Infinite

by Erica Crouch

  Michael’s quiet. He’s brought the vial out again and is rolling it between his fingers.

  “Still,” I say, “Azael would know if it were true. There would have been some indication there.” I would have known if he was keeping a secret like that. He’s loyal first to Lucifer, then to himself. “If Lucifer weren’t in charge, Azael would be the next in line, and he would have used that when he was bragging—”

  “So, you did speak to him?” Ana cuts me off, her eyes narrowing.

  I stop, backtrack. Regroup a lie. “No. Not really, I mean. But I saw him long enough to get back Michael’s soul. He had it on him.”

  “And you got it back…” She tilts her head. “But you didn’t have an opportunity to…put an end to him?”

  I clamp my mouth shut, and her suspicions are confirmed.

  “What is the most dangerous kind of monster?” Ana asks me, moving in close. She searches my face, the fading bruises on my neck from Michael, the scars I have lacing up my arm—some scars Azael gave me himself. Her eyes are sympathetic. I swallow past a lump in my throat, and she leans in to whisper, “One you love.”

  Kala comes barging back outside, the door swinging hard into the wall and bouncing closed. Her face is pulled in a mask of comical annoyance, and her hair is falling out of the buns she’s twisted it into at the top of her head. She stomps across the gravel purposefully. Speaking about loving monsters…

  Ana takes a step back from me and faces the barreling figure of Kala, who rolls to a stop a little from us.

  “I spoke with some others, and if you don’t want to fight, fine. Don’t fight,” she says.

  Ana takes a breath to start speaking, but Kala stops her with a finger.

  “Don’t come to the fight. You can stay here and wait for the injured. Or relay information. Whatever you want to do to be helpful. But you won’t be on the field.”

  Ana closes her mouth, chews on the idea. “I’m not a healer.”

  “You’re not a fighter, either,” Kala says. “Dammit, Ana, you won’t even try!” She takes the bow off her shoulder and tries to hand it over to Ana. Ana doesn’t move to take it, and Kala shakes it. “Please! How would you feel if I just sat in the middle of a fucking battlefield, twirling my thumbs?”

  “I’d say you lost your mind—”

  “Yet you don’t see that you are doing practically the same thing! If you’re not fighting, you’re in the way. You could die!” Kala moves close to Ana and balances on her toes to get even nearer. Her eyes are wide and wild, her bottom lip tumbling words clumsily. “Don’t leave me like that. That’s not fair.”

  Ana reaches out and runs her hand over Kala’s face. It’s such an intimate gesture that I feel like we shouldn’t be here. But I don’t move. Eli watches them with envy—not envy of being able to touch Kala or Ana, but with envy about their easy closeness. He’s never had what they have, not something so true. Few of us have.

  “Life isn’t fair sometimes,” Ana says.

  Michael takes my hand. I swear we had a similar conversation not too long ago. Not about one of us refusing to fight back, but about the possibility of one of us dying. Of us not making it through this together. We called out the injustice but accepted it. Ana is right. Life isn’t fair sometimes. Most of the time, recently.

  Kala shakes her head, her mouth trembling. “You can change this! We can make it fair.”

  Eli steps around Michael and me. “I could train you,” he offers to Ana.

  She slowly looks him over like she’s really considering it. Her eyes stop at his axe, dirty with so much blood. “No, thank you.”

  He drops his axe and takes the shield off his back. “Being armed doesn’t necessarily mean having a weapon.”

  His shield is a wide, curved diamond. It’s painted carefully in reds, purples, and gold. I look at Eli and his strong hands, trying to imagine how someone so brutish could paint such a fine coat of arms. He created it himself, obviously—the paint a little shaky at the edges, as it was painted by hand. Deliberate brushstrokes tapering off. Lucifer would find such decorations superfluous on armor. So would Azael. I’d never guess Eli to be an artist. Everyone is full of secrets.

  Eli holds the shield out to Ana, and Kala looks at her pleadingly.

  “Please?” Kala asks.

  Tentatively, Ana reaches out, wrapping her hands around the edge of the shield. It’s heavier than she expected, and it falls a little, but she rights it quickly, turning it over to look at the supports her arm would slide through, the handles she could use to hold it in front of her.

  “A shield,” Eli says, “isn’t a weapon. It’s protection. For you, and for whoever else is with you.” He jerks his chin at Kala. “Your girlfriend’s right. It’s idiotic for the angel who’s supposed to cure stupidity to go into a war without any means of protecting herself.”

  Kala steps forward and helps Ana hold the shield with correct form. It looks good on Ana; it looks right. Eli and she are about the same height, so the shield is the right size. But Eli is much bulkier with muscle, and Ana’s thin arm clumsily slides through the supports. That can be fixed.

  “He’s right,” I add. “You don’t have to fight, but if you don’t save yourself out there, someone else will try to do it for you and it will cost them their life. If we see Azael again, he’ll be better prepared. There will be more with him. We won’t be so lucky, and we need everyone out there to be able to handle themselves.”

  Ana lowers the shield a little, considering the red stain at Eli’s side where he was stabbed, the sword that was meant to take her life missing her by mere inches when he stepped in the way. He jumped in front of her, and as a result of his surprisingly heroic action, he was the one to be wounded by the blade instead of her. If he had bled out—if Kala hadn’t patched him when she had—he would have died.

  She nods. “All right.”

  Kala’s brightness returns to her. A smile as infinite and light as the stars spreads across her face. Her cheeks flush with relief, and she leans toward Ana to kiss her. “Thank you,” she says between kisses. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Ana kisses her back once, slow and lingering.

  “I don’t like arguing with you,” Kala says. “It felt like forever.”

  I laugh a little, and Ana does too.

  “It was not even a day,” Ana says.

  “Still.” Kala shrugs, kisses her again. “Too fucking long.”

  Ana looks at Eli, reaches out, and shakes his hand. “Thank you. May we begin training this afternoon? Only if you are free.”

  “No problem. I’ve just cleared my schedule.”

  “Me too!” Kala says. “I want to watch!”

  Michael and I leave them to their excitement. We walk around the compound for a little while, both restless. He passes the vial back and forth between his hands, uncertain what to do with it. I’m not sure if there’s any way we can rejoin the piece with the rest of his soul, but the other option is pouring it out, and that would kill that part of him forever.

  For now, he just has to hold on to it. Keep it safe and out of the hands of any of his enemies. The idea of him having such a vulnerability—such a perfect opportunity for those we’re fighting to take easy control over him—makes me nervous. I can only imagine how he’s feeling.

  “Is it different, having it back?” I ask him, looking at the vial.

  He stops passing the glass between his hand and holds it up to the silvery light of the sky. “Not really,” he says. He tucks it in his pocket. “I thought I would feel different. But I don’t… It’s like I’m still broken a little. Like I’m still missing something. I feel far away, you know?”

  I don’t, not really, but I nod. “Let’s go check out the river,” I say, taking his hand and leading him back to the locked gates at the front of the compound.

  We should rinse off. The stench of battle—blood, sweat, and death—wraps around me like a heavy cloak, and I want to get rid of it. Forever. And I’d be lying if
I said that the alone time with Michael wouldn’t also be nice. Since we’ve been here, we’ve had almost no time to ourselves. The one night we shared was rudely interrupted by Azael’s compulsion. Now that I know there’s no chance of that again…

  Michael smiles knowingly. “The river?”

  The guards let us through the gates without any question. We race around to the west side of the compound, across the wide-open field, and down a small slope to the edge of the river. The ice is broken up in places, and the water below surges with movement just barely contained.

  I look over my shoulder to see if anyone’s following us before I start to undress. I don’t like the thought of bathing somewhere so visible—there could be others watching from the windows of the compound—but we appear far enough out that any detail would be blurry and indistinct, even with the enhanced sight of angels and demons. Michael turns away from me as I finish undressing and jump into the water, too desperate to get out of the cold wind.

  The water is a relief of warmth. Okay, not really—it’s still freezing cold, but it’s moderately less cold than the air above, so it feels nice. Michael jumps in after me, rocking the water with tiny waves, and I spin around.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve swum together,” he says.

  I bob in the water, the tops of my shoulders just above the surface. “You better not almost drown this time.”

  I think of the smooth stone I kept from the pond. I must have lost it somewhere along the way, because I haven’t felt its weight in my pocket for a while. One day, I’ll go back and get another one. Michael and I will return to see our first hiding place, our cave.

  “Promise,” he says. He watches me tie my hair over my head and sink a little deeper in the water, and he smiles.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” That grin of his—the dimples, the crooked lips—widens with amusement.

  “What?”

  “I just… I’m happy.” His voice is rough, ragged. I can’t tell if it’s from emotion or the scar left from Sidriel’s sword. The effects of his torture are starting to wear off—most of them, anyway. Some will stay with him forever. “Even in the middle of all of this, I’m happy. I know it’s selfish to feel that way and there are more important things we are dealing with, but I want to acknowledge the bright spots where we can find them, when we have them. And right now, I’m happy.” He swims closer, pulls me against him, and I rest my head on his bare chest. It’s the first time we’ve been this close.

  “Me too,” I whisper against his skin, raising goose bumps.

  Our world is a paradox. Killing people to stop people from killing people; following orders to break away from following orders and instead listen to our own free will. And with Michael, here as the world collapses around us, I see the life we might have. We could be happy once this mess is over. We could be at peace for the first time in our lives. All we have to do is survive.

  I circle my arms around his neck and pull him nearer to me. Beneath the water, his hands find my bare waist, his fingers pressing into my skin like he’s trying to stamp his fingerprints on me. I let him, and I lean toward him, allow our lips touch after the briefest pause a breath away.

  And just like that, we’re lost to each other, in our own infinity. A simple touch and everything around us vanishes. Nothing matters but Michael—the way he’s touching me and the way I’m touching him. All of our wishes coalescing into one, our future full of anything we can imagine. Possibility pulls us forward.

  We don’t need each other; we choose each other. He makes me better in ways I never could have imagined, and I’d like to hope I help him, too. We share secrets—things we can’t tell anyone else. Things no one else would understand like we do. Our pasts are dark with blood and poor choices, but we’re getting better. We’re making it better, together. At last, we’re trying.

  His heart slams into my chest, and I swear I can hear my own answering back.

  I let a poem unravel in my mind, one I have never read to anyone else before. One no one knows exists. ‘Taste the echo of last night’s stars…’

  Hands on my waist, my ribs, his fingers trailing up my spine. His lips find my shoulders.

  ‘In your morning exhales and sighs.’

  His movements slow down, his mouth dragging languidly across my collarbone.

  ‘And stay with me all day / And all through the night.’

  He pulls back from me.

  ‘Wait for the sun to set / Stay by my side.’

  “What poem is that?” he asks.

  I lean my head down, resting my forehead on his shoulder. “One I’ve been working on. I started writing it that night you found me on the street with the Lilim. When I was meant to show you the stars. It just made sense now.”

  He wraps his arms around me, secures me in an embrace. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s—”

  Someone clears their throat, loud and low. My head snaps up and I see Eli standing on the shore, his arms crossed and his face smug. He raises his eyebrows, smirking.

  “Sorry to interrupt.”

  I want to sink to the bottom of this river. “Are you?” I ask flatly.

  A shaggy, golden dog weaves between his legs, and Eli bends down to ruffle his fur. He digs up a stick from under the ice and snow and throws it down the shore of the river. It whirls out of sight and the dog chases after it before returning moments later.

  “Not really,” he says, throwing the stick again. “Ana wanted me to ask about the piece of his soul we stole back from Azael.”

  “What about it?” Michael asks.

  The dog bounces back to Eli’s side, drops the stick, and waits. His knotted tail wags expectantly, and his tongue lulls out of his mouth. Snow mats his fur.

  “Since when do you have a dog?” I ask, keeping below the water, very aware that my clothes are well out of reach, sitting in a pile on the shore next to where Eli is standing.

  “You don’t know everything about my life, Pen,” he says.

  “Seriously,” I say, “did you take him from someone?”

  “No, I didn’t take him from someone. This guy’s been following me for a while now.” He kneels down to the dog and messes with his ears. “Haven’t you?”

  “What does Ana need to know about my soul?” Michael asks again.

  The dog rolls over onto his back and exposes his belly for Eli to rub. The dog’s leg twitches, his tail wagging like crazy as Eli pets him.

  “She wanted to know what you planned on doing with it.”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Wait—how are you feeding this dog?”

  “I grab food from incoming supplies,” he answers.

  “Does Ana think I should do something with the soul?” Michael asks. “There’s no way to…put it back. Right?” He swims to the shore and reaches for the vial. With his elbows on the grass, he considers the small tube.

  “No,” Eli says. “Can’t go back. But it has to go somewhere safe. She has a few others—angels she oversaw in Heaven who worked with souls—who believe they may be able to protect it from compulsion, so even if it does fall into the wrong hands again, you’d be safe.”

  My chest tightens. This is just the kind of security he needs. It shouldn’t be so easy to take advantage of Michael, and if we are able to place a spell of protection on the soul that would block any more compulsion, he’d be safe. Safer.

  “And if that doesn’t work,” he says, “she wants to destroy it. That’s her first choice, but she figured you’d want to give this a chance first. You can never really recover from missing a hunk of your soul.”

  The dog jumps up and trots over to Michael, licking his face. Michael pets him behind the ears, and then the dog looks over at me as if to ask why I’m not giving him any attention.

  Before either of us gets a chance to respond to Eli, a siren sounds, crackling words over a megaphone.

  “Lockdown! Lockdown!”

  Eli lets out a swear. “Great. We’re locked out.�
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  I look around, back toward the compound and the closing gates. In seconds, everyone disappears from view, into the halls to watch the windows. If the sirens are already sounding, we don’t have enough time to get back to hide. We’ll have to find somewhere out here, in this flat, open field, to take cover. Plenty of hiding places. Fantastic.

  “Another human?” I ask hopefully. It can’t be Azael. Not yet. It’s too soon…

  “Who knows,” Eli says, standing up. The dog runs to his side. “But you two better get dressed just in case it’s not. Hate to have you jump into a fight in the nude.” He pauses, considers my bare shoulders. “Though it would be quite amusing.”

  I give him a perfect view of my middle finger before he turns away to allow us a moment to collect our dignity and pull on our clothes. He laughs all the while, his stray dog following at his heel.

  Azael

  A PART OF ME ALWAYS knew that Pen didn’t have an appetite for death. For so long, I lived in denial. I chose to ignore it because it was easier that way. It was better for her to think I was ignorant of how she looked away just before killing our victims. How she shied away from torture and always let a little bit of mercy slip through.

  If she knew I was aware… Well, I don’t know what she would have done. Tried to hide it better?

  I remember her first kill. It was in the early days of the war, after the warriors of Heaven were deemed insufficient. The soldiers were pulled from battle, reincarnated in their larger, stronger forms, and lower-level angels were thrown into combat—with little training—until they returned. That was the plan, anyway—that those angels would serve as placeholders until the warriors were back in fighting shape. But Hell’s army grew, and eventually, every angel was drafted to fight. They all became fodder for the teeth of Hell to chew up and spit back out.

  Pen didn’t know we were going to be called to fight. I suppose the angels who read those fates were high up enough in the chain of command to hide them from the others—or maybe they were killed during one of the cleansings. No need to tell the angels they’d soon be bodies used to slow the war down.