“Stop it. Do you want the household to hear us?”
“I want you to show me how much you have missed me.”
She kissed him and ran her hand down his smooth naked chest to just below his belly button.
A playful frown touched Joseph’s lips when he looked into her brown eyes and asked, “That’s the extent of which you have missed me?”
She feigned a pout.
He produced a villainous smile, and his radiant blue eyes lit up Mercy’s world.
Joseph lifted his head from the pillow, wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, and kissed her hard on the lips. “Show me,” he breathed.
She slid her hand between his legs.
He embraced her and pulled her on top of him.
She spread her legs and guided him to the warmth of her womanhood. She sat up and he slipped inside her.
His ambitions, perplexities, anger, and stalwartness in the face of a rebellion were forgotten. Angels, demons, rebels, and the British no longer existed. At that moment, he was only a man with urges.
Mercy bent to kiss his lips. His tongue found hers, and after a moment she pulled away and sat up. She prayed to God to give her Joseph’s child. Her hips undulated to the rhythm of her lust until it was satisfied. Then, she changed her pace and pleased him.
He reached for her breasts and squeezed them hard. His hands moved to her cheeks. His fingers slid through her hair and entangled in the brown locks. Joseph’s orgasm released the pungent odor of everything he had kept bottled up inside. Although the smell was odd, Mercy inhaled it deeply.
She relaxed and slipped her body over his; relishing the feel of her nipples as they brushed his chest. She kissed his neck and the curve of his shoulder. The result of his orgasm seeped from between her legs. It rolled slickly down her inner thighs and wet his hips. She sighed and burrowed into the warmth of his body.
He wrapped his arms around her. They drifted into sleep.
In the wispy fog of the early morning hours of May 11, Joseph gently urged Mercy off his chest. He had to return to his bedroom in Dr. Elijah Dix’s home without arousing Dr. Dix or his wife, Dorothy’s, suspicions.
Breakfast gave Joseph the opportunity to be with his children. When Joseph arrived at the Dix’s home last night, his children were asleep. Now, the joy he and his children experienced at seeing one another reminded him of Michael, Brandon, and Patrick’s reaction to Colm’s initial arrival at the farm in Roxbury.
Elizabeth could not sit in her seat at the table. She wanted desperately to share with her father the rapture she felt when the angels came to rescue her and her siblings from Boston. At last, she got up and skipped around the table to where Joseph was sitting. He reached for her and enfolded her in his arms, much to the disapproval of Dorothy Dix.
In Dorothy’s opinion, children should sit quietly during meals. Dr. Warren’s indulgence for his children sparked a pang of jealousy in Dorothy’s longing heart. Her husband had little interest in her. Their two young children were the result of the rare nights Elijah was able to get and keep an erection under the influence of rum.
Elijah Dix smiled at Joseph’s lively interaction with his children at the table. Before dawn, he heard Mercy’s and Joseph’s moans of sexual satisfaction. The sounds were delightful. Elijah masturbated to the fantasy of their ecstasy while his wife slept beside him. For the first time in weeks, he was able to achieve an orgasm.
Joseph was aware of Elijah and Dorothy Dix's ruminations at breakfast. Their assumed discretionary glances at Mercy and he, satisfied Joseph’s prodigious need for the shocking.
After breakfast, Joseph gathered his children around him. “I must go back to Cambridge.”
“But, Father, you just got here,” young Joseph whined. “I wanted you to play nine pins with me.”
“Yes, Father, nine pins!” Richard exclaimed as he jumped up and down.
“It is a very long ride back to Cambridge,” Joseph explained. “If I do not leave now, I may have to ride in the dark.”
Mary plopped a thumb into her mouth and looked up at her father with adoring blue eyes. Joseph kissed the top of her blond head.
“Father, I wanted to talk to you about the angels,” Elizabeth whispered.
Joseph smiled and said, “Betsey, we will talk about them the next time I see you. I promise.” He kissed her on the cheek.
She returned his smile and nodded. She was afraid to ask how long it would be before he would return for a visit, for fear of his answer.
Joseph picked up his packed saddlebag from the floor. He looked at his children and Mercy for a moment before he said to Dr. Dix, “Thank you again for taking care of my family during this difficult time. I will send you more money next month.”
Elijah clasped Joseph’s hand and patted him on the back. “Take care, and Godspeed!”
Joseph remembered wishing William Dawes Godspeed the night he sent him to Lexington. So much had changed since then.
He glanced at Mercy one last time and walked out of the house. He mounted his horse and urged it eastward to Cambridge.
At three o’clock that afternoon, four hours into his journey, Joseph took a lonely horse trail north of the town of Newton. As he left Newton behind, he saw a single rider approaching from the east, and dressed in the brilliant scarlet coat of a British officer. Robert Percy slowed his horse and blocked Joseph’s way on the trail.
Joseph recognized the demon right away. Fear rolled through Joseph’s mind, but it didn’t touch his heart. He spurred his horse and tried to go around him.
Robert’s eyes flared. The flames rose like giants who held fireballs in their huge hands. They tossed the fireballs in front of Joseph’s horse. The filly reared in fright and spilled Joseph from the saddle onto the dirt trail.
Joseph stood up and brushed the dirt from his coat. His fearless eyes exuded hate.
Robert saw his foolish bravado. “You cannot stop me any more than you can stop the British army. Yet, you stand there as if God has given you the power to do so.”
Joseph attempted to mount his horse. Robert jumped from his saddle and intercepted him. They stood on the road facing one another. The heat from Robert’s flaming eyes flushed Joseph’s cheeks.
“You have been to visit your family. They love you, do they not?” Robert mused. He said the word love as if it left a vile taste in his mouth. “Does Mercy know that you have impregnated another woman?”
This was news to Joseph. He tried to control his reaction, but it got the better of him. He felt his heart quicken.
Robert doused his eyes. He stepped in closer to Joseph. “You do not know.” He howled a laugh. “I am surprised the archangel has not told you because he knows.”
Joseph closed his eyes for a moment. What he did with Margaret Gage was nothing more than an impulsive act. She came to him seeking a carnal need, and he was more than happy to fulfill it. They had been intimate. That was all. He opened his eyes.
“Why do you stand there speechless?” Robert asked. “From what I have heard, you are never at a loss for words.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to see terror distort your handsome face. I want the people who idolize you to see your nasty flaws. Shall I call on Mercy so we can discuss the woman who carries your fifth child? That child is the child Mercy prayed you would give her this morning when you fucked her.”
Joseph tried not to let doubt seep into his words. “Tell her what you want. It will make no difference because she will see through your lie just as I do.”
“Is that so? Then, you are not seeing clearly.”
“I will not stand here and listen to the words of an abomination like you.”
Robert whipped out his right arm and wrapped one white-gloved hand around Joseph’s throat. “I cannot kill you because Henry has forbidden it. But I can do anything else I please.”
Joseph knocked Robert’s hand away. He clinched his teeth and said, “You are a coward.”
Robert leaned in cl
oser to Joseph. “You assume you can speak to me like I am a human man, and I will cringe at your insults and challenges.”
“Have you come here to harass me for the sport of it? Do you not have something better to do?”
Robert deflected the question. “Do you know that you have caught the attention of God’s most powerful demon because you have befriended an archangel? Do you know that Henry despises you?”
Joseph ran a hand across his mouth, uncertain how to respond.
Robert pulled his saber from its scabbard and flipped the sharp tip to rest against Joseph’s left eyelid. He let the saber tip travel down Joseph’s cheek. It left a thin line of blood as it grazed the skin. The saber’s tip dropped to Joseph’s throat, and sliced his cravat.
“Henry despises a certain Scottish major as well. His name is John Pitcairn. I believe you have met him. It was his vanguard that fucked up and marched the wrong way across Lexington Green. Henry did not like Pitcairn’s lack of humility.”
“Why should I care?”
“Perhaps, I spoke too soon, and you should not care.” The saber dropped to Joseph’s chest.
Joseph punched Robert in the jaw.
Robert’s head snapped back. He felt pain shoot through his neck and jaw. Henry’s order not to kill Joseph Warren was forgotten. He flipped the saber and rammed it at Joseph’s chest. The tip of the blade penetrated the breast of Joseph’s coat and clothing and grazed his chest.
Despite the saber tip buried in his coat, Joseph turned to run for his horse.
Robert seized him by the upper arm. Joseph tried to get away, but the demon’s grasp was bruising and debilitating.
Green light flooded the trail and the surrounding woods. A horse galloped toward them. Colm reined the horse and jumped from the saddle with the paring knife in his hand. The Sigil of Lucifer, etched in the blade, glowed in the green light.
Robert was taken by surprise, but he thought the archangel would not detonate his deadly golden radiance and risk disintegrating his pet. Still, Robert was afraid. He was unsure of the extent of the archangel’s powers. He tightened his grip on Joseph’s upper arm.
The demon’s grasp was so painful that Joseph thought his humerus had fractured.
Colm charged Robert.
Robert jerked Joseph in close and shifted his arms so that one was locked around Joseph’s neck. He splayed the fingers on his free hand, dug them into Joseph’s cheeks and squeezed.
“I will break his neck, if you do not halt this minute!” Robert shouted at Colm.
Colm kept coming. He jumped Robert and knocked him to the ground. Joseph fell with Robert. Colm stabbed the knife, up to the hilt, into one of Robert’s orange eyes.
Robert’s eye flared. He howled in anger and lost his grip on Joseph’s neck.
Joseph crawled away and got to his feet. He saw a halo of golden light surrounding Colm’s body. The light flashed and brightened. He braced himself for death.
Then, Joseph heard shouts and saw men rush past him. They attempted to pull Colm off Robert. Amid the confusion and the shouting, Joseph tried to cope with the sudden shift in what was happening. He stood on the trail dumbfounded and wondering where the men had come from.
He realized Robert had pushed himself backward and out of Colm’s reach. Joseph fell to his knees in front of Colm and put his hands on Colm’s cheeks. “LOOK AT ME!” Joseph screamed. “REIN IN YOUR ANGER! I AM FINE!”
Colm saw and heard Joseph. His golden light dimmed. Then, he realized Robert was escaping. Colm scrambled to his feet.
As Robert hooked the toe of his boot into a stirrup and threw himself into the saddle, Colm seized the horse’s reins. His eyes flashed silver light. “Tell Henry this ends now. Tell him I’m coming after him, and I will kill him no matter the destruction of human life.”
Robert sneered. “Words, preceptor. That is all they are. You and your men are not capable of purposely killing the children of man, even if your human friends agree to die alongside you.”
Joseph joined Colm. With Joseph so near to Robert, Colm felt his restraint slip. He tightened his jaw and forced his wings to stay furled. He released the horse’s reins.
Robert smirked at Joseph. “We are not done yet, Warren.”
He tugged on the reigns and turned the horse eastward. Then, he halted the horse and looked at Colm.
“By the way, the sigil etched in your knife is worthless because you are still bound to Heaven, even after God turned his back on you.”
Robert spurred his horse toward Boston.
Colm looked at the bewildered men who had come to break up the fight. With stunning clarity, he realized, after millenniums of running, suddenly everything had changed. The angels were friends and allies with the children of man, and no longer merely soothers and beholders.
Joseph and Colm rode to Roxbury under the pink and blue sky of early evening. The happiness, safety, and future of those who depended on the archangel and the patriot doctor weighed heavily on them. And now, Joseph carried a new weight.
“Why did you not tell me?” he asked Colm. “Why did I have to hear it from a demon?”
“I failed to stop my flock of angels from creating God’s forbidden children. I won’t involve myself with ya forbidden child.”
Joseph threw Colm a sideways glance. “So, she is carrying my child.”
“Aye.”
“Do you think I was irresponsible?”
“That’s a human trait I don’t understand.”
“Then why—?” Joseph’s voice faltered. “You did not tell me because you thought you were protecting me.”
Colm saw the darkening bruises Robert’s fingers had left on Joseph’s cheeks and neck. The bruises stirred his simmering anger.
Joseph smiled. “What I did with Margaret is forbidden, but the British are not going to kill me for it. They have better reasons to kill me.”
“That’s not amusing. If Robert knows about ya child that means Henry knows. They might kill Margaret and ya child for the sport of it.”
Joseph winced. If Henry told Thomas Gage, Joseph could only hope that Gage did not punish Margaret. He did not think that would happen because Gage had a reputation for adoring his wife. It was more likely Robert would kill her. Joseph was helpless to ensure the safety of his own child.
He felt Colm’s scrutinizing eyes on him.
“I know what ya are thinking,” Colm said. “I can’t protect ya or ya children unless this is over. I told Robert that I intend on ending this demonic war, and I mean it.”
“How do you intend on doing that?”
“I need to make us stronger. Gordon’s right. I need to cast a spell over the Sigil of Lucifer to make it work against demons.”
“Will he be able to find one for you?”
“No.”
“Then what will you do?”
Colm struggled to say the words. Just the thought of them inflicted agony upon his angelic spirit. He wondered if his brother, Lucifer, had suffered in the same way before he fell and finally rejected Heaven.
Joseph saw the fear in Colm’s eyes. “Whatever it is, I will not let you face it without me.”
“I can’t face it without ya. I don’t know if my angels can face it at all. I don’t know what it’s going to do to us. It might weaken us. It could kill us. Or God might decide to kill us himself.”
Colm’s voice cracked. His jaw was so tight that he had to concentrate on relaxing it so he could continue. Finally, he said, “We must reject Heaven in favor of the children of man.”
Joseph imagined being forced to turn his back on the patriots and side with the British under the threat of death. He would choose death. But what Colm intended on doing was the opposite. The angels would be choosing life without knowing the cost.
“Are you sure that is your only choice?”
“Aye. Robert knows Heaven is holding us back. I don’t know why I didn’t see that a long time ago.”
“It seems Robert knows a great many things,�
�� Joseph sneered. “You should have killed him today. I was ready to die, but then those men came and I could not—”
“—let me kill them, too?” Colm gave Joseph a pained look.
“Yes.”
“There’s going to be human collateral damage if I’m to end this.”
“That has become clear. Now, tell me, how will you reject Heaven?”
“We’ll have to conjure a spell. The eight of us will have to do it together. Liam’s in Braintree with Abigail Adams. He’s real sick. I’m afraid if we take him from her, he won’t survive. His palimpsest sees her as a mother, and he’s clinging to her like a child.”
“If you explain the importance of what you are doing, surely he could part from her for a few days.”
“I don’t know if he can.”
“I do not mean to sound uncaring, but I must return to Cambridge. I need to write to Samuel and the Continental Congress, and insist that Massachusetts be allowed to form her own civil government. Furthermore, I must impress upon the congress that they have to appoint a general to take control of the provincial army. The men who make up the army come from towns throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. They are clannish and suspicious of those they do not know. We need someone to establish order among those disjointed factions. We need someone the other generals, such as Fergus and Artemas Ward, can look to for colony-wide guidance.”
Colm stared into the face of ludicrousness. She had dragged Joseph and him into her den of iniquity.
“When you are ready, send for me and I will come immediately,” Joseph said.
“How much can ya bear before ya collapse?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I was created to bear impossibly heavy burdens. Ya weren’t.”
“You cannot believe that, Colm. Not after everything we have faced together, and all that we have yet to face.”
Thirty-two
Colm’s panicked orders and subsequent departure scared the angels. They huddled in the farmhouse confused and afraid for themselves and their archangel. Colm had given them no explanation, but they assumed it had something to do with Joseph’s safety.
Angels & Patriots Page 35