Fear to Tread

by Lucy Blue

  Caleb looked back to see Laura wrap her arms around Jake, holding on to him with all her might. He thought about what Lucifer had said about desire, about how jealousy would twist him, and he shivered.

  “But you’ll have plenty to keep you busy,” Michael said.

  “Yes.” His wings were still jet black. He was no demon, but he was not a seraph any more, either. He couldn’t return to Michael’s army or the plains of Light.

  Down the hill, Laura turned to Jake. “Are you going, too?”

  He grinned. “Not just yet.” He kissed her. “I think I’ll wait around here a little longer.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, and a sharp, blinding pain ripped through her skull as if her brain were suddenly exploding. She screamed, and Jake caught her, holding her tight.

  “It’s going to be all right, baby girl,” he said. “You have to go back.”

  Caleb heard her scream and turned in time to see Jake catch her. He broke into a run.

  “No!” Laura clutched at Jake, trying not to hear the beeping of machines, the voice of a nurse, trying not smell the antiseptic.

  “You have to, honey,” he said, stroking her hair. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

  Caleb reached them, and Jake grabbed his hand. “Go with her,” he said. “Promise me. Don’t let her be scared.”

  Laura barely heard him. Jake seemed to be letting her go….no, he was fading away. She was falling….no, she was already lying down. Her head hurt so bad…she could barely see….one eye was covered with bandages…she was having trouble keeping hold of a thought, and she couldn’t feel her arms or legs.

  People were talking…at first she couldn’t understand the words or recognize the voices…Jason…another man….a doctor?

  “Her mother-in-law is on her way from Atlanta,” Jason was saying. “She would be her next of kin, I guess.”

  “Tell the nurse when she arrives,” the doctor said. “We’ll have to make some decisions.”

  “Is it really hopeless?” Jason said. They were fading out, walking out of the room. She only caught a few words more…brain damage…vegetative state. She closed her one good eye and wept.

  She felt a warm, soft kiss on her cheek. Looking up, she saw Caleb bending over her. His wings were still black, and there were soft lines on his face, making him look almost human. But his beautiful smile was the same. He lay a hand on her bandaged head, and she gasped, a rush of heat passing into her through the bandage, first dulling then sharpening the pain. The nurse sitting beside her jumped up and checked the monitors. She didn’t see Caleb, but she could see the change in Laura. Her heartbeat was stronger; her EKG was dancing, recording a brain filled with life. She gasped and ran from the room.

  Caleb was frowning; his eyes were closed. She could see the strain in him, see how much this effort was costing him. She reached up with a hand that now followed her commands and touched his cheek.

  He looked down at her and smiled, all his power focused on her torn and broken brain. In his mind, he could see each precious cell as it healed. The optic nerve knitted itself back together. The doctors would call it a miracle and doubt the tests that had told them it was severed. He left the skull still broken for their sakes, as much as he hated leaving her in pain. But she would live now. She would be herself.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He kissed her tenderly. “Go to sleep.”

  He stayed invisible as he walked down the hall past the excited nurse who was trying to make the doctor believe what she had seen. She was literally dragging him back to Laura’s room. He passed by Jason who was sitting in a chair in the waiting room with his face in his hands, softly weeping. Still invisible, the angel gave his shoulder a squeeze as he passed. Jason looked up, looking around, a hopeful smile on his face.

  Alone in the elevator, he took on a human shape. Walking through the emergency room, he looked just like everyone else, another weary human headed home. He walked out through the ambulance bay, smiling at an old woman sitting in a wheelchair waiting for her ride.

  A dog was sitting on the sidewalk on his haunches as if he were waiting for him. “Oh no,” Caleb said, walking over to him. “They sent you back, too?” It was the hellhound Laura had let out of the dark lands, painfully thin but whole and alive. “She’s fine,” he promised, scratching him between the ears. “She’s going to be fine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three—The Opening

  Laura stood in the cemetery at sunset with a bunch of summer flowers in her hand. Jake’s tiny brass marker had been replaced with a respectable black granite headstone, and his grave was completely covered over with lush green grass. She laid the flowers against the stone then kissed her fingertips and pressed them to his name. “I love you baby,” she said softly. “Wish me luck.”

  She straightened up, half-expecting to see a figure standing in the shadows of the willow tree, veiled in green this time instead of ice. But of course no one was there.

  “Laura,” Jason called from the open gate. “Come on, sweetie. We’ll be late.”

  “Coming right now.” She trailed a freshly-manicured hand over the top of the stone one last time, smiling through tears as she left.

  Caleb watched the sunset through the window of a hotel room in Buenos Aires. He was holding a postcard with an image of Laura and Jake’s painting, an image of Laura and Caleb himself. “The Guardian Approaches,” the postcard called it, advertising a gallery in Laura’s city half a world away and an opening tonight for a new exhibit: Corpus Delecti: The Works of Jacob and Laura Ross.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number of his own apartment. “Hello?” Marilyn’s voice asked, bright but impersonal.

  “Hey Marilyn,” he said. “It’s me.”

  Her tone warmed immediately. “Boss!” He smiled. “How are you?”

  Over the past year and a half, Marilyn had healed from her years of possession. Healthy in body if not always in spirit, she lived in his old apartment now and spent hours every day on the computer and the phone, tracking down people who needed a half-fallen angel. “I’m good,” he said. “I got the postcard.”

  “Ah, okay,” she said. “Was I wrong to send it?”

  “No.” He hadn’t seen Laura since he had left her at the hospital. “I’m glad you did.”

  “So are you going?” There was a pregnant pause while she waited for him to answer. “You know you want to go.”

  He looked at the image of the painting, remembering the fear in Laura’s eyes when he’d shown her what he was. Was she afraid of him now? “I don’t want to scare her,” he said. “I want her to get better.”

  “She is better,” Marilyn said. Against his specific instructions, his assistant just happened to walk by Laura’s apartment building every once in a while, just to “look around,” as she called it. “If she weren’t, she wouldn’t be painting.”

  “She doesn’t need me.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Another pause. “Maybe you need her.”

  He put the postcard in his pocket. “Thanks, Marilyn,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll bring doughnuts.”

  She hung up, and he smiled. The dog was looking up at him expectantly. “Fancy a flight?” he said. “It’s going to be cold as hell, you know.”

  The dog wagged his tail, jumping up to paw at the angel’s chest. “Yeah, yeah,” Caleb said. “I kind of miss her, too.”

  The narrow gallery was packed with more people spilling into the street. No one seemed to want to leave. Jake’s mother and sister had been there earlier, but they had already gone back to the apartment. The sight of Jake’s canvases had been exhausting for them both. Half the canvases were already marked as sold, and people Laura hadn’t seen for years kept coming up to hug her, to express their condolences on Jake’s death, to compliment the paintings and congratulate her on “finally finding her voice.” Everyone’s eyes eventually strayed to the spider-shaped scar
over her temple, but so far, no one had asked.

  She turned around in the midst of the crowd, looking for Jason, and found herself face to face with Sylvia and Nate. “Oh my God,” she said, hugging them both. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the earth spirit said, hugging her back. Like Laura, she seemed almost completely healed. A delicate silk scarf hid the scar on her throat, and the scars on her arms were barely noticeable.

  “We wouldn’t miss it,” her wizard husband added with a grin. “Your work is magnificent, dear.”

  “Thank you very much.” She barely remembered starting to paint at all. She had started sketching in the hospital when she was barely able to hold a pencil. When she had finished months later, she’d had thirteen canvases standing in her studio, more and better work than she had ever done in her life. A portrait of her memory of Jake’s corpse in the hospital was locked away in a vault, never to see daylight while she lived. But everything else was here, twelve paintings to match the twelve Jake had left behind with their one collaboration in between.

  “It’s amazing how beautifully your work meshes with Jake’s,” Sylvia said.

  “That’s the best compliment I could get.” She had never intended to paint companion pieces to Jake’s last cycle, but without even realizing it, she had. Facing one of his canvases now, she didn’t recognize the rusted, half-submerged Cadillac at its center or the long-limbed, feral-looking boy perched like a bird on the hood. But the dark, swampy forest around them was hauntingly familiar.

  Sylvia touched her arm. “Has Caleb seen them?”

  Laura shook her head. “I haven’t seen Caleb.” But she had painted him. Caleb standing in the light of her open refrigerator drinking milk straight from the jug, his golden wings folded on his back. Caleb entangled around her in the demon tree with jet black wings and burning purple eyes. Caleb bending over her in the hospital, tenderly kissing her forehead, bringing her back to life. He was a presence even in the paintings that weren’t about him—a face in the crowd of angels hovering around her beautiful mother as she prayed, a golden feather on Laura’s pillow as she slept nestled on Jake’s shoulder.

  “Have you tried to contact him?” Sylvia said.

  “No,” Laura said. She had wanted to call out to him a thousand times, but she wouldn’t let herself do it. He had given up so much for her already. “It didn’t seem right.”

  Before Sylvia could answer, Jason appeared at Laura’s side. “There you are.” He smiled at Sylvia and Nate and slipped an arm around Laura’s waist. “How are you holding up, lovely?”

  “I’m fine,” she promised, letting herself lean on him. Her recovery had been miraculous—no great surprise to her, but her doctors had seemed almost offended. She had pills for the occasional headaches, and when she was very tired, she could mix up words—probably what Jason was worrying about now. “I haven’t forgotten anybody’s name yet.”

  “I meant how do you feel, you freak,” Jason said, giving her a squeeze. “No one expects this to be easy.”

  She let another “I’m fine” die unspoken. “It’s not,” she admitted. “But it’s okay.”

  The noise level in the gallery rose suddenly as a dog trotted through the crowd like he owned the place. When he saw Laura, he let out a single bark and broke into a run.

  “Hey!” she said, dropping to her knees to catch him as he ran to her. “Look at you.” He was a yellow mutt, a little smaller than a Labrador, with scars on his neck and muzzle and a weird, shambling gait as if his hip had once been broken. But he was well-fed and beautifully groomed with a loose, black collar with silver tags, and she recognized him at once. “Don’t you look pretty?” she crooned, petting him and hugging him as he licked her face. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “Laura?” Jason said. “I take it you know this dog?”

  “Oh yeah,” Sylvia said. “I think she does.” She reached down and touched Laura’s shoulder. “Look.”

  Caleb was creating a much bigger stir than the dog. He was in his human guise, of course, no wings, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt with no tie, perfectly appropriate to the occasion. But if he’d meant to blend in with the crowd, he’d failed miserably. Every eye in the room was fixed on him in fascination, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at one of the paintings: “The Tree.”

  “Oh yeah,” Jason said. “I’ll go get him.”

  “No,” Laura said, standing up. “Let me.”

  Caleb felt dizzy looking at the painting, a perfect rendering of the moment he had almost fallen for good. Laura was locked in his passionate embrace; the two of them were entangled in the clutches of the demon. “It references Dante, of course,” a man beside him said. “But so fresh…” He smiled at Caleb, his warm brown eyes twinkling with interest. “Who knew little Laura had it in her?”

  Then Laura was beside them. “Thanks, Byron,” she said. She put a hand on Caleb’s arm. “Your support is overwhelming.”

  “You know I think you’re brilliant,” Byron said, whoever he was, utterly unembarrassed. “I’m just glad to see you finally showing it.” He was still smiling at Caleb, looking him up and down. “So who is this?”

  “This is my friend, Caleb.” She slipped her arm through Caleb’s, and he could feel her trembling. “He was very sweet to pose for me.”

  Caleb put a hand over hers. “It was my pleasure.” She looked very fragile and very beautiful dressed in a pale yellow dress. She hadn’t tried to hide the scar, a pinkish purple web at her temple, and he was reminded painfully of the broken doll she had been on the outskirts of hell.

  “Are you a professional model?” Byron asked, obviously determined to have the whole scoop.

  “No,” Laura and Caleb said in unison.

  “I’m in personal security,” Caleb went on, giving Laura’s hand a squeeze. “I met Laura after her husband’s death. There had been some trouble in her neighborhood, and I hooked her up with a security system.”

  “My neighbor, Sylvia, was attacked less than a block from our building,” Laura agreed, squeezing back.

  “Were you with her when she tried to blow her brains out?” Byron said. His tone was still matter-of-fact, but his eyes glittered with the hungry malice of the born gossip. Caleb felt Laura’s heart rate double.

  “Byron, I’d rather not talk about that, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  “Yes, I was,” Caleb said. “And I was furious.” He looked down at her, smiling as her eyes met his. “But I think she’s better now.”

  “I am,” she promised. “Much better.” From a distance, Caleb had looked just the same. But up close, she could see faint lines around his eyes and at the corners of his perfect mouth, see how the blue light of his eyes had slightly dimmed. His hand over hers was still warmer than a human’s but not quite as warm as before. But he was still beautiful, maybe more so, and the look in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. “I’m a little tired, though,” she said. “I think I could use a little air. Caleb, would you come with me?” Let the vultures nibble on that one, she thought.

  “Have Jason call me,” Byron said, handing her a card. “We need to talk. I might have a commission for you.”

  “Thanks, Byron.” Before Jake had gotten sick, back when she had still been an illustrator who managed to finish a fine art painting maybe twice a year, she would have fainted in happy shock at the idea of a commission from a collector like Byron. Now she really couldn’t have cared less. “We’ll have to talk.”

  She led Caleb through the gallery, her hand held lightly in his. She smiled and nodded at the people they passed but refused to let anyone stop them. “Ten minutes,” she mouthed to Jason when they reached the back door, and he nodded.

  She took him outside and up the rusted fire escape to the roof. She and Jake had spent the greater part of most of his openings here, her teasing and comforting him as he paced and smoked and bitched about being packaged as a product. The asphalt roof near the railing was
still littered with cigarette butts. “I’m so glad you came,” she said, turning to Caleb.

  His answer was to kiss her, sweeping her up in his arms and taking her breath away. She melted against him, twining her arms around his neck and opening her mouth to his, not caring who might see.

  After a long moment, he broke the kiss and held her close, cradling her head against his throat. “Why didn’t you call for me?”

  “I wasn’t sure I could. I thought I shouldn’t.” His arms around her felt perfect, but she was crying. “I had already hurt you so much.”

  “Stop it.” He turned her face up to his. “Just stop.” He kissed her softly before he let her go.

  “Are you even still an angel?”

  “No,” he said, his face utterly serious. “I’m an elephant now. This is my brilliant disguise.”

  “You’re a smartass now.” She smiled, feeling better. “That’s new.”

  “It is, and I have to say, I have enjoyed it.” He took her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “I am still an angel.” The air around him shimmered and his human clothes melted away. His angel form was naked to the waist over the leather kilt of his armor, and his wings were still jet black. A black-handled sword was sheathed on his hip. “I just have a different mission now.” She could see scars all over his torso; the worst was a deep purple gash across his chest. She moved closer to press a kiss to his shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head.

  “What kind of mission?” she said, laying her head on his shoulder.

  “Never mind.” He chuckled, a rumble in his chest she felt all through her. “Just know that there’s always a plan.”

  “But it’s not what you wanted.”

  “I didn’t want anything before.” He turned her face up to his again. “Now I do.”

  “Caleb…” She took a step back from him. “I almost got you damned forever.”

  “I’ll risk it.” He touched her cheek. “Just don’t be scared of me,” he said. “That’s all I want for now.”

  “Is it?” She smiled. “I’m not scared.”

  Jason checked his watch and sighed. “Come on, Laura.”