Airs & Graces: The Angel's Grace Trilogy Book I

by A. J. Downey

  “I still couldn’t see everything. It was like a lot of the dream, all disjointed, coming in one piece, then another. But they weren’t Demons, I don’t think. I mean, they could have been, and she just couldn’t see them, but I think they were men. She kept the keys hidden. They hurt, they hurt a lot, but she kept them hidden, even though they threw her in a prison. Her, and a lot of other people. They… Tab, they were tortured. They cut them, and starved them, and beat them, and… and a lot of other things. She didn’t see her family. And she kept herself alive, and sane, sort of, by focusing totally on keeping the keys hidden. And she did. Well, she held on to her sanity anyway. She… she died in that prison. They killed her, Tab. I saw my… her body being dragged, and tossed with a lot of others to be burned. But she had the keys hidden inside her, and she died… she died hoping they wouldn’t find them.”

  “Do you know who they are, yet?”

  “No. Like I said, it was disjointed, jumping from image to image. And Iaoel was doing her best to be disruptive – throwing distorted images into the mix, I think it was her version of screaming, since she has no voice. I think you were right. She’s had this vision before, Tab. She remembers being stuck, being beaten and helpless, tortured, and then feeling it when the body was burned. She just kept that part on a loop, trying to make me suffer with her.” While she remained obviously tormented by the nightmare visions, Adelaide didn’t seem entirely broken up over Iaoel’s suffering. “I do remember some words, though. I just don’t know what they meant.”

  “Someone spoke to you?”

  “No. Well, yes. A lot of shouting and commands I didn’t understand. With the screaming, and echoes and all sorts of noise, I couldn’t be sure, but I think it was another language, and Iaoel wasn’t translating. I always understood before, but not this time. I just saw the letters. But these were words on a sign. It kept coming up, but every time it did, she tried to throw up another image. The more I fixated on it, the more pissed off I think she was getting, so I tried to hold onto it.”

  “The lack of translation may have been because of the nightmare. And, a sign?”

  “A sign, all in black, twisted letters on an archway, yes. I just remember they were important. They stood out in my… in her mind. If we had a computer, I’d look it up. Maybe that would help?”

  “Just spell them out for me. Or write them down as best you can.”

  After a short while, a lot of it spent with Adelaide stretching, trying to get some feeling back in her legs, we went outside, and she sketched the words she’d seen in her vision in the dirt.

  “Try to rest for a while, we’re going to go find food and get some supplies, and then we’re leaving.”

  “You know where the keys are? Where?”

  “Appropriately, where Angels fear to tread.”

  ***

  The archway letters reading Arbeit Macht Frei might as well have translated out of German as ‘Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.’

  After all, the Auschwitz Museum commemorated one of the most hopeless places on Earth. Where Adelaide may have seen signs of God’s judgment upon mortals before, this was an all-too-human tragedy. It was understandable that Adelaide had briefly thought that the vision might have been one of Hell.

  We made sure to arrive at night, with no one about. Even narrowed down this far, if the keys were somehow still here, the complexes of the two memorials making up the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum took up a lot of space.

  Adelaide clutched my arm tight as we walked. Then she paused as we neared the buildings, pointing at the archway gate. “I remember that. We’re in the right place,” she finally managed, before starting to move again. “They pulled us through those gates. Do I want to know what it means?”

  “Work makes you free,” I translated. She shuddered harder, needing a couple of moments before she was able to continue moving.

  The trip was a slow one. I kept careful watch out for anyone that might see us, but Adelaide kept pausing, freezing up as she recognized bits and pieces of the complex, while others didn’t seem to play any particular role in the flashing images of the nightmare visions. At one point, she even clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a scream. When she pulled her hand away, she’d bitten down so hard on her lip she was bleeding. “Sorry, sorry! That building, I remember that building. And that area there. It’s like it hasn’t changed. But that was so long ago. And then over there is where there was a… I guess they called him a doctor, but he didn’t heal anyone. I just remember pain, and fear, and some paintings.”

  “They’ve taken pains to keep it the way it was, so no one can erase the history.”

  “God, it’s horrible,” She bit down again. “That’s okay to say, right?”

  “Yes, praying to God is okay. This place could use a little more of Heaven’s light.”

  “Why didn’t you stop it?” Her tone shifted, briefly, to something more accusatory. “You… I mean, He passed judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, but he let this place stand. Why?” There were more tears by the end, while her tone became more plaintive as she spoke, genuinely seeking answers.

  “Sodom and Gomorrah are precisely why. There was …regret, or at least a change of heart over punishing people for the exercise of the will He gave them. The burning of the innocent along with the guilty brought with it deep guilt. Otherwise, he would not have let Himself be locked away. The virtuous and the forgiven still go to Heaven, and His promises are kept. There’s no more floods, or scourges, or rains of fire these days, except the ones men visit upon themselves.”

  “So all of this was just men? No Fallen, or anything?”

  I shook my head. “I wish there had been. That much was watched for. We’re not supposed to interfere in most mortal lives, most of the time. That suits most of the host just fine. But when the Fallen get involved, that’s something different.”

  “And you couldn’t do anything to help these people because then, the Fallen would have gotten involved, and made things worse?” It sounded like understanding was dawning. There was no more reproach in her voice. She’d seen how I reacted, when I was younger, to the plight of the innocent in the cities.

  “Much worse,” I agreed. “I can protect people from having their exercise of the Gift interfered with by Heaven and Hell. The horrors you visit on each other are a different matter.” Adelaide looked at me. I could see every bit of my own heartache and regret, the helplessness over not being able to do more, mirrored on her admittedly lovely face

  “So it’s not just about Judgment Day,” she spoke with more certainty now. “You guys are in a constant cold war. Except not everyone is willing to sit on the sidelines.”

  I nodded, letting her focus on trying to make sense of the intricate politics of the ages-long war while we moved. Finally, she pulled up short again, and pointed off in the distance. “There. I remember that view. I think we may be close. I think… I… I think she spent any time she could staring through the gates off that way. Are you going to be able to, like, feel the keys when we get close, or anything?”

  I shook my head. “I’m relying on your guidance. They’re very well protected that way. Iaoel’s gifts, obviously, gave her an edge there, but it took even her a long time to find anything.”

  “So they could be anywhere. Or not even here,” Adelaide said, without sounding remotely like she was giving up. She walked the length of the complex, though the two of us needed to briefly duck out of sight on hearing voices. The Museum had been vandalized before, and I was sure they weren’t taking chances.

  After her long trek, searching for anything that stood out as especially familiar, she moved back to the cover of a building. “Tab, I… I think I need to try to get another vision, here, where the impressions might be strongest.”

  I think she expected me to protest, for her sake. When I didn’t, for a moment, her expression turned back to the hardened look I had gotten used to, when she was so certain I didn’t care about her fate. Then it softened again, focusing o
n what was at stake. Instead of protesting her efforts, I did my best to show some regard by helping her to get comfortable, in a place distinctly not designed for comfort. There was brief discussion, even, of moving inside one of the buildings, and the areas designed for the camp officers, but she refused, insisting she had a better chance in someplace she recognized.

  Adelaide sat and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. There were a few whispered curse words directed at Iaoel, but eventually she relaxed. Then her body started to shake, and tears started flowing freely. I knelt in front of her, watching her carefully for any signs of distress indicating that it was all becoming too much for her. Without opening her eyes, or showing other signs of coming out of it, one of her hands shot out, grabbing my wrist and squeezing down. She bit her lower lip again, worrying it enough that blood started, but she didn’t cry out, at least.

  After an hour, she slumped, still shaking and sobbing. I held her, there, next to the building, while she recovered her breath, with occasional further sobs, or more whispered curses for Iaoel. She was actually primarily jarred out of it by the sound of voices – or a voice – into a radio. She bolted upright, and I helped her along until we found a different spot with reasonable cover.

  “We’re close,” she said, and wiped angrily at her face. “At least Iaoel thinks we are. The girl didn’t take it with her, to the mass graves or burning. She found a place to hide it. She didn’t even know what the keys were, Tab. Her family never knew. I finally understood that much. Her… I don’t even know how many times great-grandparent was a woodcutter. He found them. And then they just kept being passed on. They were just a family heirloom, something they had to remember their history by. But she hid them anyway. She… oh, God, she just kept thinking if she lived, maybe she could give it to her children. And then she didn’t. All of that…”

  I nodded, wrapping an arm and a wing around her. She gave in to her desperate need for comfort and held tightly to me.

  “She had something to hold on to,” I murmured “It gave her hope. That’s not for nothing.” I think Adelaide took some added comfort in the focus on the girl and the struggle so long ago, and I didn’t ask about the keys or what else she might have seen, letting her come to that in her own time. She’d get herself focused. She always did.

  “I saw it,” she said at last. “Some of the times, when she couldn’t, uhm, hide it in herself, she found a place for them. I think she had put them there before she was dragged off for the last time. I’ll try to find it.”

  “Adelaide, are you – ”

  She cut me off, standing on her own, pulling away from me, offering a bit of a forced smile. “I’ll be fine, Tab. We need to do this. This just tells me that I really, really want to get this bitch out of my head when this is all done. You can take her wherever you’re going to take her. I’m going to have nightmares that don’t even belong to me for the rest of my life. I’m ready for this all to stop. I’m not giving up. If I need to wear my big girl panties to make that happen, then I’ll do it to the bitter end. This is my body, and I’ll be damned if she’s going to be a tenant that doesn’t pay rent. Come on.”

  I followed her around one of the buildings used to house the prisoners. With little warning, she crouched, trying to dig with her fingers at the grass, rocks, and packed earth, without making much progress. Finally, she stepped back, looking to me with a pleading expression. “There. I think they’re there. That spot used to be looser ground, with a big rock hidden just under the dirt. I’m sure it was that spot.”

  I don’t usually use my sword for breaking up the ground, but it served admirably for the purpose. I drove the blade in, then cut out a section, before crouching to help lift the sod and dirt. She sifted through the broken up ground, finding nothing. Then she dug deeper, while I knelt and helped her search.

  That spot, as it turned out, wasn’t it. She finally gave up, and moved to another, slightly less sure, but still hopeful. We dug out more earth and stone, without luck. Finally, with the first signs of dawn approaching, she moved along the walls one more time. “There.” She pointed.

  “You’re sure?”

  She gestured to the wall. “Here. I’m sure. The ground looks the same, but I remember she marked the wall with a rock, so she could find it. They’ve fixed things, repainted, since then. But I remember what the wall looked like, how far it was from the corner. Help me.”

  We dug again, finding the ground slightly easier to move here. It took us fifteen minutes to dig down as deeply as the starved and exhausted young woman could have buried anything unnoticed. My hand closed on something cold. I drew the keys out, still together, crusted with decades of dirt.

  “Tab!” I barely heard Adelaide’s harsh cry over a rumbling sound. I turned to see her amulet glowing brighter than I’d yet seen it, her hands clapped over her ears. I didn’t see anyone else around and took the opportunity to pull Adelaide in close, readying my sword as I protected her with one wing.

  “You won’t need that. I’m not here to fight.” It was different than the last time I’d heard it, but I recognized it all the same, even before I could clearly see the man walking around the nearest corner.

  “Lucifer. If you’re not here to fight, what are you here for? And, out of curiosity, how did you find us?” I noted, as he moved out of the shadows, that the world had stopped around us. There was no breeze, and the grass was utterly still. The three of us were the only things moving. At least I didn’t have to worry about detection.

  When I could finally see him clearly, I could see he’d taken the form of a tall, fit man, blond-haired, blue-eyed, wearing a gray business suit. There was no direct affiliation with any of the humans who’d been here, but I still couldn’t help but think the look was a nod towards ideas of a better race, even if he didn’t think humans, or all Angels, were a part of it. “I never lost you, Tabbris. Or rather, never lost her. Oh, sure, that amulet makes it difficult, but I’ve learned a few tricks of my own. I’ve been following her ever since our first meeting.”

  “And never approached her again? That seems unlikely.” I wanted to make it especially clear to Adelaide that nothing he said was to be taken at face value.

  Lucifer just smiled. “She wasn’t ready yet. Oh, you had a lot of my plan down very nicely, Tabbris. I have to admit, after our time together before, you know me better than almost anyone. ‘Not playing the same game as anyone else.’ I like that description. But you were missing a step.”

  “And you’re going to tell me what that was, I suppose?” I said. Adelaide, thankfully, didn’t seem at all inclined to come out from the protection of my wing, or to speak up, just clutching close and listening.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t. I’d let you wonder, and let it eat at you. Especially since giving away parts of the master plan just leads to problems. But telling you the truth, this time, will hurt so much more than lies, even lies by omission.”

  I narrowed my eyes, trying to look and listen for any waver, any hint of untruth, though I knew, in this case, I wasn’t going to find any – and if I did, they’d be intentional. I also didn’t want to fight, not here, not now, not while protecting Adelaide. So I listened. “Go on.”

  He smiled brighter. “See? I knew we could be reasonable. The thing is, I don’t need Adelaide to help Iaoel fall; she was pretty much already there. I just needed to find out what she’d seen before you expelled her from her vessel and hid her and her Grace away.”

  “Iaoel hadn’t fallen, when I killed her. You’re lying.”

  “Just a formality, I assure you. Oh, certainly, she had her moments of wavering. But, you see, we were talking. She came to me, to understand my real goals.”

  “Your real goals?”

  “This place wasn’t her only nightmare. She always had so many. She told me how she’d cling to you for hours after some of them.” He was trying to add some validity, a personal touch and personal knowledge, to try to make the rest of his claims sound believable as well. I knew this ga
me of his.

  “Keep going,” I said.

  “When she came to me, it was after seeing Hell. She felt what it was like to be outside of God’s Grace, outside of His sight. So we met. We talked about her visions and how she felt that the vision of Hell had to be important, because her visions always were. And we got to talking about mortals and free will – a subject near and dear to her lover’s heart – and we… bonded.”

  I tensed, and Lucifer grinned. I hadn’t meant to show that he could get under my skin with words in a way torture never had. Adelaide noticed it too. “You bonded over mortals and free will? Really?” I didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm.

  The grin just got bigger. “And how they got endless free passes. Confess, come back to God, and you’re golden. But she got led around by the nose by visions of a future which supposedly wasn’t set in stone, and I and mine could never be forgiven. We could never come home.”

  “You have to actually be penitent to earn forgiveness,” Addy pointed out bravely, then hugged closer to my side.

  “Do you? The church used to sell licenses to sin. And that was okay for mortals. Sure, they talk a big game about needing to come to God with an open heart, or whatever it is. I can never manage to sit still through the sermons… but where’s the dividing line, hmm Tabbris? Where does it hit the point where you can’t do the same thing again and again, and keep pretending you’re genuinely sorry just because guilt has creeped up on you? Who’s the judge? You? Michael? Jesus? Peter? I’ve lost track. Why do they get endless free passes if they say they’re sorry?” Either the anger was feigned, and he was trying to bait me, or I’d gotten under his skin a little as well.

  “You knew better. And then there’s the matter of the war for Judgment Day. And tempting mortals to fall. You have your job to do, your part to play as do we all…”

  The grin returned, though with less sincere cheer behind it. “Oh, yes. That.” While he kept talking, his eyes fell on Adelaide, huddling behind my wing. “Iaoel saw a vision of me kneeling before God. It was amidst a lot of tangled things, but she thought that, just as I led some to fall, she might be able to save me. Like I said, we bonded.”