God's Eye

by Scudiere, A. J.

  Katharine almost had to shake her head to come back to the present. Margot was saying something about a dog, but Katharine had missed the first part of it. Something had grabbed her attention in the window, and she turned back to the plate glass to get a better look at it.

  Her lungs froze, and she clawed at Margot’s arm, grabbing her friend tightly enough to cause instant alarm. “What is it?”

  Katharine worked her mouth once before she managed to croak out, “Do you see it?”

  “No, I don’t. What is it?”

  There was no way for Katharine to answer that. She couldn’t say what it was. But it sat back on haunches and still it towered over them. Long arms revealed thick ropes of muscle flowing like water under the skin. Reflected in the shop window the way it was, it had to be sitting very near the two of them.

  Suppressing a shudder, Katharine let her eyes travel up its body. The wide chest was stronger than anything she had seen. Though the creature sat silently, it was clear from its build that killing would not be a hardship. Slaying the two of them like Mary Wayne likely wouldn’t even give it pause or cause it undue effort.

  The mouth looked as though it couldn’t close. Long rows of sharpened teeth overfilled the gap between its jaws, leaving the creature looking like it was ready to bite as easily as it blinked. Farther up, the eyes were huge and luminous, staring back at her from the reflection in the window. They looked through her and into her at the same time, and Katharine knew that her thoughts were no longer her own.

  At her shudder, she felt Margot’s hand tighten on her arm, though she had no idea when Margot had grasped her.

  Unsure how long she stared, she couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from the eyes. She was pinned, as effectively as a bug on a board. She knew she should feel violated, but she couldn’t feel anything.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement and had only the briefest of moments to wonder what it could possibly be when she was already staring at the beast.

  The creature moved like molten silver, its eyes breaking contact and rolling to the side.

  Released from its spell, Katharine too looked where the creature had. Behind her, reflected in the glass, a second creature approached, its legs bent at unusual angles. Its wide black feet splayed out on the sidewalk like thick oil puddles as it neared the first creature.

  The arms moved in heavy counter-cadence to the walk, and heat rolled off it as it came.

  Its focus stayed on the first creature, and without appearing to hurry, it closed the gap far too fast for the silvery beast to turn and face it.

  The black creature hauled back a massive arm and swung out. Just as bright long claws cut through liquid silver skin, the beast let out a furious attack cry.

  Katharine stumbled as the ground shook beneath her feet.

  For a moment she was shocked that Margot too had braced and felt the earth move.

  Katharine squeezed her eyes shut, but she could hear the cry of the first creature in response. Whether it was from pain or anger, she had no idea. She was no longer watching.

  CHAPTER 16

  Zachary worked hard to tamp down his emotions. They got in the way, destroyed rational thought, interfered with the way things must be. He was supposed to be more than this creature driven by emotions. Still. What had Allistair been thinking?

  It was quite obvious that Katharine had seen the two of them. Though it had been in a reflection and not straight on, the fact that she could look through the veil at all was a sign that she was growing, getting stronger. And that’s what she needed. She needed to be more than she had been.

  Of course, having him and Allistair around so much was certainly helping her to see further. But Allistair shouldn’t have been there.

  Slowly, slowly, Zachary pushed down on the flare of anger. He could not afford to show it in front of the others. It was base, and he wanted to be better than the deep urge that had grabbed him and made him react.

  He had to dismantle his feelings before he saw Katharine. Before he became human. If he transformed and had any anger in him, he would carry it into his human self, where it would fester and grow. Humans were a prime breeding ground for deep-rooted emotions.

  He didn’t breathe–at least not until he became human. So he blanked his thoughts and waited for the anger to pass.

  Then he waited beyond the veil in his own room. It was his as much as any person could own anything. But the idea that it was his, bought and paid for, would keep anyone from coming in while he changed. When he felt ready, he began.

  First one piece, then another. He braced against the burn of forming flesh. To the extent that he could feel anything, he enjoyed the outcome if not the process. When at last he had pushed through, he waited for the air to clear of the tiny sparks of the sealing rift. He waited for the ionized air to still, for the smoke to settle or drift away. Then he took a deep breath.

  As was becoming routine, he walked through his apartment naked, re-familiarizing himself with human senses as he cleaned up after his entry. He vacuumed the soot from the carpet, wiped away the tiny bit of ash the air-conditioning vent had blown over to the wall. Then he carefully dressed so that he would look like he had been simply relaxing today, then he sat on his couch, folded his hands together and waited for the call.

  A minute or two later the phone rang. He could almost hear her emotion through the line. Katharine wasn’t frantic yet, but she was definitely on edge. Zachary picked up the line and answered, “Hey! I’m glad to hear from you.”

  He listened as if he didn’t already know what was coming, as if he hadn’t seen it all forming and changed just for this. At her request, he agreed to come over to her unit, as her boyfriend. Because she needed a lawyer even though it wouldn’t look good for her to have one there. Luckily, it was perfectly acceptable for her to have her boyfriend over. It would be a different story if this looked official.

  The police buzzed in just a moment after Zachary hung up, and he made sure they got delayed in the elevator on the way up. They would find every button lit up, forcing them to stop at each floor along the way. So he had a moment to go over to Katharine’s before they arrived at her door.

  She let him in while she looked up and down the hall for the police. She looked guilty, and that wouldn’t help her case at all. Zachary needed her out from under the cops for all that he had in mind. And now was the time to clear her, if she would just do as he told her. “Katie, take a deep breath.”

  He demonstrated and waited while she did it. Once, twice. Then, finally, when she didn’t appear so frantic, he poured her half a glass of juice and made her take several sips from various sides of the glass. He wanted to be sure it looked like they’d been like this for a while. Then, he sat her on the couch with her glass and took a space next to her.

  Within moments, there was a knock at her door. It seemed the police were anti-doorbell. Zachary motioned for her to stay put. “I’ve got it, Katie.”

  He opened the door to the officers in the capacity of boyfriend. Then they introduced themselves, and Zachary acted like he was getting new information.

  Detective Leaman turned to Katharine, and his tone was almost accusing. “You didn’t say you weren’t alone.”

  Inside, Zachary smiled. His Katie pasted on a confused face. “You didn’t ask. Is it necessary?”

  Wandering around the room as though he hadn’t seen the place before, Dashel stayed out of the conversation. Leaman looked at Zachary this time. “Are you here as her boyfriend or as her lawyer?”

  Though he knew it wasn’t at all what the detective wanted to hear, it was what Katharine needed. “If you’re asking that question, then I’m here as her lawyer.” He immediately took a seat on the couch next to where she’d stayed put and let him lead.

  The officers took a moment to rearrange things. They pulled over chairs from the dining set and let Katharine and Zachary stay on the couch. It may have been an attempt to put them at ease, but Zachary didn’t think i
t boded well for the line of questioning. He had seen enough to know they didn’t have anything on Katharine at all really. They just thought she was suspicious. And in a case where they had nothing really to go on, they would latch on to the suspicious person and squeeze until they had a confession or a solid lead.

  He didn’t like the idea of them digging into Katharine’s life. He had to turn them away and do it now.

  They asked all about the company, about the missing funds, about Mary Wayne. Zachary steered the conversation as much as he could, but he didn’t like the way they lined up the questions. They made it look as though Katharine were involved in the death, when he knew for certain that she wasn’t.

  Holding his hand up, he asked the officers to stop for a moment. “Look, my client doesn’t know anything more than what she’s told you about Ms. Wayne. For your sake, and so you can get a reasonable timeline here, Ms. Geryon can go through the whole course of events. But then I’m going to have to ask you to leave her alone.”

  The officers didn’t agree to the “leaving her alone” part, but did let Katharine tell her side of the story. They interrupted periodically for the dates and times of various incidents, but that was all.

  As he had known they would, the officers found the dates didn’t match. Mary Wayne had been dead before Katharine had solidified the woman as a suspect. She hadn’t known Mary Wayne’s address until well after the date the medical examiner had declared as the latest possible time of death.

  He was proud that she didn’t lie about thinking she had seen Mary on the tapes, but she did say that clearly she had been looking for the woman in hundreds of faces and that she had surely just mistaken her. Zachary knew that Katharine still believed she had seen Mary Wayne long after she’d been dead, and he knew she was right–she had seen the woman.

  Dashel spoke, making one of the first comments he had during the entire interview. “Ms. Geryon, you have to understand that your actions aren’t typical given the situation.”

  He waited for her to respond. Good girl that she was, she just looked at him, confused.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there were typical responses.” She shrugged and moved as though to shrink just a little further inside herself. “Is there a standard scenario for this? I mean, my mother died from cancer several years ago, and that was reasonably peaceful. Other than that, I’ve never seen a dead body. Let alone a shredded one.” She flinched a bit as she thought back to what the body had looked and smelled like. “And at the time, I did believe I had seen her recently. I had no reason to believe otherwise. So I don’t understand.”

  Dashel sat back and Zachary suppressed a grin. She had done well. With the dates not matching and Katharine having a legitimate reason to believe she had seen the woman long after she had died and started to decay, the officers really had nothing to go on, nothing to justify coming back and questioning her again, at least not in the capacity of a person of suspicion. So he didn’t point that out. He’d use it if he had to, but he didn’t want enemies. He’d just let the good officers figure that part out for themselves.

  At last, the policemen declared themselves finished. As custom dictated, they thanked the two of them, shaking hands. “Miss Geryon, Mr. Andras.”

  Then they were gone.

  After the door shut and they heard the elevator doors close, Katharine sank back onto the couch. Small shakes hit her arms and legs, and he could see the tension begin to roll off her. She had held it in tight check while the officers had asked questions, and now she let it go.

  She needed him now, and he held her close for a moment while she curled into him, breathing deeply, her nose against his shirt. When she seemed to shake a little less, he stood to pour her a glass of wine. She needed to calm down. The wine would help. So would the words. “You were fine. Great even. I know you don’t know anything. But you have to realize they don’t have anything on you.”

  “How do you know that?” She sipped at the merlot and leaned back into the cushions.

  “I’m an attorney. I know the ADA. They aren’t anywhere near arresting anyone, let alone pressing charges. The word is they have no one, so they’re going to pester you and your assistant until they can come up with something.”

  “But we didn’t do anything. We just found her.”

  “Sure, but they have nothing else. And they are looking for any little lead you can provide.” He sat next to her, touched her arm, willed her to drink a little more. It would calm her down. “But don’t worry. The dates you gave. They may ask you more questions, but next time they really will be looking for you to help. Not to try and catch you at something or trip you up in any way.”

  “Thank God.” She leaned back and closed her eyes.

  • • •

  Katharine woke up in the middle of the night and immediately ran to the bathroom and vomited.

  After emptying the contents of her stomach, she sank to the floor and huddled against the wall for a moment before she realized she was naked. On weak legs, she stumbled to her dresser and pulled out soft cotton pants and a T-shirt. But one look at the bed sent her scrambling to the commode before her stomach turned all the way over again.

  Nothing came. Her stomach was empty and she barely made it the two feet from the toilet to the sink, where she braced herself on shaking arms as she forced deep breaths, as though that might calm her. Still, his scent lingered. What they had done together hung in the air. She tried not to breathe too deeply.

  Eventually, she thought she could move enough to stand while she splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. There was a rancid aftertaste of wine in her mouth that she desperately wanted to get rid of. Even after her mouth was clean and her arms only shook in intervals, she could not make herself turn and leave the bathroom. She looked down at the sink so she didn’t have to see the bed behind her, didn’t see the covers rumpled and silent. But they told her that she had been with Zachary.

  She had drunk a glass of wine–or was it two? Three? She didn’t remember–after the detectives had left. And Zachary had … stayed? She didn’t really remember. Clearly, she had fallen asleep. Naked. She had vague memories of the all-consuming sex that she usually had with him.

  What had happened?

  She hadn’t planned on sleeping with him again. Not after Margot’s ideas about the creatures and the new men in her life.

  Katharine had been dismissing the things she’d seen in the store window the other day. It was a sad state of affairs when she wanted to be hallucinating things. But she had seen a creature, dark and frightening, staring back at her. The first creature she had grown to be able to handle. No, it was the other creature, something from the realm of the first, that had walked into the reflection. Even darker and worse than the first, it had not looked at her.

  Its deep and missing eyes had looked only at the other beast, and it had attacked with a speed and drive that had held Katharine motionless with its ferocity. Somehow she had picked herself up off the sidewalk, employed some of the grace her mother had drilled into her, and let Margot help her back to her apartment.

  Somehow she had slept. She had compartmentalized the images and her body had taken over, probably exhausted just from the tension. She had gone into work and deftly avoided Allistair. They talked, he invaded her personal space, but she didn’t let it go further than that.

  But Zachary …

  He had felt so safe. She remembered that. She had wanted to fall into him. And she hadn’t been sober. The wine, coupled with the toll of the police interview and the undeniable relief at the outcome, had left her heady after a very small portion.

  And with that her trust in her judgment had returned.

  Zachary had taken away the last of the wine, turned down the lights, and walked her to bed. Had she been the one to initiate things? Had she asked him not to go? Begged?

  Katharine wasn’t sure. She had no strong memories save one.

  Most of the night felt like an alcohol-hazed blur. But those s
hort minutes ago, when Zachary had stood to leave, Katharine had awoken. Maybe she shouldn’t have. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to.

  Still, she had seen.

  As Zachary walked away from her bed he had the slightest limp. That’s what had made her look closer, what made her change her vision from satisfied fuzz to sharp inspection.

  The man had grabbed his shoulder with the opposite hand while he walked away and rolled the shoulder as though it hurt. The moonlight caught the pale skin of his arm, his biceps and triceps in perfect relief. But the shadows were wrong.

  Frowning, Katharine had leaned in for a closer look and seen the bruising.

  His right arm was healing from a wound. It looked several days old, not as fresh as if it were from something just a single day ago. But she trusted nothing now. Nothing.

  And it was in the right place.

  There were bruises everywhere. Subtle shading differences on his skin that would have been clear in broad daylight. His legs, his back, his neck.

  Though she had stopped watching after seeing the reflection of the first hit in the store window, Katharine had listened. She hadn’t been able to close her ears as she had her eyes. And the fight had been vicious.

  Would a creature like that be able to walk away unscathed? Would it heal fast? Fast enough to appear as though it was a full week after the brawl rather than a mere day later?

  She had no answers, but the questions were enough to imprison her thoughts and scare the crap out of her. Who had she just slept with?

  Fighting to corral the wayward musings of her mind, Katharine had to consider the ideas that Margot had been planting. They were taking root and growing.