by Carol Oates
“Up a little more and to your left.”
She glanced at Lilith with pursed lips. What was her game? Candra lifted her eyes a little, conscious that another inch or so, and she’d lose sight of her enemy.
The air in her lungs turned to ice and pushed through her like shards of glass. Every inch of her skin broke out in a cold sweat, and her nails dug into her palm. Father Patrick stood between two large males at the remains of a shattered full-length window in the nearest sky-scraping tower. Thick smoke plumed upward from a fire on one of the lower floors. He was too far away to read his expression accurately, but his chest rose and fell with exaggerated force. Otherwise, he didn’t budge. She imagined his eyes were opened wide in terror at the sight playing out below him. No doubt, since he couldn’t see angel wings, it reinforced his theory about zombies.
“How did you get past the blessings?” Candra demanded.
Lilith flicked her stringy hair over her shoulder. “That’s the beauty of it. I didn’t need to. All the fool needed was a little encouragement, the promise of protection and the prospect of being a hero. He came out…and he brought me a little gift.”
Candra’s muscles clenched painfully. Another of Lilith’s minions appeared at the window, holding the abandoned child. She couldn’t hear his screams, but his little face was contorted and red with frustration. He squirmed to get free. Father Patrick made no attempt to aid him.
Rage boiled up, flooded her body, and manifested in violent tremors. It was a blanket of pure, refined hate, wrapping her up and promising nothing would be right again. She was sure Lilith couldn’t know this particular child had any connection to her. He was just some random child with no parents to answer to when Father Patrick had taken him from the safety of the school.
She uncoiled and sprang at Lilith with the precision of a viper. Lilith shifted much faster than Candra could compensate for, and she missed her target entirely. Vibrations rocketed from Candra’s knees, up her thighs, and into her hips when she crashed to the ground. She rolled over quickly, rubbing her hand over her ankle, panting, with electricity surging through her. Draven was still there, although he faced away from her. She took it as a good sign. Wouldn’t his body disappear like Sebastian’s?
Lilith stood over her, placing one hand on her hip, effectively putting across that she found Candra no threat. “Either you give yourself up, or I start with the little one and move on to the rest of them in the school. After that, I will destroy every being you have ever come into contact with. It’s your choice.”
Candra frowned, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. “My choice,” she echoed in a murmur.
“What’s it to be, Candra? Do you give yourself freely?”
Candra shut her eyes, locking out all the images around her. She couldn’t lock out the sounds of crashing metal, the grunting, and the foul smell. “Yes, I will give myself freely to save them.”
She opened her eyes again and raised her chin to look at Lilith. The demon wore a smug grin.
“No, don’t,” Gabe’s voice pleaded from somewhere nearby.
She didn’t turn.
“Candra, don’t do it.”
Lilith held her hand out. Candra offered her the hand she’d used to prop herself up, keeping her other palm pressed to her ankle. Lilith’s skin was as smooth and cool as glass under Candra’s.
“There is one thing you should know.”
“What’s that?” Lilith asked as she pulled her to her feet.
Candra smoothed her hand over the soft leather from her ankle to her calf and slipped her fingers inside. With Lilith’s last tug on her hand, she whipped the blade from her boot and slammed it into Lilith’s chest, right where her heart should be. “You don’t have the Creation Blade. I do.”
Lilith’s pale eyes rounded, and her jaw fell slack. Candra grimaced and twisted the knife sharply.
“And I’m no ordinary angel,” she sneered into Lilith’s face.
Candra retracted her arm. The blade came with it, along with an explosion of smoky silver mist from the wound. The force pushed Candra backward through the air. She landed with a grunt. Pain burned through her elbow, and she knew she had to act quickly. She had seconds, if even that. She rolled over onto her knees. The mist pouring out of Lilith swirled tightly all around her. Candra could make out shapes and textures, nothing substantial, nothing to show her that she was doing this right. Lilith clutched uselessly at the gaping hole in her chest, as if attempting to contain the souls she’d consumed.
Candra reared back and slammed the blade into the ground. The concrete shattered on contact, and a glowing orange lightning bolt slithered out from the tip of the blade. The earth quaked, ripping apart right before her eyes. Lava bubbled up, and the slit elongated.
Candra’s stomach heaved, and she thought she might be sick. The stench of sulfur and ammonia hit her full force from the crack. It, and Lilith’s laughter, distracted her, and she didn’t notice the handle of the blade heating. Her palms sizzled. Candra screamed in agony and tore her hands away, losing a layer of skin to the white-hot handle. Still, the wooden handle didn’t burn. Candra’s eyes stung, and fat tears rolled over her cheeks. She couldn’t hold back any longer and emptied her stomach inches from her knees.
The mist had spread, and still, Lilith struggled. The imitation blade dropped from her hand. A cloud of silver settled over the fighting crowd where the minions had begun to writhe and twitch violently. Some bent over, coughing and spluttering a red and black smoke. It twisted around their bodies, as if attacking them, thickening to the consistency of tar and slithering over their skin.
Candra pulled herself up, planting her feet and battling to keep her balance on the shaking ground. She sensed the light creeping over her skin before she saw the pearl shimmer. This time, she didn’t try to restrain it; she welcomed it and waited for the voice to tell her she was doing the right thing. She grabbed for the blade, the hilt still embedded in the ground. Her fingers flexed around the handle, the rough surface digging into her palm and scorching her skin. Candra freed the blade with a sharp tug. No voice came, no reassurance from the Arch. For a split second, she wondered again if she’d imagined their exchange and she was about to make the worst mistake of her life. Then, she remembered this had to be her choice; the Arch would never push like Lilith did. It was enough to bolster her decision.
A gusting wind whipped up again, and lava hissed from the opening in the ground, spitting molten rock into the air and casting the vicinity in an enticing warm orange glow. All the swirling colors were deceivingly beautiful, but of course, that was how it was with evil.
Lilith laughed. Candra’s focus swiveled in her direction. Lilith’s body shook with it, and her head fell back. She gagged on the laughter and spewed more of the silver mist straight up into the sky, her body convulsing with the effort. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. “You are wasting your time. The Arch is trapped inside you.”
“You’re right,” Candra yelled, blood pounding in her ears.
She flung her arm out wide, her chest rising and falling so hard, it felt as though her lungs might burst right through her skin. Lilith’s eyes widened. She leaned forward and reached out to Candra, her hair rising up like snakes around her face and eyes practically bugging out of her head. Candra brought the blade around, directly in front of her, and gripped it with both hands. Her empty stomach swam with nausea. Her hands trembled, but she could feel the strength inside her muscles, telling her she’d managed to once again tap into the Arch’s power.
Draven had explained that she would need to pierce through the breastplate protecting her heart. Natural instinct played against a person stabbing themself, and her body might rebel at the critical moment to weaken her. She found strength in the silvery mist whirling through the air. The souls she’d save. Candra hoped Ivy was among them.
Lilith fought forward through the souls escaping her. “No,” she screamed.
Candra sucked in a deep breath. She w
anted to make sure everyone could hear her when she roared. “I’ve made my choice, Lilith, and you…you can go to hell.” Candra pulled the blade toward her chest with as much force as she could muster.
Everything seemed to slow the instant the sharp end met her skin. There was pressure, but not as much as she expected. As soon as the point passed through flesh, the inside offered little resistance. Then the pain hit. A blistering agony like nothing she’d ever experienced concentrated into a tight ball of flames inside her chest. It sucked all other sensations away, pulling them into the tiny space inside her heart. With a savage, searing agony, it blasted outward with an explosion so bright, she was sure the sun had risen over the city. The torture left no part of her unaffected. Candra bit down on her tongue, adding to the pain already lashing through her before her locked knees gave way and she fell sideways.
Her vision doubled. Two Liliths were flung backward into the void like paper bags whipped up on an autumn day. The demons all around Candra collapsed to the ground. The red-black tar slipping away from their skin resembled oil siphoned off water and slithering toward the shattered ground—Lilith’s darkness returned to its prison with her.
Candra eyes fluttered closed as she continued to fall. It seemed an eternity passed, and the ground was a billion miles away, but it called to her like a comfortable bed after a long day.
Images flickered in her mind, except it wasn’t her life playing out. The images she saw were of another girl, another life shrouded in mystery. A girl surrounded by family and friends, celebrating birthdays, holidays, and a future opened wide and unknown before her. She was sticking pins in a map of the world and holding hands with a boy. Candra couldn’t see their faces, only faint outlines, like ghosts suspended in the possibility of what could have been in a different world. Maybe the world she was giving up to free the Arch and give the Watchers their chance for heaven. Forgive me, she thought inside the chaos of her mind.
The light grew brighter until she had to close her eyes to it. Even through her eyelids, she couldn’t block it out. White embraced her, nothing but pure white brilliant light, and the pain ceased, replaced by a wonderful numbing peace and absolute silence. Is this death? She’d ruptured her soul to free the Arch and had restored heaven. She’d expected darkness, to disappear into a great abyss that would swallow her whole like a ravenous monster, but there was only the light.
Chapter Forty-One
BRIGHT SUNLIGHT STREAMED DOWN through a light dusting of wispy clouds over Acheron. The mirrored high-rises sparkled. The golden light brought out the vibrant greens in the parks and made the river look as if it had been sprinkled with sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. Outside Saint Francis’s College, it appeared as if the world had been washed clean, and in essence, it had.
Sebastian watched Candra exit the huge wooden doors from where he stood, leaning against a lamppost across the street, as he had done on so many other occasions. They had traveled full circle, and he was back to where they started. She couldn’t see him; she no longer knew he existed. She didn’t know his devastation over the loss of her gentle touch or his desperate longing to fill the void inside his chest. Time moved on for her; only her memories of the past were different to account for the loved ones slipped back into her life and those now missing. Candra, Payne, Brie, Draven, and the others…they all got their second chance in return for their part in restoring heaven.
Brie jostled around Candra, fixing her violet cap and gown with one hand. In the other, she held a camera that caught the sun reflecting a rainbow of light from its shiny surface. Gabe stood close by in a classic dark suit, perfectly tailored to his lean, muscled body. Still, he looked awkward and repeatedly stepped out of the way of the other people flowing out the doors. Sebastian knew he would want to move but stayed to keep Brie happy until she captured the family photograph she seemed to want so much.
Brie caught Gabe’s eye and smiled. Sebastian’s heart constricted painfully at the love he saw there, knowing that Candra had once looked at him that way but never would again.
“This is what you wanted,” he scolded himself under his breath, clenching his jaw enough to make his teeth ache. “This is what you asked for.”
It was strange to see Gabe looking older, although it wasn’t much. His features had always been ageless—yet somehow, now…Sebastian could hardly remember him any other way but human.
Candra turned, as if caught by a sound too smothered by the crowd for Sebastian to hear. She ran back up the steps to embrace an elegant blond woman exiting with the crowd. They had the same eyes, the same smile. He had never noticed in the pictures he’d seen of Candra’s mother. He had only ever paid attention to the angel in her that reminded him of Payne. Now, part of a single soul resided in both mother and child, unique in the whole of the universe—true soul mates.
Then, just when he thought about Payne, he was there—alive and older, just like Brie and Gabe. Brie shuffled them all into line by the door, leaving others to squeeze past. Candra rolled her eyes dramatically and pulled the cap from her head, shaking out her freshly smoothed hair with her fingers. Payne smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He kissed the top of her head before taking the cap from her hand and setting it back on.
Before Brie could take a picture, Candra beamed a smile and tugged the cap off again. Much to Brie’s obvious annoyance, Candra broke from the small group and trotted down the steps to embrace Ivy. Payne laughed so loudly, the booming sound rose above the other voices around them. Sebastian knew he should leave. He was torturing himself needlessly by standing there watching, but he couldn’t make himself move.
“Hey, you. Whatcha looking at?” Lofi appeared out of nowhere beside him. Her pink summer dress and pumps matched the tone of the tinge of color through her hair, and her tawny wings settled closely along her back.
Warmth rose up his neck and over his cheeks. He felt foolish, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was his choice to remain an angel in the hope that he could one day atone for all the wrongs he’d done. He had no one else to blame for being on the sidelines now. Maybe the Arch had forgiven him, but he hadn’t forgiven himself. The last thing he wanted was to seem ungrateful that Lofi had chosen to stay with him.
“I know it’s ridiculous, but I promised I would see her graduate. I wanted to keep my promise.”
“Why ridiculous?” Lofi asked, her delicate features creasing into a frown.
“Because I still want to be a part of their lives, even though they don’t know I’m here.”
“Again, why is that ridiculous?”
Sebastian shrugged a little. “I know what you’ve walked away from. I don’t want you to think that I don’t know…or think that I’m not grateful.”
“I don’t,” she said simply. Her wings vibrated, and a golden mist rolled down her back before they disappeared to nothing. Her laughter tinkled in the warm air. “You are always so hard on yourself, Sebastian. Don’t you think I wanted to be here too?”
Candra and Ivy mingled with the other students while Brie skirted them, taking candid photos.
“She looks happy,” he remarked offhandedly. That was good. He wanted her to be happy. The cost was inconsequential to Sebastian, even if it was him who’d had to pay it.
With Ananchel locked in an angelic prison, Lilith in her cage, and many of the others restored to their place in heaven, he knew she was safe now. His penance was to keep it that way.
“She does look happy. They all do.” Lofi paused and pursed her lips, seeming to consider the scene before her. She glanced at him briefly, but long enough for Sebastian to see how she measured him. “What happens when she remembers?”
Sebastian’s body stiffened and scratched the paintwork of the lamppost, leaving gritty flakes lodged under his nails. He refused to think about the future yet. He would deal with that after she’d lived a long life. It was simply a case of mind over matter for him.
Lofi snorted a quiet laugh. “You are still h
iding, Sebastian. It’s you that’s always been afraid, and right now, it’s only yourself you are protecting. One day, when all this is over—” she waved her hand around “—she will remember, and she will ask you why.”
“By then, she will have a lifetime of memories, a family, the career she wanted…”
“And what will you have?”
“I’ll have you.” Sebastian grinned, and his hand twitched by his side. It felt forced; his lips pulled tightly over his teeth, and he knew the smile wouldn’t reach his eyes. They betrayed him every time.
Lofi reached up and flattened her palm to his cheek. Her lovely brown eyes caught the light and reflected gold. Sebastian saw her pity there and closed his own eyes against it. He didn’t want or need anyone’s pity.
“I love you, Sebastian, but I won’t be your crutch this time.”
Sebastian flashed his eyes open to see that she had turned away from him and back to the scene across the street.
Both Candra’s and Ivy’s families were gathering for more photographs. Ivy laughed brightly at something Candra said, and Ivy’s mother touched Brie’s arm. They exchanged a few words before Ivy’s mother took the camera from Brie. Gabe wrapped his arm around Brie’s shoulder and leaned down to kiss her lips gently. Even Ivy’s dad joined in vigorously shaking hands with Payne, both proud fathers glancing down at their daughters.
Sebastian watched them glowing with happiness and turning wide cheesy smiles to the camera. He had never felt so empty or so much longing. None of them missed him. No one sensed his absence, not even Candra, he realized with a groan. Yet, for him, it was as if a steel chain had been tied around his waist, tethering him to her…to all of them. No matter what he did, he couldn’t break the connection. He wanted to be with them, and he craved Candra’s presence. Knowing that was how it was meant to be, that their connection was made that way for her protection, didn’t make it less real. There was more to it than his desire to protect her. It was a hunger he couldn’t satisfy, churning in the pit of his stomach, something that only her touch eased. As much as Sebastian wanted to pledge himself to Candra forever, he had already pledged himself to the Arch long ago.
