Cynthia Hand
Hallowed
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
Prologue
In the dream, there’s sorrow. I feel it over everything else, a terrible grief that chokes me, blurs my sight, weighs down my feet as I move through the tall grass. I walk among pine trees up a gentle slope. It’s not the hillside from my vision, not the forest fire, not anyplace I’ve seen before. This is something new. Overhead the sky is a pure, cloudless blue. Sun shining. Birds singing. A warm breeze stirring the trees.
A Black Wing must be nearby,
“Jeffrey,” I murmur.
He doesn’t look at me. He says, “Let’s just get this over with.” I wish I knew what he meant.
Then someone takes my hand, and it’s familiar, the heat of his skin, the slender yet masculine fingers enfolding mine. Like a surgeon’s hand, I once thought. Christian’s. My breath catches. I shouldn’t let him hold my hand, not now, not after everything, but I don’t pull away. I look up the sleeve of his suit to his face, his serious green gold-flecked eyes. And for an instant the sorrow eases.
Chapter 1
Looking for Midas
Bluebell’s not blue anymore. The fire has transformed Tucker’s 1978 Chevy LUV into a mix of black, gray, and rusty orange, the windows shattered by the heat, the tires missing, the interior a sickening blackened twist of metal and melted dashboard and upholstery. It’s hard to believe, looking at it now, that a few weeks ago one of my favorite things in the world was riding around in this old truck with the windows rolled down, letting my fingers trail through the air, sneaking glances over at Tucker just because I liked looking at him. This is where everything happened, pressed against Bluebell’s beat-up, musty seats. This is where I fell in love.
And now it’s all burned up.
Tucker’s staring at what’s left of Bluebell with grief in his stormy blue eyes, one hand resting on the scorched hood like he’s saying his final good-byes. I take his other hand. He hasn’t said a lot since we got here. We’ve spent the afternoon wandering through the burned part of the forest, searching for Midas, Tucker’s horse. Part of me thought this was a bad idea, coming out here again, looking, but when Tucker asked me to bring him here I said yes. I get it — he loved Midas, not only because he was a champion rodeo horse, but because Tucker had been there the night Midas was born, watched him take his first shaky steps, raised him and trained him and rode him on practically every horse trail in Teton County. He wants to know what happened to him. He wants closure.
I know the feeling.
At one point we came across the carcass of an elk, burned nearly to ash, which for an awful moment I thought was Midas until I saw the antlers, but that was all we found.
“I’m sorry, Tuck,” I say now. I know I couldn’t have saved Midas, no way I could have flown carrying Tucker and a full-grown horse out of the burning forest that day, but it still feels like my fault, somehow.
His hand tightens in mine. He turns and shows me a hint of dimple.
“Hey, don’t be sorry,” he says. I loop an arm around his neck as he pulls me closer. “I’m the one who should be sorry for dragging you out here today. It’s depressing. I feel like we should be celebrating or something. You saved my life, after all.” He smiles, a real smile this time, full of warmth and love and everything I could ask for. I tug his face down, finding all kinds of solace in the way his lips move over mine, the thump of his heart against my palm, the sheer steadiness and strength of this boy who stole my heart. For a minute I let myself get lost in him.
I failed at my purpose.
I try to push the thought away, but it lingers. Something twists inside me. A sharp gust of wind hits us, and the rain, which was drizzling on us before, starts to come down harder. It’s been raining for three solid days, ever since the fires. It’s cold, that kind of chilly damp that passes right through my coat. Fog rolls between the blackened trees.
Reminds me of hell, actually.
I pull away from Tucker, shivering.
God, I need therapy, I think.
Right. As if I can picture telling my story to a shrink, stretched out on a sofa talking about how I’m part angel, how all angel-bloods have this purpose we’re put on earth to fulfill, how on the day of my purpose I happened to bump into a fallen angel. Who literally took me to hell for about five minutes. Who tried to kill my mother. And how I fought him with a type of magical holy light. Then I had to fly off to save a boy from a forest fire, only I didn’t save him. I saved my boyfriend instead, but it turns out that the original boy didn’t need saving, anyway, because he’s part angel, too.
Yeah, somehow I have the feeling that my first visit to a therapist would end with me in a straitjacket getting comfy in my new padded cell.
