Angel and Bavar

by Amy Wilson

  “Bavar!” scream the ancestors through the open door. “Get up!”

  I scramble to my feet, chanting the words once more, waiting for the power to flood through me, waiting for the magic to be with me, but my mind is fractured, full of doubt, and the tatters of that spell wind through my words, and the raksasa can smell it. They screech, and I chase after them, my feet pounding, my heart racing, and I manage to catch one of them by the tail. It curls around to face me, snapping at the air with vicious teeth, snarling, and I reach out, striking at its neck just as the other charges full pelt at the gate.

  “No!”

  The gate is torn from its hinges, and the barrier breaks with a sharp smack that takes my breath away. The creature I managed to restrain is quiet now, its essence returned to the world it came from, but the escaped raksasa takes to the skies with a victory cry. Hot-blooded and slavering with the need for food, it’s heading straight for the town.

  “Bavar!” screams the house behind me. “Bavar, what have you done?”

  I roar as I tear through the remains of the gate, pelting as fast as I can down the hill. The town unfolds before me as I go, streets full of houses, where families are settling down for the night. Lights dance in the windows, and high up above them a shadow wheels in the sky, its form obliterating the stars.

  It’s hovering, I realize. I look closer. Right above the school. It’s night, so the school should be empty, except it’s not. Golden squares glow, and the floodlights in the field have been turned on.

  It’s parents’ evening.

  We’ve never been to one. I didn’t even think twice about it, but now I remember. Parents’ evening. Angel will be there. Her foster mother will be there. My heart lurches as I pick up my speed, hurling myself down the hill.

  What have I done?

  Angel

  Tables stand like little booths in the main hall, teachers talking to kids and parents, and it’s super-crowded, so we can hardly move. We stand at the back of the line to see Miss Pick, my math teacher, and Mary starts chatting with another parent. She’s so easy with people. She just looks at them and smiles, and they smile back. It never fails. I wonder if it’d work so well with me. I catch sight of Grace across the room and give it a try. I’m not sure it’s a very good smile, but definitely my lips are doing the right sort of shape. Grace frowns at me. Oh well. At least I tried.

  I’m wondering who to try with next when a shadow flickers in the corner of my eye, outside the window, something huge. Something that screams darkness and wrongness. I shrink back as a screech rises over the murmur of voices. Mary carries on talking. Nobody heard it.

  There’s a bang at the window and people turn and stare for a second, but they don’t seem to see the thick shadow that stalks outside; they turn away again, back to the patient lines and the teachers. I remember the first time I heard that noise. I remember how quickly it changed from something that couldn’t be possible to something that changed my life forever. Glass creaks as the creature strikes again, and the lights in the hall flicker. Everything stops, and for a split second it’s like everybody really sees it.

  Shock wires through the room, faces blanch, the air rushes with a collective intake of breath, as claws screech against the window. An inhuman scream sends a shudder down my spine, makes the foundations of the school rock. There’s a whimper, against the silence in the room, and then the raksasa whirls away again, gathering speed for its next hit. The lights stabilize and the lines move forward, as if nothing happened. But Mary is frowning.

  “What was that?” she asks in a low voice, as if to herself. “Did you feel that, Angel?”

  She sees things. More clearly than others. My heart lurches, panic rushes through me like electricity, and for a horrible moment I wonder if I’m going to be sick. The raksasa will come back any second, and Mary will be one of the first, because she’ll run toward it. She’ll see it before the others, and I know she won’t just stand there while people are attacked. But I’m not letting that happen. I’m not hiding in the cupboard this time. Or in the school hall.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I tell her. “Need the bathroom.”

  I hurry from the room, barging past other kids and their parents. A couple of people are still looking out of the window, frowning, but they don’t move.

  Outside it’s cold, but the air stinks of iron and sulfur. It’s real. It’s really happening. Somehow one of the creatures has escaped Bavar’s estate. The ground quakes as it turns to me, amber eyes smoldering, and I told Bavar I would fight and I meant it, but it’s only occurring to me now that I have no idea how to really fight one. I don’t have my catapult, and even if I did I know it wouldn’t help at all.

  “C’mon, Angel,” I tell myself, as the creature’s claws strike at the ground. I rummage through my bag, hoping my fingers are going to somehow come upon a knife, or a flare, anything they’d usually have on TV in this situation. But of course I’m just me, and it’s just my backpack, so I just have books, and paper.

  The book!

  My fingers find the leather cover and I lift it out, my hands shaking as the creature closes in on me. I open the book and turn to the spell, and I have no idea what it will do, but the raksasa backs up a step as I start to read.

  “Qui est dominum . . .”

  “Angel, no!”

  Bavar runs toward us, cloak billowing, hair standing out a mile.

  “What’re you doing?” he demands. “Put that thing away!”

  “No,” I say, raising the book higher, making my voice low as I start to read out again:

  “Es definitum et sanguinem . . .”

  “You don’t even know what you’re saying; it’ll take more than just words!”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I fire back.

  The monster roars, and Bavar rushes next to me as Mary appears in the door.

  “Angel, are you coming in here?”

  “Uh, yes . . .” I look at Bavar and he waves me away.

  “What’s going on out here?”

  “We were just talking, that’s all,” I manage, as the sky lights up orange and Mary blinks, confused. I take her arm and pull her back into the school, looking desperately behind me as I go. Miss Pick says quite a lot of things about concentration and something about pi, but I’m not really listening, I’m watching Bavar and the monster dance around each other out there, and freaking out a bit because it’s all happening right here, and everyone’s just sitting here having their boring old parents’ evening!

  “. . . So, Angel, what do you say?” Mary’s voice is insistent.

  “Uh, yes. Absolutely.”

  Miss Pick beams.

  “How wonderful. We can begin tomorrow; I’ll see you around eight.”

  “What?”

  Mary frowns at me. “Miss Pick is offering you a little extra help, Angel—you should be very grateful.”

  “Oh yes, I am. Thank you . . .”

  I have to get out of here.

  Should I be evacuating the place?

  I try to picture myself standing on a table, shouting about monsters and otherworldly dangers; the rest of the room gawking, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Or, even worse, me standing on a table, them all listening and marching out there straight into the path of the raksasa.

  No.

  Mary stands, and I hurry to my feet.

  “I have to go,” I say. “I’m really sorry. Bavar needs help.”

  She gives me a long look. “I’m not going, Angel. I will see every one of your teachers, with or without you.”

  “OK!”

  “And you will be here at eight tomorrow morning for your extra lesson.”

  “OK.”

  “And we’re going to have a long talk about this friendship of yours when I get home. You had better be there.”

  “OK, yes—see you later!”

  I run, just praying I’m in time. Because the last I saw, as Mary talked and the kids swirled around me, Bavar was being dragged into the air
by one of his ankles.

  Bavar

  This is a nightmare.

  I’ve managed to get up on top of the raksasa, and it’s darting about the school field like a mad bull, snorting and bucking and batting its wings at me, and I should be in control by now, but we’re so close to the school, and all the people, the raksasa is mad with it, straining to get away and feed. I fling myself toward the ground, landing with a stumble as it rises up and screeches, its eyes on the gold-lit windows. I mutter a few words, feel my blood begin to heat, and then Angel is there again, darting in front of me, drawing the infernal book out of her bag.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The spell!” she says. “We have to try it!”

  “Not now!”

  “Yes, now,” she says. She turns to me and her eyes are shining. “There are people in there, Bavar! Mary is in there. I can’t just let this happen!”

  “I won’t let it happen!”

  “It isn’t only your fight,” she shouts as the raksasa lurches forward, and I run in to stop it from tearing her head off. “And you can’t stop it anyway. You’ve tried. Your parents tried. You’re not winning; you need to try another way!”

  “I can do this,” I grunt, lowering my head as the creature spews hot ash into the air, my arm around its neck. “I will do it for as long as I can.”

  “But we’re in the school field, Bavar! It’s already too late; they’re getting stronger. We need to do this!”

  Claws dig into my back, and hot, sharp pain rushes through me. I try not to let it show on my face, but she sees—she sees everything. She always has.

  “Bavar!”

  “Let me do this,” I manage, turning and shoving at the creature, my hands against its chest as its wings crash out around my head. I duck down, bracing myself against its hot body as it strains to get past me. Its claws score into the ground as it screams, making my ears ring, and I don’t know how long I can hold it off. “If you want to try the spell, you should do it at the house. Leave me here and go!”

  “I can’t leave you!” She takes a step toward us, the book like a shield before her.

  The raksasa screams louder and tries to take to the air, but I push harder against it, ignoring the web of pain in my back—if it gets into the sky, it’ll be free to strike down again, and I don’t know where it will strike. And I don’t know how much fight I have left in me; already shadows are crowding around the edges of my vision.

  “Go, now!” I roar, looking back at her as the creature snaps its jaws over my head, a low, guttural growl rumbling in its chest. Angel thrusts her chin out, but I can see in her eyes she knows I’m right.

  “Bavar . . .”

  “You have to let me do this,” I say, turning to her, still straining to keep the raksasa from getting to her. “I let it out. I swore I never would, and it’s happened already.” I feel sick at the thought. I haven’t even been doing this for a year and already I’ve failed. “Let me finish this while you go and start the spell. I’ll be there soon . . .”

  “You promise?” Her eyes dart up to the monster, then back down to me. “Bavar, you have to promise. You can’t lose this one.”

  “I won’t,” I grunt, turning back to the monster, ignoring fresh pain in my back as it rears up again, ash falling. For a second I’m in tune with everything. I can hear the snow falling, Angel’s feet pounding over the frozen ground, the murmur of conversation in the school. The moon is a bright ball in the sky, coming toward me, faster and faster as I stretch up, shadows melding all around me, and I look the creature in the eye.

  I never wanted to fight. I still don’t know when it will change, when the strength in me will kill the creature instead of sending it back to its world. The thought of becoming a killer is terrifying; it chills me, makes me hesitate. The monster unfurls its wings, heads into the sky. I grab one of its powerful hind legs and hang on, and we are stuck there. I’m too heavy for it to fly, and it’s too strong for me to bring down.

  “Run, Angel,” I whisper, as the moon winks out.

  Angel

  The house is in darkness. It looms over the hill, the light of the moon a pale, shadowy thing that accentuates its oddness.

  I left him there.

  I left him fighting a monster, with my foster mother and all those other people just yards away.

  I shove the book into my bag and scramble through the hole in the gate. Twisted strands of iron clutch at my clothes, and for a moment I’m almost crying with panic, just at the thought of everything that might be happening at the school.

  Come on, Angel, says my mother’s voice. It’s easy. Just one step at a time, remember?

  “It’s not easy,” I whisper through hot tears, finally clearing the mess of the gate and striding up the driveway. The house is quiet before me, the sense of it different somehow, like something broke along with the gate when the creature escaped.

  You can do this, Dad says, deep inside, where he is with me always. You know you can. Bavar knows it too; he’s relying on you . . .

  I creep around the house, avoiding the main steps to the door. I don’t want to face Eva or Sal. I don’t want to have to explain what I’m doing, or where Bavar is. They don’t seem to have even noticed what’s happening; there’s no movement, no flurry of panic. I skirt to the tower at the side and grab at bunches of ivy and crevices in stone and I climb up, my legs trembling, hands already sore, hoping that somehow I’ll be able to get in at the top.

  It is not possible to surprise a house where everything inside is alive.

  A little gargoyle I’ve never noticed before starts howling as I climb over the ledge of the balcony.

  “Shh!” I hiss.

  “Angel-girl, it’s angel-girl,” it calls in a singsong voice. “She’s here to save the day!”

  “Stop it,” I demand. “You’ll wake the whole house.”

  “’Tis already awake, my dear,” it says with an evil little grin. “Houses like this don’t sleep while skies are glowing and small girls fight like warriors!”

  Nonsense.

  I force the door open and step into the warmth of the house, glad to be away from the gargoyle and the shadows of the outside.

  Mind, it’s not a lot better on the inside.

  “Focus, Angel,” I tell myself, marching over to the bronze plinth and whisking away the cloth.

  “Angel!” booms Bavar’s grandfather. “And you brought the book—well done!”

  “How do I make the spell work?” I demand. “One of them got loose. Bavar is fighting it at the school—I need to close the rift.”

  “Bavar is fighting it at the school?” His voice is suitably horrified. “He won’t forgive himself if anything happens there—he has never forgiven his parents for what they did. And that was on me.” He sighs. “I didn’t teach his mother how to manage this place. I thought I’d live forever, that I would always be here to keep the barrier strong. She had no idea how difficult it was just to maintain it. She had no real practice in fighting the raksasa; I’d kept it all away from her. She met Fabian and they got caught up in the glamour of it all, the magic, even the fighting—it became a way of life. They forgot about the barrier that protected the rest of the world. And then it was too late.” He looks up at me, his eyes startled, as if he’d forgotten I was even there. “You paid the price for that, the most terrible price. And now here you are, trying to make up for my mistakes . . .” He shakes his head. “Read the spell, Angel. Read it with your whole heart, and give it everything you have. Nobody can ask more than that of any being. I only wish I could do it myself.”

  “You can’t,” I say, trying not to think too deeply about what he’s just said. There’s no time for it now. “If I close the rift while Bavar is still fighting the raksasa, what will happen to it?”

  “Either Bavar will win, or the monster,” the bronze says. “Without a way back to its own world the raksasa cannot simply disappear. It will be a fight to the death.” He looks at me, his eyes gleaming.
“Bavar will win. He has the strength of ten men, and the training to do it. You need not worry about that.”

  “But if he kills it, if he actually kills it, then he won’t be Bavar anymore—he’ll be all those things he never wanted to be!”

  “And that will be for the best, if you cannot close the rift,” he says, shaking his head. “Because if you cannot close the rift, he will spend his life fighting them. He will need to harden his heart.”

  But that’s his biggest fear. I look at the bronze, and I can see that his grandfather knows it too.

  “I’ll close it,” I say. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll close it.”

  He winks at me. “Good luck, Angel . . .”

  I run out of the door and down the narrow steps, and there’s a warp in the air all around me as I go, as the house comes alive in my wake.

  “We have to do this,” I whisper, running down the corridor to the old part of the house.

  “We do, we do,” echo the ancestors on the wall.

  Bavar

  “You want to kill things,” I say, my head pounding as I look into the raksasa’s burning eyes. They’re enormous, threaded through with gold veins that seem to lead me inward, so that it’s hard to look away.

  “And you do not? You do not eat meat?” The creature snorts dark smoke that billows out into the night air and fills my lungs, makes me cough.

  “That’s different . . . ,” I say.

  “Tell me why.”

  I blink, try to clear my eyes. The monster is not talking to me. It’s the poison from its claws making me hear things, that’s all.

  “Can’t you all just go back?” I ask, as we circle each other. Its black-red wings are like sails trailing out over the frozen ground, sweeping through the frost.

  “Back?” It makes a move forward, its tail winding out and snapping down, missing me by inches. I step back slowly, keeping my head up. “You opened a gateway to a place we had never known,” it says in its strange, deep, smoke-filled voice. “Where food was plentiful, and the air was cool, and now you say no, it’s not for you, you may not have it.” It darts at me, its neck stretched as it screams in frustration. “What beast would act differently? Would you put a chicken in front of a starving wolf and curse the wolf for eating?”