Indebted

by Amy A. Bartol

  “Don’t start trippin’, Russ, it’s awe inspiring to be so old. I bet Reapers don’t even come for you when you die. I bet it’s the Thrones or the Cherubim that collect a soul like yours,” she says, and I can tell she’s been thinkin’ ‘bout that a lot, by the reverent way she had said it.

  “Yeah, well, if they come for me, I hope they know I’m fixin’ to get karmic all over that Ifrit. If they’re gonna leave us down here, then they better let me get some kind of apocalyptic revenge,” I reply, tryin’ to shrug off the fact that Brownie thinks I’m some kind of sainted soul. I’m just me—pissed off and wantin’ retribution. “I don’t wanna die before I get a chance to kick his ass.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised—you are part Seraphim and they need to get serious payout when their line is crossed,” Brownie says. “You guys don’t play nice and if you were fully evolved, I would have serious doubts about the Ifrit’s chances. I don’t want to die either. There is something I want and I haven’t had a chance to find it yet,” Brownie says, pullin’ her knees to her chest and restin’ her chin on them.

  “Wut?” I ask, listenin’ to the sound of her gentle breathin’.

  “It’s nothing,” she shrugs, givin’ me a sad smile.

  “Brownie, in all this time I’ve known ya, ya never once said ya wanted anythin’—‘cept maybe to kill the Kappas. Ya can’t leave me hangin’ like this,” I reply.

  “Promise you won’t laugh,” she says, not lookin’ up.

  “I’m pretty sure that there’s no chance of me laughin’ anytime soon,” I respond.

  She grunts softly in acknowledgment of the truth of my statement. “Sorry, you’re right,” she agrees.

  “What do ya want?” I ask her again.

  “To be in love,” she says, like she’s admittin’ to a crime.

  “Why?” I ask, thinkin’ ‘bout how much it sucks to be in love with someone else, especially if they don’t love ya back. Or, even if they do, they don’t love ya the way ya want them to love ya—the way ya love them.

  “Because I’ve seen what love can do—make you do things that you’d probably never do otherwise. It makes you stronger,” she says with a humble tone.

  “Naw, ya got it wrong. It makes ya weak—vulnerable. It makes fools of us all,” I contradict her.

  “Bullshit,” she rejects my answer. “It gives you the strength to be great. I watched you prepare to go down in that hole and save Evie from the Gancanagh. Don’t tell me that you could’ve done that without love.”

  As I remember that nightmare, it makes a shiver of dread pass through me. Brennus is still out there. He still wants Red. Zephyr told me that he attacked them at the chateau. Brownie and I had managed to stay a few steps ahead of the cold, stinky bastards, but that wasn’t easy. We had spotted a couple of them near Kiev, right before we ran into the Ifrit—the angel killer.

  “Brownie, just make sure that when you do fall in love, that there’s a chance that whoever it is will love ya back,” I advise.

  “Why would that matter?” she asks me.

  “It sucks if they don’t,” I reply, feelin’ the cool ground under my cheek, not lookin’ at her.

  “It sounds like a gift just to be in love,” she says in a naïve way. “To find someone who you think is perfect, even when they aren’t.”

  “What if the person ya love doesn’t love ya back, Brownie?” I ask. “And all that ya say to that person is nothin’ to them? And wherever they are, they don’t think twice ‘bout ya?”

  “I know we’re not talking from experience, Russell, because I know that she loves you,” Brownie replies. “And you are lucky that you can love the way that you do. Try living without the ability to love…or at least to love with the intensity that you do. I know that kind of emotion must be exquisite. I have only just started to love like that and it’s amazing. The way I love you guys—you’re my family. I would do anything to protect that and that is a gift.”

  She falls silent then, and I hang my head in sorrow, thinkin’ ‘bout all that has happened. Liftin’ my head, I reach forward, pullin’ myself an inch or two towards Brownie where she is chained to the wall. I can feel one of my fingers bendin’ the wrong way, but I ignore it.

  “What are you doing?” Brownie asks, soundin’ worried.

  “I’m comin’ over there,” I reply, gruntin’ as pain is makin’ me sweat while I’m fightin’ for air.

  “But, what about our psychotic friend? He doesn’t like it when we move,” she whispers with fear in her voice.

  “What’s he gonna do? Beat me?” I ask her sarcastically. “Brownie, he didn’t chain me…he forgot.”

  “You gotta get out of here, Russell! Can you walk?” she asks, hope surgin’ in her voice.

  “Not yet,” I reply, not bein’ able to feel anythin’ below my waist.

  “It will kill you,” Brownie whispers. “You need to head towards the stairs,” she says, tryin’ to redirect me in the other direction.

  “I don’t think he plans to kill me—not yet anyway. It wants Red and it’s not gonna kill me ‘til he gets her,” I say, continuin’ towards her.

  “Russell, let me tell you something about evil,” Brownie says, crawlin’ as close to me as her chains will allow. “Evil doesn’t know when to stop. It feeds on itself, until there is nothing left. He may want her, but he is out of control—powerful as he is, he still needs to be cautious because he is alone. But, he is not being cautious. Ever since Evie sent her spirit to him, he has been out of his mind. I don’t know what she said to him, but his urgency to have her has increased exponentially.”

  “She didn’t have to say nothin’,” I reply, pullin’ forward again and gainin’ another couple of inches. “He just had to see her and…” I squeeze my eyes shut against the pain. “I’m gonna come help ya pull on yer chains. If we can get them out of the wall, then you can get me outta here.”

  “You are going to have to explain later how you do that thing you and Evie can do,” she says, watchin’ me struggle towards her. “How did you send out a twin of yourself?”

  “I don’t know how it works. I just figured I could do it if she could, and after her twin came to me that first time, it was like she had turned on the light switch and I could just do it, too,” I whisper a hasty explanation.

  “It’s so amazing when you do it, Russell,” Brownie says with admiration. I know she’s tryin’ to keep my mind off the pain I’m in. “It’s like someone pulled you through a mirror or something. The one that you sent to me was…timely. I felt like I wasn’t going to make it. You helped me,” she says. I had sent Brownie a message while she was with the Ifrit, tellin’ her that Red sent me another message: Red is tryin’ to find us.

  “Well, it feels like someone stuffed me in a keg and kicked it down a hill when I do it,” I explain. A groan of pain escapes from me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks with anguish in her tone.

  “Naw, I’m hurtin’” I reply honestly, tryin’ not to let my voice crack, but it sounds thick to my ears.

  “All right, get your ass over here then and let’s do this,” she whispers, stretchin’ her arm out to me as far as it will reach. “Come on, boy, time’s a wastin’,” she says in the perfect imitation of my mom, givin’ me the incentive I need to fight. I pull myself across the floor. When I drag myself the last inch, Brownie grasps my fingertips with her own, pullin’ me almost effortlessly into her arms. As she wraps them ‘round my shoulders, she holds me to her, restin’ her cheek against my hair. “You are such a bad ass, Russell. Good job! How do we do this?” she asks, strokin’ my wing lightly as it trembles under her fingertips.

  As I take deep breaths, I say, “My dad always says that the best way outta somethin’ is to go through it. I think that we’re never gonna get the metal of yer manacles to give, but that wall looks like it wants to let ya go.”

  “Okay,” Brownie says, turnin’ me towards the wall and bracin’ her feet against it. I wrap a length of the chain ‘ro
und my wrist and forearm, while leanin’ my back into her. “Say when,” she mouths near my ear.

  “On three,” I whisper near her ear, “One, two, three…” We pull the chain in unison as hard as we can. The wall strains and cracks under the intense pressure that we put on it, givin’ a little and makin’ my heart beat like it did when I first kissed Alice Peterson in the seventh grade. Watchin’ the cracks spider up the wall, I feel Brownie squeeze me as her hope translates to me.

  “Again?” she asks urgently.

  “Hell freakin’ yeah!” I whisper back. Bracin’ myself against her we pull several more times, managin’ to get the chain to pull through the several feet of mortar, steel, and stone. The last pull ends with half the wall givin’ way and slidin’ to the floor ‘round us. I cough at the fountain of dust that the wall kicks up, and then I put my finger to my mouth as Brownie begins to say somethin’. My heart is poundin’ in my chest again, ‘cuz the wall crashin’ down was loud enough to wake the dead. Listenin’, I don’t hear anythin’ from above. Maybe the monster stepped out for a while. I don’t think he stays upstairs, but comes here from somewhere else when he wants to hurt us.

  I pull Brownie’s legs out from under the debris that fell on us, and then we both grin at each other when her legs are unearthed. They are still shackled together, but her chain isn’t attached to the wall anymore.

  “How did you do that?” Brownie asks me in awe.

  “Well, I have to give ya a chance to fall in love—so you can be miserable, just like the rest of us,” I reply, tryin’ to move my legs. I succeed in movin’ my left one, but I have to stop when I realize that both my knees are still smashed into pulp. I can’t walk yet. I can’t even stand up.

  “All right you wise-ass redneck, let’s go,” she says, gettin’ to her knees, and then up to her feet. She reaches down and scoops me up in her arms, like I’m a little girl or somethin’.

  “You been workin’ out, Brownie?” I ask her near her ear. “You know, strong women can be a turn off, but right now, it couldn’t be any sexier.”

  “Shut up, Marx! You talk too much,” she whispers back as her copper butterfly wings beat with the effort to lift us both off the floor. She angles us towards the steps.

  We pause at the narrow stone staircase that spirals up. We both glance at each other in apprehension. The only way out is up, but that terrifyin’ monster is most likely up there somewhere, probably pullin’ the tail off a puppy or somethin’. “Wut do we do?” I whisper to her.

  “Pray,” she whispers back, graspin’ the long length of her chain that had been attached to the wall.

  “I’m way ahead of ya on that,” I admit.

  She hands me her chain to hold, so it won’t drag near the ground. The chain is attached to the chain between the manacle cuffs on her ankles. I have no idea how we are gonna get them off of her, but since she is still able to use her wings, we can figure that out later. Slowly, she begins to fly up the stairwell carrying’ me. She loses her balance and crashes into the wall. Brownie has to squeeze me tighter so she won’t drop me. “Sorry, but you’re completely huge—you freakin’ giant,” she mutters. I think she is dizzy and hurt, but she is tryin’ to hide it from me ‘cuz that’s the way she is—an ass kicker, just like Red.

  “S’kay,” I say, tryin’ not to wince. “It just felt like ya stuffed me in yer pocket.”

  “That sounds painful,” she whispers back as she continues up the stairs.

  “Not arguin’ with that,” I whisper low, managin’ a grim smile. Some of the tension leaves Brownie’s face for just a second.

  The air is gettin’ hotter, muggier as we near the top. It could just be that we’re leavin’ the cellar or it could be that we are gettin’ nearer to the furnace man. Sniffin’ the air, I can’t tell. This place smells like him, like the smell of a gas stove just before ya light it. When we almost get to the last step, Brownie stops and sets me down on a step, proppin’ me against the wall so I won’t go tumblin’ back down the stairs. She puts her finger to her lips, then she points to herself, and then she points to the threshold of the stairs. I nod and she hobbles over the top of me to go up. I hand her the chain as quietly as I can. As she inches upward, I reach out and squeeze her hand gently, wishin’ she didn’t have to be the one goin’ up there alone. She squeezes mine back, and then she slips through the doorway to the church.

  I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes to listen for any sound that will tell me what’s happenin’ above me. It’s quiet. Eerie. Minutes pass and nothin’. Maybe she found a way out and made a run for it—went for help. I hear a rattle of a chain, and then a gaspin’ exhale. It is soft, like the sound of air bein’ squeezed out…I open my eyes and struggle to pull myself up the last few steps of the stairwell.

  I claw my way to the landin’, pullin’ my useless legs behind me, and I make it to the top of the stairs. When I look up, I see Brownie suspended in midair with that long, evil chain wrapped tightly ‘round her, crushin’ the air out of her lungs. She is floatin’ aloft in the center of the church, pale and broken, her head fallin’ back as she struggles to take a breath that’s bein’ denied her by the bindin’ chain squeezin’ her like a python. He must be usin’ his magic on her ‘cuz there is nothin’ holdin’ her up but air.

  “NO!” I shout, tryin’ hard to stand, but I can’t, I can’t reach her and I’m suffocatin’ ‘cuz I can’t get enough air in me to breathe either.

  The slimy Ifrit bastard appears above me then, his golden-brown eyes reflectin’ the fire within him like they’re mirrorin’ a campfire—flickerin’ and dancin’ like flames. “Russsell,” he lisps, while graspin’ me by the back of my neck and pullin’ me up to a mere inch from his face.

  “Let her down, yer killin’ her,” I growl through my teeth, clawin’ at his hands with my own and tryin’ to get him to let go of me.

  “I really despise it when you speak, Russell. You never tell me what I want to hear,” his slithering voice intones, puttin’ his finger on my throat and speakin’ his ugly Ifrit language. I open my mouth to tell him to go to Hell, but my voice no longer works. He turned it off. “That’s better,” he sighs.

  Furious, I drive my head forward, battering’ my forehead against his. He sneers at me with breath that feels like a blowtorch against my skin, frying’ the small hairs and causin’ the smell of burnin’ flesh to curl up to my nose. I scream, but no noise comes from me. I writhe as the achin’ patch of skin begins to bubble up.

  The Ifrit straightens up and pulls me by the back of my wing up the aisle of the church towards the altar. Brownie is still levitatin’ in the middle of the room, her face growin’ paler—her lips turnin’ blue.

  The Ifrit tosses me up on the altar. I try not to look at him as he moves in front of me. “Russselll, I was coming to tell you that she is nearly here, my Alya. Did I tell you what that name means? It means Heaven. Appropriate, no? You do know what that means, Russselll?” he asks me with a smug smile. “I no longer need either of you,” he says, grinning happily. His black hair and tanned skin make him look like he should be on the cover of some magazine, not freakin’ carvin’ me up in the middle of a church. If I ever picture the devil again, he is gonna look just like this monster. Sickened by him, I turn away to look at the statues of the saints that have witnessed most of the unholy atrocities that have occurred here in the past few days.

  A sanguine smile crosses his lips. “How shall I kill you, Russselll?” he asks with his gravelly voice hissin’ my name. “It has to be slow, though, because you refused to cooperate with me, so I have to make it as painful as possible. You seem to enjoy burning so much—should we start there?” he asks.

  I choke on anguish as I turn my face away from him. Behind the Ifrit, my eyes alight on the most beautiful statue I have ever seen. Its marble-white face is perfection—the face of love. It steals my breath away as the stone comes to life in the next instant, sheddin’ its rocky exterior for the crimson feathers of an angel as t
he wings of the statue lash out ‘round it. The angelic statue loses more of its pale veneer, takin’ on the soft glow of angelic skin as it soundlessly grasps the golden staff that holds a crucifix attached to the end of it. Usin’ the staff like a sword, Evie’s marbled arm thrusts the golden crucifix right through the back of the Ifrit, so that it comes out the front of it, impaling him.

  Evie’s teeth gnash together in a twisted sneer. “Let’s start your death here, shall we?” Evie asks between her teeth, twistin’ the staff and yankin’ it back out of the Ifrit, leavin’ a gapin’ hole in his chest as molten hot blood pours out of him.

  Evie

  CHAPTER 11

  The Bargain

  The Ifrit’s blood melts the metal crucifix right off the pole it is affixed to as I pull it out of its chest and through his back. Molten blood spews from his mouth, spraying the ground in front of him with a sizzling smolder. Using what is left of the melted pole like a bat, I swing it as hard as I can at the Ifrit’s head, connecting with it and knocking him away from Russell’s prone body on the altar. I have no idea if I can kill this wicked thing, but I have to try. He can’t live, not after what I just witnessed. He dies or we all die. There is no other option open to us; I can see that now. There will be no negotiations.

  I must have stunned him, because Brownie drops from where she hovered and crashes to the ground. I hear her begin to take gasping breaths as I look around for another weapon, because mine is still melting. I collect my clothes as my alabaster-stone skin begins to take on its original form and I shrug into them.

  I pick up one of the nearby statues and use it as a club, beating the inert body of the Ifrit as he lies on the ground by the altar. Rage is fueling me, I can’t seem to stop smashing him even when I can see he is shifting, taking another form. The Ifrit is growing.

  With a desperate look, I scream, “GOD! WHAT KILLS YOU?’ I watch as the Ifrit becomes a formless blob, expanding with every second, so much so that I have to take several steps back from it.