“It might resort to this, yes. I need to know that you’ll be prepared when the time comes. And it is coming.
Soon.”
His eyes still held that gentle quality but his words and tone were absolutely serious. I looked down at the knife — excuse me, dagger — and turned it over carefully to admire the beauty of its design.
The gold handle was etched with endless scrolling, very similar in design to the symbol now embedded in my right hand. In fact, I curiously compared them and they matched. Perfectly. When I held the dagger in my right hand, warmth tingled against my skin as though it were teeming with life. The beautiful handle told the well-known tale of the Archangels and the struggle they endured in heaven, the story continuing down onto the shining steel blade. It was obviously very old, priceless in its craftsmanship.
“It just shocks me a little that an angel would be in possession of such a…weapon.”
“Under normal circumstances, we don’t take part in violence. Of any sort. You’re well aware this is not a normal situation. Besides, I’m not holding the weapon.”
I looked at my second gift of the day and sighed. “It looks old.”
“That it is.”
“Is it…yours?”
“It wasn’t made for me.”
Garreth’s voice was clear and strong, but it wasn’t his words that spoke so clearly to me; it was the fact that the time had come. The deadly instrument that would destroy a dark angel had just been delivered to me, and at that very moment I realized how very precious the circle of time and life is.
My mother never questioned why I had come home early. She simply looked at me now and then with a soft worry in her eyes as we cleared the kitchen table of our silent dinner. Garreth had been right, of course.
The assistant principal had called exactly ten minutes after I walked in the door, to make sure I had gotten home safely. Surprisingly, she informed me I was excused from all classes tomorrow to attend Claire’s funeral, which I had decided not to attend precisely five minutes before she called. But I kept that to myself.
I knew it was wrong. I knew full well that my mother, along with every grown-up in my school, would stress to me that it would give me the closure I needed. They were probably right, and deep in my heart I agreed with them. My mother would leave for work right after the funeral, so at least one of us was going to represent our little unit, leaving me several hours to get my bearings and search for a dark angel. If that was even possible. I didn’t know where to begin.
Tracking down Hadrian and following the path I had been led to had become personal — for Claire and for the preservation of my own sanity. There was no telling how much time was left. No telling who would fall next as Hadrian’s victim. No telling how long I had before he came for me.
Coming home to an empty house had been a blessing, allowing me to safely hide the ornate dagger under my bed. I wrapped it in a thick towel and covered it with magazines. It terrified me to think that thing was under my bed. I felt as if I had stolen a priceless piece of art from a museum. Every time I thought of its gleaming gold handle and silver blade nestled safely in the towel, I felt lightheaded and sweaty, which added another crease to my mother’s forehead by evening.
“Honey, are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I answered hastily, my mind occupied with thoughts I couldn’t share.
“Maybe we should have gone to the doctor after you fainted yesterday. I’m worried you might have a concussion.”
“Really, Mom, I’m okay.”
I said it with more feeling this time, hoping she would be satisfied, but she didn’t take the bait, not that I truly expected her to. My mother is a notorious worrywart.
Actually, the more I thought about it, I saw the possibilities that this could work to my advantage.
“You know, Mom, I am feeling tired. I think I’ll go on up to bed.”
“Sure, sweetie.”
Bull’s-eye. She shot another look of concern in my direction. Her maternal instincts would go into overdrive soon. Thankfully, I was genuinely tired, so her checking on me once or twice during the night most likely wouldn’t bother me.
She went back to paying close attention to the television, watching the news and shaking her head.
“It’s sad, Teagan. Everywhere you look there’s destruction and misery. It’s so scary to think our number could be up at any given moment.”
I thought of Claire and how destruction and misery had hit so close to home, and then I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. Who had any idea Claire’s number would be up when she and I joked about Madame Woo, or when I let her finish my bag of chips? Unexpected or not, she certainly didn’t deserve to have her sweet young life taken by a malicious dark beast with huge wings and an emblem carved into his hand.
My poor mother. It was her job to protect me from the world. She had no clue as to what was about to transpire over the next day or two. If she only knew what was lying hidden beneath my bed…
I stared at the television. Floods, fires, murder, hatred…the list went on and on. Lucifer’s Hell. As I climbed the steps to my room, I was eager to say good-bye to this day. I was exhausted but wasn’t sure if I could sleep, knowing a sharp weapon had been stowed under my bed, and even more frightening, what I was going to do with that weapon. But, as my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep almost instantly…dreaming of the funeral I would not be going to in the morning.
I opened my eyes to darkness, lying still and staring at my ceiling. A faint rustling sound had woken me, I was sure of it. My mind drifted, going back to the funeral in my dream, and I saw myself standing above an open grave. I was the only one left in the cemetery, all the others had gone. I was left alone to think of the gloomy hole Claire would soon be lowered into after I left. I regretted not following her into the rave. I missed her terribly.
A rippling noise filled the air and I felt the hair on my neck rise in a split second of white-hot fear.
Hadrian. It was as if even my bones screamed his name.
Behind me, a crow balanced on a branch, keeping a close watch on me. I reached into my pocket, letting my fingers clutch the coolness of the stones and wire. The rosary that had hung in Garreth’s car was now at the bottom of my coat pocket. It was my rosary and my last gift to my friend, an everlasting symbol that she would always be in my prayers. I turned around to drop the chain onto the casket but was nearly knocked over by the force of a startled scream lodged in my throat.
“I knew you would come.” Claire smiled at me.
Her breath smelled rank, of old decaying wood. I hastily grasped for composure. It was difficult to keep from screaming into the gray-blue face of my friend, a face that was just inches from my own.
She hovered there, an eerie specter guarding her own grave. I looked down into the pit before me, which appeared endless and much, much deeper than the required six feet needed for a proper burial. My feet inched back from the edge ever so slightly as I blinked back hot tears. This wasn’t the way I wanted to remember her.
Her voice changed suddenly. “Why, Teagan? Why did you leave me with him?” She hissed at me from her moldy mouth.
I could only stare and wonder why she looked so decomposed so quickly after her death. In reality, she wasn’t even buried yet.
“You walked off with Ryan and Brynn and the others.” I tried to explain, but I knew who she meant.
A stench rose up from the hole, bringing with it a blast of icy air. The Claire floating before me writhed with agony, resembling a hideous combination of Brynn and all of the other breathless faces I had seen. His victims.
His army.
“Claire! Please!” I sobbed but it was too late.
I lost my balance and went tumbling into the musty darkness. As I fell, a familiar hand reached out to me, the hand of my father from the picture on my dresser, trying to pull me up from the empty grave. As he reached for me, I saw a scar on the inside of his right palm, a swirly little scar that would have otherwise been unnoticed since it blended with the natural lines of his palm. Barely visible in the photo, it wasn’t significant enough for me to ever question…before now.
I bolted up and knew. My memory flickered back to my computer, to the strange octagram. Still rattled by the disturbing dream, I tiptoed quietly out of my bedroom, down the hallway to the linen closet at the opposite end. The thought of Claire like that…but no, it wasn’t Claire, not the Claire I knew. It was only a dream. She was changed, just like me. I realized that I was no longer the quiet, mousy girl I used to be; that over the course of a few days I had been dramatically transformed. I stepped inside closing myself in as I had done as a child, and pulled the small, thin chain dangling above my head.
I remembered hiding in here but I couldn’t remember why. Hiding from someone, something. I remembered the dreams from my childhood, the ones that caused my mother to come into my room to help me back to sleep, and now I clearly remembered Garreth, my angel, guarding me even then when my mother had long since left to go back to her own room. He was the one who stayed the entire night with me, protecting me from my dreams, keeping me safe from the monsters in the corners of my room.
It had been Hadrian watching all along, sending me running to the closet to hide.
I reached up and took down the dusty cardboard box of family photos and pulled the chain. Darkness hushed in around me. I opened the door, padding softly back to my room where I set the box on my bed and opened it.
I rummaged carefully to the bottom where my fingers found the envelopes containing my long-forgotten baby pictures.