Broken Angels

by Harambee K. Grey-Sun

  In another state of mind, he might’ve had something to say about the near total lack of cars as he and Veronica walked halfway around the construction project’s circular fence, its posted sign proclaiming it the future site of John Carlyle Square. He might’ve had more detailed and interesting responses to Veronica’s remarks about the sign’s descriptions of the walkways, the lawn area, the trees, the plants, and the decorative fountain that would all be a part of the completed Square. If he had been himself, Darryl might’ve suggested a different route for their stroll, maybe the one that would take them toward the Metro station.

  But he allowed Veronica to lead him by the hand, down the avenue across Holland Lane, and into the African American Heritage Park. They walked down the long, wide steps onto a gravelly path. Darryl’s body was there, but he was looking inward, not fully noticing that, as they followed the pathway, to his left, just across the narrow waterway of Hooff ’s Run, there were more than a hundred carefully arranged tombstones. Veronica breathed something about “sassy symbolism” and whistled a dreadfully familiar tune, but Darryl paid it little mind.

  His scattered thoughts—of conflicted faith and neglected duties, of championed philosophies and limp poetics—only began to draw back together as a tightening cluster of trees darkened the path they walked. At the middle of the wooden footbridge, an area almost completely shielded from sunlight, Darryl saw carvings that had been made by a knife and traced with ink for greater visual effect: “Save the Children.” His headache went nowhere, but the sight of the Arkangel’s whispered words made Darryl refocus on the here-and-now. He stopped walking, forcing Veronica to do the same. She didn’t stop whistling however. She didn’t even turn to look at him. Her nose, eyes, and chin were pointed upward. Veronica seemed preoccupied with something nesting in or resting on the branches above them—but Darryl was in no mood to bird-watch. He tried to draw her attention to him.

  “Okay, V. Let’s talk straight. You were saying something about art, and The End.”

  “Hmm?” Veronica lazily turned her head.

  “At the club. What were you saying?”

  The quiet time during the walk had done Darryl some good, despite the headache. Veronica’s words, her very strange words about art and The End, couldn’t help but remind Darryl of the most recent discussion with Adam and Robert. Veronica was so different from everyone he’d ever met. What insights did she have? What did she really know?

  “Oh, yes,” she said with an exhalation that sounded like the beginning of a giggle, “all of that. Sorry. But sometimes I play things checkered, just to hear how they’ll sound.”

  Maybe she was too different. While staying the same in appearance, Veronica’s language, throughout their date, made it seem as if she were phase-shifting though different personalities. Was she high on something?

  “What are you talking about?” Darryl asked.

  “That phrase, my love, is a direct quote from the nymphomaniacal Kaprice. The female character, the primary character, of the Indigo section of Death’s Heart.”

  “Indigo section?” Darryl dropped her hand. “There’s no such part. The book has five sections. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue.”

  “Your copy does,” she said. “Mine has Indigo. An apocryphal chapter. It’s where I lifted the lyrics for Harold and Harmony’s song.”

  Darryl had no words. His mouth and throat were dry. His headache sprawled, scratching-clawing-pinching on all sides of his skull.

  “But,” Veronica said, “to quote a once-popular, now-forgotten singer, ‘What are words for if no one listens anymore?’” She smiled and turned her back to him.

  Darryl hesitated before following her off the footbridge.

  As they began up a long, curving set of steps, his thoughts were a scribble. He was having a hard time reconciling the idea that the very book on which he’d based his beliefs and actions for the last couple of years was incomplete. It just couldn’t be true. He had many questions beyond the most obvious one, but he kept silent.

  The couple stepped onto a sidewalk bordering a section of Holland Lane a block away from where they’d entered the park. Veronica maintained a pace of three steps in front of him. The trees to the left of them provided a good strip of shade, but as far as Darryl was concerned, they could’ve been walking on lava. He couldn’t stay silent any longer.

  “Veronica. I have to see this book. I need to read it, study it.”

  Veronica laughed. “I have a more creative idea.” She stopped and turned to look in his eyes. “My girlfriend and I have decided you should rewrite it—with your life.”

  Before Darryl realized someone had been following them, that someone grabbed both of his wrists and pulled, binding his hands behind his back. Veronica raised her hand and pulled back her tresses, revealing a nonblue eye.

  “We will solve you, Darryl Ridley.”

  Darryl heard Veronica’s mellifluous voice speaking, almost singing these words as a scratchier voice behind him said, “Don’t blink.” A cracked second later, his sight and thoughts were taken by a bright rush of raspberry-blonde light.

  TEN

  Robert thought the discussion had been fascinating and instructive. Once again, the reverend had come through for him.

  Whenever Robert called his former pastor with a question on a religious topic, the reverend was always able to give a detailed response right off the top of his head. Ava’s comment last night about Watchers and scriptures prompted him to make the call first thing in the morning. Robert felt lucky to have the opportunity to speak with the reverend just before Sunday services, and he was happy to receive such a generous amount of information. Robert now knew what he needed to about the Watchers and the Book of Enoch, the Sons of God, the Daughters of Men, giants, fallen angels, and fair games—all the details of the little-known and seldom-read scriptural story detailing the events before the biblical flood in the days of Noah.

  Robert had learned that even though the Book of Enoch was referenced in the Bible’s New Testament, it was not a part of the canonical Bible. It was an apocryphal text, considered authoritative only by a small segment of Christians. The reverend told him the book portrays the biblical flood as being a result of mischievous angels who left Heaven and came to Earth primarily to mate with human women, the fair Daughters of Men. The beginning of a new sin, these rogue unions produced unnatural offspring that overran the Earth, devouring all the food of humankind, before starting on the flesh of humankind. So God sent a flood. The Supreme Being pushed a reset button on its own Creation.

  Robert knew another flood could very well be coming. A deluge of cold fire and hot ice, unrestrained light and untrained thoughts, it too would be the result of tainted “angels.” If the terrorists of The Infinite Definite had their way, a Flood of Xyn would warp all of Reality beyond anything Robert could imagine. Alienated young adults, pushing for universal chaos—it almost made sense.

  The Arkangels Robert had encountered—including Ava— weren’t like The ID. There was the “Arkangel Katrisha” who almost a year ago, on an overcast morning in November, had appeared out of nowhere to help save his butt. Robert was jogging in the woods and had somehow managed to trot right through an area where members of the MS-13 street gang were having a powwow. He’d been running for an hour and was by that time exhausted enough to allow himself to get surrounded by a dozen gangbangers. Robert held his own for a few minutes, but just as his luck was about to run out, the Arkangel jumped in to help even the odds. He’d learned a few days later that her real name was Kate Gyllenhoff, but when she was kicking ass on his behalf, he was more than happy to acknowledge her as any type of angel she wished.

  Even when he’d treated her to a “thank-you” cup of coffee, he’d taken her at her word as she told him plenty about the Arkangels. And he’d confirmed it all a few months later, earlier this year, when he’d met the “Arkangel Jessica” and the “Arkangel David-Jo.” They’d surprised him while he was on a treasure hunt in the Easter
n Market section of DC. Once they realized they’d no cause to fight each other (and Robert had found the hunt to be a dead end), they had a nice chat. He never figured out their real names, but he did get an idea of what the Arkangels were all about, all of which he’d tried to tell Adam and Darryl last night. No, they weren’t like The Infinite Definite, but there just had to be some kind of connection. Robert had been dwelling on what it could be from the moment he ended his phone conversation with the reverend to the moment he arrived at The Burrow.

  “You owe me an apology, Robert Goldner.”

  Ava was the first thing he saw when the elevator’s door slid open. The angry angel had been waiting for him, possibly for some time. Robert noticed the clenched hands and the diamond pendant right away; then he saw that the whites of her eyes weren’t all white. He wondered if she’d been crying, or if she’d been fighting hard not to. The intrusion of tiny off-red vessels to the surface of her eyes gave the once-white areas a fuchsia appearance, vividly contrasting with the irises that had switched from the gem-blue of last night to a grass-stained muddy brown. Robert looked at the color-clashing oddities, blinked twice, and looked away.

  “I don’t owe anybody anything,” he said with a sniff as he stepped around her.

  “You owe me an apology,” Ava said. “And an explanation.”

  “Funny,” Robert said, “I was thinking of maybe tossing that statement at you.”

  “Listen, whatever you suspect me of being, or doing, why not have the guts to say it to my face? One-on-one, like an adult. Like an honest person. You don’t like me? Then let’s have it out right now.”

  Robert stopped and ran his eye over her.

  “I neither like nor dislike you,” he said. “I don’t know you. But judging from what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, balancing it with my experience—”

  “You don’t trust me,” she said. “Okay, then, what better way to tell if I’m lying, about anything, to find what I’m holding back, than to come into my mind? Let’s go to XynKroma.”

  “That’s just it, Arkangel. I don’t trust your mind. I don’t know where it’s been.”

  The more he spoke, the weirder her eyes appeared. She was undoubtedly seconds away from taking a swing at him.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Ava, but you better be honest with yourself. If you’re telling the full truth about not having any memory of the past year and a half, then you should be worried. Worried about all the road trips and pit stops you’ve made during that time.”

  “I see,” she said. “You don’t trust my motives, what may be living and lurking inside the nooks and crannies of my cranium, and you’re too scared to look.”

  Crannies, cranium, nooks, look, living, and lurking—Robert immediately recognized the strange phrasing of the statement. With the almost excessive rhyming and alliteration, it certainly would’ve been strange to hear coming out of the mouths of most people. But Robert knew that many of those associated with The ID were involuntary poets, and pretty bad ones at that. Did Ava intend to say what she’d said the way she’d said it? He wouldn’t ask, but he’d keep the question in mind.

  “If you were honest with yourself,” he said, “and with the rest of us, you’d come out and admit that you’re scared and that you don’t trust your state of mind, either.”

  “Do you trust yourself ?” she asked. “Your mind?”

  “I—”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I didn’t finish speaking.”

  “You didn’t need to. ‘Yes’ should’ve been your only response. Anything less is just as good as a negative answer.”

  Robert had an answer all right. More than one. The honest one wasn’t the one he was ready to share.

  “Prove to yourself you’re as trustworthy as your surname implies,” Ava said. “Prove to yourself, and me, that you’re serious about finding Marie-Lydia. Let’s go to XynKroma. Now.”

  No. He’d never go back. Not voluntarily. Anything he needed or wanted to learn about his family or anything else he would learn by his own research on Reality’s surface. He turned his back on the huffing girl.

  “I don’t think so,” Robert said as he walked away.

  “It was the last place I saw her,” Ava said as she followed him. “You think I’m the key to finding her? Then come with me. Unless you don’t care and just want to get on with the next thing.”

  Robert slowed but didn’t stop. The analogy was there, and very clear, even if it was unintentional on her part. In spite of his true feelings for his partner, Robert would be damned if he let anyone compare him to Darryl.

  “Please, Robert.”

  The tone of her voice had moved away from indignation by just a hair. Robert noticed the shift and looked at her again.

  “I have nowhere else to go,” she said, “no other idea of what to do. Please help me.”

  He detected a note of fear, if not just desperation, in her voice and demeanor. Whether it was an act or not, whether she was a sleeper agent of The ID or not, Robert figured maybe the best way to find out the truth on her, and maybe even the best hope of finding Marie-Lydia, was to keep Ava close at hand. Maybe Adam had a point.

  “Okay, Arkangel.” Robert gestured for her to follow him. “Let’s you and I go see the doctor.”

  “We won’t talk any more about trust,” Robert said. “From now on, you can read it in my actions.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” Ava said. “The story’s been a sad and stupid one so far.”

  Charming, Robert thought.

  “That was only a first draft,” he said. “We’ll start over right now.”

  After opening the door, in an overexaggerated imitation of a stereotypical gentleman, Robert bowed and waved his arm, signaling without saying “Ladies first.” Ava sneered at the gesture but passed by him into the office.

  “Hello, Ava,” Sam said. “Robert. What can I do for you two?”

  “You can tell us, openly and honestly, what your reading is on Ava.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked. Ava looked at Robert with an expression that asked the same question.

  “You gave her a thorough examination, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Ava is going to be working with us—me especially—to find Marie-Lydia McGillis. If I’m going to be working closely with her, I’d like you to tell us both what you’ve discovered about her. Don’t hold anything back. I don’t want her to think I came to you behind her back to get the dirt on her.”

  Sam gave Ava a look, an unspoken request for permission. After some hesitation, Ava gave it to her with a nod.

  “Well, first off,” Sam said, “as Ava and I discussed last night, there’s a problem with how she sees things.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Robert, please,” Sam said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Please go on.”

  “She views the world, everything she sees, in a pale red tint.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “To her, it’s as if the world has been rinsed with red and white.” Sam stopped talking, but Robert gave her a funny look, prompting her to go on. “In other words, it’s as if every light bulb inside every building she enters is pink, and the sun’s light is scattered on the planet in a very different way than it is for the rest of us.”

  “Really?” He turned toward Ava with new interest.

  “Think of the sky,” Sam said. “It only appears blue, most of the time, because the longer wavelengths of the sun’s light in the red, orange, yellow, and green sections of the spectrum are far less likely to be scattered by air molecules than blue light. But to her eyes, wherever she looks, light in the red range is scattered. What she’s seeing is not a deep, pure red, but more like a diluted or bleached version of the color.”

  “So diluted that I really didn’t notice it until last night,” Ava said, “when you gave me that exam. But I suppose it’s been like this since I woke up in the hospital. I know for sure i
t wasn’t like this before, even when I was inverted, reborn as an Arkangel.”

  “So your eyesight’s been like this either since we found you,” Robert said, “or since you and Marie-Lydia went to XynKroma together?”

  “Yes.”

  “No matter how it happened,” Sam said, “we can correct it. Or, more precisely, Zel can. I’ve already spoken with him, and he’s in the process of making some lenses that should do the trick. When he’s finished, he’ll let you know, and you can get fitted for some glasses.”

  “What else did you find?” Robert asked.

  “Well, she’s in exceptionally good shape. And the speed at which she’s recovered from most of her injuries has been incredible.”

  “How bad were they?”

  “No broken or bruised bones,” Sam said. “Only scratches and cuts, and some strange bite marks. But none of the wounds are open any longer. No need for any bandages, or even Band-Aids.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Isn’t that enough, Robert?”

  “But I mean, no damage to her head? No concussion? Nothing’s wrong with her heart or other organs?”

  “Not as far as I can tell,” Sam said. “I ran every test I could last night with the equipment I have. Of course, I did some blood work and took a urine sample, and I’ll need to review the results of those. But for now, as far as I’m concerned, aside from her memory-loss, her eyesight issues, and some bruises and probably a few tender spots, she’s fine.”

  “Really?”

  “As fine as an angel can be, Robert.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Got it.”

  “I’m just as surprised as you are,” Ava said to him.

  “Doubt it.” Robert cleared his throat and raised his voice to thank Sam.

  “Yes, thank you Miss Goins,” Ava said as she followed Robert back out into hall.

  He’d wanted to show her he was willing to trust her, but he didn’t want to show her he was naïve. Even though it was unavoidable she’d see more of The Burrow than he thought it smart to allow, Robert wouldn’t be the one to give her a guided tour of the place. And he didn’t want to leave her to wander around and discover things on her own. Not yet. He wanted to try to discover something about her first.