CHAPTER 22: LADIES OF DARKNESS
The air was bitingly cold as we flew through the early morning sky. But it wasn’t the cold that made the chill-bumps rise on my arms, it was the horrifying cacophony. The images in my head were of the dreadful devastation that lay below. I hadn’t dared look as I clutched onto Andrew, my eyes closed in absolute fright at what I would find if I were to open them. Andrew was silent, but his body tensed around me—his muscles lean and hard. The noise of metal crashing against asphalt rang in my ears, as if someone was throwing pieces of the car around. Maybe that was exactly what happened.
Did Soul Stalker finally catch up to us? And why didn’t Ehno or Andrew see it coming? Wasn’t that what we were here for—to watch the ground for possible attacks? The guilt became agitated, like a venomous bubble in my chest. Andrew had been too busy paying attention to me.
“Please don’t feel guilty,” Andrew said as we flew over the accident. Heat rose in my cheeks—embarrassment and partial anger—because he could read me so easily when we touched. My skin glowed electric blue in all the places we touched.
“Put me down,” I ordered, trying to focus my mind.
“No,” he said softly.
I took a deep breath and stole a glance over my shoulder to see what was happening beneath us. I gasped at the scene, unable to form any kind of coherent phrase for a second or two. Finally, I shouted, “Put me down now!”
“Please.” His eyes searched mine pleadingly. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous. Ehno and Lucia can take care of themselves.”
I could read the lie and the conflict in his eyes. Of course he was doing it to calm me down, but it actually had the opposite effect. Gritting my teeth, I looked down again. Joseph had ducked behind the mangled car, his back against the door, while Ehno and Lucia fought against Soul Stalker, who had apparently acquired backup in between the underground facility and the wreckage site. Two new angels, dressed in white, billowing robes, fought alongside Soul Stalker. Damn—if only they were on our side.
“You’re nothing but betrayers,” Lucia shouted toward them. “Your treachery is disgusting.”
There was a flurry of light, like a tiny star burst in between them.
If Andrew didn’t put me down so I can help—so help me God I would scream. What was the point of watching? Andrew could fly, and I had the power to manipulate electricity. We could help.
“I’m not asking, Andrew. I’m telling you. Put. Me. Down.”
He looked down at my severe expression before he lowered some in the sky in concession. “Stay with Joseph,” he demanded. His facial expression made it clear that this point would not be negotiable.
There was a scream along with the sound of crackling as what looked like fireworks exploded underneath us, piercing the cold morning air. I didn’t say anything. He must have taken my silence as an agreement because we dropped so quickly that one second we were high above the trees and the next we were on the ground, behind the destroyed car. The vehicle was bent almost in two, as if the Soul Stalker herself had run into it. The tires were bent at a funny angle, and the safety glass was shattered out of every window. Andrew put me on my feet, and I turned toward Joseph who leaned against the bent door, his head bleeding profusely. It was crimson against his skin.
“Crap, Joseph. Talk to me. You okay?” I said as I bent low behind the car and ran over to him. The noise on the other side had become explosive. You’d think a nuclear war was being waged in the middle of the street as huge bursts of light and large booming sounds vibrated the ground.
Andrew stared at the two of us for a second. What was he waiting for? “Please—help them.” I pointed through the broken window of the car, pretty sure that no matter where I pointed devastation followed.
He gave me a small nod, his eyes full of some emotion I couldn’t read, and flew toward the scene of chaos on the other side of the car. How even was this fight? Who were the other angels? I shivered at the thought of what would happen if our side didn’t win. Why was this happening? Was Andrew’s flying ability going to keep him safe?
Joseph coughed, bringing my attention back to his wounds.
“Joseph?” My fingers flailed uselessly around his injury. I didn’t have the supplies I needed to suture his head properly.
He turned my direction. “Hey, Gabby.” I frowned at the nickname. He put his hand to his forehead and pulled his fingers away to see the blood. The color was a brilliant red, fresh from the gash. “I’m bleeding. Is it bad?”
My eyes roamed over his forehead, down his cheeks to the back of his neck—analyzing every inch of skin I could see. “No. You’re okay. Maybe a concussion. Are you dizzy?”
“A little.”
“Don’t close your eyes. Don’t you dare go to sleep,” I ordered. “Do you hurt anywhere else?”
“Just sore.” He groaned. “I’ll be fine.”
The car shook with the mass of something, as if someone just threw a grizzly bear at it. It made me jump a few inches off the ground in surprise. “What was that?” Joseph asked sluggishly. His eyes blinked slowly.
“I don’t know.” Gradually, I picked myself off the ground so I could peer over the edge of one of the broken windows. Andrew, Ehno, and Lucia were moving so quickly I could barely tell what was going on. The only thing I was able to discern was that my angels fought furiously for their lives while the white-eyed women carelessly threw curse after curse toward them. My breath caught in my throat, and I dropped back down to the ground. I started cursing under my breath—a nice long stream of insults. “We need help,” I exclaimed to Joseph, who was still looking around, his eyes a little hazy.
It was the Ladies of Light—the ones who had killed Lucia. My dream rushed forward: the warriors all ready to battle, all shaking with fear at the two women at the top of the hill, their white dresses billowing against the wind, their skin intricately marked. Whoever came up with the name Ladies of Light needed to be shot. Twice. They were more like the Ladies of Darkness. If an army of warriors were scared of these women, what kind of power did they have? And what hope did we have to survive?
“We’re going to lose,” I whispered aloud, my gaze staring at nothing. The only tree by the road cracked under the force of a spell, or maybe a body, I wasn’t sure. It perfectly emphasized my words of our imminent death.
Joseph moaned beside me as his head lolled to the side. My eyes snapped his direction as I reached out to shake his shoulder. “Wake up. Don’t go to sleep. Please,” I begged. His eyes popped open and shot to my face. I felt a little relieved. “I’m going to help them. Will you be okay? Can you stay awake?”
“Yeah. Save the world, Gabby.” He smiled then, a very painful smile. I patted his arm fondly, ignoring the nickname again, hoping that this wouldn’t be the last time we would see each other.
The sun started warming my cold cheeks as I moved into the light and out of the shadow of the car. Trying to gather strength, I concentrated with my mind on the electricity that flowed in my veins. I closed my eyes to focus on the burning in my core, like there was a small blue ball of power inside me. In my mind, I manipulated the ball of power. Though I had shocked two people, it was obvious I didn’t know how to control my power enough to do the right type of damage. Ehno told me they would show me, but we never had that chance. I was going to have to learn on my own. The image in my mind was one of power, strength, and brute force.
You can do this—
Something landed on top of the car as if it had fallen from the heavens above, the velocity too fast, the collision too violent. I stood and peered over the top of the car. How ironic, it was Andrew, his body perfectly dented into the black metal, his teeth gritted in anger, as if he wasn’t hurt at all. The woman on the other side of the car narrowed her eyes at me. Andrew hadn’t noticed that I was no longer hidden behind the safety of the pile of metal. Instead, I glared at the woman in white—the one that haunted my dreams. This was the same one who advocated murdering an angel, the same one w
ho tried, and the same one who failed—the one who would fail again.
Andrew peeled himself from the car as if he were stuck into the metal. The woman’s white eyes glared at me as if she wished to pick my bones clean, which only made my ire burn more fiercely than before. We were fifteen feet apart, but I knew the distance didn’t matter. I put my hand out toward the white-eyed woman and willed the current to obey—ordered my body to respond to the revulsion inside me. To make her feel pain.
As Andrew sat up, crouched to spring, he noticed that the white woman’s glare was no longer on him but on something else. He whipped around, and his eyes locked on mine. He flew toward me and tried to yank me out of the way. It was too late. My body obeyed my wishes. It was more power than I had ever felt before. Fifty times more than the high voltage shock I gave the Soul Stalker. It was as if lightning shot out of my palms and right into the woman’s chest.
Andrew stopped mid-swoop to look behind him at what I had caused. The woman didn’t go down like I had hoped (and prayed). Her head snapped back, and her chest rose until her feet no longer touched the ground. She hovered like that for several seconds. I wished someone would cut off her head already. The power was slowly draining from my body. She lowered back to the ground until she stood on her own again. The electricity crackled and spluttered as if it were going out. The woman put her lips together as if she was going to whistle and then blew at the stream of electricity like she was blowing out a candle. And that was exactly what happened—the blue current went out like a flame in the wind. The woman was highly amused.
Why didn’t she go down? This was bad. Really bad.
She raised her hand as if calling the elements to her. Her voice was low and vicious—the Italian words lost on me—and a violet light flashed from her palm.
“No!” Andrew dived for me, and we both tumbled to the ground. His eyes searched me over for any damage before he jumped to his feet, hovering over me protectively, then shouted something in Italian. A bubble formed around us. He reached down, pulled me from the ground, and turned us so he was between the white-eyed women and me.
“This won’t last long,” he said breathlessly. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I muttered while dusting off my pants—like that would do any good. “I’m fine. Just feeling a little juiced out.”
His face grew grave with disapproval. “I thought I told you to stay with Joseph.”
“Well,” I rushed out, “I saw that you were fighting against two Ladies of Light. That one was the one who tried to kill Lucia in one of my dreams. Or visions or memories or whatever.”
“What do you mea—”
A blast of violet light slammed into the small balloon around us. It rippled and burst open as if it were a soap bubble. In the distance, Lucia and Ehno fought side-by-side. It looked like they were dancing, their movements fluid and graceful. The other white-eyed woman struck Ehno with a flash of white light, and he fell to his knees, his hand across his chest as if he had just been stabbed before his arm went limp at his side. Droplets of golden blood dripped sickeningly to the asphalt, coloring the black ground in a river of gold. He fell forward, and I screamed out for him. This couldn’t be happening. Not Ehno. Not now. I had only just found my angels.
“It can’t be,” I cried out and sprinted his direction. Andrew shouted something at me, but I was too focused to hear his words. Something hit my side so forcefully my breath decided it needed to take a vacation. It was rough and hot and painful. Was I just run over? Felt like it. I reached for my side, and liquid gold dripped from the bottom of my shirt.
“Dammit,” I whispered stupidly. The injury ached and burned as my veins gradually lit on fire. A sound left my lips, though it wasn’t discernable. It was a cry—a scream of unbearable pain. The ground swirled up to my face, and I realized that I was no longer going to be able to fight. We were finished. And all I could think about was how I didn’t get the time I wanted, the answers I needed, or the love I desired. Life wasn’t fair, and wasn’t that the truth.
Andrew scooped me into his arms, cradling me there. It hurt when he moved me, but I didn’t care. The small amount of spark I had left tingled beneath the surface of my skin.
“Please. No,” he cried. “Not her.” Andrew put his head to mine, and golden tears leaked from his eyes and dropped onto my cheeks. I wanted to soothe him, but I couldn’t gather the strength.
The Soul Stalker’s clear voice was feet away. “Get away from the Illuminator, and we’ll leave you be.”
Though I couldn’t see Andrew’s expression when his head yanked toward the Soul Stalker’s voice, I bet it was colorful. She said a string of words in fluid Italian before a stream of silver light cascaded down on us. Andrew put his hand above his head.
“Proteggere,” he whispered and another shield formed around us.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured to me.
My mind was too hazy to pay attention to the scene around me anymore, so I closed my eyes. The pain was excruciating. The noise around me suddenly turned to silence, and I drifted away, like I was on a sailboat in the warm pacific waters.
“Abelie?” Aiden shouted from across the field. “Run!” As he dashed toward me, I wasn’t sure what was going on, but his movements left burn marks in the grass. “Run,” he screamed again, and this time the distress in his face was obvious. In the distance, a Shadow chased after him. The dark creature’s silhouette casted sideways as the sun faded in the west.
So it had finally come to this? I thought to myself as I spun around to flee. Aiden caught up with me. He took my hand and fire burst from the contact. It didn’t burn me; it only gave me a powerful strength. Shadows were faster than angels, and I knew that he would catch us because of my slow pace.
“Why’s he after us?” I cried out.
“He found out about us. He followed me. He knows about the baby.” Aiden turned to look behind him and yanked my hand forward as if it could make my legs move quicker.
He wasn’t after Aiden, he was after my child—our beautiful daughter growing inside of me. She was the Illuminator. Though the prophecy I read, and the one that was known to the rest of the angels, was very different, for some reason I had a feeling he knew all about the parents of the one who would destroy the dark ones.
Aiden was suddenly yanked free of my hand, as if a black hole had sucked him up into oblivion. I whipped around wildly to see the dark creature standing in the blackness of my oddly cast shadow. The fire blazed viciously behind his eyes. It was hard to believe that there was such evilness in these creatures because, though Aiden was also a Shadow, he loved and protected me. I fell backward and caught myself with the palms of my hands. The pain was nothing in relation to the baby kicking inside my belly. The thought of my child—the chosen one—being murdered before she took her first breath was worse than any physical injury. I chanted protective spells to keep the Shadow away. He inched closer, and when he looked down at me, the fading sun lit his blackened face. It was Jeff. He was the fiercest Shadow. He’d killed two angels already. Was I going to be next on that list?
“The Illuminator must be killed,” he growled.
Where was Aiden? Here I was, a protector of knowledge, at a loss for words. They just wouldn’t form. Either he had bound my tongue, or I was literally scared speechless. Where were those words that would cast him out—sending him to another dimension far, far away from here?
“Ombra, ho gettato fuori,” Aiden’s voice sounded behind Jeff, a little breathless.
Jeff growled in fury. “This isn’t over,” he yelled, absolutely livid, as he twisted and turned until he curled into a ball and disappeared all together. I sighed, grateful to hear the most beautiful words on this Earth: Shadow, I cast you out.
My baby was safe—we were both okay. It was in that second I knew the life growing inside me had more meaning to this world than what some ridiculous prophecy said.
Piercing noises sent me rocketing back
to reality. A horrifically painful feeling rushed back to me. I wished I could be knocked out again. Being in another world—another mind—was a million times better than this pain.
Soft hands pulled my hair from my face. “Sweetie?” The female’s voice was musical—beautiful—a little frantic. “Please, baby. Open your eyes.”
It was too fatiguing to do that. Too excruciating.
“I told you, Abelie. She was hurt quite severely. That spell should have killed her—who knows how much time we have left,” I heard Andrew say, his voice heightened. That really didn’t sound good. “We need to get her out of here. It’s too dangerous.”
Wait . . . Abelie? Was I still in my dream or back at the battle? I was so confused. Was Abelie here? I mean really here? Ehno did say that my dreams would become so vivid that I might even start acting out things while awake, but I’m not Abelie. I’m me, and she’s here.
There was the sound of wood crackling in the background, as if we were near a campfire. Through my eyelids, I could tell that the sun was high in the sky. The cacophony of battle echoed around me, louder than before. My head felt fuzzy and dizzy. There was movement beneath me, and my eyes shot open in pain as I bit down on my tongue to stop the scream from escaping my lips. Above me was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, like she was in some strange fog or in my imagination. She had long, brown hair that curtained around my face. Her eyes were large, round, and the most brilliant green—very similar to my own. She had a small nose and a dazzling smile. She was an angel. No, she was more beautiful than an angel. Was I in heaven?
“Abelie?” I breathed.
“Hi, sweetheart. It’s so wonderful to see you.” Her smile was blinding, and her eyes were full of rich, golden tears.
All of a sudden the pain didn’t matter, the battle around me disappeared, and the only two people that existed were me and my mom. The sun against her back made a perfect halo of light around her stunning features. Tears streamed down my face, a mix between bliss, terror, and pain from the throbbing ache at my side. And though we were all in danger, I felt comforted by my mother. I tried to sit up, but Abelie held me down against her lap. There were several loud crashes to my left.
The fog returned, though I tried to wade through the mist. I grasped and clung to reality, but I was too exhausted. My body wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t—not while everything was happening around me, and most definitely not with my mom holding me in her arms. This could be the last time I ever saw her—I could be dying. Or this could all just be an illusion—one I didn’t want to go away.
“Aiden, grab Joseph,” Lucia shouted in the distance. Aiden? He was here too?
“Andrew, it’s time we get out of here. I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to hold up our shields. I’m growing weak.” Lucia’s voice sounded strangled.
What about Ehno? I wanted to ask. It felt like someone had given me morphine lollipops. My head spun, and everything was confusing and disorienting. Andrew reached down and pulled me from my mother’s lap. Her smile was still in place as she rose to my level. I tried to return it, but I was sure it had come out more as a grimace than the loving smile I wished.
As the seconds passed, I fell in and out of the blackness. Andrew murmured beautiful Italian words in his deep accent. Every time I thought about speaking, my throat would spasm like it was willing me to scream my discomfort. No—tripping in public is uncomfortable. This was unspeakable torture.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting noise rebounded off every surface and made me want to cover my ears. There was shouting, yelling, and more loud crashes and bangs. I closed my eyes and buried my face in Andrew’s chest, not wanting to see the outcome. Everything happened so quickly.
“Aiden! Behind you,” someone yelled.
“Ehno—use your shield,” Lucia called out.
“Proteggere,” Ehno shouted. I breathed a sigh of relief at his voice. How was he okay? Why wasn’t I okay?
“Ombra, ho gettato fuo,” chanted one of the white-eyed women.
“Deflettere,” Abelie commanded musically.
“Thanks, baby,” I heard a man’s voice say, probably Aiden.
The white-eyed angels chanted a long, fluid stream of Italian words, and it sent chills down my spine.
“We have to get out of here,” Lucia screamed. “Now!”
Andrew gripped me tighter in his arms. Pain shot down my legs, but I didn’t care. Getting out of there was the best plan I had ever heard in my entire life. Afraid of what I would see, I debated for several seconds about whether or not to open my eyes. I gave in to my better judgment and chanced a look.
Aiden was there—truly there. I still wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not. He was literally on fire, his skin blazing with viciousness. He wasn’t really vicious, I knew from my dreams. He fought against the two white-eyed women at the same time as his palms shot fire. Human flame-thrower, I thought dazedly, but I knew better—he wasn’t human at all.
Abelie, my mother, stood between Andrew and the white-eyed women, protecting us. Her long, white robes blew out as she sent a spell flying into the madness. Ehno, covered in a molten gold, radiated a reddish light as his power pulsed from his body. Every spell the white-eyed women threw at him he deflected. He closed his eyes and expanded the red light to surround us. I couldn’t see Joseph and assumed he was behind us—I hoped, for his sake.
In the distance, a tree was on fire, and the branches hung crookedly. Lucia was the farthest from me, and her long, auburn hair tangled in the rush of wind that came out of nowhere. Her back was to me, but I could see her raise her arms out, palms flat, as if she pressed against a solid wall. The wind picked up, and her hair flew wildly up into the air. There was a disturbance in the space between her and the tree.
The two white-eyed women put their arms out, palms down. They continued their fluent Italian chanting. A silver mist descended upon Ehno’s red light.
“Run,” Abelie commanded frantically.
Police sirens sounded far off, though they quickly grew louder. Andrew took off toward Lucia. We rushed en route to the disturbance in front of Lucia. She beckoned us forward, and he stepped into the strange air before us.
Everything disappeared.
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