Metal Angel

by Nancy Springer

  She wanted him, but said, “Some other time.”

  He just nodded. Ennis still had that same old gentle, wordless way about him that would not let him open his mouth and protest. But she saw the fear in his eyes, crossed the room in three quick blue-jeaned strides and kissed him, taking time to let it sink in before she left him there with a sleeping child in his arms.

  It seemed like a long walk. She had only to get away from the house so as not to bother Wyoma or the children, but in the darkness she stumbled over every rock, every root, and the trees poked their branches at her face. It took her quite a while to reach the little clearing around the ruins of what had once been, she surmised, a moonshiner’s still. But she kept going until she reached it, because she wanted to be sure there were trees rising all around her to keep from the innocents in the house any sight or sound of whatever might happen.

  Once there, she breathed a moment, thinking. Then she made herself cruciform, facing the north star, conscious of the strength of her shoulders, of her long hair arrow-straight down her back, of her youthful buttocks and unbound breasts. She looked steadily into the treetops and said her chant.

  “Dark angel, death angel, stranger to mercy, prince who flies on black wings in the night: I, the Lady of Angels, summon you.”

  She had written it out earlier in her head, as if it were a song. After she spoke she stood waiting and listening to the night. Nothing happened, but this did not surprise her, for she had known it would not be easy. The death angel would be made of more savage stuff than Volos, would probably be even fiercer than Mashhit.

  She tried again. “Death angel. I call you, evil spirit, cruel spirit, lurker in cemeteries and dark places. You who take away healing from the sick and dying, obey me when I summon you! I, the Lady of Angels, command you to come to me.”

  It was as if in the night close at hand someone opened a freezer packed brimful of the hatred of the dead for the living. Angie felt the onslaught of bone-deep cold, and knew she was afraid. But nothing else happened. And fear was not a feeling in which she could indulge.

  She said, “By all your many names, spirit of death, I summon you: Rogziel, Hutriel, Makatiel, Kezef, Azariel, Gamchicoth, Gog Sheklah—”

  The night said to her, “I am here, little fool.”

  It was not a loud voice, yet it filled the hollows of earth and sky, coming from everywhere and nowhere, resonant yet not clearly either male or female; this was the mid-range voice of some cosmic singer. Bathed in that voice as if in a shower of ice, Angela stood rigid, knowing she was indeed a fool. She had neglected to command the presence to come to her “in a pleasing human form.” The Prince of Death could have answered her summons as a winged python, a vampire bat, a black widow spider the size of the world, but instead, he—or she—had chosen to be a pressure on the chest, a chill in the air, a voice in the darkness, the smell of formaldehyde.

  Angela said meekly, “So Death can indeed sometimes be merciful.”

  “Indeed,” said Death in a voice like winter mist. “What is it you wish of me, Lady of Angels?”

  If she made her business quick, perhaps she would live. She said, “First, concerning my father, Daniel Ephraim Crawshaw: where is he?”

  “In my realm.” Satisfaction in that gelid voice?

  “Who killed him?”

  “Are you claiming the blood right, little one?” The voice had turned to frozen steel.

  Angela realized her mistake and made clear the truth. “No. No, I am glad he is dead.”

  “Then let him fry. What else?”

  “Then, concerning Mercedes Kell.”

  “Ah, yes. The little snake from Kickapoo.” Death sounded frostily pleased again.

  “You know him?”

  “I have known him since he was born and answered churlishly to the name his mother gave him.”

  Angela said, “I want you to go and inflict him with suffering. Put a knot in his belly and poison in his blood. Fill his lungs with water. Take away the use of that favorite toy of his. Blind his eyes. I want him to suffer first, and then die. Will you do this because I wish it?”

  “My pleasure,” said Death out of the black of night. “But beware for yourself, Lady of Angels.”

  “Why?”

  “You have your father’s power to enthrall and command.”

  She had already considered this. Because she could rule angels, she knew, she had the power to keep harm away from Gabe and Mikey and anyone else she loved or chose to help, for as long as she lived. In fact, if she managed it well, almost forever.

  “Moreover, you are a beautiful woman. You could enslave men, more than he did, faster than he did. You could rule the lives of thousands, of hundreds of thousands. You could be a goddess.”

  She could be worshiped, as Volos had been worshiped.

  “And you know what would happen in the end.”

  She thought of what had happened to Volos. She thought of her father, utterly evil, turning into the smoke of Satan’s torch.

  Angela stood swaying on the hard, sharp edge of thought, and Death did not hurry her. Death, she decided, had to be a woman, a sister, Lady Death. She could think of no other explanation for such patience.

  Finally she asked, “You will do what I have said concerning Mercedes Kell?”

  “Certainly. It would have been done regardless, though not so soon.”

  “And I will leave this place without being harmed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I renounce the power of which you spoke. You are my witness.”

  “I am, and I bind you to your word. Summon me no more, little one.”

  The chill seeped out of the air. September night flowed back, filled with the warm yellow smells of grass gone to seed, of Jerusalem artichoke, of cornfields. But Angela found that she could not walk home through night air so yeasty with memories of life and sunshine. As if she had been leaning too long against the heaviness of Death’s presence, she staggered a few steps, then fell and lay on the rich brown loam under the trees, too weak and shaky to move.

  She did not faint. Nor did she feel afraid of her own unaccustomed weakness, her vulnerability. She lay where she was and made a love song in her mind, glad she could still do that, aware with quiet happiness that it was a good song, one of her best ever. She would write it down for Ennis, and it would be his and his alone, to replace the one Volos had so thoughtlessly stolen from him.

  Resting, she knew she would be able to get herself moving again in a few hours, but also knew what would happen before then. Or rather, who.

  He did. As if he had heard her song to him, Ennis came and found her, and helped her up with anxious questions, and walked her home, or rather to Texas’ home, where he got her into bed and lay for a long time holding her in his arms.

  chapter nineteen

  “Looks to me like your eyes are going to stay that way,” Texas remarked to Volos.

  “What way?”

  “That sort of dusty-blue color.”

  Volos gave him a questioning look, then swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed, got to his bare feet and tottered toward the mirror. From the visitors’ chair Texas watched silently, itching to help but knowing the kid would refuse if he offered. Volos was being so goddamn gutsy about everything, sometimes he was a real pain in the butt: proud, stubborn, and having a pisser of a time relearning how to walk. The loss of his wings had thrown him all off balance in more ways than one; leaning forward against the remembered weight at his back, he was constantly in danger of flattening his nose. Watching him try to get around was like watching a toddler taking its first steps, the difference being that this big guy had a whole lot farther to fall. It was hell to just sit and let him try.

  At least he no longer had to endure the indignity of the open-backed hospital gown. He was wearing some pajamas Texas had brought him from Angie and Ennis’s place, where Texas was staying to be nearby. Texas figured Ennis wouldn’t mind if the kid borrowed his PJs awhile. Figured the k
id wouldn’t want to keep them any longer than necessary, because sexy they were not. Even Texas could see that.

  Achieving the mirror, Volos leaned on the countertop below it and studied himself, specifically his eyes.

  “They have been that way since—”

  “Four days. Yep.”

  “Well.” Still with a hand on the countertop for balance, Volos turned around. “It is a good color. Warm blue.” He smiled at Texas across the room. “They are just like yours.”

  Texas felt his mouth come open in an uncouth way and made himself close it. Felt his heart turn over and start pounding. There was something he wanted to ask Volos, and it was hard to find the words and the nerve. He worked up a sweat just thinking about it. Hadn’t felt so scared in that particular way since the day he got married. Even talking with Wyoma about what he wanted to ask Volos had been hard, though she had understood better than he’d thought she could. She knew what the kid meant to him. The night he had come home to her, after she was finished crying and yelling at him and he got a chance to tell her about finding an angel, she had looked at him pretty odd. But all that first night long he had been either making love with her or telling her about Volos, and by morning she was looking at him in a different way.

  Volos wobbled back to bed. “Why am I so tired?” he asked querulously. “Before, when I did not know how to sleep, the nights were long and beautiful. Now I sleep through everything. Is that all life is for you humans, eat and crap and sleep, eat and crap and sleep?”

  “We find time for a little romance now and then,” Texas said, and at once wanted to take back the words. He had been thinking of Wyoma, but had just reminded Volos of Angie for sure. Dammit. Texas looked hard at the toes of his lizard-skin boots, wishing they could come alive and crawl him away. He felt like a reptile. Sensed a dusty-blue scrutiny working on him.

  “Texas,” said the kid quietly, “tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “This thing that makes your eyes slip away. About Angela, is it not? Tell me. What is it? Why has she not been to see me?”

  Texas mumbled at his boots, “I was hoping she’d come talk to you herself.”

  “But she has not. You tell me.”

  “Son …”

  “I can guess,” Volos said. “I have been afraid—she is leaving me.”

  Texas looked at him then. Looked at that bruised face and tried not to wince. Volos was facing him steadily, with only a little something shaky around the eyes. Okay, he and the kid were going to have a talk after all, but not the one he wanted.

  Texas said, “All right, son. Looks that way to me, too.”

  “Has she said anything to you?”

  “Yes. She’s back with Ennis all right. They’re leaving in a few days. Going west, as far from here as they can get, till they find a place to start over. Volos, I’m sorry.”

  “Do not be.” The kid lay back against his pillows, staring up at the ceiling, and said to that cloudy whiteness, “Look, I can do it. If I could love her enough to let that lunatic take an ax to me, then—then I can love her enough to let her go.”

  Hearing him, Texas felt heartachy with pride, just as if he had the right to be proud. He felt the way he had felt watching each of his daughters walk across the stage on her graduation day. He wanted to say something, the important kind of thing some people can come out with when they propose a toast, but all he could manage was to gently tease. “What ever happened to no-halo-thank-you and not-anybody’s-bloody-savior and no-flies-on-me?”

  Volos turned his head and offered a small smile but said, “This joking thing, Texas—I never know what to say.”

  “Say, ‘Gimme a break.’”

  “Give me a break, Texas.”

  “Okay.” Texas reached over and smoothed the coarse dark hair away from his forehead. “Can I get you something? Bottle of pop? Snickers bar?”

  “I think I am not hungry right now.”

  “Guitar? Race car? Six bikini bimbos?”

  “What is it you are supposed to give me? A break?”

  “I really oughta do just that. Let you get some sleep.”

  Volos did not answer. His blue-eyed gaze was on the doorway, where Angie stood hesitating.

  It felt to Volos as if dross after dross of him was being burned away, leaving only what was soul-true behind. The burning hurt devilishly. But as he loved her, he could not let Angela see that he was in pain. He had to let her go as easily as he could. Even through the flames he could tell that she knew what she had to do, that she had burned also and found her own truth.

  He said to her, “Angela,” and held out his hand. He said, “Where is Ennis? There is something I want to give both of you.”

  Still standing near the door, she faltered, “Down—downstairs. In the lounge.”

  “Why? I want to see him. He saved my life.”

  “He’s with the children.” Angie came in a few steps, as shakily as if she were the patient. “We couldn’t get them past the nurse.”

  “Bernice the battle-ax.” Texas had already unfolded himself from the visitors’ chair. “I’ll go sit the critters so Ennis can come up,” he said as he went out.

  She was there alone with him, the woman he loved. She stood hovering near the foot of his hospital bed like a soul, his soul, reluctant to leave, knowing that if it did the body would die—

  These were not good thoughts. Volos made his hand stop reaching toward her and laid it down on the bedspread. “Angie,” he told her, “do not be so afraid. There is no need to say most of it.”

  “It’s just that—I feel so bad.” Finally she came and sat at his bedside, almost near enough to touch. Almost, but not quite. “I know now what I’ve done to you, but when I was doing it I didn’t understand.”

  “How could you? Neither did I.”

  “I didn’t know who I was, calling you.”

  Calling to him with every breath, speaking straight to his heart—it could not all have happened just because she was Lady of Angels. But he did not say that. Instead he said quietly, “Angela, I cannot hear you anymore, since the wings are gone. If you have written songs, I do not know them. When you are away from me I cannot tell if you are sad or happy or even if you are alive or dead. And that is good, if you are to be another man’s wife.”

  Her eyes had gone huge with tears. She told him, “I never meant to lie to you. I really thought I loved you.”

  This part he truly did not understand. He lay very still and watched her face as she explained it to him.

  “I—what it was really, you are so beautiful—I wanted to be you. I wanted to be able to sing, I wanted to sing the most wonderful songs in a voice like an angel so that people would listen to me and weep. I wanted to be tall and strong and free, like a god. I wanted—I wanted to have wings.”

  Lying in a white bed, listening to her, Volos remembered that first sweaty moment of incarnation when he lay on black grit, that first rooftop day when the City of Angels had spread at his booted feet and the Marlboro Man had galloped through the smog-golden sky and he, the winged newcomer, had raised his clenched fists, full of defiance and a godlet’s posturing, not even understanding that he was staring straight into the sunset. Now he understood many things, but lay with his heart aching like his wounded back. Both would heal, but for the rest of his life he would bear scars.

  Angela said, “I wanted to fly. I loved—I loved the way you were, and I didn’t understand it was not the same thing as truly loving you. Volos, I am so sorry.”

  So what is this mystery they call love? She has taught it to me, yet she herself scarcely comprehends it.

  “With Ennis and me, it is different. Especially now. I am all myself when I am with him, I am never afraid of losing myself in him, there is a comfort when we are together, there is—a bond …”

  She was floundering, trying to explain. Volos said softly, “It is all right, Angela. You do not need to tell me everything. Perhaps someday I will understand.”

&nbs
p; “I hope so. I want—I want real love to find you. I want every kind of happiness for you, Volos.”

  Standing by the door, listening but staring hard at the floor, was the young man who had saved his life, the one whose touch had felt like holy wine on his wing. Despite everything, Volos was glad to see him. A good feeling warmed him like whiskey. “Ennis!” he called.

  Ennis looked up. His sober brown eyes were haunted by shame. Suddenly Volos lost patience with life and humans. It was all shame and blame, Ennis was going to tell him he was sorry for something, and Volos was bloody tired of hearing it, everybody saying they were sorry about his wings, sorry about what had happened to him, sorry about breaking his heart.

  “Damn it. Ennis, get over here, would you?”

  Too tamely, Ennis complied. He came and stood by his wife, then opened his mouth and started to say it. “Volos, I’m—”

  “Fuck it! No more goddamn sorries.” Vehement, Volos sat straight up on his rumpled bed. “Ennis, you think I can’t understand about you, the way you were before? Listen, it is the same where I come from, I know. The everlasting obedience, you feel like you have to do it, it’s the only way, and it takes the soul out of you, it sucks you hollow like a bone. Look at me! Don’t you see? What you did was like a miracle. Give yourself a break, would you? I felt your hand on my wing clear to my heart. You are a good man.”

  Something had happened. Vehemence could be of use after all, if it could drive away guilt. Ennis swallowed hard, but no longer needed to stare at the floor.

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asked Volos.

  “Yes. Christ. I did not come through all this just to lie down and curse God and die.” Though the thought had occurred to him.

  “Will you let me—do you trust me to be a father for your baby?”

  The question took Volos’s breath away. It had not yet occurred to him that he had some say as to the little one in Angela’s womb. She was the Lady of Angels, to whom the Sefira bowed as if to the Holy Mother of God; who was he to say to her, I want my child?