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Carol giggled. I wanted to slap the blonde right off her. Wouldn’t take much since she dyed it like once a week.
“But what if you’re wrong?” I pushed.
“I’m not, Ms. Drake. Shall we move on? Carol, would you read the next selection?”
Just like that, I was dismissed by the all-knowing Professor Bennett. First off, I believed in angels. I knew my mom was among them somewhere up there. And second, I was damn sure demons existed because I saw one get ripped out of Sandy-hair’s face last night.
Even if I was still reeling from the experience, I wasn’t so dumb as to ignore what I saw with my own damn eyes.
Poor Professor Bennett. He really didn’t know what he was talking about, even with all those academic letters behind his name.
I practically jumped for joy when class ended, shoving my books back into my backpack. Malcolm caught up to me outside.
“Way to go, Drake. Master of disaster.” He laughed.
“So glad I could entertain.”
“Always. Study group tomorrow night, right?”
“Yep. Meet you at the library, as usual, say six o’clock?”
“Sounds good. See ya then.”
He loped off in the other direction as I headed for my car. No way could I handle translating Cicero today in Latin class. Too heavy after last night. It was okay. Professor Minga loved me in that class. I was calling my own sick day after the lovely debate on Milton.
Professor Bennett’s words still milled through my mind as I walked across Loyola’s campus to my car.
The weather was changing. I zipped my hoodie and hiked my backpack up higher on my shoulder. Hugging myself as I walked, my mind drifted to my mother. Must be all this talk of Milton.
As an artist, my mother admired Gustave Doré, who illustrated scenes from Milton’s sad tales. She painted his drawings with her own impressionistic style. While Doré’s originals were all black and white, my mother’s were smeared with vibrant, wild color. Doré’s artwork evoked a kind of stillness, but not my mother’s. You couldn’t view one of them without feeling something—horror, awe, pity, joy.
For some reason, her rendition of Doré’s “Numberless Bad Angels” kept popping into my head. My mother’s painting showed a smoky-blue heaven with a twisted line of fiendish-looking angels trailing behind Lucifer, who was depicted as a beautiful, fair-haired angel. All the others flew in a long shadow behind him.
I’d always wondered why mother showed the worst of the worst in this way—glowing and glorious. Maybe she was trying to imply that evil hides behind a beautiful face. I don’t know why, but the image never left me.
I can see her now in the garage studio, standing in front of the canvas in paint-stained jeans. She dipped the brush and stroked in swift, curving motions. Music played in the background. She was partial to Wagner and Bach, but any classical composer could plunge her into another world.
The day she created the host of fallen angels, the distinct melancholy tune of Mozart’s “Requiem Mass” lilted through the room. I sat on the stool in the corner, watching for hours.
My mother seemed to be guided by the music itself, slowing or speeding up with the tempo. Wispy strands of fair hair hung around her face as she lost herself in a world of blues, pinks and gold, of shadow and light, of dark angels and a darker demon with a beguiling face.
“Let it go,” I whispered to myself, sighing and walking faster.
I’d parked illegally on the street, knowing full well I’d probably have a ticket on the windshield when I returned. Campus cops were like sharks in bloody waters, sniffing out offenders with notorious stealth. You never saw them but sure as hell felt bitten when they got you.
Dreading to see that I’d been attacked by one of these predators, I rounded the corner, and my heart stopped.
Propped beautifully against my silver 350ZX was my rescuer, the dark stranger from last night. Faded jeans fit snugly on his hips, and a gray T-shirt accentuated a perfect upper body. His black hair fell just right across lovely dark eyes. With casually crossed arms, he watched me approach.
Heart, please stop pounding that way before he notices.
This was no accident. He’d found me somehow. Should I be afraid? He didn’t look dangerous. Well, not in a serial-killer sort of way. Hell, he looked good enough to eat. Totally faking bravado, I stopped in front of him with one hand on my waist.
“Are you stalking me?”
He didn’t answer, eyeing me from bottom to top. His gaze paused at my throat, his jaw clenched, then he finally made its way to my eyes. Still mute.
I hated awkward silences.
