Familiar Angel

by Amy Lane

  “I’ll try not to be so obedient,” he rasped, “but maybe we should take the deer back to Edward first. They need to be cooked too.”

  Suriel nodded—and then moved his finger back to Harry’s brow. “Yes,” he murmured. “But I have one more thing I’d like to do. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time, brave Harry. You wouldn’t deprive me of it now, would you?”

  Harry’s mouth parted, and his heart beat in his throat—and his groin.

  “No,” he whispered. “I’d give anything for you, Suriel. You know that.”

  Suriel stood some inches taller than him—they’d never been this close. He’d never realized how helpless he’d feel before the angel of his salvation.

  “It’s a simple thing, really.” A tiny smile pulled at the corners of Suriel’s lush mouth. “But it’s all I’ve wanted for quite some time.”

  He lowered his head then, and brushed his lips against Harry’s in a simple kiss.

  Harry gasped, raising his hands to Suriel’s bare shoulders, and at the feeling of that smooth golden skin under his palms, he moaned and leaned closer.

  For a breathless moment under the heavens they were skin to skin in the silken water, and the kiss deepened. Suriel tasted glorious, filling Harry’s mouth, making him drunk and greedy. He opened and allowed Suriel inside, clinging tightly, wrapping his legs around Suriel’s thighs, winding arms around his neck.

  Suriel cupped his bottom, pushing them closer, and the feeling of his erection, rubbing against Harry’s, almost sent him spiraling, rutting, spilling his climax into the saguaro-scented water.

  Suriel pulled back, resting his forehead against Harry’s. “We,” he said deliberately, “will finish this later.”

  Harry let out a sob and buried his face against Suriel’s neck. “What is this?” he asked, shaking with want. “What—why are you—Suriel, I’m lost.”

  “I’m falling,” Suriel whispered in his ear. “Let’s find each other, just not—”

  “Now.” Harry had a job to do. “Not now.” His family had dedicated the past century to saving people who had been just like Harry, Edward, and Francis. Harry couldn’t let them down now.

  Any of them.

  They took a deep breath, and then another, and Harry unlocked his legs, shuddering at the loss of Suriel’s bare skin against his. His feet had just touched bottom when a sound—a familiar sound—broke the silence of the watering hole.

  “Shit!” Harry swore. “Suriel—we need to go!”

  “I’ll get the game,” Suriel said with surety. “You get away.”

  Before Harry could ask how—even as a large hunting cat, Suriel couldn’t haul three small deer—Suriel had changed again, this time quite spectacularly.

  Where a man had stood, desirable and warm, a giant golden eagle with a wingspan the size of the watering hole lifted out of the water. With a shriek it grasped the three deer in its still-dripping claws and pumped its mighty wings to rise up into the sky.

  Harry could have watched him fly forever, his freedom and glory a beautiful ache in Harry’s heart, but another bullet whizzed by, frighteningly close. Harry ducked under the water and swam for the edge, turning cat as soon as he reached it. He heard shouts of “Where’d he go!” and “Dammit, did you get him!” as he trotted out of the water, and with one last lingering look over his shoulder at his boots, he ran back into the desert.

  He paused as he got to the grassy edge and crouched under a creosote bush to see where their attackers were heading.

  A solid figure, shaved bald, with a great bushy mustache, thundered out of the darkness, and five smaller figures also dressed in black orbited around him, asteroids around a corrupt moon.

  Harry’s first instinct was to cry out, but even as a cat, that could be fatal. His second was to hide—crawl inside the heart of the creosote bush and never come out.

  His third instinct—the one he obeyed because his family needed him—was to stay exactly where he was and listen. And watch. And see if this was who he thought it was.

  “Not one of you whoresons hit what you were shooting at?” The man who looked exactly like the nightmare from Harry’s youth turned and spat into the earth. Harry almost expected the sand to steam.

  “That was unnatural,” hissed one of the smaller men. “Was I the only one to see—”

  “Nothing.” The speaker, a withered, hunched man, looked furtively over his shoulder and made the sign of the cross. “You saw nothing. They got away.”

  “What?” Big Cass—because that was the only way Harry could think of him—asked suspiciously. “What did you see? I was in the back, looking for the others. What did you see?”

  “First of all I saw faggots kissing, but that’s no news.” The man sneered at Big Cass. Cass cupped his groin and thrust, sneering back, and the man kept talking. “But we shot—and I swear, Cass, we got the big fucker. But the bullet just seemed to bounce off his back, and the next minute he was a great bloody bird!”

  “There was a light!” the man next to him protested, sounding hysterical. “A great bloody light. Blinded me. When I could see again, they were both gone, and the dead things at the water with them!”

  “Sure,” the first man agreed resentfully. “A light. A whatever. It wasn’t right!”

  Big Cass chuckled, low in the pit of his stomach. “A big light? A man that’s not a man? That’s….” His chuckle grew bigger and uglier, and if Harry hadn’t had urgent business to attend to, the first thing he would have done was vomit up the last thing he’d eaten. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a hundred years.”

  Then men around him laughed uneasily, like he was telling a joke, and maybe to them, he was.

  But as Harry turned and skittered soundlessly into the night, he knew it was the least funny thing he’d heard since he and his brothers had hidden in a thorn bush and watched an angel heal a demon in response to a sorceress’s tears.

  Flying

  HARRY WOULD never forget the first time Emma and Leonard fought.

  Leonard was a soft-spoken man, humble, with a dry sense of humor, and at first the boys had been puzzled as to how the two souls would find their way together when Emma was so warm, so passionate and fearless.

  For the first few years, the boys were cats almost constantly. They learned to read as cats, their paws gliding softly along Emma’s ancient tomes and their claws sometimes puncturing the paper. They slept together, tangled up, in the first year, a pile of fur at Emma and Leonard’s feet, particularly when it was cold. If Emma and Leonard were making love, the three of them prowled around the outside of the cabin, guards against an intrusion that never came.

  After two years of turning human maybe once every two months so Emma could trim their hair and they could shave what beards they grew, Leonard told her very firmly that they were forgetting their words and needed to be human more often. Perhaps once a week, he said, to sit at their table and converse. He’d built them a room by now, with beds of their own, but they still slept, a sinuous contortion of fur and muscle, at the humans’ feet every night.

  Harry had been napping behind the couch. Francis preferred to nap on the couch, and Edward usually chose a sunspot, where he would lie on his back and indulge, but Harry was a corner cat. He liked being snug and warm, with only one direction to look should danger threaten.

  But Francis and Edward were off stalking mice that day, and Harry—who had been up late studying, still hoping then that the books would hold the secret to the loneliness he tried so hard to conceal—was hidden from view.

  “No!” Emma snarled, “I will not tell them they must!”

  “Emma, this isn’t healthy for them. They were boys—nearly men—and I swear, Harry growls when he eats. The last time he sat at our table, he picked up a chunk of meat in both hands and growled. If we don’t take them in hand, they will end up not quite sane!”

  Harry kept his eyes deliberately closed, so if he was discovered they would think he hadn’t heard. But in
side he was alert, curious—and embarrassed. He hadn’t realized he did the cat-growling-eating thing as a human. It was like sitting at the table naked, actually.

  Beyond the couch he heard the sound of the broom being wielded across the hearthstones with unnecessary force. Emma was cleaning, which she did when agitated.

  “Do you have any idea what their lives were like?” she asked angrily. “Any?”

  “Yes, I was there when you met them, remem—”

  “They call out for help in their sleep! Do you hear that?”

  “Of course I do! Cat, human—they’re running from Big Cass and the terrible things he did to the boys who were working—”

  “Francis too!” Emma said, her voice breaking.

  Harry’s eyes shot open—Francis. They’d worked so hard to keep him safe.

  “Did he tell you that?” Leonard asked softly. Francis had barely spoken to Leonard as a cat or a boy in this last year.

  “Finally, yes. Apparently that man raped all of them, the boys and the girls—he was their ‘breaking in.’ Edward and Harry thought they’d gotten Francis out before it happened, but he’d been caught, just before the escape.” Her voice broke. “He can’t even think of a man’s touch. A woman’s either, but that’s not who he’ll desire. They’re broken, Leonard. How can I make them sit at my table and demand silly human parlor tricks like eating with a fork and a knife—”

  “Because they are human,” Leonard snapped. “They aren’t our pets, Emma—”

  “Do you think I don’t love them like my sons?” she cried.

  “Do you think I don’t either?” he yelled back. “They’re sons, like Mullins was to me. And they are so grateful to be here, to be safe, to be protected—they’re afraid to be young men because they’re afraid they didn’t learn it right—”

  “And they’re afraid of what will happen to them as young men,” she added, voice passionate. “If they find safety in the guise of house cats, how can we rip that away from them!”

  “Because they’ll forget,” he said softly. “And they’ll never learn to trust us, sweetheart. How can they trust us if they never sit at our table and converse with words? You didn’t bind them as familiars to rob them of their humanity, Emma—but if you don’t start making them be human, that’s exactly what will happen.”

  “Every night,” she said, voice breaking. “One of them calls his name in their sleep every night.”

  “Even Harry,” Leonard said sadly.

  “Why?” Emma practically pounced. “Why is it so odd that Harry would call out his name?”

  “Because Suriel said Harry saw him die?” Harry was puzzled too. He tried to think back to that night, to the moment Big Cass’s bones and blood, skin and soul, had been scattered through the foliage of the riverbank.

  “How did he die?” she asked, confirming that no, no she hadn’t known this.

  “Suriel killed him. Emma, how could you not—”

  “Suriel can’t kill a man—he’s an angel!” she half laughed. “He’s an angel bound to God—”

  “Well, he did. I don’t know what price he paid to do it, but he… blew the man up. His matter was all over the clearing—Suriel said Harry saw it too.”

  “Oh Lord,” she breathed, standing up. “Yes. You’re right, my darling. We have to make them be human.”

  Harry was so surprised—and so betrayed—he almost mreowled.

  “Why?” Leonard sounded suspicious. “What are you thinking?”

  “It’s their fear. Suriel’s unmaking of the man can only stay permanent if the boys believe he’s gone. If they fear him every night…. Leonard, he’s real to them. A magical end like that, it can be undone. We need the boys to overcome their fears—and do it now—or that man will find his way back into their lives as sure as they’re furry now and stalking mice!”

  “Huh,” Leonard said, sounding so puzzled, and dear Harry almost chuckled to himself.

  “Why, whatever is wrong, dearest? You were in the right the whole time.”

  “Well, yes,” Leonard admitted, “but this was not how I expected to win the argument. I almost wish it wasn’t magical. I almost wish you’d just agreed with me because I love the boys as well.”

  Emma’s voice softened. “Does it help that your affection for them only makes me fall deeper in love with you?” she asked sweetly.

  “That is a fine consolation,” he conceded.

  What followed were kissing sounds—but fortunately by this time they had their own bedroom, and they made their way to it, leaving Harry awake in his corner, his heart threading in his throat as he contemplated the unthinkable.

  Our fear could make him real.

  He’d fought it then, had led the way for Edward and Francis, using their human form more often, for sitting at the table like men.

  Anything, any amount of self-healing was worth it, as long as Big Cass would never be made flesh again.

  AS HARRY blurred through the desert night, heading toward the encampment and hoping the men hunting their property couldn’t move as fast as he did, he was praying as he hadn’t prayed since he’d seen Suriel suffering.

  Please let it not be him. Oh please. Let him be dead. Let him be gone. Let him not be about to kill my brothers and Suriel and the frightened women we stole from a terrible life. Oh please. Please. Please.

  Please let Big Cass be dead.

  By the time he got to the encampment, he’d been running full-out, front paws digging into the earth, back paws springing almost to his ears for the next bound, for nearly two miles. He started to slow down as he entered the light circle from the modest campfire—the one his brothers ranged around—but he was still going fast enough to be startled when he was plucked from the ground in midstride.

  “Harry!” Edward hissed, shaking him. “Harry! What is going on inside your head? We couldn’t hear you! Suriel was beside himself!”

  Harry slid out of his grasp, taking shape as a human and gasping for breath. “Men… with guns…. Big Cass!”

  That quickly, Francis and Suriel were there as humans, gathered around him.

  “Harry, you’re naked,” Francis said calmly, and Harry glared at him while trying to pull in enough oxygen and coherent thought to make sense.

  “Did you not hear what I said?” he asked, chest heaving. “Big Cass. I saw him. He was leading the others.”

  “That’s impossible,” Francis told him, an expression of serenity settling on his long features. “Big Cass is dead. Suriel blew him up. You told me that, and I believed you.”

  “It’s true,” Suriel said—but not as serenely. “I did blow him up. Harry, are you sure it was him?”

  Harry nodded, but he couldn’t meet Suriel’s gaze. “We were so afraid,” he said after a moment. “We were dreaming of him, years after it was over.”

  Edward grunted. “Yes.”

  “Emma said once… she said that our fear could bring him back to life. And I heard him talking—one of the men saw Suriel change into an eagle….” He had to look at Suriel now. “You were beautiful,” he said softly, and Suriel’s mouth parted on a smile. “But he started laughing and said that was the funniest thing he’d heard in a hundred years.”

  The silence thudded around them, creating a slow, viscous moment of settling fear.

  “I… he’s dead,” Francis said with finality. “And he never touched me. I’m going to go check to make sure the deer are cooking well.” He turned on his heel and stalked into the night.

  “That’s reassuring,” Edward said dryly.

  “And a lie,” Harry said worriedly.

  Edward grimaced. Harry had told him after that long-ago day, but not once had they heard Francis admit to either of them what had happened.

  Now was not the time.

  “I am nowhere near certain,” Edward growled with a deep and cold hatred. “That bastard….” He and Harry looked at each other and shuddered. Harry had stood in front of Big Cass the first time he’d gone after Edward. He’d woke
n up with a head so sore he’d vomited for a week and a rip in his arse that hadn’t quit bleeding for twice that long.

  Before he could even walk again, Cass had taken Edward in front of him. He’d remember that moment, Edward, grim and silent, locking eyes with Harry and biting his lip as the two of them endured it together.

  Yes. Edward could admit to the fear that had chased them through the ages.

  “I saw him, Edward,” Harry said quietly. “We need to keep him away from Francis—and the girls.”

  Edward’s eyes filled with a profound sorrow. “And you, Harry. And me.”

  Harry gritted his teeth. “I’m not afraid. I’m not. I told you back then, remember?”

  “Yes—and I believed you because I was young and stupid and I didn’t see when someone was being brave for me so I didn’t have to be brave for myself. You barely survived him, Harry. He hurt you worst of all.” Edward shook his head and held out his hand to forestall any other conversation. “I’ll go fetch you the last of the clothes.” Suddenly he stopped and squinted as though his figures didn’t add up. “Francis was right. How is it that both you and Suriel were naked when you changed?”

  “We were, uh, washing the blood off,” Harry muttered.

  Edward cast him a suspicious glance and then stalked off toward the truck, where he’d probably stashed their emergency clothing satchel.

  Leaving Suriel and Harry alone together on the edge of the light.

  Suriel’s hand on his shoulder sent warmth coursing down his adrenaline-cold body. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Harry tried a smile. “Your plan was brilliant, and—” He bit his lip. “—it was a nice moment.” Another flood of warmth that was all Harry’s own coursed from his toes to his cheeks. Suriel brushed his cheekbone with a tender knuckle.

  “I love this color in your face, on your body. Are you embarrassed or aroused, Harry?”

  “Both,” Harry said gruffly. Yeah, he’d been a whore once upon a time, but since then it was a rare man who got to see Harry naked—inside or out.