Angelfire (Dark Angel)

by Hanna Peach

  Alyx laughs. “Be serious.”

  “I am always serious. Seriously funny.”

  Alyx throws a moldy cushion at him and it goes right through his laughing illusion.

  “Seriously? Because it’s smaller, more intimate. Private. It’s where I would take my girlfriend if I were to take her here.”

  “Wait, you have a girlfriend? Why haven’t you mentioned her before?”

  “No, I don’t have a girlfriend. I am speaking theoretically. What about you?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “I figured that. I meant, which theatre is your favorite?”

  “I like the Peacock theatre. Wait, did you just say, ‘you figured’ that I didn’t have a boyfriend? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t get upset. I just meant that you’ve never spoken about any guy back home so I figured you didn’t have one waiting for you.”

  Alyx thinks about Daniel. Imagine if she had stayed in Michaelea, how different things could have been. No, she never would have stayed. It was never meant for her to stay. Even if she hadn’t been caught leaving Michael’s chambers she would have eventually found enough reason to leave.

  “Tell me why you like the Peacock Room best?” Israel asks, snapping Alyx out of her thoughts.

  “I love the colors.”

  Israel rolls to his side and pushes himself up on an elbow. “Why don’t you wear blues and greens? I think they would go beautifully against your skin and your dark hair and your eyes.”

  Alyx hides a smile. “I don’t know. My uniform as a lightwarrior was black and there weren’t many times that I had an opportunity to dress in something other than my warrior gear. I guess it’s just habit.”

  “Why don’t you choose to wear blue or green now?”

  “Choose to wear blue or green?” she says as she looks down at her black singlet and dark jeans.

  Choose to wear blue or green. This alien thought falls across her mind and takes some moments to settle. When it does, her world suddenly shifts.

  She can choose. She is no longer under the Elders rule. No rules, no Code, no protocol. She can choose to do what she wants.

  If she wants to, she can wear blues and greens and reds and oranges or any damn color she wants to. She can wear every color of the rainbow all at once if she chooses to and there is no one to tell her not to.

  “I can choose to.” A bubble of laughter escapes her lips. “I can choose to.” She giggles again. This feeling of unrestriction, of freedom, is intoxicating.

  Alyx leaps to the air and races to the Crystal theatre.

  When she bursts through the doors Israel is shaking his head in bewilderment. “What’s going on?”

  Alyx grabs his hand. “Come on.”

  The roof of the Regent is flat and grey during the day but at night it transforms into a ballroom with a ceiling of stars. In this ballroom you can hear the song of the city after midnight; the bass of distant cars, the snare of crickets, the melody of lovers laughing as they walk along the streets.

  Alyx pushes open the door to the roof of the theatre and pulls Israel out with her. He falls into her and they spin, giggling, catching each other. On the breeze is a slight smell of rain.

  “What are we doing up here?” asks Israel.

  “You’ll see.”

  “You keep saying that but I can hardly see a damn thing.”

  “Do you trust me?” she whispers up to him.

  Giddy. Giddy with possibilities, giddy with the smell of him all around her.

  Israel nods. “Completely.”

  “Close your eyes then and don’t open them till I say so.”

  He shuts his eyes.

  “You’ll have to hang onto me.”

  His fingers find her elbows. She giggles as his touch, ever so light, invokes a trill of sensation up her arms.

  “No silly. I mean really hang onto me.”

  Alyx puts her arms around his waist and tugs at him. He closes the last of the space between them. Their bodies meet. He draws his arms around her, palms lying wide across her back, his chin resting on the top of her head.

  She tilts her head up and her voice brushes his neck like a soft kiss. “Are you ready?”

  She doesn’t give him time to reply. Suddenly they are moving, shooting up towards the stars, air rushing around them as it hurries out of their way.

  Not once does he flinch. Nor does he open his eyes, nor does he speak. Instead she hears his breath draw in audibly and feels his heart quicken.

  He said that he trusted her.

  Chapter 47

  Above the earth Alyx slows their ascent and holds them both there, just so, suspended between the earth and the heavens. Her head rests on his chest. Below them the city is a twinkling sea.

  Alyx has been up here so many times, so many nights flying out for patrole, but never once had she stopped to admire the view. Until tonight.

  “Open your eyes,” she says.

  “Oh my god.” Alyx doesn’t have to see his face to know what Israel is feeling. In his voice she can hear the timbre of awe, the growl of delight. His arms crush her tighter to him and she responds in kind. “It’s beautiful.”

  Alyx pulls back enough so she can see his face, alive with joy, his eyes on fire. “It’s kinda something, huh?”

  “Kinda something,” he echoes and looks down at her. “You are kinda something.”

  Coils of heat twist in her stomach like leaves caught in a draft. Slowly, Israel begins to move his lips down to hers.

  No, can’t give in.

  Alyx turns her head to look back down to the city below and an ache clutches at her heart. “We shouldn’t stay up here for long. Someone might see us.”

  “Of course,” his voice is heavy. “Do we have to go back just yet?”

  Alyx and Israel perch on the tower of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The giant bell hangs above them like a silent guard.

  Israel looks over to where the sun is beginning to slip over the horizon, his eyes crinkling.

  He takes in a deep breath, closes his eyes, and lets out a contented sigh. “Being up here with you I could almost forget about everything else.”

  Alyx watches his scar dancing as he speaks. If she just reaches out she could touch it. Israel opens his eyes, catching her staring.

  He puts his fingers to his lips. “My scar. You’re always looking at it.”

  He has noticed her staring even before today.

  “I’m sorry.” Alyx looks down, feeling her face grow warm. “It’s just, the Seraphim, we heal so quickly and completely that we never scar.”

  “It’s ugly, I know. I hate it.”

  “No. It’s beautiful,” Alyx blurts out then wishes she hadn’t.

  “Beautiful?”

  “Yes. Beautiful. It’s unique... interesting. It tells me that you’ve seen things, lived through things. How did you get it?”

  “I got them the day I died.”

  “You died?”

  “For a few minutes, yes. It was a long time ago.”

  “Wait, did you say you got them? You have more than one?”

  “I have scars on my side, stomach and chest.”

  Her eyes widen. “Can I see them? Please?”

  “You really want to?”

  She nods.

  “Only if you tell me about your tattoo’s first.”

  She hesitates. The Elders don’t rule you anymore. Alyx bites her lip. Something still holds her back.

  Israel peers at her. “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid... that you’ll think it’s weird.”

  “When have I ever said that anything about you was weird?”

  Alyx pauses. She thinks about everything she has told him over the last few weeks, everything she has admitted to. He’s right. He has never, not once, looked at her with distain.

  “Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “Some of the Seraphim, the more pure-blooded, have gifts, different types of gifts. We call the gifted
the Castus. As the bloodline becomes more diluted the magic dies out. Anyone born without powers is destined as a warrior.”

  “Wait, the gifted Seraphim don’t fight?”

  “No. They barely leave our cities.”

  Israel frowns. “That’s stupid. It seems to me that the gifted ones should be the ones fighting.”

  Alyx had never thought about it like that. It had always been something that she had just accepted. Had been taught to accept.

  “I interrupted you,” Israel says. “Go on.”

  “The blood of the Castus is drawn and distilled becoming bloodink. Lightwarriors attain a mark when we prove that we can control a particular bloodink magic. When we tattoo bloodink onto our skin we can draw upon that magic until it runs out.”

  He stares at her arm. “So, those marks aren’t filled with bloodink?”

  Alyx shakes her head. “Before I fled I took some bloodink in secret and hid these tattoos.” She lifts her shirt up her side and reveals her hidden bloodink tattoos.

  Israel leans closer, reaches out to her. Alyx holds her breath as he runs his thumb over her side, over the partial AirWhisperer and WaterBearer then finally over the full DreamWalker tattoo. Her skin ignites under his fingers. The fire spreads across her body.

  “What does this one do?” He sounds curious and not the least bit afraid.

  Alyx lets her breath out as he draws his hand back. She explains what each bloodink allows her to do. Israel listens intently.

  Encouraged by his interest she tells him about how to control the different magics, what they felt like to use. Finally she finishes speaking.

  Israel shakes his head, a smile on his face. “Man, I wish I could try it.”

  Alyx smiles. “Me too.”

  “What would happen if I used bloodink?”

  Alyx frowns. “I don’t know. I don’t know if mortals can use bloodink.”

  Israel takes the hem of his shirt in his fingers. “I suppose it’s my turn then?”

  Alyx nods.

  He pulls the shirt over his head and down in front of him as if to shield himself. Alyx waits.

  Slowly Israel draws aside his shirt and turns his chest towards her. Her breath shakes between her teeth.

  His skin is golden, like dark honey, across a smooth neck, wide chest and flat stomach, decorated by three scars shaped like pale diamonds. One across his ribs, one high across his stomach and one across his heart.

  Alyx leans in, chewing her lip as she runs her eyes over each scar. “What happened to you?”

  “I was stabbed. I was younger, maybe eight. It was just my aunt and I living in Safaga in Egypt. A robbery gone bad. I woke up to hear my aunt screaming, trying to fight off two men by herself just outside my door. They were hurting her. I threw myself at them. I don’t even remember doing it.”

  Israel fingers the scar on his chest. “One of them stabbed me while the other held her. I can still remember her screaming. I fell and split my lip open against my teeth. Then they left. I died for a few minutes but my aunt performed CPR on me, brought me back to life. She saved me.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Luckier than you think. I have what’s called dextrocardia situs inversus. It means that my heart rather than being on the left side is on the right in a mirror image. He missed my heart.”

  He moves his fingers from the scar across to the right side of his chest. “It’s the only reason I’m even alive today. Ironic isn’t it? That a defect saved my life.”

  “It’s not a defect then is it?”

  Israel looks at her but he doesn’t smile.

  Alyx frowns as something occurs to her. “Israel tell me again, when exactly did you start seeing their demon faces?”

  Israel pauses. “I’m not sure. I was young.”

  “Could it have been soon after this robbery?”

  “You think these things are related?”

  “When mortals die they’re supposed to cross over to the celestial plain. This is the same plain as the demons exist in. I remember one of the Elders saying that the Seraphim can see the Darkened’s true face because there is a part of us that exists on the celestial plane. What if your death, even for a few minutes, caused a part of you to stay connected to the celestial plane...”

  “...which is why I can see their demon faces,” Israel finishes for her. “It’s a good theory.”

  Alyx doesn’t realize it but she is worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

  “You look like you want to say something.”

  “What do they feel like, your scars?”

  “You want to touch them?”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean that, I just―.”

  “Go on.”

  Alyx hesitates. Is this a good idea?

  Israel scoots closer to her until the sides of their legs are touching. “I want you to.”

  Alyx nods. She lifts her hand towards his face until her fingers are close, so close she can feel his breath against them, rushing through her fingers in bursts.

  He glances down at her fingers. They are shaking. Embarrassed, Alyx goes to snatch her hand away but he catches her fingers before she can. He guides her palm to his face and presses it to his cheek.

  His eyes stays on hers as his fingers drift down to her wrist, then along her forearm, leaving burning sensations along her skin, ferocious and sharp as ice, causing her to draw in too much breath all at once.

  His fingers are trembling against her. Whatever this is that she is feeling, he is feeling it too.

  Her shyness fades. Alyx draws soft lines down his cheek with her fingertips, luxuriating at the feel of his skin, soft and warm and smooth. She runs her fingers across his lips and finally, finally across his scar. It is rough and fibrous where the skin has stitched itself back together.

  Israel closes his eyes. Fuelled by confidence now that she isn’t being watched, Alyx moves her face forward to look closer at the scar at her fingertips. He opens his eyes, perhaps startled by her sudden movement. Their faces are so close now. So close.

  He moves towards her then pauses, his eyes expectant. Your move, they seem to say.

  Too close. She shouldn’t give in. Alyx starts to pull away. But her heart beats violently against it and a rush of anger spreads across her. No. You get to choose now. Choose. I choose…

  I choose him.

  Alyx traces her fingers across his top lip and presses her mouth to it, soft like the first drops of spring rain, her thumb trapped between the corners of their mouths. A rush fills her head. He gasps. Or does she? She isn’t sure.

  She pulls back to look at him. The way he is looking at her is... like he is seeing the stars for the first time.

  “Alyx...”

  She kisses him again, cutting him off. The world around them dissolves like sandcastles until there are just his lips and his hands.

  The sun rises over them.

  Alyx catches the glint of setting sun in her eyes and wonders how a day can just disappear like this. Time never seems to follow any rules when she is around Israel.

  “We should go back,” her voice is husky, foreign. She has never known her voice to sound like this.

  Israel gazes at her for a moment, saying nothing. Then he nods.

  Back in the theatre, Israel leads Alyx to their room in the balcony box. Her head is spinning. With want. Need. And terror. She can barely think about where she is going.

  He seems to feel her hesitance. He pauses, turns, and cups her face in his hands. Alyx lets go and he holds the weight of her head up. He kisses her, deep, needing, and she feels that uncontrolled tumbling again, of being filled up, of being consumed.

  It’s you.

  He pulls back, leans his forehead down against hers.

  “We don’t have to, you know,” he says, his voice cracking.

  Alyx feels her throat closing. “You don’t want to?”

  “No. It’s not that. I want to.” He makes a noise like a pained growl, deep in his throat. “Believe me, I want to.
But I’m just saying that if we just lie here and hold each other, I would love that too.”

  “You have before?”

  “Yes. You?”

  Alyx shakes her head.

  “Then you need to be sure.”

  Alyx is still for a moment, trying to hear the music of her heart. From within the depths of her soul she hears,

  It’s you.

  I belong with you.

  Alyx traces his collarbones with her fingers.

  “I am sure. I want you. And. I want you to have me. All of me.”

  Israel nods. He kisses her again before pulling away. He slips his fingers under her shirt finding her skin. She lifts up her arms. He draws her shirt up off her, his hands dragging along her sides.

  Alyx can’t meet his gaze. It is too much. She lowers her eyes as Israel drops her shirt. She can feel him staring at her. She moves to cross her arms over herself but he catches her hands.

  “You have no reason to hide,” he says. He leans down to kiss her bare shoulder then runs his lips along her neck up to her ear. “You are so... painfully beautiful.”

  He pulls her hands to his chest then drags her palms down his stomach. He lets her touch him, exploring his body, until he can’t stand it anymore.

  His lips cover hers. This time he is rough with her. His hands grip at her hair, holding her to him. Her fingertips seek out every knotted scar.

  He pulls his lips away from hers. “Dark Angel.”

  His fingers escape from her hair and runs down her back, hands resting at the base of her spine for a moment. Then he grabs her, lifts her up and pulls her legs around him. Soon there is nothing left between them.

  The exquisite agony of skin on skin.

  Chapter 48

  “Hello Alyxandria.” A familiar voice.

  Alyx blinks. It is a rough awakening. She is lying under a dirt ceiling, between brick walls that box her in.

  She leaps to her feet. The walls stretch out on both sides of her. Nothing but dark walls. The mortar that holds each rough stone brick together is covered in moss. In some places the moss has taken siege across the brick as well. Dark green ferns grow out from cracks, reaching for her, so dark they are almost black. Where is she?