Casey turns to the first door, hand held out for the knob.
“Don’t,” a voice says, making her jump.
She yanks her hand back, her heartbeat hammering against her throat. The outline of a man takes form at the end of the hallway and Casey’s insides give a terrible lurch. He isn’t exactly young, but between the scruff on his face and the fact that he won’t make eye contact with her, it’s hard to tell how old. Thirties, maybe. And yet, it isn’t his scruffy appearance that gives her chills, but the blood on his clothes.
He glances up quickly before turning his face back to the floor and Casey’s suddenly filled with a lot of questions she doesn’t ask.
What happened here?
What’s behind the door?
Why is he covered in blood?
The questions rattle around inside her, but she doesn’t ask a single one—it feels too dangerous. Even Red is subdued beside her, almost like he wants to blend into the walls. Maybe she’s afraid of the answers the man would give if she did ask. Or maybe she’s afraid because she already knows the answers to these questions.
Casey glances out the dingy, drapeless window that looks out over the property. The barn looms there as if calling out to them.
She shivers, looking back at the man. He rubs his hands over and over in front of him, but no matter how many times he does, the blood remains, etched into his skin.
“We should go,” Red says. “Liddy’s not here.”
“Please don’t leave me,” the man says. “Those things … those creatures…”
“Casey,” Red calls sharply, already halfway down the stairs.
She should turn around and leave the man. Turn around and forget she ever found him. Liddy had turned before she even reached the front door. This is not a good place.
But there’s a tiny, nagging pinch in her mind. One that makes her gut bubble with guilt. If she leaves him here, something terrible might happen to him. And she’ll spend days and weeks wondering. Thinking about the man she left behind and whether she did the right thing.
“Come with me,” Casey tells him, taking the stairs without looking back to see if he follows.
Red looks at her curiously, but she says nothing as she passes him. Makes no excuses. She just heads straight for the front door.
Outside again, the feeling of unease grows, each step toward the barn making her pulse thunder. The whispers increase, like there’s a group of people talking just behind the barn door, but their voices are frantic and harsh. Dread rises up inside her, a tremor of worry coursing through the blood that tingles in her hands.
Two sets of footsteps echo behind her over the wind: one, a shuffling clump of old, worn boots. The other is almost silent except for the rustle of leaves. That’s Red. She doesn’t turn to talk to the man, she doesn’t even turn to look at him.
Something tells her to just keep walking.
They get to the barn and Casey yanks on the hooped door handle. It’s caught at the door jamb. “We need to get it open,” she tells Red.
He steps up beside her, pulling on the handle, one of his feet propped against the side of the barn for leverage. The door budges with his help, popping open an inch. An icy wind whips from inside.
A dark chuckle reverberates around them, and Casey stops tugging on the door, slipping in the mud. She tips her head, looking into the tree line beside them.
Red does, too. The sound wasn’t in her head, then.
“We need to go,” he says suddenly. Casey’s never seen him so worried.
“No, we need to get this door open,” she says, tugging on the handle again.
The man behind them cowers against the barn wall, clutching at his head as that low laughter bleeds through the air again.
Casey whirls around, trying to pinpoint where it’s coming from. Something breaks in the trees, a stick or a branch. It’s close.
Red tenses up beside her. “Run!” he gasps.
The man makes a dead sprint for the fields.
Casey charges after him, Red right on her heels. Stalks whip by her, slicing at her face as she pushes the wheat out of the way.
She fights it, emerging into a clearing with tall evergreens rising from the ground. Red bursts from the field near her.
“What’s going on?” she asks, bent over, her hands on her knees.
A cry, ragged and hoarse, cuts the air and Casey realizes that the man has disappeared, lost somewhere in the fields.
“Casey, wait!” Red calls frantically, but she’s already doubling back, trying to find where they lost the soul of the man she was trying to help.
Red catches up to her, cutting a path through the wheat stalks with swift swipes of his dagger.
There’s another scream and Red’s arm swings out, catching Casey across the chest before his hand snags her collar and pulls her to the ground.
She lands, pain shooting down her arm and a dull ache ringing at the back of her head.
“What the—”
Red hushes her.
Casey rolls onto her knees beside him, spying through the stalks. There he is—the man—bewildered, terrified. Turning in wild circles. And Red—he looks scared.
Red catches her eye and presses a finger to his lips. The high-pitched screech of dying animals reaches her ears, and she clamps her hands over them to try to drown it out. The figures emerge from the wheat—the obsii: all bony limbs and slick, shadowed forms.
Red takes a huddled step back, dragging her along.
Then she sees it: wings, glorious and black and feathered, dragging along the ground, displacing stalks with their girth. There’s something in the field that even the obsii bow to. Something that reminds her of Red.
Casey’s gaze follows the feathers up to a woman. She’s barefoot against the ground, clad in robes of inky blue. Long, straight tresses of dark hair tangle with her arms and her wings as she glides through the field. Under her heels, the ground withers and burns, turning to ash.
Beside her, Red’s breath becomes ragged.
Casey can’t see her face from where they hide, but she knows if she does she’ll see only danger. There’s something malicious about her presence, something threatening hidden beneath the ethereal glow.
And yet, Casey can’t look away, can’t stop the feeling that she lies before some creature of immense power. Something that puts everything Red is to shame.
Her jaw drops, a gasp racing up her throat, but Red’s hand clamps across her mouth, forcing the sound back into her gut.
“Be still,” he whispers, so close she can feel his lips against her skin, the panicked rise and fall of his chest, the crushing force of his hand as it trembles against her jaw.
Casey’s eyes widened as the obsii snarl and snap. The man begins to scream again and Red pulls her away, crawling backward across the ground.
He leads them farther, dragging her body, which is still with shock. She can’t be certain of the direction, only that it’s away from that … creature.
“Let’s go,” Red whispers. “While they’re distracted.”
He climbs to his feet, staying in a low crouch, wrapping his entire hand around her upper arm to help her stand.
“What is that thing?” she mumbles.
Red shakes his head, leading her on. The barn and the farmhouse appear, lonely gray shapes rising up beyond the field. “We need to get out of here.”
“Slow down,” she says, trying to keep pace. “It’s not done. I didn’t finish it. We can’t leave the soul!”
“Oh yes, we can.”
“Stop!” she urges, digging her heels in. He barely stumbles. “What is that thing, Red? Why do you look so terrified?”
“It’s Azrael,” he says through his teeth, casting anxious glances behind her. “The Fallen.”
Casey’s brows dip together. “The Fallen?”
“Yes. The angel of death. Now, can we please continue this conversation later? We need to be as far away from her as we can.” His words race out in hot shivers, his voice barely
under control. “Remember when I said there were worse things in Limbo than the obsii?”
Casey nods.
“She’s it. Now, let’s go.”
Behind them, the man screams, his voice tortured and ragged.
Casey looks back, feeling wretched. This is her fault. If she’d just left him in the house, or maybe if she’d tried harder on the barn door … “Red, we have to go back for him.”
Red shakes his head vehemently. “That soul is with Azrael now. His fate, one way or another, belongs to her. Your job is done, and this is not up for negotiation.”
She rips her arm out of his grasp. “He’s my responsibility, Red.”
“You saw that house, Casey. You know what fate awaited him.”
“It’s not my job to know,” she says. “It’s to help the soul out of Limbo. He’s leaving through that door.” A shattered cry whips through the trees and without another thought, Casey turns and sprints toward it.
“Casey, stop!” Red cries. “We can’t fight them here—we’re outnumbered!”
His words have barely caught up with her before his body does. He throws himself at her, catching her around the waist, pulling them both face-first into the earth. Casey feels the rattle of her teeth as her chin makes contact with the ground.
“Let me go!” she growls.
“Hush. They’ll hear you!”
She gets to her feet before him, rubbing at her jaw and blinking stars from her eyes as Red scrambles up. His hands find her shoulders, and he twists her to look at him. She drops her gaze to the ground, knowing what she’ll see in his eyes. That dizzying, white swirl of a veil.
His hands land on either side of her face as he tilts her head up. She slams her eyes closed.
“Look at me,” he pleads. “I can’t let you do this.”
“Not everything is black and white, Red. It’s not all light or dark.”
“This is,” he says. “You can’t fix everything. You can’t fix all people!”
She tastes the dirt on her tongue, can smell the pungent odor of earth smeared against her cheeks. Pressure builds behind her eyes, but she refuses to cry.
“This isn’t your fault, Casey. It’s how it’s supposed to be.”
She sniffs then, the pressure behind her eyes sinking into her chest. Everything about this world is hard.
Why is death so difficult?
If she opens her eyes, she won’t have to deal with it, though, will she? Red could veil her, manipulate her thoughts. Maybe if she asks, he’ll help her forget it all. Just for a bit, so she can sleep without nightmares. So she doesn’t spend every waking moment trying to hear or see or remember Liddy.
He can do that for her. He would do that for her. She just has to let him.
“You’re far from home, Red. I didn’t think they’d let you back so soon.”
The unfamiliar voice brings Casey out of her own head, and her eyes shoot open. Red has grown very still before her. His hands are no longer on her face, but twisted into fists by his side, wrapped around his twin daggers.
Over his shoulder, all she can see are black feathers.
Red lets out a breath. No words follow, but his head turns a fraction, slowly, just enough to lay eyes on Azrael. His next breath is ragged, like he’s holding back a sob.
“Turn around,” Azrael commands.
Red narrows his eyes and turns, again very slowly.
“Don’t look at me like that, little angel of light.” She says it with fondness. “I know you missed me.”
“Don’t believe the stories you hear,” Red mutters.
Azrael’s face is all high cheekbones and piercing black eyes. It’s like there are no eyes there at all, just holes.
“They took your wings,” she says with a grim kind of fascination. With the tilt of her head, Casey sees the fine dark lines that thread beneath her skin, like cobwebs instead of veins. It’s only in the light, though. They’re hidden, like most everything else here, by shadow. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says, “especially with one so new. You’re weaker without your wings.”
Azrael looks at her, eyelids blinking over those stony black pools. Casey doesn’t know where to look but at her. “Let me see you, child.”
Casey steps out from behind Red, compelled by fear, and stands beside him.
“Is this your new charge?” Azrael asks.
Red stiffens. “Leave her alone.”
“I like meeting the ones that escaped death. They’re always so angry. With a point to prove. It’s fascinating.”
“Leave her alone,” Red says again.
“Are you worried?” Azrael laughs. “Do you imagine it went something like this when I made that arrangement with your other little friend? That I threatened her?”
Next to her, Red’s entire body stiffens, and Casey can sense the coiling energy that surrounds him, the building momentum contained in his muscles. Ready to spring, ready to fight.
“Red,” she whispers, touching the top of his hand with her fingertips in an attempt to call him back from that place of fiery rage. “Don’t.”
“I know you think it was all me,” Azrael continues. “That I tricked her into it somehow, but that would be a lie. She was very eager to work with me. What is it that humans say … ‘Making a deal with the devil’?” She laughs and the sound is ugly and annoying, full of sharp notes that make Casey want to grind her teeth.
“You’re a disgrace,” Red spits.
Without warning, Azrael scoops Red up by the throat and slams him against the tree behind them. His daggers fall, lodging themselves into the ground.
Casey dives and scrambles after them, snatching them up before Azrael can make a move.
Azrael merely watches, eyeing the blades almost curiously.
“She won’t touch them,” Red says, explaining the strange look on Azrael’s face. “She can’t wield a divine weapon.” He struggles for his footing and his breath, but his words are almost a taunt.
Azrael tightens her hold and Red’s eyes bulge.
“Red?” Casey says, looking for some sort of direction, the dagger in her hand heavier suddenly.
“You won’t hurt me, child,” Azrael says, clicking her tongue, like it’s all a big game to her. “You can’t.” She closes her hand tighter around Red’s throat.
Casey lowers the dagger, trying to distract her. “Because you’re immortal?”
“Because demons don’t bleed,” Red chokes.
Azrael hisses, striking him hard enough to leave an angry red mark against his cheek. “I am no demon!”
Red slides down the tree as her hold breaks. “You may call yourself an angel,” he grunts, “but that doesn’t make you one.”
Azrael leans toward him, until he’s close enough to be swallowed up by the black holes of her eyes. “I made a choice. Choices have consequences. You and I both know that.”
“I guess we do.”
Anger flashes across Azrael’s features like a wave rippling over her, but the emotion disappears as the wave recedes, and she laughs again, that same dark chuckle.
“Oh, Red.” Azrael pats his face in a way that makes Casey wince. “No need to be mean. We’re only chatting. And let’s not forget who has the real power here.” Her wings lift, dragging over Red’s shoulder, a single black feather rising to brush along his jaw.
Red shrugs it off in disgust.
Azrael plucks a long feather from beneath her wings. From the soft shape grows a long scythe, the metal burnished to an almost black finish. She looks like something out of myth, the kind of creature Casey would not like to meet on a darkened street corner. Not even in broad daylight.
The scythe lowers against him, and Red winces where it touches his arm.
“Burns, doesn’t it?”
Red turns suddenly, and Azrael rocks back, moving her arms so the blade of the scythe is now pressed to his sternum. There’s a feline grace to her movements, as dangerous as she is delicate.
“Don’t test me, Red.”
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“Or what?” he challenges.
“I may not be as forgiving as your other friends.” Her eyes darken to a shade of midnight. Then they drift back to Casey. She tilts her head. “And what is it that I can do for you, child?”
“Nothing.”
“We all want something. Me, for example, I’d like to get out of here. To reclaim what belongs to me.”
“And what’s that?” Red says, only half hiding his sneer.
“My freedom from this wretched prison.” She runs a long fingernail against the rounded edge of her scythe and the sound sends an unpleasant tremor through Casey’s entire body. “Now, all you have to do is ask, girl,” she says. “Go on. What is it you yearn for? What are you hunting? Ask and you shall receive.”
“Don’t,” Red warns her. “Nothing is for free.”
Azrael casts her arms out, knocking them both to the ground. Casey rolls over to see Red a few feet away. Azrael glides toward him. “You’re even more of a fool without your wings than you were with them.”
Casey clutches the daggers still, the metal cold, an idea forming.
She’ll never reach Azrael before the angel of death hears her. But maybe … Casey holds the weight of the blade in her hand. She’s never thrown a knife before. But she has two shots.
She winds up and goes for it.
The first one lands wide, but the second lodges between Azrael’s feathers, near a shoulder blade.
Azrael screeches. The scythe falls from her hands as she clutches for the space near her spine.
Red kicks the scythe as far as he can, then runs past Azrael, grabbing Casey as he does.
“I thought you said she couldn’t wield a divine weapon,” Casey hisses at him.
“That’s not a divine weapon. It’s cursed. Just like her wings.” He urges her forward. “Get to the door!”
Casey was never a track star, but she could be today. Right now, she’s keeping pace with Red. Or maybe he’s slowed to keep pace with her. Either way, it feels like her arms are about to tear off.
When she turns back, Azrael has reclaimed her weapon, and her wings unfurl, lifting her from the ground. Red takes a few fumbling steps in Casey’s direction and bumps against her. She ignores the burn in her lungs and lengthens her stride.
Something explodes from the field behind Red. She barely has time to call a warning.
The Dark In-Between Page 14