Angel Eclipsed (The Louisiangel Series Book 2)

by C. L. Coffey

  “You understand me?” the man asked me, as Joshua released his arm. I shot the man a look, and he quickly fell quiet, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a passport and started to hand the red covered book to Joshua. Joshua shook his head and pointed at me. I probably looked as puzzled as the man did, but he offered the small book to me.

  When Joshua arched an eyebrow at me, I frowned, taking the passport. “I wish I could speak a second language as well as you speak English,” I muttered. I glanced up in time to catch the look the man was giving me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to be as offensive as it sounded.”

  “I don’t speak English,” he told me, looking confused. “It is you speaking our language, as if it is your own.”

  I narrowed my eyes again, and slowly, I turned to glare at Joshua, my hands finding their way to my hips. “If this was some elaborate trick to get my attention you went to far too much effort. And you certainly didn’t need to get one of them to hit you in the face in the process.”

  “Angel, shut up and look at that passport,” Joshua instructed me.

  My snappy retorts died in my throat as Joshua watched me. With a loud sigh that implied I was more put out by his request than I actually was, I turned my attention to the passport. I’d never seen a Chinese passport before. I figured it would follow the same pattern as the British or American ones, and flicked through it, looking for the identification page. There was something off about it, like I was staring at a fake. But I was certain this was the real deal.

  I brought it closer to my face, squinting as I studied the writing. I could read every single word on the page. Well that didn’t seem right. I stared hard at it, and then something strange started to happen. Some of the words started flickering. One moment the words were in English, the next they appeared as the little Chinese symbols I was familiar with, but couldn’t understand. I blinked, and the words return to English.

  Wordlessly, I handed the passport back to its owner. “Angel,” Joshua said softly. “Would you tell this gentleman that I’m going to let him and his daughter go?”

  I nodded, feeling strangely numb. I knew Chinese? That just seemed so… That couldn’t be right. I didn’t even know anybody who was Chinese, never mind spent any time trying to learn the language. I did as requested, still surprised when they nodded their understanding, thanked me profusely, and left.

  Joshua waited for the last few members of the crowd to disperse, having lost interest, before turning to me. “Angel, what are you doing here?” he asked me.

  I looked at him and pointed to the red mark on his cheek. “I thought you were in trouble.”

  For a long moment Joshua studied me. Eventually I could see the resolve settle across his face. “Can you help me with something?” he asked me carefully.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Whatever it was, it would probably involve being alone with him, and I still didn’t think that was a good idea. Much as I willed it not to, my heart seemed to constantly flutter in his vicinity: distance did indeed seem to make the heart grow fonder. Plus, after the way we had left things last time, I wasn’t ready to tell him he was still my charge. I really was an odd choice for this job. My mouth, not listening to my brain, opened. The next words that came out were not, ‘sorry, I’m busy’. Instead, they were, “Sure. What do you need?”

  Joshua looked momentarily surprised, and grabbed my hand, as though he thought I would change my mind. Any chance of that happening disappeared with his touch. That familiar feeling of warmth flooded through his fingers, into my hand, and up into my body. No, I was going with him.

  * * *

  Whatever help he needed from me, he needed it at the precinct. I followed him inside, and he took me to the holding cells. I’d been in them once before and it was a better experience to be on the other side of the lock this time. Joshua unlocked one of the doors and I followed him inside. There was only one occupant. He was a man in his forties who looked like he had once been a reasonably well-kept person. Now he looked like he hadn’t slept for several days, his clothing looked equally as disheveled, and he was in desperate need of a shower and shave.

  I looked questioningly at Joshua. “What’s going on?” I asked him, eyeing the man suspiciously.

  “We arrested him last night,” Joshua explained, vaguely. “Just do me a favor and talk to him for me.”

  Okay, so there were bars separating us, but the guy had been arrested for murder, and there was something in his expression which didn’t fill me with confidence. “Why?” I asked Joshua instead.

  “Please?”

  “Hi,” I said, giving the man an awkward wave. When he gave me a weary sigh I glanced back at Joshua. He gestured that I should continue to try. I took a couple of steps forward and tried again. “My name is Angel,” I offered.

  “Another one,” the man muttered so quietly I barely caught what he said. “How hard is it to get a translator?”

  “A translator?” I repeated, unsure if I’d heard correctly. “I didn’t think my accent was that bad?”

  The man’s mouth fell open. “You speak Croatian?”

  “Apparently I do,” I muttered. My gaze drifted back to Joshua who was waiting patiently for me. “He’s from Croatia,” I told him. “He’s speaking Croatian. It seems I speak Croatian.” Joshua pulled out his phone and started searching through it. “It looks like you can add speaking weird and wonderful languages to Dream Walking and super strength,” I muttered to myself. I looked up and saw Joshua watching me intently. Realizing the man was still talking to me I switched my attention back to him.

  “I swear,” he was pleading with me.

  “I’m sorry, I missed that,” I told him. “What’s your name? Mine is Angel.”

  “Malik. My name is Malik. You have to tell them I didn’t do it. I could never hurt her, I loved her. I love her more than life itself. It was like I was possessed. I could see everything my body was doing, but I wasn’t the person controlling it. You have to believe me! I would never, ever hurt Iskra!” Malik got to his feet, but before he could move two paces to the bars that separated us, Joshua was between us.

  “Angel, stop talking to him. Anything he says will be inadmissible in court. We need to wait for an official translator,” Joshua instructed me, firmly. “Just tell him that we have to wait, but the translator is on his way.”

  I quickly relayed the message to Malik but was ushered out of the room by Joshua before I could catch his response. As Joshua was finishing up his phone call to request a translator who spoke Croatian, the door to the room behind us opened. I turned and found Leon staring at me, his arms folded and he didn’t look impressed to see me. “What are you doing here?” Leon asked me.

  His eyes changed color. One second they were brown, the next blue. I blinked. They were brown again. I was seeing things.

  “I asked her, Leon,” Joshua said from behind me. “Angel can speak a few languages and I thought maybe she can narrow down what the prisoner was speaking. Turns out she can; he’s from Croatia. The translator is on his way in.”

  “A bi-lingual psychic college dropout?” Leon said, dryly. “As I don’t seem to have been clear enough already, maybe I should repeat myself. At best, Angel is a college dropout. She should not be walking around a precinct whether she is supervised, unsupervised, or in possession of a pass.” His eyes narrowed as he turned to look at me. “You are trouble,” he told me slowly. “I have no power to say who you can and can’t date, and you’re not listening to me anyway, but if you must insist on being together, you absolutely will not, under any circumstance, do so while Joshua is working.”

  “Leon!” Joshua exclaimed, outraged. “That’s out of order.”

  “No, Josh. What’s out of order is a civilian girl hanging around crime scenes, when she should still be in college. What’s out of order, is a member of the public communicating with a murder suspect being held in police custody. What’s out of order is my rookie acting with the confidence of someone with twenty
years of experience when he should be listening to his superior officers rather than making up the rules as he goes. Joshua, your future here is hanging by a thread: I’m trying my damnedest to help you keep your job.”

  “Leon,” Joshua started again.

  “No, he’s right,” I said, cutting Joshua off. “I should leave. I’m leaving now,” I added, more for Leon’s benefit.

  “I’m coming with you,” Joshua informed me. “It’s my day off anyway.” I didn’t argue. I needed somebody to escort me through the building anyway. We walked in silence until we got outside, at which point Joshua grabbed my hand. “We need to talk.” He looked so relieved when I nodded, that I honestly thought he expected me to say no. He didn’t let go of my hand, instead leading me over to his car.

  We drove in silence for a long time. I wasn’t really paying any attention to where we were going until we pulled off the road onto a dirt track. We finally came to a stop, and I realized where we were. I’d been here before once before, though I had not been awake at the time. Wherever we were, and it did seem that it was somewhere along the edge of Lake Pontchartrain as I’d suspected, this was Joshua’s place of escape. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t asleep. I looked over and caught Joshua watching me. Instead of explaining myself, I got out of the car.

  I could hear Joshua following just behind me, but I ignored him, and continued on to the small dock, walking to the end. The sun was starting to sink in the sky, but we still had some time before sunset.

  “Did you decide that I needed a new guardian angel, or did Leon?” Joshua asked coming to a halt behind me.

  “Leon doesn’t know I’m your guardian angel,” I told him.

  “No, but what he’d said to you at the precinct, that wasn’t the first time you’d heard it was it?” he said, his tone indicating he already knew the answer.

  “No,” I admitted. “But he was only saying out loud the things I had been thinking. You got hurt,” I told him, simply. “You got hurt, and you got in trouble,” I added. “The fact is I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt again. I’m new to this, and I don’t know what I’m doing. You shouldn’t have to pay for that.”

  Joshua stepped in front of me, and I blinked up at him. He was blurry. “I need to tell you something,” he told me. His hands reach for mine, and he held on tightly. “The thing is, you’re going to freak out about it. So, with that in mind, I’m going to do something else first. Just remember, that what I’m going to tell you is not going to be as bad as what I do.”

  I stared blankly at him. What did that mean? What was he going to do? Before I could voice the questions, we were suddenly flying. We hit the water: he had thrown us both in. There was a feeling of déjà vu, and not the good kind. Once again, I found myself in Lake Pontchartrain, and once again panic set in. I broke through the surface, but arms wrapped around my waist, stopping me in my efforts to escape the water. “Joshua, let go!” I yelped.

  Despite my wriggling, Joshua’s hands found mine and he tugged them back to me, pulling my back against his chest: his arms, and my arms, wrapped around my waist. “Stop struggling,” he told me, his mouth right by my ear.

  “Joshua, this isn’t a dream! This is Lake Pontchartrain, and we’re really in it. And so are the alligators!” I yelled at him, continuing to panic. All of a sudden, he let go. I was out of the water in seconds, my hands and knees on the dock, doing my best to keep my terror under control.

  Joshua pulled himself up beside me, and reached over. He tucked my hair behind my ears, forcing me to look at him. “I want you.” I stared at him, speechless. He merely grinned. “I want you,” he repeated. He leaned forward and the grin turned smug. “You’re still stunned. That means I can do this.”

  He moved closer, his lips hovering over mine. I was still in too much shock to manage to do anything other than stare at him. So he kissed me. A real one this time – not one fueled by alcohol. His lips felt as real as they had when I’d kissed him when Dream Walking, and yet this was better. The warmth I felt when Joshua touched me was there, but it was more: it was heat. It surged through me, to all my extremities. If I could concentrate on anything other than his lips moving against mine, I would be wondering if there was steam coming off us.

  Something took over me then. I’d like to say that it was my way of finding a release for everything I had been going through over the past few weeks. That maybe, subconsciously, my body had recognized the fact that right in this moment, I didn’t have to think about anything else. But I would be lying. Right then, I was just a girl who liked a guy, who was lucky enough to have him like her back.

  The kiss deepened into something that certainly wasn’t appropriate between a human and an angel. I didn’t care. I leaned backwards, pulling Joshua with me, reveling in the feeling of areas of his body touching mine, of more heat passing from him. The heat intensified as his hand slid under my sodden top, skimming over my skin.

  I let his hand travel further upwards, and then he let out a guttural groan. The noise, though far from unpleasant, flicked a switch in me. Unfortunately, it was the off switch. Feeling like the biggest bitch for leading him on, I rolled out from under him and scooted away. I could feel my face heating up, but this time, it wasn’t from Joshua’s touch. I was embarrassed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  What Hurts The Most?

  “I’m sorry,” Joshua apologized, causing me to look at him. I blinked at him, feeling my face heat up even more. He rolled up into a sitting position. “I know the rules. I took it too far, I’m sorry.” Just as quickly, he shook his head. “Actually, I’m not sorry. Not for kissing you, anyway. But I am sorry that I made you break a rule.” My body may be able to move at super speed, but my brain did not. I was still trying to process what had just happened. “Unless you’re sorry I kissed you?” Joshua asked, suddenly sounding the most vulnerable I had ever heard him.

  Quickly, I shook my head. “No, I’m not sorry,” I told him.

  His infamous smirk suddenly appeared. “Good.”

  My brain sprung into life. “You know,” I realized.

  “I know a lot of things, darlin’,” he assured me. “Including the fact you think I’m hot.”

  “The dreams,” I prompted him. There was a moment where I thought my reaction was going to be much more panicked. Joshua seemed to sense that I was still contemplating bolting as he shuffled to my side and reached for my hand. I found myself staring at it, visualizing the heat as it radiated from his hand up my arm. It was like an anchor. An anchor to safety. As I looked over at Joshua, those wonderful cobalt eyes fixed firmly on me, the panic subsided somewhat. I sank back, lying down, and glared up at the sky.

  “So it really was you in them?” he asked, finally.

  His tone made me look over, and at the sight of that smirk, I rolled my eyes. “Not all of them, perv.”

  There was some more shuffling, and he lay down next to me, joining me in staring at the sky. He nudged me with his elbow. “I’m going to guess that the ones where you made an appearance as a blonde are the ones with the real you.”

  I stared at him. “How did you...? Oh,” I realized, blushing. “I’m sorry.”

  Joshua rolled over onto his side and propped his head up with his hand. He was frowning slightly as he stared at me. “What are you apologizing for?” he asked carefully.

  “You know,” I shrugged, wishing the ground would swallow me whole.

  “No, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Joshua said.

  “That I’m not as willing and skilled as your dream version of me,” I admitted quietly.

  “Let me make one thing perfectly clear,” Joshua said. “I’d take the real, blonde, you over anything my brain could conjure up.”

  “Even if I’m never going to be able to do half the things that your dream version of me would do?” I asked in a small voice. I kept my eyes focused on a whisper of a cloud above me, unable to look at Joshua. I didn’t even want to hear his answer.

/>   Joshua’s head appeared above mine. “Even if,” he told me, firmly.

  Maybe for now, but I didn’t doubt his feelings would change over time. I wouldn’t blame him. “You’re still my charge,” I admitted softly. “Apparently you haven’t accomplished what you’re supposed to, which means you still need a guardian angel, and that’s still me.” I told him.

  “I never wanted anybody else,” he responded, still hovering above me. “You’re the one that made that decision for me.” I stared up at him trying to find the words to explain myself. After a while of nothing more than water dripping from his head onto my skin, Joshua exhaled softly, his breath tickling my face, before sinking down onto his back beside me.

  “Leon did say something to me,” I admitted eventually. I stretched the fingers out on each of my hands, and rubbed the palms against my thighs. “It wasn’t just that though. I feel pain, Joshua. Every time I remember Lilah, killing her, and killing Paige… It’s like,” I frowned. “It’s like getting a paper cut, only it’s a paper cut to every cell inside me. It’s a physical agony to the guilt I’m feeling. Even when I’m not thinking about it, there is this constant throbbing in my chest. It’s taken until now to work out how to function with this, and there are things that can ease that pain a little, but whenever I actively think about it, those paper cuts are back. If something were to happen to you because of me, I wouldn’t survive it.” My words had become thick, like they were having trouble moving from my throat and out into the air.

  Joshua didn’t respond straight away. I thought maybe my voice had become too choked and he couldn’t understand me. Then he moved his body flush against mine, his arm closest to me snaked up behind my neck, while the other reached over and pulled me to him. While I relaxed into his chest, his hold around me remained firm. “I’m sorry I’m the cause of your pain, darlin’.”

  “But you’re not,” I told him. I brought my hand up, resting it over his heart, just inches from my nose. “The fact that you are alive makes me feel,” I chewed my lip searching for the word. I finally settled on one. “Fortunate. Even though I killed Lilah to save you, I don’t regret doing it because you’re still here. You’re not the cause of my pain. If anything, you’re my drug. You’re like an analgesic: being with you dulls it.”