Wings of the Wicked (6 page)

She threw up her hands. “Enough! Enough. Get off me.”

I hesitated, staring into her eyes as their color dulled, until I felt satisfied. I stood and met Will’s gaze. He smiled at me, full of pride.

Ava climbed to her feet. “How did you burn me like that?”

The accusing tone in her voice caught me off guard. “I—it’s the angelfire. I can use it to make my power burn. I’ve done it before on an ursid reaper. He was demonic, though.” I remembered that last fight against Ragnuk. I’d used my power to burn up half of his face when he’d been about to bite my head off. It seemed I’d just done it again. Was the mysterious energy really my angelfire, or something else?

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” Ava said, fear lacing her words.

I was about to open my mouth when Will spoke. “She is an archangel. Angelfire is hers to control.”

Ava scowled. “But it’s only in the swords. How is she able to transfer angelfire to her power and make herself stronger? Not that I’m complaining. I’m sure it’s very useful against her enemies.”

“This is a new ability,” Will admitted. “We don’t quite know what it is. Her most recent reincarnation took forty years to occur, and we have no idea what has changed in her in that time. At least you know now that you can’t underestimate her.” The tone in his voice and the look in his eyes made it clear that his last words were a warning to Ava.

I couldn’t help wondering why it had even worked. If she was angelic, then the angelfire shouldn’t have harmed her. I’d used it as a last-ditch effort. I studied Ava’s dark beauty. What if she was truly demonic? A double agent of sorts? Will trusted her. Marcus trusted her. But I didn’t. Not a Popsicle’s chance in Hell of that ever happening.

Marcus beamed at me. “Well done, Ellie.”

“You want a turn?” I teased, desperate to get my mind off Ava’s possible betrayal.

“No thanks.” He laughed. “You scare me plenty. No need for you to make it worse by beating me to a pulp the way you just beat Ava.”

Other than the minuscule frown in one corner of her mouth, Ava’s expression remained stone cold.

“I think we’re done here,” Will said. “Ava, Marcus. Patrolling tomorrow night?”

“I can’t,” I interrupted. “Movie Night. Remember? I’m off being grounded, so I get to be social now.”

He sighed. “Saturday then.”

I thought a moment. “Is Sunday okay? Kate was planning a party Saturday, so we’ll see if that falls through. I haven’t done anything lately but go to school and kill reapers. I need a break.”

Ava stared at me then Will. “Movie Night? Party? Is that wise?”

“It’s important that Ellie have a somewhat normal life,” Will explained. “It keeps her happy.”

“And
sane
,” I said with a laugh. “It’s fine. Just two nights this week.”

“You’re being hunted,” Marcus said. “Ava has a point.”

I shrugged. “We don’t know that for sure yet. And it’s not like I’ll be alone. Will is always with me when I go to these things. I’ll be
fine
.”

“I could join you,” Marcus suggested with an edge to his voice. “Maybe you’d like backup. You know, in case the demonic drop in.”

“Oh, no.” I laughed. “I’m not sure how my friends will take to your … everything. They’d be dangerously curious about you.”

“Would you kill me if I crashed?” he asked, grinning. Something told me he wasn’t kidding with that question.

“Please don’t do that,” I begged. “You wouldn’t even enjoy yourself around all those human teenagers. Will always sulks when he goes to these things with me.”

Marcus’s grin widened even more. “He sulks anyway.”

“You should see the way he broods, too. It’s very sad,” I said with a faux frown.

“I don’t brood,” Will cut in. “Or sulk.”

“I’d love to see this,” Marcus insisted. “It sounds very entertaining.”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Bringing two reapers would be pushing it.” But then again, my friends would love it. Marcus could have an alias similar to Will’s. In truth, I didn’t think I’d be able to babysit two reapers at one party, and I remembered from my past lives just how rowdy Marcus could get.

“You’re certainly no fun,” Marcus mused.

“You must have me and Will mixed up.”

He laughed, but I wasn’t kidding.

6

ON THE DRIVE HOME, WILL WAS IN A GOOD MOOD. He was proud of me. But there were things I needed to know, and I was pretty sure asking him would upset him.

I broke the silence between us with an easy question. “Marcus was born in the eighteenth century, right? I remember he was about two hundred years old when I knew him last.”

“Right,” Will confirmed. “He’s not that old for our kind. It doesn’t mean he’s weak, though.”

“How old is Ava?”

“A few decades older than I am.”

I chewed my lip. “Is she demonic?”

“Ellie …” At least he didn’t laugh.

“No, I’m dead serious.”

He glanced at me and frowned. “I’m very sure she’s not.”

“How sure?”

“Positive.”

“Could you be wrong?”

“No,” he said firmly. “She’s not demonic. Why would you ask?”

I shrugged. “Well, she’s not very nice and she didn’t want me to use my swords with her. And the way my power burned her? I know I’ve only ever tried that on Ragnuk, but it made me wonder. Angelfire only burns the demonic, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s not completely the same,” he said. “You’re an angel, an
arch
angel. Your power is virtually limitless, and we don’t completely understand it. Whatever it is about your power that is able to burn, it may not even be angelfire at all. You spent decades of mortal years in Heaven, training, before you were reincarnated this time. Maybe this is one of the results of that training. Once your memory returns fully, then perhaps more of your new powers will as well.”

I let his words sink in, wanting so much—so, so much—to remember everything that I’d forgotten, and not just bits and pieces. Most of it had come back to me, my past lives and such, but the deeper, darker things still eluded me. It felt like something evil pulsed at the very root of my strength, feeding on it, even though I was supposed to be divine. Human emotion was supposed to make me stronger, but it seemed to just make me crazier. Maybe it was the humanity getting to me, the evil of humanity contaminating my power the way the frailty of humanity made my body weaker than my enemies’. My power may have been greater than theirs, but this body was mortal, and mortality was synonymous with death. Will had never died, because however much he resembled a normal guy, his body was not human. He was a reaper, and they happened to be difficult to kill, for many good reasons.

My lips grew tight as I thought hard. “But how do you know the difference between a demonic reaper and an angelic reaper? Like,
really
know without testing with angelfire. It’s not like it’s tattooed on their foreheads or anything. Do they feel different to you? A vir reaper is just a vir reaper until it tries to kill me, and then I know it’s demonic.”

“It’s the darkness,” he explained. “The evil that fuels them. The brutality they’ve known since birth and that runs through their veins. Violence is the only thing that makes sense to them. When their power and emotion grow, they begin to feel very different from my own kind. The wickedness of the demonic has a powerful effect on the angelic.”

“So you can’t tell just by looking at them?”

“Evil is deeper than just what’s on the surface. Something can look frightening and be pure and innocent.” Then he grinned. “Unlike shoes, evil doesn’t have designer labels.”

I scowled at the metaphor, completely aware that he was making fun of me. However, I did remember the strange things that’d happened to me since my powers were awakened. The feeling of darkness in my power, the black spidery lines that I’d seen on my own skin—a vision I still to this day didn’t understand the meaning of. Was I mistaken in thinking it was evil in me that made me experience those things? How distinct was the line between good and evil, and how much of it all blended together? “I still don’t get how a reaper is inherently either good or evil, depending on their genetics.”

“That’s just the way things are. Ava is an angelic reaper.”

“So she won’t turn bad?”

“Of course not. She can’t become demonic. Or vice versa.”

“So she isn’t a demonic reaper that turned good?”

“No.” The stern finality in his voice signaled to me that this was the end of the conversation.

“All right,” I conceded. I needed to trust Will’s judgment, no matter how confused I was over Ava … and Cadan. He was even more confusing. I wanted to see the best in Cadan—and perhaps the worst in Ava, for stupid reasons—but Will would know, right? He was one of them, after all. And despite who and what I was, I was still an outsider.

But at least I could kick all their asses.

There was one more day of school before the weekend, and this would be my first fun weekend in a few months. My grades were up and I was no longer grounded. Along with my friends, my parents believed Will and I had broken up from our imaginary relationship. If he was my boyfriend, they would expect me to bring him around the house and to do family things together—and by they, I meant just my mom, since my dad preferred to be MIA unless he was yelling at me for something or another.

“So, Movie Night tomorrow?” I asked as we got close to my neighborhood.

“If you wish.”

I smiled slyly. “If I wanted to go shopping and asked you to hold my bags, you’d do it, huh?”

He frowned and glanced at me. “I’d dislike that.”

“But you’d still do it.”

“You wouldn’t ask me to.”

He was right. I didn’t think I had it in me to abuse our relationship. “No, I wouldn’t. But don’t press me. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

That made him laugh a little. “I know exactly what you’re capable of. I’ve see you at your best and at your worst. Nothing you could do would shock me in the least.”

“Is that so?” I gave him a challenging look. “That better not be a bet, either.”

“You know, for an angel, you sure do gamble a lot.”

“You’re a bad influence.”

“Oh, okay,” he said sarcastically.

“Maybe I’m just above the rules.”

“Or you’re not.”

“I’m the Preliator. I do what I want.” I stuck my tongue out at him.

“You’re exhausting, that’s what you are.”

“And you’re obnoxious.”

“And you’re childish.”

“You think I’m childish?” I looked at him pleadingly, feigning hurt.

He looked crushed. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Ellie, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“You’re mean,” I said through a small laugh disguised as a sob. I couldn’t keep a straight face to save my life.

He blinked at me. His lips made a slight curve. “Faker.”

“Am not. I’m really devastated. I’m shocked you would say such things.”

“You know I’d never say anything to hurt your feelings on purpose.”

I sat back and winked. “Of course.”

We pulled into my driveway and Will shut off the car. “Are you making me go to that party Saturday, too?” he asked.

I noticed the change in subject, and my mood took a sudden turn as well. “I want you to be there, and not just keeping a lookout. I want you
really
there. With me.” We were supposed to be broken up, according to my friends and family, but we still had to pretend to be just friends, even though we weren’t and would never be just friends. Even if the world ended and the reapers took every last mortal soul, I would still be madly in love with him. Nothing would change that.

He turned to look at me again, but his gaze held mine a little longer than before, and this time with softness. Maybe a little sadness, too. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

I tried to hide my frown, but I knew I had failed by the look on his face. “I miss you. I mean, I miss
you
.”

His body sagged a little, and he looked away from me to the floor at his feet. His hand tightened on the console and his thumb tapped it, but I wasn’t sure if that was from impatience or indecision. His eyes were dark, and his expression turned to stone. I hated when he froze up like that, impenetrable and distant. When he opened up to me, things were their best, like only a minute ago when we’d been laughing and teasing each other. Some things needed to be said, though. We couldn’t keep living each day pretending everything was fine. Every day, another tiny shard of my heart broke away. If we kept going on like this, I’d never be able to piece it all together again. Will had my heart, and it would never belong to anyone else, but if he didn’t take care of every little piece of it that broke away, then it might be lost to us both forever. I couldn’t let him forget that. If I forgot it, if we both did, then my heart would never be whole again.

“I know,” he said, and left my car without another word.

My friends noticed how quiet I was the next day. Kate especially. She’d been my best friend since elementary school, so she knew if anything was on my mind. In third-period civics, I felt the vibration of my cell and slipped it out. Kate had sent a text from her desk in the row next to mine.