“Michael,” Lilly squawked as I almost ran into her.
Her drink sloshed dangerously close to the lip of the glass, despite how little was in the glass, she had jumped so far into the air. I could see how my sudden appearance, moving at that speed, might upset her. Lilly knew we didn’t move fast for no reason, so at least, even as she scowled at me, I knew I would be forgiven.
As soon as she checked that it didn’t spill all over her, she dropped her hands and huffed out a breath at me.
“Have you seen Sera?” I asked. “Toby said she went off with Raphael.”
Toby had explicitly said Raphael, not Ralph. That had me worried because it meant that one of us was seeing to Sera in a way that I should have been seeing to her. He hadn’t done it for any petty sort of reason. Ralph had a date of his own to entertain. Raphael going off with Sera meant that something was wrong.
“No, Michael, don’t start that tonight, okay? It’s their night, not your night, and you can’t go back in time. If you do something stupid, we’re stuck. That means you can’t do what you’re thinking of doing right now.”
She was so vague about it that it even took me a minute to figure out what she meant by that. When it finally occurred to me, I gave my head a shake.
“Toby thinks she’s possessed,” I said, looking around us for the woman. “If Raphael is seeing to her, it’s a good thing. I don’t want to do that tonight.”
“There she is,” Lilly said, pointing over my shoulder.
I turned immediately and walked toward the garden doors as Sera stepped through them. She didn’t look ruffled in the least, there was the barest hint of a smile on her lips, and a self-assured look on her face. As she met my eyes, she changed her direction and headed straight for me.
I hadn’t given her any rules but to not do things in front of Sam and Grace, so I immediately dismissed my questions. Sera could come and go as she pleased, do who and what she wanted.
It was Raphael I was going to question, just after the reception was complete and the guests had all gone home.
Sera and I met on the dance floor, and I slipped my hand into hers, the other around her shoulder to pull her close. That smile grew a little wider as we moved together on the dance floor. It was a slow song that many other dancers were swaying to.
I think the art of dancing has been pushed to the wayside and that it is something that should come back in fashion. I had once been able to lead a woman through a dance and force the demon out of her during the dance. No sex, but it had still been effective. With the fall of interest in dancing, so had the effectiveness of my methods.
The bumping and grinding on the dancefloor could work, but I couldn’t make it work. Ralph had done it more than once, as had Gabe, but it was barely a step above sex. It took no skill to hump a woman on the dance floor.
And, frankly, if that was how the men of the current generation were having sex, it was no wonder the world was declining yet again.
As the song came to an end, we stopped together. The MC stepped up with a microphone and began directing everyone towards the dessert table where the newly married couple were about to cut the cake.
The cake was pure white, with little purple flowers cascading down the side of it. That was my handy work. I had taken classes on baking years ago as one of my hobbies. When Sam and Grace got engaged, I had taken a few refresher courses.
I had threatened to gut any guest who ruined the cake before they could cut into it, and I meant it.
I watched the pair approach the cake, then scanned the crowd.
We fully expected to be attacked or cursed during the wedding. It would have been the perfect time launch an offensive attack. The demons had been quiet for almost a year. They may have left the area, as they often did when we settled in, but they could have also been planning something. The witches, in the absence of the demons, were making a bit more noise, but we always expected that to happen.
Still, we had been settled in and semi-retired in the past when one or the other would attack us when they thought we least expected it. We were on guard and trying our best to make that night the magical night that Sam wanted for Grace.
All across the room, the guests were standing and watching. Even Gabe was watching Sam instead of scanning the gathered guests, as he should have been. Back by the garden doors, Ralph was standing guard. The two of us made eye contact, and he flushed, turning to the other side of the room as I pulled my gaze away from his and turned away.
A murmur of displeasure seemed to roll through the crowd.
I refocused, looking for the cause of the change, and found nothing amiss. Those who were murmuring to their companions were doing so because Grace and Sam were feeding each other cake with silver forks. Rather than mashing the cake in the face of their new spouse, they were both being respectful. For some reason that rubbed some of their guests the wrong way.
That was not a tradition, it was something that had become a fashion. It was a waste of food, and I think Grace said that she didn’t like having anything on her face. Then I know she gave Sam a look that made him give the rest of us a nasty look, though I have no idea what either of their looks was about.
The newlyweds didn’t seem to notice, or to care, about the mutterings. She was focused on him, and the one look away from her that he ventured was to me.
I gave a small nod and turned to the MC of the evening, who was flirting instead of doing his job.
Except suddenly Gabe was there, hands in his pockets, looming over the man and talking at him. There was a look to Gabe that spoke of his annoyance, but he was otherwise relaxed and ready for anything.
If he could have had his way, Gabe would have been doing that work himself. He had a love of all things musical, and Sam had been willing to give that to him. Grace, however, had said no because Gabe was part of the wedding party and if he was doing the music and introductions, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the party.
Which meant that Gabe was especially annoyed anytime a mistake was made, and was there instantly to make corrections.
The MC moved immediately for his microphone.
Gabe wandered off, and I turned to offer my arm to Sera.
“So… you guys aren’t brothers,” Sera said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
We told all the mortals that we were brothers. There had been a few awkward conversations, but no one had pushed it beyond that first question. I turned slowly to Sera as she continued to look out over the guests. She ignored me for a moment before she turned and smiled just slightly.
“My ability to read people has paid for my flat, my bills, and all the rest,” she said. “None of you are brothers in a biblical sense.”
“Biblical?” I asked.
Because I knew it was going somewhere, that Sera had a point to make. I also had an idea as to what she wanted to suggest given the ‘biblical’ choice of words. In the same moment, I was hoping to talk her out of it. Women saw us together and got dirty ideas. I got that, I understood where they might be coming from.
Woman-on-woman pornography was the closest thing to get a stir out of me on Earth. I had been told that there was something about a suggested and strong connection that could get a motor running for a woman.
“You might have been raised by the same man, but you aren’t related, and none of you sees each other as a brother,” Sera added. “There’s a great deal of respect, but there’s not that something that siblings have. You’re more like the army guys from the same platoon.”
She was definitely coming off as a woman who appreciated a deep connection.
I’d like to give her a deep connection.
The thought startled me out of all other thought. I found myself staring at Sera, fighting the urge to run away screaming because that idea had never entered my head before. I struggled to come up with something to say.
“Why are you explaining my relationship to my brothers to me?” I asked.
Sera reached out with two hands and plucked up a glass of wine in both as a server walked by with his tray. She turned and handed one to me with a smile.
White wine because something about that was linked to weddings in Lilly’s mind. She insisted on white wine and no red whatsoever. I knew it was what Grace drank, only very occasionally dabbling with red.
I preferred red wine, having a strong dislike for white, but I still sipped from the glass and refused to grimace as Sera’s smile grew wider.
“So, brothers who aren’t brothers,” she said. “That sounds complicated.”
“Sounds like you have a point to make,” I said.
We had accidentally circled back to the topic I had been hoping to avoid. At least if I could get her to admit it out loud, I might have a better chance of talking her out of it.
“Just checking, really,” she said.
With a shrug and a slight eyebrow raise as she sipped her wine and looked away. Barely hiding the way her lips somehow curled ever higher in that growing smile.
“Oh?” I asked.
I, in response, slipped a hand into my pocket as I raised my glass and sipped the wine once more. It might be difficult to stomach white wine, but I would put up with it if only to get some alcohol into me. To pretend that we were both enjoying the wedding because it was a nice party and that I wasn’t anxious about what she might be about to suggest.
“I like threesomes where I’m the center of attention,” Sera said.
I made a sound and sipped my wine without a comment. I knew that she was watching me, but I chose to keep my eyes roving over the floor.
There it was, the magnanimous craving finally spilled out into the world. She expected me to be judgemental, or to leap at the chance. I kept myself quiet, without letting on the fact that I was silently screaming inside because that was not what I was capable of doing.
I was having strange flashes and cravings for this woman. I did not want to share her with another man. All I wanted was to hide in a closet somewhere and figure out what I was really feeling, and why I was feeling that way.
“I wouldn’t charge extra,” she said.
“I would hope you didn’t charge others for extras you tossed in,” I murmured. “Shall we mingle?”
“Is that the mayor?” Sera asked. “Oh, please, can we not go over there?”
“Why?” I asked.
“I turned down escorting her a couple of months ago. Now she’s basically on a rampage when it comes to anything about me.”
I slipped my hand down Sera’s back, settling on the small of it just above her hips. Then I propelled her forward as she attempted to hiss at me. But I kept my hand firm like stone as I pushed her right into the path of the mayor.
Whose eyes went wide at Sera, before she turned on me as if to accuse me of something, and then spotted who was pushing Sera forward. The mayor’s features fell, and her eyes went to the floor, but only for a moment.
She knew me, she knew who I was and my reputation. Hell, she had tried to bed me on more than one occasion.
I saw that little twitch. Almost hopeful in nature, until she glanced back up at me and realized which of the Angelicas was standing before her.
“I hear you know my date,” I said.
“Mike,” Sera hissed at me.
“What?” I asked her, then turned to the mayor. “Sera here has spoken highly of your support of education.”
“That’s a senator who controls that,” Sera hissed at me.
“No, open libraries, reading initiatives… as puny as a mayor may seem, they have a great deal of control over education,” I said to Sera before I turned to the mayor. “Don’t you?”
“I am in the midst of voting on the location for a new library,” she said with a fractured smile.
“I know you are,” I said. “And a park, aren’t you? Going to introduce a centralized, large park over that lot, instead of turning it into a parking lot?”
I could say a lot of things about the mayor, but a complete idiot wasn’t one of them. Sera might not have quite understood what I was doing as it was happening, but if she did know, she played along nicely. If the mayor didn’t play along, I’d make it known that she had attempted to purchase the services of a female stripper, and then had acted like a catty little bitch when she had been turned down.
Knowing the mayor, I could guess at what else Sera wasn’t mentioning. Stalking, creepy bodyguard behaviour and the like.
“I believe that is on my desk at the moment, yes,” she said, that smile showing off her teeth in a threatening manner.
“Good to hear,” I said.
Then I turned, pulling Sera with me. I said absolutely nothing as she continued to hiss at me, that wine glass rising to cover her lips as she said something very untoward about my mother. We were on the dance floor before I pulled my hand away from her and raised my wine glass as she turned on me and, while maintaining a relaxed form, looked me up and down.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
“No, just fed up with her half promises, and wanted a library and a park.”
“Why both of those things?”
“I like parks.”
“And the library?”
I shrugged. “I like parks, they seem to go well with libraries, so why not?”
“You’re so strange,” Sera muttered, her eyes narrowing as she looked me up and down.
I made a little sound at the back of my throat and turned her towards the dessert tables. With a motion to the table, I pulled her toward the table.
We feasted in honour of my brother. We drank the wine and took advantage of his hospitality. We conversed, laughed, rubbed elbows as it were, with the rich and famous of the city. Not a few of who recognized Sera.
What makes her so noticeable?
The rich knowing her was strange to me. Sera was a stripper from a run down joint on the edge of the city, a place that we had chosen at random, near as I could tell. It didn’t hold the feeling of being classy enough to draw int the rich of the city.
Sera, in turn, recognized them and was careful with their secrets. I knew that she recognized them because I had centuries of practice reading humans. To the common eye, it merely looked like the guests were surprised by her presence.
Those people of the city, the guests at my brother’s wedding, had slept with the woman on my arm and were envious of my position with her.
If only modern English still had a term for what we were to one another.
I glanced up and caught Raphael’s eyes on me. He turned away quickly, reaching out an arm and rushing off as if he had just found his date—
Yes, there she was, stripping off her dress as she stood on the bar. It was an awkward striptease from a woman who was apparently too drunk to realize that she was making bad decisions in her life.
Right on schedule too, the actress drew the eyes of nearly everyone in the hall as she giggled and batted at Ralph’s reaching hands.
She didn’t know there was a schedule, but we knew, and Ralph knew her well enough to know how she would react to a certain number of drinks and the events of the night. We knew when she would be going off, and about how she would be going off. We knew what to expect and how best to handle her.
I didn’t understand why Ralph wanted her there, and why he wanted to save her so much. Humans would do as humans would do, they had to go through their problems and find their solutions on their own. Despite not understanding why Ralph made the decisions he made, the rest of us respected him for it. We would support him, and we would help him in any way we could.
To others, we called one another brother, but Father had always been very clear that we were not to view every other angel as a sibling. These were not others related to us, but instead those that were like us. We were no more related than one random human was related to another.
The arc angels had always been close. We had been knit together at the beginning of time, created of the elements of the universe, cut from the cloth of chaos.
There hadn’t quite been enough for four, however.
When Father had come to Raphael, He had been forced to look beyond the chaos. Instead, He had filled Raphael’s chaos with emotion. Just as chaotic, but not the same sort. And then went in what made Raphael different from each of us.
The Heavenly Host had always been drawn to Raphael. Afraid of the rest of us, cowering in fear, but when he walked through the fields, it was like Father had chosen to bless the Host with His presence. They flocked to him, and he paid them heed as if they were the only creature in the entire universe.
“Mike?” Sera asked as if she had said my several times.
I pulled from my thought and turned towards her as her eyebrows raised. She glanced away from me, then focused on me as her eyebrows drew down.
“Are you concerned with something?” she asked.
“That’s an odd thing to say,” I said in response. “What do you mean to ask?”
“You were staring after Raphael as if you were caught in thought,” she said.
I hesitated a moment as I struggled to align what I heard with Sera. She had just used his full name, which meant that Ralph had told her what his name was, and some sob story, no doubt, that made her use his full name instead of the nickname that he had gone by for nearly fifty years.
When I finally caught up, fully comprehending that fact, I realized that there was that odd edge to her voice, like she was waiting for my answer with bated breath. She bit her bottom lip and looked away.
“What are you concerned with?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
“You have a thought in there, I can see it,” I said. “I’ve been around enough women to know that look. That is the flicker of a dirty thought, a fantasy unsated.”
I knew what she wanted. Me and Ralph. She probably saw some of his pornography and fancied herself able to be the sole witness to a very private show. It would probably make her year, if not her life, to see me pin Raphael down and have my way with him.
But it couldn’t happen, and I couldn’t understand what she saw in that little fantasy bubble of hers.
“I may have my fantasies,” Sera said with a little shake of her head, “but I would never thrust them upon another and force the other into that fantasy.”
“Did you talk to him about it?” I asked with a thumb jabbed towards Ralph.
Who had his date over his shoulder as she smacked at him and he attempted to pull her off the bar. Near as I could tell, he was still doing everything according to plan. In a few minutes, he’d ‘accidentally’ lose his grip, and Gabe would get involved. If Grace was out of the room, Sam would even get involved. It would make a fantastic story the next day for the papers.
The agreement was for this to look like the woman’s rock bottom. She’d get the attention she wanted, then we’d send her off to rehab to kick the bad habit a demon etched into her soul.
“I did,” she said. “Raphael, however, expresses the same desire. It does appear many guests are beginning to make their way out. Even the bride has retired, what is that poor groom doing? Oh no.”
I kept my back to Sam, rather than witness my brother’s so-called embarrassment. Sera’s eyes went wide, a hand raised to cover her mouth, and after a moment, she turned away, looking thoroughly startled.
“Perhaps I should see about arranging a ride home for you,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to help them?”
“No, that’s all a part of the plan,” I said without turning around. “I am not to be a part of it because I not only do not appreciate it, I might manhandle her. We aren’t allowed to leave bruises. Or hurt her, even if she’s stupid and doing something which clearly deserves being bent over a knee and spanked until she’s screaming for mercy.”
“Why would you do that?”
“If you’re going to act like a child, I will treat you like one.”
“You’re for beating a child?” Sera asked.
I considered it, then shook my head. “No, I would only beat an adult who was acting like a child.”
“You’re very strange, Mike,” Sera said.
I gave a shrug in response, then motioned to the door. Sera looked around me once more, then turned stiffly and headed for the door as I followed after her. I didn’t look back, though I was tempted. We left the room and went straight to the front doors.
Guests were filing out, waiting for their cars to arrive.
“Thank you, for tonight,” Sera said as I walked her away from the door and prying eyes.
Just because I was paying for her services, didn’t mean that I wanted everyone else knowing that. If Sera wanted them to know, she could tell them on her time.
We walked a little down the drive, stopping just out of sight of the entrance. It was a wonderfully clear night, not too cold and not too warm. Overhead the stars were up there, somewhere. Here and there I saw one or two of them, but the lights of the city that was nearby drowned out most of the sky in orange light. A haze that hung just at the edge of the world and never seemed to vanish.
I missed the sounds of the world. The animals in the trees, the wind among the leaves of the forests. The Heavenly Host dancing with the stars. I missed all of that. Nights like that reminded me of those missing qualities, it made me long for home. But home was too far away, and all that was left, was the estate behind me, and the woman on my arm.
I glanced around us to be certain that there were no witnesses, then I reached into my suit jacket and pulled out the remainder of what I owed her. In a neat little envelope, but if anyone had seen me handing it over, they would have known what it was for.
Sera took the money and slipped it into her little purse, which was only really large enough for the envelope of cash.
“Can I call you a car?” I asked. “I would pay for the taxi, of course.”
“No, but thank you, Mike. I had a fun evening, but I always find my way home from clients.”
“That’s fair enough,” I said. “Wouldn’t want some creep following you home.”
“Exactly.”
We stood like that for a long time. She was probably waiting for me to take my leave, and I found myself trying to ask a question, but nothing would come out.
I was nervous.
That was my problem, I was nervous and uncertain what she would say to my question, so I was having a hard time talking myself into asking what I desperately wanted.
Sera glanced at me. Her eyebrows rose slightly as her lips pressed into a thin line. I knew that look. She wanted me to spit it out.
Knowing that I was that transparent, I sighed and looked away.
“I wondered if you might consider seeing me outside of a paid night,” I said.
“Because you don’t have sex with those you pay?” Sera asked.
“I wasn’t thinking of sex,” I said.
“I was,” Sera said.
I let out a little sound, startled and pleasantly surprised. The pleasure was at her wanting the same thing as me, despite my saying otherwise. The surprise was realizing that I did want that. I wanted to bed the woman, and I didn’t know why.
Demon.
Demonic possession was my first and most immediate concern. Just because Ralph might have seen to her, didn’t mean that the demons were gone for good. Grace had been lightly possessed over and over, despite careful tending.
I didn’t want to see Sera be dragged into Hell, so I would do whatever I could to free her. If I could have had her then and there, just to be certain, I would have done it. Right on the driveway, I’d do it like I had on more than one occasion in the past.
Sera didn’t seem to be that type of woman, however. I wouldn’t push her unless she fell into my lap, so to speak.
“I was thinking of a picnic, here in the gardens,” I said.
“And see where it goes?” Sera asked.
I gave a little shrug. “Sure.”
“Is Mike short for Michael?” she asked.
That was a strange thing to ask me. I frowned at her, then relented and decided to play along.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“Sort of like how Ralph is short for Raphael,” she murmured. “I’d like to strip you raw and have my way with you. Just to climb right up on you.”
We stared at one another. Sera frowned then, almost imitating my look. She looked me up and down as if surprised that I was not immediately responding with eager delight.
“Michael… have you had sex before?”
“Of course, I have,” I said with a frown.
“Okay, because for a second there, you were coming off as a nervous virgin.”
Startled, I stared at Sera for a second, then gave myself a shake. I rubbed the palm of my right hand against my pant leg as I watched her, wondering what it was that made it seem like I had never been with another being before. I had shared that most intimate connection with Samael in Heaven and had joined my body with more than one man and woman in the physical realm.
I was nothing close to virgin.
“No, of course not,” I said.
Her head made a little motion like she was making a sound at the back of her throat but hadn’t made the actual sound.
“I have your number. I’ll call you tomorrow about the picnic, all right?”
“Absolutely. Are you certain that you will be fine waiting alone for your ride?”
“On the side of a rich man’s driveway? Yeah, I’ll think I’ll be fine. But thank you for your concern.”