World After (8 page)

Every detail of Raffe slicing the demons as they attack is clear. In slow motion, I can absorb his stance, the shifting of his weight, the way he holds the sword.

When he cuts a swath through the wave of monsters, that part of the dream stops. Then the sequence repeats.

This is like an instructional video of the organic kind.

I must have been seriously frustrated by my lack of sword-fighting skills to make all this up. My dream head hurts just thinking about it.

I put my sword up, mimicking Raffe’s stance. Why not? He is a master swordsman, and it’s possible that my subconscious picked up details when I saw him fight in real life that my waking brain didn’t. I try to swing, mimicking Raffe. But I must be doing it wrong because his swing repeats.

I try it again. Raffe completes his swing, rolls the sword, and swings back to complete a figure eight.

I do the same.

Slice to the left, swing up and around, slice to the right and back up and around. He does this a couple of times and then switches his tactic and stabs. Probably not a bad idea to make sure your moves aren’t predictable.

The sword adjusts itself here and there to improve my technique. It practically works itself, letting me concentrate on Raffe’s footwork. I’ve learned through years in various self-defense training that footwork is as important as what the arms and hands do.

He glides forward and back like a dancer, never crossing his feet. I mimic his dance.

Sinewy arms burst through the ground, spraying slow-motion dirt everywhere to grab the women. They pull themselves out of the soil, tearing up the earth and spitting it out of their mouths as they climb up.

Some of the women panic and run into the night.

“Stay with me!” Raffe yells.

But it’s too late. The hellions pounce on them and their screams intensify.

Raffe grabs the nearest woman as she’s being pulled into the ground by demonic hands. The sharp claws hook onto her flesh as she thrashes in slow-motion panic.

Raffe pulls her up out of the dirt, simultaneously swinging his sword while cutting and kicking at the monsters.

This is the way a hero fights.

I copy him, motion by motion, wishing I could help.

We fight, Raffe and I, all through the night.

I
WAKE
up trembling in the dark in that quiet time before sunrise. This dream was so vivid that it’s as if I was physically there. It takes a few minutes before my heart rate slows back to normal and my adrenaline dissipates.

I shift so my sword’s cross-guard isn’t poking into my ribs under the blanket. I lie listening to the wind, wondering where Raffe is now.

S
HE
HASN
’
T
eaten in three days.

My sister has drunk some water but that’s about all she’s managed to hold down. Mom and I coaxed her into swallowing a couple of spoonfuls of venison stew but she gagged that right up. We’ve tried everything from broth to vegetables. She can’t hold any of it down.

Mom is deeply worried. So much so that she’s hardly left Paige’s side since we found her in the basement lab of the aerie. Paige’s skin is corpse white. It’s as if all her blood drained through the red-stained holes of the uneven stitches.

“Look at her eyes,” says my mother, as though she understands that Paige’s otherness dominates when I look at her now.

But I can’t. I keep staring at her stitches while I offer her some cornbread. The cut on her cheek is crooked, as if the surgeon couldn’t be bothered to pay attention.

“Look at her eyes,” Mom says again.

I force myself to raise my eyes. My sister does me the favor of looking away.

It is not the eye motion of a beast. That would be too easy. It is the downcast look of a second grader who is all too familiar
with rejection. That’s the look she used to get when other kids pointed at her as she wheeled by in her wheelchair.

I could kick myself. I force myself to look at her but she won’t meet my eyes. “Do you want some cornbread? I got it fresh from the oven.”

She gives the slightest shake of her head. There’s nothing sullen about it, just sadness, as if she’s wondering if I’m mad at her or think bad thoughts about her. Somewhere behind her stitches and bruises, I glimpse the lost lonely soul of my sister.

“She’s starving,” says Mom. Her shoulders are slumped, her posture dejected. My mother is not exactly a glass-half-full kind of person. But I haven’t seen her feeling this hopeless since Paige’s accident when she lost the use of her legs.

“Do you think you can eat some raw meat?” I hate asking this. I’ve gotten so used to her being a strict vegetarian that it seems like I’m giving up on the idea of Paige being Paige.

She steals a glance at me. There’s guilt and shyness. But there’s eagerness too. She looks down again as if ashamed. Her gulp is unmistakable. Her mouth is watering at the thought of raw meat.

“I’m going to see if I can find some for her.” I put on my sword.

“You do that,” says Mom. Her voice is flat and dead.

I walk out, determined to find something that Paige can eat.

The cafeteria has a line like it always does. I need to come up with a story that convinces the kitchen workers that they should give me raw meat. I can’t think of a single reason. Even a dog will eat cooked meat.

So I reluctantly turn away from the food line and head for the grove across El Camino Real. I brace myself to go cave woman and hope I can catch a squirrel or rabbit. Of course, I have no idea what I’ll do with it if I catch it.

In my still-civilized mind, meat comes as packaged food in the refrigerator. But if I’m lucky, I’ll find out up close and
personal why Paige decided to go vegetarian when she was three years old.

On my way to the grove, I take a detour to do a little shopping first. Joking around with Dee-Dum the other day got me thinking. Guys want a weapon. A badass killing machine whose primary job is to intimidate when you wave it around. But if the same sharp sword was disguised as a cutesy cuddly toy, then the big bad men might look elsewhere for a weapon to steal.

I’m in luck. There’s a toyshop in the strip mall. The second I walk into the colorful store full of giant blocks and rainbow kites, I get a tug of nostalgia. I just want to hide in the play corner, surround myself with soft stuffed animals, and read picture books.

My mother has never been normal, but she was better when I was little. I remember running around in play corners like this, singing songs with her or sitting on her lap while she read to me. I run my hands over the soft plush of the panda bears and the smooth plastic of the toy trains, remembering what it was like when bears, trains, and moms made me feel safe.

It takes me a while to figure out what to do. I finally decide to slice the bottom of a teddy bear and jam it onto the hilt. I’ll just have to pull off the bear if I need to use the sword.

“Come on, admit it, Pooky Bear,” I say to the sword. “You love your new look. All the other swords will be jealous.”

By the time I cross the street to the grove, my teddy bear is wearing a multi-layered chiffon skirt made of a wedding veil that I found in one of the boutiques. I tinted the veil in the bathroom with the stained water of new clothes so that it no longer has that bridal white meant to attract the eye. The skirt falls just below the end of the scabbard, hiding it entirely—or it will when it dries. The backside is split open so that I can yank the bear and skirt off without having to think about it.

It looks ridiculous and says all kinds of embarrassing things about me. But one thing it doesn’t say is killer angel sword. Good enough.

I weave across the street and scale the chest-high fence that surrounds the grove. This area feels open, but there are enough trees to give dappled shade from the late afternoon sun. A perfect place for rabbits.

I pull off the stuffed bear, satisfied when it comes off so fast. I stand on the overgrown grass with the angel sword pointed like a divining rod. A certain angel, who shall remain nameless because I’m trying to stop thinking about him, told me that this little sword is not an ordinary sword. There’s enough weirdness in my life as it is but sometimes, you just have to go with it.

“Find a rabbit.”

A squirrel clinging onto the side of a tree laughs in a series of chirps.

“It’s not funny.” In fact, it’s as serious as can be. Raw animal meat is my best hope for Paige. I don’t even want to think about what will happen if she can’t eat that.

I charge the squirrel, my arms loose and ready to be adjusted by the sword. The squirrel takes off.

“Sorry, squirrel. One more thing to blame on the angels.” An image of Raffe’s face comes to mind—a halo of flames around his hair, showing lines of grief on his shadowed face. I wonder where he is. I wonder if he’s in pain. Adjusting to new wings must be like adjusting to new legs: painful, lonely, and during war, dangerous.

I heave the sword above my head. I can’t look and I can’t not look, so I do a weird combination of turning my head and squinting while looking just enough to be able to aim.

I swing the sword down.

The world suddenly tilts, making me dizzy.

My stomach lurches.

My vision falters and flashes.

One second, the sword is coming down on the squirrel.

The next second, the sword is being held up to an azure sky.

The fist that’s holding it is Raffe’s. And the sky is not my sky.

He hovers at the head of an army of angels who stand below him in formation. His glorious wings, white and whole, frame his body, making it look like a statue of a Greek warrior god.

R
AFFE
RAISES
his sword into the air. The legion of angels lift their swords in response. A war cry goes up as row after row of winged men take flight.

It’s a breathtaking sight to see so many angels lift in formation. The legion flies to battle, led by Raffe.

There’s a whisper of a concept in my head.

Glory.

Then, as quick as a heartbeat, the blue sky and winged men disappear.

We’re in a field at night.

A horde of scary-as-all-hell, bat-faced demons rush at me like an avalanche, screeching a hellish cry. Raffe steps ahead and starts swinging his sword with perfect precision, just like in my dreams.

Fighting beside him and protecting his back are angel warriors, some of whom I’ve seen before at the old aerie. They’re joking and egging each other on as they fight and defend each other from the monsters of the night.

Another concept echoes in my head.

Victory.

The scene changes again and we’re in the sky, only this time it’s in the middle of a lightning storm. Thunder rumbles through
the dark clouds and lightning lights up the scene in stark contrasts. Raffe and a small group of warriors hover in the rain, watching another group of angels get dragged away in chains.

The prisoners fly with spiked shackles around their wrists, ankles, neck and head. The spikes are on the inside so they’re driven into their flesh. Blood washes away with the rain in jagged rivulets down their faces, hands, and feet.

A squat, bat-faced demon with bat wings rides on the shoulders of each prisoner. The demons hold the chains to the collar, using it as a bridle. They jerk the chains one direction, then another, cruelly driving the spikes in and making them fly like drunks. More hellions hang off some of the ankle and wrist shackles that bind the prisoners to each other.

Some of these angels had fought beside Raffe in the field. They had laughed with him and protected his back. Now, they watch him with excruciating pain in their eyes as they’re driven like tortured cattle.

The other angels watch with immense sadness, some with their heads bowed. But Raffe is the only one who flies out of the group, brushing hands with a few of the prisoners on his way down toward earth.

As the scene fades, another word takes shape in my head.

Honor.

And then, I’m standing under the trees again in Stanford’s grove.

My stomach lurches as I finish my swing and smash the blade into the ground where the squirrel stood a second ago. My hands are clenched so tightly around the hilt that my knuckles feel like they might split.