Shadow WIngs (Skeleton Key)

by JC Andrijeski

  “You will stay with me,” she said, not looking at him.

  His fingers tightened on her arm. “You don’t mind?” He sounded openly relieved.

  “No. I do not mind.”

  “I am a criminal though,” he said.

  She smiled at that. She couldn’t help it. Shaking her head, she exhaled some of that humor in a snort. “If you are what you say, then I should help you, da? As a fellow law enforcement officer, at the very least? And even if you are human now, will I not go to hell if I do not side with the Angels?”

  He smiled, shaking his head in return.

  “There is no religion in the Motherland,” he reminded her gravely.

  She heard the faint humor in his words a second time, and rolled her eyes.

  “Get in the car, comrade,” she said, smiling in spite of herself as she jerked open the driver’s side door. Before she could slide in however, he wrapped his arm around her again. That time, he lowered his head before she could react and kissed her on the mouth.

  She got the sense it was impulsive, like before.

  Or compulsive, perhaps.

  Unplanned at the very least.

  Maybe she was wrong, though. Maybe it was planned––maybe he’d thought about it beforehand––even back in her apartment when she started all this by staring at him when he was naked. Whatever he’d been thinking, when he raised his head briefly to look at her, all she saw in his eyes was surprise.

  Then that look in his eyes darkened.

  He kissed her again, harder that time.

  That time, when she let him, he used his tongue.

  As soon as she parted her lips, he pressed the length of his body against hers, pushing her into the car door and tightening his arm around her back. His hand wrapped into her hair when he kissed her a third time, and that time, he squeezed her even tighter against him. She found herself gasping by the end of that kiss, then she had her hand on his chest, pushing him back slightly, separating them before he could kiss her again.

  “Hey,” she murmured. “We are working, yes?”

  Breathing harder, he nodded, meeting her gaze. His eyes were slightly out of focus. “Yes,” he said, breathless. “I apologize. I was briefly... overcome.”

  She laughed. “Overcome? Do I want to know by what?”

  “Gratitude perhaps?” he said, giving her a faint smile. “I could say something else, but gratitude is probably more accurate.”

  “So that was a thank you?” She found herself shaking her head, smiling up at him in spite of herself. “Because that was more enthusiastic than strictly necessary, comrade.”

  He returned her smile, but that other look never left his eyes.

  She felt her cheeks warm when he continued to stare down at her. He hadn’t moved his lower body from hers, and she was uncomfortably aware of him pressing deliberately into the V where her legs met. Even as her mind drifted back there, he pressed against her harder, letting out a low sound when she pressed back.

  “I want to do that thing with you,” he said, gruff, by her ear. “Sex. The demon was not wrong.”

  She stared up at him, sure she’d misheard him.

  Or misunderstood him perhaps.

  But she hadn’t done either. She knew she hadn’t.

  “I didn’t fully understand then,” he added, his voice still low. “Why it was I followed you like I did. Such things appear... different. In that form.”

  “Different?” she snorted, hiding her embarrassment. “How?”

  “Less physical,” he said at once. “Less immediate, I suppose.”

  Still watching him study her face, she let out another half-laugh in spite of herself. “I will give you credit, comrade,” she said, disentangling herself partly from his embrace, even as it hit her that her knees were actually weak from kissing him. “...If this is all some elaborate come-on for sex, it is by far the most original one I have ever encountered. I would hazard a guess that it might be the most original of all male pick-up attempts...”

  “Is that a no?”

  Biting her lip, she shook her head. “No.”

  “Is it a yes?”

  Shoving lightly at his chest, she rolled her eyes. “No. Do not push your luck, comrade Archangel.”

  He smiled, his eyes on her mouth a beat too long before they returned to hers. “But I thought you wished to be helpful to the angels?” he said, smiling wider.

  She burst out in another laugh, caught off guard by his humor again.

  Controlling her own smile, she answered in mock-seriousness. “We have already established this, too, da? There is no religion in the Motherland. You said this yourself.”

  “Ah, of course,” he said. “How could I forget?”

  He gave her a final squeeze then released her after he said it, smiling when she let out a surprised gasp. Ilana found herself holding onto the car door to stay upright after he let go. She followed him with her eyes as he walked around to the passenger side, and as he folded himself back inside her beat-up vehicle.

  Then she shook her head, wondering again just exactly what it was she was doing.

  Glancing back towards the arched opening that led into the glass doors of the GUM department store, she did a double-take when she saw her friend Tasha standing there. Her friend smoked a cigarette in the alcove just on the other side of the arch, her elbow propped on her arm where it folded over her chest. A smile played at her full lips as she quirked an eyebrow in Ilana’s direction.

  Clearly she’d seen the kissing.

  Ilana’s suspicion was confirmed when her friend grinned, then made kissy-lips to the cold air. She burst out in a laugh when Ilana made an obscene gesture in return before climbing back into her weather-worn car.

  “I am surrounded by smart-Alecs,” she muttered, slamming the car door.

  GORKY PARK

  THEY CROSSED THE Moscow River, heading south and away from the Kremlin.

  They reached the park after only a few minutes more.

  They did not speak while she drove.

  He kept a hand on her leg. It startled her when he first placed it there, but he left it after studying her expression and seeing her nod. His hand still weighed there now, heavy and warm, but he didn’t do anything else with it that was overly distracting. Truthfully, she was beginning to find the contact almost as comforting as he seemed to.

  In any case, she was thinking about her work again.

  She would need to call in soon. Her boss, Karkoff, would want to know what to tell his superiors. He would want to hear her opinion about whether they should open a political investigation on Golunsky or leave it with the militia. He would want to know if there was any risk to the Party and how they might spin this thing, if so. More to the point, he would want to know if they should be expecting more incidents.

  She wasn’t sure how to answer those questions now.

  Glancing at the profile of Raguel as she drove, she decided those answers could possibly wait another few hours.

  She pulled into a parking lot off Krimsky Val, then directly up to the main entrance to the enormous, if somewhat dilapidated Gorky Park with its Stalinist entryway columns. She parked as close as she could get to the second set of pillars, the ones that led into the park itself. Since it was morning still, and a weekday, she found a spot right by the gate.

  Climbing out of the Lada and slamming the door with a loud squeak, she tugged her coat more tightly around her, feeling the sharp remnants of winter more than she had been for the past few days. She stared up at a clump of dark, leaf-less branches. Most of the trees she could see were not evergreens and had lost their leaves months ago. Black, stick-like arms rose up from their frozen trunks, giving the wooded paths a bleak appearance, like a row of specters guarding over a dead world.

  Or perhaps Ilana had simply spent too much time that morning thinking about demons.

  Regardless, she knew it might be more than a month before this year’s new leaves began to appear. When they did, it would tr
ansform the park entirely.

  Gorky Park had fallen on hard times in the past decades, with most of the park rides now rickety and rusted, and borderline unsafe. The cement rimming the ponds was cracked and benches were dirty and often inhabited by homeless vets, criminals and the mentally ill.

  She knew the city militsiya worked to keep out illegal vendors and drug addicts and drunks, but it was an upkeep solution, not a lasting one.

  She glanced at Raguel at the thought, remembering how he’d started his day. She wondered who found him screaming. Perhaps locals or drunks or petty criminals had found him here, followed swiftly by annoyed city militsiya.

  It was not a good introduction to Moscow––or to this world, really.

  Ilana still had a fondness for this park in summertime, however.

  Even in the dead of winter, it had its charms. Ice skating happened every year as soon as the pond froze over enough, and locals came bundled up and happy for weekend outings. They would skate and eat meat pies and drink vodka and hot cocoa with their families, and eventually make it home cold and wet and exhausted but happy.

  This time of year, it had a desolate feel.

  She gave Raguel another glance, watching him look down the center walkway of the park past the Stalinist architecture of the entrance pillars. His eyes found the fountain at the end of that row––although of course it wasn’t switched on now, and wouldn’t be for months yet––then shifted to the right, towards the river.

  “Do you remember where you were?” she said.

  He gave her a grim look. “I will recognize it.”

  She bit her lip, stifling a snort. She followed when he began to walk, still shaking her head. “Do you have any idea how big this park is, comrade?”

  “I will find it,” he assured her. “There was water nearby.”

  “A lot of water? Or a little?”

  He came to a stop. Turning, he gave her a questioning look.

  Ilana shrugged with one shoulder, pointing to their left, which was roughly east.

  “There is a small pond.” She pointed straight ahead, due south. “...There is a much larger lake.” She pointed to an object closer. “You see the fountain already. It, too, has a basin that is likely mostly thawed.” She swung her arm all the way to the right, aiming her hand roughly west, where he had been looking before. “...There is also the river. All of these contain water. Several of them are very large, comrade Archangel. As is this park.”

  Raguel nodded, as if thinking. He didn’t seem to hear her sarcasm.

  Or perhaps he simply ignored it.

  “Small water,” he said after a pause.

  “Small like a large fountain?” she pressed. “Or small like a small lake?”

  “The pond.” He glanced in the direction of the fountain. “It is not that. There were trees nearby. Tall trees.”

  “Was it frozen?”

  He thought about that too. “We will go to whichever of the two ponds or lakes is closest,” he decided. “We will walk around each one until I find the area I remember. Then we work from there. Is that acceptable to you, Ilana?”

  She blinked, inexplicably fighting a smile. “It is.”

  He nodded, his crystal eyes holding a distance again.

  She followed him to their left, watching as he aimed his feet in the direction of the smaller body of water, what locals referred to only as “Little Pond.”

  She shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her ankle-length coat, her boots thudding on the hard pavement in the area of the pillars, then growing quieter as they entered the tree-lined walk. She saw a few stubborn drifts of snow on the dirt below shaded trunks, but most of the ground was bare and hard-looking.

  Glancing up at the dark branches of the looming trees, she kept Raguel in her peripheral vision as she scanned the paths and trees for other human beings. She didn’t see many. A few walkers, but all on different paths and none very close. Most people she saw fell into one of the rough categories of semi-permanent residents of the park.

  They all ignored her and Raguel, immersed inside their own ecosystems.

  Several of the cleaner-looking pedestrians had large dogs with them on leashes. Most didn’t come alone but walked in small groups, their breaths pluming in the air as they talked amongst themselves. Thinking about how quiet it was, she glanced behind them as well, but saw no one in that direction at all. It crossed her mind to check her watch.

  It was still only eleven o’clock.

  She had nearly forgotten just how early she’d been called out to check on the Golunsky matter. They had likely found Raguel not long after dawn.

  Stifling a yawn at the thought and wishing she’d brought a thermos of fresh coffee with her from her apartment, she pulled a set of scuffed leather gloves out of her pocket and proceeded to put them on. Watching Raguel stuff his hands deeper into the pockets of the long coat he wore––her father’s this time, not Uri’s––she found herself wishing she’d thought to buy him gloves at GUM as well. As for the coat, it had only sat in her closet since her father’s funeral anyway, so she was happy to put it to good use.

  Perhaps she could find her father’s gloves to give Raguel, as well.

  She could almost hear her mother’s voice inside her mind as she thought it.

  You are adopting this man now, Ilanova? Really? Simply because he is handsome? I thought you were a smart girl. Is this what smart girls do?

  Smiling faintly, Ilana gazed out over the half-thawed pond visible just ahead. A dozen or so steps more and she emerged from the line of trees and into the clearing. To her left, a cluster of dingy paddle boats had been left tied to a short dock by the crumbling cement rim, half-frozen in place by the receding ice.

  A caretaker would probably have to answer for those, come spring.

  She looked back over the patchy ice on the water and the evergreen trees in the distance, when Raguel called to her.

  She hadn’t even seen him walk away.

  When she turned, he was already a dozen yards from the pond, in a small clearing surrounded by trees. He appeared to be looking around on the ground.

  He sank gracefully to one knee on the wet ground as she watched. Lowering his second knee with that same mechanical precision, he began feeling over the frozen ground with his bare hands. Ilana walked over to him briskly right as he began fumbling around a small snow drift, still without gloves or even using his coat sleeve.

  Reaching his side, she frowned at how pink his fingers were already.

  “Let me do that.” She nudged his shoulder with her thigh to stop him. When he looked up at her, puzzled, she showed him her gloved hands. “Use your eyes, comrade. I will use these. Get up. Please. My hands are cold just watching you.”

  He hesitated, then rose back to his feet with that same fluid grace, allowing them to switch places. As she felt over the ground, he proceeded to stalk around her, making increasingly wide circles as he stared intently at the ground.

  “What does it look like?” she said, still using her gloved hands carefully.

  He described an old-fashioned lever-lock key, glass in appearance, with a skull in the place of the key’s bow. She gave him a puzzled look at the skull part, and his lips grew taut.

  “I realize how it sounds.” He gave her a direct, grimmer look, tinged with a faint smile. “I must say, you’ve taken a lot of things quite well today, Ilana––things that would sound nothing but ridiculous to most humans. In this case, however, I am afraid we must not get our hopes up. Remember, this is likely not an Earth object at all. There is a good chance I won’t see it in this form... and neither will you.”

  Sighing a bit, he went back to peering at the ground.

  “...I wanted to come here when you suggested it, because I agree we should eliminate the possibility. But I do not think we should spend too much time with this. Talking to the demon is unlikely to yield anything of use to us, either. But I suppose we will have to do that next, for the same reason. Once we’ve checked the d
etective’s office for the key, as well.”

  “Talk to Golunsky?” Still kneeling on the wet ground, she stared up at him, frowning. “You imagine I could easily arrange a little chat between you and a suspected murderer, Raguel? In a militsiya prison? Is that it?”

  He looked surprised. “Of course.”

  Letting out another humorless snort, she turned back to feel over the cold ground. Even with her coat and the gloves, kneeling on the frozen earth was starting to seep that cold into her bones and skin. She slid forward on her knees, still feeling with her hands, when her fingers closed over something smooth and hard.

  She grasped it, lifting it up, more surprised than anything.

  “Hey!” she said, sitting back on her heels. “I have it.”

  “What?”

  Shock altered his voice. He walked swiftly to her, kneeling beside her and resting a hand on her shoulder to peer into her hands. She brushed the object off with her gloved fingers and indeed saw it was a glass key with a skull’s head at the end.

  No wonder no one had found it. It was completely transparent, so wouldn’t show up much at all against the snow, or even the bare ground.

  “It is kind of pretty, do you not think?” she said. “Even with the death’s head.”

  “Where?” he said, his voice doubtful. “Where is it?”

  Frowning, she looked up, meeting his gaze. His face was only a few inches from hers, his fingers still wrapped around her shoulder.

  “It is right in my hand, comrade.”

  “Where?”

  She held it up, exhaling. “Right here? Are you blind?”

  Looking at his face, watching him squint at the key she held in her fingers, his expression bewildered, she glanced between him and the key.

  “Can you really not see it?” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  Staring at him in bewilderment, she frowned harder. “Hold out your hand.”