No Angel

by Helen Keeble

  The Headmistress reseated herself, as the hall filled with astonished whispers. “What happened to Ms. Wormwood?” Debbie asked me, echoing the question that everyone was asking everyone else. “Do you know?”

  I pushed my bowl away. “I’ve got to go. You’re right, Debbie. I’ve got to talk to Faith.”

  As I headed for the door, my angelsight showed me the Headmistress’s head turning. A chill ran across my skin. She’d seemed unaware of my previous scrutiny, but now her cool, blank gaze fixed on the back of my neck. The crawling sensation of being watched persisted even once I’d put a solid stone wall between us.

  Shivering, I turned my angelic eyes away from the hall, peering instead across the flat expanse of Hell. Or Heaven, I guess I had to start calling it, although the word really didn’t suit the inhuman, burning space. I could see the fierce flame of Michaela’s guardian angel hovering over the girls’ dormitories, keeping watch over Krystal and Michaela. They were holed up in Michaela’s room, poring over Gabriel’s notebooks in search of anything that might help us fight the Headmistress.

  Apparently, all the pentagrams Michaela had been scrawling over the school had been a trial-and-error way to discover the demon’s true name, so that she could create a pentagram to bind it. Each of her pentagrams had contained a different symbol, and the idea was that a demon would flinch from the ones matching its true name, but not be affected by ones that didn’t. Unfortunately, the Headmistress had been pretty good at avoiding Michaela’s traps, and Ms. Wormwood had been even better—Michaela had never even suspected the presence of a second demon, given that they tended to be territorial.

  In any event, Michaela wasn’t keen on facing the Headmistress without the safety of a pentagram, but she hadn’t made much progress working out the Headmistress’s true name herself. I fervently hoped that she could find some hints in Gabriel’s notebooks, because any demon that could instantly stop three hundred teenage girls midgossip was not even going to break a sweat slapping down one and a half angels. With or without the help of her own nephilim.

  Faith wasn’t with them or in her house. Straining my eyes, I made out the soft glow of her folded wings, shining like a lighthouse beam from the old shrine. With a quick glance around to make sure no one could see me, I spread my own wings, following that distant, beckoning light.

  “Go away,” Faith said as I ducked into the ruined shrine. She was sitting in the center, hunched over a mobile phone. “I need privacy. I’m waiting for Billy-Bob to respond to my messages.”

  “Faith.” She flinched as I knelt down next to her. “He’s not real. Michaela said so. I think Ms. Wormwood was faking those texts and emails all along. That would explain why ‘Billy-Bob’ never sent you any pictures.”

  Faith shook her head stubbornly, staring down at the phone as if waiting for a divine revelation rather than a text message. “She’s wrong. You’re all wrong. I’ve known him for years. He’s a real person. He’ll call me, any minute now.” Her knuckles were white where she gripped the handset. “I just have to talk to him.”

  “About what? If he is a real guy, he doesn’t know about any of this stuff.” I gently folded my hand over hers, forcing her to lower the phone. “Talk to me, Faith. I’m the only person who knows how you feel.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Hey, I found out I was half-demon too, remember?”

  “So what?” Faith spat. “Your mum is dead. What do you care if she was a demon?”

  I rocked back on my heels as if Faith had socked me in the gut. “That,” I said when I could speak again, through the tightness in my throat, “was low, Faith.”

  Faith lifted her chin, her eyes as cold as the Headmistress’s. “It’s the truth. You don’t know what I’m going through, Raffi. Nothing’s really changed for you. It might shake you up a bit to find out about your heritage, but at the end of the day you’ve still got your dad. I don’t. All I’ve got is my mother and now Michaela wants to kill her.” She collapsed like a folding deck chair, sinking into a huddle of misery. “I can’t let her, Raffi, I can’t!”

  I had absolutely no idea what to say. Man, I wished Krystal was here. All I could do was curve a couple of wings over her, offering silent support as she cried.

  “I was going to close the Hellgate for her,” Faith choked out between sobs. “That’s the real reason why I wanted to do it so badly. Not for the world. For her. I thought living on top of it for so long had influenced her mind, making her cold and remote. I thought that if I closed it, she’d get better. Because she does love me. I know she does. She can’t be evil, she just can’t—”

  “Someone’s coming,” I interrupted, my angelsight alerting me to a couple of figures heading straight for us. I rose to my feet, shoulders tensing—and then relaxed as I recognized who was approaching. “It’s okay. It’s Michaela and Krystal. What are you two doing here?” I asked as they came in.

  “Ask her,” Krystal said sourly, jerking her thumb at Michaela. “Tall-dark-and-overly-mysterious here just went charging off without explanation.”

  “My angel wanted me here,” Michaela snapped. Her guardian was hovering above her in Heaven, two wings cupped over her head. “And now I see why.” I moved back as she knelt next to Faith, putting a protective arm around her shoulders. “Faith, it will be all right. You don’t need to stay here while we . . . finish things. You can go to Italy, to the Order. They’ll look after you, just like they looked after me when I lost my home. I’ll sponsor you.”

  Faith let out a brief, broken laugh. “My father was a heretic and my mother is a demon. I don’t think a group of holy warriors is going to want me.”

  Michaela hesitated for a second. “Demons are just fallen angels. That means you’re closer to Heaven than anything else. I’ll tell the Order so. I can testify that you’re pure. You’re the most selfless, strongest person I’ve ever met.”

  Faith sniffed, swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “Really?”

  “Really.” Michaela’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “You never threw so much as a bad word at me, despite everything I did to you. And I’ve been told it would take a saint to put up with me at my worst.”

  That got a real laugh out of Faith. “Thank you,” she said, putting her hand over Michaela’s for a moment. She took a deep breath, straightening. “But I can’t just run away.” She looked around at us all. “She’s my mother. If anyone can redeem her, it will be me.”

  Krystal groaned. “Oh God. Faith, it was bad enough when you wanted to redeem Michaela. This is a literal demon from Hell. You are not going to rehabilitate it!”

  “‘It’ is my mother,” Faith retorted hotly. “And I won’t let any of you harm her. You said demons are fallen angels, Michaela. That means my mother is an angel, somewhere deep down. Why can’t she become one again?”

  “It’s a . . . nice idea,” Michaela said cautiously. She might as well have had glowing neon subtitles reading THAT IS AN UTTERLY INSANE IDEA scrolling across her forehead, but she still had her arm around Faith. “But I don’t think—” She stopped midsentence. A funny look crossed her face, like a television presenter whose earpiece had just started malfunctioning.

  “What is it?” Krystal and Faith said together.

  “I think it’s the angel,” I said. The glow of the angel’s wings had intensified, spotlighting Michaela in a beam of celestial light. “Is it talking to you, Michaela?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Michaela replied absently, her head still cocked to one side as if listening to something. “Believe me, my life would be a lot simpler if it did. I only get a feeling, like an intuition.” She looked at Faith. “And when you were speaking, I had an overwhelming impression of . . . approval.”

  Faith caught her breath. “I’m right. You know I’m right. The angel wants me here. Even if I can’t close the Hellgate, I can still save my mother.” She bounced to her feet, determination wiping away all traces of her former tears. “And I know exactly how to do i
t.”

  We all looked at her.

  “We,” Faith stabbed a finger at me, “have to make out.”

  There was a silence.

  “Uh,” I said after a moment. “Not that I’m objecting, but . . . what?”

  “We have to make out,” Faith repeated, sounding more like someone ordering a pizza than someone proposing sexy times. “Think about it! All your wings and eyes and things, they all appeared after we touched, right? And I got my wings after we kissed. It’s our soul mate connection, activating our powers. I need my full powers if I’m to confront my mother and bring her back to the light. So we have to make out. Right now.”

  “Aaaaand we’ll just be going,” Krystal said, heading for the door. “Michaela?”

  Michaela folded her arms, looking as immovable as a tree. “I’m not leaving Faith alone with a half demon.”

  “She’s half demon!” I said.

  “Faith’s Faith,” Michaela said. “You’re you. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Well, I’m sure as hell not doing anything with you staring at me!”

  “Please, Raffi!” Faith planted herself squarely in front of me, braced like someone about to undergo a root canal. “You have to kiss me.”

  What was I going to do, refuse? Scrunching my eyes tight shut, I leaned down to plant my mouth on hers.

  Faith drew back after a moment. “Why isn’t anything happening?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know!” I ran my hands through my hair, painfully aware of Michaela’s eyes boring into us. At least Krystal had had the decency to turn her back. “Maybe it doesn’t work unless we’re, um, in the mood?”

  “In that case it’s never going to work,” Michaela said acidly. “Rafael kisses like he’s practicing artificial respiration.”

  “Hey, I’m feeling a little pressured, okay?” I snapped back. “I’d like to see you do better.”

  Michaela straightened up. “Is that a dare?” Before I knew what was happening, she’d shoved me aside, effortlessly snatching Faith out of my arms. Faith only had time to emit the briefest of startled squeaks before Michaela’s mouth captured hers.

  There was quite a long pause.

  “There.” Michaela straightened again, tossing her hair back. Faith sagged against Michaela’s arm, looking somewhat shell-shocked as Michaela glared at me coldly. “That’s how to kiss.”

  My mouth was hanging open. I shut it. “I . . . didn’t quite get all the details there. Maybe you could show me again?”

  “Someone please tell me when it’s safe to turn around,” Krystal said from the doorway.

  Faith wriggled free of Michaela’s hands. “Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said, breathless. “Michaela, you’re the expert—on angels, I mean!” Her cheeks were flushed bright pink. “Do you know any faster way of awakening my powers?”

  Michaela’s eyebrows drew down. “I don’t,” she said slowly. “But my guardian angel might. It’s dangerous . . .” She trailed off, getting that faraway look in her eyes again. “And apparently she wants me to try it,” she said after a second, not sounding at all happy at the prospect.

  “Uh,” I said as Michaela drew her daggers out from under her skirt. “What exactly are you going to try?”

  “To act as a channel for my angel,” Michaela replied. “And it requires a lot of concentration, so shut up.” Drawing a deep breath, she crossed her daggers in front of her heart, closed her eyes, and started to murmur under her breath in Latin.

  I felt Krystal move to my side. “Can you tell what’s going on?” she whispered to me.

  “Not really.” The angel had stretched all six wings over Michaela. Its fires brightened, burning so fiercely that I had to squint my own angelic eyes against the light. “But the angel looks a bit like it did when it hit Ms. Wormwood. I think it’s going to use Michaela as a bridge into our world again.” Hopefully, not in order to smite me for lustful actions. Or, worse, offer me make-out tips. It was bad enough having Michaela criticizing my technique; I didn’t need a giant ball of feathers doing it too.

  Michaela’s chant quickened. She flipped her daggers around, touching the points to her own throat and chest. Light shot down the metal as the angel brushed her with the barest tip of a single feather—

  Michaela’s eyes opened. They glowed pure white, without pupil or iris. Just for an instant, that infinitely old, infinitely calm gaze fell on me, and I felt as if my whole life had just been read like a book. Then the angel turned to Faith.

  “You can save her.” It was still Michaela’s voice, but each word floated up from a deep, profound silence. “But you will lose her. Only by closing the Hellgate can she be freed.”

  “But how can I—” Faith stopped, going ashen. “My father’s plan. To have me channel your power.”

  The angel said nothing, merely looked at her.

  Faith’s throat worked. “Will I die?” she asked in the barest whisper.

  “Yes,” the angel said with a terrible, bone-deep certainty. “All things die.” It wore Michaela’s face like a mask, unchanging and expressionless. Thin wisps of smoke curled from the ends of her hair. “But you need not sacrifice your body. There is another way.” Its burning gaze swept over us all like a lighthouse’s beam. “The greatest light is love. If two become one, the darkness will be lifted.”

  Krystal’s breath caught. “Faith and Raf. You said it yourself, Michaela, demons are fallen angels, which makes nephilim half angels, in a way. Two halves make a whole. That’s it, right? Together, they’d have as much light as a full angel, but it would be safer. That’s why Gabriel wanted Raf as well as Faith.”

  “But we tried that.” Faith cast me a faintly accusing glance. “It didn’t work.”

  “Light cannot pass through lies or doubt. You must choose willingly.” The angel took a step toward her, light fracturing around it as if its passage tore the very fabric of the world. It moved the dagger from its own neck so that the point rested gently in the hollow of Faith’s throat. Faith held very still, her shadow standing out sharp and black behind her. “And with open eyes.”

  Light ran down the blade and into Faith. Wings burst from her back like a firework exploding. One pair, two, three—six wings, spreading as wide as the shine allowed. The angel’s light faded, leaving only the starlight and silver glimmer of Faith’s feathers.

  Michaela coughed. Her skin was reddened as if with sunburn. She looked down at the dagger she still held at Faith’s throat and jumped back as if it had burned her. “Mother of God! If my guardian hurt you, I’ll—” The words died on her lips as she caught sight of Faith’s wings. “It worked?”

  “And how,” Krystal said, subdued for once. “Michaela, your angel just told us Raf and Faith can close the Hellgate.”

  Michaela stared at me. “What?”

  Faith’s eyes opened . . . all of them. In Heaven, I could see her angelic eyes emerge from under her wings. “Oh,” she said weakly. “Oh, that’s very strange.” She flinched as she stared about her in Heaven. “Raffi, that’s . . . you?”

  “Yeah.” I’d kind of just accepted my own extra parts, not really thinking about how they appeared. Now, with Faith also bristling with eyes and wings, I grasped just how freakishly alien we were. Judging from Faith’s somewhat uncertain expression, she wasn’t sure how she felt about being able to see the whole me either. I pointed with a wing at the angel, now hovering above us. “And that’s what a full angel looks like, just to warn you. Personally, I think religion would be a lot less popular if they put that on stained-glass windows rather than winged dudes.”

  “Blasphemer.” Michaela pushed back her dark hair, still sounding rather hoarse. “So now what?”

  As if in response, the angel soared toward the main school building. It hovered there like a star, its light shining at a particular spot, waiting.

  “Now we get divine guidance,” I said. “The angel wants to show us something.”

  Chapter 29

  The angel led us to
the gates of Hell itself.

  “This is a really bad idea,” I moaned, eyeing the grim portal. The matte-black surface of the door swallowed all light. There was no handle, no lock; only a single, red LED, glowing like a demonic eye over a fingerprint scanner. Gothic letters were chiseled deep into the stone above the door. Two simple words, warning all who read them that beyond the forbidding portal lay unimaginable horrors:

  Teachers’ Lounge

  “I think she wants us to go in,” Faith said, glancing at the angel. The celestial being was bouncing up and down in Heaven over the door, like a dog desperate to be taken for a walk. She put her ear against the door. “I can’t hear anyone inside. It’s safe.”

  “Safe?” I yelped. “Are you nuts? Look at the place!”

  “It’s a door,” Michaela said. She was still leaning on Faith’s shoulder for support. “No wonder you are overcome with terror.”

  “You can’t see it like we can,” I snapped. I waved a couple of wings at the thick, ominous fog that curled through Heaven above the teachers’ lounge. It was so dense that it blocked my angelsight, hiding the room beyond from view. “It’s a place of darkness. Evil.”

  “I think it must be the heart of the Hellgate.” Faith pushed at the door, but it didn’t budge. “Don’t worry, Raffi. Didn’t you hear what the angel said? As long as love binds us together, we’re as powerful as the angels themselves.”

  Yeah, but does it? said a tiny, traitorous thought in my head. I squashed it down, but a nagging doubt remained. Nothing had happened when we’d kissed in the old shrine. And if we weren’t in love already, I really didn’t see how a romantic date to the school staff room would help.