"You know... why... what she is?"
"And what you are as well. You are her protector. You have been helping her, protecting her, haven't you?"
For some strange reason he thought back to his singing at the university, how Angelique had told him what it had done for her. And now, he couldn't really remember why he had been so compelled to go into that rehearsal room and sing those three nights. He had never done it any other time.
"And you have been rewarded, Wyatt, no?"
Instantly he thought about Cory, his anguish at the child's impending death until he'd brought Angelique and she'd saved him. And George hitting it big in Vegas. And him getting a billion dollar port deal he'd thought was lost.
"But you nuns protected her too. For two years."
"And now, in our hour of need, five million dollars shows up at our doorstep."
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me what she is."
The nun paused reflectively before finally answering.
"She is a fallen angel, Wyatt."
"A what?"
"A spirit. A spirit who has fallen back to Earth and is now earthbound. The Church has seven other recorded cases in its archives. I have not been allowed to see them but Father Wadzniak was, and he was kind enough to tell me. In confidence I'm afraid. The Church guards its secrets and especially its secrets that those who would use to ridicule us with."
"I don't get it. An angel? Kicked out of Heaven? Is that what you're telling me?"
"No, Wyatt. The cases appear to be more in the realm of mistake. Or good intentions gone awry."
"And Angelique? What were her good intentions gone awry?"
"She has never spoken to us, or I believe to anyone, about her origins, Wyatt. But over time and with the help of Church archivists we discerned certain things. Have you seen the medical records? A child, broken, lifeless, in a hospital. What if an angel particularly sympathetic to a dying child were to want to help, to prevent the death, interfere with the death? What do you think the penalty, or even just the unfortunate ramification of that action could be? Do the math, Wyatt. When we asked her outright, never an habituée of full disclosure, she refused to confirm --but neither did she deny. As I recall her exact response was angel, schmangel, up the meds M.S."
"I know that when she woke up she had no memory of... her life."
"You mean of the child's life. How could she?"
"She saved Johnson's son's life. In a hospital. I watched her do it."
"Ah, it appears our little fallen angel has not yet learned her lesson. But that is the way about May-May with most things, haven't you discovered? It takes a few tries with her. You will need much patience, Protector."
"Why do you call me that? I'm her husband."
"Wyatt, the recorded cases are varied but they have a similar theme, even going back to the first case which is from more than fifteen hundred years ago. It may be difficult for you to hear. Have you found that Angelique has brought light and joy into your life but... has attracted other things as well? Dark things. Evil things."
Ira Silverberg. Rashid.
"What are you saying?"
"Think about it. An angel. Here on Earth. Unprotected. Vulnerable. What would happen? What would be attracted to her? What would want to feast on her? And what would she need to fend that off?"
"A protector?"
"Who would be well rewarded for his efforts."
"But..."
"Why you? I've no idea. Why us?"
"And these... angels. What happened to them?"
A shadow crossed her face.
No. Oh no. OH NO! NOT ANGELIQUE! NOT MY ANGELIQUE!
*****
As Wyatt heard what Angelique was, quite a distance away Lexa heard a buzzing. Insistent. Her body begging for continued oblivion, she vaguely dragged herself back up into consciousness. She didn't want to open her eyes, from the pain that had led her way back she knew what she would see. But the buzzing was irritating, demanding, finally she opened her eyes to see sunlight pouring in through the large window. The buzzing, she realized, was coming from inside the wooden slot panel in the wall by the door. In misery she stood, one of her towels falling off. She tried to ignore the buzzing but finally she walked to the panel and in a gesture of desolation touched it. Instantly it slid sideways into the wall exposing behind it a small inner cupboard. The buzzing ceased. In the cupboard was a tray with hot steaming food, and folded beside the tray were clean sheets and towels. Mechanically she placed the items on the floor. The slot door quietly slid closed. All she could think of was that the slot was not large enough for her to get her body through.
Lexa knew the devil incarnate monster would return. She went to the closet rifling through the clothes. She put on the new ones, they fit, and over them she put on the wrinkled too big ones. By the time she was finished she was wearing six layers of clothes. It wasn't much, it wasn't anything, but it was something. She went into the bathroom, Christ, her face was a mess. Her entire eye area was bluish purple. She opened the vanity drawer, there was plenty of concealer in there. She didn't touch it. The clicking and whirring noise she'd heard before that had heralded the monster's arrival came from behind her and turning, there he was, the door slowly closing behind him.
"Good morning, Lexa," Malcolm said implacably, "I hope you slept well. Come out here."
What was the point, she shriveled, so she walked out of the bathroom.
"Interesting fashion choice," he laughed, "though probably a bit warm. Why have you left your breakfast on the floor? You must be hungry, you ate nothing last night." He picked it up and placed the tray on the table. "I see you have not made your bed yet." His expression was of pure sinister menace.
"Go to hell," she croaked, fear rumbling deep within her.
"Oh Lexa," he sneered capriciously, "wrong thing to say."
When he finally stopped, she was on the floor, twitching. Trying to breathe. His violence had been controlled, he'd only used his fists, and his fingers, but it had been torture. But strange too and she realized it was to prevent bruising. The twisting, folding, pushing, pulling, forcing, he'd done to her arms, her legs, her neck and head, all of her, had been agony but she doubted it would leave bruises. Not on the outside anyway. On the inside her internal organs were shrieking.
"Clean yourself up, especially that face. Get properly dressed and make your bed. If you do, we will have lunch on the terrace together, it is a glorious summer day." He left.
Outside? He was going to bring her outside? Through the door? It was probably a trick but it was all she had. She climbed to her knees and rested. Even if she was outside, in the condition she was in, would she have the strength to run? Hell, she'd find it. She did as he asked, all of it, and sat in an overstuffed chair waiting for him. Finally the clicking and whirring noise returned and the door opened. She waited for him to appear, but standing there was Margret.
"Come," she beckoned Lexa in a voice from which any trace of sympathy or contrition had been carefully extinguished.
Lexa rushed to her feet and shot past Margret out the open door, blundering smack into Donald, that mountain of a man, who grabbed and steadied her.
"Careful, Miss," he leered, his voice a goad, "you wouldn't want to hurt yourself." He took her tightly by her elbow and marched her down both flights of stairs, ignoring it when she stumbled, he just dragged her, unconcerned, depositing her out on a backyard terrace where the monster was sitting at a table smiling at her.
It didn't make sense, she could dash for it and she did. And screamed as her shoes hit the lawn which wasn't just lawn but also some kind of embedded green plastic mesh. Electrified plastic mesh. She managed to pitch her body back onto the terrace where she rolled, still screaming in incredible pain.
"Now that we've got that rumpus out of the way, come join me, Lexa," Malcolm demanded with a contemptuous sniff. "Margret has made her best soufflé in honor of your arrival."
Lexa rolled onto her back on the flagstones and looked into the
house. Donald was standing behind sliding glass doors scoffing at her, Margret behind him pushing a trolley cart full of dishes. He opened the glass door for her and she walked through pushing the trolley up to the patio table Malcolm was seated at.
Lexa just lay on the ground, unmoving.
"Well, when you're ready," Malcolm said. "I have your consent papers here. And there will be a matter of a video, I like to get your consent in that fashion as well. This soufflé really is delicious, you are truly missing out. Don't try my patience too long."
She had to say something, something, to get through to him.
"Malcolm," she gasped sitting up, uncertainly using his name for the first time, "this is wrong. You can have any woman you want, women who would know how to please you. If you let me go, I won't say anything. It'll be like it never happened. I give you my word."
"You do know what would please me. I've told you. Give me your consent, Lexa."
"Why?" she almost howled, the despair escaping her.
He could not explain that to her because he did not fully understand it himself and even if he did why would he talk to her about it? He was not a rapist (well, not anymore). His father had called him that. You filthy rapist. It had stung him, hurt him more than he had ever thought he could hurt. So now he did not rape. He offered deals.
Sign the consent and I don't hurt you. Until I do.
It made sense to him. If his father was alive, the man could not legitimately call him a rapist. His guests did not have to consent. It was their choice. But he needed what he needed and he had a right to take it. He was Malcolm Cochran. He was special. What were they? Aspiring nobodies. They should be honored he was giving them his precious time not to mention attention.
Lexa had managed to get to her feet, swaying.
"Sit," he said, and she did because she could feel herself about to collapse. Margret was suddenly there, at her elbow, putting a plate before her and spooning food onto it. Lexa looked up at her, into Margret's eyes, imploring her. Margret ignored it by averting her own eyes, showing neither embarrassment nor pity. Lexa looked at the sliding glass window, Donald was still behind it, seated now. So that's how it would be. She would be taken from the room but always under Donald's control and only brought to secured places. And it would be her "reward." She felt the bile rise in her, the odor of the food before her sickening, the revolting monster across the table petrifying. "The consent papers," Malcolm said placing some paperwork on the table before her. "And there are some consent videos you will watch tonight, give you a better idea of what I expect from you in yours."
"Then what?" she whispered dully.
He cocked an eyebrow at her in surprise at her failure of imagination.
"Why then, Lexa, we play."
"And then?"
"Then you go home."
"When?"
"When I decide."
"No, that's when you kill me."
"If I were going to do that, why would I trouble myself securing your consent on both paper and video?"
To keep me hoping, she didn't say. To keep me compliant.
"I understand," she crumbled, seeing her only chance to stay alive. She would have to be compliant. Do whatever he said no matter how horrific. Lull him into thinking she wasn't working to escape, that she actually believed he would release her. Look for her opportunity. His guard down, he'd make a mistake. She'd run, her terror would lend her strength.
"I have a pen," he said smiling the smile he saved just for this moment, "and if you've forgotten what your signature should look like, I have many examples of it."
She signed.
With Donald walking behind them, and the monster firmly grasping her arm, he escorted her back to the peach bedroom. And when Malcolm Cochran said open, Lexa did.
And a part of her soul was crushed.
*****
Wyatt did not mention to Angelique what the mother superior had told him about her suspected origins. That night he did however tell Johnson who, surprisingly, accepted it straightaway.
"We'll have our work cut out for us," had been his response. "But the convent won't be a problem, we can get that place spiffied up easily with five million dollars. Perhaps if a hidden safe place is ever temporarily needed for Mrs. Cochran, the convent can be utilized."
"No, I don't think I want her to ever be around that priest, Wadzniak, again. I don't know what happened the last time, Angelique wouldn't say."
"She tried to kill him."
"Angelique?"
"Well, maybe. While you were getting information out of the mother superior, I was getting it from the nuns. Seemed that when the priest returned, the nuns noticed she was up in the chapel tower --with a quiver full of arrows and one pointed right at the man."
"Did she--"
"No, the nuns judiciously moved around him so she couldn't get a clear shot, hustled him inside. It was later that night they voted to give her the going-away money. They've no idea if she really would have done it but they weren't going to take any chances."
"Living with an angel. She's going to be quite the handful for us, Johnson."
Wyatt saw Johnson's unspoken question.
"Not for a moment," Wyatt said. "I don't regret marrying her for one single moment. Just the opposite."
"Yes," Johnson said, "I rather thought that. There will have to be rules though," he sighed, "she won't like it. She's used to total freedom, running around doing what she pleases."
"Rules and a creative angel. My my. No marriage book for that."
"I suppose you will have to make it up as you go along, sir. The most important thing will be information, knowing what she's up to, what she's getting into."
"Head off a threat before it becomes one you mean."
"Precisely."
"You're very circumspect, Johnson. I know what it is you're saying. You want me to be demonstrative with her, lay down the law. I suppose there's really no other choice. I think I want to look at those archives first though, the other cases. See what happened, what the mistakes were, the successes."
"I'll start on that. Perhaps it will be a question of money, of scholarly donation."
"If it is, pay what needs to be paid. If it isn't, find another way. I will not lose her Johnson. I won't. Whatever it takes, we are going to keep her safe."
"This Wadzniak apparently got into the Church's archives, he maybe has the information. If there's no other way--"
"Only if there's no other way. The two of them have too much history to bring him back into this if we don't have to."
"I understand, sir. I'll only go to him if I can't get the archives from Rome myself."
"Well it's been a long day. And my little cherub is waiting for me, I'd better go. Good night, Johnson."
"Good night, sir."
Wyatt left his study and walked into his bedroom knowing he wouldn't be entirely surprised if Angelique was asleep. Being around her, he always had the feeling that she lived intensely, burning so brightly that when she did sleep, she crashed. But she was awake, sitting on the bed in a turquoise teddy smiling at him a very clear he-knew-what-it-was-she-wanted hopeful smile of anticipation. His brow furrowed.
"That teddy --it's not like what you usually sleep in. New?"
"Um... yeah. I thought you might like it."
"Don't tell me you're finally using the charge card," he grinned.
"Um..." she said.
And he didn't know why, but he knew he hated that turquoise teddy.
"Where did you get it?"
"Gift," she answered beckoning him into bed with what Wyatt suspected was the well used and extremely effective husband-distracting methodology used by wives for centuries.
"From who?"
She clumsily tried on a new face.
"Thanks for letting me spend the money on the convent, Wyatt. That was--"
"Who?"
She bit her bottom lip.
Don't open it here, put it away upstairs in your bedroom and open it later
.
Robert. It was his birthday gift to her. She was wearing his damn teddy!
"Don't move," he commanded her. He reached down and carefully placed both his hands inside the front of the top piece of the teddy. And then slowly, not looking away from her eyes, he methodically ripped it down her chest. "Sit up," he said. "Turn around."
"Wyatt, I--"
"Turn. Around."
She did and felt his hands reach into the back of the teddy. And then she heard and felt him tearing the back of the teddy into two pieces as well. He then simply placed one hand under each of her arms and pulled away both pieces of the shredded teddy leaving her naked on top. And she knew that wasn't going to be the end of it.
Wyatt systematically split each side of the matching panties too, then pulled them out from underneath her leaving her totally naked with him glowering down on her.
"That was a perfectly good teddy set," she protested.
"And now it'll make perfectly good rags. I don't get it. The guy was never intimate with you but he bought you that?"
"There are different kinds of intimate, Wyatt," she said sliding under the blankets to hide her nakedness.
"No. There's not. How was he intimate with you?"
"I'm not going to tell you."
A challenge. And he knew just how to deal with it.
Wyatt got undressed, turned off the lights, and climbed under the blankets with her. Immediately she nuzzled herself up to him, he'd been right about that. He could almost feel her body humming with a mesmeric current she wanted it so much. Languidly he began stroking her, feeling an exhilarating shiver crawling along her skin. He threw back the blankets to see her flesh, all of it, almost aglow with excitement.
"You like, May-May?" he whispered seductively in her ear.
"Umm...." she cooed. She liked, definitely liked.
And he continued touching her. He knew what she was fond of, what she adored, and what sent her stratospheric, and most importantly he knew how to read her signals, knew precisely where she was at. And he brought her right there and it was precisely there as she was about to slip over the precipice that he stopped.
"Wyatt!" she gasped, "why did you--"
"How was Robert intimate with you?"
Angelique Rising Page 14