Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 10

them high above his head. George cried out as the glinting broadsword sliced through the air, leaving dismembered feathers in its wake. The shorn wings beat impotently, slinging blood across the grass and the rocks.
    "Erasmus!" the broken angel screamed. Red splatters appeared on Erasmus's pristine robes, seeming to anger him. His huge wings beat the air, and the sound echoed painfully inside George's skull. His stomach lurched as the view tilted crazily as he looked down on the scene from above. The grass became a river and he saw soldiers gathered around a fire in an encampment at the base of the dam, but they weren't angels, just more tired soldiers wearing tricorn hats. The faded name stenciled on the top of a red-brick tower seemed out of place, but before George could figure out why, he blacked out.
    He woke to the sound of a ringing phone and dragged his cell from his back pocket. Glancing at the display before answering, he winced as he got up off the carpet, but spoke into the phone. "I'm going to make a deposit into your checking account today, Connie."
    "This isn't about money, George. It's about Adam."
    He agreed to Connie's request, then showered and changed into sweats and a t-shirt.
    ****
    Moving through the crowds of springtime customers hunting the perfect azalea bush in the small botanical garden's sales area, George made his way to the butterfly garden on the right.
    His heart took a tumble when he caught sight of Oliver, already warming up. His head was bent forward, obscuring his face. Smirking, George appreciated the view of his bare limbs, dusted with golden hair. Oliver was a bigger clothes horse than Connie had ever been. Now he wore running shorts sporting crisp double white stripes and naturally, he had on the matching shirt. "Did you find the books you needed?" Oliver asked when he caught sight of George, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek as George sidled up beside him and placed a foot on the bench.
    He couldn't help glancing around to see if anyone were watching. Oliver's lips took a line tighter than George's hamstrings at his involuntary action. "Rissa wants me to restore one of Lucien's photographs, so he's been on my mind. How long before he died did you see him?" he inquired, hoping to head off an argument.
    "About a week before, I guess. Why?"
    "Just wondered. What did you two talk about?" He hoped Oliver would mention whatever Lucien had said about Sephrim, but he hurried through his warm-ups, anxious to pre-empt their conversation taking a bad turn. Being caught kissing by Rose Cannon was different. She was Oliver's friend, and moreover, she'd never outed them when she'd caught them as students. What they did privately was one thing, but it was another thing altogether for them to walk down the street holding hands. As far as George was concerned, the thing between him and Oliver was casual. They'd hooked up in college, they were hooking up now, but Oliver had a jealous streak and some things he was starting to demand implied there was a hell of a lot more to their relationship than George felt ready for.
    "I told you, he wanted me to go urban exploring with him to the old mill at Glendale." Oliver's dimple flashed as he made a face. "I told him hell no. What's left of the mill must be crawling with asbestos. And bird poop." Oliver's elaborate shudder reminded George of Adam's reaction when his son was confronted by green peas.
    His beleaguered brain used Oliver's words to fill in the faded letters on the brick tower in the hallucination, yet he couldn't help but laugh. Partly because he never could resist that damn dimple on the right side of Oliver's smile, but mostly because Oliver was so fastidious. Lucien must've been hard up for a companion that day. George couldn't picture Oliver climbing up the side of a tower which had to be a hundred feet high, suspended by nylon rope. Not if the bricks might be dirty.
    "What happened to the mill? It closed like the rest of them, right?" He recalled that, in one part of his hallucination, the mill had been standing. Smaller, different somehow, but standing, with those exhausted soldiers camped nearby, but in another part of the visions, all that had been left standing were the two towers at each end.
    Oliver squinted thoughtfully. "It closed, yes, but then the structure burned. Two thousand and four, I think."
    Trust a librarian to know. "Ready?" George asked, tucking his arm behind his head, and pressing down on his elbow with his