by Brian Fuller
“Really, Chuck,” Cassandra said. “You just went before we came.”
“My prostate’s the size of a grapefruit, woman!” he retorted irritably.
Simon smiled patiently. “Go out the door and turn left. Second hall on the right. Can’t miss it.”
Helo shuffled out the door and into a hushed world of muted sounds and low voices. Gold-flecked wallpaper and marble floor trim accented gilded frames with landscape paintings. Carved wooden doors lined the hall, some shut, some open. His shoes sunk into the plush burgundy carpet, and he felt like a stranger in someone else’s mansion.
He peeked into offices for a stray computer, catching the occasional glow of Dread red.
Helo found the bathroom and kept going. He had been to the office before but never paid attention to the layout. The server room was down a level, but he hadn’t seen any stairs. As he crossed an intersection of two hallways, he saw her through a cracked door. His hand went to the wall for support.
Terissa sat behind a monitor, chin in hand. Unfocused eyes, big and beautiful, stared listlessly at the screen. She had put on a little weight, her face fuller than he remembered. Worry lines creased her forehead, unhappiness roosting on her like a dark raven.
She glanced up.
Trace’s betrayed heart wanted to shrink away. Helo, the angel, wanted to heal. The contest of desires crippled him as completely as Spirit Shock. Terissa regarded him softly, seeing only the old man.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, voice dull.
Helo took a step into her office and opened his mouth to speak when a familiar warmth overcame him just as it had in the grocery store during his bid to save Prescilla. Light suffused his being, the effulgence of Rapture washing over him and overwhelming him into blissful insensibility.
“Sir? Sir?” Terissa said, voice panicked. “Are you okay?”
She knelt beside him on the floor, concerned face hovering over his. A strand of lustrous black hair floated above him, teasing him as it had so many times before. He lifted a hand to reach for it, a habit from a happier time, and then pulled it away. He blinked and lifted himself up on his elbow. Another Bestowal was his, and he knew what to do.
“Help me up, young lady,” he said. “Let me take a few moments in that chair of yours.”
She hauled him up and set him in the black swivel chair. He leaned back, breathing in and out heavily, like he was trying to catch his breath.
“Should I get a doctor or call an ambulance?” she asked, standing in front of him, face uneasy. He recognized her knee-length black skirt and white V-neck button-up shirt. She still looked great in it. The silver watch he had bought for her on their first anniversary dangled from her wrist.
“No, no. Don’t trouble yourself,” he replied. “I just started chemo, and I get a little dizzy sometimes. It’ll pass in a moment. Did I hit my head or anything?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, leaning against the desk. “Are you sure you’re all right? Can I get you some water or anything?”
Helo smiled. “It’s okay, really. If it came to a contest between your desk and my head, my wife would tell you my head would get the better of the battle.” He scanned the desk and nearly choked. A picture of him in his Marine uniform sat by the monitor, as did their wedding picture. Reverently, he took their wedding picture and examined it.
“This was your husband? You lost him, didn’t you.”
She looked away. “Yes. How did you know?”
He set the picture back. “I’ve been around a long time, dear. Seen a lot of pain. He get killed overseas?”
“No,” she answered, eyes watering. “He died because I was stupid.”
Helo fumbled for words. “We all make mistakes, honey.” It was a dumb thing to say.
Her head shook. “Not like this. It took him dying to pull me out of my own stupid, selfish world. I . . . wronged him. I hurt him. And instead of me paying the price, he did. I miss him. I have tried so hard to be better, but I just . . . well, look at me just rambling on. I’m sorry.”
She wiped her eyes, and Helo struggled to keep his own clear. He had felt so hurt and so betrayed. The torching Dreads had turned her into a torturing demon in his mind. But the woman before him wasn’t that Terissa. He had never considered that she would feel remorse or loss for what she had done, had never thought she would change.
He reached out and took her hand. Calling forth his new gift, he suffused himself with divine power. The aura flowed from him and into her.
“You loved him. I can see that. He knew it too, whatever you did.”
“I just can’t forgive myself. I don’t deserve it.”
Trace poured more Virtus into the flow, remembering what Dolorem’s lessons had taught him. “I know it’s hard when you can’t make things right, but you are a good person. You can live. You can be happy. You can make a difference, I promise you. Forgive yourself and find joy again.”
The aura burned away the darkness in her countenance like a nightmare chased away by a new morning. His angelic persuasion found a ready place in her heart. She straightened, eyes brightening with each word.
Dolorem was right. The subtler gifts could change the world, even if one at a time. Before him stood a captive pulled from the prison of despair. The difference was profound. It was a resurrection.
He released her hand and patted it as she cried, other hand over her mouth
“Now it’s me rattling on,” Helo apologized with a geezerly grin. “I do go on sometimes. I meant well.”
She wiped her cheeks. She was like a person squinting into the sunshine after being pulled from a dark hole. “Please don’t apologize. Who are you?”
Helo glanced at her computer screen, not sure what to say. The computer was logged in and sitting right in front of him.
“Just a foolish old man. Could I trouble you for that drink of water after all?” he asked. “I am feeling a little on the dusty side.”
“Of course!” she replied, snapping back into focus. “Sorry, I just . . . well, I’ll be a couple of minutes, okay? Which of our lawyers are you with?”
“Mr. Powell. No hurry,” he said. “Take your time, sweetheart. Thank you for being so nice to me. Young kids today seem so rude all the time, but I can tell you are one of the good ones.”
She smiled at him in the way he remembered. It awoke that attraction and longing in him as it had years before. She could be happy now. She could make someone happy now.
“Thank you,” she said. “You know, you remind me of someone, but I just can’t place it.”
“I’ve got one of those faces.”
She rounded the corner and passed into the hall
He jumped up and swung the door shut to a sliver of a crack before diving back to the computer. The software and the accounts waited at his fingertips. Finding the accounts of Goutre and Hudgins proved unusually easy, thanks to the well-designed software. The Scholus had given them two shell companies to investigate: Edgerton Waterworks and Sandmine Concrete and Gravel. With a few keystrokes and a click, he had everything. A quick search found the common source of funding they shared: Qyn Maritime.
“Helo?” Cassandra called to him from the hall, voice worn like she had just woken up.
Helo’s head snapped up.
He closed out of the screens and pulled open the door.
Blouse torn and hands shaky, Cassandra leaned against the wall just down from Simon’s office.
“Gotta go,” she said. “Now.”
Chapter 28
Truth and Fairy Tales
Helo raced to her and grabbed her arm, leading her down the hall. “What happened?”
“He torched me. We’re blown . . . again.”
Helo swallowed. How did this keep happening? With no one in the hall, they ditched the old-person routine and walked as fast as they could, her traitorous feet stumbling every few seconds.
Her eyes focused and unfocused. “I’m sorry, Cassandra,” she said. Was she addressing
herself? “I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there! I’m so sorry.” She would succumb and cry, then steel herself and fight back to the surface like a swimmer fighting a sucking, downward current. Simon’s door was shut when they passed, and a few moments later the sound of gurgling water greeted them as they hurried into the lobby.
The receptionist held her hand to an earpiece, giving them a sideways glance. “Everything okay, you two?”
Helo slowed to a more geriatric pace. “Everything’s good. Simon’s working up some stuff for us. Thanks for everything.”
One more Dread to go. The Dread guard stood on the other side of the glass, arms crossed in front of him, watching the street. He lifted his hand to his ear as Helo pressed the door lever and he and Cassandra scooted out behind the guard. The Dread spun and pulled his gun from his holster.
“Hey,” he said, voice hard. “You’re needed back inside the building. Go in right now, or people might get hurt.” He cast a meaningful glance across the street, where a few normals loitered on the sidewalk.
Helo kept going, glancing over his shoulder and tugging at Cassandra.
“C’mon, Cassie. We gotta move.”
The Dread jogged forward, put his free hand on Cassandra’s back, and shoved her down. She fell in a heap, lip balm and tissues scattering from her purse. Helo spun, and the Dread grabbed him by his tie.
“Get inside!” the Dread threatened.
Helo grabbed his wrist and squeezed using his Strength, the Dread’s finger bones crunching like brittle sticks, tendons and muscles curling back the pulped fingers.
The Dread released him and stepped back, bringing up the gun. “If that’s the way you want to play, little Trash Angels, let’s see how you like this.”
He leveled the gun at Helo’s nose but then shifted his aim to the left. The crack of the gun rang out, bullet tearing into the chest of a man walking a dog across the street. He crumpled. Pedestrians ducked and ran. Smoke rose from the barrel as the Dread pulled the gun back to Helo’s face. “Wanna come in now?”
The office door opened, and another Dread stepped out.
Trace recognized him from the parties. Elian Goutre, one of the founding partners and a red, glowing Dread. His dark hair had gone half silver. He had left his suit coat inside, paisley tie swinging with the momentum of his stride.
Goutre flared his aura. A field of desecration flowed along the concrete and enveloped them in its enervating embrace. Numbness fled. The Dread fired three shots from his .45, the bullets blasting into Helo’s belly, sternum, and left shoulder. The shoulder shot spun him around in a wave of pain, and he dropped next to Cassandra. He needed her.
“Cassandra!”
“You left, Mother!” she sobbed, her eyes screwed shut. “I was just a kid.”
Elian walked casually forward as Helo tried to rise. He had to get clear, but Cassandra was dead weight and too much to drag or carry.
Elian’s aura flared again, and he torched them both.
Impossible! Dreads got one Bestowal. Only one.
“I joined the Marines,” Trace said defiantly.
His father sat at the cheap table in their cookie-cutter military home, one hand gripped a sweating glass full of a dark amber liquid, burning eyes regarding him. Hatred. Pure hatred. Family tradition—no, family law—stated all Evans males joined the Army. His father rose and wiped a drop of liquor from his lip. His dress uniform was unbuttoned, white tank top peeking out from under the shirt.
“What?” he asked, his voice a knife.
“I joined the Marines. I leave in a month.” It was a petty act of rebellion. Trace had spent too many days staring at the forest of pictures of his brother, Brandon. His football clipping on the fridge. His prom. His cadet photos. His officer headshot. Somewhere in that mess was a tenth-grade photo of Trace in a cheap frame. Just one outdated photo. But, of course, Brandon was revered. He had joined the Army like he was supposed to.
“Get out,” his father said, sinking back into his seat and pushing the rest of the liquor down his throat. “You disgust me.”
“I’ll leave in a month,” Trace said. What did his dad care? He had ignored him his entire life.
“You’ll leave now, or you’ll leave with my foot up your ass!” He threw the glass.
Trace flinched away, and the glass crashed into the pictures above the TV, the museum of Evan’s family military service spilling onto the floor. Frames cracked and glass shattered, the shards burning orange in the light of the falling sun.
His dad roared.
The crunch of car on concrete yanked Helo out of his head.
Corinth stood over an empty security guard uniform suffused with dirt, expended Stinger in his hand. In vain Trace tried to stand, to focus. He felt drugged.
“Get in now!” Goldbow yelled from the rented Chevy Impala.
Corinth hauled Trace up by the arm. The car was on the sidewalk, pinning Elian Goutre to the wall at the chest.
“Come on, Helo,” Corinth prodded. “Help me out, dude.”
Goutre pushed at the car, unnatural Strength squealing the braked wheels. That was the third Bestowal he’d done! And the desecration was still active. Two at the same time. The car inched backward. Goldbow leaned out. His BBG thundered three times, and Elian’s head exploded in a shower of flesh and bone.
Corinth dumped Trace in the back seat and picked Cassandra up, throwing her on top of Trace, then jumped in the front seat. Goldbow reversed into the street, tires smoking.
“Start morphing, everybody!” Goldbow warned. “We’ve got maybe two minutes before the police show up.”
“Um, I don’t think these two are going to morph anytime soon,” Corinth said. “They’re messed up, like bad.”
“Then we hide them and get them later,” Goldbow said. “We’ve got to ditch this car. Now.”
Trace barely registered the push and pull of gravity as Goldbow turned hard around a series of corners.
“There,” Corinth said. “Cassie’s gonna kill me for this.”
The car braked hard, throwing Trace and Cassandra into the back panel of the front seat.
With an apology and not a lot of finesse, Corinth and Goldbow pulled them out of the car and tossed Trace in a reeking dumpster behind a redbrick apartment building. He was dimly aware of Cassandra landing beside him.
Darkness fell when Goldbow closed the lid.
Freedom from the desecration took away the bodily pain, but Trace wandered in and out of lucidity.
The power of the torching ebbed as he fought its dark gravity, grasping at his new identity and the new life that put a wall between him and his father, him and his wife. Details slowly came into focus. Toxic diapers. Squishy, sweating bags. Pizza boxes. The sour ferment of discarded beer bottles.
A single sheet of light slipping through the gap in the heavy plastic lids sliced down Cassandra’s rumpled blouse and skirt.
“Well, that sucked,” she groaned, squirming to get her hair out of a lump of wet spaghetti noodles.
Helo peeled a black banana off his shirt. “Sucked doesn’t cover it. What happened in Simon’s office?”
“I was getting a present for you. It’s still in the car in my purse. Those morons better get it.”
“A present?”
“Yeah. I was in there answering all the questions while Simon filled out some form. He picked up a call and said, ‘What can I do for you, Mr. Goutre?’ After a couple of sideways glances and uh-huhs, he hung up, looked at me, and said, ‘You two have to be the most convincing Gabriels I have ever seen.’ I knew it was over, but before I could think, he torched me and came around the table to do who knows what. I recovered enough to blast him back. He collapsed and went nearly catatonic. I was pretty wobbly, but I grabbed his letter opener and went after his heart. I dumped it in my grandma purse and went to get you.”
“Are you joking? You have his heart?”
“Had. It’s in my purse in the car. If they leave the car and are stupid enough to forget it, I�
��ll kick one of them so hard they’ll need to look for themselves in the next state over. Corinth is usually pretty good at the details, though, so keep your fingers crossed.”
“I owe you,” Helo said.
“You don’t. I would have done it even if he hadn’t been the creep who seduced your wife.” She shifted around in garbage that seemed to suck her in the more she fought it. “Ugh. I don’t think I’ve ever been torched that hard before. That was off the charts. I feel like I’ve just run a marathon through hell.”
Helo exhaled, trying to let the rest of the torching horror go. “Even the Thrall’s torch wasn’t that bad. I feel as old as I look.”
“About that, Mr. Helo. Your old-man persona is probably the best one I’ve seen you do.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I used to spend time with my crazy grandpa during the summers. He was a whacked old Army Sergeant. Whatever he thought, he just said it.”
“Yeah. Well, keep that morph in your list of decent ones. Probably your only decent one at this point.”
“So, when do you think it’s safe to get out of here?”
“Not for a while, depending on how bad they want us. If Goldbow and Corinth got away, we’ll be in good shape because the Dreads will assume we were with them. But if they got caught, they’ll know we’re out here somewhere and will be searching the nooks and crannies.”
Helo folded his arms to keep his fingers out of something gooey. “I guess we should be thankful we don’t have to smell and it isn’t July. Is there any way to beat the torching for good?”
“The longer you’re an Ash Angel, the easier it gets,” she explained. “The sting of past events can fade with time. You did well with this one. But remember, some events are so strong they can stick with you forever. Do stick with you forever. Great need can help you shake it off sometimes, but just like we can dump more power into a Bestowal, so can they. Simon didn’t blast me too hard, but Goutre really unloaded on us.”
Helo chanced the question. “So who was Cassandra?”
Cassandra kept her eyes on the dumpster lid as if weighing what to say or if to say anything at all. “Cassandra was my sister. She killed herself. I was a self-centered idiot teenager, and I didn’t see her pain. Looking back, I just, well, it was my fault. My mom left us, and I should have been there. I should have—” Cassandra’s voice cracked, a tear shining briefly as it traversed the sliver of light on her aged face. “This is a bad time, Helo. It’s too close. I can’t face it. I can still see the blood.”