I look at Tucker but I don’t feel anything but my heart beating, so slowly it’s like a low thump every five seconds, and I can feel the blood it’s pumping through my body, to my lungs, in and out, filling me with strength, with life, and then with a sense of myself and something more than just my body. Something more than human. My spirit. My soul.
Light explodes around me. I turn toward Samjeeza and at the same moment, slowed down twenty times, it seems, he looks at my face and knows what I’m up to. He flares with rage, but doesn’t have time to act on it. He moves with unearthly speed away, out of reach of the glory.
I take a deep breath, let it out slow, feeling the light tingling at my fingertips, shining out of my body, my hair gleaming with it, my chest filling with warmth. A feeling of calm settles over me. I turn again to Tucker. He lifts a hand to shield his eyes from my light. I take his other hand in mine. It feels cool, clammy, against my almost feverish skin. He flinches at my touch, then forces himself to relax, lowers his hand, squints at me like he’s trying really hard to look at the sun. Unshed tears in his eyes. And fear.
I reach up and put my finger against the cut on his head, watch as the light caresses him, the skin knitting itself back together, until there’s no trace of the wound.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
A laugh pierces my tranquility. Samjeeza, a safe distance away, laughing.
“I keep underestimating you,” he says almost admiringly. “You are a tough little bird.”
“Go away.”
He laughs again. “I want to find out what happens next, don’t you?”
“Go. Away.”
“You can’t hold that forever, you know.”
He said something like that to my mom, that day in the woods. She brought the glory and he said, You can’t hold that forever, and she said, I can hold it long enough.
What is long enough? Even now, after only a few minutes, I feel myself starting to tire.
It’s like holding the door to my soul wide open while the wind pushes steadily against it. Sooner or later, that door will close.
Samjeeza closes his eyes. “I can almost hear the sirens. Racing this way. Things will be interesting when they get here.”
I squeeze Tucker’s hand. He tries to smile at me. I try to smile back.
A plan would be nice. Sitting here waiting for my lightbulb to burn out, so not a plan.
Waiting for the ambulance to come, adding more people to the mix, also not a plan.
“Why don’t you just drop this nonsense?” Samjeeza says. “Not that I’m not impressed.
For someone your age, your dilution of blood, to exhibit glory on your own, it’s rather unheard of.
But you should stop this now.”
He’s speaking calmly, but I can feel that he’s getting mad.
I’ve seen him mad before. It’s not pretty. He tends to do things like launch fireballs at your head.
Headlights turn onto the road. My breath freezes in my lungs. I nearly lose the glory. It flickers, dims, but I hold on.
“Come now, enough foolishness,” Samjeeza says impatiently. “You and I must go.” It’s too late. The vehicle approaches us slowly. Stops, a squeak of brakes. But it isn’t an ambulance. It’s a beat-up silver Honda with a rusty green fender. I strain to look past my own radiance to see the figure inside. A man with white hair and a beard.
Mr. Phibbs.
I’ve never seen a more welcome sight than Mr. Phibbs in his tacky brown polyester suit, strolling toward us with a smile like he’s taking a leisurely walk in the middle of the night. I feel stronger as he nears, like I can do this, whatever I’m asked, whatever it takes. I feel hope.
“Evening,” Mr. Phibbs says, nodding to me. “How’s everybody?”
“She’s hurt.” I point down to Wendy. Still breathing, thank God. “The paramedics are on their way. They should be here soon.”
Samjeeza eyes him.
“I see,” Mr. Phibbs says. He turns his attention to the brooding Black Wing. “What seems to be the problem here?”
“Who are you?” Samjeeza asks.
“I’m a teacher.” Mr. Phibbs readjusts his glasses. “These are my students.”
“I have business with the girl,” Samjeeza says almost politely. “We’ll be on our way, and then you can tend to the others.”
“Afraid I can’t allow that,” says Mr. Phibbs. “Yes, you could probably squash me like a bug if you took a mind to. If you could get to me,” he adds. “But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, whom you have defiled. So slither back into the dark, Watcher.” I hope, for our sake, that he’s not bluffing.
Samjeeza doesn’t move.
“Are you having trouble hearing me?” Mr. Phibbs asks like this fallen angel is a tardy student. “I see you have some damage to your ear. That your doing, Clara?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Well, good for you.” He turns back to Samjeeza.
“Be careful, old man,” growls the angel. Around him the air starts to crackle with energy.
I begin to get very worried that he’s going to zap us into hell.
“Corbett,” I say nervously.
Faster than a blink, Mr. Phibbs holds up one of his hands and the light surrounding us brightens into it, swirling itself into a long, thin shape with a point of fiercely shining light at the end. An arrow, is my first thought, an arrow made from glory, and before I even have time to analyze what that could mean, Mr. Phibbs makes a sweeping motion with his arm and fires the thing straight at Samjeeza.
I watch in slow motion as the arrow arcs through the air like a falling star, then strikes the angel in the shoulder. It makes a noise like a knife sinking into a watermelon. He looks at it, startled, then back at Mr. Phibbs incredulously. The light from the arrow seeps from his shoulder like blood, and wherever it touches it hisses, eating away that second layer that he wears over his true self. He reaches up and closes his hand around the shaft. His brows knit together, then he wrenches the arrow out. He howls in pain as it comes free. He drops it, and it bursts into tiny sparkles when it strikes the ground. Breathing hard, he looks right at me, not at Mr. Phibbs or Tucker but at me, and his eyes are sad. His body suddenly has a transparent quality to it, muted and gray, even his skin, like he’s becoming a ghost.
And then he’s gone.
Beside me Mr. Phibbs exhales slowly, the only indication that any of this was mind-blowingly scary. I finally let go of the glory, and it fades.