by Amy Vansant
“Leo, what happened?” Anne motioned to his wound. The gash beneath the Angelus’ fingers foamed.
Leo followed Anne’s gaze to his shoulder, and he, too, turned his attention to the wound. Wincing, he eased his hand away from the gash to examine it. As he did so, the five-inch-round flap of flesh that he had been pressing back into place peeled away and fell to the ground with a sickening splatter. A second later, it disappeared with a burst of white light.
Leo swallowed and looked up at Anne.
“Shit,” he said, and fell to one knee.
“Con!” Anne moved forward and caught Leo as he started to fall forward. “Con help me, we have to get him somewhere safe!”
Con stalled, for once in his life, unsure of what to do.
“How? I’m not strong enough to blink him anywhere, and not solid enough to carry him. I was barely able to transport the flashlights with me.”
Anne tore away part of Leo’s shirt and tried to tie it around the wound to stop the green fluid from seeping. She steadied Leo as he wavered from side to side; the only thing keeping the large man from falling forward on his face.
“You can lift him, but walking him through the streets of Annapolis thrown over your wee shoulders like a sack of potatoes is sure to draw attention, especially if he insists on bleeding anti-freeze and dropping hunks of flesh the whole way there.”
Leo shook his head and took Anne’s hand to pull her attention towards him.
“Your room,” he said, before disappearing.
Anne turned to Con. “He must have had a little energy left.”
Anne began running the two blocks back to The Maryland Inn and Con teleported himself ahead of her to meet the Angelus in her room.
Con arrived in Anne’s room moments behind Leo to find the big man lying on her bed. Leo’s wound already appeared much worse. Nearly all the flesh had disappeared from his arm, revealing a dully glowing musculature. Normally, the core of an Angelus would be brilliant sapphire in color, but Leo had little light left. It was as if the internal, mystical reactor that fueled all Angeli was burning out in him. His skin had turned gray and had fallen slack. More of it fissured and peeled from his form as Con watched.
Anne burst into her room.
“Jeffrey!” she called.
Jeffrey came stumbling out of his room, still half asleep.
“Call every number you can think of that might reach Michael.”
Alarmed and visibly sickened by Leo’s appearance, Jeffrey shot back to his room to find his cell phone.
“Oh Leo,” said Anne moving closer, her hands hovering just above his cheek. He had already begun to appear mummified, bearing little resemblance to the magnificent lion of a man he had been just a day ago.
“I’m afraid to touch him,” said Anne.
“I wouldn’t,” said Con.
Leo lay very still. The only sign of life he could offer was an attempt at a smile as Anne fluttered around him, but as he did so, the dull glow emitting from his cracking wounds seemed to dim even further.
“What I did for Ariel,” said Anne, resting her fingertips lightly on Leo’s arm. “Let me try that for you. I can push some of my energy to you.”
Leo flinched away from her and groaned. He shook his head.
“No,” he croaked. “This is something different.”
Anne pulled back, her hands forming fists of frustration.
“Meili...” Leo said.
He opened his mouth to continue, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and his head fell to the side.
Anne gently tried to wake Leo, but the Angel had fallen unconscious.
“I have Jeffrey trying to get in touch with Michael now. Maybe he or Meili can help,” she said, hoping he could hear her.
As if on cue, Jeffrey ran into the room, his phone in his hand.
“He’s not answering anything,” he said, looking at Leo. “Oh...” the sound escaped him as more of a visceral reaction than a coherent thought.
Con put his hands on his head. “Where is Michael when you need him?”
“Usually, he just shows up when I need him,” said Anne.
“Mmm,” Con grunted. “I’m going to try and make it as far as his D.C. office. Wait here.”
Sure he was no help to Leo, Con willed himself toward Michael’s office, stopping once along the route to rest. Traveling Angeli style was not a skill he’d mastered during his short time with his new powers. He thought about the place he wanted to go, and approximately fifteen miles into the trip he found himself becoming aware of his surroundings, as if he’d been on a train traveling the speed of light slowing to enter the station. He felt weak, so he rested until he felt his energy returning. He concentrated on his destination once more. On the second leap, he found himself outside the door of Michael’s office.
Con looked up and down the hallway of the office building, spotting no one. Remaining invisible, he poked his head through the door into the outer office. Michael’s secretary was not at her desk. He walked through the door.
Con made his way to the door of Michael’s inner office, solidified his right hand, and tested the door knob. It was locked. Again, he poked his head through the door and found the next room as unoccupied as the first. He walked through.
Inside, Con made a slow turn, looking to see if anything seemed amiss. As much as he hated to admit it, it was odd for Michael not to appear when Anne was in distress. Now with the both of them in need, his absence seemed even more suspicious.
He noticed the office door was dead-bolted from the inside. If Michael’s secretary returned and tried the knob, she might panic to find the door bolted and no one responding from inside. Michael was too careful to create a scenario outside the bounds of human expectations. Except in crime novels, empty rooms were not dead-bolted from the inside.
Con was just about to leave when he noticed a slip of paper on the ground by the foot of the desk. The numbers written on it in pen looked like coordinates.
He knew that for anything to be out of place in Michael’s fastidious office, it must be important.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Anne sat on the chair in her hotel room, unsure of what to do. Michael was missing, Leo was unconscious, and Seth was on the loose. She needed to find Michael if she was to have any chance of helping Leo. She stared at the slip of paper with which Con had returned from D.C. It held only coordinates: 32° 47′ 0″ N, 79° 56′ 0″ W, somewhere in Charleston, South Carolina.
“We need to make some sort of move.” Con paced the room, rolling the small bowl he’d dashed to the floor the previous day in his hands to practice solidifying as needed.
“I know, I know. The only lead we have is that slip of paper, which could be anything. It could have been an Angeli crochet club location for all we know.”
“He could have had a date. Maybe this is what Angeli hand out instead of phone numbers. Get her digits might mean coordinates in Angeli-speak.”
Anne stared at the sofa in front of her. She found it strange, in times of strife, how the rest of the world continued. It didn’t seem right to her. All life on the planet could disappear, and still, that sofa would be sitting in that spot, growing dusty and gray, hundreds of years later. Outside, tourists walked the streets, unaware that Leo lay dying in a bed just a few hundred feet from their sailboats and hotel rooms. When Con went missing, the next day, the streets of Mexico had bustled with life. Time was relentless.
So shall I be relentless.
Anne turned to Con. “Can you get to that spot? By the time we get on a plane, Leo will be dead.”
“No luv. First, I don’t think in terms of coordinates. And even if I did, I couldn’t go that far all at once. I haven’t had these powers long enough and I’m finding traveling more difficult than when I had no real body to speak of. When I was little more than a ghost, I could travel across the planet without even thinking about it. Now I have to really concentrate and it’s exhausting.”
“We need an Angelus. Someone to
zap us there.”
As Anne finished her sentence, there came a knock on the hotel door. Con stood and looked through the peephole. He spotted Meili on the other side.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” said Con, opening the door and revealing the Angelus to Anne.
“Meili!” said Anne, standing. “Do you know where Michael is?”
Meili shook his head. “Actually, I was hoping he was here with you.”
“Damn,” said Anne. She stepped forward and took Meili’s hand. “Come with me. You need to see Leo. We’ve been trying to reach you both.”
She led Meili into the bedroom.
Leo’s body had become a crumbling slab of stone. There remained a very dim light emanating from the gash on his arm. Unconscious and barely breathing, Leo appeared already dead.
Meili gasped.
“What has happened to him?”
He leaned down and inspected Leo’s wound.
“We think he fought Seth,” said Anne.
Meili pulled away from Leo’s stricken body.
Anne studied Meili. The Angelus’ face had gone pale, and his eyes darted from hers as she watched him move.
“Terrible,” said Meili.
Meili stared at what was left of Leo’s body, until Anne could stand his inaction no longer.
“Can you help him? He mentioned your name. I thought maybe you could help? Some sort of energy transference?”
“Mentioned my name? Why?”
“I don’t know, it was one of the few things he was able to say before he fell unconscious. I thought it meant you could help.”
Meili pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed gently into it as he walked past Anne and out of the room. “No, no, I’m sorry. I have never seen anything like this, there’s nothing I can do for him. I wish there was.”
“Is there some sort of Angeli doctor?” asked Con.
Meili flashed him a dubious look.
Anne nodded to Jeffrey, motioning towards Leo, making it clear she wanted her assistant to keep an eye on the Angelus.
“Can you help me find Michael?” she asked Meili, following him. She pulled a slip of paper from her pocket. “Con found these coordinates on the floor of Michael’s office; we think he might be there.”
Meili took the slip of paper and studied it.
“South Carolina,” said Con. “We looked it up.”
“I can see that,” said Meili. He slipped the paper in his pocket. “I’ll take you there and we’ll see.”
“What about Leo?” asked Anne.
“He was foolish to confront Seth alone,” said Meili. “We need to find Michael. He may be able to help him. Otherwise, I imagine he’ll pull through. It’s what we do.”
Anne gritted her teeth. She knew Angeli specialized in aloof behavior but Meili’s lack of concern for Leo made her angry with frustration. She knew Angeli didn’t die, but they also didn’t turn into monsters like Seth. Where Seth was concerned, anything was possible.
“Jeffrey!” Anne called. Jeffrey came out of the bedroom. “Keep an eye on Leo. I know there is nothing you can do, but if he asks for anything, do your best.”
“Got it,” said Jeffrey, glancing back into the bedroom. He chewed at his bottom lip.
“Jeffrey, he won’t hurt you. Just be aware of him and keep trying to find Michael every way you can. I’ll owe you one.”
Jeffrey scoffed. “One. Right.”
Anne touched Jeffrey’s shoulder and sighed deeply, both to relax her own nerves and reassure her assistant.
“Thank you,” she said. She kissed him quickly on the forehead.
Jeffrey nodded.
Meili stepped forward and took Anne’s arm.
“Would you like a boost as well?” he asked Con. “Or should you stay here and watch Leo?”
“I’m coming.” He nodded and solidified his arm so Meili could grasp it.
“Ready?” asked the Angelus.
Con and Anne nodded.
With a flash of blue light, they disappeared.
Jeffery turned and looked at Leo. The large blond man did not move.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Michael sat slumped in the corner of his prison. Every two hours, Keira entered the room where he sat caged, pulled energy from him with no regard to his comfort, and then left, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.
Michael heard the door creak. It had barely been an hour and a half since Keira’s last visit. He took a deep breath and covered his eyes with his hand. Not only did he need to escape before Meili returned; he had to break free before the greedy female Sentinel rendered him too weak to move.
Keira’s eyes lit as they found Michael sitting in the back of the cage. He had made himself very small. She sat down on the floor beside him, Indian style, just out of reach.
“Are you trying to hide from me? I seeeee youuuu.”
“You know,” said Michael, raising his eyes to meet Keira’s. “I feel compelled to tell you how sorry you’re going to be when I get out of here.”
Keira grinned.
“Why don’t you then?”
Michael let his head fall again, the weight of his own skull unmanageable.
“No. It really goes without saying.”
Michael struggled to sit and then leaned towards Keira. The effort winded him and he made a mental note to be more empathetic towards humans in physical distress in the future. With the cage dampening his ability to return to his healing energy form, he had much more respect for the fragile nature of the human body.
“Keira, there is one thing I will mention,” he whispered.
Keira stared at him. As her eyes studied him, she tilted her head, brow knitting as if confused.
“Did you always have those gray patches at your temples?” she asked, pointing to Michael’s salt-and-pepper hair.
“Hmm? Yes. Why?”
Keira shrugged. “I didn’t notice them before.”
Michael closed his eyes, reaching out with his aura to find any small remnant of spare energy. The room provided no sunlight. There were no plants. Keira easily protected her own life-force from him, particularly with the help of his prison’s energy-dampening bars. There would be no help. He took a deep breath and looked at Keira.
“Didn’t Meili tell you not to tap me? Did he not say you should be gentle with me?”
Keira’s face clouded. “I am.”
“No, you’re really not. I think I would know. Look.” Michael picked up his right wrist with his left hand and then let it fall to the floor. “Weak as a baby.”
Keira rolled her eyes.
“You’re fine. You have plenty of power to go around.”
Michael changed tack. “Tell you what. Why don’t you take one extra big siphon from me, and then see if it can last you until tomorrow morning?”
A smile crept across Keira’s face. Like any junkie, the suggestion that she should indulge delighted her.
“No fighting this time?”
Michael looked down at his tattered shirt, torn from Keira pulling him towards the bars. Slowly, he leaned forward to pull his arms from the sleeves and remove it. He placed the shirt on the ground beside him. He was grateful to have dressed in real clothes. Having to manifest them would have been a drain on his ever-waning power.
“We’ll do it right this time.”
Keira eyes flitted downward, better to view Michael’s washboard abdominal muscles.
“Oh yes?”
“Yes. Up until now, I have to say you’ve been making this an unpleasant experience for me.”
Michael raised himself onto his knees, facing Keira. She too perked up, so they remained eye to eye. Michael willed the gray in his hair to salt his entire head. The crow’s feet flanking his crystal blue eyes deepened and weathered.
“How old are you?” she asked.
Michael closed his eyes and chuckled.
“Very.”
Keira swallowed and stared at Michael.
“So what’s your proposition?�
�
“You know the pleasure Meili provides you? I can do the same thing.”
Keira squinted.
“You’ve already had a taste of me. You know I’m as powerful as Meili.”
“You are,” said Keira. She licked the corner of her mouth, as if remembering a particularly delicious meal. “Even more so, I would say.”
“Siphoning doesn’t have to be a painful process for me, and it can be even more enjoyable for you if I help,” Michael paused to let the message process. “But we have to do it together.”
Keira leaned towards Michael as his voice grew softer.
“Reach out your hand. Just let me touch the tip of your finger.”
Keira grimaced, unsure.
“I can’t grab you if all I can reach is the tip of your finger. You’re perfectly safe. I just want to show you; give you a taste of what I mean.”
Keira reached out her right hand, index finger extended. Michael stretched forward, careful to avoid the bars, and touched the tip of her finger with his own. He pushed a small amount of his own energy into her, manipulating her nerves with his power. Keira gasped and pulled back her hand.
“See?”
Keira sat back on her heels a moment, her breathing more rapid.
“That was fantastic,” she said, her eyes locking on his. “I want more.”
Michael nodded. “If you can control yourself a little and not hurt me—”
Keira cut him off. “So I could drain you like that, with your permission, instead of dragging it out of you like I have been?”
“That’s what I’m saying. What’s the point of putting me through all that pain? You’re going to siphon me anyway, I know. I’m too weak to try anything. This way maybe you can keep from reaping me and angering Meili, and we can make the whole experience better for both of us.”
Keira crawled closer to Michael’s cage. She reached through the bars, moving her hands across Michael’s chest and over his shoulders. Michael slid his hands along Keira’s bare arm. But for the bars that separated them, they would be in an embrace. He held his breath.
“Ready?”
“One thing first,” said Keira, her face close to his now. “Bring your face closer to the bars.”
