by Multiple
Mother shrugged. “I think even a Dark angel gets lonely. Who knows? I don’t study their habits, and neither should you.”
Claire nodded. She flipped the paper back and forth, noting information was listed only on one side. “No file this time?”
“No. We think he decided tonight to take his life. You’re going to have to hurry to get there in time. It may already be too late.”
Claire tensed, irritated they’d wasted so much time. She turned, anxious to leave the cemetery and get started on her new mission.
“Just a minute.” Mother’s fingers dug into Claire’s shoulder, spinning her around.
Something is still wrong. Claire rubbed her collarbone.
“Let me give this charge to another Guardian, Claire,” Mother said. “I asked that it not be you. I was overruled.” Mother’s black eyes watched her intently, eyes that had begun to water.
Which meant Father had chosen Claire especially for this mission. But why?
Father works in mysterious ways.
“You can refuse it. In fact, I wish you would,” Mother insisted.
“You think I’ll fail? I’ve never failed.”
“Careful of the pride, child. Every Guardian eventually comes across a human she cannot save.”
Now Claire was determined to take the mission. “I won’t refuse it. I can’t refuse Father.”
“I understand, but I was hoping you would anyway. You see, this is going to be your last mission. You’re to be retired here, to become an instructor.”
Claire’s blood began to boil. She clutched the white paper, squared her shoulders and said through her teeth, “How could you do this to me, after all my faithful years of service to the Guardianship?”
“Shame on you, Claire! Teaching is an honorable profession. Think of the inspiration you will be to the younger ones—an instructor with a perfect record.”
“I’m a much better Guardian doing the work, not teaching it,” Claire spat, but she knew it was no use. She’d learned long ago not to try to change Mother’s mind. It was as permanent as life eternal. Repositioning her yellow transport bag, she turned to leave.
“No appearing in his dreams, or in real time,” Mother said to her back. “Don’t talk to him, either, and no whispering. No notes! Don’t give messages to someone else to tell him things.” Mother’s voice rose as Claire left, walking at first, then breaking into a full run. “And just so I can tell him I’ve covered it, don’t use your dust for anything but helping him dream, Claire. No one must see your dust or feel its power. But most important, he is never to know you exist, never to feel your presence. Is that clear?”
A well-dented taxi, covered in spray-painted graffiti, idled as Claire emerged from the garden path. Sprays of diamond dust covered leaves and flowers at her side like a coating of sugar. She hopped into the rear bench seat and closed the door.
Thank God it’s Doris.
The cabbie’s eyes watched her in the rear view mirror as they descended through the clouds. Claire stared at the back of Doris’s head, noting the short, unnaturally bright red hair that stuck out under a weathered cabbie hat worn too far back and at an angle.
Doris never said much on the way down. She had lots of questions and comments when she brought Claire back up. Claire sensed in her a kinship, a certain rebellious spirit. And she guessed the cabbie had been warned not to interfere with a Guardian and her mission.
Claire never knew another Guardian angel, except one, who had any memories of life as a human before the wash erased the memories. Just as she was certain she would never need to eat or sleep and wouldn’t age, she knew she remembered things about being human—like the day she was murdered. She had carefully guarded this secret. It meant something was wrong with Father’s wash mechanism.
Or something was wrong with her.
In a matter of seconds, she was running down Daniel’s crushed granite driveway in the dark to the two-story stone cottage tucked behind two massive homes. Claire smelled the loamy, wet earth coated with the heavy fog that covered most of the area as she looked up to see a tiny window in a small gable under the eave.
She willed herself through the wooden front door, remaining invisible. She hoped Daniel hadn’t heard her transport bag drop at her feet. The room air was hot and stifling, filled with pale grey smoke that burned her eyes and scorched her throat, causing her to gag. She held her breath and checked her invisibility, her sensors scanning the room. No sign of the dark angel.
Seated in front of a lit fireplace was her new charge, muscled and bare-chested, holding a large carving knife in his right hand, working his way up from deepening the shallow cuts he’d made on his left forearm. A thin trickle of blood dripped onto his black slacks, the only clothes he wore. He was cursing in a foreign tongue, sweat streaming down the sides of his cheeks. His lips curled in a sneer as he held his breath, ready to cut.
Claire saw the alarm keypad to the right of the front door. She willed herself there and pushed the red fire button, sending a shrieking noise throughout the living room. Daniel took too long to put his hands to his ears. He must be drunk. She saw the smashed neck of a wine bottle and pieces of green glass littering the floor at his feet. Remnants of a painting, torn and ripped apart from its frame, bubbled in the fireplace, sending a black streak of oily smoke up the wall.
Before Daniel could stand, Claire willed herself back to him. She rubbed her thumb against her first two fingers, producing dust, and applied the sparkling mixture to the raw flesh on his forearm. Golden threads began the work of restoring his skin. He didn’t notice.
He danced around the glass, stumbling over to the flashing red alarm. Claire smelled the stench of terror and sweat mixed with the acid burning paint smoke coming from the fireplace. His chest was streaked with wide ribbons of red wine; his cheeks were flushed, and his full lips were stained deep burgundy.
The fury inside him was so intense Claire almost stepped back, but she held her ground as he punched a code into the pad that did nothing to stop the noise. He tried again, then ripped the keypad from the wall and left it dangling by two wires. The head-splitting sound abruptly stopped and he watched the pad sway back and forth, its red light refusing to submit. He turned his back on it.
She leaned against his massive shoulder muscles, feeling the heat of his body, reading the torment in his soul. She wrapped her arms around him. The salty smell of his body was an elixir. Claire tingled with energy.
“I am here, Daniel. Nothing can harm you now,” she whispered. As if he could hear or feel her, he sighed in unison, a small moan from deep inside his throat, interrupting the few seconds of calm they shared together.
A faint siren got closer; she wondered what he would say to the rescue team that was surely on its way.
“Christ,” he whispered. “I can’t even do this right.”
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
What am I doing? What the hell’s wrong with me? Daniel staggered over to the gas shutoff on the fireplace and turned the handle downward. He coughed, covering his mouth from the cloying, unforgiving smoke. He was as irritated as his throat felt. Irritated with himself, with his painting, with everything in his life. “Filch da puta,” he cursed, kicking the remnants of the painting he’d dismembered and thrown into the fire not more than twenty minutes ago. He used to gaze at the image that stood guard over the fireplace when she rode him there on the green velvet settee, on those long languid evenings when they’d drunk too much wine. All he could think about had been filling her little pussy over and over again near the devilish orange glow. It was the same settee she’d screwed the doctor on a week ago when he caught them in his living room.
My own fucking house!
He used to get hard looking at the painting when she was at work or out with her friends, so strong was his craving for her, like some kind of addiction he didn’t even want to think about shedding. Except now he had to.
“Don�
��t sell it,” she’d said. “I want you to think of me, how we are made for each other.” It was the first blue leopard he’d painted. Those big green eyes the size of fists used to stare back at him no matter where he was in the room. When he was creating the piece, he’d paint for a few minutes, think of her, and then get so hard he’d drive all over town to find her.
Never before had he felt this way—felt this insatiable lust for a woman. His cock had been in a constant state of arousal. They’d made love in closets, at the supermarket, at the nursery, and many times at the gallery, Craven Image, her favorite place. His mind had been in a constant fog, temporarily cured by a few precious moments when he’d sink himself deep into her pink folds. His attempts to satisfy himself without her body had been a dismal failure and only made his craving worse.
He could hardly have lunch with her in public he was so driven, the ever-present tent in his pants making it even difficult to cross his legs. The big blue leopard had kidnapped his desire for her deep in those green eyes, holding his lust like a vault at the bank, like his talent had been plucked from his body and held for ransom in the soul of this beast. It was the sum total of several months of work.
But now he’d destroyed it, like he’d destroyed his life. I can’t paint worth shit. It wasn’t a self-indulgent thought. It was the awful truth.
The faint siren was getting closer. He’d have to deal with them next.
He felt something warm against his back. Turning around, he glanced down, expecting to see some female companion, maybe Audray, but instead his gaze traveled to three more sets of yellow eyes on big cats in his jungle paintings hanging at the stairway. They were waiting.
“Va se foder!” he swore at them in Portuguese, but they didn’t tell him to fuck himself in return. They sat there with no expression.
Maybe I’ll burn them all. They’re worthless pieces of garbage anyway. No one wants them.
He had been halfway ready to forgiving Audray’s infidelity. She’d tearfully apologized and the makeup sex offered had been the best ever, though excruciatingly painful. The sex had been a bit rough, and not his usual tastes, but Audray had no limits, and showed him things he’d never considered. He’d tried to forgive her—told himself he did anyway—and had spent twenty-four hours screwing her so many times he’d lost count, but in the end, it was obvious she’d moved on, even though he hadn’t. And his need of her and her body only increased the more he was without her.
He’d even convinced himself punishing her could help purge the self-loathing he felt for not being able to walk away.
Yeah, he could understand the guy getting caught up in the moment—Audray knew what she was doing, bringing the doc here under the guise of selling him a painting. The guy probably could feel the scent of lust and sex as soon as he walked in the room and before she took over. Like she’d done to Daniel months ago at the gallery party. No, he couldn’t blame the poor son of a bitch for a little dalliance, even at Daniel’s house. Just one taste of that sweet ass and he was hooked, hogtied, able to be led around by the nose. God knew, Daniel himself had been living that way for months now, almost a year. Daniel had always been a one-woman man, and had convinced himself he might be able to withstand the pain of her infidelity, as long as she came back to him. Am I nuts? What was I thinking? He didn’t like the man he had become, the boundaries he had crossed, and had continued to cross every day he spent in her proximity.
But the last straw had been today when she told him the gallery was dropping his paintings. She was so sorry, she’d said. Then she’d told him it was difficult to be around him, since her feelings were compromised.
Compromised? Was that what it was, all that screwing? “Fuck you and your toilet seats,” he’d shouted to the room. The gallery owner, Beau Bradley, had been the lead guitar for Spacetravelers, a rock and roll band from the ‘60s. Beau had gotten into autographing toilet seats and doing flashy canvases so wealthy owners could have a “Bradley” signature in their living room. The sales also helped with the cost of dialysis a couple of the boys in the band were under due to their past drug use. But was it art?
He leaned backward with his face to the ceiling. “When will this be over?” he groaned.
Now. He didn’t hear it. He felt it. There was a warm tingling sensation against his back again, like a woman’s chest leaned up against him, like he’d been held in invisible arms, a cloak of safety surrounding him. His pulse quickened. It was unmistakably female.
“Who’s here?” He whirled around, searching the room, the stairs and the balcony at the top.
The animals were silent. Even the bubbling painting stopped crackling in the fireplace. He raised his arms out to the sides and thought he saw a shimmer of dust slide down his forearms to his fingertips.
He rubbed his scalp, shaking off the crazy sensation, noting the steady beat of the heart he had tried to stop earlier this evening. He couldn’t figure out if he was happy or sad to be alive.
He felt just as poor now as he had in his barefoot beginnings at that house near the beach, the one with no windows, the ocean as his shower. Difference was, back then he’d thought he was a talented artist and the world was his oyster. Now he wondered if he could ever stand to touch another canvas. The unsold inventory hung like tombstones at Beau’s gallery. Of course they had to move him out. They were not in the charity business.
Leopard eyes were laughing at him. He didn’t like their smirk. He’d rip that smug look off their faces, send them to a fiery grave just like their sibling. He was halfway to the stairs when he heard a tap at the front door. Turning, he saw a tall shadow in the frosted window, and felt a chill.
Might be a neighbor. Well, screw it. Let them see the bonfires of my soul.
Darting back to the entrance, he swung the door open so quickly he almost fell over. White fog with pointed tendrils snaked into the room. Daniel scented the exotic spices that always surrounded Josh and heard some kind of music. “God, Josh. Your timing is pretty pathetic.”
“That’s a hell of a way to greet your agent. I’ve come to check up on you. Got an inkling something wasn’t right.” Josh was dressed in black: leather knee-high boots, black jeans and turtleneck. Covering everything was a long black rain slicker, giving Josh the look of an oversized crow.
Daniel stepped to the man and gave him a stiff hug, which was not returned. “Thanks.”
Josh remained at the doorway. “May I come in?”
“Might as well. Cops are on their way, though.” Daniel shook his head and winced.
Josh marched into the center of the living room as Daniel closed the front door quietly and kept his eyes down.
“I see.” Josh said after a quick survey, nodding. “We’re having a temper tantrum, are we?”
“Fuck you,” Daniel barked. He noticed laughter on Josh’s pale face. His dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail, was shiny, and a lock of it had come loose, draped over Josh’s left eye.
“Not what an agent wants to hear, my friend.”
“Yeah? Well, I didn’t send out invitations.”
“Invitations? Invitations to what?”
“My demise.”
“Ahhh. Now I see.” Josh walked over to the fireplace and jabbed the still-smoldering painting with the toe of his boot. “Well, if you ask me, you got rather close. This time.”
“This time? There’s never been another time.”
“True.” Josh nodded in agreement, smiling.
Something about that smile disturbed Daniel. “You like my new piece?” Daniel gestured toward the paint smeared on the wall. When Josh didn’t reply, he added, “I call it Death of an Artist.” He picked up watercolor crayons scattered about the floor and smeared them against the wall, creating a burgundy paste. The cool, sticky substance made a mushy sound as he swiped his hands across the wall. “There. I call it finished,” he said as he threw the remnants of the crayons at his feet. He wiped his hands on his black pants, already smudged wit
h paint.
“Ah, yes. Death. That the friend you were seeking tonight?” Josh scanned the room as if searching for something. He sniffed the air, then coughed.
Daniel continued to wipe his hands and tried to focus on Josh’s face but got dizzy. His stomach began to gallop.
“Don’t you think this is a bit of an overreaction, my friend? Or, was it what you wanted?” Josh watched Daniel without expression.
Daniel focused on Josh’s voice, which seemed to settle him. “What I want? How about a decent night’s sleep? How about something to erase my memory? Everything I look at reminds me of her. How’s this?” Daniel leaned over and snatched the knife at the floor. As he aimed it at his chest, he felt it slip out of his hand, as if invisible fingers wrenched it from his grip. Dumbfounded, he watched the trajectory of the knife as it flew through the air, clattering on the floor in the corner, and out of reach.
Josh crouched in a defensive stance and he searched the room, his eyes wide and fully alert.
“How’d you do that?” Daniel asked, in shock.
“You mean send the knife flying? You honestly think I did that?” Josh’s dark lips lightened as they formed a thin line. “You’re hammered. You couldn’t hold onto your dick if your life depended on it.”
Daniel leaned towards his agent, anger searing a hole in his gut, ready to argue against the accusation, but as nausea overtook him, he had a change of plan. He ran for the bathroom.
When he came back, stomach contents gone, he found Josh sniffing the wall. Both men turned as red lights strobed through the living room window and front door.
“Not a word about your intentions tonight, hear me?” Josh said.
“Sure.”
“You take anything?”
“Just the Meritage, on an empty stomach.”
“Ah yes, the Meritage. The wine you were saving for your wedding night.”
It hurt more than Daniel expected, and again, his first reaction was anger. Then he heard pounding on the front door and took a deep breath to face the consequences of his behavior. Josh beat him to the door, opened it, and bowed to two uniformed policemen standing on the stoop in the evening fog.
