“Of course. The only reason he hasn’t gotten a restraining order on me is because she wants me there. He’s a dick, but he’s a dick who loves his mother.”
“Okay,” Jax said grudgingly. “But if he comes into the club again...”
“He won’t,” Ryssa assured him. “I told Gunther not to let him in again.”
Jax nodded, slightly appeased. “Fair enough, baby. Now hork some of those donuts, will you? My fangs are aching here.”
* * *
“David.” His stomach dropped at the sound of his name, spoken so softly in Ryssa’s voice. Not Gilligan. Not dickhead. Not even Corrigan. But David.
He lifted his gaze from where he sat outside his mother’s room. Wishing. Hoping. Praying.
If Ryssa’s voice hadn’t clued him in, her face would have. There was no trace of the rebellious badass now. The sympathy in her eyes was almost more than he could bear.
“It’s time. Would you like to be with her?”
No! It was too soon. It couldn’t be time already. So what if Ryssa had warned him when he’d opened the door earlier, spouting some bullshit about it not taking long now? How the hell could she possibly know? He was the one who had sat by his mother’s side all day, feeling his heart stop each time she seemed to stop breathing. He was the one who had begged to take her to the hospital, only to have her stubbornly decline.
But instead of ranting and raving like he wanted to, he simply looked at her blankly and asked, “It’s time?”
“Almost. She wants to say goodbye.”
He nodded, pushing back the pain scoring his heart at those words. His mother had had bad spells before, and she’d always pulled through. This was just another bump. Yesterday, she’d been laughing and smiling, telling Ryssa embarrassing stories about him when he was little. Yeah, he’d been a real handful.
When he walked into the room, he was sure he was right. Already his mother was looking better, more peaceful than she had all day. The oxygen mask was off. Ryssa had dressed her in a lovely pale blue silk dressing gown that showed off her eyes; she had brushed her snowy white hair until it shone.
“Hey, Mama,” he said, reverting to his boyhood address. “You look so pretty.”
“Ryssa helped,” she said, beaming at the young woman who had followed David in but now stood in the far corner of the room. “I want to look nice for your father.”
David didn’t know what to say to that. He sat down carefully on the bed and took her hand in his, shocked at how cold it was. “I’m not ready.”
“I know. But I am.” She patted his hand. “I can’t help you any more, David. The rest you have to figure out on your own.”
He shook his head in denial, but she wasn’t finished. “It is time for both of us to move on.”
“They’re coming,” Ryssa said quietly.
“No!” David nearly shouted, shooting a desperate glance back toward Ryssa. In that moment, he didn’t care how crazy she was, or what kind of horseshit voodoo mumbo jumbo she believed. “Tell them not yet!”
“She can’t stop them, David,” Elizabeth said calmly. “But maybe she can ease your mind a little. Ryssa, will you help him?”
Help him? What the hell could Ryssa possibly do?
Ryssa looked uncomfortably at Elizabeth, biting her bottom lip.
“Please, Ryssa. David, you’ll be good, won’t you?”
Confused, David nonetheless nodded. In that moment, he would do anything his mother asked.
* * *
It was against the rules. Only the one making the journey was supposed to see the other side. But Elizabeth was such a kind woman, and her eyes were pleading...
Oh, hell. It wouldn’t be the first time she broke the rules, Ryssa thought. And what more could they do to her?
She took a step toward the bed, but David stood in her way. Rather than look angry or try to get around him, she took his hand in hers. Elizabeth would be able to see because this was her journey, but David wouldn’t unless Ryssa helped him.
* * *
He tried to shake her off, but she held on stubbornly. Despite her size, her grip was far stronger than his. “Don’t say a word,” Ryssa warned. “Not one word. Do not meet their eyes. Just focus on your mother, got it?”
David fixed her with a glare but then her eyes began to emit some kind of weird, unearthly glow. Surprised, he clamped his mouth shut tightly and nodded once.
“David,” Elizabeth whispered reverently. “Look.”
He did - already forgetting Ryssa’s warning - and had to blink several times. The walls were gone, and a man stood where the bathroom should be, a beautiful man with golden hair and eyes and big white wings. Behind him, waiting in the distance were familiar faces. Faces David hadn’t seen in years. His father. His grandparents. His great Uncle Lou. Waiting. Smiling.
A warning squeeze from Ryssa reminded him to lower his gaze, but he still saw them out of his peripheral vision.
“Hello, Elizabeth,” the golden angel said warmly. “I see Ryssa has been taking good care of you.”
“She has,” Elizabeth agreed. “You must be Zach.”
The angel smiled, and it was as if the sun had just broken through the clouds. Even concentrating on his mother as he was, David had to close his eyes when he felt his retinas burning.
“Talks about me, does she?”
David stiffened and flicked a glance toward Ryssa, but she had her head bowed and her eyes cast downward.
“She says you are the best.”
“She is biased,” the angel said with affection, winking. “Will you not look at me, Ryssariel?”
“No,” she whispered quietly.
David heard the angel sigh heavily before addressing Elizabeth once more. “Are you ready to continue your journey, Elizabeth?”
David opened his mouth to say something, but Ryssa squeezed his hand. Hard. David caught her eyes, could almost hear her voice in his mind, pleading with him to let his mother go, for her sake. He clamped his mouth shut again and nodded at his mother.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, beaming, relief etching her features. “I’m ready.”
“Then come. Your husband is anxiously awaiting your arrival.”
“Thank you, Ryssa,” Elizabeth said. “Goodbye, David. I’ll always be with you. I love you.”
David watched through a sheen of teary moisture as Elizabeth rose from the bed, the years falling away. He saw her take the angel’s hand and walk into the mist. She looked over her shoulder and gave one last wave, the smile on her face so beautiful he wanted to cry.
Ryssa dropped David’s hand and the bedroom wall suddenly reappeared, looking as solid as it ever had. He turned back to the bed to see the frail form of his mother, eyes closed, features serene. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard a door close.
His mother was gone. And so was Ryssa.
Chapter 6 – Always Darkest
Jax was gone.
Ryssa knew that the moment she entered the little apartment. It was just as dark as it always was. Just as cool and quiet. His scent – sandalwood and leather – still hung faintly in the air. But the subtle, low-level thrum of his magick was absent.
There was no need to go into the kitchen and eat right away, because there was no one waiting on her.
Was he hungry, she wondered vaguely, the urge to care for him still strong. Probably not. Vlane Masterson was known for taking care of his own, and if the rumors were true, there were hand-picked live-in donors right there on the estate. She hoped whoever it was would be considerate enough to stay away from dairy products.
She wasn’t hungry anyway. Opening the veil took a lot out of her, and all she really wanted to do was crash. But she forced herself to step into the shower and wash away any lingering scents from outside. She slathered on the vanilla body wash and honey scented shampoo, so that when she climbed beneath the sheets – alone – it would smell exactly the same. Vanilla and honey mixed with Jax’s lingering scents.
Ryssa towe
led off, smiling when she saw Jax had left one of his T-shirts laid out for her. Pulling it on, she crawled into bed and snuggled her face into his pillow.
Only then did she allow the tears to fall. She was alone now. Again. It wasn’t the first time, though it had been long enough that she’d forgotten just how empty the feeling could be. There was no one to talk to, no one to tease her, no one to hold her through the daytime and keep her safe.
No one who cared more about her than what she could do for them.
This would probably be the last day she’d be permitted to remain here. Karthik had allowed it because he knew Jax looked out for her, but now... He wouldn’t want to take the chance that anything would happen to her. There weren’t many like her. While she’d heard rumors of other Fallen, she’d never actually come across one.
Fallen weren’t like other Angels. They were the flawed ones, the rejects, the ones who didn’t have unshakable faith, the ones who questioned and didn’t blindly follow the rules simply because.
When Ryssa made the choice to save the young Fae girlchild from a life of misery all those years ago, she did so knowing the consequences of her actions. By voluntarily exchanging her life for the other girl’s, she had saved the child’s soul but doomed her own in the process.
Karthik and others like him could not destroy her; being Angel-born meant she had a natural resistance to the evil that worked its way into hearts and souls of others. No matter what they did to her, deep inside, she remained whole and intact, something that would not have been assured for the Fae child had she been left to her Fate.
It had been an impulsive decision, but even if she’d had time to think long and hard, the outcome would have been the same. Her brother, Zach, had been upset with her for a very long time. Ryssa still couldn’t bear to see the hurt in his eyes. She knew that he pulled some strings to ensure that he was the one to come for those Ryssa helped whenever possible; just as she knew that he would never stop trying to get her to repent and ask for forgiveness.
What he didn’t seem to understand was that she couldn’t do that, because she was not sorry. If faced with the same situation, she’d do the same thing again in a heartbeat. That pretty much ruled out ever going back. The mortal plane was her realm now.
Maybe someday Zach would accept that, and she’d be able to look in his eyes again, at his purity and goodness, and not be reminded of what it was like to be beautiful and loved instead of reviled and used.
But not yet.
She’d reconciled herself to such a life a long time ago. It was what it was. She might be Fallen, but it wasn’t all bad; it had its good moments, too. She still got to help people in her own small way. And she got to meet nice people like Claire and Elizabeth. She certainly had a much greater understanding of what happened below the Heavenly realm; that was for certain. Knowing what she now knew, seeing the temptations mortals and immortals alike were faced with every day, it was a wonder anyone managed to make it through the veil with their soul intact.
David Corrigan’s image suddenly appeared in her mind and she sighed. The man had a strong soul, but he carried a lot of weight on his shoulders. His mother had confided in her that she worried for him; that he took too much upon himself and shouldered too much responsibility. Elizabeth told her of how he often worked eighty or more hours a week, but insisted their employees took every minute of their vacation time. How he often paid off hospital and doctor bills for those who were having trouble with what the insurance didn’t cover. Of the anonymous donations that he made that paid for scholarships, after school programs, and untold meals for the homeless.
Ryssa was quite sure that David had gotten his penchant for philanthropy from his mother. Elizabeth Corrigan was an amazing woman who, for all of her tough business acumen, had one of the biggest hearts Ryssa had ever encountered.
Of all the people Elizabeth cared for, her son was at the very top of the list. Elizabeth’s biggest worry was what would happen to him after her death. He would be alone and vulnerable, and there would be no shortage of women ready to move in and take advantage of that.
Sadly, Elizabeth was probably right. David Corrigan was handsome, intelligent, powerful, and insanely wealthy. Beneath his prickly exterior, Ryssa’s angel heart recognized great potential. The man was capable of tremendous love for those he chose to allow past all the shields and into his heart.
Yes, David Corrigan could make the right woman very happy indeed.
Despite her harsh words to him nearly every time they met, she did not hate David Corrigan, nor did she harbor any real animosity toward him. In his own misguided way, he had only been trying to protect his mother, and Ryssa understood that. It would have been nice, though, if he had looked past the second-hand clothes and seen her. If, for just one moment, he could have seen her as something other than an opportunistic ragamuffin who schemed to take advantage of a sweet, compassionate, dying woman.
Ignoring the sudden and unwelcome twinge that thought carried with it, Ryssa offered up a silent prayer that David Corrigan find his intended soul mate, the one who would be able to reach his suspicious heart and relieve him of some of his burden. All sentient beings had a soul mate, though so few actually found each other.
She had no way of knowing if her words held any weight anymore, but it couldn’t hurt.
* * *
The funeral went well. The service was lovely, or so everyone said. It was well attended. Lots of people came: business associates, members of the community, acquaintances. They shook his hand, placed a well-meant comforting hand on his shoulder, or in some cases, hugged him. They murmured platitudes and clichés and expressed condolences. Just as he had done when he hadn’t been the one sitting in front of the coffin.
The last few days were a blur of making arrangements and writing checks, but now it was all over. There was nothing more left to plan, to do, to choose. Now he could allow himself to grieve in private, away from all of the disingenuous suck-ups and, even worse, the women who wanted to worm their way into his wealthy, successful life by offering comfort and consolation.
They all wanted something from him.
He sat in the cemetery, beside the white marble headstone bearing both of his parents' names. The engraver would add Elizabeth’s date of passing sometime in the next few weeks. Multitudes of flowers in every color of the rainbow spilled over the grave, the soil still soft beneath the temporary sod. It would all be replaced, reworked in a couple of months when the dirt had a chance to settle.
It felt strange to be here. Like so many people, he’d come to the gravesite with the hope of feeling close to his mother. It didn’t work. Though the ornate coffin containing her remains sat below the ground in that very spot, she wasn’t really there. It was only her body, her frail mortal shell that remained. He’d seen her – her spirit, her essence, her soul – walk into the light with an angel and look back at him with that beautiful, radiant smile.
At first he’d thought he’d imagined it; that the whole thing had been a delusion caused because his grieving mind was unable to accept his mother’s death. Now he wasn’t so sure. Random snippets of conversation had been coming back to him, drifting into his thoughts at random intervals.
She has a gift.
She can see between the realms.
She speaks with angels and demons alike.
She has given me peace.
She showed me what is waiting for me, David. It’s beautiful. And your father is there. He looks just like he did when we first met, all young and handsome. Ryssa said I’ll be young and beautiful again, too.
Ryssa.
It seemed too incredible; David had never really been the type to believe in the supernatural. He believed in God, sure. Angels weren’t such a big stretch from there. So if he accepted that God and angels did exist, then why not accept that there might be some who were capable of directly connecting with them?
What if Ryssa really could see past death? He’d been so convinced she’d been try
ing to scam them, he hadn’t considered it a serious possibility. But she hadn’t asked for a dime. Wouldn’t even accept the small token gift Elizabeth had bought for her, a delicate white and yellow gold chain of intricate Celtic knots. The one that was still in the tiny box in his suit jacket. He’d been carrying it with him everywhere, hoping she would come.
She hadn’t. Not to the funeral. Not to the house.
If he was truly honest, he might even dare to admit that he wanted to see her again, if only to have her tell him it really had happened the way he remembered it. That he had seen his mother walk into the light with an angel. That Heaven did, in fact, exist, and that death was not the end. She was the only one he could talk to about this, the only one who might be able to understand and give him some much needed insight.
The only one who didn’t want anything from him.
Ryssa, with her delicate feminine features and those big grey eyes, who had stood toe to toe with him and told him off. She hadn’t been the least bit intimidated by him. Not by his size, his wealth, or the stare that’d had grown men cowering on the other side of the boardroom table, nothing. She was a fierce little thing. The thought of her glaring up at him with fire in her eyes made him smile.
Ryssa, who cared enough about giving his mother peace to keep coming back and put up with his bullshit. His smile faded, replaced by a sense of shame at how he had treated her.
She was tough. She’d taken everything he’d thrown at her and then some, giving back as good as she got. Another vision appeared in his mind, one of Ryssa dressed up in leather and chains, no longer looking like a waif but a full-grown woman straight out of his darkest, most private fantasies. His body tightened uncomfortably with a combination of guilt and lust.
Those images were replaced by those of her the last time he had seen her, looking pale and fragile, trying to hide signs of obvious physical abuse beneath her tattered, thrift shop clothing. Something dark and ugly clawed at the inside of his chest.
David shook his head, feeling uncharacteristically off-balance. How could one woman manage to make him feel so many things in the span of a few heartbeats?
Fallen Angel: Mythic Series, Book 2 Page 6