by Blake, Bruce
“Any word about Poe?”
Gabe reached across the table and laid her hand on top of mine. Static electricity jumped from her fingers, crawled up my arm and tickled my ribs. If I didn’t move my hand from hers soon, the sensation would claw its way into my brain and leave me with my toes dangling over the edge of euphoria.
I didn’t want to move my hand.
“You have to let her go, Icarus.”
“Ric.”
She smiled and her whole face glowed. “You did the right thing. I know it might not seem it now, but you needed to make a decision and you did. Let it go. In the end, things will work out in the manner they need to work out.”
Comforting. Like saying ‘don’t worry, the fall will stop when you hit the ground.’
She stole a glance toward Dido, then patted my hand once and stood, the legs of her wooden chair scraping the gray tile floor. Every head in the place swung toward her and took the time to watch her stride to the exit. When she passed through the door, the swallows lifted off and swirled around her in a cloud of blue and white before heading skyward. Gabe stopped outside the window and raised her hand to say good-bye; all of the Cowboy’s patrons and employees abandoned their coffees or jobs and waved in response.
The archangel smiled again, tilted her face toward the sky and closed her eyes, enjoying the sunshine before she left. When she disappeared, the coffee shop returned to normal as though nothing happened, the noise level rising with resumed conversations, coffee cups clunking on tables, and the coffee grinder springing back to life, but the mood slipped a notch without Gabe’s presence.
“All right then,” I said to nobody and pushed my chair away from the table.
Nobody looked up at the sound of its legs scraping the tiles, except the woman whose seat I bumped into. I smiled an apology and she returned to pecking the keys of her Dell laptop.
Fucking coffee shop writers taking up valuable real estate.
I scooped up the scroll Gabe left behind and jammed it into the inside pocket of my overcoat without opening it; that could wait until a time when I had a little more privacy. People in coffee shops can be nosey, as evidenced by my attempt to peek at the woman’s computer screen to see what so consumed her attention. She shifted to block my view and shot me an annoyed glare. I shrugged.
“Time to go, Dallas,” I said wending my way through the labyrinth of chairs.
“Dido,” she said hopping off the high stool at the bar, lips pursued at me in reproach. “If anyone in the world should care enough to get a name right, it should be you...Icarus.”
She deliberately drew out my name, emphasizing it, and her ploy worked. The sound of it scraped across me, her words fingernails on my blackboard brain.
“Fine—Dido. It’s a stupid name, though.” I regretted saying it—seemed immature, even to me. I didn’t tell her, though.
“You’re right. Icarus is so much better.”
“Ric.”
“Fine—Ric. Who was the cute lady you were talking to, Ric?”
Same tone she’d used when she said Icarus, same irritation for me. Maybe it wasn’t the name grating my nerves, but the speaker.
“Gabe.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me.
“Gabriel, the archangel. She’s the messenger,” I said.
“And did she bring you a message? About me?”
I pushed out the door and dodged a woman pushing a baby stroller the size of a SmartCar. She glared at me for...I don’t know, using the sidewalk to walk on, I guess. I shook my head and returned my attention to the girl at my side, the weight of the scroll bouncing against my chest as we walked.
“No.”
We joined the flow of pedestrians shuffling their way along the sidewalk from store to store in the chill air and bright sun. A beautiful day, but my mood didn’t seem capable of finding joy in it; perhaps the presence of the perpetual question machine walking beside me quashed the ability.
“No message, or not about me?”
“Neither...um...both.”
“What’s in your pocket, then?”
I let an exasperated sigh escape through my nose and pulled her aside, out of the way of the mid-morning foot commuters. I held her by the shoulders and looked into her blue eyes.
Weren’t they brown before?
“Enough questions. Gabe only visits to give me scrolls with instructions.”
“Instructions? What does the scroll say?”
I gave my head a brisk shake at her additional questions. Did she do it on purpose? Did she know how it tightened my insides into the over-wound spring of a cheap watch? Seemed to me she wanted to see how much winding it took to break it. I drew a deep breath of winter air chilly enough to make the teeth I sucked it through hurt before answering. It wouldn't be a good situation for either of us if I lost it on an eight-year-old in the middle of the sidewalk.
“The scrolls tell me everything I need to know to harvest a soul, like I did with your parents.”
Her face brightened and she clapped her hands together three times rapidly. A guy in a business suit and no overcoat hugging himself against the cold frowned at her.
“Sounds fun,” she said, her face all bright smile.
I considered telling her I wasn’t going to take her, that her job was to ensure no one broke into our motel room, but some quality in her expression made it impossible to resist her. Before I could stop it, I’d agreed to let her accompany me. After I realized it happened, I decided I better say something to make the decision sound begrudging.
“Fine,” I said starting down the street and leaving her to catch up. “But stay the f...stay out of my way.”
Ten paces of silence led me to believe her questions might have finally come to an end. No such luck.
“Are you sure Gabriel didn’t say anything about me?”
My head started to ache.
***
We crossed over the highway using the pedestrian walkway on the walk to our designated pick up point. Giving it a generic term like ‘pick up point’ helped me deal with the fact I was going to watch someone die. At least, it distracted me until I arrived and witnessed someone getting shot or dropping a barbell on themselves. Grisly business, death.
I walked at a brisk pace, both because Gabe didn’t give me much time and because I wanted to stay ahead of my new, unwanted companion to prevent more of her never-ending questions. My longer legs proved useful.
Listening to the clop-clop of her shoes on the pavement as she strove to keep up distracted me from the work ahead and made me consider the displaced soul again. Would they find a home for her some day? What if they didn’t? The suspicion I might have an adolescent tag-along for far longer than I was comfortable with settled in, though we’d passed my comfort level some hours ago. I didn’t enjoy the possibility of life as a baby sitter.
The part of town inscribed in the scroll had been nice in the early fifties, but fell on hard times by the seventies. It lay far enough from downtown that the houses boasted small squares of front lawn, most of them cluttered with garbage, broken appliances, or cheap toys belonging to children who likely didn’t know their fathers. The houses to which the tiny patches of grass belonged begged quietly for a coat of paint and a visit from a handyman; many of them might have been wise to consider trading their pathetic yards for new roofs, screens without holes, or crack-free windows.
I found the street listed on the scroll and glanced at my watches.
“It’s going to be close,” I said and immediately bit my tongue. Speaking to Dido equated to an invitation for her to open a can of questions on my ass. She accepted my inadvertent offer.
“Which house is it?” she asked, jogging to catch up. “Who are we harvesting?”
“Let me worry about it. Your job is to...stay out of the way.”
She continued walking beside me, her short legs hurrying to keep up my pace; I didn’t bother looking over to see the disappointed expression I’m sure I’d find plaster
ed on her face. I possessed no desire to gaze upon pouty lips.
We traversed the street watching for the address on the scroll, a task made difficult by the numbers missing from many of the decorative wooden ovals mounted beside the doors.
How do these people order pizza?
“Judging by the houses, I don’t think many of these people order pizza,” Dido commented.
I stopped dead in my tracks; the girl continued on for two steps before realizing I’d halted. When she faced me, she’d see my expression wrestling between surprise and anger.
“What did you say?” I spoke the words slowly, careful how I’d sound to her.
“That ordering pizza would be difficult here.” She answered in much the same tone as I’d asked.
“Why did you say that?”
She waved her hand toward the houses, then regarded me as though she thought me a little slow.
“Most of the houses don’t have numbers.” She leaned close, her hand held up beside her mouth, shielding her lips from anyone who might try reading them. “And they don’t seem like they have a lot of money, either.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, raised one eyebrow. Did she expect me to accept it was a coincidence she’d read my mind like angels do?
She’s not an angel. Has to be a coincidence.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “We’ve got to go or we’ll be late.”
We continued down the street, me throwing the occasional suspicious look her way, her whistling a song by some pop singer I recognized from the radio but couldn’t put my finger on: Katy Perry or the Bieber kid. We walked past a house missing more white pickets from its fence than it had left, another with a rusted-out car on blocks in the driveway. A black cat zipped across the sidewalk in front of us.
“Oh, oh. Bad luck,” she exclaimed.
“No way.”
I hope not.
“This is the place,” I said and headed for the front door of one of the few houses with a complete set of street numbers.
Winter-dead grass lined the chipped and cracked sidewalk leading to the house and grew through the fissures in the concrete. No toys cluttered the postage stamp-sized lawn, no garbage or corpses of major appliances; in fact, a few areas of dense weed suggested gardens long since overgrown. Once upon a time, someone cared enough about this house to make it a home, but that time passed a while ago.
I climbed the four steps to the front porch, my fingers trailing along the top of the rusted iron railing in desperate need of a coat of Tremclad, and the ache in my calf flared as I reached the second stair. I paused and flexed my foot to stretch out the muscle before finishing the climb.
Most of the varnish had peeled off the door, leaving the wood weathered; a deep crack ran from beneath the clouded glass peephole to within two inches of the bottom, and a few flakes of gold clung desperately to the doorknob.
I reached out and rattled the knob.
“It’s locked,” I said after giving it a jiggle.
“Want me to try?”
“I’ve got his,” I said holding up my hand to stop her. “I’ve opened doors before. Started cars, too.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
I rested my hand on the cold knob and pictured the inner workings of the lock bending to my will, falling into place. Tricky, given I didn’t know the guts of a lock from the inner working of a trumpet, but I’d opened locks before. After a few seconds, I gave it another twist. Still locked.
“What the Hell?”
I bit my bottom lip, waiting for the inevitable smart ass comment to exit the eight-year-old-with-attitude’s mouth, but none came.
Good. Maybe she’s realized who the adult is here.
I gripped the knob tighter, concentrated harder. I pictured a key sliding into the lock and turning with the snickt sound Wolverine’s claws make in the Xmen comics. Nothing. With my lips pressed together tight and eyes closed, I imagined the knob performing as it should, the door opening.
Still locked.
In desperation, I envisaged Tom Cruise’s character in Mission Impossible inserting his two little lock picking tools into the keyhole and finding a way to manipulate the thing. When Tom didn’t work either, I gritted my teeth and recalled a million cop shows and movies in which the police man kicks the door in with a well placed shoe beneath the doorknob. After no luck picturing it flying open, I decided to put the door-boot into practice in real life.
Before I could, the knob tugged itself out of my grasp and the door swung inward. I took a pace back and stared, astonished and impressed with myself, until Dido stepped into the doorway. I frowned.
“How did--”
“The back was unlocked,” she said, moving aside to allow me past. I didn’t appreciate the broad grin on her face. “We’re just in time.”
I went by, studying her face to make sure she didn’t find too much joy in upstaging me. She did.
The front door opened onto a small entryway with scuffed linoleum and a tiny closet packed full of jackets, sweaters and shoes. I sidestepped the pile of footwear spilling out of it, a soiled pair of white athletic socks amongst them that made me think of my son, and went into the living room beyond.
Soap opera characters I shouldn’t have recognized but for the fact they’d graced the cover of Soap Opera Digest for the last twenty-five or thirty years danced across the TV screen. A woman sat on the couch, her back to us, while an exact but not-as-solid replica of her stood beside the television staring at her. I took a few more steps into the room and got a closer look at the body lounging on the sofa.
The woman was around my age—late thirties, as much as it pained me to admit—but the years hadn't been kind to her. Overweight and unkempt, she wore a fuzzy housecoat well past its fuzziest days. The tie around her waist had come undone and fallen open to reveal a flannel nightgown beneath worn thin in spots and one slipper dangled precariously from the big toe of her foot resting on the coffee table. Her tousled hair hadn’t been introduced to a brush yet that day and in her mouth, I saw the remnants of the sandwich responsible for choking her. The murder weapon. An accomplice smudge of jam on her cheek blended with her purple flesh.
“What’s happening?” the woman’s spirit said.
She appeared better than her dead self on the couch—thinner, more fashionable, hair parted in the middle and brushed back from her face—but with a sadness to her mien. I took a breath, giving myself a second to decide the best way to break it to her—a part of my job that continued to bring me discomfort.
“You’re dead,” Dido blurted out in the same tone she might use while playing a game of tag and touching the woman, proclaiming her ‘it’.
I let out an annoyed breath and stopped myself from giving the young girl shit for her lack of tact. She shouldn’t be here, so how could I expect her to know how to act? I’d find time to explain it to her later, after I chased the frightened soul as she ran away from her ultimate fate the way my first harvest did when I made the same mistake.
The muscles in my thighs tensed, waiting for her to make a run for it. She didn’t.
The spirit contemplated her corpse, probably wishing she’d chosen different attire to be found dead in, or regretful she hadn’t wiped the unattractive glob of jam off her cheek. Possibly considering Cheerios might have made a better breakfast choice, too. After fifteen seconds, she looked back at me, wide-eyed and fearful.
“It’s okay,” I pulled the scroll out of my coat pocket for a quick memory jog, “Meg Medlin-Williams. Everything will be okay.”
She shook her head. “He did this.”
Remember the line on my forehead that shows up whenever I’m puzzled? It made a return appearance. I raised an eyebrow in an attempt to disguise it, but she’d turned away, staring off into space. My lips parted, getting ready to ask who she meant, when Dido decided she wanted to be involved.
“No one did this to you,” she said. “It’s your time.”
Apparently, sh
e didn’t quite understand when I told her to stay out of the way, so I shot her a look I figured should make it obvious I meant her to be quiet and leave this to the professional, but she took a step toward the woman anyway. I slipped between them, blocking her out.
“I’m going to get you where you need to go,” I told her, crossing to her to put my arm around her shoulders. Comforting and preventing her from fleeing. “Everything will be fine.”
“He killed me,” she said, her voice shaking. “He killed them all.”
“No, Meg. The little girl is right.” I winked at Dido and she glared back at me; I took mental note for the future, filing away her dislike of being called a little girl. “No one did this. Your time has come, is all. It happens to everyone.”
Well, most of us.
I led her past her corpse and to the open front door. She hesitated crossing the threshold, so I gave her a gentle push to keep her going. I didn’t worry the escort angel might tire of waiting and leave because they literally had nothing else to do, but I didn’t want to spend my entire day here, either.
“Will I be safe from him now?”
“Who, Meg?” Dido asked, forgetting my threatening expression. “Who did this to you?”
She looked at the girl, then at me. Fear might as well have been the color of her eyes.
“My son,” she said, voice trembling. “He’s the devil.”
Chapter Eight
Cory followed the trail through the park, his boots squelching in mud rimed with frost. Normally, he avoided the park whenever he could. Too many people frequented it, and he didn’t enjoy being around people, but today, with the sun shining on his face and the cold nibbling at his flesh more than usual, his mood bordered on a place it hadn’t visited in a very long time: happiness.
And he suspected Trevor Fell was somehow the cause of it.
