There But For The Grace (4 page)

“So why am
I
here?”

“Charles Mortimer Rawson.”

I frowned, “Pardon my French, but who the fuck is that?”

Haziel chuckled and slid a file across the desk to me, I picked it up and opened it, and almost wished I hadn’t by the time I’d turned the first page.

“Charles Mortimer Rawson, born March 8
th
, 1972 aged forty-two. Convicted of the rape and murder of six women that the prosecution knows of,” I read aloud. The picture was of a bald, white dude whose stare was not only intense, it was downright fucking scary. I’d stared evil in the face before, Rahab… Hadad, who could very well fall into that category too, even Satan himself. You didn’t get much more evil than those three. My hand went, unbidden, at the thought of Hadad to the amber drop pendant around my neck.

Granted Rahab and Hadad had been scary motherfuckers and pretty bad in their own right, but nothing beat the flat and cold affect that was in the devil’s true blue eyes. This guy, though? The picture? He gave the devil himself a run for his money with the chill radiating down my spine.

“What do I need to meet him for?”

“You don’t really need to meet him. You simply need to be here at midnight.”

“Wait, he’s being executed tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Why do I need to watch this guy kick?”

“So you can meet Azrael.”

“Who’s Azrael?”

“Death.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I muttered under my breath. “No offense, Haziel, but I’ve been trying like a son of a bitch to avoid death and dying at all costs throughout this whole fiasco.”

“I understand that, Child, but
you
must understand, the only way to reach Heaven or Hell is through Death. He is the gatekeeper to what lies beyond this realm.”

I flipped Charles Mortimer Rawson’s file closed, hiding the photos of the mutilated women he’d murdered under the smooth manila blank tag board. I half-waited for Iaoel to drag the images back up in front of my mind’s eye just to taunt me. She had a petty streak a mile wide sometimes, but in some ways I guess I couldn’t blame her too much. She was pretty much along for the ride and didn’t have a whole lot of choice. I didn’t give her one, but then again it was my body, and I was here first. I sighed and thought about what Gabriel had said about being nice.

Finally, I looked up at Haziel, “What should I expect? You know, other than to have nightmares for the rest of my life?” Which at this point, I might as well add to the pile.

“You’ve never seen someone die?” he asked.

I sighed. “I’ve seen too many people die—and too many
things
for that matter. This is probably going to be different.” I shifted uncomfortably.

Haziel steepled his hands in front of him, elbows resting on the arms of his chair and leaned back. His cool gray-blue eyes assessed me, and I tried not to squirm.

“Tell me about them,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“You first. What can I expect from this?”

He pursed his lips and obliged me. Maybe it would help, and maybe it wouldn’t. I listened as he went through the process and shifted uncomfortably at how graphic things got. Still, I guess I needed to do this. I wasn’t about to become squeamish to the point that it stopped me. I owed Tab, and it was my turn to save him back.

“Your turn,” Haziel prodded gently.

“My boss, my
friend,
Piorre was the first. I walked in to work, and he was there, you know? Just lying there on the floor. There was so much blood, and I tried to stop it, but he was bleeding, from his neck, the jugular or an artery or something. There wasn’t any stopping it. I know that now. I know that he knew that, it just doesn’t suck any less knowing, does it?”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Haziel’s tone was weighted with regret, and I felt a little chagrined.

“Touché,” I muttered, and he chuckled.

“I would have told you either way, Addy. No one should go to an execution unprepared. So many do.”

I nodded and sighed. “So, I watch this guy get executed.” I nudged the file across the desk by a bit, “Even if the court decided he deserves it, isn’t it only God’s place to judge?”

“It is what the Bible teaches, no?”

“Well, yeah.”

We were silent, a gulf, an almost eternity of it stretching between us. I finally laughed a little, “You know, Tab and I managed to sidestep the theological debates.”

“It must be the collar,” Haziel said and smiled.

I laughed outright then. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Addy, did you ever stop to think, that by the jury finding him guilty, that
was
God’s judgement? He does, after all, work in mysterious ways.”

I lifted the canteen off my lap and unscrewed the lid, taking a drink, “Yes, he does, but then how do you explain it when innocent men wind up here on death row?”

“Ah,” he said, shaking a finger at me. “You are a very clever girl indeed to thwart an old man’s attempt at making you feel even slightly better.”

I thought about that for a long hard minute, “I’ll feel better when Tab is out of Hell, and as for the old man part? Old I’ll give you. Man? Um, no. I know better.”

Haziel laughed, and I smiled. I liked him. He reminded me of Piorre in a lot of ways, and I needed that. It made me think, made me wonder if my old boss, my friend, weren’t here somehow, an echo of him at least.

“I must tend to my flock,” Haziel said at last and rose to his feet.

“You want me to stay here or stay close?” I asked.

“Either-or, Addy. Which do you prefer?”

“I’ll follow you, if it’s all right.”

So I did. I followed Haziel, stayed close, but was careful about where I was and when to avoid any accidental weirdness that may tip off the humans around us that something wasn’t right. God, what did that say about me, that I didn’t even consider myself human anymore?

Through the day, we met with countless criminals, some sincerely repentant, others… I don’t know how to describe them. One or two of them seemed possessed. I mean, I would have believed them literally so, except for the fact that they couldn’t see me.

Finally, we reached Charles Mortimer Rawson’s cell. He looked through the bars and focused immediately on Haziel. Haziel turned and looked at me, but I suppose to the douchebag behind the bars, it looked like Haziel was looking out the barred, chicken-wire-filled, dirty window behind us that was letting in a watery facsimile of the day’s light into the cell block. Charlie-boy spoke up, “Now, what’re you doing back here, Padre? You know we ain’t got no business.”

“Ah, I simply thought we could continue our conversation,” Haziel murmured.

I leaned back against the wall and watched the exchange between the Angel of Monsters and the condemned man, who, by all accounts, if ever there were such a thing as a monster? Yeah, after what I’d read in his file, he would be it.

Haziel debated, and cajoled the man but Charles wasn’t having any of it. The day stretched on into evening, and the evening edged closer to night. Charles Mortimer Rawson’s last meal was surf and turf. A medium-rare steak with shrimp and lobster. He had a baked potato with all the fixings on the side and a cold beer to wash it all down with. He may have been a psychotic killer but when it came to food, the dude had taste.

When Haziel came around for final prayers and benediction, Charles pretty much told him to save that shit for somebody else. I shook my head, eyebrows raising into my hairline and mouthed the word ‘wow’ silently. Haziel simply nodded, disappointment and sadness etched in the way he carried himself and before we knew it, it was time. They chained up Rawson and he walked tall between the two guards, while Haziel brought up the rear. There was no show of solidarity from the other prisoners like you see on TV. No one stomped, no one clanked their tin cup against the bars; no one would even look in Rawson’s direction.

It sent a shiver down my spine. As much as Haziel wanted to give Rawson a chance at redemption, it was like these other men knew there was no saving this guy. He’d made his bed, and now he was about to proudly go lie in it. Six innocent women had died by this monster’s hand, and I know I was being judgmental as hell, but this fucker needed to be put down. I was surprised to find that Iaoel agreed, images of Rawson flaming and burning, a silent scream fixed on his terrified face, flashed behind my vision and I had to squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head to banish them.

I took several long drinks from God’s canteen and steeled myself for what was coming next. The door to the execution chamber lay open just ahead, and they were sitting Rawson on the edge of the gurney, which looked
exactly
like what was in the movies. Haziel stood to one side and motioned for me to enter the chamber surreptitiously. I edged in around one of the guards and made my way clandestinely around to the other side of the round little room, taking care not to brush the black curtains over the windows.

I could see Haziel’s face from this angle, and he gave me a nod and a wink, to keep me right where I was. The seemingly old priest prayed very real prayers for the condemned man, who chuckled.

“Save your breath, Padre. There’s only one place I’m going, and that’s straight to Hell.”

Haziel continued his prayer while they laid Charlie-boy down, strapping his arms to the boards to either side of him. I thought it was interesting that they cut the long sleeves of his prison jumper away, rather than just having provided him with something with short or no sleeves. No one was talking about it. I was startled to realize, that the whole day had been much the same. No one was talking about the great big elephant in the room of Charles’ impending death. It was creepy and weird, and honestly? More than just a little bit sad.

It seemed to take forever before they had him all strapped down. Haziel did the final benediction and made the sign of the cross over Charlie with the blade of his hand. With a piercing look that nailed me right where I stood, Haziel backed out the door and suddenly it was just me, Charles and the doctor who walked over and took up his post beside the machinery that was going to end Charlie-boy’s life.

I was feeling a little green, so I stared at the floor for a long few minutes, breathing in the antiseptic smell. My mind racing over how ludicrous that was to me.
Why bother with antiseptic when you were going to kill a man!?
The curtains whooshed open and I turned around and looked at the gallery full of people and back to Charles Mortimer Rawson… The stony faces in the gallery said it all. The gory photos of the women he’d killed flashed in front of my mind’s eye and I silently and sarcastically thanked Iaoel for the reminder.

Charlie-boy forwent his last words. Minutes passed, the doctor counted down, the phone didn’t ring, and the room was so silent I could hear the whoosh of the plungers in the five great syringes as they deposited their deadly payload into Charles’ veins. A hand grasped my shoulder to steady me, and I looked up sharply, biting down on my confused yell. My stomach dropped out, and I blinked, stunned at what, or rather
who
stood next to me.

“Steady.” His voice was deep and pleasant, and I felt calmer, and a little less like throwing up as Charles stopped breathing.

“It won’t be long now,” Death assured me, and I nodded, mouth gone dry. He wasn’t at all what I expected. You know? I guess I had been going with the old standby of dark robe and cowl, the skeletal hands griping his scythe and the skeletal death’s head grin.

I didn’t expect Death to be so… hot.

I got the impression Iaoel was laughing at me, mostly because she shot me the old standby image of her doing it in a mirror. Her golden hair flung back, her shoulders shaking in mirth, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as she howled with laughter at something Gabriel had likely said centuries before I was even thought of, let alone born.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and congratulated myself on getting things at least
half
right. Death stood tall above me, like just about every other Angel I’d met to this point. He did, indeed wear deep black robes, hooded, in a light, fluttery material that looked smooth to the touch. He also gripped a scythe in one hand, the handle a deep dark wood, so dark as to be black. That was where the similarities ended, however. The blade of the scythe was neither shiny, nor silver; though it did look wicked sharp.

No, the blade was a flat black, as if it’d been powder coated, only the sharpened edges gleamed silver under the harsh fluorescent lighting. Along the curve of the blade, letters were etched, though I didn’t have a clue what they said, and the script they were etched in? It looked like something straight out of a JRR Tolkien fantasy movie remake.

It was a stark difference to the writing across his face, which looked much more… I don’t know, runic? His skin, his face and hands, were nearly as black as his robes, and those face-letters? Yeah, that was silver too, even though it appeared to, legit, be a tattoo – something inked
under
his skin. His eyes were silvery too, like Tab’s gray, only a few shades lighter, and they looked upon me gently, with something akin to pity, but not. He gave my shoulder another squeeze, then let go, reaching out a hand to Charles Mortimer Rawson’s dead body in front of us, and crooking his fingers. The dead man sat up, out of his body and opened his mouth to smart off but the floor opened up and flame licked at his boots and drew the man’s soul down almost faster than I could blink.

I opened my mouth, closed it, looked Death straight in the eye, and said the only thing I could think of in the moment, “I don’t mean to be rude…”

“Azrael,” he supplied.

“Right, I don’t mean to be rude, Azrael, but I really need to get down there.”

He blinked, surprised, as if that were the last thing he expected me to say.