Angelfire

  I smiled. "That's me."

  "Lauren Tsukino," she said. "Nice to meet you. I'l get out of your hair now. Nathaniel, you'l look into that for me, won't you?"

  He nodded. "Of course, my dear. You'l be hearing from me shortly."

  Lauren squeezed by us and disappeared out the door. Nathaniel turned back to me. "Lauren is a very powerful psychic," he explained. "She sensed something arriving in the area recently that gave her quite a shock. It would be nice if she could see the future--then we'd have this one in the bag. Alas, she is only clairvoyant, but she knows a nasty reaper when she feels it!" He beamed as if he had just told an incredible joke, but I failed to find it amusing. I could see the punch line--I wasn't stupid--but it just wasn't funny.

  "I didn't know psychics were real until Wil told me about them," I noted, looking around at Nathaniel's col ection of books.

  "Oh, yes," he said. "If they don't go bad, they are invaluable al ies to us. Lauren's been most helpful since I met her. Your teacher, too. Frank Meyer."

  My jaw dropped. "Mr. Meyer? You're joking."

  "He was recently kil ed on a hunt," Nathaniel explained,

  "as you know, of course. He was good for a human, but his age slowed him down. The reaper got the better of him."

  "You're tel ing me that my economics teacher was a reaper-hunting psychic? That's kind of too badass for a high school teacher."

  "Frank was one of the best," Wil said.

  "Nuh-uh." My head spun. "I had no idea he was that cool."

  Wil gave a smal laugh. "He was wild in his teens. Worse in his twenties."

  "You knew him then?"

  His laughter died. "So did you."

  I stared at him. "I knew him in a past life?"

  He shot Nathaniel a quick glance. "Yes, in Chicago. Around forty-five years ago. He was a good friend to us. I spoke to him recently, and he told me he recognized you on your first day of high school as a freshman. He never forgot you. He told me it was quite an experience seeing you again."

  "I knew him?" I repeated, my mind juggling a thousand questions and thoughts. "He must have been about twenty, right? Why didn't he ever say anything to me? He went on pretending like I was just another student. He fought with us once? Of al the people in the world to run into in another life

  --Mr. Meyer?" I wished I could remember his younger self, but I couldn't, and it broke my heart a little.

  "True psychics are rare," Nathaniel explained. "Especial y ones who want to find reapers. And kil them. But these mortals who hunt reapers want to stop this as much as we do. It's an amazing loss we've suffered, losing Frank."

  He and Wil were quiet for a moment. Nathaniel seemed consumed with thought. I wondered what Kate would think of Mr. Meyer's being so cool, but I could never tel her anything about my new life. She could never know. Dragging her or any of my friends and family into this would get them kil ed. Just like Mr. Meyer.

  "I had no idea," I said. Things that I should have said and done haunted me.

  Wil 's hand covered mine. "It's al right. He always said the only thing that would ever take him out in the end was a reaper. He never regretted any of it."

  The warmth of his hand on mine made me jarringly aware of how cold I'd become since learning of Mr. Meyer's true identity. I thought back to the news reporter's description of his murder, and it made me sick to my stomach. I'd died that way countless times, but Mr. Meyer would never come back the way I did.

  Desperate to talk about something else, I looked down at the book Nathaniel had out on the desk. "What is this place?

  These books look ancient."

  "They are," he said.

  "Nathaniel is in charge of the rare books here," Wil explained.

  "Correct," Nathaniel added. "I can basical y bring in any books I want and keep them here. I have a few volumes documenting reapers throughout history. I'm also a col ector of antiquities, and that's how I make my money since I only volunteer here. I like old things, probably because I am very old myself. You'd be surprised how lucrative it is to buy a few ugly paintings and sel them to bil ionaires a hundred years later. Tens of mil ions of dol ars for an original Picasso are nothing to sneeze at."

  I nodded, imagining what I'd do with tens of mil ions of dol ars. Oh God--the shoes I could get with that. "So you've known us for a long time? Then, you're immortal like Wil ? He told me there were no other Guardians. Not now, at least. Didn't I have other Guardians before him?"

  Nathaniel gave Wil an odd look. Wil only stared intently back and said nothing. "Yes . . . I am an immortal, and you have had other Guardians before. They have protected you until their deaths. The duty is for life."

  He left me speechless. I stared at Wil , who avoided my gaze, and had to force myself to look away from him. Those people had died for me? How many?

  Wil spoke suddenly, but I didn't hate him for changing the subject. "We fought a reaper who mentioned something about the Enshi. Does that ring a bel ?"

  Nathaniel pursed his lips tight. "An Enshi? Lord of life--of what makes life, to be more correct; of souls."

  "The Enshi," I corrected. "The reaper made it sound like there was only one."

  "Only one, you say? Perhaps that's what Lauren sensed."

  "Sounds likely," Wil said. "This might be big, Nathaniel. Do you think Bastian might have something to do with this?"

  "Who is Bastian?" I asked.

  When Wil didn't answer, Nathaniel spoke, flashing him another strange look. "Bastian is a very, very powerful vir, a humanlike reaper. A vir may appear as an ordinary man or woman, but they possess the shape-shifting power of reapers and often have strange eyes, claws, scales, tails, horns, wings . . . you name it. They can choose to hide these aspects or to reveal them at any moment. Some of them can shape-shift their entire bodies to look like someone completely different. The vir are also more powerful than any other reapers, and they wil often choose to control reapers like the one you kil ed at the school, as Bastian does. He is cruel and cunning and has been trying to figure out a way to destroy you for the better part of a mil ennium, El ie. He and his reapers have kil ed and taken the souls of more humans than can be counted."

  Nathaniel's expression let me know he was serious.

  "That's why it's our job to help you protect human souls from them. Bastian and his fol owers may very wel be on the hunt for this Enshi."

  "We need to borrow a few books and see if we can find anything out about it," Wil said.

  "Go ahead," Nathaniel said, standing. "The good stuff is behind my desk."

  Wil examined each book on the shelf Nathaniel had pointed to, running his fingers down each spine, reading the inscriptions, and final y choosing three books. He laid them across the desk, and I read the titles. Nathaniel chose a clean but old leather-bound volume and began thumbing through it.

  "This is in Latin," I said, taking a seat next to him. "I can't read Latin."

  Wil sat and flipped the pages to skim over something I could only guess was an index of sorts.

  "Can you?" I asked when he didn't respond.

  "Of course."

  I looked at the two others books. One was also in Latin and the other was in a language I didn't immediately recognize. "What is this language?"

  "Hebrew," he answered without looking at me.

  "You can read Latin and Hebrew?"

  "As can you."

  "Ah," I said. "Another one of my mystery skil s I can't seem to remember. I real y hope cooking is on that list, because I'd like to be able to cook cupcakes without turning them into cement."

  He rewarded me with a little smile. "Cooking wel was never something you worried about in the past."

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF--NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Children's Books

  ..................................................................... 10

  AN HOUR LATER WILL AND NATHANIEL HAD VERY little to show for their efforts. I amused myself by watching the two of them, particularly fascinated with the intens
ity in Wil 's eyes as he read the ancient languages, and with the fine muscles as his forearms tensed with each page he turned. He final y closed the Latin book and took up the one about ancient Sumerian lore. After a little while, he slapped the open page he was reading, making me jump.

  "I found it!" Wil chirped. He stared at me with an excited expression, but I only shrugged. He frowned and continued.

  "Enshi, the Lord of Souls. The giver and taker of the breath of life."

  "Breath of life?" I mumbled. "That sounds a little too philosophical for a Saturday."

  "Whatever this Enshi is, it's as big as we thought," he said as he read farther.

  Nathaniel peeked over his shoulder. "What is it?"

  "It says the Enshi is a dormant being who is the god of life under the command of Enki, the supreme god of Earth, according to Sumerian mythology. Many ancient civilizations mistook powerful reapers for their gods, so that's one possibility for its origin. It's associated with this symbol."

  He flipped the book around to show the page to Nathaniel and me. The image was of three open circles arranged like a dartboard, with four smal solid dots arranged horizontal y across the center and two crescents facing each other vertical y.

  "This is the seal of Azrael," Nathaniel explained. "Could the text mean that the Enshi serves the Destroyer?"

  "That's definitely the impression I'm getting," Wil said in a dark voice. "Azrael is the angel of death, but not an archangel

  --at least not anymore. Archangels are the highest ranking and most powerful of the angels. If the Enshi is a reaper, then this has to mean that the Enshi is actual y an angelic reaper. There's no way a demonic reaper would serve an angel. It goes against the nature of reapers and everything they are taught to believe."

  My head spun trying to make sense of what they were saying. "Angelic reaper? The Destroyer? Angels? What are you talking about?"

  Wil glanced at Nathaniel, who stared back intently, as if he didn't want to answer the question. I hated it when they exchanged glances. It made me feel like I was a naughty child listening in on the grownups' conversation.

  "Yes, angels," Wil explained. "The counterpart to the Fal en."

  I studied his face, shocked by what he was tel ing me. "Do you mean that real angels exist? The Fal en are demons, aren't they? Does that mean that God exists? Satan, too?"

  He took a breath. "Yes. Lucifer rebel ed against God and lost the First War, as you have probably learned at some point in your life. God banished Lucifer from Heaven, and he fel into Hel , but his war fel to Earth. The angels who joined Lucifer's cause fel with him and became demons--the Fal en. Two of the Fal en bore horrible children, whose descendents are the creatures we know today as the demonic reapers. In desperation for more soldiers to fuel his army of the damned, Lucifer uses the reapers to col ect human souls."

  I was thoroughly fascinated. "And the angelic reapers?

  What are they?"

  "The descendents of the Grigori," Wil explained. "Not al the Fal en who fought for Lucifer were truly wicked. God believed the Grigori could be rehabilitated, and so they were imprisoned in the mortal world. In order to make amends for their betrayal, they were ordered to watch over humanity. They're the keepers of angelic magic and medicine and the gateways into Heaven and Hel . They bore children between them, but these children weren't created out of wicked spirit and savagery. They became the angelic reapers, the earthbound soldiers of God who destroy the demonic reapers and stop them from taking human souls. The Grigori have four lords, the Elemental Watchers, who rule over the quadrant points of Earth. They are Fomalhaut of the northern winter, Regulus of the southern summer, Aldebaran of the eastern spring, and Antares of the western autumn. They represent the spirit of their quadrant's element."

  "Have you ever met one of the Grigori?" I asked. "Do they fight the demonic reapers too?"

  "No, they are very rare," he said. "But Antares, Watcher of the West, does live in America. Colorado, I think. And I don't think any of them fight. They are peaceful for the most part, but that doesn't mean they're weak."

  "So I'm not descended from them, then," I concluded.

  "Where do I come in?"

  "The most powerful of the demonic reapers outnumber the most powerful angelic reapers, and God needed help,"

  Wil said. "You and the angelic reapers are fated to prevent Lucifer's Second War, the Apocalypse. If this war happens, that's the End of Days. Your job is to stop as many of the demonic reapers are you can. The best way to kil a demonic reaper is with angelfire, but the angelic reapers can't wield that power, because their ancestors are fal en angels. We don't know what you are. You aren't a reaper and your body is human. You just kind of appeared, and we al accepted you. But when a reaper kil s you, it can't do anything to your soul. You're reincarnated and you fight again, as if your soul is immune."

  I chewed on my lip, forcing myself to believe him, but the what-if? stil lurked in the back of my mind. I remembered Friday, in the bathroom, when the strange black things were crawling on my face and suddenly disappeared. I couldn't forget my horrible nightmares. Was I one of the Fal en? No. Not if I could use angelfire. But I couldn't escape the fear that something dark lurked inside me, something more frightening than the thought of Lucifer's Second War and the end of the world.

  "What if you're wrong?" I asked. "What if I'm a reaper?"

  "You're not," Wil assured me. "You're something different. Trust me."

  I looked back at the strange symbol of Azrael. "So there are good reapers and bad reapers? The good serve the angels and the bad serve the Fal en?"

  Nathaniel nodded. "Simply put, yes."

  "I kil the bad ones, right?" I asked. "The demonic reapers." What if I kil ed the good ones? A heavy pit grew in the bottom of my stomach.

  Wil 's firm gaze locked on mine. "We fight only the demonic reapers."

  "You are like the angels' secret weapon," Nathaniel added. "Your presence in this war makes things balanced."

  "Don't I make things un balanced, then?" I hated playing the devil's advocate--no pun intended--but, I needed to ful y understand who and what I was.

  Nathaniel said, "No, because there are too many demonic reapers for the angels to destroy them al on their own."

  "Do the Fal en have a Preliator?"

  "No," he said with a twitch of his nose.

  "Could the Enshi be another Preliator?" I asked. "Maybe a demonic one?"

  Wil exchanged a look with Nathaniel. "While it's unlikely, it is something to think about. We can't rule it out."

  "Wil ," I began, "the night of my birthday, you told that reaper he couldn't touch me until you woke me or he'd have to face the consequences. Were you talking about the angels?"

  "Yes," Wil said. "The demonic reapers strive for chaos, but there are rules very few of them wil dare to break, especial y if it means they wil have to face a soldier angel as a result--a kind of angel below the rank of archangel, Heaven's law enforcement officers, if you wil . You can't be touched until you've regained your powers, and the soldier angels enforce that law."

  I frowned. "So the demonic reapers are just made to be evil? It sounds so Disney vil ain--ish. Can't they choose to be good? It feels like genocide or something to me, just wiping them out the way I'm supposed to do."

  Wil 's eyes dril ed into mine intently. "If a human is devoured by a demonic reaper, it's a one-way ticket to Hel . The reapers gain complete control over the soul. It's much like the way the people of some cultures eat the flesh of their enemies or powerful predators to gain their strength through magic. The angelic reapers protect human souls but can't manipulate them. Only God should have to right to decide if a soul should end up in Heaven or Hel ."

  "They can't al be that way," I said. "There must be some of them who have chosen not to steal souls for the Fal en."

  He shook his head. "The only demonic reapers you have ever fought have also tried to kil you. They've only ever been monsters. They're demon spawn. I've never heard of one ch
anging his ways. Every single person they have ever kil ed wil burn in Hel for eternity. They kil innocent people, they kil you, and we kil them."

  "I don't know," I said sadly. "It seems like there should be more to it."

  "What do you mean?"

  My shoulders sank. I didn't like being put on the spot like that. "I don't know. I just don't believe in absolute evil . . . or absolute good. No one's perfectly one or the other. Why can't some demonic reapers turn good or some angelic reapers turn bad? If the Enshi is an angelic reaper, then why would it help the demonic reapers? Maybe it went bad."

  "El ie, we aren't--" Wil 's mouth snapped shut and his expression fil ed with pain. His gaze fel away.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  He waved a hand dismissively, but he didn't look at me.

  "Never mind."

  I watched him for a moment, wondering about whatever it was that he wouldn't say.

  "We should get back to the Enshi," Nathaniel said. I didn't object. "So, the Enshi serves an angel?" I asked.

  "The one whose seal is in that book. Azrael. The angel of death."

  "Wel , one of them," Nathaniel said.

  "There's more than one?" For the first time in my life I wished I'd gone to at least one day of Sunday school just so I could get the basic gist of what they were trying to explain. He nodded. "The other true angel of death is Sammael, but he fel and is no longer an archangel."

  "Why did he fal ?" I asked.

  "Sammael committed an unforgivable disobedience to God when he became the lover of Lilith, queen of the Fal en. Together in Hel , they are Lucifer's left and right hand, though Sammael is sometimes misidentified as Lucifer. Sammael and Lilith are the forebears of the demonic reapers."

  I gaped in surprise. "Their children are the demonic reapers?"

  "Yes."

  "So these demonic reapers want a creature that serves Azrael," I said.

  Nathaniel shrugged. "If the Enshi does indeed serve Azrael, then I don't know why Bastian would want it, or why the demonic reapers think it wil help them."

  That made me feel a little hopeful. "If it's on our side, can't we get it to help us? Who says it has to be evil?"