Ash & Flame: Season One Read online

  "Emma, do you know what you are?"

  Emma frowned. What I am? Did Anne know something? "What do you mean?"

  "You are so, so special. Do you know that?" Anne ran her hand down Emma's arm, the unnerving touch of her fingers like tiny claws raking across Emma's skin. "I don't know if you truly understand it yet, but you will, very soon."

  Emma's father had warned her, back when everything had first fallen apart, that they could never trust anybody. Some people had good hearts and meant the right thing, but when there was no law, and survival was rule number one, the right thing no longer mattered quite as much. No matter where they were, or who they found, Dad had repeated, all they would ever have was each other.

  She hadn't always wanted to believe it, but she remembered that warning now.

  "Thanks." Emma's lips curled into a smile, but she didn't mean it, her breathing hurried, the blood pounding in her ears. She didn't want to look into Anne's eyes anymore, didn't want to hear her say just how special Emma was. "I'm still pretty tired, so I'm going to lay down, okay?"

  "Sure, baby doll. I'll be right here if you need anything."

  Emma didn't like anyone else calling her that. Baby doll. That was Dad's name for her and nobody else's. She wanted to say something to her, how she shouldn't be saying that, that it wasn't right. That nickname wasn't hers to use. But she kept her mouth shut, fearing what else Anne might say.

  She laid back on the bed, flipping over onto her side away from Anne. She scrunched her eyes closed and pulled the sheet tight over her shoulders, wishing that Anne wasn't in here with her, that her dad would walk in and save her. She fought back the tears welling under her lids.

  The woman had talked to her, been so very nice to her, like Emma was supposed to trust her. But the way she'd said baby doll, the gleam in her eyes, Emma knew she couldn't.

  She laid there, pretending to sleep, waiting anxiously for her father to return. Waiting just as anxiously for Anne to get off her bed.

  Emma tried to keep the relieved sigh from her lips when Anne finally got up and walked over to the other bed. Although the woman didn't belong there either.

  She wondered if maybe she hadn't been so far off after all, about something going terribly wrong just because Dad wasn't there. She hoped he hurried back.

  ▪▪▪

  Ren stood very still, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows inside the great dome.

  He'd never come face-to-face with an angel before today, and he had no idea what to expect now. He'd heard stories, back when pockets of humanity still clung to each other. Cold and harsh stories, where angels used humanity as shields, or as bait. Or they ignored them altogether, their sole purpose on this earth to hunt down and destroy the demons that now roamed the world.

  Just breathe. You're fine.

  He didn't know what the angel, Ithuriel, might do, or what he wanted Ren to say. But if the angel had wanted to kill him, or his daughter, he could have easily done so this morning, and he hadn't. So there was that.

  Not that the thought helped very much right now.

  He puffed up his cheeks, and blew out a quick, short breath as he took a shaky step forward, then another. He looked overhead, the massive interior impossibly high, the sun's rays casting slivers of light that passed through sections of the dome's shell. Specks of dust floated in the air, highlighted by narrow beams of illumination that ran across the floor.

  Ren took another step and paused, his gaze frozen on the giant form on one knee, his back to him, in the center of the open chamber. Wings, gleaming white even in the shadow of the dome, hung folded from the angel's hunched shoulders. He thought he heard whispering, and he strained forward, hoping to hear the words more clearly.

  The whispers stopped, and Ren's heart lurched as the angel stood suddenly. No, not an angel, he thought, thinking of the name they called themselves. Malakhi.

  The Malakhi's wings twitched, and he was airborne, wings spread wide, beating at the air. He twisted up towards the dome's arched roof and swooped overhead, falling towards where Ren stood, frozen. His wings thrust powerfully, the air beating against Ren, and he landed as gracefully as a bird, his feet planted on the ground. He stood before Ren, wings folding behind his back, his armored chestplate gleaming.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, an imposing stance that Ren didn't miss. The angel stared at him, and Ren noticed the angel's eyes. They looked red, and the skin under his eyes appeared to be wet. Like he had been crying.

  Do angels cry? Ren thought.

  The angel's eyes hardened, and he opened his mouth, dashing Ren's unspoken question. "You are called Ren, correct?"

  Breathe, Ren. Breathe. "I am."

  "And the child named Emma, you are her father?"

  Ren nodded, a sudden glimmer of understanding where this line of questioning might be headed. Questions that he was not prepared to answer.

  Ithuriel's hand rubbed against his chin, and his hard stare pierced Ren's worst fears.

  "Tell me about the child's mother."

  Ren could still remember it. He'd remember it every day for the rest of his life. The brisk air that swept across his face, chilling him, as he opened the door to the dank rooftop. The stale odor of concrete and rust, mingled with oil as a fan kicked on noisily somewhere on the roof. The clear skies overhead, the stars blinking against the glow of the moon. Someone's car alarm bleating away down the street, and then the whining creak as the door cracked shut behind him. The tap of his shoes as he hurried up the half-dozen steps and onto the black slate of the rooftop.

  Katie's hysterical sobbing as she stood perched on the raised ledge.

  He didn't want to tell the angel about her. This was his story, for him alone. No one else had ever heard it, not even Emma. And if she wasn't going to hear it, neither should anyone else.

  "What about her?" he finally asked.

  The angel's wings flared. "Do you know the risk this community has taken for you and your daughter? Do you know that we lost one of our own when we rescued you?"

  "I-I didn't know. Not until Kevin just told me." His gaze trailed to the floor. He hadn't known, and he was embarrassed to admit that he'd never thought to ask.

  He hadn't even thanked them.

  "I have questions, Ren, questions that need answered if I am to keep these people safe." Ithuriel leaned forward, his hand reaching out for Ren's shoulder. "Questions that need answered so that we can help you, and your daughter."

  Ren took a hesitant step back, his boot squeaking across the floor. "My wife was no demon."

  "Do you know that?" the angel asked. "Can you know for sure? Can your human eyes tell the difference between your kind and…other?"

  Ren couldn't tell exactly when Katie had cracked inside, when she'd decided she had to escape to that rooftop several stories up. Was it that precise moment, when she took that step over the ledge? Or had it happened years before? Had she been broken before Emma’s birth, and only revealed it when it had been too late?

  He'd tried to remember, in the days since, but he could never pinpoint that exact moment when she'd willed herself to die. It had torn him to pieces thinking about it, struggling to find the blame, trying to figure out what he could have done to fix the brokenness inside her.

  There were never any answers he could find that had ever made any sense of it.

  The Malakhi held up a hand. "Wait, you said was. Is she—"

  Ren cut off the angel, a spark of anger burning within. "She's been dead for four years now." Not that it's any business of yours.

  "I know this is difficult," Ithuriel said. "But do you remember anything about her, anything that might have made you question her? Did she ever get really sick, or disappear at odd times? Did she ever frighten you, or act like someone else?"

  You mean like jumping off a roof? Ren wondered if the angel really knew what the word difficult meant.

  Ithuriel stepped forward.

  "Imagine that the person who birthed you, the person who ga
ve you life, has been by your side for millennia." Ithuriel closed his eyes as he spoke, his voice like an enchantment that Ren could not escape. "You have grown old together, and this person, through thick and thin, has always been there. He has supported you in your weakest moments, has reminded you of the strength you hold within."

  The angel raised his chin towards the ceiling and spread his arms wide. "And then one day He is no longer there. You look and look, but you cannot find Him. He has simply disappeared, leaving behind a hollow place in the pit of you."

  "I know all too well, Ren," Ithuriel said. He lowered his arms and looked at Ren, his head canted to one side. "Believe me."

  Ren opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was unfair, someone asking him about his wife, when it was abundantly clear that he wanted to keep the memories buried. It would be just as unfair for him to pry into the angel's thoughts, digging for answers that he didn't deserve.

  But his little girl was sick, and Ren didn't have any answers of his own.

  "Fine," he said, the word hissing through his lips.

  He didn't want to remember it, the last memory of his wife that would stick forever, trampling every other memory he had of her. Always there, lurking just beneath the surface, Katie stood on that ledge, tears streaming down her face. She'd looked up as Ren approached, and he'd stopped in mid-step, afraid of what she'd do if he moved any closer.

  "Show me." The angel's voice, barely above a whisper, echoed in his ear.

  Ren felt a hand on his arm, fingers gripped tightly across his bicep, and then someone else stood there in his memory, watching silently. Someone he hadn't remembered ever being there.

  It replayed in his mind, like a tape he couldn't stop.

  She looked so lost, her legs trembling as she peered down over the ledge of the roof. Ren wanted to run to her, wrap his arms around her, and tell her everything would be alright. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, even if he didn't know what for.

  But it didn't matter if he ran to her. Didn't matter if he had wings, he knew he'd never reach her in time. And he caught the way her jaw had set when she'd seen him. No, he would never reach her.

  He felt a brief pang of relief that Emma was downstairs. She wouldn't see any of this or know what her mother was doing. Regret hit immediately after the thought. His daughter would never see her again.

  "Katie, honey, please..." He took a step towards her. He had to try.

  His wife looked over her shoulder at him, the breeze catching her dark hair. Dark locks that reminded him so much of Emma's.

  A flash of recognition sparked in her gaze, and fresh tears fell over her puffy lids. Her cheeks twitched and she opened her mouth to say something, and that's when Ren saw it. He couldn't remember it before, or he'd forgotten it. Maybe he'd buried it, buried the sight so deep that it had only now broken the surface.

  Something leered at him from within Katie's eyes.

  The memory changed, shifted from mere recollection to something Ren couldn't define. A shadow moved past him, stepping forward with deliberate purpose. A hand reached out and grasped Katie's arm, and her scream rent the air, a wailing, terrible shriek that Ren knew could not have come from his wife.

  And the spoken word, like the stark, clear intonation of a ringing bell. Like judgment.

  Grigori.

  Ren sat in a stunned silence, unsure what he'd just seen. He imagined himself a piece of driftwood, floating aimlessly on a motionless sea. He blinked and shook his head, hoping he'd get the stirred, excruciating memory out of his head. Certain that he never would.

  "Your wife committed suicide."

  The angel's statement, the tone so sure that it wasn't even a question, shook Ren out of his blank reverie. "What did you just do to me?" he snapped.

  A warm tide of anger washed over him. The angel had plucked out the thread that Ren had kept hidden for years, even from himself. Ithuriel had rooted through his memories and rooted out the truth he needed. Ren's memories. Stolen, corrupted, no longer his own, but piercing through the very idea of Katie, shredding everything she was to him. The angel had taken her, the her that he remembered, from him forever.

  "I have done nothing to you," the angel replied, his voice measured and calm. "I saw what you could not and revealed her for what she was. As I said, difficult, but necessary."

  Nothing. The angel had done nothing to him. Then why was he short of breath? Why was the blood pounding in his ears?

  "My wife..." Ren took a gulping breath to steady himself. "Was no fucking demon."

  No more questions. No more unburied memories.

  He turned away from the angel and headed back towards the closed door, his head dizzy. His foot caught on the uneven floor and he nearly toppled forward. He heard movement behind him and ignored it. Ren just wanted out, just wanted the sky above, where he could breathe again. Where he could think.

  "Go to your daughter, Ren," the angel called behind him, his voice tinged with sadness, or maybe guilt. "She will need you, now more than ever. And you, her."

  Ren ignored the mounting ache in his shoulder as he pushed the tall door open. Ithuriel called for Kevin but his words barely registered for Ren. He left the angel and Kevin behind, Ithuriel's words like a haunting echo in his head. He told himself that it couldn't be true, that Katie couldn't have been a Grigori, one of the Fallen. He'd loved her, and she bore him the blessing that was his daughter. She just got sick is all.

  My wife was no demon. He had to stop for a heaving breath to calm himself. He wasn't sure if it was because his thought was true, or because it wasn't.

  ▪▪▪

  Ithuriel called for him from inside the dome, and Kevin frowned.

  He hesitated, watching Ren walk past, and wondered what the Malakhi had said to make him look like he was walking away from a plane crash. Kevin didn't much like the idea of the man walking back on his own, but he wasn't about to ignore the Spear.

  Kevin could be accused of being blunt, but he sure as shit wasn't stupid.

  He shook his head at the retreating Ren, and ducked inside the dome's doorway, pulling the door shut behind him. The gloom settled, and he strode towards the waiting Malakhi, the angel standing near the center of the massive arched hall.

  "What on earth did you do to him?" he asked, his deep voice echoing throughout the dome's interior. "I couldn't tell if you scared some sense into him, or scared what little was left out..."

  The words trailed away as he caught the somber look on Ithuriel's face. Even in the shadows he could tell there was something wrong, from the Malakhi's pale cheeks, and his red-rimmed eyes, dark hollows underneath. The angel's gaze drifted past Kevin, unfocused and far-off. He'd never seen the angel like this before, and the first hint of worry jabbed at him.

  "Ithuriel?"

  The angel's eyes flicked back to Kevin. "You must watch over him, Kevin. Him and the girl. I fear what the Grigori have planned for them both, because I cannot see it."

  "I-I will." Something was wrong here. Kevin could see it in the Malakhi's face, in his stance. Had Ren done something to him?

  Right, like Ren could have done anything to the angel.

  Kevin didn't want to hurt the girl, of course. Truth was, he wasn't sure that he could even if he tried. He'd taken on demons, cultists, those that had reneged on their own humanity, but this was different. No matter what was inside her, she was still just a little girl. If it came down to it, could he do what he had to, just because she was something she didn't want to be?

  Her father, though, that was different. Even if he didn't deserve it.

  And that was the problem.

  He didn't.

  "There are so few of us left," Ithuriel whispered, almost to himself. As if Kevin wasn't standing a few feet in front of him.

  Kevin's thoughts of Ren and his daughter fled, replaced by a growing concern for his commander. He'd long ago come to terms with his own fallibility, but the Malakhi, he wasn't supposed to act like this. He had been like bedrock
, ever since he had first found Kevin. This was unseen territory.

  He started to say something, but thought better of it. What could he say? How was he supposed to inspire an angel, a divine weapon of God?

  "I do not eat or drink. I do not sleep, do not need to stop to rest," Ithuriel continued, his words stringing together, gaining momentum. "Still, the times have changed. Our Father, my Father, He is gone from us, and without Him I am a flawed creature. My strength is failing, I can feel the ebb of it..."

  "No, it's not," Kevin said, worry shifting into something else, his tone more harsh than he'd intended. A spark of anger bit at him, hearing the angel talk this way, sounding so...weak. If anyone else heard this, the survivors' will, their grit and their faith, would shatter, and Haven would fall along with it. It still might, in its own time, but not like this. Kevin wouldn't, couldn't, allow that. "You can't talk like this—"

  "I was Made to hunt down those that sought darkness, those that relished the ash and flame." The angel's eyes glistened, and he let out a deep, quivering breath. "But when the darkness is everywhere, when this world has become ash and flame..."

  "You protect these people. You have blessed us, provided for us, and taught us how to fight back," Kevin hissed, angry now. "You are God's instrument—"

  "God is not here!" The Malakhi's shout echoed throughout the chamber, the shock of it reverberating through Kevin like a tremor. A tear trailed down Ithuriel's cheek, his eyes wild, scaring Kevin worse than anything. "God has fled, and He has taken my strength, and my faith with Him!"

  Kevin reacted without thinking, grabbing the pendant at his neck. He hissed its name, and Lahat flamed into existence, the sword gleaming under a strip of sunlight, blue fire racing along the length of the blade.

  "This is faith, Ithuriel! This is strength!" The words spurted from Kevin's lips, and he kept going, afraid if he stopped that he would fall, too. "You're the Spear, the hunter of the dark. You are strength, Ithuriel. You are faith."

  "This," he shook the blade in his hand, "is nothing without the Malakhi that gave it to me."