Spirit (36 page)

I realized what
his plan was then. He poured the salt over the break in the line, resealing the
circle, and then ran around it to recoat the line for good measure. Kneeling,
he placed two fingers at the edge of the line, careful not to break it again,
and whispered, “As I will it.”

A gust of air
rushed around me as the angel trap was reset. Ashriel screamed wordlessly as he
crashed against the barrier between us. Something between a sob and a laugh
burst out of me as I fell to the ground, still not recovered from the expended
energy burst.

“You say you
love her, but you are dooming her!” Ashriel cried out, rounding on my friends,
electric light sparkling around him. “Dooming her, do you understand?”

“What is he
talking about, Shay?” Steven turned to look at me, the container of salt still
clutched in his hands.

“Don’t listen to
him,” I said, shaking my head, trying to sound calm so they would just dismiss
his warning.

“You may not
care, Shayna Bridget,” Ashriel said, spinning around in a blur of blue and
white to face me. “But I have watched over you your entire life; I am not going
to let your stupid stubbornness destroy you.”

“Shayna?” Jodi
asked, coming to stand beside Steven. Her pale face was wrinkled in confusion.

“Don’t let him
trick you,” I said, my voice gaining some strength. “It’s just like faerie
tricks; don’t listen to him.”

“Fine, don’t
listen to me,” Ashriel stormed, “but they will hear what I have to say, and you
can’t do a thing to stop me.”

“Ashriel, if you
care about me at all,” I started to say, but Ashriel stopped me with a wordless
scream.

“Don’t! Do you
know why I am trying to get this stubborn mule back to the Light?” Ashriel
demanded of my friends. “Because if she stays here like this, then eventually
she will no longer be cognizant. Eventually she will be nothing more than a
lost and wandering wraith that can’t speak, can’t remember who she is or who
you are. She will be nothing. Worse than nothing.”

Jodi and Steven
turned to look at me, fear and confusion warring on their faces, making me want
to punch Ashriel in the face. I pushed to my feet, slowly gaining strength.
When I managed to remain upright, I turned to look at Ash, trying to put all of
my fear, all of my need to save my friends in my voice and in my face.

“Ashriel,” I
said gently, tired of always screaming, always being angry. “You just said
you’ve been watching over me my whole life and you aren’t going to stand back
and watch me destroy myself.”

“Yes,” he said,
the anger seeping out of his voice as well. I moved close to the edge of the
circle, lifting my hand and placing it on the invisible barrier between us,
feeling it vibrate with power, electrifying under my touch.

“So how can you
ask me to do the same thing with them?” I whispered the question, staring into
Ashriel’s eyes, pleading with him to understand.

“I know it’s
hard, Shayna,” he said just as quietly, stepping forward to stand close to me. He
placed his hand over mine, the thin barrier keeping our hands apart like a pane
of glass.

“It’s not hard,”
I said, “it’s impossible. They are part of me and I of them. If I leave them,
then I condemn them. How can you ask me to do that?”

“I’m not asking
you to,” he said, his bright blue eyes pleading every bit as much with me. “If
I could, I would let you stay with them; this isn’t my decision.”

“Ashriel, I
won’t leave them,” I said, pressing my fingers harder against the barrier, the
vibrations making my arm tremble. “I would always know that I killed them.
Think about that, please, think about what that really means.”

Ashriel stared at
me for a few tense moments before closing his eyes and bowing his head. I saw
his fingers press into the barrier until they ran white with the effort, and I
realized he was having a vision, a vision of what would become of me if I left
Jodi and Steven to die. His brow became pinched and his breathing shallow. I
could see his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids as he shook his head, as
if stuck in a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake. His fingers curled against
the barrier as if he could break through it to grip my hand. Then, like an
invisible strike to his chest, Ashriel stumbled backward with a gasp. His eyes
snapped open, and in their blue depths, I could see the crackle of lightning.

I didn’t know
what he saw in his vision, and I didn’t know what he saw when he looked at me
now, but the haunted look in his eye told me I might have a chance to get
through to him.

“How can you ask
me to do something you yourself cannot do?” I asked.

“Shayna,”
Ashriel said, moving close to me again. He looked down at me with that sweet
face I had so often gazed at in my dreams, the face that I had turned to so
often when I needed help and guidance. The hurt and worry on his face pained me
because I had caused it.

“Ash,” I
whispered, “you could help me. You weren’t there for me in that fire, you
didn’t save me when I knew you could; please, help save me this time.”

“It was time,
Shayna,” he said softly. “It was time for you to become your true self.”

“If my true self
is a guardian angel,” I said, “then I will not stand back and watch two people
who’ve saved me so many times fade away. I won’t do it, Ash, and you can’t make
me, and neither can whoever or whatever is up there.” I pointed at the night
sky above us.

“It’s not up to
me.” Ashriel shook of his head. “It’s not up to you either; these things are
predetermined and cannot be changed.”

“Then they
shouldn’t have let me be born human. Ashriel, you can’t give someone free will
for eighteen years and then expect to be able to just rip it away. Humans don’t
work like that; I don’t work like that.”

Ashriel opened
his mouth to say something, but his voice was drowned out in a crack of
thunder. For one moment I thought he’d opened his wings and was about to take
flight, but he hadn’t moved. I heard Steven and Jodi’s voices as if I were
underwater and couldn’t understand them. They rushed toward me, Steven pointing
at the sky. My eyes followed his finger and saw the sky had been ripped open. A
bright blue light shone through the black sky and blotted out the stars in a
jagged scar.

Ashriel’s eyes
were riveted on the sky; I saw his mouth moving as he spoke, but the thunder
rolling around me filled my head so that I couldn’t hear him only a foot away
from me. I felt that same strange pulling sensation throughout my body and took
one last look at my two friends. They held onto each other, their faces
desperate and terrified. I pressed against the barrier, realizing too late I
was a sitting duck. The bright Light burst through the sky and the ground
around us rolled as the Light touched the Earth. Jodi and Steven stumbled and
fell, clinging to each other as they watched the Light track over the ground
until it filled the circle I stood in, trapping me.

I felt a warmth
more soothing than anything I had ever felt in life or death as the Light surrounded
me, filled me. I looked at Ashriel, the question plain on my face, and the look
of relief, mixed with a little bit of regret, on his face told me everything.
My feet left the ground, my hand sliding away from the barrier as the Light
pulled me, making the wounds on my back burn. This was it. The choice was no
longer mine; they were pulling me from this world, and I couldn’t do a damn
thing about it. Once more, I watched the pleading faces of those I loved as I
was ripped away from another world I did not belong in.

Chapter 21

The world was
white. I had never tried to think about what the afterlife might look like
since there were so many varying ideas about it, but I didn’t expect
nothingness. I stood surrounded by nothing but shifting white mists and fog
banks, all alone. I’d expected Ashriel to be there with me, to be my guide and
tell me what to do, but he’d been left behind with Jodi and Steven. A sharp
pang went through me at the thought of my two best friends, abandoned once
again.

“Hello?” I
called out, forcing thoughts of Jodi and Steven’s pained faces out of my head.
“Anybody?” My voice echoed back to me, unanswered.

Then, through
the mists, I saw a familiar tall and lean shape begin to take form until I saw
Steven’s smiling face. His white teeth were bright against his dusky skin as he
flashed that self-assured smile at me. He held his baby cousin Alexis. At
first, I didn’t recognize her because she’d grown so much since I last saw her,
but her wide brown eyes were a perfect mirror image of Steven’s. She looked so
happy, so rested. I rushed forward, but as I reached out for him, he
disappeared into the rolling fog. I slowed my steps, turning on the spot to
look for him only to see Jodi’s bright blond hair peeking through the white fog.
Her blue eyes seemed to sparkle against her pale skin as she watched me,
waiting for me, only to disappear as I reached her.

I turned again to
see Tracy just a few feet away. When she saw me, she smiled just a bright as
Steven and Jodi. I started toward her, refusing to run this time, but it didn’t
matter; she was gone by the time I reached her.

Then there was
Jensen in his razor sharp cheekbone glory. My heart thudded in my chest when he
offered me that lopsided smile. I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed
him until that moment. He reached out a hand for me and I responded in kind, my
fingers itching with the desire to brush his hair out of his stormy eyes, but I
knew running to him was pointless. With a small nod, he faded away just like
the others.

Turning, I saw
Jeremy’s face, still a little unsure, still a little scared, but not one day
older. His face hardly moved when the corner of his mouth tilted up just
slightly, but he looked well, cared for. Behind him stood his older brother,
and beside him, their mother, who was smiling. In that smile, I could see where
her boys truly got their good looks. I placed my hand to my chest, realizing I felt
a stitch forming there at the sight of all these people.

Katcharias, the nymph
king, took Jeremy’s place as the mists shifted and reformed. His black hair and
green skin stood out like a shock of color in all this nothingness. His father
was next to him, looking happy and healthy as I had never seen him look before
in life. They dipped their heads toward me in a half-bow. Behind them, their
pod of followers fanned out so far that I couldn’t clearly see all of them.
They looked peaceful and calm, their black eyes no longer menacing and the
stuff of nightmares.

When I turned
again, I saw Matt, Mark, and Dale, the boys whose souls would’ve been fed to
Katcharias’s people had we not stopped his sister. The three boys were taller
than I remembered, a little broader too, but still familiar and smiling as they
stared at me. Their parents stood behind them, smiling gratefully at me. I
lifted my hand in a small wave that each boy returned before disappearing like
all the rest. A little girl’s giggle echoed through the mists. I turned just in
time to see a short woman scooping up Mandy, the little girl I’d pulled from
the rocks, bleeding and nearly unconscious, after a horrific car accident.
Mandy frantically waved a tiny hand at me, causing her mom to turn her face toward
me. She smiled when she saw me and clutched Mandy a little tighter, taking in a
deep breath of the sweet scent of her daughter’s curly hair.

They turned to
leave just as Amy, the woman we had saved from the fire, appeared. She gave me
a sad, watery smile, the regret and guilt of my death plain on her face. I gave
her a closed mouth smile. It really wasn’t her fault, and she shouldn’t carry
that guilt with her. She nodded at me, and I realized her hands rested on a
bump in her stomach. A small noise of surprise left me, making her smile
brighter, nodding as she faded away.

A breath of
relief rushed out of me. I had made a lot of mistakes during my time on Earth,
but I had helped a lot of people. The skin of my back itched and burned, making
me look over my shoulder, expecting to see my wings, but they weren’t there.
Apparently all of my help, all of those people saved, weren’t quite enough to
give my wings back. I gritted my teeth, holding back the angry words I wanted
to voice.

The white fog
rolled around me, shifting in the light, turning slowly darker and darker. The
mists and fogs bled from different shades of grey into black, swirling around
me until my head spun. I held out my arms, hoping to catch something to hold on
to, but my fingers closed around empty air.

When I opened my
eyes again, Ian’s face loomed in front of me. He was bigger than I remembered
and the twisted anger on his face stole any lingering resemblance he might’ve
still had with Jensen. His blue eyes looked grey in this half-light, his lips
curling up into a sneer. I almost stepped back, but I forced myself to stand my
ground, and glared back at him.

He opened his
mouth in a wordless scream just before he rushed me, flying through the air,
his hands in front of him, fingers crooked into claws. I covered my face with
my arms and ducked just as he passed over me, disappearing into the void. I
peeked between my arms before slowly standing back up.