by Nana Malone
“Elisabeth tried to hold Nancy here even though her heart was so shattered it couldn’t beat,” Azrael finally said. “The only reason she failed is because I released her.”
“It would have killed her if you hadn’t released Nancy,” the General said. “It damned near killed my mate keeping me alive when I was that badly wounded and I didn’t have shattered internal organs.”
“Maybe if I’d summoned help?” Azrael said. “Perhaps Hashem would have made an exception to let you heal Nancy the way you did her?”
“The parties agreed to heal Elisabeth because she was a special case,” the General said. “She survived your touch. We hoped … it’s in everybody’s best interests if Lucifer isn’t the only Morning Star.”
“She never showed any pre-ascended abilities until she tried to heal Nancy,” Azrael said.
“Hashem asked me to take samples of her DNA,” the General said. “She’s got genetic markers from all four hybrid species, Sata'anic Fallen, and Lucifer running through her genome.”
“So she’s what the two emperors are hoping will evolve from this world?"
“She’s also got genetic markers from Seraphim Angelics who haven’t existed in this universe for thousands of years,” the General said. “Angelics whose bloodline, to our knowledge, died out. She’s a step-in. An ascended consciousness come back in mortal form.”
“But the Seraphim were killed before they ascended as a species,” Azrael said.
The General flinched. As a boy, he’d been the sole survivor of the Seraphim genocide.
“The species as a whole did not ascend as the Cherubim and Wheles did,” the General said. “But they were close to perfection. Many Archangels are Seraphim come back to finish their evolution.”
A tiny spark of hope lit in Azrael’s breast and was extinguished. Elisabeth had chosen somebody else. Azrael’s wings drooped dejectedly.
“Elisabeth carries enough of her original genome to possess pre-ascended abilities even without her memories,” the General said. “It’s why she survived your touch. Some Seraphim evolved the capability to tolerate void-matter.”
“Like you,” Azrael stated.
“Like me,” the General said. “But more importantly. Like you. Hashem won’t reveal who your sire was, but you have Seraphim DNA running through your bloodline.”
“You … mean?” Azrael asked, and then stopped as the full magnitude of what the General was telling him slammed home like a sledgehammer. “You mean … there’s a possibility she might …”
“Why do you think we never reassigned you after the incident with the gang-shooters?” the General said. “We hoped you’d follow your heart and make your presence known.”
“It’s forbidden,” Azrael said. “Hashem was livid I showed myself.”
“Hashem was livid you punched a hole into Gehenna to personally feed her assailants to Moloch,” the General said. “Not because she saw you. You’re Hashem’s policeman, not his executioner.”
“Elisabeth was so angry,” Azrael said. “I was afraid she’d strike me and die. She can sense me no matter how invisible I make myself.”
“We don’t know if she’ll ever be able to tolerate your touch,” the General said. “But we’d like you to return to Earth and resume your mission.”
“I can’t!” Azrael flared his wings and inadvertently vaporized a swath of ferns. “It’s cruel to ask this of me!!! The Regent doesn’t understand!”
“She understands better than anybody in the universe,” the General said. “We think Elisabeth may be a Seraphim who suffered a broken bond. As I once did.”
“I thought the fate of a broken bond was to wander all eternity alone?” Azrael asked.
“A Seraphim with a broken bond is unable to reunite with their family in the upper realms,” the General said. “Because they remain imperfectly bonded to the false mate, they suffer the same karmic injury over and over again until something breaks the cycle.”
“How terribly cruel,” Azrael's wings fluttered with horror. “How can you heal a wound you can’t remember receiving?”
“You choose,” the General said. “Free will. Every lifetime a consciousness is reborn, they’re given a chance to make a different choice.”
“It’s cruel! She-who-is should let them remember.”
The General flipped through Azrael’s notebook until he came to a picture that was not of Elisabeth. In one of his darker moods, he had sketched the look of terror on Elissar’s face as she’d reached up from the fires of Gehenna towards his hand.
“Sometimes memory loss is a blessing.” The General touched the tiny penciled hand so vividly drawn it practically reached out from the page. “My amnesia was only temporary, but much of what I accomplished was done because I couldn’t remember who I was when I chose to help the people of her world.”
Azrael looked at the picture of his young friend. The only real friend he’d ever had besides his sister. Oh … gods! How he wished he could forget her terrible death. His own death. The feeling of loss he’d felt as her small body had shuddered in his arms and died. The fact Moloch still existed and put her world at risk. What he wouldn’t give to have back the carefree bliss he’d experienced when Ki had allowed him to bask in the Song of Creation without his memories!
But even there, he’d been able to sense a connection to Elissar’s mind. A connection which had grown faint once he’d been coaxed back to Earth to protect her world. A connection which, even now, enabled him to keep his dark gift under control even though she’d been dead and in the grave for 2,300 years…
“I would not give up a single memory of her,” Azrael said. “Not for all the power in the universe. Not Elissar. Not Mama. Not Gazardiel. And not Elisabeth! Even if she did break my heart.”
“I’m beginning to see why Ki entrusted you to hear her song,” the General said. The slight uptick of one corner of his mouth indicated he found favor with Azrael’s words. “Only those capable of unselfish love can access the highest realms. It’s Ki’s insurance policy to make sure Moloch’s agents can't escape the material realms.”
The General flipped to a picture Azrael had drawn of young Elisabeth reaching up to take his hand, dime-store angel wings crushed beneath her in the bloody snow. She’d just received the wound which would become her scar. She had looked up at him, her body broken, her family gone, and yet she’d smiled and told him she was the Angel of the Lord. In the picture, they were touching. The only touch, besides the Regent’s, Azrael had experienced without killing somebody since his death.
“Perhaps your despair is premature,” the General said. “Elisabeth still lives.”
“It’s too late!” Azrael said miserably. “She chose someone else. I’ll get to kiss her just once, the day she dies, and then she’ll be gone.”
“Lucifer sent the Regent a message,” the General said. “An old friend of yours kept tabs on her after you left. Samuel Adams. Her country just went to war. She made an appointment to speak to an Army recruiter, so Sam got himself assigned to be that recruiter.”
“Th-the … army?” Azrael stammered. “She’ll be killed!”
“She told Sam her scholarship to the University of Chicago wasn’t enough,” the General said. “She doubled up her classes so she’d graduate early, but she has no money coming in to meet her living expenses. She loathes being a burden on Mrs. Schroeder.”
“But … her leg!”
“The Army is willing to overlook her disability because she won’t be on the front line,” the General said. “They’re desperate for nurses and they’ll help her finish her training. She ships out to basic training in two weeks.”
“B-b-but Tommy … they … I saw… um…” Azrael trailed off. He did not wish to divulge he had stayed far longer in the room than he should have stayed.
“You caught an eyeful of something you wish you’d never seen?” the General asked, one eyebrow raised in bemusement. “Sam asked her about the boy. She said she broke up with him at the
beginning of the summer.”
“She … broke up?” Azrael whispered. A glimmer of hope ignited in his heart.
“Although humans are capable of forming the Bond of Ki,” the General said, “it’s rare they actually do. Whereas Seraphim Angelics evolved to form the bond automatically, it takes an act of will on their part to form a bond that unbreakable. Same as the mortal Angelics who make up Hashem’s armies.”
“Unmated. Like my mother?” Azrael remembered how heartbroken his mother had been as she had gone through each failed mating cycle trying to conceive his little sister and finally resorted to ‘help’ from the Emperor a second time. “Only … Mama was never … I mean … I never saw her with any other Angelic except during a heat cycle. We were her world.”
“You’d better keep that in mind when you go mooning after her,” the General warned. “I have no idea whether or not the young woman is capable of bonding. But she did not bond with him.”
“Oh…” Azrael whispered. “You mean … she … we … I might still have a chance with her?”
“Don’t get your hopes too high,” the General stood back up and stretched his wings. “You still have your original problem. Unless she’s as resistant to void-matter as the Regent is, she dies. Your only option is to wait and see what develops. I suggest you observe her until you figure out what you want to do.”
The General ruffled his dark black-and-brown striped wings, a twinkle of darker, warmer blue in his unearthly blue eyes. “For all I know, we could be dead wrong.”
“Dead … wrong,” Azrael repeated, and then realized his esteemed commanding officer had just made a joke.
“Go!” the General ordered. “It’s dangerous where she’ll be going. Protect her. But protect your heart, as well, until you are certain she will not break it a second time.”
In a flash, Azrael was gone, forgetting to give the General the proper military salute.
Elisabeth didn’t have a mate!!! Whoopie!!!
* * * * *
Chapter 28
Death is as sure for that which is born,
As birth is for that which is dead.
Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable.
Bhagavad Gita
Earth - AD October 7, 2001
University of Chicago Medical Center – Chicago, IL
“We’ve got de-fib,” Elisabeth said.
“Is it me?” Chief Medical Director Abdullah Fa’azi asked in his lilting Dagestani-accented English. “Or are there more gang-related deaths in this city each year. 360 Joules, please, Elisabeth?”
Doctor Fa’azi tore open the young man’s shirt and expectantly held out the paddles. For some reason, the Chief Resident continuously challenged her to do more than the other nurses.
“Charging now.” Elisabeth automatically flipped the dial to the correct number and grabbed a bottle of medical gel to squeeze onto the dual paddles. “Gang-related violence is up. The Saints and Latin Kings are going at each other over turf to sell drugs.”
“Why do we have to get them?” Student Nurse Maria complained as she shoved gauze into the gunshot wound in the young man’s chest. Gang tattoos could be seen covering nearly every visible inch of the young man’s body.
“Clear!” Doctor Fa’azi shouted. The body jerked up, and then back. “Because this is a teaching hospital. We take them so you aspiring young nurses have a human guinea pig too poor to hire a lawyer to sue if you screw up while you learn.”
Doctor Fa’azi had the pleasant up-and-down cadence to his voice typical of most Indo-European doctors who flocked to the University’s teaching staff. The gunshot victim, unfortunately, did not. The heart monitor screamed in alarm as the jagged up-and-down lines on the paper readout spaced out and went flat.
“Flatline,” Maria said. “Do we shock him again?”
“It’s not like jumpstarting a car,” Doctor Fa’azi reminded her. “The defibrillator only works if the heart is in defib. It does nothing if the patient is flatlined. We have to restart the heart using chemical means. Elisabeth … start manual chest compressions. Maria … get me 50 milligrams of atropine, please.”
“One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand,” Elisabeth counted, wincing at the sound of rib bones cracking as she pressed the ball of her hand deep into the patients sternum. “C’mon, kid!” Her own heart raced as she tried to will the young man’s heart to start pumping on its own.
Maria reached into the cabinet and shakily prepared an enormous, hollow needle with adrenaline to restart the heart. “Here, Doctor.”
“Thank you, Marie,” Doctor Fa’azi said. “Elisabeth … I need access, please. Step aside.”
“Yes, doctor.” Elisabeth cringed as Doctor Fa'azi felt along the patient’s ribcage and jammed the enormous needle between two ribs to inject the adrenaline directly into the heart.
“C’mon,” Doctor Fa’azi muttered, watching the monitor. They all watched the monitor, praying for the patient's heart to start beating on its own.
One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. The monitor remained flat.
“We’ve lost him!” Nurse Maria said, tears coming to her eyes. “Are you going to call it, Doctor Fa’azi?”
“Time of death…” Doctor Fa’azi started to say.
The hair stood up on the back of Elisabeth’s neck. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt in more than a year, but she knew exactly what it was. HE was here to take this kid. Her German rose in her veins at all the stupid, senseless, meaningless deaths she’d been forced to endure since she was a little girl.
“Not so fast!” Elisabeth grabbed the gunshot victim by the face and pulled his limp head to face her. “Hey … you … gang boy! I’m talking to you. You going to give up and just go into that dark night? Or are you going to get up and show that camel-jockey of a doctor and ‘spic nurse that you’re a Saint?”
She visualized grabbing the young man by the scruff of the neck and dragging him kicking and screaming back into his body.
The heart monitor beeped once. Jagged, irregular waves scratched across the paper readout and then dissipated. Defib … and then flatline again.
“Yeah… that’s right,” Elisabeth said. “I’m talking to you!!! Here you go getting all shot up and dripping your blood all over my emergency room. You think you’re going to go to some pie-in-the-sky honky heaven where hot angel-chicks are going to fawn all over your scrawny ass and give you head all day long? Well I got news for you, Saint-boy! I’ve seen that angel who’s come for you and, you know what? He’s black. He’s black as night ‘cause there’s only one place you’re going right now. And that’s straight to hell. You hear me? That black man holding out his hand and telling you to go with him? Well I’ve seen his true form! And let me tell you, it’s ugly, ugly, ugly! You ask him to show you his true form before you take his hand. ‘Cause it’s the last thing you’ll ever see!”
The heart monitor registered a few weak beats, and then went flat.
“Dead, huh?” Doctor Fa’azi asked the dumb-struck Maria. He rushed to the supply cabinet and pulled out a second syringe, filling it with more atropine. A second injection went directly into the gangbanger's heart.
“Nothing,” Maria said with a hint of gloating.
“Give me those paddles,” Elisabeth said. “400 joules.”
“That’s too much,” Maria whined. “The training manuals said we should never give more than 360. Besides … he’s flatline again. The paddles won’t work.”
“He’s dead,” Doctor Fa’azi reminded her. “Remember? He’s got nothing to lose.”
The doctor jacked up the dial and handed Maria the bottle of medical gel. Maria nervously squeezed gel onto the paddles as the machine charged.
“Clear!” Elisabeth shouted, her expression intense as she pictured kicking the gangbanger in the ass hard enough to knock him back into his body as she rammed the paddles down onto the center and side of his chest and felt the body jerk upwards.
The heart monitor beeped.
It beeped again.
“That’s it, Saint boy,” Elisabeth crooned, her voice soothing now as the monitor beeped, then paused, then beeped, then beeped again, and then paused before settling into a normal sinus rhythm. “You can do it. Tell that black man he can be the one to go to hell, taking people who never did him no wrong away from their families and leaving nothing but shattered lives in his wake. You tell him you’re going to hang around here a little while longer and see if you can’t straighten out of the mess you’ve made of your life.”
Her entire body tingled. She could feel him standing so close behind her it felt like he was inches from her back. The scent of air after a thunderstorm had passed filled her nostrils. The scent she’d come to associate with him even though the nearest ocean was thousands of miles away.
He was back. Her watcher had come back. She turned to face him even though no one except maybe the gangbanger on the table could see him.
“I won,” she said, a tigress protecting her cub. “You can’t have him. He’s mine.”
Nurse Maria stood in shocked silence at Elisabeth’s outburst. Doctor Fa’azi, however, began to clap.
“Nurse Maria!” Doctor Fa’azi ordered. “We have a tension pneumothorax to treat. He’s lost a lot of blood. Get me a pint of B-positive and a colloid drip. Elisabeth! Get a chest tube. We need to re-inflate that lung.”
“Right away, Doctor Fa’azi.” Elisabeth did as she was told now and handed him the tube.
“I think you should do the procedure,” Doctor Fa’azi gave her a smile. “You’re going to be doing a lot of these where you’re headed to in three days.”
“But she’s only a student nurse!” Maria complained. “Like me.”
“She’s a natural trauma nurse,” Doctor Fa’azi said. “Or more likely, a future doctor. And she doubled up classes all last winter and through the summer so she’s almost ready to graduate. The Army is darned lucky to get their hands on her.”