by Laury Falter
The smell of bacon and eggs greeted me then. Rufus was in the kitchen, parked at his usual place at the stove. Felix was rushing from cupboard to cabinet to refrigerator and back to the cupboard. Ezra was seated at the table, mug in one hand, newspaper in the other.
For the first time, I felt like things were back to normal.
A few minutes later, as Rufus slid bacon and eggs on to our plates, Eran entered the kitchen. In a fitted black sweater, jeans that seemed to be tailored to accentuate his physique, and a black leather jacket thrown over his shoulder, he reminded me more of a model than a high school student.
We ate quickly since being late to the first day after we were allowed back from an extended absence would definitely not sit well with Mr. Warden.
Saying our goodbyes, we headed out the door and rode my bike to school. Students were still milling around the parking lot and expansive lawn leading to the Main Hall so we knew first bell hadn’t rung.
My eyes swept the grounds and I realized instantly what I was doing. Out of habit, I was looking for danger, any risk posed by Fallen Ones or any hazards they may have left behind. It occurred to me then this was the first time I’d set foot on campus without the hair rising at the back of my neck, without my radar screaming at me that a Fallen One was nearby and I was in danger. Right now, I felt…nothing. It felt…abnormal, I realized. It was a reminder that Fallen Ones still existed, living in obscurity somewhere out there until they were ready to emerge and again hurt a human or, their moral counterparts, the Alterums.
After parking my bike, we walked through the throng of students until we had almost reached the main entrance. At that point, Eran leaned towards me to whisper, “We have quite an audience.”
“No…You have an audience,” I told him.
His eyebrows lifted but he didn’t ask for further clarification. Not that he would need to. The whisperings in the hallway were enough to help him fill in the blanks.
“…prison…”
“Germany.”
“…gone for weeks.”
As was the case with most rumors, the one about Eran that had spread through our school just weeks ago was only half-true. Eran had spent time in a German prison. But, unknown to anyone except Eran, me, and Ms. Beedinwigg, it wasn’t one designed for humans.
The stares didn’t end when we reached Biochemistry. In fact, the moment we entered, it seemed as if everyone’s head turned in our direction simultaneously, including Ms. Beedinwigg.
She grinned subtly and called out from her desk, “Welcome back.”
We dropped our book bags at our seats and met her at the front of the class.
Oddly, I couldn’t seem to contain my smile.
“So…is it good to be back?” she asked, doing her best to judge my expression.
“Yes…,” I said and then admitted, “and no.”
“More are out there, I take it?” she asked, tensely.
I confirmed with a nod.
“So you’ll be leaving again?” she inquired glancing at both Eran and me while keeping her voice low so students in the front row didn’t overhear.
Eran waited for me to answer, his silence reaffirming that the decision was up to me.
My chin lifted slightly before answering. I wasn’t sure if I would hear the same level of opposition from her as I had from Eran but I readied myself for it. “Yes, I’ll be leaving again soon. Thank you though…for convincing the warden-”
“Mr. Warden,” she corrected.
Again, I rolled my eyes. “For convincing him to take us back.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, warmly.
“How did you get him to take us back?” Eran asked, gleaming at the thought of her having any measure of authority over the warden.
Ms. Beedinwigg cleared her throat and dipped her head slightly to hide her grin. “You won’t be too happy with me after you hear this…” she said, looking up from beneath her lashes at us. “I promised him that you would both behave.”
My jaw dropped then. No one said it but we all knew that was impossible. Then she added the icing to that sweet news.
“Any punishment you are handed down will result in one that is twofold for me.”
I sucked in my breath.
She leaned forward slightly to whisper, “I have full confidence in you.”
I started shaking my head, unable to conjure the words to tell her that she’d made a foolish mistake. Mr. Warden hated us both. He’d be looking for reasons to expel us.
Appearing as if she wanted to change the subject, she openly assessed me. “You look tired, Maggie.”
Already irritated by her agreement with the warden, I rolled my eyes. I was more tired of hearing it.
“It was smart of you to bring her back,” she told Eran.
He nodded in agreement. “Yes it was.”
Before I was able to insist I was almost back to my regular energy level, the first bell rang and we had to head to our seats.
Just before she began to start her lecture, Ms. Beedinwigg gave me a hard look. It was one that I knew intuitively. The demure woman standing before me, hair in a bun, glasses hanging from her neck, wearing a shapeless printed dress, once again reminded me of the aggressive warrior hidden behind her camouflaged outfit.
Her look was telling me that when I was ready to return to training I knew where to go.
The hour-long class felt short on time but it wasn’t long enough to make me forget that a few days ago, I was drowning a Fallen One.
The next few hours were easier. Although Eran wasn’t with me, I was distracted in other ways. The rumor about Eran was traveling again across school grounds and, surprisingly, a few students had the courage to approach me about it.
In my third period class, Mark Mitchell leaned towards me and asked, “So’s it true what I heard about Eran Talor?”
I shrugged. “What’d you hear?” I avoided him by focusing on pulling out my books before class started.
“That he was in prison…” he said excitedly. “In Germany.”
I turned to stare at him, expressionless, before responding flatly, “No.”
When Sylvia Cross approached me about it in my fourth period, I gave her the same response.
Then it was lunch break and they could stare firsthand at the one who’d killed a guy in France, was extradited to Germany, spent several weeks in the squalid conditions of a German cell, eating rats to survive, fighting demented and depraved inmates, eventually paying off an official in order to risk a daring escape back to the United States.
By the end of the day, Eran was the most notorious student in campus history, taking the title I’d held since starting at the school. Even the faculty eyed him suspiciously. He took it in stride, seeming not to notice a single sideways glance or overhear a not-so-distant snicker. Thinking back, I realized he was astutely familiar with this scenario. Eran had never been one to tip toe a line and as a result he’d encountered fierce rumors and violent antagonism during several of his lifetimes.
“You handled that well,” I said complimenting his resilience once we were standing at my bike at the end of the day.
“Huh?” he asked, perplexed.
“The amount of attention you were getting…” I hinted.
“Oh, that…I didn’t notice it much.” He shrugged. “My thoughts, for the most part, were on you.”
I glanced up. “Me?”
“Sure,” he said, slipping on his helmet so that his voice became muffled as he continued. “I was figuring out how I could get you alone.”
My stomach burned as those words registered in my mind. He’d been thinking about spending intimate time with me? All day long? My confidence faltered then as the full weight of it hit me. I could tear apart Fallen Ones, whisk myself and others to the afterlife and back, but when it came to being intimate with Eran I went weak in the knees.
Noticing my reaction, he winked arrogantly at me, and then gestured to take a seat on my bike.
“Wh
at did you come up with?” I muttered shyly, as I slipped on the bike behind him.
“You’ll see…” he teased.
I sighed in disagreement, not wanting to wait any longer. “Tell me,” I demanded.
“Wait and see.”
“When?”
“Soon, Magdalene.” He reached his hand around and placed it against my thigh, the weight of it making me crave him more. Then he said the only pointed comment that could distract me from his hand. “You have a problem with patience, my dear.”
In reaction, I scoffed and then brushed his hand off my thigh for emphasis.
Chuckling, he started the engine and by the time we’d made it to the house, I could not discern whether I was infuriated with him or impassioned by him. It wasn’t until he slipped his arms around my waist just outside the kitchen back door did I know.
“Your impatience is one of your most endearing qualities,” he said.
It wasn’t one or the other. It was both.
CHAPTER FOUR: Fernando Vega
The next few days passed quickly and followed the same patterns as the first day back. Faculty and students continued to keep their distance from Eran and me, though the rumors started to dissipate in favor of Becky Monahan’s reaction to alcohol at the latest party. Intermittently, Eran or I would find the warden peering around the corner at one of us, ensuring we were keeping Ms. Beedinwigg’s promise, and watch as a frown rose up in finding that we were.
Homework began piling up so Eran and I were the last ones to sleep each night, books covering the kitchen table, heads drooped over them. While we knew much of it all ready, having experienced some of it firsthand, the actual paperwork needing to be turned in was mountainous. The kitchen lights were the last ones turned off for the evening.
I began feeling stronger, I noticed. My muscles moved easier, their aches having subsided. My meal portions, which had been twice my regular amount, were subsiding too, my body no longer needing it. My appendages, oddly enough, itched to be released, which I complied with when I started lessons again with Ms. Beedinwigg.
Ms. Beedinwigg was surprised and exhilarated to find me at her doorstep midway through the week. She led me inside for a quick hello to Mr. Hamilton and then down the stairs to her underground training room. There, she had jerry-rigged the walls to support her frame and a system of levers and pulleys so that she could spar with me airborne. I’d thought my appendages would give me an advantage but after the first lesson, as we sprang from wall to wall and flew around the room in the midst of fighting drills, I found that she was nearly as good a fighter in the air as she was on the ground. Our trainings lasted only an hour but it left me physically drained and inspired me to keep working on my recovery, which also kept Eran happy.
My work at The Square the following weekend was especially fulfilling, knowing I would be leaving again soon. It seemed as if word had spread throughout my regular customers that I was back because every one of them stopped in for a quick message delivery to their loved ones. That night, I had over forty messages to deliver from both new patrons and regulars.
Of the new ones, I witnessed a few of the most dramatic afterlife habitats I’d ever come across. One woman had recreated every locale where she’d ever found herself happy while on earth. I found her sitting halfway between a vineyard and the Pacific Ocean, one leg in each realm. A man who’d been Italian in his last life had created an elaborate dinner party for a few hundred of his closest family and friends. I had to deliver my message following him around an enormous kitchen with ovens stacked five high and along both walls as he fluttered between them, delivering hors d'oeuvres as they came out. Finally, a little boy who’d passed on from a hit-and-run accident was, in my opinion, the most exciting. He’d created his afterlife as a continuum, moving from a land of dinosaurs to one filled with zoo animals openly wandering an expansive range to the Wild West with cowboys and Indians roaming the hills. I’d had to chase him through two of his realms before catching him and delivering his mother’s message. He smiled softly and gave me a discreet message in reply. “I love you, Mommy,” he said and then, in typical childlike fashion, he returned to creeping up on a sleeping lion.
By the end of the first week, I felt fully recovered and the reminder that Fallen Ones still walked the earth made me more and more motivated to return to hunting. The thought became so pervasive that as Eran was washing up for bed on Sunday night, I lifted my bed mattress and pulled out the leather-bound book encapsulating all Fallen Ones dossiers. Opening it to the very next one I’d intended to kill, I sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the shower running down the hall, and quickly read the pages.
“Fernando Vega,” I muttered to myself, my eyes reading quickly over his summary. “Mississippi…18 Hilbrook Way…no pets…no significant others…”
After I had consumed the rest of his information, I slipped the book back beneath the mattress. Directly next to it laid my black leather suit, neatly folded like a prized possession. Next to it, laid my weapons.
I stared at them for only a second before my body began moving on its own.
The next thing I knew, I had slipped on my black leather suit, secured my weapons in their respective places, and pulled open my balcony doors.
Without thought behind it, I lifted my shoulders then and my appendages sprang out. I extended them wide, enjoying the stretch. They reached outward, almost touching either side of the balcony, lengthening the muscles and tendons like others do with their arms and legs. A groan escaped as I allowed myself to feel the freedom of my fully-healed body.
As I stood there, assessing the night, my bedroom door opened, moaning against its hinges, and I knew Eran had finished showering. He was checking on me and, I was certain, he didn’t expect to find me suited up facing open balcony doors.
Without turning, I stated, “I’m ready.”
It may have been the resolute tone in my voice, my stance, or simply the feeling in the air but he knew without question that I was correct.
I heard shuffling behind me and then he was at my side, his appendages already unfurled and resting behind him.
He had given his unspoken agreement, I knew. And while I didn’t need it, it was a comfort nonetheless. Although I would never admit it to him – even if he had some indication of it already – with Eran being amply familiar with recovering fighters, his concurrence that I was equipped to take on a Fallen One again meant that I wasn’t fooling myself. That was reassuring.
What was not so reassuring was the fact that he would be accompanying me. Getting him even remotely close to danger was not a pleasant forethought. I was certain it was the same for him.
It was late so the street was quiet. Lights were off in our neighbor’s houses and the only thing that seemed to be moving was the alley cat scampering across the lawn next door.
The air was clear, fresh tonight with almost a sugary taste to it. It made me wonder how the air was in Mississippi…
My wings pumped hard, lifting me effortlessly off the balcony and over the street. I soared higher, enjoying the cool wind on my face. I’d missed it, I realized. Elated to be in the air again, I spun like a missile through the night sky until I was far above the city. Using various ground markers – the placement of cities, mountain ranges, major highways – we found our way to Mississippi and along the river there.
The air was more humid here, I noticed, becoming noticeably more so as we dropped towards a small structure on the water’s edge surrounded by acres of trees. Fernando lived in an abandoned house on the edge of the Mississippi River. Knowing this from his dossier, we simply needed to fly up river until my radar picked him up.
Our speed was somewhere between a bullet and an airline jet so it didn’t take long before I felt the hair stand at the back of my neck.
That’s when I stopped in midair.
Realizing it, Eran came to a sudden halt. He peered over his shoulder at me, questioning.
“I did as you asked…” I explained
firmly. “I gave you warning that I was going to leave for a hunt and, against my interests, I’ve allowed you to escort me. Now, I have to make a request.”
He nodded, hesitant and unsure where I was going with this conversation.
“I need you to fall back.”
He opened his mouth to protest but I didn’t allow it.
“Feel free to stay close, you can even watch, but do not interfere. This is my undertaking. Allow me to do it without intervening.”
Even while I debated on whether I was deceiving myself in to thinking Eran would actually stay out of the fight I’d elected, I used my appendages to angle myself down towards Fernando’s dwelling. Once there, I drew closer and circled once before landing on the river’s bank.
The walls had long since given way to the weather that regularly crept up from The Gulf and entire boards were missing from every external wall of the house. Moss grew over the remaining ones, draping down from the roof and windowsill of nearly every window. There was no glass and no doors to prevent the elements from entering his home. Peering inside, I found few pieces of furniture, each one looking as if he’d bought them at a flea market over a century ago.
I might have felt sorry for Fernando if he didn’t work as a hit man for mob bosses.
Eerily quiet on the bank of the river with just the wind in the trees and the lapping of the water on the shore, it made me wonder if Fernando had killed or scared off every living thing in the vicinity. The carcasses of dead animals piled against a tree told me that may very well be the case.
I stepped through the brush and closer to the house, noticing that it was actually well lit from inside. Kerosene lamps hung from the rafters giving the place a hazy, yellow glow.
Just as I was within a few yards from it, a giggle began from behind me, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose to their fullest height. It continued as I turned around, seeking the source in the darkness.
It broke in to intermittent snorts as my eyes found Fernando hunched against a tree. His hand was arched over his mouth as if he were ashamed of his giggling.