Wicked Souls (10 page)

I mimicked Gabriel, fists going to my hips
and glaring at him.
“You’re an angel?”

“Guardian angel.”
Gabriel said the term as
if it were a particularly vile cough syrup.
“Cephiel, concealing
his true identity and pretending to be human.
He is the one causing
all our problems.”

Marcia, still on the floor near my feet,
gasped.
“Antonio?”

Father Leonard, Cephiel, or whoever he was
looked pained as he glanced at Marcia.
He rose slowly from the pew,
smoothing the sides of his black coat as if he’d gotten dust on it.
Emilia, Liddy and Keisha stared wide-eyed.
Taking a step forward,
he turned and faced Gabriel.
“I was only following orders.”

My right side suddenly warmed as Lucifer
shimmered into being next to me.
“From whom, Cephiel?”

It was my turn to grow dinner-plate-sized
eyes.
“You can enter a church?”
Self-preservation made me take two
steps away from Luc in case lightening struck.
“I mean, you’re not
going to like, self combust or anything, are you?”

His eyes slid to mine and then back to
Cephiel, effectively dismissing my concerns as childish or
ignorant, I wasn’t sure which.
Well, la tee da.
Like I knew all the
rules concerning him and holy places.
Logic said he couldn’t enter
one.

Cephiel answered Lucifer in the same tone
Gabriel had used on him.
“I only take orders from God.”

Gabriel stepped toward him.
“Foot soldiers
like you take orders from many superiors in the chain of command.
They do not receive direct orders from God Almighty.”

I didn’t care who was taking orders or
giving them.
“Back up a minute.
Whose guardian angel are you?”

Lucifer, Gabriel and Cephiel answered in
unison.
“Yours.”

Marcia gasped again.
Mine?
There had to be
some mistake.
“Since when does an evil witch, who’s given her soul
to the Devil, have a guardian angel?”

Holding up a finger, Cephiel cleared his
throat.
“Ex-witch.
One, whom I might add, needs her soul saved by
my most heavenly Father, because she cannot save it on her own.
It
was my job to guide you to the proper outcome.”

I looked to Lucifer for clarification.
What is he talking about?

Luc did the eye slide again, insinuating I
had the brain capacity of an amoeba.

Fine then.
I’d just have to go with what my
amoeba brain was telling me.
“You’re the one manipulating my magic,
Father?
I mean, Cephiel?
Making me screw up?”

The rest of the group had fled, and out of
the corner of my eye, I saw Marcia inching her way past the altar
and toward the outside aisle.
She stopped, though, at my question.
“Screw up?”
She eased into a standing position, a gleam in her eye.
“Have you used magic recently, Amy?”

Knowing anything I said would sound like a
lie, I ignored her and raised my eyebrows at Cephiel in a
well
?
look.

He moved toward me and laid a hand on my
shoulder.
“It was for your own good.
I had to make you realize you
needed to turn yourself over to God.
Even your Witches Anonymous
creed says you must give up your will to God.”

“Technically, it says, a higher power.”
I
argued.
“Whatever I believe that higher power to be.”

My sponsor, the one who’d heard all of my
confessions, dismissed by argument with a wave of his hand.
“There
is no other higher power than God, Amy.”

I shrugged off his hand and pointed at the
hollow space between my breasts.
“You’re missing the point.
A
higher power gave me freewill and it’s my choice to believe
whatever I want to believe, whether it’s about God, you, or
even…”
I motioned at Gabriel and Lucifer, standing side by side
and looking like Yin and Yang.
Opposites, except for the identical
sparkle of pleased satisfaction at my words.
“Good and evil.”

A muscle in Cephiel’s cheek jumped as he
gritted his teeth.
“And look where that’s gotten you.
Half your
soul belongs to the Devil and the other half to a renegade
archangel.”

Marcia raised her hand and waved at us to
get our attention.
“Can we go back to the part where Amy used
magic?”

“No,” we all said at the same time.

Marcia lowered her hand and glared with
indignation.
She stomped up to me and ripped the ribbon of my
jacket.
“Heads up, Amy.
If you lied about being magic-free the past
six months, I have the authority to kick you out of Witches
Anonymous.”

“But it was his fault.”
I pointed at
Cephiel.

She glanced at him and her frosty exterior
melted.
Sexual chemistry trumped even angelic deception.
“If you
can’t fix her”—she jabbed a thumb at me—”don’t feel bad.
She’s
beyond help.”

With her nose in the air, she stomped away,
taking my red ribbon with her.

“Great.”
I glared again at Cephiel.
“I
thought part of being a guardian angel was to guard.
You know, as
in protect, defend, watch over.
Gabriel, here, nearly killed me and
took a piece of my soul.
My shop is closed down due to a health
violation.
I may have lost my boyfriend, and now Marcia’s going to
kick me out of Witches Anonymous.
Some guardian angel you are.”

Luc perked up.
I felt his powers rise around
me.
Heat, lust, and desire reaching for me and luring my magic out
to play.
“You lost your boyfriend?”

I didn’t even look at him for fear I’d lose
control of my magic again.
Wouldn’t that be great?
Me, losing
control and jumping Lucifer right there in front God himself.
“Not.
Now,” I ground out.

Must’ve been the look on my face or the tone
of my voice.
He retracted his powers instantly.

Cephiel looked pleased at my restraint.
“Amy, you must understand.
A guardian angel cannot always help
their human unless asked to.
In your case, you were being stubborn
and ignoring my advice.
I had to take some kind of action.”

“So you imprisoned Gabriel on Earth in the
hope he would assume I put a spell on him and come after me?
I
don’t see how that would make me want to give my soul to God.”

Gabriel’s wings rippled.
“A common angel
does not have the power to imprison an archangel.”

At the questioning look I shot Lucifer, he
nodded.
Cephiel smiled smugly.
“Pride goeth before a fall, Gabriel.
And you have fallen far.”

Gabriel stepped forward and raised his fist.
“I shall smite thee.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
I stuck a hand between
them and Cephiel’s smile widened at the assumption I was protecting
him.
“Take a number.
If anyone gets to smite him, it’s me.”

While I doubt Cephiel was afraid of me, his
smugness disappeared.
Exasperation took its place.
“Don’t you see?
I’m the only one here trying to help you.”

“You can help me by fixing this mess.
I want
my soul and my freewill back.
One hundred percent, free and clear.”
Warmed up, I ticked off the other demands on my fingers one by one.
“I want the health inspector off my back.
I want you to take Eve
back to Heaven where she belongs.
And whatever you have to do with
Marcia, I want my goddamned six month anniversary chip.”

He puffed his chest out and looked down his
nose at me.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

When he was Father Leonard, he’d been my
friend.
Someone I could talk to about my crappy childhood, my
constant internal struggle to be good, and all the plans I had made
for the future.
His deceit, the very fact he was a fraud, made me
sick to my stomach.
It also pissed me off.

I grabbed two handfuls of his Friar Tuck
black shirt and brought us nose to nose, my strength nearly lifting
him off the floor.
“You’ve cost me everything I care about.
Fix it,
or I will turn the good and evil twins over there”—I jerked my head
in Gabriel and Lucifer’s direction—”loose on your ass.”

An expected sadness clouded his eyes.
“That’s two dollars you owe the cuss jar.”

Before I could slug him, Lucifer grabbed him
by the neck.
However, it did no good; my guardian angel turned to
vapor right before our eyes and vanished.

Unclasping my hands, which were no longer
holding onto anything, I turned to Lucifer.
“Bring him back.
I’m
not done with him yet.”

“I can’t.”

Fine.
I pointed at Gabriel.
“You bring him
back.”

He and Luc exchanged a look.
Luc said, “Is
the spell broken?”

Gabriel closed his eyes, then squeezed them
shut, his face straining.
After a second, he opened them and hung
his head.
“I’m doomed to walk the earth for eternity.”

The drama was enough to make me scream.
Seemed like I was the only one who was going to pay the price for
that.
Having Gabriel on Earth so far hadn’t exactly been a picnic
and if I couldn’t get rid of Eve, how was I going to keep Adam?
But
Gabriel’s dilemma also gave me an idea.
“Between all of us,” I
pointed at Keisha, Emilia, Luc and myself, “we can break the spell.
But I want your half of my soul back first in a show of good
faith.”

Liddy drew a surprised breath.
“You’re going
to break your Witches Anonymous oath?”

Not if I could help it.
I checked the clock
on the back wall.
Yes!
I had officially made the six month mark.
My
freewill seemed to be returning.
I chanced a glance at Luc.
He
didn’t look sad or angry or seem any different, so maybe not.

Gabriel lifted his head and eyed me
suspiciously.
After thinking it over for a few seconds, he
countered.
“Break the spell first and I will give you back your
soul.”

My magic squirmed and the hollow inside my
chest ached.
Risky business, making a deal with a bipolar
archangel.
But it wasn’t like I’d ever played things safe before.
I
held out my hand to shake on it.
“Deal.”

Gabriel sneered, rippled his wings and shook
one of my fingers, disgust on his face.
“Once our deal is complete,
I will call Cephiel.”

Wait, Ceph was my guardian angel, right?
What had he said about asking for his help?
I looked up at the
vaulted ceiling overhead.
“Cephiel,” I called.
“Help me.”

Poof
.
He appeared in front of me,
looking slightly startled.
Before anyone could move, I grabbed
Gabriel by one wrist and Cephiel by the other, bridging angelic
power to angelic power.
The energy cracked along my veins with
freezing intensity, but I shouted the words logic told me to loud
and clear.
“Whatever higher power exists, give me proof you care
about my soul.
Give me control of it again.”

A loud crack split the air above me.
The
ground rumbled under my feet.
The magic inside my chest tugged and
rebelled painfully, as I hung onto both angels as if my life
depended on it.
Cephiel jerked hard, trying to get away, but my
supernatural strength kept him in place.
Gabriel, in turn, tugged
me his way, and I see-sawed between them.
Like the angels, though,
I didn’t fall down.

A second later, a white light rivaling
Gabriel’s punched through the nave, accompanied by a high pitched
screeching noise.
The stained glass windows broke, glass flying
into the nave as wind rushed into it.
Everyone dove for
cover—Keisha throwing herself over the cake—except me and the
angels.

As fast as that happened, it all went quiet.
No wind, no flying glass, no scream.
The light in the nave returned
to normal.
The ground under my feet steadied.