I looked at the amount of blood pooling around Garreth’s limp body on my floor. It was too much blood.
“There can be others, you know. With your power you can have your pick, although you may just find me to your liking.” He caressed my flushed cheek with his cold fingers. Then he turned his back to me.
“You’re no angel, you’re a monster!”
He spun back around to face me, a look of reproach on his face, as if he was actually considering what I said to be true.
“I think of myself as an angel of mercy. After all, aren’t humans always searching for meaning to their meager little lives? Wouldn’t you agree that I’m giving them a purpose? Placing them on a new path?”
The playful tone in his voice was gone. It was clear to me he was no longer willing to nicely talk me into assisting him in his plan of havoc. Instead, he would put me there by force if he had to. As he stretched his blackened wings, I fell to my knees, waiting to take my place where I really belonged, by Garreth’s side.
The memory of Hadrian’s fury slamming Garreth against the far wall of my bedroom was all I could see as I slumped to the floor. It played over and over again, vivid and hovering inside my brain like a serpent striking over and over. I pressed my palms against my temples but the pressure of my sweaty hands couldn’t stop the pain. It had been so hard to stop looking at Garreth; but, more so, it was almost impossible not to look into the eyes of the one responsible. I was so blinded by the force of Hadrian’s eloquence that it briefly shadowed the black heart he hid so well.
Hadrian crouched down in front of me. “You find me intriguing, don’t you?”
I refused to answer, turning my head away, but he reached out and delicately ran his fingers through the disheveled strands of my hair.
“Yes, I am complex. You’re trying to understand me but you lack the capacity to do so just yet. Very frustrating, isn’t it?”
I still couldn’t meet his eye and I pulled away from his touch.
Hadrian stood then. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Teagan. Remember, I enjoy a good challenge. Won’t you reconsider my offer? You can leave all this behind and finally feel like you belong.” He held out his smooth, pale hand to me. “I may not offer again, so I suggest you choose wisely.”
I can’t say why, but I rose to my feet and faced Hadrian, now with strange new eyes. My beautiful angel lay crumpled at my feet but I allowed a vacant mist to spread through my body, numbing me happily. I stepped around the debris that was once my bedroom, picked my way around Garreth’s lifeless body and reached for Hadrian’s hand even as Garreth lay bleeding. I never knew an angel could bleed, never thought about it before, but he was much more human now than he had ever planned to be.
The dark eyes that sought mine promised so much that nothing else seemed relevant. It was no wonder the others had fallen. Whether human or Guardian, the spell Hadrian wove was fiercely mesmerizing.
It was at that moment I saw the glimmer of something small and yellow barely concealed by the night. As I tried to make out what it was, everything suddenly came into perspective. Could it really be that simple?
My hand reached, not for the hand of the dark-winged angel before me but for the instrument that could possibly save us all.
The air shifted as Hadrian tensed, his eyes no longer bright and imploring me with invitation, but instead darkly sinister and hollow. A storm announced itself with thunder clapping like an enormous rip across the sky. Suddenly, the dark wings above me trembled and spread open before me as my arm slid beneath the disheveled mess of my overturned bed. I withdrew the dagger Garreth had entrusted to my care, awed by its simple beauty, but careful not to keep my back turned to Hadrian for too long. Hadrian quivered with rage, his wingspan full and splendid, nearly knocking out the walls as they filled my room. They overshadowed me like an ashen cloak, lifting him in ferocious beauty off my floor.
I was crouched as low as I possibly could be, fully prepared to feel his wrath, when his face contorted into a sly smile. Then, like a nearly forgotten trophy, Garreth was effortlessly scooped from the floor and Hadrian’s dark laughter echoed throughout my skull and then whispered itself away with the wind.
And I was left alone with the dagger.
I expected morning to wake me from the nightmare but there was no light. There was no sun to warm my skin, only the dark of night that was exaggerated by the ever-building storm outside my window. Wading through the shock that quickly invaded my body, I began throwing clothing and blankets over the pieces of furniture that were destroyed. In doing so, I wondered if I too could ever be repaired.
I wrapped my quilt tightly around me, as if securing what I had left of myself, and curled up on the floor where Garreth had fallen, closing my eyes, picturing his warm white light, but all that was left was my cold, hard floor.
Silence tried to comfort me, closing in like a soothing whisper. I let it hold me and with it I was able to think about what had happened, but it all came rushing back too fast. The deeper I let myself sink, the more I became aware of a growing rage deep inside me.
Then it occurred to me, the rage I felt wasn’t malicious anger. It was strength. The tables had turned now. I had to go after Hadrian if Garreth was to survive. Thunder cracked loudly, making me jump and I pulled the quilt tighter as lightning illuminated the sky, splitting the dark with jagged streaks. Even though it was early morning, it was as dark as night and I needed to stop the darkness.
I needed to save my light.
I needed to save Garreth.
The mark on my hand burned gently with hope and I knew at last what had to be done. I held the small dagger in my hands, its weight confirming my decision.
When Garreth had given it to me, he had meant for me to use it on Hadrian but that wasn’t possible just now.
Hadrian was more powerful than either of us could ever have imagined, but I knew how to defeat him. I would give him his wish and become his challenge.
As I formed the plan in my head, I knew I had to act quickly. I knew what it would do to my mother when she walked in to say good-bye to me in the morning but I couldn’t take the chance of waiting any longer. And, if I took my time, I might chicken out and Garreth was much too important for me to risk that.
My thumb rubbed over the tiny raised octagram that stood out from all the other etchings on the golden handle. About the size of my thumbnail, the tiny sphere reminded me of a miniature sunburst and it glistened, as if revealing the magic it held deep inside. It was my angel calling to me, my sun, my light, and as it sparkled, I knew he was still alive, though he wouldn’t be for long. Hadrian had one reason for taking Garreth.
And that was me.
My shaking was nearly uncontrollable, but the picture I held of Garreth in my head was enough to keep me from losing all control. I prayed the thunder wouldn’t wake my mother. I prayed that God would forgive me; this was going against all I had learned while growing up, but this was the only way. I knew very little about the octagram, just what Garreth had told me that day in the chapel, the day I found out he was my Guardian. I stared at the beautiful little star, wondering how such an uncomplicated symbol could be such a powerful gateway between two very distinct worlds.
If an angel could cross into my human world, then couldn’t a human cross into the angels’ world? Through the same portal? As I thought of Garreth, Hadrian’s words interrupted and echoed inside me.
Heaven would be nothing more than a dream compared to the world you and I could create…
Wasn’t this a new world already? That angels and humans could know of each other and coexist? Garreth told me that heaven started in our minds, that as long as I believed and was happy, it existed.
Well, I do. It exists. Garreth still exists and no one, especially Hadrian, was going to take that away from me.
I took the dagger, its shining blade reflecting the lightning through the glass of my window, shining my reflection back to me as I held it in front of me. My eyes were wild with fear but behind the uncertainty was hope and that hope was more powerful than anything.
The little voice inside my head was telling me to trust that hope, though it wouldn’t stop my heart from wrenching the way it did when I thought of Garreth trying to touch my subconscious from another plane.
My room felt cold, and in my head I heard the mimicking laughter of black wings.
Time was running out.
I pulled the blade toward my chest in one quick thrust and felt it slice into my skin with ease, giving me the oddest sensations of warmth and cold. I was no doubt delirious by this point, and for the moment the sharp steel awakened me. At the same instant the smooth slice hit me, the sky opened and I heard rain falling, each drop soaring its way down to its death below, their pelting kisses to the earth amplified in my ears.
My senses began to sift through the numb fog that was filling me. Scared, I reached out in front of me. I heard a strange voice that seemed to be my own whisper, “Please, help me,” as the curtains slid limply through my fingers then pooled around me. I felt tingly and tired and before me a mirage of two faces appeared, though I knew they weren’t really there.
One had eyes so black they made me shiver, and the other was the incredible aqua blue of a boy I met once in a courtyard at school. The rest faded away as I plunged into darkness.
Waking up in death was not what I expected.
I waited for the pain, but strangely it didn’t come. I peeked, first with my left eye and then my right, sure it would hit me at any moment. Slowly, both eyes opened and I stared down at myself, grimacing in expectancy for what was still absent.
My shirt held no stripes of crimson evidence. Nothing.
No blood.
No wound.
The only tangible proof the portal had worked was that I was still breathing and the bittersweet taste of urgency hung heavily in the air, reminding me of unspeakable sadness.