Malakh

CHAPTER SEVEN

  I lunged for the window. The air turned to sludge, slowing my leap to an awkward lurch. Or maybe it was just my panic making me torpid and clumsy. My fingers scrabbled over the back of Ian's left hand as it lost its grip and flailed out into space. Sunlight glinted off the jagged shards of glass embedded in his palm.

  His right hand was slipping, his fingers slick with an amazing amount of blood. I slammed my hand down on it to hold it on the sill, and he screamed silently as glass sank deeper into his flesh. My other hand seized his shirt, but in my weakened state I was only prolonging the inevitable.

  "Please. Please." I don't know to whom I was pleading: perhaps Raum, whom I suspected had thrown Ian out the window. Or maybe Russ, whom stood frozen in place, unable to look away from Raum. Or perhaps God, whom I felt had let me suffer enough trials and heartbreak over the last five years.

  I threw a desperate look over my shoulder at Russ, tears of fear and horror spilling down my cheeks. "Help me, dammit!"

  Russ's head turned toward me, agonizingly slow. Ian's shirt slipped from my fingers and I heaved myself farther out the window, grabbing hold of a belt loop and praying the factory hadn't skimped on quality when making his jeans. I felt myself slipping over the sill, Ian's weight dragging me over the edge.

  And then Russ was there, pulling us both back inside with a mighty heave. He left us huddled beneath the broken window, shaken and bleeding, and resumed his silent vigil near the door.

  "Are you all right, Suzanne?" he asked in a remote, courteous voice. "Ian?"

  "F-fine," I stammered, and began to shake. Ian looked afraid to move; his eyes were wide and staring, reliving his horrifying flight into thin air on the film screen of his mind. His face was so white I feared he might be bleeding out. But I didn't think there were any arteries in one's palms, and he didn't look like he'd been hurt anywhere else.

  "Russ … " I hesitated. He turned toward me, and I was heartened by his acknowledgment. "Why is Raum here? Why is he tied up in Ian's attic?"

  "I wanted you to witness justice, Suzanne," he said, his voice strange. "Don't you want justice?"

  My gaze swung between the two malakhim, from Russ's burning, timeless eyes to Raum's gaze, steady and calm but still full of that terrible regret.

  Something wasn't right.

  "Russ," I said cautiously. "Take off Raum's gag. I want to hear it from his lips."

  He cocked his head to one side. "Hear what?"

  "His confession."

  "It's not a good idea, Suzanne. He'll try to persuade you, seduce you with what you want to hear. As your protector, I can't—"

  "Take it off."

  His kaleidoscope eyes stared at me, unnerving in their unwavering scrutiny. Without pupils and depthless, they were windows into heaven itself.

  He turned away without answering, and crossed the room in three long strides. It looked like he untied the gag, but it simply swirled away like dissipating light and vanished. Beside me, Ian began hyperventilating.

  "Ease up on Ian. Give him back his voice."

  Russ shook his head. "He'll scream. He's losing it." He nodded toward Ian, and I stole a glance at him, not daring to take my eyes from Russ for more than a split second for fear he would kill Raum out of hand and I would never hear his explanations.

  He was right—Ian was losing it. His whole body shook and his breath came in short gasps. His eyes crept to the two malakhim across the room, and I could see the scream rising in him, could read it in his eyes.

  I silently conceded the point to Russ and turned to look at Raum, who was flexing his jaw in relief. Still, his eyes never left my face, not even to check the location of his captor and soon-to-be executioner.

  I pushed to my feet, gently dislodging Ian's panicked grip. My legs trembled badly as I crossed the room. My body flushed hot and cold and hot again. Fear fluttered through me, making my muscles weak and shaky. I stopped two feet away from Raum, ignoring Russ as he shifted closer to me. I looked down into Raum's eyes. Like Russ's they had no pupils, no irises. They shone like flawless gems, with mists of color scudding across their surface. Eyes of eternity. Eyes of another world.

  The eyes of a traitorous lover, of a fallen Son of God.

  "Did you do it?" I whispered.

  Flares of glorious light flashed in his eyes. "Run, Suzanne," he whispered back.

  My hand clapped over my mouth, stifling a sob. Disappointment and betrayal ran deep, like a sword through my soul. He couldn't mean it. I didn't want to believe it. I had so adamantly resisted believing Russ that I had forgotten my own suspicions, pushed them aside in my desire to be reunited with him.

  "Run," he repeated. "Now."

  Eyes flashing like sheet lightning, he broke his bonds with a roar of rage and launched himself out of the chair.

  I stumbled backward, my response to his warning coming too late to get out of the way. His shoulder hit me low in the abdomen and knocked me flying into Russ, who shunted me aside as easily as he would a bothersome newspaper in a windstorm. I hit the floor with bruising force, the wind knocked from me. He met Raum in mid-air, their bodies crashing together in a soundless symphony of motion and exploding light.

  Raum's lip curled back in a snarl that erupted into a full-fledged howl of rage. Ian cowered against the wall, his arms covering his head. I cringed as the howl wavered to a deafening crescendo above the thundering heartbeat in my ears. Splintering pain shot through my arm as tried to use it to lever myself upright. Broken.

  The angels hit the floor with a tremendous crash. I couldn't tell who had thrown whom, but their savage battle rolled them close to Ian and me. With Russ's arm across his throat, Raum managed to raise his head, his wild eyes unerringly fixing on me.

  "Run!" he rasped. "Take Ian and run! I can only hold him off for a few minutes. Now, Suza—"

  Russ tightened his grip, cutting off Raum's voice. Fury broke across Raum's face, and he twisted out of Russ's hold. The battle raged across the room, leaving us a clear path to the door.

  I crawled to Ian's side, holding my broken arm as close to my body as I could to keep it still and protected. "Ian, come on. Come on!"

  Poking and prodding, hectoring and nagging, I herded him toward the steps like a demented sheep dog. He staggered down the steps, losing his balance and skidding down four before landing on his backside. His hands came up to break his fall and left bloody smears along the wall, the railing, and the wooden treads. I crouched beside him, trying to lever him up with my good arm. His eyes bulged in their sockets, the brain behind them frantically trying to come to grips with what he'd seen and experienced. I wrenched open the door just as the sound floated up from the main floor, melodic and incongruous to the battle that rampaged through the attic. The doorbell.

  The police are supposed to come by later this afternoon with some follow-up questions. I assured them you would be here under my watchful eye.

  A glance at Ian's eyes told me the police would be convinced they'd left me in the care of a mad crack addict.

  With violent force, the door wrenched out of my hand and slammed closed, nearly dislocating my shoulder and shutting Ian and me in the attic. I twisted the knob and yanked, screaming with rage, but the door had sealed itself shut.

  Ian slumped into the corner, curling into a ball, hiding his face against his thighs. He was thoroughly in denial. I felt more than a trace of anger and irritation; why did I have to be the one to face this? Why couldn't he stand beside me, support me, partners against fear and angelic rage?

  The anger vanished in the next instant. I'd had plenty of time—years—to come to terms with the existence and nature of angels. Ian's ordered beliefs had been shaken to their very foundation.

  I crept back up the stairs, cradling my arm, and peered around the corner in time to see Russ drive what looked like a flaming fist toward Raum's face at impossible speed. At the last second, Raum ducked, and the wall behind him exploded, raining fragments of drywall across the attic floor.

&
nbsp; I saw it lying on the floor at the edge of the battle: a sword made of flaming light so white it looked blue, and understood then what I'd seen. Not a fist of fire, but a blade of prismatic light. Russ was distracted trying to slice Raum out of existence. Raum had his hands full fending him off, ducking and dodging because he'd lost his blade in the battle.

  I was pretty certain neither would notice if I crept up and snatched Raum's sword. I started forward.

  Raum's eyes locked on mine like a homing beacon. I froze. Russ, noticing Raum's distraction, started to turn toward me but Raum, flicking a glance at me and then at the sword, engaged him in battle again, coming on with such violence that Russ was hard-pressed to defend himself.

  I remained frozen in place for several long seconds. Raum wanted me to get the sword; he'd deliberately distracted Russ so that I could sneak in and make the grab. Had he deliberately lost it, too? But why would he want me to have the weapon? He was a cold-blooded killer … wasn't he?

  I drew in a breath, narrowed my gaze so that I saw only the sword, and sprinted forward. I was grace personified, the very definition of speed. I was a lithe whirlwind, fleet of foot and quick of hand. I danced through the battle as it raged back and forth over the sword, dodging, lunging, reaching, grasping—

  In reality, I staggered into the middle of the fray, my equilibrium erased by my ordeal and their deafening combat, tripped over Raum's leg, and sprawled in an untidy heap at the edge of the conflict. By some miracle, my hand clutched the sword when I lurched to my feet.

  I spun away from the warring malakhim in a mad pirouette and raised the sword. It rang like the finest crystal, as though I'd pulled it from a gemstone sheath. Both angels froze, the battle forgotten. Shock scuttled across Russ's face. Raum smiled with vulpine triumph.

  The blade weighed nothing, as though I held a spear of light. Pain vanished, and I knew no worries. No fear. No pain. The flaming light of the sword engulfed me, singing through my nerve endings, and I knew in that moment that I stood in the very presence of God.

  "Let him go," I said to Russ. My voice rang with authority, and a small part of me still felt human enough to be stunned when he immediately obeyed. "Let him speak."

  Raum rubbed his throat, sending a smoking glare at Russ before turning his full attention on me. "I am sorry, Suzanne."

  "Did you do it?"

  He drew in a steadying breath. "If you mean the murders," he said evenly, "No. I did not."

  "Who did?"

  Without expression, he directed his gaze at Russ. "Your 'friend' Icarus would be the guilty party."

  Russ's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Would be? Only if you can manage to frame me for it. Don't believe him, Suzanne. You've spent six weeks with me. If I were a murderer, wouldn't I have killed you by now? I've had plenty of opportunity."

  Raum ignored him. "He captured me shortly after I left you. I'd been sent to protect you because he had set his sights on you. You weren't supposed to see me." If he'd had a heart, I swear I would have seen it breaking in his eyes.

  "But you did. And I couldn't help it. I'd never had to interact with you before; I'd been there to protect you, silent, invisible. But once you saw me, once I knew you … oh, Suzanne, forgive me. I had no right to love you, to ruin your love for Ian. Forgive me."

  Laughter rang through the room, and behind it I could hear the thud of running footsteps coming up the stairs to the second floor. The police had broken in. Russ, still laughing, didn't appear concerned.

  "Oh, that's rich. You were sent to protect her, and you seduced her instead? You were sent to protect her, but you left her without a thought to that protection? Your track record speaks for itself." He turned to me, morphing his shape into the human guise with which I was so familiar, his eyes turning the copper color he somehow knew I favored.

  "Don't be fooled by your human emotions, Suzanne. He left you, period. He cared so little for you that he simply walked away, leaving you marked and scarred and utterly alone. I've shielded you, cared for you, stayed by your side, fed you, clothed you, carried you—"

  Raum snorted. "He sounds like he's campaigning to be the Christ. Think about it, Suzanne. How many newspapers have you seen since you met him? How much television? You didn't even know you'd been with him for six weeks, did you? And look at you—you call that care? You're malnourished, dehydrated, weak, and traumatized.

  "I left you, but I didn't leave. I was there, watching over you, until this jackass got the jump on me and hijacked me. I've been bound up in this attic for two and a half human years, unable to break the bonds, while he laid his plans and left his trail of bodies."

  A heavy hand hammered at the attic door. "Police! Open the door NOW!"

  Raum paid it no attention, but Russ flicked a glance toward the stairs.

  "Don't move," I warned him, bringing the sword up another inch. He went very still. "You said my guardian angel looked away at a crucial moment and regretted it."

  "Yes," Russ said quietly. "I did look away—and that's when he slipped in like a sneak-thief. One moment was all it took. I've been fighting to oust him from your life ever since, but it's not that easy. You loved him so much, it gave him a particularly strong hold over you. He's fallen, Suzanne—you know what that means? He has no Grace. He's a rebel. You call them demons, and they attach themselves to people and suck them dry of every joy your Creator gives you."

  Raum's eyes stayed steady on my face. "He talks a pretty speech. I can say no more to convince you I'm being truthful. You'd best pray for guidance, because you're going to have to kill one of us. Your survival counts on you picking the right one."

  "Don't listen to him," Russ pleaded. "See how even now he talks of killing? He'd make you a murderer if he could. That's how his kind separate you from grace. Put the sword down, Suzanne. You don't have to be a part of this. You don't have to murder."

  I looked from Russ's pleading, earnest face to Raum's, expressionless and waiting. I lowered the sword an inch. Then two. And finally let it dangle from my hand, pointed toward the floor.

  The hammering on the door was now accompanied by heavy thuds. A small battering ram. I'd seen one on COPS. I glanced toward the stairs, and instantly caught a movement from the corner of my eye, an aggressive action taking advantage of my momentary distraction.

  A bolt of pure sensation shot through me, bringing alive every molecule of my being. I whirled around and raised the sword, not feeling my broken arm or my blistered feet or the cuts on my hands and feet from the broken glass. I felt strong, invincible, superhuman, as I swung the blade in a smooth arc toward the fallen angel who rushed me, teeth bared for the killing blow.