Unearthly u-1

by Cynthia Hand

  “Hello, Samjeeza,” she says.

  “I suppose this one is yours.” He glances down at me. I can still feel him in my head.

  His desire for me faded the moment he saw my mom. He thinks she’s truly beautiful.

  It’s her, he realizes, who I remind him of. Her sweet spirit. Her courage. So like her father.

  “You surprise me, Meg,” he says in a friendly tone. “I would never have taken you for the mothering kind. And so late in life, too.”

  “Take your hands off her now, Sam,” she says wearily like he’s annoying the crap out of her.

  His grip tightens. “Don’t be disrespectful.”

  “She’s only a quarter, not worth your time. She’s little more than human.”

  Her eyes flicker to mine, for a second. She has a plan.

  “No,” says Sam stiffly. “I want her. Unless you’d rather it was you?”

  “Go to hell,” she snaps.

  His anger feels like a rising mushroom cloud to me, although the expression on his face doesn’t change.

  “All right,” he says.

  He murmurs something in Angelic, a word that for once I don’t understand, and suddenly the air around us shimmers and splits. There’s a shrieking sound, a tearing. The ground under our feet jolts slightly, the way it feels when someone drops something heavy on the floor. Then the earth I know peels away into a gray world.

  It’s like the forest we were in but diminished to a bleak and hopeless wasteland. The shape of the land is the same as the place we left, the side of a mountain with trees, but here the trees have no leaves or needles. They’re just bare, gray trunks and twisted branches against the grainy, rumbling sky. There’s no color or smell or sound beyond occasional thunder. No birds. The light is fading like the sun is setting, and black storm clouds roll over what had been, on earth, a perfectly blue sky.

  I’ve always envisioned hell as all hot fire and brimstone, lakes of sulfur, demons with horns and glowing eyes torturing the souls of the damned. But here the air’s so cold I can see my breath. A slimy kind of mist passes over, chilling me to the bone. I’m shivering like crazy.

  Mom is brighter than everything else, still in black and white but like the contrast on her has been turned way up. Her skin glows radiantly white. Her hair is inky black.

  The Black Wing loosens his grip on my arm. We both know I have nowhere to run now. He looks way more relaxed. In hell he’s bigger, taller, and meatier, if that’s possible. More powerful. His eyes gleam. He closes them for a moment, inhales deeply like he’s enjoying the feel of the air, and then his wings appear behind him.

  They’re huge — much larger than Mom’s or mine — and an oily, absolute black, a dark hole opening up behind him, sucking all light into it.

  He smiles, a sad smile. He’s proud of himself. The transition to hell from where we were is no easy thing. He wants to impress my mother.

  “You’re a bigger fool than I thought,” Mom says bluntly. She doesn’t sound impressed. “You can’t keep us here.”

  That’s good news to me.

  “You forget who I am, Margaret.” He’s completely unruffled by her sass, charmed by it even. He’s being so patient. He prides himself on his patience. He knows she’s afraid. He’s waiting to see the cracks appear in her calm.

  “No,” answers my mother softly. “You forget who I am, Watcher.”

  I feel the fear stab through him, immediate and sharp. He’s not frightened of my mom, exactly, but someone else. Two people. I can see them vaguely in his mind, standing in the distance. Two men with snowy white wings. One with bright red hair and blazing blue eyes. The other, blond and golden-skinned and fierce, even though I can’t make out the particulars of his face.

  But he’s holding a flaming sword.

  “Who are they?” I whisper before I can stop myself.

  Sam glances down at me, frowning.

  “What did you say?”

  He probes my mind again, a momentary pressure, and suddenly it’s as if a door slams between my thoughts and his. His hand drops away from me like I’ve burned him. The second he’s not touching me anymore his thoughts disappear. The anger and sadness are cut in half. I feel like I can move again. I can breathe. I can run.

  I don’t think about it. I mash my foot down on his instep — not that that does any damage at all — and then dart forward, straight at my mother. She holds out her hand to me and I grab it. She tugs me behind her but doesn’t let go of my hand.

  The Black Wing makes a sound like a growl that has the hairs on the back of my arm standing on end. There’s no mistaking the look on his face.

  He will destroy us.

  He extends his wings. The clouds over us crackle with energy. Mom squeezes my hand.

  Close your eyes, she orders without speaking. I don’t know what shocks me more, that she can talk in my head or that she expects me to close my eyes at a moment like this. She doesn’t wait for me to obey. A bright light explodes around us.

  Wherever its rays touch there’s a hint of color and warmth.

  Glory.

  The Black Wing instantly retreats, shielding his eyes. His face contorts in pain. For once his expression reflects the way he truly feels, like he’s being eaten up from the inside out.

  Don’t look at him. Close your eyes, Mom orders again.

  I shut my eyes.

  Good girl, comes Mom’s voice in my head again. Now get out your wings.

  I can’t. One of them’s broken.

  It won’t matter.

  I summon my wings. There’s a flash of pain so intense that I gasp and almost open my eyes, but it only lasts a second. Heat sears along my wings, burning through muscle and sinew and bone, and then, like with the cut on my palm, the pain is gone.

  Not just my wings. The scratches on my arms and face, the bruises, the soreness in my shoulder. It’s all gone. I’m completely healed. Still terrified, but healed. And warm again.

  Are we still in hell? I ask Mom.

  Yes. I can’t get us back to earth by myself. I’m not that powerful. I need your help.

  What do I do?

  Think of earth. Think of green and growing things. Flowers, trees. Grass under your feet. Think of the parts you love.

  I picture the aspen outside our front window at home, rustling in the breeze, quivering, a thousand little waves of green, translucent leaves moving together like a dance. I remember Dad. Cutting out old credit cards in the shape of razors for me and the two of us shaving on Sunday mornings, dragging the plastic across my face, mimicking him. Meeting his warm gray eyes in the steamy mirror. I think of our house now and the smell of cedar and pine that instantly hits you when you walk in the door. Mom’s infamous coffeecake. Brown sugar melting on my tongue. And Tucker.

  Standing so close to him that we’re breathing the same air. Tucker.

  The ground beneath us trembles but Mom holds me fast.

  Perfect. Now open your eyes, she says. But do not let go of my hand.

  I blink in the bright light. We’re on earth again, standing almost exactly where we were before, the glory enclosing us like a heavenly force field. I smile. It feels like we’ve been gone for hours, even though I know it’s only been a few minutes. It’s so good to see color. Like I just woke up from a nightmare and everything is back to the way it should be.

  “You haven’t won, you know,” says that cold, familiar voice.

  My smile fades. Sam is still there, standing back, out of range of the glory, but looking at us cool and composed.

  “You can’t hold that forever,” he says.

  “We can hold it long enough,” Mom says.

  That answer makes him nervous. His eyes scan the sky quickly.

  “I don’t have to touch you.” He holds out his hand to us, palm facing up.

  Get ready to fly, says Mom in my head.

  Smoke drifts up from the Black Wing’s hand. Then a small flame. He stares at Mom.

  Her grip on me tightens as he turns h
is hand over and fire drips off of his fingers and onto the forest floor. It catches quickly in the dry brush, moving from the bushes up the trunk of the nearest tree. Sam stands in the middle of the fire completely untouched as great plumes of smoke billow up around him. I know we won’t be so lucky. Then he steps forward out of the sudden wall of smoke and looks at my mother.

  “I always thought you were the most beautiful of all the Nephilim,” he says.

  “That’s ironic, because I always thought you were the ugliest of all the angels.”

  It’s a good line. That I’ll give her.

  Black Wings don’t have the best sense of humor, I guess.

  Neither of us expect the stream of flame shooting from his hand. The fire strikes Mom in the chest and instantly catches her hair. The glory radiating off us blinks out.

  The second the glory’s gone, the angel is on us, his hand wrapped around Mom’s throat. He lifts her into the air. Her legs kick helplessly. Her wings flail. I try to pull my hand away from hers so I can fight him but she holds on to me tight. I shriek and beat at him with my free hand, yanking at his arm, but it’s no use.

  “No more happy thoughts,” he says. He stares into her eyes sadly. Again I’m filled with his sorrow. He’s sorry to kill her. I see her through his eyes, a memory of her with cropped brown hair, smoking a cigarette, smirking up at him. He has held that image of her in his mind for almost a hundred years. He genuinely believes that he loves her. He loves her but he’s going to strangle her.

  Her lips are turning blue. I scream and scream.

  Be quiet, comes her voice in my head again, sternly, surprisingly strong for someone who looks like she’s dying right in front of me. The scream fades in my throat. My ears ring with the echoes of it. I swallow painfully.

  Mom, I love you.

  I want you to think of Tucker now.

  Mom, I’m so sorry.

  Now! she insists. Her kicks are getting weaker, her wings drooping against her back.

  Close your eyes and think of Tucker NOW!

  I close my eyes and try to focus my mind on Tucker, but all I can think of is my mother’s hand going limp in mine and nobody is going to save us now.

  Think about a good memory, she whispers in my mind. Remember a moment when you loved him.

  And just like that, I do.

  “What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?” he asks me. We’re sitting on the bank of a stream and he’s tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and a red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable.

  “What?” I say, wanting to laugh and he hasn’t even told me the punch line.

  He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he’s mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that?

  “Dam!” he says.

  I laugh out loud, remembering that. I let myself fill with the delight I felt in that moment. The way I felt that day in the barn, kissing him, holding him close to me, being one with him and every living being on earth.

  I suddenly know what my mother wants. She needs me to bring the glory. I have to strip away everything else but the core of me, that part that’s connected with everything around me, that part which fuels my love. That’s the key, I realize, the missing part of glory. Why I lit up that day with Tucker in the barn. There’s nothing else but love. Love. Love.

  There, Mom says in my head. There it is.

  I open my eyes and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the intense light, which is coming out of me now. Blaring off me. I’m lit up like a torch, the light rippling and sparkling off me like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

  The Black Wing flinches. I’m still holding on to his arm, and where I touch him his skin disintegrates, like I’m digging through that part of his body that’s false, that human suit he wears, and grasping the creature underneath. Heat blazes from my fingertips.

  “No,” he whispers in disbelief.

  He releases my mother and she crumples facedown to the ground. I let go of her hand and grab the angel by the ear, which he doesn’t expect. He pulls back, but I hold on easily. His great strength is gone. I grip his ear tighter. He howls in pain. A misty smoke pours off him like what comes off dry ice. He’s evaporating.

  Then his ear comes off in my hand.

  I’m so shocked I almost lose the glory. I drop the utterly gross ear, which explodes into tiny particles the moment it hits the ground. I reach for the angel again, thinking I might catch him in the neck this time, but he twists away. The skin on his arm where I’m clutching him is dissolving too, like ash in the rain. No. Like dust. Like dust scattering in the wind.

  “Let go,” he says.

  “Go to hell.” I push him away from us. He stumbles back.

  There’s a ripple in the air, a cold blast of wind, and he’s gone.

  Mom coughs. I drop to my knees and slowly turn her over. She opens her eyes and looks at me, opens her mouth but no sound comes out.

  “Oh, Mom,” I breathe, taking in the darkening bruises on her throat. I can even make out his handprint. The glory starts to fade away.

  She reaches for my hand and I take it.

  Don’t let it go yet, she says in my mind. Hold on to me.

  I lean over her, bathing her in my light. As I watch, the wounds on her head and neck fade and disappear. The hair that had burned grows back.

  She takes a breath like a swimmer coming up for air.

  “Oh, thank God.” I feel limp with relief.

  She sits up. She looks steadily over my shoulder at something behind me.

  “We have to get out of here,” she says.

  I turn. The fire the Black Wing started has grown into a real, crackling, honest-to-goodness forest fire, wild and unstoppable, eating up everything in its path, including us if we stay here more than a moment longer.

  I look back at Mom. She climbs slowly to her feet, moving carefully in a way that reminds me of an old person getting out of a wheelchair.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m weak. But I can fly. Let’s go.”

  We spiral up together, holding hands. When we get up far enough I can see how big the fire has gotten. The wind picks up. It catches the fire and suddenly it’s twice as big as it was a minute ago, a wall of flame moving steadily down the mountain into Death Canyon.

  I know this fire. I would recognize it anywhere.

  “Come on,” says Mom.

  We start toward home. As we fly I try to wrap my exhausted brain around the fact that this is the fire from my vision, and now, after all of this, I’m going to have to fly off to save Christian. Funny how the vision never specifically included a Black Wing.

  Or hell. Or any number of things that might have been useful.

  “Honey, stop,” Mom calls to me. “I have to stop.”

  We come down at the edge of a small lake.

  Mom sits down on a fallen log. She’s panting with the exertion of flying so far, so fast. She’s pale. What if the Black Wing hurt her in some way that glory can’t heal? I think. What if she is dying?

  I suddenly remember my phone. I pull it out of my pocket and start to fumble for 9-1-1.

  “Don’t,” Mom says. “I’ll be fine. I just need to rest. You should go to Fox Creek Road.”

  “But you’re hurt.”

  “I told you, I’ll be fine. Go.”

  “I’ll take you home first.”

  “There’s no time for that.” She shoves me away from her. “We’ve lost so much time already. Go to Christian.”

  “Mom—”

  “Go to Christian,” she says. “Go now.”

  Chapter 21

  Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

  I beeline it for Fox Creek Road. I’m so frazzled by all that’s happened, but I just fly and my wings seem to know the way. I drop onto the road right in the spot where my vision usually begins.

  I look around. There’s no silver Avalanche parked along the road, no orange sky, no fire. Everything looks c
ompletely normal. Peaceful, even. The birds are singing, leaves are rustling gently on the aspens and all seems right with the world.

  I’m early.

  I know the fire is on the other side of the mountain, moving steadily toward this place. It will come here. All I have to do is wait.

  I move off the road, sit down against a tree, and try to focus. Impossible. Why would Christian even be here? I wonder. What could possibly bring him all the way out to Fox Creek Road? Somehow I have a hard time picturing him in hip waders, flicking a fishing line back and forth over the stream. It doesn’t seem right.