Surreal Ecstasy (31 page)

Before I knew it, he was standing
next to Dess (he had long legs and could walk extremely fast). Dess 'conveniently'
wandered off to explore the baseball fields a little bit, not looking back.

I didn't look directly at him at
first, still reeling from this morning's events, still unsure of how he felt
about me. I almost expected him to still be angry, but I didn't sense that
anger in him now. I didn't even try to figure out how he was feeling or what I
should do next. I was too busy being in shock of seeing this beautiful man that
I'd convinced myself I didn't need anymore, even though I mourned for him
inside my heart with every passing second.

He was once my imaginary, only
friend.

Once my Living Guardian Angel.

Without a word Ree pulled me into
an remarkably warm embrace. I gasped and was frozen for a moment, confused about
what I was feeling. I had to think this through.

Part of me wanted to push him away
because I was still hurt over the way we just couldn't connect or understand
each other that morning. But I realized that it wouldn't be right if I pushed
him away and disregarded whatever he wanted to say to me at that moment.

I had given Adim chance after
chance over a period of almost two years. Couldn't I give Ree, the most perfect
person on the planet, just
one
chance to explain himself?

I released my body's tension and
sank into him, my energy seeking out his. Without fully realizing what I was
doing, I wept into his shoulder, smelling his clean skin, which confused my
carefully calculated emotions. He held me, his arms strong and his body
radiating warmth, comforting my entire body. I fell into him some more, his
body enveloping me like a cloud.

All of a sudden, I no longer cared
about our stupid argument. I had things I needed to clarify with him, but that
didn't matter at the moment. I felt his chest spasm, and I realized that he was
crying, too.

Standing in his arms now, I knew
that if I were to ever have a partner in my life, it'd be this beautiful
Tiberius, an angel among men.

I'm not sure how long we stood
there holding each other. One arm went under his arm and my other arm went over
his other shoulder. This position allowed our hearts to align, and I know we
both felt it, our souls coming back together and my heart sighing in relief.

"I was just clearing my head,
Baby," he whispered in my ear so gently that I had to strain to understand
him. "Did you think I was leaving you?  I would never, never do that. How
could that be possible, knowing how I stood by you all your life, during all
your tribulations?" We pulled our heads back a little so we could see each
other. He wiped away one of my tears with his thumb, his hands on either side
of my head, cradling it. He continued speaking, but I couldn't hear a thing.

After a minute of this, I erupted
with laughter, shock registering on Ree's face, as he regarded me with a
confused smile. I put my hands over his and pulled them down, setting my ears
free. "I can't hear with your hands over my ears, and I'm not a very good
lip-reader," I told him.

He laughed after a moment, as if he
needed to change gears from being serious to funny. Then, he changed back. "What
I meant to say was, I needed to find a way to deal with the anger that I was
feeling. See, I…" He stopped and sighed. "The truth is, I did feel
like the devil talking to you was a betrayal on your part, even though
subconsciously I was sure you did nothing to encourage this from happening.
Please understand how I feel. My safe place was destroyed."

I looked up at his choice of words,
amazed that even while we were apart, we still had like minds. "What do
you mean?" I asked him, stepping back as he released me.

He smiled sadly.  My god, how I had
missed his beautiful face in the short time we'd been apart.  "Baby, my
safe place is with you. I'm always watching out for you and being mindful of
any threats to you. But last night, after we were intimate…You see, that's the
only place I feel our enemies can't touch us. So when we woke up this morning
and you told me about being in contact with the most powerful enemy on the
Melted side, I got angry. At you
and
myself. I mean, how could I have
prevented this? Was there a mistake in how I handled everything? I know now
that this wasn't your fault, but I needed to leave so that I could find a way
to deal with both the devil contacting you
and
my anger about
everything. And when I saw how much you cried and how frightened you seemed to
be of me…Morgan," he said, tears welling up in his eyes, "That isn't
supposed to ever happen. I'm supposed to be the one to protect you at all
times! I'm not supposed to cause you heartache, ever!"

I scoffed at myself. I should have
known that the reason for him leaving was something in the self-sacrificial
department, but I was too wrought with self-pity, confusion, and hurt feelings.

I loved this moment, loved Ree
standing in front of me again and looking at me adoringly like he always did.
Still, something was nagging at me, as I knew it would until I discussed it
with him. I wanted to have a completely open relationship with him, and until I
told him everything that was on my mind, that would never be possible.

"I'm really sorry about what
happened this morning, Ree. I...acknowledge the fact that, as a Worthy angel
and my ex-LGA, you have special abilities and knowledge that help you guide and
protect me. But I need to explain something to you, and even though you may be
aware
of this, I need you to really think about this. These past couple years, I've
been…" I trailed off. I certainly didn't know where that sentence was
going to end. How could I summarize it succinctly?

"…struggling. Between an empty
life and a fulfilling one. More importantly, I've been struggling between being
weak and hopeless, to being strong and self-sufficient. I'm still getting
there, obviously, but it's a journey, and I've already begun, thanks in part to
the support you've given me all my life." I paused to make sure he was
following my words, which was senseless because not only had he been watching
me my whole life, he was smarter than I was.

Maybe.

"Anyway, I, uh…I need to tell
you that you don't have to guard me like I'm a princess in a tower. I
refuse
to be helpless, Ree. Did you know that in my dream, I insulted the devil in
ways that might make Dess jealous?"

He laughed, and I joined him a
little. I made a mental note to explain the dream to him in perfect detail
later.  "Ree, I was strong in that dream. Stronger than I ever thought I
could be. I want to be like that in real life," I told him. "I know I
was a little too scared of you earlier, but, you know what? It's a process,
trying to get over the things that have happened to me. Despite what happened,
I really think I've come too far to sit back and let you do
all
the
protecting." I paused, making sure I covered all the bases. "Not that
I don't appreciate it. And it's not that I don't want you to help me, because
it's in your nature to do just that.

"But we are partners, you and
I. That means that
I
protect
you
just as much as you protect me.
I really don't like being treated like a mindless doll. And I know you don't
mean to," I added hastily, "But I honestly do feel that way
sometimes. So I just wanted you to know, because you deserve the truth, and I
owe it to myself to express every single thing I'm feeling, whether it's good
or not."

"Good? This is wonderful!"
He picked me up and whirled me around, hugging me again. "Baby, I
understand what you're saying. And I always want you to tell me what you're
feeling, no matter what it is. Secrets can only hinder us. I'll take into
account what you've said, okay? I love you, Morgan. And I'm going to spend the
rest of my life proving this. Okay?" He picked my chin up so that our eyes
could meet. "I'm sorry. And I understand."

I smiled at him as he bent down to
cover my mouth with his own. His lips were warm and sweet, and I could kiss
them forever. "You're a very tasty angel, you know," I commented
between kisses.

"Hmm," Ree said in
response, "I've been meaning to tell you… I think the term 'angel' is a
little girly. How about 'hunk of holiness'? I would feel very comfortable with
you calling me that instead."

"You've completely lost it.
That sounds more like a bishop's nickname or something," I remarked.

"Is that a 'no'?"

I just laughed and kissed him, our
happy reunion interrupted by a low, growing voice.

"You know, soon, I'm going to
give up on your ungrateful bitch ass."  A wave of heat rolled over us.

No. It couldn't be.

How the hell could he possibly find
me?

Ree and I turned to see Adim
standing about thirty feet away, his hands to his side, glowing bright red in
the dark pasture.

But he wasn't alone.

Slowly, I paced around the thicket,
both to fully take in what was happening here, and to give myself more time to
come up with a defense technique. Adim followed me with his eyes.

Four creatures stood behind him,
their skin looking a lot like something I'd recently seen in a dream—a dream
starring the devil. They might have looked human except they were a little
shorter than your average man and had grossly misshapen legs and bellies. They
had no clothes on but they didn't have any sexual organs, as it were. They were
like creatures made from an ambiguous mold.

To my left, Ree muttered something
and crossed himself, going on and on in a language I could only assume was
Latin. I certainly hoped he was calling for some divine intervention, fading
angel or no fading angel. Subtly, he walked away from me and moved behind Adim.

"Adim, leave me the hell
alone. I don't even care enough to fight you."

"Fight me?" Adim cackled
as if I'd just told the most hilarious one-liner. "You can't fight anyone
or anything, bitch. I'm stronger than you, and we both know it."

Ree tackled him from behind, his
ice hands around his neck.

The four demons approached me
cautiously, circling me as if deciding on the most appropriate way to kill me. "Morgan,"
Ree managed to say as he and Adim fought for control, "Go inside his mind
room. Find the file that's holding his demon powers. Try to rip up the page,
crumple it—anything that'll delay him. Try it. Something's off about him. I can
feel it."

Slowly backing away from the demons
but keeping a sharp eye on them all, I stared off into space, imagining myself
inside Adim's mind. I never even considered the idea that I could just hop in
and out of a person's mind-room. That was a huge advantage in being the
Architect. It didn't make me a mind reader, exactly, but it gave me potential
access to people's memories and ways of thinking. I wasn't so sure it would be
this easy to get into anyone's mind-room, but since Adim hadn't been aware of
my power until just now, he had no reason to block me from it. Hell, he might
not have even known or cared what a mind-room even was.

Just another advantage for me.

His mind-room was pure chaos. It
looked and felt a lot like a big house that had been through a tornado and
promptly set on fire. Fire was everywhere, random papers were strewn about on
the floor, and entire bookshelves looked like they were thrown in the house
every which way.

"This is insane," I
called to Ree while I kept looking around in Adim's mind-room. My body was
still alert, my eyes open and my head moving to and fro as if Adim's room was
all around me, and I were the only person that could see it. The demons
continued to circle, their heads cocked to one side, looking like they were
trying to grasp what I was doing.

"Keep looking," he called
back, still struggling with Adim. I hoped Ree's ice hands would keep Adim's
fire power down. Where the hell was Dess? Shit. How I wished Bree was still
around. I sure could have used another set of ice hands.

My head turned to see a shelf that
was semi-orderly.  That alone made it stand out from the rest, added to the
fact that some kind of tar-looking substance was all over the floor in front of
it. I ignored the tar and walked up to the shelf quickly, finding all kinds of
crazy evil incantations and demon descriptions there. I ignored these as well,
remembering Ree telling me to look for something pertaining to his demon
powers. I really wish Ree had told me more about all of this stuff. I mean, I
could glean the fact that all creatures from hell had Fire Claws, going by what
he'd said yesterday. But did the Melted specifically have something extra,
something particular to them?

I found a velvety black box on the
shelf and pulled it down, taking the lid off. Inside was a piece of paper which
read: 
Power of glamour; creating small illusions.

I ripped myself out of Adim's room
without ceremony, disregarding Ree's suggestion to rip up the paper because I
really didn't think that would do us much good. But now I was armed with
knowledge. Everything clicked into place—his apartment that looked too nice for
what he could most likely afford, some of the gifts he'd given me over the
years that looked too fancy—even his paycheck seemed like was a bit
unrealistic. He might have done these things to impress me, but I was done with
him—done with dishonesty and all his damn negativity.

"The demons are an illusion!"
I yelled as loudly as I could.

Adim looked up from where he and
Ree had been fighting. Ree had blood on his fist, and one look at Adim's
stomach told me he had hit Adim full-force, enough to break his skin. I stared
back at Adim, feeling like this was the first time I had ever seen him. His
face and body didn't quite look the way I knew it to be.

Oh, my god. He had put a glamour on
himself all this time to make him more attractive?