In The Arms of an Angel - 1. Chapter 1 - The Accident

The weather was appalling. Rain lashed against the windscreen and it was almost impossible to see in the lightless lanes.

“Shit. This is fucking nuts. Where are the houses? Where are the people?”

Lukas laughed. “You’re such a city person. This is the countryside, Pasha. Miles and miles of empty space and crazy, unlit country roads leading nowhere.”

“How can you stand it?”

“I love it. I’ve never been so happy.”

“No. You’ve never been so happy since you moved here… with Anna. You’re sickeningly in love.”

Lukas looked over at his younger brother and smiled. He wasn’t wrong. Anna was perfect. She was an angel, the best thing that had ever happened to him and…”

“Holy fucking shit!!”

His head snapped forward at Pasha’s scream, and a flash of white light blinded him. Moments later the car hit something and skidded out of control, eventually coming to rest in the hedge.

“Jesus. Pasha, are you alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, I think.”

“What the fuck was that?” Lukas unstrapped his belt and massaged his shoulder.

“I don’t know, lightening?”

“Could have been, but it wasn’t a bolt of lightning I hit.”

“No.” The brothers stared at each other, frozen. Finally, Pasha shook himself and unbuckled his belt. “You know we have to check. May as well get it over with.”

“Pasha, what if… What if I hit someone?”

“Then we deal with it. Come on.”

Lukas got out of the car and squinted into the driving rain. Pasha had a little more trouble because he had to squeeze through the hedge.

“Right, you take the left side and I’ll take the right.”

Slowly they worked their way back along the road until they saw something large and white. It was surely too big to be human, and the wrong shape. Taking heart, they hurried forward.

“What the fuck is it?”

“I don’t know. It looks like some kind of a bird.”

“It’s too big for a bird.” Pasha crouched down and touched the white feathers. They trembled. “Well, it’s alive whatever it is.”

“Can’t we just drag it to the side of the road and…”

“No, we can’t. At the very least we have to see if it’s hurt.” Ignoring his brother, Pasha hurried around to the other side of the bird and pushed at the wings, raising them to see what was underneath. The bird groaned, just as a flash of lightening lit the sky, lighting up the pale face and mass of golden hair. Pasha dropped the wing and skittered backwards.

“Help me Luke,” he gasped scrambling up off the road. “We’ve got to get her into the car.”

“You want me to do what? Put a big, wet and possibly dead bird in my new car? I don’t think so.”

“It’s not a bird, Luke. It’s not a fucking bird. For Christ’s sale help me.”

Alarmed by the edge of hysteria in his brother’s voice, Lukas hurried to his side. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Luke, this is going to sound as crazy as hell but… but I think… I think we might have killed an angel.”

“What the fuck? Don’t be ridiculous.” Crouching down, Luke pushed back the wings and let out a yell of shock. The long, pale body jerked under his hand and eyelids rose over colourless eyes.

“What are we going to do?”

“Get her into the car. We’ll take her home, warm her up and see if she’s hurt. Maybe we can patch her up and…”

“And what? What if she…? She might not be grateful. I mean, considering we hit her with the car and all.”

“Well, maybe she’ll be pissed. Maybe she’ll smite us or whatever angels do. But I’m not going to leave her lying here at the side of the road to die.”

“No, we can’t do that.”

“Help me.” The angel’s voice wasn’t like any voice they’d ever heard. It seemed to resonate on more than one frequency at the same time.

“Of course we’re going to help you. Are you hurt. Can you stand?” The wide eyes stared at him but there didn’t seem to be much comprehension there.

“Never mind.” Together, they hauled the angel to its feet. She couldn’t stand and passed out again with a moan of pain.

The two brothers exchanged glances but were committed and so they dragged the angel to the car and, somehow, stuffed her into the back seat. This was not easy at all because the wings were big, incredibly heavy and not at all manoeuvrable.

“How far is the house?” Pasha asked anxiously, as Lukas pulled the car onto the road.

“About another fifteen minutes. How’s she looking?”

“Big, wet and unconscious.”

“Jesus, I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you think that flash in the sky was…”

“Yeah.”

There was no more talking and, in ten minutes flat they were pulling into the yard of Lukas’ renovated farmhouse. The light from the windows spilled out onto the gravel and turned the little stones golden.

It was a lot harder to get the angel out of the car. The feathers resisted and they didn’t want to break any more than they had to. Half way through, the angel woke and screeched.

It was an inhuman sound that caused the glass in the windows to vibrate.

“Fuck. Ssh… ssh angel. We’re trying to help you. We want to get you warm and dry. You have to get out of the car. Please… we’re trying to help you.”

Big blue eyes oriented on him and the screeching stopped. Something in them made him shiver.

With the assistance of the angel they managed to get her out of the car, and Pasha put his arm around the slender waist to help support… “Oh.” Scanning the angel from the crown of its head, over the inhumanly beautiful face and along the length of the pale, perfect body, he realised with a jolt that it was most certainly not a ‘her’.