Sentinel of Heaven (2 page)

She opened the
tube of salve and squeezed a generous amount of it onto her fingers, then began
to spread it over his abused flesh.  She tried to let the weight of the cream
guide the application, always adding more long before her skin would have come
in contact with the burns – but it had to be agonizing.

When Moira at
last spared a moment to look up, the angel's face was almost on a level with
her own.  His eyes were focused on hers, serene and just a bit sad.

“Easy,
there...” she said.  “It won't be much longer.”

She worked as
good as her word until both damaged hands were covered in the cream, then
wrapped each finger and the palms separately with a loose layer of gauze.

“We can't
fasten these wraps; it'd put pressure on the blisters.  Just try not to touch
things very much, okay?  Thank God we're done... I'm hardly better off than you
by now.”  She felt like someone had replaced her spinal cord with a hot lead
pipe.  What time was it?  When could she take some more medication?

His eyes took
on a new intensity.  He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it with a
determined expression.

“What is it?”
she asked, wiping her hands dry on the last clean towel.

He sighed and
pointed over his shoulder.

“Your wing?”

A gentle shake
of his head, a firmer point in the same direction.

“Your
feathers?”

Affirmative. 
Now he pointed again, but moved his wing aside so he could indicate the kitchen
door through which he had entered her home.

“Outside?”

Strongly
affirmative.  Then he cupped his bandaged hands and made gathering motions with
them, drawing an invisible pile of something close to his chest, then pushing
it away from him and indicating the table behind her, then gestured to
encompass her person as well.

“You want
me... to go back outside... and collect the feathers you lost... and put them
on the table.”

He fanned his
fingers out with a slight wince, then moved his hands in close together again
and closed them.

“All of them?”
she hazarded.  “It's that important that I do this right now?”

He nodded
again, flattening his hands and laying them almost touching palm to palm in
front of his heart.  Please, I pray you.

“You don't
have to beg,” she sighed as she hauled herself to her feet.  “I've done
stupider things for men that weren't half as handsome, frankly.”  Still, Moira
took a moment to ease her body back into her housecoat and slide into some
shoes, as she knew from the way she felt she wasn't about to be bounding into
action.

Christ...
bending, straightening, reaching up, turning around, looking back and forth,
having to move her neck and arms and open and close her hands, all of it out in
the cold.  If she was able to lay down in bed afterwards without screaming at
the pain, she'd be shocked.  Well, nobody thought she’d be joining the Cirque
du Soleil any time soon...

Cane in hand,
she checked the spot on the counter by the door out of habit before she
realized she'd forgotten the flashlight outside, probably still down the gopher
hole.  Batteries dead by now, too.  Ahh, but it'd been so long since the start
of this night's festivities that the first rays of dawn were striking through
the trees.

Enough light
to see by.  No rest for the wicked.

Moira left him
sitting quietly on the kitchen floor; tottering across the old wooden deck and
down the three short steps to the lawn felt more strenuous than a marathon.  It
looked like a fox had jumped the world's biggest pigeon in and around the
wreckage of her grandmother's rose-bush.

The world
narrows and time slows, for someone in pain.  Step, bend, pick up a feather,
slip it into the housecoat pocket, straighten up, step, bend...  Brace the bad
leg, stand firm until it stops twinging, lean on the cane to take the pressure
off the good leg (which was beginning to lose its temper and contemplate being
less-than-good)…

Moira came out
of her haze when she finally realized there were no more white spots on the ground;
standing in front of the bush to pick out the ones she could see in the
branches didn't take quite as long.  When there were no more that she could
locate, even with careful prodding into the bush itself, her steps turned
towards the door.

She bent one
last time to lift the now-dark flashlight out of the hole and heard it clink
against something in the dirt.  Closer examination (or what passed as fine
detective work at this point, namely to poke it with her cane's foot and peer
at it through a fog of fatigue) revealed a mass of metal at the bottom of the
hole, which was only a few inches deep.

Moira flipped
it out onto the grass with her cane, then slowly crouched to pick it up.

It was still
warm to the touch, not nearly as hot as it probably had been just a few hours
ago.  This wasn't a gopher hole – it was the impact point of a meteorite, the
lump of molten-looking iron that had fallen from the sky this morning to land
only a few feet from her house.

And here:  she
could fit her fingers into the grooves made by a hand larger than her own. 
Here... middle finger, index finger, and the L-shaped slope down to what would
have been the position of the thumb.  This was only part of the meteorite, as
wide as her spread hand – a flat break on the back side indicated where another
piece must have sheared away.  How big would
that
have been?

He caught
it.  He caught the damn thing.  His poor hands, no wonder...

Where would it
have landed, without an angel's intervention?

Would it have
come through the rotting old roof over her head?  Maybe bisected her skull on
its way to touchdown?

Silently she
put it in the housecoat's other pocket, the one she hadn't stuffed full of
feathers due to it being wrapped on the inside layer and too cumbersome to try
to reach
.  I will think about this tomorrow – or rather, later today – at
some point long after the meds have been able to do their job again.

A flash of
pain-fog and when it cleared she was back in the house, mechanically pulling
handful  after handful of feathers out of her pocket to lay them on the
tablecloth.  When she was finished she tugged off the housecoat and left it in
a careless heap on the wooden chair.  Her kitchen felt strangely empty without
him in it; she could hear little noises from the living room that indicated his
whereabouts.  Good enough – Moira was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep for
a few hours more, not until she could take the medication and let it kick in. 
Sitting upright in the old recliner would be best, instead of staring at the
ceiling in her bedroom and trying not to cry from the grinding agony in her
bones.

How the being
had managed to locate all her spare blankets and pillows and pull them into
that one room would have to remain a mystery for the moment, but he'd piled
them into a nest on the floor and was curled up in it searching for the most
comfortable position around his various wounds.

“Glad to see
you've made yourself at home...”

He looked back
over his shoulder and smiled to see her; the harsh lines of his face
transformed briefly to a openness that charmed her despite the pain.

“I found all
the ones I could,” she rasped.  “I'll go back out tomorrow and look some more
if you want.  After the meds.”

As she
staggered to her chair he was following her, swimming through the quilts until
he could sit at her feet, gazing up at her.

Moira
swallowed hard, wishing she'd thought to get a glass of water before she'd sat
down, wishing he could get one for her, wishing that the boy’s car hadn’t hydroplaned,
wishing that the meteor really had landed where it sought.  Wretched, wretched
wishes.

“What is it? 
What do you need?”

He captured
one of her hands between the backs of his own and drew it to his lips for an
almost courtly kiss.  Then he lay the side of his forehead carefully on her
knee (the goodish one), exhaled quietly, and let his eyes drift closed.

I will
live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes,
teased
Moira's brain.

“Perhaps while
you’re here – until you’re ready to talk, that is – I could call you ‘Leo’. 
Like the meteors.” 

The massive
creature did not stir, although she knew he heard. 
Silence means assent,
she thought.

Cautiously she
let her fingertips trace the long gray locks that spread across her thigh. 
Twigs and leaves and little clumps of dirt – the detritus here she hadn't yet had
the time to tend in the short while since he'd fallen into her life.

Trapped in the
chair and trapped in her body, here at the vicious tail end of the night, now
there was time.

She combed
through the waves and he stirred but little, leaning closer into her touch. 
Not much could be done yet about the matted bits, thick with dried blood – but
the rest was straightened and put right, shining in the growing light through
the window.  She could set her mindless razor focus on each steel-colored
strand as it flowed through her grasp, brushing away the dust and arranging it
on the faded fabric of her nightgown until they all led away from his great
head – the comet trails of a silken halo.

Somewhere
around true dawn, Moira gratefully fell into a dreamless sleep more like
unconsciousness than actual rest.  In the empty bedroom her alarm chirped once
before being abruptly silenced, without human intervention.  Leo shut his eyes
again.

She woke at
last to the sound of her cell-phone ringing, on the nightstand in her bedroom. 
Might as well been on the far side of the moon – having managed somehow to
sleep upright through the pain, Moira's joints were locked down.  Trying to
stand at the moment would feel like wading through a chest high river of acid
and broken glass.

Leo lifted his
head and blinked sleepily, then handed her the cell-phone.  She gaped at him –
he hadn't stirred an inch, other than to look up at her.  She’d distinctly
heard the ring as several walls away but suddenly it was right in front of her,
loud and shrill.

“We're talking
about that later, seriously,” she told him.  He gave a small sweet smile as she
opened the phone in the last instant before it would have rolled over to
voice-mail.

“Hello, this is
Moira.”

“Moira,
hiiiiiiiiiiii,” came a familiar and hated voice.  “Were you thinking about
coming in to work today?”

Moira jumped
in dismay, then gasped at the discomfort the movement caused.

“I apologize,
Erica – I must have slept through my alarm.”  She focused on the man at her
feet, cupping his huge cheek in one hand.  He leaned into the touch.  “Something
came up.  I'm going to have to take a leave day.”

“Color me
shocked, Moira.”  The other woman sighed, honeyed tones of fake sympathy
intentionally half-masking her ire.  “Do you think you'll be back in tomorrow?”

“I really
can't say yet,” she answered, stroking Leo's face.  He laid his bandaged hand
lightly on her bad leg, careful not to hurt her.

“When you know
for sure, let us know.  And tomorrow, call my voice-mail
before
you
would be scheduled to come in if you'll have to be absent.  Mmmmkay?”  She was
going to have that chat with HR,
again
.  It was easier to care less,
however, when the angel at her feet was gazing up at her in his serene way.

“Of course,
Erica,” she answered in her most neutral tones.  “I'll call you tomorrow. 
Thank you,” and hung up before she had to say any more.

Silence in her
living room again; this room was the most drafty of the little old house but
Leo's body was warm against her legs.

“That was my
boss,” she explained.  “I'm having to take a sick day... even if I didn't need
to do a few more things for you, I can't move enough right now to go to work
anyway.”

He snapped his
wings up suddenly – the tips brushed the far corners of the room before he
realized where he was and folded them tightly again.  The angel detangled
himself from her slowly and stood up, lifting one of the blankets out of his
nest with his fingertips to tuck it in around her body.

Pants for
you, for one thing,
she thought – appreciating his courtesy as much as the
incidental view. 
But after meds.  Whenever I can finally get up and get
myself the meds.
 

Leo didn't lay
back down but instead continued past her, squeezing through the narrow hallway
into the kitchen where Moira could hear the faucet come on.  Then a tread
through the back room, the boards by her bed squeaking.

He returned
with a glass of water in one bandaged grip and her prescription bottle in the
other.

“Oh God, just
what I needed.  How did you know?”

He looked at
the bottle and its childproof cap uncertainly for the moment, then passed it
down for her to grapple with.  Once she had it open and shook three pills out
into her palm he gave her the glass of water. 

“That's it,”
she said after she’d swallowed, her voice warm with anticipation.  “Just have
to wait for that to kick in.  Usually isn't too long.”

He responded
by taking the glass out of her loose hands and putting it and the medicine bottle
on the end table beside her chair.  Then he settled himself again as close to
her as possible on the floor, lifting her feet into his lap so he could lean
over her legs, facing her.

“What... just
going to stare at me all day?”

Leo smiled
again and propped his elbow on the cushion beside her, resting his chin on the
back of his wrist.  What was it about him that was so soothing?  Face like a
forty year old brawler, body like a wrestler, wings like nothing in this
world... and yet she felt perfectly safe.

Must be his
eyes: blue, clear, quiet.  The fine net of wrinkles around them were not
laugh-lines; they looked more like impressions left by a life that had experienced
too much.  It made him appear sad when he had no other expression.

He didn't look
sad right now, though.  Hopeful, yes.  Trusting.

Already the
medication was working its tiny magic; she felt the rising euphoria that was its
signature.  Little by little the pain would fade until she got back to
something that was almost normal for a while.  She reached up and traced the
curve of his lips unselfconsciously, then ran her fingertips through the
silvered hair at his temple.

“Why did I do
this?” she mused.  “Do you know?”  He nodded, once.

“I wish you
could tell me, because I can't decide.  Too many things it could have been.” 
She scratched his scalp lightly; if he had been a cat he would have purred.

“Because I'm
bored,” she breathed.  “Because I'm lonely.  Because I hate my job.  Because
it's been ages since I've felt useful.  Because you were hurt bad and I wanted
to help you.  Because I know what it's like to be hurt bad.  Because I just
simply don't care anymore and if this turned out to be something terrible,
something awful... at least it would be different.”

He tilted his
head.

“Because
you're nothing I've ever seen before.  Because you're beautiful.”

He snorted.

“No no, don't
be like that.  You are.  Not like a pretty man or anything... but striking. 
Your face – it's not one that can be ignored.  It has power.  It has history. 
That's beautiful to me.  Beauty isn't truth... it is strength.”

She felt her
eyes wanting to drift shut but forced them open when she felt him lean closer
still.  His gaze was intense.

“What is it,
Leo?”

He reached up
and tapped her with two bandaged fingers, right over her heart.

“I don't
understand.”

He hesitated,
then touched the same two fingers to her lips.

“Leo?”

In an instant
he was up on his knees, his head hanging over hers, hiding the room in a
falling metal curtain of his hair.  His demeanor was begging for her to
understand him, to hear what he was trying to say without the voice he refused
to use.

Her hands came
up to cradle his face.  “It's okay...” she began, and he stopped her with a
kiss.

He tasted like
blood and metal in the first instant, as if she'd bitten down on a copper
penny.  Then his mouth was sweet and clean and she let him deepen the kiss
without any resistance.

For a big man
he kissed well; didn't spread his lips too wide or force his tongue into her
mouth.  One of his hands had moved to cup her side and the other was cradling
the back of her head, unmindful of what pain the pressure on his blisters
should be causing him.

Leo pulled
back only a little ways, nose to nose, looking to see her reaction.  She took a
deep breath.

Slower now – nuzzling
against her, then nipping at her lips with his own, breathing in as she
exhaled, chuckling as her fingers twined in his hair and pulled him in as the
shock faded and she melted, giving as good as she got.

He was licking
his lips when he pulled away, his eyes wet and shining.  Then he grinned at her
– not his little smile but a full-on euphoric grin, displaying dazzling white
teeth.  He pushed up off the chair all the way onto his feet and stood,
gesturing for her to get up and follow him.

When her legs
finally agreed to work she found him back in the kitchen, unraveling his
bandages over the sink.  He smirked at her again as he flipped on the hot water
and shoved both palms beneath the stream.

“No!” Moira
screamed.   Against all rational thought he was
scrubbing
his hands
together hard, raking the nails of each hand against the palm and fingers of
the other.  She moaned, fully expecting to see blood – but he scraped away the
dead flesh and the oozing blisters to reveal what was perfectly healthy skin underneath. 

See? his
posture said as he stopped for a moment to show them to her, dripping on the
linoleum as he held them out for her inspection.  All better, like the best
parlor trick ever.

Leo turned
back to finish the job and again Moira noticed his wings – now perfect and
gleaming white, each feather exactly positioned and absolutely whole.

“You're
fixed... you're healed.  How did you...”

Now he was
picking off the bandages and the gauze and the tape, stripping away the
bloodied patches from a form that didn't even bear the scars.  He balled them
up and threw them into the kitchen trash, then spread his hands and turned
slowly for her inspection.  Even the blossoming bruise under his eye was gone. 
He knelt and took her hand to press it against the top of his head where the
knot under his scalp had been.  Searching through his hair she couldn't find
the long scrape where it had bled, only the dried red mat that showed it had
ever been.

“Leo, why
couldn't you do that last night?”

He shook his
head.  Tapped her chest.  Touched her lips.

“The kiss.”

Affirmative
nod; again, his tiny smile.

She staggered
forward to fall against Leo’s chest, suddenly dizzy, barely realizing he was
reaching down as he stood to catch her under shoulder and knee and sweep her
into his arms.  He carried her as easily as he would a child into her bedroom
and spread her out on the mattress, freeing the covers and drawing them up over
her.  Now it was
his
fingers stroking tenderly in her short blond
hair, urging her to turn her face against the pillow, to curl up and sleep.

“Don't go,”
she responded, voice groggy.

He shook his
head again.  I won't, he mouthed.  He folded himself to sit down on the carpet
beside her bed and leaned his head against the mattress as he had leaned
against her knee, where she could rest her hand in his hair.  She was asleep in
the next moment.

When she woke
hours later, she was alone.  The sun was shining through the top of her bedroom
window – it had to be noon or after.  The next thing Moira noticed was that her
pain was actually minimal, relatively speaking; the rest she’d gotten was deep
and dreamless.

He said he
wouldn't leave...

She rolled
onto her back and let her forearm fall across her eyes, blocking out the
light.  Must have been a hallucination.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge could tell you
all about that, Moira.  Flashing eyes and floating hair... for he on honey-dew
hath fed and drunk the milk of Paradise and men like that in
general
,
Moira, don't fall into your rose-bush
or
your lap for that matter, not
since you got the bionic parts and the stylish cane.

There was a
tentative knock on the door frame.  When she looked up Leo was half-in and
half-out of her bedroom, completely filling the doorway, a glass of water in
his hand.  He held up the medicine bottle and gave her a quizzical look.

“You're real?”
she asked.  “I didn't dream this?”

He glanced
around theatrically: at the walls, at the carpet, at the ceiling just above his
head, at the water glass in his hand, at the amber bottle, then blandly back at
her.

“Okay, silly
question.  Yeah... let me take one before I get started; best to be proactive
about it.”  He waited for her to shove herself up into a sitting position,
passed her the bottle and the glass and backed out into the kitchen carefully,
not turning due to the length of his wings.  She felt a flash of guilt – this
was like keeping a Great Dane in a crate too small for it to stand all the way
up or turn around.

But it's
all I have to give.

He was back
again, this time with a plate and fork.  The scent hit her at the same time –
bacon and scrambled eggs, my God.  She realized she was ravenous.

“You cooked? 
You seriously made breakfast for me?”  His lips twisted and he gave an eloquent
shrug as he set the plate on the quilt over her lap.

“Frying bacon
naked – you're a brave soul, Leo.”  Her dry words startled him into a laugh and
he covered his mouth in dismay.

“You can make
sounds... there's obviously nothing wrong with your voice.  But you still don't
want to talk?”

He shook his
head and turned his eyes away, ignoring the one chair in the bedroom to sit on
the floor again.

Moira smiled
gently.  “It's okay; I'm not going to press the issue.  Especially not for
someone that can cook like this.”  The bacon was perfectly done, not too firm
and not too limp; the scrambled eggs were lightly salted and appeared to have a
bit of shredded cheddar in with them.  She could attempt to be ladylike but the
will to do so quickly evaporated as she wolfed down the delicious meal. 

“Have you had
any?” she remembered to ask, halfway through.

He shook his
head.

“What
do
you eat?”

In answer he
gingerly unfolded his left wing, stretching it up over his head then out across
her bed, curving it to present the leading edge.  As the feathers moved into
the sunlight they threw back an iridescent gleam.  He held the position and
reached for her water glass, took a long sip, then set it back on her
nightstand.

“I don't
believe this... are you saying you're
solar-powered
?”

An expressive
combination of nod, shrug, and hand motion conveyed that for the most part,
with some exception, this was the case.

Watching his
face she gently took the tip of his nearest feather in one hand and tugged just
slightly to bring his wing around until it was spread as far behind her in the
window as he could comfortably hold it, to take in the most light.  The shade
underneath his wing was warm.