Misguided Angel: A Parnormal Romance Novella

by Lucy Blue

  He caught her by the hair with his left hand just as she reached him, snatching her up like a cat. He held her at arm’s length as she spat and hissed in fury, trying to attack. He drew his flaming sword seemingly from thin air into the physical world and swung it once, slicing her neatly in two.

  The bottom half dropped to the ground, writhing as the burning trunk poured black, acidic blood into the snow, the tail flailing in impotent fury, virtually helpless. But the top half was still coming after him, screaming in pain as she lunged, her claws swiping his shoulder, surprising him by opening his angelic flesh to the bone. Still holding her by the hair, he drove her back toward the wall. Her neck stretched long, and her jaw unhinged as she snapped at him with venom-dripping fangs, slicing into his wrist. He raised the sword again, and she screamed for her master in the low speech of their plane, her yellow eyes wide and rolling with fear. He drove the sword through her throat, burying the blade in the brick wall behind her, making sparks fly. Her scream was cut off in a nasty gurgle as she struggled, tearing at the sword with her claws, moaning in frustration as it burned her flesh. Her bottom half was writhing closer, churning up the snow, leaving a steaming black trail of demon blood.

  He took a step back from her, breathing hard as if he needed the air. He looked down at his wrist and saw he was still bleeding red blood like a mortal. The bites were beginning to knit themselves closed, but slowly. And it hurt.

  “Temper, temper, Asher,” a voice spoke from behind him. The succubus began to struggle more frantically, reaching out, her gurgle an obvious plea. Asher turned and saw Lucifer coming toward them disguised as a human. He was slighter of build than usual with long, soft-looking black hair and a jagged, purple scar across his face to mar his once-angelic beauty. “Don’t you think this might be an overreaction?”

  Asher yanked his sword from the creature’s throat and let her fall into the snow. He stepped back, feeling sick as she dragged herself forward to lick her master’s boots. “She defied me,” he muttered. He gathered his own accustomed human guise around him, the long, black coat enfolding him as his wings disappeared into his back.

  “Defied you?” The Fallen One glanced up at him from watching his creature and grinned. “You couldn’t cast her out?” The demon’s lower half had almost reached her top, and Lucifer kicked it across the alley. “Fetch!” Weeping in frustration, she began to drag herself after it.

  “I cast her out,” Asher said. He looked down at his wrist again. The bites had healed, but there was the thinnest white trace of a scar. He reached under his shirt and felt a slick, tender ridge on his shoulder left from the demon’s claws.

  “Let me see your eyes.” Lucifer stepped in front of him, his gleeful anticipation warming the icy air between them. Asher glowered down at him, and he beamed. “Well, fuck me swinging,” he said. “Blue…by Hell’s own gates, they’re blue.” In his human guise, Asher’s eyes had always been a dull, burnished silver, their true, angelic glow completely masked. If they were blue, his true nature was wearing its way through the mask. Jake’s eyes had been blue, he thought.

  Lucifer touched Asher’s chin. “Brother, what have you done?”

  Asher shoved him backward, and he fell back into the snow, laughing. “Mind your trash,” the angel said with a scowl.

  The succubus had managed to bring her two halves end to end and was flopping in the snow, trying in vain to bring herself together. Lucifer rolled his eyes at Asher. “Sad,” he said, going toward her, unzipping his pants. “Just sad.” The angel turned away with a shudder of disgust from the tableau they made as the Fallen One pissed on his creature, the smell of her “healing” nearly unbearable as she wept in gratitude.

  The homeless woman was still lying on her side on the mattress, her eyes glazed over, one hand pressed to her chest. Asher crouched beside her and touched her shoulder, but she didn’t stir or even blink. He rolled her gently onto her back, passing a hand over her body, listening, sensing her soul.

  “She’s done for, brother,” Lucifer said, coming back to him, zipping up his pants. The succubus was scuttling away sideways on all fours like a crab, her torso now joined with a misshapen welt of pinkish gray scarring. Her spine was bent and seemed to still be mending; every few steps she would jerk and hiss in pain. She snarled at Asher, licking her lips before she disappeared around the corner. “You frightened her to death,” Lucifer went on, paying his servant no heed. “But don’t fret. I’m certain you did her a favor.”

  “She isn’t dead,” Asher said, but it was only just the truth. Her breath was so shallow no mortal could have detected it, and her heartbeat was very weak. He leaned close and breathed deliberately into her face, and she sighed, her lips barely moving, but her body didn’t stir.

  “What’s a minute or so either way?” Lucifer said with a grin, peering over Asher’s shoulder. “Step back, angel. This one’s mine.”

  “Stay back,” Asher ordered.

  “What’s it to you?” the Morning Star asked. “You don’t actually care, do you?”

  “I said she isn’t dead.” He could see the glow on her skin that was her mortal life to his angel’s eyes steadily fading. He put a hand over her heart and looked back through mortal time, reading her past. She had called the succubus into herself on purpose, he saw. She had thought it was a harmless prank, magic she barely believed was real meant to give her power over men. If she died now, Lucifer was right. He would surely have her.

  “You do care,” Lucifer said, his voice gone silky soft. “Then save her.” He crouched beside Asher, the two of them hunkered over the dying woman like hunters at a fire. “Use your power over matter on this plane to put her right.” He extended his own hand over the woman’s body, wincing once in pain before he smiled. “Mend her broken heart…rebuild her blackened lungs. If her death isn’t assured yet, how could it be a sin to push it back?” Asher turned to him scowling, and he smiled again. “And if it is, what of it?” he said. “I’d love to have you as my guest in Hell.”

  “Enough,” Asher said, ripping open the woman’s coat. “You know I won’t.”

  “Yes,” Lucifer agreed. “But I’m fascinated that you want to.” He watched as Asher ripped open the woman’s shirt as well and tilted her head back. “Michael will be so pleased.”

  “I said enough.” His fallen brother was right. As an angel, Asher had the power to manipulate the matter of this woman’s body to repair her worn, diseased organs and push back the specter of death. But that kind of miracle was meant to be reserved for saints, those mortals who worked the will of the Light like angels on Earth. Wasting this power on a witch with no faith wouldn’t just weaken his powers; it would be a sin against his office. But maybe he didn’t need his powers to save her. The least he could do was try. He opened her mouth, ignoring the stench of her breath.

  “Careful, brother.” Lucifer settled back on his haunches to watch. “Free will is a dangerous thing. Once you start making your own choices, it’s not so easy to stop.” Asher breathed into the woman’s mouth the way a mortal would to save her, once, twice. “And touching these monkeys can become a habit really quickly.” Asher put his hands over the woman’s breastbone and pushed. “You can trust me on that one.” Asher counted under his breath, ignoring him. “It passes the time,” he went on. “And they can be delicious in their rotting, hairy little way.” After thirty compressions, he breathed into her mouth again. “Your new little friend, for example.” Asher raised his head to look at him. “Kelsey. She’s a peach.”

  “No,” Asher ordered. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Daring is kind of my thing, remember?”

  “She’s nobody,” Asher said. “I felt bad for her. I helped her. I’ll never see her again.”

  “Bet me,” Lucifer said. “Bet me your angelic soul.” He glanced at the woman on the ground. “You’re losing your patient.”

  Asher turned away from him and went back to compressing the homeless woman’s chest. The more he protested, the mo
re determined Lucifer would become to make Kelsey a battle between them. Watch over her, please, he prayed as he counted compressions. Help her resist. The very idea of Lucifer going near Kelsey didn’t just make him afraid; it made him jealous, a very dangerous emotion for an angel. But if he stayed away from her himself, the demon would lose interest.

  “No one is going to come, Asher,” Lucifer said, standing up. “How long do you plan on squatting there in the dirt?”

  “Holy shit!” a voice said from the fire escape above them. From the very top, a man wearing boxer shorts and a heavy coat was looking down at them, his unlit cigarette in one hand, his lighter in the other. “What happened? Oh God…okay, I’m calling 911!” He scrambled back inside, fighting his way through the window.

  Asher spared a moment to smile at his fallen brother. “Well, what do you know?”

  “Hallelujah,” the demon said, his scarred mouth twisted in a scowl. “Oh well.” He took his own cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with an old-fashioned metal lighter with a cartoon devil painted on the side. “I can wait.” He exhaled a cloud of stinking smoke. “It’s not like I don’t have the time.”

  The mortal stuck his head back out the window. “They’re on their way,” he shouted. “I’ll be right down. I know CPR.”

  “You’re saved,” Lucifer said. “Or she is, anyway.” He took a long drag from his cigarette and grinned. “For now.”

  “She can repent,” Asher pointed out. “She can still escape you.”

  “And that seems so very likely with her living on the streets.” He exhaled his smoke over the woman’s face, grinning again at Asher’s scowl. “You’re falling, brother. No good deed goes unpunished, remember? You start out trying to help, and the next thing you know, you’re damning yourself and taking all your pets down with you.” He stepped back as the mortal came running out of the building and fell to his knees beside the angel to help. “See you soon.”

  “How did you find her?” the mortal said, taking over the compressions. “Do you know her?”

  “No,” Asher said as Lucifer walked away. “Yes.” He turned back to the mortal. “I know her. She’s my aunt.” The demon was right; even if the doctors could save this woman, she would have no real reason to repent. “It was so cold last night I came looking for her.” The mortal was watching him as if he weren’t quite sure he believed him. Asher breathed into the woman’s mouth again, and the man started the next set of compressions. In the distance, he could hear the ambulance. “I hope I’m not too late.”

  “No,” the mortal said, smiling at him, his eyes full of trust. “I promise she’s going to be fine.”

  Detective Lucas Black

  Kelsey knew she was dreaming. She was standing in the middle of a sandy dirt road in the country that wound up a steep, grassy hill. All along the road were live oak trees hung heavily with Spanish moss—the trees of home. The sun was shining overhead, making the road look gold.

  Just ahead of her and to the left was a shaded clearing in the trees. It was a roadside park, just one concrete picnic table with a pair of broken concrete benches and a rusted fifty-gallon drum for trash. Her mama’s wood-paneled station wagon from the seventies was parked there with the back hatch standing open. Drawing closer, she saw her mama’s daisy-printed tablecloth spread over the table. As she stepped off the road, she saw her mama straighten up from the back of the car, holding a lemon meringue pie. A platter of fried chicken and a big bowl of potato salad were already set out on the table.

  “There you are,” Mama said, smiling at her. “Get that cooler of drinks out, would you, honey? I’m about to thirst to death.”

  “Where are we?” Kelsey said, surprised to hear herself sound so perfectly normal. Mama looked beautiful. Her hair was piled up on her head the way she’d always worn it in summer, pinned up with a tortoiseshell clip. “What are we doing here?” She looked down at herself and saw she was wearing a church dress and stockings, the kind of dress-up clothes she hadn’t worn since she and Jake had left Savannah.

  “Having a picnic, of course,” Mama said, ripping open a package of paper plates. “Isn’t it a nice day for it?” She was dressed up, too, in a lavender floral print dress with a lace-edged collar, Kelsey’s favorite when she was a child.

  “It is.” She knew it was a dream, that none of it was real, but she still felt like crying. She could smell the pie and the warm wind blowing through the moss. “Mama, you look so pretty.”

  Her mama stopped setting out plastic cups and turned to her. “Sweet baby,” she said, caressing Kelsey’s cheek. Her hand smelled like pure white soap, and her nails were clean and neat. “So do you.” She seemed to see someone over Kelsey’s shoulder, and she smiled. “Oh good. Here he is.”

  Kelsey turned around…and woke up in her apartment in New York to brilliant, glittering sunlight. She was lying on the couch in the living room under a blanket where she’d fallen asleep in Jake’s arms…Jake. Jake had been here, or his ghost, or something…or had that been a dream, too? You didn’t do it, he had said, holding her close. It was never your fault. He had told her he was not in Hell.

  She shivered. It was freezing, even under the blanket with the radiator clanking in the corner. It must have been brutal outside.

  “Oh God!” She jumped out of bed and started throwing on her clothes.

  Asher stood beside the hospital bed, looking down at the woman who’d been possessed by the demon. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully; one bandaged arm was folded over her stomach on top of the blankets. Her once-pretty face still looked careworn with dark circles under her closed eyes, but her expression was serene. He brushed a lock of hair back from her cheek, and she stirred, barely smiling for a moment.

  “She’s doing very well, considering,” the nurse said from across the darkened room. “Your aunt is very lucky.”

  He smiled at her. “Not so lucky, or she wouldn’t be here.” How many other humans would be sleeping in the snow tonight, possessed or ill or in despair? How could all the angels of Heaven hope to save them?

  The nurse smiled back. “Lucky to have you.” She made a notation on the woman’s chart. “She’s making great progress. She might even be able to go home in a day or two.”

  “That’s great.” He had ridden with her in the ambulance, then used his phone to track down her identity while the doctors worked. She was Marilyn Mitchell, a native of the city with no known living relations. He had given the billing office a credit card number that would take care of all her medical expenses and more. But what would happen when she left the hospital?

  “Her doctor will probably want someone to pick her up,” the nurse said. “Unless you’ve made some other arrangement.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Surely he could find some sort of private hospital that could take her in and care for her until her mind could be healed and she could take care of herself.

  “I’m sure you will,” the nurse said, smiling again. “I’ll be right down the hall if you need me.”

  Asher touched the woman’s hand as he heard the door close. Lucifer’s voice spoke inside his head. Careful, brother. Touching these monkeys can become a habit.

  He slowly realized he was being watched. The woman’s eyes were open. “You,” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “You’re real.”

  He put his hand over hers. “I am.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  He could barely imagine the agony she had lived in all these years, possessed of an evil she had stupidly invited in. It must have seemed so unfair, so randomly horrible. But he saw no bitterness in her eyes, no anger. “He knows.” He felt her relaxing under his touch. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  Her hand closed over his. “Don’t leave me.”

  He held her hand tight. “I have to.” Her lower lip trembled, making her seem very young and very fragile. “But I promise I’ll come back.”

  She smiled through her tears. “Okay.” Her e
yes fell closed again. “I’ll be right here.”

  Kelsey ran down the back stairs to the alley with her arms full of blankets and a sandwich in the pocket of her coat. Jake had always been the one to do this since their very first winter in the city. Their narrow alley with its rusted fire escape always attracted at least one homeless human on the coldest nights, and he had worried about them a lot. “I’m freezing my ass off,” he would say in his thick Georgia drawl. “Imagine how they feel.”

  She pushed through the alley door at the foot of the stairs hoping she wasn’t already too late. From the sun, she thought it must have been nearly noon. “Hello?” Jake’s mattress had been dragged into the snow, and the blankets she had thrown away with it were lying in a sodden pile beside it. “Is anybody here?” The woman she had spoken to the night before was nowhere to be seen, but the snow was packed and trampled with footprints all over the alley. She saw a streak of blackish red against the grayish white, and her heart started to race. “Is anybody here?” she repeated, following the trail behind the dumpster.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice said from behind her, and she screamed. “I’m so sorry,” the owner of the voice said as she whirled around. He was holding his hands up in front of him. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Oh yeah?” Her voice was shaking as she tried to catch her breath. “I’m glad you weren’t trying.”

  “I know, right?” He smiled, and she tried to smile back. He wasn’t particularly scary; in fact, he would have been handsome if he hadn’t had an ugly scar across his face. “I’m a cop,” he explained, reaching into his pocket. She tensed, ready to run, but he pulled out a badge. “Detective Lucas Black.”

  “Okay.” She shifted her stack of blankets to one arm to look it over, and it looked real. “Yeah, you scared me pretty bad.”