7. Luke
Chapter 7
Luke
The medical wing of HQ was like a miniature hospital. There was a small waiting room with blue chairs and a handful of magazines and New Testament Bibles on low tables. A triage room held eight cots and basic medical supplies. Curtains around each cot provided privacy. Further down the sterile white hall were a handful of private patient rooms for the more serious cases that needed a longer recovery time. Luke himself had stayed in one of those rooms on multiple occasions. It was as unpleasant as any regular hospital stay, he imagined, although the food was probably better.
Today, he checked in at the front desk of the medical wing, manned by one of Maxwell’s trainees, and sat mechanically in one of the blue plastic chairs against the wall. No one else was there, so he didn’t have to wait long before Maxwell appeared around the corner and offered him a smile.
“Good morning, Paladin Morgan. Right this way.” The fluorescent lights gave his umber skin a cool sheen as he led Luke down the familiar path to his office. His white lab coat flapped behind him.
Maxwell’s office was smaller than Sloan’s. A pair of windows framed his black metal desk, and filing cabinets on either side made for a tight fit as he rounded the desk and sat in his leather chair. Scattered paperwork decorated his desk, and he had pushed his laptop into the corner, setting it on a stack of files as though neglected in favor of pen and ink.
There were two guest chairs, both comfortable leather ones with padded armrests. Luke sat in the one on the right. He always sat in the one on the right, and Maxwell cast him a knowing smile as he did. It was part of their routine.
“How have you been for the past couple of months, Luke?”
It was ‘Luke’ here, and ‘Paladin Morgan’ outside of these sessions.
He’d practiced his answers in the car, because he had been to enough of these sessions by now to know how to tailor his answers to avoid giving away more than he intended. But now that he faced Maxwell’s polite concern, he felt himself waver.
“I’ve been… fine?”
Maxwell’s head tilted, homing in on him with careful intent. This was different from his usual response. “Are you asking?”
“I, uh…” He stopped himself, rubbing his hands nervously on his thighs. He couldn’t risk telling the truth, but it was too late to get away with saying nothing. “I debated whether to even bring this up.”
“Whatever it is, it’s clearly weighing on you. Why don’t you get it off your chest?”
Luke sighed. He would have to make it up as he went, but maybe he could convey enough of the truth to make it believable. “Well, I-I met someone.”
Maxwell brightened. “Really? Tell me about them.”
He blew out a breath. “That’s the problem. He’s my polar opposite. He doesn’t believe in God. He drinks, he smokes, he sins . Gleefully, even. I shouldn’t like him at all, but every time we’ve crossed paths, he’s completely captured my attention. But I worry he’d be… bad for me.” It felt like a juvenile way to sum up how complicated things were with Malachi, but it was all he could risk saying.
Maxwell hummed. “You’ve kept to yourself for a long time now. You haven’t been part of a squad for five years. How long has it been since you’ve dated?”
Luke’s mouth was dry. “A little longer than that. Six, I think. Maybe seven.”
“Human beings weren’t meant to be solitary creatures, Luke. If this man has stolen your attention, it must be for a reason.”
“But… he’s not good .”
Maxwell smiled patiently. “Good is subjective. You say he drinks and smokes. Sure, those are sinful in that they damage the body, but does he lie? Cheat? Steal? Is he violent?”
“I… I don’t know. Not that I know of. He’s been nothing but honest with me, as far as I can tell.”
“Does he make you feel unsafe?”
He thought about falling back in the wet grass with Malachi wrapped around him. The clack of their rings touching as Malachi threaded their fingers together.
‘I won’t let any harm come to you, my human ,’ he’d said.
“No,” he admitted softly. “No, I feel very safe when I’m with him. So safe it—stunned me. ”
Maxwell inclined his head. “Everything happens for a reason, Luke. God put this man in your path for a reason.”
Luke gaped. He’d always believed that was true, though why God had chosen him for the hardships he’d endured, he didn’t know. But this? Could God really have put a halfling like Malachi in his life for a reason? Was that also true for Hawk and his demon? If Maxwell was right, Hawk being tempted away from the guild was meant to happen. Just as he and Malachi were meant to happen.
“The greatest sins are those that hurt innocents. If this man is harming people, I agree you should stay away from him. But if he’s not, you might consider giving him a chance. Maybe you met him for a reason.”
Luke sat back, unmoored. “Maybe. But do you also believe that the Devil puts people in our paths for a reason? Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe the right thing to do is stay the course as I have been.”
Maxwell softened with, dare he think it, pity. “Luke. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” That was why they were there, wasn’t it?
“Are you lonely?”
The question was like a spike to the heart. His gaze fell, and he couldn’t possibly speak past the knot in his throat. His hands fidgeted in his lap, twirling his ring around his finger.
“Yeah,” he rasped at long last. “Yeah, I’ve been lonely. I’m afraid it might be affecting my judgment about this guy. I’m afraid I’m letting him get close in spite of how bad he is.”
“Or are you seeing the badness as an excuse to keep him at arm’s length?”
Luke felt sucker-punched. His mouth hung open, and words failed him .
“I’m your doctor,” Maxwell finally conceded, looking as though he was fighting to hide his amusement. “I’m not here to tell you whether you should pursue this man. I do know that you’ve been alone for a long time, and you’re probably starved for a personal connection with someone. Whether the right person for that is this sinner-man,” he waved a vague hand in Luke’s direction, “is for you to decide. I just don’t want you to rule it out without giving it all the consideration it deserves. There’s more to life than killing demons, and I’m afraid you’ve lost sight of that.”
Reluctantly, Luke nodded. He knew plenty of paladins who would disagree with that last statement, but he was right. Maxwell had certainly given him something to think about.
“How’s the demon hunting going? Have you given any more thought to joining a squad? You could have your pick. I’m sure Sloan wouldn’t mind shuffling some things around to get you in whichever one you wanted.”
Squads were like brotherhoods within a brotherhood. It was nice of them to offer, but he couldn’t imagine asking Sloan to move someone out of their squad just to make room for him.
“I appreciate the offer, Doc, but I’m really fine. I don’t mind working alone.” He couldn’t possibly mention his close call the other night. It would only reinforce Maxwell’s belief that Luke needed a squad to back him up.
“Maybe you could patrol with Isaac or Cyrus, then. They also tend to work alone, but you might enjoy having something like a smaller squad with just the three of you.”
If he was going to patrol with anyone, it would probably be those two. Isaac was technically in a squad, but he went out alone just as often as he hunted with his squad. He had trouble understanding anything that wasn’t a hunt. People were hard for him, which made him blunt and strange to most. People whispered behind their hands that he was ‘psycho,’ but Luke wasn’t sure he believed that. And Cyrus—if there was a black sheep amongst the guild, it was him. Tattooed and short of patience, he treated the guild more like a means to an end, but what end was anyone’s guess. He was the only person who didn’t attend Father Hawley’s church services—and there were three scheduled every Sunday to ensure everyone could attend.
“Maybe,” he hedged, although he wasn’t sure they would like patrolling together any better than he would.
Besides, a tiny part of him whispered, if he patrolled with them, they might discover Malachi. They might hurt Malachi. Against his better judgment, the prospect bothered him.
“Or there’s always the possibility of forming a new squad with some of the up-and-coming graduates.”
Luke balked at that. “No,” he said firmly. “I definitely don’t want to be in charge of new graduates.” His anxiety would be through the roof in the field with a bunch of fresh eighteen-year-old paladins underfoot, eager for glory and the chance to prove themselves. He couldn’t think of anything worse.
Maxwell inclined his head. “Fair enough. I just worry about you out there all alone. If you were to run into trouble, who would have your back?”
Well, Luke thought begrudgingly, Malachi would. Who better to have his back than an immortal demon who couldn’t be killed by the monsters Luke faced on patrols?
After a draining hour in Maxwell’s office, Luke dragged himself from the medical wing and out into the training yard. The real therapy, his favorite therapy, was out there, in the sand with the others. Sessions with Maxwell always left him feeling raw, like he’d flayed off some calluses and exposed the soft, sensitive underside to the elements. Here in the training yard, he could focus on the burn of muscle in use. It cleared his mind like an eraser on a whiteboard, resetting him to his most basic state.
Before he dared to pick out a practice sword, he forced himself to go to the running track. The midmorning sun was golden and bright, warming his skin. A northern breeze wafted through the trees around the grounds, bringing with it the sweet scent of pine from the Angeles National Forest.
He left his shirt on one of the wooden benches and fell into an easy jog, uncertain how long he planned to run. He’d know how long was long enough when his mind was finally quiet.
The pavement was solid under his sneakers. There was a middle-grade class sitting on some benches nearby, having a lesson outside. Many of them tracked him with their eyes, and his face heated under the attention, turning his gaze to the pavement in front of him and resolutely ignoring everything else around him.
He chafed under attention these days, had ever since he lost his squad. For months after his release from the medical wing, people gave him pitying looks everywhere he went. It was too painful to even visit HQ for a while. Sloan tried placing him with a handful of different squads at first. Each time, anxiety over what might happen to the members of his squad crippled him, and it was worse if he patrolled with young paladins. Finally, after months of trial and error— during which he experienced debilitating panic attacks and nightmares—he finally went to the council with a formal request to be excused from squads altogether. He could still patrol and fight, but he’d rather do it alone. It was rare but not unheard of, and he focused better when he didn’t have to worry about the people around him getting hurt. When there were no people around him to get hurt.
Except Malachi. Malachi said the monsters Luke hunted couldn’t kill him. He was impervious to all but holy weapons. The only concern would be the guild discovering their… companionship? Relationship?
Luke huffed, shaking his head and slinging sweat from his brow. He couldn’t seriously be entertaining this. Letting Malachi anywhere near him would put everything at risk. But if Maxwell was right, he’d met Malachi for a reason. Did he feel drawn to Luke, too? Was that why he claimed Luke was ‘his human,’ and why he kept following him around?
The running track took him away from the well-maintained lawns and into the overgrown, scraggly acreage behind the buildings. It was still part of the guild’s grounds, safely ensconced behind the blessed brick wall, but the area was untamed. They used it for training exercises sometimes, and the school-aged kids camped out occasionally, roasting marshmallows while Father Hawley gave lighthearted sermons under the stars. Luke himself had been on a handful of the camp-outs as a teen and remembered them fondly enough, fun if a little cheesy.
Out there, away from the rest of the guild and baking under the noonday sun, his mind finally wiped clean. And with sweat-soaked clarity, he could admit what he wanted. That moment they’d fallen together in the cemetery and Malachi had held him so sweetly, he’d felt sheltered and cared for. It had cracked the walls he’d built around himself, and Malachi came flooding into the empty spaces in his heart he’d long ago resigned himself to never filling.
He wanted to feel that again, wanted to give himself over and trust someone else with the most fragile parts of himself. The only question he had left to answer: was Malachi the right one for the job?
He didn’t know, and the question plagued him for the rest of the day. When he finished the running track’s big loop and made it back to the training yard, he chose a practice sword and went to work with relish, sparring anyone who was brave enough to face him. Faces passed in a blur, and all he focused on was the burn of physical exertion and his ever-circling thoughts.
When his limbs shook with exhaustion and the sun hung just above the horizon, he finally called it quits for the day. He returned his practice sword to the weapons hutch and shrugged into his shirt as he trudged to the parking lot. Dinner was likely being served in the cafeteria, but he didn’t feel like sitting in a crowded room. He’d rather have a hot shower and call it an early night. Maybe he’d find some respite from his dilemma in sleep.