THE REFLECTION in the glass window didn’t match his face. Dark mud-green eyes looked back over a nose with a slight bump at the bridge, so unlike his pure straight angel features that he nearly gasped. But Gabriel knew he was caught in a memory now, so he could only follow and see where it led.
He shivered in his worn sweater, unable to look away from the screens flashing in the store window. Rocco waited for him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell his lover he hadn’t gotten the job again. It wasn’t his fault, and he knew Rocco would only smile sadly and kiss his temple, but dammit, Gabriel couldn’t help but feel like a failure.
The economy had tanked after the Collapse, too much of the country destroyed by earthquake and volcanic eruption. And it hadn’t stopped. Even now Gabriel watched yet another environmental disaster, more people dead or dying. If not lost immediately, they’d go hungry eventually. Texas had already declared itself independent, unable to get any help from the larger government. Everything in the country had started to crumble. He could see it here, half the street boarded up, no new cars in a neighborhood where the shiniest SUV used to rule. No, they wouldn’t be coming out of this anytime soon.
“You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts.”
Gabriel stepped away from the stranger who had come up to his side. He didn’t need to get mugged again. He and Rocco had so little left as it was. The man had a face like a skull, eyes sunk so deep in his sockets they might as well be pits. When he grinned it made Gabriel want to shiver and run. The dark suit he wore made him look even paler.
“Just watching the news.”
“And it’s never good news.” The man clucked his tongue. “But you’re the kind who wants to help, aren’t you?”
Gabriel backed up a few steps more. “I don’t know you, man.”
“No. Sorry about that. Allow me to introduce myself.” He pulled a slim business card out of his perfectly pressed jacket and held it out, not moving when Gabriel didn’t grab it immediately. “Zachary Michaels. I work for Heaven Corp.”
Gabriel snatched the business card. Heaven Corp was the only company actually growing and not firing half its staff. He didn’t know how or why, just that they were building the cities in the sky, supposedly out of the reach of earthly disasters.
“Are you hiring?”
“Perhaps.” Zachary smiled, and it was no less terrifying this time, but Gabriel had to see hope in it. “It depends on what exactly you have to offer us.”
Gabriel forced a grin. “You’d be surprised.”
“Good. I do enjoy surprises.”
Gabriel never had.
The memory ended there, fizzling away like burned fog. For a moment he was on his hands and knees in the junkyard, gentle fingers smoothing his hair away from his forehead. And then he was gone, lost again, somewhere else.
The wings did not come first. His bones stayed solid for a little while longer. Years would pass before they’d mold him into a more perfect angel. No, they began with pain, circuits and transmitters wired directly to his brain, until five perfect ports drilled into his skin let them connect easily and then bind his mind with the halo.
Gabriel remembered screaming. He’d been strapped down, injected with something so he couldn’t move. Even his voice failed him in the end, leaving him no respite from the pain that reached bone-deep. They were changing him, and there was nothing he could do. He’d signed the damn contract. He could only hope Rocco would forgive him.
“He’s the eighty-ninth to survive the procedure,” one of his tormentors said to Zachary, checking off something on the digital clipboard in her hand.
Zachary leaned down, so close Gabriel could feel the tepid breath on his face. “Excellent work. Give him the proper designation.”
“And preference for the series? We’ve got plenty of Michaels already.”
“I’ve always been fond of Gabriel.” Zachary touched the metal circle embedded in Gabriel’s forehead. The sensation sent tingles down Gabriel’s spine.
He couldn’t move away, couldn’t protest or talk back to Zachary. No, he thought, stop touching me.
“Rocky.” His lips formed his lover’s nickname without sound.
Zachary moved away, shaking his head. “Start the overlay, will you, Jillian? I’m anxious to begin.”
That moment he became someone else. Gabriel 1089 was born on the gurney in a Heaven Corp lab, shedding his old life like tattered clothing. He forgot his hopes and dreams, his lover, even his own name.
Gabriel couldn’t remember that even now.
“You’re all right, you’re safe. You’re safe.” Jeff. Jeff was the one on the ground with him, holding his shaking body.
He’d given up everything so long ago. And for what? To be turned into this? A monster made out of flesh and metal, his aging halted, his mind restructured again and again. Gabriel wanted to push Jeff away, deny himself the comfort. But he couldn’t.
“What have I become?” he whispered, echoing the words from the damn song Jeff had played in his workshop.
“C’mon, Gabe. Let’s get you to bed, okay?”
Gabe. Yes. He was Gabe. Not their Gabriel any longer.
He hadn’t noticed night around them, the junkyard still lit by bright floodlights. Gabe let Jeff help him stand, unable to focus yet, the past still so vibrant in his mind. Jeff kept an arm around Gabe’s waist, keeping him from falling. He leaned in to the touch, grateful for the warmth for his cold bones. But then he remembered another line of the song, dancing through his mind.
Everyone goes away….
“WHAT DO you remember?” Jeff helped Gabe through the quiet junkyard. He’d long since sent Kayla up to bed, though he bet she waited, keeping an eye on the screens downstairs to make sure Gabe made it back okay. Jeff had worried about that, unable to do more than watch the angel writhe in the dirt, looking like he was having seizure after seizure. He’d run the medical scanner over Gabe as soon as they got back to the house.
Gabe seemed focused on the ground, stepping carefully like he’d forgotten quite how to walk. “Everything. Even the shit they never wanted me to remember.”
The angel even sounded different now. The dissolving block had let more free than just some wrapped-up memories. Jeff swallowed down the lump in his throat. He was responsible for this. If he hadn’t removed the halo, then Gabe’s mind would not have fractured.
“I’m sorry,” he said, though he knew Gabe couldn’t understand how much that sorry encompassed.
“Don’t be. Not for me remembering,” Gabe said. The closer they got to Jeff’s house, the surer his steps seemed. “For the first time in years….” He let out a choked laugh. “Hundreds of years, I know my own mind again.”
Maybe this had been the demons’ plan all along—turn an angel against his keepers. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the halo itself—just the act of removing it had set all of this into motion. If Gabe turned on his masters, if he joined with the demons, then maybe the angel had a chance. Maybe they both did.
“But at least you know now,” Jeff said.
Gabe shook his head. They’d stopped outside the back door, but Gabe didn’t make any move to go inside. “I can’t go back, Jeff. I won’t let them do that to me again. But where the hell does that leave me?”
“You’re doing pretty good down here.” Jeff gave in to the impulse and touched Gabe’s shoulder, rubbing his thumb against the soft fabric of his shirt. “Lots of people start over. S’kinda the point of this place.”
“I’m sure you didn’t sign up for harboring a fallen angel.”
Gabe looked so defeated at that, so beaten down and tired. Jeff wanted to gather him in his arms, inhale the scent of his hair, and nuzzle against the tiny ports behind his ear. Fuck, that was the last thing they both needed. “I keep telling Kayla we need another body out here. Plenty to do.”
He got a smile in return. Then Gabe grew serious. “If I stay here… never invade my mind again. Not even if…. Just don’t.” He touched his forehead again, fingers lingering on the tiny ports around his eyebrows.
“I promise.” It was the very least he could promise the angel.
Gabe stroked Jeff’s cheek as he had earlier before the entire day had gone south. His fingers were cool, and Jeff wondered if it was blood or coolant that ran through his veins.
“Good night, Jeff.”
Gabe turned and slipped into the house. Jeff wished the night had ended with more than that simple touch. But when had he ever gotten anything he wished for?