Bishop,_Carly_-_The_Soul_Mate.txt Read online

skies over the Aeolian archipelago in the Mediterranean. "You rang?"

  "On his nibs' orders," Grace answered, but she stifled her smile.

  Popping in as he had done reeked of disregard for rules meant to

  protect stray mortals from witnessing such unearthly events. It set

  Grace's teeth to clacking, too. "If you're going to materialize, you

  simply must do it elsewhere and use the door! You're an Avenger,

  Kiel," she reminded him sternly.

  And unnecessarily. He knew his job, had taken to it like a duck to

  water. In an earth year, he'd avenged well over one hundred

  injustices, but his penchant for popping in and out unnerved her

  completely.

  Still, she harbored a soft spot in her angel's heart for Kiel. Time

  had little meaning to angels over the millenia, but he had only

  recently made his transition to the celestial. His leftover earthly

  sensibilities charmed her angelic socks right off.

  He went around calling the other angels "halos." Thought it was a cat

  chief acronym than the DBAA. Heaven's Avengers Local One-o-one, for

  pity's sake!

  He grinned as shamelessly as any mortal, and slouched like one. He was

  one in all save a technical sense, but he flirted like the very

  devil.

  Grace Was immune, naturally, having been around long enough to have

  bounced Methuselah on her knee, but if she'd ever had a son, which she

  hadn't, she'd have picked Ezekiel. On the other hand, she wouldn't

  have wanted a daughter anywhere near this earth angel.

  Angelo's voice boomed out. "Now, Ezekiel?"

  "Here I am to stand and deliver," Kiel deadpanned for Grace, slouching

  against her desk. He materialized a bouquet of miniature pink and

  purple snapdragons for her vase, and despite her cons, Grace blushed

  with pleasure.

  It wasn't on the recommended list of celestial powers to convert energy

  to matter, but Kiel had energy to burn and a very undeveloped sense of

  angelic restraint. "Have a good one, Gracie."

  He bounded up the steps to the second-story balcony and sauntered into

  Angelo's office. A little guardian angel who reminded Kiel of Elmer

  Fudd in a temper tantrum, could hardly contain himself to one place,

  never mind a chair. Angelo took in Kiel's presence and introduced him

  to the Guardian

  "Ezekiel, DBAA, this is Clarence, DBGA - uh ... Guardians, that is.

  Certainly one of the most... proactive Guardians in the history of the

  cosmos."

  Clarence fumed, apparently divining proactive wasn't exactly meant to

  he a compliment. "One little traffic jam," he complained. He toted an

  abacus of some age, and when he manipulated the beads, his pudgy

  fingers flew. "One hundred-and-three fender benders. Minor ones at

  that. So what's the big deal?"

  By way of answering What was the big deal, Angelo glowered, creating a

  small burst of light energy. Kiel stifled a grin. Clarence was a dead

  ringer for the literary depictions of a thirteenth-century monk

  potbellied and sporting a fringe of scant hair which circled his

  rounded head.

  The little Guardian tucked the abacus under his arm and drew himself up

  to his full three-point-five cubits to launch himself into Angelo's

  formidable face.

  "I'll tell you what, Mr. Bigshot Avenging Angelo," Clarence went on.

  "Guardians often have the resources to watch over half a dozen mortals.

  What do I get? One. Easy, you say? Piece of angel food? Bah! My

  assignment, bless her demented, grieving little heart, is a bona fide

  fruitcake who requires my complete and unceasing attention." He

  sniffed. "Stopping traffic befitted the occasion." '

  Amused, interested, Kiel dropped his human form into the chair beside

  Clarence's. "Stopping traffic?"

  Scowling, Angelo explained. "Clarence, here, in order to delay one

  mortal being, had traffic backed up on 1-70 for thirty miles"

  "Thirty-two-point-six, to be precise," Clarence interrupted, adding,

  "there didn't seem to be any other way of stopping her. I'm telling

  you I was not acting outside my reasonable and customary powers."

  Listening to the little Guardian piping up about his powers, Kiel could

  still think of a lot less drastic solutions-flat tires, overheated

  radiators, running out of gas that would have affected a single mortal

  rather than hundreds of them. But the little Guardian was clearly at

  his wits' end. "What's happening with your mortal?"

  Clarence sighed. "She's a dear girl I'll say that right up front but

  her husband died a year ago, and she's simply inconsolable. Can't say

  as I blame her, actually." He whipped out his abacus again and set the

  beads to crashing back and forth. "The odds against finding that kind

  of happiness"

  "Are astronomical, I'm sure," Angelo interrupted to forestall the

  complex calculations.

  "Exactly," Clarence said, aggrieved to be cut off so summarily from his

  favorite occupation. "In fact, just this afternoon I popped a warning

  bubble over Robyn's head citing the precise odds of getting away with

  defying muggers, which she completely ignored."

  Kiel didn't bother smothering his grin. This mortal-Guardian

  assignment sounded like the mismatch of the ages. One for the

  millenia.

  "She jaywalks," Clarence hurried on. "She drives like a bat out of

  you-know-where. She ignores common sense warnings, fights back when

  she shouldn't - she got a terrible shiner this very afternoon Terrible,

  I'm telling you."

  Kiel's amusement faded. "You couldn't have prevented that?" Clarence

  rolled his eyes. "If Guardians could prevent human beings from their

  folly, we wouldn't need Avengers, now, would we? Mortals have their

  free will, you know."

  Kiel gave a shrug; Clarence was right.

  "Now," he squeaked, racing on, "she's got it in her head that her

  husband was murdered. If I didn't stop her, in a few hours she'd be in

  Aspen asking questions." "And the problem with that would be what?"

  Kiel asked. "Serious, that's what!" Clarence sputtered. "Pretty

  soon, whoever killed her husband would have to kill her to shut her up.

  You don't know Robyn. She won't quit. She'll end up getting herself

  killed, and then I'll be answering to St. Peter." "Robyn, you said?"

  Kiel asked. "Yes. Robyn Delaney Trueblood," Clarence supplied.

  "And

  I..."

  Kiel straightened.

  Clarence went on and on about quitting, giving up, throwing in the

  towel, crying uncle, whatever it took to get out from under his

  Guardian responsibilities to Robyn Delaney Trueblood. But Kiel had

  tuned the Guardian Angel out.

  Robyn... The name echoed through his being, stirring vaguely

  recollected mortal sensations. He lifted his head and turned his

  awareness inside himself as if trying to recall a favorite melody but

  the images he sought were veiled and unfocused, somehow inaccessible.

  He tried to shake off the frustration of knowing... and not knowing,

  The Avenging Angels often worked under such limitations. His fellow

  Avengers Sam and Dash even that cute little button of an angel,

  Arie
l--had just been on assignments to restore order and justice. The

  DBAA dockets were full, and it was often the' case that the Avenging

  Angels assigned didn't know who the guilty party was. The Avengers

  couldn't just swoop in, name the culprits and strike them down.

  Instead, they had to work through mortals.

  But this not knowing felt strangely personal to Kiel, as if in his

  mortal existence he had known Robyn Delaney Trueblood .... Chapter

  Two

  "You have," Angelo muttered darkly, answering Kiel's unspoken

  thought.

  "Have what?" Kiel asked.

  "Known Robyn Delaney."

  "In the biblical sense?" Clarence squeaked, gaping at Kiel. "You mean

  Ezekiel is Keller Trueblood?"

  "Was Keller Trueblood," Angelo corrected him, projecting an image, like

  a hologram, of Keller and his wife, Robyn, into thin air for both

  Clarence and Kiel to see.

  "Oh, my gracious sake's alive!" Clarence uttered, but Kiel could only

  stare dumbfounded at the extraordinary lifelike projection. He didn't

  recognize himself the mortal he was supposed to have been. Kiel's

  earthly manifestations bore no physical resemblance to Keller

  Trueblood's image, but the woman, Robyn, fired Kiel's heart. A strange

  and foreign sensation poured through him.

  Kiel's human manifestations didn't ever get too cold or overly hot. He

  didn't shiver, sweat, sneeze or even leave footprints. He was an

  unrepentant flirt, that was true, but if he'd ever had sexual congress

  with a mortal, with Robyn, he didn't remember it. In fact he had no

  recollections of a life here on earth before his assignment to the

  DBAA.

  But the still, silent apparition of Robyn Delaney, caught up in this

  special dimension, mesmerized him, touched him deeply. Her hair was

  black as cooled, gleaming lava, her complexion fair and fine as the

  inside of a conch, and her rich brown eyes seemed to penetrate to the

  molten core of him.

  His very soul lightened and soared at the sight of her insubstantial

  image. What was he supposed to do with such wonder and joy over an

  earthbound woman?

  He tried to bring his attention back to a more objective focus, to the

  problem at hand. It had never before occurred to him to question where

  his soul had most recently been. Recalling his fellow Avenging Angel

  Dash's last assignment, Kiel had to wonder why he had no memory of a

  mortal life or if it was true that Keller Trueblood had been

  murdered.

  "Didn't Dash and the mortal Liz Carradine just avenge Agatha Orben's

  murder?" he asked.

  Angelo nodded, making the projection of Keller Trueblood and Robyn

  Delaney vanish. "Yes, but"

  "And didn't Aggie arrive in heaven knowing she'd been murdered? Didn't

  she go straight to St. Michael demanding justice?"

  Angelo frowned. "Again, yes"

  "Then why is it that I arrived not even knowing my mortal name?"

  "These decisions," Angelo intoned, annoyed by these vestiges of Kiel's

  prosecutorial cross-eXamination skills, "are made upstairs, so to

  speak."

  "Or else I fell through the cracks," Kiel muttered. "Well, this is all

  very interesting," Clarence whined, stamping his foot at his inability

  to get a word in edgewise, "but could we please get back to what you're

  going to do about Robyn?"

  "We'll take it from here," Angelo stated, waving the Guardian away. "Be

  gone!"

  To Kiel's amazement, the quirky, bean-counting little Guardian Clarence

  stubbornly held his ground so as not to leave Robyn Delaney Trueblood

  stranded without heavenly supervision.

  "I want your word on that" Clarence demanded. "My word." Angelo burst

  forth with a commanding demonstration of his fearsome angelic power.

  Sparks flew. A brilliant light more powerful than a million candles

  flashed. "My word?"

  Clarence gulped. "I'll take that as a promise," he Croaked, popping

  out before he could be commanded again to leave.

  Angelo shook his-head. Guardians, Kiel knew, per2 formed a vital

  function in the scheme of things, but they could be a real pain.

  "About your mortal existence, Kiel." Angelo didn't wax philosophic

  very often. Justice required decisiveness and action; in this

  instance, he parted with his usual peremptory ways. "It's often the

  case that the Heavenly Hosts wish to spare newcomers the anguish of

  knowing they had an early and unanticipated end to their human lives.

  It's true that Agatha Orben was murdered, but she had lived a long and

  prosperous life. You, on the other hand, were in your prime."

  Kiel nodded thoughtfully. Even now the image of Robyn Delaney

  threatened his angelic equilibrium, made him wonder what it was to be

  human and in love. In heaven, it went without question that to be

  human was to be frail and needful. Vulnerable to grand and dark

  passions alike.

  "The fact is," Angelo went on, "I've never assigned a case quite like

  this one. Your death... make that Keller's death, was a grave

  injustice, but there was an even earlier injustice, too. Keller

  Trueblood was prosecuting the murder of Spyder Nielsen when he died."

  Angelo briefly outlined the facts of the case. "By dint of some cosmic

  slip-up after Keller's death, that murder has gone unsolved and

  unpunished, as well."

  "Some cosmic slip-up?" Kiel demanded incredulously. "How do these

  things happen?"

  Angelo shrugged. "It's rare, but mistakes happen. Why, I can't

  say."

  "Can't say," Kiel asked, uncertain as to whether or not Angelo, in his

  supervisory capacity, could be trusted to reveal the whole truth, "or

  won't?"

  "Can't," Angelo promised. "Kiel, you must understand what's at stake.

  In all likelihood, loath as I am to admit it, Clarence is right. Robyn

  Delaney will be in grave danger if she goes after the truth of Keller

  Trueblood's death alone and then we'll really have a tangled mess of

  injustices."

  "So, I take the assignment," Kiel said, acting as if he was certain, to

  make up for the fact that he wasn't so certain at all. "I don't

  remember the first thing about being Keller Trueblood, so there

  shouldn't be a problem."

  Angelo looked up at Kiel from beneath his shaggy white eyebrows.

  "Surely you can divine the possible complications .... You are the

  angel of Robyn Delaney's husband. We're not talking any old marriage,

  Kiel. It may have appeared ordinary, but Robyn and Keller were

  soulmates. Their marriage was made in heaven. Two people in love for

  all time. Robyn is inconsolable, and is destined to remain that way

  for so long as she lives."

  Untouched in his angelic trappings by such human emotions, Kiel had no

  way of gauging the power of Robyn Delaney's feelings or the nature of

  her loss. "Am I supposed to reveal to her that I am... that I was

  Keller?"

  The shelf of Angelo's white brows lowered. "That decision must be

  yours. I should think it might deepen her despair to lose you again

  when this case is resolved."

  Kiel could see how dangerous it might be to Robyn
's peace of mind if

  she knew, if despite all his precautions, she somehow came to know that

  Kiel was the angelic incarnation of the soulmate she had known as

  Keller Trueblood. To lose a soulmate twice in one lifetime... Kiel

  shook his head. He could not in any conscience put her through that.

  "Why bring me in on this case?" Kiel asked after a while. "There have

  to be forty other halos around here who could avenge Trueblood's

  death."

  Angelo scowled. "We can't afford to lose whatever insight Keller

  Trueblood possessed concerning the murder of Spyder Nielsen." He eyed

  Kiel carefully. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, you are already

  experiencing certain echoes of Keller's earthly experience as Robyn's

  husband. Yes?"

  Kiel gulped, so to speak. He began to see the stickier implications.

  Angelo nodded. "There is a pinprick, now, in the vast reservoir of

  Keller's memory. Hopefully, that will serve you well in avenging your

  own death, as well as preventing Robyn's."

  "Let me get this straight," Kiel said. "If I take this assignment, I'm

  going to have greater and greater access to Trueblood's memory?"

  Angelo shrugged. "We simply don't know. A case of an angel avenging

  his own mortal death has never arisen before."

  Kiel didn't know panic, except as an interesting phenomenon in humans,

  but he thought what he was experiencing might now might qualify.

  Already wary of his reactions to a mere image of Robyn Delaney, he