Sinners and Saints

by Jennifer Roberson

  * * *

  —

  It was a fitful night, to say the least, and by the time dawn arrived I’d given up on restful sleep. At six a.m. I called the vet’s office and explained what had happened, what we’d done for the dog’s comfort. They said they’d see him at six-thirty.

  Remi was up, too, and fixing coffee in the modest kitchen. Bagels were in the toaster, and he’d pulled out a tub of flavored spread. “There’s a lead rope hanging from the back door handle downstairs. Figure you can use that as a leash to get him into the vet.”

  I shook my head. “What else do you have packed away in that truck box? Reminds me of Dr. Who’s TARDIS—larger on the inside than the outside!”

  He shrugged. “Just basic stuff anyone working around animals needs. On the ranch I’m dealing with cattle and horses, mostly, a dog now and then and maybe a barn cat fracas. You live far enough away from a town and a vet, you gotta know how to tend injuries till you can get the vet out to see the animal.”

  “Comes in handy with humans, too, I imagine.”

  Remi smiled crookedly. “I have been known to slap livestock liniment on me now and then.”

  “Okay, I’ll take him down to do his business, then put him in the truck. Appointment’s in twenty minutes.”

  Remi nodded. “I’ll drop you, get Cerberus buried, then head on over to the hospital to see Mary Jane. I figure you can catch a ride-share.” I nodded. His eyes were troubled. “Sure hate that she got dragged into all of this.”

  “Hazards of the wrong name.” I swallowed a couple of slugs of coffee, stuck a bagel between my teeth, rounded up the dog and began the laborious descent of steep, narrow stairs carrying a canine who apparently managed to gain two hundred pounds overnight.

  * * *

  —

  With the nav app providing directions in a sexy Scandinavian voice—Remi said her name was Helga—we got to the vet in no time. Once the dog and I were on our way inside, I waved Remi off to visit Mary Jane. I matched my pace to the dog’s, who watered a plant along the drive, then allowed me to lead him inside.

  And as we entered, I saw the receptionist look at us with a professional smile, then stand up quickly. “I think that’s—just hang on a sec.” And she was out from behind the counter and gone.

  After a moment she was back with a guy wearing a lab coat and a hopeful expression on his face. I couldn’t read the entire name embroidered on his pocket, but the DR. and DVM were obvious.

  “Yep,” he said, relief softening his face. “Let’s scan to be sure, but it’s him.” He knelt, put gentle hands on the dog, looked up at me. “What’s the story?”

  “Found him out back scavenging near the dumpster,” I explained, then decided to excise pretty much the rest of the story other than the dog fight. “My friend’s a working cowboy so he knew what to do before we could bring him in.”

  “Okay.” After scanning and checking the chip’s data, the vet told the receptionist to give someone named Mac a call. “Tell him we’ve got Bosco, and he’ll be fine.” He rose, gestured at me. “Come on and bring him back. I have three clients who will be very glad to get the news that their dog is okay. They were in a car accident, lost Bosco in all the excitement. Thank you for bringing him in.”

  I wanted to say it was better to thank the dog for saving our lives, but that was another tale.

  We got Bosco settled on the floor in the exam room for a preliminary exam. He was quiet and receptive as the vet went over him, blinking slit-eyed at me as I stroked and spoke to him. In the midst of that, a man with a young daughter—aged six? seven?—was escorted into the room. Tall red-headed guy, maybe thirty, and the girl had the same blazing hair. Her left arm was in a cast. She saw the dog and promptly burst into tears, dropping to the ground.

  The dog had been lying still. Now he sat up, thumped the ground with his tail, tried to rest his big head on a much smaller shoulder. The girl threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, still crying. The hug didn’t last long because he decided to clean the tears with a few swipes of his big tongue.

  I cleared my throat, gave the father a weak smile. Tears stood in his eyes.

  “Thank God,” he said, “thank God. And thank you! My wife’s in the hospital—she’ll be okay—and Mercy has been crying nonstop because Bosco was lost. He’s her dog, you see. Or maybe it’s that she’s his kid.”

  Bosco gazed up at me with those expressive brown eyes. I knew it was time to go. I had no place here. He was home.

  I asked for a pen and paper, wrote down my name, number, and e-mail address. I squatted and gave the slip of paper to the little girl. “Would you let me know how he’s doing? He’s a really good dog. Would you, please?”

  She took the paper, nodded, gave me a watery look out of big blue eyes and went right back to hugging on the pittie. In this moment, only the dog mattered.

  I smiled at him, scratched him under his jaw. I bent down close so what I said was private between the two of us. “Good boy,” I said, “and thank you. You know why.”

  The pittie grinned and thumped his tail, then snuffled the little girl’s ear.

  I shook the father’s hand, wished his wife a fast recovery, and left the room. As I slid the door closed, I heard the little girl asking if Bosco needed a cast, too.

  Yeah, a happy ending. And I was glad, relieved, happy especially for the little girl—and more than a little wistful. I didn’t realize I’d kind of been hoping no owner was found. There were such things as motorcycle sidecars, and dog harnesses, dog seatbelts, dog goggles . . . but clearly he was where he needed to be.

  I was about to call a ride-share when my phone rang. Not Remi; I didn’t recognize the number.

  The voice on the other end, when I answered, told me my bike was ready.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The kid from the Harley shop rode my bike over to the vet’s office to deliver it personally. I would have preferred to come in and pick it up, discuss with Cisco what had been done, but the kid said his boss was out of town. Plus, I remembered that Cisco himself had said the kid was a real good mechanic. Kenny! That was it.

  Kenny was skinny and sandy-haired, around eighteen, I judged. He had a lazy eye and stuttered. Certain tics suggested possible developmental or emotional challenges, and I remembered Cisco saying something about the boy being ‘a little special,’ and excellent with his hands. It was entirely likely Kenny preferred not to talk to clients and was highly uncomfortable right now, speaking with me.

  Then I asked him something technical, and he was off and running. Bikes were his love, obviously, and the physical and vocal tics mostly disappeared as he talked shop. The upshot was that he had done most of the work on my bike—he hastened to say it was under Cisco’s supervision, and Cisco always checked his work. He was able to spell out in detail how he had handled the repairs. Definitely knew his stuff, and we “talked bikes” for around twenty minutes out in the vet clinic’s parking lot.

  Kenny handed over the invoice and receipt, and when I offered to give him a ride back to the shop he said his mother was coming to pick him up.

  And then he surprised me when he volunteered he had a doctor’s appointment with a neurologist. “Bunged up head,” was all he offered. No additional details.

  “Bike?” I asked, and he nodded. “Yeah,” I said, commiserating. “I laid this one down—that’s how she got wrecked—and I’m a little bunged up, too.” I tucked the paperwork into a pocket, thanked him again—offered a $20 tip he refused—swung a leg over the saddle and felt vast contentment settling into body and spirit as I let my weight down.

  God, it felt good! Freedom from prison. Freedom of the road.

  Hell, just freedom.

  I turned over the key, nodded to Kenny as the engine caught and settled into a smooth rumble, took my sweet ride out onto the street.

  * * *

  �
�

  As I pulled the bike around back to park at the Zoo, I was, of course, reminded of the battle the night before between Cerberus and the pittie. It did make me smile—which was a luxury in view of what could have happened.

  Bosco the Pit Bull, One. Cerberus, the God of the Underworld’s Pet, Zero.

  I wished Tommy was alive so I could tell him his bike was back together again, and a pittie who barely knew me had saved my life and Remi’s the night before. He’d have been proud of both.

  Parked, I headed in the back door. I still wasn’t entirely comfortable under the glass eyeballs of the animals on display throughout the Zoo, especially not after my dance with their live versions. But at least they were inanimate again.

  I called out to see if Ganji were present. No answer was an answer. As I made my way slowly into the dancehall proper, I found a text from Remi saying he was on the way. I went ahead and texted back to let him know the dog was with his humans, the bike was with her human, and I was back home. How was Kelly doing? Any insight into Jack the Ripper?

  An answer came, but terse: ‘Almost home. Talk then.’

  Home. Huh. Guess that’s what the Zoo had become.

  As I hit the power button I glanced up just in time to register that a man stood right in front of me, and that his fist was on its way to my face.

  I went down. Hard. The phone whacked the parquet floor and slid some distance away, and even as I tried to reassemble splayed limbs so I could get to my feet, grab for my gun, the guy bent down, locked a hand into my jacket, and dragged me up from the floor.

  Oh. Shemyazaz, in his human form. No wonder my jaw hurt so badly. No wonder he was so strong. No wonder he could snatch the gun out of my hand and hurl it across the room, rip the knives off me as well. They, too, were tossed away to clatter against the floor.

  “Ambriel!” he cried. “Ambriel! I gave you your human back. I gave you the woman. I want Ambriel!”

  Even in his normal human-looking edition, the angel was formidable. It had nothing to do with height, nor weight—we were probably close in that—nor his overall fitness. It was something incandescent that had come to life in him. He was set apart from mankind. He was more than mankind. He filled the room just standing there. And he was pissed as hell.

  I noticed the orbs perched along beamwork as the angel curled his hands into the unzipped flaps of my jacket and shook me. My arms actually flopped until I stiffened them, and my head snapped once before I recovered control of my body. He still held me in place with his grip upon my jacket, but at least I wasn’t ragdolling anymore.

  I set my hands upon his wrists, hung on hard as I tried to loosen his grip. When he finally paused and I refound my voice, I didn’t hold back the anger. “I don’t know what the fuck you want with Ambriel, and I don’t know where the fuck she is! She left! We were in that chapel, she closed up her wings, and she left. Got that? You could try Spock’s mindmeld on me and you’d get nothing more than that, because it’s the truth, you angelic asshole! I get that Lucifer beat you with the Ugly Stick and you’re pissed about it; and I get that you’re pissed about the girl who got away; and I get that you feel some kind of competition with Mikhail Baryshnikov over the number of pirouettes you can do—he’s retired, by the way—but I can’t tell you what you want to hear.”

  He let go of me fast and hard. I staggered a moment, caught my balance, shrugged my jacket into its proper fit. Then we just stared at one another for several very long seconds. It reminded me a little bit of Bosco and Cerberus, except I knew that if Yaz got really worked up I’d be the one missing my guts and wrapped up in a tarp for burial.

  Yaz really was a beautiful man, and I could definitely see why he’d be pissed to lose the looks for any reason, let alone so disastrously to Lucifer’s fit of jealousy. I assumed he was in pain when his body burned and melted twenty-two hours out of every day, and that coupled with the psychological pain of knowing what he had been and now what he was . . . yeah. Enough to knock a guy’s mental train off the tracks.

  His eyes blazed. “You are no help at all!”

  Wings, and his were pure and white not Ambriel’s black, shot free of his back—or shoulders, or spine, or whatever portion of his anatomy held them, or maybe like the swords on Highlander they lived in a pocket universe and appeared only when needed—stretched endlessly across the dance floor.

  Then he wrapped himself up in them and he, with the orbs, disappeared.

  I put a hand to my jaw. “Shit, that hurt.”

  “Gabriel,” she said from behind.

  Swearing, I spun. It was Greg. “Oh, now you show up! Great. It would simplify my life considerably if you and Shemyazaz got your damn timing straightened out!”

  Greg’s face was stricken. “Shemyazaz was here?”

  “Like, just here. What, you angels can’t feel one another? Maybe ping your sonar?”

  But she ignored me, was looking around frantically as if she’d lost something. “Did he drop a feather?”

  “A feather? How the hell do I know? I don’t see one; do you see one? So no.” I realized I was in a really foul mood. “And what is it you want?”

  “I need a feather,” she said blankly. “If I have one, I can hide myself from him.”

  “I don’t know if he dropped a feather,” I said. “I don’t see a feather. Is that what you came for? A damn feather?” I paused, remembering. “I have one of yours, though.”

  Her head snapped around. “You have one of my feathers?”

  “Yes. You dropped it at the chapel. Or shed it. Whatever it is you guys do.”

  “Where is it?”

  For a moment I drew a blank. “Oh. It’s in Remi’s truck. Glove box.”

  Ambriel, a Grigori like Shemyazaz and possibly related, put her hands on my jacket. “Let no one have it. Do not give it to Shemyazaz. Do not give it to Barachiel. Give it to no one.”

  “Barach—?” Ah. Grandaddy. “Why?”

  “I have to go,” she said. “I mustn’t stay. Barachiel is chasing me, and Shemyazaz will kill me. Keep the feather safe, and keep this safe.”

  “Keep what—?” I frowned at the object she pressed into my right hand.

  “It will be of use. Use it. Let it tell you the truth of things when others don’t. You are its protector now. The prostátis. Do your job.” She grabbed my jacket again. “Barachiel mustn’t have it.”

  “This?” I displayed a flash drive, of all things, on the vertical between thumb and forefinger. The stub of a USB connector was tucked away inside the small silver case, like the folded blade of a Swiss Army Knife. “You do understand the man practically raised me, in his own way. Or at least mentored me. Do you expect me to just assume everything he says is a lie? I won’t. I won’t do it.”

  For a moment, all the urgency and tension dissipated. She released my jacket. “No. No, I shouldn’t expect that. He was kind to you; of course you trust him. He will have to prove to you what he is before you learn not to trust. But believe me in this: You hold my feather—I won’t lie to you. Keep it safe. Keep both safe. Let no one have them.” And then her eyes were frantic again. “He’s coming.”

  I opened my mouth to ask her another question, but she stepped away from me, sheathed herself in wings, and disappeared.

  No feathers left behind. Black or white.

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I looked at the drive, moved a couple of slider buttons on the small case, discovered it was a dual USB with retractable A and C connectors, one at each end. I stuffed it into a pocket, made a perimeter search of the dance floor to collect my gun and safe it back in the holster. I needed to take it apart, check it for damage since Yaz had actually thrown it, then gathered up my phone and two knives.

  As I sheathed the bladed weapons the front door was thrown open and Grandaddy stalked in. “Where is she?” he asked. “Where is Ambriel?”

  I
lowered the gun I’d snatched from the holster. “What is this, Grand Angel Station? How many more of you are arriving today? Should I set an extra twenty places at the table?”

  In his Western-style frock coat and boots, the sun behind him lighting up his long white hair, he appeared part avenging angel, part movie hero arriving just in time to deliver us from evil bad guys. Except that no one was wearing black hats, so I wasn’t sure who to root against.

  Grandaddy was not a demonstrative man. He laughed, he got annoyed, could be impatient, yet never to excess. But he was pissed as hell.

  Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. But I didn’t. I was pissed, too. “She’s not here,” I told him. “She’s gone. I don’t know where she is. Seriously. So you and Yaz can go off to a bar together—some other bar, please—and commiserate.”

  He stepped closer. The avenging angel version had taken precedence. “Do you think this is funny?”

  “No.” I dropped the wiseguy act. “No, Grandaddy, I don’t find it funny. I find it deadly serious. I find it deadly. I’m at risk, Remi’s at risk, and we lack a whole lot of information that would be helpful to have. You threw a lot at us that one night, the night you had us so dramatically shake hands and clasp rings together, but we don’t actually know anything. Basically it was ‘Go thou and battle demons.’ Seriously? Did you ever think that maybe Remi and I aren’t ready? That maybe we needed more time to assimilate, more time to truly understand the yellow brick road that lies before us, before you deployed us?”

  His expression was grim. “She told you that. Ambriel. She told you that you’re not ready.”

  “Yes. She did.”

  “Are you alive?”

  I blinked at him. “So far.”

  “Then you’re ready.”