Shadows in the Silence

by Courtney Allison Moulton

  “Because I paid a groundskeeper to leave a gate unlocked,” he replied. “Also, it’s nine centuries old and supposedly the basilica sits upon the birthplace of the virgin Mary. Also, also, the acoustics are incredible. I’ve been dying to play AC/DC in there for years.”

  I chose to ignore that. “So, food now. What next?”

  “Shopping for your ascension rite,” he replied and handed me a sheet of paper. “Now don’t go all schoolgirl squealy on me. We’re buying herbs, not shoes. I have a list and you have a list. It’ll be like a scavenger hunt. Now you can go all squealy.”

  I glared at him and read the list of ingredients he requested for the spell.

  “Afterward, we’ll meet at St. Anne’s.” He started toward the door but turned back before leaving. “Don’t show up until after ten or eleven, okay? Everyone in old City will be down at the Festival of Light, so we shouldn’t be bothered. We don’t want anyone wandering by while we’re trying to shove an archangel into that skin of yours.”

  Then Stone was gone.

  I sat on the bed, gazing blankly at the ingredients list in my hands. Will eased down beside me, took the sheet of paper from me, and set it aside. He took my hands and held them in his. My small, slender fingers fit perfectly through his callused ones, like puzzle pieces. My hands moved over his, my fingertips tracing the lines in his palm, and then I drew his hand to my cheek. I had a horrible thought that I wouldn’t remember or care what his skin felt like against mine once I ascended. I wondered whether, if I touched him for as long as I could, the feeling would be burned into my memory and made permanent, with no force on Earth or in Heaven able to chip it away.

  Will felt my sorrow through our bond and pulled me close. “We’ll make it through this. We always do.”

  “We’ve never been through anything like this before,” I whispered. “Never anything so uncertain.”

  He was quiet at first, thoughtful. “Facing the unknown is a part of life, something humans have done since their creation without any special powers. They’ve survived by sheer will and heart. You have both of those things, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. We don’t know what exactly will happen tonight, but you have the will and the heart to make it through anything, even through this. I believe in you.”

  “But why do I have to lose who I am in order to save the world?”

  He lifted my chin so I couldn’t avoid his firm but gentle gaze. “If you forget who you are, I will just have to wake you up again as I’ve always done.”

  I bit my lip and before I could say anything back, he kissed me and I wasn’t afraid anymore.

  By nightfall the light festival, which Ethan had mentioned would serve as a distraction for us, was in full swing. From the top of the Mount of olives, music thrummed like thunder and laser lights danced across the low-hanging atmosphere. Thousands and thousands of people were in attendance, pouring through every street past imaginative displays of galloping horses made of light, shadow monsters playing behind trees, glowing figures of men climbing over stone walls…old City was alive and surreal, and I longed to stop and enjoy the festivities, but there was no time for that.

  St. Anne’s was even more beautiful in person and at night. Golden spotlights lit up the stone walls, but our movements were safely cloaked within the Grim. We entered through a wooden door and passed through a small courtyard filled with incredible flowers. Ethan met us at the front entrance and allowed us in. Passing humans would never notice us as long as we stayed hidden in the Grim.

  Ethan had already spread out our ingredients for the ritual on the cool stone floor, and Will helped me set out the herbs, oils, and incense to sort and measure. Just as I placed the grimoire among them, Ethan used his power to flip the book open and the pages settled to a passage written in Enochian.

  “Is this the spell?” I asked Ethan.

  He was fiddling inside a duffle bag on the altar when he replied, “It is. I’ll need to speak the words. You can stand there and look pretty while Will assists me. I shall be your Frankenstein and Will shall be my—much larger than normal—Igor.”

  Will sighed as he lit the incense and candles and placed them, one by one, on the altar steps below Ethan. When I looked at Ethan again, he was pulling a battery-powered MP3 docking station out of a duffle bag. He set it onto the floor and plugged in his iPod.

  “I didn’t think you were serious,” I called to him. “You can’t play that in here.”

  “I am always serious,” he replied. Suddenly AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” burst out of stark silence and echoed off the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling.

  “Are you kidding me?” I cried, struggling with myself not to chuck the book at his head.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” he said as he fumbled with the player and shut it off. The basilica fell quiet again. “That was inappropriate. Sorry!”

  I looked across the book at Will for support, but he was grinning ear to ear, trying not to laugh. I shoved his shoulder so hard he almost toppled over. “Stop laughing!”

  He caught his balance and put his hands up, unable to hold back his laughter anymore. “It was funny! You have to admit.”

  “It wasn’t funny,” I hissed. “It was horrible. You are horrible, Ethan.”

  “No,” he said as he fiddled with the iPod. “Classy. Always classy.”

  Music blasted once more, this time “Thunderstruck.” Seeing Will laugh made me realize we needed some kind of levity. I had to savor this moment of good spirits and fun, because I couldn’t be sure when or if I’d ever have another one like it. I wasn’t sure when the next time I’d see Will laugh would be.

  I finished measuring out the oils and incense needed and placed them in small ceramic dishes. I unwrapped the Naphil heart, which was still as red and bright as when I had cut it from its owner’s chest, as if no piece of it had even begun to decay yet. Ethan gave me a clay bowl to set the heart in and he instructed me to anoint the organ with the correct oils. Then it came time for me to stand in the basilica while Ethan dipped his thumb into three different oils and drew lines down my nose and over my lips. He drew the oil across my necklace as well and then he stepped back.

  The music was gone and the only sounds I heard now were the distant cheers of spectators at the Festival of Light and the pounding of my heart. The candlelight on the steps below me cast a golden glow in the basilica, occasionally interrupted by beams of light from outside. Ethan lifted the book to read the angelic spell, his voice a haunting echo through the cathedral.

  Fear, like ripples in reverse, growing stronger as it spread, took fierce hold of me. I tried to look at Will, but when I did, I was struck by the memory of the first time I witnessed him double over in agony as my overwhelming guilt and grief spilled into him through the ink in his tattoos that bound us together. The angelic magic gave us a connection deeper than anything else in this world, and though its purpose was to alert him when I needed him the most, this magic was also very cruel. I tried to contain my fear, because I knew my emotions echoed into Will and made him feel everything that I did through physical pain. He felt my fear like knives in his gut, and I didn’t want my last action as me—as Ellie—to be to cause him pain.

  Will’s gaze captured my own and held it tight. “Eyes on me,” he said. “My face, Ellie. Eyes on me. Don’t be afraid.”

  The green of his eyes was so bright and his breathing became more and more labored. Unbidden tears rolled down my cheeks and I watched him struggle to keep standing. He knew that I’d discovered how my suffering affected him physically, and it only crushed my heart more.

  “Let me take it,” he murmured. “It’s okay. Let me have this. Let me do this for you.”

  I nodded, choking down a fearful swallow of air. I could feel the ancient words taking affect. A light grew inside of me, a warmth that was foreign, but still felt familiar. I could no longer watch Will’s face. The light I felt inside me began to shine through my skin, giving me a glow of my own. I watched the light gather along the
spider’s web-work of veins in my skin, replacing my blood with bright gold until I gleamed like a beacon. I fumbled for my necklace, my fingers brushing past the leather cord carrying the Pentalpha, and I found my winged necklace and gripped it tight. I held it between my fingers as if it were my lifeline, my last link to my humanity, even though it contained the archangel grace that would strip my humanity from me like meat off my bones.

  The light, my glory breaking free from its chains, was growing too bright and I could barely keep my eyes open. Ethan kept chanting even when I could no longer see him. My body seemed to take on a mind of its own; the magic lifted me off the floor as my hair whipped around my face as if I was trapped in a hurricane. I looked down, forcing my eyes open so I could see what was happening. Ethan lit a match and tossed it into the bowl with the Naphil heart, and the red organ sparked and went up in flames. My body lurched as the smoke from the burning heart and fragranced oils engulfed me. It smelled like cooked meat and flowers from a funeral.

  “Ellie,” Ethan called up to me, practically yelling over the rushing of wind through the church. “Ellie! Your necklace! Break it and free your grace!”

  I yanked on the pendant, snapping the clasp apart, but I didn’t get the chance to chuck it at the stone floor. It shattered on its own in my palm in a flash of light and instead of dispersing, that light—my grace—collected itself like a sentient thing and clung to me, my clothes, my hair, spreading over my body and sinking into my skin.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. “Shut your eyes, Ethan. Shut your eyes!”

  Something inside of me exploded and the erupting light was bright enough to fry human retinas from their sockets. My glory and grace devoured me, changed me, filled me with a sensation that I’d long forgotten. There was an intense warmth all around me and then it turned to heat, to a blinding heat that seared the edges of my clothing. Pieces burned off and were blown away. My hair was a tornado of fire around my body. My shoulder blades tingled and became numb and I swore I glimpsed a feather fall to the floor.

  Then I felt nothing. Saw nothing. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that in the whiteness, but that eternity ended in an instant. The fire and light vanished, and the candles blew out, drenching the cathedral in darkness. My toes touched the floor, boots silent on stone, and my hair settled around me. My shoulders were no longer numb, but they felt heavy with the weight of my wings.

  “Her eyes,” the human murmured as I passed him. “They’re solid gold. She’s ascended.”

  My Guardian stared at me, lips parted, and he took a step forward to follow me. “Ellie?”

  I stopped. The feathers from my wings brushed the floor, lucent feathers the color of moonlight with just a breath of gold, and I picked them up, folding them against my back. “I am not Ellie.”

  His mouth clamped shut, his jaw clenching. I saw these things, recognized the pain on his face, but I felt nothing in return.

  I continued walking toward the sanctuary doors. “I am Gabriel.”

  31

  “ELLIE!” MY GUARDIAN SHOUTED AT ME, BUT I didn’t stop. “Gabriel! Where are you going?”

  I ignored him and continued through the crowds celebrating the Festival of Light. Few humans failed to notice me, but I suspected that was because I had not yet withdrawn my wings. I would need to take to the air soon.

  Jerusalem had changed since I’d last seen it with my archangel eyes. I remembered passing through here just this evening in my human form—I remembered everything—but experiencing these neon streets now was different. I remembered thinking the displays of light were beautiful, but now I asked myself what had made these lights beautiful? I wasn’t sure I even understood what “beautiful” meant.

  My Guardian made an angry sound as he pushed through the crowd to catch up with me. “Ellie, God damn it—”

  “I accept your presence, Guardian,” I told him as I watched several women wearing white dresses threaded with tubes of light whirl around us in the street. “But I am in no danger.”

  “You accept me?” he hissed. He grabbed my arm and yanked me around and into his chest.

  I twisted my arm until his bent the wrong way and he cried out, but I grabbed his wrist with my free hand before he could let go. His knees buckled and hit the ground. “How dare you touch me, Earthling?” I snarled, baring teeth.

  He gaped up at me. He did not seem to understand that he was only a reaper. I remembered…I remembered that he had touched me before, that I had let him, that I had…But I was an archangel now. I was not to be touched.

  “Hey,” said a meek voice to our right. It belonged to a young man who stared at my charred clothing and gigantic wings. He seemed to accept that I was part of the show. “Is there a problem here?”

  I released my Guardian and waved a hand, shoving my power into the human’s chest and blowing him away from me. He toppled through the crowd with a cry, taking down a light display with him.

  “Ellie!” Will shouted at me in anger. When I looked at my Guardian, I saw the revulsion in his green eyes. “What are you doing?”

  I continued on my way. He shouted my human name behind me as he fought to catch up. I scanned the tops of the buildings around me and spotted the Dome of the Rock. I spread my wings and they carried me into the air. I flew fast, moving as a ball of fire, a falling star, and I settled at the top of the golden dome and spread my wings to help keep my balance. I inhaled the cool night air alive with the heady scents of Jerusalem. I was not supposed to breathe. I had ascended and become an archangel, but this body…I was still partially human.

  My Guardian dropped less gracefully onto the dome. His boots slipped and his wings folded into his back. “Ellie, what the hell? You just bolted. Are you okay? How do you feel?”

  He caught my attention and I stared at him, my hair whipping around my head. “I do not understand your questions.”

  “Oh no,” he said sorrowfully. “Don’t let this be real.”

  “I empathize with your attachment—”

  “You what?” His body rocked gently in the wind. “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am.”

  He shook his head, his anger clear. “You are not my Ellie.”

  “No, I am not,” I said. “Not in the way you knew me.” I slid down the side of the dome and leaped onto the flat roof.

  He followed me, jumping down to return to my side. “But she’s in there. She’s a part of you.”

  “That is true,” I said. “I am Ellie, but I am also Gabriel. I’m not human. Not anymore.”

  He reached for me and I began to pull away, but I stopped and allowed him to touch my cheek. “Have I lost you?”

  His fingers against my skin were warm and not unpleasant. As much as I wanted to push him away, I didn’t. “I’m right here.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?” he asked, his tone heavy with sorrow. “You can’t feel anything. You don’t even know me.”

  Something instinctive and uncontrollable stirred in my chest, a flutter of heat and longing. “I can feel. I can feel your touch.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he said. He drew in a short breath and bit his upper lip, a gesture that gave me more unwanted feelings. “It’s more than that. Don’t you remember me? Don’t you know me?”

  “I remember you,” I said in a small voice. “Will.”

  He backed off and clenched his fists, his lips trembling. “You say my name like you don’t know me.”

  It was then that I pulled away and the coldness returned. “I know you. You are my Guardian.”

  He stared at me, slack-jawed and pathetic. “That’s it?”

  I spread my wings and started to turn away from him. “I am sorry.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t even know what sorry means. You’ve let yourself become just another heartless angel.”

  Over my shoulder, I narrowed my gaze at him. “And you are just a reaper.”

  He said nothing for several long moments, and just as I was about to l
eave, he drew a deep breath and spoke. “This…this is far more cruel than anything anyone has ever done to me. This is worse for me than if you had died. This is torture.”

  I studied, perplexed, as the agony on his face deepened. I knew the extent of his emotions for me and I knew how I had felt about him, but now I felt…nothing. I remembered, but the feelings were only memories, distant, fading things far out of my reach. Perhaps there was nothing after all. When I looked at my Guardian’s face, at the sorrow and pain in his eyes, I felt regret for what I had said to him. That was nothing I had ever felt before in Heaven. Angels had been created to be perfect soldiers. We felt no regret, no mercy, and certainly no compassion. I was an archangel once again, but I had changed.

  Something in my pocket vibrated. I slipped out a device, something my human memories recalled was a cell phone. I stared at it and Will took it from my hand. He took an instant to identify the caller on the screen and then pressed the phone to his ear.

  “Hello?” he answered. “It’s Will. Yeah. Sort of. Just meet us at the hotel.” He recited the address and hung up. “That was Cadan.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The demonic reaper.”

  “My brother,” Will growled. “And your friend. You’d better not treat him the way you treat me.”

  I did not reply to that.

  “I’m calling Ethan and telling him to clean up the evidence left behind in the church,” he continued. “He can meet us at our hotel room where we’ll regroup with Cadan. Do you remember where—?”

  The rest of his question was lost to my ears. I’d already taken flight and left him.

  I had to tuck away my wings when I returned to our hotel. The mortals of today weren’t as welcoming of my presence as they were the last time I visited as an archangel. The times had changed. I’d lived all of them, and I was grateful for maintaining my human memories. I would have had a much harder time navigating this new world without them.