Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) (11 page)

“It’s Veronica’s,” Cupid explained
apologetically. “There wasn’t a vast amount that I figured you
would wear, without you looking like you wanted to slit your
wrists-”

“Note the fashion advice is coming from the
guy,” Veronica interrupted him.

“However,” Cupid continued loudly, ignoring
her. “Any girl looks good in a little black dress.” He looked me up
and down and then plucked one of the dresses out of the collection.
“Try this one.”

I grabbed some underwear and disappeared back
into the bathroom to pull the item on. It was a satin bandeau style
dress which fell to my knees. It had a strap over my right
shoulder, which looked like it was supposed to be a trail of ivy –
the ivy covering half the skirt. The dress was really pretty, and
if I’m honest, not something I expected Veronica to own.

It didn’t take long for me to dry my hair, it
automatically flicking out for me, and I put my make up on in
record time. That being said, when I emerged from the bathroom,
Cupid and Veronica were lying on the bed, pretending to be
asleep.

“Fine, you sleep,” I told them while I pulled
a pair of shoes out of the wardrobe. “But I look fabulous and I’m
going out without you.”

That got their attention and they jumped off
the bed. “You scrub up alright,” Veronica told me, giving me the
seal of approval. She too was wearing a little black dress,
although hers was more Holly Go-lightly. She looked fabulous. Cupid
had opted for blue jeans and a casual white shirt.

“We are allowed to do this, aren’t we?” I
asked dubiously as we made our way down the hallway. We were
earning a few strange looks through the open doors.

“Of course we are,” Veronica tried to assure
me. “Do we strike you as rule breakers?”

I gave her a pointed look.

Cupid wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
“Second in command, remember?”

Strangely, it didn’t fill me with as much
reassurance as it should have. Regardless, I followed the pair to
one of the cars and slipped in the backseat. As soon as we pulled
out of the gates Cupid turned up the radio.

We didn’t go to Bourbon Street as I expected.
We ended up in a sleek little place in the Business District which
allowed under twenty-one’s in. It was still quite early so it
wasn’t too busy and we found a table easily. We grabbed some Cokes
and sat down. Veronica and Cupid stared expectantly at me. “Well?”
she asked.

“Well, what?”

“Well, the whole point of this evening was so
you could ask us the questions to fill in the missing blanks, that
our careless leader neglected to tell you,” Cupid said, pulling a
face.

I thought about it. There were a dozen
different things to know. I decided to start with the basics. “How
many angels live in the convent?”

“You bring it up to a round fifty,” said
Cupid. “Thirty angels, seventeen cherubim, two archangels, and an
angel in training.”

“Well how is it I never see them, unless I’m
a delightful sweaty mess?” I groaned.

“You shouldn’t really see the cherubim,”
Veronica told me. “We’re supposed to be inconspicuous. We get the
chores done without you noticing.”

I thought about it. With the exception of the
servers in the canteen, I didn’t see them. “Is that who stocks my
wardrobe and cleans my room?” I asked, thinking about how I had a
habit of leaving my dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, and how
they wouldn’t be there the next time I walked in the room.

“That’s us,” Veronica nodded.

“I think I said before, the regular angels
are messengers. Whilst in theory they could be called upon at any
time of day, we tend to stick to business hours,” Cupid added.
“Unless it’s really important, there’s no sense waking people
up.”

“That and the fact they’re all really shallow
and insist on their beauty sleep,” Veronica muttered.

I really didn’t think angels were all that
superficial, but Cupid quickly agreed. “Oh, it’s true. They’re not
like icebergs with hidden depths – what you see is what you get
with most messengers – it’s why they’re only trusted to be errand
boys.”

Or maybe they were. I did my best not to
compare them to model stereotypes and paid more attention.

“Angels with a bit more depth to them are the
guardian angels,” Cupid continued. “I don’t know why New Orleans
doesn’t have any though.”

“They did have,” Veronica pointed out. She
stopped, quickly sharing a look with Cupid which I didn’t miss.

“What?” I asked, carefully, not sure that I
wanted to know the answer.

“She moved on,” Cupid shrugged. Maybe I could
move eventually? There was so much of America I wanted to see which
I had never had, never mind a trip back to England, or the rest of
the world.

“The good news is that guardian angels are a
higher pay grade to the messengers, although I’m not sure how much
a trainee will get,” Veronica said with a frown. “I never really
asked.”

“Either way, it will be enough for you to
personalize your room or buy some clothes,” Cupid beamed, before
clapping happily. “Yay, shopping trip.”

“So why the fleet of SUVs?” I asked, mentally
ticking off a list of questions. “I thought angels could teleport.”
I frowned thoughtfully. “Can you two teleport?”

“Of course we can!” Veronica exclaimed,
looking slightly offended.

“I can’t,” I hurriedly told her. “And I
really don’t like the experience that I had. Is that why there are
cars?”

“Archangels and cherubim can teleport,” Cupid
disagreed. “Regular angels can’t. It’s more of a case of sometimes
an angel can’t just go popping up in the middle of a room or
street. It would create questions we wouldn’t want to answer.”

“
I guess that makes sense,” I muttered. I
probably could have worked it out by myself if I thought about it.
On the plus side, it did give me some form of transportation if I
needed it, and I was not in a hurry to learn teleporting.
Ugh
! “But
SUVs?”

Cupid rolled his eyes. “Oh please, they’re
hybrids. Humans might not be the most environmentally conscious
things but we’re not supposed to do anything that harms them.”

“Surely riding a bike would be the most
environmentally effective, or even walking?” I pointed out. That
had Veronica chortling into her drink.

“Yes, because an angel running down the side
of the interstate at the same speed as a car isn’t going to draw
too much attention?” Cupid responded, dryly.

He had a point. “Okay then, the most
important questions,” I announced, leaning forwards to take a very
long drink of the Coke. “Why no drinking, drugs or sex?”

Cupid rolled his eyes. “The boring rules. No
drugs is obvious. There’s only so much your vessel can heal from
and drugs are tricky. Plus they affect you differently.”

“The same goes for alcohol,” Veronica added.
“It affects us differently than humans. We can drink and drink and
all of a sudden, just like that,” she snapped her fingers. “We’re
drunk. And not that happy drunk which humans like. It’s like a
sedative and completely slows our reflexes down.” She looked me up
and down, before shrugging. “Besides, look at the ages of our
vessels. We’re older than a millennia but there’s no way I would
ever get served at a bar. The last thing we need is trouble with
underage drinking. It attracts unwanted attention.”

“As for the sex,” Cupid shuddered. “That’s a
little icky. There are nine different types of angels. Three of
those are on earth – the Angels, the Cherubim and Archangels. If
you think of all the Angels as brothers, all the Cherubim as
brothers-”

“And sisters,” Veronica interrupted him,
punching his arm.

“Okay, ow!” Cupid exclaimed, rubbing his arm.
“And sisters,” he repeated, glaring at Veronica who grinned at him.
“And so forth. Angels are all in the same family.”

“Which makes us cousins,” Veronica declared,
wrapping her arm around Cupid.

I grimaced. “Yeah, that is icky. I get that.
What about the human element.”

Cupid shrugged. “We just don’t.”

Veronica nodded, pulling a face. “There are
also the consequences of that. The Nephilim.”

The word sent a shiver down my spine, and for
the first time, I felt cold. “What?”

“The consequence of a human and an angel
getting caught together is that angels are cast out. That’s bad
enough by itself,” Cupid explained, looking uncomfortable.
“Nephilim are the offspring. They’re the reason the Fallen are
increasing in numbers. They’re mortal but they have the same
strength and speed.”

I slumped back into my chair. I didn’t
realize how hopeful I had been at the prospect of there being a way
around that. Now it was evident that I was going to spend eternity
alone. “How do you two cope with it?”

“Cope with what?” Cupid asked. “The
Nephilim?”

Veronica shuddered. “If needed, the
Principalities step in.”

“What the hell is a Principality?” I asked,
wearily.

“Seriously?” Veronica asked, sharing a look
with Cupid.

“She’s apparently not read the Bible,” Cupid
informed her as he chose to pat my arm in a somewhat patronizing
manner.

“Laugh it up and get it out of your system,
then carry on with this Angelology 101,” I muttered, shooting them
both a glare.

“Okay,” Cupid agreed although he wasn’t going
to too much trouble to hide his amusement. “You know there’s a
hierarchy, right?”

I nodded. This I did remember. “Angels are
the last rung on the ladder.”

“Well,” Veronica grinned coyly, biting on her
straw. “I think angels in training are lower.”

“Lower than the help?” I shot back at her
with my own grin.

She cocked her head, eyes wide, before she
joined in with Cupid’s loud, bellowing laugh. “Touché,” she nodded,
raising her glass. “But for the record, the girls are supposed to
stick together.”

“I thought I had,” I responded, batting my
eyelashes.

“Creep!” Veronica exclaimed loudly with mock
disgust as Cupid high-fived me.

“Joking aside,” Cupid quickly cut in. “There
are three tiers in the hierarchy. They’re called Choirs, and no,
before you ask, there’s no singing involved. Only the Third Choir,
the lowest tier, are allowed to walk the earth.”

Veronica coughed loudly and pointed at
herself.

Cupid rolled his eyes. “The exception is the
Cherubim, but I will get to them in a bit,” he informed me, giving
Veronica a pointed look.

“Thank you,” she mouthed at him.

“The Angels, as you rightly pointed out, are
the lowest ranking. Angels are the messengers and to be honest,
they can’t be trusted to do anything else, but at least they do
that well.”

Veronica snorted. “Well is such a strong
term.”

“Next up, you have the Archangels,” Cupid
continued, a little forcefully. “There are currently eight of us.
Me, obviously. Michael, obviously. And the others I would hope you
have heard of are Gabriel – he’s in Rome. Raphael is in Dublin, and
Uriel is in Seoul. Then there’s also Remiell in Baghdad, Raguel in
Sydney and Sariel in Buenos Aires.”

“How come there are two archangels in New
Orleans?” I asked him. “How come you don’t have your own
House?”

Cupid shrugged. “Aside from the fact I simply
don’t want to be one, I’m not a Principality.”

“Neither is Sariel,” Veronica pointed out.
“But then again,” she added, seeing Cupid’s expression. “He wanted
his own House.”

“Hang on a minute,” I frowned. “An Archangel
is also a Principality?” This was supposed to be helping me, but if
I’m honest, it was making my brain hurt.

“In a sense, yes,” Cupid nodded. “The third
rank on earth, and the highest, excluding the Cherubim,” he added,
rolling his eyes at Veronica, who was clearly ready to say
something. “That spot goes to the Principalities. If Angels are the
messengers, Archangels are the guardians, well, the Principalities
are more like the management system.”

“A management system,” I repeated, dryly.
“You’re telling me there’s a corporate system in Heaven?”

Cupid shrugged. “Pretty much. To be honest,
it gets really confusing the higher up you go. Angels can only be
angels, but take someone like Michael – he’s also a Principality, a
Virtue and a Seraph.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed at the bridge of
my nose. “What?” I asked, hopelessly.

“Okay, in short,” Veronica cut in. “Think of
it like this. The First Choir is the highest ranking and is made up
of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. Seraphim are the only ones who
can talk directly to God. Think of them as his body guards.
Nobody’s getting through them. They talk to the Cherubim-”

“Well, they did,” Cupid interrupted her.

Veronica swiped at his arm. “You’re over
complicating things too soon,” she chided him. She turned back to
me. “Think of the Cherubim as the personal assistants. We run the
diary and we are the best minute takers you’re going to get. From
here, we communicate with the Thrones who are effectively human
resources.”

I wrinkled my nose up, but nodded. In some
weird way, this was making sense.

“So the first tier, they’re like the
upper-management. Next up, the second tier, the Second Choir,
they’re the middle-management. You have the Dominations, the
Virtues and the Powers,” Veronica frowned thoughtfully, playing
with her straw. “I guess the Dominations are general managers. They
make sure the orders from the first Choir are passed on to the
third Choir. In short, like all middle management, their job is to
delegate. Virtues are the PR people. They’re the ones who deal out
the miracles, even though most of the time it’s the Angels that get
the credit. Powers are the security. They make sure the bad stay
out of Heaven.”

“And then you get the Third Choir,” Cupid
added, nodding in approval at Veronica’s explanation.