Sentinel of Heaven (31 page)

He had no idea
why he felt it.  She thought privately that perhaps his flight had woken it;
maybe the prospect of freedom in the sky had disoriented him, making him seek
his comfort in her body.

So she reached
up to the craggy face over hers and touched it lovingly, sending an embracing
flow of bliss, of delight and invitation.  There was nothing wrong with his
urge or with him; she welcomed his need and gloried in helping him answer it. 
The knowledge of her acceptance flung him from the plateau upon which his
dismay had temporarily stranded him.

“Ahh, Moira!”
he gasped, whole body tensing around the groan that followed; she felt him
spill inside her in rhythmic pulses, an aurora-wave of climax shared in her
mind.

He leaned his
forehead against her pillow when the tremor eased.  “I am utterly your slave,”
he breathed.

“Then go
again,” she commanded in a sensual purr.  “No, twice more.”

“If my lady
demands, how can I deny her?”

Leo chuckled,
although Moira could feel multiple layers of conflicting emotions, could see
moisture had gathered in the corners of his eyes.  She brushed it away and met
him with smiling calm, gripping his flanks with her thighs.

He was moving
easier within her now that her flesh was fully awakened, slick and slippery
with his ejaculate.  With her silent encouragement he shut his eyes to the room
and reached for the embrace of her soul with all of himself, clinging to her
like a drowning man; they faced the rising tide together.

When he met
his extremis the second time his cries were soft and almost wounded-sounding,
as if from suffering some hurt too deep to voice in words.  The noise woke her
personal hunger at last; now the lust they shared was no longer his alone.  She
slipped her hand between their bodies.

“My lady?” he
whispered.

“There is
something so erotic,” she replied through clenched jaw, “in hearing the
commander of thousands of angels, a man eons old... coming inside me and
sobbing with it like a boy losing his virginity.”

“I feel it,”
he hissed in frustration, rising up on his knees and carrying her hips with
him, her shoulders still on the mattress.  “I feel as if I am, every single
time with you.  How can it be thus?  Is this what love does?  Is it some
sorcery in your body, or some alchemy committed in the two of us?

“I am inside
you,” Leo said, his voice lost and aching, “yet mine is the heart so pierced.”

He gazed down
on her, his expression unchanging as her own orgasm arrived swift and hard to
the point of toe-curling intensity; he braced like a man walking in a storm.

“You do not
think a general should feel thus when making love to you?” he asked once she'd
gotten her breath back.

“I never said
that...”

“Should I take
you as a general would take a lady?”

“I don't know,”
she laughed.  “I don't feel like much of a lady at all.”

“His mistress,
then,” Leo corrected as he began to move again.  “His woman.”

“Take me,”
Moira specified slyly, “as Leo would take his woman; as Leo would take his
pleasure of his woman.”

“You wish to
be ravished, is what you tell me?”

“Bring it on,
General.”

Leo eyes were
predatory gleams in the dark; he stretched her thighs wide and leaned over her
on the leading edge of his wings, shifting the angle of his quickening
thrusts.  He let his hair fall down around her face, gaze intense.  “Are you my
woman?” he growled.  Between the friction and his demeanor Moira was overcome,
forcing herself to answer a high and breathless “yes!”

“Then come,”
he ordered – and she did, startled into a shriek of surprise at her body's
response.  She felt him break his rhythm to pull back against the tension
inside her, breathing hard through his nose.  The feel of his ridge rising and
the sudden realization – that he was using the grip of her orgasm to get
himself off – was all it took to slingshot her into another climax, crying his
name.

Vicious and
greedy as a riptide she stole him back, pulled him under; he sank to his hilt,
growling when his control snapped and he spent in quivering spurts that drained
him utterly.  A brief feedback loop left them clinging to each other and
panting, blind and deaf to all else.

Eventually he
was able to disengage enough to collapse on his side and gather her against
him, sighing into her hair.

“And let that
be a lesson to you,” she said firmly, apropos of nothing, despite the abrupt
return of her fatigue.

“The general
has been suitably chastised, although for what he does not know,” he answered
tonelessly, bone-tired as well.  “May we sleep now?”

“Who was it
that first woke us for this little adventure?”

“Myself and I
thank you for it, my lady.”  He yawned deeply and lay his wing over their
bodies, falling almost instantly unconscious.  Moira followed a moment later,
after studying Leo's sleeping face with profound fondness.

Neither of
them saw the unblinking watcher and eavesdropper in the rain outside, although
they couldn't be blamed for that – it
was
the purpose of the device's
design.  Hidden in a tree it waited until two hours before dawn to fly back to
its masters with all it had seen, not daring a transmission for many miles out
of range of the human woman and her lover.

The alarm woke
them both in the morning; Leo's hands found it first and pressed the snooze
button then moved to cradle and caress her, drawing her in.

Not natural
and not fair for a man to taste and smell so good first thing in the day,
although it made accepting his kisses a bliss instead of a dubious honor.  His
lips were silk against hers, moving thoughtful and slow, teasing her into a
deeper exchange.

Moira curled
up in his warmth and opened the bond, looking for a hint on his mercurial
mood.  She found a craving similar in strength to that which had woken him last
night although different in focus – to fold her body against his, to kiss her
passionately and breathe the very air she exhaled, to unite them in a way
closer than physical, almost platonic.

Leo shifted
himself in the rapport somehow, the edges of his consciousness fading into
hers.  The frisson of the sensation gave her an images of two galaxies
colliding across the slow motion of millennia, stars passing within each
other's orbits, destroying and creating.

Then he moved
again, advancing his core consciousness to where their souls were entwined, as
the representative of an invading force might come to a no-man's-land to
parlay.

Be near to me,
he begged silently.

Hesitantly and
with far less sophistication she attempted to mimic his position: it felt like
a reversal of cellular division, where two living beings were striving to again
become one.  With gentle mental grip he aligned their cores, the light inside
him facing the light inside her – mirror selves that reflected the infinite.

She saw that
part of him again, the pillar of blazing light on which her name was written in
a thousand languages, the axis upon which his whole being turned.  It communed
with his pillar inside her, suffusing everything with a transcendental peace.

Too soon Leo
loosened his grip and let that intense harmony fade, sending a wave of regret
and a gentle caution – to gaze into so deep a connection could not be borne
long without risk.  When she resurfaced into her own physical being she found
their breathing and heart rates had matched.

Leo was gazing
at her languidly, still basking in the serenity they shared.  “More than one
way, have I not said?” he whispered, and turned off the alarm before it could
emit more than a single squawk.  “Good morning, my love.”

“Why do you
always have to make it so difficult to leave you?” she said.  “How can I go to
work after you show me something like that?”

“That is its
main danger – too much communion and the body can forget its baser needs...
food, sleep, even air.”

He shook off
the lassitude and stirred to his feet, helping her rise.

“You know
you've spoiled me for mortals,” Moira confided.  “Not one could compare, after
you.”

He smiled and
bent to kiss her.  “And you have ruined me for all others, queen of my heart.”

Leo released
her to the shower in the routine they'd come to accept.  She faced her thoughts
calmly under the cascade of hot water.

So last night
Leo flew... and did not flee into the sky, now that the ability to do so had
returned.

In the night
he woke her with a physical and emotional need for comfort and intimacy, a need
he would allow none other than her to satisfy.

And this
morning he evoked the spiritual connection again as he had the day they'd first
made love, showing her that permanence inside them both despite the early days
of their relationship – the parts of them that knew each other beyond all other
ties of friendship or family or lovers.

Where love
lives, when all else is stripped away.

Two different
species, he'd said.  Could it actually last?  She'd had little or no luck among
her own kind.  Was she a fish destined to mate a bird?

And could they
both be happy in it?

Now, yes.  A
week from now, probably.  A year from now, once the novelty wore off and she'd
only aged as mortals do – who knows?

He was back in
his black pants in the doorway of her bedroom, watching her dress.

“You like the
color black, don't you?” she mused.

“I know you like
me in it,” he answered.  “Or out of it.”

She shivered
deliciously at his words.  “Keep on like that and I'll call out sick again.  I
won't be able to help myself.”

He crossed his
arms, leaning against the door jamb.  “Is tomorrow not a holiday?”

“It is; it's
Thanksgiving.  I don't usually do much for it.  I don't really have a family
anymore.”

“You do now,”
he corrected.  “Save that hunger; our feasting will begin tonight when you
return home.”

The look he
gave her was warm and full of promise.

“Turkey is
overrated, I've always thought,” Moira answered blithely, deliberately
misunderstanding.

“I have other
ideas of what to feed you.”

She chuckled
at him.

“Do you doubt
my ability to satisfy?”  The quirk at the corner of his lips belied his
affronted tone.

“Far from!”
Moira protested, sitting down on the box frame.  “What should we do with this
room?” she mused.  “No one is sleeping in here for the foreseeable future...”

“I have some
ideas.  I will implement a few prior to your return and we shall see how you
like them.”

He handed her
the water bottle so she could take her first pill of the day as he slid on her
socks and shoes.  When he finished he helped her to stand again, handing her
the wooden cane in the kitchen as he carried her bags out to the car and set
them in the passenger seat.  He did all this calmly, with no sense of anything
out of the ordinary.

But when he
came around to her open window and passed the breakfast fruit bar into her palm
his eyes were huge and luminous on hers, filled with longing and a touch of his
old sadness.

“What is it,
baby?” she asked him, taking his hand.

“Some of my
nest-mates had the talent of foresight; I have no more than an inkling of it,
myself,” he said unexpectedly.

“And?”

“It speaks to
me now, Moira – I felt its touch yesterday as well, although I did not
recognize it yet.  Something is coming, but I know not what.”

She felt her
heart quicken but was careful to school her expression into a winsome smile.

“Isn't that
the nature of life?  New things come along all the time.”

“Not like
this,” he corrected solemnly and crouched outside her car door to bring his
gaze on level with hers.  “Be careful with yourself, Moira.  Your name is writ
on my soul.”

“And yours on
mine!” she protested to the dire caution in his voice.

“I have asked
no vows of you but I will request this – that if you have need of my arm or my
wing you will call on me.  No matter how, what, or when – I will come to you.”

“I promise
that gladly, angel.”  She reached out and cupped his great cheek in her hand.  “I'm
a big girl, though – I can take care of myself.  Been doing it for a while.”

“That I know,”
he said, and sighed deeply.  “Then kiss your angel and go, before he loses the
courage to release you entirely.”

Moira did as
he asked; after a long moment he stepped back from the car to let her drive
away, although he stood unshod on the muddy road and watched her until the
vehicle vanished from view.

Well, that was
interesting: a celestial being with the heebie-jeebies.  Hopefully it was going
to be a whole lot of nothing.  Or at worst his memories would return
completely, pain-free, and without issue – and he'd discover in his old life
enough room to make a new life, with her.

The roads were
more crowded than usual; today was a chosen travel day for most.  Others were
leaving to go see family, to be with loved ones.

Thanksgiving. 
What did it mean?  Too-dry turkey, done in that ancient oven and a meal eaten
in silence between her mother and grandmother, two women who'd already said too
much to each other.

Once she'd
gotten free to the North Moira had always volunteered to work every holiday;
she liked the extra money and her coworkers had appreciated the 'sacrifice'. 
On that day the little cafe would collect a new clientele of misfits and
orphans, all on the run from their histories, come together to share the
communion of the outcast.

It was worth
it.

Her office on
the other hand, Moira discovered, was no better than a ghost town.  She had her
pick of the parking deck and was the only other one she could see besides the
security guard as she badged through and clocked in.  “One of the lucky ones,
huh?” asked the guard in a bored but friendly tone.

“Lately, yeah,”
she answered softly.  “Have a good day.”

The elevator
climbed the twenty floors of steel and glass and she let her burden settle
again as it did.

Molon Labe
Staffing.  The Collectors.  Erica, Black Friday, and her review.

I'm going
to be Medusa.  I'm going to knock them all stone dead.

She sat down
at her desk for another batch of holiday well-wishing emails – apparently no
one was working this week but her or so it felt.

And among them
a curious message from Erica.

“I have been
called away to an offsite meeting for Wednesday, so I will be out of office all
day.  I will return on Friday for your performance review,” the email said, in
short. 
Offsite meeting, my crippled ass!  Probably with your newest high
heels and an Irish coffee in your bathrobe, I'll just bet.

“Enjoy the
holiday.” was added as an afterthought over the woman's signature, a grudging
appendix with no real feeling in it.  The whole missive reeked of falsehood.

Still, an
unexpected whole day alone to work on her Collectors case, sans the brooding
vulture hover of her supervisor?  Today was looking up.

Moira settled
in and arranged her previous research in chronological order; first detailing
how she broke the ciphers and established the connections, then plucking out
all the transactions between the previously investigated entities and the
Collectors.

The purchases
were confusing, to say the least.  Scrap metal in iron and aluminum, sure; but
also gold, sterling silver, platinum, iridium, and cold steel.  And weirder
things.

The Collectors
paid an importer over a grand for what was billed as “virgin hair”, at a length
of three feet.  Moira knew it meant hair that had not been dyed, bleached, or
permed but the word still made her uncomfortable in this context.  She filed
away the thought to examine at a later time.

An Egyptology
professor who had been under review for potential misappropriation of museum
funding billed the Collectors for three hours of “consultation.”

In the case
involving the animal control agency it looked like the Collectors had actually
been paid a very small amount... to haul away and dispose of dead animal
carcasses of all types.  Dogs, cats, rats, raccoons, possums, the odd deer or
wolf or mountain lion.

Everything.

She was
reminded of Molon Labe Staffing, irresistibly.  Pelts, bones, skulls.  Taken better
than free – paid to do it, even!

Odd-ball
items: a metric ton each of uncut iolite and raw opals.  A garden's worth of
unusual herbs with names like “devil's shoe strings” and “master of the woods”
and “black snake root”.  It all added up to something, Moira was sure, but what
on earth could it have been?

Of course from
Molon Labe Staffing only two things could be ordered – she knew that even
though all other research copies had been surrendered or destroyed at the close
of that investigation.  It said as much on the page of Revelations.

War, and
Death, and Sheol the grave would follow after them.

A spiral
descent, Moira thought unexpectedly.  She shuddered and pushed away from her
desk, reaching for her cane.  Her lunch bag looked small and lonely in the
empty break room fridge; she took it and stumped to the elevators, riding down
through a mostly silent building to walk back out to the cool darkness of the
parking deck.

“Show me my
love and let me speak with him,” she told the little pinion as she sat down in
her car.  It rippled in that unfelt wind and the bond rose up as strongly as if
she stood beside him.

Leo was on the
roof of the house!

First thing in
the morning he had stripped all the shingles from it, stacking them in neat
piles around the house and on the deck.  He rolled away the tar paper to lay to
the side, then once his work space was clear he had restored each rotting piece
of roofing board back to its newest state and tacked the paper back down over
it.  Now he was nailing the shingles on again in carefully perfect rows.  As
she watched he straightened up where he was kneeling on the wood, wiping a
sheen of sweat from his brow.

“Hey, angel,”
Moira whispered fondly, and was answered with a welcoming wave of affection
that enfolded her heart.  “Been working on the roof?”

Leo sent back
a little mental raspberry – obviously!

“That's
marvelous, baby.  You don't know how long I've worried about it, how it might
start to leak or just plain cave in soon.  You think you'll have it done today?”

Strong
affirmative.  He bent over his work again.

“And here I
thought you might be sunning yourself again, since the day is clear.”

He shrugged. 
Am, he answered, then sent a picture of blocky blue letters:  MUST KEEP BUSY.

Query? she
returned.

He responded with
dozens of mental pictures of her nude in all sorts of positions, then an
imagined one of himself laying on the wooden deck with wings spread to the sun
and his head pillowed on one arm, naked and eyes closed, with his other hand
vanishing under his hip...

“Oh my,” Moira
murmured, unwrapping her lunch.  “That bad?”