A Shimmer of Angels

by Lisa M Basso

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The rain had subsided into lighter drops, for now, but darker clouds still shielded the stars. Kade drove fast. Either he sped up because the rain had slowed, or he felt the same urgency that was strangling me.

  “How’d he do it?” Kade asked, then clarified. “Your friend.”

  I swallowed back the feeling of needles in my throat. “Pills.” My voice was even weaker than I felt.

  “They’ll pump his stomach. If he’s still alive when the ambulance gets to the hospital, he’s got a fighting chance.”

  “Az was there. He did some strange projection thing on the walls.” I leaned forward. “What else can Fallen angels do, besides fly? And influence us.”

  “Depends on the Fallen One. I’m about as useless as they come. That’s the price you pay when you skirt alliances.” We sped around a corner. The engine roared. I watched the little white dial move up the speedometer. The steering wheel groaned under the pressure of Kade’s grip. “Let me guess, he was an animal or a shadow, right?”

  “Shadow.” I exhaled the answer, feeling the punch of Kade’s words. “How did you know?”

  “Shadowing is a gift granted to those allied with Lucifer. He’s his servant now. Besides, if he was at Lee’s house in his own body, I would’ve sensed him.”

  I stared at the nape of Kade’s neck. “Lucifer? Like Lucifer, Lucifer? King of the underworld, ruler of hell? That Lucifer?”

  “Yeah.” The dark edge in his voice seared me. “Lucifer’s been working his last connections to get the Fallen on his side, promising near limitless power. My guess is the suicides are a stepping stone, a way to grow their army before they make their next big move.”

  “Cam thought they were working on some huge weapon.”

  He glanced at me before returning his focus to the wet city streets. The rain slapped the pavement, insistent now, and I wished he’d slow down. “No way I’d help kill one of my own kind under normal circumstances, but now that we know he’s allied with Lucifer, I’m in. That devil bastard won’t get his way. Lucifer and Az are one bad mix, and they’ll both get stronger from here on out if they remain linked. If they’re after you, finding Az’s body and killing him is the only way to stop them. Alone, Lucifer has no power on Earth.”

  “Okay—geez this is real—so what should I do, while you look for Az’s body?”

  “Keep the kids at the dance alive. You saved your friend. Do it again. Do whatever you can to keep him from hurting anyone else. Just not at the expense of your life.” Those dark eyes flashed off the road and into the rearview. “Promise me.”

  I couldn’t argue with him, not now. “Fine. I promise.”

  Kade said nothing for the rest of the drive, didn’t even glance at me in the rearview mirror.

  We pulled up to Stratford Independence. With the rain pounding on the front steps, several giggling students huddled in the glass doorways. I pushed the front seat forward.

  Kade’s hand wrapped around my arm. “Remember what you promised.”

  “You can stop with the grab—” The grim look on his face stopped me. Almost like he cared. I looked away, everywhere but at him. “You just … need to find Az’s body, not worry about me.” I slipped through his grip and stepped up onto the curb.

  The rain hit me immediately, soaking into the cloth over my wounds and battering the uncomfortable amount of leg my skirt failed to cover. Classmates I recognized from a few different classes eyed my costume, some already starting to whisper. I kept my head low, wrapped my arms around myself, and took my first step toward the stairs. My ankles wobbled beneath me.

  Suddenly, Kade stood in front of me, his hands beneath my elbows, steadying me. “I am worried about you. That’s the problem.”

  Don’t do this. Not now.

  I batted at his arms and walked around him.

  He sidestepped in front of me again, this time flaring out his wings, becoming an immovable wall. His face was filled with conflicting emotions. Hard-pressed jaw, tight mouth, but soft, round eyes and peaks of worry across his forehead. He was the sexiest wall I’d ever seen.

  “Kade, don’t—” I tried to push him away again.

  He pulled me to him, his strength unyielding, and forced me to look into his eyes. “You do whatever you need to do in there to survive. You hear me? No stupid shit.”

  In these heels, I was eye level with his lips. Raindrops rushed between us. And then it happened. A spark ignited inside me. Heat warmed my belly and trailed up my spine. I rested my palm on his chest.

  He tilted his chin down and leaned into me, slowly, giving me plenty of time to pull away. But I didn’t. I no longer wanted to. I let my eyelids drift closed, but didn’t move toward him. The rough stubble on his face brushed my chin and my cheek. His heart beat beneath my palm.

  His heart. He had a heart.

  I jerked back and my eyes flew open.

  Today when his shirt was off … the scar on his chest. Kade had a heart, and Cam didn’t. How did that happen? What did it mean?

  Rain continued to pour, blurring the distance between us. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Of all the things he hadn’t told me and the stuff he’d purposely kept from me, why did the fact that he had a heart when Cam didn’t seem so important? Maybe because it made him human—well, more human.

  “And give you another reason to be scared away? I don’t think so.”

  A crack of thunder rattled my eardrums. I hadn’t even seen the lightning. I hadn’t seen a lot of things, including the mistake I’d almost made, and the time I’d wasted.

  Whatever I was walking into, I needed to focus: on Luke, on the other students, not Kade. Not now.

  “I have to go.”

  Kade closed his wings and stepped aside for me.

  “Find him, Kade. I’m counting on you.” I made my way up to the top of the stairs and pushed through the now-empty glass entryway.

  I looked back at him and mouthed, “Be careful.”

  I moved as fast as my heels would allow down the first floor hall, leaving a wet trail of drops behind me. A colorful poster stopped me. Halloween Dance Friday Night October 30th in the Gymnasium. Music boomed down the hall. The closer I got to the back of the building, the louder it became.

  I turned the final corner and found students lining the halls, paired off against the lockers, some making out, others no doubt hoping to do so soon. I passed them, wishing again that I could take a deep breath in this damn corset, and made my way into the gym. The colorful lights blinded me, flashing off the crystal-encrusted corset. Once the burning-retina thing cleared, I stood on my tiptoes, scouring the dance floor for Luke. I waded into the horde, pressing my way across the dance floor, when someone grabbed my arm and pulled me through one of the side exits.

  I fought, pushing off the grip. Arms spun me around, pulling my back into his chest and trapping my arms.

  “Rayna!” A familiar voice said into my ear. Cam. I stilled.

  He released me, and I spun around. My heart jumped, but I didn’t know how to feel. I pushed away from him, waiting for the conflicting emotions raging inside me to settle into one, definable thought. I waited for something concrete inside to tell me how to act around him.

  He’d asked for my help, and against everything I wanted, I’d given it to him. I let him suck me into all the winged stuff I thought I had left behind; I let him drag me into the center of their ongoing conflict. And when it all came crashing down, he abandoned me.

  He’d abandoned me. Left me alone to face the aftermath when he could have helped. He’d done nothing to help. But Kade did.

  I bit back all the emotion I could, hoping nothing would leak out, and swallowed the tremors I still felt from his touch.

  “Rayna.” He looked like he wanted to hug me, but the ever-restrained Cam kept himself in check. His hair was different, spiked up a little at the front, and he wore a varsity jacket, dressed up for the dance. He leaned in close to my ear, speaking loud so he could be heard
over the base-pounding song. “When did you get back?”

  “Less than an hour ago.”

  His gaze trailed down and his brows perked at the sight of the too-small costume, then narrowed on my wounds. “What happened to your arm?” He took my wrists in his hands and turned them upward. The cuts burned more fiercely at his touch. Kade’s shirt strips were drenched in my blood. Cam brushed his fingers over the back of my injured hand.

  “Azriel happened.” I kept my voice flat so that he wouldn’t know just how much his touch was affecting me. “Where’s Luke?”

  Cam’s hands tensed around mine. Small tremors worked their way up my arms. He stared too long at my hand and arm, several beats passing before he answered. “He’s inside with Gina, near the back door.”

  That was all I needed to know. I opened the door to the gym and pushed my way through, the damn fluff of the tiny skirt catching twice on other costumes.

  Cam caught up with me. “Did they release you?” He had to shout now to be heard over the music.

  Did we have to talk about this now? A flutter tickled my insides. I wanted to kill the little butterflies. “Kade broke me out. So we might not have very long to fix this before they come looking for me, if they aren’t already.”

  Behind me, Cam’s steps faltered. A tiny, biting smile tipped up the corners of my lips.

  Finally, I spotted Gina, standing alone near the back door, arms crossed over her stomach and anger flushing her cheeks. Damn it. I pushed past her and through the door, Luke’s quickest possible escape after getting into another fight with his girlfriend.

  The ground outside was mucky. The gym was on the first floor, and the school sat on the lowest part of a hill. The emergency exit led up a flight of stairs and into the alley between the school and a large office building. Tiny droplets of mist fell from the roof’s overhang. I stepped out and ran to the stairs. Luke wasn’t there. No one was.

  A bright flash lit up the sky, the walls, and the angel beside me.

  “I was crazy with worry,” Cam said.

  The sincerity on his face meant bad things. Bad things for both of us.

  “I … ,” he started, but the thunderclouds above rumbled.

  I shuddered and checked the sky to see if it had actually cracked open. It was too dark to tell.

  “I missed you,” Cam continued, shouting over the rain and the buzz of music inside.

  I shook my head. This was not the right time for this. I grabbed the rail and blindly climbed the stairs until I reached the alleyway.

  Around a metal banister, another door led into the school. I opened it. Cam was right behind me. The rain dripped from my hair and stung my eyes. I swiped the water away and saw a figure standing in the hall.

  “Luke?”

  He disappeared around the corner.

  I stepped out of the borrowed heels. My bare feet turned out to be a blessing, gripping the floor better than wet stilettos could have. I rounded the corner as a classroom door near the end of the hall opened and closed.

  The front of the door had a poster of the human skeleton and muscles. Mr. Ratchor’s Anatomy class.

  “He’s in two-fourteen,” I said to Cam and rushed down the hall. The small, square window on the door was covered, reminding me of the SS Crazy. My fingers shook, but I turned the knob and stepped into the classroom.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Darkness cloaked the classroom. Another sky-splitting flash of lightning illuminated the walls and rows of desks. The answering clap rolled through the tight confines.

  Luke’s shaved head was bone dry. Tears streaked the black paint under his eyes. Sunshine-yellow spandex hugged his thighs, and a cobalt-blue football jersey hung off his lean shoulders.

  Awareness prickled along my arms as someone stepped behind me. I didn’t look away from Luke, figuring it was Cam—until something cold and threatening pressed against the right side of my skull.

  “Don’t move, Rayna,” a girl’s voice said sharply from behind.

  My stomach sank. It definitely wasn’t Cam.

  The door clicked, opening and closing. “Cassie,” Cam warned gently as he entered, his wet shoes squeaking across the floor. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Oh, don’t I?”

  Cassie Waters, the girl with the blue-black hair and blunt bangs who sat next to Cam in history class. She must have been hiding in the shadows.

  Between the sound of Luke sobbing and what I had to assume was the barrel of an honest-to-God gun pressed against my head, I couldn’t focus. “Put the gun down, Cassie,” I said.

  A hush fell over Luke, so suddenly it was as if someone had flicked the off switch. His gaze locked on the gun beside my head. He walked up to me. The barrel of the gun was the only thing keeping me from running out the door.

  Luke stopped in front of me and reached for something. The cold pressure of the barrel dropped away. When Luke pulled his hand back into my line of sight, there was a revolver in it. Az’s influence was apparently much stronger than we’d thought.

  “Get back!” Luke commanded, pointing the gun over my shoulder. Toward Cam. Fear barreled into me.

  Wet shoes squeaked behind me, but it was impossible to tell if they were following orders, or clearly not.

  With a dead smile on his lips, Luke lifted the gun to his own temple. Another flash of lightning lit up the classroom. His arm shook. The blackness invading his eyes pulsed, then faded as Az’s hold on him weakened. Az might have been able to invade and completely control two people at once, but my guess was he couldn’t hold them forever. “Evans?” The fear in his voice spiked.

  “Yeah, Luke, it’s me,” I said softly. “Put down the gun, okay?”

  “No way. This is my out. Gina’s pregnant. Did you know that? Of course you know. Everyone knows. Everyone but our parents. Soon there’ll be no hiding it.”

  “But you’re going to have a baby. That’s amazing, Luke. And that baby will need a father.”

  “I’m seventeen. I’m not ready to be a dad!” he shouted.

  “Keep him calm, Rayna,” Cam softly urged.

  “Luke,” I tried, unable to keep the desperation from my voice.

  “We could’ve been something, Evans. We could’ve had something. You’re smart. Smart enough not to forget to take your birth control. But now my life’s over.” And then the black fog rolled over his eyes again, and I knew I’d lost him.

  The moonless night flashed and boomed again, gleaming off the silver revolver. I had to stop this. “Az?” I called.

  “Rayna, don’t.”

  Sorry, Cam. It’s the only way I can see an end to this without anyone else getting hurt.

  “Azriel!” I called again.

  Something shifted in the darkness. He was already here.

  The shadows grew. “You do not disappoint, seer.” Az’s cold voice clawed at the exposed skin on my arms and chest. “I knew you’d come to me. I just had to get rid of that pesky Fallen angel of yours.”

  I shook off the unpleasantness of his voice. “Let Luke go.”

  “It has been too long since we’ve had a good, old-fashioned mass-slaughter.” He drew a shadowy finger down the side of my skirt, and I shivered in revulsion. “I like the idea of having the next at a Halloween dance. Fitting, don’t you agree?”

  He didn’t give me time to answer before he tore through my head, showing me exactly what he had in mind. Luke fired three shots into the gym’s crowd, then turned the gun on Gina, shooting her twice in the stomach. Finally, he turned the gun on himself. The pain of each shot burned like a fire poker, ripping through every nerve in my body. I dropped to the floor, huddled over in horrified agony.

  After a while, the acid sting eased. I crawled to my feet, using a desk for support. “No. No, that’s not what you want.”

  Az’s shadow circled me, glancing toward Cam every few seconds. I watched him, realizing he was curious about him.

  Cam sneered at Az’s shadow, tucking his wings tightly behind hi
m.

  Then I remembered what he and Kade had said. They couldn’t see each other’s wings. Az didn’t know Cam was an angel.

  Az swooped from Cam to me. “Very smart indeed. Tell me what it is I want, then.”

  “Rayna, don’t.” Cam warned.

  “Me!” I shouted, just short of dropping to my knees and begging him to release Luke and Cassie. “You want me.” Though I didn’t know why I meant so much to him, gift or not.

  “Then give me what I want. You for his life.”

  This was what Kade had warned me about, what he made me promise I wouldn’t do. I hesitated.

  “Or I could always make a trip to the gymnasium,” Az breathed into my ear while he circled me. “Pour chemicals in the punch.”

  I shoved back my fear enough to remind him, “But that would only add to your body count, not help you collect their souls, right? You won’t be able to create your weapon.”

  “You’re fishing, girl. And so very, very wrong.” He tapped a finger on his chin. “Either way, it will be a great tribute to our Lord.”

  His Lord. Lucifer.

  “Though, what I don’t finish, one of my brothers will. Nothing would make Him happier than you and that sight of yours. What do you think, seer, one hundred of your dearest classmates, or you?”

  Was I destined to be tribute for the devil, my soul writhing in hell for all eternity? My head swam and spun all at once, lost.

  “You can’t have her.” The flare of Cam’s wings punctuated his words.

  My hair blew into my face. Luke’s finger tensed on the trigger. I lunged toward him, but Cam grabbed my hand, pulling me back, as he ran for Luke himself. He made it halfway before Luke pulled the trigger. The empty click of the gun dropped my throat to my feet.

  Luke quickly pointed the gun at Cam, stopping him in his tracks.

  I didn’t know if Cam could be killed, but my stomach turned at the sight. I tried to speak, but my lips moved around like rubber bands with no elastic. My throat made an awkward, whining noise. Cassie, still under Az’s control, hooked an arm over my shoulders. I jumped, but she held me steady. Her pleather nurse costume squeaked as she leaned into me. She wore blood-red lipstick and white, patent-leather boots that zipped halfway up her thighs. My legs quaked, but I tested Az’s hold on her by taking a step toward Luke. Cassie pulled me back.