All the Rules of Heaven

by Amy Lane

  “What’s it say?” she asked curiously, tracing the connected runes with her finger. “It looks pretty, but you’re right—it’s going to take a few weeks if I’m going to do it right. Any particular metal?”

  Tucker looked at Angel, who was staring at the picture, mesmerized. “White gold,” Angel said softly. “It should be in white gold.”

  “You know what it says?” Tucker asked, wanting him to be sure.

  “I know what it means,” Angel told him. “Is that the same?”

  Tucker thought about that. “Not always.” He looked at Rae. “It says ‘touch, blood, and song.’”

  “Oh!” Rae brightened like she’d heard this before. “Like the folks on the fairy hill.”

  “You know about the fairy hill?” His whole life he’d thought his interest and involvement in the arcane had been singular and isolated. Apparently, not in this tiny town.

  “It’s right down the road. You can’t miss it.”

  Tucker looked at Angel. “See?”

  “I admitted it,” Angel defended. “I get it now. You can’t pretend it’s not there.”

  “You know,” Coral said, “every time he talks, he gets a little more real. Is the necklace going to help that?”

  “Yeah,” Tucker said. “I think it will.”

  “Why?” Tilda hovered over her mother’s shoulder and traced the letters with a finger rough from playing sports and doing chores. Still young, Tucker thought. Young enough not to worry about her nails or care about the dirt in the calluses or worry that her hair was too long and in her face. Young enough to hang her arm around her mother’s shoulders.

  “Because touch, blood, and song make things real,” Tucker said. “It’s like I’m asking him to stay.”

  “I’ll stay,” Angel told him, and this time Tucker could feel the grasp of his hand. “If I have to break—”

  “All the rules of heaven,” Tucker finished. Because that was what this was about, wasn’t it? Changing the rules of heaven?

  Tucker yawned and stood. “I’m sorry. I just disrupted your day and dumped a bunch of work on you. I should leave and let you get to your regularly scheduled lives.”

  Rae held up a hand to forestall him. “Tilda, is Andover’s room cleared out, or is the bed still made?”

  “Bed’s made,” Tilda said promptly. “Everything else is gone.” She smiled up at Tucker, and although she didn’t have the same level of witchiness that Coral had, the expression in her brown eyes was still very much her mother’s. “Go take a nap, Mr. Henderson. Don’t worry. With all the runes and shi—stuff mom has here, no ghost in the world’s going to try and stop you.”

  “Thanks,” Tucker said, “but—”

  “But what? Tucker, that ghost has been dead for a hundred years. What’s a few hours of sleep and some dinner going to hurt?”

  Tucker smiled and tried one more time not to impose. “I was going to strip the wallpaper and borrow Josh’s sander to do the floors.”

  “I’ll bring it over tonight, after dinner,” Josh said promptly. “C’mon, Tucker. I thought the goal was to get Angel to be human, not for you to fade away like Angel. You’re pale as a—heh, heh, heh—ghost.” And Josh, being Josh, lapsed into giggles.

  His wife rolled her eyes. “Please stay, Tucker. I’d love to have some intelligent conversation over dinner tonight.”

  All three of the kids protested. “Hey!” “That’s not fair!” “Murphy’s the stupid one!” “Now that Andy’s gone, we’re plenty smart!”

  Tucker laughed, and his resistance tattered away. “Down the hall?” he asked, a little wobbly on his feet.

  “Second door on the left,” Rae said. “Don’t look under the mattress—we’re afraid of what’s there.”

  “Pot? Porn? Alien sex toys? Only Andy knows for sure.” Tilda smirked, and Tucker had to laugh.

  Rae didn’t. “How old are you?” she asked Tilda darkly.

  “Seventeen,” Tilda returned with a pert smile. “Old enough to know of which I speak.”

  Rae sighed. “Dammit.” Then she glared at Tucker. “Now go lie down, and I’ll see if I can get a couple of these things ready for your room. They won’t be pretty, but hopefully they’ll keep you safe.”

  “Thanks, Rae.” Tucker’s gratitude came from the depths of his soul. And so did his yawn. “That nap sounds really, really good.”

  TUCKER SLEPT for three hours, Angel pressed up against his back in various stages of density the whole time.

  He woke up with Angel’s hand draped along his chest, and he clasped it, bringing it to his lips.

  Angel’s frustrated grunt ruffled his hair. “It would be inappropriate to make love in this room,” he said, and Tucker laughed a little as Angel pressed his swollen groin against Tucker’s back.

  “Feeling frisky?” Tucker teased, in that weird fugue state between sleeping and waking.

  “Andover Greenaway masturbated a lot when he was in this room,” Angel told him, wonder in his voice.

  Tucker’s eyes flew open, and he felt the mutters of his gift, which he’d been too exhausted to receive earlier.

  He scrambled off the bed and stood up as though he’d been shot.

  “Oh my God. No. Just. Okay. Nap over. Do you think…?”

  “Tucker?” Rae peeked inside the door. “Good, you’re awake. Dinner’s ready—come out and eat.”

  “Absolutely,” Tucker said brightly. “Let me wash up. I’ll be right there!”

  “I don’t know what you have to wash up,” Angel grumbled. “It’s not like anything happened.”

  “Drool off my face, dirt off my hands, teenage sex out of my brain!” Tucker hissed, and Rae broke into raucous laughter.

  “Tucker, I can hear him. You know that, right? And you too. I told you we didn’t want to know what was under the bed.”

  Tucker shuddered. “Do yourself a favor and never look.”

  “Of course—the bathroom’s down the hall.”

  THEY LEFT Angel a place to sit, although they didn’t offer him a plate for obvious reasons. Tucker filled up on spaghetti and garlic bread and salad and, once again, on the table chatter of the Greenaways.

  He glanced up and saw Angel, green eyes moving from face to face, soaking up the family’s reaction to Coral, who was telling a very involved story about the girl at school she sort of liked last year and who she may or may not want to play with when school started in two weeks because she’d been mean.

  When she was done, Rae gave the patented parental “Okay, honey, well, whatever you think is best” while crossing her eyes at Josh, who widened his in return.

  “I don’t understand,” Angel said, eyeing the child suspiciously. “If the little girl was not kind to you, then why would you want to be friends?”

  Coral looked at him and smiled. “Angel, your eyes are very distinctive. I would know them in any other face.”

  Angel disappeared, and Coral dug into her spaghetti with grim satisfaction.

  “She’s terrifying,” Tucker said with respect.

  “I am frequently terrified by her,” Rae agreed. “You look well rested now. Do you still plan to work on the house when you go back?

  “Wallpaper and floors,” Tucker confirmed. “I think the wallpaper tonight, and if Josh can lend us the floor sander, we’ll do the floors tomorrow, and then we’ll… uh, I’ll go shopping for stain for the floors and wallpaper and such the day after.”

  “I would love to have input,” Angel said, appearing again.

  Rae shrieked and threw her fork across the table. “Dammit, Angel. I may not be able to see you, but I know when you’re there! You guys want rules? I’ll give you rules. If you’re at the goddamned kitchen table, you need to stay at the goddamned kitchen table. It’s rude to just disappear when someone makes you uncomfortable.”

  Tucker arched an eyebrow at him. “I told you.”

  “Fine.” Angel sulked. “But I still think I should have a say in how the place is decorated. After all, I have to live
there just as long as Tucker does.”

  “Which is how long, exactly?” Josh had the look of a man who was trying to do math in his head.

  “Long after Andy is done with school,” Tucker told him dryly. “For that matter, probably long after Coral is done with school. Hell, probably long after Coral’s children are done with school. You’ve got time.”

  “That’s still not forever,” Angel said evenly.

  Tucker cocked his head. “Well, who says if we move you wouldn’t come with me?”

  Angel gaped at him, and Tucker took a couple of bites of spaghetti in peace.

  “He’s being awfully quiet,” Rae commented, staring at what was, for her, an empty chair at the table.

  “I exploded his little mind,” Tucker told her, enjoying the thought, “when I suggested that maybe, after the house is done, he and I could move somewhere else. Let’s see how he can use this idea to say something that depresses the hell out of me.”

  Five, four, three, two, one—

  “But Tucker, once we’re done with cleansing the house, I’ll probably… I mean, I was only supposed to be here long enough to….”

  “Stay,” Tucker said, looking him in the eyes like the whole family wasn’t there. “All the rules of heaven, remember?”

  Angel gaped at him some more.

  Tucker looked back at Rae. “I don’t know what he’s so upset about. Given how many ghosts are traipsing through that place, I’ll be dead and gone before it’s cleared out. He’ll have to work with someone else then, and God knows how that’ll go.”

  “Stop,” Angel snapped, visibly upset. “Just… stop. We’ll deal with change when things change. In the meantime, it’s enough that we’re both here now.”

  Tucker smiled, feeling a little reassured. He’d been alone for more than half his life, but no matter what happened with Angel, no matter what Angel was, he wouldn’t be alone now.

  “Agreed,” he said.

  “So,” Josh broke in, apparently oblivious to the relationship currents raging around the table. “What do you know about sanding floors?”

  “Not a damned thing.” Tucker took another bite of garlic bread. “By all means, enlighten me.”

  By the time dinner ended, Tucker had a sense of how hard he’d be working the next day.

  TUCKER OFFERED to stay to wash up, but Rae told him to help Josh load the sander into the back of the truck instead. Tucker came back inside to say goodbye, but before he could leave, Rae shoved three charms into his hand.

  “The chains are my best silver, and the pentagrams are too. The stones inside are pure—I used garnets since that was the one on your necklace, and whatever happened to it, that’s where it started. Now you put one of those in your truck and hang one on your doorway and one on your window. They should keep anybody out, even from your bathroom, ’cause that’s attached. I’ll make you a few more.”

  Tucker felt bad—he’d used up so much of her time. “Now, Rae, I can deal with—”

  “Stop it,” she said. “Just stop. What you did for our son was amazing, but this isn’t just paying you back. We like you, Tucker. And you obviously need us. So just take the gift.” She looked over his shoulder and frowned at her husband. “Josh, would you grab the one off my table and put it on—”

  “No,” Josh said shortly. “The damned ghosts want no part of me. Let Tucker have the last charm.”

  “I made it for you, you stubborn asshole,” Rae returned. “Dammit, Josh, it’s for protection. So much shit can go wrong.”

  He kissed her cheek and winked. “I’m just going to check out the room. Now, Rae, I’ll be back in an hour, okay? Tucker’s going to need help unloading the sander, and as soon as I get it up the stairs, I’ll come home.”

  He grabbed the keys from the pegboard by the door and headed for his little Ford truck while Rae was still sputtering. “Dammit, Tucker, stay with him and keep him from doing anything stupid!” she called.

  “Will do!” Tucker called back, a little worried himself.

  He hopped into the truck, Angel materialized through the door, and they both took off.

  Broken Glass

  ANGEL WASN’T sure how Tucker didn’t just fall over from boredom when Josh was talking about sanding floors, but somehow he seemed to find it fascinating. Maybe because he’d spent so much of his life not having a job, and having a purpose completely out of his control had made Tucker supremely grateful for tangible proof that he was doing something.

  Either way, Josh had dominated the conversation over dinner and dessert, and Angel was quite grateful for the relative quiet in the cab of the truck with Tucker.

  “We’re not really going to pull wallpaper tonight?” Angel complained. He hadn’t eaten, of course, but he was more than ready to sit with Tucker and let his meal digest while they watched more popular television.

  “Yes,” Tucker said, his jaw squaring up. “I just keep thinking that getting the room clear will help, that’s all. It’s not a pull or a hunch—it’s my own twisted logic. I can’t even understand it.”

  “Maybe if Josh helps, you’ll have the wallpaper done tonight and you can quit obsessing.”

  “Your support is appreciated,” Tucker said dryly. “I think it’s really awesome that we get to sound like we’re married and we don’t even get any of the bennies.”

  “We get each other’s company.” Angel was quite sincere about that. “Ruth and I, we rubbed each other the wrong way from the get-go. I was not… human enough, I don’t think. I’m going to be ashamed of that for a long time.”

  “Well, when we do her room, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to apologize,” Tucker said.

  Angel brightened. “You know, I hadn’t thought about that. That’s true. Can we do her room next?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Tucker shuddered delicately. “Let me get good at this before I potentially fuck up Ruth’s afterlife, okay, Angel? Besides,” he said, lowering his voice, “you came to Daisy Place when she was a young woman. I have the feeling there’s something important about that timing. I don’t…. I’m selfish. She hung out in that mansion for over eighty-five years. It would be great if she could hang out just a little bit longer while you and I figure out how to get you to stay. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m afraid that when we confront her, you’ll figure out how you got here in the first place, and that might pull you away.”

  Oh. Naked self-interest had never bothered Angel before, but realizing that his agenda might take him from Tucker sure did bother him now.

  “I hadn’t considered that,” he said. And then he remembered that when Tucker had arrived—hell, for most of Ruth’s life—Angel had wanted nothing but to clear out the souls so he could leave. Tucker would have figured out that was the ultimate endgame.

  He felt a weight in his shoulders, a tightness in his back, as though he were bearing something unsupportable, and his head drooped.

  “You’re right, Tucker. We should save Ruth’s room until you and I have more of a handle on what we’re doing. Your powers are very different. Your perceptions are very different. I….” He tried not to look out over the property as they drove alongside it. He knew that the dark cloud of distorted souls and malice would loom to the northeast, where the graveyard stretched into the unmentionable beyond. “I think you and I need to figure out how to clear the graveyard together. I need to be here for that.”

  Tucker’s sigh almost rocked the cab of the truck.

  “And of course I want to stay for you.”

  And the atmosphere lightened again—even the weight on his shoulders.

  They pulled into the driveway at Daisy Place with an almost unbearable optimism… considering what followed.

  JOSH INSISTED on helping Tucker haul the sander up the stairs while he was there. He also wanted to see if his efforts with the humidifier had made the wallpaper as easy to pull as he hoped. They parked the sander in the hallway across from the bed, where Josh paused.


  “Hey now,” he said, looking at the bed. “That’s a real nice frame. Are you putting that back into the roo—”

  “Don’t touch that!” Tucker and Angel both cried together.

  Josh eyed them dryly and stuck his hand out like a grade-schooler to touch the bed with one finger. Nothing happened, and he rolled his eyes.

  Tucker shuddered. “You will never know,” he said. “You will never know how lucky you are to be psychically blind.”

  Josh laughed and shrugged, but he looked a little wistful as well. “You say that. But you’ve been surrounded by people your whole life who don’t see what you do. I’ve been surrounded by people who see way more than I do, and I gotta tell you, it hurts sometimes.”

  Angel felt the hurt then, rolling off him, and wondered what to say.

  “Well, yeah.” Tucker nodded. “But they share it with you, right? And I’m telling you, that brood of yours? Even I’d get creeped out by all that witchiness. They need you. You keep them grounded. People need to eat, and they need a roof over their heads. You make that happen. That’s gotta be worth it, right?”

  Josh smiled kindly, and although most of the time he just seemed like a big goofy kid, Angel could suddenly see the “dad” in him that Tucker seemed to gravitate to.

  “Yeah, it is. But it’s nice of you to point that out. So, this room of yours…?”

  Tucker swung the door open, and Squishbeans, who had been gamboling at their heels as they walked in, suddenly hissed, spat, and darted away. That didn’t bode well—Tucker and Angel ignored the curling wallpaper and the floor. While Josh went to assess the workload, their eyes swung immediately to the desk, and the paperweight on top of it.

  It was almost black.

  “Oh my God,” Tucker muttered. “Angel, that’s not good.”

  “I know it.” It wasn’t just black—it was sentiently black—the crawling, angry black of a trapped and tortured soul.

  They both looked at Josh, who was rocking back on his heels and whistling. “So, you just planned on grabbing the paper and ripping it off?”