She leans her head on my shoulder and I am undone, my love and need for her erases all rational thought. I should fight her and make her finally answer the question that, to be honest, is slowly poisoning things between us.
But instead, all I can think about is how much I want to kiss her.
So, that is exactly what I do.
You can probably connect the dots on what happens next.
Chapter Six
We pull into the parking lot of a popular mom and pop style breakfast place, called The Blueberry Hills Café. Something of an old Vegas instituton really. Think a fifties style joint, with crisply uniformed waitstaff, sporting big friendly smiles and an over all so wholesome it almost hurts, kind of ambience.
Marcus is dressed in a tailored black powersuit, that probably cost more than my current net worth, not that that is saying all that much. Me, well I am sporting faded tan cargo shorts and an old Grateful Dead tie dyed t-shirt.
It is hot out and despite the damn monkey suit my friend has on, it is my Dabbler ass that is sweating. The parking lot is about three quarters full, so it is going to be busy inside.
“Follow my lead, let me do most of the talking. Please, don’t try to be funny.” He tells me sternly.
“Hey, I will be on my best behavior.” I promise in as sincere a tone as I can manage.
He doesn’t look impressed.
Sighing, he turns his back on me and we start walking towards the main entrance of the café. He pauses at the door and I can sense him sending a small pulse of power ahead of us.
“They are here already, two of them.” He tells me tersely over his shoulder and then he opens the door and we both step inside.
“Welcome to The Blueberry Hills! My name is Sophia. Just the two of you this morning?” A tiny blonde waitress chirps at us, in a voice that fucking screams, oh my god I am a morning person.
I am not a morning person.
Yeah, Marcus isn’t either really.
But he gives her a powered down version of his flirty smile and her eyes go huge and her lips stretch into an even bigger smile. She falls all overself escorting us back to a table in the back, where two people are already seated.
They are a study in contrasts.
The woman is iceblond, pale as paper and thin as a rail. Her hair is pulled into a bun, so tight that it almost has to be painful. Her face is lean with knife slash cheek bones. Her eyes are the brightest shade of blue that I have ever seen. She is dressed head to toe in white. White long sleeved shirt, white jeans and white hightop sneakers. No jewelry, no make up. Her expression is one of vague disapproval as we come walking up. Every thing about her screams severeness.
The man is huge.
Like four hundred pounds of huge.
He is Japanese and built like a Sumo Wrestler. Bald as a fucking cueball and despite his size, dapper in an obviously tailored black suit. A massive watch, that once again, costs more than I have ever had in my bank account, is on his left wrist and there is a ruby the size of a dime, in his right ear. He is grinning like the cat that just ate the canary.
Which is disturbing, because to him, we might just seem like the damn canary.
Power radiates from both of them, like heat from a overworked radiator. I do the magical equivilant of squinting and yeah, I can just barely make out the hint of shining wings behind the human forms they are presenting
We take a seat directly across from them and for a long moment, we all just look at each other.
“So, maybe you wouldn’t mind clearing this up for us. Just how many of you guys can dance on the head of a pin?” I ask when the silence goes on for just a little too long for my mouth not to jump in and say something stupid.
Next to me Marcus sighs and does a classic face palm.
The male Angels shoulders heave in a silent chuckle and he just shakes his head ruefully at me.
His girlfriend is less amused.
Her hand moves so fast, I never even see it coming as she reaches out and slaps me a hard one across my face.
My jaw shatters and shards of teeth erupt from my mouth in a hot spray of blood. The blow is so hard that my neck is violently twisted almost to the point of breaking. A shimmer of energy follows instantly behind the attack and all of the damage is fully healed leaving no trace, not even blood on the table cloth, I sit there for an instant with my ideas completely scattered.
Worse thing is, the bitch never answered my question.
“If we could perhaps get down to business?” Marcus suggests mildly tapping his fingers absently on the table top.
She glares at me for a moment, but then nods
A pulse, just like the one the crazed Angel sent out in the bar before he opened fire, radiates out, freezing everyone in the restraraunt in place. Everyone, but us at the table, that is, and suddenly there are two more of us there.
Two young woman are suddenly just there, one on either side of each of the Angels. There is a sense of impossible duality to them, they are here and they are also elsewhere.
Part of my limitations of being, nothing but a lowly Dabbler, is that I don’t know how to shield myself very well. I am picking up things from the pair of them, I wish that I could block out.
One of them is named Sheri Anne, the other is known as Gibbitt.
They are both here in front of me and in beds in separate hospitals hooked to tubes and wires and patiently going about the messy and lonely business of dying. Details flow into me despite the clumsy efforts I am making to block them, I am feeling a small share of their pain and sorrow. Sheri Anne is dying of some shit called Warner Syndrome, which means her body is withering away from a form of premature aging. Imagine being a vibrant spirit, trapped in a body rotting away from the inside out.
She appears to us as a beautiful lithe teenage girl, dressed in artfully torn jeans and a ridiculously oversized blue plaid shirt with silly ass shoulder pads. Her hair is teased to the point of being more or less bullied. A smart ass smirk lights up her face and neon green jelly shoes are on her tiny feet .
In another study in contrasts, the other puppet is named Gibbitt and there isn’t a single damn silly thing about her. Instead of a smirk, her angular face is set in a fuck the world and leave me the hell alone mask. Her dark short hair is gelled up in short spikes and she is wearing a faded Queensryche t-shirt, a leather jacket, she probably kicked some bikers ass to get and scuffed up steel toed work boots. She looks a few hard lived years older than the puppet, but no more than twenty five or so.
She is dying of advanced Syphilis.
The energy I read from her is all but giving me the finger and daring me to judge and I know one thing about her instantly.
She has lived life her way, she has no fucking regrets.
Marcus touches my arm lightly and stealthily borrows me the strength and skill to sever the connection and I come back to myself to see the whole table staring at me.
“Sorry, let’s get to it.” I say wiping absently a tear running down my cheek and trying to keep my tone steady.
“Control your pathetic human emotions Dabbler, they are puppets nothing more. We summoned you here to discuss what happened with one of our bretheren the other night.” Sheri Anne tells me as the female Angel lays a pale hand on her shoulder.
A grimace of pain flashes like Summer sheet lightening across the puppets face, as a reminder that every word spoken has its costs.
“Tell us everything.” Gibbitt demands, as the male Angel touches her shoulder, I find myself respecting his economy of words. He probably doesn’t give much more of a shit about what it is costing his puppet to relay the message than his partner does, but is at least practical enough to choose his words carefully.
The words are not just words, there is a nudge of compulsion woven into them and I find myself spilling my guts. I tell them every single thing I can remember about the encounter with the crazed Angel, every impression, every random thought I have about what happened that night. I feel like a wet wash
cloth being wrung out by powerful hands until every drop of information has been squeezed out.
Finally it is over.
I sit at the table soaked in sweat and trying really fucking hard not to throw up on the nice clean table cloth. I glare at the male Angel, which is probably akin to a poodle glaring at a pit bull. He gives me a half ass grin and a small shrug of his shoulders.
“We came here to exchange information did we not? Your turn.” Marcus says firmly and I can feel him amping up his own power so that he can appear as badass as possible. Think at least pissed off rat terrier versus pit bull.
Sadly that means he has withdrawn his shoring up of my strength and the connection between me and the puppets is back.
I swallow down a mouthful of bile and soldier the fuck on.
The Angels take their hands off of their puppets for a moment and touch foreheads. As they do there is a high pitched keening sound on the barest edges of our ability to perceive, that is quite simply awful to hear.
But at least it is very brief.
“No Warlock, or Wizard or whatever you beings call yourselves these days, we did not come here to exchange information. We summoned you and you came. You provided us with the service that we summoned you to provide so you will, for at least the moment continue to exist. My advice? Don’t push your luck.” Sheri Anne tells us and through our connection I can feel what each and every damn word is costing her.
The male Angel puts his hand back on his puppet’s shoulder again and takes a deep breath as he prepares to defy his partner.
“I will tell you this, the Goblins are nearing the completion of what they call their “Great Machine.” This seems to be sending out waves of power that is affecting some of our, lesser bretheren. There have been a few such incidents and we are considering our response. You are advised to wash your hands of this matter, this is the only warning you will receive.” Gibbitt tells us primly.
Marcus stares at the pair of them for a long moment and then shrugs his shoulders slightly.
“Are we done here then?” He asks putting as much of an edge into his deep voice as he dares.
The Angels both stand and I am pretty damn sure that the meeting is now over, until both puppets reach out and pull them back down.
“No.” Both Sheri Anne and Gibbitt say in unison.
Chapter Seven
The Angels both look totally startled, apparently the connection goes both ways and the puppet has some limited freedom to act. Marcus looks just as freaked out as I am sure that I do.
“Our puppets each have something to say to you. This is unusual, but then again we live in unusual times. We will allow this.” The female Angel says speaking through Sheri Anne.
I have a feeling that she isn’t so much allowing it, as she simply can’t somehow, despite all her power, prevent it.
“They will each be allowed to speak seven words to you, and then they will die.” The male Angel tells us through Gibbitt.
Gibbitt stands up and stretches out one hand to grasp Marcus by the shoulder, being careful to keep the other on her Angel.
She looks him dead in the eye and draws in a deep breathe, no doubt the final one she will ever draw.
“I don’t have a fuck to give.”
With that, she simply vanishes. Through our shared connection, I hear her flatline in whatever hospital she is in, I can sense the staff rushing in shouting things like stat and code blue and so on.
But she is gone.
Sheri Anne smiles her smart ass grin at me, it contains more than a little regret, but it also contains a flame of hope of better things to come, that is the core of her faith, the faith that has kept alive against all odds this long.
Keeping one hand on her Angel’s shoulder, she manages to shuffle over close enough to me to whisper seven words into my ear.
And then she too is gone.
I sit at the table with my best friend and two fucking sterling examples of Seraphim and bawl my fucking eyes out.
Both Angels stand up and leave, the female one is glaring at the male one all the way out.
Nice to know that some things are just universal.
The pulse freezing the world in place ends and motion and sound flood back into the room. Everyone goes back to the business of talking and laughing and eating breakfast.
I stop crying and wipe my eyes with my sleeve.
Marcus and I sit in silence for a few minutes, until the waitress returns with a heated smile and a chirpy voice and hands us menus.
“So, waffles?” I ask Marcus.
“Why the hell not.” He tells me with a sad wink and hands the menus back to the waitress.
Neither of us speaks while we wait for our food to arrive, we both just sit and process what just happened. I couldn’t tell you how much time passed between when we ordered and when the waitress came back with our food. She managed to touch my friend, no less than four times while she dropped the food off.
We then sit in silence and eat the best damn waffles that I have ever tasted.
Strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, all that shit.
It helps ease the pain, but I think that I will carry the weight of what just happened, for a very long time.
Which, all things considered is ok.
Somethings should be remembered, no matter how painful that remembrance might be.
I close my eyes and cast my blessings, whatever they may or may not be worth, into the cosmos for Sheri Anne and Gibbitt.
Sheri Anne, may you rest in peace.
Gibbitt, kick ass in either Heaven or Hell.
Thinking it is going to be your choice.
Take no fucking prisoners either way…..
Chapter Eight
We eat our waffles, pay the bill and then get up and head for the front entrance. I shake my head as we walk, trying to clear my mind of the slowly ebbing input from the puppets. I carry it as an almost physical weight, but that weight is slowly fading away.
No less than five waitresses and the hostess, more or less swarm my friend trying to give him their phone numbers as we try to walk out. He gives me a shit eating grin and an apologetic shrug and I decide to wait for him outside.
The moment I step outside, this turns into a bad idea.
As soon as I cross the threshold into the parking lot, the wound on my arm opens up telling me that I have unwanted company.
They move so fast, that by comparison I am a fucking oil painting.
A bag is shoved over my head, my hands are zip tied behind my back and I am unceremoniously shoved into the back of a white windowless van, that came screetching up in front of me, just before the bag went over my head.
Just like that, I have been taken and seconds later we are burning rubber out of the parking lot and then racing down the street.
Somebody kicks me damn hard upside the head, things go black for an instant and then I see stars.
“That is for my dry cleaning bill, you Dabbler fuck.” One of the Fey tells me in a deep baritone.
Great, the same Fey posers from last night have found me.
Yeah, this is probably going to suck.
We drive in silence for maybe twenty minutes, one of the Fey, probably the bastarad that kicked me, is pinning my head to the floor of the van ungently with his booted foot. The van stops and rough hands pull me out of the van and force me first to stand and then to walk.
I hear a metal door screech open and I can actually feel it when we step out of my world and cross the barrier into the pocket realm of the Fey. Suddenly I can smell flowers and hear birds singing and I know from my last visit here, that we are in the forest leading up to the Fey nightclub Marcus brought me to.
Hopefully this visit goes a little smoother.
The bleeding from the wound I received from The Hunt has slowed, but I can still feel a thin trickle of it flowing down my arm. Pain from it throbs, keeping perfect time with my pulse.
One of them rips the bag off of my head and I find mys
elf blinking in the sudden sunlight. Another of them cuts the zip ties off of my wrists with a glass edged dagger.
“Walk.” Their leader barks giving me a little shove down the faint path winding down to the Crazy Horse.
So I walk, it is of course beautiful here. Now that my eyes have adjusted, the forest is a riot of color, every imaginable shade of green, even some unimaginable ones I suppose and wild flowers of all different colors. A fresh piney scent fills the air and as I breathe it deeply in, it seems to invigorate me a little.
“Dude, if you just send me the stupid dry cleaning bill, I will pay it.” I offer with a grin.
“Shut up and walk. Not a complicated set of instructions.” He tells me evenly with an unamused poker face.
A raven caws harshly at me from the top of a huge oak tree and all of them stop to stare up at it, like they have never seen one before.
It caws again and then flies off deep into the forest, I watch it go until I cant see it anymore.
They all four turn to glare at me.
“Yeah, yeah I know. Shut up and walk.” I tell them and then I do just that. They form up around me and our happy little parade moves down the path.
No use trying to escape, they are all stronger and faster than me and I have no clue how to find the way out of this realm and back to my own. So, I go with these assholes and talk to whatever assholes sent these assholes looking for me and find out what the hell they want.
Which hopefully isn’t my head on a stick.
“Well now what’s this? You bloody again? Didn’t think you would show your scrawny ass around here again.” The same Ogre as was working the door of the club during my last visit, looks up at me and growls as we come into the club.
My guards push me right on by him, without sparing him a glance and without giving me a chance to explain that my scrawny ass was brought here against my will.
There is so much Fey magic pulsing around us, that I don’t bother drawing my own to me. This isn’t something that I will be able to hex my way out of, hell this isn’t something Marcus could probably fight his way out of.
Sin City Angels: The Dabbler Novels Book Two Page 3