Guardian (20 page)

“No. Lyla, this isn’t something that happened long ago, something that didn’t make it into the history textbooks. It is
still
going on today. Angels are still leaving Lucifer. They have needed more than two thousand human years to realize they chose the wrong path. Even today, a new Fallen could be joining this world.”

“Right this very second?” I asked, shocked. “Is that what you call yourselves? Fallen?”

“
The
Fallen,” Rafael corrected.

“How old are the others? Like, who is the youngest?”

“Aside from Rachel, the youngest are Orpah, Sara, and Joseph. They have only been here for about four hundred years.”

“Young,” I snorted. “What do you mean, aside from Rachel? What about her and Naomi? Naomi is human.”

“That is a story for another day,” Rafael said, shifting uncomfortably. “I believe you asked how I came to have money.”

I narrowed my eyes at the change of subject but let it go. For now. “Yes, I did.”

“We aren’t human. We have supreme eternity on our side,” he said bluntly. “Having superior intelligence and centuries of experience allows us to make investments more… more candidly than others. We know human nature better than anyone. It was easy to see things like automobiles and the internet would be embraced. They made life much easier, something humans are always looking for.”

“Are we all really that shallow?” I asked, amazed. Not only was I talking to someone who had gotten rich off the software boom, he had done so because he knew humans were the laziest beings in the universe. Incredible.

Rafael flashed a grin at me. “Not
all
of you. Being alive in the past also aides us. If we take something and lock it up for two hundred years and then sell it, it’s just another investment. There is also the simple quality of hard work. Angels don’t need to eat to survive. We don’t need to sleep or rest, we don’t need a roof over our heads to protect us from the elements. Our superior strength and intelligence make us qualified for any job in the world. Not having to spend money on human necessities allows us to save more. We can make as much in a decade as some people make in their whole lives.”

“And so now the money just sits in the bank, making a huge hunk of interest,” I surmised, shaking my head at the wonder of it all.

“For the most part. It’s also invested in some choice things. But it has to be many different banks, along with some in Europe. The amount is too much to not spread out, or I would draw unneeded attention to myself. Also, I have to move large sums and allow accounts to drain away. It’s not easy to manage money when you’re supposed to die every eighty years or so, and don’t.”

“I imagine that would be very difficult,” I said, with a totally straight face. It only lasted for a moment, and then I started laughing. It was just so ludicrous. Here most of the world was struggling to make it through a poor economy, and Rafael had so much money he had to spread it all over the world and his biggest problem was eternal life. It was absolutely insane to be having this kind of conversation.

When I told all this to him, Rafael soon joined my laughter, and soon we were cracking up at our table, making everyone else in the restaurant stare. I had tears in my eyes before I gained control of myself. Still giggling, I wiped my eyes with a napkin and tried to catch my breath.

“Thank you for letting me spend money on you,” Rafael told me.

I looked up at him in surprise. “Why on
earth
would you be thanking me?” I asked. “I should be asking if there is any way for me to repay you!”

Rafael shook his head. “I like helping people, Lyla. But giving exorbitant amounts of money to foundations, churches, and scholarships doesn’t really allow me to see the true help I am giving. I always have to remain anonymous. But now, seeing the joy in Colton’s and Grace’s faces when I am doing this for them…” Rafael shrugged and I caught my breath. He just looked so
angelic
, sitting there with his hair glowing orange and gold in the late-evening sunlight, his eyes so full of innocent pleasure.

“It’s just very rewarding to see their gratitude,” Rafael continued. “It reminds me of why I am here.”

“It seems selfish to want so much,” I confessed. “I worry that with getting such nice things, like cell phones and trendy clothes, we’ll forget about the important things. That we’ll treasure our possessions too much.”

Rafael leaned forward intently. “Lyla, if God came and asked you to give up everything you had and follow Him, or if it was a choice between keeping your things and keeping Colton and Grace safe, what would you do?”

“Give up everything,” I said immediately. “I wouldn’t even have to think about it.”

“There you have it,” Rafael said simply. “It doesn’t matter what or how much we have in our lives, Lyla. All God cares about is how attached we are to it, and if we use it to serve Him. You could be the poorest person in the world, and only have one possession, but if you are too attached to that one thing so that you would never give it up for anyone or anything, then you will not set foot in God’s kingdom.”

I felt an enormous sense of relief at his words, because he was right. Wasn’t it not how much money a person had, but what they did with it that mattered? I looked speculatively at Rafael.

“You must have donated millions of dollars to charity by now,” I guessed.

Rafael grinned. “I can sign ‘anonymous’ better than my own name,” he laughed. “I’ve lost track of how many houses for the homeless I’ve built. Superior strength can really come in handy.”

I shook my head, ready to ask more of my endless questions, but Rafael stood with our trash tray in his hands.

“It’s getting late,” he said. “We’d better get all of you home.”

I looked at my phone and realized with a start that it was already eight o’clock, just as a sweaty Colton approached, followed by an exhausted Grace. “Let’s get going,” I said hastily. I scooped Grace up in my arms, berating myself for being so thoughtless.

We rode home in comfortable silence, carefully putting Colton and Grace to bed and quietly bringing in our dozens of bags. Once done, sitting at the kitchen table with my textbooks, I studied Rafael. He moved about the kitchen with easy familiarity, cleaning up the mess my parents had left behind from their evening meal. I watched his back, wondering.

“Can I see them?” I blurted, before I could think better of it.

Rafael turned to me in surprise. “See what?”

I blushed, feeling nervous around him for the first time in weeks. “Your wings. Can I see them?”

Rafael studied me for a long moment and then set the sponge he had been holding down on the counter. Slowly, he removed his black leather jacket, and I realized with a start that it was the first time I had ever seen him do so. My breath caught when I saw the two gaping holes cut into the back of his black t-shirt, from his shoulder blades down to the small of his back. And then he unfurled them. Slowly at first, just the edges poking through the holes, and then they seemed to grow endlessly as they stretched farther and farther out. They seemed to fill the whole kitchen, even though they were bent at the middle, long fore-feathers just brushing the floor.

They were magnificent.
Wings
. Each one was almost six feet long, a twelve-foot wingspan. Again I was reminded of a hawk by their length and narrow width. Even his plumage – was that even the right word? – was bird-like, a mottled array of black, copper, dark and light brown, and gold. If they caught the light just right, the gold and copper bits shimmered and glittered as though they were real metal. It was so beautiful that I reached out a hand to touch, and then pulled it away quickly.

“It’s all right,” Rafael said, and he turned around in a quick second, his wings tucking in closer to him so he didn’t knock anything over. I blinked against the sudden breeze they created in the small room.

“You, you can touch them,” he told me gruffly. The wings spread out a little bit again, as if they had a life of their own. With every breath Rafael took, they rose and fell delicately along with his chest, ethereal and majestically graceful.

I lifted my hand again and hesitantly stroked along the top of one thin boned wing. It was the softest thing I had ever felt, softer even than all the hundred-dollar sweaters Rafael had bought for me just that day. I stroked him again, and then stopped.

Rafael opened his eyes and looked down at me. “What’s wrong?”

I felt myself blushing again. “It’s like I’m petting you,” I explained. “I don’t want you to feel like a, a dog or something.”

A smile crept slowly over his features. “It’s all right,” he told me. “It, it feels good, actually. No one has ever touched them before.”

I ducked under one wing – his
wing
, I kept thinking incredulously – to stand behind him and study his back. “Why don’t your wings bulge out under your shirt? They’re so big.”

Rafael’s wings lowered completely and fell to the floor, putting me to mind of a bird dragging a broken wing along the ground. “Our bodies are different from yours,” he explained. “Our backs have indents, hallows, almost. It allows our wings to lie flat. With clothes on, you would never guess they were there.”

“I never did, in all our time together,” I commented softly. “Do you rip holes in all your shirts?”

I could hear the grin in his voice as he replied, “No, not all. It is easier to cut holes in them, however, as opposed to ripping the whole shirt off when you need to act fast. Our wings are very strong, stronger than they look.”

I watched in awe as he lifted them up once more and they sparkled in the light.

“Lyla?”

I whipped around sharply, only to see a tousle-haired Grace standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. A breeze hit me and I scanned the kitchen, but Rafael was already gone.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, stepping over to scoop Grace up in my arms and carry her to the bedroom.

Grace looked up at me with her innocent, china-doll blue eyes. “Were you talking to an angel?”

My mind raced. She was young and clearly half asleep. “What angel? I was talking to myself.”

“There was an angel in the kitchen,” Grace murmured as I set her on the bed and she burrowed under the comforter. “It must have been your guardian angel.”

I smiled to myself, pushing her silky curls off her forehead. Rafael, my guardian angel. I rather liked that idea. “Maybe it was,” I whispered.

I waited anxiously the next morning to see if Grace would remember seeing the ‘angel’ in the kitchen the night before, but she was much too distracted, or had just been too sleepy to remember. Upon waking up and peeking into my parents’ bedroom, I discovered both of them were already gone for the day and so the house was ours. These were my favorite mornings, when we could have fun. We screamed songs aloud as we cooked and ate our breakfast, jumped on the couch and ran around the house yelling, usually with blankets for superhero capes.

Today was no exception, except we had the added excitement of our new uniforms. Colton picked one of his six pairs of shoes to wear, and I fought away tears when I saw Grace pull on her Hello Kitty knee socks all on her own, without a word of complaint. No, the only assistance needed on my part was to fasten her shiny Hannah Montana necklace and help Colton unsnarl the laces of his new Nikes.

I had just carefully laid out my crisp new jumper, collared white shirt, leather flats, and a long gold chain necklace with a gem-studded butterfly at the end when my phone buzzed. It was from Natalie, our brief fight from yesterday already forgotten.

Mom didn’t do whites
again
, breaking the dress code, I’m so going to end up in detention. Greattttt.

My fingers hovered hesitantly over the keypad as I debated my idea. Then, I went for it. Bypassing the collared shirt, I pulled on a plain white t-shirt, followed by my green, white, and navy plaid jumper, and a navy cardigan. Then I texted Natalie back.

I’ll break it with you if you’ll help me after school today. It’ll take like five minutes, promise.

Her reply was instantaneous,
Sure
.

I threw the phone in my new purse and grabbed it, along with my new backpack, before ushering Colton and Grace out the bedroom door. A quick glance behind me showed that the room was in violent disarray: shopping bags, clothes, shoes, and other miscellaneous items were scattered over every surface, carpeting the floor. I hadn’t had time to put anything away last night, and we were already running a little late, thanks to playing around so much. I would have to clean later tonight, I thought regretfully, closing and locking the door tightly so our parents wouldn’t see the mess.

“Come on, let’s go, go, go!” I urged, and we all spilled out the front door in a tornado of plaid, only to stop short when we saw the Hummer sitting in the driveway.

With a gleeful yell, Colton and Grace ran to the back doors as I hopped in the passenger seat. I grinned at Rafael as I fastened my seatbelt.

“We’re going to get fat if you keep driving us around like this,” I told him.

He backed easily out of the driveway, his eyes hidden behind his dark sunglasses. At the sight of them, I pulled out my own to guard against the blinding morning sunlight.

“I think all of you could use some meat on your bones,” he drawled.