‘Aren’t you going to take that off?’ I shake the numbness out of my hands. ‘You look like red death on demon wings.’
‘Good. That’s how every angel should look.’ He rolls his shoulders. I suppose it’s not easy having someone cling on to you for hours. Despite trying to relax his muscles, he’s on full alert as his eyes scan our eerily quiet surroundings.
I adjust the strap around my shoulder so that my sword, disguised as a teddy bear, sits against my hip for easy access. Then I step over to help my sister off Beliel. As I near Paige, her locusts hiss at me, jabbing their scorpion stingers in my direction.
I stop, my heart pounding.
Raffe is beside me in an instant. ‘Let her come to you,’ he says quietly.
Paige climbs off her ride and pets a locust with her small hand. ‘Shh. It’s okay. That’s Penryn.’
It still amazes me to see these monsters listening to my baby sister. Our stare-down lasts a moment longer until the beasts lower their stingers under Paige’s gentle crooning. I let out my breath, and we back away, letting Paige soothe them.
Paige bends to gather up Raffe’s severed wings. She had been lying on them, and the stained feathers look crushed, but they begin fluffing almost instantly in her arms. I can’t blame Raffe for cutting them off Beliel before the locusts could suck them dry along with the rest of the demon, but I wish he hadn’t had to do it. Now we’ll have to find a doctor to reattach them to Raffe before they wither.
We start up the beach and see a couple of rowboats tied to a tree. The island must be occupied after all.
Raffe motions for us to hide while he heads up the slope.
It looks like there used to be a row of houses on one side of the hill. On the lower ground, only the concrete foundations remain, littered with smashed boards stained with water and salt. But on the higher ground, several boarded-up buildings are intact.
We skitter behind the nearest building. It’s large enough to have been barracks of some kind. Like the others, it’s sealed up with white painted boards. They look like they’d been shut up long before the Great Attack.
The whole thing feels like a ghost settlement except for the house on the hill overlooking the bay. It’s a perfectly intact Victorian, complete with a white picket fence. It’s the only building that looks like a family home and the only one with color or any sense of life.
I don’t see any threats, certainly nothing that the locusts can’t scare off, but I stay out of sight anyway. I watch Raffe as he leaps to fly up the hill, moving behind the cover of barrack to tree, barrack to tree, working his way toward the main house.
When he gets there, gunfire shatters the peace.
2
Raffe flattens himself against a wall.
‘We’re not here to harm you,’ he shouts.
Another gunshot answers from an upstairs window. I flinch, my nerves about as taut as they can be.
‘I can hear you talking in there,’ shouts Raffe. He must think we’re all deaf. I guess compared to angels, we are. ‘And the answer is no. I doubt that my wings will be worth as much as angel wings. There is no chance of you being able to take me on, so stop fooling yourselves. We just want the house. Be smart. Leave.’
The front door slams open. Three burly men step out, pointing their rifles in different directions as if unsure where their enemies are.
Raffe takes flight, and the locusts follow his lead. He sweeps the air with his impressive demon wings, looking intimidating before dropping back down beside the house.
The locusts fly toward him, diving in and out of the tree line with their scorpion stingers curled behind them.
As soon as the men get a good look at what they’re up against, they run. They crash through the trees across from the locusts. Then they circle around the rubble toward the beach.
As the men run, a woman scampers out of the house like a beaten dog. She races in the opposite direction of the men. She looks back to see where they are, looking more like she’s running from them than from the winged creatures.
She disappears into the hills behind the house, while the men take the rowboats and head out on the bay.
Raffe walks around to the front of the vacated house and pauses, listening carefully. He waves for us to join him as he walks in.
By the time we reach the Victorian, Raffe yells, ‘All clear.’
I put my hand on Paige’s shoulder as we enter the yard through the white picket fence. She clutches Raffe’s feathered wings like a security blanket as she stares at the house. The Victorian is butter colored with maroon trim. It has a porch with wicker furniture and looks a lot like a dollhouse.
One of the locusts drops Beliel beside the picket fence. He lies there like a piece of meat. The ropey flesh of his body is the color and texture of beef jerky, and blood still trickles from wounds where Paige bit chunks out of his cheek and arms. He looks pitiful, but this is one locust victim I don’t feel sorry for.
‘What should we do with Beliel?’ I ask Raffe.