Angelfire (24 page)

My phone rang, shattering the silence between us. “It's Nathaniel.” I held the phone up to my ear.

“Ellie,” Nathaniel said before I could speak. “Where are you guys?”

“The warehouse. What's up?”

“Don't leave. I'll meet you there.” He hung up. The urgency in his voice got my pulse pounding. My eyes met Will's.

WE WAITED, TENSE WITH ANTICIPATION, FOR Nathaniel to arrive. When he finally drove into the alley and parked behind my car, he and Lauren, the psychic I had met the first time I'd met Nathaniel, climbed out and walked right past us and into the warehouse. Nathaniel waved a hand for us to follow him into the room where we kept the sarcophagus. As soon as I entered, I felt the frightening, familiar thrum emanating from the Enshi. Nathaniel and Lauren were standing by the sarcophagus.

“Nice to see you again, Ellie,” Lauren said.

“You too,” I replied with a smile. “What's up, Nathaniel?”

“I've figured out the language on the sarcophagus,” he said.

Will perked up. “And?”

“The script is indeed an archaic cuneiform,” Nathaniel
said excitedly. “But it's older than I thought. Older than Old Assyrian, older than even the Akkadian style.”

I stared at the box, my head filling with thick clouds that prevented me from thinking straight. “How old is that?”

“Approximately five thousand years.”

My eyes bulged. Will shifted uncomfortably next to me. I looked at him and his eyes met mine. “Jesus,” I murmured.

“Nope,” Nathaniel chirped. “Jesus isn't in here.”

I blinked. “I wasn't…”

He grinned and winked at me. I assumed it was supposed to be another of his amazing jokes, but they just weren't funny to me. I gave a soft, uneasy laugh to humor him. He beamed proudly. I glanced at Will, who only shrugged and shook his head. He understood completely.

Nathaniel turned serious again. “What I mean is that the Enshi was locked up in this sarcophagus three thousand years before the birth of Christ.”

“Does it say what the Enshi is?” Will asked.

Nathaniel half nodded, half shrugged. “Yes and no. It's all bad news, which is why I've brought Lauren here to help me determine what's inside.”

“What kind of bad news?” I asked.

“Well, if you look closely at the sarcophagus,” Nathaniel began, stroking the box tenderly, “you'll notice that it's beautifully decorated. The ancient Mesopotamians only buried very important people this way, so the body within is at the very least of great importance. That's the first bad news.
The second is—if you'd kindly look at this symbol here—the inscriptions tell me that our friend inside is a true soul reaper.”

“In English, please?” I asked dully.

Nathaniel gave me a strange look. “That was English.”

“In
American
, then,” I said. “Nothing of what you say makes a lick of sense to me.”

Will's shoulder brushed mine. “He means a being that can do whatever it wants with the souls instead of just sending them to Hell.”

“No way,” I said. “Like the Grim Reaper? Death himself?”

“That's what humans like to call it,” Will said. “Is it possible that the Enshi is an angel, then? Of an archangel rank, perhaps?”

Nathaniel nodded. “Yes. Best-case scenario is that this is some kind of extrapowerful reaper who can send souls to Hell or Heaven. That's probably how the Grim Reaper legend began. The worst-case scenario is that our sleeping friend here actually
eats
the souls, meaning the soul is gone for good. No Hell. No Heaven.”

“That's terrible,” I said.

Will's expression grew dark. “And Ellie? Does that mean—?”

Nathaniel nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

Will let out a long, painful breath edged with fear.

My heart sank. I searched both their faces. “What do
you mean? What does that mean for me? Will?”

He closed his eyes. “It means the Enshi can destroy your soul. If it does that, you're done. You won't pass on and you won't ever come back. You're gone.”

I tried to keep my racing heart calm. “I won't come back?”

He gave a single shallow nod. “That's got to be why Bastian wants it so badly.”

My mouth dried instantly. I would be gone? That would mean I'd never be reincarnated again. I'd never go to Heaven. I'd never see Will or Nathaniel or my mom and nana again. There was no way I could allow myself to just end like that. There was too much at stake, too much left for me to do, for me to just die and be gone. I didn't want to end.

“Then we need to kill this thing before it wakes up,” I said breathlessly.

“We don't know how,” Will urged. “I don't want to do anything that might make it wake up.”

“Can't we just nuke it?” I asked. “Not like popcorn in a microwave, I mean like a
bomb
.” I spread my hands wide and made a pathetic exploding sound. “A
big
one. You two seem like resourceful guys. I'm sure you could get one.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “I don't have access to nuclear weapons, unfortunately.”

“Oh, idea!” I chirped. “What if we chained it up good and tight and dropped it off in the middle of the ocean? All that pressure would crush the box, wouldn't it?”

Nathaniel shrugged and blinked. “That's actually not a bad idea. And I don't believe any nonmagical force could resurrect the Enshi.”

“Where would we get a boat to do this?” Will asked.

“I can try to arrange that,” Nathaniel said. “Now Ellie, there's something I need you to do. You can feel what's inside, right?”

I nodded, not sure I liked where this was heading.

“Lauren can feel it too. She is a clairsentient, meaning she's able to know things by touching objects and would be able to tell if there's a connection between you and the Enshi.”

I looked at her and she nodded. “What good will that do?”

“I need to know what you're feeling,” she said, “not just what I sense from the sarcophagus.” Lauren stepped toward me and took my hand. She pulled me toward the box and motioned for me to lay my fingers on the lid. I jerked back, afraid.

“I thought I wasn't supposed to touch it,” I said, looking anxiously at Will. His expression was calm but serious.

“Touching is okay,” Lauren assured me. “I need to ignite a reaction, and whatever is inside likes you…a lot. So please, just touch it. It won't bite, I promise.”

Her smile didn't help me feel better. Tentatively, I brushed the lid with my fingers and felt the instant response. The voice in my head grew louder for a moment, and I could have sworn I heard it gasp on contact. Electricity pumped
through the stone into my skin, and I wanted to pull away, but Lauren grabbed my hand and held it still.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she didn't let me go. “I—”

I shut up when I saw Lauren's face. Her mouth gaped open and her eyes had rolled into the back of her head until only bright white orbs were visible. At that moment I tried to yank away, but her grip was as strong as a reaper's. Power leaked from the sarcophagus, oozed from it, and the energy crawled up my fingers through my arm and into Lauren. Her body jerked once and she released me. She staggered back, and I jumped away.

“What was that?” I demanded, putting a hand to my chest to quiet my racing heartbeat. Will protectively pulled me close to him and took my hand to make sure I was unharmed.

Lauren backed away, resting against a bent steel column, breathing heavily. Her eyes had returned to normal, but I could tell she was petrified. “This is bad,” she whispered.

Will stepped forward and let my hand go. “How bad? What did you feel?”

“The Enshi,” Lauren breathed. “I could hear it screaming in there, filling my head with these horrid shrieks. The Preliator's presence is driving it mad. Just that little touch sent it into a frenzy.”

“A good frenzy?” I asked, hoping that it was perhaps afraid of me.

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “That wasn't
fear. It wants you. It
needs
you. It's screaming your name, and its power is huge—like a black void, a bottomless pit of death and despair. It's so dark in there, so dark and hungry. Nathaniel, I've never felt anything like this. You have to destroy it. You
can't
let the Enshi wake. You
can't
let Bastian get ahold of it.”

My body shook with fear. Lauren's terror was plain to all of us. I could feel the Enshi in there, but not the way Lauren did.

“Do you know what we're dealing with?” Will asked, his voice dark.

“It's old,” she said, her eyes frozen on the sarcophagus. “Older than Bastian, older than the Preliator, older than the sarcophagus it's trapped in. It's so old, it just feels empty. Like a black hole.”

“Is it a real soul reaper?” I asked. “Is that true? Can it destroy my soul?”

“That's possible,” she said. “Don't touch it anymore. I think Ellie's presence might be enough to wake it if she were around the sarcophagus for too long. Perhaps even a touch in the wrong place might do it.”

Confusion spread over me. “But I thought you said touching was harmless.”

Her eyes snapped to mine, her voice sharp and cold. “Don't touch it.”

I nodded. No way was I going to argue with her.

“We need to get to the Caribbean,” Nathaniel announced.
“I think if we ship out from Puerto Rico, we'll be able to sail pretty far out over the Puerto Rico Trench to the Milwaukee Deep. It's the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean—almost as deep as Mount Everest is tall—and if dropping the sarcophagus overboard there doesn't crush it to oblivion, then at least there's no way anyone could dive in to retrieve it.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Will agreed.

I raised my hand. “Uh, guys, I can't leave for a week in the Caribbean during school. How would I explain that to my parents?”

Will frowned. “You can't tell them it's a school trip or something?”

I laughed. “Yeah, and not give them any other information? There is a lot that goes into field trips. I don't think I could get away with them just signing a permission slip.”

“Isn't Thanksgiving break coming up?” he offered.

Lightbulb. “Right. That would be perfect.”

“Can we fly?” Nathaniel asked. “Fly down on Wednesday night and be back by Friday at the very latest? Shipping the sarcophagus will be expensive, but we don't have a choice otherwise. I'll have to get Ellie a fake ID, since she's underage. I'll make one for you too, Will. I think you'll need a seat on the plane to protect Ellie instead of traveling through the Grim. Fakes won't be that much trouble.”

“I like this plan more,” I said. “I can tell my parents I'm going up north to Kate's lake house for Thanksgiving.”

“I won't be going,” Lauren said. “I can't defend myself
and I don't want to be a liability.”

“That is probably for the best,” Nathaniel agreed.

Will nodded firmly. “Nathaniel, can you arrange it?”

Nathaniel nodded. “Yeah. I'll look into it immediately. We should get going, Lauren.”

“I'm sorry I freaked you out, Ellie,” Lauren said. “I needed to feel what you were feeling. You're a fearless girl.”

“I don't know so much about that,” I assured her with an uneasy laugh.

“Braver than I am.” She smiled.

Nathaniel and Lauren left, and I listened to the car drive away.

“Are you okay?” Will asked, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I nodded. “I'll live.”

In truth, I was terrified. I didn't know how this was all going to work out, or
if
it was going to work out. I was pretty sure I could lie to my parents about the trip to Puerto Rico, so long as they didn't talk to Kate's parents. Kate would cover for me in case they questioned her. The lying part—that bothered me. It felt like everything that came out of my mouth was another lie to my parents.

“Yeah, but are you
okay
?” he repeated.

I looked up at him and met his gaze. “I'm scared out of my mind. That thing freaks me the hell out. Will, I don't want to just end like that. I don't want to never come back. I was just getting used to the idea that there really is a Heaven
and angels. I don't want to lose my soul!”

“That thing will be gone soon,” he assured me. “We'll dump it out in the middle of the ocean and it'll all be over.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Even if we destroy the Enshi, we still have Bastian and his lackeys to deal with, including Ragnuk. I don't think I'm going to make it out of this alive.”

He touched my cheek sweetly. “Hey, remember what I said? I promised I'd protect you from them. I'm not about to break a promise to you.”

I smiled. “I know.”

Suddenly the front door blasted open, and I spun around as it crashed to the ground. Something invisible slammed into the doorway, crushing the frame and the walls on either side.

My shock made me leap into the Grim, where I could see the dark, enormous form of Ragnuk widening the entrance with his body so that he could lumber through, as chunks of brick crumbled at his feet. He stared at me with his ravenous black eyes, and his tongue sagged over his jaws and dripped gobs of saliva onto the floor. He looked half insane with hatred and hunger.

Instinctively, I grabbed my winged necklace for comfort and stepped back toward Will, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Ragnuk.

“I have you now, Preliator!” the reaper roared, spitting
the curse at me as if the word itself were something disgusting. “I followed your filthy stench all the way here. This time you aren't getting away from me and we won't be interrupted. This is the end for you, and I'm taking the Enshi with me. It ends here tonight!”