Fallen Angel (16 page)

He flipped his long coat behind him as if it was a cowboy's duster, and they stood facing each other like gunslingers, but instead of six-shooters, they were holding swords, each pinning the other with his eyes, waiting to see who would strike first.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Cate didn't wait to find out. With everyone's attention riveted on the two angels, she had pulled the gun from her waistband, and now stood in a stance she must have learned at firearms class--legs spread, arms outstretched, the gun held in both hands.

"Knock it off!" she shouted, and Yurkemi turned his head to look at her. "Oh, a little girl!" he mocked, and she did look like a little girl in her jeans and sneakers, her hair pulled up into two pigtails on top of her head. But her voice was anything but childish as she repeated, "Knock it off! I mean it! Drop the fucking swords!"

Like a car wreck, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Yurkemi swung his sword in Zach's direction, Sarah shouted, "Zack!" Zach moved gracefully out of the way and swung
his
sword, and Cate fired the gun. Yurkemi threw his head back and howled, "Alimon!" and this time, time really did stop.

22.

Cate watched in amazement as the bullet from her gun stopped in midair and fell harmlessly to the sidewalk. Its trajectory would have carried it into the vicinity of Yurkemi's heart--assuming he had one--and she was amazed by that, and chastened: she couldn't believe she'd actually
fired
the gun. She hadn't really meant to, but she'd gotten so carried away with the excitement of the moment, and was so afraid that Zach was going to get hurt . . . She felt faint. What if she had actually
killed
someone? She slid down the side of the car and sat in the street, her legs splayed in front of her.

She hadn't even noticed when the gun had flown from her hand and landed several yards away in the middle of the street.

And since she had her eyes closed, she didn't see what Sarah saw--another angel who had appeared out of thin air, and who stood between Zach and Yurkemi, holding out his hands like a referee preventing two football players from fighting with each other.
His
wings were steel gray, and he appeared to be wearing armor.

Sarah closed here eyes and leaned her head against the back of the seat. Was this real? Was any of it real? Angels? And not even just
angels
, but
bad
angels. A swordfight in the middle of a suburban front yard, and angels appearing out of nowhere to stop bullets, and Cate with a gun.
Cate
? With a
gun
?

And where was Cate, anyway?

Sarah took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She couldn't just sit there with her eyes closed and pretend nothing was happening. She'd spent enough years doing that. If everything wasn't over, if there still looked like there was going to be trouble, she was going to have to get Cate and get out of there, and let Zach fend for himself. There was nothing she could do against an angel, particularly not if Cate's gun was useless.

"Cate?" she whispered through the passenger side window, and Cate reached her hand up above her head. They sat like that, Cate on the ground and Sarah in the car, each clutching the other's hand, as they watched the tableau play itself out on the lawn.

23.

Sarah suddenly noticed that Rosemary had left the window and was standing in the open doorway, gaping at the three angels, who appeared to be deep in conversation.

"Rosemary!" Sarah hissed. "Rosemary!" She finally looked over, and when she did, Sarah motioned to her to join them. Rosemary glanced fearfully at Yurkemi, but he wasn't paying attention to anything except his two companions, so she slipped out the door and scuttled across the lawn, her eye on him the whole time. When she reached the car, she opened the back seat and slid in.

"Oh my God!" she breathed. "What's going on? Who
are
these people?"

Cate's voice came from outside the car: "Angels."

"For real?"

"For real."

"What happened at the restaurant, Rosemary?" Sarah asked. "How did you end up with Yurkemi?"

"Is that his name? He never said. I don't know exactly. He was sitting at the bar. I noticed him when I'd walk past into the kitchen, and after I'd walked past three or four times, he stopped me and asked if I was your friend--"

"My friend?" Sarah asked. "He asked if you were my friend?"

"Uh huh. He said, 'Aren't you Sarah's friend?' and I said yes, I was, and he asked if I could get off early, and I said probably not, because we were short that night and I hadn't even been scheduled to work in the first place, which is why I came in late . . ." She paused. "I don't know, Sarah. I guess I clocked out and got in your car and came home . . . I don't honestly remember. Damn, I hope I don't get fired!"

Zach and Yurkemi seemed to be arguing, while the third angel stood with his arms folded. He was tall, with a stern face and iron gray hair that matched the color of his wings, which were now folded down by his sides. He suddenly turned and glared at the women--Cate in particular--and they all tried to make themselves smaller. Cate wondered if there was an angel you could call on to make yourself invisible, but she thought probably not. She tried anyway.
Oh, please let us get out of this alive,
she prayed.
I promise I'll never try to shoot anybody again. Even an angel, whom I wouldn't think a bullet could hurt, anyway.

She was beginning to get some of her courage back, strangely. She was just a girl, just an
artist
--she was just trying to protect her friends. So she used a gun, big deal. She might have shot it, but she didn't hurt anybody, and anyway, she didn't figure the rules exactly applied in this instance.

Angels? Running around with swords? Stuff like this wasn't supposed to happen in real life.
Man
, she thought.
I wish I had my sketchbook with me.

The third angel, whoever he was, suddenly disappeared in a . . . well, not a puff of smoke, exactly, but sort of a haze. He just kind of flickered out, and then it was just Zach and Yurkemi standing in Rosemary's yard. "This isn't over, you know," Yurkemi said to Zach.

"It's over for now. Go home, Yurkemi. Tell Cadmiel . . . tell him I said he has no control over me. See how he likes that."

"He won't like it at all. I'll be back, Zachriel, before you know it. As soon as I report, he'll send me right back. Count on it."

"You've been watching too much American television, Yurkemi. People don't really--"

He was talking to thin air. Yurkemi was gone, and Zach was standing on the sandy grass by himself. He turned and gave Sarah a radiant smile, spreading his arms and, thus, his wings, then bowed as Sarah, Cate and Rosemary burst into spontaneous applause. What a show. Man, what a show.

* * *

"What happened back there?"

"Alimon happened."

"Is that what Yurkemi shouted?"

"Yes. He summoned Alimon, who has the power of protection from gunshots and sharp instruments."

"Does that stuff work? Summoning a particular angel?"

"Sure. Well, sometimes. It depends. Some of them are easier than others. With Alimon, he has to be in the right mood, and not busy with something else, and, basically, he has to think you're worth helping."

"And Yurkemi was worth helping?"

"Not to my way of thinking, but Alimon likes him, for some reason. A lot of the older angels do. I sometimes think they see themselves in him, or how they remember themselves when they were young. Or maybe how they
wished
they could have been. He's kind of a throwback to the old fire and brimstone, throw caution to the wind days. He doesn't do a lot of talking, he just jumps in and tells you what he wants you do, and expects that he can intimidate you into doing it."

"Does it work?"

"Sure, most of the time. Not with me, because being with you is more important than what he can do to me."

Sarah knew she was probably blushing, but for once, Rosemary and Cate, in the backseat of the car, were silent. They had traded cars again, and Sarah was driving her VW; there was a lot less room than there had been in the Taurus--Zach wouldn't have been able to lie down in the backseat, for instance--but she was glad to have her own car back. Rosemary hadn't wanted to be left alone; she was afraid Yurkemi would come back, so she had asked Cate if she could stay with her. But Cate was worried about staying at her isolated house even with another person, so they were all going to go back to Sarah's.

Sarah wasn't sure she was going to able to sleep, anyway, but she kept going over in her mind--okay, if she slept in her room, and Cate slept in the guestroom, then Rosemary could sleep on the couch, but where would Zach sleep? Assuming he
did
sleep. She laughed to herself. He could sleep on the porch!

* * *

It didn't work out that way, after all. They milled around the house, too agitated to sleep, for a half hour or more, then Cate fell asleep on the couch, Rosemary wandered off into the guestroom, and Sarah and Zach ended up sitting at the kitchen table, talking. Dinah had met them at the door, then stood purposefully in front of her food dish until Sarah fed her. She was now lying in Zach's lap, purring as he stroked her. Sarah had made tea, her traditional calming-down prescription. "What would have happened if Cate hadn't used the gun?"

Zach was quiet for a moment. "I don't know for sure."

"Would he have hurt you?
Could
he have hurt you? Or was it all just for show?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't just show. We
can
be hurt. We can die. It doesn't happen very often, but yes, he could have hurt me, and I'm sure he would have if Alimon hadn't intervened. I think he
wants
to hurt me, Sarah. It's gone beyond him following Cadmiel's edict that no angel should interfere in human destiny. He doesn't just want to bring me back, and he isn't just following orders anymore. He wants to kill me, I think."

"But why? What have you done to him?"

"Nothing. We've never liked each other, but it's not personal--he's just a bully, and, you know, I'm a librarian." He smiled over his mug at her.

Sarah shook her head. It was a lot to take in after a lifetime of pragmatism. "I've got to get some sleep," she said. "Thank goodness Jason's opening up the store tomorrow morning. I doubt either Cate or I would be up to it. She looked over at Rosemary sleeping on the couch. "I'd offer you a bed, but they're all taken . . ." He smiled again and stood up, putting Dinah down gently on the floor. "I'll be out on the porch."

* * *

Sarah slept peacefully in her own bed, and when she woke once in the night and Dinah wasn't there, she didn't wonder where the cat was. She assumed she was sound asleep, lying peacefully in the shelter of Zachriel's wings.

* * *

The next morning there was the expected confused tangle of three women all trying to use the bathroom at once. Sarah finally had to issue orders: "Rosemary, go put on the hot water for tea. Cate, call Jason at the store and tell him . . . well, make something up. Don't make it too complicated, I'll give him the basics when I see him. Just tell him we went out last night and stayed out too late and you stayed over, and tell him I'll be in as soon as I can. Ask him if he can handle things until I get there, although . . . well, don't tell him that. If he says he can't, it's just too bad. I'll get there when I get there."

She rushed through her shower, dressed in a casual skirt and T-shirt, and then gratefully accepted a mug of tea from Rosemary. "So what's the plan?" Rosemary asked.

"I've got to get in to the store as soon as I can. Jason's there by himself." She called out to Cate, who was taking her turn in the bathroom, "Did you talk to Jason?"

"Yes!" Cate answered, her mouth full of toothpaste. She spat into the sink. "He said he can handle it, no problem, but he's got to go to class at 2:00. He said Liz Graham came down to do gift wrapping duty."

Thank goodness for Elizabeth
, Sarah thought.

"What do you want to do?" she asked Rosemary. "You can stay here today if you want, or Cate can take you back to your house." Cate walked into the kitchen scrubbing her face with a washcloth. "Cate, can you take my car and get Rosemary back to her house?"

"Sure, no problem. I can drop her off, then go see if I can still register for class. Then I'm scheduled to work, when? 2:00? Yeah, two, to relieve Jason."

"If you can," Sarah said. "I know it's been a rough night. If you need to take the day off . . ." Mentally she crossed her fingers. She needed Cate there.