Michael hesitated and then rested his forehead on my temple, spilling his warm breath like calming tea down my cheek. He pulled my hands away from Roshan and wrapped his own securely around them.
“I know what you’re feeling right now. Believe me, I know,” he said softly. “But someone once told me I had to trust that things would work out. That I wasn’t alone. She told me I had to believe.”
I bit my lip.
“You trust me, don’t you?” He waited patiently, already knowing the answer.
I nodded, my chin quivering.
“I’m only human, Catherine. How can you trust me and not Him?” He raised his eyebrows.
You’ve been through all of this already? Your Luminarch? Your Final Judgment?
His silver eyes flared brilliantly. “Yeah, Catherine. It’s good.”
I looked at my beautiful Angel, suddenly torn. I’d only just met her. “If I do go back will I still be able to see Roshan?”
“Seeing Angels outside of Luminarch is a pretty rare thing,” he said.
I started to panic. “What about you? I’ll still be able to see you, won’t I?”
His jaw twitched, and Roshan reached out and stroked my chin. “Most humans remember a light and a few images from their Luminarch,” she said. “Some humans remember an out-of-body experience. Very few recall talking with those they love who’ve already passed on.”
“You mean I might not even remember seeing Michael? Him holding me?” I looked back into Michael’s face. He was struggling to keep his expression neutral, but his eyes were damp. “Catherine, if you can get back, you have to go. You owe it to yourself,” he said.
“But you’ll still be with me even if I can’t see you? Watching over me? If I go back?”
He glanced at Roshan again, and she nodded. Then he turned back to me, buried his hands in my hair, and pulled my face in close, pressing his forehead against mine. “For as long as God says you need me, I swear.”
“And if I die?” I whispered.
“You can’t think like that.”
“But…if I do…”
He pressed harder with his forehead. “You’ll go home.”
“You’ll come with me?” I rubbed the side of my nose against his. It was warm and slippery wet with tears.
“Catherine…don’t…” he dropped his hands and tried to pull away, but I interlaced my fingers behind his neck and held him close.
“You’ll stay with me?” I persisted.
He looked up at me through wet lashes, his breath coming in hot, ragged gasps. It puffed salty-sweet against my lips, hesitant, but filled with undying promise. “Yeah…always.”
Then, from far away, Roshan’s gentle voice reached between us. I felt her hand settle on my shoulder.
“Open your heart, Catherine. You’re ready.”
It was easy, natural, my heart opening up. Like an ocean tide rolling in and then pulling back out. I pressed forward to receive Michael’s promise, closed my eyes and was swept away.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE GUARDIAN
A LIGHT AS bright as the morning sun stole Michael’s face from me, and then we were free, cut adrift, blended in brilliance. Roshan said most humans remember at least a few of their Luminarch images, but who could remember or make sense of the hurricane I plunged into? My mind was nowhere near agile enough. Sound bites. Light flares. Chunks of raw emotion. They steamrolled over me too fast.
Then the next thing I knew, sharp, arguing voices were breaking through.
“You have to let go!”
“Please don’t…”
The soft snick of a blade being drawn.
“Let go!”
“Cate!” Claire’s voice was calling me back, but it was too far for me to go now. It was so cold out there. I wanted to stay. I was so warm and safe.
“Do it now!”
“Cate! Breathe!”
“Please let me stay.”
The acid sting of a powerful palm blasted my cheek, and then a frozen world of excruciating pain and oxygen deprivation rushed into my body.
The light was gone. The warmth was gone. The love had faded. All that was left was pain and the overwhelming knowledge that I needed to live. I needed to live at all costs. There was something I still had to do.
“Breathe! Damn it! Don’t you dare die! Mom’ll kill me if you die! And then I’ll kill you again! They’ll have to have a closed coffin at your wake!”
And I breathed…for my mom and my dad, for Claire and for Cici, and for Mina and Michael, and for me. Yeah. For my stupid self, too. If God wanted me to live, I’d do my best to make it happen.
Claire timed the puff of my inhaler perfectly, and as the sharp, sludge-thick air squeezed into my lungs, I coughed and coughed and coughed, almost passing out again.
“Again! You stupid…” She depressed the inhaler again, and I sucked in hard. Oh God…it hurt. Everything hurt. But I pulled life back in anyway. She forced the inhaler on me several more times and then yanked her blue ski jacket off and tucked it around my chest and shoulders, spitting random curses as she did so. “Are you breathing? You better be breathing.”
I dragged in another gravel-heavy breath and then looked up into her eyes. They were damp, dripping in fact, and I felt a little warmer. She cared after all.
“Yeah…she cares. She loves you, Genius.” The voice, gruff but tempered with affection, came from just over Claire’s shoulder. I shifted my gaze a little to the left and found Michael’s anxious silver eyes shining down on me. They opened a little wider as he saw his own face reflected in my thoughts. Then his perfect lips tipped up in a full-fledged grin. My heart spilled over with relief. I could still see him.
“Hey,” Michael said. “Do what your big sister says.” He rubbed trembling fingers up the back of his neck. Then a black, leather-gloved hand clapped him firmly on the shoulder, and he looked sideways and grinned at Berwyn, his dark-eyed, freaky pierced Angel.
Michael whipped his face around to stare at me. “You remember Berwyn?”
My head was jammed up with pain, but I nodded my chin slightly, wincing as I sent my thoughts back to him. He’s your Goth Angel.
Michael glanced worriedly at Berwyn. “She still sees you, man.” Then he looked at Roshan, who’d knelt down beside me, opposite Claire. “Is she still dying? Is she back in Luminarch?”
“No. She’s stable,” Roshan said, her large eyes calm and serene. “Just hang on a little longer, Catherine. The paramedics will be here soon.” The fact that I could still see her, even though I wasn’t dying anymore, didn’t seem to ruffle her at all.
“Okay…” Michael said to himself, and then he looked up at the sky. “Okay…so, now she sees ghosts and Angels? I guess I can learn to deal with that.” He looked back down at me and grinned.
“Cate!” Claire had to shout to get my attention. “What the hell happened out here? Where did all this blood come from? Where’s Jason? He called the house. His car’s here. He was looking for you.”
My joy and relief evaporated. I just stared at her, dreading the next moment, and then, by way of answer, I reluctantly let my gaze drift to the edge of the cliff and back.
Her face froze. “He went over?”
I squeezed my eyes shut in reply.
“He’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…shit,” she said, shivering. Then she asked point blank, “Was he trying to stop you?” She didn’t have to explain her question. I glanced at Michael and saw a look of sick resignation spread over his face. We both knew what she was thinking.
“No,” I said, shaking my head emphatically despite the grinding pain it sent through my shoulder.
She searched my face, weighing my shaky credibility, and then went on to say, “Cici and I were gone when you stormed out of the house. We were driving Aunt Julia home. Mom was a wreck when we got back, and Dad had gone out to find you, but since you hadn’t told them about seeing Michael die, Dad had no idea where to look.” She paused and looked at me
pointedly. “Cici and I knew. She’d already guessed you’d been out here moping. But tonight…God, you’ve been so stupid lately. We were afraid that…maybe you’d…” Her voice caught, and she paused to clear the lump from her throat. “When I saw your inhaler in the snow, I grabbed it and told Mom to call an ambulance and—”
“Mom’s here?” I wanted to talk to her so badly.
“She’s back at the car. She knew I’d get to you faster so she stayed to direct the paramedics. So it was an accident? Jason going over?”
I wanted desperately to explain it to her. Then she’d understand that it wasn’t my fault, but with the icy air slicing in and out of my lungs, I started coughing again.
She patted my back stiffly. “Just…stay still. We’ll figure it out later.” Yeah. She cared. In her own way, she really did, and I’d been so nasty. I had to say something, and I cleared some of the crap out of my throat.
“I’m sorry…I’ve been…such a brat, Claire.”
Her shivering lips pressed together. She looked down at her hands and said magnanimously, “Well…I guess you can’t really help it sometimes.”
But I hadn’t said what I really wanted to say. The thought shouted out loud and clear in my head: I love you, Claire. I couldn’t remember ever telling her that, saying the words out loud.
“You haven’t. At least not for a long time,” Michael murmured. His eyebrows went up ever so slightly. They said, haven’t you learned anything tonight? When did he become the smart one?
He bent down close to my ear and whispered, “Seventeen years hanging around Angels. Some of it had to get through my caveman skull eventually.” Berwyn choked back a laugh, and Michael shoved him, but Berwyn didn’t move. He was a rock.
Michael was right, obviously…so, after wrestling down my pride, I said, “Claire?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I love you,” I said. The words were barely recognizable, but she understood. She added a colossal eye roll to her raised brows.
“Okay. Sure,” she said. “I love you, too. Now will you please shut up?”
I closed my eyes then, giving in to exhaustion, trusting Claire, Michael, and the Angels to keep watch for me. I wasn’t aware of the paramedics until they had me surrounded. They strapped an oxygen mask to my face and hooked up an I.V., then transferred me to a stretcher. Whatever they put in the I.V. took the edge off the pain, and I drifted in and out of consciousness during the long and slippery journey out of the woods. Along the way, I heard musical voices, people conferring with Michael, Roshan and Berwyn, but I could only make out some of the words—DFZ, hell of a breach, Decimus, the First Guard, monstrously huge power signature—none of it made any sense to me, and I thought maybe I was dreaming until my mom found me in the middle of the moonlit field.
Her coat was unzipped, and her lips were drawn tight. She was trying to keep up with the paramedics as they approached the ambulance in the parking lot. Its back doors were already open, throwing a mellow glow out into the night.
“Oh, Catherine!” she cried. “Oh, thank God! What happened? Look at you…” She touched my face and hair, her hands like ice, trying to locate the source of the blood she found there.
Cici squeezed in next to her, fighting back tears, and grabbed my hand. “Why didn’t you talk to me?” she asked. “You should have talked to me!”
“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…” I whispered, my own eyes tearing up, but my voice was thin, and they couldn’t hear me through the oxygen mask with the paramedics shouting out vitals in the background. Then the sweep of halogen headlights washed over me, and I turned my head toward the engine purr of another car splashing into the parking area. My dad? I needed to talk to him, too.
But the maroon Mercedes that slid to a halt at the curb wasn’t my dad’s car. My eyes went wide with mounting anxiety. They were glued to the passenger side door that was opening, to the dark-haired, icy blue-eyed woman who was stepping out into the snow in her Gucci high-heeled shoes.
My mom glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the door opening, and then she called sharply, “Claire!” She pointed at the couple stumbling toward us through the soggy snow. The woman’s eyes searched the dark lot and field. Her voice cut a razor sharp swath through the night.
“Where’s Jason? Where’s my son?”
Claire moved to block their path while my mother whispered urgently to the two paramedics who were attending me, “Get my daughter in the ambulance.”
But it was too late. Another paramedic was already walking toward the Kings, and everything slowed down.
“What did you say?” Mrs. King asked him. “No. Oh no! No! Oh God! JASON!”
The two paramedics lifted my stretcher and shoved it into the ambulance, and my mom climbed in after me. Mrs. King’s screams wound their way into the ambulance after us.
“That filthy, little middle-class whore!” The doors slammed shut, muffling but not cutting off her cries. “It’s her fault! Oh my GOD! My son…”
My thoughts reached out for Michael.
Michael?
He bent over me. “Yeah, baby…I’m here. We’re all here. Roshan and Berwyn have just faded from your view.”
Can I throw up now? Please? Can I? I need to throw up now. Michael?
One of the paramedics lifted up another vial of medication and prepared to add it to my I.V., but my eyes were on Michael. I still needed him like I needed to breathe.
He brushed his warm ethereal lips against my forehead. “We’ll be here when you wake up,” he whispered. Then a wave of warmth hit my forearm, rushed through my veins, and swamped the pitching thoughts in my head with…nothing. I never wanted anything more in my life.
Sound came back first. A heart monitor. Oxygen hissing. The reassuring noise wrapped itself around the sensations of cool, dry sheets, clean bandages, smooth plastic tubing. I flexed my fingers and felt an I.V. catheter and tape tugging at the skin on the back of my hand. I was in the hospital.
I breathed in through the oxygen tubes that clung to my nose and discovered the scent of Higher. Michael was here. I opened my eyes and rolled my head to the side, sending a dull, grating ache through my tightly-bound shoulder.
Only the dim light fixture above and behind the bed was on, and it threw comforting, organized shadows of hospital equipment onto the pastel walls. And there against the closest wall, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up in front of him, his face pressed awkwardly into his Angel’s leather-bound shoulder, was Michael, sound asleep. His mouth hung slack, slightly open, and his dark lashes were soft against his cheeks. His fingers crested the summit of his knees, except for the thumb of his right hand, which was hooked through a fraying hole in his light blue jeans.
I bit my lip to steady it, marveling at the knowledge that he’d been there for me, selflessly guiding me and comforting me with his music since I was born. How had I received this gift? Why? And why hadn’t he?
My eyes drifted to the pale, heart-shaped face of Berwyn, his dark Angel. He was staring at me with an intensity I was becoming familiar with, but this time I stared back. My eyes narrowed. Why had Michael been left alone in the woods these last four months? After all he’d been through in his life, why had he been trapped there, left to wonder if God had forsaken him.
The powerful creature narrowed his dark eyes back. Then without warning, he was just a puff of bronze mist rolling across the tile floor toward me. As he moved away from Michael’s side, Michael fell in the direction he’d been leaning, fading until he was no longer visible.
The mist took shape again close to the bed, and when Berwyn’s face reappeared, his untamed eyes were only inches from my own. I was startled, but tried not to show it. Then I saw Roshan sitting near me on the other side of the bed. She observed Berwyn with the same inhuman intensity that she watched over me, and my fear dissipated. I knew instinctively she would protect me from anything.
“Why isn’t Michael waking up?” I asked him. My throat was dry, congested,
my voice thick.
He looked at me as if the question offended him. “I’m suppressing his consciousness,” Berwyn said. “He’s been awake since Christmas Eve worrying about you. He finally conked out a few hours ago when your fever broke. I’m not letting him wake up yet. You humans need your sleep.” He stopped talking abruptly and went back to staring at me, half his face cloaked in darkness, the other half marked by long prickly shadows that stretched from the tiny silver thorns piercing his eyebrows. The effect was unnerving.
I was furious with myself for dragging Michael into my personal emotional hell hole. I looked down at my hands which were resting on top of the clean white sheet. My blood had backed up several inches into the clear plastic I.V. tubing, and I pulled my hand up to examine it, dragging the tangled tubing with it.
“It’s fine,” Roshan murmured. “The nurses will be back in a little while to adjust it.” When I looked back up at Berwyn, I caught the tail end of a shudder shaking off his shoulders. His eyes darted away from the blood in the tubing and back to my face.
“So you can stop worrying, kitten,” Berwyn said. “Michael is safe.”
But that reminded me why I was angry in the first place, and I sat up, dragging the oxygen tubes from my nose, and waving my I.V. taped hand at him. Pain ripped through my shoulder, chest and back, and I was lightheaded, but I didn’t care.
“Maybe he is now, but what about before? How could you just leave him to wander the woods alone for months after he died? He thought God had abandoned him!” As I railed against him, Berwyn’s eyes darkened and began to smolder. A few deep orange flames spilled from his fist and rippled down the side of his gnarled staff. He looked down at the floor, and I wondered what dangerous emotions I’d awakened within him. Roshan stretched her hand out protectively over me, whispering, “Catherine, it is not wise to question a Guardian Angel’s loyalty or skill. They don’t like it.”
“And you would know about that, wouldn’t you Roshan?” He’d snapped his head up so fast, I’d missed the movement. His wild eyes were back to brown. “Ah…but the difference between Michael and our kitten here is that she has no idea what we’ve been up against.” He gave Roshan a tight grin and then leveled a dark Angelic gaze in my direction. “I think we need to change that.” He stripped off one of his gloves and held out his hand to me, palm up and open.
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