City of Magische Geschöpfe [Complete]

Chapter Twelve: The Other Angel

Taylor:

I was seriously staring to wonder if one of the guys had slipped something into my drink and I was really passed out somewhere in a run-down house hallucinating all this. Or had gotten really plastered. Dunno, but something wasn't right and this all came outta nowhere.

Ally wasn't even acting like herself. She was bossy, cold, and authoritarian. Nothing like the shy, withdrawn and helpful girl that she had been for all the weeks I had known her. Which now leads me to believe that even if a bit of this might be right, or true, that she had been faking it all along. Man, I had liked the Ally I had known. A lot.

Roman, as Ally had called him, had now come by and f*cked everything up. Or had he? Maybe this was inevitable. Perhaps . . . Oh I had no idea everything was so muddled. Yeah, I was probably shit-face outta my goddamned head and all that.

The alternative - that Ally and this Roman dude were some sort of angels or fairies - was far too outlandish. I always loved the supernatural and living in the fantasy world in my head, but real-life angels? Uh, no. That's one step too far.

Jay had seemed to have been of the same mindset. The whole time he was frozen to the spot and silent. So when he jumped to action I was shocked. Sure, I'd seen him throw punches before and win numerous fights through his high-school years, but he just went from 0-100 real fast.

Everything had happened so fast from that moment until then. The bright light, the talking, and then . . . Then what? I had absolutely no idea.

Jacob and Ally had been there a moment ago. He blocked it with his body and then everything got so bright and I could've sworn that his entire body started glowing - as if he had the sun contained inside him. It was beautiful, really, but Jay's expression told anything but. His mouth and eyes torn wide open will remain seared into my mind for a long time yet.

The scream, it was still ringing in my ears. A horrible, painful, blood-curdling thing. I'm assuming it came from Jay, but at that point I had no idea. The light had gotten too bright for me to see him, or open my eyes at all.

When the echoing sound of it had faded and the light stopped burning my eyes - even when they were closed - I figured it sade too look around again. See what the hell happened.

What I got was nothing, and that made it worse. Where Jay and Ally should have been there was nothing and no one. Both of them evaporated in the thin air - or so it seemed. No trace of either of them left, except the rumpled blankets and . . . Roman.

I look at Roman, who is now curled into a protective ball against one of the bookshelves that lined the walls of this room. He was shaking and not looking up. Perhaps even crying, I couldn't tell. And honestly I couldn't find it in me to give enough of a damn.

Roman. This man who had pretended to be a doctor, snuck into the house while Ally was weak and vulnerable, and then proceeded to do something I still couldn't wrap my head around. Confront her? Coax her back home? I was pretty certain those had a large grain of truth to them, but the angel shit and other stuff was gonna take a while.

I stood there, silent, waiting for Roman to come out of his shell and look at me. Really look at me this time. He thought lowly of me, that I could tell. Perhaps I was below his in status is some twisted way, who knew. I did know, however, that I was way above him in morality, perhaps for the first time in a long time.

He finally did, of course, come out of his protective position. Unfurled slowly, as I'd expected in danger at the slightest of movements. Then, finally, he look me dead in the eyes. In them I saw defiance and guilt warring together. Challenging me to harp on him and at the same time acknowledging that he fully well deserved it. Without doubt.