Crushed Seraphim (2 page)

Satan regarded the batshit-crazy angel with suspicious eyes. The bastard was lying, he could tell.
But which part was the lie?
This guy was better than a politician.

Satan hated that he had such a longing to feel the sun on his face. The angel would fail, but as the Devil, he was duty bound to do his best to help in a situation like this. An evil plan cooked up by an angel? Satan was pretty sure that hadn’t happened but once before. Almost one thousand years ago, and Satan was the last to have the balls to do it.

The Devil took his cigarette and stubbed it out on the winged weirdo’s palm. “All right, freak show, I can keep God here like the other bastard couldn’t. What’s your plan?”

Everett grabbed his lapels and smiled. “I’ve rigged a Christmas Angel to visit a half-breed, for starters. Can you imagine? She’ll be a colossal failure. With her out of the way, Earth and Heaven will be mine — and yours, of course.”

“Well, you best scurry along, Everett. I hear my next customer coming.” Satan wanted to slam the door for a more impressive effect, but as Everett turned and walked away, Satan just watched instead.

The wings were mesmerizing, shimmering, and huge. As the scent of Heaven lingered, Satan remembered just what it felt like to have wings — back when he’d been more good than bad, back when God had smiled at his jokes and his lovely angel Claudette had let him hold her hand.

When he could no longer see the angel, he shut his door. Things were actually going to change — he could feel it. The Christmas Angel sent to Earth to make a half-breed vampire freak feel God’s love would never complete her mission. After all the half-breeds he’d walked to the old door, he knew they were a lost cause, a heinous, self-loathing species.

He took a leather wrap from his wrist and tied back his hair with it. He needed to work; keeping God trapped was delicate business.

Jason tracked the falling star on Christmas Eve. Its tail was exceptional and distracted him completely from the task of finding a tree in the forest to decorate for his siblings. The sparking rainbow arch scratched its mark in the obsidian sky as it broke the atmosphere and came screaming closer. Jason watched until he was sure he glimpsed the gentle form of a woman within the scorching, white-hot fire. Then he began to sprint. If he hadn’t been a half-breed, he’d have never caught her.

He braced himself beneath the shower of sparks, and she landed heavily, nearly knocking him off his feet. His extraordinary reflexes had awarded him an armful of angel. She was unconscious, and her blond hair covering her face. He knelt, shocked to be holding something so cold that had come from something so seemingly hot.

A steady stream of prism-flavored light sprinkled from her skin like water droplets. She was glowing and barely dressed, her white satin gown singed and smudged away. He laid her gently on the snow at his feet, moving her hair from her face. Her skin was pale, but her cheeks were pink.

She sighed before she opened her eyes, like she regretted being able to do it at all. When her luminous gray eyes took in his face, she shook her head.

“Are you hurt?” Jason would swear he was dreaming, but his mind hadn’t allowed that for many years.

“Yes, I’m hurt,
half-breed,”
she said with a bit of a sneer. She winced as she sat up. The girl flicked bits of cloud and stardust off her shoulders.

Jason stood and held out his hand, consumed by curiosity. “Can I be of assistance in any way?”

The girl snorted and ignored his hand. She stood on the ice-cold carpet the sky had provided to cushion her fall from the heavens.

“Sure. Let a vampire help me. That’s hilarious, right?” As the girl tilted her head to yell at the stars in the sky, one perfect wing appeared from behind her.

Jason gave up pretending he wasn’t in shock. Her wing was a tightly knit gossamer web. Feathers the consistency of hope shimmered as she stomped her feet and glared at unseen opposition.

“Up yours!” She turned from Jason to give Heaven the finger.

Jason could see her back was marred. A single slice, welted with melted silver, lined her shoulder where another symmetrical wing should have been. Gentle drops of liquid metal pooled in the snow, solidifying into a small mirror.

She whirled to look him up and down with disdain. “As if I could make you change your ways. A fool’s task. You’re an insult to add to my injury.”

Jason squeezed his eyes shut against her blinding presence. She was trying to fly when he opened his eyes again, fluttering her one wing uselessly. It was heartbreaking, seeing her efforts foiled. She was a broken, angry angel.

“Damn it.” She shook her head so her hair covered her raw, pained eyes.

The quiet way she tucked her magnificent wing from his sight stirred his latent human compassion. “I can give you a toss, if you think it would help,” he offered. He hoped humor would buoy her spirits.

She walked toward him. The little sprinkles of leftover Heaven hit the snow, making tiny wind-chime sounds to announce each footfall.

“I’m Emma. I’m here to make you see the meaning of your life. I hope you can mend your ways and rejoice in the glory of the afterlife.” Her exalted words were totally conquered by her dragging tone and lack of eye contact.

“Pardon me? You’re here to help me? And you know I’m a half-breed?” Jason held up his hand as if he could connect the dots from his questions to some answers with his fingers.

Emma bit her bottom lip and nodded.

“I’m a killer, miss,” Jason said harshly. “I need to feed off living things to keep my own selfish soul alive. I’m the worst thing in the world, and there’s not a thing you can do to change that.”

For the first time since her meteor-like arrival in his arms, she seemed present in front of him. The wind chimes pinged as she walked closer. He could feel his skin tingling in reaction to her scintillating glimmer.
Is she made of sunlight?

She laughed. “No, silly, aren’t girls made of sugar and spice?” She stood in front of him now, teasing him with half-closed eyes, putting a hand to his face. “And everything nice?”

His need climbed from Hell itself. His lust was vicious; he wanted to fill her completely.

You can hear my thoughts?

Emma gave a forced laugh and looked from his lips to his eyes. “Yes. This’ll be fun, I bet.”

She smelled like something freshly baked…with vanilla. Some sort of cake?
It’s a lost cause, beautiful angel. Go back to where you came from.

She stepped to him, and he felt true danger for the first time in his too-long life. Her wing was out again, and now it glowed red hot, matching the anger in her eyes and scorching the air that dared touch it.

“What’s worse than a parasite like you? What’s worse than a selfish, twisted half-breed vampire?” Emma seethed as she curled the sweltering feathers of her wing around him.

Instinctively shying from the intense heat, he was forced to put his chest against her breasts to avoid being touched by her wing. Its heat seemed to be a searing manifestation of her anger.

“Killers are allowed in Heaven. Bottom-feeders are allowed in Heaven. All you have to do is be forgiven.” Her voice was now filled with disbelief — and something else. She leaned in, put her arctic lips on his, and mumbled, “Can you taste how bad I am?”

Jason couldn’t move. She moved her lips from his.

“I’m
far worse than anything else, half-breed. Have you ever known someone so evil she was mangled and tossed from the clouds?”

He hungered to kiss her deeply. He wanted to press her hot wing in the snow to cool it. He wanted her desperately, irrationally.

“Men are so typical. Don’t you even have the common sense to be frightened?”

Jason wrapped his solid arm around her waist.
No, I don’t. Broken angel, I’m not afraid of you. You’ll have to try harder than this.

“Don’t tempt me. I’ve been lowered to
this
. Consorting with vermin for a chance — for a maybe chance at…” She looked over his shoulder and trailed off.

“A chance?” Jason felt her wing cooling.

“I’ve said too much. Just suck it up and take what I — ”

She never finished her sentence. Her knees buckled and she fainted.

Jason caught her, grateful once again that they’d been standing close. He lifted her into his arms to keep her from hitting the ground. Her wing sizzled as it brushed the snow, and a hiss filled the air. Jason’s face was reflected in the huge, perfect mirror of her cooled and copious angel blood. It was a pond of mercury made from her pain and shame.

How in God’s name do you fix a bleeding angel?

There was no response to his thoughts this time, so Jason ran. The night was filled with the sound of his beating footsteps and her wing trailing on the ground.

Jason wished he could run faster. Emma was unconscious, her head and limbs lolling around in an alarming way. Finally, he burst into his home. His brother and sister stared as he crashed through the door.

“Dean, please, she fell from Heaven. I think she’s an angel. I don’t — I can’t fix her,” Jason said, his voice feverish with desperation. “Please tell me you’ve seen this before?”

Dean at first looked playful, as if his brother was joking. But after a beat Dean’s smiled faded.

“Bro, I don’t see anything but you,” he said.

Jason felt like he was losing his mind, and all the while, his bleeding angel was fading in his arms.
God, she’s dying…But isn’t she already dead?

“Maybe you ate a poisoned blood,” Seriana suggested, her eyes locked on Jason. “Please, come sit.”

His siblings couldn’t help. Jason shook his head. He pulled his mirage closer. Her wing was dirty from their useless run to his house.

“I need to be alone. Please excuse me.” Jason went back out the door he’d come in.

He continued his trek through the woods, finding his way to a familiar creek, and he set Emma down carefully. She looked human now. The pink of her cheeks was draining, her singed dress turning gray. Her skin looked transparent. She was fading away.

Jason pounded a fist into the ground.
God, why can’t I help her? And why do I want to?

It was just a flicker, like adjusting a
TV
with the slightest touch, but her body had looked more solid for a moment.

What did I do?

Jason pounded his fist into the ground again.

Nothing.

He used both hands this time. Winter birds fluttered from their trees as he created a miniature earthquake.

Still nothing.

She’d become translucent again. He ran his hand through his hair.

Damn it all to Hell!

Quickly she became just a whisper of a memory.

No, please, God, no!

Emma had more definition for a heartbeat. Then Jason got it: When he prayed she became more solid. He slid his hands under the misty outline of the angel, putting pressure right where her wing had once been, and prayed.

God, let me have her, please, just for a little while. I want to be here with her. Please, God.

His thoughts had colored her in. She was vibrant once more. Touchable — even if she was only for his eyes.

Heal her, please, if you exist at all.

Her eyes fluttered open. She took in the sight of him as he smiled.

“What the hell did you do?” She sat up and stretched like a fractured winter fairy. She put the crisp, white snow to shame with her perfection.

He pictured the whole scene from beginning to end — his brother, her blood, the praying.

She read his mind. “I expect you want me to thank you. It won’t happen.” She went to stand and fumbled a bit.

Jason quickly held her arm. She sneered but let him support her weight. From this angle he could see the mark where her torn and missing wing had been repaired by his urgent prayers. She now had a jagged silver tattoo — like trapped lightning just under the surface of her skin.

“Why were you bleeding? Why can’t my family see you? I think I deserve some answers,” he said.

She shook her head and turned to face him. “That wasn’t blood. It was love. It pours out of you when you lose faith. Only faith can heal, so congratulations, half-breed. I’m still here in this horrific place because of you. Do you want me to pat you on the back, or can you do it for yoursel
f
?”

Jason extended his hand to her. “I’m sorry. I just…it was awful. I couldn’t just watch you disintegrate.”

She shrugged as if to say,
Fine. I’ll give you that.

“And my family can’t see you?” he prompted.

She reached down for a handful of snow and cupped it quickly between her palms. When she opened her hands, she revealed a perfect snow sculpture of an eagle with its two wings spread. She trailed her finger over the beak gently before clapping her hands and turning the snow back into formless flakes. She seemed to be doing everything to avoid looking in his eyes.

“Jason, I was sent here to be your lesson. If others could see me, it wouldn’t be all about you.” She finally let her eyes meet his gaze, and he felt like he’d never look away. “Please tell me your miraculous healing of my wound has restored your hope in an afterlife? Then my work here will be done.” She looked from his lips to his green eyes.

Done? No. I’m not ready for you to be done. Not by a long shot.

“I knew it. That’d be too good to be true.” She turned and marched off, her bare feet never leaving a footprint in the snow ahead of him. “You have until the end of the year — midnight on New Year’s Eve
—
to find yourself.”

And if I don’t?

“If you don’t, I can never go back.” She looked toward the sky. The dawn threw wide-stroked rainbows on the lingering clouds.

Well, I’ll do what it takes to get you back to where you belong.

She gave a humorless laugh and whirled on him again. “Aren’t you interested in why I want to go back? I’ll tell you why. I want to finish the job I started. I want to pull
him
out of Heaven and throw him straight to Hell.” She put her hand in the center of Jason’s chest, as if to warn him of all she planned to do. “That’s why he made sure I got
you
. You’re the broken ladder to redemption I’ll never have.”

Jason laid his hand on top of hers, and they both felt the slow, unnatural cadence of his heartbeat.

“You really know how to make a gentleman feel fantastic.” Jason used sarcasm to hide his hurt, though she could probably hear it in his head.

“Glad you like it, tough stuff.” She continued her hovering movements, her gown growing sleeves and a longer train as she walked. When they reached the edge of the woods, she looked at her expanding ensemble and raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Was I cold? That’s almost sweet.”

Jason shook his head, confused.

“I am as you perceive me.” She made a sweeping gesture over her body. “This is how you want me to be.”