All the Rules of Heaven

by Amy Lane

  “Augh!” God, that was weird.

  “Sorry.” Angel sounded very disgruntled. “I forget when I’m solid and when I’m not. The rules for that keep changing. But the Greenaways are here, and Rae is about to start—”

  “Augh!” Tucker cried again. The water had just turned ball-shrinkingly cold.

  “Laundry,” Angel finished.

  “Okay, fine, Angel. Move!”

  Tucker came out of the shower and toweled off, noticing that Angel still hadn’t left the bathroom. Well, he hadn’t had a lot of respect for personal boundaries when they first met either, and the last few days that distance had been dissolving disconcertingly fast. Tucker wouldn’t mind so much, except Angel’s regard—which had seemed fairly sexless at the beginning—was growing more and more… not sexless.

  In fact, those little looks from under Angel’s auburn lashes were increasingly sexual.

  “Why’s she doing laundry?” Tucker asked suspiciously. He’d brought clothes with him into the bathroom, and he slid his boxers on first and adjusted himself. “And what are you looking at?”

  “You have burn scars,” Angel said quietly. “They weren’t there when we met.”

  “Oh.” Tucker looked across his stomach, the insides of his arms, his inner thighs—all of the places his body had begun to boil with the fury of the unhappily dead—and saw that his body showed ravages of old, painful burns. He touched the pale part of his bicep in wonder. “It’s smooth,” he murmured. “Just a little mottling—like it happened a long, long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angel said. Tucker didn’t even startle as Angel’s finger skated the diaphanous line between sensation and space. “Your beautiful skin….”

  Tucker sighed and tried not to let his vanity show. “It’s old now. People will hardly notice.” He smiled and tried to crack a joke. “People don’t sleep with me for my looks anyway.”

  Angel’s finger slipped, and Tucker could actually feel the point of contact.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” he asked, and Tucker became aware that, by human standards, he was standing very close to a man… woman… entity he had begged to share his bed.

  No, not in that way, but in an intimate way. Angel had perched on the corner of the bed while Tucker had been flirted with by Andy Greenaway and then cozened by Rae. Angel had been there when the kids had come in and watched a movie on his computer, and then, when the voices of the Greenaway family had faded down the hall of his haunted mansion, Angel had been there, quiet and staunch, to help keep him from freaking out when he closed his eyes and saw himself—saw them—surrounded by dozens of hostile spirits who all wanted to jump into Tucker’s body and take the helm.

  Tucker vaguely remembered waking up crying in the wee hours of the morning. Angel’s voice had soothed him, and a feeling of well-being had enveloped him, allowing him to go back to sleep.

  And Angel was standing—so damned real Tucker could almost feel his breath—close enough for Tucker to see the remains of freckles on his nose.

  Those were new.

  Tucker licked his lips and yearned for body heat or a smell or something animal and comforting to tell him Angel was, or had ever been, human.

  “Angel?” Tucker asked, his heart thundering in his ears. “What are you?”

  Angel frowned but did not move backward. “Today I’m male, late twenties, with longish auburn hair and a broad chin.” A small smile flirted with his sensual mouth. “Tomorrow, I might be a petite brunet with large breasts.”

  “Ghosts don’t do that, do they?”

  Angel’s eyes, the most human things about him, never left Tucker’s. “Not usually,” he conceded, a faint flush stealing across those once flawless cheeks. “No.”

  “If you’re not a ghost, Angel, what are you?”

  Angel looked sideways. “I think the Greenaways are calling,” he said, and then he disappeared.

  “I knew it!” Tucker hollered, putting Angel together with what he knew of ghosts. Ghosts didn’t change shape, and they didn’t change gender, and they didn’t, under any circumstances, sit under your skin and beg you to purge your own poison so they could save your life.

  A thing for which Tucker was not sure he’d properly thanked Angel yet.

  “Knew what?” Rae called, knocking on the door. “Tucker, are you okay in there? Your bedclothes were getting rank, so I started the laundry. And you were looking a little scrawny, so I started… breakfast?”

  Tucker thunked his forehead with his palm.

  “Why would I think about how scrawny and peaked you were?” Rae was mumbling to herself. “And peaked—who says peaked?”

  “Angel,” Tucker told her. “I’m sorry. I think he figured he’d put the idea in your head.” And then, because he was pretty sure the obnoxious ghost… spirit… whatever was listening, he raised his voice. “I am not scrawny, Angel!”

  “You are too!” Angel said crossly, reappearing on top of the toilet.

  “What are you?” Tucker asked. “And don’t disa—”

  Angel disappeared.

  “Goddammit.” Tucker pulled on his T-shirt and then his cargo shorts, swearing to himself.

  “Tucker, are you okay in there?”

  “I’m fine, Rae. I just need to brush my teeth, and then I’ll be right out. Are Andy and Josh ready?”

  “Yeah. How much stuff are you bringing back?”

  Tucker ran his toothbrush under the water and thought. “I don’t know. Does Andy have his own furniture? Because it might just be clothes and DVDs and stuff. If he wants to use the bed and the couch, that’s fine.” He thought hard about his humble apartment while he brushed his teeth. He’d never brought anybody there—the pickups orchestrated by his gift always ended up somewhere else for some reason, and Tucker had started thinking of this little quirk as a blessing.

  It was comfortable. The mattress didn’t have lumps, the couch didn’t eat people—but then, he didn’t have many people over. He’d bought decorations to please himself, and DVDs that he’d loved. His computer held all his music, and he had a modest amount of clothes and the occasional sporting item, like a Frisbee or set of golf clubs, in his closet.

  And of course, there were the items on the bookshelf that had belonged to Damien.

  Those he’d have to take home.

  “Well, we figured he’d take a look at the apartment today, and then if you’re sure you want him to take over, he’d move in next week. He registered for school on hope and a whim, but it starts in a month. If he’s going to find a job before classes start, he needs to get going.”

  Tucker spat out the toothpaste and rinsed his mouth, then put the toothbrush back on the holder on the side of the sink. “That’s fine. I’d say the pickup truck only,” he said. “So maybe me and Josh, and Andy can come with us or drive on his own.”

  “He’ll drive on his own, maybe stay the night,” Rae said, still through the door. “Thanks, Tucker. We’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”

  Tucker looked in the mirror and decided he might need to shave. “Ten minutes,” he promised.

  Angel appeared over his shoulder as he was in midswipe of his cheek. “Dammit!”

  “I’m sorry!” Angel said. “I’m sorry. I just hoped you wouldn’t badger me, and look! You’re hurt again.”

  Without thinking, Angel swiped Tucker’s cheek with his thumb and held it out accusingly so they could both see the blood.

  And then they both froze.

  Tucker could still feel the touch on his cheek—masculine, firm, but not rough—and the drop of scarlet clung to the pad of Angel’s thumb in a smear.

  Tucker closed his eyes, expecting Angel to disappear. When he opened his eyes, Angel was still there.

  “I can’t go,” he said plaintively. “I tried. You’re not supposed to know what I am. I can’t tell you. I don’t really remember. But I know it’s secret. And I can’t disappear, and you’re just going to—”

  “Sh….” Tucker suddenly got it. He t
ook the washcloth from the side of the sink and wiped his cheek, and then, carefully, because he was hoping so hard this would work, he took Angel’s hand in his own.

  It felt as real and as solid as Squishbeans, and they both gasped.

  “I won’t ask you questions,” Tucker promised, Angel’s hand pulsing warm against his palm. “But you can’t surprise me like that either.”

  “I’m sorry, Tucker,” Angel said softly.

  Tucker took the cloth and wiped his thumb off, closing his eyes against the tenderness of Angel’s skin, flesh, blood, and bones, clasped in his own.

  “It’s okay,” Tucker said. “I understand rules and supernatural things and….” The thumb was clean, and Angel’s flesh slid through Tucker’s grasp like Tucker had been cupping air in the palm of his hand. “And things that hurt, things you can’t control,” he finished, voice throbbing.

  Angel locked gazes with him and bit his lip.

  “What hurt you?” Angel asked softly.

  Tucker looked into his eyes, close, so close to telling him. He felt a tickling on his cheek and held his hand up to catch it. His fingers came away crimson, and he stared at the red smear in bemusement.

  “Being human,” he said after a moment.

  He didn’t have to look up to know that Angel had disappeared again. This time Tucker didn’t call him back.

  BREAKFAST WAS blueberry pancakes, and Tucker, per usual, enjoyed the hell out of them. Then he thanked Rae, helped with the dishes, and he and Josh headed out to hop in the truck while Andy took a small used Toyota that they’d apparently bought with the proceeds from the truck.

  Before the door closed behind him, Tucker thrust his face into the house.

  “Angel, he called. “Angel! Are you there?” His heart fell because he was driving all the way down to Sacramento, and his parents had been killed in a car wreck, and Damien and… and of all people, Tucker knew you had to say goodbye.

  “Here!” Angel said, materializing out of the wall between the kitchen and Tucker’s room.

  Tucker didn’t scream this time, but he did hold his hand to his heart. “I’m going to my old place. I’ll be back tonight, okay? I left lots of cat food and water for the kitten, so you should be okay while I’m gone.” He swallowed. “Right?”

  Angel nodded and then pasted a patently false smile on his face. “We will be fine. Have a nice day, okay, Tucker?”

  “Sure,” Tucker said. “You have a nice day without me.”

  As he closed the door and went running down the stairs, he could hear Angel’s voice, floating weakly after him.

  “Sure.”

  Once More into the Breach

  RUTH HAD been gone for three months before Tucker had been able to pick up her thread, and Angel had never felt alone.

  Yes, he’d known about the ghosts, but it was more than that.

  Angel was by nature a solitary creature. He’d wandered the lower rooms, looking out, getting familiar with the ghosts and the objects inside the house; he’d been comforted to know what came next.

  And then Tucker had barreled in and blown all of his plans out of the water.

  Tucker left, and Angel could barely tell him goodbye, even for a day.

  And Angel was so glad to see he was feeling better than he had been the day before.

  Angel had worried so much. He’d worried about Tucker getting attacked; he’d worried about Tucker getting better. It wasn’t until Tucker started asking him about the house that he realized he wasn’t worried about the mission—the thing Angel was actually supposed to be worried about. Angel was anxious about Tucker. About whether he was strong enough, about Tucker getting hurt.

  About Tucker getting sad, and the secret, scared places inside him that Tucker seemed to mask with sarcasm and activity.

  About making Tucker smile, just for Angel.

  About maybe not seeing Tucker smile the same way at any other human being.

  And then Angel thought about all of the things in this monstrosity of a house, all of the landmines just waiting for Tucker to unleash hell upon himself.

  Oh gods.

  Why couldn’t Angel have worried like this about Ruth?

  By all rights, Ruth knew less about her job than Tucker did—and she’d been very innocent.

  But Angel had felt a toughness in Ruth, and while Tucker was strong—there was no doubt—Angel saw a vulnerability in him that Angel could barely face. And he certainly couldn’t walk away from it.

  Tucker needed someone. And as much as Angel had distrusted the Greenaways at the beginning, knowing that there was another group of people who had an eye out for Tucker was a big relief. Angel had watched the children and heard their mother, and he was reassured.

  Ruth had been alone—and that had been unfortunate. Angel would bear responsibility for that. And regret. But Ruth had been happy alone, in the end.

  Angel was starting to see that Tucker had been alone most of his life, and it was killing him now. Every memory of his past pulled something tight and irrevocable around his heart, making it harder for Angel to feel good about leaving him in Daisy Place with just his memories.

  Angel even wanted him to take this break.

  But that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful being left behind.

  “What do you suppose he’s doing, Squishbeans?”

  The kitten purred and dug her claws into Angel’s side, kneading. The first time she’d done this, he’d been surprised and hurt. Tucker had been sleeping, so inert his breathing had been suspect, and suddenly Angel was being punctured with tiny needles.

  But he hadn’t wanted to wake Tucker, and so he’d counted to ten, breathing like humans did, and realized the pain was not nearly equal to the comfort of having the kitten purr and make tiny kitten biscuits against his suddenly corporeal skin.

  He’d pulled up his shirt after Squishbeans had toddled off to do the same thing in Tucker’s hair.

  His skin had been perfectly smooth, not even a spot of broken skin or a tiny bit of blood to tell him he’d been hurt.

  Unlike Tucker.

  Angel sat at the window box overlooking the garden. The ghosts were out there—they were always out there when the sun hit the lawn—but he did not see them.

  Instead he saw Tucker, that first day, lying in bed looking sleepy and relaxed, the pale skin of his upper arms almost blue in contrast with the tan of his forearms. There were small freckles, the occasional mole, sparse dark hair under his arms and across his chest—but it was the body of a man who had not endured too much physical pain in his life.

  One day, one hunch to investigate a place Angel should have investigated years ago, and his body had been changed irrevocably.

  Maybe it matches his heart now.

  It wasn’t the first time Angel had thought that either.

  Vulnerable.

  Tucker Henderson, for all his swagger, for all his stubborn insistence he was making the best of the situation, had been hurt on a fundamental level.

  Angel closed his eyes against the ghosts on the lawn and remembered that moment, that heady, terrible moment when Tucker’s blood, after he’d nicked himself shaving, had made Angel real.

  You shouldn’t bleed for me, Tucker.

  But he wasn’t sure Tucker could stop.

  Angel opened his eyes and regarded the kitten soberly. “I would like for him not to get hurt again. Not so soon.” Ruth had endured some rough things, but not with the pain and frequency Tucker had. No wonder she’d wanted to keep her nephew away from Daisy Place.

  The kitten meowed and played with Angel’s fingers, pulling one in to lick it.

  “There’s no salt there, kitty,” Angel told her sadly. “You need to wait until Tucker gets back.” But Squishbeans kept at it, and Angel wondered what was waiting for him in the Chrysanthemum Room when he returned.

  “Should we go see?” he asked.

  Squishbeans did that sudden startlement thing that cats did, hissing and spitting and wiggling out of Angel’s lap and
running away.

  Not encouraging.

  Angel disappeared, then materialized in the Chrysanthemum Room and looked around. The desk had been pushed to one end, loaded with the objects Tucker was reluctant to touch. That nice Greenaway father had been in here the day before and left a battery-run humidifier running all day. The once-vibrant wallpaper hung in curls down the walls from the ten-foot ceiling, and Angel thought that the least he could do would be to feel along the walls and check for traps.

  Heaven help them both if someone had engaged in intercourse while pressed up against the wall.

  Angel started to the right of the door, holding his hands in front of him as he ghosted his body around. He was so busy checking for spiritual energy that he almost missed the very real anomaly peeking out from behind where the strips of wallpaper met in the corner of the room. Previously the bedframe had obscured them, but now, loosened by the humidity, Angel could see the yellowed pages of what looked to be a letter wedged in between the layers.

  Angel passed immaterial fingers through ragged parchment several times, cursing his limitations, before he remembered that Squishbeans was more than a cat.

  “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” he sang. “Kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  Nothing.

  Not a damned thing.

  Angel sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at what he was certain were the pages of the letter he hoped had been written by Sophie’s brother, and cursed his luck that Tucker was not yet home.

  HE WAS not sure when Squishbeans wandered in and sat on his lap—it could have been ten minutes later, or it could have been hours later. The shades over the window overlooking the garden were so thick, Angel was pretty sure the house could have gone flying into the stratosphere to have its own adventures and the inhabitants would notice nothing more than an irregular shifting underfoot.

  One minute he was hating everything; the next his entire being had blissed out and he was stroking that somnolent furball with moody precision. When Squishbeans reached out with her little claws and began to knead his inner thigh (ouch!), Angel stopped petting and went ahead with his plan.