Page 12 of The Redeemable 4

We walked along the remnants of an avenue toward the outer edge of the city. I could sense Raphael’s light, the heavenly beacon still calling me despite my status. Arcadia was quiet, shell shocked.

Memphis looked… worried. “What’s wrong?”

He just grunted and pointed to a squat white building. One wall had a blown out hole in it. “He’s there.”

I reached out and grabbed his arm, halting him.

“What’s wrong?”

“I haven’t seen Raphael since we fell. His was the last face I saw before we landed in hell,” he mumbled.

“You told me yourself that Raphael is a softie. There’s no animosity in his heart.”

We stepped into the building, and for all intents it looked abandoned, nothing but a shell with hints at its previous occupants. A cross still hung on the wall. A child’s stuff toy lay dirty and forgotten in a corner. But in the dimness of the corner, faint light glowed between the floorboards.

“Down,” I mouthed, and looked around for some kind of latch or finger hold to lift the boards. Beneath a roughhewn piece of concrete was a single knothole, and Memphis reached past me to lift the large square of boards that opened to reveal stairs. We could hear voices, and we followed the stairs down to a large open room, with several kerosene lanterns burning and an old wooden table placed in the center. The smell of blood, desperation and hopelessness hit my nose. I lived in hell, I knew the scent of death well. This was the most rudimentary of field hospitals. A last ditch stop before you left the mortal plane forever. A tall man, with nondescript features and a blood soaked button up shirt, was operating on a child. The lower half of the boy’s leg was a mess of torn muscle and shattered bone. The kid was thankfully out of it.

“Acerezeal. Michael said you’d probably drop by. Come, I need you to hold these.” He waved the handle of a metal clamp at me.” He hadn’t looked up from his task. I took the clamp which was holding the kid's femoral artery shut. I noticed another boy in the corner, probably not much older than the boy on the table, but he was also covered in blood. Beneath the drying blood though, the boys naturally olive skin was a deathly grey cast.

“Is he okay?”

Raphael gave a humorless laugh. “No one is okay here, Acerezeal. But physically he is unharmed. He pulled Adnan from the rubble and carried him here. His parents are dead, as well as two of his siblings.” Finally, Raphael looked at me, and I saw his clear green eyes filled with despair. His eyes flicked to Memphis and he finally smiled. “Mephistopheles. It heals my heart to see you looking so well. Please, soothe Nazir. It would be best if he didn’t see me do this procedure on his brother. He has seen enough horror for one day.”

Arcadia’s gentle sobs became white noise in the back of my mind as I went to work with Raphael, his fingers deft as he pieced the boy back together.

Memphis waved a hand over Nazir’s dark head, and the boy fell into a deep slumber. Memphis put him in a pallet in the corner, wrapping him in a heavy woven blanket.

“It is the third day of bombing in the city. Soon there will be nothing left to claim in victory. They will be claiming a country of corpses.” There was a thread of steel in Raphael’s voice, one that I’d never heard before, even during the angelic wars.

“Do you want us to stay? We could help,” I whispered, though I didn’t know why. The only people who could hear us were both out of it for the foreseeable future.

Raphael was silent as he used the bone saw to cut away the kids mangled leg just below the knee. We worked quickly to seal off the blood vessels and nerves and sealing the wound with two flaps of skin.

When it was over, Raphael wrapped the leg in dressings, but the kid still looked pale. Blood was being transfused, so he wasn’t that deathly white, but he wasn’t far off.

“You didn’t use any angelic healing,” I said, trying, and probably failing, to keep the accusatory tone from my voice.

“No. I’m not meant to be here, in an official capacity that is,” he said as he stripped off his blood-stained shirt and threw it in a pile in the corner. He slumped down on a wooden chair near the head of the impromptu operating table. “It’s all part of the plan. But it means I can only work with human medical advancements in a rather rudimentary setting. But still, I save as many as I can.” He closed his eyes against remembered horrors. “Make your request, Acerezeal. I need a nap.”

I knelt at his feet. “We need you to put Arcadia’s soul back into her body. She doesn’t deserve her fate.”

He stroked the hair from my forehead, so he could look into my eyes. “She would live a few more decades at most. With you, she could live for eternity. Is it so necessary to put her back in a failing body?” I nodded vehemently. He stroked a finger down his angular jaw. “Would you have me put Arcadia’s soul back at the expense of your own?”

“Yes.”

No! Arcadia shouted vehemently.

Raphael smiled. “Michael was right. Your time with Arcadia did redeem you. I thought the Father must have been mistaken. But then, the Father does not make mistakes.”

Memphis huffed. “Can you really mean that, with this going on around you?” He indicated the two sleeping boys and the sounds of gunfire and missile blasts in the background.

The smile slipped from Raphael’s face. “I do mean that. At times, I don’t understand it, but there is a plan. I do what I can, and I must be okay with that.” He turned back to me. “I regret that that is also my answer. The Father has made it clear that the fate of your Arcadia is out of our hands. I’m sorry, truly.” He seemed genuinely remorseful, and that was the only thing that kept a cap on the simmering rage I felt in my gut. I knew the feeling helplessness when your hands were tied.

What will happen to the boys? Arcadia asked.

Raphael smiled. “Michael was right about you too, Arcadia Jones.” He shook his head. “The boys have no family left. Adnan is only four, Nazir is twelve. They are two of many Syrian orphans that will be cared for by international aid foundations.”

I could feel Arcadia’s refusal at that sentiment. The boys would not be one in a multitude of orphans, not if she had anything to do about it.

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