Angel Exalted

by C. L. Coffey

  Of course, he had been put on suspension while the investigation was concluded, and then he’d ended up with being written up and a black mark on his record. All things considered, it was the best outcome, and as Leon pointed out, if he hadn’t have gotten some kind of punishment, then it might have caused people to look closely into the case.

  It also meant that he was able to keep his job, which he was adamant he was going to do. As far as Joshua was concerned, and I was inclined to agree, there wasn’t a better place for the Patron Saint of New Orleans to be, to protect the city to the best of his abilities.

  Unfortunately, Maggie’s death was going to remain on record as ‘open’, even though her real killer was serving an actual life sentence.

  But Henry had been able to release the body and it had quickly been cremated.

  Which meant Joshua had finally been able to say his goodbyes.

  “What are you doing out here?” Joshua asked, looking around the grounds.

  “Saying goodbye to Michael.”

  Joshua’s eyes lit up. “Does that mean we have the place to ourselves?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

  I swiped at his arm. “All alone… apart from the other twenty-something angels who reside here.”

  Joshua pulled a face. “Mood-killer.”

  I grinned, then rested my head against his shoulder. “We can have some time alone tonight,” I told him as my pocket started vibrating. With a frown, I pulled it out and quickly read a text message from Gabriel.

  “Everything okay?” Joshua asked.

  “Hold that thought,” I sighed. “I need to make a little excursion.”

  “To where?”

  “Nevada, apparently.” As Joshua looked at me in disbelief, I grinned. “What can I say? The Archangel Angel is a popular person.”

  “The Archangel Angel is a doofus,” Joshua laughed.

  “Yeah, she is,” I agreed, still grinning. “But it’s one of the many reasons why you love me.”

  “You know what?” Joshua asked, tilting his head. “It is.” He leaned down and captured my lips with his. “I do love you,” he whispered. He reached out and took my hand, placing it over his heart. “Yours.”

  I grinned. Angel and Joshua for eternity. Who would have guessed?

  The End…

  …At least for Angel.

  As you may have gathered, there’s a little more to Michael and Gabriel’s stories…

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  The final part of the Louisiangel series belongs to Lilah – the first human to earn her wings, and the first human to fall. A sneak peak is included next, or you can pre-order here:

  Angelic Schemes Pre-order

  ANGELIC SCHEMES: A SNEAK PEAK

  Angelic

  Schemes

  The Prequel Book

  of the

  Louisiangel Series

  C. L. Coffey

  Angelic Schemes is technically the prequal story to Angel in Training as it focuses on Lilah and how she ended up walking the path she did. But seeing at that is a huge spoiler for Angel in Training, it has become book six.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mississippi was melting. It was like someone had opened the gates of Hell beneath us, and the fire and brimstone from the depths were joining the sun in scorching the earth. In the shade of the garage, everything I touched felt like it was going to melt. The doors were wide open but even from my position on the concrete ground, beneath the Nissan I was working on, there was no breeze. Although the engine of the car was not on, it felt like it had just been used to drive nonstop across the country. I sucked in a deep breath of the warm muggy air, and after gaining no relief, finished screwing the oil plug back in. I pulled myself out from underneath the car, dragging the plastic container of dead oil with me.

  I was transferring the waste oil into a different container when I heard a car pull up outside. These days my daddy handled the fuel. He’d had a stroke a few years ago and ever since, he had been unable to move as much as he needed to fix the cars. I’d tried to get him to retire, but with my momma still teaching, he had insisted he was going to keep working in the garage that had been his father’s. I had grown up in the garage, changing oil from before I started middle school, and I’d always planned on taking it over from him one day so that it was no big chore to take over all the work. Daddy would sit outside in the shade, filling up tanks, and working the till in the small shop. It worked for us.

  Today, however, was a Saturday, and he had gone with momma to visit some friends on the Gulf Coast. I paused at the mirror to check my reflection. Sure enough, smeared across my cheek, was some waste oil – the same color as the hair I’d scraped back into a ponytail. I grabbed some wipes from the side and hurried to wipe the smear away, trying to look a little more professional for the customer.

  I stepped outside, finding the driver of the Yukon already out of the car, staring across its hood at something on the other side of the road. I was surprised anyone would leave the air conditioning that SUV was offering: I certainly would have stayed in it. “Afternoon,” I called as I walked over.

  The driver turned around and stopped – about the same time I did. The guy was beautiful. Not just good looking, but honest to God beautiful. He looked like someone who had just walked right out of a painting by Da Vinci, never mind off a runway. He had golden hair which seemed to glow in the sunlight. His eyes were hidden behind large mirrored sunglasses, sat high on his amazing cheekbones, so I wasn’t sure what color eyes he had. My gaze focused on his sunglasses – and the mirrored reflection that was showing my own brown eyes checking him out. Thankfully, the heat had already turned my face bright red, masking my embarrassment. “You need fillin’ up, sir?” I hurriedly asked him.

  I took a couple of steps to the pump, and paused, waiting for a response. He hadn’t moved. He was still watching me. Slowly, he pulled his sunglasses off revealing his own dark brown eyes and he continued to stare at me. I stared back.

  He was not from around here. This was a small town where everyone knew each other. It was also the kind of place that only got that dressed up that smart for a wedding or a funeral, especially in this heat. He was in a charcoal suit which looked expensive as hell, and yet there wasn’t a drop of sweat on him.

  Unlike me: I could feel the sweat rolling down the back of my knees. “Sir?” I asked. “Are you okay?” When there was no response, I waved my hand at the pump. Maybe he didn’t understand English? “Gasolina?” I offered. This was the middle of nowhere Mississippi. I had done a bit of Spanish at high school. If he spoke any other language, I didn’t.

  Finally, he shook his head, like it had been trapped in cobwebs, and blinked rapidly. “My apologies. Yes, please fill it up.”

  That was not an accent from around these parts. It wasn’t completely foreign either. “Are you Canadian?” I asked as I stuck the pump in the tank. He nodded. “That’s one hell of a drive.” I stepped back and looked at the license plate. “Or not. Louisiana? What brings you all the way out here?”

  “Just passing through,” he replied.

  He continued to stare at me. It was weird. It was like a child who had seen something shiny for the first time its life. I turned my attention to the pump, cursing the Yukon for having an enormous and empty tank. Finally, the pump pinged at me. “$72.84, please, sir,” I told him, wondering why I, a grown-ass adult, was allowing myself to get flustered by this stranger.

  The man pulled a wallet from his back pocket and handed over a single, crisp Benjamin. “You may keep the change.”

  My eyes widened. “Sir, that’s a hundred-dollar bill.”

  “I am aware,” he agreed. “Thank you.”

  I wasn’t going to question it. That was a couple of drinks taken care of this evening. I gave him a polite smile and headed into the small store to ring up the sale. I only had to open the door to be hit with
a wall of heat. It was even hotter inside than out. Great.

  The AC had died.

  Again.

  I took a couple of steps into the store and stopped. There was water all over the floor. “What the hell?” I muttered to myself. It took a minute to follow the trail of water to the old icebox in the back. The now iceless icebox… “Not the ice cream!” I groaned, kicking at the aluminum casing. “POS.” Stuffing the bill in my back pocket, I crouched down, leaning behind the icebox for the power cable. I wasn’t going to be able to do anything with it if it was still plugged in.

  With my hand on the floor to keep my balance, I tugged at the cable. There was a pop, and I went flying.

  I don’t think I blacked out, but it took me a few moments to work out what had happened. I was lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling lights, more confused as to why they were no longer on, than why I was on the floor. Then it hit me: I had only gone and electrocuted myself. Well done, Lilah!

  “Are you all right?”

  “Strangely, yes,” I responded, sitting up. That was strange. I’d managed to give myself a number of electric shocks before, and they had most definitely stung. Those times I’d been left tingly and with my heart racing. This time there was nothing.

  The man walked over and stood over me. His sunglasses were hung from his shirt pocket and the sun streaming through the window was causing a warm golden glow around him. “I had not expected you to be my first,” he mused.

  I waited for him to offer me a hand up. When it didn’t come, I pulled myself upright. “Your first what?” I asked.

  He gave me a solemn look. “Lilah, I can now offer you a choice.”

  “Sure,” I muttered, not really paying attention. I’d managed to trip a fuse or something – there was no power on in the store anymore. If I didn’t want to risk losing any more of the stock, I needed to check the fuse box.

  “Would you like Eternal Happiness or Eternal Life?”

  Where the hell was this guy from? “I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it,” I shrugged, walking down the aisle… I stopped. That didn’t make sense. I had traveled in a straight line backwards.

  To the front of the store.

  Through two aisles worth of shelves and stock. I turned back with a frown.

  “And if you had to choose?”

  “Sir, I-”

  “Michael,” he said, correcting me.

  I nodded, still distracted. “Michael. I’m super happy to stand and chat with you for a while, but you’re gonna need to give me some time to work out what just happened.”

  “You died.”

  His words were short and to the point, but that didn’t make sense. “Sure.” I agreed, with a wave of my hand. Most of this didn’t make sense. Maybe the electricity had screwed my brain instead of my heartbeat. “Focus on the things that make sense, Lilah,” I muttered to myself. That involved the power: it wasn’t on and I needed it on.

  I stepped out from behind the shelf, ready to head into the back, when my eyes fell on the icebox. Or more specifically, the leg sticking out into the aisle. Long, tanned, covered in dirt and oil… and a pair of Timberlands that looked suspiciously like the ones on my feet. With a frown on my face, I moved slowly to the body, my frown deepening into a scowl as found myself staring at… myself. It made no sense!

  “You died, Lilah.”

  I turned to Michael, but I wasn’t really seeing him. “This is one of those out of body experiences which people speak of, isn’t it?”

  Michael slowly shook his head. “You died.”

  I dropped down beside my own body and reached out to shake it. My hand went straight through it. I tried a couple of times before it dawned on me that maybe he was right. “I’m dead?” I asked him.

  Again, Michael nodded. “And now you have to make a choice.”

  I fell backwards into a sitting position and crossed my legs. With my gaze fixed firmly on my dead body, I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was dead. Michael could forget his choices for now, because I needed a moment to process this one.

  I hadn’t really thought about dying. I guess I’d always assumed it was something that was way in the future, and now I was dead. I didn’t have the longest bucket list, but there had been a few things I wanted to do before I died.

  “This is a choice you need to make quickly,” Michael pressed.

  I looked up at him and glowered. “I’m sat in front of my own dead body. How about you give a girl a few minutes to process this?” I snapped. I wasn’t so sure that I liked this guy. “Who are you, anyway?”

  He cocked his head. “I am Michael.”

  “And is that like Rihanna or Drake, or…” I trailed off. I was dead. And this guy, Michael could see me. “Wait. Michael? You’re not an angel, are you? The angel Michael?”

  Michael nodded.

  “Holy crap,” I muttered. Yet another thing to add to the I-don’t-have-a-clue-what’s-happening pile. I ran my hand over my mouth and chin, feeling my eyes bulge but being unable to stop myself. “Okay,” I mumbled. “Two options. What were they?”

  “Eternal Happiness or Eternal Life,” he repeated, regarding me with an expression which told me nothing. The guy was the dictionary definition of stoic.

  “But what does that mean?” I asked. “I’m sorry if that’s a really stupid question, but I’m not sure my brain is working properly right now.” I shrugged. “I mean, I’m dead. Does it work properly?”

  “You are forgiven,” Michael said. “But you must make your decision quickly. I need to know if your choice is Eternal Happiness or Eternal Life.”

  I looked up at him, tilting my head. “But you haven’t answered my question.” No longer liking my position on the floor with this angel towering over me, I got to my feet and pulled a face. “You’re asking me to choose between two things with eternal at the front of them. If I’m signing up for something for the rest of my life – or not, as the case may be – I would like to know what those two options actually mean. I’m a mechanic. I like to know how things work. I do not like playing word games.”

  Michael looked taken aback at my demand, like the idea that someone could question his words was inconceivable. I wasn’t going to let it go though. Not with the possibility of whatever it was lasting forever. “You have to make a choice. If you wish it, you can go straight to Heaven and experience Eternal Happiness.”

  “Really?” I asked, slightly surprised at that statement. It wasn’t that I was a bad person. I went to church most Sundays with my parents, and I tried to be a decent person. However, I hadn’t been the most well-behaved kid: the only classes I had liked at school had been motor shop and science. It was hit and miss with the others if I attended them. And if I wasn’t in school, I was most likely smoking behind the set of five stores which someone in town had labelled the ‘mall’, or, equally as likely, helping myself to things with a five-finger discount. I wasn’t exactly Heaven material.

  “Yes,” Michael said with a slow nod of his head. “Your other option is Eternal Life. If you so wish, you may try to earn your wings and become an angel.”

  My mouth fell open. Me? An angel? I didn’t think I qualified for entry to Heaven and this angel was suggesting I could become an angel like him? I chewed at my lower lip.

  Me? An angel?

  “What about my parents?” I asked the archangel. “My daddy is ill. My momma will be looking after him by herself.”

  “You are already dead, Lilah,” Michael responded. “Your decision no longer has any bearing on your parents. Either way, you will not be able to return to them.”

  I shook my head, my heart feeling heavy. They had raised me and it had been my turn to look after them. I’d failed. “I need to know they’re gonna be all right,” I muttered. “Please, if nothing else, please can you make sure they don’t find my body?”

  Michael tilted his head, looking from me to the lifeless body. He pursed his lips, considering it. “You would rather they think you were mi
ssing?”

  “Yes,” I said. Neither option was what I really wanted, but somehow, I knew that trying to convince Michael to let my soul return to my body wouldn’t work. I was dead and there was no coming back from that. The only thing I could do now was try to save my parents from further pain: death was final. If they thought I had left, they would still have the hope that I was happy somewhere. “Yes,” I said again, more firmly.

  “Very well,” Michael conceded. “And you?”

  I stood and rubbed at the back of my neck as I looked at my body. I guess I should be freaking out. I mean, I was dead, and here was an angel giving me a choice. Yet, somehow, I felt okay. Like, maybe, just maybe, this was the right thing for me to do. I dropped my hand, turned to Michael and straightened my back. “Okay. I’ll do it. I choose Eternal Life.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  And just like that, the Louisiangel series draws to a close.

  Kind of.

  I mean, Angelic Schemes releases soon, but if you have picked up a boxed set it has been in, then it’s done. And for me, they’re all written.

  This book is what marks the end of the series for me, and if you’ve been with me from the beginning, I truly am grateful. That’s why you, reading this now, you’re first on my list of people I owe a massive thanks to. I remember when I first started writing this story, years ago in a food photography studio. This was originally supposed to be one book, but halfway through writing it, I knew it was going to be a series, and exactly how it was going to end. Believe it or not, how it ended is exactly how I envisioned it, so I really hope you’re not disappointed.

  And for the record, Angel’s story really is done. That thing happening in Nevada? That’s the start of Gabriel’s story. And Michael? We’re going to see more of him, eventually, too.

  But I’ve gone off on a tangent, when really, this was supposed to be a thank you to you. I know I’ve been slow at releasing books, but the delays have been because I have wanted you to have the best quality books that I could give you – I wanted you to have the same cover artist, so I waited. I needed to have the books edited properly, so I had to wait to pay for them. And you’ve got the best I can give you. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for waiting for me, and thank you for sticking this out until the end.