The Kiss of Angels (Divine Vampires Book 2) (4 page)

“I’m Chariel.” The seraphim gave her a nod.  His wings fluttered lazily behind him, an impressive span, more than twice her own.  “You can call me Char.”

Char—his name burned in her mind like that, like fire, leaving only charred remains. 

“You were the one who spoke to me… before?” Muriel remembered the presence behind her, the whispered words.  “But I didn’t see you? How?” 

He smiled.  Angels’ expressions were quite human, even if they weren’t made of flesh. 

Then he disappeared.

Muriel gaped at the space where he’d been.  No cherub she’d ever known had the power to disappear or make themselves invisible.  She didn’t know much about the seraphim—except that they were the caste of angels closest to
The Maker
.  Presumably, they knew almost as much, although she didn’t know that for sure. 

Before she could open her own mouth to ask where he’d gone to, he was back again. 

“How… where…?” she sputtered, but the cry of pain from the man in the hospital bed interrupted her. 

“Do you want me to call the nurse?” Eliza glanced toward the door, then back to Norman in the bed, concerned.  “Is it time for your pain meds?” 

“No,” he croaked, shaking his head.  His eyes were open now and Muriel saw they were blue, surrounded by a yellow that was almost orange where there should have been white.  His skin, too, was sallow, jaundiced.  “They just make me sleep.”

“But it takes the pain away.” She smoothed his hair, leaning close.  “I hate to see you in so much pain.”

“I don’t care.” He clasped her hands, both of them now, in his.  “I’ll take the pain.  I want to be awake.  I want to be with you.”

This moved Muriel beyond words. 

“You can come home with me,” she told him softly.  “I talked to the doctors.”

“With you?” He frowned, shaking his head.  “I don’t want to burden you, Liza…”

“They said they would call in hospice to help,” she countered.  “You’re not a burden to me, Norm.”

“Look at that, the more they talk,” Muriel murmured, as if her words might be overheard.  She talked to the seraphim, Chariel, who hovered beside her, watching the couple.  “I’ve never seen a black soul before.  Have you?” 

“A few.”

“I thought it would be different,” Muriel confessed. 

“Different how?” 

“Oh I don’t know.” She shrugged.  “I thought he would be… evil.”

“Evil?” The seraphim looked at her in surprise.  “What is evil?” 

“You know.  Like that awful Hitler the humans just warred with.” Muriel was often shocked by the way humans behaved.  Hers was the language of love, not war and death, but so many couples had been torn apart by that horrible war.  “I guess I thought someone with a black soul would have done truly heinous things.” 

The seraphim chuckled. 

“What?” Muriel frowned back at him, narrowing her eyes.  “Why are you laughing at me?” 

“I saw Hitler’s soul,” he informed her.  “White as snow.”

“How is that possible?” She gaped at him in disbelief. 

“The soul becomes a reflection of who humans think they are,” he said.  “Not who they really are.”

She turned back to the couple, considering this information.  They were talking close, in whispers, even though they were all alone.  Muriel knew the sound of lovers, the sweet intimacy.  They shared things only the two of them would ever know.  There was something tender in their tone, even though she couldn’t hear the words.  If Chariel hadn’t been there, Muriel would surely have been eavesdropping much closer. 

“That bothers you?” Chariel asked, his wings brushing hers. 

“Not exactly.” Muriel shrugged.  It made some kind of sense.  “It just makes me wonder… who are they, really? At their core, I mean…”

“You’ll see, if you hang around with me a while.” He nodded toward the hospital bed. 

“You’re going to take it, aren’t you?” Muriel looked up at him, the realization suddenly hitting her.  “His soul?” 

He gave a slow nod.

“You’re an angel of death?” 

“I am,” he agreed. 

“But they’ve just fallen in love!” Muriel protested. 

“And look how healing it’s been already.” Chariel pointed to the man’s soul.  It hadn’t been long since she and Jari had shot an arrow into them both, but the dark cloud above the man’s head had already lightened from black to a dusky gray. 

“But his body is going to die,” Muriel lamented.  Of course, she’d known this all along, given the circumstances.  A man in a hospital bed who looked and sounded as badly as he did usually didn’t get better, but worse.  The fact was, she knew that every human coupling she’d ever created would someday end in pain or death. 

“It is,” he agreed again. 

He wasn’t cavalier or matter-of-fact, like Jari and so many of the other cherubim often were about the fate of humans.  It was the side-effect of the job, she supposed.  There were so many humans, and each of them had their own story.  But Chariel didn’t look at the couple with that sort of celestial indifference Muriel had come to expect from most angels. 

He looked at them like she did.  He sounded as if he understood the gravity of the brief time humans spent in this realm.  Like, just maybe, he understood that the experience of joy and love might actually outweigh the inevitable end to come. 

“He’s going to leave her alone.” Muriel moved closer to the seraphim beside her, feeling his wing covering her back.  “She’s going to have to grieve him so soon after getting him back.  It’s cruel.”

“It is.” Chariel nodded, meeting Muriel’s searching eyes.  There was a depth of understanding there she hadn’t seen in her peers.  What did he know? She wondered.

“Can’t you give them more time?” she asked, brightening at the thought. 

“It’s not up to me.” He shook his head, the soft beat of his wings a gentle pat on her back.  “
The Maker
tells you where to shoot your arrow. 
The Maker
tells me when to retrieve a soul.”

“So it’s going to happen soon?” She sighed, knowing those constraints well.  “Today?” 

“It’s going to happen now.”

Muriel had never seen a human die this close up before.  How had she avoided it this long? And she knew, as she watched, that she had been avoiding it.  She’d seen humans killed by accident, but she was rarely called to a place where the dying were getting busy, well… dying.  This was an exception, a strange request from
The Maker
, that she join this couple just before one of them passed on. 

“What happens?” She glanced at Chariel.  He waited patiently, face impassive, watching.  The man was asleep again—the nurse had come in with more pain medication and he’d nodded off—but his breathing was different.  Harsher.  Eliza had noticed, brow furrowed, as she sat by his side. 

“You don’t know?” The seraphim looked surprised. 

“Well I know,” she replied.  “I mean, generally.  I just meant… I’ve never paid attention to what happens.  After.”

More like, she’d avoided it like the plague.  She liked to think of the couples she joined being together forever.  It always saddened her to know that those bonds would ultimately be severed, if not by divorce, then inevitably, death.  She hated death.  Even the thought of it. 

“Look at the center of his soul.” He nodded toward the bed.  Muriel saw more than a pinprick of light now.  There was a golden orb there, about the size of a golf ball.  “That’s the essence.”

“The essence.  Human essence?” Muriel moved closer, curious in spite of herself.  The man on the bed stopped breathing, just for a moment, like a skip on a record, and then resumed again.  Eliza gasped and Muriel did too, until Norman took another ragged breath.  The alarm in Eliza’s eyes began to fade, although her body remained tense. 

She senses it’s almost over—he’s fading. 

“That’s the soul’s essence,” he explained.  “And it’s what I collect when their time here is up.”

He folded his wings behind him, lowering himself to the floor. 

“So what is all… this?” She gestured to the darkness, reddish-blue now instead of black, surrounding the golden orb.  She would easily have been able to hit that target now. 

“The soul’s experience.”

She remembered Jari’s excitement when she found out they were targeting
a black soul
.  Such a rare thing.  Strange, to consider someone else’s pain as a prized possession.  Another notch on Jari’s belt, and a considerable one at that, one that might become legendary.  But when she looked at Norman, at the sum of his experience on Earth, she just felt sad.  How could something so beautiful and bright be buried under the weight of darkness?

She found it ironic that, in the human world, gold was so precious.  Did humans somehow know or sense that this golden sphere was at the center of every being? Were they, intuitively, trying to get back to their essence? In the soul’s world, gold was indeed precious, but not because it was scarce.  In the human world, they buried their golden souls in darkness and spent their existence seeking it once again. 

Until this very moment, she realized.  When the soul was returned to itself.  Stripped bare, it was able to shine once more. 

It made Muriel wonder—did angels have souls?

“I don’t understand why they cover it up.” Muriel peered closer at the golden sphere. 

“It’s suffering that makes a soul dark,” he explained.  “Humans can’t prevent it.  The only difference between his soul and hers is their response to suffering.”

“It’s so painful.” It hurt to look at it.  Muriel wanted to look away but she forced herself to stand her ground beside the seraphim. 

“Yes.” His voice was sad, resigned.  “Some people scar and heal.  Some wounds stay open and fester.  It’s the same with a soul.”

“How do you know all this?” She blinked up at him, pondering. 

“It’s time.” He took a step forward, reaching out, but Muriel grabbed him, a silent protest. 

“Wait!” she cried.  Chariel frowned down at her, but he did as she asked.  He waited.  “Will he… will he wake again? Will he tell her he loves her just one more time?” 

“She knows.” His eyes softened and she felt the brush of his wings against her cheek, a tender gesture.

And then he plucked the golden orb, like picking fruit, tucking it away somewhere under his wing.  It disappeared entirely.  Muriel cried out, seeing the thread she’d help create, which had already weaved itself into a nice, thick braid, snapped and frayed.  It hung limply, still attached to Eliza’s soul, its end reddish and bloody from where it had been affixed to Norman. 

“That’s it?” Muriel asked, looking at the man’s face.  His eyes were still closed.  He looked peaceful, like he was sleeping.  But his chest had stopped rising and falling.  That ragged breathing that had filled the room had disappeared.  “That’s all there is?” 

Eliza noticed.  She shook him.  She cried out, calling his name, but there was no answer, no response.  The essence of who he had been was now tucked away with the seraphim.  The body that remained was just a shell of who had been.  She wondered if those little golden orbs were the same, just shells, containing the true essence of their existence. 

“Norman!” Eliza’s voice rose, panicked.  “Please! No! Not now, not yet!”

The woman’s tears fell onto the man’s face as she bent to kiss his lips, his stubbly cheek, cupping his face in her hands as if she could bring him back.  The sight of this made Muriel ache all over.  Her limbs shook as she watched Eliza rush to the door, calling for a nurse, a doctor, someone, anyone…

“Why?” Muriel looked up at the angel who had taken the man’s soul, who had plucked it from him as easily as taking an apple from a tree.  She wanted to rail at him—this was his fault.  All of this pain and sorrow.  She glanced at Eliza, seeing her soul had already changed, from that deep amber color, to a dark bronze, dull and cloudy.  Muriel doubted it would stop there. 

“Why do you do that?” Muriel’s voice was just a whisper as Eliza rushed out the door, going to look for help where none would be found. 

“I’m sorry.” The seraphim apologized, wincing.  “It’s just my job.”

“You have a terrible job.” Muriel hugged herself, feeling the bow and quiver on her back shift.  She spent eons joining souls, only to have angels like this one tear them apart.  What was the point?

“Death isn’t the end,” he reminded her as she stood looking down at the man’s still face.  She felt Char’s wings circling, enveloping her, and she turned to face him, feeling herself trembling.  The seraphim pulled her close, into an embrace.  It was a tender, very human thing to do, and it surprised her. 

What surprised her even more was how good it felt.  Is this why humans embraced this way? Touched each other so often? She felt comforted, whole again in that moment.  How strange. 

“You gave this man a great gift today.”

His wings quivered as he drew her tighter so her head rested against his torso.  She was enveloped in softness, pressed against his strong, solid body.  Angels mirrored human forms, but only to some degree.  Humans obviously didn’t have wings.  And angels didn’t have flesh.  Although their bodies were solid, they appeared gossamer, like tangible light.  Cherubim were all silver, almost pearlescent, but all of the seraphim she’d seen were golden, like this one. 

“A lot of good it’s doing him.” Her voice was muffled in the hollow made by his wings. 

“Ah but it is.” Char unfurled and Muriel found herself longing for his embrace again as he reached underneath one of his wings to retrieve the orb he’d taken.  “You gave this soul a chance to shine again.  Look.  Here.”

He handed it to her and she stared down at it, seeing, for the first time, the way the color shifted when she tilted it, as if it were filled with some liquid, something sweet maybe, like honey. 

“But they had such a short time together,” she mused.  The thing in her hand was warm.  She thought it was from being protected under the angel’s wing, but it stayed warm.  It was full of energy, quivering in her hand, as if it might leap away all on its own. 

“Love knows no time.” He tilted her chin so she was looking up—way up—at him.  “You redeemed his soul.”

“I didn’t do anything.” She turned the orb over into his hand, closing his fingers around it.  It seemed impossible that this tiny thing was what had given life to the body lying still in the hospital bed, but there was something alive in it, all the same. 

“You hit your target,” Char reminded her, tucking the orb away again. 

“Why did you tell me to close my eyes?” 

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.  Then he smiled.  “I just had a feeling.”

“Me too.” She was having that feeling again—she knew, if she closed her eyes right then, she could have drawn her bow and still hit any target she wanted. 

The room was filling up with people.  Eliza sat in a corner, face in her hands, as doctors and nurses crowded around the bed, so they moved out into the bright white of the hallway. 

“I’ve never seen a seraphim before,” she told him, more to make conversation than anything else.  The fact was, now that his job was over, she was afraid he was going to fly away.  And for some reason, she didn’t want him to. 

“We usually keep to ourselves.” He walked beside her through the hall, a few more doctors and nurses rushing by and through them, heading into Norman’s room.  Most humans could pass through them without any awareness at all.  Once in a while, a person would stop, look confused, as if they’d forgotten whatever it was they had gone into the room for, as if passing through an angel had stolen their awareness, just for a moment.  It threw them out of themselves and into something greater, just for a second. 

“You can make yourself invisible?” She knew she sounded jealous—and she was.  She’d often wished she could disappear for an hour or two.  Angels had no privacy.  No need for it, really.  They had no needs at all.  But sometimes she felt like she wanted just a teensy-weensy break from her partner. 

“No, I can’t make myself invisible.” He slowed his stride, glancing down at her.  She had to double her pace to keep up anyway. 

“But—?” She frowned up at him, confused. 

“I can make myself
visible
.” He winked.  “If I choose.”

“You made yourself visible to me,” she mused. 

“Yes.” He slowed again.  She didn’t have to jog anymore. 

“Why?” she wondered. 

“I don’t know.” He gave her a little smile.  “I had a feeling.”

So do I,
she thought, but she didn’t say it.  Whatever the feeling was, she couldn’t identify it.  Angels didn’t feel things the way humans did—with that kind of intensity.  If angels’ feelings were like the tide, slowly ebbing in and out, human feelings were tidal waves. 

“You don’t look like the angel of death,” she remarked, giving him a sidelong glance.

“You were expecting a black robe and a sickle perhaps?” He chuckled.