“Of course I was,” she said. “About what?”
“My mom.” I sucked in my breath and closed my eyes. “I don’t think it was an accident that she died. I think she was killed . . . by demons. I think a demon dropped her.” Like the hiker from Culloden. “My mom was found in the middle of an open field, dead from impact injuries, but there was nothing around for her to have fallen from. The coroner said she fell from about eighty feet up, too low for an airplane or a hot air balloon or something along those lines. It made no sense. She was crushed into the ground with no reasonable explanation.”
I decided not to tell her about my premonitory dreams and how I could have stopped my mom from leaving the house that day, how I should have but didn’t because I was holding a grudge from the night before. I couldn’t even remember what our fight had been about—something small and stupid, no doubt—but I was a bad enough daughter that I let her leave without warning her. The truth was, the Abbey would want nothing to do with me.
“Why do you think they did it?” Hunter shook me out of my miserable musing. “Because of the journal?”
“Maybe. She named it ‘Demon Strongholds,’ and it has a bunch of drawings of three different buildings.”
“If you have maps into demons’ strongholds, you’d better be careful. They will not take losing those lightly. Obviously, if they killed your mum for them. Do you know where the buildings are?”
“No. I don’t recognize any of them.”
“Take pictures with your phone and send them to me. Maybe I’d know them.” I knew Hunter was anxious to prove herself to the Abbey, and I was happy to help her get in. Let her dreams come true, even if mine couldn’t.
“What about the letter?” she continued. “What did it say?”
I read it to her.
“‘Soldiers’ definitely means Warrior angels,” Hunter said. “Like Gavin. No wonder he just showed up in your area. He’s probably scouting for this program. You live in Aviemore, right? With an A? Has anything weird been going on in your area?”
“Just some crazy dogs or something. Nothing serious.”
“Well, you’d better keep an eye out, because it’s likely to get serious soon. And don’t tell anyone anything about this,” she warned. “Not your grandparents, not your friends . . .”
“Why not?” I thought about Jo. I’d already told her about meeting Gavin, and I was planning on showing her my mom’s stuff. I would feel terrible keeping such a big secret from her.
“For their own protection,” Hunter said with no small amount of gravity. “Trust me, the less they have to do with demons, the better.”
She was probably right, although the minute I started having bad dreams starring Jo, all bets were off. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I’d made with my mom.
“Except Gavin,” she added. “You should tell him about the journal if you see him again.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” I sighed. “He’s gone, and he can’t stand to be around me.”
“I wish I had a hot angel who couldn’t stand to be near me, so much so that he took me home with him,” Hunter teased.
“Yeah, well, now he hates me.”
“I highly doubt that,” she said. “Angels don’t hate anyone. You probably just have him so mixed up, he doesn’t know what to do with himself—because he’s definitely not supposed to love you, either. So he threw a big, bad tantrum and stormed off. He’ll show up again, especially if something happens in your town.” She crunched into the phone, as if she was eating popcorn as we talked. “Who knew angels were so much like kindergarten boys?”
Gavin was nothing like a kindergarten boy, I thought to myself, recalling his muscular chest, the way his hair fell over his dark blue eyes, his gorgeous lips. He was nothing like a boy at all. He was nothing like anyone I’d ever met.
In spite of myself, I hoped something bad would happen so I could meet him again.
The next week, something bad did happen. Bertie’s mauled body was discovered in the woods.
The official cause of death was reported as “attacked by wild animals,” but I knew better. The “wild animals” were demons, but like Gavin said, they seemed to have moved out of the area.
The animal madness, however, hadn’t. It migrated from dogs to bigger animals, like horses and cows. Farmers were told to kill even prized animals that showed any signs of sickness to stop the spread of the unknown disease, but so far, it hadn’t seemed to work. A woman died after being kicked in the head while milking her family cow. A man was thrown from his horse when it apparently went berserk. More people turned up dead in Aviemore that week than had in the past four years.
The local government was investigating, but all they could really advise was to keep your pets inside, and avoid walking by yourself. Word was they were afraid the large deer in the area might gore someone.
True to his word, I didn’t see Gavin. I thought about him all the time, though. So much, I had trouble concentrating on just about anything else. I scanned the woods for a glimpse of him. Imagined I saw him on the street. I was always wrong.
I figured he was out doing what he loved best: fighting demons. I fantasized about him tearing up the bad guys, his muscles bulging, his eyes blazing. I found myself sketching my own pictures of him in the margins of my notebooks. And every night before I went to sleep, I replayed the best day of my life—the day I visited his village. I recalled every moment in painstaking detail: holding his hand, lying against his chest on the warm rocks, what it felt like being held in his arms. I relived every caress, memorized every smoldering look, remembered every word he said to me in his amazing accent.
I added a million new scenes in my mind. All of them ended with us in a passionate embrace. I imagined that when we were lying on the boulder, he reached over and rolled me onto his body, my hair grazing his cheeks as we kissed. I dreamed that as we were walking through the woods, he suddenly pushed me up against a tree trunk and stole a kiss, a kiss I was shocked to receive but more than happy to return.
I reflected on how much my life had changed since I was little—not even as little as the tiny angels in Gavin’s village, but just in the past few years. When I was twelve, I had crushes on boys, but most of them were on the posters in my room. I never expected I would have such strong romantic feelings about someone I actually knew.
I had only met Gavin a few times, and I did hardly know him, but I ached without him. He took a piece of me with him when he left.
CHAPTER 15