Grace of Day - BK 4 of the Grace Series

by S. L. Naeole

  My chin rose up defiantly. “Humans don’t fear you. Humans pity you. You have electus patronus who serve you only because they feel sorry for you. They call you the undesirables. People like Mrs. Deovolente protected you because they knew that you had nothing and you repaid them with betrayal.”

  “She was human; she was weak!” Uriel spat.

  “She gave a damn about you, despite knowing who and what you were. That isn’t weakness; that’s called being human, and that’s something you’ll never earn the right to be.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw us being surrounded, the numbers that had been summoned to fight for Raphael and Uriel swelling to beyond the trees. Robert looked up at me and reached for my hand. All around me, I saw my friends, other angels, their human charges, and the creatures that had come to fight, if not for me, then for themselves and the lives they so desperately wanted to keep. Their faces were a mixture of the familiar and the foreign, but each one looked at me with the same thought.

  What do we do now?

  “You see,” Uriel snorted, “you are outnumbered and your followers have lost faith in you. Your mother’s tricks won’t save you twice, and they definitely won’t save your friends.”

  I looked nervously at the mob that was closing in on us and saw them with new eyes. They were no different than those who stood with me in the circle, but through their eyes I saw that they all viewed me in the same way. To them, I was the monster—the exact same monster, as though the idea had been burned into their eyes.

  “You’re the one who took over Stacy’s mind,” I realized out loud. “You set Lem up.”

  Uriel and Raphael laughed. “He set himself up,” Uriel corrected.

  “Your mind was so easy to fool; your mother did too good a job at making you believe you were human. All I had to do was leave the pieces there and you would put them together. If Llehmai hadn’t been a sentimental fool and his son a complete failure like his mother, you would have been dead months ago and none of this would be happening. Llehmai’s death is his fault, and the deaths of everyone here is yours.”

  “Dead? Llehmai is dead?” I whimpered.

  “Yes. He was able to hide from you, but no one can hide from the thrones. Congratulations, Grace; you have done in one night what your mother could not do in over twenty-thousand years: destroy the final wall of man like her creation was supposed to. Now, it’s time for you to be destroyed as well.”

  The strangled cry of desperate souls rang out as the fighting began once more, only this time with far more desperation and need. The dark sky turned red as dozens of angels appeared, their glow surrounding them like a halo of blood.

  “Get the dark one first,” Uriel commanded to a large group of thrones who were plowing through the mob directly in front of me. “Take his immortality and then take his life. Break him, destroy him. Leave no trace that he even existed.”

  “Robert!” I cried out with fear, looking at my hand and seeing that he was gone.

  And it was my empty hand that finally made the humming in me stop. “This is never going to happen again,” I said softly.

  “What was that? I’m sorry—I didn’t hear you over the apocalypse,” Raphael laughed.

  My hands grew hot as I looked at my wedding band and my mother’s ring. “I said that this is never going to happen again. I won’t let you take Robert away from me. I won’t let you take anyone away from me ever again.”

  “And how are you going to do that when you’re dead?”

  Uriel grabbed one of my legs while Raphael grabbed the other.

  “This has gone too far—stop this now,” Michael argued.

  “If you do not wish to help then do not interfere anymore than you already have,” Raphael warned.

  “There can be only one outcome here, brother,” Gabriel said ominously. “You know this.”

  “The outcome is mine to decide!”

  Raphael and Uriel both yanked on my legs. Whether it was to pull me down or to tear in me in two, I don’t know, but it didn’t matter.

  My body wouldn’t move.

  Around me, the air crackled. It flickered with tiny pops of light that dragged, rather than faded, in the dark. My legs jerked beneath the vise-like grips of the two angels beneath me, while my arms flew out to my sides, my hands stiff, my fingers flexed.

  I looked down and then my head flew back as what felt like every scream, every cry for help, every moment I’d ever felt desperate and afraid left me in a column of light. I had no choice but to look at it. It wasn’t like shining a flashlight into the sky in the middle of the night. Nothing passed through this light. Insects flew around it; air seemed to bounce off of it instead of conforming to it.

  Time might have slowed down at Raphael and Uriel’s request, but for me, it stopped completely when the light shifted from a bright white to an intense, blinding blue. Breathing stopped, and not because you couldn’t; it was as if breathing simply didn’t exist anymore.

  Nothing existed anymore but that light.

  It grew, widening, spreading outward and filling every ounce of darkness with a brilliant blue. All sound disappeared except for the hum that had returned, this time making the light glitter and sparkle.

  My body jerked again, this time so violently that I knew, even without hearing them snap, that every bone in my body had just shattered. I wanted to cry out, I wanted to scream, but the pain wouldn’t let me. Instead, my shoulders pulled back, my arms following as my fingers curled into widespread claws.

  The light that poured out of me from my mouth disappeared, blackening the sky and making everything disappear into the darkness once more, the sound of it retreating like the air before a lightning storm.

  From behind me, the feeling of sparks and flame licked at my skin. I couldn’t move, my chest pushed as forward as it could go, my back curled inward, stretching even as my chest collapsed. The singeing, arcing feeling of lightning across my skin caused my body to spasm wherever it hadn’t been bent and twisted to absolution.

  My heart thrummed at a rapid pace, thumping faster and faster as the pain grew in intensity. Each pulse of pain met its twin in my heartbeat; faster, stronger, hotter until there were no pauses, no breaks, no stops, until the two became one entity.

  And then time started again, without any warning. Through the thoughts of everyone around me, through their eyes, I saw what was happening to me. My body was bent backwards at such a terrible angle there was no masking the shock that took hold of every living creature that looked on.

  My back was glowing an angry red, while blazing white lines branched out from my spine. Those lines pulsed, growing thicker, longer, until they burst through my skin like daggers. They continued to grow, spreading beyond the width of my shoulders and reaching outward. The longer and wider they grew, the higher my body floated, Raphael and Uriel still hanging on, apparently unable or unwilling to let go.

  The claws of light that protruded out of my back reached past my feet, hanging like icicles until finally, with my body ten feet off the ground, the points touched the ground. This seemingly innocuous moment was the catalyst that blacked out the vision of anyone who wasn’t divine.

  Light, pure, opaque light exploded from within me, bursting out of my back and attaching onto the branches that extended out of me, layering light upon brilliant light until wings that were blindingly bright stretched out from above my head to the ground. The sparkling, glittering light didn’t hold any real shape, reaching and lashing out at anything that dared to come close.

  Like whips, they grabbed onto Raphael and Uriel’s hands, curling and oozing around them like golden syrup. Both angels struggled but neither could fight its grip as it began to flow over their bodies, consuming them within its light. But it wasn’t done.

  Hungry, it continued to spread out, like a ravenous fog. But unlike fog, it discriminated. Its pace quickened and its targets, realizing what was happening, began to run, fly, or disappear into a fog of their own, but the light wasn’t goin
g to let them leave.

  It mixed with the mist that the angels created, forcing them to solidify before they were drowning along with the others in the greedy light. Stunned individuals who had not been selected or caught by the light watched silently as hundreds of angels, humans, and other creatures were brought up by my wings.

  With no warning, the light changed color just as it had done earlier, turning a vibrant blue. Screams—hundreds and hundreds of screaming voices—shattered the night with the horror of what the light was doing. But whatever it was doing, no one could see it, no one could understand it. All anyone knew was that it was agony to be caught in this fog of blue light.

  And through their pain, through their fear, I discovered that I was finally able to move. My back straightened, my body feeling incredibly light despite the weight of so many being held up by my wings. I could see and I could hear.

  Faces of people that had come and gone passed over my eyes, their thoughts hovering in my mind until I’d accepted them, then floating away to finally find the peace they’d been denied for so long. Mr. Branke, his eyes glittering in the light, smiled at me. A girl with the same smile and the same, glittering eyes stood by his side.

  Thank you.

  Their faces were replaced by Erica’s, her beautiful face still full of distaste when looking at me.

  I never hated you.

  That was more than I expected, more than I think I wanted. And it was enough.

  Another face appeared; this one only recently familiar to me. It was Patricia, the girl who’d been turned for the sole purpose of destroying me but who’d changed her mind.

  Thank you for not letting me become a real monster.

  The fog of faces disappeared, revealing Robert above me, his arms and his wings held immobile by the two thrones who had tried to attack me earlier. Their faces were frozen in fear as the light surrounded them while avoiding Robert completely.

  Robert’s thoughts moved like air, and I inhaled them in, desperate for anything he had to say to me to calm me, reassure me.

  I love you, my wife. I love you, my angel. You can do this.

  And with one thought, everything fell; including me. The ground felt like a cushion of air as I landed haphazardly. All light was gone except for a residual glow that emanated from my skin, casting everything around me a soft yellow. The two angels who’d held onto me, whether they wanted to or not, landed just as awkwardly and gracelessly. They tumbled away, righting themselves and glaring at me with angry expressions on their faces.

  Raphael hissed at me, but for the first time, there was no pain in my head, no need to flinch or cringe and I smiled. Uriel, confused, looked at his hand, grabbed at his chest with his uninjured one, and then at me. “What is this?”

  His hand was red and blistered…as if it had been burned; physically burned.

  “What is wrong with your hand?” Raphael asked before looking at his own bubbled skin. “What is going on?”

  Robert came to my side, grabbing my face and kissing me without any restraint. The feeling of him, the scent of him, the very nearness of him was unlike any other time before. This—this moment of unyielding clarity—was my resurrection, and just like my mother I was reborn with the knowledge of everything. Every question ever asked suddenly had answers.

  “Wow,” Robert said in awe.

  “I know,” I replied with a grin before turning my attention back to Raphael and Uriel.

  “What’s going on is that you won’t be hurting anyone else ever again,” I promised.

  “You think that you being Avi’s daughter gives you the ability to decide what any of us do?” he sneered. “You are merely a tool! You were never meant to do anything but ensure that man returns to his rightful place beneath my feet!”

  “I am not Avi’s daughter,” I said fiercely, a strange feeling of strength coming over me. My hair began to toss wildly behind me and I once again found myself floating above the ground, the wings of light returning, crackling with energy.

  “I am not Avi’s daughter,” I repeated. “My name is Grace Anne Shelley Bellegarde. I am Abigail and James Shelley’s daughter. I am the sister of Matthew Shelley and the step-daughter of Janice Shelley. I am the best friend of Graham Hasselbeck and Stacy Kim. And I am the wife of Robert Bellegarde.

  “And I’m here to make sure that mankind never has to deal with the threat of you ever again. That strange sensation in your chest, that thumping you hear in your ears is called a heartbeat, and those blisters on your hand are what happens when human skin comes into contact with heat.”

  “A heartbeat? Human skin? What are you talking about?” Uriel barked.

  “My mother didn’t want to rule over humans like you did, and she didn’t want to be used by you to do it, either. She knew that she couldn’t stop you—she was a part of it too, after all, thanks to you—so she had to find another way to do it. That’s why she had me.

  “But she didn’t want me to have the same fate as she did: trapped forever to the deaths of human beings. The only way she wanted me to have death in my life was if I chose it. She gave me what no one gave her, and that was choice. She gave me something you could never have as an angel, and she gave me the ability to give it to others.

  “So I have.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? What did you do to us?”

  “I’ve given you the freedom of choice. I’ve made you human.”

  He snorted, while Raphael pinched at his arms, wincing at the result. “Human? You expect us to believe that? You? Only the Thrones have that ability.”

  “Yes, but they don’t get to choose when and to who they do it to. But I do, thanks to my mom.”

  “This is ridiculous. No angel gets to say what abilities or calling another angel receives!”

  I laughed. “That’s the thing though, isn’t it? My mom wasn’t an angel when I was conceived. She gave me the calling of her choice because she wasn’t bound by the rules anymore; not the way you know them anyway.

  “See, my mom thought all of this out. It took her a really long time to do it—fifteen-hundred-years, in fact—but she knew what you guys would do and she planned for it. She knew you’d use Sam against me. That night on this field…that light that I thought came from some guardian angel—that was her way of making sure that I could take care of myself.

  “It’s why I didn’t die from my wounds when Sam stabbed me. And it’s also why Robert didn’t die either. I wouldn’t let him; I couldn’t. My mother made sure of that when she gave me the call that he should have had but couldn’t because of how he was born.

  “She also knew that you’d do this. She knew that eventually it would come down to me having to choose between my life or the lives of the people I care about. The fact that the Robert and I shared the same second call is not a coincidence.

  "I couldn’t completely accept being an angel until the human part of me was gone, no matter who told me that that was what I was; I needed to die.”

  “But you didn’t die!” Raphael growled. “You don’t die!”

  Gabriel stepped forward, his arms wrapped around himself as he looked at me appreciatively. “That’s because she’s life.”

  “She’s what?” Uriel and Raphael shouted.

  “I’m what?” I mimicked.

  “You heard what your mother said, about how important you were.”

  “Yeah; she said I was her life-”

  Gabriel cut me off. “No. She said you were life. There are two halves to everything in this world. Good and evil; the sun and the moon; life and death. N’Uriel is Death; you are Life; it is how it was meant to be. It is how it should have been. There cannot be one without the other and have balance exist in the world. Your mother knew this but did not realize the imbalance she was creating until after the flood.

  “Living amongst the dead is not living at all. And the death of a symptom does not mean the death of the illness; she realized that too late to save the Grigori, the Nephilim, and the humans who’d bee
n killed. But she promised to never let it happen again because even though we forgot what our purpose here was, she never did.”

  “We’re not here to play maids to man! Grow some wings, man! Humans aren’t meant to rule—they’re weak!” Uriel snarled.

  “If angels had been meant to rule this world, we would have been given it. We were only granted the sky,” Michael pointed out, his voice calm, though his skin was pale.

  “Why do you look like that?” Uriel asked, suddenly concerned.

  Michael looked at me and then smiled. “Because I choose to.”

  Through my human eyes, I’d seen his beauty, but through the eyes I now possessed, I saw something else in him. It lay just beneath his skin like clouds, and as it grew thicker, I knew a storm was forming within him and it wasn’t something that would have happened if he were still divine, with no beating heart within his chest.

  “I didn’t mean...I didn’t know,” I stumbled.

  “Shh—it’s not your fault. Your mother knew that this would happen. We asked her to promise us that it would,” he said, his smile never fading.

  “You asked her to…?”

  “Yes. Gabriel and I both knew it was time. We’ve lived long enough and have done nothing to deserve such a life. It’s time we let the first circle die.”

  My eyes filled with water as the irony hit me: I was life, but I was now responsible for two deaths…even if they hadn’t happened yet.

  “You aren’t responsible for our deaths,” Gabriel reassured me. “This is a long time in coming and we’ve been looking forward to this; truly. And, so have they.”

  Stacy, Graham, and Lark came to stand beside me and Robert, though they were not alone. I turned around and felt my jaw drop at what I saw.

  Before the light, before my wings, the number of human faces in the crowd was limited. But now…now they were all I could see.

  “What happened?” I breathed.

  “You did. They were all turned against their will; you gave all of these people back their lives. You gave them back their humanity.”