The Innocent

by Michelle K. Pickett

  I slipped my phone in my pocket. “I know.”

  ***

  Ben rammed his toy cars together and made blasting noises. It amazed me how many sound effects the kid could make. While he blew up the world with his Tonka trucks, I talked to my parents. We sat in the kitchen, which overlooked the family room where Benjamin played.

  It was a beautiful, peaceful room if you could ignore the seven-year-old smashing toy cars together. The house was brand new. Rebuilt after the fire—thanks to Abaddon—destroyed it.

  “There’s something going on, and it involves Ben,” I blurted. There was no since sugarcoating it. My parents needed to know.

  “What? What are you talking about?” my mom asked. Her hand flew to her throat and picked up the locket that hung there, moving it back and forth along its chain.

  “I’ve been having visions, and they have Ben in them. Not just in them—they center on him. And the hobgoblins said Azazel is coming for him. At first, I wasn’t sure who they were referring to, but I’ve had enough visions to know it’s definitely Ben.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know that part, Mom. I just know Azazel is coming for him.”

  “He doesn’t want to make the same mistake he did with Milayna,” my dad whispered. “He wants to take care of Benjamin early so he doesn’t miss his opportunity.”

  “But I thought he was safe until he was closer to his eighteenth birthday?” my mom asked, her voice rising a little with each word.

  “The age of accountability—Benjamin hasn’t reached it yet. Until he does, Azazel can try to turn him. He can try to steer him to his side. So when Ben reaches the age of accountability, he’ll choose Azazel rather than his demi-angel roots. Once he chooses, he’ll enter a time of protection until the months just prior to his eighteenth birthday when Azazel will have one more chance to turn him like he did with Milayna. Only with Milayna, he failed. Azazel doesn’t want to risk that with Benjamin because he knows…”

  “What? What does he know?” My mom gripped the table’s edge and leaned forward, her gaze swinging between my dad and me.

  “He knows that when Benjamin turns eighteen and his demi-angel powers mature, not only will he be one of the strongest demi-angels there are, but when his power is combined with Milayna’s, they’ll… they’ll be untouchable by any force. Together, their power will be ten times greater than any other demi-angel there is. They’ll be able to defend humans from Azazel’s army with minimal effort. Azazel knows he can’t let that happen. He needs to change Benjamin or… kill him to keep him from maturing and combining his power with Milayna’s.”

  “John…” My mom sighed loudly. “I really wish you would tell me this crap sooner so I can prepare myself.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So when does Benjamin reach the age of accountability?” My mom folded her hands on the table. She was squeezing them together so hard her fingers were white.

  “Dunno,” my dad said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” my mom whispered through clenched teeth.

  “I mean, it’s different for everyone. It’s a mental thing. A self-awareness. The point in Ben’s life when he is able to knowingly choose to live for good or evil. There is no set age. But if Azazel is coming around and Milayna is having visions, he must be close.”

  ***

  I climbed the steps to the wraparound porch. I wasn’t sure why I went. I didn’t have any news to give. I just wanted to be there. Needed to feel his presence. I rang the doorbell before I changed my mind.

  The door opened, and a beautiful blonde stood in the opening.

  “Hi, Mrs. Roberts.”

  She gave me a small smile. “Hi Milayna. Visiting your folks?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come in,” she said, moving so I could pass into the house, Chay’s house.

  “Um, I’ll only stay a minute. I don’t want to interrupt.” I was suddenly very nervous to be there. I forced myself to put my hands down to my sides so I wouldn’t wring them together.

  “It’s fine, Milayna. You’re not interrupting anything. You’re always welcome here,” she said.

  “Thank you. Um… I was wondering if… well…” I bit my bottom lip, my words fading.

  “No, we haven’t had any news.”

  “Oh. I had another vision of him.” Now I was wringing my hands. I worried if telling her was the right thing to do.

  “Could you tell where he was?” She leaned forward in her seat.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?” She was smiling now, excited by the thought of a new lead.

  “Here.”

  Chay’s mom slowly leaned back in the chair. Her smile faded and she stared at me so long that I started to squirm in my seat. “You’re sure?” she finally asked.

  “I’m sure I had a vision, he was in it, and we were at my house. Yes.”

  “When?”

  “I had the vision last night. But the timeframe of the vision is almost impossible to tell. It could be a day from now or a year. I just can’t know for sure. But I did see him here.”

  ***

  As I walked home from Chay’s house, I was still raw from the talk with his mother. I hoped I did the right thing by telling her. I didn’t want to get her hopes up for nothing, but I did want to give her hope. I really believed Chay would come back. Or maybe I just wanted him to so much I forced him in my visions. Was that possible? I didn’t know.

  I pulled open the patio door. The hinges glided open with a small whoosh.

  I miss the old door and the loud squeal it made when it opened. My mother always nagged my dad to oil it; Dad always forgot. A lot has changed since Abaddon entered our lives, and not just the fire that leveled our house. Chay. Why can’t I move on? I mean, he did try to kill me—sort of.

  “Hey.”

  I looked up, the voice interrupting my thoughts.

  “Oh. Hi, Xavier.” I almost added, What are you doing here, but bit my tongue so it wouldn’t come rolling out.

  “I know you said you were going to visit your family tonight, but I found out that your parents are going out to some kind of barbeque at work tonight.

  Oh, crap. I wish people would tell me these things!

  “So I thought we could spend some time together,” he said with a smile that made my heart quicken.

  “Um, if my parents are going to be gone, I’ll need to stay with Benjamin.”

  “He’s going to your grandmother’s.”

  “Grams! I haven’t seen her in forever. Xavier, I’m really sorry, but I want to go see my Grams with Ben.” I really did. I hoped I didn’t hurt Xavier’s feelings, but I needed to talk to my grandmother and visit the purple couch.

  “Don’t worry, Milayna. I understand you haven’t seen your family in a while.”

  There’s that smile again. I really wish my heart would stop beating so fast every time he smiles. Damn it straight to Hades and back.

  “Thanks for understanding, Xavier.”

  And why does he have to be so nice? It would be so much easier to blow him off if he was a jerk.

  Later that afternoon, I asked my dad about the barbeque. He said they had planned to go, but decided to cancel since I came home. I convinced them to go, that I wanted to go to Grams’ with Ben. Partly to see her, and partly to keep an eye on Ben, make sure there weren’t any demons hanging around.

  I was getting dressed to leave when I saw it. I was supposed to keep it with me at all times, but after I killed Abaddon, I didn’t see any reason to keep it, so I left it home when I moved away to college.

  I fingered the leather sheath that held the dagger. The gold handle was encrusted with gemstones—rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. It was beautiful. The metal blade was engraved with an intricate design, making the deadly weapon a work of art.

  Legend said the knife was made from the very coals of Hell. It was the only way to kill a demon. I stole it from one of Azazel’s Evils.
I used it to kill Abaddon, among other demons.

  It was a kickass, demon-killing knife. Azazel was a demon. It made me wonder if it would kill him, as well.

  A demon was killed from the slightest touch of the blade. How could Azazel handle it? Unless… he had to be stabbed like Abaddon was. He’s a stronger demon. Maybe a touch isn’t enough. Maybe a stab to the heart is. If I ever get close enough to him, I’ll find out.

  “Milayna, are you coming?” Ben’s voice called from outside my bedroom door.

  “Yeah.” I wrapped the leather sheath around my ankle and pulled my pant leg over it.

  ***

  We got to my grandmother’s senior citizens’ apartment complex that evening. It took us a half hour to walk from the front door of the main building to her apartment door. Not because the building was that big, but because every woman there had to stop us and dote on Benjamin. They gave him candy and gum, they kissed and hugged him and asked who his grandmother was—which they asked every time we visited. Finally, we made it through the gauntlet of old ladies and got to my Grams’ apartment.

  “I wanna ring the doorbell,” Ben said and pushed me out of the way.

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t dare touch it.”

  “Come in,” she called.

  Ben ran in and threw himself at her. She leaned back in her wheelchair laughing.

  “Benjamin, you’re getting too big to do that. One of these days my chair is going to fly over backward.”

  Ben giggled. “That sounds fun, Grams!”

  “Of course you would think so.” My Grams smiled. “Milayna, I didn’t know you were coming! Are you staying or just dropping Ben off?”

  “I’m staying.”

  “Good, good, have a seat then, child.”

  I sat down on my favorite purple couch. It was made of velvet, or at least something that felt as soft as velvet. It was a beautiful shade of deep purple. I loved that couch. I sat there through some really good times, and Grams consoled me through some really tough ones. There were times in my life I needed the couch—I felt safe when I snuggled into the soft pillows.

  I loved that my grandma was eccentric—the kind of woman who’d have a purple couch in a bright yellow and red living room. I felt at home there.

  My grandmother was my father’s mother—sort of. She was an angel, not a demi-angel like me, but a full-blooded angel. She wasn’t actually a blood relation to me; angels are created, not born. So they don’t have mothers and fathers like humans do. But they tend to gravitate to one another and create their own families. And the bonds were strong, as strong as or stronger than blood ties. So even though the same blood didn’t pump through our veins, my grandmother was my real, true grandmother, just like Muriel was my cousin and my uncle Rory—my dad’s brother—was my real uncle.

  “So, how’s school?” Grams asked. Her gaze searched mine.

  “Good. I like it, but I think I’m going to take the rest of the semester off.”

  My grandmother frowned. “It’s your first semester.” She studied me for a minute. “Something’s wrong. The boy?”

  I nodded. “I miss him.”

  “Mm-hmm. Yes, I know that. But I didn’t mean that boy. I meant the other one.” She looked at Benjamin, who was happily building houses with his Legos only to crush them with his cars.

  I nodded.

  “I had a feeling. What do you see, child?” She rolled her wheelchair closer to me and leaned forward.

  “Azazel and—”

  “Four men?”

  “Yeah, how’d you know?” I asked slowly.

  “They’re the Four Brothers. They were above Abaddon.”

  “The Four Brothers?”

  She ticked their names off on her fingers. “Yann, Brann, Jord, and Himmel. The Four Brothers. They’re nasty, Milayna. If they’re helping Azazel, you’re going to have one helluva fight on your hands.”

  Shit on a stick. I don’t like that answer. Let’s try for another one.

  I glanced at Ben, and then back to my grams. “Why now? Why are they showing up now?”

  “You’re stronger. You were able to outwit Azazel, which was bad, but not devastating because they had Abaddon, and he could still kill you. But you up and put a wrench in their plans when you killed him. Essentially, you killed your own assassin. You took out their back-up plan. So they’re coming to take care of the problem themselves.”

  “And Azazel? What does he have to do with this?” I asked. A shiver ran down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like little soldiers.

  “That’s easy, Milayna. He’s coming for Benjamin.”

  When I got home from Grams’, I Googled the names of the four brothers. Jord translated to earth, Brann translated to fire, Himmel translated to sky, and Vann translated to water.

  That doesn’t sound good. A fire demon? Crap, regular demons are bad enough. Now we have a fire demon? Great. He sounds like a blast at parties.

  “And an earth demon. That’s what the goblins meant when they said the tree was a game and I wasn’t supposed to get here. That tree was meant for me. Jord, or whatever his freakin’ name is, tried to bounce that tree on my car. Damn demons. I’m so sick of them.” I dropped my head in my hands and fisted my hands in my hair.

  “Milayna? Are you okay?” my mom called from the hall outside my bedroom door.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Well, you’re talking to yourself in there. Just wondering.”

  I laughed. “I’m fine.”

  I wasn’t fine. I’d just learned Ben and I had not one, but five demons after us. And four of them controlled the elements.

  Life sucked sometimes… but demons sucked monkey balls all the time.

  ***

  I grabbed my cell and tapped out a text.

  Me: Xavier, have you heard of the Four Brothers?

  He didn’t reply. Seconds went by. I didn’t think he was going to answer me. When my phone finally dinged that I had a text message, I jumped.

  Xavier: I’m coming over. Be there in ten.

  “Where’d you hear about the Four Brothers?” Xavier asked me as soon as I opened the front door.

  “Hi to you too.”

  “Sorry. Hi. Where did you hear about them?” He ran his hand through his hair.

  “My grandmother.” I stepped back and looked up at him. “Why? What do you know?”

  “Just rumors, old legends. They’re supposed to be a group of fallen angels. They each control an element—”

  “Fire, sky, earth, and water.”

  “Right. Supposedly, they can make the element they control do whatever they want it to.”

  “So this Jord guy, he could cause a tree to fall?”

  “Geez, Milayna, you know them by name?” He ran a hand across the back of his neck and swore under his breath. “I guess so.”

  “The hobgoblins said the tree was for me.”

  “Huh?”

  “When I was driving home, a tree fell across the road. I had a vision that it would hit the car in front of me. It was actually meant for me according to the hobgoblins. They said it was a game. That I wasn’t supposed to get home. That I was a… a problem to be dealt with.”

  “Well, Azazel—”

  I waved his words away with a huff of exasperation. “I know, Azazel can’t touch me. But other demons can. Abaddon could. And…”

  “And what, Milayna?” he urged when I didn’t continue.

  “And Azazel can hurt my family.” I pinched the bridge of my nose against the headache I’d felt building all day. “I think he’s after Benjamin.”

  “Benjamin is in a protective state until the year of his eighteenth birthday.” He leaned against the doorjamb, one arm stretched above his head.

  I shook my head. “He hasn’t reached the age of accountability yet.”

  Xavier sucked in a breath. “You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure.” I said, rolling the hem of my T-shirt around my finger.

  “Damn.”
>
  That one word scared me. It told me everything my father said was true. Not that I didn’t believe him—I’d just hoped he was wrong.

  “Benjamin is in trouble, isn’t he? He’s vulnerable to Azazel and his demons.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think he’ll try to kill him? He’s just a baby. Surely even Azazel has some decency. He wouldn’t hurt Ben. Right?”

  I searched Xavier’s bright blue eyes for the answers I wanted. But even as I asked the questions, I knew the answers. Of course Azazel would try to kill Ben. If he couldn’t get him to switch sides, he would do whatever it took to keep Benjamin from maturing as a demi-angel. He wouldn’t even blink if he killed him. Azazel was a demon after all. Evil didn’t care about age. Ben was a demi-angel. It didn’t matter that he was only seven years old. As long as he used his demi-angel powers for good, he was a threat to Azazel.

  Xavier didn’t answer my questions. He just watched me as I worked out the answers on my own, worry and compassion in his eyes. He reached for me, pulling me tightly against his chest when I walked into his arms. “We won’t let anything happen to Ben. Tomorrow, we’ll alert the others. He’ll get through this. We’ve done this before, Milayna. We can beat them again,” Xavier murmured against my hair, his cheek lying on top of my head.

  “I know. We’ve done it before. But… I can’t help wondering…”

  “What?” He ran a hand up and down my back.

  “When will our luck run out?”

  ***

  I sat straight up in bed. “Chay.” Sweat rolled down my face, or maybe it was tears. I never could tell. There were a lot of times when I woke up crying from a dream about Chay.

  I fingered the gold band Chay had given me, which I still wore on a chain around my neck, before swinging my legs over the bed. I leaned forward, my hands braced against the mattress, and looked at the floor. It blurred. Yeah, I should have known they weren’t sweat drops on my face. Definitely tears. Always tears when I dreamt of Chay.

  I pushed off the bed and made my way to the bathroom. Pulling out a bottle of pain reliever, I popped two in my mouth, chasing them down with a gulp of water straight from the tap. I had a headache the size of Montana. There was no way I was going back to sleep when it felt like someone was inside my head, playing darts with a pickaxe.