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?
r /> 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 yourself?”
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.”
Are you only in my imagination?
Her eyes had a faraway look as she answered his musing. “I’m still a presence, for now. Shall we get started? Your journey will be arduous — and hopefully enlightening.”
“I have to tell my family I’ll be gone.” Jason ran a hand through his hair and dialed his phone, trying to decide how to explain a trip with an angel to Dean and Seriana.
“…Yes, I’m doing fine. Really. I have a small trip to go on, but I’ll be in touch.” After Jason said goodbye, he turned to Emma. “They’re worried about me.”
He liked her new look. Emma was now wearing a pair of white pants, a soft, white sweater, and she had big fuzzy boots to keep her angel feet warm.
She laughed out loud at her new attire, and he loved the sound of her genuine pleasure. “Do you really picture me as cold, Jason? Truly, for a murderer you are quite considerate.”
Jason looked at his feet. He wanted to drape her in diamonds and take her to a sandy beach. The thought made him squirm, as he knew he was broadcasting it to the object of his desire.
“I love the beach. But tonight doesn’t hold that luxury for us.” She looked to the sky and held her arms out, palms up, obviously speaking to someone he couldn’t see.
“You didn’t even think I’d try, did you? How about this, assface?” She faced her palms to the snow, and it came scurrying to her like trained mice, forming a large pile.
Are you calling God an assface?
She smiled a bit before giving him what she seemed to think was an obvious answer. “Ah, no. I don’t think He’s even taking my calls anymore. The angel I want to pummel is trying to sabotage this mission for me.”
The magical accumulation of snow became animated, flickering and flashing like white fire.
“Come to me, half-breed.”
Her eyes were sultry, and Jason couldn’t imagine doing anything else. She held one hand toward the snow flames, the other out for him to grasp. Emma tugged him close when he put his hand in hers.
“Hang on.” She stared at his lips and licked her own.
I want to kiss you. Jason placed a hand on her hip.
“There’re worse ways to pass time, I guess.” She was daring him, smiling and leaning closer.
Their lips were just an impulse apart when the world slid out from under their feet. Jason tried to right them, but there was no center, no way to orient his body.
“Shh. I’ll be your gravity, Jason.” Emma’s voice was calm.
In the swirling tempest of dark, she was his beacon. Her grip on him was gentle, and he had to trust it. He stopped trying to find a horizon and focused on her gray eyes — the color of angry clouds. She looked a little bored as time and place seemed to cease to exist.
“Prepare yourself, handsome. We’re about to hit bottom.” She placed her lips on his, keeping her eyes open as his thoughts collided with his need.
Breathe her in.
They materialized in an embrace, and suddenly their private moment felt very public in the blinding daylight. Jason’s entire body tensed.
She spoke with her mouth on his lips. “No, half-breed, here you’re as invisible as I was to your brother and sister. We’re here to observe.”
He pulled himself reluctantly from her lips and took in the city scene before him. It was far from present day. He recognized the street, the time period, and the smells of his childhood.
Jason’
s eyes widened as he realized he’d traveled through time with his broken angel. Disoriented, he stumbled a bit.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” He squinted as if that might make the scene make sense.
Emma rolled her eyes. “Well, you better wise up and quick. We have a job to do here.”
A scene he remembered from his childhood began to play out before him. He’d been about ten years old when he stood up to three older boys who terrorized everyone in the neighborhood. His younger self was walking home from school, and the sight of his clothes took Jason back to the feel of his handmade wardrobe and the memory of his mother’s tape measure.
“I know what’s next. The O’Dowell boys were a vicious bunch.” Jason nodded to the alley his younger self was about to pass.
Jason went to step closer, but Emma squeezed his hand hard and warned him, “You can’t let go of me. Okay? No matter what, don’t let go.”
He nodded and turned to watch again, the fuzzy memory crisping up at the edges.
The O’Dowells had been tormenting an old, blind street dog. The shopkeepers kept it alive because they had pity on its cloudy eyes and tossed out food from time to time. The boys thought it hilarious to throw rocks at the dog. They laughed as it yelped and cowered against the wall.
“I didn’t even know what I was doing. What was I thinking?” Jason watched as his younger self made two furious fists as he witnessed the unjust behavior.
First, his younger self tossed his school bag at the biggest one, hitting him in the back with the sack of books. Then he jumped in front of the old dog, taking the next rock in his stomach.
The boys were thrilled with the availability of human prey and set out to make Jason yelp as loudly as the dog. Emma put her other hand on Jason’s chest as he thought again about helping his younger self out.
They watched as the old dog slinked out of danger and took off running down the street.