A Dance with Darkness: An Angelfire Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) (8 page)

“Bastian,
no
,” I moaned, feeling my heart break. “If you destroy her, then the demonic will devour the human race. Why would you wish that?”

“She
kills
us!”

“She’s only protecting human souls!” I cried. “When the demonic take souls, they’re sent to Hell—even the righteous and pure! That is a terrible, horrible thing that can’t be allowed to happen. Don’t you understand that? You can’t—”

The back of his hand struck my jaw so hard and so suddenly that I hit the floor, cracking my knees. I cried out in agony, but clamped my mouth shut in fear when he knelt over me and his hot breath blasted my ear.

“Do not tell me what I can and can’t do,” he snarled.

“Bastian,” I whimpered, and looked up to meet his eyes.

Life seemed to come back to him all at once. He straightened as I pushed myself off the ground and he blinked several times before stepping away from me. “I’m—I’m sorry,” he stammered, finally snapping awake. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I cupped my jaw as it throbbed. “It doesn’t matter if you meant to or not. You still hurt me.”

His expression began to slowly draw cold and vacant, as if all the feeling in him had been spent and there was nothing left. No reaction, no emotion. Nothing. “I’m sorry,” he said flatly. Then he turned his back to me, crossed the room, and was gone.

Bastian did not trust me, and I no longer trusted him. He wanted to use Antares’s grimoire to destroy the Preliator, and I could never let him do that. He was right that I killed the demonic and could not condemn him for killing the angelic. And I could not sit idly by while he killed our last hope to protect humanity. I did not want him to be my enemy, but if he made himself so, then I had no choice.

I grabbed the satchel containing the grimoire and clutched it to my chest. I fled, spreading my wings in the night air, and left the manor as quickly as I could.

I burst through Nathaniel’s door and let out a sigh of relief when I found him home. He grinned at me, happy to see me, but his face quickly changed when he realized that something was wrong. I threw the satchel on the wooden table.

“You have to destroy this,” I said, my voice and entire body shaking.

He gave me a puzzled look and dragged the satchel toward him. He flipped open the leather flap and pulled out the ancient book. He examined the worn cover, running his fingers over the pressed seal written in Enochian, the language of the divine. “What is this?”

“The grimoire of Antares.”

He dropped the book and it hit the table with a heavy thud. “Where in Hell did you find this?”

“It’s the reason London has been crawling with the demonic for months,” I said, but my voice was quickly breaking into a pathetic, devastated thing as tears burned my eyes. “They’ve been after this. It had a guardian and a cadre of angelic protecting it, but they’re gone now. Their blood is on my hands.”

A vice suddenly tightened around my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. Gasping, I slumped into a chair and brought my knees to my chin. Nathaniel pulled up a chair beside me as I buried my face into my palms. His hand settled on my back and he rubbed very gently and soothingly. He offered me food, but I declined. I was so nauseated that just the thought of eating made my stomach turn.

“Maddie,” he murmured. “Please talk to me.”

I wanted to. I wanted to tell him everything, but I couldn’t. Perhaps it was because I was ashamed of myself for falling for Bastian. He and I were over. I could not forgive him for what he did and why he did it. This was bigger than some angelic and demonic spat in London. Destroying the Preliator was dragging Heaven into the equation. I had loved him so much, so hard that my heart had not simply been broken. It had been shattered so completely and I hadn’t even realized it’d been made of glass. I’d spent my entire life, a hundred years, erecting an iron cage around my heart and I hadn’t bothered to strengthen the heart I’d tried to protect. Now I was entirely unraveled from within.

I became aware that I’d begun to weep only when Nathaniel drew me into his arms, cradling me in his lap like a child. He murmured into my hair, touched my cheek, and held me close. He let me weep until I was empty and there was nothing left inside of me. I looked into his face, into his beautiful copper eyes, which were so vivid they reminded me of a vermillion sunset. Now that I was really looking, I noticed the flecks of violet in those metallic depths. He gazed back at me, his brow furrowed with concern and fear, and I felt something begin to fill the hollowness inside of me. The backs of his fingers brushed the spot on my jaw that Bastian had struck. While the bruises had healed, I was still tender there and in my heart. Nathaniel’s touch seemed to erase the ache. He pushed my hair away from my face and leaned over me as his arm around my waist tugged me closer to him. I didn’t shy away when he kissed me. It was a soft brush of his lips on mine, but the kiss grew quickly into something more desperate and passionate as his fingers threaded through my hair and I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down to me. I’d known him for my entire life, but he felt so new and different, yet so familiar. Like home. He felt like home. He’d always been there for me—even when I didn’t return for weeks or months. He always left the door open for me and welcomed me back with a smile. I wondered for how long he’d been in love with me and suddenly I was sick with shame. Even if I wanted to open my heart to him, I couldn’t. It was unfair of me to use him to take my mind off the things I wanted so desperately to run away from.

I broke the kiss and recaptured his gaze. I smoothed my hand over his cheek and allowed myself one moment to enjoy the feeling of being loved again before I closed the iron cage around my heart for the last time. Tonight I felt as if I’d never be able to love again after being destroyed so utterly by it. One day, perhaps. But right now, no.

I untangled myself from Nathaniel’s arms and climbed out of his lap. I walked unsteadily over to the book, my limbs feeling as spongy as cake, and I put a hand on the supple leather cover. I looked back at him and he appeared as defeated as I felt. He’d just opened himself completely to me, revealed his feelings in the most vulnerable way, and I couldn’t … I just couldn’t.

“We have to destroy the book before it gets back into the wrong hands,” I said at last.

“I can’t destroy the book,” he replied. “What if we need it?”

“Then we have to hide it.”

“I’ll write a copy to keep for myself,” he said. “If the relic guardian was killed recently, then the archangel Michael will need a replacement. He’s the one in charge of choosing the guardians. That decision is not for me to make.”

“You will keep your copy safe?” I asked him.

“You know I will.”

I nodded, sure of my faith in him. I bit my lip and tried to push away the memory of his lips on mine, but it was fresh and merciless and I couldn’t let it consume my thoughts. As much as I wanted to return to his arms and drown in that love again, I couldn’t do that to him. Not any time in the near future. There was too much I needed to accomplish for me to get lost in love again. Love was where I’d made so many dire mistakes.

ALL NIGHT, I FELT SO ILL THAT MY HEAD ACHED, and when I woke I was sick again. Nathaniel was gone and I didn’t know where. I’d heard him leave just before dawn, probably to handle the responsibility of the grimoire and to gather supplies to make his copy, but deep down inside I feared it was because I’d hurt him. He had kissed me and I’d kissed him back in my moment of weakness, but I hadn’t reciprocated the feelings that had come with his kiss. In the end, remaining a platonic relationship was for the better. For both of us.

The midday sun was high, though the autumn air was ice cold. My nausea hadn’t subsided. Reapers did not just fall ill and a new fear hovered in the back of my mind, pressing against my iron will not even to consider it. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t allow it.

I didn’t know any angelic doctors, but I knew of a nurse named Constance who had saved a battlemate of mine from a wound he may not have survived on his own. I entered the Grim outside and leapt into the air to head for London, where I recalled the nurse lived. At this time of day I was certain I wasn’t likely to be followed by any demonic, but the Grim safely concealed my existence from humans.

Constance operated out of a small hovel in one of the poorer sides of London. The smell of garbage and human waste masked the scent of angelic reaper blood so she could work without attracting the demonic. I knocked and a reaper opened the door to greet me with her pearly pink gaze and blond hair.

“Hello,” she said pleasantly as she let me squeeze past. “What brings you here in the middle of the afternoon?”

I laid a hand over my abdomen. “I haven’t been feeling well—awful, actually. Bad enough that I’ve come knocking on your door. You’re very highly recommended among our kind. Would you mind taking a look?”

“Of course, child,” she said. Even though I was a hundred years old, I could sense Constance was at least another six hundred years older and to her, I was a child. She directed me to a straw-packed bed where I lay down while she examined me. “What’s your name?”

“I’m …” I thought quickly. If I was pregnant, then I would find myself in an extremely dangerous situation. I remembered the story Bastian told me about his mother and father. I couldn’t let the news travel through the angelic population. Questions would be asked. Solutions would be sought. “Katherine. My name is Katherine.”

She eyed me curiously. “Nausea, you say? That’s it?”

“I ache sometimes,” I said. “My sickness has only begun in the last week or so, but it won’t subside.”

“Well, there certainly is an explanation for your symptoms,” the nurse said. Her tone was far from grave as I’d anticipated.

“Which is?” I pressed her impatiently.

Constance’s smile was wide and beaming. “You’re going to be a mother.”

I felt as though my heart had stilled and my lungs had lost their need for air. I felt suspended a mile above the earth and while the nurse continued to speak, I could not hear her. I drew a long, quivering breath and when I exhaled, all I could say was, “Oh.”

“You understand how rare this is, don’t you?” she asked cheerfully. “Who is the lucky father?”

A demonic lord
. My voice was flat when I spoke. “Someone I loved very much.”

“It is so rare for our kind to conceive,” the nurse said sadly, and then smiled. “The angels must have wanted you to have a child very much, particularly Gabriel. She is the angel who watches over mothers and their children. Perhaps she believes your child is destined for greatness.”

My palm moved to cover my belly.
Destined for greatness
… “How far along am I?”

“Several weeks, I’d say. If everything goes well, you’ll give birth in the spring.”

I rummaged through my things and dumped out all of the currency I had—much of it foreign—onto the table in front of Constance. Every happy emotion in her expression compressed to surprise and trepidation. “This is all I have with me, but I have more at my home. You mustn’t tell anyone that I was here or what you discovered. I don’t want to threaten your life, but this is how dire my situation is now. I’d rather buy your silence than force it.”

“Child,” Constance said, “you already gave me a false name. No, don’t look at me like that. The next time you lie about your name, don’t hesitate.” She touched my chin to lift my gaze to hers as she smiled. “And you don’t have to worry. I’m a nurse. I likely have more secrets than you have. In any case, you’re going to need that money more than I do. You’ve got a baby coming.”

I stared at her until I confirmed the truth in her eyes. “Thank you,” I said, and scooped my money back into my bag, embarrassed by my actions.

“Whatever happened to make you so afraid right now, or whatever will happen once this baby arrives,” the nurse said, “remember that this is a gift. Many of our kind live hundreds of years without bearing a child—many never at all in their long lives.”

My gaze returned to hers and I held her eyes so that she could see the honesty in mine as well. “All life is a blessing and purposeful. If I am to have a child with the man I loved, then I regret nothing.”

“Loved? Not still?”

Her question stung just as Bastian’s hand on my cheek had, and I didn’t answer it. “Thank you for your examination and your confidentiality.”