by Bruce Blake
“Have you been drinking, Icarus?”
I drank vodka because it smelled less than beer or other hard liquors. Guess not. I considered lying, but she’d caught me enough times over the years I thought they must teach it in nun school. Truthfully, in spite of my shower, even I smelled it.
“Yes, sister. I--”
“Alcohol is a tool of the devil, Icarus. How can you do God’s good work if you let the demon into your life again?” She stopped, her grip on my arm dragging me to a halt beside her. “Drugs?”
I shook my head.
“Well that’s something, at least.”
We walked again. “I harvested my first soul.”
“Good. I’m proud of you, Icarus.”
I paused. “I think it’s my last, too.”
Her arm slipped from mine and pleasant memories slipped away with it. Embarrassment, resentment filled the void. I felt her gaze as we walked but didn’t look at her.
“What do you mean?”
“There are things out there, Sister. Dangerous things.”
“There are dangerous things everywhere. You of all people should know that. You have a knack for finding them.”
“Not like this.”
“You’re scared. You should be, but fear shouldn’t keep you from doing what’s right.”
“I already died once. I don’t want to do it again.” What I didn’t want was to come back from the dead to work for a God who obviously hadn’t put a thought to me since my birth, but I didn’t tell Sister Mary-Therese that.
She shook her head. “You live a borrowed life, Icarus. God didn’t bring you back for your own pleasure, to be drinking and doing whatever you like. Your new life has a purpose.”
I hung my head. It suddenly seemed like a bad idea to come see Sister Mary-Therese.
“I screwed my life up pretty bad the first time.”
“I can’t argue that.”
“Thanks for the tough love.”
“Why do you think they chose you?”
“They thought I’d taint Heaven, but I wasn’t quite bad enough for Hell, so they had to do something with me?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her glance up at me, a teasing smile testing the waters. “No. I’m sure you met the requirements for admission to Hell.”
“Thanks again.”
“Think it through, Icarus. There’s something special about you: God wants your services. Don’t be afraid. Embrace it. Don’t turn your back on Him.”
The way he did on me.
We walked a block without speaking, me looking at my feet and she window shopping the stores we passed.
“You’re the only one who recognizes me now.”
“I’m not surprised.”
I looked from my shoes to her face. “Why?”
“I was the only one who recognized you when you were alive.”
My heart lurched. Her words held a great deal of truth.
“This is me,” she said.
I looked at the door leading to apartments above a pawnbroker, surprised a nun lived in a place like this. Rusted bars on the door protected glass repaired with gray duct tape: the kind of place in the part of town where you knew someone would be sleeping off a bottle of booze in the doorway when you got up in the morning. That’s how she found me years ago, but I didn’t realize it was actually her doorstep.
“Sister--”
“The time for thinking of yourself is past, Icarus.” She took my hands in hers, squeezed them for emphasis. “You have a chance to redeem yourself by helping others. Don’t waste the opportunity.”
She let herself into the building without looking back. I watched her navigate up the stairs; I’d come hoping she’d validate my feelings, tell me it was acceptable to go back to life and ignore their expectations. Deep down, I knew she wouldn’t be the person to tell me, but I’d come, anyway.
Maybe I got exactly what I needed.
Chapter Eight
I pulled into my parking spot at the motor inn, headlights flashing across Poe standing outside the door to my room. She looked nervous, but I’d gotten the impression that was her normal state. I groaned and killed the engine. After visiting Sister Mary-Therese, I didn’t need this.
I stowed the brown paper bag from “Lucky’s Liquor” under the passenger seat and opened the creaky car door. Poe watched me get out but looked away like a grade-school girl with a crush when our eyes met. Or, more aptly: like someone averting their gaze from the face of a leper.
“Where have you been?” Her eyes flickered to mine as she spoke, then away. “What happened?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re my guardian angel. Aren’t you supposed to know?”
“Only the big guy knows all.” She shuffled restlessly. “I only know what I see or what they tell me.”
Comforting. “Where were you?”
“I have other clients to take care of, too.” She covered her mouth and faked a cough to disguise her words. “In Hawaii.”
“Perfect. I spend my days being chased by guys who shoot fire from their hands and you’re off lounging on a beach.”
“Not a beach. A yacht.”
“Great.” I reached into my pocket and fished out the room key without stopping to consider if she was joking. So far, I’d been unimpressed by the heavenly sense of humor.
“Did you get the woman’s soul?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t go.”
She sucked a breath through her teeth. “That explains why he wants to see you.”
I involuntarily stopped drawing breath as a vision of the guy in the alley flashed through my mind. “Who?”
“Michael.”
Great. Things get better and better.
Playing the tough guy, I shook my head and unlocked the door. “Tell him I don’t want to see him right now. I need to rest.” I thought about the bottle secreted under the seat, my head throbbing in response.
“He’s inside already.”
“Aww, for Christ’s sake.”
“You don’t want him involved. That’d be bad news.”
“Is he angry?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but the souvenir welt on my chest from my last encounter with the Archangel made it difficult.
Poe’s eyes finally managed to stay on mine and I didn’t like what I saw. The fact she didn’t answer my question was less than encouraging, too.
“I’ll stay with you.”
“Thanks.”
The lock clicked and the door swung inward. The bedside light was still on, the sheets and bedspread in the same disarray I’d left them. I pushed the door open all the way, scanning the room: empty. Maybe I’d earned a reprieve.
“Come in, Icarus.”
He stood beside the bathroom door, his six-and-a-half-foot frame clothed in a glowing white suit, his shirt stop-sign red, his tie redder still in startling contrast to the pristine white suit. I half-expected him to break out John Travolta’s moves from Saturday Night Fever.
How did I not see him?
Stepping across the threshold, I immediately noticed an abrupt rise in temperature. I was pretty sure I hadn’t left the heat cranked.
“Hey, Mike,” I said putting an angry look on my face. “How come some trench-coat-wearing guy in an alley is dropping your name?” I thought diversion might be my best tactic. He didn’t bite.
“Do you realize what you did?”
The door banged shut behind me, making me jump. My angry facade melted away.
“Umm...Sort of?”
“Sit down. “ He pointed at the lone uncomfortable-comfy chair. My feet took me to it, though I don’t recall asking them to, and my ass did as he said. He sat on the edge of the bed across from me; Poe remained by the door, conspicuously out of the way. I felt suspiciously like a kid called to the principal’s office.
Mike studied my face. The muscles in his square jaw clenched and released, but he didn’t smile.
“I--”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I was going to--”
“No, you weren’t.”
“But she--”
“No, she didn’t.”
I frowned at the Archangel, the being whose name means ‘who is next to God.’ At that moment, it wouldn’t have mattered if God himself sat before me. The whole mind reading thing pissed me off.
“Then we’ll speak.”
“There you go again.”
He tossed an empty vodka bottle onto my lap and this time it was me who knew his thoughts. Disappointment, anger, maybe a smattering of disgust.
“You have a job to do, yet you spend your day drunk.” The anger in his voice rumbled around the room, a rolling thunder gathering in the corners and under the bed. I looked to Poe for help, but she only stared at Mike, enthralled. Good thing she was there for me. “Do you know what happened to that woman?”
“I’m sorry.” I put effort into making my words sound like a statement rather than a question.
“Not yet, you’re not.” The ominous words made me shiver in spite of the warmth of the room. “Do you have any idea what happens when you lose a soul?”
“I grew up in the church. I know about Hell.”
Mike shook his head, laughed derisively. “You know a human’s opinion of Hell. I suppose you’ve read Dante, too.”
I nodded.
“If you read a book by Neil Armstrong, does that mean you’ve been to the moon?” He leaned toward me and sweat rolled down my cheek. I cowered back in the chair “Does it?”
I shook my head and the room disappeared as though the movement had erased it from an Etch-A-Sketch. A moment of darkness, and then my surroundings returned, but not the motel room.
Instead, I sat in a dingy room at a table on the run from someone’s mid-seventies kitchen, its Formica surface chipped and worn. Gouged and scarred plaster showed beneath striped paper hanging in sheets from the walls. An overhead light with a round metal shade hung from the ceiling, florets of rust marring its surface, its socket empty. From the look of it, the room was located in an abandoned building. Memory rushed back to me.
I’ve been here before.
A mound of blankets lay against the wall, and I knew without seeing that they covered a body, though I didn’t want to guess whether alive or dead. My eyes fell back to the table top and noticed the syringe lying on it that wasn’t there a moment ago. It contained a cloudy liquid, impure, and instantly recognizable. The bones of my spine rattled against one another, a shiver growing into a quake. The hunger I’d hidden in an alcoholic stupor for the better part of a decade took hold. No, not true: it had always been there, I’d simply learned to ignore it, first with Sister Mary-Therese’s help, then with liquor to deaden it, but it always lurked under the surface, waiting for a chink in my armor.
I licked my lips with a tongue suddenly dry and swollen large enough to fill my mouth. My limbs and chest ached. A deep breath couldn’t quell the beast creeping through my muscles leaving an insatiable itch in its wake beneath the surface of my skin. I fought the urge to scratch, to give in, until a thought occurred to me.
This isn’t real.
In reality, I was seated in a worn motel-room chair with an Archangel and my guardian angel, not in some run down drug house. What I did here didn’t matter. Did it?
Did it?
My eyes searched the room again. No angels, no people, no one to judge me or be disappointed in me. Just me, the table, the syringe and a pile of blankets. Another shuddering breath. This time, the urge subsided a bit, though not because of the breath. It was the decision. I’d give in, the only option to suppress the itch, if only for a short while.
I reached for the syringe, except I didn’t. Stumps less than six inches in length protruded from my shoulders, waving pathetically at the table.
“No.”
The hunger, the ache, the pain crashed back on me, knotting my stomach and pounding in my head. Sweat soaked my thin t-shirt, my ass danced on the hard seat.
Have to have it.
I fought, but control was no longer mine; it belonged to the beast.
I fidgeted sideways, stretching the right stump as far as it would reach, but my goal lay out of reach. My breath shortened, like a man halfway through a marathon; my pulse hammered against my temples, threatening to break its way out. Saliva ran down my chin.
“Damn it.”
The chair toppled behind me as I thrust my torso forward, diving onto the table. My lips worked, attempting to grab the hypodermic. Push forward, stretch--close enough to reach, but it rolled away. Instinctively, my tongue shot out in a desperate attempt. Its tip brushed the smooth side of the cylinder, tasted its contents. Thrilling me. Teasing me.
Still out of reach.
“God damn it.”
I stood, head clanking against the overhead lamp, and cursed again. If I reached the other side of the table, the side it was closer to, my troubles were half over. After that, I need only figure out how to use the needle with no hands. No problem. In my time on the streets, I’d seen some dedicated and resourceful junkies manage similar feats. I took a step but my foot didn’t move. A stab of pain shot up my leg.
What the hell?
I glanced at my feet: pools of blood circled each, a result of the spikes pinning them to the floor. My scream died against the damp, rotted walls and water-stained ceiling. With great effort, I used my stumps to right the tumbled chair and sit before my trembling knees gave out. Sweat rolled into my eyes, stinging and blurring my vision so that I didn’t know whether to believe them when the mound of blankets lying against the wall shifted.
I blinked madly to clear my sight. They moved again, proving it wasn’t an illusion. My breath stopped, half out of fear, half in anticipation someone might emerge to give me the drugs I so badly craved.
A hand groped out from under the ratty blankets followed by the sleeve of a jean jacket. I watched, waiting, hoping. A figure sat up, its back to me, and the blankets fell away. A patch covered the back of the jacket, a picture of Iron Maiden’s decomposed mascot wielding an axe, glowering at me. The jacket-wearer stood. Unkempt brown hair extended below the jacket’s collar; he wore faded blue jeans with wear marks and tears. This might have been me two decades ago. The figure turned.
Trevor.
My flesh went cold.
His eyes fell first on me then the syringe. He kicked the tangle of blankets from his feet and crossed the dirty carpet in four strides, eyes glued to the needle. The table shivered when his thighs banged against it.
“Trevor, give it to me,” I thought I said, but my mouth emitted no sound. I tried again, felt my lips move, the tongue behind them form words, but still they died before finding life. My heart crawled into my throat, choking me. I waved my stumps, struggled against my trapped feet. My bladder felt suddenly full.
Trevor slid the denim jacket off his shoulders, baring his arms, and reached for the syringe.
“No,” I said in spite of the lack of sound. I wasn’t deaf: I heard his breath, the scrape of denim against skin, the monotonous tick of an unseen clock. I practically heard the sweat forming on my forehead. “Give me the needle, Trev. Give it to me.” Tears spilled down my cheek, spittle flew from my lips with the effort to be heard. Still no sound.
Trevor undid his belt, pulled it hissing through the loops of his jeans; his gaze didn’t shift from the hypodermic, it held him mesmerized. He wrapped the belt around his left bicep, slipped it through the buckle and cinched it tight, holding it between his teeth. My body shuddered as yearning left and terror roared in. The evil contained in that plastic cylinder had eaten up years of my time and shit out a pathetic life, I couldn’t let the same happen to him. I pushed myself to stand but couldn’t move. Nylon straps bound my chest and thighs to the chair which now weighed a thousand pounds.
“No,” I shouted silently. “Trevor.”
He picked up the syringe, holding it between us, staring at it, or past it at me. My eyes fli
ckered to his then back to the rusty needle, the dark foreign matter floating in the heroin like tiny piranha waiting to kill. He shifted it in his hand and guided it toward the vein bulging in the crook of his elbow.
“Trevor!”
The needle pushed against his flesh, dimpling it momentarily before piercing. He pulled the plunger back, drawing enough blood into the fluid to disguise the black bits of destruction, then forced it all into his veins. The grip of his teeth eased and the belt loosened to send death hurtling toward his heart. His eyes glazed, breath sighed out of his lungs.
“Trevor,” I whispered through the sobs shuddering my body. This time the word floated across the room. He looked up, face slack, but his eyes met mine and a slice of recognition flashed through them.
“Icarus.” His voice sounded distant. “Dad. Where were you?”
“I...I was...” I shook my head, unable to find words. Tears dripped from my chin onto the front of my shirt.
“Your fault.” The last word barely cleared his mouth before his knees buckled. He crumpled to the floor.
“No.” Plaster, tattered blankets and worn carpet ate my sobs. “No.”
I closed my eyes, my chin drooped to my chest. How long I remained like that, I don’t know. A second, maybe, perhaps eternity. A finger under my chin raised my head, made me open my eyes. Michael’s flickering yellow eyes stared into mine, his expression stony. I breathed deep attempting to regain composure.
“Was that...?” I managed before my voice broke. “Did he...?”
“What?”
“You know what,” I screamed, but the Archangel didn’t flinch. “You can read my fucking mind.”
“It has not happened. It is not necessarily the future. But it could be.” He leaned back, and a smile might have flitted across his face like a bat across the full moon. “That was your Hell.”
Heat radiated from him, adding to the fearful sweat on my skin. I squirmed away, the sudden fear of him and what he could do to me burying my relief that Trevor was safe. At least for now.
“Why?”
“Now you know what happens when you let the Carrions take a soul.” He folded his arms, making me feel like a child lectured by his parent. “Everyone’s Hell is different. No fire and brimstone. It’s worse.”