Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel) (13 page)

Ugly Robert’s face glowed a bright shade of red, his expression tugged into exaggerated menace, making him worthy of his nickname. The baseball bat he held cocked in his hands shook with what was more likely fear than anger. His eyes widened when he saw Cory.

“
What the fuck are you doing? Why didn’t answer me?”

Cory took a step out of the bathroom, but Robert moved, blocking him.

“You’re supposed to be in school, you little fucker. What are you doing here?”

Cory didn’t say anything. He pushed past, leaving the man who insisted he call him stepfather standing in the hall outside the bathroom, yelling at him as he slammed his bedroom door. He knew Ugly Robert wouldn’t follow him; he’d soon tire of shouting and return to his ancient porno movies he’d shown Cory once as his way of telling the boy about the birds and the bees.

He threw his clothes on the dresser and dug his hand into his pocket, the tip of his finger grazing the edge of the razor. Cory pulled it out expecting to have more blood to clean up, but there was none, not a cut or even a nick.

Cory sat down on his bed, razor blade in hand, and started experimenting.

“
I don’t know anyone named Chan Wu. I’m only eight, you know.”

“
Yeah, you were eight when you died, but I get the sense you’ve been around a lot longer, Dee.”

Without asking, I’d decided to call her Dee because two syllables seemed at least one too many. I regarded her with a lopsided, sarcastic smirk-thing astride my face as she sat on the park bench beside me, legs curled beneath her.

She returned my half-smile in the best spirit of reduce/reuse/recycle, but didn’t say anything to address my assumption. The soul sitting beside me clearly belonged to an eight-year-old and, as I’d found in my brief stint as a harvester, a person’s true age is reflected by their spirit, but something unusual about this one bothered me. Sometimes, when I peeked at her out of the corner of my eye, she seemed different, older. Still Dallas/Dido/Dee, but with more years under her belt, and presumably more knowledge and wisdom.

“
If it makes you feel better, we can search for him.” She slapped me twice on the knee, the way a parent might do to a child. Reassuring? Condescending? “But we have to find the dead lady’s son, too.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you were there? Looking for clues.”

“No, I was watching Spongebob. You were, though.”

“
I was trying to find you.” I paused. “And clues, but Mikey told me to drop it.”

She laughed a high-pitched, little girl laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand to prevent it from happening again. Blood rose in my cheeks along with a touch of annoyance in my chest; somewhere behind me, a duck quacked.

“And you always do what he says, I suppose?”

“
Touché.” I’d never been good with authority figures in general, but I found the archangel Michael in particular most difficult to obey. “You’re right. I don’t care what Mikey says.” The urge to make sure neither he nor any weird nephalim minions all the rage in urban fantasy were listening almost overtook me.

“
So what are we going to do?”

“
First, we’re going to find this Chan Wu.”

An exasperated breath. “Because Michael said so. Icarus--”

“Ric, and no, not because of him. Because I’m concerned about what will happen to you if you stay here too long.”

“
And the devil-child?”

I glanced away to the cloud-scudded sky. Two small, blue-green birds flitted past. “I think I found something.”

“Really?” Dee’s eyes widened and she bounced on her knees. “What did you find?”

I shrugged in the manner of a man downplaying his findings, because I was a man downplaying his findings. Truthfully, I’d probably found nothing but a coincidence.

“I saw a photo of Meg and some guy. I think I’ve met him somewhere, sometime.”

She stared at me for a few seconds. Ducks mulled around the muddy ground near our feet, waiting for scraps of bread like I owed them money. Since I didn’t have any with me today, I had to resist the urge to apologize to them. I didn’t, because that seemed borderline loopy.

“That’s it?” She sighed and slouched back onto her legs, deflated.
Why is she so concerned about finding this kid?
“A guy in a photo you might know is going to lead us to a devil who walks the earth?”

Sounds silly when you put it that way.

“Well, there was another picture of her and another guy. She was holding a baby.” I cleared my throat and spoke the next words mostly under my breath. “A baby girl.”

The perplexed expression on her face bore a striking resemblance to one that often resided on my kisser in the first few weeks after my very unzombie-like rise from the dead. Good knowing I’m not the only easily confused.

“And?”

I shook my head, feeling a little superior. “She said her son was the devil, not her daughter. Did you see anything in the house to suggest a young girl lived there?”

“No.”

“
And did you notice the front door was locked even though we didn’t lock it when we left?”

“
Couldn’t the guys in the black coats have been there and locked it?”

“
Maybe, but would they have wiped the blob of jelly off the corpse’s cheek, too?”

She pursed her lips, considering what I’d said, then looked over my shoulder, past me. A prickle ran along the nape of my neck as a group of four swallows wheeled by and landed in the willow. Three more followed. I watched them twittering and hopping amongst the lower branches as more joined them.

“Hi, Gabe.”

Dido continued to stare past me, eyes wide and lips parted. I’m not sure why she reacted this way; she’d seen Gabe before at the coffee shop. Perhaps the closer proximity affected her more, as it did me; the archangel’s presence pressed against my back with the force of a living thing.

I twisted around to see the archangel Gabriel standing two or three feet behind the bench. As usual, she wore no coat. Her short sleeves, jeans, and copious amount of freckles likely didn’t offer much protection from a chilly winter day, but I’d come to realize angels don’t notice such things. Gabe came to the front of the bench and I saw she wasn’t wearing shoes or socks, either; mud squelched between her toes.

“
Hello Icarus.” She paused as though attempting to recall my companion’s name, then cleared her throat. “Dallas.”

The young girl diverted her eyes, guiding them toward the duck pond as though Gabe had caught her breaking the park’s rules. The ducks quacked, but Dee didn’t say anything, not even bothering to correct Gabe on her name. I looked at the archangel’s smiling face and glowing eyes and fell in love with her again, as I did every time I saw her.

“To what do we owe the pleasure, Gabe?”

She giggled. “Oh, I think you know.”

“You missed me? You’ve come to tell me you’re finally ready to grab a drink with me? Give up your archangelhood for a chance to spend some time with me?”

Her smile remained as she shook her head and pulled a scroll out of a back pocket with no right to fit one. She held it out to me; swallows whistled in the willow above, teasing me.

“I was afraid you’d say that.” I took the scroll, careful our fingers didn’t touch but wishing they did. “Anyone I know?”

“
No.” She curled and uncurled her toes, kneading mud and duck shit between them. “Does it matter?”

“
Not really.” I turned to Dido. “I guess our other plans will have to wait.”

She didn’t respond. Hell, she might not even have been breathing, making me ponder whether spirits drew breath or not...I’d never noticed.

“Hey Gabe, do you know where we can find a guy named Chan Wu?” I turned back to her, happiness brewing inside me at the prospect of gazing upon her again the way it must do for a puppy realizing its master is home, but she’d disappeared already. The swallows hopping between branches took to the air with a throb of tiny wings as though they shared one mind. They raced for the horizon with the speed of a flock chased by a hungry hawk.

“
Haven’t seen her do that before,” I muttered and faced the young girl. “What’s going on? Cat got your tongue?”

“
Is she gone?” she asked out of the side of her mouth, not moving her gaze from the ducks bobbing back and forth on the pond.

“
She’s gone.” I leaned my elbow on the back of the bench. Dee released her breath, lips fluttering.
One question answered.
“What was that all about?”

She finally directed her gaze my way. “She hates me.”

***

I pulled the thorny branch of a blackberry bush off the sleeve of my coat and pushed on over the soggy ground covered with decayed leaves frosted around the edges. A drainage ditch seemed an odd spot, but that’s what it said on the scroll; we were close, so I decided to let my curiosity free. Honestly, I’m not sure why I kept it in check so long.

“How can you think Gabe hates you? That...woman doesn’t hate anything. I caught her loving on a mosquito sucking her blood one time.”

Okay, I made the mosquito bit up.

“She does.”

“
But why?”

“
Just the feeling I get from her.”

“
Come on, Dallas. What happened?”

“
Leave it alone, Icarus.”

“
Ric.”

“
Dido.”

“
Whatever. Tell me why you think the most loving being in the universe hates you and I’ll use your preferred name.”

She hesitated and I thought she might be considering my proposal.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“
It’s close. Don’t change the subject.”

“
No, Icarus, look.”

“
Ric.”

She raised her arm and pointed; I took the bait, but it turned out not to be bait.

Ahead, the drainage ditch flowed into a culvert tall enough for a man to walk through if he wasn’t afraid to bump his head once in a while. Running water gurgled into it and disappeared into the darkness beyond; a shadowy figure crept out of it. My heart skipped a beat or two.

“
Shit! What time is it?”

Dido regarded me with a shrug and a look designed to make me feel stupid for thinking an eight-year-old would have a watch, so I hauled up my sleeve and read the time on mine.

“Eight thirty-three. Damn it. T.O.D. was scheduled for eight thirty-two. You made us late.”

“
What? What did I--”

“
Come on.”

I hurried forward, slipping on the muddy bank and worrying I’d end up in the water with a twisted ankle and a wet ass. The figure paused beside the mouth of the culvert and I searched the shadow around him, but didn’t see anyone else.

“Thank God.”

“
What?” Dee pressed right up behind me, peeking around my back.

“
He’s not running. Do you see anyone? Black overcoat?”

“
No one other than you.”

It was true, I’d liberated my overcoat from a carrion I’d found melted outside the door of my motel room not so long ago. I resembled one of the bad guy and might have worried the newly dislodged spirit would panic at the sight of me, but the likelihood he’d ever heard of a carrion was slim, never mind knowing how one dressed.

I needed to take action to keep him from bolting because, in the tangle of brush and brambles, he might be difficult to catch. My companion proved a disembodied soul wandering around on their own was a better option than one taken to Hell, but I wanted another tag-along as much as I wanted the complete collection of ABBA LPs. No one needed more ABBA, and I’d be better off without more black marks on my record, too.

In my concentration to keep my feet, I’d forgotten the spirit’s name. I considered pulling the scroll out of the inside pocket of my coat and rereading it, but it was getting too dark to see the angelic calligraphy, so I searched my foggy memory. A short and simple name, I remembered that much.

We moved closer and I kept my gaze on him, my mind rolling through a list of possibilities.

Dan. Bill. Al. Sean. Todd. Dick.

He was staying put, rocking back and forth foot to foot like he either needed to take a wicked piss, or in deep consideration about taking off. Of all the names, Todd seemed closest, but not quite right.

Todd. Tad. Ted. Tim...Tom!

That was it. But what was his last name?

Fuck it.

“Tom!”

He glanced toward us and I waved, hoping to keep him calm until I got my hands on him. His disquieted rocking ceased. I jumped over a large limb torn from a tree in some recent storm and splashed through a puddle of mud that sucked at my shoe. I despised the squishy muck soaking through my sock, plastering it to my foot, but sacrificing my comfort put me close enough to grab him if he made a run for it.

He didn’t. Instead, he stayed where he was, his gaze sliding from me, to Dido, to the water in the drainage ditch near his feet.

A set of rusty iron bars designed to keep people and animals out blocked the culvert. The cage protecting this end appeared solid and properly spaced, but the ones on the far side must have failed because amongst the leaves, garbage and branches caught against the bars, a body lay face down, water gurgling around it.

“Who are you?” Tom asked.

“
Friends,” I said pulling up beside him. I didn’t put my hand on his arm yet, but it hovered close by.

He nodded toward the corpse. “And who’s that?”

I hesitated before answering—a habit I needed to break with a rookie tagging along. In the space I left, Dido walked through the grate, stooped, and grabbed the body by the shoulder to roll it over, exposing Tom’s dead face.

Body and soul were of similar age: late teens, I figured. When Tom-the-spirit recognized Tom-the-body, he gasped and took a shocked step back; his spirit foot went off the bank and into the water, causing him to stumble and, coincidentally, removing his arm from within my reach.