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

by Blake, Bruce

  Cory crossed to the other side of the gym to the group of kids who’d already had their pictures taken. Mrs. Granger stood at the head of the throng and furrowed her brow at Cory in disappointment as he joined them.

  “You couldn’t smile for the man?” she asked. Cory turned away from her.

  The other kids chit-chatted while waiting for their classmates, but none of them talked to Cory. He wended his way to the rear of the pack and leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest as they talked and teased, played and sang. Mrs. Granger shushed them every once in a while, and the volume level dropped for a minute before returning to its previous cacophony.

  Finally, the scruffy photographer took Susie McKinnon’s picture and she made her way across the gym to join her classmates. When she walked, her hair bounced and floated around her head like an angel’s halo, enthralling Cory. The pink bow on top of her head accented the chestnut color of her locks while matching the modestly-heeled shoes clicking on the gym floor; her purple dress hung to her white tights-covered knees.

  Beautiful.

  Cory straightened at her approach, standing erect and dropping his arms to his sides. He wiped his sweaty palms on the thighs of the black pants his mother had made him wear instead of his usual jeans—the dressiest pair of pants she found in his size at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Being big for his age and so skinny made buying clothes difficult, especially after Ugly Robert lost his job.

  Susie headed straight for him. He swallowed and rehearsed in his mind what he’d been planning to say to her all week. Simple words, and not many of them, but they may be the most important ones he’d uttered in his life.

  “Will you go to the dance with me?”

  It was an afternoon sock hop, not a real dance, but it was two days away and Cory had put off asking her as long as possible. Now or never, as he’d once heard someone sing.

  She reached the other students and pushed her way through them toward the back. Cory chewed his bottom lip, worried the others might notice him vibrating with his attempt to catch her eye. When he did, she smiled, and warmth spilled out of his chest, filling him; his mouth twitched into a nervous mockery of a smile and he wiped his sweaty palms on his pants again.

  You can do it, Cory. You can do it.

  He parted his lips to show his teeth and make his smile bigger. When he breathed, he inhaled the cologne he’d swiped from the bottle Ugly Robert kept in the medicine cabinet. It made his head light, threatened to start it aching, but he remembered his mother saying how much she enjoyed it. He hoped it appealed to Susie McKinnon, too.

  “Hi,” Susie said, throwing her arms open wide.

  “H-hi,” Cory stammered. “S...Susie, do you--”

  She embraced Grady Burrows standing in front of him and giggled in the other boy’s ear.

  “You look pretty today, Susie,” Grady said.

  “Thanks, Grady.”

  “Do you want to go to the dance with me on Friday?”

  Cory’s heart skittered and skipped a beat. The sweat on his palms jumped to his forehead; the smile he worked so hard to keep on his lips fell away like leaves from a tree in autumn.

  Say no. Say no. Say no.

  Susie gazed at Grady, her eyes sparkling delight and excitement. Cory held his breath and concentrated on keeping his knees from shaking as his legs suddenly felt made of Jell-o.

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  “Susie, no,” Cory’s mouth blurted without his mind wanting it to.

  Both Susie and Grady looked at him. Susie’s smile remained, though the expression wasn’t reflected in her eyes. Grady’s upper lip curled up in a Billy Idol sneer.

  “Did you say something, Scarecrow?”

  He emphasized the last word, spitting it out like a mouthful of phlegm. Cory shook his head vigorously.

  “Didn’t think so.” Grady took Susie by the arm and led her away. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Susie peeked over her shoulder as they walked away and Cory recognized the look in her eyes, because he’d seen it many times in the expressions of his classmates; this was the first time he’d seen it from her.

  Disgust.

  “Okay, everyone. Time to go back to class,” Mrs. Granger said and waved her arm for the class to follow her.

  Cory waited while the other kids filed out of the gym and into the broad hall. With no one paying attention, he slipped out the side door and ran all the way home.

  ***

  The back door was unlocked, as usual.

  Cory opened it slowly, pausing each time the hinge let out a squeak. When he’d opened it wide enough, he stepped through into the kitchen and pushed it closed with the same gentleness and care.

  The kitchen smelled of the baked beans in the pan on the stove. The handle of a spoon protruded from it and the open can sat on the counter, the top stuck to the magnet of the electric can opener his mother and Ugly Robert had received as a wedding gift from his grandmother—they’d been married less than a month when she died of pneumonia. A sheen of tomato sauce clung to the top, a few drops spattering the counter beneath.

  Cory stole through the kitchen and into the hallway, because the noise of afternoon television programming and the odor of beans suggested someone was home. On Wednesdays, his mother cleaned Mrs. Parkerson’s house, so it had to be Robert lounging on the couch instead of looking for a job as he told Cory’s mother he did.

  Cory didn’t go into the living room; he took a left into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, instead. He held his breath when the latch clicked closed, but knew it was too quiet to be heard above the grunts and moans emanating from the TV. Satisfied Ugly Robert hadn’t noticed him, he locked it.

  The faint scent of the lavender air freshener sitting on the back of the toilet mixed with a recent bowel movement made for a sickening odor; Cory ignored it, holding his breath as he opened the drawer in the vanity. As he slid it open, the toenail clippers, travel size shampoos and tubes of hair gel clattered together. He shifted things around, searching through brushes with broken handles, combs, wayward Q-tips, sample packages of body lotions. At the bottom, wedged in the back right corner, he found what he searched for wrapped in a piece of white tissue paper.

  He took it out, unwrapped it, and held the razor blade up, letting the light shining in the window glint on the sharp edge. Amazing such a small thing contained such danger.

  Cory set it on the counter and pulled his tee-shirt off over his head, folded it, and placed it on the toilet, then did the same with his pants, underwear, and socks. He stared at himself in the mirror, at his narrow chest and shoulders, his prominent ribs, his long, skinny arms.

  No wonder they call me Scarecrow.

  He’d hated the moniker ever since some kid labeled him with it in grade one. He didn’t remember the kid’s name, although the boy had picked on him all through first grade; he and his family died in a plane crash the next summer, and Cory hadn’t thought of him again until now. But the memory disappeared from Cory’s mind as he pictured Susie again, the revulsion in her eyes. With a sigh, he retrieved the razor blade from the counter, stepped over the edge of the bathtub and sat down. The cold surface of the enameled tub against Cory’s ass and back made him shiver until his body heat warmed it.

  He didn’t know why he’d bothered to fold his clothes and get into the tub, it wasn't like he'd have to clean up the mess, but it seemed the proper thing to do. Ugly Robert wouldn’t care, nor would Susie or Grady, Mrs. Granger or the photographer who took the school pictures, no one except his mother. She’d be the one left to sponge up his life.

  Cory held the blade in his right hand and raised his left arm, the flat of his forearm facing upward and his hand curled into a fist. The razor hovered in the air above his wrist, his hand shaking, and he thought about the way Ugly Robert treated him, about how his mother had withdrawn further from him since Kaitlin died. Finally, he thought of Susie and the others with whom he’d never fit in, childr
en who’d never be his friends.

  He pressed the corner of the razor blade into his wrist, finding the vein between the tendons. His breath whistled between his teeth when he drew it up his arm toward his elbow; blood squirted out of the wound, spattering on the white tub, landing on his bare leg. Wet and warm.

  Cory leaned his head back and closed his eyes, waiting for the end.

  ***

  “Wake up.”

  The whisper sounded as though spoken directly into his ear, the breath carrying the words tickling his neck and stirring his hair, but he didn’t open his eyes; it couldn’t be real, he must have imagined it.

  “Wake up, Cory.”

  The hardness of the tub pressed uncomfortably against Cory’s back and he inhaled the scents of coppery blood and sickly lavender, licked his lips and tasted saltiness. He flexed his left hand, the skin tightened with drying blood, but found no pain in his wrist where he’d cut himself. He didn’t open his eyes. It could only be Ugly Robert standing beside him, rousing him, and he didn’t want to face him, of all people.

  Unless I’m dead.

  “You’re not dead, Scarecrow,” the voice whispered. “It’s not your time.”

  Not Robert’s voice.

  Cory opened one eye a crack, his eyelids stuck together where blood had squirted on his cheeks, and saw a shape leaning over him.

  “Who are you?”

  He leaned forward and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his face. This time, his eyelids separated and he stared up at a boy around his age standing beside the tub, hands on his hips. Cory blinked to clear his vision and the boy was gone.

  The nausea and despair in his stomach that drove him to take the razor blade from the drawer had left him. He glanced down at his wrist covered with blood, wiped at it, but succeeded only on smearing it, so he leaned forward and cranked the tap on.

  Cory didn’t notice the cold water against his skin. He held his arm under the faucet, watching the water washing over his wrist and forearm tinted pink by the layer of blood. After a moment, he removed it and stared at his wrist.

  Not a mark.

  Did I imagine it?

  The blood on the sides of the tub, splashed on the inside of the plastic shower curtain, and the razor blade lying at the bottom of the tub between his legs told him he hadn’t.

  He climbed to his feet and leaned out of the tub, casting about for the boy he’d seen but he was alone and there was nowhere to hide. He’d imagined the boy.

  Confused, he drew the shower curtain across the tub and pulled up the pin on the faucet, switching the flow from bath to shower, allowing the water to hit his body and wash the blood from his skin.

  He doused himself, splashed the sides of the tub, washed blood off the tile wall, the shower curtain, the built-in soap holder. By the time he became aware of Ugly Robert hammering on the bathroom door, he’d cleaned himself and the tub; he twisted the tap, shutting the water off.

  “...the hell is in there? Get out here right now before I call the cops.”

  Cory patted himself dry, pulled on his pants and gathered the rest of his clothes in his arms as the door shook with Robert’s insistent knocks. Cory grabbed the knob, but hesitated when the shiny glint of metal in the bottom of the tub caught his eye. He retrieved the razor blade and stuck it carefully in his pocket before opening the door.

  Ugly Robert’s face glowed a bright shade of red, his expression tugged into exaggerated menace, making him worthy of his nickname. The baseball bat he held cocked in his hands shook with what was more likely fear than anger. His eyes widened when he saw Cory.

  “What the fuck are you doing? Why didn’t answer me?”

  Cory took a step out of the bathroom, but Robert moved, blocking him.

  “You’re supposed to be in school, you little fucker. What are you doing here?”

  Cory didn’t say anything. He pushed past, leaving the man who insisted he call him stepfather standing in the hall outside the bathroom, yelling at him as he slammed his bedroom door. He knew Ugly Robert wouldn’t follow him; he’d soon tire of shouting and return to his ancient porno movies he’d shown Cory once as his way of telling the boy about the birds and the bees.

  He threw his clothes on the dresser and dug his hand into his pocket, the tip of his finger grazing the edge of the razor. Cory pulled it out expecting to have more blood to clean up, but there was none, not a cut or even a nick.

  Cory sat down on his bed, razor blade in hand, and started experimenting.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I don’t know anyone named Chan Wu. I’m only eight, you know.”

  “Yeah, you were eight when you died, but I get the sense you’ve been around a lot longer, Dee.”

  Without asking, I’d decided to call her Dee because two syllables seemed at least one too many. I regarded her with a lopsided, sarcastic smirk-thing astride my face as she sat on the park bench beside me, legs curled beneath her.

  She returned my half-smile in the best spirit of reduce/reuse/recycle, but didn’t say anything to address my assumption. The soul sitting beside me clearly belonged to an eight-year-old and, as I’d found in my brief stint as a harvester, a person’s true age is reflected by their spirit, but something unusual about this one bothered me. Sometimes, when I peeked at her out of the corner of my eye, she seemed different, older. Still Dallas/Dido/Dee, but with more years under her belt, and presumably more knowledge and wisdom.

  “If it makes you feel better, we can search for him.” She slapped me twice on the knee, the way a parent might do to a child. Reassuring? Condescending? “But we have to find the dead lady’s son, too.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you were there? Looking for clues.”

  “No, I was watching Spongebob. You were, though.”

  “I was trying to find you.” I paused. “And clues, but Mikey told me to drop it.”

  She laughed a high-pitched, little girl laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand to prevent it from happening again. Blood rose in my cheeks along with a touch of annoyance in my chest; somewhere behind me, a duck quacked.

  “And you always do what he says, I suppose?”

  “Touché.” I’d never been good with authority figures in general, but I found the archangel Michael in particular most difficult to obey. “You’re right. I don’t care what Mikey says.” The urge to make sure neither he nor any weird nephalim minions all the rage in urban fantasy were listening almost overtook me.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “First, we’re going to find this Chan Wu.”

  An exasperated breath. “Because Michael said so. Icarus--”

  “Ric, and no, not because of him. Because I’m concerned about what will happen to you if you stay here too long.”

  “And the devil-child?”

  I glanced away to the cloud-scudded sky. Two small, blue-green birds flitted past. “I think I found something.”

  “Really?” Dee’s eyes widened and she bounced on her knees. “What did you find?”

  I shrugged in the manner of a man downplaying his findings, because I was a man downplaying his findings. Truthfully, I’d probably found nothing but a coincidence.

  “I saw a photo of Meg and some guy. I think I’ve met him somewhere, sometime.”

  She stared at me for a few seconds. Ducks mulled around the muddy ground near our feet, waiting for scraps of bread like I owed them money. Since I didn’t have any with me today, I had to resist the urge to apologize to them. I didn’t, because that seemed borderline loopy.

  “That’s it?” She sighed and slouched back onto her legs, deflated. Why is she so concerned about finding this kid? “A guy in a photo you might know is going to lead us to a devil who walks the earth?”

  Sounds silly when you put it that way.

  “Well, there was another picture of her and another guy. She was holding a baby.” I cleared my throat and spoke the next words mostly under my breath. “A baby girl.
”

  The perplexed expression on her face bore a striking resemblance to one that often resided on my kisser in the first few weeks after my very unzombie-like rise from the dead. Good knowing I’m not the only easily confused.

  “And?”

  I shook my head, feeling a little superior. “She said her son was the devil, not her daughter. Did you see anything in the house to suggest a young girl lived there?”

  “No.”

  “And did you notice the front door was locked even though we didn’t lock it when we left?”

  “Couldn’t the guys in the black coats have been there and locked it?”

  “Maybe, but would they have wiped the blob of jelly off the corpse’s cheek, too?”

  She pursed her lips, considering what I’d said, then looked over my shoulder, past me. A prickle ran along the nape of my neck as a group of four swallows wheeled by and landed in the willow. Three more followed. I watched them twittering and hopping amongst the lower branches as more joined them.

  “Hi, Gabe.”

  Dido continued to stare past me, eyes wide and lips parted. I’m not sure why she reacted this way; she’d seen Gabe before at the coffee shop. Perhaps the closer proximity affected her more, as it did me; the archangel’s presence pressed against my back with the force of a living thing.

  I twisted around to see the archangel Gabriel standing two or three feet behind the bench. As usual, she wore no coat. Her short sleeves, jeans, and copious amount of freckles likely didn’t offer much protection from a chilly winter day, but I’d come to realize angels don’t notice such things. Gabe came to the front of the bench and I saw she wasn’t wearing shoes or socks, either; mud squelched between her toes.

  “Hello Icarus.” She paused as though attempting to recall my companion’s name, then cleared her throat. “Dallas.”

  The young girl diverted her eyes, guiding them toward the duck pond as though Gabe had caught her breaking the park’s rules. The ducks quacked, but Dee didn’t say anything, not even bothering to correct Gabe on her name. I looked at the archangel’s smiling face and glowing eyes and fell in love with her again, as I did every time I saw her.