Spirit (35 page)

“So now you’re
here,” I said, gesturing to the room around us.

“And now we are
here,” she agreed. “But time is cyclical, and new generations are learning
about us and coming back to the old ways, and older generations are remembering
us, missing us, and passing on our stories. I am stronger now than I have been
in an age.”

“Could I just
stay here then? Join you?”

“Terra,” she
said sadly, and I knew the answer without her even finishing her sentence. “You
were born an earthbound angel, not fae.”

I took a
steadying breath and nodded, more in defeat than acceptance.

“You said you
owed me a favor,” I said, finding my voice again. “I want you to help me get
back to my world, back to my friends. If you can help me come back to life, so
much the better, but if you can’t, then just help me get back to Jodi and
Steven, and I’ll call it fair.”

“I’m afraid that
chance has come and gone, Terra.”

“What? Why?” I
leaned across the table, my fingers clawing at the wood before they slipped
through the tabletop.

“They are already
calling you back,” Iris said, watching as I faded. “I am sorry, Terra.” Her
voice echoed in my mind as that same strange pulling sensation yanked me from
somewhere in the middle of my being, and I was pulled out of the faerie world
and into the next. The last thing I saw before the world went black was Balor’s
terrified face as he tried to chase after me.

Chapter 20

The first face I
saw was Ashriel’s. Standing not five feet away from me, Ash looked so
impressive with his blue tinted white wings arcing up and behind him while
dressed in head to toe black. His ice blue eyes lit up at the sight of me, like
they always had… before.

“Shayna.” My
name echoed around us as he lifted his hand to reach for me.

“No!” I yelled
and turned to run, only to slam into some invisible wall. I hit the ground with
an
oomph
of surprise.

“Dios mío,”
Steven said just as Jodi said, “Sunnovabitch, it worked.”

I pushed back up
to my feet, dusting my pants off out of habit before I looked around. Ashriel
hadn’t moved, but what was more surprising was that Jodi and Steven were
looking right at me. Finally they could see me. And I could see the shadow of
Death looming over them again.

 
“Shay!” Steven gushed before running to me,
his arms open. I held out my arms, ready to wrap myself around him when he went
right through me. I didn’t even feel a tremor when his body passed through
mine, which was almost creepier than if I could’ve felt it.

“Well, I guess
that answers that.” I think if I could have cried, I would have burst into
tears right then.

“I don’t
understand,” Steven said, looking down at his empty hands.

“Shayna no
longer has a corporeal body,” Ashriel said.

“Then how can we
see her?” Jodi asked, pointing at me.

“Because we
invoked her spirit,” Steven said with a tired sigh.

“Damn,” Jodi
whispered with a shake of her head. “Well, at least we can talk to you now.”

“Yeah,” I
replied. “About that, I see you’ve been doing an awful lot of talking with him.”
I stuck my thumb out at Ash with a tilt of my head. Maybe I couldn’t cry here,
but nothing was stopping me from getting mad, and I had to get these feelings
out somehow.

“Thank goodness,
right?” Steven said. His smile was so big there was hardly room on his face for
anything else. “We couldn’t get to you without him.”

“Maybe next time
don’t banish me and you won’t have to worry about invoking my spirit.” The
words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. My anger and frustration
from that night came rushing back and all the curses I had flung unheard echoed
in my mind.

“Right,” Steven
said, his smile melting like ice cream in July as he looked down at his feet.

“I’m sorry,” I
said quickly, hating myself, closing my eyes and holding up my hands. “It’s not
been exactly easy for me lately. I shouldn’t have said that though.”

“Shayna,”
Ashriel said again, stepping toward me.

“Don’t you
fucking dare!” I screamed, stepping back only to be stopped by that same
invisible wall.

“Shayna, we
must,” he pressed. I slid along the circular wall, trying to keep out of his
reach as he continued forward. Steven came forward with his anthame in hand.
Ash paused, eyeing the blade, but Steven just sliced through the air at the
edge of the circle so he could walk through but allow the magic to surround him.
I felt the invisible wall shimmer behind me but not fall away. Steven smoothed
his hand over the space he’d cut.

Steven stepped
between Ash and me, putting a hand on Ashriel’s chest to stop him. They were
nearly identical in height, and Steven’s broad shoulders hid Ashriel’s face
from me. I moved over to Jodi to stand by her.

“What’s going
on?” Jodi asked, looking from me to Ash.

“He’s trying to
take me away,” I said. “If I go, you two will continue to fade away, and I
won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.”

“You knew?” Jodi
turned those impossibly wide blue eyes on me, blinking slowly.

“Of course, I
never left,” I said. I reached for her hand before I remembered I couldn’t
touch her. My hand went through hers, making her pale skin turn a light blue
momentarily as chills ran up her arm. I cursed under my breath.

“Where are you
taking her?” Steven asked, pushing Ashriel back a step. I knew the angel was
stronger, but for whatever reason, he allowed Steven to move him back.

“Shayna is a
guardian angel. She has to move on to fulfill her calling,” Ashriel said.

“Hey, where are
your wings anyway?” Jodi asked. “I thought we’d be able to see them.”

“I lost them.” I
continued when my friends turned their shocked faces toward me. “When Ashriel
told me I wouldn’t be allowed to help you two, I turned away from the light.
When I did that, they ripped my wings out. I lost my wings.” I said it fast,
like ripping off a band aid, tired of reliving that night.

“Why wouldn’t
she be allowed to stay with us?” Steven asked.

“Because you
aren’t her charges. Your fates are not in her hands,” Ashriel tried to explain.

“Then why is my
death affecting them? And why have I been with them my whole life?” I pointed
at my friends. “Just so I could love them and then be forced to watch them die
a slow, sad death? What the hell is that?” I demanded.

“I don’t make
the rules.” Ash’s eyes dimmed as his shoulders fell.

“Maybe you don’t
and maybe you don’t think you can do anything about it, but I lived as a human
for eighteen years before I had to deal with this crap. I am not about to give
up my free will if it means abandoning those that need me.” I thumped my chest,
leaning toward Ashriel.

“Shayna, that is
not up to you,” Ashriel said.

“Apparently it
is,” I shot back. “Why did they let me go then? They took my wings and left me
alone, only you have been trying to get me back.”

“Shayna!” I saw Ashriel’s
temper rise. He closed his eyes and seemed to be counting to ten before he
looked at me and spoke again. “You saw those wraiths in the graveyard. Do you
want to become like them?”

“Those what?”
Jodi asked.

“What is he
talking about, Shay?” Steven asked.

I glared at Ash,
cursing him silently for bringing that up. If Jodi and Steven knew what kind of
fate I had in store if I continued to remain as a wraith on Earth, they would
insist I leave with Ashriel with no regard for their own fates and that looming
shadow would consume them. But there was a chance that Jodi and Steven would
live long, full lives and be dead before I ever faded into one of those things
so long as I stayed to help them heal.

“I made my
choice,” I said to him, ignoring Jodi and Steven’s questions.

“It was the
wrong choice,” he said.

“Well whatever
you two are talking about doesn’t seem to make a difference, Ashriel,” Steven
said, moving to block his view of me again. “Like she said, she made her choice,
so that’s the end of it. We’re leaving, and you’re going to let us.”

“Right,” Jodi
said, and when I turned to look at her, I saw she had her anthame in her hand.
“Come on, Shay, Steven, let’s go.” Jodi turned to the edge of their circle and sliced
through the air in front of her, opening the circle so she could walk out. She
stepped through, followed by Steven.

“It’s okay,
Shayna,” Steven said. “He can’t follow us; we trapped him.” I blinked at Steven
before turning to look at Ashriel. He glared at my friends, his jaw clenched
and his hands fisted at his side.

“You figured it
out?” Before either of them answered, I took a step to leave a circle, only to
be stopped once again. The wall was still keeping me in.

“Shay?” Steven
asked.

“But they took
my wings,” I said, staring at the ground, at the markings they had drawn on the
grass in chalk. At first it appeared as though they had only drawn the basic
symbols for an invocation in and around the summoning pentagram their circle
was drawn around, but when you looked closer, there were teeny, tiny markings
that didn’t usually belong. Somehow they’d figured out which angelic glyphs to
use to trap Ashriel in place and hidden them in plain sight. It was brilliant,
except for one thing: Now I was trapped inside the circle with Ashriel.

“Fallen or no,
you are still an angel,” Ashriel said, making my head spin.

“No,” I whispered,
pressing my back against the wall. Steven reached out for me, but his hands
passed through me. I shook my head, holding my hands up as Ashriel stepped toward
me. “No, Ashriel, don’t do this.”

“Shayna, run!”
Jodi said quickly, using her toe to scuff a break in the circle. I fell backward
immediately, the trap broken. I stumbled but managed to stay on my feet.
Spinning around, I ran as fast as I could. I remembered the warmth of that
seeking Light on my back, the sound of Ashriel screaming behind me as I ran,
but this time I had no shadows to help me get away. They had chosen a place in
a wide open field without so much as one tree or split rail fence; there wasn’t
even a sliver of a shadow to grab. Ashriel had chosen well.

A crack of
thunder erupted behind me as Ashriel opened his wings, taking flight. The flap
of his wings was strong enough to knock Steven and Jodi to the ground as he
rushed after me. I cursed him as I ran. If I had still been in the Outlands, I
probably would have been crying in frustration, but on Earth, I could feel so
little, so the tears didn’t come. But I still had rage, and it built inside of
me.

I stopped
abruptly and dropped to the ground, flattening myself as much as possible.
Ashriel flew right over me, unable to stop or turn in time. I got back to my
feet and brought my hands up to my chest, holding them apart. I directed all of
my rage, all of my disappointment into the empty space between my hands. I
thought about the glowing balls of heat I had once been able to create and felt
the air shifting around me, growing in intensity as I glared at my
supposed-guardian angel. He rounded on me and beat his wings ferociously,
coming straight for me. I saw his fingers reaching for me, and at the last
possible moment, I screamed and released all of that energy, directing it at
him in the same way I had turned on the light in my room and turned Anthony’s
TV.

Power rushed out
of me and struck Ashriel with such force that he flew back. His wings caught the
current and pulled him back, making him crash to the ground. The world shook
around us as he hit the ground. He slid, the earth tilling around him until a
small mound of dirt formed, slowing him to a stop. He was a tangle of wings and
limbs, and when I stared at him, he didn’t move. I worried that I had managed
to kill him, but the backlash of expending so much energy rebounded into me and
I fell to the ground.

“Shayna!” Steven
and Jodi called out my name, rushing to me. They fell to their knees next to
me.

“Too much,” I
managed to say, holding my head with one hand.

“You’re
flickering,” Steven said in a quiet, scared voice.

“Too much,” I
repeated, unable to form the rest of the words.

“He’s moving,”
Jodi said, her voice only a little louder than Steven’s, as she looked over her
shoulder. I looked at the mound of earth and angel and saw Ashriel struggling
to get to his feet.

“I can’t,” I
said, shaking my head.

“Get back to the
circle,” Steven said quickly, jumping to his feet and waving for me to follow.

“What?”

“C’mon! Get back
to the circle,” Steven said frantically, waving his arms.

It was harder
than it should have been, but I managed to get to my feet before Ashriel got to
his, and I followed Steven to the circle. I stumbled and fell enough that by
the time I crossed the broken line, Ashriel had untangled himself and was
yelling for me, coming for me. Steven ran over to a bag on the ground and dug
through it until he found the canister of salt.