Hallowed u-2

by Cynthia Hand

  “I didn’t try to. .,” I say. “I didn’t mean. .”

  He waves his hand at me dismissively, turns back. “Of course you did. But it’s not worth getting upset over.”

  “Why are you here?” I ask. “Let’s just skip to that part, okay? If you’re going to destroy me, do it already.”

  “Oh no,” he says, like the idea offends him, like the last time I saw him he didn’t try to do exactly that. “I want to talk to you. I’ve been watching you, and you seem unhappy, my dear.

  Conflicted. I wondered if I could help.”

  “You don’t want to help me.”

  “Oh, but I do,” he says. “I’ve found you very interesting, fascinating even, ever since I first came upon you. There’s something your mother’s hiding about you, I think.”

  “She told me all about you,” I say.

  His eyebrows lift. “All about me? Really. Well, that’s a good story, but not so relevant to you. What interests me more is what you’re expected to do. Your purpose. Your visions. Your dreams.”

  “My purpose doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  He shakes his head. “Or is it something else?” I feel him prodding around in my brain.

  “She hasn’t told you,” he says, disappointed. “I would feel it on you if you knew.” The dumb thing is, I’m curious. I want to know what he’s talking about, and of course he knows that, which is why he’s smiling, and now I’m playing right into his hands because I’m thinking about what he’s saying instead of how to get us away from him.

  I can’t help it. “She hasn’t told me what?” I ask.

  He holds out my phone. “Let’s ask her.”

  Do something! I need to come up with a strategy, bring the glory, which feels impossible with the heavy cloak of his sorrow around me . The cobwebs in my head won’t go away, his sorrow clouding everything.

  Think.

  “Is this some kind of plan to take me hostage? Because I’m sure Mom will think that’s super romantic.”

  His expression darkens. “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret,” he says, and steps closer to Tucker.

  I meet Tucker’s eyes. He swallows, a jerk of his Adam’s apple. He’s scared. Samjeeza’s going to kill him, I think. This is why he’s not in the cemetery. It would be so easy for Samjeeza — it would only take a moment, a flick of his wrist. Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I see this? All those months I spent trying to think of how to protect him, then dismissing it all when I found out about my mom, and now it comes to this.

  I wish I could tell him I’m sorry to have drawn him into my insane life.

  “Go on, call her,” Samjeeza says.

  I nod, then walk toward him to take the phone, one step and then another. I try to block the sorrow as I suddenly reach that invisible radius around him, this bubble made of pain. Tears burn my eyes. I blink them back. Keep walking. Stand right in front of him and look him in the eye.

  Samjeeza puts the phone in my hand.

  I press the number two. It rings for a long time, so long I think it’s going to go to voice mail, but then I hear Mom’s voice.

  “Clara?” I know by the sound of her voice that she knows something’s wrong.

  “Mom. .” For a moment I can’t make my throat work to form the words, the words that will bring her here to Samjeeza and who knows what kind of fate. “Samjeeza’s here.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  I feel Samjeeza’s eyes on me, his presence in my head poking around, not pushing me, exactly, but trying to read me or listen in or something. “He’s standing right here.” Silence on the other end. Then she asks, “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know.” I glance around, disoriented. I can’t remember where we are, and all I see are dark fields, telephone poles stretching out into the distance.

  “Coltman Road,” Tucker says under his breath.

  I tell her. “I crashed the car,” I say, because some stupid part of my brain needs to confess just how much I’ve screwed up.

  “Clara, listen to me now,” she whispers. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “You know I can’t come to you.”

  I did know that. Still, shock reverberates through me. I know she’s too weak to fly, too weak to even walk upstairs without getting winded, but in my heart, some tiny part of me believed she would come anyway, in spite of everything.

  “What does she say?” asks Samjeeza, stepping close to me, his mouth almost against my ear. He’s excited. He thinks she’s going to rescue me, like last time. The idea pleases him so much, seeing my mother again, looking at her face, hearing her voice. He is practically dancing around with anticipation. He has a plan now, something that will redeem him with the others, a plan that will keep my mother with him forever. In hell.

  Only she’s not coming.

  I think now is the part where we’re officiall y screwed.

  “What does she say?” Samjeeza asks again, his mind pressing down on mine, trying to find the information himself. I push back against him and find it surprisingly easy this time to keep him out of my thoughts. I’m stronger, mentally, than last time. I can force him out. Which is good, considering that now I have to lie.

  “She’s on her way.”

  “Be brave, my darling,” Mom says to me then. “Remember what I said about fighting him with your heart and your mind. You’re stronger than you think. I love you.”

  “Okay.” I hang up the phone. Samjeeza holds out his hand, and I try to contain my trembling as I put the phone back into it.

  “Now we wait,” he says. He nods like a nervous schoolboy, smiles. “I’ve never been very good at waiting.”

  Panic rises like a fluttering bird in my chest, but I squash it back down.

  Stall for time, I think. Figure out a way to get him away from Tucker and Wendy so you can bring the glory.

  “We need to call an ambulance for my friend.” I gesture to Wendy, laid out at Tucker’s feet like a rag doll in a black velvet dress. My dress. My responsibility.

  Samjeeza glances down at my phone, closes his fingers around it possessively. “I don’t think so.”

  I swallow. “She’s hurt. She needs help. It won’t matter to you, anyway. We — or you and me and Mom, I mean — could be gone long before the paramedics arrive.”

  “Please,” Tucker asks, and there’s no mistaking the genuine plea in his voice. “She’s my sister. She could be dying. Please, sir.”

  Maybe it’s the “sir” that gets him. The sorrow around me pulses, and in it I feel a glimmer of something human, compassion maybe. Something conflicted. He glances down at my phone again, opens it. His eyes scan over the buttons, but he doesn’t seem to know which one to push.

  He doesn’t know how to use a cell phone, I realize.

  “I’ll do it,” I tell him. “You can watch me. I’ll only dial 9-1-1. If I do anything else, you can crush me or whatever it is that you do.”

  He smiles. “But if I crush you I won’t get what I came here for, will I? How about this?

  You call, and if you try any funny business, I’ll crush him.” He cocks his head to indicate Tucker. A cold ripple of fear washes over me. “Okay,” I whisper.

  “Make it quick,” he says.

  He hands me the phone. I dial, hold it to my ear with a shaky hand.

  “9-1-1, what is your emergency?” a woman answers.

  “There’s been—” I clear my throat and start again. “There’s been a car accident on Coltman Road. Please send an ambulance.”

  She asks for my name. I can’t tell her that, because then, when the paramedics arrive, they’ll expect to find me here, and I won’t be here. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’ll be too dead to care by then. “I, uh— I’m—” I stammer.

  Samjeeza holds out his hand. I’ve done what I said I would do. I called. I give the phone back to him. The operator’s still talking, asking questions, wanting to know the extent of the injuries.

  “Hello,” Samjeeza says, his voic
e solemn, but there’s something else in his eyes.

  “Hello?” I hear the lady say faintly. “Who is this?”

  “I’ve just come upon the scene. Terrible, terrible accident. I’m afraid the girl’s unconscious now. And a young man. They look like they’re dressed for a dance. Please hurry.

  They’re both badly injured.”

  He closes the phone.

  Both badly injured.

  “But my mom—”

  “She isn’t coming,” he says, his eyes so knowing. He sounds truly disappointed. “I’ll just have to be satisfied with you.”

  He starts to turn toward Tucker.

  I look into Tucker’s face, his stormy blue eyes comprehending what Samjeeza means to do. Accepting it. Bracing for it.

  Time grinds to a halt.

  I have to bring the glory. This is the moment I’ve been practicing all year for. Now.

  I look at Tucker but I don’t feel anything but my heart beating, so slowly it’s like a low thump every five seconds, and I can feel the blood it’s pumping through my body, to my lungs, in and out, filling me with strength, with life, and then with a sense of myself and something more than just my body. Something more than human. My spirit. My soul.

  Light explodes around me. I turn toward Samjeeza and at the same moment, slowed down twenty times, it seems, he looks at my face and knows what I’m up to. He flares with rage, but doesn’t have time to act on it. He moves with unearthly speed away, out of reach of the glory.

  I take a deep breath, let it out slow, feeling the light tingling at my fingertips, shining out of my body, my hair gleaming with it, my chest filling with warmth. A feeling of calm settles over me. I turn again to Tucker. He lifts a hand to shield his eyes from my light. I take his other hand in mine. It feels cool, clammy, against my almost feverish skin. He flinches at my touch, then forces himself to relax, lowers his hand, squints at me like he’s trying really hard to look at the sun. Unshed tears in his eyes. And fear.

  I reach up and put my finger against the cut on his head, watch as the light caresses him, the skin knitting itself back together, until there’s no trace of the wound.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper.

  A laugh pierces my tranquility. Samjeeza, a safe distance away, laughing.

  “I keep underestimating you,” he says almost admiringly. “You are a tough little bird.”

  “Go away.”

  He laughs again. “I want to find out what happens next, don’t you?”

  “Go. Away.”

  “You can’t hold that forever, you know.”

  He said something like that to my mom, that day in the woods. She brought the glory and he said, You can’t hold that forever, and she said, I can hold it long enough.

  What is long enough? Even now, after only a few minutes, I feel myself starting to tire.

  It’s like holding the door to my soul wide open while the wind pushes steadily against it. Sooner or later, that door will close.

  Samjeeza closes his eyes. “I can almost hear the sirens. Racing this way. Things will be interesting when they get here.”

  I squeeze Tucker’s hand. He tries to smile at me. I try to smile back.

  A plan would be nice. Sitting here waiting for my lightbulb to burn out, so not a plan.

  Waiting for the ambulance to come, adding more people to the mix, also not a plan.

  “Why don’t you just drop this nonsense?” Samjeeza says. “Not that I’m not impressed.

  For someone your age, your dilution of blood, to exhibit glory on your own, it’s rather unheard of.

  But you should stop this now.”

  He’s speaking calmly, but I can feel that he’s getting mad.

  I’ve seen him mad before. It’s not pretty. He tends to do things like launch fireballs at your head.

  Headlights turn onto the road. My breath freezes in my lungs. I nearly lose the glory. It flickers, dims, but I hold on.

  “Come now, enough foolishness,” Samjeeza says impatiently. “You and I must go.” It’s too late. The vehicle approaches us slowly. Stops, a squeak of brakes. But it isn’t an ambulance. It’s a beat-up silver Honda with a rusty green fender. I strain to look past my own radiance to see the figure inside. A man with white hair and a beard.

  Mr. Phibbs.

  I’ve never seen a more welcome sight than Mr. Phibbs in his tacky brown polyester suit, strolling toward us with a smile like he’s taking a leisurely walk in the middle of the night. I feel stronger as he nears, like I can do this, whatever I’m asked, whatever it takes. I feel hope.

  “Evening,” Mr. Phibbs says, nodding to me. “How’s everybody?”

  “She’s hurt.” I point down to Wendy. Still breathing, thank God. “The paramedics are on their way. They should be here soon.”

  Samjeeza eyes him.

  “I see,” Mr. Phibbs says. He turns his attention to the brooding Black Wing. “What seems to be the problem here?”

  “Who are you?” Samjeeza asks.

  “I’m a teacher.” Mr. Phibbs readjusts his glasses. “These are my students.”

  “I have business with the girl,” Samjeeza says almost politely. “We’ll be on our way, and then you can tend to the others.”

  “Afraid I can’t allow that,” says Mr. Phibbs. “Yes, you could probably squash me like a bug if you took a mind to. If you could get to me,” he adds. “But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, whom you have defiled. So slither back into the dark, Watcher.” I hope, for our sake, that he’s not bluffing.

  Samjeeza doesn’t move.

  “Are you having trouble hearing me?” Mr. Phibbs asks like this fallen angel is a tardy student. “I see you have some damage to your ear. That your doing, Clara?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Well, good for you.” He turns back to Samjeeza.

  “Be careful, old man,” growls the angel. Around him the air starts to crackle with energy.

  I begin to get very worried that he’s going to zap us into hell.

  “Corbett,” I say nervously.

  Faster than a blink, Mr. Phibbs holds up one of his hands and the light surrounding us brightens into it, swirling itself into a long, thin shape with a point of fiercely shining light at the end. An arrow, is my first thought, an arrow made from glory, and before I even have time to analyze what that could mean, Mr. Phibbs makes a sweeping motion with his arm and fires the thing straight at Samjeeza.

  I watch in slow motion as the arrow arcs through the air like a falling star, then strikes the angel in the shoulder. It makes a noise like a knife sinking into a watermelon. He looks at it, startled, then back at Mr. Phibbs incredulously. The light from the arrow seeps from his shoulder like blood, and wherever it touches it hisses, eating away that second layer that he wears over his true self. He reaches up and closes his hand around the shaft. His brows knit together, then he wrenches the arrow out. He howls in pain as it comes free. He drops it, and it bursts into tiny sparkles when it strikes the ground. Breathing hard, he looks right at me, not at Mr. Phibbs or Tucker but at me, and his eyes are sad. His body suddenly has a transparent quality to it, muted and gray, even his skin, like he’s becoming a ghost.

  And then he’s gone.

  Beside me Mr. Phibbs exhales slowly, the only indication that any of this was mind-blowingly scary. I finally let go of the glory, and it fades.

  “Well, now we know why he’s mad at me, don’t we?” he says cheerfully.

  “How did you do that?” I gasp. “That was so cool.”

  “David and Goliath, my dear,” he answers. “All it takes is one smooth little pebble to drop a giant. Although, to be honest, I was aiming for his heart. I’ve never been the best shot.” Tucker stumbles off a few steps into the weeds to throw up. Mr. Phibbs wrinkles up his nose as we listen to him losing his dinner.

  “Humans and glory don’t mix well, I’m afraid,” Mr. Phibbs says.

  “You okay?” I call to Tucker.

  He straightens up and c
omes back out to the road, wiping his mouth on his tux sleeve.

  “Will he be back?” he asks.

  I look to Mr. Phibbs, who sighs.

  “I’d assume so.”

  “But you wounded him,” I say, my voice straining. “Doesn’t it take time for them to heal?

  I mean, I tore his ear off months ago, and that wasn’t fixed yet.” Mr. Phibbs nods grimly. “I should have struck at the heart.”

  “Would that have killed him?”