Angel: Angel, #2

By Shawn Michel de Montaigne

When he was a mortal, Ray Wilms had no time or patience for children. Despite being an educator, he couldn't stand them.

As an angel of death, his very first assignment back to Earth is to save a sixteen-year-old girl from her family and church.

Her name is Deanna, and she's thinking of killing herself. She is a brilliant young woman gifted in mathematics, which is his subject of expertise. As he gets to know her, he finds himself increasingly awed by her inner beauty and strength. Despite her horrific circumstances, she fights on, her soul intact and luminous.

Ray is deeply moved and inspired by her example--and enraged by the hell she's going through. He's an angel of death, and it's time to go to work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawn Michel de Montaigne
• Release date: Apr 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201199951

Shawn Michel de Montaigne

I'm a writer, illustrator, and fractalist. A wonderer, wanderer, and an unapologetic introvert. I'm a romantic; I'm inspired by the epic, the authentic, the numinous, and the luminous. Most of all, I'm blessed.

Book preview

Ab Origine

~~*~~

IT WASN’T like it had been for Calliel.

I remembered.

Calliel had stepped aboard this very trolley and had sat down, and nary a man, woman, or child noticed, despite his brown longcoat and just-off-the-ranch duds beneath. No one paid him a lick of attention.

I gazed around. People were noticing me. I wasn’t wearing a longcoat or a snap-down shirt; I was dressed in a navy suit and burgundy tie. And yes, I just bought the cowboy boots (black), but they weren’t looking at those. They were looking at me, at my face.

But never directly. They stole glances. When I gazed in their direction, they looked away, as though frightened I might notice them and become angry.

Was there something scary about me now? Did I look angry or irritated? Of course not! In fact, I believe I was sporting a slight smile.

What did they see when they looked at me?

It did not matter.

No one sat next to me. Several went to, including a hugely muscled man covered in tattoos, but all took one look at me and hurried off. Two stops later I noticed that there were no seats open save the one next to me, and that many were standing.

I dreamed of having just this kind of power when I was alive. Now that I had it, what was I going to do with it?

A young woman with a toddler was closest. The kid had thankfully dropped off after raising a ruckus about something-or-other. His head bounced on her shoulder, his mouth half open, drool running off his lower lip onto her T-shirt. She appeared fatigued beyond the definition of the word. Even so, she too chose to stand instead of sitting next to me.

I reached for her hand and touched it. When I did, what Calliel said would happen did: I caught a perfect glimpse of her soul, and the lifetime of triumphs and tragedies and choices that made it what it, and she, was.

She glanced down fearfully at me over her child’s shoulder.

Come and sit down,  Nicky. Give that back of yours a rest.

H-How ... how do you know my name? she demanded, her eyes saucers.

Nearby passengers glanced fearfully at me out the corners of their eyes, as though terrified I might pick them next. One even pushed into the crowd, eager to get away. He disappeared to grunts and protests.

I know your name like I know you’ve got a slipped disc and that Hoby there is damned heavy and you’re praying to get to the 916 so you can finally sit and take a load off. Well, sit and take a load off right here. Come on, Nicky. I won’t bite. It’s still fifteen minutes to the National City stop.

Her eyes got wider. But pain beat her fear, and she sat, though at the very edge of the seat. Hoby didn’t stir.

I gently touched his head. The soul that touched back was so pure and bright it hurt. Nicky gawked at my hand as I pushed Hoby’s angel-thin brown hair out of the way.

Calliel warned me about the pain of touching a young child. I let it burn through my hand into my chest, where it warmed my heart and made it skip. It was painful, but also pleasurable. There were wondrous potentialities in that ache.

He loves music, I said, identifying the strongest one.

Nicky gaped. A moment later she found her voice. Uh ...yes. He does. Would you mind telling me how ... I mean ... How do you know that?

Give him music. Lots of it. Especially classical. He listens closely whenever you play it. He tries to make sense of the notes and the interplay of one instrument with another.

Her gape increased. There was a wonder-filled smile hiding behind it, but it was too afraid to come forward. I scared her too much.

Are ... are you a father?

It was plain she didn’t care to know, and was only asking to be polite and to assure herself that I wasn’t a monster.

I appreciated the effort. I shook my head.

You seem like you’d be really good at it.

Could monsters be good fathers? When I was sure I could respond without chuckling, I said, Thank you, Nicky. You don’t know me, but your comment is appreciated all the same.

It’s just ... something I feel.

I believe this is your stop, I said, glancing over the top of Hoby’s head. There’s the 916. When you get home, play Hoby ‘Ode to Joy.’ Play it even if he doesn’t wake up. It’s his favorite. He’ll still hear it.

Nicky goggled and stood.

The trolley slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. She stopped and turned when she got to them. Thank you.

There was the smile. It was weak, mauled from its victorious fight with her fear; but there it was nonetheless.

She got off and hurried through the drizzle to the 916 parked next to the curb. Hoby didn’t stir.

The trolley lurched on its way.

I sat back in my seat and smiled. I, Ray Wilms, an angel of death.

Chapter One

In the Service of God

~~*~~

HE STEPPED off the trolley not at H Street, where Calliel used to get off, but at the stop just before it, E Street. Stopping at E Street would cut at least ten minutes off the bus ride up to the house.

Forgive me, Lord, he murmured, but your bus routes are a little out of date.

He felt an amused warmth gather in his solar plexus and knew he had been heard. He took in a big lungful of cold air and strode without hurrying under the enclosure where the soda and candy dispensers were. There he looked for his bus. The drizzle had thickened to light rain.

Yo, homes, wassup?

He turned to look. A young gangbanger in an oversized navy down coat approached in the goofy manner that gangbangers walk. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. His brown hair was short and spiked, his cheeks freckled and pale. A long gold earring hung from his left ear.

He knew in that instant that this was a mugging, that the kid had come up behind him so that he’d turn around, leaving himself exposed for his friends to attack from behind.

He looked the kid in his eyes and smiled.

The kid stopped short and backed up. Whoa, what the fuck—?

When he was a mortal, scenarios like this used to scare the crap out of him. He’d go as far as standing in pouring rain just so he could be next to other people, or even pulling his phone out and dialing 9-1-1 and yelling for help, as he did on at least three occasions. Trolley stops in San Diego were very far from safe, especially at night; and he wondered what would happen if, coming back as an angel, he was confronted with just such a situation.

The boy wheeled about and sprinted madly out of sight.

He turned to face the three looming quietly up behind him. One, with a wild afro, glared at him with a mix of confusion and anger. A short bit of pipe was in his fist.

Making it to the other side of death has distinct advantages. One of the biggest is that fear loses much of its grip, at least in situations like these. Calliel taught him that his strength was now a hundredfold what it was when he was a mortal. Much of it came as a result of the loss of mortal fear. If fear had a place in an angel’s life, Calliel told him, it belonged as a spur always to do the right thing, even if the right thing wasn’t known at the time.

And so he didn’t feel fear’s grip as he had as a mortal. What replaced it was the direct knowledge of death, which he had experienced and which felt now like unshakeable confidence. It didn’t feel foreign, as he expected it to; in fact it felt more like him than he had ever felt during his life.

He smiled. You gentleman look like you need money. Tell you what. Hand me your weapons and I’ll give you some. Deal?

He gazed at them one by one. It was clear they wanted to run away; and indeed, the leftmost kid did. Without a word the kid backed hastily up and tore out of sight along the sightless trolley tracks. The others, wide-eyed, looked indecisive but frozen.

Your weapons, gentlemen.

The thug who had been in the middle, a clean-faced black boy with short-cropped hair, lifted a snub pistol out of his pocket. Instead of handing it to him, he set it on the ground and kicked it over. The afro-wearing kid dropped his pipe with a loud clang, then he too kicked it over.

He bent and picked them up, one by one, and studied them. He felt anger, but he also felt something that Calliel told him would come to him in place of the old fear, and which had been virtually unknown when he was mortal: compassion.

He put the pistol in his left suit pocket and the pipe in his right, straightened himself fully and unbuttoned the bottom button of his blazer. They watched his every move with horrified fascination.

All right. Let’s talk money. How much can I do you for?

He reached for his wallet. The thugs jumped.

He noted their fear and brought the wallet out slowly, but did not open it.

He gazed into the afro kid’s eyes.

Crossing the unknowable barrier of death has other advantages. One is the ability to see clearly the essence of mortal beings. And so, seeing the kid’s essence, he said:

Your mother is in prison and your father is a drunk who shows up twice a week and then takes off again. Your older sister, Charla, is a good soul. She works as a nurse’s assistant, but it isn’t enough. She loves you but knows she’s going to bury you if you, as she puts it, ‘don’t get your shit together.’ She wants you to graduate from the GED program and get a good job, maybe even try for college. She knows you’re out right now making trouble. She’s short two hundred dollars on rent, now a week overdue, and is afraid she’s going to be evicted, which means, of course, that you will be too.

An angel’s faith is stronger than matter, Calliel told him. An angel’s faith is the master of matter. In the service of God, it is invincible.

He therefore had no doubts that whatever was in his wallet would be enough to take care of whoever needed it, including himself.

The other kid looked like he was going to be sick.

He smiled at him.

The boy took a shaky step back.

I want you to understand something, he said. He shifted his wallet to his left hand and extended his right. Please.

The kid stared at his hand like it was covered in the plague. He reached for it only after a good ten seconds had passed. His eyes widened with mortal terror when the grip tightened, and then closed.

The trick was to concentrate. He recalled Calliel wiping out an entire gang. That’s what he wanted the kid to see.

He released the boy’s hand. The kid, gasping, opened his eyes and glanced at his compatriot, who seemed too terrified to move.

You have a choice, gentlemen. What’ll it be?

I ... I just wanted money to ...

You’re hungry.

The afro kid nodded meekly.

And you, Christopher? He gazed at his clean-cut friend.

Christopher’s face reflected shock at hearing his name. I ... don’t want to ...

You don’t want to die.

Christopher’s mouth hung loose.

You’re going to. Both of you. Meaninglessly. Or ... not. Now here is the test question with the big points: which one is it going to be?

He opened his wallet. From it he pulled out five hundred dollars and handed it to the afro kid, who at first looked like he wanted no part of it. He finally took the bills, though with a large measure of shame and by reaching very delicately for them.

That’s rent. Give four hundred of it to your sister. Tell her an angel gave it to you. She won’t believe you. In fact, get ready for a real cursing out. But she’ll believe you tomorrow morning. She won’t tell you, and she’ll be even more terrified of the bad choices you keep making, and she’ll really be getting on you after that. She’ll know who will be coming for you if you don’t start flying right.

The kid looked like he was close to puking.

"Keep the rest of the money for yourself, and treat yourself at Carl’s, like you wanted to. If you do what you should with the change—and you know what that is, Donnell—the money will come back to you a hundredfold, enough to save you and your sister. If you do neither ... well, Christopher will tell you what’ll happen, won’t you, Christopher?"

Christopher swallowed hard and nodded vigorously.

Here, he said, and reached into his wallet once more. He pulled out another hundred and handed it to him.

I don’t want it, said Christopher, holding his hands up and shaking his head emphatically.

You do. You’re going to take it where it belongs, and you’re going to apologize to her, and you’re going to man up and answer for your actions. Or ...

He raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t smiling.

Okay, okay ... said Christopher, taking the money with just his fingertips, being very careful not to touch him.

He closed his wallet and stuffed it into his suit pocket. My bus is here, gentlemen, he said, looking past them at the bus pulling into the parking lot. He glanced at them one more time. The slow nod he gave them they clearly understood.

He walked between them. They scooted quickly out of the way as he approached. One of them gasped, Holy shit!

When he turned to look, they were gone.

~~*~~

The home wasn’t as he remembered it. Not its interior, anyway. It had changed. Calliel told him it would.

It’ll change to suit you.

I take it the home isn’t entirely earthly?

Calliel smiled. It’s earthly enough.

I’m curious. Can mortals see it?

A few can, I suppose, said Calliel, rubbing his chin.

Why not a mansion in some swanky neighborhood? Why does it have to be a tract home at the edge of suburbia? I’d think falling out of an exploding airliner or walking the gallows would grant that.

Calliel chuckled. So did he. He wasn’t complaining, and he wasn’t being serious. Well, not completely.

The living room had rearranged itself. Opposite the television was a nice, plush, dark brown leather reclining chair and ottoman. The sofa straddled the corner and was also brown; the one Calliel used had been replaced with a loveseat and very tasteful lamps already shedding pleasant, cozy yellow light.

The carpeting had changed color to match the new décor. It was plush and soft, which he noticed after he sat on the loveseat and pulled his new, black Tyler Bros boots off.

He stood and went on with his inspection.

The artwork had changed. The paintings were Van Gogh and particular favorites; there was a large framed Renaissance map of the world over the loveseat and tasteful, glimmering brass pieces—a key and an engraved picture of a tall ship on a five-foot-square thin slab—that hung perfectly next to one another.

He smiled and went to the hallway, which used to lead to the study (on the left) and Calliel’s bedroom (on the right).

They had switched places. The study, now on the right, was much fancier and came with a small library, which, he noticed after stepping in, contained books not on mathematics, mostly, but many hard-bound copies of fantasy stories he loved as a child and teen. The math texts were largely historical in scope; the only contemporary ones were abstracts of papers written by him and his friend, Al Snow. There was plenty of space for more books; he found himself thinking of possible candidates as he spied the laptop computer on the desk, which was no longer a covered model but a slightly wider cherrywood one with a reading lamp already on. He noted all of this with approval, then went to his bedroom.

His bed was queen-sized and covered in a fluffy red-plaid comforter. An afghan that looked like his favorite as a boy was folded neatly and lay across the bottom; and a chest sat at the bed’s foot. A large window, covered in white drapes, looked out (ostensibly) onto the front yard. He went to them, opened them, and looked, then laughed in surprise. The view wasn’t of the barren front yard of this earthly home, but offered the exact same view his bedroom in Heaven did!

Like here, it was nighttime there. There were no street lights in Heaven—at least, not where he lived—and so the view was almost totally dark. He could just see the trees of his heavenly front yard and the fence just beyond.

Heaven was just the thickness of a pane of glass away. He felt certain that if he opened this window he’d smell the exquisite smells of his front yard and the fields beyond, and that, if he wanted, he could crawl through and be there once more.

He smiled warmly and pulled the drapes closed. He had work to do, and he needed to focus.

He didn’t think of the home he lived in as a mortal—Chateau Chaos. For the man who had occupied it was dead.

The bathroom was no longer between the bedroom and study, as it had been for Calliel, but adjacent to the bedroom. He sat on the toilet for a bit, then disrobed and climbed into the shower and soaked. He found his robe, which was conveniently hooked on the bathroom door, and put it on after drying off. After hanging up his suit (all of his clothes from Heaven were here), he went back to the study and booted up the computer.

Before sitting, he went to the kitchen, which, he noted with a satisfied nod, looked identical to Calliel’s. There was leftover pot roast in the fridge (as there was in his home in Heaven), and several bottles of Fat Tire, his favorite beer. He wasn’t a beer drinker while mortal, but Calliel (and Jeg, to be sure), changed that irrevocably once he got to Heaven. He popped the top on one, snitched a small chunk of roast, and shuffled back to the study. The computer was ready for him to log in, which he did—RAVENRAY, of course.

Heavenly Google was waiting for him. He typed in a single name and waited for the results to come back. The name was:

Deanna Franks

Chapter Two

The Assignment

~~*~~

SHE WAS, to him, a pretty girl: slightly longer than shoulder-length black hair usually braided or in a ponytail, dark eyes, double dimples on each cheek when she smiled, which wasn't often. She occasionally wore glasses for astigmatism (far too infrequently, as it turned out) and had braces and a little acne, but nothing beyond the norm for her sixteen years.

Others, he was certain, would judge her plain. He found he couldn't, even when he tried.

She stood five feet five inches tall and weighed ninety-nine pounds. Very skinny. She typically wore denims with conservative blouses or shirts; the school she attended, Bible First Fellowship High School, had a strict uniform policy. He looked over several photos of her in her uniform. Her skirts hung at her knees and were green and blue plaid. She held books in one photo—all mathematics texts