Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One)

by C. L. Coffey

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hurricane Tabitha

  I knew I had made the right decision when we arrived back at the convent – the half hour journey taking over double the time as the roads filled up.

  I hurried back into the grounds, heading straight for the SUVs. In the distance, I could see the black clouds lining the horizon and the wind had picked up slightly, causing the leaves of the trees in the grounds to dance.

  There was only one car left in the parking lot, and as I drew near, I realized that Cupid and Michael were waiting near it. “Sorry, I should have returned the keys,” I apologized as I drew near. It took me a moment to see that Michael was armed with a sword and Cupid was carrying two bows. “Is now really the time for a lesson?” I asked, dubiously.

  “This isn’t a lesson,” Michael informed me as Cupid handed my quiver and gloves over. I took them off him, staring in confusion at the two archangels.

  “Tabitha should have blown herself out off the coast of Alabama,” Cupid explained. “There’s no longer anything natural about this storm.”

  “And you think an arrow and a sword is going to stop a hurricane?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  Michael shook his head, his expression solemn. “The other angels have been dispatched around the city to put up protective barriers to protect the city as much as possible.”

  “Huh?” I stared at him, clueless.

  “We can’t stop the storm, but we can lessen the damage,” Cupid interjected.

  I pulled a face. “You lost me when you said the storm wasn’t natural,” I admitted.

  “The storm is the work of the Fallen.” I must have looked even more confused because Cupid sighed.

  “Fallen angels blame humans for their fall. There are a lot of natural disasters on this planet, but sometimes there are un-natural disasters too. This is one of them,” he said.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “But I don’t see how I can stop it with a bow and arrow. I can’t even get the arrow to stay in the target during practice.”

  “It’s to stop one of the Fallen,” Michael said. “It’s a precaution,” he added at my horrified expression. “Cupid and I will be patrolling the north and south where there is a greater threat of flood, but we need you to take the west point in the protection barrier. The other angels will be taking up the points which will require greater experience and concentration which should make things easier for you.”

  “They have their wings,” Cupid added. “They know what to do should they meet a fallen angel, but the west point is strategically unlikely to cause a problem for you. That being said, we didn’t want to send you unarmed.”

  “My aunt,” I said, remembering why I had returned to the convent.

  “I have already spoken to her,” Michael assured me. “She is safely en route to her family in Monroe.”

  I let out a sigh of relief and nodded. “Where do you need me to go?”

  “Your GPS is already programmed,” Michael informed me, and then he disappeared.

  “What about Veronica?” I asked Cupid. “And the other Cherubim?”

  “They’re safe,” he told me, pointing towards St Mary’s. “They’re praying.”

  Despite myself, I couldn’t help but pull a face. “I’m glad I wasn’t around when Veronica was given her instructions.”

  Cupid shared a grin. “It wasn’t pretty, but Michael can be pretty intimidating.”

  I thought back to my recent encounters with him and nodded. “You’re telling me,” I agreed.

  “You’ll be fine,” Cupid said suddenly, pulling me into a hug. “But you’re going to want to get going. Even with the route we programmed in, the traffic is going to be bad westbound.”

  “What do I do when I get there?” I asked him.

  “You’ll know,” he told me, and then he disappeared.

  “Does the GPS include an instruction manual for when I get there then?” I called into the empty parking lot.

  The GPS had indicated that the planned route, which took me just past the airport, should have taken me forty minutes. I was supposed to take the streets that ran parallel to Airline, but I took a small detour because of a wreck, ended up on Airline, and then couldn’t get off. By the time I had reached my destination, it was dark, already raining, and taken a hell of a lot longer than the forty minutes it should have.

  The final leg of the journey had me pulling off down a gravel track to the middle of nowhere with the only light coming from my headlights. The radio had told me I was only a couple of hours from the storm hitting the city, which somehow, ‘miraculously’, had been downgraded to a category four in strength, even though there were no variables in the weather to indicate how that could have happened.

  I killed the engine and got out of the car, taking my bow with me, looking around. There was nothing in sight. It had crossed my mind that this was a complete waste of time and there were probably a dozen more constructive ways that I could be helping, but I was determined to follow orders.

  As soon as I decided that, I knew that I needed to face the city. I moved around to the back of the SUV and sat down in the wet grass, my arm inches away from the tow on the back of the truck. I crossed my legs beneath me, settled my bow on the ground in front of me, placed my hands on the ground beside me, and closed my eyes.

  At some point I had lost all concept of time. I could no longer feel the rain splattering against my face, or the water that had long since soaked my clothes through.

  * * *

  The gray suddenly disappeared to become the inside of Joshua’s car. I stared out of the window, blinking like I was coming out of a deep sleep. My first thought was that I had managed to transport myself across the city, but as I turned and saw Joshua, slumped over the deflated airbag from his steering wheel, I knew something wasn’t right.

  “Joshua!” I cried, shaking his shoulder. His eyes remained closed, his body rocking as I shook him. I swore and climbed out of the car.

  The non-descript street was deserted and somehow his car had wrapped itself around a lamp post. I didn’t pause to consider how it had happened, instead charging around to the driver’s side.

  The door didn’t open as I pulled on it – the impact had crumpled the metal in place. In a panic, I tore back around to the passenger seat and leaned over, pulling Joshua free from the seat belt and out the other side.

  I dragged him away from the car and laid him on the ground, just registering that I no longer seemed to have any supernatural strength. “Joshua!” I cried again, shaking his shoulder. My hands moved over to his throat and desperately, my fingers felt for a pulse. There was one. Equally as important, his chest was rising and falling with steady breaths.

  I nearly burst into tears from the relief. I quickly checked him over. There was no sign of any outward injury, short of a bloody gash to his forehead, but judging from how far the lamp post had gone into the car, there was a serious risk of something internal going on.

  I patted his pockets down, but I couldn’t feel his phone. Figuring it must be in the car, I ducked back in, locating it on the back seat. I climbed out of the car and tapped the home button. Nothing. And no amount of shaking or prodding was doing anything. It was dead.

  I glanced back at Joshua and decided to try one of the houses we were in front of. They might all have been abandoned – surely someone would have come at the sound that the wreck would have made – but one of them would have a phone.

  I darted over to the first door, and when no one answered my hammerings, shoved it with all my might with my shoulder and went falling through the doorway.

  I caught my balance, ready to assess my surroundings, and was completely confused when I realized I was on the street, Joshua and the wrecked car feet from me.

  I glanced behind me, back through the door but the inside was hidden in shadows. Clearly I had lost my sense of front to back, so I stepped through into the shadows. Only I was back on the street, staring down at Joshua again.
>
  I turned again. Behind me, the doorway was still encased in shadows. “It’s a dream,” I told myself in relief. “Joshua isn’t hurt.”

  That being said, when I heard Joshua moan, it didn’t stop me from running straight back over to him. “Angel?” he groaned.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “Interesting dream you’ve got going on,” I told him, forcing a smile. “I much preferred the last one.”

  “This is a dream?” he asked, struggling to sit upright.

  I leaned over and helped him up. “I don’t pick the settings.”

  He blinked a couple of times and looked around. “Okay, but this is a new one on me,” he muttered. “You got a thing for public spots, because I suppose I could go for that.”

  “Not really,” I replied, unable to stop frowning. He was hitting on me, which didn’t surprise me, but he still looked confused, and that trademark smirk of his was nowhere in sight.

  Very slowly, he rolled his head around, stretching out any kinks in his neck. When he returned to looking at me, he cocked his head. “Interesting outfit. Again, not the usual.” I glanced down. I was wearing the same clothes I had dressed in earlier – my uniform. “Kinda makes me wish we were back in the precinct. My desk seems quite apt for that outfit.”

  My expression was one of disbelief. “And where exactly would anything happen?” I asked him. “Your desk is buried in crap.”

  Joshua let out a low breath. “All this talk is giving me a headache,” he muttered.

  “Dream or not, the car accident probably gave you the headache,” I corrected him, dryly. “Which is still a little weird-”

  “Angel?” he interrupted me.

  I looked at him expectantly.

  “Shut up,” he said, then leaned over and kissed me. Moments later, he pulled away with a frown, licking his lips. “You’re bleeding.”

  My hand flew to my mouth, but when I pulled them away, there was nothing there. When I looked back over at Joshua I realized the blood was coming from him. “Joshua?” I cried in alarm.

  “Something isn’t right,” he told me, uncertainly.

  “Joshua, this is your dream,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You can make it go away.”

  He stared blankly at me. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Of course you can,” I urged him. “It’s like the gators. It’s your dream – if you say there are no gators, there are not gators.”

  “But there are no gators,” he told me, his complexion going worryingly gray and clammy.

  He swayed on the spot then fell to the side. I only just caught his head, stopping it from hitting the ground. “Josh, what the hell is going on?” I asked, looking around. “Your car shouldn’t be wrecked. What kind of dream is this?”

  “Something isn’t right,” he mumbled again.

  I shifted my weight so I could rest his head in my lap. “You need to fix this,” I ordered him. “You need to fix your dream. Hell, why are you asleep anyway? How the hell can you sleep during a hurricane?” I blinked and looked around again. “Josh?” I started carefully. “Where were you when you fell asleep?”

  “I don’t remember,” he told me. “This isn’t right, Angel,” he added, his voice becoming strained. “I don’t think I’m sleeping.”

  “What happened, Joshua?” I asked desperately.

  “Maggie,” he started, then stopped, jerking violently in my arms.

  “Josh!” I yelled in alarm.

  He fell still. “I need to go now,” he whispered, his eyes closed.

  And then he disappeared.

  * * *

  “NO!” I screamed, my eyelids flying open.

  I was back in front of the Yukon, the rain lashing down as the wind howled ferociously around me, rocking the SUV behind me. I was panting, sweat mixing with the rain as it ran down my face. Joshua was in trouble.

  I leapt to my feet, grabbing the bow, and threw it in the back of the truck. I started the engine, and, spinning the wheels as I stuck my foot on the gas, whirled the truck around.

  My position in the barrier was important, I knew that. I also knew that as my charge, Joshua was my priority, no matter what.

  Airline was now deserted as I gunned the SUV back into the city and into the storm, the speed creeping further and further over 100 mph. I battled to keep it straight in the wind that fought my progress, but I refused to let my speed drop.

  I made it to Maggie’s house in twenty minutes, but it still didn’t seem fast enough. Joshua’s car was nowhere in sight, but the street looked familiar.

  I turned the car around and began my journey to the precinct, figuring that if he had crashed, it would be on this route. I was right, but I nearly missed his car behind a fallen tree. The reason for his crash was suddenly evident. My only question was why was he here? Maggie had gotten out.

  The SUV aquaplaned in the water as I slammed the breaks on, but the ABS kicked in and I grounded to an abrupt halt within feet of the tree. I jumped out of the car and clambered over the massive tree trunk to reach Joshua’s car. With the exception of the tree and the weather, it was like déjà vu. I ran over to the driver’s side but that was where something else became obviously different.

  The driver’s door had been ripped off and was lying six feet away. The driver’s seat was empty, and Joshua was nowhere in sight.

  I closed my eyes, hoping that someone had gotten him to a hospital, but as I stood there, I knew that wasn’t the case.

  With my gut tugging me back to the Yukon, I hurried back to it and climbed in. With no thought for the gardens I was driving over, I turned the SUV up onto someone’s lawn to avoid the tree, past Joshua’s wreck, and put my foot back on the gas. With no clear destination, I drove, listening to my gut instinct as it told me to take various turns.

  * * *

  I pulled over, surprised at where my gut had led me, and peered through the rain at the entrance to Six Flags. My headlights were sending two beams of light across the street to the barbed wire fencing and the worn Six Flags welcome sign behind it. Even now, the CLOSED FOR STORM message was still there, although it had long since lost the ‘O’ in closed.

  The park had been closed for Katrina and never reopened afterwards. I had only been there once before, with my parents when we had visited my aunt. Short of the odd ride being salvaged and sent on to another park, it had been left exactly as it was. There had been much speculation that it would be reopened as another theme park, or even a resort, but nothing had yet to surface from that.

  Before I could change my mind, I slammed my foot on the gas and sent the car hurtling towards the thin metal fencing. It went bounding up over the car, missing the windscreen, but sending a hideous screeching noise through me.

  The parking lot was barely recognizable, hidden beneath nearly a decade’s worth of weed and plant growth that had successfully broken through the concrete at the lack of regular maintenance. The Yukon tore through them, bouncing over the potholes that were hidden beneath the water that had almost consumed the parking lot beneath one giant puddle.

  I scanned the parking lot for the gates, barely making them out as the windshield wipers battled to keep the rain from the glass. I turned the car in the direction of the large metal gates. My intention was to burst in there, startle anyone who was there long enough to grab Joshua, stick him in the back, and get out – without having to stop the car.

  The plan came to a sudden halt with the SUV. I hit the gate, it burst open, and the car spun out into what had once been the ticket office, coming to a very abrupt stop.

  Enhanced healing or not, the impact hurt, sending my head sailing against the window next to me. The seatbelt kept me firmly in place, but the collision was hard enough to knock the wind right from me. It took precious minutes for my vision to stop spinning. When it finally did, I yanked my seatbelt off and I had to climb into the backseat, grabbing my bow as I did, and through the broken back window to get out.

  Whatever blood there was, was washed away in seconds as th
e water lashed down on me. I had to pick the night a hurricane hit to launch a rescue mission, didn’t I? I paused long enough to check the quiver was still firmly attached to my sodden trousers, then, brushing my hair out of my eyes, ducked my head from the rain and made my way into the park, climbing over the rusted turnstiles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Where’s Batman When You Need Him?

  If you could imagine the scene after some form of post-apocalyptic battle – deserted, crumbling buildings void of glass, the shadows highlighted by the frequent lightning flashes, the only noise being the thunder, the wind, and the rain pouring down around you – the only thing missing being the zombies... that was what Six Flags looked like now.

  The Main Street had been built to look like a typical street in the French Quarter, complete with balconies and its own ‘Cosmopolitan Hotel’. It had once been warm and welcoming – a perfect entrance street. Now, every part of it was screaming at me to get out, that it wasn’t safe.

  I ignored the silent cries, keeping my bow drawn – an arrow ready to fire at anything that jumped out of the shadows at me. I kept to one side of the street, huddling against the walls under the tattered awnings as I peered inside. They were empty, of course. It was probably the only place in New Orleans that wasn’t supposed to be haunted. It hadn’t been open when Katrina hit, so it hadn’t been the site of mass death, and before it had been a theme park in its short (less than twenty year) lifetime, it had been swamp land.

  That didn’t mean, that as the Main Street opened up into the desolate Square, that I could keep the shivers from me – and they weren’t there from the wind and rain. In front of me lay a barely obstructed view of the lake that sat in the middle of the theme park. A crack of lightning illuminated the sky in front of me. For a handful of seconds I could see The Big Easy, the large Ferris wheel that sat at the back of the park, with what was left of the Mega Zeph, the large wooden rollercoaster, behind it.