A Touch Morbid

by Leah Clifford

  “Eden!” He brushed the tears from her cheeks, his fingers dripping black as ink. “Oh God,” he whispered, staring at her face in horror. She didn’t want to know what he saw.

  It’ll stop. Any second. She bore down, waiting for the release, but the pain only intensified. She felt his hands, thought he was trying to figure out where she hurt, but then the hands were gone again and she heard the tones of him sending a call on her phone.

  “Eden, breathe!” She couldn’t, ashes clogging her windpipe. She mouthed his name, reaching for him. “Madeline,” he yelled into the phone. “It’s Eden; something’s wrong. I don’t know—”

  He cut off and Eden forced herself to focus. “Yes, there’s black on her face, all over her hands.” His breath caught in a hitched panic. “Fuck, Madeline, ashes are coming out of her eyes!” He cuffed his sleeve around his fingers, gently wiping her face. “Stay with me,” he murmured as he listened to whatever Madeline said. “You have to kill the Siders, Eden. This is happening because you stopped.”

  She shook her head.

  “What if she won’t?” he said into the phone. The color drained from Az’s face. He grabbed for Eden’s hand as she finally managed a hacking cough of air. “She won’t send them Downstairs, Madeline.” His eyes met Eden’s. “But she would if her Siders went Upstairs, if Gabe were Bound again.”

  She gasped hard, trying to pull in enough air to speak, her head shaking wildly. Az dropped the phone. It clacked against the floor and spun away. She could hear Madeline screaming for him but couldn’t make out the words.

  “I can fix this.” Az stared down in a daze, as if putting a puzzle together. His hands cupped Eden’s face, forcing her to stop thrashing. Certainty shone in his eyes. “I can do this.”

  “Az, no!” she blurted. “Wait!” He ripped away from her hold on him and ran for the door.

  She screamed as he took off through it. Her eyes clouded over black.

  She rubbed them furiously, heard his steps slam down the stairs. She fumbled blindly for the railing. “Az!” she cried.

  She froze, waited for him to answer, to come back.

  “I love you,” he whispered. The stairwell fell silent, and then Eden heard the twist of the doorknob.

  The click as it closed.

  CHAPTER 32

  Gabe could smell the cooking meat. In the distance an orange glow ran along the broken horizon line, the flames hidden from view by rolling hills. Barren trees stretched into the dark sky. A low drone hummed through his bones, the far-off sound of uncountable screams carried up his legs through the dirt and ash below his feet. Cages hung, hundreds of them on J-shaped hooks protruding from the ground, holding them aloft like oversized aviaries. Each one held a single drenched prisoner. Droplets streaked down Gabe’s own face, the drizzle slowly soaking him through.

  “Raining in Hell,” he mumbled.

  A crackling hiss of steam squelched out with each of his steps, the ground breaking apart, exposing the smoldering earth to the moisture. Gabe’s teeth chattered as he tried to focus, to remember.

  Her lips are cracked. When she licks them, her tongue is black. Around him the cages swung wildly, struggling arms and shoulders wrenching through the bars and stretching toward him. A dozen voices begging for bare flesh. Pleading to touch him.

  Siders. Touch didn’t work Downstairs as it did on Earth. Here, within a few hours of being passed Touch, the victim disintegrated. Vanished. Luke had caught them and put them here, trying to quarantine the plague their fingertips spread through Downstairs souls.

  Her hair, long and streaked with dirt, hides her from him. I can’t kill them, she moans.

  Gabe kept his eyes down. He couldn’t look at them, the Siders driven mad, delirious. On Earth, Touch wouldn’t work on an angel. Here, though, rumors swirled. Other Fallen had gone missing. The souls trapped for eternity in Hell were blinking out of existence. No one came near the Siders. No one but Gabe.

  Find her. Gabe walked among the desiccated limbs, out of the Siders’ reach. A cough of dust. Black tears. Any cage that rattled wasn’t the one he searched for.

  “Gabriel.” A tremor passed through him at the name. He swiveled to the cage beside him.

  She hung there, her eyes wide, sightless and soot filled. Muddy tears streaked down her cheeks. She crawled closer, the tips of her fingers crumbling away as she struggled to the bars. “Gabriel? Is it…” she gasped, and choked out a cough. Over the moans of the Siders around them, he heard her wheezed inhales.

  He reached into the cage, fingers trailing the gentlest touch on her shoulder. “It’s me, Libby.”

  She shuddered and collapsed against the bars, the effort of moving exhausting her. He glanced around at the other cages, the Siders in them. None of them suffered Libby’s fate.

  “You’re so much worse,” he whispered. He brushed her hair back from her face, layers of her cheek sloughing off and falling to ash. His eyes darted to the other Siders. They were insane with the buildup of Touch, but none of them were sick, not like Libby. She held out a shaky hand in their direction.

  “They don’t spread Touch and it builds in them. I don’t spread death and… If I could just kill one…” She hacked, small gray clots spraying from her lips as she fought to draw a breath. She’d told him before that her power, the same one Eden had, didn’t work. Perhaps there was no soul to send on, but whatever the reason, the Siders Downstairs were immune to her lips. She couldn’t kill them, even if she hadn’t been caged.

  Her wet clothes clung to her. Gabe stripped off his coat and fed it through the bars, carefully spreading it over her. He thought of Eden, tied to him because he’d taken her life. She had prided herself on sending the Siders Upstairs, neither of them knowing she infected Heaven with every one. He wondered if the Bound had caught on yet, what they were doing to eradicate Touch. One upside to being Fallen, he thought. Eden’s not infecting Upstairs anymore.

  The rain shifted from drizzle to downpour, plinking against the metal. Gabe shuddered, tiny hailstones prickling his skin. All around them the ground groaned and steamed.

  Libby swiped a hand around under the coat. “Take it off,” she murmured.

  She’s delirious, he thought. “Libby, you’re shivering. The coat will keep you warm.”

  “No,” she said. Her arm flopped forward. Hail pelted against it, chipping away pieces of her skin. She writhed, a weak cry of pain breaking from her. Ashy gray rivulets ran from her palms. She was falling apart, crumbling like charcoal. “I said,” she whispered, “take it off. Please.” From under the thick wool, her eyes shone black and leaking. “Please, Gabriel.”

  He couldn’t bear to look, turned from her. She heard his movement and struggled under the coat.

  “Don’t leave me like this,” she pleaded with the last of her strength. Deep inside him a fire ignited, burning like the flames that still glowed brightly past the hills. “Please help me.”

  It was barely a whisper. He wondered how long it would be before she broke apart on her own, fell to ash and scattered through the bars. As if in answer, she rasped a choked sob. Not long now.

  His stomach turned at the thought of ending her pain instead of drawing it out, clenched hard enough that he went down on one knee. When he looked up, Libby’s lips moved silently, between the bars of her prison, shaping a single word again and again.

  Please.

  Gabe reached through the bars and tugged the coat off her. Drops slammed against her, melted her away layer by layer. Libby moaned once more. The Siders around him screamed, rattling the locked doors of their cages. Sudden pain ripped through his veins like kerosene. He fell to the spongy ground, a convulsion yanking his head back, his body seizing.

  Light burned white hot against his eyelids.

  “A Fallen showing mercy?” a voice demanded, sounding smug and satisfied in a way that made Gabe’s skin crawl. “Impossible.”

  “He should never have been one of them,” another answered.

  Gabe curled
into a ball, dimly aware that the hail had stopped. No, he thought, not stopped. Under him wasn’t smoldering earth, but white tile. It radiated heat, slowly warming him. He flattened every part of himself against the ground, basking.

  “He’s Bound again. That’s all that matters.” This voice, Gabe recognized.

  He forced his eyes open.

  Az didn’t smile. “Find her. She needs you. Something’s wrong.” His voice cracked with emotion, his eyes piercing. “Help her, Gabriel?”

  Behind him, a door opened. Shadowed figures filed in. The hooded cloaks they wore were stark white, their faces blank of features. Empty canvases save for a slit of a mouth.

  “Azazel,” one of them hissed. Az glanced behind him. When he turned back to Gabriel, fear yellowed his eyes.

  “Gabe…” He sounded so broken, so absolutely shattered. “Remind me about her?”

  Gabe sat up, realizing for the first time where he was. What it meant. “Az,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

  Those who stood around him gripped his wrists. Az staggered backward, a dozen sets of hands drawing him out the door.

  CHAPTER 33

  Kristen sat on the edge of the empty stage, swinging her legs. The club had almost cleared out. Luke was at the bar, signing a few last autographs. She watched him chatting amicably, the flirty smile he wore for the girls swooning over him. She didn’t feel any jealousy. The looks he gave them were not the ones he’d given her, his eyes flicking her way through the show, the desire in his gaze searing her.

  She flushed at the memory, smiling as she dropped her head, playing with her rings. And tonight…

  “Kristen.”

  She looked up, toward Luke, but he had his back to her, an arm slung against the mirrored pillar he leaned against.

  “Kristen.” She snapped toward stage left, saw the curtain move, the shadows shift. She hauled her legs back over the edge of the stage, took a step toward the voice.

  “Who’s there?”

  The curtain rustled again, a hand curled around the material.

  He moved into the light.

  “Gabriel!” Her shoulders heaved and her hand clamped over her mouth. Her eyes flashed to Luke, but he hadn’t heard.

  “Hi, sweetheart.” Gabe held out his arms.

  She couldn’t help herself—her feet rushed toward him. He caught her in his arms, rocked them both into the darkness backstage, out of sight. Then he set her down and took her in.

  “Kristen, I’m so sorry.” She stepped back.

  “You left me all alone.” Her voice had a bite to it, a cruelness that he wouldn’t see as an act as long as she kept her face in the shadows. “You tossed away our friendship so Eden would be safe a few days sooner. Days, Gabriel.”

  She lowered her voice, couldn’t keep the bitterness from it. “Don’t worry yourself, though. I managed without you.”

  “You played him brilliantly.”

  Her pause lasted for only a moment before she realized she no longer cared what he thought. “I didn’t play him.”

  A slow clap startled her. Luke stood, center stage, a smile on his face. A pair of spotlights flared to life, one highlighting him, the other her and Gabriel. They shaded their eyes from the sudden glare.

  “Bravo. You’re quite the actor, Gabriel.” Luke’s voice echoed eerily though the silent club. “But the role of the hero’s already been cast. You failed her and I won her heart. My comedy and your tragedy.”

  Gabriel stepped out from behind the curtain.

  “She’s not one of your toys, Lucifer. You can’t use her for your own amusement. I won’t allow it.”

  Luke laughed.

  “He’s not using me.” Kristen moved closer to Luke. “He’s been there for me. When you abandoned me, it was Luke who came to me. Who kept me from losing myself. Only Luke. This isn’t the first time, either. He’s proven himself.”

  Gabe’s face grew grim. “He’s not who you think he is.”

  “You’re pathetic.” Her voice raised an octave. “You wouldn’t even be Bound again if it wasn’t for him!”

  She waited for the shock to hit him.

  She heard Luke approaching her, drawing closer. “You don’t know him like I do, Gabriel,” she said fiercely.

  “You’re a plague, Kristen.”

  She fought back an angry laugh. “How poetic.”

  Gabe shook his head. “No, the Siders. The Siders are a plague, an infection.”

  Kristen glanced at Luke, unsure why his eyes burned Gabriel with silent fury. “Someone’s been busy,” Luke mused.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, watching Gabriel’s agitation compound. He reached for her again, but she moved her hand away. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Siders that were sent on by Eden or Libby are still Siders. They’re spreading Touch, but Down There it doesn’t feed off feelings. It feeds off the victim. It’s eating the souls. Disintegrating them. Do you think Luke would rather have that happening Upstairs or Down?” Pity shown in Gabriel’s eyes. “He used you. He earned your favor, turned you against Eden and Az. He made you a pawn, Kristen, and he made it seem like saving me was a gift to you. A sacrifice. But it was what he wanted all along.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “Why are you doing this to me?” Earned your favor. The words stuck in her head. Then Luke, the night he’d cashed in what she owed. I want your favor. Your company. She turned slowly to Luke. No, it was impossible. There was no way she would have been trapped in his snare so easily, played so perfectly. “You helped Gabriel for me. Because you love me.”

  His jet-black curls, still damp with sweat, blocked his eyes. “I want you. Covet you. More than you will ever know.” He reached out to her. “Let that be enough.”

  She stared at his hand, but didn’t take it. She lifted her eyes to his, recognizing the ferocity in them.

  She made the slightest movement toward Gabe, but didn’t look away from Luke. “You used me.”

  “And you used me,” he snarled. “I let you, didn’t I? I earned your love.” In a rush, he covered the steps between them. His hands whipped up, stopped short of touching her though she cried out anyway. Luke’s lips brushed gently against her temple. “I can give you the world, Kristen.” He ignored Gabriel’s scoff. “This is everything you wanted.”

  She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face the truth in what he said. “It was all a game.”

  “Don’t you dare do this to me! I gave you this choice and you’re using it against me?” His fingers curled, the calloused tips barely scratching her cheeks as he tightened them to fists. “You chose me!”

  She lost herself, for one last moment, in his eyes. And then Kristen stepped back.

  “I changed my mind.”

  He moved achingly slow, his chin sliding up her jaw-line, his lips to her ear. He’s going to tear me apart, she realized. He’s going to torture the sanity out of me. “Then walk away,” he said, his voice dangerous but controlled. She didn’t move, sure if she did he would strike. Instead, it was Luke who pulled away.

  “Make your choice!” His words thundered through Aerie, echoing. “But be aware that there are consequences, Kristen.”

  She jumped as Luke pivoted sharply. He walked from the stage, taking the stairs down to the backstage door. The spotlight that had been shining on him shut off with a loud pop. The other followed.

  “Are you okay?” Gabe called out, finding her in the near darkness.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. Her words broke the stillness, but barely.

  Even as Gabriel helped her down and out of the club, her eyes stayed locked on the door Luke had disappeared behind.

  CHAPTER 34

  Eden swiped the tissue across her eyes, the skin stinging and raw. She sucked in a staggered breath. When she swallowed, she tasted blood and ash, her throat ragged. Her phone went off, vibrating across the table.

  Nothing, it read when she flipped it open. Jarrod and Sullivan were out there tog
ether, searching, in case he hadn’t gone through with it. Eden pressed Send on her phone, dialing through to Az.

  “Please.” She squeezed the phone against her ear, the screen hot from constant use. Beneath her, the floor was dusted over with thin, fragile flakes.

  She hung up, hit Redial, black ashes scabbing from her fingertips.

  At a frantic pounding on the door to the apartment, Eden dropped the phone and ran, only halfway there when it burst open. Her heart leaped into her throat before she saw Madeline.

  “Madeline! Az is—”

  “Tell me you didn’t let him go!” Madeline screamed. Her eyes were wide, desperate. “He stayed, right? He’s here?” She pushed past Eden instead of waiting for an answer, opening random doors.

  She grabbed Eden’s shoulders. “Why the fuck couldn’t you have killed Vaughn like you were supposed to? It would have bought us time! If Gabe’s Bound again, I’ll destroy you.”

  Eden yanked away, stumbling. “You knew what was wrong with me? You knew we could save Gabriel, too, didn’t you?”

  Madeline grabbed her by the throat, tossed her to the floor. Eden cried out in pain, crumpling. “Of course I did!” Madeline paced the floor, wiping her hands clean from where she’d touched Eden. “Don’t look at me like that,” she sneered. “I tried to help you. It’s not my fault you’re all moral and stupid.”

  “I suppose I’m more collateral damage, right, Madeline? Like Kristen?”

  Madeline threw back her head and laughed. “Kristen probably got the best deal out of any of us. You got totally screwed.” She nudged Eden with her foot. “Get up. Come talk to me.”

  Madeline headed into the kitchen without waiting for Eden. She heard the fridge open, the snap of a soda can tab. Eden got to her feet, limped into the kitchen.

  “You’re dying.” Madeline’s eyes skimmed over her. “Christ, it’s a miracle you’re still here. I mean, one serious injury? Your body tries to use that Touch to heal and…” She raised her fist, splayed out the fingers. “Poof. Ashes to ironic ashes.”