Hellsbane 01 - Hellsbane

by Paige Cuccaro

  “Oh, no dear, I’m sorry,” she said. “They broke up a few months ago. Why do you ask?”

  I glanced at the pile of computer and techno guts spilling over the passenger seat next to me. “Just having some computer problems. Thought I might be able to swing some free geek assistance.”

  “Well, Justin knows a lot about computers too. He’s always showing me how to take care of those bothersome virus alerts.”

  My cousin Justin took a website design course in college and had been the reigning family computer guru until his sister Gretchen started dating Will, an actual computer guru. With Will out of the picture, it seemed Justin had reclaimed his title. Long live King Justin.

  “I think my problems are a little out of Justin’s capabilities.” I came to a stop at a red light.

  “You could come by if you want and let him have a look. Everyone’s here to watch the game and we’d love to see you. It seems like months since you made it for game day,” she said. “You know, you and Lacey are always welcome. Since your dad passed, you girls never make it in time for the game.”

  It was true. The Sunday ball game parties were typically a guy-motivated get-together. Mom wasn’t really a sports freak like the rest of the family. After my dad passed away she didn’t see a reason to endure the game portion of the day, and Lacey and I took after her in that respect. We saw the family at major holidays and family reunions, but on game days we’d take full advantage of our reputation for late arrivals and show up just in time for the post-game celebration—or commiseration, whichever the day called for. Post-game was when we really got to be together as one huge family anyway. I’d missed the last few game days, figuring I’d go the next time. Now I didn’t know if it would ever be safe for me to go again.

  The attack in the library had been aimed at both Tommy and me. I wasn’t just an innocent caught in the crossfire anymore—I was a target. It didn’t matter if the Fallen Tommy had discovered months ago was really his father. He was after me now too, and until I could figure out how to get close to him and take his head, anyone near me, everyone I loved, would be in danger. If I couldn’t get the name of Tommy’s ticket guy off his computer, I’d figure out another way. I wouldn’t risk my family.

  The light turned green and I was moving again. “Thanks, Aunt Sara, but I’ve, uh, I’ve got a couple clients today. Maybe next time.” My chest pinched; I knew it was a lie but wished with all my heart that it wasn’t.

  I heard a click and then my uncle Greg said from another phone in the house, “Is that my little Emma Jane? Are you finally gonna come root for the black and yellow with us and make this a real party?”

  “Hi, Uncle Greg. I’m sorr—”

  “Aw, c’mon, Emma. You’re just like your mom,” he said, not bothering to let me answer. “You both have that special something, able to liven up a room just by walking through the door. Especially if the room is full of men.” He laughed, totally clueless how creepy he sounded.

  Uncle Greg had always been the king of inappropriate comments. He meant well, but sometimes it seemed like the circuit between his mouth and brain wasn’t always making a good connection. Then again, as a kid, I’d always wondered if he had a thing for my mom.

  “Greg, hang up the phone, dear. You’ve drank too many beers and the game hasn’t even started,” Aunt Sara said. She knew her husband, and she loved him anyway, faulty brain-mouth circuit and all.

  And then I had a thought.

  “Uncle Greg, wait a minute. Do you remember my mom ever having that effect on anyone specifically? I mean, besides my dad,” I said. “Like say, I dunno, twenty-three years ago?”

  “Emma, what are you asking?” Aunt Sara said, loyalty making her tone suspicious. “After your mother and father married she never looked at another man.”

  “Except for that guy she met working on that political campaign,” Uncle Greg said, and then the pop of a beer can tab crackled through the connection. “’Course, that was more him looking at Carol than the other way around. Can’t say I blamed him. Carol, all fired up the way she was over teachers’ issues and politics back then, she was getting a lot of people’s attention.”

  Aunt Sara clicked her tongue. “What on earth are you talking about? I don’t remember anyone paying any extra attention to her, or vice versa.”

  “Sure, you do,” Uncle Greg said. “Don’t you remember when the governor was running for reelection? Carol and a bunch of her teacher friends spent all their free time helping out and going to all those campaign shindigs. That guy, uh, Isaac…something, started hanging around. We all thought he was a spy for the other guy’s camp.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aunt Sara said.

  Eli had said the Fallen wipe the memories of the women they’ve been with. Could my angelic father have wiped Aunt Sara’s memory of him too? My mom and her sister were close—best friends close. It didn’t make sense Aunt Sara wouldn’t know if a strange man was making a play for my mom.

  But then, maybe their closeness is why Aunt Sara didn’t remember. What good would it do him to wipe Mom’s memory if her sister would remind her anyway? I guess my father didn’t count on my uncle Greg’s creepy inappropriate interest in my mother.

  “I’m not crazy, woman,” Uncle Greg said. “I bet we even have a picture of the guy. Where’s the scrapbook?”

  “It’s out in the cabinet in the living room,” Aunt Sara said. “I don’t know what you hope to find. I’m the one who put all those pictures in there.”

  Uncle Greg didn’t stop to argue. I heard the clunk when he set down his beer can and the huffing and shuffling as he searched for the book.

  My heart skipped. A picture? Could it really be that easy? If not for Tommy’s smashed laptop, I wouldn’t have even called.

  Tommy had searched for years and come so close, but not close enough. I’d been marked a little more than two weeks ago, and I might have already discovered the name and photographic proof of the Fallen who’d fathered me. Of course, if it was really him I’d still need to find him somewhere in the great wide world. But with a first name, a picture, and people who actually remembered details about him, I’d have a good place to start.

  “Ha!” Uncle Greg said, his voice fading and shaking as though he was walking with the phone. “I told you we had a picture of him.”

  My heart leapt to my throat. I held my breath as I drifted to a slow stop at another light.

  “Let me see that,” Aunt Sara said and I realized Uncle Greg must’ve brought his extension and the scrapbook into the same room as her. “I’m the one who took that picture. Nobody there was interested in Carol romantically.”

  “What about this guy?” Uncle Greg asked.

  I waited for the couple to come to some verbal conclusion but my curiosity got the better of me. “Uncle Greg, could you send me a copy of that photo?”

  “Sure, honey,” he said. “Give me a second and I’ll snap a picture of it with my phone and text it to you.”

  I was coming up to a gas station on the right so I flicked on my blinker and pulled in. After turning off the Jeep I sat for a moment, waiting for the picture to come through.

  “I have no idea who that is,” Aunt Sara said. “He wasn’t working with Carol’s group, I can tell you that.”

  “Okay, Emma,” Uncle Greg said, ignoring his wife for the moment. “Did it go through?”

  My phone beeped. “Got it. Thanks.”

  I thumbed the touch screen to open the text and photo. It took a minute to recognize my mom, twenty-three years younger, standing among a clutch of people posing for the photograph. It was taken indoors, the group standing in three short rows. Behind them in the near distance, leafy green ferns grew from long planters on top of a stone wall and gave the feel of a public location.

  “I’m telling you, Sara, that guy had something to do with the fund-raisers or politics.” Uncle Greg’s voice rumbled with leashed temper. “I mean, I figured he was working on the campaign. He was a
round enough. You even asked him to be in the photo, but he was camera shy or something. Hell, I talked to him every time we went down there. Isaac was his name, or maybe it was Ivan. No, it was…it was one of those I names…Damn, why can’t I remember?”

  “Which guy, Uncle Greg?” I asked.

  “The guy walking behind the group there,” he said. “His face is kind of blurry, but you can see him right over your mom’s shoulder.”

  Until that moment I hadn’t noticed the man in the background. He hadn’t been posing with the group, but he’d looked at the camera when the photo was taken.

  Nearly a foot taller than my mother, he was blurred by motion, the details of his face hidden except for the cornflower blond of his hair and beard. But his blue eyes had caught the light and flared in the picture like two small gas-lit fires. He wore a white shirt with a black tie and slacks.

  He could’ve been anyone.

  A minivan pulled in behind me, and I watched through my rearview mirror as the driver and passenger hopped out. The passenger, a woman, dashed inside the convenience store while the man who’d been driving began pumping gas.

  My attention flicked back to my phone. “You said his first name was Isaac, Uncle Greg?”

  “Well, I don’t remember him,” Aunt Sara said with a final denial.

  “Yeah. Isaac. Isaac…” Uncle Greg’s voice trailed off as though searching his memory. “Aw, hell. I can’t remember. It was Isaac something.”

  Aunt Sara sighed. “Never heard of him.”

  Isaac. My gaze fell to the blurred photo of my angelic father. Did he still go by the same name? How many women had he seduced since this photo? How many half siblings did I have? The questions whirled through my head, each one spawning a new thought. But like an island amidst a raging sea, one crystallized above them all.

  Could I kill this man?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Hey.”

  I refused to turn, just kept my eyes on the numbers rolling over the gas pump, like I hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Hey, aren’t you Madame Hellsbane, the psychic?”

  Most times I get a kick out of being recognized. This wasn’t most times. I tensed my cheek muscles, forcing a smile as I looked over my shoulder at the guy standing next to the minivan. “Hi.”

  “It is you. I knew it. Hey, honey…” Mr. Minivan, in his tie-dyed T-shirt and faded jeans, turned, yelling to his honey, who was still in the convenience store. He spun back to me. “She’s gonna be thrilled. We’re big fans.”

  “It’s great to meet you,” I said, practiced professional smile in place.

  I seriously didn’t have time for this. I’d just gotten a huge clue to the identity of my angelic father and I still needed to figure out a way to get close enough to take out Tommy’s. I needed to get home and do some serious Googling. Plus…I needed gas.

  The problem was, in my business, reputation was everything. And this guy seemed nice. Nice enough to have a lot of friends. Plus, he kind of reminded me of Tommy. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see.

  But he was tall like Tommy, over six feet, with the same thin, gangly, long-limbed build, though Tommy had been more muscled and about ten years younger. My tie-dyed fan kind of reminded me of a high school science teacher, with his hawklike features and his silver wire-framed glasses.

  “My name’s Kyle.” He offered his hand, and I shook it over the top of my other, still on the gas pump. “You probably remember my wife, Sherry. You did a three-card reading for her at the big Beltane gathering last year. Waited two hours in line to see you.” His smile brightened. “It was great, by the way. Dead on.”

  I nodded with a polite “good to know” smile. Even if I didn’t do thousands of readings a year, I’m horrible with putting names to faces.

  The gas hose clicked off, and I yanked the nozzle out of the Jeep, turning to hook it back in the pump. “It was great seeing you again, Kyle, and I’d love to say hi to Sherry, but I’m kind of in a hurry…”

  “Kyle?” a woman’s voice called, two beats before she joined us between my Jeep and the gas pumps. Seeing her tie-dyed shirt and jeans, I made the giant leap that she was Kyle’s wife.

  “Ohmygod…You’re…you’re…”

  “Madame Hellsbane,” Kyle said, translucent brows high on his forehead, smile wide and bright. “I tried to tell you.”

  Sherry rushed toward me, shouldering Kyle out of the way. She grabbed my hand and shook it hard enough I thought she’d loosen my arm from my body.

  “It is you—do you remember me—I can’t believe you’re pumping gas like a normal person—I’m such a fan—you’re shorter than I remember.” Words gushed out of her like she’d taken a verbal laxative.

  I didn’t mind much. She was a sweetheart with twinkly milk chocolate eyes and a cheery smile. And she clearly liked me. Always a big plus.

  “Of course,” I said, amping up the professional smile a few watts. “Sherry, right? We met at the Beltane gathering last year.”

  Her jaw dropped, eyes wide. “That’s right. That’s right. You remember.”

  I would’ve admitted to gleaning the info from Kyle if he called me on it, but he didn’t. Typical. People only pay attention to about half of what they say.

  “Ohmygoodness, would you use your powers to tell us if we’re going to get pregnant soon?”

  Crap. I exhaled, smiling as I said, “Sure.”

  The moment I agreed, a strange unease settled in my stomach, like the first hint of nausea. I scanned the small gas station lot on reflex. Cars passed by on the streets, stopping and starting with the stoplight. People pumped gas and strolled in and out of the convenience store, going about their business without so much as a glance in our direction.

  Forcing myself to ignore the sensation, I took Sherry’s hand in mine. She reached for her husband. This would be the first time I tried foreseeing the future using the full angelic powers I’d been born with but only recently had begun to explore. I wanted to see what I could do on my own.

  Eyes closed, I opened my mind to Kyle, then Sherry, their thoughts swirling fast and chaotic on the top of their minds. With questions about pregnancy and the wish for babies fresh in their thoughts, the couple’s hopes, worries, and fears rushed through my mind, filling my body with the sensations of their emotions. My stomach tightened, lungs squeezed, and a dull ache started at my back. Together, they were carrying a ton of baggage.

  Please let it take this time, Sherry thought, and her doubt twisted my gut.

  What if I’m not a good dad? I heard from Kyle, and his anxious emotion turned my veins to ice.

  I pushed harder, pressed through the hazy layer of unfocused musings to the deeper echo of more concentrated thoughts. Within seconds, I learned they’d been trying for five years to get pregnant. There was a problem with Kyle’s sperm count, but pregnancy wasn’t impossible and their determination was undeniable.

  And then, Was Richard Hubert right? This is all our doing. We can fix this. We have the power within us to achieve perfection of the mind and body, Kyle’s voice whispered through my mind. My heart stuttered at the mention in his thoughts of Richard Hubert. I opened my eyes before I could stop myself. The couple stood with their eyes closed, Kyle clutching Sherry’s hand with both of his.

  The power is in me. I believe. The power is in me. The mantra-like chant echoed through Sherry’s mind. I shifted my gaze to her. She and Kyle were desperate, clinging to any spark of hope. Richard Hubert, Spiritualist of the Faith Harvest Church, had given it to them. It seemed wrong.

  “How do you know Richard Hubert?” I asked.

  They opened their eyes together, blinking slowly, like they were trying to reason out why I’d asked.

  “We…we just came from his afternoon sermon,” Kyle said. He dug into his back pocket, and handed me a twice-folded brochure. The edges of the folds were white and ragged from riding in his pocket, but I opened it to the front page and was met by a smiling photo of Richard Hubert.

&n
bsp; He had the same jock-star good looks as Tommy. His thick build reminded me of a farmer, a man whose muscle and mass came from hard work rather than hours in the gym.

  The photo caught him with his mouth open as though he’d been talking when they snapped the picture. His gaze skyward, his eyes bright blue, joy shining through clear as the sun. He had the same creamy butter-blond hair as Tommy, and the same rich curls, too. The biggest difference between father and son besides the age was that Richard Hubert wore his hair in a long ponytail at the base of his neck.

  “He’s amazing,” Sherry said. “We’ve been watching him on TV for pretty near a year and when we heard he was gonna be right here in Pittsburgh, well, we just had to come and see him in person.”

  “You met him? Like face to face?” I asked, wondering for one horrifying second if Sherry could have been the fallen angel’s latest victim.

  “Sure, well, I mean, close enough,” she said, blushing. “We didn’t have great seats but we could still see him. Would’ve loved to actually shake his hand, but they rushed him off right after the sermon. Never got that close to him. Doesn’t matter—it was still amazing. There’s something about him. I just…believe. He makes sense, y’know? Some say he’s…well, they say he’s an angel.”

  “Seriously?” How had anyone found out? Was Hubert telling humans what he was? That couldn’t be good.

  Sherry nodded, quick and eager. “Yeah. And, well, normally I’d assume they meant it metaphorically, but after meeting him, listening to him…I don’t know.”

  “Right.” My gaze flicked to the pentagram on the silver chain around her neck. “I thought it was a Christian revival thing?”

  “No,” Sherry said, her hand fluttering to her necklace, fingering the pentagram charm. “Faith Harvest is an open-faith church. Believers in God in all His forms are welcome. It really is amazing.”

  Yeah. So she kept saying. Amazing.