Dark Hope

by Monica McGurk

  The shadows, which had retreated to the back of the basement, stirred again. I strained my eyes, and then, one by one, I began to pick out the hulking figures. Some of them I recognized as Lucas’s regular posse of high school friends. Others had eyes that had haunted me in my dreams—my nightmares that, I could now see, had been but premonitions of what was to come.

  “What have you done with Maria?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  “Maria?” He sneered. “Who knows what happened to your precious Maria? She was just a useful tool in our little game.”

  “Game?” I echoed, confused.

  Lucas chuckled. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand what this is all about?” He clucked maternally, mocking me. “Poor Hope. Left in the dark, so innocent. Well, let me be the one to enlighten you. It’s not Maria we want. It’s you.”

  My mind reeled.

  “But Maria,” I protested, weakly, the pit of dread growing larger in my stomach. “She called me. She said she needed help.”

  Lucas’s face contorted with disgust. “You humans—your minds are so weak. You fail to recognize the truth, even when it is standing before you! Here’s your Maria,” he spat.

  His body quivered and melted, his features twisting and his body shrinking to that of a tiny, terrified Mexican girl.

  “Hope, I need your help,” Lucas whimpered in Maria’s voice, sounding exactly like the voice on the phone.

  “No,” I protested weakly in denial. “No!”

  The fear was too much for me. I sank forward on my knees once more, my stomach heaving. Wave after wave of nausea swept through me. I struggled to catch my breath, only to gag on my bile until finally, there was nothing left. I shivered in the dark, filthy from dirt and vomit, waiting.

  I stared into the dirt and noticed, for the first time, the carpet of black feathers scattered all about me. How could I have been so blind? I cursed my naïveté, my refusal to see the signs. My mind raced, trying to find a way out. I was here, by myself, with no one aware that I was even missing. My mother wasn’t due home for days. I was surrounded. Trapped. And not just by thugs—I realized—but by Fallen Ones. By the time anyone missed me, it would be too late.

  Michael! I clung to the idea of him like a life raft, but no sooner had it entered my mind than I rejected it. He didn’t know where I was either, and as much as he felt obligated to protect me, his powers did not extend to knowing where I was.

  No, I was going to have to get myself out of this one on my own.

  I braced my body and struggled to my feet. Lucas had morphed back into his own body, only now a majestic pair of jet-colored wings stretched out behind his bare torso. Even in the half-light of the abandoned building, I could see the edge of each feather, sharply etched as if chiseled into stone or steel. His muscles rippled, and the wings seemed to pulse with threatening energy. A gust of air, stirred by their great expanse, wafted toward me, and on it I smelled the telltale scent of sulfur.

  I dragged my sleeve across my face, wiping the last of the vomit from my chin. I swallowed hard, my throat raw. The pain sharpened my focus. I drew my breath and spoke, my chin raising defiantly as I glowered at Lucas.

  “You’ve been following me this whole time,” I said.

  Lucas shrugged, his wings beating once more. “It was entertaining enough, taunting Michael that way.”

  He eyed me with amusement as he began to circle. Behind his wings, his mob of shadows leered.

  He continued talking as he paced. “Michael didn’t tell you about us, did he? Didn’t tell you we were Fallen Ones? But he knew we were stalking you. Isn’t that odd, Hope? That he would keep that little detail to himself?”

  I didn’t answer, but he saw something in my eyes that prompted him to continue.

  “Did he tell you he might be endangering you by paying you all that attention? Did you mention to him that birds had attacked you? Did you show him the feather you found, Hope, or tell him about the funny smell of the lightning that night on the mountain? He knows what those signs mean.”

  He was enjoying himself now, enjoying the drama of the moment, enjoying the fact that I had no choice but to give him the audience he craved. I willed myself to be still, willed my ears to close to the poison he was spewing. But still he came, winding closer and closer, until I could feel his hot breath on my face.

  “You did tell him, didn’t you, Hope? But Michael never told you the truth in return, did he? Does it hurt, Hope, knowing that the one you trusted was willing to put you at such risk?” He stopped circling then, inches from my face. His black wings blotted out everything else as he raised them up as if to shelter us. His eyes were greedy as he reached out with one hot hand, dragging his fingertips across my cheek in a mockery of a caress.

  “Get your hands off of her.”

  The voice boomed and echoed in the dark, bouncing off the abandoned machines and lonely walls, magnifying its rage.

  “Ah, Michael.” Lucas’s face broke into a radiant smile, and the dark shadows surrounding us seemed to pulse with energy. Lucas released my face with a flourish, spinning away to face the voice. “Are your ears burning? We were just talking about you.”

  Michael stepped from the shadows. His wings were unfurled, great shimmering white things that looked invitingly soft until, giving full expression to Michael’s fury, they seemed to stretch to an even greater expanse. With a forceful pulse, they sliced the air. A maelstrom of wind whipped around me.

  I let my eyes roam over the rest of him. His naked torso seemed to glow with a light that emanated from within. Every muscle seemed chiseled out of stone, taut and ready for a fight. I dragged my eyes from his broad shoulders—which showed no strain from carrying the burden of wings—to the spot where his carved abdomen disappeared inside low-slung jeans.

  Weak-kneed, I dragged my eyes away to meet Michael’s gaze. There, the rage I saw for Lucas melted into a look of fear and concern.

  Lucas continued on, as if Michael’s interruption was nothing more than an intermission to his carefully planned show. “The whole situation seemed strange to me, I must say. Was Michael—the vaunted Michael, Leader of the Host—falling for this mousy thing?” He gestured to me halfheartedly.

  “You go too far, Lucas,” Michael threatened, taking one step closer.

  Lucas ignored him, circling once more so that I found myself trapped between the two angels.

  “You always were a lover of humanity,” Lucas taunted, spitting the word “humanity” as if it were a vile curse. “First to bow before Adam. The only one of us who clung to him after he was exiled from Paradise. Instead of despising it, you embraced God’s mistake, set it on a pedestal, worshipped it!”

  Michael’s voice was cold as stone. “I save my worship for God.”

  Lucas’s eyes rolled with rage as he squared off to face Michael. He stretched his wings, the dark veins in his arms and chest surging and straining with his movement.

  “Even when mankind turned upon itself, even when Cain took the life of his own brother, you begged for them and hid them away to shield them from the Lord’s rage! No, your love for humanity has been sickening to watch. So it didn’t surprise me that you might finally stumble, finally fall for one of your beloved creatures.” Foam flecked his lips and his hands clenched, opening and closing with impotent fury as he continued to spew his venom. “I should have known you had a darker motive.”

  Michael’s forehead crumpled in confusion.

  “The girl has nothing to do with this quarrel between us, Lucas. Let her be,” Michael said, a note of uncertainty creeping into his voice.

  “Nothing to do with us!” Lucas sputtered, clearing the distance between us in two quick strides. “Nothing to do with us!” he repeated, disbelief mingling with his anger. “Deny it, then, deny it!”

  He grabbed my hair and brusquely twisted my neck, baring it to Michael’s gaze as he dragged me toward his enemy.

  “Deny you knew she bears the Mark,” he challenged as he threw me to the g
round at Michael’s feet.

  An uneasy quiet surrounded me. I could feel their gaze burning on my neck as they stared at the unwelcome stain that had tattooed itself onto my skin so many years ago.

  I waited, breath held, body poised for flight, for Michael to speak.

  Michael drew one deep, ragged breath. “Pick her up,” he ordered, a frightening coldness in his voice.

  Lucas pulled me roughly upright and pushed me away. I stumbled, trying to steady myself, and then I looked up to meet Michael’s gaze. Suddenly his eyes were hard. There was no understanding or comfort there, none of the concern for me I had seen only minutes before—just rejection. The shock was like a slap in the face, but I refused to be cowed, refused to break his gaze.

  “You cannot have her,” Michael stated flatly, as if I wasn’t even there.

  “You cannot subvert prophecy, Michael,” Lucas said, a mournful note touching his speech. “She is the one spoken of in the Book of Enoch.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Michael said without emotion, holding my gaze.

  Lucas snorted derisively. “If we barcoded her, it couldn’t be more obvious. Look at it. She is the Key, Michael.”

  When Michael didn’t answer, Lucas turned his attention to me, catching my eye with a powerful thrust of his wings.

  “Confused, sweetheart? Let me break it down for you.

  “A long time ago, God swept the patriarch Enoch into Heaven, and for whatever reasons He had, God turned Enoch into an Angel. Once there, Enoch took it upon himself to document the world of Angels for mankind. He inscribed his book with the seven domains of the seven governing angels, their forty-nine Princes, and the entirety of the Host. Even the names of the Fallen Ones.”

  “I know about the Book of Enoch,” I replied calmly, waiting for Michael to give some sign, waiting for Lucas to get to his point so I could somehow, finally, find a way out of here.

  “Ah, but you don’t, my dear. You know of the Book, but you do not know about the Book, for it has been lost to mankind. Spirited back to the Angels, where their secrets belong. Many of your kind have tried to recover it—some even claim to have seen it—but no one truly knows what it contains.”

  “But I know,” he whispered in my ear, making me jump. He had managed to sneak right behind me and was breathing his tale quietly for effect. He folded me in his arms. Instinctively, I tried to pull away from the heat and stench of him, but his arms tightened around me like bands, restraining me. Unable to move away, I closed my eyes, trying to imagine myself anywhere else but here. But I couldn’t escape the relentless progress of his words.

  “And Michael knows. We know that Enoch was not just a patriarch—he was a prophet.” His whisper was tantalizing, seductive, almost soothing as he spun the tale.

  “We know one day, the Fallen will rise up. Their army will overpower the Host of Heaven, and finally, they will reclaim what once was theirs. Enoch foretold it, and we have seen it inscribed in his Book. It will happen. It is inevitable. Nothing can stop it. Nothing.

  “For millennia we have waited, watching and yearning for our chance.” His muscles were taut like bowstrings, and I could feel him quivering with anticipation. He tightened his grip upon me with one arm. I felt him reach up and part my hair reverently, breathing in its fragrance as he buried his head in it. I could feel Michael watching him do it.

  “All we needed, Hope, was the Key to open Heaven’s Gate, which had been so cruelly shut upon our faces.”

  His hand slid down my neck, and I felt the hot trail of his fingertip as it traced the design etched into my skin.

  “All we needed, all this time, was you.”

  Shock and despair rippled through me and I felt my knees weaken, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to fall, trapped as I was by his steely arm.

  I looked desperately into Michael’s eyes.

  “Is it true?” I whispered, my heart begging him to deny it.

  He hung his head, his golden hair hiding his eyes from mine. As Michael’s wings sagged uselessly at his side, Lucas dumped me on the floor in front of him, and I wept.

  ten

  A train whistle sounded, snapping me out of my grief and back to the dank cellar. I lifted my eyes and squinted through the cratered ceiling into the sky, trying to find a glimpse of light, but dawn was too far off to break the darkness.

  Michael stood like a statue, watching me, waiting.

  When he spoke, at first I thought my ears had deceived me. But then he repeated himself, so quietly that I could have mistaken his words for the steady hum of the diesel engines idling in the train yard just beyond the factory’s walls.

  “You don’t know what to do with her.” He tried to say it in a matter-of-fact way, but a tone of triumph crept into his voice. He lifted his head, waiting for Lucas to respond.

  Lucas flapped his wings impatiently. “It doesn’t matter. We will figure that out soon enough. The most important thing is to keep her out of your hands.”

  I pushed myself up from the dank floor and stood to face him.

  “Why?” I demanded. “If what you say is true, it doesn’t matter where I am or who is with me. The Prophecy will be fulfilled. You yourself said it can’t be avoided.”

  Lucas pressed his lips together in a thin, bloodless smile. “God has been known to change his mind. He stayed Abraham’s hand at the altar. It might amuse him to allow one of his misguided henchmen to intervene again. I can’t take that chance.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?” I demanded, my voice rising as hysteria crept in.

  “Do you want to tell her, Michael, or shall I?” Lucas said smugly, gripping my arm tighter.

  Michael crossed his arms in front of his massive chest, stone-faced.

  “Very well,” Lucas said. “Hope’s a smart girl. Perhaps she can figure it out on her own.” Lucas’s wings unfurled, and suddenly, he was in front of me, looking me straight in the eye. “Hope, who is Michael?”

  I felt as if my very life depended upon my answer. I looked plaintively over Lucas’s shoulder to Michael, but he looked away. I dragged my gaze back to Lucas, willing myself not to flinch.

  “God’s warrior,” I whispered.

  “Very good,” Lucas purred. “And as God’s warrior, what is he sworn to do?”

  “Protect the innocent,” I said hesitantly, the words sounding strange on my lips. “Battle Satan and the Fallen Ones.”

  “Right you are,” Lucas said, encouragingly, continuing to circle. “So think, Hope—and think very, very hard, for your life may depend upon your understanding. If Michael found the person who was the key to Heaven’s defeat—the one by whose hand the Fallen would rise—what would Michael do?”

  The ground seemed to shift beneath my feet as I realized the answer to his question.

  “Say it, Hope,” Lucas exhaled in my ear, cherishing each word as he said it, relishing my disillusionment. “What would—what must—Michael do?”

  A sob caught in my throat. I reached up to my cheeks. They were bathed in tears.

  “Say it!” Lucas bellowed, the rusted hulks of machines echoing back his command.

  I gasped for air between sobs, forcing the words from my lips.

  “He has to kill me,” I said, choking on the words as I said them.

  “Louder!” Lucas shouted with glee. “I want to hear your world falling apart. I want to hear your heart breaking! Say it again!”

  I wanted to shriek my denials, tear out his eyes for having made mine see the truth. But most of all, I wanted to deny him the sight of my pain. Slowly I steeled myself, swallowing the sobs before they could escape my throat. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I squared my shoulders and gathered my courage. Lucas, sensing my intention, stepped back and gave me space. I walked across the earthen floor to the place where Michael stood. The Archangel couldn’t meet my eyes as I approached. Mustering my last ounce of strength, I raised my hand and struck him across the face as hard as I could. The red outline of
my palm sat accusingly on his cheek until the flush of anger rose and spread across his entire face. His eyes flashed, his nostrils flared, and his jaw strained, but he said nothing.

  “Michael has to kill me,” I said derisively, my voice no longer shaking.

  Lucas’s slow, deliberate clapping echoed into the night. “Quite a show. I don’t think I could have planned it better if I had tried.” Then he gave an exaggerated yawn. “But I’m afraid I am out of time. It’s time for you and me to go, Hope.”

  Michael’s blue eyes bored into us both. “I told you, you can’t have her,” he said, the vein in his forehead throbbing.

  Lucas feigned surprise. “Why of course, what was I thinking?” He turned to me with undue courtesy. “We’ll ask Hope what she would like to do. Hope, do you want to go with me, or with Michael?”

  “I want to go home,” I said. “Alone.”

  Lucas’s laughter pealed like bells. “Don’t be ridiculous, child. That is something neither one of us will allow. Now make your choice. Come with me and take your chances, or go with Michael to certain death.”

  A train rushed by, the rhythm of its wheels on the track sounding so ordinary that I could almost forget what I was being asked to do.

  “He’s lying,” Michael said under his breath so that only I could hear. “I won’t hurt you, Hope.”

  “I don’t have all night, Hope,” Lucas called impatiently from the darkness to which he’d retreated. “Make your choice.”

  I turned to look at Michael. I wanted to believe him, but how could I? Michael’s eyes mirrored back my own fear and regret.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he simply shook his head and stepped around me, ignoring whatever I was about to say.

  “The choice is not hers to make,” Michael said as he stretched his arm to the heavens. A flaming sword materialized in his grip. Tongues of fire licked about the corded muscles of his arm, but they did not burn him. He swung the sword down in a brilliant arc that lit the entire basement.