When Death Loved an Angel (14 page)

Chapter Thirty

ANGEL

Nyra heard the bell. Images passed her in a blur as she was pulled toward the Place of Accounting. She couldn’t think. She saw over and over in her mind as the subway train rushed toward Death. She read his gaze before he pulled the man from the tracks. There was acceptance in his eyes and regret. He didn’t want to leave her behind.

Her eyes burned but tears wouldn’t come. She was in shock, aching and lost.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come.”

Nyra blinked and stared down at the young angel behind the desk. He looked back at her, his blue eyes bright. “I found your page!”

“You found my page?” Nyra repeated, her mind numb.

He nodded, his golden curls bouncing. “I found it the other day, and I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

He turned the book to face her. The words barely sank in as she read, “Guardian Nyra: Prompted Melissa Michelson to pull son Matthew from intersection. Prompted Arianne Daniels to swaddle son Tanner so he could sleep. Prompted Nicholas Ryan to help Megan Ryan after car accident.”

“Did you give these promptings?” the little angel asked the same question he did at every Accounting session.

“Yes,” Nyra replied, trying to grasp what was happening.

The angel held out his quilled pen. “Please sign below.”

With numb fingers, she signed her name in gold ink below the accounts. After it was done, she stared at the page.

“Guardian Nyra?”

The little angel’s voice brought her back. She looked down into his expectant gaze. “Yes?”

“You need to go back to him.”

She could only look at him. “What did you say?”

He gave an understanding smile, knowledge deep in his young gaze. “Go back to him. He needs you.”

“But how-”

He shook his head gently, cutting off her question. “It’s where you need to be.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, unable to understand what was happening.

His answering smile reassured her. “I’m sure. Go where you are needed.”

She thanked him, her mind reeling, and left the Place of Accounting.

Chapter Thirty-one

DEATH

Death blinked. There was something in the distance that glowed against the darkness. He wanted to go to it with all of his being. He ached to walk toward the light he guided everyone else to. He took a step forward.

“Go back.”

The voice filled every bit of him to overflowing. He stopped because he couldn’t fight it. Tears filled his eyes and he fell to his knees. “I want to stay.” Memories of his deeds flooded through him, reminding him of his unworthiness to even step in the direction of the light. He bowed his head, hiding his face in his hands.

“You have done well, my son.”

Death shook his head, but there was no denying the voice. He knew he had sinned. He had taken lives without regret, fulfilling his list without thinking of those he took and the way his actions would affect the people left behind. He had used his living time delving into whatever manner of excitement and feeling he could find. Yet the voice said he had done well. The truth of the voice called for him to believe in himself.

He swallowed. “Then why must I leave?”

“Someone is waiting for you,” the voice replied.

Death
lifted his head. “I don’t deserve anyone. I spent my life. . . .” A knot tightened in his throat; he fought back tears. “I’ve spent my
existence
taking people from their lives.”

“It was your purpose.”

Death let out a frustrated breath. “But I didn’t do it right. I didn’t care.”

He felt as much as heard the love in the voice when it replied, “You do now.”

Death nodded. He definitely did, but he didn’t understand. “I hurt them,” he said in a whisper. “I was cold, callous. I can’t forgive myself for what I did.”

“Watch,” the voice said simply.

A wave of memories filled his mind, but it was different this time. They felt familiar, comfortable.

A little boy sat in
the middle of a room with bare walls. The wall closest to the door had a big hole in it; he stared at the hole, wondering why he recognized it.

The memory flowed ba
ckwards. He saw the little boy rise, limp to the door, and pull it open instead of slamming it shut. A black form entered, shouted at the boy even though there wasn’t sound. Death watched the boy fly through the air into the wall. The hole repaired itself. The man picked him up and shook him. There were no tears on the little boy’s face; he bit his lip to keep from crying. Death took a shuddering breath. He was biting his lip as well. A surge of realization flowed through him.

The memory skipped forward. He saw himself at school. Children surrounded him, taunting him. He had his back to a brick wall. One kid took his backpack and spilled its contents on the ground. The bully said something Death couldn’t hear. He saw himself throw a rock at the boy. It hit the bully above the eye,
opening a cut. The other children closed in, throwing kicks and punches.

In the next memory, he saw himself sitting alone in front of the school. He was older, but he held a disposable cold pack to a black eye. The parking lot was empty
, the students and teachers long gone, yet no one drove up. He eventually stood and began the long walk home even though no one would be there when he got to the house with the bare walls and the hole.

The memory rushed forward until he worked at a rundown diner. He gathered up a mess of plates slathered with ketchup and mustard. As he worked on the table, the same students, older now, bumped into him on their way out the door. “Enjoy the tip,
loser,” the bully shouted. Death looked around the table. Someone had turned a full cup of soda upside down. A few coins and a single dollar bill floated in the liquid. It would make a huge mess when he removed it.

In the next scene,
he slashed the tires of cars in the high school parking lot. He lifted the hoods of the vehicles and cut through all the lines, creating an oily mess. He wiped the grease on his jeans with a look of satisfaction as he walked away.

“You don’t love anyone,” a woman said. She hunched in a chair near a window, her face turned away.

“Why should I?” Death heard himself answer. He was older, his gray eyes hard as he ate a bowl of cereal at a stained kitchen table.

The woman turned her head, giving him a look of disgust and the chance to see the black eye and bruise that ran down the side of her face. Death’s heart gave a painful twinge, but the man at the table who was him in life didn’t flinch. “I’m leaving you,” the woman said.

The heartache in her voice was real, but the man waved his fingers as though he didn’t care. She stood with a huff and stalked to the door. She slammed it behind her. The man watched the door for a few seconds. When it didn’t open again, he turned back to his cereal.

In the final scene, Death saw himself
driving down a dark road far faster than he should. There was an empty bottle on the front seat and a half-empty one in his hand. He had aged, his knuckles scarred, gray in his black hair, and a tremor in his fingers that told of drug use.

The man blinked as tears rolled down his face.
A woman stepped onto the road. He swerved at the last second, barely missing her. He overcorrected and clipped the bumper of another car while his was sideways. It flipped the car he drove. Death watched the vehicle roll over three times before crashing into a convenience store. The driver sat still, blood running down his face and the bottle somehow still in his hand.

A form appeared, a dark shadow
that detached itself from the others on the midnight street. Death’s heartbeat slowed. A hand reached out and touched the driver on the shoulder. The driver’s breath escaped in a sigh as his soul left his body.

Death knelt with his head bowed as the memories vanished. He felt as if everything had been taken from him, all the happiness and joy he had experience with Nyra and the things he had learned from the people he had let live.

Yet a glimmer remained. His heart still beat in his chest. He put a hand to it, remembering Nyra’s smile, her belief in him despite knowing who he was. He might not deserve it, but it was there, a constant reminder that he had refused to carry out his job as Death because it meant hurting people. He refused to hurt people any longer.

“You lived a life you regretted; y
ou were hardhearted and cruel.”

Death felt each word like a dagger through his heart, but it was true.
He listened to every syllable.

“So you were sent back to bring souls home.”

“To learn compassion,” Death replied softly.

The voice filled him completely; it was his world, his thoughts, his everything when it replied, “
Yes. Is it our scars that make us who we are, or the way we heal from them?”

Death
swallowed against a sob. He closed his eyes tight as his heart ached.

“Rise, my son.
You sacrificed yourself for someone else when you pulled Jason Deveritt from the subway tracks. That is the ultimate love. In refusing to take the lives you felt still had a reason to live, you learned compassion, the very reason you became an angel of souls.” He heard the warmth in the voice when it said, “You have proven that you deserve a second chance.”

Death’s heart beat with the truth of the words. He was filled with warmth, happiness, and joy. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He looked up and said, “Thank you.”

He was surrounded with love. Everywhere he looked, faces he recognized looked down at him with love shining in their eyes and matching tears on their cheeks. They were people he knew, people he had touched and shown the path to the gateway. They were grateful for him.

The people around him faded away in a swirl of white. He closed his eyes. A smile touched his lips.

***

Death opened his eyes. The silence of the room was broken only by the quiet beeps of machines around him. A hand held his. His fingers tightened. A small intake of breath sounded. The images around him came into focus. Death looked up into a beautiful face surrounded in a halo of golden hair. Her green eyes filled with tears. Gentle fingers touched his cheek. He blinked.

“
Death, I-I thought you were gone,” Nyra said softly. Her words were thick with emotion. Her gaze held everything, her heartache and pain, her loneliness, her hope and belief, and her love. Her eyes shone bright with tears and her expression told more than any words.

He tried to speak, but no words came out. He swallowed and tried again. “Call me Devon.”

Her smile wrapped him in warmth. She held his hand tight, love shining on her face. He watched her, amazed that anyone could feel that way toward him. He remembered the faces he had seen above and heard the words again in the voice that wrapped him in warmth and love. “Someone is waiting for you.”

“I love you, Nyra.”

She gave him the smile that made his heart beat faster and filled him with strength. “I love you, Devon. I’m so glad you didn’t leave me.”

“Never,” he vowed.

He smiled up at her. The world moved around them, a steady rush of lives filled with happiness and joy, heartache and pain. Within the small hospital room, words no longer mattered. Death and the angel held hands as tears rolled down their cheeks. Devon watched Nyra, afraid she would disappear. He reminded himself over and over that she would stay with him, that she was the one he had returned for. She smiled down at him, her fingers entwined with his and her other hand on his cheek.

“I’ll
always be at your side,” she said softly.

“
As my guardian?” he asked.

She shook her head, her eyes bright.

In the silence of her tears, he heard it, the faint but steady beating of her heart.

About the Author

Cheree Alsop is the mother of a beautiful, talented daughter and amazing twin sons who fill every day with joy and laughter. She is married to her best friend, Michael, the light of her life and her soulmate who shares her dreams and inspires her by reading the first drafts and adding depth to the stories. Cheree is currently working as an independent author and mother. She enjoys reading, riding her motorcycle on warm nights, and playing with her twins while planning her next book. She is also a bass player for their rock band, Alien Landslide.

Cheree and Michael live in Utah where they rock out, enjoy the outdoors, plan great adventures, and never stop dreaming.

Check out Cheree’s other books at
www.chereealsop.com