by West, S. J.
Malcolm phases and is back almost instantly with our shoes.
“Now,” JoJo says, “I have made sure they will allow you to perform the ghosting we saw in the vision. They will also keep you warm. I did try to make them indestructible, but my power only seems to allow me to make them resistant to natural elements like fire and such. I could not make them have the same properties as my coat.”
“I’m sure that will be enough,” I tell her.
“I hope you are right, cheri.”
Mason phases me up to the bedroom, and I change to make sure everything fits properly.
“Are you sure that’s what you’re wearing in the fight?” Mason asks as he walks around me looking at my outfit.
“Yes,” I say. “Why? Don’t you like it?”
“That’s the problem,” Mason says, still standing directly behind me. “I think I like it too much, especially at this angle.”
I turn around and Mason has to raise his eyes to look at my face.
“Were you just staring at my butt?”
“How could I not?” Mason asks. “It was begging me to.”
I cross my arms and shake my head.
“Don’t even think about it,” I tell him. “We have a lot of work to do today. I don’t have time to play with you.”
Mason smiles and I walk past him to retrieve my baldric and sword from the top of the dresser in the room.
“You are not trapping me with your smile,” I tell him resolutely. “Plus, I want to try something new with you today.”
“Well that always sounds promising,” Mason says, a touch of amusement in his voice.
I turn to face him while I strap on my baldric.
“I want to see if we can take you to the inner realm with us,” I tell him, all joking aside. “You’re part of the fight. You need to see when you need to phase in and take Gabe and Zack out of it.”
“You know with JoJo’s new charms we could help you now,” Mason says.
“No. You can’t be there,” I tell him. “We have to follow the vision. We know we can win that way. If you guys try to interfere, it might just screw everything up. We need to stick to what we know will work.”
“I still want to show you how to wield that sword of yours.”
“Michael seems to be doing most of the fighting for me. I’m not sure it’s necessary.”
“You don’t know Michael will be in control when you go up against Lucifer,” Mason argues. “I would feel better knowing you can swing that thing properly just in case something happens and you end up fighting him instead.”
“He’s right, Jess.”
I look past Mason and see Michael.
“We don’t know what happens between us and Lucifer,” Michael tells me. “It would be better if you knew how to fight back just in case I can’t do it for you.”
I look back at Mason. “Michael agrees with you. Do you have a sword?”
“Of course I have a sword,” Mason says like it’s a silly question. “Who doesn’t?”
I smile. “Then go get it. And could you pick up Chandler on your way back?”
Mason pulls out his phone. “I’ll get Aiden to get everyone else and bring them here.”
It takes about thirty minutes to gather everyone together. We’re all wearing our outfits that JoJo made us to make sure they fit and to make sure we can move in them easily. I have Mason stand in the middle of our circle when we get ready to go to our personal inner realm.
“What happens to Mason if this doesn’t work?” Leah asks me.
“I’m not sure. Hopefully nothing bad,” I reply.
“That’s encouraging,” Mason quips.
I just shrug because I honestly don’t know what will happen if he isn’t brought in with us.
“Here goes nothing,” I say, closing the circle by grasping Chandler’s hand beside me.
Almost instantly we’re all standing in the black interior space of our inner realm.
Mason is standing in the middle of it all and I smile.
“See, I told you it would work,” I say to him and he just rolls his eyes at me.
Mason’s eyes are instantly drawn to the figure behind me.
“Is that your version of Michael?” Mason asks.
I turn around and grab Michael’s hand urging him to stand beside me.
Mason walks over to us.
“Yes, this is Michael to me.”
“Handsomer than I remember,” Mason says extending his hand out to my archangel.
“Don’t blame me,” Michael tells Mason, letting go of my hand to shake Mason’s. “I’m just a figment of her imagination.”
“Why wouldn’t I make you handsome to look at?” I ask.
“Should I be jealous?” Mason asks jokingly.
“Do you really need to ask that?” I tell him.
Mason smiles. “No.”
“Michael.”
We all turn to see Leah and her archangel standing behind us.
Leah’s version of Uriel is that of an older man, probably in his seventies, with a long white beard and short white hair. He’s dressed in a pair of dark blue slacks, white button down shirt and black suspenders. Apparently Leah was going for a grandfather figure.
“Could I speak with you, Michael?” Uriel asks.
In the form Leah imagines him in, Uriel looks like a harmless old man. But I feel Michael’s rage towards his fellow archangel, and I can’t say I blame him one bit.
“You tried to kill my daughter,” Michael says. “I have nothing to say to you, Uriel. It would be best if you left me alone.”
“I’m sorry,” Uriel says and oddly enough I believe him. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You should have trusted our father’s judgment!” Michael yells, startling not just me but most everyone else.
“I know,” Uriel says meekly, his eyes downcast. “And if I could take back what I did, I would. You have to believe that, Michael. Please, I’m begging you for your forgiveness. Let’s heal this rift between us, brother.”
Michael turns his back on Uriel, folding his arms over his chest.
“I can’t,” Michael says. “Now please, just leave me alone.”
Uriel turns away a broken man. Leah places a comforting hand on his back and they walk away from us.
“I think he’s sincere in his apology,” I say to Michael.
“I really don’t care if he is or not,” Michael says to me, not even attempting to hide his anger at his fellow archangel. “When you have a child of your own, you’ll understand why I can’t forgive him for trying to kill Lilly.”
I don’t say anything else. He’s right. I don’t have a child so I can’t really know the hell he went through knowing Uriel, someone he thought of as a friend, plotted to have his only child killed behind his back. It’s a betrayal I feel sure Michael will never forgive.
“Do you think you could show me the fight?” Mason says.
I feel it’s his way of changing the subject.
I look over at Gabe and Gabriel.
“Show us the fight please,” I say to them.
I end up watching the fight three times with Mason.
“Ok,” he tells me after the third time. “I think I have the timing down. We’ll be watching the fight from headquarters. It should be easy enough to swoop in and grab Gabe and Zack.”
“And that’s all,” I say warning him to not try anything else.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mason answers as the fight begins to replay from the beginning. “You know when I got Rafe that staff I didn’t know it would give him that power too.”
I watch future Rafe wield the defensive part of his power.
“It’s impressive,” I have to admit. “So is Leah’s. It’s a far cry from just conjuring a ball of fire in the palm of her hand.”
“Sort of glad to see you get to kick Baal’s ass,” Mason says with a certain amount of pride.
“Me too,” I admit. “And Chandler finally gets his revenge on
Levi which seems fitting.”
“Zack’s daggers seem to negate all the princes’ powers,” Mason says.
“How do you know that?”
“They all have a weapon they can call on like Levi’s whip, but none of them are using the weapons in this fight. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. We know the daggers stop them from phasing, and they must prevent them from calling on their weapons too.”
Mason pulls out the broad sword from the scabbard around his waist.
“I think it’s time we started your lessons,” Mason says.
“Are you going to go easy on me?” I ask, jokingly.
“No.”
I look over at Mason and see he’s deadly serious.
“Lucifer will not go easy on you, Jess,” Mason says. “I don’t know how much time I have to prepare you for this fight. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. It could be a month or even a year from now. I highly doubt the last one but either way you need to be as prepared as I can make you.”
“He’s right,” Michael says beside me. “You need to know how to wield the sword against Lucifer. Mason may not hold back, but he won’t have anger fueling his swings either. Lucifer will. He’ll be angry at you for offering him forgiveness and your friendship, and he’ll be angry with me for abandoning him on this planet and not siding with him in the war. That type of anger would be hard to fight against even in the best of circumstances.”
I pull my sword from its sheath.
“Ok, then. Let’s get started,” I say.
Mason charges me and completely knocks me on my ass.
“Really?” I say to him, rubbing my offended posterior.
He holds out a hand to help me to my feet.
“You need to be prepared for anything,” Mason tells me.
I try to shake off the fall and hold the sword out in front of me with both hands.
“Come on then,” I tell him. “Do your worst.”
For the next two hours, Mason forces me to either defend myself or keep falling on my backside. I end up spending most of the first hour on the snow covered ice of the vision but by the time we enter the second hour, I’m able to make him fall back some.
“Jess,” Michael says to me when Mason and I break away for a breather, “don’t forget you can fly. Use it to your advantage.”
“I’d completely forgotten about that,” I admit. “I was just trying to keep him at bay and not get knocked on my ass every five minutes.”
Michael smiles. “Fly instead of fall,” he advises. “Otherwise, you’ll be sitting on a cold pack for the rest of the night.”
“I think I already need one,” I admit.
I begin to wonder if Rafe’s power would allow him to heal my bruised posterior but quickly squash that thought. I seriously doubt Mason would want another man to touch me there even if it is only to heal. I could call my dad.
Uh, no. That’s an even worse idea. I think we would both end up being embarrassed by the situation. I just need to take Michael’s advice and fly the next time I feel like I might fall.
For the next two days, all we do is practice the fight in our private inner realm. Each night I have Mason massage out my sore spots from our sword play. He doesn’t seem to mind, and I have to admit it does feel rather good.
On the evening of the second day, we all gather together in the living room of the villa for a much needed moment of relaxation. It’s a time for us to just be together and share more about our lives with one another. I look forward to the day when we can do this and not have to worry about saving the world from damnation.
While I have everyone together, I tell them what God told me about our souls being like magnets to one another.
“And that’s how you grabbed me?” Gabe asks.
“Apparently,” I say with a shrug. “Don’t ask me about the physics of it because I have no idea how to explain it that way. All I know is what God told me.”
“Ok, well, I have a question for everyone,” Zack says, “especially you guys. When you first met Jess, did you think you were in love with her?”
To say I’m shocked by this question is an understatement. I look around at my friends and see them all staring at me.
“I kissed her once because I thought I might be,” Chandler confesses to the group.
“I have to admit,” Rafe says, “I have always felt closer to Jess than any of the rest of you. No offense.”
“No,” Leah chimes in. “I know what you mean. I never felt like I was in love with her, of course, but I’ve always felt closer to her than anyone else.”
“Oui,” JoJo agrees, “same with me.”
Gabe shrugs. “I had the hots for her,” he confesses without shame. “But I knew Mason would kick my ass if I made a pass at her. So I kept my hands to myself.”
Mason smiles at Gabe’s correct assessment of his reaction, and I feel his arm tighten around my shoulders as we sit on the couch and look around at my friends.
“Do you think it has to do with this connection with our souls?” Leah asks me. “I mean we all feel like we’re connected to one another, but the bond we all seem to feel with you is like ten times stronger, at least for me.”
“I’ve always felt like I was the leader of the group,” I tell them, trying to find a logical explanation for their feelings for me. “Maybe all of you feel that too. That I’m the one you can count on to lead you. You trust me.”
“I think it’s more than that,” Chandler says. “But, I can’t explain why I think that. It’s just a feeling I have.”
“Well, I’m just glad no one but Chandler tried to kiss me,” I tell them with a smile. “It was a complete disaster and the worst kiss of my life.”
Chandler groans. “Don’t let my droves of adoring female fans hear you say that,” he says. “It will totally shatter their fantasy of me being their dream lover. It’s an image I would rather keep perpetuating. You know I have a rock star god image to uphold with the ladies.”
Leah throws one of the pillows on her couch at our rock star god.
Chandler picks it up. “Oh yeah? It’s on little girl!”
Things completely devolve into mayhem after that as a pillow fight ensues and we innocent bystanders are forced into entering the fray. I end up laughing so hard my sides hurt and have to call a truce.
As we all stand around, trying to catch our breaths from laughing so much, I suddenly realize this might be the last time we get to laugh with one another until everything is over.
I just hope we all get the chance to do this again after we save the world.
On the day before the wedding, we take a break from practicing for the fight so we can help Mama Lynn, Faison, and my grandfather get things ready. I feel a little guilty that I haven’t been more involved in the preparations but none of them seem to mind. Maybe they were relieved they didn’t have to run anything by me. I pretty much gave them carte blanche regarding everything about the wedding and reception.
Mason was able to work out the phasing schedule for everyone in Cypress Hollow who would be attending the wedding. All of the Watchers were eager to help out as much as they could to ease our burden. I got the feeling they wanted me to have as little to worry about as possible. They all knew the fight I would be facing soon and seemed to want to help as much as they could, even if it was in such a simple way.
Aiden was the only Watcher who wouldn’t be in attendance the next day.
“He needs the day off,” Mason told me, “to take care of some things.”
I didn’t need to be told what Aiden might need to do instead. He had been helping us a lot lately and probably didn’t have a lot of time for his extracurricular activities that curbed his desire for human blood. Plus, there would be a lot of humans at my wedding. The last thing I needed was for Aiden to be led into temptation.
“Faison and I plan to just stay here at your grandfather’s house tonight. Are you going to stay with us?” Mama Lynn asks me while we are sitting at the ki
tchen table making place cards for the tables in the big tent where the reception will be held.
“I don’t know. Do I need to?” I ask, not liking the idea of spending a night away from Mason.
“Well, you know it’s bad luck for the bride and groom to see each other the day of the wedding.”
“I’ve never been superstitious,” I tell her. “You know that.”
“Well, it would be nice to have a girls’ night,” she says, finally getting to the heart of the matter. “We haven’t been able to spend much time with you. And I know it’s not your fault. You have a lot going on right now. But, one night away from Mason won’t hurt, will it?”
I sigh. Yes. Yes it will. That’s what I want to say, but I know Mama Lynn is basically telling me she wants to spend some time with me before I become an officially married woman.
“Ok,” I say, trying not to make it sound like a reluctant ok even when it is. “I’ll stay here with you guys tonight.”
Mama Lynn smiles. “Wonderful. I’ll make sure we have everything we need.”
When I tell Mason later, he pouts. I just laugh.
“You get me for the rest of my life,” I tell him, hugging him around the waist. “All she wants is one night. You’ll live. Trust me.”
“Yes, I’ll live, but that won’t stop me from missing you.”
“I’ll miss you too,” I tell him. “So keep your phone close. I might need to text you or call you.”
“I’ll keep it right next to me in bed,” he promises.
Right before Mason leaves after supper, we sneak off to a secluded spot near the pool area at the back of my grandfather’s house to make out.
“Do you really have to stay here?” Mason moans, not wanting to let me go.
“I promised I would,” I tell him, kissing his lips and making mental notes on how soft they feel against mine, hoping the memory will get me through the night.
“I should probably leave then,” Mason tells me, though his body seems to have other ideas because his arms tighten around me instead of loosen.
“Yeah,” I say in complete agreement but find it almost impossible to stop kissing him.
“Do you think they would notice us making a quick run for some matches?”
I laugh and force myself to pull away from him.