Angelfire

  My heart sank. "Don't tel me that."

  "You will remember."

  "I already scare the hel out of myself," I confessed. "I don't want to scare you, too."

  He smiled, but just a little. "I'm used to it."

  "I'm not exactly used to it." An invisible weight pressed on my shoulders, making me tired.

  "But we know what you are now, and things wil be different. You're Gabriel, bound in human form, the archangel of revelation, mercy, resurrection, and death. There's nothing you can't do."

  His words ignited fear in me. I wasn't ready to ful y understand what I was, or how to accept it, or what would happen once I did.

  "I'm going to take a shower before we go," he said. "In the meantime, think of plenty of imaginary stories to entertain your parents about your up-north adventures with Kate."

  I forced my own smile. "Definitely."

  I pul ed on jeans and a tank top, discarding my towel on the floor. I lay back down on the bed on my side, tucked my knees to my chest, and stared at the wal . I tried my best not to think about the night before, but I felt horrible for the poor crew of the Elsa. Because of our task, because of me, they were al dead. Jose's blank face stared back at me when I closed my eyes. A flash of a different vision--one of my own body clutched in Geir's monster hands--struck me, sending shivers al the way down to my bare toes. Wil had promised me that my ful strength would return along with my memory, but I was afraid that it would come al at once, traumatizing me, damaging me. In that last battle, I'd been able to control the other side of myself that my power had created. But if that was only a fraction of what I was capable of, then it was possible that I wouldn't be able to control al of it. I wasn't sure I could handle the truth about my past and what I was meant for. It seemed far too simple: kil some reapers, die, live again, kil some reapers, die--lather, rinse, repeat. . . . What if that wasn't it? What if there was something more?

  What if I real y was an angel--Gabriel, the archangel, God's left hand?

  What Mr. Meyer had said to me the last day I saw him echoed through my mind: "Life is going to test you in ways it never has before. Don't let your future change the good person that you are or make you forget who you are."

  The bathroom door opened and Wil stepped out, clad only in jeans. As he brushed past me, I caught his clean scent and sat up, my half-wet hair in tangles. He rummaged through his bag for a dark chocolate tee that brought out the green in his eyes and shrugged it down over his lean torso. The idea of its being forbidden for me to touch him the way I wanted to and for him to touch me was absurd. It was impossible not to want to explore every last inch of him. He sat down on the edge of the bed to tug on a pair of socks, then his shoes. He turned his head to look at me as he slipped the chain of his crucifix over his head and tucked it into his shirt. I crawled forward and knelt beside him. I wasn't anything close to the infal ible, perfect vision of the angel Wil had told me about. I felt like a girl sitting next to a boy who I cared for more than anything else. Just a sil y girl who liked shopping and eating ice cream. This whole thing was too beyond me, too out of my control. A few months before, I hadn't even been sure that God existed, but now people were talking about Him as if He and I were old pals. How do archangels behave? Would I have to stop swearing? Stop watching horror movies? What else would I have to give up, if I had to give up anything at al ? I kind of lied a lot. That wasn't angelic in the least. Was it possible for me to go on with my life as normal knowing what-- who--I was? I didn't want to feel different. I didn't want anyone to treat me as if I were different. I wanted Wil to look at me the same way he always had. I didn't want him to look at me as if I were more of a freak of nature than I already was. I couldn't handle it, damn it, and I sure as hel wasn't going to stop saying damn and hell.

  "You about packed?" Wil 's breath was cool and minty from his toothpaste. The dampness of his hair brought out its maple shine, and it was tousled wildly from vigorous drying with a towel.

  "Yeah," I said. "I didn't bring much. This wasn't exactly a vacation, so . . ." I trailed off.

  He smiled crookedly. "Sorry about that. Maybe one day."

  "Are you promising me a real vacation someday?" Hope fluttered through me, giving my words a lilt.

  "Maybe," he said with an edge to his voice.

  "With horses?"

  "Maybe."

  He wrapped a hand around my cheek, stroking the corner of my lips with his thumb as softly as if a feather brushed against them. My pulse quickened, and something fluttered through my chest.

  "I told you I wouldn't let them kil you," he whispered. Then his eyes changed suddenly and he took his hand back, turning away from me.

  I frowned, climbing off the bed to walk over to the dresser, and I turned around to face him. My fingernails tapped impatiently on the cheap wood. My confusion over how Wil felt about me had distracted me from the horrors of the night before and what was to come. I couldn't help thinking that it was actual y Bastian who had prevented my death--but, of course, only so he could kil me later. He had had the perfect chance to finish me off in the hold of that ship, but he hadn't even tried. I knew Bastian was actual y trying to figure out a way to get the Enshi back, awaken it, and destroy my soul so I could never be reborn again. I couldn't let that happen.

  "What's wrong?" Wil asked.

  The question was funny since there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I should have asked what was wrong with him. "Do you think Bastian wil find more thugs to do his dirty work, since we kil ed most of them off?"

  He nodded. "I would imagine that as word gets out among the demonic reapers of what Bastian is trying to accomplish, more wil flock to him. There's no tel ing what sort of monsters he wil find."

  "I'm afraid of Bastian," I confessed. "But I'm prepared to fight him."

  He stood up from the bed and walked toward me. "I know you wil ." He slid a tentative hand around my waist, but he didn't pul me closer, or hold me tightly. His hand was just--

  agonizingly--there. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and pul him down to kiss me, but I could see the fight in his gaze, feel it in the rigidity of his body. Was he afraid to touch me?

  The front door swung open--Wil and I sprang apart--and Nathaniel appeared, looking more tired than I had ever seen him. Dark circles rimmed his lower eyelids, and his face was white as a ghost. I wondered if he had eaten anything since his injuries the t night before. "I've checked us out and the cab's here. Time to go."

  He gave us a nod before leaving the room again. When he shut the door, I realized I hadn't breathed since he'd opened it.

  "We should get going," Wil said.

  As he stepped around me, I held a hand to his chest.

  "Wil . Was that real y Michael back on the ship? Was what he said to you true?"

  His gaze fluttered away for a moment. "That was the angel who came to me centuries ago. The one who told me to protect you."

  "You recognized him?"

  He nodded. "Being mortal for so long must have made you forget. You're drifting farther away from who you real y are."

  "Do you believe that?"

  He stepped away from me and ran a hand through his hair.

  "Please don't let that be a yes," I groaned.

  "We should get out to the taxi."

  "So that's it, then? You're just going to shut me out and treat me like a leper after what you found out about me?"

  "That's not what this is about."

  "It's not?" I snapped in chal enge. "You look at me and I know you want to touch me, but you hold back. How does knowing what I am change things?"

  "Michael gave me a warning. I don't know how to explain it to you."

  "That's because you can't. I accepted what you are when you told me. Why can't you do the same for me?" The color of his eyes flashed, and I could tel he was getting angry, but it felt like he was angry with himself and not me.

  "El ie, it's not about what I want and think. You are an archangel."

  "Do I
look anything like Michael?" I asked. "Look at me. No wings, no glow, no anything." I took both his hands and set them on my hips. "This body is human, Wil , solid and warm, and I know you can feel that." I squeezed his hands when he tried to withdraw. I stepped up close to him and tilted my head back as our bodies touched. "I'm just a girl with a few weird things about me, but al you can see is a girl--the same girl you've known for centuries. The same girl you fight for. The same girl you've kissed. I'm no different. In another world I may be who Michael said I am, but right now, right here, with you, I'm just El ie. I don't care what he said to you--

  I just care about right now."

  He gazed down at me, his lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but he remained silent. Then he took his hands away and stepped back, his gaze fal ing away.

  "You're acting like a dumbass," I said.

  He stopped and stared at me, and ran his hand through his hair. He seemed shocked. I almost laughed. I'd give him something to be real y shocked about.

  In a single long stride, I swept up to him, stretched to the tips of my toes, cupped his face with both of my hands, and kissed him fiercely. He stiffened at first, and as soon as he melted into me and his fingers wrapped around my waist and tugged at the band of jeans, I let him go and continued past him, refusing to look back.

  I'd let him think about that for a little while.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF--NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Children's Books

  ..................................................................... 34

  LAUREN MET US AT THE DETROIT METRO AIRPORT. She seemed especial y overjoyed that Nathaniel had made it home in one piece. She dropped Wil and me off at my house on her way home. Wil wished me luck before disappearing to my roof, and I went inside to face my parents. My mom was cheerful and eager to hear my stories from the weekend trip. Of course, I fed her sugarcoated lies with a cherry on top. I accomplished this more easily than I'd thought I would, but tel ing them the truth would have gotten me locked up in a psych ward. It was al just too terrible and strange--I was doing them a favor by keeping them in the dark. I prayed my parents would never find out how much I'd lied to them in the past couple of months, but in my heart I knew that I had bigger things to worry about in my life than household rules and curfews.

  I cal ed Kate to thank her for covering for me and, consequently, had to explain to her many times over that nothing had happened . . . at least not the way she thought things had happened, anyway. I'd have to do this al over again when I saw her in class on Monday.

  I felt too restless to change into my pajamas and go to sleep. Instead, I tugged a sweater on over a pair of jeans, climbed out my window, and scaled the roof to where Wil was sitting. He watched the sky serenely, his arms folded over his knees. He peeked over at me as I crawled up to sit beside him.

  "So, is this what you do when you're sitting up here by yourself?" I asked, playful y nudging his shoulder. "Stare at nothing?"

  "Among other things," he answered. "I don't usual y think this much. Keeping a lookout keeps me preoccupied."

  I studied his face for clues, but his gaze was soft and without worry. "What are you thinking about?"

  "Too much."

  A chil y breeze rushed through my hair. "Care to elaborate?"

  He took in a slow breath. "I don't know how to handle this."

  "We both learned a lot about each other last night. What do you say we just cal it even?"

  He almost smiled, but he caught himself. "I suppose that's true."

  "Why didn't you tel me you had wings?"

  "I was afraid of scaring you," he confessed.

  I frowned. "You know, for someone who believes in me so much, you real y have no faith in me at al ."

  "That's not what I've meant by everything I've done," he said. "I guess I'm a walking contradiction. I'm not perfect."

  "You told me that you're my servant, yet you decide what I ought to know. You can't control me like that, Wil ."

  "I don't want to control you, El ie. I just want to do the right thing and what's best for you."

  "How would you know what's best for me?" I asked sharply. "You're not me. You have no right to make decisions for me."

  "El ie--"

  "Why couldn't you have been up front with me in the beginning? I'm a big girl. I can handle it."

  "Right," he almost laughed. "Tel you everything the first day: 'So, my name's Wil . You don't remember me, but we've known each other for five hundred years. You hunt monsters and I'm one of them, but I'm also your friend. Oh, I can fly, too.'"

  "Wil ," I said sadly. "Okay, you have a point, but you should have told me these things a little sooner. I shouldn't have had to find out the way I did. It was like a slap in the face. That shocked me way more than it would have if you had just been more honest."

  "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. No more secrets."

  "Swear?"

  "I swear."

  I smiled and stood. "Show me. Show them to me."

  He watched me curiously. He knew what I meant. "Why?"

  "I want to see them."

  He climbed to his feet. "As you wish." I heard cotton rip and Wil 's wings appeared, spreading wide, their ivory pearlescence shimmering in the moonlight. I reached out to touch them and he shied away, almost as if in embarrassment. A feather fel and drifted away in the breeze.

  "What's wrong?" I asked. "Don't be sil y. I'm not going to yank on them."

  He smiled weakly and looked away from my face. "I know. I just . . . I hate them. I don't want to be anything like Bastian and the others. I try so hard to distance myself from the rest of my kind, but these wings remind me that I'm a monster."

  Sadness washed over me. I couldn't stand seeing that he hated himself so much. "You're not a monster. You are an angel, not me. My guardian angel."

  His eyes lifted to meet mine and he said nothing. I held a hand out to touch one wing, and the softness of the feathers startled me. I'd felt bird wings before; Kate had had a parrot up until a couple of years before, but its feathers had been stiff and slick and there was a funny, oily smel to them. Wil 's were soft and delicate, and the scent brought memories of a warm, golden dawn to my mind. I ran my fingers down the length of the feathers, and the wing quivered beneath my touch.

  "I missed them," I said softly. "They're so beautiful."

  "Do you remember them now?" His voice was barely more than a fragile breath.

  "Yes." My gaze returned to his, and he smiled ever so slightly. I wanted to do nothing more than curl up in his arms.

  "This is why I don't think I'm an angel. If I were, shouldn't I have wings like Michael?"

  "You're a mortal angel," he suggested. "You can't shapeshift like a reaper. Your body isn't an angel's body either, but you have their power. Do you remember how ghostlike Michael was, as if he were only half here, as if he couldn't completely enter the mortal world? Maybe that's also why you're reborn into a human body. Your true form--your archangel form--can't exist here."

  "Perhaps," I said. I was a mortal angel. Was there a way for me to become who I real y was? My true form? Wil once had told me that a powerful relic could help angels and the Fal en come to the mortal plane, but what if something like that wasn't real y lost to the world? If the Grigori were out there somewhere, the keepers of angelic magic and the gates between worlds, they might know of a relic that could restore my true form. What if things more terrible than the reapers, wicked or divine, could walk the earth among us, like the extinct Nephilim?

  "Wil , why do you keep so much from me?" I ran my hand down his arm, tracing the beautiful tattoos with my fingertips. I had a clear memory of myself inking his skin centuries before in a warm candlelit room, whispering a prayer in a language long lost to me, and it brought a smile to my face.

  "Because I'm an idiot," he confessed. "I was wrong to judge you. I didn't think you were strong enough to take in everything at once, but that was stupid. You have more strength in you than I've ev
er seen in anyone, and I don't mean how hard you can hit. I mean the strength you have to keep doing this without giving up. You might want to, some days, but you never do."

  "What about you?" I asked. "You stay by my side day and night and take the hardest hits of them al . Why, Wil ? Why have you stayed with me al these centuries? You watch me die again and again, yet you never leave. You keep trying to save me, even though you know I'm doomed. Al because some angel told you to? Come on. No more secrets, you said. Tel me."

  He didn't answer me, but his chest rose and fel with quicker breaths.

  "Why would you do it?" I asked earnestly. "Why would you risk nothingness after death for me? You can't go to Heaven, and you'l never know peace because of that. You'l only ever live this awful, wretched life of fighting. You could have so much more."

  "That's not true," he said. "I don't need to go there to find peace. I've found peace with you, El ie, in between the fighting and the years when you aren't with me. You've brought me peace."

  His words made my heart spin, and I fought hard not to cry. I watched his face careful y before I spoke. "Why did you kiss me?"

  His expression froze in place, as if he were determined not to reveal anything in his expression. "I thought al that would have been obvious."

  "That wasn't a straight answer." His eyes flickered away and back to mine indecisively. "Is it supposed to be something I have to remember on my own?"

  He studied my face intensely, his gaze locked on mine instead of looking away again. "No."

  "Then why--?"

  "I hate . . . ," he started, his shaking voice trailing off. "I hate when you die. It destroys me. I know I have no right to be so upset, because I'm not the one losing my life, but it breaks me apart inside. I'm not very good with words, and I don't know how to explain to you how I feel. I get lonely when you aren't with me. I miss you. And every time you die, a little piece of me dies with you."

  I wasn't sure what to say to him. I couldn't imagine that I was a source of comfort to him as he was to me. I could see his hands trembling, and he stood so tensely that I thought he might shatter at any moment. I stroked the back of his neck with my hand as I tried to soothe him.