Airs & Graces: The Angel's Grace Trilogy Book I

by A. J. Downey

  I stopped reading and reflected, I never thought of myself as a good person. I just tried to treat people the way they treated me or better than they treated me. I never knew I made any kind of difference to anyone. I just was… I was nothing special, nothing unique, I was just me.

  I kept reading. I learned more, but a lot of it was guessing, reading between the lines and the like. For Piorre he stated he “saw things more clearly” after doing things that truly put him at ease or at rest. For him things were the clearest after doing things that made him relax and brought him simple pleasure such as during chess or after a quiet meal alone, where there wasn’t a whole lot out there to interrupt his thoughts. That these moments of clarity happened more often after he accepted difficult things and no longer let them hold any sway over him.

  It made sense the more I thought about it. The first moment I had seen anything was at the frat house, after I had calmed down a bit from the encounter with Rahab and had accepted the difficult truth that I was in the presence of Angels and not going crazy.

  I put the journal back in my bag and realized the light was beginning to fail. The sun was going down. I was running the sand from the beach through my hands, picking up a handful at a time and tipping it, letting it pour into my other hand. I was calm, and even though I wasn’t really ready to try, I tried anyway: I started small, and tried to accept that I would never have the chance to try to fix things with my mother. The tears sprang hot and immediate at the thought, and I thought at first that maybe this wasn’t small enough, but in comparison to everything else happening, it was the smallest thing I could come up with.

  I watched the sand cascade though my fingers, breathed deep and even, and tried to accept the things I could not change… Wasn’t that part of some prayer? I didn’t have the time to go down that train of thought, because the sand I tipped through my fingers changed color subtly in the fiery orange glow of the sun set. It just wasn’t quite right though… I stilled my mind and tried to accept that maybe it was happening, I tried to just be willing and open and receptive to whatever the Grace might be trying to show me. It worked, because instead of the vision swamping me with little warning like the first time, it gently surged into my conscious mind with the incoming tide.

  The sand that trickled through my hands was more golden or even reddish and wasn’t as fine as the sand on the coast, pulverized by the ocean as it was. My hands weren’t that of a woman’s either, the fingers thick and shorter, with coarse hair on the backs. I looked up in the vision-memory at an eroded building, like some archeological dig in the Middle East somewhere. I didn’t know if this was related to whatever everyone was looking for… I take that back, it was. I couldn’t tell you how I knew because it wasn’t really a thought so much as a feeling. It was like I knew because of a stirring feeling in the center of my chest, but that was all the further I got.

  I jumped, the vision shattering and swept away on the breeze. Night had fallen and the clap of thunder – the loudest I had encountered, even louder than the one in South America – tore through me, vibrating deep within me and out through my limbs. The necklace glowed with the force of a captive sun, and I clasped my hand around it, killing the light. Thankfully it was barely warm to the touch and didn’t radiate heat with the intensity of the light it displayed.

  I stood up and looked this way and that, and it was as my gaze swept across the ocean that I saw him out there. My mouth went dry, and I could taste the copper tang of fear. The necklace had made a sound like thunder and glowed with orange light which Tab had implied meant Demon, but with the force of sound and the intensity of the glow I was betting whatever it was… well it had to be bad. I could see him out there on the water, walking along the surface of the waves.

  He was pretty far out but getting closer, already at least close enough that I could see what he was wearing and his hair color – the basic particulars, you know? He was wearing light-colored blue jeans, straight leg and well-worn down the tops of the thighs to almost white. One of the knees was torn out, and the threads pulled in the breeze along with the tail of his white dress shirt. He was narrow and the shirt a size too big, but it looked comfortable and sexy with how it was undone at the collar. The sleeves were rolled back a quarter of the way up his lightly tanned forearms. As he got closer, I could see that he had short blond hair that curled and was just long enough in front to tangle in his eyes. I couldn’t tell you what color they were, though. He was still too far out for that. He had to be in his early thirties, and he was barefoot, the sand rising around his feet to be swept away on the wind as he trudged up the beach.

  “Hello, Addy.” He greeted me as if we were old friends.

  “Smile for me, stranger,” I demanded, my hand on the door handle of my car. “And don’t come any closer.”

  He obliged me and grinned, and his teeth were thankfully straight, white and normal. Still, I didn’t relax. If he was this pretty and could walk on water, I was betting I knew who it was and if I were getting a personal visit, I was ass-deep in the biggest pile of shit man had ever seen.

  “Oh, Addy, Addy, Addy,” he sang, “So young to be so mistrustful.”

  “You’re never too young in this day and age, and I know what you want,” I said.

  “Oh you do, do you?” he asked, amused.

  “Yeah, I do.” I didn’t look him in the eyes, figuring if it was a bad idea to do it to Michael, an Archangel, doing it to this guy would be sheer idiocy. He stood there, hands balled in his jean pockets rocking back and forth on his heels in the sand.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  “I have a guess,” I said.

  “Humor me, Addy girl,” he said.

  “Don’t call me that,” I snapped, and he swept out in an overly formal bow.

  “As you wish, Adelaide, but please, who am I?”

  “You’re Lucifer, The Morning Star, Satan, and I’m fucked.” I swallowed. I think it was the Grace that had told me, because I had no real reason to make the leap from another pretty boy Fallen Angel to the Fallen of all Fallen.

  “Impressive, but such language for a pretty young thing.” He applauded, and I jumped at the sharp sound. “I’ve come to bargain with you, my dear,” he said, cramming his hands back in his pockets.

  “I don’t want shit from you,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s not true. I can give you lots of things.” He smiled at me, and I was tempted to look him in the eye, but I stood my ground, resolutely focusing on a button of his shirt.

  “I’m sure you could, but I don’t want it. Not if it’s coming from you. I don’t care if you promise me the moon and the stars and a trip to Mars.” I opened my car door and waited for it.

  “I thought you might say that,” he said ruefully.

  “You going to kill me now?” I asked.

  “Me? Oh no, no need for me to get my hands dirty.” He held them up and wiggled his fingers so I could see. “He will though,” he said, sweeping his arm up the beach. A car was approaching, a silver Jag by the looks of it. It stopped, the door opened, and a nightmare stepped out. It was Rahab.

  I turned back to Lucifer, spit at him, and got into my car, locking the door while simultaneously working the pedals and the keys to start it. I heard laughter and saw Rahab rushing my car up the beach, his cream colored trench coat fluttering behind him like a cape, the flash of his silver dagger in his right hand. I pulled out fast, but carefully so I wouldn’t bog down in the sand, and cursed myself in a long string all the way to the exit. I had fallen hook, line, and sinker for the distraction, and now I was hoping that I could get away. I hit solid pavement and slammed my baby in gear, popping the clutch a little overzealously, the tires screaming. I roared through town and went for the open highway, but I could see the round headlights and the ghostly silver paint of the Jag in my rearview.

  This was bad, very, very, bad. He pulled up next to me and grinned at me with those fucked up teeth. I saw red. I would be damned if he was going to fuc
k with me. I dropped gear, and he shot past me. I turned down a different road and planned on intersecting with the highway up ahead. I figured it would take time for him to turn around and follow me, and I was right: it just didn’t take him long enough. I shrieked when he rear-ended my car, shoving me forward. I was on a country road, so not many houses, which was good. I didn’t want to hurt or kill any bystanders, but I wasn’t going down without a fight either.

  I raced along the straight road with trees and fields on either side, the speedometer needle steadily climbing from sixty to seventy up past eighty. I blindly groped for my seat belt, my eyes glued to the road, and fumbled one-handed to put it on. It was interesting jockeying between steering, shifting, and struggling with the strap, until it finally clicked home. I grabbed the chest belt and pulled, cinching the lap belt tight against my hips, and once secure, really focused on driving as he came up behind me and tapped me again. I needed to do something, and it was risky as hell, but I was confident in my driving ability, so I went for it, swerving this way and that until he was forced to pull up alongside me to get me to stop it.

  I hated doing it to my baby, but if I was going to die anyway, what did it matter, yeah? I gave him the finger, watched his eyes widen beneath his white-blond hair, and swerved hard, careening into the side of the Jag and forcing it onto the shoulder. The boom as the cars connected was incredible, and I felt the ABS shudder in protest as I braked hard. The dust kicked up from our tires created a blinding smoke screen. I reacted fast, ramming in the clutch. I shifted gears, gave her some gas, and shot forward, pulling out of it, leaving his Jag on the side of the road. I knew it wouldn’t be a long delay, though. Sure enough, here he was, coming around again. He pulled up beside me, and I caught sight of him again, his expression stormy.

  He tried to run me off this time, but I turned into him as he turned into me, and we stalemated, our cars slowing marginally but keeping pace side by side down the two-lane road, pastures and fences zipping by the windows. We broke apart, and I shot forward again. He swerved into me, colliding into my back driver’s side door with his front fender. He braked, and it dragged the Jag back along my rear quarter panel. A loud boom ensued, and I turned and looked. His car was stopping as he bounced up and over what looked like his own front bumper before finally coming to a stop.

  I cheered. Hopefully it had flattened both his front tires. I kept my car going, I wasn’t about to stop and find out. I kept up my speed and went down a side road that was mostly trees on either side. I looked into my rearview mirror and let out a short shriek at the pair of silvery gray eyes that stared back at me accusingly from the back seat.

  “Oh shit! Tab.” I put a hand to my chest to calm my pounding heart and tried to relearn how to breathe.

  He crossed his arms, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline, but my attention was ripped away by the glimpse of white I caught out of the corner of my eye. Rahab was coming at me from my left side. It was his hair I saw through the window. He slammed into my car, and the whole thing rocked with the violence of the impact. I screamed and swerved, and he lost his grip, sliding along the side of the vehicle. I hit the locks on the doors after I regained control from swerving wildly and looked back into my rearview at Tab, who sat motionless, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze averted out the passenger side window.

  “Are you here to help me?” I asked, “Or are you here to bitch at me?”

  He turned his head, eyes flashing from silver to that dreaded icy blue. “I am here to bitch at you,” he said simply, and my heart sank. It looked like I was on my way to really accepting that he really didn’t give a flying fuck about me aside from what was trapped in my head. I barked a bitter laugh.

  “You find this funny?” he demanded.

  “Yeah, it’s fucking hilarious,” I bit back sarcastically but I didn’t have the chance to say more. Rahab was back, and this time he managed to put his fist through the driver’s side rear window. Tab sat stoic on the passenger side and simply turned his attention back out the other window. Rahab was grabbing at me, his fingers scrabbling at my shoulders, encased in the thick of my leather jacket. I slammed on my brakes, and he was thrown forward, rolling along the black road top, a creamy blur against the dark.

  “What do you want me to say, Tab? What do you want me to do?” I asked, watching Rahab get up from the ground in the beam of my headlights.

  “I don’t know, Adelaide; I thought you had a plan. I thought you knew what you were doing better than I. It is why you did not come to the appointed rendezvous am I correct?” he asked. My throat closed tight, and I pretty much figured that he’d just come to watch me die.

  I put my car in gear, working the pedals and gear shift, answering him in the barest whisper. “I didn’t go because I was upset.” It sounded really lame, even to me, but I don’t think he heard me over the whine of the engine or the scream of the tires as I took off, plowing into Rahab. He came up over the hood. The windshield smashed, and I could hear him roll along the roof. I grimaced, but thankfully I could still see fairly well out of the spider web of cracks marring the glass.

  Tab was giving me a disapproving look from the back seat. I tried to get angry with him, but I was smarter than that, and I really didn’t want to die. I opened my mouth to say something and closed it, really just not sure what to say. A million questions swirled through my adrenaline-soaked brain, as did a million things to say, but none of them sounded good. Tab let out his breath in an exasperated huff, which is when the back window exploded, and suddenly he was gone, replaced with Rahab’s leering face. It was the end of the road, even though I had plenty of surface left to drive on.

  “You’re mine now, Girl,” he growled.

  “Isn’t that a little bit cliché?” I asked, and he blinked.

  “That is the last thing you have to say?” he asked.

  I checked my speed, and it was up over fifty, I looked back at him, his dagger coming into view.

  “No,” I said, and he grinned. “The last thing I’m gonna say is fuck you,” and I veered the car off the road. We bounced, and he couldn’t get a grip on me, then we came to a sudden and complete stop when the car plowed into a tree. The seatbelt locked against my chest and the wind was knocked clean out of me. I threw up my arms, the airbags deployed, and I was lucky I didn’t break one of them.

  Rahab was gone, but I didn’t think I’d lost him. I pulled the handle on my door, and it popped open. I undid the seatbelt and dragged myself out into the cool night air, collapsing onto a carpet of pine needles, gasping. Hands, grabbing me by the back of the jacket… I was airborne for a second before landing on my back, my head connected with the ground, and I saw stars. I still couldn’t get enough air, and he was suddenly there, straddling my hips, one hand in my hair. All I could see was his pointed teeth.

  “You made me lose my knife,” he hissed by my ear, and he reared back, mouth opening wide.

  I wanted to live damn it, I really did, and I did the last thing I could think of, not really expecting anything but pointy teeth tearing into my flesh. I screamed “Tab! Tab, please! Please help me!” and threw my arms up between me and the Fallen.

  “He can’t hear you, Girl!” Rahab snapped and began his descent, fully intending on ripping out my throat. I closed my eyes and accepted that this was how I was going to die, and was filled with a strange sense of peace… I opened my eyes when nothing happened to a glare of red light.

  Rahab was staring down at me, his eyes wide. A good five inches of steel was sticking out of the front of his chest – and past that, almost a foot of red light.

  “I heard her,” I heard Tab say, though he was hidden behind the psychopathic Fallen Angel’s body.

  I looked Rahab in the eye, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, and mouthed the words “Fuck you,” before he was yanked off of me and tossed to the side. Tab’s blade made a wet sucking sound as it withdrew from the Fallen Angel’s flesh. There was something different this time, as the body
slowly turned to smoke.

  Tab stood over me, staring down at me dispassionately. I closed my eyes, lay my head back onto the ground, and intoned, “You want the good news or the bad news?” I was met with silence that stretched so long, I thought he’d left me again, like in the car, but when I opened my eyes, he was still there, and I felt the hot trace of tears slide down my temples and into my hair. I guess we were both guilty of abandoning each other in a way.

  “Both,” he said, head tilted as he took me in. His voice still held the warm thread of anger, like it did outside the diner.

  “The good news is I think I’m closer to understanding the Grace, and I had another vision. This time it was about whatever the fuck it is you’re looking for though. I’m sure of it,” I said, still laying prostrate… everything hurt. “The bad news is, we have to have a talk, and you need to answer more questions.” He nodded carefully after several moments of consideration.

  “Are you injured?” he asked. I thought about it.

  “I don’t know.” I answered. The adrenaline was wearing off, and my hands were starting to shake – I mean really shake – and my chest was on fire. I told him everything that hurt, and he finally came around and knelt down at my head. I looked up at him, the shaking getting worse, sobs starting to happen, and I tried to push it down, you know, just shut up and be brave. He put a hand on either side of my head and smoothed some stray hair out of my eyes. I was afraid of him, not for the first time. I had been afraid of him when I first met him over Piorre’s body. This time, however, was the first time I was afraid he was really going to put me down like some sort of lame animal. He didn’t, though. There was a red flash, and some of the crushing pain in my chest eased, and I could breathe better.

  “You are not permanently injured,” he said letting me go. “I’ve done what I can, but you’ll take time to heal.” He looked almost apologetic – almost – but then I was rolling onto all fours heaving my guts up on a dirt roadway, but the only thing in my stomach to come up was bile. I rolled back onto my back, careful to keep my hair out of the fresh puddle of vomit I’d made, and stared at a steel gray, cloudy sky.