Reviving Rafael

Chapter Two

         

Vita glanced around the place once more, finally propping her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her palm.

"Hannah," she called out, eyes vacant.

"Yeah?" her friend answered, busy reading the newspaper.

"What would you feel if an angel visited your dreams?"

Hannah continued reading and just shrugged her shoulder. "Means I'm holy."

"What if she's given you a mission?"

Still, her friend looked too indulge reading the newspaper. "Means God wanted me to fulfill the mission."

"What if the mission has something to do with you stopping evil?"

"I'll do it."

"What if you realize that the devil wasn't that evil?" Vita asked, voice in a whisper.

Hannah dropped the newspaper down the table and gave her a pointed look. A mix of wonder and confusion bloomed on her face, trapped whether to consider Vita crazy or what.

"It calls a miracle." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Why are we talking about this?"

Vita let out a sigh, feeling defeated. Her affection for the devil still nagged at her, growing every ticking of the clock.

"Nothing," she answered. "Do you believe in angels?"

Hannah clicked her tongue. "I know there are angels. But I lost my faith a long time ago."

Vita was used having no family. Five years was enough to get used to being alone. Her friend, on the other hand, has another story to tell. "You don't believe in Him?"

"I've been raising my brother almost all my life because my parents were too busy fighting, too busy cheating on one another. I have to drop out of college to work, you know that," she took a deep breath, covering the sadness of her voice. "Sometimes I feel like it was Him who had lost faith in me."

The telephone rings, startling them to their seats. Hannah excused herself as she hastily wiped her eyes, clearing out the liquid forming and answered the phone.

****

I have to do something, Vita chanted in her mind. The uneasiness she felt gnawed at her like a bitter fruit consuming her senses. She just couldn't take things like nothing had happened, like everything was good because it wasn't.

She has to stop him.

"You okay, Angel wings?" Morte asked.

He was on the floor, his body leaning against her bed frame, both elbows propped on the mattress, a bored look on his handsome face. Vita stirred and gazed at him, still couldn't get passed his devilish good looks, his charm an ultimate weapon to ordinary humans.

"I have to do something," she replied, face clouded with too much seriousness. "We'll never know when our time will come and get us, might as well do something worthy before I face His judgement."

Morte cocked his head on the side, arching an eyebrow at her. "You're getting way too serious about this mission thing. Let the angels do their battle against my kinds. You're not gonna win against evil," he stated in a matter of fact tone.

"Says who?" Vita snapped, annoyed he would say such thing.

"You see yourself in the mirror?" Morte uttered, his tone firm and dead serious. "Human versus devil, you wouldn't stand a chance."

"Not when you're behind me scaring them off."

If the subject was not that serious, Morte would have laughed at that. But he knew Vita was kind of stubborn, doing things her own without regards of her life. Abnormally absurd, really.

"Whoever will try to harm you will die. That's a fuckin' guarantee."

The annoyance she felt jumped off the window, his response melting her puzzled heart. "You have to help me, Morte."

"How about you sleep now?"

"I've got a feeling that something's going to happen. I know I sound crazy or something, but I can feel it in me." Vita said, her forehead wrinkled with worries.

"Shush with your words and calm your head, let sleep kissed you good night, the dream said. I might be the devil lurking in the dark, but you're my star, my only spark. I'll kill whoever will give you harm, it could deliver me to hell but I don't give a damn. Shush now, my angel, just sleep tight." His grin was wide, too proud at his own composition.

Vita smiled as she adjusted the blanket up her chin, concealing her small body. "You're a poet. Who would have guessed?"

Morte returned the smile and softly caressed her cheeks with his hand.

"I want to touch you, too," she said after a while.

"I'm not sure how it'll happen."

"In my dreams," she answered, eyes suddenly glowed. "You visited my dream once and in there, I could touch you."

"I could keep you in that dream, Angel wings, and you'll never wake up again." I almost did, Morte remembered as guilt suddenly pinched his chest.

"Not wake up as in I'm going to die?" Vita asked.

He nodded.

"That's the only place we could be together."

"I know," he uttered, voice low but clear. "And as tempting as that sounds, I want to see you breathing. That makes me feel alive, too, beautiful."

There it was again, the fucking buzzing of that feeling, continuously knocking his door. Scratch that, it didn't actually knock, it barged straight through him, twisting his stomach begging for attention.

Morte watched as Vita closed her eyes, finally falling asleep. He would protect her until his last breath, would even freeze the fire that would burn her. He didn't want her to suffer, didn't want to see her being tormented the second time.

Santy's attack to her was enough torture to last a lifetime. He sure as hell wouldn't let it happen again. Though, he knew, and he could feel it, that it was so going to happen.

One way or another.