Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel)

by Dittemore, Shannon

  “Thank you for coming,” she says.

  Jake places his hand on my back, and I remember why we’re here.

  “Mrs. Glascoe, may I see Regina?” I ask. “Would that be okay?”

  She mops at her face with a tattered Kleenex. “Of course,” she says. “Of course.”

  The family parts for us, a lot like the fear did for Canaan. I keep close to Jake, close to his warmth. I don’t seem to have any of my own left.

  And there she is.

  Regina.

  The sheet’s been tucked around her small body, but her face is clear, her eyes shut, her hands crossed gently on her stomach. There are still bandages on her head, her jet-black hair spilling over them, over the crisp, white pillow.

  We step to her side and I pray. As hard as I can.

  There’s a chair next to her hospital bed, and Jake sits. He’s trying to get closer, trying to figure out how to lay a hand on her without it being weird. Sitting on his knee, I take his hand. After a moment, I lean forward and lay our knotted fingers on Regina’s open palm.

  But there’s just nothing. I shift, letting Jake’s palm touch hers, but I know the minute it does that she’s gone. Jake’s hand is as warm as ever, but I know what it feels like when his gift is flowing, and this isn’t it. Jake’s body shakes with understanding.

  I hear the rustle of Canaan’s wings, and I look up. He hovers over us, over Regina.

  33

  Marco

  Marco wanted to go in&hoor wrap my arms with her, but the detective shook his head, told him to make himself comfortable in the waiting room. With a cold cup of coffee, he watched as Liv followed the man back, her arms laden with files, the halo bright on her wrist.

  Beyond the duty officer, a series of bulletproof windows gives him a glimpse of officers milling around, paperwork changing hands, coffee cups being filled, but for a police station it’s quieter than he expected.

  Emptier.

  It’s early. The clock in the waiting room says it’s almost four a.m.

  Last night, after Damien, Liv called the police. She couldn’t leave Henry there, dead in the corner of her office. It was late when the officers showed up, late when they sat down and gave their statements. Even later when the coroner took Henry’s body away.

  The more Marco thinks about it, the more he realizes what a disaster that investigation’s going to be. He and Liv were the only ones in the room with Henry, and they both had plenty of motive. But once the body was gone, Liv was determined to get the rest of it done. To turn Henry’s files over.

  She always meant to do it, he thinks. But she needed something, a push, the courage. Maybe it was the halo, maybe it was Elle. Whatever it was, she’s here.

  Helene’s here too, said she’d stay with them. He can’t see her, but she’s probably in with Liv. Marco settles back in the plastic chair, takes a sip of the syrup masquerading as coffee, and closes his eyes.

  He’s not scared anymore.

  Not afraid to dream.

  34

  Brielle

  Entering Stratus is no easy thing. The sight that meets us is staggering. The orange sky seems almost blotted out as we approach, filled instead with the sights and sounds of heavenly warfare.

  The colors of worship are everywhere, ribbons and tendrils curling high. From the angels of light, no doubt, but also from the ground. I watch them rise from beneath us, and I know there are people praying, worshiping—there are people fighting below. I wonder who they are. Miss Macy, maybe. Becky, Pastor Noah. Others from church. But the worship is . . . it’s almost lavish. There’s just so much of it. I didn’t realize there were so many worshipers here.

  Canaan draws his sword, dipping, his wings pulling inward.

  Masses of dark, writhing bodies collide with those of color and light. I’m&er ap A sure there’s organization in the chaos, but it’s too much to take in. I close my eyes and try not to think about Regina or the battle raging around me. I try not to think about the dark halo sitting in the chest at the old Miller place, but when at last we hit the ground, it’s all that consumes me.

  I don’t have to see all of this.

  I don’t have to be a casualty.

  I have a choice.

  “I’ll be back soon,” Canaan says. “The Commander called to me on approach. I need to go.”

  And then he’s gone, and it’s just Jake and me. We stand on the porch of the old Miller place. A place that should be fairly safe. A house that’s always offered strength, but what I see has me wishing for the safety of my last nightmare. Because what’s going on out here is truly terrifying.

  Only Jake can’t see it.

  I step down onto the second stair, trembling but unable to look away.

  “What’s wrong?” Jake says, walking up behind me. “What do you see?”

  I’m sure he sees a gorgeous moon, a starry expanse, trees clinging to their nighttime moisture. But me? I’m frozen to these wooden stairs, fear pooling at my feet, heavenly carnage demanding my attention in the empty field across the highway.

  “Are you seeing the Celestial?”

  My nod is stiff but it’s all I can manage. “There are f-f-feathers everywhere,” I say. “White feathers.”

  Jake turns toward the highway, and while I can’t be sure of what he sees, feathers—glossy, shimmering feathers—rain down like snow. Vibrant, glowing bodies—six or seven of them—lie curled in the dirt. I can’t see the celestial sky, just the injured angels, just the remnants of glorious wings.

  And the smell of sulfur. The putrid stench of demonic destruction. It stings my nostrils and burns my lungs, but I don’t care. It tells me the Palatine are losing soldiers too. I look again at our injured—at the broken angels. They’re here, injured but healing, while the demons that have been destroyed fester in the fiery chasm.

  And then I hear the clanging of swords and the grunt of battle. I stumble down the remaining stairs, Jake next to me, keeping me upright.

  His white eyes are wide. “Tell me,” he says.

  I crane my neck to the night sky. “My vision is coming in part right now, and they’re hard to see in the darkness,” I say. “But they’re close. The Palatine.”

  “And the Sabres?”

  “I don’t see . . next to Canaan’s.b his hand.” I shake my head. “Wait.” A song mingles in the cold night breeze. Quiet, haunting. “I hear them.”

  I grab Jake’s hand and pull him with me around the house and through the field separating the old Miller place from mine. The needles of a pine tree scratch at my face and neck, but I press through them anyway. I clear its branches and trip to a clumsy stop.

  “What is it?” Jake asks, his eyes on me.

  “The veil,” I say, looking at the orchard, still red, still fiery. “Look.”

  It’s nearly torn through. Or worn through, maybe. That seems to be a more appropriate way to describe what I see. The cosmic material of the veil is all but transparent, rubbed thin by the violence of the Sabres’ song. Mere inches off the ground, it flutters; yanked, it seems, from the threads that hold it firmly in place.

  And then before me, an angel falls. Enormous and silver. I scream and move backward, stumbling over my own feet, over Jake. Finally falling to the ground.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jake says, crouching next to me. “What do you see?”

  “It’s a Sabre,” I say. “He’s been cut down.”

  I tell myself to breathe, to calm down, but I can’t. I can’t.

  “I’m sorry you have to see it, Elle. So sorry.” Jake reaches down for my hand. His voice is steady, but he’s bleeding fear. His shirt, his hands, they’re covered in it. “He’ll heal. He just needs time.”

  But I have to know. There are only twelve, and I have to know. I crawl forward on all fours, circling around the dagger-like wings. But it’s him. It is, and I know it before I reach his head. I smell the incense of his worship rising off his body, so distinctive. I see the lingering wisps of praise lifting into th
e sky. All so familiar. All so Virtue. And then I see his face, his beautiful face, and I can’t take another eyeful of tragedy. I won’t.

  I jump to my feet, run back around the house and through the door to the old Miller place. Every part of me is shaking. Every part of me is terrified. I don’t want to see anymore. Not the pain and sadness that surround a dead child. Not the demonic forces hemming in our town. Not the fear that Jake pretends not to feel.

  I hear him behind me, but I don’t stop. And then I’m in Canaan’s room and I’m kicking the lid off the chest. I stare down at the dark halo for only a moment before digging it out, before sliding it onto my wrist. And then, like an addict, I close my eyes and wait for the drug of blindness to seep into my system.

  It moves slowly this time, slower than it did at Danakil. Up my arm and across my chest, dulling my anxiety, slowing my heart. After a minute the chill is gone, but so is the heat. I open my eyes, expecting normality. Expecting all the peace that not knowing should bring.

  But instead I see Jake.

  Standing in the doorway of Canaan’s room.

  Heartbroken.

  “It’s a lie, Elle. You can’t escape this. You will always see.”

  But I don’t want to talk about any of it. I want blindness. Just for tonight. Just for now. I push past him and into the hall, through the living room and out the door. I watch my feet on the stairs, careful not to stumble, careful not to fall, but with my eyes on the ground I run into something.

  Into someone.

  My hands fly up to protect my face, but the collision is a soft one.

  “Dad? What are you doing here?”

  “Checking on you. You haven’t been answering your cell.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t even know where it is.”

  “Where have you been? Where’s your car? And what’s this?” He grabs my wrist, flips it over, and then hollers a question over my head, up the stairs. “Heck, kid, ain’t one fancy angel bracelet enough?”

  He’s talking to Jake. He must be. But I don’t turn and Jake doesn’t answer.

  But Dad tries again, addressing Jake more quietly this time. “You all right, kid? I asked you a question. Isn’t one halo enough?”

  “I thought so,” Jake says, disappointment marking every word.

  I tear my arm away from Dad, and I run through the field that separates my house from Jake’s, and I just keep running. This forest area runs parallel to the highway, so in another mile or two I’ll spill out into downtown Stratus.

  I hear shouts behind me, but I don’t stop. I’ve disappointed everyone, I know. But it’s just another thing I don’t want to see.

  The trees thicken, and I have to slow as I dodge through them. My stomach aches, but I inhale the night and push on. I try not to think about the halo on my wrist. I tell myself it’s just for now. Just for tonight. Just until the destruction stops. But as I run I breathe in the lush green forest, I breathe in the darkness that surrounds me, and I don’t know if I have the willpower to take it off.

  Eventually my feet find the pavement again, and I slow to a walk as Jelly’s comes into view. The neon jelly jar’s painted Main Street purple. I step up onto the sidewalk and through the front door, a bell jingling as I walk inside. It’s bright in here, and warm. The blue-and-white striped booths are all but empty.

  35

  Jake

  Jake slams his way down the hall, past the study, past Canaan’s room. His door is stuck on something and won’t open, so he kicks his way in. The door splinters and gives, but Jake still has to climb over several mountains of laundry to get to his bed.

  He tries to bury himself under the sheets there, tries not to think, tries not to want. He can’t believe she put the Prince’s halo on. Can’t believe she gave in. There aren’t words, just hurt. Just betrayal.

  The thoughts are unfair, he knows that, but he’s lost. Everything he thought he knew, gone.

  Outside, the light of the orchard has grown. It’s bright, lighting up his room. He slides his arms under his pillow, buries his face, but something slices his finger, something caught in his sheet. He sits up and pushes the pillow to the floor. It’s the picture, the one he meant to give Brielle as a surprise. But he’s broken it now, glass splinters poking through the wrapping. Carefully, he strips the paper away.

  He sees Elle.

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  36

  Brielle

  I wake to the sound of a ringing phone. But I’m groggy and slow, my eyes swollen from last night’s tears. I pat myself down looking for my cell, but it’s not here. It’s not my cell ringing anyway. It’s the phone next to Miss Macy’s bed.

  I’m at the hospital.

  In a chair.

  And I’m wearing the Prince’s halo.

  By the time these things occur to me, I’ve missed the call. The room is full of soft yellow light, day pressing its face to the window. Next to me, Miss Macy’s monitor makes easy whirring noises. Her eyes are still closed, her chest ris&d ap Aing and dropping slowly.

  “Good girl,” she says. “Don’t ever answer the phone before nine a.m. It encourages bad manners in the other party.”

  Despite my tear-stiffened face, I smile. “Morning, Miss Macy.”

  “Good morning, sweetness.” She opens her eyes then, glancing over my shoulder. Pastor Noah is still there, on his cot, snoring away. “To what do I owe this pleasure? You and the pastor? Did I sleep through a slumber party?”

  “I just wanted to see you,” I say.

  Her soft face wrinkles, a world of sadness in each new line. “They told you about Regina then.”

  I smooth the sheet with my hand. Fiddle with the necklace at my throat. Blink back the tears that seem inevitable.

  “I don’t know how to deal with all this,” I say.

  Her fingers find mine as the morning sounds of a hospital drift through the open door. Staffers shuffling breakfast carts down the hall; doctors knocking on doors, checking on patients; the first visitors of the day signing in.

  Her head rolls toward me. “I had a strange dream last night.”

  “Did you?” I ask, dropping my haloed hand to my lap. I don’t really want to talk about dreams.

  “I did,” she says, life rushing to her face, turning her cheeks pink. “Help me sit up, will you? There’s a button just there.”

  It takes us a bit to get her upright. Her abdomen is healing but still tender. We have to adjust the bed to the right angle, shift her cords and blankets several times before she’s comfortable. It’s while I’m attempting to straighten the collar of her gown that she notices the mirrored halo on my wrist.

  “How long have you had that?” she says.

  I’ve been trying not to think about it, trying to ignore everything that happened last night. Especially my selfish tirade.

  Miss Macy situated, I sit back in my chair. “Since the day before your accident, I think.”

  “Where’s your other one?” she asks. “The one Jake gave you?” She looks a little disoriented now, like the move from horizontal to vertical was a really bad idea. I don’t want to talk about the halo—either one, actually—but I don’t really think Miss Macy does either. Her eyes are moving slowly over my face, searching for something.

  “Are you all right?” I ask. “Can I get you anything? A drink, maybe? Breakfast?”

  “I want to tell you about my dream,” she says. next to Canaan’s.3 for a

  “Okay.” She’s so insistent, I’m curious despite my reservations.

  “There was a mirror,” she says, glancing at my wrist. “A very big, very long mirror. It hung over Stratus like a dome. Like a gigantic canopy.”

  I run a finger over the halo, my throat tight.

  “Mostly we just ignored the mirror. We went about our business. The things we do every day. Work and play, family, church.” Her eyes drift from mine to the window and then back to mine again, her hands twisting in her sheets. “But then a day came when a great black river b
roke through the streets. Up through Main, bursting through, flooding the town. Roofs were lifted off buildings, homes were destroyed. Lives were lost.”

  She clears her throat and reaches for the glass of water at her bedside. I hand it to her, and she sips through the straw. “It was in our desperation that we realized we needed help. That there was no one in town who could save us. Help had to come from outside, it had to come from . . .”

  “The heavens,” I whisper.

  “Yes, from the heavens. But when we looked skyward, all we saw was a great reflection of ourselves. Our own misery, our own failures. Our weaknesses. Our own blackness. We couldn’t see past it. So we wallowed. We waded through it. We succumbed to the misery of our circumstances.”

  I see the regret on her face, the loss. “What happened then, Miss Macy?”

  “Fire,” she says, “a rain of fire fell from above. From above the mirror even, and at first we couldn’t see it, we could only hear the hammering of the fire against the back of the mirror. We didn’t know what was happening. It was just noise, just hellish, terrifying noise, and we thought the worst had come. We ran.”

  Her breathing is suddenly labored, and I can’t tell if it’s fear that’s making it hard for her to breathe or if it’s sadness. Or maybe something else. Maybe it’s something to do with her recovery. I try to hook my finger into the dark halo, try to tug it free so I can call on my celestial eyes, but it’s too tight and my finger won’t fit.

  “But then a crack.”

  “In the mirror?”

  “And then another and another. And soon the whole thing, this massive looking glass, was splintered. And then the first shard fell.” She turns her face to mine now. “You can imagine how that panicked us. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. But as the mirror fell ow. His sister

  37

  Brielle

  I’ve just sat down on the curb in front of Fancy Hill’s Barbershop when Jake steps out of Photo Depot and onto Main. All sorts of angsty feelings war in my gut, but there’s no condemnation in his eyes when he sits next to me. I want to curl into his chest. I want to apologize. I want to hear him say he loves me.