The Watcher

by Lisa Voisin

  “I’d been sent to watch,” he said. “I saw many things over the years and at first I thought all there was to this world was sickness, brutality, and death.”

  His skin drew a little tighter to the bone and filled with golden light, as though he shone from within. “But one day I saw you…and you were the most beautiful thing…” Heat rushed through my chest: he’d called me beautiful. “I became obsessed, neglecting my duties to watch you each day…preparing food, gathering flowers to make dyes for the fabric you wove.”

  Goose bumps formed on my arms and tickled the back of my neck as he spoke. What he was saying had to be true. I’d never told him about the loom. How else could he have known?

  “I wanted to be with you. Wanted you to see me,” he continued. “Even though so many of the others had fallen before me, I thought this was different, that I was different. That letting you see me would be enough…”

  An image of a meadow came to me. Yellow sunlight streamed through bright spring leaves, bathing everything in dappled light. Michael stood there, wearing the robes I’d seen him in before.

  “One day, I appeared. You weren’t much older than you are now.”

  I stayed with the image. Behind Michael were wings—actual wings—the same ones I’d dreamt of. Had I been dreaming of him? As the goose bumps on my arms spread all the way down to my feet, I remembered how peaceful, how good being near him felt—much as it did now.

  “You had wings.”

  “Your mother had died. You asked me to stay in the meadow to keep you company. An angel’s duties.”

  “You’re an…” I couldn’t say the word. But it explained so many things: the flashes of light that day in the woods, the way he seemed to glow, his unearthly beauty.

  “It was forbidden for us to mate with humans.”

  A tendril of sadness wove itself around my heart. What we felt was forbidden?

  “Other Watchers started to see I was in trouble, told me to get reassigned. I should have left you alone… Instead, I came to you often.”

  I remembered returning to the meadow to wait for him, the late afternoon sun dancing through the leaves.

  “Even this lifetime, when I first saw you…It’s like I’m being forced to choose again, between Heaven and being with you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” he snapped, then quickly composed himself. “Being with you back then made this world bearable for me.”

  I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Happy tears welled behind my eyes. I blinked them back, smiling at him.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” he said, frowning at me. “You wanted an angel’s presence. I was consumed by lust. What I became, what I did…”

  Memories sped through my mind faster than I could catch them, dizzying me—one of Michael kneeling on the sun-baked grass, holding and kissing my hands. I gasped from the force of the memory. “You loved me.”

  He took both my hands in his now, gripping them as a palpable anger flashed through him. “No, I became obsessed. What I did was wrong.” Sighing, his grip lightened as he let my hands go. “But you loved me anyway, believing for the rest of your life that you had seduced an angel. When it was all along the angel who had seduced you.”

  Not sure what to say, I didn’t speak, taking it all in. All I could remember was the love.

  “I can’t do that again,” he said, standing.

  “You won’t.”

  He knelt in front of the fireplace. One of the logs had fallen in the fire he’d built, its embers glowing beneath the flames. Poker in hand, he stabbed at it and clusters of hot, angry sparks gasped up the chimney. “You don’t know—”

  “You asked me to trust you.” I couldn’t understand why he was warning me against him, after everything he’d done to help. “And I do.”

  “That’s different.”

  Was it? I didn’t see how. As crazy as it all sounded, I believed everything he was telling me. I even remembered some of it, and the memories I had were good ones. Though I was curious about everything—how we lived, what it was like, and especially what he’d done—I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Not yet. It didn’t seem right to mistrust him for something he did thousands of years ago, in a different life. Something I didn’t even remember. How was it relevant?

  “It was a long time ago,” I said.

  Putting down the fire poker, he closed the screen. “I hurt you.”

  I joined him by the spitting fire and knelt beside him. “That doesn’t mean you will again.”

  Exhaling sharply, he leaned his head into one of his hands and covered his eyes. As I watched him struggle with his conscience over his past, a tightness gripped my chest. Without thinking, I touched the back of his head, stroking his hair, and it felt natural, as though I’d done it many times before. He sighed as his shoulders visibly relaxed. Squeezing my hand, he moved it to his lips and kissed it, palm up, before taking it in his.

  The heat of his mouth lingered on my hand. When he looked up at me, his eyes were soft and unfocused.

  “Thank you,” he said, and a sense of peace washed over the room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Once the fire died down, Michael admitted he was starving and we headed out in his car for a bite. When he turned on the ignition, a loud, moody guitar riff blared through the speakers. I recognized the melody, the steady beat. It was by a local indie band, but their name escaped me. The song itself was about love.

  Noticing my smirk, he asked, “What?”

  “This is the kind of music angels listen to? I always wondered.”

  He laughed, a warm inviting sound that curled itself around my insides. “Expecting harp music? No, wait. Gregorian chants.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” I laughed too, happy for the distraction. “But this is way better.”

  I leaned back and let the music flow through me as he drove along the tree-lined side streets. Lights from the houses and streetlamps flickered through the leaves, so bright they hurt my eyes. I took a deep breath to relax, but my mind was sprinting. Even as a kid, I’d wanted to become an archaeologist so I could discover ancient civilizations, and here I was remembering one. Instead of artifacts, I had memories, fragments of a story. I could have just as easily been remembering a dream.

  “Have you been alive all this time? You know, since…?” I tried to fathom the idea of being immortal.

  He glanced at me before returning his attention to the road. “No. I was born into this body, but it wasn’t until the accident that I got a chance to come back.”

  “How does that work? Is it like being possessed?”

  “Possession implies there’s no choice, an invasion by something evil.” He pulled the car onto the West Seattle Bridge, overlooking downtown and the Port of Seattle where cranes, lit like sentinels, watched over shipyards below. “This is different. When I came into this life, I thought I was human. The best way to describe it would be to say my soul was some kind of sleeper soul. It wasn’t until I had the accident and died that I was reactivated, returned to duty.”

  The hairs on my neck prickled. “Is that…reincarnation?”

  He shook his head. “This is my first time in a human form. I’m not strong enough to exist here without one anymore.”

  “Was it strange? Going from thinking you were human to…” I stopped myself. How couldn’t it have been strange? It was like asking if water was wet.

  “It’s like not knowing you had another limb until it grows back. Then you know what it was and how to use it.”

  He turned the car along Alaskan Way and parked near the waterfront. City lights sparkled and danced off the water. Thick gray clouds covered the sky, except around the moon which had managed to peek through and light up the rippling waves.

  “Why are you back now? After all this time?” I asked as we got out of the car. The sea air smelled of kelp and creosote from the docks, and its dampness made my skin tingle.

  “I was in…recovery. T
ime doesn’t exist the way it does here. I had no idea where or when I’d be assigned, but I knew eventually I’d have to come back.”

  “What for?”

  He gazed out over the water and the wind caught his voice, making it almost inaudible. “To face you.”

  We crossed the street and headed to a Mexican restaurant nearby. When he opened the door, the warm smell of fresh salsa, chilies, and herbs washed over us, making my mouth water. The fluorescent lights were so bright I had to squint to read the menu on the wall. Even then, the words swirled as though I were drunk. I drew in a deep breath to steady myself. Michael touched my arm, standing so close to me I could smell the sweetness of his skin mixed with the scent of fresh lime that hung in the air. In that moment he seemed very real, very human, and very sexy.

  A man working alone behind the counter took our order and offered to bring it to our table. We sat by the window. Michael held my chair for me, and even though it was casual we were definitely out together, like a date. I should have felt guilty about going out with someone else’s boyfriend, but I didn’t. Being with him seemed right.

  My cell phone rang, startling me. I fished it out of my purse and saw Heather’s number. Immediately thinking it was about Fiona, I answered. “Is everything okay?”

  “You asked me to call you, remember?” said Heather. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten. “I know I’m late, but I figured you were doing fine.”

  I checked the time. It was 8:45. So much for my plan to use a phone call to escape Damiel. If Michael hadn’t arrived, I could have been dead by now. “Everything’s okay.”

  “Have fun,” she said and hung up.

  I didn’t realize how hungry I was until there was food in front of me. Before I knew it, I’d wolfed down a large bean burrito. As Michael chewed, the bright fluorescents revealed a tiny scar at the hinge of his jaw, a flaw that didn’t detract from his looks but enhanced them.

  “How’d you get the scar?” I asked, gesturing at it.

  “Oh, that.” The corners of his mouth pulled into a wide grin and the scar crinkled slightly. “I’ve had it since I was six. Thought I’d try shaving one day. Took my dad’s straight razor, but forgot to use shaving cream.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the idea of him being six or the idea of an angel with a shaving nick, but it made me want to laugh. I stifled it—poorly.

  He swallowed a bite of his food, noticing my expression. “What?”

  “Sure. Demons can’t hurt you, but shaving?”

  “What makes you think demons can’t hurt me?” He took another bite of his taco.

  Of course they could. But if they could hurt him, I didn’t want to think about they would do to me.

  I scooped some guacamole with a tortilla chip. “You mentioned something before about other Watchers. What are they?”

  “Grigori. It’s the order of angels I belonged to.”

  “Not anymore?”

  He chewed thoughtfully. “You could say I’m in rehab.”

  “Rehab? Like AA—only Angels Anonymous?”

  He shook his head despairingly at my joke. “What else would you call it? Coming back to this world to live a human life.” He lowered his voice. “While I try to be an angel again.”

  “Slumming?”

  “There are worse places.”

  “Than high school?”

  That made him laugh. “Okay, maybe not.”

  ***

  He picked up the tab for dinner despite my protests, and we made our way to the door as the restaurant filled with a later crowd. Not wanting our evening to be over yet, I lingered on the way out. His hand brushed my lower back to guide me and a tingle ran all the way down my legs.

  Still warm from his touch, I didn’t notice the cold sea air until we stepped outside and it cut through my clothes. I’d dressed for fashion, not warmth. Michael took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders; it was warm and smelled of lightning and grass after it rains.

  “Where to now?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t say home.

  “It’s too cold for a walk.” His breath formed clouds of steam as he spoke.

  “I’m okay if you are.”

  He guided me a few short blocks to the waterfront and piers. The tourist shops were closed now, but there was a well-lit path that led to the docks. Nearby, a group of young guys practiced tricks on their skateboards while a busker put away his guitar. Though it wasn’t a dangerous area at night, it was close enough to some of the seedier areas downtown that I wouldn’t have gone there alone.

  We approached a long boardwalk lit by globe lights, our steps rhythmic on the wood below. “Damiel called you ‘brother’ earlier.”

  “That’s what Grigori call each other.”

  “He’s a Grigori, too?”

  Michael slowed his pace. Sadness tightened the hollows of his eyes and reminded me that this being standing beside me—half-human, half-angel—was truly ancient. “He was. Before he fell.”

  “You said he was a demon. How can he be a Grigori like you and a demon now?”

  “He’s not like me,” he said so quickly I was afraid I’d upset him. He took a deep breath. “When you’re one of us, you don’t just fall and that’s it. Falling is a constant, endless thing. At first you feel the same, only you’re alone—no longer connected. But then the other voices start.”

  He spoke about the voices as if he’d experienced them first-hand. The idea chilled me. “What kind of voices?”

  “Dark voices,” he said. “If you give in and side with them, you keep falling, which is what Damiel did.”

  “What about Hell?”

  “Hell is just a place. Demons that are strong enough come and go at will so they can hurt people.”

  He spoke of Hell as though he knew it. Had he been there? Would Damiel be back? I wanted to ask him so much more, but the hurt and warning in his eyes had me deciding against it.

  We stopped on the dock. Across the harbor, tiny lights from the streets and houses speckled the islands of Puget Sound. The ferry leaving Colman Pier sounded its horn.

  Michael rested his hand on the railing, and I became very aware of his presence beside me: the deep slow sound of his breathing, the closeness of his body, and all the barriers between us. I reached for him, gently touching the backs of his fingers. As I did, I felt an electric current that made me want to pull him toward me. Afraid of the intensity of that impulse, I backed away.

  Closing his eyes, he exhaled. Though he didn’t move, everything around him seemed to come alive. Light radiated from his body, its outer edge shimmering with golden white sparkles. Trying to touch the light, I reached out. It moved around my hand like phosphorescence in the night sea and tingled like warm soda bubbles on my skin.

  Michael turned to me at that moment, unfocused, as though returning from somewhere far away.

  “There’s something around you,” I explained. “Gold and white flashes.”

  He smiled self-consciously and the light around him flared brighter. “You can see that?”

  “What is it?”

  “My halo.”

  “All the way around your body?” I asked, thinking of those old paintings of angels with their golden rings of light. They didn’t even come close to what a real halo was.

  “It used to go much further.”

  “I saw you that day I went to the hospital,” I said, recalling the girl who’d been stabbed. “Then you were gone.”

  He leaned his elbows on the railing. “We’re often invisible when we’re working, but you’ve always seen me.”

  “And with Fiona?”

  He shrugged. “Going to the dentist freaks her out, and she’s not the best driver when she’s distracted.”

  I smiled at that. Fiona was always getting caught up in the conversation, forgetting to look at the road, and she did have an appointment that day. He was trying to calm her down so she wouldn’t have an accident along the way.

  “Angels do that?”

&n
bsp; “She’s your friend,” he said.

  He closed his eyes again, and his halo flared and hummed around him. Stiffening, Michael said, “We should go.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m on duty tonight.”

  “On duty? What does that mean?”

  He led us down the boardwalk. “The Grigori still watch over people, keep things safe.”

  “Safe from what?” I swallowed nervously.

  “Things you shouldn’t know about.”

  “I’m not a child, Michael,” I snapped.

  My reaction rolled off him. “I never said you were.”

  We turned down the street that his car was on, and I recalled that first day I’d seen him in the park. And the pieces started to come together. “That shadowy dog—you saw it, didn’t you?”

  He gave me a wary look.

  “I asked and you… You let me think I was crazy!”

  “I was trying to protect you. You’re not supposed to see these things. They sense fear; they live on it. The more afraid you are, the more they can materialize. They’ll drain your life force until you pass out.”

  “That old man! Is that what happened?”

  He nodded. “After that, you’re just meat.”

  “It was going to eat him?” Bile rose to my throat over the thought of being eaten alive, but I fought it back. “What the hell was it?”

  “A hellhound,” he muttered. “Scouts. Damiel sent several of them to find you.”

  “He did?” I shuddered at the idea of Damiel looking for me. “You were watching me even then?”

  “I only knew there was danger. I didn’t know I would see you.”

  Approaching his car, he clicked the remote and the doors unlocked. Within seconds, he was opening my door.

  “What about that day I sprained my ankle?” I asked.

  “Then too.”

  Partway through the ride home, my mind overloaded itself and shut off, and an easy silence grew between us. Though sometimes obscured by passing streetlamps, the light around Michael still glowed. His halo burned beside me, brushing and tingling my skin.

  “You’ve been through a lot tonight,” he said. “You ought to sleep. It’ll help you process.”