Ignite (12 page)

I step towards him cautiously, still holding my hands up. “If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it by now.” It’s laughable how easy it would have been. I can practically see the entire scene—me slinking up behind him, snapping his neck, grabbing his sword and skewering him to the tree. He would have been dead in under sixty seconds. “Where are your bodyguards, anyway?”

The sword wavers, lowering slightly from my chest to my abdomen. “Ariel and Sablo?”

“Do you have other bodyguards I don’t know about?”

He considers me and drops one of his hands from the hilt of his sword. “I gave them the day off.”

Or, more likely, they had more important things to do
, I think to myself. Something big must’ve caught their attention if they’re letting Michael off of the short leash they keep him on. But they’re still probably watching him. I glance up through the tall trees and into the sky before looking back at Michael.
Maybe news of the Lilim has reached the pearly gates.

“And do you regret that decision now?” I say, taking another careful step towards him. One more step and his sword would hit my stomach, so I stop, lowering my hands slowly.

Michael examines me again. He glances between me and the point of his weapon.
Do it
, I want to say. I don’t know why, but I want to push him, see if he’d even be able to kill me. I’m nearly positive he wouldn’t be able to, but I’m not willing to risk my life on nearly.

I shift on my feet. “Do you mind lowering that?” I ask, gesturing to his sword. He focuses on my dagger again before his eyes flick back up to my face.

“I’ll drop my weapon if you drop yours.”

“I’m not even holding—oh, all right.” I bend down and take the blade out of my boot. He raises the sword back up to my chest anxiously, his knuckles white. I roll my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to kill him with my dagger, only stun him. But he doesn’t know that.

He keeps his eyes trained on my dagger and I imagine the sword piercing through my chest over the spot where my heart would be if I make any quick movements. I go slower, my movements languid like I’m submerged in water, and hold up my free hand in submission. I toss the blade over onto some pine needles and it slides until it hits the trunk of the tree I had been hiding behind.

I straighten and nod towards his sword. “Your turn.”

He hesitates for a moment before lowering his sword again and leaning it against the base of his own tree, the point stuck firmly into the dirt. He doesn’t take his eyes off of me as he does so. “Where’s your brother?” he asks.

“How do you know he’s my brother?”

“Oh please.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I may be new at this but I’m not blind and I’m not an idiot. Where is he?” he asks again.

“Gone,” I say simply. “We’re not attached at the hip, in case you were wondering. We don’t always have to be together.”

“Are you sure?” He tilts his head as if he is truly curious, but I get the sense he is mocking me.

“Maybe I gave him the day off,” I retort. “Like your two buddies.”

He looks away from me and mumbles, “They’re not my buddies.”

“Oh? You three sure looked chummy last time I saw you.”

I put my hands in my back pockets and watch, amused, as he kicks at the ground with his thin, blue sneakers. There is a long pause before he answers.

“Not everything is what it appears to be.”

“No,” I say, studying him thoughtfully. “Apparently not.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he asks, looking back at me. “If you’re not here to kill me, then what—”

“I’m not allowed to have interests outside of killing people?”

He quirks one side of his mouth up into a crooked grin. “From what I’ve heard, usually no. And the last time I saw you, you seemed to be pretty thrilled about killing those people in the hospital.”

“Yeah, well then I guess I’m an anomaly.” I glance back at my dagger. “If it helps you at all, those souls we reaped kind of bit us in the ass.” I bite my tongue and look back at him but he says nothing. He just continues to watch me patiently. “Look, if you want me to leave, I can just go,” I say, gesturing over my shoulder.

He wavers for a moment, glancing back at his sword and then tilting his face up to the sky.
So they are watching him.
When he lowers his face again, his jaw strong and his eyes level with mine, he lets out a small sigh.

There’s something about him that feels so lonely. I chew on the inside of my cheek, waiting for him to say something. If he wants me to leave, I’ll have to find a way to follow him without being noticed. I still have a job to do. It would be much easier if he lets me stay, if he
wants
my company.

“You don’t have to go,” he finally replies, his eyes a steely blue. “I mean, unless you want to go. But I won’t make you.” He looks at me closely, his eyes stopping at a spot just below my ribs. “Besides, I don’t think you’ll hurt me.” He walks over to his sword and slides it back into his belt.

Pulling at the hem of my shirt, I look down at my ribs to see if there’s a stain or a tear or something distracting. But there’s nothing, so I cross my arms and look at Michael again.

“If you’re so sure I won’t hurt you, why do you need that?” I wave my hand towards his hip. The sword glints forebodingly in a stream of light that seems to be falling just around Michael, leaving me in the shadows.

“Oh this?” He touches the sword, considering it. “Well, I wouldn’t want to lose it. It seems pretty important.”

“You have no idea what that is, do you?”

“I know it’s beautiful.” He removes his gaze from the sword and peers up at me. “Have you seen it?”

I shake my head. “Not up close, no. But, I’ve heard stories of its… destruction, I guess you would say.”

His eyebrows draw together. “Oh.” With a slow, deliberate motion, he pulls the blade back out of its holster and places it so it rests delicately in his hands. He closes the distance between us and holds it out for me to admire. “See?” He regards the great weapon eagerly. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I inspect the blade closer. The giant ruby at the top of the handle is larger than I thought it was and much more round. What I thought was silver wire that held it in place I now see, in the silver-gold reflection, is electrum. The tableau that is carved into the gold of the handle is a gruesome scene from the war. It shows a barren land scorched by fire with a giant angel standing in the center, arms opened wide to Heaven as a sword pierces through his chest. Someone must have altered the sword after the war to include it.

I lean back involuntarily from the weapon. “Sure, beautiful.”

He seems to notice my discomfort at the sword and slides it into his belt again for safekeeping. “You don’t like it.” He leaves his hand resting on the reflective handle.

“You could say that.” I take a deep, uneasy breath.

“Why?”

I meet his eyes and see nothing but curiosity. I expected him to mock me, knowing that with that sword he could end my life faster than I could call for help. I thought I would see a blaze of arrogance behind his eyes as he realizes the power he holds over me, that I am weak and he is strong. But I see none of that.

“You really don’t know,” I say, surprised.

He remains wordless, blinking at me innocently with his lips parted. His eyebrows are drawn together and under them his bright eyes are confused.

“That is an archangel sword. You at least know that much, right?”

I should really not be telling him this,
I think.

But he nods, so I continue, against my better judgment. “The sword of an archangel, which you are—or, were, or still are? I’m confused about the logistics of this resurrection—is one of the only weapons that can truly kill a demon. Other weapons can only injure us, temporarily of course, or send us back to Hell. I’ve been slain on Earth more times than I can count, but I can always come back. But that,” I glance briefly at his belt again, “can kill us. Permanently.”

He drops his hand from his waist, leaving it hanging awkwardly in the air.

“I’ve heard,” I go on, unable to stop myself, “that it burns the evil out of demons until they are nothing more than ash. It’s supposed to be the most painful thing anyone—angel, demon, or human—could ever experience.”

With a twist, he turns his belt so that the sword is hanging behind him, nearly hidden from my view. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” I scrunch my nose and frown.

“I didn’t—I mean, I wasn’t going to kill you. And you might’ve thought…” He trails off, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I didn’t know it could do all of that. I’ve probably killed demons before with this.”

I trip on a laugh. “
Probably?
”

He’s quiet for a minute, watching me. I look away from him, deciding to study the patterns in the bark of the trees that surround us, fencing us in together. But I can still feel his gaze on me.

“Why did you tell me?”

I don’t know
, I think to myself. But out loud, I answer, “You would have found out anyway.” I face him again. “I might as well be the one to tell you.”

He squints his eyes. “You’re very strange, you know?”

“I’m sorry, I’m the strange one?”

“Yes,” he says, nodding his head. His hair bounces carelessly across one of his eyes, and he brushes it away to look at me. “They’ve been telling me demons don’t feel anything. Except maybe a twisted pleasure when other people are in pain or something. I can see you’ve killed a lot of people, innocent people…” Again, he stars at a spot just under my ribs, and I pull my arms tighter around myself. “But you seem different. You don’t enjoy it the same way other demons do. The pleasure you feel isn’t as deep. It’s like you have to force the excitement.”

And just like that, I’m cut open, turned inside out, and displayed for him to study. My boat has sprung a leak and I’m drowning in the lies I’ve told and lived. But before he gets a chance to prod too deeply into the fiction that is my life, I stitch myself back together and plaster on a sardonic grin.

“And the data pool from which you formed this opinion is what? Two demons? Me and my brother, or have you run across others?”

“I’ve seen enough to know that you’re different.”

I pause. “Should I be offended?”

His face is overtaken by a brilliant, white smile. “I wouldn’t be. I meant it as a compliment. Especially since you’re not here to kill me.”

“Great, so can I have my dagger back?”

He looks over my shoulder and at the dagger at the base of the tree. Without answering me, he walks over and scoops it off the ground, brushing a few pine needles off of the blade. I follow and hold my hand out to him, palm up. But he doesn’t hand it back to me. Instead, he studies the small weapon with fascination, turning it over in his hand.

“This is beautiful, too.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, letting my hand fall back down to my side.

“Is this made from bone?” He looks up from the dagger at me. I shrug at him and cross my arms over my chest. “And this inscription—” He traces the small engraving with his finger, reading aloud. “‘Not with words alone.’ What does that mean?”

I rock back slightly on my heels. “Have you ever heard of the saying ‘Actions speak louder than words’?”

“No.”

“Of course you haven’t,” I sigh. “It’s an expression. Basically, it means that what you do is more significant than what you say. I often need that reminder.”

He looks back down at the dagger. “But aren’t words just as important?” He grips the blade tighter. “What you’ve done isn’t the only thing that defines who you are. Words are just as powerful as action. They can inspire action in others, can’t they?”

“Words without action,” I answer cautiously, remembering what Azael’s told me at least a hundred times, “are empty and meaningless.”

He nods, seemingly to himself, and hands me back my dagger. “Of course,” he says softly.

I kneel down and slip the blade back into my boot. When I stand up, I find myself looking straight into Michael’s chest, which still smells heavily of honey, just as I remember. Has he gotten taller? I raise my chin to his face, which is drawn pensively.

“Penemuel.”

“It’s Pen,” I correct.

“Right, sorry. Pen.” He says my name slowly, shaping it tenderly in his mouth, committing the three letters—two consonants, one vowel—to memory. “May I ask you a question?”

“Haven’t you just asked one?”

He sputters in confusion. “I—what?”

“Never mind. Go ahead.”

“Have we met before?”

I furrow my brow. “You must have very poor short-term memory.”

He stops me, shaking his head emphatically. “No, no. I know I’ve met you. But, did we meet
before
?”

“Oh.” Before you died; before you were reborn as a golden, Bambi-eyed, naïve seventeen-year-old angel boy. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What was I like? Was I kind?” He looks at me, hopeful.

“You were an archangel. I wouldn’t have described you as kind, necessarily,” I say. His face falls slightly. “You were strong and powerful. Loyal to Heaven until death.”