by Ash Krafton
"Thank God it's not your job to forgive and forget."
A trace of a smile ghosted across Mack's face. "You are correct. But there are advantages to possessing infinite recall."
"Sucks to be you. Forgetting is the only thing that lets me keep living."
"That is truly regretful, Simon. I am sorry for your sad outlook. And sorrier still for your condition. On your knees, retching. But, at least, not patting yourself down for your cigarettes."
"Still on that?"
"I simply observe." The angel looked him up and down once more. "You are behaving oddly."
"I'm having hot flashes. Does that count? Man." He wiped at the dampness on the back of his neck and tugged at his collar. "Is it me or is it muggy?"
Mack lifted his chin as if scenting the air and nodded. "The humidity is different."
"So, I should ask where we are."
"Savannah."
Savannah. As in…"Georgia?"
"Yes. Savannah, New York is much—what?"
Simon stifled the end of his groan and rubbed his eyes with both hands. "Just ugh. Rebel demons. Can't wait. Well, don't just stand there. Give a hand."
He bit back a groan as Mack helped him up, the change in equilibrium doing little to maintain the small progress he'd made with his stomach.
"Can you walk?" Mack braced Simon's back with a steadying arm. "I can feel…something…to the northwest."
"Chiara?"
"It has that same quality, the disturbance. I would have liked to deposit us closer but my instinct is to be wary. Whatever it is, it is more than your friend. It is something that would know if we had opened a portal in its proximity."
"I suppose so, considering her mother is Enochian. Close enough to angel, right?"
"Enochian?" Mack lost the nursemaid vibe and went on angelic alert. "Are you quite sure?"
"As sure as I can be. Chiara said her mother is Enochian, and—" He cut off before saying her father is the Devil. Still pretty sure Mack didn't need to know too much about that part. Or anything at all about that part. He'd already spilled enough beans on the subject. Why did he feel like he had a dirty little secret?
Oh, wait. It was because he did have one. The dirtiest of all dirty little secrets. Making deals with the Devil. For an exorcist, it didn't get any dirtier.
"And I'm pretty sure that's who has her." He rubbed his eyes, glad of an excuse to avoid Mack's scrutiny. "Do you think that's what you're picking up on?"
"It could be. It has been a very long time since I've been exposed to an Enochian on this plane. It could be I simply have grown unfamiliar with the timbre of their power. I didn't expect it to be quite so…resonant. Yet, not." Mack lifted his shoulders in a movement that looked almost like a shrug. "Perhaps I have been Watching you for too long. I am losing my basis for comparison."
"Maybe ask around. You know. Your buddy."
"No." Mack narrowed his eyes and scanned the far-off. "I cannot beckon to her. She comes to me of her own will."
"Well," Simon said. There it was, the use of the word she again. Mack never referred to his compatriots with any sense of gender, and certainly never mentioned them having a will of any sort. Another holy mystery of the angel kind, he thought. But there was no time for sleuthing it out now, no matter how nosy he wanted to be. "No news is good news. Right?"
"Rarely so. This is a complex time. There is always news." He sniffed, a disdainful sound. "Do you need more rest, or shall we proceed? We have a distance to go."
"How much of a distance?"
Mack reached beneath his tunic, tugging out a small pouch. Carefully, he loosened the strings and tipped the bag over his cupped palm. A fine stream of glinting power poured out, piling in a gel-like mound. When he'd accumulated a teaspoonful or so of the shiny stuff, he stowed the pouch again.
Simon watched, mouth half-open in an eager smile, drinking up every gesture. It was a rare treat to watch Mack do angel tricks, apart from that noisy heraldic Metatron junk.
In fact, he could count the number of times he'd seen Mack use chrism on one hand, with two fingers tied behind his back. This was the real deal. No card tricks or lucky charms. This was divine magic, even if magic was too trite a term.
One of these days, he'd get him to lend him that bag of his. The power had to be massive, a straight-shot of divinity. Just a fingerful. That's all he needed. Then they'd see who was the boss…
He shook his head. Wow. Reality check, Simon. A little power hungry?
Mack lifted his palm to shoulder height and smeared the air in a broad swipe. The chrism spread out, forming a veil that hung between them. With an index finger, Mack poked the veil, which shimmered and quivered beneath his touch. Glittery sparks spread across it, dots and lines and squiggles.
A map. A fricken magic map. Simon clapped his hands once and whistled, earning a very strange look from a woman passing by. Sometimes, he forgot no one else could see Mack. He must look totally nuts, standing out on the street, talking to himself.
"We are here." A dot pulsed and glowed bluish-white, like over-bleached teeth. Hovering his hand, Mack finally indicated a second glow above it to the right. "We must go there."
"What's that, a boat?" He scratched his head. "No, wait. I'm on the wrong side. Show me the state borders."
Mack tapped the veil, straight lines of laser glow outlining the familiar, if backwards, shape of Georgia.
"Atlanta." He bit his lips. "A little farther than a walk, I'm afraid."
"You look disappointed."
"Yeah, well. I won't be the only one."
"What do you mean?"
Simon sighed. "Zoom in on that map of yours. Show me this city."
Mack tapped the lower dot once and it expanded wide, a series of squares and long lines that were unmistakably Savannahan. "Yes?"
"Now Google 'bus station'."
He would have laughed at Mack's sudden dismay if he wasn't so overcome himself. Dammit, he hated buses. At least he still had some ginger left.
But not enough for two. He hoped angels didn't get car sick.
Bristol
the distant past
Luminea lay sleeping. She did not sleep often; when she did, it was merely for appearances or for the sake of passing a long night. Zophiel had hovered anxiously, his heart conflicted. It had been so long since he'd been inside a human body and he fretted, obsessed with the desire to feel her near him once more.
His obsession had culminated in a terrible decision. He would appear to her in a dream.
It was a sin for him to even think upon it. Angels only carried God's message, not their own. And this message he wanted to deliver was his, and his alone.
He blessed her with an oracular dream, the kind angels used for God's messages. Her eyes were bright with hope when she saw him.
"Luminea, I am the angel Zophiel. I have been sent to watch over you since you came to this land."
"Zophiel! Can it be true? An angel? Then I have not been cast out of Enochia. Do you come to take us home?"
Her voice held such eagerness, such yearning that he immediately regretted his decision. She thought her exile was ending.
"I do not have the power. I am sorry."
Her face crumpled a moment with tremendous disappointment.
He hurried to spare her from dwelling too much upon it. "But I must give you knowledge. It was I that appeared to you as the fisherman Taylor the day he saved you from Jon Burton."
There. It was out. He waited a moment, allowing her to absorb the truth.
"You appeared to me. As a human." She narrowed her eyes. "Angels cannot do such a thing. It is forbidden."
"Yes," he said. "But I forbid any man to lay hands upon you to cause you harm."
"You forbid? Not God?"
He lowered his eyes. "It was a decision of my own making."
"But angels are servants."
"Something which you are not." Even in this dream state, he could not keep the heat out of his words. "You are not some
lowly wretch who deserves harsh treatment. You are to be protected. You are to be appreciated and cherished."
"By you?"
"If you will have me."
She seemed to think that over. "Can I actually do so?"
"Do what?"
"Have you. Have you as you appeared as Taylor."
His heart leapt. She was thinking exactly what he had hoped she would.
"Yes, I can. And this is what you must do, if you truly wish it to be."
He gave her careful instructions, knowing she would remember every detail, hoping against hope that she wanted what he wanted. The quick gleam that settled into her eyes as she listened sped his hopes onward.
When he ended the oracular dream, she awoke with a gasp, looking wildly around. He panicked. Would she pass it off as an inconsequential dreaming?
She got up to check on her daughter, who stretched in front the fire, deep in a sleep of her own. When she spoke aloud, he nearly fell.
"If you are real, Zophiel, and if you have spoken truly…" She crossed her arms, looking up at the ceiling.
He floated over her, gazing back into her eyes, pretending she could see him.
"Then she is not to know. You must pass for one of us. If you cannot do this, then I will not seek you." Luminea went back to her bedroll and pulled the weave over herself before lying down. "But if you can do that," she whispered. "Then I will seek you tomorrow."
With that, she rolled over and closed her eyes.
She did not sleep.
He watched, as was his place to do, and tried not to think what it would be like to stop watching and start doing.
The mirror shimmered and rippled, heralding the approach of a visitor.
Chiara was on her feet in an instant. Her apprehension from being trapped in this doorless prison like a caged bird prevented her from sitting still. Never had she known this state of agitation, a jangling of her senses that was most discordant.
This must be what mortals meant by feeling jumpy. It was quite unpleasant.
Her mother stepped through the glass portal, followed by another, a man of burly build whose power rolled like a thunderstorm trapped in a pretty blue-skied balloon. Nothing to see on the outside, but beneath…
Oh, there was something beneath. And it wasn't right.
The discordant power made her skin itch, adding to the already distressingly-high level of anxiety. She eyed him warily.
"What is this, Mother?" Chiara stepped behind the couch, wanting to put as many obstacles between them as possible. Yes, it was telling. Yes, she betrayed herself by showing how she felt. But something more than body language politics was key, now. Self-preservation. "You employ hired thugs now?"
"Why, my dear," Luminea said, phony cordiality in her voice. "You remember Zophiel."
"That…is Zophiel?" Self-preservation forgotten at the sound of so familiar a name, Chiara peered intently at the man. "No, no…it cannot be. Zophiel has blond hair, green eyes. Taller. Not so…"
She searched for a diplomatic word. "Stout. Or red-headed."
"Appearances are superficial." Luminea's tone was…hard to interpret. It sounded very much as if she were displeased with him, somehow.
"You look nothing like the Zophiel I remember, but it's more than that." Chiara shook her head, wearing a tiny frown. "You feel nothing like him."
"Why would I?" His voice held the slight drag of a Southern accent. A secretive smile tugged the corner of his mouth, sly and dangerous.
No. Zophiel's voice had been sonorous, smooth, English. This was not the same Enochian she'd known as a child. He'd been a foster parent to her, a tutor, a disciplinarian. She knew Zophiel as well as she knew her own mother. "Why wouldn't you? Mother looks the same and I haven't changed very much—"
"My dear." Luminea's voice took on an annoying tone of patience, sounding much like a parent lecturing a small child. "Zophiel requires an anchor on this plane."
"I don't understand. You don't need an anchor. Enochians possess enough mortality to be recognized by the physicality of Earth."
Luminea smiled, the same secret smile Zophiel wore. Mirrored upon each of their faces, it became a threat. "That's correct."
"What are you not saying?" Chiara struggled to piece together the conversation, force it to fit the confines of common sense. "I don't understand."
"You don't need to understand," Zophiel said. "You only need to accept."
His tone held so much familiar dark authority that she could remain still no longer. Fight or flight. She retained enough sense to know she couldn't fight something she didn't understand. And so, the second option became the only option.
Chiara went for the shimmering mirror, too fast for mortal eyes to track. It was a speed that her Enochian mother did not possess, a part of her otherness. The strike of a serpent. The flash of a lightning crash. Sometimes, her father's gifts were most convenient.
She made it past her mother easily but at the mirror Zophiel appeared, blocking her way.
He didn't even seem to have exerted himself. One minute he was on the other side of the room, the next he was standing in front of the mirror, arms crossed, eyes hooded with disapproval. The next, he was a wall.
A wall that was more offense than defense. He raised a hand and hit her with a wave of invisible force that made her stumble backwards.
"You." She gasped for breath, the force of his impact having hit her square in the chest. Fisting her hands, she planted her feet, bracing against another attack. "You portaled. Enochians cannot do that."
He smiled, cold and cocky. "You are not as foolish as I'd assumed you had become. What am I?"
Wild with panic, she sought Luminea's face. "Mother—"
"No," he said, his voice low and gravelly. "Answer me. What. Am. I?"
Her stomach roiled into a tight cramp, her body itching as if insects burrowed beneath the surface of her skin. She knew. Her gut knew.
Her senses had prickled at his presence from the moment he came in. Only one race set off those particular alarms. Only one race that could open such clean portals.
Angels. Zophiel was an angel. The realization of who he was, who he'd been all along, made her physically ill. She shook her head, swallowing back a nauseating mouthful of saliva.
"You cannot be. All this time—you were family, you—" The horror of all that was unfolding threatened to drive her mad. This creature had been masquerading as an Enochian ally, her mother's closest companion, Chiara's own mentor. A surrogate father for the one who could not be there for her as a child. Zophiel had been friend and family and protector.
He'd tutored her in the way of Enochian magic when she was an adolescent. He possessed a patience her mother did not; Chiara's otherness was a defect Luminea could not always handle with grace. Zophiel recognized the uniqueness Chiara bore upon her powers and encouraged her to accept them, accept herself. It was like he knew a secret about her, and that secret was safe.
All of it. A lie. The parts of Chiara's soul that ran darker and deeper than the rest ignited like an oil slick under a match. Betrayal did not sit well with her father's blood. Nor did treacherous angels who slipped free of the noose of judgment.
If one angel was to pay the ultimate price, so must they all pay.
Her hands boiled with impotent heat. Had she not been trapped in this heavily-warded prison, she'd be brandishing fistfuls of hellfire. And, oh, the things she would do with it. A correction would never be as spectacular as the one she hungered to execute right now. "You abomination."
"Come now." Luminea never moved, never even turned her head. Instead she lifted one hand to inspect her manicure, never seeming the least bit bothered by her daughter's display. "That's no way to address a being of the Light."
Chiara spun to face her. She, the architect of this whole wretched farce. "An angel, Mother? You commandeered an angel?"
"No, dear, I didn't. Why would I need to commandeer anyone?" She got up and slinked over to Zophiel, stepping behind him and
running her hand across his chest. "He's here because he wants to be. Although generally he retains a much more alluring form."
Luminea's pretty mouth tilted with disapproval. "Ah, well. As soon as we find the right body, we'll make the adjustment."
Zophiel never took his eyes off Chiara, never lost the cocky smile. "Yes, madam."
Chiara covered her mouth. "You wretched being. You stole a human's body. Do you not care about the torture you inflict upon that man's soul?"
"You worry too much about men's souls." Luminea bit off each word. "Speaking of which…don't you have something to do, Zophiel?"
"Yes, madam." He bowed his head to her before zipping out of sight. Another effortless portal. It grated on her thinning nerves, knowing he was in full possession of his power when she was cut off from her own otherness.
Luminea sauntered over to the side table and tilted back the lid of the serving dish. Picking up a slender silver fork, she speared a slice of peach and took a delicate bite.
"The finest of fruits. Like sunlight upon the tongue. We had nothing like this back home in Bristol, did we? Only what the fishermen brought in, or what we could grow in our miserable dirty fields." She took another bite, closing her eyes, savoring the taste. "This city is built in sunlight. The gleaming spires, the sweet winds, the hedonistic perfection of flavors. This is a paradise to be plundered."
Chiara strode over to the table and shut the serving lid with a thunk. "Don't change the subject, Mother. What are you doing with him? How can you stand to be near him, knowing what he is?"
"He is loyal." Luminea frown, disapproval etching into the downturn of her mouth. "Unlike one's own child."
Chiara ignored the jab. "He's a skin-rider."
"And I need skin." Luminea's voice was sultry with undercurrents.
"Ugh." What a repulsive thought. For her, physical intimacy first required absolute trust—and very few had ever performed in that capacity to her satisfaction. It was difficult to overlay her particular emotional perspectives upon a creature as deplorable as a mutinous angel. "Please say you don't mean what I think you mean."
"Do you think I've been celibate? Please." Luminea slid her palms down the sides of her body, emphasizing every curve. "This body is literally a gift from God. Not one to be wasted. I have needs."