Angel Exalted

by C. L. Coffey

  It was then, of course, dinner time. By the time I had served and helped clean up, it was almost ten and I was exhausted. I was also conscious of the fact that Ty had been in the room for hours without food. I was hoping he would have had the sense to rinse the glass which had been on the side and use the bathroom tap if he had gotten thirsty.

  I heaped up a plate of lasagna that was still vaguely warm and set it reheating in the microwave while I gathered together a bag of full of drinks and snacks. With my arms full, I hurried back to my bedroom. Ty was still away when I got in, and his eyes went wide at the sight of the lasagna. “Oh, thank you. I’ve been starving up here.”

  I handed the plate over and dug the cutlery out of the bag. I started to hand the knife and fork over and then stopped. “Oh, heck, I’m sorry,” I muttered, as Ty realized, at the same time, what the problem was. How on earth was he going to open a bottle I’d brought? Wordlessly, he handed the plate back to me, growing sullen. I sat down on the other end of the bed and busied myself with cutting up the pasta dish into bite size pieces. “It won’t be for long,” I said. “You’ll soon be able to do this by yourself.”

  “This isn’t a movie, Angel. I’m not going to recover overnight. I’m not going to grow a hand.”

  I handed the plate and the fork back over to him. I hadn’t spoken to his doctor, but I certainly wasn’t deluded enough to think he would be braiding hair by the end of the week. Weird as it was, though, I was glad he had acknowledged that. Although I did wonder if that was just lip service to his expectations.

  While he ate, I disappeared and collected some extra bedding so I could give myself something marginally comfortable to mask the tiled floor with. I set up a make shift bed on the other side of the room to him and wriggled myself into a comfortable position. Ty finished off his meal, leaving the plate on the chest of drawers and then switched off the light, getting into bed. I was just starting to fall asleep when Ty spoke.

  “You’ve still not asked me,” he said, his voice echoing around the dark room.

  Tired, I tried to work out what he was talking about but I failed. “What am I supposed to ask you?”

  “Why I helped you.”

  I brought my arms up behind my head and stared at the darkness. He was right: I hadn’t. I hadn’t thought about it if I was being honest. It wasn’t that I hadn’t had time, just more that I wasn’t curious. He had done it, and that’s what was important to me. But it seemed to be important to him. “Why did you help us?”

  “You. I helped you.”

  “Okay,” I said, frowning. “Why did you help me? And I swear if you’re about to declare your undying love for me, I will go over there and kick your butt into next week.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he scoffed. “I’ve told you before, I’m not interested in you.” There was the sound of the mattress shifting, followed by a wince. “I’d rather be single for eternity than attempt that one.”

  “So, why did you help me?” I repeated, my tone becoming drier.

  “Because you’re the only person who has ever thought about what I wanted. You’re the only person who hasn’t expected me to be my father’s son… to be my father. I wanted to show you that you were right.”

  I chewed on my lips, trying to find the right words for what I wanted to say. “Your father hurt a lot of people, and if I said I was sorry he was dead, I would be lying, but I am sorry you lost your father.”

  There was a pause. “Thank you,” he said, quietly.

  “How much did you know about your father?”

  “Enough,” Ty admitted.

  I rolled onto my side, trying to get comfortable as my hip dug through the blanket and onto the hard floor below. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Would it stop you if I said no?”

  Probably not… “Do you know why Joshua was kept alive? I mean, working under Asmodeus, there must have been plenty of opportunity for him to have an unfortunate accident while at work.”

  “Yes.” There was a very long silence where I thought I was going to have to ask him to elaborate. I opened my mouth, but he continued, stopping me. “My dad had gotten wind of the possibility that Lucifer wasn’t dead, so much as trapped.”

  “From where?” I asked, sitting up.

  “Hell if I know. I thought all the angels thought he was dead.”

  “They did,” I assured him. “It took ages for me to convince them otherwise.”

  “You know Hell isn’t a real place, right?”

  If Heaven was a place, and angels walked the Earth, why wouldn’t I think Hell was a real place. I shook my head. “No,” I added, realizing he couldn’t see me in the dark.

  “It’s not. It’s a place created to scare people into behaving. Your God isn’t that evil that he’d create a place for souls to go for all eternity. He allows the good to go to Heaven. The bad, the really evil people, their souls are reborn – they’re given a second chance to live a good life without causing harm. Lucifer was his son. Do you think he’d really allow for him to not change his ways and earn forgiveness?”

  “Yes,” I snorted. “Why do you think the angels are so set on hunting down the Fallen?”

  “Given they’re angels, I would think they’re trying to protect humans,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that when killing them they’re not given a second chance.”

  I stood up and flicked the light on, ignoring Ty’s blinking protest as I glared at him. “Are you honestly trying to tell me that we’ve been running around defeating the Fallen, when they’re just going to get reborn to have a second chance? Why has it taken millions of years for Lucifer to be reborn then? Why did I have to kill a person for him to be released?”

  Ty glowered back at me. “Lucifer was different. Grace found a way to trap him.”

  “Grace?” I burst out laughing. “I thought Michael was the most black and white, these-are-the-rules-and-must-not-be-broken up there, but then I met Grace. If the rules were to have all of the Fallen have a second chance, that would have come up by now.”

  “Have you never heard the phrase, ‘to fall from Grace’?” Ty asked. “Where do you think that came from? Lucifer fell from Grace.”

  “So now the big conspiracy theory is that Grace is more evil than Lucifer?” I couldn’t finish what I was going to say because I ended up doubled over from laughing. At one point I actually snorted. “Oh man, I didn’t know that the Fallen told bedtime fairy tales. That’s quite possibly the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard.” When I finally managed to stop laughing, I found Ty staring at a spot beside him on the bed. That was unfair… I sighed, mentally kicking myself as I walked over to the bed, perching on it by Ty’s feet. “Raphael’s dead, Ty. Not once has anyone suggested otherwise, and no one has said he’s safely up in Heaven. Don’t you think that angels would get a second chance too?”

  “I’m tired,” Ty declared, refusing to move his stare from the duvet until I refused to move, at which point, he shuffled back down, turning his back to me. I could tell the swift actions were hurting him as he tried to bite back a grunt of pain.

  I pretended not to notice as I got up and went to turn the light back off. I settled back into my makeshift bed, not finding sleep easy as I lay there. I lay in silence, staring at the ceiling, wishing I had Joshua with me. When I eventually fell asleep, it was to the sound of muffled sobbing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Suspicion Torments the Heart

  I was at Lake Pontchartrain. It was a very specific part of the lake – an area I had become very familiar with, even if I had only visited it a handful of times. At least when I was awake.

  The location was Joshua’s spot. He’d told me that before his father had died, he had taken him fishing on the lake as often as he could fit it in around his shifts. They had always come to the same fishing jetty. Like his son, Joshua’s father had also been a detective.

  The first time I had Dream Walked into Joshua’s dream, he had been here. It had become a place we would
escape to when we wanted to be together but wanted to be somewhere peaceful. With things being so crazy, it was mostly when we were asleep that we could find the time. Plus, being asleep meant that Joshua was able to control who was there. We could have real privacy for once.

  I walked down the worn dirt track, pausing when I hit the jetty to take my boots off. Just like when I was awake, I couldn’t feel the temperature – or maybe I could, but because it was a dream, Joshua could set it how he wanted. Either way, I liked the feeling of peeling off a sock to step onto warm wood, worn so flat over time and use that it was almost as smooth as marble to walk on.

  Joshua wasn’t there yet. Normally he was waiting for me. He had to be asleep otherwise I wouldn’t be there, so I wasn’t worried. I sat down at the edge of the jetty. The water below looked cool and inviting, but I refused to let my legs dangle in it. No matter how many times Joshua promised me that there were no gators in the water, I couldn’t shake the idea that it was Lake Pontchartrain and there were definitely alligators in Lake Pontchartrain.

  I sat back, supporting my upper body with my elbows, and closed my eyes against the sun. There was only the sound of the waves lapping against the wooden supports of the jetty beneath me. It was peaceful.

  I poked an eye open. A little too peaceful. I had been there a while now. I wasn’t exactly sure how long, as the inbuilt sense of time was intermittent in the dream world – but long enough for me to start to be concerned that Joshua wasn’t there. I hadn’t even heard the growl of his car’s engine (I wasn’t sure if that would be the Charger or that Hummer thing, but either would make enough noise to disturb the atmosphere).

  I opened the other eye and frowned, looking around. There weren’t any birds chirping. There weren’t even any cicadas and anyone in the South knows you can’t step a foot out of the door without hearing them. They had always been present in Joshua’s dreams until now. Well, except for that time he had been in the car accident during Hurricane Tabitha…

  I stood upright in such a hurry that I knocked one of my boots into the water before I could stop it. I crouched back down, reaching down into the water to try to get to it before it sank. My hand had barely dropped over the side of the jetty when an enormous cavern of teeth erupted from the water. I yanked my hand back, away from the alligator’s mouth, just in time, as it clamped down around my boot, dragging it back down under the water with it.

  Soaked through from the splash it had caused, I scooted back from the edge, and tried to get my breathing under control. No gators, my butt. That thing had to have been at least five meters long! Grumbling under my breath, I started walking back up the path. Joshua still hadn’t appeared, and regardless of bare feet and a stony path, I wasn’t not going to wait for him any longer, especially not if he could be in trouble! Thankfully, I had some control in the dream and I conjured up a new pair of footwear.

  Unlike the real road from the lake, this one quickly changed to concrete and a residential street. It was still deserted, although that didn’t really concern me. There were rarely other people in Joshua’s dreams. What was freaking me out was the silence. There were still no background animal noises.

  I looked around, trying to work out where I was. The street looked familiar. The houses looked familiar. I stopped suddenly and stared at one of the houses. Then at the one next to it. Then the rest of them down the street. They were all the same. Not just the same architectural design, but the exact same house – right down to the placements of the brightly colored flowers in the flowerbeds.

  I was trying to work out why I recognized the house, along with why every house looked the same, when everything went gray. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my bedroom floor, staring at the ceiling. Joshua was awake.

  It was early. Still a while off the sun coming up, but close to a time when I’d have to get up to start with breakfast. I rolled over and reached for my phone, quickly typing out a message to Joshua. Are you OK? Xx

  When I didn’t get a response straight away, I turned my internal tracking device on, trying to visualize where Joshua was. From what I could tell, he was at home. He had just woken up: it was possible he had jumped in the shower… either way, I wasn’t going to risk it. I got up, ducking into the bathroom to change, then tiptoed out of the room, trying not to wake Ty.

  I gave the security guy a nod of my head and hurried down to the currently unmanned reception. Just as I was grabbing a set of car keys, Joshua’s response came through. I was in the shower. Why?

  I had gone to see you, I replied. Before I could, everything went gray. I was worried something had happened to you. Xx

  What are you talking about?

  I sighed, leaning back against the reception desk. In your dreams. Xx

  The response was almost instant. Don’t tell me then.

  I was Dream Walking… Are you sure you’re OK? Xx

  Oh. I looked at the response with a frown. What the heck did that mean? Before I could text him back, Joshua sent another message: Do you want to meet for breakfast?

  Maybe he hadn’t woken up properly? I sent back a yes and we arranged to meet in an hour’s time at one of the Ruby Slipper Cafés. I stood there, staring at my phone for a long time after the conversation had finished, trying to work out if I had done something to upset him. Joshua had said everything was fine, but I couldn’t shake the image of the house. As I put my phone back in my pocket and opened the drawer to return the keys, it dawned on me where I had seen the house before. I’d been to it.

  I shut the drawer, keeping hold of the keys, and walked outside. They could cope without me in the kitchen: I had a voodoo queen to see.

  I made short work of the drive, successfully avoiding the rush hour traffic as I crossed the city. Mama Laveau lived at the end of a dead-end street in a somewhat rundown neighborhood. Her house, though weathered looking, was a pale yellow, two-story building, with a short drive and three steps up to a porch: it was definitely the house from Joshua’s dream. But why would he be dreaming of this place?

  Mama Laveau had claimed she was the infamous Marie Laveau, arguably the most famous voodoo queen in the world. Her face matched several pictures of Marie Laveau, so it was possible they were the same person. However, Mama Laveau was also an angel. A virtue, to be specific. She had left Heaven at some point, although I didn’t know when or why, and changed her vessel to one of an old woman to hide amongst humans. I had no idea why she had done that either. While I had done a test to see if she was Fallen or not, and she had passed, but in the same meeting, she had also attacked Joshua, so I wasn’t sure if she was good or evil.

  I was very confused as to why I was here. It was still early, but as angels don’t need to sleep (unless they’re me), I wasn’t worried about waking her. I walked up to the door and knocked sharply. The other hand was in my pocket, wrapped firmly around the hilt of my sword.

  “Who dat be knockin’ at dis hour?” I heard calling before the door opened. “Oh, it’s you,” Mama Laveau said, dropping her accent, and her friendliness. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted with a shrug of my shoulders. The petite woman glowered at me and then started to shut the door on me. I thrust my arm out, stopping her. “Your house was in Joshua’s dream.”

  “So?”

  “Joshua wasn’t.”

  Mama Laveau stared up at me. Then, while muttering something under her breath, opened the door wider. “You’d best come in.”

  I didn’t take my hand off my sword as I stepped into the house, straight into the living room. It was dark inside. The sun was only just beginning to appear, and Mama Laveau had yet to put a light on. As if she could sense what I was thinking, she strode past me to a small bookshelf and switched on the lamp sitting on top of it. The lamp didn’t do a great deal to illuminate the room, but it was enough that I could tell it was a very normal looking room. With a voodoo queen I expected more occult looking items. As an angel, I guess more religious things. Instead, what I got was a
room that looked like it had been put together by an interior designer.

  “Have a seat,” she offered, pointing at the eggshell couch.

  There wasn’t even a slight chance I was going to sit. Being in her house didn’t leave me feeling comfortable, considering what had happened the last time we were here. She was still older and more skilled than me but standing allowed me more options to react if she did turn on me… like running.

  “I’m surprised you came back,” Mama Laveau said when it became evident that I wasn’t going to sit.

  “You’re not the only one,” I agreed.

  She shrugged her shoulders at me, then took a seat in a high-backed armchair. “Then why are you here?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know who else to talk to.” Taking care not to turn my back on her, I started pacing back and forth.

  “Cupid? I’m sure he’d happily chat boys with you. He has a history of flirting with humans.”

  “Zachary is in charge now-” I started to explain, but I was cut off with a cackle of laughter.

  “Someone gave Zachary a House?” There was another burst of laughter.

  I should have been grateful that there was someone else who thought Zachary shouldn’t be in charge, but seeing as the someone was Mama Laveau, I wasn’t sure that was such a great thing.

  “There are times that I regret leaving Heaven, and this would be one of them,” Mama Laveau continued as she finally sobered up. “You said something about Joshua’s dream. You’re a Dream Walker?”

  I nodded again. “I went to see him there last night. It started out like it normally does, but then Joshua never appeared. I went to look for him and I ended up on a street where every house was yours. Before I could go in, everything went blank and I was kicked out of his dream.”