TIME HAS a way of being funny in dreams and I’m guessing it’s the same with memories. For what feels like a decade, I practice with my sword, fighting enemy after enemy by Raffe’s side.
The hellions must have been furious that he snatched some of the wives from their jaws and took what they thought belonged to them. They’ve been tracking him down ever since, hunting anyone who might have been a companion to him. I’m guessing that demons aren’t the type to forgive and forget.
Era after era throughout the world, it’s the same everywhere. Medieval villages, World War I battlefields, Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, speakeasies in Chicago. Raffe follows rumors of the nephilim, kills hellions and anything else that terrorize the locals, then disappears into the night. He flies away from anybody he might have connected with in the process to avoid getting them killed.
Alone.
Just Raffe and his sword.
And now he doesn’t even have that.
Just when I think the lessons are over, the sword’s memory flips to a situation that almost breaks me.
As soon as I arrive, I’m slammed with the intensity of it.
Raffe roars with outrage and agony.
He’s in serious trouble. The pain is excruciating. The shock is worse.
My phantom body sways as it loses its boundaries, making me feel totally disoriented. Raffe’s experience is so intense, my own thoughts and sensations are overwhelmed by his.
His ragged breathing is all I can hear. It’s all he can hear.
Hands and knees hold him down but blood makes their hands slip over his skin. Raffe is drenched in his own blood.
Pain radiates from his back through his entire body. Crushing his bones. Stabbing his eyes. Pummeling his lungs.
Blood spreads over asphalt.
Large hands move something white into the corner of his vision. He desperately doesn’t want to look but can’t help himself.
Wings.
Snow-white wings.
Severed and lying on the dirty road.
His breathing becomes harsher, and all he can see are those white feathers lying limp on the black asphalt.
A drop of blood from someone’s hand drips onto a feather. Beliel the demon stands over Raffe’s wings like he owns them.
It dimly registers with Raffe that someone yells, “Hey!”
He forces himself to look up.
His vision is blurred through the pain and sweat. He blinks several times to try to focus beyond the screaming pain in his back.
It’s a skinny Daughter of Man, looking tiny beside one of his attackers. She’s half-hidden behind the warrior’s burnt-orange wings, but Raffe sees her and knows she’s the one who yelled.
That’s me. Do I really look that insignificant beside an angel?
She throws something at him with all her little might.
His sword? Could it be?
He doesn’t have time to marvel. His sword would do anything for him, even let a human bond with her to help him.
A surge of fury lends him a shot of strength. He bursts out of his attackers’ hold and raises his hand. His arm trembles with the effort.
His world shrinks down to his sword, Beliel, and the angels before him.
He catches the sword and in the same motion slices the demon Beliel in the stomach. Raffe almost loses his balance in the process.
He then manages to use his momentum to cut into the angel beside him.
The scene doesn’t slow down like the other fights. It doesn’t have to. I feel every trembling muscle, every staggering step, every struggling breath.
He’s dizzy and barely managing to stay upright. As the attackers fly off, he sees the warrior with the burnt-orange wings smack the girl. She slams against the road, and Raffe thinks she must be dead.
Through the haze of agony, he wonders who she is and why a Daughter of Man would sacrifice herself to help him.
He forces himself to stay on his feet. It takes everything he has to hold his sword ready as Burnt assesses him. Raffe’s legs tremble violently and he’s losing consciousness, but he stays up out of sheer stubbornness and fury.
Burnt, obviously too cowardly to face him alone, gives up and flies off. Raffe collapses onto the asphalt as soon as Burnt leaves.
Lying on the road, the world blackens with only occasional splotches of color. His breath fills his ears, but he concentrates to hear sounds in the surrounding area.
Feet scuffle behind closed doors. Inside the buildings, humans whisper and argue about whether it’s safe to come out. They talk about how much Raffe would be worth if they tore him to pieces.
But they’re not the ones who worry him. There are more subtle scuffling, slithering noises. Soft clicking, like cockroaches in the walls.
They’re coming for him. The hellions have found him. They always do eventually.
But this time, they’re in luck. This time, he’s utterly helpless. They’ll be able to drag him down into hell and slowly torture him over the ages while he lies hopeless and wingless.
He desperately tries to stay alert, but the world melts into darkness.
Someone is calling out for her mother. The voice is strong and determined.
It must be a fever dream because no one would be that stupid in a place full of human gangs. But the footsteps in the building stairwells quiet. The human rats whisper, sure that the girl who calls out for her mom must have her gang nearby. What else would make a girl that bold?
The hellions stop their slithering too. They’re not smart enough to figure out much, otherwise they would have gotten to him ages ago by coordinating a real attack rather than just diving at random opportunities. They’re confused. Attack or run?
He tries to pull himself away from the exposed road, but black spots bloom across his vision and he fades out again.
Someone flips him over. Pain screams and claws into his back.
A small hand slaps him.
He opens his eyes for a moment.
Against the glow of the sky, dark hair flutters in the breeze. Intense eyes fringed with long lashes. Lips so red the girl must have been biting them.
It takes him a moment to realize she’s the Daughter of Man who risked herself to help him. She’s asking him something. Her voice is insistent but melodic. It’s a good sound to die to.
He fades in and out as she moves him. He keeps expecting her to cut him up or for the hellions to leap on her. Instead, she bandages him and lifts him into a wheelchair that’s too small.
When the girl grunts and overacts to indicate that he must be heavy—probably to show how strong she is—he can’t help but be amused, even through the haze of pain. She’s a terrible actress. Daughters of Men are notoriously dense and heavy compared to angels, and there’s something deliriously funny about her pretending.
Maybe his Watchers married their wives because they found them entertaining. Not much of a reason to be condemned to the Pit but it’s the first one he’s thought of.
Shoes slap on the sidewalk as human rats run toward Raffe. Emboldened by the rats, the hellions slither toward him too.
He tries to warn the girl.
But there’s no need. She’s already running into the shadows, pushing him as fast as she can go. If she can stay ahead of them long enough, the hellions will get distracted by the juicy human rats.
His last thought before he blacks out is that his Watchers would have liked this girl.