Fire

by Angelina J. Steffort

  When I blinked after what seemed like an eternity, I saw her face in a new light. Not the light of her soul—which was beautiful without a doubt—but in the light of all the mistakes I’d made since the moment I’d dug myself out of my grave. I had caused her so much pain, so much worry. I had tortured her, hurt her family, her guardian angel. I had failed her on that roof when I had tried to protect her from the ones who now claimed to be my clan.

  “Adam, what is happening?” she almost choked on the words.

  “Claire,” I spoke her name, appreciating who she was—an innate part of myself, a gem, so bright, so beautiful, so pure….

  Without thinking I stepped closer until I could feel her body warmth beside me. The sensation in my back was still there, pushing me to the limits of what I could bear. But it was nothing compared to the pain of seeing her averting her eyes. I followed her gaze and our eyes met, reflections in the window, my glowing green irises and her bluish depths, not a pond full of mysteries any longer, but a mirror of my past.

  A searing sensation ripped my back open and I gasped. When I heard her do the same, I pushed myself to ignore the pain and watched her head slowly turn until she faced me again.

  The relief was instant. The moment her eyes locked on mine, all ache was forgotten. All I saw was her.

  “Claire,” I said her name again, just to hear it. It was six letters, enveloping everything worth living for—worth dying for.

  18

  Memories

  “What just happened?” she whispered, as stunned by our sudden proximity as I was.

  Her pull was so strong, I moved another inch closer and lifted my hand to touch her. Now that I remembered, it was all I wanted, to gain her trust, feel her skin under my fingertips…

  She flinched away from me and closed her eyes, denying me the one thing I was aching for. Couldn’t she feel what I felt? Didn’t she understand what had just happened?

  My hand hovered mid-air, waiting for her to realize it was me, Adam. Her Adam.

  “Claire,” I repeated once more, hoping she’d react the way she had countless times before I had drifted to the dark side, with her trusting innocence and the smile that I used to be able to put on her face. But nothing happened. Her eyelids remained closed, blocking me from reading in the blue depths.

  “Open your eyes, Claire.” I needed her to understand that everything had changed within those past seconds.

  As her eyes popped open, I couldn’t believe that it was possible that I had once thought this girl had to die. Who were those demons to want me to end that one person who had been everything to me?

  She kept staring, struggling to decide whether to trust my new, gentle tone or not.

  “Claire, I remember.”

  For a brief moment, I thought her heart had stopped beating, but then it continued to race inside her chest, double the speed from before. She was still afraid of me, and how could I blame her? How many times had I attempted to kill her in these past weeks?

  In that moment, as she was searching for one hint that I was telling the truth, I found within me the courage to touch her cheek.

  “I remember,” I let my finger glide along her cheekbone, delight spreading in my dead, demon heart. “I remember you. I remember—everything.”

  She didn’t stare much longer, she gazed, dazed by my words and my touch, and an emotion, similar to my own, wound its way from her toward me, enveloping me with a new layer of joy.

  “Adam—” She laid her hand on the back of mine, her delicate fingers pulling my palm closer against her face until her lips brushed my skin.

  A thousand memories of when she had touched me flew through my mind, my skin heating on every spot she had ever brushed with so much as the tips of her fingers. I caught her hand and pulled it against my silent heart, letting the knowledge settle for a while. I remembered everything. Every joy, every doubt, every word, every touch. All of it. Claire was my mark; she had shared her soul with me long before I’d ever attempted to erase her from the face of the Earth. And now that I remembered, I couldn’t possibly think of killing her. How could I harm a being as perfect as her? As brave, and as strong…as beautiful.

  Claire’s breath accelerated as her hand rested on my chest. It reminded me of the last time we’d kissed before we had made the stupid choice of meeting with her human friends that night I’d died. The memory of shirtless Claire flashed through my head and I had to take a deep breath, remembering her scent. And as I inhaled deeply, she still smelled as wonderful as she had that day. Her face was so close I could see every golden speck in her irises, every blonde hair falling to her shoulders, every crack in her lips… The moment I focused on her mouth, her lips parted and the warmth of her breath filled my own mouth. I tasted her and a flame ignited in my chest, soon becoming a raging fire, and I wasn’t sure there was anything but her who could cease it.

  Slowly, hesitantly, I closed the last inch between our lips until I felt her silken skin. It was as if I had come home from a long journey through the darkness, and the fire stopped its wild dance in my chest, dying down to embers. And it was clear, whatever would happen, it would never stop smoldering again. I wouldn’t let it.

  All the things I had done to her since my death… Even my death itself must have been like going through hell. All the angels and humans I’d interrogated, I knew what happened to them if one of a tandem died. The one left behind went insane from the pain, or they got suicidal, either was possible. But this girl, she was strong, she had protected whatever was left of my soul like a warrior. And she had kept herself going, made sure there was someone to come home to.

  I pulled away and gazed at her for a moment, appreciating in full all the horrors she must have gone through, before I cradled her against my chest and locked her in an embrace that made it clear I would never let her go.

  “I am so terribly sorry.” It was all I could say, and I knew she would understand that this apology was for everything I had done wrong, including dying in the first place.

  She rested her head against my shoulder, all the fear gone, all the doubts. Her entire body resonated with elation as she wrapped her arm around my waist and ran her hand along my back. Her fingers were gentle, soft, searching my skin until she pushed herself up on her toes just enough to glance over my shoulder.

  I didn’t bother to follow her gaze, because after a second, she rested her head on my chest again, a deep sense of satisfaction streaming off of her. Her hand remained on my back, a warm and tender reminder of all the moments we had shared before I had lost my memory, and of all the moments we hopefully were about to share in the future…

  A noise from the corner brought both of us back to the present.

  “Jaden,” Claire gasped. I was unwilling to let her go, so I turned around, her securely enclosed in my arms, and prepared to face the guardian angel. There were so many things I wanted to thank him for, top on the list that he had been watching out for Claire all this time when I couldn’t.

  He had difficulties standing up straight and swayed behind the bed.

  “Jaden, are you okay?” Claire tore away from me and my arms reluctantly opened.

  Jaden was slowly recovering, and by the time Claire got to him, his eyes were focused and his posture that of a warrior, ready to attack.

  “I am fine,” he reassured her, but one hand reached up to touch the back of his head where he had hit the floor. “What happened?”

  He never took his eyes off of me, oddly not my face, but my back. I would have expected him to give me a hostile glare, but there was wonder in his features.

  Trying to understand what he was staring at, I focused on my own body. So far I had been turning all my attention on Claire, reading her emotions, feeling her hands and her breath and her lips, but now that she was out of my arms, I realized that something was different. Not only that I remembered my life premortem, but also there was a weight on my back, that I hadn’t felt in a while. Was it possible that my wings had returned wi
th my memory?

  When I wanted to confirm my suspicion and flap what felt like my wings, a searing sensation ran through my shoulders, almost as if a knife was severing my skin, trying to cut my wings off. My arms flung around my chest, hands trying to reach the source of the pain, but before I could reach it, something tackled me from the side and I hit the floor. My struggling was senseless, not because the angel was using much force to hold me down, but because every movement was agony as my wings seemed to slowly tear out of my back.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Claire shrieked from somewhere beside me.

  I stopped fighting the weight on my arms and waited for the pain to stop, but it didn’t. The sensation stretched to the sides in lines, driving cold sweat on my forehead.

  “Did he hurt you?” Jaden said above my head, concern and stress making his voice hoarse.

  “He didn’t. Jaden, he remembers.”

  Gratitude spread through my aching body as she tried to convince her guardian angel that I wasn’t dangerous.

  And it seemed he believed her, because the weight on my arms lightened and the angel spoke full of wonder. “He does?”

  “He remembers who I am,” she confirmed.

  For a moment there was only the sound of two heartbeats in the room—one strong immortal, and one racing, human heart.

  “What happened?” he asked as he finally let go of my arms.

  “He didn’t hurt me, quite the opposite... He kissed me—” Claire’s voice trailed away as my head spun before everything went dark and silent…

  There was a flickering light somewhere far ahead… I had felt it before. The fragment of Claire’s soul. I had felt it fade when I had died, before I had lost my memory, when I had wondered if she was still alive. And as the flame continued to quiver, hunger spread in my stomach. I wanted to consume the light, but something was holding me back, a pain in my shoulders, my wings. The darkness inside of me grew thicker, more solid, pushing on the roots of the wings as if to eject them from my back. Memories flashed through my head, first Claire and her smile, her hand on my back, then my hand on a human’s chest, pulling on her soul. The echo of the feeding brought on a raging hunger. And an image of Claire, walking out of Aurora High, book bag swinging from her shoulder and hair dancing in the wind, calmed my demonic need until light broke through her skin and I was reminded how delicious her soul was. I had tasted it in the graveyard, and again earlier tonight, before my memories had returned.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Claire’s voice came from the distance.

  “I can’t see. It must be under the wings,” the guardian angel answered and there was pressure on my back, adding to the ache in my shoulders.

  The roots of my wings were still being pushed outwards. Was my body rejecting them? I remembered my education in medicine and all the anatomy classes, the case studies about transplants. Did the same theories apply to me? Even though the wings weren’t transplants, they still seemed to belong to a version of me I no longer represented. They were a foreign object to my demon physique.

  “I have never seen anything like this. We need to take care of this. Now.” There was an urgency in Jaden’s voice, despite the hushed tone he was using.

  I wasn’t just dreaming this, the pain was real, and they saw too that something was wrong.

  There were footsteps and the rustling of plastic and fabrics.

  I stopped listening to them and focused on my inner conflict instead. I was a demon, no soul, no love, no emotions. At least that was what I had learned, but it seemed I did have emotions, I did love Claire. The only thing I didn’t have, was a soul. I had the memory of a soul. Of who I had been. Or maybe still was… Did remembering Claire change anything? Had dying really changed anything? I still hadn’t been able to kill Claire, something inside me had kept me from doing it. So, maybe, I wasn’t all bad. Maybe there was a flicker of good there in me.

  As I entertained the thought that there might be a fraction of me that wasn’t the evil torturer Volpert had made me believe I was, the pressure on my wings decreased. The roots searched their way back into my flesh, painfully piercing through blood vessels and nerves. Before my inner eye, I saw the layers of tissue as I had learned from anatomy books and the autopsies we’d done in school.

  Warmth spread around the area where the wings were knitting themselves back into my body, and the pain retreated to the outermost layer of skin. It was almost as if my demon anatomy was allowing that last shred of my angel-self to co-inhabit my body, even though they seemed to be incompatible.

  For a long moment, I followed the sensation beside my spine, breathing through the situation and pondering the chances of a demon becoming an angel again. And what were the odds that it would stay that way? Would the wings simply disappear again when my body decided there was no room for angelic tendencies?

  In a reflex, I wanted to reach across my shoulder and check if the wings were still there, but the blackness was holding me down. And there was a light touch on my arms.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me,” Claire said behind the black curtain. “When you wake up, please don’t leave again. You have bad injuries that need to heal.”

  There was concern in her voice, unconcealed, now that she didn’t know if I was even listening. It was a beautiful feeling, being cared for, being treated like someone she wanted to live rather than an enemy.

  “Jaden is getting your dad and Jenna to help bring you back home. Everything will be fine.”

  Home? The house where I had been held captive before—had chosen to act as if they’d managed to imprison me. My father...Chris…Dad. How I wanted to look him in the eye and apologize for not recognizing him the last time, for even doubting he was who he’d claimed to be. And Jenna, my stepmother, the most artistic and gentle being in the world.

  As I was thinking about them, it hit me: since when were they angels? I didn’t recall knowing anything about them having wings. But I had seen them clearly at our last encounter. And Ben, my brother, too. Was that possible?

  Naturally, I must have gotten my angel-heritage from someone…my father…because Abigail, my mother, had been a demon. Volpert had made that clear.

  “I love you, Adam, more than I can put into words...” Claire’s voice broke through my thoughts.

  How I wanted to open my eyes and look at her, just acknowledge that I still remembered.

  “You might be a demon, but there is good in you. I can see it when I look at you. I felt it in your embrace—in your kiss. Are your wings physical proof of that goodness? Can I hope—”

  She believed there was good in me…but was there really? The echo of hunger welled in my stomach and I knew, memory or not, wings or not, I was still a demon. Creature of the dark.

  “There is always hope,” my gentle stepmother joined Claire’s monologue.

  I didn’t try to move this time, knowing the black haze was stronger than me, and so I just listened to their conversation, waiting for something to happen that would untie me.

  “Jaden came to tell us what happened. Chris will be here any moment to help bring Adam back to our place.”

  That explained why there were only two heartbeats in the room. Jaden had teleported out.

  “Does Ben know?”

  “He’s preparing for our arrival.”

  “His back looks really bad.”

  “Jaden says he’s never seen anything like it.”

  “Neither have I. I wish I knew what it is so I could help. But then, there is probably no reference in history that would help us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You told us Liz said that the Contextus Daemonicus has been hypothetical so far. A theory. Until it was verified through Adam and you.”

  Contextus Daemonicus… Liz, the woman from the library. The Guard—whatever that meant.

  “True.”

  “But the theory ends with the connecting bond between demon and prior angel’s mark. There is no mention of what happens when the demon r
emembers who he was.”

  So there was a name to what I had been going through: Contextus Daemonicus. Why did it relieve me so much that there was a Latin term for this? Was it my being used to it in my medical studies? It sounded almost treatable when it had a Latin name.

  “We will need Liz to verify, but I assume you are right.”

  There was a short silence in which their heartbeats was the only proof they hadn’t left.

  “Have you ever seen black wings before?” Claire asked.

  “Never.”

  Black wings? They were black?

  A light touch on the lengths of one wing reminded me this was real. I wasn’t dreaming their conversation. And as the fingers gently dug into my feathers, another memory flashed through my mind: Claire staring at me after I first spread my wings. I had knocked her out and smashed her shelves, and she had smiled in wonder at the white feathers and told me I was beautiful. Even then, when my wings had been the ultimate expression of my angel-nature, my good soul, I hadn’t deserved her… Now that I was a creature of the darkness, there was no way on Earth I would ever be good enough for her again.

  19

  Speculations

  My body was fighting. The skin on my back was breaking once more. I could feel it, as I tried to move, still tied down by the blackness. What was this half-conscious state I was going through? If Jaden hadn’t put me to sleep like before, why was I incapacitated?

  “I’ll clean the wounds again. Maybe the warmth helps—” Jenna said. At first, I thought she was talking to me but then I realized there were several people moving around me.