by Kristie Cook
I looked up at her, and our eyes locked for a brief moment before we swallowed each other into hugs.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said, her voice watery and choked.
“You, too.” I squeezed her tighter.
Sheree came over and joined our group hug. “We were so worried. All of the Amadis thought we’d lost you. Solomon had to send word to make sure nobody showed signs of mourning. We just had to hope you were okay.”
The building above us shook again, and chalky dust rained down. We pulled apart, and I went to join Tristan, taking a seat next to him on the floor. He ate pudding out of a plastic cup with his fingers. He held a dark brown glob out to me, but I shook my head. The chocolate tempted me, but I couldn’t bring myself to suck on his fingers with everyone else around.
“These aren’t biscuits, they’re cookies!” Dorian said when he opened a package and looked inside. He stuffed at least three in his mouth at once before holding the bag out to me. I did take a couple of those, nibbling on the crumbly goodness, too afraid to devour them—my stomach growled and clenched at the same time.
“Please tell me these bombs aren’t meant for us,” I said to nobody in particular.
“It’s Normans against Normans,” Solomon said. “It’s been going on since we’ve been here. An hour or two of air raids, then twelve or so of peace before they begin again.”
“Who’s doing them?” Tristan asked.
“Everyone. I’ve spotted planes from France, Germany, Italy, Iraq, China, and Japan.”
“Geez,” I muttered. “World War III really has started, hasn’t it?”
“We haven’t seen or heard anything from the U.S. or about it,” Blossom said. “Information only travels by word of mouth anymore, and nobody here seems to care about the Americans. I’m hoping we can go there next, and it’s not so bad. I mean, who would bomb the U.S., right?”
“The Daemoni,” Solomon said.
“Yep,” Vanessa agreed. “It’s the Daemoni making all of this happen. The U.S. won’t be safe for long.”
“We need to find where Lucas has the Summoned, and that’s where we’re going, regardless,” I said.
We caught each other up on everything we’d been through and learned while we’d been separated. Solomon had been able to reach a few other council members before the networks started failing. No region was doing great, but they managed to hold themselves together, at least as of two days ago. Conversions had increased, but not nearly at the accelerated rate the Daemoni turned Normans. Eventually they’d have to stop, though, or they’d extinguish their own food source, especially with all the norms dying by their hands, at war, or by the not-so-natural disasters.
The group had gone to Prague from Moscow, but couldn’t reach Solomon’s contacts before war broke out there. Then they went on to Cologne and stayed there for a few days, hoping we’d show up.
“I have not been able to reach anyone else, but we learned a lot of chatter from the Daemoni channels regarding London and the rest of England,” Solomon finished. “We thought this would be the best place to start the search for the Summoned. I’d about given up that you would ever see my message to come here, and we’d left the safe house just tonight.”
“Did we have people there?” I asked.
Charlotte shook her head. “No. They evacuated those in need of protection to outside the city when the bombs started dropping. The rest scattered to help the Normans, and hopefully gather some of the newly turned.”
I nodded and swallowed. Tristan sat with his back against the wall, one knee bent up with an arm rested on it, and the other knee pulled in on the floor. I scooted closer to him, leaned my head back against his shoulder, and closed my eyes. Dorian sat on the other side of me and lay against me, so I draped an arm over his shoulder and across his chest.
Life sucked. War sucked. No doubt about it. But for the moment, I could be thankful to at least have my two men and my closest friends still alive and back by my side.
My people, however, were another story. And so were the Normans.
We couldn’t rest here for long.
As soon as the building stopped shaking for more than thirty minutes since the last blast, we crept our way upstairs. Unable to see through the stained glass windows, Tristan and I went over to the doors, and he opened one just enough to peek through.
The street was deserted, covered in dust and ash and littered with big chunks of concrete, pieces of roofing, and shards of glass. At least, the street appeared to be empty of life, but Tristan and I looked at each other, both of us hearing the beating heart about twenty-five yards away. A whimper followed.
“We have to help them,” I said.
He nodded, and we ran out without telling the others, knowing half of them would follow. Vanessa and Jax did anyway. We found a middle-aged woman more than half-buried in the rubble, so we hadn’t been able to see her from the church.
She looked at us, her eyes grew wide, and she screamed.
“Shh, no,” I said. “We’re here to help.”
I moved closer, and she yelled louder. She tried to wriggle away, but a large beam pinned her leg to the asphalt. I wasn’t sure if she screamed even louder from the pain or the fear shining in her blue eyes as she stared at Vanessa and me making our way down to her because the guys were too big to fit in the small crevices.
“Shut. Up.” Vanessa snapped, but the woman ignored her.
“We’re trying to help you out of here,” I said, “but please stop. You’re going to draw attention.”
“HELP ME! THEY’RE OVER HERE!” she screamed, and then she glared at us with wild animal-like eyes. “You’re them. I know it. You’re not touching me, you evil, horrible whores!”
Vanessa growled while at the same time lifting the beam off of the woman. I grabbed her under the pits and pulled her away, then slid one arm under her neck and the other under her legs and picked her up.
“Stop!” a man yelled the moment I crested the pile she’d been buried under.
“You stop.” Tristan held his hand up, palm out. The man couldn’t move, and by the look he gave the woman, I thought he must be her husband.
“We’re helping her,” I said as I carried her over to him.
His eyes grew as wild as hers when I approached. “No! I . . . I know who you are. Put my wife down!”
I bent over and laid her on the ground. When I came up, I stared down the barrels of several guns trained on me. Soldiers had come from nowhere—well, probably from the compound down the road, but we hadn’t noticed their arrival. My damn mind was on the fritz again.
I held my hands up in the international signal of surrender, but yelled at them. “We’re only trying to help, you idiots! That’s what we do. We protect you from the true evil ones. We just saved her life!”
“Or infected her,” her husband spat, still not helping the woman in front of his feet. He didn’t even bend over or look at her to inspect her injuries. He feared that he’d catch what we supposedly had.
“She has a broken leg and probably internal injuries,” Tristan said. “Get her some help, for fuck’s sake.”
He lifted his chin infinitesimally, signaling Vanessa, Jax, and me, and we all blurred away before something stupid happened. Something stupid happened anyway. The soldiers fired their mother-effin’, god-forsaken guns at us. I was so tired of being shot at. And although I should have been immune to it by now, every time, my mother’s bleeding body came into view. Every time, I watched her die again and again and again. It was all I could do to not turn and shoot a few electric bolts at them.
They’re just Normans. They don’t know what they’re doing.
I wasn’t so sure about that last part—they didn’t have that glazed-over look in their eyes. They didn’t appear to be under control of some third entity. But I kept telling myself that anyway before I did something just as stupid as them.
We slammed the church door shut behind us, and I stomped down the center aisle, gla
ring at the angel statues in the corners and the image of Jesus on the cross depicted in stained glass straight in front of me, behind the altar.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why can’t we just do what we’re supposed to do? Why are you making this so hard?”
No answer came. Not that I expected one. I was beginning to feel like we were completely on our own down here.
“Alexis,” Tristan murmured as he laid a strong, warm hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t want to hear everything happens for a reason,” I snapped, shrugging him off. “We’re here for a reason. We supposedly have this purpose we’re supposed to serve. But every time we turn around, we’re being shot down. Literally. I’m so damn tired of being shot at.”
I strode out of the sanctuary, into a small room to the side. I didn’t know anything about Catholic churches, or churches in general. Mom taught me the Bible herself, and not just because we moved around a lot. She hadn’t said so then, but I was pretty sure now she hadn’t wanted my education—my training—to be tainted by human interpretation. Because humans were pretty fucking stupid sometimes.
So I sat in the middle of three short pews in whatever kind of room this was supposed to be. A table full of unlit candles stood in front of the first pew. Another image of Christ hung on the wall, this one three-dimensional. I dropped my head into my hands, covering my face, not wanting to see Him or Him to see me.
“Lex.”
I jumped at the voice, thinking it belonged to Jesus at first. Sheesh. I peeked through my fingers at Tristan in the doorway.
“I need some time alone,” I said. “Before I lose my sh . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud in a church, especially with Jesus still staring down at me. “My mind. We have nowhere to go and no way to get there even if we did. Every time we step outside, we’re shot at. The humans don’t want our help. They only want to kill us.”
“Answers will come,” he promised.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure out something brilliant, but for now, I need to be alone.” I flicked my finger and shut the door. And immediately felt guilty for it, so I didn’t get mad when he stopped it from closing all the way and came inside. He sat down next to me, wrapped his arms around me, and pressed his lips to my temple.
“I’ll give you your space, but first I have to tell you how much I love you.” He rose, strode out of the room, and shut the door behind him.
“I love you, too,” I said through my tears, knowing he could still hear me.
I cried into my hands. I felt so lost. So abandoned. I pulled my hands away from my face and dug my fingers into my palm, trying to find a way into my book. Maybe the Angels had a message in there for me. They had to have a message for me. We were stuck, with no idea where to go.
“Have you abandoned us?” I said out loud, questioning my ancestors and the Angels when the book didn’t appear in my palm. “Have you given up? Because I don’t blame you if you did.” I changed my thoughts to God himself. “Your will is supposed to be the way, and if your will is to leave us be because we don’t deserve you anymore, I get it. I really do. I think it’s pretty crappy, but I get it.”
I didn’t really know what else to say. If we’d been left here on Earth completely on our own, it’s not like I could demand a signal to know this. If they were gone, they were gone. They wouldn’t have been listening to me anyway.
I dropped my hands from my face and looked up at Jesus hanging on the wall. And anger began to build in my chest. “Except that you promised, you know. You promised to never abandon us—well, to never abandon your children. Maybe I don’t deserve your mercy, but what about all the Normans out there? They can be ignorant, yes, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to be abandoned. They’re not all bad, are they? I can’t believe that.”
I gripped the pew in front of me, leaned my forehead against it, and stared at my boots that were no longer black, but gray, covered in dust. My breath sighed out of me. I kept trying to help and save everyone, and instead, I only brought death. Maybe this lack of support was not an abandonment of the Amadis or the norms, but only of me. Maybe that was my message, the same one I’d been saying all along, coming loud and clear now from Heaven above: I wasn’t meant for this.
“Alexis.”
The female voice in the room made me jump.
“Darling.”
I gasped at this familiar one.
“Alexis Katerina, look up.”
Only one person called me that, usually when she was angry. Now she said it with love, and tears filled my eyes as I rolled my head back and dared to look up.
And my mouth gaped open.
Chapter 15
I couldn’t breathe. I definitely couldn’t say anything. I could only stare with my mouth hanging wide open.
Three figures stood between me and the table of candles, blocking out the Jesus on the wall. Three women, all dark-haired with a tint of red, all dark-eyed with similarly shaped faces. All wearing white dresses that looked quite a bit like my wedding dress, only made of some Otherworldly material that looked like soft leather, and no fancy gems decorated the collar, giving them an overall fiercer appearance. And all with white, feathery wings tucked closely behind them. Huge wings, with their apexes reaching several inches above the women’s heads and their tips draping on the floor by their feet.
I plastered myself against the back of the pew as I drank in the sight.
“Mom? Rina?” I eyed the other one. I’d known her voice from hearing it in my head several times before. My heart shook in my chest. “Cassandra?”
They all smiled at me.
“You’re really here?” I asked in disbelief. Their grins only grew. I peeled myself away from the back of the pew and leaned forward. I reached out to touch Mom’s hand. “Oh my god!”
“Alexis,” she warned, and my eyes darted to the wall behind her, although I couldn’t see Jesus anymore.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “I just . . . I can’t . . . MOM!”
I sprang from the pew, somehow hurdled over the front one, and threw myself at her. She caught me in her arms. Her familiar scent enveloped me, confirming further she really stood here, although it was mixed with an unusual freshness, like how the Sacred Archives smelled. Then I turned to Rina and hugged her, too. I stood awkwardly in front of Cassandra, but she pulled me into her arms for an embrace.
“You’re Angels?” I demanded, reaching out to touch the top of Mom’s wing. It moved when I did, and I jerked my hand back. Mom laughed. I wanted to cry. I thought I’d never hear her laugh or feel her hugs again.
“We’ve been promoted, in a way,” she said.
“Heaven needs all the help available in these times,” Cassandra added.
I laugh-snorted. “Yeah, well, so do I.”
“And you have it, darling,” Rina said.
I spun on her. “You’re staying?”
My heart leapt with hope.
“Sorry, honey, but we cannot stay,” Mom said, and I crashed back down to reality. “This is your realm. We are needed in the Otherworld.”
I slumped onto the front pew.
“We have not abandoned you, though,” Cassandra said. “We are still fighting for you where we are. We are still providing you guidance when you need it. The Angels and God himself are behind you, Alexis.”
You could have fooled me.
“Darling, you have not needed us,” Rina said. Could she still read minds? Or could they all? Well, they’d spoken in my head before, so I supposed that was my answer. I couldn’t think without them hearing me, but when I pleaded for their help, they ignored me.
“We are not ignoring you,” Cassandra said. “But there are some trials you must face. Some lessons you must learn on your own. Some decisions you must make for yourself. And some consequences must be suffered in order for you to become the strongest daughter you can be.”
My eyes bugged. “So this has all been about training and testing? You’re letting norms die so I can learn some ki
nd of lesson?”
“No, dear, we are fighting for them in our own realm. Remember, their souls are what matter most.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So as long as their souls are safe from evil, who cares if they die?”
Mom winced. “It sounds bad, but really, yes, that’s how it is. Your purpose is to protect souls. Protect them from the darkness. From the Daemoni. They need to be stopped.”
“I won’t argue with you there. But I’m not doing such a great job. They’re too strong for us, and Lucas is too cunning for me. Too experienced.” I blew out a breath and shoved a hand through my hair. “I don’t know how I can possibly beat him. They’ve always outnumbered us, and now they have the norms turned against us.”
“The humans are not all against you, darling,” Rina said.
I cocked my head to look at her. “Well, if there are any still on our side and still alive, where are they? Because we sure as hel-eck haven’t found them.”
“That is why we have come,” Cassandra said. “To assure you that we are here. That we are fighting, too. You cannot see us on the other side of the veil, but we are battling alongside you. We have come to direct you to help.”
I nodded. Finally, a break. “Thank you! Where are they? What do I do?”
“Go to the abbey. Find the door with the wings carved into the wood above it. Knock twice, pause, then knock five more times.”
I stared at her with a lifted brow. Was she kidding me? Go to some strange door where who knew what lurked inside and give a secret-coded knock? Did we look like school kids trying to get into the neighborhood tree house club?
“You’ll find what you need there, honey.” Mom reached out for my hand.
I sensed the farewell, so I grabbed hers and lurched upwards, back into her arms. I held on to her as though I held on to life. In a way, I did. “I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry I didn’t stop him.”
Tears flowed down my cheeks, and my whole body quaked with the weight of the pain and regret I’d been carrying around since the night she died.