I sigh and go to the back of the line.
When I get back to our room, it’s empty. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Paige to be out in public but I assume they’ll be back soon. I put three burgers on the teacher’s desk. I didn’t ask what kind of meat it was but I doubt it’s cow.
I had asked for the patties to be super rare, specifically mentioning the word “bloody,” thinking that’s as close as I could get to raw without raising suspicions. But I’m disappointed to find that the meat’s hardly pink in the middle.
I cut away the cooked portion from the pink center and set it aside for Paige. I can at least try to see if she can hold down pink meat. I try not to think too much about it.
I suspect she hadn’t been out of the lab in her new form before we found her, otherwise, she’d know what she could eat. If I had found her a day earlier, could I have saved her from this?
I shut away those thoughts in the old mind vault and methodically eat my burger. The lettuce and tomato are reconstituted from something that’s probably not what it’s pretending to be, but it reminds me of greens and that’s good enough. The bread, though, is fresh out of the oven and delicious. The camp lucked out and found somebody who knows how to bake bread from scratch.
I pull out Raffe’s sword and put the naked blade on my lap. I stroke my fingers along the metal. The light hits the liquid folds along the steel, showing the bluish-silver waves that decorate it.
If I relax, I can feel the faint flow of sorrow coming from it. The sword is in mourning. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who it’s mourning for.
“Show me more,” I say, even though I’m not sure I can handle more right now. My knees are already weak and I’m feeling drained. Even in a world where angels exist, it’s still a shocker to have one of your possessions share its memories with you.
“Tell me about Raffe. ”
Nothing.
“Okay. Let’s practice fighting,” I say in an enthusiastic voice as if I’m talking to a little kid. “I could use more lessons. ”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
Nothing.
“Right. Well, I guess I have nothing better to do now than to decorate the teddy bear with ribbons and bows. What do you think of dusky pink?”
The room wavers, then morphs.
Chpater 16
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.