Unearthly (30 page)
Authors: Cynthia Hand
But he's holding a flaming sword.
“Who are they?” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Sam glances down at me, frowning.
“What did you say?”
He probes my mind again, a momentary pressure, and suddenly it's as if a door slams between my thoughts and his. His hand drops away from me like I've burned him. The second he's not touching me anymore his thoughts disappear. The anger and sadness are cut in half. I feel like I can move again. I can breathe. I can run.
I don't think about it. I mash my foot down on his instepânot that that does any damage at allâand then dart forward, straight at my mother. She holds out her hand to me and I grab it. She tugs me behind her but doesn't let go of my hand.
The Black Wing makes a sound like a growl that has the hairs on the back of my arm standing on end. There's no mistaking the look on his face. He will destroy us.
He extends his wings. The clouds over us crackle with energy. Mom squeezes my hand.
Close your eyes,
she orders without speaking. I don't know what shocks me more, that she can talk in my head or that she expects me to close my eyes at a moment like this. She doesn't wait for me to obey. A bright light explodes around us. Wherever its rays touch there's a hint of color and warmth.
Glory.
The Black Wing instantly retreats, shielding his eyes. His face contorts in pain. For once his expression reflects the way he truly feels, like he's being eaten up from the inside out.
Don't look at him. Close your eyes,
Mom orders again.
I shut my eyes.
Good girl,
comes Mom's voice in my head again.
Now get out your wings.
I can't. One of them's broken.
It won't matter.
I summon my wings. There's a flash of pain so intense that I gasp and almost open my eyes, but it only lasts a second. Heat sears along my wings, burning through muscle and sinew and bone, and then, like with the cut on my palm, the pain is gone. Not just my wings. The scratches on my arms and face, the bruises, the soreness in my shoulder. It's all gone. I'm completely healed. Still terrified, but healed. And warm again.
Are we still in hell?
I ask Mom.
Yes. I can't get us back to earth by myself. I'm not that powerful. I need your help.
What do I do?
Think of earth. Think of green and growing things. Flowers, trees. Grass under your feet. Think of the parts you love.
I picture the aspen outside our front window at home, rustling in the breeze, quivering, a thousand little waves of green, translucent leaves moving together like a dance. I remember Dad. Cutting out old credit cards in the shape of razors for me and the two of us shaving on Sunday mornings, dragging the plastic across my face, mimicking him. Meeting his warm gray eyes in the steamy mirror. I think of our house now and the smell of cedar and pine that instantly hits you when you walk in the door. Mom's infamous coffeecake. Brown sugar melting on my tongue. And Tucker. Standing so close to him that we're breathing the same air.
Tucker.
The ground beneath us trembles but Mom holds me fast.
Perfect. Now open your eyes,
she says.
But do not let go of my hand.
I blink in the bright light. We're on earth again, standing almost exactly where we were before, the glory enclosing us like a heavenly force field. I smile. It feels like we've been gone for hours, even though I know it's only been a few minutes. It's so good to see color. Like I just woke up from a nightmare and everything is back to the way it should be.
“You haven't won, you know,” says that cold, familiar voice.
My smile fades. Sam is still there, standing back, out of range of the glory, but looking at us cool and composed.
“You can't hold that forever,” he says.
“We can hold it long enough,” Mom says.
That answer makes him nervous. His eyes scan the sky quickly.
“I don't have to touch you.” He holds out his hand to us, palm facing up.
Get ready to fly,
says Mom in my head.
Smoke drifts up from the Black Wing's hand. Then a small flame. He stares at Mom. Her grip on me tightens as he turns his hand over and fire drips off of his fingers and onto the forest floor. It catches quickly in the dry brush, moving from the bushes up the trunk of the nearest tree. Sam stands in the middle of the fire completely untouched as great plumes of smoke billow up around him. I know we won't be so lucky. Then he steps forward out of the sudden wall of smoke and looks at my mother.
“I always thought you were the most beautiful of all the Nephilim,” he says.
“That's ironic, because I always thought you were the ugliest of all the angels.”
It's a good line. That I'll give her.
Black Wings don't have the best sense of humor, I guess.
Neither of us expect the stream of flame shooting from his hand. The fire strikes Mom in the chest and instantly catches her hair. The glory radiating off us blinks out. The second the glory's gone, the angel is on us, his hand wrapped around Mom's throat. He lifts her into the air. Her legs kick helplessly. Her wings flail. I try to pull my hand away from hers so I can fight him but she holds on to me tight. I shriek and beat at him with my free hand, yanking at his arm, but it's no use.
“No more happy thoughts,” he says. He stares into her eyes sadly. Again I'm filled with his sorrow. He's sorry to kill her. I see her through his eyes, a memory of her with cropped brown hair, smoking a cigarette, smirking up at him. He has held that image of her in his mind for almost a hundred years. He genuinely believes that he loves her. He loves her but he's going to strangle her.
Her lips are turning blue. I scream and scream.
Be quiet,
comes her voice in my head again, sternly, surprisingly strong for someone who looks like she's dying right in front of me. The scream fades in my throat. My ears ring with the echoes of it. I swallow painfully.
Mom, I love you.
I want you to think of Tucker now.
Mom, I'm so sorry.
Now!
she insists. Her kicks are getting weaker, her wings drooping against her back.
Close your eyes and think of Tucker
NOW
!
I close my eyes and try to focus my mind on Tucker, but all I can think of is my mother's hand going limp in mine and nobody is going to save us now.
Think about a good memory,
she whispers in my mind.
Remember a moment when you loved him.
And just like that, I do.
“What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?” he asks me. We're sitting on the bank of a stream and he's tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and a red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable.
“What?” I say, wanting to laugh and he hasn't even told me the punch line.
He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that?
“Dam!” he says.
I laugh out loud, remembering that. I let myself fill with the delight I felt in that moment. The way I felt that day in the barn, kissing him, holding him close to me, being one with him and every living being on earth.
I suddenly know what my mother wants. She needs me to bring the glory. I have to strip away everything else but the core of me, that part that's connected with everything around me, that part which fuels my love. That's the key, I realize, the missing part of glory. Why I lit up that day with Tucker in the barn. There's nothing else but love. Love.
Love.
There,
Mom says in my head.
There it is.
I open my eyes and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the intense light, which is coming out of me now. Blaring off me. I'm lit up like a torch, the light rippling and sparkling off me like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.
The Black Wing flinches. I'm still holding on to his arm, and where I touch him his skin disintegrates, like I'm digging through that part of his body that's false, that human suit he wears, and grasping the creature underneath. Heat blazes from my fingertips.
“No,” he whispers in disbelief.
He releases my mother and she crumples facedown to the ground. I let go of her hand and grab the angel by the ear, which he doesn't expect. He pulls back, but I hold on easily. His great strength is gone. I grip his ear tighter. He howls in pain. A misty smoke pours off him like what comes off dry ice. He's evaporating.
Then his ear comes off in my hand.
I'm so shocked I almost lose the glory. I drop the utterly gross ear, which explodes into tiny particles the moment it hits the ground. I reach for the angel again, thinking I might catch him in the neck this time, but he twists away. The skin on his arm where I'm clutching him is dissolving too, like ash in the rain. No. Like dust. Like dust scattering in the wind.
“Let go,” he says.
“Go to hell.” I push him away from us. He stumbles back.
There's a ripple in the air, a cold blast of wind, and he's gone.
Mom coughs. I drop to my knees and slowly turn her over. She opens her eyes and looks at me, opens her mouth but no sound comes out.
“Oh, Mom,” I breathe, taking in the darkening bruises on her throat. I can even make out his handprint. The glory starts to fade away.
She reaches for my hand and I take it.
Don't let it go yet,
she says in my mind.
Hold on to me.
I lean over her, bathing her in my light. As I watch, the wounds on her head and neck fade and disappear. The hair that had burned grows back. She takes a breath like a swimmer coming up for air.
“Oh, thank God.” I feel limp with relief.
She sits up. She looks steadily over my shoulder at something behind me.
“We have to get out of here,” she says.
I turn. The fire the Black Wing started has grown into a real, crackling, honest-to-goodness forest fire, wild and unstoppable, eating up everything in its path, including us if we stay here more than a moment longer.
I look back at Mom. She climbs slowly to her feet, moving carefully in a way that reminds me of an old person getting out of a wheelchair.
“Are you okay?”
“I'm weak. But I can fly. Let's go.”
We spiral up together, holding hands. When we get up far enough I can see how big the fire has gotten. The wind picks up. It catches the fire and suddenly it's twice as big as it was a minute ago, a wall of flame moving steadily down the mountain into Death Canyon.
I know this fire. I would recognize it anywhere.
“Come on,” says Mom.
We start toward home. As we fly I try to wrap my exhausted brain around the fact that this is
the
fire from my vision, and now, after all of this, I'm going to have to fly off to save Christian. Funny how the vision never specifically included a Black Wing. Or hell. Or any number of things that might have been useful.
“Honey, stop,” Mom calls to me. “I have to stop.”
We come down at the edge of a small lake.
Mom sits down on a fallen log. She's panting with the exertion of flying so far, so fast. She's pale. What if the Black Wing hurt her in some way that glory can't heal? I think. What if she is dying?
I suddenly remember my phone. I pull it out of my pocket and start to fumble for 9-1-1.
“Don't,” Mom says. “I'll be fine. I just need to rest. You should go to Fox Creek Road.”
“But you're hurt.”
“I told you, I'll be fine. Go.”
“I'll take you home first.”
“There's no time for that.” She shoves me away from her. “We've lost so much time already. Go to Christian.”
“Momâ”
“Go to Christian,” she says. “Go now.”
I beeline it for Fox Creek Road. I'm so frazzled by all that's happened, but I just fly and my wings seem to know the way. I drop onto the road right in the spot where my vision usually begins.
I look around. There's no silver Avalanche parked along the road, no orange sky, no fire. Everything looks completely normal. Peaceful, even. The birds are singing, leaves are rustling gently on the aspens and all seems right with the world.
I'm early.
I know the fire is on the other side of the mountain, moving steadily toward this place. It will come here. All I have to do is wait.
I move off the road, sit down against a tree, and try to focus. Impossible. Why would Christian even be here? I wonder. What could possibly bring him all the way out to Fox Creek Road? Somehow I have a hard time picturing him in hip waders, flicking a fishing line back and forth over the stream. It doesn't seem right.
None of this is right, I think. In my vision, I'm not sitting here waiting for him to show up. He gets here first. I come down when the truck is already parked, and walk up into the forest, and he's already there. He's watching the fire as it comes.
I glance at my watch. The hands aren't moving. It's stopped at eleven forty-two. I left the house at about nine in the morning, probably had my big crash around ten thirty, so at eleven forty-two . . .
At eleven forty-two I was in hell. And I have no idea what time it is now.
I should have stayed with Mom. I had time. I could have taken her home or to the hospital. Why did she insist that I leave her? Why would she want to be alone?
My heart seizes with fear at the thought that she might be hurt much worse than she let on and she knew she wouldn't be able to hide it much longer, so she made me go. I picture her lying on the bank of the lake, the water lapping at her feet, dying. Dying all alone.
Don't,
I scold myself.
You still have work to do.
All these months of having the vision, over and over and over again, all these months of trying to make sense of it, and now it's finally here and I still don't know what to do, or why I will do it. I can't get over the feeling that I'm already doing something wrong. That I was supposed to go on that date with Christian, maybe something important would've happened to lead him here today.
Maybe I've already failed.
That's pretty bleak to consider. I lean my head back against the tree trunk just as my phone rings. It's from a number I don't recognize.
“Hello?”
“Clara?” says a familiar, worried voice.
“Wendy?”
I try to pull it together. I wipe at my face. It feels really strange to be having a normal conversation all of a sudden. “Are you home?”
“No,” she says. “I'm supposed to fly in on Friday. But I'm calling about Tucker. Is he with you?”
A dart of pain shoots through me. Tucker.
“No,” I say awkwardly. “We broke up. I haven't seen him in a week.”
“That's what my mom said,” says Wendy. “I guess I was hoping you'd gotten back together or something, and he was with you since he has the day off.”
I look around. The air is getting heavier. I can distinctly smell the smoke. The fire's coming.
“My mom called me when she saw the news. My parents are in Cheyenne at an auction and they don't know where he is.”
“What news?”
“Don't you know? The fires?”
So the fire is on the news. Of course.
“What are they saying? How big is it?”
“What?” she says, confused. “Which one?”
“What?”
“There are two fires. One pretty close, moving fast down Death Canyon. And a second one, over in Idaho near Palisades.”
A cold, sick dread crashes over me.
“Two fires,” I repeat, stunned.
“I called the house but Tucker wasn't there. I think he might be hiking. He loves the fishing out there at the end of Death Canyon. And Palisades, too. I was hoping you were with him with your phone.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I just have a bad feeling.” She sounds close to tears.
I have a bad feeling, too. A very, very bad feeling. “You're sure he's not home?”
“He might be out in the barn,” she says. “The phone doesn't ring out there. I've left him like a million messages. Could you go check?”
I don't have a choice now. I can't leave here, not with the fire so close, not without knowing how long it will be until it comes.
“I can't,” I say helplessly. “Not right now.”
There's a minute of silence.
“I'm really sorry, Wendy. I'll try to find him as soon as I can, okay?”
“Okay,” she says. “Thank you.”
She hangs up. I stand for a minute staring at the phone. My mind races. Just to make sure, I call Tucker's house and agonize while the phone rings and rings. When the answering machine picks up I hang up.
How long would it take me to fly to the Lazy Dog Ranch from here? Ten minutes? Fifteen? It's not far. I start to pace. My gut says that something is wrong. Tucker is lost. He's in trouble. And I'm just standing here waiting for who knows what to happen.
I'll go. I'll fly as fast as I can, then come right back.
I summon my wings and stand for a minute in the middle of Fox Creek Road, still trying to decide.
No one said there wouldn't be sacrifices. You belong here, in this moment.
I can't think. I find myself in the air, shooting toward Tucker's house as fast as my wings will take me.
It's okay,
I tell myself.
You have time. You'll just go find him and come right back.
Then I tell myself to shut up and concentrate on moving through the air quickly, trying not to think about what it all means, Tucker and Christian and the choice I'm making.
It only takes a few minutes to reach the Lazy Dog Ranch. I'm screaming Tucker's name before I even hit the ground. His truck isn't in the driveway. I stare at the spot where he usually parks, the smear of oil on dirt, the crushed weeds and little wildflowers, and I feel like the bottom has dropped out of my stomach.
He's not here.
I run into the barn. Everything looks normal, chores all done, stalls cleaned out, the riding tack shining on the pegs. But Midas isn't there either, I realize. Tucker's horse isn't there or the bridle he got for his birthday or the saddle that's usually propped along the far wall. Back outside in the yard, I see that the horse trailer is gone, too.
He's out there. On a horse. Away from phones or radios or news.
The sky is turning that familiar golden orange. The fire is coming. I have to get back to Fox Creek Road. I know that this is it, the moment of truth. I was meant to come here to check for Tucker, but that's all. When I go back to Fox Creek Road, the silver truck will be there. Christian will be standing there waiting for me. I will save him.
Suddenly I'm in the vision. I'm standing at the edge of the road, looking at Christian's silver Avalanche, about to go to him. My hands clench into fists at my sides, fists so tight that my nails cut into my palms, because I know. Tucker is trapped. I can see him so clearly in my mind, leaning against Midas's neck, looking around him for a way out of the inferno that has overtaken him, looking for me. He whispers my name. Then he swallows and bends his head. He turns to the horse and gently strokes its neck. I watch his face as he accepts his own death. In just a few heartbeats, the fire will reach him. And I'm miles away, taking my first steps toward Christian. I am so very far away.
I understand it now. The sorrow in the vision is not the grief of a Black Wing. This sorrow is all mine. It strikes me with such force it feels like someone has struck me in the chest with a baseball bat. My eyes flood with hot, bitter tears.
Tucker's going to die.
And this is my test.
I jerk back to Lazy Dog, sobbing. I look up into the sky, where storm clouds are gathering in the east, a bit of hell spilling over onto Earth.
You are not a normal girl, Clara.
“This isn't fair,” I whisper furiously. “You're supposed to love me.”
“What did the fish say when it hit the concrete wall?”
“What?”
“Dam!”
I love him. He's mine and I am his. He saved me today. Loving him saved me. I can't leave him to die.
I won't.
“Damn it, Tuck.” I throw myself into the air and streak toward Idaho. My instincts tell me that he'll be at Palisades, at his land. It's a starting point, anyway.
I fly straight to Palisades, and that's when I see the other fire.
It's huge. It has burned right up to the lake line and now it's eating its way up the mountainside, not moving along the forest floor but higher, in the trees. The flames shoot up at least a hundred feet into the sky, curling and crackling and tearing at the sky. It's a literal inferno.
I don't think. I fly right at it. Tucker's land is hidden somewhere back in those trees. The fire is making its own wind, somehow, a strong steady stream of wind that I have to fight against to go in the right direction. There's so much smoke that it's hard to keep my bearings. I fly lower, trying to get below the smoke to see the road. I can't see squat. I just fly, and hope that my angel sense will somehow guide me.
“Tucker!” I call.
My wing catches a stray branch and I lose my balance and spin toward the ground. I right myself in the nick of time, jolting down hard on the forest floor but managing to stay on my feet. I'm close, I think. I've been to Tucker's land maybe five times this summer, and I recognize the shape of the mountain. Then the smoke drifts for a moment and I can clearly see the road snaking its way up. It's too hard to try to fly, too many obstacles, so I sprint onto the road and hurry up it.
“Tucker!”
Maybe he's not here, I think. My lungs fill with smoke and I start coughing. My eyes water. Maybe you're wrong. Maybe you've done all this and he's over at Bubba's getting an early dinner.
It's my first moment of real doubt, but I quickly squash it. He's close, he just can't hear me. I don't know how, but I know this is where I'll find him, and when the road turns and I come up to the clearing at the edge of his land, I'm not surprised to see his truck parked there with the trailer attached.
“Tucker!” I call again hoarsely. “Tucker, where are you?”
No answer. I glance around wildly, looking for some clue to where he's gone. At the edge of the clearing is a trail, very faint, but definitely a trail. I can make out hoofprints stamped in the dust.
I look down the road. The fire has already swallowed up the road at the bottom of the ridge. I can hear it coming, branches crackling as they burn, this loud popping and snapping. Animals flee before it, rabbits and squirrels and snakes, even, all running away. Smoke moves toward me along the ground like an unrolling carpet.
I have to find him. Now.
I can see much better now that I'm ahead of the fire, but still not great. There's so much smoke. I glide above the trail yelling his name and peering ahead through the trees.
“Tuck!” I call again and again.
“Clara!”
Finally I see him, coming toward me on Midas as fast as the horse can go on such steep terrain. I drop down onto the trail at the same time that he slides off the horse's back. We run toward each other through the smoke. He stumbles but keeps running. Then we're in each other's arms. Tucker crushes me to him, wings and all, his mouth close to my ear.
“I love you,” he says breathlessly. “I thought I wasn't going to get to tell you.” He turns away and coughs hard.
“We have to go,” I say, pulling away.
“I know. The fire's blocking the way out. I tried to find a way over the top but Midas couldn't do it.”
“We'll have to fly.”
He stares at me, his blue eyes uncomprehending.
“Wait,” he says. “But Midas.”
“Tuck, we have to leave him.”
“No, I can't.”
“We have to. We have to go. Now.”
“I can't leave my horse.” I know how this must be for him. His most prized possession in this world. All the rodeos, the rides, the times when this animal felt like his best friend in the whole world. But there's no choice.
“We will all die here,” I say, looking into his eyes. “I can't carry him. But I can carry you.”
Tucker suddenly turns away from me and runs to Midas. For a minute I think he's going to run away and try to make it out with the horse. Then he unfastens the horse's bridle and throws it onto the side of the trail.
The wind shifts, like the mountain is taking a breath. The fire is moving quickly from branch to branch, and any minute the trees around us will catch.
