“You proposing that as a nickname?”
He smirks, that crescent moon of a smile returning. He places the halo on my head and drops his hands to my shoulders. The familiar sensation of heat and quietude washes over me, and though Jake stands before me as beautiful as ever, it’s with Terrestrial eyes that I view him.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Patience.”
My muscles begin to relax, and my eyes flutter. I stifle a yawn and force my eyes open. His face shines bright, golden like the noonday sun. His eyes are white with light, and his skin and clothing swirl with color. Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to stop myself, I lean forward and kiss him lightly. His lips are cooler now. Cooler than the flaming air I breathe. Cooler than the heat now bathing my face. But warmer still than they have any right to be.
He clears his throat and turns me toward the warehouse. “What do you see?”
I turn and examine the scene before me, but it takes a minute for everything to make sense. Color churns on every surface, reflecting light just as it had before. The warehouse is still visible, of course, but the longer I stare at it, the thinner its walls appear. Soon they are thinner than rice paper, and I see straight through them.
“Oh, Jake.”
“What is it?”
“Children. Everywhere.”
“Okay,” Jake says softly, rubbing my shoulders. “I expected that. Don’t panic. We’re here to help them. What else do you see?”
I take another lungful of flaming air and focus again on the building. There are at least a couple dozen children sitting in groups on the floor, their ages impossible to determine from this distance. Thick, black tar undulates across the floor of the warehouse, gooey and clumpy, leaking from every nook and cranny. Red flames seep through the walls, like angry fingers reaching to the sky.
All this I relay to Jake.
“The red flames—are they still?” Jake asks, his voice rushed.
“Still?” I question, looking around. “No, they’re flickering— spastic-like.”
“All the flames are moving? None of them are still?”
I scan the room again. “No, they’re all moving. Is that bad?”
“No, that’s good.” He sighs, pulling me back against him. “That’s very, very good. Can you tell if anyone’s guarding the children? Are they alone?”
My eyes pick through the warehouse slowly, carefully. It seems the building is split in two, with the largest portion to the left, where the children are. To the right of the divide is a smaller room. An office maybe? I focus hard on this area. Red flames block much of my view here, and though they are transparent, their rapid movement makes it hard to keep anything in view for more than a moment. Finally a figure, dark and hunched, becomes visible. It’s larger than the children, and absent the tar attached to each of them.
“Just the one guy?” Jake asks when I tell him about the man.
“Yes,” I answer. “I’m pretty sure there’s just one. He seems to be in an office or something.” I tilt my head, trying to focus on a plethora of chaotic light in the corner. “He’s watching television.”
“Okay.” Jake takes a huge breath. “I think we can handle this.”
“What do you mean, ‘handle this’? Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“With Marco in the car?”
I look through the windshield at Marco’s sleeping form.
“Right.”
“We wait for Canaan. We don’t do anything unless we have to. I’m not putting you or Marco in danger if we can monitor the children from here.”
“Okay. So, what now?”
“Well, first off, we need to cover that up,” Jake says, indicating the halo. “Just in case.”
He climbs inside the passenger seat and rummages through the glove compartment. He returns with a fuzzy black beanie, and I pull it on over the halo. It’s a little uncomfortable, considering the heat I’m already exposed to, but it keeps the halo strapped to my head.
And it’s worth it. We need to see what’s going on inside that building.
“Are you still tired?” Jake asks.
“No,” I answer. “It’s funny. As soon as the Celestial comes into view, the warm, cozy feeling is replaced by serious heat. I can’t imagine sleeping now.”
I climb up next to him and continue my watch. Nothing has changed, and I wonder if the children are asleep. The light and color merge together, making movement hard to distinguish from this distance. The little man is still sitting hunched in his office, the TV flashing away.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“Back at the house you said Damien might try to split us up, use us against each other. That he’d be wise to do so,” I recall, as matter-of-factly as I can manage. “What did you mean by that?”
Jake slides off the hood. “The man in the office, how much can you see of his face?”
“Nothing,” I say. “He’s facing the far corner where the TV is. I just see the back of his head.”
He grabs my hand and starts across the street, pulling me after him.
“I’d wait and show you with Marco, but that won’t work either.”
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Don’t worry,” Jake says, placing my hand between both of his. Even with the halo on my head, his hands bring a different kind of warmth, and I relax. Kinda. “I just want to show you something.”
We cross the jagged street. Potholes and chunks of broken blacktop litter the road. We step carefully over the debris and move quietly around a rancid-smelling Dumpster. Eventually we stand in front of the east-facing wall, the river running a hundred yards to our right. The slimy little man is just ten feet from us, lounging on a tattered plaid couch, his dirty boots propped on a wooden crate. A bowl of potato chips is balanced on his stomach.
From this distance I notice things I hadn’t seen from afar. The light that surrounds him is odd. It’s like his very skin absorbs it—and unlike Jake’s skin or mine, it does not reflect back into the atmosphere. This man is a shadow, his features visible, but barely. Neither his clothes nor skin swirl with color like every other surface. Instead they vibrate slightly with a flat, lifeless charcoal tint. Color and light disappear inside him, leaving a stain of darkness on the canvas of illumination.
“He’s disgusting,” I whisper.
“That bad, huh?” Jake asks. “He may not be a good example either, but we’ll try.”
“Try?”
“Look at his eyes,” Jake says. “What color are they?”
I crouch a little, trying to see under his droopy lids. When I finally achieve the correct position, I’m actually surprised to find color there. “They’re yellow—a dirty, grimy yellow. Nothing like the light surrounding him.”
“And mine,” Jake says. “What color are mine?”
“White.” I don’t need to look at Jake’s eyes again to know their shade. The minute I saw his eyes in the Celestial, I knew I’d never forget them. “Pure white.”
“My eyes aren’t always white though.”
“Of course not. In the Terrestrial—”
“Even in the Celestial,” Jake interrupts. I try to think back, to remember a time in this realm when I’ve seen a different color in his eyes. Granted, I haven’t had much time with him here, but still, nothing comes to mind. “Watch.”
Jake pulls his eyes from mine and turns them to the shadow of a man lying on the couch. I know Jake can’t see through the wall, can’t see the man lounging there, but all the same, the white light that has consumed his eyes fades until his perfect hazel eyes remain. Like the inviting fireplace I envisioned the first time I looked into them, they glow bright, reflecting every bit of light touching them. Still incredible, but very different than the white I’d seen just moments ago.
“Wow,” I whisper. “What makes them change?”
Jake grins and turns again to face me. Rays of white light slowly break through his russet-green eyes until it’s all I can see there.
“You’ve heard the ancient proverb that says the eyes are the window to the soul? It’s not untrue, but it would be more precisely accurate to say
the eyes are the window to the will
.”
“You’re going to have to explain that.”
“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s get out of here.”
We make our way back toward the car, staying in the Terrestrial shadows thrown by the city lights. Once we’re away from the warehouse, Jake explains.
“You know all those love songs, the ones where lovers claim they’d swim oceans and cross deserts to be with each other— acts that would, without a doubt, cost them their life?”
“Sure.”
“Well, in the Celestial you wouldn’t be able to lie about something like that.”
I don’t even try to hide my confusion.
“In the Celestial, when someone’s eyes are glowing white it means they’ve made a decision about the person they’re focused on.”
“What kind of decision?”
Jake pauses ever so slightly and then dives in. “Jesus said the greatest expression of love is laying down your life for someone else. The white light you see when I look at you means that either consciously or subconsciously, I’ve decided I would lay my life down for you if the occasion called for it.”
I’m flabbergasted.
“Literally?” I manage to choke out.
“Literally. It means that if necessary, I’d die in your place. I’d sacrifice myself so you could live.”
There aren’t words. At any other time such a declaration would make me feel adored, cherished, and, if I’m honest, uncomfortable. But now, knowing we face real evil, the idea of Jake sacrificing himself for me—or for anyone for that matter— is terrifying.
I close my eyes against the white fire in his and will it to disappear. Colors dance on my eyelids as I try to unknow what he’s just made plain.
“Promise not to do anything stupid, Jake,” I say. “Even if Damien tries to use me against you. Let Canaan handle it, let Damien hurt me and fix it later, but please,
please
. . .” I can’t finish the thought. It’s just too awful.
“I can’t promise that, Brielle. Can you?”
I know the answer as well as he does, and the truth of it sits like a rock in the pit of my stomach.
I’m heated through, tucked away in the Celestial, but Jake’s hands are uncharacteristically cold. I break the uncomfortable silence by suggesting we keep an eye on the children from inside the car. He agrees, and after another silent moment we join a snoring Marco in the cramped little Karmann Ghia. We don’t speak.
There aren’t words important enough to fill this silence.
I watch the light bounce off the children in the warehouse and count them as best I can. Forty-two, I think.
Forty-two.
There are forty-two children across the street from where I sit. Forty-two children who are not reading bedtime stories. Not brushing up before lights out. There are forty-two children who didn’t get a kiss good night, who didn’t practice their numbers or letters today. Across the street from where I sit are forty-two children who deserve to be protected.
I try to focus on their individual faces, but that amount of concentration makes my eyes water. Instead, I lean back against the headrest and observe the scene as though it were a tragic piece of art.
“I recognize Marco,” Jake says.
“What do you mean? From where?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I should know him, like we’ve met before, but I can’t quite place him.”
I consider his words. “It doesn’t really seem possible, does it? I mean, you grew up mostly abroad, and Marco’s never lived anywhere but the city.”
“You’re right,” he says, running a hand down his face. “It’s weird though. There’s just something . . . familiar . . .”
Out of nowhere, the calm resting on the car is broken. Jake’s eyes swivel back and forth, like they’re searching frantically for something to latch on to. Finally he turns, settling his radiant white eyes on Marco. “Oh man, Brielle.”
“What is it, Jake? Do you remember?”
“No, I just—”
But Jake doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. The sound of tires crunching over gravel startles us to attention, and we watch, transfixed, as a glossy black car pulls into the small lot next to the warehouse.
“What do we do?”
“Look at me,” Jake says. “We cannot panic. We don’t have time.”
“Okay,” I say, closing my eyes. I concentrate on the heat of the halo and the feel of Jake’s hands, refusing to acknowledge the anxiety bubbling like ragout in my stomach. “I’m all right now.”
“Good,” Jake says, turning back to the warehouse. “What do you see?”
Again I focus my eyes on the building. A little more effort causes the walls to thin away. And now I know what it looks like when forty-two children move. Similar to a time-lapsed photo, smears of light and color meld together in long, arching movements, making it difficult to keep my eyes on any single child. If I were closer perhaps I could focus, but from here . . .
“The children seem to be moving around now, like they’ve heard the car,” I tell him. “The scumbag in the office hasn’t moved. He must be asleep.”
Two men step out of the car. The driver is tall and dark with a long ponytail and severe features. The other is short and dumpy.