Authors: Melanie Tomlin
As they debated who it was that had allowed the message to get through, via a different bird to the original messenger, the answer was revealed. A hundred or more vampires converged on the scene. Some sat on the branches of the trees closest to us. The vast majority were on the ground — behind us and in front of us — separating Danny and me from Amrael.
“
Amrael, is this your doing?
” Danny yelled, angry now.
“Not I,” Amrael replied. He looked at me disdainfully. “Perhaps you should ask the
abomination
.”
“We leave now,” I hissed.
“I cannot leave Amrael behind.”
After all this other angel had done, Danny still held to some misguided angel loyalty!
“Then call for help,” I mumbled.
“If I call for help the others will learn about you,” Danny whispered. “It’s possible they won’t believe you haven’t been corrupted, given that you were changed by a vampire. And in light of our present company they may act first and ask questions later.”
Pig-headed angels!
“Then we have no choice but to fight our way to him, then I’ll get us out of here. What other option is there?”
“You can go,” —
was he pleading with me?
— “and leave us to our fate.”
“Are you
crazy?
” I asked.
“Now, now children,” a familiar voice said, “enough of the bickering.”
“
Drake,
” Danny and I said at the same time.
The crowd of vampires surged forward with Drake in the middle. The front ranks stopped no more than two metres away from us. Drake was well and truly shielded by the mass of bodies. It would be impossible to reach him from here, even if Danny used his angel fire.
“You really need to find a more imaginative messenger, Danizriel. An eagle flying hundreds of kilometres in a straight line is far too obvious.”
Danny said nothing, but let go of my hand to free me for the impending fight. Chances were we wouldn’t make it out alive, but I was going to take out as many as I could before I died. I folded my arms over my abdomen, as though clutching it in fear, when all I was doing was readying myself to free my knife.
The rear of the crowd parted momentarily to allow another five vampires through to Drake’s position, where they stood beside him.
“This
pathetic
little creature has been the cause of all your troubles?” one of them asked.
“Yes, Josef, though she is far from pathetic. Helena is a formidable foe. She would have been a force to be reckoned with had she chosen the right side to fight for.”
I smiled and inclined my head, acknowledging the compliment.
Try and buy some time, Helena,
I told myself.
Let them get complacent.
“Surely you wouldn’t believe Drake — one of the eldest of all the vampires — would call you here for a small trifling matter? Anything less than a
real
threat?” I smiled my most alluring smile, hooked my thumbs in the waistband of my jeans — ever closer to the knife — bounced on the balls of my feet and murmured. “Haven’t you heard what I call myself?”
Drake chuckled and Josef looked confused.
“Someone’s been telling stories about my age,” Drake said. “Don’t you know it’s rude to give away another’s age, Danizriel?”
Danny shrugged his shoulders. Age was of little importance to him.
“Ah, but I digress.” Drake waved his hand in my direction. “Josef, Anna, Katarina, Johann, Adam,” he addressed all of the vampires now, “meet Helena,
she who kills.
”
He bent down with a flourish, quite dramatic really, in mock respect of my title.
Anna sneered. “I’ll have her for an afternoon snack, father, but I’m warning you, I’ll still be hungry afterwards.”
“By all means, be my guest,” Drake grinned as he looked at Anna, “if you can.”
“And what do you propose to do with the angels?” Josef asked.
“There are some amongst us,” Drake’s eyes scanned the crowd, “who would gladly die for our cause by taking down an angel. Their devotion to us reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, though my version has us feasting on angels and draped across the table, dying.”
Danizriel cleared his throat to capture Drake’s attention.
“You wanted to say something, Danizriel?”
“Your
friend,
” he tipped his head towards Anna, and smiled smugly, “might be interested to know that Helena is
part angel
. She should be careful not to bite off more than she can chew.”
“Well that is interesting news, Danizriel. Tell me, Helena, is it true?”
“Drake, have you
ever
known an angel to lie?” I asked dryly.
“You’ve got me there,” he laughed, then grinned wickedly. “The few I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with haven’t been able to tell lies to save themselves. Yet you’re different to Danizriel and the others. How so?”
“Long story,” I replied.
“I like a good story, and a long one even more so. Go on,” Drake said encouragingly, “we’re in no hurry now. We have time.”
I looked to Danny and he nodded in agreement.
“You know who changed me, Drake,” I said, “but for those of you who don’t it was a vampire in my hometown who went by the name of Chris Jones.”
I heard a murmur ripple through the crowd. It appeared a number of them knew the name.
“I was ready to die, and I should have, were it not for the fact that I’m an angel.”
“She lies!” someone yelled. “Chris would have smelled she was an angel.”
“Ah,” I smiled, “but here’s the beauty of it. You see, not even I knew I was an angel. I’m not an angel of
heaven,
I’m an angel of
earth,
born to mortals.” I pointed to Danny. “My scent differs to theirs.”
“Michelle,” Drake whispered. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, don’t you think? If we’d known then what we know now, you could have been ours. Granted, we wouldn’t have changed you at the age you would have been back then, but we could have raised you amongst us until you were of age. You would have known nothing different. You would have thought our way of life was the
only way,
and we would have had an assassin of unparalleled abilities!”
Assassin,
I thought.
I guess that’s what she who kills is — God’s unpaid assassin. Now is my chance to make them doubt. To try and put the fear of God into them.
“There are hundreds of thousands of earth-bound angels just like me, waiting, though they don’t know what they’re waiting for. Your days are numbered.” I laughed. “For each one of us you bite, a thousand or more of you will fall, and there is no way for you to know what we are until we’ve been changed.”
This is great,
I thought happily.
I can lie. Though for all I know it may be the truth.
“The armies of the archangels are on their way,” Amrael butted in. “You do not have the numbers to defeat them, vampire. The earth will be purged of the stain that you are.”
“Amrael, what have you
done?
” Danny whispered, shaking his head.
“It appears Danizriel does not agree with your actions,” Drake said. “You see, if the angels are on their way, and I believe they are — angels
don’t
lie after all — your time is up, Amrael.”
“
You demented fool!
” Anna yelled, pushing her way to Amrael.
In response to her move, four vampires restrained Amrael, holding his arms behind his back, palms facing his own body so he could not lash out with angel fire.
Anna took his face in one hand and squeezed his cheeks, causing his eyes to squint and puckering his lips until he looked like he’d had too much cosmetic surgery.
“Do you really believe we would bring all of our clans
here,
for
you?
” she hissed at Amrael. “Our numbers have grown significantly — and Drake has trained them well, here at the hunting grounds — yet your kind has become so arrogant, so self-absorbed you haven’t noticed. If not for the
freak,
” she nodded back in my direction, “you’d be none the wiser. The time of the apocalypse draws close,
angel
.”
“Anna, my love, remember he
is
an angel,” Drake warned. “Do not let your anger cloud your vision.”
She lifted her head to look at the crowd and yelled. “I need a volunteer!”
Three vampires stepped forward. They looked little more than teenagers. Anna smiled and kissed each of them in turn, on the lips.
“May your next life be as fruitful as this one,” she said. The three vampires bowed their heads.
I glanced at Danny quickly and he gave a curt nod. If we didn’t move now it would be too late for Amrael.
“Back to back,” I hissed. “
Now!
”
We both turned and stepped back until our bodies touched. It was the only way to know the other one was still there, that tiny amount of contact. I drew the knife, and with the element of surprise on my side — it was not strapped to my arm as they had come to expect — lashed out at the nearest vampire.
From the corner of my eye I saw Drake and the other four vampires that had remained by his side retreat through the crowd, to escape from the army soon to descend. I could not see Anna, but was sure she would follow their lead. If there was one thing I knew from my time with the preacher, it was that those with power — those who commanded — didn’t risk themselves unnecessarily. That was why the soldiers and followers were there — cannon fodder.
As I held the knife, ready to strike again, a blinding light enveloped the corridor. The vampires hissed and snarled.
“Too late,” Danny cried out, and I knew he meant that Amrael was lost.
Danny let his angel fire engulf the nearest vampire. I slashed wildly with my blade, keeping as many vamps at bay as possible. I reached back and linked my free arm through Danny’s and we disappeared, the roar of angry vampires denied their prey — their bloodlust — ringing in my ears.
22.
Misunderstandings
The angel fire was still burning on Danny’s palm as we returned to the cottage. He quickly closed his palm to extinguish the flame, before it could destroy our home.
“I have failed Him … I have
failed,
” he moaned, sinking to the floor, his head in his hands.
I knelt on the floor beside him and pulled his hands away from his head.
“Look at me,” I commanded. “
Look at me!
”
When Danny raised his head I could see the anguish in his eyes — the guilt, the suffering.
“It was
not
your fault,” I shook his arms to make sure he listened to me. “We had no reason to believe the clans would already be there. We weren’t to know the crow wasn’t Amrael’s.”
Danny shook his head. “You don’t understand what Amrael has done, in his dying moments.”
“The light?” I asked.
“Yes, the light. When an angel dies they can send a final message back to their superior. It is much like what I showed you of my meeting with my superior, only the thoughts accompanying the vision are transferred as well, and absorbed.”
“So whatever Amrael was thinking at the time went with the message, like an unspoken commentary?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the problem with that?” I asked. “His superior will see that the vampires were responsible.”
“And most likely that we were there, amongst the vampires,” Danny said, crestfallen, his sense of hope fading away, “and know of Amrael’s distaste for you and his lack of trust in me. All conveyed in his thoughts.”
“Okay, that
could
be a problem,” I conceded, “but if you went and
talked
to
your
superior I’m sure you could sort it out.”
“Then I need to go now,” Danny said, “before all hope is gone.”
I took Danny’s hands in mine. “Danny, I’m sorry. If I could change what’s happened, I would.”
“I know that,” he replied. He leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “Maybe I should listen to you more often. If we had stayed here none of this would have happened.”
“No, Danny, you’re wrong.” I shook my head. “Amrael would still have gone to the corridor and the vampires would still have killed him. The only thing that would be different is that our images would not have been in his final message. We would have only been in his thoughts … I’m sure he would’ve thought it was a trap set by me, if not the both of us.”
Danny sighed and stood up. “You’re right, of course. My judgement is clouded by what’s happened.”
He held out a hand to help me up and we embraced.
“Be careful,” I said.