When Death Loved an Angel (5 page)

Chapter Nine

DEATH

The inferno roared around him, fire eating up the walls, floor, and ceiling as if it had starved its whole life for just this moment. The very air shimmered with heat. Death felt none of it as he made his way through the building. It was a decrepit structure some billionaire had thought to save in the heart of the city, yet the
wiring was bad and sparks had rushed out of control faster than the construction crew could contain it. Now someone was trapped within the blaze.

Death might not have empathy, but he tried to help others pass over before they felt the true pain of their killer. The man in the room before him wouldn’t have to burn before Death touched him.
Death crossed the glaring floor with a hand out, intent on the arm that covered the man’s face as he huddled in the corner.

Before Death could reach the man, though, his head lifted. He looked squarely at Death, his gaze abrupt and
straightforward. “Are you an angel?” he asked. Something passed from the man to Death in that moment.

Death
staggered backward, trying to make sense of what happened. Images flowed through his mind. He saw a boy run through a school hallway chased by three bigger boys. He turned a corner and listened to their footsteps thunder past. The image changed into a college graduation. A girl in a yellow dress spoke at the podium. In the next image, the girl was holding his hand. She wore white and beamed at him, her hair wreathed in a halo of violet flowers. He stood on a lawn with three boys running toward him. He knelt and wrapped them all in his arms. They held him tight, saying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” over and over again.

Death
leaned against a wall for support, then fell through it. He staggered upright and made his way back to the room where the man waited. Something wet ran down his cheeks. He wiped them with his hand and stared at the tears that moistened his fingers. “What is happening to me?” he asked out loud. His heart gave one beat, then fell silent again.

“
Are you an angel?” the man repeated.

It was so important to him. Death did the only thing he could do. He nodded.

“Then I’m ready,” the man said. He held out his hand.

Nobody had ever gone willingly. It was always a fight in the end, yet the man who had so much to live for reached
out to Death. Tears streamed down Death’s face as he took the man’s hand in his own.

***

Death stood across the street and watched the building collapse in on itself. Firefighters aimed streams of water to contain the inferno, but there was no saving the old building, only preventing the fire from spreading to the structures around it. As far as Death knew, no one was aware of the man who had burned inside. He was just another person, a name on the list that vanished as Death watched it. Timothy Welsh no longer inhabited the body inside the fire. He was on his way to the gateway, leaving behind a wife and three boys.

Death couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down his face. He fell to his knees in the alleyway; sobs wracked his shoulders and tore from his chest. Those who passed the alley walked faster when they couldn’t find the source of the haunted sounds. Death hit his fist on the ground again and again, hating that it didn’t hurt, loathing that he couldn’t cause himself pain to chase away the agony he felt inside. His heart beat in a steady rhythm that made his body ache with every thump. The thought of lonely shoes on a stairway repeated itself in his mind, tormenting him.

“What is wrong with me?” he asked quietly, then he turned his face to the sky and shouted with all the agony that filled him, “What is wrong with me?”

A cat yowled and took off through the alley. Dogs barked in the distance. Several firefighters who held hoses toward the flame looked back at the alleyway, but there was nothing to see besides a lone newspaper flapping in a gently swirling night breeze.

“What is wrong with me?” Death whispered.

The names on his arm throbbed, demanding to be heeded. He eventually forced himself to his feet, his shoulders hunched and head bowed. He walked unseeing down the sidewalk, following the relentless call of the list. Several people walked through him, but he didn’t hear their gasps of fear or take joy in the cold shivers that ran up their spines. He stumbled through a door and touched the arm of a lady lounging on her stoop, calling her soul from her body without looking at her. The woman’s name vanished from his arm.

Death found a man in
the back of a taxi hurrying home after working all day. He clutched a briefcase to his chest like his life depended on it while he desperately tried to ignore the aching, numb feeling that was spreading through his left arm and chest, the first symptoms of a heart attack. Death touched him and left without a backwards glance. Another name erased from his arm.

He
made his way to the city’s museum. A little old lady sat in the corner staring at a picture of a gentleman with a top hat. The way the picture was painted, it looked as though he stared straight back at her, one eyebrow slightly raised as if he was asking a question. A tattered umbrella and a well-thumbed Bible sat beside her. When Death touched her shoulder, she gave a sigh of relief and smiled before closing her eyes.

Death’s list took him to a gang fight, knives out, guns used as clubs to erase the faces of youth who thought of each other as enemies, but who
all looked the same. A gunshot sounded and a boy fell, clutching his chest. The fighting stopped. Everyone watched in expectant silence. Several members of the boy’s gang hurried to his side, falling to their knees in the grime and debris that littered the street. Death swept by and touched the boy’s side, trying not to notice the tears and anguish on all faces, not just those of the boy’s gang.

Death went through his list without seeing. The names vanished one by one until the only name that remained ached with every beat of his heart. Death stopped in a park sheltered by trees
, the bark of which had been etched with the names of thousands. It was a memorial of sorts to the living and dead whose lives meshed briefly among the oaks and aspens.

Death sat down beneath the shelter of the gently swaying branches. He
felt his body become alive as his time of living reached him. He took a deep breath, noticing for the first time how air pulled at his lungs with a cool rush and left in a sigh as though his body had longed for such a thing. He put a hand on a tree and closed his eyes. The bark felt rough beneath his fingers. He liked the feeling so much more than silk.

Several sounds caught his attention. He opened his eyes.
Irony was the only emotion that filled him when one of the gangs he had encountered earlier saw him standing there in the darkness. He was a lone man, an easy target. The gang circled like vultures. Death rose to his feet.

“What’s wrong with you?” a boy asked, shoving his shoulder.

Death didn’t answer. He merely watched them, their faces etched in sorrow and anger at the loss of the boy they had known. He was an outlet for their anger, a more appropriate outlet then they could ever have imagined.

“You should know better than wandering this park at night,” another boy said. The boy
hit him in the side of the face hard enough to send him reeling. A third boy caught him and slammed the butt of his gun against Death’s head. Death stumbled to the ground. Stars danced in his vision.

“Maybe we should teach him a lesson,” a voice said. A foot kicked him in the ribs, then another. Death hunched over as pain flared through his body. Fists rained down on his back and sides.
Another gun clubbed him in the head and he felt to the brown grass. It scratched his face when he tried to cover his head with his hands. His hair felt sticky where the gun butt had opened a gash along his skull. Pain spread as his ribs were broken. Someone hit his hands over his head and he felt the butt of a gun break the bones of his wrist. A moan of pain wrenched from him, the first sound he had made.

The blows slowed, then stopped. “This is boring; let’s get out of here,” a boy said. Their footsteps faded away to leave only the quiet rustle of aspen leaves tickled by a vagrant wind.

Death willed himself to move. He sat up slowly, holding his aching head in his hands. Blood covered his fingers from a gash on his forehead and another across his cheekbone. He favored his wrist where the bones had broken. Every movement hurt. He reveled in the pain.

“I could have stopped them,” he mused aloud. “I could have scared them away with a single look, yet I let them beat me bloody.” He laughed, then the laughter turned into a cough of pain that tore through his broken ribs and left blood lingering on his lips. “
I felt guilty because I caused their pain. I was the reason the boy died.”

He was shot in the chest
, the voice inside reminded him.

“But I took his life,” Death argued.

You didn’t make the gun or start the fight.

“But I ended it, didn’t I?” he replied ironically.

Idiot.

“I agree,” he said. He leaned back,
staring at the light polluted night sky. Just once, he wished he could see stars. He had heard of them and read about them, but never in his existence had he been able to actually see one. He doubted they could actually contain as much beauty as they were described to have, but he wanted to know for sure. Deep down, he felt like he needed to know for sure.

His body began to heal. He fell back
against the dead grass that scraped his skin as his wounds pulled together, leaving him unmarred by the violence. When the last rib mended and the matted blood faded his hair, Death pushed himself up. He walked toward the hospital feeling as though every step cost him a lifetime, yet he couldn’t stop walking.

***

He collapsed into the chair near Gregan Parker’s bed.

“Are you alright?” Nyra asked. “You look exhausted.” Her head tipped slightly to the side. “And your clothes are filthy.”

“Rough day,” Death replied with a weary smile. He still smiled. Never before had he smiled so much. He had seen a man’s life before taking him amid an inferno, finished his list despite the number of heartbreaking situations he found, and then been beaten to within what would
have been an inch of his life if what he had could actually be called life. Yet in Nyra’s presence he smiled like an idiot. The voice in his head was right.

“Gregan looks better,” she said with hope in her voice. “Death didn’t visit today.
Maybe our last argument left an impression.”

He tipped his head to look at her. “Do you argue with Death often?”

She looked abashed. “My first time, actually. But it can’t be a good idea.”

“Why not,” he asked,
unable to help himself. “It’s not like he can actually hurt you, can he?” At her hesitation, his heartbeat began. He took in a slow breath, willing it to stop.

Nyra’s eyes dropped from his. “I’ve felt, well, different, since talking to him.”

Death sat up as alarm spread through him. “Different how?”

She shrugged, her gaze still avoiding his. “I question things I never did before.”

He tried to brush it aside, to tell himself it didn’t matter, but there was a note of distress in her voice she tried to hide. “Nyra,” a small thrill went through him at her name. He swallowed and continued, “Maybe you should avoid him.”

She shook her head. “I’ve got to protect Gregan.”

“Why?” She stared at him. He knew his role as Gregan’s brother made the question strange. He hurried on, “Guardian angels aren’t supposed to argue for someone’s life, are they? I really appreciate it, but you already said he was going to die. Will it change things if he dies a day from now, or a week?”

She covered her face with her hands. Death rose before he knew what he was doing and hurried to her side. He had almost put his hands on her shoulders when he stopped himself. Cold rushed through him. He
slid his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her and whispered, “It’s alright, Nyra. You can tell me.”

Her shoulders shook. She turned away from him. Silence filled with the steady beeps of the monitors and the soft hush of her muffled breaths coated the room. He thought she wasn’t going to tell him.
He was about to leave, to run out of the room, when she said, “I love him.”

Death stared at her.
Guardian angels protected the living; they didn’t fall in love with them. Yet everything she had said about Gregan fell into place. She loved him, and not just with the love of one person to another, camaraderie, and friendship, and all that he had never experienced. She truly loved Gregan; it shone in her eyes and glowed in her cheeks whenever she spoke his name. Death should have guessed.

He put a hand to his chest and wondered
why the revelation hurt so much. He stumbled a few steps backwards. He felt betrayed, lost. Despair rose up inside of him. He had never felt such unjustified remorse before. So she loved the man she was protecting. Why should he care? Yet he did, with all of his newly beating heart, he did.

“You love him,” Death forced himself to repeat.

She nodded, her face still hidden behind her hands. “Angels aren’t supposed to fall for the people they protect, but I couldn’t help myself. Everything Gregan does is so wonderful and kind. He cares for everyone around him. He would never hurt anyone or anything, and he-”

Death cut her off, unable to hear the tirade any longer. Each syllable sent a pain of agony through him much worse than any part of the beating in the park.
“He’s never even seen you,” he stated flatly.

Nyra fell silent for a moment. Her breathing slowed and she wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her fingers. “I know,” she said in a whisper. “I know he hasn’t seen me. He doesn’t know I exist.”

“But you fight for him.” Another statement made without emotion.

She didn’t notice. “
I have to,” she said, her voice full of heartbreak.

Death ran through his options. There were few enough that it was quite simple. He could touch Gregan. He had never done so in living form, and didn’t know if it would work. If it didn’t, he could simply return the next night and finish the only job he had ever left undone. Perhaps that would take away his conscience and let him get back to the existence he had enjoyed.

But if he touched Gregan, the man’s soul would leave his body and he would be gone. There would be no reason to visit the hospital room. Nyra would be gone, her heart broken whether she realized who Death was or not. He would never see her again.

He could
allow Gregan Parker to linger.

His arm throbbed angrily, a stabbing reminder that
before him lay the man who kept him from completing the only job he had ever done. He had to finish it, to finish the list. Maybe then he would be free to perform his job without guilt as he once had. Maybe then he would stop being tormented by his conscience. He could go on about his job without empathy or remorse, two things Death had no need for at all.

But Nyra loved Gregan.

Death’s heart turned over at the thought. She shouldn’t love the man she guarded. She had no right to do such a thing, and the man would never be able to return her love.

Neither would you
, the cynical voice said.

He
wanted to take away the source of Nyra’s love. Deep down, a part of him hoped that with Gregan gone she would turn that love toward something else, or maybe someone else. He could be there for her.

As what? Death?
the voice argued.

He was about to answer out loud something that would pr
obably reveal everything when his hands slipped out of his pockets, insubstantial once more. His heart raced as he debated what to do. He hid them behind his back and inched toward the door, but it was closed. He couldn’t open it with his hands rapidly fading into shadow. He would be caught. She would know he was Death; she would hate him and never speak to him again. He might as well take Gregan and finish it. His heart threatened to break as he reached for the man.

The door opened behind him.

“I didn’t know Mr. Parker had a visitor,” a male nurse in blue scrubs said.

Death didn’t answer him. He folded his arms across his chest and barreled his way through the open door, leaving both the nurse and the unseen Nyra staring in his wake.