by Lucy Blue
“I can’t believe it.” She looked up at him. “I thought they were going to kill you.” Looking up into his eyes, it was hard to even remember the fight. It was like something she had seen in a movie, not real. “I was so scared.”
“So was I.” A flush rose in his cheeks, and she could feel the warmth of his body, standing so close.
“You didn’t seem scared.”
“I was scared for you.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “If you feel weird, we should get you to a hospital.”
“Please, God, no,” she said. The last place she wanted to be was a hospital; she’d sooner go to Hell. “I promise I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes were searching hers, and she felt herself breathing faster, her body feeling strangely light. He was a stranger, but this felt familiar, as if they’d stood this way before.
“I’m sure.” She put her hand over his heart under his shirt, feeling it beat against her palm. “I’m fine.” His eyes were icy blue but warm, so warm. “We’re safe.”
He kissed her just the way she’d known he would. He caught her hand in his, drawing her close to him, her body melting into his as his mouth came down on hers. Her lips parted with a sigh, breathing him in, and his arms closed around her, sheltering her, pressing her close. I shouldn’t want this, she thought. This is wrong. He was a stranger, but he felt so familiar when she touched him, as if he belonged to her. Tears spilled from her eyes, and he kissed them away.
“Don’t cry, Kelsey,” he said. The words were like an echo; she had heard him say them before. “Please don’t cry.” She drew back, and for a split second, it wasn’t Asher standing there but Jake, her darling Jake, come back to comfort her.
“The ghost,” she said. “You sound like the ghost…you smell like the ghost…” She felt dizzy, sick. “It was you.” The strange vision had passed; he looked like Asher again. But she couldn’t shake the feeling, the certain knowledge in her bones that somehow this man and the apparition that had come to her two nights before were one and the same. “Who are you?” His eyes were so brilliantly blue, they seemed to glow.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “It’s all my fault, I swear.” His skin, already perfect, took on a deeper, smoother sheen, like polished stone, his stubble disappearing. She couldn’t even see a pore. She touched the base of his throat, and his flesh felt feverishly hot, but there was no flush. He looked into her eyes. “But I am falling.”
“Falling?” She gasped as he fell to his knees before her, and his clothes seemed to dissolve, leaving him naked in front of her. His skin all over was as flawless as his face but for tattoos on his back, a beautiful design like a Da Vinci drawing, elaborately feathered wings, and the scars on his shoulder. She stumbled back against the kitchen counter, grabbing for it to stay on her feet. He lowered his head, his eyes falling closed. The tattoos began to ripple, shimmering black on his skin. “Holy God,” she said breathlessly, reaching out to him. He caught her hand and stood as massive, golden wings unfurled from his back, glistening, glowing with light.
The world seemed to crumble under her, leaving her falling through darkness. “Noooo,” she heard herself saying, her blood running cold. The image of the angel Asher wavered; her eyes were filled with tears. Not real, she thought, her heart screaming in pain. None of it was real.
“Kelsey, listen to me.” His beautiful face was too close to hers, impossible to shut out.
“No,” she said, snatching her hand from his grip, tucking it under her arm. “I don’t want to.”
“I’m a seraph,” he said. “An angel. Please don’t be afraid.” The pain on his face was unbearable. Her mama had always said the angels cried if she tried to turn them away. “I saw you in the cemetery. I read your letter—Jake’s letter.”
“I burned it,” she said. “Nobody could read it.”
“I put them back together.” He seemed to put his hands on her shoulders. She could feel him touching her. She had felt him kiss her; it had all seemed so perfectly real.
“Jake was there; he read it, too. He sent me to you.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “Don’t you dare say that.”
“I was so afraid for you,” he said. “I just wanted to help.”
“Let me go,” she begged, closing her eyes, raising her fists to her face to shut the vision out. “Leave me alone.”
“I just meant to comfort you that one time,” he said. He sounded real, too, so loving and kind. “Jake thought that if you could see him one last time, talk to him, tell him face to face all the things you had written, and he could tell you he was all right, you would feel better, stronger. And he is all right, Kelsey, I swear.”
“Cruel,” she said, her voice barely more than a squeak. “So cruel…”
“He told me what to say,” he said. “He wanted you to not be afraid for him, to stop blaming yourself. I shouldn’t have agreed to it, but I was afraid if I didn’t, he would send a demon instead. But I was wrong; I’m the one who brought the demons here. I just wanted to save you, beloved.”
“Don’t call me that!” She had thought he was a real man who magically appeared just when she needed him, but he was a delusion. Deep inside her memory in the place she never looked, she saw her mama pacing in front of the china cabinet in the dining room, singing at the top of her lungs, trying to drown out the voices of the angels she saw all around her. “I can’t get no SATISFACTION!” How could she not have known? All her life she had lived in fear of this moment. As soon as she saw him the first time in the cemetery, she should have known. She realized she was moaning, keening softly.
“Kelsey, stop, I’m begging you.” She felt him take hold of her wrists so tenderly, trying to pull her hands from her eyes, to make her see him. “I didn’t know how it would feel to touch you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, so intimate, so close.
“Stop it,” she said. “Please stop.”
“I didn’t realize I would be putting you in danger.”
“Oh God,” she moaned. “The demons on the street.” But that only made sense. If she needed a warrior angel, she needed demons for him to fight. She needed him to save her. Keeping her eyes shut tight, she pushed forward, shuddering to touch what felt like solid flesh. In her mind, she could still see him so clearly. “I’m losing it,” she said. “I’m finally losing it.”
“Kelsey, you’re not, I swear,” he said. “All of it was real, I promise. Look at me.”
She made herself open her eyes. He was standing in front of her, an angel, as solid as the kitchen cabinets all around her, as solid as her own flesh. Everything she had found so beautiful about him was intensified, brought to full perfection in the glow of golden wings. Just looking at him, she felt a rush of joy, a fix of madness like a drug. But it was all a dream, a projection of insanity.
“You’re not real,” she told him. “You’re a delusion.” Just like her mama, she had a mind that liked to play practical jokes. Just like she had always promised, now that Jake had gone, Mama had sent her an angel.
“Kelsey, I promise you, I am.” He looked confused. “Of course I am.” He took her hand and pressed it to his naked chest. She could feel the heat of his flesh and the powerful beat of his heart. But she had seen such solid dreams before.
She looked up into his eyes, brilliant, burning blue. “Do you love me, Asher?”
He looked as sad and broken as she felt, the perfect, mad reflection of her heart. “I do.” He bent and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “I have fallen.”
From a real man, the words would have sounded glib. From her make-believe angel, they crushed her broken heart. For one sweet, fleeting, impossible moment, she pressed herself against him, let herself feel the full length of his body. So easy, she thought, savoring the warmth of him, feeling golden wings folded over her, strong arms cradling her close. Letting go would be so easy, letting the delusion have her. She had been thinking only days ago that she wanted to die. What better way to go? She could
let herself forget everything real, forget to eat, forget to feel the cold. She could stay with her angel forever. She heard him sigh, felt the rustle of his wings.
But then she thought of Jake, the real Jake, the man who had fought so hard to save her, fought death to stay with her so he could protect her from this madness, protect her from herself. “I won’t let it get you,” he had promised, holding her tight beside her mother’s grave. “I’ll scare the boogeyman away.”
“Asher,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “You have to leave me.” She had wrapped her arms around him; now she made herself let him go. “You have to go away and never come back.”
“Kelsey?” She felt him touching her face, willing her to look at him. She thought of her mother, the words she had used. “I don’t understand.”
“Leave me,” she said, pulling back from him, her eyes still closed, tears pouring down her face. “In Christ’s sweet name, begone.”
She heard him gasp, then a rush of violent wind. In a single moment, all the light and warmth in the world seemed to be gone. She couldn’t feel him anymore. She was shivering, abandoned in the dark. She opened her eyes, and he was gone.
She slumped down to the floor and let the tears come.
The Devil You Know
As soon as Kelsey said, “Begone,” Asher felt a rush of wind like a tornado lifting him off his feet and hauling him backward away from her. He had cast out hundreds of demons in his life; now suddenly he knew just how they’d felt. He was jerked straight through the wall of her apartment, down the hall, and through the wall of the building, shards of wood and plaster and metal and glass shattering around him without a sound. In Kelsey’s world, the walls were intact, but in the new plane her words had created, everything was falling apart. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the snowy street outside, then he was moving too fast to see anything but streaks of color.
He came to a stop in another world of dull gray concrete and dim winter light—a city in the space between. The space between worlds encompassed many smaller pockets like this. It was constantly growing and contracting, constantly changing. The urban landscape was a double for Kelsey’s city on the mortal plane, but it was a very different place. Kelsey had cast him away from her the same way any mortal with the faith and will to do it could cast out a demon. Because he was an angel, she couldn’t banish him to Hell or deny him access to the mortal plane. If he wanted, he could go anywhere on Earth…except her presence.
“No,” he said out loud, refusing to believe it. He willed himself back to Earth, back to the city, and found himself in front of his own apartment building. He closed his eyes, listening to the babble of voices all around him. He focused his angel senses, going deeper than sound, searching for Kelsey, the feel of her, the sure knowledge of her living presence in the world. As a seraph, he should have been able to pinpoint any mortal soul on the planet.
But Kelsey was gone.
Heart pounding, he went to the broken phone booth on the corner. The phone book hung in tatters, but a simple act of will brought it back together, the atoms that had made it once rushing back together from miles around, the newly remade pages rustling like feathered wings. He found the number, Jacob Marlowe at Kelsey’s address. The receiver on the phone had been torn off long ago, but he used his power to make it grow out of the frayed wires like an exotic bloom. He punched in the number, waiting, feeling the connection as it reached out, snaking through the earth and back into the air. Then the receiver shattered in his hand, sparks flying, a pandemonium of gibberish and laughter coming through the speaker as it melted in his grip.
Without thinking, he roared in frustration, and the phone booth exploded around him. Glass and twisted metal flew in every direction, this time for real in the physical world. A nearby chain link fence peeled back like a candy wrapper from its metal frame. A deep crack opened up in the sidewalk under his feet and snaked its way out into the street. He fought to control himself, fists clenched tight, and he could feel hot blood pounding in his temples, a very human rage. Eyes closed, he heard footsteps coming toward him and a mocking laugh.
“Your master’s truth, Asher,” Lucifer said. “You are so perfectly fucked.” His brother was in human guise again, leaning against what was left of the fence. “I love this girl.” His mortal costume melted away, leaving the massive dark shape that was his true demonic form. His limbs and torso were as perfect in shape as Asher’s, but his skin was crusted over with glossy, greenish-black scales, and his folded wings were leathery and tattered. A long, thick, spiked tail grew out of his back and writhed over the ground like a snake, and his feet were cloven hooves. His eyes glowed blue and orange like embers at the center of a furnace, and his hands were curled, the fingers tipped with lethal claws. In this form he was invisible to mortals, but dark, forbidding clouds began to gather in the sky above them. Asher shed his mortal skin as well, glowing as white as Lucifer was dark, his burnished golden wings outspread. “Very impressive,” the Fallen One said. “You’d look awesome on a Christmas tree.”
Asher raised his hand, slamming energy straight into the demon’s chest, knocking him back and sending him flying. He landed hard in a nearby vacant lot and skidded backward, leaving a steaming trail in the snow before crumpling like a wounded bat, his broken-looking wings cloaking him completely for a moment as his body flopped without grace. The gathering clouds split open with a blinding flash of lightning.
“Perfect!” Lucifer said, his laughter echoing the thunder. “What better way to save your girlfriend than to have it all over now?” He moved closer, circling, as lightning flashed again, and icy rain began to fall. “Destroy me, and Kelsey will be safe.”
“No,” Asher said, his hands shaking with fury and sudden fear. If he were to battle his opposite here, the entire mortal plane might be destroyed.
“Use your power to surround her,” the demon went on. “Split this world apart. She’s in her apartment right now, bawling her eyes out. Let her live while all the others die; take this world as your kingdom—I’ll give it to you as a present.” He was close now; the raindrops steamed on his burning skin. “What hope does the mortal plane have if the Evening Star has fallen?”
Asher looked into his brother’s burning eyes. “I have not fallen,” he said. “I will not fall.”
“Of course you will.” The demon’s breath was rank with the stench of burning flesh. “You won’t even need my help. You’ll fall and take her with you.”
“I won’t,” Asher said. “I will keep her safe.”
Lucifer laughed. “And who will save her from you?” He melted back into his human form, but blue flame still flickered in his eyes. “She may beg me to take her from you before it’s all over.”
“Stay away from her,” Asher said.
“No, brother,” he said, his grin becoming a leer. “You’re the one she banished, remember? You stay away.”
The Priest and the Painting
At dawn, Kelsey got up from her kitchen floor, put her coat back on, and went to the church. No one was around, but the sanctuary was open. She sat on the floor in front of the stained-glass window, the angel visiting Mary with his golden wings and smug, unfeeling face. How could she have been so stupid? How could he have seemed so real?
“Miss?” The black-bearded Irish priest who had frightened her the day before came toward her, the skirt of his cassock rustling like wings. “Dear heart.” He crouched beside her. “Please, let me help if I can.”
She stared at his worn, black leather brogans. “The man who was here with me yesterday, Father,” she said, a tiny glimmer of hope sparking in her memory. The priest had seen Asher, too; he had even spoken to him. “Did you know him?”
“What man, love?” She saw pity in his eyes. “You and I were alone.” She took a ragged breath, a sob threatening to overwhelm her. “You said you wanted to light a candle.” He offered her his bony hand, and finally she took it. In the light from the stained-glass window, the scar on his cheek looked lik
e a purple question mark. “I asked you who it was for, but you told me it was private.”
“I said that?” she said. “That was me?”
“Of course.” He lifted her to her feet with no apparent effort. “I left you to your privacy, and I heard you in here praying alone.”
“Praying,” she repeated with a lunatic snicker.
“You’re obviously troubled, child.” She pulled her hand from his. “Won’t you let me help you?”
She shuddered. “You can’t. Thank you, Father.” She hugged herself, suddenly freezing. “I have to go. Tell Father Tom I hope he feels better soon.”
“You shouldn’t face your burdens alone, dear heart,” he said. “Give me your confession.”
“Goodbye.” Pushing past him, she walked out of the church. She barely saw the people passing by her on the sidewalk, barely felt the wind. She was so cold now she couldn’t feel any colder. A cab slowed down beside her, the driver calling to her, but she barely heard him and didn’t stop.
She walked all the way home, time standing still again, barely feeling her feet. She walked up the steps into her building and up the stairs, walked into her apartment, leaving the door hanging open behind her. She dropped her coat on the floor in the living room and headed up the hall.
She went into Jake’s studio and flipped on the light. Seeing the unfinished painting propped against the wall, she suddenly realized. He had known. That last night when he had known he was leaving her, he had seen that this would happen. She went to the sink and got his brushes, the ones she had cleaned so carefully as soon as she came home from the hospital, the first thing she had done when she came back to the apartment after he was gone. She poured a few inches of turpentine into an empty mayonnaise jar, the sharp smell waking her up. Forcing herself to take every step, she walked over to the unfinished painting. She faced her own image, the Kelsey Jake had loved with the rough sketch of the angel hovering behind her. She had hated this painting, had seen it as a cruel joke. She had thought Jake’s pain had made him want to hurt her, to remind her of what she had been. But that wasn’t true at all. He had wanted to warn her, to protect her the same way he always had.