Chloe tried to breathe, but it wouldn’t work. Air finally started moving in and out, but it sounded weird. It came and went with horrendous sobs. She was grabbing the wall, hanging on because the room was tipping. She was going to slip and fall, and keep falling until she fell off the edge of the planet.
“Wow, sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I didn’t think you’d react so bad. Come on. Take a deep breath.” Michelle was on the floor with her. “I’ll unload the dishes for you.”
Chloe couldn’t stop the frantic sobs. All she could do was hang on to the wall.
Michelle spoke in a quiet, kind voice. “What did he say?”
Chloe tried several times before any words could come out. When they finally did, they were each like a separate sentence. “He. Was. With. Rebecca. Now.”
You’re nothing.
Once it was out, she lost total control. Michelle let her fall into her arms and sat with her on the floor while her despair poured out of her in a torrent of grief.
After forever, Michelle wiggled and shifted her position. “My legs are asleep. Can we go to the couch to do this?”
Chloe clambered to her feet and left Michelle in the kitchen. She staggered up the stairs to their room and fell back onto her bed with the sobs kicking back in with a vengeance.
CHAPTER 13
The Celestials plunked Horatius down in a bathroom stall at Chicago’s Union Station. It was not bad enough that his assignment was to guard a self-absorbed human, but he had to do so like a human himself. He could not even fly. By wing or by plane. They insisted he arrive without fanfare and nowhere near the girl to avoid attracting Satarel’s attention. They wouldn’t let him transfigure. Instead, they healed the damage to his face while he still sat on the church bench, then teleported him directly from Saint Giles into the train station john. From there, he had to take a train. Sitting in Coach Class.
A man at the urinal jerked when Horatius slammed out of the bathroom stall. The way the fellow had been having a conversation with himself, he must have believed he was alone. Horatius punched the paper towel dispenser on the way out the door. He was not having a good day. Sure, he wanted a chance to earn his redemption. But caretaking a stubborn girl was not his idea of a good time. And the Celestials said it would be best not to use his powers, as it would risk attention. How in the world could he ever help a defenseless human if he didn't use his powers?
In the process of relocating him back to the twenty-first century, they redressed him in cheap modern clothes with an economy Amtrak ticket in his jeans pocket. The clothes were nondescript and embarrassing. But his plan was not to stay around for long in them anyway. In his other pocket was a shabby faux-leather wallet with five twenties, a Visa card, and an ID with his picture for a Horace Nephil.
The train ticket was for a two-o’clock departure. A prepaid cell phone from his front pocket told him he only had fifteen minutes to find the right platform and board. No time for a stop in the bar. Of course not. The trip was starting out worse than he knew it would.
While he stood in line, a security officer stepped alongside him and watched him without a word. Horatius pretended not to notice her for a time, but then it became ridiculous and he looked directly at her, staring down right into her eyes. She was short and wide. And all business.
“We will need to see your luggage for a random security check,” she said.
“I have none.”
Her left eye twitched. Apparently not the answer she expected. She looked down at Horatius’ feet, behind him, and for any stray baggage that might be his.
She pointed at a duffle bag not far away on the floor. “Let me see your bag.”
“That’s mine,” another passenger in line said, snatching up the bag like he could protect it from an inspection.
“Step out of the line, please,” the officer said to Horatius.
“My train is due,” Horatius said.
“Step out of the line,” she repeated and her eyes narrowed into a tighter glare.
As much as he did not want to guard a human teenager, it would not do to ruin the assignment before it even began. He stepped out of line and the officer patted him down very thoroughly, taking his phone and wallet out as she did. She read every line of his ID and studied his photo carefully. After she returned his things, she said, “You may step back in line.”
The line had moved forward and no one was happy about him cutting in, but he did it anyway. The security officer watched him the entire time, probably to make sure he didn’t retrieve some secret, hidden luggage.
Once on the train, he found his seat and sat with a groan. Not nearly enough leg room. Of course he would not be in First Class. Mebahel had not provided him with a sleeping car either. Leviah had probably made the arrangements. That would explain the bathroom stall.
The train pulled out of the station and within minutes, the conductor came by for Horatius’ ticket. He studied the document like it was encoded and inspected Horatius’ face like he’d never before seen someone from the Middle East.
“Where is your luggage, sir?” the conductor asked.
Horatius exhaled an exasperated blast of air. “I have none. I already told the security officer. She searched me and looked over everything. All is in order. I just need to get to Denver.”
The conductor reread the ticket again. “May I see your ID please?” His voice was polite, but his intention was offensive, and both of them knew it. Horatius pulled out his wallet again, let the man compare the photo to his face, then finally got it back and returned it to his pocket.
The conductor punched his ticket, placed it in the seat back and wished Horatius a good trip. Not likely.
Horatius went directly to the lounge car. It was closed until further notice. Of course. Leviah probably put a curse on it. He returned to his seat and leaned his head back and waited for, yearned for, sleep. Seventeen sober hours jostling about inside a clamorous box on steel rails was something he wanted to miss.
Sleep lasted only until a little after eight when the train stopped at a one-story brick station in Osceola, Iowa. A couple with four small children all about the same age boarded. After they saw Horatius, they put protective arms around the tykes as though he would bite them or something worse and scurried to the next car. Well, I don’t want them near me either. He needed to sleep. When the train got moving again, it click-clacked past century-old white clapboard houses with wraparound porches equipped with rocking chairs. A lollipop of a water tower marked the place as a typical farm town with little to do except bowl, rent movies, or go to the bar. Oh, how he would have liked to go to the bar. The train rumbled on and indications of development disappeared and the trees became bushes, then the bushes became low soybeans. The flat plains had as much shape as an abandoned airfield.
The train rocked its way toward the sinking sun. An occasional desolate tree, standing completely alone within miles of sprouting fields, cast a thin long shadow, twice its height, toward the east. Nothing stopped the eye from seeing beyond the edge of the earth where it fell away in a curve. How Horatius wished he could be above it flying now, up with the Pure, enjoying peace and freedom. How could he succeed at his task if he was not supposed to fly or use power? The Celestials expected him to become a companion to the girl, to somehow help her on foot. They were asking him to do the miraculous while shackling him with the impotence of humanity. I’m being set up to fail before I even begin.
The hours passed and the plains spun away from the sun, losing any lingering illumination. The vivid green tarnished to brown, then the brown to smudges and shadows. Soon it all faded to thick black. Light only came when the train passed through a nameless town and stopped among a splash of glass bulbs on the platform. Each town summoned the unnecessary whistle of the train to warn off stragglers from the track, though every street was empty, every citizen tucked safely with his family in his creaky farmhouse for the night.
All the other passengers in the car were trying to s
leep. They moved in synch, stirring and repositioning against their companions when the whistle wailed and the train interrupted its noisy nocturne to stop in the next village. When the rhythmic rumbling became sonorous and bearable again, pairs settled back down against each other and sought sleep. Everyone but Horatius had a human shoulder or arm to connect to.
Out Horatius’ window, a rare pair of headlights broke the blackness at a far distance. They turned away and tiny red taillights blinked and were gone. The black swallowed up everything. What was out there, out in the human’s world, for him? Could he possibly help this girl? Could he possibly prove his sincerity and gain redemption? Could he live like a human and then become saved like a human?
Finally, sleep found him somewhere near the western edge of Nebraska. He woke again when the train was approaching downtown Denver. The first thing that came to mind as he roused was how good a cold beer would taste to chase away the dry mouth that the night had left him.
Outside of Denver’s Union station, the sun blinded him. The incessant light cut through the thin, dry air like a laser. Squinting hard, he fell in with the flow of commuters walking along the sidewalk with destinations compelling them forward. Each kept to himself and paid no attention to Horatius or anyone else. Everyone hid behind sunglasses or concealed expressions. Many had ear buds and several talked animatedly on cell phones, pouring all their emotions into unseen issues, ignoring what was right around them. All so concerned with the ridiculously mundane worries of corporeal existence, the here and now. Little did they know how much really happened and mattered outside of their tiny circles of reality.
What truly mattered dawned on Horatius some time ago, when he’d been deeply involved in all things selfish, lascivious, and shameful—he recognized that now. His father and he had been enraptured by magnificent seductresses, true jezebels, partaking in all the wonders of old Greek debauchery. But it was empty somehow—when he was sober enough to notice. Which, though rare, did occur one desolate day that left him so devastated, he began his agonizing pursuit of atonement.
As a Nephil, he hadn’t enjoyed the privileges They offered to They's beloved humans. Humans had souls. Humans could be redeemed and dwell with They. Humans were loved by They. Horatius wanted that. He wanted redemption and to be declared worthy, valuable. He yearned to be wanted by They.
Since that revelation, he’d been working to prove himself worthy. He still didn't know if he even could gain a human soul. No Nephil had tried before. Nephilim were few and aberrant. But born to women of the human race, it had to be possible. Horatius was counting on it.
The commuters crowding him on the sidewalks herded him to a cobbled outdoor mall lined with trees and tall buildings. A steady stream of people flowed in and out of a Starbucks. That’s where he headed. All the bars and restaurants were still sleeping for the night. If he couldn’t get a morning beer, he would settle for a triple shot of espresso.
Once a steaming venti was in hand, Horatius went back outside and wandered until he found an open drug store and bought a pair of Ray-Bans. The sun was too intense, and the debonair look might take the emphasis off his humiliating attire.
Mebahel had put a bus ticket and route map in his pocket for the required transport from Union Station. The bus wasn’t crowded and he took a window seat near the back. They rolled above ground and drove toward the mountains. After crossing over the interstate, they went into an old part of Denver. Following the route highlighted on his map, Horatius got off at Federal and Forty-First Street, then walked north the few blocks to the street with an X on the house where the girl lived.
It was a late 1940s stone walkup, the kind with small rooms and big trees. Crumbling concrete steps went up from the public sidewalk through a steep bank of thick grass. A flat walkway connected to another set of steps up to the front porch. The place was run down and in need of an attentive handyman. Maybe he could paint the place, trim the bushes, pull some weeds. And spend a few days keeping an eye on the girl. Could that be enough? Then could he go home? How much trouble can she be now at home?
He pressed the doorbell and waited. A TV laugh track came through an open window from behind a curtain. No one came to the door. He rang the bell again. The TV went silent and eventually the curtain swayed a little and the locks began to clunk.
Past a chain lock pulled taut peered a disheveled teenager in her pajamas. The skin around her nose was bright red, like she’d been rubbing it raw with harsh tissue for several days. Her hair was a mess and had to have taken at least three days to get that tangled and vertical.
She gave no greeting, just stared and waited for Horatius to start the conversation.
“Is Chloe at home?”
“Nope.” Dope. Then she sniffed, like she had done it a million times already and was sick of doing so.
“Do you know when she will return?”
“She’s at her gas station. Missed her shift last night so had to go in this morning. She’s working a double shift.”
“She’s working at, um a, what was—”
“She’ll be gone all day.”
“What’s her store name? I always get it confused with that other one—what is it?”
“She’s not supposed to have visitors.”
“Oh, I am not going to bother her while she works. I just want to see how she is doing. Ah, that is the store over on….” He waited for her to fill in the location.
“Are you from her orchestra?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“You that new teacher? I’ve never seen you before.”
“Yes I’m new. I am a harpist. I teach harp at the school.”
“Well, she’s not doing good. She’s a mess. I’m sure you know all about Scotland.”
“Yes, yes I believe so. I’m sorry to hear she isn’t doing well. I know this has all been…difficult for her.” The Celestials had not told him all the details, so he hoped it sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
“That jerk Todd! She should have never dated him. He’s a tool.”
Ah. Boy trouble. Of course.
“That’s what I told her, too. So, uh, her store? The one on…”
“I dunno. It’s next to the old theater. The Federal, I think.”
“On Federal Boulevard?”
“Well, duh. Where else?”
“Okay, well I don’t want to keep you. I imagine you feel terrible.”
“Miserable. Terrible. I’d open the door, but you do not want this.”
“Well, nice to meet you, um, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Michelle.” Bahshell.
“Michelle, thank you. Maybe I’ll see you again. Goodbye.”
Horatius went back to Federal Boulevard and had to guess whether to go north or south. He went north and after nine blocks with no theater, turned around. Within three blocks of his wrong turn, he found the theater and its neighbor, Chloe’s convenient store. She was at the counter, visible through the plate glass window. Stiff as a statue, she stood facing the back wall.
The bell on the door chimed when he went in. Chloe didn’t respond. Another employee was filling the cooler along the back wall with bottles.
“Hello.” He said it two more times, the third as a question.
She turned slowly. Dark half-moon shadows were under her red rimmed, puffy eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess of curls. Just like her sister, no comb could have been through that in days.
When she finally focused on Horatius, they opened a little wider.
“What are you doing here?”
I have been cursed to spend some time with you. “I was in the neighborhood.”
She stood unchanged, with her arms limp at her side. Her head only tilted slightly. “And you just happened to walk in here?”
“No, I worked a bit to get here. I was looking for you.” Mebahel made me come.
“You didn’t come back. I missed my plane.” Her words were as flat as the floor she stood on.
Her appearance wa
s pathetic. So different from when he’d seen her last. “What happened…that’s not what I planned to occur.”
She turned back away and fixed her eyes on the back wall again.
“I talked to Michelle. She told me you weren’t doing well.” The enticing spark was gone from her eyes.
Chloe shrugged.
Two thin kids in tight black clothes entered—girls, boys, both, neither, he couldn’t tell—and they went to the back coolers and worked around the other employee to select their beverages. Several cars came and went at the gas pumps, but they paid outside and didn’t come in. A tall cowboy with a spectacular hat leafed through some magazines then picked up a sixty-four-ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper and a bag of Ruffles.
When the cowboy approached the counter to pay, Chloe rang up the total like she was a robot. She was oblivious to the man’s flirtations.
“Well, hey there you pretty young thing, ya’ll gave me a twenty instead of a five,” he said with a smooth western cowboy accent. He handed back the bill and gave her a toothy smile. It didn’t rattle him a bit when Chloe gave him the new change and turned away without acknowledging him.
The cowboy tipped his hat at Horatius before he passed through the door. Horatius liked that hat. It had style. After the cowboy, the unusual couple at the back coolers left, and Horatius said to Chloe, “When is your work shift over?”
Chloe stared at him with glassy eyes for a moment before focusing enough to process his question.
She shrugged. “Midnight.”
“How do you plan to return home? You aren’t driving, are you?” She can hardly operate a cash register.
“I’m walking.”
“Is midnight a good time to be out, without an escort?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The words came out like she was tranquilized. She was nothing like he remembered. Whatever this new way was, it was broken. She was broken. Tenderness surprised him when it seeped into his feelings for her.
“I will walk with you.” If he was to be her Guardian, he could at least start with the basics and keep her alive. Jabamiah had said not to kill her. He would keep someone else from doing it, too. “You may call me Horace, by the way. That's how my close acquaintances address me.”
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