by Cynthia Hand
And he wishes it would just stop.
He wishes he were dead.
“Oh, Jeffrey,” I gasp. “Don’t think that.” I throw my arms around him, my heart in my throat. “I love you, I love you,” I’m saying over and over. “And Mom loves you, and Dad loves you, he does; we all love you, silly. Don’t think that.”
“Mom’s dead. Dad’s gone. You’re busy,” he says without inflection.
“No.” I pull back and look into his eyes, tears streaming down my face. I put a hand on his cheek the way I did with Samjeeza earlier and flood him with the memory of Mom on Buzzards Roost this afternoon, hoping he can receive it, focusing on the moment when I first told her about Jeffrey, how happy she was at the very idea of him. Then I show him heaven. Mom walking into the distant light. The warmth of it. The peace. The lingering traces of love all over her.
“Don’t you see? It’s real,” I whisper.
He stares at me, a sheen of tears in his eyes.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
“Okay.” He nods. “Okay.”
All my breath leaves me in a relieved rush. We move to the door. Christian’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, looking all around like the very shadows are going to jump us. Over there, he says, looking to the west, to the waning light. Something’s coming.
I grab Christian’s hand, still gripping Jeffrey’s. “Come on.”
There’s the clear sound of a train whistle, high and sweet. I’ve never heard a more welcome sound in my life.
The people on the street turn toward the noise.
It’s coming. It’s almost here.
But now we’ve caught the attention of the damned. I was concentrating on Jeffrey before, not looking at the other lost souls in the pizza parlor, but they are all looking at me. Even the gray people out on the street are turning slowly toward us, their faces raised instead of bent to the ground. They look directly at us, and where their eyes should be are black, empty holes. They open their mouths, and the insides are black—their teeth are black, their tongues—and I become aware of another noise, like the buzzing of flies. Death.
Christian swears under his breath. Angela grabs Jeffrey’s hand.
One of the gray people lifts a bony finger to point at us. Then another, and another. Then they start to move in our direction.
“Run!” Angela yells, and we take off toward the train station down the middle of the street, our arms bumping and jarring as we struggle to keep holding on to one another. We can do it. We’ve only got like half a block to go, if that. We’re so close. Minutes away from safety. We can do this. We can get there.
But we don’t make it ten feet before the gray people start to pour onto the asphalt to block our way. They are lighter than real people, easier to shove back, to push past, but soon there are so many of them, too many of them now, an army of the damned between us and the station. Their fingers are cold and damp, zombielike, their hands tearing at my hoodie and then at my hair, Angela kicking and screaming and crying, Jeffrey being jerked out of my grasp. They’re all around us, on every side, moaning, yelling things in a language I don’t understand, a litany of low, guttural noises, shrieks. We’re going to be torn to pieces, I think. We’re going to die right here.
But then they stop, as suddenly as they turned on us. They back away, then cast their faces down again, leaving the four of us gasping and panting in a small empty circle in the middle of the road. We’re trapped.
I warned you not to speak to anyone, comes Samjeeza’s voice ringing in my head, and I feel a kind of eagerness from him. Fear. Excitement. He expected this. He knew that Jeffrey was in hell, and he knew that I’d talk to him. He knew that I’d give us all away.
I’m beginning to think he tricked us.
Please, I say desperately. Help us.
I can’t help you now. Asael has you, and then Samjeeza’s presence vanishes as quickly as it came. He’s deserted us.
The crowd of gray people is parting to let someone come through. I can’t see him yet, but I feel him. I know him. My blood turns to ice at the wave of malevolent delight that radiates out of this man, this angel, which overcomes his sense of sorrow to the point that it chills my bones to think all that he could be capable of. He is powerful. He is hate. And he carries the image of a drowned woman like a tattoo on his heart.
“Asael,” I whisper.
I turn to Christian. He smiles at me sadly, lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. Angela puts her tattooed hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
“Thanks for trying,” she says. “It means a lot that you tried.”
“What’s happening?” Jeffrey asks.
“We’re done,” I answer. “There’s no way out.”
“You could cross us.” Christian’s eyes meet mine, flaring with hope. “Call the glory, Clara. This is it. You were right. This is your purpose, this right now. Call the glory. Get us out of here.”
I reach for the glory, but the sorrow presses in.
“I can’t,” I say helplessly. “There’s too many of them, too much sorrow; I can feel them—”
“Forget them.” He takes my face in his hands. “Forget Asael. Just be with me.”
I stare up into his warm green eyes, so close that I can see the flecks of gold.
“I love you,” he murmurs. “Can you feel that? You. Not some destiny I think I’m called to. You. I’m with you. My strength. My soul. My heart. Feel it.”
I feel it. I feel his strength, and more importantly, I feel mine. He’s right. I can do this.
I have to do this.
My light explodes around us. And I send us away.
The light takes a while to fade. I step back from Christian, my breath coming in ragged gasps. He gently brushes a strand of hair away from my face, the back of his hand lingering against my cheek. He wants to kiss me.
“Get a room, you two,” Angela says, taking her hand off my shoulder. With the other hand she’s holding on to Jeffrey’s ear. He pushes her hand away almost absentmindedly.
We made it out.
Christian glances around. “Where are we?”
A cow lows nervously from the darkness, and everybody but me turns to look. I hold up my hand and call glory into it so they can all see what I already know is there: a set of stalls against one side, saddles and tack, farm equipment, an old rusted tractor in the far back, a hayloft over us.
“Pretty,” says Angela, staring into my glory lantern. “I want one.”
I stumble over to the wall to turn on the light. My knees feel funny as I let the glory blink out. I’ve expended a lot of energy in the past few minutes. I’m tired.
“What is this?” Christian asks, still sounding dazed. “A barn?”
“The Lazy Dog,” I say, staring into the dirt to avoid the sudden comprehension in his eyes. “The Averys’ barn.”
Angela bursts out laughing. “You brought us to Tucker’s barn,” she says, her eyes bright.
“Sorry,” I whisper up to Christian.
“Sorry?” Angela repeats. “You’re sorry? You brought us out of hell. You brought us home.” She lifts her tattooed arm over her head and breathes in deep like this manure-scented place where we’ve landed is the freshest, freest air she’s ever smelled.
Jeffrey sits on a bale of hay, his face pale, clutching at his stomach like he’s been punched. “You brought us out of hell.”
“You brought us out of hell,” Christian repeats with such proud conviction in his voice that tears spring to my eyes.
“I was in hell,” Jeffrey whispers, like he only now gets it. “Did you see those people’s eyes? I was in freaking hell. How did I end up in hell?”
“Where’s Web?” Angela asks suddenly. “Where is he?”
“He’s with Billy. He’s safe.”
“I want to see him. Can we go see him? I bet he won’t even recognize me. He’s probably taller than me by now. Where is he, did you say? Where’s Web?”
Christian and I exchange
worried glances. “He’s with Billy,” I say again, slowly. “He’s still a baby, Ange. He’s not even three weeks old.”
She stares at me, then at Christian. “Three weeks?”
“We’ve been taking good care of him. He’s great, Ange. I mean, he cries. A lot. But outside of that he’s the best baby.”
“But—” She closes her eyes, brings a trembling hand to her mouth. She laughs again, wildly. “So I didn’t miss it. Every day I thought, I’m missing it. I’m missing his life. All those years I wondered.” Her eyes lift to mine. “But you brought me back.”
I knew time worked differently in hell, but I didn’t expect this. Angela had been gone for ten days when we decided to go find her, but it sounds like, on her end, she’s been gone for longer.
Much longer.
She stumbles, and Christian and I catch her between us, guide her to a hay bale, and sit her down. She grabs my wrist suddenly, and I’m flooded with the tangle of her emotions, amazement and relief and rage, a deep desire to see Web, to hold him and smell that place behind his ears, a fear that it won’t smell the same, that place, or that she won’t be the same. She’s fractured now, she thinks, a broken doll with glassy eyes.
“Ange, it’s okay,” I say.
“Thank you for coming,” she murmurs, then shakes her head, brushes her bangs out of her eyes, and looks up at me earnestly. “Thank you,” she tries again. “For coming for me. How did you find me?”
“Yes, how did you find her?” booms a voice from behind us. “That’s the part I couldn’t figure out.”
Angela looks up. Then she bends her head to her knees and groans, a dying, hopeless noise.
I spin around. There, standing in the shadows at the back of the barn, is Asael.
He looks like Samjeeza, I think. They’re both tall, but that’s kind of a given for angels, with coal-black, glossy hair. This man’s is cut so that it ends just past his ears, a bit wavy whereas Samjeeza’s is straight, but they have the same deep-set amber eyes. I see Angela in his face, too, something about the Roman nose with the slight hook at the bridge, her full bottom lip. And there’s something else about him that strikes me as familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.
Lucy is standing beside him, arms crossed, looking pouty.
Jeffrey stands up. “Luce? Mr. Wick?”
Mr. Wick. Lucy’s dad. The man who owns the club and the tattoo parlor.
“Hello, Jeffrey,” Asael says. He takes a step forward. I counter by summoning a circle of glory around us. I’m so tired. It starts to waver immediately, but before it goes out, Christian replaces it with his own glory. I sigh with relief. At least for the moment we’re safe.
Asael stops short, annoyance on his face, like we’ve done something incredibly rude. He looks first at Jeffrey, who’s staring at him all freaked out, the way you naturally would if you ever encountered your girlfriend’s dad in a random barn in another state, then at Angela, who doesn’t move or raise her head, then at Christian. Then me.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says, lingering on me. “I’m Mr. Wick.”
“You’re Asael,” I say. “You’re the leader of the Watchers,” I say, for Jeffrey’s sake. “A Black Wing.”
Asael turns his hands up imploringly. “Why must you insist on such labels? Black, white, gray, what does it matter? Jeffrey, you know me. Have I ever been unkind to you?”
“No,” says Jeffrey, but he’s starting to look queasy, confused.
“It does matter,” I say to my brother. “Good and evil exist, Jeffrey. They’re real. This guy is about as evil as they come. Can’t you feel it?”
Asael laughs like the idea is preposterous, and Lucy joins in.
“Come on, Jeffrey,” she says. “Come back with us. You don’t belong with these people. You belong with me.”
“In hell?” he asks.
Her eyes flash. “That wasn’t hell. It’s an alternate world to our own, yes, but it’s not hell. Did you see any boiling pit of lava or a guy in a red suit with a tail and a pitchfork? That’s a myth, baby. What’s important is that we can be together. We’re meant to be together, right?”
For an awful second I think he’s going to say, Right, and walk across to them, and I’ll lose him again, this time forever, but then his jaw tightens.
“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t belong with you.”
“What?” She sounds truly shocked. “What are you saying?”
“He’s saying that he thinks the two of you should see other people,” I quip.
Enough with the small talk, I say to Christian, mind-to-mind. Let’s get out of here. I’d feel a lot better if we were on hallowed ground.
Can you do it? Christian asks. You’re not too tired?
I’m tired. But I’m pretty motivated to give the getting-the-heck-out-of-here plan a try. I’m fine.
Christian takes my hand, and instantly I feel stronger. I can do this, I think. Christian bends and whispers something to Angela. She stands, studiously not looking at Asael or Lucy, and tucks her arm in his.
I hold my hand out to Jeffrey. Let’s go home, I say.
“Jeffrey, listen to me—” Lucy says.
I start to imagine our place in Jackson, only a few miles from here, the aspen tree in the front yard, the wind in the pines, the sense of well-being and warmth that I always associate with our house, the squirrels staking out their territory in the trees, chattering, the birds flitting from branch to branch. That’s where I’ll take us. We’ll be safe there. We can figure things out.
Jeffrey takes my hand, which makes me feel stronger still. “Let’s go,” he says.
Asael makes an angry noise in the back of his throat, but he can’t stop me, he can’t touch me, and I close my eyes.
I’m two seconds from willing us out of there. Two seconds.
But then the barn door opens and Tucker walks in.
I know the minute I see him that we’re screwed.
21
SAFE AND SOUND
Tucker doesn’t see Asael or the others immediately. He only has eyes for me. “You came back,” he says, such relief in his voice that I want to cry, and then before I can warn him Asael is by his side, moving faster than the human eye can perceive, blocking the way out.
“And who is this, come to join the party?” Asael asks.
For a moment nobody speaks. Tucker stands up straighter, and I know he’s wishing that he’d brought the shotgun this time. Not that the shotgun would do any good.
Lucy approaches from the back, giving us and the glory a wide berth. “This must be Tucker,” she says, coming to stand on the other side of him. “Jeffrey’s told me all about him. He’s Clara’s boyfriend.”
“Ah. And a fragile human one at that,” Asael says. “Interesting.”
I find my voice. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh, no?” Asael turns to me with an amused expression, like he can’t wait to hear what I’m about to say. He’s enjoying this, the way he’s got us all standing so completely still, afraid. He thrives on this.
“We broke up. It’s like you said, he’s a human. He didn’t understand me. It didn’t work.” Christian’s hand tightens in mine as he registers how, even though what I’m saying is technically the truth, it’s also a lie, and he can feel how desperately I want to be convincing in this lie. Because if Tucker’s not worth anything to me, he can’t be used as leverage.
But then, if Tucker’s not worth anything to me, he can also be discarded like an empty paper cup, used and thrown away. I have to be careful.
“She’s with me now,” Christian says. He’s so much better at lying than I am. There’s no telltale catch in his voice.
“It’s true that you two seem awfully fond of each other,” Asael says thoughtfully. “But then it begs the question: Why did you come here? Why, out of all the places on earth you could have gone, did you send yourself here, to this boy?”
I meet Tucker’s eyes and swallow. This is the lie I’m not goi
ng to get away with.
Because he’s my home.
“Lucy, be a dear and hold the human, will you?” Asael says, and now there’s a black blade at Tucker’s throat. Lucy takes his arm and pulls him a few steps away from Asael, her own eyes glinting with the excitement of it all. I hear the sorrow that makes up the blade sizzle slightly as it touches Tucker’s neck, and he flinches.
Asael appears happy, like his day is looking up.
“Now,” he says, suddenly all business. “Let’s negotiate. I think a trade might be in order. A life for a life.”
“I’ll go,” Angela volunteers immediately. She clears her throat and says it again louder. “I’ll come back with you, Father.” Her voice wavers on the word.
Asael scoffs. “I don’t want you. You’ve been nothing but a disappointment since I found you. Look at you.” His eyes sweep up and down her body, lingering at the markings on her arm. Bad daughter.
She doesn’t answer, but part of her seems to shrink inside herself. No one loves me passes through her mind.
“I want Jeffrey,” Lucy says, like a child demanding her favorite toy. She looks at him, smiles. “Come on, baby. Come with me.”
Jeffrey takes a deep brave breath and starts to step forward, and I catch his arm and pull him back.
“Dear, sweet Lucy,” Asael says as Jeffrey and I argue without words for a minute. “I know you have a crush on the boy, and I know you’ve put a lot of work into him, but I think I’d rather have that one.”
He points at me.
“No,” Christian and Tucker say at the same time.
Asael smiles wickedly. “Ah, you see? She’s valuable. And easy on the eyes.” His gaze on me is like a touch, and I shiver, draw my arms over my chest. “I’m looking forward to hearing how you managed to cross out of hell. You’ll tell me, won’t you? Who’s been teaching you?”
“Take me,” Christian says then.
Asael waves his hand dismissively. “I don’t even know who you are. Why would I want you?”