Gabriel (38 page)

I knew then that I was capable of what they were not. I was an impossible palette. I was what they could not be. I was the in-between, just like this dimension, and Earth was my home, not theirs. Here, I could prevail.

As my essence filled him in the form of smoke, it suffocated his dark being, assailing his insides and manipulating his makeup with my own gray matter. He would never win this fight. I watched his expression flash as he began to battle with himself. “Let's see if you will live or die, shall we?”

The thunder pounded in waves of two.

A glow warmed my neck as a tear formed in the air behind me. I had attracted the attention of the Arch Angels. Still, I focused intently on the Pureblood—if the Arch Angels were coming, then they were welcome to watch.

The Pureblood's tattoos, which ran in quill shapes across his face and down his neck, wobbled as though they were separate from his skin. They began to fade, and as they transcended his form, they grew into feathered wings behind his back.

I stifled a breath.

Emery's body flitted in and out of focus, and I tightened my clenched fist gripping his cloak. He opened his mouth, his fangs still prominently displayed, and the smoke leaving my raised palm ceased.

I looked over my shoulder. A single, towering figure hovered in front of a golden splinter in the air. The Arch Angel had magnificent white wings that curled almost hypnotically behind his back. He inched forward, and I commanded the gray smoke once again within my palm. He raised his hand and stopped, maintaining his distance.

I turned my attention back to Emery. Black fissures had splintered across the sclera framing his now-sapphire gems, and gradually they became nothing more than dirtied, soaking puddles. His eyes burst, bleeding down his cheeks, robbing him of his sight.

His skin was tearing away, leaving his decaying, flesh-colored muscle exposed. The stringy veins growing up his hands grew thicker and then ruptured. Black oil spewed from them.

His inner conflict raged. He couldn't accept the light and the dark mixture; it was a cancer, eating away at him from the inside out.

“Mercy!” he spat.

His skeletal hand lashed in the air as he searched for my own and finally his fingers crept around my wrist. As he squeezed, his digits broke apart against my hard skin.

I stared at him, knowing that what Malachi had said was absolutely true; knowing that Emery was begging for a quicker demise, perhaps to leave in light the same way he had come.

He was not worthy of such an end.

His wings began to wilt, and finally the thinning feathers depleted and then fell away.

The anguished sound reverberating from his throat was one of torture.

I wavered for the briefest moment, but then I thought of Jonah and what Emery had done to him, and hundreds, maybe thousands more. I would see his execution through on their behalf; they deserved their revenge, and so did I. He would provide me with my gratification.

Self-appointed judge and jury, I would ensure justice was done. My eyes slanted, and I tipped my chin, staring at the Arch Angel over my shoulder. Speaking to him directly, I delivered my final verdict—one that was intended for both Emery and the Arch Angels.

“No mercy.”

Emery gurgled in the back of his throat and the last of his skin slowly dripped from around his face. The sound stopped as his lizardlike tongue melted away; blind and mute, he could no longer plead. His extended suffering bolstered my resolve, and I only uncurled my knuckles from around his cloak when he had finally finished burning.

Embers of gray ash rained down now from the heavens to the Earth.

The silence fell at once.

 

THIRTY-ONE

I
T WAS AS THOUGH
sound no longer existed. The world, acting as my audience to Emery's execution, had sucked it all away, taking a horrified gasp as it watched me.

The warmth on the back of my neck had left, along with the Arch Angel, and the rift he had created in the sky sealed.

I drifted down to the ground. I found my feet, but my body was shaking, as the adrenaline petered out. I stared up to the heavens, the sky in between the swaying treetops swirling back to a pastel blue, the sun stretching its rays and lighting the clearing.

The black threads had looped their way back into the third, and the most prominent doorway was the only one that remained. It had decreased in size and was slowly diminishing.

Next to the rift, Brooke hunched over Fergal, and, like a waterfall cascading over a cliff, her cries rushed to me. The Sealgaire, Ruadhan, and Gabriel were gaping at me, transfixed. Relieved, shocked, appalled, maybe, by what they had seen me do to Emery. Phelan broke his gaze away from me long enough to attempt to help Fergal.

Gabriel's expression was one of distress; who knew what he thought of me now that he had seen me do what I had once thought myself incapable of.

I sought out Jonah, but he was already making his way across the clearing, watching as Phelan tried to pry Brooke from Fergal.

Jonah wrapped his arms under Brooke's, dragging her backward, allowing Phelan to get to his cousin. Desperate, Brooke knocked him with a frenzied force. He staggered backward and stood unbalanced in front of the diminishing rift.

Brooke yanked Phelan off Fergal, and I wasn't sure at that moment which of her impulses was more prominent—the need to get him to help or the desire to drink his blood. Brooke hauled Fergal over her shoulder in a clean, quick movement and fled deep into the forest.

Jonah's conflicted eyes stewed with indecision. Why wasn't he going after her? There was nothing to keep him here.

Jonah looked up at me, and I locked my stare with his. I felt his anxious, hesitant feelings swelling low in my gut.

Gabriel was immediately behind me, his hands clasped around my chest, and he nuzzled into my neck. He was whispering something in my ear, but I didn't respond. My attention instead was ahead of me, placed firmly on Jonah, who was flicking up the hood of his jacket.

Gabriel took my hand, but my eyes didn't meet his. I felt his grip tighten as he looked from Jonah to me. His fingers began to dig into my skin.

You were wearing Jonah's jacket.…
Gabriel spoke to me in private.

Now, I turned to him. My eyes darted over his face, taking in every twitch of his muddled expression. I thought he had known that I had drunk from Jonah, but that he hadn't wanted to utter the words aloud.

I had been wrong.

His lips parted ever so slightly, but he didn't speak; instead I heard him in my mind.

It wasn't Azrael's blood.… It was Jonah's.

Every muscle in Gabriel's body tensed. I tried to speak to Gabriel's mind in return, but all I could hear as I reached out was the final verse of our song, the verse I had been unable to recall, his voice singing:

When e'en the wreaths in which I dress thee, are sadly mixed, half flowers half chains.

They had always been Gabriel's lines; he had sung them to me. Unable to stop the image of my lifeless body laid on top of straw, the memory appeared in his mind and transferred into my own. I was lying there, still, with a crown of red and white rose petals placed delicately across my forehead.

I didn't have an opportunity to explore any further; Gabriel looked to the left and then his hands rose to his torso. Before I had a chance to consider why, he had thrust them to my chest and sent me sailing away from him.

I was pushing my body out of free fall when I caught glimpses of a tremendous surge of light pulsing from where I had just been. I regained control of my tumbling body and landed on my tiptoes. I raised my palm to my forehead as a pounding beat sounded in my mind.

Ruadhan appeared instantly and blocked my line of sight. Spinning me around, he enfolded his arms around my back, pressing me protectively to his chest, where he tried to hold me captive.

I quickly broke away to see Gabriel's hands stretched out in front of him, fragments of yellow electrifying the particles of air. I followed their path: They led to the last remains of the black smudge that had been the rift to the third. It swallowed itself whole, disappearing completely.

The rumble in my temple faded, leaving behind a low thud.

To the right, Phelan was bent over, hands clamped over his head as though bombs had fallen from the sky. Members of the Sealgaire were scattered around the broken trees, mouths agape, looking on with astonishment.

I searched the clearing, trying to ascertain what had just happened. Maybe something had tried to reemerge from the rift from behind where Jonah had been standing. Gabriel must have seen and pushed me away before expelling his light, to catapult it back through, causing the rift to dissolve even faster. I decided that Jonah must have fled. We'd said our final farewell, and I was glad—I couldn't bear another one.

Gabriel's arms were trembling.

Gabriel
, I called over the top of the thud reverberating inside me.

He didn't answer.

I tried to speak to him again, but still he didn't reply. There was no sheet of light; he wasn't blocking me. He was just … absent.

Gabriel dropped to his knees, his shoulders hunched, and his hands fell to the top of his legs. I rushed forward, stooping to the ground, and took him in my arms. “What happened?” I asked.

Ruadhan's palm spread at the nape of my neck. “Ruadhan, you should go after Brooke. You need to help Jonah,” I instructed, presumptuously.

He didn't shift from me.

“Please! Go!” I commanded.

Ruadhan parted from me, but he didn't leave.

I cupped Gabriel's face with my hands. “Gabriel, please. Tell me, what happened? Are you hurt?”

His skin was like dry ice against my palms. I tried to connect to his aura, but I could no longer feel him.

Then he reached for my waist, finally meeting my gaze.

His Adam's apple bulged as he swallowed. I stifled a whimper at the sight of his eyes. They were empty; the light behind them had vanished. The lines across his skin were deeper, stretching farther, and as I glanced down to his hands, there were hundreds of dark spots speckled over his skin.

“You've lost your light.… You've fallen,” I whispered, disbelieving. My breath caught in the back of my throat. “No.” I froze.

Gabriel shifted, pressing his thumbs to my hip bones. He tugged the hem of my T-shirt as he placed his cheek in my lap.

“There was no demon.…” I pushed Gabriel away by his shoulders, and my weight tipped forward to the ground. Disoriented, I crawled across the mud, digging my fingernails into the dirt, over to where Jonah had been only minutes ago.

I tore at the top layer of earth underneath my palm, searching. There was no ash, no sign he had ever been here at all. He was just gone.

Gone.

My insides hollowed, my head spun, and the only thing that remained was a dull echo that ricocheted off my empty walls.

I don't know why, but I began to claw at the ground, as though I were trying to burrow a way to wherever he might be.

Infuriated, crimson tears poured down my cheeks. My blood was his blood; he'd sacrificed it only hours ago, and I knew that every drop that left me was irreplaceable.

I felt Ruadhan's hands pulling me up. “Enough, now,” he said somberly.

I struggled beneath him, thrusting my weight back to the ground. I pummeled the dirt, wishing that I could feel physical pain, but there was none.

Ruadhan bent down and whispered in my ear. “I'm so sorry, love. Please—”

I allowed him to pull me up and lock me in tight. A faint, pitiful squeak escaped my lips. The taut muscles in my torso unclenched, and my arms fell loose. My clay-covered fingernails dropped wearily down at my thighs.

“We have to leave now,” Ruadhan said eventually, placing me steadily on my feet, but he continued to clutch my waist, supporting me.

I glanced over my shoulder, to where Gabriel sat on his knees, but I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes.

The Irish lads remained where they stood, entirely still, heads down. They didn't make a sound. This was what people did for the dead, but it was to me they were showing their respect—not to a demon, not to Jonah.

I stared blankly up at the sky. My jaw unhinged and with an ear-splitting scream, I cried for him.

*   *   *

I
SAT HUNCHED OVER
on a stool in my bedroom. Many hours had rolled over, and Ruadhan had attempted to pry me away several times. Somehow it felt as though if I left this place, I was leaving Jonah behind; I was accepting that he was never coming back. I wondered if that was why Jonah hadn't left before I did, if he had felt the same way about me.

It was the early stages of twilight, and I'd traced the outline of the small chandelier hanging from the ceiling over and over, trying to distract myself from the pain of reality.

I was sick of it, sick of this.

Gabriel was fallen now, and like Iona he would wear away slowly—like an aging building, completely vulnerable to anyone who wanted to bulldoze it. And Jonah was gone. I had doomed them both to terrible fates.

My desire to meet my mother had cost me more than I was able to bear. What was I thinking?

I knew exactly what. I had wanted her to tell me what to do, which path to take, because I didn't trust myself to make that decision.

I couldn't hide from the gut-wrenching thoughts that persisted.

This was where the truth really lived.

I held my new ring in between my fingertips, finally sounding out the reason I had threaded it back to the chain. It was not out of comfort, as I had said; it was because I hadn't been brave enough to say no.

I pushed myself off the stool and wandered over to the door. When I opened it, Gabriel had his back to the wall, slouched down—waiting for me. I wished he weren't.

“Lailah,” he said, ushering me back inside. He reached for the light switch, but I pushed his arm down, shaking my head.