Read Plague of Angels for Free Online

of tools and a small ladder. Two others had brought a stretcher and sheets to wrap his body until the proper rite could be performed.
    In front of the cross, Mary wept for the loss of her child.
     

Chapter 2

Mary sat alone in her small room in Joseph of Arimathea’s house, looking out the window and trying to remember.
    The soldiers had chased them off when they had attempted to bring down Jesus’s body, and would have left Him there had Joseph not gone to Pilate and asked for the body to be buried before sunset in accordance with tradition. Pilate had shown mercy and relented, and they had taken Him first to Joseph’s house, where they cleaned His broken flesh. Mary, who had thought she had no tears left, wept at the sight of His battered, cut, and broken body, and gently ran the cloths over His flesh, cleaning Him as she had done when He was an infant, tenderly washing the blood and dirt from His slack, tear-stained cheeks even as her own tears fell upon Him.
    And there was something more….
    He had been such a sweet child, she thought. No crying, no screaming, but always watchful.
    But there was something else…
    She had kissed Him and wrapped Him in linen, and followed as they placed Him in His tomb, and wept as they pushed the rock into place.
    It was good of Joseph, thought Mary. Good of Him to give my son a proper place to rest.
    But there was something she had forgotten. Something important…
    “Hello, Mary,” said Mary Magdalene, from the doorway.
    Mother Mary turned and gasped in relief. “There you are! I was so worried when you vanished. There was the storm and the lightning and I wondered if I might die. And then you came and…”
    Memory sprung back unbidden, and Mary stood so suddenly her small chair tumbled over. She stumbled backwards to the wall, pressing herself against it…Mary’s mouth went wide with fear, gaping desperately, but no sound would come out.
    Another bolt of lightning struck, knocking her to the ground and turning the world momentarily white. Rock shattered, and its dust rained down on Mary’s face and hair. She coughed on dusty air, opening her eyes tentatively, and saw…
    “Shh,” said Nyx, keeping her voice gentle even as she used her power to take away the woman’s ability to shout. “It’s all right.”
    Mary’s words, when they came out, were whispers. “You demon,” she hissed. “You monster. What are you? How dare you be near my son! How dare you have pretended to be His friend! Get away!”
    Nyx closed the distance between them so fast that Mary didn’t have time to blink. Her red serpentine eyes flashed with anger. Terrified, Mary pressed herself harder against the wall. And though Nyx’s words were pitched so that only Mary could hear them, the fury in them was unmistakable. “Do not say that I pretended ,” she hissed. “He was mine!”
    Mary was frightened, more frightened than she had ever been in her life. But she would not allow this demon to see it. “You are a monster!”
    Nyx’s first instinct was to tear into Mary’s flesh, to disembowel and punish this mortal for daring to judge her. Nyx suppressed the instinct ruthlessly. She knows nothing , Nyx reminded herself. She is innocent. She didn’t want any of this.
    To Mary’s surprise, Mary Magdalene smiled at her, and the smile was gentle and filled with pity. “I’m an Angel.”
    Then the world went black, and Mary was back on the hill in the rain.
    The snake was before her again, its fanned, hooded head swaying rhythmically back and forth as if dancing to an unheard flute. Around them, time slowed. The raindrops, near-invisible before, became slow-moving diamonds, shining bright in the lightning that had come so close to killing them all. Mary felt that she could reach out and catch each single drop of water and drink them one by one before they hit the ground.
    And as she watched, a feeling of peace and joy crept over her. She was drunk without an ounce of wine; she was in rapture