by Elise Marion
Lowering the shield, he turned to find that Micah had thought to do the same, and had gone untouched by the demon blood. Near the door, Reniel remained standing, watching them with a gleam of pride in his eyes.
“You did well,” he said, gesturing toward James, who now lay in the midst of the circle with his back turned to them, curled in on himself in the fetal position. “What’s the first thing a person needs after being exorcised?”
“Poor bastard probably ain’t had food or water for days,” Micah said.
Reniel nodded. “Get Harley in here … tell her to send someone for food and water immediately.”
With a quick nod, Micah rushed to do Reniel’s bidding, opening the door and stepping out into the hall. The angel’s hand came down on Jack’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
“Are you all right?”
Releasing a shaky breath, he nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just … I thought I’d seen it all, fought them all. Tonight was the first time in a long time that I felt like a neophyte.”
With a chuckle, Reniel gave him another slap on the shoulder. “Good! This means that there’s more for you to learn and experience. Perhaps being a Guardian hasn’t become as tedious as you thought … maybe it’s even exciting again.”
That put a smile on his face, as he realized Reniel spoke the truth. He had spent months in Purgatory learning not to take his abilities and his calling for granted. Getting back into the fray felt good, especially now with new challenges popping up left and right.
“You’re right,” he said out loud. “It was terrifying, but now that it’s over, in hindsight, it was also cool as hell.”
Laughing again, Reniel released him and began retrieving the discarded items used in the ritual, including the broken shards of the holy water vial. Just then, Micah reappeared with Harley, who held a bottle of water and something wrapped in brown paper in her hands.
“James!” she cried, dashing across the room and falling to her knees next to him.
Despite still being filthy, he looked far more like a human being when Harley rolled him onto his back to reveal a face strikingly similar to hers. Lowering her head, she pressed a kiss to his temple, then glanced up at them. Tears glimmered in her dark eyes, but she didn’t spill a single one. Still, her voice came out gruff and tortured when she spoke.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much for saving my brother.”
Her brother. That would explain the resemblance, as well as her determination to get help for him.
“We’re happy to help,” he replied, watching as she lifted his head and poured a slow trickle of the water into his mouth. “Being possessed once makes you vulnerable, so I’d suggest finding an Oracle, ASAP. They can give him something to combat that … make him less likely to suffer through it again.”
With a nod, Harley smiled as James began to respond, latching onto the water bottle and drinking with greedy gulps.
“Yes, I’ll do that,” she replied. “And anything else you guys want. As promised, me and the other Naphils in my den … we will go wherever you go. We’ll fight whoever you fight.”
“Are you sure your people will go along with that?” Micah asked. “They didn’t seem too happy to see us earlier.”
Harley shrugged. “They do what I say, because they trust me to take care of them. Plus, once they find out what you did for James, there isn’t a single one who won’t want to pitch in. If you want, I’ll even introduce you guys, make sure they know you’re legit.”
Reniel stepped forward. “While that sounds like a good idea, it will have to wait. Micah and Jack have another, more pressing problem to see to at the moment.”
Frowning, Jack glanced at Reniel. “What could be more important than doing what you told us to do? Recruiting Naphils to our side.”
Reniel’s expression became grave as he turned to Jack. “Addison’s back.”
Without waiting for a greater explanation, he bolted from the room like a bullet leaving a gun. Micah’s heavy footsteps resounded behind him, echoing with the urgency of the moment. Neither spoke a word as they collected Drew, who stood waiting in the hall. They didn’t make eye contact as they walked to the truck and waited for Reniel to join them.
Their partnership had seemed better than ever in the midst of a fight, but now that Addison was once again a factor in the equation, he’d never felt more distant from his best friend. Worry for Addison overwhelmed him, along with an uncertainty that left him on edge. Which of them would she rather see after her ordeal in Hell? Both of them? Neither? After the way they’d acted, he couldn’t blame her if she told them both to kick rocks. It had been their fight that drove her from the apartment and to her mother’s trailer—which also happened to be where Lilith had come upon her, alone.
As Reniel climbed into the bed of the truck, and Micah threw it into drive, Jack decided he wouldn’t care who she chose … so long as she came out of this okay.
He spent the entire long ride out to Elizabeth Monroe’s trailer counting the seconds and staring out into the night. Drew seemed edgy, as well, and he wondered if the boy felt nervous about meeting his sister. Likely, he’d encountered other siblings before, but working with them to take down Eligos meant he would be spending a lot of time around her. Jack wanted to reassure the guy, but because he had problems of his own, he stayed quiet.
When they finally arrived in front of the trailer, they left the truck and started toward it.
“She’s out back,” Reniel told them before they could go inside. “Follow me.”
Jack scowled, falling in step behind Reniel, wondering what she could be doing out back of the trailer, outside in the middle of the night. He stumbled to a stop when they reached the edge of a massive crater. All the dirt and grass had been obliterated, leaving a brown hole in which a creature lay, completely naked.
No … not a creature. Addison.
“What the hell?” Micah murmured.
Curled into a ball on the ground, she lay sleeping, her skin glowing in the light of the moon as if she’d just been scrubbed from head to toe. Remnants of her clothes lay here and there on the ground, along with small piles of ash. Her hair had shortened considerably, the ends looking as if they’d been burnt off.
But it was the set of massive black wings protruding from her back that caught and held his eye. Flattened against the ground, they lay as motionless as she did, the feathers smoothed out and glistening like black onyx.
“You knew she was here like this?” Jack spat, turning to glare at Reniel.
The angel shook his head. “I was only told that she’d returned and was here … I had no idea …”
Removing his hoodie, Jack stepped down into the crater and approached her. The garment was just long enough to cover her from shoulder to hip. Despite knowing that Micah had seen her naked, and Drew was doing his best not to look straight at her, he didn’t want to leave her exposed.
“Care to explain the wings?” Micah asked Reniel.
“If I could answer your questions myself, I would,” Reniel replied. “Unfortunately, the only person who can shed light on that development is Addison.”
Reaching out with one hand, he stroked her face, pity pricking him at the sight of dark circles ringing her eyes. She’d been in Hell for days, and it had to have been a constant battle. She must be exhausted.
“I hate to do this to you,” he murmured. “But it’s time to wake up.”
She didn’t respond, only the steady rise and fall of her shoulders indicating that she was even still alive. Grabbing one shoulder, he gave her a shake.
“Come on, Addie. Wake up.”
Rearing up into a sitting position, she drew in a deep breath as if she’d just come up from underwater, her eyes flying open to look into his.
“Jack,” she croaked, her a low, raspy whisper. “Is it really you?”
He nodded. “Yes, it’s me. You’re home now … you’re safe.”
Releasing a sigh of relief, she l
owered her head and closed her eyes. “It hurts … my back …”
Glancing behind her at the wings now folded back, he grimaced. “About that …”
Suddenly, the wings moved, fluttering forward and kicking up a current of air. Addison gasped, glancing left as one of the wings came into view. Her breath began sawing in and out of her lungs as she reached out with one hand to touch it.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, tremors wracking her entire body. “I have feathers! I have … feathers?”
“It’s going to be okay,” Jack said, attempting to calm her even though he wasn’t sure he believed his own words. “We found you like this, so something had to have happened when you left Hell.”
Wrinkling her brow, she stared off into the distance as if trying to remember. “I fought Lilith, and won … then Lucifer opened a portal to send me back here … said he would give me a gift … something that was mine to keep until Eligos had been defeated.”
Plucking one of the loose feathers on the ground near her, she gasped. “Why would Lucifer give me wings?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head. “You said they hurt … but can you control them?”
Shaking her head, she glanced around, her eyes darting erratically. “I … I don’t know. Just now when I moved them, it wasn’t on purpose.”
A lone tear streamed down one cheek, and Jack swiped it away. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
“You should be able to retract them into your body,” Reniel called out from the edge of the crater. “Concentrate, Addison! Push your shoulders back and think about reeling them in … you have to acknowledge them as part of your body, and they’ll follow your commands.”
Nodding, she swiped at the remnants of tears wetting her eyelashes. Sitting up straighter, she kept his sweatshirt held over her chest. Rolling her shoulders back, she furrowed her brow and grimaced as if the motion hurt her. After a few tries, she finally succeeded—arching her back and pressing her shoulder blades toward one another. As if responding to the movement, the wings flattened against her back before disappearing altogether, leaving behind the smooth, black lines of a tattoo. The black feathers seemed inked into her skin, draping all the way to the small of her back.
A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to find Micah standing behind him, holding a bundle of clothes and a pair of sneakers.
“I found these in the trailer,” he said, his gaze shifting from Jack to Addison, brow knit in concern. “You all right, cher?”
Accepting the clothes from Jack, she quickly pulled the tank top on over her head. “Fine … just tired.”
Jack rose, standing back while she slid into the rest of her clothes before sliding her feet into the sneakers. He held his hoodie out to her, helping her into it before drawing the zipper up to her neck. She’d been naked out in the open for God knew how long, and the temperature had dropped. Shivers wracked her from head to toe, but he wasn’t certain if it was due to the temperature or the stress of all she’d been through.
“Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
Leaning against him, Addison silently allowed him to lead her back toward the trailer. Stepping up out of the crater, she paused, turning to glance at Drew, who stood beside Reniel and staring down at his shoes as if afraid to look her in the eye.
Pulling away from Jack, she walked forward, pausing just in front of him. “Look at me.”
Drew flinched as if her command had startled him, but did what she said, lifting his eyes until they met hers. Addison studied him in silence for a moment, and the eeriness of their resemblance to each other became even more uncanny.
“You must be one of my brothers,” she said, forcing a smile.
He nodded. “I’m Drew.”
Without another word, she stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around him. From where he stood, Jack noticed that her shoulders began to tremble just before she started to sob.
Chapter Ten: Numb
Darkness consumed her, heavy and oppressive. She could not see—could hardly breathe. Addison hurtled down a long, narrow hole in the ground, with solid rocks walls surrounding her. Reaching out, she scrambled for purchase, but winced when jagged stone scraped her knuckles. No hand or footholds could be found, no uneven parts for her to grasp onto—so she continued falling, plummeting down to what she could only assume awaited her at the bottom.
Death.
Glancing down, she gasped, a scream burning in her throat as a gigantic serpent came into view below her, curled up at the bottom of the pit. Uncoiling its body, the reptile stared up at her with glowing red eyes, its lips parting to bare fangs dripping saliva. It opened its mouth wide, prepared to devour her whole.
Suddenly, a soft, effeminate voice filled the chamber, echoing and resounding from the stone.
“Come, now, my niece,” it said. “You need not suffer this fate. I have given you wings. All you must do now is fly.”
Lucifer, she realized.
Remembering the jet-black feathers buried deep within her back, she closed her eyes and forced them out, spreading them wide. Closing her eyes, she beat them with all the strength she could muster. Yet, it did not prove enough to save her. Just as she attempted flight again, the snake uncoiled with a swiftness that left her breathless. With a snap of her jaws, Lilith sprang up and swallowed her whole—
Addison came awake with a jolt, gasping for air as she hurtled upright on the bed. Chest heaving as she fought for air, she glanced around the cramped room and sighed with relief. She sat in her old bedroom inside the dilapidated trailer she’d grown up in with her mother. Tremors wracked her from head to toe as she relived the nightmare of being consumed by Lilith yet again.
Since she’d arrived back from Hell, her dreams had been a constant onslaught of terrors—watching her mother burn away to ash, being torn to pieces by demons, Lilith’s serpent form devouring her with a snap of her jaws. She couldn’t tell how long she had been asleep, but she might as well have not slept at all. Fatigue sat upon her like a heavy weight, her eyes puffy as if she’d been crying in her sleep.
“Good morning,” said a familiar voice from her bedside.
Turning her head, she found Reniel seated beside her in one of the chairs from the kitchen. Despite not needing sleep, he looked exhausted, the deep lines furrowed around his mouth and eyes further pronounced by his tight mouth.
She could remember being naked when she’d fallen to the ground, making a crater in the ground out back. Glancing down at her body, she sighed with relief to realize someone had clothed her. Dancing almost nude wearing caked-on makeup and a G-string couldn’t be compared to the vulnerability of her situation the night before. On stage, she maintained control; last night, she’d had control of nothing … not even the wings sprouting from her back. She ran her fingers through her disheveled hair, wincing when she reached the uneven, charred tips. She knew the mirror would show her that several inches of her hair had burned off when the hellfire had sprouted from her shoulders. Yet another reason for her to despise Lucifer, aside from the obvious.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked.
Glancing down at his wristwatch, he shrugged. “About five hours, though it did not seem restful. You’ve been tossing and turning, and talking in your sleep.”
“Have you been sitting with me this whole time?” she prodded. The rest of the trailer was so quiet, she could only assume they were alone.
He nodded, leaning forward a bit and resting his elbows on his knees. “We organized a guard schedule—me, Micah, Jack, and Alice. We couldn’t risk one of the ten coming for you with no one around to help.”
She raised her eyebrows in shock. “Alice?”
A sly grin crossed Reniel’s face. “She was the first to volunteer, and will be here in a few hours.”
“I can take care of myself,” she argued. “She, Antoine, and Derek already got caught up in my mess. I hate for something else to happen to her.”
“We are on the verg
e of a turbulent time—all of us, angels, Guardians, Oracles, Naphils,” he countered. “There is strength in numbers, Addison.”
Knowing he spoke the truth did not make it any easier to accept that the people she cared about were in danger simply because of their proximity to her.
“I know that you’ve been through quite an ordeal,” he continued. “I do not want to upset you by asking for details, so I won’t. However, I must ask about the manifestation of your new … ability.”
Wrinkling her nose, she reached back and ran her fingers down one shoulder blade. “You mean the wings?”
Reniel nodded. “We were shocked to find you that way.”
“That makes two of us,” she replied with an eye roll. “This isn’t a new ability. It was a gift from Lucifer.”
Reniel furrowed his brow. “A gift?”
“Yep,” she confirmed. “He’s got a huge interest in making sure we beat Eligos, so he wanted me to be stronger, I guess. From what I gathered, this so-called gift is mine until the battle with my father is over.”
The angel’s expression became one of disgust. “I do not like the idea of you using something given to you by Lucifer.”
She shrugged. “Neither do I, but it could come in handy. If there’s one thing being a half-demon Naphil as well as a Guardian has taught me, sometimes, you have to use both the darkness and the light. Being from two separate worlds makes me more capable of that than most.”
“Wise words, indeed,” he relented. “If you like, once you’re up for it, I could give you flying lessons.”
Forcing a smile, she nodded. “I’d like that.”
Rising, Reniel stretched and groaned as if his muscles ached. “I’ll get out of your hair and let you rest some more. It isn’t even sunrise yet, so you should sleep a bit longer. I’ll be in the kitchen having some coffee.”