Something More Than Night (34 page)

“Crap,” she said, wishing she had taken Martin’s offer any of the countless times he’d spoken grandly about teaching her to throw a punch.

The
penitente
flexed her arms, preparing to hurl Molly across the lobby. Molly clamped a hand around the woman’s forearm. She pulled herself closer, until they were almost nose-to-nose. The searing heat of holy fire washed across her face. Instant sunburn. She squinted, peering through the blazing Pleromatic overlay to the human woman’s face. Something glistened in the corner of her right eye.

Molly flicked the first
penitente’s
soul fragment into the woman’s left eye.

There was a scream, the death rattle of bifurcated light, and then Molly tumbled to the floor, alone. The migraine metastasized into her arms, legs, spine. She narrowly avoided choking on the contents of her stomach.

Molly was still lying there when two pairs of shoes scuffled across the floor. She opened her eyes. Anne stood in the doorway.

“Moll?”

So did Martin.

19

THE FINAL CLUE

The tunnel was long; the light at the end, warm. My
penitente
host’s body felt peaceful, all hurts and worries forgotten. There was music, and the soothing voices of loved ones called to him.

We were in a clinic, lying on a gurney, staring at the ceiling. Poor sap had a bad case of tunnel vision. The mooks in the car had slugged him hard. The soothing voices said something about a subdural hematoma, and then the voices weren’t soothing any longer.

Not that my host noticed. He was juiced to the gills on Class II painkillers.

So I had no choice but to listen to the whole spiel while the quacks read the headlines to a pair of sad sacks I could only assume were the parents. I was waiting for a chance to flick the fragment out of my host’s eye. By the time we came around they already had him junked up nicely. He had all the conviction and muscle tone of an anorexic kitten. I could have done a mean Lindy Hop on the head of a pin with half the effort it would have taken to lift his arms just then. I managed to flutter an eyelid. They thought it was brain damage.

Somewhere in the Pleroma my essence sat at a table, staring at a pile of soul fragments. I hope it remembered to blink from time to time. Otherwise my peepers would sting like nobody’s business when I made it home. Meanwhile, my focus was embedded in the
penitente
while the quacks explained how we’d been dumped on the side of the road, apparently the victim of a mugging.

What about the library,
I wanted to ask.
They were headed for the library, to kill another PI recipient.

But they didn’t answer my question. They were too concerned with bad influences and brain injuries, the drips.

I kept up the fluttering, working that eyelid for all it was worth, winking and blinking at everybody in the room like a happy-time girl at her first day on the job. Eventually, a nurse noticed. I hope they gave him a raise.

He said, “He’s got something in his eye,” and reached forward—

—and then I was back in my Magisterium. My eyes burned. I doused them under the kitchen faucet and then went to call flametop. She beat me to the punch, though, because the telephone rang before I had it in my hands.

“Where the hell have you been?”

That’s not exactly what she said. It was bluer than that. Indigo.

*   *   *

I arrived to find three loogans sprawled on the floor and two birds, a twist and a mugg, giving flametop a wary eye. The mugg looked like a world-class cokie. The twist, though, now she was a dish.

The mugg I’d seen before. He was the dull little monkey I’d pegged for the job opening in the Choir, before his sister went and hurled herself under that train. I wondered how things might have been different now if I’d collared the hard boy. He couldn’t possibly have been more trouble than the little sister.

The dish, I gathered, was a PI recipient my partner had taken under her wing. Talk about a mother-hen complex.

Molly looked relieved to see me. That was a first, and it didn’t bode well.

“What’s the score, angel?” I asked.

“The Cherubim came for Anne.” She nodded toward the dish. “They were riding
penitentes,
just as you said.”

Cherubim? I blinked. “Can’t help but notice you’re still in one piece.”

“Barely.”

“Where are they? Our friends with the hot faces.”

“They’re gone. For now.”

“What, they went for a powder?”

“No,” she said. It wasn’t a boast and it wasn’t false modesty. She seemed too bushed for either. Weary as somebody who’d just fought two Cherubim to a standstill. Who, I wondered for the hundredth time, was this crazy dame?

I whistled. “Not too shabby.” She swayed on her feet, like a tree in high winds. “You okay, kid?”

She cast a glance at the moping couple. Were they an item? They shared a body language that fairly jangled with wariness when they looked at flametop.

What had they witnessed? Had she shed her human disguise and given them an eyeful of the blazing form she’d unveiled in my hotel room? Well, they weren’t gibbering loons, and so far METATRON hadn’t reared its incorporeal head for another tongue lashing. Whatever she’d done here, flametop had managed to keep a lid on it.

“I’m tired as hell,” said Molly. “I’m tired of all this shit.”

“You look like you haven’t slept since Teapot Dome. Dangle, why don’t you. Take a breather.”

“I can’t. Not yet. I need to check on the others.”

“You can do that after you’ve caught some z’s.”

She shook her head. Stubborn frail. “I need you to protect Anne until I return.”

I could see she’d made up her mind. By now I knew the futility of arguing with her. I relented. She gathered a swirling eddy of dust in the cup of her hand, breathed on it, then blew it in my face. I inhaled knowledge of the dish’s home. Then she made the introductions.

“Anne, this is Bayliss.”

I tipped my hat. “How’s tricks?”

The dish looked amused. Or confused. Maybe both. “Who is he?”

“Bayliss is, um, sort of a coworker. I guess.”

“I like to think of myself as a mentor. A font of wisdom and experience.”

The dish—Anne—said, “You guys …
work
 … together?”

“Sort of,” said Molly.

I said, “Partners in crime,” and winked. Mine is a charming wink. Anne thought so. It broke the ice.

“Bayliss will take you home. He’s annoying, and he’s a sexist pig at times. Otherwise, he’s okay.”

“Careful, doll. You’ll give me a big head.”

Anne looked me over. Apparently finding the bus fare acceptable, she gave a little shrug. Then she jerked her head toward the cokie and raised her eyebrows. I don’t know what the question was, but Molly’s answer was, “Yeah.”

Flametop spoke to me with a quiet fervor. “Do
not
leave her side. First sign of trouble, you bolt.” She started to glow again. “Keep her safe. Got it?”

“Yes, I got it.”

Molly said, “I’ll catch up quick as I can.”

I offered my arm to the dish named Anne. “Let’s blow, sister.”

*   *   *

“I thought you were dead. I saw…” Martin’s sunken eyes overflowed with tears. “I’m so confused.”

“Shhh, shhh.” Molly put her arms around him, careful that her halo didn’t burn him. “I know. You’re not crazy.” He hadn’t showered in a couple of days, but nothing dodgy laced the musky scent of his sweat. “Hey, you must have known I’d always watch over you. Right?”

“Why didn’t you come to me? Call me? Send me a note?”

“Because you saw me fall.” She hugged him tighter. “I thought the shock of seeing me again would be too much.”

“You didn’t think being alone was worse?”

“I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

He wiped the tears away, looked her up and down. “God, Moll. You look … you look like nothing happened.” He frowned. “What
did
happen?”

She took his face in her hands. “That is a super long conversation. I promise we’ll have it. Soon. But not now.” She went up on her toes, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the forehead. It was a greeting and an apology, but not a benediction. “Love you, big brother.”

He reached for her. “You can’t go now.”

“Really, really have to.” She lifted Martin’s hand from her shoulder and gently pulled free. Anne was safe for the moment. But what of the others?

“But you’ll come back? Promise me.”

“I promise, you goon.” That made him smile. “But you can do something for me while I’m out.”

“Yeah?” The look on Martin’s face was so earnest, so puppyish, she wanted to hug him again.

“Get a job.” And then he was crying and laughing at the same time, because clearly,
clearly,
this really was his sister. Molly blew him a kiss and backed into the shadows.

*   *   *

Her hot little hand warmed the crook of my arm. A hummingbird pulse fluttered in the hollow of her throat. I had to put her at ease before she squiffed out; I’d never hear the end from flametop otherwise.

“I’ll have you home in two shakes.” I laid a fingertip on the bridge of her eyeglasses. “Might want to close your eyes, though.” I wasn’t keen to watch this frail shoot her cookies.

She closed her eyes. She opened her eyes.

“Hold on,” she said. “Can we go anywhere at all?”

“You hungry? I know a joint.”

“Can we?”

I sighed. “Our mutual friend’ll be doing figure eights if I don’t get you home sooner than later. She’ll blow a gasket if we lam off. Trust me, I’ve seen it.”

This she met with a sly grin. I got the sense she was a fellow witness to flametop’s sharper edges. She fixed me with the moon eyes until I caved. Never let it be said I’m immune to the charms of a helpless skirt.

“Okay, okay, just lay off, sister. One side trip. Let’s keep it snappy. And no funny business.”

“I’ve never been to France,” she said.

“I know just the place,” I said. “Hold tight.”

*   *   *

Molly went first to check on Thui Nguyen.

The modest campus of her community college should have been full of students in the middle of the afternoon. It shouldn’t have been ringed with police cars, ambulances, and flashing lights. But it was. Hordes of tearful bystanders thronged the barricades of yellow tape. The scene reminded Molly of the night she died. She tasted blood on the air, and the shattered-jam-jar tingle of anxiety.

Unseen and unheard, Molly drifted through the chaos, eavesdropping on the chatter between the cops and their incident commander. The campus was under lockdown. A student had stood up in the middle of a history lecture, whipped out a fléchette gun, and unzipped half a dozen classmates. Plus their instructor.

Eyewitness accounts were sketchy, fragmentary, confused. He’d been a nice kid, they said. It just wasn’t like him at all, they said. All agreed, though, the shooter was a
penitente.

Molly didn’t realize she’d lost her concentration until a stranger put an arm around her, offered a shoulder to catch her tears. She used it.

*   *   *

We shared a paper bag of roasted walnuts on the bank of the Seine, watching the tour boats drift downstream while behind us the pealing of Notre Dame’s bourdon bell shook the island with an E-flat.

She leaned close, yelling to make herself heard over the ruckus. Her breath tickled my ear. “This is amazing!”

“Aw, this is nothing. You should see this place on a winter’s night, with prayer and snow and soft candlelight.”

She laughed. “Was that poetry?”

“It rhymed.”

Anne treated me to that smile again. She reached over and rummaged among the last walnuts. It was warm inside the bag. Our fingers touched.

I glanced up at my pal the gargoyle. He stuck his tongue at me. I took it as encouragement.

“I know a shop nearby. How are you for French wines?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t drink wine?”

“Only on special occasions.”

“Like this?”

“Like this.”

*   *   *

Most days, Wendy Bavin took her lunch at one of the many shops just a few blocks from her downtown office. She was part of the lunchtime crowd that had threatened to overwhelm Molly on her first excursion to Chicago.

Most days, she navigated the traffic without incident. Most days, an illegally modified car didn’t override the traffic signals and plow through a crosswalk.

Today was not most days. Four people died, including Wendy Bavin. Nobody saw the driver.

*   *   *

“I mean it now. Enough horsing around.”

My head spun. I’d forgotten just how much I enjoyed a good French red now and then. Anne did, too, judging from the unsteady rhythm of her shoes on the narrow stairs. She stumbled. I caught most of her, but fumbled the laughter. It cascaded down the stairs. The body and the laughter made a matching set, warm and soft.

She coaxed her key into the lock on the third or fourth try. The lock was a good sport and didn’t make a peep about the scratches. The door eased inward when she slumped against it. I helped her to her feet before she wound up sprawled facedown halfway inside her digs.

Anne collected her rumpled dignity like a milkmaid gathering her skirts. In a voice thick with wine and affected sobriety, she said, “I promise to lock the door behind me. You can listen for it.”

“Sorry, doll. Flametop will give me another swift poke in the kisser if I let you out of my sight.”

“Pffff.” She retreated, beckoned me to enter. I did. Ducky little place she had.

I closed the door, tossed the dead bolt and the chain. “I’ll keep watch while you—”

I didn’t finish because my back was pressed against the door and her lips were pressed against mine. Likewise that soft, warm body. The lips tasted of wine. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed a good French red now and then.

We leaned against the door, chewing each other’s flushed faces. This jane was more fun than Violet. She knew how to get down to brass tacks. Knew how to use her tongue, too. I guess she also enjoyed a good French red now and then.

*   *   *

Another member of Santorelli’s parish died on the steps of a payday loan service. He’d been mugged, then stabbed, according to witnesses. His blood stained the sidewalk. Molly knew that if anybody bothered to investigate, they’d find a smattering of sterile blood mixed with the victim’s.