Part VIII.
“What are you doing here?” the angel asked.
I gawked at her. “What does it look like? I’m running!”
Standing up, I brushed myself off, and then away I ran, only for a hand to wrap around my wrist and pull me back down. The angel caught my eye just as the back of my head hit the ground.
“I’m running too,” she said, eyes big and afraid. I’d never ever seen such visceral fear in an angel before. It was an intoxicating sight, one I wished I could’ve stared at longer, but time was of the essence.
“Good for you,” I said, tugging my arm loose and booking it. “Bye!” She caught me again, this time by the tail end of my cloak, dragging me back down kicking and screaming. “Stop doing that!”
“Who are you running from?”
“Let go of me,” I muttered, twirling out and away from her. My spinning just left me tied up in the cloak, arms pinned to my sides.
“Who’s chasing you?” the angel repeated, wrapping her arms around me.
I wriggled and struggled to break free. “Humans,” I answered her, having no other choice. “When they found out what I am, they tried to kill me. Happy? Now, get off!”
The angel let go of me, finally, but not kindly. She pushed me away and then held a sharp stake to my throat. I dropped my cloak and raised my rock—or stone, depending on who you asked. Chapter taught me those words too. She had laughed when I told her my word for it: skull-like weapon. I thought she’d been laughing with me.
She wasn’t.
Upon seeing my rock, the angel took a small step back, but she didn’t retreat. “They found out what I am too,” she admitted, her voice meeker now.
“How’d they find out?”
“I told them.”
I blinked at her in astonishment. So angels really were so irritatingly self-important that they thought humans would welcome their otherworldly-selves without question…
“What?” the angel said.
“What?”
“What’s that look?”
I played dumb. “What look?”
The angel circled me. “You’re judging me.”
“So?” I circled the angel. “You’re judging me.”
She was right. I did judge her. And quite unfairly, in those early days. It was hard not to. The angel had a bird’s nest crammed into her white hair. Fresh dirt smeared across her left cheek. And a bluish purple splotch the shape of hands pressed deep under the skin around her neck. The bruises were a familiar sight, like the vast universe of the night sky, its madness embedding itself into her flesh by the hands of angry, controlling men.
As I looked at her, she looked at me; at my dirty, ripped pants, at the red gunk seeping down my leg and between my toes, and finally, at the glowing sapphire that hung around my neck.
Her eyes zeroed in. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Stop playing dumb. You’re better than that.”
“You don’t know me.”
“What’s that around your neck?” The angel looked hypnotized. I had felt the same way when I first laid eyes on Chapter. I’d never stolen anything before. There was nothing to be stolen in the darkness. Here on Earth, everything was up for grabs. Chapter had stolen my heart. It was only fair that I take something from her in return.
I wrapped my hand around the sapphire as I held my rock up higher. “It’s nothing,” I lied. Lying came easier now. The humans did it frequently and they taught me well during my short time in their presence.
The angel stepped closer. “You found it.”
I stepped back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cowshit,” she cursed at me. It seemed the angel had spent a lot of time with the humans too. “You were sent here, weren’t you? I knew you were lying, you liar. Give it to me.”
I took another step back. “No.”
“The Crown Jewel belongs to the Heavens,” the angel sneered.
“What? This isn’t the—”
“It’s mine!”
Her hand shook now, as did the stake she held. If this angel thought she was going to stab me with that dirty stick—over a shiny piece of jewelry of all things—she was sorrowfully mistaken. I threw my rock at her. I had never thrown anything before, and it showed. The rock just barely grazed the side of her head.
“Ow!” the angel yelped, stumbling back a bit. She placed a hand to her head. Her fingers came away with blood, its wetness glimmering under the moonlight. The angel looked at her bloody fingertips, and then she looked at me, and then she looked back at her bloody fingertips.
I didn’t wait for her to look back at me.
I ran.
A lesson I hadn’t found integral to learn up until that moment: running away from a fuming angel is a thousand times more terrifying than escaping an angry mob.
Something stabbed me in the back as I ran.
I clutched my side. The damn seraph threw her stake at me! And it was pretty deep in there too. Adrenaline replaced pain as I tried to wedge the stake out, but it wouldn’t budge.
The angel’s footsteps trailed behind me, her breathing heavy, her snarl vicious. Removing the giant sprinter from my backside would have to wait. I scrambled through the jungle, pushing vines and branches and stalks of bamboo out of my path as I sprinted. More debris came flying my way. Rocks. Sticks. Clumps of dirt. A squirrel.
Finally, a rock hit me in the back of my head. A crack ripped through my skull, and I went cross-eyed, an explosion of suns melting into black. My legs lost all feeling as they crumbled beneath me, the momentum sending me crashing into a tree, and then down, face first, into the dirt.
The angel caught up to me in no time. I could feel her standing over me, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even turn over. She kneeled beside me and pushed my bloody, matted hair out of the way. I closed my eyes, waiting for her cold fingers to wrap around my neck. Whether the angel would choke me to death with the necklace or with her bare hands was something I never thought I’d have to ponder.
“Where is it?” She sounded panicked as she flipped my body over. Pain zipped through my nerves. The feeling was slowly returning, but not fast enough. The angel pushed me up against a tree. I could just barely feel my neck crane to the side as I slid back down into the dirt. “Where the hell is it, you putrid demon?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. In the thrill of the chase, I had forgotten why I was even running. My chin flopped forward, and I saw, or rather didn’t see, that my necklace was gone.
Ah fuck.
“You threw it, didn’t you?” she accused.
“When could I have thrown it? I was running away from you, you crazy seraph!”
The angel looked affronted. “I am not crazy!” she yelled, crawling away as she patted down the dirt and brushed her hands under thick mounds of moss. “Where is it, where is it, where is it…”
“Right,” I said, watching her. “Not crazy at all.”
She paid me no mind, so I did the same. I had much bigger worries than a loony angel. I bit my tongue and forced myself to feel something. Anything. I bit down even harder. My lips twisted, nose scrunched as blood gushed throughout my mouth and stained my teeth crimson.
My ninth taste of Earth. Blood tasted just as it looked. Coppery, metallic, bitter.
Quietly, I wriggled to the ground and crawled like a worm through the dirt. The angel was so distracted looking for the sapphire that she didn’t even see me. My fingers twitched as my body slowly awakened. I dragged my shoulder forward, arm flopping out, hand just close enough to grab her ankle. With as much strength as I could muster, I pulled her feet out from under her and watched as the angel ate dirt. Her face slammed into the mud, and I laughed just like I had that first day. Much like before, I was laughing at her, and it felt glorious.
No wonder humans are so wretched. Madness is thrilling.
Before I could even think to stand, a calloused heel lifted and kicked me square in the jaw. The angel laughed too. I grabbed her big toe and pulled it out of its socket. She squealed in pain, and I laughed again. She turned over on her back, bent her knee, and slammed the bottom of her dirty foot into my nose, breaking it. She laughed again, and I chortled with her, nasally and wet as blood dribbled into my mouth.
This went on for a good while—the smacking and the scrambling and the laughing as we elbowed and kneed and rolled and toppled over each other, spilling buckets of blood and spit and tears and pus and whatever else seeped out of our squishy skin suits.
At least five minutes passed before the angel finally got the jump on me. She pinned me down and asked, “Who the hell are you? What is your purpose here?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I taunted. She slammed her forehead against mine. We both seethed. I spit out a tooth. “Why would you do that?!”
“Answer my questions or I’ll do it again.” She bent her neck back, and I knew then that she wasn’t bluffing.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I gurgled, gasping for air. I could barely breathe. Not only was there blood stuck in my throat; her boney knee pressed deep into my stomach, making it hard to speak. “But I go by one name and one name only,” I wheezed, “Darcel.”
Her forehead was less than a centimeter away from mine when she froze. Blood slid down her chin and threatened to drip on my face. Our eyes met, a violet storm merging with black depths.
“No,” the angel whispered. Her breathing was shallow, eyes far away and vacant. Her voice wavered as she spoke, “That can’t be…” she insisted, “My name is Darcel.”
“No! My name is Darcel.”
I didn’t say that. Nor did the angel.
We both turned to find another being in the jungle with us. How long they’d been standing there was anyone’s guess. It wasn’t a human, that much was clear. But it wasn’t a beast either. The creature walked on two legs, but it wasn’t an ape or a kangaroo. We didn’t know what the hell it was, but God Almighty, it was horrendous, just a talking bald head with a nasty sneer and charred eyebrows. It walked as ugly as it looked, rigid and hunched over as if gravity was crushing it into the ground. Its gray robes were dingier than its complexion. It smelled of onion grass and two day-old sweat.
I caught a whiff of the offense wafting in the stale air and winced at the odor. The stranger smiled widely at my reaction, its white teeth the brightest sight in the jungle. I squinted, the glow assaulting my vision. I saw nothing but spots when the stranger finally closed its mouth.
As my vision returned, I gasped at the pair of mismatched eyes watching us. Each eye blinked separately, lazily. They were big and round. Sparkling. And while one eye was crystal blue; bright like the sky on a hot summer day, the other was a deep red; crimson and dark, like dry, crusted blood.
The angel and I froze, mid-tussle. She spoke for us both as she politely asked, “What the hell are you?”