2

THE GIRL SAID NOTHING, AND HER NAILS SLIPPED back into her skin as the boy turned to face Will and me. He had sharp, handsome, tanned features, and his dark hair was shorter than Will’s. I studied his face and noticed that covering the right side of his neck and creeping up his jaw was a vicious line of tangled, marbled scars. It looked as if the scars might continue down his shoulder, but they were covered by his shirt and leather jacket. His wings folded and vanished.

“That was about to get a little too serious,” he said, and a lazy smile spread on his lips. Something about his face was so uncannily familiar.

“About to?” Will’s shoulders relaxed, and he let out a long breath. “It’s good to see you, Marcus. Surprising, but good. I’ve never been happier to see you.”

Marcus? Where had I heard that name before? Memories suddenly flooded back to me, memories of a smiling face, happy times, and of … fire. Why fire? I thought back to the scar on his neck.

Marcus laughed. “We were in the neighborhood.”

“We have been tracking Orek for some time now,” the girl said, folding her wings. She paused and smiled at Will in a knowing way that made something dark swell in my throat. “Hello, William.”

“Ava.” Will acknowledged her politely.

I was very sure that if she took a step toward him, I would smash her nose into her brain.

Will put a hand to the small of my back. “Ava, this is Ellie. You’ve never met each other before. She is the Preliator.”

Marcus stepped forward and gave me a friendly smile. “I, on the contrary, know you very well. It is wonderful to see you again.”

It was strange how things came back to me the way they did. Memories washed through me, warm like hot chocolate and just as sweet. Marcus was my friend. We’d fought side by side for over a century, gotten ourselves in and out of trouble, laughed at each other’s jokes…. Looking into his face gave me a sense of familiarity like when Nathaniel smiled at me in that silly way of his. There was no threat here, and I let my swords disappear. “Hi, Marcus.”

“We saw the nycterid grab the Preliator and take off with her,” Ava said. Interesting that she avoided my name and referred to me by my title. “Why didn’t he just kill her?”

“I wondered that myself,” Will agreed.

“He probably just wanted to get me away from you,” I offered. “Maybe he figured it’d be easier to fight me if you weren’t around. A lot of them think that.”

“Or maybe they wanted you alive.”

My jaw locked. What if he was right, and why? Did the why even matter? I just had to make sure they didn’t get me. Alive or dead. The uncertainty left an ill feeling spreading through me, and my weariness was suddenly overwhelming. Will seemed to sense this, as he always seemed to know when something wasn’t right.

“Are you ready to go home?” he asked, his voice soft.

I nodded.

“Are you hunting tomorrow night?” Ava asked.

“Yes.” Will’s wings and sword disappeared, folding back into him.

“We’ll join you,” Ava said. “Call me.”

“See you then,” Marcus said with a smile.

Their wings grew again, and the two reapers leaped into the air, cloaking their presence by entering the Grim. As they flew they were hidden from human sight, except mine, since I could travel in and out of the Grim just as easily as the reapers, and that of powerful psychics. I assumed Will used the Grim when he was flying, though a part of me would have loved to see the reaction of a human who saw Will airborne with his white wings. He looked like an angel. But the ironic thing was that he wasn’t really an angel, and I was. I was the archangel Gabriel, reincarnated into the body of a human girl. The idea would take some getting used to still, since I never felt anything near angelic.

“Want me to drive?” Will asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Please.” I gave him a faint, grateful smile.

We walked back to my car, which was parked a few streets down. The white Audi was dubbed Marshmallow II after the original Marshmallow was demolished by a particularly violent ursid reaper. I avenged Marshmallow in the end, though.

We left the city to return to my hometown of Bloomfield Hills, and on these drives I tend to get interesting information out of Will.

“How come I’ve never met Ava?” I asked.

He paused before answering. “She isn’t very social. She keeps to herself for the most part, and she takes killing the demonic very seriously.”

“How do you know her then? If she keeps to herself?”

“I met her on a hunt a long time ago. She’s become very, very good at what she does.”

“Killing?”

“Yes.”

I was glad that was what she was good at—and not something else. My jealousy surprised me. I spent so much time with Will that I’d forget he was his own person and there were nearly two decades when he was by himself between my reincarnations and my awakenings. I didn’t like thinking about my dying, which was probably why I forgot about Will’s loneliness while I was … wherever I was. Heaven, or so I’m told. I was glad he had Nathaniel, and up until tonight, I hadn’t met any of his other friends, at least not in this lifetime. I loved Will—was in love with him—and there was no reason for me to get jealous over his friends. It wasn’t fair to him. He didn’t get to spend a lot of time with anyone but me, because of his duty as my Guardian, so I was always eager about going to see Nathaniel. I wished I could have said the same thing about Ava, but I guessed it was the jealous non-girlfriend in me who wondered if Ava had ulterior motives.