“Why are you here?”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to converse with demons?”
He scared me, but I couldn’t let him see. “What if they have? It hardly seems I can stop you from talking, so you might as well answer my questions.” I tried to think what Madam had told me would protect me from evil. She had warned me that there were things other than ghosts to be wary of. I’d encountered a female entity that I believed to be a succubus and also a strong, dark spirit that meant to have new life in the body of a descendant. Gabriel, though, was far stronger and more clever than anything I’d experienced.
“There’s nothing you have that can protect you.” Gabriel was once again reading my mind.
“Did Elizabeth bring you here?”
He considered. “I found Mission to be a place where I was welcomed, before she arrived. Once Elizabeth got here,” his smile was truly terrifying, “Mission became irresistible.”
“Is Callie your daughter?”
“What does it matter to you?”
I kept my thoughts away from Nephilim. “She’s a remarkable child. She deserves two parents.”
Gabriel was suddenly only inches from my face. “What do you know about her?”
“Elizabeth loves her. And the child has the ability to offer comfort by her mere touch.” I wasn’t going to lie—he’d know I was lying anyway. I focused on remembering the way Callie’s little hand had touched my face and calmed me. If I was going to combat Gabriel, I had to be able to control my own thoughts and emotions. I had to learn to put up a wall that he couldn’t penetrate. I’d never been required to think in this way, but knew intuitively that he fed off my thoughts and emotions. If he read my fears, I was in terrible danger. I would be completely vulnerable to him.
I put my hand on Mariah’s neck. She no longer pulled away from him, but her eyes had taken on a distant look. She’d disengaged from this moment, had gone somewhere else. I understood this was the defense I needed too.
The place I chose was Uncle Brett’s shipyard on the Bay of Mobile. I surrounded myself with the sound of men working, the salty smell of the air, the brownish waters of the bay that led to the aquamarine beauty of the Gulf. Several barrier islands—sugar sand beaches windswept by the stiff Gulf breeze—separated the bay from the gulf waters. Dauphin, Ship, Petit Bois, Horn, the barrier islands had become one of my very favorite places on the planet. Uncle Brett had taken some friends and family out for several adventures. The wildness of the islands gave me such intense joy.
“Ah, you’ve figured a way to elude me. Or so you think?”
I didn’t respond. I clung to one particular day on the beach. Hunting for shells. The tiny sand crabs. The call of the sea birds. I inhaled the beauty and held it inside me.
“Your plan to escape won’t work. I’ll never let Elizabeth take Callie. Wherever she goes, I’ll follow.”
I licked my lips and tasted the salt whipped off the tumbling waves that hissed along the beach. The sun on my face seemed to soak into the bone.
“Alex should be there with you,” Gabriel said.
His attempt almost derailed me, but I pushed past that and saw Isabelle waving at me from the distance. She was wading barefoot in the foaming tide. I ran toward her. She and Uncle Brett were getting married. I wanted to help with the plans. She made my uncle happy, and I adored her.
The sound of a horse trotting came to me and I pushed past Gabriel so that I could see the road more easily. Michael rounded the curve on his fine horse.
“Michael!” I called out to him. “Hold!”
When I looked back toward Mariah, Gabriel was gone. One buzzard remained in the tree across the road. He’d report back to Gabriel, I was sure. Nothing went unnoticed. I led Mariah out of the woods and walked up to Michael’s knee and handed him the reins. He’d have to pony Mariah to the cabin to free Slater.
I motioned Michael to lean down closer to me so I could whisper. “The ax, a bolt cutter, and some other provisions are in the saddlebag. Free McEachern and then you both ride through the woods toward Elizabeth’s.”
“How are you going to get back there?” he asked.
“I’ll start walking back. Reginald will pick me up when he’s sure Elizabeth is comfortable enough. We have to leave town as soon as possible. Elizabeth is there. She’s stable, and Reginald says we must leave. He believes the doctor betrayed us.”
“I don’t like you walking alone on the road,” he said.
I waved him away, “I’ll be fine. If I hear anyone coming down the road, I’ll duck into the woods. I promise.” I could tell by his expression that he was seriously debating whether he could leave me alone. He had to. Otherwise the plan Reginald laid out would never work.
“Go! Get McEachern. Ride back to Elizabeth’s down that woods trail on the map. We’ll be packed and ready to go.” I slapped his horse on the rump and Mariah too. They took off at a gentle lope. Michael looked back at me, but he kept going, the hooves of the horses digging deep into the road.
When they disappeared from view, I felt terribly alone and vulnerable. Mariah had been a lot of comfort. I’d learned something from her. I looked across the road to see the black turkey buzzard watching me. He clacked and hissed, as if cursing me. I loved animals and was never deliberately unkind, but I picked up a clump of clay in the road and hurled it at the bird with all my strength. It hit the tree limb but not the bird. He looked at me with great insolence, but then he spread his wings and lifted in to the air, at first clumsy and awkward, but finally gaining an updraft. He circled and then left.
Chapter 25
Luckily, I’d worn the boots I’d found at Elizabeth’s. I’d chosen them to protect my legs from the pinch of the saddle, but now they served an equally important purpose as I cut through the woods. I’d always enjoyed the outdoors, and I was well aware of the danger of snakes and ticks. I wasn’t afraid of them, but avoidance and good boots were the best plan. My hope was that if I stayed deep in the woods—but still close enough to hear traffic on the road—the watchers wouldn’t notice me. Perhaps they tracked me by scent or heat or movement. I couldn’t say. They were not ordinary buzzards, that much I knew. They were preternatural creatures. I could only try to avoid their relentless spying by hiding in the dense woods.
The shelter of the trees held back the very worst of the sun, but I was in a hurry, which increased the oppression of the heat and humidity. My movement and sweat also drew yellow flies and other bloodsucking insects. A swarm of the flies surrounded my head, and I broke off a thick huckleberry limb to swat them away. Despite them, I kept moving as fast as I could.
I tried to imagine how far down the road Michael had gone. Another two miles to the turn off to the cabin where Slater McEachern was chained to the wall with a slave collar. Michael was a fit man, but would he have the strength to chop or cut the links of the chain that held McEachern? If not, would Michael have sense enough to abandon a lost cause and meet us for our escape? Would Elizabeth go without McEachern? Could I so readily abandon Michael? His fate was now sealed along with ours.
All of these thoughts swirled, but there was another more terrifying consideration that I tried to avoid. It was like a sore tooth, though, and I couldn’t long resist worrying it.
What was Callie? Was she literally the child of a fallen angel and a human woman? Had Gabriel tricked Elizabeth into the ultimate betrayal? Was Callie’s father a demon, as Reginald believed?
My religious instruction hadn’t prepared me for any of these considerations. In my Sunday School classes, we’d learned that angels were good. I’d been taught that angels were our guardians. Archangels—those most powerful winged agents of heaven, were sent to us for protection. My memory on the order of angels was rusty, but I remember the seraphim, who worshipped God on the throne, and the cherubim, who guarded Eden after man had been banished. But there were nine orders in all. Of course, there was one fallen angel known as Lucifer, the morning star, the brightest of all the angels wh
o defied and disobeyed God and was cast down into the fiery pit.
The Nephilim, by definition, would be the blending of mortal and immortal, a thing considered impossible in the Christian faith except in that one instance of the Christ child.
And if Callie was a Nephilim, was she also immortal? Was she evil by nature? I stopped my thoughts there, because it was impossible to consider how to kill a tiny baby that might be immortal. Elizabeth would never allow anything to happen to Callie. I would fight to protect that child, whatever she might have the potential to be. But what if she had been born evil?
A soft moan escaped my throat as I pushed through some brambles. I was almost ready to give it up and go to the road. Even if I only walked there for fifteen minutes it would give me a break from trudging through briars, scrub trees, and the fallen limbs that trapped my feet and made me stumble. I’d dropped my swat limb and now my hands were bloody from killing the beastly flies and gnats that found any piece of skin not covered.
When I paused to wipe the sweat from my face, I heard the sound of a car. It might be Reginald coming to retrieve me and my heart lifted. I eased closer to the road and crouched behind a clump of gall berries. I had a pretty good view of the road in the direction Reginald should arrive from.
The vehicle rounded the curve and I drew back. It wasn’t Reginald. It was Lucais and several of his helpers. They all carried guns, and they were drinking and laughing as they drove toward town. One of them was trying to make a lasso out of a rope that had been tied into a hangman’s noose. It was clear to me they were going to town for more help, and then they would return for Slater McEachern. It would seem Lucais had run out of patience. He meant to hang Slater and soon.
I considered running in front of the car, anything to slow them down and give Michael a chance to free McEachern and ride away. I wanted to do that, but I knew they’d kill me on the road. After they’d finished with whatever else they wanted to do to me. I might delay them, but I wouldn’t stop them.
My body trembled and I accepted that I was afraid of Lucais and his men. Afraid of their power not to kill me, but to hurt me. They were men who would enjoy my fear and pain if they ever got the chance to capture me. Though Lucais could control them, he wouldn’t. Because he didn’t want to.
The car passed and my heart slowed enough that I could stumble out into the road and run. I had to get back to Reginald and Elizabeth before those men returned down this road. I couldn’t help Michael or Slater. I didn’t know if I could help Elizabeth and Callie, if anyone could. But Reginald and I had to leave this place. There was something far, far darker at work here than just a power-mad man who would stop at nothing to control everything around him. There was primordial darkness. Evil.
I hit a sandy place in the road and felt as if I were wallowing forward but barely moving. I was tired. Close to exhaustion. Slogging through the woods had drained me and fear had punched adrenaline through my muscles. Now that it was gone, I felt too tired to put one foot in front of the other, yet I continued as fast as I could. I had to get back to Reginald.
To avoid the sand, I stepped back in the woods. The shade revitalized me, giving me another spurt of energy to push harder. Surely Reginald would appear to pick me up at any moment.
A dark shadow sped across the yellow road. Wings flapped, but when I looked up at the slice of pale blue visible between the towering trees on either side of the road, I didn’t see anything. Whatever this was, it was bigger than the other buzzards. This was the king buzzard.
When I looked back at the road, Gabriel was there, his wings extended before he drew them in and wrapped them around himself.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Leave me alone.” I kept walking away from him.
“I could help you.”
“At what cost? And if you could, why haven’t you offered before?” I was afraid of him, but I couldn’t let it show. I couldn’t let him into my thoughts, my emotions. He was exceptionally treacherous. I forced my thoughts away from angels and demons and babies. I focused on the hymns I’d grown up singing in Sunday school. I went through all the stanzas of “Blessed Redeemer” that I could remember.
The minute I stopped the song, Gabriel was right beside me again. “You can’t shut me out, Raissa. Once I’ve penetrated your dreams, I can slip inside you any time I want.”
He terrified me, but I fought it. Weakness was what he sought. “What do you want?” I wouldn’t call him Gabriel. He was not an archangel.
“The same thing all humans want.”
“And that is?”
“I want a family, children. Progeny.” His wings fluttered behind him. “I want to inherit what was rightfully mine.”
“Through lies and deception.”
He laughed. “Humans use lies and deception every moment of every day. Why should I be different? You have taught me well.”
I felt him prying at the cracks in my thoughts, seeking entrance again. Each time it seemed to get easier for him. I had to get away. “Leave me alone.”
He didn’t bother with a response. He just kept pace beside me.
“Don’t think you and Reginald can escape with Elizabeth and Callie. I won’t let you go. Reginald can leave. No one else.”
I didn’t want to ask but I did anyway. “Why Reginald?”
“He’s a man with many talents, but none like you and Elizabeth have.”
“What did you do with Elizabeth’s brother?” I knew somehow that Ramone had run afoul of this entity. That had been the gambit that lured Elizabeth to this isolated, backward community where she was easy pickings. A lonely woman searching for her missing brother; a demon posing as a sympathetic lover. In hindsight it was clear how Gabriel had played my friend.
“Ramone.” He said the word in the Romany language. “Ramone is my gift to Elizabeth. I could have killed him, yet I didn’t. Ramone desires nothing as much as building a fortune. He’s going to be mine eventually.”
“Wanting to do well isn’t necessarily greedy.” I didn’t know Ramone, but I’d never believe anything this demon had to say. He perverted the truth with every utterance. “Where is he?”
“What will you give me if I tell you?”
Never bargain with an entity. Those were urgent words repeated more than once by Madam Petalungro. Never bargain with an entity for any reason. The dead lie, and their lies will seal the fate of your soul. I heard the words as clearly as if Madam stood before me.
“I’m going to figure out a way to destroy you.” I would suffer a terrible fate no matter what I said if Gabriel had his way.
“You are an ambitious young woman. First the vote, then destruction of an immortal. Are you brave or delusional?”
I didn’t care that he mocked me. At least he’d stopped probing into my thoughts. And I could detect a hint of anger in his words. “How fitting that your vanguard is a wake of buzzards feasting on the rotted soul of this town. How delicious carrion must be to you. You walked away from a banquet and hunkered down to sup on a corpse.”
“Had we inherited what was truly ours—” He broke off, realizing that I’d successfully goaded him into a response. Thus, he revealed a weakness. He was vain and aggrieved. He’d had the privileges of first creation, and yet he smarted at the creation of man. I would hold this close until the time was right when I could use it as a weapon.
“I believe when you were cast down you got what you deserved.”
“You dare to judge me?”
His words were spoken in a soft tone, but there was fire and pain beneath them.
The ground before me dissolved and I found myself standing in the center aisle of a small chapel, flanked on either side by two coffins. I looked down at my feet in the flat black church shoes bought especially for a funeral. My parents, or what had been my parents, were inside the coffins.
A burnished red light illuminated the chapel, and between the coffins was an altar where red candles burned. When I looked around, I realized the windows were st
ained glass, but unlike any I’d ever seen. These windows depicted a horned creature with a forked tail. He vanquished men with halos. Blood flowed freely in each scene of victory for the horned one.
Around me I felt the presence of the dead. The unhappy dead. They crowded close, their hunger and desperation apparent. I wanted to run, but again, my feet felt rooted to the red carpet of this hellish sanctuary.
“Raissa.”
“Raissa.”
“Raissa.” My name passed among them in gravelly whispers.
I remembered another bit of Madam’s wisdom, now too late to apply. Never tell a entity your real name. In all of the stories dealing with demons I’d read, finding out the demon’s name was an imperative, but he already knew mine. And Elizabeth’s. And Callie’s and Reginald’s and Michael’s. Whatever Gabriel was, that was not his real name.
“Raissa.” The voice came from the front of the chapel, and it was no demon whisper fed with sulfur. It was a voice I longed to hear every day of my life. “Raissa, let me out! Please. Let me out.”
My mother called to me. Suddenly freed, I stepped closer to the coffin on the left. The polished mahogany gleamed in the red light from the window and candles. A knock came from inside the coffin, and then a voice. Her voice.
“Raissa, I’m so alone. We miss you, your father and I. Open the lid. The key is by the vase of flowers on the altar.”
I walked slowly to the altar. A vase of mums centered a beautifully embroidered cloth. Beside the vase was the coffin key, a z-shaped mechanism that locked the lids on tight. I picked it up.
“Hurry, Raissa,” my mother begged. “Please let me out.”
I moved slowly toward the coffin. My heartbeat thudded in my ears. I didn’t want to open the coffin. I didn’t want to know what was inside. What if it wasn’t my mother? What if it was?
“Remember the crayons your father bought for you?”
The memory was one of my favorites. I was sitting at the kitchen table coloring while my mother cooked, waiting for my father to come home. The crayons had been my prized possession.
A Visitation of Angels Page 21
