by Quinn Loftis
“I don’t know. But maybe that’s why you’re here,” replied the angel.
That night, Emma lay in her closet, her mind turning over the conversation they’d had earlier that morning. They needed to expose Principal Flannigan, but how? She fell asleep still trying to work it out. It wasn’t until she realized she was sitting in a jail cell that she realized she was dreaming.
Emma looked around her, trying to figure out why she would be dreaming of a jail cell. When her eyes landed on Dair, she knew she was here for him. He was standing right next to a man who was laying on a small bed. He appeared to be asleep, and Dair was staring down at him with a look of absolute rage.
“Sandman,” Emma called.
“You can’t be here.”
She heard a hiss to her right and turned to see a man with black eyes staring back at her. She had no doubt he was a demon.
“You have no control over where I can or can’t be,” she said confidently. “In fact, you have no power, and I have all of it. Leave!” The word flew out of her mouth as a command, and she said it knowing he would have no choice but to obey. A demon only had the power you allowed it to have over you. Her mama had taught her that too.
She turned back to Dair. “Hey, Brudair,” she said, trying his full name to see if that would snap him out of the trance in which he seemed to be stuck. When it didn’t, Emma walked over to him and pulled on his arm. “I’m talking to you. It’s rude to ignore someone when you’re being addressed.”
“He has to die,” Dair said softly. “They all have to die.”
Emma looked from the man to Dair. “You mean him?” she asked, pointing at the sleeping form.
Dair nodded. “And others. All of them.”
“Why must they all die?”
“Because they will hurt her if they do not. I cannot allow her to be hurt. I will not allow her to be hurt.”
She reached for his clenched hand and forced the fingers open so that she could slip her hand into his. He was so much larger than her and she probably should be afraid, considering he was acting quite homicidal at the moment, but she knew Dair, and this man seeking to kill heedlessly was not him.
“You aren’t the one who the Creator uses to bring about punishment to evil people. Dair, you were created to help others find their way. You weren’t created for destruction.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not capable of destruction,” he said in a dark voice.
“Just because you’re capable doesn’t mean you should act on that ability,” she countered. “Ability doesn’t equal the right to do so.”
“You’re just a child.” He snarled. “You have no idea what I’ve seen, what will happen if they live.”
“Did that demon that was here show you something?”
“He showed me her fate if they live.”
“And you believe him?” she asked. “You’re telling me that you believe the words of a demon, a being that works for Lucifer and wants to destroy the human race, dragging as many of them to hell with him as he can? Lucifer is the father of lies. his minions are no different. You can’t believe anything they say.”
“Why would he lie about these criminals? Why does it matter if they die? They bring nothing good to society. There is absolutely no reason they should be allowed another breath.”
Emma had never seen Dair in such an immovable state. It was as if he were a heat-seeking missile and the criminal before him was a raging fire. She didn’t understand why it would be significant if these men, who’d hurt so many, were to be killed either. But she knew it was not Dair’s job to be passing out the death penalty. For whatever reason, God had brought her to Dair to help him see that he couldn’t act on his own. He had to trust that the Creator would serve justice, though it would be in His own time.
“Maybe they still have a part to play in all of this,” she suggested. “Maybe something worse will happen if you kill them. You can’t know, but what you do know is that you cannot trust a demon. Do you hear me? You cannot trust someone who lives only to bring death and pain. Listen to me, Dair. Listen to my voice.” Emma waited but still he stared at the man.
Emma had one ace in the hole, and she was going to have to use it. “Serenity needs you. Do you want to go back to her with blood on your hands? No matter whose it is, do you really want to expose her to that?”
Slowly, Dair’s head began to turn, and when his eyes finally met hers, they were black, no white remained. It was disturbing, but not in the same way that a demon’s eyes were so unsettling. Dair’s still had depth and layers. A demon’s eyes were dead, flat, and expressionless.
“Serenity,” he said, his voice low and deadly.
Emma nodded. “She needs you.”
“But…” Dair started to say, but Emma cut him off.
“NO! Dair, Serenity needs you now. Stop this nonsense and go to her, right this minute.” She wasn’t asking, and she wasn’t pleading. Emma was commanding the Sandman to get his butt in gear and do what he was meant to do. She didn’t know why, but she had a feeling that if he stepped out of his role as the persuader and into a role as justice bringer, something horrible would happen.
Without another word, they were suddenly no longer in the jail cell. Instead, they were in a bedroom. There were people everywhere wearing uniforms, and a gurney was being rolled into the room. Emma let Dair pull her through the crowd until she could see who it was they were surrounding. Her stomach dropped to the floor as she looked at the still form of Serenity. She was pale, but her chest was still moving. “Not dead,” she said out loud, as much for Dair as for herself. “She’s not dead, Dair,” she said again.
Dair looked down at her. “You need to go back. I need to be with her, and I can’t uncloak myself if you’re with me. Go back and tell Raphael I won’t be able to come to you all until I figure out what’s going on with Serenity.”
He started to let go of her hand, but she squeezed it tight. “Sandman, promise me that you won’t go back to those men and do what you were going to do.”
His lips tightened.
“Promise me,” she demanded.
Letting out a harsh breath, he finally relented. “I promise.”
“Promise to let them live.”
“Emma,” he warned.
“You don’t scare me, so stop. Promise me that you will let them live.”
“I promise, child. Now go.”
He must have put a subtle push of influence into the command because Emma was suddenly waking up in the small closet. She sat up slowly and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Are you alright?” Raphael asked.
She nodded. “I’m fine, but I can’t say the same for Dair and Serenity.”
“You saw them?”
“I was with Dair in my dream. He was about ten seconds away from going on a killing spree in a prison.”
“What?” Raphael snapped. “He was going to kill a human.”
Emma shook her head. “Nope,” she said popping the ‘p’ with her mouth. “He was going to kill multiple humans.” She smiled and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Don’t worry, I stopped him.”
“How did you do that?”
“I told him that Serenity needed him. But I was just saying it to break him out of the weird trance he was in. He was under the influence of a demon, and I couldn’t get his attention. But when I told him Serenity needed him, I didn’t know it was actually true.” Emma explained what she’d seen when she and Dair arrived in Serenity’s room.
“But she was breathing? You’re sure?” Raphael asked, his voice sounding more urgent than she’d ever heard it.
“Yes. I think we would know if she wasn’t. Brudair wouldn’t be so calm.”
“He was calm?”
“Well, I’d describe it more like he was a ticking time bomb. He was calm, but capable of blowing at any wrong touch as well as when his time runs out.” Emma leaned back against the wall. “He told me to tell you he wouldn’t be able to come and help us until he f
igured out what was wrong with Serenity.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything different. He belongs at her side.”
“Do you ever wish you had someone like that to be with?”
Raphael’s brow dropped. “You mean a mate?”
“Sure, if that’s what you call it.”
Raphael shook his head. “My place is where the Creator tells me to be. And right now, that is with you. I will stay with you as long as He will allow it.”
“What if that’s for forever?”
His lips lifted just a bit “Then I should be a very blessed angel.”
Emma smiled back. “You may not feel that way in twenty years.”
“How about we just get through this week before we start worrying about what is to come twenty years from now.”
“Agreed. For all we know, this town is going to go up in a huge explosion of demon guts and evil human being body parts on Friday. We may not even have to worry about twenty years from now,” Emma said without cracking a smile.
“I’m not sure if demons have guts,” Raphael said, just as straight faced.
“Perhaps we should blow one up just to be sure.” He still didn’t react to her words, which only made Emma want to say something even more outlandish.
“It would be a bit messy. I’m not fond of messes.”
Emma shrugged. “A little bit of demon guts, bowel contents, and brain matter never hurt anyone. I’m sure my mama would have said that it builds character to scrub demon guts.” And boom, he was finally laughing. Emma gave herself a mental high five. It was not an easy feat to get an angel to laugh, at least not Raphael.
“Genius, orphan, friend, history changer, chain breaker, and whatever else you may or may not be, Emma Jean Whitmore, you are one of a kind.”
Chapter 14
If you dream you’re a demon, you need to reexamine your motives in life.
Dair felt as if he was reliving history. It was only just shy of a month since Serenity had been in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound. And now she was back, and he didn’t have a clue why. At least with a bullet he knew. He knew what would have to be done to save her. But now? Now he had no idea. She was beyond his reach. He’d laid his hand on her head multiple times attempting to reach her mind, and he couldn’t. It was as though a wall had been erected between him and her subconscious. It was maddening.
He paced the dim room, cloaked in his darkness, because he couldn’t stand the worried looks Darla and Glory kept shooting him. He knew he was making the room colder and causing it to have that strange shadow-less quality, but he was barely keeping his emotions under control. After having been in the prison, surrounded by that evil and enduring the things he’d been shown, he was already standing precariously on the edge of madness.
Is this what love was? If so, why did humans want it? And sometimes they went through it many times. Why? Why feel this pain, this agony, and complete helplessness? How did they endure the twisting of their heart, the ripping of their soul, and the destruction of half of themselves? He was an immortal. He needed no rest, no sustenance, no healing, or anything else humans needed, and he felt as though at any moment he would cease to exist. She was everything to him. She was the smile on his lips, the joy in his heart, the sun on his face, and the light in his darkness. There was no longer Brudair unless there was Serenity with him.
He walked back over to her bed and took one of her hands in his. She was cold, and it made him miss the warmth she usually gave him. Her skin was pale, causing her to look sick, though they couldn’t tell him what the sickness was. “Come back to me,” he whispered as he leaned closer to her.
“It’s not about whether or not I can do this without you, Serenity. It’s that I don’t want to. I don’t want to experience a single second without you to share it with. You’ve ruined me. You’ve blessed me and damned me all at once, and I am lost. Please, Princess, open your eyes.” He waited, staring without blinking, begging the Creator to fix her, heal her, do whatever it was that was necessary to bring her out of whatever this was.
“Is he here?” he heard Glory ask.
“Yes,” Darla answered.
“How do you know?”
“Because he looks at her as though the sun rises and sets with her every breath. If she needs him, he could no more leave her and survive than air could leave this earth and humans survive.”
“Whoa.,” Glory breathed out. “I want that.”
Darla chuckled. “Patience, Glory, and you will have it.”
Dair tuned them back out as he brushed Serenity’s hair away from her face. He kept thinking that at any moment she would smile and her eyes would trap him as they often did when she stared into his.
His mind wandered back to the last conversation he’d had with her. He knew she was still having nightmares, but she hadn’t said anything about her being unable to awaken. Is that what this was? Was she stuck in the hell that had become her sleep? How poetic was that? Her lover was the Sandman, controller of dreams, and she was stuck in a nightmare.
He released her hand again as he felt the cold fill him. She was cold enough without him making it worse. He stood and walked over to Darla and let his cloak fall.
“Queen of Sheba, warn a girl!” Glory jumped.
He was too focused on trying to figure out what was wrong with Serenity to care about whether or not Glory was frightened when he suddenly appeared. Serenity probably wouldn’t be happy with him, which was the only reason he turned to look at Glory and said, “My apologies.” His voice sounded as dead and empty as he felt and, judging by the way her eyes widened, his own eyes were probably swirling like a hurricane.
“Dair,” Darla said in her calm way. “Did you want to say something?” She was talking to him as if he were a cornered animal that would snap at any moment. Smart woman.
“Did you see her before she went to sleep, before she ended up like this?” He turned and motioned to Serenity.
“I did, and no she didn’t say anything about feeling bad. She was tired.”
“Did you ever hear anything from her after she fell asleep? Any indication that she was having a nightmare?”
Darla shook her head. “I never heard anything. I should have gone and checked on her.” Dair held up his hand to stop her.
“Blaming ourselves or anyone else that isn’t truly responsible is not productive or helpful. Use your energy where it is effective.”
She gave him a single nod and seemed to pull herself together. They all turned when the door opened, and Wayne walked in. “I can’t find a damn doctor to save my life. I mean if I needed my life saved, I’d be up a creek without a crash cart.”
“Wayne,” Darla said sharply.
He looked at Dair and then over to Serenity. “She would be as irritated as I am.”
He was right, Dair thought. If she had a loved one in a hospital bed and needed answers and couldn’t find a doctor to help her, Serenity would search every floor and every room until she found one.
Dair turned to look at Serenity. He hated to leave, but he could find a doctor quicker and would have no problem convincing him or her to come to Serenity’s room.
“I will be back,” he said and, without further explanation, disappeared. He sought out the thoughts of the sleeping until he found what he was looking for. A man dreaming about the last surgery he’d performed. Bingo.
Dair appeared in the dark room and stared down at the doctor. He was catching some sleep in between shifts and Dair was sure the man deserved the sleep, but his Serenity was more important than the man’s rest.
“Wake,” he told the man’s mind, and his eyes popped open.
“What the—” the doctor started to say, but Dair shook his head, and his mouth shut like a hinge snapping into place.
“I need you to come to room 367,” Dair told him. “Something is wrong with my fiancé, and you will help her.”
The doctor stood and backed away from Dair. “I’m not familiar with her case.”
“I imagine you can read and are capable of learning or you would not have made it through medical school.”
“I’m a surgeon. I may not be able to treat whatever is wrong with her,” he argued.
“Then you will find someone who can.” Dair pointed at the doorway and took a step toward him. The doctor hurried to the door and out into the hall. Dair trailed the doctor, knowing he was terrifying the man but unable to bring himself to care.
When he pushed the door open to her room and motioned to the doctor to enter, the others in the room stood abruptly and all spoke at once.
“Quiet,” Dair snapped. “Let him do what he needs to, then you can ask him questions. Chaos does not bear the fruit of efficiency.”
“Is it just me or is he creeping anyone else out?” Glory whispered.
The doctor raised his hand.
Glory frowned at him. “He’s allowed to creep you out. We need you to fix her.”
The doctor walked over to Serenity’s bedside, but before he could touch her, Dair was beside him, grabbing his wrist. “Look at me,” he demanded.
The man turned his face so that he was looking at Dair. “W-what?” he stuttered out.
Dair searched the man’s eyes, attempting to see if he could feel the presence of evil in him, but he sensed nothing. “If you hurt her, I will end you.”
“Dair,” Darla said coolly, “scaring the man to death won’t help Serenity.”
“It might, if it keeps him from doing something stupid,” Dair countered.
The doctor took his stethoscope and placed one end on her chest while the earpieces were in his ears. The room was completely still and silent as he examined her. He took a small penlight and opened each eyelid, shining the light at them. He checked pulses in various points on her body. When he was done, he walked over to the computer hanging on the wall with a keyboard on a hinged shelf and began typing. He was quiet as he read what was on the screen.
Dair knew the man was just doing what was necessary to learn her medical history, but it was nerve-wracking to wait.
“The CT shows overactive brain patterns,” he said, finally breaking the tense silence.