by Gary Sapp
yet they had not crossed the barrier to intercourse. She hadn’t had sex with any man other than her husband since her trip to Atlanta the night 411 was unleashed on that city and the world.
Seth, her husband, who was both physically and mentally recovering from his ordeal at the dagger, filled hand of Joseph Champion in that mountain cabin in Tennessee. The attending physician told her much later that another 30 minutes or so of bleeding and he would not have survived.
Anyway, Seth had suffered some temporary memory loss as a result of lack of oxygen flowing back and forward to his brain. In fact, the therapy he was enrolled in right now didn’t seem to be aiding his bouts of long term memory lapses. You still have time to stop this, she thought again. And yet, she looked over her bare shoulder at him anyway. She had a ton of problems back in her life. This man would be a welcome distraction—especially considering the Grand Jury testimony still to come about her involvement with Serena Tennyson, Pandora, and her role in what history would remember as the newest round of Atlanta Child Murders.
And then there was always the X factor known as Christopher Prince and how he would react to her testimony and revelations about what she knew about Erica Lovings murder and when she knew them. And even worse, she would have to speak aloud about her interactions with Hugh Keaton earlier could have…might have nudged Keaton ever closer to the edge that placed Atlanta’s children directly in harm’s way.
“Thank you, Brad. Thank you for everything that you’ve done for me this evening.” She leaned over and planted a close mouthed kiss on the man’s lips. “You have been a very tempting distraction. The truth is that I’ve overstayed my welcome as it is.”
“Really,” This, the most beautiful of men kidded her back but thankfully kept his hands to himself. One glance between his legs told her that he was horny—but he wasn’t desperate or stupid enough to take this any further than she wanted to go. “Let me push this idea your way. Why don’t you reschedule your flight? I’ll pay for the difference for your airfare.” He pulled his credit card from out of his wallet and laid it in the tiny space between them on the bed. “Spend the night with me. I guarantee you that this night won’t be one either one of us will forget it.”
Angel stood up naked and unashamed.
“I shouldn’t,” She smiled as she said it. “I can’t.” She let her smile float away. “I have to go.”
“You have to go, but you are staying anyway?”
After a minute of thought and nude pacing Angel said, “I’m not going to make you any promises, Brad.”
“I wouldn’t think of asking you to.”
She awoke in the middle of the night as naked as she was before. Brad had left her a note that there had been a break in at his shop in Arkansas and he had to attend to it and didn’t want to wake her. Perhaps they could truly finish what they’d started here another time. He left the hotel rooms’ key on his pillow and asked her to lock up and turn the key in when she left. He left his cell phone number and thanked her for a wonderful time.
She sat up against the bedpost and ran her fingers through her unkempt hair. She drowned what was left in the gin bottle, felt suddenly disgusted with the drink’s taste and the predicament she’d allowed to fester, got up, and poured the last drops of it down the drain.
She fell to the porcelain floor in the shower crying.
And while the steamed water pounded her back, all Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree could think about was the final few words that Hugh Keaton’s mother had ushered to her while they stood together along the banks of the Mississippi River.
“’Don’t be silly, Doctor,” Lisa had smiled but the darkness that cast over her had remained. “Serena Tennyson is very much alive and with her right now.”
“What?” Angel had remembered saying then. “That’s quite impossible, Mrs. Healy.”
“Well of course it’s possible, dear.” The old woman said as if to question the sanity of Angel or anyone else who didn’t believe this to be true. “Serena told me that she’d only gone through a Baptism by Fire when that truck exploded with her in the back of it after her arrest during a Whirlwind. She told me that she’d seen me in the flames. She told me that I was her other wing that she’d searched high and low for all of her life.”
Oh my, God was all that Angel could mentally put into in coherence of speech then and now.
“My dear, you thought that I was referring to you letting my boy down—now that’s just plain silly,” Angel heard the old woman say that then. “I let my boy down; Serena in turn did the same when she failed to protect him as she said she would. And the Dragon, our blessed Dragon that sits high and looks down low let him down in the end. I saw it in the flames.”
“Mrs. Healy please stop it—“
“Now don’t you fret about this one second longer, Doctor,” The old woman had continued as if Angel hadn’t spoken at all. And her grip on the Doctor’s hand had become vice like. “But I do pity you, oh yes I do, Doctor. Serena saw in her flames what you are soon to face. And I have seen it to. This body of mine is likely to meet its end soon—and I will join Serena and we will fly off into eternity with the Dragon. Our Baptism into the fire will at last be complete.”
Angel had wanted to escape the woman’s grip then.
She could not.
She did hear her words.
“But we can look down and pity the loneliness that you are certain before the flames take you at last.”
Dr. Angle Hicks Dupree could still hear Lisa Healy’s words over the shower’s waterfall.
And the words were growing louder by the minute.
Chris
Angel nudged him by grabbing his coat sleeve and whispered hot breath in his ear that she wanted—no she needed to speak with him in private.
He glanced back, asked her if it could wait until after the ceremony ended…he could see her working it over in her mind.
And then Angel shook her head no she couldn’t wait that long.
And then, just as suddenly, she changed her mind again.
The One could see that his childhood friend was troubled. He probably stared a little too long because he thought that there were tears falling underneath her thick shades—or were those wet streaks the aftermath of the downpour that had been going on all morning.
The three of them drove to the cemetery in separate cars. Chris rode in the family car with four of his Peacekeepers in tow. Roxanne drove her own car as close to the big Lincoln as she could. Angel settled for bringing up the rear riding shotgun with her husband Seth.
This impromptu ceremony was Roxanne’s idea.
The love of his life seemed to be full of ideas lately. He had to agree though, that this one was long past due.
He heard each car door slam as the ones who were still closest to him met him by the new gravesite. He’d had his father’s remains removed from that middle school where Serena Tennyson had housed them for so long moved here. He now had his old man’s bones, both his biological mother and step mother lined up in the same section as his brother Xavier. One aisle over were the gravesites of Denise Prince and his step daughter Erica Lovings.
He’d done this all at a considerable expense his new Circle of a House In Chains had more than willing to pay as a gift for his inauguration as the new One. He thankfully denied their offering and paid for this out of his severance packet that he’d received after over two decades working for the federal government.
Chris’ best friend in the world stood to one side of him holding hands with her husband. Chris had always thought of the Gray Man as slightly aloof but he looked even more distracted than he’d ever seen him before. Angel leaned over to him and whispered in his ear that he should meet her in the park after the ceremony ended. He silently nodded in agreement.
And yet, Chris couldn’t help but steal glances at Seth. Angel had told him that her husband had been rapidly improving in a physical sense the past few weeks after his near death experience in that cabin in Northern Georgia when they nabbed J
oseph Champion…but Angel also said that he was struggling more and more each day with retaining events from his long term memory.
Four Peacekeepers guarded his immediate surroundings while at least a dozen more heavily armed men set up a perimeter. He knew that he would have been fine even without their help but he didn’t argue when the Circle asked for him to carry this heavy a detail around with him today. Many of these folks served a House in Chains—had served his brother Xavier in one capacity or the other—
They felt Xavier’s loss as much as he did, especially after the insurrection led by Quincy Morgan led to his murder. And many of them believe what I believe…that if Xavier had lived through the night that the mass suicide that the others planned during Scar’s waning hours would not have come to be.
And in speaking of that tragedy… Chris had wanted to add Grace Edwards’s body to those who were here in this burial ground but her family politely but sternly refused his offer. He understood.
The new Deputy Director of the FBI, Nicholas Sheridan, had sent flowers and a carefully crafted but genuine statement that showed the man’s kindness. He apologized for his absence…and mentioned that he had an urgent matter to personally speak to him about at Chris’ earliest convenience.
Special Agent Tabitha Blue sent nothing.
Yet, the biggest surprise of the morning was still to come.
Thomas Pepper exited as quickly and his bulk allowed
