by Lia Davis
"This may work better." He took a tissue from the table by her bed. Humans secreted too many fluids, only a few of which were desirable.
Rather than taking the tissue, she continued to keep hold of him and turned putting her nose right in his hand.
Without much of a choice, he wiped her nose and threw the tissue aside. "No crying. That's not for you."
She swallowed her body jerking a bit as she tried to stop the tears.
He waited for her to calm down. "Now, I think you should sleep. I'm sorry about your mother."
"Will you tell me? I can't sleep until someone tells me." She wrapped both arms around his arm.
"If I tell you will you let me leave?" He sat at the edge of her bed.
"I don't know." She stared up at him.
"What do you want to know?" He peeked over at the window. Whatever went wrong on this visit, he needed to figure it out.
"What happens after you die?" She sniffed. "No one will tell me. They just say the angels took my mommy. I hate those angels."
He bit the inside of his mouth to stop a smile, but he couldn't say he disagreed with her assessment. "Dying is merely an end, like closing a book." He cleared his throat. Of course, only mortals died, in his world it was considered a curse. Death and the fear of death made them the perfect receptacles for those more powerful.
"You are a different kind of angel."
"I am not an angel." He ignored the sour taste building in the back of his throat.
"Yes, you are. You were sent here for me and you catch things." She nuzzled up to his arm. "You're mine. Please stay, it's finally safe. Now the trees won’t get me."
Safe? It was an interesting description for him. He glanced out the window to the trees. Here in his territory everything was overgrown, the branches created a canopy over the streets that were supposedly desirable, but this little girl knew better, it was simply a mess of foilage. "I think it is time that you go to bed and tomorrow when the sun rises things will be better." Maybe the best course of action was to let her fall asleep and then unravel himself from her tiny clutches.
"I hate it when the sun rises." She shimmied closer to him.
"Why is that?" He tilted his head.
"Can't hide." She pursed her lower lip out.
"Did you know I have never seen the sun?" He didn't have time for this conversation. His own urges built up, coursed through him and needed to be let out. This was his assignment, and he was designed to complete his job or suffer.
"Really? Why?"
"It is part of my job. I am only allowed one night here every four human years. I must finish before the sun rises."
"So you can hide." She spoke as if she just answered a great riddle.
For someone this small, she certainly understood. He tilted his head. "That is why I must go now I must go do my job."
"Finish the story." She yawned. "Tell me more. What's your job?"
At the sign he was making headway he continued. "I punish those who deserve it."
"How?"
Something told him to edit his answer. "I make people want things, and then don't give it to them." He nodded at his own explanation. In truth, he had an enviable job, one revered by his peers. He prepared females deserving of punishment for demons yet to come, create a want intense enough that the woman would do anything for relief.
"So you get the bad guys." She giggled.
"In a manner of speaking."
"Tell me the end." Her little hand found his and she laced their fingers together.
The end he created was most definitely not appropriate for Leora. Once through, he produced a perfect vessel designed to breed for the rest of their human years, and satiated his own appetite. "Well, in the end the bad guy never gets what they want and they spend their life trying and I go and find the next bad guy."
"You're like a superhero."
At least he had been upgraded from angel to superhero. "Now that is the end, and you must sleep and it is time for me to go." He pulled his arm but she held fast.
"What's your weakness?"
"If I tell you, then you must let me leave, all right?" If story telling didn't work, maybe bargaining would do the trick.
She nodded.
He almost cheered at his minor victory and to give her a good finale he bent down and whispered as if this were a great secret. "If I promise something, I have to keep it no matter what."
She gazed at him. "Do you promise what you told me is real?"
"I do."
She blinked. "Death is just like closing a book?"
"Yes." He managed to get his arm loose.
"Dolan?"
He waited to allow her ask one more question.
She flung her arms around his neck.
Her shaking and her sniffing told her she cried once again. These small ones were not the awful creatures he encountered later in their lifespan. He put one arm around her and patted her back. "No crying. That's not for you. You're special."
"Do you think so?"
Her breath tickled his ear and he shuddered. "I do. You will be special, I promise."
"You promised, so it has to be true." She pushed back and gazed up into his face.
"You are also smart." He pushed her away, pulled up her covers and stood. "Never forget what I said."
"Dolan?"
Now free, he made it to the door and put his hand on the knob. "Yes, Leora." He peeked back at her.
"I wish you could come back in four years. I wish you could come back every time. That would make me really special."
He waved. If the heat wasn't surging through him, it may have been a treat to stay and learn a bit more about her. Someone who didn't fear him, someone who wanted him because they thought he was something else.
"You're mine." One small hand escaped the sheets and she held it out to him as if trying to reach him. "Promise you'll come back every time."
"I promise." His entire being seized at his words. "Wait."
She sat up and clapped. "You have to keep your promise."
"No." He rushed back toward her, his heart pounding, his body trembling. "We must fix this."
"You have to keep your promise." She took his hand when he reached her. "You are mine!"
He had until sunrise to fix this, or his suffering would be endless, that was a promise.
Chapter 2
STRENGTH
* * *
For the millionth time a shiver ran over Leora's body. She put her pencil down and peeked over her shoulder toward the door. "Who's there?"
Rather than dress up and beg for candy tonight, she opted to stay home and wait. All day she knew something was about to happen. Her stomach swirled, and at school she ran to the bathroom twice thinking she may throw up. No one bothered her when she during class.
Hours ago her father went to bed, she tried to sleep but only ended up staring at the ceiling. Wide-awake, she finished her homework and drew, but now the sensation that someone was coming for her grew, and she stood up from her desk. "Are you here?" Not even knowing who or what she asked for, she focused on the door and held her breath.
At last the doorknob turned and he stepped inside her room.
The butterflies in her stomach added to the pressure in her chest. He was here. Dolan was in her room. She forced herself to inhale. "I didn't dream you."
He tilted his head and shut the door. "Most people would say I come in nightmares."
"I knew it." She wrapped her arms around herself and took him all in. Last time he arrived in shadows, a strong form who came to protect her and make things better. Tonight, the man looked like a movie star, tall and in jeans and a leather jacket. His blonde hair hung down around his face and even though it was night, he wore sunglasses like he needed to stay hidden. Until this moment he lived in her hazy dreams where he whisked her away and rescued her. A savior.
"What did you know?" He leaned back on the wall and crossed his legs.
"That you were the angel came to me." Wi
th her hand out, she tiptoed toward him. Once she touched him he would be real.
"Did I ever tell you I was an angel?" Before she reached her goal, he caught her wrist.
Hot, searing pain shot up her arm. "Oh!" She freed her arm and doubled over, cradling her own wrist to try to blunt the throb.
"What the Hell?" Again, he took her arm, flipping his sunglasses back and holding up her arm.
"Oh my God!" The ache faded as she stared at him. "Your eyes!" His shining copper eyes glowed as if she melted her crayon of the same name.
"Do they scare you?" He raised his eyebrows.
She shook her head. Scary wasn't the word. All she remembered was him showing up Halloween night four years ago, the same day of her mother's funeral, telling her an amazing story and promising to come back.
"Who did this?" He touched the bruise on her wrist.
"It doesn't matter." She pulled her arm away from him. If he here, she wasn't going to waste her time with stupid things. "Are you an angel?”
Rather than answering, he went to her desk and sat down. "You are quite the artist." He picked up her picture.
"Whatever." She had been trying to draw a sunny day in the mountains. No one ever said much about her art, but her father made sure to keep her in supplies.
"Does it look like this?" He tilted his head one way, then the other.
"What? The mountains?"
"No." He glanced over to the window and then to the picture.
"The sun! You've never seen the sun." She sat at the corner of the desk. Part of his story remained in a fog, but with him here it came back. "I remember."
He placed her page aside, took a blank paper and chose her silver crayon. "Yes." He scraped the crayon across the page, and did the same with the yellow and the gold and the red. Thick stripes of colors splotched across the page.
"Why do you have to leave before the sun comes up?"
"Everyone has rules they can't change." Now he picked the black crayon and colored over the mess of colors he created. "Everyone has rules they can change."
After making the entire page black he reached into his pocket and took out a jagged little gleaming black stone. She put her hand on the desk and leaned over as he scraped away the black in little dots allowing the different colors to come through and then waved his hand over the paper through. The colors lit up.
"Stars!" He was magic, just as she remembered. She smiled, wishing her father could see her, he always said she never smiled, but she never had a reason until now. "How did you do that?"
"There are some things we can control, and there are some things we can't." He put the stone down and grabbed her arm. "Which one was this bruise?"
"I don't know." She bit her lip. At least he noticed. "I just hurt myself."
"How?" He pulled her arm toward him and slid up her nightgown sleeve. "What's this?"
Four long red welts trailed down her skin. Tears blurred her vision and he appeared as if he had a halo around him.
"No crying. That's not for you."
Her breath stuck somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and a flash of the night he came to her first time went through her head. She gasped for air to speak. "You said that to me before."
"Yes, but now that you're older, so I will tell you that your face gets very red and blotchy when you cry. Resist crying, it's a silly reflex for people who don't have any power."
She blinked the tears away
"You didn't hurt yourself, someone did this, I want to know who right now." He stared into her eyes. "Tell me now."
Those copper eyes glowed at her, his tone of voice told her she had no choice but to answer. "Nancy at school doesn't like me."
"Go on." He tapped his foot.
"She got all the other girls not to like me." Not wanting to relive the last few weeks, she shut her eyes. "We used to be friends but…whatever. Now everyone thinks I'm weird."
"Weird?"
"It started when I told her about you, she used to think it was cool, but then when we started this term she got me to tell the story again and then called me crazy." She opened her eyes only the smallest amount. "I waited for you a long time."
"Weren't you too small to remember me?" He ran his fingertips down her scratches.
"I always remembered you." The red faded, but her face heated. Cloudy or not, she always remembered, her silent unseen protector, or at least that's what she believed.
He wrapped his hand around her bruise. "Look at me."
Her stomach twirling again when she looked at him.
"You shouldn't tell people about me, they won't believe you."
She nodded. The only person who listened anymore was their housekeeper and she didn't speak English. Her father only shook his head.
"Humans don't like to hear what they don't understand."
"Humans?" Warmth encompassed her arm.
"This is something you can control."
"But…" She peeked down at his hands.
"I said look at me." His voice hard like the stone he used to make the picture.
Her focus went back to his face.
"Do exactly what she has done to you. Make up a story, I'm sure you have something, but you do it with wide eyes and a smile." He removed his hand from her arm.
The bruise disappeared. "How did you do that?"
"Control." He crossed his legs. "Everything is about control. That is how you get what you want. You don't succeed by crying and being scared. Keep your secrets and make everyone want to be what you are."
She let his words sink in. "Is that what you do?" Right now she wanted to be him or go with him.
He let out a lone chuckle and put his hands behind his head. "Remember, I make humans lose control. Never let anyone get the best of you."
"Have you ever let someone best you?" She wanted to hang on to each one of his words.
He paused, glanced up at the ceiling and back to her. "You, my dear, have bested me."
A wave of electricity went through her. Maybe this was the power he spoke of. "Me?"
"Yes, last time I saw you, you made me promise be with you every time I visit."
"But you haven't been here in years." The feeling as if she could do anything went away.
"I only come back every four of your years and I have a job to do." He sat up and took the little sparkling rock off the desk. "I can't do that job if I have to come here every time I visit."
She watched him roll the rock around in his palm. "You promised me."
"And you know I'm not allowed to break that promise." He held his hand out to her. "I have helped you, and now I'm asking for your help."
She chewed the side of her mouth, trying to do as her teacher told her and think before she spoke. This was the power. She sat up, his lesson, his words. For the first time everything made sense.
"All you need to do is tell me that I can break my promise and not return to you. Then I can do my job."
If she let him go he would never return, never do magic, never see her. She waited for him, prayed he was real and she had the control. "No."
"Leora…"
"I want you to return every time you're here. I won't let you go." She reached for the stone.
He closed his fingers around the little rock before she swiped it. "You won't let me go, even if I don't want to be here?"
"You're mine." She repeated the words she told him long ago. With him, nothing else mattered, not Nancy, not her father, not her teacher. "No." The awful feeling like she wanted to throw up vanished at last. "No. I don't care about your job."
His eyes glowed, the corners of his mouth twitching. "A fast study. I always knew you were smart."
"I heard that Nancy still needs to sleep with a nightlight." She reached across the desk and took both pictures. His page seemed lit up with sparkles. "Maybe she's afraid of monsters." she put his page with her papers and offered her picture of the sun to him.
With a nod, he took the present. "You are not afraid of monsters?"
"Nope. I control them." Yes, she knew he wasn't an angel. No angel would tell her to be bad, but no angel ever came to her either.
He opened his hand with the rock. "Things can change."
She took the gift, and as he taught her, she simply smiled keeping her own secret and making sure he returned.
Chapter 3
SICKNESS
* * *
Dolan materialized and froze. The house stood quiet, but a different energy vibrated through the area. Unlike the first time where the curtains of death draped the residence, or the second when juvenile trivialities masked all other sensation, tonight the shadows of his enemies surrounded Leora. In this case maybe he welcomed the intrusion.
The hair at the back of his neck stood on end, for a brief moment blunting the pulsing pain through his body. He needed to do his job, have release, and complete his task. There could be no more cavorting with a child.
With precise heel to toe steps, he moved down the hallway. The pictures changed from the last time. Gone were the shrines to the dead mother, in their place wedding pictures with the father and another woman. He stopped and took in one of the images. While everyone else smiled in the human ceremony, Leora stood off to one side with her nose wrinkled, eyes narrowed, and a handful of flowers by down by her side. She destroyed the joy in the photo. "Good girl." He continued toward her room.
Before entering, his pressed his palm to her door. They were inside, and he arched his back abating the unwelcomed, unnecessary shudder. His training didn't include dealing with this nonsense. If they were here, freedom would be his soon.
Time to say farewell. Though he should be surging with triumph, he experienced nothing only a strange numbness. The gift he brought along to bribe her would now be a parting present from the underworld. He put his hand on his pocket and opened the door.
Three of them. One in each corner, protecting Leora from the likes of his relatives. Their appearance close to what humans described for eons, flowing white robes and serene faces, only no wings.
"I told them you would come." Leora's youthful, bouncy voice took on a tone of someone broken and ill.