I stormed towards him and got right in his face. Of course, the idiot made no move, not even an expression creased his features. Heartless angel. “Tell. Me. Everything.” I growled.
Pushing off the wall, Gabriel took a step forward. Something about the slow way he moved made me think he wouldn’t put up a fight. But, I felt a burst of raw energy pulsate from his body warning me to step back. I didn’t. I wouldnʼt step back, not now; not ever. Not from him.
“I will not cower before you when it comes to her!” I hissed. “Tell me whatʼs going on, Gabriel!”
He searched my eyes for whatever answers he needed to find. I felt the energy that pulsated off him in waves recede; my heart receded with it.
“Michael told me she would be taken to heaven; spared,” I whispered.
Gabriel shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. “She was supposed to be, but she didnʼt want to go without you. So, I gave her a chance to try to find you.”
I staggered back at hearing his answer. “She chose me over heaven?” I let my body collapse onto the rickety wooden bench that acted as a pew. I crossed my arms over my stomach to try to stop myself from heaving on the floor. All the anger drained out of me, only to be filled with the deepest sorrow I’d ever known.
Gabriel sat beside me and tilted his head to watch me. “I do agree with your thoughts, it was a foolish decision on her part. You are far from worth it. Even when you did have wings.”
“I was never with her, Gabriel. You know that, you saw what happened between us. You. Watched. Us. We kissed once, yet we were punished as harshly as the rest. We were INNOCENT! I didn’t violate her. Now you’re telling me that she’s been searching for me? For two thousand years? ALONE! That’s worse than anybody has ever been punished. That’s worse than MY punishment.”
Gabriel laughed heartily, which made my fists clench. “I disagree with you. If I didn’t stop you, you would have been with her, tarnished her.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, making him look almost human. “I couldn’t let you. And no, she wasn’t alone, because she always had me here.”
I snapped my eyes wide as his words touched my ears, “What the HELL does that mean?”
“She had my companionship. You know we are not supposed to really get involved in the affairs of humans, so I could only do so much to help her. I did lead her to you though, eventually.”
I jumped to my feet. “And in all your divine glory, it took you over two thousand years?” I could no longer control my rage. “You were my brother, Gabriel! And you BETRAYED me! YOU KNEW I LOVED HER!”
Gabriel offered me a small tight smile. “Well, let’s just say I’ve struck out on my own for a while and I don’t believe in that angelic brotherly bond any longer. Enough. Go sit by your human. Pray as hard as you can. See if he answers you. Then, if he does and Grace lives, see if she will forgive you for all your time spent with other human women. And after that, try and keep her alive as Grace.”
“You wonʼt help me, after everything you did? Do you want the apocalypse to come?”
“You wouldnʼt understand Shamsiel, or should I just call you Shane? You are more human than an angel now; you could do nothing to stop me. Apocalypse, very funny. You’ve been imprisoned in hell for thousands of years, how do you know that already hasn’t happened yet. Good luck, you weak pathetic human.” He took a step away from me to leave.
“Gabriel, I need her. I love her.”
Gabriel snapped his head back and glared at me. “Youʼre not the only one. Shane, forget the girl. She’s with me now.” Then he was gone.
And so was all my hope forever seeing Grace open her eyes again. And there was a whole hell of a lot more to this story than Gabriel told me. None of it made any sense. How was she with Gabriel now? And the slight thought of why would she turn down paradise to search the world for me made me want to tear my own skin off. Someone was lying. There had never been a thought in my mind about her being left on earth. I would have never thought that was a possibility. Michael wouldn’t have lied to me, he would have told me. He had agreed that I had done nothing wrong. I never pledged an oath with the other Grigori. I never took a human for a wife. I never fathered a Nephilium. I just kissed the human girl that I had fallen in love with on the last day I was to see her. Yes, if given the chance, I would have done so again. How could any man, human or angel, think past those lips? Even before the kiss, I went to the archangels Michael and Rafael for guidance. To try to find some way I could become human to be with her, or for some way to grant her immortality and wings. Michael knew I loved her. Why would Gabriel betray me? Confused anguish and chaos raced through my mind. Nothing was clear. Michael told me she’d be spared.
That’s what was told to me, from the lips of an angel. “The child will be brought straight to paradise.”
But she’s been on earth the whole time while I was imprisoned in hell.
She was with Gabriel.
“She’s with me now.”
Chapter 15
When I returned to the room, Lea was alone, curled up next to Grace on her hospital bed. Life support machines chimed their morbid musical compositions in the background. Lea raised her tear-streaked face toward me; it pulled at my gut because I understood how desperate she felt for Grace to open her eyes.
I pulled one of the chairs that was lined against the wall right next to the bed and collapsed on to it. I slumped forward, leaned my elbows on my knees and pressed my forehead onto the hospital bed.
“Where did you go?” Lea asked sniffling.
“To the hospital chapel,” I answered looking up at her. Her jaw dropped. Well, that says a lot about what she thinks about my character.
She’s with me now.
She’s with me now.
With me now.
Fuck me.
Gabriel did this.
Chapter 16
I woke to the soft sounds of rustling at the foot of the bed, the putrid hospital smell still assaulting my nose; beeping machines still ringing in my ears. I lifted my foggy head off of Grace’s bed, where I had somehow fallen asleep holding her through all the tubes and wires that invaded her body with my ass still planted on a crappy hospital chair. I looked at her face in hopes that she had a smile to give me, but she didn’t. My heart sank deep into my stomach; she hadn’t moved at all.
Someone behind me was clearing their throat. I didn’t give a damn if someone was choking; I wasn’t leaving Grace.
“Shane? Shane Maxton?” The voice slowly dragged my attention from Grace’s closed eyelids.
“Yeah?” I dragged myself back and sat fully up on the chair that I had pulled close to Grace’s bed and fallen asleep on. My back was on fire from the position I had been in and I twisted and turned trying to get all the aches out of it. It didn’t help.
“Stand up,” the voice demanded harshly.
What? I snapped my eyes to the asshole that thought he could tell me what to do. Two uniformed police officers stood threateningly over the end of the bed. Both had their hands hovering over the open strap of their holsters; guns ready. A bit trigger happy?
“What’s this about?” I asked calmly. I wondered what kind of music they listened to. Mad World fans? Nah, probably just two disco-house-music-fist pumping prissy ass humans.
“I told you to stand up! STAND UP!”
I laughed. Yeah, that just made them come at me. “Whoa, officers!” I said smiling. Lifting both my hands above my head, palms up, so no one decided to light me up with holes, I stood up. Slowly.
One of the officers tried to grab my arm while the other pulled out a pair of shiny silver cuffs. I felt my entire body turn rigid and on edge. I couldn’t control the response that was about to surge from my fists. There’s no damn way I was going to let someone cuff me. I lunged forward, barreling through both officers, causing them to bounce off me and flop to the floor on their asses. It was too hard not to laugh so I didn’t even try to hold it in. The officers were screaming behind me telling me to stop. L
aughing, I ran to the door and slammed up against Ethan’s solid body. The look in my best friend’s eyes told me I was screwed.
“I swear, Shane, I hope everyone is fucking wrong about you and you didn’t do this to her. But in the meantime, until I know for sure…” That’s when his fist connected with my face and the world went black.
* * * *
A feathery soft something brushed itself along my skin; all of my skin. Every inch, as if I were lying naked on a beach, feeling the first rays of the sun fall gently upon my body. It prickled all my hairs and aroused a deep desire of need in my soul; a need long forsaken. Warmth and light surrounded me, and then a complete and utter love engulfed me until I could no longer breathe correctly. I blinked my eyes open. What the hell did Ethan just hit me with? His fist must be made of steel. I’m somehow going to have to find a way to get him to hit Tucker like that. I would definitely pay him for it.
There were smells and sounds of thousands of familiar things; choirs of angelic voices and purity; innocence. My old dead heart stirred as my eyes opened towards the heavens and the shadowy passengers traveling home.
“Shamsiel? Shamsiel. Shane!” A voice called; a voice that I had longed to hear for centuries, Michael the archangel.
My eyes met Michael’s. A fierce expression covered his usual stoic features. His brilliant blue eyes shined with pure light as his wings lay over my body. The touch of the angelic feathers stirred an ache in my soul of what had been taken from me. A tall man, a human, stood next to him; his features so familiar to me. I looked at both beings, folded my arms across my chest and narrowed my eyes. “Oh, this should be entertaining. Does anyone want to let me in on the joke? Am I being punked?”
“Shamsiel.” Michael’s features softened and I could feel the empathy roll off him in waves. Interesting, considering that he did nothing to stop me from going to Hell.
“Michael, just tell me what’s going on,” I said, standing up.
Michael looked toward the human standing next to him, “Shamsiel, this soul was Jacob Taylor, Grace’s earthly brother. He has come to me in hopes of helping his sister.”
My eyes flew to Jacob’s and watched as he exhaled a harsh breath. “You’re him? You’re the angel that Grace was trying to find.”
I smiled back. “I’m no angel. But, yes, I do believe that Grace was looking for me.” I turned to Michael, “Why am I here in heaven? I was just in a hospital room, almost arrested, and punched in the face, so how did I get here? Oh, yeah and let’s not forget my little visit with your brother, Gabriel.”
“I brought you here, Shamsiel,” Michael breathed. His eyes seemed full of love and desperation. “Shamsiel, Gabriel took all this upon himself. Your punishment. Selah. Everything. I had no idea.” His hand ran softly over my face. “My brother, how I have missed you. Thousands of years…”
“Yeah, Michael there’s nothing like thousands of lonely years to freeze your heart until it turns into the cold dead organ I hold in my chest. Let’s not pretend that you care.”
“You weren’t supposed to be punished like the rest, and she was supposed to be spared…” Michael murmured.
Rage. Human blind rage took over. And I let it. After all, that’s all I am now, human. “Well, LA-DE-FUCKING-DA, Michael! You promised me she’d be spared. And I’ve been in HELL, and Selah…Selah has been in Hell on earth! Forgive me if I don’t feel quite so happy to see you!”
“Shamsiel, the archangels…”
“Don’t! Just stop! Enough of this angel crap! It’s so far from my real world, so far from any human’s reality! You and the rest of them are so far-removed from us that you have no idea what is going on down there! You are supposed to be watching over us, protecting us! This is like being stuck in a really bad paranormal book that doesn’t freaking end. Just tell me what to do to save her!”
Michael stood statuesque before me. His brows crumpled together and his eyes offered me a pained stare. “Shamsiel, we’ve been at war in the Heavens for thousands of years.” He clenched his teeth and the muscles under his skin hummed with anguish. Drawing his fists together, he began pacing back and forth. “It all started with the Grigori and the human women marrying and creating the…Nephilim…”
Raking my hands through my hair, I huffed with impatience. What good was this conversation doing for Grace? She was on earth dying and I’m having a history lesson an idiotic angel who doesn’t remember that I WAS ACTUALLY THERE when all this history went down. “Yeah. Mikey. I remember. I. Was. There.” My fists tightened in my anger. “Do you remember? That’s what I was condemned to Hell for, even though Selah and I did nothing wrong! All we did was kiss…we kissed goodbye.”
Michael was still muttering and rubbing his wrists and hands together. I must say that I had never seen this kind of behavior in an angel. Given that I was so freaking pissed off at Michael, I was quite enjoying his discomfort. Greatly. Screw it, I mean really, what was going to happen to me? I’d go to Hell? Well, I had been there longer than any other place, so what-the-fuck-ever.
Jacob stepped between our advancing bodies, jerking his hands in the air separating us. “You both have got to be kidding me! Look, Shamsiel-Shane, whatever you want to call yourself. I know you want to help save Grace and do whatever you need to be with her. And Michael, we understand that you had nothing to do with Shane getting the shit end of the stick because you were preoccupied with whatever it is you were doing…”
I barked out a laugh. “Holy crap. Are you patronizing us right now?”
Jacob’s chin jutted out and he crossed his arms. Cocking his head, he deadpanned, “Well, if it shuts you both up and gets you to help the most innocent person out of all of this, then yes.”
I couldn’t help smiling and nodding my head at him. “I see where Grace gets her tenacity from. You’re right, I will do anything for her.”
“No, Shane, she gets her tenacity and strength from years of torture.”
Right.
Michael’s hand grasped my shoulders and the weight of the world and all my hate and rage disappeared. Sliding his hand to lie against my chest, he sighed heavily and a tortured expression crossed his features. “Gabriel has laid claim to the girl. He thinks that if Grace and he…unite…that another generation of Nephilim will be created. It’s his way of winning the war.”
“NO. No one UNITES with Grace but ME! Now get me back down there and do some abracadabra angel magic and heal her!”
Michael’s arms became heavier on me and his voice seemed to lose all its power, “It’s isn’t like it used to be, Shane. We can save her from where Gabriel is keeping her, but Grace will only heal if she wants to. The only thing that I could do with what you call ‘my abracadabra angel magic’ is to return you home to be what you were created to be.”
My heart seemed to freeze, then pound and hammer against my chest with rushing blood, “I could go home?” My damn skin started to tingle. TINGLE.
Michael leaned forward, his pupils large, swimming in oceans of heavenly blue irises. “Yes, Shamsiel. You should have never been punished so harshly. You could take up arms and fight alongside me.”
The muscles in my body, all of them, trembled and warmth radiated throughout my body. Home? Return home to be what I was created to be.
“And Grace?”
His chin lowered into his chest and his hands fell limp at his sides. “Grace will live out the rest of this life and will eventually die like any other human before her.”
“And we don’t ever see one another again, right? I stand guard and stay out of the lives of the humans and I never lay my eyes on her again, right?”
His voice was thick and low, “Yes.”
My chest heaved, ears roaring with the rising pressure.
My heart pounded. It was all I could hear.
Thud.
Slammed against my chest.
Thud.
My skin tightened.
THUD.
Sweat poured from my pores.
T
HUD. THUD. THUD. THUD-THUD-THUD
Thud.
“Hell. No. An existence without Grace by my side is not acceptable. I stay human. We die human together. I’m no longer an angel, you ALL took that away from me. I’m not helping to fight in a war that isn’t mine any longer. There’s too many more important things on earth to fight for instead of all your bullshit – who wants to play God – when there is no way anyone could ever replace him.”
Michael backed away, posture sagging. “You sound so…human…with your faith in a God that hasn’t spoken to his angels…in millenniums.”
I swallowed the painful lump in my throat, “That’s because I am human. And maybe you should have as much blind faith as humans do. You’d be amazed what things their belief and faith can help them overcome.”
Michael breathed in deeply and his eyes went vacant. “What if she doesn’t want you any longer because you’re not an angel? Will she love and accept you as Shane Maxton? Look at the life that Shane Maxton lived before you became him, how could anyone love that? He’s not good enough for her, Shamsiel. You would give up everything for such a great risk? What if she wakes up from her coma and doesn’t remember her past? What if she doesn’t remember you?”
“I’ll give it up, Michael, to be with her…she’s been searching for me for centuries. I would rather take my chances on someone who had faith in my soul since the beginning of time, then those who would easily believe I would have turned my back on my brothers and bring evil to the world I was created to protect.”
“And what if Gabriel continues to plague her on earth?”
“I guess that’s my fight, Michael. And she’s worth the fight.”
Shaking his head slowly, Michael’s body flickered in and out of focus, like an old silent movie running on a continuous wheel. The heavens faded around us into a dim light and shapes shifted and meshed together until the three of us stood before a narrow wooden doorway.
Jacob and I both stood at the opening of the room, but when he moved forward, I hesitated a moment behind him, unsure if my legs would hold me. I know I cried aloud, I know I sobbed her name, and I know I never felt such anguish as I did then. Grace lay before us beaten and bruised.