An Angel On Her Shoulder

by Dan Alatorre

  And nobody can provoke somebody like I can.

  I pointed to the clouds. “You’re a coward! You think I’m afraid of you? At least I’m here! I’m scared and I’m shaking, but I’m here! Where are you?”

  The rain poured forth, ignoring me.

  “You want a fight?” I tossed my phone to the ground and balled up my fist. “Come and get me!”

  The wind howled through the trees, a low moan wrapped in the rustling leaves.

  My heart was racing, almost jumping out of my chest. “You—you went to all this trouble to get me out in the open. It worked. Show yourself to me, dark angel. Here I am.” I thumped my chest. “Come and get me!”

  The wind roared again, hissing words that were almost echoes from somewhere else: I don’t want you.

  I shuddered. Alone in the clearing, I’d made contact. It was here.

  Fear and anger welled inside me, shaking me. I’d fallen for the trap. I glanced at Mallory and Sophie, cowering by the car as the rain pelted them.

  I widened my stance and raised my fists. “I don’t care what you want. You pull all this crap to come after a little girl?” I spit the rain water out of my mouth. “You're not getting her! Over my dead body, do you hear me?”

  I gritted my teeth and shook my flashlight at the sky. “I swear to God, that’s not happening. You’re not getting her. Not today, not ever!”

  A blast of lightning ripped from the sky lit up everything around me in a blaze of white. A huge tree top exploded and crashed to the ground. Across the clearing, a second tree burst at the middle as bolt after bolt of lightning streamed from the sky. Steam poured from a splintered tree, a trail of smoke following its massive trunk as it smashed to earth. The ground shook from the impact.

  A violent crack of thunder filled the air and a blinding white streak sailed past me and exploding on the ground. I covered myself with my arms and fell to my knees.

  Terrified, I forced my eyes open and took a deep breath, hunching my shoulders for the next blast. My head ached and my hand was throbbing.

  Laughter came in the rushing wind. Overhead, clouds moved together in a giant circle. Lightning flashed across the sky.

  Heart pounding, I put a hand on the stump and righted myself.

  This is it. He got us.

  The thunder rumbled and rolled through the trees.

  He got us all.

  My shoulders slumped as a hollowness crept through my gut—an ugly, dark sadness like a cold, bottomless black well had opened inside me. I knew I was going to die right there in that field. First me, then my family. I leaned on my knee, holding back tears, knowing I’d failed to protect my daughter.

  I gazed at the churning sky. Maybe one would be enough. Maybe he’d take me and spare her.

  I swallowed hard, forcing myself to my feet. “Come on, then. Do it.”

  A loud roar filled my ears. I gritted my teeth and cringed, holding my breath and bracing myself for whatever the demon was readying for me.

  The noise grew louder, coming from behind me. I bolted around to see whatever hellish thing was coming to finish me off.

  A single light moved along the hillside, bouncing toward me. I squinted into the darkness. It was a motorcycle.

  A really loud motorcycle, like it didn’t have a muffler. I blinked the rain from my eyes.

  A distant lightning bolt illuminated the scene. A red motorcycle with a pull-behind gray trailer slid sideways down the muddy hill. The rider wore an orange and black jacket.

  Tyree.

  My heart swelled with disbelief and excitement. He was alive.

  How the hell did he manage that?

  He slid to a stop behind Mallory and Sophie, jumping off the motorcycle and stumbling through the mud to them. Mallory pointed at me. Tyree nodded. After a moment, he hunched over and raced out to my position.

  “Here comes the cavalry!” He plopped down next to me at the stump.

  “Tyree!” I slapped him on the back. “How the hell did you get here?” I smiled and shook my head. I couldn’t believe he was here. “You son of a bitch. I thought you were dead!”

  “Come on.” Tyree fumbled with something in his rain coat pocket. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  Thunder rumbled overhead.

  He raised his eyes to the sky and winced. “How you doing out here?”

  “Pretty bad, I think.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it looks like.” He jerked at his pocket, producing a large white cross. “Maybe this will help.”

  He handed it to me. The relic cross.

  The thunder rumbled again.

  I held it up, trying to see more in the darkness. “Does this thing have some special powers?”

  “No,” Tyree said. “But if you can get close enough, maybe you can plunge it into the angel. If you can get him to appear to you. I also brought this.”

  He held up a plastic bottle of water.

  “Water?”

  “Not just water,” Tyree said. “Holy water.”

  I huffed. “You got this out of our cooler over there!”

  “And then I mixed it with this.” He held up a tiny vial. “This is holy water. You mix it with the bottled water, that makes it all holy water.”

  Lightning flashed across the sky. I flinched. “You can do that? It counts?”

  “Yep. When the two waters touch, they are all sanctified. Catholic chemistry.”

  A loud booming thunderclap rolled across the clearing. Things were getting restless. The wind picked up. Tree branches smashed into one another.

  I took the water from his hand. “What’s the plan?”

  “Well, again, if you can get close enough, you can douse him with it. That should do the trick. But do it with conviction. This is no time to be faint of heart.”

  A bolt of lightning turned the clearing white.

  I raised my head from between my shoulders. “No lack of faith, huh?”

  Tyree nodded.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay then.”

  My trembling hands at my sides, I jumped up from behind the stump and shouted at the sky. “Is this your big move, demon? A little lightning? Some rain?”

  I swallowed hard and regripped the relic cross, holding the mixed waters in my other hand. “What are you going to do? I’m here now. Come on. I'm not afraid of you.” I widened my stance and braced for a bolt of lightning, hunching my shoulders. I was scared to death but I had to draw the demon out. I took a quivering breath and shouted. “I’m not afraid of you!”

  Then it occurred to me. Maybe it was afraid of me.

  I wiped the rain from my eyes with my arm. “Are—are you such a coward you can only pick on a little girl?” I frowned at the sky. “Then . . . you're not the strong one. I'm the strong one. Me.” I pounded my chest with the relic cross. “I’m here to fight for that little girl. You’re weak!”

  The clouds rumbled.

  “If you weren't weak you would've done it by now! I’ve got you all figured out! You tried three times, and you screwed up every time. Every time! You’re a failure. You’re weak!”

  Tyree peeked out from behind the stump. “You’re doing great, pal!”

  Then he crouched back down.

  Breathing hard, I took a few steps and held my arms out. “You think you beat us? You won nothing!” I looked around, shrugging my shoulders. “Here we are, in the middle of nowhere, right out in the open. Where are you?”

  There was a rumble, and a flash.

  I shook my head and screamed at the sky. “I am not going to live my life running from you, do you hear me? I won’t. Here I am. Show yourself to me, dark angel!” I took a deep breath, as if shouting louder would summon the spirit from its world. “I’m shaking and I’m scared, but I’m here! Prove that you are not afraid of me!”

  The sky lit up with lightning flashes and booming thunder. Out in the clearing, a faint flicker of light glowed. I clenched my jaw and took a step toward it.

  The flicker turned blue and g
lowed, like a reflection of distant lightning off a deep lake. It swirled and moved, an embodiment of energy or electricity. It was the blue flash I’d seen on the face of the man in the park all those years ago.

  Lightning rippled across the sky.

  I crept toward the glow, squeezing my relic cross. “I’m not afraid of you.” I was gasping, scared and hesitant, easing my way across the clearing inch by inch. “A person who was afraid would run. I’m not running.” I swallowed hard. “I’m done running from you.”

  The ball hovered before me, swirling and glowing in the night.

  I stared at it, shaking my head. “You can’t defeat me. You don't have the power to defeat me. You couldn’t defeat my daughter, not even when she was a baby in her crib.”

  I spat on the ground and gritted my teeth. “You’re a coward and you’re afraid of me.”

  A blast of lightning flashed again as a massive wind gust threw me to the ground.

  The voice rumbled in the echoes of the thunder. I am not afraid of you.

  Lifting myself to one shoulder, I glared at the light. “Of course you are. You’ve been afraid to face me. Even now, it was me who had to draw you out.”

  The skies rumbled again.

  I rose to my knees. “Here I am. You won’t get a much easier target than this. You’re still a coward, hiding behind the wind, hiding in the trees like a little scared animal.” I stood, clutching my weapons at my side. “Show me what you've got. Because I don’t believe you can do it. You're not powerful enough.”

  A loud groan rolled through the clearing. Lightning cracked through the sky and another tree fell.

  The voice became just a rumble. In the blue light, a pair of eyes appeared. Huge and grotesque, like fiery spheres they stared at me from the electric blue cloud. It swirled and stretched, growing to ten feet tall, then twenty, brandishing massive teeth and a wide, curled cat’s maw. On the sides of the naked skull, long pointy ears made of sinew and skin, like a pig’s. Flames danced behind its eyes and inside its mouth.

  The ground shook and the lightning flashed at its appearance, the wind emanating outward from the beast.

  I shuddered, backing up a step. It seemed amused at my shock. Then it spoke in a thunderous, booming voice.

  Who are you, to dare confront me?

  I blinked the water out of my eyes. “I’m the only one that matters.” I held up the relic cross. “I’m telling you, dark angel, you will leave this child alone!”

  It snarled. Lighting rippled over the trees.

  Sloshing toward it in the mud, I held the relic cross high and put the water bottle to my mouth. I clamped the cap in my teeth. With a twist, it popped open. I spit the cap out and stepped forward, squishing and sinking in the soggy ground.

  I leaned forward and brandished the cross again. “Dark angel, you will leave this family alone!”

  Laughter rolled through the clearing, riding on the thunder. Heavy rain poured down upon me.

  “No? How does ‘fuck you’ work for you, then?”

  The demon growled and the blue cloud swelled, surging higher. Light bounced all around. It loomed in front of me. A ripple of lightning flashed again.

  The cross burned in my upraised hand as I neared the face of the dark angel. It was a vision of Hell itself, a gaping, snarled lion’s mouth with a throat filled with flames. Boiling red eyes peered out from under a mane of satanic fire, worse than any image of the devil from any Sunday school class I'd ever gone to.

  A long, spindly yellow arm uncurled from the ball, pointing. You!

  It wasn't pointing at me. It was pointing past me toward Mallory and Sophie. I looked back to see my daughter’s eyes, mesmerized in the blue glow.

  I turned back to the demon. He grew larger, swirling with energy.

  I held up my hands and squeezed my eyes shut against the blinding blue light, running at the demon. I flung the cross high into the swirling blue cloud. As I did, I lifted the water bottle. “Holy water of God and the Church, mix with this water and become one!” I waved the bottle back and forth, flinging its contents everywhere. “Mix with this rain water and become one!”

  I splashed it onto the muddy ground. “Mix with these puddles and become one!”

  Then I reared back and took a deep breath, heaving the rest at the face of the dark angel.

  A piercing scream filled the air. The skies flashed white as the demon’s face opened wildly in a hellish scream. A brilliant shock of lightning burst forth with a deafening crash of thunder, shaking the ground and ringing in my ears.

  I fell to the ground as the demon burst into a screaming ball of fire. It howled in pain as the Holy water seared it, burned it, ripped through it. Flames shot out in all directions as a gigantic explosion of thunder roared through the clearing.

  It knocked me backward into the mud. I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the white-hot flames, grimacing as the dark angel was consumed. Its scream bounced off the tree tops and folded into a distant rumble of thunder as the last of its blue embers faded into the night.

  I laid my weary head back onto the wet grass and let the cold rain wash over me. The drops just floated down gently on me now, and there was silence.

  In the sky, as the fading lightning flickered in the distance, I thought I saw a woman’s face. A different face, warm and kind, barely visible in the outline of a cloud. A round face, with bright eyes and dimples, smiling at me.

  The last traces of lightning dissipated with the wind, and the clearing was dark.

  Chapter 43

  I flexed my jaw, trying to get the ringing in my ears to dissipate.

  “Hey,” Tyree said, grabbing me. “Are you okay?”

  Lifting my head, I blinked the rain out of my eyes and nodded. “I’m okay.”

  “Come on.” He put a hand under my arm and helped me to my feet.

  I stared at the sky, scanning the clouds for the face. Little flickers of distant lightning lit the horizon. The image was gone.

  Tyree tugged my arm. “How about we get out of this field before we get struck again?”

  I looked at him. “Struck?”

  “You got straight-on blasted by lightning, amigo! A direct shot. Came right down where you were standing.”

  The grass around me was knocked flat, but otherwise it didn’t seem any different. As the ringing in my ears subsided, I realized I was still holding the relic cross.

  “Here we go.” Tyree slung my arm over his shoulder. “One foot in front of the other.”

  The wind tugged at us as we made our way to the car. “Tyree,” I said as I limped along. “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you’re with us. But I have to ask. I saw your office. Nobody could have survived that. The blood—”

  “Animal blood.” He shook his head. “It was pig’s blood or something. Supposed to scare me.”

  “It sure scared the heck out of me!”

  “Nah. When they broke in the front door, I went out the back window. Then they trashed the place and burned up my car.”

  I cocked my head. “Who did?”

  Tyree stopped and looked at the sky. “I’d say it was some friends of whoever was doing all this with you. Like how they did with that winery guy.”

  “And here you are.” I trudged through the mud. “Riding in on your loud as hell Harley to save the day.”

  He smiled. “I said you’d know it when you heard it.”

  I still couldn’t get over his being here. “How did you find us?”

  “I got your messages.” He held up his cell phone. “The cell towers were out because of the hurricane, so when I got to a pay phone, I called in and checked my messages. By then, I couldn’t call you back. I went by your house and saw that you were gone, but you’d already told me that you were going to Atlanta, and to what hotel.” He shrugged. “When I spotted your big old Navigator CIA car wrecked down here, I knew it was you guys.”

  It was all very matter of fact. Pure Tyree.

  When we got near the car, Mallory and S
ophie ran out and greeted me with a big hug.

  “Are you okay?” Mallory squeezed me. There was concern in her eyes.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay. Don’t worry.” I pulled them close and looked at the clearing. “We’re all okay. It’s over. The dark angel thought we would run, or that we would be too afraid to do anything. It didn’t think we’d fight.” I reached down and patted my daughter’s head. “It was wrong.”

  I reached out to shake Tyree’s hand. “Thanks for all your help, my friend.”

  He grasped my arm and leaned in, whispering. “How do you know for sure it’s over?”

  “Well . . .” I gazed up at the clouds. “Let’s just say a little bird told me.”

  Tyree grinned. “You saw something out there, didn’t you?”

  I smiled back. “They can’t win this game. They’ll move on to an easier target, or they’ll quit, but they won’t be back.”

  “Son of a gun.” Tyree chuckled. “That’s good news.”

  He peered over at where he had left his motorcycle. A tree had fallen on it during the storm, crushing it.

  “Oh, are you kidding me?” Tyree groaned.

  A car horn honked. Several drivers had pulled off the highway and were waving to us.

  “Hey,” I said. “Looks like we might be able to catch a ride and get out of this rain.”

  Tyree nodded, grumbling. “I’ll go check it out.” He stared at his Harley and made the sign of the cross. Then he moved off toward the hill.

  I took a deep breath and scanned the grassy field again, holding my wife and daughter close. The lightning had moved on and the rain had lessened. The light, cool drops felt good on my face.

  I patted Sophie’s shoulder. “We’re not afraid of some rain, are we sweetie?”

  Her big eyes peered up at me from under her poncho as she clung to my waist. “Maybe a little.”

  I laughed. “Okay, maybe a little.”

  On the highway, headlights from a few cars lit the cab of a trucker on a CB radio.

  “I’ll wait for the police and the tow truck, honey.” I kissed the top of Mallory’s head. “Why don’t you and Sophie catch a ride with Tyree and one of these other drivers, and go on ahead to the hotel? Get out of this weather, get dried off?”