Demon and the Fox - 27. Dark Angels in the Sky

Nick woke up on a bed made of piled up fluffy blankets. He was in Cyan’s crypt. All the candles were lit. Cyan sat on a chaise lounge with a book. He wore black silk pants, and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

Cyan looked up and put his book away when Nick stirred.

“How’re you feeling, mate?”

Nick lay on his side, and he was having trouble to sit up.

“What the—?”

Something protruded from his back—or rather, two things. Two massive, feathery things. New sensations rushed through his body. He could feel the wings, could feel where they connected to his back. Nick was pretty sure he could move them if he wanted to.

For now he just sat up, trying to ignore the rustling of feathers behind him, and gathered his thoughts.

“So I’m a Dark Angel now?” he asked.

Cyan nodded. He had a glint in his eyes, like he found something amusing.

Nick frowned. “I don’t feel any different. Except for those annoying—” He didn’t want to acknowledge that he had wings. It just seemed so silly. Nick tempted a timid glance over his shoulder; might as well see what the stupid things looked like.

Cyan burst out laughing as Nick was rendered speechless by the sight of his new feathery membranes.

“You shouldn’t have told Raven to surprise you, mate.”

The wings were pink. Fuchsia, actually.

Cyan couldn’t stop laughing. He swung his legs off the chaise longue and dropped his feet onto the Turkish rug. Cyan was laughing so hard he bent over, holding his stomach.

Nick started to laugh, too. He couldn’t help himself. At this point… It felt good to laugh. And it was kind of funny.

“Oh God.” Nick hid his face in his arms, still laughing. “Raven has a sense of humor, after all. Imagine that.”

“He’s special,” Cyan agreed between two fits of laughter.

“All right that’s enough. It’s not that funny.”

“’Tis, though,” Cyan argued. He looked at Nick’s wings, and burst out again. Nick rolled his eyes.

“Anyway. I’m ready. We can go to New York. Find Sasha. Find Malachy.”

Nick got up. He was still clad in his black jeans and combat boots. He felt a bit cold, and he wanted to ask Cyan for a shirt, but the wings might pose a problem.

His surroundings were familiar; the alcove with Cyan’s makeshift mattress, the stacked paintings, the handcrafted furniture, dark red carpets on the floor and the gloomy stairs leading up to that forest. But everything looked slightly different. More precise, and well-defined. The candle light was enough for him to see so many details. The lines and chips in the dark wooden chairs and benches furnishing the center of the crypt, the tiny bristles in the carpet, the edges of every page in Cyan’s book, each strand of Cyan’s blonde hair, and even the lighter yellow specks in his pale blue eyes, surrounding the pupils.

“Whoa.”

“Your senses might be more acute,” Cyan explained. “It’s a side-effect. A pretty neat one.”

“Yeah,” Nick breathed. Looking at stuff was almost scary.

“So what’s the plan?”

“What?”

Cyan stared. “When we find Malachy. What’s the plan? Just ask for your body and life back?”

Nick’s back was hurting a bit. “Those things are so heavy.”

Pink feathers outlined the edges of his vision. He tried folding the wings closer to his body. And it worked! The wings were obeying him, like his arms or legs. Weird.

“Nicky? What if he says no?” Cyan tilted his head. “What’s the plan then?”

“We kill him! We’re Dark Angels and he’s just a human at this point, isn’t he?”

“He’s in your body,” Cyan reminded him. “You want to kill yourself?”

Nick raked a hand through his hair. “Yes, if I have to! I don’t know.”

“It’s very delicate.” Cyan joined his hands, resting them on one thigh. “If your body is dead, you can’t get it back. It’s over. Even if you’re a necromancer, you can’t resurrect yourself. And the only other necromancer we know is Olivia.”

“You’re not funny, Cy.”

“I’m not trying to be.”

Nick looked away. The candles burned so bright in each corner of the crypt that it hurt his eyes a bit.

“I don’t have a plan, okay?” His gaze darted back to Cyan. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Cyan sprung to his feet and padded to the other side of his crypt. His feet made almost no sound on the carpet, but Nick could hear the soft thuds if he concentrated. It was just like Cyan was walking right next to him. Cyan stopped in front of a black office desk and opened a drawer. He dragged out a little plastic bag full of tiny white pills.

“Sleeping pills,” Cyan explained. “I have it crushed in liquid, too.” He searched inside the drawer. “If I can find it. We could put it in a syringe and inject it to him. Perhaps you could somehow kick him out of there while he’s asleep. Much safer than killing him. It’s the same stuff Lucas used on me when he captured me.”

“How’d you get it?” Nick was walking over to Cyan. The rustling of feathers behind his back really bothered him.

Cyan stopped his search, arched an eyebrow. “It’s mine. Lucas stole it from my stash, then used it on me. Wanker.” There was something off about his tone, something… distraught. He started to fumble around in his drawer again.

Nick approached slowly. “Are you upset that Lucas is dead?”

He saw Cyan’s shoulders tense. There was an old scar between his shoulder blades, more toward the left side. A stab wound scar.

“Found it!” said Cyan abruptly.

He produced a tiny plastic bottle full of whitish liquid, and set it on the desk.

“All right,” Cyan said, “I better get dressed. We’re going to New York.” Without looking up, he tapped Nick’s shoulder, and then headed toward one corner of the crypt, where his dresser was; tall and overflowing with black clothes.

“We’re going to New York,” Nick echoed, letting the words sink in.

A shiver of excitement ran up his spine. It was happening. Finally. And he would get to see the real world. The sun. The blue sky. He couldn’t wait any longer.

Cyan was busy selecting an outfit. Nick rolled his eyes as he saw Cyan hesitating between two long-sleeved black shirts.

“All your clothes look the same, anyway.”

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

Cyan slipped a shirt on, snapped on his fingerless gloves, and then traded his silk pants for distressed black jeans, which he tucked into calf-high boots with skull and crossbone buckles going up each side.

“I don’t want to stay in your smelly crypt one moment longer,” Nick retorted.

“Nonsense. My crypt smells like lilies from heaven.”

After fastening a small sheathed dagger at his belt as a last minute addition, Cyan returned to the desk. He drained the whitish liquid into the syringe, not unlike Raven had done with that antidote to cure Nick’s shoulder. How long ago was that? The impossibility to tell time was weighing on Nick’s mind. He needed to get out of here.

“Come on,” Nick insisted.

Cyan nodded, like he understood perfectly what was going on in Nick’s head, and came to stand right next to him on the carpet, securing the syringe in his pocket.

“Where to first? Your apartment?”

“Wait.” Nick shifted his weight from one leg to the other uneasily. “How do I get rid of the wings?”

“You can’t do that. Not in the first couple of hours. It would hurt too much, and you’d pass out again.”

Nick brushed it off. “Whatever. I’ll just keep them. I don’t have time to be passed out.”

“Where to?” Cyan grabbed Nick’s arms, getting ready to teleport.

“I want to find Sasha first,” said Nick.

Cyan raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I just want to make sure he’s okay. I have a bad feeling. An intuition. Whatever you want to call it.”

“So Sasha’s apartment, then?” Cyan suggested.

“Sure.”

Nick felt a tingle of excitement, like an electric current running across him. He let Cyan guide the teleportation as the crypt blurred around them. Black smoke rose up, and they shifted.

When the black smoke dissipated, they found themselves in a bright room with a wide screen television and modern art paintings hung on the walls; black and white, with a hint of red here and there. A briefcase and a copy of the Financial Times rested on the coffee table. Gabriel and Sasha’s apartment. Nick’s first reflex was to go to the window. The view from the fifth floor revealed the unclouded blue sky looming over the city’s buildings. Feverishly, Nick opened the window; he wanted to feel the fresh air.

He found that the wind was rather warm, actually. He smiled. It smelled like springtime and summer. And also like cars, garbage, and fast food restaurants, but that didn’t matter.

Suddenly he whipped around. “What day is it?” he asked Cyan. “How long have I been dead? Is it summer already?”

Cyan was leaning his hip into the crisp white couch.

“May 21^st. You’ve been dead for one month.”

Nick swallowed. Let the information sink in. A month. That wasn’t so bad. What was the worst that could have happened in one month?

He realized he couldn’t feel the sunlight’s warmth against his skin. And he knew that the wind was warm, but again, he couldn’t really feel it. It had no impact on him. However nice it was to see the real world again, it felt foreign, and like he didn’t belong here. Like he was a ghost. Just the hint of a past existence. And the feeling rattled him inside.

“Let’s do this,” Nick said, turning to look at Cyan. “I need to get my life back. I can’t be dead yet. It doesn’t feel right.”

Cyan nodded, but there was something forlorn about it. And for a moment there, as he looked into those pale blue eyes, Nick thought he could read Cyan’s thoughts: It doesn’t feel right for anyone.

But Nick shook it off. The apartment was silent and seemed deserted, but they checked every room just in case. Nick lingered in the kitchen, looking at the numeric digits on the microwave. 9:00 am. Then, 9:01. Nick found joy and comfort in seeing the minutes changing.

It got boring quickly, though. He shrugged.

When it became clear that no one was home, Cyan suggested they checked out Sasha’s school next.

“Okay,” said Nick, “why not? I’m sure he’s just asleep in his class, or something. I’m probably just being paranoid. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Where’s his school?”

“Lower Manhattan. Do we teleport again, or…?”

“Nah,” Cyan said. “We’d have to shift back to Hell, then back here—I have a better idea.” He had a glint in his eyes.

“Are you sure I can’t get rid of the wings? What if someone sees me?”

As he had searched the apartment, Nick had avoided the mirrors; he didn’t want to see how silly he looked. Now that he thought of it, he wasn’t sure if they had a reflection or not. Still, he didn’t want to risk it.

“No one will see you.” Cyan reassured him. “I haven’t even taught you how to be visible to humans yet. Don’t worry about it.”

“What was the point of becoming a Dark Angel anyway? I don’t feel any different.”

“Only Higher Demons can perform human possession, remember?” Cyan scratched his hair with black fingernails. “Though Malachy could do it as a DA. So I’m hoping you can, too.”

“I don’t feel more powerful.”

His senses did seem heightened, but he failed to see how hearing Malachy’s voice more clearly, or discerning each hair on top of his head would help him to win. With a jolt, Nick recalled that he would be seeing his own body, and hearing his own voice. He felt nervous. He didn’t relish the thought of having to fight himself.

“Let’s hope you’re powerful enough,” said Cyan simply.

Nick nodded, and reached across the hall for the front door, but Cyan stopped him.

“What are you doing? Let’s go through the side door.”

Cyan led him through the kitchen. This room had a door that led to the fire escape. As they stepped out on the rickety metallic staircase, Nick looked up and took in the intense sunlight, and the pure blue shade of the sky. It was so bright it almost hurt. It almost made him want to cry. After all the blackness, after all the nightmares and hardships, it was good to be back.

He saw people below, shopping bags in their hands, walking down the little side street that led to their apartment. They looked up and Nick froze. But whatever these people were looking at, it wasn’t him, or Cyan. They kept talking and carried on. Nick relaxed.

“At least no one can see how silly I look.” He stirred his wings reflexively as they felt a bit sore—like legs that needed to be stretched out—and fuchsia feathers teased the corners of his eyes.

“I can see just fine,” Cyan said.

“Oh, shut up.”

Nick started to clamber down the fire escape stairs, but again, Cyan stopped him.

“What are you doing?”

Nick looked over his shoulder. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

Cyan had a glint in his eyes again. He took off his shirt. But he kept his gloves.

“What are you doing?” Nick snapped.

As Cyan dropped his shirt onto the rusty railing, he let his wings out. Wide and pale, they spread out behind him, shimmering in the sunlight like pure gold.

“We’re flying there,” said Cyan like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s faster.”

Nick blinked. “How the hell do I do that?”

“Feel your wings. Push the air with them. Ever seen a bird? Don’t you know how wings work?” Cyan flapped the air with the tips of his wings.

“Well, excuse me if I’ve never had wings before in my life. What if I fall?”

“Come on, don’t be scared. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re already dead, remember?”

“Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.”

Cyan ignored the sarcasm. “All right then, let’s go. If he’s not at school, we can try your apartment next.”

“Why my apartment?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Just an intuition. A hunch. Call it whatever you like.”

“I guess Malachy might be there,” Nick added, dread curdling at the pit of his stomach.

This felt awfully real, now. He’d never actually met Malachy before. He would have been alright with never meeting him.

Nick wanted to protest further about not knowing how to fly, but the words died in his throat as Cyan suddenly leaped onto the railing and kicked himself off. His wings pushed the air with vigor and he soon looked like a giant golden bird in the sky.

“Here goes nothing,” Nick muttered to himself.

He pulled himself up on the railing. Not as graciously as Cyan had, but he managed. It was easier than he had thought to balance his weight with the wings. And it came as a reflex to flap them. He spread them out clumsily, and gave one big push. His stomach lurched as he felt himself being lifted off the railing. He flapped the wings back and forth, again, and again, until he was high up in the air. The trick was to not think about it too much, Nick found. And it helped that he wasn’t afraid of heights. He smiled as he thought of Sasha.

Sasha would hate this so much.

Nick caught up with Cyan eventually, as they reached higher than even the highest skyscrapers. He felt wind and power pushing past him. This was indeed much faster than walking. The city looked so immense below, but the cars and the people looked so tiny and the streets so narrow.

He couldn’t believe he was actually flying. His stomach fluttered and he felt so light. Not for the first time since he’d ventured into the afterlife, Nick got the ironic sensation of feeling so very alive.