I, Angel

by JC Andrijeski

  In the light of day, her clothes looked more expensive than they had the night before. They also looked a lot more out of place in the police station than they had in Hollywood. A tight, green and white striped dress, thigh-high, white leather boots with those pencil-thin four-inch heels, a cropped jacket of pale blue faux fur over the dress. It was more West Hollywood trashy-chic than full-blown hooker-wear, but he still couldn’t help wondering where she’d been heading in that get-up when the guy grabbed her.

  It struck him that maybe she was an actress.

  Maybe that’s why he was supposed to recognize her.

  In addition to the dramatic flair of her words… and her manner of walking, and her clothes… she had an unusual look to her, something that struck him as probably camera-friendly. She drew the eyes, and not only because she was pretty. He found himself studying her features, following her facial expressions almost involuntarily.

  She also had a particularly bright aura, one that made it hard to look away.

  He’d noticed a lot of successful actor-types had that.

  Maybe most people couldn’t technically see auras, but they still seemed to react to them.

  Her features were dramatic, too, with a broad face, high cheekbones, dark skin, curly black hair that fell halfway to her butt, and a pretty remarkable figure.

  She looked possibly Eurasian mixed with African-American to him, but he sucked at pinpointing people’s ethnicity. Despite California’s rep for leggy blonds, in Dags’ personal experience, most people living here were a little of this and a little of that. These days, that was as true of people who worked in movies and television as it was for everyone else in L.A.

  “Why?” he said finally, his voice gruff. “Why would you want to hire me? The cops have the guy’s face. If he has any kind of record, they’ve likely already ID’d him. I’m sure they’d put you under some kind of protection if you asked, at least until they have him in custody. What on earth do you need me for⏤”

  “I saw you last night,” she blurted.

  Dags frowned.

  Studying his expression, she frowned back. Her voice sharpened with that same stubborn edge, like she was ready to argue with him, like she was waiting for him to argue with her. Or maybe just like she was used to getting her way.

  “I saw you. I saw you fight that guy. I saw what you can do. And anyway…” She motioned around the bullpen. “These jokers don’t believe me.”

  “Don’t believe you about what?” he said warily.

  “About that guy,” Asia Jackson said, her hands back on her hips. “About what he was really after. About why he picked me.”

  “Because you’re famous, right?” he said, still wary.

  She shook her head, giving him a disbelieving look. “No. Not that. He picked me, yes, but not because of me. He picked me for a different reason.”

  “Which is what?” Dags said, still wary, now verging on confused. “What reason? What do you think he was he really after?”

  “Not what… who. Who he was really after.” Her voice remained hard but patient. “This has to be about Phoenix. He was just using me to get to her. You heard him.”

  Dags frowned.

  He was about to ask, but Kara got there first.

  “Phoenix?” she said, annoyed. “You don’t mean⏤”

  “Yes,” Asia Jackson cut in, giving Kara a hard look, making it clear she wasn’t talking to her. “I do mean that Phoenix. She’s my best friend. Right now, she’s also my roommate. We’re both renting out this place in Malibu. I think he only grabbed me to get to her.”

  Dags frown deepened.

  That Phoenix?

  What the hell did that mean?

  He opened his mouth, about to ask, but Kara spoke up before he could. That time, she directed her words solely at him.

  “Jourdain,” she said, impatient. “Come on. Whatever she’s talking about, you can figure it out later. Give her a card or something if you want, but you need to cut this short. I’ve got my own cases to solve. You know… actual murders. I don’t have time to help you sort out conspiracy theories from Hollywood starlets.”

  Asia angled her head and eyes past Dags to glare at Kara a second time.

  “Really?” she said coldly. “You wanna go there, cop lady?”

  Kara didn’t bother to answer.

  She nudged Dags with a shoulder instead.

  “Come on, Jourdain. Wrap this up. I thought you were starving.”

  Dags never took his eyes off Asia Jackson.

  Something in her wording pricked his ears.

  Not just her wording⏤her aura.

  The light around her shone a soft pink and baby blue, the latter matching the faux fur of her cropped jacket. It flared around her face and curly hair, accented with darting green and gold sparkles, and even more occasional bubbles and particles of purple and red.

  She wasn’t lying to him.

  He could read that much in her aura⏤she believed her own words.

  She was agitated. She was maybe crazy.

  But she wasn’t lying.

  “You really think he’ll come after you again?” he said, at the end of that pause. “You think he targeted you specifically? Why? What makes you think that?”

  When she frowned, pushing out her full lips, he added,

  “Is your friend being stalked? Has someone threatened her?”

  “Yes. Well… maybe,” she amended, waving a hand dismissively as if his question was beside the point. “I mean… yes. She’s been threatened. I don’t know if it was by this guy, but it’s kind of a weird coincidence, right?”

  Kara answered her before Dags could.

  As she did, she caught hold of Dags’ arm.

  “Tell Johnson over there,” Kara said, nodding towards the uniform whose desk Asia Jackson had been standing beside when she first yelled across the room.

  “Have him take a statement. If you want additional police protection, either for yourself or your ‘friend,’ tell him that, too. Tell him who she is. Tell him your specific reasons for being concerned⏤”

  “I did,” Asia cut in, glaring at her. “They aren’t listening to me. They think I’m being paranoid, that the guy just grabbed me because I was there⏤”

  “Then we’ll discuss it,” Kara cut in, sharpening her voice. “But if you want to hire Mr. Jourdain here as additional protection, you’re going to have to have that conversation with him some other time. He needs to give a statement of his own right now.”

  Asia Jackson was already waving off Kara’s words.

  She swiveled her gaze back to Dags.

  “I don’t trust the fucking cops, man,” she said, giving Kara a pointedly dismissive look before aiming her eyes back at Dags. “What do you say, Angel-guy? Can I hire you? Or not?”

  Dags frowned.

  Resting his hands on his hips, he hesitated, fighting to think.

  It hit him that she was already drawing him into this.

  He was starting to give a shit, and he really, really didn’t want to.

  He wanted pancakes. He wanted a decent cup of coffee.

  He wanted to watch bad television until he passed out on his couch.

  He found himself digging his wallet out of his back pocket anyway, and extracting one of his business cards from the inner fold.

  “Call me when you get out of here,” he grunted, holding the card in his fingers. “Or after you get some sleep.” Pausing, he added with a shrug, “Or have your roommate call me, if she’s really worried⏤”

  “Phoenix?”

  Asia Jackson snorted.

  Folding her arms, she rolled her eyes, letting out a second, even more expressive snort.

  “Phoenix isn’t ‘worried’ about anything. That’s the problem. That’s also why she’s got me. She’s not going to help you. She probably thinks I’m as crazy as the cops do. I know she thinks I’m making a big deal about nothing.”

  Dags frowned, still holding the business card in his fingers.<
br />
  “Look,” he said after a pause. “I’m happy to take your money. If you want to throw it at me purely for peace of mind, or to feel like you’re keeping your friend safe, then go right ahead.”

  He paused, then added more carefully,

  “But you might want to consider that maybe your friend’s right. Maybe the cops are right. Maybe this guy doesn’t even know who you are, much less the identity of your roommate, or where you live. Maybe you’re seeing a connection where there really isn’t one.”

  Asia Jackson shook her head, her full mouth pinched.

  That time, she looked almost offended.

  “Hey,” she said. “You were there, man.”

  “Yeah.” Dags exhaled grimly. “I was there. I saw a guy grab you off the street, and drag you into an alley. Nothing I saw indicated any kind of forethought or planning. He didn’t even particularly act like a stalker. He acted like an opportunist. A predator. It looked like he saw you, and pretty much acted on impulse⏤”

  “Hey!” she snapped, her voice coming out angrier. “Don’t play that game with me, man. There was something seriously off with that guy. There was something off about that whole scene. The way he saw you coming? How hard you’d hit him, and he’d just stand there? The thing at the end, with him bleeding at the ears, then just up and ‘disappearing’? Everything about that fight between you two was weird…”

  She trailed, glancing at Kara warily, refolding her arms.

  Something in that look gave Dags the impression Asia Jackson didn’t want to say too much about Dags himself, or his particular weirdness, not in front of Kara.

  “Are you going to help me? Or not?”

  She fluttered a hand in Dags’ general direction, her lips pursed.

  Dags opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

  “Hey. You were there. I saw the surprise on your face a few times during that fight. A few times, you hit him hard, and that piece of shit barely blinked. He acted like a damned robot. And I heard him. I heard what he said to you. He said, ‘The Phoenix will burn.’ He said that, right? The Phoenix will burn. I didn’t hallucinate it.”

  Dags frowned.

  He’d forgotten about that.

  In his haze of flying and barely sleeping and no time to think or react before he got dragged down here, Dags had completely forgotten the weirdness Asia Jackson was describing to him now.

  He’d forgotten the man even spoke to him.

  “…Are you really going to tell me that’s just a coincidence?” Asia said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “Phoenix has been getting weird messages and shit for weeks. But yeah, I’m supposed to believe it’s not connected when some rando grabs me and starts talking mumbo-jumbo with her name sprinkled in?”

  Dags’ frown hardened, along with his jaw.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  If it was a coincidence, it was a damned weird one.

  Anyway, the guy had a demon living inside him. Dags had fully intended to hunt him down, anyway. It was just super-weird for a demon to have any kind of plan or agenda like what Asia Jackson was describing. Usually they were pretty single-minded, and their wants were basic. Sex. Drugs. Sometimes crime or general mayhem.

  Dags had never known one to target a specific person before.

  Dags had never known one to get cute with stalker notes and threats before, either.

  “Uh-huh,” Asia said, as if reading his face. “You see it now. You know I’m right. It’s got to be connected, right?”

  “I really don’t know⏤” he began honestly.

  Before he could get any further, Kara cut him off.

  Clearly, she’d let this play out for as long as her patience could stand it.

  “Jourdain!” she snapped.

  When he looked over, she scowled.

  Still staring at him, she tapped the front of her watch meaningfully.

  “Are we doing this? Or do I have to remind you of the significantly less-friendly option I laid out earlier? The one that involves me getting a warrant? Or maybe just arresting your ass outright, for evading police officers last night?”

  She paused, letting her words sink in.

  “I’d rather get breakfast,” she added. “I suspect you’d rather do that, too. If only because the other option’s going to cost you in billable hours for whatever ambulance-chasing, sleazy lawyer you call whenever you get in the shit.”

  Dags gave her a flat look.

  Still staring at her, he considered a snarky remark. Then, remembering she really had been trying to avoid arresting him, he opted against it.

  He gave her a brief nod instead.

  “Okay,” he said. “Calm down, Miss Low Blood-Sugar.”

  Handing the business card he still held in his fingers over to Asia Jackson, he watched her look at it, flipping it from one side to the other.

  “Jourdain Investigations,” she read off the front.

  “Call me,” he said. “Or have your friend call me. Hopefully I’ll be done with all this in a few hours. If I don’t answer, I’m probably asleep. Or in jail. I’ll call back.”

  Kara grunted, making it clear what she thought of that.

  Asia Jackson smiled at him, though.

  The look of relief in her dark eyes somehow softened and changed her whole face, as well as lightening her aura.

  It was dramatic enough, Dags blinked.

  “I’ll hold you to that, Angel-guy,” she said, tapping him on the chest with his own business card.

  She surprised him even more, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.

  “And maybe I didn’t say it before, but thanks. Thanks for playing white knight for me in that alley. Even if you are a damned weirdo. Even if you wouldn’t use the stupid gun when I practically threw it at you. I still appreciate it. A lot. Too many in this town would’ve kept walking.”

  Dags winced.

  Most of the wince came from her mention of the gun.

  The rest of it came from her calling him “Angel-guy” maybe for the third or fourth time in the last ten minutes, and not only because she did it in front of Kara Mossman, Homicide Detective II, and a few dozen more of LAPD’s finest.

  It felt like having someone point out he was naked.

  Actually, if his experience earlier that morning was any indication, it was worse.

  Chapter 6

  Cold Coffee

  “You really thought I was working for that guy? This…” Dags paused, trying to remember. “What’s his name again?”

  “Jason,” Kara said, swallowing a mouthful of pancake and lifting her coffee mug to her lips. “Jason Tig. He worked for several of the big studios. They’re bringing in some people who knew him later today.”

  Dags scowled.

  He would have liked to talk to some of those people first.

  People got weird once cops got involved.

  He finished pouring the last of his small pitcher of maple syrup on the plate-sized blueberry pancakes, dipping the pitcher up and down a few times to get out the last few drops. He had to admit, the pancakes looked really damned good. Real blueberries stuck out on top, bleeding purple juice into the spongy cakes.

  In addition to the two pitchers of syrup, they’d brought him and Kara what looked like half a pound of butter to smear on the damned things.

  He was going to have to remember this place.

  He set the pitcher back on the table once he’d emptied it, scowling at her.

  “Just how much of an asshole do you think I am?” he said. “You think I take on clients who want me to aid and abet while they stalk and beat up on women?”

  Giving him a faint smirk, Kara only shrugged.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, sawing into the stack with his fork. “Thanks a lot.”

  He’d recounted the whole story to her by then, with only a few, strategic omissions.

  Okay, a lot of omissions.

  And a few blatant lies.

  He’d lucked out, though, for the most part.

  S
he finally showed him the footage of him exiting the alley, and they hadn’t actually caught his transformation on film. They caught him jumping straight up in the air, making about six feet of height in a single leap, but that was pretty much it.

  They’d gotten some clear images of Jason Tig in the same set of frames, including one with his head lifted and his eyes open. Between that and fingerprints they pulled off Asia Jackson’s purse, not to mention her own description of her attacker, they’d managed to ID the guy. Luckily, good ole Tig had a record.

  As for Dags, he had to fight not to grin when the video cut out, and he realized he wasn’t about to see giant black and brown wings burst out of his back.

  Kara still had questions.

  She asked him how the hell he’d been able to jump so high. She asked him about the tattered shirt they’d found on the alley floor. She asked him about the shockingly bright, blue-green light that illuminated the alley right after Dags jumped.

  Mostly, though, she wanted to know where the hell he’d gone.

  She also mentioned, somewhat cagily, that a few of the cops swore they saw wings.

  She made a few cracks about jet packs.

  Most of the cops, however, must have looked away during that flash of light, because as a group, their stories came across as confused and inconsistent, and the images from the cameras were mostly blurred and dark. Dags heard shouting and radio calls, but none of it added up to much. The dash cam, which brought back the clearest images, had a limited vantage that cut off both the alley floor and the area past where Dags jumped.

  By the time any of the police officers on the scene thought to aim one of their cameras upward, the brick walls were dark.

  Dags was gone.

  By then, Jason Tig had also disappeared.

  A few cops mentioned seeing a dog, but it must have run away, too.

  Most of the footage was of the alley scene itself⏤the ripped-up jacket and shirt, Dags’ phone, the splatters of blood left behind by Dags and Jason Tig, the rusted dumpster, Asia’s gun, and, of course, Asia Jackson herself, who alternated between describing the events that unfolded calmly and screaming at the cops for letting the guy who attacked her get away.

  All of that was good news, as far as Dags was concerned.