Ignite (18 page)

Suddenly, the sharp and rusty smell of blood washes over me. But there’s something different about this blood. It doesn’t have the same intoxicating sweetness it usually does. Instead, it smells bitter, like garbage or rot. I freeze, look down at my feet, and see thick, dark blood sliding slowly across the ground until it seeps under my boots. I draw my eyebrows together in confusion.

Black blood?

I follow the viscid, black stream and find that it is spilling rapidly out of the chest, up the neck, and across the face of a thin, pale girl. There is so much blood caked to her face that I don’t recognize her right away, but she seems familiar.

I know her…

I raise my eyes back to the two men standing in front of me. Both of their chests are bare and their skin, one tan and the other pale, seems to be glowing in the moonlight. Their faces are masked in shadows.

The first shadow is holding a large sword in his hand, the black blood sliding down the shining blade, obscuring a thin inscription. He whispers to the second, “Take her soul.”

“Who are you?” I yell. “Show me your faces!”

Again, I’m ignored. They move carefully and slowly, like phantoms.

The second shadow bends down to the body and reaches into her chest. I see that he has a long welt along his forearm, and I lean closer. His dark hair shines blue-black in the silvery light.

No, it can’t be.

His hand searches inside the chest. “There’s nothing here.”

“Look again,” orders the first shadow.

There’s a pause. “Nothing.” He stands up, raising his face and looking right through me with large, violet eyes.

“Azael!” My voice sounds hollow. I’m frozen in place, staring at him in disbelief.

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t acknowledge me at all.

The first shadow crouches down next to the body. I watch him, confused. He leans into the spotlight cast by the moon and I see that his hair is a tangle of gold. I throw my hand over my mouth, stifling a scream.

Michael
.

He reaches out a large hand and tenderly brushes the girl’s face.

“Such a shame,” he says. “Her soul would have been valuable.”

“Not surprising, though,” Azael says cooly. “She lost her soul long ago. At least she didn’t burn up completely. Her body could still be useful…”

I inch closer to Michael, watching his face fearfully. I kneel in front of him and scan down to the girl’s pale chest, where there is a large, grotesque wound. The skin around the gash is charred as if it were burnt. I look back up at Michael’s hand, which is resting on the blood-smeared cheek of the girl’s face.

With the dark, bloodied hair out of her face, I realize why she is so familiar. Her nose is small and pointed, and she has large, round, violet eyes that stare up at the stars unseeingly. Her lips are cracked, split in the middle with a small cut. Bile rises in my throat.

It’s me,
I realize, choked with panic.

I wake up to the sound of another scream. This time, I know immediately it is my own.

***

I continue to scream until my throat is raw, keeping my eyes stitched shut even as two strong hands wrap around my shoulders.

“Pen!” The voice sounds worried. “Pen, you’re fine! You’re fine. It’s just a dream!”

The world is shaking. No, not the world. Just me. My eyes fly open as another scream escapes, my body shuddering violently when I sit up.

Everything is the soft, hazy color of morning and I struggle to make sense of my surroundings. I can’t breathe right, not that I should have to breathe at all. But I am hyperventilating, my breaths coming too fast and panicked. I try to focus on small details of my surroundings, which are blurred and dizzying.

I’m not outside. I’m inside rocky walls. For a moment, I think I’m in a tomb, buried deep beneath the Earth. But there’s too much light for that. I squint my eyes, trying desperately to focus. I see more rock walls and the soft glow of a collection of jars, and I can hear the sound of falling water.

The cave.

That’s right, I’m inside the cave, sitting on the carved, stony bench. I feel two hands around my arms, holding me steady, and I throw myself forward into the chest attached to the arms attached to the hands.

“Azael!” I choke on subsiding panic that bubbles up in my throat as a sob. “It was horrible!”

Warm arms wrap around me protectively. “It’s okay, Pen. You’re awake. But I’m not—”

I cut him off. “I died. Az, I saw myself dead.” I let silent tears slip down my cheek and onto the dark cotton of his shirt, which is already damp. My throat burns and I realize I must have been screaming for a while. I pull back, wipe my cheek, and look at his face.

But it’s not Azael’s face. It’s Michael’s, creased with concern.

“Sorry,” he whispers hoarsely. He still holds on to my hand. “I didn’t intend to, I mean… You were screaming and I…”

I break free of his grip and push myself back against the sharp wall of the cave, distancing myself from him as best as I can. I curl in on myself, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs.

“When did you get here?” I ask defensively.

“I thought I’d bring you breakfast,” he answers, gesturing towards the center of the cave.

Next to the cluster of mason jars is a small bag of food. The smokey smell of bacon wafts over to me.

“I saw you didn’t have anything to eat and thought maybe you’d be hungry. But when I got to the pond, I heard you screaming. I flew up here as fast as I could. I thought you were being attacked, but you were only sleeping. You looked so scared, and I thought that maybe if I woke you up… What happened?”

“Nightmare,” I answer flatly.

He nods, understanding. “It sounded like a bad one.” It’s not a question. I glance at the sword that hangs off of his waist. He watches my face carefully. “I have nightmares, too.”

I relax a little, letting my legs straighten. “You have nightmares?” I ask, surprised. Angels don’t usually dream—of anything. “Of what?”

“I can never remember them. But they must be horrible. I think they may have something to do with my first life. I wake up frozen with a fear so consuming I can’t move or breathe and my heart burns. I’m worried one day I won’t wake up from them, and maybe I’ll live in the nightmare forever.” He blushes and shifts uncomfortably.

“Demons don’t have nightmares,” I say quietly. “We
are
the nightmares.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday that you were an anomaly?”

Why does he remember that? “I guess it’s more true than I thought.”

“Do you want to talk about it? Your dream, I mean?”

I fold my legs on the bench in front of me. “No.”

He studies me for a minute and then shrugs. “Well if you do, I’ll always listen.”

“You don’t have to.”

He smiles. “I know I don’t have to. But I will.” He leans forward, grabs the paper bag off of the ground, and pulls out two styrofoam containers. “I don’t know what you eat, or what you like. I’ve never had this kind of food myself, so I just picked one at random.”

“How did you pay for this?” I ask, taking one of the containers he hands to me.

“A girl at the counter said she’d pay for it,” he shrugs, opening his food.

I roll my eyes as I open my own container.
Of course she did
.

Inside lies a large, greasy breakfast sandwich. One doughy bagel hugs a saucer of egg with two crispy pieces of bacon sticking out the side. Next to the sandwich, a flat oval of hash browns sits inside a thin, paper sleeve.

“Thanks,” I say, picking up the bagel sandwich. “These are delicious. You’ll like them.”

He looks pleased with himself. “I think this is the first time you thanked me for something.”

I bite into the sandwich and chew. “Mmh,” I mumble noncommittally.

He picks up the sandwich, mimicking me, and bites into it. His eyes widen as he chews the hot bagel, egg, and bacon, his cheeks stuffed.

I swallow my bite and look at him. “And?”

He nods and takes another large bite. “This is amazing!” he says, his mouth full.

I laugh. “I know,” I say smiling. “Just wait until you try their french fries.”

Chapter 16

“I was thinking,” I say, after I shove my empty sandwich wrapper back into the bag, “that today I could train you.”

“Train me?” He drags his hand across his mouth.

“How to fight.”

“I don’t want to fight,” he says, touching the handle of his sword tentatively.

“Doesn’t matter. You’ll have to fight eventually. And it would be better if you actually know what you are doing when the time comes.”

“And if that time never comes?”

“The time will come,” I say with absolute certainty.

He doesn’t know how precarious the situation is between Heaven and Hell. If he will fight with Hell, he needs to know how to properly handle a sword. He will be useless to us if he dies in the first battle. And if he doesn’t join us…

I stand up from the bench and move over to the mason jars. I unscrew the lids one by one and blow out the small flames, extinguishing the light in the cave. Only the thin, watery light that passes through the waterfall brightens the gloominess of the cave.

“It’s raining. We can’t do much in the rain.”

“Of course it’s raining,” I say with an exasperated sigh. “This is the Pacific Northwest. It’s always raining. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little water?” I bite my tongue, remembering the lifelessness in his face yesterday when he almost drowned. The blue lips, his quiet heart. “We can go somewhere else if it starts raining too hard.”

He nods his head. “It’s fine. The rain is fine.”

“And training?”

“It doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice, does it?” He lowers his eyes to his sword, his shoulders slumped.

“Not really.”

He looks at me through the hair that has fallen over his eyes. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to say something, but he thinks better of it.

“It’s really not that bad,” I assure him.

I rise, kicking a fallen mason jar out of the way. It clinks across the uneven surface of the floor until it hits the wall. I step over to Michael and hold out my arm, offering it to him. He grabs me gently, his long fingers wrapping around my thin hand, and I help lift him to his feet.

“Thanks.” He bends his head, his mouth level with my forehead.

His hand lingers, his thumb brushing once across the back of my hand absentmindedly. I quickly tear my hand away from his and hurry to the front of the cave. I don’t look over my shoulder at him, but I can feel him watching me.

“I have to get my t-shirt and my boots before we leave,” I call back to him. “Follow me.”

I throw myself out of the cave and through the waterfall. I fall for a moment, but before I land in the dark blue pond below, I open my dark wings and lift on the air. A lazy drizzle of rain falls through the gray clouds. I look up and let the cool rain wash over my face and wake me up. My feet skim across the surface of the water as I fly over it and onto the bank.

Michael lands soundlessly next to me, his wings open wide. I glance up at him, squinting through the rain. Thick raindrops slide down his blond hair, which shines brightly against the silver of his wings. More drops cling to his pale eyelashes. He blinks and the rain falls off of his eyelashes and down his cheek, making it look like he’s crying.

I turn away from him and walk forward, grabbing the strap of my backpack from under the tree. I reach inside to find a clean t-shirt and pull out a dark blue long-sleeved shirt. I shove my hands into the thin sleeves, the fabric clinging to my wet arms.

Struggling to get my other arm through the shirt, I drop the backpack. I bring the shirt over my head and pull it down my chest and over my black tank top, settling the thin fabric at my hips. I slip my feet into my boots and zip up the sides, spinning around to scoop up my backpack again. But it’s gone.

Instead, when I straighten up, I find Michael standing with the green backpack, one of the thin straps thrown over his shoulder. He smiles at me. “Looked like you needed some help. I can carry it if you would like.”

“It’s really not that heavy. I think I can manage it,” I say, holding out my hand. He slides the strap off of his shoulder, hanging the loop around one of my hooked fingers.

“Thought I’d at least offer,” he says cheerfully.

“Thanks. I got it.”

I settle the worn backpack between my shoulder blades and unfurl my wings again. Michael’s wings, still outstretched, rustle lightly in the rain. His feathers brush together softly, whispering like the pages of books being turned too quickly.

“There’s a small clearing of sorts a little ways from here,” he offers. “Would that be a good place to train?”

I rip my gaze away from his wings to meet his eye. “Should be fine. You’re not going to make me hike, are you?”

A bemused grin lights up his face. “Would you prefer to hike?”