FORBIDDEN (2 page)

Whipping around, I saw a single black, bloody feather floating to the ground where Hannah had just been seated at the fountain. Outside the Vatican walls in the distance, I heard her strangled cry for help.

TWO

Running at full speed, human eyes were unable to keep track of me. I took advantage of the convenience now, leaping over the Vatican wall. Jet-black wings erupted from my back, ripping my jacket to shreds and causing me a considerable amount of pain.
Premium Italian leather,
I thought,
now some idiot will make a knock off purse with my favorite bomber
. Landing on top of the metro heading back into Rome, I pushed my senses as far as they'd go. Hannah's scent was nearly impossible to miss if she was within a ten-mile radius. She wasn't.

Retracting my wings, the familiar snapping of my lower three ribs reminded me having the gift of flight wasn't a gift at all.
The punishment for your sins will not go away, young one,
the Almighty had said. He meant it. While I was undoubtedly still damned, this beat Hell any day. Well, except for today. If I didn't retrieve my Call, I had a one-way ticket back to the Seventh Circle. Definitely not a place I planned on visiting anytime soon. I strained my ears to listen for Hannah's cries.

I jerked my head to the west when Hannah screamed again. The way the sound reverberated, it sounded like she was in the Coliseum. Out of running distance. Crap. Sighing, I pushed off the metro, wings exploding out once more. The humans may have heard the snapping of my bones had I not pushed the metro roof in six inches. So much for low profiles.  I laughed as I saw the perfect indentation of my shoes in the metal roof. I'd pay for that later.

I dove into the center of the Coliseum like a bat out of - hah, I guess I was. Rolling out of sight and into the barred off depths of the lower levels, I straightened up, retracting my wings once more. Taking in a deep breath, the overpowering vanilla stink that Hannah insisted on wearing burned my nostrils. She was physically fine; I couldn't smell blood. Good sign. I followed her voice into the dank catacombs.

"Please, oh God, please, I'm begging you..." she was pleading with the Italian man, who now had a hungry look on his face as I rounded the corner.

"Oh come on baby, you said you wanted to see the sights." Laughing, he grabbed her by the neck and pinned her against the nearest wall. He had unknowingly set himself up for disaster.  They were three feet from where I was, in the shadows.

I had seen enough. It was time to take action. Coming out of the darkness, I grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the far wall. A human would have been knocked out. He wasn't. Instead, he stood up, snarling. His ribs cracked as black wings erupted from his back much like mine, except for the fact his were bleeding.

 A Fallen. He was part of the Dark One's brood.

I refused to show my identity to Hannah. Keeping my back to her, I squared up against the demon. No wings were necessary for this. "It’s not her time yet."

The demon laughed. "That’s not your decision. The Dark One owns the earth. He takes who he wants."

"Only in his mind. We both know who controls everything. She's my Call, and it's not her time."

Screeching, the demon charged with his claws extended. Kneeling down, I caught him by his legs as he went to leap over. He flailed in the air, trying to get away. That wasn’t going to happen. I tightened my grip on his leg as he stretched his arms out toward Hannah and yanked him just out of her reach in the nick of time. Hannah’s arms were over her head and covered her face. That was a good thing; hopefully she wouldn’t see anything else.

After I swung him through air one last time, I slammed the Fallen into the floor. Standing over my quarry, I smiled. "You need to return where you belong. Now."

The power of the command took effect immediately. Writhing on the ground, the very stones opened up and swallowed him whole.

Silence. That is, until Hannah vomited behind me. I suppose that was a pretty standard human response to a scenario such as this. Sighing, I whirled around and ran from her. She was probably completely at a loss for what just happened, but she could find her own way out of the catacombs. I’d watch from a distance and make sure she was safe.

I knew later she'd thank God for getting her out of the situation. This was such a thankless job.

THREE

It was stupid to let Hannah see me, but I made sure I was visible to her in a quiet corner of the Coliseum. There was no way to make sure she was safe, unless I took care of it myself. I kept my head lowered, not giving her full sight of my face. Instead of saying hi, I let her come to me. Even then, I stood there in silence for a minute, surprised she’d come up to talk. She was a strong human. “Hey, you. Hey, don’t act like you can’t hear me.”

I began to walk away, hoping she’d get the hint. Maybe it was more because I hoped
I
would get the hint and not get myself buried any deeper into this mess. Either way, part of me hoped she’d go away. It was better if she did.

She didn’t.  “Hey, I’m
talking
to you.  You just watched someone dissolve into rock with me and you’re completely okay?”

I refused to look at her. The scent of her vanilla perfume filled the air surrounding us. I shut off my sense of smell, hoping to avoid getting so familiar with the fragrance that I couldn’t get it out of my head. “Not someone. Some
thing
. A Fallen. There’s a difference.”

“A Fallen? What the heck is that?”

“Something you don’t want to deal with again, because you probably won’t be so lucky.”

“Why?”

She was persistent. I liked her more from a distance, when I didn’t have to respond to questions with answers I knew were lame. “Because I might not be there to take care of you next time.”

“Well, where did you come from this time?  You’re not supposed to be down in the catacombs of the Coliseum.  You weren’t there by accident.”

For just narrowly avoiding being killed by a demon, the girl was on top of things.  It was ridiculous.  “Well then count your lucky stars, lady.  Don’t play with fire again.”

Still trudging through the throng of people outside the Coliseum and following me into the Roman Forums, her questions continued. “I wasn’t playing with fire.  Who are you, anyway?”

I laughed. If only she knew.  “The name’s Levi.”

“Well then, Levi, can I at least see your face?”

“Nope.”

She huffed behind me.  “Can I at least know where you’re going?”

“To find a leather jacket.  Going shirtless is generally frowned upon around here.  You should probably go back to the hotel you snuck out of when your chaperone wasn’t looking.  Mrs. Tincu is probably having a heart attack right now.”  With that, I sprinted off, leaving her behind me, confused.  Humans.  They got over things like that pretty quick.

* * *

After finding another suitable leather jacket, I returned to tailing Hannah. The man I’d haggled with over the price seemed shocked at my fluent Italian, and eventually gave up on trying to convince me the jacket was real leather. Twenty Euro
s
later, I had my jacket. Usually I wouldn’t have even paid for the thing, but I felt kind of bad just swiping it. Must have been because of being close to Hannah. Being around humans up close made me feel almost human myself, if only for a minute.

Never out of hearing distance, I knew Hannah had gone back to the hotel in downtown Rome where her Honors History class was staying. She was currently talking to Angie, her best friend. Angie was what we classified as a “Kind Soul”. The clichés that humans used, “kind soul”, “good soul”, and “old soul”, just to name a few, really did come from our ledgers. They were categories. They also determined how long a human would be on earth. There were exceptions, but souls were delicate things. Most had their category by the human’s third or fourth birthday.

Most of the Guards knew the category of their Call’s soul.  I wasn’t privy to mine. No one would explain to me why, and for all my other humans, I had known. It annoyed me that I’d suddenly gotten the shaft for Hannah. Maybe she didn’t have a classified soul yet. I’d heard of it happening, but it seemed far-fetched. The new leader of the Guards, Owen, was probably just playing power cards now that he was promoted. That was a much likelier cause.

Hannah was telling Angie all about her experience.  I listened in while eating my gelato. I assumed it would be pretty good tasting stuff, were I allowed to enjoy things like food. I just used it as a prop, and maybe partly because I wished I could taste it.

“Angie, I’m telling you, this thing sprouted wings. Then it rushed me like it had rabies or something, and the other guy just threw down like a ninja. Then the stones just swallowed wing-guy up. There was nothing left.”

“You know I don’t believe you, right?”

“Why not?”

I laughed to myself. Why not? Because you just told her you saw a guy sprout wings. To top if off, you claimed to have seen rocks eat someone. Sure. That’s totally believable, Hannah.

Angie sighed and tried not to be mean. “Sometimes I think you watch too many horror movies.”

“I swear this wasn’t a dream.”

“Then what did the ninja guy look like?”

There was silence as Hannah seemed to figure out what to say. “Well, he was taller, kind of built, had brown hair that was messy… and he was shirtless.”

Angie was done.  She snorted when she laughed, and this time was no exception.  “Now I
really
don’t believe you. Let’s just go to the Forums. Mrs. Tincu will give us extra credit if we go.”

Hannah and I sighed at the same time. Tossing the remainder of my gelato in the trash, I ran back to the Forums to keep a better eye on the girls.

Running was exhilarating. I loved it. Just a flash in the peripherals of a human, I was easily dismissed. This was one of the perks of being a Guard. No strings attached to our speed. No pain involved. I’d take running over flight any day.

A moment later another Guard was running beside me. “You care to do double duty on Hannah and Angie for a couple hours?”

“Ethan, you know I hate double duty.”

He clapped me on the back and flashed his award-winning smile that worked wonders on the girls he talked to. “I promise to make it up to you.”

Still running, we came to the Forums. Looking over at him, I shook my head.  “You’re never pulling a double duty for Hannah. Ever. I don’t trust you to pay attention in the slightest.”

He grinned. “That’s why I promised.”

We scanned the crowd, looking for our Calls. Ethan found them first and pointed in their direction. “Two o’clock. Angie’s wearing that nasty stink Hannah does. They must’ve shared.”

“Sorry.”

Ethan laughed. “It’s all good. We don’t get close enough to the Calls for it to be miserable. Anyway, I’m going to try to sweet talk a Guardian across town.  I’ll be back in an hour. Deal?”