Jonah

by Nikki Kelly

  “Which is what, beautiful?”

  “Me.” My voice wobbled. “Forever.”

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He pressed down gently on my wrists as the weight of that word sank to depths even he couldn’t reach. And with every second that he remained silent, I became more confident of one thing: What Jonah wanted—what he’d allow himself to want—was companionship. Perhaps for a being such as himself, the need for a companion was the closest he could come to an emotion such as love. Condemned to a dark and lonely existence, finally he thought he’d found someone who could share it with him.

  Someone he wouldn’t be able to drink to an end.

  Someone who understood.

  I turned away, but he snatched me back, pulling me in close. Locked in a belligerent war of wills, neither of us was prepared to concede. Regardless of how we felt for each other and why, I couldn’t relinquish. My life did not belong to me anymore. I was on borrowed time. And as the hands of the clock ran down, taking away my forever, I would make it my sole purpose to ensure that my families were safe. I was clutching the lapels of his coat so tightly that my knuckles turned purple. I wished things could be different but knew in my bones that they could not.

  There was no amusement in his tone this time as he said, “One night. That’s it.”

  He surprised me, and I faltered. “Just one?” My second question escaped in a barely audible whimper. “That would be enough?”

  “That’s all I’m asking for.”

  I tuned in to his body’s rhythm. Connected to him by blood, I was able to feel the rising anticipation pass through him to me. I didn’t give much thought to it at the time, but I’d had to concentrate far more than I should have needed to.

  I dared to meet his hazel eyes, and a wicked spark flashed, acting as both a warning and an invitation. He ran the back of his hand over my jaw and down my neck, kneading my collarbone seductively. When I didn’t protest, he grasped the back of my head, bringing his cheek to mine. His breath escaped at my ear, causing me to struggle to catch my own, but as I did, a floral bouquet bloomed, the scent wrapping around him like bindings.

  My chest sank, and I drew back. “Why can I smell a woman on you?”

  He arched his eyebrow, brought out of the moment too fast, but his answer was easy. “I needed to feed.”

  There was no rhyme or reason as to why that caused me to feel winded, but it did.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he added, as if that’s why I was now retreating.

  I wasn’t about to tell him that honestly I didn’t care about the girl’s well-being, that truthfully, it was the thought of his sinking his teeth into someone else that caused my unease.

  I snapped myself out of it. I was being foolish. What difference did it make anyway? The universe was coming to claim me. My time here was limited. Giving in to Jonah, giving in to myself, would only muddy the waters.

  “Lailah—”

  I cut him short. “We should go. I don’t want to be late.” Listening to my head, not my heart, within a blink I’d thought myself away to the safety of the motor home.

  If the interaction with Jonah proved anything, it was that I needed my own space. After a quick conversation with Ruadhan, it was agreed that I would stay in Little Blue and Jonah would move into the much larger motor home, where Gabriel, too, was staying.

  I had barely recovered from my conversation with Jonah when Phelan let himself into the motor home without even knocking.

  “Let’s see this then,” he said, blowing cigarette smoke out his nose. With my dress covered by Brooke’s coat, his eyes studied only my butterfly mask. “You’ll do.”

  “I’m so very glad you approve,” I said sarcastically.

  Just then, Gabriel stepped into the living room. “She won’t just simply do, she’s the most exquisite being to ever grace this world. Savior or no Savior, you and your men should consider yourselves nothing short of privileged to be in the presence of her company.”

  Dressed in a black sweater and dark jeans, Gabriel was a shadow of his former self. He strode over, and this time he didn’t give me the chance to pull away when he took my hand.

  “Yeah, well, let’s keep it more Savior than no Savior, shall we?” Phelan said, gesturing for us to follow him outside.

  I pulled forward, but Gabriel tightened his grip. He whispered, “Stay close to me.”

  Several years had passed, yet Gabriel wasn’t treating me any differently, and I knew our conversation was going to be a difficult one.

  Outside, our group gathered, and after Brooke had been met with the news that Little Blue had been repurposed as my private abode, which meant she had to stay with the men in the motor home, she stropped off, deciding she had better things to do than to join us. So Ruadhan, Jonah, Cameron, Gabriel, and I followed Phelan back onto the main road that had taken us here. Like an army, we marched onward into the heart of a village that was anything but ordinary.

  Terraced bric-a-brac shops and tearooms were squashed together, slanting as they stretched over the cobblestone street, each one appearing slightly more crooked than the last. Each building had rotting wooden beams crisscrossing over the front. They reminded me of a cell block. I could just imagine inmates trapped inside, watching as, one by one, prisoners walked the green mile when death came to call. Like wardens, streetlamps lined the route, armed only with bright bulbs that shone a white light onto the cobbles.

  Taking prime position at the end of the road was a well-lit public house whose sign read THE NORTH STAR in big, curvy letters. Loud voices, the clatter of pint glasses, the scrape of forks against platters—not a drop of the noise spilling out could escape me.

  Gabriel drew me to him and said in a hushed voice, “They might want you to say something.”

  “It’s fine if they do,” I replied easily.

  Though Gabriel had been holding my hand for more than fifteen minutes, it was still ice cold against my own. I wondered if he missed being able to control his temperature now that he was fallen. I wondered what else he might miss.

  I peered behind me to Jonah, but he looked away quickly when he realized I’d seen him staring at Gabriel’s hand clutching mine.

  Phelan came to a halt outside of the pub’s double doors. “Lailah—”

  I stepped forward, my fingers slipping from Gabriel’s. “What are we waiting for?”

  Phelan pointed to the bars running down the door. “They’re made from silver, like. They ain’t the only thing.”

  “I can tell when there’s silver nearby, you don’t have to warn me.”

  “Good. My men, the men who you met before, know what you are.”

  I played with the wing of a butterfly on my mask. “You mean they know that I have some sort of demonic heritage?” It hadn’t been that long ago that Phelan had thrown a silver net over me when he and the rest of the Sealgaire had come to suspect that I was some form of demon.

  “Aye. Jack, Riley, Claire, Iona, and Cam here, of course, know that you were the girl we were sent to save, and they also know that you’re not altogether celestial. But that’s it. The rest don’t know the details, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay. There’s no need for complicating things, like.”

  Phelan, as usual, was telling, not asking. Three years of being in charge of this ragtag band had clearly only added to his superiority complex. Though Phelan was heavy-handed, I thought he’d come to respect me, if only a little, when we’d spoken long ago—what was long ago for him, at least—next to the bonfire. I was about to point this out, when I realized something.

  “Jack, Riley, Claire, Iona, Cam … You’re missing someone.”

  “We are missing many, and Dylan is one of them.” Phelan’s lips thinned as they formed a tight line. “You ready?” he asked.

  I looked to Ruadhan, who gave me an encouraging nod, and then to Gabriel, who held his arms out expectantly. “Your coat,” he said.

  I slipped my arms out of Brooke’s treasured possession. Adjusting
the lace at my chest and the pleats of my skirt, I nodded to Phelan, whose hard eyes softened at my appearance. But only for a moment. A nice, traditional dress would not change what he knew about me. And who I was prevented him from being able to even consider that I could actually be the Savior that he was trying to make everyone else believe me to be.

  Phelan pulled open one of the doors and gestured for Cameron to open the other. I stepped from the crisp cold air into a hot room filled with twirling smoke.

  The noise stopped immediately.

  Phelan had failed to mention his recent recruitment drive. There must have been more than two hundred men, and every last one of them was gaping at me.

  Phelan stood at my side and addressed the room. “We asked the Lord, and the Lord delivered. Yesterday, the world belonged to the Devil. But today marks a new chapter. With the Savior’s help, tomorrow we will win this war.” Phelan paused. “For she has arrived.”

  It was so quiet that we could hear the squeak of the hinge that preceded the swing of the bathroom door. A twenty-something man stumbled out into the room.

  “Who died? At least say it was Stephen. I had twenty euros on him!” he hollered, oblivious to what was going on around him. Snatching a pint glass off a table, he was in his own little drunken world. A taller, broader lad pinched the drunk’s collar and pulled him to face us. The drunk’s grip on the pint glass began to slip.

  I thought myself across the room, and to the human eye, I dissolved into thin air, reappearing nose to nose with the drunk lad and catching his full pint as it fell.

  I willed my light to appear, and a soft golden hue framed my form. “I think you’ve had enough, don’t you?”

  I let my light flicker and then die, and in the blink of an eye, I raced back to Phelan. With a nod, I handed him the pint of Guinness, showing respect for the officer in front of his troops. Phelan liked that. With a “Cheers,” he raised the glass and glugged it down.

  The room erupted in conversation, and Phelan, now happy, led us to the back of the pub, where a large rectangular table and benches waited for us.

  I sat down on the worn leather, and before Gabriel could take the seat next to me, I said, “Ruadhan?”

  My makeshift father, most happy to oblige, joined me.

  “That’s it?” I said to Phelan.

  “Aye. For them, for now. Cam, get the drinks. Lailah, your tipple?”

  “Wine might be most suitable.” I smiled sarcastically.

  “Aye, Cam, a glass of red.”

  Cameron plucked his checked shirt from his chest, staring at the bar, clearly distracted.

  “You tryin’ to catch a fly, like? Close your mouth, lad,” Phelan snapped, shaking Cameron out of his daydream.

  I followed Cameron’s line of sight. He was eyeing a young, petite brunette who was trying to carry a round of drinks from the bar to a group of guys huddled around a table.

  Cameron collected himself and then scurried away, passing some familiar faces as he did. From the packed crowd, Jack, Riley, and Iona appeared and took up stools at our table. I noticed Iona’s hesitation as she looked to Gabriel for confirmation that she should sit herself next to him at the end of the table.

  I didn’t notice Gabriel answering her unspoken question, but she sat, crossing one leg over the other, and straightened her jacket. She offered me a sincere smile, and I had to twist my neck to return it since the side of my face closest to her was blocked by the mask. Her expression changed then from happy to solemn, and it was only later that I’d come to understand it was because she’d seen the crystal leaf hairpin, which I would learn had belonged to her mother.

  Phelan cut through my thoughts. “So here’s a sentence I never thought I’d fecking say. Let’s discuss how the Sealgaire, a fallen Angel, three reformed demons, and the Savior are going to save the world then, shall we?”

  EIGHT

  WHILE I SIPPED MY GLASS OF WINE, Phelan filled in more of the blanks for Jonah and me. He explained how he and the others had returned to Lucan and grown the group. He’d spread word through the church, reaching every last congregation up and down the country, and welcomed men by the bucketload who came to join the fight against the Devil and his servants.

  His recruitment had been aided by the war that had broken out while Jonah and I had been gone. The one between the Western world and the Middle East.

  And with that war at the top of the agenda, Riley wasted no time sliding his smartphone across the table. His browser was opened to a news page that showed images of dismembered bodies piled on top of one another, discovered by the authorities just this morning.

  “That’s how they find them, like,” Riley said. “Never just one or two, always tens of hundreds of bodies, just slung together, pulled apart so bad they can’t even identify the people to put them to rest.”

  I swallowed hard as I scrolled through the images of men and women lying across the ground, mercilessly slaughtered. I’d taken away the Purebloods’ sea of souls, and with no prepared supply of dark matter, I’d inadvertently forced their hands. They’d had no choice but to turn a vast amount of light-souled humans into Second Generation Vampires, who would then pillage for them. Whether human beings were being turned or drained dry, it was all the same.

  It was all death.

  And it was all my fault.

  Riley brought up more news reports, this time from America, Europe, Russia … on and on he went, and eventually I tuned out. I leaned back, and as I did, I noticed Cameron collecting a second round back at the bar. He had a tray full of drinks, but his focus was elsewhere. He was watching the young girl again.

  Phelan had no tolerance for Cameron’s delay, and his piercing whistle cut through Riley’s rambling about bodies on the train tracks in Munich and the buzz of conversations around us, causing anyone who wasn’t already looking at us—which wasn’t many—to focus on me. I was less a butterfly and more a goldfish in a very, very small bowl.

  Cameron fumbled with the tray, nearly tripping over a broadly built fella’s foot as he rushed over. Riley coughed, thrusting yet more nauseating photographs under my nose.

  “Excuse me,” I said to him and to Phelan, who was discussing how best to utilize my abilities with Ruadhan and Gabriel. Jonah stood when I did, but I shook my head. “Ladies’ room.”

  Phelan pointed beyond the bar into the far corner. “The jacks are over there.”

  Ruadhan and Riley slid from the bench, and I escaped before anyone could offer me an escort. Along the way, Cameron collided with my shoulder, almost dropping his tray. I caught it, and his cheeks flamed red.

  “You know,” I said, “there was a time when spilling drinks was my specialty.” For years, I pulled pints in pub after pub as I searched for the apparition who appeared in my dreams, hoping he held the answer to what or who I was. I’d only found out recently that the one in my dreams had been Gabriel. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but as complicated as my existence had felt back then, compared with now, it had been simple.

  “You waited on people?” Cameron said, tentatively taking the tray back.

  “Yes. Difficult to believe this Savior of yours worked as a waitress?”

  Cameron wriggled his freckled nose. “Nay. Might have been yonks ago, but the Savior served food and drink at the Last Supper. Don’t see nothin’ wrong with you serving it now.” He smiled, and I laughed.

  “If you say so, Cameron. But word to the wise, don’t go handing me a glass of water hoping I’ll be able to turn it into a nice merlot.” And then I added quietly, “I’m afraid you’d be rather disappointed with what comes back.”

  He shrugged. “Fair play. Skill sets change, I guess.”

  I rolled my eyes, but Cameron’s focus had already shifted from me—to the brunette. “If you like her, why don’t you go and talk to her? I can take the drinks to the table.”

  At my suggestion, Cameron’s body tensed, and the rhythm of his heartbeat quickened. “Nay, that’s Molly. We went out for a while, but
she got grabbed by one of Doc O’Daly’s lads, so…” He trailed off, his shoulders slumping.

  “You mean she kissed another guy?” I asked, trying to make sense of his Irish slang.

  “Aye.” He sighed and then, shifting his weight, whispered, “Everyone was talking about it.”

  I considered his crestfallen expression and then asked the only question I thought really mattered. “When did you fall in love with her?”

  “The first time she smiled at me.” Cameron’s when didn’t require a date stamp; moments like that were eternal.

  I looked to his Molly, who, same as everyone else, was staring at me. Our eyes caught, and she turned, fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat.

  I said to Cameron, “What happened, happened. What you choose to do now is up to you. It doesn’t matter what anyone said or what they might think.” Considering my own romantic situation, I added, “It’s your decision, no one else’s. Don’t get in the way of yourself. For all you know, it might have been a silly mistake. Have you even asked her?”

  “Nay.”

  “Then maybe you should.”

  “I dunno. Maybe she wanted to kiss him. Or maybe she didn’t.” He exhaled slowly. “You might be right, mighta been a mistake. I guess we’re only human. Can’t all of us be saints, like.”

  I smiled and said, “If you love her the way you say you do, then forgive her, find out where you stand, and if it’s right, fight for her.”

  “I don’t even know what I’d say.”

  Jonah had followed me into the third dimension, his silent action speaking volumes. “Words can be weak, so don’t just tell her what she means to you, show her.”

  Cameron took a breath. “Sage words from the sage … Kinda hard to ignore, like.” That lovely grin of his came back then. With a nervous but excited childlike enthusiasm, he seemed to forget himself as he pecked my cheek. He then swiftly turned beet red.

  I laughed, as Phelan shouted from behind me, “For feck’s sake, Cam, drinks!”

  Cameron rolled his eyes but started toward the table. I plucked the tray from his hands. “I’ve got this. You get Molly. No time like the present.”