Innocent Blood(55)

Shocked, he sank to the seat before him. He kept a grip on the pole in the water, while he took her hand in his. Despite the cool night, he felt the heat coming off her skin, far warmer than the touch of most men and women, beyond that of any human.

Her lips curved into the already familiar half smile. “Do you doubt me? You who have lived to see the world change and change again?”

The most remarkable thing was that he did not.

As the gondola drifted silently in the moonlight, a half smile played across her lips, as if she knew his thoughts, guessing what he had begun to suspect.

She waited.

“I do not pretend to know such things,” he started, picturing her in his arms, dancing with her. “But . . .”

She shifted in her seat. “What do you not pretend to know?”

He squeezed the fierce heat of her palm and fingers.

“The nature of one such as you. One given messages from God. One who endures across the ages. One of such perfection.”

He blushed as he said these last words.

She laughed. “Am I then so different from you?”

He knew deep in his bones that she was—both by nature and by character. She was an embodiment of good, whereas he had done terrible things. He gazed at the wonder before him, knowing another name for a messenger of God, another name for the word Arella.

He forced himself to state it out loud. “You are an angel.”

She folded her hands in front of her, as if in prayer. Slowly, a soft golden light emanated from her body. It bathed the gondola, the water, his face. The warmth of its touch suffused him with joy and holiness.

Here was another eternal being—but she was not like him.

Where he was evil, she was good.

Where he was dark, she was light.

He closed his eyes and drank in her radiance.

“Why have you come to me? Why are you here?” He opened his eyes and looked at the water, the houses, the sewage in the canal, then back to her—back to a beauty beyond measure. “Why are you on Earth and not in Heaven?”

Her light dimmed, and she resembled an ordinary woman again. “Angels may descend and visit Earth.” She looked up at him. “Or they may fall.”

She stressed that last word.

“You fell?”

“Long ago,” she added, reading the shock and surprise in his face. “Alongside the Morning Star.”

That was another name for Lucifer.

Judas refused to believe she had been cast out of Heaven. “But I sense only goodness in you.”

She gazed at him, her eyes patient.

“Why did you fall?” he pressed, as if this were a simple question on a simple night. “You could not have done evil.”

She looked down at her hands. “I kept my knowledge of Lucifer’s pride hidden in my heart. I foresaw his coming rebellion, yet stayed silent.”

Judas tried to fathom such an event. She had kept a prophecy concerning the War of the Heavens from God, and for that she was cast down.

Arella raised her head and spoke again. “It was a just punishment. But unlike the Morning Star, I did not wish ill of mankind. I chose to use my exile to watch over God’s flock here, to continue to serve Heaven as I could.”

“How do you serve Heaven?”

“However I can.” She brushed a speck from her skirt. “My greatest act was during your age, when I protected the Christ child from harm, watching over him while he was but a babe, defenseless in this hard world.”

Judas bowed his head in shame, reminded how he had failed to do the same when Jesus was older. Judas had betrayed not only the Son of God—but also his dearest friend. He felt again the weight of the leather bag of silver coins that the priests had given him, the warmth of Christ’s cheek under his lips when he kissed him to mark him to his executioner.

Unable to keep the envy from his voice, he asked, “But how did you protect Christ? I do not understand.”

“I came before Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, shortly after Christ was born. I told them what I foresaw, of the coming slaughter of innocents by King Herod.”

Judas gulped, knowing this story, recognizing anew who shared his boat.

“You were the angel who told them to flee to Egypt.”

“I also led them there, taking them to where their son could grow up sheltered from harm.”

Judas now understood how very different she was from him.

She had saved Jesus.

Judas had killed him.

His breathing grew heavier. He had to stand again, to move. He returned to slowly poling the gondola down the canal, trying to picture her life here on Earth, a stretch of time far longer than his brief span.

He finally asked another question, one just as important to him. “How do you stand the time?”

“I pass through it, just as you do.” Again, she touched the shard on her neck. “For time beyond measure, I have served mankind as a seer, a prophetess, an oracle.”