Julia opened her mouth to argue, but he raised a hand to cut her off.
“Yes, you’ve hurt people, but it was never what you meant to do. Your heart is pure. You know it as well as I do.”
Julia felt a tear slide down her cheek. “Okay. Go on.”
“We don’t just need an eighth Archangel. I need a second in command. Basically, I need another me.” Michael folded his hands together and fixed his intent gaze upon her.
“Second in command.” Julia dropped her head into her hands, her voice a mere whisper. “To you.”
“It could be you.”
“Could be?” She looked up. “So it’s possible I won’t be?”
“You are capable. Your progress has exceeded all expectations. Right now, you are more capable than five of the seven of us. But we have a new threat.”
“The A’nwel.”
“Yes.” Michael moved back over to the couch and sat beside Julia, taking her hand in his. “You are the only one who can fight it. We can’t call you home if it is part of your human make-up that gives you this power.”
“Call me home.” Julia’s voice cracked. She had ached for that all her life without knowing the reason. Now it was becoming painfully clear. And that was the pain that held her together and refocused her thoughts. “I would have to die to become the Eighth?”
Michael squeezed Julia’s hand lightly. “In order to function fully as one of us, yes, the human body should be discarded. But you wouldn’t be the Eighth, girl. You would be the Second.”
Discard her body. Leave behind food, sleep, coffee? Sex? Her restaurant, Sandra, Isabel? Everything she’d worked for. Julia wasn’t so sure she was ready to take Michael up on this…promotion.
“Wait. Second? All the others would be bumped down?” Julia was shocked. “That’s not a great way to make friends on your first day.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t. But that is how it is.”
“Perhaps that’s why there is a monster after me,” Julia mused.
“That was my thought exactly.” Michael released Julia’s hand and leaned back. “You absorb information incredibly well. We have caused a lot of mental breaks and physical damage in humans, trying to teach them things.”
“I’m not exactly your average human, Michael.”
“No, you most certainly are not. Now you need to answer some questions.”
“Fire away.”
“I have never understood that expression.” Michael grimaced and shook his head. “Tell me how you followed me.”
“Actually, you showed me how the day you brought me to that apartment.” Julia smiled. “I saw your energy trail. I quickly realized I could follow it, and see where you had been. It’s like you leave a thread behind. Not just you. Everyone—everything—does.”
“How much of the world can you see?”
Julia raised her eyebrows. It hadn’t occurred to her to try. “I don’t really know.”
“How much can you hear?”
“Everything, I’m pretty sure. Inside conversations and outside ones, if that’s what you mean.”
“Can you move without motion?”
“Teleport, you mean? No. That is, I haven’t tried.” Julia looked inward, recalling when Michael had moved them from her living room to the field. She replayed the moment in her mind, watched everything he did from every angle, then realized she was looking at the wrong thing, just as Michael told her so.
“You are viewing the physical. Watch the metaphysical.”
Even as he spoke, she could see the memory of him projecting the two of them. In a millisecond, he felt with all his senses the place he wanted to go. He smelled the wood fire burning and the air exactly as it was in the room. He pictured the room’s furnishings, the walls, the ceiling. He felt for the moisture in the air and heard all the creaks and groans of the house as it shifted and settled. Then he simply envisioned them both there and then they were.
“I see now,” Julia said, almost giddy. She felt like a child holding her first snow globe in her hands. “But how would you go to a place you don’t know?”
“There is no place I don’t know.”
Julia laughed. “No, I suppose there isn’t.”
“You need to take some time, girl. Do some exploring. I think your friend, Cassielle, will be a great help. Speak with her tonight.” Michael stood again and began to fade. “But for now, you need to sleep. You must remember to take care of the vessel you use. You are able to forget the confines of your human body. You must remember the things that it needs in order to live.”
“I won’t forget, Michael,” Julia said, surprised to hear her stomach growling.
“Get some rest, girl. And find Cassielle.” Michael faded further, now nearly invisible.
Seeing Michael in his nearly transparent phase gave Julia a pang of guilt. Now that she knew what it meant, she wanted to fix it, especially knowing that she was the only one who could.
“Wait. If I have to remain human because of the A’nwel, who is going to help you?”
“Do you not think fighting the A’nwel is helping me?”
“That was unexpected,” Gabriel said.
“Yes, it was,” Michael replied. “She has learned so much so quickly, I kept waiting for her to break.”
“I wonder if it was the best plan to inform her, but I suppose we have no choice if she can hear us.”
“And follow us.”
“Yes,” Gabriel shook his head as his wings twitched. “Unsettling.”
“Indeed.” Michael turned to face Gabriel. “The beast has been silent for too long.”
“Perhaps she killed it,” Gabriel said. “It is possible, given the damage she did to the fabric of being.”
“No, it’s not dead. I still feel the threat of it.”
“I think it is healing itself, or being healed.” Raphael’s voice flowed softly into the conversation as she stepped up between the two of them. “In time, it will return.”
“Yes,” Michael agreed. “It will. The question is, will it return alone?”
“We need to find the source,” Gabriel said. “A puppet is no good without someone to pull the strings.”
Raphael nodded her agreement. “If we find the source before the beast is healed, we should be able to take care of the whole situation.”
“Raphael,” Michael said, turning to face her, “I need you to teach her healing.”
“I will if you ask me to, Michael.” Raphael’s face tightened, her lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. “But wouldn’t it be better if I am there when the battle takes place?”
“It would be best to be prepared for any outcome.” Michael turned away, lowering his eyes. “Tell me, Sister, how is Ariel?”
“He is difficult. Petulant. But he does as he is told. He calls himself a glorified babysitter to hundreds of new angels.”
“Does he behave suspiciously in any way?” Gabriel interjected.
“Not that I have noticed, and I have not seen nor heard of anyone approaching him.”
“We are in a sad state,” Michael said heavily, “when we have to watch our own.”
XXXV
EXHAUSTION pulled Julia quickly into a deep sleep. She found herself in the field of tall grass where she had met with Cassielle the week before. There were butterflies fluttering above the field in an endless game of tag, dancing circles around one another and then darting away, only to be caught again. Julia found herself full of delight as they put on their show, seemingly just for her.
“The Second Realm,” she said, “is a delightful place to be.”
“It is what you choose to see, my friend.” Cassielle walked up beside Julia, resting a hand on her shoulder. “It is this way for you because that is how you were introduced to it.”
“I like it this way for now,” Julia said, hugging her friend. “Where’s Ayasha?”
“It is nearing her time,” Cassielle said with half a smile.
“Time?”
“She will bec
ome human again. This time she will have many years. I went with her to help her pick a path.” Cassielle’s voice reminded Julia of a saxophone softly playing jazz in the dark. “She will have a much better life this time.”
Julia examined her friend’s eyes and saw the happiness behind them. “And you’re not sad to lose her?”
“I haven’t lost her, I will go with her. We will be twins.” Joy radiated from her. “Don’t worry; I have several months to spend with you here before I am needed full-time.”
“Thank goodness!” Julia said, and immediately felt selfish for having said it. “I’m sorry. It’s nice to have a friend, that’s all.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
The two friends walked quietly through the grass, arms looped together, enjoying the peace and comfort they brought to one another. Julia’s wings lay on her back, the breeze tousling the feathers lightly, the tips tickling the backs of her heels with each step. Cassielle’s were shorter, only reaching down to the backs of her knees.
“It’s funny, isn’t it, Cass? My father, I mean,” Julia said, stealing a look to the sky before meeting her friend’s eyes. “All that time I was desperate for a dad.”
“Funny?”
“Yes, because now,” Julia pointed straight above them, “my father seems to be stalking me.”
Cassielle glanced up, her jaw hanging open. She looked back at Julia and let out a giggle before slapping her hand to her mouth. “I don’t think you are supposed to know he’s there.”
“You know, I haven’t spoken to him since the first time—when he told me who he was. It has been Michael with me ever since.”
“Seems to me he has been there all along,” Cassielle gave Julia’s arm a squeeze, “and you are only now learning how to see him.”
“You may be right. It’s still hard for me to let go of the hurt, though.” Julia stopped and turned to face her friend. “I don’t know how I feel about this…appointment. Part of me—admittedly a shrinking part—is shaking my head, thinking they must be mistaken. This must be all one really long, crazy, elaborate dream. Maybe the mushrooms I put in my spaghetti sauce the other day weren’t really shiitake mushrooms. You know?”
“You are questioning something that has not yet come to pass, something that may never happen.” Cassielle gave Julia an encouraging smile. “You have been told that you are capable of being Michael’s equal. Think about that. You have been seeking the meaning of your life, the meaning of everything. Now you have it.”
“In the back of my mind is this fading voice. My human voice.” Julia looked up at Gabriel and waved. He did not appear amused. She looked back at Cassielle. “It wants a normal, human life. It keeps reminding me of all the beauty and joy there is in having a physical body in the physical realm of existence. What happens to me if I lose that voice, Cass?”
“You will not.”
“Who I am right now, this, all of it.” Julia pointed at herself, her wings, her entire body. “They think I can take on this creature. Not because I’m half-angel, but because I’m half-human.”
“My oldest and dearest friend,” Cassielle said as she flattened a spot in the grass and sat, motioning for Julia to join her. “What you are calling your humanity, I know as the essence of your being. It’s in your soul, not your body.”
Julia folded the ends of her wings under her and joined Cassielle on the ground. She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them.
“Trust me,” Cassielle said, extending one wing around Julia and pulling her close. “You have held up through more than any one spirit ever has, and you just keep getting stronger. Sister, when things start getting out of control, it’s you I want at my back. No one else.”
“Thank you, Cass. Okay, I’m finished feeling sorry for myself.” Julia hugged Cassielle tightly, then sat back. “Can you help me learn? There are a few things I am not very good at yet. But I’m a quick learner.”
“I’ll say!” A playful look danced across Cassielle’s eyes. “Let us work on getting a bigger picture for you.”
“What do you mean?” Julia asked.
“It is time to see how much you can see.”
For the next several hours, while Julia’s physical form lay in her bed fast asleep with a sliver of Michael seated at her bedside, Cassielle taught her as much about seeing as she could. By the time Julia woke, there were very few places on Earth she hadn’t seen. She thought it was much like looking at a Google Earth page, except that she had all the satellite cameras and could look through them all at once.
She witnessed Michael’s hand in many things, and was exhausted just knowing how many places he was at all times, and how much he had to do. When she said goodbye to Cassielle for the night, she was completely drained.
Her eyes opened slowly. The light sifting in the windows seemed to be coming in at the wrong angle. Throwing the comforter back, she swung her feet over the edge of the bed onto the hardwood floor. When Julia caught sight of the clock on her nightstand, she shook her head and looked at it again.
“One o’clock? Really?” She stumbled out to the kitchen, stretching and yawning all the way. “How could I have slept so late?”
“Training is exhausting,” Michael said. He was waiting for her in the kitchen, seated at the table, his massive wings draped over the back of the chair.
“But informative.” Julia looked at Michael more closely than she ever had. In his eyes she saw flashes of all the people he had helped, and all the people he couldn’t. She could see his burden in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, and in the slight way his perfectly squared shoulders hung a bit lower now than they had even yesterday. He was tragically beautiful. She turned away quickly and headed to the coffee pot.
As soon as Julia was seated at the table with a fresh coffee in hand, Michael spoke. “There is someone I would like you to meet.”
“Someone?” Julia eyed Michael over the rim of her cup. “Human or angel? Wow, I can’t believe I just asked that.”
“Archangel, actually,” Michael said. “I think it would be helpful if she could show you a few things.”
“She?” Julia almost choked on her coffee. “For some reason I thought all Archangels were male.”
“Another common misconception,” Michael said. “It would be best if you could meet her as soon as possible.”
“What is her name?”
“Raphael. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll take you to her.”
“I will bring her here, Raphael,” Michael said. A group of Raphael’s new trainee angels gathered nearby, whispering amongst themselves and sneaking glances at him. He smiled and nodded once, then waved a hand, dismissing them. They skittered away.
Michael focused on Raphael, speaking to her silently. -I want to observe Ariel’s reaction to her. Once that is done, take her back to her home and train her there. If it is easier on her human body, suggest she go to sleep. She can meet you in the Second Realm.-
“Yes, Michael. I am sure she will enjoy meeting the new angels.” Raphael smiled. -I will take good care of her, Michael.-
“Bring who?” Ariel said, joining them. “The Child?”
“Ariel.” Michael greeted him with a slight nod.
“Michael.” Ariel returned the greeting.
“The girl has expressed an interest in healing, Ariel. We will see if she has an aptitude for it,” Raphael said. “Teaching them is always a problem. It becomes very difficult to explain on Earth when miracles start to happen and the sick and dying become healthy.”
“I hope she understands that she can’t just roam around and heal everyone,” ‘Ariel said gruffly. “That disrupts…”
“She will not be a problem.” Michael’s conviction was clear. “She is coming now.”
Ariel’s wings twitched, agitated. He folded his arms and stood to Raphael’s left. In an instant, Julia appeared.
“Raphael,” Julia said with a nod, as naturally as another angel might have. She turned her head, looked at Ar
iel for a moment, admiring the shine of his long, straight black hair, then nodded toward him. “Ariel.”
Ariel grimaced and turned his back on Julia, moving to join the young angels. She could hear him barking orders. All at once it dawned on her. Each of the ‘Archangels looked like they came from different races—at least, the ones she’d met. Interesting. She’d have to ask about that later. Julia was so intrigued by this discovery that she didn’t notice that Ariel had snubbed her.
“Do not mind him, little Sister,” Raphael cooed, wrapping an arm around Julia’s shoulder. “He has not had very good luck of late. Let us go somewhere a bit more private, yes?”
Julia thought Raphael’s voice was enchanting, a perfectly pretty sound to accompany an astoundingly beautiful being. Julia turned her head, seeking Michael, who gave her an encouraging smile. -You are in good hands, girl. Pay close attention.-
Raphael’s warm touch put Julia instantly at ease.
It wasn’t me I was worried about, Michael, Julia thought to herself. It was you.
XXXVI
THE green aura surrounding the Archangel gave Julia pause. It took her a few minutes to put it all together. She had seen it before—it was Raphael who had healed her after facing the A’nwel.
“Is it you who’s been healing me? You feel more familiar than the others. Even Michael.” The questions tumbled out before Julia could stop them.
“Yes.” Raphael turned and eyed Julia. “Take me to the Second Realm.”
Julia halted. Raphael had moved so smoothly from casual conversation to command, but her voice and demeanor remained calm and soothing. Julia focused her energy as if she held her stone, but nothing happened.
“Put this on,” Raphael said. She turned her palm upward and offered Julia a polished ring of seraphinite stone.
“It’s beautiful!” Julia took the ring and turned it over in her fingers several times, admiring all the minute details of the markings. She slipped it on the second finger of her right hand, and her ears rang with the power of it. Raphael placed a steadying hand on her elbow until Julia became accustomed to the feeling. It was like all of her senses were suddenly on high alert.
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