The Lariat (Finding Justus Series)

by Ashley Dotson

  “Do you believe in all that stuff?” she asked, incredulously.

  “In every rumor there is a piece of truth.” I walked in first and looked both ways, my shoulders tense and my hands ready. “Something happened here, I’ll give you that. Can you feel it or is it just me?”

  She skirted around me, “I don’t feel anything except the potential for my awesome show once I get some shots. Don’t freak yourself out now. Like you said, there was nothing creepy from the historical society. Those old ladies just confirmed what I already knew- at the time it was built it had the most elaborate and beautiful architecture in the state. Most people said it looked like it belonged in New York City. That’s why I’m here. Look at the way the light enters the windows. This building is amazing.”

  “And now it sits here, alone with only the memories of its glory days.” Like me.

  “Ugh, Layla, sometimes I wished you studied something a little happier than Literature. Why does everything you study have to be so tragic and bleak? And don’t think I don’t know you drink like those writers you study.”

  She might as well have slapped me in the face. “Now is not the time…”

  Ben rolled her eyes, “It never is. Stand aside, I have been waiting too long for this. And close the door behind you too. We don’t need anyone else following us in here.”

  “Ben, please, just watch out. Don’t touch anything.” I ran my hand over the wall and flakes of beige paint fell to the floor loudly, “All the walls are covered in lead paint and there’s probably asbestos everywhere too.”

  “Then wait here,” she was already snapping away. Nothing escaped her camera lens. I stood, not far from the door listening and watching for anything out of place. Vagabonds were notorious for hanging out in places like this. Empty, dark corners of civilization where they could hide from humans and angels alike, until they could make their way back to Hell. They needed the Porter for that.

  Orrin. Why do I always lead myself back to him?

  Every time I’ve tried to break free, I’ve ended up broken, just like this building. I was like a bird beating my wings against a cage. My love for Orrin was a cage that I would never break free from. I wasn’t sure anymore that I could torture myself like this forever. I would love him forever. He was my forever. But I wasn’t sure if he was still my future. Was there a difference?

  But now he had Daisy. He loved me, but he was with her. He chose to give her his days, his nights, his smile, his touch. I could do the same.

  Can’t I?

  My daemon snarled at the idea. It would be forever faithful to Orrin. All parts of us were tied, not just our daemon souls. I gave him every piece of me- human, daemon, and angel. Was there anything left for someone to love?

  I followed Bennet up a set of wide wooden stairs. Grand at one time, they were now dull and littered with animal droppings and chunks of fallen ceiling tiles. The staircase laced its way around the interior of the tall building. Every floor had an open balcony where people could wait for the elevator which now sat like a steel coffin on the ground floor. She took a picture of it on every level.

  And I followed her closely, in case something did arise, holding her bag and waiting while she snapped pictures of the most mundane uninteresting junk. But that’s what made her such a great artist. She could see things I could not. The world was a bright full canvas, every piece of it offering a story to be told. She used her camera to tell those stories that most of missed too caught up in our own problems to see the beauty around. I envied her optimism and resolve.

  We stopped when we reached the tenth floor. The stair case was blocked off with tape that said Do Not Enter.

  “Don’t you think you have enough yet?” But I could see that determined gleam in her eye.

  She made some sarcastic snort that could only mean, “hell no.”

  I still didn’t like the stagnant ominous feeling within the building. I had tasted this putrid air before when Orrin and I walked through Hell. We had followed Orias as he led us to Lillith’s lair. Now I didn’t have Orias or Orrin, and Ben had no idea where she was going. I could only think that whatever was up those stairs was something neither of us wanted to see. And after Cyrus warned me that Samael had now taken a personal interest in screwing with my life, my only concern was for Ben. I made a mental note to call my father as soon as we get back to our apartment.

  Ben unceremoniously ripped the flimsy barrier and kept walking up the rotten stair case, snapping pictures of the cityscape, windowsills, and a dead pigeon. I looked up the hollow staircase. Something was up there.

  Something that Ben didn’t need to see.

  “Ben, I don’t want to go any further. This is the dumbest idea you have ever had. I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting for this for three and a half years, but you have to stop now. You’re putting your life and mine in jeopardy.” I threw that last part in just to make her feel badly.

  It worked. I could see reason creeping in on her face. She chewed on her bottom lip. I knew she wouldn’t want to put me in harm’s way. She just wanted me to share in her adventure.

  “We’re like ten steps from the top. It’s the thirteenth floor. The top level. Just let me take a few pictures of the city out the windows, okay?”

  “It’s not the thirteenth. No buildings have a thirteenth floor. The bottom of the Monstrose is the ground floor, so technically there’s not thirteen. There’s only twelve.”

  “That’s right,” snap, snap, snap, “It’s like that Stephen King movie where that guy was trapped in his hotel room and he set the place on fire after the place drove him insane.” She grimaced, “Ugh, okay, now I just freaked myself out. I’m sufficiently ready to skedaddle.”

  “Thank God,” I sighed.

  She looked back up, “Just a few more? Please? Just to the elevator shaft and that’s it.”

  “Famous last words,” I mumbled. “Don’t go any further.”

  “I won’t walk around up there. I just think the elevator shaft is like the heart of this building. I have it on every floor. It’s like looking at the heart of the building from various heights. I think it may be actually be the unique angle I was looking for.”

  Her words stuck like a painful barb, reminding me of the danger we were currently ignoring. My daemons was clawing to free itself. There was something here watching us the whole time. Now standing on the threshold of the top floor, the thirteenth floor, no matter what you wanted to call it, there was no denying its true identity. The stale air began to hum like a great beast awakening from a slumber. I knew then Ben and I had overstayed our welcome. I had already watched Ben’s possession years ago, I had no desire for her to go through that again.

  The hum turned into a hiss becoming louder than even my own heartbeat. My palms burned as I stood ready. “Ben, I have a really bad feeling. Step away from the elevator. Now!”

  She turned to me after hearing the true terror within my voice. Her camera still clicking while she stared at me, her eyes round and full of their own terror.

  “Ben come on,” I urged, but she was frozen. It was then I felt it- my wings broke free and my eyes lit up like laser pointers, my vision going red. I was waiting for another evil to attack and neglected to think about what I must look like. To her, I looked like the devil. I would die for my roommate, but right then her pounding heart said what her lips could not.

  I watched in horror as she took two unsteady steps backward, away from me, away from the evil beckoning to her. That same strange breeze filtered up the stairs and gave her that last little shove. She vanished down the elevator shaft, the black heart of the building.

  I tore off the ground, flying, hopefully faster than her freefall. I could hear her screaming and I knew I only had seconds to reach her before she hit the bottom, not to mention any cables or debris lodged within that shaft. I broke through all of it with ease, but Ben’s soft human body wouldn’t.

  I reached out for her hand. She wasn’t watching me, she was falling face first, wa
tching the top of the rusted broken elevator rush toward her, knowing she was about to die. Her scream was infinite, it would torment me whether she lived or died. I seized her hand only feet before her impact.

  I didn’t wait to find out what was waiting for us. I busted through the same door we came in still carrying Ben. I wouldn’t feel safe until we were away from that building, until I washed its filth off my skin. I hadn’t felt this polluted since my journey through Hell.

  We should never have gone in the Montrose. The city was right to tear it down. But that was just geography. The evil within it would take up residency in some other place, in some other person. You couldn’t kill evil, but you could hold it back, silence it, and lessen its reach.

  At least you got your damned pictures.

  I grabbed Ben’s camera strap from her vicelike grip. I still don’t remember how we made it home.

  8

  She didn’t talk to me for two days. Neither did Cyrus. But to be fair, Ben didn’t actually get out of bed for two days and Cyrus did call a good twenty times on the landline. I guess he got my number from the school directory.

  I was more worried about Ben. She thought she had some kind of hallucination. The way she had been staring at me the past two days- she didn’t trust me. I told her when she reached the top floor to take photos of the elevator shaft she fainted due to the lack of air. I came up with some nonsense about condemned buildings and high levels of carbon monoxide. I lied and said after she collapsed I was barely able to drag her out of there myself. I’m not sure she believed me.

  Ben had sustained minor injuries during her fall. She bumped her head against the elevator shaft and she had three scary looking slashes down the center of her back. Slashes like I had seen on Jaime and Cyrus.

  Samael.

  He was responsible. Trying to heal Ben, I could feel his poison coursing through her even though he had never actually touched her. He was more dangerous than I even knew if he could leave that mark or cause her death without even being present. Bennet hadn’t seen the mark, but she could feel it. I told her I must have done it when I dragged her down the stairs. I assured her it didn’t need stitches or medical attention, but still it wasn’t healing and she wouldn’t let me touch her again. I knew I could help if only she would let me.

  She was getting paler and weaker. I wasn’t about to leave her side. If Samael was near I couldn’t leave her alone.

  There was a banging on the door and I spilled my coffee from the sudden and loud intrusion. Cyrus didn’t even wait until I reached the door, he just waltzed right in. Barged was more like it, but I wasn’t about to comment. I knew when not to poke a bear.

  “I have called you too many times. Why have you not answered the phone?”

  I guarded my thoughts, “I’ve been busy.”

  He stared at me trying to rifle through my defenses and peer into my mind, “Now you’re just being rude.” I pushed away from his intrusive presence.

  “Why have you not been attending your other classes?” he snapped.

  “Keep your voice down,” I motioned towards Ben’s door, “I can’t leave her alone right now.”

  I opened up my thoughts up to him and let him see everything. I replayed yesterday’s scenes within my mind from the time we arrived at the Montrose, the arrival of the sudden and strange breeze, the sensations, the smells, and finally Ben’s accident, which was no accident at all. Cyrus stood, watching my eyes like he was watching a movie screen, his own face revealing a myriad of emotions that ended in only what I could describe as controlled rage.

  In the short time I had known him, I understood Cyrus was always in control.

  “I need you to leave,” I whispered. “I need to figure out how I am going to deal with Bennet.”

  “You tried healing the wound? How well did it work?”

  “Not very. The wounds are still open and I think she’s getting sick.”

  “You’re right. She will if she isn’t already. It’s been two days since this incident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you really that stupid as to let a human go into a building like that? To ignore your instincts? You felt it. You felt him and still you stayed.” He shook his head, when really he looked like he wanted to shake me, “You may be the Beacon, but you lack basic understanding of the worlds we traverse. You are undisciplined and sloppy. You have let your emotions and own selfishness cloud your judgment.”

  “You know, I think it’s time you left.”

  “Not likely,” He dropped his keys and phone on the kitchen bar and began to roll up his sleeves. When he noticed me looking at his scar he stopped.

  “I need to see your roommate right now.” He walked down the short hallway to her door. Without knocking, again, he walked through.

  Thank God she has clothes on! I tried my best to propel my thoughts as loud as I could.

  “Ben,” I whispered. She barely had the energy to sit up. I was surprised how weak she had become. I brought her coffee only a few hours before, and she could barely hold the cup. Now she couldn’t hold even her head up

  “Sorry to just…” I tried to continue.

  “Bennet, I’m Dr. Williams. Your roommate told me that you’ve fallen ill after being exposed to some possible hazardous materials.”

  “Maybe. I haven’t been able to think very clearly lately. I fainted the other day while I was taking some pictures.” She glanced at me and left out the part about being at the Montrose. “Why are you here again?”

  “He’s a doctor,” I said. I wasn’t lying, too much anyway, “I called him to come make a house call since you haven’t been feeling well.”

  “Do doctors still do that?” Ben slurred.

  “This one does.” I answered her.

  “It’s actually my back that hurts the most. Layla said I scratched it when I passed out, but I don’t remember.”

  “Do you mind rolling over for me so I can take a look?” Cyrus asked.

  Ben said nothing just attempted to roll over so the doctor could examine her injury. Cyrus visibly drew back and then raked me with a scornful look.

  “How could you let this go on so long?” he asked aloud, but the question was directed at me.

  “Am I okay?” Ben asked sleepily.

  Cyrus laid both hands on her shoulders and in his soothing baritone voice said, “I need you to try and sleep right now.”

  He was doing it- his angelic power of suggestion- whatever angels can do to get humans to do their bidding. Most angels were empaths. As a Vulgar, Cyrus’ angelic blood allowed that power to pass to him.

  I wasn’t an empath even though I had angel blood. I’m sure it had something to do with my daemon.

  Ben smiled serenely. Cyrus was almost purring, emitting a low soothing frequency that made me even want to curl up in his lap like a kitten and let him stroke me all over.

  Not the time!

  “I am not gifted with the powers of healing. That is reserved for only the Virtuous- and apparently the Beacon.”

  Sobering quickly, I admitted, “I already tried once.”

  “Try again. I had to be healed twice before it would work and we were both angels. She is human, so it will be more difficult. If you don’t she will die for sure.”

  I quickly put my hands on her back and closed my eyes. I was sitting on the bed beside Ben and Cyrus made no move to leave. I felt awkward as if we were having some bizarre threesome. Cyrus began to use his power, that low soothing hum. Ben relaxed even more so, and I fell into an altered state.

  I was hyper focused. I could almost see the dark black venom charting its way through Bennet’s body. But there was no air anywhere. My lungs were fighting for freedom while my mind was finding and trapping the black poison, wherever I could reach, Samael’s lingering toxin disappeared.

  But there was so much.

  And I had to breathe.

  I gasped lungfuls of air over and over again. I returned to my body, Cyrus’ hand on my shoulders anchoring m
e to him. I collapsed back against his chest. He wrapped one arm around me lightly.

  “Breathe, Layla. You’re fine. Ben’s fine.”

  “She’s fine?” I asked.

  “She’s better.”

  I looked down at Ben’s sleeping figure. Her back had healed a little and some color had returned to her skin.

  “I felt like I was swimming inside of her. I could see the poison in her. I could feel it, I grabbed it, but it was like I was drowning. This wasn’t like other healings.”

  “Well, Samael isn’t like other daemons.” He touched my clammy face, “You alright?”

  I nodded, “But what about the Coffee Shack? I healed a woman. Jamie. Ben’s injury was so much harder to heal and it wasn’t severe as Jamie’s. I mean, she had shrapnel lodged into her chest.”

  “Many of the beings you healed were either mortals or had mortal wounds. Samael is the farthest thing from mortal. And in Ben’s case, unlike the attack on the Coffee Shack, it seems Samael did the damage himself.”

  “You mean…” but I couldn’t say it out loud.

  He was here?

  Samael?

  Cyrus’ expression was confirmation enough. I looked at the long jagged scabs on Bennet’s back. They were a larger version of the scar on Cyrus’ arm- the arm that was now wrapped around my middle.

  I turned and he made no move to back away. He only said, “We should go and let her rest.”

  9

  Cyrus stayed with Bennet and me for another two days. His faith in my judgement had been diminished, so he said many times.

  “You are going to have to tell her, you know,” he spoke up one afternoon. He brought his laptop and confiscated the end table. He had set up makeshift office where he could conduct his online course at Trinity. This way he could do his job all the while never leaving me alone with Bennet. He said he was protecting me and protecting Ben from me, but there were other reasons.