“I’m so very confused,” I rubbed my temples, “by everything. If he,” I pointed to the body on the floor, “is a vampire, what am I? Am I still mortal, because my heart beats, an angel because my blood killed him, or,” I hesitated on the last, “or a monster?”
“You can’t be mortal. No mortal could survive this,” he pointed to the lifeless body. “Are you a monster? I’m not so sure of that. Your heart continues to beat, something that would not be so if you were a vampire. If you were an angel, surely I would know…”
“Can’t you tell what I am?”
Danny ran a hand through his hair. “That I truly do not know. As I said the last time we met, I’ll need to make some discreet enquiries.”
“Maybe I’m something new?” I asked hopefully.
“I honestly don’t know,” Danny sighed. “What I’m thinking of is the stuff of angelic lore and legend.”
I waved my finger at him. “Yesterday I counted angels, demons and monsters as legendary creatures. Today I can’t be certain. Look, Danny, I need answers. My life is hanging in the balance here. What am I meant to do?”
“Do you remember yesterday when you tossed me aside so effortlessly?” he asked.
I nodded. It was something that had surprised me, given the situation I was in not long before.
“You should not have been able to do that. Angels are much stronger than mortals. In your weakened state I shouldn’t have felt even the slightest bit of pressure when you pushed me. That tells me there is something more to you. We need to tread carefully. If you can be patient I’ll be back with answers.”
“You’re leaving me again?” I asked in exasperation.
Danny nodded in response. He picked up Chris’s body and hoisted it over his shoulder, just as I imagined he would do. Chris’s left arm slid off Danny’s shoulder and his hand — the imprints of my fingers on his wrist exposed — waved around madly.
He’s saying goodbye.
“In the mortal world I can’t stay in the same place for too long. It will draw unwanted attention. Try to get some rest and I’ll be back before nightfall. We’ll talk about what you might be able to eat and moving you somewhere less austere.”
I placed an elbow on my knee and rested my head in my palm, letting out an audible sigh.
“Have faith,” Danny said, and within four steps he and the body were gone.
Have faith — he sure did seem to like using those two words. If I heard that phrase one more time I was going to throw up!
4. Alone Again
I wasn’t tired. Surely I needed to sleep though. It had to have been at least forty hours since I’d last slept. Perhaps my body had been running on a surge of adrenaline. Given the circumstances, that seemed reasonable. It would have to shut down eventually, so rather than wait for the inevitable, I closed my eyes and after a while fell asleep.
When I woke, the sun was low in the sky. Thin bands of light filtered through the gaps between the boards covering the windows. They formed what looked like the bars of a prison cell on the back wall.
I expected to feel refreshed — bright eyed and bushy tailed — after the long hours of sleep. How disappointed I was to find I didn’t register any difference in my energy levels at all.
My stomach rumbled. I was so hungry. I’d need to eat soon or I might pass out. How many days can the body go without eating, as long as you have water? I couldn’t remember.
I was deliberating whether or not to sneak out to get something to eat when I felt a light breeze stir around me. I looked up to find Danny was standing in front of me.
“About time,” I grumbled. “I was about to go out and get something to eat.”
Danny’s eyebrows shot up in alarm.
“Don’t worry, I was going to pay for it.” I waved a note in front of his face. “I have money.”
“I don’t think eating regular food is a good idea,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked suspiciously. “What do you propose I eat?”
“Some of the information I’ve been able to gather is rather alarming. It seems it doesn’t matter what you are now.” He sounded kind of sad. “What matters is that having been bitten by a vampire you’ll take on some of their characteristics. Diet is one of them.”
“I don’t crave blood,” I scoffed. “That’s just gross! I actually feel like a hamburger. There’s a hamburger joint not too far away. I’ll prove to you that I still like regular food.”
Danny sighed. “Fine, have it your way. If the only way to convince you is to allow you to have a burger, then go ahead. But be warned, it will hurt.”
I smiled. “Only if I eat too quickly.”
I stood up, brushed myself off and headed towards the back door, which wasn’t locked. Danny followed close behind, like a second shadow. It was so good to stretch my legs and walk around. I felt amazingly optimistic that things were going to get better. It had been a long time since I felt optimistic about anything.
There were no customers in Barney’s Burgers. I hoped that wasn’t indicative of the quality of the food, but was too hungry to care. As long as I didn’t get food poisoning it wouldn’t matter. I could live with a little indigestion or heartburn.
“Do you want something?” I asked as I headed towards the counter. “My treat.”
“Thanks,” Danny said quietly, “but I don’t need to eat.”
He retreated to a corner table and waited for me there.
“Hi there!” the pimply young man behind the counter — his name badge said Ryan — said. “Can I take your order?”
“I’ll have the double cheeseburger meal to eat here.”
“Would you like the mega double cheeseburger meal for a dollar more?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied and handed over my money.
Ryan handed me my change and I waited patiently while he arranged my meal on the tray. He’d barely slid the tray to my side of the counter when I snatched it up. Walking quickly to where Danny sat, the soft drink sloshed out of the waxed paper cup onto the tray, wetting the dozen or so serviettes. Why the hell do they always give you so many serviettes anyway?
Danny sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “How can you eat that stuff?”
“Easy,” I replied. “You just open your mouth, take a bite,” I took a small bite to show him how easy it was, “chew a few times, then swallow.”
“I really don’t think you should do that,” Danny warned.
“What, talk with my mouth full? It was only half full. For what it’s worth, sorry about that.”
I took another bite of the burger and crammed a few fries into my mouth as well, for good measure.
“No,” Danny said. “I don’t think you should be eating that.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
I could have been eating cardboard for all the taste there was, yet I was so hungry I continued to eat. I made sure I chewed slowly before swallowing. While I could live with indigestion I’d be much happier without it.
By the time I finished the burger my stomach had stopped rumbling. Danny was still gaping at me and shaking his head as though he thought I’d gone mad. Just as I started eating the rest of my fries I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. Damn. I really needed to go to the toilet.
“Excuse me for a minute,” I said, and stood up. “I need to use the ladies.”
Danny started to rise. I waved at him to sit back down. It wouldn’t look good if a man followed me into the toilets. The manager might call the cops.
The pain intensified to a needle-like stabbing. I clutched my stomach and walked slightly hunched over, trying to ease the pain.
This must be what it feels like to be repeatedly stabbed in the stomach.
I found that my breath was catching in my throat. My heart was pounding and I could feel drops of perspiration forming on my brow.
Man, I must be more desperate to go than I thought!
When I closed the cubicle door behind me my knees buckled and I fell to the
floor.
This is not good.
Within moments I was retching. Even though I’d chewed each morsel well before swallowing, everything seemed to have doubled in size on the way back up. I had difficulty breathing in-between retching. Tears rolled freely down my cheeks and my nose ran. This was almost as bad as the pain I’d experienced when Chris had attacked, except that this pain originated on the inside.
When I thought the retching had finally stopped I leaned back against the cubicle wall. I wiped my eyes, nose and mouth with some toilet paper, then flushed everything away.
I climbed to my feet and was fumbling with the lock on the door when a fresh wave of pain struck. Not again! I slid to the floor, my head over the toilet bowl. A knock on the cubicle door was answered with more retching.
“I told you not to eat it,” Danny called through the door. “You’ve been in here quite a while by mortal standards.”
The retching subsided after a few minutes, yet the pain in my abdomen lingered. It was as if it was punishing me for feeding it junk food.
I reached out for some toilet paper to clean myself up again, only to find an empty toilet roll.
“Can you hand me some paper, please?” I called out.
“Paper?” Danny asked. “What do you want paper for?”
Evidently angels didn’t need to go to the toilet. That made sense if they didn’t eat.
“I need to clean myself up. Can you just go into another cubicle, grab some toilet paper and shove it under the door, please?”
A moment later I saw his hand under the door.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I stood up and cleaned my face as best as I could before throwing the paper into the toilet and flushing. I unlocked the door and let it swing open.
“You don’t look very good,” Danny said.
I rolled my eyes. Wow, he’s very observant.
“I don’t feel very good,” I replied, and headed towards the sink to rinse out my mouth and wet my face.
The face that greeted me in the mirror looked like that of a person who’d been on a week-long bender. Frankly I felt that way as well.
Danny rubbed my arm sympathetically. “Will you listen to what I’ve been trying to tell you now?”
I pulled away from him and looked him in his face. It was the first time I’d taken the time to actually look at his features properly. He was ruggedly handsome, with a straight well-proportioned nose, piercing sapphire blue eyes and perfectly sculpted eyebrows. The eyebrows were unusual for a man, though probably the norm for an angel. If he were mortal, he could have been a model or star of the screen, big or small. If Danny was anything to go by, God sure did believe in perfection — for angels at least.
“Can you make this pain go away?”
“Yes, but not here. There’s a safe house I can take you to. Do you think you can walk?”
“Is it very far?”
He nodded. “Very far indeed. I don’t expect you to walk all the way though. All you need to do is walk out of this place and around the corner. I can take care of the transportation from there.”
I straightened up and winced as my stomach protested. “Okay, I think I can do that.”
Danny left the toilets first and went back to the table to sit down. I followed a few minutes later, complaining of a stomach ache. Danny came to my side and helped me to the door. Hopefully my stomach ache, and the fact I looked ghastly, were enough to convince the staff why I’d been gone so long. They should be grateful I didn’t lodge a complaint.
“Take my hand,” Danny instructed, “and close your eyes. This will be somewhat disorienting and I’d rather you didn’t bring anything else up. The smell is quite vile.”
Hah! He should smell it from my end. It’s even worse when some of it comes out of your nose and no matter how hard you blow some gunk seems stuck!
We stopped when we rounded the corner. I closed my eyes, took hold of his hand and clutched my stomach with my free hand. My hand was swallowed up in Danny’s. His hand was warm and strong, his grip sure. I imagined it forming a protective cocoon around my entire body and not just my hand.
Danny started walking. I hoped he’d remember that my eyes were closed and I couldn’t see where I was going. By the time we took our second step the air become chilly, and by the third I smelled fresh, clean air. At the fourth step I felt something soft and springy under my feet.
“You can open your eyes now. We’re here.”
I opened my eyes and breathed deeply, only to double over in pain. I was still holding Danny’s hand and he was dragged down with me. He sat me on the damp mossy grass and brushed the hair away from my face.
“Let’s do something about that pain,” he said, and placed one hand on my forehead and the other over my heart, just as he’d done the day before.
My body stiffened, as did his, and a gasp escaped his lips. I could feel the pain being drawn out of me, through his hands. It was an almost sensual experience. When the pain was completely gone, Danny rolled onto the grass and took two deep breaths.
“That was incredible!” I said, excited and revitalised.
Danny smiled at me. “Yes, it was rather remarkable. Until yesterday I’d never tried it before. This time it was different… I knew what to focus on. The pain, how could you bear it?”
I shrugged. Pain was nothing new to me. It was something I’d learned to live with a long time ago. It was only the intensity of the pain from the last few days that was new.
“We all feel pain at some point in our lives. Are you telling me angels don’t feel pain?”
He shook his head. “Not like that, no.”
I looked at our surroundings. Whilst it was night time, the sky was clear and the stars were bright. We must be far away from the influence of the city lights indeed, to see the stars so well. To our right, no more than twenty metres away, was a small darkened cottage. All around us huge trees rose to touch the sky, like an impenetrable wall.
“Where are we and why are we here?” I asked.
“It’s a place I acquired some centuries ago that I like to visit now and again, when I have time — nowhere near often enough. Call it my slice of heaven on earth. The nearest town is a few hundred kilometres away. You should be safe here.”
Danny stood and offered his hand to help me up. “We’ll be more comfortable inside.”
I held onto his hand as he led me towards the cottage and didn’t let go until we were safely inside.
“Fire,” he said, and a small fire flared in the fireplace. “There’s no electricity, but I can heat some water for you if you’d like a bath.”
A bath! How wonderful it would be to be clean again, except that I didn’t have a change of clothes.
“That’d be great. I don’t suppose you have any clothes lying around that might fit me?”
“Not on hand. I’ll make sure there’s something suitable for you to wear once you’ve soaked off the grime,” he said. “In the meantime, I have to do a quick survey of the area. I won’t be long. Half an hour at most.”
Danny headed towards the front door, opened it and stopped to look back at me. He pointed to one of three doors.
“You should find everything you need in there.”
A small bath plaque on the door was all the indication I needed of which door to choose. Only a blind person could miss it! I turned to thank him — he was already gone. I’d have to ask about his transportation, as he called it. I was curious to know exactly how we’d arrived here so quickly.
When I opened the bathroom door I was greeted by a number of happily flickering candles. Most were around the hand basin, with a few balanced precariously at the end of the claw-footed bath. A framed oval mirror hung over the hand basin and the steam from the bath had already fogged it over.
I squealed with delight, clapping my hands, before closing the door behind me. A towel and fluffy robe hung on the back of the door, and in the cupboard below the hand basin I lo
cated a number of toiletries to make the task of washing easier.
The fact that there was no curtain or blind covering the window didn’t worry me. If I was indeed far from human habitation the worst I would see peering through the window was a bird or wild animal. Besides, even if Danny peeked in the window, he wouldn’t be the first peeping Tom I’d encountered. Somehow I didn’t think Danny was much of a peeing Tom. Chivalrous, honourable and gallant were all words that sprang to mind in my assessment of him.
I eased myself into the bath carefully and leaned back to let the heat permeate my body. When I was thoroughly warmed I let my mind drift, losing track of time. I vaguely remembered to wash and give my hair a good clean. The lightly scented water — lavender I thought — calmed and relaxed me.
A noise in the cottage startled me. Is that Danny? I wondered. I was on the alert for a knock on the door, or an attempt to open it. After a few minutes, when neither occurred, I returned to enjoying the bath and cleansing my body. Eventually I started wrinkling like a prune, as is always the way. Time to get out. I drained the bath, dried off, wrapped the towel around my hair and slipped on the robe. It felt good to be clean.
I opened the bathroom door and peered down the hallway. Danny was sitting in an armchair opposite the fireplace, reading a book that looked and — even from here — smelled old. I walked to the living area in bare feet and nodded towards the book.
“Any good?”
“Very dry, but interesting nonetheless. It’s on angelic lore and mythology.” Danny closed the book and left it resting on his lap. “How was your bath?”
“Pure bliss!” I replied. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” he said happily. “There are some clothes for you in the bedroom on the left. I hope they fit. I haven’t had to procure clothes for a woman before, although I did get a good idea of what size you are from your memories.”
I laughed and headed towards the bedroom. The clothes on the bed were the sort of thing I would have chosen to wear if I wanted to blend in with a crowd — nothing that would make me stand out. When I’d dressed — Danny was thoughtful enough to provide me with new footwear as well — I returned to the living area and sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace.
Angel's Kiss Page 3