by Karen Duvall
He barely looked at me when he said, “Another time. It was very nice meeting you.”
“But we haven’t actually met yet. You don’t even know my name.” I offered him my hand, which is something I rarely did because my skin was so sensitive. “I’m Cherise,” I said, using one of my aliases.
He barely touched my fingers. “Quin Dee.” I’m not positive, but I think he wiped his hand on his pants as if to clean off my cooties. Talk about weird.
He practically ran ahead of me then, rushing to the cashier at the front of the store. I stopped to look for Aydin, who was still in the science-fiction section. Catching his eye, I aimed a bewildered stare at Quin, and then I shrugged and shook my head. Aydin signaled for me to come to him, then looked behind him and to either side before vanishing completely.
Surprised Aydin would disappear like that in public, I glanced around the store for witnesses. The few shoppers around me were too focused on their browsing to notice his vanishing act. Quin hadn’t seen anything, either, his attention solely on paying for his book and avoiding me like a disease.
I threaded my way through the aisles until I arrived at the spot where Aydin had ghosted out. There on the floor was the pile of clothes that had dropped from his body when he lost physical form. I gathered them up, hoping I didn’t look too conspicuous with a load of men’s denim in my arms, not to mention the size-ten tennis shoes that clearly weren’t mine. A boy of about eleven or twelve gave me an odd look before going back to the graphic novel he was reading.
I couldn’t see Aydin but hopefully he’d stay with me when I walked out. The unpaid-for angel book was still in my hands so I dropped it on a stack of children’s books before making my exit.
Quin stood on the escalator, heading down, so I followed him. He was about halfway to the shopping center’s east entrance when he stopped to rub his temples. His knees wobbled and he held out one arm for balance while taking careful steps to a bench. He sat down and held his head in both hands.
It took me barely a second to realize Aydin had gotten inside Quin’s head and must have suggested something that made the man sick. Oh, Aydin, you bad boy. I had a fairly good idea what my accomplice expected me to do now.
I approached the bench and watched Quin struggle to stay upright. “Are you okay?” I sat down beside him.
“Huh?” He dropped his hands from his face to stare at me. “Who are you?”
“I’m Cherise, remember?” I smiled and laid a concerned hand on his shoulder. “I happened to be walking behind you just now when I saw you collapse.”
He squinted at me as if he had trouble seeing. “Oh, yeah. I’m okay, I just need to sit for a second. My head hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Can I help you to your car?” I hugged Aydin’s clothes to my chest. I still needed him to keep doing what he was doing. “Is it in the east parking lot?”
He nodded and winced. “Damn. It’s like I’ve been drugged or something.” He gave me an accusing look.
I raised my hands in a pose of surrender. “Don’t look at me.” And why would he even suspect me of such a thing? I was just a girl looking for a cute guy to go out with. Though drugging him had been my original plan, he had no way of knowing that. I reached for his arm. “Let me help you. Then I promise to go away. Deal?”
He nodded and stood, appearing more stable now. I led him outside and he directed me to his car. I popped out one contact lens as we walked across the asphalt lot. With my protected eye closed, I saw Aydin’s ghostly form behind Quin, his right hand inside the other man’s back like a puppeteer operating his dummy.
Quin’s car was a late-model, silver Acura. Sweet. “Are you sure you can drive yourself?”
He nodded while auto-unlocking the driver’s side door. Aydin’s ghost leaned into him. Quin grabbed the open door as his knees buckled. “Oh, man. I can’t do it. I can’t drive. I hate to ask, but would you mind?”
“I’d be happy to,” I told him, and helped him into the front seat on the passenger side.
“My house isn’t far.” He sounded breathless, as if Aydin were squeezing his lungs, which he probably was. “Just about five miles, in Cherry Hills. I’ll call you a cab when we get there, and, of course, I’ll pay the fare.”
He was coherent enough to give me directions and in less than ten minutes we pulled in the driveway of his charming, two-story Cape Cod. Very fifties. As I helped him to the front door, supporting him with his arm draped around my neck, I half expected June Cleaver to welcome us at the threshold.
The outside of the house was clean, and by clean I mean no specters hung out in the shadows. And no angels, but never having seen an angel, I can’t say I’d recognize one.
Aydin trailed us into the house, his hold still on Quin. I eased the angel whisperer down on the living-room couch and Aydin merged with him completely. Seconds later, he slipped out of the unconscious Quin.
I waited while Aydin passed through a wall to go outside. Minutes later he returned through the front door as his fully clothed, flesh-and-blood self.
I gave him an apologetic look. “I tried to get him to go out with me for coffee, but he wasn’t interested.”
“Fool,” he said to Quin’s sleeping body, then grinned. “I think he was tipped off by one of his angel friends that you were bad news.”
That threw me. There’d been no indication that Quin was having psychic communication with anyone or anything. “How do you know?”
“I get mental snapshots when I enter a person,” he said, sounding as if his invasive tactics were embarrassing to admit. “It’s hard to describe, but I could sense him communicating with someone inside his head. I didn’t hear a response from whomever he linked to. Quin seemed to accept what he was told without question.”
“So he’s been warned about me.” But if he knew anything, surely his angel friend had informed him I was a Hatchet knight, and therefore an ally. That must count for something. “He knows the Vyantara are involved?”
Aydin shrugged. “Probably. I gave him a hypnotic suggestion to sleep, so he won’t be waking up for a while. Which means we have the run of the house to look for the artifact.”
“But what about Quin?” I was still bothered over the whole kidnapping thing. We wouldn’t steal this man and take his life away from him like ours had been taken from us. Conscience aside, it simply wasn’t right. “We have to protect him.”
Aydin hesitated, his expression sheepish.
“You’re not thinking about letting Gavin have him, are you?”
He didn’t look at me when he said, “I don’t think we have a choice.”
I recalled my own abduction, the memory making my heart bang against my ribs. “Of course we have a choice! There’s got to be a way to keep him safe. To hide him, disguise him, something!”
“Okay, maybe.” Aydin sighed and sat on the couch beside Quin. “But I hate to use the Elmo card. If Gavin ever found out about Elmo’s Coffee Shop, it would be over for Elmo. I’d never forgive myself.”
Elmo’s? What a great idea. I’d been inside the tidy little room at the back of Elmo’s shop and it would be perfect, except I doubted Quin would think so. The dirt floors might offend him, but his freedom would be worth a bit of dirt.
“There could be a problem getting Quin over there.” Aydin stood from the couch and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, hell. We can figure that out after we find the artifact.”
Since I’d already removed both contact lenses, I slipped out my nose filters next. Inhaling deeply, I caught the scent of Italian spices, probably a recent meal prepared in Quin’s kitchen. There was also that yummy soap he used, the delicious smell coming from a bathroom down the hall. I identified metal, like tin or maybe solder. There was a distinct scent of other metals, as well, and I assumed he had a workshop in the house. Another odor sent a jolt of recognition through me. A memory sent me back a couple of weeks to my failed heist at the Grandville estate.
“She’s here.” I turned slowly i
n place to determine where the smell of old decay was coming from. It was Geraldine. “Part of her is in this house.”
Aydin appeared from the hallway, his arms loaded with bedding. He’d apparently been searching a linen closet. “Who is?”
“Geraldine.” I took a deep breath and held it. Yes, that was the same moldy odor I attributed to the hand I’d found in Atlanta. “It’s definitely her.”
Aydin dropped the linens. “Where?”
I closed my eyes and focused. “Basement. I think Quin has a workshop down there. He makes things from metal.”
Aydin grabbed my wrist, and as much as his calloused hand hurt my skin, I let him tug me to a staircase leading to a lower level of the house. “Show me,” he said.
I knew we should be searching the house for the artifact, but I had a strong feeling we’d find it in the basement. Quin was too orderly to separate his treasures. As we neared the bottom step, I caught a whiff of old blood. It smelled human, and then again it didn’t, which troubled me. I tried to sniff out the obsidian piece we were looking for, but solid stone rarely has a scent unless it’s been coated with something, like blood, or dirt from being freshly dug from the ground. The closest thing to dirt I found was clay, a standard component in Colorado soil.
The blood scent bothered me. Did Mr. Angel Man use sacrifice to call his prophetic messengers from beyond the silver veil? No, that couldn’t be it. Only the dark side required blood sacrifice. I recognized another blood scent, fresher than the first, as belonging to Quin himself. It was possible he had injured himself in his shop. Then again, if he used a sigil to open the veil, a fresh mark on his hand would have drawn blood. I picked up an odor of herbs and incense: sage, jasmine, lavender, absinthe and myrrh. It was definitely ritual. He might have been preparing to do some evocation of his own.
The glass case sat in plain sight on the workbench. And inside it was Geraldine’s other hand.
“We have to hide it,” Aydin said, sounding panicked.
His anxiety bewildered me. I thought he’d be excited to find a piece of the saint’s body puzzle. I knew that bringing all of her parts together would make her whole, and as long as the Vyantara weren’t involved, bringing her back would be good for all of us, especially the Hatchet knights. “Just think, Aydin. If we find her other parts, we can bring her back—”
“I don’t want to bring her back.” He lifted the glass box and held it up to the light. “You don’t understand.” He looked at me, concern replacing his panic. “If the Vyantara got a hold of this and all her other parts, they would make her whole and never let her go.”
“And you’re afraid they’ll do to her what they’ve done to us.”
He nodded. “She’s another knight, like you, except she’s one of the first. She knows where the other Hatchet knights are. Once alive, Gavin would find a way to make her tell.”
But that wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it, and neither would Aydin.
I searched the workshop, focusing my eyes to see beneath layers of paint, wallpaper, cloth and carpet. I saw brick behind a thin sheet of wallpaper that had been painted over.
I ran to the wall and withdrew my Balisong from the sheath I’d restrapped to my back. Slicing the blade through the painted paper, I said, “We can loosen the bricks and see if there’s space behind them to hide Geraldine’s hand.”
He rushed over to help me peel back the wallpaper, then used a chisel he’d found on Quin’s workbench to chip at the mortar between the bricks. We loosened only three and pulled them free. I could tell right away the gap between the wall and its plywood frame was big enough for the case. Aydin tucked it inside the cubby hole we’d made and replaced the bricks.
He grabbed a wooden crate filled with coiled extension cords and slid it in front of the mess on the wall to hide our work.
“Why would Quin have her hand?” he asked, which surprised me because I considered Aydin the one with all the answers. “The man talks to angels. Geraldine was one-hundred-percent human.”
She was one of the first Hatchet knights, and therefore not angel-spawned. Not like me. Yet Quin and Geraldine had something special in common. “Quin is just like her.”
Aydin ran a hand through his hair, leaving behind streaks of powdery gray residue from the mortar. “I can tell he never removed the hand from its case, and that’s a good sign. He respects who Geraldine was, who she still is. I’m relieved to know that.”
So was I. I’d started wondering about Quin’s intentions. Charlatan, or true mystic? We’d find out once we had his confidence. For now, we were his enemy, at least until he knew us for who we really were. “Based on what I know about John Dee, he left a lot behind, mostly documentation of his angel communications. The hand had probably belonged to him.”
Aydin studied the items on Quin’s workbench. “Take a look at this.”
I moved to where he was investigating a number of silver pendants. There was a scent of tin solder that told me how the pieces had been joined. “Check this out.” I held up a pendant. “The Enochian alphabet. What letter is this? It looks like an M.”
He shook his head as he took it from me. “It’s an R. See how the middle part curves down?”
I leaned in closer. “There’s a small stone setting. A crystal.”
“Celestine.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Very few crystals I know of are this shade of blue.”
“Makes sense that Quin would use them in his jewelry.” Aydin lifted one to the light the same way he’d studied the case holding Geraldine’s hand. “Celestine is supposed to be a conduit for the celestial.”
“Does it work?”
He shrugged. “Quin obviously thinks so.”
“I bet he makes these to sell to people he does angel readings for.”
Aydin selected another pendant. “Do you think he uses his psychic gifts for profit?”
“Good question.” I began sliding out drawers in the second workbench shoved against the back wall. It seemed to serve as a storage unit. “I don’t know how much he makes, but he’d have to be earning some righteous bucks to afford a house like this, plus that great car.”
Aydin joined me in searching the drawers. I bent to sniff each one, honing in on the blood scent I’d picked up earlier. I was getting close.
“I found it.” He lifted a black hand mirror from a bottom drawer, peeling back sheets of tissue paper as he plucked it from its nest of excelsior.
I inhaled deeply. That’s where the old blood was coming from.
“Look at this.” He ran his finger along the intricate pattern carved in the stone. The design wreathed the shiny obsidian surface where the bloodstains were. The blood had been wiped clean, but I could still see it, and smell it.
“There was blood on this stone,” I said. “It’s old, but the scent is still there.”
He lifted the mirror to his nose and gave it a quick sniff. “If you say so.”
I ran my fingers over the intricate symbols carved within the circular frame. The images were both beautiful and terrifying, their symmetry perfect, their geometric unity flawless. Double-headed serpents, gods wearing necklaces of skulls, goddesses with skirts made of writhing snakes, all engraved with pictures of feathers, gems, woven fabrics and flowers. My naked eyes picked up chips and scratches in the stone, but these carvings had taken incredible skill to create. The design was amazing, and I found myself drawn in, deeper and deeper, my focus zeroing in on one detail after another….
“Chalice!” Aydin grabbed my arm just above the elbow and the pain of his rough touch brought me around. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said, setting the mirror down. “It got hold of me for a second, but I’m all right now.” I heaved in a breath. “Angels for the Aztecs. Who’d have thought?”
“They referred to them as spirit guides or spirit messengers, which is what angels are.” He ran a finger over the symbols. “The word angel comes from the Greek word angelius and means messenger.”
I could never associate the bloodthirsty Aztecs with angels. Human sacrifice had been their way of appeasing their gods, and just knowing blood had been spilled on this artifact gave me the creeps. I looked around for something to put the mirror in, and found a padded envelope big enough to hold it. I held it open while Aydin rewrapped it in the tissue paper and gently slipped it inside.
“So what about Quin?” I asked.
Aydin pursed his lips. “I’ve been thinking about how to get him over to Elmo’s without Gavin finding out.”
That would be a problem. Gavin knew where Quin lived and the car he drove, so we couldn’t use Quin’s car to drive him to Elmo’s. The Hummer was still back in the parking lot at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center. Both Aydin and I were stuck here, unless we called a taxi.
“I have a suggestion,” Aydin said, looking uneasy. He clearly felt guilty about something. “We need to call in reinforcements.”
“Like who?”
“Shojin.”
His gargoyle? “I’m so not getting you.”
He gestured for me to precede him up the stairs. “Shojin is nothing like Shui, Chalice.”
“I don’t believe you, but even if I did, what does that have to do with getting Quin to Elmo’s?”
“Shojin and I have come to an understanding.” He stopped at the basement doorway. “He’ll give me a ride when I can’t find other transportation.”
I barked a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding.” How could anyone make friends with a bloodthirsty gargoyle, then turn it into a chauffeur?
Aydin went suddenly serious and I felt badly for scoffing. “I fashioned a harness for him to carry things, people included. I can call him here, load Quin in the harness and have Shojin fly him to Elmo’s.”
It was all I could do to hold back my smirk as I said, “And that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s it.”
I found a huge flaw in his plan. “How were you planning to call him?”