Angel Eyes (19 page)

He places a blazing hot hand on mine. He offers comfort. Friendship. My lungs beat against my ribs at the gesture, and I want to twist my fingers into his.

Instead, I pull my hand away. I want to forget all he’s said and go back to the comfortable ignorance of before. I don’t want to know these things. I don’t want to know any of it.

“Why tell me?” I ask, frustrated at the knowledge he’s given me. The softness of his face hardens. It turns into something I don’t recognize. His eyes bore into mine, their deep brown flame even brighter under the filtered light of the willow tree. He says nothing. His silence angers me.

Another ten seconds pass, and I ask again.

“Why tell me, Jake?”

It’s another seventeen erratic heartbeats before his face shifts into resolution and he speaks. “I couldn’t keep it from you, Elle. When I realized that, I knew I’d have to tell you.”

“After my ankle?”

“No,” he says. “Before.”

“Before what?”

“We decided to tell you the Saturday before you returned to Stratus.”

“What? That’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” he whispers.

“But that was my last day in the city, and you—you were . . .”

“Still in Chicago,” he says, watching my expression. “I know.”

I roll back into a sitting position, and we stare at one another. There are just so many questions now. Which one do I ask first?

It’s like I’ve been given the top of the puzzle box—a picture of Jake’s world—only to find out it isn’t a standard jigsaw puzzle. It’s a three-dimensional globe, the kind I never could figure out. Here in front of me is a world so foreign, so alien I may never piece it all together. And even if I do, is it a world I can exist in? A world I’d
want
to exist in? A world with angels who let girls die? Who watch young mothers succumb to cancer?

I stand. “I don’t want to know any more.”

He looks up at me, his face expressionless, and blinks once, twice, three times.

“It’s too much, Jake.”

He nods, almost to himself.

“I understand,” he says.

Is he relieved?

My heart breaks at his easy acceptance, and I turn my face to the sky, willing the tears to stay put. And then he’s on his feet, stepping closer.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Really.”

Overhead, the naked limbs of the willow moan and creak. It’s a sad sound. Painful, even.

Like knowing.

Like walking away.

Where are the easy choices? The ones that don’t hurt?

“It’s just this, all of it: Marco and Ali, and
angels
.” I can’t even make myself say
God
again. “It’s too much, you know?”

“It’s a lot,” he says. “I know that. I won’t tell you anything you don’t want to know. Most people are never aware their Shield is near. Canaan can still do his job, Elle. You don’t have to do anything.”

Why couldn’t the stupid ring have been magic? Magic is easy.

“I’m a job?”

He cocks his head. “Does that offend you?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. Am I?”

He laughs lightly. “We think so.”

“Because of Marco?”

“We honestly don’t know.”

I turn away, toward the stone angel. She continues to weep. I wish she’d lift her head and tell me what to do. But even I can’t ignore the irony of that thought. Apparently, there’s a real angel available to answer questions.

“You said you’d tell me anything I want to know.”

“Anything,” he says.

“Anything’s not enough anymore, Jake. I want to know everything.”

Enough with puzzles. This one piece at a time thing is ridiculous. I need the whole picture, and right now the world doesn’t seem too much to ask for.

“You just said you didn’t want to know any more, Elle.”

“That was before you called me a job.”

He stares at me a moment longer and then lifts the sleeve of his shirt. The halo is there, and I watch as he removes it.

“This is yours. Regardless of what you decide, I want you to have it.”

Even here, in the dying light of day, the halo grabs hold of what light it can and sends it back brighter, more golden than seems possible. “But it’s Canaan’s. He—”

“Would do the same thing.” Jake lifts my hand and sets the halo into it. He’s barely pulled his own hand away when it moves against my palm. We watch as the cuff begins to remold and unravel, and once again it’s the crown-like ring. It spins down my arm and settles in the crook of my elbow.

Strange.

“Put it on your head,” Jake says. A tremor runs through his voice, but there’s a challenge there, I think.

Do I dare?

I think I do.

My eyes on Jake, I take the halo in both hands and place it on my head. The effect is instantaneous. Warmth trails down my body, just like the nights with the halo tucked under my pillow. My toes nestle into my shearling boots, my shoulders sag, and my eyes flutter.

“Eyes open, sleepyhead.”

I force my eyes open and shudder. The nearest limb of the willow tree, the one hanging just inches from my face, is now orange. At first I think it’s a trick of the light—that the evening clouds have parted for a glimpse of the yellow sun—but then, it isn’t just the tree limb.

Before me, Jake’s face, his chest, his shoulders and arms—in front of my very eyes, Jake’s appearance begins to change. It’s like his flesh—his clothing even—is glowing. Oranges and yellows, violets and reds. Every surface hue rolling and spinning. It’s a dance. A dance of color and light.

And his eyes.

His hazel eyes are gone, replaced by white flames—twin blazes stirring within glassy orbs. Both frightening and beautiful.

And then the fence and the grass are giving off rays of light as well. The stars, too, are brilliant, shining like tiny suns against the expanse of an ever-lightening sky. The darkness of evening begins to fade, and soon the sky is gold and red.

The temperature increases, and my lungs begin to burn. I reach my hands out, steadying myself against Jake’s chest. But the movement jostles the halo, and it tumbles from my brow. A deafening bang assaults my ears, and the light vanishes, leaving me standing once again in a twilit cemetery. My eyes blink again and again.

Jake takes my face in his hands. “You okay?”

I scoop the halo from the ground and take one, two deep breaths before placing it back on my head. Instantly the fatigue is back, and I have to strain to keep my eyes open. But the light and heat return. I raise a hand before my eyes and watch as gradually my palm begins to swirl with color. Light flickers from my fingertips. Beyond Jake, the trunk of the willow churns— a kaleidoscope of earth tones. Raindrop prisms fall from its branches as the great tree drips away the recent downpour.

The whirling colors are in a constant state of movement, and I can’t keep my eyes open for longer than a few seconds before they start to water. I close them, and the vibrant hues continue to swirl on my eyelids, absent any shape, just like my dreams.

I open them, and there’s Jake. And his white eyes.

“What is all this?” I breathe.

“It’s the Celestial,” he says, his voice thick. “A realm seen only by angels and their kind.”

“Why can
I
see it?”

“Why can I heal?”

In the corner of his eye, a drop of color forms. A crystal gem magnifying the luminescence of his face. It trails down his cheek, and he leans close, his breath sweet on my lips. He slides a warm hand across my cheek, then another. With my chin sitting lightly in his hands, he pulls me toward him, and with the weeping angel as our only witness, Jake kisses me.

He really kisses me.

My skin hasn’t adjusted to the increase in temperature, and his mouth is hot against mine. I gasp and he pulls back, his white eyes questioning. Stepping forward, I place both hands on his chest. The color spins around my fingers like the liquid crystals of a mood ring, and I kiss him back. My lips are chapped, but his are soft against them, like balm, like healing balm.

Again the halo tumbles to the ground, and the noise causes me to jerk away.

Jake stoops to the ground, and before he’s fully upright, the halo has taken the shape of a cuff. He slides it onto my wrist.

And now my hands are back in his and the halo’s doing its thing and I can’t imagine living the rest of my life not understanding what I’ve seen.

The light and the color. The heat and the peace.

But knowing frightens me, and I force myself to step back. I push my hands into my pockets, hating the words I’m about to say.

“I need some time.” The simple sentence scratches at my throat in protest, but I can’t think with him here.

“You know where to find me,” he says. There’s something in his tone, hidden in the creases of his brow.

Apprehension?

He turns away, stepping onto the cobbled path. Twenty-three steps later he disappears behind the mausoleum. I sink back to the ground and lay back, my hair splayed against the thin grass. The ground is cold and moist, but with my haloed hand lying across my stomach, I feel it little. I stare at the stone arms above, at the chiseled curls, the wings arched high. This is the closest I’ve been to my mother in a very long time.

What would she say about Jake? About the halo?

What would she do?

I want to stay here, close to my mother, close to clarity, but I force myself to think about tangible things. Things that I know to be real.

First and foremost, and as much as I wish it wasn’t true, Marco’s out. I need to check in with the sheriff’s department, and it’d probably be good to fill my dad in on the whole thing.

But my phone is at Jake’s.

I throw my arms over my face and close my eyes.

My resolve doesn’t stand a chance if I head back now.

19
Damien

D
amien storms from the room. He transfers to the Celestial and erupts in a mass of anger.

He should have the boy by now.

There is little time to waste.

The release of flight is exhilarating, but he allows himself only moments of revelry. A Shield is nearby, and he can’t afford to be detected. He scans the motel below. Three of his men sleep off a late night. He’d wake them, but until he has an assignment for them, their idiocy is best masked by nightmares.

Damien turns toward Stratus and pulls up just outside its border. Canaan and the boy left days ago. Damien waited, refusing to be baited into a one-on-one confrontation. He assumed they’d return. But it’s been longer than he expected.

He scans the sky, the ground. Stratus has no reigning force of darkness to consult, and no power of light has been instated either. Very little territory has been taken on either side. Unless Damien succeeds, Canaan and the boy will likely change that.

Without an ally here, Damien is hesitant to enter. In Canaan’s absence that little speck of an angel has been patrolling the border, and while she’s small, she’s fast. His sensitivity to the light makes him a weaker fighter—a tentative fighter. And after the debacle in Dothan, after his easy detection the other night, the idea of facing a Shield alone does not appeal to him.

But tomorrow night, when the buyers arrive, they’ll be flanked by their demonic escorts, Javan and Maka, the Twins. Fallen angels who’ve extended their influence through the corruption of their charges.

And while the trade is something he’s focused on for decades, tomorrow it has an added benefit. It will serve as a way to gather his kin. And surrounded by his brothers, he won’t hesitate to engage a Shield. Even one as prominent as Canaan.

Once they see!

Just a glimpse of the boy’s healing ability, and his brothers will agree that Canaan’s charge must be corrupted. They could kill him, sure, but what good would that do? His physical death would serve darkness little. But if they can twist that healing gift of his—pervert it and use it for evil—they’ll have something exceptional, uncommon.

Evil.

Damien tumbles in midair—savoring the rush of the fall— and presses a little deeper into Stratus. He flies above the empty highway, following it into town. His eyes squint and blink as he tries to process all he sees.

And there.

What is that?

A strange light. Familiar but foreign. Even for the Celestial it’s bright. It’s the exact shade of gold inlaid in the Creator’s throne. His curiosity grows, getting the better of him, and he flies lower. Closer.

And then he laughs. Howling into the expansive Celestial sky.

There below him lies the girl. Brielle. Unattended. Like a juicy apple hanging on the tree. Amidst a collection of crumbling tombstones she lies, her wrist a blur of gold. He twists his head, angry like a bird of prey.

Where has he seen that ornament before?