Archangel Rafe (A Novel of The Seven Book 1) (7 page)

“At least I have good aesthetic taste. You are totally hot.”

They were not going there. “I’m not a hallucination.”

“Right, right,” she placated, her smile plastic and vacant. “So if you aren’t a hallucination, what are you?”

Rafe looked at her and sighed. He’d really messed this up.

“My name is Raphael.” He paused and wondered if her grandmother had ever mentioned him. Technically it was forbidden for Angels to speak of their healing gifts. But sometimes among family, especially those who carried the gift within them, the outgoing angel would share some small secret with the incoming.

“Raphael.” She tested his name, slowly.

“Call me Rafe.”

“This is pointless.” She yanked open the door, but Rafe couldn’t let her leave without him. He shoved the door closed and trapped her inside the room.

He needed to talk to her. Her home was difficult with the children there. The Angelic Realm was out. Although humans were allowed there, it happened so rarely the inhabitants made note of it. And the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to Angelina. Rafe thought about the images that sometimes filled her mind and knew exactly where to go. “You haven’t heard of me?”

“No. Apparently you’re a legend in your own mind.”

“Not a legend.”

She arched her brow in skepticism.

Rafe sighed again. “An Archangel.”

TEN

Suddenly she was on the beach.

Her favorite beach. Situated in a small cove, even in crowded California, it wasn’t very populated. In the distance was the hazy, familiar outline of a wrecked ship with a pier built over the water so beach goers could walk to the half-submerged vessel. The hardy boat not only refused to go quietly but demanded an audience. Waves crashed on the cold wet sand and seagulls squawked as they dipped and swooped in the bright blue sky. Close to shore, a seal’s head popped up from the waves.

“This is impossible,” she whispered. A frigid wind whipped through the corridor created by the cove. Her hair blew across her face and blocked her vision.

She must still be in the acupuncturist’s office having some sort of psychotic episode because Raphael the Archangel was also there. Tall, imposing, and gorgeous. Only suddenly his gorgeousness wasn’t quite as attractive.

He was bigger than she’d realized. And not nearly as gentle. His fingers curled around her bicep in a grip that would be difficult to break although he wasn’t hurting her.

Great. She couldn’t even have an erotic dream without messing it up.

She closed her eyes, squeezed them tight. “Back home.” She wished herself back to her house. To her cozy kitchen. She was pretty sure there was half a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge and right at this moment, she would trade her soul to chug it down and pretend she hadn’t gone crazy.

“Angelina.”

There he stood, looking more like a Hell’s Angel than an Archangel. He wore ripped jeans, a muscle t-shirt, a worn black leather jacket, and a few days stubble on his chin. Only a do-rag was missing. His eyes were the most unearthly shade of silvery gray. They appeared to glow from within. She guessed the sooner she indulged this fantasy, the sooner she would return to her regular life. “Archangels don’t exist.”

“And yet, here I am,” Rafe the Archangel, hah, said.

They really were here. The cool wind whipped off the ocean and briny salt water scented the air. Her eyes watered and her nose grew cold. She’d never had a dream where the details seemed so real. Except when they were.... She narrowed her gaze. “What kind of Archangel are you?”

“Healer.”

“Well, I don’t need to be healed, so carry on.” She flicked her fingers at him.

“I’m not here to heal you.” Rafe’s lips flattened into an irritated line.

“Then why are you here?”

“To train you.”

To train her? “And what would you train me for?” She looked around. Maybe this was some sort of new television show, a longer, extended version of Punk’d but without the celebrities. Of course that wouldn’t explain how she’d transported to the beach in a blink. Unless she’d been drugged. Maybe that was it. Maybe she was, as she stood here, in a coma somewhere.

“Search inside yourself, Angelina.”

“Oh, don’t go all Obi-Wan on me.” She hated cryptic shit. She wanted a straightforward revelation of the facts.

“Okay. You want it straight.” Rafe began to walk toward the horizon. “You’re descended from a line of healers.”

Healers. Right. She shook her head. “Your research is wrong. I studied nursing years ago. Now I’m going to school to be a paralegal.”

“A waste of your talent.” He turned back to look at her, but she still hadn’t moved. And he was as gorgeous as ever. “Let’s walk. I’ve noticed that you are rarely still.”

He’d noticed? Had those dreams been real? “I’m not a healer.”

“You are.” Raphael’s face was hard and implacable. “Matriarchal line, for the last thousand years. Maybe longer.”

Okay, she was so not buying into this. “Right. You’re telling me you....” Wait. He’d just said that he knew of a thousand years of healers in her family. Not that he was a thousand years old. Phew. Her brain had short-circuited for a second.

Angels.

Yeah, like that in itself wasn’t crazy. “My mother used to faint at the sight of blood.”

Rafe paused and the sun set behind him. “Your grandmother.”

Grammy. Her head swam, and she didn’t see Rafe anymore, but her Grammy lying in that bed as she asked about the change.

The surf seemed to be getting louder. White edged her vision as the blood rushed from her head.

Grammy. Those cryptic little comments.

Rafe watched her steadily but didn’t come any closer. And yeah, she’d said it before but she was willing to say it again. He was a lot more fun when he didn’t speak.

“What happened when you healed the alternative healer?”

Okay, so they were pretending. She’d gotten pretty good at this in the last year or so.
Pretend your heart isn’t breaking. Pretend that although your life is completely falling apart that you’re fine with it. More than fine. Great. Couldn’t be better.

Until she arrived home and cried into her pillow in her king-sized bed all alone.

She sank down onto the cold sand, crossed her legs, propped her elbow on her knee and rested her chin on her fist. If she really was here, Angelina might as well enjoy the beach.

“Angelina?” he prompted.

“Um. I felt like I could see his bloodstream. Like I was in it.”

“And what did you see?”

She wrapped her arms around her knees and huddled in on herself. What she’d seen was crazy. She had gone off the deep end. And if she didn’t have her family to worry about she might have stayed there.

“There were globs of what I assumed was cholesterol.”

Rafe sank down beside her. “Okay. Then what?”

“I scooped them all up, but it felt like I was choking or drowning.” Then Rafe had rescued her.

He raised his eyebrows. She tried not to get lost in his brilliant gaze, gleaming silver with the setting sun. “And his blood was clear?”

She shrugged. “Seemed to be.”

He was silent, head cocked, as if he were running scenarios through his mind. “Amazing.”

Whatever.

“Do you realize what an incredible gift you have?” Rafe jumped up and began to pace, kicking up bits of sand and little pieces of driftwood. “Of course you don’t, because I’ve gone about this all wrong.”

The temptation to believe him, to fall into his fantasy was so strong. A healer. Then she would have hope and a purpose. But then reality hit her.

“I don’t have a gift.” She’d given up the dream of becoming a nurse long ago. She didn’t have it in her to go there now. “I don’t want it. Give it to someone else.”

“What?”

She’d surprised the Archangel. Maybe this was what she needed to do. Reject the gift and then she’d be back home.

He worked his jaw for a moment, then narrowed his gaze. “You will be able to accomplish much good.”

“I don’t want it. I have too much responsibility already.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Don’t you get it? I can’t handle one more thing. I’m hanging on by a thread as it is!”

I don’t want it. Take it back and go away.
Her plea came out as a whisper. “I just want to go home.”

His hand hovered over her, his bicep bunched under the leather jacket, and his mouth twisted in disgust. “You truly don’t want your gift?”

“Not a gift. Another responsibility.”

Rafe tried to entice her. “You’ll live a longer life. Be free of illness yourself.”

Nope.

“I’ll have to figure this out,” Rafe muttered under his breath. “You truly do not wish to learn how to heal?”

He stood tall and imposing, arms across his chest emphasized an incredible set of pectorals and biceps. She sighed. Being held in those arms was the only peace she’d had lately. And she thought maybe she could keep him but get rid of the ‘gift’.

She shook her head, completely spent. No. “I can’t.”

His expression, so beautiful before, turned menacing. As if the anger on his face filled his body, he seemed to grow larger, harder, and scarier with every heartbeat. He didn’t understand. She couldn’t.

“Damn the Cosmos. Not now.” Rafe shook his head.

“What?”

“I have to go.”

“Fine. Leave. I’ll just sit here on the beach and lose my mind.”

“You’ll have to come with me. I don’t have time to take you home first.” Rafe wrapped his fingers around her bicep. “Hold on.”

And suddenly they were in hell.

ELEVEN

Rafe translocated Angelina with him and into the heart of this new problem. Fire raged around them, flames licked high into the night. He deposited Angelina out of reach of the blaze that thundered nearby.

“Stay here.” Before she could argue, he strode into the fire. Rafe had been summoned by Stanislaus, an elder healer in his mid-fifties. Uri had to be here somewhere. With a blaze of this magnitude, he would be right alongside his Angels attempting to wrestle control of the beast.

The sky was layered with a gray, somber ash. Heat licked at his skin. Rafe erected a molecule shield between his body and the flames automatically as he searched for Stanislaus. The signal Stas had used to summon him just a few moments ago grew weaker.

“Stas.” Rafe yelled into the inferno, and catalogued details as he searched. The fire was consuming some sort of farm. Long rows of hen houses burned out of control, the wood from the old structures a conflagration.

Burnt feathers and chicken meat sent putrid smoke into the air, along with the more acrid scent of scorched human flesh and hair. He tromped around the farm, and found a large pile of incinerated chicken carcasses. Ignoring the animals, he continued to search for humans. Outside the main access doors were two human casualties, their bodies burned beyond any recognition. Their clothes melted to their skin and bits of ash swirled around them.

Rafe strode through the increasing heat, and narrowed in on Stas’s beacon. Suddenly, he could see him, at the end of a row of burning buildings, near the edge of the flames where Rafe had deposited Angelina. Stas hadn’t been there before, so he must have come around the other side.

Stas hobbled away from the flames, hampered by the fireman he carried. He dropped to his knees as the burden in his arms weighted him down. A huge fireball lit the sky as Rafe ran toward the pair. His only thought was to save them, his only hope that their injuries would not be too great to mend.

Rafe skidded to a halt by the two men. He glanced back to ensure Angelina was safe, and saw her watching, shading her eyes with her hand. Stas gently laid one of Uri’s Angels, a firefighter, on the heated ground, and curled over the man as if he could protect him with his own body. Stas’s hand was clenched around a stick. Rafe knelt beside them and held his hands over the body of the fallen firefighter. He wanted to ask what happened but business had to come first. Stas knew he couldn’t save the Angel. Only Rafe, the Archangel of Healing, could heal Angels. Stas should have concentrated on the humans here.

“Status.”

“They’re all dead,” Stas said flatly, his muscles tense.

“Where?”

“On the other side of the farm, you will find them laid out in rows, like the rows of the hen houses.”

“You couldn’t save any?”

“Only one alive when I got here.” Stas spat on the ground, still hunched over, fists bunched. He shifted his chin toward the firefighter. “Can you save Lev?”

The life energy of the Angel faded quickly but not quietly. His body strained against some invisible force, and agony distorted his face and contorted his body. His death would not be easy. These were the ones Rafe hated. The Angels who tried to save the humans from their own greed and stupidity. The waste of a pure life in pursuit of preserving a tainted one always frosted him.

Only one alive. “Where’s the one who’s alive?”

“Gone.” Stas’s breath wheezed in and out.

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head violently. “Don’t care.”

Rafe sat back on his heels. Stanislaus was a great big bear of a man, one with an easy smile and a desire to heal that used to burst from every pore of his body. His enthusiasm had never waned before, but now he sounded old and broken.

Rafe would have to deal with him after he took care of Lev.

The man’s soul would leave his body soon and Rafe was helpless to stop it. He’d been too late. He could only ease Lev’s suffering. He placed his hand upon Lev’s heart nadis, and slowed the breath and beats of the faithful Angel’s heart. Until the organ pumped no longer.

Uri ran up to the three of them, a hundred pounds of gear on his back, hair tied back in a stub of a ponytail, and sweating enough to put out a fire with just his body fluid. Streaks of soot smeared his face and ash coated his hair. He stared down at the body of his Angel.

Uri dropped the gear unceremoniously. The ground shook with the vibrations from the heavy weight. He knelt beside his fallen firefighter with his head bowed and a soft prayer for the faithful’s soul. “This fire is...wrong. We’re on the brink of....” Uri gestured in frustration. “I don’t know. Change?”