Unearthly

His grip tightens. “Don’t be disrespectful.”

“She’s only a quarter, not worth your time. She’s little more than human.”

Her eyes flicker to mine, for a second. She has a plan.

“No,” says Sam stiffly. “I want her. Unless you’d rather it was you?”

“Go to hell,” she snaps.

His anger feels like a rising mushroom cloud to me, although the expression on his face doesn’t change.

“All right,” he says.

He murmurs something in Angelic, a word that for once I don’t understand, and suddenly the air around us shimmers and splits. There’s a shrieking sound, a tearing. The ground under our feet jolts slightly, the way it feels when someone drops something heavy on the floor. Then the earth I know peels away into a gray world.

It’s like the forest we were in but diminished to a bleak and hopeless wasteland. The shape of the land is the same as the place we left, the side of a mountain with trees, but here the trees have no leaves or needles. They’re just bare, gray trunks and twisted branches against the grainy, rumbling sky. There’s no color or smell or sound beyond occasional thunder. No birds. The light is fading like the sun is setting, and black storm clouds roll over what had been, on earth, a perfectly blue sky.

I’ve always envisioned hell as all hot fire and brimstone, lakes of sulfur, demons with horns and glowing eyes torturing the souls of the damned. But here the air’s so cold I can see my breath. A slimy kind of mist passes over, chilling me to the bone. I’m shivering like crazy.

Mom is brighter than everything else, still in black and white but like the contrast on her has been turned way up. Her skin glows radiantly white. Her hair is inky black.

The Black Wing loosens his grip on my arm. We both know I have nowhere to run now. He looks way more relaxed. In hell he’s bigger, taller, and meatier, if that’s possible. More powerful. His eyes gleam. He closes them for a moment, inhales deeply like he’s enjoying the feel of the air, and then his wings appear behind him.

They’re huge — much larger than Mom’s or mine — and an oily, absolute black, a dark hole opening up behind him, sucking all light into it.

He smiles, a sad smile. He’s proud of himself. The transition to hell from where we were is no easy thing. He wants to impress my mother.

“You’re a bigger fool than I thought,” Mom says bluntly. She doesn’t sound impressed. “You can’t keep us here.”

That’s good news to me.

“You forget who I am, Margaret.” He’s completely unruffled by her sass, charmed by it even. He’s being so patient. He prides himself on his patience. He knows she’s afraid. He’s waiting to see the cracks appear in her calm.

“No,” answers my mother softly. “You forget who I am, Watcher.”

I feel the fear stab through him, immediate and sharp. He’s not frightened of my mom, exactly, but someone else. Two people. I can see them vaguely in his mind, standing in the distance. Two men with snowy white wings. One with bright red hair and blazing blue eyes. The other, blond and golden-skinned and fierce, even though I can’t make out the particulars of his face.

But he’s holding a flaming sword.

“Who are they?” I whisper before I can stop myself.

Sam glances down at me, frowning.

“What did you say?”

He probes my mind again, a momentary pressure, and suddenly it’s as if a door slams between my thoughts and his. His hand drops away from me like I’ve burned him. The second he’s not touching me anymore his thoughts disappear. The anger and sadness are cut in half. I feel like I can move again. I can breathe. I can run.

I don’t think about it. I mash my foot down on his instep — not that that does any damage at all — and then dart forward, straight at my mother. She holds out her hand to me and I grab it. She tugs me behind her but doesn’t let go of my hand.

The Black Wing makes a sound like a growl that has the hairs on the back of my arm standing on end. There’s no mistaking the look on his face.

He will destroy us.

He extends his wings. The clouds over us crackle with energy. Mom squeezes my hand.

Close your eyes, she orders without speaking. I don’t know what shocks me more, that she can talk in my head or that she expects me to close my eyes at a moment like this. She doesn’t wait for me to obey. A bright light explodes around us.

Wherever its rays touch there’s a hint of color and warmth.

Glory.

The Black Wing instantly retreats, shielding his eyes. His face contorts in pain. For once his expression reflects the way he truly feels, like he’s being eaten up from the inside out.

Don’t look at him. Close your eyes, Mom orders again.

I shut my eyes.

Good girl, comes Mom’s voice in my head again. Now get out your wings.

I can’t. One of them’s broken.