Bladed Wings (28 page)

              “He wanted to get your soul,” Timothy answered. She didn’t ask anything else about that.

Timothy wanted her to think of something good, to get her mind away from this nightmare. If he could buy her a few moments of something close to peace or joy, he would have been grateful. That’s why he asked, “Where would we be in a year?” Timothy thought it would be a joke like she might tell him about how they would break up for something goofy. Maybe she’d get tired of his big feet or decide he wasn’t smart enough for someone with her sophisticated intellect. All of it would be a joke because that would make waiting easier.

              “Six months and you would have met my friends. They would have judged you, and I would have told them to shove it. Then they’d see how happy you make me.”

              That part surprised him and washed away the tension in his stomach, but he didn’t let it show. He said, “Six months and I’d be thinking about how to celebrate our one year anniversary.” The right words because he got her to smile.

              “A year, think we’d move in together?”

              “Definitely. And we’d get an apartment downtown, something really snug and comfortable. It would be very intimate.”

              “You mean small and cheap?” she teased.

              “Yeah. That’s pretty much what I mean.”

              “How long before you tell the truth?”

              “Which one?”

              “That you love me.” A hint of teasing laced her voice again. For Timothy, it had to be one of the most awesome sounds anyone ever heard in the universe ever.

              “How about now?” and she stiffened for a moment, like she didn’t expect that answer. And she was going to pull away, to look at him and ask questions or talk about how they barely knew each other. But he held her, just firm enough so he could say, “From the first minute I saw you, there were feelings. Call it a crush or whatever, but getting to know you, holding you, that’s been something totally different. And everything else I’ve ever felt was nothing like this. I know it when I see you, when I hear you, when I touch you that I love you. I love you like nothing and no one else.”

              “I love you too.”

              Timothy squeezed her, and then they waited.

              “Think we’d have kids?” he asked to hide the silence. If he’d felt rational, he might’ve pointed out that they didn’t know how much time they had left so they should talk. They should talk and touch and try to laugh because they didn’t know how many seconds they had left.

              “Sure.”

              “How many?”

              “Two boys and a girl.”

              “Not very balanced.”

              “I guess not.”

              Her sweatshirt was soft and he felt the goose bumps line her wrists. “Are you cold?”

              “Not really important right now.”

              Timothy didn’t argue, he pushed her forward for a second, slid his arms from his jacket, and pulled it over her. They could have been a couple at a picnic. It was Timothy’s turn for his eyes to water. He wouldn’t get to do that with her. He wouldn’t even get to take her to a movie. Shadowed fantasies, half-dreamed and half-expected, burned somewhere he couldn’t articulate. He saw her in white, saw her round with life, saw her every kind of naked, and he kept his eyes closed against the electricity pricking his eyes.

              “I love you,” he said again.

              “You should. And I love you too.”

              They sat there and it was so much like her apartment where they felt warm and safe. With his eyes closed, he could ignore the cold linoleum, the aches of his back against the desk’s leg. He could pretend his bones had healed, his cuts sliding back shut. “It’s just us,” he said without thinking. “Just you and me and we’re here and we’re together and that’s all that matters.” He talked to her, and he thought about how much throwing a guy in a baptismal font changed his life. Four seconds to remember through killing Cipher, meeting Cordinox and Isis, talking to Jenny, fighting Terrance, Tacos with Jenny, making her soup. His thoughts fell back to winning because that’s what felt good. Timothy got the girl. He got to be the hero who got the girl, who won the princess from her draconic boyfriend.

              Darkor, the demon shape shifter who said his name was Terrance.
              Timothy’s eyes shot open.

              Terrance didn’t kill her. He had hundreds of chances, but he didn’t kill her. He couldn’t do it. Killing her would have meant destroying himself, an explosion of angelic energy that would’ve wiped him away.

              Because Jenny was an angel with a soul that could poison any demon. Just the light of her soul could burn them up. The way Cordinox and Isis talked about angels, Timothy guessed she wouldn’t have any problem breaking through whatever barrier locked them in that office. She wouldn’t have any problem destroying Despada or her demons either.

              At that moment, Timothy heard the demons move. Roman and Vencerico sounded nervous, like they were about to greet their leader. They were talking about the right moment, about why Despada wanted to wait before feeding. Despada wanted daylight. That was supposed to make the feeding better somehow. She might already be ready, having everything set up for whatever special process it took to safely consume an angel’s soul. He didn’t have much time. Biting down, he hoped he’d have enough.

              “What’s wrong?” Jenny asked when he pulled his arms from her. That was a strange question, but neither of them noticed.

              “You can survive this.”

              “What? How?” There was more disbelief than hope in those questions.

              “You’re an angel. If you awaken your soul, tap into those powers, you’ll be able to kill every demon here.”

              “Every demon?”

              “Every demon,” he repeated, desperate to convince her.

              “No.”

              “What? Of course you’ll do this.”

              “No,” Jenny said again. She crossed her arms over her chest and that might’ve been cute, but he didn’t know how much time they had.

              “You have to do this.”

              “I’m not going to hurt you.”

              “Look, they’re going to kill me either way. This way, you get to live.”

              “But I’ll be the one doing it.”

              “I don’t care.”

              “Timothy, you can’t—you can’t ask me.”

              “Please. Please do this.” The look on her face promised he didn’t convince her. He tried something else, “Look, my life hasn’t been important. I didn’t discover anything. I didn’t save anyone. I didn’t even say anything all that good. But right now, if you let me help you, then I can save you and my life means something.”

              “You know what you’re asking?”

              “I’m asking for you to save yourself, to just get out of here, and live, and be happy. Jenny, you have so much. So much to give and be. Please, do this.”

              “What do I do?”

              She sat across from him; he took her hands and said, “Relax.”

              “Okay.”

              “Relax, and try not to think about anything.” Jenny didn’t answer this time. “Look at the back of your mind. Just relax and let your thoughts wander. And see if you can feel it. For me it’s dark and almost insubstantial. It’s there at the back of my mind. For you, I guess it’ll be brighter, but it’ll be there. I know it’ll be there.” If he’d been honest, Timothy would have admitted he couldn’t be sure about any of this.

              “I feel it.”

              Relief and fear fought for control of his brain, but he just nodded like that’s exactly what he expected. Jenny had her eyes closed, so she didn’t see. “What now?” she asked.

              “Pull it to the center of your thoughts. Feel it, coax it. It’s always been there. So let it go. It probably wants out, a piece of you that’s always been hidden.”

              At first Timothy didn’t know if he really saw it. Her cheeks glowed, a little bit of light illuminating and fading. Seconds passed and the pulse of light got brighter, like a heartbeat of light and grew stronger with each second. Every breath it grew, stung a little more, and then faded. He could feel it. That light was poison. Right now it was the irritation of a sunburn. In a little while it would be like an inferno. “Good, you’re doing great,” Timothy said and he squeezed her hands because he didn’t know if he’d be able to do that again.

              Seconds ticked by until the light didn’t flicker anymore. The pain was constant now, thousands of needles pressing through his skin, lighting it up with heat and fire. He didn’t know how she was doing this. He figured it was instinct, the same way his tendrils knew to protect him.

              “I’m scared,” she said.

              “I’m here.”

              Jenny’s light grew stronger as she bit into her lower lip, like there was something she wanted to say. Jenny was about to kill him. But she’d be safe. That was all that mattered.             

              His eyes watered against the poisonous light, his cheeks stinging with every inch of exposed skin. Dark red clouded the back of his hands. Timothy could feel his fingers, stabs up his fingertips, spikes in his palms, as he held her hand. He was about to burn to death; it wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined. He ignored it. “Good,” he told her. “Hold onto that light. Make it bigger. Just think about something strong and make it bigger. Brighter. You can do this. You can break it. Let it go. Wake it up.”

              The door opened; Jenny didn’t look up. A drudge stood there, its clawed hand on the door. A second of light and it sizzled away, half melted before it collapsed into a cloud of dark fog. But a dozen feet away Despada strode for the door. She marched like a soldier who wasn’t in a rush, swift and efficient military strides. Then Timothy got the joy of seeing her eyes widen when she saw them through the doorway, saw the angel begin to glow. “Kill her!” Despada screamed. She jumped into a run. But both she and Timothy knew there would be no way. The other demons wouldn’t get there in time. Timothy could feel it already, could feel his skin soaring from hot to sizzling. It wouldn’t be long now. Seconds and he’d be gone.

              Pain flared up and down his arms and legs.

              He felt it through his clothes now, the screaming of every nerve as it flared, right before it would die. There wouldn’t be any bodies here, just a mass cremation.

              This was burning, like the feel of heat tearing every inch of skin apart.

              And he clamped his jaw shut against instinct, against the obvious urge to scream or shout. His last gift for her. She wouldn’t hear him die. But he locked his eyes shut, and that didn’t even do any good. That same blindness of white heat waited for him there. He was just hoping it would end, she’d be safe and he’d be gone. Nothing but to hold on, he just had to keep from screaming that pain until thoughts burned away.

              All of that in a second.

              And they kept coming, moment after moment of this, of feeling heat drag his body apart.

              “You won’t do this!” Despada screamed. She tried to get closer, like shoving her way through a tornado of fire. Stronger than Timothy, she might survive this.

              Timothy turned and saw her, his eyelids cracked open just enough to see her call on her soul and form a knife. Long and thin like her blades, she threw it. Spinning in the air, it burst into fire, white light exploding from Jenny’s soul. The blade disintegrated, Despada screamed, and Timothy clamped his eyes shut, each thought consumed in the heat of her soul.

              She’d be safe, and that was the last thought because his brain overloaded, burned out on the heat and screams of every fiber of skin.

              Then something pushed him, fingers pulling him toward her. He tried to pull back, to get away from what felt like searing prongs. Then he felt it, her lips against his. And it should have stung, that should have burned away whatever was left. But he didn’t disintegrate. Instead it was like the light was gone, cool relief, the ecstasy of painlessness rolling across his skin, and it probably still hurt, but he couldn’t feel it against the absence of the light of her soul.

              He pressed his lips back into hers.

              Then the terror of thought struck him.

              She let it go. She hid her soul again. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t kill him, and they’d both die. Despada would win, but when he opened his eyes, he saw her face, still vivid with her angel’s radiance. He tried to pull away, but she held his lips to hers, and the calm of that sensation, of fitting together so perfectly, together in that kiss on their knees in that little office as demons writhed and died in her light.

              There was a flare so bright he didn’t think his eyes would recover.

              Blinded he felt her let go. No, Timothy tried not to think, tried not to think about some chance where she managed to save him at the cost of her life. It didn’t matter that’s what he wanted her to do, to live while he died. He couldn’t take it, couldn’t accept that chance, but he pulled her close, grasped her to his chest and he felt a heartbeat through his shirt. He ignored everything except the feel of her body against his. But she didn’t move and he couldn’t see.