Misguided Angel: A Parnormal Romance Novella

by Lucy Blue

  “If it makes you feel any better, when you came out that door, I almost pissed my pants.” He was still smiling, and the dark hair falling over his forehead made him look almost puppyish in spite of the scar. “I thought the beat cops that secured the scene would have sealed it off.”

  “Beat cops?” The smear on the ground must have really been blood, she suddenly realized, feeling sick.

  “Yeah…excuse me, miss, but who are you?”

  “I’m Kelsey.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and she flinched without thinking. His hand felt like ice even through her heavy coat. He wasn’t wearing any gloves despitethe bitter cold. “Mrs. Kelsey Marlowe.” She moved away from him. “What happened, Detective?”

  “A homeless woman was murdered. Slaughtered, actually.” He glanced at the blankets she was carrying. “Did you know her?”

  “No, not really. I live in this building.” Her legs had turned to water, but there was no place to sit down. “I’ve seen her. I saw a homeless woman out here last night.”

  “What time was that?” he asked, pulling a notebook out of his pocket.

  “I don’t know exactly. Not late, no later than eight or nine.” She was standing in the blood, she suddenly realized, and her stomach lurched. “I gave her some stuff, this mattress and these blankets.” She put a hand over her mouth, fighting the urge to throw up. “You don’t think somebody killed her for her stuff?”

  “Hey, you never know.” He was examining the blood trail, following it past her down the alley. “Street people can get pretty territorial, particularly when it gets cold.” He looked back when she didn’t answer. “But no,” he said, coming back to her. “I’m sure that’s not what happened here.” He didn’t sound sure. “I mean, the stuff’s all still here, right?” He walked over to another smear of blood on the side of the building, almost black against the brick. “They stabbed her through the throat right here, up against this wall.” He looked thoughtful. “I wonder if they told the morgue to run a rape kit?” He took out his mobile phone and started to dial as Kelsey started to sway.

  “You don’t really think…” She started losing her balance, and she couldn’t seem to keep talking. She grabbed his elbow, saw his face waver slightly, the world going black.

  “Oh shit,” he said, his face registering alarm. “Okay, hang on.”

  He caught her just before she hit the ground. “I’m sorry,” she said, almost certain she was about to throw up all over him. “I’m not usually so squeamish.”

  “That’s okay, Mrs. Marlowe. Not to worry.” He half-led, half-carried her over to what had been the bare frame of Jake’s hospital bed, and she sank against it, barely noticing the ice that covered it. “You just take your time.” He was patting her on the back as she put her head between her knees, and she really, really wished he would stop. “Take some nice, deep breaths.” He bent her further forward. “Is Mr. Marlowe upstairs? Can I call him, get him down here?”

  “My husband’s dead.” She straightened up a little, pushing him back. “I’m all right. I’ll be all right.”

  “Oh wow.” He took a step back, but only one. “Wow, Kelsey, I’m sorry.” But he didn’t sound sorry at all. “I hate to hear that.”

  “Thanks.” She stood up. “I think I need to go inside.”

  “Yeah, sure, of course.” He put a hand on her elbow. “Here, I’ll walk you up.”

  “No.” She spoke too sharply, too fast. But the idea of inviting this man into her apartment was appalling. She didn’t know why, but standing so close to him was like suddenly finding a snake in her path in the woods, coiled and sleeping but still dangerous. Every instinct in her body told her something about him was wrong. “It’s fine,” she said, smiling, making herself look him in the eye. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?” She had barely noticed his eyes before now, which was strange. They were beautiful. The irises were brown but so dark they looked purple, and his lashes were longer than hers. But where was the crime scene tape? she suddenly wondered. Where were the other cops?

  “I’m positive.” She drew her arm out of his gentle grasp. “Sorry again for startling you before.”

  “Yeah, you too,” he said. “Listen, Kelsey.” She had started toward the door, and he followed. “I know you’re upset, but I have to ask.” He was holding his notebook again. “Did you hear anything last night?”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t. I’m all the way up on—I’m pretty high up.” She put her hand on the doorknob, wishing someone else would suddenly come out.

  “Okay.” He was watching her, standing half a step too close. From this angle, his scar was horrible. It looked like it must have been made with something heavy and sharp like a machete or an axe and allowed to heal on its own. Surely a doctor could have made the edges less ragged, stitched the skin back together more neatly? And how would anyone survive such a blow in the first place? “Let me give you my card.” He reached down and put it in her dangling hand. His fingers barely brushed against hers as she took it, and she was struck again by how cold his hand felt. “If you think of anything or hear anything, call me. Or if you just get scared.” He smiled. “Any time, day or night.”

  “Okay.” She looked down at the card as if she were memorizing the number, looking away from those eyes. “Detective Black.”

  “Lucas,” he corrected. “Or you know, if you ever just want to go for a drink or a coffee, that would be fine, too.” Her true reaction must have shown on her face because he flushed red. “Or not. Yeah…sorry. Bad idea.”

  “I have your card,” she said, holding it up. “If I think of anything, I’ll call.”

  “Yep.” His expression had flattened, and the warmth had left his eyes. “You do that.”

  “I will.” She was putting on her sweetie magnolia voice, she suddenly realized. “Goodbye.” She waved and smiled and ducked inside, pushing the door shut hard behind her.

  Nate and Sylvia, 4B

  Still clutching the knob, Kelsey leaned her forehead against the door, taking a deep breath.

  “Are you all right?” The woman’s voice from the stairs behind her was so unexpected, she almost screamed for the second time that morning. “Oh honey, I’m sorry,” the woman said as she spun around. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” Kelsey said, making herself smile. The woman was older than she was, probably in her late forties or early fifties with streaks of silver-white in her curly black hair. But she was beautiful. Her hair fell past her shoulders, and her eyes were a rich, luminescent green. Her creamy skin was barely lined around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, as if she smiled a lot, and Kelsey could see no trace of make-up. Right now, she looked worried. “I’m fine,” Kelsey promised.

  The woman smiled. “I’m not sure I believe you.” She offered a delicate, blue-veined hand with intricate silver rings on every finger. “I’m your neighbor, Sylvia Berman. I live in—”

  “4B,” Kelsey said with her. “I’m Kelsey.” She shook Sylvia’s hand, and a comforting warmth flowed through the connection between them. “I got the brownies. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re so welcome.” She looked past Kelsey to the street door, worry coming back into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah, I was just a little spooked.” She looked back at the door, too, feeling a shiver. “Apparently a homeless woman was murdered in our alley last night.”

  “Murdered?” Sylvia was still holding her hand. Now she started backing up the stairs, drawing Kelsey with her.

  “Did you or your husband hear anything?” Kelsey said. “There’s a detective outside.”

  “No, we didn’t hear a thing,” Sylvia said, cutting her off. “Come on. Let me make you some tea.”

  Asher looked out the window of his apartment at the city below, the usually-gray streets still glittering white under their frosting of snow. His body felt strangely heavy—tired, he realized, bemused. He reached under his thick
sweater to rub his shoulder where the succubus had clawed him. The gashes were almost healed, but the joint still ached. His night in a mortal body had taken its toll.

  He went to his desk and flipped on all three monitors before collapsing into his rolling leather chair. His apartment was the entire top floor of what had once been a factory near the docks. The floors were bare, scraped wood, and most of the walls were windows. A few shabby chairs and a couch were set in a semi-circle to one side, and the computer set-up took up the center of the front wall. The rest of the room was filled with rows and rows of bookshelves, millennia of dispassionate research into the human condition. Every shelf was stuffed full, and loose books and papers were scattered in piles across the floor.

  He pulled the wireless keyboard into his lap and tapped out a name. The center screen filled with links: Jacob Marlowe, Artist. The man he had pretended to be had been born in Vidalia, Georgia, home of the sweet onion. He had been educated at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Since coming to the city in his early twenties, he had become steadily more successful as a painter, no household name but important, a talent collectors knew and watched. The angel clicked a thumbnail labeled “Gifts of the Magi.” The right-hand screen filled with the image of a pretty but frazzled-looking woman in a ragged housedress and apron with a baby on her hip. She was standing on the steps of a rundown shack in what looked like a swamp—the background was all gnarled, dark trees hung with Spanish moss. A gleaming white Cadillac was parked in the black dirt yard, and three men in suits were walking toward the woman, one white, one black, one Asian. The white magus was holding out an open briefcase full of cash. The black one carried a large, obviously full department store shopping bag. The Asian carried a human skull with a crown of gold-plated thorns hidden behind his back. The baby, dressed in nothing but a sagging diaper, was hiding his face against his mother’s shoulder, and her face was fearful and sad. Asher smiled, touching the screen before he clicked the image away.

  Another biography of the artist mentioned Kelsey by name just below its description of the cancer that had killed him. She was described as an artist and illustrator, but there was no link. A brief new search produced a handful of links, about half of which applied to his Kelsey Marlowe—or rather, Jake’s Kelsey Marlowe. Most just identified her as Jake’s wife, but two were more interesting. One gave a brief biography—born in Savannah, educated there with her future husband—and showed a black and white photograph of one of her paintings, a dragon curled around a long-haired damsel in modern dress with marks of some kind up and down her arms—scars or track marks; in the grainy photograph it was impossible to tell. The other link led to an online bookstore listing for a children’s fairytale book. The cover showed a princess dancing madly in a pair of flaming shoes. Smoke curled up from her delicate feet to frame her joyful, frantic face. “Illustrated by Kelsey Marlowe,” the book description read. Both images were artful and disturbing, the work of a haunted, inventive imagination. But neither held the same spark as Jake’s painting, and neither showed the soul he had read in Kelsey’s letter. His eyes focused again on the face of the doomed princess, and he thought of the desperate joy in Kelsey’s eyes the moment she had first seen him the night before. With a distinctly human shudder, he shut down the screens.

  Kelsey found herself spending the rest of the day in the Berman apartment. Sylvia made her a real breakfast of eggs, sausages, and toast with butter and honey to go with her tea, refusing to listen when Kelsey insisted she wasn’t hungry. Kelsey took the first few bites just to be polite, then suddenly she was ravenous. She ate every bite, scraping the plate with the crust of her toast—her first real meal in more than a week. “I’m sorry,” she said through a mouthful, suddenly embarrassed. “This is just so good.”

  “Don’t you dare be sorry,” Sylvia said. “Here, have some more toast.”

  The two women sat at a bentwood table in cozy, cushioned chairs. Kelsey told Sylvia about moving to the city from Savannah right after her marriage, about Jake’s art, about her own illustration work, about Jake’s huge, friendly, overbearing Catholic family back home, about her own dead parents—briefly on this subject, barely touching it. Sylvia never tried to pry more out of her. She just listened, refilling the teacups. She explained that her husband, Nate, was a professor of comparative religion at a nearby university. She said the two of them had met in Ireland many, many years before. “At an ashram, if you can believe it. The guru had talked some farmer into letting him set up on his farm,” she said, laughing. “Chicken tika and soda bread, meditating with the sheep. It was lovely, actually.” She described herself as a housewife and said her great passion, besides Nate, was gardening. The tiny apartment looked like a well-tended jungle with lush plants on every available surface.

  For lunch, Sylvia made thick sandwiches of cold roast chicken piled high with arugula and herbs she’d grown in the kitchen under their own bank of artificial lights. “It was cancer, wasn’t it?” she said, arranging the sandwiches on pretty china plates.

  “What?” Kelsey was pouring iced tea. For a moment, she could plausibly pretend she hadn’t heard.

  “Your husband, Jake.” Sylvia took a step closer and put a hand on her arm. “He died of cancer, didn’t he?”

  “Oh…yeah.” Kelsey concentrated on plucking two sprigs of fresh mint. “Yeah, he did.” She garnished each glass with focused care. “Do you mind if we don’t talk about it?”

  “Of course not.” Sylvia gave her arm a pat then picked up the plates. “Let’s eat in the living room. There’s a CD I want you to hear.” She led her to a pair of rustic-looking rockers set in the deep bay window, surrounded by lush, trailing vines. “Nate and some of his friends have a jazz band—the Wizards of Rhythm.” She laughed. “Bless them, but they stink.”

  The shadows in the room had grown long when Sylvia said Nate would be home soon. Kelsey looked at the clock. It was after four. The day seemed to have evaporated. “The three of us should go to dinner,” Sylvia said. “Have you tried the new Thai place on the corner?”

  “No, I haven’t.” She and Jake had bickered playfully about trying it when the sign had first gone up. She loved Thai food; he hated—had hated it. “I should go.” She suddenly realized she was wearing the same plaid flannel pajama pants and sweatshirt she had thrown on when she first woke up that morning. She hadn’t even brushed her hair or her teeth all day. “I’ve imposed on you enough.”

  “Not at all.” Sylvia smiled, and again Kelsey felt her warmth, the simple goodness coming off of her in waves. Her eyes in the failing light were an almost glowing green, the color of summer leaves in sunlight. “Come back whenever you want, sweet girl. We’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “I’m fine.” It was a lie, but she thought the day with Sylvia had helped. And the night with Jake’s ghost.

  “You’re not. Of course you’re not.” Sylvia hugged her gently, delicate arms enfolding her with the lightest squeeze. She closed her eyes, stiffening, absorbing and resisting the strange woman’s warmth at the same time. “But you will be.”

  The daylight was fading fast as Asher emerged again on the street. He kept looking into the faces of humans as he passed them, making eye contact. They all looked so anxious, so fearful, so full of fragile life. What had Kelsey thought when she woke up this morning? What was she doing now? With a glance at the setting sun, he walked faster, headed for the cemetery.

  In the Garden of the Dead

  By the time Kelsey left the apartment, the sun had set into a cold, purple twilight. The snow on the sidewalk had been packed into a pebbled, grungy sheet of ice. But inside the cemetery, it was drifted white and virtually untouched. She sank in almost to the tops of her boots even on the path, and the moonlight glowed like silver all around her, even under the trees. Jake’s small marker was almost completely covered. She got soaking wet digging it out with her hands, but she didn’t mind. She felt sad but serene, at peace in the beautiful night.

  She took a
postcard out of her pocket. The picture on it was one of Jake’s paintings from before he got sick, a dove with wings outspread with an arrow piercing its breast. She took off her glove and took out a ballpoint pen. “Dearest Jake,” she wrote. “The weather is beautiful. Wish you were here. With all my love forever, Kelsey.”

  She hadn’t brought whiskey or the icon candle, but she had Jake’s lighter in her pocket, a heavy silver one that had belonged to his grandfather. She ran a fingertip over the wings etched into the silver before she lit it up.

  In the flare of the tiny flame, she saw a man standing in the shadows of a willow tree, watching her. “Hi,” she said, raising the light.

  He looked as surprised to be seen as she was to see him. “Hi,” he said back, stepping out of the shadows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “It’s okay.” He should have been freezing, the way he was dressed—slacks and a sweater with an open overcoat. But he seemed perfectly comfortable, perfectly at ease. “You aren’t—you didn’t disturb me.” She let the lighter go out and slipped it into her pocket before offering her hand. “I’m Kelsey.”

  “Hi Kelsey.” He wasn’t wearing gloves, but his hand was pleasantly warm. “I’m Asher.” His accent was strange, nothing foreign she could identify, but too precise to be American.

  “Hi Asher.” She could still see him clearly by the moonlight. “This is Jake—my husband, Jake. His grave…he died about a week ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” He seemed to mean it; his eyes turned sad. “He must have been young.”

  “Yeah, he was.” She looked down at the postcard in her hand. “Excuse me.” She knelt down on the grave and lit it, letting it burn as they watched. He didn’t seem surprised at all; he just stood there beside her as it burned. “He had cancer.” She didn’t stop to wonder why she was telling him any of this, why it should seem so natural that this stranger should be with her. She felt immediately at ease with him much as she had with Sylvia. Kindness seemed to radiate out from him, an inner light that glowed in his eyes and on his skin in the snowy blue moonlight. “It started in his lungs and went to his liver.”