Earth Angel

by E. Van Lowe

  We approached the non-descript door. Roxanne ran her fingers along the door jamb, and said a brief chant in a language I didn’t recognize. Suddenly the writings and drawings I’d seen on the door earlier materialized, shimmering in a fiery golden glow.

  “Is that how you remember the door?” Roxanne asked. I could hear the trill of superiority in her voice.

  “Yes, that’s it.” There wasn’t any golden light when I saw it before, but I wasn’t going to tell her that, and allow her to feel even more superior.

  She began reading the writing around the door out loud. Of course, I had no idea what she was saying since I didn’t know the language. I got the feeling she was doing it to show off.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  “It says, Here lay the gates of hell. Enter if you dare.”

  Cautiously I turned the door knob. The door did not budge. “It’s locked.”

  “It is a Hell Gate. You will not be able to open it. Stand aside.”

  I was starting to get my fill of Roxanne’s superior attitude. The way she said you was the same way she had said mortal and Neph. Still, I bit my tongue. I needed to get through the Hell Gate to rescue Guy. That was all that mattered. I wasn’t going to allow her funky attitude get in the way of what I had come to do. I stepped aside.

  Roxanne moved in front of the door and breathed in deeply. As she exhaled, she began to glow. The silvery angel wings appeared, and she was once again engulfed in a ball of glowing light. “Gates of hell, I command you to open and allow me entry.” Her voice was booming, her words echoing throughout the basement.

  We stood before the door, waiting for it to swing open. Nothing.

  Roxanne stopped glowing. Her wings disappeared. She stared at the door with contempt in her eyes. I think she was embarrassed. “Obviously there is a secret password,” she said imperiously.

  “Obviously,” I replied, adding a hint of sarcasm to my voice.

  She moved closer to the door, squinting at the writing. She began mumbling to herself. I moved in as well. I took a hair pin from my pocket and stuck it in the key hole.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to see if I can pick the lock.”

  “Hmph!” She snorted out a burst of dismissive laughter, and went back to studying the writing around the door.

  I started fiddling with the lock. The lock picking thing didn’t work the last time I tried it, but I wasn’t going to give her any satisfaction by letting her know I had failed at it before. After a few minutes I thought I heard a soft click.

  I froze. Gingerly I removed the hair pin from the keyhole. “I think I got it,” I whispered. Slowly I turned the knob.

  “That is impossible. You cannot open a Hell Gate with a…” The door swung open. “…hair pin.”

  “I did it!” I was beside myself with joy, and the fact that I had finally shut her up.

  “Well… you can’t…” She was totally flummoxed. “It had to be my incantation. The… uh… response was delayed.”

  “Uh-huh. Just count your lucky stars that you’re travelling with a mortal,” I said as I did a happy dance. “You’re pretty fortunate to have me around, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she replied icily, although I don’t think she meant it.

  The Hell Gate was open. Looking through to the other side, all we could see was a black void. It was as if we were about to step into outer space.

  “Ready?” I asked with a hint of excitement.

  “We should walk through together. The gate may be random. If we do not enter together it may separate us, leaving us in different sections of hell.”

  “Divided,” I whispered.

  “Exactly.”

  We looked each other in the eye, grasped hands, held our breaths—okay, maybe I just held mine—and walked through the gate, entering hell.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  We were standing on a snowy mountain trail. It was a scene right out of a ski brochure, with sunny skies above and snow-capped mountains all around us.

  “This is hell?” I asked. We were high up on the trail, a stiff wind beating against us.

  “This visual is meant to disorient us. You were expecting heat, so we are shown cold.”

  It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. We were in a beautiful winter landscape, but it was very, very cold. We needed to start moving, if just to warm up. “Which way do we go, up or down?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself. It was a long, winding trail, and we couldn’t see very far in either direction.

  “I am not sure. But I am certain whatever direction you choose, it will be perilous,” responded Roxanne. I knew it was an insult, a slam at me being mortal, even though her expression remained neutral.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said and rolled my eyes. “Up we go.” I took a few steps in the snow. It was soft and crunchy beneath my feet.

  “Why up?” Roxanne called after me.

  “Because this landscape was meant to disorient me, right?” I called back as I continued up the trail. “I think hell is hot, I see cold. I think hell is down, so we should go up.”

  There was a momentary shift in Roxanne’s expression. My response had surprised her. Good. Maybe that will shut her up. “Yes. That makes sense,” is all she said. She started up the trail after me.

  The air grew colder and thinner as we continued upward. I was starting to tire, but I knew I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t show weakness, not to Roxanne or the demons who I was sure were watching.

  “Look,” Roxanne called, pointing to the ridge just above us. There was an old stone and rock structure, like something out of The Lord of The Rings. “It is an ancient watchtower.” As Roxanne stared up at the structure, a darkness seemed to come over her.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked with a nervous lilt.

  “I am not sure. But we need to keep moving.” She moved ahead of me on the trail, walking at a brisk pace. The high altitude was making me even more tired. I was finding it hard to keep up.

  “Why are you moving so fast all of a sudden?”

  “Must you ask so many questions? Keep up!” she snapped.

  I didn’t respond. I had had my fill of Roxanne, but I saved my breath and kept walking. It was nearly time to give her a piece of my mind. I figured I would do it as soon as we stopped moving and I caught my breath. However, by the time we reached the watchtower, I was too tired to talk. I was drenched in sweat and exhausted.

  The watchtower didn’t appear to be something that had been built. It was a rock formation on the flat peak of the mountain. Someone had strategically stacked stones around the structure creating a fortress from the wind with three stone-columned entrances.

  There was dead grass on the floor of the tower. As soon as we were inside and out of the wind, I sat down heavily, and then lay back. It was like falling onto a soft bed. I closed my eyes and breathed in the thin air.

  “This feels so good. I could lie here all day.”

  “What do you know of sin?” I opened my eyes to Roxanne standing over me. Her eyes were serious. I could hear the wind whistling outside.

  “What kind of question is that? I’m not perfect, if that’s what you mean. But that doesn’t give you the right to judge me.” The time had come to give her a piece of my mind.

  “We don’t have much time,” she said urgently. She looked toward one of the columned entrances and then back at me. “I believe we are about to be tested by the three beasts.”

  I bolted upright, my eyes bouncing between the three entrances.

  “The beasts represent the three types of sin: Self-indulgent, violent and malicious. Which do you have the most experience with?” she asked.

  “I’ve never been violent or malicious, so self-indulgent, I guess.” I got to my feet as tendrils of fear snaked into my belly. “What are the—”

  “Shush,” she said softly, putting a finger to her lips.

  A small leopard with multi-colored spots li
mped into view. Blood dripped from its raised right paw. The leopard staggered through the entrance, out of the cold. It looked at us with a pitying stare, mewed, and lay down on the soft grass.

  “Poor thing. It’s been injured.” Without thinking, I started for the wounded animal. Roxanne reached out and grabbed me from behind, flinging me backward with one powerful motion. I found myself flying through the air and sliding across the ground. She was a lot stronger than she appeared.

  “This one is malicious. I will battle it along with the violent one.”

  As the leopard released a sorrowful cry, Roxanne began to transform. Her wings appeared and she was again engulfed in light. She drew what appeared to be a light sabre from her belt, and cautiously approached the creature. Without taking her eyes off the wounded animal she said. “It is malicious to trick people into believing you are something that you are not.” She called to me over her shoulder: “Megan, the she-wolf!”

  I looked behind me to discover a gigantic wolf had entered the watchtower through another of the entrances. She had a reddish brown coat of silky fur, and was at least twice the size of any wolf I’d ever seen. She had been crouched low, sneaking up on me, her fangs bared.

  As I faced the wolf, a vicious shriek erupted behind me. It glanced over my shoulder to see the leopard attacking Roxanne. It wasn’t injured at all. And it was much larger and ferocious than it had appeared.

  “Oh, my!” I turned back to the stalking wolf. I began backing away from her, clutching the shoulder bag to my chest. I didn’t have a light saber. I would have to fight her with my hands… or my mind.

  “You have beautiful fur,” I said flattering the wolf. “How do you keep it looking so luxurious?”

  The wolf stopped, and I thought I saw a prideful smile. She represents self-indulgence, I thought. Perhaps I can flatter her to death.

  “Blood.” The word rasped from the wolf’s lips.

  My eyes widened in disbelief. “Did you just speak?” I asked.

  “Yes. I keep my coat shiny and luxurious with blood—human blood, human,” she said in a scratchy whisper, and licked her lips.

  Okay, so flattery doesn’t work on this one.

  Roxanne was engaged in a brutal battle with the leopard. I could hear them, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the wolf. Her fangs were glistening.

  It was then I realized the wolf had herded me towards the third entrance. A male lion came striding through the entrance. His eyes were wide with violence. The she wolf had separated me from Roxanne. Divide and conquer. Once they picked off helpless me, Roxanne would be no match for the three of them.

  The lion roared, and then he sprang.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  What happened next happened quickly.

  The lion came flying at me, leading with his slashing jaws. I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t have time to be afraid. I jammed my hand into the shoulder bag and pulled out the twelve inch crucifix. The lion landed on top of me, knocking me to the ground, spraying his foul breath in my face. He snapped at my head and I thrust the crucifix into his mouth. It stabbed into his upper-palate, penetrating like a spade into soft earth.

  My hand and arm suddenly felt as if they were on fire. I screamed. The pain was excruciating. As I prayed for my arm to fall off and release me from the pain, I noticed the lion was turning into dazzling light—like a million shimmery diamonds. And then, he and the crucifix were gone. They had both disintegrated right before my eyes.

  I checked my arm. It was a painful mess, charred black and blue.

  “Yess,” the wolf snarled. I looked up, grateful to see she was moving away from me. It was then I realized, in my fight with the lion, I had been separated from the shoulder bag. The wolf was headed for the bag containing The Book of Calls.

  “You can’t have it!” I screamed, launching myself onto her back. While her fur was thick and soft, I could feel muscle beneath. Her snapping jaws swung right and then left as she attempted to grab my leg and throw me. I rode her like rodeo cowboy, my hands gripping her furry mane as if my life depended on it.

  And then she threw me. I landed hard, between the wolf and the bag. Her focus was no longer the bag. Good. The she-wolf was eyeing me hungrily. “Blood,” she wheezed. Not so good.

  I began scrambling backwards along the floor, my eyes never leaving the wolf. She leapt. Instead of attacking, she leapt over me, landing in front of the bag. She picked it up in her teeth and shot a self-satisfied glance over her shoulder. She had tricked me into thinking she was coming for me. She now took a step toward the nearest entrance.

  In that one step I saw my world come to a crashing end. I saw the boy I loved destroyed, and my heart crumbling into a million little pieces. “NOOOO!” I raged. I reached my hand out. A bolt of lightning jumped from my open palm, hitting the wolf in the jaw. The bag flew from her lips.

  The wolf was now staring at me, her eyes filling with fear. Out of nowhere came Roxanne, swinging her light saber. She had finished off the leopard and was now coming to my aid. She thrust the lighted blade into the giant wolf’s heart. The wolf gave off a pitying scream and then disintegrated.

  I sat, unmoving for several seconds, staring at my hand. Did I do that? My other hand and arm were still raging with near unbearable pain, yet I stared at the good one.

  Roxanne retrieved the bag. Her wings had retreated into her back. The glowing had stopped. She was back to normal. She came towards me. There was something very different about her expression. Something in her had changed.

  She knelt by my side and took my injured arm in her hands. Her touch made it worse, and I tried yanking my arm away. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “I can help.”

  I again looked into her eyes. They stared back at me with something that appeared to be respect. “Okay,” I whispered back.

  She held onto my arm and began chanting in a language I’d never heard before. Slowly the pain began to subside. I glanced down at my arm. It was healing before my eyes. In a matter of minutes it was back to normal. The pain was gone.

  “Thank you,” I said softly.

  “You are very brave,” she replied. “And powerful.” She was looking older than I remembered, and weary. I could see tiny crow’s feet nesting around her eyes.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “The fight, and then healing you, has drained me. But my strength shall return.” She handed me the shoulder bag and smiled. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  #

  We were once again standing at the entrance of the watchtower. “Now, we go down,” said Roxanne. She started down the trail. I followed along in silence as the wind whipped around us. A lot had just happened in the watchtower, much more than I could process.

  “I see you have some new abilities,” she said as we moved down the snowy trail.

  “Guy told me you thought I had some powers. I thought he was just trying to change the subject.”

  “Why would he do that?” She seemed genuinely confused.

  “We were arguing… about you.” I was again feeling guilty. “I have to tell you something,” I said, the wind whipping through my hair. “I… split with him because I didn’t think I could compete with you. I thought if I had to compete with you I would lose. So I dumped him before he could dump me. If I hadn’t been so insecure, he wouldn’t have been captured.” My guilt came tumbling out of me.

  She sighed. “It must be difficult being mortal. All those mixed up emotions.”

  This time when she said the word mortal, there didn’t seem to be any added insult. “Yes, it is,” I replied. “Too many emotions,” I added with a joyless laugh.

  “I envy you,” she said with what sounded like envy. Strange.

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I said nothing.

  We continued down the frozen trail for a while, in silence. The only sound was the whipping wind and our feet crunching against the snow.

  “I believe you received your abilities in your battle with
Satan. Some of his power rubbed off on you,” she said after a while.

  “Really? What else can I do?”

  “I do not know. The abilities will reveal themselves to you in time.”

  “A lightning bolt shot from my hand,” I said, still not believing it actually happened. “I don’t know how I did it. How do I control it?”

  “You will learn.”

  As we headed down the trail, the snow disappeared, and the air warmed. It was beginning to feel like a spring day. I heard a brook bubbling nearby.

  “Why did you come along with me?” I asked. The question seemed to come out of nowhere, but it had been on my mind since she approached me outside Armando’s. “When I saw you all done up in your angel gear, I was sure you had come to battle me for the book.”

  “And you would have fought even though you could not win?”

  “Yes, of course. I have to try.”

  We walked along in silence for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. “Either I have misjudged mortals, or I have misjudged you. I have always thought of mortals as selfish, as feeling entitled. But you are different. I wanted to know if you had a selfish motive that I had missed.”

  “I do have a selfish motive. I love him,” I said, my voice turning husky, as Guy’s dreamy eyes flashed through my mind. “And I can’t bear the thought of the world without him in it.”

  The smile returned. “You are risking your life for something you believe in. That is not selfish. We call a person like that principled. I thought mortals were no longer capable of having principles, ethics, morals… and then I met you.”

  We rounded a bend in the road. There was a young couple about my age up ahead of us on the trail. They were both wearing shorts. He had on a tee shirt and she, a tank top. They were walking slowly, holding hands, their arms swinging back and forth as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  “I love you,” I heard the boy say.

  I recognized his voice. It was Matt, and the girl was Erin. Seeing them totally took my mind off our conversation. I stopped.