No wonder people sometimes struggled with alcohol addiction—Adriel couldn’t remember feeling this good since taking on flesh. Inhibitions siphoned away in a liquid rush that left her feeling oddly lighter than before.
Her eyes had dropped closed while she savored the sensation. When they popped open again she was looking at four astonished faces.
“Something wrong?” How could feeling this good be wrong?
“Look.” Gustavia turned Adriel toward the mirror where a familiar face looked back at her.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? Don’t you see it?”
Leaning closer, Adriel peered at her reflection. Jet black hair in a pixie cut curled around heavily pierced ears. Blood red lipstick smeared over pouted lips below dark-rimmed eyes that stared back at her with just a hint of insolence from the palest of faces. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth?” She bared her teeth to make sure.
“Adriel! You didn’t look like that when you came in here.”
Her befuddled brain refused to process the concept. This was one of her many bodies—the one she used when relating to angst-ridden charges in the throes of their teen years. What was the big deal?
Gustavia did something completely unexpected; she reached out and pinched Adriel on the upper arm. Hard. Hard enough to leave a mark.
“Ow!” Adriel rubbed the spot and glared at her pincher. “What was that for?”
“Because you need to sober up and catch a clue. You totally changed bodies right in front of us.”
“I did?” Well, duh, of course she had. “So what? Angels can appear in any form. That’s nothing new.”
And then it hit her. “Oh.” She shook her finger at the image in the mirror. “Oh.” Shock registered roundly in the eyes staring back from the silvered glass. “Oh.” Clothing hung oddly on this much smaller frame. She looked like a child playing dress up. A fairly apt description of her life if she wanted to get philosophical about it. Sad, really.
This had disaster written all over it. In big, black, permanent marker.
All the giddy lightness drained out of her just as quickly as it had come.
“What am I going to do if I stay stuck in this body?”
“You won’t.” Amethyst’s face appeared in the mirror. “The wine relaxed you, lowered your inhibitions and released you from limiting beliefs.”
“So, I should drink more? That seems like a self-destructive course of action.”
“Did I say that? No. You just need to let go of personal misconceptions. Before today—tell the truth—you thought you couldn’t alter the face you present to the world.”
Adriel’s expression answered for her.
“Now you know you can. All you have to do is recreate whatever you were feeling when it happened. Close your eyes and think back to that moment.”
Amethyst was right, in theory. Her plan, though, left a lot of room for doubt and fear. What if changing worked, but only for a different form? What if it didn’t? Tension twanged Adriel’s muscles into ropy tightness that refused to relax.
“It’s not working.” Five times of squeezing her eyes and wrinkling her nose in concentration proved fruitless. Every time she looked into the mirror, Miss teenage Goth stared back at her.
“You think we need to get her drunk again?” A tiny smile accompanied Julie’s otherwise serious question.
“We’ll save it as a last resort,” Amethyst replied dryly.
“Probably wouldn’t work anyway.” Adriel’s sullen tone matched her face, which seemed to be fixed in a permanent sneer.
“Give her a few minutes to get her thoughts settled.” Gustavia slung an arm around Adriel, pulled her away from the mirror, and settled with her on the sofa. “There’s no pressure right now. You’re among friends who know you for what’s beneath the skin.” Her voice modulated into a soothing tone while she ran a hand gently back and forth over Adriel’s forearm. “Let’s not think about it for a little while; see what happens. Kat, why don’t you put in a video? Something light and funny. We’ll have popcorn and a few laughs. There’s time enough to deal with this later. Our work is done; let’s just have a girl’s night. It’s been awhile since we’ve had one of those.”
Panic settled from world-shaking to a quivering tremor under Gustavia’s calming touch. Amethyst and Kat went into the kitchen to prepare snacks and whisper where Adriel couldn’t hear, while Julie pawed through Kat’s movie collection looking for something suitably lighthearted.
Another cup of soothing tea accompanied the popcorn in an odd but surprisingly satisfying combination, but it wasn’t the tea or even more alcohol that eventually did the trick. It was a bout of belly-shaking laughter over Gustavia and Kat acting out scenes from Notting Hill in fake British accents that finally relaxed Adriel.
In a rush, the tension washed away, taking both inner and outer Goth along for the ride.
“And she’s back.” Amethyst, hyper-aware of the energy around her, saw it happen out of the corner of her eye. “Your aura is a lot lighter than it was before, too.”
“Can you do it again? On purpose, I mean.” Julie voiced the question uppermost in Adriel’s mind.
“I can try.” Closing her eyes, she concentrated on accessing the calm place from moments before. Nothing happened. It was as though a glass wall separated her from the seat of her power. She could see it pulsing like a live thing, but could not touch it while the barrier held. “No. The power is there, but I can’t use it.”
“Have you been in contact with other angels? What do they say about your situation?”
Julie’s direct question posed a dilemma for Adriel. How should she answer? Since lying hadn’t gone so well for her up until now, she decided to stick to the truth.
“I’ve been assigned a pair of guardians since my situation seemed to need more than just one. I think you might know them.”
“Grams and Julius? Yes, we know.”
“You know? How could that possibly be? I didn’t find out until I’d been here
