Ardeur (Abbey of Angels)

by Danielle Gavan

  I took the nurse shoes off and picked them up. I then walked barefoot across the deck and bolted down the stairs into the galley at the bottom. The hallway that stretched ahead ended in what appeared to be the girl's bedroom. A pair of black leather boots lay haphazardly at the foot of the bed, which was strewn with several pairs of jeans and other articles of brightly colored clothes that drew me like a magnet.

  As comfortable as the nurse's uniform was, I knew that a change of clothes would eventually be needed and that was the deciding factor that had me stripping off the scrubs and reaching for the nearest pair of jeans. Soft denim slid up my legs and over my hips, faded blue against pale cream. The button fastened loosely just below the concave dip of my belly. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it was close enough and I turned to search through the pile of clothes on the bed for a shirt. What I found was a collection of camisoles that were so low cut I'd be lucky if my breasts didn't tumble out with the slightest of movements.

  “Throwing out that bra wasn't the smartest move you've ever made Ardy. Check her dresser.”

  Help? From the demon? What the - ? “Fuck that noise. I'm never wearing one of those again.” I slipped three camisoles, blue, green and red, over my torso and reached for the boots - black leather, rubber sole and laces up the front. My right foot slid inside the first boot and brought a smile to my face. If I could find a pair of socks in the drawers, the boots would fit perfectly.

  Before I knew it I was fully dressed, had a bag full of clothes stowed in the closet I'd found beneath the stairs and was helping myself to an apple from the fridge while I rooted around for sandwich fixings and anything that wouldn't go bad to take with me when I jumped ship later. The sound of feet up on deck drew my attention and caused me to almost drop the canister of chips in my hand.

  “Busted. Girl, your ass is about to get caught and hauled off to jail.”

  My grip on the chips tightened convulsively. The footsteps approached the top of the stairs and then, just as quickly, turned away in the opposing direction. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and decided that discovery was not worth the risk of taking a couple more minutes to find anything else to eat. The closet door closed with me behind it seconds before the boat's two occupants came down into the kitchen. One set of footfalls continued on and soon the sound of engines rumbling to life told me we were heading out.

  Even had I not heard the churning of the engines, the grumbling and cursing from inside my head would have tipped me off to the fact that we were heading out to open water. My co-pilot had an aversion to freshwater and we were about to speed out into the middle of a huge lake, full of his worst nightmare.

  The whirring of the engines and the satisfied fullness of my stomach must have worked together to lull me to sleep. One minute I was listening to the sounds of the ship and the next I was waking up in a panic, legs numb from sitting cross-legged on the floor too long. No other sounds but that of my own breathing reached my ears in the small, closed in space. I closed my eyes once again and listened.

  “I know you won't believe me but we docked about half an hour ago.”

  Okay, so apparently the ride over hadn't quieted the bastard or done any lasting harm since he was yapping in my head again. I sighed and rose to my feet, the pins and needles nearly toppling me over as the blood rushed back down and circulation reasserted itself.

  I gave myself a minute to make sure the feeling had fully returned to my feet before pushing the door open a fraction to poke my nose out and see if what Shade had said was true. The lack of engine sounds told me that we were, at the very least, stopped. Whether we were docked or at anchor somewhere on the lake for the night remained unclear.

  The hall and doorways that stemmed from it were all dark; no sound of shallow breathing or snoring came from the bedrooms. I smiled and bent to pick up the bag, heavy and filled with things that would make the start of my journey an easier one than I had expected. There were a few items I'd need to pick up on shore, but those could wait until I was away from the waterfront and a couple of cities over.

  I trod lightly, the soles of my pilfered boots soundless against the wood of the floor and stairs. Panic, overwhelming and cold, ran through my veins when I looked up and realized that the hatch had been closed. My palms flattened against the wood panels, pushed and kept moving as the hatch opened to show that I was inside a building of some sort. “Oh thank God.”

  Shade grumbled as I climbed the stairs and exited the boat, the sound of my boots hitting the dock echoing through what I realized was a very large boat shed. Freedom was within sight, so close I could smell the sweet fragrance of it on the air.

  “Lookie here, Shade. I'm free.” I adjusted the straps of the backpack to fit the bag snugly against my back and strode for the door. “You said I'd never make it, yet here I am - free and out of their grasp. Hell, I even managed to cage your stupid ass without you realizing what I was doing.”

  “Yeah, you laugh now, Blondie but you won't be doing any when Boyd and Wes are sent after you. If you think your life was hard before…”, he chuckled darkly and let the sentence hang. I knew just what kind of pain and torture the men who had held me could mete out and I had no desire to go back for more of the same or worse.

  I rested my hand on the handle for the door that would release me out into the world and twisted.

  “Oh, hello karma. Locked. Surprise. Now whatcha going to do Ardeur?” I laid my forehead against the cool metal of the door and fought, hard, to keep the tears that threatened to spill in check. There was no way I would let myself get this far, this close to freedom and let a locked door be my undoing.

  “Shut up, you stupid shit. Remember who you're talking to here, hm?”

  I took a deep breath, gripped the handle tightly and twisted with everything I had; shearing it clean off and swinging the door open into the night. The light above the door shone down on me and spurred me to action. If anyone had been drawn by the sound of the door crashing open, standing in the doorway with the light pointing accusing rays down on me was not a good place to be when they arrived.

  Several steps to the right had me covered in shadows again, affording me a few minutes to figure out which direction to head in and to see if anyone would come to investigate the noise that my exit from the boat shed had occasioned.

  Ten minutes later, I walked up the dock, cut through the marina parking lot and disappeared into the night. I was safe, for now.

  Seven

  Seven years after my escape I woke up with the smell of vomit in the air so thick I thought I could taste it. At least until I opened my eyes and realized that I was actually tasting vomit and, ew, wearing it in my hair as well as on the half of my face that was laying in the puddle of vodka, orange juice and whatever else my stomach had ejected after I'd passed out on the flimsy mattress I called a bed.

  I sat up and blearily tried to recall what I had done the night before. What would result in my waking up wearing the least amount of clothes possible, without being naked, and covered in ick? Not to mention suffering from what was sure to be the worst hangover on record..

  Shade chose this moment to shake himself, and me, awake with a groan and a very heartfelt, “Oh, shit.” The demon in my head cackled with glee and gave a hearty push against the barrier I kept him locked behind only to find it firmly slammed down and bolted up tighter than the biggest Stanley lock on the planet.

  “I see you've discovered the results of how much fun we had last night. Ooh, eau-de-vomitus. Nice choice of perfume, Ardy. Couldn't have picked a better one myself.”

  Any reaction I could have given Shade would have set off further cackling and torment, so I gave him nothing but blankness as I rose and headed for the tiny closet that was my bathroom and stripped off the short shorts and camisole that Shadekar liked to dress me in. I gave the tap for cold a spin, gritted my teeth and stepped under the biting spray. No need to mess with the tap for hot water, there wasn't any.

  By the time I'd washed the filth
from my hair and scrubbed the rest of myself as quickly as possible, my teeth were chattering and a blue tinge had crept over my quivering lips. I wrapped my one ratty towel around the multiple layers of goose bumps that made up my skin and padded out to the duffel bag that held my meager supply of clothes. The shorts and camisole I'd been wearing were hanging on the edge of the towel rack to dry and would probably be there for the day. Leather took forever to dry.

  “So, what's the plan for today, Blondie? Can we repeat last night? That was, undoubtedly, some of the most fun I've had since you took over the show. Hands down. Wanna know what we did last night? Well - more like what you did last night. Devil's in the details don'tcha know.”

  “Oh hells no. I do not want to know, Shade. You just keep that bit of info to yourself and I'm tight with that.” I could sense he was gearing up to tell me anyway and quickly slammed the lid down on the garbage can I pictured Shadekar living in. I'd never actually met the bastard, but always pictured him as a character I'd seen on a children's show when I was younger. Oscar the Grouch had nothing on my inner demon, however, when it came to attitude. Shade had it in spades.

  Getting dressed was done rather quickly. I threw my hair over my shoulder after a quick toweling and let it dry on its own while I walked down to the clinic on the next block. The nurse behind the counter knew me well and winced when she got a look at the dark circles under my eyes.

  “Rough night again, Ardy?”

  “Hey, Julie. You could call it that. Any chance Dr. Martals is in? I need the usual.” Lucky for me, the staff at the clinic I frequented whenever Shade got out of his cage were a friendly, understanding bunch and never questioned why I needed a rape kit or a toxicology report run every now and then. Unfortunately, the now and thens were becoming more and more frequent. He had overthrown me twice already this month and there were still two more weeks left in it.

  Julie nodded and quietly led me back to an exam room where I sat and waited for Dr. Martals. It had been pure luck that I had found this clinic - and her - when I'd stumbled in one morning after a particularly bad night courtesy of Shade. My face had been a mass of bruises to match the ones that covered my ribs, hands and shins but the quiet doctor had come in, patched me up, run a rape kit and toxicology screen without asking a single question. She'd then sat next to the table and looked me in the eyes. “How long has your demon been doing this to you?”

  I must have blinked at the petite brunette with the soulful brown eyes for what felt like hours before I finally managed to choke out a question and ask how she knew that I carried a demon. Dr. Martals smiled and calmly told me,

  “I'm psychic, Ardeur. I can see him in you. How long has he been overpowering you?”

  As much as I didn't want to tell anyone about Shade, the fact that she could see him and knew what he was doing to me somehow made it easier for me to tell the psychic what was going on. I spilled my proverbial guts out to her that afternoon on the table in her clinic. I'd been back at least once or twice a month in the last six years since my escape and she had taken care of me each time. The tally in the column of people I trusted had gone from zero to one that day. It wasn't much, but it had been a start.

  Dr. Martals stepped inside the room and frowned when she saw me. “Again? That's two weeks in a row, Ardy.” Celine, as she'd asked me to call her, put down the chart she'd been carrying and came over to the table to look me over. I stripped when she asked me to and lay still while she completed her pelvic exam. “Well, you're still a virgin. He hasn't taken that from you yet. Let's draw some blood and see what else our little darling has gotten you into.”

  Celine drew my blood and promised to run the tests herself. She did this for me to avoid any questions from lab techs who got curious when they saw the slight irregularities in my blood. I was human, for the most part. The odd bits that weren't human threw the lab people into a tizzy and I'd learned to avoid that type of thing when at all possible. Luckily, the doctor agreed with me on that point and kept my secrets locked safe inside her head. There was no file in the clinic's records with my name on it; no paper trail that could lead anyone who might be looking to find me in the direction of the clinic.

  I dressed and waited quietly while Dr. Martals put my blood in the locked refrigerator that only she could access. The stern look she wore when she turned back to face me was expected and my eyes rolled in response to it. “I don't know how he got out, Celine. The shielding was still up this morning but I was covered in booze and other crap when I woke up.”

  “Damn. That's not good.” She stood silent for a minute and I could tell she was thinking of some way to keep Shade from taking over and getting out of my room when I was asleep. How he'd managed to get out with the shielding Celine had shown me after the last time was beyond both of us. We talked through the spell and confirmed that it had been done right. “I think it might be time for you to go to the sanctuary I told you about. I fear for you.”

  “No. I can't. Not yet.” I swung my legs off the table and jumped down to the floor with a soft thud of combat boots on linoleum. “I've got your number. I'll call if the time comes that I need to go there.” Neither of us realized in that moment just how prophetic those words would be.

  I left the clinic and stood out on the sun-warmed sidewalk for a moment, letting the heat soak into my skin while I debated what to do with the rest of my day. Fatigue from the lack of sleep dragged at me, making the decision an easy one - back home and catch some sack time. A good nap, followed by lunch at the shelter downtown and a bit more digging on the internet at the library before sealing myself into my bedroom was the plan of the day.

  At least that was it until my eyes caught sight of the two men - one short, the other tall - standing outside the building where I'd been living for the last seven months. This was the longest I'd ever stayed anywhere and I had always managed to evade them before they found my latest hiding spot. Clearly I'd overstayed this place one day too many.

  I ducked between two buildings and thanked my lucky stars that I'd taken my duffel bag with me when I'd gone to the clinic. The loss of my clothes from the night before and the soap that doubled as my shampoo was a minor thing in the grand scheme of it all when compared to the possible loss of my freedom.

  Wesley and Boyd spent the better part of the afternoon loitering outside my front door. One scanned the street while the other ran between their outpost on the stoop and my apartment to check that I hadn't snuck past them via the back door. I hadn't, of course, I was trapped three buildings over and would have been instantly visible to them had I left my hiding spot. Shade was screaming and pushing with all of his might to catch their attention and I was hanging on with every scrap of energy and power I could muster to keep him locked down. One chink in the armor and I would find myself overpowered and back in the custody of the men who had put the demon and I together like a poorly-matched china set. The pieces worked together but the end result was not pretty.

  My saving grace came four hours into the standoff when a large truck pulled up and parked on the curb directly in front of where I'd been hiding. It completely blocked any view of the store fronts and allowed me to slip out of the small alley I was in and duck into the convenience store two doors back without being seen. Mr. Chen, the owner, recognized me and smiled when I held a finger to my lips and made my way back to the rear of the store where the employee entrance led out to another alley.

  I picked my way through the debris until I felt safely enough out of earshot to allow for a full run. One did not run quietly in combat boots no matter how small they were. My size sixes were itty bitty but they made one helluva racket when their soles slapped against the pavement while I sprinted halfway across town. Most people would have thought I was a teenager running to meet with friends until they got a good look at me under the rim of the baseball cap I'd tucked my hair under and saw the eyes, wide with fear, that dominated my face.

  The shout that would have slowed me came a second too late as I ran
pell-mell into an intersection unaware of the BMW speeding toward me until it slammed into my body and sent me sailing through the air to land on the concrete forty feet away on the opposite side of the road. The last thought in my head before I blacked out from the pain and shock of the impact was that I would finally be free of Shadekar and the bastard would finally be sent back to the hole he'd been summoned out of.

  The sound of thick rubber soles slapping against pavement caught Brody's attention as he walked back to his apartment with his bag full of the groceries that would be his dinner in a few hours. Fear, the smell of it thick and acrid on the air, tickled his nose and he turned to scan the crowd behind him to see where it originated. Hazel eyes turned glowing amber behind his sunglasses as he spotted a young girl running full tilt toward him and the intersection at his back.

  Whoever she was, the girl was fast and she overtook him before he knew it. Her scent washed over him as she blew by and he inhaled the mingled scents of fear and something he’d only smelled on one person. The girl who'd lived in his memory for the last nineteen years, Ardeur, with her scent of tangerines and death, had just blown past him. Brody turned to call out to her when he heard the sound of an engine speeding for the intersection she was barreling toward.

  Brody dropped his groceries and ran after her. He called out for her to stop, watch out - but his shout came too late. She ran out into the road.

  He watched, horrified, as the BMW slammed into the tiny woman and threw her forty feet across the road. The world around him stopped while he watched Ardeur skid across the pavement and land in a heap of denim, leather and blonde hair at the base of a streetlamp.

  The world sped up again and he burst into action, yanking the cell phone from his pocket and running toward her while he punched nine-one-one to call for an ambulance. His werewolf speed got him to her side before anyone else did and he nearly cried out with joy when his ears picked out the sound of her heartbeat. It was faint and thready but her heart was beating and it was the best thing he'd heard in a long time.