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“I’m okay,” Gabriel answered, but Aaron could tell that the dog wasn’t feeling all that great.
The Orisha’s bite was bad, and it already looked infected. They needed to find a veterinarian soon.
“Hang in there, pal,” Aaron said, drawing closer to the town’s center. “See any sign of a veterinarian’s office?” he asked the angel sitting in the passenger seat beside him.
Camael remained silent, staring out the window with furious intensity, as he had the entire ride to Blithe.
“Hello?” Aaron asked. “What’s the story? You see something?”
The angel glanced at him, scowling. “It’s nothing,” he said, but Aaron knew that something was ruffling his feathers—pardon the pun.
“Well, I’m going to ask one of the locals, then,” Aaron said as he pulled over in front of a small hardware store.
An older man wearing a soiled Red Sox cap, plaid shirt, and overalls came out of the store with a paper bag and stopped to put his change inside a rubber coin purse.
Aaron reached across Camael, rolled down the passenger window, and called out, “Excuse me!”
The man, his face deeply ta
“Hi,” Aaron said in his most friendly voice. He even waved. “I’m hoping you can help us.”
The man said nothing, continuing to watch him stoically. Aaron had heard that people in Maine were cautious of strangers, but this was really taking things a bit too far.
Camael meanwhile remained perfectly still, and Aaron wondered if he was willing himself invisible again. Aaron had discovered that he did this from time to time, when he didn’t feel like dealing with humans. The last time was two days ago, when they had stopped to walk the dog and were accosted by four elderly sisters who wanted to know everything about Gabriel and Labrador retrievers. Afterward, Aaron told Camael that he was being rude, and the angel responded by saying that it was only because Aaron couldn’t yet do it himself.
“My dog was bitten by something in the woods, and I need to get him to a vet.”
The old man looked at the dog, his gaze zeroing in on the bite. “What got ‘im?” he asked in raspy voice with a distinctly Maine accent.
“Raccoon,” Aaron said quickly. “Sure hope it wasn’t rabid.”
“Don’t look like any ‘coon bite I ever seen,” the old-timer growled, studying the wound through the open window. “Too wide.”
“Well, I only saw it from the back as it ran away. I guess it could have been something else.”
The old man glared at Aaron, adjusting the rim of his Red Sox cap. “It wasn’t a raccoon—so I guess it had to be somethin’ else.”
Aaron smiled tightly, feeling his patience begin to slip. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He paused and counted to ten. “So I was wondering if there’s a vet around here?”
The man seemed to think about it for a minute or two, then slowly nodded his head. “Yep, there is.” He fell silent, continuing to stare.
Feeling his blood begin to boil, Aaron wondered how long it would be before Camael summoned a sword and dispatched the a
Again, the old man thought for a minute, nodded his head slowly, and gave them complex directions to an office just a few miles away.
“That was a rather odd fellow,” Camael said as Aaron pulled away from the curb, reviewing the convoluted directions in his mind.
“First meeting with a Mainiac?” Aaron asked, taking a left onto Portland Street, just before a large white church. “You go beyond that and you’ve gone too far,” the old man had stressed.
“I’ve encountered many madmen in my long years on this planet.”
“No, not maniac—Mainiac,” Aaron explained as he slowly drove down Portland. “People from Maine, that’s what they’re called.”
“Whatever the case, he certainly was odd.”
“And you didn’t even have to talk to him,” Aaron said, on the lookout for a dirt road on the right. “Did you will yourself invisible again?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the angel replied, refusing to look at him.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Aaron said with sarcasm, taking the turn onto a rutted stretch of winding road.
After half a mile, the dirt road opened up into a large, unpaved parking lot. A building to left of the lot looked as if it had once been a country store with an apartment above. The apartment seemed to still serve that function, but the storefront had been converted into a veterinarian’s office. Two sports utility vehicles were parked in the lot, one with Maine plates, the other from Illinois.
“This is it,” Aaron said. He parked as close to the building as he could. “Let’s get you fixed up, Gabriel.”
The dog lifted his head and looked around, his nose twitched and dribbled moisture as he scented the air. “Where are we?” he asked.
“The vet,” Aaron answered as he got out of the car and opened the back passenger door.
“No we’re not,” Gabriel said, continuing to sniff at the air. “We’re not in Ly
“This is another office,” Aaron explained, leaning into the backseat to check out the wound.
“There’s more than one?” Gabriel asked incredulously.
“Lots more than one,” Aaron answered as he helped his friend to the ground.
“I never knew that,” the dog muttered. He leaned against Aaron for support, holding up his injured leg.
Aaron looked over the top of the car at Camael, who had gotten out and was also sniffing the air. “Are you coming with me?” he asked, squatting down and lifting up the dog.
“No,” the angel said succinctly, and turned back toward the dirt road.
“Well, I’m going to be in here for a while if you need me,” Aaron said to the angel’s back. Camael continued on without responding. “All right then, Aaron,” he muttered to himself as he carefully made his way up the four steps to the front door. A metal placard a
Aaron struggled to shift his burden so he could grab the doorknob and turn it. “Thanks for the help, Camael,” he said with mock cheeriness. “You certainly are one considerate angelic being.”
“Camael’s gone,” Gabriel reported.
“I know he’s gone,” Aaron grunted. He turned the knob and pushed the door open with his foot.
“Then why are you still talking to him?”
“I don’t know, Gabe,” Aaron grumbled as he maneuvered into the small lobby. “These days I do a lot of crazy things.”
The place was old, not like the state-of-the art clinic where he had worked in Ly
The lobby was deserted, but Aaron could hear the sounds of paper shuffling and a sigh of exasperation coming from behind the desk. He approached and saw a girl surrounded by stacks of paper and medical folders. Her hair was an unusually dark shade of red, and she wore it pulled back in a tight ponytail. Obviously she hadn’t heard his entrance, so he cleared his throat and watched as she jumped, startled by his sudden appearance.
“You scared me,” she said with a nervous laugh. She moved a stray red hair from her forehead.
“Sorry,” Aaron said with a grunt, trying to shift Gabriel’s weight in his arms. “Do you think we could see the vet?” he asked.
“Sure,” she answered, moving one stack of folders to an even larger one that teetered dangerously. “Just give me a second here and we’ll see what we can do.”