Angel's Kiss (5 page)

“Let’s do something about that pain,” he said, and placed one hand on my forehead and the other over my heart, just as he’d done the day before.

My body stiffened, as did his, and a gasp escaped his lips. I could feel the pain being drawn out of me, through his hands. It was an almost sensual experience. When the pain was completely gone, Danny rolled onto the grass and took two deep breaths.

“That was incredible!” I said, excited and revitalised.

Danny smiled at me. “Yes, it was rather remarkable. Until yesterday I’d never tried it before. This time it was different … I knew what to focus on. The pain, how could you bear it?”

I shrugged. Pain was nothing new to me. It was something I’d learned to live with a long time ago. It was only the intensity of the pain from the last few days that was new.

“We all feel pain at some point in our lives. Are you telling me angels don’t feel pain?”

He shook his head. “Not like that, no.”

I looked at our surroundings. Whilst it was night time, the sky was clear and the stars were bright. We must be far away from the influence of the city lights indeed, to see the stars so well. To our right, no more than twenty metres away, was a small darkened cottage. All around us huge trees rose to touch the sky, like an impenetrable wall.

“
Where
are we and why are we here?” I asked.

“It’s a place I acquired some centuries ago that I like to visit now and again, when I have time — nowhere near often enough. Call it my slice of heaven on earth. The nearest town is a few hundred kilometres away. You should be safe here.”

Danny stood and offered his hand to help me up. “We’ll be more comfortable inside.”

I held onto his hand as he led me towards the cottage and didn’t let go until we were safely inside.

“Fire,” he said, and a small fire flared in the fireplace. “There’s no electricity, but I can heat some water for you if you’d like a bath.”

A bath! How wonderful it would be to be clean again, except that I didn’t have a change of clothes.

“That’d be great. I don’t suppose you have any clothes lying around that might fit me?”

“Not on hand. I’ll make sure there’s something suitable for you to wear once you’ve soaked off the grime,” he said. “In the meantime, I have to do a quick survey of the area. I won’t be long. Half an hour at most.”

Danny headed towards the front door, opened it and stopped to look back at me. He pointed to one of three doors.

“You should find everything you need in there.”

A small
bath
plaque on the door was all the indication I needed of which door to choose. Only a blind person could miss it! I turned to thank him — he was already gone. I’d have to ask about his
transportation,
as he called it. I was curious to know exactly how we’d arrived here so quickly.

When I opened the bathroom door I was greeted by a number of happily flickering candles. Most were around the hand basin, with a few balanced precariously at the end of the claw-footed bath. A framed oval mirror hung over the hand basin and the steam from the bath had already fogged it over.

I squealed with delight, clapping my hands, before closing the door behind me. A towel and fluffy robe hung on the back of the door, and in the cupboard below the hand basin I located a number of toiletries to make the task of washing easier.

The fact that there was no curtain or blind covering the window didn’t worry me. If I was indeed far from human habitation the worst I would see peering through the window was a bird or wild animal. Besides, even if Danny peeked in the window, he wouldn’t be the first peeping Tom I’d encountered. Somehow I didn’t think Danny was much of a peeping Tom. Chivalrous, honourable and gallant were all words that sprang to mind in my assessment of him.

I eased myself into the bath carefully and leaned back to let the heat permeate my body. When I was thoroughly warmed I let my mind drift, losing track of time. I vaguely remembered to wash and give my hair a good clean. The lightly scented water — lavender I thought — calmed and relaxed me.

A noise in the cottage startled me.
Is that Danny?
I wondered. I was on the alert for a knock on the door, or an attempt to open it. After a few minutes, when neither occurred, I returned to enjoying the bath and cleansing my body. Eventually I started wrinkling like a prune, as is always the way.
Time to get out.
I drained the bath, dried off, wrapped the towel around my hair and slipped on the robe. It felt good to be clean.

I opened the bathroom door and peered down the hallway. Danny was sitting in an armchair opposite the fireplace, reading a book that looked and smelled old, even from here. I walked to the living area in bare feet and nodded towards the book.

“Any good?”

“Very dry, but interesting nonetheless. It’s on angelic lore and mythology.” Danny closed the book and left it resting on his lap. “How was your bath?”

“Pure bliss!” I replied. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” he said happily. “There are some clothes for you in the bedroom on the left. I hope they fit. I haven’t had to procure clothes for a woman before, although I did get a good idea of what size you are from your memories.”

I laughed and headed towards the bedroom. The clothes on the bed were the sort of thing I would have chosen to wear if I wanted to blend in with a crowd — nothing that would make me stand out. When I’d dressed — Danny was thoughtful enough to provide me with new footwear as well — I returned to the living area and sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace.

“I have hundreds of questions,” I said.

“Ask away. I’ll try and answer them as best I can.”

“I’ll start with an easy one first. Do angels bathe?”

Danny laughed and smiled. “We don’t need to. I find a soak in a hot bath refreshing. I do some of my best thinking when I’m soaking.”

“How did you find me and why did you save me?”

“I was on patrol in the city. The vampire was careless. Perhaps he was simply
very
hungry. Whatever the reason, he smelled
wrong
and that’s how I found him.” Danny wrinkled his nose as he remembered the smell. “Not wrong in the demonic sense, but wrong nonetheless. I came to investigate what could cause that smell in a vampire. I found him dead and you writhing in agony.”

I remembered the pain all too well and shuddered.

“How or why you survived remains a mystery. Perhaps He has a higher purpose for you. I don’t really know,” he sighed. “You’re going to have to keep a low profile for the next few days while I find out as much as I can.”

I folded my arms across my chest and narrowed my eyes.

“What do you mean?”

People were always trying to tell me what to do. I liked to make my own decisions, whether they were right or wrong. After all, it was my life. Still, there had been a time when other people exerted control over me. I wasn’t going back to that — being someone else’s pawn or plaything.

“I mean you can’t draw attention to yourself, and you definitely can’t feed until we know for sure —”

“But I’m
still
hungry. I have to have something proper to eat. Not like that burger,” I mumbled.

“There a difference between
feeding
and
eating
— eating is something humans and beasts do. I thought you understood you couldn’t eat after the burger incident. Eating mortal food will make you sick. Your body will reject it, and make you suffer in the process.”

I thought about my last meal — the hideous burger. I’d had food poisoning before, although my stomach’s abrupt reaction to the burger was different. For one thing, I’d barely finished it when the pain began, and secondly the pain was knife-like — a far cry from a severe stomach ache.

“If you
feed
off mortals, you will become one of
them
— a vampire — body and soul. Think of it as your being at a crossroad. The signposts mark one direction as the path to redemption, the other as the path to purgatory. Ultimately the choice is yours … I
know
you are
not
a bad person. I
know
you would not willingly choose purgatory.”

I know this, I know that
. I felt like I was being lectured. I wasn’t big on lectures.

“I think you place too much of that faith you’re always going on about in me. How can I survive without eating, or
feeding
as you put it? Surely I can’t go on forever without some form of sustenance?”

“I don’t know.” Danny shook his head. “I don’t know if a vampire has ever tried to go against their nature. We need more answers. We’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with then.”

“Talk, talk, talk — that’s all you seem to do!” I threw my hands up in the air, exasperated, and rolled my eyes towards the ceiling, before sighing and letting my hands drop. “Why don’t you just kill me now and be done with it?”

“If I need to I will.” His voice became serious and low, almost threatening. “Don’t think for a moment that I’m not capable of it. Presently you’re out of harm’s way. I will not kill you needlessly.”

I pushed him further. “But there’s still a chance I’ll be put to death regardless, isn’t there?”

“If my superior finds out, yes. Why does it
matter
to you?” he challenged me. “Yesterday you thought you were going to die — you begged to die — so what difference does it make?”

“The difference is choice —
my
choice.” I pointed to myself for emphasis. “Yesterday I chose the time and place for me to die, though admittedly it didn’t work out as I’d planned, but once that choice is taken away from me — when I’m not in control — it makes
all the difference
.”

It was time to change the subject in case I said something I’d regret later, which for me pretty well happened on a regular basis. My tongue had a habit of wagging before my brain could think about what I was actually saying. I was forever offending people or rubbing them up the wrong way. That was how I’d ended up the way I was — destitute and alone.

“Was there anything about me in that book you were reading?” I peered into his lap to where the book was resting.

“It has long been speculated amongst our kind that He created earth-bound angels. This book,” Danny tapped the cover, “theorises that large numbers of angels, not known to the nine, were born to mortal parents. He made them earth-bound and ignorant of their true identities, to be born over and over again until judgement day — the apocalypse — when they would be required to take care of anything evil — demon, monster and mortal alike — the same way the dinosaurs were taken care of. It is suggested He had a backup plan in the event of another infraction amongst the nine, or the nine failing Him on judgement day.”

“And somehow I could be one of these
dormant
earth-bound angels?”

“Dormant? I guess that’s a good way to describe it. Possibly you’re one, activated ahead of time. What affect the vampire had on your genetic make-up would need to be determined, but I digress. If He did indeed have a backup plan then it would stand to reason He wouldn’t want us to know about it. Can you imagine how the angels would feel, knowing their creator no longer trusted or had faith in them?” Danny shook his head. The implication was almost too much to bear.

“Well, how would an earth-bound angel be activated?” I asked, hungry for more information that might explain why I was still here. “Surely there must be some catalyst or trigger.”

“Judgement day would be the trigger in the natural order of events, but there’s no mention in this book about what particular event or series of events take place that is tantamount to judgement day. If we knew what those events were we could try reproducing them.” He tapped a finger against his lips, thoughtful for a moment. “Surely some of the angels within the powers, responsible for documenting our history, would have written about judgement day. They may have some idea of what I’m looking for.”

“But why would you want to bring about judgement day?” It seemed a bad idea to me, like tampering with the past to change the future.

“To activate the earth-bound angels, thereby proving their existence. Why else?”

“And what does that gain you? What if, once activated, they have to see their purpose through to the end? If the theory is that they’re some sort of doomsday army, you’d be condemning most of mankind.” My voice was getting louder. “Don’t you care about
that?
”

Danny’s eyes, sparkling moments before, lost some of their sheen. He said, with awe in his voice, “I can see why He still loves you, cast out of Eden as you were, women in particular.”

“What do you mean?” I was getting very irritated.

“Your ability to think beyond the boundaries of the here and now,
before
taking action. To think responsibly. Very few women jump into battle with their eyes closed, unlike men. I must admit that women seem much better at thinking outside the square than men,” Danny smiled and his eyes sparkled again. “Men and angels think very much alike — shoot first, ask questions later.”