Fallen Souls (6 page)

The electricity continued
to jolt
through Grace’s body. She still
couldn’t breathe, and stars began to move along the edges of her
vision. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. She could
hear people talking, but their conversation sounded far
away.

“
Don’t,” the girl said,
warning someone. Suddenly Grace’s vision cleared and she could see
the clearing in the forest again. The man was holding his hands out
to Ash, almost in a fatherly fashion. The mysterious girl was
taking a step forward to stop him. Ash glanced over. He seemed to
meet the girl’s eyes, but looked away.

“
Please,” she said
softly.

The demon – for Grace knew him as one
now – reached toward Ash.

“
Ash!” she tried to scream
his name, but it came out as no more than a hoarse whisper.
Suddenly, another shot of electricity shot through her, and the
world began to fade to black. The last image she saw before she was
pulled under was Ash’s hand, stretching out toward the demon’s.
Another wave of blackness and searing pain from a shot of
electricity yanked her away before she could stop him, and then she
was in the hospital room again, floating above the bed.

The monitor that showed her heart rate
was flat lining and five doctors stood around her lifeless body.
Her parents were outside the room, watching through the glass. Her
mom crumpled to the ground and her dad fumbled to catch her. Then
the world spun. A bright white light rushed toward her, taking her
under to a place filled with peace and warmth.

“
Nurse,” Grace barely
heard the doctor say. “Mark time of death.”

Ash raised his hand,
shaking
with both pain and fear. He could
see Seraphine move forward in his peripheral vision, but he ignored
her. He’d made his choice, and it was to save his sister. He took a
deep breath, steadied his shoulders, and put his hand into the
demon’s.

“
Deal,” he said, his voice
hollow but certain.

The demon smiled again. A searing pain
that matched the intensity of the demon’s eyes suddenly engulfed
Ash and he was thrown to the ground. His vision fragmented while
his body caught fire, and all the breath rushed from his body. Then
the demon released his hand, leaving Ash both burnt and hollow.
When his vision cleared, he looked up to find that the demon had
vanished into a black mist.

Seraphine knelt down in front of him,
her eyes large and sad. “I hope you’re strong enough for this,” she
said with vast sadness in her voice. “For you have started a war.”
Then she was gone too, fading into a soft white light.

Ash sat for a moment, the searing pain
fading slowly into the background. He shook his head, wondering
whether the girl and demon had ever been there, or if he’d been
imagining things. The hollow, cold feeling in his chest told him
that it had been real, though, and that …

Grace. Hope flowed in to fill the
void, and before he knew it he was on his feet and sprinting back
toward the hospital.

He screeched to a
halt
just outside the hospital room,
breathing heavily. He could hear his mom crying inside the room.
The sound broke his heart and tore through the hope that his sister
would live. Pain and panic built back up in his chest, tearing at
him. What if he’d been wrong? What if it hadn’t worked? He put his
hand on the door, unable to wait any longer, and tried to compose
himself. This was it. Either Grace would be alive or she’d be
dead.

He pushed the door open and limped
inside. What he saw there stopped him dead in his tracks. His
sister was sitting up in bed, her hair disheveled and her skin
pale. Her bright blue eyes were filled with tears. But she was
looking at him, and very much alive.

He fell to the ground, overcome. Grace
looked over and gave him a tense smile, tears rolling down her
cheeks. Both of his parents laughed with joy. His dad strode over
to him, pulling him off the ground and toward his sister’s
bed.

“
It’s okay, son,” he said.
“It’s going to be okay.”

Just then a doctor walked in. He
checked Grace’s vitals, dumbstruck, and shook his head. Ash
staggered closer to Grace, amazed, and held out his hands. His
sister looked up and smiled tenderly at him, but there was sadness
and pain in her eyes. Guilt flashed through him, made worse by her
words.

“
Ash,” she whispered,
pulling him against her. “I
must
talk to you.”

Before he could respond, a black cloud
of smoke rose just behind her bed, a set of red eyes appearing in
the cloud to glare at him in anger. The burning pain in his chest
flared, and his heart skipped in his chest. Gasping, he fell to the
ground.

His mom ran to his side, calling for
the doctors. There was a swirl of confusion as nurses and the
doctor came running back in the room. They put Ash back into his
bed, and hooked him up to an IV drip. But Ash’s attention never
left the demon in the corner.

“
It’s just the stress,”
the nurse reassured his parents.

“
He needs to rest,” the
doctor added. “He’ll be fine. It’s a lot to take in, and he’s still
recovering from his own injuries.”

Ash watched the doctor walk away, and
saw everyone return to Grace’s bedside, but turned back to the
demon, terrified. Had he returned to take Grace? Had Ash’s soul not
been enough?

“
My end of the deal is
done,” the demon’s cold voice said, breaking into Ash’s thoughts.
Whatever drug the nurse had given him was starting to pull him down
into unconsciousness, yet the pain of the voice coursed through him
as if his veins were on fire. The pain killers weren’t helping.
Then his mother was at his side, whispering something into his ear,
but it was drowned out. He couldn’t hear anything above the demon’s
voice in his head.

“
Now it’s time for you to
hold up
your
side
of our bargain. You have one year to say goodbye to your friends
and family.” The voice echoed in his throbbing skull, rattling
through his bones. “Then I’ll be back to collect your soul. Your
debt to me …”

My soul!
Ash thought, terrified. Before he could think any
further, though, his eyes closed, and he drifted to
sleep.

Adrian was definitely up
to
something, and from what Kali could
see, it wasn’t good. She’d been warned, of course, but she hadn’t
believed – not really. This was Adrian, her friend and the
highest-ranking angel in Heaven. The idea of him doing something
this outrageous … When Michael first approached her about it, she’d
thought he was being overly cautious. Paranoid.

Ridiculous.

After what she’d just heard, though,
she was starting to think otherwise. And that was … dangerous. To
say the least.

As she closed her eyes and
focused on her flight to Earth, her wings tucked against her sides,
she thought back over the last hours. Michael had come to her with
another angel, Seraphine, who claimed that Adrian was plotting a
revolution.
Adrian is holding secret
meetings with others, making plans against the Creator,
Seraphine told her, with urgency and ferocity in
her voice.
He’s promising a new order in
Heaven, gathering angels and telling them that a revolution is
coming. He wants us to stand with him against our lord, and
promises to give us the power once he’s in charge. To destroy the
human race. There were so many angels – hundreds of them – and they
all agreed that we’ve come in second to humans for far too long.
They want to see the race of man destroyed. He asked the other
angels to pledge their loyalty to him above the Creator, and follow
him on his crusade to overthrow our father.

Her eyes had been wide as
she spoke, and the girl had looked
frightened
. Kali had no doubt that
she believed what she told them to be true, even if Kali herself
had reservations. Adrian, planning a revolution? She just couldn’t
believe it. In fact, she thought, she’d need to see hard evidence
to even consider it. Which was exactly what Michael was asking her
to get.

If it’s true … if what
Seraphine is saying has actually happened, we need to know about
it,
Michael told her, his eyes
disturbed.
We need to know what he’s
planning. Where, and when.
I need you to
take Seraphine and find out what he’s doing. He trusts you. That
makes you the obvious choice. Since Seraphine has already been to a
meeting, it will be easy to convince him that she brought
you.

Kali hadn’t wanted to, of
course. Adrian had been one of her best friends – her mentor, even
– and she’d absolutely hated the thought of spying on him. But if
there was even a chance that this angel was telling the truth, Kali
needed to know. And as she’d already admitted to herself, Adrian
was certainly up to
something
. Based on the number of
angels Seraphine had seen, it seemed he’d been planning it for
quite some time. Everything Seraphine told them had sounded … well,
like something Adrian
might
do. Disturbingly so.

Rumors had already been spreading
through Heaven like wildfire. Seraphine stepping forward only
confirmed that there might be some truth to them. And they were
indeed dangerous. Adrian’s displeasure with the Creator was well
known – he’d made no secret of the fact that he disagreed with Him
when He created humans. When He then gave those humans free will,
Adrian had become even more outspoken. He believed angels to be
superior to humans, yet humans were allowed the power to make their
own choices and live as they pleased. Even if it meant turning
their backs on the Creator. The angels, on the other hand, were
expected to obey orders, their fates already set in stone. Then
their lord told the angels to watch over His creations and protect
them. At that point, Adrian had flat out accused the Creator of
choosing mankind over the angelic host.

It had been the end of his
relationship with their master. And, as if questioning Him hadn’t
been bad enough, it now looked like he’d gone even further. There
was more at play here than a simple disagreement in
views.

Seraphine told them that
Adrian was holding secret meetings, known only to those he’d
invited, their locations closely held. And he was choosing specific
angels. When he sought Seraphine out, she’d been upset, and had
told him as much. She’d been watching the humans for quite awhile,
as part of her position in Heaven, and had begun to feel – to her
shock and dismay – a jealousy for their position. She envied their
free will, and wished to live a life where she could be whatever
she wanted … a painter or a musician, perhaps. Something that
she
chose
. She’d
told Adrian that she didn’t understand why the angels weren’t
granted such a gift.