Hero Worship

6. This Fight Is Just Starting

6This Fight Is Just StartingA lot of details fell into place for Billy as he made his way back home. He took the long route, sticking to the underground train until he was finally forced to switch to the overland for the final few stops.

He’d always preferred the Tube. Just that process of descending into the world under London via the steep jerky escalator excited him. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was a Freudian thing, descending into Mother Earth and all that, but he felt the answer was a lot simpler: he liked the seamier side of life.

The tunnels always stank of human sweat, dirt, rodent feces, and layer upon layer of dust which was churned up every time the trains whizzed past. It floated in the air, became suspended in the harsh overhead lights until the train had gone, and then it fell back onto the platforms and tracks, creating a blanket of gray insulation. It fell on people, too, leaving them coated with subtle layers of dust and dirt while they waited on hard plastic benches for trains that never seemed to arrive on time.

Anywhere else he’d resist the dirt, but here, he loved it. The Tube brought everyone down to the same level, waiting for the same unreliable filth covered trains. Everyone was the same. He was the same. He never wondered about his place in the Universe when he was speeding through the tunnels.

Today, though, it was different. He was an angel, and although he still wanted its familiarity, he didn’t need the Tube anymore for the world to make sense.

The nature of his relationship with Tazia was becoming clearer, too. He was her protector, the only one she could rely on when the s**t hit the fan.

Looking back, this was how it had always been; he provided her with a place to rest up or hide when all the craziness in her life got too much. He came up with the ideas to save her from the attentions of whacked-out arms dealers or over-enthusiastic demon suitors. He’d even been known to call up an unsuspecting meal or two from his little black book when she’d been too lazy to go hunting.

One thing hadn’t changed though: he would always love her.

For a moment he stared at his reflection in the darkened window of the train. His face floated in front of the black walls of the tunnel: he looked the same. The fine bone structure, dark brown eyes, and long thick lashes were still Billy’s, not a sky-high light being. As he looked, the movement of the train loosened his black hair, and a few thick strands bobbed over his eyes. Angel or not, he still needed s**t-loads of gel and wax.

Yes, he looked the same, but inside, he felt different.

The train came to a stop at the end of the line, and he made his way up the steep stairs onto the surface platform to pick up the overland and take the final couple of stops home.

Amazingly, the connecting train turned up early, and he fell into a seat which was in an identical spot to the last one.

In defiance of the warning stickers on the windows, he propped up his feet on the seat opposite, and stretched out his long legs. His black jeans were still cut skinny even though the style had passed. They felt secure in the way that a looser cut didn’t. And his Chelsea boots told of his slight obsession with the eighties even though he was only a kid then.

After a couple of minutes, Billy began to zone out watching the platforms through the window. Old brick industrial buildings passed by in a blur along with the people rushing home before the view gave way to the railings of the bridge over the Thames.

“So, angel, you’ve finally decided to step out of the shadows?”

Billy continued to stare, but his tired eyes had become rounder in recognition of the slightly sharp female voice he could hear next to his ear. It had a distinctly high-brow English accent. He said nothing.

“Not talking, pet?”

There was a sigh, and the image of a woman slowly appeared in the window right beside his own reflection. The light outside bleached the image into shades of gray, the lighter tones suggesting bone white skin, and for a moment, his mind filled in her long shock of red hair with its thick gray highlights. She shook her head as though she was a slightly impatient horse, and he could hear fingernails drumming against a surface somewhere he knew was not in the train carriage.

“Jegudiel.” Billy mouthed her name. It was a name he’d forgotten about for hundreds of years, and even though Soren Huxford had reminded him of it, it had still remained stuck in the part of his brain that had yet to wake. Just a name. Abstract. Harmless.

Until now.

“Pet, you do remember me!” Her laugh tinkled a little and then became sharp and jagged. The compartment light flickered, and the ceiling creaked ominously over the electric hum of the train traveling the rails.

One of the other passengers briefly glanced up at the light and then caught Billy’s eye as she looked back down. He smiled at her, his sweetest smile, which did its usual job. She returned the smile shyly and rearranged her hair a little before looking back to her book.

“You’ve still got the charm, Billy.” Jegudiel looked at him. Her eyes narrowed. “Always the favorite, weren’t you?”

Billy said nothing and looked away from the window as they pulled into the station just before his own. The other passengers stood up to get off the train including the girl who smiled slightly at him again. Not his type, he reflected. Not blonde, not confident, and wearing green plastic Crocs. Seriously? Not sexy, love.

It was a moment before Billy remembered that he didn’t actually know anymore what his “type” was. Did he even still have one? Was he allowed? Do angels date?

The beeping from the closing doors brought his attention back to the window, and as the carriage remained empty, he replied to the reflection of the glaring High Advocate. “I wasn’t the favorite. I was just a soldier.”

“Just a soldier?” She snorted. “You were a paragon of virtue. You served without question and did anything asked of you.”

Her voice raised to a level just below shrill. The carriage rattled loudly.

“You were the perfect example of stupid subservience to a cause you never thought to question. You were a robotic half-wit, just like the others who served under Ezequiel. You—”

“God, you still love to hear your own voice, don’t you?” Her words had started pulling more puzzle pieces into place, reconstructing a picture of past events. “Ezequiel was—is—a brave and powerful angel who outranked you, and you hated him for it. That’s the truth, Jegudiel. He blocked your attempt at saving that animal of an Abbot you loved so much, and your enormous ego couldn’t take the fact he said no.”

Billy’s voice filled the carriage, and as his words gathered momentum, he felt energy rush through his body. God, how he’d missed it! For a moment, he felt he could power the Large Hadron Collider all with a few whispered words and lines of magical code. It feels so damn good!

He wasn’t finished, either. “And you couldn’t stand it, could you? Instead of respecting the words of your superior, you decided to abandon your responsibilities. Your Faith, Jegudiel, your Faith.” As he remembered that time long ago, a bad taste returned to linger in his mouth like the sour vomit he’d left on the floor at the doctor’s office. “Instead, you stood beside all that’s rotten and wrong with this world—all that the demons have created. You chose them over your own kind.”

Exhausted, Billy stopped. He’d watched Jegudiel’s features pass through many expressions while he’d been talking and knew she had felt his power, too.

She looked strangely calm, with a serene twisted smile. “And now, Billy, you have your own demon lover.”

He couldn’t prevent her words cutting into him, or the scowl he gave her.

She saw it and pressed her advantage. “You have compromised your own beliefs so many times over her. Your life as a human has been full of self-doubt, disrespect, and such little esteem for yourself, let alone the many people you’ve dragged into your own debauchery. Just because you couldn’t fathom why that stupid little demon girl would not love you as you wanted.”

Billy dropped the look and, instead stared at the seat in front of him. He imagined Tazia there. What would she say to this? He couldn’t remember the number of times she had told him to get on with his life and forget about her. That he deserved better than a half-demon girl. That she could never love him the way he loved her. But she would say all this with a smile and a hug and a genuine desire to be his friend. She wouldn’t condemn him, and he knew she’d be ashamed of him if he chastised himself for simply having human feelings.

“No, that’s not why I’ve been the way I have.” He turned to her, again. “I’ve been this way because I was just a human—a weak-minded, fallible, and confused human soul forced to share space with an angel I couldn’t even remember existed. Trying to make sense of feelings I didn’t understand. I’ve had an angel fighting for space inside my human self for years. No wonder I’ve been lost trying to understand who I am.”

He stood up as the train pulled into his station. Time slowed around them. Billy lowered his head slightly, his look piercing time and space to burn into Jegudiel’s skin. “But I know who I am now, Advocate. And I will not let you take her. This fight is just starting, bitch.”