Dark Halo (An Angel Eyes Novel) (23 page)

He steps closer, but his hands don’t move. “So it’s just duty,
then, that has you turning this over?” His voice is soft, but the question feels spiked with judgment.

“It’s not duty, Jake. I want to know what happened to my mom as much as anyone. More than anyone. You know that. But come on! Not seeing fear, not seeing misery and terror, getting to hold on to you. Can’t you understand how amazing that sounded to me?”

“I’d never want to spend forever with me,” Jake mumbles.

“Well, we can’t agree on
everything
,” I say.

After a moment he reaches out a hand and takes the purse. He lets himself look at it $eowpD;now, those dark brows of his drawing closer together. I wish I could decode his face. Wish I knew what it was telling me. Have I messed up that bad? Did I break us?

He unzips the purse and tips the halo out onto the floor.

“Did he touch you?” Jake asks, his voice soft.

“No,” I say. “I don’t think so. Would it have been bad if he did?”

“I don’t know,” Jake says. “I just can’t stand the thought of that creature touching you. Hurting you.”

“He doesn’t have to touch me to hurt me, Jake.”

“A truth I’d rather not think too hard about.”

Truth.
I don’t know if I’ll ever hear that word again without remembering my conversation with the Prince. Without remembering the truth he showed me about my father. The truth he fixed.

“Did you get a good look at his wings, Elle? At how white they are. At the char on the tips?”

“I did, but only from a distance,” I say. “When we spoke, he’d taken a human form.”

Jake rubs my arm. “Was it terrifying?”

I bite my lip. “Not exactly. He’s . . .”

“What?”

“Well, I was going to say hot, but that’s not exactly accurate.”

“I thought that adjective was taken.”

“It is. Very, very taken,” I say, nodding like a fool. “He is stunning though.”

Jake looks injured. “I was kind of hoping you’d find him vile and repellent.”

“I do,” I say. “It’s not his face though. It’s nothing I could see, actually. But I knew he was evil. I knew it here,” I say, my hand on my chest. “And here.” I move my hand to my temple.

“But stunning?”

I laugh. “In a charming, diplomatic kind of way.”

“The Prince of Darkness is diplomatic?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. It’s just . . . as beautiful as he is, it’s his power, his confidence that’s the real attraction. He wears pride, you know? It’s all over him. It’s—”

“His calling card, Elle. His downfall.” Jake drops to his knees and shoves the lid off the chest.

I don’t move. I don&1EowpD;’t look for the missing engagement ring inside. And I consider myself quite mature for that restraint. Jake lifts the dark halo between his thumb and forefinger, holding it like it’s a bloody rodent. He drops it into the chest, the reflective metal ringing against what I can only assume is Damien’s dagger.

Jake slides the lid back in place and my heart flutters a bit, like the wings of a dying moth. I’m glad the dark halo’s shut away. Glad it’s there and not under my pillow. Not on my arm. But there’s something of death in the experience.

I have no choice but to trust the Throne Room now. Jake
just shut away my only backup plan. I rub the bony spot over my heart, pushing away the anxiety. Jake leans back against the chest, his hair falling every which way, his T-shirt begging for an iron. Really, I just want to curl into his chest and forget everything for a while. I drop to the floor in front of him.

“It’s a lie,” Jake says. “You know that, right? Lucifer isn’t confident. He’s a wreck. And he’s afraid. I saw his fear, Elle. Up close. It’s the only thing he left heaven with—terror, deceit. It’s all he has to offer.”

I turn the words over and over in my mind and I think again of the Prince’s story. Of his account of the Great Rebellion. Of how he was wronged. There’s no denying the bewitching power of his words.

“You’re tired,” Jake says.

I shake my head. “Just thinking.”

“He’s a liar, Elle.”

“No, I mean, I know. I do, Jake. I do.”

He looks away then, to the carpet. His fingers picking away at the loose weave.

“What? Did I say something?”

“You said ‘I do.’ In fact, you keep saying it. Gah, I just wish . . .”

“I know,” I say.

“No, you don’t. Because, yes. I wish I could throw you over my shoulder and haul you away to the preacher. I wish I could marry you, but it’s more than that. I wish I could offer you clarity. Understanding. I wish I could say ‘Look, the Prince is the father of lies, the master of confusion. But God, well, He’s neat and tidy. He always makes sense.’”

It’s such a burden to him—my confusion. I inch closer.
“Jake, I don’t hold you accountable for the complexity that is God. And I don’t expect you to unravel the mysteries of the universe for me. I just . . . I need you to be honest with me. Always. Stop trying to protect me.”

Jake makes a sound, deep and primal. “That’s impossible.”

I run a hand down his face. “At least tone it down a bit. I have Canaan and Helene for that. And you’re in just as much danger a&">
“Yeah. I know. I do.”

Now it’s my turn to smile.

“What?” he asks.

“You said ‘I do.’”

“I’m practicing,” he says, closing the distance between us, sliding his bare feet on either side of my legs. My muscles relax at his touch. Really, everything relaxes. I twist my fingers into his wrinkled T-shirt and tug him even closer. I’m out of words, out of snarky comebacks. I just want to be close.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jake says, his lips brushing mine. “What if you slept here?”

I feel my eyes widen, feel the ache of desire.

Jake kisses me. It’s deep and crushing. His hands are on the back of my head, pulling me closer, and then he’s not. It’s dangerous for us to be this close. This alone.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, a sleepy smile on his face.

“I know. But again, you can understand the temptation.”

He clears his throat. “I mean, you sleep here so when the
nightmares come, you’re not alone. Maybe I can even talk you through them.”

It’s a thought. Not nearly as sexy as the thought that preceded it, but appealing in a totally different way.

“I don’t know if it’ll work. I mean, when I’m inside one of these nightmares, it’s like I’m there. I’m not even me most of the time. I’m inside whoever’s memory it is.”

“It might not work, you’re right. But it might. And I want to help.”

“Okay,” I say. “We’ll try.”

There’s a lightness that comes with those two words:
We’ll
try>

24

Brielle

D
ad’s already home when I get there. His truck is parked out front and I walk around it, slowly. I look for signs of a collision, anything to tell me he rammed the side of Crooked Leg Bridge, but there’s nothing. I have to stop on the porch to gather myself.

I was stupid in Danakil.

I fell for a sentimental lie. Because it’s plausible, probable even. But a lie nonetheless. It makes me feel papery, transparent, easy to bend and fold. I could’ve kept my mouth shut. I
should’ve
kept my mouth shut. If I had held out against his lies a little longer, help would’ve arrived and maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have ended up with the dark halo.

But& on my ow entirely beyond feeling like a failure, it doesn’t matter, does it? We’ve shut it away. Jake’s not angry—not really angry, at least. And we can move on. Move forward. We have a plan.

I just can’t be that stupid ever again.

I still myself and push through the door and into the kitchen, as ready as I’m ever going to be for this conversation
with Dad. He’s here, working over the stove, cooking—er, burning—spaghetti.

I wave my hand at a plume of smoke that smacks me gob in the face.

“What happened here?” I ask, sputtering.

“User error,” he says. “I got a phone call while the sauce was simmering. Walked away. Stuff burns. Who knew?”

Dad flips off the burner and dumps the pan in the sink. “You okay, kid? You’re standing there like I stole your last Dr Pepper.”

“You burned your famous spaghetti. It’s so sad.”

“Yeah, well. I’m easily distracted today.” He looks good, a little depressed, maybe. But he’s showered, his beard’s trimmed. The wound on his head is still bandaged, but it’s bright white. Just changed, it looks like. He’s been home from work for at least an hour then. And not a sign of alcohol anywhere. “Pizza?” he asks, wandering toward the phone in the living room.

“Sure.”

Dad pours a glass of milk to go with his pizza, and I do the same. Normally I’d reach for a Dr Pepper, but in the absence of fist pumps, I feel the need for solidarity. He grabs both our glasses and jerks his head toward the pizza box.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s sit outside.”

I grab the pizza and follow. Dad throws a blanket out in the back of his truck. It smells like wood chips and man, but it’s not too bad. And to be honest, it might be just what I need. We used to camp out in the bed of Dad’s truck a lot when I was little. He
used to say, “Who needs a campsite when I can park this baby anywhere?”

We’d park out by the lake, pile the sleeping bags four or five high, and sleep under the star soup. I laugh into my pizza. It’s funny remembering that now. It’s what I called the night sky as a kid. Star soup. I run my hand over the sleeping bag beneath me, thinking about the time we woke to a truck bed full of rainwater. “I guess God let the soup bubble over,” Dad had said. I was four or five, maybe, the first time I remember hearing the word
God
.

We chew in silence for a bit, and I grow nervous. I don’t know where this conversation is headed, and I’d rather he steer. I take another swig of milk and flash my mustache at Dad. But he’s grown serious.

“That Canaan fella is a trip,” he says.

I mop up my milk mustache and look to the highway. It’s empty, the dry field beyond it full of dirt clods and peeling evergreens.

“Yeah. You get used to him.”

“Is he telling the truth?” he asks.

“I’m sure he is,” I say, setting my pizza aside and looking back at Dad.

“You can see angels and . . .”

“Demons. Yeah. Dad, Canaan’s not going to lie to you.”

“Well, he ain’t particularly forthcoming.”

“I’m sure you can understand why.”

He scratches at his beard. Not just a little scratch, but one of those manly, lumberjack, take-off-your-skin scratches. “Can you see them now?” he asks quietly.

I’ve been avoiding this, really. Looking at the sky, really looking. But Dad’s asking. He wants to know, so I tilt my head
up and focus. I remind myself that it’s just a veil that hangs over us all, just a veil that separates us from the real, the true. And just when I think it’s not going to happen, the dewy blue sky peels away and shows its bright orange underbelly.

The Celestial.

“Yes,” I say. “I can.”

I let my gaze fall, taking in Dad’s pale face.

“What do you see?”

“Right now? Right now there’s a legion of demons surrounding Stratus. They’ve been pushed back some, by the Sabres, I think. Though I can’t see any of them now. That might be why you can’t hear them, Dad. They might be too far away.”

“You were eavesdropping last night,” he says. “I knew you were awake.”

“It was nice, you know? You three fawning over me. Talking in civil tones. I wasn’t going to mess that up by opening my eyes.” I look back to the sky. “Really, I just see a sea of black overhead. They’re too far away for me to see anything else.” I’m relieved that the Palatine are suffering setbacks, and I hope Dad hears hope in my voice because this might scare him a bit. “But I’ve seen them up close. I know they’re heavily armed. They’re damaged from the light. And they’ll do anything to keep the citizens of Stratus from seeing them.”

He folds a slice of pizza in half and shoves it into his mouth. I watch the sky as he chews. It’s strange seeing the world like this, part Celestial, part Terrestrial. The sky is streaked with white clouds, a yellow sun hides behind the trees, but above it all, beyond it all, buried beneath it all, is the Celestial. Just as real, just as close.