I watched as everything right in front of me started chipping away. The library where the angels stood closing the portal started fading from my vision. The Reapers and the dead demons all around me—gone. I was losing sight of the darkness I’ve carried for nine years. I jerked away from her but it was too late. I watched as Penny disappeared from my vision just as she said, “Melanie?” Was that the first time she called me by my name? She faded like a mirage.
Everything was back to normal. The library, the town, I saw nothing now. I couldn’t even see the other angels… except her. I glared at her. “What did you do to me? Who are you and why are you doing this to us?”
She tried to smile at me, but even to me, she didn’t seem happy. “I’m Faye and I just freed you of Fear’s mark.”
No… I just stared at her. It couldn’t have been so easy, not after everything we had been through because of Fear. I didn’t believe her. I untied the cloak and let it fall to the ground. I pulled my shirt down and my eyes widened. Fear’s mark was gone and so was Grim’s.
“I don’t understand.” I shook my head, trying to fight the turmoil of emotions I was feeling right now. Anger, sadness, even disgust. “If an angel could have erased the mark so easily, then why hadn’t any of you done it already. Why wait until now?” My voice was rising. I didn’t know whether to thank her or curse her. “Why wait until Grim and Killian almost lost each other? Or how about the moment an innocent life was lost because of this stupid mark!”
Faye lowered her gaze and in her hands, I saw that she had a tight grip on a piece of the white dress she wore. “Because of me. I’m the reason all this has happened.” I didn’t even know how to respond to her words. I could only stare. “When Fear found you as a child, I saw it as an opportunity and hid it from Heaven until the day you came of age so that I could send Grim to save and protect you.” She smiled us at me like it was supposed to make whatever she was saying mean something.
“Why?” I whispered. “When you could have ended it before it even began!”
Tears were in her eyes and it was only making me angrier. “Because I wanted nothing more than the two of you to meet.” She took a deep breath and took control of her emotions. I watched as her face hardened to the point that it was frightening. “But now I realize my mistake. The only thing that I’ve managed to do was mess with fate, and lives were destroyed because of it.”
“Everything will be fine, though,” I told her. “You just have to save Ryan like you did me, and I need what’s inside that chest, it’s a part
of me.” I pointed to the chest in one of her hands. “And I need to find Killian.” Even I could hear the hysterical sound in my voice, I was on the verge of falling apart.
“You can’t find him, Melanie.” My heart was racing, and I felt like I might puke.
“What do you mean?” My tone was filled with anger.
“I mean, he could be right next to you, running around frantically screaming your name, but you wouldn’t know because you can no longer see him.”
Tears threatened my eyes. Something about her words had me looking all around me… for the man that might so desperately be looking for me as well. “Is it because I no longer have the mark? Or my power?” I asked her, trying to hold back the disaster I was feeling.
“No, we knew that there’d be no way he’d stay away from you even with the mark taken care of. We had you both spelled so that neither of you can ever see one another. No matter how hard he looks—even if he was standing right in front of you—he can’t ever see you and neither can you see him.”
I took a step away from her, tightening my fists. I never felt so hurt. So angry. So lost as I did right now. “You’re lying.” I couldn’t believe her. “There’s no way you guys would do that. Angels are supposed to be good, why would they keep two people that love each other apart?” I snapped.
“I’m sorry.” She might have looked genuine—I was too heartbroken to tell or care. “You weren’t supposed to meet like this and the fate of everything is demanding to be set right and that means stopping the two of you from being together until you guys are meant to be together!” She tried to take my hand, but I jerked away from her. “Please, understand, I truly am sorry for what I’ve put you both through and Ryan, I never wanted any of this to happen. But we can’t upset the balance anymore, it favors only the evil.”
'Til Death We Meet Again (A Grim Awakening Book 3) Page 19
