Angel Exalted

by C. L. Coffey

Cupid stared at me, his hazel eyes unblinking, before one arm shot out and he led me away from the table. “Angel, I never wanted this. I never even wanted it when Michael was in charge. Right now, I’d rather go and be with Veronica.”

  “You think I want this?” I asked him, struggling to keep my voice matched with his low volume. I wasn’t sure why. Archangels had excellent hearing. The virtues and seraphim did too… the whole room was probably perfectly aware of what we were saying. “I’m not even sure I ever really wanted to be an angel, Cupid. I’m certainly not sure I want to continue with this when I have to answer into Zach-ass.”

  “I need to make Veronica a priority. She has no one else,” Cupid said. He nodded his head in the direction of the table. “You need to make the other angels your priority. They still need you.”

  “I need to keep my charge as my priority,” I corrected him, folding my arms.

  “Which you won’t be able to do if you leave,” Zachary said, his voice booming around the room. I had been right about them all being able to hear.

  I swiveled on my heel and fixed Zachary a look of disdain. “You know that listening in on other people’s conversations is rude, right?”

  “You know that leaving midway through a conversation is rude, right?” Savannah shot back at me.

  “You leave the House, and you leave your charge behind,” Zachary continued before the petulant ten-year-old in me could make a petty comeback at Savannah.

  “Leaving doesn’t mean I’ve fallen,” I told him.

  “No, but you’re still only an angel,” he shrugged. “Archangels are the angels who have a charge. You were given one as someone believed you would be able to become an archangel. Given how long that is taking you, I’m not sure you will be able to accomplish-”

  “Zachary,” Grace interrupted, the warning very evident in her tone.

  Zachary fixed me a smile. “If you leave, you will leave as an angel. The honor of protecting a human goes with it.” The smile thinned. “Which would leave me responsible for your charge.”

  I folded my arms and met his glower with my own. “Fine,” I said, through gritted teeth. “I’m staying.”

  “Not unless you take the covenant,” Zachary shrugged. “If you stay, and don’t take the covenant, I’m also removing Joshua from your care.”

  “I’ll take it now,” I snapped at him. This was something I should probably have discussed with Joshua, seeing as how it affected him, but the idea of this House falling under Zachary and Savannah’s leadership scared me. It shouldn’t have – they were angels, virtues, after all – but the fact that it did made me worry even more. This House had been through enough.

  “You will?” Zachary asked, a smirk appearing on his face.

  The smirk finally made me falter. What was he planning?

  “You should be taking the covenant, regardless,” Grace added, Zachary’s expression unnoticed. She turned to Savannah, and without giving a verbal command, Savannah nodded her head and disappeared. She appeared moments later with a bright white envelope in her hand, thrusting it in front of me.

  I took it from her with a frown. “What is this?”

  “Your covenant,” she said with a flick of her hair. With the tone she used, she might as well have added “duh” to the end of the statement.

  I prized the envelope open and pulled the neatly stapled bundle of pages from within. Setting it down on the table, I began flicking through the double-sided document, my eyes going wide. Covenant? This looked like a contract. I was fairly certain that this was longer than the documents I’d signed for my car insurance, medical insurance, and student loan, combined. It was certainly full of as much jargon. “Which of the angels has a law degree?” I muttered under my breath.

  “What did you think a covenant was?” Savannah sniped.

  In all honesty, I had been expecting something similar to when Cupid had given me my bow, but I wasn’t about to admit that. Not to Savannah, anyway. “It just looks very formal,” I shrugged.

  “The thrones take care of things for us,” Michael muttered.

  I glanced over and found him watching me. Still expecting the poker face, I was surprised to find I could read the concern in his eyes. What was he concerned about? I turned my attention back to the covenant: if there was concern, was it because of something in this?

  After reading through it twice (ignoring the impatient snorts and sighs from Zachannah); it was basically what Michael had listed off to me all those months ago: no sex, no drinking, no drugs… basically, become a nun. Apart from one, small, detail: the ‘tell no one who or what you are’ clause. Right there, in the small print, it gave a list of human occupations who could know about angels, provided there was just cause, citing religious occupations as an example; which would explain why Father Roberts and several clergy knew what we were. Sadly, there was nothing about the angelic relationship status. I glanced over at Metatron with a sigh. “Can I borrow your pen?”

  Metatron fixed me a stare with his dark brown eyes but didn’t reply. Nor did he lend me a pen. Instead, a pen was thrust in front of my face, and I took it from Savannah. “Thank you,” I mumbled as I signed my soul away.

  As I set the pen down, my signature changed. The blue ink, still wet, turned into liquid gold before glowing. I’d seen that light before: it was the same as Michael’s wings. The glow grew brighter until it became so bright that I had to close my eyes. There was a blinding flash that seared through my closed eyelids, and then nothing. When I opened them, the covenant remained, but there was a golden glow settling on my skin. I looked to Michael, but he seemed unperturbed by what was going on. I dropped my attention back to the glow, just as it seemed to sink into my skin.

  “That’s binding,” Savannah was quick to point out. “You break it and we’re going to know about it.”

  “You make it sound like that’s my intention.”

  “No one thinks you are going to intentionally break the covenant, Angel,” Zachary said, sounding almost diplomatic in the statement, however, facing me, with his back to Grace and Metatron, his face said otherwise.

  “But you do think I’m going to break it,” I said. It wasn’t a question, and if it was, it was certainly rhetorical.

  “If the shoe fits…”

  “I think it is time that those of us who do not need to be here return to Heaven,” Grace announced. Beside her, Metatron rose to his feet, although the book remained open, his hand still moving his pen across the page. “Savannah, that means you too.” She paused briefly, before turning to Michael. “I feel it would be best if you remain in this House. This is only a temporary placement for Zachary: I fully expect you to resume your position at some point in the future, therefore I feel it is important that you return to this place and refamiliarize yourself with the requirements.”

  I was expecting Savannah to kick up a fuss, or, at the very least, pout and sulk like a small child. Needless to say, when she simply nodded her head and disappeared, I was very surprised. Grace and Metatron vanished moments later, leaving myself, Michael, Cupid, and a still very smug Zachary in the library.

  “I’m going to see Veronica,” Cupid announced, leaving the room before anyone could stop him.

  I didn’t blame him one bit.

  With a long sigh, I raked my hand through my hair and turned to Zachary. “We have contractors coming in after Christmas. Until then, most of the rooms are out of commission, so the angels are sleeping in the gym. That being said, there are still a few bedrooms-”

  “I will take the attic,” Zachary cut me off.

  “That’s-”

  “A good choice,” Michael finished for me.

  I turned to look at him, frowning. The attic was his room. Even when Cupid had taken control the room had remained empty. If Michael wasn’t returning, I wouldn’t have bothered objecting, but Grace had just said he was to return to the House. This didn’t feel right. But I wasn’t about to argue with either of them.

  “I am going to s
ettle in and observe how this House is currently being run,” Zachary told me. “I will summon you when I have made my decisions.”

  “Decisions about what?” I called after him. The only response I got was the door closing behind him as he walked out of the library. With only myself and Michael left, I walked back to the table and collapsed into one of the chairs. I was exhausted, and even though I had a dozen or more things I wanted to say, I just couldn’t find the energy. Instead, I brought my elbows to the table and, dropping my head to my hands, I stared out the window at the grey clouds, already threatening to spill rain once more.

  “I apologize,” Michael said from beside me.

  He was just out of my eyeline, standing to my right. I glanced in the direction, not really seeing him as I didn’t bother turning my head. “What are you apologizing for?” I asked, wearily.

  “If it were not for me, you would not be in this position,” he elaborated.

  I closed my eyes: a nap seemed like a very good idea. “You of all people know what you are capable of and what you’re not. No one can fault you for not being ready to return to leading this House. I know I don’t.” I sucked in a long breath before exhaling heavily. I opened my eyes and turned to Michael. “Don’t get me wrong, had the option to poke my eyes out with a spork been on the table, I probably would have picked that over Zachary leading this House, but we are where we are.”

  “I was referring to Joshua.”

  I winced before I could stop myself.

  Joshua.

  I had made some pretty big decisions without even consulting him. “I should probably go see him,” I muttered, getting to my feet. I gave Michael a small smile. “None of this is your fault, Michael. And I’m glad you’re back.” I scooped up the covenant and left Michael alone in the library.

  Even though Lucifer, Beelzebub and Asmodeus had been defeated, with a large number of other fallen angels, it had been so ingrained in me to make sure I was armed before I left the convent. I detoured to my room to collect both of my swords, and an oversized jacket with loose sleeves. The latter was even less necessary than the weapons, especially as I didn’t feel the cold, however, seeing as it looked like it was going to rain in the immediate future, the jacket was more so I didn’t draw too much attention to myself as I walked around the French Quarter.

  There were two shopping days left before Christmas and the area was as busy as it would be at Mardi Gras, only there was just less skin on show. I meandered down Bourbon Street, peering in at the few shop windows scattered between the bars. My internal tracking device which had Joshua’s location pinpointed was telling me he was somewhere in the area. With my head trying to come up with the best way to tell Joshua what I had done, it didn’t occur to me that he had said he was in Kenner. My ability to locate him was now so imbedded in me that bypassing the fleet of Yukons and walking into the Quarter had gone unnoticed.

  Finally realizing that something was amiss, I paused, cocking my head as I tried to work out where he was. The ability to know where he was, was an odd one: I could sense where and how far he was from me, but the ability came without Google Maps, so I wasn’t sure of the exact location. He was close. It felt that he was at Bee’s, but that couldn’t be right…

  When I found myself outside the yellow and black building, knowing with complete certainty that he was in there, I just stood opposite, staring in bewilderment. “That tracker has got to be on the blink,” I muttered to myself as I pulled out my phone. Where are you? X

  It took some time for the response to come back. I told you. I’m busy.

  I stared at the response. As far as girlfriends went, I figured I was pretty easy going. I didn’t have the most experience in that department, but on the few occasions I had, I had never been one to need to know where they were at every second of the day. I certainly didn’t think I’d been particularly needy with Joshua.

  So why was he being so weird?

  Sure, I had just taken the covenant, but I had just signed that. Not only was I on my way to tell him that, there was no way he could possibly know. Which lead to a dozen different paranoid thoughts circling my head.

  I shook my head in frustration. It was more likely that I was simply not wanting to tell Joshua about signing the covenant more than there being something wrong. Given how tired I was, how I still wasn’t healed – it was probably just the case that my GPS was on the blink. The easiest way to resolve this would be to go into Bee’s, see he wasn’t there, then ask him to text me when he was free.

  Sticking my phone back in my pocket, I didn’t give myself the chance to second guess myself as I marched over to the door and paid the cover fee. Things were certainly feeling a little less worrisome at the fact the bouncers didn’t stop me from entering.

  Inside, little had changed. Despite the fact it was early evening, all sense of time disappeared when walking in. There were already a number of people in the bar, drinking, and several on the dance floor. The red walls had already picked up a layer of condensation in the muggy air, which, combined with the deep throb of the bass from the loud dubstep track gave the impression that some indecent act was taking place.

  No, that wasn’t fair: the couple on the dance floor, obviously already drunk and unashamedly grinding up on each other was the indecent act.

  I gave the downstairs area a quick scan. There were maybe forty people in there. Several at the bar, a dozen on the dance floor, and a bunch of women in one of the booths at the back. Aside from the DJ and the bar staff, Joshua was not here. I turned, making my way for the stairs, my hand hovering over where my sword was hidden.

  The further I walked into the bar, the more I was certain something was going to jump out at me, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t even get the chance to go upstairs. The area was closed off. “We’re not opening upstairs until later,” a girl wearing a blood red corset and carrying a tray of drinks called to me over the music. I watched her make her way to the booths at the back, momentarily relieved that Joshua wasn’t there.

  And then I spotted him.

  The booth I had assumed was full of women wasn’t. Not completely, at least.

  In the middle, with three scantily clad women either side of him, was Joshua.

  I licked my lips, counting to ten as I tried not to freak out, Just because he was sat with a bunch of exceptionally attractive, well-proportioned women wearing clothing that left very little to the imagination (despite the fact it was barely 5pm on a workday), this was Joshua. Joshua was not that kind of a guy. Mary had not brought him up to be that kind of man.

  Joshua took a pint of beer from the tray being offered to him and took a drink. Since when did he drink pints? He liked bottles. Whatever. That was not important.

  Joshua set his drink on the table and sat back. Even from here I could see the slight trace of foam on the top of his lip. I took a step forward to walk over, and then stopped dead. The woman next to him leaned over, placing her hand far too high on his thigh, and then leaned further in to lick the foam from his mouth.

  My jaw hit the floor as I stared in complete disbelief. The woman’s face hovered in front of Joshua before she sat back, but her hand remained on Joshua’s upper thigh. I waited, partly because I couldn’t get my brain to communicate with my feet, but also because I was waiting for Joshua to remove the hand (before I did) and tell her she was being inappropriate.

  He didn’t.

  At that point, I wanted to walk straight out of there and pretend I hadn’t seen that, because my brain had run completely dry on ideas as to how that whole scene could be justifiable. Denial was a really appealing option.

  Instead, I marched over to the booth and stood in front of it, my hands on my hips. It took exactly two seconds for Joshua to notice me and swipe the woman’s hand away. “Angel?”

  “Who is she?” the woman whined, shooting me a filthy look.

  As I arched an eyebrow at Joshua, he turned to the woman and gave her a smile. “A friend.”

  This w
as one of those situations which you hoped you would never be in, but if you did, you would have some cutting, yet witty words to say.

  I had none.

  “I was,” was all I could manage. I turned on my heel and, somehow, walked out of the bar, my head held high.

  Outside, on the street just off Bourbon, I headed away from the busier street. Only a few buildings down, my steps faltered as a new kind of pain settled over my body. My shoulders sagged and I took in a shaky breath trying to stop myself from crying.

  “Angel?”

  Like a rod had been stuck down my back, I stood upright, and turned. Joshua was just behind me, his dark blue eyes looking almost black in the night. “What?”

  “Can we go somewhere and discuss this?” he asked.

  “Is there anything to discuss?” I asked him.

  “Plenty,” he nodded. “My car is just around the corner. Let’s go sit in that and get out of the rain.”

  I blinked, my eyes finally seeing the drizzle that had set in. “I’m not sure I want to go anywhere with you right now. I’m not sure I trust myself,” I told him, shaking my head.

  Joshua sighed loudly, taking a few steps towards me. “I’m undercover.”

  “I think it’s possible to go undercover without some skank licking your face,” I shot at him.

  “Louise is not a skank.”

  Joshua closed the gap, his hands reaching out for mine, but I jerked them out of his reach. “As far as I’m concerned, Joshua, any girl who likes another girl’s boyfriend is a skank,” I growled.

  “She doesn’t know I have a girlfriend,” Joshua said. He reached for my hands again, grabbing them before I could move them out of the way.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then maybe you should have told her that?”

  “I am undercover, babe,” Joshua said again, holding tightly to my hands as I tried to tug them free. “I’m sure I’ve told you this before, but you’re my girl. You belong to me.”

  I stopped struggling against his grip but continued to glower at Joshua. “You said you were in Kenner.”