Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel) (4 page)
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“The people of Stratus have begun to dream,” he says.
Everything about that sentence is confusing. “They’re having nightmares like I am?”
“Your dreams were just the firstfruits, I believe. Others are dreaming as well. About the past. About the future.”
“Like Marco,” I say. “But I thought it was the halo that made him dream.”
“It certainly sped the process up, didn’t it?”
“You should have seen it, Canaan. It was crazy. As soon as he put the halo on his head . . .”
“Yes, I think Marco’s a dreamer. Many in Stratus will dream for a time because the veil is thinning, because the invisible feels closer to them than it has ever felt. But I don’t think time or distance will strip Marco of his dreams now that they’ve begun. Just as I am certain nothing could ever take your sight.”
He smiles, but the thought isn’t altogether comfortable.
“At least my nightmares will fade,” I say.
“They
may
fade, Elle, yes. But I know this: for now, for as long as they’re given, you must allow yourself next to Canaan’s.t for a to dream.”
I know the dreams are important. The Throne Room wouldn’t have sent them otherwise. I just hate the nightmares. Hate that they feel so real. Hate that I never seem to be myself in them, that I have to watch through someone else’s eyes, feel someone else’s pain.
But others are dreaming in Stratus. There’s a measure of comfort in that. That we’re all in this together. It seems I’m just one dreamer in a town haunted by a past we can’t piece together.
The Celestial comes into view again, and I watch as Canaan’s wings flutter and sag.
“You need to heal,” I say.
“I know. I will. Brielle, how much of the Celestial are you seeing?”
“Bits and pieces still. Sometimes more.”
“What about now?”
“I see your celestial form, but the trees, most everything else I see with my terrestrial eyes. There’s a demon in the treetop here, but he’s small.” I cock my head. “And blind, I think.”
“A Vulture,” he says, glancing at the thing.
“What?”
“They’re Vultures. Most have no official assignment, having been out of touch with the Prince and those in command for centuries. Simply put, they’ve been left too long in the celestial light.”
I step closer, unafraid of the strange bat-like thing before me. He has no muscle to speak of, his legs curled and useless beneath him. His wings are nothing but a warped skeletal frame, the charred remains of feathers clinging like melted wax to black bone. He grips the uppermost branches of the tree with talons that are brittle and cracked, his nose sniffing at the air. Like Damien’s, his body is coated with fear. It drips down the branches of the tree. With my celestial vision coming piecemeal, it looks like he’s melting in the sunlight.
“This is what Damien feared he’d become,” I say.
“Precisely.”
“Why is he here?”
“Because Darkness has gathered. It’s thick here, a canopy of demons caging the town in. One thing that’s fairly certain is just how scared humanity is of the dark. Vultures feed on fear, spread it if they can. But mostly they’re trying to survive. There will be others, Elle. They will carry terror to the citizens
of Stratus, tainting the dreams they’ve been given, turning them dark. Fear will spread like the disease it is.”
“It’s hard to believe he was once an angel like you.”
I watch the Vulture a moment more. His weak, pained form might conjure sympathy from another, but I s next to Canaan’s.t for aee him for what he is. He’s a parasite. A leech.
“Do you know what your name means, Gabrielle?”
I turn away from the sickly demon. “It comes from Gabriel, doesn’t it? One of the archangels. He is a messenger,” I say. “A Herald, right? He appeared to both Mary and Joseph. And to the shepherds the night Christ was born. Good tidings of great joy and all that.”
Canaan’s eyes sparkle down at me. I’ll take that over a gold star any day.
“Gabriel is your namesake, yes, but it means ‘God is my strength.’”
I imagine that phrase as a tattoo inked onto my shoulder blade, as the etching on a shiny Roman breastplate I’d wear into battle.
“Let God be your strength, Gabrielle. You cannot do this alone. We don’t have time for you to try.”
“I won’t,” I promise, feeling every bit of that responsibility.
He pulls me against his chest, and I’m surrounded by six and a half feet of angel. He smells of fire and sky. He smells of promise.
When he releases me, his terrestrial form is gone. He’s transferred to the Celestial. His lips are still, but I hear his voice in my head.
“It never occurred to me that I’d come across another human I could trust as much as Jake. I thank the Creator that I have you. I’m honored to fight alongside you, Brielle.”
His white eyes stir, as though a wind has brought a fresh supply of oxygen to the twin flames there. All four of his wings spread wide. The inner ones are sinewy, visible mostly in the way they smudge th such an evil
A
chunk of sandy brown hair hangs in Jake’s face. He tries to raise a hand to brush it away, but pain flares through his body. Something’s wrong with his arm, but he refuses to move again; his breath is nothing but gasps and spit as he stares at the gray floor beneath him. And that’s Army of Light above.
Pain has made his focus lazy, and it takes a minute for his surroundings to come into view. They do not inspire confidence. Aged and crumbling walls of faded brick contain him. A rectangular window, high and narrow, is cut into the block on his right, its glass thick and dark. The light that makes its way through is dirty and succeeds only in coloring the room in shades of shadow. A metal staircase is screwed into the wall opposite him, a flickering bulb swinging on a chain above it. The stairs seem to curve slightly as they make their way up, but he can’t be sure;
everything about the room feels misshapen. Still, he’s fairly certain he’s being held in a basement.
Teetering racks line the wall to his left, but even the shelves are sparse—a canned good here and there, everything thick with dust. The place smells of mildew and rot, and the thing that roused him moments ago: it smells of doughnuts.
Cinnamon and sugar twists. He’s almost certain.
His stomach aches with hunger, but for the first time in his life the sweet smell makes him sick. His body arches against the ropes that hold him to the metal chair and he dry-heaves. The chair tips to his right and he falls—the chair with him. Pain forces away thoughts of food as his body contorts.
He gasps and tries to shift off his side, but it’s useless. His arm is broken or his shoulder dislocated. Maybe both. It’s impossible to tell with the chair on its side and his body tied this way. The pain seems to be coming from everywhere, but he’s got to get out of here.
He kicks against his binds, but the action does nothing except send slivers of sweat-inducing pain through his chest and arm. He kicks harder, panic growing. Memories build like black water behind a dam as he flails. They threaten to break through, to drown him.
He and Brielle in the red orchard, her hair spilling over her shoulders as he warns her about Damien, tells her how dangerous the demon’s new eyes have made him. Dirt smearing from his fingers to her face as he wipes the tears away.
And then she was gone.
The panic he felt in that moment rivals what he feels now. Was it friend or foe that took her from him? He didn’t know. Not until Canaan pulled Jake into the Celestial. Only then did he
see that it was Helene who had taken Brielle. It was Helene who held her safely.
And then demons. Everywhere demons. Canaan fought hard, but there were too many. Razor-sharp daggers sliced a gaping hole through the wings that held Jake tight to the Shield’s chest, and he fell.
That’s the last thing Jake remembers.
Falling.
“I enlisted once. US Army.”
Jake goes still. Fear wraps his arms and legs, holding him tighter than any ro relief in that.
Damien’s here.
“
Enlisted
may not be the correct word,” the voice continues, “but you understand. I learned a lot during my time with the Special Forces. It’s amazing what you can do with a little duct tape, nylon cord, and a couple zip ties. No, I don’t imagine you’ll be breaking free of that chair anytime soon.” Damien’s voice is confident, cocky even, and for a demon who doesn’t talk much, he seems anxious to say what’s on his mind. “Haunting the army gave me access to . . . well, to boys just like you. Warriors who think they fight for noble causes. Children broken by war. Soldiers who think they can fix this world.”
Pain flares through Jake’s body again. He smells Damien’s breath—sulfur and decay—feels it on his brow. And then the demon materializes in front of him. His knee presses into Jake’s shoulder, his human face scrubbed clean and shaven, his terrestrial body clothed in camouflage fatigues.
“Good soldiers.” He spits the words now, running a finger over the Special Forces tab on his left sleeve. “Brave. Bent on helping others. On healing the broken. But like you, they lack the ability to heal themselves.”
Damien grabs Jake by the neck, lifts the chair, and slams it down upright. Metal rings out against the concrete floor, and the once-sturdy chair wobbles. Jake cries out in pain, but he makes note of Damien’s mistake, pressing his foot against the leg of the chair. He hears the grind of the screw. It’s loose now.
“Why do you think that is? Like me, you can heal others. I’ve seen you do it. But here you are, bent and bleeding.” The demon crouches before him. “My body heals itself. Why doesn’t yours, Child of God?”
There’s something in the question. Something of need. Something of ignorance. Jake blows air through his teeth in an effort to control the pain and rage bubbling in his stomach, a dangerous chemical reaction that will yield nothing but more of the same.
“Because . . .” Jake’s first attempt to speak produces only scratches. He clears his throat and tries again. “Because we need one another.”
Damien’s black eyes widen. Like a dog who suddenly understands human language.
No, it’s more than that
, Jake thinks. This dog doesn’t just
understand
. He remembers.
“You’ve forgotten what it’s like, haven’t you?” His lips are dry, cracking with the effort. “You’ve been working on your own for so long, you’ve forgotten that you can’t do this alone.”
Damien barks a laugh and stands. He disappears and returns before Jake’s had time to blink. The army uniform is gone now, replaced by black cargo pants and a em;
text-align: left;
margin-top: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.D1Agray T-shirt stretched tight across his broad chest. A gun is strapped to
his waist. He looks unstoppable, unbreakable, but Jake knows better.
“
What
can’t I do alone?” Damien asks.
Jake runs a dry tongue across his lips. “Win,” he says. “You can’t win.”
The right side of Damien’s mouth curls like a villainous mustache, but his black eyes have lost their shine.
“I’m not the one bound hand and foot,” he says.
“Aren’t you?”
T
he sun is an overripe grapefruit high above when I step into the field between Jake’s house and mine. Today’s about as warm as it gets here, mideighties probably. With the Celestial bleeding through, it was warmer in the orchard. Out from beneath the red trees, Stratus feels almost big, the sky too vast, everything too blue.
I catch the occasional demon swimming through the ocean of air above. Their warped bodies are foreign and out of place in the terrestrial sky. If I look hard enough I fear the Terrestrial will peel away altogether and I’ll see the entire demonic legion above. I don’t want to see the Palatine. Not right now. I told Jake once that I had a problem with blind faith, but right now it doesn’t sound half bad. Seeing is harder than believing.
I search the sky for Canaan, picking through it carefully, not looking too hard at any one spot, but I don’t expect to find him. He’s healing somewhere, I hope. I wonder how far he had to travel to find a safe place. Did he have to pass through the Palatine to find one?
I check my cell phone again out of habit, but there’s no
missed call from Jake and nothing from Helene. I jam it into the pocket of my jean shorts. Clutched in my other fist is an envelope of pictures. They’re old pictures, taken when I was young, when my mother was in the hospital
There are pictures of Mom and Dad. Pictures of the three of us. There are even pictures of Miss Macy and Pastor Noah, of the pastor’s wife, Becky—all of them visiting Mom at the hospital.
At Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland.
Why she was being treated there instead of at Stratus General or at any of the hospitals between here and there is just one of the many questions I have for Dad.