Lost Angel chapter 2:
World of Elegance.
It's about a nine hour drive from Lake Tahoe to Laughlin making it a good way point for travelers. If it weren't for the overly protective nature of the Ski Patrol I would have been able to get on the road the next morning. As it was I didn't get all my stuff packed and out of my ex-timeshare until noon. With the memories of yesterday's odd events still dancing in my brain I threw all that was left of my former life into my old Van and headed out to face an uncertain future.
Although I hadn't really been all that energetic while confined to the sick ward for some reason I was ravenous. Stopping at the local IHOP just before closing I ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu which I scarfed in less than 10 minutes. Oddly enough even though I had just crammed my stomach full of junk I still felt hungry.
I finally managed to get on the road about two that afternoon. Pointing the venerable VW southward for warmer climes I jumped on Highway 95 which snakes its way southeasterly along the western edge of the state. At first I thought the gnawing feeling in my stomach would go away after my breakfast finally hit bottom. After about an hour into the trip however, I noticed that instead of getting better, the empty feeling in my stomach was getting worse. I finally gave up fighting it and pulled off at the next "Sign of the Golden Arches," and loaded up on cheese burgers and continued onward, finally arriving in Laughlin around 10 pm.
Laughlin is much like Las Vegas was back in its heyday; cheap rooms, free booze and the only thing loose about the slot machines were the handles that were fixing to fall off from being yanked by frustrated patrons futilely trying to recover their losses. Cruising the strip I kept an eye out for the cheapest hotel available, at last settling on the Ramada Train Station hotel on the side of the road opposite the river. After I finished checking in with the front desk I headed down to the hotel lobby making a bee line for the nearest buffet where I fully intended to campout until this empty feeling in my stomach went away.
After about an hour of me incessantly stuffing my face I finally felt full, mainly because I think I had reached the limit of my stomach's capacity. So, I went back to my room to get some much needed rest. I had been planning on a long soak in the tub to ease the stiffness in my muscles brought about by my adventure in the maintenance shed, only to discover that due to the lateness of the hour the only rooms that the hotel had remaining were the "special accessibility rooms." AKA open shower only. Throwing my toiletries on the counter I brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. I think I was TKO before my head hit the pillow.
"Oh my, oh my," I heard my subconscious mocking me, "how the mighty have fallen. Just think, this time last year you would never have considered staying at this flea bag hotel. Now it's almost more than you can afford… moron."
"Why don't you be quiet?" I told myself.
"You knew the chick was bad news, it's not like you couldn't see it coming. But no, you just knew she loved you and it was all going to be different this time. But you ignored the warnings of all your friends. Now look at you."
"Alright, alright, alright already, I fucked up. Just give it a rest already.
"You can't let it rest and you know it. All those people who broke their backs working for you. They shared your dream of making Kendal Custom Sporting Equipment a major player just like you did. You fucked them over as well as yourself. Fifteen people, husbands and wives screwed over because of your male pride."
Sometimes I can't tell which is worse, not being able to sleep, or the dreams that come when I do.
I had managed about 5 hours of restless sleep before the sound of the shower running woke me. At first I thought the noise was coming from one of the adjacent rooms before realizing that the shower I heard running was the one in mine. With this realization I roused myself to full wakefulness, ignoring the empty feeling in my stomach, I exploded out of my bed and went to confront the interloper. It might be only a twenty dollar room, but dammit it was mine and I wasn't sharing it with anybody!
I made it most of the way to the bathroom door before I realized that I wasn't wearing anything, looking about I hastily donned my discarded clothes from the previous evening. As I hurriedly dressed I began to notice the subtle sounds of a woman's voice singing softly to herself just barely audible over the sound of the running water.
"Great," I thought to myself, "only a woman can be so vain as to enter a total strangers room and help herself to a free shower without so much as a by-your-leave."
Checking to make sure that I was appropriately attired, I prepared to forcefully eject whomever it was who had helped themselves to my accommodations.
Sealing myself to the inevitable screaming hysterics that was sure to come I ripped the door open and felt my voice die in my throat, stolen by the unearthly vision that burned itself into my brain.
Unearthly beautiful would be the best way to describe her, her naked body very well toned, lithe and lean like a tiger, curiously shaped tattoos covering her alabaster skin from head to toe. She stood about 5 foot 8; if I had to guess her three numbers were probably 36-22-36, her hair was died black on the left side and platinum on the right, cut long and stylish it cascaded in flowing waves to just past her hips. Her busts firm and very well developed somehow seeming to defy gravity. Her stomach flat and hard with just enough padding to gently soften the lines in her abdomen. Her legs were long and shapely the hard muscles of her calves and thighs easy to discern. The remains of two raw fish lying in the waste basket at her feet.
Oh, and by the way, her left wing was ebony while her right one was pure white, extending about 12 feet tip to tip.
She was standing in the middle of the bathroom floor using a hand-held shower wand to wash her back and underneath her wings. As I stood there mouth agape, staring at her she became aware of my presence and shyly hid her nakedness with her wings. Noticing that her wings, not her body, were the central point of my attention she quickly tried to hide them behind her back and yes the carpet did indeed match the drapes, which I found somewhat disconcerting, all things considered.
"I'm sorry to wake you so early in the morning Kendal." I heard her speak with uncharacteristic familiarity in my mind, "But I couldn't let an opportunity like this slip by. These handicap bathrooms are just perfect for me."
Shocked by disbelief I silently closed the bathroom door before I staggered back to bed and crawled under the covers, pulling them over my head for good measure, all the while telling myself that it was all just a dream and I would wake up shortly.
As I lay huddling under the blankets trying to will myself back to sleep I heard the sound of the water stop running, only to be replaced a few moments later by the sound of the hair dryer.
After a short while the sound of the hair dryer finally stopped. Still keeping my head covered I listened closely for the sound of the room door closing telling me that my unearthly visitor had departed. When nothing happened I slowly poked my head out from beneath the sheets and surveyed the room. Seeing nothing I softly got out of bed and quietly gathered my things. Light was still pouring out from the crack under the bathroom door. My toiletries were still in the bathroom but not wanting to risk another encounter with whatever it was I had just seen, I decided to leave them behind in favor of a hasty retreat. Reaching for the door knob my progress was halted by the gentle sound of her voice speaking to me in my head.
"That door is locked," My uninvited guest told me mentally.
"I'm sorry," I heard myself apologize in a panic, "there was obviously a mix up at the front desk, I'm probably in the wrong room. I'll just grab my things and go get it straightened out."
Sticking her head out the door the beautiful apparition looked me in the eyes and replied without moving her lips. "You're a horrible liar." She said her eyes twinkling, "Why don't you have a seat and let me finish doing my hair, then we can talk."
"If it's all the same to you I think I should just leave before things get awkward." I answered.
"More awkward than a strange woman with wings taking a shower in your hotel room at four in the morning?" She cracked with a mischievous laugh.
"Well you got me there," I admitted as I tried the stubborn door knob.
"Go and sit down," she ordered, "if after we're done talking you still want to bolt I won't stop you."
Trapped I realized that I wasn't going anywhere so I did as I was told and sat down on the bed and stared at the blank TV screen wondering if I was ever going to wake up.
A few minutes later she emerged from the bathroom clad only in a towel with wings still attached and sat down in the chair across from me and smiled.
After a few seconds studying my face she began, again speaking without moving her mouth, "Well I guess we should begin with introductions. My name is World of Elegance, as you can tell by the wings I'm an Angel and yes I am the person you saved from freezing to death yesterday. Your name I know is Kendal but beyond that I know nothing except that I need your help."
"Are you really an Angel?" I felt myself ask involuntarily, "as in a Heavenly Angel?
"Kind of, sort of." She answered cryptically, "but more like a familiar, you don't really hear too much about us and when you do it's usually bad press, familiars being more closely associated with my mothers group than my fathers."
"So where did you get off to after I pulled you out of the snow yesterday?"
"That was cute the way you tried to use your body to keep the two of us warm," she told me, "but if we had stayed that way we both would've probably wound up freezing to death. So I hid… elsewhere until the storm passed and help arrived."
"Where did you go? I had the ski patrol tearing up the whole side of the mountain looking for you?"
"Let's leave that for later… After we have had our chance to talk."
"Be honest with me," I asked pressing her, "where you really in danger of freezing to death? Or are you just trying to massage my ego?"
"Oh most definitely, if you hadn't been there I would be frozen stiff right now. But enough questions. I have a proposition for you that I really wish you would consider, but before I ask I really need to know a little bit about you.
Sighing, I looked her in the eyes and answered "All you really need to know about me is that I'm a loser. My dad just passed away a month ago after a drawn out battle with cancer. My bitch of an ex-wife took advantage of the distraction, and by sleeping with both mine and her lawyers managed to take me for everything I had, house, cars and my business, throwing me out on the street for good measure. For the record the divorce from my wife was just finalized and the contents of that old VW Vanagon are just about the only things she let me keep!"
"Sounds like you've been given a pretty tough row to hoe these last few months." She said sympathetically.
"10 years of hard work all just pissed down the drain!" I remembered with bitter anger, "I poured my heart into that business. I know it wasn't much, just a small sporting goods manufacturing plant. I only had about 15 employees and we made custom surf boards, in-line skates and special snow skis, gone now, along with most of my dreams."
"My mistress likes to say that if you live to see your dream fulfilled then you didn't dream big enough."
"Is that so?" I snapped, "I used to live in a quaint little house in Carmel and through my business owned Timeshares in Tahoe and Hawaii. That's all in the past however, as of yesterday I joined the ranks of the homeless, I was living in the timeshare that used to belong to my business but it just got liquidated along with all my other assets when the divorce decree became final. So, you might as well be aware up front as far as any aid I might lend you, you would probably be better off asking elsewhere."
"So you're telling me you have no place to stay, no place to go and no one who cares."
"You just hit the nail square on the head lady."
"Well then," she began her eyes twinkling, "would you be interested in an adventure?"
"I don't think you're getting the picture," I explained to her, "I'm busted, and I can barely afford the gasoline for that cranky old VW. Much less afford to go on an adventure with someone who is more than likely just a figment of my imagination."
"I assure you I am real enough." World of Elegance said indignantly.
"Even so there is nothing I can do to help you."
"So you're not going to help me?" She stated sadly, "I thought after yesterday you might…"
"Don't get me wrong," I backpedaled, "I'm not saying I won't help and I'm not saying I don't want to help either, it's just that in my current situation I don't see how I can help."
"You say that, but still it seems that you are rejecting my request without even knowing what I'm going to ask."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound harsh," I sighed, "I'm just pissed at the world right now but the fact still remains that I'm pretty much down and out myself, even so what can I offer you?"
"You're soul." She said in all seriousness.
"What!"
"I'm in a bit of a bind here," she explained sheepishly, "One such as I who is an alien to this world can only survive for a very short period of time alone on this plane. I was struck from behind and have fallen to this place with no way to get home."
"Let me get this straight, you were attacked!" I interrupted.
"The battle between good and evil is an ongoing struggle," she explained, "and as my current situation clearly indicates; good doesn't always win. As to the specifics, I don't know exactly what happened but I was hit from behind and my host and I were forced apart. Since my host hasn't come for me it is possible that I might be requiring your help for the foreseeable future."
"Your host?" I asked her.
"I'm sorry," the mysterious Angel replied, "Your language is limited, and host is really a misleading concept. I'm just really part of another… more complete… being. We've been split in twain and if not quickly rejoined I might perish, or even worse survive...alone, only half of my former self.
"I see… I think, but where does my soul enter into this equation."
"It's a matter of survival you see, I require another's soul in which to live and there are scant few of them on this plane that Angels can merge with. It was all I could do to get as close to you as I did."
"And now that you have found me you're asking me to let you stay in my soul?"
"Yes, at least for the time being, I need you to help me hide until I get a handle on my current predicament."
"It sounds easy enough," I answered her suspiciously, "as a matter of fact too easy. So what's the downside?"
"Angels are parasites." She shyly admitted.
"Parasites?" I asked her in astonishment.
"Oh yes, I need your soul in order to supply me with the necessary life force energy my kind need to survive."
"You need my life force energy, like a vampire needs blood?" I asked fearfully.
"Don't you start to panic on me, I get enough crap like that at home," the Angel told me, "I'm not a blood sucker, although now that I think about it there might be some of Vald's DNA somewhere in my make up."
"That's not really comforting," I told her.
"Let me see if I can explain it more clearly. There are two types of energy required to sustain life, without sufficient amounts of both I cannot survive. The first type of energy, physical energy, is the energy you get from the sun through the consumption of plants and animals. The second type of energy, spiritual energy, is best referred to as the psychic resonance of the soul, something your science is just now beginning to understand. In my case, an Angel like me cannot even be born without the help of a host, someone who will help me meet both these energy demands in order to sustain my life. Somebody whose life energy is compatible with this plane and who is capable of allowing us to merge our souls with theirs. Since me and my permanent host have become separated I was hoping that you might…"
"So what you're asking me to do is stand in for your lost host?" I finished for her.
"Oh yes, and another thing, in order to fulfill the first of those aforementioned energy demands as long as I am resident in your soul you will be eating for two. Kind of like being pregnant without the benefit of the tax deduction, this, by the way, is why you have been so hungry lately. The psychic resonance energy stuff I can do myself as long as I have a compatible soul in which to reside.
"Let me get this straight," I asked curiously, "does that mean that you are already squatting in my soul?"
"Well yes I am. How do you think I got from the top of that damn mountain to here? Wherever here happens to be."
"Well I thought maybe you just flew down or something."
"I'm an Angel not some migratory bird!" She told me in all seriousness. "What happened yesterday was, after I crashed I put you to sleep and crawled inside your soul to keep the two of us from freezing to death! Although you didn't know it until now you have been eating for the two of us since I fell to Earth. Last night after you insisted on going to bed while we were both still starving I decided to go out for a little while and forage for food."
"I guess that explains the dead fish." I thought out loud.
"As I said Angels got to eat too." She answered with a smile.
"I know it's something you don't want to think about right now but is it possible that your old host is dead?"
"No," World of Elegance answered flatly, "Urd, that's my other half's name, is what you might call a goddess, very powerful, very difficult to kill and is still very much alive. I would know if it were different. We were forced apart while we were still very high up. I know she fell to Earth some considerable distance East of where you found me but I don't know exactly where.
"Kendal," the sound of her voice changing in my head taking on a pleading tone. "The simple fact of the matter is I'm lost and alone and I need a place to stay and you are the only one who can help me. I know you weren't expecting this when you saved my life but could you please, please take responsibility for that life and allow me to hideout in your soul?"
"Since you already moved in there why bother to ask? Or is there something you're not telling me?"
"There is a lot I'm not telling you, simply because I just don't have time to explain it all. What I can tell you is this, when an Angel is born her soul takes the shape of their host. What you see of me here standing before you is the true nature of mine and Urd's soul. One whose soul is torn constantly between the light and the darkness. If you allow me to stay then my soul will try to reshape yours in its image and when I leave, you will mark my absence with great sorrow. These are rules that govern my existence. Yesterday was an emergency which is why I was in your soul without asking. But today is a different matter and I know that Urd would want you to be aware of the consequences of your kindness. Since you already know about me it would be safest if you were to open your soul and let me hangout until I get a handle on my situation, but you will suffer for it."
"So basically you're asking me to suffer the consequences of the actions of another in order to save the life of someone else who I don't even know."
"That's about the size of it," She acknowledged.
"Other than being totally screwed, just exactly what is your situation?"
"I'm not sure myself;" she admitted uncomfortably, "Tenuous would be the best way to describe it. Since my fall to Earth was the result of actions from the other side it is possible that they are looking for me."
"You used the word 'safest' just now, so you know I have to ask this: What will happen to me if they catch up to you while you're still hiding out in my soul?"
"You're right," World of Elegance sighed, a disappointed look on her face, "I shouldn't have asked, if they do find me inside you they will probably just kill you out of hand if only to get to me."
"Hell, this just keeps getting better and better!" I said in disgust, "You were just going to gloss over that last part had I not asked weren't you?"
Busted, she looked down at the floor obviously ashamed. "Please forgive me," she asked softly, "but this isn't just my survival that we are talking about here."
There was a time in my recent past, when just that small amount of duplicity would have gotten the offender permanently deleted from my friends list. As a result over the years the list of people I trusted had steadily shrunk to zero, leaving me with no one to turn to in my time of need. Who knows, maybe if I had been just a little less rigid I might have had someone in my corner to give me a hand when my life went to shit. So, oddly enough I knew where she was coming from and understood her level of desperation at having to ask a total stranger for help. I even understood why she felt the need to skirt the truth.
My old life was gone, erased like ski tracks in a snow storm. It was, I realized, time to start anew, starting with a radical attitude adjustment on my part. "You are forgiven," I answered her truthfully, "But please don't make a habit of it, now explain to me how exactly do you go about getting inside."
"It's really very simple," World of Elegance said with an air of relief, "A person's soul is a unique occurrence in the universe. It's a place where the essence of your life force is stored, kind of like a safe deposit box. It's the contents of this box that you take with you to the next life and like a safe deposit box it can be opened and closed to access what's inside. What I need for you to do is open that box and let me place the contents of my box in next to yours."
"Okay and how do I do that?"
"You can't," World of Elegance told me, "you humans don't know how. However there is a way to work around that restriction. That safe deposit box is only as secure as the guard who watches it. If that guard, AKA you, falls asleep then anybody who knows how can come along and peak inside. What I need for you to do is lie back down and go back to sleep then I'll work my way back inside."
Crawling back under the covers I did as I was told, a few seconds later World of Elegance joined me spooning up next to me from behind. Shortly thereafter I remember dozing off not waking until well after nine o'clock in the morning. Getting up I did a double check of the room to make sure that last night wasn't just a dream. Sure enough, the remains of Elegance's fishing expedition were still in the garbage pail next to the toilet.
"Well, I hope you're comfortable in there this morning." I said speaking to World of Elegance not really expecting an answer.
"As a matter of fact I am quite comfortable." I heard her answer me.
"You mean we can communicate while you are stuck in my soul?"
"Of course I can silly. How do you think I communicate with my other half, Urd?"
"Sorry," I answered her back, "I didn't think about it. So tell me what is on the menu for today?"
"First off," she answered, "is eat breakfast. Make sure it is a big one, high in calories because you are eating for two now and I'm still trying to recover my strength after my fall to Earth the other day."
Doing as she instructed, I stuffed my face with as much food as I thought my stomach could handle at the hotel's buffet. Then I hopped into the venerable VW and topped off the tank before pointing it eastward towards Kingman. When we got there I hopped onto I40 eastbound towards Flagstaff. Once on the freeway I pressed the pedal all the way to the floorboards getting the old Van up to almost 70 miles an hour before the wind resistance overcame the anemic engine of the 40-year-old rolling relic. As I traveled down the freeway I decided it would be a good idea to get to know more about my invisible friend.
It's amazing sometimes the misconceptions we have of those things we only think we understand. For instance did you know that Angels are Oviparous? They have a lifespan that is limited to that of their god or goddess host and these so called divine beings themselves grow old like all other living things.
World of Elegance was more than happy to tell me about where she was from and what it was like to be an Angel. The visuals she explained to me have no cross comparison to our world, so it would be useless for me to try to describe. But the emotions, her feelings of where she lived and what she did came across clearly. World of Elegance's host was a special kind of goddess called a Norn, one of the three divine guardians of time. Who for some reason or another thought it was a good idea to get herself banished to the mortal plane, Midgard as they refer to it, in order to personally manage her younger half sister's love life.
When asked how she was able to survive such a great fall without injury, she explained to me that Angels such as herself have the ability to manipulate the environment around them in ways that would baffle our most advanced thinking. But, she reassured me, all she was really doing was applying an unknown science, (to us anyway,) to the natural world around her. For instance, the reason that she was able to fall from such a great height unharmed was because she manipulated her aura to deflect the atmosphere as it flowed around her in much the same way the shuttle reenters the atmosphere by creating a plasma barrier between her and her exposed skin. The conversion process, she told me, requires a tremendous amount of energy, more than any living being should be capable of generating.
The reason that she was able to do it anyway is also what makes her kind different from most other living things. Angels are intelligent parasites, as such they are not limited to just what they can eat and excrete but are also possessed with the ability to absorb energy directly from the environment and other living things. The process is much like the regenerative braking systems on new electric cars. What that translates to in terms of practical application is that while she was falling she generated an aura about her body that she used as a shield. As this shield came in contact with the atmosphere it heated up generating energy that she reabsorb and fed back into the process, protecting her as she fell to the Earth. "And no," she told me, "Angels are not born knowing this. It is something we have to be taught."
She also explained how she used a slightly different process when she impacted the side of the mountain. In that instance she dissipated the energy at the moment of impact then reabsorbed it at a slower rate to keep the force from shattering her body.
"Of course none of this is free for nothing," she admitted, "the process of up converting and down converting from one state to another involves a loss of a considerable amount of energy at each stage of the process, the deficit, of course, being made up for by energy drawn directly from the Angel's strength. By the time I collided with the ground I was pretty much at my limit. Believe it or not, if you had not found me and dragged me over to that shed I most likely would have perished because the cold of the snow would have zapped what little strength I had remaining."
This made me both happy and sad, happy because I did indeed save someone from dying. Sad, because you would like to think of Angels as somehow immune to the pain and suffering that we experience on the mortal plane.
"Why does Heaven need guardians of time for?" I asked her out of curiosity, "Doesn't that sort of negate freedom of choice."
"Don't get yourself confused," she answered me in a playful voice, "everybody has their own God given freedom of choice. However, the price of that gift is that there is no freedom FROM choice, nor the consequences of the choices you make."
"So you're like the Heavenly version of the police, sent to keep us in line and maybe extract retribution when we make a mess of things?"
"Quit trying to act so stupid, it really doesn't suit you at all." She ribbed me, "Cause and effect are all part of the living universe. We hardly ever take an active hand in the mechanics. What we mostly do is push back against the darkness, against those who would deny others their freedom of choice."
"I see, I think."
"No you don't. But you can't be expected to grasp the whole concept at first brush. Suffice it to say that time itself flows like a river, and a person's freedom to choose is integral to keeping it following the proper course. However, since these choices are what is causing the river to follow a certain path, bad choices then can cause the river to change course and flow in a direction that it wasn't supposed to go. My host and her two sisters monitor that flow and make adjustments as required to keep it flowing in the direction that the Almighty One desires."
"I'm almost afraid to ask, but how?"
"It varies depending on just how much correction is needed; the preferred way is through the dispensing of Heaven's grace, the granting of a small wish to individuals who are deemed worthy. By allowing those people whose vision of the future aligns with ours more easily achieve their goals, we help keep the river of time flowing its proper path. However, often times we find ourselves at loggerheads with Niflheim."
"Who or what the hell is Niflheim?"
"Exactly." World of Elegance answered me.
"Exactly what?"
"Hel is Niflheim, Niflheim is Hel."
It was about this point in our relationship that I began to get a glimmer of just how deep a pile of shit I had stepped into.
As we approached Williams, Arizona, World of Elegance became aware of some type of psychic presence in the Grand Canyon. At her request we turned northward and headed towards the South rim. Fortunately for us one of the few things that my bitch of an ex-wife left me were my National Park entrance passes that I purchased for my business each year so that I could show off my companies products. Arriving in the parking lot on the South rim World of Elegance directed me further northward so we began to circumvent the canyon heading towards the north rim. About half way around the rim where the road is only a few yards from the cliff edge World of Elegance had me stop the Van. As soon as I got out of the Van World of Elegance manifested and giving me a quick mischievous smiled turned and jumped headlong off the side of the cliff. Horrified I ran to the edge and watched as she performed an intricate series of twists and turns catching herself with her wings before she disappeared into the cloud layer below. Sometime later she exploded up the side of the cliff, her face streaked with blood and two dead pigeons, one in each hand.
I was having a hard enough time as it was getting a handle on this fantasy versus reality stuff. But this last stunt was totally over the top. When I asked her what she was doing she told me in a matter-of-fact voice that she was hungry and just wanted to stop for a snack. Fish and fowl being her primary staple because people tend to notice half eaten large furry animals lying along the roadside. For my part I told her that the next time she felt like getting the munchies she should just give me a heads up and I would stop at the next McDonald's.
Gobbling down the pigeons faster than the feathers could settle to the ground she hopped back in the van and we continued northward. Once on the north side of the ridge World of Elegance had me stop at an oddly shaped formation of rocks off to one side of the road. Jumping out of the Van she lay at the base of the rocks staring up at the sky.
"Mind if I ask what's up?" I inquired, trying not to get distracted by her ethereal beauty.
"This place," she began, "used to be a holy place; a long long time ago people came here to pray. Those prayers had a special kind of power you see, and some of that power is still present, stored in the surrounding environment."
"So are you tapping into that power now?"
"More like I'm aligning myself with it." She answered, "The second form of energy needed to sustain life, what I called resonance spiritual energy is different from my world to yours.
"I thought you told me that you were handling those demands yourself."
"I am, but I still need your soul to serve as a converter of sorts. By placing my soul inside of yours you enable me to absorb that second form of energy, this is why I can't survive on my own. Right now I'm trying to get in tune with your world, make myself less dependent on you."
"You know I don't really mind that you are dependent on me." (Perfect scenario, I told myself, beautiful woman totally dependent on me, what is there to mind?)
"You're sweet, but the struggle for control of creation has been going on since before the dawn of man and everything about this conflict proceeds at a glacier like pace. If I'm not quickly reunited with my host it is possible that I might be stuck down here for a very, very long time. So you see, it only makes good sense that I be as prepared as possible."
"I see, that way you won't be so exposed should something happen to me?" I asked her rhetorically.
"I will allow no harm to befall you!" She told me indignantly, "On that you have my promise!"
As I carefully studied the expression on her face I noticed that while World of Elegance talked a good game her eyes were telling a different story. She was lost and alone with no one but a perfect stranger to depend on. Walking up to her I squatted down and looked her straight in the eye.
"You're afraid." I said.
"No," she answered, returning my gaze, "I stopped being afraid a long time ago. I am terrified! You see I'm only recently reconciled with my other half, for years she kept me sequestered inside, away from the outside world. I just don't know all the things I need to know about this world. To make matters worse my host was hit so hard and fast that we didn't have time to disentangle our souls. So she had no choice but to entrust her soul to me so I could escape. So you see I have her life, my life and now your life all riding on my shoulders and even for an Angel that is a lot of weight to carry."
"Well then, don't try to carry it all alone. I know it's not much but I promise you I will do everything I can to help see you to the end of it."
"Well then," she said, jumping up suddenly, "let's be on our way then."