by C. L. Coffey
Joshua gave me a soft smile, his hand reaching across the table to grab mine. “I’m not placing that responsibility on you, don’t worry. I just want you to keep an eye out and see if you get a feeling about anyone in here.”
“And what about you?” I asked him, his hand feeling far too warm.
“I’m going to keep an eye out for someone behaving suspiciously, looking out for any woman who’s acting strange,” he told me.
“What makes you certain it’s a woman?” I asked, slightly surprised at his conclusion.
Joshua let go of my hand and grabbed his stool, dragging it around the back of the table so he could view the room, all while moving closer to me, to talk to me without any risk of someone overhearing us.
“I don’t think it’s just a woman,” he told me. “The guys she killed were over six foot, and half were well built. She would have to be putting some serious hours in at the gym to be able to lift them, much less as dead weight.”
“You think there are two of them?” I asked, my eyes widening.
Joshua nodded. “Yeah. I think she’s luring them out. None of the family members or friends of the four guys mentioned anything about them being gay, and I can’t see how a guy would be able to get them alone in a secluded alleyway.”
“I could be completely wrong, you know,” I pointed out. “I was really drunk and I barely remember what happened.”
Joshua reached for his drink and finished the bottle off, settling it back on the table. “My father died when I was in high school,” he said finally, as he began picking at the label.
I remembered Maggie mentioning it, but I didn’t want to say anything in case I put him off telling me what he was about to.
“He worked a lot of shifts. I don’t really remember getting to spend much time with him before he died, but every Father’s Day, and on my birthday, he would take me out to the lake and we would spend the day fishing off a little dock, eating corndogs.” Having shredded the paper away from the front of the bottle, he was now working on the label on the back. “The last trip out there, I remember telling him I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. He turned to me and told me that if that was what my gut feeling was telling me, I was to trust that feeling, because my gut would always be right.” He looked up and over at me. “What’s your gut telling you?”
My gut was telling me the answer was somewhere in this bar. I may not remember everything, but I had a very strong feeling this was the last bar I was heading for before I died, and something had drawn me to it to kill me. “We’re in the right place,” I admitted.
“Good,” Joshua nodded. “Because my gut is telling me to trust you.”
The look he was giving me was far too intense for my liking and I quickly looked for something to distract from it. “You know, that’s a sign of sexual frustration, right?” I blurted out, pointing at the bottle. Of everything I could go for, I picked something that would swing the topic to the one place it couldn’t go.
Sure enough, when I looked back at Joshua, his eyes were smouldering. “Well I know one way to ease that frustration,” he murmured.
I forced myself to roll my eyes. “As soon as we find this killer, I’m finding you a girlfriend,” I told him, making my tone as dry as possible. Then, to ensure the conversation didn’t go any further, I turned in my seat and began scanning the crowds.
“Hi,” came an unnecessarily perky voice, drawing my attention away from the people in the bar, to the woman standing in front of our table. “You ready for another?”
The woman was tall, and even though she was wearing the white prom dress style uniform, she had a fantastic pair of legs on her. She was also exceedingly pretty, with long auburn hair that hung around her in soft curls, in a way that was already having me frowning at the fact I was stuck with my bright red, choppy layers.
She had positioned herself in between me and Joshua and was not-so politely facing Joshua with her back to me. In a way, I couldn’t blame her – he was gorgeous. However, it was still rude, especially for a member of the staff.
She spent too long collecting Joshua’s empty bottle, wafting her hair at him, and I definitely caught him watching her as she sashayed away from the table. “Maybe I won’t have to look far,” I told him.
He pulled his eyes away from the woman to give me a puzzled look. “Far for what? The killer?”
“Your girlfriend,” I said, pointing to the woman in question. “She was clearly into you.”
“Jealous?” he asked with a smirk.
“Yes,” I responded, deadpan. “Completely. Forgive me while I go claw her eyeballs out for daring to flirt with you in my vicinity.”
“Dance with me,” Joshua requested, suddenly.
Or at least, that’s what I thought I heard. I wrinkled my nose and squinted up at him. “Excuse me?”
“Dance with me,” he repeated.
To be honest, I thought I had misheard him again over the music, but when I just continued to stare at him in confusion, he grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor.
Over the course of the hour, the bar had become much busier and the dance floor up in Heaven had filled up considerably. Nevertheless, Joshua led me to a spot and pulled me to him, physically draping my arms around his neck before his hands settled on my waist.
“Why are we dancing?” I asked him, still frowning.
“We can’t just dance?” he murmured into my hair, drawing me closer.
The motion caught me by surprise, sending butterflies fluttering through my stomach as I took in a deep breath of his musky cologne. His chin came to rest against the side of my head so I could feel the slight prickle from his permanent five o’clock shadow. How the hell had I managed to find a guy I fitted perfectly against after I had died – and was forbidden from doing anything with.
Fate was a complete bitch.
As we swayed gently back and forth, I just closed my eyes and figured, what the hell?
Of course, at that moment, something kicked off behind me. I didn’t see what, but there was a yell, and then two of the bouncers were hurrying over to two guys who were throwing a couple of punches at each other. The next thing I knew, each was being dragged out, kicking and protesting against each bouncer, right past us.
I could see the arm coming towards me, and even Joshua tried to yank me out of the way, but it was too late, and the limb connected with the side of my head, sending me careering into Joshua. It didn’t hurt too much, and we managed to remain standing – largely due to Joshua – but as I clutched at my head and opened my eyes, the room exploded into a mass of chaotic lights.
Along with the colorful disco lights and strobes, I could once again see auras. Like the time I had seen them along Bourbon Street, they were everywhere. Only this time, they were twice as bright. With the ball of my hand pressed into my forehead, I tried to shake the lights off, the brightness sending tears streaking down my cheeks.
“Angel?” Joshua questioned, moving my hand away to peer at my face.
I had to close my eyes, dazzled by the hot pink in his aura. “It’s bright,” I winced. “I need to get out of here.”
He seemed to understand and took my hand, pressing his chest into my back to steer me through the crowd and to the stairs. We navigated them together, with him holding me carefully, and me squinting just enough to see where I was going.
Outside, I pulled away from him and hurried around to one of the quieter streets feeding off Bourbon Street. There, with much lower foot traffic, I leaned back against the wall, the stone pleasantly cool against my bare back, and hunched over as I took deep breath to try and encourage the lights away.
“Angel?” Joshua crouched down beside me. “What happened? Are you alright?”
I shook my head, biting at my lower lip. “No,” I admitted, finally. Keeping my eyes closed to keep the bright glare resonating from Joshua away from my retinas, I planted my hands on my knees. “I see auras. Sometimes,” I quickly corrected myself. “But the
y’ve never been that bright before.”
“Auras?” he questioned softly.
“The easiest way to describe it is to imagine a light surrounding a person,” I muttered. “Different colors mean different things.”
“I didn’t think they were bad things,” Joshua said, quietly.
I peeked my eyes open to look at him, frowning in confusion. “You’re not going to mock me?” He shook his head. “They’re not bad things,” I told him, realizing that his glow wasn’t as bright anymore. “As far as I can tell, they’re pretty neutral. They were just really bright this time.” I straightened myself and used my knuckles to wipe the tears away.
“You want to call it a night?” he asked me, his tone remaining soft.
“I’m fine,” I assured him, looking back to the crowds on Bourbon Street. When it wasn’t so dazzling, it was pretty, really. I was about to tell Joshua I just needed a minute and I would go back in – my mouth was already opening – and then I spotted the blue aura.
It was a wonderful royal blue – like on a peacock, and around the edges, it flared with spots of white light. “That’s a Potential,” I muttered as the light disappeared around a corner.
“What?” Joshua asked, following my stares into the crowd.
“Mama Laveau,” I told him, turning back to face him. “She told me Preston Johnston’s aura was just like that. It might be a complete coincidence but-” Once again I was silenced. This time by the fact the most dazzling beam of bright white light had shot upwards, and was showering the street in light as bright as the sun.
“Angel?” Joshua questioned again.
I looked at him. He was staring at me, completely oblivious to the fact the night had suddenly turned to day. “You can’t see it?” I asked him in amazement.
“See what?” he asked me, again staring past me on to Bourbon Street.
“The light. It’s...” I trailed off as Michael’s voice appeared in my head. ‘It glows like a beacon, or the light from a lighthouse. It glows so bright that a person looking out for it, would be able to see it from a mile away – even with buildings in between – because it sends a beam of light into the heavens.’
“We have to go,” I told him, grabbing Joshua’s hand.
“Angel, what’s going on?” he demanded as I tugged him along.
Ignoring the colors around me, I focused on that beacon of light, pulling at Joshua, trying to make him move faster, as I wound us between the crowds. “Someone is going to die,” I told him. “I think it’s the serial killer.” At those words, the resistance stopped and he picked up speed.
The light was beginning to dim as I drew close. It was just as I ducked past a deserted passage, nearly knocking over a couple, earning me a filthy look from a woman with red hair, that I realized the last of the light was emanating from within the blackness of the alley. “Joshua, over here!” I called to him, darting over to the figure that was slumped against the wall.
He was young, with cropped hair and hazel eyes that I could barely see behind his nearly closed eyelids. I dropped down beside him, trying to clamp down on the wound and stem the bleeding, while behind me, Joshua was already calling for an ambulance.
“You’re going to be alright,” I told the man, my eyes falling on the dog tags poking out from behind the pale blue button down shirt he was wearing. Quickly I pulled them out to examine the markings. “Greg?” I asked, reading the name.
Greg looked at me. “Help me,” he gasped, a trickle of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth.
“Joshua, we need that ambulance,” I called over my shoulder, pressing harder against the warm wound. I could feel the throb of the flow lessen beneath my hands, and suddenly I knew what I had to do.
“Greg, I’m really sorry, but I think you’re going to die.” There was a flash of panic and his eyes widened.
“Elena,” he gasped, painfully. “You need to tell her-”
I quickly shook my head. “Here’s the thing,” I told him in a quiet voice, aware that Joshua was hurrying back to the main street to wait for the ambulance, whose sirens I could hear getting closer. “You have a choice to make, and not much time to make it in, so you need to listen carefully.” There was a moment of confusion that passed through him, but he gave me a very small nod. “Right now, you can pick eternal happiness or eternal life, and being as I didn’t have it spelt out to me, that’s the choice of going to Heaven or the choice of becoming an angel. It’s up to you.”
“Heaven,” he rasped out, another dribble of blood trickled down his chin.
I nodded, and moved my hands away from the wound to hold his. “Okay,” I told him. “Don’t be scared, because it’s going to be alright.” There was another nod, and then I felt the grip on my hand disappear.
My plan had been to somehow hold onto his soul until Michael arrived, and I shut my eyes, somehow trying to send some form of silent message to the archangel, but as soon as my eyes closed, the sounds of Bourbon Street disappeared around me.
“Where are we?”
I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself and Greg standing in the middle of a baseball field, the sun shining down brightly upon us. “I want to say Heaven,” I told him, turning full circle – we were in a baseball stadium, right by the home plate. My eyes drifted to the large, white Z in the grass just behind the home plate. “Z?” I muttered, looking up in the stands. “Did I just bring us to Zephyr Field?” I asked, more to myself, as I rolled my eyes at my incompetence. I turned back to Greg with a sigh. “Sorry, I’m new at this.”
“You’re in the right place,” a new voice informed me. I whirled back around to an umpire walking towards us.
“Zephyr Field?” I scoffed. “This is hardly my idea of Heaven.”
“But it is mine,” Greg informed me, a large smile on his face as he looked around the stadium of the New Orleans’ minor league baseball team, the New Orleans Zephyrs.
I couldn’t help but pull a face. “Seriously?” At his nod, I turned back to the umpire. “Who are you?”
The umpire smiled at me. “We’ve met before. You didn’t recognized me then either, but then again, I change my appearance for whomever you bring me.”
I glanced around again, and it clicked. “Saint Peter?”
“The one and only,” he nodded.
“But you’re so... young looking,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. Saint Peter who looked like Father Christmas I could buy, but a Saint Peter who looked like a middle aged guy who had one too many beers in his life, well that was a little harder to believe.
“What’s going on?” Greg asked me, poking my arm.
It was Saint Peter who saved me from answering. He wrapped his arm around Greg’s shoulder. “Come with me, son. We need to have a talk.” Saint Peter gave me a nod, and then he and Greg began walking towards the bleachers.
Somehow I had gotten us here, but I had no idea how to get myself out of there. I closed my eyes, screwing my face up in concentration. When I opened them, I was still standing next to the home plate. With a sigh, I sank to the ground and glared at my surroundings. I hated baseball.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Confession
“Angel, what are you doing here?”
I looked up from my position on the ground, using my hand to block out the sun that was shining around Michael’s head like a halo. Or maybe it was a halo?
“Trying to work out where the exit is,” I offered. “I tried the gates, but they led right back here instead of the parking lot, which is weird.” I got to my feet and brushed the dry grass blades from my legs.
It was definitely sunlight – when I was nearly eye-level with him, I could see his face clearly, and those chocolaty eyes of his were angry. I opened my mouth, ready to explain myself, but he grabbed my wrist and in a flash, we were back in his quarters with the contents of my stomach trying to make their way out.
I ran for the bathroom, deciding not to play with gravity. After rinsing my mouth out, I marched b
ack into his office. “A heads up would be nice, you know,” I shot at him.
“You should never have been there in the first place,” he snapped back at me.
“What the hell was I supposed to do?” I asked, angrily. “I couldn’t just leave him there!”
“An Angel of Death would have appeared when the time was right,” Michael retorted, just as angrily. “Angels are not supposed to take souls to Peter, much less Potentials.”
“Well I would have called but I don’t have a phone, and look at that,” I cried, my arms flying wildly around me. “Those god damn bells of Michael don’t work both ways.”
“DO NOT TAKE THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN!” he bellowed at me, suddenly appearing inches from me.
“Or what?” I yelled back. “You’re going to send me off to work for the postal service? Hand over the letter now and I can get out of this hell-hole!” I demanded, holding my hand out for an envelope. “You were the one who was harping on about there only being a small window of time in which you could ask a Potential the question!”
He raised his hand and I flinched, expecting him to hit me into next week, but he stopped himself at the last minute. “Get out,” he told me, only just keeping his voice even.
“Gladly,” I told him, through gritted teeth. I stormed out of the room, slamming the door as hard as I possibly could behind me.
I headed straight back out the front door, making sure to slam that one too. I didn’t know where I was heading. I did know I wasn’t going any further in the heels I was wearing. I yanked them off and hooked them over my fingers, before I continued walking.
At some point it dawned on me that I had disappeared from a crime scene. When I worked out that I had walked several blocks in the wrong direction, I turned and made my way back to where I had left Joshua.
He was busy coordinating uniformed officers when I arrived, but the second he saw me, he ducked under the crime scene tape and hurried over. “Angel, what happened to you?” he asked, grabbing my shoulders. “I turned around and you’d disappeared.”
