[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  “Forgive me.”

  “So…what happens now?”

  I sat on my own bed in my apartment with Raphael at my side, finishing up the final touches on my new set of bandages. He had healed my arm completely, mending the bones to their former strength, though he advised me not to do anything strenuous anytime soon.

  After Belial’s death, the demons had retreated back to hell and all the corpses disintegrated into ash as soon as they left. The angels went back to their various posts on Earth. Gabriel and Raphael escorted Terrell’s body back to his home and arranged it to look as if he’d died of more natural causes. Michael took the sliver of the True Cross to Heaven and then came back to take me home.

  “Fortunately, the tornado chased away all the innocent bystanders, and thus there were no witnesses to the event. However, we have people on standby monitoring major video sites for any possible footage. We also have people in the New Jersey police department to help cover up the sudden ‘weather anomaly’ that will be reported by said witnesses.” Raphael stood and put his First Aid kit back in his trademark leather bag.

  Michael leaned against the doorframe with one hand pressed to his mouth, looking more solemn than I had ever seen before. Gabriel hovered by the bathroom door, his arms crossed over his chest as he listened.

  “Good. I’d hate to have made up some sort of explanation for all this. A movie shoot. A LARP gone wrong.”

  Raphael sent a questioning look in my direction. “LARP?”

  I smiled. “Never mind. What about the demons?”

  Gabriel spoke up this time since it was a little more in his department. “It is too soon to tell, but I suspect their master won’t be very happy with their failure. We won’t hear from them in quite some time, until they come up with another scheme.”

  “And Terrell…” I let the sentence hang because it was too painful to finish.

  Gabriel cast a sympathetic look on me, walking over and sitting to my right. “His family has already been notified. I assume they will contact you with information about the funeral.”

  I shook my head, my smile becoming bitter. “You don’t know his family.”

  “Perhaps not, but…if it’s any consolation, his soul is indeed in Heaven.”

  I looked up, shocked. “You…?”

  “I checked for you.”

  A wave of gratitude rolled over me. “Thanks, Gabe.”

  “Of course.” He kissed my forehead, standing up.

  “Raphael and I need to get going. We will be in contact with you soon.” He glanced at his brother and a look went between them that worried me. Neither of them bade the silent Michael goodbye. Something was going on. Something bad.

  I waited until they disappeared out the front door before speaking. “What’s going on?”

  Michael looked at me then, seeming to be drawn out of deep thought. “What?”

  “Don’t pull that,” I said, my voice confident and bold though I felt confused and scared on the inside. “I can tell when you’re hiding something.”

  He sighed. “Jordan—”

  “Michael, I nearly died today. I saw Andrew and my mother today. I saw someone I care about die because I was too late to save him. Don’t keep anything else from me. Please,” I added softly, walking over to him. He stared down at me for an instant and averted his gaze to the floor.

  I touched the side of his face, like he had done so many times to mine, and made him look at me. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been reassigned.”

  My hand fell away like a dead weight and all the air in the room evaporated. “What?”

  He pushed away from the doorframe and walked into the kitchen, pressing his hands flat against the counter until he was hunched over it, closing his eyes. “My Father has ordered me to do cases on my own, away from you, because it’s too…dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?”

  He sighed again, his voice heavy. “You know how.”

  I touched my neck on reflex, getting a sudden sensory memory of his lips on my skin, traveling down my collarbone. Shit. He was right. I did know how. There was no doubt in my mind that if Gabriel hadn’t interrupted us we would have ended up in bed.

  “You can’t contest this?”

  “No, I can’t. Orders are orders. To refuse them would cause Him to disavow me from my rank as an archangel.”

  My breathing started to hitch up, almost like I was having another panic attack. I wrapped my arms around my stomach to keep my hands from shaking. “So you’re just gonna leave? No more protection, no more help with the ghosts?”

  Michael shook his head. “Gabriel will be your new guardian. He’ll look after you in my absence.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that’s fine then.” My voice went cold on its own. I turned my back on him, storming into my bedroom.

  “Jordan, don’t do this, please.”

  I slammed the door, locking it and pressing my forehead against the wood as if it would push all of my memories out of my head. I’d been a fool. Had I really thought that I could cross those lines with him and not be punished? Did I really think I could have him to myself? The Prince of Heaven’s Army wrapped around my pinky. Stupid, stupid little girl.

  The doorknob jiggled and I heard him sigh. “Open the door.”

  “Go away, Michael. I can’t do this right now.” I tried not to sound as upset as I actually was. There was a thunking noise and a brief vibration that meant he’d either hit the door with his fist or his forehead. I couldn’t really tell.

  “I’m sorry. I am. I lost control. I should have been more careful of you.”

  I closed my eyes, steadying myself. “Just go.”

  Silence. Then, after a long moment, he spoke once more.

  “Take care of yourself, Jordan.”

  His footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors until they were faint and then nonexistent. The front door opened and closed, swallowing me in silence. The second he was gone, I collapsed to the floor and buried my face in my knees, hiding my tears from no one but myself.

  Stupid, stupid little girl.

  I worked a six-hour shift the next day, getting home from the bus at around seven o’clock. I’d made lousy tips because, for the life of me, I couldn’t muster a genuine smile. Good thing Lauren hadn’t been there. She would have pulled me into the bathroom and grilled me with questions about what happened. Not that I could tell her anything. It was against The Rules.

  My keys jingled as I took them out of my pocket. As I reached for the lock, my shoe hit something on the welcome mat. I glanced downward, surprised to see a medium-sized cardboard box with a UPS label. Confused, I picked it up, unlocking the door and carrying it all inside. I took the box to the kitchen table and sat down, reading the label on top.

  To my absolute shock, the box was addressed to me from Aunt Carmen. What the hell could she possibly have to send me? Notes about how much she hates me? The souls of little orphan children? I tore off the masking tape and pulled the lid apart, going completely still when I saw what lay inside, cramming nearly every corner of the box.

  Letters.

  Dozens of them.

  And all of them were addressed to me.

  On the very top, there was a bright blue sticky note with one word on it in my aunt’s handwriting.

  Perdónome.

  Forgive me.

  My hands shook just the slightest bit as I set the note aside and dug into the piles and piles of letters with my name on them in an untidy script. I ripped the first one open and found it was a card for my 10th birthday. I sifted through all the envelopes, finding that each one came from a different address under the name Simon Patras, but they all were signed at the bottom of the cards with “A.B.” It could only be one person.

  Andrew Bethsaida.

  She had been keeping them from me all these years, never letting me know that for over a decade this man had been sending his love and support.

  My eyes felt hot. My hatred for her seemed to be at wa
r with my gratitude. This was truly the only humane thing I had ever seen Carmensita Durante do, even if it had been years too late. Maybe Michael had put the fear of God in her after all.

  It wasn’t just letters, either. There were trinkets too: small stuffed animals with dusty fur, key chains with golden angels dangling from them, even a snow globe from Madrid. All at once, I understood. My mother had wanted him to take care of me in her absence, but since he couldn’t do that due to being hunted by the demons, he sent me presents. He tried to reach me, to let me know that someone out there cared. God bless him.

  I sat down and went through them all, putting the envelopes in one neat pile and the cards in another with the trinkets and stuffed animals in the middle. Maybe it was a good thing Michael wasn’t around, because I couldn’t seem to stop crying, though I was smiling through my tears. Even in writing, I could feel how much he cared about me—someone he had never even met.

  The letters for my sixth through tenth birthdays were all simple and colorful, but the ones after that began to get serious. He didn’t divulge his own whereabouts or the fact that he was a Seer. Most of them said that I need only know that he would look after me one day when I was ready.

  “You may be asking yourself who I am or why I’ve been writing you, but just know that I want to make sure you are safe. That is what your mother would have wanted for you, and what I want for you as well. I know that right now things seem at their darkest, but there is an old saying: sometimes it’s darkest just before dawn. There is a dawn for you, and me, and for us all. So hang a night light by your bed and wait for the sunrise, angel.”

  A.B.

  A fresh wave of tears tumbled down my cheeks, but they weren’t sad tears so I didn’t mind. I wiped my eyes and took the letter to the fridge, clipping it on there with a magnet. I had fought in a war. I had nearly died three times in the past three months. I had been broken and beaten and bloodied. I had lost my mother, my lover, and the man who may have been my father figure if he had lived long enough. I had killed. I had suffered.

  But for once in my life, I had love and no one could steal it from me.

  27

  During the first month without Michael, I felt like a quarter rolling around in an empty piggy bank. My apartment felt hollow and I rattled around it, lost, aimless, and uncomfortable. I hadn’t realized how much time he occupied in my daily life. During the day, I’d go to work and when I got out, he would wait for me. Ever since Belial abducted me, he never let me leave work to catch the bus by myself. I had tried and failed to convince him not to waste valuable money five days a week on the bus fare, but he never listened. On weekends, we went to movies and plays or walked in the park or perused the bookstores to collect literature I didn’t have yet.

  The silence killed me. I had my laptop open constantly to play music to combat the quiet. My weekends were spent sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading. I deleted “Golden Brown” from my playlist and avoided every single sentimental love song I could just to stay sane.

  My dinners went back to being simple: tuna salad, spaghetti, fajitas, and lasagna. I just didn’t feel like trying new recipes yet.

  Lauren immediately knew something was wrong. After a week of my unresponsive behavior, she dragged me into the bathroom at work and demanded to know what was going and where Michael went. I merely told her that we weren’t seeing each other any more because his job took up too much time and he couldn’t be with me. Part of it was true, after all. She believed me and offered her sympathy, promising to take me out to meet guys. I declined the offer. I wasn’t ready yet.

  The second month wasn’t as bad as the first, though the urge to start drinking again got worse, so I started attending local AA meetings. Gabriel checked in on me every other week, sometimes by a phone call, other times in person. I never asked him how Michael was doing because I knew, to some degree. While flipping channels, I’d heard about some of his performances on the local entertainment news. The Throwaway Angels were making their way to the top. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

  The other problem was that my nightmares got progressively worse, and it wasn’t just dreams about killing Andrew or Mulciber choking me to death. These dreams involved someone who knew my inner darkness and could bring it to life whenever I fell asleep.

  I stood in a pure white field, much like the one Andrew and my mother had brought me to, but something was different. Wrong. In front of me stood a pane of glass that was a thousand feet high and a thousand feet across. On the other side, I could see the silhouette of a man walking towards it. I squinted, stepping closer to see. My breath caught as he came into focus.

  Michael stood there, his beautiful silver wings flowing from his back, dressed in all black with the most mournful look on his face. He said nothing, merely lifted one hand and pressed it to the glass. I didn’t understand why, but I did the same. I couldn’t feel the warmth from his hand. The windowpane was too thick. God help us.

  Then, slowly, the glass began to darken at the corners, spreading downward until it swallowed Michael’s image in a rush of silver. It had turned into a mirror and behind me there was another man. A man in a suit with black hair on either side of his face and a serpentine smile.

  I whirled around, a scream building in my throat, as Belial reached out and placed his gloved hands against the mirror, trapping me between them. He was so close that I could smell the metallic scent of blood on his breath.

  “Poor, sweet Jordan,” he whispered, his reptilian eyes swallowing my vision. “Without your angel, who will protect your heart?”

  He let his gloved fingertips trail down the left side of my neck, resting the palm over the scar just above my breast. The demon leaned in, his lips brushing my ear and making me shiver.

  “Will you give it to me or shall I take it?”

  “You can chase me for a thousand years. You can hunt me wherever I go, threaten everyone I love, and take away everything I care about…but I will never…ever…give myself to you.” My voice came out clear and harsh, almost brash, but it was the truth.

  Belial inhaled sharply, dragging his hot tongue over my pulse. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  His fangs pierced my skin and I screamed until I woke up.

  As if the nightmares weren’t stressful enough, Terrell’s family had engaged in a legal battle about where and when to inter his body. Apparently, he hadn’t specified in his will and his mother’s side wanted to bury him with her grandparents, while his father’s side wanted to bury him in their grandparents’ graveyard. The only reason I knew about any of it was because of his sweet younger sister, Grace. Even after we broke up years ago, she never hated me like his mother did and so she called to tell me it would be a while before they got the issue settled. I tried to refuse the invitation, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer, bless her heart.

  When the third month rolled around, the depression slackened. I threw myself into work and put more energy towards solving cases. Ghosts poured in at a steady rate. I took extra care to carry my gun, rosary, and a couple vials of holy water with me in case one of the demons resurfaced, but there was no sign of them. Though I did develop an intense fear of cats. Every time I saw one, I hurried off in the opposite direction. Sad, but true.

  I also started watching Food Network on a regular basis. I started simple with dinner entrees and then worked my way up to baking. By the end of the month, I could make cornbread, chocolate chip cookies, and banana bread from scratch. I let Gabriel and Raphael try some of them. After that, all of Gabriel’s visits were in person just so he could try whatever new sweets I’d made that week.

  By the fourth month, I still didn’t feel busy enough, so I started looking into enrolling in Excelsior College for their Bachelor of Science program for restaurant management. After all, I couldn’t be a waitress forever. Spending time at the restaurant made me realize how much I enjoyed cooking food and being around people while they ate. It would be a while before I’d be a
ble to afford it, though. I made a folder for the pamphlets I found and wrote “Promises to Keep” on it.

  It was the end of March before anything related to Michael cropped up. I sat in my kitchen, sharing half of a loaf of banana bread with Lauren after our shift at work. Lily was at the babysitter’s, because Lauren needed to vent about her divorce over sweets. Our conversation had fallen silent for a few comfortable moments before she spoke.

  “I need to tell you something, but first you have to promise not to get mad at me,” she said after downing half her glass of milk.

  I eyed her. “Go ahead.”

  “I bumped into Michael the other night.”

  The sudden mention of his name made my heart rate spike. “Oh.”

  She dropped her gaze to the table top, folding one corner of her napkin. “We went out for a drink.”

  The look on my face must have scared her, because she held up her hands in supplication. “No, no, not like that. He wanted to catch up, not go on a date.”

  I relaxed a little. Before he left, Lauren and Michael did get along pretty well so it made sense he’d want to talk to her.

  She continued. “I asked him how things were going and he said he pretty much just writes songs, works at Guitar Center, and sleeps. Nothing in between. He’s not seeing anybody, in case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said, and she rolled her eyes at me.

  “He asked me how you were.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  Lauren shrugged. “That you were good. Busy.”

  The silence mounted. She folded the napkin into a limp little goose. After a while, she sighed. “Jor, he looked awful. Like he hasn’t been sleeping or taking good care of himself. Around other people, he can hold it together, but I could tell he was miserable.”

  She met my gaze, her voice soft. “He misses you.”

  I closed my eyes. “Lauren…”