Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel)

by Blake, Bruce

  “Shit.”

  I grabbed the knob and yanked hard, forgetting it was locked and losing precious seconds better spent fleeing.

  “Fuck.”

  “Language.”

  I slipped her a disapproving glance and twisted the dead bolt, but my fingers slipped off and clicked loudly. Behind us, footsteps clomped across the kitchen, approaching the hall. I fumbled the lock again, got it working, and jerked the door open.

  “Hey!”

  I jumped down the porch stairs dragging Dido along with me as booted feet hammered the hall floor behind us. We made short work of the path through the yard and I navigated the gate’s latch open on the first attempt, then went right, toward the overpass, without checking it was the best way to go. Bad choice.

  “Icarus Fell. I should have guessed you’d be involved. It explains everything, really.”

  I stopped suddenly, pulling Dido to a halt with me and wrenching my shoulder. The man before us wore the requisite long, black coat over a black button-up shirt and black jeans. Worn cowboy boots and a big silver buckle on his belt completed the carrion uniform. Sunlight gleamed on his freshly-shaven head and his neatly trimmed goatee made it difficult to accept the expression on his lips as a smile. I’d run into this guy before, when Sister Mary-Therese died. He’d tried to kill me, and Poe, and I’d broken a few of his ribs and destroyed his partner in a manner I still didn’t understand. I glanced back at the man who’d come out of the house to make sure I really did kill the other guy and saw his new partner sported a full head of red hair and freckles that made him resemble the Conan O’Brien of carrions.

  “What brings you two fellas here?” I asked through a sneer and coaxed Dido behind me.

  “Oh, I think you know.”

  “You’re mad because I gave you a boo-boo?”

  His laugh sounded like the bark of a dog with an attitude problem. “Hardly. You think you can hurt me?”

  I shrugged, hoping to engage him for a bit and give myself time to figure out how to get us the hell out of here. My eyes darted up the street—no cars coming to push him into their path, no one with a bazooka to offer assistance, no help.

  “Really? I see you’ve got a new partner. What happened to the old one?”

  “An unfortunate accident. Where is your guardian angel?”

  Touché.

  I glared at him and Dido wriggled behind me, so I grabbed her arm tighter, hoping she’d understand I meant she should calm down because I had this under control, but instead of calming, she let out a quiet squawk. I loosened my grip a touch.

  “Enough talk, Icarus Fell--”

  “Ric.”

  “Enough talk...Icarus. Give us what we are here for so we can leave this stinking world.”

  I peered back at the red-haired carrion; he’d passed through the gate and stood on the street, perhaps seven strides away. My feet left the sidewalk, touching the pavement of the street as we backed away.

  “I don’t know what you want,” I lied.

  “Give us the girl.”

  “What do you want of a little girl?”

  “Orders. Now let us have her.”

  The smirk on the bald carrion’s face molded itself into an impatient frown. The red-headed one took a step toward me, so I took two steps back, keeping myself between them and Dido. Whatever they intended couldn’t be good. The bald dude’s hand started to glow with a dim light, confirming my suspicion.

  “Ha,” I scoffed. “You tried that before. Didn’t work out so well, did it?”

  His frown remained, but one eyebrow ratcheted up a couple of notches on his forehead; he raised his hand, holding it between us like he held some prized possession to show off. The intensity of the light increased, intertwining through his fingers and around his hand like a luminescent snake.

  It’s green.

  My gaze flickered from his hand to his face.

  It wasn’t green before.

  His lips curled into a cruel smile and I realized he’d read my thoughts.

  “Don’t try me any further, Icarus Fell. Give me the girl.”

  “No way. I--”

  Dido extricated herself from my grasp, interrupting me. I didn’t take my eyes off the carrion, but sensed her presence beside me; the bald guy’s gaze, on the other hand, darted from me to the young girl. The nasty smile plastered to his kisser disappeared and his eyes widened. The urge to turn my head and find out what caused this reaction threatened to overcome me, but the increasing brightness of his glowing hand convinced me not to. Dido took a step toward him, and a ball of green flame shot out of his palm, swirling across the space between us.

  I jerked my face away and threw my hands up defensively. In the instant before green light engulfed me, I saw the spirit girl standing beside me, but she wasn’t the same. Young and old, beautiful and hideous, and more all at once. She—or it—wrapped around me, then the world became a brilliant shade of green before everything went black.

  ***

  The odor of burnt rubber insinuated itself into what I assumed a dream. In it, I floated, though I was unsure if I did so on the water or in the air. My mind was clear, my body free of the aches and pains left in the aftermath of my Hell-creature bites; the air my lungs inhaled tasted clean and crisp, until the smell hit me.

  I gagged on it and heard myself coughing, then other sounds returned—a bird singing, the roar of traffic. Next came light. A red-yellow glow shone through the thin skin of my eyelids, painting random patterns, flowing, changing. Finally, the aches returned to my shoulder, my gut, my calf, my chest.

  With a groan, I sat up suddenly, blinking fast and hard and sputtering like a drowning man pulled out of the water. Hard, rocky ground pressed on my hands and against my ass, and I saw Dido crouched beside me, her teeth showing. It freaked me out for a second, then I realized she was smiling.

  “Good morning, sleeping beauty.”

  I gulped a mouthful of car exhaust-flavored air while my eyes darted from the young spirit to our surroundings: cracked gray sidewalk, low cement walls with flaking white paint and graffiti.

  The overpass.

  I gave my head a shake and forced myself to concentrate—a difficult task with Dido staring at me. I looked at my hands, then at the worn footpath and a stray clump of grass struggling to grow through one of the tight cracks. The last thing I recalled was standing in the street outside Meg’s house, protecting my spirit friend from a bald carrion and a Howdy Doody-looking one. And then green and black engulfed me, then nothing. I shuddered.

  “What happened?” I asked and Dido’s eyes lit up, like she awaited this opportunity.

  “I made us disappear.”

  The crease again, worming its way across my forehead, reminding me of my age.

  “But how did we get here?”

  She shrugged. I sucked a deep breath through my nose and let it out sharply; it didn’t relieve the odd frustration of waking up somewhere I didn’t expect.

  “What did you do?”

  “I stepped in front of you.”

  When she said it, I remembered her moving out from behind my back to stand beside me.

  “And then?”

  “Green light came out of his hand.”

  “So you don’t know how we got here?”

  She shook her head.

  “What do you know?”

  “I didn’t want them to hurt you.”

  I relaxed a little. Her smile had faded during my questioning, but now returned to one corner of her mouth like a nervous twitch she couldn’t deny. A large vehicle rumbled beneath the overpass, vibrating the sidewalk against my ass.

  “So you didn’t do this.”

  “I wished we were far enough away to be safe.” Her half-smile quivered and disappeared; she looked away from me, gazing over the side of the overpass at the traffic on the highway. “Why do those men want me?”

  “Not sure,” I said with a grunt and drew myself up to my feet, brushing dirt and pebbles off the backside of m
y pants. “There’s something special about you, I guess.”

  I turned to walk away, not exactly sure where to go and fully expecting her to follow; I didn’t expect her small, cold hand in mine. I stopped and looked down at her staring back up at me.

  “You don’t know why they want to take me?”

  “I know where. I don’t know why.”

  Strangely, that seemed to make her relax. “I didn’t like those men.”

  “Me neither.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Thirty seconds passed, my lips and teeth pressed hard together in what I hoped might seem intelligent contemplation rather than the reality: a desperate search for a good answer. Finally, I remembered my conversation with Mikey, which wasn't much help, but I had nothing else.

  “We have to find Chan Wu.”

  Her forehead did its best to mimic the line mine developed when I was confused, but if she thought to give me competition, she’d have to try a lot harder and put a few more miles on her odometer.

  “Who’s Chan Wu?” she asked as we resumed walking. Her hand stayed in mine and I let it.

  I shook my head and shrugged, just to clarify my own lack of knowledge. “Don’t know, but we have to find him.”

  What else could we do?

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’m fine. I’ll go back to my place. No big deal,” Cory said.

  “No way. You’re coming home with me.”

  Despite his protests, they stayed their course.

  Trevor inhaled, relishing the ability to fill his lungs. He’d recovered from Manny’s punches, but he noticed Cory limping, having trouble breathing; the mud caked on his overcoat and blood dried on his face didn’t improve his appearance.

  “We should go to the hospital.”

  “No hospital,” Cory grumbled and stood straighter. “I’m fine. Really.”

  “All right, but let’s clean you up a bit before we get to my place. My Mom’ll freak if she sees you like this.”

  They didn’t rush on the way to Trevor’s, taking the time to stop at a gas station to wash the blood off Cory’s face and wipe the mud from his coat. When most of the dirt didn’t come off the overcoat, Cory removed it and jammed it into the washroom’s garbage can. It stuck out comically, looking as though someone stuffed a muddy dwarf into the trash receptacle.

  “Hey. Don’t throw it away.”

  “Whatever.” Cory waved his hand at it and left the washroom, Trevor close behind. “I’ve got another one. They were my step-father’s.”

  Trevor stared at his shoes as they walked, questions he didn’t ask rebounding around in his head as he waited to see if Cory might volunteer answers on his own. He didn’t, so when they turned onto Trevor’s street, he decided it was time.

  “Thanks again,” he began. His friend grunted. “But what were you doing there?”

  He glanced at the older boy and found him also examining his footwear. His earlier limp had dissipated, but he took an occasional stutter step, like attempting to remove his underwear from the crack of his ass without using his hands.

  “I went for a walk.” He snorted and spit bloody snot on the ground in front of them. “Sometimes a guy has to get out of the house.”

  “But why didn’t you fight back?”

  “Would you?”

  “Sure,” Trevor said, though he didn’t know that he would.

  “No point,” Cory said echoing Trevor’s thoughts. “They’d have kicked the shit out of me no matter what. Probably worse if I fought back.”

  “But you stepped in anyway.”

  “Yeah. You’d do the same for me.”

  Trevor’s cheeks burned as he wondered if he would. He didn’t respond.

  I didn’t stop them this time.

  They made their way along the chipped sidewalk, past the leafless sticks pretending to be trees planted at the edge of the street on the way to Trevor’s house. He started down the path to his front door but Cory hesitated.

  “I don’t know. I should go home. My mom might wonder where I am.”

  “Really?” Trevor looked at his watch. “It’s not four yet. Dude, you old lady needs to relax.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Come on.”

  He strode the rest of the path to the door, stopping to look back when he’d opened the door. Cory was right behind him. He tried to peer around Trevor into the house.

  “Are your mom and dad home?”

  “Nah. Mom and Ashton are at work. He’s her boyfriend. My dad’s...dead.”

  “Something else we have in common. I’ve got a bunch of dead dads.”

  Trevor raised one eyebrow but didn’t ask. Instead, he led Cory through the door, leaving it for the other teen to close behind them.

  ***

  Cory excused himself from the dinner table and slouched down the hall to the washroom. The pain of the bumps and bruises he’d incurred while the three teens threw their fists and feet against him had pretty much subsided, but the lump at the top of his ass crack hurt enough to make sitting an excruciating experience.

  He closed the door and locked it, but didn’t flip the light switch on. Instead, he stood in the dark, rubbing the bump through his pants. It seemed smaller, he thought, but the pain flaring each time he touched it was more than before. He sighed through his nose and sat on the edge of the bathtub.

  I shouldn’t have come.

  At the best of times, being around people caused him pain, but engaging in conversation and socializing was worse. Trevor was the first person he’d found in as long as he could remember that he could be in the presence of without nausea overcoming him, though he didn’t know why. He reached over his shoulder and rubbed the hard spot above his shoulder blade.

  Both Trevor’s mother and her boyfriend pretended to be accommodating, but he understood they weren’t happy with their son for bringing an unannounced guest to dinner. Cory saw it in the displeasure in their eyes, alongside the same discomfort his presence brought to most people.

  It’s time to go.

  He stood gingerly, twisting his hips to avoid putting pressure on his inflamed tail bone, then flushed the toilet and ran water in the sink in case anyone was listening. He opened the door and started along the hall but stopped to eavesdrop before entering the dining room.

  “...told you about bringing home strays.” The voice belonged to Trevor’s mother’s boyfriend, Ashton.

  “He’s not a stray. He’s my friend.”

  Trevor’s use of the unaccustomed f-word unsettled Cory.

  Are we friends? Do I have a friend?

  “Pfft. Some friend. He looks like a druggie. And you get into fights when you’re with him.”

  “The fight wasn’t his fault,” Trevor protested. “I--”

  “You shouldn’t be hanging out with trash.”

  “Ashton--” Trevor’s mother started.

  “Stay out of this, Rae. You’re too easy on him.”

  “You’re not my father,” Trevor said, the volume of his voice rising. Cory figured this wasn’t their first conversation on that subject.

  “No, I’m not,” Ashton replied in a tone suggesting suppressed anger. “If I was, things would be different.”

  “You are--”

  Cory decided the time had come to end the conversation, or at least provide some relief, so he stepped into the doorway. Three sets of eyes turned toward him.

  “I think I should go,” he said looking from one to the other. Trevor looked angry; Ashton disdainful. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Fell.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her lips quivered into what might be a sweet smile if not for the tension of distress hardening her face.

  “Cory, you don’t--”

  “It’s okay, Trev. I gotta go home and take care of my mom, anyway. I’ll let myself out.”

  The door closed behind him and their voices rose in anger again. He paused outside for a minute, listening to their tones in the darkness of the early evening, though t
heir words were indistinguishable. Night had a tendency to throw sounds farther than they might carry at other times of the day. The window muffled their conversation, but there was no doubt of the feelings behind it.

  Cory sauntered down the path and walked along the uneven sidewalk on his way home, thinking he might have to take action to change his friend’s situation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  8 Years Ago

  “Smile.”

  Cory didn’t. He sat with his hands between his knees, glaring at the photographer. The guy waved some weird stuffed animal at him—a cross between a clown and a lion that provided no reason for him to change his expression. If anything, seeing such a strange thing confused him, offended him, made him angry.

  “Come on, kid. They don’t pay me much for doing this.” The photographer grinned. “I do it for the fun of hanging out with a bunch of grade four kids.”

  The stuffed thing waggled again, a bell on its blue hat jingling. Cory scowled.

  “At least move your hair out of your eyes.” He paused, waiting for Cory to do what he asked. Cory didn’t. “All right, but your mom and dad aren’t going to be happy.”

  The photographer—a young man in his mid-twenties with a scruff of beard and hair a little too long—offered a last pleading look. When it still didn’t work, he rolled his eyes and pressed the shutter release. The bulb set in the middle of the big silver umbrella flashed and Cory squinted, blinded for a second. He blinked away the green dots in front of his eyes and moved to crawl off the stool, but the photographer stopped him.

  “One more in case you closed your eyes.”

  The light popped again; Cory blinked on purpose.

  “Are we done now? Can I go?”

  “Yeah. Get out of here, kid.”

  Cory slid off the stool as the photographer glanced at his watch, cursed under his breath, and ushered the next child—a new kid named Manny—into place. Manny wore a button-up shirt with a clip-on tie and his hair parted to one side. He smiled when the young man told him to.