Angels & Patriots

by Salina B Baker

  Michael stood up; his chair fell backward and clattered against the wood floor. He shouted at Gordon, “Leave him alone! He doesn’t want to tell ya! And he doesn’t have to tell ya!”

  There was a time when Colm had refused to discuss his standing as an archangel with Gordon. He remembered Gordon saying Henry would kill Joseph and rape Michael. “No, Michael. It’s alright.”

  Michael pointed at Gordon and said, “This fucker is doing this for himself, not for us!” Michael leaned over the table at Gordon. “Do ya have to kill demons to feel like a man?”

  Colm folded his arms over his chest. “Sit down, Michael.”

  Michael sneered at Gordon. He fought the impulse to spit in his face.

  Patrick said, “Stop it, Michael! We know you don’t like Gordon, but give him a chance.”

  Abe looked nervously at Jeremiah. He remembered Michael had attacked Gordon in the woods near Lexington eight days ago. Jeremiah whispered to Abe, “Michael always acts like this. You’ll git used ta it.”

  “You can think what you want, Michael. It makes no difference to me,” Gordon replied.

  Patrick got up and righted Michael’s chair. “Michael, do what Colm said!”

  “Stop coddlin’ him, Brother,” Seamus warned Patrick. Then he said to Michael, “Don’t make me get up and sit you down.”

  Michael sat down, pressed his pouty lips together, and leered at Gordon.

  “I used the spells to conjure divine visions,” Colm said to Gordon.

  “Don’t tell him!” Michael snapped. “He doesn’t deserve to know!”

  Colm glanced at his brother and continued, “I’m the fifth archangel of seven. Most Judaic-Christian worshipers know little about my existence or my true divinity. Lore considered me the angel of death, because at one time, I escorted human souls to Heaven after they died. That was before Lucifer fell, and the archangels became God’s warriors against Hell’s demons.”

  Wings rustled.

  “After Lucifer fell and God created reapers, my divinity changed. I summoned reapers and told them where God wanted them to take souls instead of doing it myself. Then, God assigned angels to me.”

  Gordon looked at the others. “That’s when you became their commander?”

  “Aye.”

  “I thought you shepherded the Grigori angels?”

  “That was later.”

  “What’s this got to do with conjuring spells?”

  Colm got up and went to the china cupboard where he kept his whiskey. He poured a glass and then leaned against the fireplace. “I taught my men how to listen for God’s command when a human was dying, take the soul to its egress, and summon a reaper.”

  Colm drained his glass of whiskey. He ran his fingers over the facets of cut crystal; Joseph had given him the elegant glass. He refilled it, and continued. “God gave me another assignment. I became the archangel of divine visions. This was at a time when the children of man were unaware of their creator. It was my task to make them aware of God’s existence.”

  The angels’ released their auras to comfort themselves.

  “I had no idea how to conjure divine visions. It had never been done before. This was thousands and thousands of years before what the children of man consider The Calling of Abraham. I had no guidance and no example.”

  The horrible memories gave Colm the urge to unfurl his wings. He struggled with continuing his confession. He looked at Fergus.

  Fergus spiritually reached for his archangel. The other angels responded to Fergus’ attempt to soothe Colm. Their bright auras dimmed a bit and their wings quieted.

  Colm went on. “I was afraid to fail, and in that fear, I looked too far back in time for answers. I recalled man’s fear of everything that surrounded them because they didn’t understand why they were alive.”

  Colm drained his glass and poured more whiskey.

  “I conjured spells using the incantations ancient man used to ask spirits for protection. I invoked not only my power but also God’s power when I cast those spells on the children of man. Those divine visions—those spells—killed them. It was too much power for them to endure spiritually or physically. I killed thousands of them before I realized what I was doing.”

  Colm’s wings unfurled. The delicate plumes swept over Joseph, Gordon, and Jeremiah. Silver crystals rained on everything in the room. The crystal glass slipped from Colm’s hand and shattered on the fireplace hearth.

  Michael and Joseph both rushed to Colm’s side.

  “Don’t say anymore!” Michael cried. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

  Colm flapped his wings like an injured dragon trying to keep from spiraling toward the ground. Joseph became caught in their movement.

  The other angels’ wings involuntarily unfurled. Their auras beamed like the rays of the sun.

  Jeremiah screamed at Abe, Gordon, and Joseph, “GIT OUTTA THE HOUSE NOW! THE ANGELS IS LOSING CONTROL!”

  Abe and Gordon ran to the front door, threw it open, and hurled across the porch into the yard.

  Jeremiah screamed, “GIT OUT, JOSEPH! THEY’LL ACCIDENTALLY KILL YOU!”

  Joseph was engulfed in the realm of the angels’ pain. His senses could not process the ancient angst. His mind could not comprehend what the sons of God were thinking. He knew that his fragile humanity would die if he did not get away from them.

  Without warning, he was yanked away from the angels’ emotional realm. He suddenly found himself standing on the road in front of the farmhouse. Jeremiah took him by the wrist and pulled him further down the road.

  The horses in the barn whinnied and kicked wildly at their stalls.

  Gordon and Abe ran up the road, which if they ran far enough, would take them to Menotomy.

  The farmhouse trembled and groaned.

  Jeremiah jerked Joseph’s wrist and screamed, “COME ON!”

  A part of Joseph wanted to let the angels’ power do what it would with his life, but he thought of his children, and his unfinished crusade for liberty.

  The horses broke free of their stalls and stampeded the barn door. They galloped to the road and the woods beyond.

  The blinding angelic light went out. The trembling farmhouse stilled.

  Joseph started for the house. Jeremiah pulled him back. “Don’t go in there yet. Give ’em time ta calm down. Let’s git Abe and Gordon and corral the horses.”

  Joseph gave Jeremiah a doubtful look, but he nodded. They walked the dark road toward Menotomy under a waning crescent moon that did little to illuminate their way.

  “Did they do that often in Burkes Garden?” Joseph asked.

  “Only twice in the twenty-five years I’ve known ’em. They’d warned me about it, so I knew ta run if it ever happened. I was eighteen the first time I seen one of their fits. Patrick fell four or five hundred feet inta a ravine. The fall shoulda killed his human body, but he used his wings ta break the fall. His legs and hips was broken bad. Colm sensed ’im fall and had a fit. ’Course, the other angels did the same.”

  “Gordon called it a fit, too. There must be a better word for it.”

  “What word wou’d you use?”

  “I do not know,” Joseph admitted. “What happened the second time?”

  “Liam was out wanderin’ alone, and he went missin’ for three days. None of the angels cou’d sense him. After the first day, the angels got themselves worked up. By the third day, they was in a tizzy. I finally found Liam unconscious in the woods on the other side of Garden Mountain. We ain’t sure what happened ta him. That uncertainty didn’t sit well with Colm, and I doubt he’s let go of it all these years later.”

  The horses trampled ground foliage in the woods. They snorted softly from time to time, shadowing the men as they walked the road.

  “How did you meet the angels?” Joseph asked.

  Jeremiah conjured the bittersweet memory. “I was five. It was the first time my daddy let me go huntin’ with ’im and my two older brothers, Jebediah and Israel. When we come up on th
e ridge of the mountain, we seen Colm and Michael huntin’. I seen their auras right off.” He glanced through the darkness at Joseph. “Colm said you seen his aura right off, too.”

  Joseph said nothing.

  An owl hooted from somewhere in the woods. The horses snorted.

  “’Course, I didn’t know what I was seein’ then,” Jeremiah said. “When we crossed paths with ’em my daddy stopped and asked ’em who they was. I was scared of Colm, although he didn’t look at me once.”

  “Colm told me that you are the only human friend they have ever had before he met me.”

  “My family weren’t never friends with ’em. I didn’t see the angels again for eleven years.”

  Jeremiah breathed deeply and waited until he was sure he wasn’t going to cry like a child. An owl hooted again. He stopped walking. Joseph stopped, too.

  “My daddy and momma moved ta Burkes Garden before I was born. ’Course, the valley weren’t called that then. Daddy said he murdered a man, and they had ta run. He wou’dn’t tell me or my brothers when or why or where. One thing I did know was my daddy had once been a gentleman. He didn’t talk like one no more, but ’im and Momma could read. They had nice Sunday clothes. There weren’t nowhere to wear ’em. Hell, there weren’t hardly no white people in the valley.”

  A filly trotted out of the woods on the west side of the road and startled Jeremiah and Joseph. Jeremiah eased up to her and grasped her reins. The horse stood serenely while Jeremiah went on.

  “It was April 1751. I was sixteen. I didn’t mind my daddy that morning. He told me ta feed the chickens and chop wood. Instead, I sneaked off ta meet a Shawnee girl who let me fuck her sometimes. When I came home that afternoon, my family was hangin’ from trees by their ankles. Blood dripped from the ends of their fingers and from their gouged-out eyes and open mouths. It was obvious that my momma’d been raped.”

  Jeremiah’s breath caught in his throat. He coughed.

  Joseph remained silent. He tried to push the images from his mind, but they refused to go.

  “My family’d been livin’ among the Shawnee in the valley for twenty years by then. I had a real hard time believin’ that the Shawnee had murdered ’em.” Jeremiah wiped at his eyes. “Anyway, I cut ’em down from the trees, and tried ta make ’em look like they was restin’ instead of dead. I started diggin’ their graves. I couldn’t hardly see what I was doin’ because I was cryin’ so hard. Then, the angels came walkin’ out of the woods. They let me grieve while they buried my family. They became my family.”

  Jeremiah cried. Joseph thought that the cover of the near-moonless night gave Jeremiah the courage to cry in the presence of another man. It did not occur to Joseph that he had given Jeremiah that courage by merely listening.

  A gelding carefully made its way through the underbrush and trees until it was clear of the woods. It stopped near the patient filly.

  Jeremiah worked for a minute to get his tears under control before he said, “Turned out my family was murdered by a rogue Shawnee tribe that also terrorized the Shawnee livin’ in the valley.” He tried to make out Joseph’s facial features in the darkness. “I got me a Shawnee woman back home. Her name’s Mkwa. She’s carryin’ my child. Colm said it’s a boy. I ain’t never gonna see her again. I ain’t never gonna meet my own child.”

  Joseph’s words were so quiet that Jeremiah barely made them out. “Do whatever you must to return to them. My wife died two years ago. I shall never stop feeling the pain of her loss. Do not let Mkwa feel the pain of your loss.”

  Voices approached. It was Gordon and Abe. Jeremiah dried his eyes and cheeks with his shirt sleeve. He was thankful for the darkness that hid his tear-reddened eyes. The four men met and turned to walk back to the farm. Two more horses wandered out of the woods and followed them.

  As they walked, Abe asked, “What are we going to do from here?”

  “Convince the angels to touch the Sigil of Lucifer, and figure out a way to use it against the demons,” Gordon said with surety. “I will find the right spells, and I’m going to make sure Colm casts them.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Joseph asked Gordon. “Was Michael’s observation correct?”

  Gordon snorted a laugh. “Michael’s not far off the mark. I kill demons from Hell for revenge, but killing any kind of demon will give me satisfaction.”

  “Revenge?” Joseph asked.

  “Years ago, a demon from Hell possessed my father and killed my family right in front of my eyes,” Gordon said. “Revenge is all I got now.”

  “That is all I have, too,” Abe said. He looked up at the night sky. “My wife died birthing twin girls twenty years ago. I never remarried as I was expected to. Every battle I fought in the French and Indian War was an act of revenge for what God did to her and my babies. The best thing that has happened to me since is meeting all of you and the angels.”

  Jeremiah said, “I warned Joseph, and now I’m warnin’ you, Abe. Damned angels will talk posey then act like jilts.”

  As they approached the farmhouse, Joseph started to ask Jeremiah if it was safe for them to return then thought better of it because it made no difference. He intended on going inside the house regardless of the circumstances.

  Colm’s confession had been the equivalent of stripping the angels’ spirits naked. They were huddled in the living room like baby birds abandoned by their mother and left to weather a storm in their fragile unprotected nest.

  With the horses settled in the barn, Gordon was anxious to finish what they had begun earlier in the evening, despite the unsteady look about the angels.

  He picked up his sketch of the Sigil of Lucifer and handed it to Colm. “You can’t spend years trying to figure out if you and your men can touch this. Let’s kill some demons—in the next few weeks.”

  “Gordon’s right,” Fergus said. “We need to get on with this. I will touch it.” He crossed the living room and reached for the sketch.

  Colm intercepted him. “NO!”

  “You are no longer my commander.”

  Wings rustled.

  Joseph tried to gage Colm’s reaction.

  Jeremiah said, “We ain’t goin’ through another one of your fits, Colm. Git outta the way!”

  To everyone’s surprise, Colm backed down.

  Fergus took the sketch from Gordon. He traced the lines of the sigil with his forefinger. When his spirit had no negative reaction, he pressed the sketch against his cheek. “I feel nothing,” he said, as he concentrated on the sensation of the paper against his skin.

  Gordon smiled. “Good! Now, we need to determine if it will kill a demon.”

  “And if it won’t?” Fergus asked.

  “Like I said before you angels had your fit, we will find a spell that will release Lucifer’s evil to counteract God’s evil.”

  All eyes in the living room shifted to Colm.

  The farmhouse door swung open. No one recognized the man who strolled in. Jeremiah reached for his skinning knife. Joseph pulled a pistol from the pocket of his coat and released the sear. Abe and Gordon got to their feet.

  Seamus ran at the intruder, knocked him down, and fell on top of him.

  The other angels ran and piled on Seamus.

  Colm graced everyone with a rare display of ecstasy. He leaped on the pile of angels and shouted, “Ian!”

  Thirty

  Roxbury, Massachusetts May 1775

  Abigail Adams said an apprehensive goodbye to John as he departed for the Continental Congress on May 4. He was tired and suffered from a cough.

  On that same morning, Liam and Michael sat behind the barn on the bank of the rocky stream. Michael couldn’t come to terms with how close Ian had come to dying. He coped with his dread by remaining close to Liam as if that would comfort his unhappiness and prevent Liam’s death.

  Liam looked at Michael out of the corner of his eye. “You have to stop this, Michael.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Overprotecting me.”

&nb
sp; Michael picked up a stone and tossed it into the stream. “Why?”

  “Because it will not change things.”

  Michael tossed another stone into the water. “Are ya afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  “What scares ya the most about dying?”

  “Being alone.”

  “Me, too.” Michael picked up another stone and turned it over in his palm. “Have ya asked Ian what scared him the most?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I.” Michael tossed the stone in the water.

  Liam watched the water ripple from the small splash. When I am dead, I will forget the shimmer of rippling water.

  Michael jumped to his feet, held out his hand to Liam, and said, “Come on.”

  Liam looked up. “Where are we going?”

  The breeze blew Michael’s loose curly black hair in dark clouds around his head. “We’re going to ask Colm about taking ya to see her.”

  “Colm does not want us to travel without him.”

  “Then, Jeremiah can go get her. Colm can’t stop him.”

  Although Michael had not said her name, reference to her worried Liam. He desperately longed to gaze into her comforting brown eyes, but he knew it was ridiculous to believe Abigail Adams could save him from the evil that was killing him. But he did believe. He recalled unfurling his wings and releasing his green aura in the Adams’ parlor. He remembered Abigail’s words, “I will plead with John to speak with Colm on your behalf. I will beg him to have mercy because you were tempted by my sin.”

  Liam grasped Michael’s hand and slowly stood up. The effort it took was more than he expected. A burning sensation flared in his tired leg muscles. He remembered that Ian’s human vessel had begun to hurt not long before his aura went out.

  “Colm can stop him,” Liam said. “And even if he could not, Jeremiah’s absence would worry him. Why would you distress your brother like that?”

  Michael’s palimpsest scratched at his emotions. The last thing Michael or his palimpsest wanted to do was worry Colm. Yet, Michael felt compelled to do this for Liam.

  Ian opened the farmhouse back door and crossed the porch. He was relieved to see that Michael was still shadowing Liam’s every move. Ian remembered everything about dying until the day his aura went out. It had been excruciating. His spirit ached for what lay ahead for Liam.