Spirit (4 page)

“They are alive
and well.” He shook his head and started to take a few steps toward me. For
every step he took forward, I took one backward, keeping my distance.

“No,” I said,
“what’s going to happen to them? Are they going to be all right?”

“Shayna, that’s
not our concern,” my angel said, making the bottom of my stomach drop out. I
felt as if the world had turned on its side, and I thought I was going to fall
over. “You were my charge; they are not your charges, so you cannot concern
yourself with their fates.”

“But something
is going to happen, isn’t it?” I pressed. “My dying, that is going to do
something to them, isn’t it?”

“Shayna, just
come with me.”

“Why won’t you
answer me?”

“Shayna!” He
rushed forward, his hands outstretched. I dodged, hitting the ground and
rolling in a mass of limbs and wings. He tumbled forward, losing his balance
when I suddenly wasn’t there. Getting to my feet was difficult, but when I
finally did, I ran, flexing my wings behind me, working them desperately,
lifting and bobbing awkwardly in the air. I heard him yelling for me, still
tangled where he had fallen since he didn’t have the same desperate need
fueling him. The Light sliced through the air and trees easily. My back warmed
as it touched me, and the sensation to turn toward it pulled at me.

“No!” I
screamed, willing myself to go faster, farther, just get the hell away from it.
That’s when the burning began. Feathers ripped out of my wings, swirling around
me in a bloody mess. I started to fall as my wings collapsed and shredded
behind me, unable to hold my weight. I couldn’t feel the cold night air
anymore, but I could feel the heat of the wrath that rent my wings away from my
back. When I crashed to the ground, my back felt as though it was in tatters.
The pain of the two gaping wounds lanced through me, paralyzing me. Black and
silver feathers littered the ground around me, and slowly the skin on my back
knit back together.

My guardian
angel burst through the tree line, screaming for me. On my hands and knees, I
lifted my face to look at him. I had never seen a look of terror so raw, so
open before. The searching Light began to fade, taking the last bit of warmth I
could feel and sending my world into shadow. I crooked my fingers into the
Earth, trying to will it to open to me. That was when I knew I had lost my
powers; the Earth didn’t answer my call. I was no longer an Angel of the North,
and I no longer had dominion over the Earth.

I felt as though
that Hell Hound had raked his claws down my back again as I stumbled to my
feet, trying to run from my angel. He cried out for me and told me to stop. He
said that he could still fix it, that he could take me to the Light and make me
an angel again. But I knew, when he refused to answer me, that going with him meant
dooming my friends to a horrible fate, a fate he wouldn’t reveal to me.

My feet were like
clumsy blocks of cement. My legs refused to cooperate with me, and for every
step I took, I collapsed to the ground. I reached out as if something or
someone would help me, pull me to safety, and I felt the first coiling shadow
wrap around my wrist. My eyes sprang open, and I saw my hand fading into the
dark. Unable to get to my feet again, I rolled until my body sank into the
shadows as they wrapped around me and pulled me out of his reach.

“How much time?”
I asked, pulling myself out of that painful memory.

“It doesn’t
matter; it always comes,” he said.

“But how long?”
I caught myself before I stepped toward him. “I mean, this cemetery is over a
hundred years old. Some of these…” I hesitated, hunting for the right word.

“Souls,” the
angel said, still watching the horde.

“Fine, souls,” I
agreed. “Some of these souls are over a hundred and fifty years old.”

“What of it?”

“When did they
become like this?”

“Shayna.” He
said my name slowly, turning his golden eyes upon me. In their depths, I saw a
sadness that, in life, would have broken my heart. “I know what you’re doing.”

“You always do.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Just answer me.”
I struggled to keep from yelling. “Please. For once, just answer me.”

“It depends.”

“On?”

“Many things,”
he said cryptically. I tensed when he shifted his weight, the feathers of his
wings fluttering behind him as he resettled his wings. I held my tongue, waiting
for him to actually answer me. He remained silent for so long that I almost
broke, figuring he was finished, but then he said, “Mostly, it depends on the
soul’s purpose. But strength of will, strength of mind, and control over
emotions all matter.”

“Soul’s
purpose?” I repeated. “So what? If I were trying to hold on to avenge my
murder, it would be different than, say, trying to come back to life to save
the lives of two people?”

He sighed. “Yes.
Shayna, you are playing a dangerous game.”

“Maybe you
should’ve tried to stop me sooner.”

“I have been
here since the moment you died.”

“That’s not what
I mean.”

“Angels cannot
interfere with humans’ free will.”

“Please,” I said
with an ugly noise. “I think we both know I was far from human at the end
there.” I just couldn’t admit that when Liam pressed me to accept it, but now,
as a powerless wraith, I realized how much of my being was simply magic.

“Enough of you
was still human,” he said.

“If I hadn’t
died, would that have changed too?”

“Would you have
slipped further from being human?” he asked, and I nodded. “It was always a
possibility.”

“And you never
thought to warn me?”

“It wasn’t my
place.”

That time I did yell,
my fists raised as I shook violently. “You were my guardian angel!” When the
Earth didn’t tremble, the fight went out of me. My hands fell and my shoulders
slumped. None of my expectations, none of my natural reactions were normal
anymore.

His anger
finally rose to meet mine. “Steering you from your natural course is not our
place.” The heat in his voice gave me back some of my fight.

“What the hell
is a guardian angel good for then?” I screamed at him. “What about the times
you save people from near death? Huh? What about showing me how to use my
wings? What about that?”

“That was your
natural course! You made your choices; they led you here. You had warnings. You
didn’t have to go out that night, Shayna Brigit! You could have stayed away,
and you would still be alive right now!”

“And Amy would
have died.”

“Yes.” His
answer was so simple, so unfeeling, it contrasted completely with the look on
his face. I turned my back on him, unable to look at him anymore. He had been
there for me my entire life, guiding, helping, and now he wanted me to believe
that it wasn’t his place to interfere? He had just let me die.

“That’s not what
angels are supposed to do; we’re not supposed to just stand back and watch
someone die if we can help it,” I said over my shoulder. “Why else would people
say they were sent back after nearly dying? I mean, I was able to save that
little girl, Mandy. If I hadn’t been there, she would’ve died. No deity or
other angel stopped me from
altering her
natural course
.”

“Those lives
have more to give. They have not truly lived yet,” he said, cryptic as ever.

“And I had?” I spun
around to face him, letting my anger have sway with me. “I was eighteen years
old! How was my time up?”

“You lived longer
in those eighteen years than many will live in eighty.”

“So what?
Because I had powers, because I spent most of my life, hell, most of my
childhood
saving other people I had
lived enough?” I screamed, uncontrolled and animalistic, bending my back and tilting
my face toward the night sky. The nearby streetlamp flickered before going
dark.

“Are you
finished?” he asked, angering me so much that it took what little self-control
I had left not to rush at him and rip the feathers from his wings. Only the knowledge
that if I touched him, he could pull me into the Light kept me standing still.
I stood, glaring at him, trying to ignore the fleeting dizziness. He arched one
blond brow at me, as if he knew I felt the effects of losing control, just like
he warned me.

“You do realize
how unbelievably unfair all this is, right?” I demanded.

“Humans often
think so. Teenagers especially believe they are prone to injustices. You all
think life should be fair and balanced, as if you understand what that truly is.”

“Don’t,” I cut
him off. “I don’t want to hear it. We’re just going to go around and around,
and right now, I don’t have the time or patience to listen to you.”

We stared at
each other in silence. The only noise heard was the passing cars on Main Street.
Even the horde had gone quiet.

After I had my emotions
under control, I said, “So I still have time before that happens,” motioning
toward the graveyard.

He started opened
his mouth to speak, but I turned away from him, knowing he was just going to
lecture or try to dissuade me.

“Plenty of time,
I should think. If it takes me a hundred years to get back to life, it will be
pointless anyway; Jodi and Steven will be dead by then.” I glanced toward the
cemetery, looking away just as quickly. A moment later, the street light
flickered back to life, washing us and the sidewalk in a sickly yellow.

“Shayna.”

“I’ll just have
to be careful trying to get Steven’s attention, that’s all,” I said to myself, pointedly
not looking at my angel. “Screaming like I did at home took a lot of energy.
I’m sure that’ll affect me if I keep that crap up. Strength of will, huh?” I
looked up at him but looked away again before he could answer. “Yeah, I bet
losing control of your emotions like that really affects how strong your mind
is after a while.” I touched my forehead. I was glad the dizzy spell had passed
already, but it was a clear warning of what could happen.

“Shayna,” he
said again, but I didn’t answer him.

“I’ll just have
to figure out some other, easier parlor tricks to get his attention. That’s not
a big deal. I mean, I’ve done more than that before, right?”

“Shayna!”

I turned around
again and cut his reprimand off before he could finish. “You know, I have never
known your name.”

“Well,” he
stumbled, “you never asked.” I enjoyed his look of confusion, knowing I had
thrown him for a moment.

“It never really
occurred to me,” I said. “All those times we met, it seemed like we’d always
known each other, so what was a name?”

“We have always
known each other.”

“But you know my
name, and I don’t know yours,” I said. “Maybe if I had known how to call out to
you, maybe you would’ve helped me that night in the fire.”

“Shayna,” he
started again, shaking his head and dropping his eyes.

“So, what’s your
name?” I pressed. I was not interested in hearing him lecture me about my
natural course.
If my choices got me
here, then my choices would get me out of it.

“Oh, well,” he
stuttered in a very human way.

“Look, it’s only
fair that I know your name since you know mine.”

“Ashriel.” His
voice rang like a bell again, striking a cord somewhere deep inside of me. For
one moment, I felt alive again.

“Ashriel,” I
repeated, wishing I could say it as prettily as he did. “Nice to meet you,
finally.”

I turned again,
facing Anthony’s building. Just knowing Steven was in there somewhere pulled at
me. I didn’t take a step toward it though, figuring Ashriel had tracked me down
in order to stop me from going inside. I wrapped my arms around myself, holding
myself together.

“Shayna,” Ashriel
said, still not stepping toward me, but suddenly feeling much closer. “It is
unkind to haunt your loved ones.” My mind reeled as I had a moment of déjà vu,
hearing Liam’s voice saying the exact same words to me on the night I died.

“No.” I turned
to look at him, wishing I could fill my voice with power to make him understand.
“Leaving them was unkind.”

I stepped toward
the edge of the sidewalk, ready to cross the road to Anthony’s building. The
thought of seeing Steven, of making contact with him, gnawed at me.

“You’re not
going to try to stop me?” I glanced at Ashriel over my shoulder, cocking one
eyebrow at him.

“I am done
chasing you.”

“Just like
that?”

“No, not ‘just
like that,’” he said, his anger peeking out momentarily. “You think you still have
free will? Fine. I’ll let you come to me, but you remember what I said to you,
Shayna Brigit. If you lose sight of your purpose, if you lose control of your
mind and emotions, that is what awaits you.” He pointed at the cemetery, all
but forgotten next to us, and its fading and pointless horde of lost spirits.