All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (30 page)

My left eyelid
opened a crack.

The water shimmered
like liquid silver, like mercury escaped from the thermometer. I
opened my other eye and stared. Somehow, without moving, I’d
arrived at the fountain, but now I didn’t know what to do. I’d
forgotten why I wanted to get to the water in the first place.

Until a drop
splashed onto my hand.

The cool of it, the
wetness, reminded me what water was for and I plunged my face into
it, sucked it into my mouth. Nothing ever tasted so good.

I did my best to
drink the entire contents of the fountain. My head throbbed with the
cold of the water but I didn’t stop. My belly bulged with the
weight of it but I didn’t stop. It seemed like I’d gone
so long without it, I didn’t want to take it for granted. What
if I never saw water again?

Eventually
I came up for air. I pulled my face out of the water, threw my head
back imagining droplets flying from me, tossed into the air by my
wet hair like supermodel Elle MacPherson doing a
Sports
Illustrated
swimsuit
edition shoot.

No one ever accused
me of being a super model.

I remained on my
knees, face tilted skyward looking at the dark clouds and wishing
for sunshine. How good it would feel to have the sun’s warming
rays shining on my face, drying the water on my cheeks. I closed my
eyes to imagine the feeling and it suddenly felt like years since I
last saw the sun.

“
Icarus.”

I opened my eyes at
the sound of my name but didn’t move as I attempted to
determine if I’d actually heard it. Water splashed and flowed.
My breath whispered through my lips. Nothing else.

My imagination.

“
Icarus.”

Definitely not my
imagination. A woman’s voice spoke the word, though it sounded
indistinct and warbly, disguised by the sound of the fountain. I
lowered my head slowly, my aching muscles tensing.

The water cascading
down the fountain transformed the figure of the woman standing
opposite me into a shimmering silhouette. I made out her dark hair
and light skin but no other features. My mouth dropped open at her
beauty. We stayed in that frozen tableau for a minute until she
stepped out from behind the watery curtain.

“
Piper?”

I jammed my fists
into my eyes, determined to wipe her away if she should be an
illusion. When I took them away, she remained. She raised her hand
and twiddled her fingers in a gesture of hello.

“
Piper!”

I jumped up, my
overworked muscles suddenly feeling revitalized—by the water,
by her presence, by both. I circumnavigated the fountain and threw
my arms around the angel. She returned the embrace, head laid on my
shoulder, hair tickling the tip of my nose. I breathed deep to have
the aroma of her but smelled only water and dust.

After a minute
enjoying her body pressed against mine, I leaned back and looked
into her dark eyes. She smiled.

“
Where
have you been?”

Not to my surprise,
she shrugged. It did, however, catch me off guard when she leaned
forward and pressed her lips against mine. I didn’t resist. An
excitement built in my stomach as the kiss prolonged, turning from
‘hello, I missed you, friend’ into something more. She
finished the kiss and pulled away leaving a tingle of excitement in
my stomach but I quickly realized it resided there alone, the usual
angelic jolt of her touch missing. My concerned eyebrows dipped
toward the bridge of my nose.

“
Is
something wrong?”

Her smile withered.
“Trevor.”

“
You
told me: Poe brought him here.”

In my desire to
quench my thirst, I’d put thoughts of Trevor’s plight
and my anger at Poe out of my mind but the mention of his name
brought it all back full force.

“
It’s
worse, Icarus.”

“
Worse?”
The statement made my heart beat faster, threatening to turn into an
out of control train. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“
Poe
lost him.”

My arms slipped
from around her, I took a step back, dumfounded.

“
Lost
him? What do you mean?”

“
He’s
gone. She doesn’t know where he is.”

“
She
doesn’t know where he is?” The volume of my voice crept
up a few decibels. “She brought my son to Hell and lost him?”

Piper put her hand
on my shoulder—again, no tingle or shock.

“
I
sense he’s unharmed for now.”

“
For
now.” I felt like a freaking parrot, but my distressed brain
refused to find words of its own.

“
I’m
looking for him right now.”

I stared into her
eyes, finally understanding why her touch had no effect—she
wasn’t really here.

But what about
the kiss?

My brain shook back
into line and rediscovered how to form original sentences.

“
I
have to get out of here.” I looked around at the fountain, the
stone walls. “Help me get out of here.”

Her hand fell away
from my shoulder and she stepped back, head shaking side to side,
her opacity fading the way a shadow begins to lighten as sun breaks
through the clouds. I reached for her and my fingers passed through
her hand.

“
Don’t
go,” I pleaded. “I need your help. Show me how to get
out of here.”

“
I
can’t,” she replied, her voice becoming ghostly the same
way as her form. “I’ll find him, Icarus. I’ll make
him safe for you.”

She disappeared
with a wave of her hand and I stood, jaw clenched in anger,
shoulders slumped in defeat. I sagged down, sat on the edge of the
fountain and hung my head. The water swirled and eddied into
miniature whirlpools, capturing my attention.

A picture formed,
became a scene.

In the water, I saw
Trevor sitting on a rock, shivering with fear, alone. In the
distance, Poe danced and cavorted, surrounded by others engaged in
the same reckless dance. They disappeared into the darkness at the
horizon, fading into Hell’s night. Trevor called out weakly,
the terror he felt evident in his voice. He stood and waved his arms
in desperation. Behind him, great black wings spread out, enveloping
the night.

They wrapped around
him and the vision disappeared.

I stood abruptly,
shaking off the shock, replacing it with anger at what Poe had done.

How could she
desert my son?

I headed for the
nearest corridor striding fast, purposefully, though I didn’t
know where to go. All I knew was I needed to find my son.

And Poe.

†‡†

I stared down at
the thread running between my feet.

Fine, black, barely
noticeable, Hell’s dirt camouflaged the tiny filament. I bent
at the waist to get a better look, reached out and brushed away the
dust partially obscuring it, careful not to touch it. It continued
toward the corner ahead of me. I pivoted, looked back along my path,
and saw the thread disappeared five feet behind me. Stepping
carefully so as not to tread on it, I went to where I no longer saw
it, moved a pebble and some dirt and found this was where the line
of thread started.

Or ended.

More than two hours
had passed since I left the fountain, in my best judgment—probably
not great judgment given the lack of sun crossing the sky, the lack
of difference between night and day, and not wearing a watch. Maybe
longer, maybe less...whatever. I’d traversed the corridors
desperately at first, convinced I’d find my way out through
the sheer will to rescue my son. For the last while, I’d more
or less wandered aimlessly, with no idea where to go, trying not to
despair.

I was about to give
up when I spotted the thread.

I picked up the
end, brought it toward my face, and eight feet of it came up out of
the dirt, dust falling from it like a builder’s chalk line. I
gave it a little tug and it stretched like any thread would, so I
pulled harder.

It snapped.

“
Shit.”

I dropped the piece
remaining in my hand and strode forward to find where the other end
went. It coiled in a small pile ten feet down the corridor, the
frayed end pointing toward me. I picked it up, stared at it running
down the corridor out of sight and sighed. I felt manipulated, but
did I have any other, better choice? For all I knew, I’d been
wandering the labyrinth for days without a glimmer of finding an
exit.

Fuck it.

I followed the
thread, tracing its path hand over hand, careful not to tug too hard
and break it again. It ran straight for a while past a couple of
openings, then right, left, left, right. With each step, hope grew
inexplicably in me, fortifying my effort, quickening my pace.

Two more lefts, a
long straightaway and a final right brought me into a huge open
space filled with people milling about like a crowd waiting for a
train. They looked much like the people we’d seen in the city,
though perhaps a little less dirty and aromatic, a little more
confused-looking. The thread ran right into the middle of them.

I stared,
incredulous.

All this time,
they were so close.

I didn’t see
any way out of the ceiling-less room, so I decided following the
thin, black guide line was the best course of action. A deep breath
filled my lungs, my stomach gurgled reminding me that, though I’d
quenched my thirst, I hadn’t eaten in a while, but I could
deal with hunger. I waded into the crowd.

The black thread
slid through my fingers as shoulders and elbows jostled me. The ones
who bumped into me didn’t seem to notice they’d done so
and I fought the urge to get angry at them like I’d have done
in your average, earthbound mob.

“
Hey,”
I admonished when one particularly solid shoulder spun me
one-hundred-eighty degrees.

The man who’d
bumped me turned toward the sound of my voice. I recognized him
immediately as the steroid-gorilla I’d met watching the door
at Rocky’s 24-Hour Fitness Center. Even in Hell, his muscles
were big enough to make it appear as though someone stuck two
full-sized men together into one body.

I didn’t
know he died.

He looked at me
with the same confused look all the others wore—they must have
been handing them out at the door—and his lips moved without
creating any sound. Unfortunately, I’m the world’s worst
lip reader, so I don’t know what he said. Maybe checking to
see if I remembered my club pass. I gazed into his defeated eyes and
a vision came to my mind of him sitting in an empty bathtub, his
shoulders shaking with sobs. It was the night Alfred died, and there
was blood on the knife he held in his right hand, on his jeans, in
the tub. My heart plummeted into my gut and I opened my mouth to say
something but he lost interest and disappeared into the crowd as
well as any man who stood six inches taller than everyone else
could.