The Devil has a British Accent: Book One: Jackson (White Carpet #1)

by Z. N. Willett

  That was ludicrous, and when I saw Jackson, we argued about how that was insane. He told me the studio actually took care of the bill.

  Since it happened after their party, they didn’t want any negative fallout. They were also able to keep it out of the press.

  It felt as though Jackson wasn’t telling me the whole truth, and he was getting angrier by the minute as I pressed about the studio’s motives. It became clear that was one argument I wasn’t going to win.

  Saying Jackson was not thrilled about me recuperating at Cary’s was a given. In fact, he was quite furious. I tried to persuade him it was the best thing for me—even though I didn’t believe it myself.

  Jackson had to head back to L.A. to finalize things before his next assignment. He was leaving for Spain in less than a week, which forced us to say our goodbyes at the hospital. It certainly wasn’t how I imagined us parting.

  After with a long hug and an even longer kiss, we said our final farewell. I wasn’t sure if it was the drugs or that too much had happened, but when he kissed me, I felt nothing.

  The day I dreaded for months, had finally come, and I felt nothing. I should’ve been thankful. My body had shielded me from the pain I knew would have to come.

  Jackson held my hand and tried one last heartfelt attempt to get me to come to Spain. I told him I would think about it and give him an answer soon. As much as I wanted to go, I knew the studio’s excessive demands on his time would make free time very limited. I had my suspicions David Black had a lot to do with that.

  Before leaving, Jackson placed a gift in my lap: a new cell phone. He had the same type so we could video chat.

  I thought he did that so he could keep an eye on me . . . or keep tabs on Cary.

  Either way, I knew I wouldn’t escape keeping in touch.

  The sight of Cary wasn’t making me feel sick as much, and the writhing pain seemed to be subsiding with each passing day. Yet, my heart still ached.

  Cary had overcompensated to appease me. He hired a nurse, had Chef Marcel personally prepare all my meals, and had his housekeeper, Sabrina, at my beck and call.

  Mamaw helped get me settled into the guestroom, which Cary said I should call my own. He also arranged for Mamaw to have a car and driver at her disposal, because he didn’t want her driving from the city at night.

  Mamaw loved Cary as if he were her own grandchild. If it were anyone else, she would’ve never agreed to my current sleeping arrangements, but Cary could do no wrong in her eyes. If Cary told Mamaw the truth about himself, I knew she would have easily accepted him. She would have handled it a lot better than I did.

  Much of the time, I couldn’t control how angry I was. Perhaps that was how my heart dealt with everything. When Dad died, I cried every day for months. When we had to institutionalize Mom, I felt empty. Everyone told me I was holding the pain inside, and I’d deal with it in my own time. That was over five years ago, and I hadn’t shed one tear until I returned to Venice.

  Every day, Cary and I had a routine. He would demand I talked to him, and I would refuse by locking myself in the guestroom. I came out only to eat, and usually, when he wasn’t around.

  However, one day I didn’t hear him in the kitchen when I entered.

  “Lauren, are you speaking today?” Cary asked, hopeful.

  “I speak every day.”

  “Are you speaking to me, today?”

  “How was your day, Cary?”

  His eyes lit up with hope. “Um, busy. I decided to work from here and complete some song arrangements.”

  I stared at him, amazed by the normalcy of our conversation, but there was nothing normal about any of it. Just being in his presence hurt, and I was tired of seeing the pain on his face daily. He deserved it, but I wasn’t sure if I could stand one more day in the same house with him.

  “Well, don’t let me interrupt you from your work.” I turned to head back to my room, when he grabbed my upper arm, pulled me to the couch, and forced me to sit.

  His look of determination showed he wanted to hash it out. I knew the time had to come—eventually.

  “I’m not ready to do this today, Cary.”

  “You had enough time! We are going to talk about this, Lauren. Now!”

  “What do you want me to say? That I was hoping it was all a dream. That I have been trying to wrap my brain around . . . whatever this is, and all I could come up with was that I was hallucinating from all the medication. But, you keep reminding me it’s all real, Cary. Irrefutably real!”

  “I know it’s difficult to process, but it’s all real Lauren. It’s who I am.”

  “That’s just it, Cary. I don’t know who you are. Everything I knew was a lie.”

  “No—”

  “You lied to me, to Blake—”

  “I never lied about who I am. I’m still the same person.”

  “You’re not a person! You’re . . . I don’t know. Some supernatural being.”

  “That doesn’t change who I am.”

  Was he serious?

  A slew of emotions erupted inside me: shock, anger, hopelessness. The most prominent was disappointment.

  Disappointment with him—for not telling me the truth years ago. Disappointment in me—for holding a small piece of faith that one day Cary and I would be together. Now knowing that would never happen, it crushed my spirit.

  “I trusted you with my very being. How could you do this to me, Cary?”

  “I had no choice—”

  There was no way to hold back the sob that burst out.

  “No! You’re an angel, Cary. Aren’t you supposed to be good? Protect people from hurt and pain. You ripped out my heart.”

  “Love, please.”

  “Don’t! You lied to me, to Blake, to Mamaw. How could you? You were family. We trusted you.”

  “I couldn’t tell you or I would have—”

  “You should have trusted us. Trusted me. You’re Blake’s best friend. What kind of friend are you? Do you know how to be a friend? Wait . . . you saw all the pain he was going through, and you could have helped him. You watched him get worse. Why?”

  My body started to shake, and my hands were tingling and clammy from my erupting anger. I wanted to inflict pain on him; the same pain I was feeling.

  “I did help Blake, Lauren. I tried to help, but he has his own will.”

  “I’m tired of looking at you.” I got up and walked out onto the terrace.

  He followed behind me.

  I felt his hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me.” I shook him off.

  “Lauren, I cannot put into words how sorry I am. I would never purposely hurt you.”

  Tears started pouring down my face as I tried to speak through my sobs.

  “But you did hurt me, Cary. This is why I didn’t want to talk. I told you I needed time. I’m so tired of crying over you!”

  He hesitated. “The sooner we have a proper talk, Lauren, the sooner you’ll feel better.”

  “Oh, I will magically not feel disappointed? All the gut-wrenching pain will simply fly away if I talk to you?”

  “I was hoping—”

  “That I could handle the facts you’re an angel and have lied to me this whole time. Cary, you have turned my world upside down.”

  “You wanted to know.” He sighed.

  I glared into his eyes, until he looked away.

  “Yes, I did want to know. I deserved the truth.”

  “You did, but I couldn’t tell you, even though I wanted to countless times. I never intended to hurt you.”

  The only things I could see through my curtain of tears were Cary’s eyes as they searched back into mine, as if he were trying to look into my soul.

  He was not going to like what he saw.

  “Who are you? Did I ever know you?” I asked.

  “I can change what I look like, but I can’t change who I am, Lauren. I’m the same Cary you know. The same Cary who has cared about you, and who will always love you.�
��

  My mind and heart couldn’t take anymore. I was confused, drained, and so very tired of trying to get hold of what was real.

  I walked past him. “I need a break.” I headed out the door.

  Going nowhere but in circles, I crossed Bourbon Street to the quaint section of antique stores lined with flowers. I breathed in fragrant air, trying to clear the stupor that was my mind.

  The sun started to set as the wind picked up, and I knew that was my clue to head back. When I returned, Cary was in the same place.

  “Did you move or is that just something angels do for us humans?” I asked, a bit sarcastic.

  He turned and looked at me with such despair; I couldn’t help feel sorry for him.

  “You can’t do that, Cary.”

  “Do what, love?”

  “You can’t use whatever you . . . use to trick me into not being angry at you.”

  “Lauren, I wouldn’t do anything to influence your decision,” he said in angst. “I want you to see me for who I am, who I was before.”

  Part of the wall I had put up cracked—just a little.

  “I really do need more time to process what you . . . are, but I will talk to you again tomorrow, okay?”

  I went to bed early that evening, but it was exactly like the other nights that passed by with no sleep. It was difficult to rest with an angel in the house—which should have had the opposite effect. It also didn’t help that my heart was nudging me to hear out Cary.

  Subconsciously, I knew I wanted to forgive him and pretend I didn’t know anything, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  It was something I couldn’t erase.

  The next morning, I walked onto the terrace and found Cary staring into the distance. I surprised him and myself when I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, examining everything physical about him.

  “You don’t look like an angel?” I continued to stare.

  “How are angels supposed to look, Lauren?”

  “Well . . . not like you, exactly. I know angels come in different forms, and they are beautiful creatures.”

  Cary surely was that.

  “You’ve been doing research?” He sounded surprised.

  When one couldn’t sleep for weeks, one tended to do a lot of productive things at night.

  “Where are your wings?” I had to know.

  “Wings?” He laughed lightly.

  “Wings, Cary. Angels fly around with wings.”

  “Ah, I don’t need wings because I live here. There are different types of angels, Lauren. Think of me as a wingless being.”

  “What type are you?”

  He perked up. “Okay . . . this is good. Asking questions is a start.”

  I glared. “Since I truly don’t know who you are. Let’s get on with the introductions.”

  His face dropped. “You’re not ready to—”

  “Oh, no! You wanted to talk. Tell me, what are you exactly?”

  It took him a moment before he explained. “Angels are unique, though similar to humans. We have analogous structures to that found in your society. Workers, supervisors, managers, etc. We all have a purpose. I’m a Dominatio, a leader over many of my kind.”

  “Why do you look human?” I reached out to touch his face.

  “To the natural eye, this is how I project. Of course, for someone with supernatural eyes, I would look different,” he added, leaning closer.

  “Like those ghostly forms I saw the night of my accident? They were transparent and glowing, and their faces were strange.”

  “You saw protectors, another type of angel.”

  “I saw a slew of different ones, actually.” Flashes of their hair, horns, skin, ran across my mind. “Why was I able to see them?”

  “I’m not sure. I thought it was because you were in transition, close to death, leaving this world and coming into mine. Humans can see angels during critical events in their life.”

  “You said they’re protectors? Were they protecting me, and why?”

  He was quiet for a minute, averting my gaze.

  “Tell me, Cary.”

  “You remember the scripture in the book of Ephesians, ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places?’”

  “Yes?” I acknowledged.

  “These demonic spirits cause mortals harm. The protectors do their job and protect when these spirits are around.”

  Okay, I said I wanted to know, but I started having second thoughts. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t taken certain scriptures literally, but to be honest, I always read scripture as being something in the past. A historical view of a different time. I was raised in the church, and I was taught to follow the principals of scripture.

  Mamaw believed in angels—like many elderly people—but I didn’t think she’d ever seen one.

  Until Cary, I thought.

  But, to, in fact, see biblical references happening, I couldn’t grasp that.

  “You’re saying these protectors came because some evil spirit wanted to harm me? Is that what I felt in the car?”

  “Yes, Lauren.”

  “Why did it want to hurt me?” I asked.

  “It’s what they do. Cause harm. There could be countless reasons. Most of them don’t want you to achieve your purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  “Your calling, Lauren. You have a specific purpose that was planned for you before you were born.”

  Hearing that and believing it were two different things. It made no sense to have some spirit thing attack me because of my “specific purpose”—whatever that was. Hell, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted from day to day.

  Cary didn’t say, but I thought that thing had something to do with him. There couldn’t be that many angels, who were best friends with humans.

  “Why did you come that night, Cary?”

  It was obvious from his expression he didn’t want to answer that question.

  “I was told you were hurt, Lauren.”

  “Someone told you?” I asked, surprised.

  “A guardian angel told me you were hurt.”

  I remembered my discussion with Cary over what I saw the night of the shooting. “That night, when I told you something pushed me out of the way, you knew?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “You were going to let me think I was imagining things?” I said in a raised voice.

  “I told you people believed in guardian angels, Lauren. I did everything I could to hint around it.”

  “Everything but to tell me the truth!” I yelled.

  “I couldn’t. Please understand that I wanted to.”

  “I have a guardian angel?” I asked, much quieter.

  “Every human does.”

  I needed clarification. “This angel follows me?”

  “Think more of a bodyguard. When you need them, they are there.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “A lot. We’re everywhere . . . on Earth, Heaven, Hell.”

  “Hell?”

  “Demons, Lauren. Fallen angels cast down to Earth. Hell was prepared for them.”

  “That’s why angels like you are on Earth?”

  “One reason.”

  “Huh . . . you didn’t come to cause havoc for me and my family. You’re here for another reason?”

  He squinted. I hit a nerve.

  “The war in heaven started it all. It’ll continue until the set time,” he explained.

  “This is all about a war? And you know when this war will end?”

  “No one knows except God.”

  Suddenly, I felt nauseous. The lack of sleep caught up to me, and I needed to sit down. “I need some water.”

  Cary came back with a large glass of water and a tray of cheese, crackers, and fruit.

  “You need to eat, love.” He set down the food in front of me.

  “Cary, how
long have you been in this war?”

  “We don’t have years or ages.”

  “You don’t age?”

  “Age, as you understand it, doesn’t exist for us,” Cary elaborated.

  He didn’t take his eyes off me, while I ate a few pieces of cheese.

  “Do you eat?” I wondered.

  “You’ve seen me eat. I can do whatever mortals do.”

  I took a few more bites. “What about Victor? Did he lie to us, too? What about everyone you—”

  “Lauren, because I’m an angel that doesn’t mean everyone around me is one, as well. For the record, I can only disclose who I am, and only with permission. I cannot reveal anyone else.”

  “You had to get permission to tell me?”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you get permission before? Like, years ago.”

  “I tried,” he said with a sigh. “Trust me, I tried.”

  I didn’t know what to make of it. He said he couldn’t, and I assumed he didn’t want to tell. The sadness in his eyes became clearer.

  “Victor. He’s not your father?”

  “Adoptive father.”

  “No one ever said anything . . .” I trailed off, unsure what more to ask.

  “My mom didn’t want anyone to know. She said I looked like Victor, and no matter what, I was their son.”

  “But I saw you as a child?”

  “We can be any age, Lauren, even an infant.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t wrap my head around that at all. “Does Victor know you’re an angel?”

  “You’re the only mortal I’ve ever told I was an angel.”

  My breath skipped. He’d been an angel for who knew how long, and I was the first person he told?

  “How did you get to me so fast the night of my accident? You weren’t in Manchester?”

  “I was in England.”

  “You said you didn’t have wings, Cary.”

  “I said I didn’t need them here,” he clarified.

  “Oh . . . you do have wings?”

  “This body does not have wings, no.”

  “Then how did you get there so fast?”

  “I’m an immortal being.”

  “You can travel at the speed of light?”

  “Something like that. Lauren, this is what you’re curious about?”