by C. L. Coffey
“That won’t look particularly chivalrous of me,” Joshua objected.
“Whereas it wouldn’t actually be particularly guardian-like for me when you come down with pneumonia,” I returned. “It’s late and the store’s not busy. Let’s grab some things and find a hotel.”
Joshua nodded, pulling the jacket on. Despite my short sleeves, no one in the store seemed to pay much attention – I was certain my wardrobe choice was exceptionally boring compared to some of the things that had been spotted in there.
We grabbed a cart, picking up some snacks (Maggie’s jambalaya was still filling our stomachs) and some toiletries. The trip to the clothing section was brief as there wasn’t a lot to choose from, and then we were getting soaked as we again made a run back to the car.
By the time we arrived at a hotel, it was late, still raining, and we hadn’t had a chance to dry out anyway. When they gave us a key to a room which meant going back outside, we didn’t even bother to try to shelter ourselves from the downpour. “Well at least we missed the storm,” Joshua said as a crack of thunder grumbled above us.
“Go shower,” I instructed Joshua as he started to pull groceries out of the carrier bags.
The room was pretty basic though it boasted a comfortable looking queen bed. There was a large flat screen TV opposite the bed, and a small kitchen area – or at least a section of sideboard with a microwave, coffee maker and small fridge. I busied myself putting the few groceries in the fridge which needed it, then hovered around the small tiled floor area beside it, not wanting to drip water everywhere.
When Joshua came out, I darted into the bathroom and into the shower. I was quick – it was late and although I didn’t really feel physically tired, I was still feeling drained from everything that had happened over the last couple of days. I dried myself off, toweling my hair dry as best I could, and then pulled the pajama set on. As soon as I had, I regretted my choice.
I hadn’t been paying that much attention to the pajamas. I’d gone for something flannel, so it wasn’t that they were too revealing or sexy, but at the last moment I had changed my mind from something plaid to something patterned. I had thought they were spots, but now I was looking at them, I realized they were covered in tiny angels. Cherubs. Hell, they could have been little cupids for all I could tell. As the other options were either sleeping in my wet clothes or nothing at all, I kept them on and left the bathroom.
The room was lit only by the television Joshua was watching (a quick glance told me one of the Bond films was playing) and he was already half under the covers, claiming the side of the bed closest to the door. His gun and badge were on the bedside table beside him.
Suddenly, I felt awkward. It wasn’t our first time sharing a bed together, and I had worn less clothing around Joshua before, but for some reason, I could feel my cheeks flaming, and I lingered by the doorway.
Joshua’s eyes left the film and flicked over to me, where he tilted his head and grinned. “What on earth are on your pajamas?”
“I think they’re supposed to be cupids,” I shrugged. I tilted my head as I looked at Joshua. “Are you even wearing pajamas?” I asked as I stared at his bare chest.
“You’re just gonna have to find out, darlin’,” he smirked. “Or are you chicken?” I folded my arms and glared at him, at which point he sighed. “You’re no fun,” he declared, before pulling back the covers to reveal the plain black pajama bottoms.
I bit back a smile and grabbed a packet of Twizzlers from the sideboard before heading to the other side of the bed and getting in. I didn’t particularly care about the film Joshua had chosen to watch, but I ripped open the candy and settled back. Before I could eat one, Joshua had reached over and grabbed a handful. “Hey!” I objected.
Joshua just grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at me.
In retaliation, I reached over, stealing a handful of his M&Ms, and, even though I wasn’t in the mood for the chocolate, proceeded to eat it.
“Thief!” Joshua accused in mock outrage. The next thing I knew, M&Ms were going everywhere as Joshua launched himself at me and began tickling me.
I let out a squeal and tried to wriggle away from him. “Real mature,” I cried.
“You started it,” Joshua said, leaping at me, stopping my escape.
We fell backwards with a bounce, but before I could right myself, Joshua had sat on top of me, pinning my arms down by my sides. “You were the one who stole my Twizzlers first,” I informed him, staring up into his blue eyes.
“I beg to differ,” Joshua disagreed, leaning closer. “I’m the detective, I should know.”
“Is this the point where you pull your handcuffs out?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Because I’m fairly certain I could break out of them.”
Joshua brought my arms up beside my head, the action bringing him close enough that our breathing was resulting in our chests touching. “I don’t need handcuffs,” he whispered.
No. No, he didn’t.
I raised my head from the ground to capture his lips with my own. Joshua’s hands left my wrists, tracing their way along my arms. I could feel Joshua smiling as we kissed, and I pulled back, frowning. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re wearing little cupids,” he said, sitting back. “I feel like they’re all watching me.”
My frown turned into a scowl. “Unbelievable!” I exclaimed. “We’ve got to be over 300 miles from that convent and Cupid is doing the exact opposite to what his reputation says he should be doing.”
“What? I think these pajamas are adorable,” Joshua grinned.
“Exactly the look every girls aims for: adorable,” I grumbled.
“Darlin’, I don’t care if you’re wearing cupid covered pajamas, or nothing,” Joshua declared. When I arched an eyebrow, he smirked. “Okay, I’d much rather you were wearing nothing, I...” he trailed off.
I blinked. “You, what?” I propped myself up with my elbows, watching Joshua with bewilderment. Joshua swung himself upright and paused, looking down at me. “What?” I repeated, hesitantly.
“Nothing,” he said, reaching over and grabbing his jeans. He pulled something from his pocket and handed it over to me. “I was going to give you this last night.”
I quickly sat upright and I took the item off him: a small velvet pouch. I tugged it open and tipped the contents into the palm of my hand. A silvery chain glinted up at me, the light from the television reflecting off a small pendant. I pulled it free: it was perhaps the size of a quarter overall, a small fleur de lis made with a blue stone. Surrounding it was a pair of wings. “It’s beautiful,” I said, holding it up in front of me. I looked past it at Joshua. “I love it,” I added, putting the necklace on. It was a long chain, the pendant hanging low, beneath my top.
The look he gave me then was enough to make my insides melt: they could join the quivering heap that was my heart. This time, it was my turn to launch myself at Joshua.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sua Sponte
It was still cold and blustery, but the weather had improved significantly overnight; although, the dark clouds racing towards Houston on the horizon hinted that it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Joshua and I had a quick continental breakfast before checking out and making our way to the glass fronted office Darell worked in.
His office was on the fourteenth floor. The elevator opened up into a reception area with a confused receptionist who didn’t seem to understand how the phones worked. “They’ll call back?” she said, doubtfully as we walked over.
“Good morning,” Joshua greeted her. “We’re here to see Darell Ford.”
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked. “Because he usually doesn’t see anyone this early.”
“Could you tell him Angel is here,” I said. “From New Orleans.” We weren’t supposed to tell people where we lived, but I hoped that was vague enough.
The girl rubbed at her temple as she picked up the phone. With a face that did not instill confidence, she hit a ran
dom button on the phone. “Mr. Ford…? Sorry.” She pulled another face and hit another button. “Mr. Ford…? I have an Angel from New Orleans to see you.” She listened to whatever he said, and then hung up. “You can go straight in,” she said, pointing to a corridor. Before we had even left the desk, she had pulled out a bottle of bright yellow nail polish.
I followed Joshua down the short corridor. Before we could knock on the only door, it opened and a man who took up most of the doorway – his arm muscles were enormous – appeared. He spared a glance at me before turning his attention to Joshua. With a calculated look, he stepped back and allowed us in.
He closed the door behind us, but rather than head for his desk, he stood there, flipping his jacket out of the way to unholster his gun and point it at Joshua. “Why is an angel packing?” he asked, addressing Joshua.
“Joshua’s not an angel,” I blurted out, fighting my instinct to step in front of Joshua. I didn’t appreciate how many times I’d witnessed a gun being pointed at either of us.
“Tanya said an angel was here,” he said. His eyes remained on Joshua, but his hand didn’t move from the gun. “Angels are not allowed to tell anyone what they are, which means you’re probably the Fallen.”
“If we were the Fallen, you know that wouldn’t do much, right?” I asked, nodding my head in the general direction of the gun.
“My bullets are coated in platinum,” Darell responded, with a shrug. He looked at me then. “You want to try them out?”
“I’m not one of the Fallen,” I shrugged. Rather me than Joshua, if I had to prove a point.
“Neither of us are fallen angels,” Joshua interrupted, shooting me a silencing stare. “I’m a detective with the NOPD, which is why I am carrying a weapon. We did not mention angels – your receptionist did. Her name is Angel. However, it’s clear we all know about angels.”
Darell eyed Joshua and then nodded. “ID.”
“Back pocket,” Joshua announced, waiting for Darell before slowly reaching for it. He held it up for Darell to see.
Darell refused to lower the gun. “How do I know you’re not being possessed by one of the Fallen?”
Joshua looked to me and I frowned, trying to come up with something. “Platinum!” I suddenly realized. “You know about platinum. Give us a bullet,” I suggested. “Without shooting us!” I added hurriedly.
Darell considered it, and then reached into his jacket pocket pulling out a spare clip and throwing it at Joshua. He caught it and promptly released a single bullet from it, holding it up for Darell to see, before wrapping his fist around it. When Darell nodded, Joshua passed the bullet to me. I mimicked Joshua’s actions, until finally; Darell lowered his weapon and holstered it. “I swear, if she wasn’t my niece, I would fire that girl,” he muttered, making his way around to his desk. He sat down and then indicated to the seats in front of it. “So how do you know about angels?”
“I have a guardian angel,” Joshua explained.
Darell looked at me. “You don’t look like an angel.”
“Angel, the angel,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Screw the rules. He already knew about angels, and I was sick of people judging me. “Don’t tell me: it’s the hair.”
Darell shook his head. “No, you’re…” he trailed off, his brown eyes going wide. “You’re like her.”
“Lilah?” Joshua asked.
“She’s your guardian angel,” Darell realized. He sucked in a deep breath, before taking just as long to exhale. “Lilah’s dead, isn’t she?” he finally asked.
I nodded, fighting back a wince from the pain that normally throbbed at a manageable level but had just pulsed to a stronger thrum.
Darell closed his eyes, growing still. “I thought so.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. Lilah may have tried to kill Joshua, and I would never regret saving him, but this was the cost: there was someone who had loved her who was no longer able to be with her.
“We were hoping you could answer some questions,” Joshua gently requested.
Darell nodded. “I’m not sure what help I can be. I hadn’t spoken to her in months.”
“You two were together?” Joshua asked.
“As together as an angel and a human could be, I suppose,” Darell nodded.
I chewed at my lip. What did that mean?
“When did you last see Lilah?” Joshua asked, continuing in his questioning, like Darell was a suspect.
Darell’s eyes narrowed. “What is this really about?” he demanded.
“We’re just trying to gather some information,” Joshua replied, coolly.
“Lilah was helping the Fallen,” I said, jumping in. Darell looked like he was close to asking us to leave and I didn’t want this trip to be wasted. “I know she became an archangel, and then I was told she fell because she slept with you. That makes sense. What doesn’t is that apparently she was helping the Fallen to raise Lucifer and that couldn’t be accomplished if she didn’t still have her wings. We’re trying to understand,” I explained. “I need to know if there’s a chance that Lucifer is actually out there.”
I could see the emotion building up in Darell as he stared at me. Finally, he bowed his head. “I met Lilah nearly a year ago. I was assigned as her charge. That didn’t sit right with me: I had just got back from three tours in Afghanistan – that’s where I needed the guardian angel, where my men needed guardian angels.” Pain flashed through his eyes. He took in a deep breath. “I got my discharge in Georgia and headed to New Orleans. I have family there, so it was somewhere to be while I worked out what to do next. I was helping out my brother in his construction business for a while. Then I met Lilah. She told me what she was and that I was her charge. I still haven’t worked out why I needed one.”
I thought back to something Michael had said: Darell still needed a guardian angel, but there wasn’t anyone spare to be assigned to him. Michael kept checking in on Darell. Maybe I needed to get someone to do that too.
“She didn’t know why I was important, but that didn’t stop her helping me out where she could. Most of the time, she would just turn up on whatever site I was working on, and just join in. It turns out there’s nothing sexier than a woman who knows her way around power tools. I fell in love with her, but it was a long time before I told her that,” Darell continued. “She was my guardian angel and she had rules, one of which was that nothing could happen between us. It turns out the only reason she hadn’t said anything was because she didn’t think I had felt the same way about her. She was shy.”
I had to work hard not to react to that statement. There was nothing shy about the Lilah that I could remember. She’d even flirted with Joshua in front of me. Okay, so maybe we weren’t actually together at that point, but we had been sat together.
“We tried to be professional about it, for her sake,” Darell added, a small smile creeping onto his face. “The archangel she answered to wasn’t too big on rule breaking. I certainly didn’t want to get her into trouble. The problem is, when you have such an attraction to another person, and the feeling is mutual, you start to question what you want more. I guess I won: she decided she wanted us to be together. The morning after, we awoke expecting things to be different but they weren’t. I know she confronted Michael, accused him of lying and left.”
They had been together? So Lilah had been telling the truth? This revelation had emptied my mind of any other thought as the room started to wobble around me. Lilah had been telling the truth? Michael had been the one lying. Lying? I sucked in a deep breath, earning a stare from Darell. Michael lied?
“Do you know how she found the Fallen?” Joshua asked, though I could sense his attention was directed at me.
“How she found the Fallen?” Darell repeated, looking surprised. “She never told me exactly what happened, only that if Michael had been lying about that, he’d been lying about everything else too. She changed after that. She was no longer as shy, always out: she started hiding things from me. Then this opportunity c
ame up,” he gestured to his office. “I tried to get her to come with me – it wasn’t like she was tied to Michael anymore – but she refused and she ended things with me. I thought a bit of space was what she needed, that I could convince her to join me when I’d gotten settled.” He ran a hand over his close cropped hair and shook his head. “I should have fought harder.” He shook his head, more firmly this time. “But the Fallen? No, Lilah, wouldn’t have sided with the Fallen, unless…”
“Unless what?” I asked, impatiently.
“She said if Michael had thought she had fallen she was at risk of Michael hunting her – that was part of the reason that she wouldn’t come with me here. Maybe she found people she felt safe with?” Darell suggested.
I was ready to tell him that was a stupid suggestion. Michael wouldn’t just turn his back on her. But when I thought about it, he had always been so adamant that the Fallen were evil, and let’s be honest, the Fallen I had met so far hadn’t painted the best of pictures. Maybe I was just trying to cling onto my memory of him? “And you think the people she felt the safest with were the Fallen?” I asked, dubiously. No, this was Michael we were talking about. No matter what his opinions were of the Fallen, there was no way anyone would feel safer with the likes of Beelzebub than Michael. Not unless they had some nefarious intent to start with.
“I think that if I had Heaven’s greatest warrior wanting to kill me, I would go to the only people who would be able to protect me from them,” Darell stated, staring me down.
I didn’t blink. “You don’t think that would perhaps give more reason to be hunted?”
“We’re not trying to start an argument here,” Joshua quickly jumped in. “We’re just trying to understand what has been happening.”
Darell looked to Joshua and his expression softened. “Look, the woman, the angel, that I love, didn’t fall, and there’s no way she would go with the Fallen, unless it was the only way she could stay alive. I can’t even begin to believe that she would try to raise Lucifer. Are you sure that’s what happened?”
