There But For The Grace (2 page)

I chewed my bottom lip and nodded. Satan scared the shit out of me, all bravado aside, and I wasn’t looking forward to playing on his home turf. I was terrified of it, actually. I was seriously just going by the old adage of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ here in hopes that I could and would do just that. It hadn’t failed me so far, anyways.

“Why are you here, Gabriel?” I finally asked, in order to change the subject.

“Thought you could use some company, also thought you could use some dinner.” He waved his hand out from his side and the gesture made me look to the side, off the road and into the tall grass.

“After you,” he said, smiling blithely.

“Classy,” I said sarcastically and rolled my eyes. I walked with Gabriel to the easy-up tent, the two person table beneath it gleaming softly under the candle light that was produced by a bunch of glass-sided lanterns suspended from the canopy above.

“You planning to propose?” I asked and felt the smile slide off my face when he didn’t return it. Instead, he pulled out my chair for me like some old-fashioned gentleman. I slid my pack off my shoulders again and set it down. The ground was dry, I noted, even though the tent hadn’t appeared until
after
it’d started raining.

“Seriously, Gabriel, what’s with the sudden wanton displays of power? I thought you guys were all about keeping your presence on the down low.”

He took a seat across from me and looked at me somberly, “Yeah, for the most part the other Archs and Tab
are
all about keeping our presence on the QT, but I do my own thing. You know that.”

Something felt off about this whole exchange. Gabriel wasn’t usually so… sincere. Usually he was irreverent as fuck, so none of this was adding up. I stared at him and hadn’t even bothered looking at the spread in front of me. Gabriel looked back at me and finally huffed out a sigh.

Surprisingly, before Gabriel could speak, it was Iaoel that clued me in. It was like time just stopped for a moment, and the projector switched on in a series of rapid fire images that left me a little speechless and reeling trying to make sense of them, when really there was only one conclusion to make. A red, red rose blooming at a rapid pace, so beautiful as to steal your breath. Fire rising hot and fierce, the shadows it cast eerily reminiscent of writhing bodies. A glimpse of myself in a mirror, tears streaming down my face. And last, Gabriel… Gabriel standing graveside, the earth freshly turned and mounded, the headstone a beautifully carved monument of a weeping Angel, arm cast across its eyes. Gabriel looked as somber as I had ever seen him as he knelt in his six thousand dollar suit and lay a single white rose on top of the rich brown earth.

The meaning of the string of images hammered home almost as quickly as I had seen them, the implication as clear as if Iaoel had used words.
He genuinely likes you, you idiot, and he’s afraid you’re going to die.

I blinked, and Gabriel was looking at me, brow furrowed. “What did she show you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I lied. He arched one perfect black brow, and I looked away, I gave an exasperated sigh and amended my statement: “Fine, nothing that I want to talk about.”

“I suppose that’s fair enough.”

The silence stretched between us. I sighed again and kept it locked down deep inside.

I was surprised to feel this fierce ache in the center of my chest and could only surmise that I missed Tab. I looked at Gabriel now, across this chasm of things unsaid, and realized that I almost counted him as a friend and that I would miss him when this was all over.

Things were a lot less complicated back when they didn’t give a fuck, and I was stupidly set on proving them wrong and looking out for me and only me. Now, I guess I had to admit it: I liked them too. I mean Tab and Gabriel.

“Awkward,” I sang out, and Gabriel laughed.

“Now I really want to know what she showed you.”

“We being real right now?” I asked.

“As real as it gets, Princess.”

I smiled, I couldn’t help it, and even laughed a little. “She showed me that you’re going to miss me if I –”

“Don’t say it. Don’t even put it out there. I may not be able to see the future, but technically, she can’t either, and you’re not going to. Okay? You’re going to get it done. Just like you have so far.”

I felt my eyes well up, and I sniffed.

“Yeah, okay,” I agreed, even though we both knew that it was a very real possibility that I wouldn’t be coming back. I was okay with that though, if that’s what it came to. I owed it to Tab and myself to at least try. I had no idea how I was going to convince this Haziel of that though. I wasn’t even sure how I was going to get him to stop for me the next day.

“Food’s getting cold,” Gabriel remarked finally, pulling his napkin from beneath his silverware and shaking it out.

“What, you can’t do whatever hoodoo you do to keep it hot? You’re slipping, Buddy.”

He chuckled, and we ate, eerily silent for the two of us. One of those times you spend with another person, or dare I say,
friend
, and you say nothing, nothing at all, but walk away from it feeling like it was one of the best conversations you’ve ever had.

“You leaving?” I asked when we’d set our napkins aside and sat back in our chairs to let our food settle.

“I thought I’d stick around, keep you company.”

“Thanks,” I said, “I appreciate it. Uriel and Raphael could stand to take a lesson or two from you.”

“Don’t be too hard on them, Sweet Cheeks. They had shit to do, shit that will maybe help later on down the line.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m pretty focused on just Tab. It’s easy to forget that there’s a bigger picture for you guys.” I didn’t really have the heart to say that Iaoel had been the one to point that out with an explosion of images and events that swept past my vision so fast that I was suddenly dizzy where I sat.

“You look tired, Babes. You want to try and fit a nap in?”

“I thought I had to stay here.”

“You do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t, you know, use a little of that hoodoo that I do.”

“You’re playing awful fast and loose with the magic, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Maybe, but if the world is about to end, does it really matter?”

“I guess not.”

“Okay then. Up you go, back over to the road.”

I stood up, and shouldered my pack and went for the road, when Gabriel called out, “Hey where you going?”

I’d barely reached the edge of the easy up, was about to set foot out into the rain, when his voice stopped me. I turned around and instead of a table there was an old fashioned chaise lounge, which looked suspiciously like the one from the room they’d stuffed me in back at the frat house. Gabriel retook his seat, except where the dining chair had been, he now sank into the winged backed chair that Tab had so recently been reading Dante in.

I set down my pack, sat down on the chaise, and stared numbly at the arm of the wingback.

Gabriel sighed. “He’s a crafty bastard,” he said softly.

“I know,” I said sharply, but I was trying to force the hopeless tears down.

“He’s been down there before.”

“What exactly happened with that?”

“Not my story to tell, Babes.”

“So tell me a different one.”

“You want me to tell you a story?”

I flicked my gaze up to Gabriel’s so-blue one. Amusement danced in his eyes and across his lips in the form of an odd little smile.

“Why not?” I asked. “There’s not a whole fuck of a lot else to do.”

“True that, Sister.”

He huffed out a breath and thought for a minute.

“Okay,” he finally agreed, and steepling his hands in front of him, he told me a story that mostly involved his slinging plagues down on hapless mortals. It wasn’t exactly the best bedtime story, but then again, I didn’t focus so much on the words coming out of his mouth as I did the lilting melody of his voice. I closed my eyes, and what played behind them were all the times Tab had been there, when the visions were tearing me down and ripping me apart. When nothing but horror and pain and death played out on the inside of my eyelids.

I missed him. More in that moment than I could possibly get across. I missed him with this deep fractured ache in the center of my chest, so hard that even Iaoel fell quiescent. The only nightmarish visions I had that night were the ones of Tab, reaching for me, telling me urgently to find Haziel before that giant hand pulled him into that bleeding fiery portal, and the only sound I heard was the echo of my own far-off scream. That is, until Gabriel shook me awake with an urgent touch.

“Addy!” he called, and I jolted, shoving his suit jacket off my chest.

“Sorry,” I muttered, sitting up, then asked, “What time is it?”

“An hour before dawn, so time to get up. Come on. You need to get to the road, and I gotta bounce. He should be coming soon.”

“What if he doesn’t stop?”

“Then you wait until he comes back out and hope he stops then. Tab is right, he’s your only shot.”

I nodded and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

Gabriel helped me shoulder my pack as the sky began to lighten, and when I turned around, all evidence of the tent and furnishings had disappeared.

“One of these days I’d like to see how you do that. You know, actually see it, not just turn around and bam!”

Gabriel chuckled. “Maybe someday,” he agreed affably and pressed a thermos into one hand and a paper bag with some kind of pastry in the other.

“Gotta go, Tootse!” He smacked a kiss on my lips and simply blinked out of existence before I could swing on him or protest the move he’d made.

“God-fucking-damn-it, Gabriel!” I uttered and turned back to the road. I walked through the tall grass until my boots hit asphalt and sighed. I could be here for hours, and there was no telling if he’d stop, so I dropped my pack, sat on it, and drank my coffee – which was, of course, perfect. The pastry was a chocolate-filled croissant and was pretty good. I stood and wiped my brow after I was finished. I stowed the slim thermos in a pocket on the side of my pack, shoving the paper wrapper into the bottom of the same pocket to ensure it wouldn’t fall out.

Pretty soon, I could hear the distant trundle of an engine. I straightened, and sure enough, here came the old diesel Mercedes. The priest behind the wheel eyed me curiously, and slowed, but didn’t stop despite my effort to flag him down, and I sighed. I guess I should have expected to stay out here all day. I sat cross-legged on the side of the road and tried not to let the despair and sense of defeat swamp me.

I wasn’t giving up. Tab hadn’t given up on me; there was no way I would give up on him. Instead, I settled in for a very long day under the punishing Texas sun, drinking sparingly from the canteen that God had provided me. The water was sweet and cold, despite the heat, and I appreciated that. When I needed to, I waded into the tall grass at the side of the road and took care of business, but self-conscious about it, I tried to keep that to a minimum.

Sometime around the midday hour, I attempted a light meditation, like I’d done back at the temple. I guess it was a good thing, because before I knew it, twilight was upon me, and I was roused by the sound of an approaching engine. I stood up, and sure enough, here came the old Mercedes. I stood, calm despite the sense of urgency and despair that was threatening to burst me at the seams and almost fell to my knees when the old car slowed and came to a stop beside me.

“Thank you, Jesus,” I breathed and bent at the waist to look through the window. The old priest leaned across the seats and popped open the door, blinking from behind his wire framed glasses. My heart ached for a moment with how much I missed Piorre and his half-moon spectacles, but I didn’t get time to dwell on it.

“Get in,” he urged, “Before they wonder what I am doing stopping for nothing on the side of the road.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I was in the car, slamming the door shut with my pack in my lap, before he could even finish speaking.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Child. Not until you have told me why it is you seek the Angel of Monsters.”

I swallowed hard. “I didn’t honestly know that’s what you were.”

“Hmm. Interesting.”

I rode in silence, watching the scenery slip by, wondering how to best convince him to help. He didn’t ask any questions, and I scoffed a bit of an incredulous laugh at myself. I’d waited damn near two whole days for this opportunity, and now that it was here, I just sat on my ass and didn’t say anything!? What was wrong with me?

I got a glimmer of vision from Iaoel and huffed out a disgruntled breath.
I should have guessed you had something to do with it.
I felt a healthy dose of chagrin. I took a deep breath and shook my head to clear it. That wasn’t a good sign. I was too preoccupied to even notice her exerting her influence. Shit. Tab deserved better than this out of me.

“I need your help,” I said finally and took a deep breath, turning to look at him. He drove carefully and didn’t look my way. He didn’t speak, his lips compressed into a thin line as the wheels turned in his head, his thought process working overtime.

“Please say something,” I said when the silence had stretched too long.

“Of course you need my help. Why else would you wait by the road for so long? What concerns me is
whom
you were standing with.”

I opened my mouth to speak, and he stopped me. “Be quiet, Child. We will get to it soon enough. Once dinner has been served and you have had a chance to eat. It has been some time since your last meal, has it not?”

“Breakfast,” I answered meekly, “I’m not really all that hungry though. I’m here on a matter of some major importance.”

“Ah!” He chided. “You can tell me everything once you are eating.”

“What is it with you Angels and stuffing me full of food all the time?” I muttered under my breath.

“You aren’t alone in there, are you now? You carry the Grace of one of us upon your shoulders. Your body requires sustenance to keep you fit and able to carry such a burden. Has no one explained things to you?”