On Unfaithful Wings (14 page)

“It happens.” She shrugged, sipped more of her shake then smiled, happy with the sweet drink and probably delighted with not talking about herself.

I shifted in my seat, stole a peek at the woman still eating her fries and reading the paper. Alone. I knew how she must have felt.

“I’ll do it. To get Trevor back if for nothing else.”

She made a face. “What’s Tr--”

She stopped mid-word and jammed the straw back into her mouth, sucking in milk shake to drown the rest of her statement.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Poe...?”

“Nothing, Icarus. I just...nothing.”

I stared across the table at her and she refused to meet my eyes. Her nervous demeanor was both annoying and endearing. After a moment I realized I wouldn’t get anything more out of her, so I turned the conversation to something that had been on my mind.

“Who was the other guy?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“With the Carrions. Tall, dark. Kinda looked like the Undertaker. You know, the wrestler? Mikey said it’s his fault I’m dead.”

Her smile disappeared. “Azrael.”

“The angel of death? Isn’t he one of the good guys?”

“Used to be,” she said. And then, more to herself, “What was he doing there?”

“Used to be?” The big woman at the table beside us coughed. I glanced over, not thinking much of it. “What happened? Why would he want to kill me?” Perhaps a stupid question regarding someone called ‘the angel of death.’

“I don’t know. You’re my job, and the others, so I don’t hear much gossip. I spend most of my time in your world.”

Angel gossip?

The obese woman wheezed. She’d stopped eating, her eyes grown wide behind the glasses slid down to the tip of her nose. A light shade of pink colored her cheeks.

“Are you okay?” I asked the fat lady, but she didn’t seem to hear over the din of the restaurant’s drunken customers. One hand went to her throat, the other pounded once on the top of the table. The color of her cheeks deepened to scarlet.

“She’s choking.” I moved to stand, but Poe caught my arm, the electric charge of her touch flowing across my skin, making the hairs on my arm stand up.

“Don’t interfere, Icarus. What must happen will happen.”

I shot her an angry look and moved toward the woman anyway. “You’re crazy. If I don’t help, she might die.”

“Yes.” Her grip on my arm tightened to a degree a woman of her size shouldn’t have been able. She dragged me back into my seat. “Don’t interfere.”

I did as she said, watching in horror while the woman’s face went purple. She looked my direction, her bulging eyes pleading for help, but Poe’s hand remained on my arm, pinning me in the seat. A passing waitress saw the choking-in-progress and dropped her armload of breakfasts and burgers, her scream all but drowned out by the crash of dishes hitting floor. A man jumped to the woman’s aid, attempted to reach his arms around her girth and perform the Hiemlich, but couldn’t encircle her completely. Others rushed to help, like when Alfred died. At least there was no blood this time. Thank God--my stomach wouldn’t have handled it.

A minute passed, then two. The woman struggled to draw breath while the people who came to help forced fingers into her mouth to clear whatever obstruction clogged her thick throat. Her eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible. After another minute, her fight for life diminished. Her panicked look faded, the thrashing ceased. The jumble of helpers reminded me of the doctors and nurses who tried to save me when they knew I couldn’t be helped. The fat woman was also beyond saving.

In the midst of the tumult, a woman appeared. She didn’t sing, but I recognized her as the soul of the fat lady, not a mortal, and this surely indicated it was over. Intrigued, I watched as the woman’s soul appraised the chaos surrounding her earthly form. She was no child like Alfred’s spirit, nor overweight. In fact, she looked like the corpse’s slimmer, better looking sister.

“Poe,” I said and she released my arm. “What’s happening?”

“You know what’s happening. Do you think it’s a coincidence you sat beside a woman and she died fifteen minutes later?”

My head snapped toward the angel like someone replaced my neck with an over-wound watch spring. “I’m responsible for her death?”

“No. But you knew it would happen.”

I looked back at the woman’s soul. She’d picked me out in the crowded restaurant and taken a few steps toward me. I shrank back in my seat.

“Can you help me?” the slender version of the fat woman asked.

I didn’t say anything.

“He can,” Poe said.

I shot her an angry glance. “Poe--”

“She needs you.”

I gritted my teeth, biting back further protest. Without a scroll, I didn’t know what to do. I leaned across the table so only Poe heard me.

“I don’t know how to help her. You have to find someone else.”

“There’s no one else. You’re her only chance.”

I glanced sideways at the woman who waited for us to finish our whispered conversation. Poe’s expression changed, took on a firm aspect I hadn’t seen on the timid angel’s face before. It scared me a bit, but I felt proud of her, too.

“If you don’t help her cross, the Carrions will.”

The thought of those two men made me cringe. I closed my eyes and pictured the one pinned between two cars, arms waving angrily, oblivious his legs were crushed to oatmeal under him. The sonic boom of one of their fireballs echoed through my memory.

A deep breath to keep me calm. Unsuccessful

I can’t let them have her.

I opened my eyes to Poe’s serious expression.

“You’re sure?”

“A Carrion took me once.” She paused. “She will suffer if you don’t help.”

Poe’s statement raised my eyebrow, but I didn’t put voice to the questions it provoked, not now. I looked at the spirit instead. Behind her, the chaos settled as the fat woman’s fate became clear. The waitress who first saw her sat hunched over in a booth, body trembling with sobs. The man who attempted to help her wiped his arm across his forehead, clearing the sweat of his efforts. Others who offered aid stood, heads hung. These people didn’t known this woman, yet they did their best to help without being asked, without knowing what kind of person they attempted to revive.

I looked at the woman. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “It was my time.”

“I’ll help you.”

But will I survive long enough to regret it?

“Thank you.”

She threw her arms around my neck. I looked over her shoulder at Poe and saw the angel’s smile return with a vengeance. My lip quivered and pulled up a bit at the corner against my better judgment. After a minute, I started to think the woman would never let me go, so I pushed her gently away.

“Do I take her to the toy store?”

“They’ll contact you.”

“What? When?”

“I don’t know.”

I leaned toward Poe again, lowering my voice. I didn’t want the woman to know the man who’d offered to save her from damnation didn’t have a freaking clue what to do next.

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the Carrions?” The words hissed through my teeth.

“Take her to your motel,” Poe said in a conversational volume. “Don’t let anyone in.”

I nodded. It didn’t make a hell-of-a-lot of sense, but nothing did. What sense was there that my guardian angel told me to take a spirit to my motel room to protect her from the forces of Hell?

Cuckoo.

What else could I do?

“What else can I do?”

“Nothing, I think.” Poe patted my arm then drained her milk shake. “This isn’t my department.”

I should have been annoyed with her response, but the way she said it nearly made me laugh. She slid her bum along the seat of the booth and stood; I followed suit.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“I’m not going with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve done the collecting, that’s what Michael wanted me to supervise.”

“Where are you going?” I glanced at the woman’s soul, wondered what she thought of our amateurish display. She waited patiently, apparently unconcerned.

“I have other clients to see.” Poe’s grin became sheepish, and she looked away. “But you’re my favorite.”

The burn of embarrassment rose in my cheeks. “Oh.”

“I’ll catch up to you later.” She surprised me by standing on her tiptoes and pecking me on the cheek. The tingling sensation it created covered half my face. “Good luck. Thanks for the shake.”

She spun on her heel and hurried out of the restaurant, leaving me a spirit with whom I didn’t know what to do.

And the bill.

***

She perched on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap, watching me fidget in the uncomfortable chair beside the TV--the one I’d sat in when Mike showed me Hell. The walk from Denny’s had been uneventful and silent. What do you say to someone who recently croaked while eating her super chicken sandwich?

“Thank you for this, Icarus.”

“Ric.” What’s so hard about calling me Ric? “What’s your name?”

“Sondra.” She glanced around the room, a hint of dismay in her eyes: she didn’t understand what was going on, a feeling with which I sympathized. “This isn’t what I expected death to be.”

“No, me either,” I said, more to myself than to her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She shuffled her feet, rubbed her hands together. “What happens next?”

“We wait.”
Please don’t ask me what we’re waiting for.

“For what?”

Damn it.
“For someone to tell me where to take you.”

“You don’t know where I’m going?” Her eyes widened, the timbre of her voice inched toward panic. Her fingers dug into her thighs. “But I went to church every Sunday. I said my prayers. I never even...” She lowered her eyes. “I never even had sex.”

Perhaps I needed to work on my bedside manner. I paused, breathed deep, and took another stab at it.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m just not sure where to drop you off.”

“But where will I end up?” She looked at me, eyes desperate but hinting regret. I guess everyone keeps secrets they worry might condemn them to Hell, even church-going, prayer-saying virgins

“If you’re with me, you’re going up.”

She nodded and looked understandably relieved. What a bummer it would have been to have kept yourself pure, died a virgin, then find out you’re destined for Hell, regardless.

Uncomfortable seconds filled the space between us. I considered flipping the TV on but, at quarter-to-four in the morning, reruns of programs centered around death--CSI, Law & Order-- dominated the programming. Or info-mercials. I didn’t think any of those choices would be preferred viewing for the newly deceased, so I left it off and dealt with the silence.

“What’s a Carrion?” she asked after a few minutes of nothing.

“You don’t want to know.”

A knock at the door.

I leapt out of the chair and rushed across the room, my movement making Sondra jump. I reached the door in a stride-and-a-half and stopped with my hand on the knob. Two things might be on the other side of the door: relief from the crushing discomfort fallen between Sondra and I or a fate worse than death. I released the knob slowly, not liking the odds.

“What’s wrong?”

I quieted her with a finger to my lips, crept to the window beside the door and put my eye to the slim crack between the curtains. I didn’t need to see a face--the black trench worn by our visitor told me all I needed to know. I closed the curtain and backed across the room.

“Icarus?”

“It’s all right, Sondra. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The phone rang, loud and harsh in the tense quiet, startling both of us. I stared at it, like my gaze might see through its hard plastic and reveal the caller. It didn’t, so I sat on the bed beside Sondra, hand on the receiver while it rang three more times. Deep breath.

I picked it up.

“What?”

“Hello, Icarus.”

Though I’d only heard her voice once before, I recognized it immediately.

“Gabe. Thank God.”

“I’ll pass along the message. You okay?”

“There’s a Carrion outside the door. I don’t know if I can hold him off.” I glanced at Sondra and offered her a pathetic version of a comforting smile. Fear and confusion contorted her mouth into a thin line.

“You’re safe. He won’t enter your room.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Hold tight until morning. The antique store down the street, across from Denny’s. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Good. Go there at dawn, someone will meet you.”