Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel)

by Blake, Bruce

  “Trevor,” I breathed.

  “I got this, Dad.” His voice held steel I’d never heard in it before. He squeezed the handles together and the thing screamed in both Cory’s voice and its own.

  “Now, Dee,” I gasped.

  Trevor grunted with the effort of cutting the tough tail; black blood spurted from the wound. Dido smashed her fist into the thing’s face, ebony flames jumping from her hand, lighting its cheek, then she swung backward, arching her back and throwing her hands toward me.

  The jaws of the shears came together, severing the creature’s tail, and the weight that seemed to have hung from my wrist forever disappeared. A fraction of a second later, Dee’s fingers grasped the same wrist, digging into the wound left behind, and my beleaguered consciousness gave up and fled.

  ***

  I opened my eyes to find my body blissfully and inexplicably free of pain. The hardness of the ground pressed against my back, the wetness of melted slush soaked my pants. The sky overhead swirled with gray clouds, but the falling snow had stopped sometime during my struggle on the edge of Hell.

  “He’s awake.”

  I knew without looking that the voice belonged to Rae, but I moved my eyes anyway, and the pain returned with a vengeance. It started at my wrist and penetrated its way through me, climbing up my arm, through my shoulder, across my chest, joining other pains in a connect the dots of agony. Involuntarily, my face screwed up into a caricature of myself. When the first wave of it settled, I fought my eyes open and found Rae and Trevor leaning over me. He appeared concerned, she looked confused.

  I did my best to smile at them, but I’m sure it came out a grimace.

  “Are you all right, Dad?”

  “Never better.”

  I tried to force myself up to my elbows but slipped, or made it appear I slipped rather than admitting I didn’t have the strength. Trevor grabbed me under the armpit and helped me. A strip of blood-soaked cloth wrapped my wrist where the thing had held me, and every breath became a fresh adventure in torture; otherwise I felt pretty good.

  Liar.

  “What was that?” Rae asked.

  A valid question, but how do you explain a demon sent to kill the man responsible for helping souls to Heaven to a woman who doesn’t even go to church? No fucking idea, so I shrugged. I didn’t suppose for a second a shrug would be enough answer, but other pressing questions distracted her.

  “Why didn’t you let go?”

  “I couldn’t let it take Dee.” My eyes flickered across the yard and found her absent. “Where is she? Did we save her?”

  “Who?” Rae asked.

  Trevor put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a shallow nod that provided me a great deal of relief. I smiled, turned to Rae, and held my hand up to show her the bandage she might have wrapped my wrist with herself.

  “He had a good hold on me.”

  Silence fell for a minute and Ashton came to stand beside Rae, the red marks on his throat where my fingers choked him still noticeable. I felt a little bad but, when he slipped his arm around my ex-wife’s waist, the pang of jealousy and hatred I normally experienced was less. A bit, but not as much.

  They both stared at me and I wondered which they found most difficult to believe: what they’d seen happen or that I was Rae’s ex-husband, returned to spread joy nine months after my death. Her next question settled the debate.

  “Are you really Ric?”

  It did my heart good to converse with someone who called me by the name I preferred. I pushed myself up to sit with some effort, then allowed Trevor to help me to my feet.

  “You should go to the hospital,” Ashton said before I responded to Rae.

  “Naw, I’ll be fine. Doesn’t hurt as much as it looks.” I offered a wan smile. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Sure.”

  “Sorry about the...” I gestured toward his neck, indicating the welts my fingers left. He nodded and I returned my gaze to Rae. We regarded each other for about thirty seconds and I think she got her answer.

  I don’t know how it was for her, but in that short glance, years of life flowed between us, both the lives we lived and the lives we might have had. How different things might have been; how different it could be now. I literally wasn’t the man I’d been, and it set me wondering what it could mean for us. Trevor stood beside me, his hand on my back to steady me, and tears glistened in Rae’s eyes. Beside her, Ashton stared at his feet, and I understood this family no longer belonged to me, if it ever had.

  “You won’t have to worry about me,” I said limping toward the street. “Trevor and I will hang out sometimes, but I won’t bug you otherwise.”

  Trevor grabbed my arm to help me across the yard, the fissure leading to Hell having healed itself sometime while I was unconscious. When we got to the sidewalk I stopped and peered over my shoulder at my ex-wife—the woman I’d loved and lost—snuggled into the arms of another man.

  I raised my hand and took my leave.

  ***

  It turned out Trevor could see Dido, though Rae and Ashton couldn’t—some kind of side effect of the time my son spent in Hell, like Dee suggested.

  We’d been successful in pulling her from the beast’s clutches and clear of the crevasse before it closed up, and she’d told Trevor where she’d be, so I sent him back to his mother and went straight there before she got into any more trouble. I’d worked too hard pulling her from the jaws of death to let anything happen to her now.

  The Trounces’ front door was unlocked, so I pushed it open and took a step across the threshold. With the sky dimming toward night, the inside of the house lay in darkness.

  “Hello?”

  “In here.”

  The voice coming from the living room belonged to Dee and only Dee. I crept along the hall and peeked around the corner, half-expecting to find her fists engulfed in ebony fire, or her face rolling through other faces like the spinner on a slot machine, but neither was the case. A candle flickering on the mantle threw odd shadows on the same eight-year-old girl sitting on the couch I’d met here not so long ago.

  “Are you all right?” I asked stepping into the room.

  “I’m good. You look like shit.”

  “Language.”

  She laughed and stood, crossed the room to put her arms around me. She hugged me tight, her grip sending pain shooting along my spine and through my chest, but I didn’t tell her or make her stop.

  “You miss them. That’s why you came here.”

  She hesitated before answering. “I guess. What do we do now?”

  My body practically sighed with relief when she released me. She posed a good question: how do you follow up ridding the world of a demon? I’d been pondering the same thing on my way to find her and the one answer I found came courtesy of the archangel Michael, much to my chagrin.

  “Chan Wu.”

  “I don’t want to go. He’ll send me back, ” Dee said. I opened my mouth to ask what she meant by ‘back’, but she cut me off. “Can’t I stay with you?”

  “I’m flattered, but no.” I spread my arms for her to see my bandaged arm, my tattered clothes. “I don’t think I’d survive hanging out with you.”

  She breathed a resigned sigh, giving in without much of a fight.

  “I guess you’re right. I can be dangerous.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed her tight against me, then drew a pained breath as my cracked rib suggested another action might be a better idea. Dido crossed the living room to the mantle, blew out the candle, and we left, locking the door behind us as we went to find a man named Chan Wu.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The door closed and the lock clicked, putting an end to another day. Overhead, a streetlight flickered and went out, throwing the area outside the tailor shop into shadow. The old man looked up, one eyebrow raised, and listened to the sound of the night, the whispers hiding within the dark. They spoke of comings and goings, of success and failure, triumphs and hur
ts. Everything right with the world, his mouth angled into a smile.

  “Hello, Icarus,” he said turning away from the door.

  “How did you...?” Icarus looked confused as the question started on his lips, but he stopped it in the manner of a man grown accustomed to confusing things. “Are you Chan Wu?”

  “Some call me this name.”

  He stroked his long beard and looked the harvester up and down. His clothing was in tatters, his flesh scraped, blood dried in his hair, like a man who’d been through a war, and Chan Wu supposed he had. And yet, he exuded a calmness, a happiness of the sort often surrounding a man fulfilling a task.

  Chan Wu allowed his gaze to stray to the young girl standing by the harvester’s side. He hadn’t expected to see her. Ever again.

  “Michael said you’d be able to help,” Icarus said.

  “Michael?”

  The harvester’s lips parted, then closed, as though he didn’t have the proper means available to describe the archangel. Though Chan Wu knew which Michael he meant, he was curious which of many possible words Icarus would pick.

  He chose pure description.

  “Tall guy. Blond hair. Looks like a disco-dancing football player. Loves red.”

  Chan Wu smiled at the harvester’s apt summary of the archangel. “Ah, yes. Michael. And what is it he suggested I might help with?”

  “Dee.” Icarus gestured to the girl standing beside him. She reached out and grasped his hand. “Dido...I mean Dallas. Dallas Trounce.”

  The old man let his gaze remain on Icarus for a moment, appraising him, and he understood two things: the harvester didn’t know the truth and he thought himself doing the right thing. When Chan Wu sensed him getting nervous under his regard; he shifted his eyes to the girl.

  “Dallas Trounce?”

  “Yes,” Icarus said. “Her family was killed. I’ve already sent her parents...on their way. But she’s been trapped here. Michael said you might be able to help her join them.”

  “I would love to help Dallas Trounce, Icarus Fell.”

  “Ric.”

  “But young miss Trounce has already joined her parents. This,” Chan Wu swept his arm toward the girl with a flare that waved his long, dangling sleeve through the air, “is not Dallas Trounce.”

  He awaited their reactions, arm extended—he did so love a good dramatic pause. They didn’t disappoint: Icarus’ eyebrows rose, his mouth opened and closed; the girl looked nervous and embarrassed. After the appropriate amount of time, Chan Wu let his arm fall to his side and turned his gaze to the girl.

  “Hello, Paula.”

  The harvester’s face tightened back up into an expression of puzzlement. “Paula? Who’s Paula?” He looked over at the girl, but her gaze remained linked to Chan Wu’s.

  “A young woman who died many year. Before your birth, Icarus Fell.” The old man let a knowing smile creep onto his face. “You know her as Poe.”

  The harvester jerked as though touched by a bare electrical wire. He looked back and forth between the girl and Chan Wu once, twice, three times before he found his voice.

  “Poe? Is it true?”

  The girl’s shoulders sagged and her appearance changed. She grew taller and her hair lengthened, turned blond. Her face shifted to the face of the damned guardian angel as she became more solid, the charade abandoned.

  “I didn’t think I could fool you,” she said.

  “Of course not.”

  The harvester’s mouth fell agape as he gazed on the woman who’d been responsible for keeping him safe. Chan Wu perceived the joy at reuniting with her gathering in his eyes, readying itself to spill from his lips in an excited greeting. A shame it would be short-lived.

  The streetlights to either side of them dimmed and went out, throwing them into further darkness. The old man frowned up at the lamps, looked one way along the boulevard, then the other, but found the street empty.

  Icarus threw his arms around the guardian’s shoulders.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? It’s good to have you back.”

  “I’m not supposed to be here, Icarus,” she said. “I thought a disguise might buy me some time.”

  “And you saved me. Again.”

  Poe looked at her feet, but the harvester faced Chan Wu, who knew the question working its way to his lips, as he knew the answer.

  “Can she stay? Can she be my guardian again?”

  The old man shook his head, his long whiskers scraping the front of his silks. “I am afraid not.”

  The rest of the lights on the street went out at once—streetlights, neon signs, lamp light shining through windows. A cloud moved across the sky, swallowing the stars and moon, throwing them into complete darkness.

  “What...? What’s happening?” the harvester exclaimed.

  Poe did nothing, and Chan Wu knew she understood. He held still in the manner of a statue, waiting for the sound of the boy’s voice. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Well, old one. It looks as though you have made my job easier. How ever will I thank you?”

  A shape in the dark, a black silhouette against a blacker background, his features hidden in shadow as they should always be.

  “Gloating is unbecoming. Have we not spoken of this before?”

  “Ha! I have not yet begun to gloat. Soon, there will be so much more to gloat about.”

  The boy’s presence touched Chan Wu in the dark, an unseen, clammy hand stroking his cheek, but he neither flinched nor backed away. He heard the harvester gasp and knew he’d experienced the same thing, and perhaps the caress brought him visions of things he’d experienced, or things yet to come.

  “You are boastful today, young one. Do you not realize you have lost a battle and have simply come to claim that which belongs to you?”

  “Is that what you think? Look around you, old one. What do you see? You and me and darkness, nothing more. I will take what is mine and that which is rightfully mine.”

  Chan Wu heard the harvester shuffle in the dark, preparing himself to fight, protecting Poe from whatever might come. He didn’t need to see it happen to know. Between the harvester’s willingness to sacrifice and the boy’s assumptions, he decided to reconsider his decision.

  “What is rightfully yours?” Chan Wu said, carefully inserting notes of anger and threat into his tone. “The darkness is all that is rightfully yours, and it is yours to keep.”

  The old man raised his hand and pointed toward the sky. The tip of his fingers glowed, dim at first, but brightening rapidly, forcing the boy’s darkness back before it. He saw the boy clearly—his dark, disheveled hair, his black eyes. Behind him, indistinct, shadowy creatures scurried away from the light like animals fleeing before a forest fire. The glow grew until bright enough to have replaced the sun in the heavens.

  “Begone, young one. Your soldiers have deserted you, leaving you and me and the light and nothing more. Take the darkness and the creatures it hides and be gone from my sight.”

  The muscles in the boy's jaw flexed behind his tawny cheeks, his eyebrows dipped in anger. He looked not unlike a child denied a cookie for being bad.

  “Fine,” the boy conceded. He took a step toward Icarus and Poe, his hand extended to take the guardian by the arm. Chan Wu pointed his finger at him and he stopped.

  “As punishment for your foolish gloating, the girl stays.”

  “What? You cannot--”

  “I can and I have,” Chan Wu roared. “Begone before your insolence costs you more than the guardian’s soul.”

  The boy flinched and backed away a step, raising his arm to protect himself from the light he suddenly found too bright to bear, and almost losing his footing as he stepped off the curb into the street.

  “You owe me a soul,” he said with little conviction in his tone.

  “I owe you nothing,” Chan Wu replied, his voice returning to normal. “You have the souls you need. This one should never have gone to you.”

  He felt the harvester and the gu
ardian standing close beside him, sensed their heartfelt but contained joy. He hoped it would remain that way until the boy left.

  “This is not over, old one.” He turned away, took a step, and disappeared.

  “It is never over, young one.”

  Chan Wu relaxed and let the light fade, leaving a glow in the street lights, the neon signs, the lamps in windows. He faced the harvester and the guardian and watched the smiles creep across their faces. Before either of them spoke, he raised his hand, stopping them.

  “It is also time for you to go. I am an old man who needs his sleep.”

  Poe nodded and turned to leave without further words, but Icarus stayed a second longer.

  “What about Michael?” the harvester asked.

  “Do not worry about Michael. I will take care of him.”

  Icarus held the old man’s gaze, then followed the guardian down the street. Chan Wu watched them go for a moment, then closed his eyes and lost himself to the world.

  ***

  When we rounded the next corner, people and sound returned to the city. A horn honked, startling me; a group of young men strolled past, jostling and laughing louder than might be considered appropriate. The buzz of streetlights, the rumble of tires on pavement, the click of shoes on sidewalk. You don’t realize how much sound permeates a city until it is gone for a while and returns.

  We walked in silence for a few blocks before I realized Poe’s hand was in mine, her energy spilling up my arm, exciting my nerves. The reality of it dawned on me: she was really back. I thought about letting go because it didn’t seem appropriate to hold hands with an angel, but I liked the way her fingers entwined with mine and she showed no sign of discomfort at my touch.

  Half an hour later, we sat in a booth at the back of Denny’s, a Grand Slam breakfast on the table in front of me, Poe sucking on the straw sticking out of an extra thick chocolate shake as though nothing had happened, like we’d been here doing this every night.

  I popped a fork load of hash browns into my mouth and chewed them thoughtfully, watching Poe as she slurped chocolaty sweetness through a red and white straw. I cleared my throat, she raised her head and smiled.