Angel Tormented (The Louisiangel Series Book 3) (14 page)

Of course, the things left were all big
things that needed to be tackled; but if I made a list, even one in my head…

1. Get the rest of
the angels outfitted in more defensive gear;

2. Get the rest of
the angels trained in defensive, if not offensive, actions;

3. Find out exactly
what the rules are, and which of them can be broken (okay, that was a selfish
one, but immortal or not, I was still a twenty-year-old girl with an amazing…);

4. … Find out exactly
what is going on with Joshua and me;

5. See Ty and tell him
to go to hell (he was still texting me);

6. Defeat Asmodeus;

7. Defeat
Beelzebub;

8. Work out where
Lucifer was and defeat him;

9. Get a whole lot
better at using my bow and my sword – or both swords – that I had (actually,
that would be better happening before number 6);

10. Do what I could
to get the cherubim back in the House.

Ten things – that was simple enough,
right? I mean, sure the order wasn’t set in stone, but they were the most
important things. I was seeing Cupid later. We were going to have dinner
together and start going over the key issues within the House, so that would be
a great time to check off number 3, and hopefully make progress on numbers 1
and 2, now that I knew where Creole Chrome was (although I wouldn’t be
returning in a hurry. A few centuries might just get the embarrassment to
fade).

“Angel?” Joshua waved a hand in front of
me. I glanced over at him. “I said, do you agree?”

I had no idea what he had been saying, but
the smirk on his face told me he was up to mischief. “No,” I responded firmly.

“No you don’t, or no you do?”

I eyed him suspiciously. “No, I don’t.”

The smirk developed into a full grin, and
I knew I had made a mistake. “Well that’s good to hear.”

I sighed. “What have I just agreed, or
disagreed to?” I asked warily.

“I was merely saying that I didn’t think I
would like those pants on you as much as if they had been leather,” he said.

 “That’s not a question,” I pointed out.

“I might have also indicated that I wanted
to stake my claim on those pockets, you know, as hand warmers – seeing as
winter is coming – but if you didn’t want to share, they were all yours,” he
added, the grin never leaving his face.

I rolled my eyes, about to correct him,
when a thought ran through my mind. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

This time it was Joshua who eyed me
suspiciously. “Working the next two evenings, then off Thursday. Back to days
on Friday. Why?” he asked, as we pulled up outside the convent.

“You fancy coming here tomorrow morning to
help me out with something?”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed further. “Is this
something I’m probably going to regret agreeing to?”

“Probably,” I confirmed, jumping out of
the car. “Just wear something comfortable.” I leaned over and gave him a quick
kiss, before leaving him agreeing (although still looking puzzled), and darting
into the convent.

It was still a little early for dinner,
but as Joshua had to go get ready for work, I had no excuse not to head back to
the kitchen to help with whatever was left over. I regretted it as soon as I
got close and could smell the food – judging from what we had been preparing
this morning it had to be meat and potato pie.

Sarah wasn’t there, but Nyle and Eugene
were, wiping down the aluminum counters. “What can I help with?” I asked.

“We’re just going to sweep the floor, and
then take a break before we have to serve up dinner,” Nyle responded, wearily.
His blonde hair was flat to his head and looked as defeated as he did.

“How did you do this by yourself?” Eugene
asked, sighing dramatically.

“I made dirty rice for a month,” I told
him, grabbing the broom. “I didn’t manage to keep the rest of the convent
clean, and I also didn’t leave the building.”

“I don’t mind the cooking,” Nyle said.
“It’s the cleaning up afterwards. No one likes the cleaning.”

“Except Jordan,” Eugene corrected him.
“He’s been on a dusting binge all day. He didn’t even stop for lunch, and he
wanted us to help him polish,” he said, his face contorting as though polishing
was a form of torture.

“I take it he’s on his own?” I laughed.

“And will continue to be so long as I can
stay in the kitchen,” Eugene said, looking hopefully at Nyle.

“Those onions are all yours!” Nyle
exclaimed. He stood back and watched me work. “We’re going to put a roster out for
the rest of the angels and take it in turns. Like you, we have other things we
need to do.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about
that,” I said, pausing in the sweeping.

“The roster?” Nyle asked, cocking his
blond head.

“No, the other things you guys do,” I
clarified. “I thought that, considering you guys are out in the city all the
time, you should learn how to use some weapons to protect yourself, especially
considering how many of the Fallen there seem to be here.”

“Why would we do that?” Eugene asked, his
mouth dropping open.

“Why wouldn’t you?” I returned. “There has
been enough death in this convent. I’m not expecting you guys to be going out
and hunting the Fallen, much less take on any Prince of Darkness, but you
should at least know how to protect yourselves long enough that you can get out
of there.”

“But that’s not our job,” Eugene
continued, still looking horrified at the prospect. At this point, I thought he
would rather help Jordan polishing than pick up a sword.

“I’m not expecting it to be your job” I
said. “I’m saying that we now know of two Princes of Darkness that are
operating in this city, and now they have been revealed, we don’t know what
they’re going to do. How many of you have changed your vessels since you were
given them?” At Eugene’s expression, I shrugged and continued. “The Fallen have
– you won’t recognize them, but they will recognize you. Michael and I were led
into a trap and attacked. I barely made it out. Michael didn’t.” I paused, not
sure if I could continue without crying.

“It’s not our job,” Nyle said, repeating
Eugene’s words. “We weren’t put on earth to fight. We were put here to deliver
messages.”

“What happens when you can’t do that
effectively because there aren’t many of you left?” I asked. “You were put here
to do a job, not just to sit about and look pretty.” Pretty was an
understatement. They, like the other angels, could certainly work for any
modelling agency in the world.

“Actually, we were put here to look
pretty,” Nyle corrected me.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“We are here on earth, delivering messages
because we’re pretty, and not much good at anything else,” Eugene answered.

I looked between the two of them. They
both looked so sincere, yet both looked so… dejected. “Your purpose is to look
pretty.”

“You don’t think that we don’t hear the
other angels talk? That we haven’t heard Cupid and Veronica call us mindless
and shallow?” Eugene asked.

Oh hell, did I feel guilty! I didn’t know
the angels before, but I was certainly guilty of thinking the same things.
“We’re here to deliver messages, but we got the job because we’re no good at
anything other than looking pretty while we do it,” Nyle explained.

“I refuse to believe you’re no good at
anything else,” I said, firmly. “Look how quickly you mastered cleaning,” I
gestured to the spotless kitchen. “And I’m also certain that being pretty is
not part of the job description.”

“No, it is,” Nyle said, his tone
matter-of-fact. “Mankind has always trusted a pretty face. You only have to
look at the movies to see that the good-looking people get the main roles. Then
there’s the fact that we’re the only all-male choir,” he frowned. “Present
company excluded, but you’re going to get promoted – you’re already
Second-in-Command in this House.”

I rolled my eyes. “What has being male got
to do with anything?”

“Mankind listens to man,” Nyle shrugged. “If
men speak new, different, or controversial words, they’re either right, or
revolutionary. At worst, people still listen to what they have to say. If women
try, they’re either crazy or witches.”

“You know it’s not like that anymore,
right?” I asked, pulling a face.

“It doesn’t matter. When we were created,
that’s how it was, and it’s served us well until now,” Nyle said, moving out of
the way for the brush I was only half-heartedly using. Well, I felt a grade-A
bitch now: talk about judging a book by its cover. And the worst part of it was
that I didn’t sit looking at the Hollywood A-listers, thinking they were all
idiots, so why had I allowed myself to assume that the angels here were? And
then the next words from Nyle had the pity shriveling up. “So you see, we’re
pretty looking, but pretty useless at everything else.”

“Have you even tried?” I asked, trying,
and failing, to keep the sharpness from my voice.

“Tried what?” Eugene asked with a sniff.

“Doing anything else?” I said, before
gesturing to the kitchen. “Obviously this job was once done by the cherubim and
you’ve managed to pick this up easily enough. So why couldn’t you manage to use
a sword? And,” I cut Nyle off before he could object. “I’m not asking you to
fight; I’m suggesting that you learn to protect yourselves.”

“I don’t think Cupid would like it,” Nyle
said.

“Nyle!” I exploded. “I am not asking Cupid;
I am asking you: do
you
want to learn self-defense? If you don’t, that’s
fine. If you do, you leave Cupid to me.”

Nyle and Eugene shared a look, before
Eugene finally shrugged. “We can see the benefits of it,” Nyle seemed to
reluctantly agree.

“Though, if Michael couldn’t survive the
Fallen, I’m not sure what chance we stand,” Eugene grumbled under his breath.

To bite my tongue, I thrust the broom towards
Eugene and stormed out of the kitchen.

Later that evening, by the time I had found
Cupid, I had calmed down somewhat. It wasn’t really their fault that no one had
really given them a chance to do anything, but that didn’t mean they had to act
so helpless. By the time I went down to the library, I was in a much better
mood: even if we were going over things like the convent finances.

Dressed in my new clothes (and a simple,
yet comfortable vest top to finish my new outfit suggestion), and armed with a
notebook and pen (I had been serious when I told Cupid I wanted to learn), I
made my way to the library. Cupid wasn’t there. “Don’t tell me he’s forgotten?”
I asked the empty room.

“Nope, just relocated,” I heard him call
from between a bookshelf. “We’re in here.”

The library wasn’t a particularly big room
– my high school library had been much bigger – but it was covered floor to
ceiling in books, mainly of the religious reference variety (either the angels
weren’t big readers, or they had a very particular taste). There was a half
dozen shelves at the far end which protruded into the room, and the rest of the
room contained the large table Cupid had been favoring, and a few comfortable
chairs.

I walked over to the shelves peering down
between them. I wasn’t a reader myself. The few that I had been reading while
here were things like the Bible and the Torah – books which hadn’t lived down
this end – so I’d never noticed the door in the corner before. I stepped in.

The new room was about a quarter of the
size of the library and was only being lit by several wall and desk lamps, but
was furnished with pieces made from the dark cypress wood everything else in
the convent seemed to be made of. There were two desks: the largest was in
front of the window. The second was at an angle to the side, tucked in the
corner, but also facing out into the room. In front of each were two seats. The
only other things in the room were two two-seater couches, facing each other, and
a small coffee table between them. Cupid sat on one with Paddy beside him. The
thing that surprised me the most was that between them, on that coffee table,
was a laptop.

Short of my own, which was used only for
playing DVDs because the convent didn’t have internet access, I hadn’t seen a
computer in the building. Even Michael somehow managed to run the House using
paper and pen. To see Cupid frowning as he stared at the screen was quite a
surreal image.

“What did I miss yesterday?” I asked, my
eyes wide.

“I decided that I couldn’t…” Cupid looked
up and his mouth dropped open. “Girl, what are you wearing?” he demanded, his
eyes raking over my clothing.

“This is one of the things I wanted to
discuss with you,” I responded, gesturing to the pants and boots. “But you’re
in the middle of something, so it can wait,” I said.

“No, this is more important,” Cupid disagreed,
getting to his feet to turn the main light of the room on. He then bounded over
to me and dragged me into the center of the room so he could circle me. I
suddenly knew how a gazelle felt as a lion circled it. “Well, I don’t hate it,”
Cupid finally announced. “I mean the color suits you, but I’m not sure about
the cut. And those boots are so chunky and clumsy looking.”

“The boots have grip and ankle support,” I
said, folding my arms. “The pants are tight fitting enough that they’re not
going to snag on anything, but loose enough for me to move and be comfortable.
They’ve also got Kevlar in them.”

“Genius,” Paddy said in a breath. I looked
over at her and caught her eye. I could tell that she got it straightaway.

Cupid was still trying to work out if he
liked the aesthetics of it all. “There’s a reason why we wear smart clothing,
you know.”

I didn’t, but after taking to Nyle and
Eugene, I could hazard a guess that it had something to do with how seriously
people took you depending on what clothing one wore. I took a deep breath and
launched into the list of reasons I had come up with as to why this would be
better clothing. “I know that the suit is much more flattering, but my main job
is to protect Joshua and his boss is a Princes of Darkness. I don’t trust
Asmodeus not to put Joshua in a position where his life is in danger, which
means I need to be ready for anything he will send my way. You’re the one
telling me not to drop my bow because it could mean the difference between life
and death, and it’s the same thing here: I’m not as skilled as you or Mi…
Raphael,” I explained. “And I’m still trying to improve my recovery time when
I’m attacked. If this helps shave seconds off it, that’s seconds I have to get
between something with ill intent and Joshua.”

Cupid studied my face for a long moment
then looked back at the jeans. “I just don’t like the pockets,” he muttered,
scratching his head.

“They’re the best bit,” I exclaimed. Aside
from the back pockets Joshua had taken a liking to, the jeans were more like a
pair of cargo pants with several pockets and zippers. “These aren’t pockets.
These hold the flexible Kevlar plating,” I said, unzipping one of the pockets
on my knees and pulling a thin sheet out to hand to Cupid. “Kevlar is what is
used to make bullet proof vests. I get that the Fallen aren’t into guns, but
these are biker jeans, so they’re designed to help protect in the event of an
accident, like when your body is hurtling across asphalt. But this one is my
favorite pocket.” I crouched down and unzipped the one just to the side of my
right knee. From the pocket, I pulled out my sword in its dagger form. “I can’t
really be carrying either the sword, or dagger, in plain sight, but this is a
perfect location to hide it because the pocket is big enough that I can get it
out easily, and the boot will hold it in place. Plus, it’s not that different from
what Gabriel wears…” I trailed off.

Paddy, just behind Cupid, was signaling
for me to be quiet. I was rambling now, so I did as she suggested, and waited
patiently for Cupid to make his decision. His attention had gone back to the
Kevlar, and finally he handed it back. “Do they come in any other color?” he
asked, finally.

“Black and denim,” I replied. “That’s all
I saw, anyway, but I could check?”

“Well, they’re not completely hideous,” he
sighed. “Just promise me I can come with you next time. I’m so bored of looking
at figures, I would love to get out and go shopping.”

“That’s the beauty of the internet!” Paddy
exclaimed, after sending a nod at me: I’d obtained Cupid’s approval. “You can
even shop online.”

Cupid’s face contorted in disgust. “Why
would you shop online?” he demanded, turning back to Paddy. “Why would you take
the fun away of touching the fabric, and seeing the colors, or how the material
falls on you?”

Paddy held her hands up, chortling. “Okay,
maybe not internet shopping. I’ll come back and explain this to you another
time.” She gathered up her laptop, but paused before leaving. “Tomorrow
morning?” she asked me.

“Definitely,” I responded. Cupid waited
until Paddy had left before tilting his head at me. “She offered to continue to
train me in Raphael’s absence.”

Guilt flooded Cupid’s brown eyes. “I
haven’t been any good at that either,” he sighed, slumping onto the couch.
“Trying to work out what Michael was doing with this House is not a good enough
reason for our practice sessions to drop off. We should start those up again,”
he declared. “Paddy and I can alternate days, and we can work the sessions
around when you need to be with Joshua. I agree that him working under Asmodeus
isn’t the safest of places he could be, which I suppose means we need to know
his work roster.”

I nodded, gratefully. I had been doing
some archery by myself, and I had certainly improved, but I still had much to
learn. “Why are you trying to work out what Michael did with the House?” I
asked, sitting down on the opposite couch to him. “Didn’t he tell you
anything?”

“He tried,” Cupid admitted, scratching
behind his ear. “I just wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to run a House, and I
didn’t think I would ever have to.” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his
knees and rubbed at his temples. “I think I understand what Michael was doing
for the most part now.”

“Do you want me to help?” I asked.

Cupid raised his head and nodded. “Yes.
That’s why I moved us down here,” he pursed his lips. “I can’t work in
Michael’s room, and I don’t want to move into his bedroom. I moved the office
down here, but you’re welcome to take his as your own if you like?”

I shook my head. “I still see it as
Michael’s room too,” I told him. “It wouldn’t feel right, and it’s not like
we’re lacking the space.”

“Good,” Cupid sighed, the relief evident
in his voice. “I know this isn’t something either of us wanted, and I think we
need to do what we have to – to make it work for us.”

“I’m so glad you said that,” I told him.
“Because I have a few ideas myself.”

“What were you thinking?”

“I think we need to reassess our opinions
of the angels,” I started. “I think we’ve been too hard on them, and I think
they’re capable of doing more than they are doing.”

Cupid cocked his head and pulled a face.
“You mean the mindless airheads?”

“Yes, and that’s the kind of opinion we
need to rethink,” I said. “I don’t think they are mindless airheads. I just
don’t think they’ve been given any opportunity to prove that they’re any
different.”

“Have you met them?” Cupid asked,
snorting.

“I have. Have you?” I retorted. “They’re
not idiots. I think they’ve just been conditioned to think that they are. I
think, given half a chance, they could make good guardians.”

“I’m going to stop you there,” Cupid said,
shaking his head. “You asked me to tell you when there were certain rules, and
that’s one of them. Whether I agree with you or not, changing an angel’s role
is not anything you or I have the power to do. That’s something only Grace can
do. What you’re suggesting is what the cherubim wanted, and look where they are
now. I can’t afford to lose the angels, and I can’t afford to lose you.”

“But the cherubim didn’t fall. They left
through their own choice,” I pointed out.

Cupid’s expression darkened. “Angel, you
asked me to tell you when there were rules, and these are the rules.”

“I get that, but the rules also included
telling no-one who we are, and you showed your wings to Leon. You’re still here
in your entire archangel mighty,” I added.

“The answer is no,” Cupid snapped,
sounding eerily like Michael.

“Okay,” I said, chewing at my lip. “Well,
could we at least consider self-defense?” I asked. “And hear me out,” I added,
before Cupid could comment. “Self-defense, as in, defending themselves, not
others. New Orleans has two Princes’ of Darkness, which we know about. I don’t
think it’s safe for the angels to be traveling around the city without the
basic knowledge of how to get away.”

I could see Cupid considering it. “You
wouldn’t get the angels to agree. They’re too lazy.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” I said. “But
does that mean that’s an acceptable compromise?”

“If you can convince the angels to learn
self-defense, then I don’t think that will be a problem, but to be clear, they
will not be armed.”

“Okay,” I conceded. I was hoping a sword
would have been acceptable, considering the Fallen were likely to be carrying
weapons.

“But I still don’t think they’ll do it,”
Cupid shrugged.

“How would you feel about a small change
to their uniforms?” I asked.

“Don’t push your luck,” Cupid sighed. “It
makes sense for you to change, but not them. They need to look smart.”

I wanted to push my luck: the angels had
been doing their job for so long now that they had to have built up
relationships with the people they were visiting, and hadn’t Michael once said
that the people who worked in the Sacré Cœur recognized us for what we were?
Surely that had to extend to the other churches? I didn’t push it though. I had
won two battles tonight, and that was enough for now. Maybe once I could show
Cupid how well the angels were learning the self-defense, I would have more of
an argument for the change in their uniform. Plus, by then, maybe I could
understand what the rules actually were, because I was still getting differing
information here.

I tuned back into what Cupid was telling
me – utilities – and sighed, reaching for the notebook. Surely, balancing a
checkbook was a better start?

* * *

The paperwork-induced headache I’d gone to
bed with had mercifully gone when I had woken up the following morning. I
dressed quickly and hurried down to the kitchen, surprised to see my aunt in
there with Eugene. “Isn’t it a little early?” I asked. I knew my aunt was an
early riser, but I was capable of pulling the cereal boxes out, and we didn’t
normally take care of the other meals until after breakfast.

“We’re going to do puff pastry,” Eugene said,
his eyes lit up in excitement.

“That requires being in the kitchen before
the sun’s up?” I asked, dubiously.