The Seer's Lover (The Seven Archangels Series) (23 page)

“No time. No time.” Ellen snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Eyes up here. Hold my hand.”

Warmth like a fire on a cool autumn night hit Calise’s fingertips and worked its way up her arms then circulated down to her toes and up her torso. When it hit her head, she swam in a drug-like haze of calm and compliance. She felt as if she was floating in a pool and getting the best massage at the same time. “Damn, you’re euphoric…”

“Yeah, yeah. Follow my lead.” Ellen released her hand and punched a number into her cell. “Yes, this is Doctor Paplin. Can you please overhead page extension 264-3571 to the psyche ward? Thanks.”

Within seconds, the sprinkler system was engaged and sirens sounded. The overhead lights went off and the emergency lights engaged. The door lock disengaged. “Listen to me. I’ll get you out of the unit. Go to my car and wait for me.”

“What’s going on?” Calise slicked her wet hair back and yelled above the din.

Ellen shoved car keys into her hand. “My car is in the physicians’ lot, spot twenty-four A. Wait for me there.” She led Calise out of the room into utter mayhem. Frantic patients were scrambling for the exits chased by the red-eyed employees. They raced to the unit’s door which opened to reveal dozens of angels—all hospital employees—converging on the entrance. Ellen pushed her through the door and mouthed, “Go!” as the angels swept past her and the door shut.

Calise ran to the car, unlocked the door, and collapsed on the passenger seat.

Fifteen minutes later, Ellen jogged around the car, got in and pulled the driver’s door shut. She was moist with perspiration and breathing heavily.

“What happened?”

“The situation has been taken care of.” Ellen smoothed out her hair and skirt.

“I could look at you forever with that glow. Have you always looked like this? How come I couldn’t see it before?”

Ellen bit her lip. “Tell me
exactly
what you see.”

She drank in her beauty. “You are illuminated. Like you’re in a picture where the sun is behind you and lights you up. I never want to stop looking at you. Your hair shimmers. Your eyes have the depths and turbulence of an ocean. Your skin makes me think it will feel like cocoa butter if I touch it. Plus you smell…like…hydrangeas.” She stopped herself. “Oddly, El, I’m even a little turned on by you right now.”

Ellen didn’t laugh. “Tell me when this started.”

Calise told her everything. Costa Rica. Lucas. Her visions when they made love.

Ellen took in every detail, clarifying the story along the way. Her concern was genuine and scared the shit out of Calise. “Take this.” She pushed her pupil light into Calise’s hands then clapped once and her car was engulfed in total darkness. Ellen spoke through the blackness. “Shine the light at my eyes.”

She did as she was instructed and yelped. “Your eyes…they glow white. Wh—What are you?”

In a flash, ambient light returned, and Calise edged her hand to find the car door handle, prepared to run away from her best friend.

“Take a deep breath and listen to me carefully. I don’t know what happened to you or when, but it appears you are a seer. I am an angel of the Lord and you, my oldest friend, are in very real danger.”

Chapter 19

Nara unpacked slowly and methodically. Being a dominatrix was one of her better talents, and it had been too long since she’d practiced her art. The demon brute driver was instructed to keep the orphans quiet and away from her, by any means necessary. She relished her preparation as much as her performance. She undressed and smoothed her suit out on the ratty excuse for a blanket that covered Liza at night. Just walking into this place necessitated she dry clean the threads.

Next, she laid out her favorite S&M outfit. Tonight she felt like blood-red sequined pasties with black tassels. This, she paired with a black leather waspie with front lacing to cinch tightly around her waist and attach to her black-seamed stockings over her red lace G-string. Her favorite accessory was her killer stilettos due to the hidden roller drum with spikes on the underside. Heavy make-up applied with precision, hair gelled back, and a leather mask left Nara moist just looking at her reflection.

Then she pulled out her tools, everything from her leashes, whips, and medical toys to her flogs, crops, and sound kit.

This will be fun…

The door creaked open, and Nara found both her parties cuffed and gagged when she entered the dungeon, where flickering candles provided her only light. She knew Liza would be an absolute submissive receiving her punishment for disobedience to Abaddon. Shane was trickier.

Nara checked her syringe closely pushing the plunger a hair, to see a drop of heroin appear at the top of the syringe. Shane was muffled by the gag and trying to shake his head, but she proceeded to his cuffed arm and spotted the vein she wanted.

He went into oblivion mumbling a semblance of Calise’s name, which royally pissed her off. She thought of all the other angels who fell by her hand, all the men she used as pets then left to rot. She actually wanted Shane to feel something for her, and this damn human, Calise, was ruining everything.

“This
is
Calise, Shane. I hate you. There’s only one person for you. Her name is Nara. Say her name, Shane.”

She was just getting started. Walking over to her assortment of torture tools, she picked up the chain scourge. Liza stared back at her with wide eyes.

****

Eight hours later, Shane was still moaning in pain and ecstasy. He was
finally
doing as he was told, repeating one word and one word only…

“Nara…Nara…Nara…”

Liza was shivering and crying after the physical and mental torture.

Nara glowed with perspiration and victory when she left the room.

Her work here was done except for one other thing. She walked upstairs, ate, then demanded one particular child be brought to her. The child Shane had abducted in San Jose. She wanted Shane to know the child was alive. Abused, neglected, and essentially destroyed, but alive.

Nara won.

Shane submitted to her willfully, and her will was that he kill Calise and Lucas.

Nara always won.

Chapter 20

Calise couldn’t sit around. She was a mess. She paced her neighborhood letting the hours pass. When she escaped the hospital past the angelic hoard, the hospital seemed to be functioning perfectly, like no one had any idea what was happening in the psyche unit. The crisp evening air stung her cheeks yet she continued to walk. The calm of Ellen’s touch still made her feel as though she were in a protective cage from the world around her.

Ellen confirmed that Calise’s eyes indeed showed the truth. Even through she’d told Carmen this would give her peace and told Lucas that she wanted nothing more than to be in his world, seeing your best friend as an angel was sensory overload.

Angels and demons walk among us. Not just in Costa Rica—everywhere.

And now she could see them. Ellen, her best friend since she was four—Ellen the obstetrician—was an angel and Calise never knew… Thank God she’d gone to Costa Rica, met Lucas—

No denying it. The weight was heavy in her chest, and her stomach churned. Her whole body tingled with a growing anger of the deception. Things would never go back to the way they’d been.

Wandering lost in her thoughts, a whimper from an alley jolted her back to the present, accompanied by her old familiar feeling of dread.
Probably just a cat…

The noise came from the dark alley right ahead of her. She rounded the corner. A girl held up to a brick building with a knife against her throat.

Worse yet was
what
brandished the knife. A red-eyed demon, exuding evil from every orifice. Swirls of black smoke pulsed around him in tune to his movements. The cold, rotting smell of garbage wafted from the smoke and burned her nostrils. The night breeze kicked up and she froze, spellbound and unable to run.

He turned around to discover her intrusion. His eyes glowed a deep garnet red. He smirked. “Don’t go away gorgeous, you’re next,” he said, in a guttural voice. When he exhaled, it sounded like the hiss of a serpent and the growl of a wolf. He probably expected her to scream or run. Even with every nerve ending in her body bristling, she stayed put.

Demons lived off ruining humans’ existence.

Deep anger rose from a place so primal that Calise took a step closer to the beast. “I can see what you are, and I’m not afraid of you.
You
should be afraid of
me
.”
Uh-oh. Where did that cocky comment come from?

His shock converted to full-out amusement and he laughed. “Scared of you? What would I have to be scared of? What is it that you think you know?” he snarled, running the blade of the knife down the terrified girl’s cheek, drawing blood. The blade shimmered like a mirror. The demon’s forked tongue slipped out of his mouth and licked the blood off the end of the knife. Just like the hideous faux doctor had done to her.

Calise hated her changed world, but the last thing she would do was ignore it. “I see your color. I know exactly what you are.” What could she say to scare him off? All Calise cared about was that he released the whimpering girl who mouthed silent words as tears streamed down her cheeks.

The demon released the girl and reappeared in front of Calise in a fraction of a second. “What did you say? You don’t exist anymore. Your kind are gone—been hunted to extinction. But just in case I’m wrong…” He grabbed her by the hair and dragged Calise behind a garbage dumpster. She made momentary eye contact with the other girl and mouthed, “Run!”

The girl scurried from the alley, but the demon threw the knife, and it landed in the back of her right leg, her Achilles. She went down with a scream.

“Stay put and shut up.” With another flick of his wrist, she was on her hands and knees, vomiting. Right before her view was obstructed, Calise noticed that whatever the girl was heaving up, was moving.

Cockroaches.

This is not going so well. I’m turning out to be a pretty shitty Buffy the Demon Slayer.

The demon straddled Calise, trying to hold both her hands with one of his while he pulled out a second knife with the other. She rolled back and forth, fighting him with all her strength. His eyes stopped at her necklace. “What the…?”

Calise got one hand on the necklace before the demon did. She clasped it tightly. A seismic boom rattled in her head and under her feet, like a cosmic shift. A blinding flash of light like a million flashbulbs went off in front of her, followed by a report like a twelve-gauge shotgun.

Another presence was with them in the alley.

“It’s not possible.” His eyes grew wild as he climbed off Calise and pressed his back to the brick wall next to the dumpster.

Her eyesight still engulfed with floaters, Calise strained to see what took shape in front of them. She closed her eyes, sensing only safety. Calise half imagined someone covered her in a fuzzy blanket and handed her warm tea.

“No,” was all the demon muttered. He dropped the knife on the cement. His hand turned to a scaly claw and he hissed, growled, and leapt forward to attack the being.

They were up the wall, then down, by the dumpster, and then in a corner. Both moved fast—a swish of golden light chased the red—the same as in her padded cell.

She scrambled over to the other girl who was on her feet. No knife was in her leg and no cockroaches were in sight. She shook her head at Calise as though she could be the enemy, and backed away.

“No, wait…” Calise pleaded.

She turned and fled.

The earth spoke again in a rumble, and the red light was gone. A golden shadow took shape in the corner of the alley. The shadow became solid, then a person appeared walking toward her, alone.

A wave of relief washed over her. The smell of lemons and homemade bread was pungent and the aura around the person was like tiny twinkling holiday lights.

The wicked one was defeated.

The being walked past her, head down; it was a woman, a middle aged woman from what she could gather. She walked right past Calise and never even looked up. She was one of the good ones, an angel. Wanting to thank her, she tapped her on the shoulder.

Calise froze. “Mom?!”

****

Lucas relished a long, last ride on Gotzone. In Costa Rica, the horse had been his companion, his confidante, and his rock. Always waiting around for him, always ready to carry him and his many burdens without backlash. Sassy when Lucas needed reminding and an ever present animation of everything wild and rustic he loved about this country. Any other mode of transportation would never compare to Gotzone.

Lucas soaked in the slivers of sunshine that sliced through the massive chicle and spiny cedar trees marking the sides of the road. Gumbo-limbo, lemonwood, and balsams dotted his passageway and he smiled to himself thinking he should have pointed out to Cali how the chicle tree is where the gum Chiclets came from and how Carmen could make her own cough medicine from the flowers of the spiny cedar. Stogey tagged along on their walk as well, far enough out of Gotzone’s way not to get kicked, but close enough to watch for anything that might spook her. This animal duo was Lucas’s family and he sighed, attempting to enjoy the moment. He spent too much time regretting the past and worrying about the future, but every so often, riding Gotzone allowed him to just “be”—a glorious and underused state of being.

When they reached the Howler Monkey Lodge, Ron was filling a horse trough outside the stable. He brushed off his hands and came to meet them. “Still no word on Anna. You know, it’s weird. I know I loved her, but the longer she’s gone, the more peaceful I feel.” He used his hand to shade his eyes. “Is there something wrong with me? I don’t know if she was kidnapped or left me or staged it, or…” He trailed off.

Lucas dismounted and put an arm around his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. You’ve been a good friend to me. I wish I could help more or give you some closure on what happened. But I have no answers for you.” Insects droned overhead. “Can I ask you one last favor?”

“Name it,” Ron said, without hesitation.