by Helen Keeble
“Hey, at least I got pissed off!” My wings were starting to heat up again. I thrust my hands out to the sides before I could inadvertently immolate my belt buckle. “Rather than standing there like a brain-damaged parrot! Why the hell do you let those bitches do that to you?”
“Because I have to!” Faith flared up, as if finally releasing a reservoir of accumulated rage. “When will you and Krystal finally understand that nothing is more important than my popularity? Without good Peer Assessment scores, I won’t have a date for the Ball, and without my true love I can’t close the Hellgate! I need those bitches!”
“No you don’t!” I yelled right back. “You don’t need stupid Peer Assessment to get a date for the Ball! You’ve got me!”
Faith paused, her mouth open. “Did . . . you just ask me out?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. My fingertips encountered some loose change, but apparently angelic embarrassment wasn’t a leading cause of forest fires. Which was a pity, because I could really have used the distraction. “Um, yeah,” I mumbled at the floor.
There was a hideous silence.
“Look, I’m not saying I believe this stuff about the power of true love and all that,” I said, because it was that or run away, and Faith was between me and the only door. “But, um, you know. I could help you out. At the Ball. Save you the hassle of importing some other guy. If you like.”
“I honestly can’t work out if that’s incredibly sweet,” Faith said, sounding bemused. “Or the least romantic confession of true love ever.”
I’d jumped off a building for her. I’d faced down both a demon and Ms. Wormwood for her. Even in this dingy bathroom, she seemed brighter, more vibrant, than anyone I’d ever met, as if she stood in a permanent sunbeam. And her mere presence dropped my IQ through the floor.
Oh, hells. I was in love.
I swallowed hard, edging closer to her. “Maybe . . . it’s both?”
“Oh. Oh dear.” Faith held up her hands as if she thought I was about to lunge at her. “Raffi, um . . . I have a boyfriend.”
I froze. “You do?”
“Well, you didn’t think I was going to hope I happened to fall in love with whatever random Winchester boy turned up for me at the Ball, did you?”
I barely managed to stop myself from blurting out yes. “No, of course not,” I said instead, weakly. “So you already know a guy at Winchester?”
Faith nodded, her whole face brightening with enthusiasm. “My mother put me in contact with him years ago, because she thought it would be helpful for me to talk to someone else who has a parent with a demanding, time-consuming job. I think his dad’s someone really high up in government—he must be famous, because my boyfriend’s not allowed to tell me his own last name, in case I was secretly a spy for the newspapers or something. Anyway, he texts me all the time. Wonderful, sweet words, telling me that everything will be okay and we just have to wait until we can finally be together.” She touched her shirt pocket. “I keep my phone next to my heart, to give me strength when things get really bad. He says—”
“Does he know about your plan?” I interrupted somewhat sharply. “About your dad, and the Hellgate and everything?”
Faith’s happy glow flickered a bit. “Well . . . no. I don’t want to scare him off. But he doesn’t need to know. He just has to meet me at the Ball, and our perfect love will do the rest. He’s my soul mate. I know he is.”
I was the one protecting Faith from a damn demon, and some other guy was going to get the reward? Oh, hell no. And I had an ace up my sleeve. Or rather, behind my back. “Maybe. But I know what he isn’t.” The bathroom tiles reflected a thousand dazzling points of light as I spread my wings. “He’s not an angel.”
Faith did not swoon into my embrace. In fact, she took a sharp step back, as if I’d waved a spider at her.
“Raffi?” Her alarmed eyes were fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “Why have you got four wings?”
Chapter 14
Why have I got four wings?” I demanded as I climbed through Krystal’s window.
“Raf!” Krystal jumped, knocking over the stack of teen fashion magazines piled next to her on the bed. She grabbed at them before they could slide to the floor. “What the hell—” She stopped dead, blinking at me. “Raf,” she said after a second. “Why have you got four wings?”
“That’s what I asked you!” I waved the offending limbs, fluttering the pages of her magazine. “They just appeared out of nowhere during Peer Assessment. What the hell am I, a Swiss Army angel?”
“How should I know?” Krystal stared at me in fascination. “Wow, that looks topologically unlikely. Not to mention unaerodynamic. What happened?”
I briefly filled her in on the Peer Assessment debacle. “Then I spread my wings, and discovered I had too many. I mean, more too many.” I slumped into her swivel chair, draping my wings over the back. “I am really getting fed up with sprouting extra body parts every night.”
Krystal’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “Your first pair appeared when Faith was in danger, and so did the second, kind of. Maybe some sort of instinct to protect her is unlocking your powers? Like, you know, leveling up.”
“Wonderful,” I said gloomily. I swiveled the chair back and forth. “So now I’m a Pokémon. Rafael has evolved.”
Krystal snorted, a grin tugging at her mouth. Then she frowned. “The question is, will it keep happening? Did Faith have any idea?”
“No, she just freaked out. Aren’t you two supposed to be the experts on this stuff?”
“All we’ve got are her dad’s notebooks. Believe me, they’re not exactly Angelology 101. It’s like trying to learn addition from a postgraduate paper on number theory.” She shook her head. “I’ll see if I can find anything, but don’t hold your breath.”
“Great.” With a sigh, I folded all four wings into invisibility. “At least they still disappear.”
Krystal cleared her throat. “Which,” she said, “your halo still doesn’t. Unfortunately.”
I kicked my chair back. “Don’t even think about it, Moon!”
She glared at me. “Believe me, after your reaction last time, I wasn’t.” With a snap, she opened her magazine again, disappearing behind the glossy pages. “Your halo, your problem.”
“Good!” So now I just had to find a way to sin on my own. Well, when it came to that, I was practically an expert. Scrunching my eyes shut, I concentrated very hard.
“If that’s somehow meant to be stopping you from glowing, it isn’t working,” Krystal commented after a few minutes.
“Damn!” I opened my eyes again. “Guess it doesn’t count as sinning if you’re only thinking about it.”
“I am not going to ask,” Krystal muttered. “Go sin somewhere else, okay? I’m busy.”
I looked pointedly at her magazine. “Yeah, I can tell.”
Krystal lowered the magazine far enough to reveal her long-suffering expression. She turned it around to show me the article she was reading. It was rather denser than I’d been expecting. And apparently, this season pentagrams were the new black.
“Uh. Okay.” I was pretty sure they hadn’t started printing fashion advice in handwritten Latin. “Are those Faith’s dad’s notes?”
“Faith put them into old magazine covers, in order to hide them from her mother.” Krystal looked at the cover, handling it between finger and thumb as if it was used toilet paper. “Personally, I’d be a lot more worried about any daughter of mine reading this crap than delving into the occult.”
“My mum would have agreed with you. She always said those things were soul destroying.” I’d thought that had just been because she knew what went on behind the scenes of the fashion industry, having started her career at a glossy style magazine, but now I wondered if she’d been speaking from angelic experience instead. “What are you looking for?”
Krystal rubbed her eyes. “Anything. Any clue as to how he actually intended to close the Hellgate.” She dropped her hand a
gain, looking frustrated. “I knew Mr. Jones, you see. He was quiet and reclusive and always seemed kind of sad, but he was smart. I used to run into him sometimes. We’d talk math. Higher-dimensional geometry, mostly. So I have to believe he had a sensible plan to deal with the threat here.” She flipped a few pages. “Problem is, he never intended anyone else to read this stuff. Half of it’s incredibly technical notes about angels and demons, and the other half is just mundane observations about Faith. He was obsessive about recording her life as she grew up.”
“I guess that’s why she’s so convinced she’s special and part of his plan somehow.”
“Yeah. But alternatively Gabe Jones was just really proud of his daughter, like any good dad.” Krystal blew out her breath. “The only thing that is clear is that he was absolutely desperate to attract an angel. He keeps going on about wishing he knew how to summon one . . . and then, suddenly, he did.” She turned to the last page in the magazine, handing it to me. There was my name, RAFAEL ANGELOS, in neat, precise block-lettered capitals, underneath a set of weird, swirling symbols. There was an intricate pentagram drawn on the opposite page, with arrows marking where the symbols were meant to go. “That’s his last journal entry. No comments, no explanations how he found it, no hint as to what you’re supposed to do once you got here. Nothing. And then he was gone.”
I stared at the symbols representing my name. I was pretty sure I recognized the first one—it had been on one of the index cards Michaela had brandished at me—but even the ones I’d never seen before sparked an odd sense of recognition. I could almost hear them whispering in my mind. I closed the magazine, repressing a shudder. “Well, at least someone thought I was needed to close the Hellgate.” I couldn’t help the hint of bitterness that slid into my voice. “Faith sure doesn’t.”
Krystal looked at me. “Ah. This must be about her boyfriend.”
“You knew about him?” I glared at her. “And you didn’t think to warn me?”
“I thought you’d heard the school gossip. Anyway, why would you even care? Most the time you act like you’re as exasperated by her as I am.”
“Believe me, I am! It’s just—she’s just—I can’t explain it.” I ran a hand through my glowing hair. “It’s like whenever she’s around, I can’t see anyone else, you know?” I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I made a total ass of myself.”
“I’m shocked.” Despite the sarcasm, Krystal’s expression softened. She gave me a friendly sort of prod with her foot. “Hey. Cheer up. You can’t possibly be a bigger ass than Faith’s boyfriend.”
“He is?” The world was suddenly a much brighter place. “You don’t like him?”
Krystal wrinkled her nose. “The bit from his latest text, the one that Faith keeps mooning over? Totally cribbed from The Bavarian Billionaire’s Bought Bride.”
“Ha! Wait, how do you know?”
“Never you mind,” Krystal said hastily, with the briefest of glances at the ebook reader sitting on her bedside table. “Faith said I was just jealous, and that his words didn’t have to be original to reflect his true feelings. But I reckon he’s either lazy or a jerk. For what it’s worth, I think she’d be much better off with you. At least you . . . aren’t . . .” She trailed off, staring at me.
“What?” I glanced over my shoulder, just in case I’d sprouted any further freakish additions, but couldn’t see any change. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Raf!” Krystal bounced to her feet, scattering magazines everywhere. “I could kiss you, if you wouldn’t dive out the window. Don’t you get it? You and Faith! Her dad keeps saying in his journal that light drives out darkness, and that the greatest light is love. That’s why Faith’s so fixated on the idea. But he also writes that divine love is greater than anything mortals can comprehend. And he was trying to summon an angel. What if Faith’s right, but it’s not her love that’s important?”
I sat bolt upright, my wings twitching open before I got them under control again. “You think Faith’s dad meant for an angel to fall for Faith?”
“Well, it’s nuts to think ordinary love could defeat demons, but you aren’t ordinary, are you? And Faith, for all that she makes me want to scream, is pretty damn virtuous, going through what she does. If anyone could make an angel fall in love, it would be her.”
“But I already do, uh, like her. And it doesn’t seem to be doing squat to close the Hellgate.”
Krystal chewed on her lip. “Maybe . . . maybe you both have to be in love. In order for it to be effective. Like reflecting a light between two mirrors to make it brighter.”
“Great. So I’ll just tell Faith that her dead dad wanted her to fall in love me, so if she would kindly do so straightaway, we can get on with the more important business of demon-banishing?” I could picture how well that would go down. “You know how much she’s into romance. This feels more like an arranged marriage.”
“You have a point.” Krystal tapped her finger against her chin for a second. “Look, I’ll help you. I’ll talk to her, make her see your good side. You just . . . do the best you can. Be yourself. Only less arrogant.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I started for the window—and then groaned, catching sight of my reflected light in the glass. “I forgot. How the hell am I going to get rid of this stupid halo? I’ve had enough Lust and Wrath for one day. What other Deadly Sins are there?”
“Sloth?” Krystal suggested. “On second thought, don’t try that one. The last thing we need is for you to draw attention to yourself by being late to class. We really don’t want you to get expelled.” She frowned. “What about Envy?”
“I’m the only guy around,” I pointed out. “I haven’t got anyone to envy.”
Krystal gave me a Look. “And considering I have no idea how you could manage to be any more full of yourself, I guess Pride is out too. That leaves Avarice and Gluttony.”
“Gluttony,” I said, seizing on the word I actually knew. I was already practically starving on the girl-sized portions of salad and vegetables that the canteen offered. I looked around, my mouth already watering at the thought of stuffing my face with real food. “Great. Where do you keep your chocolate?”
I thought I’d seen the full spectrum of Krystal’s glares, but this one was dark enough that it should have put my halo out on its own. “What, exactly, makes you think I have a stash of chocolate?”
“Well, you know,” I said, starting to gesture at her—and then my survival instinct kicked in. “Uh. No reason. I mean, you’re obviously very healthy. It’s just that I’ve only got you and Faith I can scrounge from, and obviously she doesn’t—”
“Keep going, Raf,” Krystal said in tones of doom.
I shut up.
Krystal glowered at me for a moment longer, then sighed. “It’s okay. I really don’t have any chocolate, though. I don’t know anyone who does. Everyone’s permanently dieting here.”
“You girls and your stupid weight obsessions,” I muttered.
“If you had a public weekly weigh-in, you’d be obsessive too,” Krystal said sharply. “Particularly when your success at ‘maintaining a healthy figure’ is graded.”
I stared at her. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Believe me, I wish I was.”
“This place,” I said from the bottom of my heart, “is nuts. Whose brilliant idea was it to put a school on a Hellgate anyway?”
Krystal shrugged. “Faith insists it’s good that the school encourages us to eat well and exercise.” Her lip twisted. “Of course, she’s thin and blonde. Anyway, I doubt there’s anyone here past puberty who’s so much as looked at chocolate for years, let alone eaten any. I don’t know anyone who can get their hands on food that’s actually appetizing.”
“Maybe you don’t,” I said slowly. “But I do.”
The second-year dormitory was on the third floor of the east wing. This was not a problem. The problem was that evidently individual rooms were a privilege reserved for the
final-year students. Through the crack in the curtain, I could see four bunk beds. Even if I’d wanted to try my luck at sneaking past them all while glowing like a lightbulb, the window was locked.
I should have abandoned my plan. I knew I should have abandoned it. Krystal would have told me to. But Krystal wasn’t there, I still had no idea what Avarice was, I was cold and hungry, and I just wanted some goddamned bacon.
I knocked.
The girl who pushed back the curtains looked somewhat startled to find a winged glowing guy hovering outside her window.
“Hi,” I said with a friendly grin, trying to look as though all this was completely normal. “Can I talk to Lydie, please?”
Chapter 15
Why,” Faith asked at break the next day, staring in a perplexed way at the fleeing form of my latest admirer, “do little girls keep running up and giving you sandwiches?”
“No idea,” I said, quickly cramming the greasy package into my already overflowing bag. My chances with Faith would not be improved by her discovering that her sacred family secret was now common knowledge amongst the misfits of the second year. “Mysterious female minds. No doubt some prank. Aha-ha.”
“Raffi?” My next worshipper turned out to be Lydie herself, her eyes wide with admiration and her hands full of bacon rolls. “I brought you—”
“Yes, thank you,” I snapped, snatching the rolls away from her. With a nervous glance at Faith, I took Lydie to one side, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Look, I’m really grateful and all, but can you guys knock it off?” I gestured at my no longer haloed head. “The problem’s sorted out for now. And you’re starting to attract attention.” It wasn’t just Faith I was worried about. “I don’t want Michaela realizing you know about me. I’ve got my hands full just trying to watch out for Faith, let alone all you lot.”
“Okay,” Lydie said, her expression wistful. She caught my sleeve as I started to straighten. “I wish you were my angel.”
“Did she . . . call you an angel?” Faith said as Lydie bolted.