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

by Blake, Bruce

  The kid stood in the now-empty window, staring at me with a crazy-ass smile on his kisser. His t-shirt bulged around his arms and chest, his pant legs strained over his thighs making him resemble the comic book Hulk, but without the green hue.

  Not such a skinny fucker now.

  The thought didn’t return my misguided sense of pride to its former self.

  I unfolded myself and clambered to my feet, the pain bursting from my shoulder, leg, and gut mercifully hiding the ones caused by flying through a window. I brushed the last of the broken glass off my front and shook the snow out of my hair, then leveled my best intimidating glare at him. Given I was leaning due to the pain in my leg, sagging because of the pain in my shoulder, and bleeding from multiple lacerations to the face, I doubted the effectiveness of my expression.

  “What’s going on here?”

  I recognized the voice before I turned around.

  Ashton.

  The last time I saw him eye-to-eye, I planted a knife in his thigh, but I didn’t detect any hint of a limp in his stride as he came along the sidewalk. It bugged the shit out of me that his leg wound healed so much better than mine.

  “Whoa, hold on,” I said holding my hands palm out in front of me. “It’s not what--”

  “I know you.” He stopped and pointed an accusatory finger at me. His entire face squinted. “Get out of here now or I’m calling the cops.”

  Normally, I don’t dig the police getting involved, but this time it seemed like a good idea, so I didn’t protest as he reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and pulled out his cell phone. Unfortunately, he distracted me from the danger lurking behind me until a pain lanced through my shoulder as though someone impaled it with a flagpole.

  I lurched forward, gasping for air. The pains in my shoulder, chest and gut melded, filling my torso with unearthly torment that threatened to incapacitate me. An intense burning sensation ran through my arm, up my leg, casting a haze over my thoughts and vision, leaving me feeling like I’d gotten off a tilt-a-whirl stuck on overdrive. I bent at the waist, touched my fingers to the ground, and retched.

  I’m not sure if the snow on my skin or the act of clearing a mediocre lunch from my stomach did it, but puking relieved my symptoms. With an effort, I straightened to face Ashton and decipher the complicated workings of my mouth.

  “It’s not me,” I said, my voice a poor-tasting croak. “It’s him we need to worry about.”

  I pointed at the house—specifically, the window I’d been thrown through—then turned to make sure I’d indicated the correct place. Right spot, but Cory no longer stood in the window.

  “Shit.”

  With a frustrated breath, I turned to Ashton again and found him gone, too.

  Fucking magic tricks.

  I took a couple of steps toward where my ex-wife’s fiancé had stood, part of my brain struggling to convince me his disappearance was a bad thing, part glad he was gone. Behind it all, the nagging worry over not locating Trevor yet gnashed at the back of my mind, a desperate, unfed canine with daggers for teeth.

  Clearly, Ashton hadn’t run away, been kidnapped, or fell into a black hole, and I didn’t relish any of the other possibilities my mind concocted. After some time in Hell, you can go to some ugly places pretty quick. I pivoted on my good leg, facing my listing body back to the house, and found the answer.

  Cory stood on the lawn glaring at me, with a dazed Ashton sitting at his feet. He didn’t appear hurt—yet—and I wished the same could have been said for me, but every movement needled with the pain of being poked with the business end of a javelin.

  Black splotches littered the teen’s face, his chest heaved with each breath, and when his eyes fell upon me, the hurt in my chest, my gut, my shoulder and leg multiplied. Never in my life have I wished for someone to just blink, for God’s sake.

  “Ric,” Cory said, his voice a rumble. “Icarus. Harvester.”

  He backed away, leaving Ashton sitting on the lawn like a first-grader awaiting story time. I watched Cory, waiting for him to make his play. He gestured at Ashton with a sweep of his arm, then leaped back into the house through the window my body had conveniently emptied of glass for him.

  As he disappeared from my sight, the pain in my body diminished.

  I bent over with my hands on my knees and seized the opportunity to fill my lungs and collect my thoughts. As the torment in my body relented to a level like I’d hit the ground after my parachute failed rather than as bad as it had been, the haze in my head lifted, allowing me to figure out what to do next.

  Find Trevor.

  My first step wobbled in the manner of a toddler finding his balance, but my second was stronger, more akin to a car crash victim learning how to walk again. By the time I took my fourth stride, my legs operated well enough it appeared as though I’d been doing this ‘walking’ thing for a few years.

  I headed for the front door rather than clamoring through the broken living room window—I didn’t need more cuts, and doubted I’d be able to muster the strength to climb through. A strange thing occurred on the way to the door, though: my body took a hard left turn of its own accord and I found myself facing Ashton rather than the portal to finding my son.

  “What the hell?”

  I tried to re-aim with no effect. When I gave it another shot, my feet refused to move, like the light dusting of snow covering the lawn beneath my shoes had become quick-dry super glue. I’d seen this before—one of Hell’s favorite tricks—so I knew more effort would achieve nothing. Better to wait it out.

  Two problems with that thought: first, I needed to find Trevor and get him to safety; second, my feet began moving again with no input from me.

  I stutter-stepped toward Ashton; one step, two steps, three. Five unintended paces brought me to standing directly in front of him sitting on the lawn, snow flakes clinging to his eyelashes and settling in his hair. His head tilted back to look at me, eyes unfocused. I opened my mouth to speak, but my jaw clamped shut before I spoke.

  A panic-causing alarm bell went off in my head as I raised my hand without meaning to, folded my fingers and thumb into a fist, brought it down toward Ashton.

  My knuckles caught him square on the cheek, snapping his head to the side and toppling him into the thin carpet of snow. I stared at him, my eyes feeling wide and googly, then glanced at my fist, wondering if it might attack me like the guy in Evil Dead 2. It didn’t. Instead, my foot lashed out and kicked Ashton in the stomach.

  I tried to stop myself, I swear, but I couldn’t. Funny: after the number of times I’d imagined putting a beating on my ex-wife’s boyfriend, I never suspected I’d want to halt it when the time came.

  The air oomphed out of Ashton’s lungs and he slumped onto his back, eyes rolling, redness spreading across his cheek where I’d struck him. I reached for him, thinking I’d help him up, but a second later found myself sitting on his chest with my fingers wrapped around his throat, squeezing.

  No anger consumed me and no ire coursed through my body making me rageful and murderous. Exactly the opposite. I was a concerned bystander, watching but unable to help. No matter how hard I fought to regain control and stop my fingers digging into the flesh of his neck, I couldn’t prevent it from happening.

  Ashton grabbed for my hands, his eyes bulging in their sockets, the pink spot on his cheek overtaken by a darker red blotchiness spreading across his face. His lips moved, spilling spittle out the side of his mouth and over my hand. Somewhere behind me, I heard a noise, but was unable to turn and see what it was.

  Scarecrow’s return, I presumed.

  Ashton’s face darkened toward purple, his lips went an odd shade of blue for which I had no name. Without wanting to, I leaned forward and increased the pressure on his throat. His Adam’s apple moved against my palm in his struggled to breathe, to swallow, to beg me to stop. I regained control of my lips.

  “Ashton. I--”

  Hands gripped my shoulders, fingers digging into fl
esh, irritating the wound given to me by a denizen of Hell. I cried out with pain and the hands pulled me backward off Ashton. My fingers relinquished their grip on his throat as I tumbled away, I’m sure giving us both a sense of relief, but I didn’t know who pulled me off. A high-pitched and indistinct noise assaulted my ears, so I rolled onto my back, a crust of snow crunching under my aching shoulder.

  I looked up at my ex-wife, Rae, standing over me, screaming.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Snow swirled around Dido, not a flake of it touching her as she walked toward the three men dressed in black. She understood that Icarus thought one of them might be his former guardian angel, Poe, but she knew the truth: these were low level carrions here to collect her. She knew Poe couldn’t be involved.

  With a few yards between them, Dido halted and the three men did the same. They stood looking at each other like participants in an old-time gunfight, though none of them needed guns. Instead of waiting to see who’d draw first, they awaited the first word, not the first bullet. Dido didn’t have time to play around.

  “Yes?” she said, already knowing the answer.

  “We’re here to take you back,” the bald one said. The flakes of snow landing on his head melted as they touched his flesh and ran down his forehead, along the side of his nose, but he didn’t wipe it away.

  “I’m not going.”

  “You don’t have a choice. The boss sent us.”

  “You tell Azrael I--”

  “Not Azrael,” one of the other men said—a short fellow with a baby face. “The big boss.”

  Dido seethed, annoyance and anger boiling inside her. She didn’t want to spend too much time here with these men; Icarus needed her help.

  “He can’t want me back too bad if he only sent you three.”

  Her comment caused the bald man’s face and head to blush to a light shade of red, but he made no move toward her. Good for him, bad for her.

  “Come with us and don’t make any trouble,” the third man said—the red-headed fellow she and Icarus bumped into before.

  Dido pursed her lips and shook her head. “Sorry. No can do.”

  They looked at her for a few seconds, none of them saying anything. Out of the corner of her eye, Dido perceived a glow gathering around the bald one’s hand. She gestured toward it with her fingers without taking her gaze from their eyes.

  “You don’t want to do that,” she said, steel in her tone.

  “You’re right, I don’t,” the bald man replied. “But I have clearance and the boss always gets what the boss wants.”

  Dido realized this could get ugly fast. It might be worth a shot to salvage a bargain before carnage ensued.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” She crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto her right foot, canted her shoulder, the pose making her more closely resemble the eight-year-old girl she appeared to be, though these men weren’t so easily fooled. “Give me half an hour to finish up a project, then I’m yours. I’ll go without a fight.”

  The three men looked at each other, then the baby-faced one laughed; the others followed his lead.

  “I think the project you want to finish is exactly the reason he sent us.”

  “No deals,” the bald man said, his feigned laughter already replaced by a threatening tone. The glow hovering around his hand increased in intensity. “Time to go.”

  Dido let her arms fall to her sides, bunched her fingers into fists, set her feet.

  “No.”

  “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” the bald one said and took a half-step toward her.

  The hands of the other carrions began to glow, too, dim but brightening, their illumination carrying a threat of pain. None of them alone possessed enough power to hurt her, but the three of them together could at least trap her. If the other two were as experienced and powerful as the bald one, they might be able to finish her, but she didn’t think they’d been sent to end her.

  Icarus needs me.

  “I’m. Not. Going.”

  She tilted her head forward and looked at them from beneath lowered brows. Her entire body tensed into a steel rod of determination and defiance and snow swirled around her, throwing a curtain of soft white between her and the three men. They moved closer and Dido let out a grunt of effort.

  A wave of black flowed out of her, flakes of snow hissing as they touched it and turned to steam. Baby face flicked his hand, shooting an orange ball from the tips of his fingers, but the rolling dark devoured it, then touched his outstretched fingers, prompting a scream from his lips.

  Two more balls of light disappeared into the blackness, their impact jolting Dee but leaving her unharmed. The three men bolted, the inky sheet following them like a pool of syrup spilled on a counter, leaving behind smoking earth bare of snow and pavement colored black with soot.

  Tension released its grip on Dido and she sucked an abrupt breath through her teeth, tasted burnt toast and sulfur. A flake of snow landed on her forearm and she watched it perch for a second before a breath of wind blew it off to be lost with a million others.

  ***

  Cory stomped along the hall, for dramatic purpose and to shake the snow off his boots. He entered the kitchen and Trevor looked up from where he was lashed to a dining room chair, right where Cory left him.

  “What...what’s happening?”

  He easily read the desperation and concern in Trevor’s expression. Fear, too, as Cory expected. While part of him relished it, a voice in his head told him to untie his friend and apologize, to rescue him from all this. For the life of him, Cory didn’t know which attitude truly belonged to him.

  “I heard my dad, and a crash. Is he all right?”

  A flicker of memory. “Why didn’t you tell me he’s your dad, not some family friend?”

  Cory crossed the floor and gripped Trevor’s shoulder. With a touch of his finger, the ropes binding the teen’s wrists fell away and he yanked him to his feet.

  “No one would believe me,” Trevor said as Cory took him by the arm and pulled him toward the hall. “He’s supposed to be dead.”

  “He will be soon enough.”

  Trevor planted his feet, but Cory didn’t let it stop him, though he didn’t recall why he shouldn’t. He dragged Trevor along, shoes squeaking on the laminate flooring, determined he needed to show his friend something, but unsure what. Like a forgetful man retracing his steps to find where he’d left his keys, he’d remember when he got there.

  Cory’s chest itched, his legs and face, too. He raised his free hand to scratch his cheek and his fingers touched a square, hard spot, surprising him for a second, then he recalled the scales and the tail confined beneath his jeans. He didn’t remember where they came from or why they were there, only that they were. Had they always been?

  Trevor grunted a noise of protest, but Cory ignored it and dragged him on. They reached the door to the living room and odors struck the teen: blood and sweat and air expelled from lungs; his nose collected the scent of carpet fibers and the glue holding it in place, ashes in the fireplace, his friend’s fear-induced sweat. Were these smells always there?

  He went through the doorway and Trevor’s unmoving feet struck the edge of the carpet. He stumbled and would have fallen if not for Cory’s grip on his arm, but he lifted his friend back to his feet with one hand, unaccustomed muscle bulging and working beneath his skin as he set him upright with little effort. Had he always been this strong?

  A cold wind blew through the broken window, ushering a thin veil of snow into the house. It touched Cory’s cheeks, his arms, and he felt each flake’s minute shape and weight on him, the tender kiss of ice. Had he always been so sensitive?

  “What are you doing?”

  Trevor’s words interrupted his thoughts, brought him back to the world. Cory had stopped in the doorway, enthralled by the aromas, the sounds, the cool of the air and snow, consuming them like a newborn experiencing life for the first time. He turned to Trevor, saw
the way his eyes darted between him and the window, the twitch in his lip, heard his shallow, worried breaths and a click in his throat as he swallowed hard.

  “Why are you here, Trev?”

  The teen’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open, but before he responded, Cory remembered. He remembered the three boys picking on his friend; he remembered Trevor saying he hated his stepfather; he remembered the dark-haired boy, and he remembered the harvester.

  Cory jerked Trevor toward the window so they could peek out past the empty sill into the yard beyond where ‘Uncle Ric’ sat atop Trevor’s stepfather, his fingers wrapped around his throat.

  “No,” Trevor whispered and looked at Cory. “Why is he doing that?”

  “It’s what you wanted.” The sound of Cory’s voice surprised himself: deep, rumbling.

  “You’re doing this.” Trevor whipped his head around to face the yard. “Dad! Stop!”

  His father leaned forward, bearing down on Ashton. Cory sensed the man’s life dimming and, after it left him, he’d do the same to the harvester and fulfill his destiny. The dark-haired boy would be pleased and reward him.

  “Make him stop,” Trevor said, grabbing the sleeve of Cory’s shirt, pulling to free his grip from his arm. “Please, Cory. Please make him stop.”

  Cory shook his head without taking his gaze from the scene playing out before him. The expression on the harvester’s face pleased him: surprise, concern, self-revulsion. He’d kill him because the boy told him to, but he’d enjoy the man’s sense of desperation and loss-of-control for himself.

  A high-pitched voice assaulted Cory’s ears and he winced, looked away from the men on the lawn. A woman hurried along the path toward them, yelling and frantic. Trevor spoke, but Cory didn’t hear his words. He might have called her ‘mom’, but it didn’t matter, nor did it matter when she pulled the harvester off Trevor’s stepfather, or that Cory released his grip on the teen’s arm and allowed him to crawl out through the empty window. None of these weak, annoying humans meant anything.