by Lucy Blue
“Yeah, I’m here.” To her shock, she sounded fairly normal, maybe just a little congested. “She shouldn’t feel bad. She was right; I should have told y’all what was going on whether Jake wanted me to or not.”
“I understand why you didn’t,” Taylor said. “I think I understand.” Taylor was studying elementary education and comparative religion at the University of Georgia. Her two great ambitions were to teach elementary school and marry her fiancé, a medical student. “You should come home for Christmas,” she said now. “You need to be with family, and we’re still your family. Jake wouldn’t want you to be all by yourself.”
“I’ll think about it.” Christmas was only a few weeks away, she realized. She hadn’t thought about it before. The idea of going south and spending time in Jake’s mother’s house with the white artificial tree and all the teddy bears dressed like Ebenezer Scrooge was like a science fiction movie in her head, too weird to be real. “Taylor, remember the night Jake died, and you told me I could pray to him?”
“Yes.” In the silence, she could almost see her sister-in-law twisting a lock of blond hair around her perfectly-manicured finger. “I know you think it’s silly.”
“No, actually, I don’t.” The floor she was sitting on was cold as ice. The window was still open. “I did it, sort of. I wrote him a letter.” She closed her eyes for a moment and let a single teardrop fall. “I wanted to tell you that it really helped.”
“Oh.” She sounded surprised and pleased and a little bit tearful herself. “I’m glad.”
Kelsey smiled. “Okay…that was all I wanted.” A wave of love for Taylor made her heart ache. “I’ll let you go.”
“Kelsey, wait.” Another pause. “Did you feel him answer?”
Her eyes widened in shock, and she had to take a deep breath. “Yeah…yeah, honey, I think I did.” For one crazy moment, she considered telling Taylor about the ghost. But when she opened her mouth to do it, she realized she couldn’t.
“I knew you would.” Taylor wasn’t trying to hide her tears. “He loved you so much. I can’t believe he would just leave you.”
Kelsey stifled an inappropriate snicker that caught her off guard. “He didn’t have a lot of choice.”
“I don’t mean his body. I just…I know it’s hard for you to think about this stuff, after what went on with your mama, but…there’s something else, Kelsey. I know there is. Jake didn’t just stop or just go away. There’s something else, and I think sometimes that wall between gets thin, if we really need it to.” Kelsey didn’t answer. She could barely breathe. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Taylor said with a nervous laugh.
“No, I don’t,” Kelsey promised. “I guess I think you’re right.” She closed her eyes, remembering the ghost, feeling his arms around her. “I love you, little sister,” she said, just the way Jake always had when he and Taylor had talked. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Taylor took a ragged breath. “I love you, too.”
“Okay. You study.” She suddenly felt restless. “Tell your mama when you talk to her that I’ll call her soon.”
“Please do,” Taylor said. “She’ll love it. And we’ll see you soon, right?”
Kelsey smiled. “I’ll see you.”
She hung up and drew her knees up to her chin, curling into a ball. She had been on her feet all day; she should have been tired. She took a few deep breaths, trying to relax. The wind was blowing through the narrow window opening now, reaching out for her, and she shivered. Her heart was beating fast, she realized; she was afraid. She could hear cars passing on the street below, hear someone crying out, angry, an obscenity. The light from the studio barely touched the dark outside, turning the sleet into tiny flashes as it hit the glass. “I’m scared,” she said aloud. “I don’t know what to do.” She thought about the weird priest that morning and about Asher, the stranger who had shown up from nowhere just when she needed him most. She shivered again, trembling steadily now. “Help me,” she whispered, a desperate prayer. Her tremors subsided; she could breathe. She got up from the floor and left the studio, turning off the light. Scared or not, she needed to go say good night to Jake.
Across town, Asher stepped out on the sidewalk with the other two seraphim, turning up his collar against the sleet. But suddenly he could feel Kelsey; he could see her light go out. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he could feel her desperation. “Help her,” he prayed as he prepared to cross over with the others to travel between worlds. “I don’t know what to do.” He looked up at the dark, empty sky and trusted that Someone there heard.
The Half-Demon
Asher and his two companions emerged from the space between worlds inside a tiny, dimly-lit parlor. The smell of an oil furnace was thick in the air, but the room was still cold. The furniture was worn but clean and polished, and every table and chair back was draped with a doily of handmade lace. The walls were hung with framed photographs and holy icons, including a crucifix hung in place of prominence over the bricked-up fireplace. An old woman was sitting near the door to the hall, close beside the furnace. She was weeping and chanting steadily in Russian, a wooden rosary twisted in her gnarled, blue and white hands. She didn’t react when they came in; in their pure angel form, she couldn’t see them.
“The child isn’t here,” the male seraph, Anthony, said.
The other seraph, the female, Rachel, went over to the woman and revealed herself slowly before touching her gently on the shoulder. “Peace, Mother,” she said in Russian. “Where is your little one?”
The woman barely seemed to notice her. “Gone,” she moaned, still rocking in her chair. “All gone…taken…all of them.” More screams and wails of grief could be heard from outside, and the old woman sobbed, pressing the fist that held the rosary to her forehead. “All the little ones….”
“The creature,” Anthony said. “Come on.”
Outside they found a tiny village, a dozen or so shabby houses and half that many shops hunkered in the waist-deep snow around an open square. People, mostly women, were gathered in small, tense groups around the perimeter, many screaming or crying, all held back from the center by other groups of blank-faced men armed with automatic rifles.
A long flatbed truck was parked at the center of the square. A cross had been erected on the flatbed and set aflame. Beside the cross was a long, low cage designed for small livestock, and more thugs with guns were driving, tossing, and shoving children inside.
“Drug dealers,” Anthony explained as he fell into step beside Asher. “They’ve used this village as a trafficking hub for years. Most of the men who still live here are part of the organization.”
Two thugs were dragging a third man up onto the back of the truck—a priest in his cassock and bare feet with no hat or coat against the bitter cold. He was shouting the Our Father in Latin in a clear, powerful voice, defiant and unafraid. Another man was sitting on top of the cab of the truck to survey the scene, his feet dangling toward the bed. At the sound of the priest’s prayer, he suddenly hopped down as if the drop were nothing. He walked up to the priest and punched him three times in the face.
“That’s the one we want,” Rachel said.
“He took over this branch of the heroin trade six months ago,” Anthony said. “No human has any record of him before that. His father was a demon.”
Asher watched as the last child was bundled into the cage, and the door was chained shut. He felt desperate, helpless, completely enraged. But he would put it right.
“Tell me, Father,” the half-demon shouted, his voice bringing silence from the crowd. “Who has brought angels to torment me?” He took up a wooden torch and lit it from the flaming cross. “Whose prayers are so pure Heaven sends Its soldiers to respond?” He picked up a gas can with his free hand. “Is it you?” He poured gasoline over the priest to hoots from his soldiers and wails of horror from the villagers. “Where are your angels now?”
Rachel started forw
ard, but both Anthony and Asher caught her and stopped her. “He’s in human form,” Asher said. “If you destroy him on this plane in this form, his mortal soul will pass on and be damned. And you will be, too.”
“I don’t care,” Rachel said. “I can’t just stand here.”
“What do you think happened to Malachi?” Anthony cut her off. “He couldn’t just stand here, either, but he couldn’t kill him.” His face was pale with fury. “He let the creature hack his heart out before he abandoned his post, but he couldn’t strike him down.”
“What does it want?” Rachel said.
“Will none of you come forward?” the half-demon shouted. “Have the seraphim no valor?”
“What every demon wants,” Asher said. “To prove the weakness of the Light.”
“This one also wants to be free,” Anthony said. “He believes that if his human body is destroyed by holy power and his human soul damned, the rest of him will be become a full demon, immortal.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Rachel demanded. “Watch him murder these people? Stand by looking sad and wringing our little white hands?”
“If we could push him into the space between worlds, his demon self would emerge as the more powerful form,” Asher said. “Then we could kill the demon and leave the human half alive with its soul still intact.”
“Say goodbye, old man,” the creature said, brandishing the flaming torch. “Give my regards to your God.”
“He can’t be forced between worlds,” Anthony said.
“Wait!” one of the children screamed from the cage. “It was me! Leave him alone! It was my prayer! I did it!”
The half-demon stopped. He held the torch high, grinning triumphantly as one of his thugs opened the cage just enough for a girl to crawl out. “Oh no,” Rachel moaned.
The child climbed to her feet directly in front of the creature. “I prayed to God to send His angels to make you go away,” she said. She looked to be ten or eleven with a pale, sharp little face and long, black braids. “If you think you can win by burning someone, burn me.”
The creature touched her face. “So this is what a real saint looks like,” he said, his voice rough silk as he caressed her. “Much too pretty to burn.”
“Oh no,” Rachel repeated, struggling to get away from Asher and Anthony. “Forget this shit. I’m going.”
“You will fall,” Asher said, tightening his grip. “Let me.”
He let her go and drew his sword of flame. He stepped out of the crowd into the square, a seraph in full glory, visible to all. “Leave that child in peace, creature of filth!” he called out. “I am Hesperus, the Evening Star, and I am calling you out!”
A hopeful whisper rippled through the crowd, and several women fell to their knees to pray. But the creature on the truck was laughing. “The Evening Star,” he repeated. “Come to me, uncle, and welcome.”
Rachel and Anthony had transformed as well and were standing at his back. “We’ll get the other children,” Rachel said. “Save the girl.”
“You called upon the seraphim,” Asher said, moving closer. “What is it you seek?” The child saint was facing him now, and though her back was straight, she was trembling all over. Had she seen what had happened to Malachi? Was her faith in the Light still strong?
“Nothing,” the creature said. Unlike a true demon, he looked like any other man, smooth-skinned, even handsome. “Everything.” He took a step toward Asher, away from the child. His arms were outstretched as if in surrender, but he held a long knife still stained with Malachi’s blood. “Take your magic sword and strike me dead, uncle,” he said. “Or I will kill them all.”
Asher raised his sword. For a moment, he thought of what Serena had said. If he used his power to strike down the child, she would pass straight into the Light. He would be releasing her from torment. He was empowered by his office to make such a decision; he would not fall. Many seraphim had made such choices since humans had come into the world. He didn’t doubt that Malachi had hoped he would take on this task when he sent him here.
Then he looked into her eyes. She was so young, so full of promise. She deserved to live, to grow up, to fall in love, to be a mother, to pass her faith on to others who would learn from the example of her life, not the tragedy of her martyrdom. In a flash, he knew exactly what to do.
In a single, fluid motion he sheathed his sword and took flight. He snatched the creature up by the lapels of his leather coat and carried him into the sky.
“Will you fly with me to Heaven?” the creature said, laughing, shouting over the rush of the wind. Asher ignored him, flying higher. Soon the air was too thin for human lungs and too cold for human bearing. The creature gasped in Asher’s grasp, ice forming over them both, his human skin turning blue, but he didn’t struggle. “It won’t work, angel,” he rasped, a flicker of fire showing in his eyes. “I’ll die of cold before I transform.”
Asher hovered, still holding him by his coat. The lights of the village had disappeared among the clouds. A fall from this height would take several agonizing minutes, plenty of time to imagine the moment of impact. “No,” he said, letting the creature go. “You won’t.”
The half-demon screamed as he plummeted toward the Earth. Asher followed, drawing his sword. If the creature let himself die, they would both be damned. But he trusted his long, bitter experience. No demon was that brave.
Less than half a mile from the ground, his human skin flayed bloody from the wind, the creature roared and transformed. Great black wings rushed out, stopping his fall, and Asher struck, driving the sword of flame through the demon’s breast. The crowd below them screamed as they fell together, gold wings tangling with black. The demon twisted, clinging to the angel like a drowning man grasping at reeds, and with a force of will, Asher passed over to the space between worlds, carrying the demon with him.
The demon realized his mistake at once and screamed, but it was too late. Breaking the demon’s grip, Asher tore the sword upward, splitting the creature in two, ripping his heart apart. Then he caught the dying creature as it fell and held him close, willing life back into his mortal body, using all his healing gifts. He passed back into the mortal plane with a broken but breathing mortal in his arms.
He dropped him on the flatbed in front of the burning cross. “He lives,” he shouted to the crowd in Russian. “He is just like one of you.”
The villagers rushed forward, overpowering the thugs, wrenching their weapons away. Rachel and Anthony broke open the cage and set the children free, then moved through the mob, calming them, using their powers to convince them to bring their oppressors to the law instead of tearing them apart, even the creature himself. Two old men came forward and picked him up, nodding to Asher before they carried him away.
The saint child was standing before him, smiling. Two more men went to help the fallen priest, and three women came out of the crowd and fell to their knees in front of Asher. “No!” he and the child cried out at the same time.
“Get up,” Asher ordered. “See to your children.”
The women moved away, looking back over their shoulders. “You are not my Lord,” the child said, looking up at him. “You are His soldier.”
“Yes.” He knelt before her, putting his eyes level with hers. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” When she smiled, her severe little face was beautiful. “I knew you would come.” She pulled a necklace free of her collar, a tiny gold cross. “I knew He would send you to us.” She held the cross out to him, the chain still looped around her neck. He could see Rachel behind her, watching.
He bent his head and kissed the cross. “The Light saved you, little one, and your faith.” He kissed her gloved hand, too.
He stood up as the old woman from the first house came running across the square like a woman half her age. “Elena!” She pushed past Asher to hug the girl tight. “Thank God,” she repeated over and over. “Praise be to God you are safe.”
Anthony put a han
d on Asher’s shoulder. “Come, brother.” His smile was as joyful as the girl’s. “Let’s go home.”
Asher stepped out of the space between worlds back into Kelsey’s city. His senses were assaulted by the vital horror of humanity around him, the stench of motor fumes, the sharp, bitter cold of the wind. But there was beauty, too, he realized, seeing it all as if for the first time. The light of the streetlamps glimmered on the icy pavement, and down the block a late night club was pouring the music of a saxophone out into the night, seductive as a woman’s soft kiss in the dark. He felt reborn. He had passed the test. He had walked to the edge of the abyss and not fallen. He had felt too much, but he had served the Light.
The Imps on the Street
Kelsey walked back from the cemetery down the frozen sidewalk. It was almost midnight. But she had been so scared for so long, she barely thought about it anymore. So she didn’t see the three figures lurking in the shadows of a stoop as she passed or notice when they fell into step behind her. She didn’t notice a thing until the first one grabbed her.
“Hey pretty,” he said in a barely-human rasp, slamming a gloved hand over her mouth as he shoved her back against a wall. They were in front of a boarded-up building just two doors down from her own. If she could have turned her head, she could have seen the light burning in her own kitchen. The other two moved in on either side of her, blocking any hope of escape.
“Hey pretty,” they repeated, one slightly after the other in perfect imitation of the first. One of them smiled, licking his lips, and a trick of the light made his tongue seem forked.
The leader leaned in close, sniffing her. “You reek of angel, pretty.” All of their faces were swathed in scarves and shaded by hoods; she couldn’t tell their races or pick out any features. But the leader had a spike through his eyebrow, accentuating a jagged scar. She tried to kick him, and he shoved a knee hard into her stomach, knocking her breathless. His sidekicks each grabbed her by a shoulder and slammed her hard against the bricks, making her see stars. When her eyes cleared, she saw the knife. “Sorry, pretty,” the leader said, holding it in front of her eyes. She thought about the bloodstain on the alley wall where the homeless woman had died, and she started screaming, the sound muffled against his thickly-gloved hand. His eyes were glowing blue, not reflected moonlight but flickering flames from within. “It’s nothing personal.” He raised the knife, preparing to strike.