Outside the red energy dome, Hope lay on the ground, bleeding, dying.
He started to feel himself lose containment of the nuclear energy.
No! Not yet!
Then he felt it.
The sharp pain in the eyes.
The nausea…
The final surge.
Nick looked up at the stadium roof. Envisioned the stars above.
Focused on a spot about 100 miles from the Earth’s atmosphere.
But the strain was overpowering him.
Just keep it together… a few more seconds!
He found that familiar spot, the one between the layers, between the realms. It wasn’t as simple as transporting water, or solid objects like a rifle or bullets, this was infinitely more difficult. But he had to do this before he became fully mortal.
Even if it killed him.
The nuclear energy was about to burst out of his containment field.
Nick started to lose all sensation.
Oh God, he was going to die.
First, the blinding light overwhelmed him.
Then it all went black…
96
FALLING… IT SEEMED TO GO ON FOREVER. Blindly hurtling downward.
Nick’s shoulder, arm, and entire right side struck something hard.
The stadium floor.
His vision cleared.
Just in time to behold a wide column of red light blasting through the glass dome of the stadium. Through the gaping breach, he saw a fiery ball launch into space. A second later the night sky lit up, bright as noon.
It worked!
He rolled over, struggled to his knees, and let out a triumphant grunt, despite the pain and nausea nearly overwhelming him.
“Hope!” Fighting the pain, he crawled to her and knelt over her. Shards from the dome lay around her. Terrible wounds from the wolf bled all over the grass. He touched her face gently.
She was alive, but just barely.
“You did it, Nick…”
“Shhhh. Don’t talk right now.”
She smiled, her eyelids fluttering. “It’s… okay…”
“No, don’t let go.” If he could muster the last remnants of his abilities to divert a nuclear explosion, surely he could do this, in his last moments as a supernatural being.
“Nick…” Her breaths grew shorter, quicker.
“Hang on, Hope.” He placed his glowing hand on Hope’s wounds.
As expected, the dark vapor appeared. So did Lito and Maria, who watched but held back while Nick brazenly broke angel law for the last time.
“Come on, come on, come on…”
The wounds started to take on the healing glow.
“That’s it, love! Just—” His voice broke. “It’s going to work!”
But the wounds weren’t closing properly. The glow was fading from his hands.
“No!” Nick lifted his hands, willed them to work. “I can do this!”
The glow was gone.
The dark vapor descended.
Nick flexed his fingers, trying desperately to conjure up the healing, but he knew—this time absolutely.
All his powers were gone.
He became aware of skin peeling from his hands, of radiation burns searing his body.
He had become fully human.
Still on his knees, he fought the agony of his burnt flesh and reached into his pocket.
“Look.” He placed the jade pendant into her hand.
Hope’s struggled to keep her eyes open. “You found it…”
“You see? You have to stay.” He grabbed her hand, which was disturbingly cold, and kissed it. “I know it’s not an engagement ring, but…Hope Matheson, I love you. Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
She tried to keep her eyes on his, and managed to say, “Yes, oh yes,” then her gaze went a million miles away and she smiled as if she’d just seen something unutterably beautiful. Her eyes closed, but the smile on her face didn’t fade. “Nick…don’t be afraid…It’s just a dream, it’s all just been like a dream. We’re going to wake up one day and…”
“Hope…don’t.”
A look of perfect peace fell over her.
Nick kissed her, and wept softly.
He’d failed as an angel.
And on his first day as a mortal, he’d failed the woman he loved.
The dark vapor fell over him.
Enveloped him.
97
IN THE ABSOLUTE BLACKNESSS, Nick felt neither cold nor warm. He felt no pain. In fact, he felt nothing at all. So this is what death is like for a mortal.
How long before the dark reapers came for him?
An eternity—at least that’s what it seemed like. He’d lost all sense of time.
Whatever happens, face it with dignity. Like a guardian. Like the warrior you once were.
The darkness began to lighten, gradually turning from dark to pale grey to bright white. Nick rubbed his eyes and looked around, but with no discernible point of reference he couldn’t tell where he was.
A thin strand of black smoke wove through the air, growing longer and wider before him. He soon recognized it as the dark vapor, yet he didn’t fear it. The thought of its constant presence at pivotal moments in his existence comforted him. And then, for the first time in all the thousands of years it had followed him, it transformed into something.
Or someone.
“Johann?”
As usual, the tall angel didn’t speak. His dark glasses concealed his eyes—no way to tell if he came as friend or foe. Or otherwise. He stretched out his hand and gestured to the side, where a dark portal opened.
“I see.” With Johann at his side, Nick approached the portal. “You’re a dark reaper, aren’t you?”
Johann didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at Nick. He just accompanied him into the tunnel through which Nick had taken countless human souls to the Terminus. Only this time, he was the one getting on the train.
With a dark reaper.
“Right. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
A moment later—it could have been centuries, hard to tell in this realm, now that he’d experienced life and death as a mortal—they arrived at the Terminus. Only it wasn’t quite the construct he’d created every time he escorted a soul. No, this was an amorphous sea of light and consciousness. Rather unnerving, actually.
“Would you mind?” Nick said. “A construct, please?”
Johann turned his head to face the expanse and there it was, the construct.
Nick’s construct.
Victoria Station, 1907.
Johann motioned for him to go through the open doors of the train waiting on the platform.
For the entire ride, he sat across from Nick without word or expression. No one else was in the car they occupied, so it was quiet. Nick could not stop thinking of Hope, though a multitude of thoughts crowded his mind.
“You know, for as long as I can remember,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to take one of these rides, see what was on the other side.” He shook his head.
The corner of Johann’s mouth twitched ever so slightly.
At last, the train stopped.
The doors hissed open.
Face it with dignity. Nick took a deep breath, stood up, and left the train with Johann.
Once again, an absolute void. The train doors slid shut behind them and left them there, alone in the dark save for a narrow beam of light that drew a circle on the wall where they were standing.
“What are we waiting for?” Nick said.
Johann became the dark vapor, and vanished.
“Brilliant.”
The circle of light on the wall grew wider and wider, revealing a great gate on either side of which stood a magnificent creature. Their wings rose high above their shoulders, and the swords in their hands blazed. Nick resisted the impulse to fall at their feet.