by Andrew Weis
My camouflage shirt seemed over starched and concealing, so I modified it to show a generous amount of my cleavage. I never used my breasts for anything other than filling out a shirt, but guys loved these things. Bruiser had to be as horny as any other guy and cleavage was a great magnet, even if he was Muslim, gay, or whatever.
The stink of this place assaulted my senses in the same way the gym did during indoor track workouts. Sweat marks drenched their armpits and poured down their scrubby-bearded faces. A shower would’ve done wonders for these guys. I sat on the ground and materialized myself. Comrade spotted me right away.
“Where did she come from?” Comrade asked.
Bruiser leered at me. Without fail, his eyes shifted and paused at my chest. The allure of good cleavage. I owned his abusive ass now.
“Tie her next to the other infidel,” Bruiser said. “We have fun with both.”
Comrade grabbed me and pushed me onto a chair next to Reggie. While Comrade tied me, I saw three other rebels watching a God-awful Afghani television program with annoying music. I couldn’t get out of this dump fast enough.
Bruiser slapped Reggie again.
“What bomb did you use? A bomb that makes no noise?” Bruiser demanded.
Reggie stayed silent like a good soldier. I wouldn’t tell Bruiser the Hairy Ape anything either. Bruiser grabbed an imposing knife, then buried it into the chair seat between Reggie’s legs. Reggie flinched.
“What kind?” Bruiser repeated through clenched teeth.
“I ain’t telling you nothing,” Reggie said, as he stared down Bruiser.
I liked Reggie’s style. He didn’t take Bruiser’s crap and stood up to the tough guys. Reggie’s admirable defiance only provoked another beat down from Bruiser.
“Tell me!” Bruiser shouted.
Reggie struggled to lift his wobbling head. Like a well-trained soldier, he spat blood at Bruiser’s face. Bruiser yanked the knife out of the chair. With an intense death grip on the knife, he prepared to plunge it into Reggie’s chest.
“Hey, Abdullah,” I said, interrupting Bruiser’s tirade. “I can tell you about a bomb, and it’s better than his,” I said.
Bruiser stared at me for a moment.
“Well?” he asked. He used all his restraint to keep from driving the knife into Reggie’s heart.
“It seems you’re nothing but a thug, a bully. No, you’re more like, oh what’s the word, oh yeah; infidel!” I shouted at him.
Bruiser smacked me and the chair and I toppled to the floor. It appeared that I struck a nerve.
“Mouthy bitch!” he said.
As an angel in human form, I could get thrown around like anyone else, but I couldn’t afford to get killed. I looked at Reggie as he bobbed his bloody swelling face. He struggled to raise his heavy head, eyed me, but I looked away so he couldn’t see me and remember my face. Comrade lifted me and set my chair upright. I looked back into his angry, deep-set eyes.
“Don’t get rude with me, Abdullah,” I said.
Bruiser jabbed the knife toward my face and stopped it right below my left eye.
“Infidel pig,” he said.
“More infidel blather? I mean, that’s the best insult you got? I got some real charmers to describe your lame ass.”
“Let’s see how you speak with melted lead in your throat.”
“Are you saying I have bad breath? I’ll admit this experience hasn’t afforded me much time to freshen up. What do you say we step outside, or would you rather we settle our differences here?” I asked with a tilted head. I batted my eyelashes at him and cracked a devilish grin.
Bruiser smiled. I used my powers to make my bindings fall to the floor but kept my hands behind my back. He had the same look as my training partner in Hali did when he thought he had me cold.
“Batter up, baby doll,” I said and winked at him.
Bruiser lunged at me, then I grabbed his hand and twisted the knife away from him. I twirled up to my feet, kicked Bruiser’s jaw and knocked him flat onto his back.
I grabbed his knife off the dusty cement floor. As I flipped the knife to grip the handle, I stood over him with the blade tip pointing at him.
He clutched his bleeding jaw and groaned. Comrade ran into the adjoining room screaming for help; what a wuss. I kicked the door closed behind him.
Abdullah’s terrified eyes locked onto mine.
“Hi, Abdullah or whatever. My name is Jessa, and I’ll be your executioner today.”
An enormous rage coursed through me. I dropped onto Bruiser’s chest and sunk the knife clear up to the handle. I rolled him over and saw the knife tip had poked out of his back.
The other guards charged in with guns blazing. I enveloped Reggie with my wings, protecting him from the hail of indiscriminate gunfire. Even though my body could take a variety of hits, angel wings were great shields against human weapons. Bullets ricocheted off my wings and chipped at the cinder block walls.
Right when the shooting stopped, I slaughtered the other guards with a materialized samurai sword with smooth angelic swipes. A warm, divine strength flowed through me. My breaths remained steady as I studied the quiet room.
“Anybody else want to play?” I asked, gazing at the bloody mess. “I should make archangel easy.”
Reggie’s eyes were bloody and almost swollen shut. One soldier on the floor stirred. I prepared to finish him when Ellis arose from the body. Ellis materialized a sword and cut off the guard’s head without looking at him. Reggie’s face trembled. Ellis’s eyes glowed, then Reggie’s head dropped to his chest.
“You can’t let humans see you in your element like that,” Ellis said.
“What’s the big deal? None of them were leaving this place alive, so I figured it didn’t matter if they saw me.”
“It’d matter if one of them was a demon. You were lucky this time.”
I looked at Reggie’s bloody face.
“They worked Reggie over pretty good. Did you kill him?” I asked.
“No, stunned him. Reggie was the objective. Overall, you did fine. You saved your ward, but keep your identity to yourself. Also, don’t say anything about the angel hierarchy or your goals around humans either.”
“All right. Should we call someone for Reggie?”
“I freed the men in the other room, so we better cover ourselves.”
Ellis and I inrepped as the other Americans in the holding room rushed in. We watched while Tyrone attended to Reggie.
“Hey, Reg, you okay?” Tyrone asked with soft empathy. “Can you hear me, man?”
“Yeah,” Reggie said. Reggie’s face winced as Tyrone helped him to his feet. “Don’t forget the girl. She saved me, man.”
Tyrone looked over the dead Afghani soldiers, then peered into the adjacent room.
“Ain’t no girl here. Nobody here but you and the stiffs,” Tyrone said.
Reggie bobbed his head and looked around the room.
“She was here,” Reggie said.
“They must’ve hit you hard, man. Come on, I’m getting you out of here,” Tyrone said.
Under cover of American helicopter fire, Tyrone led the captives to safety. Ellis and I watched the rescue from the prison roof.
“I’m impressed that you did so well, but you must remember to temper your emotions a little more,” Ellis said.
Men saying anything about women being more emotional than them warmed my heart like a steel chair screeching across a concrete floor. We all have the same emotions. Girls weren’t afraid to show them. It wasn’t a weakness but a huge strength.
“I’ll try to remember that,” I said.
“Ready for Hali?” Ellis asked.
“Yeah, let’s go,” I said.
Ellis and I emerged from the sun and shot into the Temple. We landed on the other side of the holograph Earth behind Arlen’s podium. The angelic flurry of activity never abated. I watched as new recruits gathered in the main lobby much like I did on my first day.
“You get ne
w trainees every day?” I asked.
“No, every two years,” Ellis said.
“I’ve been here two years already?”
“Correct. Time works differently here. On your way here after you died, did you remember a time when you were in a cold, dark place?”
The place he described was a seeming wasteland of pitch black where nothing happened. It was pure darkness, devoid of anything living, human or spiritual.
“I think so,” I said.
“That’s the holding area. You stay in a suspended state until you’re called out.”
“Unreal.”
“Yeah, look,” Ellis said, as a coach to an athlete. “As far as your missions go, don’t flaunt your ability the way you have the last few times. Many recruits think they can get away with anything, but they forget they have vulnerabilities.”
“I didn’t flaunt anything. I wanted to give Abdullah what he had coming to him. Besides, I hate bullies. What’d I do wrong?”
“You spoke too much. That gave him time to negotiate an approach to handle you.”
“I had him easy. It wasn’t like I’d let him kill me.”
Ellis slapped me. At that moment, a small fire sparked inside me, which reminded me of when my stepdad Ken hit Mom on my last day as a human.
“While you’re in solid form, human weapons can hurt, maim, or kill you. I won’t get into the headache you’ll have if you end up going through turnaround. So, do your damn job and go back for your next assignment! Don’t deviate! Understand, hotshot?”
I nodded while I looked into his angry eyes. While I rubbed my cheek, the fantasyland impression I had of Hali washed away, replaced by the stark reality of what angels did on Earth.
“Okay, fine. I get it,” I said. “What’s turnaround?”
“As an angel, if you die while in human form, you can get recycled back into your assignment. You’ll have memory loss and will spend a long time getting back to where you left off. You’d start at the beginning of your ARV. That’s what happens in turnaround. Got it?”
“All right.”
We left the Temple and went to the Training Center. Upon entering the main room, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Training Babe as she descended from her podium and settled in front of me. Ellis bowed his head as he took a step back. He swatted my arm and moved his head to face the floor. I bowed my head too.
“Jessa, I’ve been observing you on your assignments. We’re all in agreement on your next step,” she said.
Her bright blue eyes on whites as bright as snow, accentuated her creamy unblemished skin as her voice seemed to cast a calming spell over me. All the moisturizing in the world couldn’t make my skin look as supple as hers.
“What next step?” I asked. “Ma’am.”
Her warm glowing hand caressed my cheek. The physical reassuring touch from a superior angel felt like an outpouring of love. Ellis’s brow twitched upward as though he couldn’t believe what he saw.
“Jessa, it’s my duty to inform you that the opportunity for promotion to archangel is being extended to you.”
“What?” Ellis gasped. “She broke numerous rules on her watcher tests. She’s not ready for archangel.”
“Jessa’s a young individual with strong passions. She needs time to understand her place. Over time her wounds will heal.”
“Ma’am, I disagree. Perhaps after a couple more assignments she’ll be ready for an ARV but not now.”
“I believe I know what’s best for Jessa. Based on her training results and her life history, she’s ready.”
With a disapproving frown, Ellis took a harsh breath and conceded with a bitter tone.
“Okay. So, what happens now?” I asked.
“Ellis will take you to the Temple where Arlen will explain the terms of your promotion,” she said.
Ellis shifted on his feet and clenched his jaw.
“That sounds heavy duty,” I said.
“Don’t take this assignment lightly,” Ellis said. “Almost ninety percent of all watchers decline it.”
“How come?”
“You’ll see.”
“Fine. Maybe I can get on with my life.”
Chapter 7
ELLIS AND I observed the arriving angels in the rotunda as they met their escorts and walked to debriefing rooms where evaluator angels like the Training Babe would either punish or praise the angel’s effort. I got a good verbal lashing a few times thanks to careless mistakes I made on various assignments. Once I made watcher, I figured archangel would go the same way.
“It looks like a busy day today,” I said.
“Yeah. Let’s go,” Ellis said.
We took our place in the departure line to find out what my Archangel-class test would be. Ellis leaned to my ear.
“Making archangel isn’t easy,” Ellis said. “When you get to Arlen, he’ll spell out the terms of the promotion. Once he’s done, that’ll be your cue to decline.”
“What? Why would I do that?” I asked.
“The success rate of watchers making archangel is about four percent.”
“Why the scam? If nobody makes it, why offer it?”
“Because those who succeed deserve the job. I don’t see that with you just yet. It doesn’t help that you’re a girl either.”
“Don’t even think about giving me the boys are better than girls crap. I rocked it at that desert prison.”
Ellis looked straight ahead. He was close enough to hear me, but his coldness made me suspect he had other things on his mind. I couldn’t afford to guess what those things were, but it seemed strange since I was his only pupil. Maybe he didn’t like girls. I parked my instincts so I could focus on what I’d do when I reached Arlen’s judgmental presence.
The line moved along without delay and clearing my head of Ellis’s undercutting comments proved difficult. The more I thought, the more he came across as the biggest tool ever. I wondered if it was even possible that he might be a deviant or even a crook.
“You’re wrong about me,” I said.
“Shut up,” Ellis said. “It’s to your advantage to stay back as a watcher for a while longer. You’ll do better that way in the long run.”
“Why the hard sell to keep me out? Do you have a problem with me?”
“Arrogant beginners like you screw up projects already in play.”
“Kinan and the trainers seemed to think I have what it takes.”
“Of course, they do. It’s their job to feed the machine.”
Only a few angels were in line in front of us. My mind swung toward doubt, like how I felt when I prepared to long jump at the state track meet finals. Either way I sliced it, I managed to take my head out of the game and flop. The angels in front of me rose into the holographic Earth, then it was my turn to approach Arlen.
Arlen and I had an interesting relationship that most other angels didn’t share. I liked to believe Arlen enjoyed my peppiness and swagger. He didn’t seem to care that I was a girl. No matter the reason, I thought Arlen was a cool guy.
“Hello, Chief,” I said with an affectionate smile and batted my eyelashes.
Okay, it was a little corny and overkill to think I could charm Arlen away from what he already had planned for me. I didn’t care. He was like a big teddy bear and I thought he was fabulous.
Ellis rolled his eyes. I smiled and nodded when Arlen looked my way.
“Ah yes, Jessa Roscoe. I see your ARV has come, albeit rather soon,” Arlen said with a furrowed brow as he read his book.
Perhaps Arlen didn’t think much of me despite what I thought of him. I didn’t care. I still liked him.
“Yeah, Chief, I got tired of working with beginners, so they’re fast-tracking me to the top,” I said, winking then checking my fingernails. Arlen cracked a grin.
“This time your assignment isn’t without penalties if you fail,” Arlen said.
“What’s the job?”
“You’re assigned to the angelic region encompassing Chicago. You’
ll experience other locales in the future, but we prefer to initially locate protectors in areas they’re most familiar with when they were human.”
“Sounds good.”
Arlen took a deep breath as he turned the page of his mighty book, which emanated a greenish glow. His thick, powerful arms gripped the book cover. Only Powers like him could read it. I tried it once, and it hurt my eyes.
“Your ward, a boy, lives at 2246 Venture Street in Chicago.”
“Venture Street? That’s in Englewood Rails. Come on, I thought you and I were getting along good. You’re giving me a babysitting job?”
“An evil presence has infiltrated his life and death is imminent without your intervention. Once you’ve eliminated the threat and your ward is safe, you’ll get your promotion.”
“What if I fail?”
“You’ll serve angelic confinement in the Outer Edge.”
“What? I’ll have to do time if I fail?”
I heard things about the Outer Edge. It’s the most horrific prison conceived. Located outside the expanding edge of the universe, the prison was far away from anything its occupants once knew. I had no sense who they kept in there, but I sure didn’t want to join them.
“Watchers who fail ARVs end up emotionally compromised and can’t return to the Hali populace. So, we isolate them long enough for them to understand their failure. After which, they’re returned as useful protectors,” he explained.
“Let’s say I failed. Can I try another ARV again after I got out?”
“No. You only get one chance.”
“Chief, that’s hardcore,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.
“You’ll get one home callback if failure is imminent, and if you execute it, I may end your ARV.”
This assignment limited me to a small chance for success. It made sense that promotions were hard-earned and not given out like participant ribbons.
“The standard terms are as follows. You’ll be susceptible to human frailties and suffering. If you die on Earth as an angel, you’ll gain re-entry to your assignment via turnaround, but suffer memory loss. The human emotions and memories within you are subject to all the influences of the human realm. You’ll keep all your watcher abilities and can use them within the confines of angelic regulation. While you’re present with your ward, you’re not to disclose your human identity or the details of your ARV. Do you accept these terms?”