Misguided Angel: A Parnormal Romance Novella

by Lucy Blue

  She bit down hard on his tongue, tasting something hot and bitter in her mouth before he let her go. She stumbled back and almost fell, scrambling to keep her balance. “Stop it!”

  He was laughing, wiping his mouth. “Aww, come on, Kelsey,” he said. “Don’t be mad.” His smell and the sound of his voice were making her drunk, dragging her toward him like an undertow. His voice was changing again; the words were stretched out to a drawl so familiar, her scalp began to tingle. The change was happening faster this time, his face rippling like he was under rushing water, his body shifting, thickening. She stopped breathing, feeling sick. “Goddamn, Kelsey,” he said in Jake’s sweet Southern drawl, caressing her cheek with Jake’s hand. “I swear I could just eat you up.”

  “Just leave me alone,” she said, her voice coming out in a breathless rasp as she stared into his face, her husband’s face with the devil’s cold, black eyes. “Get away from me.”

  “He told you Jake was safe in Heaven, didn’t he?” He grinned, the sexy, crooked grin that had always made her toes curl up on her husband’s face twisted by the scar into a nasty leer. “That nothing was your fault.” Blue flame flickered in his eyes. “That must have been a relief.” She put her hands over her ears to shut him out, but his voice went on inside her head. “What a crock of shit.” She shut her eyes tight. He was a better mimic than Asher had been. Listening to him, she couldn’t stop herself remembering how formal Jake’s ghost had sounded and how she had thought at the time it was strange. Now she knew he had sounded like Asher.

  “You and I both know where Jake is now.” He was so close now she could feel his icy breath brushing her ear. “And your mama, too.” A hand that felt so familiar she wanted to cry caressed her hair. “But they were both fucked before you got to them; you couldn’t have saved them. But Asher?” He snickered. “Asher’s fall is gonna be all about you.”

  “You’re lying.” She looked at his face then away again, focusing on a candy wrapper on the floor, trying not to hear him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh honey,” he said, laughing. “I know all there is to know about falling from grace over a woman.” His fingertips traced the shape of her jaw. “The Great and Powerful Oz made you all so pretty and so needy….and my brother loves you so much.”

  “Shut up.”

  “But you don’t love him.” He caressed her throat, tracing the line of her pulse. “You love the dead man burning in Hell.”

  “He’s not in Hell,” she insisted, fighting not to flinch. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “You think I don’t know who’s in Hell?” he said. “Asher wants so much to keep you safe. He wants sooo much for you to love him. But bless your sweet heart, you just can’t.” His face was barely inches from hers. “He’ll keep trying and trying and failing and failing. And all the time, I’ll be there, making sure you’re always in danger, giving him something to worry about.” He turned her face to his. “And eventually he’ll be just like me.”

  “No!” She lunged for him, barely knowing what she meant to do. He was still wearing the gun, a silver revolver strapped to his side in a shoulder holster. She grabbed it tight in both hands. “Shut up!” she shouted, pointing it at his face.

  “What are you gonna do, honey?” he said. “Are you going to shoot me?” She was shaking; the gun was still trained on his face, Jake’s face, Jake who she loved more than anybody she had ever known. He grinned as if he’d read her thoughts. “I promise it will hurt you way more than it will hurt me.”

  “Leave him alone!” She was screaming like a child, tears pouring down her face. “Leave Asher alone, and let Jake out of Hell! And my mama, too!” She clicked the safety off.

  “That kind of stuff’s not up to me, Kelsey.” She saw something in his eyes that looked almost like pity, but he grinned. “I’m just the innkeeper; somebody else does the bookings.”

  “You’re lying.” The gun was shaking, useless. “You have to be lying.”

  “Kelsey!” The door crashed open, cracking back against the wall. Asher grabbed the demon Jake and flung him hard against the wall. He hit the television mounted there, and it exploded in a shower of sparks as he slumped to the floor. “Get away from her,” he roared, so loud the whole room seemed to shake. He sounded different; his voice was deeper and rougher. His golden wings were ashy black, and his arms and chest were bathed in blood.

  The demon was laughing before he hit the floor. “Oh my goodness, look at you,” he said, rolling to his back to look up at Asher. “Brother, what have you done?”

  “Kelsey, come away from him,” the angel ordered. “Get out.”

  Kelsey looked down at the gun in her hands, then at the blood on Asher. When he’d fought the demons in the street, their blood had barely touched him; he had stayed clean. But now he was dirty, and his wings were black. “You’re falling.” She put the gun to her own head. “You said that, when you showed me what you were. You said you were falling.”

  “Kelsey, stop it.” He took a step toward her, and she stumbled back, the gun bouncing painfully against her temple, her hand slick with sweat. Asher froze, holding out his bloody hands as if to steady her. “Wait!” He had the same heartbreaking expression she had painted when she had thought he was a figment of her own broken mind. “What he said to you was a lie.”

  “You said you were falling, that it was so easy to fall.” She was crying so much she could barely see; her heart felt twisted in a knot with pain. “You knew then….and it’s my fault.”

  “She’s as smart as she is pretty, Asher,” the demon said. “You lucky dog.”

  “Shut up!” she screamed at him. “And Jake.” She could barely speak, but she tightened her grip on the gun. “He says you lied, that Jake’s in Hell, and my mama is, too.”

  “He’s lying,” Asher said. “Kelsey, please, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I deserve to hurt myself,” she said. “It’s all my fault. All of it.” She let out an animal howl, closing her eyes, and he lunged for her again. Again, she stepped back, the gun barely waving, freezing him again.

  “Kelsey, please,” he begged.

  “I could have saved them both.” Horror was drying her tears; she hated herself too much to grieve. “But I didn’t.” She glanced over at the demon that still looked like Jake. “They belong to him now.”

  “Kelsey, he’s a liar.”

  “Is he lying now?” she asked, looking straight into Asher’s eyes. “He would know, wouldn’t he?” The pain she saw there made her feel sick. “If they went to Hell, wouldn’t he know it?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. He was crying.

  “One was an atheist, the other one a suicide,” the demon said. “Why don’t you give her the odds?”

  “It’s my fault,” she said again, her eyes clouding over. “I did it.”

  “Kelsey, you did not,” Asher protested.

  “I don’t deserve to live.” It all seemed so clear to her now. If she was gone, the demon couldn’t use her to torment Asher any more. Asher didn’t have to fall. And she could be with Jake and her mama forever.

  “Kelsey, don’t try it,” Asher warned. “I’ll stop you.”

  “You can’t,” the demon said, climbing to his feet, blue flames dancing in his eyes. “Free will, remember? I can’t make her do it, and you, my brother, can’t stop her.”

  “Kelsey, please,” Asher begged. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I told her I wished she would die.” She had never told anyone the truth, not even Jake. “The last time we saw her in the hospital, when she was so scared for me, trying so hard to warn me, I was so mad at her for ruining my wedding, for trying to ruin my happiness again. I told her I would never be happy until she was dead. I told her I had prayed to God that she would die since I was eleven years old.” She could still see the look on her mother’s face as she’d said it, the horrible pain in her eyes. “So she did.” Tears ached in her throat. �
��And I let Jake be damned, too. That’s just as much my fault.”

  “Kelsey, no,” Asher protested as the demon giggled.

  “When he was sick, he wanted to believe in God again. He went to Father Tom and asked for help, and he wanted me to go with him, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t pray with him or let him pray or even let anyone mention it. I knew it was real, all of it, Heaven and Hell and all of it, but when he asked me what I thought, I told him it wasn’t. And he believed me; he never went back to the church. I let him die, and I never said a word.” She wanted to run to Asher, drop the gun and let him stop her, let him lie to her again. But she just couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  Pain exploded in her head. The world was drenched in blood. She was falling; Asher was screaming; the demon was laughing. The floor cracked open, and the walls were falling away, crumbling to rubble. She didn’t hit the floor; she kept falling and falling into darkness. Asher swept by her, wings outspread, lunging for the demon, and she reached for him, grabbing his hand. He gathered her into his arms, his wings and arms enfolding her, and they were falling together, plummeting into the dark.

  Purgatory

  Asher felt Kelsey go limp in his arms as they fell, her head lolling back. Looking down, he saw the terrible wound in her head disappearing as her face turned deathly pale. The wind was rushing around them, deafening, making his wings useless. Wrapping arms and wings around her, he surrendered to the wind, holding her tight as they plummeted end over end into the abyss.

  They came to rest after what seemed like hours of mortal time, his feet landing softly on what passed for ground in an almost perfect void. Cold gray mist swirled around them, the only source of light. He laid Kelsey down, barely able to see her in the dark. She stirred slightly, sighing his name, and he drew back from her, watching the mist.

  After a while, a pale, sickly, grayish orange light began to spread across the illusion of a sky. Kelsey moaned, and thick, black tentacles curled up from the ground all around them. Asher braced himself, standing over her, but the tentacles resolved themselves into trees with knotted, spreading roots that covered the ground around them and bare, tangled branches that twisted into a canopy above. The roar of the wind faded into the rasping whisper of insects and other tiny creatures hidden in the dark. Lacy, diseased-looking moss began to snake and drip its way down from the branches, and he could smell the thick, organic stench of swamp water in the distance. Slimy-looking bracken seemed to seep from under Kelsey’s body to spread over the ground, thick and thorny in some spots, thin and bare in others. She rolled to her side, curling up, knees drawn up to her chest, and the heavy clothing she had been wearing in her physical form melted away, leaving a long, white, lacy nightgown, much too big for her and tattered as the moss. Asher crouched a little distance away from her, wings folded behind him, waiting for her to wake.

  Kelsey first became aware of the sound of the frogs and the cicadas, so much like home… She woke with a start and tried to stand up as soon as her eyes were open, tripping over her nightgown. Nightgown? she thought, looking down, confused. She was wearing Mama’s special nightgown, the one with all the lace. It wasn’t one like it; it was the very one.She could smell her mother’s powder and perfume. But it had grown, or she had shrunk; it was too big for her the way it had been when she was a child, wearing it as a treat when she was sick or as a costume, playing bride. “Asher,” she whispered, too scared to cry out. The noises around her made it sound like high summer down home, but she was miserably cold. The wind was like ice, and the ground felt frozen under her bare feet.

  “I’m here,” Asher said from behind her, standing as she turned.

  She rushed back to his arms, almost climbing him, she was holding on so tight. “Where are we?”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead before pushing her away. “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know.” His wings were still black like they’d been at the hospital, but his hands weren’t bloody any more. He was dressed in some sort of dull black armor that left his arms and shoulders bare, and she saw the scars from the night he had saved her from the demons on the street. They were much darker now, livid purple on his alabaster skin. His eyes were darker, too, the crystal blue deepened to midnight. “Asher, what’s happening to us?”

  “Can’t you guess?” She could never have imagined him sounding so cold. “Stop talking to me, Kelsey.” He turned away from her, ruffling his jet-black wings. “I can’t protect you anymore.”

  “Then why are you with me?” She wouldn’t leave him any peace at all; she walked around him, making him face her. “Why are you here?” One side of her face was veiled in a spider’s web spatter of blood spreading out from her temple, making her look like a broken, porcelain doll.

  “I would have done anything to save you,” he said. “I did.” He reached out to touch her cheek then thought of the mortal boy dying, bleeding at his feet, Asher’s holy sword plunged through his chest. He drew his hand back from her, suddenly sick with rage. “I killed for you, Kelsey. Not because I had no choice, not to save some innocent. Someone dared get in my way when I wanted…when I needed to reach you.”

  “Oh my God.” She saw flames dancing in his eyes, purple in the darkness. “Because I called you. It was too late. The damage was already done.” Her eyes stung with tears. “Why did you have to come after me, Asher? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

  He grabbed her and slammed her hard against a twisted tree, his grip bruising her shoulders as his mouth came down on hers. She moaned, her body arching up to him as he pushed his tongue deep in her mouth. He shoved her farther up the tree, her feet leaving the ground as the rough bark scraped her back through the thin nightgown. She clung to him, the heat of his skin pure bliss in contrast to the icy wind. His mouth moved to her throat, licking and biting, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, twining her legs around his hips as he pushed her nightgown up.

  He groaned in agony, pressing tight against her, and the sound echoed around them, thunder on the wind that made the other night sounds stop. Suddenly the tree was moving, twisting and writhing behind her. Cold, clawed fingers tangled in her hair, dragging her head back. Still clinging to Asher, she opened her eyes. The bark of the tree had changed to sleek, reptilian skin, its branches changed to tentacles, a thousand snakes of every size writhing around them. A forked tail snaked up between her legs, lifting her nightgown, one fork tickling her belly as the other snaked around her upper thigh. “Asher!” The demon tentacles twined and curled closer, pressing them tighter together, rubbing her body against his as a thousand wicked little voices whispered obscenities, cackling with glee. A thousand tiny, fanged mouths seemed to be licking and biting at her flesh, whispering her name. “Asher!” She grabbed his hair and wrenched his head up, making him look at her, but his eyes were heavy-lidded and filled with flame. “Help me,” she pleaded, framing his face in her hands.

  “I can’t.” His smile was terrible, hungry and demonic. “You won’t let me.”

  He kissed her, stopping her protests, shutting out the pleading in her eyes. You’re dead, Kelsey, he thought but didn’t say, sweeping the demon’s tentacles away to slide a hand up her hip. I am fallen. This is all we have left.

  His mouth still tasted just as good, she thought; his hands on her body still felt perfect, better, even, reverence replaced with passion. She could surrender so easily, melt into this madness, let herself be caught up in the whirlwind. But she could feel his flesh turning colder as she touched him, smell the first intoxicating whiff of molten metal on his skin. With every moment, more of the angel was lost, and more of the demon was born.

  “No,” she said, tearing her mouth free, her lips stinging as if they’d been glued to his. She pushed against his chest, fighting against the vine-like demon twisted around her to draw her knees up to push him away. “Let go.”

  “Kelsey,” he groaned against her ear, yearning in his voice that made her shiver with
desire of her own. But she heard an echo in the mist, someone else calling her name.

  “Kelsey…” Jake’s voice, distorted but unmistakable. “Kelsey, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you!” The demon thing around her hissed and whined, drawing back slightly. “Asher, let me go!”

  “Trick,” he murmured against her throat, slurring like a drunk. “You know it’s a trick.” He pushed the nightgown off her shoulder, and a slender tentacle curled around the strap to draw it down further.

  “It’s not,” she insisted, twisting away from him. The demon that held them recoiled, tearing at her hair. “I know it’s not.” She pushed at him again, and one of the tentacles slashed across her cheek, tearing a gash in her skin.

  “No!” Asher said, grabbing the tendril that had hurt her and twisting it hard around his fist. The creature shrieked, and the tentacle he held burned to ash in his grip. Suddenly the thing was fighting them both, tearing at their skin with fangs and claws. But Asher was still stronger. He grabbed the tendril wrapped around her waist, the thickest outgrowth from the trunk, and growled something in a language she didn’t understand. The whole tree shuddered, gripping her tighter for a moment before the thick, scaly member dropped useless and dead. Asher caught her as she fell, ripping smaller tentacles away from her as the demon fell back, turning back into a tree.

  “Kelsey!” Jake’s voice called out again. “Where are you?”

  “Kelsey?” her mother’s voice called, overlapping Jake’s. “Are you here? Are you hurt?” She sounded scared to death.

  “I’m here!” Kelsey called, slipping free of Asher. “I’m coming!”

  “Kelsey, no,” Asher said as she broke into a run. “Kelsey, come back!”

  She ran through the trees, stumbling over the twisted roots, the broken, wintry underbrush cutting her feet. “Mama!” she called, stopping to get her bearings. “Jake, baby, where are you?” She heard Asher calling her name from the darkness behind her, but she refused to look back. This was what she’d come here for. “Help me find you!” she called to her husband through her tears. “I want to be with you!”