War Angel Contingent (Everlasting Fire Series, Book 1)

by S. J. West

  “I suppose it’s possible,” I say, considering Ethan’s words. “At the time, all I could see was red whenever I looked at Timothy. I tried a dozen times to see him like I used to. We practically grew up together, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know that. Is he the boy in the photograph in your apartment?”

  I nod. “Yeah. He was an orphan. In fact, he used to live in the orphanage that I’m donating money to. He used to always complain about having to wear hand-me-down clothing and shoes and never having a room of his own there. Maybe with the money I’m giving them, they can buy the kids their own clothes and do some construction to let them have their own rooms too.”

  “I’m sure you can set up the fund to go to those specific changes.”

  I nod. “Yeah. I’ll see about doing that.”

  “So apparently, the two of you knew each other for years before you married one another.”

  “We were best friends all through elementary school, and then when our hormones kicked in, we decided friendship wasn’t the only thing we were good at with one another. We ended up getting married right out of high school, but we put off having children until we were both set up in our careers. There was a time I couldn’t even imagine living without Timothy in my life. Now, all I feel is guilt when I think about him. That’s the reason I drink so much.”

  “But it doesn’t seem like drinking makes you feel less guilty.”

  “No. It doesn’t. It only makes me forget for a little while what it is I feel so guilty about. I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for what happened to him.”

  “If you can’t forgive yourself, then you need to find a way to live with the guilt better,” Ethan tells me. “I understand what it feels like to live with the burden of killing someone. Even though I don’t believe you led Timothy to kill himself, it’s obvious you do, and I would never try to convince you otherwise. Only you can absolve yourself, and if you can’t do that, you need to channel your guilt into a more worthwhile pursuit than drinking. You need to find a purpose for your life again that will give it meaning.”

  “How am I supposed to do that? It’s not like I can just walk downtown into a store called Redemptions R’ Us.”

  Ethan cracks a grin at my attempt at humor, even though I’m partially serious.

  “I think you need to keep your eyes open for a way to find meaning in your life again. Sometimes opportunities present themselves when you least expect them to.”

  “I think it would take a miracle for that to happen to me.”

  “Miracles can happen,” he assures me.

  “I guess you would be more of an expert on that subject than me, since you’re an angel.”

  “I don’t know if I’m an expert, but I do know they’ve been known to occur from time to time. Just keep your faith and trust the path God has set you on.”

  Ethan’s suggestion sounds easier said than done, but it’s not like he’s advising me to make any extra effort. He seems to believe that something will spontaneously occur in my life to help me cope with my guilt better.

  Ethan stands and holds a hand out to help me back onto my feet.

  “Why don’t we go see what trouble Xander has gotten himself into?” he suggests. “It might help take your mind off things for a while.”

  I place my hand into his and let him help me stand up.

  “Are you still mad at me for going with Anna to talk to Helena?” I ask.

  “No,” he answers. “I just wish I had been told what was going on instead of learning about it after the fact.”

  “Would you have insisted on going with us?”

  “Yes,” he answers, “and I know that’s the reason Anna went without letting me know what she was doing. I understand her reasoning. I just didn’t appreciate being left out of the loop.”

  “If there’s ever a next time,” I say, “I’ll make sure you’re kept in the loop.”

  “I would be grateful for that,” he says with a small smile.

  Ethan doesn’t let go of the hand he still holds. In fact, he intertwines our fingers, making it feel like the most natural way for us to phase together.

  “Are you ready to go to Laed-i?” he asks.

  I nod.

  Just before we phase, I realize the heaviness I’ve felt inside my heart since the night I found Timothy is a lot lighter now. Sharing the reason why I drown my guilt in alcohol has been more therapeutic than I thought it would be. Perhaps I should have talked it out with someone a long time ago, but then I realize that the reason it worked is because I shared my secret with Ethan. If I had told anyone else, I don’t believe I would feel the same way.

  I squeeze his hand a little tighter, knowing now that I want him to be an integral part of my life. I’m not sure if he’s my soul mate or not, but I do know we’re building a connection to one another unlike any other that I’ve ever experienced, and I have no intention of squandering an opportunity that God Himself might be giving me.

  CHAPTER 14

  For some reason, I expected Ethan to phase us to either Xander’s home on Laed-i or at least Zane and Verati’s house. Instead, he phases directly inside an establishment that looks strangely similar to Grace House. We’re standing beside a bar where people are yelling out drink orders to a harried bartender working the counter. Bottles filled with colorful liquids line the shelves of the glass wall behind him. The translucent wall provides a clear view of a bright blue sky and white fluffy clouds in the distance. I immediately direct my gaze to the floor I’m standing on and see nothing but the white of clouds. As I let my gaze travel around the structure we’re standing in, I soon realize that it’s floating in midair.

  A chiming noise causes me to look up to where the ceiling should be but isn’t. I had expected to see a glass roof to match the walls and floor, but instead all I see is open sky. Dozens of dancing couples are floating in the air above us enclosed in what looks like translucent bubbles. Each bubble emits a particular color. When one bubble touches another, the color of each one changes to a new color.

  I look back at the room and see that there is a casino type area just past a normal, and very crowded, dance floor.

  “Come on,” Ethan shouts to me over the loud music as he gently tugs on the hand he still holds. “If Xander isn’t here at the bar, he’s probably at one of the gambling tables in the back.”

  Ethan leads me through the crowd of people toward the opposite side of the structure. I notice that the farther back we go, the quieter the music becomes. It’s almost like there’s an invisible dampening field causing the music to fade naturally. Once we reach the first set of gambling tables, I can just barely hear the music anymore. Everyone in the back seems to be playing the same game. A total of four people are sitting around each of the twenty tables in the room. On these tables, they’re playing some sort of card game.

  “There he is,” Ethan says, spotting Xander easily since he’s the most vocal of the bunch in the room.

  It’s easy to tell that Xander is drunk. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s singing a song woefully out of tune. I’m not sure if the bad singing is part of his strategy to distract the people he’s playing with and get them off their game, or if he’s just an obnoxious drunk.

  Ethan doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re standing next to his wayward angel’s table. As soon as we get there, he reaches down with both hands and grabs Xander by the front of his jacket to lift him out of the chair he was sitting in.

  “What is wrong with you, Xander?” Ethan snarls, openly showing his anger and disappointment in his fellow angel. “I thought you said you were going to change your ways after what happened in Hell.”

  Xander looks at Ethan with unadulterated disdain. I feel sure he wouldn’t normally let his emotions show so blatantly, but he reeks of alcohol, and since he’s an angel, I know how much of the stuff he has to drink in order to become this drunk.

  “The high and mighty Ethan Knight has come to save the day yet again,” Xander says c
ontemptuously. “Don’t you ever get sick and tired of being so damn perfect, Ethan? Not all of us can be.”

  “I don’t expect you to be perfect,” Ethan growls. “But I do expect you to do your job here and stay out of trouble. What exactly have you gotten yourself into this time, Xander?”

  “Perhaps I can answer that question for your inebriated friend,” a strange little man says as he shuffles toward us from the other side of the room.

  As I watch his progress down the aisle between the gaming tables, I’m not sure if there’s something physically wrong with his legs or if the way he’s walking is an odd personal choice. My hunch tells me it’s the latter explanation. I’m just not sure why. Other than that, he looks pretty normal. He’s wearing a white tunic dress over a plain black shirt. He has the same light brown skin that most of the people in the room have, so I can only assume he’s a native to this planet. His hair is jet black—again the same as pretty much everyone else inside the nightclub. His face is a little on the weaselly side though, and I never trust a person with pinched features like him. They’re always up to no good, and this man is definitely not an exception to that rule.

  Ethan sets Xander back on his feet, but he’s too wobbly to stay upright for very long. He ends up falling back onto his chair, which is the safest place for him to be at the moment. It keeps him a safe distance away from Ethan and allows gravity to work in his favor, not against him.

  “And who are you?” Ethan asks curtly, looking the man up and down with open wariness.

  “I am King Manas’ royal treasurer, Sir Uwe Hunya, at your service,” he says, bending at the waist slightly to Ethan in mock humbleness because humility is certainly not written on Uwe’s face. He’s as arrogant as they come because he believes he has power over the situation. And maybe he does. I have no way of knowing until he explains what’s going on with Xander.

  “What kind of trouble is Xander in, and why are you here?” Ethan asks, sounding suspicious of the other man’s presence.

  “I’m here to settle your friend’s debt to the king,” Uwe says with a grin that looks disarming and almost innocent, but I sense an ulterior motive to his presence here at this exact time.

  “How much does he owe to the king?” Ethan asks cautiously.

  Uwe pulls out a small black notebook from the folds of his outfit and flips through a few pages until he comes to the one he’s looking for.

  “Ah, here it is,” he says with a satisfied grin. “Your friend owes the king twenty million M coins.”

  “And just how many bars of gold would that translate into?” Ethan asks, bracing himself for the answer.

  “Well, let’s see,” Uwe says as his eyes wander skyward and he tilts his head slightly while he calculates the rate of conversion. “I would say that would come to twenty standard gold bars.”

  Ethan sighs. “I can get that for you, but I’ll need about an hour to gather it together.”

  “Oh,” Uwe says, waving a hand at Ethan like he’s said the funniest thing, “no need. The debt has already been settled.”

  “By who?” both Xander and Ethan ask at the same time, but not in the same voice. Xander sounds surprised while Ethan remains cautious of such good fortune.

  “By your friend, of course,” Uwe says with a smile. “She came to see the king personally and convinced him to agree to the trade instead.”

  “Trade?” Ethan asks in surprise. “Who was this woman, and what did she trade to the king?”

  “Something quite rare and beautiful that we do not naturally possess on this planet,” Uwe replies without answering the first question. Whatever was given must be highly prized on this world to cover such a hefty debt.

  Before I can react, and before Ethan or Xander understand what’s happening, Uwe clamps one of his hands on my arm nearest to him. Within a millisecond, I find myself trapped inside one of the translucent bubbles I saw the dancers in earlier with my captor. We zoom high into the sky, leaving the floating casino far behind within seconds.

  “What are you doing?” I scream to Uwe as the ball we’re in hurtles through the air with the pair of us completely weightless inside. I wrench my arm out of his hold and glare at him scathingly.

  Uwe holds up his hands as if he’s innocent of any wrongdoing.

  “I am only making sure the king receives his payment for your friend’s debt. Nothing more, young lady,” he protests crossly.

  “Payment?” I yell, just as all the pieces fall together within my mind, revealing Helena’s true motive for telling me to urge Ethan back to this planet. “That bitch!”

  “Well, I’m not sure what that word means on your world,” Uwe says snottily, “but I assume it’s not a compliment.”

  “No, it sure the hell isn’t, you sniveling kidnapper,” I reply unable to hold in my anger.

  Uwe lengthens his neck somewhat indignantly. “I resent that remark, young lady. I am merely adhering to the rules of barter. The king graciously accepted to take you for the remaining years of your life as payment for your friend’s debt. If you ask me, you should be grateful for his generosity. He was well within his rights to execute your friend. Ever since those earthlings traveled here, they’ve been a nuisance to the king’s plans. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t already killed them for their insolence.”

  Earthlings? From the way Uwe just talked about Xander and Zane, it sounds like he doesn’t know they’re angels.

  “Have you ever been to Earth?” I ask, curious to know if the inhabitants of this planet have the ability to travel across galaxies.

  “We have not developed the technology required to travel so far,” Uwe replies, not sounding so arrogant now that he has to admit that his planet is behind Earth’s science. But it does tell me that he and his king don’t know that the ‘earthlings’ aren’t using technology to travel. It appears that they don’t know my friends can phase.

  “So basically, you’re telling me that your people aren’t as smart as the people on Earth,” I say, just to rile Uwe up because he needs to be taken down a notch or two.

  Uwe narrows his eyes on me. “You are not a nice person, and I will report your insubordination to the king himself!”

  “Was your threat supposed to scare me?” I ask him with open amusement. “I hate to tell you, but my friends won’t just stand idly by and let your king keep me. They’ll come for me, and when they do, I would advise that you find a deep dark corner to hide in until it’s all over.”

  Uwe lifts his nose in the air as if he believes I’m bluffing, but he doesn’t say anything else to me for the remainder of our journey.

  It seems like it takes forever for us to finally begin our descent out of the sky and back toward the ground. Once we’ve passed through the cloud layer, I see an island, at least I think it’s an island at first. The closer we get to it, the more details I’m able to make out. I soon realize it’s a fortress built in the middle of a vast blue ocean. A thick wall of rough-hewn black stone surrounds a palace made of a polished version of the same stone. It’s beautiful in its darkness, but I can’t say it’s very welcoming. Then again, I remember what Ethan and the others said about the king of this world. He is basically destroying his own planet to gain personal wealth. The plan seems a bit shortsighted on his part, but then again, egomaniacs aren’t usually the smartest bunch in a crowd.

  The bubble Uwe and I are traveling inside of decelerates to a point where we’re hardly moving at all. It hovers over the center courtyard within the palace before making a gradual descent to solid ground.

  “Has Zane or Xander ever been here before?” I ask Uwe, praying that at least one War Angel has a phase point inside the palace to make my rescue easy.

  “Absolutely not!” Uwe tells me haughtily. “The king would never permit such riffraff to enter his fortress.”

  Well, so much for plan A. Hopefully, Ethan and the others come up with a plan B quickly. Since the king’s palace is in the middle of an ocean, there’s virtually no fleeing it on foo
t—not unless I can figure out how these bubble things work or happen to come across a submersible somewhere. Considering the choppy, shark-infested waters I saw, escape by boat is out of the question.

  After we land, the bubble surrounding us suddenly disappears. I suppose I should have paid more attention to what Uwe was doing before we touched down. He maneuvered his body upright, so that when the bubble disintegrated, he would land firmly on his feet. Unfortunately, I didn’t have such a graceful landing. I end up falling directly onto the grass below us back first, which jars the air right out of my lungs.

  “Oh, sorry,” Uwe says as he looks down at me with a slightly sadistic smile on his face. “I guess I should have warned you about the landing.”

  I hear a small group of booted footsteps run in our direction. Uwe looks up toward the noise and says, “Take her to the consort chambers and inform Lady Maya that the king’s latest addition to his collection has arrived and needs to be prepared.”

  Just as I sit up on the grass, but before I have a chance to ask Uwe (the wannabe tyrant) what kind of “collection” he’s talking about, I feel two sets of hands grab my arms and snatch me up off the ground rather roughly. They turn me around and drag me into the palace. When I look at my captors, I see faceless men. It’s not that they don’t have faces exactly, but their bodies are covered from head to toe in some sort of stretchy black cloth. They’re wearing long white dress type clothing, similar in style to Uwe’s outfit, except theirs are chalk white and nondescript.

  I attempt to struggle out of their grasps, but they simply refuse to let me go. In fact, their grips tighten on my arms with superhuman strength. I begin to wonder if the two people dragging me through the palace are actually androids of some type and not men.

  Finally, my captors stop when we reach a white marble door in the hallway we’re in. One of my escorts holds out a hand and pushes the door open. Once inside the room, they shove me farther into it with such force I end up sprawled onto the white marble floor. By the time I turn around, the door is closed and the creatures who brought me here are nowhere to be seen. I immediately stand to my feet and run over to the door, trying to find a way out. Since there’s no knob, I try to push it open, but it doesn’t budge. I look around the room to search for a different exit. I see another door—one with a knob this time—and run toward it.