by Elise Marion
“Wait!” she called out before he could retreat from the room.
Turning in the open doorway, he leaned against the frame. “Yes?”
Twisting the bedsheet draped across her waist with both hands, she forced herself to swallow past the lump in her throat.
“I saw my mother … in Hell.”
Reniel came back into the room and closed the door, resuming his place at her side. Concern softened his features. “Are you certain it was her?”
Taking a deep breath, she released it on a shaky exhale, thinking back to the moment she’d come face to face with Elizabeth. Tears welled in her eyes as she relived watching the woman go up in flames.
“It was so real,” she whispered. “During my first test, the demons took on the forms of Jack and Micah … I eventually saw through the façade and realized it wasn’t them. But this … when I saw her, and heard her voice, it felt more real than anything I’ve ever experienced. Reniel, I could smell her.”
He reached out to take her hand between both of his massive ones. “I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been for you,” he murmured. “But, if demons can mimic Micah and Jack, then it stands to reason they could accurately conjure the image and voice of Elizabeth. What you saw might have been an illusion.”
“But the reality of it can’t be ignored,” she cried, choking back a sob. “She begged me to stay with her and start over. I could have had the life with her that I always wanted, but I turned my back on her for this cause. What if my mother really is in Hell, and I could have saved her? I just abandoned her, and I …”
She paused, another sob bubbling up in her throat. Using her free hand to wipe at her tears, she sniffled and fought to regain her composure. It had not been her intention to break down in front of Reniel.
Placing a hand on her shoulder, he gave it a light squeeze. Suddenly, the urge to sob and wail ceased, and her breathing calmed. Just as he had the day they’d first met, with a single touch, he had flooded her entire being with peace and calm. With a sigh, she fell back against the pillows, her muscles pliant and relaxed.
“Listen to me,” he urged. “If a person’s eternal fate is torment in Hell, there is nothing anyone can do to change that—not even you. The offer that you were faced with was a false one, a trick that would have seen you trapped right alongside her. If Elizabeth is, in fact, suffering in Hell, then it is due to her own choices and sins.”
“She wasn’t the best person,” Addison agreed. “But Hell is for murderers and rapists, and people who sell their souls, right? Does she really belong there?”
Sighing, Reniel shook his head. “That is not for me to say. On the one hand, she attempted to murder you with drugs while you were still in her womb. She also turned her back on the Guardians and lost her powers. She put you in danger by allowing her husband access to you. On the other hand, she atoned a bit by securing a Guardianship for you. She felt remorse for the things she did, and wanted to make it right. I believe, for what it’s worth, that she loved you, regardless of her failings.”
Addison knew that, despite still harboring a bit of anger and bitterness at Elizabeth for what she’d endured as a child. Much of it could have been avoided by better choices on her mother’s part.
“Please, Reniel,” she whispered. “Is there any way you can find out for sure whether she’s in Heaven or Hell?”
He frowned, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Addison, but that is not possible. There is a reason that the dead and living are separated by worlds. I am not allowed—”
Despite wanting to become angry, she found herself unable to due to Reniel’s influence. Her voice remained even and steady.
“I got dragged down into Hell and subjected to torture,” she countered. “I literally almost died down there. Can’t God make an exception in his precious rules just this once? After all I’ve been through for Him, for this cause, I would hope I’d earned that much.”
Regarding her in silence for a long moment, Reniel seemed to wrestle with indecision. She knew that he was more sympathetic than most angels to the plight of humans. Because he spent so much time around them, he possessed empathy and a soft spot for people in pain. She hated to take advantage of that, but she had to know the truth. She didn’t think she could continue in this fight if she had to wonder day in and day out if her mother was being tormented in Hell.
“I can make no promises,” he hedged, rising to his feet again. “But I will inquire for you. Whatever the decision is, you must respect it, Addison.”
His tone held a warning she couldn’t ignore. Nodding in agreement, she decided to take what she’d been given. Angering God wasn’t something she wanted to do. After all, she knew exactly how that had turned out for her mother.
Nodding in satisfaction, Reniel left her alone, closing the door behind him with a silent click. Turning over onto her side, she rested her chin in her hands and attempted to find sleep. Despite being exhausted, she found it difficult to drift off when her mind now raced in so many directions at once.
There was so much more to be tackled once she left this bed. She had her brother to get to know, as well as the recruitment of her other siblings to take part in. There also remained the issue of Jack and Micah.
Lying there alone, she experienced a deep twinge of loneliness in her gut and found herself wishing she wasn’t by herself. Burrowing further beneath the covers, she realized that even as she wished she didn’t have to be alone, she had no notion which of them she would want beside her.
Micah blinked and shook his head, fighting to refocus his attention on the neat rows of boudin cooking on the grill in front of him. Cringing, he flipped the sausages over and discovered two of them had burned—and not in that dark, crispy skin way, either. They would be inedible. With a huff of annoyance, he retrieved a pair of tongs and lifted them one by one, turning to hurl them into the closest garbage bin.
Mama Jo would have been annoyed with him if she’d been around to witness the burned boudin. Not because of the lost food, but because she knew as well as he did that half-assing it in the kitchen could result in way worse situations than charred sausages.
“Concentrate, you couyon,” he muttered to himself.
It became harder by the hour to keep his mind on his work when it was bogged down with so many other things. The brooding kid who had taken up residence in his and Jack’s living room. A looming war between Eligos and Lucifer, with Guardians, Oracles, and Naphils trapped in the middle. One very fractured relationship with his partner, which he had no notion how to fix.
And then there was Addison.
It had taken everything in him not to hunker down in Elizabeth’s trailer and wait for her to wake up. Despite a visceral need to be near her while she was suffering through the aftermath of her trip into Hell, he understood the wisdom in giving her space. Too much had happened in such a short time. Jack had risen from the dead, they’d uncovered Eligos’ true purpose in creating so many Nephilim, and Addison had let the cat out of the bag about their little moment of weakness. Then, Lilith had showed up, dragging two Guardians and an Oracle into Hell and forcing Addison to fight to free them.
The last thing she needed was Micah close enough to add to the burden. He wasn’t scheduled to stand watch over her until later tonight, and it was barely noon now. There was no telling how she might react to his presence, considering the mess he’d made the night she’d told Jack about them. His partner had had every right to be angry, even if the things he’d said in the heat of the moment had been a bit over the line. Honestly, Micah had been called worse names than ‘redneck’ before, and should have taken it all in stride.
Instead, he’d gone and done exactly what Jack had accused him of—made a messy situation even messier. He wouldn’t blame Addison if she slammed the trailer door in his face when he showed up for guard duty.
Finishing off the plates he’d been working on, he shoved them through the window and hollered for the waitress on duty to come get them
.
“Hey, Ray,” he muttered to the other cook helping man the grill during the lunch rush. “Things seem to be quietin’ down. I’m gonna step out back for some air. Yell if you need me.”
Ray didn’t reply out loud, but executed a salute with his spatula—Micah’s cue to leave.
Removing the backwards baseball cap he wore to keep his hair out of the way while cooking, he shook his curls free and snatched off his grease-stained apron. Hanging them both on the hook near the exit of the kitchen, he pushed through the door leading toward Mama Jo’s office and another out to the alley.
He came up short when he found Mama Jo standing out in the hall with Jack. The two were embracing, and she was holding on to him as if she didn’t want to let go.
“I’m gonna miss you around here,” she said, her voice strained as if she were about to cry.
“Oh, come on,” Jack crooned. “Don’t cry on me. I’ll still be living upstairs.”
Pulling back a bit, she gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger.”
Flashing her a wide smile, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Never. Thank you … for everything you’ve done for me.”
“I’m always here if you have a need,” she replied, reaching up to touch his cheek.
With another wave, Jack began backing away toward the door. Noticing Micah standing there, he faltered for a moment, but didn’t speak.
Mama Jo glanced back and forth between them before silently retreating into her office. Jack turned and opened the back door, stepping out into the alley. Pausing, he held it open and glanced up at Micah, seeming to wait for him to follow.
Turning sideways to navigate the narrow hall, he moved through the open door, pacing toward the brick façade of the building next door as Jack allowed the door to swing closed behind him.
“Skippin’ town?” he quipped, hoping to lighten some of the tension.
Leaning against the door, Jack raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you want? For me to leave?”
Micah scowled. “Don’t be dense.”
“Then don’t ask dumb questions,” Jack snapped. “I’m not going anywhere … I quit my job today.”
“Why?” he asked, creasing his brow.
He’d gotten Jack the job waiting and bussing tables at Mama Jo’s shortly after they’d become partners and gotten tasked with this mission. While Micah figured he’d probably always work cooking in someone’s diner, the job was only supposed to have been temporary for Jack—as was his residence in New Orleans. Seven years later, Jack had taken on some of the management duties that Mama Jo felt he was suited for, but still mostly spent his shifts waiting tables. It had never occurred to Micah to ask him what his plans were after this mission of theirs had ended … because, it seemed there would never be an end.
Taking a deep breath, Jack released it on a sigh, running a hand over his hair. “Look, we don’t have to do this. I know you’re still pissed at me, and you’re not exactly my favorite person right now, either—”
“You’re still my podna,” Micah grumbled, staring down at his feet. “We don’t have to be friends right now, but goddamn it, Jack, I give a shit about what happens to you. This mess that’s goin’ on right now … we’ll get over it, in time. Now, tell me what the hell is goin’ on with you.”
Jack’s mouth twitched as if he fought back a smile. “The thing about dying is, once you get to come back, you start to think long and hard about all the crap that’s wrong with your life. I had plenty of time in Purgatory to do nothing but sit and think.”
Micah nodded in understanding, but remained silent. They hadn’t had a chance to talk about Jack’s experience on the other side once this business with Addison had gotten in the way.
“I realized that even though I did the honorable thing, stepping up to serve as a Guardian, I had allowed the rest of my life to stall,” Jack continued. “I’m turning twenty-six in a few weeks, and I haven’t done any of the things I’d planned.”
“Bein’ a Guardian tends to get in the way of normal life,” Micah reminded him.
Hell, he’d seen his fair share of Guardian families—some of which were blended with Oracles like his grandparents. But, situations in which those relationships actually worked out and remained functional were rare. His mother and stepfather had worked their asses off to stay together, and Micah admired the hell out of them for it. But they were the exception, not the rule.
“It doesn’t have to,” Jack insisted. “I’ve seen it with my dad and Sarah, Elian’s parents … it’s possible. We can still fight for the cause of Heaven while carving out a real place in the world for ourselves. I died, Micah! I literally drowned in my own blood and watched the entire world around me go black. It was the scariest shit I’ve ever been through, and all I could think was that my time was up and I had nothing to show for it.”
He lifted his hand, raising the object he held into Micah’s view. The large envelope had hung at his side, and Micah hadn’t paid any attention to it until now.
“But this,” Jack said. “This is the beginning of me having something to show for my life.”
Inclining his head, Micah read the neat black words typed onto the label stuck on the envelope.
Civil Service Application: New Orleans Police Department.
His eyes widened. “You wanna be a cop?”
A smirk curved Jack’s mouth, and he shrugged. “The tradition among Bennett men is military service, but now isn’t exactly a good time for me to enlist. The only thing I ever wanted to be, besides a soldier like my dad, and a Guardian, was a police officer. I figure, there’s no time like the present, especially after just being raised from the dead.”
Micah understood Jack’s desire to be a cop. The protective nature of a Guardian was something no amount of loss or hurt could steal from him. Micah, on the other hand, had been struggling for years to conjure the empathy to fight for people who didn’t even know he was in the battle for their souls.
He nodded, stepping forward to offer Jack his hand. “Good for you, podna.”
Jack glanced down at his hand as if uncertain, but then reached out and clasped it tight. “Thanks. I gotta go work on this application, and then I have guard duty with Addie until your turn.”
At the mention of Addison, his blood ran cold. Jack had risen from the dead full of optimism and ready to take on the world. Obviously, Addison factored into these grand plans.
Meanwhile, Micah had no notion of how he was going to get past the next twenty-four hours, never mind the next five or six years.
He was ill-equipped to fight Jack for Addison. If someone were to measure the odds of him winning her in the end, they’d likely calculate them at zero, then laugh in his face.
“You need to borrow my truck?” he asked, for lack of anything better to say.
“No, I’m good,” he replied. “Antoine let me borrow one of his bikes.”
Glancing down the alley, he spotted the Oracle’s motorcycle next to a parking meter on the street.
“Nice crotch rocket,” he muttered. “Try not to break your neck on it.”
Jack laughed. “My dad used to have one, and he taught me to ride. I don’t know … I’m thinking about getting one myself.”
Micah waved him off, ready to go back inside. Maybe mending his partnership with Jack would be easier than he’d thought. He certainly hoped one mistake couldn’t ruin seven years of friendship—even if that so-called mistake had been one of the best moments of his life.
His hand was on the doorknob when Jack’s voice called out to him again.
“I saw Tracy while I was stuck up there.”
He froze, his hand tightening on the knob. A sudden tension seized his chest, and he turned his head to glance back at Jack.
“What?” he rasped, uncertain he had heard correctly.
“Tracy,” Jack repeated. “Michael let me talk to her while I was in Purgatory. She was the one who convinced me to let go of my anger over the past and move on. I
didn’t even realize how much baggage I’d been carrying around until she made me see it.”
His throat had begun to constrict, and he felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. His sister was in Heaven … something he had known instinctively, but having it confirmed was another matter altogether.
“How did she …” he paused, swallowing past the lump welling in his throat. “How was she?”
Jack smiled. “Beautiful. Happier than I’d ever seen her. She’s at peace, Micah.”
A tear splashed his cheek, and he swiped it away as quickly as he could. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried—couldn’t even recall shedding a tear at her funeral.
Coming toward him again, Jack reached out and gripped his shoulder. “Look, no matter what happens between us concerning Addison … you have to know that I want good things for you. So did Tracy. She said as much to me when I saw her. From up there, she can see you … and I don’t think I have to tell you that she’s worried.”
Micah glanced down at the ground, at the door, anywhere but at Jack. Shame flooded him at the thought of Tracy being able to see what he’d become—a bitter, jaded drunk, no longer as dedicated to his cause as he should have been.
“It’s not too late,” Jack murmured, releasing his shoulder. “Don’t make the mistake of dying like I did with nothing to show for your life but regret.”
With that, Jack retreated down the alley, leaving him alone. Micah stood there for a while, staring numbly at the closed door. A few seconds later, he faintly registered the sound of Antoine’s motorcycle starting up, then fading away as Jack rode off.
Standing at the end of the alley and gazing off toward the street his partner had just driven away on, Micah experienced the very real feeling of being left behind.
Reaching into his back pocket, he retrieved his phone, blinking away the remnants of the tears that had begun making his vision grow hazy. The screensaver flashed away to reveal the photo of Tracy he used as a backdrop. She was out on his boat, the sun shining and making the strands of her dark hair glow. The impish grin that she had almost never been without curved her mouth.
