Seraphs Edge Part 1

 

The rain was my friend. It ran down my face like the tears I wasn't able to shed, washing away the blood from my eyes and the dirt from my clothes. But it didn't take the anger away with it, and for that I was glad.

The streets still had people on them, but that would change. Already they were rushing away from the sidewalks, scurrying into buildings that would keep them dry. Shame too, as many of them could do with having some of the things they carried with them washed away. Soon the streets would be empty except for him and I.

Finally.

Till then I waited half crumpled in the corner of an alley and willed myself not to die.

Thunder crackled above me, a sharp slash of lighting cutting through the darkening clouds and bringing a brief instant of light into the cramped quarters of the alley. I saw the bodies again, lying on the ground like just any other piece of trash. They all wore fine dark suits that probably wouldn't do them any good in the afterlife. If there was an afterlife for their kind
          I laughed. The sound that came out of my mouth was unrecognizable, full of bitterness and fear. I laughed because I was scared. I laughed because I found the idea of angels having an after life f*****g funny.
          S**t. Angels. I'd killed three angels.

At first glance they looked like regular dead bodies. Everyday dead bodies that just happened to have a pretty good taste when it came to clothing. It wasn't until you peered into the sunken pits where their eyes should have been, saw the mark of a feather on their wrist, looking all too real to be a tattoo that you realized something was amiss. I reached for the pendant heavily weighting down my chest. It was a humble sized cross, silver not gold. It belonged to my mother, and I wore it out respect to her, not out of any respect for her religion.

My other hand shakily left my bloody side and reached for one of my knives. I had five left on me, nine if I dared to dig the others from out of the dead bodies. Which meant I had five left.

I wouldn’t go anywhere near the bodies again. No, not after the last time. I shuddered, remembering how his hand had felt on me, the way those long delicate fingers had wrapped themselves around my ankle and squeezed. So much strength, but no emotion to it. He hadn't squeezed because he was angry I jammed a knife into his throat. He squeezed because that's what he'd been told to do. To hold me.

Curling up in my little corner of the alley I tilted my head up to the sky. The rain felt so good as it caressed my face and slid down my cheek, hundreds of gentle kisses from forgotten lovers. It made the pain bearable, to the point where I could barely notice the blood as it trickled from my wounds.

How much longer would it be, I wondered, before he showed up. The rain continued to fall, and I continued to wait. I watched the bodies in the meanwhile, fearful they might begin to move again.

They were still laying motionless when he showed up.

There was no great, dramatic entrance. One moment, he wasn't there, and the next he was, standing at the entrance of the alley with his hands in his pockets. My heart betrayed me as it sped up. At least my hands remained my allies, fingers calmly picking up two of my knives.

"You're supposed to be dead Alice."

His voice was different from how I remembered it. It mingled with the sound of the rain, soft and almost musical. And seductive. It never had been seductive before.

 "So are you," I whispered.

He shrugged. "I got better."

There was no doubt about that. He looked good, really good. Not many could pull off a loud blue Hawaiian shirt opened up to reveal a flat bare stomach, but he could. Probably because he had the surfer looks to go along with the shirt. Long blond curls hung from wet strands that pressed against his forehead, his green eyes barely visible from the curtain of hair.

Green eyes. When I knew him, he'd had blue eyes.
"What happened to your eyes Luke?" I asked

His hand went up to his face and pushed away his hair, locking his eyes unto mine. They might have changed color, but they hadn't lost their intensity. "A gift."

I got up to my feet, the process slow and painful, having to rely on the wall for support. "A gift huh?" I muttered, trying not to show the pain on my face. More than likely it was worthless. He could probably read it in my eyes. "Sure it wasn't a trade?"
          A tilt of his head. The motion brought an image into my head, of him doing the same thing, except he was naked and in my bed. And it was a lifetime ago.
          "Now, who would I trade my eyes with? And most importantly, what would I get in return?"

Not it was my turn to shrug. “I don’t know. Your life back maybe?”
          He chuckled, the sound sending shivers down my spine. “My life back.” He moved forward and leaned casually against the wall, his fingers wrapping themselves around my hair. “You should know better Alice. No one can have their lives back. Not me, and especially not you. All we can do is move on to our new ones.”

I wanted to close my eyes. I didn’t like how I couldn’t. I didn’t like how the more I looked at him, the more I wanted to reach out and kissed him. I took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. His scent filled my body. He still smelled of sand and of that cheap aftershave he never gave up, not even for me. But he smelled of something new. Incest, ashes, burnt leaves. Why did he smell of burnt leaves?
          “Then move on,” I said, my voice shaking. “Move on with your new life and leave me the hell alone. You and everyone else.”

I sucked in a breath when his fingers traced my neck. “Or what Alice? You’re going to kill me like those two over there?” He leaned his face forward, his cheek rubbing against mine as the warmth of his breath landed on my ear. “You know what they say. Kill me once, shame on me. Kill me twice, shame on you.”

"What do you want" I whispered, willing my body not to move. Part of me wanted to run my fingers down his chest. The other part of me just wanted to run.
          He suddenly took a step back from me, but even so his presence remained, pressing heavily against me. The smell of burnt leaves was overpowering. "I want a lot of things Alice," he said, "but sadly for me, what I want doesn't play into the equation." He smiled then, his face tinted with sadness. Or maybe that was just me. Wishing that he showed some of his old self.
          "I didn't kill you." The words sounded strange in the backdrop of the falling rain. For too many nights the sentence was just a part of a back and forth argument in my mind. Hearing them out loud still didn't bring any validation towards them though.

"Don't kid yourself." He said, his voice suddenly going cold. "You might not have pulled the trigger, but we both know you loaded the bullets into the chamber." He paused and motioned at my hands. "Or slipped the knife into the assassin’s glove if you prefer THAT image."
          My knives. I almost had forgotten about my knives.

Reviews

[kbob]

Very original write. Nice touch... one human against heaven... never would have been able to picture it.
Good job