Broken Wings: Genesis (25 page)

“I can’t believe you pegged
Lucifer in the head with an apple, Yesh.”

Chaz was staring at me, shaking
his head in disbelief. Now that I had time to think about it, I couldn’t
believe I had done it either. What had I been thinking?

I shrugged, trying not to let any
of my discomfort show. “What’s done is done, kid. That’s what I get for being
impulsive.”

“I wonder if Father David is going
to turn white, or if he’s going to laugh?”

I laughed. “The church should pin
a medal on me for that one.”

The kid giggled. “I can see it
now––Saint Yeshua of the Apple.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not yet.
There’s the little thing of having three miracles under my belt before they’ll
even start to consider a sainthood package.”

Chaz nodded sagely. “Don’t forget
the part about having to be dead first.”

I laughed. “I don’t know, kid.
From everything that’s unfolding, I don’t see it as being too far off.”

“Don’t, Yesh.” He sobered up.
“Don’t think like that.”

I took in the serious look on his
face, and found myself saddened by his support. “Come on, kid. We both have a
clue as to what we’re up against. Don’t go all stupid on me now. I’m a realist.
I know what could happen and probably will. And that’s whether I fall in line
with what the Grigori want, or the angelic host. Either way, there’s a pretty
grim outlook for a limited future.”

He didn’t say anything. What could
he say? He knew the odds as well as I did, and all the wishful thinking in the
world wasn’t going to change that.

“So were you tempted?”

I knew what he meant. “Of course I
was tempted. You know me, always wanting answers. I had the answer to questions
I probably haven’t even asked yet in the palm of my hand––how could I
not
be tempted?”

Chaz nodded. “Did you ever wonder
what it would be like to be normal, Yesh? You know––to not know the things we
know, to not have experienced the darkness the way we have?”

I sighed. “All the time, kid.
Neither of us had the luxury of choice. Both of us were born into this life in
one form or another. Now we just have to figure out what to do with it all.”

A polite knock on the apartment
door before Arianna came bursting through brought an end to our conversation. I
got up to close the door behind her while she fluttered around Chaz, bugging
him. Poor kid. I think Arianna felt as though she had found a new playmate.
Looking at the little cherub, and her child-like exuberance, it was hard to
remember she was actually thousands of years old. Heck, I didn’t get a couple
of years to be a child, so I guess she made the time up for the both of us and
then some.

The indigo light from outside made
me squint a bit while closing the door. I couldn’t get used to the fact that it
opened to the outside instead of my dark hallway. I wanted nothing more than to
shed this realm of the angels and get back to my not so normal life. It wasn’t
going to happen any time soon.

“What’s up, Arianna?” Chaz was
pulling back away from her. Angels never seemed to get that whole personal
space thing, either. It was a bit unnerving.

“Sariel said she was going to give
Yeshua a break. She told me that I could take you to the observatory, if you
wanted to go.”

Her eyes were lit with a pleading
look. Hey, I knew the cherub was a little on the annoying side, but didn’t she
have any other friends to bug? The observatory. It was the place where Arianna
had wanted Ithane to go that fateful day––

“Okay, let’s do it. Show me this
marvelous place you want to share so badly.”

Arianna did a mid-air somersault
that made me smile. Her enthusiasm was certainly contagious. Chaz and I
exchanged amused looks as we followed the cherub out the door.

It only took us a few minutes to
get to the observatory, which was near the center of the city by the Hall of
Thrones. Then again, I don’t know what it was, some sort of odd physics going
on, or whatever, but it seemed to take nothing more than a few minutes to get
to any part of the Crystal
City, no matter where you
started and where you were going.

We stepped inside a building that
was completely black. You couldn’t see anything. While we stood there in the
dark, wondering what to do next, a dim light flooded the floor around us. When
it reached full brightness, I could see forms taking shape from out of the
misty cloud that covered the floor.

As I watched in wonder, those
shaped became planets. When the light show seemed finished, Chaz and I were
standing on an indigo-colored disk, set amidst what appeared to be the galaxy
where the planet Earth was located. At the peripheral edges, the entire
universe stretched out into an infinity of stars, planets, and multiple other
shapes and colors.

“Look!” Arianna smiled at our awe,
pointing to the planet I recognized as Earth.

I peered closer, leaning over to
get a better look. The indigo disk moved toward the planet, as though drawn to
it by my desire to see. If I focused hard on any one particular place, it moved
in closer and I could see the blue and green colors become waters and trees. As
it came closer, the grey-white areas became cities, and then buildings.
Eventually people became distinguishable, down to their facial expressions.

I stood up a little too fast,
disoriented by what I was seeing. “What–?”

“It’s the eyes of the angels.”
Arianna laughed. “Want to check out the rings of Saturn?”

Talk about overwhelming. Arianna
moved the disk with expert control around the galaxy. So this was how the
angels kept track of everything that was going on. I’d always wondered about
the claims the church made. Now I knew. It wasn’t what I had expected.

Another disk came up next to ours
and I saw Ke. The guy seemed to show up wherever I went. It was starting to get
a little weird. I was frustrated by him, and angry with myself for being glad
when he did show up. It always ended up with him walking away and leaving me
alone with a lot of confusion. Yeah, I always managed to pick the real winners.

Arianna came up close to my ear
and whispered, “Why not go with Ke? I will take Chaz on a cruise of the
universe.”

I looked at the cherub with
suspicion. She was trying to look innocent, but I could tell there was more to
his showing up than she was letting on. The little snot was setting us up.

Ke held out a hand to offer
assistance for me to step over to his disk. Arianna took off with Chaz before I
had barely stepped off their disk. As they pulled away, I could hear Chaz
asking questions of the cherub.

“Are there any planets out there
that have alien life on them?”

“Of course.” I heard Arianna’s
fading reply as they sped off. “You cannot possibly believe, with this whole
playground, that Earth is the
only
populated planet in the whole
universe––”

Then they were out of hearing
range. The disk shifted and I fell against Ke. Embarrassed, I pushed away from
him, but he didn’t let me get far. What, another round of sexual tension
torture from this guy? It was getting old in my book.

He was staring down at me with
those golden chocolate eyes, and I wanted to melt into him. Instead, I tried to
gently push away. He still wasn’t letting go.

“The time is coming close.”

For what? For him to finally come
to his senses?

“I can feel the events changing,
the pattern drawing to the point.”

Oh. Duh.
That
time.

“So what does this mean?” I tried
to focus on what he was talking about, even though that was not where my mind
or my body wanted to take me.

“It means that you have to make
your decision soon as to what you are going to do.”

That
brought on a bit of a
panic attack. No pressure there. My mind started working through everything all
at once. It was overwhelming. How could I make this decision? Not only was I
not ready, but I also didn’t want to do it. What if I made the wrong one?

“You will make the right
decision.”

What, was this guy reading my mind
now? “How can you be so certain? What if I choose not to do as the Grigori
want?”

He shrugged. “Things will be as
they will. Whatever decision you make will be the right one.”

“I wish I could be as sure of
myself as you are.”

“I’m not sure of myself.” Ke shook
his head. “I am more sure of you.”

“Why?”

He looked at me for a long time
without saying anything. I was getting a little uneasy under the scrutiny. The
look wasn’t so much longing this time, although I saw that there, too. It was
something different––trust? Belief? It bordered on worship, which frightened me
more than anything else. I was
so
not ready to deal with any of this.

“Because I know you. I know who
you are, I know what you are capable of.”

“I don’t even know what I am
capable of, how can you be so sure?”

“I haven’t waited for you,
searched for you over all these years because I was unsure of you.”

“Why did you search for me? If you
had just let me be, you would never had to deal with the possibility of my
interfering with the plans of the Grigori. Now I am an unknown factor that
could screw up everything you have worked toward all these years.”

The look of longing was back in
his eyes, along with some else. But I didn’t have time to figure out what that
something else was, or maybe he just decided to show me, rather than to waste
time with words. He brought me in, holding me tight to his body while his lips
claimed mine. My senses were reeling under the onslaught of the passion he
threw into that kiss.

All the time I had spent with
Sariel, opening up my energy, tapping into it, didn’t prepare me for this. I
hadn’t shut it down. Now it interwove with his energy, blending and meshing
together in heightened awareness. And boy was I aware. I could feel every ounce
of emotion, every inch of pleasure, not only of my own, but of his as well.
Talk about playing with fire––my body was a raging inferno, hitting heights of
heat I had never experienced before. Even power drunk around the immortals, I
had never reached this feverish level of desire.

Then he stopped, pulling back. I
could see the inner war being waged within him, the struggle between desire and
morality. Why the heck did he have to find that spark of morality in him
now
?

“Please tell me you are not going
to do this to me
again
.” I think it is the closest I have ever come to
begging for something in my entire life. But I could see by the look in his
eyes, the angst displayed so openly, that it would still not get me what my
body was craving right now. I started shutting down before I did something
completely stupid. I was tired of this teasing game.

“Yeshua––”

I pushed away from him and held up
a hand. “Save it. I am done with the game you are playing, Ke. I can’t take it
any more. I won’t take this from you.”

He was hurt. I could see it in his
eyes. Right now, I was beyond caring.

“Get me out of here.” I looked
around, searching for the exit.

Ke’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
The disk started moving, but apparently it didn’t have far to go. I went to
step off, to leave him behind for a change, but he grabbed my arm and held me
back, forcing me to look at him. He had gone into guarded mode, but I could
still feel the residual of heightened energy between us.

“Of all the Grigori, other than
you, there were very few of us that abstained from taking pleasure with human
women. I was one of those few, as were you.”

I looked away from him, not
trusting myself to speak. What did this have to do with anything?

“I abstained because there was
only one I would have shared anything with, and she wouldn’t even do that
much.”

“Ithane.” I made it a statement,
rather than a question. I was pissy enough at this point to let the thought
cross my mind that if Ke had played these kind of games back when Ithane was
around, no wonder she didn’t share that part of herself with him.

“I loved her, Yeshua, beyond
anything else. I––”

“Save it angel boy. I am
not
Ithane.”

“No, you are not. You hold a part
of her, but you are different on many levels. Not so different on others. But
so help me, I find myself feeling the same way about you that I did about her.”

I turned to look him in the eye.
“Really? Is it just because I share a part of her? Or is this something
separate? I’m having a hard time buying all of this, Ke. Now you are claiming
love.” I shrugged. “Okay. So what? I have offered myself over and over again to
you only to be pushef away. What kind of sick, twisted idea of love is that?”

He closed his eyes, but not before
I saw the pain there. I wanted to reach up and soothe it away. But I didn’t. I
wasn’t dealing well with this at all.

“I cannot. You are human. Not only
is it not right, but it is forbidden to the angelic host.”

“You are human now, too. Unless I
can figure out a way to undo those weaves, which I am pretty well failing at,
you will die as a human. What about this is forbidden? Or am I missing
something here?”

“There is the possibility I will
not live out my life as a human. I will not––cannot break that taboo.”

“Is it the free will thing?”

“Yes.”

“But you are feeling that free
will now, aren’t you? That makes you human, and all your words are
meaningless.”

He shook his head. “No. If we were
both in angelic form right now, then I would never have turned you away from
me. But we are not.”

“No.” I frowned. “We are both in
human form. Which makes it no more taboo than the other.”

“But it does, can you not see
that? My body may be human, and pushing me beyond the limitation of very human
desire, but my mind is still that of the angel that I am. I am not truly
human––I am only trapped in a human form. It does not make me any less an angel
that I am.”