Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (36 page)

She blinked and came back to life. “Death.”

“That’s not funny right now,” Clark snapped.

“No,” Michaela murmured. “It’s nearby.”

Zarachiel stood from the table, withdrawing his machete from the sheath on his hip. His hand wrapped around Maya’s arm and pushed her into the corner, his body acting as a shield. His eyes went straight to Clark and stayed there, waiting for further instructions.

“What do you mean?” Clark asked.

“Someone just died. Really close to here. I have to go.” Her form started to fade.

“Wait!” Clark shouted.

But she was already gone. The place where she’d stood previously was empty, the air spinning. If Clark squinted his eyes, he made out a little glimmer in the space.

“That’s really annoying,” Clark said to no one in particular.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Zarachiel asked, his body still protecting Maya’s.

“Was it Camille?” Maya’s voice trembled as she spoke the words, and when Clark whirled around to face her, she cringed away.

“Don’t even—”

“Clark!” An eddy of wind spiraled through the small kitchen, and Michaela snapped back into place where she’d just stood. Static electricity filled the air as Clark jumped in surprise. He was just about to complain when Michaela cut him off. “There’s a girl down there. She’s still alive.” Michaela’s eyes flickered between Clark and Zarachiel. “Maya can stay here. It’s safe, but you two need to come with me so you can bring the girl back. I have to deal with a soul.”

“What happened?” Clark asked.

They were already hurrying out the cabin’s door, their heavy footfalls like trumpets across the creaky floor. Michaela glanced over her shoulder and said, “It looked like she was attacked. I don’t know where the others are or if there are more, but it looked like she killed one of the men.”

“It’s a girl?” Zarachiel sounded dangerously calm. “Someone attacked a girl?”

“Is she hurt?” Clark asked.

Michaela didn’t bother answering their questions as they hurried away from the cabin, the burnt ground crunching under their feet. They ducked through the woods and started descending into a gully. Clark knew the terrain well around the cabin and realized they were heading down toward the creek bank. The going wasn’t too tough, but the ground was beginning to thaw from the morning’s frost, which left the earth mushy and slippery. The three of them mostly slid down the hill until they were at the bottom.

There, beside the slow-moving shallow creek, laid a young woman with bright red hair strewn across the ground, her limbs spread at twisted angles. Her eyes were closed, but Clark would’ve bet his right hand that they were as green as the moss around her. Her clothes were torn and bloodied, her shirt nearly ripped clean off. Her pants had been jerked down around her ankles.

There was blood on her inner thighs.

A low growl came from beside Clark. It took him a moment to realize the sound was coming from Zarachiel. He’d never seen the angel so angry. Actually, he’d never seen Zarachiel remotely angry. The emotion transformed him.

His eyes, normally dark and cool, flared with violent shots of gold sparking through them. His pupils were dilated, his nostrils flaring. A tic in his jaw traveled up the side of his face. The muscles in his shoulders were heaving and undulating, almost like he was trying to flap his wings but had forgotten they weren’t there. Wide-eyed, Clark looked to Michaela, but she shook her head and put her hand on his arm to hold him back as Zarachiel approached the young woman.

The broken Archangel crouched beside the redhead and checked her pulse. At his proximity, her eyelids fluttered and her hands and feet scraped at the ground. Clark couldn’t hear what she was mumbling over and over again, but she kept shaking her head, clearly agitated.

“Is she okay?” Michaela asked.

“Nothing is broken,” Zarachiel answered, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m going to take her back to the cabin.” He eased her into his arms, whispering all the while to her, and she calmed in his grip. He passed by them with long, sure strides and headed back up to the cabin.

Clark watched him go for a minute before he looked at the muddy ground. There were a lot of tracks—heavy boot marks—stomped into the ground. “There were a lot of people here,” he said, pointing to the tracks. “Is there anyone else hurt around here?”

“No. Just the soul that attacked her. You should go after him. I’ve got this taken care of now.”

Clark had completely forgotten about the other guy. He scanned the creek bank, finding his body about twenty feet downstream. It was hung up on some rocks, face down, bobbing and weaving like a buoy. “Kind of makes me think he deserves it. Can you tell how she killed him?”

“She bit out his throat.”

Clark swallowed loudly, his hand going up to his own throat. “Okay then. I’m going after Zarachiel now.”

He hurried up the embankment; every footstep he took up the wet hill brought him three back down. He had no clue how Zarachiel had made such good time, but when Clark finally arrived at the cabin, leaves and mud packed in his boots, the Archangel was already inside. Quietly, Clark closed the front door behind him and stepped into the little house’s toasty warmth. Zarachiel looked up from where he had a pot of tea simmering on the wood-burning stove.

“How is she?” Clark asked.

A muscle in Zarachiel’s square jaw danced. “Maya is cleaning her up. Multiple lacerations, bruises, and a sprained wrist. I did a quick splint on the way, but she needs a real doctor. I don’t know how bad it is…inside.”

“Has she said anything about who attacked her?”

Zarachiel shook his head and stirred the tea around. “She wasn’t awake when I was in there.”

“I saw a lot of tracks in the mud. She must have stumbled over a group out in the woods,” Clark said, thinking out loud. A weird smell hit his nose, and he sniffed, eyes searching for the source. His gaze caught on the teapot. “Uh, Z?” Clark said, his voice high-pitched with alarm, realizing the smell was burning flesh. “Your hand, dude.”

Clark’s eyes were focused on Zarachiel’s hand, where he’d been holding it against the boiling pot. The Archangel hadn’t even noticed. He lifted his hand and examined his palm, where red welts were already healing. “As soon as she wakes up, I want to take her back to the compound.”

“Do you think that’s the safest place right now?”

Zarachiel looked up at Clark, his eyes dark. “She needs help.”

“Yeah. I get it,” Clark said quickly, not wanting to upset his friend anymore. “As soon as she wakes up, take her back in the Chevelle.”

“How will you get to the cave?”

“You can drop me off at the park’s entrance on the way. I can walk the rest.”

“I don’t think you should go in there alone, Clark. You should wait until I get back.”

Clark sighed. “You don’t know how long the trip is going to take, and I’m not waiting until you get back.”

Zarachiel was clearly struggling between his desire to keep Clark from going alone to meet Lucifer and his need to help the woman. Clark just let him battle it out, knowing that Zarachiel was the type of battered angel who flocked to wounded creatures. His instinct to help and protect was too strong to walk away from her. Even from where Clark stood, he could see the raised, distorted scars and mangled bones beneath the angel’s tight skin; Zarachiel was truly damaged, but Clark knew that helping others was the Archangel’s way of making things right between the angels and the humans. And Clark wasn’t going to take that away from him.

When the battle was over inside him, Zarachiel nodded, relenting that Clark would be going alone to the cave. “This is truly the first time that I’ve believed Man isn’t worth saving,” he said quietly.

Clark stayed silent as he watched the angel gather up the hot tea and walk to the bedroom, where he knocked on the door. Maya’s soft voice called from the inside, and Zarachiel slipped in. Clark sank into one of the chairs and waited in the kitchen. After a couple moments, the front door opened and Michaela walked in.

“No poofing this time?”

“‘Poofing’?” Michaela asked, confused.

“The disappearing act.”

“Oh,” Michaela said, smiling slightly, “I wanted to walk to clear my head. That soul was…well, it wasn’t easy to carry to Judgment.”

“That dirty, huh?”

“Worse.” Michaela shivered slightly and sat down at the table. “How is she?”

“Pretty banged up. They don’t know much else. Z wants to take her back to the compound.”

Michaela nodded. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“He’s going to drop me off at the park on the way.”

The silence stretched out between them, tense and awkward. Finally, Michaela said, “I can take you there. We can ‘poof’ together.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And Clark, I’m sorry about earlier at the compound. I shouldn’t have stood in your way.”

Clark looked away. He didn’t really want to talk about this. Instead, he said low enough so only she could hear, “I love her, Michaela.”

“I know. And I’m glad. I’ve always just wanted you to be happy.” Michaela ran her hand through her long black hair, smoothing it back from her face. “I think a lot of people and even angels expect you to be this great pink-haired, leather clad ideal. To them, you have to be sarcastic and funny and even brutally mean because it’s what they expect. But then you also have to be their hero because it’s what they need. I never wanted to be one of those people who expected that of you, but yesterday I was.”

“Michaela—”

“No, I want to explain,” she said, interrupting him. “Sometimes, in this form, I forget how things used to feel. You know how angels become more human the longer they are on Earth?” Clark nodded. “Well, I don’t. I stay in this ethereal form, so I’m forgetting what it was like to feel things so strongly, so blindly.”

That’s exactly how he felt about Camille: blind. “If I can just get her back, then I can deal with the Descendants. After everything that happened with Liam and the trial, going back and helping them just doesn’t make as much sense as it used to.”

“I understand that better than most,” Michaela said with a sad smile. Clark knew she was thinking of Heaven and how she couldn’t return to rule there like she had before. Where a person’s home is changes as rapidly as their heart does.

“I want to go back. I just don’t know if I can.”

“This war was hard on everyone. No one came back the same.” Michaela fiddled with the hem of her shirt, her eyes far away. Something had changed in her; Gabriel had been right. She was almost untouchable, like she was made of glass and meant to be sitting on a mantle. Clark had never felt out of place with her before, but he did now.

The bedroom door eased open and Maya stuck out her head. “She’s awake if y’all wanted to talk to her.”

“Should we?” Clark asked Michaela.

The Angel of Death shrugged. “She might not want our help. Best to find out where her head’s at.”

Together, he and Michaela rose from the table and quietly walked into the room, which was lit with warm light from multiple lanterns. The air smelled of vanilla wafting over from a few candles burning near the bed. Amidst the pillows and fluffy comforter, the young woman laid, her green eyes focused on Zarachiel, who sat on the edge of the bed, clasping her hand. Her body was curled toward his, her fingers wrapped tightly around his own like she was clinging to him for comfort. Clark wasn’t surprised: Zarachiel was the sort that everyone sought out for comfort.

The woman stiffened as Clark approached, and Zarachiel leaned down to her ear and murmured something. The woman nodded, her eyes fixed on Clark.

“Uh, hey,” Clark said with a cough to clear his throat. “What’s your name?”

“Grace,” she said quietly.

“Nice to meet you, Grace. I’m Clark. This is the Angel of De—”

Michaela stepped forward with a hard jab to Clark’s ribs. “I’m Michaela. Just Michaela.” She shot him a pointed stare.

“Thank you,” Grace said, her throat scratchy and weak. “Thank you for helping me.”

“No biggie.” Clark shrugged. “First of all, are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“I’m okay,” Grace said hesitantly, her eyes wavering between Zarachiel and Clark. “Just sore.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” When Grace gave a slight, trembling nod, Clark went on, “Was it just the one guy who attacked you? The one you killed?”

Grace shook her head, causing everyone in the room to frown. Zarachiel’s shoulders tensed. He turned his head slightly so that he could see Clark out of the corner of his eye, his jaw twitching like mad. Michaela stepped forward. “We saw tracks by the creek. Was the group with the man who attacked you?”

“There was a—a whole group of them…with him.”

Dread settled heavily in Clark’s stomach. “I don’t have the resources or manpower right now to hunt down whoever did this to you…”

“Clark,” Zarachiel warned, his voice dangerously even. “We have to go after whoever did this to her. Soon.”

Grace sat up quickly, grimacing as she did. Zarachiel immediately shifted to scoop his arm around her shoulders and help her. “You don’t have to do that,” Grace said, her voice urgent and slightly breathless. “They’re bad people. I don’t want anyone getting hurt for me.”