Betrayed Read online

  Chapter 9

  Adela and Liam landed at the grassy entrance to the Fringe, the fifteen-foot wrought-iron gates looming before them. Evangeline was there to greet them. Liam wondered, and not for the first time, if she was really one angel, or perhaps there were multiples of her running around because she seemed to be everywhere.

  “You’re wanted in the Inner Circle. Mother Nature’s building,” Evangeline said, waving at them nervously and motioning them to follow.

  “What’s this about?” Adela asked.

  Evangeline shrugged. “It is not my place to tell you such things, Adela. You know that. I was merely sent to fetch you.”

  “Have you ever been in the Inner Circle?” Liam asked Adela as they followed Evangeline.

  “Of course.”

  Damn. He’d never been invited, and he wondered what that said about his place in Heaven, but he reminded himself that he’d only been around five years, while the pretty witch next to him had over three hundred years under her belt.

  As they walked to the area where the Fringe met the Inner Circle, he could see the line of demarcation, so to speak. Green grass led up to a pathway of clouds, and the wrought-iron gate separated the two.

  “I’m not supposed to do this, but we’re in a hurry,” Evangeline explained as they approached the gates. With a wave of her hand, the gates disappeared. She motioned them through the open space, her gaze flitting about as if she were afraid she’d be caught. Then she flicked her hand and the gates magically reappeared.

  She hurried quickly, and Liam and Adela struggled to keep up. Liam took in his surroundings and thought, Now this is Heaven.

  For as far as he could see, there were high buildings made of crystal, and their cloud pathway was sandwiched between roses of red, yellow, and pink. The temperature was not too hot, nor too cold. The sky was colored purples and pinks, as if they were in the twilight hours of a day.

  People of all ages walked around smiling and laughing, all wearing white robes interwoven with shiny crystals, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. And why should they? They were in the Inner Circle. If Liam were that type of guy, he probably would have felt out of place in his black leather. However, he wasn’t the type of guy who cared what anyone thought of him.

  He noticed a lot of second and sideways glances coming in their direction, but he knew he hadn’t been responsible for sending any of them up here. These were the people in the Inner Circle, the holiest of the holy. His deliveries were housed in the Fringe.

  And, honestly, he wouldn’t know any of them if they came up and punched him in the face. He didn’t even remember what his last two deaths looked like from this evening, and he sometimes wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing, and if, perhaps, he was more than a little jaded in his work. In his opinion, jaded, hard, and flippant were good things if you were an Angel of Death.

  Although Evangeline said he would never lay eyes on Annie again, he carefully looked at every face he passed, a little kernel of hope in his chest.

  Liam glanced over at Adela. Their little interaction told him that she was pretty cynical and tough herself, and she had been delivering people to the Fringe for over three hundred years. Liam definitely gave her a run for her money in the obnoxious department, and he imagined that he would probably be completely unbearable after three hundred years. Dealing with death did that to an angel. Was there a retirement community where sarcastic, jaded, intolerable Angels of Death went?

  Evangeline led them down a path to a large building towering at least four hundred feet. The glass door with embedded gold stones stood at least thirty feet tall. They followed her through the great entryway, their footsteps silent on the clouds beneath their feet. Liam let out a low whistle as he took in the glass walls with what looked like rubies and emeralds fixed within them.

  “We must hurry. Almost everyone else is gathered. You two are running late,” Evangeline said, picking up the pace.

  “I came as soon as I received notification,” Adela said.

  “I did too,” Liam chimed in. He didn’t want anyone to think he’d been slacking.

  The path of clouds started to incline, then reversed direction. It zigged and zagged upward through the middle of the large building. They passed another large glass door that had stones of green, brown, blue, and gold embedded within it. Adela turned to him, hooking her thumb in the direction of the door. “That’s where Mother Nature resides,” she whispered.

  They continued walking until they came upon another door. This one was black onyx and stood a good twenty feet in the air.

  “What’s this place?” Liam asked.

  “This is where Michael, the archangel, resides,” Adela answered.

  Whoa, they were also meeting with the top guy—the dude in charge of all the angels? Maybe Liam could find out when his stint as an Angel of Death would come to an end.

  “Why is he in Mother Nature’s building?” Liam asked.

  “All Angels are part of life, part of Mother Nature,” Evangeline replied. “Birth, love, death . . . it’s all part of the circle of nature.”

  Of course. A complete “duh” moment if there ever was one.

  They pushed opened the black door and walked in. The black onyx floor met the black onyx walls, and in front of the room was a large black onyx stage with white curtains pulled to the sides. Adela and Liam were quickly swallowed up in a crowd of thousands of Angels of Tolerance in black leather.

  As Liam looked around, he wondered who in the hell was taking care of all the people dying, and the room was abuzz with that very question. On any given day, there would be approximately two hundred thousand people dying on Earth—give or take a few—and it looked as though all the Angels of Death were accounted for and present. Not that he knew all of them—not even close. However, he’d never seen so much black leather in one place, and that included the biker bars he liked to frequent when he was alive.

  The Angels of Innocence, who took care of the kids and the softer souls of Earth, gathered in the far right corner of the room looking like a pile of Easter eggs. The women wore pink robes and the men wore blue.

  In the opposite corner were the Angels of Sin who sent people to Hell, their faces invisible under black-hooded cloaks. They weren’t too chatty; they simply stood there waiting for the meeting to begin.

  After a few moments, the Archangel Michael stepped onto the large stage in the front of the room and everyone got quiet. He towered over seven feet, holding a golden scepter the same color as his chin-length hair. His golden robe graced the top of the matching sandals on his feet. His eyes were also a golden color, his skin a porcelain white. Everyone immediately quieted down and bowed their heads. Liam followed suit. When in Rome, and all that.

  Liam could feel the power in the room emanating from Michael as if it were a wind or a force all its own, and he felt humbled and awed to be in the archangel’s presence.

  “My angels,” Michael said, his voice deep, yet musical. “I have stopped time on Earth for this meeting, so we must finish quickly.”

  Stopped time on Earth? Whoa, mate. Liam decided he’d like to see that, maybe walk around and cause a little trouble for those stuck in time. Pick a pocket or two, remove a shoe, change the channel on the TV. Nothing serious, just some messing around he would get a laugh out of doing.

  “Will the children on Earth know this has happened?” one of the pink-robed Angels of Innocence asked.

  Michael shook his head. “No, but the energy required to pull such a feat is immense, and all of you must be back in your places very soon.”

  The pink-robed angel bowed her head, and Michael began.

  “There is more death than ever on the precious planet. The humans are divided on everything: race, politics, religion. Not that they shouldn’t exercise their ability to choose their own paths—that is why the Creator gave them free will. However, thing are tumultuous down there. There is more death and hate because of religion, not peace, which is what
religion was created for. The negativity and animosity of the people has grown to proportions never experienced before. How it got to this point, I don’t understand, but what the Creator, Mother Nature, and I have concluded is that humans are too far gone to right it themselves. It must be done from here, from Heaven, so we are taking drastic measures, effective immediately. If we don’t, we’re afraid the humans will self-destruct, and the Creator will not let that happen without first trying to right the balance between love and hate.”

  Liam nodded along with everyone else. He had definitely been busier than usual in the past weeks; his timetable was getting tighter and tighter every night. It was terrible, absolutely terrible, what those idiots down there were doing. They had no appreciation for the gift they had been given: life.

  “It seems that most of the discourse can be attributed to hate. Hate is such a strong emotion, and people are able to conjure it against others far too easily. Hate is the seed that grows wars of man against man, whether it is in the actual theater of war or a territorial war on the streets of our cities. Hate is like the weed of Satan—it is evil. Once the kernel is planted and takes root, it grows quickly. And just like a weed, it flowers rapidly and spreads. We have an epidemic of sorts on Earth and it must be stopped. The Creator listens to the thoughts of those below and hears the heartbreak in those thoughts. There are many, many unhappy souls down there.”

  There was silence in the room as no one dared to disagree, not that there was anything to disagree with. Liam had thought for a long time that Earth was one messed-up place. Even when he was alive he would read the news and cringe, wondering how people could do such horrible things to each other. Murder. Rape. Kidnappings. Governments turning on their own people. It seemed like it never ended. After he died and became an Angel of Death, he looked at it a whole different way. It was one thing to read about the crimes people committed against each other, but it was another to be in the thick of things, right in the melee. He had delivered souls to the Fringe from all types of death—everything from electrocution, to murder, and he even had to deliver a soul from a poor bastard in Africa who had been stomped to death by an elephant.

  Humans causing the death of another human were the ones that made him the angriest. There seemed to be a lack of decency between people; it was as if they didn’t care about their fellow man at all. So yeah, as far as Liam was concerned, Michael was the man of the hour speaking the truth.

  Michael gazed around the room looking as heavenly as anything Liam could have imagined. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Michael started glowing.

  “Therefore, to combat this unhappiness, this darkness that plagues the world, to combat the hate, there is only one weapon. That weapon is love.”

  The room broke out in murmurs of agreement, and Liam nodded again.

  “What Earth needs is more love. More people need to love each other. Love is the only true combatant against hate, the only thing that can change the course of the human’s path to self-destruction. People are too hard on each other. Marriages break down at alarming rates. Humans aren’t giving each other a chance. Humans aren’t allowing themselves to fall in love any longer. They keep their hearts shielded.”

  Liam nodded absently, ready to get back to work, not really interested in a lecture on love. Been there, done that, and even if it could happen, he’d make damn sure it never happen again.

  “Therefore, we are going to have to do a little shuffling among the angels. Among all of you.”

  Liam heard the words but figured this so-called “shuffling” wouldn’t affect him.

  “Our Angels of Affection, those angels who help people on Earth fall in love, cannot keep up with their assignments. There is too much hate in the world, and they are working so hard to combat it. Therefore, some of you will be helping them.”

  Liam had heard of the Angels of Affection but never seen one. It was his understanding that they worked in human form. Sometimes they were successful and love at first sight occurred; other times, the Angels of Affection were there to give people a little push.

  There were grumbles of dissatisfaction among the Angels of Sin, those who delivered souls to Hell. Liam figured that if Michael were going to put anyone on this assignment, it would be the Angels of Innocents because at their core, they all seemed very gentle.

  “We have put together a list. Please check your devices in three minutes for your new assignments, and note that these are final decisions.”

  Liam nodded and looked around the room. He was dead-on, one-hundred-percent certain that he wouldn’t be chosen for this assignment. While alive, he had a reputation as a womanizer, and he agreed with that assessment. It wasn’t a secret women loved a man in uniform, and most had no trouble throwing themselves at him. He had been in love once and had no intentions of signing up for a second round.

  “I’ll see you later, sweet cheeks,” he said to Adela with a wink.

  She rolled her eyes. “Hopefully not.”

  “That’s not very nice, even for a witch,” he said with a chuckle, and left the building.

  “Hey, Liam!”

  He turned to see Gunnar, another Angel of Death. “Hey, Gunnar. What’s happening, my man?” Liam asked with a smile.

  Gunnar had shoulder-length blond hair, a neatly trimmed blond beard, and his ice-blue eyes were serious, yet twinkled with mischief. He had been a Viking warrior and stood just above six feet. His broad chest and thick legs were covered in the standard black leather of an Angel of Tolerance. Although Liam didn’t know much about Gunnar’s past as Gunnar rarely talked about it, Liam had guessed that whatever sins Gunnar had committed on Earth had to be pretty substantial since he had put in over seven hundred years as an Angel of Death.

  Gunnar looked at the device at his wrist. “I’m nervous they’re going to pick me for this Angels of Affection B.S. I’m totally not qualified.”

  “Me neither,” Liam replied as they began to walk. “But I don’t think we have much to worry about, mate. They’re going to look for people who’ve had experience, because it seems to me that things are pretty serious down there. They won’t mess around with the likes of us.”

  “Yep,” agreed Gunnar. “At least, that’s what I’m hoping. It’s been seven hundred years since I was in love. I know nothing about it now.”

  “Me neither.” Except that it hurts when it’s gone.

  The device at Liam’s wrist vibrated. “Looks like I have my next assignment.” He held out a fist, and Gunnar gave a bump. “I’ll see you on the flipside, man.”

  “Lykke til,” Gunnar called.

  Liam hoped that meant something like “good luck,” or “have a nice day,” but even “fuck off” would be cool. He just hoped it didn’t mean, “You’re an Angel of Affection.”