The truck swerves, and I’m so disoriented that I might as well be upside down in a fish bowl. All I can see is the hellion I rode on bouncing in panic inside the truck cab. Luckily, it’s a large truck cab, but there are still far too many people and creatures crammed into it.
My disorientation settles enough for me to realize that I’m sitting on Beliel’s lap.
It’s not the same Beliel we left behind. He’s more weathered, beaten, and weary. Not to mention dried up, wingless, and bleeding. He breathes in a slow, painful rasp.
I see my surroundings in a way that my mind can’t quite comprehend right now. A white hand pushes through the open rear window. It grabs the flapping hellion and yanks it awkwardly through the window.
Behind us is an open truck bed full of confused and disoriented Watchers. Several of them look queasy as we bounce and swerve around debris.
Beyond the truck bed, a group of angels chases us through our plume of dust that spreads into the dawn sky. And is that my sister and her three scorpions flying beside us?
Shrinking in the distance is the dark shadow of the new aerie and its outer buildings. Before I can comprehend what I’m seeing, the windows of one of the outer buildings explode in a burst of fire and shattered glass.
The angels who had been chasing us stop, watching the fire. Then they circle back to the aerie to defend their home base from whatever is attacking.
The truck swerves left, then right, like the driver is drunk.
Beside me, I hear a cackling full of genuine joy. My mother is behind the wheel. She has a triumphant grin on her face as she glances over at me.
She looks back at the road just barely in time to swerve around an abandoned car. She must be going sixty miles per hour. That’s suicidal on these roads.
I push myself away from Beliel. I’d gotten used to seeing him with a fresh, hopeful face. Now he’s bleeding through his chest, ears, mouth, and nose. It’s hard to look at him, much less sit on his lap.
It’s awkward and dangerous holding my sword in such cramped quarters. I have to be careful in the swerving cab while putting the blade back into my scabbard.
‘Be careful, Mom,’ I say as she swerves again.
I crawl through the rear window and land in the standing-room-only open truck bed. There’s barely enough room for me, but I’m small enough that I can slip between two large warriors.
When I see their disoriented and drained faces, I don’t need to wonder why they’re not all airborne. Even the few who are flying hold on to the truck’s roll bar, looking like they need a little guidance. These guys clearly need a minute to adjust.
At this speed, the aerie is fast disappearing behind us.
‘Are you ready to go back and fight?’ It’s Josiah, the albino.
The Watchers answer with a general groan. It vaguely sounds like ‘yeah, okay’ if I’m being optimistic, ‘hell no’ if I’m not.
The overall impression is that they’re completely sick and in no condition to fight. I’m disoriented too but not sick to my stomach. They’ve probably never ridden with Mom before. Okay, maybe they’ve never even ridden in a car before.
‘You’ll feel better once we stop.’ I bang on the window. ‘Mom, slow down. You can stop the truck.’
She speeds up.
I bang on the window again and stick my head through to the cab. ‘Mom, it’ll be all right.’
The truck slows down and comes to a halt. Paige and her locusts fly past us, then swoop back to where we’re stopped.
The Watchers climb out of the truck, looking shaky on their legs. They unravel their wings and stretch them out, as though testing them. The rest land around us, looking not much better.
The dust settles behind us and over the Watchers. They’re quite a sight. Their partially feathered wings with their curling, splintered edges and their half-skinned bodies must be monstrous even in my mother’s imagination. I glance at Mom through the window, wondering what she thinks of all this.
My sister and her locusts do happy loop-de-loops in the air. Paige waves to me.
‘Report, Josiah.’ Raffe turns to Josiah.
Josiah stares at the Watchers with wide eyes. ‘After you left, a guard saw me, and we got into an argument about whether to put Beliel back in his cage. I couldn’t let that happen. If things went according to plan – and I can’t believe that they actually did – you would have all come out into a cage and been crushed to death.’
‘Penryn!’ The door of the truck opens, and my mother runs toward me. She enfolds me in a hug that’s too tight.
‘Hi, Mom.’
‘This ghost angel told me that you were inside that demon over there.’ She points to Beliel who seems on the verge of losing consciousness in the passenger seat. ‘He said that you might come out any minute. I didn’t believe him of course. That’s crazy talk. But still, you never know.’ She shrugs. ‘And look what happened.’ She squints at me suspiciously. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s me, Mom.’
‘How did you get us out?’ asks Raffe.
Josiah rubs his face. ‘After my little argument with the guard, I took Beliel. But Beliel is big and heavy even in his shriveled state. I couldn’t fly with him, but I had to get him somewhere safe until you came back. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her.’ He points to my mother. ‘Or her.’ He nods to my sister, who lands in the trees with her locusts.
‘And how did you end up with them?’ I ask.
‘Your mother found out the cult sold you out,’ says Josiah. ‘And she and your sister trekked here to rescue you.’
I look at my mother, who is nodding as if to say, of course we did. Wiry gray now streaks her dark hair. When did that happen? For a second, I see her through the eyes of a stranger and see a frail and vulnerable woman who looks tiny next to the brawny angels.
I look at my sister up in a tree. She’s being carried by a locust the way I used to carry her from her wheelchair only a couple of months ago.
‘You went to the aerie?’ My voice wavers a little as I look back and forth between my mom and sister. ‘You risked your lives to rescue me?’
My mother gives me another too-tight hug. My sister twitches the corners of her lips up despite the pain it must cost her to move the stitches on her cheeks.
My eyes sting at the thought of the danger they faced to rescue me.
‘Paige has three large pets with scorpion stingers who can fly her out at any time,’ says my mom. ‘I told them they’d be in big trouble if anything happened to her.’
‘Oh.’ I look at Raffe with a watery smile. ‘Even the locusts are afraid of my mother.’
‘I can see why,’ says Josiah. ‘She came with a group of shaved-headed humans who were requesting safe passage marks on their foreheads.’
‘Amnesty?’ asks Raffe. ‘Uriel’s giving some of the humans amnesty?’
‘Just the ones who gave her up.’ Josiah nods toward me.
The muscles in Raffe’s jaw dance as he clenches his teeth.
Josiah shrugs. ‘Your mother somehow convinced those people to wander into the aerie after they received their amnesty marks. Uriel had to drive them out like rats. Your sister also distracted the angels by doing flybys with her three locusts. We all kept looking to see where the rest of the swarm was. While everyone was distracted, your mother set the place on fire. She is one fierce woman.’
‘Fire?’
‘What do you think caused that explosion?’ Josiah nods in appreciation. ‘I never would have gotten Beliel out if it wasn’t for all the distractions your family caused.’
Josiah gestures to the truck. ‘Once I convinced your mother that you were inside Beliel, she convinced me we needed to ride in this vehicle. It got us out, but I’m never going to ride in one of those metal coffins again.’
‘Amen,’ says Thermo, who still looks queasy.
Mom has a smudge on her forehead. It looks like ashes, but I know that it’s the amnesty mark. It looks just li
ke the smudges that Uriel’s soldier gave to the cult members who sold me out.
‘You’re not in a cult, are you, Mom?’
‘Of course not.’ She looks at me like I just insulted her. ‘Those people are all nuts. They’ll regret having sold you out. I made sure of that. If Paige eats someone, it’ll be someone outside their cult. It’s the worst punishment they can imagine.’
45
A groan reaches us from the passenger seat of the truck. We walk back toward Beliel and open the passenger door.
He’s in bad shape. There’s blood everywhere.
He opens his eyes sluggishly and looks at me. It’s a relief to see him with eyes in his sockets. I wonder how long it took to grow them back?
‘I knew I recognized your voice from somewhere.’ He coughs. Blood bubbles out of his mouth. ‘Been a long time. So long I thought it was a torture dream.’
How long did he spend down in the Pit, taking the punishment for an entire squad of newly Fallen?
‘I actually thought . . . I actually thought, once, that there might be hope,’ says Beliel. ‘That you might come back and figure out a way to take me with you too.’
Watchers gather around behind me.
Beliel’s eyes lift to look at them. ‘You’re all just like I remember. You haven’t changed at all. As if it just happened this morning.’ He coughs again, and his face scrunches in pain. ‘I should have made you all wait with me in the Pit.’
His eyes drift closed.
He takes a shuddering breath and lets it out. He doesn’t take another.
I look up at Raffe, then at Josiah.
Josiah shakes his head at me. ‘It was too much for him. He wasn’t doing well after you guys went through him. His healing slowed down, almost stopped. He was in no condition to handle so many coming through. I don’t think biological beings were really meant to be gateways.’
Josiah sighs. ‘But if it had to happen to someone, it might as well have been Beliel.’ He turns and walks away from Beliel’s ravaged body. ‘No one will miss him. He didn’t have a friend in the world.’
46
The Watchers decide to do a proper ceremony for Beliel. We drive until the aerie is long out of sight before we stop to bury him.
‘Do we even have shovels?’ I ask.
‘He’s not an animal,’ says Hawk. ‘We won’t bury him.’
There’s an uncomfortable silence as the Watchers gently pull Beliel’s body out from the car. None of the guys will look at each other, as though stubbornly and silently insisting on something that each thinks the other might object to.
Finally, Cyclone speaks up. ‘I’ll be a bearer.’
‘Me too,’ says Howler.
The floodgates open, and all the other Watchers speak out, volunteering to be bearers.
They all look at Raffe, waiting for his approval. Raffe nods.
‘What?’ asks Josiah, looking baffled. ‘After all he’s done, you’re going to bestow an honorable—’
‘We know what he’s done for us,’ says Hawk. ‘Whatever else he’s done since then, it looks like he’s paid the price. He’s one of us. We should give him the proper send-off that we couldn’t give our other brothers in the Pit.’
Josiah looks at them, then at Raffe, who nods.
‘What do we have that will burn?’ asks Thermo.
‘We have gas, but he said I couldn’t use any more,’ says my mother, pointing to Josiah.
‘And you can’t,’ says Josiah. ‘But they need some for the ceremony.’ He walks back to the truck and climbs into the bed.
‘You brought gas?’ I ask.
‘To burn down the angels’ nest,’ says Mom. ‘I figured that once I got you out, we might as well burn it all down. But he wouldn’t let me.’
Josiah comes back with a gas can. ‘She did enough damage. She would have been caught if she had tried to burn the whole aerie down.’ He shakes his head as he puts the can down. ‘I still don’t know how she got away with doing as much damage as she did. Or how I convinced her about you being inside Beliel. I’m not even sure I believed it.’
‘Why not?’ asks my mother. ‘Did you think she was hiding inside someone else?’
‘Never mind, Mom.’ I hold her hand and pull her away from the Watchers. ‘Let them do their burial.’
Josiah splashes the gas over Beliel’s body. ‘You’re sure you want to do this?’
‘He’s earned this,’ says Howler.
Josiah nods and steps back.
My mom steps forward with a lighter and lights a strip of cloth on fire.
Thermo takes it and drops the flaming cloth onto Beliel’s soaked body.
Beliel ignites.
His hair fizzles like quick sparklers, lighting up, then disappearing. His shriveled skin and pants light up as the flames spread all over his body. Waves of heat distort the road beyond him and warm my exposed neck and face. The air fills with the smell of burning gasoline mixed with the faint scent of meat beginning to char.
Five of the Watchers step forward and grab his burning arms, legs, and shoulders.
I move to stop them, but Raffe puts out his arm to block me.
‘What are they doing?’ I ask. ‘They’re going to burn themselves.’
‘It’ll be painful. But they’ll heal,’ he says.
All the Watchers take to the air. Their wings spread and beat in unison against the sunrise.
Just as I think that the flaming body between them must be burning them to a crisp, a new set of Watchers relieve them and take over the flaming burden. The others fly, crisscrossing each other like a net far below the body. Bits of burning debris fall, much of it burning out before reaching the other Watchers. The bits that continue to fall, the Watchers catch, one by one.
‘They won’t let any part of him fall to the ground,’ says Raffe in a quiet voice. ‘His brothers will keep him from falling.’
In the distance, the Watchers weave a beautiful dance in the dawn sky beneath Beliel’s shower of fire.
47
I stand by a tree on the side of the road and scan the sky above us. The Watchers are done with their ceremony and are flying back to us.
‘We need to get back,’ says Josiah. ‘The contest announcement should be happening soon. And then the big scramble for recruits will start in earnest.’ He glances at the Watchers, and I know what he’s thinking. It’s going to be a tough sell to get angels to join with the half-feathered, half-skinned Watchers.
‘We have to try to convince some to join us,’ says Raffe. ‘And we’ll work with whatever we have. We can’t let everyone fall, and we can’t allow a civil war to start.’
I won’t be shedding tears for Uriel’s angels if they fall. They’ve earned it as far as I can see.
He looks at me. ‘Earth would be the battle ground if there’s a civil war among the angels. Everything in this world will be scorched to the ground, regardless of who wins.’
Just like the Pit. We would be like the hellions – half starved and insane, cowering in the shadows, constantly in fear of our angel masters.
I have to clear my throat before getting my question out. ‘Isn’t that what they’re doing now?’
‘Your civilization was destroyed, but your people would survive, at least in pockets around the world. The apocalypse was never meant to annihilate an entire race. It was just the big event before Judgment Day. But the direction Uriel is taking everybody in . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘If anyone survives that, I’m not sure you’d recognize them as human anymore.’
What did the hellions look like before their invasion?
I’ve tried not to think much about the future, but in the small moments when I’ve let myself do it, I assumed that there would be a time after the angels were done with their rampage. Our world would need to be rebuilt, but there still would have been people somewhere, wouldn’t there?
Locusts, the resurrected, the low demons. We’ve already been pushed beyond the limits of humanity. If this continues,
earth will be the new Pit.
‘You should go,’ Raffe says to me. ‘This is no place for a human.’
‘What about me being your second for the contest?’
‘Nobody will remember that once they see the Watchers.’
‘Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid getting back into the truck with me and my mom?’
He almost smiles.
He walks me back to the truck. ‘Where will you go?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know.’ Every step feels like a goodbye. ‘There are no safe places. The only place that might come close to that is the Resistance camp.’
A small frown mars his expression. ‘From what Obi showed me, those people are full of fear and anger. That’s an ugly combination, Penryn. They’d kill every one of us if they could.’ By us, it’s clear he means angels. ‘They wouldn’t care if they killed us by plague or on the dissection tables.’
‘They’re as good as it gets right now,’ I say. ‘And you know where it is so you can find me there and let me know how things went. If you want.’
His eyes look over my face and hair. Then he nods.
‘You’re going to win this trial by contest, right?’
‘Absolutely.’ He squeezes my hand. His grip is firm and warm.
Then he lets go.
‘You better. And remember your promise. Get the angels out of our world when you win.’
I reluctantly lift the sword strap over my head. I hold the scabbard for a moment and feel the weight of it.
Of course, he should have it now that he has his wings back. I’m surprised he hasn’t taken it already. They missed each other so much. Besides, he can’t be part of a trial by contest without his sword.
But Pooky Bear made me special. I was more than just a girl with it. I was an angel killer.
‘She missed you,’ I say.
He hesitates, just looking at the sword. He hasn’t touched her since he got his wings back.
When he takes her, his hands are gentle. He holds her out in his palms for a heartbeat. We both wait to see if the sword will accept him back.