“Then it’s you I have to thank for this terrible ending.”
“It’s better than the one you offered me.”
Jimmy paused at the top of the steps, sucking in a few deep breaths as he stood there studying Stiles.
“I never thanked you for saving Rachel,” he finally said.
Stiles looked down at his book. “You don’t have to.”
“I do. You saved her when nothing else was working.”
“I did what I would have done for anyone else.”
“Maybe.” Jimmy crossed the porch and settled in a wicker chair Rebecca had salvaged from some ruins years ago. “But you did it, and I’m grateful.”
“Alright.”
Silence fell between them for a minute. Stiles put the book down and silently offered Jimmy a water bottle from the few he’d set on ice when he came outside. Jimmy shook his head.
“I wanted to talk to you about the memory you showed me.”
Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. “What about it?”
“In the memory, you say that my father, you call him Jophiel, you say that he took Joanna from you.”
Stiles sat up a little straighter in his own chair, nodding just slightly. “I fell to Earth to take Joanna back home. Jophiel convinced her that I was there to hurt their cause. He turned her against me and encouraged her to stab me with her sword and leave me for dead.”
“She did that?”
Stiles nodded, his hand automatically moving to the scar on his side that her sword had left behind.
“And that’s why you killed my mother?”
That was a difficult question. Stiles stared at the ground a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I was angry,” he finally said. “Hurt and angry and scared. My own people—my soul mate—had turned on me. There was a war going on and I didn’t know whom to trust. When I saw her, saw the way he looked at her, he made something inside of me splinter.”
“And then you killed him.”
“I did. I’m not proud of it.”
Jimmy sat back, twirling his walking stick between his hands. “I’ve thought about it a lot these past five years. Thought about my memories compared to yours. I remember the angels rushing out of the sky, and I remember the fear in my mother’s eyes. I remember seeing my sister die.” He shuddered a little. “I always honestly believed it was Luc who’d done it all.”
“Just your sister.”
He nodded. “Somehow, that seems to justify everything.” He tapped the walking stick on the ground. “I should be ashamed for hating him for something he didn’t do. But I’m not. My sister was an innocent. All those children were innocents and he targeted them on purpose.”
“He wanted you left with the memory of the angels’ cruelty.”
“Why?”
“Because, in his strange way, he was trying to protect you. He wanted you to lead the resistance; he wanted you kept occupied so that you wouldn’t realize what was really happening, who you really were.”
“What did they do to you?”
Stiles shook his head. “It’s not important.”
“You killed one of your own. Surely they didn’t allow you to just walk away from that.”
“I killed your parents. Aren’t you more interested in that? Aren’t you angry with me?”
“I was—at first. To be honest, I wanted to kill you. I thought about it a lot those first few days after you showed me that memory. But then Rachel got sick and I began to realize that there were more important things to worry about.”
“Your mother was an innocent.”
“She was. My mother was a good woman. And she loved us dearly. It would have destroyed her to live her life without Rachel in it.”
“And your father?”
“An archangel.” Jimmy shook his head. “It’s hard to reconcile that with the man I knew. But I never really knew him, did I? So, how can I grieve someone I never knew?”
“I always regretted that you had to see what happened. I tried to watch over you, to make sure that your life was better after that.”
Jimmy shrugged. “I had a good life. I’ll admit, Joanna messed with my mind and Davida was too good a woman for me. But I found a good partner in Martha. And I have four wonderful children. What more could a man ask for?”
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
“Then tell me. What did they do to you?”
Stiles thought about that day, thought about the regret that weighed heavy on him the moment he saw Jophiel’s wife fall under the ball of flame he threw. He thought about his anger, the way he let his emotions rule him that day. And the pain, the overwhelming pain.
“They took my wings.”
Color drained from Jimmy’s face, but he just nodded. “You paid, then.”
“I paid.”
Jimmy slowly pulled himself to his feet with the use of his walking stick. He paused once he was on his feet and studied Stiles. “You saved my sister. You probably saved my boy a few times, too. And his wife. And you sacrificed your wings. I think, then, that we’re even. Your debt to me is paid in full.”
Stiles had not expected that. He stood up and faced Jimmy.
“I wasn’t asking for your forgiveness. I simply wanted you to know the truth.”
“And now I do. I’m glad for it.”
That surprised Stiles. “Why?”
“Because it made me realize I’d spent far too much time being mad about something I couldn’t control. Because I’d spent a long time being mad at the wrong people. I shouldn’t have been angry with the attackers. I should have been angry with my father and Luc for putting us in that position in the first place, if I was to be angry with anyone. I’m angry that my mother was taken from me much too soon, but I know now that it was a waste of time to hate and to live with that anger.”
“But I did it. I killed them.”
“And you’ve carried the burden of your guilt long enough. Just as I have.” Jimmy touched Stiles’ arm lightly. “What’s done is done. There’s no point in living in the past.”
Those words were like a cooling balm on a sunburn. Stiles took Jimmy’s hand between his own and whispered, “Thank you.”
Jimmy inclined his head and walked away.
Chapter 30
Jimmy died a year later.
Dylan rushed to the hospital the moment she learned what had happened. Martha pulled her to the door of the room where he was resting. The doctors had told him the damage to his heart was too great, that another heart attack would likely happen within hours and it would end his life.
“He’s been asking for you.”
There was hope in Martha’s eyes, hope that Dylan would heal the man she loved. And that was exactly what Dylan intended to do.
But she knew the moment she laid her eyes on him that that was not what Jimmy wanted.
“Come talk to me a minute,” he said, his words muffled by the oxygen mask they’d attached to his face.
Dylan took a seat in a chair beside his bed and took his hand, her healing magic automatically seeking out his damaged heart. He pulled away.
“No,” he said. “I’m ready to go, Dylan.”
“Martha isn’t ready.”
“Martha would never be ready, unless she went first.”
Dylan had to agree with that. She saw it in Martha’s eyes every time she looked at Jimmy. She didn’t know how to define herself without him.
It was how Dylan had once felt about Wyatt.
“I’ve thought a lot about it,” Jimmy said, his faded eyes studying her closely. “About you, and about those times you came to visit me.”
“We’ve talked about this. I thought we decided it was an odd phenomenon of your angel powers.”
“I think it was more than that. I think I was supposed to be your soul mate.”
Dylan sat back and crossed her legs. “You shouldn’t let Wyatt hear you talk like that.”
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“That was the same day I met Joanna for the first time.”
“I know.”
“You were there for another reason that day, weren’t you?”
Dylan tilted her head slightly. “I don’t know. It was the first time it had happened like that. I don’t know what drew me there.”
“But you talked to someone else before me. I remember seeing someone else, a man, but I can’t remember him clearly.”
“Stiles. He was there to kill Joanna’s human form so she would have to go back to heaven.”
“And you stopped him so that Wyatt would be born.”
There was a spark of clarity in Jimmy’s eyes, as though the last piece of a puzzle had finally fallen into place. He lifted the oxygen mask off his face and smiled, a sense of youth coming over his mature features.
“I thought it was something like that. And I think you met me by accident. But then I kept calling you back because there was something about you, something that spoke to something in me. I think that if Wyatt hadn’t been born, you and I would have found each other anyway, and I would have helped you end the war the same way Wyatt did.”
“Why? Why you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something in our blood. But I think that everything that has happened, it’s happened for a reason.”
“Yeah?”
“I think God has a plan for you—and all the rest of us, we’re just pawns he’s positioning around the board to make sure you do what you need to do.”
“And what makes you think I’m that important?”
“You stopped the war, didn’t you? Without you, we would all be slaves working for Lily at Genero or for Luc at Viti.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
Jimmy leaned close to the side rail of his bed, and that smile came back again. “Because I’m dying and it seemed like it was something you should know.” He chuckled as he fell back against the pillows and pulled the oxygen mask down over his face again. “I’ll tell you something else,” he said, his voice again muffled. “As a man who’s watched the love of his life live her life with another man for forty years, I can tell you that Stiles is suffering. And that angel has a lot to suffer for, he doesn’t need any more. So, when I’m gone, when Wyatt’s gone, don’t make him wait too much more.”
Dylan felt as though he’d just doused her with ice water. She stared at him, unable to make her voice work. Jimmy just winked, and then he closed his eyes. A second later, the monitors attached to his body began to scream.
Harry rushed into the room with a team of nurses. Dylan stepped out of the way, shivering as she watched them try to bring him back. But it was too late; she could see his spirit floating up above his body. When he came toward her, she whispered, “How did you know?”
He didn’t answer, of course. But he hovered there a moment longer before he dissipated into whatever came next.
Chapter 31
Another funeral.
Stiles stood some distance away, under a tree, and watched. Wyatt leaned heavily on Dylan; his grief was palpable without any special gifts. His brothers stood beside him with Martha tucked protectively between them. She was inconsolable. She blamed Dylan for not saving him. Wyatt blamed her, too, but not for the same reasons.
Josephine was standing on the other side of Dylan with her husband beside her. Stiles no longer thought of that man as Dillon, as his friend, as the man he’d let down all those years ago. This was a new man, a man who’d adjusted quickly to his new reality. He’d never asked to go see Anna and had never wanted to know how Sara had died. Stiles still had that love letter Dillon once wrote to Sara, the one she was holding the day she killed herself. It was her secret; one Stiles no longer felt the need to share. He’d put the letter away and had chosen not to look at it anymore.
The past was the past. And Jimmy was right: there was no reason to live in the past anymore.
Things were changing. There no longer were hybrids, Nephilim, or whatever people chose to call themselves. The world was once again populated by humans—kinder, more considerate humans, but humans nonetheless. He and Dylan were learning how to exist among them again, how to be a part of their world, but not to interfere in it. It was the hardest thing to do, to let someone die because they knew it was their time and they wanted to move on. But they were learning.
The balance was returning. This was becoming the world it once was.
Dylan had to know what that meant. But she was resisting the change.
Stiles turned away and moved into his ethereal form. He liked to travel the world, to see how life was progressing in other places. He often was pleased with what he saw. Sometimes, he saw trouble. Those times, he would slip up to the people in question and end the conflict amicably.
He couldn’t imagine it would be that hard, to be a guardian of this place. He hoped that Dylan took to it quickly. He thought he would likely be going home as soon as she settled into her new role. This, he was sure, was why he had stuck around so long. It was time to show Dylan that she had to give up her family in order to become the new Lucifer.
Ironic, wasn’t it?
Epilogue
A woman named Andrea lived in a tunnel just outside the ruin once called London. She hid there during the day and searched for food at night; trying to avoid the men she’d once called family. They had been kind, once; gentle men who would have cut off their right hand before they did anything to hurt her. But that was before everything changed.
That was before the demons came.
She was careful whenever she left the tunnels. She listened for footsteps and watched for the torchlights they sometimes used to hunt. But they rarely went out at night anymore. She thought that maybe the demons had become tired of the darkness.
She was a good shot with the bow and arrow. Not so great with a gun. But guns made too much noise, anyway.
She walked the streets, searching for wild animals that were attracted to the water bowls she filled religiously every night. Sometimes she got lucky and was able to kill a rabbit or a small dog. She tried to get a buck once, but he kicked his way out of the store even after she buried an arrow in his neck. But she was okay with rabbit. It cooked up okay if she did it right.
She spotted a coyote and was preparing to take aim when she was suddenly surrounded by inky darkness. She screamed, but the sound was muffled. She struggled, but it did no good. And then there came a woman’s voice, dripping with crazed anger…
“Come and get me, Dylan.”
Dylan sat up in bed, a scream trapped in her throat.
“Babe?” Wyatt sat up behind her and snapped on the lamp on his bedside table. “You okay?”
She was shaking. She couldn’t get the sound of that voice out of her head, even as Wyatt wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back down to the mattress with him.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “It was just a nightmare.”
But was it?
That voice…it was so clear.
Joanna.
~ END of Book 1 ~
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BROKEN ANGELS (Angels and Demons Book 1) Page 15