The Kiss of Angels (Divine Vampires Book 2) (3 page)

It was just that, sometimes, I really
wanted
to know. 

Humans were strange, interesting creatures. 

“Muriel, we’ve got to go.” Jari nudged me out of my reverie. 

I was watching the man, John, double back toward the store.  He’d already purchased his items, but he’d forgotten something else.  And more importantly, he was now connected to Rachel and felt compelled, for some reason completely unknown to him, to stay connected to her. 

“I know, I heard.” I checked my supply of arrows out of habit. 

The Maker
had another job for us.  The calls came in instantly.  They weren’t so much messages or instructions as they were images.  In one instant,
The Maker
transmitted a complete picture to us without any words at all.  We knew who, what, where and how we were to complete our next mission.  But never the why. 

“Muriel!” Jari shook me hard.  “Did you see?” 

“See what?” I wasn’t interested in our next mission, not yet.  We had time.  I wanted to see what was going to happen with Rachel and John.

“Our next target,” Jari exclaimed.  She lowered her voice, as if any of the humans moving around the parking lot below us could possibly hear her. 
“He’s got a black soul.”

“Jari, that’s an impossible shot.” Muriel lowered her arrow, shaking her head in disbelief.  “There’s no way to make that shot.”

“There’s no such thing.” Jari snorted and rolled her eyes.  “Don’t you see that little bit of light in the center? Aim for that.”

Muriel blinked, squinting, shaking her head again to clear it.  She couldn’t, for the life of her, find what Jari was talking about in the man’s soul.  It was as black as night.  She’d seen souls that were dark before, had sent arrows through some badly bruised ones, with colors that reflected the ocean’s depths, the deepest blues, the darkest wines—crushed grapes and crushed dreams.  But she’d never seen a soul as dark as this, so opaque, hanging over the man’s head like an ebony cloud. 

The woman leaned over him, smoothing his dark hair away from his stubbly cheek, three days growth of beard there, dark tinged with gray.  Her soul was a deep, golden amber color, an easy enough target.  It was his impossibly black soul that made Muriel hesitate.  She’d never doubted her skills before, ever.  Jari prided herself on her marksmanship, but Muriel could outshoot her at a thousand yards, and they both knew it.  Muriel had always been a natural.  She didn’t practice much because she really didn’t have to. 

She shot intuitively.  She just
knew
when she had aimed her arrow true. 

But this… impossible.  His soul hung over the man’s head like a storm cloud, a weight.  He moaned, eyes closed but moving underneath the lids.  The woman leaned in and touched a water-filled sponge to his lips, wetting them.  Her name was Elizabeth—the man in the bed knew her as Eliza.  His name was Norman. 

The Maker
had sent everything they needed to know, as usual, in one image.  She knew everything about them she needed to know—and far more about Norman than she wanted to.  Muriel had seen souls change colors in an instant—from silver to red, from gold to purple—triggered by some horrible, precipitating event, but that didn’t happen often.  Usually, souls darkened over time.  Like flesh, the soul was subject to injury, and if it was battered enough by life’s inevitable turmoil, it showed painful wear. 

This man’s soul hadn’t changed suddenly, although many of the events that had occurred in his forty-two years would have broken many, Muriel thought, as she watched Eliza wring water from a washcloth and place it on his forehead.  These two had loved once before.  Muriel hadn’t been the one to join them, but whatever golden thread had once bound the couple had snapped long ago. 

“Sarrr…” Norman spoke, but the word or words weren’t clear.  His eyelids fluttered and Muriel wondered if he was waking. 

“Shhh.” Eliza soothed him, taking his hand in hers.  “Sarah’s gone.  She’s gone.”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears and she let them fall, lowering her dark head.

Muriel knew that Sarah was the daughter they’d had together.  She’d been twenty when she’d died.  A frat party, far too much to drink, so much the amount of alcohol in her blood had killed her.  Like father, like daughter.  Norman cried out again in his sleep, something sibilant, probably his daughter’s name again.  That incident alone might have broken some men, but Norman was well on his way over that cliff before his daughter had died.  His divorce when his daughter was just five had been followed by years of alcoholism, a stint in prison for eight years for breaking and entering, and most of his last few years spent homeless.  This was the first bed the man had been in for months, and he would likely die in it. 

Muriel had heard of black souls, but in eons spent working as a cherubim, she had never seen one for herself.  They were that rare.  She had expected to find a man whose history reflected the darkness of his soul, an evil man who had done evil things.  Who she saw was a man whose life had unraveled slowly over time, a man who had been beaten down so far there was simply no light left.  He wasn’t evil, he was just horribly, ineffably sad.  Why did one soul manage to keep its light under similar or even worse circumstances, while others grew murky, fading to dusk?

It was a question for
The Maker
, and one Muriel knew she’d never have the answer to. 

Human life could be both joyful and tragic.  Often within moments. 

“Muriel!” Jari jolted her out of her thoughts.  “Are we going to do this or not?” 

Of course they were.  If Muriel could find her target.  The dreadful thought of failing in any task
The Maker
gave her was enough to get her to raise her bow and cock her arrow.  There was simply nothing to aim at. 

“Right in the center!” Jari prompted from the other side of the man’s hospital bed.  “It’s a pinprick, but it’s there.  I swear it.”

“I don’t…” Muriel murmured, the bow shaking in her hands.  She hadn’t been this nervous drawing her bow since she’d faced Jari across the Nile when Cleopatra had met Marc Antony. 

“Close your eyes.” The words came from behind her—most definitely not
The Maker
—although when Muriel looked, she didn’t see anyone.  “Just close your eyes.  You’ll find your mark.”

“Muriel!” Jari again, impatient.  “Let’s do this thing!”

She glanced behind her once more, looking for the source of the voice, but there was just darkness.  The room was dim except for a small fluorescent light over the bed.  She supposed there could have been someone hidden in the shadows, but humans couldn’t see angels, and if it was another cherubim, she would have known in an instant. 

Maybe I’m losing it. 
Muriel frowned at nothing, turning back toward her target, trying to focus.  For a moment, she thought she saw a glimmer of something in the man’s soul, a pinhole of light.  She raised her bow, glancing over at Jari, whose hands were perfectly steady.

“Ready?” Jari asked. 

“I don’t know.” Muriel’s voice shook.  Maybe it was time for Jari to find a new partner and for her to retire to a desk job.  Something in the administration on the Fey Advisory Board, perhaps. 

“Close your eyes.” The voice was closer now, right behind her.  She could have sworn she felt the warmth of a presence.  “You can do it.”

She took a deep breath and did exactly what the voice told her to do.  She closed her eyes.  It was crazy advice, wherever it had come from, but she intuitively knew it was right. 

“What are you doing?” Jari called. 

“Just tell me when.” Muriel definitely felt someone behind her now, but she didn’t move or open her eyes.  She felt a warmth in her hands, touching the bow.  She raised it and aimed, not with her eyes, but with something else altogether.  She pictured the man in the bed, the woman beside him.  There was only a pinprick of a chance she was going to make this shot, even with her eyes open. 

“Are you serious?” Jari snorted. 

“On three.” Muriel shifted her weight, still feeling that presence behind her.  Strange.  It was comforting, calming.  Her hands weren’t shaking anymore at all.  “One… two…”

“Three.” The voice behind her whispered.  She felt a brush of breath on her cheek, light as a feather. 

“Three,” she said, letting her arrow fly. 

She opened her eyes to fireworks. 

It never failed to thrill her, that moment when two people connected for the first time.  She’d watched hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people fall in love through the ages, and still, it moved her.  Jari didn’t pay attention anymore to the human emotion, the result of her marksmanship.  She was always far more interested in hitting her target, and this case was no exception.

“Bullseye!” Jari cheered, her wings buzzing with excitement.  She was actually turning in circles like a dervish, whooping the whole time, so proud that she’d made the shot.  Muriel was already anticipating the bragging that would go on later when they were gathered for practice at the archery range.  Not many cherubim, none that she knew of, could claim they’d ever hit the center of a pure black soul with their arrow.  She supposed bragging rights were in order. 

Of course, the humans in the room had no idea an angel was cavorting just a few feet away over what she’d done to them.  They had no idea that, when Norman’s eyes fluttered open and settled on his ex-wife’s face, a spark was kindled that lit them both from the inside.  Muriel watched those fireworks with the light reflected in her eyes, a warmth spreading through her as the thread that now connected them began to braid itself organically, with no prompting at all.

And the two humans hadn’t even spoken to each other.  Just their eyes met, but Muriel sensed a million things being said in the silence. 

“How in the world did you make that shot with your eyes closed?” Jari had stopped celebrating long enough to glance over the bed at her. 

“I don’t know.” Muriel blinked, remembering the voice and looking behind her again. 

Nothing. 

But somehow that invisible presence was still there. 

“Well come on, let’s go!” Jari flew toward the door, slinging her bow and quiver.  “I can’t wait to tell everyone.  A black soul, Muriel! And you hit it
with your eyes closed
!”

Muriel looked at the black soul in question.  It hung over the man’s head, still dark, but not quite black.  She thought she saw a tinge of red in it now, like heart’s blood.  It reminded her of a dark placenta, with a golden, twisting umbilicus, as if the man was somehow being reborn. 

The two were talking now, in hushed tones, connecting—reconnecting.  They had been down this road before.  There had been love there, and the arrows she and Jari had let loose had just tethered them once again, rekindling something remembered. 

“Muriel!” Jari turned back at the door, exasperated.  “Come on!”

“I’m going to stay a minute.” Muriel hovered, leaning closer to the couple, wanting to catch their whispered words. 

“Whyyyy?” Jari drew the word out, almost a whine.  Muriel knew she wanted to get back, eager to start telling everyone about the amazing shot they’d made, ready to make them into legend, if she possibly could.  And Muriel also knew Jari only wanted her there to back up her tale. 

But Muriel was more interested in Norman and Eliza and how this was all going to progress.  Besides,
The Maker
hadn’t sent them another call, and until they got one, Muriel wasn’t obligated to be anywhere.  Even practice was optional. 

“Go on, Jari.” Muriel waved her away.  “I’ll be along soon.”

“Don’t be
too
long.” Jari sighed, her wings drooping.  Muriel had done this enough that Jari knew when she was beat. 

She didn’t really pay close attention, but she sensed when Jari had gone.  Muriel hovered over the hospital bed, watching the couple, fascinated by the way the man’s soul had begun to change. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Muriel whirled around at the sound of the voice, determined to be fast enough to catch the source this time, and she was. 

“Who are you?” she demanded, bringing herself up to her full height—her wings gave her a little extra—but she was only about half the seraphim’s size.  How in the world had she missed him? She had only ever encountered a dozen or so seraphim before, and had never had one speak to her.