Forbidden (52 page)

“Who are they?” I whisper.

“Your reason.”

“But—”

“You will understand in time. For now, look upon them, commit them to memory, and never forget.” The spirits fade into nothingness, and we are alone again.

“Mom, I never did hear confection in the air.”

“Patience, Sophia. In time, you will.”

There is a gush of frigid air that lifts the ends of our hair and blows back our dresses; it tastes familiar on my tongue. A million tiny white specks come together and form the man with the blond beard from the library basement. This time I have no fear of him.

“You again,” I say. “Michael told me to stay away from you.”

The man and Mom laugh.

“Yes, I suppose he would say that.” The man’s voice is deep and full of amusement, frosty vapors swirling from his mouth. His eyes dance with mischief. He seems young but looks timeless, worldly, and wise. He looks lethal.

“Why would Michael warn me? Should I be afraid of you?”

“No, you should not. Michael should.”

I don’t know him well enough to sense his humor. Mom swats him playfully and says, “Sophia this is, er, Armaros. Armaros, this is my daughter, Sophia.” We eye each other with equal suspicion, and then he inclines his head respectfully. I look at Mom, and she answers my unspoken question. “He is here to help you return.”

“No! I don’t want to—”

“You’re right, Celeste,” Armaros interrupts me. “She does have your stubborn streak.” They smile at my discomfort.

“Like I was saying,” I continue with an edge in my voice. “I don’t want to return.” My argument is stalled by movement behind them. There is a band of men making their way through the fog. Armaros stiffens and palms the sword at his hip. The men stop and take in the three of us.

There are seven altogether of various ethnicities but dressed identically in muted gold breastplates over black tunics and leggings, gold belts, gold boots, and a small gold shield tied to their hips. Large broadswords are strapped to their backs and rise beyond their heads. Every surface bears a cross insignia. Gold helmets are set back on their heads to reveal wild-eyed, rugged faces.

“What do they want?” I whisper.

“They are just curious about you,” Mom answers lightly.

Oh, is
that
all?

“Who are they?”

Mom and Armaros exchange looks of deliberation. Mom shrugs, and without any compunction, says, “Sophia, they are the Halos of the Son.”

I can tell by her tone that this means something; they are important, revered. “Should I be afraid of them?”

“Do you feel afraid of them?”

I check them out more closely. All eyes are on me, and I see unimaginable strength in them. I can feel the power they radiate across the space between us. A band of supernatural born warriors. I search for fear inside me but can’t find it, so I tell Mom I’m not afraid. She smiles knowingly, and I look at Armaros. His is shifty and agitated, and I think it’s funny.

The warriors seem to have satisfied their curiosity and slowly step back, fading into the fog.

“Let’s get out of here,” Armaros grumbles.

I look at Mom in panic. “I don’t want to go!” Even as the words are leaving my mouth, I feel myself slowly sink into the fog. “Mom! What’s happening?”

“He’s here,” Armaros tells her, and then he grabs my arm and hauls me back up. I begin sinking again. “We can’t fight it now. Better be off. Say good-bye to your daughter, Celeste.”

Mom grabs my hand and plants a kiss in the center of my palm. It immediately begins to glow with a supernatural light.

“What is it?” I stare in wonder at the small pulsating light nestled in my palm.

“That is your Chelsea Light, my dear. You will understand once your training begins.” She waves as I slowly sink down. “This is as far as I can go, dear! You’ll be safe with him! Good-bye, my love! Make me proud!”

“Wait! What? Mom!” I reach up but Armaros and I are now descending like we’re standing on a cumulous elevator. I watch Mom until we disappear into the ethereal whiteness beneath her. There is too much love and peace here, so my distress over losing Mom again doesn’t stick. I look up at the giant man beside me. He grins and nods, an elevator boy just doing his duty.

“Where are we going?” I ask just as we
thunk
down onto something solid. “Oomph!” My knees buckle but the big guy holds me up. We appear to be standing on a glass ceiling.

I am back at the courthouse, or rather,
over
the courthouse. I am experiencing a strange sense of displacement. “Hey, Armorall, who did you mean when you said, ‘He’s here’?”

He clears his throat. “Uh, it’s Armaros. And I was referring to your guardian.”

Michael is here? How nice. I wonder what he wants.

I kneel down on my hands and knees and peer through the glass ceiling. I see Dad crouched behind boxes. I see my lifeless body in the lavender dress lying on the floor, hair splayed out like a fan. I see three demons poised to fight three guardians.

The room is snapping and buzzing with energy, the kind that is not often, if ever, seen in small-town courthouses in the wee hours of the morning. The guardians are armed with muted gold belts similar to the Halos’. They are unsheathing gold daggers, and the demons are showing proper respect for the threat. Armaros explains that they are holy weapons, made of the purest form of guardian gold. Not only can they end a demon’s existence on earth, they also deploy a toxin that requires months, if not years, to regenerate what is lost: appendage, head, or entire body. Enough wounds before decapitation and the body could be rendered useless. Knights of the Unforgiven are particular about keeping their original bodies. Pet peeve.

The angels and demons are circling one another and exchanging venomous glares. The
demons’ eyes are black and dead. Wolfgang’s demon is relishing the anticipation; evil never looked so happy. But Impatience can’t wait, so he launches himself into the air. Raph flies up to meet him in the rafters, and Wolfgang whips out his own dagger. They exchange hits back and forth in a blinding clash while racing along the beams.

Vaughn is catapulting boxes at Gabe, and then tables and chairs and dusty lamps. Gabe deflects them by waving his hand.

“You are the one who likes pain,” he says.

“And you are the one who likes books,” Vaughn remarks with a less-than-predatory look. He shrugs casually. “I have no desire to fight. But it cannot be helped.” Then he grins and flies at Gabe, catching him in the gut. They roll across the room, blades flashing in the dim light.

Michael is pacing and deliberating how to go about destroying Dante. He wants the kill to last, indefinitely. Dante is posturing indifference but is really strategizing how to destroy Michael and hurry to Sophia without delay. Returning to Hell with Sophia
and
a guardian’s holy weapon would make him, well, a god of sorts.

Dante begins his ploy. “You realize, of course, that I am only waiting around to ensure my men are properly cared for.” He checks a wristwatch that doesn’t exist. “I really should be on my way. You see,
I have a date
.” They both look at the lifeless lavender dress.

Michael growls with uncontrollable rage. Fetching springs up on his forearms, and he whips around in a full backhand swing. Dante stiffens in surprise, thinking Michael has missed. Slowly but surely, Dante’s chest begins to sting and he looks down at the black diagonal line across his chest. He grunts out a breath, and hurls himself forward, slamming into Michael. They fly across the room, crushing deep into the wall. Chunks of wood, brick, and dust scatter into the air. They are buried in the groove, the outside wall protruding in the shape of their bodies. They struggle, rolling and tearing up more walls as they go around the room.

Up in the rafters, the Demon of Impatience proves he is more experienced at hand-to-hand combat, but Raph is more agile and cunning with his maneuvers. They wrestle on a beam in a flurry too fast to see. They jump onto the chandelier, and Raph whips a loose wire around Wolfgang’s leg and shoves him off. Wolfgang is dangling upside down when Raph swoops in and slices his throat. Wolfgang’s head
thud
s to the floor. This is followed by another
boom
; Pastor St. James keels over in a dead faint.

Vaughn is amassed with cuts and black blood. His demon is practically giddy; Vaughn bobs and weaves around Gabe, asking for more, and Gabe complies. He attacks from a high arch and hurls Vaughn at a window. Glass shatters and Vaughn teeters across
the sill on his back. The remaining upper pane is jagged shards that slide down, stabbing Vaughn’s torso. He lifts his head and smiles in a moment of pure ecstasy, just before Gabe decapitates him.

“She chose
me
of her own free will,” Dante taunts Michael. They have each other by the throat, with blades locked overhead. Dante is covered with cuts and black blood as Michael’s fetching slowly destroys him. Their hard bodies tremble with resistance, neither giving ground. Dante forces a strained smile. “Didn’t I tell you she belonged to me? That she would beg me to Take her? I warned you,
guardian
.”

An unnatural, guttural sound rises in Michael. In the span of a thought, he flashes his blade in a clean, proficient line across Dante’s throat. The Demon Knight grins sadistically. “And so I join her.” He slowly fades, and Michael is left grasping an empty shirt.

*  *  *

All around me the air shifts like rippling water. The glass ceiling becomes dark and stormy with clouds roiling and twisting, one devouring another. The darkness rises up, and the faint scent of acrid spices hits me. I am afraid for the first time.

“What’s happening?” I cry out.

“He’s coming to collect you,” Armaros informs me without concern. I look down and see a black, swirling fog shaped into a funnel. Just like the funnel in Dad’s notebook, it twists and turns like an inverted tornado. There is death at the bottom.

My hair blows back, and I feel pressure on my wrists and ankles. Layers of bony hands scratch and paw at my skin, trying to tug me down. The wall of the funnel is smudged with dark, sunken faces wailing in pain, their torturous cries clawing at my ears. All the grief in the world circles around and around and around.

I reach for Armaros but he is too far away. He says to be strong, to fight it, but I can’t. The pulling is too strong. And then hot cinnamon wafts over me, and Dante is walking up and around the spiral as though he’s emerging from a wine cellar. He is smiling and holding out his hands.

“Sophia!”

“Dante! What’s happening?” I cry out in panic, and he throws back his head laughing that all-too-familiar laugh. And suddenly I am sure. “That
was
you I heard laughing! All this time in my head, it was
your
devilish laughter!”

He grins, shamelessly. “I confess. It was me. I have been watching and waiting,
and you have been very entertaining at times. I really couldn’t help myself.” He lowers his chin, giving me a reprimanding look like I have been disobeying him on purpose. “You heard me because we have a very special connection, you and I. And if you would have allowed your memories to return, you would have recognized my laughter a long time ago.” I am stunned and confused. Dante squeezes my hands and starts to explain, and then he sees Armaros. “What are
you
doing here?”

Armaros offers a cold, deadly smile. “You think
you
were the only one watching her?”

There is a century of secrets in his question, and I don’t know what any of this means but Dante seems to understand. Somehow, Dante knows he has been tricked.

A blast of heat shoots up from the funnel like an oven door thrown open, and Dante panics, pulling me down a step. “We have to go! The gate won’t stay open long!”

“Sophia,” Armaros says gently, and I look back. A soft cerulean fog hovers around him and then extends toward me, reaching out like a loving arm. Armaros’s face softens. “This way, my dear.”

I have no choices left as I feel the center of my body drifting toward the blue fog. My hands slip from Dante’s grasp, and he yells with ungodly fury.

“Sophia! Don’t go! We are almost home! Tell him you belong to me! Sophia … tell him …” A howl of raw agony rages in Dante. “Sophia! You will always belong to me! We are not finished!” He is slowly dragged into the funnel, his anguished cries becoming part of the churning darkness.

I am paralyzed, staring at the swirling black whirlpool that has swallowed him. I feel a terrible sense of loss and whisper, “Good-bye, Dante.”

I rise without effort and go gently into the blue fog. Armaros drifts back to make room, and I spread my arms, letting the gossamer blueness lap at my body. I float and turn, smiling with pleasure. Armaros gives a faint salute, his work here complete, and then quietly shatters into a million white ice chips.

A sapphire light emerges from the fog and enters me through my eyes, sweeping in and around, stroking every nuance of my empty corridors. It gathers in my chest and takes up residence as a steady, muffled thrumming. I listen the way a child strains to hear the ocean in a shell.
Is it there? Is it real?
I long for the rhythm of my organ’s song, percussion to keep me company, to set the tempo of my life. I hear it now and know that Mom is drumming the beat; I recognize the sweet melody.

The beating swells and splits into a second heartbeat. It starts soft and timid, almost unsure of itself.
Is it welcome? Is it wanted?
And then it snuggles deep inside me where it belongs. There is a gentle tugging in my chest, and I am pulled back into my
body, stretching into my full height in the lavender dress. The blue light beats inside me and morphs into sound.

“So-ph-ia. So-ph-ia.”

Michael’s gentle voice pours into my head. “Please don’t leave. Please come back.”

I inhale suddenly, deeply, and cold air passes over my scorched throat to fill my lungs. My eyes flutter and open but I am disoriented. There is too much blue light left in my eyes, and I blink, bringing the fuzziness into focus. Michael is staring down, panic-stricken.