Beloved Purgatory (Fallen Angels, Book 2) (16 page)

I started to giggle.

The angel's chair clattered to the floor as
he stood. "Devi, is something wrong?"

I waved my hand at him. "No, it's just, my
sore is roaming around my face."

"Like the mole in
Men in Tights
?" The
dinosaur piped.

I pressed the back of my wrist to my mouth
and sighed, hiccupping as I tried to push down the laughter. "Yeah.
It's just funny to think of...roaming...zombie sores!"

The angel stared blankly at me.

For some reason, that made it even
funnier.

"Don't worry about trying to get it,
Camael," the dinosaur said as I plopped down beside her.

I pinched his cheek. "Oh, so you're one of
those know-it-all kids?"

He hid his smile behind a faded yellow claw.
"I would pinch you back, but I don't want that gunk on your face on
my costume."

"I shouldn't give you pancakes for saying
that."

"No, Debbie. Pancakes pwease!"

"You think that mispronouncing words is
going to get you cute points? Too bad I know you're an old
man."

He didn't respond to the old man comment. I
think he knew it was best if he didn't. Instead, his eyes got big
and dewy. "Pwease?" He whispered.

I groaned. "Just keep in mind these are very
special pancakes, and what I mean by that is they are a lot tastier
than they look."

"Good. Dinosaurs love ugly pancakes!"

My face felt warm.
From pancake steam
, I
thought, then realized that was slightly more repulsive than the
real reason--Oz, even though he looked like a kid, was about to eat
my food. I grabbed the bowl in the middle of the table, tipped it
over, and biscuit-like lumps fell on his plate. Once there, they
wiggled.

"I swear those are pancakes," I said.

"Hey, I didn't say anything."

"I got a little too excited
when I was cooking," I explained hastily. "Especially since I ended
up putting some of the batter on my face for my costume--" I froze.
Had I really just admitted that out loud?
Get a grip, Devi!

"It's okay," the dinosaur said. "I often put
whatever I'm cooking on my face."

I cleared my throat. "Well, anyways, would
you like some blood on your pancakes?"

"You mean my dead rats or witch fingers.
Dinosaurs don't eat pancakes on Halloween!"

I put a glob of jam on the edge of his
plate. "I don't know what dinosaurs eat, but I'm not calling them
dead rats."

The little boy grabbed a particularly
deformed pancake, bobbed it in the jam, and stuffed it in his
mouth. His eyes drifted shut. "Jesus Christ Debbie, these are so
good."

I elbowed him. "Hey, you're like six or ten
or something. You mean 'oh gees,' right?"

He shook his head solemnly. "No, I meant
what I said. 'Oh gees' doesn't even begin to describe how
incredible these are. Saying something like that after taking a
bite is an insult."

"But calling them rats isn't?"

His nose twitched. "I like rats."

And that was that. For the next fifteen
minutes, the two of us stuffed our faces with pancakes. A little
jam got on the hood of his fraying dinosaur suit. A whole lot
smeared on the side of my cheek where my open sore had once been.
The dinosaur just told me that I'd replaced it.

"So you really liked them?" I asked.

"I wouldn't mind it if you made them for me
every day for the rest of my life. It's probably wrong for me to
say this, but if you wanted to, you probably could express yourself
this way at work..."

"Oh, I see how it is. First it's 'wear sexy
clothes,' and then 'go slave away in the kitchen'."

He tucked his chin into his ribbed, yellow
chest. "Yeah, knew I shouldn't have said it."

I bit back a smile. He was just so cute.
"Kim's going to be here, soon."

His legs kicked back and forth twice before
he jumped off the chair. "Rawwr!" he growled, and raced to the
front door.

I had to look down for a moment. Despite the
occasional odd comment, he really did seem like a little boy, and
watching him run around made me feel old.

I grabbed the empty bowl in
the middle of the table and stood. The angel stared at me, just as
he'd done all throughout dinner.
What do
you want to look at?
I wondered, and just
barely stopped myself from saying it out loud. Asking him a
question like that was just stupid.

"What are you thinking about, Devi?"

I let out a deep breath. "Nothing really. Oz
sure did lay on the guilt when I asked him to do this on the phone,
but I think he secretly likes being a little kid."

"It's because he is childlike," the angel
murmured. "He wants to experience every moment in all of its
intensity, regardless of whether it is beautiful or painful. It's
as if he has no care for his own feelings."

I almost dropped the bowl. Had
Camael--unfeeling, distant Camael--really just said that?

His gaze grew more intense--his eyes
increasingly blue. My grip on the bowl tightened as my hand
wobbled. I grabbed my plate.

He touched my wrist. "Wait."

For once, his eyes weren't on me. They were
on the plate of half-eaten pancakes I held.

He let go of me and took the plate from my
hands. I was too stunned to move, so my hands remained suspended in
the air, shaking. Then he reached across the table for my fork and
cradled it in his hand.

His hand bobbed once, twice. The stainless
steel stem between his fingers gleamed like polished silver. He cut
a corner of the pancake. Stabbed it. Dabbed it in red, raspberry
jam. It looked like blood, gushing from the pancake's foamy, lumpy
surface, clumps dripping off as he lifted the fork slowly and put
it to his lips.

"Camael, what are you doing?"

He glanced at me. His eyes looked unfocused,
pupils dilated as if he'd taken an opiate. Then he shut them,
sucked in a breath, and slipped the pancake in his mouth.

The fork fell from his hand. It hit the edge
of the table, leaving a smear of red, before clattering to the
floor. He inhaled deeply through his nose, started to chew slowly,
clumsily, as if he'd never chewed on something before.

That's because he probably hasn't.

I couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but
watch. Was he really chewing or was his jaw trembling? His chest
rose and fell so rapidly--was his heart beating faster? Did he even
have a heart?

He pressed his fingertips to his closed
lips. It was strange that he'd just compared Oz to a child, because
at that moment he seemed even younger. For once, his skin lacked
its luminescent glow. Instead, it looked new and tender.

His chest heaved.

"You probably need water," I said, moving
towards the sink.

I didn't get far.

His hands dug into his stomach, and his face
grew red. I'd never seen any color on his cheeks before--or on any
part of his skin--but right then it was deep, almost purple, like a
new bruise.

His arms twisted until his elbows hyper
extended, locking into place. His hands flexed over the table,
snatching the napkin he'd set my plate on. Convulsing, he fell
back, bringing the plate with him.

It shattered. Broken pieces of glass, melted
chocolate and raspberry jam smeared over the floor, over his arms,
staining the front of his shirt. No, it wasn't just that--something
tar-like oozed from his gaping mouth.

I screamed, or at least I think I did. That
high pitched sound did sound like it came from me. It was too soft,
like it had been trapped underwater. I felt as if I were
sinking--no, suspended in time--as he, caught in a transparent
cage, writhed in silence.

I tried to speak his name. I couldn't hear
it, couldn't hear anything above the roaring in my ears. I had to
stop it. I had to save him. I dropped to my knees. Chocolate and
jam smeared over my old soccer socks, and glass cut into my
palms.

I put my bloody hand on his shoulder and he
flopped forward, vomiting, expending more of that dark substance
from his stomach. I wrapped my arms around his back and he
shuddered, continuing to throw up without acknowledging me.

Something cold ran down my cheeks and neck,
into my shirt. Jam, I thought--or blood, or tears. Perhaps all
three. "Oz, he's dying!"

"He'll be fine in a minute."

My head whipped around. I almost didn't hear
the child's soft voice.

"Oz," I whimpered.

The dinosaur leaned in the doorway. His
puffy, green arms were folded over his neon yellow chest, and he
watched the angel with dispassionate, calculating eyes.

I let go of Camael's slick body and kicked
myself back. My shoulder blades slammed into the cabinets. I'd
never seen a kid so scary. The fact that he was wearing such a
cheesy costume accentuated the ruthlessness that seemed to sleep
beneath his skin. It looked like he was about to tear apart
something with those foam claws.

Camael pushed himself onto his back with his
elbows, then collapsed. That horrific, thick fluid drenched his
shirt. His arms were smeared with my own blood where I'd tried to
hold him.

That's right. I was bleeding, too. I raised
my hands, looked at the glass wedged deeply into my skin. I started
to hyperventilate. My muscles tensed up, and suddenly making my
mind aware of my muddy, wet flour tears and the stinging pain.

I bit my lip. God, it hurt.
How did I not realize how much it hurt?
Damn
.

Oz stepped forward. "You ate a pancake?"

I might have laughed at the
way he asked that question had I not been so traumatized. He
sounded like the freaking Godfather.
You
ate a pancake
wasn't supposed to be a
threat on par with
you tried to kill
me
.

Camael's eyes rolled to the back of his
skull before he shut them. "I had a bite."

"Oz," I whispered as he stepped over the
angel's limp body and knelt before me.

"Don't talk, Devi. Just give me your
hand."

My eyes were sticky from the flour, and my
mouth tasted like powder and dry Kool-Aid. "He just ate it,
and--"

My throat closed up. I couldn't finish. One
bite of a pancake wasn't supposed to do that to somebody--a pancake
that I'd made and eaten just moments before.

Oz gripped my hands and raised them to his
face. They throbbed with each heartbeat. "Hurts," I hissed.

"One moment."

I cried out as he pulled a two-inch shard
from a blue and white checkered breakfast plate from the center of
my palm. He leaned forward and blew on my hands, then covered them
with his own.

There was a brief, intense heat, and then
only a fading soreness. When he uncovered his hands there were only
thin, dark lines on my palms beneath dried blood. He pressed his
lips to them and they disappeared.

"I can't believe you were so careless," the
child whispered. He still held me, and I could feel his breath on
my skin. "Look at what you did. You hurt her."

Camael wiped the blood--or whatever that
stuff was--off his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry,
Devi."

Was this guy serious? "Don't be sorry. You
were going to die," I said.

The angel's eyes locked on mine. He took two
shallow breaths, as if steadying himself. I found myself breathing
strangely, too. "Would it bother you if I disappeared?"

"What kind of question is that? Do you think
I'm a monster?"

The angel flinched, but didn't look away. "I
didn't mean to upset you with that question."

Thanks for so tactlessly
avoiding the question I asked about whether or not you think I'm a
monster
.
I sighed.
I knew he didn't get things like that, so I had to stop holding
them against him. "Look, it doesn't matter. I just don't understand
why you ate it. I thought you couldn't eat anything."

"He can, it's just not very pleasant," Oz
answered softly.

Wow, really?
I thought as the angel cringed as he rolled on his
back.

The child ripped off the hands the dinosaur
costume (gloves with foam triangles shoddily glued to the
knuckles). At the tips of his chubby, childlike fingers were
draconian claws instead of nails. "If he wants to experience
something--like, tasting a bit of pancake--he must make his body
dead to everything except that which he is attempting to
experience. And if permission for such an experience wasn't granted
by God, then he will suffer for it."

Dingdong.

"That must be Kim." The child slithered
forward and grabbed the angel's chin. "Devi, why don't you let her
in?"

"But the mess--"

"I'll take care of it," he interrupted. His
claws dug further into the angel's white cheeks.

The doorbell rang again. And again. And
again.

Damn, couldn't Kim be
a
little
patient?

Dingdong.

Guess that's a no.

"Oz, don't do anything weird," I
whispered.

"I'm not going to hurt him." His low voice
sent a chill through my body.

Kim started pounding at the door.

I brushed my hands off on my skirt as I
stood--not a good idea, since it was covered with flour, jam,
blood, and that dark stuff the angel threw up.

"Good thing it's Halloween," I muttered to
myself as I opened the door.

Kim's red, spandex-covered fist froze
mid-air. In fact, her entire body was covered in a red hot spandex
suit that zipped up the front, stopping right where her cleavage
bulged.

I took a deep breath and leaned against the
door frame. "Hey. You look great," I said because, well, she
did.

She didn't say anything. Suddenly, I
realized how wide her eyes were. No, it wasn't just due to the
swirly, black make-up she'd applied, the ruby rhinestones she'd
glued around them, or the ridiculous tattoo she probably thought
looked archaic--her eyes were bugging out hardcore. Her eyes only
got like that when she saw bees, and that was only because she was
allergic.