Free Seraphim by Jon Michael Kelley Page A

interstate that ran adjacent to the hospital. He took a drag off his cigarette, inhaled deeply. “Shit,” he laughed nervously, “and we were able to save the hamster.”
    She glanced sidelong at the medic. “Excuse me, but isn’t that just an urban legend?”
    “No,” he said, “you’re confusing that with Richard Gere getting caught with a gerbil up his ass. That’s an urban legend.” He stared at her, nonplused. “Isn’t it?” Then he shrugged his shoulders and clucked. “Oh hell, lady, in this city, if it’s not one orifice, it’s another.”
    “Name’s Rachel,” she said patiently. “And what do these experiences have to do with my daughter?”
    He turned a pair of mystified eyes to her. “What I saw and heard today was totally unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.” He flicked his half-finished cigarette to the ground, crushed it beneath his shoe. “At one point while your daughter was inside the ambulance, she began…seizing. Nothing full blown, like a grand mal, just some minor shaking. Anyway, as I was holding her down, trying to listen to her heart and lung sounds, she grabbed hold of my stethoscope. The second she did, I heard the strangest voice. It was like I’d tapped into a kind of, of telepathic conversation between your daughter and...”
    “And...?” Rachel nudged.
    “And God,” he finally said. “I mean, the voice was so out there that it couldn’t have been… human .”
    “And what did He say?” Rachel said. There was a genuineness, a sincerity about him that kept her from rushing back inside to find a pair of burly guys in white coats.
    “It wasn’t a He— it was a She .”
    Chalk up another one for women’s lib , she thought. “Alright, what was She saying?”
    “‘He knows where you’ve flown.’”
    “Excuse me?”
    “That’s what the voice kept saying, over and over. ‘He knows where you’ve flown.’”
    “ Who knows where who’s flown?”
    Dave shrugged. “I was kind of hoping that you’d know, or at least have a hunch. You see, the reason I’m telling you this is because I interpreted it as a kind of warning. It didn’t necessarily sound like one, but I felt it was a warning.” He stared at his shoes. “Man, my ass is history if you talk to anybody about this.”
    “My lips are sealed,” she promised. “You said it was a conversation. What was my daughter saying?”
    “‘It hurts, it hurts.’ And she kept clawing at her back, too,” he said, demonstrating the awkward scratching, “as if something was really irritating it. Burning it, maybe.”
    “That’s it?” Rachel said, as if that wasn’t enough.
    “No,” he said, shakily lighting another cigarette. “Now comes the weird part.”
    Rachel’s jaw actually dropped. “The weird part?”
    “Just as we pulled up to the hospital, Kathy jumped—”
    “Amy,” she corrected. “Her name is Amy.”
    “Really?” David said, confused. “Her teacher said her name was Amy, too, but as we were getting her into the ambulance, your daughter told us quite lucidly—well, she insisted!—that her name was Kath—”
    “I know, I know,” Rachel nodded pressingly, “but continue.”
    “Well, she—Amy—jumped up from the pram just as we pulled to a stop in front of the ER. She placed both hands on one of the two rear windows of the ambulance and…and a picture appeared, a moving picture, as if the glass had somehow turned into a...” Slumping against the wall, he exhaled loudly. “You’re not buying any of this, are you?”
    “I’m trying,” Rachel said. “What did you see in the window?”
    “There was a man sitting in a chair. It was like I was looking right into his living room. He was busy with his hands. At first I thought he was crocheting, or something like that, but then he stood up, and in his hands was a set of wings. Like a prop, you know? Angel wings someone might make for a Christmas play? But they looked real enough. Too real. And they were big. Maybe from a