Angel Exalted

by C. L. Coffey

  “My father would have done that.” His voice was steady, but I could see the pain in his eyes at that comment.

  “You are not your father,” I pointed out.

  Ty’s expression didn’t change. “I’m missing a hand.” To make the statement even more pointed, he raised the bandaged limb up.

  There was no need for him to do that – I already felt guilty enough for that. “I was talking about recovery and going home. I know that the police department seized a lot of Beelze- your father’s properties and assets.”

  “Is this you offering to let me come stay with you in the convent?” Ty asked, his nose turning up at the suggestion.

  “If that’s what you wanted, we could find you room,” I replied.

  “My father is the reason Raphael is dead, along with all your cherubim,” Ty reminded me.

  Either he thought I had somehow forgotten that fact, or he was trying to hurt me. I suspected it was the latter. His words did the job, causing me to wince at the pain. “You are not your father,” I repeated.

  Ty rolled his eyes at me, then stared out the window. “Angel, just piss off and leave me alone.”

  Even though he couldn’t see me, I nodded. “Fine,” I agreed. “But if you need anything, just text me.”

  “Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.” He turned back to me, and tilted his head. “Actually, you go ahead and do that.”

  I held my palms up. “I’m already dead.” He turned his head again and fell silent. Knowing there was little else I could say, I stepped out into the hallway.

  I made it around the corner before I stopped, leaning against the wall as I slid down it into a crouch. My gaze fell on the scars on my wrists, scars I doubted would ever go away even though my body now had the amazing ability to heal from anything. This was my first day without bandages on. Slowly, I ran a finger over the rough, raised skin.

  I had a mixture of emotions when it came to Ty. He had played a part in the cherubim being killed; he had played a part in Veronica, Garret and myself being captured, held prisoner, and tortured; for the scars that encircled each wrist like handcuffs chaining me to that moment in time for as long as I remained in this body; for Raphael, who had died rescuing us… I had wanted to scream and yell at him and blame him for everything.

  He deserved it.

  And yet, he didn’t.

  Even though I sometimes got angry when acknowledging it, I truly believed that he had acted the way he had because of his father. It didn’t cancel out the fact he had still carried out those things – he was responsible for his own actions – but, if it wasn’t for the help Ty had given us, we would never have made it out of the tomb. If it wasn’t for Ty returning my sword, he wouldn’t have lost his hand.

  I was lost in my own thoughts when I was abruptly pulled from them by a swarm of people running past me. It took a couple of seconds to reacquaint myself with the present and my surroundings, before I worked out they were doctors and nurses making a beeline for one of the rooms. I was getting to my feet, taking that as a cue to leave, when I stopped, distracted by the blinding light which was coming from the room they had run into. A potential?

  I changed direction, heading straight for the room. In their haste, they had left the door wide open, and I stood, just to the side, watching. Or trying. The light was still too bright to make out much other than silhouettes and shadows. When the light did start to subside, I still couldn’t see much because of all the medical personnel who were trying to revive somebody.

  Then my attention was caught by the person – the non-doctor – standing just to the side of the bed, wide eyed as she watched what was happening in front of her. At first, I thought she was a family member, then a nurse passed through her, pulling a piece of equipment towards the bed.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed. The girl looked up and saw me. I gave her an awkward smile and she hurried over to me, straight through another person.

  “Am I dead?” she asked me.

  All of a sudden, I had Xavier in front of me. A ripple of pain washed over me, and I backed away from the door, stumbling to a small bench, only just stopping myself from crumpling over it. What was I doing? The last time I had done this, a man – Xavier – had died. Twice!

  “Am I dead?” the girl demanded again. “Don’t ignore me. I know you can see me.”

  I looked up, taking her in. She was Latina, a little shorter than me, but maybe around my age. And she looked like she was going to cry. “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Erlina.”

  “Erlina, you need to go back in that room and back in your body,” I told her.

  The tears began to pool in her eyes. “I tried that. I can’t.”

  I closed my eyes, rubbing at the back of my neck. Right now, I would have given anything to have the psychic connection with Cupid, or even Michael, back. There was no way I was about to call Zach-ass. I opened my eyes, glancing down the corridor, wondering if it was possible to outrun a ghost, then I shook my head. I patted the bench next to me. “Take a seat.”

  “Am I dead?”

  “Just…” I nodded. “I’m fairly certain so, yes.”

  “Oh!” Erlina burst into tears.

  I gave her a small smile and reached for her hand, tugging her gently down beside me. “I’m sorry.” When Erlina continued to sob next to me, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, bringing her to me.

  “I can’t be dead!” she wailed. “I’m still a virgin!”

  I suppressed my smile. “What happened to you?”

  Erlina pulled back to me to shake her head. “I don’t remember.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” I offered. “I remember how I died. It hurt.”

  “You’re dead?”

  I nodded. “Sort of. I’m an angel.”

  “How do I become one of them?” Erlina asked, her eyes wide once more.

  “Is that what you want? I mean, I’m actually here to ask you that.” I withdrew my arm as she sat upright.

  Erlina’s mouth fell open. “You are?”

  “No…” I turned in my seat to face her better. “I was here to visit a friend, but…” I shook my head. “You’re in a position now where you can choose between going to heaven and becoming an angel.”

  She sniffed then wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “Girl, I wanna be an angel.”

  I opened my mouth to say okay, then stopped. “I’m not trying to put you off, because this is completely your choice, but given your earlier statement and the subsequent consequence of your decision, I feel I should first point out that choosing to be an angel means you’re going to remain a virgin for all of eternity.”

  “But I’d be an angel?”

  “Well, yes, but-”

  “Sign me up and let me at them wings!”

  And I thought me being chosen was a questionable decision…

  “Okay,” I shrugged. I got to my feet, Erlina mimicking me, and waited.

  “Is something supposed to happen?” she asked me after a few minutes had passed.

  “Yes,” I said, frowning. I glanced up and down the corridor, before my gaze fell on the room Erlina had been in. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” she repeated, scowling. “Don’t say ‘oh’! Don’t be changing your mind on me!”

  I held my hand up. “Okay, just chill. I’ve only done this a few times. I think I need to take your body with me, only they’re still trying to resuscitate you.”

  “How long is that supposed to take?” Erlina asked, sitting back down.

  I shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. I wasn’t a doctor when I died. I was a marketing major.”

  “Probably a good job you died, seeing as you aren’t very good at it,” she muttered, pouting.

  “Firstly,” I said, my hands on my hips as I glared down at her. “Not a reason to suggest someone should be dead. Secondly, it was marketing, not sales.” I glanced back at her room. “Stay here.” I walked over to the door and peered back in. the numbe
r in the room had lessened, and the machine wired up to Erlina was being unhooked.

  “Puta Madre!”

  “I thought I told you to stay over there,” I hissed at Erlina.

  “Can you not just go in there and get me?” Erlina asked, pointing at her body.

  I pulled a face. “You, currently, are invisible. I am not. I cannot just walk in there and remove your body. I wouldn’t even make it to the bed.” How exactly did one normally do this? I made a mental note to ask later, but then remembered that the only other angel who had done this had been Michael. Currently I was leading with how many people I had asked, which technically made me the more experienced angel… that was a weird thought.

  “They’re leaving!” Erline hissed.

  I stepped back, out of the way, and waited for them to leave. I had been expecting them to take Erline’s body with them – that I was probably going to have to go the hospital’s morgue and remove Erline from there – but they left her in the room. Keeping my head down until the corridor was empty, I darted in, shutting the door quietly behind me. I stood over the body, waiting for something to happen.

  “Well?” Erline questioned.

  “I’m still quite new to this,” I admitted, trying to remember what I had done last time. I pulled a face, reaching out to touch the body. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and I was back in my bedroom. “Of course,” I sighed, staring down at the dead body on the tiled floor.

  I had just decided that I was not about to give up another bedroom when my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket, hitting answer as soon as I read Darell’s name. “Angel, I need you.”

  “Where are you?”

  Over the top of Darell’s answer, Zachary’s voice came booming into my head. “Get to my office. Now.”

  “I’m on my way,” I muttered, glancing back down at Erline. Evidently, I was giving up my bedroom again. I lifted her up and laid her gently on my bed. “You’d better stay here this time,” I muttered.

  I experienced a strong sense of déjà vu when I walked into Michael’s… Zachary’s office. On one side of the room, behind his desk, was Zachary, on the other was Darell. In between was Michael. All three pairs of eyes landed on me as I walked in. I looked from Zachary to Darell, back to Zachary. “Darell is staying. That’s the end of the discussion before you start it.”

  Darell was an ex-Army Ranger turned security specialist who I had hired to protect the convent. Tall, black, and built like the Rock, he towered above Zachary, who was not a short angel. He had been Lilah’s charge before she had left the convent and used me to release Lucifer from whatever hellish cage that he had been trapped in.

  After a teenager had broken into the convent and killed the potential, Xavier, who had been sleeping in my bed, I had insisted Darell and his men take guard to protect us against the one enemy we couldn’t kill; humans. Admittedly, as proven with Ross and Molly, they could be a little on the over-reactive side, however, I was not prepared to run the risk of a repeat performance, especially not with another potential in my bed.

  “That is not the end of the discussion, Angel,” Zachary snapped. He slammed his fist on the desk, making the pot of pens rattle. “Do not talk to me like that.”

  “My contract is with Angel and Cupid,” Darell told him. “I don’t care who you think you are, you are not the one I report to.”

  “I am the lead angel of this House, and any business that happens in here is done so at my orders,” he said, slamming his fist again. “You and your men will leave this House immediately, or we will not pay you for services rendered.”

  “You’ve already paid,” Darell shrugged. “But that’s irrelevant. As I’ve just told you, I do not report to you, and if Angel and Cupid want me here, then I’m staying.”

  “There is no way on this planet that I am about to send Darell away now,” I chimed in.

  That earned me another table slam. “You answer to me!” Zachary yelled.

  “I know,” I responded. “But when I have a potential in my bed, completely unprotected like Xavier was, I can assure you, there is nothing you can say that will make me change my mind.”

  “What do you mean there’s a potential in your bed?” Michael finally spoke up.

  “I was at the hospital and found her at the right time. I asked her the question and she accepted,” I explained. Michael tilted his head, the golden locks of his hair falling into his eyes. “Last time I checked, we were still recruiting.”

  There was another fist slam. “Yet another thing you are going behind my back with!”

  “Hey, now wait a minute,” I objected, rounding on Zachary. “Bringing Darell in was a decision made before you took over.”

  “I have just told you to have this man leave this House,” Zachary snapped.

  I pursed my lips: okay, he had a point there. “I’m not not doing it to go against you, Zachary,” I told him. “This House has a potential in it, and the last one was killed by a human. Angels cannot kill a human.”

  “This House also had two potentials in it prior to that one.” Zachary’s eyes narrowed. “One of which is still, annoyingly, standing,” he tacked on. “Now, tell Darell to round up his men and get off the premises.” His final words were said in a tone that had only been used on me a handful of times, though this was the first by him. It was the tone that, somehow, when spoken by the angel in charge, meant that I had to follow the instruction.

  I shot Zachary a glare, wishing that he could read my desire to leap over his desk and slam my own fist in his face, and turned to Darell. “Darell, please consider our contract over, and leave,” I requested through gritted teeth as I tried to stop myself from saying the words.

  Darell frowned. “Why do I feel like you don’t really mean that?” I desperately wanted to tell him he was right and that I didn’t, but whatever mojo Zachary had said prevented me.

  “You can leave now,” Zachary said with a dark smile.

  “Two angels signed that contact, and it’s going to take both of them nulling it,” he looked at Zachary. “Willingly.”

  Before I could say anything, Cupid appeared by my side, startling me. “You called?” he said, looking around the room with a frown.

  “Please tell Darell that his services are no longer needed,” Zachary asked in a tone that said the ‘please’ was redundant.

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  I jumped again at the shriek. When Cupid had arrived, he hadn’t come alone. Just behind him, and initially out of my line of sight, was Veronica. She looked terrible. She was dressed, which was the first I’d seen of her in days, but the thick black hair that framed her face with a straight cut fringe hadn’t seen a hairbrush or a shower in that time. It was a greasy, flat mess at the top of her head, and stuck out at all angles the lower it went. I almost didn’t recognize her face at first, either. This was the first time I was seeing her without her thick black eyeliner: as Cupid had described the cherubim on many an occasion, they were basically, emo teenagers.

  Honestly, right now, with the remains of her eyeliner and mascara faintly streaked and blurred around her eyes, she looked more like a corpse. The only real color was coming from her lips, though they were pale, and the whites of her eyes that had turned pink.

  “You are not a member of this House,” Zachary told her, coldly. “Your opinion is neither relevant nor wanted.”

  “Just because it disagrees with yours?” she snorted.

  “Get out.” Zachary’s voice was low and dangerous.

  Veronica shook her head. “I’m not an angel in this House. You have no hold over me. You have no control over my words, so you can’t stop me saying this: you are an idiot. You have a House and it’s your duty to protect it. You should be jumping at the help that this human is offering you.”

  “Like you had a duty to protect yours?” Zachary asked.

  My mouth fell open as Veronica winced. There was absolutely no call for that.

  “Zachary!” Michael cried, tha
nkfully just as appalled. “Those cherubim were our family.”

  Zachary shrugged. “Who left this House following Veronica, and as such, it was her duty to protect them.”

  I watched as Veronica straightened her back and strode over to Zachary’s desk. “You’re right. It was my duty to protect them, as it is yours. Don’t let your House down. Don’t let your arrogance get these angels killed. I know you want to make your mark, but don’t let it be by letting more deaths happen. There have been too many already.”

  The look Zachary gave Veronica was one of pure venom. However, he then directed it at Cupid. “Tell Darell to get out of this House and take his men with him.”

  I could tell from Zachary’s tone, and Cupid’s flinch, that he was as helpless as I had been. Cupid started to turn to Darell, but suddenly he stopped, leaving my eyes wide. “No,” he told Zachary. I could see the muscles straining in his neck as he said those words.

  “Tell him, now!” Zachary yelled, once again slamming the table. I was sure we were one more punch away from the table splitting.

  Cupid sucked in a deep breath, the tension remaining as his face started to pinken. “Zachary, I quit.”

  “Cupid!” Michael exclaimed, at almost the same time as me.

  Cupid shook his head. “No, I don’t want to be here. My time in this House has come to an end.”

  “You are going to go rogue, just to defy me?” Zachary spluttered in disbelief. “You, of all people?”

  Cupid nodded. Just like that, the tension in him evaporated. As it did so, he turned to Darell. “You won’t nullify the contract unless both myself and Angel agree to it, correct?” Darell nodded. “Good. In which case, I wholeheartedly disagree with it being cancelled.” He took a couple of steps to the ex-soldier. “I feel that angels can seem scarier than humans, but seeing as they cannot hurt you, despite their threats, I humbly request that you and your men honor our contract for as long as needed.”

  Darell held out his hand. “We’re going nowhere, sir. You leave this fight to us.”

  Cupid shook his hand and then turned to Michael, ignoring the splutters of Zachary. “Forgive me, brother, but this was the only way.”