by A. J. Norris
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not happy for me?”
“Oh, I—”
“Don’t worry about him. He feels like a failure. As if his DNA is responsible for you falling,” Max interjected.
The purple-haired Healer angel had arrived dressed in black patent-leather pants, platform boots, and no shirt. As a Sacred Jere had been forced to wear white cloths draped over his body. He liked the carefree way Max dressed. He had his own style.
“But he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You two can discuss that at another time. Let’s get this over with. You’ll want to get on your hands and knees. This is going to hurt like a bitch.” Jere assumed the position and braced himself. He dug his claws into the carpet and padding. Max came around to his head and knelt down in front of him. “Sorry, man. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Elliott? A little help?”
His father stooped over and held him around the waist. “I’m sorry, my son.”
Jere frowned. Why was everyone apologizing?
Max palmed his ram-shaped horns. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” Jere said. “Where did you get those?”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Elliott tightened his grip. Sharp agony shot throughout Jere’s upper back. He screamed incoherently. There were no words to describe the excruciating pain. Tears streaked down his face and fell off his chin. He thrashed against the prison created by the other angels to the point of exhaustion. His muscles no longer functioned as they should and couldn’t support him anymore. Thank Deus, Elliott was there to catch him. If only he’d been able to be there when he’d fallen prey to Abaddon in the first place. His father eased him down onto the floor. Jere’s vision dimmed and he conked out.
Images flooded his mind of the life he had before Netherworld. He wasn’t happy. Although he didn’t dislike ushering humans into Arcadia for an afterlife of peace and tranquility, his own life was unfulfilling. Lackluster. Boring. He needed change and Abaddon offered an alternative to the mundane. “You’ll never be bored,” he’d said. The statement had been a lie; even torturing damned souls was monotonous.
His back throbbed and knees felt like they were bent the wrong way when Jere opened his eyes. He wasn’t on the hard floor anymore, but on the couch lying on his stomach. Soft gray feathers blanketed him.
Oh. Thank. Deus.
The color of the wings didn’t matter. Amalya’s were black and you didn’t hear her complaining. Of course, they were beautiful. The pain subsided and a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He brought a hand up to his face. Where once clawed hands were, he now had blunt nails. And the best part, the color of his flesh returned to, well, flesh color. His mother had darker skin than his father. He was somewhere in between, with hair as white as snow. Human souls always eyed him oddly. One had remarked that he looked overly fake-n-baked with bottle platinum blond hair. Whatever that meant. As a goat demon, his hair was dark. He sat up. His hair tumbled forward off his shoulders. The hair remained black. He grabbed the ends and stared at them. Panic punched him in the gut. “Is there a mirror around here?”
“In the bathroom,” Elliott said from where he was lounging in a chair. “But I wouldn’t go in there…”
Jere sprinted down the hallway, pitched sideways. His lack of balance threw him off kilter. Getting used to the weight of the wings and normal legs would take some time. He banged into the wall several times.
Behind the bathroom door, he heard voices. He twisted the knob and pushed the wooden panel open. Frenzied movements and lots of moaning and grunting filled his senses. He shielded his eyes with an arm.
“What in Deus is going on?” Jere backed up and slammed the door shut. Elliott chuckled from the mouth of the hallway. “That’s messed up.”
“No, that’s Virgil. And don’t ask about the female.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-FIVE
Julia
Finding the wheeled canvas laundry bin had been simple. Julia snatched the cart while a housekeeper cleaned another room. She pushed the cart down the hallway toward the suite. Before she knocked, Joelle swung the door wide.
“That was quick,” he said.
Julia sniffled again when she saw the body on the floor double-wrapped in sheets.
Ra’zael hefted the body onto his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. She wondered if the limbs would already be stiff. How long did rigor mortis take to set in? She shuddered. Somehow her own bloody corpse hadn’t been as revolting as this one. The face was pallid.
“Is he…is he stiff?”
“No. That would take another hour or so,” Raz told her. “Pull the towels and stuff out of there.”
She scooped the linens out onto the floor and he fit the body inside the bin. Joelle helped her cover it up. She gagged the whole time. “Now what?”
“Take the body to the roof and pitch it off,” Joelle said.
“I’m sorry? That’s your great plan?” Julia asked.
Raz laughed. “I told you it was terrible.”
“It’s not terrible. Why are you laughing? It will give the Soapers time to erase the camera feeds while the police are called and all the humans go nuts for a little while,” Joelle said.
“Hmm, actually that’s not a terrible idea. I’ll warn the Soapers. You two dump.”
Julia blew out a breath. Okaaay…to the roof.
The elevator arrived at the penthouse. Fortunately, the room was unoccupied, or at least no one was home. She wasn’t interested in poking around to find out if someone was staying there or not. Joelle teleported inside and unlocked the door. “How come we didn’t just flash inside the room with the body?” she whispered.
“Empty bodies don’t do so well during teleportation.”
“Wait, you mean—”
“He wasn’t dead yet when I found him. So, no, I wasn’t going to finish him off. Like I said, I freaked out. Which is weird because I’m usually so good under pressure. Seeing Raz again…”
“Anyway,” Julia cut in. “Can we hurry this up, please?” She opened the sliding glass door to the balcony while he gathered the deceased. A gust of wind blew her hair back. Guilt punched holes in her stomach and she heaved but managed to not to puke. “Maybe we should say a few words.”
Joelle chuckled. “That’s such a human thing to do. Have at it, if it makes you feel better. But words can’t help him where he went.” He stepped over the track and without hesitation threw the body off the terrace. Julia rushed to the side and looked down. The sheets unraveled, drifting away on the air current. They caught a breeze and ended up hitting the building, snagging on the brick. The body dropped like a boulder. Faint shouts carried upward. A pedestrian pulled another person out of the way. More people screamed and parted right before her would-be mugger smacked the pavement. She cringed at the impact sound. Some others jumped over the corpse. A guy on a hover-board steered around him.
“Get away from the side.” Joelle tugged on her arm. She was too weak with emotion to protest and allowed him to spin her around. With tears in her eyes, Julia looked up at him. She froze; his eyes were speckled green. “What?”
“Nothing. Your eyes are unusual is all.”
“Most angels’ are.”
“Raz’s aren’t. Well…” That wasn’t exactly true. The irises looked like raging fires during…during…when? Heightened emotional states? Sex? “I have to get back to Raz.”
Joelle’s expression fell. “You’ve seen them change?”
“Sorry.” There was no reason for her to apologize but the angel’s frown made her empathize with him. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Why would that upset me?”
“You love him. I didn’t see it before. At first, I thought you were going to mess things up for me. Get me in trouble or something. I dunno, but you didn’t because you wanted to help him by helping me.”
“I want him to be happy, yes. He’s been gone a long time.” There was a sound behind them. Joelle looked over her head; she pivoted. A
n unfamiliar angel appeared in the doorway.
Whoosh. Joelle disappeared.
CHAPTER
FIFTY-SIX
Maurice
Flying first class had perks. Maurice deplaned first. He’d arranged for a car to pick him up at O’Hare International Airport. The service took him straight to the Hyatt, where he’d made the reservation for his usual penthouse suite. Traffic ahead of the black-out sedan came to a complete standstill a quarter-mile from the hotel. He peered through the windshield. Dozens of red and blue flashing lights gathered in the vicinity of the hotel.
Maurice smoothed his tie. “Driver, can you tell what is going on? Is that mess in front of my hotel?”
“I believe so, sir,” the man replied with a thick Indian accent.
“I’ll walk from here. Open the boot, please.” Maurice exited the vehicle and waited for the driver to pop the trunk. He grabbed his Louis Vuitton suitcase and wove his way through the other cars and several buses to the sidewalk.
When he reached the corner of the block the building rose up from, yellow caution tape surrounded a form laying on the cement left of the front doors. He only needed a quick glance to know the covered lump was a dead body. He inhaled sharply then looked up. A white sheet stained with a reddish-brown blotch clung to the side of the building. The Englishman stepped under the steel and glass awning.
“Are you a guest of the hotel, sir?”
“Wha…oh, yes, officer. I am.” The cop opened the door for him. “Thank you.” Maurice slipped inside and headed for reception. A woman he recognized behind the counter greeted him with a thin smile.
“Checking in, Mr. Winslow?”
“Please.”
The clerk tapped on a keyboard and frowned. “I’m sorry, but the penthouse is unavailable at the moment.”
“I see.” Evidently, the dead man out front had thrown himself off the penthouse balcony. Splendid. “Is there another room available with comparable standards to the suite?”
“Let me have a look.” She looked down at the monitor. Maurice drummed his fingertips on the granite counter, starting with his index finger then reversing the order beginning with his pinky. “I think we can accommodate your needs, Mr. Winslow. We can offer the suite directly below. It has a sitting room in addition to the bedroom. Jacuzzi-style bathtub and—”
“When will it be ready?”
“Right away. Let me make you some keycards.”
***
Maurice rounded the corner toward his room. A hulking beast of a man with dark hair and steel blue eyes whisked past him in the hallway outside his replacement room. The bottom flaps of his suit jacket lifted in a gust of wind. He paused and looked behind him; the man shimmied his upper back in an odd fashion, almost how a bird would shake rainwater from its feathers. Maurice spun on the balls of his feet and inserted the key card into the slot.
The room was larger than he imagined. He turned on all the lights, including the bathroom, and adjusted the AC. His suit jacket he hung on the clothing rack, annoyed the rack was out in the open. Hadn’t anyone ever heard of a wardrobe? He unpacked his belongings, hanging the Desmond Merrion custom tailored suit next to his Brooks Brothers’ coat and filled the dresser with his boxers and socks.
Maurice checked his watch and prepared for his afternoon meeting with the head museum curator. He opened his briefcase to reassure himself he had brought along his pegboard of checks. A sizable donation sometimes required that one actually see the check as it was being written to appreciate. He needed the amulet and wasn’t going to stop adding zeroes until he got what he wanted.
At a quarter to four in the afternoon, he went down to the lobby and had the doorman hail a cab.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“Chicago Field Museum, please.” He always tried to be polite; after all, he was an English gentleman. The taxi pulled up to the curb in front of the wide steps leading to the museum. Armored angel statues stood guard outside the building. It was funny, he didn’t remember the sculptures being angels. What had happened to the lions? Weren’t they lions before? He smoothed the front of his suit as he approached the information desk.
“I have a meeting with Mr. Koebel,” he said to the young, fresh-faced woman manning the desk.
Her smile morphed into a frown. “I’m sorry. Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes. He told me to stop by anytime I was in town.”
“But do you have an appointment?”
Maurice cleared his throat. “I’m here to see Mr. Koebel and to make a sizable donation.”
“I can help you with that, mister…?”
“Winslow.” He cleared his throat. “Maurice Winslow.”
“I’m sorry, was that supposed to mean something? Does he know you?”
He briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Losing patience wasn’t going to help. “Are you in the habit of insulting your patrons, especially large donors like myself? In fact, now I must insist on speaking with your supervisor.”
“Uh, no, I um, you said you’d like to meet with Mr. Koebel,” the woman said, quickly backtracking. “I-I’ll page him right now.”
“Thank you. I’ll consider ignoring your rudeness in exchange for an apology.”
“I…I’m sorry—”
He held up his palm to stop her and smiled without joy.
Mr. Koebel’s assistant greeted him at the information desk and ushered him behind a door marked ‘Private.’ “Mr. Koebel will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat outside his office. May I get you anything while you wait?”
Now that’s more like it.
“No, thank you.” The woman dressed in casual clothing retreated. Maurice looked at the floor. By the time the office door opened he’d counted five hundred tiny square tiles. This part of the museum where the offices were located appeared to be in its original state. Most of the other areas appeared to have been remodeled. “Winslow, come in, please.”
He sat across from Mr. Koebel with his legs crossed and his hands clasped over his kneecap. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. You said whenever I was in town to pay you a visit. I understand museum patrons are on the rise.”
“Cut the crap, Maury, you didn’t come all this way to chitchat. You’re after the pendant you claim was stolen.”
“Yes.” Maurice reached inside his suit pocket and produced a drawing of the amulet. “This is what I came to retrieve. See, Tomas, this necklace, as I told you on the phone, has been in my family for generations and was taken from my home. It’s quite priceless.”
Tomas Koebel took the paper and examined the design. “Hmm…I do remember this being checked into inventory yesterday. Let me make a phone call. Oh and…I do expect a check. Today.” Maurice made an off-you-go motion with his hand. He listened to Tomas’ side of the conversation.
Koebel hung up. “The piece has been sent down to authentication and cleaning. The museum has until next week to officially close the deal with the museum back in Detroit, although the curators are all enthusiastic about its authenticity.”
Maurice leaned back in his chair and smiled. “My amulet isn’t for sale. Furthermore, it’s not what you believe it to be. It’s not worth a penny.”
“Then why, may I ask, are you so eager to get it back? And so willing to pay a large sum of money to ensure that?”
“I told you, it’s a family heirloom. It has sentimental value and you cannot put a price high enough on that.”
“Be that as it may—”
“Let me remind you that if you receive stolen proper—”
“Please, if you were going to call the police you would’ve already.”
Maurice glanced around the tight office. A coatrack full of cheap looking neckties sat in the corner. Another suit jacket and pants hung from a hanger. He looked back at Tomas, who had his hands cradling the back of his head. The man eyed him as he rose and walked over to the ties. Maurice grabbed a pale blue tie and sat down.
“Yo
u like that tie? Wife got that for me for Christmas last year. All of them on that rack were presents.”
Leaning forward, Maurice snatched a blade-like letter opener off the desk. “Maury, what are you—”
“You know what, I’ve grown tired of you. So here’s what you are going to do.”
“Wha—”
Maurice made a slashing movement with his hand, got up, walked around the desk, and stood next to the man. He bent over and spoke into his ear. “You’re going to pick up that phone and dial whoever you must and tell them I’m on my way to the information desk to pick up my amulet.”
Tomas’s mouth fell open and he looked over his shoulder. “I will do nothing of the sort—ah, fuck!” Maurice’s hand had come down onto the man’s thigh with the letter opener. He clutched his leg after the tool was removed. The puncture was shallow but deep enough to scare the man. “What was that for? Motherfuc—”
“Would you like one on the other side?” Tomas shook his head. “Make the call.”
Tomas tried to get up, but collapsed back in the chair with a cry. Sweat poured down his face. He blew out quick breaths. Maurice picked up the receiver and handed it to him. With shaky hands, he dialed the three-digit extension and rested his elbows on the desk.
“The amulet…that is stol-stolen property. Please have it ready at the information desk for pick-up. Mr. Winslow will be waiting.” He let the phone drop and pressed on the wound with his hand.
“Thank you,” Maurice said, placing the phone on the cradle. He seized the hair on the back of Tomas’s head, forcing him to look at him. “Now, I can’t very well leave you here to call the police. Tell you what,” he wiped the opener on Tomas’s coat and put it into his own pocket, “you’ve got a problem and I want you to help me solve it.”
“Wha-What do you want me to do?” Tomas stammered.
“You know what sucks about polyester ties, they’re incredible strong when wrapped around someone’s neck.” Tomas blanched. Maurice chuckled. “Just joking. I had you going there for a minute.”
