Angel's Curse

1. Dreams

1. Dreams

It was strange looking through the window of the cottage — our home — and seeing past the garden to the dead and barren forest beyond.

Danizriel — Danny to me — the angel I loved above everything and everyone else, stood behind me and rubbed my arms. He kissed the top of my head, his eyes forever watching for the horrors that awaited us out there.

Danny was holding out for a miracle. I wasn’t so sure. If God meddled in the lives of His creations, then possibly He’d done two things for me already — led Danny to me, and allowed us to live. Wasn’t that enough? Could we really ask for another miracle? It’s not like God was a genie and we’d been granted three wishes. We were lucky to be alive, and for that I was grateful.

“Don’t fret, Helena,” he whispered into my ear, “the forest will grow back. It always does.”

I looked at his reflection in the window. “This has happened before?”

“Many times. That’s how I first learned the cottage cannot be destroyed from outside the confines of the boundaries of the blind spot on which it’s built.”

“What about the animals?”

I thought of cute and fluffy bunnies. Surely any bunnies that lived in the forest were wiry and lean — adapted to survive in the wild. The domesticated fluffy white variety that grew fat and lazy at the hands of mortal owners wouldn’t last long here. They’d be a tasty delicacy worth fighting over. Poor bunnies.

I thought of bears and possums, and the industrious ants and bees, of snakes and lizards — I didn’t care too much for them — and birds too young to leave the nest. Had any survived? Did they understand the warning the angels had given? Did they know the angels were going to devastate the entire area — the only home most of them had ever known? Did the angels care about all the wasted lives?

Danny shrugged his shoulders and kissed my neck. “Casualties of war, Helena. There are always those, in any war.”

I turned to face him and pounded a fist on his chest. “They could have found a way to save them! They’re His creatures too. What did they do,” I twisted around and tapped on the glass to draw his attention to the desolation outside the boundaries of the cottage, “to deserve this?”

“Helena, please, there’s nothing we can do now.” He stroked my hair and I shivered. “You’re only getting upset.”

“Damn right I’m getting upset!” I yelled, not at Danny, rather at the world in general. “Who else gives a s**t?”

I leaned back against the window pane.

“I thought my whole life was a big mistake — a practical joke of the universe, until I met you.” I poked him in the chest. “Then I thought, maybe, just maybe, I’d been made to suffer all those years so that when we found each other I’d appreciate what we had even more … but even now,” I sighed, “there’s a price to be paid.”

I rested my head on his chest and cried.

“It’s just not fair,” I whispered.

Danny walked me over to the bed and sat me down. He knelt in front of me, his hands on my legs, and looked up into my face. He produced a handkerchief from thin air — I wish I could do that — and handed it to me. I wiped my eyes and nose — sometimes that helped me to stop crying — but the sobs continued.

“Helena,” Danny spoke calmly now, trying to make me see reason, “if I’d been captured by whichever side — it doesn’t matter who anymore — and the only way to save me would be to raze the forest to the ground, would you have done it?”

Why did he have to use my feelings for him as a way to get me to put things into perspective? Dirty tactics! He knew what the answer would be. I’d fight the entire heavenly host if I had to, and kill — yes kill — anyone who got in my way.

I let my body fall sideways onto the bed and buried my face in the pillow.

“Go away,” I mumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Suit yourself,” Danny said. I heard him get up to leave the room.

I lifted my head. “Don’t go.”

He chuckled. “First you say leave, then you say stay. Soon you’ll have me running around in circles, Helena.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Danny raised his eyebrows, confused. “You do want me running around in circles?”

“No, silly.”

How hard it was to admit that I was just the same as them — the angels who had rained destruction down on the forest.

“I meant yes, I would do it, if it was the only way to save you.”

He walked back to the bed and sat next to me, pulling me into his arms in a comforting embrace.

“It stands to reason,” he whispered into my hair, “for I would do the same for you.”

I started sobbing again, knowing that he would sacrifice everything for me. I had so much more to lose than him. I wouldn’t want him to make sacrifices for me — I wasn’t worth it. I was, or had been, a common w***e. Why should he waste his life protecting or saving mine? He was patient with me, as usual, and let me get the anguish and tears out of my system.

“You’re a caring soul, Helena. You don’t want any of His creatures to suffer, do you?”

“That’s not quite true, Danny,” and with a savageness in my voice I said. “There are some of His creatures I’d wish dead!”

Danny nuzzled my hair again. He liked the scent of the shampoo mixed with my own scent.

“Be that as it may, you don’t want any of His innocent or defenceless creatures to suffer. You’re far too caring for that.”

Okay, so he was right. I wouldn’t want to see cute and fluffy bunnies burnt to a crisp because of me.

“Do you really think they’ll believe we’re dead, or are they smarter than that?” I asked.

“The angels, do you mean?” I nodded. Danny continued, “If I transport us anywhere, they might be able to pick up the resonance — my signature, as it were. However, they don’t know your signature. Provided you don’t mind transporting us around, and I don’t need to perform anything miraculous, we should be able to fly below the radar. Here, at the cottage, I can still do what needs to be done and they won’t detect us.”

I assumed that by doing what needs to be done Danny meant he would still complete the basic tasks such as providing hot water, clean clothes and some entertainment. I’d hate to have to wash all of our clothes by hand for the rest of my life, or worse still, drag it to a laundrette in the city to clean.

We’d discussed entertainment at length, as I felt that having been mortal for most of my life — and used to people, noise, clubbing and movies — there was a possibility I might eventually become bored. If we were to stay at the cottage for quite some time I’d need other outlets for my energy, apart from the obvious — hunting and s*x, which in themselves took up a considerable amount of time.

We may not have electricity — I wondered why he’d never thought of it, or solar panels at the least — but lots of things ran on batteries, and I’d discovered Danny could recharge them at will. That meant I could have music. Music meant I could teach him the finer points of dancing, both the club and classic varieties — I knew them all.

When I was young — not that I was old now — I used to escape the horrors of my abuse by watching old Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly movies. I watched them over and over again until I knew all the dance steps. I’d even learned some dance moves from Saturday Night Fever and Fame.

I remembered sticking drawing pins into the soles of my shoes when I tap-danced, so I could hear the sound they made. I would pretend that I was a great tapper, acclaimed the world over, like those Irish dancers or the gorgeous guys who could tap-dance a storm. I dreamed I’d been on Broadway and at the West End, and the applause was deafening — people loved me and I loved them. Those dreams, and the ability to dance, kept me going.

Occasionally I combined a number of dance styles just for something different, and quite often to good effect. I was quite fluid and graceful for a gangly little kid. I think my foster parents liked me that way.

Later, when I needed to, I learned what was loosely termed erotic dancing, including striptease, pole dancing and lap dancing. My dancing, combined with gymnastics, had caught the eye of the preacher. That gained me some measure of security in the sordid world I lived in. Our relationship — if you could call it that — had always been rocky. On the night I’d punished him, for sleeping with a girl no more than fourteen years old, the preacher could take no more of my insubordination. Oh, I’d been punished before for being insolent — I‘d lost track of the number of bruises, black eyes and fractured ribs I’d had — but never had I been placed on a hit list. Okay, so recently I’d found out the contract had been changed to torture in the Funhouse. After my last visit to the preacher at The Cage, I was sure the hit was back on — once I’d been suitably tortured, of course.

“I think I can take care of our transportation,” I said. “Just don’t do anything reckless!”

The light was fading in the sky. I yawned. The past week had been a rollercoaster of emotions for me — for Danny too I guessed — and with the adrenaline rushes and crashes I hadn’t been sleeping well at all.

Danny kissed the top of my head and stood up. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll be on the couch, reading.”

“Can’t you read in here?” I asked.

“I could, but I’ll probably make too much noise. You’re such a light sleeper and you really need a good sleep. I know you didn’t get much during the three days you looked after me.”

“I don’t mind, really.”

“How about I make you a deal. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep, no reading. I’ll just lay next to you. When you’re asleep, and won’t miss me, I’ll go read.”

“If you leave, I will miss you,” I said, “but I accept your deal. Better something than nothing.”

I changed into something more appropriate for bed. Danny, who could dress and undress in the blink of an eye, was already under the covers and held the blankets back for me to climb in next to him.

I lay in the crook of his arm, his hand fitting naturally into the curve of my waist. I rested my head on his shoulder, with a hand on his chest. One of my legs was draped over Danny’s leg, pinning him down. If I fall asleep like this he can’t leave. Danny’s free hand sought mine — on his chest — resting lightly on top of it.

I sighed. “I can almost imagine us as normal people, living normal lives.”

I heard him chuckle softly. Slowly I drifted off to sleep, listening to his steady rhythmic breathing, and feeling safe and secure snuggled up next to him.

Danny was with me in my dream. That was not unusual, as he featured in many of my dreams. We were hunting, and being hunted …

We followed the scent of four vampires. They were running from us, and running fast. As we didn’t know exactly where they were heading we couldn’t transport ahead of them. If they suddenly changed direction we’d miss them and have to backtrack. It was a good old-fashioned chase and I was in my element, running faster than any mortal could possibly hope to run.

Danny had told me I ran, at top speed, at a staggering two hundred and thirty-five kilometres an hour. Wow, that was mind boggling! I’d been in fast cars before, flying along the open highway at close to two hundred kilometres an hour — screaming in terror at the speed — thinking I was going to die if the driver didn’t slow down. My top speed, of course, made those cars seem positively slow — a leisurely Sunday drive.

I didn’t always run flat out — only when we had to cover a significant amount of territory in the fastest time possible. Most of the time I ran at quarter or half speed, particularly in unfamiliar territory. There was still plenty of that. Besides it was too easy to lose a scent trail if you ran full pelt all the time. The vamps we were chasing had a good head start, yet they were in an area I knew well, not far from the fall — a ledge high up on a rocky outcrop. I had balanced precariously on it, only to plunge backwards to the forest floor below. Hence its nickname — the fall.

I slowed down to allow Danny to catch up, then continued running at his pace. He took it like a man, the fact that a woman — a mere slip of a girl compared to him — albeit an immortal one, could outrun him. As he kept saying, we had different talents. This was one of mine.

I could smell the sickly-sweet scents that always made my mouth want to pucker up — and sometimes it did, depending on the individual scent — getting stronger now. We were catching them. They had changed direction once more. Could they be heading to the fall? Hadn’t they learned how futile an ambush was?

Danny had fallen slightly behind again. I’d picked up the pace without even realising it, their nearness spurring me on. I looked back to smile encouragingly at him. The smile fell away when I saw what was following him, still some distance behind. They were downwind of us, so we had no way of knowing they were there — three werewolves, the minimum number required to take down an angel.

“Run,” I yelled out to him, “or leave! We’ve got company.”

Danny turned his head to look behind him, still running as fast as he could, and spotted the wolves.

“Go,” he urged me, “I can make it.”

“So can the wolves,” I yelled back. “They can climb too you know!”

In truth they weren’t as good at climbing in wolf form. Their paws weren’t designed for ascending or descending vertically. They needed to use their thick, sharp claws to help them — similar to a mountaineer using a pick axe to gain purchase in the frozen ice and snow — to scramble up and down trees, or sheer rock faces.

The scent of the vampires went straight up, to the fall. They were that stupid. I didn’t want to start the climb without Danny by my side. There was no way I was going to take the chance he wouldn’t make it. He had enough of a head start on the wolves and within moments was at my side.

“What are you waiting for?” he said. “Climb.”

“No,” I replied, grabbing his hand. I transported us to the fall, a few metres in from the edge. I’d learned my lesson about standing on the edge.

Expecting to see the four vamps, we were both taken off guard when five angels stood at the rear of the fall, four piles of ashes in front of them. I noticed the angels all wore black armbands, in mourning of a fallen brother who was dead to them. It was Danny! They were after Danny!

I reacted immediately, instinctively taking us back to the cottage. It was still not fast enough, for angel fire had already left the palm of one angel and touched Danny. Through my connection to him, via our hands, I felt the searing pain of the fiery flame lick through my body, as it did Danny’s. There was no way to put the fire out and no way to disengage.

I woke when I felt Danny struggling to break free of the angel fire in my dream, only to find that he was struggling. Is he in the grip of a dream? His eyes opened as soon as I gently touched his shoulder. He sat up with a suddenness that made it seem he was still in the grip of some nightmare.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Drag me into your dream. It was so vivid, so real.”

“You don’t dream,” I reminded him.

“I know. That’s what makes it so amazing.” Danny’s eyes were shining with an appreciation for something he’d experienced that was new and unpredictable. “It was like a wild ride. Once I was on I couldn’t get off.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had no secrets from Danny. He knew all there was to know about me, including things I’d repressed. My dreams were different. I had no control over them at all and wasn’t certain how he’d interpret some of them, especially those that involved my past.

“Were you really in my dream? I didn’t just dream you were there?”

“Yes, I was there.”

“I often dream about you,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Is that what it’s like,” he asked, a sombre expression on his face, “for mortals?”

“The wild ride?” He nodded. “Some of the time, yes. Sometimes you have the same dream a few times, but mostly they’re different — some happy, some sad and some so scary when you wake you don’t want to go back to sleep.”

Danny ran his hands through his hair. He looked somewhat distressed.

“I found I had no control over my body, or my actions, in the dream.”

“You don’t. The dream takes you where it will. We’re nothing but puppets and the dream is the puppet master.”

“It was an interesting experience. If I had more control of myself I’d be much more comfortable being in one.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Danny. You’ve never had a dream before.”

I took his hand and sucked on one of his fingers, looking up at him with a devious expression on my face. “You should have dropped in on one of the good ones.”

He chuckled when he realised what I was referring to and visibly relaxed.

“Remember, you’ll always wake up. There’s nothing to fear. You have to learn to let go sometime, Danny.”

“You’re right, of course, but if I could book you in for one of those good ones I’d be only too happy to participate.”