by C. L. Wilson
“Satisfied?” she muttered.
He growled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “Not even close,” then his own arms locked around her, molding her to him and pinning her in place. Energy rippled through him as he manifested his undeniably impressive set of wings. Then those wings curved forward, surrounded them both in a cocoon of warm, feathery whiteness.
She thought he would leap up into the air and fly them to the Seal. After all, wasn’t that what the wings were for? Instead, once he’d cocooned them in his wings, he told her to close her eyes. Brightness flashed against her closed eyelids, then dizziness assailed her. Her knees went weak, and she might have fallen down if not for the arms wrapped so securely around her.
Then the bright light faded, and for several seconds, they just stood there, locked in an embrace. Something feather-light moved across the top of her head. Was the angel…nuzzling her hair? She opened her eyes and tilted her head back.
He regarded her through half-lidded eyes, his expression solemn. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her.
For a moment, she actually wanted him to.
Her mouth went dry. What would it be like to be kissed? Especially by the first man she’d ever been attracted to? She stared up at him, mesmerized, as his head bent slowly towards hers.
A car horn blared, making her jump and breaking the spell. She released the angel and stumbled back, blushing and tucking her hair behind her ears, looking anywhere but him. Heat blazed in her cheeks.
“I…uh…wait…” She stared at her surroundings in surprise. They were standing near a busy intersection in a place Kat didn’t recognize. Snowy mountains rose up all around. The roads were gritty with salt and filled with cars. “Where are we?”
“Asheville, North Carolina. The Seal is this way.” He began walking down the snowy sidewalk that ran alongside the road.
Katrina didn’t know what to expect. What would a Great Seal look like? She had visions of something large, impressive, radiating power. But when Micah turned into the parking lot of the building on the corner and said “Here, we are,” Kat stopped in her tracks.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She frowned at him. “The Great Seal holding back one of the greatest evils in the world is a…McDonalds?”
The Golden Arches were before her, shining brightly in the late afternoon sun. The smell of french fries and freshly grilled hamburgers wafted through the air.
“What, God was hungry when he set the Seal?”
Micah rolled his eyes at her irreverent humor. “What we’re here for was set long before the invention of the hamburger.”
“Still, I would have thought the location of the prison for some seriously bad dark angels would have been place somewhere more…I don’t know…sacred.”
“Long ago, this was sacred. It was a burial ground for an ancient tribe. But that tribe disappeared, and the people who came after them established their own sacred places elsewhere.” He shrugged. “Times change.”
Hands on hips, Kat regarded the McDonald’s with a jaundiced eye. “So what, I just go in there, order a Big Mac and break into song?”
“Yes.”
Her jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.” His low chuckle made her scowl, but then her own sense of humor resurfaced and she gave a grudging smile. “Okay, I guess I deserved that.”
Kat’s smile faded and she turned back to regard the McDonald’s restaurant. “Seriously though, what exactly am I supposed to do?”
“The Seal lies deep in the soil beneath the building. It is a thing of both energy and substance. You must listen for its frequency, then tune your song to it. When you sing, you will recharge the Seal, strengthening it.”
That sounded simple enough. “I expect I’ll get some strange looks just standing on the corner singing.”
“Not to worry. I will shield us so they won’t even know we’re here.”
###
As Katrina turned her attention towards the ground beneath the McDonald’s, Micah shielded them was a light veil of energy that would direct curious eyes away from them. He didn’t use much power. When the time came for Katrina to actually sing, he would need all the power that he had.
He shifted a little to the left so he could watch her as she listened for the Seal’s frequency. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, her lips slightly pursed, rekindling his yearning to kiss her. He should have actually flown her here instead of shifting space, anything to draw out the too-brief time of their travel and keep her body pressed close to his. He could spend hours savoring the clean, citrusy scent of her hair and the warm, womanly sweetness of her skin.
She’d known he wanted to kiss her. How could she not? He’d been aching with it, the Fervor rising up so fast and so strong, it nearly shredded his control.
She’d wanted to kiss him, too. At least, the curious part of her had wanted to, the part that was tired of being trapped by her past.
“I think I’ve found it!” She turned, surprise and eagerness lighting her eyes. Once again, he was struck by how beautiful she was, how perfect in every way. She had her mother’s silky, white-blonde hair and wide, expressive blue eyes, courtesy of their shared Nordic ancestry. But the soft, sensitive curve of her full lips and the dimple that flashed so rarely at the corner of her mouth came from her father, as did the bright glow of her spirit, shining from her like a star.
“I can feel it,” she was saying. “Like a hum in the earth. I can feel the vibration inside me, almost as if my body’s a tuning fork. So what do we do now?”
Focus, Guardian. Fulfill your duty.
Micah battled the Fervor back into submission so he could concentrate. “Now you sing.”
She rolled her eyes. “I got that part. But maybe you can give me a clue as to what, exactly, I’m supposed to sing?”
Micah frowned at her. “That knowledge is not mine to possess. I am the Guardian. You are the Lightkeeper. The knowing of the verse lives in you, not me.” So he had been told.
“Well, sorry to disappoint,” Katrina said, “but I’ve got nothing.”
“That cannot be. You were born with the song inside you. It is your purpose.”
She crossed her arms. “Then maybe my job should have come with instructions, or something, because I may have the music in me, but I’m not feeling it. You’re the one who’s spent his whole life on the other side of the Pearly Gates. Are you telling me they sent you down here and didn’t tell you how to get the job done?”
Micah scowled. He considered that she might be toying with him, but a quick scan of her thoughts proved otherwise. She truly had no clue what to do.
His scowl turned into a frown of confusion. Ramiel had never told him what song the Lightkeeper was supposed to sing. He’d only said, “She was born with the song imprinted on her soul. She will know what to do when the time comes. Your task is to deliver to safely to the Seal and protect her while she sings.”
Angels did not lie, so the song must be there inside Katrina, waiting.
But waiting for what?
###
For the first time since Kat had woken to find Micah standing shirtless in her kitchen cooking waffles, the angel looked flummoxed. She’d been a bit resentful of his constant, unruffled calm, so his complete perplexity now should have given her some sense of satisfaction. Instead, she found her heart aching for that lost expression in his beautiful eyes. Archangel Ramiel had left his boy flapping in the wind.
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
He regarded her from his great, imposing height, but the flags of color on his golden cheeks dialed back the intimidation factor several notches. “We find a sanctuary.”
“Pardon?”
“A church. A synagogue. Any place with an altar.”
Oo-kay. “And then what?”
“Then we pray for guidance.”
“Right.” She didn’t celebrate Christmas. She didn’t pray either. All those unanswered pleas for help and rescue fr
om her years in Hell had sort of soured her on the whole thing. “Tell you what, you pray. I’ll watch you pray. How’s that?”
He gave her a reproving look. “God is not the enemy, Katrina. And he does hear all prayers. Just because he doesn’t give the answer you seek doesn’t mean he isn’t listening.”
“Whatever.” She slung the end of her scarf over her shoulder. “Well, come on. Let’s go find you a church.”
###
The first church they ran across was a United Methodist Church, a sprawling complex three blocks west of the Seal.
There were several cars in the parking lot and the doors were unlocked. Micah and Kat opened the doors and stepped inside a large vestibule that lead to a wide hallway in front of them, and an enormous sanctuary to the left.
The vestibule and sanctuary were empty and silent, but Kat could hear voices coming from down the hallway. She started heading that way, intending to ask if it was alright to use the sanctuary, but Micah turned left and headed straight in.
“Micah!” she called in a loud whisper. “Micah, wait!” If he heard her, he was ignoring her. Kat cast a last glance down the hallway, then ducked into the sanctuary to ran after him. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be in here without permission.”
He gave her an affronted look. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is a house of God. All are welcome.” His gaze fell to the hand on his arm, and his expression softened. When she snatched her hand back, the softness turned to a strange sort of wistful regret, as if she’d taken back a precious gift. Micah sighed, shook his head, and gestured to the pews at the back of the church. “Wait for me here, Katrina. I won’t be long.”
Despite her aversion to all things religious, Kat had to admit the sanctuary was beautiful. It had a contemporary, natural feel, full of warm, rich tones. The soaring ceiling was lined with rich, golden-brown oak. Massive windows set with beveled panes of clear and colored glass illuminated the sanctuary with natural light. Aisles carpeted in deep, forest green led to the raised altar at the front of the sanctuary. Enormous sprays of flowers sat on pedestals on either side of the altar, and behind it, dominating the sanctuary, rose a massive carved oak cross that nearly touched the forty-foot ceiling. A cloth of rich, royal purple draped the arms of the cross, matching the purple altar cloth.
“Are you with the wedding party? The rehearsal is being held in the chapel down the hall.”
Kat turned to find a spare older man entering through the glass and oak doors that led to the vestibule. “No, we’re not. I’m sorry, but we saw the doors open, and my friend wanted to use your sanctuary for a few minutes. He wants to commune with the guy upstairs.” She pointed towards the ceiling.
“I see.” The man frowned at Micah’s back as the angel made his way down the carpeted center aisle towards the altar.
“Are you the minister here?” Kat shifted to the man’s side, forcing him to turn away from Micah to converse with her.
“Assistant Pastor.” The man held out a hand and smiled. “John Green.”
She backed up a little and stuffed her mittened hands in her coat pockets. “Sorry, I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t shake hands. Problems with my immune system.”
She might not be able to lie to the angel, but clearly she had no trouble lying in church or to a preacher. And she must be good at it, too, because Reverend Green immediately dropped his hand, and said, “Of course. So sorry. Is there anything I can do to—my word!” The minister’s voice broke off as he glanced over his shoulder again.
Kat turned too and didn’t know whether to pull out her hair or stand there gaping in shock like Reverend Green.
Micah had gone to one knee before the altar. His hands were raised, palms lifted in supplication. His face was tilted up, towards heaven. Golden light radiated from him, bright enough that even if there had been spotlights trained on him, the glow would have been hard to explain it away. Especially the light emanating from his back and spreading out to either side. Micah was manifesting his wings, and this time, they appeared to be made of pure, concentrated sunlight. Poor Reverend Green had to grab the door frame to keep from toppling over.
Kat grimaced. “You’re seeing that too, huh?”
The stunned expression on the minister’s face was answer enough. So much for keeping things on the down low.
“Young lady…” The man gripped her arms with shaking hands.
Kat flinched and automatically stiffened in response to the touch, but to her surprise, she didn’t go catatonic like she usually did.
Poor Reverend Green, on the other hand, looked like he was going to pass out any second.
“Why don’t you come take a seat, Reverend Green. I don’t know how long my friend will be.” Letting the old man keep his grip on her for stability, she helped him over to one of the oak pews at the back of the sanctuary.
He plopped onto the cushioned bench and fixed his dazed gaze on the angel kneeling at the altar. “I don’t…I can’t…I…good Lord.” His voice trailed off.
“I know exactly how you feel,” she commiserated.
“I always believed…but even so, I never really thought…” The man’s eyes widened. Micah had finished praying and was walking back up the aisle. “I…I…” Reverend Green rose up on shaky feet.
Micah stopped in the aisle directly beside the pew, towering over both of them, looking stern and forbidding, more like a man ready for war than an angel. Kat didn’t know what news he’d just received, but it couldn’t have been good.
“Micah, this is Reverend Green, the assistant pastor here. He came in while you were praying.”
Reverend Green swallowed. “Sir,” he began.
Micah reached out and laid a hand on the smaller man’s face. “Be at peace, John Green,” he said, and a deep resonance tolled in his voice.
Reverend Green’s eyes glazed over and he sank slowly back down into the pew.
Kat’s jaw dropped. “Did you just mickey the pastor?”
“Come,” Micah said. He put his arm around her back and guided her towards the door, away from Reverend Green. “We must go.”
“But what about him?” She cast a worried glance over her shoulder at the dazed pastor. “You can’t just leave him like that!”
“He’ll be fine.”
Fine? Kat gaped at Micah, then snapped her mouth closed and shook her head. “I take it the prayer worked? You got the answer we need?”
“I got the answer.” His jaw looked hard enough to crack stone. Whatever that answer was, he hadn’t liked it.
Unease curled in her belly. “Micah?”
He pulled her into his arms. “Hold on tight.” His wings were already closing around them, cocooning them, as her hands locked around his waist. Then the light flared, bright and blinding, and Kat gasped at the strange, taffy-pull sense of shifting space.
###
When Micah’s wings drew back, they were no longer in Asheville. They weren’t in Atlanta either. They were standing in a broad expanse of snowy yard in front of an old and very familiar Wisconsin farmhouse.
Kat took one look at the farmhouse with the lights glowing warmly from its windows and the smoke curling invitingly from the brick chimney, and ice flooded her veins. Her whole body went numb, except for the burning streaks of never-forgotten-pain that flared across the countless scars crisscrossing her back.
“What are we doing here?” Her voice was a raw scrape of sound, torn from a painfully dry throat.
“We’re here because what happened in this place is what’s stopping you from strengthening the Seal.”
“You need to take me home.” She backed away from her grandparents’ house. “You need to take me home right now.”
“Katrina.” The angel followed her, his duster dragging in the calf-deep snow. “I know it’s hard. I know I’m asking a lot. But you must let go of the pain they caused you. You must find a way to forgive them.”
“Screw that!” The exclamation shot from her like a bullet, powered by
shock and rage. She whirled to face him. “I’ll never forgive them! Never! And you wouldn’t dare ask me to if you knew what they did—”
“I do know.” His face was carved in graven lines, solemn, stoic, wiped carefully clean of expression. But his eyes…oh, those eyes. They were filled with such sorrow, such compassion. Such pity. “I am your Guardian, Katrina.”
Her heart slammed against her chest wall. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying. I have been your Guardian since the day you were born. There is no moment of your life I have not seen, no aspect with which I am unfamiliar.”
“Even…even…” She couldn’t complete the thought.
“Even your darkest hours.”
She pressed a palm to her chest and stumbled back several steps and nearly tripped over the roots of an old oak in her grandparents’ yard. Her heart ached as if he’d driven a spike through it.
“You were watching even then? You saw what they did to me?” What they made me do?
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing?” The cry ripped from her gut.
“There was nothing I could do!” He slammed his fist into the oak. Bark and snow showered down. “You never summoned me, and those monsters weren’t Darkseekers. They were just evil, sick, twisted people. I wanted to kill them for what they did to you. I still do. But it was forbidden. I could not act, no matter how much I wanted to. All I could do was watch and offer what comfort I could without revealing myself to you. That’s why I sent you the sea.”
He had sent her the sea? Her one comfort in all those years of horror and misery? The one bright spark of hope that had seen her through a decade of living hell?
“That was you?”
“Yes. Me. Always.” Each word spat out like a bullet through his clenched jaw. Gone was any semblance of peace. His eyes blazed blue fire. Light flared all around him. “I would have surrendered my soul to do more, but I was newly created, weak, barely more than a child myself.”
She stared at him in shock, shaken by the certainty that his claim wasn’t hyperbole. He wasn’t just exaggerating to make a point. He would have given up his own angelic soul—the soul born from the divine spark of an archangel—to save her.