A Dance with Darkness: An Angelfire Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) by Moulton Courtney Allison

Author:Moulton, Courtney Allison [Moulton, Courtney Allison]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

10

ALL NIGHT, I FELT SO ILL THAT MY HEAD ACHED, and when I woke I was sick again. Nathaniel was gone and I didn’t know where. I’d heard him leave just before dawn, probably to handle the responsibility of the grimoire and to gather supplies to make his copy, but deep down inside I feared it was because I’d hurt him. He had kissed me and I’d kissed him back in my moment of weakness, but I hadn’t reciprocated the feelings that had come with his kiss. In the end, remaining a platonic relationship was for the better. For both of us.

The midday sun was high, though the autumn air was ice cold. My nausea hadn’t subsided. Reapers did not just fall ill and a new fear hovered in the back of my mind, pressing against my iron will not even to consider it. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t allow it.

I didn’t know any angelic doctors, but I knew of a nurse named Constance who had saved a battlemate of mine from a wound he may not have survived on his own. I entered the Grim outside and leapt into the air to head for London, where I recalled the nurse lived. At this time of day I was certain I wasn’t likely to be followed by any demonic, but the Grim safely concealed my existence from humans.

Constance operated out of a small hovel in one of the poorer sides of London. The smell of garbage and human waste masked the scent of angelic reaper blood so she could work without attracting the demonic. I knocked and a reaper opened the door to greet me with her pearly pink gaze and blond hair.

“Hello,” she said pleasantly as she let me squeeze past. “What brings you here in the middle of the afternoon?”

I laid a hand over my abdomen. “I haven’t been feeling well—awful, actually. Bad enough that I’ve come knocking on your door. You’re very highly recommended among our kind. Would you mind taking a look?”

“Of course, child,” she said. Even though I was a hundred years old, I could sense Constance was at least another six hundred years older and to her, I was a child. She directed me to a straw-packed bed where I lay down while she examined me. “What’s your name?”

“I’m …” I thought quickly. If I was pregnant, then I would find myself in an extremely dangerous situation. I remembered the story Bastian told me about his mother and father. I couldn’t let the news travel through the angelic population. Questions would be asked. Solutions would be sought. “Katherine. My name is Katherine.”

She eyed me curiously. “Nausea, you say? That’s it?”

“I ache sometimes,” I said. “My sickness has only begun in the last week or so, but it won’t subside.”

“Well, there certainly is an explanation for your symptoms,” the nurse said. Her tone was far from grave as I’d anticipated.

“Which is?” I pressed her impatiently.

Constance’s smile was wide and beaming. “You’re going to be a mother.

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