Angelfire (8 page)

WILL SHOWED ME TO THE DOOR, BUT IT WAS BOARDED up. He plucked the sheets of plywood off with no effort at all and tossed them aside. The interior of the warehouse was surprisingly clean. Junk had been moved off to the side, and there wasn't any broken glass lying around. Tires were stacked in a corner by a pile of rusting hubcaps and wooden crates. Moonlight streamed in through high, mostly intact windows. Steel columns stretched from the concrete floor to the ceiling.

“I've even cleaned it up for you,” Will said, obviously trying to suppress laughter. Laughter that, I was sure, was directed at me.

I glared at him. “Why was it boarded up if you've gotten in already? Did you nail the boards over the door when you left?”

“I didn't come in through the door,” he said, and pointed up.

My gaze lifted to the windows. “Nuh-uh.”

“Once you figure out what you can really do, you won't be surprised at how I got in. That's why we're here.”

“So you can murder me and steal Marshmallow?” I mumbled absently as I picked at the peeling paint on the door.

He blinked. “Steal what?”

“Never mind.”

“You are a very strange girl,” he said, stepping very close to me.

His closeness alarmed me for a moment, and then I felt my unease melt away. It was really odd, my reaction to his presence. Perhaps it was because he was the only one I knew in the world who had the power to protect me. That should have made anyone feel pretty safe, right? Perhaps it was the “bond” he said we shared.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my eyes wide.

His fingers traced the curve of my shoulder softly, as his gaze fell. I gasped sharply. If he tried to kiss me, I'd slap the crap out of him. Bond or no bond.

He slipped my purse off my shoulder and tossed it. “You won't need this.” He turned and stepped away.

I let out a long breath. “You're weird, you know that? Way weirder than you think I am.”

He laughed. “I believe you've told me that a few times.”

“Do I need to be in the Grim in order to fight or do those crazy acrobatics?”

“No,” he said. “The only time you need to enter the Grim is when a reaper is hiding there. When they're hiding, that's the only way we can see them.”

“So what can I really do? If you can jump through a two-story window, then what can I do?”

“You can do that too. You don't even need wings to do it, either.”

I ignored his smartass remark, which made no sense at all anyway. I unzipped my hoodie, shrugged it off, and tossed it over by my purse. Wearing just my tank top, I folded my arms across my chest. “Yeah, right. Show me something, then.”

“You can bring this whole building down.”

I huffed in disbelief. “Show me.”

“I'm not going to destroy the warehouse with us in it,” he said. “We'll need this place for a while, so I'll give you a taste.”

He stepped farther away from me, his eyes locked on mine, and stood next to one of the steel columns. For a moment—I had to blink several times—it looked as if the air around him moved, like heat waves swaying just above the pavement on a hot day, only they radiated off his
body
. The green of his eyes seemed to intensify until they almost glowed, even though I knew that wasn't possible. Then a
blast hit me like a truck, knocking me flat on my back. I struggled back to my feet, gaping at Will in awe. I could see the energy rolling from him. I could feel it on my skin and lapping up my legs.

With a quick swing of his torso, Will smashed his forearm into the column, and the steel gave with a piercing whine until it bent at an angle, ripping almost fully free from the beam high above it. Dust blasted free and settled to the floor.

I staggered back, tripping and nearly falling. I stared at him, fearful, confused, and completely stunned. “H—how?”

“I could take it down if I wanted to,” he said, relaxing his power, letting it wash away like the tide. “You're stronger than me, Ellie. I need to prove it to you.”

“Oh God” was all I could say.

“You try it,” he said. “I know you remember how. I've seen you do it since you awakened. By summoning your power, you will have the strength to kill a reaper. They can do the same thing, though, so you have to be cautious, and that is why you have the angelfire. If you come across a vir, you may not know what he is until it's too late. The weaker ones seem the most human. The powerful ones don't bother to hide what they are. They don't usually like to be compared to humans, but they'll shape-shift to take the form of a particular human in order to infiltrate.”

“Do you have to touch my face again to trigger me, in order to bring my power out?” I asked.

“No, I don't think I'll have to do that again.” He held out his arm and conjured his sword. The enormous silver blade glinted into being. “Call your swords now.”

“Why?” I asked, uncertain of his motives.

“We're going to bring out your power so you will learn to do it on your own. I am your soldier, but I am not your crutch.”

“But I—”

In a flash he sliced his sword at my throat, but I instinctively ducked, shocked by my own quickness. Without my consciously calling them, my swords appeared in my hands. Will swiped his blade down again, but I swung my swords up, catching Will's blow with a
shing!
of metal against metal. He pushed down, hard, but I held my position, refusing to let him overpower me, and angelfire ignited on my blades. Will's foot suddenly connected with my chest and slammed me into one of the columns behind me, my back crunching against the steel. The wind rushed from my lungs, but Will was coming at me too fast for me to catch my breath. He swiped again and I rolled away. His blade clanged off the column, and I looked back, eyes wide.

“Stop running!” Will shouted. “Fight me!”

“You're going to
kill
me!” I shrieked.

“Only if you let me!” He leaped into the air and came down at me, his sword held high. He slashed, but the Khopesh caught his blade and deflected it away from my
face. I swung my other sword and slashed—Will recoiled as the blade cut neatly down his cheek. His face snapped to the side and he groaned in pain. He looked back at me, his green eyes brighter than I had ever seen, and the gash on his cheek melted together again, leaving only a thin line of blood. The angelfire didn't harm him.

“Keep fighting and don't stop!” he thundered. “If you stop, you're dead!”

He vanished suddenly and reappeared behind me. I reeled around to face him, swinging one sword up, and it collided with his. I slashed the other sword at his belly, but he jumped back, spun around, and kicked my wrist. The Khopesh went flying. I gaped at it in fright, and when I looked back at Will, he had already lowered his sword and was reaching for me. He clamped his hand around my throat, threw my back against a column, and grabbed the wrist that held my remaining Khopesh. He had me pinned. I struggled against his grip, but he was just so,
so
strong.

“Let me go!” My free hand clawed at his hand around my neck.

“I'm not releasing you,” he said. “You've lost. You stopped fighting and took your eye off me.”

“Please,
please
, Will.” I gasped, my windpipe closing. Panic grabbed at me and my eyes welled with tears. “You're going to kill me.”

“Then do something about it!” he roared into my face.
“You have that strength! If you want me to let you go, then
force me to
!”

I screamed, filled half with fear and half with fury, and my power exploded, my hair whipping around my face so wildly I couldn't see. The column behind me crunched, and the floor rolled and sank beneath my strength. Will was blown away from me and landed sliding across the concrete floor. I bolted forward and my sword burst into flames as I swung it at Will's throat where he lay. I poised the tip at his jugular, my lungs heaving, my heart pounding, and my power swirling like a hurricane all around me, swallowing me in diamond light.

My eyes darkened as I stared Will down. He put his hands up slowly.

“You lose,” I said cruelly. My power receded and my body relaxed. I collected my fallen sword and willed them both away.

Will smiled and rose to his feet.

I promptly punched him in the face hard enough to make him drop back to his knees. “You're a bastard!” I shrieked down at him, my voice cracking.

He laughed and rubbed his jaw firmly. “And you're frightening.” He stood back up.

I hit him again, making his head snap around. “Why'd you scare me like that?”

As I swung a third time, he grabbed my wrist. “That's
enough hitting,” he growled. “You don't exactly hit like a girl, you know.”

I wrenched free and walked away from him, breathing heavily. “Good God, that felt amazing.”

“Hitting me?”

“Yes,” I said, glaring back at him briefly. “And the power. I felt like I could punch through walls.” My gaze found the crater I had made in the concrete floor. The column was twisted and mangled, barely connecting to the ceiling any longer. It groaned, as if just a gentle nudge would send it crashing to the ground.

“You can,” he said.

“I'm afraid, Will,” I confessed. “I scare myself. If I'm capable of doing that, what's preventing me from doing it to someone who doesn't deserve it? What if I hurt someone?”

“I'll help you avoid that,” he assured me. “When you're faced with a reaper, you can't worry about anything else. That's
my
job. You have to use everything you've got to defeat it. If you hesitate, you will die. You hesitated just a moment ago, and that's how I was able to overpower you. You can't stop for any reason. Trust me always to guard your back in battle. I will protect you.”

He walked past me, but I grabbed his shoulder. “Wait.” I guided him around to face me, my hand sliding to his collar. I was picturing that shiny plus sign I thought I'd seen before, and I slipped the chain out from beneath his shirt. Dangling
from the end of the chain was a silver crucifix, not a plus sign. As soon as I saw it, I remembered what it was and my heart warmed. It felt good to see it again.

I looked up and saw that his gaze was glued to mine. “I remember it.”

His body was stiff and his jaw tightened. Suddenly his reaction was as fascinating as my remembering the crucifix around his neck. “It was a gift,” he said. “From my mother.”

“Does it protect against the reapers?”

“No.”

“Then why do you wear it?”

“My mother gave it to me.”

I nodded, angry at myself for asking such a stupid question. Despite his stone-hard expression, I could sense that I'd hurt him. The crucifix had sentimental value to him. Maybe it meant as much to him as my winged necklace did to me—if only I could remember where my own pendant had come from. His crucifix was centuries old. If he'd held on to it for so long, it had to mean a great deal to him, and so must his mother. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.” He tucked the crucifix back into his shirt. “It's nothing, really. It's stupid.”

I stared at him for a few moments. It didn't seem right to me that he was so evasive. The object obviously wasn't
nothing
to him, but I didn't feel it was my place to probe him about it.

“Training tomorrow evening?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I frowned. “No,” I said. “It's my birthday party.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot.” He sounded not disappointed but neutral, as if simply observing a fact. “Are we still on for the library at three then?”

“Sure, but there's no way I'm missing my own birthday party.”

“I'll stick around close by for that.”

“I'd like it if you were there,” I said. “As a guest.”

“Nonsense. I'll guard on the roof.”

“You don't have to be a creeper
all
the time, you know. Come to my party and have a little fun for once in your life.”

“I have fun.”

I scoffed. “I'm pretty sure our ideas of fun vary drastically.”

He flashed me a grin. “I'll show you someday.”

I smiled back. “Now you've got me all intrigued.”

“And you'll have to stay that way until the day I decide to divulge my secrets to you.”

I laughed. “So will you come? Indoors, too, and enjoy the party?”

His smile was sly. “Don't you think Landon will have a problem with that?”

“How did you—? Oh, right.”

“I've seen the way he looks at you,” he said. “What
shocks me is that you
don't
.”

“Well, now that it's been pointed out to me, I just may.”

He drew his face close to mine. “You don't read people very well, do you?”

I playfully shoved his shoulder away. “I read people just fine. I just don't have a thousand years of practice like you.”

He stepped back and laughed. “All right, I'll come by, as a guest. I'll allow you to see me there.”

I blinked. “Oh, you
allow
me to see you, is that it?”

He nodded, failing to stop a smirk from forming. “Oh yes. You have only ever seen me when I will it. I'm spectacular at hiding.”

“You're sure of yourself, aren't you?”

“You have no idea.”

I narrowed my eyes. “We'll see about that.” I turned away from him and left the warehouse. I climbed into my car, but when I looked for Will, he was standing at my window instead of getting in the passenger seat. “Aren't you getting in?”

He bent over to look at me through the window. “No.”

“You're going to walk all the way back home to Bloomfield Hills?”

He nodded. “I can travel easily.”

“That's a load of bull. Get in.”