She moved her hand away from her chest and reached for Michael. He took a step back to avoid her touch. Her hand trembled. “Your…aura is blue. Youse an angel of God.”
Michael was afraid to look away lest she touch him. He gave Brandon a sideways glance and said, “We shou’d go.”
Brandon nodded but his eyes never left the woman.
She turned her attention to Brandon. “Your aura is…is…yellow. Oh Lord! Obadiah ain’t going to believe this!”
Michael and Brandon ran to the tavern’s front door. Just as they reached the threshold, the innkeeper and two British officers intercepted them.
“You will not be leaving,” the innkeeper snarled. Contempt flamed in his orange eyes.
Brandon saw the black woman watching them. With rising dread, he saw her eyes change from brown to orange. She mocked him with a wink.
Michael realized why Brandon had a look of dread on his face. They had encountered demons without Colm to protect them.
“Lieutenant Oldman, seize these men,” the innkeeper seethed to one of the British officers.
Lieutenant Oldman and the other officer, Lieutenant Shoemaker leveled pistols at the angels.
Michael sneered despite the nauseous fear in his spirit. He knew the orange-eyed demons meant that Henry was in Boston. The soldiers’ eyes were blue, but it was no consolation.
Brandon slid his hand beneath his coat and reached for the pistol wedged between the waist of his breeches and the small of his back. Lieutenant Shoemaker shoved the muzzle of his pistol under Brandon’s chin and said, “If you remove your hand, and you are holding a weapon, you are dead.”
“Unless you’re a demon, that shot won’t kill me,” Brandon scoffed despite his terror. “And if you’re a demon, and I stab both your eyes out, you’re dead.”
“Do not call me a demon again!” Lieutenant Shoemaker warned. He increased the pistol’s pressure under Brandon’s chin.
Michael’s hand darted into the pocket of his overcoat to the handle of his curved surgical blade. With one swift motion, he whipped the razor-sharp blade out of his pocket, across Shoemaker’s wrist, and sliced off the soldier’s hand. Lieutenant Shoemaker’s hand and pistol dropped to the floor. Blood spurted from the radial artery.
Shoemaker screamed and flipped the stub of his wrist up closer to his eyes. Blood spattered the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the tables, and the patrons.
Lieutenant Oldman screamed at Michael. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Chairs slid back and benches tipped over as men dashed to help Shoemaker. Men shouted. A woman screamed. Soldiers slid sabers from their scabbards. Aside from Oldman, no one was certain who had injured Shoemaker.
Michael and Brandon ran to the basement, hoping there was an exterior door there that exited onto the street. If they were wrong, they were dead.
The white innkeeper and the black woman ran after them.
Brandon kicked in the basement door. The boys leaped down the stairs. Their eyes swept every inch of the basement walls looking for a way out. The demons jumped from the basement door to the dirt floor.
The woman shoved Brandon, slammed his forehead into the stone wall, and knocked him unconscious.
The innkeeper attempted to hook an arm around Michael’s neck. Michael ducked and swung his curved surgical blade in an arc. The tip of the knife impaled the innkeeper’s right eye. Michael jerked the blade from the eye and sliced the innkeeper’s left eyeball.
The impaled eyes erupted in orange flames. Sparks stung Michael’s cheeks and singed loose locks of his hair. The innkeeper did not scream or claw at his burning eyes, face, or hair. His body flopped face first onto the floor. Michael knew the innkeeper was already dead when the demon had possessed him.
The woman ran at Michael with outstretched arms and open palms.
Michael evaded her by dropping to his knees beside Brandon. He shook Brandon’s shoulders and screamed, “WAKE UP!”
Five British soldiers poured down into the basement.
Michael stood up and kicked Brandon in the side as hard as he could.
Brandon woke as the soldiers surrounded him. He groaned, got to his knees, and struggled to stand. He was seeing double, and all he saw were redcoats and sabers. He couldn’t see Michael until Lieutenant Oldman shoved him inside the circle of soldiers surrounding Brandon.
Lieutenant Oldman laughed ominously. “General Henry Hereford will be pleased to hear you are in Boston. I am on my way for a visit.”
Brandon rubbed his forehead and winced; he was confused.
“YA STINK!” Michael screamed at Oldman. “Ya have possessed a living human body too long. It’s rotting alive. That explains ya blue eyes.”
“What does he mean?” Corporal Jehu Morris demanded of Oldman.
Lieutenant Oldman snatched Michael by the hair, jerked him in close, and said, “You do not mean a thing, do you boy?”
Brandon’s muddled mind suddenly cleared. He recalled what took place before he was knocked unconscious. Without turning his head, he looked at the basement walls. There was an exit door. He bent backward slightly, and to his relief, he felt the front sight on his pistol brush his breeches above his buttocks. He had not been disarmed.
Oldman yanked Michael’s hair until Michael’s chin touched his own chest. “Answer Corporal Morris, you sugar stick!”
“At least I got one between my legs,” Michael said. His neck audibly popped when Lieutenant Oldman yanked his hair harder.
Brandon whipped out his pistol. He shot the soldier standing beside him in the right eye. Michael swung his surgical blade upward and cut off the lock of his hair from Oldman’s grip.
Michael straightened and turned toward the sound of the gunshot. Brandon was running at a basement wall. Michael ran after him. What seemed to Michael to be a stone wall was a door in Brandon’s eyes. Brandon twisted the loose knob and to his relief, the door popped open. He and Michael scrambled up the stone steps to ground level. They ran until they reached Faneuil Hall in Dock Square.
Ten
Under the assumed name of Aengus Maguire, Ian knocked on the door of a two-storied brick building a block from the Green Dragon Tavern on Union Street. An old woman answered and let him in. She inquired after his business, and then left him standing in the front hall.
A few minutes later, a short, rotund, white-haired, well-dressed man greeted Ian with an extended hand. “Gavin O’Keefe,” the man said with a jovial Scottish accent. “You must be Aengus Maguire. Are you newly acquainted with our mutual friend, John Adams?”
Ian considered Gavin O’Keefe’s offered hand. He had no idea what the gesture meant. Colm shielded his men from the farce of human etiquette just as he shielded them from probing human questions, which deserved to be answered with the language of silence. Ian had not met John Adams. He looked at O’Keefe with passive pale blue eyes.
“Maguire.” Gavin chuckled. “A good Gaelic Irish surname which, of course as you know, means the son of Odhar, the dark-colored one.” He veered off the topic with no warning and asked, “Have you been in the colonies long?”
“Yes.”
Gavin nodded and led Ian into the living room. “Please, sit down.” He motioned to the small round table in the center of the room. The table top was smooth from all the years of sliding contracts back and forth between Gavin and his clients. “May I call you Aengus? May I offer you coffee?”
Ian sat at the table and said nothing.
“Get right to it then,” Gavin said more to himself than to Ian. He rummaged through a stack of documents on the table, then pulled one out of the pile and handed it to Ian.
“This is a description of the farm that is for rent in Roxbury. The house has a very large living room and kitchen downstairs and four rooms above stairs. There is a front and back porch, a cellar, a new Dutch barn, a smokehouse, several privies, and a small room in the barn currently occupied by two Indian slaves. The farm previously employed two house women, a stable and carriage keeper,
and four farm hands if you are interested in retaining those employees.”
Gavin rifled through his untidy stack of papers until he found the one he wanted, which he removed with a flourish. “Here is the lease agreement.” He slid it across the table to Ian and asked, “How large is your family?”
It was difficult enough for Ian to remember his alias let alone conjure answers to personal questions. He ignored Gavin and read the lease. When he was finished, he said, “I’ll sign and pay the required advanced rent, but we don’t want slaves.”
“The farm is expansive. I assure you, they will be needed.”
The matter of slavery was a human struggle that made no difference to Ian. The angels’ presence on the farm would endanger the lives of the slaves. That was his concern.
“No slaves.”
Gavin O’Keefe sensed the vibration of something he could not see. It frightened and soothed him at the same time. He was certain he had heard the rustling of wings.
Ian and Gavin regarded one another for a moment.
“No slaves then,” Gavin said.
Ian signed the lease on the farm in Roxbury and left the lawyer’s office with a sense of accomplishment. That sense of deed was extinguished less than ten minutes later when he encountered Brandon and Michael near Faneuil Hall on their way back to Greystoke Inn.
The boys were walking with their heads down, a behavior Ian had never seen in either one. They appeared as if they were forcing themselves to walk instead of run. Michael’s hair was loose and wild. Brandon’s hair lay matted against his skull. Fear pounded Ian’s spirit when he saw their blood-soaked overcoats. He ran to them without regard for the pedestrians on the walkway.
“What happened?” he asked.
Ian’s voice was a small relief to the terror-stricken boys. They raised their heads and looked at him. They unconsciously gripped their weapons in their bloodied shaking hands. The gray leaden sky spit snow upon them as if it disdained their existence.
Ian said, “Oh no…”
“Colm wanted to draw it out. He wanted it to be a planned maneuver,” Brandon managed to say. The words burned in his mouth.
A frightened non-verbal exhalation escaped Michael’s throat. He realized he was clutching the handle of his curved surgical blade in his bloody right hand. He tried several times to shove it into the pocket of his overcoat before he was successful.
Ian removed the flintlock pistol from Brandon’s badly trembling hand and said, “Let’s get back to the inn.”
Ian looked at the people who passed by. Those who took notice of the angels’ blood-soaked overcoats passed them with haste. A clutch of enlisted British soldiers stood on the walkway ahead. Ian was certain that in their agitated state, the boys did not see them. He thought it would be wise to avoid the soldiers.
Ian also noted that no one or nothing appeared to be in pursuit of Brandon and Michael. That observation should have been somewhat comforting, but it wasn’t.
When they arrived at the inn, it was nightfall. Snow continued to fall and the temperature dropped ten degrees. They ran through the backyard and stopped beside the warm fire pit.
“We can’t go inside,” Michael moaned. “We’re covered in blood.”
“Stay here,” Ian said. “Colm has to be inside.”
“Don’t leave us!” Brandon said as Ian left.
Michael’s green eyes moved constantly as he strained to see into the black night. A shaft of light moved through the darkness. A door slammed. Muffled movement pervaded the freezing air. Orange points of light scurried toward the boys.
Michael screamed at Brandon, “RUN!”
Colm, Ian, Seamus, Liam, and Patrick burst through the inn’s back door.
The orange lights bounced in mid-air, and then shot skyward like embers from a raging fire.
Liam and Patrick were running and watching the orange lights. Brandon and Michael, in their terror, didn’t realize the other angels were in the backyard, and they ran blindly toward the inn. They collided with Liam and Patrick.
Michael and Patrick fell into the snow. Colm and Seamus snatched them by the coat collar and jerked them to their feet.
Liam and Ian threw their arms around Brandon to keep him from bolting in a panic.
The orange lights went out.
Colm waited for the angels to gather their wits, and then he said to his panting and shivering brother, “So ya and Brandon managed to get the demons’ attention?”
Michael worked to catch his breath. His older brother was a dim figure framed against the dying flames in the fire pit, but he was able to judge Colm’s stance. Colm was displeased.
“Aye, in a tavern on Beacon Hill,” Michael said. “The blood covering us isn’t ours.”
Brandon said, “Colm, we know you wanted to draw them out with Liam’s missive. We—”
“—were freezing so we went inside the tavern,” Michael said as he lowered his head.
Colm stepped in close to the boys so he could better see their faces. “Liam’s missive is intended to draw Henry’s attention. It doesn’t matter that demons found ya. It doesn’t matter if they’ve gone to Henry with that information. What matters is that ya are acting cowardly.”
Michael’s head shot up. “They attacked us and tried to kill us! We’re lucky we got out of there alive!”
Colm set his jaw and looked his brother in the eyes.
Michael pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at Colm.
“Our time of being afraid has ended,” Colm said. “Ya understand me?”
The angels shivered as the plummeting temperature began to freeze the heavy snow that wet their clothes. However, they would be obliged to stand there all night if that was how long it took Colm to back Michael down. They had endured the brothers’ standoffs in the past.
“Michael, are you hearin’ Colm?” Patrick said. “No matter what happens, we gotta stand and fight. Tell him you understand and take the order!”
Michael sneered at his best friend’s advice.
“It’s freezin’ out here!” Patrick shouted. “Say it!”
Michael looked at Patrick, and then back at his brother. “Aye, I understand,” he muttered.
I hope he’s not dead when I come back from Cambridge, Colm thought.
The angels shivered in the cold, waiting for Colm to dismiss them. After a few minutes, he let them go.
Colm walked into the taproom and sat at a table in the shadows. He needed time alone to ruminate over what had happened to the boys. Jane Greystoke served him a tankard of rum.
A man stopped her when she turned to leave. He pointed at the tankard in Colm’s hand and said, “Bring me the same.”
Jane nodded and went to fetch the rum.
“May I speak to you?” the man asked Colm.
Colm looked up and studied the man. The man endured it without question or comment. Finally, Colm said, “Aye.”
The man sat across from Colm. “My name is Gordon Walker.”
Jane served Gordon’s rum.
Colm drank from his tankard while he kept his eyes on Gordon’s face.
“I’m a free black man, not a slave if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“It’s not.”
“You got a name?” Gordon asked.
“What do ya want?”
Gordon glanced around, and then leaned forward. “I saw you and the angels you command outside. Do not tell me otherwise because I saw the blue auras surrounding the two angels who look alike. But that was not what gained my attention. It was the orange lights.”
Colm said nothing.
“I’ve seen them in every tavern in Boston. It’s demons, but they aren’t from Hell. Demons from Hell don’t have glowing orange eyes.”
Colm remained silent.
“Are you going to just stare at me?” Gordon asked.
“Why are ya telling me this?”
“I heard rumors of a powerful demon with yellow-green eyes that’s been recruiting human soldiers t
o fight in a coming war. These humans, some dead and some living, are being possessed by underlings of this powerful demon. I came up from Richmond, Virginia to see for myself.”
Gordon saw silver light flash in Colm’s eyes that led him to believe his suspicions were correct. The man he was sitting with was an angel, and not just any angel.
“Demons from Hell are not smart enough or have the desire to assemble an army,” Gordon said. “Their damned souls escape Hell. When they’re among mankind again, they realize that they’re still damned. It infuriates them so they start terrorizing the living. And their eyes are red—not orange.”
This man has the courage to keep talking because he knows I won’t hurt him, Colm thought.
“Don’t pretend you aren’t interested in what I’m saying,” Gordon said.
He’s baiting me, Colm thought. Why? He’s not possessed; he’s just a human.
Gordon continued undaunted. “The Christian Bible only mentions three archangels by name although there are seven. Which one of the seven are you?”
Colm had no intention of discussing his failures as an archangel with this bold stranger. He said, “Leave—now.”
“Hear me out,” Gordon said. He took a deep breath and then exhaled. His brown eyes took on a faraway look. “A demon from Hell possessed my daddy when I was thirteen years old. My family were slaves at the time. We lived on a big plantation outside of Jamestown, Virginia. That demon killed my mother and all five of my younger siblings while they were working in the tobacco fields. Then, it did something horrible to my daddy. It made his body explode. His skin and hair and blood and innards splattered the tobacco and the people working nearby. I could hear the demon laughing the whole time. It’s been twenty years, and I can still hear it laughing.”
Colm knew the children of man were capable of deceit by purposely arranging the expression on their face and changing the tone in their voice. Gordon Walker had done neither of those things. His grief was apparent. His anger was well disguised. His fortitude was respectable.
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