Angel's Decree

Monica opened her eyes and realized, with a jolt, what a mistake she was making. She pushed Eric away from her and the pill fell to the floor between them. Caryn glanced at Monica and shook her head, slowly.

“Monica?” her eyes were question marks. “What…”

“You’re really starting to piss me off, Irish.” Eric’s voice was low, dangerous.

“I don’t care.” Monica glared at him and then looked at Caryn. “I don’t want to do this. And neither should you.”

“Why don’t you get the Hell out of here?” he towered over Monica, but she stood her ground.

“I’m not leaving without Caryn.” She looked at her friend, stared into her dark frightened eyes. “I won’t leave you here.”

“Monica…”

“Don’t think about it, Caryn, just come with me.” Monica extended her hand towards her.

“You don’t have to listen to her, Caryn.” Eric stepped in front of her and rested a large hand on her shoulder. “You’re a big girl.”

Caryn’s eyes were pleading. She wanted to do the right thing, but she needed release. Eric was offering her a way of escape, and she was on the verge of taking it – but then Monica’s hand took hers.

“Caryn, I love you, and I don’t want to see you hurt.” Monica’s voice was filled with conviction, like she really meant it. “You’re better than this.” The thought of anyone caring for her brought tears to Caryn’s eyes. Monica was like an angel, and it shook her to her core. How could she resist something so powerful?

She nodded. “Alright Monica. I’ll go with you.”

Hand in hand, the two of them moved past Eric wordlessly, with him looking on, his eyes blazing hatred for Monica. He felt that this wasn’t over…

Outside, Caryn was trembling, but Monica was sure as she ever was. She hadn’t forced Caryn to do anything she hadn’t wanted to do. Instead, she’d showed her that there was a better way, a better road than the one she was traveling.

As they slid into the car, Monica glanced over at Caryn. “Are you alright?”

Caryn nodded. “Yeah. I think so.” She looked at Monica. “You saved my life back there.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that…”

“You did. You’re such a good person, and I almost dragged you down with me.” Caryn turned to stare out the window. “I’m such a bad person.”

“You resisted temptation.” Monica said, half-smiling. “We both did. I think that has to count for something.”

Caryn nodded, slowly. “I guess you’re right.”

“Do you want to go home to your parents now?”

As Monica pulled the car away from the curb, Caryn nodded, her eyes glazed with tears. She’d never be able to express how grateful she was to Monica. There weren’t nearly enough words.

. . .

Later, when Monica got back to Tess’ suite, she wasn’t surprised to see that Tess had begun making dinner without her. She looked so warm and parental in an apron and with her oven mitts on that Monica avoided her gaze, terrified that Tess would see the truth in her eyes, see what she almost did back at the apartment.

“I brought pasta and a few other things…” Monica began moving about the kitchen around Tess, putting things away. “I’m sorry I was late. I got caught up.” It hurt to lie to Tess, but she couldn’t tell the truth. At least not yet.

. . .

Across town, Andrew played pool in a small tavern with a man he had met a few days ago. He was a young man who’d happened upon Andrew at one of his darkest times, and something about his countenance had made Andrew falter. He’d put down his drink and never picked it up again, and he’d suspected that that had been the young man’s purpose in the first place.

Usually, when they played, Andrew sat in the shadows until it was his turn and they didn’t speak much. He was taking it all in: life, death, and everything in between. He didn’t know what it was all for – and he wondered what kept the young man so cheerful, so pleasant. It was the oddest thing.

“Rafael?” He spoke and his voice sounded dry to his own ears. The young man looked at him with open, coffee colored eyes.

“Yeah, Andrew?”

“What keeps you going?” he really needed to know. It had been bugging him for a while. He still thought about Monica, and it ached him, seemed like a cruel joke that he should have met her at all only to lose her. This young man seemed wise beyond his years even while he seemed maybe twenty - if he was a day.

“Well,” he paused, his handsome smile a bit shy. “It might sound corny to you.”

“At this point, I don’t think it matters.”

Rafael shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I pray a lot. I think about God and I talk to him. He comforts me when I need it. It helps.”

Andrew was on the verge of rolling his eyes, but he didn’t. This was the most he and Rafael had spoken since they’d met, and he didn’t want to offend him already. It was nice having a friend, someone to talk to. The thought of God made him angry and confused. If there was a God, how could he let him hit rock bottom like this? Why was he torturing him this way? Then again, he wasn’t lying dead somewhere in a gutter, although he’d wished it on several occasions…

“I met a man once,” he began speaking, “about two or three weeks ago. He was dressed in white. He was…” Andrew paused, certain Rafael would think he was insane. “…he was the angel of death.”

Rafael kept his eyes on his shot, unable to look at Andrew for fear of him seeing truth betrayed in his eyes. Andrew was so down it was difficult to be around him when he was like this, so human and so downtrodden. He was used to seeing him sure-footed and majestic and straight-laced. This Andrew was almost the opposite of that one with his depression and his stubble.

When he’d found Andrew, he’d been sitting at a barstool, drinking alcohol like water. Something in his physiological self hadn’t been able to process it so that he wasn’t actually drunk, but Andrew had tried his hardest to get there in spite of his limitations – or lack thereof. It had taken everything inside Rafael not to blurt out the truth, but he wasn’t permitted. Not yet. It was too soon, and the truth wouldn’t have been available to him yet anyway. Instead, he nodded. “That’s really something.”

Andrew let go a small laugh. “So, that’s it?”

Rafael broke the rack and then stood up and faced Andrew. “Seeing angels isn’t so strange. People claim to see UFO’s, right?”

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t place little green men in the same category as the guy I saw. He was… so real. He spoke to me.”

“Yeah? What’d he say?”

Andrew tried to remember. “He said… his name was Adam. He told me to… ‘hang in there’, if you can believe that.”

“I can believe that.” Rafael said with a fond smile. “That sounds like something he might say. Death, I mean.”

Andrew looked at Rafael closer. He had the impression that he was being misled somehow. “Right. Sure.”

One thing Rafael noted, something that might help Andrew along, would be to get him back to the thing that made him happiest. He could sense evidence of a broken heart, which was odd since Rafael was only used to dealing with this sort of thing in humans – not angels. Still, it held all the same symptoms. Andrew was angry, listless, lonely.

“So, you got a lady friend?” Rafael threw out offhandedly.

Andrew looked down at his feet, shuffling them. “No.”

“Good lookin’ guy like you? I find that hard to believe.”

Andrew shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Rafael already knew who it was that was plaguing Andrew, and he didn’t know if it was in God’s long term plan, but he thought it might help him if he were reunited with her. Maybe it would make things easier, for the time being.

“Maybe you should go to her.” He said, and Andrew’s green eyes found his.

“I don’t think…”

“Don’t think.” Rafael’s beige face was almost as persuasive as his words. “Find her.”

. . .

It was late as Tess sang quietly to herself and fondled the edges of a knitted pillow in her long dark fingers. Monica sat nearby looking into the fireplace and listening to the crackle of wood. She and Tess had a comfort level that surpassed anything Monica was accustomed to. In fact, it frightened her a little.

“Tess, I’m going to go out for a wee bit.”

“Okay, Angel girl. The keys are on the counter.”

“No, Tess. I think I’m going to take a walk.”

Tess looked over at Monica, her deep eyes inquisitive. “Are you sure, baby? It’s late.”

Monica nodded. Something was calling to her, something in the night. She knew that if she only went out into it, she’d find it. Maybe it would be answers to all her questions – and Tess’ too.

The night was dark, and Monica hugged her sweater to herself, clutching herself. The wind picked up, chilling her to the bone, making her dark hair fly around her face in long wavy streamers. She was almost cold enough to turn around, but she kept walking, driven.

Mere blocks away, Andrew walked, his feet carrying him somewhere and nowhere. He didn’t know where. Rafael’s words had inspired him, and though he was afraid of finding nothing, he kept onward, his heart propelling him.

It was darker here, no streetlamps. The neighborhood turned worse and there was broken glass on the sidewalk, urine soaked bus stops and remnants of drug use, cigarette butts littering the gutters.

Monica shuddered and thought of turning back. Down an alley, she caught a pair of eyes peeking at her through the darkness, glowing yellow eyes. She was too afraid to cry out or run; she could only stare back at them as they filled her with terror. And then, something that made her blood run cold: they came nearer, grew larger in the darkness. She covered her mouth with a trembling hand and stood there, knees weak enough to drop her, but then she found herself in a pair of protective arms.

She screamed before she realized who it was.

“I’m here.” He said as he held her to him. “Monica.”

“A-Andrew?” she held a hand to his face, touched his cheek, his chin, his lips, just to make sure. “Andrew…”

He held her tight in his arms, and the thing that had been watching her slithered away, back into the darkness. Her eyes searched the shadows for it but found nothing.

“I’m sorry, Andrew.” She whispered into his chest. “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head, holding her tight to him. “No, you did nothing wrong…”

“I ran away from you.” She looked up into his eyes, normally hazel but dark in this light.

“You were upset. I should have given you time.”

“I missed you so much.” She let her tears fall. “So much…”

He held her to him, breathing in her scent, the sweetness of her, the softness of her. It was all encompassing, and he felt he was drowning in it, but happily so.

Her hand caressed his stubble cheek, his long wheat-colored hair. She let her fingers get tangled in it, remembering him all over again. He was just as he was when she last saw him - but also different in small ways. For instance, his eyes were so intense now. She felt a pang of guilt. His suffering was her fault.

“I’m so sorry I left you, Andrew.” As she spoke, he let his fingers get lost in her long dark hair, longed to be closer to her. “I was so upset and so afraid.”

“I understand.” He said. “How are you now?”

“I’m so happy you’re here.” She took a step closer to him and took his hands in hers. “You won’t believe where I’m staying.”

When they arrived back at Tess’ suite, Monica found Tess curled up on her daybed sleeping with a nice book in her hands. Quietly, she removed her shoes and placed the book on the nightstand next to her lamp. She tucked her in, as if she were her own child, and lay a soft kiss on her cheek. She dearly loved Tess and didn’t want to wake her.

In the next room, she met Andrew who stood with his hands at his sides.

“You can relax, Andrew.” She said, her brown eyes flickering against the light of the fireplace.

But he shook his head. “I don’t think I can relax, Monica. The thought of losing you again… I can’t bear it.”

She smiled, slightly. “You don’t have to worry about losing me, Andrew. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

His laugh was nervous and soft. “I wish I could believe you.”

She exhaled, slowly and approached him. Her eyes were so serious as she reached for him, wrapped her arms around his middle. He stiffened at first, but then he loosened up and let her hold him. His eyes were so troubled, but when he looked into her mocha-colored ones, he felt himself melting.

“I love you, Moni- ” His voice broke as he said it, and she quieted him with a gentle kiss. His hands were at his sides as she kissed him a second time and then a third. And then his hands came up to rest on her shoulders, one caressing her cheek as he leaned in and kissed her back, a deep hungry kiss that threatened to swallow them both.

They hadn’t even realized they were swaying when Andrew let his hands drift down to the small of her back and pull her to him, closer than before, their bodies melding. He could taste her the way he could before, so sweet and rich. She was like honey in her purity and he found he wanted more.

“Andrew…” she half-whispered, half-moaned as his lips traveled down her slender neck and kissed and nibbled her there. The sensations shooting through her were powerful enough to rock her to her core. She felt delirious and weak kneed. Without his strong hands holding her up, she might’ve fallen…

Outside the window, perched on the limbs of a great oak, sat two beings who watched in awe, a little embarrassed but also intrigued.

“I don’t think they should be doing this.” Rafael said in a quiet voice, the tips of his ears pink with warmth. “Maybe we should make them stop, somehow.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to interfere.” The analytic little angel known as Gloria took notes on a pad. “As far as humans go, this behavior is perfectly normal.”

“But they’re not humans,” Rafael argued. “They’re angels!”

“Not in their current state, they’re not.” Gloria pushed her glasses up her nose. She was furiously taking notes as Andrew and Monica ‘got better acquainted’. “If they were angels, they wouldn’t even have these kinds of desires. But, as it stands…”

“We should intervene.” Rafael said, shielding his eyes from the scene inside the suite. “I’m going to create a diversion.”

“Well, it was your idea to bring them back together, Rafael.” Gloria shrugged, reasoning it out. “Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea.”

“I didn’t know they would… end up like this…” he gestured toward the window. “…they’ll never regain their grace this way.”

“I think mortality suits them.” Gloria nodded. “They fit together so well, don’t they? Then again, I always thought they would.”

“That’s not the point of this.” Rafael was unsure how to proceed. “And what if they give in to it? What if they stay human?”

“I don’t think it will come to that.” Gloria said, but she seemed a little unsure. “Also, there are those other forces at work – besides those human issues. What about evil? He’s there lurking, waiting to trap them.”

Rafael looked grim as he thought of it. “Yeah. Like earlier, in the alley. I’m glad Andrew showed up when he did, otherwise…”

Gloria didn’t want to think about it. “Well, I believe that Monica is strong enough to defeat evil. As an angel – or as a mortal.”

Rafael looked back through the window where the angels had reigned in their emotions and disentangled themselves from each other. Currently, they were merely chatting, holding hands. He heaved a sigh of relief that things hadn’t taken a more… passionate tone. “For everyone’s sake, I hope you’re right, Gloria.”