23. THE ANGEL

Another scream on top of mine - a shriek like a chainsaw cutting through rebar.

The Hunter lunged, but her teeth snapped shut an inch from my face as something yanked her back and flung her out of my sight.

The fire continued to burn in me, the invisible flames growing higher and higher and I was losing myself to it.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Breathe, I tried to tell myself, focus on your breathing. In, out. In, out.

It was to no avail. I was still screaming, but the sound was like equalizer amped all the way down. Like I was afloat in the middle of a clear acid river slowly, painfully getting sucked in, deeper and deeper until I was drowning. Burning. Like everything was on fire.

Broken glass. Blinding lights. The squeal of cacophony; of destruction all around me.

"Beau!"

Edythe. Her voice was a soft, distant sound – like a lighthouse through the fog. There was a trill of an echo in it, and then it was gone as soon as it appeared. I held my hand out as if I knew the direction which the sound came from, but it fell limply back down on my chest, every last ounce of strength in my arm fading away in the breath of a moment. I couldn't reach it. I don't think I ever will. How was Mom? Dad? Did they know I was going to die? Did they know how much I loved them? Protect them. Someone, please, protect them.

No! I shouted in my head; kicked at the imaginary acid river. I can't think like this.

Stay alive. Stay alive. Whatever you do, just stay alive. Don't succumb to the pain. Hang in there, hang in there…

But fighting against the pain was like trying to cut a bullet in half with your teeth.

"Beau!"

That same voice was louder now; closer. It gave me a moment of clarity, the profundity of my relief granting me a short reprieve from the burning.

"I've got you, Beau. I've got you."

Her beautiful voice was the sweetest music to my ears. She gathered me into her arms and then an angel filled my vision to capacity - luminous, radiant, glowing. I stroked her satin cheek with the back of my hand and she nodded, silent, her throat bobbing as she tried to show me a smile. "I'm right here, Beau." And she was - still here, still alive. Thank God she was alive. Tears welled in my eyes but I didn't make a sound, everything hurt too much for that. But I tried to see past the pain, to distract myself from it. So, I chose to see her instead. To concentrate on every beautiful line and plane of her face, the sensation of her cool body against mine, and her smile. Just her, because that was all that mattered in the world. "Let's get you out of here." she whispered down at me and jumped up, the draft slamming cold into my cuts but I couldn't remember to care.

"Oh no, you're not getting away that easily."

"Ah!" Edythe let out a yelp. Something caught her by the ankle and it slammed her into the ground, decimating the floorboards beneath her.

Edythe! I wanted to cry out, but could only let out a strangled scream when I flew out of her arms and hit the floor, feeling like I broke something - everything - on it.

And then the fire ripped through my body anew.

Maybe it was the cuts. Or the broken bones. The venom. Sounds became louder, any sources of light became brighter and brighter, so bright I felt like I'd go blind. Everything hurt. My head was burning; back in that acid river again. And I was terrified that I couldn't come up for air this time.

Somewhere to my left, a horrid voice cut through the dark. "You're the fastest, aren't you little girl? All alone, up against the Big Bad Wolf. But you're not any stronger than the rest though, are you?" It was Joss. She laughed, the sound low with a sharp, rising edge of menace to it now.

"No," Edythe was on her knees, struggling by Joss's feet. Taking quick, pained breaths, she rose from the broken floor and looked the Hunter head-on in the eye. "But I am strong enough to kill you." Then she kicked Joss hard across the jagged floorboards and broke into a blurry sprint towards her, grinding the hunter's body deep into the ground. But the next instant the hunter was up and had Edythe by the neck, flying her into the window. A smattering of glass exploded in every direction, all glinting-deadly shards and refracted color. She fell to the floor and Joss dove for her like a hawk.

"Edythe!" I screamed. Even though I knew in the back of my mind that there was no way I could ever get to Edythe before Joss could, I threshed myself this way and that, dragging my body across the floor and pushing through that fire just to try. Joss lunged for Edythe and had her by the neck. "Edythe!" I sobbed again in a gasping breath. Her eyes locked on mine from beneath the tussle for one split-second and then with strength anew, she pushed Joss off her hard and into the wooden floor with the tip of her black lace-up boot, splintering the floorboards and making an exploding path of destruction; chunks of wood and shrapnel sent every which way like confetti and flying up into the air with her just before they could make it to the other end of the room.

I tried concentrating on what was happening in front of me; tried to come up with some strategy, some way I could help. But every sensation of burning was made too torturous to bear. Edythe. I wanted to protect her. With everything in me. But there was nothing I could do now; my body was incapable of obeying any commands. Too busy drowning. Too busy being on fire. It was all I could feel.

Then the door to the studio was broken down, and in ran six blurry shadows.

I realized I was still screaming. But the others were, now, too – the metallic snarls were joined by a high keening that bounced off the walls and then cut off suddenly. A thrumming growl was grinding underneath the other sounds. More metal-tearing, shredding…

I tried to move; to get to her and a shard of glass lodged itself in my thigh, or maybe it's been there all along and I just pushed it in deeper. But I couldn't feel it then. Only the fire consumed me now. My strangled scream was like an animal's again.

"Beau! It's okay, it's okay. We'll fix this." Archie swooped down beside me, taking my bleeding arm and tightening a piece of gauze around it.

"Carine!" he called out, looking up with panicked eyes. "The blood… he's lost too much… blood…" His voice dropped off into nothing as he took in the cuts on my unbitten arm; the gash on my leg and the blood trickling out of the place where the glass had pierced my skin. With a shaking finger he traced the lines of red which crisscrossed over me, his eyes now pulsing bright with thirst. But then he shook his head hard and looked away, holding another thick pad of gauze to one of the biggest cuts on my arm instead.

Carine was over to us in a fraction of a second. "You did so well, Arch. Now go help your father and your siblings, I'll take it from here." Archie nodded quick then flew away, disappearing. Carine had my leg; I felt the glass niggle under my skin as she removed it. Then she pressed her jacket to the gash, the weight of her hand, cool through the fabric, crushing against my flame-hot skin. And yet for all that, the drowning, burning feeling was the one that paralyzed me most; the one that still didn't let up. I couldn't speak. My screams were gone, but only because there was no more air. My head throbbed and the sound of my breaths came back to me in echoes. It made time pass slowly. Painfully. What felt like a hundred years to me – a hundred years of burning – couldn't have been more than a minute. But how much longer did I have now? Everything was happening in slow-motion. Behind Carine there was a languished blur, the hazy fog-like glow of red fire burned in the background like in some kind of ritual. Carine's shadow hovered over me as she tightened something round my broken arm with her other hand. I felt the pressure and gasped as another roll of pain hit.

The rest of the shadows sprinted towards us now. One leapt.

"No!" Someone howled in an agony to match mine. "No, no, no, no!"

This voice meant something to me, even through the burning that was so much more than that. It was Edythe. My Edythe.

"Beau, please," she sobbed. "Please, please, please, Beau! Please!"

She dropped to her knees and cradled my head in her lap, fingers pressed hard against my bleeding scalp. Her face still remained unfocused above me. I was rapidly falling down a tunnel in my head. The fire was coming with me though, just as sharp as before. I screamed again. Edythe pulled me closer to her, eyes desperately seeking out every cut; every injury on my body. She gasped in horror, it looked like she was about to cry.

"His femoral artery is severed; he's losing too much blood." Carine whipped out low and quick. I felt a sharp stab in my side then and grit my teeth, trying to fight against it.

"It hurts," I whimpered, crossing my arms tight over my broken body, my fingers instinctively going over the place the fire first started, and it felt like the imprint of Joss's teeth seared right through the skin on my palm.

Edythe took my face in her hands, stroking it. "I know, Beau, I know-"

"No, no, Edythe, it hurts!" I took her hands in mine, my pleading eyes finding hers.

"Calm down, Beau. Hold on, please just hold on. We'll fix you up, we'll-"

"My hand is burning…!" I screamed out, my voice bursting through the pain for one split-second like a shot in the dark. Her eyes moved down and flew open in horror. She gasped, seizing my wrist.

"She bit him." Edythe's voice had no volume, like she'd run out of air, too. Her shoulders shook and she took my bitten hand in hers.

Carine caught her breath in horror then squeezed her eyes shut to compose herself, trying her best to keep it together for us all. "Edythe, you have to make a choice – you can either let the change happen-"

"No." Edythe shook her head, hard. "No."

"It's too late, Edythe!" Archie wailed somewhere to my left. "It's spread too much. Just look at him!"

"No. I don't believe that. I don't choose to believe that." Edythe whispered, agonized. The back of her cool hand brushed over my eyelids; my cheeks. "Oh, Beau - I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"He's still hemorrhaging - Archie, make me a tourniquet with your belt and tie it above my hands." Carine directed in quick bursts.

"Carine." Edythe breathed. "Carine, what's my other option?" she demanded in a voice that rose like the sun.

"Then maybe… maybe you can possibly…" Carine's shaking voice fell off into nothing and then Edythe, using her ability to finish whatever thought Carine had for herself, acted automatically. "I can try. And it will work, Carine. I'll make sure of it."

"Edythe, I still don't think-"

"Let. Me. Try." Edythe begged, looking at her mother.

"I can't help you, Edythe." Carine apologized. "I have to get this bleeding stopped here if you're going to be taking blood from his hand."

"I can do this, Carine. I will. Trust me." Edythe's voice shivered with fevered determination.

I'm sorry, Beau. I'm so, so sorry." She sobbed, stroking my face. "I'll make the pain go away, Beau, I promise. I promise."

She reached over me in a blur and then a scalpel glinted in her hands.

"There's a good chance you'll kill him yourself – I've seen it happen already. Twice!" Archie cried out, catching Edythe's wrist and shaking two frantic fingers in front of her face.

Her metallic voice was a snarl as she threw his hand away. I didn't see what she did with the scalpel. I couldn't feel anything else in my body anymore – nothing but the endless fire. But I watched her raise my hand to her mouth, fresh blood welling from the wound. She put her cold lips over it.

I screamed again, I couldn't help it. It was like she was pulling the fire back down my arm, the flames warring up and down its entire length and sawing back and forth. Moans escaped through my clenched teeth as the pain, that burning, splattered into a frenzied boiling point - Fire on fire on fire.

But, after one final, sprinting burst, it fell back, receding like a wave.

And then my body was numb. Too numb.

"Edythe," Archie's voice was a withering echo in my head.

She didn't react, her lips still pressed to my hand. Her drinking increased in fervency and my head felt lighter and lighter, flashes of light and darkness blurring together and playing at the outer edges of my failing vision.

"Edythe!" Archie shouted. "Look."

The room was getting darker and darker, I was getting carried further and further away. Faster. Quicker.

"Edythe, stop! His blood is clean, you're killing him." Carine pulled hard on her shoulders, but she didn't budge. The pressure wasn't letting up.

Archie's hand shot out and slapped Edythe's cheek. "Stop it, Edythe! Do you hear me? Stop it right now!"

"Find the will to stop, Edythe. Find the will to stop." Carine's voice was an ebbing whisper.

A sound like lightning; two other shadows had slammed into the one above me. Another got a hold of her and my hand fell limp at my side. The fire was gone, but so was most of the feeling in my body; all the sensations I could and should feel. Edythe. I looked one last time - the angel's face was so terror-stricken; eyes so wide they seemed half her face even in the blurring haze of my fading vision. She threw herself hard into the wall, shattering what was left of the mirror on impact even when I heard no sound at all right then but the ringing in my ears, her trembling hand coming up to cover her blood-stained lips as she slid down the stone wall, crumpling into the floor, shaking, weeping, horrified at what she thought she had done.

But I was still here. I was still alive. And it was all thanks to her.

"Edythe… you… did it." I thought I'd spoken the words out loud in that cold, quiet place, but she had no reaction to them, no one did. Then two tearless, broken sobs, guttural, anguished, burst through the thick of that strange silence and crushed me; killed me from the inside out. The angel shouldn't weep, it was wrong. My eyes tried to find hers again, begged her to look at me so I could tell her how proud I was of her; that everything was going to be just fine. That she saved me. But the dark fog in my head was growing heavier, winning, weighing me down and holding me by my shoulders; my chest. I was rapidly losing myself to it. But through it all, the one thing that terrified me most was the thought of never seeing her again. That fear… made me want to hold on with everything in me.

"Edythe," I whispered, my breath hitching. "The fire… it's gone. You did it. Thank you, Edythe."

It was only then she looked up. Her huge gold eyes, now tinted with a crimson glow, glistened in the fading light and she flew to my side, gasping, and put her hands on my face.

"Oh, Beau." She kissed my eyelids, my cheeks, my lips. "I'm so sorry, Beau. I'm so, so sorry." She apologized again and again, but I didn't have enough strength to shush her. "I love you, Beau. I love you so much."

"I know." I breathed, so tired.

And then I heard my most favorite sound in the world: Edythe's quiet laugh, weak with relief.

"And just for the record, I love you, too." And I meant that entirely. She took my hand and held it to her face. I wished I could feel it. I tried to grip her hand without knowing to make the muscles move. Maybe I got it right. She didn't let go. And then she gathered me in her arms, my brokenness fixed somehow in small ways when she held me to her cool body; how safe it was I felt in her embrace.

"It's time to go," Carine quietly announced.

"No, I want to sleep," I complained, wincing as a dull jab of pain hit my side. My ribs weren't done protesting.

"You can sleep, Beau. I'll carry you." Edythe whispered, her beautiful eyes fixed steadfastly on me as we rose. When we left the building; that cold room, that shadowed place, I saw the sun for another year-long second as we emerged on the other side - it was pale and cool. Then everything went dark. It was dark for a long time. And then I was floating, the pain dissipating as the exhaustion at last began to take over.

"Sleep now, Beau" were the last words I heard the angel say.