The Watcher (27 page)

He caught me and lifted me back to my feet, shaking his head. Kneeling before me, he bowed his head and stayed there, motionless, until my fear subsided.

From a pouch on his belt, he presented me with a small ornate jar, carved from a clear crystal. Each incision captured the light, refracting into colored spectrums—like the light from his wings. When I opened the jar, the oil inside smelled of flowers and amber from the trees. He motioned for me to put some on my wrist, so I did.

“What are you seeing now?” It was Arielle’s voice, interrupting my memory.

“A meadow. He’s giving me perfume,” I said. The image wobbled slightly as I spoke. It was difficult to talk and focus on it at the same time.

“Try to see what happens next,” she offered.

“Okay.” I strained to concentrate. The images flickered slightly and faded out.

“Relax a bit more. You can’t force it.”

I tried to relax, but a flash of light erupted between my eyes again, followed by that short, stabbing pain. Instinctively, my hand gripped the bridge of my nose. Then the image flickered and shorted out, giving way to darkness.

I let out a groan of frustration. “It’s gone now.”

“It’s late,” Arielle said. “You’re tired. We should take a break.”

“What about the other memories?”

“The soul’s memories are delicate. They’re between a person and God. As an angel, I can take you to them but we can’t force it. If we do, we could damage them, which is what Damiel tried to do,” she said firmly, “and I won’t do that.”

“When can we start again?”

“A few hours. I’ll be right here.” Leaning forward on the couch, she tilted her head sideways and closed her eyes, listening. I imagined it was the way she tuned in to the others. “Michael’s fine.” She waved me off. “Get some rest.”

As strange as it was to have Arielle babysitting me, it would be pointless to argue about it, and when I lay down exhaustion took over. As soon as I closed my eyes, my dreams came in heatedly, almost too numerous to track. One of them was the dream about the birds I’d had the first day of school. This time, they were angels—Michael and Damiel destroying each other—and I still wasn’t able to stop it.

I woke up with the sunrise on Saturday morning, filled with panic. Heart racing, I got out of bed, my muscles complaining as though I’d overdone it in gym class. The coppery metallic tang of adrenaline filled my mouth, so I went to brush my teeth. Splashing cold water on my face to wake up, I caught my reflection in the mirror, surprised to see that the eyes staring back at me belonged to a stranger. They were mine but not mine, like I was looking at myself from a different life—
that
life. Brown skin, long black hair, a slightly more streamlined nose, higher cheekbones, and a smaller mouth. I was me but not me, the face unfamiliar and yet strangely so.

As soon as it appeared, it faded, and my own face stared back at me again.

Trying to shake it off, I jumped into the shower, hoping the hot water would soothe my sore body and frazzled nerves. It did. When I got out and got dressed, I realized Mom was already home and in bed. I had nothing planned for the weekend. I’d been keeping the day open to spend with Michael, and his absence left an enormous hole. I didn’t think about Arielle until I went into the living room and found her sitting on the couch. I nearly jumped when I saw her.

“Good. You’ve rested,” she said. “Are you ready to try again?”

I nodded, seating myself beside her.

“I want you to go back to the memory you were having last night, about the perfume,” she said. “We can use it as a marker and move forward from there.”

“How do I do that?”

“Just think about the memory. I’ll do the rest.” She placed her hands on my head as she had the night before. This time they seemed to burn even less. The images returned instantly.

“Got it.” I could see Michael in the forest, the perfume bottle, Michael encouraging me to try some. In the vision, he smiled at me and left.

“Try going forward now.”

I focused again, trying to both relax and concentrate at the same time. The image advanced quickly, as though I were chasing a dream.

I was in the woods, collecting ingredients to make dyes for the cloth I was weaving. The sky grew increasingly darker and it was time to head back. As I gathered the last few red flowers and placed them in my basket, Michael stepped onto the path. Darkness surrounded him. His once-white wings were gray and tattered, as though they’d been singed, and his eyes, usually clear and blue, took on strange red hues. They were rimmed with shadows. He looked stricken with—what was it? Anger? Need?

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

A haunted smile touched his lips. “I fell.”

Not fully understanding, I shook my head.

“It was the only way,” he said. Tears filled my eyes, shocked by the realization of what he’d done. Brushing my cheek, he leaned into me until his face was inches away. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”

Then he kissed me, and the feelings I’d been trying to hide around him flooded through me. They were met by an even stronger force: him. I let myself be taken by that force like a storm. It wasn’t right to want an angel this way. The tribal elders had warned all of us, but I didn’t care what anyone else thought. In that moment, none of those barriers existed. We flowed smoothly together, and when he swept me up into his arms, I was no longer afraid of anything.

My memory jumped forward a few minutes. This time, I was partially disrobed under the shadow of the trees, cool in the moonlight. His warm hands—strong and rough from working the fields—held me back as I strained to reach for him. The more he hesitated, the more I wanted him closer to me, mesmerized by the darkness. In him, it was beautiful. He stopped and gazed at me as the blue returned to his eyes. They were still mostly black, and something urgent and inhuman flickered behind them, something he was holding back.

I kissed him again as he slid out of his robes. His body was lean and incredibly strong. It both frightened and excited me. His skin burned against mine as I traced the muscles of his chest, down the tight ridges of his abdomen to the corded muscles above his hips, and he moaned softly, his lips pressing against the side of my neck.

The next thing I heard was a deep, musical voice—several of them. A bright light shone above us.

“They’re over here.”

I tried to see who was there, whose voices made the chord of music that spoke, but I couldn’t see over the cover of Michael’s wings. Whoever they were, their approach had been as silent and stealthy as hunters.

Michael didn’t pay attention to the voices. Exploring the length of my body, he held me, locked in some kind of trance.

A few things happened at once. Two sets of huge, strong hands grabbed him by the chest and lifted him off of me as he let out a snarl of frustration, trying to struggle from their grasp. Another set of hands grabbed the skirt of my dress, covering my body before the others could see it. I turned to the person who covered me. It was Arielle. She glowed the same as she did now, but back then was the first time I’d ever seen it, and it frightened me.

“You were there!” I spoke out loud to the Arielle in the room with me. As I did, the memory shook like a glitch in worn filmstrip.

“Stay with it,” Arielle said. “Stay with the memory.”

I returned my full focus to the vision playing in my mind’s eye and saw the two larger angels hold Michael back. They were also huge. Though he looked different, one of them was Damiel.

“Leave now, Arielle,” Damiel said. “You do not need to witness this.”

She bowed her head obediently and turned to walk away; the forest dimmed as she left. My attention returned to the two other angels who held Michael captive. Though Damiel was slightly smaller than Michael, the other angel with them was huge. He towered over both of them, his hair the color of wheat, his eyes a golden fire. His wings were white and clean, with the slightest graying around the edges. The light around him shone brilliantly, not as bright as Arielle, but brighter than either Michael or Damiel.

Damiel slapped Michael’s face. “I warned you about this.”

The other angel touched Damiel’s arm, restraining him. He spoke directly to Michael, his voice stern, condemning. “Do you know what your crime is?”

Michael nodded, his head bowed.

“Speak it.”

“Lust.” His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper.

“You admit it freely?”

“Yes.”

“Are you aware of the punishment?” the angel asked, walking around to face him.

“Banishment,” Michael answered, bracing himself.

“So be it,” he said firmly, not seeming to take the slightest pleasure in his work. “Michael, third rank in the Order of Grigori, in the name of God, I banish you. You are no longer welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven.” The blond Grigori’s words hit Michael like a blow to the chest. He exhaled sharply and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Damiel’s face shone with satisfaction. “My Lord Raguel, what if he tries to come back?”

“He won’t,” said Raguel.

“We’ve seen others try before. We must prevent him. Make an example of him… We must take his wings.”

Raguel was contemplative, and Michael’s eyes widened in terror. The thought that someone so fearless could know such fear horrified me. I wanted to comfort him. Even if he had broken their rules, he didn’t deserve this. Nobody did.

“We will use them for good,” said Damiel. “They can be used to warn the others so that no more of us will fall.”

“No!” I cried out.

Damiel turned to me fiercely. “You tempted him with your body. You made him do it. Don’t think I don’t know your guilt in this.” He moved closer to me, staring me down as though he could see right through my clothes. Even then, his harshness with me was covering something.
Was it my fault? I did want Michael. What if he could feel it then, too?

“Enough,” said Raguel.

“What if she tempts another?”

“We will take his wings—as an example—but do not torment the girl. God created women for a reason.” His expression shifted to one of disdain. For an angel he was a pompous ass, but he terrified me nonetheless. “If a woman tempts an angel, it is the angel’s weakness… She has Eve’s curse upon her. That is enough.”

Damiel bowed his head obsequiously. “As you wish, My Lord. Do you want to perform the excision, or shall I?”

I looked at Michael, horrified, unable to move or run away, as shame draped itself around him like a tattered cloak. I was his only witness. The punishment didn’t fit the crime. He’d chosen to fall, but what if I had tempted him? I had loved him, admired him, yearned for his presence.

There was a part of my memory that was blocked, too terrible to witness—too challenging to remember. All I could see was darkness. All I could hear were Michael’s screams and Damiel’s voice, cold and chilling, calling Michael a rapist, telling him over and over again that it was fit punishment for assaulting me.

Rapist? Assaulting me? Is that what Michael believed? It wasn’t like that at all!
My chest ached as the light around him went out, fading to a blackened memory.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Not wanting to see any more, I pulled myself out of the vision. Tears streamed down my face.

Arielle placed her hands on my shoulders as she had before. They were warm and reassuring, like her voice. “Just breathe,” she said. “You’ll be okay.”

The sound of Michael’s tortured screaming echoed in my ears.

“They were angels,” I said, trembling. “How could they…” I couldn’t finish my thought. I was sobbing too much.

Bathed in a shimmering golden light, Arielle said nothing but her silence spoke volumes. Her presence soothed me as I steadied myself.

“He called Michael a rapist,” I gasped. “It’s a lie.”

A look of astonishment crossed her face. “Tell me what happened.”

I told her everything, from being caught with Michael in the woods to the things Damiel said when he cut off Michael’s wings. When I was done, she didn’t speak, but inclined her head as though she were listening to something that only she could hear.

“You were there,” I accused, angrier than I expected. “Didn’t you know?”

“I was naïve.”

“The other angel,” I said, thinking of the golden-haired one in charge. “He let it happen. It wasn’t just Damiel.”

“Raguel was very powerful. He had already started to turn.” She leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees. The gesture made her seem uncomfortable, anxious, when she was normally so calm. “I didn’t see it coming. None of us did.”

I searched for more memories of what she was telling me, but my mind was too tired to focus. “How come I can remember this and Michael can’t?”

“That’s the trauma. It twisted his memory. The only way Michael’s mind could make sense of…what happened…” She avoided repeating what I told her, as if she were unable to speak of such torture. “…was to believe what Damiel told him. He believes he deserved it.”

“When will he remember the truth?”

Her back tensed and she rubbed her hands along the tops of her thighs, her gaze shooting around the room. “He may never.”

I sucked in my breath, fighting the urge to cry again. It was almost too much to absorb at once. “You made me remember all this. Why, if there’s nothing I can do?”

She got up and crossed the living room to the kitchen, where she found a clean glass in the cupboard and turned on the tap. “You’re probably the only one who can reach him. We had to try.” She returned with a glass of water and handed it to me. I didn’t think I was thirsty until I gulped it down. “You should rest now.”

I was too wired to rest, so I got myself another glass of water, trying to make sense of everything. I only remembered my life with him, but his life extended way beyond mine. Arielle hadn’t told me everything, and she’d had an uneasiness when she spoke of Damiel, one I couldn’t quite place. “What happened to Michael after I…?”