Unnatural Souls (5 page)

Sure, all of my problems would go
away. I wouldn’t need to figure out how to control my powers to
keep them from destroying my life. I wouldn’t be dealing with the
guilt and loneliness. But feeling that was better than being dead.
There was no way I’d be able to save my brother if I was gone, and
in just a few short months, he would suffer the same fate. My
parents couldn’t recover from both their children dying.

No. I couldn’t let that happen. My
life—his sacrifice—would literally have meant nothing. No. Somehow
I had to live. I had to get away.

As the demon inched
closer, though, I wanted to laugh. I couldn’t help but remember the
time I’d appeared in the bathroom stall before class, the time I
was having a bad day and blinked only to find myself at Disneyland,
and the hundreds of other times I had ended up somewhere I hadn’t
ever meant to go. The
one time
the power of teleportation would help, and I
couldn’t use it. I squeezed my eyes shut and sent out a little
prayer … but to my dismay, nothing happened.

When I opened my eyes again, the
demon’s eyes had brightened to a glittering ruby red and it was
reaching its clawed hands toward me. It was smiling, looking
forward to what it was about to do, its eyes like those of a wild
beast about to devour its meal.

Surely there was something
I could do to get away. I glanced furiously around, looking for
anything I could use as a weapon, and saw a rock about ten feet to
my left. Maybe I could bash its head and run. At least that would
give me some time. The demon was so close I could see the drool
between its pointy teeth, and I wasn’t going to get more than three
steps in before it caught me, but I had to do
something
.

Sitting on my butt was simply not an
option.

I turned and jumped to my feet, moving
as quickly as I could, but I didn’t make it the three feet before
the demon’s hand wrapped around my ankle and yanked me
backwards.

I twisted in its grip, turning my body
toward it. “Let go!” I screamed, throwing my hand up in a knee-jerk
reaction when I hit the ground. Even the demon laughed at that, and
then…

I heard something groan and snap
behind me.

I kept my eyes on the monster standing
over me, my heart hammering in my chest. What had that been? Who
else was here? Was someone watching? Were they going to just stand
there while this demon ripped me to shreds?

A second later, a light pole shot
forward, bits of cement falling from it as it flew through the air.
I threw my hand upward toward the demon … and the pole swung into
its abdomen like a baseball bat. I saw a brief look of shock on the
monster’s face, and then it was flying twenty feet backward, where
it landed in a bush.

The pole fell to the ground with a
crash, but the light continued to glow, flickering slightly and
casting light on the bush the demon had landed in. One foot stuck
out, unmoving.

I yanked my hand back to my chest,
clenching it into a fist, and feeling dizzy from the blood rushing
through my body, the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
Everything on the street was still and quiet.

Holy crap, did I do
that?
I couldn’t seem to close my mouth,
the shock of what happened freezing my entire body. If I had, it
was the first time the powers that had been cursing me had actually
acted in my favor. It’d certainly have been the first time they
saved my
life
. I
would have preferred teleportation, but yeah … this worked, too. I
pried my hand open and examined it. And suddenly I was filled with
optimism, because on some level I had controlled the power inside
me. Even if I had no idea how, this meant there was truly a
possibility that I could
learn
. Hope flooded me, and a tiny
bit of weight lifted off my shoulders.

Then I heard rustling in
the bushes where the demon had landed. Crap.
Time to put hope on hold and run for my life.

I leapt to my feet and took off
running toward my house, forcing my legs to move me past house
after house, everything blurring in my vision as I pushed myself
faster and tears built in my eyes. But the slapping sound of my
feet on the pavement was soon followed by a hissing noise not too
far behind me. Angry demon—not good. And now I’d hit the dark
stretch on my street, where there weren’t any streetlights. I just
wanted to be home, away from the darkness, locked away in the
safety of my room where I hid the craziness that had become my
life. Was I really going to be able to outrun it?

Suddenly, against my own will, I
stopped. I could see the faint light of our front porch in the
distance. Home … it was where every instinct told me to
run.

But that would mean leading the demon
there, to my family. It wasn’t like my house had any real
protection. Nothing more than the human instinct that it was safe.
A warm light to scare the boogeyman away. But that warm light
wouldn’t protect my family when a demon followed me to the house. A
lock on the door wasn’t going to stop this monster.

I thought once again about how amazing
it would be if that teleportation power kicked in about now. Take
me far away—anywhere but here. Keep my family safe. Keep them out
of this creature’s clutches.

But a massive, clawed hand dug into my
shoulder, breaking my thoughts, and I realized my hesitation had
cost me any chance at fleeing. The demon twisted me around to face
it and yanked me forward. I stared up, wanting to shrink back but
incapable of doing anything. Its body was highlighted from behind
by the streetlamp, and I could see the drool dripping down its
fangs, and those angry red eyes staring down at me.

I threw my hands up in a mixture of
panic and hope, trying to imagine another streetlight uprooting
itself, or a dumpster landing on top of the demon. How did it work?
Did I just have to be desperate enough? Did I just have to think
about something smashing the demon?

Evidently not, because nothing
happened. The monster raised its hand, ready to do whatever it was
going to do, and though I kicked and fought to get out of its
grasp, it was too strong.

Suddenly the creature slashed down
with its claws, and I instinctively closed my eyes tight and held
my breath, bracing myself for the agonizing pain. Instead,
something yanked me away—from behind. The demon’s claws ripped into
my skin … and then were torn free of my arm.

I screamed in unison with the demon as
a flash of purest white light burst into life behind my closed
lids, accompanied by popping sounds. Too quiet to be gunshots—light
bulbs, maybe? Another light pole? Had I succeeded after all? Had I
thrown something at it that tore the monster away from me? My
shoulder felt wet, and a terrible pain was pulsing down my arm. But
the demon’s grip was … gone.

I slowly forced myself to open my
eyes. Every streetlight in the neighborhood was dark, and it took a
moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I saw
a figure in front of me, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon.
There was another figure at its feet. The new figure was … a
beautiful man with giant golden wings. Freaking wings! An angel?
The feathers shimmered in the moonlight with every tiny movement,
every breath he took, and it was mesmerizing. I forced myself to
look away from the wings to see that he was a tall man with dark
hair, though it was difficult to see anything else in the dark. His
eyes, though, shone like sapphires, lit up in stark contrast to the
demon’s red.

The demon was the figure in front of
the man… And it was hissing in anger. Or fear. Perhaps
both.

That man thing had saved me. Why? Why
would an angel care about what happened to me? My life had only
been tainted by darkness, death, and demons. I’d never actually
prayed to angels or anything—aside from when I’d tried to summon
one to save my brother. I was just a meaningless human.

Just then, the demon bared
its fangs at the man and jumped forward, claws out, but before it
got very far the angel blurred, then reappeared, a flaming sword in
his hands. A
blue
flaming sword. The monster’s eyes grew wide, and even I could
see the fear in its expression.

Whatever that blue sword was, the
demon didn’t want anything to do with it.

It tried to stop, to turn away, but it
was too late—the angel brought the weapon whistling down toward the
demon, and within moments it had sliced neatly into the monster’s
abdomen. The sword flared brighter then, its blue flames reaching
out to engulf the demon’s body.

The monster reached down to grab the
place where the sword had run it through, and stumbled backwards.
No blood though, I noticed suddenly. Had the guy missed? He was
only feet away, but if he’d missed, he’d be done for—the demon
could lunge forward with its claws and slash him to pieces. And I
would be next.

Suddenly, though, the demon screamed
in agony—a horrid, high-pitched wail—and collapsed into itself. I
watched, frozen in horror and confusion as it turned to
ashes.

Relief coursed through me, but it was
short lived, because the moment the blue light dimmed I was
reminded I wasn’t alone. The man—angel?—might have just saved my
life, but I still had no idea who he was. He focused his intense
stare on me and turned in my direction, his wings shimmering with
his movements, the intensity of his blue eyes matching the glow
from his sword.

I just stared, mesmerized, and
gulped.

He took two quick steps
toward me, then abruptly stopped, his head tilted and his eyes
roaming over me. Assessing me? His brows pulled together and he
lifted his hands up in a motion of surrender, which was even more
confusing—this guy had just killed a demon with a magical sword,
and now he was looking at me as if
I
was a threat, and one he didn’t
want to fight. I held back the inappropriate giggle that I could
feel building inside me.

I wasn’t sure if angels had a sense of
humor, and considering how easily he’d killed the demon, I didn’t
want to find out the hard way by offending him. It was still funny,
though.

Then I heard a familiar whooshing
sound. I growled in frustration and glanced upward. Ah, the
craznado. How I didn’t miss you. Above me, I saw an entire bush,
three tree branches, and hundreds of leafs and rocks swirling
around above my head. I narrowed my eyes and cursed at the objects
in my mind.

“
Grace?” the man asked,
snapping my attention back to him. His eyes were racing between me
and the cyclone of objects. “It’s okay. My name is Michael. I’m
here to help you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

My mouth popped open in
shock. Oh my God, even the
angel
thought I was crazy. That was the look he was
giving me, and it made me furious. The whirlwind seemed to quicken
with my irritation, more objects being pulled in by the force of
it. A bike came flying from across the street and a sign ripped off
the pole next to me. The whooshing sound grew to a dull roar and my
hair began to whip around in the wind, but this angel just
continued to watch me with fear in his glowing blue
eyes.

The longer he stared, the angrier I
became.

That was the same look, the same
judgment, I had been trying to avoid from my family and friends.
Now I was getting it from an angel?

He took a step backwards and lifted
his hands up, palms facing me, like he was trying to signal peace.
“I’m not here to hurt you. You don’t need to defend yourself
against me. Please, Grace,” he pled, taking another step away from
me. “Calm down.”

“
I can’t control it,” I
ground out through my teeth. To insinuate that I had any control
over this chaos was ridiculous … and only angered me further. I
would have liked to stop it—believe me—but I couldn’t, and as my
frustration grew, so did the craznado. A large branch splintered
off a tree, pulled into the wind, and three rocks the size of my
head suddenly flew up from the ground and began spinning through
the cyclone of rubble. Small pebbles shot in and out of the
whirlwind, and I could hear them dinking off cars and the ground
like pieces of hail in a storm.

Michael’s focus shot from me to the
whirlwind of chaos that hovered above, and then back. I bit my
lower lip and glanced upward again.

I hated this. My life for the past
eight months had been consumed by events like these, which left me
a shaken mess—nothing like what I used to be. And now a freaking
angel had showed up and started lecturing me about it all. A demon,
and then an angel. I wanted to cry. I wanted it to stop.

“
It’s not my fault.” My
voice cracked on the last word, and I fought back the tears that
stung my eyes.

Michael took a hesitant step forward,
and then another, keeping eye contact with me and—every once in a
while—sneaking a glance above us. When nothing happened, he took
another step, to come face to face with me. He extended a hand but
stopped short, and I stared at him in confusion.

“
Take my hand,” he
said.

I hesitated. I didn’t know
this man, and my first instinct was to pull away. He had just
impaled someone right in front of me with a magical blue sword.
Sure, it was a monstrous demon, but he had still
killed
it. And I was
having trouble fighting the initial urge to run—as quickly as I
could—from someone capable of doing that.