The need to see her bloomed in his chest. Or maybe it had been there for a while, and he was only just now acknowledging it.
It had been more than a week since she’d held his hand while he watched his mother join the angels. Nine days since he’d heard her voice, or was stricken by the sight of soft, gray eyes staring up at him through thick dark lashes and wayward strands of raven-black hair.
Ryssa hadn’t come to the viewings or the funeral. She hadn’t stopped by the house, or sent a card or flowers. She had done exactly what she said she was going to do: she had disappeared the moment Elizabeth no longer needed her.
He couldn’t blame her. He’d been awful to her from the beginning. Why would she ever want to see or talk to him again? Hell, she probably thought he’d make good on his threat and call the cops if she dared to show her face again.
What happened to you, David?
David winced as his mother’s voice echoed in his head. Yeah, he was a bastard.
He palmed the small box in his jacket pocket. It was the perfect excuse to see Ryssa again. Elizabeth had wanted her to have it, and if nothing else, might give him a much-needed sense of closure. He wouldn’t have to keep looking at the box, remembering how pleased his mother had been when she declared it the perfect gift. It wouldn’t keep bringing images of big gray eyes and shaggy black hair to mind every time he felt its slight weight shift in his pocket.
He might not have been able to promise his mother that he would look after Ryssa – he had a feeling Ryssa would have had as much of a problem with it as he had, but he could do this. And in the process, maybe he could find some peace, too.
David pulled himself up and brushed off his jeans, then headed toward his car with a renewed sense of purpose.
No one answered the door at her apartment. He drove over to the Seven Circles later that night, but the burly bouncer told him in no uncertain terms that he would not be getting in, and had offered several vivid depictions of how he might painfully drive that point home if David came back and tried again.
Tired and frustrated, David returned to his car and drove out of Southtown, back toward Brookside Heights. Where was she now, he wondered? Was she working? Holed up in her apartment? Helping someone else at the brink of death? Had someone else sat atop the hill and chanted her name?
David stilled. He suddenly knew how to get the necklace to Ryssa.
Chapter 7 – Better Than A Text
“Ryssa... Ryssa... Ryssa...”
Several hours later, freshly showered, shaven, and dressed in jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt, David called her name. He still felt ridiculous, sitting once again beneath the massive oak tree at midnight, chanting into the darkness. Though admittedly, he felt less ridiculous than he had the first time.
The wind suddenly kicked up, and an icy cool breeze blew right through the thin cotton of his shirt.
“Why do you summon Ryssa yet again?” whispered a breathy female voice on the breeze. “She has fulfilled her duty to your mother.”
David looked around, twisting his body and head to the left and the right, trying to find the source of the voice. “Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself!”
A willowy white form glided up the hill. David paled. The form that appeared was breathtakingly beautiful, a figure wrapped in shimmery moonlight. And he could see right through her.
“What are you? A ghost?”
“Why do you summon Ryssa?” the apparition asked again, ignoring his question. Her flowing dress billowed in the breeze, her pearlescent locks lifting with the air currents conjured by her semi-solid manifestation.
“I have something for her.” Powering down his absolute incredulity – maybe he was getting kind of used to this paranormal shit, he thought vaguely - David fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the small box.
She tilted her head to the side, studying him intently. He fidgeted, but since her interest seemed to be based more in curiosity than in malice or ill-intent, he resisted his deeply rooted instinct to flee and remained where he was.
“Ryssa does not accept payment,” she finally said.
“It’s not a payment, it’s a gift,” he clarified. “From my mother. She wanted Ryssa to have it.”
Atop her floating body, her head tipped to the other side, considering him as if he was a particularly complex puzzle. “Most want only to take from Ryssa, not to give.”
“I’m not most.”
Black eyes – the only part of her that was not glazed in pearlescent white – glittered. It was disconcerting.
“You are an intriguing man, David Michael Corrigan.”
Not as disconcerting as having some unknown spirit entity knowing your name, he thought as a shiver ran unbidden down the length of his spine. “You know my name.”
His discomfort seemed to please her. She laughed, the sound rolling over him like wind chimes. “Yes, I know your name, David Corrigan. Not many mortals are brave enough to enter Seven Circles without protection.”
“Mortals?” Dave asked, his brow furrowing. “What are you saying? That everyone in there was something not mortal?”
Marcella smiled at him and tilted her head again. “The line between brave and foolish is a fine one, Mr. Corrigan. Do not cross it again. I doubt Ryssa will be able to save you a second time.”
Marcella turned and started to drift away. David got to his feet. Instead of answers, he had a dozen more questions than before he came. “Hey, wait! What does that mean? Where are you going?”
The ghostly woman continued to glide away as if he hadn’t spoken, as if he wasn’t chasing her down the hill.
“So are you going to tell her?” he prodded. “That I need to see her again? Please!”
Marcella stopped and floated back toward David. He swallowed hard and came to a sudden stop as she raised a misty hand; frost coated the fine hairs on his forearm at her brief, light touch. “This is about more than your present, isn’t it?”
For a moment he considered lying, but he already felt too stripped, too raw. These last few months had worn away the shiny composed exterior, revealing the essential man beneath. He was standing in a cemetery at midnight, not far from his mother’s grave, pleading with a ghost who might be his only viable chance of seeing Ryssa again.
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. He had no idea how to explain the riot of emotions the simple thought of Ryssa evoked, just that he wanted to see her again. “I just want to ... hell. I want to see her. To talk to her. To apologize, okay?”
Her ghostly features softened. “Do yourself a favor, Mr. Corrigan. Forget Ryssa. Go back to your mansion and your money and your sycophants and pretend none of this ever happened.”
The wispy form faded in a matter of seconds, and David found himself alone again. No matter how many times he called out, she did not return.
He tried, he really did. For the next few weeks he threw himself into his work, putting in sixteen hour days. When he was too muddle-headed and bleary-eyed to be productive, he’d go down into his home gym and pound the weight bag until his arms burned, then eat up miles on the treadmill. Then and only then, when he was covered with sweat and on the brink of physical and mental exhaustion, would he allow himself a few short hours of rest.
Those hours should have been dreamless, deep voids of nothingness, but instead were fraught with visions of beautiful angels and frosty ghosts and Goth freaks closing in on him. And a petite brunette with big gray eyes who stood in front of him and kept them all at bay.
No Freudian psychology was necessary to figure that one out.
The whole paranormal thing? It just didn’t make sense to him. Yeah, he got that that kind of stuff was really in. Even he had seen movies that both vilified and romanticized the concepts. He’d whiled away his share of late nights, losing himself in them when reality weighed too heavily upon his shoulders and sleep proved elusive. Vivid, creative fantasies based on legends and myths and forged with twenty-first century literary license and special effec
ts technology made for some great cinema.
But in real life? That stuff was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
Sherlock Holmes’ famous quote popped into his head, the one that said something about eliminating the impossible until only the truth remained, however unlikely. So what was the truth? Assuming he wasn’t mentally unbalanced or prone to fanciful hallucinations, how could he explain what he had seen with his own eyes? A young woman who could open up a portal to other realms with a touch of her hand. An angel leading his mother into heaven. And a sentient ghost that appeared to him and carried on a reasonable - if unsatisfactory - conversation.
Not impossible, then. Improbable. And therefore, by Holmes’ logic, the truth.
David exhaled heavily. Who was he kidding? He was an intelligent man, but he could fill a library with the things he didn’t understand. As easy as it would be to simply write it off as stress or some kind of psychological coping mechanism, he kept coming back to the same conclusion: Ryssa had a very real connection to a world beyond normal human comprehension.
Acceptance brought with it both relief and trepidation. Relief that he wasn’t losing his mind, and anxiety that things other than living, breathing humans were out there, too.
Not a bad thought when considering angels, like the one who had come for his mother, or the beautiful ghost who had been a bit rude and spoke in vague riddles but seemed essentially harmless. But what about those things that had been in Seven Circles? What if they weren’t Goth punk role-playing wannabes? What if they were the real thing, too? Which then begged the question, what kind of real things were they?
Ryssa had told him that she lived in a different world than he did. Is that what she meant?
The more he thought about it, the more unsettled he became. He didn’t know if he was ready (or willing) to know everything, but he had one very specific place to start. He would work out from there, one step at a time. One thing had become abundantly clear - until he had some answers, he would know no peace.
Nothing had changed in the few weeks since he’d last visited. The buildings, the streets, looked just as bad as they had the first time. What had changed was David’s perception. This wasn’t just a slum. This was a young woman’s world. A young woman who, when he filtered out the defensive attitude and vulgar language and his own skewed preconceptions, really hadn’t done anything but help.
Realizing that had been an epiphany. He, of all people, should know that words meant little, that actions were what gave you the true measure of a person.
This time, David didn’t bother to go to Ryssa’s door. Instead he walked down the rank corridor and rapped hard on another. Ratface hadn’t made an appearance since that first visit, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t around. As odious as David found the guy, he’d become his best chance of tracking down Ryssa.
“Whatchu want?” Ratface asked, opening the door. A good foot shorter than David’s six-two frame, the smaller guy peered up at him. His beady eyes narrowed in recognition. “Hey, I remember you. You want Ryssa. Whatchu bothering Lenny for?”
It took a few seconds for David to realize that Ratface was Lenny. He wasn’t used to people referring to themselves in the third person. “Does Ryssa still live here, Lenny?”
A shadow crossed the smaller guy’s face. “No.”
“Do you know where she is?”
Lenny shifted his weight, flicking a glance up and down the hallway. “Yeah.”
“Will you tell me?”
The man leaned against the door and looked David up and down, sucking his teeth. “Whatzit worth to ya?”
David reached for his patience, reminding himself that as unpleasant and irritating as Lenny was, he was also his best chance of finding Ryssa, assuming the weasel-y little guy wasn’t yanking his chain. “What do you want?”
Ratface’s eyes went to the gold watch on David’s left wrist. “That sure is a pretty watch.”
Lenny had good taste. The watch was of decent quality, but not one of his best. It would fetch a good price at the pawn shop he assumed it was suddenly destined for. David was glad he hadn’t chosen to wear his thirty-five thousand dollar Armand Nicolet today, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. Finding Ryssa had become more important than a watch he could replace with nothing more than a few clicks on the internet.
That didn’t mean he was a complete sucker. David removed the watch from his wrist but held it out of Lenny’s reach when he tried to snatch it. “Information first. Then, if I think it’s worth it, the watch is yours.”
“Worth it,” Lenny assured him, appreciating the deal. “Ryssa’s with Karthik.”
David frowned. “The guy from Seven Circles?”
Ratface shivered. “Yeah. He owns the place. Owns Ryssa too. Says it’s no longer safe here with Jax gone to Masterson now.”
The name rang a bell somewhere in David’s mind. “Masterson? Vlane Masterson?”
“Jax works for Masterson now. Had to leave. Didn’t want to. Loves Ryssa.”
That uncomfortable ache squeezed his chest again, the same way it did every time David thought of Ryssa living with another man, or of how her boss had been looking at her with blatant, undisguised interest the night he’d managed to make it into the club.
“So they were together? Her and this Jax?”
Lenny shook his head, sending strings of greasy hair flapping from side to side. “Not like that. Ryssa fed Jax. Jax protected Ryssa.” Lenny frowned. “Lenny misses Ryssa. Not like the others. She was nice. Snuck Lenny food when he was hungry, not like that old hag Cavanaugh with her stinky cat.”
David didn’t know what to think. He realized he really didn’t know much about Ryssa at all. His chest did feel considerably less heavy, however, after Lenny’s questionable assurance that Ryssa and her former roommate were not romantically involved.
“I need to get in touch with her. How can I do that, Lenny?”
Lenny was shaking his head again, his eyes looking longingly at the watch. “Can’t. Karthik won’t let a human into Seven Circles without an owner or a contract.”
Owner. There was that word again. “Explain.”
The smaller man started, realizing what he said. Fear took over his features. “You go now. Keep your shitty watch. Leave Lenny alone.”
He started to close the door, but David stopped it with his foot. “No. A deal’s a deal.” He held out the watch. Ratface looked at him for a minute, then snatched it out of David’s hand. He looked furtively up and down the corridor and spoke in a rush. “Find Jax. He can help.”
Then the door slammed in his face.
David knew of Vlane Masterson. Everyone did. Masterson was a successful, wealthy business man shrouded in mystery in the nearby town of Mythic. He’d never actually met the man; Masterson took reclusive to a whole new level. Other than the huge celebration hosted at his palatial estate every summer – to which receiving an invitation was a highly sought after prize (David had never received one himself) – he did not appear in public.
It was therefore somewhat surprising when David scored a meeting with Masterson on a single phone call. The timing was a bit unusual – nine o’clock in the evening – but David wasn’t about to argue. Insomnia was making him somewhat of a night owl anyway.
“Mr. Masterson, thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” David said as he was shown into a tastefully done office on the first floor of the sprawling mansion. Masterson was nothing like what he’d envisioned. The man before him looked around his own age of thirty, leanly muscular and pale skinned, with dark hair pulled back from his face and fathomless black eyes that didn’t miss a thing. The all-black ensemble – blank pants, black silk shirt, black shoes – suited him. The woman he introduced as his new bride was just as surprising. Blonde, petite, and wrapped in a summery pastel skirt and blouse, she was the polar opposite of her husband.
Kind of like him and Ryssa, some part of his brain whispered, thinking of her small alabaster hand in his large tann
ed one. David dismissed that thought quickly, though it left him a bit shaken.
“Please, sit down, Mr. Corrigan,” Vlane Masterson said after introductions were made. “I must admit, you have aroused my curiosity with your unusual request, though I am not sure I can help you. You seek information about a woman from one who has just recently joined my staff?” Masterson sat behind the antique but functional desk and sat back, steepling his fingers.
David smiled tentatively. “Yes, that about sums it up.”
“May I ask why?”
It was a reasonable question, one he would have asked himself had the situation been reversed. “Because I have exhausted all other options, Mr. Masterson.”
How much could he tell him without sounding like a total crackpot and getting himself forcibly removed from this elegant office? Masterson continued to stare at him, his expression unreadable. David was fairly certain the man would require more information to seriously consider his “unusual request”.
David took a deep breath. He’d come this far, hadn’t he? After sitting in a cemetery talking to a ghost and bribing Ryssa’s former neighbor, this seemed relatively benign in comparison.
“She no longer lives in her former residence, but above the club in which she works. A club to which I have been denied access,” he admitted with a grimace.
“She refuses to see you?” Masterson asked, raising a brow.
“No, it’s not that.”
At least he didn’t think it was. He hoped not. The bouncer had warned him off (quite enthusiastically) and the ghost had told him to go home and mind his own business. Both had openly discouraged his idea of seeing Ryssa again. It wasn’t a huge leap to assume they hadn’t passed along any information to her.
“I doubt she even knows that I’m trying to see her. This guy she works for – he’s bad news.”
Vlane smiled patiently. “And who might that be?”
“His name’s Karthik. He runs a club called the Seven Circles of Hell down in Southtown.”
Outwardly, Vlane Masterson showed no visible reaction, but David could have sworn he saw his black eyes glittering. Oh yeah, Masterson knew the place he was talking about.
Fallen Angel: Mythic Series, Book 2 Page 7
