A Rosary of Stones and Thorns Read online

  ...the one with a white halo almost as broad as her arm, spinning so rapidly over his head it lit off frequent sparks that trailed into the thick air.

  Asrial almost stepped backward as the archangel turned to her. His golden hair fell in loose strands around a hard face, and beneath the golden slashes of his brows his eyes were as bright as cut emeralds.

  “So here’s our wayward.”

  Asrial shook. There was nothing in that stone-cold baritone to convince her that God’s Champion had anything as soft as mercy in him.

  “What were you doing here, girl? Angels aren’t supposed to fly away from God.”

  “I... I wasn’t trying to fly away from God, sir—”

  “No? What were you doing in Shamayim?”

  “Please, Archangel, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  One of the other angels spoke. “Do we have time for this Michael? The look-outs have sighted the rest of the Eighth.”

  “This is important,” Michael said without ever relinquishing her eyes. “We cannot have disobedience in the ranks of God’s own.”

  “I did not mean to disobey, I didn’t know—”

  “Didn’t know! Do you think that will save you from the glory of God’s wrath?” Michael’s voice was rising. He stabbed a finger at the building. “See there what waits for those who would go against Him!”

  Asrial’s knees lost their strength at the thunder in his voice. She tumbled to the ground, one hand lifted and the other splayed on the hard stone. “I would never go against Him!”

  “Then you would be wise to leave Shamayim. There are things here you were not meant to witness nor be a part of. You were not invited. You must not return.”

  “I meant no harm,” Asrial whispered.

  “Go home, child.” Michael strode toward the cliffs on the other side of the mountain landing, leaving her in the dirt. The other angels silently walked around her. Even the guard that had escorted her to the mount turned away, the glow of his halo lost as he retreated into the dark.

  Asrial’s other hand fell. She could not bring herself to rise; her body was shaking too hard. The angels had taken their torches with them, and in the resulting dark her halo’s light was strong enough only to illumine her white skirts and the edges of her body. The heavy air was cold for spring and bit into the exposed flesh of her arms.

  As she sought the strength to leave, she saw another set of torches light on the edge of the mountain, accompanied by the landing of several other angels. From the strength of their halos she judged them to be the other archangels, and she shivered in fear. Why had they all gathered here?

  They talked with impunity, as if she were a non-entity.

  “I trust you haven’t started the party without us.”

  “This is not a party, Gabriel!” Michael’s voice. “Only you would treat the final battle with such obscene levity.”

  “If we cannot laugh at it, then we must surely cry. What plans are made?”

  “Nothing solid,” another voice interjected. “We have gathered the strongest of the Ninth and begun training, but we cannot know exactly when and where the battle will ensue. For surely he knows that we’re coming, and he is also preparing.”

  Asrial shivered as the angels fell silent, wondering who the enemy was that required God’s angels as soldiers. Surely nothing human...

  “Though where is certainly on Earth.”

  “Earth would not survive an extended battle.”

  “And yet it is the only place we can meet. He cannot come here anymore. And we certainly will not go there!”

  Another silence.

  “You know that we will have to involve all of the Ninth Choir, Michael.” Gabriel again. He had a kinder voice, a low tenor.

  “It is not their affair,” Michael said.

  “Why not?” A new voice, a bass that rumbled from the chest of the speaker. “This is not a vendetta, Michael, though by your mien you would turn it into one.”

  “It is not a vendetta. It is the battle as prophesied. It was fated from the moment he Fell.”

  Asrial’s eyes widened, and she could not stop herself from glancing wildly at the group at the edge of the mountain.

  “Are you sure?” Another new voice asked. “He was dear to you—”

  “Dear to me! God’s chief enemy is not dear to me, Uriel! He is my nemesis and I am glad that this battle has come so soon! I intend to kill him myself, and as he bleeds I will at last wring from the Great Betrayer a confession of his guilt!”

  She could not bear the silent presence of the halos in the building and this conversation both. Her feet made no sound on the cold stone as she ran toward the torch-light. They did not see her until she pushed the two bodies nearest her apart.

  “Oh, sir! You must have mercy, you must!”

  There was a stunned quiet and Asrial found herself the object of not one, but all seven of the archangels’ scrutiny.

  The one standing beside Michael wore his silver-gilt hair in a careless thong; his blue-eyed gaze was both keen and interested and his voice was Gabriel’s. “And who is this? I didn’t know you’d had the sense to bring women into it, Michael.”

  “I thought I told you to leave,” Michael said, ignoring the other entirely to advance on her.

  Asrial took a step to the side but did not leave the circle. “You did. But I heard you. You are planning to attack the Fallen ones!”

  “Smart, this one,” one of the other archangels murmured, winning a few chuckles.

  “It is not your affair,” Michael said.

  “You are!” Asrial drew in a breath. “But you must not! Surely you must see that, my lord.”

  “It is prophesied.”

  He was still advancing on her. Refusing to leave the curious but somehow benevolent group of the other members of the Eighth, Asrial walked in a circle, trying to keep Michael in front of her. She spread her wings and her hands. “Surely you must see it, Archangel. You must have mercy on them!”

  “Mercy! Mercy for those who would destroy God? Are you mad? Or have you Fallen as well?”

  “Michael,” Gabriel said, his voice hardening.

  “If God has had mercy on them, you must as well!” Asrial cried out as her foot met the edge of the mountainside. Still Michael came and she leaned away, back. “Sir... the tower, the dome, the halos! Would you hate them for the sins that God has already forgiven?”

  “Be silent!”

  “Can’t you see He is waiting for them to return?”

  “I will kill them if they set foot in His Heaven!”

  “He loves them, Archangel!”

  An inarticulate roar of rage erupted from the archangel’s throat. Gabriel shouted and lunged for her but Michael’s hand was too swift. Asrial’s arms rose to shield herself but she could not stop it—could not stop the hand that slapped her cheek so hard her body spun out from beneath her halo.

  “Fall with them, then, Damn you!”

  The agony of the halo ripped from her soul was so great she could not scream, nor could she open her wings to save herself. Shamayim’s heavy air tore around her body and dropped her, out of the grace of Heaven.

  Her halo lost and her wings useless, Asrial Fell.

  Chapter Two

  “It’s called a beat. You can sing it, so you must be able to hear it. Let’s stamp it out… again.”

  “Again?” came a few resentful mutters from the back of the stage.

  “Again,” Father Stephen Bann, S. J. said. He eyed the motley collection of teenagers with a lifted brow. “And again. Until I say you have it right.” He grinned. “Didn’t I tell you I was a mean bastard?”

  “We didn’t think you meant it,” one of the girls in the front said, though he had won a few chuckles.

  “All right. Enough. Let’s get back to it. Take it away, guys,” Stephen said, waving at the four-man band. As they struck up the score, the would-be dancers on the stage pounded out the beat with their feet and he grinned again. They�
�d get it… at some point nearer to the actual performance. They always did somehow. He let the song reach its natural end, then shouted, “Okay, let’s do it right this time,” before retreating to the beat-up folding chair that served him as director’s chair.

  Brad Stadler made a good Judas, he mused as he watched the junior bound across the stage in a fit of righteous passion. Stephen had put on Jesus Christ Superstar once every two years since he’d gotten to Jesuit High School, and he hadn’t yet seen the sputtering fervor Brad injected into his part… nor the cheerful enthusiasm with which the boy screamed the good parts. The results were well worth the resulting headaches, mostly incurred trying to rein the boy in.

  The cast gyrated in time to the guitar and Stephen supervised with only half his attention. It had been a difficult day; the trig midterm he’d administered to the juniors had most certainly failed some of them, and the freshmen and sophomores weren’t going to do much better tomorrow. It was an unusually cool October and most of the boys were too interested in the games or the upcoming Homecoming Dance to have much concentration to spare for math. At least the band was coming along well… though it didn’t take much for them to do better than the football team.

  Stephen chuckled to himself and checked the time. “Okay, kids. Go home. Remember, Monday at this time. Enjoy your Friday off tomorrow.”

  A stream of people tumbled off-stage toward the classrooms that served as dressing rooms, the boys separating to follow the girls. Theater wasn’t always an engaging subject for hormonal boys; whatever discerning Father had thought to invite the girls of the city convent’s high school had been, Stephen thought, absolutely inspired.

  “Hey, Father! We weren’t that bad, were we?”

  “Maybe not,” Stephen said, turning to the boy. “But most of you have two left feet, all thumbs.”

  Brad laughed and folded his arms before lifting his head to meet his teacher’s. He had eyes as dark as his hair, but they had a defiant spark in them that amused Stephen. Somehow it was the ones that fought hardest that were the most endearing. “About tomorrow afternoon….”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we… well, I have to leave early.”

  Stephen tossed a few sheets of music into his folder and said, “I’m not going to tell you what to do, Stadler. But you need the tutoring and you know it.”

  “I know. Can we, well, you know. Reschedule the second half?”

  “I suppose.” Stephen grinned. “Not like my weekends are full of wild partying. We’ll work it out tomorrow before you leave.”

  “Okay,” the boy said, hoisting his backpack. “Thanks, Father.”

  Stephen leaned against the table as Brad strolled to the exit. A tiny, irrepressible impulse seized him and before he could stop himself he called, “And Brad… bring me a picture of the girl responsible for your mental wandering, will you?”

  The boy stopped. Didn’t turn. Then resolutely marched on. Stephen imagined his burning cheeks and grinned. He picked up his own folders and did a once-over on the auditorium, turning off the lights and locking the doors. He waved the janitor home then headed out across the darkened field. The Residence was in the opposite direction, near the chapel, but he was the latest addition to the priests that staffed Bridgeport’s Jesuit school and they hadn’t had room for him. They’d assigned him to the old Residence above one of the brick classrooms, built back when the school had been founded. It had few comforts, but the sense of history in every room made up for the lack of amenities. Stephen took his meals in the Residence with the other priests, but held out few hopes that he would have company in the old building. It was that kind of decade. In the meantime, the silence suited him.

  It was a good six minute walk across the fields and past the darkened glass eyes of the newer classrooms to the building he slept in. There was no moon, but the stars were bright enough. Stephen drew in a long pull of the cool air, his breath expelled in a thin plume. He glanced up at the sky, absently tracing lines to connect Pegasus.

  The dull thud sounded starkly in contrast to the silence of the October night. Startled, Stephen whirled toward the parking lot. He could barely see a light there; tucking his folders beneath his arm, he jogged down the ditch beside the building and around the corner, under the ancient, moss-draped oak and onto the black asphalt.

  “Dear God,” he whispered, stunned to a halt.

  A figure lay on the ground. Beneath her body, a perpendicular painted line ran, garish yellow in the light of the street lamp. A silky gown tangled in her limbs, strewn as if she’d fallen there, and against the white of its folds long waves of red-gold hair splayed in a disarray so ornamental it seemed arranged.

  Stephen could spy no blood but she did not stir or even breathe. Shocked into action, he ran to her, dropping his folders. He skidded to his knees and touched her cold arms.

  “Miss…,” he said and didn’t recognize his voice. Clearing his throat, he gently shook her. “Miss, are you all right?”

  One eye opened beneath the veil of fine hair. He could barely see it, but it was enough. “Thank God… can you stand? What happened? I can get an ambula—”

  His words died in his mouth as a hill of white and gold rose above the woman’s shoulder, feathers moving independently, as smoothly against each other as if machined. And the only thing he could think to whisper was, “My God, is that thing attached?”

  A muffled sob. She rolled onto her side, burying her head in her arms. Stephen stared as another wing joined the first. Her spine, a trembling chain dimpled into a back the color of soft cream, arched as the two pinions rose above her. He could see for himself now that they were attached. Very attached.

  “My God,” he whispered again, then brushed her shoulder. “Please! Please… don’t cry. Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?”

  She was still shaking so he chanced stroking her back between the wings. One of them sliced over his head so sharply he ducked.

  She stared at him and any doubts he might have entertained about her vanished. Her face was smooth and too finely pored for any creature born under the sun, and her eyes were not only the color of gold, but had the same metallic sheen. Ringed with tears they reflected the light too perfectly, and in them he saw himself, a grey silhouette against sodium yellow light.

  “You!” she said, her voice a soft, torn soprano. “You’re human!”

  “I’m sorry to have to admit it… but yes. That I am.” He reached out to her, then stopped as she flinched. “My name is Father Bann, Stephen Bann. Did you hurt yourself?”

  “Nowhere you could heal,” she said, and the sorrow in her voice ill became it.

  The awkward silence vanished with the susurrus of the wind and Stephen frowned as the cool air pricked his cheekbones. Reminded abruptly of their vulnerability in the open, he stood and offered her his hands. “We need to leave here, get you someplace warm where you won’t be seen.”

  The woman—angel—nodded wearily and slid her cold hands into his. He was surprised at how little she weighed though he knew he shouldn’t have been. If she wasn't the product of a platonic Heaven she still flew, and even the birds of Earth were hollow-boned.

  The angel shivered when he touched her, and reluctant as he was to let her walk alone Stephen tried to minimize any accidental contact. He coaxed her beneath the oak tree, watching with a kind of quivering interior silence as the moss brushed over the feathered arches; her way of moving them entranced him, as if they were another set of arms, as agile as her first. Each feather seemed as mobile as a finger, flexible and heavy. Were they actually heavy, or was it only an illusion?

  He led her down the ditch and out onto the campus grounds, to his building. He opened the door, turned to warn her but she was already stepping through, her wings tucked tightly to her back. In the cool darkness of the brick classroom, she looked utterly out of place and Stephen hastened to the narrow stairwell. He suppressed the urge to glance over his shoulder to see how she was handling the enclosed space.


  The door to the dormitory upstairs was unlocked, as always. He’d kept the lamp on in his absence but the room was cold.

  “Have a seat. I’ll get things warmed up.”

  Stephen flicked the space heater on, then crouched beside the fire and tossed a few starter logs on the grate. With the iron in hand, he turned on the gas until the kindling caught, then stacked a few larger logs in a cross pattern. The aromatic scent of resin wafted to his nose and the heat dried his face as he worked, long past when the fire actually needed his intervention. At last, he turned.

  He’d almost managed to convince himself he’d been dreaming but she remained undeniably real, somehow more believable sitting on his battered dark green sofa with her knees pressed together and the granny square afghan Tom Vasquez’s mother had given him for Christmas wrapped around her thin shoulders. Her wings rose behind her, catching the firelight in their delicate feathers. Her hair fell in limp waves to her knees, and she was trembling.

  “Lady, how can I help you? Why are you here?” He cleared his throat. “I’m not… accustomed to miracles." And, without knowing why he added it, "You’ll forgive me if I’m coarse?”

  “You cannot help it.” Her voice shook, fragile. “You’re human.”

  Stephen nodded after a moment. “Yes. And you… an angel.”

  Her head drooped. “I was.”

  “How can you be anything else?”

  “I have no halo.”

  “But you still have wings. And God knows you’re not human.” Stephen frowned. “You didn’t intend to come here. Who sent you?”

  She laughed, a sharp bark that sounded far too close to a sob. “Oh… just the Archangel.” And then she began to cry in earnest, not the soft disheartened things on the asphalt of the parking lot, but paroxysms of grief so intense Stephen longed to reach out to her. Instead he stood jerkily and made his way to the kitchen. The cooler air made him twitch as he set a pot to boiling and brought out two mugs. He poured two packets of hot cocoa into them, then the water. A few minutes later he set a tray with both mugs on the coffee table, wary of its one short leg, and offered one to her.