Angel Eyes (25 page)
I fiddle with it, trying to silence the alarm, but succeed only in opening the calendar. A reminder pops up. B
UYERS
T
ONIGHT
. E
LEVEN O’CLOCK
.
The words blink back at me, but I can’t make sense of them.
Buyers tonight? What does that mean?
My heart does a swan dive.
“Jake,” I hiss, turning the phone toward him. “Look!”
His face drains of color.
“We’re on our way, Canaan,” he says, “but listen.”
He retells Marco’s story, focusing only on the highlights. And then he tells Canaan about the phone, Horacio’s phone.
“We should go,” Jake says, tugging me toward the door.
I stop in the doorway of Canaan’s room, pulling on Jake’s hand. “Talk to me, Jake,” I plead. “Are we going to be okay?”
Jake stops, his body close. “Sometimes it’s not about us,” he says, pushing the hair away from my face. “Sometimes we aren’t the main characters in the story. Sometimes we get to be the hero.”
The words aren’t reassuring, but his peace with it unnerves me.
“Sometimes the hero doesn’t make it,” I say.
“But sometimes he does,” Jake says tenderly.
I want to crawl into the confidence he exudes. I want to wear it like a sweater, like a shield.
Behind me something falls to the ground. I hear it hit the floor with a muffled echo.
“What’s that?”
“The chest,” Jake says, releasing my face. “There’s something else.” We rush to the trunk and slide off the lid in a unified motion. At the bottom of the chest, next to the jewelry box, is a journal. A leather-bound journal. My heart jumps as I reach for it.
“You know this?” Jake says.
“I do,” I whisper. “It’s Ali’s.”
Ali wrote in this journal every night. Every single night. And every night, since the Christmas we became roommates, she tucked it beneath her mattress as if her thoughts were the most valuable thing in the world. Not once had I considered violating her privacy, and even now, as I hold the journal in my hands, it feels wrong. There’s a part of me that longs to see her handwriting, craves to hear her thoughts again. But I can’t open this book. It isn’t mine to read.
“But why would the Throne Room send you Ali’s journal?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not for me,” Jake says.
“Then why? Is the Throne Room always so cryptic?” I ask.
“The ring was pretty straightforward.”
My face flushes with heat. “Right.”
“It’s important to keep as much from Marco as possible, at least for now. I meant to tell you before, but he thinks his injuries are from the car accident. I told him his car was totaled, and he filled in the rest himself. He attributes most of last night’s memories to a nightmare. He’s been having nightmares for weeks, so he has no reason to think this one is more than imagination.”
“I understand.” And I do. I understand nightmares.
“Marco doesn’t need to know about Horacio’s phone, okay, but we’re going to have to figure out a way to get him that journal. The Throne Room meant him to have it. Of that, I’m absolutely certain.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I say, happy to have a task.
“There’s one more thing you need to know,” Jake says. “About Damien.”
He has that look of gravity about him, his eyes smoking behind thick sooty lashes, his jaw set and his gaze focused on mine.
“Okay.”
“Damien’s a fallen angel, Brielle.”
It’s terrifying to hear him say it aloud, but I’m not surprised. “I, um, put that together myself.”
He nods. “Canaan knows him, personally. He’s worse than most because he suffers.”
“Suffers?”
“He’s been assigned to earth, like Canaan. But unlike the Shield, the Fallen cannot tolerate the light of the Celestial for extended periods of time. The rush they get from flight is addictive, and while his time in the light slowly destroys him, he doesn’t have the self-control to keep himself from it. His master could recall him from the front lines with just a word and give him time to mend, but some failure on Damien’s behalf has kept him here, out of favor. Canaan thinks his eyes are damaged.”
“His master?” I’m exasperated.
“We talked about Lucifer, remember?”
“Yes, but, you know, some things are . . . figurative.”
Jake’s half smile returns. “You can’t believe in heaven and not hell, sweetheart. That’s just denial.”
Did he just call me sweetheart?
“I don’t know what to do with this information, Jake.”
“I understand,” he says, “but you need to know. You and Marco need to stay as far away from Damien as possible, and when we get to Canaan, I want you to stay with him at all times.”
“And you?”
“If there’s any way possible, my hand will never leave yours, but you’re safer with Canaan.”
“We’re both safer with Canaan.”
“No argument there. But knowing Damien, he’ll try to split us up and use us against each other. He’d be wise to do so.”
“Why?”
“He saw me heal your ankle, Elle. He knows what my hands can do.”
The thought makes me light-headed.
How long has Damien been here? Been watching us?
“He’ll target me if he can, but he’ll use you—I have no doubt he’ll use you to get to me. You’ve seen what he can do. Look at Marco’s injuries, Elle. It could have been a lot worse. Stay with Canaan. Your capture could be fatal for both of us.”
I’m confused and terrified, but Jake just said
us
. And something about the word, about the idea of it, makes me brave. I reach my fingers out and brush them along his cheek. He hasn’t shaved today, and I wonder if his face would be uncomfortable against my skin.
“What?” Jake says, his eyes searching my face.
I shake my head, but I don’t drop my hand. “You haven’t shaved.”
Jake licks his lips. “Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know,” I say, leaning into him.
Slowly, carefully, I press my lips against his. My eyes close, and I turn my face right and left, feeling the stubble brush against my chin. The smell of his skin is intoxicating, and like a drug-seeking addict, I press closer. And then his mouth is moving against mine and I’m lost. Jake twists his hands into my hair and pulls me tight against him.
Us
, I think.
When at last our lips separate, I stare into Jake’s breathless face and find a new kind of courage.
It’s a courage to fight. And an audacity to believe in a God who may or may not protect us. All this talk about choosing to believe—but if I choose to ignore this world of angels and demons, my disbelief could literally kill me. Kill us. If I don’t acknowledge Damien’s existence, both Jake and I are as good as dead. We have to fight. Evil leaves us no choice.
“So?” he says, his breath coming fast.
I blush again, and again. “The stubble’s not a problem.”
I run home and change. I toss my mud-splattered, bloodstained clothes in the trash can out back. No time for a shower, but I run a brush through my hair and gargle some mouthwash before dashing out the door. I’m not particularly clean, but I feel human again in my favorite skinny jeans and a black hoodie. The halo is tucked under my sleeve.
When I skid to a stop in Jake’s driveway, he’s cramming Marco into the Karmann Ghia, ignoring his questions and promising some sort of explanation once we’re on the road. I still have no idea where we’re going, but I trust Jake, and he trusts God. Like standing on the shoulders of someone stronger, I’ll depend on his faith to hold me up. Until I can be sure of my own, his will have to suffice.
“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Marco moans as we pull onto the road. “Who was on the phone?”
I look to Jake, as curious as Marco.
“The phone call was from Canaan, my guardian,” Jake answers.
“And . . .”
“He’s familiar with Damien.”
“He’s familiar with him?”
“Yes. And Canaan’s been doing some research. He has someone following Damien as we speak.”
“Following him? Does he have any idea how dangerous that man is?” Marco asks, trying to sit up, groping painfully at his ribs and gasping for air.
“He knows.”
“That still doesn’t tell me where we’re going.” Marco settles carefully back onto the pillow I’d crammed behind him.
“These warehouses of yours—”
“Not mine. Not anymore.”
“Canaan’s been checking them out.”
“Have there been . . . were there . . .”
“He hasn’t found anything yet, Marco. But there were signs. Evidence that maltreatment had taken place. He . . . he’s under the impression that something is happening tonight. Something that needs to be stopped. He’s got a handful of warehouses still to check, and there’s one just a few hours away, in Portland. He said he’ll meet us there.”
“In the industrial district?” Marco asks, his voice dripping with anxiety. I don’t imagine he wants to return there.
“No,” Jake answers. He glances at his hand and reads Marco an address. “Do you know it?”
“I’ve never been there, but it belonged to my dad. It’s Horacio’s now. It’s near the river, under the Maelstrom Bridge.”
“You should rest,” Jake tells him. “We have a long drive.”
Jake turns left and takes the road through town. We’re past both Jelly’s and the high school before the silence is broken.
“Why are we going to the warehouse, Jake?” Marco asks.
“You have somewhere more important to be?” Jake answers, glancing at Marco in his broken rearview mirror.
Marco huffs.
“Because I trust Canaan,” Jake says. “And he’s asked me to check it out. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now, sleep. You’re no good to us exhausted.”
Marco rambles on, detailing the horrific things he’d like to do to Horacio, but within minutes he’s snoring in the backseat. We drive in silence, my mind working feverishly, struggling to make pieces of the story fit.
“Do you mind?” Jake pulls his hand from mine and reaches into the backseat. He places it ever so lightly on Marco’s rib cage. Marco moans but does not wake. “If I had known his ribs were broken, I’d have taken care of that while he slept this morning. Firsthand experience has taught me how painful that can be.”
My phone beeps, and I pull it from my hoodie. It’s a missed call from Dad. I return it, but he doesn’t answer, so I leave a message. I tell him about Marco escaping and then quickly tell him what Deputy Wimby said about their catching him. I feel a little guilty, but it’s not a lie, right? Not a big one anyway. The deputy did say they’d apprehended him.
I tell him I’m fine and ask him to pick up more Cocoa Pebbles before he comes home tomorrow. I try to sound chipper and snarky, but I’m not sure I pulled it off. I hang up and send Kaylee a text. This has to be an acceptable excuse for cancelling our movie plans.
That done, I stare past the spiderweb cracks spreading from one corner of Jake’s windshield to the other, and I wonder.
“What do you think we’ll find there, Jake? At the warehouse?”
“God willing,” he says, slamming his foot down hard on the accelerator, “we’ll find life.”
K
nock knock
.
Someone’s been knocking at his motel room door for a good thirty seconds now, but Damien doesn’t answer. Instead, he sends the knife in his hand spinning toward the wall.
Knock . . . Knock . . . Knock. Knock
.
Damien cracks each knuckle intentionally, listening for the snap. He focuses on the sound, attempting to dispel the anxiety consuming him, and then crosses to the wall to reclaim his knife. His self-control is slipping, and he knows it.
It took nearly every tool in his arsenal to wake his men—his brainless, hungover men. In the end, Damien inhaled a mouthful of Celestial air and let it rot in his diseased mouth. When it settled grainy and toxic against his teeth, he spewed it into the atmosphere, where it spiraled invisibly to the nostrils of those slumbering. And then he transferred to the Terrestrial, towering over them as they woke, slobbering, mucous running down their faces.