Earthbound Bones Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Earthbound Bones

  ReGina Welling

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  © 2016 ReGina Welling.

  All Rights Reserved, worldwide.

  No part of this book or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials.

  Thirty Years Ago

  One hand on the wheel, the other clutching an ice cold beer, condensation slick on the can—he raised a toast to the three jerks who ruined the last fishing trip they’d ever take together. The half hour between sunset and night dropped the flat light of dusk over the hood of the car he’d cobbled together from junkyard rejects. All she needed was a coat of paint.

  The sharp smell of yeast and hops hit his nose mere seconds before he noticed the damp spreading over his crotch. Much, much later he would swear he only took his eyes off the road for half a second to tend to his beer-soaked Levis.

  Four teenagers dodging school for one last fishing trip on the lake, a campfire, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Those were the parts of that day he preferred to remember.

  Not the trees coming at him when he looked up. Not the desperate wrench of the wheel to get back in his own lane. Not the sickening thud, the crunch, or the heart-stopping panic taking him from totally buzzed to completely sober. Not the round white face, the fear-filled eyes, or the bright smear of blood. Not coming home muddy and tired. Those memories he did his best to shove into the darkest recesses of his mind, where the light of memory would have to strain to find them.

  The past was the past. Everything and everyone in it needed to stay buried. He would make sure it did. No matter what. He couldn’t handle what would happen if it didn’t.

  Galmadriel

  Angels never sleep—which is why waking up disoriented and draped over a pile of bodies meant something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

  Light pounded through my slitted eye, forcing me to close it until my brain could adjust to the onslaught.

  Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked away endless seconds while I tried to remember who I was, where I was, and what had happened to me. The buzzing mist in my head amplified the noise from a soft click to an echoing boom. I counted ten, then fifteen seconds before the first memory came rushing back.

  My name is Galmadriel. I am—or at least I was—a guardian angel. As if unlocking a door, that knowledge unleashed a literal eternity of memories: watching over my charges; crying for them when they needed to walk through the dark in order to find the light; feeling gutted for those who refused my help, and then devastated for the one I had failed.

  Once the memories came back, my mind wouldn’t stop replaying them. The whirling circle closing in around us. The scream ripped from the hell-bound Earthwalker. The mortals who, without hesitation, risked all. The backlash that dragged Kat’s soul away before her time, and the desperate race to get it back. The final moment when I had either been thrown out of Heaven or fallen from grace. It had happened so quickly I couldn’t tell exactly which. Not that it mattered, the end result was the same.

  Breaking rules—even for the best of reasons—might have cost me everything: my home; my status as a guardian angel; even my immortality. All of it gone; given up to save two humans from my own folly.

  The mortals. I needed to get up and check on them.

  Adrenaline coursed through my veins with a jolt that forced my aching body into a sitting position. A soft whine sounded from somewhere behind me, but I dared not turn my head when even the slightest movement spun the world and made me wobble.

  Another whine accompanied a flutter of motion while I waited, first for the whirling to stop, and then for my eyes to clear. I turned my head to meet Lola’s liquid brown gaze. What was it about boxer dogs that made them look sad even when their tails were wagging? Before I could turn my head again, she treated me to a swipe of her tongue, and while it was softer and warmer than I would have expected, the experience was not one I wanted to repeat.

  I blinked away the last of the fog to bring the sprawl of bodies into sharp focus. A gusting sigh escaped my lips at the sight before me. All eight of the humans breathed rhythmically. They lived. Relief ebbed the adrenaline like a calming balm over a bee sting. Three deep breaths saw it leaving my system, and my thrumming heart began to slow.

  In a moment, they would start to stir. There would be questions I didn’t want to answer—probably couldn’t answer, come to that. We had banished an Earthwalker—a malevolent spirit—from a man possessed. A victory to be sure. One worth celebrating if not for what happened next. My hubris allowed Kat’s spirit to cross over while her body still lived. To get her back I broke a cardinal rule by sending Zack across to retrieve her.

  Amethyst, the aura reader, led the rest of the humans in anchoring the living side, while the two ghosts helped me sustain the connection to spirit. Holding the bridge in place had proved too much for us and when it let go, I went along with it. Dragged or tossed out of heaven and into this mortal body. All I remembered was the endless sensation of falling.

  These were good, caring people. All eight of them with an endless capacity for love. Still, feeling unable to cope with their sympathy, I sneaked out of the house with my head held low to avoid the possibility of seeing my altered shadow. If there was one thing I was still sure of, it was this: fallen angels always lose their wings.

  A shaft of sunlight slashed across eyes I mistakenly thought had adjusted to the glare. Not so, I decided, as my temple throbbed straight past ache to pounding, screaming pain. This flesh and bone body seemed so small, so frail, so diminished, so alien.

  I could feel it dying around me.

  Without thinking, I reached for the power of my grace and willed myself as far from there as I could get. The familiar wash of energy whispered over skin sensitized by its first true taste of wind and everything went gray for the second time that day.

  Chapter 1

  Three months later

  One minute everything was fine; the next, Pam Allen’s heart launched into her throat. She stomped her foot on the imaginary passenger-side brake of her food truck. The woman standing in the middle of the road had come from out of nowhere.

  Eyes painfully wide and quivering hands pressed to her cheeks, Pam sent a desperate prayer heavenward. It would take either a miracle or divine intervention to stop the truck in time. Seconds turned in on themselves and stretched out like molasses crawling across snow, while driver Hamlin Paine fought to keep control as the tires broke free from the surface of the road. Saucer-sized eyes filled with terror, his hands whipped the wheel to steer into the skid, and he used both feet to pump the brake.

  ***

  Everything went from gray, to living color, to heart-slamming panic in a split second. Helpless, she watched the flat-fronted truck with images of food painted all over it hurtle toward her. Out of habit formed over an eternity, the former angel raised one hand in a gesture no longer infused with power, and whispered, stop. Nothing happened—not a fizzle or a spark. The well of pure energy always available to her had become clogged with humanity.

  On her fi
rst day of being human, Galmadriel was about to die.

  Well beyond the ability to form a coherent thought, Galmadriel turned to instinct. She set aside all memory of the fall that had turned her human, and just remembered what it felt like to be an angel. Desperate need and an eternity of ingrained habit imbued Galmadriel’s hand with a portion of the power she had once possessed. Loudly and firmly, she repeated the command for the vehicle to stop.

  Later, Pam would swear she saw the outline of wings unfolding to shadow the woman’s face. Hamlin would argue that a flare of white light had nearly blinded him. At the last second, with time moving at a snail’s pace, Galmadriel watched both of them close their eyes and wait for the telltale thump. Her heart hammered so hard she expected it to break through her chest, and she heard screaming long before she realized the voice echoing in her ears was her own.

  The flash of energy shooting through her felt nothing like as strong as she was used to commanding; but it was there. All she could do now was wait for the impact.

  It never came.

  When Galmadriel opened her eyes again—they had fluttered shut on their own—the truck sat motionless, its bumper a fraction of an inch away from her knees, and the windshield nearly pressed against her face.

  Lifting one shaky hand, she pushed back the flaming auburn hair that tumbled across her shoulders and cascaded down her back in a tangled mass of bedraggled curls. Beads of sweat pearling on her brow took on an icy chill, and her knees wobbled. Start to finish, the incident had taken less than half a minute. It seemed longer.

  “Did you see that? Where did she come from?” Hamlin shouted to Pam right before he swore a streak of language that would have turned a sailor pale. Two sets of trembling hands yanked door handles and the pair of them spilled out onto the pavement.

  “Where did you…” Those were the last words Galmadriel heard before a loud buzzing swamped her and the world narrowed to a tiny point of light. Hamlin’s lightning fast reflexes kept her from hitting the ground with a thud.

  “We didn’t hit her, did we? It happened so fast.” Galmadriel could still hear his voice faintly fading in and out through the humming in her head, and she felt his shoulders bunch as he lowered her to the ground.

  “I don’t think so. I think she’s just scared. Shocky.” Pam opened the door, grabbed an unused jacket from behind the seat, and rolled it up. “If you can hear me, I’m just going to elevate your feet.” Her movements were sure and efficient. “Ham, go get me a damp towel, please. Hurry.”

  In a moment he was back. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s coming around. We’ll know more in a minute.” Pam spoke in a soothing voice, calm now the crisis was over, her hands rock steady.

  After a few shallow breaths, Galmadriel made an effort to relax, then opened her eyes and tried to sit up. “No, just rest there until you get your breath back.” Pam laid a gentle but firm hand on Galmadriel’s shoulder to push her back down into a prone position.

  “I am fine. Please let me up.” The words, though quietly spoken came out like a command from on high. Hamlin jerked at the force of them, torn between helping and a healthy reticence for touching a stranger. It was too late, anyway. Galmadriel had already regained her feet. Her new body felt lighter and more agile than expected, given its height.

  “What’s your name?” Hamlin asked. A simple question; and yet, how could she answer without telling a lie or freaking him out? The words I am the angel Galmadriel refused to pass her lips. Probably due to an instinctual need for self-preservation.

  Even providing such minor information as her name seemed unwise until she had a better idea of what had brought her to the middle of who-knows-where. In aiming for her home on the other side, there was no doubt she had missed the mark. Completely.

  “What happened?” She stalled for time.

  “My name is Pam Allen, and I’m the owner of this rolling monstrosity. This,” she pointed to the man with her, “is Hamlin Paine. You came out of nowhere and we almost hit you with the truck. Ham barely got it stopped in time.”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure how I managed it. It was like some force field stood between you and certain death. It was a miracle.” Hamlin’s voice sounded strained.

  At the word miracle, every drop of blood drained out of Galmadriel’s face. She shivered at the chill seeping into her bones, though the coolness was not the real reason for her reaction. How could she have been given a miracle after everything that had happened, after being kicked out of heaven?

  “Come on,” Pam said, “Let’s get out of the sun; it’s cooler in the truck. Is there someplace we can take you?”

  Another question with no viable answer; the silence spun out. Galmadriel avoided Pam’s searching gaze, but followed the other woman willingly into the truck. Until she could get her bearings, she had no other recourse.

  Hamlin turned toward Pam with questioning eyes and a quirked eyebrow and mouthed, “What now?” She answered with a slight twitch of her shoulders and mouthed back, “No idea.”

  Now that the initial shock had worn off, Hamlin glanced pointedly at his watch. Galmadriel took his action to mean he was anxious to get on with his day. These two people had been on the way to somewhere before she had so inconveniently dropped in on them. Pam confirmed this by saying, “We were on our way back to town to restock the truck after the morning run. Where can we drop you? Are you visiting friends in the area?”

  “No, I am here because...” When she took a moment to think about it, Galmadriel had no idea why I was here. Turning in her seat, she cast an assessing eye on Pam. What she saw was a woman in her early middle years—a short cap of medium brown hair curled up where it feathered around her ears and framed a pair of lively green eyes. Those eyes currently carried a wary expression. Reading the contours of Pam’s face, Galmadriel saw lines of tension around her mouth; lines deeply grooved enough to speak of a tragedy somewhere in the woman’s past. In contrast, marks of laughter also crinkled near her eyes, which told Galmadriel Pam was a woman who tried not to dwell on the harder times. Trustworthy, stalwart and true—these were words her instinct said would describe Pam perfectly.

  Picking her words carefully, Galmadriel attempted to skirt the more fantastic elements of her story. “I…something has happened to me, and for reasons I cannot explain, I have nowhere to go.” Over an eternity of existence, Galmadriel had never felt disconnected from home. Now she was alone and lost.

  As if something about her compelled him to offer assistance, Hamlin spoke up, “You can stay with me.” Pam later admitted that in the moment, she had felt a similar urge to offer sanctuary but, being a bit more experienced in life, had managed to stop herself before blurting out an offer of help. In her experience, people who fell for a sob story were the ones left crying in the end.

  “Thank you for your kindness.” Tempting as Hamlin’s offer was, Galmadriel felt powerfully drawn to Pam—tuned in to her in much the same way as with her former charges. Something inside Pam was broken. She needed Galmadriel’s help almost as much as the former angel needed hers.

  With the adrenaline ebbing, Galmadriel began to take in more of her surroundings. It came as a bit of a shock when she glanced out the window expecting to see the gray and brown tones of late March and, instead, saw a vista of gently undulating, daisy-studded grass. She must have lost two, maybe three months in what had felt like the blink of an eye. Where had she been all that time?

  Slumping back in the seat, Galmadriel ran back over the debacle that had led her here. None of her actions at the bridge were sanctioned by the collective that governed over guardian angel activities. The powers that be would never have let her attempt such a thing had they known. The plan was reckless and brilliant; too bad she hadn’t quite pulled it off.

  Even knowing she would have to explain her choices to her superiors and probably pay penance, Galmadriel had intended to use the all’s-well-that-ends-well defense. Unfortunately, she never got the chance. Instead, the bridge’
s moorings failed, and in the ensuing chaos, she fell. Not the kind of fall where you get up, nurse a skinned knee and get back on the horse—the kind where everyone back home, if they spoke of her at all, it would be in hushed tones and using the term fallen angel.

  Fast forward to now and here she was: worried about turning evil, missing weeks of time, stuck inside a human body, and unable to go home. Definitely not an ends-well situation.

  And to top it all off, she had to pee.

  ***

  Spending a millennium as a guardian angel had taught Galmadriel everything she thought she needed to know about life on earth. Odd customs, strange habits, and societal norms all fell within the scope of her knowledge. However, an hour walking in human shoes proved knowing a thing and living it were two entirely different prospects.

  Logically, she knew she should focus on long-term goals of finding shelter and a means of financial support. Too bad her flesh and bone body was all about the short term problems. Unless she was mistaken, the gnawing sensation in her gut meant finding food was number one with a bullet on her priority list.

  There are no coincidences; any angel will tell you that. Her glance fell on the Help Wanted sign propped in the truck’s window, and she remembered the business name emblazoned across the side of the truck: Just Desserts. Dessert was food, right?

  Two birds, one stone.

  “I would like to help.” At Pam’s blank look, Galmadriel gestured toward the sign. A slight upward twitch of one brow signaled Pam’s surprise.

  “Do you have any experience?”

  “Not as such, but I have served mankind for thousands of years,” Galmadriel’s wry smile was an attempt to cover the bitterness she felt at being rejected from her home, “and look where it has gotten me.”

  Lips twitching and head tilted, Pam assessed Galmadirel who clasped her hands tightly together to stop them from trembling. “I still don’t think you’ve told us your name.”