The Wrong Enemy Read online

  Relax, he told himself. Of course he resembles Tabris. They were paired in God’s mind from before Creation. Elizabeth’s soul will resemble mine too. Well, his and Tabris’s both, in some way. Which led to an interesting question, whether that meant Tabris had always been destined to guard Elizabeth as well as Sebastian? File that one away for future pondering. Right now, he needed to talk to a boy with the same mannerisms and the same tightness about his hands and eyes.

  The kid was studying him, so Rachmiel inclined his head and opened his wings. “Hello, Sebastian. My name is Rachmiel.”

  The boy’s eyes narrowed. “Were you my guardian?”

  Wow, the anger there. “No, I’m not. He and I work together now.”

  The kid spun toward Casifer, a tall angel with white wings. “But you said Jesus was going to invite him to come.”

  “He sent me instead,” Rachmiel said, glad for the ambiguous pronoun. “I’m going to talk to you ahead of him.”

  For the first time, Rachmiel realized how redundant his position was. Any other angel to Sebastian still wasn’t Tabris. The messenger departed, and Rachmiel looked to Casifer for a cue.

  Casifer responded with warmth, his eyes green and welcoming, and Rachmiel’s tension dissipated. They had worked together in the past, and Rachmiel had been struck by Casifer’s generosity even back then. Casifer touched his wings to the tips of Rachmiel’s feathers, then hugged him angelically, a contact of the soul rather than a physical action.

  Sebastian watched with wide eyes as their souls coiled around one another. “Whoa! How did you do that?”

  Casifer put a hand on his shoulder. “Souls are pliable, and when they contact one another without restraint, it feels welcome.”

  Rachmiel backed up a step to watch them interact. Casifer wore a startled delight whenever he spoke to Sebastian—more of That Look. During their first job together, Casifer had confided his one regret: that he never would be the guardian of a human being. God had revealed that to him during the early years, when Casifer had seen the bonding between angel and charge and grown eager for his own.

  Having Sebastian was so close to the actual thing. Casifer could finally have what he’d desired.

  Sebastian reached for Casifer in his first attempt at a spiritual hug, and Rachmiel grinned as the boy fumbled without being able to grasp Casifer, only touch him. Casifer laughed, and the boy said, “Wow, could I do that any clumsier?”

  He flopped down on the ground, looking up at Rachmiel. “Would you like me to stumble all over you too?”

  “It’d be my pleasure.” Sitting at his side, Rachmiel found himself drinking in the boy’s smile. When had he ever seen Tabris that able to joke about his own shortcomings? Or that unselfconscious?

  Sebastian sat up on his knees. “Can you tell me about home? How are my parents doing?”

  No one from Sebastian’s life had visited Tabris. Not even once. Rachmiel said, “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “Oh. I hope they’re okay. I pray for them a lot.” He looked down. “I suppose you don’t know how my dog is doing?”

  No, nothing like that.

  Sebastian looked up. “I’m worried about my friends. I’d borrowed a book from Mikey, and I never gave it back. Did my parents know to give it back to him?”

  Rachmiel didn’t know that either.

  Sebastian shrugged then, and he looked right at Rachmiel, waiting.

  Casifer said, “Sebastian has been doing a lot of exploring,” and turning to the boy, “Why don’t you tell him?”

  With his eyes large, Sebastian narrated a rafting trip where he knew a little bit of how to raft, and Casifer knew nothing about it, and they finally discovered their mutual inexperience halfway through the trip. Rachmiel laughed out loud. “We kept going, though,” said Sebastian. “I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like I’m going to die again.”

  The longer the boy talked, the more Rachmiel felt himself wanting to remain with him, a feeling he hadn’t experienced since the first moment he’d seen Elizabeth. Like Elizabeth, Sebastian loved to read, so Casifer had fetched him an assortment of books from Heaven’s libraries, and Sebastian spent some afternoons reading aloud to him.

  Sebastian said, “Oh, and do you want to make your ears bleed?” and then stumbled through a badly-pronounced prayer in the angelic language.

  “That’s not terrible,” Rachmiel said.

  Sebastian said, “No, because Heaven is perfect and therefore some linguist is busy inventing a new word for worse-than-terrible!” He laughed. “But that’s okay. The whole thing about projecting your emotions and concepts without speaking at all? Whoosh!” He made a motion of something flying over his head. “Casifer says eternity is a long time, but I’m not sure it’ll be long enough for me to get that!”

  Casifer made a complex projection to Rachmiel, that as a human, Sebastian expected to be in control of what he said and did not say, or that he could project happiness when he wasn’t feeling it. Rachmiel chuckled: someday he’d have to explain the same to Elizabeth, assuring her that in God’s light no thoughts were shameful; you could always broadcast anything without cloaking your soul against the horror of knowing and being known.

  Sebastian grimaced. “Yeah. Just like that. Thanks for rubbing it in.”

  “Any time,” said Rachmiel, and the boy threw a handful of grass at him.

  “It’s a language without grammar,” Rachmiel said. “Sometimes I think humans invented language because that way it was easier to lie.”

  Sebastian said, “Angels have language too.”

  “Several languages,” said Casifer. “There’s one for worship, one for everyday speech, one for more formal speech, and so on.”

  “But they’re all coupled with emotional affirmation,” said Rachmiel. “Demons use the same languages, but they remove the emotions from the communication.”

  Even as he said that, Rachmiel realized Tabris had done the same.

  Feeling Rachmiel’s shock, Sebastian welled up with concern, and Rachmiel said, “There! That was a perfect instance of projected communication.”

  Sebastian glanced with an asymmetric smile at Casifer, who nodded.

  Now that they’d become comfortable, Rachmiel found himself wanting to hear more of Sebastian’s stories, and the boy obliged, talking about making himself tiny enough to ride a dragonfly and then exploring all the crags of a waterfall.

  What he’d tell Tabris, Rachmiel didn’t know, but he could say without reservation that the boy was thriving. The laughter, the delight—it was evident in everything about him, and always Casifer was at the ready to provide an explanation to bring the boy closer to Heaven.

  As they talked, Rachmiel tracked the time until Elizabeth would awaken, and predictably, it was when he said he’d have to get back soon that Sebastian said, “Before you go—tell me about my guardian.”

  Rachmiel glanced at Casifer, who darkened.

  “Please.” Sebastian traced his finger over a grass blade. “I want to know about him. What he’s like. If he’s—What he’s doing now.”

  Sebastian couldn’t have realized how many questions he’d projected beyond the words, but innocent as he was, they’d all bombarded Rachmiel at the same time, and Rachmiel’s soul amplified them. The need, one need: an answer to why. And also, was Tabris sorry?

  As Rachmiel struggled to get his heart under control, his wings purpled at the tips. “He’s back at home, guarding my charge.” What was worth saying? And what was best unspoken? “He’s her co-guardian with me. Her name is Elizabeth, and she’s ten.”

  Sebastian looked up, eyes wide.

  “Yes, I trust him.” Oh, to soothe the friction coursing over Sebastian’s soul. “We work well together.”

  “But—” Sebastian’s soul vibrated with fright. “What if he hurts her?”

  Rachmiel lowered the pitch of his voice. “There are other angels nearby. But I trust him, and he won’t want to hurt her.”

  “Why
not?” Sebastian said. “Does he love her?”

  Rachmiel said, “Yes—” before realizing what Sebastian was really asking. “Guardians always love their charges. We see God in you so strongly.”

  Sebastian uprooted a fistful of grass. “You love her, but you’ll leave her with him?”

  “I do, and I did.” Rachmiel tried to project calm, but the boy’s distress kept making him edgy. “She’s safe. I wouldn’t have come if I’d doubted that.”

  Sebastian closed his eyes, breathing heavily.

  And behind those eyes, Sebastian pumped out a question continuously, projecting it either without knowing or despite knowing, a question Rachmiel didn’t feel free to answer because that night on the rooftop, Tabris had told him not to say anything at all—and in this language without grammar, Rachmiel couldn’t pin the boy’s sense of abandonment to the present or the past. Worse, Sebastian’s feelings weren’t the only chronologically ambiguous ones. Tabris had said he loved the boy. He didn’t say he still did. Or that he did at the moment he killed him.

  Sebastian wrenched his soul around with a violence that made Casifer’s feathers flare, and he asked about baseball. Fortunately, after hearing Martin and Alan arguing endlessly over which team stank the most, Rachmiel was fluent in this year’s stats. Sebastian settled down, but Casifer stayed very near, his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder.

  Just before it would be dawn in Vermont, Rachmiel stood to go. Reluctantly. It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t want to leave the child.

  Sebastian scrambled to a stand, and he hugged Rachmiel with his arms. “I can’t do this yet with my soul. I might injure you.”

  Rachmiel ruffled his hair. “You’re a good kid. You’ll learn quickly.”

  Sebastian looked up at him. “Will you visit again?”

  His eyes were bright, so much like Tabris on the brink of a painful moment.

  “Absolutely. I was hoping you’d want me to.”

  The sheen vanished from his eyes, replaced by a mahogany that wrung Rachmiel’s heart. “I would. I’d like that a lot.” Sebastian tried to affirm that with a projection, awkwardly mimicking what soon would take place naturally. Casifer gave his shoulder a squeeze.

  Rachmiel gave him a promise with his heart, and as Sebastian flashed him a lopsided smile, he returned home.

  Tabris was stretched full-length alongside Elizabeth, his two-toned wings spread over her like an extra blanket. The night had grown chilly, and he warmed the air around her to keep her sleeping.

  Rachmiel popped into the room, and Tabris clenched his jaw. He waited.

  “Did anything happen while I was gone?”

  Tabris said, “No. I would have called you.”

  Of course, then Rachmiel examined Elizabeth’s soul and body anyhow, to make sure. She was fine. Dreaming about cotton candy. Rachmiel chuckled.

  He turned his attention to Tabris, so Tabris sat away from the girl. The cold air would awaken her, but he’d let it. In the face of Rachmiel’s aura of expectation, Tabris said, “Did you meet him?”

  Rachmiel nodded, emanating eagerness, worry, and excitement. The combination hit Tabris like a punch to the gut. “Is he doing all right?”

  Rachmiel nodded again, and this time Tabris felt more specifics. He recoiled, trying to force away the images that came to him of a child exploring Heaven for the first time. No, not Heaven. That was the calm undulation of Limbo in those images, not the ferocious beauty of Heaven. And then, inexplicably, the sense of a second angel. Tabris blurted out before thinking, “Who’s staying with him?”

  “Casifer.”

  “Oh.” Up until now, Tabris had hoped—well, almost hoped—Sebastian had spring-boarded into Heaven and gotten private tutoring sessions with God Almighty, received a final dusting-off of his soul, and then sprinted off to the registration center at Heaven’s university where he could learn from the finest faculty creation had to offer. Jewish mysticism, taught by Abraham himself. A dozen human friends exploring the mansions of Heaven. Maybe a saintly adviser to sign some kind of report card. He hadn’t wanted to think about a substitute. But of course Sebastian would need an angel. It just couldn’t be him.

  He locked down his emotions. “Casifer will be devoted to him. He never had a charge of his own.” He turned away, and the only thing worth looking at was Elizabeth. “I’d hoped you would return before she woke up.”

  He could feel Rachmiel’s inner gasp and knew the other angel’s eyes would have gone purple. But Rachmiel wouldn’t have understood—in a thousand years, he’d never have understood, and if he thought Tabris indifferent, that was better than thinking the truth.

  Tabris turned to him, forcing himself to look blank. “I know you like to be the one who wakes her. I can’t imagine a morning where she awoke without you calling her Sleepyhead. She’d be disoriented all day.” Rachmiel still seemed shocked, and Tabris flailed for a new subject. Anything. Just get Rachmiel talking about something else. “Of course, you can’t substitute for God.”

  May God forgive him for that. Murdering a child was one thing. Making use of God for his own ends: that was an entirely different category of crime.

  Rachmiel said, “No, of course not. God’s grace is far more pervasive than our presence.”

  With an angel, you could always, always, change the subject to God. Fallen or unfallen: it would work every time.

  Rachmiel said, “She doesn’t detect our presence either, but God’s working at such a low level with her, in so many ways at all times.”

  So long ago, Sebastian had surfed the waves of his first crush. He was six. The object of his affections was a nine-year-old on the school bus, an unreachable third grader who wore a sparkling pink backpack and whose black ponytail swung free to her waist. She could sing in Spanish. Every day for a month, Sebastian had worked with all the stealth a first grader has in his arsenal, getting close to her in order to memorize anything she said, maybe smile at her, and once he even dropped his pencil and she picked it up for him. He’d saved the pencil. He learned to write so he could print her name with it in the margins of his notebooks.

  The adults had said it was ridiculous, but this was Sebastian’s First Love, a narcotic powerful enough to leave even Tabris giddy. The adults’ First Love had been dimmed by experience, by betrayal or tears. But to Sebastian it had been unique, untarnished, and brilliant.

  As Rachmiel talked about how God worked in Elizabeth’s heart, Tabris realized Rachmiel remained neck deep in his First Love, and Tabris had lost that. Lost it when he’d betrayed God.

  His ears rang. I’m probably the only angel who could listen to Rachmiel without jumping into the conversation.

  Well, for that matter, he was probably the only angel who would have baited a conversational trap with God-talk to begin with.

  “But God, he thought, you know I love you...don’t I?

  No answer. There wouldn’t be. Tabris cleared his head and checked on Elizabeth, who’d curled tight under the sheets to ward off the cold.

  Rachmiel leaned over her and laid his head against hers. “Sleepyhead, you need to wake up now. Let’s see what God has in mind for you today.”

  He looked up at Tabris, eyes warm, and when Tabris saw an angel wrapped around his chief delight while snug within God’s love, he fought the urge to sob.

  Fourteen

  After church that day, Tabris sat on the roof rather than stay near Rachmiel. The other angels kept asking Rachmiel questions about Sebastian, but even though he deflected them, he couldn’t stop the emotions from bubbling up as he kept recalling the visit. And Tabris kept picking them up. It was already obvious there’d be more visits.

  When Elizabeth didn’t come out of the garage or go into the house with her brothers, Tabris focused through the roof to find her battling the snow blower, lawn mower, garden hose, six folding chairs and a bag of fertilizer to secure the release of her bicycle.

  Tabris went icy cold.

  She talked to the bike the whole time she dra
gged it out, assuring it she’d meant no harm by the winter-long abandonment. She pumped up the tires and cleaned a cobweb off the seat.

  Tabris called down to the driveway. “Is that safe? She should have her father check the bike.”

  Rachmiel flexed his wings in the sun, craning back his neck to look at Tabris. “There’s no way we’re stopping her. She’s been thinking about bicycles all day. Come on down. This will do you good.”

  “What?” Thinking about bicycles all day—? What had Sebastian told him?

  But it wasn’t accusation in Rachmiel’s voice as much as teasing. “I thought you loved to fly.”

  Tabris flashed down to him. “Are you saying her bicycle can fly?”

  Rachmiel laughed. “When a kid is biking, you fly a little above and behind. Didn’t Sebastian ride a bike?”

  Tabris’s insides corkscrewed. Rachmiel was going to begin talking about Sebastian in everyday conversation. He’d leave tidbits of information like a trail of breadcrumbs and see if Tabris followed.

  Tabris only said, “Sebastian rode a bike.”

  Rachmiel brightened. “Did he enjoy it? Maybe I should see if he wants to do that the next time I visit.”

  Tabris flinched. “Are you sure you need me? I’d rather not go.”

  Rachmiel’s eyes dimmed. “Do you want some time alone?”

  Tabris’s heart jumped. “No, it’s not like that.” He remembered a demonic voice like a zephyr winding its way through him. You desert Elizabeth far too easily. “I’ll stay, but—”

  Elizabeth buckled her helmet. Tabris fought the urge to wrap his wings around himself.

  “What’s wrong?” Rachmiel looked at him like a linguist cracking a code. “Do you need a break?”

  “Leave me alone.” Tabris glared away from him. “I’ll go biking with you. I’m not deserting her.”