Save Me - Chapter 6
We stepped into the morning sun.
As we crossed the yard, we passed the fire pit we’d had the previous night.
James dragged his shoe through the muck. What happened here, Miley? Was someone else here?
“Yeah, but I took care of it.”
“What do you mean, you took care of it? What did you see?”
The tone of James’ voice made me pause before I responded, “Just a man, a creepy, scruffy man who kept calling me kitten. I scared him off with a letter opener.”
James inspected the ground around the fire, the footprints were nearly washed away but my ballet slipper was clearly responsible for several of the small dips, but James focussed on ones that looked like hoof prints.
“Did you see any animals here?”
“|No.”
I can’t see the tracks from a man, I only see these,” he said sitting back thoughtful.
“The man, did you look at his feet?”
“No. Why?”
“This man would not have been scared off by a fuckin’ letter opener, Miley.”
A chill ran through my body.
“Then what was he?”
“Probably a saytre or…”
“Like the half man, half goat?” I mocked.
James stared up at me with piercing eyes. “We need to get moving. Something else must have spooked him, you’re lucky. You don’t want to know anything more about saytres than you already know.”
I didn’t argue with that. “Are all these mythical creatures bad news?”
James nodded with a frown as he rifled through his pockets for a lighter.
“Where are we going to go, James?”
“I don’t know, I never thought about it this far ahead.”
It was eerily deserted as we travelled. There were hardly birds in the trees, never mind another person or mythical being around.
“I’ll keep watch while you sleep.”
“What about you?”
“You can take the next watch.”
I agreed with a nod, but it seemed like the rest was more for my sake than his.
As I drifted off to sleep was awoken again by another strange visitor.
“I’m not going back, Michael.”
“We knew you’d say that, but you are always welcome, James, forgiveness has always been part of our work. You have done nothing that can’t be forgiven, you have only to forgive yourself.”
“I’m not that angel any more. To do what you do, what we were brought forth to do, it requires a certain amount of… innocence.”
“This too, we knew you’d say, but we thought that perhaps some of the guilt would lift from your heart by the invitation. You would be welcome.”
“I wouldn’t fit in there, I’d be too… jaded. You know why I did it, you had to have seen some of what I was doing when I was meeting with her. I couldn’t become mortal. Fuck! She would have rejected me if I was only mortal.”
“She rejected you anyways.”
I cracked an eyelid open to see the blindingly beautiful angel standing in front of James. Both of their wings were formidable but James didn’t glow in the same way Michael did.
James nodded, “I was blinded by my love for her.”
The two were silent as I lay there closing my eyes again.
“Do you miss it?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you fall? Why did you choose to do things the way you did instead of asking? We’re permitted to fall, there might have been some exception made for your special request.”
“I couldn’t risk it. I half expected to be hunted down, to be forced to make the choice, but you all just left me there.”
“You were not alone, James, but we could do nothing. We don’t watch over each other in the same way we do the humans, we had no way to find you if you didn’t ask. And you didn’t ask James. Your soul was lost to us except for the moments we saw you as we passed at the shoulders of our mortals. We didn’t see you for a century.”
“I couldn’t risk it. And I know all the bullshit, no help without request, seems a little convenient doesn’t it?”
“Yes, we mourned your loss.”
“Michael, why didn’t you come after me. Why was it permitted? It would have been easy to order you to find me, for our Creator to make it possible to find me.”
“I think it’s part of the plan.”
“You don’t know?”
“We are not all-knowing. We know only what we are meant to, this you know. Perhaps you were allowed to walk the earth without falling because your intentions were not for Lucifer. Perhaps there is a purpose to having an angel on Earth. You are the only one.”
“Except for the wings, I’m not much of a fuckin’ angel anymore.
“True, you have the limitations of Earth, but you are still an angel James, it was never taken from you. We don’t have the ability to read your thoughts like the mortals but I sense from her that you’ve been protecting her. But we sense that she is only a tiny percent human, which might explain why there was no one assigned to her at birth. She is not human.”
“Fuck! I knew it. You left an innocent to drown and die, she’s human enough to need a protector. Look at her. Ha! I guess she really could do worse than me. She could be dead like all the others!
“Were the screams of terror and agony too subtle for any of you to step in? Where the building sliding into streets or into the water too much chaos for the choirs of angels to handle? What’s next? Is there anyone left on Earth to protect at all or are you all on vacation now?” James spat in Michaels general direction.
“We did what we could and we don’t know what is to come, we can only trust.”
The rims of Michael’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “The Rapture was not something we looked forward to! We could only help the faithful, the ones who couldn’t handle living in the new world with the curtain fallen, there are a few who chose to stay.
“She is thinking that perhaps you are her father, she is asking me. Though I can only hear the strongest of her thoughts… she will not let that question go unanswered.”
I clamped my hands over my mouth with a squeak.
“He knew you were awake, he just chose not to tell me.” James growled.
James pulled out another cigarette and waved me over with a resigned sigh.
“Can you really read my thoughts?” I whispered to the angel as I scrambled up wiping the sleep from my eye. The Angel Michael extended a hand to welcome me forward. He radiated a warm light that seemed to draw me into his open embrace.
“Yes, precious one.”
“Stop that, Michael,” snapped James, placing an arm between me and the angel.
I looked at James, puzzled, but he just shook his head, “I just don’t want your judgement to be clouded. All that light makes you a little light headed… I guess. Save the hugs for another time,” he fumbled awkwardly.
“Is James really my father?” I asked settling next to James instead, the expanse of his wing behind us.
“I am not permitted to say at this time.”
“They are barrels of useful information, but usually make us figure it out for ourselves Miley,” puffed James sarcastically. “He probably doesn’t know he waits for answers from above instead of using his own brain. If you were three quarters human and that man you called father, was indeed your father and a human, Michael would have no problem hearing your thoughts.”
“So that means, either you’re my father or my father wasn’t really human.”
“See that Michael? She’s fuckin’ smarter than you and she’s only fuckin’ sixteen!”
“She’ll need more than brains to survive out here.”
“Yeah, she’s got me.”
“I could take her with me now, if she is willing.”
“What?” I asked, once again confused. “I thought you had to die to go to heaven.”
“Fuck that!”
“James? What is he saying, I can go with him, like this?”
“Yes, precious one, you could rejoin all of humanity in heaven.”
“Is it beautiful?” I asked reaching out for the angels outstretched hand.
“Stop it, Michael! She’s not going anywhere.”
Michael smiled at me but dropped his hand and returned James’ stare. “Very well, she should make an informed decision. I will return in thirty days, sooner if she calls for me. You just have to lift your voice and your mind and call upon the Angel Michael. I will return for you, precious one.”
“Fuck off!” Spat James again.
The angel frowned in a way that looked very unnatural on his lovely face.
“We are here to help, never to harm.”
“Yeah, and you’re here to let a teenage girl die because you think she might be happier in heaven? You can’t have her.”
“Blessings to you, brother. You are welcome to come too.”
“And to you,” replied James graciously followed by another, “now, fuck off!”
Michael gave me a wink and a wave of love washed over me as he disappeared in a flash of white light.
“Don’t be fooled, angels are full of that lovey-dovey shit. Sometimes they forget that we were created as warriors first.”
“Warriors?”
He nodded, “Yeah, to protect God from the terrible things he created.”
Something about the way James squashed his cigarette with the toe of his shoe sent shivers down my spine. I didn’t what to know what might be out there, and I didn’t ask.
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