Unnatural Souls (18 page)

Oh God, I thought. He’d been out for
so long. Had the lack of oxygen caused some sort of permanent brain
damage? Had I brought him back … but only halfway?

Kali sighed heavily and rolled her
eyes.

“
My worst nightmare,
that’s what,” she snapped, looking away from him and toward me. I
was never going to hear the end of this, I thought. I was never
going to be able to ask for her help again.

Everything in her face said that if
I’d been the one who fused her soul to Ash’s, it made us enemies. I
just didn’t know why.

Meanwhile, Ash was sitting up very
slowly, as if he was in pain, and wincing with every small
movement.

“
Where am I?” he asked
Kali. “What happened? Did the demon come for me? Am I
dead?”

“
You don’t remember
anything from tonight?” Kali asked incredulously, her voice going
up an octave.

“
I remember waking up this
morning and going to school.” Ash shook his head. “That’s
it.”

I stared at him, shocked.
He didn’t remember any of it? He didn’t recall me showing up and
pulling blades out of a blue light in my hands? The demon coming to
kill him? The lockers? Nothing? Oh God, maybe he
did
have brain
damage.

“
Well, the demon that was
after you is dead,” Kali replied in a flat tone.

So she
had
killed the demon. That made me
feel a little bit better.

Then she scrunched up her nose. “Or in
Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never really bothered to find out exactly
where demons go after I kill them. The good news is that you
aren’t. Congratulations.” She didn’t sound happy, but I didn’t
think Ash noticed her sarcasm.

He was too busy looking
surprised. And confused. “You killed him?
You
saved me?”

Kali looked back to me and
sighed.

“
Well,” she started, “I’m
not sure what happened to you, so don’t go getting all mushy on me.
Hold on. Are you crying?” She looked at him in disgust and I wanted
to throw something at her.

He’d almost died, and had
to be terrified right now. As far as I was concerned, he could cry
if he wanted. But I resisted the urge to shout at her for her lack
of feelings and glanced at my brother again. His eyes
had
begun to water,
though he quickly wiped the moisture away, frowning up at her. Then
he noticed the talisman hanging around his neck. He lifted it and
glanced down, frowning even more.

Kali looked like she wanted to tear it
off of him, her hands fisted at her sides.

“
Yeah before you ask,” she
sighed. “I’m assuming that’s what’s keeping you alive.”

“
What is it?” he
asked.

“
It’s a binding talisman,”
she replied, narrowing her eyes.

“
What—” he
started.

“
Enough questions,” she
growled. “I’m not spending my time sitting here talking to a human.
Let’s go. I have work to do—that has nothing to do with you, and
was going on a long time before I even knew about you. Apparently
you and I are going to be stuck together for a while. Don’t worry,
I’m sure someone will figure out what just happened. And hopefully
fix it”

He stared at her, his eyes widening as
I watched them. Stuck together? What did that mean? She’d admitted
that the talisman was keeping Ash alive, but … stuck together? What
did that mean for her mission? What did it mean for Michael’s
plans?

What did it mean
for
me
?

For the first time, I started to think
that I’d accomplished something a lot more serious that I
realized.

Kali glanced back to me one last time,
raised an eyebrow in spite, and then grabbed his arm and
disappeared.

I GAPED LIKE
a fish. I’d wanted to go to Ash, but she hadn’t
even given me the chance. She’d just yanked him right along with
her on her next mission—and would continue to do so, I assumed,
until someone figured out how to separate them again.

I did not like the thought of Ash
being tied to her. I respected her more now, but being near her was
dangerous. I was going to have to get Ash a new talisman as soon as
possible so that he could be safe—and away—from the demon world for
good.

Now that I was alone, my mind started
to work through what had happened. I knew that what I did should
not have been possible. Which meant my powers were greater than I
had imagined they would be. Kali had told me during the first few
months of our training sessions what angels were and were not
capable of—and this hadn’t been on her list of possibilities.
Apparently I was able to do things that weren’t normal, even for
angels.

Had Michael known I was powerful
enough to do something like that? No, he would have told me. Still,
he had to have some idea, right? I could sense Kali’s powers, the
power of the demons around us, and even Michael’s power, so
wouldn’t Michael be able to do the same thing? And if he could …
why hadn’t he told me? Then an even worse thought dawned on
me.

Could that be why Adrian’s
followers were after me? Did they want to kill me because he saw me
as a threat? It made sense … though I didn’t think Michael knew
about
that
. I
couldn’t think of a reason why he wouldn’t have told me, but then I
remembered the conclusion I’d come to seconds earlier, about him
being able to sense my power, and doubt crept into my mind.
He
had
to have
known. It was so clear now that I realized how powerful I
was.

There was no way he could
have missed that. Which meant he hadn’t told me. Which meant
he
had
known why
the demons were after me, that first night we’d met. And if he
hadn’t, surely it hadn’t taken him long to figure it
out.

And that meant he was keeping a lot of
secrets. What else wasn’t he telling me?

A soft blue light suddenly appeared at
my side, then, and giant white and gold wings burst out,
overshadowing me. A moment later, the light that shrouded the
figure faded. His body loomed over me, the stage lights shining
brightly behind him so that they cast the front of his body and his
face in the shadow of his wings. Then the large white feathers
ruffled, sparking with gold at the edges as he moved those immense
wings and folded them at his sides, finally bringing his body into
view.

Michael. I really could have used him
like five minutes earlier, but I was glad he was there. Because I
had some questions for him. About the talisman, what I had done,
how to get a new charm for my brother…

And why he hadn’t told me earlier
about how powerful I was.

I smiled widely at him, but it was
more a ploy than anything else. I wanted to know what else he was
hiding from me. No matter what, there was no way he had been
completely honest, and I needed to know what he wasn’t telling
me—and why he was keeping it a secret. Could he be using
me?

I didn’t get a chance to open my mouth
before he started speaking.

“
Do you have any idea what
you just did?” he asked me, sounding … well, furious.

Of course he was talking about the
talisman. I’d known it wasn’t the best plan, but did he have to
sound so disappointed? How bad could it really be? It had worked,
after all. And Michael could just make another one for Ash. I could
pull his soul back out and put it in the new one … right? It hadn’t
been that hard; surely it would be a simple act of reversing what
I’d done.

Evidently, though, I didn’t know the
entire story.

“
Do you know what
you’ve
risked
?”
he snarled, his eyes suddenly becoming angry.

“
I had to save my
brother,” I told him, growing even more irritated.

“
You haven’t saved your
brother at all,” he argued. “In fact, you nearly destroyed
everything with that little stunt. Giving him the talisman I
gave
you would have
saved him. But what you did… You’ve merely delayed his fate. You’ve
saved him from nothing. You bound his fate to
Kali’s
.”

“
So make her a new one. Or
make
him
a new
one, and I’ll fix it,” I snapped back. What was the problem,
here?

“
I can’t!” he bellowed,
causing the ground around me to shake.

I gripped the chair for dear life,
praying the floor around me didn’t break, and more than a little
bit terrified. I’d never seen Michael this angry, and the idea that
it was directed at me … was suddenly horrifying.

What exactly had I done?

“
Her soul is
inside
that talisman,”
he continued, his voice becoming quiet now. “And the charm is meant
for her, and her alone. I told you that. I didn’t even believe it
when she called to me and told me what happened. I don’t know how
you managed to combine the two, as it shouldn’t have been possible.
And now you’ve nearly ruined everything. Her talisman is sealed
until she completes her mission—but with Ash’s soul inside, the
charm won’t be able to release hers without letting his out as
well. Their souls are stuck together on a level that can’t be
broken. Which means that even if she completes her mission, her
soul is stuck to one that is destined for Hell. She’ll
never
be accepted into
Heaven.” He glared at me, his eyes glowing a blue like I’d never
seen before, and I shrank back.

“
If she doesn’t succeed,
the other angels will never agree to my plan. No demon will ever be
able to earn redemption, and the scales will continue to tip in
Hell’s favor. You’ve put all my plans at risk, girl, along with the
fate of Heaven and Earth!” He shouted the last words, and the
thunder of his voice echoed through the room around us.

I gulped. Then I remembered that I
wouldn’t be in this position if he’d just been honest with me in
the first place.

“
How can you know we can’t
do anything?” I snapped. I wasn’t out for a fight, but I wasn’t
going to back down or apologize for what I’d done. I would do it
again in a heartbeat.

He was, I thought, angry because I’d
done something he didn’t think was possible. Well, he would just
have to find a way around that.

“
You didn’t think anyone
could combine the two in the first place, right? You didn’t know I
was capable of that, so how can you be so sure I can’t reverse it?
Or is it that you
did
know I could do that, and just didn’t bother to share that
information with me? Do you know more than you’re telling me?
Because it seems you haven’t been giving me the full
truth.”

“
Excuse me?” Michael’s
voice was quiet, but his eyes narrowed.

I stared right back at him.

“
Even I can understand why
Adrian’s demons are after me now,” I told him, my voice as
dangerous as his. “I’m a threat. You should have been able to see
that, and I’m sure you knew it all along. But you didn’t say
anything to me. You said that I was special, but I’m not an
ordinary angel, am I? You can’t tell me you didn’t know anything
about my abilities. I can feel your power coming off you. You had
to have known that I was powerful, too. You had to have felt
it.”

“
I told you that you were
different,” Michael replied, his voice still low. “You have power,
more than a normal angel. You can do things even I can’t, but I
couldn’t know exactly what you were capable of until you harnessed
your full potential. Now I know. I never lied. And yes, demons are
after you, but it could be to use your power. Or they could just
want you dead. I don’t know yet, so why tell you what I don’t have
an answer for?”

“
Lying by excluding all
the facts is still a lie!” I exclaimed. “You
did
have an idea of what was going
on, suspicions about what my powers might be. You
must
have! But you chose
to leave that out, and now I can’t trust that you’re telling me
everything. What else did you decide I didn’t need to
know?”