Angelfire

  "Will!" I screamed, and ran forward, but Geir grabbed me by the back of the neck and yanked me toward him, wrapping his arm around me, spinning my body and crushing me into his chest. His monstrous wings cast black shadows over me, and the darkness made my heart pound so loud it was al I could hear. He grabbed both my wrists with one hand and held my blades away from his skin. His Cheshire grin revealed two rows of teeth, and shivers crept down my spine. In the blazing light of the angelfire, he truly looked like a demon that had clawed its way through flesh and fire out of Hel . I shuddered in fear.

  "Bastian wil be so pleased with me," he said. "I wil bring him the Preliator and the Enshi. He wil be pleased to kil you himself."

  I thrashed against him, but I couldn't free my arms. I pounded my knee into his groin. His eyes bulged and he roared in pain, releasing me. It was good to know that when swords failed, simple girl tactics always worked--even on monsters.

  I darted away from him and jumped through the gaping hole in the wal Wil 's body had created. The settling dust choked me, but I made it through and ran to Wil . He was struggling to get to his feet, leaning heavily on his sword as the point dug into the cold ground. When I reached him, I dropped my swords and wrapped my arms around his chest.

  "I've got you," I said, helping him lift his torso the rest of the way up. I heard a sickening snap in his chest as he groaned, and I knew something was broken. He buried his face in my shoulder and growled in pain.

  A powerful hand grabbed a fistful of my hair from behind and yanked me back. I screamed and twisted, but Geir held me too tightly. He squeezed harder, making me cry out in pain.

  "That hurt, you little wench!" he hissed against my cheek, blasting my face with his foul, hot breath. "I don't think Bastian would mind if I maimed you before I brought you to him. I'l just cut you up some before I finish dealing with your Guardian."

  From the corner of my eye I saw Wil chuck something, and it slammed into Geir's chest. I looked down and saw a two-foot-long splinter of wood protruding from him, just inches from his heart. Without releasing me, Geir scowled and pul ed the stake out of his chest and chucked it back at Wil , nailing him in the shoulder and knocking him back. My heart kicked when I heard something crack in his shoulder.

  "Glad we could share, brother," Geir growled.

  Wil roared in pain and ripped the stake from his body before raising his sword to fight again. He cradled his wounded arm to his chest as the bones and tissue healed.

  "Don't even think it," Geir said with a slow shake of his head in warning, pressing the tip of a claw to my throat. "Do you want the little girl to die?"

  I jerked, but fighting the reaper's grip was like wrestling with an office building. He pressed his talon deeper, and I gasped when the skin broke. I watched the blood drain from Wil 's face, and I knew he knew Geir real y would kil me. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to focus my energy, remembering what Wil had told me: "Don't stop fighting."

  With a cry, I let my power erupt, lashing into Geir. The impact surprised him and threw him off me. As he flew, I slung my fist back and pounded him in the face. He hit the ground hard, flat on his back. His wings shuddered and curled with pain.

  "You little bitch!" he roared, covering his face in his hands. I grabbed a sword off the ground and turned it upside down to shove it into his heart, but he rol ed out of the way and leaped to his feet. He evaded each stroke as I swung left and right, but something raged through me, a fury spinning with madness. As I fought the reaper, I felt my control slipping, and something dark throbbed in my skul until I could barely breathe. The world around me went black, until al I could see was Geir's horrible face as I swung my sword, unable to think coherent thoughts. I wanted to throw my weapon to the ground and grab at his throat with my bare hands.

  Wil appeared like a flash between us, shoving me back and swinging his arm out and smashing it into Geir's face. Geir growled and spat in rage.

  "El ie, go!" Wil shouted, looking back at me. "Get out of here!"

  His voice brought my senses back to me. I blinked and the rest of the world came back, but Wil blocked my view of the demonic reaper. "I can beat him!" I cried. "Let me try!"

  He took a firm hold of my arm. "You aren't ready to fight him yet--now run!"

  "You're losing yourself. If I let you continue to fight him, it'l get bad. Now Run!"

  "What about you?" I cried. "I'm not going to leave you here!"

  "You are the only thing I care about," he said. "You must survive!"

  Even if I had wanted to, I couldn't move. My pulse pounded inside my head like tribal drums, drowning out Wil 's pleas. I couldn't force myself to turn and run. Not when he was wounded. I couldn't abandon him.

  Geir stood up and vanished for a moment, reappearing in the air above Wil . He came down hard, fist swinging. Wil jumped behind the statue of a woman and Geir's fist pounded through her abdomen, spraying chunks of marble. Wil leaped around the statue and hit Geir over and over again. Geir flew straight back and halted abruptly, gagging, blood dribbling from his lips. He looked down at his chest and found himself skewered on the lance of a stone knight. Blood oozed thickly from his wound and ran down the length of the lance. He snarled up at Wil , his yel ow eyes flashing, his shark's teeth gnashing like a piranha's. He grabbed the stone and started to pul himself free.

  "El ie!" Wil shouted, rushing back to me. "We have to go, now! I'l grab the sarcophagus."

  I nodded, let my swords disappear, and darted back inside the house, Wil right behind me. He bent down over the box and lifted it--almost effortlessly, to my amazement--and took off at a run.

  "No!" Geir shrieked. "You can't! Damn you, no! "

  As I ran after Wil , I looked back at Geir, who was stil trying to free himself. I saw him pound his fist into the stone lance and snap it in half. His dark wings beat the air violently. He shrieked like some demon bird spawned in Hel and his eyes glowed brightly with rage. In the failing light, his face appeared to change, his teeth growing longer and sharper, his eyes narrowing to slits. I stopped watching and ran faster. We final y reached the truck, and I threw open the back doors so Wil could set the sarcophagus inside. We climbed in front as fast as we could, with Wil in the driver's seat, and we sped off.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF--NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Children's Books

  ..................................................................... 21

  "YOU'RE HURT," I SAID, LIFTING UP WHAT WAS LEFT of his tattered sleeve to examine the deep gouges in his arm. Though we were free of the Grim, Wil 's attitude sure wasn't. He shrugged away from me, his good hand maintaining a death grip on the steering wheel while he cradled his wounded arm against his chest. "I'm fine. You worry too much about me."

  "What about your shoulder?"

  "I'm fine."

  "You were impaled."

  "Geir was worse off than I was when we got the hel out of there, and he'l be back to his old self in minutes."

  "But you're not Geir."

  "But you're not Geir."

  He glanced at me. His eyes had returned to their normal soft green. "Our powers are not al that different."

  "Did you see what he did with his hands?" I asked, holding my own up. "He practical y transformed right before our eyes."

  "That isn't exactly uncommon among vir," he said.

  "Shape-shifting is a trait many of us share."

  "Can you change your hands into claws like that, too?"

  "No," he said.

  "What can you do, then?"

  "I'm nothing like him."

  "Oh." I wondered about his strange eyes. The colors of his and Geir's eyes seemed to intensify as they got stronger and angrier. They didn't exactly change color, but the hues grew brighter, almost glowing. Maybe that was Wil 's ability. At least he didn't transform into a monster.

  I nodded and stared ahead. "Are we going back to the library?"

  "Of course not," he said, his voice void of worry.

  "Bastian's vir
wil expect us to take the sarcophagus to Nathaniel, since he is the only one I know who might be able to read the inscriptions. They'l be trying to locate him next. They'l learn he's working at the library very soon."

  "Nathaniel's not there right now, is he?" I asked, my voice quaking. "What if they find him? He'l be kil ed!"

  "He's fine," Wil said. "Don't worry. He's at the warehouse."

  "Our warehouse?"

  "Yeah. Bastian can't know about that location yet. We'l keep the Enshi there, too, for now."

  "What if Geir fol ows us?" I had a terrible vision of him blasting through the wal and kil ing us al .

  "He'l try," he said without fear. "But we're too far ahead. The trail wil be cold by the time he gets free. The vir may be stronger than other reapers, but our tracking abilities aren't as good. We don't have the nose that a lupine has, for instance."

  His words were a smal comfort, but I couldn't help thinking about what had happened to me when I'd fought Geir one-on-one. I'd slipped into a state in which I didn't know anything but the fight and nothing else mattered to me. The same thing had threatened to happen during our last fight against Ragnuk. I'd been horribly angry and felt wrong. What had happened frightened me more than Geir did, because he was something that could be defeated. The darkness I felt overtaking me wasn't something I could fight. What if I had lost control completely and hurt someone I cared about, like Wil ? Dark spidery things had appeared on my face on my birthday, after months of awful nightmares, and now this. I didn't know if I was becoming something as demonic as the reapers I battled--if I was becoming one of them.

  "Wil ," I said, my voice smal , "what happened to me back there? Why did you stop me? Did you know something?"

  "Your purpose is to fight," he said. "It's what you were designed for. Sometimes it gets a little intense and you don't think straight."

  "Is that why you stopped me? Because I was going to lose control?"

  "You could have. When you reach that level, you aren't able to fight with a clear head, and it makes a battle even more dangerous. We can fight Geir another day."

  "Couldn't it be a good thing?" I offered. "I lost al my fear then. You said that makes me stronger."

  "It does make you stronger, but you also lost yourself along with that fear. It's not safe for you to lose your head like that, no matter what advantage it gives you."

  "You mean I can hurt someone I don't mean to."

  "Yes."

  "Have I hurt you?"

  When he didn't answer, a heaviness settled on me and I didn't want to know any more. His silence said everything. I had lost control before and hurt him. That sent an unmatched ache through my heart. How could I have let something like that happen?

  Wil 's hand lay on mine in a comforting gesture as if he sensed my unease. I looked up to meet his eyes. "Hey," he said with a smal smile. "It'l be okay."

  We reached the warehouse and Wil pul ed into the overgrown al ey. Nathaniel was standing at the end, his arms crossed over his chest. He let out a low breath when we hopped out of the truck and he saw our torn, bloody clothes.

  "I figured you'd run into some trouble," he said. "Who ambushed you?"

  "Geir," Wil said as he pul ed open the back of the van.

  "And a weaker vir, but El ie took care of him easily. The weaker one must have mentioned his new find to the wrong reaper. Word got back to Bastian, and he sent Geir to retrieve it."

  "If only we had gotten there just five minutes sooner," I said, frowning. "We could have missed Geir completely."

  "It's fine," Wil said. "We both made it out alive, and we have the Enshi. That was the original plan, wasn't it?"

  I looked at him sadly. I'd already told him what was bothering me, so it was meaningless to repeat myself to him. I hated how badly he got hurt every time we ran into a reaper, and I hated anyone to shed any blood for me. It made knowing al my previous Guardians were dead al too real.

  "Let's get the sarcophagus inside before anyone sees us," Nathaniel said.

  He and Wil lifted the box and carried it inside, setting it gently down in the middle of the main room. They had some trouble finding a spot free of the rubble our training had created.

  "What do we have here?" Nathaniel asked no one in particular as he ran his fingers down the top of the box. "The seal of Azrael, as I'd thought. There's something in Enochian around the seal. But I can't read the divine language. No one can. What else do we have? Cuneiform."

  "Can you read that?" I asked, looking at the strange markings. "Cuneiform is Sumerian, right?"

  "They developed it, yes," he answered, picking a bit of dirt off a glyph. "But cuneiform evolved greatly over thousands of years and this is different from the Old Assyrian script I know best."

  "So you can't read it?" I asked, disappointed.

  "Not accurately right now, but I wil . I just need some time. I'm guessing that it's from the nineteenth century b.c., based on some of the most frequently occurring glyphs."

  My jaw dropped. "That old?"

  "How long do you think it wil take you to translate the glyphs?" Wil asked.

  "Couple days," Nathaniel answered with a shrug. "I have an idea of where to start. I'l let you know."

  I looked at the sarcophagus. Something ancient and evil was sleeping within. I almost didn't want to speak too loud, in case it might wake up. It needed to be destroyed before that happened.

  Something prickled along my skin like tiny spiderlings. I could feel the Enshi's presence beneath the stone lid, his power rol ing across the floor like a thick fog, clouding my vision and my thoughts. A voice whispered to me, the echoes of some phantom whispering from deep inside my mind, drowning my senses. I lifted my hand and my fingers traced the lid.

  Wil grabbed my wrist, and I snapped my eyes up to his. The concentration with which he studied my face made me wonder if he was trying to see through my skin straight to the bone.

  "Are you al right?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I can feel him in there."

  "I know," Wil said, his expression dark. "I can sense your fear." He pul ed me close to him in a move that felt utterly natural. "I don't think you should touch it."

  I didn't object. Whatever was inside that box wanted me. I could feel its lul ing voice stil creeping inside my skul , so hard to resist. There was a frightening urge inside me to lie across the top, to climb in, to get as close as possible. I shuddered and forced myself to look away. I held my winged necklace in my hand, concentrating on the warmth of the pendant as if it would protect me.

  "How do we open it?" Wil asked.

  Nathaniel knelt to examine the lid more closely. He scratched at the seal before standing. He pushed the lid as hard as he could, but it didn't budge. He shoved again, even harder. Stil , nothing.

  "We should just burn it," Wil said.

  "We can't burn it," Nathaniel sighed. "It's made of stone. Let me figure out what the inscriptions say before we do anything. Sit tight. I'l figure this out."

  I wanted to believe him, I wanted to trust him, but I gazed upon the sarcophagus, watching the beautiful Enochian symbols vibrate and sway while nothing else moved. Between my fingers my necklace pulsed. I didn't think the others could see what I saw and or hear the humming inside my head. The gentle voice became more insistent by the second, until I could just make out the alien, childlike voice in the back of my mind.

  "Pre-e-eliator . . ."

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF--NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Children's Books

  ..................................................................... 22

  I FILLED MY HANDS WITH COLD, SLIMY INNARDS and dumped them into the kitchen sink. My unfortunate pumpkin had final y been gutted and now sat waiting for me to carve him some eyes. Kate was already carving her own pumpkin's fangs, and Rachel was even slower than I was, stil scraping away at the gooey guts. I watched with unease as Landon scooped as much of the pumpkin mess out of the sink as he could and put them in a popcorn bowl.

  "What
are you planning to do with that?" I asked warily. If he threw them at me, I'd kil him.

  "You'l see." He took up the serrated knife and began carving a squinty-eyed face with a large O-shaped mouth on his own pumpkin. He took a handful of guts and let them glop through the top of the pumpkin, positioning the mass until a good amount spil ed out of the mouth and onto the counter. He stepped back, beaming and grinning wide. "Look! He is hammered drunk."

  I looked at the mess in disgust. Now that he spel ed it out for me, I could see the sickened expression of the pumpkin and the "vomit" ejected onto my countertop. "Bril iant. Real y, Landon."

  Kate glanced over and laughed. "Yes! That is awesome!"

  "Oh, hel ," Rachel groaned. "That's so lame."

  "It's awesome," Kate repeated, staring her down. "I think I might do that with mine. We need a couple beer bottles to go with them."

  Landon made a loud, unintel igible sound. "You can't copy me, man. My genius should only ever be appreciated, never duplicated."

  "That's not genius," Rachel noted. "That's just sick."

  I carved a happy jack-o'-lantern face into my pumpkin. Despite my nightly extracurricular activities, I didn't real y like scary things. The jack-o'-lantern smiled up at me with blank triangle eyes and a blocky-toothed grin. Though he was adorable, he was severely overshadowed by the spooky vampire face on Kate's. Even Rachel's was better. Both of their pumpkins could beat the crap out of mine. In fact, I think they wanted to.