Dangerous Thoughts

Chapter 4

When Charles came to, he was looking up into the face of an angel.

Most of her features were blurry, but he could make out the lovely curve of her jaw, a pair of pink lips, and a cascade of auburn hair.

"Charles," the angel said, in a musical voice that sounded far away, as if he were underwater. "Charles."

He tried to say something eloquent, something witty to impress her, but all that came out of his mouth was a half-strangled gargle.

While he cursed himself silently, she seemed pleased. She looked over her shoulder. "James," she said, her voice now a little clearer, "I think he's coming to!"

James, Charles thought. That's my brother's name... pity he's dead too...

Suddenly, his brother's face materialized in front of him: brows furrowed with worry, blue eyes scanning his face. But what made Charles' heart skip with glee was what he held in his hands: a bowl.

"You may sou!" Charles slurred, a botched version of "You made soup!" His tongue didn't seem to work properly in Heaven; he'd have to put in a formal complaint.

"'Fraid not," James said, spooning some liquid into Charles' mouth.

Charles had been hoping for James' spring medley, but it became immediately apparent that this wasn't the case. The taste was so incredibly foul that it somehow rallied all of Charles' strength, giving him the energy to spit it out onto his brother's face.

James' jaw dropped. The green puree dripped off his chin. "Rude," he muttered.

The angel giggled in the background. Charles looked to her and realized, finally, that he wasn't dead. He was back home, in his bedroom. James was sitting on the edge of the bed, wiping his face with a handkerchief and looking miffed. And the angel wasn't an angel at all; it was his fiancée Cecilia.

"Wha—" Charles said, slowly regaining use of his tongue. "What happened?"

"We were hoping you'd be able to answer that," Cecilia said, drawing closer. Now that his eyes were focusing better, he could see the hint of concern that marred her features. "Tom, the bartender at The Rusty Nail, said you wanted to use his back room. That you had a girl with you."

Charles' memories came back in a rush: the homeless girl, the cloaked figures, the pentagram of blood and the small child lying within it... He felt nauseous, suddenly, and it had nothing to do with the potion James had tried to feed him. "Yes. And then she clocked me," he said, feeling the tenderness on his scalp.

"Right," James said, setting down the handkerchief. "Tom found you when the girl ran out of the bar in a hurry. He recruited a few guys to carry you back here."

"And when you were late for dessert," Cecilia added, "I came over to see if you'd forgotten. Only when I arrived, I found James in a tizzy and you completely unconscious. What were you doing with that girl?"

There was no judgment in her voice, no insinuation that he had done something indecent. It was something he appreciated about Cecilia. And yet, in that moment, Charles knew he could not tell her the truth about what he had seen. While the memory itself had been dark enough, it was the feelings that accompanied it that made him hold his tongue. When the memory had engulfed him, he had felt everything as if he had been there in that moment: the fear, the horror, the absolute wrongness of everything going on around him. And the fact that this girl had been so desperate to have him extract it meant that owning this memory was extremely dangerous. He couldn't drag his fiancée into this mess, not without him understanding more about what was going on.

"Did they save the memory?" Charles asked.

James frowned, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a vial with a red pulsating glow. "This one?"