18 - The Angel Castiel

Emmanuel woke up in a small room. It seemed he was still in the RV, and the RV was moving. The wheels bounced over the rough roads, hitting potholes deep enough to make his teeth rattle. His wing ached. He was resting it on the bed, trying to provide it with as much support as he could, but it wasn't much. The cast, he knew, had been removed much too early. At least he hadn't been conscious when the cast was removed. He imagined that must have been very painful, based solely on how much the wing throbbed when he'd awakened.

Whatever it was he'd been forced to take seemed to still be in effect. Emmanuel felt as though his head were in a fog. He was sluggish, his thoughts slowed. Even if the RV hadn't been moving, he knew he'd have trouble walking. As it was, he was forced to stay seated at the edge of the bed or cling to the walls in order to keep from falling as he explored. Something rubbed on his right ankle. He looked down and saw a heavy metal anklet had been locked around it. A bit of prying failed to get it loose. He let it be for now.

Emmanuel's world now consisted of a tiny room that contained a bed, a table with a chair, a toilet and a sink. The door was made of metal, with no visible hinges, window, or any way to open it. There was also a small area of linoleum floor about two feet wide. That was all. He barely had enough room to turn around, and no way to do so without his wings dragging on the walls. The room was longer than it was wide, crammed into a repurposed closet that had been sealed off inside the large RV. No wonder the vehicle had looked larger from the outside. He'd been hidden away from the outside world. And there, gathered in the corners among the dust, was a collection of black down and feathers. They weren't recent. They were, he realized with a sinking heart, the result of a previous period of confinement. This was where he'd been locked away before.

How long had he been here? How much time had he spent locked in this room, all alone, completely sealed off from all contact except for whatever the Adlers chose to give him? How could he get out now?

Emmanuel checked his pockets. His cell phone was gone, along with his wallet. No way to call for help. And the longer he looked around, the more memories returned. Hour after hour, trapped here, staring at these walls… No. He had to get out.

He looked around, searching for an exit and finding none. In a panic, he attacked the walls with the chair, only to find metal behind the thin plywood. Shaking fingers traced the steel as his eyes frantically searched, picking out the telltale marks from earlier escape attempts. Behind the plywood was solid steel. He could remember that now. The entire room, even the floors and ceiling, had been fitted with heavy steel plates covered with cork. It represented the most money the Adlers had ever spent on him, and it was horrifyingly effective. He couldn't break out. No one on the outside could hear his desperate attempts to escape. He was, effectively, locked inside of a giant, custom-made safe that had been installed in the closet of the RV. There was a small air vent in the ceiling next to an overhead lamp that provided all the light he got. He could turn the light on and off with the pull string, control the flow of air by adjusting the vent. But when the light was off, he was in complete darkness. The vent was far too small for him to crawl into. No way out.

The door had a small slit where he remembered his meal trays being passed, as well as clean clothing and washing materials, but it only opened from the outside. All three items, he recalled, were privileges to be earned, not rights, and nothing he could take for granted. Memories were battering at him now like the waves of an angry ocean, memories of being lonely, hungry, filthy, wearing the same ragged clothes day after day…

No. Not again. He couldn't go through that again, couldn't go back to the sad yet resigned being he'd been before. There was a whole other world out there. He couldn't stay here. He had to get out.

For hours, he banged at the door and cried out for help, desperate to escape. He'd been ignored. Eventually, the vehicle stopped. He could smell food through his vent, making his stomach growl angrily, but no food had been offered to him.

The next day, Hannah had finally come, offering not food, but more pills through the slot in the door. He'd refused to take them, demanding to be let out. She'd withdrawn. The vehicle started again. It seemed like an eternity he'd paced in the tiny room. Now and again he could smell food as the Adlers stopped for meals or rest. Again, he was offered nothing. All he could do was try to fill his stomach with water from the sink. It wasn't nearly enough. No one checked on him. By the time the RV stopped again, he was shaking from hunger and whimpering from the complete solitude.

The next time Hannah offered the pills, he'd pleaded with her to help him. She'd only withdrawn again. Finally, on the third attempt after four days, he'd taken the pills.

"What will these pills do to me?" he asked, peering at her through the slot as he'd returned the small cup she'd given him with water. "They're not the same as the other ones."

"Just keep you calm," she said, obviously thinking she was being reassuring. "And we'll know if you don't actually swallow them. We can recognize the effects when you do, so don't try to pocket them and spit them out later."

Emmanuel grimaced, sighed, and swallowed the pills.

"You can't act the way you've been acting, Emmanuel" Hannah scolded. "Zachariah will get angry if you don't stop."

"Hannah, why do you stay with him?" Emmanuel demanded. "He brutalizes you, treats you nearly as badly as he treats me. Why would you stay with a man like that?"

Hannah looked away. "Zachariah's not always like that," she defended. "I was homeless and addicted to drugs before he found me. He took me in, cleaned me up, and made me his wife and his partner. He's been kind to me, when no one else was. He loves me, and he hardly ever hits me. Mostly, he does that to control you. He knows you care more about other people than you do about what happens to you."

"Please let me out," he pleaded. "And come with me. We can get away, get help…"

She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. "Stay calm and prove you can be a good angel, and you can eat." With that, she'd closed the slot.

The pills didn't knock him out this time, but they certainly made him feel strange. He felt less angry, less inclined to attack the walls and demand to be let out. A few hours later, when Hannah brought him more pills, he hadn't bothered to try to talk to her.

At the end of the day, he'd lost much of his will to fight. There seemed little use. He couldn't get out. This time, after he'd again taken the pills without protest, he'd finally been given something to eat - a ham and cheese sandwich with a small container of milk. With no way to accurately judge the passing of time, he wasn't completely sure what meal it was meant to be. But he believed it was late in the evening when the slot in the door opened again.

Unfortunately, it was Adler's smiling face that peered in. "Hello, Emmanuel! Feeling a little less sassy now?"

"I feel mostly drugged," Emmanuel had admitted. "Why are you doing this? What are you going to do with me?"

"We've got a private showing tonight, just a few people to start things up," the man explained, passing a bundle of terrycloth through the slot. "You're going to prove that you can be trusted, or you'll find out exactly what happens when you're a bad angel. Now get cleaned up. Hannah will be in soon to get you dressed, get your make-up on, and prepare you for the show." He tsked, shaking his head as he eyed Emmanuel. "We need to paint over that bald spot on your wing. And we have got to get you back in the tanning bed. Your tan has suffered from being away. Can't have you looking pale and sickly!"

Emmanuel reluctantly took the items, which turned out to be a towel, washcloth, and a small hotel-sized soap with a similar sized bottle of shampoo. His hands shook as he accepted them. Still, he raised his head to glare at Adler. "You honestly believe you can force me to participate in this lie, to pretend to be the Angel Castiel again?"

"Oh, I know I can," Adler responded, still cheerful. "You perform, or you don't eat."

"I can't perform if I'm starved," Emmanuel pointed out.

"I know," Adler replied, nonplused. "That's why we're going to start with a few small, private showings before we work our way back up to the big revivals. Think of them as rehearsals for the main thing." With that, he'd closed the slot.

With no other real choice, Emmanuel quickly washed at the sink. He'd just finished and was standing in his boxers towel drying his hair when the door opened and Hannah came in. She wrinkled her nose. "Take those off, Emmanuel. They smell terrible! Besides, you can't wear them under your robe."

Emmanuel tried to explain that it wasn't appropriate to be naked in front of another person he wasn't intimate with. Hannah didn't care. She'd jerked the boxers down, nearly ripping them as she yanked them off of his legs. Then she'd gone to work. She'd used a can of black spray paint to cover the spot on his wing. It had been growing feathers back, but was still visible. Now, it mostly looked odd. Hannah seemed satisfied, though. She expertly applied make-up to his face before dressing him in a long, flowing white robe. Emmanuel didn't protest. This was familiar, being dressed in this robe, having make-up put on his face. But his heart was pounding as he'd listened to Hannah.

"The stage is set up," she explained. "I know you don't remember, so listen closely. This is what you'll do. Your trunk is outside. You'll get in, and I'll bring you out like another piece of equipment and hide you backstage. You'll stay there and keep quiet until the show starts. When Zachariah says the phrase 'feathers black as night,' that's your cue to come out. I'll have the dry ice ready and the mist will be up when you come on stage and flap your wings to clear the mist. It'll look just like you flew in through the mist. The suckers always go nuts for that. Then just take your cue from Zachariah on what you're supposed to heal."

"But I can't heal!"

Hannah rolled her eyes. "What does that matter, Emmanuel? Your job is to act the part. The people believe they're healed half the time anyway."

"I won't do this, Hannah," he warned. "I won't be a part of this fraud. If he'll beat you in front of his victims, what makes him think they won't…?"

"It won't be me that he hurts!" she exclaimed. "If you do anything that gives us away, we'll have no choice but to make sure that no one talks about it."

Emmanuel stared. "Wait, you can't mean…? Are you saying Zachariah would actually hurt innocent people, just to keep this lie a secret?"

"He's done it before," Hannah confirmed. "You passed a note to someone at a show once. The guy came up to Zachariah afterwards, demanding to know what it was about. Zachariah had him come into the RV, put a bullet in his head, and threw him in the room with you. You were trapped in there with the body for three days before Zachariah forced you to drag him out in the wilderness and bury him." She shook her head. "That's a lesson I'm amazed you could ever forget."

Emmanuel had gone still. Memories were rising from the darkness in his mind again, memories of a face frozen forever in shock, of his own guilt, of horror and disgust as the body began to decay in the tiny room where he couldn't get away from it. He shuddered. "I won't do anything to give us away. I swear it."

"I hope so," she said. "That's why we're doing private shows first, so you remember that lesson and prove you won't repeat your mistake."

She handed him a granola bar. He ate it with a speed that made him almost choke, looked up to see her offering him a second, and ate it with a bit more restraint. "So this is my life?" he said after he'd finished. "Perform so I can eat, and don't do anything to give it away or other people pay the price?"

"Please, Emmanuel," Hannah pleaded, "just be a good angel and you'll be able to go back into your trunk when I raise the mist again and be brought back here. Then it will be over for another night."

Emmanuel experimentally raised his wing and winced. "I don't know that I can flap it. It's…"

"Manage it! We both know you have a high pain tolerance." She bent down and quickly checked the thing on his ankle. He frowned at it, looking to her for an explanation.

"It's an ankle bracelet," she explained. "This whole thing was a lot easier when you were innocent and obedient and didn't do anything besides occasionally complain that what we were doing wasn't right. But now we know you'll try to escape, and that you came back with some kind of fire in you. That's why we need this. If you try to run and get too far from the RV, it will give you an incapacitating shock. So don't bother trying to run away again."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Emmanuel hissed, clenching his fists. "How can you force me into tricking these people? You have to know it's wrong!"

"You're playing the Angel Castiel, not Mother Theresa," she snapped. "So spare me the sanctimonious bullshit. Some people are born rich. The rest of us have to work to get there. If you want to survive, you need money. This is a job, just like any other, to get us that money."

"And what about the people you're stealing from?" Emmanuel demanded. "You're selling them a lie, one that could quite literally cost them their lives. How can you not care about that?"

"Because if they're stupid enough to buy into this, then they deserve what they get," she replied without a trace of shame. "Now come on. Into the trunk. And don't try to run because the ankle bracelet won't let you get far, and you really don't want to give Zachariah another reason to use the taser on you."

There was little choice. The trunk, he discovered, was a large black metal trunk designed to hold speaker equipment, but barely big enough for him to fit in. It was hot, cramped, and uncomfortable. He desperately wanted out. He wanted away from all of this. He wanted to be somewhere with bees, with nothing to trap him and keep him in one place.

It seemed like an eternity before taped organ music began to play. He could hear Adler, his voice rising and falling as he preached about the state of the world. People, according to Adler, had fallen away from the true faith. "God's angels have seen our weakness," he announced. "But these mighty servants of Heaven are not without compassion. One, the Angel Castiel, came to me in my dreams. He told me that we share a profound bond, that he would grip me tight and raise me from Perdition so that I could spread the message to those who truly believe. He promised me that night that he would always come when I called. I will call him tonight, for your sake."

Soft voices raised in thanks greeted this announcement.

"Angel Castiel, hear my prayer," Zachariah demanded. "Come forth tonight in all your Heavenly glory. Reach forth your hand to touch your servants and heal them of their affliction. Come now, mighty angel of the Lord, on your mighty wings with your feathers black as night…"

There was more, but Emmanuel had heard his cue. He climbed out of the trunk, seeing the mist that was flowing around the curtain. In his white robe, he realized, no one would see him simply walking up. He wouldn't be visible until he cleared the mist.

Could he really do this? Could he really help Adler betray these people? Emmanuel wasn't sure, even as he stepped forward and reluctantly spread his wings.

But as he flapped, ignoring the pain to clear the mist and revealed the family waiting in front of Adler, his heart sank. It was a couple, their faces shining with hope as they held to the shoulders of a bald-headed, pale-faced little girl, staring solemnly at him with wide eyes. Before them, Adler made a slight movement. The man was wearing robes similar to Emmanuel's. The flowing sleeve hid the gleam of the pistol he held in his hand from the family. "Welcome, Angel Castiel," Adler intoned. "This family has asked me to intercede on their behalf for their daughter, who is suffering from incurable brain cancer. I ask that you reach out your healing hand, place it on this child, and heal her illness."

In the end, there really was no choice.