Misguided Angel: A Parnormal Romance Novella
Page 13
He raised the iron sword, and the demon smiled. “The words to send me to oblivion,” he said. “Don’t forget the words.”
Asher brought the blade down silently, plunging it through the demon’s gut, not his heart, pinning him tight to the ground.
“No!” Lucifer screamed, writhing in fury. Asher let go of the sword and turned his back on him.
“Asher, look out!” Kelsey shouted. The demon’s tail whipped out, slashing down the angel’s back, barely missing slicing off his wings. Asher roared with pain, and Kelsey started to run toward him again.
“No!” he said, waving her off as he staggered but kept moving. “Go! I’m right behind you.”
The Road
As soon as Kelsey passed through the gateway, Jake scooped her up in his arms, sweeping her off her feet. Giving Asher the briefest of smiles, he carried her up the hill toward the others. She draped her arms around his neck and lay her head down on his shoulder without looking back, looking utterly exhausted and utterly content. This was what she had wanted all along, and it was something Asher couldn’t give.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, braced to be flung backward into the darkest pit of Hell, Asher walked through the gate.
He heard it swing shut behind him with a long, slow scream of rusted metal. Turning around, he found the gate, the fence, and everything beyond it had disappeared. He was standing on a road that wound down the hillside into a wooded valley. Kelsey’s vision of Hell was gone.
Kelsey didn’t even see it happen. She rubbed her cheek against the soft flannel of Jake’s shirt, her arms still draped around his neck. “I love you,” she said softly in his ear.
He squeezed her tighter, “I love you, too.” He kissed her softly on the mouth. “We need to hurry, though. Your mama wants to see you.”
Asher saw the Judge standing at the crest of the hill. He was smiling. The dog who had followed Kelsey out of the dark lands was sitting on his haunches beside him, and his wounds were healed. An older woman who must have been Kelsey’s mother was running down the hill to meet Kelsey and Jake, and she gathered them both in a hug.
The dog barked once and ran to meet Asher, wagging his tail. As he reached the little group of human souls, Kelsey’s mother turned to him and smiled. “You did great,” she said. She was lovely with long, snow-white hair and eyes just like Kelsey’s.
He smiled back. “Thanks.” Just above them, another figure had joined the Judge, this one shining with light—Michael had come.
“Go ahead,” Kelsey’s mother urged. “It will be all right.” Kelsey was still wrapped in her husband’s arms, her face hidden against his shoulder as he whispered something in her ear. Her mother saw Asher watching, and her smile turned sad with understanding. “Angel, they’re waiting.”
Kelsey barely heard her mother speaking; she was listening to Jake. “You can’t keep thinking the whole fucking world is up to you to fix,” he was saying, holding her fiercely tight. “Promise me you’ll quit blaming yourself for everything.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “I promise.” She would promise him anything as long as he didn’t let go. “I finished your painting.”
“Good.” He kissed her forehead. “I know I scared you half to death the night I tried to fix it. But I had to try.” He drew back to look down into her eyes. “I saw your angel coming.” He caressed her cheek, and she hiccupped, both of them laughing through tears. “I knew he was going to show up.”
Kelsey hugged him tight. Looking over his shoulder, she saw Asher reach the crest of the hill. The stranger she’d seen with Mama was still there, and another man was standing beside him—no, another angel. He came forward to meet Asher and caught him in a hug.
As soon as Michael embraced him, Asher felt his legs turn weak, all his wounds attacking him at once. The Judge caught him, too, and the two of them lowered him gently to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Asher said. He couldn’t look the Judge in the eye, so he looked at Michael instead. His commander was smiling.
“You chose to fall,” the Judge said. “I’ve been there.” He laid a hand on Asher’s head, and warmth spread through him; he could feel himself healing, body and heart.
Down the hillside, Kelsey let go of Jake for a moment to hug her mother. “Mama, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Hush now, silly girl,” her mama said, squeezing her tight. She still smelled like white soap and rosewater perfume. “Of course you didn’t.”
“I always knew you were telling the truth,” Kelsey said. “I never thought you were crazy.”
“You think I didn’t know that?” her mother said. “Poor little girl, thinking for the whole wide world.” Kelsey laughed through a sob, and her mother hugged her tighter. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, my baby,” she said. “The world’s not so hard as you think.”
The stranger called down to her mother. “Rowena, it’s time.” Asher was sitting on the ground, but he seemed to be okay. The other angel was smiling.
“I have to go now,” her mama said. She framed Kelsey’s face in her hands. “Oh, I could just eat you up.” She kissed her on both cheeks. “You take care, honey. I’ll be seeing you again.”
“Bye, Mama.” She watched her mother climb the hill and take the stranger’s hand, then the two of them disappeared over the hill together.
“She’s fine,” Jake promised. “She’s happy now she knows you’re safe.”
As the Judge disappeared in the distance with Kelsey’s mother, headed for the plains of Light, Asher climbed to his feet. “Kelsey committed suicide,” he said.
“She did,” Michael said. “The Word is a complicated thing—even you and I don’t know all the rules.” He grinned. “Good thing for you, too.”
“I killed a mortal,” Asher said.
“You didn’t know he was a mortal,” Michael answered. “And your friend saved him as he much as he could be saved. He’ll get another chance, I think.”
“So that’s it?” Asher said. “Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t I be punished?”
“You have to go back to the earthly plane without your sword knowing what you know now. Human pain, human hunger.” He looked past Asher to where Kelsey stood with her husband. “Human love. Isn’t that punishment enough?”
Asher looked back to see Kelsey wrap her arms around Jake, holding on to him with all her might. He thought about what Lucifer had said about desire, about how jealousy would twist him, and he shivered.
“But you’ll have plenty to keep you busy,” Michael said.
“Yes.” His wings were still jet black. He was no demon, but he was not a seraph anymore, either. He couldn’t return to Michael’s army or the plains of Light.
Down the hill, Kelsey turned to Jake. “Are you going, too?”
He grinned. “Not just yet.” He kissed her. “I think I’ll wait around here a little longer.”
She opened her mouth to answer, and a sharp, blinding pain ripped through her skull as if her brain were suddenly exploding. She screamed, and Jake caught her, holding her tight.
“It’s going to be all right, baby girl,” he said. “You have to go back.”
Asher heard her scream and turned in time to see Jake catch her. He broke into a run.
“No!” Kelsey clutched at Jake, trying not to hear the beeping of machines, the voice of a nurse, trying not smell the antiseptic.
“You have to, honey,” he said, stroking her hair. “I’ll be waiting right here.”
Asher reached them, and Jake grabbed his hand. “Go with her,” he said. “Promise me. Don’t let her be scared.”
Kelsey barely heard him. Jake seemed to be letting her go….no, he was fading away. She was falling….no, she was already lying down. Her head hurt so bad…she could barely see….one eye was covered with bandages…she was having trouble keeping hold of a thought, and she couldn’t feel her arms or legs.
People were talking…at first she couldn’t understand the w
ords or recognize the voices…Jason…another man…a doctor?
“Her mother-in-law is on her way from Atlanta,” Jason was saying. “She would be her next of kin, I guess.”
“Tell the nurse when she arrives,” the doctor said. “We’ll have to make some decisions.”
“Is it really hopeless?” Jason said. They were fading out, walking out of the room. She only caught a few words more…brain damage…vegetative state. She closed her one good eye and wept.
She felt a warm, soft kiss on her cheek. Looking up, she saw Asher bending over her. His wings were still black, and there were soft lines on his face, making him look almost human. But his beautiful smile was the same. He lay a hand on her bandaged head, and she gasped, a rush of heat passing into her through the bandage, first dulling then sharpening the pain. The nurse sitting beside her jumped up and checked the monitors. She didn’t see Asher, but she could see the change in Kelsey. Her heartbeat was stronger; her EKG was dancing, recording a brain filled with life. She gasped and ran from the room.
Asher was frowning; his eyes were closed. She could see the strain in him, see how much this effort was costing him. She reached up with a hand that now followed her commands and touched his cheek.
He looked down at her and smiled, all his power focused on her torn and broken brain. In his mind, he could see each precious cell as it healed. The optic nerve knitted itself back together. The doctors would call it a miracle and doubt the tests that had told them it was severed. He left the skull still broken for their sakes, as much as he hated leaving her in pain. But she would live now. She would be herself.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He kissed her tenderly. “Go to sleep.”
He stayed invisible as he walked down the hall past the excited nurse who was trying to make the doctor believe what she had seen. She was literally dragging him back to Kelsey’s room. He passed by Jason who was sitting in a chair in the waiting room with his face in his hands, softly weeping. Still invisible, the angel gave his shoulder a squeeze as he passed. Jason looked up, looking around, a hopeful smile on his face.
Alone in the elevator, he took on a human shape. Walking through the emergency room, he looked just like everyone else, another weary human headed home. He walked out through the ambulance bay, smiling at an old woman sitting in a wheelchair waiting for her ride.
A dog was sitting on the sidewalk on his haunches as if he were waiting for him. “Oh no,” Asher said, walking over to him. “They sent you back, too?” It was the hellhound Kelsey had let out of the dark lands, painfully thin but whole and alive. “She’s fine,” he promised, scratching him between the ears. “She’s going to be fine.”
The Opening
Kelsey stood in the cemetery at sunset with a bunch of summer flowers in her hand. Jake’s tiny brass marker had been replaced with a respectable black granite headstone, and his grave was completely covered over with lush green grass. She laid the flowers against the stone then kissed her fingertips and pressed them to his name. “I love you, baby,” she said softly. “Wish me luck.”
She straightened up, half-expecting to see a figure standing in the shadows of the willow tree, veiled in green this time instead of ice. But, of course, no one was there.
“Kelsey,” Jason called from the open gate. “Come on, sweetie. We’ll be late.”
“Coming right now.” She trailed a freshly-manicured hand over the top of the stone one last time, smiling through tears as she left.
Asher watched the sunset through the window of a hotel room in Buenos Aires. He was holding a postcard with an image of Kelsey and Jake’s painting, an image of Kelsey and Asher himself. “The Guardian Approaches,” the postcard called it, advertising a gallery in Kelsey’s city half a world away and an opening tonight for a new exhibit: Corpus Delecti: The Works of Jacob and Kelsey Marlowe.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number of his own apartment. “Hello?” Marilyn’s voice asked, bright but impersonal.
“Hey, Marilyn,” he said. “It’s me.”
Her tone warmed immediately. “Boss!” He smiled. “How are you?”
Over the past year and a half, Marilyn had healed from her years of possession. Healthy in body if not always in spirit, she lived in his old apartment now and spent hours every day on the computer and the phone, tracking down people who needed a half-fallen angel. “I’m good,” he said. “I got the postcard.”
“Ah, okay,” she said. “Was I wrong to send it?”
“No.” He hadn’t seen Kelsey since he had left her at the hospital. “I’m glad you did.”
“So, are you going?” There was a pregnant pause while she waited for him to answer. “You know you want to go.”
He looked at the image of the painting, remembering the fear in Kelsey’s eyes when he’d shown her what he was. Was she afraid of him now? “I don’t want to scare her,” he said. “I want her to get better.”
“She is better,” Marilyn said. Against his specific instructions, his assistant just happened to walk by Kelsey’s apartment building every once in a while, just to “look around,” as she called it. “If she weren’t, she wouldn’t be painting.”
“She doesn’t need me.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Another pause. “Maybe you need her.”
He put the postcard in his pocket. “Thanks, Marilyn,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Excellent,” she said. “I’ll bring doughnuts.”
She hung up, and he smiled. The dog was looking up at him expectantly. “Fancy a flight?” he said. “It’s going to be cold as hell, you know.”
The dog wagged his tail, jumping up to paw at the angel’s chest. “Yeah, yeah,” Asher said. “I kind of miss her, too.”
The narrow gallery was packed with more people spilling into the street. No one seemed to want to leave. Jake’s mother and sister had been there earlier, but they had already gone back to the apartment. The sight of Jake’s canvases had been exhausting for them both. Half the canvases were already marked as sold, and people Kelsey hadn’t seen for years kept coming up to hug her, to express their condolences on Jake’s death, to compliment the paintings and congratulate her on “finally finding her voice.” Everyone’s eyes eventually strayed to the spider-shaped scar over her temple, but so far, no one had asked.
She turned around in the midst of the crowd, looking for Jason, and found herself face to face with Sylvia and Nate. “Oh my God,” she said, hugging them both. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the earth spirit said, hugging her back. Like Kelsey, she seemed almost completely healed. A delicate silk scarf hid the scar on her throat, and the scars on her arms were barely noticeable.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” her wizard husband added with a grin. “Your work is magnificent, dear.”
“Thank you very much.” She barely remembered starting to paint at all. She had started sketching in the hospital when she was barely able to hold a pencil. When she had finished months later, she’d had thirteen canvases standing in her studio, more and better work than she had ever done in her life. A portrait of her memory of Jake’s corpse in the hospital was locked away in a vault, never to see daylight while she lived. But everything else was here, twelve paintings to match the twelve Jake had left behind with their one collaboration in between.
“It’s amazing how beautifully your work meshes with Jake’s,” Sylvia said.
“That’s the best compliment I could get.” She had never intended to paint companion pieces to Jake’s last cycle, but without even realizing it, she had. Facing one of his canvases now, she didn’t recognize the rusted, half-submerged Cadillac at its center or the long-limbed, feral-looking boy perched like a bird on the hood. But the dark, swampy forest around them was hauntingly familiar.
Sylvia touched her arm. “Has Asher seen them?”
Kelsey shook her head. “I haven’t seen Asher.” But she had painted him. Asher stand
ing in the light of her open refrigerator drinking milk straight from the jug, his golden wings folded on his back. Asher entangled around her in the demon tree with jet black wings and burning purple eyes. Asher bending over her in the hospital, tenderly kissing her forehead, bringing her back to life. He was a presence even in the paintings that weren’t about him—a face in the crowd of angels hovering around her beautiful mother as she prayed, a golden feather on Kelsey’s pillow as she slept nestled on Jake’s shoulder.
“Have you tried to contact him?” Sylvia said.
“No,” Kelsey said. She had wanted to call out to him a thousand times, but she wouldn’t let herself do it. He had given up so much for her already. “It didn’t seem right.”
Before Sylvia could answer, Jason appeared at Kelsey’s side. “There you are.” He smiled at Sylvia and Nate and slipped an arm around Kelsey’s waist. “How are you holding up, lovely?”
“I’m fine,” she promised, letting herself lean on him. Her recovery had been miraculous—no great surprise to her, but her doctors had seemed almost offended. She had pills for the occasional headaches, and when she was very tired, she could mix up words—probably what Jason was worrying about now. “I haven’t forgotten anybody’s name yet.”
“I meant how do you feel, you freak,” Jason said, giving her a squeeze. “No one expects this to be easy.”
She let another “I’m fine” die unspoken. “It’s not,” she admitted. “But it’s okay.”
The noise level in the gallery rose suddenly as a dog trotted through the crowd like he owned the place. When he saw Kelsey, he let out a single bark and broke into a run.
“Hey!” she said, dropping to her knees to catch him as he ran to her. “Look at you.” He was a yellow mutt, a little smaller than a Labrador, with scars on his neck and muzzle and a weird, shambling gait as if his hip had once been broken. But he was well-fed and beautifully groomed with a loose, black collar with silver tags, and she recognized him at once. “Don’t you look pretty?” she crooned, petting him and hugging him as he licked her face. “I’m so glad to see you.”