The ryan chronicles seri.., p.15
The Ryan Chronicles Series, page 15
Which left me the option of cutting through the thick woods until I was parallel with Black Cove’s rotting moss bed. A twig snapped to my left and I froze. Demons weren’t the only things Lucifer commanded and I set a deadly cocoon around me. If anything grabbed for me, they’d find themselves roasted to a crispy corpse.
I worked my way slowly through the woods, quietly carving the path. I’m sure my electrified safety net was enough of a disturbance to announce my presence but I kept my thoughts masked. I curved back towards the cove, ignoring the drop in temperature. My adrenaline acted as a body warmer, setting my blood on overdrive enough so that even my palms were covered in a light sheen of sweat.
The dense forest thinned and I saw my first slivers of the setting sun penetrating the trees. A thread of fear bit into me. I really didn’t want to be here after dark and looking at the progression of the dying rays, I knew I wouldn’t have a choice. Twilight was on the horizon and with it would come things just as nasty as demons.
Angel Grace Chapter 22
The moment I stepped onto the black moss, I knew I’d made a mistake coming alone. There must have been fifty demons just waiting for me and when I breached their domain, they parted, one by one, stepping to the side until I faced Lucifer’s back.
Every memory of Damian’s flooded my brain, terrifying me, and when he turned in my direction I had to get a hold of the fear, otherwise I was going to pee my pants like a scared little kid. My gaze dropped to the gaping hole in his chest and I shivered.
When the first demon reached out and actually touched my shirt, my heart leapt in my throat. My safety net was gone and now I was at their mercy. Muscle memory guided my every move, parrying blows away, executing throws and kicks powerful enough to kill an ordinary man. I don’t know how many I took down, but they just kept coming and my knuckles were scraped and bloodied by the blows I got in.
The muscles in my arms burned, but I kept going, snapping bone and dropping demons. But they didn’t stay down long. It was like battling a horde of zombies from World War Z and I was one in a sea of many.
Most of them didn’t know the art of self-defense, so I had that going for me, but that’s where my benefits ended. These fuckers were strong and relentless. The demon spirits in their bodies were not susceptible to the frailties of the human body. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for me.
I faltered and the first real blow hit my kidney, driving me to my knees. I rolled into a clear space and dodged another blow, trying like hell to let loose some of the destructive power locked within my flesh. Nothing happened and the first tendrils of panic settled in, making my strikes less effective and my blocks either too early or too late. I couldn’t seem to regain my center and each blow that connected had one goal; to break what it hit. I missed the next block and a fist connected with my ribs, cracking at least two of them, by the crushing pain.
I bellowed my pain, striking out and breaking a nose before stumbling back with my arm locked over my side to protect them from being hit again. I didn’t get my arm up in time and a fist smashed my lips, splitting both of them and loosening several teeth, but I remained on my feet, shaking off the shock.
I knew if I went down, that would be the end; I wouldn’t have a chance to get back up.
The next blow smashed my cheek and I stumbled, losing the battle with gravity. I landed on the side with the cracked ribs and yelled out. Pushing to my hands and knees, I tried to dodge the kick coming at me and served only to give someone on the other side a better shot of my back.
I curled and covered my head, screaming through the pain as over a dozen boot clad feet connected with my body. And then everything stopped. For a moment I thought I’d died, then hands grabbed my arms, lifting me and bringing me back with a ferocious dose of agony.
Each step they took sent a jolt through my body and I couldn’t help the tears. I’d welcome blacking out right now, but I knew if I did that, Lucifer would take control over my body, knocking my soul who knows were and the world would end.
They dropped me on the ground in front of Lucifer and I struggled to my hands and knees. One of his lackey bastards grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back.
“You’re on my turf now, boy, or hadn’t you noticed?” Lucifer asked and I just stared at him. He crouched down in front of me. “You can end this. All you have to do is surrender.” he said in a perfectly reasonable tone. He tilted his head and studied me like a poor lost stray.
“Fuck you,” I hissed spraying blood with my words.
“You sure about that? You think you’re in pain now, I can make it infinitely worse.” He stood, towering over me.
A cloud passed over the path of the dying sun, creating a dark shadow on the trees behind Lucifer that reminded me of an eagle... or a hawk and I blinked the sudden vertigo away. I let out a raspy laugh at what must be a last ditch hallucination. I was sure I was one punch away from death anyway, and if I died, my powers went with me.
“Game on, motherfucker,” I glared through my only open eye, energized by the strength of my voice. It reminded me of my father and his steel nerves.
Lucifer gave a nod and the hands holding me disappeared. I dropped to my hands and knees and a painful flare from impact seized my muscles and I groaned. My forehead dropped to the ground, landing on the scratchy moss. Instead of clenching my eyes closed, I scanned the number of shoes surrounding me and forced an inhale. Too many for me to fight off, but I wasn’t going to die kneeling on the ground. Lucifer’s black steel toe boots circled me and I pushed up, forcing myself to my feet, blocking the pain from overriding me. When he appeared in my peripheral vision, I turned my gaze toward him, stepping into form. I spit a wad of blood on the ground and glared in his direction.
If I couldn’t influence matter around me, I damned well could look inward. The power was still there, brewing in my chest, filling my skin with the ability to remain standing. Tapping my mental reserve, I filled every inch of my broken body with strength and narrowed my good eye at him.
“Let’s see what you got.”
He tilted his head and my pinky snapped, pulling a groan from my chest that I clamped between my teeth.
I glanced at my pinky, willing the bone to reset, and damned if it didn’t. It was still broken, but not at an angle I couldn’t curl into a fist. I did just that and smiled my best ‘fuck you’ smile.
“I may not be an archangel, but I’m a force to be reckoned with.”
Lucifer leaned his head back and laughed and I threw a punch aimed at his throat. My fist stopped less than an inch away and my arm slowly twisted, peeling a growling scream from my throat when both my ulna and radius snapped. Flashes of light filled my vision and I blinked them away even as he continued to twist.
“Your powers are useless here,” he smiled as I knelt helplessly at his feet watching the skin start to tear around the breaks.
“His may be, but mine aren’t,” a familiar voice rocked the landscape and the smell of singing moss filled my nostrils. The crowd surrounding us evaporated to dust, leaving Lucifer, Damian and me on the playing field.
Lucifer let go of my arm and I collapsed to the ground, pulling the pieces to my chest, my breath wheezed in and out and I did the same thing I did with my finger, screaming my pain to the heavens. I clung to consciousness by a thread as the last direct rays of sun disappeared.
Lucifer’s boot pressed down on my throat and black spots filled my vision. My father’s words echoed in my head and tears leaked from the corner of my eyes. He would be so disappointed in me for dying like this.
Something inside me broke and with it whatever wall blocked my ability to harness and wield the power engulfing me shattered into a million pieces, and I let loose like I have never done, knocking Lucifer across the Cove. I struggled to my feet, unable to harness this fury or the fire ripping through my skin.
Damian’s expression matched the absolute shock on Lucifer’s face. The ground shook under us, crumbling under Lucifer’s feet. Trees started toppling, sucking into the sink hole, scraping the evil off the land and filling it with white light.
I had a moment, a quick glimpse through Damian’s eyes and what I saw fueled the power. I shined like a celestial being, one made to purify the land and I was hell bent on destroying this portal, even if I lost my life doing it.
If I could destroy Lucifer in the process, that was just a bonus.
He charged at me and I put my hand up like a traffic cop, targeting the power. I don’t think he knew what hit him and he went down into the giant crack like a fly slapped in a hurricane. Trees amassed over the crevice, crackling and snapping as the white light surrounded us, peeling away the evil and scrubbing the land from edge to edge. Every last bit of shrub and moss scraped down to the dirt and the debris slid into the giant whirlpool where the sink hole had been, slipping through the crack until there was nothing left, and then the crack slammed closed, fused with light, closing this portal to hell forever.
The light faded and I stared at the perfectly round, perfectly flat, and perfectly clean patch of land that reminded me of those strange alien crop circles in the mid-west. None of the devastation remained and what was left waited for a harvest of new life. I turned my gaze to Damian.
“So that’s what happens when I lose control,” I whispered and then everything went black.
Angel Grace Chapter 23
Muffled sounds and darkness.
Sobbing then silence.
Bright light then blackness, again.
A steady machine-like beep.
Hushed whispers.
Music.
Moments lost in the dark.
Where the hell was I?
Who the hell was I?
All fractional pieces of the puzzle that my brain couldn’t wrap around.
There were no answers, just darkness and silence and nothing.
Angel Grace Chapter 24
I opened my eyes and everything around me was a blur. After a few blinks I stared at a hanging bag of liquid, the slow drip captivated me. Drip, drip, drip. I peeled my eyes away and turned my head. Lights bounced across a screen, just as hypnotizing as the drip above me. Spike up, back down, pause, spike again over and over like an endless steady earthquake. It took a few minutes for me to connect the timing of the spikes to the pounding in my chest. I moved my hands to the source and a hard smooth object lay in the spot I thought my heart should be and then my fingertips slid off whatever it was onto warm skin.
My brain was slow to understand and it was a struggle to think clearly.
My nose tickled and I reached up to scratch it, pulling small tubes from my nostrils in the process. I stared at the thing, blinking as air flowed into my eyes. Why was it so hard to know the words for things? I turned my head away from the machines and they landed on a man slumped in a chair.
I didn’t recognize him, just like I didn’t recognize names for the things around me. Should I know him? Logic wasn’t working and I shifted uncomfortably in the bedding. His eyes blinked open and he stretched, rubbing his scruffy face. Then his gaze landed on me, his eyes widened and met my gaze, and then widened some more.
“EA?” he said and my brow creased. “O o ow whe oo a?” he asked and his hands moved along with his speech, none of which made a lick of sense.
I blinked, hoping something would compute, but nothing came and I just stared at him, unable to decipher what the hell he was saying.
He pulled something from his pocket and tapped the screen before turning it to me. It was covered with unfamiliar symbols strung together. Nothing registered.
Distant whispers filled my head and I glanced around the room for the source and then back at the man. I shook my head slowly.
“Do you know where you are?” the question formed in my head an unfamiliar voice along with my own broken narrative. The man’s mouth didn’t move and I glanced around the room, looking for the source.
He took my hand and my gaze snapped to him as I tried to pull my hand away.
He let go and pointed to his chest. “CJ, it’s me, Tom.”
I licked my lips and tried out the last word of the sentence. “Tom?” It came out in a harsh croak and he smiled, nodding. It didn’t hold any meaning and I glanced around again for what made the words inside my ears.
Liquid sloshed and I glanced back at him as he moved something clear with a thin plastic rod toward my mouth. I backed away, uneasy by the offering. The complete unfamiliarity of everything was pushing me closer to the freak out zone.
“Take a small sip,” the voice said as the plastic touched my lips.
I hesitated, unsure of what a sip was and the man pulled the liquid away slowly, plugging one end of the plastic with his finger and placing the long straight end against my lips. He lifted his finger and cool liquid seeped into my mouth, quenching the dryness. I swallowed and closed my eyes, licking the remaining liquid from the corner of my lips.
“Do you know where you are?”
The voice announced again and my eyes opened, scanning what I could see of the room before slowly shaking my head and dropping it back on the soft pillow.
“You’re at the hospital,” the voice echoed softly in my mind but his lips still didn’t move. Again I looked for the voice in my ear but only the man stood in the room with me.
“Hos...pit..tal?” I tried the word out and it didn’t come as smoothly as in my head. His smile faded.
“Do you know who I am?” the voice whispered and behind it resided pain that I couldn’t identify. The man patted his chest when I didn’t answer, his eyes pleading for a reaction that I couldn’t give.
I stared at him and shook my head. The devastation in his eyes squeezed my heart and he sat down slowly in the chair. That’s when I realized he was the one talking in my head.
“I’m your brother,” his voice whispered.
“Broth...ther?” I asked, the meaning lost to me. I didn’t know why it was so damned hard to speak or to understand things; it was like my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
He nodded. “Do you know who you are?” his voice invaded my mind again.
This time I met his worried stare. “Bro...ther?” I said because I had no idea what the right answer was.
He covered his mouth and his eyes glossed over with a watery sheen. When his eyes closed, some of the liquid leaked out, rolling down his cheeks. He opened his eyes and turned away with the device in his hand, tapping away at the screen for what seemed like ages. When he was done, he set his shoulders and turned, offering a smile meant to reassure, but it just scared the shit out of me.
Everything about this scared the shit out of me. Not being able to smoothly answer the questions or understand where I was scared the shit out of me and my gaze darted around the room, looking for an escape route.
He reached over and picked up a stick that lay near my hand and pressed a red button on the top. I stared at the magic wand in his hand, trying to understand how I knew the button was red, or the fact that it was a button for that matter.
The door opened and a woman with a white coat came in. She had her hair pulled back and her eyes, her eyes captivated and calmed me. The colors in her eyes swirled as she crossed the distance. The warmth in her gaze wrapped around me like a security blanket and I knew with her I was safe.
“Chris?” she asked in such a tender way that my heart ached for her. When she sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand in hers, I stared at the union of our flesh, and heat tingled from the point of contact through my form, from my head to my toes and everywhere in between. A living connection between the two of us created a warmth deep in my soul and even though I didn’t remember her, I remembered this overwhelming and pure sensation.
“Hi,” I croaked and blinked again. That word came from nowhere and the reaction seemed to sadden her.
Water sprang from her eyes and then the right word popped into my head. She was crying and those glistening drops were tears. I don’t know why, but I sat up and pulled her into my arms. Holding her felt like home and I closed my eyes, inhaling her sweet scent.
“Jesus, Chris, I didn’t think you’d ever wake up,” she whispered in my ear.
“Je..sus. Chri..is?”
She stiffened in my arms and slowly pulled away, the same concern present on her face as the man who called himself brother. She unwrapped from me and put her hand on my chest.
“Chris, that’s your name,” she said, blinking away the tears. She took my hand and placed it under the ornate necklace onto her flesh. “Valerie. I’m Valerie.”
I stared at my hand on her chest. Underneath the soft warmth, her heart beat against my hand, echoing my own and I knew this girl had a piece of my soul. It wasn’t from a memory or familiarity, it was as natural as the air and just as essential to my survival.
And best of all, I knew the word to describe it.
“Val...er...ie.” I glanced into her eyes. “Lo...ove Val...er...ie.”
She got the meaning right away despite my stilted speech and her eyes filled with tears. Her hand fluttered to her lips and she nodded before leaning forward and placing a kiss on my forehead.
A strange tingle encompassed my head along with flashes of pain, of white light, of angels. The tingles cascaded down my body all the way to my toes and another word surfaced.
I tilted my head.
“Ha...avad?”
She let out a musical laugh and squeezed my hand. “Yes. I’m going to Harvard Medical School. I’ve already finished the classroom portion, with straight A’s mind you, and now I’m in my second year of clinical rotations at the Children’s Hospital.”
She positively beamed, but something didn’t compute right in my mind. Some important piece of information was missing and I needed it to fix this awful dread in my stomach. I glanced at the man again and something clicked.
