Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel)

by Dittemore, Shannon

  My brain spins. “They can’t?”

  Another smile that reaches Canaan’s eyes. “No, and they know it. But they will do everything in their power to repair the damage once it’s torn. They can’t afford for humanity to see the Celestial. For humanity to see them disrobed.”

  “But Michael? Michael and his forces will fight.”

  “They will. They’re here, fighting already. With the Sabres here in Stratus, they chose to attack from above. But we must hold the ground here. You must fight here.”

  “I’ll do anything, Canaan. Anything. But how?”

  “You keep praying. You keep worshiping. You keep fighting the fear your celestial eyes show you. Because it’s growing, Elle. Fear is all over Stratus. Your friends and neighbors don’t have your gift; they can’t see the war brewing overhead, but many of them can feel it. Soon there won’t be a soul in this town unaffected. And so few know how to fight. Most of them don’t know they have the ability to contest the terror that descends from above. Your prayers, your worship—they help more than you know.” He stands now, his face alive, his body radiating the importance of what he’s about to say.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  “The people of Stratus have begun to dream,” he says.

  Everything about that sentence is confusing. “They’re having nightmares like I am?”

  “Your dreams were just the firstfruits, I believe. Others are dreaming as well. About the past. About the future.”

  “Like Marco,” I say. “But I thought it was the halo that made him dream.”

  “It certainly sped the process up, didn’t it?”

  “You should have seen it, Canaan. It was crazy. As soon as he put the halo on his head . . .”

  “Yes, I think Marco’s a dreamer. Many in Stratus will dream for a time because the veil is thinning, because the invisible feels closer to them than it has ever felt. But I don’t think time or distance will strip Marco of his dreams now that they’ve begun. Just as I am certain nothing could ever take your sight.”

  He smiles, but the thought isn’t altogether comfortable.

  “At least my nightmares will fade,” I say.

  “They may fade, Elle, yes. But I know this: for now, for as long as they’re given, you must allow yourself next to Canaan’s.t for a to dream.”

  I know the dreams are important. The Throne Room wouldn’t have sent them otherwise. I just hate the nightmares. Hate that they feel so real. Hate that I never seem to be myself in them, that I have to watch through someone else’s eyes, feel someone else’s pain.

  But others are dreaming in Stratus. There’s a measure of comfort in that. That we’re all in this together. It seems I’m just one dreamer in a town haunted by a past we can’t piece together.

  The Celestial comes into view again, and I watch as Canaan’s wings flutter and sag.

  “You need to heal,” I say.

  “I know. I will. Brielle, how much of the Celestial are you seeing?”

  “Bits and pieces still. Sometimes more.”

  “What about now?”

  “I see your celestial form, but the trees, most everything else I see with my terrestrial eyes. There’s a demon in the treetop here, but he’s small.” I cock my head. “And blind, I think.”

  “A Vulture,” he says, glancing at the thing.

  “What?”

  “They’re Vultures. Most have no official assignment, having been out of touch with the Prince and those in command for centuries. Simply put, they’ve been left too long in the celestial light.”

  I step closer, unafraid of the strange bat-like thing before me. He has no muscle to speak of, his legs curled and useless beneath him. His wings are nothing but a warped skeletal frame, the charred remains of feathers clinging like melted wax to black bone. He grips the uppermost branches of the tree with talons that are brittle and cracked, his nose sniffing at the air. Like Damien’s, his body is coated with fear. It drips down the branches of the tree. With my celestial vision coming piecemeal, it looks like he’s melting in the sunlight.

  “This is what Damien feared he’d become,” I say.

  “Precisely.”

  “Why is he here?”

  “Because Darkness has gathered. It’s thick here, a canopy of demons caging the town in. One thing that’s fairly certain is just how scared humanity is of the dark. Vultures feed on fear, spread it if they can. But mostly they’re trying to survive. There will be others, Elle. They will carry terror to the citizens of Stratus, tainting the dreams they’ve been given, turning them dark. Fear will spread like the disease it is.”

  “It’s hard to believe he was once an angel like you.”

  I watch the Vulture a moment more. His weak, pained form might conjure sympathy from another, but I s next to Canaan’s.t for aee him for what he is. He’s a parasite. A leech.

  “Do you know what your name means, Gabrielle?”

  I turn away from the sickly demon. “It comes from Gabriel, doesn’t it? One of the archangels. He is a messenger,” I say. “A Herald, right? He appeared to both Mary and Joseph. And to the shepherds the night Christ was born. Good tidings of great joy and all that.”

  Canaan’s eyes sparkle down at me. I’ll take that over a gold star any day.

  “Gabriel is your namesake, yes, but it means ‘God is my strength.’”

  I imagine that phrase as a tattoo inked onto my shoulder blade, as the etching on a shiny Roman breastplate I’d wear into battle.

  “Let God be your strength, Gabrielle. You cannot do this alone. We don’t have time for you to try.”

  “I won’t,” I promise, feeling every bit of that responsibility.

  He pulls me against his chest, and I’m surrounded by six and a half feet of angel. He smells of fire and sky. He smells of promise.

  When he releases me, his terrestrial form is gone. He’s transferred to the Celestial. His lips are still, but I hear his voice in my head.

  “It never occurred to me that I’d come across another human I could trust as much as Jake. I thank the Creator that I have you. I’m honored to fight alongside you, Brielle.”

  His white eyes stir, as though a wind has brought a fresh supply of oxygen to the twin flames there. All four of his wings spread wide. The inner ones are sinewy, visible mostly in the way they smudge th such an evil

  4

  Jake

  A chunk of sandy brown hair hangs in Jake’s face. He tries to raise a hand to brush it away, but pain flares through his body. Something’s wrong with his arm, but he refuses to move again; his breath is nothing but gasps and spit as he stares at the gray floor beneath him. And that’s Army of Light above.

  Pain has made his focus lazy, and it takes a minute for his surroundings to come into view. They do not inspire confidence. Aged and crumbling walls of faded brick contain him. A rectangular window, high and narrow, is cut into the block on his right, its glass thick and dark. The light that makes its way through is dirty and succeeds only in coloring the room in shades of shadow. A metal staircase is screwed into the wall opposite him, a flickering bulb swinging on a chain above it. The stairs seem to curve slightly as they make their way up, but he can’t be sure; everything about the room feels misshapen. Still, he’s fairly certain he’s being held in a basement.

  Teetering racks line the wall to his left, but even the shelves are sparse—a canned good here and there, everything thick with dust. The place smells of mildew and rot, and the thing that roused him moments ago: it smells of doughnuts.

  Cinnamon and sugar twists. He’s almost certain.

  His stomach aches with hunger, but for the first time in his life the sweet smell makes him sick. His body arches against the ropes that hold him to the metal chair and he dry-heaves. The chair tips to his right and he falls—the chair with him. Pain forces away thoughts of food as his body contorts.

  He gasps and tries to shift off his side, but it’s useless. His arm is broken or his shoulder dislocated.
Maybe both. It’s impossible to tell with the chair on its side and his body tied this way. The pain seems to be coming from everywhere, but he’s got to get out of here.

  He kicks against his binds, but the action does nothing except send slivers of sweat-inducing pain through his chest and arm. He kicks harder, panic growing. Memories build like black water behind a dam as he flails. They threaten to break through, to drown him.

  He and Brielle in the red orchard, her hair spilling over her shoulders as he warns her about Damien, tells her how dangerous the demon’s new eyes have made him. Dirt smearing from his fingers to her face as he wipes the tears away.

  And then she was gone.

  The panic he felt in that moment rivals what he feels now. Was it friend or foe that took her from him? He didn’t know. Not until Canaan pulled Jake into the Celestial. Only then did he see that it was Helene who had taken Brielle. It was Helene who held her safely.

  And then demons. Everywhere demons. Canaan fought hard, but there were too many. Razor-sharp daggers sliced a gaping hole through the wings that held Jake tight to the Shield’s chest, and he fell.

  That’s the last thing Jake remembers.

  Falling.

  “I enlisted once. US Army.”

  Jake goes still. Fear wraps his arms and legs, holding him tighter than any ro relief in that.

  nt1Ape ever could. He opens his eyes, and though his face is pressed against the floor now, he does his best to peer around the room. He sees no one. The basement seems just as it did before: quiet, vacant. But it’s a lie. He knows the voice snaking into his head. Knows it. Hates it.

  Damien’s here.

  “Enlisted may not be the correct word,” the voice continues, “but you understand. I learned a lot during my time with the Special Forces. It’s amazing what you can do with a little duct tape, nylon cord, and a couple zip ties. No, I don’t imagine you’ll be breaking free of that chair anytime soon.” Damien’s voice is confident, cocky even, and for a demon who doesn’t talk much, he seems anxious to say what’s on his mind. “Haunting the army gave me access to . . . well, to boys just like you. Warriors who think they fight for noble causes. Children broken by war. Soldiers who think they can fix this world.”

  Pain flares through Jake’s body again. He smells Damien’s breath—sulfur and decay—feels it on his brow. And then the demon materializes in front of him. His knee presses into Jake’s shoulder, his human face scrubbed clean and shaven, his terrestrial body clothed in camouflage fatigues.

  “Good soldiers.” He spits the words now, running a finger over the Special Forces tab on his left sleeve. “Brave. Bent on helping others. On healing the broken. But like you, they lack the ability to heal themselves.”

  Damien grabs Jake by the neck, lifts the chair, and slams it down upright. Metal rings out against the concrete floor, and the once-sturdy chair wobbles. Jake cries out in pain, but he makes note of Damien’s mistake, pressing his foot against the leg of the chair. He hears the grind of the screw. It’s loose now.

  “Why do you think that is? Like me, you can heal others. I’ve seen you do it. But here you are, bent and bleeding.” The demon crouches before him. “My body heals itself. Why doesn’t yours, Child of God?”

  There’s something in the question. Something of need. Something of ignorance. Jake blows air through his teeth in an effort to control the pain and rage bubbling in his stomach, a dangerous chemical reaction that will yield nothing but more of the same.

  “Because . . .” Jake’s first attempt to speak produces only scratches. He clears his throat and tries again. “Because we need one another.”

  Damien’s black eyes widen. Like a dog who suddenly understands human language. No, it’s more than that, Jake thinks. This dog doesn’t just understand. He remembers.

  “You’ve forgotten what it’s like, haven’t you?” His lips are dry, cracking with the effort. “You’ve been working on your own for so long, you’ve forgotten that you can’t do this alone.”

  Damien barks a laugh and stands. He disappears and returns before Jake’s had time to blink. The army uniform is gone now, replaced by black cargo pants and a em; text-align: left; margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.D1Agray T-shirt stretched tight across his broad chest. A gun is strapped to his waist. He looks unstoppable, unbreakable, but Jake knows better.

  “What can’t I do alone?” Damien asks.

  Jake runs a dry tongue across his lips. “Win,” he says. “You can’t win.”

  The right side of Damien’s mouth curls like a villainous mustache, but his black eyes have lost their shine.

  “I’m not the one bound hand and foot,” he says.

  “Aren’t you?”

  5

  Brielle

  The sun is an overripe grapefruit high above when I step into the field between Jake’s house and mine. Today’s about as warm as it gets here, mideighties probably. With the Celestial bleeding through, it was warmer in the orchard. Out from beneath the red trees, Stratus feels almost big, the sky too vast, everything too blue.

  I catch the occasional demon swimming through the ocean of air above. Their warped bodies are foreign and out of place in the terrestrial sky. If I look hard enough I fear the Terrestrial will peel away altogether and I’ll see the entire demonic legion above. I don’t want to see the Palatine. Not right now. I told Jake once that I had a problem with blind faith, but right now it doesn’t sound half bad. Seeing is harder than believing.

  I search the sky for Canaan, picking through it carefully, not looking too hard at any one spot, but I don’t expect to find him. He’s healing somewhere, I hope. I wonder how far he had to travel to find a safe place. Did he have to pass through the Palatine to find one?

  I check my cell phone again out of habit, but there’s no missed call from Jake and nothing from Helene. I jam it into the pocket of my jean shorts. Clutched in my other fist is an envelope of pictures. They’re old pictures, taken when I was young, when my mother was in the hospital

  There are pictures of Mom and Dad. Pictures of the three of us. There are even pictures of Miss Macy and Pastor Noah, of the pastor’s wife, Becky—all of them visiting Mom at the hospital.

  At Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland.

  Why she was being treated there instead of at Stratus General or at any of the hospitals between here and there is just one of the many questions I have for Dad.

  The other questions revolve around the presence of Olivia Holt in my mother’s hospital room. The same Olivia Holt who blew into Stratus like a breath of fresh air, latched onto my dad long enough to encourage his drinking habit, and then left with Marco and the halo.

  I know she’s working with Damien. It’s a piece of intel Helene’s been able to glean from the Commander and his Army of Light above.

  I have to keep reminding myself that there’s an Army of Light above.

  That their commander, Michael, has surrounded the Palatine. I wish I could see the fight from their side, from heaven’s side. I wish I could see what the angels of light look like in battle. It’s miserable to be here, on the earthly side. With the exception of the Sabres, my intermittent celestial sight picks up mostly the demonic: the rear flank of the Palatine. The stragglers, the Vultures, the ones stupid enough to engage the Sabres on this side while an entire army readies their attack from above.

  Even after hours of worship, the sight of these stragglers hovering so near reminds me just how much stands between Jake and me. Not just distance, but demons—actual demons—thousands of them. I’ve faced a demon before, several actually, but this? This is . . .

  Impossible.

  It’s impossible.

  I’ll never see him again.

  The thought carves out a place in my chest with a spade so sharp I barely feel the cut. And before I know it, the impossibility of it all is the only thing filling my mind.

  Fear is shoveled in with the very spade that hacked me open, and I feel it now. I feel the fear chill my insides. My h
eart fights back, beating fast. I can see the fear now. It drips from my fingers like motor oil. I have to blink twelve, thirteen times before the sight is swallowed by the Terrestrial. I clench the pictures more tightly in my fist, forcing the tremors in my hands to slow.

  It doesn’t matter how far Jake is from me. Doesn’t matter what fills the chasm that separates us. It only matters that he can’t be separated from the love of the One who has the power to save him. And as painful as it is to admit it, that’s not me.

  I can’t save him.

  ” Jake says. “inow But I can fight.

  The Sabres worship on this front, fighting in their own way. Canaan and Helene too are doing what they can. And even Jake. Somewhere Jake is fighting, I know that.

  It’s time for me to do my part.

  Wiping the sweat from my brow, I make my way up the front steps of the house Canaan and Jake share. Affectionately: the old Miller place. My feet are bare and dirty. Ignoring the smears of red dirt they leave on the stairs, I push through the always unlocked door and into the living room.

  It’s not as hot in here as it usually is. It’s no wonder, with all that once warmed it taken from Stratus . . . just another thought I have to fight to replace. I push toward the bedroom and through the memories of the last evening I spent here with Jake.

  It started off so well, so peaceful. A bucket of ice cream and two spoons. And then the two of us sorting through old bulletins, reading news reports, researching the spiritual history of Stratus. It was late when Marco returned for his stuff, when he left with Jake’s bag and the halo. I can’t believe he did it on purpose, won’t believe he took it at Olivia’s bidding.

  And then a photo appeared in the chest. Just the back of some guy’s neck and the two words inked there. Jessica Rose, it said. Jake’s mom. Stamped on the back of the photo were the words Evil Deeds Tattoo Parlor and an address. Jake took that picture and headed into Portland, hoping to find out more information about the parents who had abandoned him.

  But not before we fought.