Earth Angel (Falling Angels Saga) (17 page)

“Shush,” she said softly, putting a finger to her lips.

A small leopard with multi-colored spots limped into view. Blood dripped from its raised right paw. The leopard staggered through the entrance, out of the cold. It looked at us with a pitying stare, mewed, and lay down on the soft grass.

“Poor thing. It’s been injured.” Without thinking, I started for the wounded animal. Roxanne reached out and grabbed me from behind, flinging me backward with one powerful motion. I found myself flying through the air and sliding across the ground. She was a lot stronger than she appeared.

“This one is malicious. I will battle it along with the violent one.”

As the leopard released a sorrowful cry, Roxanne began to transform. Her wings appeared and she was again engulfed in light. She drew what appeared to be a light sabre from her belt, and cautiously approached the creature. Without taking her eyes off the wounded animal she said. “It is malicious to trick people into believing you are something that you are not.” She called to me over her shoulder: “Megan, the she-wolf!”

I looked behind me to discover a gigantic wolf had entered the watchtower through another of the entrances. She had a reddish brown coat of silky fur, and was at least twice the size of any wolf I’d ever seen. She had been crouched low, sneaking up on me, her fangs bared.

As I faced the wolf, a vicious shriek erupted behind me. It glanced over my shoulder to see the leopard attacking Roxanne. It wasn’t injured at all. And it was much larger and ferocious than it had appeared.

“Oh, my!” I turned back to the stalking wolf. I began backing away from her, clutching the shoulder bag to my chest. I didn’t have a light saber. I would have to fight her with my hands… or my mind.

“You have beautiful fur,” I said flattering the wolf. “How do you keep it looking so luxurious?”

The wolf stopped, and I thought I saw a prideful smile.
She represents self-indulgence,
I thought.
Perhaps I can flatter her to death.

“Blood.” The word rasped from the wolf’s lips.

My eyes widened in disbelief. “Did you just speak?” I asked.

“Yes. I keep my coat shiny and luxurious with blood—human blood,
human
,” she said in a scratchy whisper, and licked her lips.

Okay, so flattery doesn’t work on this one.

Roxanne was engaged in a brutal battle with the leopard. I could hear them, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the wolf. Her fangs were glistening.

It was then I realized the wolf had herded me towards the third entrance. A male lion came striding through the entrance. His eyes were wide with violence. The she wolf had separated me from Roxanne. Divide and conquer. Once they picked off helpless me, Roxanne would be no match for the three of them.

The lion roared, and then he sprang.

What happened next happened quickly.

The lion came flying at me, leading with his slashing jaws. I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t have time to be afraid. I jammed my hand into the shoulder bag and pulled out the twelve inch crucifix. The lion landed on top of me, knocking me to the ground, spraying his foul breath in my face. He snapped at my head and I thrust the crucifix into his mouth. It stabbed into his upper-palate, penetrating like a spade into soft earth.

My hand and arm suddenly felt as if they were on fire. I screamed. The pain was excruciating. As I prayed for my arm to fall off and release me from the pain, I noticed the lion was turning into dazzling light—like a million shimmery diamonds. And then, he and the crucifix were gone. They had both disintegrated right before my eyes.

I checked my arm. It was a painful mess, charred black and blue.

“Yess,” the wolf snarled. I looked up, grateful to see she was moving away from me. It was then I realized, in my fight with the lion, I had been separated from the shoulder bag. The wolf was headed for the bag containing
The Book of Calls
.

“You can’t have it!” I screamed, launching myself onto her back. While her fur was thick and soft, I could feel muscle beneath. Her snapping jaws swung right and then left as she attempted to grab my leg and throw me. I rode her like rodeo cowboy, my hands gripping her furry mane as if my life depended on it.

And then she threw me. I landed hard, between the wolf and the bag. Her focus was no longer the bag.
Good.
The she-wolf was eyeing me hungrily. “Blood,” she wheezed.
Not so good.

I began scrambling backwards along the floor, my eyes never leaving the wolf. She leapt. Instead of attacking, she leapt over me, landing in front of the bag. She picked it up in her teeth and shot a self-satisfied glance over her shoulder. She had tricked me into thinking she was coming for me. She now took a step toward the nearest entrance.

In that one step I saw my world come to a crashing end. I saw the boy I loved destroyed, and my heart crumbling into a million little pieces. “NOOOO!” I raged. I reached my hand out. A bolt of lightning jumped from my open palm, hitting the wolf in the jaw. The bag flew from her lips.

The wolf was now staring at me, her eyes filling with fear. Out of nowhere came Roxanne, swinging her light saber. She had finished off the leopard and was now coming to my aid. She thrust the lighted blade into the giant wolf’s heart. The wolf gave off a pitying scream and then disintegrated.

I sat, unmoving for several seconds, staring at my hand.
Did I do that?
My other hand and arm were still raging with near unbearable pain, yet I stared at the good one.

Roxanne retrieved the bag. Her wings had retreated into her back. The glowing had stopped. She was back to normal. She came towards me. There was something very different about her expression. Something in her had changed.

She knelt by my side and took my injured arm in her hands. Her touch made it worse, and I tried yanking my arm away. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “I can help.”

I again looked into her eyes. They stared back at me with something that appeared to be respect. “Okay,” I whispered back.

She held onto my arm and began chanting in a language I’d never heard before. Slowly the pain began to subside. I glanced down at my arm. It was healing before my eyes. In a matter of minutes it was back to normal. The pain was gone.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

“You are very brave,” she replied. “And powerful.” She was looking older than I remembered, and weary. I could see tiny crow’s feet nesting around her eyes.

“You don’t look so good.”

“The fight, and then healing you, has drained me. But my strength shall return.” She handed me the shoulder bag and smiled. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

#

We were once again standing at the entrance of the watchtower. “Now, we go down,” said Roxanne. She started down the trail. I followed along in silence as the wind whipped around us. A lot had just happened in the watchtower, much more than I could process.

“I see you have some new abilities,” she said as we moved down the snowy trail.

“Guy told me you thought I had some powers. I thought he was just trying to change the subject.”

“Why would he do that?” She seemed genuinely confused.

“We were arguing… about you.” I was again feeling guilty. “I have to tell you something,” I said, the wind whipping through my hair. “I… split with him because I didn’t think I could compete with you. I thought if I had to compete with you I would lose. So I dumped him before he could dump me. If I hadn’t been so insecure, he wouldn’t have been captured.” My guilt came tumbling out of me.

She sighed. “It must be difficult being mortal. All those mixed up emotions.”

This time when she said the word mortal, there didn’t seem to be any added insult. “Yes, it is,” I replied. “Too many emotions,” I added with a joyless laugh.

“I envy you,” she said with what sounded like envy.
Strange.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I said nothing.

We continued down the frozen trail for a while, in silence. The only sound was the whipping wind and our feet crunching against the snow.

“I believe you received your abilities in your battle with Satan. Some of his power rubbed off on you,” she said after a while.

“Really? What else can I do?”

“I do not know. The abilities will reveal themselves to you in time.”

“A lightning bolt shot from my hand,” I said, still not believing it actually happened. “I don’t know how I did it. How do I control it?”

“You will learn.”

As we headed down the trail, the snow disappeared, and the air warmed. It was beginning to feel like a spring day. I heard a brook bubbling nearby.

“Why did you come along with me?” I asked. The question seemed to come out of nowhere, but it had been on my mind since she approached me outside Armando’s. “When I saw you all done up in your angel gear, I was sure you had come to battle me for the book.”

“And you would have fought even though you could not win?”

“Yes, of course. I have to try.”

We walked along in silence for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. “Either I have misjudged mortals, or I have misjudged you. I have always thought of mortals as selfish, as feeling entitled. But you are different. I wanted to know if you had a selfish motive that I had missed.”

“I do have a selfish motive. I love him,” I said, my voice turning husky, as Guy’s dreamy eyes flashed through my mind. “And I can’t bear the thought of the world without him in it.”

The smile returned. “You are risking your life for something you believe in. That is not selfish. We call a person like that
principled
. I thought mortals were no longer capable of having principles, ethics, morals… and then I met you.”

We rounded a bend in the road. There was a young couple about my age up ahead of us on the trail. They were both wearing shorts. He had on a tee shirt and she, a tank top. They were walking slowly, holding hands, their arms swinging back and forth as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

“I love you,” I heard the boy say.

I recognized his voice. It was Matt, and the girl was Erin. Seeing them totally took my mind off our conversation. I stopped.

“That’s Matt and Erin,” I said. “They used to be my two best friends… before Matt died.” My voice cracked.

“That means we are getting closer,” said Roxanne. “It is a figment. Your sins are here in hell, and Beelzebub is revealing them to you.”

Matt and Erin laughed joyously.

“But they seem so real,” I said.

“Your sins have power over you. You have sinned against both of them, and he is using those sins to probe for a weakness. That is good.”

Matt and Erin turned towards us and smiled. “Hey, Megan,” called Matt. “I haven’t seen you in so long. I’ve missed you.”

I turned to Roxanne. “Why is it good?” I demanded, my emotions spiraling out of control.

“It means he fears you. He would not be probing for weakness if he didn’t.”

“You’re not real,” I called to Matt and Erin.

“What? Don’t be silly. Of course we’re real,” said Erin. “We’re your best friends. Remember?”

“Yes. But you’re
not real
,” I repeated, adding an edge to my voice.

Both their expressions changed from joy to sadness, and they vanished into thin air.

I was relieved they were gone. The figment had worked on my emotions. “That’s amazing,” I drawled. “Can you make a figment?” I still couldn’t get over how real they seemed.

“Yes. But creating one takes a lot of energy, much more than healing you required.”

“Do you think I could do it?”

“No.”

I didn’t like the way she said
no
, but I let it slide. I had other things on my mind.

#

When we reached the bottom of the mountain, we arrived at a beautiful garden, the perimeter of which was lined with flowering bougainvillea that stretched up into a dazzling overhead canopy of bright red flowers at the entrance.

“We are entering the second level. I didn’t think we’d make it this far.” Roxanne was smiling at me again. I wasn’t used to seeing her smile. It made me uncomfortable.

“What? Why are you looking at me with that goofy smile?” I said when she wouldn’t stop.

“I was wrong about you.” Her eyes softened. She passed under the flowering canopy and into the garden. I followed her in.

“When God chose man as the object of all his affection, the angels rejoiced. Yet we watched as mankind abused the gift. I have seen you kill each other over race and greed. It sickens me.” She didn’t glance in my direction as she spoke. She kept her gaze straight ahead, but I got the feeling she was looking into the past.

I understood how she could feel the way she did about us. Mankind was really messed up. “But there are some good people out there, too,” I said.

“There are some amazing people out there. One I can think of in particular, who would risk her life for love.” A smile was once again on her lips. It was the first time she had referred to us as people and not mortals.

“You’re probably wrong about Nephilim, too.” Since we were on the subject of her being wrong about things, why not bring it up?

Her smile flickered and then went out. “Perhaps.” She again got a far-away look in her eye. “I have never known emotion. After meeting you, I have experienced two. I’m not sure how that makes me feel.”

“Don’t let it get to you. Now that you’ve experienced some emotion, the door has been kicked open. That means there’s a whole world of emotion out there to explore. It’s something to look forward to.”

She smiled again, but this one seemed sad. “Perhaps.”

As we continued into the garden, it became more lush and beautiful, filled with exotic flowers of purple, yellow and azure blue. The lovely fragrances were intoxicating. Beelzebub was really going out of his way to disorient me about hell.

Something moved in the shrubbery to my left. I stiffened, but kept walking.

“There’s something over there,” I said through tight lips.