He leaned down to either grab her or slap her, she wasn’t sure which, but he missed and ended up on the floor beside her.
“Go home, Buddy,” Dani said. “You can’t be here; the Judge said so.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t here now, is he?” Buddy asked, grabbing at her hair.
Gabriel pulled Dani from Buddy’s grasp, “I’m here.”
“And just who in the hell are you?” Buddy slurred.
“I’m Gabriel.”
“You done replace me Dani? Is that what’s going on here?” Buddy asked, getting to his feet.
“It’s not what you think, Buddy,” Dani said.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to this…man, if that’s what you want to call him. You owe him nothing,” Gabriel said.
Then Dani felt the strangest thing.. A feeling that she’d had so rarely outside of her mother, that she almost couldn’t identify it. Then she realized that what she felt was safe. She knew down to her core that Buddy would do her no more harm tonight.
“Do you know who I am?” Buddy asked Gabriel.
“Yes, I know who you are,” Gabriel said, peering at Buddy. “You’re Ennis Barnard Thompson, AKA, Buddy.”
“So Dani’s told you about me?” Buddy said, puffing his chest out.
Buddy was a big son of a buck. He was nearly as tall as Gabriel. He didn’t have Gabriel’s muscle mass, but he was as mean as a snake.
“Gabriel, maybe we should just call the police and let them take care of…” she tried to say, but Gabriel stopped her with one kiss to her forehead.
That one small brush of his lips made her tingle to her toes.
“Hush now,” he said softly, and turned back to Buddy. “No, she hasn’t spoken of you yet, but I’m sure it’s a conversation we’re soon to have,” Gabriel said.
“You did not just kiss my girl!” Buddy yelled.
“Yes, I did’; and she is no longer your girl. She’s my responsibility now, therefore in a manner of speaking, she’s my girl,” Gabriel said.
Dani looked up at Gabriel’s face and could see that he was angry, but she could also see that he was enjoying himself. He had no fear of Buddy, and why should he? He was an angel, after all. Then Buddy pulled back his fist to punch Gabriel.
“Stop,” Gabriel said calmly, and Buddy’s fist froze in mid-air.
“What the hell?” Buddy said.
Buddy pulled at his arm, but couldn’t move it from the air.
Gabriel turned back to her, “I apologize. I never would have let you open the door if I had known this man was a danger to you. You should’ve told me about him.”
“It just didn’t come up; you know, with the Cambion attacks and all,” Dani said.
“Granted,” Gabriel said and turned back to Buddy. “Now to deal with you. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not your average man. In fact, I’m not a man at all. I’m an angel; the Archangel Gabriel to be exact. Perhaps you’ve heard of me,” Gabriel said, leaning over to stare into Buddy’s eyes.
A look of wonder and awe settled on Buddy’s face, and he dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
“See, was that so hard?” Gabriel said to Dani. “I tell him I’m an angel, and he bows down to me. Bows as any human should when in the presence of an angel, but not you, though,” Gabriel said in frustration.
“That’s not fair! I didn’t even see you in the cemetery…and you never did that eye thingy to me!” Dani said.
“I shouldn’t have to. I only did it to him to remove the alcohol from his system,” Gabriel said. “He should be completely present in the hour of his death.”
“You don’t have to kill him,” Dani said, only half-heartedly pleading for Buddy’s life. “He’s not a bad guy; he’s just a bad drunk.”
She would never admit it out loud, but she’d had moments in her past with Buddy where she had fully planned out his murder. She’d even found a place to dump his body where it would never be found.
“No Dani, he’s not just a bad drunk. You’re put upon this Earth with free will. You get to make your own decisions in how you live your life. This man has made all the wrong choices,” Gabriel said.
“If you weren’t here, he wouldn’t die today,” Dani countered.
“But I am here,” Gabriel said.
“I don’t want to die,” Buddy said loudly. “I can change!”
“No, Ennis, you can’t,” Gabriel said with finality. “Your character is flawed; you’ve damaged your soul with the lifestyle that you’ve chosen. I’m sorry, but that can’t be changed.”
Buddy dropped his head and sobbed.
“You can’t kill him,” Dani said. “That would be murder and murder is the biggest sin of them all.”
“If you killed him, it would be murder. The human rules don’t apply to me, though. Not only can I smite whomever I think deserves it, it’s my job to do so,” Gabriel said. “Don’t you understand that this man wouldn’t have stopped until you were dead? How many times does he have to hit you before anything is done?”
“I did do something!” she said. “I had him arrested and got an Order of Protection against him.”
“And how did that work out for you today? Here he is on the day after you buried your mother,” Gabriel said. “He cares nothing about what your courts say. After all he’s done to you, here he is again.”
“How do you know what he’s done to me? I haven’t told you anything about my relationship with him,” Dani said.
“I can see his life in his soul, Dani,” Gabriel said.
There was nothing she could say to top that. Dani was out of arguments for Buddy’s defense and instead of debating it further she dropped to her knees in front of Buddy and took his head in her hands.
Buddy pleaded, “Don’t let him do it Dani! Please don’t let him kill me!”
“He’s an Archangel, Buddy. I don’t have any control over him or what he does.” Dani said. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry this is happening to you, and…I forgive you, Buddy.”
“Well, damn it!” Gabriel shouted.
His shout startled Dani, and she looked up at him, “What?”
“You just saved him,” Gabriel said.
“From death?”
“No,” Gabriel said in frustration. “From eternal damnation. You carry the Blood of God. What you forgive on Earth, God will forgive in Heaven. You’re sending Buddy on a one way trip to paradise.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Dani asked, confused.
She wasn’t used to carrying the Blood of God. She didn’t know what she was doing or the consequences of her actions. But Dani refused to believe that forgiving Buddy could be a bad thing. Her mother had taught her that the best way to move on with her life was to forgive the people that had wronged her. To forgive them, not for them, but for herself.
“It’s not a bad thing, it’s just undeserved,” Gabriel said. “He should stand in the Judgment of God; he should be punished for the pain he has so selfishly caused you.”
She looked back at Buddy, and a memory struck her. The memory was of the Buddy that he was before the booze had taken him. She remembered when they were kids, maybe nine or ten years old. She had fallen off her bike and hurt her knee. Buddy, not much bigger than she was at the time, had carried her on his back for four blocks to get her home to her mom.
“No, there’s good in him; I’ve seen it,” Dani said.
“There’s not much of anything good left in him,” Gabriel said, pulling her to her feet and away from Buddy.
“I forgive him,” she said firmly.
“It’s your decision,” Gabriel said and laid his hand on Buddy’s head.
Dani expected a flash of light, or maybe a loud noise, but neither happened. Instead, Buddy was just gone, like he’d never been there at all.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“To Heaven,” Gabriel said. “Where you sent him.”
His tone was just a bit too pissy for her taste, “What’s
your problem?”
“You, Dani; you’re my problem! How could you forgive him! You have to know how this would have ended if I wasn’t here. He would have had you buried beside your mother if he’d had his way! He believed that you belonged to him; that you were an object to do with as he pleased! And what’s worse is you loved him!” Gabriel bellowed and stormed out of the house.
Chapter Five
1.
Gabriel leaned against the retaining wall in front of Dani’s house and tried to catch his breath. He had rarely been this angry in all of his existence! That a human had brought this anger on, made it much worse to bear. He would try his best to protect Dani, but he would never understand her. He could read a person’s worth in their soul, but her soul was closed to him because of the blood she carried.
He would never understand how she could forgive someone who had treated her as Buddy had. Could she not understand how important she was; the cost that all humanity would have to bear if she died? Lucifer wanted to kill her himself, but dead was dead, and humanity would pay the price for her foolishness.
A small voice inside him asked if her carelessness was the only reason he was so mad. Of course it was! What other reason could there be? He heard her voice before he could pursue those thoughts any further.
“Gabriel, are you still here?” she asked.
He considered ignoring her, but he could hear the fear in her voice.
“I’m here,” he said. “Just…give me a minute.”
“Okay,” she said softly and quietly closed the door.
He took a couple of deep breathes and made his way back up the steps to the house. One thing he could clearly understand now was how Dani had known how to defend herself from the Cambion. She’s been fist fighting with a man for years; but never again, he would see to that!
2.
She wasn’t in the front room when he entered the house.
“Dani?” he called out.
“Up here,” she answered, “I’m just getting dressed; I’ll be right down.”
While she was getting dressed, he went into the kitchen to see what he could scare up for breakfast. The sun was up, and he was cooking bacon and eggs when she came into the room.
“How did you know I was hungry?” she asked, snagging a piece of bacon from a plate.
“I didn’t, but I knew I was hungry, so I figured I’d feed both of us.”
“That’s gracious of you considering that it’s my food you’re cooking,” she said, popping the rest of the piece of bacon in her mouth. “I didn’t know that angels needed to eat.”
She licked the grease from her fingers and a shiver shot down Gabriel’s spine. He turned back to the frying pan before answering her.
“In Heaven I don’t eat; there’s no need. But my earthly body has to be sustained with food, just as yours does,” he said.
“But you’re not human?”
“No, but this body is basically human, and it needs fuel to maintain its strength,” he said.
“Can a human kill you?” she asked, shoveling scrambled eggs onto her plate.
“No, and is it possible that you could leave some food for me?”
“Sorry, I haven’t eaten in three days. I’m starving,” she said.
“I haven’t eaten in over a hundred years. I win,” Gabriel said, taking a seat at the table. “Now give me some of that bacon.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, but slid the plate of bacon across the table to him.
“How exactly are you different from humans? Other than being an angel, of course,” she asked.
“I’m faster and stronger.”
“And you can fly,” she said.
“Yes, and when necessary, I can fly.”
Dani looked at him in wonder, “You say that like it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not a big deal, not to me anyway,” he said. “I’ve never not been able to fly. Besides, humans fly too.”
“Yeah, in planes. What you do is a little different,” she said. “How did you get to Earth anyway?”
“I fell.”
“Like the Devil?” she asked.
“No, not at all like Lucifer,” Gabriel said. “I fell voluntarily. I know humans call Lucifer a Fallen angel, but that’s really a misnomer. Lucifer didn’t fall from Heaven; he was flung from Heaven by the Hand of God.”
“What’s the difference?” she asked.
“Well, when I fell there was a flash of lightning, and when I struck the Earth it left a dip in the ground about a foot deep.”
“I remember that!” Dani said. “I saw the lightning and felt the ground roll, but I thought it was a loud crack of thunder. I thought it was a storm coming.”
“In a way, it was,” he said, finishing the last of the food on his plate.
“So what happened when Lucifer fell…excuse me, I mean when he was flung from Heaven?”
“When you’re flung here from Heaven the sky splits open and storms, the likes that humans have never seen, ravages the world,” Gabriel said. “When that angel hits the ground it leaves a permanent scar on the Earth.”
Dani asked, “Does it leave a bigger hole?”
Gabriel shook his head. “More like a crater.”
“A crater?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, in Lucifer’s case, I believe you call his impact site the Vredefort Crater.”
“The Vredefort Crater in South Africa?”
“Yes,” he said.
“But that crater was made over four million years ago,” she said.
“That sounds about right.”
“You’re four million years old?” she asked in shock.
“No, I’m much older than that,” Gabriel said. “Four million years is just how long it’s been since Lucifer was casted out of Heaven.”
“Wow!” she said. “How do you even process being that old?”
“I don’t feel that old. Four million years to a human is different than four million years to an angel. We don’t count years as you do. Time is different in Heaven.”
He watched her as she contemplated this new information; her brows pulled together as she chewed gently on her bottom lip. For some inexplicable reason, he felt his anger at her melt away.
“How old do you feel then?” she asked.
“I don’t really feel any particular age; and before you even ask, no, I can’t explain it any better than that,” he said.
“Wait,” Dani said. “Lucifer was flung from Heaven four million years ago?”
He nodded, “Yes.”
“But I always heard that he was cast out over his jealousy of humans, and we’ve only existed about 200,000 years,” she said.
“There was a small war in Heaven about angel’s jealousy over humans, and Lucifer was a big part of it, but he had already been casted out of Heaven at the time. The angels that started that war in Heaven came to Earth to meet with Lucifer. From here he managed to orchestrate the last war in Heaven,” he said.
“So angels hate humans?” she asked.
“Some of them do. They feel like God turned His love away from them and gave it to his humans. Most of them, the ones that participated in the last war, were casted out of Heaven and joined Lucifer in Hell,” Gabriel said.
“Is there anything I can’t ask you about?” she asked.
“You may ask me whatever you wish, but I can’t guarantee I’ll answer you; or that there will even be a way to answer you. There are a lot of things, and I’m not saying this to be hateful, that are way beyond what a human is capable of understanding,” Gabriel said.
He watched her mull that over; lip back between her teeth, and steeled himself to say something that, by all rights, he should have already said to her.
“Dani?” he asked to get her attention.
When she looked up at him, he found himself staring, longer than necessary, into her deep green eyes. He felt almost captured by them.
“What?” Dani asked, pulling him back to himself.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I killed the love of your life. I know it had to be hard for you to witness,” he said.
“One; you’re not sorry at all about what you did, but, thank you. Two; Buddy wasn’t the love of my life,” Dani said. “Sure, I loved him; I’ve known him most of my life, but I’ve never been in love with anyone.”
His heartbeat doubled in speed at this new information, but he didn’t allow himself to question why.
“And three; you’re going to tell his mother what you did so she doesn’t spend the rest of her life searching for her missing son,” Dani said.
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Oh, yes you are,” Dani said. “If you don’t, I will.”
“No you won’t,” Gabriel said. “It’s not your place to do so.”
“You’re absolutely right; it’s your place,” she said, pushing back from the table. “But as I said, if you won’t, I will.”
“What?” he asked. “Now?”
“There’s no time like the present,” Dani said, and snagged a set of keys from a hook on the kitchen wall beside the back door.
“You can’t drive anywhere!” he shouted, shocked that she would even think of doing such a thing.
“Sure I can, I have a license and everything,” she said, and turned the doorknob that would lead her to the driveway out back.
3.
She screamed when she opened the door and found Gabriel standing on the other side.
“I said you can’t drive,” he said and snatched the keys from her hand.
“How in the fuck did you do that?!”
“Do what?” he asked.
“Go from being in here to out there, like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said and shrugged. “It’s just something I can do.”
“Well don’t! You nearly scared the life out of me,” she said. “Is that how you got in my house last night?”
Gabriel nodded, “Yes.”
“Well, it’s a cool trick,” she said. “Now, don’t do it again.”
“I can’t help it,” he said. “It’s how I generally travel around while on Earth.”
When Angels Fall Page 4