Pale Wings Protecting

by Lesley Davis

  “Daryl, wait, please—”

  Feeling betrayed and so heartsick she could barely see straight, Daryl fled the bedroom and ran down the stairs. She slammed out the front door and ran as fast as she could down the road. Leaving Blythe behind tore at her soul, but she felt exposed and blown wide open to the suspicions about her strange ability. Daryl couldn’t explain it. She’d never known how she could do what she was able to. Only her mother had ever seen it as a blessing. Everyone else viewed her as plain strange. And now with Blythe talking of demons, Daryl didn’t know where to turn. I thought she’d understand me. I thought she’d be different. I thought I could trust myself with her. I’ve just put my job and reputation on the line with her. Daryl’s feet pounded the street as she tried to run as fast as she could, knowing she was leaving her heart behind.

  *

  Rafe picked up her phone on its first ring and listened to the sobbing that echoed down the line. She held the phone away to check the caller ID. “Blythe?”

  Ashley looked up from her laptop, concerned at the sound of Rafe’s voice.

  “Okay, we’re on our way over. No, stay in the house in case she comes back. We’ll sort this out. Try to take a deep breath and calm down. Give me your address. We’re coming now.” Rafe snapped her cell phone shut and reached for her coat. “Come on. There’s trouble in paradise.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The drive to Blythe and Daryl’s house didn’t take Rafe and Ashley long once Rafe employed police tactics and surpassed the speed limit every chance she could.

  “Wow, talk about lifestyles of the rich and the famous.” Ashley pressed her face against the glass of the car’s window and whistled. “And I thought your neighborhood was pretty spiffy, but, sweetheart, this makes your place look like a cardboard box from the Jiffy Mart.”

  “You got that right. Can you imagine having the money to live this kind of lifestyle? Where one yacht or two is the biggest worry you’ll ever have.”

  “Maybe when you get promoted to head of the DDU we can move here,” Ashley teased.

  “That’s what I love about you the most, my love. Your wild imagination.” Rafe pulled up outside Blythe’s home and got out of the car. She scanned the area quickly but couldn’t see any sign of anyone or anything in the street.

  Ashley led their way up the path. She paused at the car parked on the drive. “There’s demon residue on the hood. Faint but still there. What do you think that means?”

  “Maybe one of them tagged a Class M demon while out. They’re squishy enough to leave a mark. One less for us to worry about if they did.” Rafe was about to knock on the door when Blythe threw it open and all but collapsed in her arms. Rafe steered her inside quickly. “Okay, now you can tell us exactly what happened today that made your partner take off like the hounds of hell were chasing her.”

  “I told her about the demons,” Blythe said.

  Rafe smacked a hand dramatically to her forehead. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Blythe! That’s not exactly pillow talk!”

  Blythe addressed Ashley. “She knew about the pedophile ring we worked on. She saw me. She even saw you in a dream she had.”

  “Daryl dreams?” Ashley exclaimed. “Well, that might go a long way to explaining her gift.”

  “No, she only dreamed that once, and she says she doesn’t have a gift, just these gut feelings.”

  “I think she has more than that, Blythe, judging by her success rate and notoriety in her field.” Rafe was pacing back and forth, furious that Blythe hadn’t kept her word but intensely curious as to what made Daryl the woman she was.

  “I need to see her, to make sure she’s not—” Ashley almost inadvertently blurted out what was obviously on her mind.

  “Make sure she’s not what? A demon?” Blythe’s voice rose. “Oh, my God, Rafe! What have you dragged me into that I can’t even trust my lover anymore?”

  “You’ve slept with her?” Rafe didn’t think Blythe would have crossed the line like that. This Daryl must be someone special.

  “She’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I don’t care what she is. I need her. I love her.”

  “Even if she’s different?” Rafe said. Loving a woman who possessed special powers came with its own set of challenges. She spared Ashley a glance. However, it was worth it when it was the right woman to share your life with.

  “I don’t care about that. I just care about her. I have from the very second I laid eyes on her.” Blythe sat on the settee and put her head in her hands.

  “Any chance Daryl could be her One?” Rafe asked Ashley.

  “She could be. You know how that whole thing works. It’s never who you expect.” She smiled at Rafe sweetly.

  “My what?” Blythe said.

  “Your One, your soul mate, your eternal flame, your main squeeze.”

  “There’s really such a thing?”

  “Oh, believe me, the things this one can tell you all about things like that.” Rafe gestured to Ashley. “She could fill a book on this one true love stuff.”

  “You’re my One,” Ashley said to Rafe, “And you know it.”

  “Yes, I do and I’m forever grateful for it.”

  Blythe leaned her head against the settee cushion. “Soul mates…angels…demons. How does your head not explode with all this?”

  “I think Armitage cracking open my skull allowed me to take all this in with little fuss. When you’ve stared down a demon, being told that a gorgeous little blonde is going to be the love of your life is much easier to take.”

  “I swear I thought this case was just going to be routine.”

  “Nothing will ever be routine from now on, Blythe. That particular genie is way out of the bottle.”

  “So Daryl’s my One.” Blythe sounded tired. “The one I can’t live without and would give up my soul to be with. And yet she’s not here.”

  Ashley patted Blythe’s knee soothingly. “She will be. You’re her One as well, it would appear.” She cocked her head toward the sound of the front door opening and flashed Blythe a reassuring grin. “See?”

  They all looked up as Daryl took a step into the room and stared at them warily.

  “Don’t worry. This isn’t an intervention.” Rafe took a step forward and held out her hand. She was relieved to note that Daryl had no glimmer of any sort around her. She shook Daryl’s hand and introduced herself and Ashley. She caught the flash of hesitation in Daryl’s eyes before she quickly covered it. She still eyed Rafe a little distrustfully and Rafe was hard-pressed not to bristle at her. She watched as Daryl acknowledged Ashley and froze.

  “It really is you,” Daryl gasped. She looked to Blythe then back at Ashley. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Ashley smiled at her. “I understand you saw me in a dream?”

  Daryl turned on Blythe accusingly. “That was a secret for only you to hear.”

  “I’m sorry, but I felt they needed to know.” Blythe didn’t look away from Daryl’s obvious anger.

  “Know what exactly? That I dreamed of you years before I met you? That I saw a case you were working on as if I was right there with you? Or that I saw Ashley make a monster disappear? What did they need to know, Blythe? That I’m obviously not normal because I can see these things and do things no one else seems capable of and even I can’t explain how?”

  Both Rafe and Ashley let out a gasp as another person appeared before them out of thin air.

  Rafe recovered first. She let out an annoyed sound. “Well, well, doesn’t that just figure? Here I was worrying that Daryl might be a demon, and instead she’s got something entirely different going on.” Rafe shook her head at the handsome man dressed impeccably in a luxurious white suit who had materialized behind Daryl. His huge wings unfurled and framed them both. He bowed his head in greeting at Rafe.

  “Well, just fuck me now. I wish you’d told me she had an angel on her shoulder, Blythe.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ashley felt deeply sorry for Daryl. To
be accompanied by an angel and have no idea of his presence seemed to her an unimaginable nightmare. She could see the imagined betrayal on Daryl’s face, obviously heartsick that Blythe had shared her secrets with them. Not knowing that, out of everyone she would ever meet, she and Rafe were the only ones who would truly understand her. Daryl looked around her, desperately searching for what Rafe had spoken of.

  “You can’t see him at all, Daryl?” Ashley rose from her seat to reach out a hand to Daryl to calm her and to take a closer look at the angel peering silently over Daryl’s shoulder.

  Daryl shook her head, the look on her face warring between fear and disbelief.

  “What exactly are you seeing, Rafe?” Blythe asked.

  “I’m seeing that the love of your life has a winged accessory bigger than a bread box standing behind her.” Rafe shifted her gaze to Daryl. “Detective Chandler, this is your home. Please sit down and let us sort out this mess so that Blythe can hold you again without you thinking she betrayed you to the DDU’s version of the X-Files.”

  Daryl sat in an armchair guided by Ashley. She cautiously eyed everyone, braced as if expecting an attack. Ashley’s heart bled for her and at what she had to do now and how it would change Daryl’s life forever. It wasn’t every day you found out you had been followed by an angel for most of your life.

  “Blythe told you we deal with demons, right?” Ashley asked, edging closer to kneel before Daryl and draw her attention directly on her.

  Daryl nodded. “I saw you in my dream. I saw you go into a man’s house. You made him disappear. He turned into a monster and you made him disappear.” She cast Blythe a baleful look. “But it was just a dream.”

  “Did you see anyone else there with me?”

  Daryl shook her head. “Just you and…whatever he was.”

  Rafe sighed. “So she can’t see angels. That would explain why she’s oblivious to the fact she’s being tailed by this big white-winged guy. Who is curiously reticent for an angel.” Rafe stared at him suspiciously.

  Ashley noticed he took everything in they were saying but hadn’t once opened his mouth to speak. Ashley looked over Daryl’s shoulder to the angel who stood behind Daryl’s chair. “Identify yourself.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Daryl flinch as she realized Ashley wasn’t directing that sharp bark of an order at her.

  The angel inclined his head and smiled at Ashley but didn’t utter a word. “He’s an Impressor,” Eli said, appearing at Ashley’s side.

  “And what exactly is an Impressor?” Ashley was sure that to both Daryl and Blythe it appeared she was talking to empty air. She tossed a wink at Daryl. “I have an angel too, only I can see mine in all his glory.” She bit back a smile as Daryl’s mouth dropped open before she quickly schooled her surprise. Ashley again wished that everyone could see what she saw, perhaps then she’d look less certifiable when she was caught conversing on her own.

  “An Impressor is an angel who mentally impresses on their charge what they need them to see. Impressors are usually the ones who humans get answered by when they pray for a guide to show them the road to take in life. An Impressor will steer them to the right path.”

  “Great, he’s a winged GPS,” Rafe grumbled. “So he’s doing what exactly with Daryl? She’s not asking him to show her the right path. He’s helping her in her investigations. How?”

  Eli shrugged. “I have had very little contact with Impressors. I’m not familiar with their, how would you investigators put it? Modus operandi?”

  Rafe snorted and even Ashley had to smile at Eli trying on cop speak. Ashley looked at the angel over Daryl’s shoulder. “You can hear me, right?” The angel nodded eagerly. She looked at Eli. “So why can’t I hear him? I can usually hear angels speak.”

  “Because he doesn’t talk at all. To you, he is mute, but he talks to Daryl in his own way. He’s been guiding her to find the children.”

  Daryl, obviously getting more and more agitated by all the talking directed above her head, rose from her seat angrily, nearly knocking Ashley over. “This is ridiculous. What game are you all playing? Am I supposed to believe what you say you see just because you talk to thin air? What the hell did you do to Blythe to convince her? Because after one evening with you two she believes that there are things running wild on our streets?”

  Deliberately ignoring Daryl’s outburst, Ashley questioned Eli. “What’s his name and what is his connection to Daryl? I’m guessing you guys still have your telepathic link even if he is silent.”

  Eli nodded. “His name is Virgil and he is Daryl’s guardian. And he says he’s sorry Daryl can’t see him because her mother could.”

  Now that’s interesting. “Daryl, did your mother ever have powers like you?”

  Daryl’s whole body stiffened. “No, she never saw anything, but she was never frightened by what I could do. She said I was blessed.”

  Ashley smiled. “That’s because, according to your guardian angel, your mother could see him.” Eli whispered something in her ear. “Especially when she was so ill at the end. He stayed by her bedside with you to watch over her.”

  Tears welled in Daryl’s eyes at the mention of her mother. “She was very sick. I sat with her every chance I got.”

  “You weren’t alone.”

  Daryl looked about her. Ashley was desperately sorry Daryl couldn’t see the two angels so prominent in the room.

  “At the end when she was slipping away from us, my mom said something that Dad and I never understood. We thought it was her mind wandering, the mutterings of a dying woman, but it never made sense to us.”

  Ashley nodded, listening to Eli tell her what had transpired. “She said, ‘Watch over her, Virgil.’”

  Daryl clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. Blythe was instantly on her feet and at Daryl’s side, wrapping her arms about Daryl’s waist. Daryl all but collapsed into her hold.

  “Virgil is the name of your angel, Daryl,” Ashley told her.

  “My mom could really see him?”

  “She said all along you were blessed. She knew what you had by your side.”

  Daryl brushed away tears from her face. She tightened her grip on Blythe, and Ashley was heartened to see Blythe melt into Daryl’s chest with relief.

  “How long have I supposedly had an angel?” Daryl asked quietly.

  “Since you first yearned to find a missing child and Virgil heard your call. He’s been with you ever since. God sends angels to those who call for their assistance.”

  “And he just stayed?”

  “You could hear him even though he never spoke a word to you. That’s rare for a human. And together, you find the lost. It’s your calling, Daryl, and Virgil’s too.”

  “You’re like any cop with a partner,” Rafe spoke up. “Only you’re lucky. He doesn’t bore you rigid with his whining about his crappy home life, and you always get the last doughnut.”

  Daryl rested her forehead against Blythe’s hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. And I’m even sorrier for my anger and my storming out after….”

  Ashley snuck a look at Rafe who was rolling her eyes and mouthing “love’s young dream” at her. Ashley shook her head at her, knowing full well Rafe could be just as romantic when she pushed her cynicism aside.

  Blythe was smoothing a hand over Daryl’s cheek. “I wouldn’t have believed me either. And you haven’t even seen what Ashley can do yet.”

  Ashley grinned. “I promise I’ll show and tell all you need to know. But I’m curious about something. How do you and Virgil communicate when you find those children and he never says a word?”

  Daryl shrugged. “All I know is I get a crushing weight on my shoulders and then my eyesight narrows like I’m focusing in on something. My sight highlights a location or a person that I investigate. It’s hard to explain. It’s so second nature for me now.”

  Eli spoke. “Ashley, ask Blythe to step back please. Virgil wants to demonstrate.”

  Ashley did so. She’
d never come across another human, fully human at that, teamed with an angel. Most angels just visited, assisted their human, and returned to their other duties elsewhere. But Virgil had stayed, set himself up as a partner to his human charge, and had even stayed by her side when Daryl’s mother had been dying. She looked at the handsome face of the angel that moved to stand directly behind Daryl. They both had the same shock of pale hair.

  “You have angel’s hair,” Ashley said without thought.

  Daryl looked surprised and Blythe just laughed.

  “That’s what Trace calls her.”

  “Trace doesn’t know the half of it,” Ashley said.

  Virgil’s large wings opened to their fullest extent. He tipped them forward and effectively covered Daryl with the brilliant white feathers. The weight of his wings rested upon her shoulders, and Daryl reacted to the familiar pressing on her body. Ashley marveled that Daryl stayed upright with such a burden literally resting upon her. Then Virgil pressed his face into the back of Daryl’s head. Ashley sucked in a breath as Daryl’s eyes changed as her eyes became Virgil’s. It was over in a split second, but Ashley was trained to notice such things. She couldn’t miss the bright flash that signified Virgil commandeering Daryl’s sight.

  “Fuck,” Rafe said. “That’s fifty shades of downright disturbing.”

  “He’s impressing himself onto her,” Ashley said and explained to Blythe what she was witnessing.