Angel Academy Read online

  Chapter Thirty-One

  We stay up all night every night going over the plan. We’re extremely limited on what we know, but when Gabe finally comes around and joins us, his insight as a fourth-term student is invaluable.

  It has to go perfectly. If every single step doesn’t go according to plan, then we’ll be screwed.

  When the day of the test finally arrives, I can’t help but clench my teeth. What if everything goes wrong? What if our plan is actually a disaster?

  According to Gabe, we could be exiled. I don’t ask him to elaborate what happens when someone is exiled from Heaven. It can’t be pleasant.

  All first-term students meet in the hospital wing, the same place where we first arrived. It’s strange being back here. I almost expect the windows to explode and a hoard of demons to attack, but nothing happens.

  “Remember,” Azrael says to the fifty or so of us standing in a line, “on Earth, none of us will have wings. We look just like regular humans as to blend in, but you are not to leave the grounds of the facility. You are not cleared for regular patrols, and we are only going to be on Earth for your exams.” I frown at the word “exams,” like it’s just some normal test rather than angel-endorsed murder. Although I already have my sword and wings, I’m still supposed to kill a demon. I can’t imagine having to kill someone now, knowing that there’s a human buried deep inside.

  I expect a heavenly light to envelope us, maybe a breeze, but I simply blink, and everything is dark.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. I have to blink a few times, and the air is grimy and damp. I cough, hacking up as much of the stale air as possible. I don’t want any of it in my system. I guess I just won’t breathe while I’m here. Although she’d warned us about it, I still feel naked without my wings.

  A line of cages stands before me, rows and rows. There’s one demon per cage, and, while their features differ in many ways, they all have the same basic structure. Some sort of wings, although some are black bird wings with disintegrating feathers or impish insect wings. Horns, some spiral like Desireé’s, some straight up, some long, some short. And a tail, mostly long and thin with a tuft of hair at the end, but some are more like cat or wolf tails, and I even spot one rat-like tail.

  We’re still standing in a line, and Azrael begins to call our names, just like she said she would. I’m third on the list.

  “Avery,” she says. “Choose your demon.”

  I have to keep myself from sucking in a breath, lest I choke on the rancid Earth air again. This is just like Gabe and Huỳnh said. We each choose from hundreds of demons. Once everyone has chosen, the ceremony begins. I make eye contact with Azrael. “I know exactly which one I’m going to kill. Where is it?”

  Azrael smiles at me, that same pity on her face once again. I wish I could fault her for not believing in Desireé, but she’s an Angel. One of the original Archangels. Of course she’s not going to trust a demon. She points off to the right, and I stride confidently to the dim corner.

  Immediately, I recognize the form crouched in the corner, although she no longer has the confidence she’d slowly gained whilst hiding in my room with me. Instead, she’s hunched over, her arms wrapped around her knees, her face tucked in. Her back is to me, but I have every one of her features memorized. Her wings, her horns, her hair, her tail, her hands…I grit my teeth. Around her wrists is a delicate silver chain. The skin underneath is rubbed raw, although the extent of the damage is difficult to tell past her pitch-black skin.

  “Look at me,” I command. I can still feel Azrael’s eyes on me. I can’t do anything for the plan until she’s moved on.

  Slowly, Desireé’s head turns, and her eyes widen. She scrambles over to me desperately, and, despite how much it kills me, I sneer. “You thought you could trick me,” I say, my voice just loud enough to be heard at the line, but not too loud as to sound fake. “Now, you’re going to get exactly what you deserve.”

  She cringes at my words, her eyes filled with hurt. My heart tears in two at the sight.

  Trust me, I mouth, and her eyes widen just a little. She gives me the subtlest of nods, and some of the tension lifts from my shoulders. She’s going to have to believe in me for just a little bit if this plan is to work.

  “Beatrice,” Azrael calls.

  It’s time for step two.

  While Azrael is looking away, I whisper as quietly as possible, “Give me your hands.”

  Desireé looks at the line of students and then back to me.

  “Hurry,” I say. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  She comes closer to me, lifting her hands to the bars.

  “You can create illusions, right?” I ask, working while I speak. She nods the tiniest bit. I’m glad that we’re obscured by darkness. Otherwise, my actions would be obvious to anyone paying attention. I relay the plan to Desireé, my voice the barest of breaths. I can’t risk being overheard.

  When I’m finished, Desireés blood-red lips tilt up in the tiniest smile.

  “We won’t be able to see each other again, will we?” she asks. Her eyebrows are tilted up in sadness. I shake my head.

  “No. This is the end.”

  She takes my hand gently and glances behind me to make sure we aren’t being watched. Then, she presses her lips to my palm. A sharp pain slices just barely into the skin from one of her claws, and I flinch, but I keep the gentle smile on my face. When I take my hand back, I clench my fingers over the injury so that nobody sees me bleeding. Even on Earth, my blood shines golden.

  “Everything will be alright,” I say. Then, after a pause, “And thank you. What you did for me is something I will never stop being grateful for. You were always better than me, and you deserved better.”

  She shakes her head and laughs under her breath. “I love you, Avery,” she says, like it’s just that simple. I’m about to respond in kind, but Azrael calls us to attention.

  It’s time.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  This is the end. Everyone is watching me. Three demons are dead, and I can’t help but stare at the spot where they used to be. As each new angel finishes the job, they take the silver chains and wrap them around their wrists. A sort of trophy. I’m going to be sick.

  I can’t be sick. I have to pretend that everything is alright. That I am completely okay with what’s going on right now, even if it makes me want to vomit.

  Desireé stands before me, kneeling in the binding circle on the ground. There’s an entire circle of angels and un-initiated students, and they’re all staring at me. They all know about the events that happened weeks ago, and they know perfectly well that this is the demon who seduced me. None of them, other than Nicolai, know about the rest of it. That we were switched, that I’d never been brainwashed, that Azrael was wrong about her.

  I spout off the same script, my tongue curling over the Enochian words. Desireé doesn’t look up at me. The sight of her on the ground has my stomach roiling. I take her very solid hand in mine, drawing it up and scraping a claw over my palm. The golden blood flows out, just like it had with everyone else. First blood is what summons our weapons, although I only do it because of the ceremony. I already have my sword in its crystal sheath at my side.

  I tilt her chin up to face me, and her black eyes stare back. I try to find any trace that the plan is going right, but I only have to have faith. Because if I’m wrong, she’s going to die. “It’s okay,” she whispers, a tear falling from her face. Her voice is just a little wrong. It’s not quite hers.

  “You aren’t the girl I love,” I say, trying to project confidence into my voice. With that, I draw my sword and plunge it into her heart. She screams, just like every other demon had, and the sound burns into my ears. Tears prick at my eyes. I cannot show weakness. I watch as the life leaves her eyes, and she reaches a hand toward me as she disintegrates.

  I suck in a breath of poisonous Earth air, and let out a shuddering breath. After sifting thro
ugh the ashes on the ground, I lift the chain for all to see and wrap it around my wrist.

  I may have already had wings and a sword before this, but now, my initiation is complete. I’m no longer a term one student.

  I’m officially an angel.

  And Desireè is gone. Really gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Although Nicolai hesitates to kill the demon in front of him, he does it anyway, his jaw tight and eyes glazed over. Is this how he used to kill people to survive? Did he disassociate just to get the job done?

  I don’t want to think too much about it.

  “Well done,” Gabriel says, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you would do it.”

  I nod. “I had to.” It’s not technically a lie. I did what I had to.

  When everyone is finished, we arrive back in Heaven. Azrael goes around and heals everyone’s wounds, and she spends an extra moment to grin at me. “I knew you’d be able to fight the curse,” she said. “You’re strong. One of the strongest recruits I’ve met.”

  I give one short nod.

  She tilts her head. “I think you should get some rest. You’ve had a difficult term. More difficult than most students.”

  I sigh with relief. “Thank you,” I say.

  When I get back up to my room, I undress and change into my pajamas. When I’m about to toss my uniform blazer on the floor, though, something in the pocket stops me. A small slip of paper.

  I unfold it, and it’s hastily scrawled.

  Avery,

  I will be long gone by the time you read this.

  I love you.

  I’m okay.

  I will find you again.

  Desireé

  My hands shake, and I read it over and over again. She’s okay. She must be. She wouldn’t have given me this note if she hadn’t been certain that the plan would work. That she would be able to create an illusion version of herself and escape since I removed the binding silver chain from her wrists back at the cage. The chain only an angel could remove.

  I walk into my closet and climb into the hiding space I’d created for her. After she’d been taken, I’d refused to get rid of it. I curl up on the twin-sized bed, staring at the ceiling. Until now, I haven’t so much as moved the fake wall to look inside, and, although weeks have passed, her scent envelopes me like I’m wrapped in her arms. I stare at the ceiling, and my name is etched into the wood, burned in by her claws over and over again.

  She has to be alright. Or, as alright as she can be now that she’s returned to Daemaac Academy. Although we’d spent all our brief time together that we could, she’d never actually elaborated on what Daemaac Academy is like. It must be truly terrible if she’d kept it from me.

  I smile at my name and wrap myself in her blankets, imagining that she’s asleep next to me. Tears drip from my eyes, down my face, and onto the bed. At least she’s still alive. She’d merely created an illusion for the angels’ sake. Still, I go over it in my head again and again. The way it had looked so much like her that I hesitated. The way she’d reached up to me.

  I fall asleep in the cubby, wrapped in her smell. I hope it never goes away. And, because I hope, and it’s my room, it won’t.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Now that we’ve finished our first term, we’re given a special treat that nobody warned me about. All first term students are brought back to the infirmary, and when we blink, we’re somewhere else.

  It’s a city, but nothing like the cities I’ve seen in real life or on TV. The buildings are spires that spear through the sky, all pristine gold and glass. There are shops of sorts, but there are very few employees. Mostly, it seems like everything is automated, kind of like my room had been.

  When I finish gaping upwards in the square we’ve appeared in, I look down to find that the streets are, in fact, paved with gold. Trees that are white as bone line the sidewalks, although there are no cars in sight to be on the road. Everyone has wings, and everyone is beautiful. Some are flying from place to place, and I spot a couple strolling through a park across the street, and they kiss lightly as they walk past.

  “I’d like you all to meet back here in four hours,” Azrael says, a grin smattered across her face. Her eyes are alight with excitement. “Oh, and don’t fall off the edges. None of you have learned to use your wings yet.”

  I’m still gaping, and I raise my hand like we’re still in a classroom. “What is this place?” I ask, although I’m too distracted by all the beauty to actually make eye contact with Azrael.

  Her eyes twinkle. “This is Heaven,” she says, then shrugs. “Well, another tiny piece of Heaven.”

  My breath catches, and I smile slowly. Heaven. Exactly how it should be. No demon attacks, no talk of war, no classes. Just joy and streets lined with gold.

  As I see another couple tumbling through the sky above, locked in a gorgeous aerial dance, my heart drops.

  It may be Heaven, but it’s not how it should be. Not without Desireé by my side.

  I think back on the note that’s hidden in her cubby, the note I read to myself over and over again.

  I will find you, I promise in my head. We will be together again.

  About the Author

  KATE HALL is a full time traveler, dog owner, artist, wife, and reader. She believes in wild things like love, magic, and basic human decency. Some of her least favorite things include selfish people, eating fish, and tornados. Ignite the Mountains is her second novel. Sign up for her mailing list and get access to free short stories!

  www.KateHallBooks.com

  Twitter @KateHallAuthor

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  Available Books:

  Smoke and Mist

  Ignite the Mountains

  Angel Academy

  Clandestine Angel

  Renegade Angel

  The Girl in the Lake

  The Girl Who Won’t Drown

  The Girls Down Below

  Night Academy

  Deadly Academy

  Final Academy

  Southern Charms

  Southern Spells

  Southern Necromancy