Ephemeral (The Countenance) (12 page)

“Are you one these… Nephilim?”

He gives a slight nod.

“Is that what Ephemeral is? Some kind of school for angels?”

“No.” He gives a dull laugh.

“Then why are the books in the library?”

He holds up a gold key attached to a plastic coil.

“I have celebrity access.” His dark brows arch. “I’m not letting you in on any deep dark secret. You already know these things. I just want to help you fill in the blanks. I want to see your memory come back.” There’s something painful about the way he expresses it. Like I’ve contracted a deadly disease, and the only cure is to go along with everything he says, swallow down every morsel—believe it if I can.

“So fill me in.” I sag into my seat. “Who knows, maybe it’ll all come flooding back.”

“You’re a Count, like me,” Wes gleams. He sparks to life on a level I’ve never witnessed before—as if being a Count were his only goal, and now that he’s achieved it, there was nothing to do but bask in the glory.

“There are five factions of angels that descended from the Nephilim, Countenance being the most powerful then the Celestra, who believe they’re the most powerful, but, in truth, they’ve dwindled to the point of insignificance. Rumor has it they’ll be eradicated by prom.” He pauses to offer a sober smile. Wes looks cuttingly handsome while threatening the Celestra people. It intrigues me and scares the hell out of me at the same time. “Noster, who are not at all friendly, and if they try to befriend you, run the other way. They have plans that generally don’t include our kind. Deorsum—often mistaken for witches. Levatio, they will bore you to tears with their sleight of hand magic tricks. The end.”

“The end?” Truthfully, I’m fascinated. Wes knows full well he’s whet my appetite, and now he’s going to make me dig for it. “Why are these Deoreo’s often mistaken for witches? Is it the pointy hats? Is that what gives them away?” I mean to smile into the sarcasm, but my face fills with heat.

Wes lingers into me with an intensity that ignites my stomach into a hot ball of fire. “
Deorsum
—no pointy hats, I promise. They’ve mastered the art of making people do their bidding. There aren’t enough of them to worry about, and those who do run around are too lazy to make a real difference with their powers. They’ll make you fetch their breakfast but would never dream of forcing a farmer to hand over his fields.”

“Okay, so what makes us special?”

“The Countenance, in general, has significant pride in their organization. We want to make the world a better place. We serve the people. That’s what angels do—we serve.”

“So”— I shake my head—“how do I serve?” This is all starting to sound like a bad horror movie and soon I’ll be lured to a cabin in the woods—then again, that’s how this whole nightmare started.

Wes rubs his thumb up against my hand. I’d listen to anything Wes wanted to tell me—I’d eat his lies thick as tire tread, as long as he never lets go.

“Just be you. Get good grades, keep out of trouble—out of the forest.” He lingers on those last few words as though they were the focused intent of the entire conversation.

“What the hell was that in the forest, Wes?”

It takes a good few seconds before he opens one of the books and fumbles through the pages.

“Here,” he says, pointing to a black and white sketch on old parchment. “Fems.” His thumb lands next to a picture of a wild-looking beast with three tongues, standing erect on cloven hooves. “They side with Countenance. They’re a higher order of angelic beings that rule the spiritual world around us, called the ethereal plane. Sectors side with Celestra.” His finger slides over to a handsome man with wings twice the size of his body.

I pull the book toward me and study both creatures in detail.

Crap. I don’t know whether to be embarrassed for Wes or frightened for him. Man-birds? He wants me to buy into angels lock, stock, and barrel? And accept the fact that I’m one, too?

To fundamentally believe in such mythological creatures, I’d have to take a step back from all of the trappings of reality and one large leap the hell away from my sanity. Although, I’ve already done that, or should I say the living dead and the Fems have done it for me.  

The Fem in the book is depicted as a monster covered in scales, his eyes spread too far on either side of its misshapen head. There is a viciousness about him that makes me want to avoid rather than side with him. But the Sector is comely. I want to know all about him, lie in the grass and peel the skin off grapes while feeding him from my teeth.

“We get monsters, and they get angels that look like underwear models?”

Wes pulls his lips into a line at my analogy. “Our
monsters
have the ability to morph into whatever creature they want.” He drags his finger back across the page. “Sectors don’t generally do that.”

“So why not choose kittens, penguins, or unicorns? Why graveyard refugees and mutant creatures?”

“Graveyard refugees?” Wes narrows in on me as though I had injected something absurd into this oh-so-lucid conversation.

“Yeah, it was like a zombie. I saw one the first day I got here.”

“And you escaped,” he whispers in disbelief.

I decide to leave out the detail of being rescued. I did end up taking off so I guess, yeah, I escaped. I don’t know why, but I don’t feel like spilling all the info about my incident in the woods, specifically the boy who saved my life by way of gouging out the demon’s brain.

“It’s not a zombie. And what you saw was no Fem. It’s called a Spectator. It’s a dangerous creature, Laken. Promise me you’ll never go into those woods alone.”

“Why the hell hasn’t the fire department, the swat team or some government sci-fi agency quarantined the area? You really think it’s a good idea to run a boarding school next to the killing fields?” Really, compulsory isolation seems like a no brainer in this situation—a good old-fashion electric fence couldn’t hurt either.

He gives a tired blink.

“The forest is usually harmless. Recently we’ve had evidence of wolves on the premises, and they’ve put a sound barrier around the area to keep them from wandering onto campus. There haven’t been any sightings by students. The school has invested heavily to ensure
nothing
crosses those boundaries.”

I’m not certain how we migrated from zombies—Spectators—to wolves who are being kept at bay by essentially Beethoven or whatever the hell it is they’re playing over their undetectable “sound system.”

I frown openly at him. The word
nothing
seems to be a replacement for the creatures Wes is hesitant to speak of, and his reticence sends me into a tailspin.

“Bullshit,” I whisper. “I guarantee Casper has already morphed into the friendly ghost she has long since been destined to become. I promise, if she does come home tonight, it’s by some miracle of God and quite possibly a resurrection because I followed her in—I heard her scream. The school will be hit with a serious lawsuit if her parents find out the only barrier protecting her from an evil pack of
wolves
was some lousy stereo. You used to hunt, Wes. Are you even listening to anything you’re saying?”

One thing’s for sure, I make a lousy disciple to Wesley indoctrination—for starters, I don’t believe a damn word.

Wes pulls back and relaxes into his chair. There’s a marked, pissed off, expression that’s counterintuitive to the smile he wants me to buy.

“Let’s keep your ideas to ourselves,” his voice strains just pushing the words out. It’s taking everything in him not to shake me into compliance, I can tell. “Laken, listen.” He drills into me with an unwavering stare. “You would be remiss to share any of this with your uncle.” His eyes narrow. “You’ll be back in the hospital loaded up on a mountain of drugs before you have a chance to warm a seat in this place. Odds are you won’t remember how to tie your shoes.” He pulls me in slow and deep, so close I could kiss him. A powerful surge of adrenaline pulsates through me. Wes with all his dark majesty burns a hole through me with those laser-green eyes. “I’ll help you through this, Laken.” His jaw stiffens. “Just don’t tell a soul.”

11

School Spirit

On the way to the Ridley Hall, Wes takes me past Asterion, a fifteen-foot tall bronze statue, situated dead center of the quad with long horns that curl toward heaven.

The gleaming beast stands erect with an insolent pride as he gives a silent homage to darkness. He stains the swirling fog with his haunting impression. Something about his brazen arrogance lets you know he has an agenda, that he can crawl into your nightmares and show you who’s real and who’s the statue.

“Freaky,” I say, bringing my hand to my neck. If Lacey ever saw this monstrosity, she’d break out in a fit of hysterics. His chest is buff as a body builder. His head looks like some horrific Halloween mask. I scroll my eyes across the monolithic beast and note the rather well-endowed bulge between his heavily molded thighs. “Oh!” I give a hard blink in disgust. “That is so obscene.”

“What’s obscene?” Wes challenges me to itemize in detail the offense in question.

“His package, Wes,” I snip, withholding a laugh. “In the event you’re not aware, school mascots were never intended to strut their stuff.”

“What?” He balks through a laugh. “If mascots aren’t allowed to strut their stuff, what kind of world are we living in?”

There’s the million-dollar question.

I pull Wes in by the lapel of his jacket and bite down on my lip seductively. “I’m guessing his proud display of reproductive organs is a part of some evil scheme thought up by the athletics department.”

He twists a smile, his dark brows dive in low, completely amused.

“And why would that be, Laken?” His eyes bear into mine, hungry and wanting.

“Psychological warfare.”

Wes leans in. His breath rakes over me, hot as a fire. “Is that why the opposing team’s cheerleaders are always switching sides?” He dips in low and stops shy of a kiss. Wes has become a master at the art of seduction, and this frightens me.

“Nope.” I run my finger underneath his chin. “I have a feeling it’s
you
that sends them running.” I don’t mean for my voice to wobble when I say it or my breathing to become erratic like I just ran a marathon.    

The laughter drains from his eyes. The moment grows altogether serious, as though I had just given an official proclamation of our love right here in the quad, as if he had, too.

“Come on.” He takes a step back. “Get over there. I’ll get a picture of you next to the weapon of mass destruction.” He fiddles with my phone and takes a picture of me pointing at the Minotaur’s balls.

“You know what I’d really like?” I take the phone back and cue up the camera again.

“Sorry, Laken, those parts are welded to his body.”

“Very not funny.” I sock him in the arm. “I was thinking something a little less offensive like replacing the wallpaper on my phone with you and me.” I place my head next to his and snap a picture.

The wind picks up—swirls around the two of us as if it were trying to separate us, to whisk us away in opposite directions and bury our love under a pile of brittle leaves like it did once before.

We make our way toward a tall gothic building with an expansive wingspan and windows that stretch to the sky.

“So this is Ridley,” I whisper as an entire stream of students drain from the double doors.

“We missed orientation.” His cologne embraces me with the soft scent of musk. Old Wes never wore cologne. He held the scent of clean linens, the fresh sunshine that dried his shirts.

“It’s okay. I think I’ve had enough information for one day.” I doubt they were going to fill us in on all things angel anyway. A thought comes to me. “Hey,” I whisper, pulling him to an abrupt stop, “if those demonic monsters are supposed to be my ally, why would they attack me in the forest?”

His eyes widen with surprise as if I had just caught him in a lie. He turns his head toward the rolling lawn, thick as an ebony tapestry, and takes a deep breath.

“I don’t know.” He winces when he says it—alerts me to the fact he’s not telling the truth. I always knew when Wes was trying to fool me—although this is a far greater offense than eating the last piece of sweet potato pie and trying to pass it off on Fletch.

“You trying out for cheer?” He swallows hard, hoping I’ll take the bait and change the subject.

“Why would I try out for cheer? I make fun of cheerleaders, that’s my sport.”

“You love cheer.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through picture after picture of me in a blue cheer uniform that reads Rycroft. He pauses at the one of me in bright blue underpants as I indulge in a high kick. “That was an accident.” He gives a sly smile before replacing the phone in his pocket.

“You used to watch me cheer?” A part of me wants to bask in the glory of Wes and his flirtation, lose myself in the comma-like dimples that press in every time he smiles, but I’m still jarred by the fact he’s is trying to cover his indiscretion.