by Lisa Olsen
Finally, I added a bit of gel into his hair, pleased to see it taking shape quite nicely, falling into an artful disarray. “Well, what do you think?” I asked, proud of the results all things considered.
“I do not look like myself any longer.”
I laughed at the expression on his face as he turned first one way and then the other, studying the effect. “That was the point, wasn’t it?”
Sam looked less than convinced.
“Do you like it?” I prompted him.
“Do you?”
“I think it suits you, I like it,” I nodded reassuringly, brushing some loose hairs from the top of his ear.
“Then I like it as well,” Sam smiled broadly.
Good God he was gorgeous… literally. God created him in that image, hadn’t he? I couldn’t fault his taste. It w cw Rn"> ias interesting how physically different he was to Adam, but each beautiful in their own right. “Good,” I smiled back in relief. “Now keep still, I’ll get you cleaned up.” Brushing the hair from his neck and shoulders, I carefully peeled off the garbage bag, trying to keep the worst of the stray hairs from getting on him.
“You are finished?”
“Yep, I think so, except for cleaning up. Do you have a broom we can clean this up with?”
“I will attend to it later. Will you stay for a while and visit with me? I bought some tea.” His eyes shone shining with excitement that was hard to resist. It struck me how lonely he must be, just as Adam was. Each cut off from the world in their own way, but even more so for Sam who was so withdrawn.
“Sure, that sounds nice,” I grinned, rewarded with his sunny, uncomplicated smile. While he started the preparations for tea, I wheeled the desk chair back into the living room before taking a seat in the new chair. “How do you rent the apartment anyway?” I wondered aloud, thinking again about leases and ID and credit checks.
“Adam arranged it for me. The paperwork is in one of his names, and the money is… arranged for.” The details of it seemed a little vague, but I could see he didn’t spend much thought on it. The ties between him and Adam were closer than I’d thought.
“That’s nice of him. Don’t you ever worry what would happen to you if something happened to Adam though?” From the look on his face, I could see the thought had never occurred to him.
“What could happen to Adam? We are eternal.”
I was still wrestling with that concept and how it might affect me. “Do you think I am too now? I mean, since you gave me some of your Grace, will I cGrastling wit live longer?”
“It is entirely possible,” he considered aloud. “We may not know for several years though.”
He was right, only time would tell. I tried to think of some of those other questions I’d been wrestling with, but nothing came to mind. I should have taken Daphne’s advice and made a list…
Suddenly a random question popped into my mind. “Did you know Jesus?”
Sam gave a shake of the head. “I was already Fallen in the time of Christ.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said softly, wondering for the umpteenth time what he’d done to get cast out of heaven.
“It is of no moment.” He gave a very human looking shrug.
“You could tell me, you know. If you wanted to, why you ended up among the Fallen,” I said gently, watching him out of the corner of my eye.
He was silent for a long pause, picking up a pair of mismatched mugs and setting them on the counter. “Imagine your greatest shame, a shame so terrible it is almost unbearable to think on yourself. Would you be so willing to share it with another? To have her look at you with that shame mirrored back in her eyes?”
“I guess not,” I replied softly, feeling bad for having pressed him about it when he put it like that. “I won’t ask you again.”
For the next hour or more we talked, I learned he’d lived in Seattle for the past ten years, lived in Portland before that, and San Francisco before that. He’d lived all over the world at one time or another. I’d never been beyond the west coast of the United States. Born in California in the Bay Area, but primarily raised in Seattle.
He was interested in hearing about my childhood with Matty. I was less eager to talk about my parents, but he didn’t push the subject, content to hear me talk about anything else. I learned he’d known Adam since he was called into existence but Adam’s fall had preceded his, though he wouldn’t speak more on that. They were friends of sorts the entire time, though they sometimes went decades without seeing each other in the past, they inevitably drifted back into each other’s company.
My opinion of Adam slowly expanded to consider he might be more than the man I met who was so full of himself there was barely room for hi c> r>
Something Adam said came to mind then. “Do you find that humans are naturally drawn to you?”
“Sometimes, but in general I move unnoticed by man.”
“Going unnoticed might not be a bad idea right about now. How do you do it by the way? Make people not notice you.”
Sam thought that over for a minute, and was clearly having trouble thinking of how to explain the process. “It is easily done. I simply think of myself as a shadow, existing apart from the human plane of existence. It is as natural to me as walking. In fact, it is harder for me to remember to be present without an anchor.”
“An anchor?”
“Yes, like you here now. If someone were to encounter us as we are now, they would see me because I am sitting here with you. Though you can see me no matter what my state, I am used to making myself visible when talking to others unless it is inappropriate to do so.”
“Like when we were at Ben’s?”
“Yes, I did not want him to see me.”
“So, if I make myself… dim, like a shadow…” I closed my eyes, focusing on the idea of pulling myself apart from the world around me. “Like this?” I opened my eyes to gauge his reaction.
“I do not know,” Sam shrugged helplessly. “I would be able to see you in any case.”
“Oh, that’s right, I didn’t think of that. I guess I can’t exactly go test it out on the neighbors, can I?” My teeth caught my lower lip as I mulled that over. I’d have cRomt>< to try it out with a regular human being like Daphne or Matty. And how bizarre was it that I no longer considered myself a regular human being?
“It would not be advisable, no,” he smiled.
“Tell me more about seeing people’s souls,” I prompted, liking the easy familiarity building between us. As long as I asked him things he knew the answers to or weren’t shrouded in shame, he seemed to have no problem opening up to me. I took that as a good sign.
His smile widened as he warmed to the subject. “All angels have the ability to read the quality of a person’s soul. It appears as a nimbus around them, reflecting their basic qualities as well as defects within them.”
“Charles Weatie’s soul was that dingy dark red with black splotches.”
“Yes, the dark red indicates he was a violent, troubled man, prone to fits of anger even as a child. The worse his deeds grew as he lived, the more darkness riddled his soul, hence the dark, diseased patches.”
“What about my soul? What color am I?” I asked with interest. The effect didn’t work in the mirror and when I looked at my hands they looked normal, with none of the halo effect that surrounded Sam or Adam or hints of any other color apart from when I’d noticed the brief glow the night before.
“Your soul was a beautiful tranquil green, with bright yellow accents. It marked you as a warm, caring person, with a joy for life untainted by living in this modern age. The quality of che an> me know you were worth saving.”
That was probably the nicest compliment anyone had given me, and I was taken aback by the eloquence of his description. “Wow, you can tell all of that from the colors?” He operated on a completely different level than I’d thought possible.
“It is more than the appearance of the colors, we can sense the underlying qualiti
es when we study the souls, it will come to you in time.”
Would it? It was strange to think of myself in those terms. “Wait, you said was… it’s not anymore? What does it look like now?”
Sam’s eyes swept over my features, studying me again. “Now, you look like one of us. The same warm, golden halo that embraces all angels.”
“I do?” I looked like an angel? No wonder Adam stared at me so intently when we’d first met. I was willing to bet I was the only female with that angelic glow, as I had never heard of an angel that wasn’t a man. “Are there any angels that look like me? Female I mean?” I found myself asking.
“No, there are some select angels that are neither male nor female, but the rest of us are exclusively male.”
“Interesting…” There certainly was a lot to think about, but my phone rang, interrupting the conversation. I’d been sure to turn the ringer up good and loud before leaving the house and it cut through shrilly in the quiet room. A quick check of the display showed it was Ben calling. “Excuse me a minute, I have to take this.” I spared a brief smile for Sam before I rose and walked to the window. “Hey Ben, I missed you this morning.”
“For a minute there I thought I was going to have to send out a squad of black and whites to hunt you down,” he chuckled.
“It’s the middle of the day, I wasn’t aware that was worthy of a search party quite yet,” I returned, not sure if he was teasing or actually worried about me again.
“What happened to you? I thought you were going to come in and take a look at those mug shots to track down that guy from the alley.”
Crap. I’d totally forgotten about that! Where was my head lately? “Sorry Ben, I completely forgot all about it. Is it too late to come down now?”
“It’s alright, I tried to stick around the precinct so I’d be here, but the Captain’s been giving me the eye like he’s going to assign me another case if I don’t get my butt out on the street soon. I can stick it out a while longer if you can make it here in the next hour or so.”
He was being a good sport about it and I appreciated that. “Okay, I’ll be right there. I swear, I’m not always this much of a flake,” I promised, and it was usually true. I was more responsible than not, it just felt like I was being pulled in a lot of directions at the same time.
“Uh huh, likely story,” Ben teased, and I smiled at his tone of voice, picturing the expression on his face. “See you soon.”
“‘Kay, bye.” cye.It’s time to go throw the cops off your scent.” Sam blinked at that and I could see him processing the words. “Throw them off your track. I’m going down to the police station to look at pictures of suspects. I won’t point them at the wrong person exactly, but I’ll try to steer them in the wrong direction. In the meantime, no more brown coat, remember?”
“I’ll remember.”
He looked so different with the haircut, almost like a new man, and I gave him an encouraging smile. “I’m off then. Thanks for the tea and the chat, it was nice.”
“Thank you for the haircut and the conversation, it was nice,” Sam nodded, echoing my sentiment.
With a final nod I left him to whatever it was he did all day, toes tapping with impatience as the slow elevator made its way up and down to take me to the ground level. Now that I knew Ben was sitting around at the precinct on my account, I was eager not to keep him waiting too much longer.
In the end it was another case of hurry up and wait. As soon as I got there, Ben was pulled into a briefing and I had to sit around waiting for him to be done before he could even get me set up at a computer to look through shots of Weatie’s known associates. It turned out to be much more boring than it sounded, pretending to look at each of them carefully enough to give the appearance I was cooperating. If I’d really been looking, I think I might have moved through them faster, but as it was, I spent so much time trying to look diligent, I think I ended up wasting more of our time.
After coming up empty, I gave Ben a suitably disappointed look, and he wrapped an arm around my shoulder. y shoulnbsp; “Come on, let’s go get a cup of coffee.”
It felt nice that he was openly affectionate with me at work, and I smiled sunnily as I nodded and followed him to the coffee shop around the corner.
“I saw you took your stuff home, I would have helped you,” Ben mentioned, after we had our coffees in hand.
“There wasn’t all that much to move. Just the one bag and Mimsy’s things. I wanted to get out of your hair.”
“I kind of like having you in my hair.” He gave me that smile I loved so much, but I couldn’t help the errant thought - did he like me or was it the angelic allure?
“Thanks for that. Things are a little crazy right now though.”
Ben took a long drink of his coffee, but I couldn’t shake the feeling he was studying me carefully for a moment. “Mercy, I can tell there’s something going on with you. Whatever it is, you can tell me. Maybe I can help?”
Busted. Damn him and his supercop powers of observation… I was tempted to tell him everything from the beginning, but something kept me from getting into it. Maybe it was because we were in a public place, although that hadn’t kept me from talking to Daphne, had it? Instead I shook my head. “It’s nothing like that. I don’t need help exactly, I just have a lot going on.”
Ben accepted that, taking another thoughtful drink of coffee and I did the same before he worked up the courage to ask. “Can I see you again?”
“Of course,” I answered readily. He didn’t think I was breaking up with him did he? If you could even call it that. Apart from the one brunch at Lolly’s, we hadn’t made it on an official date yet, but we had sort of lived together, even if it was out of necessity. It was an awkward position to be in for the beginning of a relationship but I definitely wanted to see where it would lead. “Just because I’m not ready to move in with you doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you again.”
He smiled at that. “I guess I jumped the gun a little.”
“It’s okay. I know my lasagna is hard to resist,” I grinned, nudging him with my elbow as we walked outside.
“Ah, but you haven’t even tasted my cooking. Come to think of it, maybe that’s for the best. How about I take you out to that dinner we never got to have? Severino’s, your next night off?”
“It’s a date.” I leaned over and dropped a quick kiss to his lips. “I should let you get back to work.”
Ben’s arm came around my waist and pulled me closer. “I enjoyed c/fo’s arm c the distraction, but yes, I should get back to it.”
“That’s what I am, a distraction?” I raised a brow at him.
“No, you’re perfection,” he amended, turning me to face him.
I opened my mouth to protest that obviously flawed sentiment, but my reply was swallowed by his kiss. By the time we came up for air, I had forgotten any objections, along with whatever it was we’d been talking about.
“Call you later?” Ben promised, releasing me as we got to my car.
“Sure. I’m working tonight, so don’t freak out if I’m not available.”
“I promise not to send out the bloodhounds if I go to voicemail,” he grinned. “But call me when you get home safely.”
“Deal,” I promised, stealing a final kiss before I got into my car.
Chapter Twelve
I decided I had enough time to stop by and see Matty before I had to think about getting ready for work. As I drove into the familiar neighborhood, I couldn’t help but think about Sam and our visit together. It seemed like as good a time as any to t f/foe="Tiry out that invisible thing angels did, have a heart to heart with my brother in the process, and fill him in on what was going on.
As I stood outside his apartment door, I thought back to Sam’s words, about how he tried to make himself a shadow. I had no way of knowing if I did it correctly, but I focused on that feeling, of shielding myself away from the thoughts of others. When I thought I had it down, I raised my hand to knock on the do
or, waiting to see Matt’s reaction.
Matt came to the door, and looked out into the hallway… right past me, as if I wasn’t standing a foot from him. In amazement, I raised my hand and waved it in front of his face, but got no reaction. Buoyed by the taste of success, I jumped up and down, watching him to see if the noise from my footfalls caught his notice, but he was already turning away to shut the door again. “Holy crap, it works…” I murmured, and his head came up sharply, noticing me there all of a sudden.
“Geez, how long have you been standing here?” he demanded, doing a double take as he glanced up and down the hallway.
“You can see me?”
His eyes narrowed at me like I’d asked him a trick question. “Of course I can see you. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you all about it,” I suggested, stepping past him into the apartment. Maybe it was childish, but I admit I had fun messing with my brother a little. Payback for all of those years of torture as a kid when I couldn’t escape his constant shadow.
“Yeah, okay< kfont shadspan>,” he agreed easily enough, sounding only mildly curious. The moment his back turned to shut the door I focused on fading out again, watching him carefully to see if it worked. Sure enough, when he turned around, he looked for me, moving deeper into the apartment. “Merce?”
It was going easier than I thought it would. Picking up a pair of salt and pepper shakers, I waved them in the air, wondering if he’d see me, the shakers moving by themselves or nothing at all. Matty paid them no mind. Apparently anything I touched escaped his notice as well. “This is so weird.”
Matt jumped as I came back into view just a couple of feet away from him. “Christ, how in the hell did you do that?” he gasped, a ridiculously stunned expression on his face.
It seemed to only work when I was silent, but maybe that would change with practice? After all, Sam had been able to speak with Ben in the room and I was the only one who could hear him. I felt a little bad at having freaked Matt out at any rate, and set down the salt and pepper shakers. Time to come clean. “So… I have something to tell you.” Sitting him down, I glossed through the events of the past couple of weeks, starting with how I’d managed to survive the knife attack and ending up with my earlier trip to the police station.
