I, Angel

by JC Andrijeski

  “So what is right?” Dags said. “What are you?”

  “We are what you might call lesser angels, brother. Or you might say, differently-purposed angels. In our world, we are different from the fallen, although I suppose you could say, we share similar goals.”

  Dags frowned. “What does that mean?”

  Veronica smiled wanly, raising the gun higher.

  “It’s a pity, really, that angels cannot kill other angels. Not even a lowly Watcher like me.” Veronica smirked, keeping the gun on Dags. “Once you are awakened, there really isn’t much of anything I can do to end you, brother. Although bullets aren’t exactly fun. Especially a bullet to the face…”

  She shifted the aim of the gun, pointing it down at his crotch.

  “…or other… sensitive… body parts.”

  Dags felt his jaw harden. “If you can’t kill me, why bring the gun?”

  Smirking, she shrugged.

  “Like I said, a few bullets to the chest still hurts like hell.” She swiveled the gun a second time, aiming it at Phoenix. “And I’m pretty sure I can still kill her, since she’s un-awakened.”

  Her smirk widened as she used the gun to point vaguely at Asia and Karver.

  “I can definitely kill her little friends.”

  Dags stared at her.

  He fought with the million or questions that wanted to rise⏤

  In the end, only one came out.

  “Why?” he said. “Why did you do all of this? Why target Asia? Karver? Phoenix? What do you want from them?”

  Veronica had been staring at Phoenix, but now her eyes swiveled back to Dags. She looked younger now than when he’d met her at the beach house in Malibu. Her eyes looked brighter, a near orange in color, like embers burned just on the other side of her irises.

  “Why do you think?” she said, re-aiming the gun, raising it higher. “You fucked everything up, Dags, awakening too soon. Our brother Azazel was furious.” She let out a disbelieving grunt. “You should have heard him, stomping up and down, complaining for months. I swear it took him two human years just to get over it.”

  She smirked in Phoenix’s direction, motioning at her with the gun.

  “It took the next seven or eight years to find her.”

  Dags stared at Veronica, then at Phoenix.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  Veronica grunted. “Big surprise.”

  Glaring at Phoenix, she added, shrugging,

  “I wanted to kill her, of course. Just take her out. I argued with him. I told him… we should kill the bitch before she gets her wings. I reminded him that she’s always been the difficult one. That it was likely too late to recruit either of you now. If he’d just done what I said, and let me shoot her, both of you would be back in Heaven. That would’ve bought us a good eighteen, twenty years, at least, while you reincarnated…”

  Phoenix and Dags exchanged looks.

  The Watcher frowned, reinforcing her grip on the gun, swiveling it between the two of them.

  “But you know how brother Azazel is.” That humorless smile pinched her lips. “He’s so ridiculously single-minded once he gets fixated on something. He didn’t want to wait. He refused to let me kill you. He was sure if we could just find her… if we could just get to her first, we could use her to bring you over. We knew she had to be here somewhere. It’s not as if the two of you ever incarnate without the other…”

  Shifting her weight, Veronica rolled her eyes.

  “Then it was just a matter of figuring who she was.”

  Dags frowned.

  He wondered if this was just another b.s. story.

  He’d heard so many now, he could only stare at her, annoyed.

  “The two of you are so damned predictable,” Veronica scoffed, watching them look at her. “And you’ve always had that dark streak, Kills Many. If you hadn’t woken up about ten years too early, it should have been a piece of cake.”

  Veronica smirked at Phoenix, her irises flaring brighter.

  “None of this explains why you attacked Asia,” Dags growled.

  He was losing patience with her smirking sarcasm fast.

  “Or why you went after Karver,” he added. “Or Tig. Or why you killed Jane.” Dags frowned, thinking. “Or why you were stalking Phoenix in the first place with the weird crap in her driveway, the notes⏤”

  “Doesn’t it, brother?” she said mockingly, quirking an eyebrow. “We were trying to awaken her ourselves. Before you found her. And believe me, I tried everything I could think of. I dosed her with drugs. I burned those statues to freak her out, left her notes, thinking perhaps her survival instincts might trigger it. I even tried a few rituals.” Glaring at Phoenix, she aimed the gun at her head when she added, “I was going to try trauma next, by killing her best friend… but you got in the way of that, brother.”

  Shaking her head, she met Dags’ gaze, her smile cold.

  “You really are just so predictable,” she said. “It was like a dog whistle, as soon as I got too close to her… there you were.”

  She smirked at Dags, then shrugged, still holding the gun.

  “But you know how Azazel is. He wanted proof. So I tried to get that idiot Karver out of the way, in the hopes the two of you might fuck. I thought if that didn’t awaken her… nothing would. I got rid of that neighbor of yours too, since I figured you were likely sleeping with her, and she might prove a distraction after you stopped me from killing Karver⏤”

  “I wasn’t,” Dags growled, fighting a hard rage that flared in his chest. “Sleeping with her. She was my friend.”

  Veronica snorted, rolling her eyes.

  “Whatever,” she said. “Although it figures. You really are a repressed, pious prude down here, aren’t you?” Shaking her head, she added coldly, “You wouldn’t even fuck Phoenix after I got Karver out of the way. Even after I messed with her aura to make her more open to sex. Hell, I practically served the two of you to one another on a silver platter…”

  Again, Dags and Phoenix exchanged looks.

  Dags saw Phoenix’s cheeks flush.

  Veronica’s smirk returned. She aimed it at Dags.

  “If you’d grown some balls and just taken her, we could be having a real reunion right now. But no, you had to be the holier-than-thou hypocrite…”

  Dags felt his jaw clench.

  “Are you ever going to stop talking?” he growled.

  Veronica went on, her smile growing wider.

  “…I don’t blame Azazel for being so annoyed. It must be maddening. Being half-awakened. Being shoved out into the bullshit of humanity, without knowing a damned thing. You’re so soft and weak down here, brother, I almost didn’t recognize you. I was certain Azazel must have gotten it wrong… at least until I saw you fight our minion in that alley.”

  Her coal red irises morphed, turning a deep black.

  “Don’t you tire of it, brother? Don’t you ever feel like a sucker, being a part of their ‘grand plan’? It’s not like this is the first time they’ve done this to you. Or to her. They do it over and over and over, again and again… and for what? What is the point?”

  Her smile turned back into a smirk.

  “You probably don’t remember yet, but we’re a lot more fun.”

  Phoenix’s fingers tightened painfully.

  She’d slid closer, and was gripping Dags’ arm.

  “What do you want?” Dags said, feeling the angel fire flare hotter in his chest. “If we’re so weak, why not just leave us alone?”

  Veronica’s smile crept wider.

  She shook a finger at him.

  “Nice try, brother,” she said. “Weak or no, you’re an interminable pain in my ass.”

  She gave Phoenix a harder smirk.

  “If it wasn’t for him, we likely wouldn’t waste our time with you anymore, sister,” she said, raising the gun to aim it at Phoenix’s face. “Apparently, getting sent down here to get your head blown off, over and over again, gets you off. Azaze
l is quite sure you’re some kind of sexual masochist. But you’re a sucker for this degenerate… the gods know why.”

  Phoenix’s hands tightened on Dags’ arm even more.

  That time, he swore he felt anger through her fingers.

  “Can’t you use your powers,” she muttered. “Blow this bitch back to hell?”

  He gave her a bare glance.

  “I don’t know,” he muttered back. “It sounds like she’s another angel. So probably not. She more or less just said we’re un-kill-able.” His eyes returned to Veronica as he spoke in his regular voice. “I just wish she’d stop boring us to death and tell us what it is she actually wants.”

  Veronica laughed, delighted.

  “You always did have a temper, brother,” she smiled. “It really is adorable, you know, watching the two of you struggle to work this out…”

  Dags felt the heat in his chest flare hotter.

  He wasn’t really angry so much as annoyed.

  Clearly, she was trying to needle them. He just couldn’t figure out why.

  “She’s not wrong,” he muttered to Phoenix, annoyed. “I didn’t exactly get an instruction manual with this crap. I can barely even control it most of the time⏤”

  “We have to try something,” Phoenix said, even lower than him. “You can’t just let this bitch shoot you… or me… or either of us…”

  “Oh, I’m not going to shoot him, darling,” Veronica said.

  She was aiming the gun at Asia now.

  Dags remembered what the Watcher had said, how killing Phoenix’s friends might be enough to awaken her angelic nature.

  He realized in the same half-breath that Phoenix had moved while Veronica spoke, stepping closer to him, and further away from her friends.

  She no longer stood between Veronica and Asia and Karver.

  She no longer blocked Veronica’s line of sight.

  Dags didn’t think.

  He was already moving when Veronica fired the gun.

  Dags’ wings exploded out of his back.

  He threw himself sideways and back, aiming his whole body and the protection of his wings squarely for Asia and Karver, and, less directly, for Phoenix herself.

  He released the blue-green light as he did it, mostly to propel himself faster and with more force, using it like a jet propulsion system even as he tried to bend the bullet off its course.

  It worked.

  Well. Mostly.

  His enormous span of brown and black wings knocked back the two people standing there, and threw Phoenix in the opposite direction.

  The bullet moved, but not enough to miss Dags when he propelled himself in the same direction. He let out a gasp when a hard pressure hit him in the wing, bringing a smell of copper and burnt feathers, barely discernible in his heightened, angelic state⏤

  Then all four of them sprawled over the stone floor.

  The three humans were winded, but only Dags was shot.

  Less importantly maybe, in the wider scheme of things, but feeling almost as important to Dags himself, at least in the moment⏤Dags didn’t black out. Unlike what had happened countless times before, he didn’t immediately black out, as soon as the wings sprang out of his back. He knew where he was, who he was.

  He rippled his body up in a leap, reaching his feet before his mind had fully caught up with what happened. Throwing out his hand and arm, he aimed the angel fire in the direction of the Watcher with the gun.

  That time, he let go entirely.

  He threw out everything he had, maybe for the first time in his life.

  Blue-green lightning exploded out of his palm and the ends of his fingers. It crackled the dense, presence-filled air, crossing the maybe twenty-five feet between him and Veronica in a fraction of a second.

  It was still too slow.

  She easily moved aside, sliding behind the white-stone altar with its gaping opening.

  Dags turned to the three people behind him.

  “RUN!” he snarled.

  His wings beat once, a hard current in the air, practically forcing them back into the tunnel.

  “GO! NOW! GET OUT OF HERE!”

  He didn’t fully realize how much of the blue-green light reached his voice, not until all three of them jumped, eyes wide. Between that and his wings, Asia and Karver both scrambled backwards, already half-running and stumbling out of the tiled cave.

  Only Phoenix held her ground.

  She stared up at his wings, her green eyes full of wonder.

  He threw more of the angel fire into his voice, beating his wings again as he aimed that light and wind specifically at her.

  “PHOENIX! GET THEM OUT. GET THEM OUT NOW!”

  She still held her ground, but turned to stare at his face.

  Then, moving backwards from where she half-laid on the stone floor, she half-crawled on her hands to the stone wall, gripping it to pull herself the rest of the way to her feet. She moved faster from there to her two friends, grabbing Asia’s arm once she’d reached her and yanking her towards the opening leading back into the tunnel.

  Dags was staring at their retreating backs when the gun went off again.

  He ducked in reflex.

  Then, turning, he spread his wings, sheltering Asia, Karver and Phoenix while they made their escape.

  “Get out of the way,” Veronica complained. “You’d think you’d want the bitch awake.”

  Dags shot another green-blue bolt at the Watcher, and that time, she didn’t move fast enough. He practically felt the impact.

  “Asshole!” she snapped. “You should be helping me!”

  “Why did you kill Tig?” he said, shouting the words. He said it partly to distract her, and partly because he really wanted to know. “Why him?”

  Veronica laughed, even as she gasped in what might have been pain.

  “Was he possessed by another dark angel?” Dags growled.

  She laughed louder.

  It was a cold laugh.

  “Dark angel?” she said derisively. “You’re in for a hell of a surprise if you think that was an angel you fought in the alley that night, Mr. Jourdain.”

  “Call me Dags,” he growled. “Since we’re apparently related. And what was it then? A demon? Because it was different from other demons I’ve run across⏤”

  She fired the gun, cutting off his words.

  Dags let go of another hard bolt of blue-green angel-fire and she ducked down. Dags used those few seconds to look over his shoulder, making sure Phoenix had gotten the others out. Once he realized he couldn’t see them anymore, he retracted his wings.

  The pain from the gunshot wound moved from his wing to his back when he did. If anything, it was worse than before.

  Not only that, he’d ruined another jacket, and another shirt.

  Glancing down at the T-shirt he wore, he scowled.

  Veronica slid around the opposite side of the altar, firing again.

  Dags threw himself behind the second, smaller altar, feeling at least one of those bullets whiz past his head. No point in getting shot; especially since a well-placed bullet could stop him in his tracks. At the very least, it would take time to heal, and potentially render him unable to fight. In the meantime, Veronica could follow Phoenix and the others out of the cave. Crouching behind the slab of stone making up the second altar, he fought to catch his breath. By now, pain had paralyzed his whole arm on the right side, and seemed to be shooting down his back.

  “Damn,” he gasped, leaning against the stone.

  He really hated guns.

  Closing his eyes longer than a blink, he opened them again, scowling.

  He couldn’t let her leave the cave.

  He had to stop her from leaving.

  She fired at him again, and he ducked further behind the altar.

  “What the hell is this place?” he shouted at her. “Are you going to tell me?”

  She raised her voice to the same volume.

  “Do you mean is it some kind of worship
ping site for Big Brother Lucifer?” she said, her voice containing a harder note of contempt. “As if he’d ever lower himself, coming up here. You really are as dumb as a human in this state, aren’t you, brother?”

  “So just tell me,” Dags said back. “Humor me.”

  “The Thousand already told you what it was. It is a portal. A door. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  “And this door belongs to angels?”

  “Sure,” she said, her voice a shrug. “Whatever.”

  His jaw hardened.

  “Why him?” Dags growled. “Why Tig?”

  “Why not him?” she retorted, indifferent. “The human was convenient. I saw him on the set when I was down there with Phoenix. He knew how to fight. He was also easy to convince. Especially after I told him I had a violent ex-husband. That I was in trouble and needed his help. It’s amazing what a low-cut blouse and some tears can do.”

  Dags’ jaw hardened more. His teeth hurt.

  “And Karver?” he said.

  She let out an even more disgusted laugh.

  “That piece of shit would fuck a corpse if he thought he could get away with it. You might want to clue-in your new girlfriend before she ends up with a STD. All I had to do was wake him up that night, after I drugged you and Asia’s drinks. I wanted Phoenix awake, for obvious reasons… but unfortunately I didn’t dose you high enough, given your angel nature.”

  Realizing what she was saying, Dags felt sick.

  His nausea wasn’t only because Veronica apparently seduced Karver, but because Veronica had apparently intended to kill Karver right in front of Phoenix, while Dags and Asia slept. Given that it had been another attempt to awaken her angelic nature, Dags had to assume it would have been gruesome as hell.

  He wiped his forehead, startled when he saw blood on the back of his hand.

  It must have come from his bloodied wing. That, or maybe she grazed his head. He was so amped up on adrenaline, he couldn’t tell the difference.

  “So you’re good at screwing with people’s heads,” he said, still speaking loud. “Is that why Azazel sent you? You work for him?”

  She fired the gun three times in quick succession and Dags jerked back, feeling actual wind from at least one of the bullets, even as another chipped off part of the altar’s stone base. Pulling himself further behind the structure, Dags watched two more bullets slam into the wall behind him, cracking the white tile, causing a few chunks to break off and fall to the floor.