by H G Lynch
Ember suspected he wasn’t buying Reid’s casual act.
“Ricky, if you don’t stop staring at me, Ember might get the wrong idea and get jealous,” Reid quipped, with a quirk of his lips.
Ricky just shook his head and turned to Ember. “It looks really nice on you, Ember,” he complimented.
Ember blushed and nodded. “Thanks.” She left the room with Reid trailing her like a puppy. “I’m only going to the kitchen. Relax.”
He just shrugged. Ember sighed. She grabbed a cold can of Coke from the fridge and shoved a jaffa cake in Reid’s mouth. He swallowed it in one bite.
When they returned to the living room, Hiro and Ricky were circled around something on the floor, shouting at each other. Ember exchanged a glance with Reid, who looked as confused as she felt. He jerked his head to indicate they should go and find out what was going on, but when they were halfway across the room, Ember saw what it was on the floor that they were all arguing about – Sherry.
With a gasp, Ember pushed past Hiro and knelt by her friend. Sherry looked pale and sweaty, her body twitching with convulsions, her face twisted in pain. Heart squeezing in panic, Ember looked up at Ricky. “What happened? What’s wrong with her?”
Ricky’s eyes were anguished with worry, but it was Hiro who answered for him, his voice surprisingly steady. “She has Wing fever,” he said, and Ember snapped her head toward him. He was standing with his arms crossed, his jaw set. His expression was grim.
Ember opened her mouth, but Reid beat her to the obvious question. “And what the hell is Wing Fever, fox boy?” His shoulders were tight with tension, and Ember could tell he was worried about Sherry too, though he’d likely never admit it.
Hiro sighed, his shoulders slumping. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, ruffling his red hair. “It’s an illness that occurs when a faery is coming into his or her powers.”
On the floor, Sherry whimpered. Her body twitched, her head jerking to the side. Sweat soaked her clothes and ran down her temples. Her breathing was shallow and rasping; she was clearly in a lot of pain.
Ember gripped her hand and brushed her damp hair back off her forehead. “Shh, Sherz, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” she murmured, not sure whether or not it was a lie.
Then she glared up at Hiro and stated the obvious. “She’s not a faery! How can she have a faery illness?”
Realisation snacked Ember in the face like a two-by-four, and she flinched. This was happening to Sherry because Ember had made Cris bring her back – he’d warned her there would be consequences. “Cris didn’t tell me she would TURN INTO A BLOODY FAERY!”
Sherry started twitching again, whining, and Ricky made a helpless growling sound. “I don’t care if she’s turning into fucking Bigfoot! Just help her!” he snarled.
Frustrated and concerned, Hiro looked at Sherry as she spasmed on the floor like a fish out of water. “We have to get her outside.”
“Are you nuts?” Reid snapped. “She’ll freeze to death!”
“She needs to be closer to nature! That’s where a faery’s power comes from, and if she doesn’t have direct contact with the earth, she can’t complete the transformation!”
“What happens if she doesn’t transform?” Ember asked quietly. “What happens if she doesn’t become a faery? Will she stay human?”
Hiro shook his head, his expression shadowed. “If she doesn’t transform, she’ll die. Faeries who aren’t strong enough to come through the Wing Fever…they die.”
Ricky made a wounded sound. Ember shook her head mechanically. “No. Sherry’s different. She wasn’t born a faery, so maybe…”
But Hiro only looked at her sadly. “All I know is, if you want her to live, we have to get her outside. I’ll do everything I can to help her through this, but she needs to be touching soil. She needs skin contact with the earth to be able to absorb the power she needs.”
Looking more scared than she’d ever seen him, Ricky nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll carry her out. Ember, can you make a ward around us, a bubble of heat so she doesn’t get hypothermic?”
Ember nodded emphatically, though she wasn’t sure she could make and hold a warding like that. Ricky wasn’t looking at her anyway. He slid shaking hands under Sherry’s limp body and lifted her gently, cradling her carefully against his body as if he wanted to shield her from the air itself.
Reid opened the door and gave them a signal to show the coast was clear, and Ricky carried Sherry out into the biting winter air. Ember followed close behind, gathering power and pushing it into a bubble around them. She barely noticed the snow melting around her as she walked; her focus was solely on Sherry and keeping the warding around her and Ricky. Her hands trembled with the effort, and a headache quickly took up residence in the front of her skull.
As Ricky laid Sherry on the snow, Hiro knelt beside them, murmuring as his hands hovered over Sherry. It reminded Ember of the night Cris’d revived Sherry in the tunnels under the school, and she shuddered. She refused to believe Sherry was dying again. She couldn’t.
Reid hovered nearby, looking tense as a bowstring, his eyes darting between the trees. Suddenly, Hiro flicked his wrist and in his golden hand appeared a foggy bottle of amber liquid. He pulled the cork from the top and tipped it toward Sherry’s mouth. Ember’s hand shot out to catch his wrist. “What is that?”
Hiro looked at her with serious yellow eyes. “Trust me, it’ll help her. I promise.”
Ember hesitated and glanced at Ricky, but Ricky was too busy staring worriedly at Sherry to pay any attention. Ember sighed. “Go ahead.”
Hiro held the bottle to Sherry’s lips and poured a small amount into her mouth. He pinched her nose and she swallowed reflexively. She coughed slightly, and then her chest stilled, her raspy breathing halting. Ember’s heart jerked, but before she could panic, Sherry took a gasping breath and her eyes flew open.
She looked around briefly. “Guys…what’s going on?”
Everyone let out a sigh of relief. Sherry’s eyes met Ricky’s and it was clear, they were going to have a long chat about what had just happened, starting with the words, “You’re a faery now.”
Chapter Five
Ember felt groggy and stiff the next morning, and she rolled over with a sigh. It took her a moment to realise two things: A) Reid wasn’t next to her, and B) She was still fully dressed from last night. Then she remembered being so tired after what had happened to Sherry, she’d rolled into bed without a second thought.
Rubbing her tired eyes, she forced herself to roll out of bed, the cold air skimming her bare arms. Skipping past the mirror —she knew she probably looked like Gene Simmons right about now — she ducked across the hall into the back room, grabbed clean clothes, and dove into the bathroom before anyone could see the mess she was in.
Once she looked somewhat human again —or as human as a half witch, half vampire chick could look - Ember scraped her hair into dinky ponytails and wandered into the living room to look for her friends.
Much to her surprise, nobody was there. She could hear laughter from the back garden, but oddly, she didn’t feel like joining in. Instead, she headed out the front door.
The crisp, fresh air was unusually still, just a lick of a breeze rolling loose snowflakes over the surface of the heavy sea of white. She watched the shadows of the trees flicker on the glittering blanket on the ground, she wished she knew how to draw snow the way it looked to the naked eye. It was never quite so beautiful when captured through the lens of a camera, or sketched out on dull paper. Maybe if she used white chalk on black paper, she could—
Abruptly, a beam of light shot down from the clouds into the park, just a handful of metres from where she sat. The light glistened on the thick cover of snow. Her first thought was that it was a UFO. She then mentally whacked herself for that thought. Aliens don’t exist. Vampires, werewolves, witches, faeries — Hell, even the Loch Ness Monster — she could believe in, but until a little green man with webbe
d feet came up to her in the street, she would not believe in aliens.
She was pulled from her thoughts when a dark shadow began to coalesce in the centre of the light shaft. Her lips parted in disbelief as the shadow took shape and her mind stuttered, No Goddamned way! Oh, yes way. As the light receded, it left behind what was, unmistakably, a person. But it was clear as day that this person wasn’t human —at least, not judging by the huge, feathery, bronze wings spreading from his back. With her mouth open, she nearly fell off her swing, a scream tearing unexpectedly from her throat —later, she would always deny that scream ever happened. She leaped off her swing and stood behind it, clutching the chains, as if it would deter the thing.
“What the fuck?” she hissed, already in full vamp-out mode. The…being in front of her instantly turned his head to look at her and she gasped. He was dressed in just white linen trousers and he was thickly roped with muscle —too muscled really, in her opinion. His skin gleamed honey-bronze, practically glowing. His hair fell to his shoulders in gentle brown waves, and his face…the features could’ve been that of any roman statue. Straight, proud nose, strong jaw, and eyes shadowed by lashes so thick they seemed to weigh down his lids, making him look almost sleepy. His eyes were dark, swirling brown pools, she could see even from fifteen feet away. When his wings began rustling and folding themselves away —into his back? — she jerked in surprise, making the swing chains rattle.
The guy, unwisely, took a few graceful steps toward her — Hell, was he floating? — and her shock and awe evaporated in a rush. She had an orb of flame dancing in her palm before she could even think about it, and the being paused. His face showed no expression whatsoever, and it was almost freakier than if he was growling through rows of green teeth.
“Who the hell are you? Don’t come any clossser!” she warned, almost surprised by the vampire hiss to her voice.
The man —for surely he was at least twenty — simply stared at her, hands at his sides.
“Who are you?” she asked again, with less volume, but just as much venom.
There were only the sounds of the bare tree branches rattling and the wind whispering across the snow, for what felt like an eternity —an eternity in which her heart was slamming into her ribs and a dangerous glimmer of fear tried to raise its ugly head.
Finally, the being spoke in a smooth, carefully emotionless voice. “I am Raphael. You may call me Raz.”
Ember’s jaw dropped, but her fiery orb didn’t waver. She kept her eyes on him, inspecting his buff, gleaming physique, the tumbling waves of brown hair that was two shades darker than Ricky’s, the shape of his face, the unflinching expression of serenity and seriousness. She couldn’t help it; She shuddered. And immediately saw something in Raphael’s expression shift. But only for a split second, and then he regained his composure. Ember didn’t know what else to do, so she sent a telepathic summoning to Reid, Reid! Reid, get your ass back here NOW!
Raphael quickly spoke again, no longer serenely serious. “Don’t!” he took one step forward, one hand out as if he could block her telepathic message.
Oh, God, what if he could? What if he could read her mind? How else would he know she’d been mentally trying to reach help? As quickly as these thoughts flipped through her mind, her body was faster in reacting to the possible threat. She lobbed an orb of flame at Raphael. It was well aimed considering she hadn’t really meant to throw it —it was instinct. The orb was going to hit him right in the chest —or it would’ve, except that he wasn’t there anymore. There wasn’t even a scuff in the snow to show he’d been there. And then he was standing right in front of her, on the other side of the swing, his expression blank again. She screamed again and stumbled back a step.
Then a ferocious voice cut sharply across the park. “What the hell is going on here!” Reid sounded furious. She could understand why. What he must be seeing; A perfectly human-looking —now that he didn’t have wings — half-dressed guy looming over Ember as she cowered behind a swing. Yeah, that would look bad. Reid was in front of her in a heartbeat. “Hey, asshole, back off of my girlfriend before I rip you to shreds,” he growled.
Raphael didn’t blink, didn’t even flick him a glance, just kept staring at her. She looked away from his dark eyes, suddenly fearing compulsion — Reid and Ricky couldn’t compel her, but who knew what this guy could do? — and slammed up her mental walls.
Reid hissed and she redirected her attention to him. He was in full vamp-mode and still Raphael didn’t flinch. That scared Ember. Everyone, supernatural or not, moved away when Reid looked like that. She even wanted to back away a little. Reid lost his temper at last and swung a fist up into Raphael’s jaw, but it never made contact. Ember’s eyes widened in horror as Raphael, so blindingly fast she didn’t see him move, caught Reid’s hand and then grabbed him round the throat. With one hand, he lifted Reid off the ground. Reid, to his credit, didn’t yell or struggle. He simply lounged in Raphael’s grasp, a murderous gleam in his eyes and a calculatedly arrogant twist to his mouth.
“Let him go! Fucking put him down, you bastard! Don’t you dare hurt him!” Ember screamed, suddenly fury rising in her chest.
She leaped over the swing and started pounding ineffectually on Raphael’s chest. The man was solid and cool as stone. He looked down at her — Hell, he was tall— and his expression changed ever so slightly, making him look almost apologetic. His mouth softened, his eyes lightened, brows lifting. All just tiny movements that transformed his face.
The fury went out of Ember like a light. “Please, let him go,” she whispered, her legs giving out. She thumped down onto her swing.
Raphael carefully put Reid on his feet and released him. The first thing Reid said when he could talk again was, “Sonofabitch! Who and what the hell are you?” Ah. He was sure to hate this guy for a very long time. Payback was a given basically.
“He had wings,” Ember muttered, not sure she’d really meant to say it until the words were out of her mouth. She cringed when Raphael turned those dark, dark eyes on her again.
“What?” Reid sounded confused. He knelt in the snow in front of her so he could look up into her eyes, but it was clear in the tense set of his shoulders that he didn’t like putting his back to a possible enemy.
“He had wings,” she repeated, “Big, bronze, fluffy wings. And he just…dropped out of the sky,” she said, knowing she sounded idiotic.
But the look in Reid’s lovely eyes told her maybe she wasn’t such an idiot after all. He believed her, and didn’t seem as shocked or amazed as she would’ve expected. Then again, very little seemed to really shake him unless it was directly related to her safety. He got to his feet and turned to Raphael, frowning. They stood in silence for a while, just staring each other down.
Then Raphael spoke. “I am Raphael. You may call me Raz.” Was that his only scripted line or something? More silence. “I am not a threat to you or your friends,” Raphael said patiently. It took Ember a moment to figure out that Reid was talking to Raz telepathically.
“Why are you here? What do you want?” Ember asked aloud, knowing she sounded like a cliché in a bad movie.
“I am here to warn and protect you,” Raz said in reply.
Reid scoffed, but Ember’s curiosity spiked.
“Warn us about what? Protect us from who?” she asked.
Raphael just shook his head.
“What are you?” Reid asked again.
Raphael hesitated and then answered, eyes on Ember, “I am your guardian angel,” he said it with a straight face, so seriously. Ember, despite her fear of him, and having seen his wings, burst into laughter. Couldn’t help it. It had to be a joke. Right? But Raphael didn’t look like he was joking. He stood stoically while she laughed, and then she noticed Reid wasn’t laughing with her. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but it made her uneasy.
“A guardian angel? That means there’s going to be serious trouble, right?” Reid sounded as deadly serious as Raphael, and his tone
killed her giggles.
She gaped at him. “Wait— You’re serious? An actual guardian angel? But…but that’s not…” she didn’t bother finishing her sentence, thinking of how hypocritical it would sound to say, ‘That’s not possible. Angels don’t exist’. She’d learned lots of things existed — Except aliens — so why not angels? Simple. She didn’t believe in God, therefore angels were irrelevant biblical myths. And just because angels existed, didn’t mean she’d start praying every night. If God did exist, he didn’t give a toss about her or anyone else, so why waste time with faith? That’s not how she was going to live.
“Yes,” Raphael said quietly. She didn’t know if he was answering her or Reid, though he was still looking at her.
Swallowing shock, she put on her most sour teenager face and crossed her arms. “Would you quit staring at me! I know I’m pretty, but jeez, get a grip.” She flipped her hair and Reid started laughing, warming the icy air and breaking the tension. Ember could’ve sworn she saw Raphael’s lips twitch, and he glanced away into the trees. Reid ruffled her hair and she saw his knuckles were pink from the cold. The clouds above looked ready to chuck down another bucket load of snow.
“Ah, crap. Knew something was bound to happen here. Guess bad guys follow the demon girl like magnets,” Reid said, putting a hand on her shoulder. It was a casual gesture, but Ember got the feel he was being protective.
Raz gave her an odd look. “Demon girl?” If his voice wasn’t so flat, he might’ve sounded confused.
She cracked a smile and Reid explained lightly. “Yeah, Ember’s got all the attitude and charm of the devil.”
Ember bit her lip, wondering if it wasn’t an inappropriate joke to make to an angel. But Raphael just blinked and tilted his head so that a few long strands of dark hair fell across his face.
“And I suppose her control over fire is demonic in origin as well?” Raz asked, his tone just a little lighter than deadpan. It took her a second to realise he was actually joking. Sort of. She grinned.