Angels on Fire (3 page)

Chapter 3

It was funny how the light of day—okay, the crack of dawn—made things a lot less scary than they’d appeared in the dead of night. For one thing, Lucy now had an unobstructed view of all available exits. Also, the angel did not leap from its perch and come flapping after her as it had earlier. Lucy felt a twinge of embarrassment as she replayed the events of the night before. No doubt the poor thing was as disoriented as she had been—even more so. After all, it was the one waking up in a strange place in a strange world, not her. If anyone had a license to freak out, it’d be—? Shit, she didn’t even know what to call the angel, assuming it had a name.

She eased forward cautiously, just in case the creature decided to go after her again like Tippi Hedren with a wig full of pumpernickel. The angel remained motionless, except for its head, which tracked her with the steadiness of a bank-camera. Lucy met its unwavering gaze, and saw that her initial impression from the night before had indeed been correct: the angel’s irises were completely without color. This was made even stranger by the pupils, which were starburst in shape and appeared overlarge in the otherwise empty eyes.

Even though it was obvious the angel could see perfectly well—especially in the dark— Lucy found herself thinking of her grandmother’s cataracts.

“Uh—hi,” Lucy said, clearing her throat.

The angel tilted its head, regarding her like a baffled hound.

“Sorry about last night. It’s just that after living alone in New York for so long—you know how it is.”

The angel’s pale brow knitted slightly, as if trying to decipher a particularly difficult math problem, then tilted its head to the other side.

“Uh—well, I guess maybe you
don’t
know, what with, uh, you being new here and all. But I think we ought to try and start off again on the right foot—don’t you agree?”

The angel merely stared at her with its crystal-clear eyes which, she now realized, had yet to blink. Lucy had no idea whether the creature seated in front of her was even capable of comprehending human speech. Although it had spoken earlier, it was possible it had merely been parroting sounds, the way a birdwatcher might imitate the warbling of a thrush to lure it into view.

“My name is Lucy. Lucy Bender.” She spoke slowly and pointed to herself, tapping her breastbone with a forefinger. Then she smiled and pointed at the angel. “And your name is—?”

The angel’s frowned for a second, then the knot of its brow loosened and it said in a voice as bright and soothing to the ear as a wind- chime stirred by a lazy breeze: “Joth.”

Lucy let out a deep breath. Okay, at least communicating with the thing was easier than talking to the average cab driver.

“You are a deathling, Lucy Bender.”

Her smile disappeared. Maybe speaking English wasn’t going to make communication that much easier, after all. “Uh—I’m a
human,
if that’s what you mean.”

“You die. You are a deathling.” Joth spoke as casually as if it was telling her the sky was blue. Lucy did not feel threatened or menaced by the statement, although had it come from anyone or anything else that most surely would not have been the case.

“Die? Me? Personally? Well, not yet—I mean—” She was quickly getting flustered. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to be the first statement out of the angel’s mouth, but she certainly hadn’t expected it to be, well, so
personal.

Joth pointed at the television, which was still chattering away to itself on the dresser. “These creatures are deathlings as well?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I want to see other deathlings.” Joth got to its feet so quickly she didn’t see it move. One moment it was perched on the chair, knees drawn up to its chin, the next it was facing her, peering at her with its unwavering, translucent gaze.

Lucy was so startled she couldn’t find the breath to cry out—all that came from her was a sharp, short gasp. The angel was so close it threatened to send her into a claustrophobic panic. Whatever it might or might not know about “deathlings,” it was clearly ignorant of personal space. Lucy reflexively planted a hand on the creature’s hairless chest, which felt as smooth as a firm peach, and gave it a gentle shove. To her surprise, the angel flew backward, striking the easy chair with enough force to knock it over.

“Oh God! I’m so
sorry!
Are you okay!?!” she gasped. “I didn’t
mean
to do that!”

“I do not understand—I have done wrong?” There was no surprise, no anger, and no fear in Joth’s face or in its voice, just confusion.

“I
really
didn’t mean to push you that hard! It’s just—well, you can’t
do
that!”

“What must I not do?”

“Stand that close! And it’s not just me—you can’t do that to
anyone
! People—uh, deathlings—don’t
like
it when someone gets
that
close to them— it’s considered hostile.”

“Hos-tile.”
Joth weighed the word as it spoke, swirling it in its mouth like Beaujolais. “What is
hos-tile?”

“You know: angry, uptight, mad.”

Again with the blank stare. Lucy rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to figure out a simple means of explaining basic human social etiquette to an angel. “Joth, you can’t get in people’s faces like that—it’s
rude.”

“Rude.”

“Look, just don’t do it again, understand?”

Joth nodded, visibly relieved by this instruction. “It is not permitted. Therefore it is not to be done.” The words had the ring of a liturgical response.

“What
are
you, Joth? Are you from another planet? Or did you escape from a genetics lab—is that it? Are you a mutant?”

“I am elohim.”

“Is that the name of the planet you’re from?”

“From?”

“Yeah, you know—your home. The place you were born.”

“Born?” Joth’s look of slight bafflement seemed permanent now. “Elohim are not born. We are Created.”

“You’re clones?”

“Elohim are servants of the Clockwork. We exist only to tend the Clockwork. We see to the Clockwork’s every need. We regulate the Clockwork. We repair the Clockwork. That is what elohim do.”

“Okay. Great. Now we’re getting somewhere. What does this Clockwork thingie do?”

“It Creates.”

“It creates what?”

“Everything.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Worlds. Universes. Galaxies. Sea horses.”

“You mean it’s God?”

“That is one of the Clockwork’s names; yes.”

Lucy groaned and plopped down on the corner of her bed. Suddenly her legs seemed wobbly. Even though she’d called the thing an angel, she had come to see it as more of an alien life form from another planet where people had evolved from birds. You know, something weird but rational; something scientific.

But if what Joth was saying was what it really meant—then she was sharing the room with an actual ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ angel. Except this goober certainly didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen gracing the top of a Christmas tree.

All the angels she’d ever seen—well, not personally, but in picture books and in the movies—had either looked like blonde women, Cary Grant or a beardless hippie in a long white dress with giant white wings like those of a swan, not the world’s biggest hummingbird. What had it said?
‘
We’re not born. We’re Created.’
Just like a gingerbread man.

“So, uh, Joth, is it? What are you doing here?”

“I am here.”

“Yeah, I know. But
why?”

“I am here.”

“I can
see
that, but I want to know the reason for why you’re here and not in Heaven, or wherever it is you’re from.”

“I do not know that answer.”

Joth was back on its feet again, although now careful to give Lucy plenty of space. It darted about the confines of the bedroom like a hummingbird on speed, picking up things and putting them down, opening and shutting dresser-drawers, repeatedly opening and closing the doors to her wardrobe and obsessively touching each and every one of her garments in a matter of a heartbeat.

“Stop that!
Leave my stuff alone!”

Joth instantly stopped and came to rest in the middle of the room. Despite its having picked up and touched everything that wasn’t nailed down, Lucy couldn’t tell if anything had actually been moved. Even the dresser drawers were back to their habitual half-open state.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she demanded.

Joth blinked. “I am here.”

“Aw, Jesus, are we back to this again?” Lucy threw her hands up in surrender. “I give up trying to talk to you! I’ll let the professional interviewers deal with your ass! Let them ask you questions until they’re blue in the face! I don’t care! Where’s that damn phone?”

She stalked out of the bedroom and headed up the hall towards the living room, Joth following a few steps behind her. She found what was left of her phone lying in several pieces in the foyer. “Cheap-ass piece of shit!” she groaned as she picked at the ruins. “One thing’s for sure—they don’t make these things out of the same stuff as bowling balls anymore.” She glanced at Joth, who was—literally—hovering just behind her. “Looks like I’ll have to alert the media to the existence of God the old-fashioned way—by going to the city desk in person. Oh, and do me a favor—? Cut out the hovercraft routine, okay? Your wings are giving me a headache.”

Joth’s wings immediately halted their whirring and the angel’s bare feet slapped against the floor.

“Thank you,” Lucy sighed.

If Joth heard her, it gave no outward sign. Instead, its pellucid eyes were focused on something else entirely. Lucy followed its line of sight and realized that what had captured the angel’s attention was one of her photographs— a hand-tinted print of the irises resting atop her mother’s casket.

“What—? Do you like that?”

Joth walked over to where the picture was hanging and tilted its head first to one side, then the other, as it stared at the photograph. And then shoved its hand through the glare-proof glass. Lucy cried out as the angel tried, in vain, to pluck the flower free of the photo, oblivious to the glass slicing its fingers. She quickly pulled Joth away from the shattered picture frame and into the kitchen, simultaneously turning on the faucet and snatching a fistful of paper towels from the dispenser over the sink.

“Are you all right? Does it hurt? How bad are you cut?”

“Hurt?”

“Just let me see your hand, okay?”

Joth obediently extended its left hand.

Lucy shook her head. “No, the
other
one! The one that’s
bleeding.”
She looked more closely at the angel’s injured hand. “What the hell?!?” There were several deep cuts along the angel’s fingers and visible shards of glass jutting from its palm, but in the place of blood a milky substance leaked from the wounds. Even as Lucy watched, the lacerations began to seal themselves. Within seconds the angel’s hand was whole again. Stunned, Lucy turned Joth’s hand over, looking for signs scarring—only to realize Joth didn’t have any fingerprints.

She’d read of professional hit-men burning their prints off with acid or laser-surgery, but this went way beyond simple self-mutilation. There weren’t even lines on the angel’s palms. Joth’s hands were as smooth and featureless as those of a rubber doll. And, now that she was close enough to notice, she realized that the hands also lacked fingernails. Also, there was something about the way its golden, shoulder-length tresses lay flat against its skull that suggested Joth didn’t have any ears, either.

When she’d first found it, she had perceived the angel as a winged human—but now she realized that Joth was actually an
approximation
of a human. Yet, for all its alien features, Lucy could not find it in herself to be repulsed or frightened by the thing standing in her kitchen. After all, it certainly didn’t possess the brainpower or malice to do her harm. If anything, it reminded her of a cross between a Labrador retriever puppy and the duck that had accidentally flown into the patio door when she was a kid. Plus, Joth’s beatific good looks and lack of gender rendered even the unspoken tension between the sexes moot.

From certain angles Joth resembled an effeminate man, and at others a mannish woman. The over-all effect was that of an attractive youth balanced on the cusp of adolescence, genderless in its perfect beauty. The undercurrent of dominance/submission and the potential for sexual menace that existed between human males and females simply was not an issue with the angel. The fact that she was completely at ease with a completely nude individual standing less than two feet away from her was a testament to that.

Still, she doubted she’d be able to hail a cab in the company of a bare- assed angel, even if it did appear Caucasian. “C’mon,” she sighed. “Let’s see about getting you something to wear.”

Some digging in the foyer closet turned up a black ankle-length duster, a pair of baggy jeans she wore to repaint the dinette set, and a pair of battered leather moccasins used for schlepping garbage down to the basement.

“Here, these should do for now,” she said, shoving the cast-offs into the angel’s pale arms. Joth proceeded to rub the bottom of the moccasin against its cheek.

Fifteen minutes and a hasty explanation as to what clothes were and which item was to be used to cover what part of the body later, Lucy had succeeded in getting the pants and moccasins on Joth. She eyed the angel’s gleaming wings, which were spread so that they framed its golden head.

“Can you, uh, hide those things?” she asked.

“Hide?”

The angel’s habit of repeating every question posed to it was really starting to get on her nerves, but she supposed she ought to cut it some slack. After all, it clearly wasn’t used to verbal speech. They probably used some form of telepathy in heaven or wherever it was from—and she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure if Joth weren’t some wacky space-brother from another planet who just
thought
he was an immortal angel.