“And cut!” Scruffy yelled out.
“Woooo!” Joel jumped up clapping loudly and dancing around the room like an ape. He was clearly feeling the effects of me. Or maybe he was just high on coke. It was hard to say.
I sat up in the bed, feeling an overall ickiness about myself. The cheap comforter scratched the backs of my legs. I stood up and walked over to Julian.
As I approached, his towering presence loomed over me in an unsettling way. He was my friend. But he was also an angel—an entity that was always inherently good. And yet, he watched me the entire time. Something I highly doubt his God would approve of. I felt meek standing in front of him. He held my robe out and I turned to slip into it, neither of us saying a word.
Mary was back in the room picking up the discarded clothing and tossing it into a small laundry bag. Joel was still dancing around the room, his abnormally large and hairless jewels bouncing every which way.
He bounded over to Julian and me like a Labrador, all hope and smiles. “Hey, hot stuff, I never got your name.” I opened my mouth to answer him, but he was so rambunctious, he cut me off before I even got a word in. “Want to grab a beer or something now? Celebrate your breakthrough role?”
Scruffy came over and put a hand on Joel’s shoulder. “Put your clothes on, man.” He shook his head as Joel bounded off in a quest for his pants. “Sorry about him . . . he gets a little exuberant sometimes.” He turned his hat so the brim was in the front. “I have to say—that was pretty great. I had my doubts about a masturbation scene, but you pulled it off. You got the job. We film again next Thursday.”
“Oh, um . . .” I stuttered and hugged my robe tighter to my body. “I’ll check my calendar and get back to you. I’m not sure I’m available.”
Julian put a hand on my waist, guiding me back toward the bathroom. “She’s
not
.” His voice was a grumble.
Scruffy nodded, shaped his index finger and thumb like a gun, and clicked his tongue at Julian. “Right. Got it.” He then handed a business card to me. “Call me. We’ll talk money.”
Julian followed me back to the bathroom, close on my heels. I stopped in front of the sink and made the subtle shift back to my usual features. I looked up at Jules, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Sorry,” I said, and lowered my chin. Shame crept over my body and I wanted to shrink into the robe. The silk was sexy and soft, but there was still nothing quite like the comfort of my warm and fuzzy robe at home.
“Monica.” His voice was as gruff as I’d ever heard it. Rough and pebbly. He had a hand on my hip, and his fingers slid over the smooth silk down my hips. “Don’t be sorry.”
I turned to face him. His body was a heavy presence, making the air around us thick. “But that must have been awful for you.”
He chuckled and took a step closer, his muscular thighs brushing the barely there fabric wrapped loosely around my hips. “Awful? That display was a lot of things . . . but awful was not one of them.” He brushed his knuckle across my cheekbone, then pinched the base of the wig and pulled it from my head. Most of my hair was pinned at the top of my head, but a few tendrils spilled out down my neck and over my collarbone. His hands were large and soft, and he moved them to cup my face on either side of my jaw. His thumbs brushed across the corners of my mouth, wiping away the lipstick and I parted my lips. More than anything, I yearned for his lips. I just came at the thought of him on top of me—it was a union that could never be. Just like my Drew. I’m self-destructive in love—only choosing to fall for those that can never happen.
“Does Drew remind you of me?”
The question caught me off guard, and out of instinct I pulled back from his hold. His hands stayed firm, keeping me in place, locked into his gaze. I swallowed knowing that the question was just a formality. He knew the answer. He was in my head. “Yes.”
“Is that why you love him?”
What kind of a question was that? “Julian . . .” A nervous laugh escaped my lips, and I playfully pushed his shoulder.
He grabbed my hand in his and kissed my palm, my wrist, the crook of my elbow, and up to my shoulder. He paused at my neck and pulled back, his breath heavy. Our noses brushed, and I wrapped my arms around him, wanting to be as close to Jules as possible. I’d never seen an angel nervous before. He chewed the inside of his cheek. His eyes, usually so comfortable holding my gaze, were now focused on my lips.
“Relax. I’m not going to kiss you, Jules.” Even though we hadn’t kissed that night at the church, his reaction was enough that I’d never walk that line again. I’d thought this fact would relax him a little. I gave a small smile and squeezed my arms around his waist even tighter.
“
That’s
what I was afraid of.”
He dropped his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.
He wanted me. He wanted me so badly that he was doing everything he could to
make
me kiss him. “If you want something,” I whispered, “why don’t you just take it?”
He grunted and his long blond hair tickled the sides of my face. His lips brushed against mine in a kiss that by definition wasn’t one—but by judging our reaction to it, it might as well have been foreplay. A whimper escaped my lips and I parted them, inviting more of him in. His lips mimicked my own, parting as well, keeping the contact between us touching and buzzing with anticipation. I slowly let my tongue trace his top lip. As soon as I made contact, I knew it was a mistake. His body tensed, muscles becoming rocks beneath his casual clothes. His lips were still on mine, the moisture sandwiched between making each slick. “I can’t,” he whispered while pulling away. He moved to the other side of the bathroom, and I had to steady myself on the sink. “Get dressed. I’ll be outside.” He picked my clothes up from where they were folded on the chair and pushed them into my body. His voice had a gruffness to it that hadn’t been there moments before. The lump caught in my throat, and I willed the tears not to fill my eyes. When they didn’t listen, I at least waited until he left. As the door shut behind him, I dropped my head and let them spill out over my cheeks.
27
French countryside, 1943
T
he sound of gunfire and bombs became a sort of lullaby after a while. The nurses all shared bedrooms, each of us given a small cot to sleep on. None of us dared to complain—it was better than the soldiers in the field received.
I lay in bed unable to sleep staring at the white cement ceiling. At this point, I had taken countless lives. Lives that would have been lost regardless, but each of their deaths haunted me night after night. And tonight was no different. Lieutenant Aubert Martine, a leader in the Belgium army, perished at my lips. I could still taste the metallic flavor of his coppery blood on my tongue. “You are doing God’s work in the only way you can,” I whispered to no one. The other nurse lay in the cot next to me, snoring softly.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” A familiar voice came from my left. I jolted up to a sitting position.
“Julian!” I whispered. He sat on the windowsill and I rushed to him, wanting so desperately to throw my arms around his neck. He put two hands out, stopping me before I crashed into his muscular chest. There was a glow surrounding his body; a dewiness to his skin that made it look damp like a blade of grass at dawn. He smiled sadly and brushed a curl that had fallen loose from my braid away from my face. I flushed at his touch and immediately shifted my hair into a perfect coif. I even made sure to rouge my cheeks and lips.
“Silly girl,” he said with a sigh, “don’t waste these powers on me. Save your energy.”
My heart dropped at that. I could think of only one other person worth the vanity of shapeshifting, and he was destined to become an angel soon himself. My chin dropped to my chest, a sadness reverberating through my hollow soul. “I don’t think I can save him, Jules.”
“You know you can’t,” he corrected.
My eyes shot up and stared deeply into eyes, so blue they were like the center of a flame. They were a mix of emotions I could no longer read. “No”—I shook my head—“there has to be a way. There has to be a loophole.”
Jules snorted and pushed off from the window. “Don’t be so foolish. You did your duty for Hell. You took a life for your own selfish reasons.”
“It was love.
Love,
Jules. Remember the emotion? It wasn’t selfish.” I choked the words out, tears rising in my throat and threatening to spill out over my cheeks.
“You’re a creature of lust. Not love.” Julian stood tall, looming over me. His chiseled face was stoic and unmoving, casting judgment.
“Well, soon enough Wills will be one of your own. An angel who will look at me with the same unforgiving and hateful stare as you do.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” he growled.
I gasped, sucking a breath in. I didn’t want to think of another one of my loves as an angel—hating me with the same fiery passion as Jules did. Angels weren’t supposed to hate. They were creatures of love and forgiveness. And yet Jules stood here before me, the antithesis to what I had believed an angel to be. But if Wills weren’t an angel, that left only one alternative. An option that simply couldn’t be. Even up until our last tryst, his soul had been pure.
A flash of regret washed over Jules, and his shoulders relaxed into a less aggressive stance. “I don’t hate you.” He wrapped two large hands around my shoulders. “But we are beings in the middle of an eternal war. There is no place for us anymore.”
“How did you do that—you read my mind and didn’t even kiss me. . . .”
He chuckled softly and pulled me into his embrace. His skin felt cool against mine, and he ran his fingers through my hair. “I didn’t have to. I know you very well.” He pulled away and wiped the tears from my face in the gentle way a lover might. “Monica, stop this nonsense with the mercy killings. I am here unofficially to tell you that while your intent is pure, your actions are not.”
“But it’s the only way I can help these men! Truly help them—”
Jules shook his head and put a finger to my lips. He glanced over at my sleeping roommate. “Shhh. You are a gifted nurse, whether succubus or human. I know your intent is noble, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are killing these men.”
“But—”
There was a crack, and in an instant Jules was gone. I clomped back to bed and threw the covers back over my body. I am doing the Lord’s work to the best of my abilities. These men suffer. They lie and wait for death’s reaper to tear their souls painfully from their body. I take it with tenderness and love.
I fell asleep angry and hurt, more resolute with my choices than before the night began.
The next morning I was roused out of bed by a bustling around the hallway. Shouts and cries sounded around me. A fellow nurse—a much younger girl with dark hair and wide brown eyes—burst into our room. “Get up!” she cried, her English speckled with an Italian accent. “Get up, we must move out. The battles are getting closer and closer to the tents. We must fix up the patients and move out!”
I ran to the loo and shifted myself into my uniform. I gradually shifted my hair as I rushed to the medical tents. There were twelve new soldiers lined up in various cots. All the men had nurses working on them already. I checked each man—not a single one was my Wills.
“We need a nurse here!” An older gentleman of about thirty carried a young man over his shoulder. I rushed to tend to both. The older man had a gash in his leg, nothing that looked too serious. With three women aiding, we moved the younger man onto a hammock-like cot. His stomach was slashed open, guts spilling out. If I had been able to say a prayer for the boy without the words choking on my tongue, I would have.
A doctor was by his side. “Get him into a room—he needs to be stitched up, now!” There were already three nurses tending to him; he certainly didn’t need a fourth. Instead I turned to the older man who had carried him in. “Let me take a look at that leg,” I said.
He shook his head, hands on hips. “No, I’m fine. Take care of Daniel.”
I took him by the arm and led him to a bed. “Please, just lie down. Let me at least have a look. Daniel is in the best hands.”
“Oh yeah? Then whose hands am I in?” He winced as I ran a finger along his wound.
“You, sir, are in equally capable hands.” Grabbing a shot of morphine, I ripped his pant leg to give me more room to work with.
“No,” he said gruffly. “No morphine. Save it for someone who needs it.” I nodded, handing him a flask of whiskey instead. He threw his head back, taking a large drink of the liquid. His English was perfect, but the twang of his accent was one I immediately recognized from my past.
“Talking might keep your mind off the pain, Mr.—”
“Collin O’Malley.” He took another swig and winced as I disinfected his leg.
“Well, Mr. O’Malley, I could stitch this up for you. My hands are as steady as any doctor’s, I assure you. And you wouldn’t have to wait hours for a doctor to become available.”
He nodded. “Do as you must.”
“Here.” I handed him a leather strap. “Bite onto this if you must.”
Hours passed since I had finished Mr. O’Malley’s sutures. I tended to the wounded as they came in—nobody nearly so fatal as Daniel Doyle, as I learned his name was. I paced around the tents, waiting to hear news regarding his surgery. As soon as he was well enough to be relocated, the entire unit was moving out of the abandoned building.
Julian’s words weighed heavy in my head. I didn’t doubt that he was right—it was indeed still taking a life. But I would need to find sufficient life force, anyway. Taking it from the men who lay dying seemed like a better way to use my powers. For all parties.
I saw the doctor who had taken Daniel walking down the hall. I rushed to him. “Doctor! What came of the boy? The one you took to surgery?”
He shook his head and mopped sweat from his brow. “That poor soul. I did what I could.”
“And?” I asked. A tug at my gut pulled me to him with anticipation. “Will he live?”
The doctor sighed. “He’ll be lucky if he makes it through the night.” He pulled out a pocket watch, popping it open. “And we’ll all be lucky to get the hell out of this building before then.” The gunshots and explosions were getting nearer and nearer. We needed to move out. Daniel was delaying us all. The doctor walked away from me, the sound of his shoes echoing in the halls.
I found Daniel’s room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I pulled the curtain so that peering eyes wouldn’t be able to see. “Mr. Doyle?” I whispered. His auburn hair was matted to his head, drenched in sweat and Hell knew what else. I brushed my fingers through it, smoothing it to one side. His face was clammy and his lips dry. A small moan wheezed from deep within his chest.
“Don’t you worry, Daniel. You’ll be free of pain soon.” Pulling down the sheets that covered him, I found access quite easier than past times. I lifted the makeshift hospital gown to reveal his body, and with a hand I started to rub him. Massaging him hard took a while—but the human body is an amazing thing. Biology eventually took over, and soon he was hard enough to straddle. I shifted my knickers away, and with one last glance to ensure the door was locked I carefully straddled him. I rode him gently, hardly moving so not to put any weight on his abdomen. It was taking longer to bring him to climax than I expected, but after a while I felt the familiar hardness growing inside me. He came, and I gasped at the pureness of his soul. It blinded me, like ice-cold water had replaced my blood, coursing through my body like a frozen river. My vision darkened to a tunnel. There was a flash of his life. Only—it wasn’t right. His life should end here in front of me. Instead I saw a slideshow of a long life, starting at the end. Him old and in his deathbed. A Nobel Prize. Banquets in his honor. A doctor—a cure for cancer. It kept flashing backward. I pulled myself off of him, falling out of the bed. Tears filled my eyes, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out. With one last wheeze, his eyes opened and rolled to the back of his head.
Bloody Hell, he was supposed to live! He was supposed to live and go on to cure a dreadful disease. I stood and grabbed him by the shoulders—an attempt to shake the life back into him. “Daniel, wake up! Come back.” The tears were choked in my throat, and I let my forehead fall to his chest.
“You’ve just murdered countless people.” Through my tears, I didn’t hear Jules pop in.
“Shut up!” I yelled. “Just shut up! Even you should recognize I was trying to do a noble thing!”
He shook his head, eyes turned downward like a frown. “We both know better than to believe that.”
I pushed off from Daniel’s body, rushing to Julian. My heart beat wildly; the blood rushed through my veins like an angry rapid. I shoved him as hard as I could, pushing his chest away from me. I had succubus strength, but he was even stronger. He stayed in place, barely swaying with my rage. I shoved him again, and he grabbed me by the wrists. His hands and mouth were stern, but his eyes—those beautiful, crystal eyes—were soft. “Enough!” He said the word quietly but with an urgency that would have made a commanding officer halt in his tracks.
I broke away from his hold. “Get out,” I whispered, looking down at the floor. “Why do you torment us both? Leave me alone.”
I looked up in hopes of seeing those eyes staring into mine, but he was already gone.