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  Michael set his shoulders back and stood watching Julia plead. She felt his compassion, but his face remained a cold mask. It seemed like several minutes passed before he finally spoke.

  “It is not possible. Not even for me,” Michael said softly. “But I fear he wasn’t protecting you from the stalker. He threw the assailant into oncoming traffic to keep him away from you, yes, but I think he had another purpose in doing so. By causing a traffic accident, and forcing other vehicles to stop along the highway, Alex kept that thing from crossing the road to get to you. That thing is something far worse than a human—stalker obsessed as he was. Thankfully, the traffic did keep the thing at bay. Now I need your help to see what it was.”

  Julia took another deep breath.

  “You ask a lot of me, Michael.” She searched his eyes for answers, again coming up empty. Realization dawned across her face. “You need my help?”

  “You have many gifts of which you are not aware. You have come to see them in a way that humanizes them, so you barely recognize them at all. Throughout this human life you have commented time and time again how observant you are. In fact, if you recall, you will remember saying that you wished you didn’t see so much.”

  “Yes,” she said flatly. She felt empty—hollowed out—and was becoming irritated with the conversation. It was an effort to continue talking to Michael. “How is it a gift? And how can it help?”

  “Your vision is spread, and focused at the same time. You see with your eyes, but you also see with your spirit. You have learned over the years to keep this to yourself, as you told people things you couldn’t possibly know and they thought you were lying.”

  Julia could only nod, remembering the many times she “saw” the person behind her do something nobody else saw. “How can this help you, Michael?”

  “I need you to go back. Into the woods when you were running. I need you to tell me what was there, chasing you.”

  “Why?”

  Michael lifted his eyes and slowly turned his head from side to side. As Julia waited for an answer and watched him think, she felt him holding back—wanting to protect her. She also noticed just how transparent he was. She could see through him when she concentrated on him. Even as she was watching him, the realization crept over her that he was right. She really could see everything around her, though she had never done so consciously.

  This would have been good to know before now, she thought. She shook her head.

  An amused smile played across Michael’s lips.

  Redness rose in her cheeks as she averted her eyes from his. “I need a signal-jammer for my thoughts.”

  “It is easy enough to shield them, girl, but remembering how will have to wait. I need to know what was in the woods. I need you to play it back because I,” he spread his arms in an almost helpless gesture, “can’t see it.”

  Julia’s first thought was that if the Archangels couldn’t see it, and didn’t even know what it was, something was horribly wrong.

  “I don’t know how, Michael.” She looked at him, her eyes wide and glossy. She felt her grief well up inside her again, yearning to consume her. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  Michael cupped her chin in his hand, surprisingly solid. “I will guide you, girl. Just breathe.”

  “She didn’t ask the obvious question.” Raphael’s soft, soothing voice penetrated the silence. Gabriel ruffled his wings, feigning a casual demeanor.

  “What is the obvious question, Raphael?”

  She moved in front of Gabriel, forcing his attention to her. Silky black hair hung over her golden skin, straight down her back between her wings. Raphael radiated healing energy, a green hue surrounding her. But beneath it, Gabriel could sense her fear, and looking into her slight, almost obsidian eyes he could see it clearly. He straightened his shoulders, his wings slightly open, yet resting against his back in a way that suggested readiness.

  “I would think she would be asking how Michael will protect her from a thing we can’t see.” Raphael looked away from Gabriel, back through the opening at her feet—watching Michael and Julia.

  “A human would not give voice to its darkest fear, Raphael.” Gabriel watched as Raphael emitted waves of green energy. He knew she was healing Julia, though he wasn’t sure why.

  “Michael beckoned me,” she answered Gabriel’s unasked question. “He marked her for healing. I think she would have been fine, but it seems he intends to push her down her path.”

  “I should have suspected as much,” Gabriel said.

  Raphael graced him with a smile and continued with her task.

  After a few moments, Gabriel said, “It has been a few years since any of us worked together on something.”

  “True,” Raphael said. “Not since we burned the Keller girl out. I couldn’t heal her senses.” The slightest hint of disappointment shone on her face.

  “Yes, but you gave her back communication. Nobody suspected your possession of her teacher. Pity we lost Keller to humanitarian causes also,” Gabriel said. He stared at Raphael’s energy waves, but he had long since given up trying to understand her weave of light. He had no talent for healing.

  She turned her attention back to her task, all but dismissing Gabriel. “It is never a pity, Gabriel. The Earth plane desperately needs that kind of goodness. We will have our One eventually. If we don’t already.”

  XIV

  JULIA stood before Michael, surrounded by the field of gently swaying grass in the Second Realm. The place between Heaven and Earth seemed a lot like Earth to her, but without the people. Or the animals. She had the vague feeling that she was being watched, and not because Michael was standing there, staring intently at her. She scanned over the endless sea of grass and thought she saw the flicker of eyes, but as soon as she focused on the spot, they were gone.

  She took a step toward where she thought she had seen the eyes and stared, desperate to see them again, but her effort was wasted. There was nothing there.

  She let out a sigh. She had been hoping it was Alex, despite everything Michael had said.

  Once she returned her attention to Michael, he said, “Look back in your mind to the moment you felt it there.”

  “I am not sure when I first felt it.” The words were no sooner spoken than Julia realized she knew exactly when she first felt that malicious being in the woods. “Oh! It was the smell, Michael. That nasty, rotting smell. And then everything happened all at once.”

  “Tell me in your words what everything at once was.”

  “The water was clean when we first got there, but it became stagnant and slimy. The air was heavy, and I lost my balance. I felt as though I had been yanked from a place that was pure and put into another that was not. And I felt like my body was too big for the world.” Her arms hung stiffly at her sides and her eyes closed as she replayed the event in her mind.

  “Alex must have felt it, too—he kept looking over his shoulder. I wanted to stay to figure out what was going on, even though my instincts told me to flee. The moment he touched my hand I was overwhelmed with his panic. I could only think of escaping.”

  “Move forward. You are running. You know it’s there.”

  Julia’s hands clenched into fists and her breathing quickened. She felt adrenaline coursing through her. “It’s right beside me. The smell is so revolting I gag. I can see it out of the corner of my eye, but not when I turn my head to look right at it.”

  “Now. Stop the motion. Freeze the memory.”

  Like pausing a movie, she thought, then tried. “Okay. Everything is frozen. Alex is—there, right beside me. He’s alive, Michael.” Tears leaked out of the corners of Julia’s eyes, and she lifted one hand as if to touch the image of Alex she was seeing in her mind.

  “Look at the monster. I need you to describe it for me.”

  “Alex has that nasty welt, right under his eye. I should have turned around right then,” Julia couldn’t tear her eyes away from Alex, knowing that she would never see him a
gain.

  Michael cleared his throat and gripped Julia’s shoulders. “You must focus. There will be time for grief, girl, but this is not that time.”

  The urgency in his voice reached Julia. She pulled her focus back away from Alex, and as she did, saw the light connecting the two of them.

  “It looks like he was shielding me. It looks like a net of woven light has been cast over me, but ‘net’ is the wrong word. Maybe a web? It spirals thinly out of the top of his head, you can barely see it.” Her voice faltered. “I didn’t know he knew how to do that.”

  “He didn’t know how to do that,” Michael said gently. “It was instinctual. In times of crisis, a human will often do something extraordinary that only their spirit self knows how to do.”

  A tear slid down her cheek. “He’s running for his life, his body is completely focused on running, but his spirit is protecting me. My Alex.”

  “Stay focused. Move around to your side, where you feel the thing.”

  “Okay.” Julia inhaled deeply, and a shudder passed through her. She moved her line of vision as though changing the camera angle. “I see it, Michael.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  “It’s tall, and dark, and seems to be made of shadow. Its limbs are like sticks—long and skinny and awkward. It has eyes.” She shuddered again. “But they’re dead. Soulless.”

  Michael’s eyebrows furrowed. “It has a head, then? A bodily form?”

  “It has a head, with those dead eyes. I don’t see a nose. Its mouth is more like a ragged, torn hole. It really isn’t a solid thing, though. It’s like smoke.”

  “Let the picture move forward a bit. Describe to me what you can.”

  Julia concentrated, and the image in her mind crept forward in ultra slow motion. “I think it’s smoke. I don’t know how else to describe it. Like you are mist when you appear, it is smoke. And it wisps off small pieces as it goes, leaving a trail. It sounds like rustling paper when it moves, and all the plant life is affected. Not wilting, exactly, but it goes somewhat limp. It’s throwing itself against Alex’s shield, clawing and kicking like a trapped wild animal that wants to get out. Or in, I guess.”

  “Look at the thing’s hands, girl. Describe them to me.”

  “The hands are more like branches off the sticks. Its movement is clunky, almost clumsy, and it takes very large strides. It doesn’t fit. The same way it made me feel like I didn’t fit when I felt too large, it doesn’t fit. Does that make sense, Michael?”

  “I understand what you are trying to say,” Michael assured her, then spoke as though to himself. “It seems it is not in its own plane of existence. That can make beings feel out of proportion.”

  Julia sucked in a sharp breath. “It slashed Alex, that’s why he was limping! Got him in the left calf.” Beads of sweat broke across Julia’s forehead and she clenched her teeth. She desperately wanted to go to Alex, and seeing him injured made it that much worse. “Can I stop now?”

  “Almost done. First I need you to study the shield that Alex wove. Can you see exactly what it looked like? The colors? The shape?”

  “Yes, Michael.”

  “Study it closely, and describe it to me again.”

  “It was like he sent out pure, white light in waves and surrounded me with it. It’s odd—the longer he did it, the weaker it got.” Julia opened her eyes and squinted at Michael. “You’re seeing what I’m describing, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” Michael said, as though he was stating the most obvious fact. “I am seeing what you are picturing. You have done well.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “You need to get back to the Earth realm, girl. Listen to me carefully. I want you to stay alert at all times. If you sense that thing near you, I want you to weave the same shield around yourself. Do you think you can do that?”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” Julia shook her head. “I don’t know how to spin out light like that! And you said humans can only do extraordinary ‘spirit’ things during times of crisis.”

  “Yes. Humans.”

  Julia’s mouth worked without sound for a moment. She looked up to the sky with a glare that was meant for Gabriel, even if she couldn’t see him.

  “That’s right,” she spat, “I’m not human. And that’s probably why this thing came after me, and that’s probably why Alex is gone.”

  Michael said nothing, waiting out the storm.

  “If it weren’t for him,” she flung an accusatory finger up toward the clouds, “Alex would still be alive!”

  Michael inhaled slowly, then released his breath in a heavy sigh. “What you are saying has played a factor, this is true, but what you do about it is still your decision. If you don’t help us, Alex will have forfeited his life for nothing.”

  For nothing. The words rang in Julia’s head. She took a deep breath and shivered. Shoving her anger and grief aside, she lifted her chin defiantly. “I will not let Alex’s death be in vain. I’ll try to make the shield.”

  “Simply decide that you will. Envision it, then do it. You will find it easier than you think.”

  Julia shot Michael a skeptical look. “I’ll try. But what was that thing?”

  “Try it now. Exactly the way Alex did it.”

  Julia pursed her lips and fought the urge to continue the questioning. She closed her eyes, focused all her energy in her mind and envisioned a web identical to Alex’s, spinning out the top of her head and cascading around her. Nothing happened.

  “Concentrate.”

  “I am,” she huffed, but the truth was she wasn’t. Her mind was on Alex’s leg. The spot where the thing had touched him had turned black instantly.

  “You are not,” Michael said, this time grabbing her shoulders. “Concentrate.”

  Julia tried to clear her mind and picture Alex’s web, but again nothing happened. Michael held out his hand. On the center of his palm rested a polished green stone with white feathering.

  “Seraphinite,” Michael explained. “Take it. Hold it in your hand. It will help you focus.”

  With the rock in hand, Julia once again pictured the shield of light, and this time it materialized. Just as Michael said it would. She was surprised, but something felt off.

  “It looks the same, but it doesn’t feel the same,” she said, opening her eyes. “Does that matter?”

  “It’s perfect. Do it exactly like that the second you sense that thing anywhere near you.”

  “I will, Michael. But what was that thing?”

  “Right now, you must return. I will answer all of your questions in time.” He touched her forehead lightly.

  Julia felt a jolt as she once again sat on the shoulder of the highway, cradling Alex’s limp body, rocking him as she wept, clutching his head to her breast, the green stone still clutched in her fist. She stopped moaning and blinked, looking up at the man who was approaching from the minivan.

  “Are you hurt? I called 911,” the man said. He was clearly distressed.

  “He killed my Alex,” she stammered.

  The man’s eyes ran over the whole scene and returned to Julia. He repeated, “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m not hurt.” Julia tried to wipe some of the blood away from her face. It was sticky and warm. The smell of rotting undergrowth clung in her nostrils, and she looked up, alarmed. Immediately she wove the shield as she had only minutes before, and she saw Michael’s head whip around, scanning the area.

  The dog in the van was barking and looking straight into the woods on the other side of the highway, to the very place Julia and Alex had emerged from only moments before. The boy turned around to see what the dog was barking at and began screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Julia watched Michael open his wings to their full span. She had only a moment to gape in awe at the full magnificence of him. He seemed to emit some sort of pulse from the center of his being, rippling outward. Everything it passed through shimmered, but remained unaffected. Within moments, the dog s
topped barking and the child’s screams were reduced to incoherent whimpers. Julia heard the boy jabbering something about the Boogeyman.

  She looked down to Alex’s body and stroked his blood-soaked hair. The black mark on his calf was there, torn right through his pants. Was it bigger than before? The smell faded quickly and she released her shield. The sirens in the distance seemed to signal the end of the crisis. When she looked back up, Michael was gone.

  Gabriel watched as the others appeared in front of him. Raphael was already there, ready to cast her healing waves should Julia look to be on the verge of a breakdown again. Ariel popped into view next, then Uriel, looking as irritated as ever he had. Zachariah was less than a second behind him, and ruffled his wings.

  “I do not see a threat. Nor a battle,” Zachariah stated, peering through the viewing hole in the clouds as it closed.

  “What was it?” Uriel demanded. “Why did Michael give the battle-call if there was no battle?”

  Raphael moved in between Uriel and Gabriel. “There was a crisis. A thing the likes of which we have not seen before, Uriel. But it disappeared before Michael could fight it.”

  “That was not a being of the Creator.” Gabriel flexed his wings, clearly agitated. “I do not like this. It seems to be the opposite of us—darkness where we are light, disproportion where we are grace, ugliness where we are beauty. We cannot see it, only sense it vaguely.”

  “Convenient that we are called in after the fact,” Uriel huffed.

  Ariel and Zachariah exchanged a look. Zachariah shook his head. “I must go. I have other pressing matters to attend.”

  “As do I,” Ariel chimed in, leaving small swirls of cloud in his wake as he vanished.

  “What was it?” Uriel repeated. “If you cannot see it, how did you know it was there?”

  “I am not certain, Uriel,” Gabriel said. “As soon as we know more, I will inform you.”

  Uriel stood with his arms folded, facing Gabriel. His nostrils flared as he spoke. “See that you do, Gabriel.”