by Pierce, SJ
“You’re an Angel, then?” he asked with a trailing, contemplative voice. “Boy was I wrong about you.”
Alyx chuckled. “Yes, you were.”
“But your black eyes, they’re so… frightenin’. Why would you be created to look like that?”
“If you go by the ideals of what humans assume an angel should look like, then yes I would be frightening. Let me guess… white robes, halos, and feathers.”
Isaac coughed again, both of them wincing in synchronization. “Exactly.”
“None of us look like that. And I can only guess that my eyes appear the way they do because my vision takes in every ray of light and color around me. I can see so much better now, even those invisible beasts.”
“So they’re more functional than they are a peek into your soul,” he jibed.
Alyx playfully rolled her eyes. “Something like that.”
Isaac became quiet, and she glanced in the mirror, dying to know his thoughts. He stared at the back of her seat again, his eyes widening with astonishment as though he’d had an epiphany.
“I prayed for you,” he said, and her heart fluttered. “I prayed for you this mornin’. For protection, I mean.” His eyes met hers in the mirror. “And now here you are.”
“Not to belittle your amazement, Isaac, but I’ve been around you a lot longer than that. Three years to be exact.”
“Three-” he choked.
Feeling his discomfort, she squinted. “Yes, three years.”
“Why so long?”
“I’m not sure why I’m sent at a specific time during your life. They don’t really tell us that.”
“Is that why you peeped in my window? You were watchin’ over me? Like a guardian?”
Her new-found comfort with the conversation elevated to thorough mortification. Of course he would bring this up again. It was one of their most dramatic encounters, the very epitome of her feelings for him. How it all began, where it all escalated. Her cheeks colored with embarrassment as she fixed her eyes onto the road, unable to answer.
“Are you… embarrassed?” he said with amusement.
As he awaited her response, she knew that there was one of three ways she could answer the question. The first, not answering it at all, avoiding it altogether. That route, however, would leave him to believe whatever he liked, and her reaction had already told him part of the story. The second option would be to let him run with his first assumption, which was partly true. The first time she did it. The third option was riskier, it meant she would have to put herself out there and confess that she had feelings for him. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, this could very well be their last moments together. This would be her one chance to tell him. To make it official.
“You were partly right,” she replied, and the rosiness in her cheeks brightened. “I had to stakeout your home the first day I arrived. It was part of my orders.”
“Well what about all of the other times?”
Sensing his eager stare through the mirror, her gaze remained straight ahead. It would be easier to admit all of this without looking him in the eyes. “I kept coming back.”
“So, you weren’t watching over me?” he asked with a hint of confusion.
As she formulated her answer, she knew this part of her explanation would paint him a better picture. She clamped her eyelids together for a moment and refocused on the road, her heart racing. “It wasn’t necessary for me to. I was able to feel you at all times.”
The key word she knew he would pick up on was ‘necessary’. It wasn’t necessary for her to be there.
“Why were you then?”
There it is.
She finally found the nerve to cast a glance at him, his eyes portraying his puzzlement, but his lit up face told the story. He had caught on.
I might as well. “The only way to explain it, Isaac, is that I was…
She held on to the sentence for a breath, and finally let it go. “Captivated by you.”
He didn’t have an immediate response this time, and her heart raced faster as she awaited his reply. But she couldn’t look back at him yet, not until he said something. Anything.
“So,” he began, his voice brightening, and her eyes snapped to the mirror to witness his exuberance. A smile covered his pale face, and she couldn’t help but return the gesture as he continued. “You were spyin’ on me then. I knew it! My sexy stalker.”
Alyx’s eyes narrowed with mock contempt. “Like you didn’t hunt me down either.”
“Why wouldn’t I? Look at you! Even in this form you are absolutely stunnin’.”
Her blushing tickled her neck with heat, his flattery overwhelming. Apparently, he didn’t have any qualms about being completely honest with her either.
They sat in silence, each of them musing over their mutual admiration for the other, an electric surge reaching from one end of the car to the other. She practically felt it running through her shield.
“I do need to ask you one thing, though,” he said, his voice flattening, “why the cold shoulder so many times… if you were so ‘captivated’ by me?”
This question also caught her by surprise. And this explanation would be harder to share with him than her feelings were, to acknowledge verbally that she used poor judgment and went against her orders. But she had yet to lie to him during their car ride, where they had already laid everything out in the open, and she didn’t want her pride to allow her to start now. Isaac deserved an explanation. She had invaded his privacy for three months by spying on him through his window and was rude to him in person when he so zealously confronted her. Besides not wanting to lie, it was also important that he understand why she was so cold, that their meeting each another was forbidden.
“Before I give my justification, I want you to know that it killed me to treat you that way.”
“That’s all the clarification you need to give, then.”
“No, I need to. To help you understand. I was told to keep away from you, and we were never to meet, to stay complete strangers. I fear I’ll be punished, as a matter of fact.”
His hand covered his mouth. “Oh, God! Did I get you in trouble by trackin’ you down?”
“Don’t you dare say that,” she said, her eyes cutting through the mirror, “you would never have come looking for me had I not snooped around your building. I would have remained the woman at the bistro that you thought you’d recognized one afternoon.”
His hand dropped, and he flashed his crooked smile. “Oh I don’t know, you made quite an impression on me that day, and I knew you worked with Frederick. I might have decided to anyhow.”
Waiting around to taunt her, her fears of punishment from the Elders skulked around in the back of her mind. But hearing those words from his mouth, that he too was awestruck with her, caused her heart to sing. She would shelve her fears over what might be done to her, and for now, enjoy his company while he was still awake.
“Where are we headed to again?” he asked.
“I wish I knew. I’m not sure where the gateway will take us.”
“Then how do you know there will be people there that can help us find Micah?”
“My Elders will be there. I’ve never met them in person, but during my creation part of their orders were to meet them on the other side of the gateway. I’m sure they will help.” If they’ll listen to me, she thought, knowing they would be the ones to dole out her punishment if they so decided.
“Ok,” he said with a grunt as he readjusted to lay more on his side. “And thank you for keeping your shield up. The pain was a lot worse before you did that.”
“I wish I could do more,” she sighed.
Her shield trembled as he rustled around, and his left hand shot up beside her grasping a black, leather wallet. “Here, a picture of my boy is in there,” he said proudly.
She laid it open on her lap, and Micah’s picture stared back at her. His green eyes were not from Isaac, but the shape of his face, his smile, there was n
o denying that this was his child. To place a face with his name made him real to her now, and sadness shadowed her heart. What had come of Isaac’s beloved? She had never seen him before, but how that could be? He appeared to be a young teenager, still in school. It could have been because she would spy on Isaac late at night when Micah was already in bed.
“He’s handsome like his father,” she mused and flipped the picture over to reveal a folded reel of them in a photo booth, making funny faces at the camera. In one picture, Micah’s tongue protruded from his lips as Isaac gazed into his eyes, smiling at him in adoration, capturing his love for him perfectly.
“We’ll get him back,” she avowed, now more determined than ever.
“How can you be so sure? Look at me. This is what these things are capable of.”
“We can’t afford to think like that, Isaac. We have to believe he’s ok.”
“I don’t know… I had such a bond with Micah, and it’s like I can’t feel him anymore. Like he’s not in this world anymore, as if he’s gone.
When the words trickled from his mouth and into her ear, a chill ran down her spine. What frightened her about his statement was not the terminology within it, there wasn’t sorrow in his voice anymore when he said his son’s name. Not a singe trace of panic. It was as if he had already accepted his fate.
“What if I was meant to die and be with him in the afterlife?”
“Don’t you say that!” she snapped, her voice rising, “that is not the way this is supposed to go. You’re supposed to help us. How could you have this gift, whatever it is, and not be meant to use it?”
“I know what you’re gettin’ at, but I’m a prophet, or so I’ve been told, and…”
Her eyes shot to the mirror to see him gazing through the window, disconnected.
“Isaac? What is it?!” she asked, her emotions teetering on hysteria, “what were you going to say?”
If he were a prophet, wouldn’t he know his own fate? Had he already seen his future? It made sense now why he was so calm about it, which now had the opposite effect on her. Her hand that projected the shield quivered, along with the rest of her body, mortified at what he would tell her.
“Isaac!” she cried and whipped her head around to look directly at him. “What have you seen?!”
The car swerved, and she turned to face the road, the car wobbling as she corrected it.
“We will die if you don’t pay attention,” he said jokingly, attempting to inject some levity into their conversation.
“I’m not kidding! What do you know?”
He forced a smile on his weary face, its phony attempt to console her worries all the more troubling. “Don’t worry. Everythin’ will be fine.”
“Don’t you placate me,” she barked. “If you know something you better spill it!”
Her shield bounced subtly, and she glared into the mirror. He’s laughing?
“You sure are cute when you’re mad.”
Alyx’s glower broke, and she rolled her eyes. Her lips pressed together tightly to keep from smiling.
“I haven’t seen anythin’, Alyx. Let’s keep goin’ and see what happens.”
As she wove around another stray car, he yawned, his eyes drooping. “I think I’ll fall asleep again now whether I want to or not.”
She suspected that his sudden surrender to his drowsiness was more than just that – he conveniently avoided the subject. But she let him drift back off to sleep anyhow; they had talked for a good half hour, and he needed his rest.
The pain lifted as he drifted into a slumber, and she let out a deep sigh. The momentary break was a relief for her also. She glanced at Micah’s picture again. We’ll find you, and I promise to keep your father alive.
* * *
She tapped the brakes to slow the car and turned onto the ramp for Highway 129 North. The pulling of the strings drew tight. We must be getting close. As soon as the wheel straightened, she pressed the pedal to the floor and glanced at the clock on the radio. Nine forty-three. It was a habit to look over at it. The only real aid it gave was to remind her that time leisurely ticked away. They only had a little more than two hours to get there.
The quiet in the cab of the car allowed for her to assess her own condition now. Her stamina slowly faded as the ‘light jog’ she had become accustomed to now wore on her mind and body. Her heart still beat at a steady, accelerated pace, and she drew in deeper breaths to accommodate or her head would spin. Frederick had described to her what it was like to run marathons, and how the first few miles were ‘easy’ as he barely noticed he was running. Around fifteen miles, he would hit a metaphorical wall as fatigue set in. That was the point she was at now, becoming worse for the wear but still well enough to trudge through, although she had no choice but to anyhow.
To steer her mind away from the growing discomfort, she thought back over her and Isaac’s conversation; if he was meant to die, and if Micah was already. His death to her would be devastating in more ways than one, however, death for her was never a frightening concept. She had already been through it twice, both times a serene experience, leaving her human vessel in a slow fade and ascending into the darkness from which she came. Her time there, in between her lives on Earth were like long rests for her soul. Much like a dreamless sleep, time was non-existent. Years appeared to be only a short amount of time, mere hours. Her three hundred years in existence only felt like the eighty-four that she had been alive on Earth.
Birth, on the other hand, was a painful, disturbing event for her kind. Something she would not miss in the least. She more than understood why human’s lives were designed to begin as infants, the traumatic experience of being tossed into an unknown environment erased from their memory as they grew. Their growing pains were gradual until they reached the form they would stay in for the rest of their lives. Angels were not so fortunate. Their abrupt and complete formation demanded pain and agony, with every memory of it a permanently tattooed on their psyche. They didn’t have the sweet fortune of entering the world as humans did, their purpose requiring that they be ready to protect their Marked at a moments notice.
She wasn’t aware of how their places and covers within the world were prepared, but never questioned it. They merely received a rundown of their prearranged lives and were released to the Earth with all the essentials required, including knowledge of current culture and mannerisms, fabricated stories of adolescence, even phony college credentials and other qualifications needed to obtain a job. Just as the Creator designed the intricacies of the universe, he also designed the Angels’ places within the world to protect their true identities.
With each descent, the world and society’s advancement never ceased to amaze her, and this last stint of time was a little more than one hundred years; the advancement of technology, women’s involvement with politics and voting. But as remarkable as human evolvement was, it never fazed her. She adapted rather quickly to her surroundings and into the role that she was given within the world. After all, blending in would be extremely difficult without that capability. That part of her angelic instinct wasn’t broken.
She did wish, however, that she would have been able to protect everyone else that they had left behind, the empty roads indicating that they had vanished as abruptly as Micah had. Everyone she had come to love – Cindra, Frederick, Stacey, her friends at work, even Moe and Agnosio – what were their final experiences? Horrible, nightmarish images flashed through her mind as she imagined what they must have gone through and where they were now. She had yet to see one human body since she awoke from her apartment. She knew that her Marked’s role would be to help in a larger mission of grave proportions, but her Elders never mentioned what the “mission” was. She could only surmise that all of this had to do with the invasion of these beasts.
She had experienced first-hand the atrocities they were capable of, from what they did to Isaac and what Benjamin looked like when she went to his condo. Tears formed again as she thought of the race th
at she had known and loved her whole existence, now seemingly obliterated in one day.
Three lifetimes on Earth gave her a fondness for humans and an appreciation for all of their challenges. Like what it meant to struggle with right and wrong, to be tempted, to experience the joy of new life coming into the world and the pain of losing it. What it meant to have friendships and bonds to others and to truly value everything in creation. She loved living amongst them, watching their downfalls and triumphs and experiencing some of her own. She now had a deep connection to this world and all of its splendor.
While it would never be the same, the thought of this being her final moments here were truly heartrending. She didn’t understand how someone would want to wipe out all of this intricately designed beauty, and hoped to get answers on the other side of the gateway. She also hoped that the precious cargo that she was responsible for could help make this right again and vindicate what was taken and destroyed.
Perhaps Isaac was right about Micah’s fate, but she would never tell him that, nor allow him to continue to entertain that thought for even a moment. She wouldn’t permit him to give up now. His determination was as imperative as hers.
Everything depended on it.
CHAPTER 13:
The Finish Line
Her strings tugged them along Highway 129 until they pulled to the right onto Highway 75, heading straight into the North Georgia Mountains. More empty cars lined the road in each direction, an indication of the once more populated area. Homes sprinkled along the narrow highway, set far back off the road with their porch lights glowing through the darkness. Even though she felt certain that nobody lingered inside them, to see some semblance of a civilization again comforted her.
She passed a grouping of small businesses beside the highway; a boiled peanut stand, an old-fashioned farmers market with white wooden tables huddled under a canvas tent, a log cabin where handmade soaps and candles were sold. Cars sat idle inside the cabin’s dusty parking lot. The owners of them had possibly stopped to buy some fragrant products when the beasts interrupted their ‘normal’ day.
