I stared at him.
He rose from his seat and pulled me with him, letting go of my hand to gather me in his arms. I stiffened for a heartbeat—I couldn’t remember the last time someone had held me. I’d done all the holding, all the comforting, all of my life.
I breathed in the green and earth of his halo, the faint scents of soap and tea tree shampoo, chill and rain that lingered on his skin and in his hair. His arms and chest were strong and hard with muscle, but he held me gently—not as if I might break, but as something, someone, cherished. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on tight, taking what he offered and giving what I could.
The hum of an engine and the squeal of belts and brakes undercut the plip-plop of the water that dripped from the eaves. Someone had pulled into the driveway, and judging from the commotion inside the house, that someone carried an insulated bag filled with pizzas.
Moment of truth, and not just for fessing up to the group about who I was. The most important person in my entire world was in there, waiting to hear a story from me about who I used to be before I became her guardian. I could leave out plenty, and maybe I could skirt the parts I’d hidden from Faith, but all it would take was someone asking the wrong question, or putting the right details together at the wrong time, and my carefully built house of cards would come crashing down all around us. The only thing worse than Faith finding out what I’d done was her finding out from someone else.
Maybe she’d lose whatever trust she had in me. Maybe that could be rebuilt, or maybe it couldn’t. Maybe she’d hate me. I could live with that if I had to. What I couldn’t live with was her hating herself—that, I had no control over.
“We should go in,” I said. “I’m gonna want a few minutes to talk with Faith before I talk with the rest of you.”
“Something you need to tell her?” he asked.
“I’ve been keeping something from her. I don’t think I can do that anymore. It might not go well.”
He planted a soft kiss on my forehead. “Out of the frying pan.”
I covered my nerves with hopeful sarcasm. “At least the fire has pepperoni. And olives.”
“Thank God for small favors,” he said, and led me by the hand into the house.
Corey was in the kitchen when we stepped inside, standing on the tips of her toes to pull plates from the overhead pine cabinets to the right of the sink. Another set of cabinets occupied the overhead space to the left of the sink. In fact, all of the space underneath the counter was filled with working cabinets and drawers. I’d never seen so much storage. Then again, I’d never lived in any circumstance where I’d had enough kitchen things to need that much. The room had only one tiny window over the sink. It afforded a great view of the garden, though.
The appliances were black and silver. A pine kitchen island with a cooktop took up the space in the center of the room, an oily skillet with the remains of scrambled eggs resting on one burner. A breakfast nook in the northwest corner served as Ben’s second desk, judging from the number of books stacked on top. A couple of still-lifes hung on the wall—beautifully painted platters of apples and pears.
Corey settled flat on her feet again with a handful of plain white plates. “Everything all right?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “We’re gonna have to make it all right.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s—”
Red finished her sentence. “The truth.”
She pulled the plates close to her chest. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Red asked.
“Treating us like adults.”
I raised a brow. “You’re not adults, but you’re not children either.”
Corey snorted. She started to say something, but closed her mouth and listened instead. “It’s too quiet out there.”
I honed in on the lack of sound as well. Either everyone had stepped out the front door or there was a problem. Given the day so far, I’d bet my life on a problem. I ran through the kitchen and down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of the living room, where the rest of the kids had the pizza delivery guy surrounded. Faith stood as close as she could get, her face and her halo infused with anger. Ben and Jess flanked her, ready to knock the guy down if necessary. Three-to-one, if a fight went down—and that was before I entered the space, with Red and Corey right behind me. So why didn’t the odds feel in our favor?
The kids had backed him into the corner closest to the front door, the only thing between him and them a worn, brown leather chair and a dark green, spiky mother-in-law’s tongue in a green ceramic pot. The guy gripped the top of the chair, but not hard, not like some dude in his early twenties who’d expected to hand off bread and cheese in exchange for dollars but got more than he bargained for. He wore a white shirt with Spanelli’s embroidered in black thread in the top right corner, and a black nametag that said Dave pinned on the left. Red spots that appeared to be marinara-related stained the hem. The mist had turned his white hair into a mass of frizz.
He seemed far too relaxed. He should be yelling and trying to fight his way out of the room, but he had a smile on his face that didn’t reach his vacant, pale eyes. He should be freaking about the red thermal bag he’d set on the coffee table, the one with the hot pizzas inside that he should have already delivered and been paid for, because surely he had at least one more stop after us and he couldn’t be late and expect to keep his job.
Wait.
Pale guy with pale eyes and white hair. This was the guy who’d come by Ben’s house this morning and talked with Faith about having known me from back in the day, the guy who Addie had assured me wasn’t a Watcher.
His halo was a normal, rosy gold. Nothing to be concerned about. Nothing magical at all. But at the same time, there was nothing normal about him. He had a kind of magnetism that had magic written all over it. And he emanated a chill over and above what the weather had wrought. I could feel it flowing off of him in waves from where I stood in the doorway, ten feet away.
What kind of person gave off both normal and magical vibes at the same time?
I cleared my throat to get the kids’ attention. “Back away from him.”
Faith shook her head. “Not until I get some answers.”
“You say you want them,” the white-haired guy said. “Do you really?”
“Faith,” I said. “Please.”
She scowled at the guy, but she backpedaled a couple of steps. Ben and Jess did the same.
I pushed forward, weaving between them, and placed myself in front of them, arms outstretched at my sides, forcing the kids to retreat a little more.
“What’s wrong?” Faith asked.
“Everything,” Red said from behind us.
“That who I think it is?” I asked.
“Yep,” Red said.
“Who?” Faith asked.
A regular, normal guy who apparently delivered pizzas for a living, a man with a regular, normal halo who someone had become imbued with magic and presence that didn’t belong to him. A man possessed.
“That’s the Angel you summoned,” I said.
The hawthorn out front hadn’t stopped him from coming in the door. Maybe it didn’t see him possessing the poor delivery guy. Or maybe the Angel of Death was too powerful for most protections to work against him.
Faith cursed under her breath. “Oh, shit.”
“You knew I’d come,” the Angel of Death said. Not to Faith or to any of the others, but to me.
“La Muerte. I hoped we’d have more time.” We should’ve had several more hours.
“Foolish,” the Angel said.
Of course. “You were already here. You’d already taken control of the body you’re in. You came here this morning.”
“Reconnaissance,” the Angel said. “It’s important to understand one’s enemies.”
“Is that what we are?” I asked. “Until this morning, it never occurred to me that you actually existed. If I thought it would make a difference, I’d have run away fr
om you. It didn’t occur to me to fight.”
The Angel shrugged. “That’s the difference between what you were then and what you will become, if I allow it.”
“And what’s that?”
“If I have anything to say about it, nothing at all.”
The Angel of Death’s—Dave’s—eyes darkened to black, his pupils lengthening and widening to fill the whole eye. All black, no whites. Then in the space of a lightning flash, a force flew from the Angel’s eyes towards me. It hit me like a freight train. Stole my ability to move. To speak or see or hear.
My legs refused to hold me. I fell to my knees, keeling over on my side. My head hit the floor hard. I tried to draw breath, but couldn’t seem to get air into my lungs. They ached for the lack. The aching ratcheted to throbbing, then to screaming.
Consciousness fled in a flurry of black-feathered wings. The Angel’s wings.
Chapter 7
A BELL TOLLED once, a deep, bone-rattling ring that made me think of a death knell. Yes, that was what it was. It might’ve rung out in the world, or inside my head. I couldn’t tell.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move a muscle. My body had begun to shut down, and my brain would follow accordingly any second. Darkness filled my eyes, and the sound of wings filled my ears. The only part of me that could act—the only part of me that could fight whatever the Angel of Death had done to me—was my will and the extension of my will—my magic.
I sent my magic forth, sliding into mind after mind, seeing and feeling through their eyes and their senses.
I saw myself through Faith’s eyes, lying on the hardwood floor in Ben’s living room, unconscious and unresponsive. She screamed, her mouth trembling as the sound rolled out of her. She said my name over and over again. And she shook me, shook me hard, willing me to open my eyes.
My magic seeped into Corey, who held Faith by the shoulders, leveraging all of her body weight to pull Faith off of me. She couldn’t do it—not until Jess piled on and two against one shifted the odds. Faith fought them, squirming, flailing to get free. Jess applied more pressure. All of her weight. All of her will. An ounce of Watcher magic—increased strength. When she thought she had things in hand, she glanced over her shoulder at Ben, who stood between the Angel of Death and the rest of us, his feet planted wide, arms stretched to full length at his sides. His gray halo had taken on the form of bricks, a full wall of them. He was shielding us—all of us—from whatever the Angel might do.
It was too late for that. Too late for me.
As I watched, the darkness drained from Dave the Pizza Guy’s eyes and Dave went boneless, smacking against the wall behind him and sliding to the floor. The Angel of Death had released his hold on Dave.
Red filled the space where Faith had been, his hands moving to check my vitals. His expression hardened when he found no pulse. He climbed over my body and knelt at my side, positioning his hands to start CPR, when he heard Dave hit the floor.
Red knew what that meant. He knew that trying to kick-start my heart wouldn’t work, that his magic, which had no offensive component, couldn’t help either. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do except to look into me, to witness what was happening, and to pray that I could beat it back.
He’d lost me once, all those years ago. He wouldn’t be able to handle losing me again.
I felt the same about him. In this moment, I felt it so strongly, it hurt.
The Angel of Death couldn’t walk in this world without a human host. He had to possess a human being before he could act in this plane. Dave had served for a time—for recon, for sizing up the enemy to determine whether any of the powers in play had the right magic and enough juice behind it to prevent him from taking a more permanent host. The question was: Was it me?
He didn’t know. He was testing the waters. I wasn’t the only one with the right qualifications. Faith, for instance, fit them, too.
I knew those things because the Angel of Death knew those things. He’d taken control of my body. He was trying to take control of my spirit, of my soul, of my magic. Once he did, I would cease to exist. I’d be no one and nothing but an empty vessel for the Angel to occupy and use.
I gathered my magic. I couldn’t shield myself with it. My magic had always been a weapon to use against others. I knew how to wield it. He would not have me. He damned sure wouldn’t have Faith.
The Angel hit me like a battering ram, over and over again, dismantling my will to keep him out a little more with each blow. But each time the Angel made contact, I saw more clearly into his mind. Motives and plans and machinations, all.
The Angel had known me back in the day—making my acquaintance the night my parents died, following me into the Order, riding on my shoulder with each mission I took, with each kill I made. Watching. Waiting.
A war was coming. The war. The only one that mattered, the one that would decide the fate of all the worlds. The Angel knew every single thing that would happen during the war. He knew it because it was his job to know. All events had been foretold.
But there was a catch. Seventy-two catches, to be more specific.
Each of them was a bright spirit—a human, demon, angel, faery, or god—who could alter the course of events before the war began through the use of their free will.
The Angel could not allow that to happen. It was his mission, along with all the other Horsemen, to make sure everything unfolded according to plan. He would need to influence those on his list to be influenced, kill those on his list to be killed, and maneuver into position those assets that would be needed to assure the defeat of the opposition.
In order to do that, the Angel would need a human body, one with enough inherent magic to be able to contain him. If he could possess the body of someone who could otherwise do him great harm, so much the better.
The Angel had come to Portland not just to find a body of his own, but to kill someone who might dare alter the course of events. Because I could see into the Angel’s mind, I could see the face of the one he wanted dead before sundown tonight.
The Angel ceased battering against my will and my magic and tried to slip in sideways. He scoured every shadow, every place where there might be a crack in my armor, searching for a way in.
If he got in—if he took me—I would never get free, and the person he’d come here to kill would die. If anyone tried to stop him, he would end them.
He himself could not be killed. He was unstoppable. He was forever.
The inevitable began to seep in: I was not immortal. I couldn’t hold out forever. I’d tire sooner or later, and the Angel would find the way in. Already I could feel the beat of his wings against the skin of my will, of my magic, and where his feathers touched, a voice whispered.
I know you, he said.
He’d become aware of me on a very special night when something had happened that made me vulnerable to him. Something I’d done.
Killed my parents?
The one thing I couldn’t remember, the one thing that haunted me. Because I didn’t know what had happened, my fear of what I’d done could be used against me. It was the one crack in my armor. The one way in.
Because I knew it, the Angel knew it, too.
He searched anew for that way in. In the time it took my heart to beat, he found it. And the line between who the Angel was and who I was started to blur. My edges softened. My edges—
I was all sharp, steel edges. Red had said so, and he would know. He could see into me. He could divine the shape of my soul.
The Angel pushed at the thought, brushing it away. I pushed back.
He tried again. This time, I sliced at him. The razor edges of my soul—of my will and my magic—cut him. He bled. His blood wasn’t red, not like human blood. When the Angel of Death bled, he bled starlight.
The light seeped out of him and kept on coming, flowing slow and steady, with no sign of stopping. And because I could see inside the Angel’s mind, I understood that it wouldn’t stop, not without divine
intervention.
He fled my body as suddenly as he’d struck. As soon as he departed, without any fight to focus on, my magic gave up the ghost.
Some part of me felt hands on my skin, pushing and pulling, moving me from where I lay on the floor to the sofa. Arms encircled me. They felt strong and solid, and when I breathed in—air, flowing into my lungs, had never tasted so sweet—I breathed in the scents of green grass and dark earth.
Red’s voice rumbled in my ear, the words repeated like a mantra. “She’s okay. She’s okay.”
“What happened?” Faith asked. “What did that thing do to her?”
I opened my eyes to half-mast, which was all they would agree to do.
Faith pressed her palms against my cheeks. “Night?”
I nodded, which fell short of speaking, but I thought it might be a few minutes before I could manage to form words of my own.
“Where is it? Where’s the Angel?” she asked.
Red answered for me. “Gone. He’s not in her anymore, and he’s not in any one of you.”
“Are you sure?” Faith asked.
“One-hundred percent,” he said. “Can you go get Night a glass of water?”
Faith blinked. She took off for the kitchen, Corey dogging her heels.
Red noticed me noticing. “Corey will keep an eye on her.”
I took a minute to assess the situation. I lay on the sofa all right, but not flat. Red sat behind me, cradling me in his arms. Ben crouched on the floor near the fireplace, backlit by the flames, head in his hands. His halo wept, full of the feelings he didn’t feel he could show. Jess knelt beside him, her hand on his back.
Jess.
I tried to sit up straight, but had no luck. My arms were spaghetti, and probably would be for a little while. Red loosened his hold on me and helped. “Jess,” I said. “Call your aunt.”
She held my gaze as she pulled the phone from her pocket, not once taking her eyes off of me. Apparently, she had Addie on speed dial.
I rested while Jess relayed the events of the afternoon. She didn’t have my perspective, but she had Red’s word about what had happened to me. Addie spoke on the other end of the line, and Jess passed on the message. “She’s on her way.”
Night Awakens: The Awakened Magic Saga (Soul Forge Book 1) Page 9
