by Susan Ee
A hellion hisses at him, all sharp teeth and hate.
Cyclone steps forward. “They need a firm hand, Commander.” He looms over the hellions. “Do what we tell you, or you die.” He makes a tearing motion with his hands.
A hellion pisses at him, squirting a yellow-green stream of foul-smelling liquid that Cyclone barely avoids.
The other hellions seem to snicker. Cyclone leans in, looking like he’s going to strangle them, but Raffe stops him.
I step forward. Let’s see how they respond if they’re treated like I would want to be in their place.
“Freedom,” I say.
The hellions look sideways at me.
“Escape.” I crouch down to look at them at their level. They watch me with distrust, but they’re listening. “No more Pit lords. No more masters. Be free.” I do the sliding motion along my sword the way Raffe did earlier.
The hellions begin chattering among themselves, as if arguing.
“Take us with you.” I point to me and the others. “Be free.” I motion along my sword into the sky again. “With you.” I point to them.
More chatter.
Then they quiet down.
The one in the center nods at us.
My eyes open wide. It worked. One by one, the Watchers nod in my direction with respect in their eyes.
RAFFE DOESN’T GO into the details of Beliel’s involvement with Uriel or with his wings. In fact, he doesn’t even say who the gateway Watcher is. He just says that it’s one of them.
“Think long and hard about this,” says Raffe. “We’ve always taken pride in never leaving one of us behind. You can stay here together and I’ll find another way to beat Uriel. Or you can come with us, but one of you must stay behind. Isolation is the worst thing that can happen to an angel. You think it’s bad now? It’ll be a hundred times worse when you’re alone, knowing that all your fellow soldiers made it out and left you here. You’ll become twisted, angry, vindictive, vengeful. You’ll become someone you wouldn’t recognize.”
He stares at the squirming hellions tied on the ground. “And for that, I’m sorry. I see now my role in it.”
He looks at every Watcher around him. “For the rest of you, remember that your families won’t be there anymore. Your Daughter of Man, your children—they’ll all be gone. If this is successful, we’re going to a different time, a different place. We’ll land in the middle of a war. But it’ll be a war where some of the fighters might have your blood in their veins.”
The Watchers look at each other as though trying to process that. I’m having trouble with it myself. Some of us could be their descendants.
They all look at each other, understanding that the gateway Watcher could be any of them.
Beliel is the first to nod. There’s naked hope in his face. “I’d do anything—risk anything—for a chance to have the yellow sun on our faces again.”
I clamp down hard on the sympathy that’s blooming for him. I run through the litany of his crimes—my sister, the murders, Raffe’s wings, his part in turning humans into monsters—I list all the names and faces that I knew at Alcatraz.
One by one, the Watchers nod grimly. Each prepared to take the risk.
We don’t tell Beliel that he’s the one until the very last second.
When Beliel finds out it’s him, his face freezes. It’s disturbing to think of someone gazing out into nothing when he has no eyes. The only sign of life from him is his chest pumping in and out as his breathing gets heavier.
The Watchers are somber. Each of them touches Beliel’s shoulder until he flings Thermo’s hand off him. After that, everyone quietly grabs a hellion.
Beliel stands alone in a circle of the only friends he had in his life. He jerks when I prick him with my sword.
Raffe gives the command to the hellions to jump through.
The Watcher-ridden hellions leap at Beliel. He stands frozen, as if electrified, while the hellions fly into him.
Raffe is the first to go so he can usher the Watchers who are sure to be disoriented when they arrive on the other side. I am the last to go so that I can hold the sword and keep the gateway open until we’re all through.
By the end, Beliel is on his knees, his empty eye sockets shut tight and his teeth clenched. There’s shock, but there’s anguish too, even though he volunteered. They all volunteered.
But I’m sure that’s little comfort. Everyone else is making it out of the Pit and leaving him behind. To suffer alone for what will seem like eternity to him.
Alone and unwanted.
Probably for the first time in his life.
I run through the litany of his crimes again as I ride my hellion into the gate that is Beliel.
GOING INTO THE Pit was like falling. Getting out of the Pit is like being dragged through a vat of Vaseline. It’s as if the air itself is trying to push me back. I cling to my hellion as tightly as I can. I don’t even want to think about what happens if I can’t hold on.
I pop out into cramped quarters, feeling covered in goop even though there’s nothing physically on me. I should be back in my world, my time if everything went as planned. Raffe made it clear to the hellions that they would be free only if they brought us to our own where and when, but you never know.
Instead of jumping out through the portal and onto firm ground, I end up smashing against something hard. There’s enough light to see that I’m shoved against the dashboard of a truck.
The truck swerves, and I’m so disoriented that I might as well be upside down in a fish bowl. All I can see is the hellion I rode on bouncing in panic inside the truck cab. Luckily, it’s a large truck cab, but there are still far too many people and creatures crammed into it.
My disorientation settles enough for me to realize that I’m sitting on Beliel’s lap.
It’s not the same Beliel we left behind. He’s more weathered, beaten, and weary. Not to mention dried up, wingless, and bleeding. He breathes in a slow, painful rasp.
I see my surroundings in a way that my mind can’t quite comprehend right now. A white hand pushes through the open rear window. It grabs the flapping hellion and yanks it awkwardly through the window.
Behind us is an open truck bed full of confused and disoriented Watchers. Several of them look queasy as we bounce and swerve around debris.
Beyond the truck bed, a group of angels chases us through our plume of dust that spreads into the dawn sky. And is that my sister and her three scorpions flying beside us?
Shrinking in the distance is the dark shadow of the new aerie and its outer buildings. Before I can comprehend what I’m seeing, the windows of one of the outer buildings explode in a burst of fire and shattered glass.
The angels who had been chasing us stop, watching the fire. Then they circle back to the aerie to defend their home base from whatever is attacking.
The truck swerves left, then right, like the driver is drunk.
Beside me, I hear a cackling full of genuine joy. My mother is behind the wheel. She has a triumphant grin on her face as she glances over at me.
She looks back at the road just barely in time to swerve around an abandoned car. She must be going sixty miles per hour. That’s suicidal on these roads.
I push myself away from Beliel. I’d gotten used to seeing him with a fresh, hopeful face. Now he’s bleeding through his chest, ears, mouth, and nose. It’s hard to look at him, much less sit on his lap.
It’s awkward and dangerous holding my sword in such cramped quarters. I have to be careful in the swerving cab while putting the blade back into my scabbard.
“Be careful, Mom,” I say as she swerves again.
I crawl through the rear window and land in the standing-room-only open truck bed. There’s barely enough room for me, but I’m small enough that I can slip between two large warriors.
When I se
e their disoriented and drained faces, I don’t need to wonder why they’re not all airborne. Even the few who are flying hold on to the truck’s roll bar, looking like they need a little guidance. These guys clearly need a minute to adjust.
At this speed, the aerie is fast disappearing behind us.
“Are you ready to go back and fight?” It’s Josiah, the albino.
The Watchers answer with a general groan. It vaguely sounds like “yeah, okay” if I’m being optimistic, “hell no” if I’m not.
The overall impression is that they’re completely sick and in no condition to fight. I’m disoriented too but not sick to my stomach. They’ve probably never ridden with Mom before. Okay, maybe they’ve never even ridden in a car before.
“You’ll feel better once we stop.” I bang on the window. “Mom, slow down. You can stop the truck.”
She speeds up.
I bang on the window again and stick my head through to the cab. “Mom, it’ll be all right.”
The truck slows down and comes to a halt. Paige and her locusts fly past us, then swoop back to where we’re stopped.
The Watchers climb out of the truck, looking shaky on their legs. They unravel their wings and stretch them out, as though testing them. The rest land around us, looking not much better.
The dust settles behind us and over the Watchers. They’re quite a sight. Their partially feathered wings with their curling, splintered edges and their half-skinned bodies must be monstrous even in my mother’s imagination. I glance at Mom through the window, wondering what she thinks of all this.
My sister and her locusts do happy loop-de-loops in the air. Paige waves to me.
“Report, Josiah.” Raffe turns to Josiah.
Josiah stares at the Watchers with wide eyes. “After you left, a guard saw me, and we got into an argument about whether to put Beliel back in his cage. I couldn’t let that happen. If things went according to plan—and I can’t believe that they actually did—you would have all come out into a cage and been crushed to death.”
“Penryn!” The door of the truck opens, and my mother runs toward me. She enfolds me in a hug that’s too tight.
“Hi, Mom.”
“This ghost angel told me that you were inside that demon over there.” She points to Beliel who seems on the verge of losing consciousness in the passenger seat. “He said that you might come out any minute. I didn’t believe him of course. That’s crazy talk. But still, you never know.” She shrugs. “And look what happened.” She squints at me suspiciously. “It is you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s me, Mom.”
“How did you get us out?” asks Raffe.
Josiah rubs his face. “After my little argument with the guard, I took Beliel. But Beliel is big and heavy even in his shriveled state. I couldn’t fly with him, but I had to get him somewhere safe until you came back. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her.” He points to my mother. “Or her.” He nods to my sister, who lands in the trees with her locusts.
“And how did you end up with them?” I ask.
“Your mother found out the cult sold you out,” says Josiah. “And she and your sister trekked here to rescue you.”
I look at my mother, who is nodding as if to say, of course we did. Wiry gray now streaks her dark hair. When did that happen? For a second, I see her through the eyes of a stranger and see a frail and vulnerable woman who looks tiny next to the brawny angels.
I look at my sister up in a tree. She’s being carried by a locust the way I used to carry her from her wheelchair only a couple of months ago.
“You went to the aerie?” My voice wavers a little as I look back and forth between my mom and sister. “You risked your lives to rescue me?”
My mother gives me another too-tight hug. My sister twitches the corners of her lips up despite the pain it must cost her to move the stitches on her cheeks.
My eyes sting at the thought of the danger they faced to rescue me.
“Paige has three large pets with scorpion stingers who can fly her out at any time,” says my mom. “I told them they’d be in big trouble if anything happened to her.”
“Oh.” I look at Raffe with a watery smile. “Even the locusts are afraid of my mother.”
“I can see why,” says Josiah. “She came with a group of shaved-headed humans who were requesting safe passage marks on their foreheads.”
“Amnesty?” asks Raffe. “Uriel’s giving some of the humans amnesty?”
“Just the ones who gave her up.” Josiah nods toward me.
The muscles in Raffe’s jaw dance as he clenches his teeth.
Josiah shrugs. “Your mother somehow convinced those people to wander into the aerie after they received their amnesty marks. Uriel had to drive them out like rats. Your sister also distracted the angels by doing flybys with her three locusts. We all kept looking to see where the rest of the swarm was. While everyone was distracted, your mother set the place on fire. She is one fierce woman.”
“Fire?”
“What do you think caused that explosion?” Josiah nods in appreciation. “I never would have gotten Beliel out if it wasn’t for all the distractions your family caused.”
Josiah gestures to the truck. “Once I convinced your mother that you were inside Beliel, she convinced me we needed to ride in this vehicle. It got us out, but I’m never going to ride in one of those metal coffins again.”
“Amen,” says Thermo, who still looks queasy.
Mom has a smudge on her forehead. It looks like ashes, but I know that it’s the amnesty mark. It looks just like the smudges that Uriel’s soldier gave to the cult members who sold me out.
“You’re not in a cult, are you, Mom?”
“Of course not.” She looks at me like I just insulted her. “Those people are all nuts. They’ll regret having sold you out. I made sure of that. If Paige eats someone, it’ll be someone outside their cult. It’s the worst punishment they can imagine.”
A GROAN REACHES us from the passenger seat of the truck. We walk back toward Beliel and open the passenger door.
He’s in bad shape. There’s blood everywhere.
He opens his eyes sluggishly and looks at me. It’s a relief to see him with eyes in his sockets. I wonder how long it took to grow them back?
“I knew I recognized your voice from somewhere.” He coughs. Blood bubbles out of his mouth. “Been a long time. So long I thought it was a torture dream.”
How long did he spend down in the Pit, taking the punishment for an entire squad of newly Fallen?
“I actually thought . . . I actually thought, once, that there might be hope,” says Beliel. “That you might come back and figure out a way to take me with you too.”
Watchers gather around behind me.
Beliel’s eyes lift to look at them. “You’re all just like I remember. You haven’t changed at all. As if it just happened this morning.” He coughs again, and his face scrunches in pain. “I should have made you all wait with me in the Pit.”
His eyes drift closed.
He takes a shuddering breath and lets it out. He doesn’t take another.
I look up at Raffe, then at Josiah.
Josiah shakes his head at me. “It was too much for him. He wasn’t doing well after you guys went through him. His healing slowed down, almost stopped. He was in no condition to handle so many coming through. I don’t think biological beings were really meant to be gateways.”
Josiah sighs. “But if it had to happen to someone, it might as well have been Beliel.” He turns and walks away from Beliel’s ravaged body. “No one will miss him. He didn’t have a friend in the world.”
THE WATCHERS DECIDE to do a proper ceremony for Beliel. We drive until the aerie is long out of sight before we stop to bury him.
“Do we even have shovels?” I ask.
; “He’s not an animal,” says Hawk. “We won’t bury him.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence as the Watchers gently pull Beliel’s body out from the car. None of the guys will look at each other, as though stubbornly and silently insisting on something that each thinks the other might object to.
Finally, Cyclone speaks up. “I’ll be a bearer.”
“Me too,” says Howler.
The floodgates open, and all the other Watchers speak out, volunteering to be bearers.
They all look at Raffe, waiting for his approval. Raffe nods.
“What?” asks Josiah, looking baffled. “After all he’s done, you’re going to bestow an honorable—”
“We know what he’s done for us,” says Hawk. “Whatever else he’s done since then, it looks like he’s paid the price. He’s one of us. We should give him the proper send-off that we couldn’t give our other brothers in the Pit.”
Josiah looks at them, then at Raffe, who nods.
“What do we have that will burn?” asks Thermo.
“We have gas, but he said I couldn’t use any more,” says my mother, pointing to Josiah.
“And you can’t,” says Josiah. “But they need some for the ceremony.” He walks back to the truck and climbs into the bed.
“You brought gas?” I ask.
“To burn down the angels’ nest,” says Mom. “I figured that once I got you out, we might as well burn it all down. But he wouldn’t let me.”
Josiah comes back with a gas can. “She did enough damage. She would have been caught if she had tried to burn the whole aerie down.” He shakes his head as he puts the can down. “I still don’t know how she got away with doing as much damage as she did. Or how I convinced her about you being inside Beliel. I’m not even sure I believed it.”
“Why not?” asks my mother. “Did you think she was hiding inside someone else?”
“Never mind, Mom.” I hold her hand and pull her away from the Watchers. “Let them do their burial.”
Josiah splashes the gas over Beliel’s body. “You’re sure you want to do this?”