Dark Angel

by Kim Richardson

  “Haven’t you always wanted to be part of something greater?” asked the oracle, making my skin erupt in goosebumps. “I know you’ve longed to belong with the angel-borns. And I know being different caused you great pain, never knowing where you truly fit in.” The oracle tapped his desk with his index finger. “This is where. Right now. With the angels.”

  Angels. Yes, part of me was furious, I wanted to scream, to cry, to shout how unfair this was. But the other part knew it would be pointless.

  Lucian, you bastard. The well of hate I had for the archdemon rose to the top and spilled. Lucian was the mastermind behind all this. He’d started it by simply infusing me with his blood. And then my whole world went down the crapper. This was his fault. All of it.

  The oracles were clairvoyants, which meant if I was standing here, they’d already seen and knew that I had accepted this new fate of mine. Did I really have a choice? It didn’t seem like it. But it didn’t mean I had to like it or that I couldn’t get something out of it.

  I stilled my face to show no emotion. “The angels mentioned that the Holy Grail is said to hold great power.”

  “Yes, that is correct,” said the oracle, nodding.

  “Can it kill an archdemon?”

  The oracle frowned, his face wrinkling in thought. “I’m not certain. It has never been done.”

  “But is it possible?”

  “It is possible, but highly unlikely.”

  That was good enough for me. “Can it cure Layla from the curse Lucian gave her or was Jenna lying about that?” I searched the oracle’s face. Somehow I knew he wouldn’t lie. Maybe he couldn’t. The thought did nothing to stop my anger from rising, but it made it happen a little more smoothly.

  The tiny man nodded. “Yes. The Holy Grail can heal Layla of the dark curse.”

  “Fine. I’ll get your Holy Grail.” I crossed my arms over my chest, finding the silence inside my chest eerie. “But on one condition.” Yeah, I was that kind of girl.

  The oracle frowned and looked dubious. “What is your condition?”

  “Okay, then,” I said, feeling slightly better. “Once Layla is cured, I want her to be marked like the rest of the angel-borns with an archangel sigil so that no other archdemon or demon or any other supernatural asshole can take advantage of her ever again.” I raised a brow. “Deal?”

  The oracle’s face wrinkled into a smile, surprising me. “Consider it done. Is that all?”

  Can I have my mortal life back? Though I had a feeling they couldn’t un-dead me. “That’s all.”

  “Great!” the oracle clapped his hands together again. “Now,” he said and gestured with his hand, “if you’ll only step right up to the pool and jump in, you can begin your mission.”

  My gaze fell on the small pool. I knew enough about angels to know they needed water to make the transition from the mortal world to Horizon. Looked like it went both ways.

  I moved towards the small pool and climbed up the steps to the platform. Once I jumped in, my life would be forever changed. I would be changed.

  As I stared at the water, a thought occurred to me. “If Jenna killed me… damn … my friends. My friends probably attacked her after they saw what she did.”

  The oracle gave me a smile and waved off my concern. “You will be back in your new dark angel body seconds after she stabbed you. You will be able to stop them before things get out of hand.”

  “Right.” Was I supposed to know this?

  “It will feel like only a second has passed,” informed the tiny man.

  “And I’ll remember who I am and this conversation. All of it?”

  “Yes, of course. Jenna will be there to instruct you in our ways. Most rookie angels catch on fairly quickly. It’s not much different from what you were used to before.”

  “Except for the living part,” I said.

  “Good. Oh, and Rowyn?”

  I looked up. “Yeah?”

  “Be easy on Jenna,” said the oracle. “She’s only doing her job.”

  I sighed. “I can’t promise anything.” I smiled.

  “Very well,” said the oracle. “Until we meet again.”

  And with a last look around the office, I braced myself and said, “Bottoms up,” as I leapt off the platform and plunged feet first into the pool of waiting water.

  I waited for my feet to hit the bottom, but they never did. The water didn’t feel like normal water. It was thinner, more like a thick mist. When I realized I was holding my breath unnecessarily, I let go. White light exploded all around me. My body began to glow with fluorescent white light. I felt a tugging on my skin like I was being pulled apart from every direction.

  With a burst of brilliant white light, my body disintegrated into millions of brilliant particles. My world shifted, and everything around me disappeared.

  23

  A thick white haze swallowed me. I had no idea how long it kept me. There was nothing but silence where I drifted, nothing but endless light. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t warm. I wasn’t anything. No thought, no dreams, no anything.

  Memory broke through the haze. I started remembering what had happened. It was like watching a series of movie clips inside my head. Each image was more vivid than the next—the stabbing, the trip to Horizon, the oracle, me as a dark angel, the nightmare.

  Oh, God. I was an angel.

  I blinked a few times. The heavy white haze drifted. I stood for a moment, confused and a little dizzy. The smells hit me first, the familiar scent of coffee and the slight musty smell of my grandmother’s house. I pried open my eyes, seeing black and white tile and the soft movement of a white curtain hanging from a window. The next thing I saw was Jenna’s terrified face. Her hazel eyes were wide, the biggest I’d ever seen them.

  She stood exactly where I’d last seen her, inches from my chest. “It worked,” she breathed. “It really did.”

  Panic hit me. I sucked in the air in giant heaves, only realizing seconds later that I didn’t need to. I didn’t need to breathe. Holy shit. It was real. It was all real. And I was back at the exact moment Jenna had just finished stabbing me.

  Glad that my instincts were still intact, I whirled around and shot out my arm at Gareth.

  “Don’t!” I shouted.

  The elf froze, both hands out and both dripping with yellow-colored elf dust, a deadly blow no doubt.

  “Don’t hurt her,” I said again, louder this time.

  The elf’s expression shifted from anger to surprise and then finally to fear. Gareth was staring at me like it was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on me. A stranger’s gaze. His eyes moved from where Jenna had stabbed me to my face. His lips parted but he didn’t say anything. Somehow that made me feel worse.

  “Holy mother of all demons. Rowyn, you’re a goddamn angel!” shrieked Tyrius. “How the hell did this happen!” The cat was running around my legs. He stopped and smelled my right leg. “You stink of angel. I don’t understand. You got stabbed and the next second you’re all glowing and stinking of angel?”

  “Rowyn?” came Kora’s sweet voice. “What happened? We all saw the angel stab you… but where’s the dagger? And you’re not bleeding anymore.”

  “Of course she’s not bleeding,” said Tyrius, his ears swiveling on the top of his head, eyes wide and looking slightly mad. “She’s a damn angel. An angel!” The cat made a face and a wheezing sound came out of his throat. He collapsed dramatically on the tile floor and pressed a paw to his chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

  I raised my hand and looked at it. Indeed, I could see the soft, white light radiating from my skin, just like I’d seen on the oracle and all the angels I’d ever come across.

  I lowered my hand and looked at my furry friend, feeling a familiar ache in my now fake angel heart, fake blood, fake bones, fake everything. I was still me, the same brain, same soul and spirit, but the body… the body was different. It was hard to explain. It felt foreign and yet familiar, like I was indeed wearing a thin
layer of someone else’s skin on top of my own. Yikes.

  One thing that was the same was the pull of demonic energies coming off of the two baals and a faint pulse coming from Gareth. It was similar to when I was mortal with angel essence, though more coherent, sharper.

  “I can explain, but you’re not going to like it,” I said, trying to get used to the not breathing thing. God that was weird and would take some getting used to. How do you unlearn breathing?

  Their collective freak-out did settle one of my fears—that I looked like me and not someone else. It was weird and scary as hell. I pressed my hand to my chest and felt a beating. I knew it wasn’t real. It was just there to help rookie angels. It gave them the sense of being alive. Probably to keep them from having a meltdown. I could totally relate to that.

  “You’re wearing a goddam meat suit!” The cat was hysterical. “Why are you wearing a meat suit!”

  I found Gareth still staring at me, his mouth slightly open, and I felt like my knees were about to give way. Where my heart used to throb and skip a beat at the sight of the elf, it was all but a dull persistent mechanical-like thud that reminded me of what I was—a fake mortal.

  Jenna took a step back, looking proud and excited, like she just got a promotion for killing me.

  I glared at her. “You,” I seethed, hoping I looked just as threatening as before. “I’ll deal with you later.” I thought that’d smack the smile off her face, but it didn’t. It only made it bigger. Damn her.

  I didn’t need to breathe but I could fake a sigh. So I let one out and said, “I’m an angel, Tyrius.”

  Tyrius’s lips quivered. “Can’t.” The cat shook his head furiously. “You can’t be. Can’t!”

  “I am.” I looked at Jenna and Lance, both angels looking smug. “When Jenna stabbed me… well, she killed me.”

  “Why, you backstabbing, cosmic bitch,” snarled Tyrius, his demon energies swirling around him, making him almost entirely white. “I’ll have your ass for this. You hear me? You’re dead. Dead!”

  “It’s gets worse.”

  The cat stilled. “How the hell can it get worse than you being a glowing halo!”

  I waited for Tyrius to stop his tantrum. “Apparently, I’m a new breed of angel.”

  At that both angels’ attention snapped to me, their smiles fading. Didn’t expect that, huh.

  “The oracle said I was a dark angel,” I told them.

  “Dark?” Tyrius perked up. “Dark doesn’t sound so bad. Does that mean you’re not entirely like them,” he said, gesturing to the two angels with his head and sounding hopeful.

  “I’m different,” I answered. “But I’m still an angel.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said the cat, and Kora glared at him. “You got stabbed. Then died. Then went to Horizon and met some oracle who told you that you were now a dark angel.” His blue eyes shone. “Please tell me there’s a good reason for all of this.”

  “So they tell me.” I flicked my gaze to Gareth, but he was staring at a spot on the kitchen floor. “It’s my destiny, or some crap like that.”

  “What?” the cat snickered. “It’s your destiny to join the cosmic douche force?”

  “To get the Holy Grail.”

  Silence. Then Kora reached out and smacked Tyrius’s head. “You ass. You can be so heartless sometimes,” she said, her voice severe.

  Tyrius rubbed his head. “What? I’m not allowed to freak out a little but Rowyn is allowed to die and come back as a freaking glowing zombie?”

  “No.” Kora’s voice was final. “How do you think she feels? Did you stop for a second and think about how this… this situation is affecting her? Obviously not.”

  “It’s all right, Kora,” I said, seeing the hurt expression on Tyrius’s face and wishing I could cry with my buddy. Damn it. For once in my life, I wanted to cry but couldn’t.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Gareth’s silent, still form. “I wish there was time for my own meltdown, but there isn’t.” Now I really wished I could cry. My insides tingled and I wondered if it was this body’s attempt at mimicking discomfort and nerves. “I just have to accept it and move on,” I added, hoping to sound braver than I felt and fighting the depression that was threatening to take over.

  “Move on?” growled Tyrius. “How can you move on, Rowyn? How can you accept what they did to you? Aren’t you mad? They stole your life. Our lives. This is wrong. They had no right to do this.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I am mad. I’m mad as hell. But being mad won’t bring me my mortal life back. I’m dead, Tyrius. And they made me into an angel. All I can do is focus on getting the Holy Grail and saving Layla so I don’t have to think about it until I go insane. I don’t have a choice.”

  “What about Gran?” asked Kora, her yellow eyes filled with sadness. “What are you going to tell her?”

  My throat tightened at the thought of my gran’s expression when I told her. “The truth.” I was really happy she was still sound asleep and that I didn’t have to give her the bad news about her granddaughter being dead and a freaking angel. “But I can’t think about that right now.” I looked at Jenna. “You know where this cemetery is?”

  Jenna straightened. “Yes,” answered the angel.

  “You’re riding with me,” I told her. I looked down at Tyrius. “You coming or do you want to stay with Kora and watch over Gran?”

  Tyrius’s jaw dropped open. “Am I coming? Am I coming! What kind of question is that?” exclaimed the cat, clearly upset. “Of course I’m coming. I’m your bloody partner. Angel or not, I’m still your partner. I’m the one who watches your back.” The Siamese cat leaped to his feet and padded down the hallway towards the front door.

  Kora narrowed her eyes at Tyrius’s shape bounding down the hall and then she crossed the kitchen and sprang up the steps to the second floor.

  My lips trembled and I pressed them together. If Tyrius had refused to come, I don’t think I would have been able to go after the Holy Grail. I’d probably have had my own meltdown. I needed to get out of here, out from what reminded me of the life I wasn’t allowed to have anymore.

  Miserable, I felt eyes on me and looked up to find Gareth watching me. “Gareth,” I said. Swallowing, I took a hesitant step towards him. As I neared, his gaze flicked, looking a little past me and focusing elsewhere.

  Jenna and Lance shared a look and then followed Tyrius down the hall, clearly wanting to give us some privacy.

  “Maybe…” I said and then caught myself. Maybe what? I couldn’t finish what I wanted to say. There was no future between us anymore. It wasn’t possible. The dead didn’t mix with the living. I knew it, and he knew it.

  “Rowyn, I don’t. I’m so sorry. How could this—” Gareth’s words broke off, and fear and pain crossed his face. He reached out and took my hand. The moment our skin touched, he flinched and drew back, as though I was cursed.

  The elf clenched his fingers and jammed them into his coat pocket. That was all I needed.

  “You can follow me in your truck.” I brushed past him, feeling like a fool, and still feeling the warmth of his touch on my fingers.

  It didn’t matter how I perceived it. There was nothing more to say. Our relationship was over. My death had seen to that.

  24

  Lucian’s hideout was in an old abandoned cemetery in Valhalla, New York. It didn’t surprise me that the archdemon would pick a cemetery in that specific location. Valhalla in Old Norse means “the hall of the fallen,” where the god Odin housed the dead he deemed worthy of dwelling with him. How poetic. Of course he’d pick a place like that.

  After about an hour’s drive, I parked my subbie at the front entrance to Highgate Cemetery, killed the engine and we all clambered out.

  The sound of a car door slamming shut pulled my attention behind me to the light blue pickup truck as Gareth and Tyrius joined us. The cat’s face was solemn, making me wonder what they’d talked about on their way here. Me. And Me. And then some mor
e me.

  Tyrius had chosen to ride with Gareth. Maybe he was still on edge and upset about what happened to me. Perhaps he just didn’t want to ride in a car full of angels. I understood that. Granted, he was a demon after all. Still, it had stung just a little.

  Having Jenna and Lance ride with me had been instructional and calming at best. They spent the entire trip schooling me on what being an angel entailed—the good and the bad. I got a front row seat into the Legion secrets and how it all operated. It was intense. All classified information that I would never have gotten as a mortal. I was still having trouble with the not-breathing thing, not to mention how strange it was just to walk and move around with an angel body. It would take some getting used to.

  When I met Gareth’s stare, I didn’t like the way he was looking at me again, with buckets of pity. I didn’t want or need his pity, so I looked away.

  “This way,” announced Jenna as she and Lance started for the entrance to the cemetery, saving me from having to wait for Gareth to catch up. He looked as though he was about to ask me something, but I didn’t want to hear it.

  Tugging my weapons belt around my waist, I headed out with the angels. Tyrius next to me was silent. Gareth lagged behind. My thoughts were on Lucian while the angels guided us in silence through the maze of headstones, tombstones and shrines. It was dark, seeing as the thick clouds weren’t letting the moon out. But with my new angel eyes, I could see just fine, as though I had on night vision goggles. Guess being an angel had its perks. Maybe this was how Tyrius saw at night.

  A pulse of raw energy was thick in the air, the Holy Grail. The angels had been right. This was definitely the place. However, I also felt something else, something foul and cold, lingering in the shadows like a night’s mist. Demons. And a hell of a lot of them. Great.

  Still, a fight with some demons was a perfect opportunity to test this new angel body of mine.

  We trudged through a wooded area, through tall, overgrown grass, with the occasional flagstone remnants of a path. Decapitated angel statues flanked either side of our path, dark stains marring their stone necks. A warning? It would take a lot more than that to scare me off.