“Let me have a look. The wound may not be fatal.”
“No. I know that I am bleeding internally and will die soon.”
“Major, you must let me—”
“Please, do not touch me until I set my affairs in order.”
The young doctor agreed to Pitcairn’s request.
Several hours later, after his affairs had been settled, he agreed to submit to Dr. Kast’s examination. When Kast pulled Pitcairn’s waistcoat away from his chest, blood gushed out. It splashed the doctor’s face, soaked the bed linens, and stained the wooden floor.
Major John Pitcairn hemorrhaged to death while his son, William, looked on in a state of shocked horror.
Henry repossessed his strong, virile thirty-nine-year-old human vessel. He stood over Michael and Patrick’s sleeping bodies and looked down upon them. Patrick lay on top of Michael as if he were protecting him. Henry found the angels’ position particularly erotic.
His breeches tightened as his erection swelled. The palm of his right hand tingled as he recalled squeezing Michael’s crotch, and the sound Michael made in painful response. He kneeled, rolled Patrick off Michael and onto his back, and thought, He is as beautiful as the archangel’s brother. Perhaps I will enjoy them both.
“I know you are here, archangel, and you are watching. Your presence pleases me,” Henry said as he straddled Michael’s naked hips. He gazed down at Michael’s sleeping face and said to Colm, “We have both finally learned what we value in the children of man. It is a shame that you will not exist long enough to enjoy your lessons.”
The heat from Colm’s vehemence shimmered as he hovered above Charlestown peninsula. It took every ounce of willpower he had to heed his palimpsest and remain a spectator. He thought of Joseph’s last sexual encounter. It had been with Margaret Gage on Joseph’s birthday. It was a part of Joseph’s being, and I tried to block it out of my mind, Colm thought in shame. I did the same thing to Ian when Sidonie came with him to Boston. I was blinded by my need to overprotect them.
Henry slid his hands over Michael’s bare bruised chest. I caused those bruises, he thought with elation. He traced the edges of the darkening bruises with an index finger. His erection throbbed. His hands slid over Michael’s filthy cheeks and his fingers entangled in Michael’s dirty hair. Henry’s heart and erection throbbed in an orchestrated rhythm. One hand untangled from Michael’s locks. Henry ripped open the front of his breeches and freed his erection.
God’s wrath thundered. His demons were forbidden to copulate with angels.
Deaf to God’s warning, Henry bent to kiss Michael cheeks. Blinded by lust, his mouth moved to the angel’s neck. His lips lingered on the Sigil of Lucifer tattooed there.
God’s ire shook the universe. His demons were banned from the Gates of Hell and forbidden to worship Lucifer. Not only was the demon leader disobeying his commandments, the demon had failed to destroy the archangel and all of his brotherhood.
Colm sensed the black hole of God’s wrath open. He had wrongly assumed by rejecting Heaven, his spirit could no longer sense God. What Colm sensed at that moment made his spirit burn with dread. He was about to die because Henry had disobeyed God just as Ian, Michael, and Seamus had done. Colm tried to harness his gold radiance. His palimpsest warned him one last time to remain a spectator to Henry’s disobedience. It whispered, “Ya will have to sacrifice yaself after all.”
Henry’s lips parted and the tip of his tongue tasted Michael’s neck. He moaned as his tongue roamed down Michael’s chest and abdomen and hips. Henry stroked his erection with one hand while his other slid over Michael’s crotch and slipped beneath the torn fabric. He viciously ripped Michael’s breeches.
Colm lost control of any restraint he had ever possessed. His unleashed spirit flew at Henry.
Henry tried to roll Michael over onto his stomach.
The black hole of God’s fury opened wide and unleashed a tempest that pulled the demon leader and the archangel into the dark pit of purgatory.
Forty-four
Michael woke in confusion. His body hurt so bad that he exhaled a cry of pain. The sun’s rays blinded him, and his eyes watered. He lifted his hands to wipe his eyes. Agony exploded in his broken wrists. It knocked the wind out of him, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. He thought, I need to leave this vessel, but I can’t remember how.
He heard a woman ask, “What is your name? Were you in the battle?”
Michael’s hand dropped to his chest with a renewed burst of pain. He blinked. A young woman was looking down at him. Her face was blurred by the early morning sun that shined like a halo around her head.
“Go away,” Michael groaned.
The woman repeated her questions.
“Patrick, where are ya?” Michael rolled onto his stomach. Pain roared in his ears when he tried to get to his hands and knees. “PATRICK! WHERE ARE YA? PATRICK!” He tried in vain to sense Colm.
“He is badly wounded,” a man observed.
“PATRICK!”
“Patrick must be the man lying beside him,” another man said.
Michael’s roaring pain quieted enough for him to hear a familiar voice speak to the people surrounding him. He tried again to get to his knees, only to collapse into the damp grass. He shouted, “John Warren? Is that ya, John?”
“Yes, it is me.” John kneeled beside the angel. His eyes traveled over Michael’s bruised shoulders and back. He took note of Michael’s swollen, bruised, and deformed broken wrists.
“Can you get up?” John asked.
“No. Where’s Patrick?”
“Look to your left. He is there beside you.” John glanced at Patrick who, unbeknownst to him, still slept under the spell of his archangel.
Michael turned his head and saw Patrick sprawled face up on the ground. “Is he dead?”
John moved to examine Patrick. He pressed a finger against the inside of one of Patrick’s wrists and detected a pulse. “He is unconscious.”
“Dr. Warren,” the woman looking down at Michael, said. “Please, let us help. The man who is awake looks badly hurt, and he will not tell us his name.”
John looked up. He recognized twenty-two-year old Ann Schotts. She had enticing bright blue eyes and midnight black hair like the rest of the Schotts family. The Schotts and the Warrens were long-time acquaintances. Although the Schotts lived just down the road in Somerville, Joseph Warren was their family physician.
“His name is Michael Bohannon, and yes, I will need your help, Ann.” John tilted his head. “He is Patrick Cullen.”
“We don’t need their help,” Michael snapped. His wings rustled. He had an urge to cleanse his cheeks and neck. A handful of dirt ground into his skin or a hard slap would suffice. Anything to change the way his cheeks and neck felt.
John ignored Michael’s protest. “If we get you to your feet do you think you can stand?”
Michael nodded. Grass rubbed against his right cheek. He turned his head and laid his left cheek in the grass. He nodded again. His cheeks felt a little better.
Ann’s older brothers, Elbert and Duncan, and her father, Simon, helped John lift Michael and set him on his feet.
Michael wobbled then steadied himself. The extent of his injuries became shockingly clear to the people surrounding him. His shoulders, back, arms, chest, abdomen, hands, and cheeks were covered in blackening bruises and streaks of dried bloody mud and gunpowder. Blades of grass stuck to his filthy cheeks. There was a gash on his forehead.
Ann averted her eyes from Michael’s torn breeches.
“Those are not just battle wounds, Michael. Someone beat you. Who?” John asked.
“He didn’t beat me.” What Henry had done to him in the redoubt was a terrifying blur of pain for which he had no words.
“You are in physical pain, which I know is impossible for an angel. Who hurt you?”
Michael shivered in the hot June morning. He managed to release his aura to comfort himself. “Henry did.”
“You are one of the angels?” Duncan asked Michael with wide-eyed reverence.
In response, Michael edged away from Duncan and toward John.
“Tend to Patrick,” Simon said to John. “We will look after Michael so he does not collapse.” Simon noted John’s shaking hands. “What is it, John?”
John looked at Michael, then down at Patrick. They were all little brothers whose big brothers were missing. His voice quivered so intensely that the Schotts had difficulty understanding him.
“Has…anyone…seen…Joseph?”
“Do not say he was in the battle!” Ann blurted out. She covered her mouth with one hand to keep from saying anything more, lest she reveal the secret sexual desire she had for Dr. Joseph Warren.
“I have only arrived from Salem,” John said. He calmed himself as he knew Joseph would want him to do when faced with something so horrible. “I have heard reports that my brother is missing as is Michael’s brother, Colm, and Patrick’s brother, Seamus.”
Michael suffered under a new wave of pain that coursed through every inch of his human vessel. His knees buckled, and he collapsed. The Schotts men caught him and kept him upright.
“We have not seen Joseph,” Elbert said. “We are unfamiliar with—Oh! Colm is the archangel!”
John turned and kneeled beside Patrick. He was able to hide his tears while he tried to rouse the sleeping angel.
Patrick woke in the same state of confusion in which Michael had awakened. The sun glared in Patrick’s eyes as he looked up. “John Warren?”
John nodded. “Are you able to stand?”
“Aye.” Patrick’s spirit was drained of energy. He struggled for a moment before he was able to get to his feet. A vision of what Henry had done to Seamus and Ian nearly knocked him back down.
John grasped him by the shoulders to steady him.
Tears rolled down Patrick’s cheeks. “I saw Henry break Seamus’ and Ian’s neck. I can’t sense them anymore.”
A sob hitched in John’s throat. He asked, “What of Joseph and Colm?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael shed the Schotts’ helping hands then huddled beside Patrick.
“I cain’t sense Colm cain you?” Patrick asked Michael.
Michael’s pouty lips quivered. His blue aura blinked brightly then went out. “I can’t sense any of us.”
Patrick’s wings unfurled. Silver crystals showered the ground and drifted against the Schotts’ legs. He tried to furl them, but he couldn’t control them. He glanced at Michael, and said to John, “I’m dyin’ of thirst. I know Michael is, too.”
“Go fetch water, Ann,” Simon Schotts said. When Ann had gone, he asked, “When was the last time you boys ate?”
The angels shrugged.
“Come home with us so you can eat and rest for a while,” Simon offered.
The angels looked at John and huddled closer together.
John had learned a great deal about the angels from Joseph. He understood their apprehension. “That is kind of you Simon, but I want them to come with me so we can look for our missing brothers together.”
Ann returned with a pitcher of water. She offered it to Patrick. After he helped Michael to drink from it, he quenched his thirst and tried to hand the pitcher back to her. Instead of taking it from him, she stared at him.
Patrick was reminded of the day the angels stood around the fire pit in the backyard of the Greystoke Inn. Jane Greystoke had poised a pitcher of rum in mid-air and stared at Brandon with passion. The memory saddened Patrick. His wings furled.
“Your eyes are gray,” Ann said. She had not meant to say the words out loud, but the angel was so beautiful that she had not been able to restrain herself. “I have never seen gray eyes. They are enchanting. You are enchanting.”
“Ann, mind yourself,” Elbert warned.
Patrick’s instinct was to cast his eyes downward and shrink from her, but he inadvertently offered a shy smile. Ann returned the smile and took the pitcher from his outstretched hand.
“Shall we go?” John asked the angels.
“Wait,” Simon Schotts said. He pulled his tunic over his head and held it out to Michael. “Do not go half-naked. The British will jeer at you. Do not allow them that opportunity.”
Patrick took the tunic from Simon and slipped it over Michael’s head. Michael gave Patrick a miserable look before he slid his wrists through the sleeve holes. The tunic was long enough that it covered Michael’s badly torn breeches.
“Please. Wait. I must know,” Simon begged the angels. “My wife, Priscilla, died giving birth to Ann. Does her soul rest in Heaven?”
“We cain’t answer that,” Patrick said. “God don’t talk to us no more.”
The three little brothers turned their backs on the Schotts and walked the short distance to Charlestown Neck.
Fergus and Brandon were almost to the farm when Colm put them to sleep. Abe and Gordon found them lying on the road and carried them home. When the late morning sun’s rays filtered through the windows, both angels woke from where they slept on the living room floor.
Brandon lay awake and stared at the ceiling until Fergus stirred and sat up. “I can sense Michael and Patrick, but Colm, Seamus, and Ian are a void,” Brandon said quietly.
Fergus stood up. His ponytail had come loose from its ribbon. He ran his hands through his thick blond hair.
Brandon wiped his dirty face with his dirty shirt sleeve and got to his feet.
A sudden banging on the farmhouse door startled the angels.
“General Driscoll, are you in there?”
Fergus wiped a hand across his eyes. “I can’t sense Colm, Seamus or Ian, either.”
“General Driscoll! Please, open up if you are there!”
The angels gave one another a long look, then Fergus opened the front door.
Captain Enos Woodbury and three provincial soldiers stood on the front porch. Relief shined on their young faces.
“General!” Enos exclaimed. “Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“The word has spread that we lost many men during the battle yesterday. Some are saying that Dr. Joseph Warren and your archangel, Colm Bohannon, died at Bunker Hill.”
“That’s why I can’t sense him,” Fergus whispered.
“Sir?”
Fergus’ eyes shifted and focused on the men approaching from behind Captain Woodbury. Gordon and Abe were returning from a hunt. They mounted the porch and walked past the soldiers.
Before he went in the house, Abe stopped and said to Fergus, “We need to talk.”
Fergus motioned for Captain Woodbury and the other provincials to come inside. Abe dropped his bag containing the spoils from the hunt. Brandon sat on a couch. His spirit was churning with dread. Fergus shut the door.
Abe looked at each man in the room before he said, “Joseph is dead.”
Joseph Warren had become America’s first martyr. His death would inspire the patriots to keep fighting a war they had tried to avoid.
Brandon put his head in his hands.
“Then, the rumors are true,” Captain Woodbury exclaimed. “How?”
“Robert Percy shot…shot him in the face,” Abe said. “In turn, Gordon killed Robert.”
Brandon raised his head. The despicable demon is finally dead.
Captain Woodbury and the soldiers were aware of what Henry and Robert were. Fergus had spoken the truth weeks ago.
“Brandon and I can’t sense Colm, Seamus, or Ian,” Fergus said. His cheeks dimpled in misery.
“Their human vessels are lying in the redoubt,” Gordon said quietly. “Abe and I have no way of knowing what happened to their spirits.”
“I promised Colm that I would take care of us if he didn’t…survive. Michael and Patrick are alive. Brandon and I need to find them.”
“We would like to stay and wait for your return, if that is alright with you and your family, General Driscoll,” Captain Woodbury said.
Abe spoke for Fe
rgus, “It would please us more than you know. We have plenty of beer and rum.” He reached for his bag of rabbit and quail from the hunt. “And we have supper.”
Beyond the crossroads on the western end of Charlestown Neck, a British blockade surprised John, Patrick, and Michael. A sentry aggressively stepped toward them and shouted, “You cannot pass!”
“Please, I have come to find my brother,” John said humbly.
The sentry looked at the bedraggled angels and curled his lip in disgust. “Perhaps, if you had not brought these swains with you I would have allowed you to pass.” He swept his bayonet up and pressed the sharp tip into John’s breast. “Leave!”
“I will not leave! You must let us pass to find our fallen brothers!”
The sentry shoved his bayonet into John’s chest.
Blood bloomed on John's waistcoat, and he grimaced in pain.
“YA STABBED HIM?” Michael screamed in disbelief. “I’LL KILL YA!” He ran at the sentry and threw his arms around the sentry’s waist. They both fell hard onto the ground.
“No, Michael! Get off him!” Patrick yelled.
He and John tried to pull Michael off before the other sentries got to him. They lost their grip and stumbled backward when he threw his torso upward and tightened his thighs around the sentry’s hips and waist. Michael slammed his elbow into the sentry’s nose.
The sentry screamed and tried to push Michael off by jamming the palms of his hands into Michael’s chest.
Two sentries seized Michael by the arms, but his hysteria was stronger than the sentries’ will to restrain him. He jerked his arms away then slammed his elbow into the sentry’s cheekbone. The bone shattered and blood spurted from the sentry’s eye. The skin on Michael’s elbow split open. Drops of blood spattered the sentry’s already bloody face. The sentry blacked out.
A sentry tried to restrain Michael’s arms again. Patrick kicked the sentry under the chin. The man’s head snapped up. He fell backward and sprawled onto the ground.
John saw the third sentry release the sear on his pistol and aim it at Michael’s face. He screamed, “NO!”
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