Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel) (12 page)
Despite the aged, Victorian feel the house gives from the outside, the inside is a mashup of cozy and modern. Crisp, square tables in oak are surrounded by bright yellow chairs and spaced evenly throughout the room.">
index cards marking them for what they hold—as my mind flies through options stupid and implausible.
I could run. Try to get away. He has Kaylee, and it would be hard for him to keep track of us both. Hard, but not impossible. Still, I could do it. I think I can. And if I can get away, I can come back with help. Unless the angels are too busy to answer their cell phones. Again.
It’s entirely possible, even likely. Neither Canaan nor Helene has returned a single call or text Kaylee sent on the way here. There’s no guarantee they would be available now. And even then, I’m certain Damien sees more value in me than in Kaylee. He’s stupid like that.
There has to be another way, but unlike Damien, I can’t think with Kaylee screaming. Her terror heightens mine, and it’s all I can do to keep moving. Damien knees me in the back, and I stumble forward.
I can’t believe I let him catch me. If Canaan’s right, and he’s always right, my captive presence can only make things harder for Jake. Make his fight more painful, more costly. What would Damien do to me to make Jake cooperate? A tremor runs through my body, because I know exactly what he’d do. He’d do whatever it takes. Even now, with my hands trembling and anger at myself seeping from every pore, I wonder how much it would take to break
me
. Very little, I think. Any kind of pain inflicted on Kaylee or Jake, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to allow that. Even for a higher call. Suddenly I’m willing to risk the fallout of trying to escape. Whatever the cost, I can’t be used against Jake. I won’t be an arrow in Damien’s quiver. And I won’t let them be used against me.
But I’ve got to act now. The counter is just in front of us, and
beyond it a room swallowed in darkness. Who knows what I’m walking into?
I throw myself to the left, losing a hunk of hair in the process. I actually think my scalp is bleeding, but adrenaline keeps me moving. There’s a table and four chairs between us now, but I don’t look back. There’s a side door here, an emergency exit sign glowing above it. Looks like a wheelchair ramp on the other side. I hear Damien yell, I hear Kaylee scream louder.
I think she’s cheering me on.
But my feet tangle in something and I fall toward the door, my palms smacking the bar and propelling the door open. The cold night air, thick with salt, rushes inside, making room for me out there. If only I were standing on my feet! I clamber as fast as I can, trying to get upright, but my lip is bleeding, my chin scraped, and for a moment all I see is stars.
Behind me, something akin to war is breaking out. Kaylee’s not just yelling, she’s screaming like a feral cat. I hear open hands colliding with flesh, again and again. The demon curses and Kaylee yells. I turn for her, but she waves me away.
“Get out of here, Elle. Go!”
And then she’s screaming again. I want to go back for her. I
have coincidenceowp0
to go back for her.
“Brielle! Get out of here!”
Agony tears through my chest at the thought of leaving her behind, but if I go back now everything will be so much worse. If I can get free of this building, maybe, just maybe, he’ll let Kaylee go and come after me. Maybe she can work magic with that phone of hers and find help.
So many maybes, but I crawl out the door and roll off the handicap ramp. The fall is farther than I thought, and when I
land, it’s like the air is vacuumed from my lungs. Still, I keep moving. I stand, grass and mud on my face, dampening my knees. The fog is thicker now than it was before, but a blast of light strikes me in the face. And then it’s gone. Through the trees, I see the lighthouse silhouetted against the foggy night. In a move that is probably more symbolic than wise, I run toward it.
And then I hear wings overhead. If I can hear him, experience says I can see him, but I don’t look. I just duck my head and run faster.
“Please, God. Please, please, please.”
In front of me, out from the fog, emerges a wooden bridge built to fill in a gap left by sliding rocks. It’s old, the wood peeling, trees invading it. Blood runs down my neck and chest. I spit it from my mouth, but still I run toward the light. The blinking, spinning, very alive, very real light.
And then his voice crawls inside my head.
“What will you do when you get there, girl? What will you do when you get to the light?”
The world around me threatens to ice over. The trees, the road, the railings on the bridge, they all take on a glazed look. I blink and blink and try to will his words away, because he’s right. There’s nothing beyond the bridge. Just rocks that fall away into the sea. Just a cliff. Just ocean.
How far down is it? Do I know? Is that a piece of information I have locked away in my memory somewhere? Maybe, but as my feet pound against the bridge, I can’t recall it. I stumble, his words making my feet slip. I press on, straightening up and refusing to fall.
I can’t fall now.
Because I finally know what I have to do.
On my right an outer building passes by and then another, both of them as white as the dove on Canaan’s wall. The fog encases them, turning the small buildings into tissue-wrapped gifts, but I fly by, my eyes on the swanlike neck of the lighthouse. And then I’m below it, its thick trunk a phantom reaching into the heavens.
Damien’s still talking.
“Where are you going? What are you doing?” He asks the same things over and over again, a hint of amusement in his voice.
He’s toying with me, but that’s okay. It buys us time. And that’s what I need to give Kaylee. Time.
M
y eyes are wide open when Damien tucks his wings and falls into a dive. Crushed against his frame, I shiver uncontrollably, but my celestial vision is clear and concise. It doesn’t come in pieces. It’s complete and as reliable as it ever was with the halo.
Below us, the keeper’s house is swathed in the red flames of violence. The flames throb against the night sky, ominous and chilling, but they beat out a healthy rhythm and I take solace in that. Wherever Kaylee is, whatever she’s doing, she’s still alive.
But there are far too many flames flickering below to account only for the wounds Damien inflicted on Kaylee and me. It’s the first sign I’ve had that there are multiple people inside the building. Is Kaylee one of them?
Is Jake?
My stomach is already in my mouth when we tumble across the sky and through the roof. My glimpse of the bakery is brief, but I see no sign of Kay. And though only to be replaced by s through, I’m wrapped in the tar of fear, both mine and the demon’s, I find that hope again—the hope that’s been buried deep beneath the fear. It surfaces.
As long as one of us is free to call for help, we still have a chance.
Damien twists hard and fast, past the counter and into the kitchen beyond. And then he opens his black wings and we stop. It’s abrupt, painful. The wind is knocked from my chest again as his inner wings tighten around my body. I struggle for breath as we descend. Through the floor, it seems.
There’s a basement?
Of course there’s a basement.
I refuse to close my eyes as we fall through the floor. The celestial light burns, but I let them water. I don’t even blink. Instead, I press my face against Damien’s transparent inner wings. Looking. Waiting. Hoping.
When the basement comes into view, my heart falters. The violence, most of it at least, originated here. The room is painted red with it. Splashed on the walls, coating the floors, the flames pounding out several different cadences. The first thing I see within the flames is Olivia. Her back is to us; scars, thick and puckered, have bubbled up on her calves. Scars that weren’t there before—not at the lake.
It’s unsettling to see what must always have been just beyond the reach of my terrestrial eyes. Would I have seen them before if I’d dared try? I don’t know. And that terrifies me. Shames me. I should have tried to see her. To really
see
her.
But there’s much to terrify in this room. Beyond Olivia, I see the boys. My boys. Jake and Marco sit back-to-back, their hands and legs strapped to chairs. Jake’s hands wrap Marco’s wrists and I swell with pride. Even broken, his hands can heal. Even stolen, he seeks the lost.
Unceremoniously, Damien opens his inner wings and I’m
shoved to the floor. He materializes behind me, his terrestrial hand twisting again in my hair, yanking me to my feet. My scalp is already tender, and despite my intention to be brave, I cry out.
More demonic laughter.
And then a wave of confusion crashes over me. I’m no longer wrapped in his wings, but my celestial vision remains entirely intact. In another place, in a peaceful room, this might be inspiring, but here, with crimson stains of violence surrounding me, the hues spinning and glowing, I try to blink away the Celestial, baffled by its totality. Two more quick blinks and I realize I’m not the only one confused. Olivia spins at my sloppy entrance, and Marco curses in surprise.
I want to explain. Tell them I’m here to save the day, but Damien kicks the legs I’ve locked in defiance and my knees buckle, my face inches from Jake’s.
“Your girlfriend’s here,” Damien says.
I don’t know how many seconds pass, but in all of them I let my eyes devour Jake. First I sweep them over his body, looking for injury, lo&4-𠄚oking for pain and fear. Something’s wrong with his right shoulder, I can see that immediately. Violence bubbles there, red and angry. And his arm, even tied back, juts at an unnatural angle. His head and face have lacerations. The one on his temple is deep, so deep I wish for the millionth time that I had his gift. That I could heal.
But I can’t.
I can see the pain but I can’t fix it.
And now my eyes find Jake’s. The same twin flames I saw in the Stratus cemetery the day I first saw into the Celestial stare back at me. They’re white-hot with love’s greatest expression. If he had celestial eyes, I know he’d see the same pure love in
mine, but the idea of it is enough to make me ill. This bond, this choice, this promise, it’s exactly why we can be used against one another.
I want to close my eyes on him, like I’ve done so many times before, pretend demons are mythological nonsense, that angels only appear in freaky paranormal novels, but I refuse to lie to myself. Damien’s presence makes the lie hard to swallow anyway. If his plan holds firm, we’re meeting the Prince soon, and I can’t help but wonder how much darkness it would take to dim the lights in Jake’s eyes.
What would the Prince do to me to force Jake’s compliance? How hard would it be to corrupt the gift in his hands? I don’t know. Jake is stronger than any one human ever should be, but the fire burning behind those black lashes says he’d die for me if he could. He’d take a bullet for me, or a knife. He’d throw himself on a grenade. He’d hang so I could walk free, but is there anything the Prince of Darkness could do to me to force Jake, a boy raised by an angel, to choose corruption?
I don’t know, and the not knowing is a pain I can’t tolerate.
I cry out, wrenching myself from Damien’s grip and falling into Jake. My knees land on his thighs, our faces colliding. I taste blood, but I kiss him anyway. He winces, but I don’t pull back. I’m selfish. I need this moment because we’re not guaranteed another one. And then I’m talking and I don’t think God Himself could shut me up.
“I love you,” I say. It’s not romantic, my declaration. It’s too loud, too brusque; there are too many people here. Marco and Olivia do what they can to fade into the shadows, but there’s a demon standing behind me, for crying out loud.
I don’t care. I have things to say.
“I’ve never said it to you. I don’t know why that is, why I’ve never said it, why
we’ve
never said it, but I do. I love you.”
Jake’s eyes slide to Damien, who is chuckling once again. Apparently I amuse the monster.
“Brielle,” Jake says, his voice nothing but a whisper in the storm. Tears, like drops of paint, roll down his face, but the words that have been trapped in my throat for the past two days won’t be silenced. They tumble out.
“Damien knows I love you,” I say. “My eyes told him that months ago. I don’t care who knows. They’re going to try to tear us apart—Darkness is—I know that. But your soul, Jake, your soul is far more important than how I feel about you. Far more important than how you feel about me. Far more important than some ring in a chest and a future we were never really promised.”
