Mercy for the Wicked (2 page)

Alright, maybe I
was
stalling, but what would you have done in my place?  I still had no idea what I’d actually say to him.  “Right,” I nodded, moving to take a seat on the couch.  “You’re probably wondering what Sam’s visit was about?”

“That has been on my mind, yes,” he said mildly.

“And I know I haven’t been exactly open in telling you much about him…”

“Or
anything
about him.”

I deserved that.  We did have a history with a few… rough patches, and my need for keeping secrets was at direct odds with the nosiness of him being a cop.  Sam and Adam were both at the center of the rough patch that had almost broken us up for good.  “Because it wasn’t my secret to tell,” I interjected. “Not exactly.  When you hear why, I think you’ll understand.”

“I’m waiting,” he prompted. 

“He’s an angel.”  Ben’s expression didn’t change, not at first, as he waited to see if I’d say more.  As the silence stretched between us, I felt the need to elaborate.  “You know, as in from heaven, with wings?”  Though I’d never seen his wings, Sam said it was a sin of pride to show them.

“An angel.”

“Well, a fallen angel, but he used to be a regular one originally.”

“Mercy…”

“I’m serious.  He’s a real live fallen angel who was cast out of heaven for his sins, and when I was knifed in the alley attack he healed me with his Grace.”  Ben’s expression was dumbstruck, and I could tell this wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear at all.  “Only, when he healed me, some of that Grace sorta… rubbed off and now I’ve got some of it too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, it rubbed off on you?”  His brows drew together into a single dark line. 

“It means I’m not entirely human anymore.  Not quite superhuman, but not an angel either.  Something new, Sam likes to say.”  All it meant was I had a few nifty parlor tricks, and I was on God’s radar.

“You seriously expect me to believe you’re not human?”

“Why would I make up something like that?”

“Because you’ve slipped a gear?”  Ben rose from the couch, his hand scratching the back of his neck as he paced in agitation. 

See, I was right, he thought I was a fruitcake.  “Do you want me to prove it?”

“Yeah, this I’ve got to see,” he muttered, coming to stop across the coffee table from me.

Only I wasn’t sure what to do.  Sure I could see auras (his was a pretty, deep indigo color that I normally found soothing), my Grace protected me like my own personal stun gun whenever I was afraid (I didn’t relish the idea of zapping him with that), and I was getting better at healing, but I didn’t think he’d let me near him to test that out.  That left just one thing.  “Alright then, close your eyes.”

“Close my… what are you going to do?”  Skeptical didn’t even begin to cover the look on his face.

“I’m not going to do anything to you, just… fine, don’t close your eyes then.  Look at the kitchen for a sec.”  That was all I needed to make myself disappear.  Not quite as good as invisible, but when he looked back I was gone.  As long as I didn’t speak, I was pretty much imperceptible.  Only I hadn’t prepared him for that, so of course he though I’d taken off. 

Ben frowned at seeing the empty spot on the couch.  “Running away isn’t going to solve anything,” he called out in the direction of the bedroom.

“I’m not running, I’m showing you what you asked me to,” I said calmly, breaking the effect and popping back into view.  Ben immediately took another step backwards, almost colliding with my TV.

“Where did you… how…?”

“I told you, I got some of his angelic powers with the Grace.” 

“Copperfield can do that on stage, it doesn’t make him an angel,” he insisted stubbornly and I rose with a drawn out sigh. 

“Fine…”  Stepping up to the dish drainer, I grabbed a knife, little thinking how a cop might react to such a move.

“Put the knife down, Mercy,” Ben approached slowly, one hand stretched out entreatingly, the other moving slowly closer to his belt.  Was he carrying a gun?  Had he really gone to a Halloween party armed for trouble? 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I rolled my eyes, lifting the knife to the inside of my arm.  I hated that part.  “Look…”

“Don’t…”  Forgetting about the gun, Ben rushed me, grabbing for the knife but not before I slashed it across my arm, the cut instantly welling up with blood. “Christ, Mercy, what the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, tossing the knife into the sink.

“It’s fine,” I winced, grabbing a paper towel off the counter because I didn’t want blood all over the place before I could concentrate enough to heal it.  “Relax, okay?  Ben?”  I tried again because he went back to pacing.  “Could you just… come over here and watch?  Can you do that for me?  Please?”

“Mercy…” he started to protest, but I cut him off.

“Please?  Let me do this.  I swear you’re gonna be amazed.”  Gratified to see Ben come to a decision that at least was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, he approached me warily as if he expected me to pull out another knife at any moment. 

I wasn’t the best at healing traumatic wounds, mostly because my concentration wasn’t what it should be whenever blood gushed.  Sore muscles, headaches, minor aches and pains, that was more my speed, and much less obvious when I was the one doing the healing.  A cut like that one I could manage though.  Dropping the paper towel, I cupped my hand over the wound, focusing on sending the Grace out to work its magic.  A soft, golden glow emanated from my hand, bathing the injury in warm light.  As we watched, the skin knit itself together as if the cut was being erased, leaving no trace of it except for the spilled blood. 

“Now there, you see?”  I said softly, wiping away the remains of the blood before I looked up at him.  “Ben?” I repeated, because his eyes were a little wild.  “Ben, it’s alright, I promise.  Maybe you should sit down…”

“Yes, maybe I should,” he nodded, looking a little shell shocked.  “How did you do that?”

What had I been saying for the past fifteen minutes?  “I told you, I have some of Sam’s Grace.  That gives me the ability to heal and it lets me move about unseen if I want to.”

“What else can you do?”

My brows drew together with a touch of annoyance.  Did he expect me to perform like a trained monkey all night, or were we going to get to the real reason why I’d come clean about all of it?  “You’re missing the point here.  Do you believe me now when I say that I’ve got angelic powers?”

Dumbly, he nodded.  

“Good,” I sank onto the couch beside him, my head spinning a little because I’d forgotten to ground myself before using my healing.  I let him process it all for a moment while I tried to connect to the calming energy of the Earth, sending out roots like a tree in my imagination. 

“Sam’s an angel then?”  His voice surprised me, and I opened my eyes to see him watching me warily.

“Yep, a fallen angel.”

“That means he was kicked out of heaven?  What did he do?” 

I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind.  For whatever reason, he was bound and determined to see Sam as a bad guy.  It was laughable, since Sam was the most gentle, honorable man I knew.  If you could overlook the whole angel of death part of his past, that was.  “I… can’t get into that,” I shook my head.  Telling him what was going on with me was one thing, spilling all of Sam’s deep, dark secrets was quite another. 

“And that Adam guy… he’s not your cousin, is he?” 

“It depends on your definition of…”  Ben gave me a look and I felt a twist of guilt for having been caught in another lie.  “No, he’s not,” I shook my head.  “He’s another fallen angel.”

“Another… how many of these guys are there?”

“Enough to all know each other, not enough they need a secret handshake,” I stole Adam’s glib reply when I’d asked the same question. 

“And this has been going on for months?  How…?”  Ben covered his face with his hands, suddenly appearing very tired when he looked up again.  “Why are you telling me all of this now?  What did Sam tell you tonight that’s got you all mixed up?”

“Yeah, about that…” I took a shaky breath as Sam’s warning bubbled up into the forefront of my thoughts.  “Well, like I said, I’m not exactly an angel, and not strictly human anymore, but I’ve been making it work for me.  You might have noticed things have settled down since Adam and Sam took off for parts unknown.”

“I had noticed that, yes,” Ben propped his arm on the back of the couch, face resting in his hand. 

“The Big Guy hasn’t decided what to do with me yet, so I’ve been in kind of a holding pattern.”  I pointed upwards in case my meaning wasn’t clear, and he seemed to be tracking with me.  “Only he’s not the only one whose interest I’ve attracted. There’s a demon, Azazael, who was imprisoned for doing all sorts of terrible things.  I’m a little fuzzy on what they were ‘cause Sam didn’t go into it all that much.  Anyway, the scuttlebutt is, Azazael is looking for a way to break free from the prison he’s been kept in for the past few millennia and he thinks I’m the key to doing it.”

“How?  What does he want to do to you?” 

“I’m not sure, I was a little distracted by the idea that he’s evil and stalking me,” I swallowed.  “There was something about a prophecy, and him being reborn to the world through the vessel, which is me.  Sam said not to worry… but he also broke Adam’s cardinal rule by coming to warn me.”

Ben digested that for long seconds, and God only knew what he thought about it all.  “Well, okay then.”  He slapped his hands on his knees with a decisive nod and I blinked, unsure if I’d missed his conclusion. 

“Okay then,” I repeated.  “Then you believe me?”

“Do I believe you’re an angel?  Yeah, that’s not too much of a stretch.”  He gave me a crooked smile that made my heart melt.  It was his smile that first attracted me to him, it transformed his whole face and charmed the cynic right out of me.  “The rest of it… it’s going to take a little time to absorb I think.  But the big issue at stake here isn’t whether or not I believe you, it’s whether or not this Azazael poses a real threat to you, or if it’s a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo.”

“Sam seemed to think it was a big enough deal to warn me about it.  But he was also a little light on the details of how Azazael planned to get to me.  He gets like that sometimes, it’s hard to get a straight answer out of him.  Though to be fair, I was too surprised to see him to ask many questions.”

“That settles it, you’re coming to stay with me again.”  Ben had his resolved face on, but I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. 

“I don’t know Ben, we don’t know when or even if this guy is gonna come after me. I can’t move in with you indefinitely.”  Besides, it wasn’t like he could save me against a demon anyway, and I hated to put him in harm’s way.

“Sure you can.”  His eyes met mine, and I realized he was serious.  We were having
that
conversation on top of everything else. 

“You want me to move in with you?”

“Sure, why not?  You have to admit we get along great, and I liked having you there the first time.  Plus, there’s no safer place for you than living with a cop, right?”

I could think of a safer place, but I quickly squashed the thought away.  He wasn’t saying the L word either, but I got the impression it was mostly because he was afraid I wouldn’t say it back.  Did I love Ben?  It was hard to give him my heart when part of it was so far away and I never knew if I’d get it back again.  I did care about him an awful lot, and it hurt to see the look in his eyes when he saw I wasn’t going to go for it.  I found myself shaking my head, not wanting to make a bad decision just because I was scared.  “I think I’d rather stay at my own place. For now.”  I reached out for his hand to soften the blow, relieved when he didn’t pull away. 

“What does this mean for us?” he asked, cradling my hand on his lap. 

“I have no idea.” A long sigh left my lips at the admission.  “You can see now why I didn’t come out and tell you all of this before.”

“No actually, I don’t.  Why didn’t you tell me all of this from day one?”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that one.  “Oh yeah, you would have run screaming for the hills.”

Ben held tight to my hand, “I begged you, Mercy, to let me in.  Don’t you remember?  Does that seem like the kind of guy who’d run for the hills?”

My mind cast back to the day he’d followed me to Sam’s apartment, convinced I was into something illegal.  “You thought I was into drugs or something!  How was I supposed to say ‘angel’?”

“What was I supposed to think?  You were sneaking around, hanging out in a bad part of town with lowlifes…”

“Sam is
not
a lowlife, he’s an angel for chrissakes!”  My cheeks burned hot as I working myself up into a good head of steam. 

“Excuse me for not thinking outside the box!  I’m a cop, Mercy, not a psychic.”

“I was gonna tell you everything that day before you started demanding answers,” I reminded him, and it was true.  It was only after he jumped to asinine conclusions that I clamped up tight and threw him out. 

“I don’t want to fight with you!”

“Then don’t yell at me!”

“You stop yelling at me first!” he demanded.

“I’m not yelling!” I yelled, my eyes falling shut as I tried to get ahold of my temper.  “I’m sorry…”

“No, I’m sorry, Mercy. I’m not trying to make this worse, I swear.”  Ben rubbed at his temples, only then realizing he still wore the raggedy bandage around his head, the remnants of his Halloween costume. 

“Here, let me help you with that.”  Leaning closer, I pulled the rest of the bandage off, sending healing energy to soothe the tension headache I could feel growing.

“Thank you,” Ben covered my hand with his, his eyes closing with a drawn out sigh as the tension eased out of him.  If only I could manage the same thing for myself, but I’ve never been able to do anything about my own headaches.  Too hard to concentrate, I guess. 

“Will you stay tonight?” I asked, my voice soft and soothing, not wanting to break the tentative calm between us.

“Of course, if you want me to.” He opened his eyes, pressing a kiss to the palm of my hand that lingered by his brow.  “Do you really want to go back to that party?”  His brows came up a fraction.