“Does he know that?” Charlie tossed the large beast a nod, certain that the eyes did in fact see him quite clearly. After a long pause, the animal turned away and he heaved a sigh of relief. “Tell me the rest,” he growled, “an’ be quick about it.”
“The rest requires your belief,” Gous informed him, moving to his side and clamping his shoulder firmly. You are the panther, Charlie. You are the force that moves between the worlds, ready to devour those who stand in your way. You will stand against Karma and Keeper when the time is right, and Time will be on your side.”
“Time the Hunter,” Charlie clipped.
“Yes,” Gous hissed. “The army I am building is for you. They will be your minions when you are ready, and I will serve at your right hand.”
Charlie’s head snapped around and he faced the Dark Angel squarely, “Leader to follower in a single breath; that’s quite a leap. I would never trust you, demon, that’s for sure.”
Gous’s lips curled into a large grin. “You already do, my master.”
Shaking his curls in disbelief, Charlie quipped, “An’ I’m sure your followers are all for it,” adding small chuckle of doubt for effect.
“They are unaware of what lies ahead, but are willing and ready to face what ever Time may bring,” Gous rasped in reply. “Be ready, my liege. You will know the moment when it comes, and we will follow you into the abyss.” Dropping his hood over his pointed ears, he disappeared, leaving Charlie to consider his words alone.
Faithful Servant
“Charlie,” Karma’s voice broke through his dark thoughts.
“Yes?” he replied in kind. He had returned to the beach and had sat staring at the waves for who knows how long before she had called for him. Getting to his feet, he dusted the sand from his jeans and reached out to her once more. “Karma. I’m here. What’s your command?”
“Come to my haven,” she replied in a sultry tone; “I have need of you.”
Stunned, his mouth fell open and he smacked it closed as if she could see him. “I’m not comfortable in your haven. Let’s meet in your office, instead.”
A long pause followed, and for a moment he thought she might refuse his request and insist upon the former location. However, she eventually replied, “Very well. I’ll see you in a moment.”
Obediently, Charlie transported himself to her office within the massive structure of Purgatory. Finding the room dark, he realized that he had been the first to arrive. Magically adjusting the lights, he glanced around at the furnishings and shuddered at the chill in the air.
He had always known that Karma was not a Light Angel, but he had never thought of her as dark, either. Falling between the two extremes, he had become comfortable dancing betwixt the two ends of the spectrum, not realizing that doing so could cost him dearly in the end.
Selecting one of the chairs that faced her desk, he sank down onto the cushioned seat. Twisting to peek at the red-velvet curtain that hid her viewing screen, he wondered what it might be like to have such a device and the ability to see any time or place of his choosing.
“And what is it you wish to see?” Karma asked in a lilting tone as she joined him at that moment.
“What?” Charlie stammered, righting himself in the seat and facing her.
She had silently occupied her place behind the desk and had observed him for several seconds before making her presence known. Karma had not stripped away Charlie’s protection and his thoughts were still his own, but fear had crept in at her decision to do so. “You are a faithful servant,” she stated with a smile that brightened her dark features.
“Yes,” he agreed, matching her grin. “You know everyone wants a piece of me,” he confessed, “but I will always be yours.” Remembering his wife, his features tightened, and he amended, “Well, for the most part.”
Pressing her hands over her lap to smooth her skirt, Karma agreed, “Yes; there will always be a part of you that belongs to Clarisse. How is she, by the way?”
Charlie’s face drained of color. “My wife is well,” he supplied easily. “She serves as faithfully as I do.”
“Indeed,” Karma pulled herself up to the desk and placed her elbows upon it, with hands folded in front of her face. “I have a special assignment for you, Charlie. One that will require your absence from Purgatory and your beloved wife for many nights,” she informed him without blinking. “I expect that you will accept it without hesitation.”
“Of course,” the young man parroted out of habit. “Where am I going?”
Opening her screen with a wave if her hand, Karma leaned smugly back into her chair. “It is time that Brett and Tabitha reaped their rewards,” she stated flatly. Before them, the young woman carried a swaddled infant up the steps and into Charlie’s childhood home.
“You’re serious,” he gasped. “You have a reward for them?” he asked in a hopeful tone.
“Ha!” Karma shot back. “I have a list of transgressions here,” she tore the top sheet off of the notepad before her and presented it to him. “These are all Brett’s. I want you to check them off as you go, and be sure not to miss a one.”
Staring at the lengthy list, the lines in his forehead deepened. “You’re going to use Tabs and their baby to punish him,” he whispered.
“No,” her grin twisted her red lips into a snarl, “you are.”
Lifting his eyes to meet the green glow of hers, he knew she was serious. “Please don’t make me do this,” he begged quietly. “I’ll do anything else that you ask, but please… please don’t make me hurt my best friend.”
“Your best friend? One would hardly think so! You left her behind without a second thought. Besides, this is what you signed on for; punishing the guilty. It’s the part of this job you love the most,” she reminded him firmly.
“I know,” he nodded, glaring at the slip of paper. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he asked, “Any special requests?”
“You can do anything that you like to them; short of death. I need them alive when you’re finished.”
“Then what? Have you got plans for them down the line? Some task I should be shaping them towards?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, Karma studied him for a moment. “You know what’s coming, Charlie. The battle for this world is not far away. We will collect our allies and await the day we shall stand for what we believe in.”
“Yeah, whether they wanna take our side or not,” he grumbled. “You can’t force people, you know.”
“Indeed, I can,” her words grew sharp. “When you are finished with them, they will be eating out of my hand. Or at least they’d better be,” she lay down an unspoken threat.
Lifting his gaze to find her green orbs boring into him, he shivered. Karma kept everyone in line; even him. “Yes ma’am,” he said softly. “Anything else?”
“No,” she smiled brightly, as if the entire conversation had been plum pudding sweet, “Spend a night or two with your beloved and be off to handle this task. And don’t forget; I’ll be watching, Charlie,” she reminded him with a raised palm, flattened to indicate her screen before the curtain fell into place to cover the image of his targets.
“Yeah, no doubt,” he grunted aloud, whisking himself away before he said anything he might regret.
Tidbits of Tomorrow
Charlie arrived on the beach in an instant. Before him, the sun sank into the shining water in the distance, a beautiful slender silhouette in the foreground. Stepping up to the white flowing gown, his hands traced the sheer material around to the front as wisps of blond hair floated around them. “Hello, angel,” he mumbled into her ear.
“Hello, Charlie,” she breathed a soft reply. Her hands splayed to drink in the warm flesh of his arms, she smiled at his holding her so that they lay across her belly. Trying to keep the exact thought of their child at bay, the Light Angel focused on her mate. “How was your day?”
“Disturbing,” he informed her bluntly, then softened the blow. “I’d rather not talk about
it, at least for now. I have t’ go away soon, for several weeks in fact, an’ this is my last chance for making love for who knows how long. I’d rather spend the evening wrapped in your arms and dreaming about the future.”
Turning in his embrace, Clarisse studied his crinkled features. “You’re serious,” she eventually admitted. “She’s sending you away.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “an’ like I said, I’d rather not talk about my mission. Let’s share tidbits of tomorrow, an’ not the one that we will wake up to in the morning. The one that we will win when this fight is over an’ we are finally able to rest, livin’ our own lives.”
Leaning her forehead against his, she sighed, “Oh, love; do you ever think it will come true? That our lives will be our own and our child will live in a world without fear?”
“You bet it will,” he nuzzled her neck, his lips suctioning lightly to her delicate flesh. “We jus’ need a little faith.” Grasping her more firmly, his need swelled within him and he pulled at her, guiding her towards their bed.
Standing on the platform where he had built it, the sheer walls of their lover’s nest danced in the evening breeze. Mentally igniting the fire at the head of the structure, the darkness fought against the flames as he removed their clothing and pushed her across the sheets.
“Does the baby grow inside you, like human babies do?” he asked in a quiet tone, distracted for a moment by the unmistakable change in her flat stomach. “I swear you’re growing a pooch!”
“Yes, it does,” she grasped his wrist firmly, pushing his palm down to the lower half below her belly button. “Your child is in here, safe and secure,” she reassured him.
Fighting to hold out the images of Tabitha carrying her newborn home, he sighed. “Ok.” Focusing on the beautiful blue eyes of his lover, he pressed his mouth against hers. His desire bolstered, he pushed the fingers up, throwing his conscious thoughts to the breeze and losing himself for a few hours of making love.
Charlie awoke in the dead of the night. Above him, the roof of their bedroom, such as it was, prevented his view of the stars. On three sides, sheer white curtains floated ever so slightly on a gentle ocean breeze. Above his head, he could feel the embers of their fire, there but barely alive. “I love magic,” he whispered to himself as he stoked the fire with only a thought.
In an instant, bright orange glow illuminated the area, and his wife’s soft blond hair proved to be more temptation than he could resist. They had made passionate love, as usual, and his heart overflowed with the love she kindled inside him. Pulling at the glistening strands tenderly, he wanted nothing more than to have her again. His fingers burning to caress her flesh and ignite her desire, he groaned loud enough to surely wake her. “Stop it,” he mumbled.
“Stop what?” Clarisse enquired, stretching beneath him.
“We need to talk,” he replied softly, not bothering to move away from her. Instead, he pressed firmly against her arms and ribs, then waist, massaging her into consciousness. “We won’t have another chance for who knows how long, an’ you know I’m always afraid that our telepathic conversations are monitored.”
“She can see us here, too, you know,” the blonde informed him crisply as she adjusted to sit up.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t. She promised me this was our space; the one place we can truly be alone.” A darker thought entering his mind, he confessed, “Besides; I don’t think she wants to risk seeing us making love.”
Clarisse giggled, “Like that would bother her.”
“I think that it does; hurts her somehow. She acknowledges our relationship, but barely so. She had hoped I would get over you and come back to her at some point and she would be rid of you. Or something like that.”
“Do you think it will ever happen?” the girl’s eyes grew wide with fear.
“No, baby. It won’t ever happen. You’re my wife, an’ soon we will be a family in every sense of the word,” he indicated the life hidden within her. “Of course, that is what we must discuss. I don’t want you t’ think about the baby while I am gone. The more that you do, the greater the risk that Karma will discover him.”
“Him?” she picked up on the word. “What makes you so sure it’s a him?”
“Nothing,” he chuckled. “Only a suspicion, I guess. You know how men are about having a son. It could be a girl or a boy, but that part don’ really matter. Keeping our baby safe does.” Sitting up straight beside her, his face grew serious. “Promise me you will block it out of your mind, as if it doesn’ exist.”
“Do you think that will help?” she said with trembling lips as a tear streaked her cheek.
“I can’t say for sure,” he shrugged, “but I think it can help. I think you should try, either way. I have some dark days ahead of me. I gotta face some things I really don’ wanna face, an’ not having t’ worry about you will make it a little easier.”
“All right,” Clarisse smiled. “I’ll do it for you then. I won’t think about the baby or the future. I’ll stay completely focused on my tasks, taking Phil to his assignments and the like.”
“Good,” Charlie agreed, leaning forward to kiss her. “When this is all over, we are going to have a beautiful life. I promise. We’ll have a place to call home where our baby can grow an’ become strong; there won’t be any more Keeper or Karma to interfere.”
Her breath catching as if she’d been punched, Clarisse gasped, “Oh, Charlie! What blasphemy! You shouldn’t speak so ill of Keeper, should he be able to hear you or not!”
Gently rubbing the edge of her jaw, Charlie sighed. “Oh, Summer Angel. How naïve you still are. Perhaps that’s why I love you so much. Keeper is part of this, as surely as we are. It’s not blasphemous; it’s the truth. My eyes have been opened, and even though I can’t tell you everything yet, I hope that you can trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, baby?”
Blinking rapidly to fight the tears, she sniffed loudly. “I’m so scared, Charlie. What if you don’t come back? What if something happens while you’re gone?”
“If anything happens, you can call for me. I would leave in a heartbeat if you were to need me, I promise you that,” he reassured. His lips gently brushing hers, he whispered, “Do you trust me, Clarisse?” pointing out that she had not answered his question.
“With all that I am,” she replied with more strength than she felt.
“Good,” he nodded. His powers had been growing stronger since he had discovered them, and he could conquer almost anything, or at least he felt like he could. Anything but time, he mentally considered. He still couldn’t make time move any faster when things were going too slow, and he had no power to slow it down when he wanted more of it.
Laughing in spite of himself, he grasped his woman firmly and flung her across the bed. “Now, I need a little more before I go, if you don’ mind!”
“Oh, Charlie,” Clarisse giggled, “You know I never have turned you down, and I’m not about to start now!” She wanted to spend what could be their last moments together making love almost as badly as he did.
Keeper’s Truth
“This is a beautiful place you have here, Charlie,” Keeper’s voice rasped, startling the couple as they stood on their beach the following morning, staring out over the ocean.
Hoping to appear calm, Charlie countered, “How did you get here?”
“Charlie!” Clarisse squealed in shock, “do not offend our guest! He is the Greatest of the Angels; I assume he may go wherever he wishes!”
There eyes locked, Charlie didn’t back down, despite the fear in his wife’s clear blue orbs. “Well?”
“Oh, Charlie,” Keeper’s chuckle rumbled beneath his words, “there is little that can hold me. Do not fret, Clarisse; I am accustomed to your husband’s brazen tongue. I find him refreshing after centuries of groveling, plotting, and the like.”
“Exactly,” Charlie gave his wife a squeeze and managed a small smile. “So, why are you here, old man?” he demanded, causing Clarisse to gasp.
>
“I’ve come for a chat,” Keeper grasped the edges of his hood and pushed it back so that the scarred tan flesh of his face could take in more of the sun’s golden rays. “You have been seeking the truth, and I am confident you have found it.”
“I guess you could say that,” Charlie quipped, lifting his chin. “You aren’t really Angels or guardians; you’re escapees from another world, like this one, here to use us,” he announced, as much for his wife’s benefit as it was for anything else.
“Us,” Keeper echoed. “Go on.”
“That’s it. You made a hiding place here for yourselves using your magic. You walk among us, but we can’t see you; or stop you.”
“And would you stop us? You are one of us, Charlie. You and Clarisse. We are your family; your people. Not the humans you seem determined to align yourself with.”
Shocked, Charlie’s mouth fell open and he gasped, “I’m not aligned with anyone! I mean,” he stammered, “I’m a part of Karma’s house! I do her bidding!”
“But you have your doubts,” Keeper’s lips curled slightly. “Why do you declare yourself devoted to her when your heart is filled with them?”
“I don’t have any doubts,” Charlie breathed. “I have too much at stake to stand against Karma!” he tightened his grip on his mate as she fidgeted beside him, remaining silent.
“So you would rather stand against me, instead?” Keeper blinked slowly as he spoke.
“No, I mean,” the younger man faltered. “Keeper, what exactly is it you want? Are you here t’ rip me to shreds? T’ tear apart our home?” His eyes narrowed, “Or are you gonna lock us up in that prison o’ yours?” he accused.
“Ah, so you have learned of my collection,” Keeper grinned more fully than Charlie had ever seen. Reaching for the pouch, he opened it and slid his hand inside. Grasping a handful of the gems, he pulled them out and opened his palm. There, glistening in the sun, rubies, sapphires, diamonds and emeralds gleamed. Curling the hand, he allowed them to fall back into the sack in a cascade of light.
The Keeper Set - Summer Spirit Novellas 7 - 9 Page 5