The Innocent

by Michelle K. Pickett

  Xavier’s house had three bedrooms. He slept in one, my parents in one, leaving one for Ben and me. I didn’t mind sleeping in the same room with Ben. He was still scared from the storm and would probably end up in bed with my parents or me anyway. What I minded—very much so—was sleeping in the same vicinity as Xavier.

  “I’ll stay with Grams until I go back to school,” I told my dad when I found we’d be staying with Xavier.

  “No, you need to be here with us. It’s safer for you and for Grams. Besides, Xavier is another angel. He’s one more layer of protection for you and Ben.”

  Ugh. Why did he have to have a good reason for everything? It was true. Being around another angel or demi-angel would provide more protection. We were strongest when we were together. I guess that was why we subconsciously gravitated to one another. Drew and his family lived just down the street from Xavier. Drew was a demi-angel. Muriel lived across the street from me, Chay behind me. Jen, a demi-angel, lived down the street from Drew, although she was away at college. That made five demi-angels, with their angel parents, living in a two-block radius of each other, plus Xavier. Eleven of us total.

  So there I was, perched on the foot of the bed in one of Xavier’s guest bedrooms. It was exactly how I pictured a guy’s guest bedroom to be. White walls, a bed, a fraying blue and burgundy quilt thrown haphazardly on the bed, a dresser, and a little square mirror above it—that was it. No photos on the walls or artwork of any kind, not even a decent paint color, just plain white. It kind of sucked. My room was hot pink. I liked color. Big, bold, smack-you-in-the-face color.

  “Here are some extra hangers,” Xavier said, laying a stack on the bed next to me. “It looks like you could use some.” He gestured to the bags sitting next to me.

  I smiled. “Yeah. My mom’s a crazy shopper.”

  He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. “Ah, no problem. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Okay.”

  Awkward.

  I looked out the window. I can see my house. Well, the hole in the roof. Hopefully, that will be gone soon and we can move back home. Or the Four Brothers will be gone and I can go back to college. Either way, I can get the hell outta here.

  Sighing, I looked to the right. I could see his house. There were some trees down, but for the most part, his house was untouched, which surprised me. There was an awful lot of banging and roaring going on while we were in his basement the night before. I was sure we’d surface to a flattened house. But the only things damaged were a few spots on the roof, some blown out windows, and a missing garage door. Not too bad considering.

  I started pulling clothes out of the shopping bags and clipping their tags before slipping them on hangers.

  Time to unpack. I can sit here and pout all day, but it isn’t gonna change anything. Damn it.

  ***

  “Okay, I wanted to get everyone together to talk about what’s been going on,” my dad said.

  He’d called a meeting of all the demi-angels. Everyone was there except Jen. Xavier, because his age was closest to ours, was considered a demi rather than an angel. Some of the angels still fought, like my dad, Chay’s dad, and occasionally Uncle Rory, but the others were getting too old, but they could help in other ways. They had knowledge, especially of the older laws and legends.

  “It seems Azazel is hard at work again. He’s found a new way to attack our children. Through some demons that call themselves the Four Brothers.”

  Some of the angels took in a sharp breath, and murmurs filled the room.

  “Are you sure?” Drew’s dad asked. “You’re sure that’s the name you’ve heard?”

  I nodded, making contact with as many angels as I could, hoping I could use my powers to build a bridge and tap into their emotions. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Where did you hear it?”

  “In my vision. Actually, in more than one. And I’ve seen them in my visions. One was standing on a mound of dirt. Another in a puddle of water. The third had fire around his feet, and wind whipped around the fourth. I’m assuming that one was Himmel, the demon of the sky and wind.”

  Drew’s dad sat back in his chair, his eyes wide. “You know them by name, then?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “I shouldn’t?”

  He leaned forward, propping his elbow on his knee, and resting his chin in his hand. “Not many people do. Tell me what you know,” he prodded.

  “Not much, really. Jord is the demon of the earth. He controls the earth and all that’s in it, such as trees and rocks. He can create mudslides and earthquakes, whatever. Himmel is the demon of the sky and air. He can create windstorms, tornados, and hurricanes. Brann is the demon of fire. He can ignite anything that is flammable. He can control fire’s direction and intensity. And last is Vann, the demon of water. He can create flash floods, tsunamis, water spouts, solidify water, and move water like it was solid.”

  I took a sip of my Coke, and then turned the can in circles on the table. “I think I’ve come in contact with three of the Four Brothers already. Jord dropped a tree in front of my car on my way home from college. It was dark and raining. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t had a vision. I think I saved myself, along with another couple. Ben and I were involved in the flash flood last week. That could very well have been the work of Vann. And we all know about the storm last night. That was Himmel’s handiwork. I know that because he told me.”

  “He told you?” Xavier asked.

  “I had a vision of the storm right before it hit. Then a whisper in my ear that said ‘Himmel is coming.’ When the storm hit, I knew it was him.” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, rolling it back and forth.

  “Well, this can only mean one thing,” Drew said with a sigh. “We’re all on demon patrol again until the Four Brothers get bored and move on—”

  “That won’t happen,” Drew’s dad said.

  “Or we figure out a way to end it,” Drew finished.

  “We need to know what they want to end it,” Chay said, speaking for the first time.

  I looked up from my Coke can. “I know what they want. They’ve told me. They want Ben and me.”

  The room went quiet. Every eye was on the little boy playing with his trucks and army guys on the floor in the next room. He was happy, cheerful, and oblivious that demons existed, let alone wanted to kill him.

  “We need a way to kill them,” I murmured.

  “We have to find them first,” Chay bit out sarcastically.

  “Finding them doesn’t do us much good if we can’t defend ourselves against them.” I wanted to add idiot to the end of that, but I refrained only because our parents were in the room.

  “Then what’s your big idea, Milayna?” He spread his arms wide and glared at me. “Well?”

  Geez, he’s acting like a child. “What is your problem, Chay?”

  “At the moment? You.”

  “Chay!” Mrs. Roberts snapped. He glared at me one last time before he stalked out of the room. “Go on, Milayna,” Mrs. Roberts said softly.

  I stared at the door for a few beats, my heart sinking. He hated me. I could hear it in his voice—see it in the set of his jaw. It was that moment, the very second the door closed behind him, when I realized Chay and I were through. What we had together disappeared the day he did. “I was just wondering if we could take some of the dagger and melt it down to make bullets. Then a person wouldn’t have to be so close to the demon to kill it. We wouldn’t melt down the whole dagger, just part of it, leaving enough that it’d still be useable.”

  “Milayna, we don’t even know if it will melt. It comes from Hell, remember? If it can withstand those temperatures, I don’t think it will melt easily,” my dad said. “But it’s worth a shot, I suppose. Where is it?”

  I reached down, pulled the dagger out of the sheath at my ankle, and handed it to him.

  “That’s my girl.” He smiled at me and then looked over the dagger. “The blade isn’t that long to begin with. I
’m afraid to take off any of the length.”

  “The handle is bulky. We could take some of the width away and it would still fit her hand,” Chay’s dad said.

  “Dibs on the jewels,” my mom and Mrs. Roberts said in unison.

  “There’s enough to share, ladies.”

  “I’m making a ring,” my mom said.

  Mrs. Roberts laughed. “I’m making a necklace.”

  “I’m making a ring and a necklace.” They both giggled like little girls playing dress-up.

  “Eww, I think I’ll make earrings, too,” my dad mimicked.

  I laughed. “So? Do you think it’ll work?” I asked.

  “If it’ll melt, we might be able to work with it. The next step is finding something to shoot at.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  Chay’s dad looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  I shrugged. “They’ll come to me.”

  Uncle Rory was an avid hunter. He was also a do-it-yourselfer. He had all the gadgets and machinery needed to make any kind of bullets—even kick-ass demon killer ones.

  “So when you kill the demons, what do you have to do, Milayna? Through the heart, in the head, what?”

  “Well, a standard demon just has to touch the dagger and it’ll die. But Abaddon had to be stabbed through the heart. So if I had to guess, I’d say the Four Brothers would have to be stabbed through the heart, too.”

  “I wonder if we could get by with just coating a regular bullet with the metal from the knife. We could get a lot more that way.”

  “Guess it’s worth a try.” I shrugged.

  “Or a shot… get it? A shot? Like a gun—” Uncle Rory chuckled at his own joke.

  “Yeah, I got it,” I said with a smile. My uncle’s jokes were so lame.

  “Okay, well, let’s get started then.” He lifted the knife and looked at the handle from different angles.

  “What do we do? Just chop it?” I asked.

  “No. First, we soften the metal and then we…”

  All I heard was blah, blah, blah after that. I didn’t know half of what he was talking about. And what he was going to do wasn’t nearly as fun as chopping it in my opinion.

  Melting metal, gemstones, black haze.

  I could smell a caustic odor. The gemstones seemed to make music as they tinkled into the pan below, the hiss of the blowtorch shushing them.

  The metal glows, the gems sparkle… they crack open and black smoke fills the room. I cough, can’t breathe.

  I felt it. Everything that happened in the vision, I felt. Coughing was first. The odor set my throat and eyes on fire. It felt like I ate a ghost pepper chili and then rubbed it in my eyes. My nose ran and tears covered my cheeks.

  The vision grew stronger. The invisible poison choked me, and I clawed at my throat. I felt dizzy. The room began to blur and the edges became hazy.

  “Milayna?” Xavier asked. His voice sounded far away, deep and slow.

  “Don’t melt the knife,” I managed to say between strangled coughs.

  “Wait!” I heard Chay yell.

  Uncle Rory flipped off the blowtorch, and, coughing, I fell on all fours onto the floor.

  My dad crouched beside me. “Milayna? Did you have a vision?”

  Well, duh, Dad.

  “Yes. The gems. They’ll break if you try to melt the knife,” I said between gulps of air.

  “So?” someone asked. I wasn’t sure who.

  “They’ll release some kind of poison when they open. They can’t be removed from the knife.”

  “Damn. It was a good idea too,” Chay’s father said.

  “I guess we’ll have to rely on the knife itself. Why don’t you give it to me, Milayna, and I’ll hold it for you?” Xavier held out his hand.

  I looked to my dad and then at Xavier. “No. Thanks, but I’ve got it. It’s right where it needs to be.”

  “Smart girl,” Mr. Roberts murmured.

  I glanced to the side and saw Chay watching me.

  Uncle Rory packed up his gear, and everyone filed upstairs. Chay and I were last to go.

  “You wanna give the dagger to me to hold for you?” Chay asked with a sarcastic edge to his voice. The corners of his mouth lifted in a small grin.

  “Yes.”

  He pushed off the wall he was leaning against. The small smile on his face disappeared, replaced by a look of confusion. “Why would you give it to me, Milayna?”

  “I trust you,” I whispered.

  “Even after—”

  “Yes. Even after. I trust you with my life, Chay.”

  “You shouldn’t.” He turned and walked away; he didn’t look back.

  But I do. I love you. Whether I like it or not. And some days, I freakin’ hate it.

  ***

  “Himmel isn’t happy.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “He’s going to visit again,” Scarface said.

  “I’m sure he will. There’s still part of my house standing. He’ll want to crush that part, too,” I said and rolled my eyes.

  Scarface cocked his head at me, a look of confusion on his face. Evidently, sarcasm didn’t translate well to hobgoblins.

  “He has another game planned for you to play,” Friendly said, clapping his hands together.

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll be great fun. Where is Himmel anyway?”

  “Over there.” The goblin pointed to a spot behind Xavier’s house.

  Scarface batted down Friendly’s stumpy arm and scowled. “Idiot. He’s in the underworld. Where else would he be?” he said to me.

  “Was he here for the game?” I asked Friendly.

  “They are always here for the games.”

  “Shut up,” Scarface growled, grabbing the hobgoblin and popping back to Hell where they belonged.

  I looked at the area behind Xavier’s house. It was open land. Undeveloped real estate owned by a company that planned to build another subdivision.

  Why would a demon be lurking over there? The goblin must be high on sulfur fumes.

  I turned to go inside and ran smack into Chay. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I saw the hobgoblins.”

  “They aren’t here anymore. Why are you sneaking up on people?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. You weren’t listening. You have to pay attention, Milayna. Don’t you remember the one thing I taught you when Azazel came around the first time?”

  “I don’t know who I can trust,” I said.

  “Yeah. Which means you need to be watching your back all the time. You can’t rely on anyone else to do it for you.” He hooked his thumbs around his belt loops and tilted his head, his eyes roaming my face. “You were smart not to give it to him.”

  I let a long sigh. “What?”

  “The dagger. You were smart not to give it to your boyfriend,” he murmured.

  “Who? Xavier?”

  Chay leaned his shoulder casually against the house. “Yeah.”

  I laughed. At Chay’s perplexed look, I laughed harder.

  Men can be so clueless. How can he not know?

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Everything. Nothing.” I waved my words away with a flick of my hand. “You need to figure this one out on your own. ‘Bye, Chay.”

  I reached for the door to walk inside—it was locked. It would have been a much more dramatic exit if I didn’t have to ring the doorbell and stand waiting for someone to answer the door. I looked over my shoulder and saw Chay’s lips twitch, trying to hide a grin. I sighed. I already hated living with Xavier.

  “I’m gonna need a key if I’m forced to stay here, Dad,” I said as soon as the door opened. I shut it firmly behind me without a backward glance at Chay.

  “There are keys on the counter,” Xavier said.

  “Oh. Thanks.” Taking one, I headed to my bedroom to sulk in peace. I opened the door and found myself in the middle of a war.

  “Milayna! You just knocked down all my pl
anes. Now the army will lose because they won’t have any air support. Geez. Way to kill a country.”

  So much for peace and quiet.

  “Sorry, frog freckle. Can you play downstairs?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “Mom told me to play up here.”

  “Great.” I pulled my iPod down from the shelf, shoved in my earbuds, and turned the volume up until I couldn’t hear the buzzing plane and bomb explosion sound effects Benjamin was making. Closing my eyes, I tried to relax, but all I could see was Chay’s face.

  So much for relaxation.

  ***

  I see faces. Four faces fly at me at the same time, from different angles. They flicker in and out like static on a television set. Their mouths move, but nothing comes out. As they fly by, they distort, like I’m looking at them through a carnival mirror. Their foreheads protrude, and then their bottom jaw juts out at me. The faces whiz by faster and faster until they’re nothing but blurry objects flying around my head.

  Then it stops.

  I’m standing on the walkway outside Xavier’s house. It’s dark, rainy. Four cloaked figures stand in the street, looking at me. The hoods of their cloaks cover their faces, but I know who they are. The Four Brothers. Another man appears beside them. Azazel. The hood of his cloak is down. I can’t see him clearly. Something catches my eye—a glimmer, a sparkle. I look at the sash of his robe where a dagger is hanging. A dagger like the one I have, like the one I stole from Jake.

  “Milayna,” Azazel says. Even in my dreams, his voice is grating, nasally and icky. “You’ve met my brothers?”

  I shrug one shoulder, dismissing his question.

  “What about my friend?” Azazel asks.

  I watch as a sixth man appears, his back to me. His cloak is red. The hood is drawn over his head. He slowly reaches up to pull it down, turning so I can see his face…

  I jerked awake. All I remember was dark hair curling slightly around his collar.

  I pushed my tangled hair out of my eyes and sat on the side of the bed. The sixth man was vaguely familiar. I’d say it was Jake, but he had blonde hair. The man in my dream had dark hair. No, this was someone else.