Gate Guardians

Chapter 3 ~ Look A Little Deeper

Chapter 3 ~ Look A Little Deeper

Blistering heat turned to biting cold in an instant, and Lilliana opened her eyes to see the ever busy streets of Los Angeles bustle about herself and the Reapers, seemingly unaware of their presence. With a slight shudder, Lilliana stepped out and away from Chris's embrace, her eyes wondering over the busy street. It had been so long since she'd been down here, she'd almost forgotten the smell of exhaust fumes made by cars on a busy morning drive to work...

She wrinkled her nose... almost.

"Feeling sentimental, precious?" Ricky's smug tone brought Lilliana quickly out of her reminiscing.

"More curious." Lilliana replied, though it was only a half lie.

"Oh? What about?" Chris smirked.

"I-" Lilliana shuddered as a person walked straight through her. "Well, that, for a start..." she looked across the road at a man waiting by the traffic lights, on his phone, glancing up the walk signal every now and then. Her face went blank. "Traffic lights on Vine Street..."

"Hmm?" Chris quirked an eyebrow at her and then followed her gaze. "Oh! Well, what d'ya know?!" he nudged Ricky. "Newbie might've spotted our next potential client..." Lilliana groaned at the pet name. "Alright then, not 'newbie'..." Chris huffed, then smiled genuinely for the first time in front of her. "Liana."

"Liana?" Ricky quirked a brow at his fellow Reaper then looked at Lilliana. "Yeah, I like it. Liana it is."

Lilliana smiled slightly. "That one I don't mind..."

"Oh my... a civilised conversation between an Angel and two Reapers!" Ricky laughed. "It isn't done!"

Lilliana snickered. "Nor is my saving a soul... but you let that one slide."

"True." Ricky nodded and chuckled as he nudged Chris. "I like her... she can stay." He glanced back at Lilliana and frowned at her pensive expression. "What?"

"Him." She nodded towards the man she'd pointed out before. "There's nothing bad radiating off him..." her eyes refocussed. "I mean, the worst thing he did was pinch twenty bucks from his sister when he was fifteen." She frowned as she observed the man. "It can't be him."

"Maybe your radar is off today." Ricky shrugged then smiled. "Oh, look! Here comes a fast one!" he nodded towards a car speeding towards the traffic lights to make it through the green... then it changed to yellow... then to red... and the 'walk' signal bleeped its 'it's safe to walk' bleep... and the man they'd been watching before stepped out onto the road.

"No..." Lilliana watched, almost in slow motion, as the man saw the car and froze. Watched as the man in the car waved for him to move, but didn't slow down. The man who'd stepped out onto the road didn't deserve to die. It was not his time...not today. "No."

Decision made, Lilliana's white wings unfurled about her; knocking the two Reaper's back slightly as, with one beat, she rose into the air and flew at the innocent man frozen in the middle of the road. The white of her wings caught the sun and reflected into the eyes of the driver, and all she heard as she grabbed the man was the screech of tyres, the honk of a horn... and the sound of metal and glass crunching violently together.

As she set the man on his feet, now safe, she turned to look back at the scene behind her. She made a face at the twisted pile of metal half lodged under a semitrailer. It appeared the distraction of her saving the man in the road had caused quite a crash. But, when she saw the driver's soul rise from the lump of metal barely recognisable as a car anymore, she no longer cared. Black, smeared, sinister; the driver had been an evil man.

"Y-you..." Lilliana turned, alarmed, when she felt a hand on her arm and saw the man she'd saved looking right at her. "You saved me..." she swallowed as he looked her over. "W-what... what are you?!"

Lilliana smiled as a gentle voice rang inside her head. "Your grandmother is so proud of you... and she loves you very much..."

"What?" he asked, tears forming in his eyes... and then confusion taking over his expression as she faded away and he was left to look into nothing but air as she drifted back across the street towards the Reapers.

"Well, well, well, Newbie." Ricky's voice chided behind her, but when she turned he was beaming at her. "It would seem that, without you, we would've taken the wrong soul."

"Yes... it appears your little act of redemption based saving caused a convicted paedophile to crash into the back of a cement truck... and die..." Chris chuckled cruelly as he held the driver's sickly soul in a crushing grip as he continued. "And it would also appear that this is the soul we'd been sent to Reap."

"Point to Liana." Ricky tipped an imaginary hat to her and gave her a wink as he created a portal back into Hell.

Though neither Reaper had known it, she'd just saved them; and Lilliana smiled as Chris dragged the condemned soul towards the portal back to Hell and Ricky offered her his hand to ease her passage back through.

She accepted and, just before the portal closed behind them, Lilliana saw the man she'd saved dial 911. She smiled again, still seeing the good in the world...

"I guess I get what Solomon was on about before he sent us off..." Chris spoke up as the Portal closed and he handed the condemned soul off to two other Reapers to be dragged away into the flames.

"That there's always something worth learning?" Lilliana quipped as she moved to follow him out to report back to Solomon.

"No." Chris chuckled and turned abruptly so they were stood barely an inch apart as he leant down to murmur to her. "That not all are as they seem..." he stepped back and looked her over appreciatively before turning to stride off again. "But what you said too... that also works."

Lilliana swallowed, following more hesitantly this time; the only thing running through her head now being:

'What was that?!'