Angel in Training (The Louisiangel Series, Book One) by C. L. Coffey Page A

it. I had
suspected that was the case when I had stepped into the kitchen,
bypassing the stairs and hallway, but part of me was desperate to
believe that I had dreamt dying and this was real.
    “You look exactly how I remember you,” she
smiled, releasing me.
    “You remember me with bed hair?” I asked,
forcing a smile. “Thanks.”
    She returned the smile with her own sad one.
“Angel, you’re beautiful and don’t you ever forget that. Even with
bed hair.”
    “You’re my aunt – you have to say that,” I
muttered, even though it made me want to hug her again.
    “I didn’t want to believe him,” she told me,
with a sound which was akin to someone trying to hold back a
sob.
    “Believe who?”
    “The angel who visited me,” she told me. “He
told me you had gone and you were now carrying out more important
work. He told me not to worry about you. It didn’t stop me looking,
of course. The police kept telling me they had never found a body
matching your description, and neither did the hospitals.”
    “What angel?” I asked her, cutting her
off.
    “He said his name was Michael.”
    “ Michael?” I repeated, my voice raising a
few octaves. “ Michael came to
visit you?”
    Sarah cocked her head, watching me. “How
about we have some cookies and lemonade and sit on the porch. I
think we need to have a little chat – both of us.”
    Without waiting for a response, she moved
over to the oven, pulling the door down. As if by magic, my
favorite chocolate and hazelnut cookies were waiting for me. Dream
or not, my aunt always baked cookies for me when I was upset, and
if now wasn’t the perfect time for them, I didn’t know what was.
She piled them onto a plate and handed me a glass of lemonade that
had appeared on the worktop.
    “Come on,” she smiled, leading me outside
onto the decking. She sat down on her favorite armchair, while I
took the one on the other side of the small table, reaching for a
cookie. Even in a dream, they were deliciously warm and gooey. I
could eat these things all day. “So what happened?” she asked me,
taking a sip of her drink.
    I finished off the cookie, licking my
fingers, and reached for another before I answered her. “It was
when I went out to celebrate my birthday. I don’t remember exactly
what happened, but somebody stabbed me.”
    Tears were back in Sarah’s eyes as she sat
the drink down. “I made a promise to your parents that I would keep
you safe if anything ever happened to them.”
    “I’m an angel now,” I said, hoping the news
would bring some form of relief to her. “Or I’m going to be.”
    “I’m not surprised,” she told me. “You always
were a good child – always doing what you could to help.” I was
surprised. I wasn’t evil, but I still didn’t think I was good
enough to be an angel. “It was the night after that when Michael
appeared. He told me it was his turn to look after you.”
    I nibbled thoughtfully on the cookie.
Everything that I was beginning to assume about that archangel I
was already beginning to question. Taking aside his prettiness
(understatement), he seemed like a general – albeit an archaic one,
who was set in his ways and expected rules to be followed. Yet here
I was, hearing how he had promised to look after me, only hours
after seeing he had a double bed.
    “I suppose he’s right in a sense,” I
muttered, begrudgingly. “I’m living at the Old Ursuline Convent –
it’s now the House of Michael. I’m supposed to earn my wings so
that I can become an angel, and then I’m hopefully going to become
an archangel, like him.”
    “An archangel?” Sarah repeated, quietly.
    I shrugged, devouring another cookie. “Yeah,
I don’t see it either.”
    Sarah quickly shook her head. “No, it’s
Michael. I didn’t put two and two together before, but he’s an
archangel – the Archangel!”
I gave her another shrug which earned a disapproving look off her.
“Michael is heaven’s greatest warrior. He