The next day, after having seen (or at least imagined) Blake, everything seemed better.
“Please, Claire,” I said. “I need to learn how to defend myself.”
She slowed down as we left the school grounds. “I know that, and I will help you. It all takes time, Jade. Little by little, you’ll learn it all.”
I gave her an exasperated look. “I don’t have time, Claire! If Lilith shows up again and I’m alone...” I closed my eyes as I acknowledged the slip.
She slammed on the brakes and pulled over on the side of the road. “What do you mean, ‘again’! You’ve seen her?”
“Well—I mean, I think I did . . . I’m not sure.”
“Jade,” she said as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
“That day at the library, when I ran into you, I was running away from her. She was there right before you got there… I think. Because then she vanished, so I thought I was seeing things. Just like the guy…” Then I remembered, when Lilith walked toward me, the panic I had felt until I finally broke the trance she had me in.
“What guy?” Claire was trying to seem calm, but her voice betrayed her. “And—and you didn’t tell me about Lilith before because…” Her eyes bored into me like augers. Where was the old effervescent, fun-filled Claire?
I didn’t know how to explain it. I had been feeling left out, no one had taken the time to explain what was going on, and, honestly, I hadn’t even been sure of what I had seen.
“This is too dangerous for you to be trying to handle it all on your own,” Claire said. “You have no idea what she’s capable of.” She stared off into the distance.
“Then all the more reason to help me learn as much as I can,” I said. “She is after me for some reason, and I need to be able to fend for myself. You can’t always be around, Claire.”
She reached for my hand. “I will always be there, Jade. Do not doubt that for a minute.” I knew she meant it, but I had to be prepared nonetheless.
I shifted on the passenger seat and asked her what we were going to do today. But she didn’t reply— just smiled and drove on. We drove well out of town and into the hills, where the roads were narrow and winding, with small farms and country stores scattered throughout. After pulling into a dirt lot that didn’t seem attached to anything, she grabbed her cell phone out of the center console and got out of the car. So did I.
We made our way toward the edge of where the deep woods began, with orange and red and yellow leaves in their fading fall glory. She paused and motioned me to hurry, then took off at a slow trot. I hurried after her, and we walked about fifteen minutes into the thick forest. We finally reached a small, slow creek.
“All right, ready to put those wings to good use?” she asked, giving me a tentative smile. I was about to argue with her. I sure wasn’t ready for it, but before I could speak, her golden wings spread, leaving me speechless. “Come on, Jade, let those babies out.”
I didn’t realize my wings had protruded until I caught sight of them in my peripheral vision.
“I—I don’t think I’m ready for this yet,” I stammered.
She looked back at me and grinned. “Nonsense. Let’s go.”
She started running along the stream bank, faster than a deer, and so I began running, too. My heart started beating faster, not so much from the run as from knowing what I was about to do.
The moment Claire jumped and pulled away from the ground, I halted.
I couldn’t do this.
She must have sensed that I wasn’t following her, because she stopped moving forward and simply turned around and hovered about fifty feet above me. “Come on, Jade, you can do this. Trust me.”
I looked up at her. “Do I need to run again?” I asked. “Is it like when a plane lifts off?”
I could barely see her shake her head. “No, but since it was your first time, I wanted to get your adrenaline pumping before we took off. You can run a little bit if you feel that you need to; otherwise, work those puppies!”
I stood there for a few seconds, not sure what to do—or even what I wanted to do. I closed my eyes and started picturing myself flying, and the wings reacted.
My feet felt strangely lighter, and I opened my eyes and looked down at the ground receding beneath me. I was doing it! I was actually flying. Excitement took over, and I started laughing.
“See? It’s not as hard as it looks. You’re doing great. Are you ready for our next destination?”
I turned my head to the right, where Claire’s voice had come from, and nodded.
She pushed forward, and I followed. I looked down at the treetops, and the colorful view made me sigh with delight. It was so beautiful, but mostly I felt at home. So many times I had dreamed about this. The wind made my eyes water at first, but soon they adjusted, and it felt soothing on my face.
“Where are we going?” I flapped my wings a little harder to get close to Claire. She looked so divine in this state! I caught myself wondering whether I looked as great as she did, and feeling once again the slightest twinge of jealousy.
“We’re heading toward Falls River State Park,” she said. “There shouldn’t be people around there right now, so we could do some more training there without the worry of anybody seeing us.”
This was all so exciting, I could barely contain my exuberance. “This is so friggin’ awesome, Claire!” I gushed, and then wondered whether that was the sort of thing angels said.
She smiled at me and started going higher, spinning around and then dipping back down. As much as I wanted to be able to do that, I wasn’t about to go do something dangerous and get myself killed. Then again, could I even die?
I was flitting along in ecstasy when I noticed that Claire seemed to be having a hard time keeping up with me.
“The only reason you’re faster is because you have bigger wings,” she said when we finally touched down.
I giggled, realizing that she wasn’t enjoying how, as new as I was, I could still fly faster. I was the rookie and still showing her up.
On foot now, she led me through darker and denser forest, which suddenly opened onto a huge clearing that looked something like a battlefield. “What the hell happened here?” I asked, taking in the strange surroundings of broken and torn-down trees. Some boulders were split in half, and in many places the soil and ground cover had been disturbed.
“We use this space to practice,” Claire said. “Think of it as sparring. We do have to keep in top shape, you know.”
It made sense, I supposed. “But can’t you just find someone that can fight back?” I said half in jest. “You are sort of ripping up the environment.”
“Ha-ha, Jade. Now, let’s get into battle training.”
“Uh . . . battle training?” I guess I should have seen it coming, but after seeing what she had done here, I was a bit afraid of what she would do to me. After all, she had how many years of practice? And this was my first time—which reminded me of something that had been bothering me. “How old are you, Claire?”
I could see that the question caught her off guard. “Does it matter?”
It did. I wanted to know.
Although I didn’t answer, she replied. “In mortal years, about six hundred.” My jaw dropped. My cute, lively Claire, six centuries old! She then struck a pose and said, “I don’t look too shabby, though, right?”
I laughed and agreed.
“Now, let’s get this started,” she said. “The guys will be expecting us in, like, an hour or so.” She moved to the center of the clearing. “What we’re going to do is learn from experience. I know this is your first time, so I’ll ask you to come at me and I’ll defend myself, so everything I do, your job is to memorize it—it’s exactly what you will need to do when someone attacks you—I mean, if anyone attacks you.”
I nodded as I watched her crouch. Unsure what to do, I charged at her, deciding that I would give it my all and wouldn’t play the inexperienced student.
As I gained speed, she got ready
for impact. I could tell she expected me to run smack into her, so instead, when I was four or five steps away I jumped, my wings appearing in an eye blink, and flew over her. Landing right behind her, I put my arms around her in an attempt to throw her to the ground. Although I had surprised her with my attack, my grip wasn’t strong enough. She pulled away from me, grabbed the back of my neck with her right arm, and spun me with surprising force. The next thing I knew, she had me in a headlock.
“That was amazing Jade.”
I grunted, disappointed that I hadn’t been able to get the best of her.
“No, seriously, I didn’t expect you to jump over me and attack me from behind at all. That isn’t a first-timer kind of move. You’ll learn faster than I ever did.”
She helped me get up and said, “Now let’s do it again, and this time when you grab me, use force. Treat me as a threat. Kick me, punch me—do anything you would do to someone who was about to kill you. Don’t hold back, okay?” I nodded, and before she was ready I did as she said, kicking the back of her knee and making her fall to the ground. Then, jumping over her, I grabbed her forehead and chin between my hands as if I were going to twist her head off.
She chuckled and congratulated me. “I don’t think you’re going to need much practice at all. Where the heck did you get all these moves?”
I stood up and backed away, staring at her, not daring to break eye contact and let her attack me. “You make fun of my movie addiction,” I said, laughing, “but see? It pays off to watch thrillers and action movies—I might have picked up a move or two from there.”
We went on that way for forty minutes. My jeans had ripped, my shirt had dirt all over it, and my hair was a tangled mess. I kept pulling leaves out of it as we drove back to Claire’s place. I glanced over at her, and seeing that she didn’t look any better than I, I asked her what we were going to tell Avan had happened to us. I even had dirt under my nails—it was disgusting.
“Just manifest yourself all fresh and clean.”
I gave it a try, and as I looked down at myself, I had the same clothes, but they were inexplicably clean, I lowered the visor on the passenger side. There was no more dirt on my face, and my hair was neatly tied in a side ponytail.
“Awesome.” I paused and then asked, “How come it doesn’t really hurt?”
She looked over at me “What do you mean?”
“When we hit each other or fall hard onto the ground—it doesn’t seem to hurt as it should. I mean, I got a few scrapes and cuts, but the pain is barely there.” I turned to her with bewildered eyes.
“We heal very fast,” she said. “And as far as the hurting goes, it doesn’t hurt the way it would if we were human, but sometimes they can hit a soft spot. Trust me, it will cause some pain then; still, it’s a lot less than what the poor mortals have to deal with.”
I thought once again about the pain I could finally cause Amy. Realizing where my thoughts were leading, I just had to ask Claire if it was normal for an angel to think that way.
She explained to me that since I had been in the mortal world for so long, I had acquired their way of thinking, and as long as I was in the mortal world I would always have their way of thinking. That didn’t mean, she said pointedly, that I could go around hurting people who didn’t deserve it.
“Since we have another half hour before we get to your place, would you mind answering some more questions?” I said. There was so much I needed to know, and some things I had to know now, to be able to understand what I was up against.
“Shoot,” she said without taking her eyes off the winding road.
“You guys said everyone wants me. What does that mean exactly?” I squinted, waiting for her response.
“You know how we said you’re a seraph?” I nodded. “Okay, a seraph is an angel that serves as a portal. In heaven, you are used as a portal between realms, but being here, as long as you are a pure angel, you are a portal to anyone’s wildest desires. That’s why there are so many people after you and why we have to keep you safe. If anyone takes you, they could kill you to accomplish whatever they may want. Nate and I have had to take care of a few of them since school started and you started glowing.”
I nodded dumbly, feeling fear creep into me again. They all wanted me because they wanted to kill me.
“You said as long as I am pure—what does that mean?”
“Well, when you fell from heaven it was unknowingly. You really didn’t know what you were doing, so you stayed as a pure angel. Others, like the fallen ones, that leave heaven on their own agenda and get involved with humans in a more, uh, personal way, are not pure anymore; hence, if you ever meet one, you’ll see their wings are black.”
“Okay, and what would make me a fallen angel or not pure anymore?” This subject was starting to make better sense, yet I was afraid of the answer that was coming.
It appeared that if I were to disobey heaven or any other pure angel, or got physically involved with a mortal, then I would be a fallen one. That meant I’d better not even think of taking my relationship with Avan any further than second base. I tried not to think about how that would be an imposition on our relationship, since, for the time being, there was no relationship.
“I now know what I am,” I said, “but how about you and Nate? Are you the same kind of angel? Your wings are the same color.”
“Yeah. As you heard Lilith say, we’re cherubim. We guard the seraphim—in this case, you. That’s our job—we are to guard you and keep you safe. We are always created in pairs, perfectly fit for each other—ready-made mates.” She smiled, but that worried me.
“Is that all you guys are? Bodyguards? Because for the past three years I really considered you guys my best friends, I don’t know what I would do if you told me you guys were just pretending all this time…” I looked out my window at the darkening sky, the last of the flaming orange hues melting into purple.
“Oh, no! How could you think that, Jade? Yes, I won’t argue we were sent here to take care of you, but, honey, you’re like my sister. Don’t doubt that for a second. It actually hurts me a little that you would even toy with the idea.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling sheepish. “But with everything going on and me turning out to be what I am, things don’t seem to make much sense nowadays.” I was quiet for a moment but kept on with my questioning. “So Lilith is after me for the same reason as the others? She just wants me for whatever is on her agenda?
“That’s pretty much it. I don’t really see any other reasons why she would be after you.”
“Do you know what she could possibly want? I mean, what she would want to achieve by killing me?”
“I have an idea, but I couldn’t be sure really.”
I realized we were already at Claire’s place. The porch light was on.
Claire pulled all the way up, parking right next to the front porch. I looked back at her and realized she had just manifested herself clean and combed. We got out of the car, and as we walked toward the door, two boxes of pizza and a two-liter bottle of root beer appeared out of nowhere and fell at my feet.
“Make sure you don’t open that, unless you want
to get sprayed by it.” She said, giggling, as she pushed the door open and walked into the house.
18. SHARED DIVINITY