In The Arms of an Angel - 14. Chapter 14 - Firebird

Pasha and the angel exchanged glances. “What the hell is it?” Pasha whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“It seems to know you.”

The angel nodded. “It scares me, Pasha. I don’t know why but it scares me.”

“Do you think it will hurt you?” All the while he was talking, Pasha stroked the angel’s hair and shoulder, trying to calm his shaking.

“I…don’t think so. I don’t think that’s why it’s scary. I think…. I just think….” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Uzzi’el. Open the bloody window. What in the name of mercy is wrong with you?”

“What’s that word he’s saying? Uzzi’el?”

The angel shuddered deeply. “I don’t know, but it feels…. It feels….” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t like hearing it, Pasha. It scares me. I don’t know what…” He swallowed hard “…or who Uzzi’el is but it’s trouble, I know. Everything about it is screaming ‘danger’ at me but I don’t know why.”

The bird began to hammer frantically. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you Uzzi’el but if you don’t open this window right now you’re going to bring the enforcers down on us all and you know what that means.”

“Do you know what that means?” Pasha asked.

The angel shook his head but he looked terrified. “I’m guessing it wouldn’t be good.”

Pasha nodded. With a fair amount of trepidation, he hurried across the room and opened the window. He was rewarded with a face full of feathers as the bird hurtled past him into the room. He carefully closed the window and drew the curtains as the bird circled the room rapidly, it’s feathers bristling.

Pasha climbed back onto the bed and huddled close to the angel, wrapped in his arms, as the bird zoomed around the room.

Eventually, the bird settled on the footboard and sat, twitching its head from side to side, twisting its neck to examine them from all angles, while making soft squawking sounds.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” it asked at last.

“What do you mean?” the angel croaked, scared and trembling.

“You didn’t turn up at the meeting point. Everyone’s going crazy and the enforcers are everywhere. What the hell have you been doing? And who is this boy? Why are you naked? What have you been doing?”

“It’s none of your business,” the angel said uncomfortably, tugging ineffectually at the duvet, trying to cover Pasha who was too enthralled with the bird to notice or care.

“Maybe not, but you are my business and I’ve been sent to get you safely to the meeting point…where, I have to point out, you should have been two days ago.”

“Should I?” the angel asked, a touch of curiosity in his voice as he leaned towards the bird anxiously.

“Don’t play games, Uzzi’el,” the bird snapped. “This isn’t one of your role plays; this is for real. Half the Council have fallen and the enforcers are going crazy. They’re rounding up anyone who’s had anything to do with you and wiping out humans in the process. You started this and you have to finish it.”

“Started what?” The angel’s arms tightened around Pasha, holding him against him like some kind of giant teddy bear. Pasha could feel his body shaking, every muscle tensed as if ready to run at the slightest provocation. This alone made Pasha more frightened than he’d ever been in his life. Here at last, he sensed, were the answers they’d both been craving…well that he’d been craving. He wasn’t so sure the angel had ever really wanted to remember and now he wasn’t so sure he did either.

The bird hopped up and down, anger making sparks fly from its feathers. “”Stop playing games Uzzi’el.”

“What’s Uzzi’el?”

“What? Not what—who—you.”

“M…me?”

“Yes, you,” the bird snapped. “It’s your name, as if you didn’t know.”

“My…my name? But…. But, I…. I don’t….” He looked at Pasha with wide eyes.

“Who are you?” Pasha asked the bird, “and how do you know Angel?”

“Angel? What? Who? What in the name of mercy is going on here?”

“I….” Slowly, the angel uncurled from around Pasha and crawled towards the bird, who remained still, staring at him. “I…. feel I should know you, but I don’t. You… you make me feel….afraid.”

“Afraid? Too right you should be afraid, holed up in this place with enforcers all around you and no one able to get near. What on earth possessed you to come here?”

“I….don’t know.”

The bird cocked its head and clacked its beak. “What happened to you?” it asked eventually, its voice considerably softer than it had been, the anger tempered with what seemed to be genuine concern. “You don’t look right.”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t. Your eyes look…wrong. You and I have been friends for a long time, Uzzi’el. Why don’t you know who I am?”

The angel shook his head. “I don’t know. There was….” He turned quickly to look at Pasha. “There was an accident. I…fell. I don’t remember.”

“Don’t remember what?”

“Anything. I don’t remember anything. The first thing I remember is lying on the ground in the rain. And then I was here. I…I was hurt and confused. I couldn’t make my wings go and I didn’t know what I was or where I was. Men came looking for me and they scared me but I don’t know who they were either. I’ve tried and tried to think, to remember, but there’s nothing there.”

“Ah fuck,” the bird said.

“Do you know me? Do you know who I am?” The angel, Uzzi’el moved closer, anxiously examining the strange bird, eager for answers but afraid, too.

“Oh yeah, yeah I know you. I know who you are. You’re Uzzi’el, Angel of Faith and Mercy, Gabri’el’s lieutenant and leader of the rebellion here on earth.”