Blown Away!: Even More Confessions of an Angel in Training Page 6

  “Nothing,” I reply and lower my eyes. He gently pulls me to the waterfall. The flow crashes down on my head and face, bathing me in pink, a reflection from my halo. He cups my face, shuts off his halo, and pulls me into a long, slow kiss.

  }{

  Back at our campsite, Victor gathers a few bigger branches and uses his halo to cast enough light to arrange them in a small teepee shape while I search the backpack for the lighter.

  “Can you find help me find some like this?” Victor holds up a few twigs. So I set about gathering up an armful and lay them next to his branches. He grabs a few and places them at the base of the teepee. I follow his lead and stuff a few more into the center.

  We hear a crack in the bushes next to the clearing. “Shut off your halo,” Victor commands.

  “Do you think the bear is back?”

  “Ssshh, Grace.”

  We sit in absolute silence listening for at least ten minutes. Everything is so still it feels like I’m in the middle of a Time Dilation, which might be the case, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. In front of us, the black sky stretches toward infinity, speckled with beautiful, bright stars. Victor taps my shoulder and points to an area behind us, in the direction the sound came from. The horizon is visible with a low orangey-red glow.

  He tosses his arm over my shoulder. “See that fire. That’s where we’re headed.” Victor whispers.

  That’s a fire? I thought it was the sunset. It dwarfs my mistake at L’Academie. I shiver, unsure if it’s the cool air, his touch, or that eerie glow. “Let’s get our fire going.”

  “I haven’t found the lighter yet.”

  “Don’t need it.” He focuses on the twigs and they spark, a small, gentle flame, lighting and spreading through the tinder until one of the larger branches catches fire. So that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

  I look at the horizon again, red and angry looking. “Do you think they can see our fire?”

  “I doubt it. Not with that thing going. It must be huge.” Victor uses the stick to draw lazy circles in the dirt, his face lit from the glow of the fire.

  I comb through the tangles in my still wet hair, every so often hitting a spot that needs extra attention. Victor alternates between watching me and continuing to scratch circles in the dirt. “What are you thinking?” I ask.

  “I’m still wondering what we’re doing here.”

  “We’re camping,” I say in a too-bright voice. Victor tilts his head to look at me, his eyes sad. So sad. I hate to see him like this. He’s usually so playful. “I’m a spy,” I whisper, a part of me hoping he doesn’t hear.

  Victor’s brows knit, his jaw clenches. “I thought it might be something like that. And you were selected because…” he trails off.

  “Annex is there. Maybe Cherish, too. They think—”

  “They who?”

  “They. The Archangels and Natura. They think The Locusts are trying to get into the Garden of Eden, so that they can overtake creating. Except, I don’t know what they want to create, because the last time I talked to Annex, he seemed like he wanted to destroy things.”

  “What things?”

  “Well, mainly The Hierarchy. Michael thinks…” I stop, because I’m not sure what he thinks. That Annex will trust me? That Annex will believe I’ll join them? “…he seems to think I was the best Angel for the job.”

  His shoulders slump. “I see. What do you think?”

  “I think that Mother Nature is very upset about the situation. Very. Upset. And, I think that means Earth and humans are in jeopardy. Remember when you came to lecture us about Noah’s ark?”

  He nods.

  “If Michael entrusted you to stop something like that, would you do it? Would you try?”

  He nods again.

  “Me too. So that’s why I’m here. I know I’m too green to have a Mission like this, but I have to at least try. You understand, right?”

  “Oh, I understand, but I don’t have to like it. I’m worried about you. I don’t suppose we could convince Michael to let me go, too?”

  “Didn’t you cut off half of Annex’s wing? I don’t think he’d greet you with open arms.”

  Victor smirks. “It was more like two-thirds, but yeah, he wouldn’t be happy to see me.”

  “I know what will make you feel better.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  Ignoring him, I pull a small coffee pot from my backpack, fill it halfway with fresh water from my canteen, and then set it on a flat section of the campfire to heat. “Let me have your mug.” I use the canteen to rinse it clean, grab my own, and then prepare two packets of instant cocoa: one for him, one for me. When the water is hot, I pour it into the mugs and stir them up. A few dehydrated marshmallows plump and float to the surface. “It would be better with a little whipped cream,” I say.

  “Everything is better with whipped cream, but this is incredible.” Victor locks his eyes on mine as he blows across the top of his mug to cool down the cocoa. It flutters me and suddenly I feel too warm. Maybe the hot chocolate will cool me down. I take a sip. Nope. That doesn’t work.

  Victor sips his and I take a gulp of mine, mostly to keep myself from doing something foolish. Right then, he laughs and wipes above my upper lip. “You had a chocolate mustache.” I feel heat rise to my cheeks from embarrassment. “Wait! I didn’t get it all.” He leans in and kisses me, his lips sticky and sweet.

  We kiss and drink cocoa and kiss some more until the fire is mostly embers.

  I crawl into my tent and lay on the air bed. Victor lays a blanket over me and tucks it in around my waist, hips, and legs. “Sweet dreams,” he says.

  “Where are you going to sleep?” I ask and move to the edge of the air bed.

  “I don’t sleep. I’m your Guardian.” He heads out the small door and sits down, legs crossed. It’s like I have my own personal Cherubim. Sweet.

  At night, the chirp of the cicadas is lower and slower than during the daytime. Their symphony, layered over the steady sound of the waterfall, completely relaxes me. Between my weariness from our hike and the peace of our surroundings, I feel like I could sleep for days.

  As it turns out, it’s only four hours.

  I wake in the middle of the night, shivering. “Victor, I’m cold.” I almost whisper this in case he’s sleeping, but he immediately pokes his head through the tent door.

  “You rang?”

  “I’m cold.”

  “I know just the thing to warm you up.” He disappears from the door, and I begin to worry about what he has in mind. Then, he’s back with a wool blanket for me. “Take mine.” It’s thicker than the one I was using. He spreads it out over me, and the heavenly heaviness warms me and I feel my eyes start to drift shut. “Night, night,” he says in a faraway voice.

  Then he says, “Rise and shine, lazy pants.” It’s as if no time had passed, but it did—the sun is peeking at us.

  Chapter 11

  Breakfast is from a can.

  Victor holds it out to me, label-less, with a spoon.

  “What is this?” I curl my lip at the contents.

  “It’s Angel nutrition.”

  “Um…that seems kinda generic,” I say while taking a spoonful of the light brown, gloppy stuff. Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste as bad as it looks.

  “I don’t know what’s in it either, but you’ll need energy for the end of the hike, so eat up.”

  I finish my can, and watch Victor eat from his. There are dark circles under his eyes. It looks like he needs this meal more than I do. “Are you tired?” I ask. He did stay up all night after all.

  “A little.”

  “What’s the plan for today?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

  It’s not very reassuring that he wasn’t given a specific to-do list for this Mission. Of course I wasn’t either, which if you ask me, is incredibly irresponsible. We pack up camp, spread the ashes from our small fire, and head out. This morning isn’t nearly as
awkward as yesterday’s silent hike. I tell Victor about my visit to the Hall of Muses to check on Cherish.

  “So she’s AWOL.”

  “Yes, which is why I think she might be at the Locust camp.”

  “Yeah, she always was…” he lets his thought trail off.

  She always was what? I feel a spark of jealousy as I realize he decided not to elaborate.

  Then, Victor changes the subject and tells me how he hasn’t had a Mission since Izzy, but how he’s been teaching instead.

  “You mean like when you guest lectured in my History of Mankind class?”

  “Well, a little more than that. I’m an assistant teacher for Professor Vivid, and I’ve been advising fifteen seniors on their graduation projects.”

  “Do you like it?” I ask, though I can’t imagine that he does. Victor is drawn by Earth in both good and not-so-good ways. He’s a skilled Guardian, but he’s also tempted by anything having to do with the senses. Everything from burgers to midnight flights with me.

  “It’s better than I thought. I guess you could say I got in a little hot water during that Mission with Izzy, and this is my cooling off period.”

  “You’re on Probation again!”

  “No, at least not technically. But it feels like that some days.”

  “What happened?”

  “They really frown on the use of flaming swords to de-wing other Angels, even if the Angel in question is a Locust.”

  Annex. And Victor cut off his wings to rescue me. It’s my fault that he doesn’t have a Mission. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is.”

  “No.” Victor stops walking and lays his hands on my shoulders, looking at me with his deep brown eyes. “I was told there were other ways for me to deal with the situation. And, that’s true. I could’ve used Time Dilation and left him behind if only for a moment to get you to safety. I could’ve used Size-Shifting or even Elemental Controls. Annex would’ve countered, but the point is, I had other powers at my disposal, and the truth is, I wanted to clip off his wings. A part of me wants to walk into camp with you and finish the job.”

  “You can’t do that,” I say, then amend myself. “You shouldn’t.”

  “I know, but that’s why I’m still trying to figure out our next steps.”

  We both fall silent, and what Victor just said makes me think that maybe he was given instructions for this Mission, but that he’s considering the possibility of ignoring them. The rest of the morning is a fairly easy hike compared to some of the sections yesterday. We spend most of it under a canopy of trees, out of direct sunlight.

  “I think we should take a short nap; I know I need one,” Victor suggests when we break from the trail around noon. “We’ll need to use their fire as a landmark to get you the rest of the way there.” He looks even more exhausted than he did this morning. We snack on some granola bars and beef jerky, and then inflate both air mattresses. As soon as his head hits the proverbial pillow, he’s snoring.

  I, on the other hand, lay there, staring up into the trees, sunlight dappled through the leaves, wondering what the future holds for us. It’s hard to picture it—I can’t even imagine what will happen tonight when I reach the Locust camp. I fall into a semi-trance, watching a couple of bluebirds work together to build a nest in the cavity of a tree. One, the brightly colored male, flies off in search of material, while the female stays behind to weave it altogether. Later, she’ll lay eggs and have babies to look after. It’s sad, really, that Angels are denied this privilege. If I were human, would I build my nest with Victor? Would he be my bluebird of happiness?

  I blink back tears and try not to think about Locusts or Victor or nests or anything else upsetting. While the bluebirds work and work, I finally grow so drowsy that I close my eyes.

  }{

  When we wake there are more shadows at our site.

  “It’s time for me to go back,” Victor says. “They’ll probably start the bonfire soon enough, and you should hike in that direction. It should be due east, if you’re unsure you can always use your compass. When you arrive at the camp, tell them you became lost in the Wilds.”

  He’s being so matter of fact. So military.

  “Okay.” My voice is small. I don’t want to be left alone out here. Up until this moment, it’s only been an idea that I could keep pushing away as long as Victor provided a diversion. And that’s when I realize the second reason Victor was given the Mission. Anyone else would not have distracted me in the same way, and I might have chickened out. How convenient that they could kill two birds with one stone.

  “You decided not to go to the campsite with me.”

  His soldier shoulders collapse. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. You do that to me, you know?”

  I slip my arms around Victor’s waist and pull him close. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Maybe you could stay and we could build a nest,” I mumble into his chest.

  He pulls back. “Nest?”

  “Never mind,” I say and pull him into a hug again.

  He lifts my chin and leans in to kiss me, soft and tender. “I’m going now. I have to, otherwise…” He turns and starts to walk away.

  “Hey!” I call after him. “I’m a little afraid.”

  He strides back, then takes a strand of my hair that’s pulled loose from the elastic and tucks it behind my ear. He lays his palm on my cheek. “I have confidence in you; Michael has confidence in you. Mother Nature, too. Trust your instincts. You’re a good judge of character. You’ll be fine.” His hand leaves my face, and he leaves the campsite.

  It’s good that he didn’t kiss me again or I probably would’ve run after him. I stuff my deflated air mattress into the back pack and zip it up. Then I sit cross-legged on the ground, waiting for the first sign of flames to start the last part of my trek.

  Chapter 12

  Tree stumps. That’s how I know I’m finally getting close to their camp. So many of the trees here have been cut down and there’s no other possible explanation. Before I even make it to the light that is cast high into the sky, they’re onto me. Out of the shadows step two Locusts—one male, one female. He’s a pale blond, and quite a specimen. She’s as dark and mysterious as he is light. They unfurl their wings and give one quick flap.

  “You’ve wandered too deep into The Wilds,” he says. I swear speaking makes every one of his muscles flex.

  “Humans aren’t allowed past the Waterfall,” the female adds.

  What? They think I’m human? I mean, yeah, I don’t have wings, but can’t they tell I’m an AIT? It’s tempting to blind them with my halo. Very tempting. But I behave. Instead I say, “I know Annex. I’m a…friend.” Even in the dark, I can see their confusion as they turn to face each other. Finally, the female switches on her halo and peers at me. I shield my eyes from the bright light with my left arm. “Hey, that’s kinda bright! Do you think you could use a dimmer switch?” I should’ve listened to my instincts and turned mine on first.

  “You know Annex?” she asks.

  “Yes, we met on Earth.” And disagreed about the fate of a musician. “I’m an Angel in Training—Grace Lightbourne—if you want to call him or text him or something.” I figured they wouldn’t be able to reach him, but it seemed like a less threatening thing to say than: take me to your leader.

  “Our phones don’t work in the Wilds. No bars.”

  “Maybe you could take me to see him?”

  They stare at each other until she shrugs, and I guess he agrees because he says, “Follow me.”

  Confession: It seems strange, but I think I’m a natural at this spy thing.

  We tramp through some heavy brush, and then reach a clearing. Here, even the stumps have been removed and the only thing left behind is a thick carpet of pine needles. This is my first look at the Locust camp, and I try to absorb as many details as I can for the report. Tents dot the landscape across the
pine needle clearing and head up a hill in the distance. I can’t tell if the tents stop at the top of the hill or continue down the other side of it. I’ll have to check that out later. There are several large wooden structures that must have been built from the trees that were cut down in that area we passed through.

  “We should take her to the bonfire, I’m sure that’s where he’ll be.”

  We weave our way through the site, between tents and small campfires, like the one Victor had built. The glow from the granddaddy fire casts a brighter and brighter beacon. I can even hear its faint crackle and smell its woodsy smoke. As we go deeper into the camp, the full bonfire comes into view. Its flames lick the sky, making it easy to see why we could see it from our campsite last night. Sitting in a circle around the fire are twenty or so Locusts. Right away, I see Annex and then notice an Angel cozied up on his left.

  Cherish.

  She laughs at something he says. She’s one of them.

  As we approach, Annex stands, and those with their back to us turn to look over their shoulders.

  “Grace,” is all he says as he throws his arms open in welcome. The smile on his face is too wide, too forced.

  “Hello.” I half-wave. Standing here, I feel foolish and exposed, like I did when I appeared in Michael’s office in the middle of my wing fitting.

  Annex strides around the bonfire, skirting the edge. “To what do we owe this pleasure?” There’s a tension in his voice that says pleasure might be a stretch.

  “I, uh…” Victor’s suggestion feels all wrong. When he reaches me, he places both hands on my shoulders, gripping them and staring with intensity. “How did you find us?”

  What’s my cover? Think. “Can we talk about it later? Because, um…it’s kinda private.”

  His eyes soften along with the hold on my shoulders. “Of course.”

  I just bought myself a little time to figure out the lie. Sometimes it’s good to be ditzy.

  He clasps my hand and pulls me along back to his spot, then waves his hand at the Angel on his right to scoot over to make room for me. I pull my backpack off and put it behind me. I sit down, cross-legged next to him and lean over to speak to Cherish. “I’m glad to know you’re okay. You had a lot of people worried.”