Broken Wings: Genesis (11 page)

“What did you do to me?” His face
was puzzled. He kept looking down at his body, examining it.

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “This is
my
turn. You don’t get to show up at my doorstep and get everything
without giving something back in return.”

“Isn’t that what you do?” His look
was unreadable, but I was definitely his focus now.

“What do you mean?” I pulled a
glass out of my cupboard and filled it with cold, filtered tap water. At the
last minute, I thought to offer him some. “Water?”

He nodded. “You know what I mean,
don’t be obtuse. You give of yourself to help everyone else around you without
thought or consideration for yourself or your own well being.”

I frowned, bringing two glasses of
water out from the kitchen and handed one to him. “I don’t know. I’m pretty
selfish.”

“No, you might be careful,
guarded, unwilling to share your emotions, impatient with politics, and certainly
not worried about stepping on the feelings of other when you need to get
something important done. But selfish? I don’t think so.”

I stared at him over the rim of my
glass. The protective barrier that kept the world out was sliding into place.
Where did this guy get off thinking he knew me so well? The fact that he was
far too correct for my comfort zone was irrelevant. Or at least, that what’s I
was trying to tell myself.

I held the glass between my
fingers and looked into the water for focus. When I met his eyes again, my
shields were in place, and the emotion gone from my face. He was definitely
right about that part. I didn’t like to share my “emotional self” with anyone.

“So––what? Are you going to spend
time convincing me you know all of this because of a past life together? As
angels?” It was laughable, but I wasn’t particularly amused. “People
do
change, you know. Isn’t that what reincarnation is supposed to be all about?”

“You haven’t changed at all.”

“So this other place in the
dreamscape––with Yggdrasil. Was that another supposed past life experience
together?”

“No.” He looked away. “I don’t
know what that was.”

My eyes narrowed. That last part
had been a lie. It was obvious. But if he had such a hard time lying, then he
obviously believed the other. I leaned across him to put my glass on the table
in front of the couch.

His hand reached out to take my
wrist. He turned it over, closely examining the marks that were just beginning
to show from the dream stalker’s attack. Without letting go of my wrist, he
looked up to meet my eyes. His were full of concern. His other hand came up to
touch my cheek and then gently tip my head back. Gentle, probing fingers
caressed the place at my throat where Black Wolf had tried to choke me. I
flinched, but not because it hurt. My reaction was to the gentleness of his
touch. I could deal with pain.

“Humans never cease to amaze me,
with their capacity to inflict pain upon others.”

“And you’re not human?” My head
moved back to look him in the eye. His hand fell away from my throat.

“No, I––” His eyebrows came
together, furrowing his brow. He looked confused, and then panicked. His hand
dropped away as though the touch burned him. “What have you done?”

“What––?” It was my turn to be
confused. I didn’t get it.

Ke was touching his body, poking,
probing. He turned frantic eyes to me––almost angry eyes.

“What did you do to me?” The words
came out as a harsh demand for an answer.

“I––I don’t know.” Wow, this guy
was tweaked. “I healed you while you were sleeping?”

“How?” He grabbed for me, but I
was too quick for him.

“I don’t know!” My words came out
as a shout. “I just did what that woman in the dreamscape did. I pulled the
pieces of the two separate energies together and combined them into a single
weave.”

His face went white. “Undo it.”

I was shaking my head.

“Undo it.” His voice was stronger,
rising to a level of barely controlled hysteria.

“I can’t. I don’t know how I did
it in the first place.”

My words to a while to register.
He stared at me, begging me with his eyes to tell him that I was lying. I saw
when he finally realized that I was telling the truth. His composure crumpled
and he sank back into the couch, with the look of someone who had gone into
deep shock.

“Yesh, is everything okay?” Chaz
was stumbling out of his bedroom, his voice groggy from just waking.

“Evidently not.”

“What––?”

“I don’t know, kid. Mr. Gratitude
here doesn’t seem to like the way I healed him.”

Chaz raised his eyebrows with
question.

“You don’t understand.” Ke said in
a voice soft with shock.

“No, I don’t. So maybe you should
clue me in.”

He didn’t respond. I’d had enough.

“Fine. Whatever. Tell me. Don’t
tell me. I need a shower to wash the slime off me.”

Chaz had come closer and was just
noticing the marks on my neck and wrists. From the heat on my face, I was
betting there was a good red mark there, too. “Yesh–”

“Dream stalker. Caught me off
guard. I’m hitting the shower.”

“But––”

I kept walking.

“You have doomed us all.” Ke’s
voice made me pause, but I was too pissed to deal with him right now. I liked
him better when he was unconscious.

“Whatever you say, pal.” I stepped
into the bathroom, calling back before I closed the door, “It would be great if
there were some coffee ready when I’m done.”

I don’t ask for a lot out of life.
Some alone time, good coffee, and a hot shower––it all works for me. But what I
really want is for people to stay out of my way and let me do my job. It was
what I knew, and I was good at it.

If Ke hadn’t gotten in my way, I
wouldn’t be scrubbing my skin raw trying to get off the feeling of layered
slime, tenderly probing bruises along the way. The dream stalker had gotten me,
but good. The bruises on my wrists, the marks on my neck from his choking
fingers, bruised teeth marks above my right breast, and almost a perfect
blackened handprint on my inner left thigh. The slap to my face still tingled,
but I didn’t think it was going to leave a mark.

Okay, so maybe Ke had stopped him
from doing worse. I was grudging with the admission. But if I hadn’t expended
all that energy to help someone who didn’t seem to want it anyway, I would’ve
remembered to shield myself like a good little tracker should. That improved my
mood. I could put the blame back on him.

I didn’t understand what the big
deal was. It was one of the most incredible pieces of healing work I’d ever
done. I guess what they say is true. Pride goeth before the fall. I decide to
take a little pride in what I thought was a major achievement, and I get the
rug yanked out from under me.

My body still didn’t feel near to
clean enough, but the hot water was starting to lose its sting. Since I wasn’t
in it for the cold shower, it was time to get out. The length of my hair was
towel-dried and left to hang while I wrapped another towel around me and tucked
it tight.

I went straight to the bedroom
without bothering to look in the living room. Not yet. When I was ready, I’d
meet them on my own terms. I was done playing around. I grabbed my big,
over-sized robe and threw it on, belting it snug at the waist.

Barefoot, belted and with wet
hair, I walked out. Chaz was on the couch where I’d sat earlier. It didn’t look
as though Ke had moved. I was still trying to grasp what the deal was with him,
and I planned to find out.

I followed the aroma of brewing
coffee to the kitchen area and helped myself. Chaz had set out the sugar and
creamer. Smart kid. After diluting it with enough sugar and creamer to leave
only a residual bitterness that still marked it as coffee, I went and sat
across from the couch in a big chair, curling my feet up under me. I took my
time staring at Ke over my coffee. After a while, I set it off to the side and
folded my hands in my lap.

“Okay, angel boy, start talking.”

Ke raised his eyebrows at my
flippancy. “And where would you have me start? With the overall picture?
There’s too much to even begin to comprehend. With the angels and the role you
played? You don’t believe me anyway. How about the part where you brought doom
to us all?”

Good. At least he wasn’t in shock
any more. I didn’t have to be so gentle with him.

“How about the overall picture
part? You can segway into the part about angels and leave the doom thing for
last.”

Chaz heard the sarcastic
irritation in my voice. “Maybe if you agreed to listen with an open mind, he
wouldn’t have such a hard time telling you what’s going on. He’s tried before
and you shut him down.”

My lips curved into a mocking
smile. It was directed at myself, but I’d let them take it however they wanted
to. The kid was calling me to task on my behavior for the second time in two
days. Good for him.

“Fair enough.” My head tipped in
acknowledgement. “I will listen with an open mind to what you have to say. I
can’t promise I’ll accept it, but I will listen.”

Ke nodded. “It’s a start.”

He was quiet for a while. I took
another sip of coffee and set the cup back down. “So go ahead––start.”

“Yesh––”

“Fine.”

Ke shifted in his seat and looked
at the ceiling. “There is a balance between light and darkness in this world.
It has been that way since the beginning of creation.”

“Okay.”

“But light and darkness doesn’t
have so much to do with perceptions of good and evil, as they do with letting
things happen in the natural order, or whether you choose to force things to
happen because you want them to.”

I held back a sigh. This was going
to take a while.

“Most of your stories handed down
through the ages have a grain of truth to them. This is particularly true of
your religious stories and texts.”

No kidding. I knew this part.

“As with any story that is passed
along, it changes from telling to telling until the end result only holds a
grain of the original truth, altered by the perception of whomever was telling
the story at the time.”

“I’m with you so far.” And I was.
He had said nothing yet I didn’t already know, and most of which I’d had
firsthand experience with.

“Even the texts that define most
of your major religions were written by men, mortals, long after the telling of
the stories had been diluted through the years.”

“Like the angels in the Bible.” I
saw where he was going with this, and wanted to move it along into territory
not so familiar. A thought occurred to me while he was speaking. Why was I
having such a hard time accepting the whole angel concept, when I dealt with
ancient gods in the form of immortals such as Morpheus on a regular basis?

“Yes.”

“So they are just stories.”

“Yes––no.” He found, as he tried
to regain the focus I had interrupted.

“They are stories with a grain of
truth to them.” I offered to get him back on track.

“Yes. Even more so than you might
think.” He took his eyes from the ceiling and looked directly at me. “You can
tap into the energy of the web, so you know what it is?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “It’s the
seemingly empty space, filled with energy, that surrounds the physical.”

Ke shook his head. “Not quite. The
energy web is the physical, the non-physical and everything in-between.”

I shrugged. “Okay, I can see
that.”

His look became intent. “Do you?
It is a very important point for you to understand. Physical existence isn’t
just created from the web. Physical existence
is
the web––but separate
from it.”

I thought about it for a moment
and then sighed. “Yes. I get it. I also get that this is going to be drawn out
way too long.”

His frustration was almost
tangible in the air. “Mortals don’t understand the true meaning of
too long
.”

I was irritated. “Okay. You
brought it up. Back to that mortal thing. I thought that angels didn’t have
physical form. Yet here you are, claiming to be an angel. You feel pretty solid
to me. Are you like the other immortals?”

“Angels don’t have physical form.
They are pure energy tied directly into the web. But they can
possess
physical form.”

I heard the emphasis and my face
went blank, my voice flat. “Like demon possession.

“It’s the same thing, except we do
not force possession, we are usually invited into a human host.”

My eyes narrowed. “But that’s not
what happened in your case, is it? You
forced
possession and that’s what
was going on when you came here. The human host was
rejecting
you.”

“Yes.” He couldn’t meet my eyes.

It took me a moment. Maybe I
hadn’t had enough coffee yet. But it finally clicked.

“I tied you to the human host on a
more permanent level.” I had to laugh at the irony.

“Yes.” He was not only unhappy––he
was
very
grumpy about it.

“So you are an immortal being trapped
inside a mortal body. It serves you right.”

“Yeshua––”

I held up a hand. “No, Chaz. Not
this time. All this talk about darkness and light, letting things happen
naturally or forcing them to be the way you want them to. Everyone has revered
the angels and cursed the demons in religions throughout the centuries. So if
this guy really
is
an angel, then it makes the supposed good guys no
better than the bad guys.”

“You don’t know what you are
talking about.”

“Oh don’t I?” My feet came out
from under me and I leaned forward in the chair, my hands gripping the armrests
on either side. “I’ve been fighting the likes of you for years. You all think
you’re so superior to us
mortals
, as you so condescendingly choose to
call us. But if we are so damned inferior, why do you choose to possess our
bodies, or control our actions? There must be something we have and you don’t,
and it just chaps your ass.”