Fire

by Angelina J. Steffort

  “Whenever I saw you from a distance, I knew I had to be closer.” It was relieving that the urge I had denied so many times, finally made sense. “Something was drawing me toward you.” Maybe that last bit of my soul, resonating in her chest had been calling all along and my mark on her had been leaving a mark on me. “Had I known back then that I’d been ordered to kill the love of my life, I’d have run earlier. But I couldn’t just run.”

  Where would I have run to? The brief time I had spent away from my clan, with Maureen in the forest, had ended with me being kidnapped by our enemies—at least back then they had been my enemies, now they were the demons’ enemies and I was in the middle, not angel, not demon. My demon clan had taken me in when I’d had nowhere else to turn to and the longer I had stayed with them, the stronger my demon powers had become. Maureen had helped me with developing all my fighting skills and so much more. She truly had been making sure I felt welcome with the demons.

  “Maureen was the one who found me after I woke up.” I remembered how she had guided the others to me in the forest. “I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged. She gave me a new family by introducing me to Volpert’s clan. And with meeting her, came the powers—”

  “That’s incredibly interesting,” Liz interrupted.

  “What exactly?” Jaden wanted to know. He surely had his own ideas of how things worked, but the Latina obviously impressed him and he was willing to hear her version first.

  “Maureen—” she said as if expecting him to have figured it out on his own. “With her came the powers. She catalyzed his demon powers.”

  With all of them, not just her, I wanted to say, but they were so fast in their collaborative thought process that I didn’t.

  “I was thinking the same,” Jaden agreed with a captivated expression on his face. “But there is more. What you don’t know is that Maureen was Adam’s girlfriend for a short while before he met Claire.”

  “This gives an even more interesting twist. Who would have thought—” Liz joined the others at the couch

  “What are you talking about?” Claire shifted under Liz’ stare.

  “Maureen’s a demon, Adam, right?” Liz asked without taking her eyes off of Claire.

  “She is part of the clan.”

  “Chris, have you told Adam about his mother?” She now turned to my father and waited until the tension couldn’t get any stronger.

  Dad had never talked about my biological mother much. The only thing I knew was that she’d died giving birth to me. Actually, I had learned more about her from the demon leader than from my own father. She had been a demon, and like a mother to Volpert. That meant she had been an old creature. If what he had said was the truth. How could I believe anything he had told me after he had made me believe Claire deserved to die?

  “Your mother was part-demon, Adam. She never catalyzed her darker side, but nevertheless, you have demon heritage.” He spoke so fast I wondered if the humans in the room had understood a single word.

  His words confirmed at least part of Volpert’s story. And they made me wonder about something else: if I had angel and demon heritage, I hadn’t become evil after my death, I always had been. “I was born part-evil?” I blurted out.

  “I said part-demon. Not part-evil,” Dad corrected. “I believe that’s a different thing—your mother was a good person. I would have never guessed. We just recently found out.

  “The only way you could wake up after having died is if there was a hidden part of you that hadn’t been awakened yet. And the demon part was hidden—until it was triggered by the demons when they killed your angel-human part.”

  A good person? Who had been like a mother to Volpert? That somehow didn’t make sense. I refused to believe it was true…not that she’d been a good person, but what Volpert had made up about my mother. All those years I hadn’t wasted a thought on whether she had been good or bad, and now I was learning I had my evil side from her… the side which hunted souls and fed on them, the side that had killed countless humans and angels within the span of only a couple of months. It was too much to comprehend for now. I would have to take some time to think about it before I could talk to either Dad or—if I should ever see him again—Volpert. For now, I simply had to assume my father’s version was the truth. “So what’s the theory?” I asked instead of voicing my struggle.

  “Maybe the demons knew about your heritage—at least the demon part—and sent Maureen to trigger it.”

  “How could they know?” Claire asked, surprised by Liz’ deduction.

  “Maybe they keep better track of their offspring than our side does—” she stopped mid-sentence, realizing she was offending the angels, and she glanced up at Jaden like a little girl. “I am sorry.”

  “You have a point,” the guardian angel agreed, to my surprise. “We’ve lost track of where angelic blood runs in whose veins on this planet. It’s an uncomfortable truth.”

  They shared a smile. Did I feel some sort of attraction between them? That was weird. The Latina must have really impressed the angel.

  “Continue the theory,” my brother now wanted to know more.

  “His angel-side was catalyzed before Maureen got to finish her assignment. Volpert was unhappy that he lost a potential addition to his clan to our side.” As Liz finished her deduction, I understood why Jaden was impressed. The woman was spot-on. I didn’t even need to bring up what Maureen had told me, she had figured it out all by herself.

  “And that’s why he wants to take revenge,” Ben concluded, a little less accurate with his guess, but this was something none of them could possibly know.

  “Almost,” I corrected. “I agree with the plausibility of the first part. And the way Maureen hates Claire there must be more of a grudge than just that I left her before I had even met Claire. There is more to her dedication to getting rid of Claire than that. ” I didn’t just agree, I knew for certain. Maureen was jealous and blamed Claire for her disgrace with Volpert. “The second part—Volpert’s revenge—is something a little different.”

  As Claire followed my words, her eyes widened. It must be difficult for her to hear me speak about her like that. Like she was disposable—even if not to me. With the slightest effort, I slid out of her grasp and placed my hand on her cheek, fingers trailing her cheekbone. I didn’t care what the others were thinking, or if they were approving of my sudden need to touch her face. My intention was not to harm her but to distract her, comfort her, anything that would help her hear the next words, which meant she was doomed. “Volpert wants revenge on the family that killed his father. He thinks Claire is the last descendant of James Albert Thompson.”

  Five heartbeats accelerated. Claire was the only one to look at me without comprehension. I wished I would never have had to bring this up, but it was what Volpert had said was the real reason she had to die. And for some reason, I didn’t doubt this story.

  “That’s impossible,” Jaden was furious, concealing his feelings like the practiced guardian angel he was, but it was obvious to anyone who could read emotions that he would have rather seen me dissolve into a puff of smoke than face the possibility. “Absolutely impossible,” he denied.

  “Are you sure?” Jenna asked as if she was worried I was hallucinating.

  “Claire, what do you know about your ancestors?” Jaden asked the lost-looking girl before my face. It didn’t surprise me that he took the straightforward route to answers, no concern for her feelings when it came to her safety—the same as the lurking wish to get rid of me. I could see it in his eyes.

  Claire swallowed her grief. “I don’t know my family tree, if that’s what you mean—”

  Of course not. That would have been too easy.

  “—my parents died so early, I never got much information about my family. My mother’s side came from somewhere north-west. Seattle area. I never met her parents before they died. My father’s side is from here. At least my grandmother—but you already knew that.”

  “
Agnes Hall,” Jenna remembered.

  “And my grandfather I never met. He was a foreigner who left her before my dad was born.”

  Claire and Jaden exchanged a look I didn’t understand. While hers was full of compassion, his was somewhat pained.

  “He’s right. Agnes’ grandmother was Constance Thompson.” My stepmother looked at me and confirmed what I knew was the truth: Claire was a descendant of the local Thompson family. Both she and her sister Sophie were. I remembered Sophie well, now that my memory was back. Her reddish hair, her know-it-all expression, and her caring side for her sister. All these memories were suddenly present when I realized Claire had much more to lose than her life.

  “So he is right,” I murmured under my breath, referring to Volpert.

  “No!” All of a sudden Jaden’s stoic face fell and his anger broke free. All eyes in the room were on him, observing how he almost smashed the chair as he jumped up.

  For a brief moment, I was worried he might take his fury out on me, but he got his temper under control before Claire lost her patience and asked for clarification.

  “Would someone please explain to me what’s going on?”

  Nobody spoke. Not even I had the courage to be the herald of the bad news. Liz was the one to find it in her to explain what the Thompson name meant for her life-span.

  “Do you remember your conversations with Lucas?” Liz asked, forcing Claire to focus on her.

  Lucas Baker…the town librarian, I remembered.

  “The unofficial history of Aurora,” she recalled, and I understood it must be the same story Volpert had told me…the one ending in the death of his father.

  “What did he tell you?” Liz asked, making sure Claire knew what she was talking about.

  “The demons were haunting Aurora and killing innocent people.” Claire put it together in a short version. “An angel was accused and hunted down before the bookkeeper was warned by his guardian angel that he was going to be next and that they had to kill the real demon.”

  “Yes,” Liz encouraged. “What happened next?”

  “One demon was killed, the other got away. The one with the ponytail—Volpert.” Claire stared at Liz, terrified as she figured out for herself what conclusion had put the horrified expression on the others’ faces.

  “What did that second one promise?”

  “He wouldn’t rest until all of the bookkeeper’s family was eradicated.”

  And there it was, comprehension in Claire’s eyes.

  “The bookkeeper was James Albert Thompson,” she spoke her conclusion aloud, making sure she hadn’t gotten it wrong, and knowing if there was the slightest chance she had, the rest of us wouldn’t have reacted the way we had.

  All his fury gone, Jaden's only readable emotion was a helpless wish to protect Claire. He rushed to her side and slung his arms around her shoulders, like an angelic shield. Something deep in my chest ached to be in his place. Not jealousy, it was something different…perhaps the same helplessness Jaden felt. The only difference was I had lived with Volpert and knew just how dangerous he was.

  Jaden didn’t let go of Claire when she tried to free herself of his grip. Claire froze and looked up at Jaden instead. “Lucas knew. That’s why he died. He died because of me.”

  I swallowed back the urge to confess my part in Lucas Baker’s death and reminded myself that sharing this story might be the last words I’d ever speak. Jaden would probably slay me the second I’d finished. So, I remained silent, burning in remorse, and hoping I would one day get a chance to make amends.

  “He wanted to warn you. One of the last things he told me was to remind you of the importance of that myth. I am so sorry, Claire.” Liz had taken Claire’s hand and was squeezing it.

  But while she was still processing her words, Claire seemed to understand that she wasn’t alone at the end of the Thompson line.

  “—Sophie—” One word, quietly spoken from her lips, made the entire room vibrate with dread.

  For a moment I wished we’d never met, I’d never existed, and I wouldn’t have marked her, I wouldn’t have made her visible to the demons. She would have remained a somewhat depressed high school student and made her way through college, married one day—maybe even that kid, Greg—and she’d be happy, out of danger.

  “I am so sorry, Claire,” I spoke before I could help it. “If it wasn’t for me, Volpert wouldn’t even know—I put you on their radar.” And the second the words were out, I felt better. I had admitted to my fault.

  “We need to make sure Sophie is safe,” Claire said to Jaden, acting as if she hadn’t even heard me.

  “We will.” Jaden tightened his arms around her, and again, I wished it was me who comforted her.

  “Who is we?” Another fear flashed across Claire’s face, this time she eyed each one in the room. “You can’t all risk your lives for us. There must be another way.”

  When she met my gaze, she nodded ever so slightly, as if agreeing with something I’d said. Again, I wished I could look behind those bluish eyes and read her thoughts, but her emotions were all I got, and those were a chaos of determination and angst. She turned to Jaden, the strong and golden-shining guardian, desperate to keep the angst at bay.

  “Does she have a guardian angel like me?” She asked, more worried about her sister than about herself. How could I, even in my darkest demon-moments, have believed that she was a monster? “Can they be trusted? Are they experienced enough?”

  She glanced at me, an expression of panic in her features, and again, I wanted to reach out, wrap my arms around her and make her feel safe, protected, loved. But my options were limited as long as I was tied to the couch by my own schizophrenic body. The wounds at the roots of my wings stung as if to emphasize the thought.

  Beside Claire, Jaden eyed her with a mixture of pride and panic himself. If he would speak his mind, he’d probably ask Claire if she was insane, putting everyone before herself. Didn’t that make his job so much more difficult? On the other hand, he wasn’t alone. He had three very capable angels and one powerful, even if not very useful right now, demon, who would all fight to protect his fosterling, whether she wanted them to or not. At least the angels had done it before when I had tried to kill Claire. Again, the roots of my wings stung and it was almost as if the thought of myself as a killer was detaching them just a bit from my demon body.

  “There is a way,” Claire announced while I was still working to ignore the pain.

  The atmosphere in the room tasted of dread in an instant, the only one to bring in curiosity was Liz who, as a human, couldn’t feel that Claire was determined to go through with whatever she was going to present to us. I myself was torn between fear and astonishment. There she was, having gone through hell because of me, and yet so much braver and stronger than I remembered her.

  “If I give myself up willingly, they might spare Sophie.”

  “No!” Jaden voiced his objection. Naturally, he would. Her idea would jeopardize his mission.

  But she wasn’t one-hundred percent wrong. Volpert might go for it, being blind when it came to his revenge.

  “It might work,” I gave her some credit, appreciating her selflessness.

  “Absolutely not,” this time my brother joined in with Jaden, in a hiss of disagreement.

  “We haven’t spent months protecting you just so you can walk right into their arms,” Ben scolded her, but there was more there in his aura, not just the objection to her plan, but the fear of losing her. I remembered how he’d been attracted to Claire from the beginning, but now there was something new in his emotions…I couldn’t yet comprehend what it was exactly.

  As Jaden was still supporting Ben’s point with a nod so strong his golden hair was bouncing in his face, Claire freed herself from his arms and leaned toward me, hoping to find an accomplice in me.

  “You think they would make a deal?” she asked, as if no one else was in the room.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to make a deal
with Volpert. He was dangerous, manipulative. And she was top on his list of people to wipe off the face of the Earth. It wouldn’t surprise me if he actually considered her offer, even if it was only to lure her out.

  “They might make a deal with you,” I said before I had thought it through completely.

  “She will not give herself up!” Ben insisted. And he was right to do so. Volpert would probably double-cross her. But what if I double-crossed him, too? I was still his most powerful weapon in his path to revenge. Even if I had failed to execute his order to kill Claire, I was still useful enough for him to accept me back. He didn’t know anything about my recent memory gain. So that would give us an advantage. Because there was no way I would let him get his hands on Claire ever again, now that I remembered who he was and what he had done to get rid of her—and me.

  “Wait a second,” I prepared my brother for the introduction of my thought. “We could use this to take them down. Set a trap—”

  “They don’t know that you can remember who you are. We could deceive them.” Claire was the one to most quickly comprehend what I had envisioned to free us from Volpert and the looming threat he presented for my mark’s life—my soul’s existence. Because what was left of it was lingering in Claire’s body.

  “I have been gone for half a day, that’s not longer than an average hunting trip,” I explained, giving myself a pep talk that might actually make me believe it would be that easy to go back and face Volpert and his clan with my regained memory. “If I return by myself, nobody will ever know.” Probably nobody would suspect it either. If I was lucky, Volpert would believe Claire was smart enough to have figured out that her sister was in danger. They knew the town librarian, Lucas, had talked, but they didn’t know just how little Claire had actually known about her heritage until two minutes ago. “Claire can simply show up and declare her offer. I’ll help persuade Volpert to take it. And then the rest of you step in and finish him,” I completed my thought aloud.

  “This sounds too easy,” Jaden objected, eyes narrowing into two golden slits full of suspicion. “How do we know we can trust you?”