Guardian (34 page)

“
Why
?”

Now Damian looked mad. “Because he took away our glory,” he said in a tight, quiet voice. “Our true wings, our radiance, our abilities to truly help people. He gave us these abysmal
pigeon
feathers, and dumped us here to wander for eons.”

I couldn’t help but be surprised by his anger. Rafael had always expressed anger at
himself
, for even following Satan in the first place, but most of Damian’s anger seemed to be directed at God, for not immediately putting the Fallen back in their previous place of glory. And even though I was nervous to, I couldn’t help but point out, “But… you did rebel against Him. Don’t you think that there should be some kind of penance for what you did?”

“Not
two thousand years
of aimless wandering,” Damian shot back. “I never would have expected it to take so long for Him to come.”

“You mean you don’t have any idea of when He’s going to come back for you?”
“Of course not. No one is privy to that information. But this has gotten to the point where it’s a little extreme. Don’t you think after two thousand years God would just admit we were here long enough and take us back? Instead we’re here still, little better than animals.”

“You… don’t sound too happy about all this,” I said slowly. I had never heard any of the Fallen upset about the way they had been given a chance at heaven, only constantly worrying about wasting it. Damian’s views on the subject were quite different from everything I had heard so far. “If you feel so strongly that you’ve been . . . cheated, what keeps you here? From going back?” The idea that Damian was on the edge of returning to Satan frightened me a little, but I couldn’t keep back a morbid sense of curiosity as well.

“Meeting people like you.” Now his voice was soft, and he looked at me with the same kind of piercing gaze that Rafael always used, the one that made me feel as though my soul was bared open for all the world to see. “What
is
it, Lyla? How can you be so sure He even cares? Why such a strong pillar of faith?”

I looked down at the table and traced a long scratch in the wood, shrugging my shoulders. It seemed to be my go-to reply when Damian and I talked. I wasn’t sure how to explain myself. “I just…
feel
that He is there,” I said quietly. “I can’t claim to have seen Him or anything truly miraculous, except that I’m alive, despite how ugly and dangerous my life appears to be. I will always feel protected by Him. Look around. With one glance, you can see how bad our life is, how bad it
should
be. Compare Colton, Grace, and me to any number of kids in the same situation, and you’ll see that they’re failing out of school or stealing or turning out just like their parents. But we aren’t. And I firmly believe it’s because God is watching over us, because of our faith in Him.”

Damian shook his head. “But look at all He’s taken from you-”

“That’s not how it works,” I interrupted. “Look at all He’s
given
me, Damian. Colton and Grace, so I’m not in this alone. A good school and friends who support me, a church community that helps my faith thrive, and
you
. You and Rafael and the rest of the Fallen. God sent me a group of people that can help me like no one else. In the past three months, I have done more, seen more,
lived
more than I ever have in the past seventeen years. I’ve been able to do things with Colton and Grace that I never dreamed of. I am wearing jeans that cost
two hundred dollars
, and yet when school started, I was in a dirty pawn shop selling household items to pay an electric bill that cost half that. Look how He has blessed me.”

“What if we leave?” Damian asked, and my stomach dropped down to my toes, though I did my best to hide it. “And why did it take so long for Him to do anything about your situation? So many close calls with your family, you’d think He would find a way to save you, with your great faith, when so many others of no faith are saved every day. I’ve seen it happen. You can’t deny that.”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat, the one that always appeared at the thought of Rafael leaving me, the prospect of never seeing him again, ever. “If Rafael leaves, do you really think he’ll leave me destitute, in a dangerous situation? You’ve known him, well, forever. That’s not how he is.”

“True,” Damian said, fighting a smile despite his grumbling tone. “You’d end up in a penthouse apartment in the Arena District, being privately chauffeured to school every day.”

“And whether I would take him up on it or not is a completely different story,” I said lightly. “As for your other question, I don’t know why it took Him so long. But I do know faith isn’t about questioning
why
God isn’t doing what you want. It’s about
trusting
that He knows best. Time and again He has tested people, sometimes even promised them things and made them wait for those things for hundreds of years, but the truly wonderful thing about God is that He
always
kept his promises. He
always
rewarded the people who had faith in Him, who put Him above all others. That is why my faith is so strong, why I believe in Him without doubts, and why,” I leaned forward, waiting until he met my eyes, “why I know He’ll keep his promise to the Fallen.”

For a long moment, Damian held my gaze. His liquid eyes were conflicted, I could tell he
wanted
to believe in what I was telling him, but something within him was preventing it. And then the moment was over, and he was looking over the table scattered with books. His usual nonchalance was back in place.

“And I suppose all the evidence for all of this is in your wonderful history book, here?” he asked, reaching for the pocket New Testament Bible I carried to school for religion class.

I had opened my mouth to reply just as Damian’s hand made contact with the cover of the Bible, and once he touched it, there was a loud
hiss
ing noise and Damian jerked his hand back with a yelp of pain. I barely contained a scream as I saw the palm of his hand was red and raw, several layers of skin burned clean off down to the bone. Even so, I jumped up with a gasp of shock, knocking my chair to the floor behind me.

Damian let out some ferocious expletives that seemed to be in ancient Hebrew, which of course I couldn’t understand, but I got the general gist, clutching his wrist as he half-stood. Then he smiled grimly at me, his voice tinted with an edge of pain and oddly formal. “This Bible wouldn’t happen to be blessed, by any chance, would it?”

I was staring at his hand, which had almost been burned clear down to the bone, but now was healing, as though an actual healing wound had been videotaped and was fast-forwarding before my eyes. Slowly, the edges of real skin began to creep inward over the burned parts. The middle, where the deepest of the burn was, had already begun to scab.

“Wha-what?” I asked, horrified and entranced all at once.

“Your Bible, Lyla. Did you have it blessed? By a priest of the Catholic variety?”

I was finally able to jerk my eyes back up to Damian’s face, to comprehend his question. “Y-yes,” I stammered. “My other one isn’t, I don’t think, but I had that one at school one time and they had priests in the cafeteria and, and why did it
do
that? Did the
Bible-
” Suddenly I remembered one of the early talks with Rafael about the Fallen, and the details of their punishment. Dying if they set foot on holy ground, no consecrated bread or wine, no touching of blessed objects.
Blessed objects are like a heated brand
, he had told me.

“Yes, the Bible is responsible,” Damian confirmed, and clenched his fist and then opened it once more. The burn, I saw, was completely healed and gone. I shivered, unnerved. “Now you see why we have a certain, well,
aversion
to things like Bibles and praying. It’s a bit of a heated subject.”

Damian was smiling, inviting me to join in on the joke, but I was struck with surprise once again. “You don’t read the Bible, either?” I asked, shocked.

He waved a hand toward the books on the table. “How can we? Do you know how many Bibles in the world are blessed? Or only sold on ground that has been blessed? It’s sort of common practice for a Christian bookstore or shop to have their premises prayed over by a priest or minister. Sure, if we
really
wanted to, we could obtain one, but after the first couple hundred years of
this
,” he waved his hand, the one that had been burned, “happening nine times out of ten, you get tired of it and just stop trying.”

“So,” I said slowly, wondering if I finally had all the parts of the story, all the puzzles that made Rafael doubt when he should be so strong, “the Fallen, in your flock, at least, don’t pray. They don’t read the Bible. You don’t
talk
to God, tell him about your day, your worries. How do you have a connection with Him?”

“We don’t,” Damian said simply.

Damian left soon after, and as I was picking up around the kitchen in preparation for my parents’ homecoming that evening, I found a feather on the floor. It was nearly a foot long, black as midnight, so dark it almost shone blue in the light. I knew without a doubt it was Damian’s, and brushed it gently against my cheek. I’d never felt anything so soft, except for Rafael’s own wings, the one night he had let me touch them. Carefully, I carried the feather to my room and set it on my dresser, unable to toss out something so beautiful.

As prearranged, Damian arrived at three o’clock on Saturday to take us to the mall, with Rachel and Naomi in tow. The six of us piled into the Saab, which was roomier than Damian’s flashy coupe, and headed off to Easton mall. I suddenly realized on the way there that I hadn’t even batted an eyelash at Damian’s offer to buy me what would undoubtedly be a very expensive dress. It seemed Rafael’s urges to just accept generosity when it was offered were finally sinking in.

At the thought of Rafael, my throat got tight and I had to stare out the window and blink rapidly to keep my eyes from welling up. I hadn’t seen Rafael all week, hadn’t even spoken to him. The lone text I’d sent on Thursday,
Are you all right?
had been replied with a very curt,
I’m fine
. It had seemed so abrupt and un-Rafael like that it had made me flush with shame, and then anger, and then sadness. But I had comforted myself with the thought that he
had
answered. Damian had driven us to school once, but the other two times we had walked. Both times I had gotten the familiar feeling of being watched, and so I tried to take comfort in the thought of Rafael being there, even if he didn’t feel like talking to me.

We went straight into the store where I’d gotten my Halloween dress and hit the racks. Just like Rafael during our first shopping excursion, Damian also proved to have an excellent sense of style. I muttered how shocking this was for two men who never wore anything except jeans and leather jackets, which caused Damian to double over laughing.

“When you’ve wandered around for almost two thousand years,” he assured me, “you pick up a few things.”

I found my dress instantly. It was navy blue silk, patterned all over with small silver stars. It was floor length in the back, but scalloped and higher in the front around my feet, so my silver heels would be visible. With a sweetheart neckline, it was just a little bit revealing in the back, where the straps all tied and crisscrossed. Not enough to make me feel immodest, but enough to make me feel daring. Rachel looked stunning in a red silk evening gown that was off one shoulder and tied over the other, leaving the long ties to trail downward. And then, after stopping to get cinnamon pretzel sticks for the kids, I was home. Compared to shopping with Natalie, it was a trip taken at light speed.

When I let us into the house and we all tumbled into the kitchen, I saw Rafael sitting at the kitchen table. Colton and Grace both gave cries of delight and ran over to him. He greeted them the same as ever, letting them jump on his lap and chatter on and on about school and their friends and the mall. I blinked a few times to be sure he was really there, and then went to hang up my dress before returning to the kitchen. My mom and dad, looking amicable and happy, for once, were out in the backyard mowing and picking up the leaves. On catching sight of them, Colton and Grace flew outside to jump in the leaf piles.

I watched them out the window, feeling Rafael’s eyes on me. I was glad to see him, at last, but I was still annoyed and a little disappointed that he hadn’t said more than two words to me, literally, for four whole days. I waited, and sure enough, after a few terse minutes Rafael let out a heavy sigh and I could just picture him raking a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Lyla, I’m sorry,” he said, and I could tell from his tone that he meant it.

I wasn’t going to let him off so easy. “You seem to be apologizing more and more the longer we’re friends,” I said pointedly, and then turned around to look at him, my arms crossed over my chest. I drank him in, he was such a sight for sore eyes. He wore his dark jeans and leather jacket, though paired with a light gray t-shirt underneath, not black or white like usual. “I didn’t even know if you were safe. The other Fallen said you barely came to the warehouse.”