Angel Wings, page 14
part #2 of Trappers, Inc Series
“His phone’s not working,” said Cirko, pressing the screen on his phone so hard, I was surprised it didn’t break.
“We can’t afford to freak out right now, okay? We need to think.” I needed to think. Had Adrian mentioned somewhere he wanted to go when we were still together? If he did, I needed to remember. “Where did you see him last?”
“New Haven,” Eae said.
“That’s where we’ll start. You said you had guys. Call them and ask them to start digging. Adrian didn’t have a car, so he must have taken public transportation to wherever he was going. All we need is access to cameras.” It’s how Eae had found my mother.
He didn’t hesitate. He quickly typed something on his phone. I curled my hands in fists to keep them from shaking. It was okay. Adrian was okay.
“Let’s get out of here,” Cirko said, nodding at Adrian’s family, staring at us. He was right—we were making them very uncomfortable. They could probably see how panicked we were.
“Just give me a sec,” said Eae and went to them. Whatever he said, I didn’t want to see their reaction, so I got in the car and waited. Not freaking out was very important. Freaking out wasn’t going to help us find Adrian.
“They’ll call us if he comes back,” Eae said when he got in the car and turned the ignition on.
“What about your people? Did you contact them?” I asked halfheartedly.
Eae nodded. “They’re looking into it right now. You’re right—a camera must have caught him somewhere in the neighborhood where I last saw him.”
“Good,” I said, nodding my head. “We’ll take it from there.”
I didn’t have the heart to look at Adrian’s family while Eae put the car in reverse and drove away from their backyard. There were only two houses next to Adrian’s in that neighborhood, and across the wide road was an even denser forest than the one in his backyard.
So when Eae stopped the car again in the middle of the street, nobody was there to complain.
“I just…I just need a second,” he said and jumped out of the car like his skin was on fire.
“Willow, we need to find him,” said Cirko. “If something happened to him—” But I didn’t let him finish. Couldn’t.
“Nothing happened to Adrian. He’s fine, and we are going to find him, no matter what.” I repeated the same words in my head over and over again, until it felt like there was no more air left in the fucking car.
I opened the door and got out, too. Eae was on the other side of the road, hands on his hips, looking at the trees, almost like he was expecting them to start talking. He was losing it, and so was I, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
My legs were barely holding me, so that’s why, when I saw a string of light appear in the middle of the road, I thought it was just my imagination. The panic was making me see things. I’d thought so the first time I saw Eae flying in the sky when Adrian and I went to Trappers, Inc.
Turns out, I was wrong then, and I was wrong now, too.
The string of light wasn’t a product of my imagination. It was real and it was white, and it was expanding into a circle faster than I could come to terms with.
“What the hell is that?” Cirko whispered at my side, both our eyes on the light.
Something moved in the middle of it. I grabbed Cirko by the arm.
“Back away slowly,” I whispered as something big and grey came out of the circle, so soundlessly you could have sworn it wasn’t really there.
The something big and grey became even bigger. And bigger. And…it moved.
It was ice—filthy grey ice, and it was alive.
“Eae!” I called at the top of my lungs when I realized that the thing had four legs, and all its sharp edges were directed at the angel’s back.
Eae turned, but he didn’t turn in time. The ice monster shot forward with an earth-shattering growl and slammed into Eae with all its strength. I’d never felt more helpless in my life than as I watched the monster, three times my size, run into the woods, breaking trees in half in the process. It ran deeper and deeper, and Eae was with him somewhere, hopefully still breathing.
“Vico,” Cirko said. “That’s a Vico.”
I took out my knives. “We have to help him.”
“Are you crazy? That’s literally a monster from hell!” he shouted, but he took out his own gun, too.
It was my job to kill anything that came from hell, wasn’t it? What a ridiculous thought. The ice monster growled again.
“Willow!” Cirko called after me when I started to run. If I stopped to think another second about how useless my guns and knives would be against that creature, I would have turned around and ran the other way. Leaving Eae now was out of the question. I had to help him in any way I could.
The ice monster had left a thick layer of snow in its wake, and it had broken every tree in its way. I could see its body, the grey ice shining under the sunlight, and it was growling again, which hopefully meant Eae was still alive.
I slipped to the side and hid among the trees so I could move around the monster and try to get a view of Eae. I did.
He was leaning against a tree trunk, his wings clearly visible—and bloody. There was blood on his blue shirt, too. A look at the monster facing him, and I almost pissed myself. It had eyes. They were two black pits, like someone had stabbed it with an icepick, but the worse part was, it had a mouth, too—pointy, like a beak.
And it opened it.
Three large, grey ice shards flew from somewhere inside it, and toward Eae. The angel moved to the side but not fast enough. Once of the shards caught him in the thigh. He hit the ground on all fours, shouting in frustration.
The monster roared, and it felt like the entire forest shook with the sound. It opened its mouth again.
My body moved on instinct. Putting my knives away, I reached for my guns, and I jumped, rolled on the ground, and stood in front of it. Now that I think back to that moment, it was a stupid plan. A very stupid plan.
Shooting bullets at a fifteen-foot monster made of ice wasn’t going to do much damage, but I did it anyway. I aimed my guns at its beak, and I pulled the triggers until I ran out of bullets.
The monster fell back but only because it was surprised. I doubted it could even feel any pain.
Then, it growled again.
Its front left leg came up, and I was pretty sure it was aiming it at me. I dropped the guns and took out my knives while I backed away as fast as I could. I shouldn’t have bothered. As big as it was, it was going to catch me—and it did. I expected the impact, even went as far as to think I was ready for it. I wasn’t.
When it hit me in the chest, all air left my lungs and my body went numb. Both my knives had buried in the ice, so when it pulled its leg back, it pulled me with it. I held onto my knives as best as I could, and when its leg stopped moving, my face slammed against the cold ice. The perfect wakeup call.
My eyes opened wide, and I began to move again. So long as I was on its body, it couldn’t attack me, right? And Eae would figure something out, hopefully very soon. With that thought in mind, I pulled my right knife from the monster’s leg and plunged it a little higher. The muscles in my arms burned, but there was no time to think of a better plan. I was going to climb onto the monster’s head and…well, shit. Did monsters made of ice have hearts—or brains—you could get to, to kill them quick?
I had no idea, but it was too late to back away now. The monster growled again, and three more large ice shards flew from its mouth. I couldn’t see if Eae was still there or if he was hit, but I focused on pulling my knives out of the ice and plunging them in again, until I was where the monster’s shoulder would have been. Just when I thought I would catch a break and make a clean jump onto his head, it moved its leg forward and my left knife slipped from my fingers. A scream escaped from my lips. If I fell, I wouldn’t die, but I’d fall so close to the monster, it could easily step on me. I didn’t want to die like that. Fuck no.
Summoning all of my strength, I pulled myself up with one hand until I grabbed my knife again, and using the momentum, I jumped on the monster’s back. The problem was, its body was very slippery. Hmm. Who would have thought?
I began to slide down its back fast, and I reached for another knife in my waistband. I thrust it in the monster with both my hands and pulled myself up before it began to run again. Standing on it while he was in one place was one thing, but standing on it while it ran was a completely different story.
And when it suddenly stopped, I couldn’t. I flew forward, letting go of my third knife, too. I reached my arms as far and fast as I could, and my fingers grabbed a piece of ice from its spiky head. I fell right in front of its pits-for-eyes, and the monster roared, both surprised and angry. I only had one knife left.
Letting go of it was out of the question. I’d hit the ground faster than I could blink. Holding onto the shard with one hand, I reached for my last knife, and I stabbed him in the eyes as fast as I could. Its roar was deafening, and when it hit me in the back with its icy leg, I had no chance to hold on. The ice slipped from my fingers, and I fell, too shocked to even let out a sound.
I expected to hit the ground on my back, but instead, I fell on a pair of arms.
“Move!” Eae shouted, and I only had one second to look at Cirko’s terrified face before he threw me to the side with all his strength. My body rolled on the ground a few times before I stopped. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t. Not because I was injured, but because…Eae was on fire.
When you see someone burning, you want to shout at them to roll on the ground, but Eae didn’t look like he was in pain. On the contrary. Both his arms burned with bright, orange flames, and there was a smile on his face, so strange, yet so familiar. So horrifying.
The ice monster opened its beak, and three ice shards shot forward, aiming at Eae, but he raised his arms in front of his face, and the ice shards became water, dripping in front of his feet.
Fire. Of course. You kill an ice monster with fire. I wished I’d thought of that before.
Cirko grabbed me by the arms and pulled me to my feet. I let him drag me back because I couldn’t bring myself to miss a single second of what was about to happen. Cirko took us behind a tree trunk, and he kept telling me we needed to leave, but how could I, when Eae raised his arms toward the monster, and orange flames shot from his hands?
The monster fell back, hitting a bunch of trees, breaking them in half as the flames licked its face. I wanted to start cheering already, but then a screeching sound left its beak, and suddenly the fire on its face vanished, and pieces of ice fell to the ground.
The monster pulled itself up and shot its ice shards at Eae again, but Eae didn’t move away. He didn’t have to because now his whole body was burning—including his wings. He looked like a single, huge flame burning in the middle of the forest, and no ice could come near his heat. The monster tried, again and again, and when it was done spitting out shards, Eae moved. He shot forward and jumped in the air. His wings of fire flapped up and down, and a heat wave of incredible power hit Cirko and me in the face. I had no choice but to hide behind the trunk for fear my hair would be completely burned, and when I looked again, Eae was on the ground, a piece of ice that had once been the monster’s head between his burning hands melting at an incredible speed.
The body of the monster collapsed against the broken trees, and it melted just as fast. No matter how many times I blinked, it didn’t get easier to watch—or understand. Eae stood there looking at the water on the ground that had once been the monster, his whole body on fire. When he turned his head our way, I saw his eyes, so black you could see your reflection in them.
That’s when I knew why the look on his face had seemed so familiar before. Eae looked exactly like the Devil.
Chapter Fourteen
I sat on the hood of the car and waited, looking up at the sky. Apparently, Eae’s clothes got burned, and Cirko went to bring him some he had in the trunk. Eae no longer was burning. His skin—and the feathers of his wings—looked just like always, not a sign of orange.
Trying to come to terms with what I’d just seen was useless. Things like that weren’t meant to make sense. They just existed. So when Eae and Cirko came back running from the forest, I didn’t even know what questions to ask.
“Get in the car,” Eae said. I didn’t need to be told twice. I wanted to get the hell out of there, too, just in case another one of those things decided to appear in the middle of the road.
I got in the car, checking that my knives were all there again. After the monster had melted, I’d collected them from the puddles he’d left behind. They were all intact.
“Are you okay?” Eae asked, and I only nodded. “You know you could have died out there, right? What you did was stupid.”
I rolled my eyes. “I thought I was giving you some time.” It didn’t matter that I agreed. What I’d done was really stupid.
“I didn’t need time. I needed you to be safe. You better remember that the next time,” he said and turned the ignition on.
“Hold on, hold on, aren’t we going to talk about this?”
“Nope.”
“You were on fire.” He couldn’t have forgotten that, could he?
“Why are Vicos on Earth? How are Vicos on Earth?” Cirko asked form the backseat.
“No clue, kid,” Eae said and drove faster by the second.
“So what now? You don’t know who sent them or how they sent them here or where Adrian is. What the hell happens next?” You can see why it was hard to keep from freaking out.
“Now, we…” Eae’s voice trailed off.
He hit the brakes so suddenly, it was a miracle I didn’t break my nose on the dashboard. Cirko fell in between the front seats, and if I hadn’t grabbed him, he would have gone right through the windshield.
I was about to give Eae a piece of my mind, but then my eyes caught something in the clear, blue sky outside said windshield.
It was an angel. Another angel, but this one wore a grey dress, and the wings on her back shone silver, just like the moon. I could see her silver hair, too, though she was very far away. Which meant she was big. Much bigger than Eae.
“Do I wanna know?” I whispered to myself.
“Zada,” said Eae. “The Messenger. She’s an Archangel.”
“Thank God. I thought all angels were male,” I mumbled out of sheer awkwardness.
“All Archangels are female,” Eae breathed then put the car in reverse. He drove back where we came from without even looking in the rearview mirror all that much.
“So your friend was right. The Archangels are looking for you,” Cirko said, his voice filled with regret. Maybe he, too, knew something about Archangels that I didn’t.
“It doesn’t matter.” Eae spun the car around, knocking us to the side. The tires screeched in protest as he hit the gas once more, moving away from the Archangel in the sky as fast as the car would let him—which was pretty damn fast. I was practically one with the seat under me.
“It doesn’t,” I agreed. “Because you’re not going anywhere until we find Adrian.”
“I’ll fix this,” Eae said under his breath. “By God, I will.”
I looked back at Cirko, hoping to see something in his face that said he believed in Eae’s words. But Cirko was just as uncertain as me.
We decided that going back to the apartment I grew up in in Manhattan was the best idea. Eae said that Adrian had spent all his free time there, hoping I’d show up. I knew it was pointless to regret that I never went there in the past three months. So why did I still feel it?
“Get some rest,” Eae said, sitting in the living room, holding his head in his hands as if he was having the worse headache in history.
“I was serious, angel. You can’t leave until we find him.” Both Cirko and I needed to sleep; otherwise the chances of finding Adrian got even slimmer. I couldn’t think with a heavy head, and my head was very heavy at the moment.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Eae said under his breath.
“I need a shower.” Cirko looked at me to point him in the right direction.
To go back to my old room was like opening the door to a past I thought I’d never have to visit again. My old pajamas were still on the bed. Dust covered everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Tears gathered in my eyes even before I lay down on the bed. My old pillow felt heavenly. It had caught so many tears of mine in the past. Now, it was doing it again.
Too many things rushed through my mind, and I struggled to believe in what had happened in the past few hours, ever since the angel had found me. Adrian could release souls from their deals with a snake that came off his skin. I really wanted to see that happening.
Adrian had disappeared, and nobody knew where he was.
A monster made of ice had nearly killed me, and I’d seen an angel catch fire.
It occurred to me that I could have been dreaming. That’s why I pinched my arms and left two nasty bruises that were going to take some time to heal. I didn’t wake up.
Instead, I fell asleep.
It felt like I slept for two seconds only before something ice cold touched the tips of my fingers and began to spread fast up my legs. My eyes popped open, and for a second, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think.
When the cold began to fade, I looked up to see that I was all alone in my room. There was nobody there.
But there was someone in the living room. I could faintly hear the voices. I reached for the phone I’d put under my pillow to see how long I’d slept. An hour. It had only been an hour, and I doubted Cirko had woken up so fast. He’d been as exhausted as me.
No, someone else was out there, speaking to Eae.
My first thought was Adrian. He’d come to my apartment, looking for me, like always, except this time, he would find me. Heart in my throat, I jumped from the bed and made for the door.
