Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) (9 page)

I looked around. We were in a corridor,
just outside a large glass door labeled
Intensive Care Unit
2
. Inside, surround by a
dozen different machines, a girl was lying in a bed, almost hidden
beneath the wires and tubes that came from her body.

“I’m going to be sick,” I mumbled as a wave
of nausea washed over me. I spotted a bathroom and ran to it, only
just managing to get to a toilet before I emptied my stomach. It
wasn’t the sight of the girl in the bed, but the effect of being
transported from one side of the city to the other faster than a
blink of an eye.

I moved over to the sink, running the water
cold so I could rinse my mouth out. If there had been any doubt
about angels, it was now gone.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom,
Michael was deep in conversation with a doctor. She was little,
with jet black hair and pale skin. As soon as she spotted me, she
gave me an evil glare.

I blinked. What the hell had I done to piss
off the doctor? I cautiously walked over to Michael. As I drew
near, the woman walked off in the opposite direction, taking a seat
just down the corridor and pulled some charts from the side of a
nurse’s station. “What did I do?” I asked Michael.

“You chose eternal life.”

“She knows?” I asked in surprise. “You told
her?”

Michael gave me a look that said I had asked
something stupid. “Lilly is one of the Angels of Death.”

My eyes nearly popped out of my sockets.
“Aren’t they evil?” I quickly shook my head. “There’s more than one
of them?”

“Of course there is more than one of them,”
Michael told me. “And they are not evil. Dying is not always a bad
thing.”

“
You’re not dead,” I muttered under my
breath. “What are
we
doing here
then?”

“You can’t see it?” Michael asked me. I shook
my head and he looked as disappointed in me as he had when I
couldn’t sense Joshua. Was I supposed to sense this girl too? Was I
just broken?

“There are special cases,” Michael explained.
“Lilly and the other Angels of Death collect the souls, taking them
to wherever they need to go. Humans can’t tell what they really are
– only those who are dead or near dying. Lilly is actually based in
this hospital.”

“Because that’s not entirely morbid,” I said,
somehow earning a glare from Lilly. There was no way she could hear
me from that far away, was there?

“It’s a fact of death,” Michael once again
corrected me.

“Is this my fault?” I asked in a small
voice.

Michael took a long breath and pushed the
door to the room open, stepping inside. The girl was older than I
first thought, perhaps a college graduate, rather than a teenager
as I had originally assumed.

“She has been here for some time now,”
Michael assured me. “Lilly contacted me to let me know it was her
time. I just came here to see if it was true.”

“To see if what was true?” I asked him,
watching him as he quickly examined the girl.

He just gave me a sad smile – an expression
that didn’t belong on his perfect features – and stepped back
outside into the corridor. I hurried out after him, finding Lilly
waiting for us. “You were right,” he told her. “Thank you for
informing me.”

Lilly nodded. She turned and looked at me.
“You don’t strike me as someone who would have said yes. You don’t
exactly look the part. Maybe that’s a good thing,” she added.
Before I could retort, she marched into the ICU and over to the
bed.

“We are done here,” Michael informed me. He
grabbed my hand, and before I could see what Lilly was going to do,
the world went blurry and the bucket of invisible water was dunked
over my head.

Michael’s office appeared all too soon. “I’m
going to be sick,” I murmured again. I followed Michael's
outstretched arm and dashed through the door he was pointing
at.

It led to a bedroom, but I took no notice,
seeing the bathroom door on the far side of the room. I charged to
it, again only just making it in time. After I had rinsed my mouth
out for the second time in as many hours, I gave his bathroom the
once over. All in all, it was very similar to mine, only it had a
bath as well as a shower. It was much less extravagant than I
expected it to be.

I stepped through into his bedroom. It was
much larger than mine, don’t get me wrong, but it had the similar
furniture. The only thing that was different was the bed. It was
beautiful. Dark wood, like everything else in the convent, but this
was an enormous sleigh bed, with hand carved curves and swirls. I
know there was the whole no sex rule, but I was damn sure that he
would have a single bed, at least.

“Not what you were expecting?” Michael asked
from the doorway behind me.

“Not really,” I admitted, unable to take my
eyes off the bed. It looked really comfortable.

“How are you feeling?” he asked me.

I turned with a start. He had crossed the
room and was right behind me and I hadn’t even heard him. “I’m
fine.” I muttered, taking a step back. I know his movements were
completely innocent, but I was feeling a little nervous with him
being in my personal space.

“Teleporting will be disconcerting for
Potentials who haven’t earned their wings. It will become easier
when you do,” he told me, misreading my unease.

My discomfort was forgotten as I stared up at
him, wide-eyed. “You mean I’ll be able to teleport like that?”

“Hopefully,” he nodded, moving past me and
over to the small table that stood next to the bed. “One day it may
be your gift too. Once you have your wings, it becomes easier for
the angels if they have to be transported quickly.” He grabbed a
large book off the table and walked back to me, offering it.

I took it off him, frowning as I read the
title. “The Bible?”

He nodded solemnly. “After that, I will let
you borrow the Torah.”

“Can’t I just settle for Google?” I asked
him, the book feeling heavy and out of place in my hands.

“Google?” he repeated, looking confused.

He had been alive as long as he had, and he
didn’t know about Google? Although, now that I thought about it,
there wasn’t a computer on his desk. “Web based search engine?” I
offered. “The internet?”

“We have no need for computers,” he
responded. Of course they didn’t. “It is late,” he said. “You
should get some rest.”

I nodded, suddenly feeling the tiredness seep
through me. I thanked him again for the book and headed back to my
bedroom.

The book was placed on the chest of drawers
although I had no intention of ever reading it. I changed into the
ridiculous nightgown, dumping my clothing on the floor as I did so,
and climbed into the bed.

Sleep didn’t come easy. Although the bed was
comfortable, and I was tired, I couldn’t help but toss and turn. My
mind kept thinking about the girl in the hospital and Lilly, who,
for some reason, made me think about my aunt Sarah.

That girl had been all alone and the only
people who seemed to know she was there, was an Archangel, an Angel
of Death, and me. Had someone contacted her family? Did she have
any family?

My thoughts circled, always coming back to
Sarah. I spent hours staring at the ceiling, wondering what she
knew or what she had been told, until I finally fell asleep.

* * *

I awoke to the sun shining through my window
and I was in my own bed. I sat upright, looking around at the
bright yellow room that had my belongings and memories cluttering
every available surface. Even the poster of my favorite television
show was still hanging on the wall.

I jumped out of bed, and grew even more
confused when I discovered the nightdress had been replaced with my
faded England football shirt and a pair of shorts. The shirt had
been my dad’s and although it was ragged and you could barely see
the three lions, I still wore it to bed.

I headed for the door, pausing as I passed
the mirror. Gone was the red, instead, my hair was the golden
blonde it had been before I had died. Hell, I even had bed
hair.

Finding myself grinning at my reflection, I
darted out of the door, ready to charge down the stairs… only I was
in the kitchen. Well that didn’t make sense. But as soon as I saw
Sarah with her back to me, kneading dough, I didn’t care. I let out
a cry of joy and bounded over to her, wrapping my arms around
her.

“Angelina?” she questioned, turning in my
arms. “Angel!” she cried, tears forming in her eyes as she returned
a bone crushing hug.

We stood like that for a while, just hugging,
until she pulled away and took a few steps back, the look of
happiness quickly dropping from her face. “You’ve died, haven’t
you?”

I blinked in surprise. My aunt wasn’t a
particularly religious person but she was very intuitive. “What
makes you say that?” I asked her carefully.

“You’re in my dreams, Angel,” she sighed,
wiping the flour off her hands and onto her apron, before she
gently cupped my face. Unlike me who still had my accent, Sarah’s
had long since faded out, although it was never as strong as some
of the locals. The only similarity between our speeches was that we
would both refer to certain things with their English counterparts
– footpath for sidewalk, for example, or we would pronounce the ‘h’
in herbs.

“This is a dream then?” I asked her, glancing
around the kitchen which was exactly as I remembered it. I had
suspected that was the case when I had stepped into the kitchen,
bypassing the stairs and hallway, but part of me was desperate to
believe that I had dreamt dying and this was real.

“You look exactly how I remember you,” she
smiled, releasing me.

“You remember me with bed hair?” I asked,
forcing a smile. “Thanks.”

She returned the smile with her own sad one.
“Angel, you’re beautiful and don’t you ever forget that. Even with
bed hair.”

“You’re my aunt – you have to say that,” I
muttered, even though it made me want to hug her again.

“I didn’t want to believe him,” she told me,
with a sound which was akin to someone trying to hold back a
sob.

“Believe who?”

“The angel who visited me,” she told me. “He
told me you had gone and you were now carrying out more important
work. He told me not to worry about you. It didn’t stop me looking,
of course. The police kept telling me they had never found a body
matching your description, and neither did the hospitals.”

“What angel?” I asked her, cutting her
off.

“He said his name was Michael.”

“
Michael?” I repeated, my voice raising a
few octaves. “
Michael
came to
visit you?”

Sarah cocked her head, watching me. “How
about we have some cookies and lemonade and sit on the porch. I
think we need to have a little chat – both of us.”

Without waiting for a response, she moved
over to the oven, pulling the door down. As if by magic, my
favorite chocolate and hazelnut cookies were waiting for me. Dream
or not, my aunt always baked cookies for me when I was upset, and
if now wasn’t the perfect time for them, I didn’t know what was.
She piled them onto a plate and handed me a glass of lemonade that
had appeared on the worktop.

“Come on,” she smiled, leading me outside
onto the decking. She sat down on her favorite armchair, while I
took the one on the other side of the small table, reaching for a
cookie. Even in a dream, they were deliciously warm and gooey. I
could eat these things all day. “So what happened?” she asked me,
taking a sip of her drink.

I finished off the cookie, licking my
fingers, and reached for another before I answered her. “It was
when I went out to celebrate my birthday. I don’t remember exactly
what happened, but somebody stabbed me.”

Tears were back in Sarah’s eyes as she sat
the drink down. “I made a promise to your parents that I would keep
you safe if anything ever happened to them.”

“I’m an angel now,” I said, hoping the news
would bring some form of relief to her. “Or I’m going to be.”

“I’m not surprised,” she told me. “You always
were a good child – always doing what you could to help.” I was
surprised. I wasn’t evil, but I still didn’t think I was good
enough to be an angel. “It was the night after that when Michael
appeared. He told me it was his turn to look after you.”

I nibbled thoughtfully on the cookie.
Everything that I was beginning to assume about that archangel I
was already beginning to question. Taking aside his prettiness
(understatement), he seemed like a general – albeit an archaic one,
who was set in his ways and expected rules to be followed. Yet here
I was, hearing how he had promised to look after me, only hours
after seeing he had a double bed.

“I suppose he’s right in a sense,” I
muttered, begrudgingly. “I’m living at the Old Ursuline Convent –
it’s now the House of Michael. I’m supposed to earn my wings so
that I can become an angel, and then I’m hopefully going to become
an archangel, like him.”

“An archangel?” Sarah repeated, quietly.

I shrugged, devouring another cookie. “Yeah,
I don’t see it either.”

Sarah quickly shook her head. “No, it’s
Michael. I didn’t put two and two together before, but he’s an
archangel –
the
Archangel!”
I gave her another shrug which earned a disapproving look off her.
“Michael is heaven’s greatest warrior. He defeated
Lucifer.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. He really did
look too pretty to have accomplished that.

Sarah sat back in her chair, rocking it back
and forth as a calm smile appeared on her face. “If Michael is
looking out for you, I know you will be safe.”

“Since when do you believe in angels?” I
asked her in disbelief.