Hallowed

“She’s breathing,” I tell Tucker. “Her pulse is strong.” He bows his head in relief. “We have to call 9-1-1. Right now. Where’s your phone?” Back to the car I go. It’s totaled, the whole front end completely mangled like I hit a telephone pole at eighty. No sign of the angel. Maybe he poofed himself back to hell. I go back to the driver’s side and start digging around in the mess for the small black clutch with my phone in it. I can’t find it anywhere. This feels so surreal, like it’s not even really happening, a bad dream.

“I don’t know where it is,” I cry. “I know I had it when we left.”

“Clara,” Tucker says slowly.

“Just give me a minute. I know it’s here.”

“Clara,” he says again.

Something in his voice stops me. It sounds like it did that day in the mountains when we hiked to see the sunrise, when the grizzly bear came out of the brush. Don’t run, Tucker had said, exactly that way. I move like molasses back out of the car, straighten up, look toward his voice, and freeze.

Samjeeza is standing next to Tucker. There’s not a scratch on him. My car looks like it’s been through a compactor, but here he is, smiling slightly, his posture all casual, like he and Tucker are merely hanging out at the side of the road. He’s holding my cell phone.

“Hello, little bird,” he says. “Good to see you again.”

That name sends a jolt of fear and revulsion straight to the pit of my stomach. My entire body starts to tremble.

“You hit me with your car,” he observes. “Is this your boyfriend?” He turns to Tucker as if he wants to shake his hand, but Tucker looks away, at the ground, at the car, anywhere but into the angel’s burning amber eyes. His hands clench into fists.

Samjeeza gives a short laugh. “He’s considering whether or not he should hit me. After you struck me with your car, he still thinks that maybe he should fight me.” He shakes his head.

The motion has that strange blur to it, like there are really two of him, one laid on top of the other, a human body, and some other creature. I’d almost forgotten about that. “Humans,” he says with cheerful amusement.

I swallow so hard it hurts my throat. I refuse to look at Wendy lying there. I can’t look at Tucker, either; I can’t be afraid for him right now. I have to be strong. Find a way to get us all out of this. “What do you want?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice steady.

“An excellent question, one I’ve asked myself for a very long time. I was angry with you, little Quartarius, since you. .” He turns his head and lifts his hair to show me his ear, which even in the dark looks misshapen. It’s growing back, I realize. I pulled it off last summer, when I had the glory in my hands, and all this time he’s been growing it back.

“I didn’t try to. .,” I say. “I didn’t mean. .”

He waves his hand at me dismissively, turns back. “Of course you did. But it’s not worth getting upset over.”

“Why are you here?” I ask. “Let’s just skip to that part, okay? If you’re going to destroy me, do it already.”

“Oh no,” he says, like the idea offends him, like the last time I saw him he didn’t try to do exactly that. “I want to talk to you. I’ve been watching you, and you seem unhappy, my dear.

Conflicted. I wondered if I could help.”

“You don’t want to help me.”

“Oh, but I do,” he says. “I’ve found you very interesting, fascinating even, ever since I first came upon you. There’s something your mother’s hiding about you, I think.”

“She told me all about you,” I say.

His eyebrows lift. “All about me? Really. Well, that’s a good story, but not so relevant to you. What interests me more is what you’re expected to do. Your purpose. Your visions. Your dreams.”

“My purpose doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

He shakes his head. “Or is it something else?” I feel him prodding around in my brain.

“She hasn’t told you,” he says, disappointed. “I would feel it on you if you knew.” The dumb thing is, I’m curious. I want to know what he’s talking about, and of course he knows that, which is why he’s smiling, and now I’m playing right into his hands because I’m thinking about what he’s saying instead of how to get us away from him.

I can’t help it. “She hasn’t told me what?” I ask.

He holds out my phone. “Let’s ask her.”

Do something! I need to come up with a strategy, bring the glory, which feels impossible with the heavy cloak of his sorrow around me . The cobwebs in my head won’t go away, his sorrow clouding everything.

Think.

“Is this some kind of plan to take me hostage? Because I’m sure Mom will think that’s super romantic.”

His expression darkens. “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret,” he says, and steps closer to Tucker.

I meet Tucker’s eyes. He swallows, a jerk of his Adam’s apple. He’s scared. Samjeeza’s going to kill him, I think. This is why he’s not in the cemetery. It would be so easy for Samjeeza — it would only take a moment, a flick of his wrist. Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I see this? All those months I spent trying to think of how to protect him, then dismissing it all when I found out about my mom, and now it comes to this.

I wish I could tell him I’m sorry to have drawn him into my insane life.

“Go on, call her,” Samjeeza says.