by Greg Curtis
Yet even the fact of what she was, didn’t bother him as much as what it implied. If she was an angel, it surely meant that God existed, and that against all the evidence, he sometimes acted in this pitiful world. Everything Mikel had believed for forty years just went out the window.
That in itself raised a zoo full of questions. Things like, If He was here, knew everything, could do anything, why did He allow so much evil to be done? Why did He let the poor and weak suffer while the strong and powerful took everything for themselves? Not very far behind his questions, was an anger that threatened to burst free, and he knew if it did, he’d never drag his thoughts free of their dark path. Mikel held it in with difficulty.
Besides, his paranoia was telling him there were more important things he needed to know, and soon. Was she here for herself? Did angels even do things just for themselves? Was she heralding something? Or as he expected, was she here specifically for him, and in which case what did an angel want with him? Why did she want a thief?
His mind was a tangle of confusion and unanswerable questions, which plagued him for the rest of that long drive to his waiting plane, and then throughout the even longer flight back to his island home.
Could she be here to save his soul? Redemption? It ran across his mind but didn’t really take hold. He simply couldn’t bring himself to believe it. For a start he wasn’t sure he needed redeeming. Certainly he was surely both a sinner, and a thief, though at least not a murderer or worse. While perhaps not evil he also couldn’t exactly call himself pure. He lived apart from others enjoying the peace, but equally condemning the masses for the most part for their ways. He took what wasn’t his to take and yet he also gave nearly everything he stole to lessen the plight of those who suffered the most in this world, while at the same time bringing a form of justice to the wicked.
While he might not be a saint, neither was he totally evil. Surely those most in need of redemption from an angel would be far more evil than he. Many of his prey perhaps. Then again, why would anyone want to redeem them? Better surely to send them to hell and lock the door behind them. Those people were truly evil. They killed, cheated, stole, raped, and carried out every other obscene act possible simply for their own selfish purposes. To nearly all of them, there was nothing important outside of their own wants and needs. Once they might have been hungry or stupid youngsters. But they had grown up to become scum, pure and simple. He was not like them. He hated everything about them.
But the dark side of the coin was still dreadfully real. That he too, like those he stole from, was too far gone to be redeemed. He stole, lied and swindled. He hated those he stole from, and that hatred itself was a sin. So was pride and he was always a proud man. How bad did you have to be to go to hell? Perhaps angels carried the Lord’s punishment. He dreaded to think what that might be.
Then there was the more tantalizing possibility, his first thought, that she wanted to hire his services. She had as much as said so, even though she had said nothing. The angel had come to hire a thief. It made more sense and yet it also made none. Angels surely don’t steal.
Then there was Mikel himself. A sinner, perhaps beyond redemption, perhaps not. OK, so maybe even he didn’t know exactly what was his state of grace, but he knew he surely couldn’t be an angel’s first choice as an agent. Unless of course she wanted the most skilled thief in existence, which he was just about vain enough to believe he might be. Certainly no other contenders sprang to mind, but then if they did exist, he wouldn’t know of them as he reminded himself. Just as they wouldn’t know of him.
Yet the angel had made no attempt to make him return the stolen loot. In fact she hadn’t even commented on the fifty million in cut diamonds on the seat beside him. Or the bags of money, stocks and shares, bank accounts stored on the laptop, and piles of gold bars in the cabin of the plane. In fact she hadn’t even seemed to notice them. Maybe she just didn’t care about them.
It had been a busy week. Currently he had around five hundred million U.S. held in an ancient seaplane barely worth a hundred thousand. It was one of the more delightful ironies of his life. And the hard currency he carried with him was less than a tenth of what he’d actually stolen through the miracles of the electronic banking system. When the crime lords found their bank accounts cleaned out, he suspected they’d spit blood, their own for once, and that was a pleasing thought.
On the other hand the diamonds and the rest were in fact themselves probably stolen originally, though from where even he didn’t know. Would the angel have wanted him to return them to a mobster, drug dealer and murderer who himself wasn’t their true owner? He suspected not. The same applied to the gold and cash, all stolen or taken from the pain and suffering of others. Wasn’t it better that it went to those who needed it?
He tried to recall what he’d read of the bible as a youngster, what he’d read of angels, but it was precious little and far too long ago. He could have asked her, but that would mean once more exposing himself to her compelling charms. And he’d only barely managed to get her to stay in the rear of the plane’s tiny passenger cabin by explaining it was too dangerous. It was. A pilot staring all day and night at an angel might well fly into the ocean without ever knowing - or caring.
Angels from what little he remembered, were the messengers of God. They heralded important events, such as the birth of the lord. Somehow it seemed unlikely that this angel was here to tell him of the Second Coming, - he hoped. If she was he was surely the worst of all possible messengers to spread the word. Some of them, Seraphim?, he wasn’t even sure of the word, also spoke for the lord, while cherubs shot people with little love darts. Other angels played harps, sang a lot and generally flew around in heaven. For the first time ever he wished he’d paid more attention in Sunday school as a lad, though he had the strangest feeling that it wouldn’t have helped.
Then again he remembered they also sometimes acted. Hadn’t the walls of Jericho been blown down by an angel with a trumpet? Hadn’t they also carried the plagues that Moses had set upon his people’s slavers? So they carried God’s words, and sometimes his might. What did either of those have to do with him? Nothing. He told himself that repeatedly, and if he’d had the guts or the presence of mind, would have told her so too. Above all else, he was sure she shouldn’t be here with him.
Then again the thought of stealing anything at all aroused his attention. Especially if there was a challenge attached. The thought of stealing for an angel was positively riveting. He swung constantly between the extremes of disbelief and fear, through to curiosity and wonder. In hindsight it was perhaps lucky that the Catalina flying boat had an auto-pilot.
It was a long flight.
CHAPTER TWO.
“Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.”
~Edmund Spenser. 1553-1599
Canto iii. St. 4.
Mikel’s second day with the angel defied all description, all logical explanation. That was just the beginning.
It also came close to destroying every belief he had in the world, and had then gone on to threaten even his every belief he had in himself.
It began in the morning, after a night that hadn’t been even vaguely peaceful. He’d tossed, turned and moved back and forwards through a thousand dreams, none of which made any sense. And dreams always frightened him, at least while he was dreaming. For they were the one thing he never had any control over. When he dreamt, he never knew he dreamt. He couldn’t defeat the monsters that assailed him, he couldn’t fight the bogey men. All he ever knew was fear. The fear of being lost and alone.
But waking in this instance had been nearly as bad. And twice as good.
Sherial was there with him as he awoke. In his room, watching over him as he slept. He couldn’t help but smile as he first opened his eyes and saw her standing there before him, his ultimate dream come true. Her love was like a wonderful thick blanket, enveloping h
im, wrapping him, holding him tight, utterly safe. His soul started rejoicing before he even knew his own name. What was a name? What could it matter?
Then the walls of reality came thundering down on him.
She was in his room. How long had she been there? Why was she watching him? How on Earth had she entered a locked, security alarmed room? The questions assailed him instantly, his long training in paranoia finally starting to send the alarm bells ringing. Everything about her being there was not simply wrong, not merely impossible, it was dangerous. She was a threat like no other. Cold fingers ran down his spine.
Thus far he’d never needed nearly any of the advanced security systems he kept in his home. In fact in the twenty plus years he’d called this house home he’d only ever had one attempted burglary, a young local kid probably looking for some quick cash. The poor sprat hadn’t even made it past his outermost systems before the alarms and lights had sent him fleeing for the hills. But never the less he’d maintained his home as a high tech fortress from the very beginning. Fort Knox was not so well guarded.
Yet Sherial was in his bedroom, standing over him as he slept, watching him. How? And why? Was she studying him like a lab animal, or was it more like a mother watching a sick child? Was she his keeper or his guardian? None of the options were particularly palatable as possibilities went, but he could think of no others. And how on Earth could she have possibly entered? His thoughts kept circling back to that same impossibility.
A review of his high tech security surveillance equipment shed no light on how she had entered his room. Video surveillance had apparently been off at the time, which wasn’t possible - it was never off. Computer records of door openings showed no such events, yet the door must have opened, mustn’t it? Unless she glided through walls, something he wouldn’t put past her. Infra red and motion sensor systems had not only failed to act, but equally important failed to note their failures to act. Yet every system told him it was in perfect order when he interrogated it. Nothing had failed, and yet she was here.
Questioning proved utterly fruitless, as he should have expected, the more so because he actually understood her answer. Sherial had no knowledge of the systems in question. She’d simply entered the room and thought nothing more of it. And she was telling the truth. He knew it even if he couldn’t explain it. She always told the truth. If he knew nothing else about Sherial he knew that much.
Interrogation over before it even began they’d moved on to breakfast, and more chaos immediately followed.
For a start he discovered he’d suddenly become a vegetarian, his planned cooked breakfast a thing of the past before he’d even started preparing it. His fridge had been cleaned out and it wasn’t just the bacon that was missing. His freezers had also been emptied. His pantry had been rifled. And all the remaining food stores had one thing in common, they no longer contained any meat. Not even a scrap. Even the tinned goods had no canned meats left.
He must have looked like an idiot as he anxiously started shaking the unopened cans of meat and fish, stunned by their impossible lightness. Disbelieving the evidence of his own hands, he opened a few of the heat and eat products, just to confirm they too were indeed emptied. They were. Spaghetti and meatballs, was now just spaghetti minus the meatballs. He poured the mix into a bowl and forked through it like a madman just to be sure. Tins of shepherds pie had become tins of mashed potato.
On a sudden, crazy impulse he’d ripped opened a packet of dried pork chow-mien, only to find every single piece of pork was missing from it. There was rice, onion, noodles, untold dried vegetables and other bits and pieces, but no meat. Missing from inside a sealed packet. Surely that was impossible. Resigning himself to the absurd, he mentally decided to add it to the list.
To cap it off there wasn’t even a trace of how a ton or more of red meat had disappeared, or where it had gone. Again the security systems had apparently gone down without explanation. And her answers to his questions were more impossible still. Apparently, he was now feeding a pride of lions, which had fallen on hard times somewhere in Africa.
Again it was the truth, even if it made not a scrap of sense. As Sherial told him he suddenly saw them in his mind, the pride, feeding off the remains of his freezers, all still cold. A couple of males, five or six females and easily a dozen cubs, all ravenous. At least he had to admit they were cute. Knowing there was nothing else to do he resigned himself to his fate and wished them good eating.
No doubt from her perspective it was the proper thing to do. But from his it wasn’t good at all. It was a nightmare. This house, his own castle, could normally support him for at least a year long siege, he’d made sure of that. Yet suddenly there wasn’t a single scrap of meat in it. He’d be lucky to last more than a few months the way it was. Once more the angel had torn apart his safety net.
Hoping the shocks were over for at least a little while, he skipped breakfast grabbed an oat bar and escaped to his sanctuaries, the pool, gym and dojo. For it was here that he normally trained and meditated, allowing his body and mind to achieve their full potential. And this day of all days he knew he needed to be at his best.
But it wasn’t to be. He didn’t even make it to them before more inexplicable problems confronted him.
The front lawn had been invaded by a menagerie from the surrounding woods. Possums, dogs, cats, birds, sheep, goats, and every other animal for at least a mile in any direction had decided to turn his gardens into their new home. It wasn’t just the front lawn either. He discovered that fact as he circled the house, looking for some limit to the throng. They were massed in a great ring around the house like a concert crowd, all at peace despite the fact that at least a few of them should have been trying to eat the others. Since when have cats and pigeons been good mates?
Right in the middle of them, he spotted a creature he knew well. “Soxy!”
His own cat, a ginger striped tabby far too fat and as affectionate as any cat could be. He’d picked her up as a kitten on the streets of Las Vegas nearly ten years earlier, something in her eyes, her mewling drawing him like a magnet. Ever since then she’d lived with him, keeping him better company than any other living being, and keeping his secrets too.
He’d always worried that it was cruel to own a pet when he was away so often, usually for up to a week at a time, but Soxy didn’t seem to mind, as long as her physical needs were met. Besides the gardener and the cleaner would feed her and keep her company. And she was always delighted when he returned, knowing he’d spoil her rotten. Which he always did, out of guilt.
At the sound of her name her ears perked up and immediately she came to him, no doubt suddenly remembering it was dinner time. For Soxy it was always dinnertime, hence the reason she was rather larger around the middle than a cat should be. She might look at a sparrow, perhaps lick her lips, might even dream of them, but Mikel doubted she’d ever actually catch one.
“At least you still remember me, huh”. But even as he petted her he knew her thoughts were elsewhere. Sure she purred, but she also kept returning her attention to the house, ears aimed directly at the front door and he knew she was hunting, though not for food. Reluctantly he let her go and watched her take her place once more with the others, a stray dog on one side, a sheep on the other. All thoughts of food seemed to have been forgotten as Soxy, like the rest stared and waited.
Ornamental plants, grass, shrubs and any number of hedges were paying the cost of the animals’ visit, which had left a trail of devastation that circled the entire house. The bird bath, guttering and gazebo were covered with birds of every shape and size. Sparrows perched beside black birds and seagulls, seemingly all at peace. Ducks had invaded the small pond he’d built with his own two hands en mass. At a guess there were more ducks than there was water for them to swim in. Broken windows at the top of the outer buildings suggested others had made it inside, to wreak who knew what damage.
He groaned aloud at the sight. So much work destroyed in a single night. Cedric
, his gardener was going to give him no end of grief when he turned up on Thursday. He had painstakingly tended the garden for the last five years. And this was after only a single night and a morning. What would the gardens be like by the time he actually got here?
Of course he realized eventually, the animals hadn’t visited this day simply to annoy him. They should have surely fled at the sight of him. He stared at them, then waved his arms and screamed, while they in turn ignored him as just another stupid human. They had come to pay their respects to Sherial, and as long as she stayed, so would they.
“Ahh Sherial. There’s some people here to see you.”
As soon as she came out to see, he knew he was right. The change in the congregation was positively electric. Every single one of them whipped its head around to see her, ears pricked and nostrils flaring. He’d have bet dollars to dimes they even stopped blinking when she came near. Yet they didn’t move towards her. They waited patiently, something animals weren’t know for.
There was an air of expectation as she approached, and a sense of longing and adoration. Despite the shocks of the morning he found he could understand their reactions, much as he might not want to.