No Angel (16 page)
L
et me get this straight.” Krystal pushed her glasses farther up her nose, squinting through them at Michaela. She’d been in bed when I’d turned up at her window and flown her to my room with a quick, garbled explanation. She was still blinking myopically and looking as if she suspected this was all a dream. “You’re a demon hunter?”
“I’m from the Order of Dante.” Michaela sat next to Faith on my bed, her daggers resting in her lap. From the way she kept fingering them as she eyed me, I was beginning to regret giving them back to her. Her guardian angel hovered on motionless wings above her in Heaven, its burning eyes half-lidded and lazy. “We’re dedicated to seeking out and destroying any demons that manage to escape from Hell.”
“Well, you guys suck.” I gestured at my still-glowing head. I was steadily munching through chocolate bars as we talked, but I hadn’t yet been sufficiently gluttonous to put out my halo. “How could you mistake me for a demon?”
“You turned up out of nowhere and started acting suspicious!” Michaela retorted hotly, her fists closing on her daggers. “And you reacted to my warding pentagrams. It was only when you managed to defeat my guardian angel that I started to suspect you weren’t just a demon possessing a human body. But I never dreamed what you really were. Nephilim—half-breeds—are incredibly rare.” She gestured from me to Faith. “To encounter two at once is unthinkable.”
“You knew I was a nephil too. Even if you suspected Raffi was an agent of Hell, you can’t have thought
I
was!” For once, Faith was actually, genuinely, completely pissed off. Her own halo flickered and died as she glared at Michaela, her hands balling into fists. “I wondered how the rumors about me and my father got started. It was you, wasn’t it? You made everyone think I was crazy, when you
knew
I wasn’t. You made my life a living hell for an entire year!”
Michaela’s air of cool superiority slipped a little. She avoided Faith’s eyes. “I’m sorry. But I had to drive you away from here, or at the very least stop you from meeting your boyfriend at the Ball.” She took a deep breath. “You’re right, I do know your father’s plan for you. Gabriel Dante told the Order everything in his letter.”
“Who’s Gabriel Dante?” I asked, my voice slightly muffled by caramel.
“Faith’s father.” Michaela put one of her daggers down next to Faith’s sword, which was resting between them on the bed. The resemblance between the two weapons was obvious. “Gabe Jones used to be Gabriel Dante. He was expelled from the Order for heresy. He thought he’d discovered a way to close Hellgates.”
“He did.” Faith straightened up, lifting her chin proudly. “I’ve read his notebooks. He meant for me to close one at the Ball, with my one true love.”
“I know what he intended for you,” Michaela said grimly. “And it had nothing to do with the Ball or ridiculous notions about love. You see, we Danteans learn how to channel a tiny fraction of our guardian angel’s light in order to banish demonic darkness. But Hellgates are a deeper and darker darkness than we can illuminate, flawed mortal mirrors that we are. Gabriel thought nephilim would be able to channel an angel’s
full
power.”
“Can we?” I asked. “Would that really work to close the Hellgate?”
“Possibly.” Her mouth twisted. “If you didn’t mind dying to do it. Nobody, human or otherwise, could withstand that much power.”
Faith went white. “No. My dad would never have meant to hurt me. If he thought I could do it—”
“He was wrong, Faith.” Michaela shook her head. “In order to channel an angel you have to become
like them. Perfectly selfless, acting only for the greater good. We Danteans train for
years
to be able to attain that pure, egoless state of mind, and it’s dangerous even for us. An untrained, unprepared person, full of ordinary doubts and sins . . . at the very best, you’d have been crippled for life, terribly burned. That’s why Gabriel couldn’t persuade an angel to come help him, no matter how hard he prayed. They aren’t like demons, who’ll happily trick people into binding with them. No angel would ever channel light through someone who hadn’t accepted the link willingly, in full knowledge of the risks.”
“If Faith’s dad was kicked out of your club, why’d he send you a message about where he was?” Krystal asked. “He must have known you guys would try to stop him.”
“Because, as I said, he couldn’t summon an angel himself. He was growing desperate. He knew that even if we didn’t help him in his heretical scheme, we’d at least make sure Faith was safe.” Michaela’s hands clenched on her daggers. “You see, the forces of Hell have their own plans for you, Faith. Plans that come to fruition at the Masked Ball.”
“Plans?” Faith said blankly. “What do you mean?”
“You’re being groomed to accept demonic possession,” Michaela said flatly. “And not for just any demon. A Demon Prince, one of the seven Lords of Hell, so powerful that mere mortal flesh would be destroyed by its touch. Demon Princes can only possess nephilim. That’s why Hell needs you.”
Faith jerked back. “I would never agree to bind to a demon!”
“Yes, you would. Willingly.” Michaela’s voice softened. She shifted position, leaning toward her. “There’s nobody at Winchester called Billy-Bob, Faith. We checked.”
“But . . . he texts me. All the time. We’ve been friends for years.”
“You’ve been communicating with a demon already here on Earth, in possession of a mortal body. It’s been acting as the Prince’s harbinger, preparing the way for his arrival. It would have drawn a pentagram for him at the Ball, so that he could appear as a beautiful young man for you. And you, expecting to meet your true love, would have immediately pledged your eternal devotion to him.” Michaela stopped, swallowing. “You wouldn’t have been giving your heart away at the Ball. You’d have been giving away your soul. And setting unimaginable evil loose on the world.” Michaela’s self-possession cracked for a moment, betraying the shame and fear underneath that cold mask. “I was ordered to stop that from happening, at any cost. Even if I had to kill you to do it.”
“For God’s sake!” Krystal yelled in exasperation, as Faith looked as if Michaela had just shot her through the heart then and there. “Drama queen much, Michaela? Why did you grab a gun when you could have just opened your mouth? Why didn’t you
tell
us any of this stuff earlier?”
“Because I didn’t dare. Not even Gabriel dared to tell Faith the whole truth.” Michaela’s black eyes were fixed on Faith, steadily. “Faith, do you know what nephilim are?”
“Of course,” Faith said, brow furrowing. “We’re half angel.”
Michaela let out a bark of startled laughter. “Don’t be absurd.”
“What?
My
mum was definitely an angel.” I reached for another chocolate bar. “Don’t look so skeptical, Micheala. If you’d ever met her, you’d have seen straightaway how amazing she was. Hell, maybe you did meet her. She died rescuing kids from your old orphanage.”
“The Circle of Trust,” Michaela whispered, going very still. “So that’s how you knew that name. But you said you knew the truth about that place.”
Something about her tone made me stop in midbite. “What truth?”
“The Circle of Trust orphanage was a Hellgate.” Her face was absolutely expressionless. “Controlled, as they always are, by a single powerful demon. It would occasionally summon one of its brethren through, when it managed to groom a child to accept demonic possession. The embodied demons would go out into the world, but had to return periodically to pay a tithe to the master of the Hellgate.” There was no emotion at all in her voice. She might as well have been reciting ancient history or the weather. “Father Dante himself led the cleansing mission.
He
rescued me from that hellhole. He and his guardian angel destroyed all the demons with holy fire.”
There was a long, long silence.
Krystal’s hand crept into mine. “It doesn’t matter,” she said angrily. Her fingers tightened, a sole point of warmth against my blank, cold numbness. “I don’t care what you say about Raf’s mother.
He’s
not evil.”
“And anyway,” Faith said, “even if Raffi’s mother was a demon, that has nothing to do with me.”
“Yes it does,” Michaela said. “Faith, angels don’t possess people like demons do. They’re too pure, too powerful. They can’t have children.” Her face was set and grim. “The Headmistress is a demon.”
H
ey, Raffi!” Debbie plunked her dinner tray down next to mine uninvited. She glanced at the empty chair on my other side. “Why’s Faith been avoiding you all day? I thought she’d be excited to see you again. Have you two had a fight or something?”
“Something.” I moodily stirred my bowl of lentil sludge, elbow on the table and my head propped on my hand. My eyes stayed fixed on the teachers’ table, just in case the Headmistress conveniently decided to reveal her true nature. Unfortunately, at the moment, she was just demonically eating some peas. “We had a disagreement. About our families.”
“Oooh. That’s tough.” She ran her tongue over her top lip. “Well, you know, if you’re not chasing around after her anymore . . .”
“I am.” I sighed, dropping my spoon into my now cold soup with a
clink
. “I mean, I have to. It’s kind of a higher calling.”
“Pity,” Debbie said, though her expression softened as if I’d just produced a fluffy kitten out of my jacket. She nudged me with her elbow. “Well, don’t wait too long to make up with her, ’kay? The lists go up tomorrow!”
“Lists?”
“You know, for picking your partner for the Ball.” Debbie sounded as if nothing in the world could possibly be of more interest than this. I was pretty sure she’d still have held this view even if she
had
known there was a demon sitting twenty feet behind her, now demonically spooning sugar into a cup of tea. “God, I hope my Peer Assessment results are good enough to get me a Winchester boy. According to what the older girls used to say, they’re always
super
hot and totally romantic. So if you want Faith, you better get groveling. She’s going to have her pick of the Winchester studs.”
I could hardly explain that I had bigger worries than who was going with whom to some stupid dance. Faith hadn’t spoken to any of us since she’d fled my room last night in tears. Judging from the way the Headmistress was calmly eating dinner, at least Faith hadn’t gone straight to her to tattle on us . . . yet.
I stared down at my untouched food, anxiety churning my guts. If
my
mother had still been alive, and I’d found out what she really was . . . I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I’d have gone over to her side. No questions asked. Sure, my mum had been special, while the Headmistress had the maternal instincts of a frozen haddock . . . but she was still Faith’s mum.
Movement caught my eye. The Headmistress had stood up. Any normal person would have had to call for attention to quiet the room, but all she had to do was sweep her gaze over the crowd, and the entire hall went dead. “I have an unfortunate announcement to make,” the Headmistress said into the waiting silence. “Due to unforeseen circumstances, Ms. Wormwood is, as of last night, no longer employed at this school. A replacement will be found as soon as possible. In the meantime, I will personally be taking over her role as form tutor. Any final-year students with personal difficulties should report to me directly.” She turned to address the rest of the teachers at the top table, who were collectively looking uneasy but unsurprised. “There will be a meeting for all teachers in the staff room in one hour’s time to further discuss this issue. That is all.”
The Headmistress reseated herself, as the hall filled with astonished whispers. “What happened to Ms. Wormwood?” Debbie asked me, echoing the question that everyone was asking everyone else. “Do you know?”
I pushed my bowl away. “I’ve got to go. You’re right, Debbie. I’ve got to talk to Faith.”
As I headed for the door, my angelsight showed me the Headmistress’s head turning. A chill ran across my skin. She’d seemed unaware of my previous scrutiny, but now her cool, blank gaze fixed on the back of my neck. The crawling sensation of being watched persisted even once I’d put a solid stone wall between us.
Shivering, I turned my angelic eyes away from the hall, peering instead across the flat expanse of Hell. Or Heaven, I guess I had to start calling it, although the word
really
didn’t suit the inhuman, burning space. I could see the fierce flame of Michaela’s guardian angel hovering over the girls’ dormitories, keeping watch over Krystal and Michaela. They were holed up in Michaela’s room, poring over Gabriel’s notebooks in search of anything that might help us fight the Headmistress.
Apparently, all the pentagrams Michaela had been scrawling over the school had been a trial-and-error way to discover the demon’s true name, so that she could create a pentagram to bind it. Each of her pentagrams had contained a different symbol, and the idea was that a demon would flinch from the ones matching its true name, but not be affected by ones that didn’t. Unfortunately, the Headmistress had been pretty good at avoiding Michaela’s traps, and Ms. Wormwood had been even better—Michaela had never even suspected the presence of a second demon, given that they tended to be territorial.
In any event, Michaela wasn’t keen on facing the Headmistress without the safety of a pentagram, but she hadn’t made much progress working out the Headmistress’s true name herself. I fervently hoped that she could find some hints in Gabriel’s notebooks, because any demon that could instantly stop three hundred teenage girls midgossip was not even going to break a sweat slapping down one and a half angels. With or without the help of her own nephilim.
Faith wasn’t with them or in her house. Straining my eyes, I made out the soft glow of her folded wings, shining like a lighthouse beam from the old shrine. With a quick glance around to make sure no one could see me, I spread my own wings, following that distant, beckoning light.
“Go away,” Faith said as I ducked into the ruined shrine. She was sitting in the center, hunched over a mobile phone. “I need privacy. I’m waiting for Billy-Bob to respond to my messages.”
“Faith.” She flinched as I knelt down next to her. “He’s not real. Michaela said so. I think Ms. Wormwood was faking those texts and emails all along. That would explain why ‘Billy-Bob’ never sent you any pictures.”
Faith shook her head stubbornly, staring down at the phone as if waiting for a divine revelation rather than a text message. “She’s wrong. You’re all wrong. I’ve known him for years. He’s a real person. He’ll call me, any minute now.” Her knuckles were white where she gripped the handset. “I just have to talk to him.”
“About what? If he
is
a real guy, he doesn’t know about any of this stuff.” I gently folded my hand over hers, forcing her to lower the phone. “Talk to me, Faith. I’m the only person who knows how you feel.”
“No you don’t.”
“Hey, I found out I was half-demon too, remember?”
“So what?” Faith spat. “Your mum is
dead
. What do
you
care if she was a demon?”
I rocked back on my heels as if Faith had socked me in the gut. “That,” I said when I could speak again, through the tightness in my throat, “was low, Faith.”
Faith lifted her chin, her eyes as cold as the Headmistress’s. “It’s the truth. You
don’t
know what I’m going through, Raffi. Nothing’s really changed for you. It might shake you up a bit to find out about your heritage, but at the end of the day you’ve still got your dad. I don’t. All I’ve got is my mother and now Michaela wants to
kill
her.” She collapsed like a folding deck chair, sinking into a huddle of misery. “I can’t let her, Raffi, I can’t!”
I had absolutely no idea what to say. Man, I wished Krystal was here. All I could do was curve a couple of wings over her, offering silent support as she cried.
“I was going to close the Hellgate for her,” Faith choked out between sobs. “That’s the real reason why I wanted to do it so badly. Not for the world. For her. I thought living on top of it for so long had influenced her mind, making her cold and remote. I thought that if I closed it, she’d get better. Because she
does
love me. I know she does. She can’t be evil, she just can’t—”
“Someone’s coming,” I interrupted, my angelsight alerting me to a couple of figures heading straight for us. I rose to my feet, shoulders tensing—and then relaxed as I recognized who was approaching. “It’s okay. It’s Michaela and Krystal. What are you two doing here?” I asked as they came in.
“Ask her,” Krystal said sourly, jerking her thumb at Michaela. “Tall-dark-and-overly-mysterious here just went charging off without explanation.”
“My angel wanted me here,” Michaela snapped. Her guardian was hovering above her in Heaven, two wings cupped over her head. “And now I see why.” I moved back as she knelt next to Faith, putting a protective arm around her shoulders. “Faith, it will be all right. You don’t need to stay here while we . . . finish things. You can go to Italy, to the Order. They’ll look after you, just like they looked after me when I lost my home. I’ll sponsor you.”
Faith let out a brief, broken laugh. “My father was a heretic and my mother is a demon. I don’t think a group of holy warriors is going to want me.”
Michaela hesitated for a second. “Demons are just fallen angels. That means you’re closer to Heaven than anything else. I’ll tell the Order so. I can testify that you’re pure. You’re the most selfless, strongest person I’ve ever met.”
Faith sniffed, swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “Really?”
“Really.” Michaela’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “You never threw so much as a bad word at me, despite everything I did to you. And I’ve been told it would take a saint to put up with me at my worst.”
That got a real laugh out of Faith. “Thank you,” she said, putting her hand over Michaela’s for a moment. She took a deep breath, straightening. “But I can’t just run away.” She looked around at us all. “She’s my mother. If anyone can redeem her, it will be me.”
Krystal groaned. “Oh God. Faith, it was bad enough when you wanted to redeem Michaela. This is a literal
demon from Hell
. You are not going to rehabilitate it!”
“‘It’ is my mother,” Faith retorted hotly. “And I won’t let any of you harm her. You said demons are fallen angels, Michaela. That means my mother is an angel, somewhere deep down. Why can’t she become one again?”
“It’s a . . . nice idea,” Michaela said cautiously. She might as well have had glowing neon subtitles reading
THAT IS AN UTTERLY INSANE IDEA
scrolling across her forehead, but she still had her arm around Faith. “But I don’t think—” She stopped midsentence. A funny look crossed her face, like a television presenter whose earpiece had just started malfunctioning.
“What is it?” Krystal and Faith said together.
“I think it’s the angel,” I said. The glow of the angel’s wings had intensified, spotlighting Michaela in a beam of celestial light. “Is it talking to you, Michaela?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Michaela replied absently, her head still cocked to one side as if listening to something. “Believe me, my life would be a lot simpler if it did. I only get a feeling, like an intuition.” She looked at Faith. “And when you were speaking, I had an overwhelming impression of . . . approval.”
Faith caught her breath. “I’m right. You know I’m right. The angel wants me here. Even if I can’t close the Hellgate, I can still save my mother.” She bounced to her feet, determination wiping away all traces of her former tears. “And I know exactly how to do it.”
We all looked at her.
“We,” Faith stabbed a finger at me, “have to make out.”
There was a silence.
“Uh,” I said after a moment. “Not that I’m objecting, but . . . what?”
“We have to make out,” Faith repeated, sounding more like someone ordering a pizza than someone proposing sexy times. “Think about it! All your wings and eyes and things, they all appeared after we touched, right? And I got
my
wings after we kissed. It’s our soul mate connection, activating our powers. I need
my
full powers if I’m to confront my mother and bring her back to the light. So we have to make out. Right now.”
“Aaaaand we’ll just be going,” Krystal said, heading for the door. “Michaela?”
Michaela folded her arms, looking as immovable as a tree. “I’m not leaving Faith alone with a half demon.”
“
She’s
half demon!” I said.
“Faith’s Faith,” Michaela said. “You’re you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well, I’m sure as hell not doing anything with you staring at me!”
“Please, Raffi!” Faith planted herself squarely in front of me, braced like someone about to undergo a root canal. “You have to kiss me.”
What was I going to do, refuse? Scrunching my eyes tight shut, I leaned down to plant my mouth on hers.
Faith drew back after a moment. “Why isn’t anything happening?” she demanded.
“I don’t know!” I ran my hands through my hair, painfully aware of Michaela’s eyes boring into us. At least Krystal had had the decency to turn her back. “Maybe it doesn’t work unless we’re, um, in the mood?”
“In that case it’s never going to work,” Michaela said acidly. “Rafael kisses like he’s practicing artificial respiration.”
“Hey, I’m feeling a little pressured, okay?” I snapped back. “I’d like to see you do better.”
Michaela straightened up. “Is that a dare?” Before I knew what was happening, she’d shoved me aside, effortlessly snatching Faith out of my arms. Faith only had time to emit the briefest of startled squeaks before Michaela’s mouth captured hers.
There was quite a long pause.
“There.” Michaela straightened again, tossing her hair back. Faith sagged against Michaela’s arm, looking somewhat shell-shocked as Michaela glared at me coldly. “
That’s
how to kiss.”
My mouth was hanging open. I shut it. “I . . . didn’t quite get all the details there. Maybe you could show me again?”
“Someone
please
tell me when it’s safe to turn around,” Krystal said from the doorway.
Faith wriggled free of Michaela’s hands. “Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said, breathless. “Michaela, you’re the expert—on angels, I mean!” Her cheeks were flushed bright pink. “Do you know any faster way of awakening my powers?”
Michaela’s eyebrows drew down. “I don’t,” she said slowly. “But my guardian angel might. It’s dangerous . . .” She trailed off, getting that faraway look in her eyes again. “And apparently she wants me to try it,” she said after a second, not sounding at all happy at the prospect.