When Angels Cry

by Melanie Nilles

  Sometime after the land fell quiet, after he thought she might have fallen asleep, Padina whispered strange words to him. He lay still, pretending to sleep, and she slipped away. Among the soft chirrup of crickets drifting through the window screens with the cool breeze, the scrape of fabric told him she changed. Her footsteps retreated from the room, followed by the faint moan of the front door.

  Scott rose from the bed, already wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt. He grabbed his jacket from the floor and slipped it on as he walked to the door. There, he paused only to pull his shoes on before stepping out into the chilly night.

  Grass rustled in the moonlit darkness to his left, the direction of the cliff. He followed the sound through the trees until it stopped, barely catching a glimpse of the figure flitting in and out of the moonlight.

  A ways from the camper, she stopped. Now what?

  He halted, his breath caught in his throat for fear of alerting her to him following. Through the shadows, a light outlined a woman's figure, her back to him. From her back grew wings, the feathers expanding as he watched the scene in awe not twenty feet away.

  "Paddy," he breathed. His heart raced, but his feet froze to the ground. He recognized the gray tee shirt in the faint light emanating from her hands. The jagged marks on her hands shone clear now.

  Along with what she was. She stretched her wings among the trees.

  He took a few steps towards her. At the crunch of twigs under his feet, she whirled.

  Wings pulled close, and she ran off.

  "Paddy!"

  Damn his carelessness, and the trees for littering the ground with noisy clutter.

  Scott raced after her through the trees into the night. He had to catch her, before it was too late and he lost her forever.

  14

  Padina fled through the tall grass and trees, her wings tucked close for warmth and to protect them from being shredded by the branches she ducked. Someone had seen her; the figure of a person had stood in the faint light from her Starburst marks, probably intending to catch her, until they made a noise.

  Within seconds, she reached a precipice overlooking a moonlit valley where cattle and horses grazed. A perfect launching point, and he would never catch her. She spread her wings—

  "I don't care what you are, Padina."

  Her heart jumped, freezing her to the ground with her wings out and ready to fly. Scott! But how? She thought he slept.

  "You're still the world to me. I want you to stay. Don't leave me, not like this."

  Padina turned, her heart aching to hear those words again, and folded her wings close to her. Scott stood in the wan glow of moonlight not three strides from her, his trim figure crossed with shadows from the trees rising high around him. He pushed up his glasses.

  "I don't care what you are. I love you. "

  Emotions clogged her throat. He loved her. He didn't care what she was, that she wasn't like him. All this time she had feared he would reject her, when she needed him most.

  "Scott." The word choked out in a whisper. She wanted to hold him, to lose herself in his embrace. She loved him more than she ever thought possible. The bond would never be there as it had been with Jerantis, but the need to be with him completed her, filling the emptiness. Before coming to Earth, she never would have considered the possibility of loving a human that deeply. Now she couldn't imagine her life without him.

  She rubbed away the burning in her eyes to find him standing before her.

  "Paddy." The hand on her cheek inspired ripples of pleasure that lifted her wings. "Stay. Please."

  "I not leaving you," she whispered. Anticipation rushed through her at his face leaning close. Her whole body yearned for the touch of a lover, but she had restrained the need, afraid of giving herself fully to her emotions only to have him cut her off when he learned the truth. "You being not…mad?"

  "No. I had suspicions, but I never thought—"

  A dark shadow passed behind him in the sky, freezing her breath. Something in the Shirukan's hand glowed—a weapon.

  She shoved Scott back, landing on top of him between trees as a flash sent rocks and debris raining over them.

  Scott groaned, his face hidden in the shadows.

  "Stay here." The Shirukan wanted her, not Scott. She wouldn't let him risk his life like Jerantis had done for her.

  "Wha— What's going on?"

  "Shirukan."

  "Shirukan?"

  "Bad man following me." She climbed off and spread her wings. Where'd he go?

  There, circling around, probably for a clearer shot. His first would have been accurate, if she hadn't seen him and acted. From the looks of him, he had fully recovered since their last encounter.

  Scott pushed himself up. "Paddy?"

  "Stay safe. I fight." For the last time. No more hiding from him.

  She spread her wings and jumped into open air, flapping to gain altitude and pursue the black shape. A new purpose filled her, chasing out the dread usually inspired by the black uniform of the Shirukan soldiers. No more was she afraid. She finally found what she needed on Earth. She would not go back, and he would not interfere again. The Starfire and, more important, her baby would be safe.

  "Paddy!"

  Scott's desperate plea tugged at her from below. Not yet. First, she had to deal with the Shirukan. As much as she hated to think it, he would have to die to protect her secret. She didn't want to do it, but the Starfire entities were right. Doctor Torres was right.

  The trees shrank beneath her as she pursued the black shape higher into the moonlight. Scott blended into the shadows below, but she knew where she had left him. She would return.

  Her enemy led her over the steep, rugged hills, his shape a blot marring the star-sprinkled sky. He swerved and angled as if dodging her.

  She would give him something to dodge. She found the resonance and directed the warmth of the power down her arms to her hands.

  He dove from the burst.

  Crystal fire! She folded her wings and let gravity pull her like a missile. He had started the fight. Why didn't he finish it?

  The answer came a moment later. Seconds before hitting the tree tops, he spread his wings and arched up with his momentum. She opened her wings too late to avoid his loop back on her.

  A shot pierced the feathers of her wings, but only the feathers. She could compensate for the fist-sized hole burned through the feathers of her left wing. He sped past her, though.

  By the time she turned around in the air, he vanished.

  Where had he gone? Was this a trick? He couldn't return home without her. Killing her would serve no purpose, least of all to return him home as he had demanded in previous encounters.

  Frantic, she searched the landscape. Trees. Trees and boulders and valleys and peaks. Where had he gone?

  A movement over one of the peaks caught her eyes, and disappeared in a blink. Was it him or an illusion? Would he circle back to—

  Her heart stopped and she gasped. The Shirukan knew he could get to her through the ones she loved, and he had seen her with Scott.

  She loved Scott, and refused to let the Shirukan take him from her as they had Jerantis. Not again.

  Padina tucked her wings to gain speed with gravity. Air rushed past her and the treetops closed in quickly. She spread her wings to catch the wind over the treetops.

  Determination carried her to the mostly empty campground and the travel trailer near the cliff where she'd taken off. The white top stood out among the shadows of the trees and the clearing where it sat.

  She landed in the clearing near the trailer and folded her wings behind her. "Scott," she called into the quiet.

  Nothing. Only the soft chirrup of insects.

  "Scott?" Crystal fire. Where was he? Her insides twisted into knots. Please be alive.

  "Scott!" Panic crept into her voice. "Where are you?"

  She opened the front door of the trailer—

  And froze. Seated on either side of the table at t
he front were Scott and the Shirukan.

  "Welcome back, Crystal Keeper Shartrael Padina. Join us." He sounded far too confident in their language.

  "No." She would not be intimidated into obeying him.

  His smirk darkened in the shadows from the weak light over the table. "You wish the human dead?"

  "No." She swallowed her hesitations when she caught Scott's eyes, small behind the glasses, which he pushed up his nose. An eyebrow lifted in question, but nothing on his face indicated fear, nor blame.

  "Open portal, or human dies," the Shirukan said in his accented English. Lights glowed on the end of the weapon in his hand.

  The Shirukan would kill Scott, even if she cooperated.

  "Take us home, Keeper."

  "No." She backed away and let the door slam closed between them. He wanted the crystal and was desperate to return home with it to please his empress. He wouldn't dare to make the job more difficult.

  Feet scuffled inside and the door opened before Scott. In his black flightsuit and frock coat with the black gloves, the Shirukan stepped out behind him.

  "You care about him?" The Shirukan said in Inari.

  Yes, but she wouldn't tell him that.

  She didn't have to; he knew. He had seen them together at the mall and on the cliff, even the museum, and who knew where else. He shouldn't have been able to find her there, but he had tracked her somehow.

  "Open the portal…now, or he dies." Again Inari.

  "You kill anyway," she said in English. Scott's eyes widened for a moment. Only for a moment. Something else passed across his face, something calm and knowing.

  "Maybe not. I have nothing against humans. They have their uses."

  She couldn't trust him. He must have realized that.

  How could she trick him into letting Scott go? Opening a portal was not an option.

  The Shirukan didn't know her thoughts. Besides, most Inari knew only that the Starburst marks glowed whenever Keepers used the power, for whatever reason. They didn't know how it felt to direct the power for one task or another. She could pretend to open a portal.

  If she aimed right, she could end this.

  Scott was close, though. She wouldn't risk his life, especially at the butt of the Shirukan's weapon.

  Think, Padina…What other options did she have?

  She had to act quickly.

  Her brain didn't cooperate in coming up with other ideas under the pressure of the moment.

  "Open the portal and I'll let him live."

  "Whatever he's saying, do it," Scott said. "I'll be all right."

  No, he wouldn't. Didn't he understand? She wouldn't risk his life.

  "I not will leave you," she said.

  "The human is smarter than you." The Shirukan smirked and shoved Scott towards her.

  What came next she would have to replay in her memory several times to understand.

  Scott moved quickly. Whirling with the momentum of the shove, he swung his arm against the Shirukan's wrist of his weapon hand, which knocked the gun free. He attacked with several swift hand movements, a few of which the Shirukan blocked, but Scott knocked him to the ground, where the soldier retrieved his weapon. Scott didn't let up but fisted him in the jaw and claimed the weapon before the Shirukan could recover. Both rose to their feet, their hands on the weapon in a struggle for control. Scott held the rod pointed down from over their heads with the Shirukan gripping his wrist.

  A flash erupted from the weapon, narrowly missing the Shirukan's ear.

  "You'll leave her alone!" Scott grunted the words with the strain of fighting for the weapon.

  Another flash erupted from the weapon.

  A second later, an explosion knocked her to the ground, her ears ringing.

  "Scott? Scott!" Fire consumed the front of the trailer, the bed of the pickup, and several patches of grass, rising in a billowing cloud of orange and black to blot out the stars.

  Scott lay on his back, groaning, not far from the blaze.

  The Shirukan ran screaming, his wings and uniform ablaze. In his desperation, he slammed against the trailer and lay writhing among the flames.

  Those flames neared Scott, who rolled over as if trying to stand but not fast enough. Despite the intense heat, she tucked her wings and rushed to him. Padina took his arm to help him to his feet and supported him in stumbling a safe distance from the fire.

  Other voices shouted over the crackle and roar of the fire now consuming the pickup and trailer.

  They couldn't see her like that. Padina focused on the resonance and directed the warmth of the power into her back to shrink the wings. Scott had accepted her for what she was, but that didn't mean anyone else would.

  Sitting next to her, Scott whimpered. "It was brand new." His face pinched in the light of the fire and turned to her. "But it's replaceable. Are you all right?"

  She pressed into him, welcoming the arm around her back. "Yes. Are you?"

  "A little stiff. Bit of a headache after that. Who was that guy?" He groaned and shifted his back. "Man, I haven't practiced karate in a few years. He was good."

  "Shirukan are soldiers of Shirat Empire." She lifted the crystal pendant. "Starfire is alive and powerful, so they want." She dropped the crystal and put her hands on Scott's face.

  "Healing also." She found the resonance again, but this time converted the power, which tickled through her hands. The warmth released slowly, leaving her chilled afterwards. She lowered her darkening hands to his.

  "This is what you meant when you said you were different?"

  "Yes."

  "Is there anything else you haven't told me?"

  Padina nodded. "Much."

  It would have to wait. Several people came running to check on them while others brought shovels and buckets to fight the fire.

  "What happened?"

  "Are you all right?"

  Scott held her in his arms as a cluster of people gathered around them with questions. Someone directed them to the campground office, where Scott called Debbie to meet them in Rapid City. An older couple agreed to take them there, since they were heading that way.

  Fire trucks arrived after a couple dozen people helped bring it under control, but the pickup and trailer were nothing more than charred metal frames by the time they put it out. After a report to the police, Padina laid down with Scott to rest in sleeping bags offered by the old couple and stared up at the stars perched overhead.

  Assured that he had accepted her as she was, Padina told Scott about Inar'Ahben, the Starfire, and the Shirat Empire and answered his numerous questions until late into the night.

  His breath roared in the ear she rested on his chest.

  "So, if they get even one of these shards, they can operate the machine."

  "Heffin's Gate. But one shard is not power to make harm."

  "But they can still open a portal?"

  Understanding what he asked sobered her. She didn't want to consider what would happen if the Shirat Empire succeeded in gaining a shard from any other Crystal Keepers. "Yes."

  His fingers rested on her shoulder and he said nothing for a long while. That couldn't be good. Concerned by his silence, Padina pushed herself up to look at him. His eyes danced in the moonlight with the gentle smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. "Then we'll have to be better prepared."

  Relief poured into her. "You are…not scared?"

  "I am. I won't lie. But if what you say is right, they could cause trouble here too."

  "Yes." Although what they would want on Earth was questionable. It didn't serve the Shirat Empire's purposes, or what she knew of them.

  "And I won't let them take you." His hand slid along her cheek to the back of her neck.

  In a quiet voice, he said, "You are my angel."

  The pressure of his hand was unnecessary. She lowered herself to the kiss she desired. Not long ago, she arrived on Earth empty from the death of her bonded mate. In the last few weeks, she discovered she didn't need the bond to
feel complete. She wasn't alone.

  The ancient colonists had survived on that world far from home without a Starfire shard to open a quick portal or knowing humans they could trust. She had Scott and her baby, and she guarded the Starfire, but hoped she never needed to use it.

  MORE…

  If you liked WHEN ANGELS CRY, don't forget to read STARFIRE ANGELS, the first of a series about Raea, Padina's daughter, and her adventures as a Crystal Keeper raised on Earth.

  STARFIRE ANGELS is available from major retailers, including Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble and by special order from your local retailer.

  Ebook $2.99

  Paperback $8.99

  from the chapter titled Angel Wings:

  Her dreams...and the voices. What had she been seeing? Her mother wasn't human. That was obvious now. She was something else. But what was her mother? What was she?

  A light knock on her door made her jump. Raea put a hand over her racing heart.

  "Raea, open up, please."

  Debbie wasn't going to give up. Raea should have expected that of her aunt.

  Okay...Deep breath... Raea grabbed her flower-print comforter and threw it over her back to hide the wings. Sooner or later she had to face her aunt. Might as well get it over with. If she could trust anyone, it would be Debbie.

  The door handle might have been set to bite her for all the apprehension she had about opening it. She unlocked it though and peeked out with it open a crack.

  Debbie couldn't have worn deeper furrows in her forehead. They smoothed out a moment later. "Thank God, you're all right. Can I come in?"

  "It's not a good idea."

  "Please, Raea. I heard you scream early this morning. I'm worried."

  "You did? I mean, I did?"