Book I: Avi's Angel

Avi Meets His Guardian Angel

He was home. It was a rare occurrence these days, so he took a moment to simply take in the familiar lines of his bedroom. The bed, the dresser, the... He blinked and rubbed his eyes, as though it would make the apparition disappear.
No, the hazy being was still standing calmly beside his dresser.
"Who are you?" He asked. For some reason, this amused the creature.
He could not have known that he was, in reality, addressing two beings. The body belonged to a mother of three who was technically brain dead. The spiritual aspect that overlay her astral projection was an angel.
It was the mother who laughed. You wouldn't think that a brain dead astral projection could find anything to laugh about, but she'd been an odd one from the start.
:Why do you laugh, little one?: the angel asked.
:If you'd ever played video games, you'd know.:
The angel/mother took a single step toward the bassist. "We are here to protect you."
He fell back against the door, eyes darting around the room. "'We'? Who else is in here?!"
She smiled her most Madonna-like smile. "We are what you see before you. Ah, you disbelieve. This is natural. We shall tell you what we are." What she did not add was too painful to bear: And then, you will forget. It became an ordeal to maintain the smile, so she let her face settle into a vague mask of politeness.
"We are what you might term a symbiote." Unless you watch Supernatural, then you'd know exactly what we are, she added silently. "Angels cannot walk the earth alone, should they wish to be heard. Most human minds are incapable of hearing our voices. We require..."
The angel had to force the words past a lump of bitterness, but the woman had no such trouble. "A vessel. A 'heavenly host', if you will. They need a human body, preferrably someone who won't be missed." This time it was the woman who could barely speak the words.
"The shape you see before you is how I remember my body. I am lying in hospital somewhere, in a coma." Irreversible, though she did not say so. Angels were big on distributing information on a need to know basis. The bassist did not need to know, so she did not tell him.
"What is your name?"
She told him, knowing full well he would forget.
"We would like to retrieve a lost artifact, as a show of goodwill. It is known what was lost, but not where or when. May we retrieve the information--" :Dude, don't spelunk in his noggin! Just ask!:
The angel released control of her arm, and it dropped to her side. "Where did you lose your ring?"
His face went blank with shock. "How did you know about that?" His normally deep voice squeaked at the end, and she struggled to keep a straight face. Twitter was turning out to be need to know information. Who knew?
Almost reflexively, he thought about that day. The angel caught the thread of his thoughts and followed them to the time/place he needed.
When the angelic being had its location in the mists of Time, it wavered erratically. The image before Avi shifted and leapt from the ordinary-looking woman, to an ephemeral, apparently genderless being of light and sound. The effect was so abrupt and chaotic that it made him ill to look upon. He was forced to look away.
The vessel grew sad. She knew that he would, and must, forget her. The angel/vessel duality would remain fixed in his subconscious mind, so he would not think to question their strange speech pattern. Anything else would be lost to the ether, once his gaze returned to them.
The angel wiped clean the memory of the man, and the tears of the woman. Then he folded their arms within the sleeves of their vestments and waited.
Slowly, the averted gaze returned to the being before him. He looked upon them with reverence, and fear. The vessel's sadness grew, but she hid it well.
"Who--what--are you?" It pained the vessel to hear that beloved, golden voice tremble, and the addition of the word "what".
"We are an agent of the Lord, sent to earth for your protection. You call us Guardian Angels."
His forehead puckered. "I didn't know people could see their Guardian Angel."
The vessel longed to smooth his brow. She gripped her forearm tightly within the wide sleeves to prevent such folly. The angel was not so emotionally moved.
"You require proof of what we are?" Its voice was jarring, discordant. There was a bell-clear voice, sharp with reproof; under it was a deeper contralto, rife with humor (gallows humor, did he but know).
In the face of the higher overtone of disapproval, he feared the wrath of the entity before him.
"He will not proclaim doubt," it said to itself. It made a gesture of frustration, showing the hands formerly hidden within the voluminous sleeves.
His spine stiffened with surprise. There, riding the knuckle of its index finger, was the ring he'd thought lost forever! The hand it once graced lifted toward the coveted possession, but the face of the being before him halted its progress. It was at once radiant and forbidding.
Confused, his hand fell listlessly.
The clear blue eyes flashed once, like lightning, as if in irritation. When the light faded, a gentle expression had settled over its face.
"Give me your hand, boy." The deep, almost masculine voice no longer commanded, yet he responded as though it had.
:See? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.:
The angel was unmoved by her quaint catechism.
The woman removed the man's ring from her thickest finger. She resisted the urge to put it on his finger, for that would too closely mimic an act she had forsaken. Instead, she placed it in his palm. She did indulge in prolonged contact; closing his fingers over the ring and warming the chilled digits briefly between her hands. She warded off feelings of intimacy by replaying the end of "Fern Gully" in her mind.
Reluctantly, she released his hand.
As though unable to believe he possessed his ring once more, Avi opened his hand and stared at it.
"Well?" The impatient voice was the higher, yet oddly masculine component of her two-tone range. The eyes flashed bright blue.
"Put it on. We have much to discuss."
Thus the magic of the moment was dispelled.