The woman’s expression turned to one of surprise.
“What do you need her for? She’s crazy.”
“Aren’t we all?” Jon said with a soft smile, and the woman smiled as well, the urge to kill him no longer a priority.
CHAPTER TEN
Fernita’s poor old eyes blurred as she tried to focus on the latest row of foreign scribbles that adorned the wall of her living room, behind the sofa.
Remy’s friend was with her, trying to get her to stop, but he just didn’t understand. Wiping the markings away . . . it was like washing a window covered in thick dirt, and finally being able to see what was on the other side.
Some of the memories were horrible, yes, that was true, but others . . .
Others were special beyond words.
Louisiana: 1932
She didn’t know why the man with thinning black hair caught her eye the way he had, but there was just something about him.
Eliza had seen him out there in the audience every night for the last week, listening as she sang. Maybe it was the way he watched her, as if he could feel what she did as she sang her favorite songs.
The songs made her feel whole. Complete.
And it had been a very long time since she had felt complete.
No one knew how long she’d been hanging around this sad old world. She knew that she didn’t look to be any older than her mid-twenties, but looks were deceiving.
She was much, much older than that.
Her grandmother once told her it had something to do with their bloodline, that they were one of the first, and it made them age slower.
All Eliza knew was that she had experienced a lot of things in her life—war, slavery, freedom, of a sort—but nothing made her happier than singing her songs.
Her family hadn’t approved of her singing in clubs. They kept telling her that her voice was a gift from the Lord, and she should use it only on special occasions. But Eliza couldn’t understand that. Why would the Almighty have given her this gift if she wasn’t allowed to share it with everybody?
That was the question that made her leave her family, setting out for Louisiana in the middle of the night. That was why she was here, sharing her songs with everyone. But tonight, for some reason, she didn’t really didn’t care about everyone. Tonight she wanted to share her songs with only this man.
What is it about him?
She’d seen him talking to Melvin, but her boss didn’t seem to know who the stranger was. Just some guy coming to hear her sing, he’d guessed.
Still, she wanted to know, and decided she’d get what she needed from the horse itself.
He seemed surprised that she was even talking to him, and now as she stood before him, hand out, waiting for him to reply, she wasn’t sure if he was just rude or touched.
“I’m Pearly Gates,” he said finally, taking her hand in his.
The moment was special beyond words.
The moment that Eliza Swan fell in love.
Zophiel flew just above the sea of clouds, a shark swimming the ocean waters following the scent of blood.
One moment it was strong, taunting him with its proximity, and the next it was gone, driving him to the brink of madness.
But he did not stop searching; this was what he had come to this world to find.
What he had sworn to destroy.
It was there again, wafting in the atmosphere. He took the scent into his being. This time it was strong, and growing stronger.
His powerful wings, sheathed in the armor of God, beat the air with increasing fury, his speed intensifying as he followed the trail. The smell of it had become even more intense, his preternatural senses aroused to the brink of overload.
Zophiel was so close.
But he mustn’t become careless, for he had been this close before. . . .
The memory bubbled up from the morass of his subconscious, reminding him of his folly.
Zophiel had no recollection of how long he had been in the world of God’s man, or why, until he’d sensed the power.
It called, teasing him with its poisonous taint. He did not know why he hated it so, only that he had to destroy it.
Circling the land from above, the Cherubim found the source of his rage, and descended upon it with the combined shriek of his three faces.
He landed in a crouch before the fragile wooden structure, the scent of his prey driving him forward. A sentry and its faithful four-legged beast attempted to bar his way, the human firing a noisy weapon that spit fire and flecks of metal, but to little avail.
The Cherubim briefly admired the bravery of the human and his animal before turning the fires of Heaven upon their fragile forms, wiping away any evidence that they’d ever existed.
The power continued to cry out from within the structure, and the Cherubim threw himself upon the closed wooden doors, taking them and most of the front wall down as he made his entrance.
Screams of terror erupted from the human bugs inside, their frenzied attempts to escape a distraction from his purpose. The fire leapt from his fingertips, igniting the room and its scurrying inhabitants as it searched for the source of his outrage.
The Cherubim’s three faces sniffed the air, the smell of forbidden power prevalent over the choking aromas of wood smoke and burning flesh.
“There,” Zophiel proclaimed.
His quarry stood, staring wide-eyed at his awesome visage. She was a woman, a human woman with a power so dangerous that it threatened Heaven itself.
And nothing would stop him from destroying her.
But something had stopped him.
Zophiel hovered over the world as the memories flooding his brain became a trickle, and then trailed off to nothing.
Something had prevented him from carrying out his duty, but the memory of what it was eluded him. The Cherubim was frustrated, and that quickly turned to anger. He turned his attention toward the Earth below, knowing that the answers he sought would be found there, amongst the hairless monkeys that had captured the love of the Heavenly Father. Strangely enough, this thought calmed him, the knowledge that he would soon have answers to temporarily sate his fury. The Cherubim returned to the hunt, finding the elusive scent again, and flying toward it.
This time he would not be stopped.
The woman had agreed to take them.
Remy sat across from Jon in the boat, the woman at the back, steering with the craft’s outboard motor. Behind them, the little girl stood on the wooden dock watching them leave, kitten still clutched in her arms.
“I don’t know how she’ll feel about this,” the woman said as she piloted the craft through the thick, brackish waters, between twisted, primordial-looking trees hanging thick with moss.
“We’ll just explain ourselves like we did with you,” Jon said, slapping at the bugs that were trying to feast upon his blood.
“Huh,” the woman responded, taking them deeper and deeper into the swamp.
Remy let his senses wander. There was something here, something ancient and powerful. He could feel it emanating from the trees, from the animals that hid as they approached, from the water.
“It’s beautiful,” he said as the boat moved deeper into the swamp’s embrace.
“It is,” the woman replied. “But that beauty’ll kill you if you’re not careful.”
“I’m sure it would.” Remy watched an alligator, at least eight feet long, slither from a mud-covered bank into the still, oily water, where it disappeared.
“How much longer?” Jon asked, still slapping at bugs that seemed intent on eating him alive. The bugs didn’t bother Remy—he had lowered his body temperature so as not to be all that enticing.
“Not long,” the woman said.