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“Please, Zaqiel, no. I need you.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You always were without me.”
His voice was so quiet now, I wanted to grab and shake him, to scream at him to stay with me. “I’m not, though! I’m not strong without you. I need you. Please, tell me what to do.”
“Evie…”
“Zaqiel,please. You showed me how to live, showed me there was something worth living for. I don’t know how to go on without you.”
When he didn’t answer, I grabbed his face between my hands, his red and black skin flaking under my touch, and I trembled but didn’t let him go. Pressing a kiss to his lips, I lingered even as I shook. When I pulled away, I saw the tears trickling down his face and the trails that they left his skin turning to ash and blowing away in the breeze.
He was disappearing right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to keep him with me.
When I lifted my hands from his face, his head drooped to his chest. I started screaming his name, knowing that my screams were traveling out the alley and down the street, knowing that screaming wasn’t helping but unable to stop. Because the pain I felt in my chest was so raw, so intense, there were no words in the world to describe it.
So, I simply screamed.
“Shit, it’s worse than I thought.”
I had screamed until my throat was raw, and I wished I could take every scar on my body and live through it over and over again if only it would take away the pain in my chest. Zaqiel still kneeled in front of me, his chin on his chest. He looked like he was praying, but I couldn’t see his chest moving. I kneeled in front of him, resting my hands on his.
I looked up at the voice, my vision blurred from the tears, and rubbed my eyes roughly. “Who are you?” I asked.
“I could smell burning holy oil a mile away.”
He strutted toward us from the street, his hands in his pockets and his head tilted as he surveyed Zaqiel. He radiated darkness, and I thought surely, this couldn’t be an angel because I couldnotimagine an angel making me tremble under his gaze like that.
When he saw me staring, I swear I saw his eyes flash yellow through the veil of his messy dark hair, and that did nothing to enlighten me as to who or what he was.
“Help,” I whispered. “Please help him, please.”
The man fell to his knees next to me and lifted Zaqiel’s chin between his thumb and finger.
“Zaqiel?” he said.
I didn’t know if there was a moan because I wanted there to be one so badly, or if I actually heard the sound of his voice.
“Ah, so you’re not quite dead yet. Good stuff.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He turned to me as his expression darkened. “Stop touching him, you’re accelerating the process.”
I yanked my hands away from Zaqiel’s still form. “What’s happening?”
“He’s dying.”
I choked back another sob, hearing it said out loud only made it so much harder to deal with. “But you can help him, right? Please.”
“I’m going to try.”
He placed his hands on Zaqiel’s temples and closed his eyes.
I had no idea what was happening, but there was a light around where the stranger’s skin met Zaqiel’s, and it faded with yellow and white that met somewhere in the middle. Zaqiel’s skin almost seemed to glow in the darkness of the night as the vapor was absorbed into his skin through the man’s fingertips, and I could follow its pathway as it worked its way through his body.
I wanted to ask who this man was and what he was doing, but something was happening that was beyond my understanding, and I was entranced.
When Zaqiel’s skin started to turn ashen and flake faster, I screamed at the stranger to stop, turning to him and grabbing at his leather jacket. He removed one hand from Zaqiel’s temple long enough to shove me to the side, and when I went to move again, he hissed at me, displaying sharp teeth and yellow eyes, so I stayed put.
