Death Knows My Name (Memory Keepers) (24 page)

“I guess it really is my place to divulge what I am. Eric understands and respects that.” I hurried on, giving no opening for interruptions and scoffs. “I am a Memory Keeper. I have lost my parents, my brother, my first lover, my second, third, fourth, erm, not that I’m, uh, yeah. So, that TMI isn’t really anyone’s business. Maybe it is, I guess. Since this is Heaven and all. But I am rambling. What I’m trying to say is I have lost a lot of people. It has been hell.” I cut my eyes toward Lucifer who dismissed my concerns with a nonchalant shrug and waved my words away.

Still, I apologized. “No offense. Sorry, I am sure hell, or uh, Sheol, is a lovely place. I just mean it in the Human concept of it.”

Lucifer grinned. “Well said.” He winked at me and I couldn’t help but grin widely in return as I continued.

“My point is.”
What was my point?
I asked myself. I really should get to it quickly. I was beginning, yes beginning, to babble like an idiot. “I thought it was me all this time. I convinced myself it was my fault and I thought I was cursed, so I deserved to be alone before anyone else died because of me. When Eric found me, I was hiding in my one bedroom apartment with
my little dog, too
.” I attempted a Wicked Witch joke. But maybe this was the wrong crowd. Yeah, it totally was. Lucifer and Dhylaka were the only two to snicker, the former with a snort.

“I told myself I had to be by myself and not let anyone get close. I had to protect everyone from me. It was my last resort, the first resort—”

I looked down trying to hide the shame I had of my past, over my actions done in grief. “I didn’t want to lose anymore. I couldn’t take it. Nothing was working, not even trying to escape.” I turned toward Eric who had gone noticeably still. “I didn’t have a clue what the problem was, why the pills, the liquor, or the men didn’t work to numb the pain. I got involved with all the wrong men, men who wanted to hurt me, but death never came for me, just everyone else. I—I don’t even want to imagine what the other Memory Keepers are going through.”

Shikemi’s arm slipped from my shoulders after a hand slid into mine. Eric’s hand.

His body was rigid with withheld emotion. He was on the verge of letting go. I knew he was angry, but at what or whom I didn’t know.

I held his hand tightly. “It really isn’t fair to put anyone through what I have been through and not tell them the reason behind it. I don’t want to be disrespectful and call it cruel because it’s not done out of cruelty. The closest thing I suppose is ignorance.”

I saw the group bristle at my words, so I hurried on to explain. “Ignorant to Human emotions.”

“Mayne.” Raphael said my name the way a teacher addresses a bad student. “We know all about emotions and Humans.”

Eric spoke. “No, we really don’t. We know that they feel them. We know about them in theory but we have never allowed ourselves to feel them or understand the extent they affect a Human’s life. They are ruled by them. Everything they do is decided by an emotion. Those of us who dare delve into humanity and their emotion are ridiculed, but unless you have done it, we’re ignorant. We are also arrogant to think we have the right to ruin Memory Keepers lives by putting the burden of death on them and expecting it to go unnoticed.”

The huge Archangel from Eric’s dream spoke. “What do you expect us to do about it now, Ectain Edeck? The terms have already been agreed upon by all parties long before this little Human of yours was born. We cannot stop what was set into motion on her whim.”

I exploded. “Whim! My whim? You just said my whim, didn’t you? Tell me I am hearing things.” I jerked my hand free of Eric’s and moved toward the Archangel. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eric move to stop me, but the angel waved him off.

“It’s my life, not my whim. My life. You really are arrogant. I don’t believe you didn’t know about the effects, you just didn’t care. What’s a few Humans’ suffering as long as your needs are met, right?” I was now standing in front of the Archangel who wore small smirk on his face.

“Am I funny to you? Does the little Human amuse you? Fine, listen to this, I’m sure it will tickle you even more. I am done. Done. I may not be able to kill myself, but Eric can tell you that I’m sure as hell able to not do my duty. And I will. I will find others like me and make sure they stop, too.”

Valience huffed. “See? You should all just let me handle it.”

The Archangel ignored him and turned his head toward Dhylaka. “She really is your great-great-granddaughter, isn’t she?”

Dhylaka smiled proudly. “You know, Michael, I was afraid I was wrong, but she really does have it in her.”

Michael smiled fondly at her. “At least she isn’t threatening to tear down the Gates of Heaven.”

“Give her time,” Dhylaka retorted. “She may if you don’t give her what she wants.”

“I cannot.” He turned his attention toward me. “You don’t know what you ask.”

“True, I don’t know about the terms of the truce. I didn’t ask that we be unmade Memory Keepers, only that we be given the choice.”

“We cannot,” Michael answered.

“Cannot?” I asked.

“Will not,” he corrected.

I looked at Valience. “You know what I am willing to do.”

Valience nodded. “I also know what you aren’t willing to do, and what I am.”

“You know what I can do to you if you don’t help me, V.”

“The same as I know you won’t because of what will be done to me. Your humanity is your weakness.”

Eric spoke, his anger brimming to erupt. “What the hell is going on here?”

I looked at Valience with a raised brow, challenging him. He merely crossed his arms in response. Damn it, he was right. I would not have him expelled from Heaven. I sighed.

“I’m just so tired of losing people. I’m done. What’s worse is I’ve seen the next generation of Memory Keepers already begin losing. I saw her face as she cried in my arms. Someone has to stand up for us and sadly the job falls to me. Just give us the right to know, Archangel Michael. If we have to pay the price of a war that has nothing to do with us, can we at least know it’s not our fault, that we aren’t to blame for the death we constantly see?”

Before he could speak, another voice broke in.

“Michael, my family is done paying the price of this war. We will pay not another loss.” Lucifer did not stand beside Dhylaka as she spoke, but he was not far from her.

His mouth frowned as he crossed his arms. “And why should she have to pay anymore, Michael? Can your God have no mercy for even his own?”

Michael took a step in his direction, but Eric blocked his path. Michael shook his head at Eric. “He may say what he wants of me but he will respect the 3-in-1 in my presence.”

Finally I spoke up. “Why does this war have to keep going on? Why not just be done with it and let us move on? All parties in this war have suffered enough! Bystanders have even suffered. Lucifer, your heart broke when you slipped and fell from Heaven.”

“I was pushed by my own brother. Of course my heart broke!” Lucifer shouted his interruption.

“You slipped. I saw it. You two were fighting, yes, but Michael did not push you. He cried when he lost you.”

“Angels cannot cry from sadness.”

“Haven’t you though, Lucifer?”

“I am ground bound. I can do whatever the hell I want.” I almost smiled. He and Dhylaka were a perfect fit. I snuck a quick glance at Dartainian, wondering what his story was.

“And still a tear fell from Heaven when you slinked into the darkness.”

“Granddaughter, I do not slink,” he said, appalled.

This time I did smile and shrug.

Michael interrupted. “Even if it were true, it is too late. Too much has been done due to it. There is no going back, only forward.”

“You’ve sucked humans into it as your truce keepers. Let’s move forward from that than. Memory Keepers are living a hell on earth! Our lives are cursed as we lose every single person around us and remember them every night! We don’t even know why! You let it go on because you don’t understand and weren’t aware of how it affects us. You don’t understand how it feels to have it so bad that you no longer want to live and not know why. To have it so bad you try to end your own life, the very thing most people hold so dear and precious and fight to hang on to. Can you imagine it being to the point that you no longer want to live or take another breath? I do. I am telling you how it affects us, and I am telling you no more.”

I shook inside. I was face-to-face with Archangel Michael and I was willing to face him head on. I would not back down, not only for me but also for my niece and my Memory Keepers who had no clue why they were living a nightmare.

“It really isn’t that easy. I am sorry, it just can’t happen.”

“Why not?” I demanded with a stomp of my foot. “What about free will, huh? Is that just bullshit? Because I don’t think it is. I spent my entire life in the church holding on to my beliefs that the Bible was real, and what God says is the truth. It got me through a lot of things. It helped me remember that God wasn’t evil just because he let my foster dad—People are evil sons of bitches and that isn’t God’s fault because of free will. Now, if that’s true then Memory Keepers are human and we have a divine right to know what is going on and make that choice.” I took a breath, replayed what I just said in my head, and added, “Sorry for the bad language.”

“No one knows the plan God has for them. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,’” Valience answered calmly, if not a bit smug.

I turned to him angrily. “That doesn’t fit here, but if you are going to speak to me about the Bible, Angel, do it in context and by all means finish it. ‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.’” I looked at him coldly. “I am calling upon Him, will He listen?” I continued, “‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’” I took a step closer in his direction. “I am seeking Him. Will I find Him, Valience?

“‘I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.’” I met Valience’s cold, unfeeling eyes and challenged him. “We have been exiled long enough, sucked into a war that has nothing to do with us with no choice in the matter. I only ask that God bring us back from where we were banished and give us a choice whether we want to return or not.”

Valience opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes flickered with fear up to something just above my head but it was quickly hidden. I felt Eric’s heat at my back. I fought the urge to step backward into his embrace and allow him to fight this battle.

Valience swallowed his response to me and sneered at Eric. “Your
concubina
speaks out of turn, Ectain.”

Eric’s body tensed. I could almost feel all his lean muscles coil as they prepared to spring into action. Did they not see Eric was on the brink of losing his mind to the rage that had been building since we arrived? If they did, I’m sure Valience would have shut the fuck-up. I didn’t have to be a language expert to figure out that
concubina
meant concubine, or whore. While I have been called a whore before, usually there were a few drinks involved and the unknown girlfriend of a guy I had taken home, but never in such a beautiful language. Seriously,
concubina
? That just sounded too sexy to be mean.

“Valience, you and your compliments. What is that, Spanish?” I pretended to gush wanting to give Eric time to regain control of himself.

He huffed. “Sure. Yes, but before that it was Latin.”

“It means sharer of somebody’s bed. Odd choice of word, Angel. It is crass and slander to your cousin if it is, in fact, untrue.” Everyone turned to face the newcomer in the conversation. When I saw who, or rather what, spoke, I nearly cried out in horror.

The thing was hideous. What nightmares were made of. Fur as jagged as teeth covered the lumbering creature growing longer and rougher at the back. It’s maw a gaping oozing whirl of fiery blades. Small eyes encircled the heads like a crown while larger ones haloed over it on dripping stalks. The walking bad dream towered over everyone when it stood up right but currently it hunched over like a deformed lump of an animal, bony bat like wings tucked along a spiked back.

Eric placed a hand on my hip and dipped his head until his lips brushed my ear. His words came out on a brush of warm air with only a hint of sound. I strained to hear him.

“Remember what I said, show no fear whatsoever.”

I nodded slightly.
Don’t look at it, don’t show fear or lack of it
. But that was almost impossible. The thing was fearsome! I couldn’t not fear it. I gulped and Eric’s hand tightened and turned my body slightly away from the creature. He pulled me so I pressed against him lightly. I was grateful, but with Valience’s accusations floating around, it wasn’t smart.

“I assure you it’s the truth, Awyx Cheyva’.”

The thing Valience referred to as Awyx Cheyva’ turned its head, I guess, toward us and I wanted to scream. I looked away.

“Whose bed I share is not either of your concern,” Eric replied curtly.

My body stiffened. Oh dear God, no. He had pretty much admitted it and now what would happen? My mind’s racing was cut off when Dhylaka walked over to us.

“Bellua! It’s been a while.” Her voice was jovial and her grin wide.

“I should have known where there is smoke there is fire.” The thing rolled his eyes.

“Not this time. I am just smoke, she is the fire.” Dhylaka pointed at me and my heart stopped beating. “But, Bellua, be warned, you harm her and it will be the smoke that chokes you.” There was a soft tremor of the floor as Dhylaka spoke.

“Dhyla, behave please.” Gabriel, the tall angel the size of Archangel Michael but with darker hair spoke. He was stern but his voice held deep affection.

“What, I have to protect what is mine. You know that, Gabe,” Dhyla reasoned.

Gabriel glared at her.

“Oops, sorry, I meant Gabriel.” She looked sincerely apologetic as she walked over to him and I heard him whispering, “I told you not around people and during official business. You never do this to Michael.” She shrugged in response and added he’d kill me if I called him Mikey in public; he had an image to maintain.

“What about my image?” Gabriel almost shouted. We all looked over at him. I hid a smile as he bashfully added, “Sorry, carry on.” He nudged Dhylaka away from him mouthing
go away.
She smiled placing a sisterly peck on his cheek.