Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One)

by C. L. Coffey

“Kurt?” I asked, snickering. I glanced around the room. There was one person sat waiting and the odd officer walking through, so I turned my back to them and dropped my volume.

  “Angel? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, I need to speak to Michael.”

  “Michael?” he repeated. “What happened in the six hours since you left here? You were supposed to be training with me an hour ago.”

  He was going to find out anyway. “I may have gotten arrested,” I admitted. There was a long pause and then a lot of laughter. “Cupid,” I sighed, irritably. “Just put me through to Michael.” With any luck, he would have gotten over it by the time I got back.

  The laughter disappeared, followed by a couple of rings, and then the phone was answered. “Michael.”

  “Hi Michael,” I greeted him as cheerfully as I could muster. “It’s me. Angel,” I added, just in case he knew another female with an English accent.

  “Angel?” he repeated, sounding as surprised as Cupid had. There was a small pause. “What are you doing on South Broad Street?”

  “I’m at the police department,” I admitted, wondering how he knew where I was. Did I have some form of GPS tracking device on me that I didn’t know about? “I may have gotten arrested.”

  There was a very long silence, which had me twisting the phone cord around my finger nervously. “Stay where you are.” Then he hung up.

  I cradled the phone and walked outside. It was like walking into a wall of water. I’m not sure where Cupid had gotten his facts from, but it was really humid. Strangely though, even as I sat on the low wall in front of the precinct, waiting for Michael as the sun beat down on me, I wasn’t hot. No doubt some kind of angel side effect. I tilted my head back, ignoring the occasional passerby, and closed my eyes. The feel of the sun on my face was pleasant.

  It took about twenty minutes for Michael to appear. He pulled up in a silver Yukon and stepped out. If I am honest, it’s not the kind of car I expected an archangel to drive. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it really wasn’t that. He was in a similar gray suit to the day before, although this time he had accessorized with a pair of sunglasses.

  He walked over, looking as disapproving as Leon had. His gaze fixed on something on my thigh and I glanced down. I hadn’t really paid much attention, but my outfit was covered in scuffs and blood. “It’s not mine,” I quickly told him.

  His eyes travelled higher to meet mine, and as soon as he saw my face, he pulled the sunglasses off. “Angel, you have a black eye.”

  My hand went instinctively up to my eye. I was ready to apologize for it and to explain what had happened, when we were joined by Leon. “You must be the brother,” he said to Michael.

  I bit my lip, ready for everything to come crumbling down, but without missing a beat, Michael nodded. Even more astonishingly, he introduced himself to Leon with an English accent. Not only was it English, but it matched my northern one, not a dodgy attempt at cockney or English upper class. It took everything in me not to let my mouth hang open.

  “Thank you for looking after her,” Michael told Leon. “I was worried when she didn’t meet me for lunch.”

  “You shouldn’t let her go to bars by herself. She was lucky this time,” Leon warned him. I wasn’t going to say anything because, at the end of the day he had released me without any charges, but please. I was twenty, not fifteen and sneaking away from my parents.

  “Thank you,” Michael told him again, before turning to me. “Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

  I gave Leon a small smile and hurried to the car, sinking into the passenger seat. Outside, Michael was shaking Leon’s hand then he joined me in the car. I waited until we had pulled away before turning to face him. “That is the best fake, northern English accent I have ever heard. And angels can drive?” I asked. I will admit it; I was a little in awe.

  Michael let out an exasperated sigh and shot me a glare. “Angel, what were the rules I gave you?”

  “No sex, no drugs, no drinking, and I know I was in a bar, but I didn’t do any of them.” Unfortunately. “Don’t tell anyone what I am, and don’t take anyone to the convent,” I listed, ticking them off on my fingers. “I didn’t do any of them. Except maybe tell Joshua I was an angel, but you said that was alright.”

  “If you get arrested, you run the risk of having your fingerprints taken. It may take them a while, but it wouldn’t have taken them long to realize they needed to check immigration.” He had a point. Even if it was a few years ago now, I still remember my fingerprints and retina being scanned as I entered the country through Philadelphia. “Judging from the greeting that detective gave me, I suspect you told him you were on vacation. What happens if you meet him again, a month down the line?” he glanced at me. “More to the point, you are a minor. That could have been a lot worse.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” I muttered. “I was a little preoccupied in hoping that they wouldn’t properly ID me.”

  “Every action has a consequence, Angel,” he warned me. “And you need to be extra careful. You need to think before you act.”

  He was right. Only that’s not me. I act first, think later, and I also suffer badly from foot-in-mouth disease. “Why is it alright for Joshua to know, but no one else can?” I asked him.

  Michael gave me a look that said you’re really asking me that? “How would you feel if people were stopping you all the time, asking for miracles you couldn’t possibly give them?”

  Yet another good point. I sighed and turned my attention to the world outside the car window. We were almost at the convent now. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

  “You are forgiven,” Michael told me. He pulled up outside the back gate and produced a small control from the door pocket. Seconds later, the giant black gate slid open and we drove in.

  As I had yet to explore the convent properly, I hadn’t discovered the small fleet of silver GMC Yukons that lined up in a small parking lot. There had been some serious money spent here. “Exactly how much does your congregation donate?” I asked Michael in amazement.

  “If you need them, these vehicles are at your disposal,” he told me, once again avoiding answering my question. “The keys can be located behind the front desk. Right now, you need to find Cupid and begin your archery training.”

  I slid out of the car and trudged around to the front of the building, keeping my head down as I passed some of the model-like angels in the gardens. Judging from the looks I was getting, word of my morning adventures had already reached them. I was going to murder Cupid when I found him.

  He was behind the front desk, reading today’s issue of the Times-Picayune. “Don’t tell me I’m in that,” I groaned as I leaned over to see what he was reading: horoscopes.

  “Hardly,” Cupid grinned. He looked up and his expression turned to one of horror. “Angel, what did you do to that outfit?”

  “I’m fine by the way,” I told him, pointing at my eye.

  “That will be gone by tomorrow,” Cupid informed me, waving it aside. “But those stains? Blood is impossible to get out.”

  “I’m talking bloodstains with Cupid,” I muttered. “I’m never going to be able to celebrate Valentine’s Day again. You need to teach me archery, by the way.”

  Cupid looked me up and down. “Girl, there are more important things I need to teach you first.”

  “That’s fine,” I told him, hopping up onto the counter. I pulled the paper over to me and turned to the front page. “I’ll read this while you tell Michael.”

  Cupid snatched the paper out of my hands and tossed it behind him. “Yeah, yeah. Get your butt off my reception desk,” he ordered, slapping the body part. “I will just have to teach you the other part in your free time.”

  I jumped off and followed him into the building. “You mean I get free time?” I asked him.

  “Not anymore you won’t,” he informed me, grinning.

  He led me to the locker room, where I stood in the doorway, eyeing up rows of lock
ers. “So which is mine?” I asked him.

  “What’s your room number?” he asked me.

  Without answering him, I located the locker numbered 238 and pulled it open. It dawned on me that I had yet to find a door that was locked in this building. It was one thing to trust other angels, but what if someone else got in the building?

  Inside the locker were two pairs of bright white Nike’s, and three sets of gym clothing. I pulled them out. They consisted of a white sports bra and a pair of white Lycra cycle shorts. I turned to give Cupid an unimpressed look. “White?” I moaned. “I can’t keep white clean.”

  “Evidently,” he agreed, nodding at my clothes. “Get changed. I will meet you in the gym.”

  I slammed the locker door shut and stormed off to the changing rooms, pulling the clothing on. I have no idea who kept acquiring my clothing, but they were doing an excellent job in getting my size right. Dressed, I made my way into the gym.

  Like the rest of the rooms I had seen, it had dark wooden floors and the walls that were empty were cream. As soon as I had the time, I was buying some paint and painting my room sky blue. Assuming that wasn’t breaking any rules, of course.

  The gym was a large room. All down one long side stretched the windows, while the other was covered floor to ceiling in mirrors. The room had been split into two with a glass wall and the half of the room I was in was a large hall. The other side was equipped with weight machines, treadmills, cross trainers, and a punching bag that someone was sending flying back and forth.

  Whoever it was, Cupid was busy watching them, his head cocked. I stepped through the open doorway into the far side of the gym, and discovered it was Veronica. She was wearing the same workout outfit as me, and it was a little strange to see her in white. That being said, the eyeliner was still there.

  “You were holding back on Cupid earlier,” I noted.

  She paused in her punching, and nodded. “That’s because his vessel bruises easily.” She resumed her punching, the bag again flying. There was some serious exertion going on there and she hadn’t even broken a sweat, much less started breathing heavily.

  “I thought the cherubim weren’t allowed to fight?” I asked Cupid.

  Veronica paused again. “When the war comes, I’m not hiding in a kitchen. Michael is going to need all the help he can get.”

  “And that means you,” Cupid told me, linking his arm through mine. “Catch you later, Ronnie,” he called over his shoulder as he dragged me outside.

  In the garden he had set up a large target about forty feet away from us. He marched over to a small table that had been erected close by and pulled a quiver over his shoulder, resting it between his shoulder blades. Next he pulled on some form of leather pad just above his wrist. Finally, he picked up the bow. It was enormous and a lot more extravagant then I had been imagining.

  My mind had conjured an image of a simple bow used by someone like Robin Hood – a bent piece of wood with some string. By comparison, this one was made of some type of metal and looked military grade. It had three different strings, pulleys and some complicated sight contraption.

  Cupid took his position, gave me a quick wiggle of his eyebrow, as if to say look at what I can do, and released the bow. With movements as fluid as water, quicker than I thought could be possible, he released arrow, after arrow, after arrow. When he finally stopped, his quiver empty, he kissed the bow and laid it back on the table. My attention turned to the target. Every single one of the arrows had met their target, all fixed in the small centre circle – the bulls eye.

  “Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed in awe.

  “He was good, but he wasn’t as good as me,” Cupid beamed.

  I eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t say anything. As far as I was aware, there wasn’t a chapter in the Bible entitled, the day in which Cupid kicked Jesus’ ass at archery, but as I hadn’t read the book, I wasn’t going to say anything. And who was to say that they hadn’t had a friendly match one day when they were lazing about in the clouds.

  “So do I get to do that?” I asked him instead.

  Cupid cocked his head, thinking about it. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the bow.

  “Um, a bow?” I told him. Wasn’t that obvious?

  “Then the answer is no,” Cupid informed me.

  I stared at him in disbelief. “Then what is it? A toaster?”

  “Ha,” he said, sarcasm lacing his tone. So it was only Michael who didn’t do sarcasm. “It’s a compound bow. There is a difference. Today’s lesson is going to consist of learning names. Until you can learn them, you’re not going to pick a bow up.”

  What was potentially going to be an interesting lesson had quickly become very boring. “Oh, yay,” I muttered dryly.

  By the time Michael appeared in the gardens, I think my mind was ready to melt again. “I’ll get you a book to help,” Cupid promised me as the archangel joined us.

  “How was your first lesson?” Michael asked, studying me.

  “Not as hands-on as I would like,” I told him, watching Cupid disappear back into the gym. “And I’m not sure why I needed to get dressed up for it,” I added, pointing to my attire.

  “That is for your training with me,” he informed me.

  “You mean I get to play with a sword?” I asked him hopefully. Listening to Cupid reel off each and every part of the compound bow, as well as each mechanism’s purpose in the grand scheme of things hadn’t exactly been exciting stuff. The prospect of Michael telling me the names of each part of a sword… well I wanted to do something.

  He stared at me, and I could feel the hope drain away with my smile. “Let us see how well you have adjusted to your vessel first,” he said, indicating that I should go back inside.

  We headed for the machines, stopping at the punch bag which Veronica was trying to hide behind. Michael scowled. “You should be in the kitchens getting dinner ready,” he told her.

  Veronica gave him a polite nod, and as soon as his back was turned, poked her tongue out at him.

  “Now, Veronica.”

  I was surprised that archangels seemed to have eyes in the back of their head, but Veronica just shrugged and walked off. I glanced back at Michael who was looking at me impatiently. At my puzzled expression, he pointed at the wall in front of us. The mirror covered wall. I groaned and tried to cover my embarrassment by jumping on the treadmill.

  Michael came to the side and pressed a few buttons. Before I knew it, I was running at a very fast pace. “What? No warm up?” I yelped, trying to match my speed with the machine. I wasn’t a runner and I avoided running at all costs.

  “You don’t need a warm up,” Michael informed me. He moved to the far side of the room and picked a book up off the side, bringing it and a chair back with him. “How far have you run?” he asked me as he seated himself in front of my machine.

  “I’ve only been running for a couple of minutes,” I told him. He just sat staring at me until I glanced down at the digital display. “A quarter of a mile.”

  “For the record, you’re capable enough to have run a couple of miles by now,” he said, stretching his feet out and opening the book.

  I nearly fell off the treadmill. “A couple of miles? I thought a four minute mile was good and I’m nowhere near capable of that.”

  Michael flicked through the pages, finding his place. “Angel, as a human you may not have been capable, but as a Potential possessing a vessel, you are capable of much more than the average human. You just have to realize that.”

  I was already at the stage that I was struggling to breathe, so I kept quiet and instead glared at him. I reached up and wiped the sweat off my forehead.

  “You should also be able to do this without looking like you’re going to keel over,” he added, without looking up from the book.

  I have mentioned that I want to punch him, right? Or take that big thick book of his and use it to smack him around the head. I wouldn’t of course. But right then, I really wanted to
grab that book and use it as a weapon.

  When I saw he was reading Paradise Lost I nearly fell off the machine for a second time. I decided to concentrate solely on my running. I managed twenty minutes, running as though I was being chased, and then I could feel my legs begin to wobble. “Michael,” I panted. “I can’t go anymore.”

  “You can run for hours at this speed,” he corrected me, flicking a page. “As soon as you let go of your humanity, you will see this.”

  There was going to be some form of poetic justice when I beat him to death with that book. I managed another minute, and then my leg cramped. I went flying backwards, into the cross trainer behind me with a scream.

  “Angel?” Michael asked, peering over me.

  “I’m done,” I groaned, trying to untangle myself from the machine. He tried to help but I jerked my arm away. “I can do it myself,” I told him between the gasps for air as I tried to get my breath back. I got up and took a step forward, only to go crumpling to the ground with another cry of pain.

  Ignoring my objections, Michael dropped to a crouch and gently prodded my ankle. At my wince, he looked back at me, disappointed. “It’s just a sprain. You will be fine.” He got up and turned the machine off, before offering me a hand which I chose to ignore again.

  “I’m going for a shower,” I grumbled. I turned and stalked out of the room as best as I could while limping, bypassing the locker room. It took me a while to hobble up the stairs, clutching at the banister, but I finally made it to the top.

  I was at the opposite end to my room and had to pass all the other bedrooms on the way. Unlike the previous times I had walked the hallway, a lot of the doors were propped open, angels coming and going between the rooms like we were back in a college dorm. Although most of them stared at me, none said anything.

  I can’t say I blamed them. I was one hot sweaty mess. I could feel the sweat trickling down the side of my face and neck, and down my back. I was also pretty sure that my face was the same color as my hair. On top of that, I was limping and still trying to catch my breath. All while they remained visions of perfection.