Dark Angel Box Set

by Hanna Peach

  “It doesn’t look dangerous.”

  Most girls would be squealing and climbing all over him when faced with a mouse. This thing with sharp-looking claws and spikes almost crushed her and she didn’t think it looked dangerous? What the hell would look dangerous to her then?

  “I’m not a lizard,” a squeaky voice said.

  Israel snapped his head towards the creature. Its beady gray eyes looked up at him with what appeared to be a stern look on its face. Did it just talk?

  The creature’s mouth opened, revealing a row of very sharp-looking teeth, and its hands flew up to its throat. “Angel’s Breath! Is that my voice?”

  Alyx gasped. “It’s a talking lizard?”

  “I’m not a lizard.” The thing repeated in its almost child-like voice.

  “What kind of lizard talks?” Israel asked.

  “I’m not…” the lizard looked down, holding out its arms as if it were inspecting itself. “Hells and devils… Of all the things to manifest as, I had to manifest as a two-foot stone dragon. And not even a very wise looking dragon.”

  “He’s an angry talking lizard,” said Israel.

  The lizard’s stony foot stamped onto the ground and its arms crashed to its hips. It glared up at both of them. “For Angel’s sakes, I am not a lizard. How do you even command any respect at this height?”

  “What are you?”

  “I’m the Elder.”

  The Elder. That name rang a bell…but just as the recognition came it floated out of Israel’s grasp like mist.

  “What’s an Elder?” Alyx wrinkled her nose. Even that tiny movement was adorable.

  “Not what, who? I am the Elder.”

  The Elder. Recognition rang through Israel’s mind.

  “I knew we should have made Vix come here instead of trying to contact the Elder,” Balthazar muttered.

  Israel inhaled sharply as the memory of the two strangers in his living room crashed into his mind. That’s where he was before here, wherever here was. He had been in his living room with Balthazar and that annoying Jordan guy. Or perhaps that had been part of this crazy dream, one that was obviously continuing. A dream within a dream.

  “I’m here to help you,” the Elder said to Alyx. “I’m not even supposed to be here so I don’t know how long I can stay.”

  “Help with what?” Alyx asked.

  The Elder turned his steel gaze on her. “To get you out of here before it’s too late.”

  She frowned. “Get out of what? What’s too late?”

  “Alyx is trapped in a labyrinth inside her own mind,” said Jordan. “Only you can get through to her and help her get out before it’s too late.”

  A sinking feeling began to grip Israel. Somehow he was now in the labyrinth with Alyx. In her mind.

  No. He refused to believe it. It was impossible. It couldn’t possibly be real…

  Could it?

  “What do you remember happening before you woke up here, Alyx?” the Elder asked, continuing to brush dust off himself.

  “How do you know my name?”

  The Elder made a tsking sound. “Why is the lizard talking? How do I know your name? Why are you asking all the wrong questions? What I know and who I am isn’t important. What was the last thing you remember before you woke up here?”

  Alyx’s forehead furrowed.

  Israel could remember. He’d never forget it, not as long as he lived. He was about to answer for her but the Elder caught his eye and gave him a shake of his head as if to say, let her come up with the answer.

  “I… I was meeting someone,” she began. “At Saint Paul’s Cathedral.” She turned to look at Israel. “But you were there instead. And we talked but then…” Her eyes went wide. “You called ‘look out’. I felt pain. On my head.” Her fingers went briefly to the back of her skull. “I woke up here.” Her face tightened, her eyes narrowing. “What did you do to me?”

  “He didn’t do anything. It was the consequences of messing with fate,” the Elder muttered as he shook his head.

  “Fate?” Israel said. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s no such thing as fate,” Alyx said.

  The Elder sighed, disappointment clear in his stony face. “If only we had more time…” Louder, he said, “Alyx, a bolt of lightning struck the cathedral, breaking off one of the gargoyles. It struck you, knocking you out. Israel rushed you to the hospital, where you still are, in a deep coma.”

  “What do you mean ‘where I still am’? I’m not in hospital. I’m here,” she frowned, “wherever here is.”

  “You’re both there and here.”

  Alyx shook her head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  Despite this weird, strange logic, Israel knew that the Elder did make sense.

  “He’s right.” Israel said, his voice quiet. “I spoke to the doctors, I…” He wasn’t going to admit that he pretended to be her fiancé to get access to her room. He cleared his throat. “Dr. Novak. She said that you were in a coma. That you weren’t waking up. Then these two guys showed up at my place, told me I needed to help you escape from your coma, and they put me under. That’s when I woke up here.”

  “You’re both nuts,” she said, stumbling back from them. “I can’t be in a coma, I…”

  “Alyx,” the Elder’s voice was low and calm, “this might sound crazy but you know, deep down inside you, you know this is the truth. Now, even if you didn’t completely believe me, would you take that risk? Do you want to die?”

  “Wait, what?” Israel said, sweat breaking out on his skin. “Why would she die?”

  “Alyx is somewhere between life and death right now. A human being is not supposed to be here for too long.” The Elder turned to Alyx. “If you don’t wake up soon, then I’m afraid you’ll pass over to the other side.”

  Fear gripped Israel. He knew that it would be nothing compared to what Alyx was feeling at the threat of her own death. Israel looked over to her, ready to comfort her, to catch her if she fell in a broken heap. She was standing there with her chin up, stoic and calm. She was unafraid at the prospect of her own death. Unbelievable. She was unlike anyone he’d ever met before.

  “Why can’t I just wake up?” she asked the Elder.

  “Have you tried just waking up?”

  “No.”

  The Elder cocked his head, pieces of tiny stone scattering from his horned skull. “Go on then.”

  Alyx frowned as if in concentration for a few tense seconds. She snapped her head towards Israel. “Scare me.”

  “What?”

  “People wake up if they’re scared.”

  Israel frowned. Scare her. That didn’t sound so hard. He lifted his hand into claws and revealed his teeth and tongue, all while growling.

  Alyx stared at him for a second, then snorted. “I said scare me, not act like an idiot.”

  Israel lowered his hands, a touch of heat coming to his face. That didn’t work. What would? He got an idea. He reached out and pinched her.

  “Ow.” She yanked her arm back. “What was that for?”

  “Pain can wake you too.”

  Alyx glared at him as she rubbed her arm.

  “Sorry. I thought it might help.”

  “Well it didn’t. Wait a minute…” she said, her eyes going wide. “I felt pain. You can’t feel pain in a dream…”

  The Elder was nodding his head.

  “Oh my God.” She stumbled back. “This isn’t a dream?”

  The stone lizard let out a long-suffering sigh. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

  “Not a dream…but where…? How…?”

  “Stop asking the wrong questions.”

  “Okay…” She blinked at the talking creature. “Not a dream. The right questions. Which is… W-what do I do now?”

  “What do we do?” Israel corrected.

  Alyx caught his gaze. He smiled at her and hoped it came across as reassuring. She bit her lip and turned back to the Elder. “Why is he he
re?”

  “It’s not like I planned it,” muttered Israel.

  “No offense,” Alyx said to him, “but I don’t even know you.”

  “Yes, you do,” the Elder said. “Or at least, you did.”

  “What?” Alyx and Israel both said together.

  “I’ve never met him before today,” Alyx said.

  The Elder’s eyes were serene as he stared first at Alyx, then Israel. “Before the two of you were the two of you, you were…the two of you.”

  Israel shook his head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “In a past life, the two of you meant something very special to each other. You were bonded then. As you are bonded now.”

  “Are you talking about…reincarnation?” Alyx said, her voice betraying her incredulity.

  “I don’t believe in reincarnation,” Israel said.

  “Don’t be silly,” the Elder said. “There’s no such thing as reincarnation.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “Magic,” the Elder whispered.

  A chill went down Israel’s spine. Magic. But he didn’t believe in magic. Or fate. Or labyrinths inside a person’s mind.

  And yet…here he was.

  He glanced over to Alyx just as she looked at him, and their gazes locked. A strange kind of electricity hummed through him. The Elder said they had been bonded then…bonded now. Could it be…that they knew each other in a past life? Was that why he felt this…connection with her, a stranger? And yet… on some soul-deep level he felt that Alyx wasn’t a stranger.

  “Now.” The Elder smacked his foot down on the ground like a gavel and broke the spell. “No more questions. You’ve got a long road ahead of you. But first we need to get you prepared. And this is where I come in. Are you both ready?”

  Without thinking Israel reached over to grab Alyx’s hand, warm and soft like a small dove in his palm. Her eyes widened at him but she didn’t pull away. Then her fingers curled into his.

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  “Follow me.” The Elder began to scuttle across the room on his hind legs. It looked quite awkward. Israel tilted his head at Alyx as if to say, shall we?

  She dropped his hand but remained at his side as they followed the Elder, falling into step together. He kept glancing over to her profile, to study the thickness of her lashes, the elegant slope of her neck, and the way her top teeth dug into her bottom lip. She leaned into him and his stomach did a flip at her proximity and the feeling of her sweet breath against his cheek.

  “Don’t lizards walk on all fours?” she whispered.

  “I heard that,” snapped the Elder. “I’m not going to walk on all fours like some kind of animal.” His backside and tail swayed like a penguin as he waddled to the head of the vault.

  “How do you even know where to go?” Israel asked.

  “It’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with someone in a coma. Although,” he turned his head and gave Israel a meaningful stare, “some of us have more…imaginative minds than others.”

  Israel frowned. He sensed there was some kind of double meaning to what the Elder had just said, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what.

  They stopped before a wall with an engraving that Israel recognized as Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The Elder pressed the door of the cathedral, the tiny opposing angels recognizable from here, and it sank back into the stone. There was a dull thud, then the ground began to rumble as a stone slab swung aside to reveal a dark doorway, a cloud of dust billowing out from the dank-smelling entrance.

  The Elder sneezed. When he shook himself, dust scattered off him. He looked down at himself, his stony face shifting into a frown as pieces of his arm and shoulder crumbled off him.

  Alyx gasped. “Elder, are you crumbling away?”

  Over his shoulder the Elder pinned her with a serious stare that answered all her questions. “Let’s move. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  * * *

  The tunnel was only wide enough for them to walk one by one. Alyx followed the Elder into the dark tunnel, Israel behind her. It was so dark she couldn’t see anything and had to feel with her fingers against the moist, grimy walls to keep her moving in the right direction, picking up her feet carefully so as not to trip. She could feel Israel’s presence heating up her back like a bonfire. Her entire body seemed to snap into a sharp awareness when he was around. No one had ever commanded her senses like this before. Ever.

  Not Daniel. Not any of the boyfriends she’d had before him.

  And when he touched her—when he had pushed her out of the way and fallen on top of her, when he grabbed her hand—her body burst to life with some kind of wild, savage feeling. It felt like soaring above the Earth, wind in her hair, fire in her blood.

  This feeling was dangerous. What the hell did this mean anyway? Why was she reacting to Israel like this? She barely knew him. How did she make it stop? Nothing good would come out of feeling so damn much.

  By the time she stepped out into a larger, tomb-like space, she was tense and annoyed, her nerves pulled tight. This room had a ceiling so high she had to crane her neck to look up as she walked across it, held up by several towering pillars so wide she wouldn’t be able to get her arms all the way around. It was lit with by several monstrous black iron chandeliers that hung more than halfway down towards the smooth stone floor. In a corner of the ceiling, tree roots as thick as grown men had broken through and were clawing their way down the wall. That confirmed it. They were underground. There were still no windows, but a dark doorway stood in the far wall.

  The Elder stood in the center of the room. “Come now, we don’t have all day.”

  Israel jogged past Alyx. With a snort of annoyance, she sprinted past him, her arms pumping in time with her legs. He sped up. So did she.

  Alyx skidded to a halt before the Elder, her breath heavy from the exertion. But she won, just. She sent a smug look over to him. “Guess you’re not as fast as me.”

  He grinned back at her, his breath also a little short. He shrugged. Shrugged¸ as if to indicate that he had let her win.

  “Alyx,” the Elder said. She turned to face him, pushing her annoyance down. In the Elder’s hand, looking incredibly oversized, were two swords in their sheaths, simple handles, the blades about the length of her arm. He handed one to her and the other to Israel. “Buckle the sheaths on your hips and draw your sword.”

  “Swords?” scoffed Israel. “Who are we going up against? The Knights of the Round Table?”

  “The journey you will take will be filled with Shadows,” said the Elder, “manifestations of your subconscious. If you fear them, they will come for you.”

  “I’m not scared of anything,” Israel said.

  The Elder turned to him with a scowl on his face. “Everybody fears something.”

  Alyx buckled the leather belt around her waist, the simple sheath hanging from her left side, then drew the sword with her right hand. She turned it over and fingered the blade. “Um, Elder…these feel real.”

  “They are.”

  “They feel sharp.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “They are.”

  “And we’re going to have to fight off these…Shadows with these?” Impossible. Alyx swallowed down a gulp.

  Israel spoke up. “Not to be a party pooper here, Elder. But what exactly happens to us in here if we, um…die. In here, I mean.”

  The Elder paused before he spoke. “Remember that this is Alyx’s subconscious. So if you died in this dream, Israel, I think you’d just wake up in your body in the real world.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Pretty sure?” Israel’s voice rose.

  “And if I die in here?” Alyx asked.

  The Elder met her eyes and she knew the answer wasn’t one that she wanted to hear. “We don’t have any more time to waste,” he said softly. “Let’s begin your preparations.”

  With his sheath fastened, Israel
drew his sword, then stared at it with disdain. “Elder, give me a gun, not a useless stick of metal.”

  “Only an idiot would called swords useless,” Alyx said. “Swords just happen to be the most beautiful, most refined weapon known to man. Only tasteless brutes resort to guns.”

  Israel raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? Have you ever even held a real sword?”

  “Yes. All the time. The ancient khopesh of Egypt, the Seven-Branched Sword of Korea, a Masonic-made Knights Templar sword. I’ve had my hands on some of the most exquisite pieces of weaponry in all the world.”

  “Do you work in a museum or something?”

  “Well, actually…the Saint Joseph Museum.”

  Israel managed to look impressed for all of two seconds before the smug look was back on his face. “So you know something about swords. But have you ever fought with one?”

  She shuffled uncomfortably. “Not exactly.”

  “Give me a gun and you can keep your sword. You’d be dead before you could take one step towards me. I can shoot a bullseye on the move from a hundred yards.” He turned to the Elder and waved his sword about. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

  Alyx rolled her eyes and muttered, “You could start by shoving that up your—”

  “Alyx!” the Elder snapped.

  “Elder,” Alyx turned to him, “with all due respect. It can take months for people to even learn the basics of sword fighting.”

  “You two don’t need to learn anything. You just need to remember.”

  Well, that didn’t make any sense. “Remember what?”

  Before the Elder could answer the room shuddered as a tremor went through the earth. Almost as soon as it started, it stopped, the falling speckles of stone and the swaying of the chandeliers the only remaining signs.

  “What was that?” Israel asked.

  “Enough questions.” The Elder stomped his stony foot with a crack and a piece of his toe crumbled away. “We’re running out of time. Show me your stance.”

  Alyx moved into what she thought might be a fighting stance. As did Israel. She tried not to look over to him and compare their positions.

  The Elder walked around them adjusting them by tapping parts of their bodies with his tail until he was happy. He pulled Alyx’s arm down closer to hip height with her sword tip point at an upward angle. She felt the immediate relief in her arm. “As I said,” the Elder walked back and forth as he spoke, “neither of you need any training. Fighting is in your past. It’s in your bones, in your DNA, it’s embedded in your soul. Deep down you know all this and more. So…fight.”