The Commander clasps Canaan on the shoulder. “Blessings, friend. If you find yourself needing a demon to destroy, you are welcome in our ranks.”
“Perhaps I will take you up on that one day. For now, God be with you.”
“And you.”
Pearla watches as Canaan turns away, his face pointed to the ground. He falls hard and fast toward the earth below. Toward the terra firma humans are so comfortable inhabiting.
“Follow them, Pearla.”
Michael’s instruction confuses her. “Commander?”
Emerging from the celestial sky, Loyal appears at Michael’s side, snorting, ready for battle. The Commander’s wings lift him high above the animal before lowering him onto the warhorse’s back.
“That boy’s face told me everything I need to know. Canaan may counsel against it, but Jake’s going after the girl.”
“But he could die . . .”
The Commander’s face takes on a soft glow. “He loves her, Cherub. Her life is worth more to him than his own.”
“Yes, sir.” It seems Pearla will have a chance to engage after all. She rather likes the idea.
“My prayers go with you, little one. Fly fast.”
Pearla nods and dives after the Shield, her mind sorting through this new assignment. It’s the greatest expression of love, she knows, to lay one’s life down. But she wonders if humans know just how unique the ability is to do that. Death is not something an angel has to offer her loved ones. How glorious it must be to have one’s days numbered by the Father.
How precious it makes each and every one.
E
lle?”
Kaylee stands on the porch stairs, her phone in her hand, her face white. And though it’s my name lingering in the air, her eyes are not on me. She’s staring at Damien—who, for reasons passing all understanding, is standing between us in his human form.
“Go back inside,” I tell her.
It’s a stupid thing to say. She’s no safer there, but at least I won’t have to see the terror bubbling from her eyes, snaking like an adder down her cheeks.
Dad steps onto the porch. Damien is three feet from me, but the thing that grabs my attention is Dad’s empty hand. He’s relinquished his death grip on the beer bottle’s neck. I hope he chose to do so before downing the last few gulps.
“Who are you?” he says, looking Damien up and down.
“Dad . . .”
“Inside,” Damien growls. “All of you.”
“Says who?” Dad is indignant.
Damien strides to the porch. Kaylee tries to back away, but
trips over the top stair. She lands on her backside, her elbows smacking the wood flooring. The fear running down her face multiplies, and I see Damien sniff at the air and grin as he bends and yanks the phone from her hands.
“Hey!” Dad says. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Damien jerks upright and slides Kaylee’s phone into his pocket.
“I said
inside
. If you want either of these girls to survive the day, you’ll comply.”
Dad’s ruddy face is splotchy now, red and white and ticked all over. Indignant, he’s unpredictable, but tipsy
and
indignant, Dad is just plain stupid. He takes a swing at Damien.
I groan and squeal all at once, but Damien avoids the blow. He steps back, his black dress shoes crunching in the gravel. Dad tumbles past Kaylee and down the stairs. He lands on his hands and knees at Damien’s feet.
I rush to his side, but Dad’s on his feet again before I can intervene.
“I wouldn’t, Mr. Matthews.” Damien’s use of our last name is too intimate, too real.
I wrap my fingers—all ten of them—around Dad’s forearm, praying he’ll see reason. Praying he’ll tame his temper for a few brief moments. But he shrugs me off, more irrational than ever. He curses and shoves passed me, but I throw myself between him and Damien. I’m sure it looks like I’m protecting Damien—this demon-man who just assaulted my father—but really, the opposite is true.
Life would be unbearable if Damien took Dad from me.
“Please, Dad. For me. For Kaylee. Let’s just go inside. See what he wants. What he has to say.”
Dad glances at me, but it seems to be Kaylee’s sobs that move him to sanity. She’s shuddering now, trying to breathe, but her large, gulping breaths succeed only in sucking copious amounts of black fear into her mouth and down her throat.
She gags, and Dad grunts his begrudging assent.
Damien stands at the door now, smiling, gesturing us inside like we’re his dinner guests. The thought itself is disturbing and I don’t linger on it. Instead, I focus on the good example thing and stomp up the stairs, my bare feet making dull nothings on the steps.
I pull Kaylee up as I go, and Dad follows us inside, cursing. Always cursing. Damien shoves Dad as he passes, sending him into the island. His face is a furry tomato now, but before Dad can turn his ham-sized fist into a ball, before he can swing again at Damien, I grab his hand and twist my fingers into it.
“Dad,” I say, clearing my throat. I need to be clear. Dad must hear me. “This is Damien. He kidnaps children and sells them to pedophiles. Ali found out, and one of his men killed her. He was the mastermind behind the scenario at the warehouse this winter.”
The blood drains from Dad’s face—a tomato no more. “But you said—”
“Regardless of what you thought—”
“Of what I was told—”
“Regardless,” I say firmly, “this guy is—”
“Capable of anything,” Damien finishes, pulling a gun from his waistband. He points it at Dad’s head. “Now sit.”
It’s a gun. I know it is, but all I see is a dagger. Sharp and bloody. And I know this guy will not hesitate to deal out death today.
Dad steps forward—
stupid, stupid
—his forehead bumping the barrel.
“Daddy, please.” The words pour like tears from my lips.
“Yes, Daddy,” Damien growls. “Please.”
Dad doesn’t move, doesn’t back down, so I grab his hand and pull him away. I know he’s letting me pull him, and I’m grateful for this small concession.
Kaylee walks in front of us. Her sobs are silent now—it seems she’s gained some semblance of control. She curls onto the sofa, and I sit next to her, Dad on my other side.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Damien asks.
Dad’s grip on my hand becomes vise-like, and I have to struggle out of it.
“I should have known this had something to do with him,” Dad says, moving to stand again.
Damien stops Dad with the barrel of his gun. He presses it into Dad’s shoulder, his lips curling back to reveal two rows of impossibly white teeth. “Mr. Matthews, I am out of patience now, and since your own life seems to matter little to you, let me make this clear: I’ve killed your daughter once. I will not hesitate to do it again.”
Dad looks to me, his beard a prickly creature standing out from puffed, angry cheeks.
“He’s not lying, Dad.” I nod, trying to convey every bit of my own terror. He could use a little fear right now. After a second he sinks against the cushion, silent.
“Brielle,” Damien says. “I asked you a question. Where is Jake?”
I pray an angel falls through the roof, a thousand of them maybe. But after a moment, I know the answer to my prayer
won’t be that simple. Kaylee’s hand is suddenly on my knee. She squeezes, but I answer before Damien notices her movement.
“He’s not here,” I say.
“I’m aware of that.” His head tips down, and his eyes constrict like a croc peering at me over still waters. “New eyes, see. Where has he gone?”
I shake my head.
I can’t tell him.
I won’t.
Damien points the gun at me. He yells, “Where is Jake?”
Dad throws his arm across my chest. I feel it tremble against my rib cage. “If you want the kid, find him yourself. She has no idea where to find him. She told you as much.”
Damien’s gun hand falls to the side, and he takes a knee before me. Dad’s arm tightens across my waist, and I pull my feet off the floor—anything to get away from Damien. But he doesn’t touch me. He just stares. And then I hear his voice in my head.
It’s cold. So very cold. My eyes glaze over at the assault, and the room crystallizes before me—everything chilled, everything locked in ice.
“There are things even white eyes can’t overlook,” he says. “Humans don’t stay where they’re not wanted. And your father’s made it clear Jake’s not wanted here. He’ll leave you. One day, he will.”
A hot, round tear spills over my lashes and races down my cheek. The crystals dissolve. The room is bright and alive again. Still I say nothing.
“Oh, she knows where to find him,” Damien says. “I’m certain of it.”
“She doesn’t, though,” Kaylee says. I want to clamp a hand
over her mouth, keep her quiet. Keep her invisible to Damien, but his crocodile eyes settle on her. “Check the phone,” she says. “The one you took from me.”
His eyes are slits now, disbelief narrowing them.
“Dude, just check the phone!” Her voice is shrill, agitated. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of him. He hasn’t . . . hasn’t been answering.”
He pulls Kaylee’s phone from his pocket and throws it at her. “Show me.”
Her deft fingers scroll and click. “Here,” she says, shoving it at him. “I told you.”
Damien takes the phone and reads. His face is unreadable. Is he angry? Is he scared?
And then it vibrates. The phone in his hand. Kaylee’s phone.
We gasp as one.
“One new message,” Damien says.
He presses the face with his gigantic index finger.
And then he smiles. Those white teeth glare back at us. “It seems your boyfriend’s on his way, Brielle. These things are good to know.”
“You can’t . . . don’t . . .” The words are jumbled on my tongue.
“Oh, I can,” Damien says. “And I’ll enjoy it.”
Dad’s off the couch and on top of Damien before I can move—before the demon realizes what’s happening. Kaylee and I scream. We grab for Dad, his shoulders, his shirt, but Damien’s faster than both of us. And he’s stronger. He leans back, his hands buried in Dad’s chest, and throws all two hundred and fifty pounds of him over his head and into the television. I’m sure there’s a crash, some kind of loud collision, but the world goes silent and all I hear is that singing again.
My eyes are on Dad, on the mass of electronics and denim, but I don’t move. I can’t. Kaylee’s there now, at his side, and I’m grateful because I can’t move. I’m paralyzed by the Sabres’ song. So much louder. So much closer than I’ve ever heard it.
And it seems I’m not the only one. Damien stands to his feet, blocking my view of Dad. His head is cocked, his dead eyes boring into mine.
We stare at one another and we listen.
Eight . . . nine . . . ten seconds of heart-stirring melody. And then Damien’s eyes open wide—wider than I’ve ever seen them—and he vanishes.
“Brielle!” Kaylee’s voice breaks through the music and brings me back to the living room. “Brielle!”
She’s trying to heft the television off Dad, but she’s nowhere near strong enough. I slide to my knees at her side, and we lift the television off his chest and onto the floor. Dad lies faceup, unconscious, his forehead bleeding onto the blue carpet. I press my ear to his mouth—he’s breathing—and to his chest—heart’s beating. Other than the gash on his head, he seems okay.
I grab my favorite quilt off the ottoman and press the corner of it to his wound.
“Here,” I tell Kaylee. “Hold this.”
She does, her hands remarkably still after what we’ve just seen.
I stand and turn my eyes to the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
“No,” she says. “But if we get out of this, I’m
so
going to church with you on Sunday.”
I laugh, a bizarre vibration that seems to erupt from my throat, but in my frustration it dies quickly.
“Where did he go?” Kaylee asks, her head whipping around.
“I don’t know.”
Try as I may, I can’t see through the ceiling.
Why can’t I control this angel eyes thing?
I scan the house, looking high and low, but there’s no sign of the Celestial in here. Even the sludge of fear on Kaylee’s face has disappeared from sight.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, diving over Dad and out the front door.
I stumble into the clearing between Jake’s house and mine. The sun kisses my neck and face, thawing my skin. The smells of hot pine and mowed grass tickle my nostrils as I turn my eyes here and there praying for celestial sight, for something to indicate where Damien went and what he’s up to.
And that’s when a thousand daggers come tumbling toward me.
I
’m going after her,” Jake says.
He and Canaan are about a half mile from the cemetery, just outside the border of Stratus, surrounded by redwoods and pines. Canaan’s taken on his human form beneath the dense covering of trees. The branches are full with summer life, pressing against their backs, pushing them closer to one another as they speak.
“You’ll be walking into a trap, Jake. Damien wants you both. He’ll keep her there as bait. He knows you won’t leave her.”
Jake speaks through clenched teeth. “He’s right.”
“And what then? He takes you both to Danakil? To the Prince?”
“We’ll be together,” Jake says, his voice catching. “That’s what matters.”
“No,” Canaan counters, “that’s not what matters. Your souls matter. Proximity makes you easier to use against one another. Makes your will pliable, your heart emotional, your flesh weak.”
“Then what? What do we do?”
“
You
do nothing.
You
wait. I’ll go. I’ll get Brielle out of Stratus.”
Jake shakes his head. “You’re a much bigger, much brighter target than I am. I can get in and out . . .”
“You might be able to get in, Jake, but with Damien there, you’re not getting out.”
Jake’s jaw snaps shut.
“I can help.” A tiny girl appears next to them on the forest floor. Black skin, black hair knotted at her neck, bright brown eyes. She looks no more than eight years old. A dark orange cloth is tied at one shoulder and hangs to her knees. Her feet are bare.
“Pearla, yes?” Canaan says, kneeling before her. “The Commander’s Cherub?”