The Watcher (15 page)

Michael turned to me at that moment, unfocused, as though returning from somewhere far away.

“There’s something around you,” I explained. “Gold and white flashes.”

He smiled self-consciously and the light around him flared brighter. “You can see that?”

“What is it?”

“My halo.”

“All the way around your body?” I asked, thinking of those old paintings of angels with their golden rings of light. They didn’t even come close to what a real halo was.

“It used to go much further.”

“I saw you that day I went to the hospital,” I said, recalling the girl who’d been stabbed. “Then you were gone.”

He leaned his elbows on the railing. “We’re often invisible when we’re working, but you’ve always seen me.”

“And with Fiona?”

He shrugged. “Going to the dentist freaks her out, and she’s not the best driver when she’s distracted.”

I smiled at that. Fiona was always getting caught up in the conversation, forgetting to look at the road, and she did have an appointment that day. He was trying to calm her down so she wouldn’t have an accident along the way.

“Angels do that?”

“She’s your friend,” he said.

He closed his eyes again, and his halo flared and hummed around him. Stiffening, Michael said, “We should go.”

“What is it?”

“I’m on duty tonight.”

“On duty? What does that mean?”

He led us down the boardwalk. “The Grigori still watch over people, keep things safe.”

“Safe from what?” I swallowed nervously.

“Things you shouldn’t know about.”

“I’m not a child, Michael,” I snapped.

My reaction rolled off him. “I never said you were.”

We turned down the street that his car was on, and I recalled that first day I’d seen him in the park. And the pieces started to come together. “That shadowy dog—you saw it, didn’t you?”

He gave me a wary look.

“I asked and you… You let me think I was crazy!”

“I was trying to protect you. You’re not supposed to see these things. They sense fear; they live on it. The more afraid you are, the more they can materialize. They’ll drain your life force until you pass out.”

“That old man! Is that what happened?”

He nodded. “After that, you’re just meat.”

“It was going to
eat
him?” Bile rose to my throat over the thought of being eaten alive, but I fought it back. “What the hell was it?”

“A hellhound,” he muttered. “Scouts. Damiel sent several of them to find you.”

“He did?” I shuddered at the idea of Damiel looking for me. “You were
watching
me even then?”

“I only knew there was danger. I didn’t know I would see
you
.”

Approaching his car, he clicked the remote and the doors unlocked. Within seconds, he was opening my door.

“What about that day I sprained my ankle?” I asked.

“Then too.”

Partway through the ride home, my mind overloaded itself and shut off, and an easy silence grew between us. Though sometimes obscured by passing streetlamps, the light around Michael still glowed. His halo burned beside me, brushing and tingling my skin.

“You’ve been through a lot tonight,” he said. “You ought to sleep. It’ll help you process.”

His sweatshirt draped open at the neck, exposing the edges of his collarbones and the dip in his throat where they met. Despite everything I’d been through, all I could think about was planting kisses there. Clearly, sleep was the last thing on my mind.

Catching my gaze, his face became shadowed. “Arielle said we should keep an eye on you.”

“Arielle?” I asked. At the mention of her name, I had a twinge of envy.

“Sure. We work together.”

So Arielle was a Grigori too. That explained a lot: her otherworldly beauty, the flickering lights that day in the café, and even the way the shadows—hellhounds—disappeared. “She’s not your girlfriend?”

“No,” he said, scrunching his nose. “It’s not like that.”

A knot in my chest relaxed. It had formed the moment I first saw them together at the movie theatre, but I’d become so used to the feeling I’d forgotten it was there.

Next thing I knew he was outside the car, opening my door. As I got out, I accidentally brushed his arm, and the draw to be near him was so strong I had to lean back against the metal to steady myself. Then, as if in answer to a silent prayer, he wrapped his arms around me and closed the distance between us.

Pressing his lips to the crown of my head, he breathed the words “I missed you” into my hair, softly, as though it were a secret that only I was meant to hear. Then, letting his arms drop, he stepped away.

All the lights were on when I got in the door and the house smelled of pine cleaner. Mom scrubbed the kitchen counter with the TV on, trying not to look like she was waiting up for me. From the looks of it, she’d cleaned the whole house.

She greeted me cheerfully, focused on removing a spot from the counter. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to be understated. She seemed different to me now, still my mom, and yet not the same. Perhaps I was the one who had changed.

Realizing I was still wearing Michael’s jacket, I hung it up in the hall closet before she could notice.

“He likes you,” she commented.

“Mom,” I said. “So
not
ready to talk about it.” And I didn’t just mean my date. The things Michael told me—that I
remembered
—shook me.
I’d lived another lifetime before.

Mom didn’t let up. “There’s something really
good
about him.”

I stifled a wry smile. “Angelic, even?”
If she only knew!

“No, honey. Men are never angels,” she said sagely. “Besides, it’s the devil in them that we love.”

Before she could ask any more questions, I kissed her goodnight and went to my room just so I could be alone. I doubted I’d be able to sleep. Every idea I had about my world was being challenged. Demons were real and came here to hurt people. The strange creature that chased me that morning in the park was a
hellhound
, and Damiel—who was a demon—had sent it to find me. Michael was a Grigori—an
angel
—albeit in rehab, and I’d shared a life with him
thousands
of years ago.

As soon as I closed my eyes, memories of the night flooded my mind with dizzying speed: Damiel at my door surrounded by black sooty shadows, Michael fighting him with the blue sword in his hand. I wanted to know more about the past, who I was back then, what had happened to me. To us. Had I lived other lifetimes since? But no matter how hard I tried, my present-day memories wouldn’t give way.

An hour later I lay in bed still awake, shivering. It wasn’t from the cold, because I’d already cranked the heat up and covered myself with every blanket in the house. The only thing that helped was thinking about Michael. I remembered the warmth of his arms around me as he hugged me goodbye, and a flush of restlessness flowed through me.

With Mom now in bed, the house was quiet and still. I crept out of my room to the hall closet and retrieved his jacket. I got back into bed and laid it beside me, enjoying the comfort of its smell. This time when I closed my eyes, I remembered the feel of his arms around me, the sound of his beating heart, and with these memories I relaxed easily into a deep sleep.

***

I awoke well-rested. Sunlight streamed through my bedroom curtains, filling my room with a peaceful, warm glow. My phone was crammed with text messages from both Heather and Fiona, asking how my date went. I replied with a quick
Good—I’ll tell you later
which must have had them thinking Damiel was still around. But I couldn’t explain his disappearance, or even the fact that he was a demon. When I got out of bed, Mom had already made a pancake breakfast, so we ate together in front of the TV. Mercifully, she was focused on getting ready for a mid-shift at the hospital and didn’t ask about my date.

Shortly after she left for work, Bill called my cell.

“Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I tried calling and all I got was static. Then I called back and some guy answered.”

“Just now?” I asked, sitting on the couch. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Yeah. Said he was expecting you.”

I shivered in spite of myself. “Weird. What else did he say?”

“Nothing. The line cut out, so I called back and got you.”

For a brief moment, I wondered what it could have been. Was it just a wrong number or something else? But Bill changed the subject. “You know that guy you asked me about…”

My throat constricted. With everything that had been going on, I’d completely forgotten. “Damiel?”

“Yeah. I checked him out. He’s got no birth records, no school records. There aren’t even any death records for him. This guy is totally off the grid. Technically, he doesn’t exist.”

Of course he didn’t exist. He was a demon. A wave of panic pushed at me, but I fought to stay calm. “Wow,” I said. “You checked all that?”

“Yeah, of course.”

What if Damiel knew Bill was looking into him? I didn’t know all he was capable of, but I knew he was dangerous. “Can anyone
tell
that you did all that? I mean, you won’t get caught, will you?”

“Gee, paranoid much? Shouldn’t I be the one worrying about you?” I could hear the tapping of his fingers on the keyboard. Always multitasking. “Who
is
this guy?”

“Nobody. Forget about him.” The idea of Damiel getting anywhere near Bill terrified me. “Please?”

Bill stopped typing and when he spoke, he sounded worried. “Hey. He’s not bothering you, is he?”

“No,” I lied. “I’m fine.”

“Stay away from this guy, Mia. I mean it. He sounds like a scumbag.”

If he only knew.
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”

A few minutes after Bill and I hung up, the doorbell rang, startling me. Still a little creeped out from my conversation about Damiel, I peeked out the kitchen window and saw Michael.

“Hi,” I said. Rushing to open the door and hug him, I buried my face against his chest and felt the softness of his light gray sweater against my cheek.

“Hey.” Caught off guard, he chuckled, but his body was stiff as he put an arm around me. Was he
nervous
? “I thought we could finish that walk we started last night. While the rain holds off.”

Chapter Fifteen

He took me to Alki Beach, partly because it was close and partly because it was one of the best places in the area to walk. I liked it there. I especially liked being there with him. By daylight, I could see out over Puget Sound, where the choppy gray water reflected the storm clouds above.

He was right about the rain. It looked as though it would come down any minute, and when I stepped from the car the cold air smelled of ocean, seaweed, and evergreens as it filled my nose. With the exception of a few joggers, the beach was deserted. The tide was low, and acres of rocks, teeming with marine life, stretched out along the shore.

Some of the nearby trees had already started to turn. Half-ochre, half-green, their leaves had dried around the edges, holding onto the memory of life. Others had fallen to the ground. As we walked, Michael seemed to notice them too.

“What was I like? You know…
before
?” I asked. “Was I different?”

When he turned to me, his eyes were the color of the Mediterranean Sea, and they had a way of looking at me that made me feel equally vast and deep. “What do you remember?”

I closed my eyes and recalled the house we lived in, the glow of sunrise along its walls. But mostly I remembered Michael. The way that being near him made me feel exactly the same as it did now. They were the same images and sensations over and over, no more than the night before, but no less.

I felt the heat of him and opened my eyes to find him standing only a foot away from me.
Could he see what I saw?

As though catching himself, he stepped back. “Arielle suggested I spend time with you.”

The mention of her name gave me a twinge in my chest. Obviously they were close. “You saw her last night?”

“Of course. We check in,” he said. Turning, he headed toward the rugged shoreline.

I followed him, my sneakers crunching and slipping on the damp rocks. I had to watch my step. “Why did she suggest you do that?”

“She’s trying to help me.” A gust of wind blew his hair into his face and he lazily pushed it back. “When we first came here, many of us became sick and fell to one of the seven deadly sins—envy, pride, lust. It took me longer. I thought I was different, but I got caught up in it just like the others.”

“Caught up in what?”

“Lust,” he said and flashed me a sideways glance that was positively scorching. The effects rippled all the way down to my knees. As though sensing my reaction, he turned back to the white-capped waves crashing against the shore. “It wasn’t just about sex…” He checked my reaction again, as though expecting me to shy away from him. I didn’t. Hearing him use the words
sex
and
lust
made a shudder of want rise within me. “I forgot who and what I was.”

Instead of saying more, he brushed his fingertips along my cheek, and his halo glimmered. I could hear the waves slapping the rocks behind us, the wind driving them in. That same wind whipped against my skin, but the touch of his hand on my face was all I could think about. It sent a current through both of us and filled me with longing for something I wasn’t sure I understood.

“I’m sorry.” He stepped back and shoved his hands into his pockets as the light around him faded. “You don’t know what it’s like. Being near you now, remembering those moments we had…” His hair blew into his eyes, but this time he didn’t move. I wanted to brush it back, but I didn’t know how he’d react. Would touching him be
bad
?

“You want to know who you were?” he asked. “You may look different, but you’re the same. I look into your eyes and see
you
.” He took in a deep breath, fixing his attention on the horizon. I’d seen and heard so much now that the logical part of my brain had long since given up arguing with me. I could feel what he was saying was true. All of it.