The Watcher (13 page)

Michael flanked my left side, tense as a bow ready to spring. “Leave her out of it,” he said. “It’s me you want.”

In that moment I knew he might have to fight to protect me, and if he did he would think nothing of it—even if he got hurt. And as much as I was scared for him, I was twice as grateful he was there.

Light grew around Michael as darkness built around Damiel, and the energy between them pulsed and throbbed as though the two forces had a life of their own. The dark smoke reached toward the light and then pulled back, reverberating—gaining in mass—until it arced back and slammed into the light with all the violence of waves against rock. While the rock would hold, with enough time and pressure it could also be eroded. Could darkness erode light?

“It’s
her
that I want,” Damiel said, and his eyes flashed a terrifying shade of red, the same as in my dream. I inhaled sharply and the red was gone. His tone changed to one of mocking. “Besides, how can I leave her out of it when you can’t? She’s always been a part of it—thanks to you.”

Before I could ask what Damiel meant, who Michael might be to me, the dark smoke drew closer, swirling around me, forming spikes like an iron maiden. The scents of creosote and sulfur filled my nose.

I coughed. “Michael, what’s happening?”

Damiel’s smile broadened, chilling me. “See? You can’t stop me. She’s a weakness to you now as she’s always been. She’ll take you down again, Michael.”

Again?

The darkness encased me. Spiraling tendrils drilled the light around us and inched toward my skin, piercing and burning with a mixture of pleasure and pain—both captivating and revolting. The evil eye necklace quickened at my throat.

Michael whispered in my ear, his voice taking on that musical quality I’d heard before. “Trust me. It’s okay. Don’t worry.” His fingers against my collarbone sent a rush of light and heat through me like sunlight, reminding me how cold I was. I leaned into him as though I were drowning and he was dry land.

“You have no idea what
he’s
capable of,” Damiel said. “The things he’s done.” There was a force behind his words that made the necklace thrum like a tiny, terrified heartbeat. Darkness amassed behind him, and the light from Michael faded.

I needed to do something.

“Leave, Damiel,” I said. “Leave now!”

A jolt of energy pulsed through me, thrusting against the darkness. Damiel staggered from the force of it. Anger and revulsion crossed his face.

“Good,” Michael said. “Use your free will.”

“I think it’s time you remembered,” Damiel said. With one hand he covered my face, and the force of blackness around him enveloped me again. Before I could blink, a flurry of images poured into my mind—senseless scenes of darkness and fear.

“Don’t touch her!” Michael erupted and charged Damiel, heaving him down the front steps. Damiel laughed as he regained his balance with an unnatural grace, and his features creased and darkened, making him look more monster than human. With a snap of his fingers, the streetlights extinguished and blackness enveloped the area. All that remained was a dim porch light. He swung wildly at Michael.

As Michael dodged and parried his blows, the light around him grew. It glowed brighter and stronger, until a transparent blue shimmer formed like gossamer behind him into an outline of wings.

Damiel noticed it too and it seemed to compound his fury. Quickening his attack, he landed a fist on Michael’s temple and Michael staggered, blinking sweat from his eyes. Damiel lunged at him again but Michael recovered quickly, leaping up onto Damiel’s black Maserati, his boots denting the hood.

Pulling a weapon from behind his back, Michael swung a sword around himself that flamed a brilliant blue. Damiel ducked and backed away, but the sword made contact, slicing his cheek. I gasped. Although it visibly weakened him, it didn’t leave a mark.

I saw Michael in that other time and place as if it were a dream. He was still beautiful, but more severe, pained, like he lived his life in shadows. In the background stood someone equally beautiful: Damiel. How was it possible? Could all three of us have existed both then and now?

“See the way she’s looking at you?” Back in the present, Damiel goaded Michael. “It’s just a matter of time before she knows what you are—Brother.” His words had the same effect as Michael’s sword, cutting him down without leaving a mark. He stepped in, grabbing Michael’s arm above the wrist, trying to take his weapon. “That is, if she doesn’t go insane first.”

The images flooded in faster than I could make sense of them, leaving me dizzy and sick from the recollection. I leaned into the doorway for support.

A cold rage came over Michael. With his left hand he threw a solid jab that connected with Damiel’s chin, throwing him backward and downing him. Raising his sword, Michael stood over him, ready to strike. He looked at me briefly and there was a note of sadness between us as he drove the sword right through Damiel’s heart. Damiel let out an inhuman shriek and the black mass that hovered around his body disappeared, as though the air around him had just opened and swallowed it up.

A scream caught in my chest, unable to escape. I could hardly breathe. The necklace, which had vibrated since Damiel’s arrival, stilled.

Crouching beside the limp body, Michael placed his hands over its heart and pressed his lips to its forehead. The boy opened his eyes.

“W–where am I?” the boy stammered, sitting up. His voice, smooth and pleasant, held traces of an Italian accent. Even his features were different from Damiel’s now: coarser, more masculine, less otherworldly in their beauty—more human.

“What’s your name?” Michael asked, offering him his hand. “Can you stand up?”

The boy accepted and stood groggily. “Giulio.”

“You should go home. Your family’s been worried about you.” Michael placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Do you know where you live?”

Giulio nodded and Michael helped him into his car.

After Giulio left, Michael turned back to me and let out his breath. The fight with Damiel had popped a few buttons on his shirt. It gaped open, exposing a tightly muscled chest. The flashes of memory I’d seen in that other reality were fading as disbelief took hold of my thoughts. Even this battle with Damiel seemed unreal.

But what did seem inescapably real was Mom’s Toyota pulling up the road and Michael quickly zipping up his sweatshirt to cover his torn shirt. In all the evening’s tension, I’d forgotten she would be home so soon. It was barely seven-thirty. How had so much transpired in so little time? As Mom’s car pulled into the driveway, Michael strode up the drive.

“He’ll be back. That boy Giulio has no defenses against him,” he said. “If not him, he’ll find someone else to possess.”

My knees slackened. Luckily I was still leaning against the doorjamb for support. I really needed to sit down. “He was possessed?”

“It’s what demons do.”

What
? Surely I’d heard him wrong. “You mean Damiel is a…”

In the doorway, Michael stood so close that the heat of his body sheltered me from the cold night air. All I could think about was the dream I’d had the night before, the good part where he’d kissed me. I wished it were real.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” he said quietly and stepped inside.

Mom eased out of her car as though tired from a long day at the hospital. When she came in, I greeted her with a hug, glad for the sense of normality her presence brought. I tried not to think about what had just happened so the shock and horror of it wouldn’t show on my face. But I could already see her curious expression when she registered my behavior, my new outfit, and then Michael standing by the sofa. We looked more like we were going on a date than friends hanging out, which was the story I’d told her last night.

“Mom, this is my friend Michael,” I said, introducing him.

Mom smiled, her eyes sparkling.
God, please don’t let her say anything embarrassing.
“Hi, Michael,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Hello, Mrs. Crawford,” he responded, shaking her hand. He was so steady, as though this was
normal
for him. Did he battle demons all the time?

“Shelly, please,” my mother corrected. “Mrs. Crawford is my ex-husband’s mother.”

I tried not to gawk. None of my friends
ever
called her by her first name.

She turned to me. “What’s the scoop? I thought you said you were going out with your friends.”

I didn’t know what to say. So much had happened tonight I was afraid to speak for fear that everything I’d seen and heard would pour out of me in one big purge.

“There was a change of plans,” Michael chimed in. “We’re going to hang out a bit, maybe get something to eat.”

Mom looked at me to verify he was telling the truth. I nodded dumbly, grateful for his quick thinking. He hadn’t even lied.

“I’m going to take a long, hot bath.” She fussed with my jacket collar and smoothed a lock of my hair back into place. “The living room’s all yours if you want it.”

“Thanks.”

“I should…” She motioned to her room and grinned. Then she whispered in my ear encouragingly, “He’s cute.”

“Mom!” I whispered, glancing at Michael to make sure he hadn’t heard her. Even with his hair messy from fighting, he looked more like a movie star at a photo shoot than someone who had just fought off a demon.

Fought a
demon!
We had a lot to talk about indeed.

Chapter Thirteen

Michael went outside to split some logs while I paced the living room, trying to collect my thoughts. Damiel was a
demon
. If I hadn’t seen that black smoke around him attack me like something out of a horror movie, I never would have believed it. And what were those weird images? They came in too quickly to make any sense.

Fiona used to say that she would love it if a guy fought for her, but having just been in that position, I could honestly say it was terrifying. Michael could have been hurt. He tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen.

Michael came in with an armful of logs and placed them in front of our old brick fireplace. Crouching on the floor beside them, he grabbed a piece of newspaper and crumpled it in his smooth, strong hands.

I knew his hands when they were callused.
How could I know that? Mom told me once that people who experienced psychotic breaks saw things that weren’t really there. Was that what was happening to me?

The light was suddenly too bright. I rubbed my eyes, pressing with my fingers. I didn’t even know where to begin. “This is crazy. Am I hallucinating?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I kept pacing, the heels of my boots noisy on the oak parquet floors. My thoughts—like a tongue to a broken tooth—kept returning to that small mud-plaster house. Pinkish yellow morning sun filtered through the open doorway. Michael was outside, wearing robes of some kind. He was so tall he had to stoop to come in.

“Why do I keep seeing things? It feels as if I
know
you, but not from now. Everything’s…” I realized I couldn’t bring myself to explain the way things looked. Nothing made sense. “Different.”

Raking a hand through his hair, he glanced down the hallway to see if my mother was within earshot. Her door was closed, but I could hear the water running for her bath.

“Those are memories,” he said.

Memories?
It was one thing to have hallucinations, but to have them confirmed was something else. Visions of him flashed before me, too numerous to track. Darkness and light. Some were present-day—fighting with Damiel. Others seemed to come from another time.

I shook my head, as if I could shake them away. “It’s too unreal.”

His back toward me, he stacked small logs around the paper in the fireplace, making a teepee. “Reality isn’t what you think.”

“I don’t know what to believe. It seems like a different life.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said.

“What do you mean a long time ago?
How
long?” I pressed.

Michael struck a match and held it to the paper. Flames licked yesterday’s front-page news, consuming a scrunched color photo of the Space Needle. “You tell me.”

I closed my eyes to hold onto what I was seeing. It was
before
the Roman Empire,
before
the Chinese Dynasties, even
before
Mesopotamia, but try as I might I couldn’t register how long ago it was. My mind spun. I’d been fascinated with ancient cultures most of my life, only to find out that I’d lived in one. I had
been
there.

Buzzing like I’d had too much coffee, I collapsed on the couch. “How can that be? Both of us remembering that far back? It’s impossible.”

“No, not impossible,” he said. “Improbable. There’s nothing left of that time, no artifacts, no written records. Everything it once was has washed into the sea. People can’t remember their past lives that far back. If Damiel hadn’t tried to dislodge your memory from this life and
throw
it back into that one—”

“Damiel did
what
?” I scowled at him.

“I stopped him.”

“Michael. Tell me what’s going on!”

Sighing, he blew the flames until one of the logs caught. The light from the fire cast an orange shine in his hair. “I’ve been given another chance.”

“Another chance for what?”

The air around us grew still and cold and the fire gave off too little heat. I shivered.

Michael got up and sat on the couch beside me. Resting his elbows on his knees, he tented his fingertips together; they were gray from the newsprint.

“I’d been sent to watch,” he said. “I saw many things over the years and at first I thought all there was to this world was sickness, brutality, and death.”

His skin drew a little tighter to the bone and filled with golden light, as though he shone from within. “But one day I saw you…and you were the most beautiful thing…” Heat rushed through my chest: he’d called me
beautiful.
“I became obsessed, neglecting my duties to watch you each day…preparing food, gathering flowers to make dyes for the fabric you wove.”