Haunted Love (4 page)

This could become more than the hope of love. It could become the real thing. But there’s something she has to be told first. She may not know what happened at my uncle’s ranch, but I thought she’d figured out what I am from the bottle of blood in the office mini fridge. I guess Sonia didn’t realize what the liquid was or maybe in her ghostly state, some details are fuzzy.

“Sonia,” I begin again as she floats toward me. “There’s something you should know. I’m a monster, the same kind of monster —”

Her cool fingertips press against my lips, and in her gaze, I see complete understanding, total acceptance. “No,” Sonia says. “You’re not.”

UNTIL THE NIGHT I WAS TAKEN
, demonically infected, the guardian angel Zachary watched over me. Now, I watch over him.

It’s not your average long-distance relationship. Romantic entanglements between humans and angels are rare, archaic, and discussed only in hushed tones.

A romantic entanglement between a guardian and one of the murderous undead had been unprecedented. Then we fell in love.

One of the consequences of Zachary’s “slipped” status is that, though
not
fallen, he’s earthbound, limited to corporeal form, and banished from the ethereal plane.

Therefore, he’s banished from me as well . . . at least for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, Zachary will continue to devote himself to counseling neophyte eternals, those who might embrace redemption like I did.

Assuming the monster lying in wait for him around that thorny bush doesn’t pluck out his eyes, claw out his throat, and rip his glorious muscled body to bloody pieces.

Zachary is immortal. He wears a gleaming holy sword with a gold hilt, a weapon forged in heaven. His blood is as toxic to an eternal as holy water. Yet he’s no stronger or faster than a mortal man. He can still be brutally injured. He has been in the past.

Far, far, far above, I’m curled in a plush wing chair in a tropical lobby of the Penultimate, the way station for ascended souls immediately outside heaven. I’m one of hundreds of thousands, gazing down on loved ones, enemies, and the occasional celebrity of the day, trying to make our peace before passing through the famed pearly gates.

It’s usually a comfort, watching over Zachary, a way to hold the loneliness at bay. Yet at moments like this, when he’s in danger, I feel every inch the predator defanged.

I zero in on the nearest lakeside dock. Where did the fiend go? I never should’ve taken my eyes off it. Not that I can warn my angel, not that I’m useful in any way.

Zachary scans the shadowy trees. In his matte black cowboy shirt over black jeans and boots, he makes a dashing, romantic figure. My fingertips twitch at the sight of his golden hair, lit by the moon.

He’s come from working as a waiter at a vampire-themed Italian restaurant located a few blocks south. There, the danger is pretend.

It’s past 3
A.M.
a few hours before sunrise on New Year’s Day, on the wide hike-and-bike trail surrounding Lady Bird Lake. It’s a natural border, dividing downtown Austin, Texas, from its south side.
Lake
is something of a stretch. It looks more like what it is — a dammed section of the Colorado River, lined with trees, brush, and parkland — a playground for waterfowl and boaters, famous for its bats.

You can see across it, stroll from one side of the bridges to the other in only a few minutes. Perhaps I’m biased from having resided on the coast of Chicago’s formidable Lake Michigan, but, to me, it’s more of a water feature than a lake per se.

I slip in my earbuds and raise the volume on my palm-size monitor-com. Now I can hear Zachary’s footsteps on the sandy path and the whiz of a stray bottle rocket, punctuated by a loud popping sound.

Last autumn this park was the scene of a handful of murders — the victims found punctured, nearly emptied of blood. Locals hoped that would be the last of it.

Zachary exudes caution. He carries a heavy flashlight, though it’s not turned on. He’s not emitting heaven’s light or showing his wings either, though he regained those powers during our brief time together. My angel makes every effort to operate incognito.

“Reso, reso, resolution,” begins a stocky figure, who’s somehow doubled back to end up behind Zachary. “Resolved.”

Turning, my angel draws his sword from the scabbard with one hand, clicks on his flashlight with the other, and shines it in the eternal’s — I mean, vampire’s — face.

“Happy New Year, Mitch,” he replies. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Mitch isn’t displaying his fangs, and his cornflower-blue eyes look as cool as creation. He’s dressed up, too. No PJ bottoms or camouflage pants tonight. Instead, he’s shaved and sporting jeans with a long-sleeved black T designed to mimic a tuxedo shirt, jacket, and tie. He’s also holding a cardboard sign, though I can’t see what it says.

“Hap, happy,” Mitch says. “Happily ever after. The end is beginning. It’s the beginning of the end.”

Mitch has been homeless for as long as anyone can remember and is affectionately thought of as a local celebrity. Before he first rose undead, Mitch had been pure of heart — so pure that he could identify Zachary, even in human form, as an angel. Typically, only quite young children possess that level of goodness, innocence, and faith.

Some say that Mitch used to build wells in Ecuador with the Peace Corps. Others claim he was wounded in Vietnam. What I know is that Mitch is young for our, or rather,
his
kind. He was infected only last September, and for months, he’s been sustaining himself on pig’s blood with the love and support of friends.

“We need to talk,” Zachary begins. “About that kid you drained last night. . . .”

Mitch stares at his torn sneakers. “He was a druggie, drug dealer.”

“He was fourteen. Desperate. Both of his parents lost their jobs last year. He has five younger siblings. They’re struggling to make rent.”

“Mean, you’re mean. I mean, I didn’t mean it that way. I was just saying —”

“What are you saying?” Zachary presses.

It’s not like him to lose patience. My angel blames himself for the boy’s death.

Painful as it is, he’s not being unfairly self-flagellating. What happened was foreseeable. If Zachary had already struck Mitch down, the teen would still be alive.

I could’ve warned him that this would happen, that Mitch could only manage his bloodlust so well for so long.

Then again, perhaps Zachary wouldn’t have believed me anyway. He’s a confirmed optimist. He doesn’t know the thick, sticky satisfaction of nursing from a savaged, leaking vein. He doesn’t miss it like I do.

Mitch replies, “I, I, bye. Bye-bye, Zachary. It’s time. Resolution. Resolved.”

He holds up his hand-lettered sign. It reads:

“You’re sure?” my angel asks, and I hear the catch in his voice. He may have set out tonight to remove Mitch as a threat. Yet now that the neophyte is willingly offering to end his existence, it’s become a matter of resolve for both of them.

Mitch has taken lives — more than one. He’s orchestrated violent, bloody deaths. Yet I serve as proof that a killer may be forgiven. I was ten times the monster that Mitch is, a fiend to whom other fiends groveled and bowed.

At the same time, Zachary can’t know whether he’ll be sending his friend to the Penultimate en route to heaven or whether he’s condemning a once-kind man to hell.

Zachary turns off the flashlight and tosses it aside. The blade of his sword bursts into flame. Raising the weapon, he begins, “What you’re doing . . . Offering yourself to the Big Boss, there’s no better decision you could’ve made. You’re going out a hero.”

My angel said as much to me when I begged him to use his holy radiance to burn me to nothingness, when I surrendered my own demonic existence for
true
eternal life.

I can only imagine how painful tonight must be for Zachary, having to once again destroy someone he cares about. It must bring back memories.

It’s archangels that are warriors born, not guardians.

Guardians are sent to earth to care.

“Good, good,” Mitch replies. “Good for you. You’re good, too. Hero.”

Zachary’s fiery blade falls on Mitch’s last word.

IF I SCREW UP AGAIN
, I’m one toasted guardian angel (GA). We’re talking hellfire and damnation. Hot. Searing hot. Chomp the serrano peppers. Chug the Tabasco.

In case there’s any doubt, the archangel Michael himself materializes on the dock to tell me so. “That was unnecessarily costly and dramatic,” he announces. “Zachary, how many times must we review this? Though the neophyte vampire’s soul may have been temporarily salvageable —”

“He was still tainted by evil,” I recite, returning my sword to its scabbard. “When he became an immediate threat to the living, I shouldn’t have hesitated to destroy him.”

I’m not inclined to argue. Michael is the Sword of Heaven, the Bringer of Souls, my supervisor. Besides, he’s right.

I bend to pick up my flashlight and hook it to my belt.

“Once again, you have indulged your feelings at the expense of the greater good,” Michael thunders. “Your friend’s victim, fourteen-year-old Jorge Alvarez, didn’t find out that his father got the janitorial position at Dell until after he recovered from the shock of dying. If Jorge had lived, that drug deal may have been his last.”

I’m not sure about that, but it’s not worth debating. The boy is dead. That’s all that matters now. That and his grieving family.

I’d worried when Mitch didn’t stop by over the holidays to pick up his latest supply of pig’s blood. I should’ve assumed the worst and followed up then. But I wanted to give him the opportunity to choose salvation. And he did. Only too late for Jorge.

Sounding weary, Michael says, “You are a slipped angel, Zachary — granted, one who has shown promise. You earned back your wings and the power of heaven’s light, and you have put them to good use. But that in no way should be interpreted to mean that your current status, let alone eventual full reinstatement, is guaranteed.”

Another bottle rocket whizzes into the night with a bang. Michael adds, “Perhaps this assignment is too much for you.”

These days, I’m only specifically assigned to watch over one vamp, a teenager named Quincie Morris. But the deal is that if I can help save every redeemable neophyte, I’ll be allowed to return upstairs. I’ll be welcomed home. Reunited with Miranda.