by Tanya Huff
“But you said…”
“Never mind what I said. And if you want to get to Toronto so badly, buy a bus ticket.”
“I need a bus ticket to go to Toronto?”
“If you’re going by bus, you do.”
A quick rummage through his pockets produced a cardboard square. “One of these?”
Her brows drew in. “Where did you get that?”
He shrugged. “Need provides.”
“Because you’re an angel?”
“I guess.”
The intercom sputtered to life and spat incomprehensible wordage into the station.
“Your bus is boarding on platform 3.” Samuel pushed her suitcase toward her, carefully, making no sudden moves. His elbow still hurt from the first assault.
“You understand that?”
He nodded again.
“Well, if I didn’t believe you were an angel before, I sure would now. Understanding the gooblety goop that comes out of those speakers would take nothing less than direct intervention from God. Just wait until I tell that Elsa I met a real angel. Her and the way she’s always talking about how she once met Don Ho.”
“Mrs. Grey, your bus!”
“Right.” Lifting the suitcase easily, she stomped off toward the buses, muttering. “Just wait till I tell my daughter I met a real angel. She’s never even met Don Ho.”
He waited until he saw her make her laborious way up the bus steps, refusing to let go of her suitcase, and sighed. “You’re welcome.”
“Look, kid, I don’t care what you think you are and how little sleep you think I’ve had and how much you think I need to drive safely, but if you don’t sit down, I’m going to kick your ass off this bus.”
“But I have a ticket.”
Barry Bryant sighed and rotated the heel of his left hand around his temple. “I don’t care. The harpy behind the ticket counter has already told me I look like hell, so I don’t need your two cents’ worth.”
Samuel leaned forward. “You don’t, you know.”
“I don’t what?”
“Look like Hell.”
“Sit. Down.”
A soldier of the light knew when to obey a direct order. Samuel sat down beside the only person on the bus. “Hi, Nedra.”
“Do I know you?”
“I’m an angel. I’m here to help.”
She stared deep into his eyes, watched the gold flecks overwhelm the brown, lighting up the immediate area in a soft luminescence, and said, “Get lost.”
“Get lost?”
“Yes.” For some strange reason, after a perfectly equitable Christmas Eve, her parents had sent her on her way feeling guilty about their lack of grandchildren. She was facing a twelve-hour shift in a hospital that could pay millions for one piece of high-tech equipment but couldn’t afford to order new bedpans, and she was in no mood to deal with someone who smelled like canned ravioli, a food her rising cholesterol level no longer allowed her to eat. “Get lost.”
“I can’t,” he admitted, glancing around at the confined space.
“Try.”
“But…”
“Now.”
He’d just settled himself as far from Nedra as possible when the driver climbed on board and glared in his direction. “What?”
Lip curled, Barry dropped into the driver’s seat. He’d got to bed at about three, got up again at six, and knew damned well he shouldn’t be driving. The last thing he needed at the beginning of a run to Toronto and back on a snow-slicked highway was some smart-ass teenager pointing that out. Of course it wasn’t safe. He knew it wasn’t safe. What did he look like, an idiot? But what was he supposed to do? Cancel the run? Call another driver in on Christmas Day? Fat chance. He had to do it, so he was going to do it, and there was nothing more to be said. Besides, it was double time and a half, and he wasn’t giving up that kind of cash.
Head pounding, he rammed the bus into gear. “And I don’t feel guilty about it either,” he growled.
“Yeah, you do.”
Barry whirled around. There was no way he could have heard the protest or been heard in turn from the back of the bus. I am not hearing things. Shoulders hunched, he eased off the brake and headed for the road. I’m fine.
The only other vehicle in the parking lot belonged to the cow behind the counter who’d probably report him and then he’d get suspended and lose as much as he was making today—so why was he even bothering?
He swung out just a little wide and the bus brushed against the fender of her car like an elephant brushing against a paper screen.
As they pulled out onto York Street, Samuel twisted in his seat and stared back at the crumpled chrome, wondering if he should do something. He knew he shouldn’t have done that, but he did it anyway. What gives? It was like nothing Samuel’d ever come in contact with before. It was…
Free will. His eyes widened, and he squirmed around to stare at the back of the driver’s head. When given a choice between good and evil, humans could freely choose to do evil, and sometimes they did. Okay, admittedly on a scale of one to ten where one was deliberately hitting a parked car and ten was committing genocide, this was closer to, well, one, but still. Free will. In action.
After that, the trip to Toronto was uneventful.
Although there did seem to be a number of off-road vehicles suddenly driving off the road.
Samuel would have enjoyed the ride had he not continued to slide down the angle forced into ancient seats by thousands of previous passengers, catching himself on his inseam. He had no idea why anyone would put such a torture device right over so much soft tissue, but by the time the bus reached Hamilton he was certain the Prince of Darkness himself had been involved.
Toronto had the turmoil he’d been expecting earlier. Samuel stepped out of the Elizabeth Street Bus Terminal and stared. Everything seemed overdone. There were just too many buildings, too much concrete, too much dirt—but not too many people given that it was nearly noon on Christmas Day.
“Hey man, you look lost.”
Samuel glanced down at his feet—he hadn’t known snow came in that color—then up at the twenty-something blond man, with the inch of dark roots, now standing beside him. “No. I’m right here.”
“Hey, that’s funny.” The smile and accompanying laugh was a lie. He wore a black trench coat, open over black jeans, black boots and a black turtleneck. It was supposed to look cool, or possibly kewl, but Samuel got the impression kewl had moved on. This guy hadn’t. “You just get to the city?”
“Yeah.”
“You got a place to stay?”
“Do I need a place to stay?” Was he staying?
“You going to try and make it on the streets?”
“I was going to stay on the sidewalks.”
“Like I said, a funny guy.” The outstretched hand ended in black fingernails. Definitely left behind by kewl. “I’m Deter.”
“Deter?” Higher knowledge finally provided information that wasn’t a fashion tip. “Isn’t your name Leslie?”
The hazel eyes widened, the hand dropped, and Leslie/Deter shot a glance back over his shoulder at two snickering men about his own age. “No, you’re wrong, man. It’s Deter.”
“Hey, it’s okay. I understand why you changed it.”
“I didn’t change it.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Yeah, you did. It was Leslie Frances Calhoon. Now it’s Deter Calhoon.”
“Leslie Frances?” howled one of the two laughing men.
“Shut up!” He whirled back around to shake a finger under Samuel’s nose. “And you shut up, too!”
“Okay.”
“Do I know you?”
In his existence to this point, Samuel had met eight people, not counting Nedra who he didn’t think he should count because she’d made it fairly clear she hadn’t wanted to meet him. “No.”
“So stop calling me Leslie!”
“Okay.”
&
nbsp; “You don’t have a place to stay?”
Was he staying? “No.”
“Fine. So you’re coming with us.”
“No.”
“So you’re going to stay on the street, on the sidewalk, whatever. Fine. Here.” Breathing heavily through his nose, Leslie/Deter thrust a pamphlet into Samuel’s hand. “Greenstreet Mission. We’re doing a Christmas dinner. You can get a meal and hear the word of God.”
Samuel smiled in relief. This, finally, he understood. “Which word?”
“What?”
“Well, God’s said a lot of words, you know, and a word like it or the wouldn’t be worth hearing again but it’s always fun listening to Him try to say aluminum.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What you were talking about.”
Leslie/Deter glared over flaring nostrils. “I was talking about the word of God.”
“Which word?”
He snatched the pamphlet out of Samuel’s hand. “Forget it.”
“But…”
“No. Just stay away!” The black trench coat swirled impressively as he stomped back to his snickering friends and shoved them both into motion.
Wondering what he’d said, Samuel lifted a hand in farewell. There didn’t seem to be much point in offering to help with the pamphlets. “’Bye, Leslie.”
If Leslie/Deter had a response, it was probably just as well that the renewed howls of laughter from his companions drowned it out.
Because the hole was so small, it had taken over twelve hours to push enough substance through. Toward the end, as the light and dark in the world moved closer to balance, it should have gotten more difficult, but there was now such a vast amount of enthusiastic darkness pushing from below that care had to be taken. Tipping the balance the other way would do no good at all. Since, technically, doing no good at all was its raison d’être, the contradiction was making it feel more than a little twitchy.
It didn’t even want to get into the problem of keeping it all together without actually achieving consciousness too early. Without a physical body it was both disoriented and exhausted. It had never had such a bad day. Which was sort of a good thing. Except that good things were bad. If it’d had a head, it would’ve had one hell of a headache.
Literally.
It could feel good and evil leveling out. Balance being restored. It pulled itself together, the shadow that had lain over the frozen hollow since midnight growing darker, acquiring form.
Then, as all things were equal—or all the things it was concerned with at any rate—it closed the hole and looked around.
“I’M BAck.”
It coughed and tried again.
“I’M back. I’m back.” It just kept getting worse. “What the Hell is going on here?”
Attempting a perfect balance, it had allowed the weight on the other side of the scale to define the shape it would wear. Becoming its perfect opposite. Impossible for one to be found as long as the other existed. It would cheerfully use the light to further its own ends. Well, maybe not cheerfully. Cynically.
It seemed to be a young female. Late teens. Long dark hair. Fairly large breasts. She looked down. Everything seemed to be there.
Three things were immediately clear.
One. She appeared to be a natural blonde, which explained the uniform black of the hair. Bad dye job.
Two. Demons, like angels, were sexless. The actions of incubi and succubi were more in the order of a mind-fuck than anything sweaty. But…
…since she had a set, he had a set.
Three. Given gender, and she certainly seemed to have been given that, something had gotten significantly screwed up somewhere.
She’d have been happier about that were it not for the sudden rush of emotions. Every possible emotion. She was up, she was down, she was happy, she was sad, she was royally pissed off…
Which was the one she decided to go with.
EIGHT
FROM THE BUS TERMINAL, Samuel walked over to Yonge Street and up two blocks to Gerrard, staring in amazement at the amount of stuff on display in the windows of the closed stores. The stereo system dominating a small electronics shop drew him close to the glass—five disk CD changer, digital tuner with forty presets, six-mode preset equalizer, dual full-logic cassette decks, extra bass—and he found himself wondering covetously about sub-woofers and wattage. From deep within came the knowledge that if it came to it, he’d buy that stereo before he bought groceries.
Then he noticed the leather shop next door. Stereo forgotten, he took two long side steps and stared wide-eyed at the mannequin barely dressed in a red leather corset, black leather panties, and stiletto-heeled thigh boots.
Which was when the unexpected happened.
He backed up so quickly he slammed into a newspaper box.
His genitalia were functioning without him!
It was like, like they had a mind of their own.
Well, not they exactly…
Beginning to panic, he stared down at the tent in his pants and wondered what he was supposed to do.
Fortunately, the panic seemed to be taking care of the problem.
A few minutes later, heart pounding, gaze directed carefully at the sidewalk, he started walking again, faith in his physical integrity shaken. What would have happened had it not been a holiday? Had he actually been able to go into the store and…
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Brakes squealed. A door panel brushed his knee. The deep red 1986 Horizon stopped. Backed up. The window opened.
“You’ve got the red, asshole!” the driver screamed, then gunned the motor and roared away.
Samuel had no idea they came in other colors. Or, for that matter, what color they usually were. And how had the driver known? Were any other bits of his body likely to surprise him?
Eleven seconds later, the first pigeon settled on his head, claws digging through his hair and into his scalp. When it finally lost the fight to keep its perch, it slid off to land with a thud on his right shoulder. It was mostly white with a few gray markings and the distinct attitude that it had arrived where it was supposed to be.
The second pigeon went directly to his other shoulder.
The rest fought for less prime locations and, for the most part, had to content themselves with huddling close around his feet.
He spoke fluent pigeon—which wasn’t really difficult as the entire pigeon vocabulary pretty much consisted of: “Food!” “Danger!” and “Betcha I can hit that guy in the Armani suit.”—but nothing he said made any difference. They were where they felt they ought to be. Case closed. When he started walking again, they lifted off with an indignant flapping of wings. When he stopped, they landed. He kept walking.
At College Street, he flipped a mental coin and turned right.
The sedan traveling southbound missed him by seven centimeters. The pickup traveling north missed him by three. The driver of the pickup taught him a number of new words. The pigeons knew them already.
The east side of Yonge—where College Street became Carlton Street—seemed to lead into a more residential area. That had to be good. People equaled problems and sooner or later, if he was right about being the message not merely the medium, he’d have to fix the problem that would let him go home.
By the time he reached the park across from Homewood Avenue, he was traveling in a shifting cloud of fat bodies and feathers. Visibility was bad, the footing was getting a little tricky, and the surrounding air had begun to smell strongly of motor oil and old French fries. He clearly had to get rid of his escort.
He flailed his arms.
He used the new words, rearranging them into a number of different patterns.
Nothing worked.
Climbing up and over a snowbank, he brushed off the end of a bench and flopped down onto the cleared spot.
The pigeons settled happily.
His vision slightly impaired by a fan of tail feathers, Samuel watched a police car
make a tight U-turn across Carlton Street and pull up more or less in front of him. The driver’s name was Police Constable Jack Brooks, his partner, Police Constable Marri Margaret Patton. They sat and stared for a full minute. He could feel their mood lightening as they studied him, and he knew he should be glad he’d added a little joy to their day but, preoccupied by the sudden warmth dribbling down behind his left ear, he found he didn’t much care.
Finally, they got out of the car and waded through the snow toward him, valiantly but unsuccessfully attempting to suppress snickers.
“Are you, uh, all right under there?”
Samuel sighed and spat out a feather. “Sure,” he answered shortly.
“Have you tried standing up?”
He stood. Wings flapped. He could see PC Patton’s lips move, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying above the noise. He sat down again. The pigeons settled.
After a moment of near hysterical laughter, the police settled as well.
Fighting to catch his breath, PC Brooks managed to gasp, “Are you feeding them?”
“As if.” If he was feeding them, he could stop. And they’d leave. “They want to be with me ’cause I’m an angel.”
“An angel?”
“Yeah; I guess it’s that dove thing.”
“These are pigeons.”
“Same old.”
As three birds squabbled over position, PC Brooks got his first unobstructed look at facial features and knocked five years off his original estimate of the young man’s age. “What’s your name, son?”
“Samuel.”
“Samuel what?”
“Just Samuel.”
“And you’re an angel?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re an angel, where are your wings?” Beside him, he heard his partner smother a snort.
Samuel sighed and spit out another feather. “I’m not that kind of angel.” Without much enthusiasm, he added, “But I can make my head light up.”
“Maybe next time.” Frowning slightly, PC Brooks took a closer look, found his gaze met and held, found himself watching the gold flecks in the brown eyes swirl into soft luminescence. He blinked and forced himself to look away. “What are you on, Samuel?”