Fury

I almost imagine I see Ryan hurrying away from me down a long corridor, bounded by light on all sides. I can’t bring back the dead. It’s not my gift, not my province. Only Azraeil — and one other — can claim that as their right.

Ryan! I cry out. Don’t leave me!

But his body continues to fail, and he seems to pull even further away. Hides his face from me, won’t turn around.

It’s growing too still, too quiet.

I’m going to lose him.

All I am, at this moment, is wild and undirected energy, shrill panic, unspeakable grief.

I force myself to still, to cease pursuing his ghost. To think.

The soul is ephemeral. The soul weighs less than the air a body needs in order to stay alive.

They say that the mind is the last thing to die. But the way … the way is in the heart. A holy man told me that, a long time ago, in another life, another time altogether.

Another wise man once said that the greatest evil is physical pain. But I’ve never shied away from dishing out pain, or taking it. And I know Ryan will forgive me, because I know of no other way.

I turn and gather myself. Like floodwater, like a rattlesnake striking. And hit him with the full force of me.

As if I have brought the lightning, the storm, inside, I beat down the doors of Ryan’s heart, and the whole world immediately turns red with pain and heat and noise.

There’s an abrupt sensation of coalescence, and I’m flung out of contact with Ryan’s body. The instant I come to, shaking and swearing to myself that I will never again do this thing to another living creature, Ryan takes a great, heaving breath.

His dark eyes fly open and he chokes and claws at the rigid muscles of his neck, at the place where I laid my hand upon him.

I don’t even think, I just pull him to me with trembling hands and bury my face in his dark hair. I’m holding him to me so tightly that the sound of his heartbeat, the murmur of his quickening blood, could be my own.

Thank you, I say silently and with reverence. Thank you.

He smells of rain and smoke and leather, and it’s the uncanniest thing, but being this close to him, having somehow personally wrested him from Azraeil’s grasp, I can feel his life force. I’m almost intoxicated by it.

It’s something I never felt when I was cast into Carmen and Lela, all the others. I never got a real sense of the peculiar human energies of all the people around me. But now, in Ryan, I can somehow … read it, or hear it, like music. It’s singing out of him — who he is; what he is.

He’s alive. He’s so alive.

Two walls meeting to my right form a sheltering angle and I lean into it, taking Ryan with me, still held fast in my arms. He’s retching and shuddering, and I remember how it was when I was trapped inside Lela’s dying body and the Archangel Gabriel gave me a personal reminder of the evils of possession. It felt like live current moving through me, as if I was touching eternity. How must it have seemed to Ryan?

It’s a long time before he can do anything except breathe with a raw sound, like someone who has survived a raging fire. All I can do is hold him and measure the passing seconds by the beating of his heart.

Finally, Ryan pushes away slightly, though he does not try to break my hold. I help him sit up, before reluctantly letting him go. This touching thing could get to be habit-forming, and the last thing I need now is a new addiction.

My left hand no longer burns with the mark of Luc’s betrayal. For an instant, I’m mesmerised by the sight of my own skin, my own fingers — how long it’s been since I’ve really seen them and felt as if they were a part of me. They are as unmarked and smooth as fired porcelain. I’m reminded with a jolt of Carmen’s eczema-scarred wrists, Lela’s small hands, Irina’s slender, tapered claws. I’ve left them all behind me now, truly.

Ryan breaks my reverie by raising his head to face me at last. His eyes are pain-filled. He looks at me for the longest time; studying my features, my glowing, strong-limbed form. He told me, once, that he kept a picture of me in his wallet — something a sketch artist put together on the strength of Lauren’s description. But he’s never really seen me, the real me. He’s only ever known me as a sharp-tongued presence, a wise-cracking ghoul, inhabiting a stranger’s body. Is he … disappointed?

But there’s awe in his expression, and a dawning gladness. There’s something else, too, in his eyes. Some kind of new-found awareness that was never there before.

I wonder what he saw when he journeyed through the valley of the shadow of death. Whether he witnessed things that cannot be reasoned away. The path, for every person, is different, they say.

We sit staring at each other, side by side, our backs to the rough stone. I focus solely on Ryan, on his face. It’s weird, but so long as I look at him, the feeling that I’m about to splinter apart, seems to lessen.

‘What …’ His voice is like something carried back on the wind from the afterlife. ‘What just … happened? It felt like I was …’

‘On fire?’ I say quietly.

He nods, wiping the blood from his mouth with the heel of one hand. ‘From the inside.’ He struggles to swallow, grimacing when it causes him pain. ‘I died, didn’t I? I was d—’

I put a hand to his lips to stop him saying more, in case Azraeil should be reminded of how he was cheated and think to return.

Ryan turns his face into my palm. I want so badly to trace the line of his mouth with my thumb, but I quickly let my hand fall before I can give in to weakness.

‘It takes a lot to heal someone,’ I reply cautiously. ‘And I don’t have a great track record at healing things, so cut me some slack.’

‘You saved me?’ His voice is raw. ‘You mean you were responsible for that … that …’ He inhales sharply at the memory of the pain and his fingers curl involuntarily where they rest upon his knees. When he turns his gaze back on me his eyes are almost accusing. ‘That was … you?’

I say gently, ‘Like I told you before, I’m not a “regular” girl, Ryan. And seeing as how I almost killed you, I figure we’re about even now.’

He coughs as he pulls himself more upright against the wall, and that familiar fringe of straight, dark hair falls into his eyes.

‘All I can remember is a bunch of steeples and …’ he frowns, ‘people? Am I right? Were there people up there? All rushing up to meet us, then blam, I hit something. Lights out. Then I wake to find you watching over me. Like some kind of angel …’

He looks at me sideways, deliberately casual, to gauge my reaction.

As I look down, discomfited by the intensity of his gaze, a strand of my own straight, dark hair falls across my face. Ryan bridges the gap between us, loops it gently behind my ear, briefly tracing down the line of my jaw as if he can’t help himself. His touch is so shattering, so damned human, that some cold, hard part of me feels as if it is giving way.

‘You feel so real,’ he rasps.

Self-preservation is instinctual in me now and I move out of reach, warning him raggedly, ‘Don’t.’

‘Or what?’ He sighs, leaning his head back against the wall. It’s so cold in here that his breath streams out white, like a cloud, or a soul departing.

‘You know, I’ve had my own freaky theories about you for some time now,’ he murmurs. ‘I went away and did my research like you said to, between dealing with a mountain of self-pity and anger and … grief.’ He shoots me another glance. ‘I don’t know how it’s possible … how you’re even possible. You’ve made me question everything I’ve ever believed in. I deserve a little more … clarity.’ His voice is strained. ‘I think I’ve, uh, earned it.’

Warily, from the safety of my corner, I meet his eyes.

‘For what it’s worth,’ he says, ‘I feel like everything’s new again between us. Like we’ve been given permission to … start over.’