Forgiveness—is it even possible? After the Grigori were exiled, they had tried to make the best of it. Earth became their home. They knew they would never see Heaven again. The idea that they might be forgiven had never even entered his mind—until the day he first saw the boy at the common.
He took another drag from his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs. There he was, minding his own business, looking through the trash for redeemable cans, when he sensed him—clear across the common he could feel the kid’s presence. He’d encountered others over the centuries, but none ever had that kind of effect on him. Aaron was special. He was different.
Zeke released the smoke from his lungs in a billowy cloud. The cigarette was finished and he threw the filter to the floor. He wanted another and considered asking a neighbor to spot him one until he remembered that he already owed cigarettes to several people in the building. He would need to drown the urge to smoke.
What would I say to Him—to the Creator? he wondered as he picked up the bottle. “I’m sorry for messing things up,” he muttered, and had some whiskey.
He let the bottle rest against his stomach and gazed up at the ceiling, concentrating on a water stain that reminded him of Italy.
Was saying he was sorry even enough?
Zeke dug through the thick haze of memory to find what it was like to be in His presence. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of his recollection flood over him. If only there was a way to feel that again—to stand before the Father of all things and beg His forgiveness.
He opened his eyes and brought his fingers to his face. His cheeks were wet with tears.
“Pathetic,” he grumbled, disgusted with his show of emotion. “Tears aren’t going to do me a bit of good,” he said aloud as he brought his bottle up to drink. He leaned his head back and swallowed with powerful gulps. He belched loudly, a low rippling sound that seemed to shake the rafters. “Should’a thought how sorry I’d be before I started handing out makeup tips,” he said sarcastically.
The smell suddenly hit him. Smoke. And not the kind he desperately craved. Something was burning.
He rose from his bed and walked barefoot across the room to the door. If Fat Mary down the hall was using her hotplate again, they’d all be in trouble. The woman could burn water, he mused as he opened the door to the hallway.
A blast of scalding air hit him square and he stumbled back, arms up to protect his face. The hall was on fire and quickly filling with smoke.
Panic gripped him, not for his own safety, for he was almost sure the flames could not kill him, but for the safety of the other poor souls who called the Osmond their home.
He stumbled out into the hallway, his hand over his mouth, a bit of protection from the noxious clouds swirling in the air. There was a fire alarm at the end of the hallway, he remembered. If he could get to it, he might have a chance to save some lives.
Zeke pressed himself to the wall, feeling his way along its length.
He could hear the cries of those trapped inside their rooms by the intense heat.
The smoke was growing thicker. He got down on all fours and began to crawl. The wood floor was becoming hot to the touch, blistering the skin on his hands and knees as he moved steadily forward. He couldn’t be far now.
Zeke looked up, his seared and tearing eyes trying to discern the shape of the alarm on the wall—and that was when he saw them. There were two of them, slowly making their way through the smoke and fire.
He tried to yell, but all he could manage was a series of lung-busting coughs.
The smoke seemed to part and they emerged to stand over him, flaming swords at the ready, wings slowly fanning the flames higher.
“Hello, Grigori,” said the angel whom Zeke fearfully recognized as one who had helped to sever his wings so long ago.
“We’ve come to tie up loose ends,” said the other.
They both smiled predatorily at him.
And Zeke came to the horrible realization that the fire was the least of his worries.
Aaron pulled his car into the driveway of his home on Baker Street a little after nine o’clock. He switched off the ignition and wondered if he had the strength to pull himself from the car and into the house.
To say that he was exhausted was an understatement. It was the first time he had been back to the veterinary hospital since his language skills had—how had Zeke put it? — blossomed.
It had been insane from the minute he rushed through the door, barely on time. The docs had been running late, and the waiting area was filled with a wide variety of dogs and cats, each with its own problem. There had even been a parrot with a broken wing and a box turtle with some kind of shell fungus.
He had immediately set to work, making sure that everybody had done the proper paperwork and apologizing for the delays.
And it was as if the animals could sense his ability to communicate with them. As he attempted to carry on conversations with their owners, the pets tried everything in their power to get his attention. A beagle puppy named Lily rambled on and on about her favorite ball. Bear, a black Labrador-shepherd mix, sadly told him that he couldn’t run very fast anymore because his hips hurt. A white Angora cat called Duchess yowled pathetically from her transport cage that she felt perfectly fine and didn’t need to see a doctor. A likely story, Aaron mused, and one probably shared by the majority of waiting animals.
It was constant: Someone or something was yammering at him from the moment he had walked into the place. Aaron wasn’t sure if it was scientifically possible, but he was convinced that his head was going to explode. All he could think of was his skull as a balloon filled with too much air. Bang! No more balloon.
Aaron forced himself from the car with a tired grunt. He would have been perfectly happy to have spent the remainder of the night in the car—but he was hungry. He got his back-pack from the trunk and began the pained journey to the house.
He smiled as he recalled how he had prevented his brain from detonating at work. The animals had been carrying on, Michelle had him running back and forth to the kennels for pickups and drop-offs, the docs wanted their exam rooms cleaned so they could bring in the next patient. And there he was, on the verge of blowing up, when he thought of her. He thought about Vilma and a kind of calm passed over him. The chattering of the patients became nothing more than droning background noise, and he was able to finish out the evening with a minimum of stress. Just thinking of her smiling face, coupled with what she had said in the car—it was enough to calm him and release the internal pressure.
Maybe I’ll e-mail her after I eat, he thought with a grin.
There was a menacing rumble above him and he looked up. Thick gray clouds like liquid metal undulated across the night sky, on the verge of completely blotting out any trace of the moon and stars.
Looks like we’re in for a pretty big storm, he thought as he turned his attention to finding the back-door key.
The scream from inside was bloodcurdling.
Aaron hurriedly opened the door and shouldered his way into the house.
“Mom?” he called out. He dropped his bookbag on the floor.
There was another scream, high pitched and filled with terror. It was Stevie, Aaron was sure of it. He tore down the hallway in search of his foster parents and brother.
“Mom!” he called again as he raced through the kitchen. “Dad!”
More screams.
He found his family in the living room, huddled on the floor in front of the television, which showed only static. Lori tightly gripped the thrashing Stevie in her arms, rocking him back and forth, cooing to the child that everything was going to be fine. Gabriel paced beside them, his tail rigid, hackles up.
“What’s wrong with him?” Aaron asked. He had never seen Stevie this agitated.
“Theycom!” the child screamed over and over again. “Theycom! Theycom! Theycom!” His eyes rolled to the back of his head, foamy saliva bubbled from the corners of his mouth.
“He’s been like this for half an hour,” Tom said, panic in his voice. He stroked his son’s sweat-dampened hair. “We don’t know what he’s trying to say!”
“Theycom! Theycom! Theycom!” Stevie bellowed as he struggled to be free of his mother’s arms.
“I…I think we should call nine-one-one,” Lori stammered. There were tears in her eyes when she looked at Aaron and her husband for support.
Tom rubbed a tremulous hand across his face. “I don’t know…I just don’t know. Maybe if we wait a little longer…”
Aaron turned from his parents to find Gabriel no longer pacing, but standing perfectly still. The dog looked up at the ceiling and sniffed the air. He began to growl.
“Gabriel? What’s wrong, boy? What do you smell?”
A crack of thunder shook the home from roof to foundation. The lights flickered briefly, and then the power quit altogether, plunging the room into darkness.
“Theycom! Theycom!” the child continued to scream inconsolably at the top of his lungs.
“Something bad,” Gabriel said with a menacing edge to his bark. “That’s what Stevie is trying to say. Something bad is coming.”