Spirit Read Online Free Page B

our concern,” my angel said, making the bottom of my stomach drop out. I
felt as if the world had turned on its side, and I thought I was going to fall
over. “You were my charge; they are not your charges, so you cannot concern
yourself with their fates.”
    “But something
is going to happen, isn’t it?” I pressed. “My dying, that is going to do
something to them, isn’t it?”
    “Shayna, just
come with me.”
    “Why won’t you
answer me?”
    “Shayna!” He
rushed forward, his hands outstretched. I dodged, hitting the ground and
rolling in a mass of limbs and wings. He tumbled forward, losing his balance
when I suddenly wasn’t there. Getting to my feet was difficult, but when I
finally did, I ran, flexing my wings behind me, working them desperately,
lifting and bobbing awkwardly in the air. I heard him yelling for me, still
tangled where he had fallen since he didn’t have the same desperate need
fueling him. The Light sliced through the air and trees easily. My back warmed
as it touched me, and the sensation to turn toward it pulled at me.
    “No!” I
screamed, willing myself to go faster, farther, just get the hell away from it.
That’s when the burning began. Feathers ripped out of my wings, swirling around
me in a bloody mess. I started to fall as my wings collapsed and shredded
behind me, unable to hold my weight. I couldn’t feel the cold night air
anymore, but I could feel the heat of the wrath that rent my wings away from my
back. When I crashed to the ground, my back felt as though it was in tatters.
The pain of the two gaping wounds lanced through me, paralyzing me. Black and
silver feathers littered the ground around me, and slowly the skin on my back
knit back together.
    My guardian
angel burst through the tree line, screaming for me. On my hands and knees, I
lifted my face to look at him. I had never seen a look of terror so raw, so
open before. The searching Light began to fade, taking the last bit of warmth I
could feel and sending my world into shadow. I crooked my fingers into the
Earth, trying to will it to open to me. That was when I knew I had lost my
powers; the Earth didn’t answer my call. I was no longer an Angel of the North,
and I no longer had dominion over the Earth.
    I felt as though
that Hell Hound had raked his claws down my back again as I stumbled to my
feet, trying to run from my angel. He cried out for me and told me to stop. He
said that he could still fix it, that he could take me to the Light and make me
an angel again. But I knew, when he refused to answer me, that going with him meant
dooming my friends to a horrible fate, a fate he wouldn’t reveal to me.
    My feet were like
clumsy blocks of cement. My legs refused to cooperate with me, and for every
step I took, I collapsed to the ground. I reached out as if something or
someone would help me, pull me to safety, and I felt the first coiling shadow
wrap around my wrist. My eyes sprang open, and I saw my hand fading into the
dark. Unable to get to my feet again, I rolled until my body sank into the
shadows as they wrapped around me and pulled me out of his reach.
    “How much time?”
I asked, pulling myself out of that painful memory.
    “It doesn’t
matter; it always comes,” he said.
    “But how long?”
I caught myself before I stepped toward him. “I mean, this cemetery is over a
hundred years old. Some of these…” I hesitated, hunting for the right word.
    “Souls,” the
angel said, still watching the horde.
    “Fine, souls,” I
agreed. “Some of these souls are over a hundred and fifty years old.”
    “What of it?”
    “When did they
become like this?”
    “Shayna.” He
said my name slowly, turning his golden eyes upon me. In their depths, I saw a
sadness that, in life, would have broken my heart. “I know what you’re doing.”
    “You always do.”
    “Don’t do this.”
    “Just answer me.”
I struggled to keep from yelling. “Please. For once, just answer me.”
    “It