by Bruce Blake
“Did you hear me, bub? Time to go.”
Todd also moved his chair, fulfilling his role of wing man if things went bad, but he’d never fight, that was Marty’s domain. The sound of chair legs screeching on pockmarked linoleum floor deserved a cliché comparison to fingernails on a chalkboard, but even with the drugs circling my brain, I wouldn’t be so trite.
Tony ceased wiping his hands on the apron but still didn’t leave. Marty’s eyes bulged a little in his head, then he leaned against the edge of the table, readying himself to stand. I got to my feet before he did.
“Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute. You don’t need to do this.”
Marty remained seated, hands on table. I glanced at Todd, then Tony who stood close enough to make me uncomfortable, all of them awaiting a good reason not to come to fisticuffs. I waited along with them, my brain wondering what the Hell my mouth would come up with. Luckily, Tony finally spoke up and took the pressure off.
“Icarus is taking me back,” he said. “He already tried once.”
Not helpful.
Marty stood, chair tipping behind him, clattering to the floor. I rolled my eyes—it seemed like Marty couldn’t stand without knocking over his chair for melodramatic effect.
“Ric’s our friend,” Marty said, face red, fists clenched. “He’s taking me and Todd.”
“Whoa, settle down, boys. For starters, I can only take one back. Secondly--”
“One?” Todd reiterated. “Only one?”
My brain cursed my mouth.
Todd looked at Marty. Marty looked at Todd. Before I could react, Todd jumped out of his chair and grabbed the front of my shirt, pulled my face way too close to his. The veins on his nose looked like cracks in a sidewalk.
“Get me out of here, Ric,” he said, spittle striking my cheek. I flinched, but probably about two seconds after it hit. His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Marty never liked you.”
“Not true.”
Marty shoved Todd sending him stumbling. I lurched from the table, backing away in time to avoid Marty jumping across it to get at his friend. In the process, Tony grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me from the scuffle. He released me when we got to the bar.
“Thanks,” I said begrudgingly—the memory of him watching those boys in the locker room clung to me like dog shit to the bottom of a shoe.
“Thank me by taking me with you.”
I shook my head and almost lost my balance. I giggled and immediately felt bad for doing so.
Child molesters are no laughing matter.
“But you were going to take me before.”
“It was a mistake.”
His expression changed as if I’d surprised him with a punch to the gut. It reminded me of Droopy, the morose-looking cartoon dog. I giggled again.
“A mistake? How could it be a mistake? What did I ever do to you?”
I glared at him, anger building in my muscles as the smell of the dog crap stuck in the treads of my runner wafted up to my nostrils forcing back the mild euphoria.
“You coached my son.”
He looked at me, the hurt still in his eyes, and opened his mouth—probably to beg me to take him with me or ask forgiveness for being a pervert—but I stumbled past him, headed for the door.
I made it halfway before being tackled.
Maybe Marty and Todd had settled their differences over which one should go with me and which would be left behind, maybe they hadn’t. Either way, it seemed they recognized that if I left, neither would go with me.
My elbow struck the floor and rubbed the threadbare carpet near the bar hard enough to leave a burn on my flesh. That made me laugh, too. Marty’s big hand grabbed my shoulder, flipped me over, shook me. The combination of shaking and laughing made drool run down my cheek.
“Take me with you.”
“No, take me.”
Tony joined in, forcing his way between them so their trio of desperate faces pleaded from on high like a group of pathetic gargoyles. Through the haze of Orlando’s syringe-full-of-fun, I recognized that none of them were really my friends. I’d barely said a sober word to Marty and Todd—ours was a friendship of the bottle. And Tony deserved a spot in Hell for his unwholesome appetites.
Here’s the problem: the three of them had me pinned. No possibility of escape and, in that moment, I didn’t care. But something deep down inside me realized this called for desperate measures, a complicated plan. I formulated it quickly and put it into play.
“Come on guys, let me go.”
This time it was my mouth’s chance to be disappointed with my brain’s choice of actions.
“Not until you tell us who you’re taking.”
Marty elbowed Tony, then shouldered Todd aside. He had size on both of them so if it came to a contest of strength, he’d win. But Tony proved plucky and the two of them stared down at me as they forced Todd back.
“Guys--”
Marty leaned forward suddenly, the proximity of his nose to mine startling me. The pink tinge in his face deepened to red, his eyes bulged in cartoonish fashion. Looking up at him, I wasn’t sure whether Orlando’s injection made him look this way or if this was the real Marty.
“I got an idea,” Marty said, sour breath warm on my face. “Maybe if Ric doesn’t go back there’d be room for one more.”
I stared up at him without comprehension. To clarify, Tony shouldered his way past Marty’s leering face and wrapped his fingers around my throat. I had the sinking suspicion they’d rehearsed this.
Tony’s fingers clamped around my windpipe, squeezing until breath couldn’t find its way into my lungs. I knew I should struggle, and part of me wanted to, but Marty perched on my chest and a chemically-induced sense of security and euphoria kept me from bothering.
The edge of my vision went fuzzy, like I viewed the world from inside an aquarium in need of cleaning. I waited for a school of fish to swim by, or perhaps an octopus propelling itself forth on a tangle of legs. No such luck. Instead, the fuzziness went gray. I stared up at Marty and Tony, found myself wondering if one of them or Todd would be left behind when Tony finished wringing out my life. I’d been killed before, so I didn’t know if their plan would work or, if it did, whether I’d get to find out the outcome.
The point became moot when the water splashed down over me and my attackers.
To me, it served as a cool, refreshing slap in the face. It cleared my vision and sent the drugged-out feeling running for the hills. I felt like a new man.
The same couldn’t be said for Marty and friends. They reacted as if splashed with acid. Tony screamed and relinquished his grip on my throat; Marty fell backwards, rolling painfully on my lower legs before tumbling off. I’m not sure what happened to Todd, he seemed to have disappeared completely. Maybe he melted.
I pushed myself up on my elbows, coughed to clear my pained esophagus, and blinked to clear water from my eyes. The world before me smeared, blurred for a moment, but I made out the figure standing in front of the bar.
Todd?
I blinked again.
Maybe Sully dropped by.
The last of the water cleared my eyes and I looked at my son, hair hanging in his eyes, the galvanized steel pail I’d seen in the cage with him dangling in his right hand.
“Trevor?”
He looked at me through his bangs and twitched his mouth into an almost-smile. The pail slipped from his fingers and clanked against the floor. Somewhere nearby, my attackers continued screaming and cursing, but I ignored them as I climbed to my feet. They didn’t sound in any condition to be of immediate danger. My joints creaked as I made my way toward Trevor. The effects of the drug were gone, washed from me by the water like they’d been mud on my skin, but the experience left my body a little worse for the wear.
Trevor’s eyes followed my approach, though he didn’t move. It reminded me of how he’d been in the cage with Poe: there but not there. Anger at the guardian angel brewed in my gut again but I suppressed it
; more important things beckoned my worry.
“Trevor? Are you okay?”
When I was steps away from him, Trevor slumped as if all his bones dissolved. I caught him before he hit the floor, the effort of it straining my fatigued muscles.
“Come on,” I grunted. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Let’s get you home, I wanted to say, but didn’t, unsure if the possibility existed.
I regarded Marty and Tony, both of them in varying states of agony. Marty writhed on the floor like the world’s worst break dancer while Tony sat at a table banging his head rhythmically on its surface. Neither looked like a threat, and still no sign of Todd.
The effort of dragging Trevor toward the door took all my remaining energy, but we made it. I leaned him against the wall, using my shoulder to prop him up as I spun the knob and swung the door open. Cool air which smelled of neither alley-waste nor spilled beer wafted against my face. It held a flowery odor. I threw Trevor’s arm over my shoulders, wrapped mine around his waist and wrestled him through the doorway taking care not to bump his limp body or lolling head against the frame.
I watched my feet to keep from tripping over anything as we crossed the threshold. Instead of stepping onto the sidewalk outside Sully’s Tavern, my loafers touched yellow carpet of the durable variety designed to withstand the tread of many feet. I looked up.
The room we’d entered made me realize the smell wasn’t the fresh aroma of spring flowers, but the manufactured scent of burning incense.
We were in a church.
No, not a church. The church.
Crap.
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Thirty-Three
Half-a-minute had passed since Icarus faded from sight and Trevor disappeared from the cage with a pop of rushing air and a slop of water from the pail he’d picked up a second before. Poe stared at the wet spot on the grubby straw; it was the first time since she’d found Trevor that he’d seemed remotely lucid. She was thankful but worried and prayed silently that he’d end up with Icarus.
Ric. I have to remember to call him Ric.
After Trevor disappeared, Poe killed time pacing the cage. She kicked straw aside, looking for a trap door in the bottom of the pen through which she might escape but found none. She wandered to the bars and looked out at the gray-white mist roiling in the space the other cages recently occupied, the blank spot where a forest grew not so long ago. If she did find a trap door or another way out of the cage, she’d likely be safer staying put.
This was limbo, a place where she’d been put on pause. She’d been in places like this before and knew the mist held far worse places than the confines of her cell. The same mist as this lurked at the bottom of Abaddon’s pit, the same mist concealed horrors too much even for the residents of Hell.
Poe shuddered and strained to keep her teeth from chattering.
With the straw-kicking and mist-searching done, both yielding nothing, she sank down to the floor and sat cross-legged. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
She didn’t know.
She hung her head and looked at her hands in her lap, watched her fingers fiddle with each other like a science experiment over which she had no control. To prove to herself it wasn’t the case, she made them stop.
How did this happen to me?
Her life—or, more accurately, her after-life—went from misery to elation on the day, years ago, when Michael rescued her from Hell. During her time serving as a Carrion, she’d felt like every soul she retrieved and sent to Hell ripped away a piece of her own to go with it. The years spent doing it came close to ruining her. Then Michael came along, took her away, and she thought Hell done with. Never expected to be back.
Michael.
She closed her eyes and replayed the harvesting of Sister Agnes’ soul. All these years she—and higher powers, too, it seemed—thought Azrael killed the nun to keep her soul for himself. Clearly, Michael’s hand touched her, released her from the mortal world.
But why?
“You’re not crying, are you?”
The words startled Poe. She drew a surprised breath and looked up at the woman standing in front of her. Even in the dreary, overcast world of the limbo, the silver stud shone from the spot between her lower lip and chin.
Poe stood. “What are you doing here?”
Piper shrugged. “Don’t know. One minute I was in my own cage, then the mist came and I ended up in here with you, watching you curled up on the ground, mewling.”
“I wasn’t crying.”
“I would be if I were you.”
“What does that mean?”
Piper sauntered to the bars and looked out at the swirling fog contemplatively. “Think about it: he can only take one soul back.”
Poe stood erect, muscles tensed and teeth clenched, waiting for the other woman to continue.
“Forget the priest and his flunkies. And those other two fellows, whoever they are.”
“Tony was his soccer coach,” Poe said, a surge of pride swelling her chest because she knew this about Icarus and Piper didn’t. “The other is named Orlando. Like the city.”
“Whatever. He wouldn’t choose any of them over his son.”
“Azrael said he wasn’t one of the choices.” Poe’s voice trailed off at the end of her statement, saddened by its content.
He’s here because of me.
“Maybe, but we both know he’ll be the first choice if he can be, which leaves us here.”
She gestured toward the fog.
“If it means Trevor is safe, I’ll stay.”
“How noble. But what should worry you more is if the boy really is off the table. How will you fare when Icarus’ choice is between the treacherous bird Poe, his mother and,” she faced Poe, her lips pulled up in a devious smile, “his lover.”
“His--?”
Piper nodded, raised an eyebrow as if daring Poe to argue the point. She didn’t. Instead, her shoulders drooped and she looked away.
Michael. Trevor. Icarus. I’ve lost them all.
Piper laughed, the sound dull and lifeless as the mist surrounding the cage deadened it. Hearing the sound made Poe look up. Seeing the mirth on Piper’s face—in this place and at her expense—drove the despair and feelings of loss from her instantly. Anger filled the spaces it left behind, sending energy down her limbs and coursing through her head.
She remembered the boys who started her along this path, the things they did in the shed in the woods and hated them. She recalled Michael’s hand brushing the nun’s stomach. Not knowing why he would do such a thing frustrated her. Trevor’s face came to mind and what the boy had been through because of her brought embarrassment.
I had no choice. I was pushed into it.
Piper’s laugh continued, the sounds falling from her lips to be stomped into submission by the mist.
If she didn’t bring Icarus here, none of this would have happened.
A vein at Poe’s temple pulsed. The chords in her neck tightened. Her hands clenched into fists. Her next thought caught her off guard.
And now Icarus loves another, not me.
The anger and hatred, frustration and embarrassment exploded a scream from her lips and her legs launched her at the so-called angel.
Piper’s breath left her lungs with a satisfying whoosh as Poe’s shoulder contacted her midsection. They collapsed to the floor of the cage, rolled in the straw jockeying for position and leverage and came to a stop with Piper on the bottom struggling for breath. Poe grabbed her by both wrists, pinned her to the floor.
“Why? Why did you do this? Why didn’t you just leave me alone?”
Piper glared up at her, silent and seething.
“You’re no angel,” Poe said, anger smothering her words. “You were never an angel.”
“Maybe not, but neither are you anymore.”
Piper’s words hit Poe like she’d slapped her across the face. She stared down at her, shocked at the thoug
ht, before shaking herself free of the other woman’s words.
“Icarus will take me back, not you.”
She let go of Piper’s left wrist and cocked her arm back, her slender fingers—what Icarus once called ‘piano-players fingers'—curled into a fist. Piper brought her arm up across her cheek to protect herself from the impending blow.
“That is enough, ladies.”
Poe looked up, fist still pulled back ready to strike, and saw the man standing outside the bars of the cage. Mist swirled around him, partially concealing his face, but Poe had spent enough of her time over the past years staring at that face to recognize the archangel under any conditions.
She bared her teeth and leaped from Piper, hands grasping for Michael.
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Thirty-Four
The church looked to have recovered from the explosion which left it a pile of rubble. Neat rows of wooden pews lined the room; the marble altar gleamed; the organ sat awaiting a talented set of fingers to coax hymns from its pipes. Even the bibles and hymnals I’d seen burned and shredded were intact and interspersed at regular intervals. I wondered what might be written on the pages of a bible in Hell.
“Hello?”
My voice echoed into the high ceiling but no one answered. I put my arm around Trevor’s waist and dragged him across the threshold. The stoup on the wall by the door contained a fluid looking more like blood than holy water but I didn’t stop to examine it. Other things around the church were not quite right, either: the pipes of the organ stood askew, shadows of dirty footprints showed on the carpet, and termite trails marred the wooden pews.
Hell’s version of the church.
I hauled Trevor to the closest seat and set him down as gently as possible. His head lolled to the side then fell forward until his chin rested on his chest. I laughed a little to myself thinking about how many people spent their Sundays looking exactly like this at the back of the church drooling on their Sunday best. My amusement dissipated quickly at the sound of a step behind me.