Chapter Three — Part 1

I should have known that I would be ill received. Fluff tried to warn me, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy losing myself in his gorgeous brown eyes. Somehow I had fallen in love with him. Even so I did have some serious concerns. Age was one. And his station in the angelic hierarchy was significantly higher than my own. He was really smart, too. He always remembered everything. Meanwhile I just muddled along, going on instinct and hoping for the best.

I hoped that Fluff knew what he was doing with his boy. I was in way over my head with Tiffany. I didn’t know I would be working with Fluff, and I certainly didn’t know he had ever failed an assignment. I also never anticipated that his boy and my girl would hate each other right from the start. The two were totally caustic, all one needed was the other and there’d be a near explosive reaction.

“So why did you come back anyway?” Kotian said to Fluff. I felt a spiked weight in my heart, whatever Fluff had done, he’d hurt the boy bad.

“Orders from high up. Guard Tiffany with your life. Maybe, if you try really hard, she might like you.”

“Do I have any say in the matter?” Kotian said bitterly.

“You never have.”

“Fluff.” I called to him.

“What are you waiting for?” Fluff pushed me away, toward Tiffany.

I had, quite by accident, become visible to Kotian. He looked at me, anger in his eyes, and we both knew who served whom. “She’s one of your kind, isn’t she?”

While Fluff explained my presence to Kotian, I went to Tiffany’s bedroom.

“Who’s there?” Tiffany looked around. She was more sensitive than I anticipated. This would definitely get ugly. I paced some more. She could sense me but not see me, and it was making her look paranoid to the robot servitor.

“Listen to me, I’m a friend. I’ve been with you your whole life.”

I showed myself in all my angelic glory, and Tiffany let out a surprised scream, putting her back to the wall. As I approached her, she started kicking at my shins, bruising her toes while bruising me. My trademark temper kicked in, and I froze Tiffany’s body and mind.

“Calm down.” I told her. “I could never harm you. I’m your best friend.”

“Friend.” Tiffany said, glowering. “Let go of me, demon.”

“Better let me handle this for a moment.” Fluff said to me, so only I could hear.

I shooed him away and focused on Tiffany again. “The girl needs broken. Listen, I’ve hoped and prayed for your happiness your whole life, and what have you become for it? A spiny little brat, that’s what. That’s a beautiful boy out there that’s been arranged as your husband. You won’t be his servant, but his equal. Imagine it, actually having human rights.”

I slowly released my mental grip on Tiffany. Once she calmed down, she walked straight up to me and punched me in the nose. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Blood trickled down my face, and I was properly chastened. “I won’t. I promise.” I said quietly. I never could understand why human beings freak out when they see me. When I look at myself in the mirror, I feel pretty. Not gorgeous like my mom, but quite attractive.

“He’s a cripple,” Tiffany said.

“When you were a child, you found a sparrow with a broken wing. You nursed it back to health. Remember how it flew again, when everybody told you to let it die? I was there, I was the one who was convincing you otherwise, your imaginary friend nobody believed in. Make him your new sparrow.”

Tiffany smiled, and I felt the weight of her perceived betrayal slide off my shoulders. “And I could make him my new master, in the end.”

“If it pleases you, but you don’t need a master anymore. You’re free, and Jodiah bought your freedom.”

“No, he bought me.”

I took a deep breath, tightened my wings against my back, and took Tiffany’s hands in mine. I envied that human girl more with every passing moment, and yet I knew it would be many years before she realized her own self worth. Soon I would be only an observer again, and hopefully Kotian and Tiffany could work things through without too much interference from me. I stepped out of the house, leaving Tiffany alone.

Fluff materialized next to me, and I took his hand. “Do you think our children will survive whatever Tester and Wisdom have planned for them?”

“I don’t know if they were ever meant to.” Fluff said. Fluff and I snuggled for a moment, as angels often do.

“Let’s watch them closely, I don’t want to lose Tiffany.” I said.

While watching them I did something I hadn’t done in a terribly long time. I fell asleep, and so did Fluff. While Fluff slept, and Tiffany argued with herself, trying desperately to make a firm decision and act on it, Tester sneaked up behind me, scaring me so bad I sat straight up and banged my head on a banister.

“Why do you always do that?” I said, my head and pride both bruised.

“You scared that poor little girl half out of her wits.” Tester said, ignoring my question.

“Yeah, and she bloodied my nose for it.”

Tester looked at me as only a mother can — guilt crept in through the pores of my skin.

“She needs to be strong enough to survive, strong enough to fight an angel and win. If she’s not as strong as I described, she won’t stand a chance against her future. Good of you to focus on her healing abilities, but you crushed her soul so completely that she couldn’t even think of fighting back, and you and I both know that’s unacceptable.”

“I know mother. But I thought — ”

Tester was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, even though right now she had a devil’s tail curling around her left leg. Seeing that it was making me uncomfortable, she absorbed it into her skin.

“Stop thinking.”

“Yes mum.”

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