by C. L. Coffey
Paddy shook her head. In that moment, I knew that no matter what was said, there was no way she was going to change her mind. She had come here for a fight, and someone was going to die.
“Where do you stand in this?” Cupid spoke up, suddenly. “Are you here for vengeance too?”
Veronica, who had been following the conversation with a frown, turned her attention to her friend. “I don’t understand how you can ask that, Cupid?” she said, surprised. “Lucifer is the reason all the cherubim are gone. I stand here and watch Joshua, knowing that Lucifer is in there... I can’t just do nothing”
“What if you didn’t?” Cupid asked, tilting his head.
“Didn’t what?” Veronica asked before I could.
“Stand here – stay here,” he shrugged. “I don’t want to be here anymore, and I was planning on leaving anyway.”
“Cupid?” Michael took half a step back to looked at the other archangel.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Cupid sighed. “But I can’t. I’m no longer part of that house, and even if things changed and Zachary left, and you were back in charge… I don’t think I could stay there anymore. I wanted to make sure everything turned out well for Angel and Joshua, and maybe try to work out how we can get your House back, but,” he looked over at Veronica. “What do you say, Ronnie? You want to get out of this city? Start afresh somewhere else?”
Veronica looked at us all, one by one, until her gaze settled on Cupid. “Let’s do it.”
Cupid stepped out from behind us, placing a hand on Michael’s shoulder as he passed. “I’m sorry, brother.”
Michael reached up and put his hand on Cupid’s. “I understand.”
Cupid carried on over to Veronica and held out his hand. She accepted it with a small smile. And then they were gone.
I turned my attention back to Paddy. “What about you?” I asked, even though I knew what her response was going to be before I asked. “Could you not just settle with returning to Ireland and looking after your House?”
Paddy withdrew her sword and pointed it at Joshua. “Unlike Veronica, I can’t just ignore the fact that Lucifer is alive and could escape at any moment. I could not live with myself if I allowed him to cause as much hurt and suffering as has been dealt to me, not when I have the opportunity to end this once and for all.”
My hand wrapped around the hilt of my sword, and I withdrew it, making sure I was in front of Joshua as I took up a defense stance. “What about me?” I asked her.
“What about you?”
“You don’t think that killing Joshua won’t make me suffer as much as you are?”
My words caused Paddy to pause, but then she shook her head. “You’re the whole reason this started. You’re the one who set Lucifer free, and everything since has been a consequence of that action.”
She wasn’t wrong. “That doesn’t mean Joshua deserves to die,” I told her.
“No one needs to die,” Michael interrupted us. “You cannot make a death right with more death. All it does is cause a never-ending cycle of pain.” Michael withdrew his own sword. “What’s more, this battle is uneven, with you at the disadvantage.”
“Says who?” Paddy asked, looking smug. I didn’t like that look. I liked it less when Zachary and Savannah appeared beside her.
“Since when do you have a connection with Zachary?” I blurted out.
“She doesn’t,” Savannah shrugged. “She has it with me.”
“What?” Michael asked, just as confused as I was.
“I have taken over the House in Dublin, where Paddy has retained her position as Second,” Savannah explained, reveling in opportunity to disclose that information.
I was all for girl power, but that was a recipe for disaster if ever I heard one. Poor Ireland.
“You would turn on your family?” Michael asked Zachary and Savannah in surprise.
“We’re doing this to protect our family,” Zachary stated.
“Now, about being outnumbered…” Paddy trailed off. Then, she let out a war cry and charged at Joshua. I caught the blade with my own before she could get close.
I didn’t have the chance to check whether Michael was taking care of Zachary and Savannah. I had my hands full with trying to fight off Paddy. Seeing as neither of them came near me, I assumed that was the case.
I jumped backwards, narrowly avoiding Paddy’s blade, but didn’t move quickly enough as she swiped again, this time, catching my side. I hissed in pain but tightened my grip around my sword. In the depths of my soul, I knew this was the one battle I had to win. When she swung again, I brought my sword up, catching her blade with the hilt on mine, long enough to be able to kick her knee as hard as I could.
Paddy let out a scream, drawing back to clutch at her knee. When she looked at me again, any trace of the Paddy I knew had gone. There was nothing more than pure rage and vengeance looking back at me. Without warning, she advanced towards me, her sword moving in a blur as it swung and jabbed at me. It took all my concentration to block each blow.
Just when I thought she was going to get the upper hand; I saw an opportunity. I feigned to the left, then as she went to swing, shifted my weight to the right. It was enough to throw her balance. I didn’t miss the opportunity, and I jabbed with my weapon.
The blade went straight through her wrist.
I really didn’t want to kill her if I didn’t have to, but I sure as hell knew that just knocking her sword free wasn’t going to be enough. I sent a silent plea of help to the heavens. I really didn’t want to take things further than this, and I knew Paddy would do whatever it took to kill Joshua.
Paddy’s banshee-like scream was so loud, if there were windows close enough, I was sure they would have shattered. Her sword fell to the grass as she jerked her arm back, wrapping her uninjured hand around her wrist as blood gushed from it.
“ENOUGH!” a voice bellowed as I raised the tip of my bloody sword towards Paddy’s face. I glanced up, then returned my attention to Paddy, refusing to drop my guard.
Grace had arrived with Metatron, and along with me and Paddy, Michael, Zachary and Savannah had also frozen mid combat. “What is going on here?” she roared.
“Lucifer is alive, and Michael and Angel are protecting him!” Zachary cried, using his sword to point at the two of us. “He’s using her charge as a vessel, and Angel can’t see sense because she’s sleeping with him.”
Grace cocked her head and looked at me. “Is this true?”
I rolled my eyes, unsurprised at Zachary’s actions. “Lucifer is alive, yes,” I said, calmly, though I refused to take my attention of Paddy. “However, he is imprisoned in Joshua’s head. “And as a consequence of that, Joshua was given a sainthood, and I am the archangel who will be making sure that Lucifer stays prisoner.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw Joshua nod his head. He was standing upright now, acting like the wound on his chest was no longer causing him any pain or restriction. I allowed myself a moment of relief at that.
“Really?” Grace questioned, evidently surprised. She turned to Metatron, who simply nodded at her, then she turned back to me. I looked up and caught her gaze as something flashed through it. My attention darted to Metatron behind her. He gave me the most miniscule of head shakes that I nearly missed it.
“Someone has faith in us,” I shrugged.
“Several have faith,” Michael corrected me. “And it is time to allow things to return to normal.”
“How can things return to normal? Raphael is dead!” Paddy screamed.
I had dropped my guard, just for a moment, and in that time, Paddy had lunged for her discarded sword, then, she rolled and charged at Joshua. I did the only thing I could think of. I transported myself between Joshua and Paddy’s blade.
Only, her blade didn’t impale me.
It pierced my skin, just to the right of my belly button, and although it went in a short way, it didn’t go as deep as I expected. I looked up, following her blade to her hand, then up to her face. Her mouth
was hanging open, gasping in agony. It didn’t make sense, until I found the source of her pain: a sword tip was protruding from her chest, the tip pointed at me.
My eyes flicked up, over Paddy’s shoulder, to where Michael was standing. His face was like stone. I stepped back as Paddy’s sword fell to the ground for a final time, clutching at my side, as Joshua joined me, pulling me back to him.
In front of me, Paddy fell to her knees, Michael dropping down with her. She looked up at me. The Paddy I remembered was back for the briefest of moments. “Now… I can be with him again,” she whispered. Her eyes closed and her body went limp. I was sure she would have collapsed if wasn’t for Michael holding her up.
I closed my eyes, swallowing, trying to bite back my tears. I had never wanted it to come to this.
Slowly, Michael withdrew his sword, setting it to the side, as he laid Paddy gently on the ground. “Do we need to…”
“No,” Michael said, simply.
I sucked in a couple of deep breaths, appreciating Joshua’s strong arms wrapped around me. “Enough is enough,” I said, finally looking at Grace, Zachary and Savannah. “This went further than it ever needed to.”
“Things went this far because of you,” Savannah said, though her words sounded hollow as she stared at me, mortified.
“Then I’m ending it,” I muttered, my words catching. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I am ending this here and now. Yes, Lucifer is alive, but he is imprisoned in Joshua’s mind, where he will spend the rest of eternity. The reason Joshua is a saint is because there is trust that this will happen and you all need to believe in it too.”
“Angel is right,” Grace said. I looked at her. With her cold, impassive expression, she seemed to be the only one who wasn’t moved in any way at the death of St. Patrick. “You two need to stop going after Joshua.”
Savannah nodded, looking at her feet. Zachary glowered back at Grace. Grace folded her arms and gave him a pointed look, at which point, he rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he grumbled, like a petulant child. At that moment, I knew he hadn’t been out to get Joshua just because of Lucifer.
“Vow it,” Michael demanded, surprising us all, including Grace.
I could tell instantly that she didn’t appreciate that, but she nodded her agreement. “An excellent idea, Michael.”
“I will not pursue this further, I vow to God,” Zachary said, through gritted teeth.
“I vow it too,” Savannah said. She still staring at Paddy, unable to take her eyes from the fallen saint. “No more death.”
“You too,” I said, turning to Grace.
Grace’s eyes bulged. “Excuse me?”
I shrugged, ignoring the suspicious look Michael was shooting me, and the look of panic from Metatron. “My duty is to make sure Lucifer stays locked up. I’m going to have enough trouble with that and keeping what is left of the Fallen at bay. I don’t need to be fighting Heaven anymore either.”
She stared at me for the longest time, before relenting. “I vow that neither myself, nor Heaven will come after Lucifer while he remains imprisoned in Joshua’s mind.”
“Thank you,” I muttered, feeling Joshua relax behind me.
Grace disappeared, Metatron, Zachary and Savannah leaving close behind. Finally, all that remained was Joshua, Michael, and Paddy’s body.
I promptly burst into the tears I had been fighting back, turning away from Paddy. It was a mixture of loss and relief. Paddy was gone, but finally - finally – it was all over.
Joshua was safe.
EPILOGUE
September.
It was a cool twenty-two degrees. Though the sun was out, so too was the wind. As usual, the weather was irrelevant to an angel, no, archangel, who couldn’t feel the temperature. I was sitting in the garden, listening to the noise of the raucous crowd the wind was sending over from Bourbon Street.
In front of me, the convent was crawling with laborers who were working on restoring the convent; when they had come to rebuild the area damaged by the fire, they had discovered that much more work was required on a building which hadn’t been maintained properly for some time. Apparently, even though they had done everything else, building maintenance wasn’t on the cherubim’s chore list.
“It is good to see, is it not?” Michael asked, joining me.
I nodded. “Reassuring,” I agreed. “It’s almost like a physical sign of this House rebuilding.”
“Which it will continue to do under you and Joshua,” Michael said.
Things in the House had changed. Again. This time, although I was terrified at the thought, I was hoping it was for the better. Shortly after putting Paddy’s body to rest in the middle of the Irish countryside, Grace had reappeared and announced that she wanted Zachary and Savanah to take over the House in Ireland.
Seriously, I pitied the Irish if those two were making their home on that soil.
She had also decided that with Cupid’s recent departure, that Michael should return to the House here in New Orleans. He had disagreed.
Instead, at Michael’s insistence, it had been decided that I should have the House, exactly as he had planned for all along. What’s more, they’d given me a Second who I was most happy about: the Patron Saint of New Orleans himself.
“Michael, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, chewing at my lip. What had happened… when I had earned my archangel status… I hadn’t told anyone about that. About Grace… I didn’t want to tell Michael, but he was the only one I knew I could trust.
“You can tell me anything,” Michael promised me. “Not just now, but whenever you need.”
I had been trying to work out how to tell him this for days now, and every scenario I had come up with hadn’t ended well. It was Grace after all. At my deep sigh, Michael arched an eyebrow. I turned to him and shrugged. “Metatron told me something that day I became an archangel.”
Michael’s eyebrow disappeared under his fringe. “Metatron is mute.”
Well, that explained a lot. “Not verbally. He wrote it in the sand.”
Michael tilted his head, and then nodded. “I see.”
“He told me Grace couldn’t be trusted.”
I waited for Michael to react the way I had envisioned so many times, but instead, he let out a long breath and looked up at the roof, focusing on one of the roofers. “That is something I have had my suspicions of for some time,” Michael said, eventually.
It was my turn to be surprised. “Really?”
He nodded. “I have no proof, just a feeling.”
“So, what do we do about it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Michael said, firmly. He flicked his brown eyes back to mine. “Angel, that is dangerous. Right now, I need you to look after this House, the angels in it, and this city. There is enough work to be done here.”
I glanced down at the ground, tapping the toe of my biker boot against the dirt. Although the danger level in the city had dropped considerably, I refused to take a laissez-faire attitude now I was in charge. My uniform was going to remain the Kevlar jeans, and practical shoes. I’d even been granted permission to allow the angels to learn self-defense – and only self-defense!
“I am sorry,” I apologized, looking back up to meet his eyes. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to do something about it. I was hoping you would stay and rest and allow yourself to return to normal.”
“I do not think things will ever return to ‘normal’,” Michael mused. “There have been too many changes here – irreparable changes – and I do not think it is wise to cling to the idea that things could ever return to what they once were. I, myself, have changed.” He gestured at his body. “I am growing more familiar with this vessel every day, and I have accepted that it will not be the same as it used to be.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave straight away.”
“In truth, I planned to leave long before Zachary made the choice on my behalf,” Michael told me
. “Although I am truly pleased that you have found a way that you and Joshua can be together, and be happy, I am not ashamed to admit that I cannot be here to witness that every day.”
“Michael,” I started.
Michael shook his head, holding a hand up. “I do not blame you,” he said, simply. “You cannot help who you fall for, and the fact is, not so long ago, I did not think I was capable of falling for anyone. I need time away from here, and yes, from you, before my feelings turn into something they should not. Time and distance. Looking into Grace and why Metatron warned you, that is something that should occupy my time.” Michael glanced back at the convent, smiled, then looked back to me. “Do not think you cannot contact me if you need my help, because I will always be here for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I am not.” In a very un-Michael move, he stepped forward and brought me into a hug. “I never told you this, but I am proud of you, Angel. I have every faith that you will be able to look after things here in New Orleans.”
“I hope so,” I responded into his chest, my voice muffled. There was still so much to do, including making sure that there were no more of the Fallen in the police force. When the hug ventured into awkward territory, I stepped back. “Keep in touch.”
Michael nodded. “Farewell, for now.”
And then he disappeared.
I stayed outside until Joshua’s car – he was back in the Charger and out of the Hummer – pulled into the grounds. With a smile, I waited while he parked up, then walked over to join me. “How was Maggie?” I asked him.
Joshua gave me a smile. “Just fine.”
Given the fact her body was caught up in a murder investigation with Joshua being the prime suspect, it was something of a miracle that she was now at rest in a Columbarium at a cemetery.
And by miracle, I mean some lies and manipulation from Leon, Joshua, and Henry. Henry had written a report so that it read like the perpetrator was much taller than Joshua, with much bigger hands. Joshua had gone on record to state he was working undercover but hadn’t checked in for a few days, leading to Leon’s concern.