Sinners and Saints

by Jennifer Roberson

  But I was no longer in prison, and now I payed out my senses like kite string. I sensed flickers of green at the edges of my eyes, but also the faintest trace of red. Off/on, off/on, as if uncertain. It bled away into nothingness.

  I freed the Taurus Judge from its holster, held it down at arm’s length against my right thigh. I stood with my back to the front door, then thunked it closed with a behind-the-back push from spread fingers. I felt for the latch, shot it. Took several strides out into the center of the dance floor. String-lights strung throughout the bar flickered. Either trouble with the power, or something far more consequential, maybe.

  Consequential it was. As I watched, the illuminated glass globes of the string-lights detached themselves and floated up to perch upon hand-hewn crossbeams like birds upon a wire, ten feet up from the dance floor. Except they weren’t string-lights at all.

  “Huh,” I said, eyebrows rising. “Orbs?” I tipped my head back to follow the dance.

  Little by little, more of them detached from walls, from the barback, floated out into the air. Like variegated soap bubbles blown from a wand, some bobbed while others drifted upward in loose ranks toward the roof planks. The glass-like balls sitting on the crossbeams strobed brightly, and I saw some of them were fissured with spider-web cracks.

  Yup, orbs. And I knew my orbs. Well, so to speak. As much as you can know when you read up on them in folklore and paranormal texts. Major debates continued, with more scientific types claiming them nothing more than phenomena caused by insects, dust particles, photographic highlights, and so on. But those steeped in the paranormal were convinced orbs were very real, considered them harbingers, spirits, and guides, and certain colors represented specific aspects. I had no opinion other than the ones now gathering in the middle of the Zoo sure as hell looked like more than dust particles or photographic reflections.

  And they winked at me. I heard the barest suggestion of vibrating chimes, of a subtle singing, like a wet finger rounding the rim of fine crystal.

  I gazed up at the rows and clusters, watched the strobe effects go faster, brighter; heard the chimes climbing a nearly silent scale that resonated inside my ears like an annoying case of tinnitus. The orbs quivered and shimmied so markedly that I sensed any second they might spring into the air in joyous abandon like some Disneyfied little creatures.

  I pointed a minatory finger at them. “Don’t you dare start singing ‘It’s A Small World.’”

  A step sounded at the bottom stair, and Remi, still hatless, arrived with his drawl. “Little early for Christmas lights, ain’t it?”

  “Orbs,” I answered, still watching the pulsing lights. “Also rather appropriately known as the Circle of Confusion.”

  “Well, I’m confused.” Cowboy boots thumped as he crossed from staircase to parquet. His brows were drawn together as he gazed up at the array of orbs. “Are those suckers alive?”

  “There is some argument to that effect,” I noted, “between those into the whole Orb Zone Theory thing, and those who believe they may well be some form of paranormal life—extensions of energy, that kind of thing. But never the twain shall meet.”

  Remi stopped next to me, head tipped back. The orbs along the crossbeams quivered. “They seem a mite excitable.”

  “You seeing the colors?”

  “Yup. Green. Peach. Little gold.”

  “And white.”

  “I see white,” he agreed.

  I nodded, mentally counting off the ranks of glass, digging answers from my memory of the texts I had read. “Those are all good colors, they say. And I see colors, feel colors, when I reach out.” I shrugged; it still sounded weird even to me, trying to explain how and what I felt. “I don’t get a sense of sentience, but peach is comfort. White means protection . . . it’s holy light, holy power. Gold is . . .” I grinned, holstered the revolver. “Gold is angelic. It’s unconditional love.”

  Remi looked perplexed. “So, what—they’ve come along to hang out with us brand spanking new little half-angels?”

  I watched the light display above our heads. “I’m seeing silver, now, too. See? Silver means a messenger.”

  “Messenger orbs?” He sounded highly skeptical.

  “Hey, I didn’t write the books. I just read ’em.”

  We heard a rattle at the front door. I assumed Grandaddy and Ganji had keys, but neither appeared, so this was someone deliberately trying the latch without legal entrance. Possibly even with lockpicks. Rather than bellowing that we were closed, I headed toward the door to throw the deadbolt. And then the latch slid back seemingly on its own, and before I could even reach the door to shove the bolt back into its hasp, the heavy metal-strapped door swung open.

  Young, blond, white guy, trim build, maybe late twenties, like Remi and me. He wore pressed dark dress slacks, starched white button-down dress shirt with collar points freed of button containment, top button undone to bare his throat. No tie, sleeves rolled back. Gold Rolex with its characteristic band glinted on his left wrist. He was Hollywood-handsome with clean, striking facial lines, blue eyes, long pale-blond hair pulled up and doubled into a slick-backed high man-bun. And shining white teeth.

  “Hi,” he said, with a bright go-getter-young-executive kind of smile. “Can a guy get a drink around here?”

  “Sorry ’bout that, but we’re closed,” Remi replied, even as I added it was way beyond last call.

  The guy shrugged, hands thrust into his pockets casually. The shoes, I noticed, were black dress and glossy. Probably a thousand dollars’ worth of fine leather. “I know it’s late, but I’d really like a drink. It’s been a hellaciously long trip.”

  “We’re closed,” I repeated. “We’ll reopen tomorrow at . . .” I had no idea, since I didn’t run the place, so I just threw it out there, “ . . . eleven.”

  “Live country music,” Remi put in, as if he were running the place. “Though the band don’t start ’til round about seven.”

  Our man-bunned visitor showed his handsome teeth in that fine toothpaste commercial dental arcade. “I’d really like to grab a drink before I hit the road.”

  I wasn’t exactly blocking the door, but he did have to step to the side as if to slide around me. I saw a quick, rippling frown cross Remi’s face as he looked at the guy—and the cowboy was the one sensitive to demons—so I reached out, caught the stranger’s upper arm.

  Fire like an electrical shock kindled into a conflagration, then shunted through my fingers, up my left arm, and set my shoulder socket ablaze.

  I fell back a step, clutched my arm against me—the pain and a thumping heart felt like a heart attack—and through gritted teeth called the guy every colorful name I could think of, none of them particularly nice.

  “All true,” he agreed with unoffended cheerfulness as I ran out of words and massaged my aching arm. Even as Remi took a step, hand going to the Bowie at his belt, the stranger glanced up at the glowing glass bubbles quivering on the crossbeams. He smiled, waited—and every orb in the place strobed yellow, brown, then red, then black. “There you go,” he said with vast satisfaction. “Better than all those goody two-shoes, pansy-assed pastels.” He looked at Remi, at me, and his smile fell away. “I said I’d like to have a drink.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Still clutching my arm, I stared at the man. “You can’t—”

  “—be in here? Oh, but I can.” The stranger looked straight at Remi. Blue eyes sharpened into an almost laser-like directness, pupils shrinking. His body didn’t have the obvious posture of a predator, but the impression definitely implied threat. He put up a finger, turned the back of his hand toward Remi, then crooked his finger in a beckoning gesture. “Come over here with that knife and let me slit you open guts to gullet.”

  Remi appeared in no way intimidated. I guess a guy who rides angry bulls in rodeos—and kills demons—would have more than enough confidence to m
eet the stranger’s eyes straight on. Remi balanced the Bowie lightly in his hand. In the erratic pulsing light emitted from the orbs overhead, the damascened blade pattern was pale, watery ink against the bright steel.

  “The fact that you’re warnin’ me says this li’l ol’ pigsticker—and what I just might do with it—is somethin’ of a concern.” Remi flipped it to his left hand, held the blade rather than the handle. A Bowie is in no way made for throwing, but I figured he’d gotten over that handicap years before. Grandaddy would have seen to it.

  The stranger was amused. His grin stretched wider, and he slowly licked his lips, left the tip of his tongue showing at one corner. The motion was unsettling, verging on seductive. “You ever been swarmed by lava-hot sfaira before?” He lifted his chin, gesturing with it toward the orbs clustered along the beamwork. “Because that’s what will happen. Those are mine.” He looked at me now, saw how I clenched my fist repeatedly, trying to work away the numbness and dull throb. “Stings, doesn’t it? That’ll teach you to keep your hands to yourself.” He ran tongue across lips again. “Now, hey, how about I get myself that drink I wanted?” He began to turn, slanted a glance over his shoulder at Remi, said something in a language unknown to me, “Mávro, peiráxtetravíxte ton ánthropo ton vooeidón.”

  “Dammit—!” Remi ducked as one of the strobing orbs high overhead shot off the crossbeam and made a beeline straight at him. It no longer resembled anything so benign as a soap bubble.

  My eyebrows shot up. Remi had reacted before the orb went after him, which meant he understood what the stranger said.

  Still ducking, Remi twisted his torso, tossed the Bowie upward. Steel glinted as the big knife performed a heavy looping arc. The orb, strobing through white into muddy brown, then black, with a nuke-bright light in the middle, actually hesitated, as if distracted by the Bowie’s flash, bull to red cape, and even as the weapon fell, thunked against the parquet floor, Remi came up with one of his tricky little throwing knives and snapped it into the air with a sharp, lateral motion.

  Knife and black orb collided in midair. The orb flashed briefly, blinding-bright, then exploded like a dying star gone supernova.

  Remi thrust one hand up to ward away sparks and slag, I backpedaled a step, and then my partner in saving the world straightened and once again met the narrowed glare of the stranger without flinching. “Tease me, huh?” Remi offered his own grin. “Hell, son, I got more knives where that one come from.”

  The stranger flat lost his shit. Lips drawn back, he shouted something that sounded like the language he’d used before, all liquid twists and tangles and atonal emphases.

  That it was the same language Remi confirmed by grinning anew, crow’s feet deepening. “Nope. My parents were married and my mother was neither a whore nor a bitch, so I can’t rightly be the son of one, now, am I right?”

  By now I had the Taurus in both hands, left palm cupping the heel of my right. I’d stepped closer, was relaxed but poised, even though my shoulder still felt a little numb. The dull ache went bone-deep. But no more trigger finger along the barrel as a human safety; I rested the finger pad lightly on the cool, curved metal, prepared to squeeze. “Double-tap to the back of the head, execution-style,” I suggested. I had no idea if even breath-blessed bullets would work, but you go with what you’ve got and hope like hell it works. “Your pet orbs aren’t faster than a bullet fired into the back of your skull from three inches away.”

  And then the magic cell phones in our pockets blew up loud with that horrendous ear-piercing flatulent blaaaat of an Amber or Weather Alert, and it was enough to startle Remi and me so that we lost focus for just an instant, just an instant, but long enough that our visitor spun away from me.

  Heat lashed my face, dried my eyes instantly and obscured vision with a wash of flooding tears. Mostly blind, I was aware of movement, of air sucked away, and heat, but could not see because my eyes continued to water badly. I heard Remi swearing, wondered if his vision was as poor.

  The blast of heat dissipated, but I smelled thick astringent ash and the heavy reek of charred flesh, the metallic tang of hot charcoal. Something whipped across my face, edge on. Mostly air, but I felt a slice in it across the bridge of my nose. In place of the phone alerts, now mercifully stilled, I heard the high, subtle squeaks of cooling charcoal, magnified one hundredfold.

  Gun forgotten, I clasped my left hand over my face, swearing into my palm. For an instant the pain in my nose nearly dropped me to my knees, but I did an awkward little hop, skip, and jump to keep my balance and straightened, gun lifted one-handed, trying to find the target through the watery fog in my eyes so I could shoot the asshole.

  I still didn’t know how in hell a demon could make it through whatever wards existed because we’d managed to clear the domicile—the dancehall—and make it off-limits to demons, but I was taking no more chances in case the rules had changed on us. I was raspy-voiced, but managed a shout. “Remi—exorcism!” And resolved on the spot that I really did need to learn the Rituale Romanum. But for now, I just figured Remi would once again jump in to cover our asses.

  “Holy shit!” he shouted. “No—no—it won’t work. He’s not a demon!”

  I scrubbed the back of my hand across both eyes, blinked hard, trying to clear the remains of tears. And as vision returned, I found our visitor standing on top of the bar.

  He grinned down at us both with those fine white teeth. “Demon I am not. And I suspect those phone alerts were intended to warn you I was in the area. Bit late, though, wouldn’t you say?”

  Remi had a narrow slice across one side of his jaw. Blood smeared his cheek. “The son of a bitch is an angel.”

  Atop the bar the stranger laughed. “I might have expected you to realize that sooner.” Then he spread out both arms in a sinuous motion, made an elaborate, graceful bow as if on a theatrical stage at curtain call, and straightened. Following that, he placed his shod feet in a precise position, something akin to a ballet pose, then bent his back leg and thrust his body upward. He spun into a series of one-footed pirouettes atop the glossy bar in his shiny black dress shoes.

  The man-bun came loose and collapsed. Hair whipped around his head and face as he spun, and by the time the revolutions slowed and he stood still before—above—us again, thick blond hair fell in tangles and waves around his face. He looked old, he looked young, he looked ageless.

  He laughed at us both, clearly delighting in the expressions of shock on our faces. “Baryshnikov—” he began, cheerful again rather than threatening; hell, maybe he was bipolar—“could only manage eleven pirouettes. I just did twelve.” And then he ran lightly down the bar on the balls of his feet, leaped off into the air, landed beside the jukebox. “Music! Music. God, I’ve missed actual music. What’s on here?” Dismissing us, he bent over the front panel to browse the listings.

  I frowned at Remi as I slid the revolver back into the holster beneath my left arm. Didn’t see much use for it now, since I couldn’t kill him with so prosaic a weapon. “I thought you could sense angels. Feel angels!”

  “And I did,” Remi shot back. “It just . . . took me a few minutes.”

  I felt gently at the bridge of my nose. It was sliced and sore. I blotted it gently with fingers, inspected, found no blood. “Well, can you tell if he’s the good kind, or the bad kind? I mean, he kind of did a 180 on us.” And then the jukebox began to play at exceedingly high volume, and the damn angel was singing.

  Loudly.

  I stared at the angel, then stared at Remi, utterly flabbergasted, and after a minute or so finally managed a question. “What is it with country music and celestial beings?” I tried to make out the lyrics. “And who the hell is Betty Lou Thelma Liz?”

  By now Remi was laughing. “He’s nuttier than a squirrel turd!” And then he was singing too, also loudly, something about—redneck mothers? And kicking hippies’ asses?

  He broke
it off when he saw the look on my face. “Betty Lou Thelma Liz is his wife. It’s ‘Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers,’ an old Jerry Jeff Walker song,” he explained. “And it is best sung in bars when everyone’s half-drunk and all rowdy, except the chorus is mostly shouted rather than sung.”

  And then the music stopped mid-lyric, and the angel once again stood atop the bar. The purity of his features, the planes and contours within the frame of loose blond hair, was striking. He simply was an incredibly beautiful man.

  He spun once again into a series of pirouettes. I was tempted to count them to see if he really could out-spin Baryshnikov, but I didn’t.

  Then he stopped short and stared down upon us. Color come up in his face. He was breathing hard, but with excitement, not breathlessness. He wetted lips again. His eyes were hungry, and something markedly other than sane.

  “Kneel,” he said, teeth shining. “What’s the Game of Thrones phrase—bend the knee? Yes. Do that.” He pointed at the floor. “Now. To me.”

  Remi and I, perhaps five feet away with a checkerboard of parquet beneath our boots, stared at the angel in blank, open-mouthed amazement.

  He didn’t say it. He roared it: “I am bene ha’elohi! I am the first, the first among them, the first among the fallen, the first among his servants, the first to call him Lord in his Father’s place!”

  Out of thin air his clothing caught fire. Flames ran up his body and cloth burned right off of him, burned into him, left him nude. Now, unshielded, the skin began, too, to burn, to crack open, to melt and char and shrink like blackened parchment curling around his bones. Ropes of burned flesh dripped from his arms, began to peel away and fall. Hair burned off, fat crackled, and the meat on his bones sizzled. The stench of him was thick, and cloying, and foul.

  The blue of his eyes was untouched in the travesty of his lipless, toothless face. He flung his arms out sideways and flames played along his bones. He was all black, charred, fissured skin, with faint molten light seeping through the cracks, like magma burning beneath cooling lava. In a shower of ash and soot wings unfurled—wings—and snapped aloft. Singed, burning wings, dripping gouts of flame like falling feathers.