Page 43 of Avenging Angel

I kiss his cheek before pushing his face away, laughing again at the situation we find ourselves in. “No, but not brushing our teeth for however many days we’ve been in here is definitely a roadblock.” Our need to drink water and not waste it took precedence over spitting it out. The waterless toothbrushes only do so much.

The sound of rocks shifting draws our attention, as does the flashlight shining through the opening. “Sadie, are you in there?” a woman asks.

Sadie? I haven’t been called that in twenty years. My eyes go wide at the recognition, and I stare at Angel, unsure how to answer. How could this woman know who I am?

Angel answers for me. “My name is Angel Conway, and Daisy Zurkowski is with me.”

“Ah! Yes, Daisy. That’s right,” she says, grunting as she shifts another rock.

“And you are?” I ask.

“Help,” she replies.

Suddenly, another voice says, “Eva, you need to leave. There are people heading this way, and it’s not yet time to reveal yourself. Go! Go now!”

“What about…?”

“I’ll take care of it. I choose who can see me, but you do not have that luxury,” the man says. There aren’t many voices I’d recognize after two decades because voices change over time, but the man on the other side of those rocks? I’d know that voice anywhere.

“Are you sure? You said Sadie was the key to my freedom,” Eva replies.

The sound of Uri’s voice is like a siren’s call, beckoning me closer. Rolling out from underneath Angel, I get to my feet. Unsteadily, I make my way over to the hole. “Uri? Is that you?”

“Your team is on the way,” he says. “Fear not.”

“Who did this to us?” I ask.

“It’s not my place to tell you. All will be revealed in time, Daisy. Be patient.”

I scoff. “You know that’s a virtue I’ve never possessed.”

“And yet, you’ve waited twenty years for this day to come. Now you just need to wait a little longer,” Uri says.

I breathe in the stale air from the hole, but it’s not enough to reinvigorate me. It only clears my head. “A little longer,” I repeat. “I don’t know how much strength I have left to continue this fight.”

Uri’s booming laughter fills the cavern. It’s loud enough that a few of the smaller rocks shake loose. Angel’s eyes widen to the size of saucers once he realizes Uri isn’t just a figment of my imagination. As Angel walks toward me, Uri puts his face to the hole and removes another rock to widen it. “Goodness, child. Have you not learned by now that the strength you possess doesn’t come from you? Even when you were young and didn’t have the physical strength to go any further, you asked the Father for help. He sent me.”

To confirm what I’ve always believed to be true, I ask, “You’re really an angel?”

Angel stands next to me and tries to move one of the boulders. It doesn’t budge. He grunts while saying, “You’re not just any angel, are you? You’re Uriel, the Angel of wisdom and guidance.”

“I have been called by many names,” Uri says, not denying Angel’s assessment. “We should finish this conversation once you are free from your….” Uri glances at the pile of stones, some weighing upward of a thousand pounds. “Imprisonment.”

I try to move one of the smaller ones, but even with the cool air coming through the hole, I can’t do it. “They’re too heavy. We need a stick for leverage.”

Once again, Uri laughs. “Oh, ye of little faith. You act as though the Father can’t roll away stones. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.”

When Uri begins praying aloud, Angel grabs my hand and moves us away from the blocked entrance as the earth beneath our feet rumbles and shakes. We watch as the rocks tumble to the ground, though none rain down overhead or shift in the other tunnels. It’s as though we’re standing in a bubble of protection, the earthquake isolated to the area in front of us.

When the ground stops shaking, the hole has widened enough for us to walk through. With a sense of humor, Uri stands at the opening and says, “What are you waiting for? Grab your packs and let’s go.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, or maybe awe, Angel does what Uri demands. When we heft our packs onto our backs, Angel whispers to me, “You must be pretty special for God to send in the big guns.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, genuinely confused. “I’m no more special than you.”

“Uriel. As in the archangel Uriel. He’s not just some run-of-the-mill angel, Daisy. While his name is not mentioned in the canonized Bible, Uriel is depicted in many apocryphal texts. Some say he rescued John the Baptist as a child from the Massacre of the Innocents when Herod had all males under the age of two killed. Other texts claim he’s the angel who guarded the gate of Eden with a fiery sword.”

Uri takes my hand to help me through the gap, then assists Angel. Both of us breathe deeply, our senses returning to us in full force. Uri looks at Angel and smiles. “Some even say I guard the gates of Hell.”