Page 3 of Good Intentions

I held my hands over her stomach and pushed my magic toward her, using it to slice open the impenetrable barrier of her womb. The angel inside her was strong, his own soul grabbing onto my power and pulling it toward himself. He wanted to live.

It will be okay now, little one. Come and greet the world.

Her flesh parted and I reached in, lifting the tiny infant into my hands. It had wings. Beautiful white and blue wings. Fallen from the moment he came into the world. Or perhaps, he was perfect?

“Hello little one,” I murmured to the baby. He looked like his mother, and her tiny face had been burned into my mind for millennia. I turned to pass her to Gusion.

One of the Horseman shook off the restraining thrall and snatched the child from my hands gently. “He isn't yours,” the man growled, almost like an animal. “He belongs to Serendipity, and we will guard him until she’s better.”

Her name was Serendipity. I almost laughed at the irony. I went back towards her, staring down at the flickering light of her life force. She was close to death, and it would be a test of my power to save her now.

Gusion gripped my arm. “You must heal her now, Raphael. If you ever loved me at all, you will fix her.” His voice was a desperate plea, and I wanted to tell him that it was my love for him that made me save her in the first place.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, I nodded. I could grant him this.

I pushed a wave after wave of healing light into her, and even then it was barely holding her together. More and more I pushed into her until my knees shook. My power spluttered, and I knew I was dragging her back from death's domain.

I was breathing heavily when I stopped, but I straightened, standing tall. I swallowed hard, giving the room a neutral expression. “She should live, but her body needs time to rest.” I cast one more look in the direction of the angel child. He was perfect. The very image of innocence, and he might have just damned me forever.

The big Horseman glared at me. The child could not ask for better protectors. “Until we meet again, Horseman.”

I traveled from the room back to my clinic in my current city of death. I collapsed to my knees, drained of every ounce of healing light. Lifting my wing, I wasn’t surprised to see the snowy white of my feathers tinged pink.

My damnation was now complete.

I was unsure how long I lay prone on the floor of my makeshift clinic. There was a generator in the corner, but I didn’t waste it to keep the lights on. They were bombing again on the streets, percussive explosions rattling the ceiling and dust settled over my body.

There was a heavy slam on the door above me. Probably shrapnel hitting the outside of the building. Or what remained of the building above ground.

But there it was again. The steady thump, thump, thump of someone's fist. I didn’t even know if there was still an entry to this basement.

Making myself rise was harder than it had ever been in all my eternity. What even was the point? I should supplicate myself at Michael’s feet and hope he put in a good word with the Father.

I guess I couldn’t make it worse by helping whatever human was thumping. Getting to my feet, I made sure my wings were hidden. I climbed the stairs, though several were missing. Using my inhuman strength, I wrenched open the door.

In the doorway stood a woman covered in ash and debris, dirt crusted to every part of her, even her eyelashes. In her arms was a man, his face covered in burns. He was in civilian clothes, a large red cross on his arm. There was one on hers too.

“Are you the medic?” she shouted over the sound of mortar explosions.

Of a kind, I guess. “Yes.”

“The angel in the rubble?”

I frowned at her. “What?”

“That’s what they call you. The angel in the rubble. They believe you perform miracles, but I don’t believe in such things. They painted wings on the wall with spray paint.” She sneered the words. “But I need equipment and the hospital is gone.”

I frowned. “Gone?”

“They bombed it. Are you going to help me or not?”

Well, with such a plea, how could I say no? I reached out and lifted the man into my arms. “Shut the door behind you.” I took the stairs quickly. I wanted to be able to scan him with my power before the human saw me. As I laid him on the metal table that might have belonged to a butcher shop at one point, I grimaced. The damage was bad. I stopped the swelling in his brain, but I probably couldn’t restore his sight or hearing. Wherever he’d been, the percussive explosion had shattered the fragile systems that kept those senses working.

The woman appeared far too quickly. “Turn on the generator,” I ordered, and she complied with only a small tensing of her jaw.

I triaged the man. Now I’d fixed his brain, I could work on his body. There was shrapnel in his shoulders and chest, and a bad gash on the back of his head. “What happened?”

“We are doctors, at the hospital. We were retrieving a patient from the back of an ambulance when there was an airstrike on the main building. I was blown into the back of the ambulance, and Bray got knocked by the blast. He landed on me. Protected me from the blast but got it right to the face.”