Covenant (24 page)

Evan stands and walks to me
to set his hand on my shoulder. He knows me so well. He just hadn’t
anticipated my desperation and what it would lead me to
do.

“
I can’t do this,” I
whisper.

He feels the call. I know he
does. Perhaps he will take it for me.

Evan’s fingers squeeze in
gentle reassurance. “You have to, Lev. A human is dying, and he or
she is confused. You above all angels finally understand that pain.
Don’t let it go on. Do as you are bidden.”

I want to argue with him,
but I know better. There is no point. So I finally nod, walk to the
mouth of the cave, and dive into the ocean to fly to the Lower
Realm. As I break through the clouds, I see the brilliance of the
sun dappling the clouds in a pink and blue palette. Even angels are
awed by the beauty of sunrises and sunsets. Still, I have a job to
do, a job I’m still not sure I can do, even though Evan has every
confidence in me, which I really don’t understand. So I focus on
blending, and heed the urgent call I can no longer
ignore.

That call leads me to a
run-down house and into the small bedroom of an elderly woman. Her
open eyes are filmed with age, and her body trembles from the
effects of a raging fever. As I step toward the bedside, her gaze
turns toward me. At first, I can see she is frightened. She has
mistaken me for a human stranger. The chaos builds, and I do the
only thing I know to try to ease it. I let my wings show so she
understands me for what I am, not what she thinks.

Upon sight of the brilliant
white feathers, her eyes soften, and she reaches for my hand,
trembling violently, and I feel the chaos within her easing back,
almost like waters parting for me to walk through. I offer a gentle
smile and take her hand in both of mine. In that instant, I see a
flash of her life in all its wonder and glory. I feel all the love
she has known, and all the pain from losing loved ones along the
way until she is here and alone.

“
I’ve been waiting for
you,” she whispers. “Won’t you sit with me? My name is Mary, but
you probably already knew that.”

Her voice is timid, and I
wonder how long she has been in this tiny, forgotten room, in a
tiny, forgotten house, alone and waiting to die.

“
My name is Lev, and I’d be
glad to,” I whisper and take the chair beside her bed while I still
hold her feeble hand. The images of her life are still coming, and
in them, I see one man who flashes so much more than any others,
and part of me knows him. I don’t know how. I don’t even know why.
So for a few seconds, I concentrate on him, reaching deep for any
pockets of memory that seem to be hidden. He’s in there. I know he
is.

As her memories keep
flooding through me, I see him aging, and it clicks into place. I
was with him, too, when he died a mortal decade ago. She sat beside
him as he died, not knowing I was with them, holding his hand as I
now held hers. He spoke to me, begging me to watch out for her, and
while I could not, for I am a sojourner, I had made his request
known to the guardians, and shifting back toward the other end of
the room, I look hard, and the faintest outline of one of them is
present—an angel by the name of Dakar. We nod to each other, and
then I turn back, grateful that she has not been alone, that I have
not failed her as well.

“
I know you have to take
me,” she whispers. “And I’m okay with that.” Tears pool in her eyes
and start down her face. “But could you take me to my husband? I’ve
missed him so much, and I’ve waited so long.”

I gently smile and touch my
fingers to her face, wiping the warm tears from her face. “I can do
that.”

She squeezes my hand. “Then
I’m ready.”

“
As you wish.” I look in
the corner and find Dakar has gone to fulfill the last duty for
her. I stand and lean over to kiss her aged forehead, knowing that
before I had loved Elizabeth, I would never have done this. It
wouldn’t have mattered how the last moments played out in mortal
lives because death was inevitable. But this need to be kind and
erase the hurt, this is Elizabeth’s gift to me.

I sweep my arms beneath her
form and lift the soul from her body, carrying it in my arms
towards the sky, watching as her eyes widen in our flight. For her,
it probably seems to last forever. Not knowing the future has that
effect. For me, it’s over in an instant as I touch down in the
Central Gathering Area.

The instant her feet touch
the invisible floor above the ocean, her form quickly reverses the
aging process, revealing a beautiful woman in her twenties with
dark hair and blue eyes. Those eyes speak of all the fears she’s
still holding onto. “I don’t understand. Where is he? Where is
James?” Her hands take mine, imploring me.

A movement ahead catches my
eye, and I see not only Dakar, but also a young man staring at her
patiently, waiting for her to turn. I smile and nod toward him.
“Take a look.”

“
I’m scared,” she
confesses. “It’s been years.”

I pat her trembling hand.
“Time doesn’t diminish love, Mary. He’s waiting for you.” She
finally nods and turns. A surprised cry escapes her lips before she
rushes toward him, and he reaches, waiting to catch her. Then the
two souls entwine, and I can’t stop watching them, finally made as
whole as I can be by their joy.

Dakar, a tall, dark-headed
angel, ambles over and smiles at me. “For a moment I was wondering
if you were going to have trouble.”

I look at the ground. “No,
Mary made it easy.”

The two of us watch them
embrace, stunned by the beauty of a love death defied. “She’s been
waiting to be with him so long. It was hard watching her heart
break over and over. There were days I didn’t think I could keep
doing this because her body was breaking down, and her heart was
already torn apart, but this--” he points to the two of them,
“--this made all of those painful moments worth it.”

“
Yeah, I’m sure it did.” As
I stare at them, I see myself and Elizabeth as we will never be,
and a deep ache resonates within me because I know what it is like
to wait lifetimes for someone you love. Except I wasn’t rewarded
for waiting, and I will never have Elizabeth again. I keep trying
to reconcile myself to that, but it hurts too badly to
believe.

Dakar wanders off, probably
for a bit of rest before his new guardian assignment, and that is
when Evan finds me. He looks at Mary and her husband and
nods.

“
Well done,
Lev.”

I shrug. “At least I managed
to fulfill a sojourn and did something to make two people happy,
even if they weren’t the people I was aiming for.” I glance from
the couple to Evan. “Did you talk to Turnoc?”

The smile disappears by
small degrees. “Yes, I did.” Even though I’m expecting him to say
something else, he doesn’t; he’s still watching Mary, and he’s
completely distracted, as though he’d rather be doing something
else besides having this conversation.

“
What did he
say?”

Evan slowly turns to me.
“Well, he wasn’t happy at all about the dagger winding up in Kane’s
possession.” Again, I’m waiting for more, especially because of how
it did.

“
Did you tell him how Kane
got it?” I fold my arms across my chest, bracing for what comes
next.

Shaking his head, Evan says,
“Not in specific details like what you are thinking. I told him you
were still weak from your earlier sacrifice on behalf of a mortal,
a sacrifice that was a part of your character development that you
willingly underwent to save a human according to divine
desire.”

I grit my teeth. I mean it’s
all good and well that Evan is willing to bat for me, I think,
watching as Mary and her husband walk away together for the first
time in a decade. Yes, their souls will be returned to human
bodies, but that won’t be for a while. At least somebody got a
happy ending out of the deal, if you want the truth. It sure isn’t
Elizabeth or me.

“
Evan, you don’t have to
cover for me. I know this is all my fault, and I should take the
heat for it, not you.”

Evan holds up his hands to
silence me. “Give me a chance to finish. I didn’t lie or cover for
you, per se. Turnoc is aware this is your fault. He’s also aware
there are contributing factors which heavily impeded your judgment,
and that blame has to be levied on me for blocking your memory.
Yes, I did believe it was in your best interest, but that did not
prove to be the case whatsoever, so not all of this is really your
fault, in spite of what you think.”

“
Were you able to discover
what the dagger is capable of and if Kane can use it?”

He nods. “While Turnoc was
clearly not happy about having to divulge that information, he did
give me guidance as to the powers of the dagger. It is an old
angelic artifact referred to as The Dagger of Light. I should be
honored that it was entrusted to me because it is a powerful relic.
Its purpose is quite simply to destroy rogue angels.”

Immediately, I feel chaos
rise within me because while its purpose to destroy angels who are
not acting in accordance to with design, part of me worries that it
can destroy other angels as well.

As if reading my mind, Evan
nods. “And yes, it can be dangerous to other angels, but only under
certain circumstances. As I am the person to whom the blade has
been bestowed, I am not affected by its power. Other angels may
seek to use it, but it will only work under one proviso—the angel
using it must harbor no ill will toward the other angel, and he or
she must be willing to destroy himself or herself in the process;
otherwise, there will be negative effects, but it probably won’t
destroy other angels.”

I rub my forehead, basically
taking apart his words and reassembling them in a simpler
construct. “You mean in most cases the dagger won’t be dangerous
because none of those who surround Kane would be willing to die in
order to invoke its power.”

“
Yes.”

I see Celia drifting toward
us, the soul of a young boy in her arms, and the way he glances
around tells me he is eagerly awaiting reunion with a loved one.
Those are the ones who make this service bearable. It’s awful when
the human’s soul has no one to welcome him or her, and it takes so
much longer for them to adjust to this realm.

As Celia lands, the little
boy spots an elderly man and almost leaps out of her arms to run to
him. The old man laughs and holds out his arms, waiting for the
child to launch into them, and the two of them spin around as Celia
finally joins Evan and me.

“
I thought you were still
resting,” I accuse her.

She shrugs and smiles, still
watching the boy and his grandfather. “I was until I got the
sojourn call for Billy. Then I knew recovery time was at an
end.”

She scans the human souls,
probably searching for the one I brought back. “Did you have a
sojourn, Lev?”

I nod. “Yes. She and her
husband already left.”

The words barely slip from
my mouth before Celia wraps her arms around me and holds me in a
death embrace. “I knew you’d finally make it if you just kept
trying.” For a few seconds, she lingers there, and I feel a happy
sort of chaos bubbling through her with infectious joy.

When she does finally pull
away from me, she turns to Evan. “What did Turnoc say?” She pushes
a long, curly strand of hair behind her ear.

“
He wasn’t pleased, but
he’s suspected from time to time that a group of sojourners and a
guardian has fallen away from their intended purpose, which is why
he gave me the dagger to begin with, telling me he would instruct
me on its use when he figured out where the rogue group was. It
never occurred to him the rogue group might be able to figure out
about the dagger and find a way to get it.”

She nods and turns to me.
“So does that mean he and the Triune are going to go after Kane and
his little band of followers to deal with the defiance which has
only been getting worse over the years?”

Evan looks up as more angels
carrying souls descend. “No, he’s not. Instead, he wants to keep
this low-key because the minute Kane realizes members of the Triune
are involved, there could be some serious consequences, and he
wants to minimize that as much as possible.”

Celia laughs, but it hardly
sounds like she’s amused. “Minimize Kane and his band of problem
children? I don’t think there’s a way to do that. When Kane goes
down, he’s going to take as many other angels and humans with him
as he possibly can. Turnoc has to realize this.”

Evan points to a bench not
far away. “Let’s sit for a moment and figure out what we are going
to do to get the dagger back.”

The three of us walk over to
the bench and sit before Evan finally says, “Yes, Celia, you are
right. Kane will take as many angels and humans with him as he can.
I don’t know if Turnoc is aware of that, but I can only abide by
the commands that Turnoc, as speaker for the Triune in this case,
has made. If I go outside that boundary, something very bad will
happen. Even I am smart enough to realize that, though Turnoc may
not.”

I lean forward,
uncomfortable with the realization that Kane and the others are
bright enough to get away with all the mayhem while the Triune
seems to idly stand back and watch as creation falls apart. “Why
does he not intervene? He could deal with Kane so quickly
that—”