End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3) (6 page)

I could kick myself for listening to him in the first place, but I guess I don’t have to. He already did it for me.

9

I’m washing the blood off my shoulder in the kitchen when Raffe comes back.

‘What happened?’ he asks, dropping a plastic garbage bag on the floor and rushing to me.

‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ My voice is stiff and standoffish. I think about covering up the wound, but my shirt is torn, so I can’t. The old cropped T-shirt is hanging off my wounded shoulder by a thread. No doubt it would be sexy if it weren’t for all that blood.

He brushes my hand aside and leans into me to look at the gashes on my shoulder.

‘Are these from the dead hellion in the yard?’ He’s close enough that his breath caresses my neck. I step away, feeling awkward.

‘Yeah. And his two friends.’

He clenches his jaw so hard I can see his cheek muscles twitching.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘Being around you had nothing to do with it.’

He cocks his head at me. ‘What makes you think I was worried it had to do with me?’

Oops. Did he ever mention hellions to me? Or do I know he worries about them coming after me because I peeked into his memories through Pooky Bear?

I could lie, but . . . I sigh. We all have to accept our faults eventually. And mine is that I’m a terrible liar.

‘I – um . . . saw things through your sword. Not intentionally. Not at first.’

‘Things?’ He crosses his arms and glares at me. ‘What kind of things?’

I chew my lip as I think about what to say.

He then looks at his old sword lying on the counter. The shine on Pooky’s blade seems to dim a bit under his glare.

‘My sword showed you her memories of me?’

My shoulders relax a little. ‘So you know that she can do that?’

‘I know that she used to be loyal to me and that I trusted her.’ He’s talking to Pooky Bear, not me.

‘I think it was an accident. She was just trying to teach me how to use a sword. I mean, I had never held one before.’

Raffe continues to talk to his sword. ‘It’s one thing to be forced to give up on a bearer because you think he may have fallen. It’s another to expose his private moments.’

‘Look,’ I say. ‘It’s weird enough having a semisentient sword without being in the middle of an argument between you two. Can you please just let it go?’

‘What did she show you?’ He holds up his hand. ‘Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know that you’ve seen me dancing in my underwear to my favorite music.’

‘Angels wear underwear?’ Oh, man, I wish I hadn’t said that. I’m just digging myself in deeper and deeper today.

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Figure of speech.’

‘Oh.’ I nod, trying to get the image out of my head of Raffe dancing to some rock song, possibly buck naked. ‘Well, speaking of weird things, the hellions came through the sword.’

‘What?’

I clear my throat. ‘That hellion you saw on the lawn and two others crawled out of Beliel through the sword.’ I still have hope that I won’t have to confess it all, but he must have gone through angel interrogation school because he gets it all out of me.

He frowns and paces around the kitchen as I tell him what happened.

When I finish, he says, ‘You can never trust Beliel.’

‘That’s what he says about you.’

He rummages through the trash bag he dropped earlier. ‘Maybe he’s right. You shouldn’t trust anyone.’

He shoves a mix of canned food and first aid supplies out of the bag. He plucks bandages, ointments, and tape and walks over to me.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘Alcatraz. Thought they might be useful.’

‘What else did you find there?’

‘An abandoned mess.’ He probes his finger gently along my wound. I flinch. ‘I just want to make sure there’s nothing broken,’ he says.

‘Did you know that could happen? That hellions could come out through an angel sword?’

‘I’ve heard stories but always thought they were myths. I suppose a demon might have some insight into such things. Beliel must have figured he could try to lure some hellions out to help him.’

His hand is gentle as he wipes antibacterial lotion on the cuts. ‘You need to be careful. The hellions are going to be everywhere you are from now on.’

‘What do you care? You’ll be out of my life the second you get your wings back. You’ve made that pretty clear.’

He takes a deep breath. He presses a gauze pad on my shoulder. I wince. He gently strokes my arm.

‘I wish it could be different,’ he says, taping up the gauze. ‘But it’s not. I have my own people. I have responsibilities. I can’t just—’

‘Stop.’ I shake my head. ‘I get it. You’re right. You have your life. I have mine. I don’t need to be with someone who doesn’t . . .’ Want me. Love me.

I have enough of those people in my life. I’m a girl whose dad left, leaving us with an out-of-service phone number and no forwarding address, and whose mom . . .

‘You’re a very special girl, Penryn. An amazing girl. An I-didn’t-even-know-someone-like-you-existed kind of girl. And you deserve someone who treats you like you’re the only important thing in his life because you are. Someone who plows his fields and raises pigs just for you.’

‘You’re matching me up with a pig farmer?’

He shrugs. ‘Or whatever it is that decent men do when they’re not at war. Although he should be able to protect you. Don’t settle for a man who can’t protect you.’ He rips a piece of tape from the dispenser with a surprising amount of force.

‘You’re serious? You want me to marry a pig farmer who knows how to use his pig poke to protect me? Really?’

‘I’m just saying you should pick a man who knows that he’s not worthy of you and who will dedicate his life to provide for you and protect you.’ He presses another piece of gauze next to the first one. I wince again. ‘And make sure he’s kind to you and treats you with respect in every way. Otherwise, he can expect a visit from me.’ His voice is hard and unmerciful.

I shake my head as he rips off another piece of tape. I don’t know whether to be mad at him or to joke with him.

I move away from his touch, hoping that might take the edge off my confused emotions.

Raffe sighs. He reaches out and runs his fingers gently along the last piece of tape that he put on my bandage.

I wait for him to continue. When he doesn’t, I wonder if talking about what’s happening between us makes any difference at all. Maybe what I really need is a little space to figure things out. I grab the sword and a can of tuna and head out the back door.

10

Outside, I stand in the sun and let the warmth soak into my bones. I take a deep breath full of the scent of rosemary and slowly let it out.

My dad used to say there’s magic in the warmth of sunlight. He used to tell us that if we close our eyes, take a big breath, and let the sun soak in, we’ll see that everything is going to be okay. He usually said that right after Mom had a day-long freak-out session of yelling and throwing things around the condo.

Hell, if Dad’s technique can work for one of Mom’s marathon fury sessions, then it should work for the apocalypse. Guys, though, that’s another matter. I’m pretty sure that Dad wouldn’t have a technique that could handle what’s going on with Raffe.

There are tiny yellow flowers dotting the hillside of the island, reminding me of the park that we used to go to with my dad before he left us. The only thing out of place is the small group of monstrous scorpion-tailed beasts and the little stitched-up girl with bruises all over her body.

Among the tall grasses, my sister puts a bandage on a monster’s finger as if it were her pet instead of a biblical locust designed to torture people in true apocalyptic style.

Beneath her oversized T-shirt, I know that Paige’s ribs stick out in clear lines. It hurt to see them this morning when I put her to bed. She has circles around her eyes, and her hands are nothing but bones as she plays nurse to the monster.

She sits in the grass beside her pets. I’ve noticed she sits every chance she gets. I think she’s conserving energy. I think she’s starving to death.

I have to force myself to walk toward them. No matter how much time I spend with the locusts, I can’t get comfortable around them. As I near, the locusts fly away, much to my relief.

I sit beside her on the grass and show her the can of tuna. ‘Remember the tuna sandwiches Dad used to make for us? They were your favorite before you became a vegetarian.’ I pull open the pop-top can and show her the pink fish inside.

Paige leans away from the can.

‘Remember how Dad used to plop the tuna onto the bread and make a smiley face with it? That used to make your day.’

‘Daddy come home?’

She’s asking when he’ll be coming back. The answer is never. ‘We don’t need him.’

Wouldn’t it be great if that were true? I’m not sure I’d come back if I were him. I wonder if he thinks of us.

She looks at me with doe eyes. ‘Miss him.’

I try to think of something soothing to say, but I just don’t have it in me. ‘Me too.’

I pick out a piece of tuna with my fingers and put it up to her mouth. ‘Here. Try a piece.’

She shakes her head sadly back and forth.

‘Come on, Paige.’

She looks down at the ground like she’s ashamed. The hollows in her cheeks and between her collarbones scare me.

I put the tuna in my mouth and slowly chew. ‘It’s good.’

She peeks at me from beneath her hair.

‘Are you hungry?’ I ask.

She nods. For a second, her eyes dip down to the bandage on my shoulder. It’s spotting with blood.

She looks away as if ashamed and gazes up at the locusts circling above us. But her eyes keep drifting back to my bandage, and her nostrils flare like she smells something good.

Maybe it’s time for me to go.

I’m putting the can down when I hear an animal calling. It sounds like a hyena. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a hyena, but my bones recognize the sound of a predator in the wild. My hackles rise on the back of my neck.

A shadow jumps between the trees to my left.

Another shadow leaps between branches, then several more.

And as the next one jumps closer to the nearest tree, I see the shape of teeth and wings.

Hellions.

A lot of them.

The trees around us begin to boil with shadows leaping from tree to tree, getting closer. The mad hyena laugh keeps up its steady call as the mob of shadows leaps toward us.

Paige’s locusts fly toward the hellions. But there are too many of them.

I grab Paige’s hand, and we run toward the main house. The skin along my spine prickles, trying to sense how close unseen claws are to sinking into me.

I yell toward the house. ‘Hellions!’

Raffe looks out the dining room window.

‘How many?’ he calls out as we run to the house.

I point to the shadows hopping closer to us from the woods. Raffe disappears from the window.

A second later, he bursts out the front door and thumps down the porch, carrying a backpack with a blanket bundle strapped to it.

As he runs by the picket fence, we both look at Beliel’s broken chain hanging off the post. Beliel is nowhere in sight.

I assume the hellions freed him. They may not like each other, but they’re still on the same team. Isn’t that why Beliel invited me to look into his past, so he could lure the hellions to help him?

Raffe tosses the backpack to me. I assume the bundle attached to it is his wings.

I slip on the backpack while a couple of Paige’s locusts land beside her. They hiss at the shadows gathering around them.

I take a step back. I still can’t bring myself to get too close to those scorpion stingers. ‘We gotta go, Paige. Can you get them to fly us?’

My heart races at the thought of being held by one of these monsters, but I’m more comfortable with that idea right now than being in Raffe’s arms. He’s made it pretty clear how he feels about me – about us – and the fact that there is no us.

Raffe throws me a dirty look. He bends over and swipes his arm behind my knees, lifting me up in his embrace.

‘I can go with one of the locusts.’ I stiffen in his arms and try to lean as far away from him as I can.

‘The hell you will.’ He runs a couple of steps before spreading his wings.

With two sweeps of his wide wings, we’re up in the air.

My arms wrap around his neck. I have no choice but to lean close and hold tight. This isn’t the time to argue.

The locusts are just behind us with my sister.

Shadows leap toward us through the trees. Angel Island must be some kind of hellion convention center. Either that or these new hellions are far too good at organizing.

Raffe leads the way toward San Francisco. Behind us, a cloud of hellions bursts out of the trees after us.