Chapter 18

Mors Vincit Omnia ...sometimes

Death could be kind sometimes, taking away the pain of life but, most of all, taking away the suffering of dying. Death came strolling to those crying in the agony of their last moments like Abel was doing now. He almost smiled; he wanted to smile, but the bullets had done a lot of damage to his body. Abel couldn’t force himself to smile at all, with bullets opening holes in his body, letting all his blood out. He wanted to get up and keep fighting, but he couldn’t fight without blood.

                He watched Evangeline screaming and crying for him. She reached out for him with all the tears and blood falling down her face. Her father was going to sell her to the trade. He was going to beat her to death in the house, and for a moment, Abel thought it was a mercy.

                Death could be a mercy. Life could be cruel. It was too hard most days and very painful all the time. There were no easy days. Every day was a nightmare with tiny moments of waking into the bliss of Heaven, like kissing his wife or hearing his sons laugh.

                He wasn’t home. He was going to die far away from home in the middle of nowhere, and Hope was never going to see his body.

                It might have been for the best with all the holes in it.

                He watched Willy be dragged into the house by his men. Abel hoped they would pull the blade from his stomach, letting him bleed out, but he wouldn’t know right now. He was going to die. He was going to be free of this life.

                The men pulled Evangeline into the house. She was trying to fight back, screaming to get back to Abel. She wanted to be near him when she died. He hoped they would put a bullet in her head to make it quick for her. It would be the right thing to do. He did it often to his enemies, putting them down quickly, putting a bullet in his head.

                It took all his might to lift his head to the sky above, looking at the stars. He hoped and prayed that Hope was back at home looking up at the same stars thinking of him. She was going to be very upset at the state of his clothes. The stars were perfect, with them dancing in the pitch black. He was glad to be dying with them in his eyes.

                He gasped a painful breath as it seemed the sun had come from the other side of the world. He dropped his eyes to the blinding white light, whiter than snow, almost too white as if something had erased the darkness from the world. The white light folded into itself as a woman came into shape. A woman who almost had the body of Hope, perfect and strong in all the right areas. If any man saw the woman in the light, they would fall in love within the blink of an eye; anyone but Abel was already in love with Hope.

                He had seen this woman in white now once before, and the first time was back in the war. When he was taking his last breath, she came to him as an angel. She was an angel of the Lord.

                She stopped in front of Abel, now looking over him at all the holes, and shook her head.

                “Hope’s not going to be happy,” the angel of justice said.

                “You’re the one you keep getting me shot,” Abel said, but he wasn’t sure he saw the words on his lips. He thought maybe it was his rotten soul that spoke to them. “Stab, hung, and oh yeah, set on fire.”

                She smiled at him with her perfect lips and her pointed chin. Her blonde hair rolled around her face, and it was the hue of snow; her eyes were the color of summer sky. When he first saw it, he was almost glad to be dying at the hue of sky-blue staring back at her. He thought if he were going to die in the war, he would see the summer sky of the south once more. All he could see during the war was smokey skies as he was dying then.

                “The fire was you,” she said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

                “It was you,” he said. “You told me about the little boy in the house.”

                “Oh, right,” she said, standing over him, taking his massive jaw in her hands. The warmth of her touch raced all over his body, sending his soul into a delight he had rarely experienced in this life. It was only when his wife touched him that he felt blissful in his dark days. Hope could brush up against him, sending his heart racing like never before, no matter how many times she touched him.

                “I want to get home to her,” Abel said to the angel.

                “Trust me,” she said, “I know. Hope always prays for you when you’re gone. Every morning. Every evening. She always prays for you to come home to her.”

                “You get home to her, don’t you?” Abel asked. “You’ve never told me why?”

                “You are a dark man, Mr. Solomon,” she said with peace on her face, “who lives in the dark, rainy days where the wicked winds are never weary, but the Good Lord heard the cries of your wife, and that’s my friend is all you need to know about why you became the hero of justice for me.”

                He almost smiled at her, lost in her gaze and healing with her sing-song words.  

                “You’re going to save her,” the angel said.

                “And kill all those devils in there,” Abel said, standing up with all his wounds gone, healed from the touch of the angel. He nodded at her as she stepped back from him, now looking up at him. She placed one of her hands on his chest.