Broken Angels (15 page)

“Of course not.”

“Especially since”—she did look away from him now—“I’m just starting to remember…bits and pieces…”

Robert tensed, ready to hear something good or useful. “About what?”

“About me,” she said.

“Yes?”

“You’re an honest one, Robert Goldner. I trust the impression I got at the hospital this morning. And even though I’m not back to full strength yet, I think I can go ahead and trust you with the one bit of information I do know about myself. An important bit.”

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

“I’m—I am—” She stuttered a couple more times before saying it outright. “I’m an angel. The Arkangel Ava.”

Oh good, he thought, another one of these.

It seemed to him a small but steadily increasing number of Virus-carriers considered themselves to be “angels.” Some literally, some metaphorically. Darryl fell in the metaphorical camp; Robert stayed out of both. He thought it was all foolishness, just another symptom of the silly fictions people adopt to help them get by. Problem was, most carriers had the abilities to convince others of the truth of their personal fictions. Robert wondered what Ava’s angle could be.

“I was hoping you’d help me with something.”

“What,” Robert said, “you want me to help you break into someone else’s place?”

“I think I know a way to help me remember more, help me rearrange the messy bits and pieces in my head, get them in some kind of order.”

“Oh?” Robert approached the girl. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” Ava said, casting glances around the studio apartment, “we could use your bed, after you change the sheets. Or the couch. It looks comfortable enough, but we’d have to position ourselves like—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Robert held up his hands and took a step backward. He realized what she was getting at, and he wouldn’t go there. Not tonight. Not in his apartment. And definitely not unsupervised. “We just met. Let’s just sit and relax first. You, over there.”

Ava looked at the black leather chair with some reluctance. When she finally sat, Robert began to look around the apartment to see just what had been tampered with. He thanked fortune his laptop was still at The Burrow, broken and slowly being repaired. He’d gotten a little frustrated a few weeks back during a research project and took his anger out on his computer, but he’d downloaded so much he didn’t want to just chuck it and buy a new one. For the first time, he was happy the IAI’s technician was taking her sweet time fixing it. He didn’t need Ava snooping around on it.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

“I’ll take a glass of your orange juice,” Ava said. “Your tomato juice has expired. And the grape juice is flat.”

Charming, he thought. “Did you check to make sure the ice trays were filled?”

“Yes.”

Perfectly charming. Robert sighed and shook his head as he started toward the kitchen. Ava stood up again and approached one of his bookshelves. She certainly wasn’t the type to stay put.

Robert did a quick survey in the kitchen, making sure everything was as it should be. As he opened the fridge, he heard Ava say, “Very interesting looking…dolls you have.”

“They’re more like action figures,” Robert said about the six-inch-tall toys on his bookshelves.

“Oh.”

“For adults.” He wanted to clarify without giving away too much. “Specially made by a friend of mine. An engineer.”

“He made them especially for you?”

“For my apartment. There’s much more to each of them than meets the eye. Or, tonight, maybe much less.” Robert didn’t hide his disappointment at the failure of his apartment’s unique security system. He doubted Ava could know the real purpose of the strategically positioned toy robots, and he doubted Zel’s devices had all malfunctioned at once, but somehow she’d gotten into his apartment without any of them either sounding the loud alarm or emitting the mosquito-like whine that was supposed to render unconscious anyone who was within a twelve-foot range of them. The robots just seemed dead.

Ava was still examining the toys when Robert came out of the kitchen, bringing her a glass and a coaster for the coffee table. She only turned her attention to him after he sat on the couch and cleared his throat.

He waited for her to take her seat and her first drink, and then he asked, “Suppose you tell me every single important bit and piece that you remember about yourself ? I’m sure you’ve had plenty of sleep over the past day or so. And I’m willing to stay up all night.”

After her fourth sip, Ava began. “I’ve checked a calendar. My last clear memories are from over a year ago. It was around that time, last March, when I thought I was about to die. I kept seeing these, all these, visions and strange things, like bugs, teeny tiny spiders, living under my skin. And Death. A living, walking, talking
Death,
watching me, following me, following me everywhere…” She took another drink, no doubt hoping the words would begin to flow more easily. “Then one day, finally, this Death confronted me and revealed itself—herself—as an Archangel. She gave me the good news, telling me I wasn’t sick, and I wasn’t dying. I was being helped. Not cursed, but blessed. Blessed with the chance to become an angel, a true-to-life angel on Earth, just like her.”

Robert did all he could to maintain a straight face. For once he felt thankful for the eye patch; there’d be less chance of her seeing him roll one eye than two.

Still, better to roll an eye in annoyance than have a good belly laugh at the black joke of people calling themselves “Arkangels” and “Archangels.” The terms sounded similar when pronounced by some, but when spoken by true believers, there was an added emphasis on the first syllable of “Arkangel,” causing one’s throat to catch a little when saying the word. Robert got tripped up pretty much any time he had to say anything about “angels.” “Sick humans” rolled off the tongue much more naturally.

“This Archangel showed me different realms of Reality,” Ava said. “She took me down to the lowest levels of Reality, the Ultimate realm—”

“XynKroma.”

Ava seemed a little too happy to hear the word. She composed herself before continuing. “Yes. Of course you’ve been there.”

“I’ve had my unfair share of visits,” Robert said.

“Well, like you, I had more than a few, each one with the purpose of
inverting
me, rebirthing me into my destined rank, that of an Arkangel.” She paused and studied Robert’s face for a moment before asking, “What rank are you?”

He showed her a puzzled expression before erasing it with a smile. “I just prefer to think of myself as nothing more than a Watcher.”

“Huh.” It was Ava’s turn to look puzzled. “The Archangel didn’t mention Watchers. But I know the scriptures do.”

Robert made a mental note to do some research on what book or books of scripture she could be talking about, first chance he got on Sunday. He figured the meaning of “inverting” was probably very similar to that of “converting,” but he’d look into that too.

“I’d almost completed my training in Xyn,” Ava said, “but before taking the final step, I was forced to undertake an inholy mission on Reality’s surface.”

He’d have to look into the meaning of “inholy” as well.

“I learned that right in Spencer, right in my own hometown, one of my closest friends had become corrupted. She was also an angel, but one of the worst kind.”

“Marie-Lydia?” Robert said.

“Yes. It was the Tuesday after spring break. I was at home when I received the revelation. She was at school, trying to kill everyone. I got there and did everything I could to stop her. Last thing I remember, I pinned her down in the gym, and took her down to XynKroma.”

“And next thing you knew—”

“I was in a hospital,” Ava said. “In Arlington, Virginia. On a September day, far away from home.” She finished her drink.

“Yeah, well, I guess you already found out about your mother,” Robert said as he stood and reached for her glass.

“My mother?” Ava asked. “What about her?”

He stood awkwardly in front of her. “Didn’t you try to call home today?”

Ava opened her mouth and closed it just as quickly. For the first time, she appeared nervous.

“I didn’t call anyone today,” she said. “When I was ready, and able, I just left the hospital. And I made my way here.”

Robert took a deep breath. He sat back down and leaned forward, ready to take her hand and try to comfort her if necessary.

“Ava, after you told us your name, we tried to find your parents. And, we…Well, we found no record of a father. And your mother, she’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“We couldn’t find any trace of her,” he said. “We’re still searching, but…”

Robert broke off, feeling his throat catch, remembering how he felt when he was told the same news about his father more than three years ago. A fine comforter he was.

He managed to control his emotions well enough to notice Ava didn’t seem all that upset about the news. In fact, she no longer seemed anything—not uncomfortable, angry, depressed, or even perplexed. Her facial expression showed nothing but a blank. She was suppressing it, Robert decided. She was repressing something.

“I’m sure if she’s to be found,” Ava said, “someone will find her.”

She stood and stretched her arms, then looked all around the room in a nonchalant manner. Robert stared at her. She was communicating exactly what she intended not to. Uneasiness. Was there some issue with her mother? Did Ava have no use for her after her
inversion
experience with this so-called Archangel? Just how did that house burn down?

Robert shifted his focus from Ava’s body language to her clothes: a wheat-colored jacket over a cream-colored tank top, black capri pants, and matching black ballet flats. They weren’t the clothes he and Darryl had found her in. And that diamond pendant in her cleavage…She’d made at least one other stop before coming to his place.

Apparently tired of averting her eyes and not knowing what else to say, Ava asked if she could use his bathroom. Robert said yes and asked if she wanted another drink. She said yes and closed the bathroom door.

Robert hurried to pour the juice, then, after checking that she was still in the bathroom, he put two fingers on the face of his right-wristwatch. He contacted Adam and gave him an update on all that had happened since they’d last communicated. The responding message asked that he bring Ava to The Burrow, immediately. They’d set her up in one of the spare apartments for the night. Adam had plans for her.

He was about to send a message to Darryl using the watch on his left wrist when he heard the bathroom door open. He picked up the glass of juice and turned around. Ava was standing three feet in front of him. Startled, Robert released the glass.

Ava grabbed it. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” It was too hard to tell whether she’d grabbed the glass from his hand or from the air after he released it.

“You know,” she said after taking a drink, “you don’t have a mirror in your bathroom.”

“I realize that.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “I have reasons.”

Neither spoke as they stared at each other. She’d lose the contest. There was no way he was going to deal out personal information to a stranger. Especially not this stranger.

Ava didn’t blink, but she eventually turned her back on him to return to the sitting area. “You know,” she said, “I was thinking.”

“Oh?” Robert followed her.

“If you’re prioritizing, it would be best to concentrate on finding Marie-Lydia, rather than my mom.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“Yes,” Ava said as they sat down. “I have reasons. One’s an adult and can take care of herself. The other…is young. And a danger to herself.”

“And to others. We know.”

“I want to go to XynKroma, Robert. It’s where I took her, last time I saw her. It’s the only way I can pick up her trail. And I can’t go alone. I want to go with someone I trust.”

Robert sighed as his eye unfocused.

His former pastor used to preach that Heaven and Hell weren’t actual places, just metaphors for certain states of mind. They were conditions of existence to be experienced in
this
life; one experienced Heaven or Hell based on one’s attitude and actions. There were no other planes of existence. But Robert’s former pastor didn’t have the White Fire Virus. He knew nothing about XynK-roma, even though he’d come close to a good enough description in some of his sermons.

Robert was neither a preacher nor a poet, but even his best description of Xyn sounded like something delivered from a pulpit to a congregation of born-again beatniks. It was another dimension, a realm comprising the deepest, lowest levels of accessible Reality. Xyn was what university professors of philosophy and religion would call “Ultimate Reality.” Not a dreamscape or a fantasyland or an imaginative figment, but an actual plane of existence made up of dirty light and sentient beings’ polluted thoughts, the fundamental energies of life.

Heaven and Hell may’ve been fictional realms for the afterlife, but XynKroma was an experienced fact, particularly for those infected with the White Fire Virus. A seemingly infinite realm, Xyn was like Heaven and Hell after they’d been combined, folded up into a pea-sized nugget, and relocated to exist simultaneously— and unstably—at the core of every sentient creature’s mind. In theory, anyone could visit the extra-dimensional realm, but thanks to their hypersensitivity and electromagnetic abilities, it was much easier and much more common for Virus-carriers. As far as Robert knew, the realm could only be accessed by practicing a form of intense meditation and staring deep into one’s own or someone else’s eyes, tunneling to the center of the subconscious mind. Ava clearly wanted to go the latter route, his eye and hers locked, strangers embraced, their bodies entwined like lovers, if only for one night…

It was too dangerous. For the body and the mind.

Energy from every living being’s mind—their hopes, fears, desires, hates, wishes,
everything
—fed into Xyn, like rivers and rainfalls feeding an ocean. Hence the realm’s chaos. The flowing energies from the minds of every living being competed with one another in Xyn, resulting in the creation of archetypes and other symbols that manifested as dangerous settings populated by even more dangerous creatures: unclassifiable monsters, innumerable giants, fire-and-ice fairies, and so on, ad infinitum. Hell’s demons and Heaven’s mistakes on ever-shifting terrains. More than once, Robert had referred to Xyn’s low levels of Reality as the
Scalp of God
. He didn’t remember where he’d first heard that phrase, but he didn’t mind using it. To enter this realm was like treading on the balding scalp of the Creator, a Creator in the throes of senility. The exact experience was unique for everyone, but almost always horrific, and definitely life-changing.