Blest (6 page)

Claire’s screams split through the quiet night, piercing and terrifying. Jim ran toward her, but he fell and cut his hand on one of the rocks jutting out from the shore. He ignored the gash, scrambling to his feet. All he wanted to do was to stop Claire from feeling the pain of her wings, even if it meant taking on the pain himself. He dropped to his knees beside her. “Claire,” he said desperately. “Claire, I’m here.”

“Jim,” she said through tears. “I’m so afraid, don’t leave. Don’t leave!”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Promises get broken all of the time,” she sobbed, babbling. “People just keep coming and going and my mom will make us leave again, or try to, and I can’t trust promises. I can’t lose you, not when I just found you.” She waved her hand weakly and he realized that she was bleeding, too. She reached out, and he clasped her hand between his without thinking—and something shot through him.

They both jumped at the contact. It felt to Jim like his blood was on fire, his skin rippling with flames. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out.

Claire went limp, her eyes fluttering closed. Jim trembled as he pulled Claire into his arms, cradling her head in his lap and looking at her. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered to her. “You’re so beautiful, and strong, and warm, and wonderful. I’m right here, Claire.” He ran his hand through her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The night slowly turned to a gray dawn, clouds flicking like passing ghosts above. The wind grew stronger over the water, and the pine trees swayed violently. Jim felt like he was stuck in place, holding Claire, staring at her, watching as she took deep, slow breaths.

Finally, when the sky was starting to light up with the silver hue of dawn, Claire slowly opened her eyes. “It’s over,” she breathed. She sat up and Jim leaned away from her, excited. What was an angel going to look like? And why hadn’t his wings come in yet? Was that going to go wrong, too?

Claire took a deep breath as a pair of wings unfurled behind her, spreading at least three feet in each direction. They shadowed her from behind, catching the awakening sunlight. The feathers were crimson, blood-red, glinting in the muted sunlight. Red feathers. Hadn’t Mr. Webb said that angels had white feathers? “What . . . what are you?” he asked cautiously.

She cocked her head, looking at him. Her wings flapped a little. “What do you mean? I’m a demon, just like you.”

Jim jumped to his feet. “What!”

“Jim? What did you think I was?” Claire asked, getting to her feet, but he could tell from her face that she already knew.

Demons were the things that the angels were supposed to be fighting. Demons were the reason that his dad hadn’t wanted him to become an angel. How could Claire be a demon? And Gunner, too? Didn’t that mean Jim was supposed to hate her?

“Jim?” Claire repeated, more insistently.

He opened his mouth, but then the pain hit him in full force, and he fell to the sand, blinded by the sudden agony as it ripped through his back and shoulders. The sand whirled in front of him as the wind grew stronger and louder.

“Claire, you did it!” A familiar, horrible voice shouted across the wind.

Blinking back tears of pain, Jim saw Claire turn to face someone. The wind kicked up sand, sending it flying around her. “Shane?” she asked, confusion etched across her face.

Shane appeared overhead, peering down at Jim. Another shock of pain sliced through Jim’s back and he squirmed in the sand, trying not to scream. Through his blurry vision, he could see that Shane had a pair of red wings, too. He was a demon. How had Jim never noticed the wings before?

“Looks like the Blest boy decided to grow a pair, too.” Shane nudged Claire with his elbow, chuckling at his own joke. “Get it?”

She gave him a disgusted look, her arms crossed. Her eyes dropped back to Jim.

Shane raised an eyebrow. “He’s an angel, you know. Not one of us.” He unsheathed a knife from somewhere, a weapon with a black blade. “If you just give him a little jab in the wings, we won’t have to deal with him later.”

He offered the knife to Claire.

She looked down at it. “Why would I do that?”

“Angels are our
enemies
, Claire.” He frowned. “Trust me, this will solve a lot of problems. Just a quick prick.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Claire challenged.

Shane flushed and rolled his big shoulders. “Well, I—”

“Hey!” Another voice called. “What are you doing? Shane, you know you can’t break the Pact!”

“I can do whatever I want!” Shane snarled. Jim closed his eyes, grinding his teeth against the pain and wishing he was somewhere, anywhere else. With Claire. His spine felt like it was twisting out of place, growing like a tree right through his skin. He opened his eyes again and saw Sydney Lumen yelling something at Shane, motioning at the knife. What was Sydney doing here? Was she a demon, too? Shane still had his ugly grin on his face. When Jim looked back at Claire, all he saw was her look of fear and confusion and hurt.

Then he blacked out.

Jim groggily rolled around on top of the stiff covers of an unfamiliar bed. Something itched on his back. A lot. He went to scratch his shoulder with his hand and felt feathers.
Wings
. He had wings.

“They’re always itchy when they first come in,” a girl said, appearing above him. He blinked against the blinding white light streaming in from a window. The girl’s long blond braid hung over her shoulder. Behind that, he could see a pair of beautiful white wings reflecting the morning sun.

“Sydney?” he asked. Sydney Lumen was an angel? He wanted to laugh. The number of times Sydney’s group had teased him and bullied him didn’t seem to qualify her as angelic. He sat up and saw that all of Sydney’s usual group was in the room, too. Lounging around on a couch and a chair in a room where the cushions, blankets, and carpet were all cream-colored, as white as clouds. He recognized Leo, Miles, and Nora from school. But now they all had white wings. “You’re all . . .”

Sydney beamed, helping him up. He rubbed his sore back, but his hand met the wings again: hard bones covered in soft feathers. “This is . . .”

“Amazing?” Sydney asked. “I remember last year when I got my wings, I was so excited.”

“Sure, yeah,” Jim said slowly. The words ‘messed up’ had come to mind, but Sydney’s blue eyes were shimmering with excitement. Was she actually
excited
that he was an angel? She had barely even looked at him before.

“What happened? At the beach?” he asked.

Sydney’s face darkened and she walked away from him. “Freaking Shane Morrisey. That’s what happened. I don’t think he would have done anything, but—”

“He was trying to get Claire to cut my wings,” Jim said quietly.

Sydney turned around. “That used to be an old demon initiation ritual. Kill an angel to get acceptance. But not here, not on the Field. Not since the Pact, at least.”

“The Pact?”

Sydney nodded. “The angels and demons have a truce on the Field right now. We don’t kill each other. It’s been that way for ten years.”

“Ten years?” Jim asked. “What happened ten years ago?”

“Whoa, bro,” Leo said, his big face looking up from his phone. “Your dad didn’t tell you anything, did he?”

Sydney waved her hand dismissively. “Everyone knows Michael Blest is a coward. He’s been trying to forget he was ever an angel. It’s pathetic.” The harsh words wheedled Jim’s ears. She turned to him, her face stony. “We thought you were going to go down that road, too.”

“Is that why you guys always, uh . . . treated me . . .”

“Like crap?” Leo asked, grinning.

Jim nodded.

Sydney sighed. “You have to understand, Jim, there’s nothing worse than being a Wingless. Humans are kind of ignorant and, yeah, they get trapped in their own tiny, selfish worlds. But Wingless like your dad, they just . . . they’ve given up on their duties in the Endless War. They turn their back on their
people
.”

“Most of ’em actually pretend their kids have a deformity or something and get their wings taken out, without the kids ever knowing,” Leo said. “It’s sad.”

Jim shook his head. “My dad told me the truth.”

Sydney pursed her lips. “And you chose to be an angel, after all the things he told you?”

“I just thought it was my choice to make.”

“You made the right one.” Sydney flashed a smile at him. “Now you’re part of the Pearlton Feather.”

“Feather?”

“That’s a group of angels,” she said. “We’ve only had four, but you’ll be five. You know Leo, he just got his wings this summer.” She motioned at Leo, who had one leg up over a futon, his head lying on a pillow as he looked up into his phone. Leo was a big guy with a black buzzcut, a little overweight but with muscled arms and a square jaw. Jim recognized him from a few classes from freshman year. Leo mostly made farting noises when the teacher wasn’t looking.

“I’m glad you made it, buddy,” Leo said, winking.

“Then Nora got her wings last year, like me, and Miles last winter.” She pointed to two redheads who were obviously brother and sister. Jim had seen flashes of them in the hallway. Nora was a junior, like Sydney. Jim had heard that both Nora and Sydney were good at soccer, but he had never seen them play. He wondered if the wings gave them an unfair advantage. Miles was in his history class, but Jim had never spoken to him.

“Welcome to the Feather, Jim,” Nora said. She got up from the couch in the corner of the room and shook Jim’s hand so hard that he felt like it almost broke off. She looked him up and down. “Hope you’re ready to fight some demons.”

“Well, Nora, we’re not technically supposed to—” Sydney started.

“Dude, Blest, I never thought you’d be one of us!” Miles said, shoving his way past Nora. He high-fived Jim’s open hand. “That’s awesome. Hey Nora, maybe
he
can help you with your mind-numbing research. We can make it a hazing ritual!”

“It’s not mind-numbing,” Nora said gruffly. “It’s interesting.” She turned to Jim. “Right now, we’re analyzing the frequency of tornadoes in Pearlton. We think that one of Slag’s planewalkers is trying to break through the Field and come here.”

“Slag?” Jim asked, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “Planewalker?” He remembered his dad mentioning Slag, but that already seemed like a lifetime ago.

Sydney laughed. “I know, it’s probably a lot to take in.”

You don’t even know the half of it
, Jim thought. He was still trying to process the fact that she and her friends didn’t hate him anymore.

“Here, you might want to sit down,” Sydney said. She swatted Leo’s feet from the futon. Leo grumbled, shifting into a sitting position.

Jim sat down on the couch and Sydney squeezed next to him, their knees touching. He tried not to seem uncomfortable. Across from them, Nora and Miles dropped back onto the couch. Nora took out her cell phone and furrowed her eyebrows as she scrolled through something on the screen.

“Slag is where demons are from,” Sydney said, “and Glisten is where angels are from. Some angels, like us, are Guardians. They come to the Field to keep the demons from finding the Portals to Glisten. That’s our job, too. To protect the Portals.”

“Portals?” Jim asked.

“Right. Thousands of years ago, there was only Glisten and the Field. But some angels saw that the early humans were, well, killing each other and stuff. They argued that humans were too selfish and weak to have free will.” Sydney took a breath. “Those were the demons. They only saw the bad parts of human nature. So they kept coming down to the Field to try and manipulate history and humanity.”

“These demons, though they were still angels at the time, wanted to control humans to make them stop killing one another. But they disagreed about what society was best, and what kingdom should rule.” She sighed. “Dealing with all that corruption and killing destroyed those fallen angels, and warped their world view. They think humans are inherently evil and a world like that needs chaos and selfishness to keep anybody from gaining too much power. Even though, at the same time, they’re always trying to control all of the Field.”

Leo grinned. “We got the better of them though. While they were screwing around in the Field, we disabled the seven Portals to Glisten, turned them into one-way entrances. They couldn’t get back home. That’s when they lost their celestial powers, and became demons.”

“Right,” Sydney said. “The bravest angel soldiers, the Guardians, volunteered to go to the Field to make sure the demons never got back through the Portals. As the human history unfolded, the angels and demons battled. All the angel and demon blood, though, it created a lot of disturbances in the Field. Earthquakes, avalanches, volcanoes, tsunamis, you name it. That’s how Slag was formed, during the Battle of Atlantis.”

Jim choked a little. “Atlantis?”

Miles grinned. “Oh, it was real. But it didn’t just sink underwater, man. One of the Portals to Glisten was there, but all that angel and demon blood caused some kind of huge earthquake . . . and maybe the Tribunal of Glisten screwed around with the Portal or something. Whatever happened, all the demons that had built this huge kingdom on Atlantis sunk underneath the sea, entering another plane. That’s how they all got trapped in Slag. And the most violent demons can still get banished there by the Tribunal.”

Sydney took over again. “That’s how the Pacts started. There have been a few over the past centuries, where demons and angels say they’ll stop killing each other. Because, really, if the battles destroy the Field, then it’s pointless for the demons to bother taking it over.” She shrugged. “My mom says that the demons today are mostly Brokers, who are wheelers and dealers in information and money, trying to bring out the worst in humans. They try to cause chaos and gain power without direct violence. Most of the Predators—those are the violent ones—get banished to Slag.”

Jim let out a long breath. He thought of Claire. What was she?

“But humans don’t see any of this going on?” he asked.

Sydney shook her head. “They can’t see beyond their idea of what ‘normal’ is during each day. You can’t see the wings unless you’ve got a pair. The Portals are a little different. Think about the Seven Wonders of the World. Humans can tell when there’s something that’s
beyond
their world, they just can’t grasp what it is. The Pyramids, the Grand Canyon, Atlantis, those used to be the locations of Portals. But we have to hide them from the demons now. If they ever get back to Glisten, they’ll gain all the powers they lost. They can still fly, of course—”

“Of course,” Jim said drily.

“But there are some things they can’t do, that we can,” Sydney finished, smiling.

“I think my head might explode,” Jim said after a pause.

They laughed, and Jim smiled a little. He wanted to ask them about Claire, but he didn’t dare. Based on the way Sydney’s face had clouded at the mention of her name, he had a feeling they would just say she was an evil demon. But she hadn’t seemed evil to him . . .

A light rapping on the door caught Jim’s attention. Without waiting for the group to answer, a woman opened the door. The Pearlton High School principal, Catherine Lumen. Out of habit, Jim sat up a little straighter at the sight of Sydney’s mom. She was already dressed up in her stiff blue suit. Behind her, he could see a huge pair of white wings glowing in the hall. And, for the first time, he noticed there was a white bracelet dangling on her wrist, glittering with sapphires that caught the sunlight.

“How’d the scouting go?” she asked, her eyes skipping from Jim to Sydney.

“Two new demons joined last night,” Nora said, putting her phone into her pocket.

“Mom,” Sydney interrupted, her voice strained. “This is Jim. He’s one of us now.”

Principal Lumen’s eyes seemed to refocus on Jim. He shrank under the intensity of her gaze. “Jim Blest?” She clucked her tongue. “It’s a shame about your father. He was one of the best Guardians we had. And Evelyn . . .” She paused. Her eyes glimmered. “Glad to see you made the right choice,” she said quickly. Her sharp gaze fell back to Nora. “And the tornadoes?”

“They’re happening more frequently, in little bursts, and then they disappear,” Nora said.

“He’s coming,” Principal Lumen said under her breath. “Good work today. Nice to meet you, Jim.”

“Uh, nice to—” Jim started. But Principal Lumen was already out the door, thudding down the steps beyond.

Sydney put her hand on his shoulder. “Ignore her. She’s . . . always distracted.”

“Sydney’s mom is a big deal, dude,” Leo said in awe. “Principal Lumen is one of the top generals in Glisten’s Guardian ranks.”

“Yeah,” Sydney said uncertainly, rubbing her arm. “Top general, crappy mom.”

“Don’t say things like that about her.” Nora bristled. “She’s a hero!” She looked at Jim. “You know the War of the Broken Wall? The last war we had? General Lumen commanded all the Guardians in the entire country.”

Sydney made a noise. She stood up, not looking at Nora. “Okay, Jim. You’re an angel. Try unfolding your wings.”

Jim felt his wings tense underneath his shirt. He remembered how Claire had spread hers. He didn’t remember her shirt tearing. He definitely would have remembered that.

“Don’t worry, the actual wings have a little bit of Glisten in them. They go right past the human-made world, that’s why humans can’t see them. Humans can’t see anything from Glisten.” She flapped her wings gently, sending a breeze in his direction, and turned in a circle. Jim saw that her shirt was still in one piece, but her wings poked out of it nonetheless.

“Um, okay, if you say so.” He stood and reached his wings out uncertainly. It felt like stretching a muscle that he had never stretched before, something that had been tense his whole life. His whole body filled with relief as his wings spread behind him.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Sydney asked.

“It’s awesome,” Jim agreed. Something occurred to him. “So this means I can fly, right?”

“Sorry, man. Angels can’t fly,” Miles said. “The wings are for decoration. Like ostrich wings.”

Jim’s face fell. “Oh,” he said.

Miles burst into laughter. Leo guffawed. Even Nora grinned. Jim got defensive at first, just by instinct. But then he realized he should be laughing, too. They weren’t laughing at him—they were laughing
with
him, the way friends did.

Sydney smiled. “Yes, you’ll be able to fly,” she reassured him. “With enough practice.” Her face changed when her green eyes caught sight of something behind him. “Wait. What’s that?”

Jim followed her eyes to the tip of his left wing. All of the feathers were glowing and white—except for one. It was red. He had an idea of what it was, or at least how it had happened, but he only mumbled, “I’m . . . I’m not sure.”

“Is that a red feather?” In a few seconds, Nora charged across the room and took Jim’s feathers in her hand. Miles followed. Even Leo tumbled off the couch to join the group.

“It’s . . . yeah, that’s red,” Leo reported in his rumbling voice.

“Do a lot of angels have a little red in their wings?” Jim asked hopefully.

“No,” Nora said curtly. “Never, in the entire history of angels. This is really, really interesting.” She rubbed the feather between her finger and thumb, sending a strange tingling through Jim’s back. He jerked away.