Linda Howard - Death Angel

Until now.

Until Drea.

The room was dim, there were sconces on the side walls, and on the front wall a panel of stained glass was backlit, bathing the small room in color. The air was cool and fragrant, the scent coming from a bouquet of fresh flowers sitting on a table in front of the small altar. There were three padded pews, each large enough to hold maybe four people, but he was the only person in there.

He sat down in the middle pew and closed his eyes, letting the silence wash over him and calm him. There was no music. If hymnal music had been piped in, he probably would have left, but there was only the peace and the silence.

Drea was alive. He couldn’t yet take in what that meant, hadn’t yet been able to accept that the ground beneath his feet had caved in and he was clawing at air. Just for a moment he let himself relax, the softly glowing light of the stained glass painting colors on the inside of his eyelids. The scent of the flowers enticed him to take deeper breaths, drawing the cool air deep into his lungs, easing the constriction in his chest.

Ruthlessness was as much a part of him as his skin. His own character made it impossible for him to shrug off what he’d seen, what he knew. Drea had died. He’d heard her last breath, seen the light leave her eyes. He had felt the difference in her flesh when he touched her, because dead bodies immediately begin cooling. Her soft skin had lost its heat, its vibrancy. On an even deeper level he’d felt her absence, the absence of the person, the spirit, the soul, whatever you wanted to call it. Without that animating spark, the body is different, and no longer that person.

He’d stayed there with her too long to think he’d somehow been mistaken about her death. She hadn’t had a pulse, and she hadn’t been breathing. By the time the emergency vehicles got there, at least half an hour, maybe longer, had passed. She should have been long past resuscitation; the brain began dying after just four minutes. She would have been completely brain dead, beyond even the most heroic efforts to revive her. The guy in the waiting room had said the medics had been packing up their stuff when she began gasping on her own. Had they even tried to revive her? Add that to the length of time she’d been dead.

Yet she was sitting in a hospital bed, obviously alive, talking normally, rejoicing in the fact that she’d been given orange Jell-O to eat.

That she was alive at all, in any condition, was a miracle. That she had come through the ordeal with no apparent brain damage was a second, even larger, miracle. He didn’t believe in miracles. If he’d had any philosophy in life it ran along the lines of the classic “shit happens.” Usually it was bad shit, sometimes it was good shit, but it was always random shit. You lived your life, and when the run was ended, that was it. Nothing.

But this…this was something he couldn’t explain. This had him by the throat and balls and wouldn’t let go, and he had to face it.

Something had brought her back to life.

He opened his eyes and stared at the stained glass, looking but not seeing.

Could there be something between birth and death, something more than an organism reaching the end of its viability? Could there be something with enough power to give life back to a cooling body? If so, that meant…that meant there was something after death, that death here wasn’t the end.

If there was life after death, then there had to be another place, another when and where. If death truly was a passing on to that other place, then it followed that how lives were lived really did matter.

Good, bad-the concepts had never meant much to him. He was who he was, and he did what he did. The average person on the street was perfectly safe from him. He meant them no harm, felt no contempt for them; he might even have sometimes felt distantly fond of citizenry in general, because they carried on with their lives no matter what. They worked, they went home, they ate dinner and watched some television, went to sleep, got up and went to work again. Armies of them went through that routine, and the routine was what made the world work.

Those who preyed on these ordinary people were the ones he held in contempt. They thought it was okay to take what these people had worked for, that only fools and idiots worked for a living. For his part, he thought it was okay to kill the scum.

And yet, if he looked at it logically, his life was much worse than theirs-not in a material way, but in the wasteland that was his soul.

The black chasm beneath his dangling feet was what awaited him, what he’d earned, and yet he had this chance to change the course of his life here. Because of Drea, he saw things he’d never seen before, accepted that there was more. Was there truly a God? Was that what this was?

Because of Drea, he saw that Death walked with its arm around him. If he went on as he was, he knew what would be waiting for him. But if he could judge himself, walk away from that life, would the outcome change?

It sounded simple enough, but the concept was a complete sea change.

A huge, choking pain filled him, and his throat closed on a sound like that of a wounded animal, helpless and suffering.

A door off to the side of the small room opened. Simon hadn’t realized it was there, a lapse on his part that was unbelievable, and unforgivable, because such a lack of awareness could be deadly.

“I don’t want to intrude,” a man’s quiet voice said, “but I heard-”

He’d heard the muted howl of agony. Simon still didn’t turn.

“If you’d like to talk…” the man began again, when Simon didn’t respond.

Slowly Simon stood, feeling as weary as if he’d been awake for days on end, as battered as if he’d fallen off a cliff. He turned and looked at the small, middle-aged man who wore a regular suit, no vestments or white collar at his throat. Physically the man was unprepossessing, slight and balding, but there was an energy to him that kept him from being insignificant.

“I’m giving thanks for a miracle,” he said simply, and wiped the tears from his face.

Seven months later

“ANDIE, ORDER UP!”

Andrea Pearson gave a quick glance over her shoulder at the pass-through to the kitchen, where Glenn was loading the shoulder-high bar with plates piled high with hamburgers and steaming hot french fries, then resumed unloading heavy plates off the tray she carried. Glenn, owner and cook at Glenn’s Truck Stop, was shoveling food onto plates as fast as he could. It was Friday night, truckers were headed home, and the place was packed. The work was grueling, but the tips were great and Glenn paid her under the table, which was even better.

“I’ll be right back with refills,” she said to the three truckers in the booth, then hurried over to get the newly plated orders while the food was still hot. After dispensing them to the proper table, she loaded her tray with the coffeepot and tea pitcher and made the rounds, refilling cups and glasses. All the other waitresses were hustling as fast as she was, swivel-hipping their loaded trays through the tangle of chairs and tables.

“Hey, Andie,” a female driver said as she passed by, “tell my fortune for me.”

Her name was Cassie, her hair was blond with dark roots, and she wore a lot of makeup, along with tight jeans and high heels. She was very popular with a certain segment of the male drivers; the more settled ones left her alone. Tonight, though, she was with some other female drivers, and they were ignoring the guys for some girl time.

“You don’t have one,” said Andie, not even slowing down.

The next time she went by, Cassie signaled for her check. The group was laughing and joking, trading stories about their men or their kids or their pets, though Andie was hard put to tell which story was about which group. When she took the check over, Cassie said, “Whaddaya mean, I don’t have a fortune? You mean I’m not going to marry some good-looking rich guy and have a life of leisure?”