Dirty Angel-BarbaraElsborg
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Authors: Barbara Elsborg
DIRTY ANGEL
By
Barbara Elsborg
Acknowledgments
Thanks to all those who beta read this story. Especially Rita, Arlene, Pam and Ali. I appreciate every comment! A special thanks to Jo Raven who made this lovely cover for me that fits the story perfectly.
COPYRIGHT
Dirty Angel
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Dirty Angel
Copyright @ 2016 by Barbara Elsborg
Cover design by Jo Raven
Edited by Deco
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or transmitted in any manner without written permission from Barbara Elsborg, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For all enquiries please contact Barbara Elsborg at [email protected]
Image/art disclaimer : Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
WARNING
Due to the adult nature of the contents, reader discretion is advised. Scenes of violence and sexual assault.
CONTENTS
DIRTY ANGEL
Dying Sucks
Particularly when you discover there really is a hell. Aden thinks there’s no way he can avoid going down, but when an angel and demon can’t agree over his fate, Aden is given one more month to gain redemption. He doubts he can find a way to become a better man in so short a time. But it’s worth a try, right?
Living sucks
Particularly when you can’t shake free of an obsessive ex.
Brody might be managing to hold down his job as a vet, but his personal life is a mess. If he doesn’t pull himself together soon, he’s going to be sliding downhill too fast to stop.
One wet night, on a dark country lane, t
wo worlds collide and destinies change forever.
Aden North was trying hard not to freak out, and failing. One minute he’d been enjoying himself at a gig, the next he stood encased in dense, white mist. He couldn’t even see his feet. He wasn’t just mildly confused, he was alarmed. He listened, but there was no sound at all. It was as if he’d been transported into an alien environment. Apart from a quick pat of his body which told him he was clothed, zipper up, it seemed sensible not to move while he tried to figure out what was happening.
He hadn’t taken anything—he didn’t think. Unless it was a drug that made him forget he’d taken it. Or had some dickhead spiked his drink? Aden struggled to remember the evening after he’d arrived at the venue. He’d been able to hear the music, then suddenly, there was no music. Yet something about that felt incomplete. He’d definitely been at the concert, but what had he been doing before he’d found himself in this weird fog? Fucking someone? Nicking an iPhone? He patted his pockets, but couldn’t feel anything, not even
his
phone.
Shit.
Whatever lay under his feet felt flat and solid, and he guessed he stood on a floor rather than outdoors. He was wearing his coat, but he was neither hot nor cold. The fog felt like the touch of feathers on his exposed skin. Except this wasn’t fog. More like a cloud. As a kid he’d imagined himself doing somersaults in the sky, diving into mounds of candyfloss. He risked opening his mouth to take a lungful of whatever this stuff was, and found himself disappointed to find it tasted of nothing. Maybe that was just as well since he’d been breathing it in anyway.
Aden bit back his gasp when a disembodied hand loomed out of nowhere, the mist dispersing around it. The body attached to the hand turned out to belong a middle-aged guy who had unnaturally dark, swept-back hair, wore a white shirt and tight white trousers, and had the whitest teeth Aden had ever seen. The man seemed to have some inbuilt luminescence, an aura that brightened the fog around him.
“Welcome! I’m Tim, your guide.” The guy beamed at Aden, his voice bubbling with excitement.
When Aden reared back in alarm at the human lighthouse, Tim let his hand drop, but not the smile.
“I realize you must be confused and disorientated, but don’t worry. All will become clear. Come this way and we’ll join the line.”
Aden wasn’t going anywhere. Even if he’d not been drugged or whatever, he didn’t want to stand in some line. He never queued for anything. It was a point of principle. But an attempt to walk in the opposite direction failed.
What the hell?
After a brief struggle with his legs, he realized he couldn’t turn, step backwards or sideways, only—it appeared—move forward.
Fucking crazy dream.
“You have to stand in line,” Tim said.
If I don’t talk to the guy will I wake up?
“Please.” There was a touch of desperation in Tim’s voice now. “You have to. There’s no choice.”
“I don’t
have
to do anything.” Aden’s hands curled into fists. He’d had enough of being made to do stuff when he was younger. Telling him he
had
to do something usually caused him do the exact opposite, no matter how stupid that option appeared to be.
“What’s up with this fog? Where are we?”
“It’s not fog. It’s
ethercal
.”
“What the hell is that? There’s no such thing.” He didn’t think.
“It’s soothing.”
“Do I seem fucking soothed?” Aden snapped. “Why can I only move in one direction?”
The guy’s smile dimmed. For a second. “You have to wait your turn to be judged. Please moderate your language.”
Aden snorted. This was either a freaky hallucinogenic trip or he’d hit his head and currently lay in a coma. Maybe someone had caught him trying to lift their phone and clobbered him. Except he never got caught. So he erred on the side of thinking he’d been drugged by a doctored drink. He tried again to walk away and stumbled when his feet carried him forward.
“You’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” Tim’s upbeat enthusiasm grew increasingly irritating as did his glow.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Aden said. “You’re not my type.”
He raked Tim with his gaze and the guy blushed.
“I’m not… I mean. Oh. Ha ha.”
Tim finally caught on that Aden wasn’t serious. Though Aden didn’t have a type. He wasn’t picky when it came to getting a blow job. Being gay hadn’t even stopped him persuading a few blow jobs out of pretty and not so pretty women. A hot wet mouth was a hot wet mouth, after all.
Tim let out a strangled laugh. “But you
must
come with me. Everyone has to stand in line.”
Aden tried to sit down and couldn’t.
Christ.
Well, he wasn’t going to walk anywhere in thick fog while in a drug induced stupor. For all he knew he’d step off the roof of the concert hall—or the hospital—and fall to his death.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Tim said.
“I’m not afraid.” Actually, he was, sort of.
“Then walk forward.”
“Where the hell am I? I can’t see what’s in front of me. If I’ve somehow wandered onto a roof, I might end up splattered on the pavement.”
Tim gasped. “I thought… That’s not going to happen. You can’t kill yourself.” He took a deep breath. “You’re already on the other side.”
Aden rolled his eyes. “Christ.” This guy was nuts.
Tim screwed up his face as he cringed in distress. “Please don’t use our Lord’s name in vain.”
“Oh fuck off,” Aden muttered.
“I can’t,” Tim barked before he blew out a long breath. “I’m so sorry.” Now his voice was full of patronizing concern which was as irritating as the friendliness. “No wonder you’re confused. Someone should have explained that part.”
“What part?”
Tim winced. “About not being alive anymore.”
Aden’s stomach cramped. “I’m not dead.” So why was there a niggle of doubt in his mind?
“Yes you are. You…crossed over and now you’re here waiting to be judged.”
Oh God. I’ve invented this moron?
Usually Aden’s dreams were populated with guys he could think about while wanking. Where was a hot dude with answers when he needed one?
“Don’t you remember how it happened?” Tim asked. “Because that’s not information shared with me. My job is to accompany you in the line. Explain a few things. Reassure you.”
Aden gave him a tight smile.
Tim wrung his hands. “Sorry. Sorry. You weren’t supposed to move onto this stage until you’d come to terms with your…unfortunate demise. Someone’s made a mistake.”
Aden’s head ached. This idiot next to him couldn’t say the word dead. Why not?
Because I’m not dead.
He swallowed hard.
I’m not dead.
He repeated the words in his head but they kept sliding away. There was some hiccup in his memory, something had happened at the concert, something…
Tim put his hand on his shoulder and urged him forward in the mist.
The lump in Aden’s throat was painful. Why would anything hurt if he were dead? Why would his heart still beat? And it
was
still beating.
Thumping fast.
How could he even feel fucking annoyed? The clothes he wore were his. His expensive black pea coat—well, expensive if he’d bought it but he’d nicked it, black denim jeans riding low on his skinny hips, an old pale blue shirt—worn at the collar but a designer brand and also stolen, plus comfortable leather boots that had accidentally fallen out of the back of a van, not that he could see them through the mist that still covered his feet. He patted his pockets again.
Shit.
Definitely no phone, but also no wallet and no keys. Had he been drugged
and
robbed? Not dead, but trapped in a crazy mind fuck unlike any he’d ever experienced before.
But what if it’s not a dream?
What if I
am
dead?
They emerged from the mist as if they’d stepped through a wall and Aden found he was one of many standing in curving lines in an area the size of an aircraft hangar, the sides and ceiling made of mist, the floor some hard white substance. There was no sound at all and considering the number of people, that didn’t seem right. Everyone stood in pairs. Immediately in front of him an elderly woman was chattering to a big black guy in the same white gear as Tim, but Aden couldn’t hear what they were saying. The woman had a dog on a lead at her side. She looked excited. He glanced around. No one looked confused or unhappy. No one but him.
“That’s Raphael and Dantanian sitting at the table up ahead,” Tim said. “Their turn to decide whether you’re worthy of heaven or deserving of hell.”
Aden didn’t believe in an afterlife. He had zero interest in religion. Once your time on earth was up, that was it. Except… He stared at the snaking lines. Looked like he’d been wrong. Which was bad news because nothing good was going to happen to him. The two sitting in judgement wouldn’t have much judging to do. Aden could save them a lot of time and effort by admitting he already knew where he belonged and it wasn’t with the angels. But he kept his mouth closed, because if this was actually happening and not a figment of a drug-fuelled stupor, he nursed a vague hope that someone would make a mistake and mix him up with a guy destined for sainthood. That way he’d get a place on the up escalator and not the down.
“Any questions, that’s what I’m here for.” Tim’s smile was back in place.
Aden had plenty of questions, but he didn’t want them answered by a man who couldn’t even use the word dead.
“Most of those who’ve…shuffled off their mortal coil go on to heaven,” Tim said.
Aden wanted to laugh. How many ways were there to avoid saying you’re dead?
“Heaven is lovely.” Tim gave a happy sigh. “It’s everything you want, everything you hope for. You can meet up with friends and family who’ve crossed over. Each person’s heaven is—”
“Shut up,” Aden snarled.
The last people he wanted to see were members of his family. His father would most definitely be in hell, probably running the place, Aden’s mother by his side. The thought of facing his mother made him feel physically sick. Good enough reasons to want to stay the fuck out of there. Except there was a big problem.