My voice was distant and seemed to belong to someone else. "I should go north. Scotland. There are many remote villages in the Highlands. Maybe we should go to one of the isles."
Nathaniel exhaled and put a hand on my shoulder. He gave a gentle squeeze. "Skye is beautiful. Every child should grow up in such a magical place."
I smiled. "The Isle of Skye it is."
Epilogue.
Five years later THE SEA RAVAGED THE EDGES OF THE CLIFFS, slowly tearing them down and carving the coastline over the course of thousands of years. I stood on the edge, letting the cold, salty wind whip through my hair and billow my skirts in the air. The gulls cried mournfully overhead and my child"s laughter echoed through the hills, bringing a smile to my face. I turned my head to watch William roll through a patch of clover and stop to pluck a fat, purple blossom. He climbed clumsily to his feet and ran over to where I stood.
"Mama," he said, and raised his hand, clutching the blossom, to present it to me.
I dropped to my knees and scooped him into my arms, planting a kiss on his plump cheek and brushing his dark, wavy hair off his forehead. "For me?" I asked, and took the blossom from his fingers. "Thank you, sweetheart. It"s beautiful."
I began to sing to my son as I gazed into his sweet face, into the innocent whimsy brightening his green eyes. He melted in my arms and his little white wings folded at his back, the downy feathers brushing my skin, his white wings that were just like Bastian"s. He had demonic blood running through his veins like his father, but he was angelic through and through. With each day, I could see a little more of Bastian in his features, but his heart, I prayed, would be like mine, as were his eyes. William would never know his father, and that was a tragedy. If their paths were ever to cross, years or centuries from now, they would be strangers or possibly even enemies.
Nathaniel was as close to a father as Will would ever have, but he was careful not to be fatherly. He tried to a.s.sume the role of a big brother more than anything, because that was safe where I was involved. It put no pressure on me. He was in love with me. I knew this now. But even after five years, I was not ready to open my heart to anyone, even to someone so close to it, even to someone who helped raise a child by another man. The only love in my life now was my son, and I loved him more than I could ever love anything. He was my world.
Still, I missed Nathaniel. He had finished copying Antares"s grimoire and now searched for a way to summon the archangel Michael so that the book could be pa.s.sed to a proper relic guardian. Nathaniel didn"t want that responsibility. He was strong, but he wasn"t built to fight as I was. He didn"t live for it the way I did.
Soon I would teach Will what I knew so he could learn to protect himself. Already I could feel his power flare sometimes, when he was happy or throwing a baby tantrum. He would have immense power one day when he was grown. It was guaranteed. I had great power for a young reaper, and Bastian"s strength was terrifying. Will had Grigori lords close to him on both sides of his family tree: Antares and Aldebaran. Constance had told me Gabriel must have known a child between Bastian and me would have a great future, but everyone"s definition of great varied.
Will had the potential to be a celebrated fighter, perhaps one of the most powerful of our kind, but I wished he could live a life of peace. For the angelic, though, that was impossible. Not if there were powerful demonic reapers like Bastian gathering support against the angelic and making serious efforts to destroy the Preliator, our last chance at preserving the human race. The future looked grim and we needed those who were destined to be great. Perhaps Gabriel believed my little Will could one day determine our final victory or defeat in this war with the demonic. It was hard to believe now, as I watched him pull earthworms out of the ground at my feet, that he would be a warrior on the front lines someday.
I thought of Bastian and prayed he would never get his hands on the grimoire or Nathaniel"s copy. He had Belial"s dagger and I feared the dark purpose he had in store for it, which was likely related to what he"d intended to use the power of the grimoire for, an ingredient to a spell he needed that was contained within those ancient pages. Inevitably, dark days were coming.
I stopped singing as a warm, familiar power came rolling across the ground and combing through the gra.s.s. I looked up to see Nathaniel emerge from the Grim and land beside my little cabin on the hill, his wings shimmering copper in the sunlight. He waved and I waved back before hugging Will tight to me.
"Look, sweetheart," I said to him softly, and pointed toward the house. "Look who has returned."
William twisted in my arms and peered up the hill. His green eyes brightened and he smiled toothily. "Nathaniel!"
He wrestled away from me and bounded toward Nathaniel, who stooped to his knees to embrace my child. I watched them together, listened to their voices as the wind carried toward me their exchange of tales of adventure and mysterious guardians in faraway lands, and I bit my lip, falling into thought. Perhaps the future wasn"t so grim after all and our stories were just beginning.
Read on for what becomes of these characters in Angelfire,
the first book in Courtney Allison Moulton"s gripping trilogy.
1.
I STARED OUT THE CLa.s.sROOM WINDOW AND longed for freedom, wanting to be anywhere in the world other than gaping up at my economics teacher like the rest of my cla.s.smates. The last time I had listened to him, Mr. Meyer had been lecturing about fiscal policy, and that was when he"d lost me. My eyes rolled over to my best friend, Kate Green, who was doodling intricate flowers all over her notes and looked like she was thoroughly entertaining herself. Meanwhile, I was reduced to staring at the wiry, gray chest hair puffing out at the collar of Mr. Meyer"s polo shirt like overgrown steel wool and wondering whether he"d ever considered waxing.
Finally, after another tedious twenty minutes, the bell rang at two thirty and I leaped to my feet, instantly energized. Kate stuffed her papers into her notebook and followed me up the aisle between the desks. The other seniors and a handful of juniors all filed out swiftly, as if they"d only been given a five-second window to escape or they would never get out alive.
"Miss Monroe?" Mr. Meyer called after me just before I left the room.
I turned to Kate. "Your locker in five?"
She nodded and left the room with the rest of the students until I was left alone with our teacher. Mr. Meyer smiled from behind his thick eyegla.s.ses and beckoned me over to his desk.
I took a deep breath, having a pretty good idea of what this discussion might be about. "Yes, sir?"
His smile was warm and friendly, his coa.r.s.e, gray beard wrinkling around his thin lips. He pushed his gla.s.ses back up his nose. "So last week"s quiz didn"t go very well, did it?"
I braced myself. "No, sir."
He tilted his head up at me. "Last year in my civics cla.s.s you were doing very well, but the last few months of cla.s.s, your grades began to slip. Since school began this year, they"re worsening. I want to see you succeed, Ellie."
"I know, Mr. Meyer," I said. Excuses ran through my head. In truth, I was distracted. Distracted by college applications. Distracted by my parents" constant fighting. Distracted by the nightmares I experienced every single night. Of course, I wasn"t going to talk to my economics teacher about my issues. They weren"t any of his business. So I gave him a vague response in return. "I"m sorry. I"ve been distracted. There"s a lot that"s happened in the last year."
He leaned forward, digging his elbows into the cluttered desk. "I understand the senioritis thing. College, friends, Homecoming, boys ... There are countless things grabbing your attention from every angle. You"ve got to stay focused on what"s really important."
"I know," I said glumly. "Thank you."
"And I don"t mean just schoolwork," he continued. "Life is going to test you in ways it never has before. Don"t let your future change the good person you are or make you forget who you are. You"re a nice girl, Ellie. I"ve enjoyed having you in my cla.s.ses."
"Thanks, Mr. Meyer," I said with an honest smile.
He sat back in his chair. "This cla.s.s isn"t so hard. I know if you just apply yourself a little more, you"ll get through it. My cla.s.s is nothing compared to what"s out there in the real world. I know you can do this."
I nodded, a.s.suming he saved this speech for everyone who got a D on a twenty-question quiz, but he spoke with such sincerity that I wanted to fall for it. "Thanks for believing in me."
"I don"t say this to everyone whose grades start to fall," he said, as if reading my mind. "I mean it. I believe in you. Just don"t forget to believe in yourself, okay?"
I smiled wider. "Thanks. See you tomorrow?"
"I"ll be here," he said, rising weakly to his feet. "Your birthday is coming up, right?"
I gave him a puzzled look. "Yeah, how"d you know? Do you want me to bring cupcakes to pa.s.s around or something?"
He laughed. "No, no. Unless you really want to, I mean, be my guest. But, happy birthday, Miss Monroe."
"Thanks, sir." I smiled and gave him a polite wave before turning away. As I left the cla.s.sroom, I couldn"t help thinking that speech was a little heavy for an economics teacher about to retire to Arizona.
I found Kate by her locker. She frowned at me as I walked up to her.
"What did Meyer want?"
I shrugged. "He wants me to apply myself more."
She smiled. "Well, I think you"re perfect."
"Thanks," I said, laughing. "Are you coming straight over to study for Thursday"s math test?"
She shook her head and pulled her blond hair over one shoulder as she dug her backpack out of her locker. "I"m going tanning first," she said.
"Why? It"s September and you still look like you hang out at the beach all day." I b.u.mped her shoulder with mine and grinned. Her skin was a glorious golden tone, but I still teased her that she"d end up looking like the other orange Barbie dolls at school if she kept going.
"I"m determined not to get pasty this winter like you always do." Kate was very pretty, and even when she scowled she looked glamorous. She was also almost a head taller than me, but that wasn"t a huge feat. I was a couple of inches shorter than most of the girls my age.
"I"m not pasty." I glanced down at my arm sneakily so she wouldn"t notice. I wasn"t that pasty.
"This dazzling skin isn"t easy to achieve, you know." She stroked her collarbone for effect and laughed.
I stuck my tongue out at her before we moved on to my own locker. I dumped my bio book inside and stuffed my lit materials into my bag to take home. My paper on Hamlet was due the next week, so I needed to get started on it. A thud against the locker next to mine made me look up.
Landon Brooks leaned his shoulder against the locker and ran a hand through his professionally highlighted caramel-colored hair. He was one of those guys who thought surfer hair was the only way to go, even here in Michigan, where there is nowhere to surf. In fact, that was how most of the soccer team felt. Landon was my school"s star forward, so of course whatever he thought was awesome everyone else agreed was awesome too. "So what"s up with this party Sat.u.r.day? Is it still happening?"
My seventeenth birthday was on Thursday, the twenty-second, and I planned to have a party Sat.u.r.day night. For some reason, the entire school had picked up on it and the general consensus was that it was going to rock. I wasn"t wildly popular or known for amazing parties, but usually any party at my school stirred up a fair amount of buzz. That was what happened in a suburban Detroit high school like Bloomfield Hills, I supposed.
"Yeah," I said tiredly. "We just need to keep the number of guests down. My parents are going to kill me if a hundred people show up."
"Too late," Kate chimed in. "This is the first party of our senior year, so of course everyone is going to be pumped about it. And Homecoming is next weekend, so we need a good party to start the semester off right. The ma.s.ses are growing restless. It"s not like you"re Leper Girl or anything. People do like you."
"And you invited Josie, remember?" Landon nudged.
Oh, yeah. Josie Newport. Our moms had been close in high school and they still talked sometimes. Josie and I had played together a lot when we were little, but things change. She was very popular at school, but outside our moms" engagements, we rarely spoke and never hung out together. I had invited her to my party when we ran into each other at the salon a couple of weeks back. I never understood the stereotype that all the popular, gorgeous girls were complete b.i.t.c.hes. Josie was a really nice girl. She was perhaps a little clueless, but she"d never be cruel to anyone on purpose. I had to admit, though, she had some friends I couldn"t say the same thing about.
"And Josie has to take her posse with her everywhere she goes, right?" Kate added. "That includes half the school, Ell."
I made yet another face and shut my locker. "I"ll figure it out." Of course, I wasn"t actually going to do anything. I wasn"t going to walk up to Josie Newport and say, "Oh, by the way, when I invited you, I meant just you and maybe a friend or two. Not everybody and their cross-eyed cousins."
"Maybe she thought she was doing you a favor?" Landon offered. "Boost your popularity or something?"
While that sounded cool, I didn"t suspect that it was probable. Josie wasn"t going to do me any favors. Most likely, if the party sucked, Josie would simply move her entourage elsewhere. They would be like a party within a party. If mine sucked, then Josie would just make a new one. She"d already have enough people to do it.
"All right, I"m out," I said, happy to end the conversation and get out of school and go home, even if it was just to study.
"Okay, I"ll see you in an hour," Kate said.
"Adios, ladies," Landon said, mock saluting us. "Why don"t you study for me, too, so I don"t have to?"
Kate gave him a sarcastic thumbs-up before turning and making her way to the student parking lot. She"d had her license and her car since she was sixteen, like most of the kids I knew. I had my license too, but not a car yet. Kate"s daddy had bought her a red BMW for her birthday. I found it to be an absolute miracle of G.o.d that Kate hadn"t pancaked it yet. She drove like a blind person going into diabetic shock.
I waved good-bye to Landon, scooped my long, dark red hair out from under my backpack strap, and headed out through the school"s front doors to meet my mom.
As I crossed the front lawn, I spotted a boy I"d never seen before lounging against a tree. He wore a brown shirt and jeans, and his hair, which waved around his face in the breeze, looked black until the sun caught the walnut shine. He actually looked a little too old to be in high school, maybe twenty or twenty-one years old. As I looked at him, I felt a certain fondness deep in my heart, but I shook the feeling off. I didn"t know who he was. Maybe he had graduated a year or two ago and I"d seen him in the halls at some point? My school was pretty big. There was no way for me to know everyone who went here. I watched him for several more seconds until I noticed that he was watching me back. I blushed fiercely and looked back to the roundabout ahead, where the parents" cars were idling. It was strange how he was just hanging out there, but I had to a.s.sume that he was waiting for a younger sibling.
My mom"s Mercedes was nearly indistinguishable from every other silver Mercedes lining the roundabout. I peered through windshields until I spotted my mom. She and my dad looked nothing like me. Mom"s hair was more of a light brunette compared to my rich chocolate red. People asked me all the time if I had my hair colored this way, as if it were hot pink or some other unnatural shade. No, my hair just came this way. Also, she didn"t have any freckles. A lot of people think all redheads are completely covered in freckles. Not true. I only have six on the bridge of my nose. You can poke at my face and count them. There are six.
I climbed in and we exchanged our typical after-school conversation.
"How was your day, Ellie Bean?" my mom asked, like she did every single time.
"I didn"t die," I answered, as usual.
"Well, that"s good news" was always her reply.
I looked back out the pa.s.senger window to the tree where I"d seen the boy, but he was gone. My eyes scanned the lawn, but I couldn"t see him anywhere.
"What are you looking at?" Mom asked as we pulled away.
"Nothing," I replied distantly.
My mom shouted an obscenity at the driver in front of her, who was taking too long to turn at the light. Wiping her expression clean of anger the next moment, she smiled at me. "I"m so happy this is the last week I will ever have to pick your b.u.t.t up from school."
"Good for you."
Mom was a web designer and worked from home-she had always been able to drive me to and from school, thankfully sparing me from ever having to attend daycare. My dad, on the other hand, was rarely home. He worked in medical research, and there were many nights when I would go to bed without seeing him. Sometimes I wouldn"t see him for a week. Lately, that was a good thing.
"So you never told me what you want for your birthday," my mom said.
"Lambo."
She laughed. "Yeah, sure, let"s just sell the house and get you a Lamborghini for your birthday."
We finally pulled out of the school"s drive onto the main road and headed home.
"Really, what do you want? I know we talked about a car, and your dad says yes."
"I don"t really know."
"Don"t make me choose," my mom warned. "I"ll get you a moped to drive to school on."
"I"ll bet." I rolled my eyes. "I don"t know-just get me something cute, safe, and that has an MP3 adapter. I"ll be set for life with that."