Veiled (29 page)

Could this be true? Could
Henry have joined the Fallen Angels in some sort of venture that
would put our training in jeopardy? I shook my head. “I refuse to
believe that he would simply join the Fallen Angels, I would have
seen it in his aura,” I said firmly. “He looked like he was
struggling, but he had not willingly joined the Fallen Angels—at
least not when I saw him.”

“
None of us wants to
believe that, Tess,” Nancy said caressingly, “Estelle most of all,
but the evidence says that he did something for the Fallen
Angels.”

“
He may not have known
what he was doing,” Dorian spoke up. “He may have thought that he
was just doing Eros a favor of sorts.”

None of us really believed
that. Eros had a reputation and Henry couldn’t have been so
gullible.

“
At some point he would
have had to have known that what he was doing was not good. And he
should have exposed Eros, or said something, but he didn’t. Instead
he left without even saying goodbye to his friends,” Russell said
with a tinge of anger now. “He just slinked away taking whatever
information he had with him.”

Right then, Alex’s pendant
started glowing, and a good many others did as well. It seemed that
duty called once more. Our little get together was dismantled and I
watched as, one by one, all my clan members answered their call of
duty.

“
How was Machupichu?” I
asked Alex before he took off.

“
Fun! Really fun! And
England?”

“
Interesting,” I told him.
“Where to now?”

He looked down at the
pendant in his hand for a moment, then closed his hand over it. “To
get answers,” he said with determination and blocked all other
information from me.

I smiled, respecting his
privacy and then kissed him on the cheek. My own pendant was
glowing too, sending me to class.

I found it hard to concentrate on
classes after this last revelation about Henry. Invariably, any and
all topics brought me back to this same issue. What was Henry up to
and why didn’t he confide in us?

After a long string of classes, I
was relieved to see my pendant glow once more.
Another Ministering mission!
I
thought as I read the instructions.
I
wonder when I’ll get to be a Guardian Angel?
Not that I was complaining, this assignment looked perfect! I
was to be a Ministering Angel to Estelle, to whom I didn’t get to
say goodbye. Besides, I was dying to see how her life developed and
if I could assist her in any way.

I landed where the pendant
instructed me, but it didn’t seem like the right place. It was a
tavern, with drunken cursing men all around. One of the men was
playing the piano and another one who was sitting at a table near
it, shouted, “Henry, where is that pretty wife of yours! Tell her
to come out and sing!”

“
Estelle!” a long haired, bearded,
and gruff looking man shouted. “They want you to sing!”

I came closer to get a better look
at the man, and it was Henry, buried underneath a lot of wiry hair
and a hard expression. Estelle came out of a small door behind the
bar and walked straight to the piano with a broken look on her
face. I followed her and she seemed to twitch a little when I got
close to her.

She then started to sing, and her
voice was as lovely as ever. She seemed like an angel stuck in
hell. Singing did her good, she relaxed and her aura shone brighter
with every note. She looked like she was about twenty, and still
had managed to retain a childlike, innocent look. Her eyes were a
lustrous dark brown, set against the backdrop of milky white skin
and framed by long eyelashes and dark red hair. Her clothes were
simple, but she looked radiant.

Instinctively I came closer to her,
drawn by her voice, like I had been back in Heaven. As I got closer
I could see that her perfect skin was marred only by the slightest
shade of green and blue, right in the corner of her
mouth.

I peered in closer to the
mark, and she swished her hand right through me, as if trying to
whoosh a fly away. I moved away a little, and then came in closer,
and she did it once more. I moved again a ways away, wondering why
she did this every time I got close, when out of the corner of my
eye I spotted Alex.

He was slouching on a
chair, his form sinking through the mass of it in some places and
floating just above it in others. Then a man came over with a drink
and sat right on top of Alex and shivered, spilling some of his
beer in the process.

“
Damn!” the man
yelled.

Irritated, Alex got up and
moved away, but not without giving the man a piece of his mind.
“That will be you, you idiot, if you don’t change your ways!” he
scolded.

“
Alex! Why are you cursing
people?” I reprimanded as I came to his side.

Alex shot me a warning
look, and then softened a bit before throwing himself on me, half
hugging me, half fainting.

“
Did we finally get a
mission together, one where we can actually talk without getting in
trouble?” He smiled weakly.

“
Yes. I’m here for
Estelle, on a temporary Ministering Mission,” I said, turning back
to Estelle, who seemed happy…for the moment.

Alex grunted something and
went over to the bar, where there were a couple of empty seats. He
took one and motioned for me to take another. He then turned back
to the bar and looked at Henry with dismay.

“
Are you here for him?” I
asked.

“
I’m a terrible Guardian,
Tess. He’s done nothing but ignore me and my advice ever since he
was born. It’s like…like…he knows I’m here and on purpose he is
doing the exact opposite of what I tell him to.”

“
Do you think he can see
you?” I asked as I leaned across the bar and peered in Henry’s
face, but he gave no sign of seeing me.

“
No. He can’t see us,” he
said with disgust. “He is just stubborn! I mean, could he have been
this way all along and we never saw it? Did he really betray us all
to become a Fallen Angel? This…this is not the Henry I thought I
knew. This is a monster.”

“
Alex…” I
pleaded.

“
He is, Tess, he is—trust
me.” He shook his head, ashamed of the deeds that he had witnessed.
“And up there somewhere,” he flung his hand in the air moving it
back and forth, “there are Scribes writing it all down.”

Once more Alex’s aura was
darkening, not like last time, but it was dark with disappointment.
He was also afraid of what might lie hidden inside him, the part
that hadn’t been tested yet. I knew that soothing him on this point
would not do any good. I could see how the conversation might go,
from beginning to end, and nothing would change this
fear.

I realized now that I knew
something about the way these missions worked. And they are as much
for our benefit as they are for those whom we are sent to help. So
with that in mind I decided that I would let things take their
course and see what happened.

“
How did he get to this
point?” I asked instead.

“
A million wrong choices,
and this.” He pointed to a small glass filled with some sort of
clear liquid that I understood to be intoxicating. “He started
drinking this stuff early on, and as of late, he has added a new
vice…as if one wasn’t enough.”

“
What vice?”

“
It’s called Opium. I’m
not sure what happens to him exactly, but it knocks him out and he
hallucinates too.”

“
What does he do when he
is on that stuff?”

Alex shook his head, not
wanting to repeat or relive those memories.

“
I’m glad they sent you.
Estelle needs you, and she needs to leave him. It’s getting worse,
he might…do something he will regret and never be forgiven
for.”

“
It’s my business,
Tristan. It doesn’t hurt anyone but me, so…leave me alone!” Estelle
said through gritted teeth at the man sitting at the
piano.

“
It just kills me to see you waste
your life on that scum of a man,” the man named Tristan replied in
hushed tones.

Alex winced. He agreed with the
assessment, but it still hurt him to hear others speaking of Henry
that way.

Estelle stormed out of the saloon
and went back to where she had been before. Henry scarcely noticed
that she was no longer singing or that she had walked right past
him sobbing. Alex and I followed her. She had thrown herself onto a
bed and was crying. We watched her and felt utterly helpless. I
wanted to comfort her, but nothing came to mind.

After a while she composed herself
and with a shaky hand walked over to a little pot and proceeded to
make herself some tea.

I studied her for a while, and
something in the way she was moving made me wonder.

“
Alex, do you think she can see
us?”

“
Oh…I don’t know. Why do you
ask?”

“
Go home!” Henry shouted as he
stormed in the room and passed through both of us. Estelle obeyed
and Henry followed her.

I started after them, but Alex held
my forearm. “I don’t think you want to go,” he said,
somber.

“
Why?”

“
Trust me.”

I looked at him puzzled, but
stayed. After some time, Alex suggested we go and check in on them.
He poked his head in their cabin first and then signaled for me to
come in.

Henry was lying in an awkward
position on the bed. He had an empty look on his face, his eyes
were open, red, and glazed over. I hovered over him, and there were
no discernible thoughts, his mind was both numbed and jumbled. Then
one thought floated free from the chaos inside—
I’m sorry.
—and then he passed
out.

* * * * *

Chapter 25

Estelle staggered to a corner of
the room. The dress she was wearing was ripped in places. She
lifted one sleeve and tried to put it back where it once
was.

“
He’s an animal!” Alex
said.

“
He is not completely gone. I
can’t understand it, the real Henry is still in there, but it’s
buried deep.”

Alex shook his head, not believing
me.

“
STOP IT!” Estelle shouted, she
was holding onto the corner of a cupboard, and then her knees gave
out and she fell on the floor. She then scooted herself into a
corner of the room, and stayed there in the fetal position, not
moving, or even crying anymore. Her sudden request left us in
complete silence, waiting to see what else she did. But she did
nothing other than hug her legs, rock herself back and forth, and
whimper.

“
I think she’s losing it,” Alex
surmised. “Not that I blame her.” He glided to a tiny window and
looked out into the night.

Estelle looked up suddenly and
followed him with her gaze, as if she could see him.

“
Who are you?” she demanded.
“Leave, Leave!” she shouted. Then, more subdued, added, “Leave me
alone…you are driving me mad.”

Alex and I exchanged surprised
looks and then I glided to her side. I tried to pat her head and
tell her that she would be OK, but as soon as I raised my hand, she
flinched. I turned to Alex and motioned for him to back away, and
then we left the cabin.

“
Alex, what was Estelle’s
gift?”

“
I don’t
remember.”

“
Didn’t Luz say something
about Estelle being in her Gifts class? Could it be that she has
the Gift of Beholding Spirits?”

Alex nodded his head.
“Maybe. Wow, Tess do you think she can see us?” he asked,
alarmed.

“
And maybe hear us too,” I
said in a whisper. “She was acting kind of funny every time I come
close to her.”

“
If she can see and hear
us…” Alex began. “Oh! Tess, I may have lost my patience with Henry
a time or two and she was present, I wonder what she made out of it
all?”

“
There’s only one way to
find out, we have to talk to her.”

We glided back inside the
cabin carefully so as not startle her. Estelle was now standing,
nervously straightening up her cabin and making dinner for when
Henry woke up. She must have seen us coming in because she
stiffened up and dropped a pot on the floor.

With what seemed to take a
great amount of courage, she turned to face us. Her eyes were
trying to focus on us, like she couldn’t quite see us, but knew we
were there.

“
Well she can definitely
see us,”
I told him
telepathically.

“
What now?”
Alex responded.

“
Talk to her.”

“
Why me? You talk to her,
you were sent to her!”

“
Yes, but she has seen you
the most,”
I insisted.

Alex rolled his eyes and
moved toward her just a little bit.

“
Don’t hurt me!” Estelle
warned, waving the pot in front of her.

Alex froze in place, not
knowing what to say or do, and not wanting to scare her any
further.