“I wish I could keep fighting for you,” she replied. A trickle of blood slipped past her lips.
“You’ve fought enough.”
“I wanted to see the end,” Sabina continued. “I wanted to see us win.”
“It’ll just be more blood,” I told her. “Are you sure you can’t heal from this?”
When I looked at our hands clasped together, I realized why her skin felt so cold. Her fingers had already begun to harden and turn to stone. I bit hard on my lip. Sabina gave me a tiny smile before throwing her head back and groaning with pain. She seemed so small, shuddering on the floor in front of me, bleeding to death.
Ava crouched beside me. “Don’t worry, my friend. We will have victory. Someday I’ll see you on the other side.”
Sabina huffed a tiny laugh and coughed before swallowing more blood. “There is no other side.”
“You say that only because no one knows for sure,” I said. “There is Heaven for human souls and angels, and there must be a place for the souls of reapers. A paradise all your own.”
Sabina’s eyes, even lighter than they were moments ago, slowly rolled over to meet mine. Her face and lips had begun to turn gray. A crack split across her cheek. “Do you promise, archangel?”
“I believe it,” I said firmly.
“Good-bye, Ellie.” Sabina breathed in and out and closed her eyes. Her grip on my hand loosened. “Make it bright,” she whispered. And with those peculiar words, she was gone.
Rage boiled deep within me, a torrent river of fury and bloodlust. We weren’t supposed to lose anyone else. Sabina shouldn’t have died. I rose to my feet and called my sword again. Angelfire blazed as I marched toward Xastur. Cadan stepped aside, the heat of the divine fire nearly scorching his skin. Xastur’s eyes were wild and he struggled against my Khopesh sword impaling him to the wall through his chest.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” I snarled at him and pointed my fiery blade in the direction of Sabina’s remains. The other angelic reapers had closed in behind me and watched in silence.
“That wasn’t me!” Xastur howled. “I didn’t kill her!”
“The one who did was acting on your orders,” I shot back, and poised the blade at his face. “So did the ones who murdered my human friends only hours ago. Their blood is on your hands, along with countless other lives.”
“It was Merodach’s idea! He’s the one—”
“He’s next on my list,” I said. “Don’t you worry. I’m going to kill every single one of you.”
“Him, too?” Xastur barked, motioning to Cadan. “What about him?”
I looked over my shoulder at the demonic reaper with the fire-opal gaze pinned on my face. “Bastian’s son fights for me now. He’s risked his life for me and for the ones I love.”
Xastur swore and spit a red glob on the cement floor at Cadan’s feet. “Traitor! The Lord of Souls will come for you.”
Cadan said nothing.
I pressed the tip of my sword to the base of Xastur’s throat and he hissed at the angelfire turning his skin red. “We will meet Sammael sooner or later. But first, we deal with you. There is a reason why I haven’t yet split you from collarbone to crotch.”
“What do you want?” The demonic reaper laughed. “Information? You think I’m going to tell you where our Lord is?”
“No,” I said. “I need something else from you. I will let you go if you cooperate.”
He laughed even louder. “How would you know I’m telling the truth?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” I asked. “I suppose I’ll just have to make you want to tell me the truth.”
My Khopesh sword opened his skin and let the angelfire in. The reaper’s screams echoed through the factory.
There was so much blood on the floor by the time Xastur started squawking that a wide river of red split the room in two. The bits I’d cut off of him had turned to stone at my feet and I’d kicked them away. Not much of his face was left recognizable, and I could never take enough flesh from him to make up for Sabina and Landon and the other kids murdered tonight.
“Please,” Xastur sputtered through blood. His head hung low and one eye struggled to focus on my face. His other eye wasn’t there anymore. “I’ll tell you anything. Anything.”
“Ellie,” Will said in a careful voice. “I think he’s had enough.”
But had I? I felt so much hate in my blood that it seemed like I couldn’t spill enough of it onto the ground. Xastur was nearly dead, almost where I wanted him, but a dark, coiling part of myself enjoyed torturing him. My mother would hate to see what I’d become.
But this wasn’t me. The ice forming around my heart had crept from the deepest, darkest pits of my past, from the lost part of me that had never known any of the things that now made me human: love, compassion, regret. This part of me, the whispers of an archangel who’d had a taste of my human emotions and preferred the flavor of hate the most—even savored it. The archangel I had once been now desired to take control and I’d handed the reins right over to her.
I tilted my head as I studied Xastur’s shredded face. I plucked my sword sticking out from his chest and he moaned in pain and slumped over. “Do you know how to summon an angel?” I asked him.
“Me?” the demonic reaper muttered, and tried to stand straight. “No. That stuff’s in the book that Merodach has.”
“The grimoire of Antares?”
“Yes. There are more spells like the one that summoned Lilith, but I don’t know what the spell is, I swear. I only know that it’s in there.”
“Does Merodach have the only copy of the grimoire? He has the original, but are there others that you know of?”
“There’s one copy,” Xastur said, and wheezed. “Merodach is trying to find it before you do.”
This had to be the copy that Nathaniel had written. “He doesn’t know where it is?”
“No, but he knows who has it. A collector named Ethan Stone. Merodach has been combing the eastern seaboard looking for this guy. We suspect he’s a psychic and has found a way to hide from the demonic.”
“Thank you,” I said, and turned to the others. “We need to find Ethan Stone.”
They nodded, but all four of them paled when they saw my face. I assumed that was because of the blood.
Cadan stared at me with a look like he was trying to see the path in a maze. “What is wrong with…?”
“Ellie, I think we should go,” Will said carefully, his expression tight with worry. He even seemed a little afraid.
“I want his head first,” I replied and lifted my blade.
Xastur’s face lit up. “No! You said you’d let me go!”
“I didn’t say that I’d let you go alive.”
I stepped back, swung my sword over my shoulder, and ripped it screaming through the air. The blade bit through flesh and bone and crunched into the wall. The reaper’s head toppled over and hit the floor before rolling past my feet. The body crumpled to the floor and shattered into gravel. I had to give the blade a strong tug in order to dislodge it from the wall. When I looked up, I caught my reflection on a shard of glass from a broken window and saw what had frightened Will. For an instant, I thought it was angelfire shimmering off my eyes, but my irises had all but disappeared on their own, replaced with the bright white light I saw in my nightmares and feared more than almost anything.
11
I WOKE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING FEELING STIFF and wretched. Although I’d managed to avoid anything involving news coverage or peer speculation about the events of last night, a difficult conversation with Kate still loomed ahead of me. I was still too shaken. By now she had to know about Landon. His mom had already called Nana so there was no doubt she’d called Mrs. Green, too. All I wanted to do was run away from everything as fast as I could. Will quietly agreed to go for a run with me and we traveled at a quick pace down the winding country road close to Will’s house. I didn’t believe I’d ever run twenty miles so fast in
my life. Even when my lungs burned and my legs turned to jelly, I couldn’t stop. If I slowed down, then it would all catch up with me.
Back at the house, I trudged up toward the front porch, but Will caught my arm. I turned to him. The early-morning dew coated our skin, mixed with sweat and the scent of grass. The warm glow of sunrise brought out the color in his hair. My own tresses looked like they were on fire.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You haven’t said a word since we left. Are you okay?”
“Trying to be.” In truth, I only wanted to be strong and to keep going. I couldn’t allow myself to curl into a ball because I’d lost so much. I still had something left to fight for.
He pulled me close, his hands sliding up to cup my face. His lips brushed mine, warm and soft, a scent I could drink, and I kissed him back harder, desperate to cling to him. When I broke the kiss, I held his gaze and smoothed my hand across his rough cheek. My bottom lip trembled as an intense wave of despair crashed over my heart. It seemed as if the closer we came to victory, the more people I loved were lost. If I lost Will, then my soul would die. I’d had a taste of what life felt like without him and I couldn’t endure that again. For an intense, fleeting moment, I thought of suggesting we go for another run, only this time we’d never come back.
“No matter how hard it gets,” he whispered, “I’ll be by your side. I’ll never stop fighting.”
“I won’t either,” I promised and kissed him again. “Come sit out back with me?”
I took his hand and led him into the backyard to the swing where I used to sit with Nathaniel and talk. I only wanted to swing and let the motion rock me into senselessness. Will sat next to me and I rested my head on his shoulder and rocked back and forth, staring out onto the lake. A loon drifted not too far from shore, crying its mournful call to no one in particular.
“Do you ever feel guilty?” I asked him.
“About fighting?”
“About things like last night. What I did was pretty messed up.”
“It may have been,” he agreed. “And though this doesn’t excuse the wrongness, we got what we needed out of that vir. This information could change the course of the war.”
“As sick as it is, I feel better after what we did to Xastur,” I confessed. “His blood can’t bring back the souls he’s taken over hundreds of years, including the souls of my friends he murdered last night, but I’m glad for what we did to him. It was his turn to hurt and we came nowhere near giving him exactly what he deserved. I don’t feel any guilt at all and I know how messed up that is. I feel like I lost a piece of myself last night.”
“You lost two friends,” he said gently. “And you wanted revenge.”
“That didn’t mean I was allowed to torture that reaper.”
“I’m not going to judge you, Ellie. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
I hesitated, feeling a heaviness in my chest. “What I did made me as bad as them.”
“I think we’re past worrying about fighting dirty.”
“Were you afraid of me last night?” I asked him, my voice tiny. Just a squeak. “When you saw my eyes?”
This time, he hesitated. My heart only beat once or twice, but it seemed like a lifetime passed in those moments. “Yes.”
The silence that fell between us then thankfully didn’t last long. Marcus appeared out of the Grim midflight and he landed in the yard. Will and I slid off the bench swing and headed toward him.
“Hey,” he greeted us, stretching out his wings and taking a deep breath. “Wanted to see how you’re both doing and to let you know we might have something. I put in a call to Lauren and—”
“What the hell?”
All three of us jumped and spun. Kate stood at the top of the hill beside the house, staring down at us—right at Marcus’s wings. She was frozen solid and her hands covered her mouth, the shock and confusion splattered across her face like an Impressionist painting. I, on the other hand, was staring at her extremely blue hair.
“What the hell?” she repeated.
My jaw dropped. “Oh my God, Kate. What the hell happened to your hair?”
She looked aghast. “Why the hell does he have wings?”
Marcus withdrew his wings in a flash and started toward her. “Babe,” he said gently, like coaxing a frightened animal. “Babe,” he said again.
“I am not on drugs,” Kate murmured, her voice blank. “I am not on drugs and I just saw you had wings.”
“No, Babe. What are you talking about?”
He reached for her and she slapped his hands back. “Don’t even lie to me! You had freaking wings! I saw them! Just like those things from last night! What the hell? What the hell? You’re one of them!”
Then she lost it. She loosed a blood-curdling scream and wheeled away from him, but he grabbed her and pulled her to his chest and held her tight. She thrashed and shrieked as he crooned gently to her, but she wouldn’t relax.
I bolted toward them and held Kate’s face in my hands. “Kate, calm down. It’s okay.” I shushed her, but she was crying hysterically.
“I’m crazy,” she rasped over and over again. “I’m crazy. I’m totally crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” I said.
She sagged heavily in Marcus’s arms. “Just let me go. Let me go, damn it.”
I could see on his face that this was the last thing he wanted to happen. If he’d ever wanted to reveal himself to Kate, it was clear that this wasn’t the way he’d planned to do it. He slowly loosened his grip on her and she stumbled away, wiping her tear-streaked face with her arm.
“Please tell me I’m crazy,” she begged. “Please tell that what I saw last night wasn’t real and I didn’t just see your wings and that you aren’t one of those monsters. Marcus, don’t freaking lie to me.”
“I would never lie to you,” he said, the ache in his tone brimming with honesty and shame. “You aren’t crazy. What you’ve seen was real.”
“Stop screwing with me!” she shrieked in anger.
“I’m not!” he shot back.
“He’s telling the truth,” Will said, the look on his face deadly serious.
Kate stared at him and then looked pleadingly at me. “Ellie, you’re my best friend. Please don’t screw with me. Landon is freaking dead, for Christ’s sake. He’s dead! I haven’t slept. I’m still terrified. Please, please tell me—honestly—what the hell is going on.”
“I don’t—don’t know what to say,” I stammered. “But you aren’t crazy. Marcus, show her. It’s too late to hide it anymore.”
He closed his eyes and his jaw clenched and he did something he’d likely never done before. He showed his wings to a human. The sparrow-brown feathers gleamed gold in the morning light, that unusual reaper quality giving them a sort of shimmer. Kate’s eyes grew wide as apples and she collapsed to her knees in front of Marcus as he spread his wings.
“What are you?” she breathed. “Are you an angel?”
He shook his head. “I’m a reaper. Like Will.”
Will looked at me, questioning me with his eyes. I nodded and he knew what to do. He slipped his shirt over his head and dropped it onto the grass. Kate gaped up at him, a tear sliding down her cheek. Will’s white wings sprang free and Kate jumped in surprise. Her hands covered her mouth and she whispered something I couldn’t make out. I knelt next to her and pulled her into my arms. She shook and shuddered like she was freezing.
“What is happening?” she murmured under her breath. “What is happening? It’s not real. It’s not real….”
“Kate, sweetie,” I said to her and put my forehead to her temple. Her skin was cold and clammy. “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid. I’ll explain everything to you if you want me to.”
“How can you explain this?” she asked. “None of this makes any sense. Those things killed my friends, people I’ve known since kindergarten. They’re reapers? And Marcus is one of them. And Will. And…you?” She pulled away to stare at me, her eyes wide and pupils tin
y pinpricks of black drowning in blue.
“No,” I swore. “I’m not like them and they aren’t the things that attacked the party. Those were demonic reapers. Will and Marcus are angelic reapers. They help us, help me fight the demonic ones.”
“Help you fight?”
“Will and Marcus aren’t angels,” I explained. “But I am.”
A little bit of Kate’s old self came back. “Just because you’re sheltered and kind of a prude doesn’t make you an angel.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little. “No, literally. I’m the archangel Gabriel. I was sent here to protect human souls from the demonic reapers, the same creatures who killed my parents. The angelic reapers are on my—our—side. Will is my Guardian, the strongest angelic reaper the archangels could find. He’s like my bodyguard and that’s why we’re together all of the time.”
Her lips parted and I could tell she was calculating in her mind. “I always knew he wasn’t your tutor. No tutor is that hot.”
I laughed out loud, a nervous but happy laugh. I hugged her tight, feeling an enormous amount of relief and fear. I was so happy to finally get to spill my guts to my best friend, but I was also terrified of bringing her into the world I was so desperate to share with her. “Let’s go inside, huh?” I suggested. “Get some coffee.”
Kate’s hands no longer trembled as she held the steaming mug of coffee. Straight black. She said that she needed the kick in the face to think clearly. We sat next to each other on the couch in the living room while Marcus sat in the chair on Kate’s other side and Will leaned against the wall some ways away, his arms folded over his chest.
“I can’t believe what really happened to your mom and dad,” she said weakly. “I’m so sorry you had to keep all of that inside—keep everything a secret.”
“It hasn’t been easy,” I agreed.
“Does this mean that Landon is in Hell?”
“No,” I said. “I killed the reaper before it could even try. I don’t know how much a demonic reaper needs to ingest in order to take a soul, to be honest. But it takes at least one bite and that’s not a bite I’m willing to risk.”
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