Good Side of Sin

by Haigwood, K. S.

  I was speechless.

  He held up his hand for me to keep my silence as if he sensed I was struggling with my words enough already. “It’s not only me. All of the Guardians have suffered in some way.” He touched an open wound on his cheek, winced, and then let his hand fall back to his side. His brow furrowed, but he didn’t speak right away. It was actually several minutes later before he continued, but I didn’t rush him. I could tell he had decided to tell me as much as he could; he was just having trouble figuring out how to do it.

  I was suddenly scared out of my mind and regretted telling Troy to stay behind to watch after the dead and the demons. I needed his hand to squeeze.

  Ugh! Whatever. I can do this, I told myself, and tried my hardest to believe it.

  Isaiah averted his gaze from mine and smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was more like a smile that someone gives when they know all hope is lost and that’s all they can do. “I fear the minion getting through the portal into the Heavenly Realm has caused all of this chaos, and I am the one to blame.”

  My eyes widened in horror. “The minion is gone! The LOD escorted him to the gates of Hell immediately after Rhyan successfully completed his mission.”

  He dropped his head and pulled up a rolling chair and sat down on it, facing me. He nodded in agreement, and then glanced up to the room’s high ceiling before looking back to me. “The damage is already done. I’m sure you’ve noticed how it’s spreading.”

  Like a freaking wild fire.

  I linked my fingers together and just stared at my hands, dreading what would come out of his mouth next. I knew it wouldn’t be good. “You aren’t the only one to blame, Isaiah.” I swallowed hard. “Malcolm and I did what we had to do to help Rhyan get back to Heaven. Eight demons are on our side now, thanks to that angel.”

  “Yes, Rhyan is to be commended for his efforts, and you, too, for helping him and for tending to the very important issue with the ex-Prince of Lust.” He raised an eyebrow at me and I looked anxiously back to my hands. “But—I knew of Malcolm’s ever clever idea to link Heaven and Hell so he could aid Rhyan if and when he needed it. I did nothing. In fact, I hid it from the others so they wouldn’t stop him.”

  I twisted so I could let my feet drop to the floor, and then took his hands in mine. Something was clutching at my insides and threatening to tear me apart. I didn’t want to hear what was so difficult for the archangel to tell me, but I knew I had to listen, if not for my sake, then for Isaiah’s. I could tell his heart was breaking and he didn’t know what to do about it. I realized then exactly how good he had been at controlling his emotions before now.

  I wanted to sob for him. I felt two single drops fall on my arm and knew I was already weeping.

  “They… they aren’t blaming you for this… are they?”

  He cleared his throat and swallowed before responding to my question. “I deserve the blame, child—”

  I jerked my hands from his, and then curled my fingers into fists as I jumped to my feet. “And Malcolm? You said Rhyan and I were to be praised for our actions, but what of Malcolm?”

  He dropped his chin. “Jossel—”

  I stomped my foot and screamed at the top of my lungs. When I finished he was staring at me with sadness brimming over in his eyes.

  “I postponed telling you… well, because—”

  I knew it. I knew there was a reason he kept stalling and kept giving me excuses for why I couldn’t go in search of Malcolm. “Because he isn’t allowed back into Heaven,” I finished for him.

  He didn’t look away as he replied. “No—no, he is not. I begged them, Josselyn. You have to know—”

  “There was never a search party sent out to find him, was there?”

  He shook his head and my knees buckled beneath me. He stood quickly to catch my weight and then guided me back to the chair. I felt as though I was about to throw up again. I supposed Isaiah suspected the same because he shoved my head between my knees and pushed a waste basket between my feet. I had no idea why a waste basket would be needed in Heaven since there was no trash, but at the moment I was grateful for it. Maybe Isaiah conjured it up out of thin air.

  “I didn’t think you could lie,” I said after a while.

  “No, I can lie; you just assumed I would not,” he said, and then chuckled. I didn’t think it was very damn funny. Clearing his throat and getting serious again when he realized I wasn’t going to join in with his laughter anytime soon, he said, “I’m sorry, Josselyn. I thought I could talk them into changing their minds by the time you graduated the academy, and then when they didn’t, I had no clue what to do. I dreaded telling you, child. I knew you had your heart set on bringing Malcolm home. The thing with Thoros started only a few days prior to your finishing, so it gave me a little more time to persuade them—”

  My head shot up so my eyes could fix on his. “And?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Damn it!” My face fell to my palms and I wracked my brain for any useful information that might help. Nothing came to me. I swore again and Isaiah fidgeted in his seat. I froze as something occurred to me. “Wait… you said that you and Malcolm were at fault. If he isn’t allowed back into the Heavenly Realm—what… are they punishing you, too?”

  He took in a deep breath, and then slapped his knee with his hand. “Well, uh… yeah—about that—”

  “What about it?” I demanded.

  He swallowed. “I’ve talked them into letting me try to reverse the catastrophe. They have given me until the end of the quarter to have everything as it was before or…” He stopped to take in a deep breath, and then he let it all out in a rush. I could tell he was exposing all of his fears to me now. The archangel was terrified and I was terrified for him. His bottom lip quivered as he made eye contact with me. Hot tears stung my eyes as I watched the gray stone color of his irises shimmer with unshed tears. “They will give my soul to Lucifer.”

  Ignoring the waste basket, I shot to my feet and started for the door. “Like hell they will!”

  “Where are you going?” he shouted, and I heard his rolling chair roll across the floor as he suddenly stood.

  “I’m going to fix this.” I stopped when I got to the door, and then turned to look at him. “You coming?”

  Ethan

  Ethan’s face slammed into the headrest of the passenger seat as the SUV screeched to an abrupt stop. The stream of profanities froze on the tip of his tongue as he took in the scene fifty feet off the road. He rubbed his cheek absentmindedly as he gaped.

  “Holy shit! It’s Boggs!” Cross shouted, and then grabbed the walkie-talkie in the console before throwing wide the passenger door and running to an upside down vehicle.

  He heard her rattle off a bunch of numbers of what he could only guess was police code for: There has been a wreck! The wicked Marshal of the West could be dead! Get your asses here now and help me find the ruby slippers!

  Ethan knew it wasn’t any of his business, but Carlos and the driver had jumped out of the rig just as fast as Cross had. Aaaand he was curious. Curiosity isn’t illegal, he thought, and crawled over the passenger seat to get out of the vehicle.

  He had only planned to lean against the Suburban and observe the situation, but Cross kneeled down to look in through the shattered window, and then quickly stood and shook her head before speaking in the hand-held again. She had changed clothes back at Granny’s house. Her tight red dress and heels had been replaced with a black tank top, a pair of black BDU bottoms and finished off with shiny-toed combat boots, and her long, brunette hair had been thrown into a pony tail. She still had on the designer shades, and Ethan briefly wondered if they were police issue.

  It was amazing how the same woman could look so hot with two totally different appearances.

  Ethan began walking to the group of narcs, so he could get a good look at the dead bodies. His smile faded and his feet stopped moving as the image of the two dead guys from the night before fla
shed through his mind. Any desire to see what was in that car was quickly squashed.

  He had prayed it had all been some sort of hallucination from being out in the hot sun too much lately, but Cross finding him slapped a huge sign of ‘You’re not crazy. There are really monsters out there.’ right in his face.

  Two other vehicles came to a stop behind him. There was a series of door slamming, and then the pounding sound of boots beating the Earth as the rest of the guys from Granny’s house ran past him.

  “Well, where the hell did they go?” Ethan heard one of the guys ask Cross.

  More with the shaking of heads.

  “And you called the hospitals to make sure the Marshals hadn’t been brought in?”

  “Yes, they have an emergency room full of the flu that’s going around and a few minor injuries, but they all know Boggs. Everyone within a hundred miles knows who that dreadful man is! He’s not there! Cabrejos called the county sheriff’s office to see if any accidents had been called in from this area. Nothing. They’re just gone, like…” Her voice trailed off and then she turned to look at Ethan. “They are gone, just like the other men that have been in contact with Ethan,” she finished in a quiet voice.

  Ethan’s eyes didn’t stray from her intense and inquiring gaze. There was no way this had anything to do with him, he thought, but all the clues were certainly pointing a big-ass finger in his direction.

  “You think some alien spaceship just beamed them up?” the guy that had previously spoken said, and Ethan realized it was the guy that had pointed the chicken-leg at the Marshal back at Granny’s house. “I’m not buying it, Cross! And neither will anybody else.”

  She shook her head and looked at Chicken-Leg Guy. “Maybe not aliens, but I’d bet a month’s salary that, whatever it is—or they are—it’s not human, Galloway. You weren’t there to see the way those guys just picked up Donahue and Blake and disappeared like… like—”

  “Like what?” Galloway shouted in her face and her body went rigid with anger.

  “I don’t know!” she screamed back at him, and then took a step back and calmed down a little. “Maybe they were witches or some form of—of demon or something,” she suggested, ending her rant.

  Another of the agents busted up with laughter, but Galloway only stared at her, shaking his head in denial.

  “What’s sad is that I actually think you believe that.” He didn’t wait for her to comment. Galloway brought his walkie-talkie up to his mouth and pressed the call button. “Galloway to dispatch: I need a wrecker approximately two and a quarter miles north-east on Cow Camp Road. We have a one vehicle accident…” He stared at Cross’ pleading eyes, and then continued, “There are no casualties.”

  The dispatcher’s voice came back through the speaker system on the device. “I’ll send a wrecker right out, Agent Galloway.”

  “Roger that,” he replied, and then gave Cross another hard stare before turning to the vehicle to help the others look for clues.

  Cross didn’t hide her relief as she let the breath whoosh past her lips. She looked up to Ethan and smiled.

  “You really think this,” Ethan pointed toward the mass of crumpled metal, “has anything to do with me?”

  Dark eyebrows shot up over the top rim of her shades. “You honestly think it doesn’t? I figured if anyone would believe me, it would be you. You were there!” Her voice grew in volume. “You saw what happened last night—”

  Ethan put his hands out and spoke in a low and calm voice, doing his best to calm her down before someone brought out the strait jackets. He was guessing she would wear a small. “All right, all right—jeez, just calm down.”

  He watched as Cross glanced over her shoulder at the other agents, all busy looking for any other clues that a human could have taken the men from the accident. There were no other tire tracks or anything that could have caused the vehicle to end up on its roof; none of the tires had blown. She took in a deep breath and lowered her voice. “The men in that hotel room with us last night weren’t human, and you can’t stand there and tell me that they were.”

  Ethan nodded. “You’re right. I can’t. But I’m smart enough to stay away from them, whatever they are. If you’ll let me have my bike I’ll go home and pretend this whole thing never happened.”

  Despite the tension running thick in the air around them, Cross let out a short laugh. “Your apartment must be thirty miles—”

  “Then take me home,” Ethan growled through clenched teeth and curled his hands into tight fists. “I can’t fight whatever is after me, but I can hide from the damn thing!”

  Cross reached up and tore the sunglasses from her face, and then just stared at him in shock. “It’s after you…”

  “Yeah—that’s what I said! You said it yourself; all the people it or they have taken in the last week have come in contact with me before they disappeared. I know I’m not the one taking them, so that only leaves two other options: someone is trying to frame me—” he huffed, “or someone is after me.”

  “Of course! Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” Eyes wide, Cross turned, stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. Everyone looked up from what they were doing. “Cabrejos, let’s go! We gotta get Ethan in a safe house.”

  “No—” Ethan started, but Cross turned on him and pointed to the vehicle.

  “I’m not losing the only witness to my sanity. Get your ass in the Suburban!”

  “I can’t leave my dad alone! He’ll have himself in so much gambling debt by tomorrow that I’ll never get the loan sharks paid off,” he finished in a whisper as Cabrejos walked up.

  “Did it ever occur to you to let your dad pay for his own mistakes?” Cabrejos said.

  Ethan bowed his head and took a step back. Ten different kinds of emotion pulled at his eyes and mouth and forehead. He finally shook his head. “He’s sick. He has a real problem and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if he ended up face down in a ditch with a bullet in his brain. Not when I know I’m the only one that cares enough about him to prevent it from happening.”

  “We will send someone to pick up your dad, Ethan, but I can’t allow you to go back to that apartment. It’s too dangerous. If the—the kidnapper tracked you all the way out here, then it’s a huge possibility that they already have your address.”

  Ethan ran his hands down his face, pulling the skin down with his fingers and disfiguring his rugged good looks. “Shit,” he finally said, and then started walking toward the SUV.

  A shout came from the far side of the wrecked vehicle and he paused to turn. “There’s blood over here! A lot of undisturbed footprints in different sizes, too!”

  Ethan looked at Cross as she turned to look at Galloway.

  Galloway swore under his breath and flung his hand through the air. “Get him the hell outta here! I’ll take care of it.”

  Cross ran to the man and threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back and Ethan instantly felt heat flush his cheeks.

  Ethan turned swiftly to grab the handle of the door, and then turned his head to look back at Cross as she started to speak to the other agent.

  “Thank you, James. Call me if you find anything.”

  The agent gave her a smirk. “I’ll call you if I don’t find anything.” He winked, and then slapped her on the butt when she turned to run toward the vehicle.

  Ethan jerked on the handle, got in and slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter 15

  Thoros

  Thoros had a slight bounce in his step as he descended the grand staircase and a slow smile spread across his cleanly shaven face as he headed for the door. Someone was standing on the other side of the damn thing, and had been wearing out the door knocker and doorbell for over ten minutes now. Was there nobody else in the house?

  The door to the basement cracked open about eight inches and Fallis poked his head out.

  Thoros smiled and cheerfully said, “Oh, hey, Fallis. Didn’t you hear that som
eone is at the door?”

  “No human—” Fallis started, but Thoros already had the door thrown wide open.

  Just on the other side of the threshold stood a woman in maybe her early thirties and dressed in a simple white cotton dress with a big blue floppy hat atop her head. A single thick brown braid hung long over her left shoulder.

  As she pulled away her sunglasses, he noticed there was no make-up on her face to pretty her up, not that she was ugly—she was in no way ugly—but plain and ordinary and innocent came to mind. They didn’t need any of that shit here, he thought, and shut the door in her face.

  “—should even be able to get to the door with the oasis I have on the property,” Fallis finished. Thoros turned to look at him, and then Fallis added, “To anyone that doesn’t live here, the mansion looks like a small abandoned shack from the outside, and anyone that tries to breech the perimeter will quickly feel a strong urge to do something else.”

  Thoros chortled. “Maybe your magic is wearing off, brother.”

  “Don’t you find it strange that we’ve lived here for three months without a visitor? Until now?” he pressed.

  Thoros shrugged. “No.”

  Fallis sighed as he emerged fully from the basement. “Well, I do. Who was it?”

  Thoros shrugged again as he started for the kitchen. “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” He was hungry for the first time in days, and he was about to take full advantage of it. He hoped Phoebe had picked up some of those new cracker crisp things that she got last time she made a grocery run.

  “Jehovah’s what? No.” Fallis shook his head and went to the door.

  Thoros turned lazily to watch Fallis greet the young woman, not caring if his rudeness had already scared her away. No woman had interested him since he’d met Josselyn, and talking to any of them was only a solid waste of time until he had the stubborn angel in his bed.