FORBIDDEN Read online

  Sometimes it got one of us in trouble. It always seemed that after fraternizing with humans too long, someone would end up getting attached to a Call. It always ended in the stripping of our wings, and the death of the Call. Our wings were stripped for breaking the rules, and the Call was killed for knowing too much. No other options, no wiggle room in the law. Staying detached was the only way to be an effective Guard.

  A sudden burst of wind hit me from behind, and a strip of Ethan’s shirt landed nearby. He preferred to fly. He also ran around half-naked most of the time. According to him, the ladies loved that.

  I took my jacket off while slinking into the shadows. Shoulders tightened and legs crouched, I burst into the air with all my might. Wings exploding out, I flew to perch close to the girls. Having two of them to watch made me paranoid.

  “Ang, I’m telling you. The guy was real.”

  “Hannah, I’m telling you. I don’t believe you.”

  Hannah huffed and continued to walk past the pillar where I was sitting. My legs dangled down, heels kicking the ancient grey stone. A chip broke off, tumbling down and hitting Hannah on the head. As she looked up, I found myself gazing into her grey eyes. They were wide as half-dollars.

  I couldn’t move. Maybe if I didn’t move, she wouldn’t see me. Yeah, right. Once the Call knew your name, they could see you while others couldn’t. Giving your name forged a bond between the Guard and Call, which was reason number one to never get close to a human. If they knew your name, it was only the beginning of a relationship that shouldn’t exist anyway.

  I knew it was stupid to give her my name, but did it anyway. What had I been thinking?

  My wings were spread wide, not expecting to have to deal with Hannah seeing me.

  Hannah grabbed Angie’s wrist. Yanking on it, she remained amazingly calm. “Angie, that ninja guy I told you about?”

  Angie was bored. “You mean the imaginary friend you’ve made up?”

  “Yeah, that one. He’s sitting on the pillar right there.”

  I launched myself off the pillar, causing a portion to fall off at the feet of the girls. Angie screamed, but Hannah waited for the single black feather I lost to float to the earth. I hovered, knowing my cover was blown anyway. Picking the feather up, she looked at me once more and stuck the feather in her pocket.

  Screwed was the understatement of the week right now.

  FOUR

  “Dude, you let her know your name? And you call me the idiot?”

  Ethan wasn’t helping the situation. I paced back and forth under the Roma pine tree that Ethan was sitting in and waved my hand up in his direction. “Shut up. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “You’re gonna have to guard from a distance. A long distance. If she sees too much of you…”

  “I know.”

  Humans got attached. That couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it. I’d had enough torture to last me ten lifetimes. It was time for an upgrade. Purgatory was an upgrade. Getting even higher would be nice. Having my Call ruin that would land me back at square one. Hell.

  I sat down on the well-manicured lawn and picked crap off the bottom of my shoes. Angie was yelling at Hannah at the moment, telling her she was delusional. Ethan and I were both getting a kick out of it, since we knew Hannah was the one that had it right. It was hard to tell what kind of theory Angie could come up with for everything Hannah told her.

  “You ready to head back tonight? It’s gonna be a long flight.”

  I groaned. Flying over the Atlantic was a pain. With no way to wear a shirt, it was always cold. Sure, Ethan and I could make it back in a flash, but the duty was to watch the Calls. We flew the same speed as the plane, which meant it felt like we weren’t moving at all. Technically we could leave them for short periods of time if need be, but no Guard wanted to get caught not watching their Call. “Man, don’t remind me.”

  It was a long eight hours to the JFK airport in New York. The girls had a layover there, then it was back to Podunk Town, USA. Okay, it wasn’t Podunk Town, but it was close. It was the little town of Londonderry, Ohio, which was home to not much more than cows and cornfields. Of all the humans on earth, I was given the one who lived in a town that had two stoplights, the second one being put up as we spoke. Yeah, there was a ton to keep me busy.

  Ethan and I sat in the corner of the boarding area directly across from where the girls sat with their backs to us. I had picked up a black, zip-up hoodie in a snowboarding shop before we left Italy. It was nice because there was a pocket for my iPhone, complete with a little cut in the body to slip my headphone wire through. It even came with a blow up neck rest that fit into the hood of the jacket. It was strange, but I had to give it to humans, they came up with some pretty sweet stuff.

  Ethan punched me. His lips were moving, but my music was up so loud I couldn’t hear him. I pointed to my headphones and pulled that neck rest hood deal into place. Man, this hoodie was awesome.

  Unfortunately, Ethan was a pain in the ass when he wanted something. He pulled my hood off my head, and took out one of my ear buds. “Dude, our calls are moving.”

  Hannah and Angie were heading toward the main terminal where the shops were located. I sighed and grabbed Ethan by his popped collar. “Let’s go, Preppy Delight.”

  Ethan knocked my hand away and began to fix his clothes while he grinned mischievously at me. “Don’t be jealous that I’m better looking than you. Someone had to offset your ugly factor.”

  It was nice to be able to control when we were visible. We followed them all around the overpriced stores while Angie picked out the dumbest things and cooed over them. They went to town in the “As Seen on TV” store. At one point she had a self-cleaning cat box and was cooing over how maybe someone could invent a self-cleaner for her dirty dishes.

  “Uh, Ang, they’ve already invented that. It’s called a dishwasher,” Hannah pointed out.

  “Well yeah, but that’s a pain. What if you had a box you could just have in your room? That’d be so awesome.”

  Ethan blushed scarlet as I doubled over in laughter at Angie’s comments. “Dude, she’s a blond. It’s like genetically hereditary or something.”

  I sucked in enough air between laughs to respond to Ethan. “Nothing is that hereditary. That’s just a shallow gene pool. Congrats, buddy.”

  Just then I felt a change in the wind. Ethan punched me in the side and cocked his head toward the main walkway through the terminal. “Dude, you feel that?”

  “Yeah. They’re here somewhere. But why?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Maybe it’s someone’s time to go?”

  My eyes scanned the crowd quickly, trying to spot another Guard. I turned to Ethan, worry starting to ebb into the pit of my stomach. “Have you seen another Guard anywhere?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but then his eyes became as big as saucers. He pointed a finger out where I had just been looking. “Uh, there’s more than one.”

  I turned to look out of the store once more. Three Fallen, complete with bloody wings, were stalking toward us.

  Ethan muttered the warrior’s prayer behind me. “High and Mighty, I call to you right now in my time of need. Provide the speed, wisdom, and courage necessary to protect my Call and uphold your perfect will,” he nudged me to join him. I sighed and finished the prayer along with him, knowing I’d get into trouble if I stood silent. “I will be the warrior you have called me to be in times of peace and war. I will uphold the charge of looking after my Call until you call her home. My will is to follow yours, even if it means eternal death.”

  We kissed our fingers, touched our hearts, pointed to the heavens, then stood still. Ethan nudged me. “What’s the plan, chief?”

  “There’s no way we can fight them in here. It’ll cause a scene, even if they stay invisible. We’ve gotta get them out of here.”

  “We need a diversion.”

  I hissed over my shoulder. “Yeah, well, why don’t you come up with it, Sherlock?”
>
  He sighed. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the only thing I had in mind just disappeared.”

  Hannah and Angie had gotten lost in the crowd with our attention diverted elsewhere. Crap, man. This trip had seriously sucked. The Fallen sniffed the air, obviously searching for their intended target.

  Before I could say anything, Ethan pulled the self-cleaning cat box off its display and chucked it at the leader of the demons. Kitty litter flew everywhere, which to any of the humans probably looked pretty freaky. To top things off, the Fallen was pissed. When I say that, I mean super pissed. It roared in anger and clawed its eyes in pain.

  Ethan fist pumped. “Heck yeah! Ten points for hitting a bulls’ eye!”

  That’s when he realized the things were on a beeline to us. He groaned. “Ah, hell.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, that’s where we’re headed if we don’t get this taken care of.”

  FIVE

  I grabbed another cat box since they seemed to be somewhat effective and sprinted toward the bloody demons. I gave up on being inconspicuous, since obviously our cover was blown with the exploding kitty litter and invisible roaring monsters.

  All hell broke loose after the Fallen decided they’d become visible to everyone. Their burned and rotten flesh made them look like crispy zombies from a C-rated movie. Muscles showed through where their flesh had rotted off. Their wings bled and beat furiously, stirring up gusts of wind that knocked people over. They weren’t a pretty sight. It didn’t matter what they looked like when they got close to someone. They were vicious, and definitely not something anyone – living, Guard, or Guardian – wanted to deal with. The only thing worse were Hunters, but thankfully we never had to deal with those.

  It was pandemonium. Humans were running all over the place, screaming and causing a general ruckus. They were making it harder to get our job done, and giving me a headache. With the mess the Fallen were making, it went from Ethan and I having to protect our Calls, to us having to take care of the entire airport.

  I flung a cat box through the air, and it connected with the disgusting leader of the group once more. Kitty litter flew all over the place again. Thankfully I had enough sense to close my eyes at the last second. The demon didn’t. It roared and tried to side swipe me as I ran past.

  It missed me by a millimeter. Ethan ran past on the other side and wrapped its legs in a retractable iPhone charger he’d grabbed from the store. The guy could be pretty resourceful when need be. He slammed his fist into the Fallen’s chest. A crack opened up in the tile flooring and swallowed it whole.

  One down, two to go.

  At the disappearance of their obvious leader, the two smaller Fallen bellowed an earth-shaking roar at the same time. The walls shook, and pictures fell to the ground. Shattered glass sprayed all over. People cowered behind chairs, ran for exits, and a couple were dumb enough to bring out their camera phones and try to tape the scene playing out.

  The next Fallen in line took two steps forward, grinning at me. “We’ve come for your Call, Guard. Give her to us and we’ll leave quietly.”

  I laughed. “Is that even possible?”

  The demon let out a shriek that could probably be heard in Times Square. I shook my head sarcastically. “Yeah, I didn’t think you had it in you to go quietly.”

  Ethan was busy trying to contain the mess that the third Fallen was creating. I didn’t have time to focus on him too much, but from my peripheral vision, the Fallen had started chucking the TVs that showed the departures and arrivals at Ethan. I saw him blast one out of the way at the last second. Electronic parts exploded and rained down all around them.

  My Fallen decided it wanted to climb on the walls. It exploded into the air, then began crawling toward me from the ceiling. Its hands dug into the ceiling like it was butter. There was no way I wanted that thing getting its arms around me.

  I had to get the Fallen away from here, fast. The only thing was, it was a pretty solid guess that the Fallen wouldn’t walk quietly through the door. With all the carnage the other one was creating, it probably wasn’t a huge deal to create a hole in the ceiling, right?

  Right before I prepared to jump, I remembered to take off the hoodie I’d just purchased. With it intact on the ground, I grinned up at the Fallen. “Wanna go for a ride?”

  My muscles tensed, contracting for the burst to come. I pushed off the ground, cracking the tiles on the floor. Black wings erupted from my back and created a whirlwind, knocking the few humans that remained standing to the floor. I hoped no more Fallen showed up while I was taking care of this one.

  I wrapped my arms around the shocked Fallen. We crashed through the ceiling, showering everyone below in a mess of dust and debris, then took our fight into the dark, starless sky. It writhed and clawed and bit at me. I could feel it tearing into my skin, but I would heal.

  When it tried to crawl on my back, I put it in a headlock. It beat its wings furiously, which knocked us off our course. We tumbled sideways as I struggled to regain control. I snapped its neck and the Fallen went limp.

  That gave me the chance to catch my breath, but right as I’d finally got us over the East Atlantic, the Fallen came back to life. Damned things. No really, they’re damned. I’m not cursing, this time at least.

  “If I go down, I’m taking you with me,” the Fallen hissed.

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong.”

  We both stopped brawling long enough to see Ethan streaking through the sky toward us. He grabbed the Fallen’s right wing and wrenched it back. I heard it snap, and the demon shrieked. “You will pay for that!”

  Ethan laughed. “Whatever, dude. I live in a little town. That’s payment enough.”

  Together we hurtled toward the ground. Ethan called out above the air whooshing around us. “High and Mighty, open the earth so we can send this creature back where it belongs!”

  A massive crater opened up, revealing a dark cavern that reeked of death. The heat emanating from it was almost unbearable.

  “Ready?” Ethan called.

  I yelled above the tornado-like sound rushing in my ears. “Ready!”

  The demon thrashed its one good wing. “You won’t win this fight!”

  We pulled out of our dive in just enough time to veer away from the gaping hole as it closed in on the creature. The mouth closed, sealing the Fallen’s arm above the surface and cutting it off. Within a split second, the writhing arm became dust and blew away in the wind.

  Ethan grinned like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Is it bad if I had a blast back there?”

  I shrugged. “It just proves you’re mental.”

  He laughed and shook his wings out as we headed back to JFK. “I got rid of the other Fallen pretty quick and stayed behind to make sure Hannah and Angie were okay. I’d have come sooner, but figured I’d give you a chance to get rid of a Fallen on your own. You know, earn your wings and all that metaphorical crap,” he winked at me when I rolled my eyes. “The girls ended up catching a bus instead of flying. Go figure. The teacher was spooked.”

  “I think everyone within a twenty mile radius was spooked.”

  “They’re actually getting close to Buffalo. Took longer to get rid of your Fallen than I’d figured, plus that driver is booking it. Wanna go catch up?”

  “One more thing to do first. Gotta get my hoodie.”

  Ethan sighed. “You’re not seriously going to search through the rubble to find that thing, are you?”

  “I like that hoodie. It has a neck rest in it.”

  “I can put you in a neck rest if you want,” Ethan said sarcastically.

  Fire trucks were everywhere when we got back to JFK. Multiple TV stations had put up shop around the barricade that police created, which added to the confusion. Police lights flickered, and firemen were dousing areas that still smoldered with huge streams of water. There was no telling what kind of stories people would be hearing tonight. Pullin
g our wings back in, we landed through the gaping hole I’d created not long ago.

  The fire alarms blared as the sprinkler system showered us. The emergency lights flashed and cast an eerie glow across what was left of the terminal. I kicked a huge chunk of cement to the side and uncovered my hoodie.

  “Got it.”

  Ethan cleared his throat. “Uh, Levi, you might wanna see this.”

  I walked over to him while I dusted the debris off my hoodie and slipped it over my head. “What’s up?”

  Ethan lifted the blue zip up sweater that Hannah had been wearing. “This is hers, isn’t it?”

  A cold panic filled me unlike anything since I had died over one hundred years ago. Was she okay? I thought Ethan said they were on their way back to Ohio? Ethan stared at my trembling hands as I took the sweater from him. His eyes finally met mine, suspicion evident. “Dude, you’re getting too attached to her.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Then why are you freaking?”

  I lashed out at him in anger. It was mainly because I knew he could tell I was getting attached, and I didn’t want to admit it. “Because I don’t want to end up back at square one, that’s why! Do you want to go back?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Well then don’t you think you’d be tweaking a little if I’d found Angie’s sweater?”

  His face blanched. “You’re right. My bad. I was trying to prove a point. Hannah’s safe, I told you that. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re getting too attached.”

  We stood in silence as I stared at her sweater. I hadn’t felt anything for so long – heat, cold, emotion. Nothing registered. Not until now. Why was this Call so different?

  I wished I could go back to being numb.

  SIX