The Guardians: An Urban Fantasy Romance (19 page)

He nodded. “Shit stings, doesn’t it?”

“Not bad, Naphil,” Mammon said. “But let’s see how you do with this.”

This time, twice as many came at them. So many that Addison knew she couldn’t stop them all.

“Jack,” she whispered, already backing away. “Run.”

They turned as one and sprinted away from Mammon, who was amused to follow them, flinging the knives a few at a time. Two whizzed over Addison’s shoulder, just missing her ear, and Jack grunted in pain as another one found his calf.

“Enough of this,” she hissed, turning on her heels and charging back toward Mammon. Her feet left the ground as her power surrounded her in a swirling, black storm. She reached for the knives with her telepathy and turned them on Mammon. She couldn’t help the smile that crossed her lips as several of them embedded in his flesh. “This ends right now,” she said as she floated toward him, levitating higher until they were face to face.

Mammon was pulling the last of the knives from his flesh with a snort and a grunt, causing more of the black, sulfuric smoke to waft around him.

“I’m weary of these games,” he said, his voice low. “You bore me, girl.”

She wasn’t prepared for the force that slammed into her as he lowered his horns and charged. She gripped the horns, holding on tight as he traveled with her, hurtling toward the ground. Pain exploded in her back and radiated through her body as he slammed her into the street’s surface. Her head pounded and her vision swam as the demon loomed over her, his jowls jiggling as he laughed. His hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing tight. She fought against him, physically trying to break his hold, while drawing on her power for one last attack. But no matter what she did, Mammon’s strength did not wane. In fact, it seemed to grow stronger.

“Addison!”

Jack ran toward her, his pistol ready as he leaped toward Mammon, ready to fire. With one hand still around her neck, Mammon produced another dagger with the other, throwing it to deflect the white beam of light once more. He swung his head to meet Jack’s charge. Jack’s feet scraped the pavement as he tried to slow his momentum, but it was too little too late. He was unable to stop the forward movement of his body as it propelled him straight into one of Mammon’s sharp horns.

A scream burned in Addison’s throat, but came out as choke gurgle as Mammon swung his head, flinging Jack’s impaled body to the ground. The horn slid free, leaving a hole through Jack’s middle.

“J-Jack…” she whimpered, her eyes filling with tears as she turned to gaze at his limp body.

His eyes were still open, but they appeared hazy and unfocused. His mouth had filled with blood, which trickled from the corners of his mouth, staining his beautiful, brown skin.

“Your power …” Jack gurgled, turning his head to spit a stream of red onto the ground. “It feeds … him. Darkness … cannot … overcome darkness. Light, Addie … find the … light.”

He coughed as more blood came up, choking him. Addison squeezed her eyes shut against the sight, the hot splash of tears running down her cheeks. As Mammon took his time strangling the life from her, she tried to remember the one night of happiness Jack had given her. She remembered his kiss, his arms around her, his words wrapping her in a cocoon of hope and light.

Light!

Her eyes flew open as she realized what Jack had been trying to tell her. It all became so clear. Mammon was a demon, and her Naphil power was based in darkness, just like his. Darkness could not combat darkness. Only light could do that. And she now had the light inside of her … the light of a Guardian.

Addison reached up to her chest, fumbling as she grasped the ring. Her vision was fading now—her death must be near. This would be her only chance.

Closing her eyes, she focused her thoughts inward and pulled on the good. There hadn’t been much in her life, but she had what she needed from Jack. She smiled as she found it, a solitary pinpoint behind her closed eyelids. Her entire being seemed to vibrate as she focused on it and watched it grow. The pinpoint became a star, and that star a beacon. That beacon swelled until it burned with a white hot intensity, so large it filled her vision.

Mammon roared as the light expanded outward from her chest in a brilliant flash. Addison opened her eyes and watched in awe as it left her body like a starburst, shimmering on the air and surrounding Mammon like a cloud. His fingers left her throat and she rolled away from him, sucking in deep breaths of air with relish.

In another bright flash, Mammon was gone.

She struggled to her hands and knees, still drinking in much-needed air and trying to fight against the drowsiness pulling at her. Jack had been right; the inner light had taken a lot out of her. She felt even weaker than she had after the night she’d fought off those demons in the sky. It took everything in her to crawl over to Jack’s unmoving form. The gravel bit into her palms and scraped her knees, but she didn’t care. Tears streamed through the grime on her face as she neared him. At the sight of the blood soaking his shirt and streaming from his mouth, she began to sob, her hand fisting the front of his shirt.

“Jack,” she sobbed, shaking him as she grew more hysterical by the second. “Jack, please. No … no, no. Come on, don’t do this to me.”

She couldn’t detect anything but the slightest movement of his chest. His breath became so shallow, she had to strain to hear it. His eyes stared above her at the sky, sightless.

She knelt beside him, leaning down to press her head against his chest. His heartbeat was almost nonexistent.

“You can’t leave me, Jack. Not when I just found you. I need you … please.”

She stretched out beside him, not caring about the blood soaking her clothes and staining her hands. Wrapping herself around him, she held on tight, sobbing into his neck. The flutter of his pulse died away, and his chest stilled. She turned her face inward and muffled her loud sobs against his shirt, inhaling his heady scent for the last time.

She remained that way for what felt like hours, until the sound of wings overhead told her she was no longer alone.

With bleary, tear-filled eyes, she looked up to find Reniel, Elle, and Daniel swooping down from the sky in their angelic forms. Reniel held Micah, who he set on his feet once they’d landed. She sat up as they approached, the three angels shrinking and morphing into their human disguises. Micah ran toward her and Jack, skidding to a halt as he realized what had happened. His mouth fell open, and grief slashed across his face with such force that it sent Addison into another round of sobs.

“Reniel!” she said, swiping at her wet face and neck as the angels caught up to Micah. “Thank God you’re here. You can help him, can’t you? Daniel, you’re a healer, right? Heal him!”

Daniel cast a silent glance at Reniel, his face inscrutable. Addison’s heart dropped into her stomach as Reniel crouched in front of her, his face carved in sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Addison,” he murmured, reaching out to touch her shoulder gently. “An angel of healing can only save those Father has chosen to save.”

Her jaw dropped as shock and anger rippled through. “Only the ones he
chooses
?” She laughed, now hysterical as the sound melted into another sob. “Are you
kidding
me? Jack has spent his entire life in service to the Guardians. He’s given up his life … he’s given up everything! And you’re telling me
He
has decided Jack isn’t worthy of being saved?”

A lone tear ran down Reniel’s cheek and hung from the end of his square jaw. “It is not for me to question the will of Father. He alone decides when someone’s time is up. It was Jack’s time.”

With that, he reached out. After brushing her aside with a gentle hand, he took Jack’s body into his arms. Addison grabbed onto the angel’s shirt and held fast.

“Please!” she pleaded. “This was my fault. All of it. This can’t be the end. This can’t be it. There has to be a way he can have another chance. Please, Reniel!”

The angel looked truly sorry as he pulled away from her grasp and turned to walk away, Jack’s weight like no more than a doll’s in his arms. Addison fell back to her knees on the ground, burying her face in her hands as what remained of her heart crumbled into dust.

It wasn’t fair. Jack had given her everything, and in return, she’d gotten him killed with her foolishness and ineptitude. The walk had been her idea. If it hadn’t been for them being exposed, Mammon could have never caught them unaware. She hadn’t had what it took to fight the demon … what made her think she could take on the other nine? She almost hadn’t made it out of this fight alive, and had lost Jack in the process.

Grasping the ring hanging around her neck, she jerked forcefully at the chain. With a scream of anguish, she flung it away from her. It landed near Micah’s feet with a clink. The big Cajun hadn’t said a word since finding them. He’d just stood and watched it all in silence, that terrible expression of grief creasing his face and causing him to look older than his years. He bent and retrieved the ring, lifting it by the chain and slipping it into the pocket of his jeans without a word. His booted footsteps crunched over the gravel as he neared her, stopping when just in front of her.

Micah’s face was solemn and hard as he stared down at her. One large, calloused hand reached out.

“Might as well get up,
cher
,” he grunted. “He’s gone.”

For a while, there was nothing but darkness. No … not just darkness. Blackness. A smothering sort of blackness that robbed him of all his senses. He had sight, yet couldn’t see. Not even the stirring of air to feel, or a sound to be heard. He was weightless, with no concept of time or space.

Was this death? Jack had always imagined it another way. Sarah always told him of an Angel of Death, and he came to those crossing over into either Heaven or Hell. He’d always expected the Angel of Death, maybe a white light, and then pearlescent gates.

At some point, the pitch black faded, and a brilliant light came rushing at him out of the dark. He squinted against it. The brightness became too much for him, causing pain to throb between his eyes and at his temples. It stung, forcing his eyes to remain closed as he tried to gather his bearings.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a room that seemed to have no ceiling or walls. Nothing but stark whiteness surrounded him, the only furniture a chaise longue he’d been lying on—also white.

He blinked against the brightness as he tried to stand. His mind struggled to remember what had happened. One moment, he’d been with Addison, and then the next …

It all came rushing back to him in a series of images, flashing through his mind like a fast-moving film. His heart hammered in his chest as he glanced down at his body, searching for the evidence of what his memories told him. But he found nothing. No blood, no hole through his middle, not a single scratch. He didn’t even wear the clothes he’d put on that evening after dinner. Standing out in stark contrast against his dark skin were simple white garments similar to hospital scrubs, the linen thin but comfortable, weightless on his body. He pressed a hand against his chest and closed his eyes, counting the beats of his heart.

If my heart is beating, then I can’t be … I can’t be dead.

He paced in the never-ending white space, his mind racing as he tried to understand what was happening. Was the blackness he’d experienced a hole in his memory? Had the Angel of Death come for him, but he just didn’t remember?

“No.”

He fell to his knees on the white floor, breath coming in ragged gasps. He couldn’t be dead. It was too soon. After years of feeling dead, he had just started to feel alive again. His father would be wrecked when he found out, and Sarah … oh, God, his sister. Cassandra had always told him he was her hero. What would happen when she had to be told that her hero had died? What about Micah? Who was going to be there to keep his partner from going off the rails for good? And Addison …

Jack staggered to his feet. “Addie,” he murmured, closing his eyes against the pain that tore through him at the thought of her. She needed him most of all. “I can’t be dead.”

Walking back and forth in the room, he tried to find an entrance or an exit … anything that would clue him in to where he was. He found nothing. Just the white walls he couldn’t see, the white ceiling that seemed to go on forever above him, and the white chaise resting on the white floor.

Cupping his hands around his lips, he lifted his head and called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

No answer came. Grunting in frustration, he started pacing again like an animal trapped in a cage.

“I know I can’t be alone here!” he yelled, looking up. “If there’s someone there, please … don’t keep me waiting! What’s happening to me?”

To his surprise, a response came this time. The air before him seemed to part, and through the opening came the last person he would have expected to see. He’d only encountered the Archangel Michael once, and hadn’t thought he would ever again, despite the fact that Michael stood at the head of the Guardians’ order. Reniel, his subordinate, carried out his commands, acting as a liaison of sorts between him and the Guardians. Yet, here he was, the Angel of War himself, standing right in front of him.

He was the largest of all the angels, standing fifteen feet tall with a chest and shoulders that were impossibly wide. His limbs resembled thick tree trunks, his fingers each about the size of Jack’s body. He wore the same gleaming, golden armor that Reniel and the other Warrior Angels wore, though he didn’t have his helmet today. Black, shining ringlets fell past his shoulders in a glorious display, his white wings stretched the width of what had seemed like a never-ending room until he appeared. Now, it got dwarfed by his presence. His eyes glowed white in the sockets, and though there were no irises, Jack could
feel
the angel’s gaze on him.

“Michael,” he said, staring up at him. “What is this? Where am I?”

“I should think it was obvious,” the angel replied. His voice was as intimidating as the rest of him, striking Jack’s insides like thunder and reverberating through the room with a powerful echo.

He swallowed past the lump in this throat. “I died.”

Michael gave a silent nod.

“And you’re here, so this must be Heaven,” he reasoned aloud. “Right?”

Michael’s face betrayed nothing, not an iota of emotion. “A part of Heaven.”

“A part …?” He scowled. “What is this? If I’m dead and this is Heaven, then where are the gates? Where are the other angels and my dead friends and relatives? Where is God? Where … what is this, Michael.”

“You
are
in Heaven, yet not within the inner realm inhabited by souls who will spend eternity here.”

Jack’s eyes widened and hope flared in his chest. “Does that mean … is there a chance I can go back?”

Michael turned away from him, and the white space around him opened up again. Beyond the angel, he could see glimpses of Heaven … the real Heaven complete with golden streets and green, rolling hills. Michael was leaving him already.

“Wait!” he cried, running after the retreating angel. “You can’t leave me here with that! Please … you have to send me back! I can’t stay here, I have to go back!”

Michael turned within the mouth of the opening and stared back at him with those white, glowing eyes. “That, Jackson Bennett, is not up to me.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

No answer came. As Jack stood watching, the Archangel walked through the portal and disappeared, closing it behind him.