Dark Hope (48 page)

She always did that. She’d turn it off to give something her full attention and forget she’d even done it, and then curse a blue streak when she realized she’d missed a day’s worth of important calls. Today, of all days, you’d think she would have remembered to turn it back on.

Quickly, Mona scrolled through the missed calls. They were all from the same number, one she did not recognize, but that had an Atlanta area code. She hit the button to play the messages and lifted the phone to her ear to listen. After a few moments, her eyes widened.

“What is it?” Clayton said, moving even closer to her side.

“You’d better go get that agent,” Mona said. “I think we have contact from Hope. She called her friend here in Atlanta.”

twenty-two

“H
ope, come on.”

I’d been surreptitiously watching the news in the lobby of the private jet hangar. I tried not to look too interested in the story about the abducted girl, but it was hard to drag my eyes away.

My mother was standing behind a podium, flanked by one of her cronies from work and a bunch of people I didn’t recognize—probably lawyers. Flashes were popping as she took questions from the eager press. Pictures of my dad and me occasionally filled the screen, while a young reporter working very hard to appear serious and earnest kept repeating that though the perpetrator bore a striking resemblance to my dad, my dad was not considered the primary suspect at this point.

“Hope.” Michael’s voice had an edge to it as he reminded me it was time to go.

“It’s started,” I said, reluctantly dragging my eyes from the screen to turn to him. He had returned to his own guise, but with a five o’clock shadow and fuller frame he looked slightly older so
that he would not raise any suspicions as he rented the Citation jet and filed his flight plan to Turkey. I know he was relieved not to have to appear as my father any longer, and I drank in the sight of his lean body in the tight, faded jeans and open-collared shirt he’d carelessly thrown on, hating myself every minute I did it.

“I know,” he said, holding out my backpack, seeming ignorant or indifferent to how the sight of him affected me. “It looks like we laid enough tracks to confuse them for a while.”

“And to keep my dad safe,” I added with an awkward smile. “Thank you.”

He looked at me, apparently surprised that I would thank him. “You’re welcome. Let’s go.”

I took the bag and hurried after him, ignoring the uncomfortable tug of my scarred skin as I moved. The healing process had begun to slow. While I was no longer in much pain, I was all but unrecognizable, my face still dotted with angry, yellow blisters, my hands and arms still wrapped in bandages. Out of the corner of my eye I saw people look away, uncomfortable and embarrassed by their own curiosity.

I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt closer to cover my face. Let them look away. It was just as well. I needed to be invisible to get where we needed to go.

Michael pushed through the doorway to the outside, where the plane stood waiting, not pausing for me to catch up. He seemed to want to put as much distance between him and me as possible. I looked back one more time at the television. The cameras had zoomed in for a close-up of my mother’s face. As it moved closer, the camera caught the glint of tears welling in her eyes.

My own vision went blurry.

Hurry
, Henri whispered.
You don’t have much time
.

“I know,” I said out loud.

I blinked my tears away. Then I turned my back on my mother’s image still looming on the screen.

I wound my way through the chairs that were clustered here and there in the lounge. As I did, the low murmur from the other televisions followed me, and I began to notice the stories I’d been ignoring.

Rioters overwhelming yet another embassy. Settlers on the West Bank under attack again. Saber-rattling dictators indulging themselves while hundreds of thousands of their so-called people were shoved into camps and shantytowns, praying for something to eat and some way out of the hellhole in which they found themselves. Pilgrimage crowds, excited by who knows what, trampling over the weak—old and young alike—as they charged forward in one unstoppable wave.

The staccato beat of the reporters’ bland, cookie-cutter voices followed me, accusing me with each step.

People needed Michael. But because of me, he was letting all those people suffer and die. How much longer could he stay away, when it seemed like the whole world was falling apart?

How much longer could he stand the pain?

He’d already disappeared inside the jet. I hurried after him, slipping through the door into the hot desert wind and then climbing the short stairway into the plane.

Inside, I stopped short. There were two people huddled together and talking halfway up the aisle. Neither one of them was Michael. They leaned forward, hunkered down for what appeared to be an intense conversation, their backs turned to me.

I wasn’t sure—I could have been imagining it—but just beneath the surface, I thought I smelled the faintest hint of sulfur.

I hesitated, not sure what to do. But I didn’t have a chance to do anything before they noticed me.

“Hope?” a familiar voice called out.

One of the two unfamiliar men wore the stylish cut of his crisp linen clothes to perfection. His bearing was erect and proud, almost haughty. The man approaching me, however—the man who’d spoken—looked like a reject from a yacht club. His wide frame was wrapped in a goofy navy blazer with straining bronze buttons, and a jaunty captain’s hat was perched atop his head. His long gray hair was captured in a messy ponytail, his chin capped by a snowy white Vandyke beard.

In the end, it was the sunglasses and the cane that gave him away.

“Enoch!” I said, overjoyed to see a familiar face. “Or, I mean—Librarian!” I practically threw myself into his arms as he held them wide open for me, and then I nearly choked on the heavy dose of cologne in which he’d doused himself.

“Just Enoch, now,” he said gently. Something about it seemed sad, so I decided not to pry. I was too grateful to see him to want to think about anything sad right now.

“I didn’t recognize you at first,” I said. “You look like you escaped from Gilligan’s Island.”

“My goodness, you’ll about knock this old man over,” he said, tossing his cane aside and wrapping his arms around me. “I thought I’d try out my copilot look for the journey. Try to look nice for the ladies. Lucky for you, I clean up well.”

As he held me tight, I felt the growing knot of worry, guilt, and fear that had taken up permanent residence in my throat grow even bigger. I squeezed him tighter, hardly believing he was really there. In the short time we’d had together, Enoch had understood me. He’d taken the time to explain things to me, and that had made all the difference. So I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when, as he started patting my head, I burst into tears.

“There, there,” he said, making vague, comforting noises while
he waited for the storm to pass. He didn’t try to stop me, and I didn’t try to stop. I just let all the tension of the last few days drain out of me as he held my tired body up.

When my torrent of tears slowed to a few sniffles, he pushed me away to inspect me. Carefully, he pulled the hood away from my face. I blushed. There was no way to disguise the ugly blisters that still covered my face and neck or the shiny tissue that was covering my hands. They were telltale signs of burns, and with his knowledge of angel lore, Enoch probably knew how I got them.

“I ruined your blazer,” I mumbled, eyeing the sodden mess I’d left on his shoulder.

“Never mind that. I can see now I was right to come. You look like you could use a friend.”

“I’m so glad you did,” I said, smiling even though my voice wavered. “But why did you? Are you coming with us?” I asked.

“Michael asked me to help protect you,” he said solemnly, taking my shoulders in his hands. He was peering at me through the dark lenses of his sunglasses, seeming to gauge my reaction. “What you are doing has only gotten more dangerous, now that you know what you are looking for.”

“The rock,” I breathed, almost afraid to say it aloud.

“Yes,” he nodded. “The rock. Michael wants to be sure to keep you safe while you search for it, and I think in present circumstances he thought more help would be advisable.”

Had Michael told Enoch about his own loss of powers? Could Enoch tell? I longed to pepper him with questions, but didn’t dare, especially in front of the stranger.

“Besides,” Enoch continued, dropping his hands from me and retrieving his cane, “things were getting a little dull in the desert. I thought it was about time I broke out of prison and showed those uppity bureaucrats a thing or two.”

I giggled, imagining the courts in Heaven all abuzz now that Enoch had walked out on his sentence of exile.

“I will be coming with you for as long as I remain free,” Enoch continued. “And so will my friend here. Raph, come and meet Hope.”

The second man, Raph, uncoiled himself from where he’d been leaning against the airplane’s wall and walked toward me. He was long and lean, like Michael, but while Michael shone with light, he seemed the epitome of darkness from the shiny ebony of his hair to the dark luster of his skin and to the deep black of his eyes, which seemed to glow from some unfathomable depth.

“Raphael,” he said, reaching out his hand to me. “At your service.”

Inside my head, I heard Henri start to growl.
Who let him in here?

I stared at Raph’s outstretched palm, wondering what exactly it was that Henri didn’t like about him. I put my hand in Raph’s and winced as he squeezed hard, either oblivious to my tender skin or callous about it.

“Um, are you
the
Raphael? As in one of the other Archangels?” I said, waiting for him to release my hand from his ironclad grip.

“The same,” he said with a curt nod of his head. He let go of my hand. Despite myself, I snatched it away and began to rub the life back into it. Raph just smirked at me as he watched.

“Are you here to protect me, too?” I asked, unable to keep the note of frustration out of my voice. “Because I have been doing a pretty good job of that myself so far.”

“Is that right?” Raph parried back, his smirk now growing to full-on mockery. “Is that how you ended up nearly burned to a crisp? And with a posse of Fallen Angels on your tail?”

Before I could answer, he’d turned and strutted down the aisle
toward the cockpit, leaving me to look after him with my mouth hanging wide open.

Nothing but trouble
, Henri opined.

“Seriously, Enoch. Is he here to protect me, or just to insult me?”

Enoch laughed. “Raphael has always been a testy one. Especially when it comes to Michael. And humans.” He began walking down the aisle himself, leaning heavily onto his cane. “Come, sit with me.”

I obediently followed, waiting as he eased himself down into a plush chair, and then taking the seat right next to him so that we were lounging together at a small table.

“This isn’t like a normal plane,” I said, finally taking in my surroundings. “It’s pretty fancy.”

“It’s the fastest—and quietest—way for us to get you to Turkey. The luxury just comes along with the price tag.”

“More angel financing, I suppose,” I sighed.

“Indeed,” Enoch said. “Now, Hope.” He reached across the table and took my hand. “Tell me, truly—how are things between you and Michael?”

I blushed again. How could a blind man see right through me?

“Okay, I suppose.”

“Really? To look at either one of you I would have assumed the opposite.”

He’d given me the opening I needed. “I’m worried about him, Enoch. He’s getting moodier and moodier. You know, he’s in pain.”

Enoch nodded gravely. “And most likely not sleeping. He is so intent on guarding you that he is likely to neglect the care of his human body. Tell me, do you think it is worsening, this pain?”

“I do,” I said, grateful to have someone to confide in. “I think that is why he gets so angry with me sometimes. He’s not doing
his—you know, his angelic duty. He’s with me, instead. He’s disobeying God.”

“The punishment for that is very grave. You have only to look at the Fallen Ones to see what comes of disobedience.”

His words stopped me cold. I closed my eyes and inhaled, deeply. I was acclimating to the sterile air of the jet, but I was sure I could still smell the faintest hint of sulfur. I opened my eyes, leaning in to whisper to Enoch across the table, doing my best to not cough from his cologne.

“Enoch, could Michael fall? You know—become one of them?”

Enoch stretched out in his chair, contemplating the question. “Technically anyone could, my dear,” he began. “If they distanced themselves from God enough so that reconciliation was impossible. If they were pushed to the point of madness from the pain. But I doubt very much that this would ever happen to Michael. Why do you ask?”

I looked around, afraid Raph—or even Michael himself—might overhear me. “I think the pain is driving him crazy. And I don’t know for sure, but when I got on the plane behind him today—”