Angel Time (The Songs of the Seraphim 1)

"Why didn't I know it would be this way with you?" he said. He reached out and laid one of his soft hands gently on my shoulder. He looked wistful, sad, and then as if he were lost in thought.

I looked at the road. "I'm losing it," I said. We were driving into the heart of Los Angeles, and within minutes we'd taken the exit that would lead me to the garage where I could leave the truck.

"Losing it," he said, as if he were musing. He seemed to be watching our surroundings, the dipping ivy-covered embankments and the rising glass towers. "That's just the point, my dear Lucky. In believing in me, what do you have to lose?"

"How did you find out about my brother and sister?" I asked him. "How did you learn their names? You made some connections and I want to know how you did it."

"Anything but the obvious explanation? That I am what I say I am." He sighed. It was exactly that sigh I'd heard in the Amistad Suite, right by my ear. When he spoke again, his voice was caressing. "I know your life from the time you were in your mother's womb."

This was beyond anything I could have ever anticipated and suddenly it came clear to me, wondrously clear, that it was beyond anything I could have imagined.

"You are really here, aren't you?"

"I'm here to tell you that everything can change for you. I'm here to tell you that you can stop being Lucky the Fox. I'm here to take you to a place where you can begin to be the person you might have been ... if certain things had not happened. I'm here to tell you ..." He broke off.

We had reached the garage, and after hitting the remote for the door, I brought the truck safely and quietly inside.

"What, tell me what?" I said. We were eye to eye and he seemed wrapped in a calm that my fear couldn't penetrate.

The garage was dark, lit only by one grimed skylight, and the single open door through which we'd passed. It was vast and shadowy and filled with coolers and lockers and piles of clothing that I would or could use on future jobs.

It seemed a meaningless place to me suddenly, a place that I could surely and gloriously leave behind.

I knew this sense of elation. It was like the way you feel after you've been sick for a long time and suddenly a clearheaded good feeling comes over you, and life seems worth living again. He sat perfectly still beside me and I could see the light in two small glints in his eyes.

"The Maker loves you," he said softly, almost dreamily. "I'm here to offer you another way, a way to that love if you'll take it."

I went quiet. I had to go quiet. I wasn't exhausted from the pitch of alarm that had gripped me. Rather I was emptied of that alarm. And the sheer beauty of this possibility arrested me, the way the look of the lavender geraniums could have arrested me, or the ivy trailing from the campanario, or the sway of trees moving in the breeze.

I saw all of these things suddenly, tumbling through my mind from the frantic rush to this dark and shadowy place, reeking of gasoline, and I didn't see the dimness surrounding us. In fact I realized that the garage was now filled with a pale light.

Slowly, I got out of the truck. I moved away from it to the far end of the garage. Out of my pocket, I took the second syringe and laid it there on the workbench nearby.

I slipped off the ugly green shirt and pants, threw them in the deep waste can that was filled with kerosene. I emptied the contents of the syringe into the mess of clothes even as the kerosene was darkening them. I threw in the gloves. And I struck a match and threw it into the can.

The fire exploded dangerously. I threw the work shoes into it and watched the synthetic material melt. I threw the wig into the blaze too, and ran my hands gratefully over my own short hair. The glasses. I was still staring through the glasses. I took them off, broke them up, and put them into the fire as well. It was burning hot. Every single item was synthetic and it was all melting down to nothing in the blaze. I could smell it. Pretty soon everything was pretty much gone. The poison was most certainly gone.

The stench did not last for long. When there was no fire anymore, I gave the remains another douse of kerosene, and lighted the fire again.

In the uneven flicker of the blaze, I looked at my regular clothes neatly arranged on a hanger on the wall.

Slowly I put them on, the dress shirt, the gray trousers, the black socks and plain brown shoes, and finally the red tie.

The fire died out again.

I put on my jacket, and I turned around and saw him standing there, leaning against the truck. His ankles were crossed and his arms were folded, and the even light showed him to be as appealing as I'd found him earlier, and there was the same affectionate and loving expression on his face.

That deep, appalling despair gripped me again, voiceless, and fathomless, and I almost turned away from him, vowing never to look at him again, no matter where or how he appeared. "He's fighting hard for you," he said. "He's whispered to you all these years, and now he's raised his voice. He thinks he can take you right out of my hands. He thinks you'll believe his lies, even with me here."

"Who is he?" I demanded.

"You know who he is. He's been talking to you for a long, long time. And you've been listening to him ever more intently. Don't listen anymore. Come with me."

"You're saying there's a battle for my soul?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying."

I could feel myself shaking again. I wasn't afraid, so my body was getting afraid. I was calm but my legs were wobbly. My mind wouldn't give in to the fear anymore, but my body was weathering the impact and couldn't quite withstand it.

My car was there, a small open Bentley convertible I hadn't bothered to replace for years.

I opened the door and got inside. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was beside me, just as I expected. I put the car in reverse, and left the garage behind.

I'd never driven through downtown so quickly before. It was as if the traffic were carrying me swiftly along a river.

Within minutes we were turning off into the streets of Beverly Hills, and then we were on my street lined on both sides by magnificent jacaranda trees in their full bloom. Almost all the green leaves were gone from them now, and their branches were laden with blue blossoms, and the petals carpeted the sidewalks and the tarmac below.

I didn't look at him. I didn't think about him. I was thinking about my life, and fighting that rising despair the way a person fights nausea, and I was wondering, What if this is true, what if he is just what he says he is? What if somehow I, the man who's done all these things, can truly be redeemed?

We had pulled into the garage of my building before I said anything, and as I expected, he climbed out of the car as I did and went with me into the elevator and up to the fifth floor.