All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (12 page)

“
Give
me your hand,” I yelled. She didn’t face me.

The dogs leaped at
her; she didn’t raise her arms in defense. They rode her to
the ground, one with its jaws wrapped around her arm, the other
gnashing at her throat. Seconds later its teeth found their mark. I
looked away, unable to watch.

“
Damn
it.” I rolled over and sat up, head hung between my knees. “We
almost had her.”

“
Almost,”
Piper repeated and brushed hair out of my eyes, the tip of her
finger caressing my forehead. Images jumped into my head: naked
flesh, writhing limbs, droplets of sweat. I scuttled away, crabwise.
After what I’d just seen, this was no time for lust.

“
It
always happens like that,” a voice said from behind Piper. “If
I don’t finish them off, the dogs do. It looks more painful
when the dogs take them.”

I shifted to see
past the angel. Beth stood by the door through which we’d
entered, the disfigured nurse with her, sewing up the gash on her
neck with a wicked needle and flesh-colored thread. Beth’s
expression was weary, beaten.

“
Beth.”
I got to my feet feeling shocked, sickened and relieved.

“
They’ll
be back in a few minutes.”

“
You
won’t be here.”

I went to her, took
her hand in mine. I felt Piper close behind me as the nurse finished
up her ministrations and stepped back. My eyes flickered between
Beth’s face and the nurse, expecting her to reveal herself as
a demon and jump us, preventing us from rescuing Beth’s soul.

“
We’re
going to take you where you should have gone in the first place.”

She looked up into
my eyes and I saw hope in them, but it was tempered; she probably
suspected we were another aspect of her punishment and torture.

“
But
I can’t leave my boys.”

“
They’re
not really here,” Piper said and stroked her arm.

Beth pulled away
from her touch like she’d been brushed by the clammy scales of
a snake. She looked toward the pit, her bottom lip quivering. I saw
in her eyes where her mind went: as awful as experiencing the pit
and the dogs and her sons’ deaths over and over was, at least
she got to see her boys.

“
This
is no place for you,” I said and guided her toward the door
while looking sideways at the nurse. “Are you going to try and
stop us?”

The nurse shook her
head and the little nurse’s hat canted to the left.

“
Can
I come with you?”

I’d assumed
her a demon, a thing of Hell, not another soul living out her
damnation. I opened my mouth to tell her she could but stopped and
looked at Piper first. She gestured me closer.

“
We
don’t know who she is or what she’s done,” she
said, her breath warm in my ear. “I don’t think it’s
a good idea.”

She
was right—this woman might be a serial killer or a dealer or
perhaps she’d played a bit part in
Ishtar
,
the worst movie ever
.
We
shouldn’t bring someone with us and expect Heaven to take them
when we didn’t know anything about them. I looked back into
her pleading eyes and shook my head.

“
I’m
sorry.”

I reached for the
door as the bell sounded again and the first snarls spilled from the
pit. Elizabeth took a step back toward the center of the room but I
caught her by the elbow and guided her through the door. She
resisted but, once we closed the door behind us, she came back into
herself. Her mood lightened, the stress and pain in her face waned.

We crossed the
decrepit waiting room and reached the outer door. I paused with my
hand on the knob and looked at Piper.

“
What
do you think?”

She shrugged.

I took a deep
breath and opened the door, all the muscles in my arms and legs
gathered and ready to choose between fight and flight. I didn’t
imagine for a second it would be easy getting out of Hell.

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

Manny was the same
height as Trevor but a year older and thirty pounds heavier. His
curly black hair hung in front of his eyes and the corners of his
mouth were set in a perpetual sneer.

“
Why
don’t you go home to your Mommy, freak?”

The other boys
gathered around them snickered, but Trevor paid them no attention.
Instead, he concentrated on the bigger teen. He knew where this was
going and was already tensing the muscles in his legs and body. At
his side, his fists clenched and released, clenched and released.

Manny shoved Trevor
in the shoulder and he fell back a step.

“
Come
on, pussy. Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

Trevor did his best
to hold his expression passive despite the way his insides boiled.
He didn’t respond.

“
Fuck
you then, freak.”

This time, Manny
shoved him in the chest with both hands. Trevor stumbled back three
steps before landing ass-first on the muddy field. The boys gathered
around laughed and pointed; Manny sneered like he was proud of his
accomplishment. Trevor made no move to get back to his feet. If he
did, it would only be worse, so he stayed down and let mud soak
through his jeans.

“
Hey!
What’s going on over there? Trevor?”

The sound of the
high-pitched voice made him cringe. There couldn’t have been a
worse time for his mother to show up to pick him up from school.
Manny looked toward her voice then back toward Trevor.

“
Your
mama’s here to save you this time,” he said. He stomped
his foot on the muddy field, splashing dirt across Trevor’s
shirt and onto his face. Trevor flinched. “See you next time.”

He led the other
boys away. As they left, Trevor looked across the field at his
mother rushing toward him. She looked ridiculous picking her way
through the mud in her high heels. Before she got to him, Trevor got
up from the field and brushed mud from the back of his jeans. Anger
and embarrassment clamped his jaw tight even as he told himself he
didn’t care. How could anything matter anymore when you’ve
been in the grasp of an archangel?

“
Trevor,
are you okay?”

His mother slowed
her pace as she approached, careful not to slip or splash dirt on
her new skirt. She didn’t know where the envelope of money
that had shown up in their mailbox one day had come from, but Trevor
did. He smiled at the thought of the money, and his father, and how
surprised she had been.

“
What
happened? Were those boys picking on you?”

“
We
were just playing, Mom. What are you doing here?”

“
I
told you I’d pick you up today.”

Trevor wiped his
dirty hands on his thighs. “Yeah. In the parking lot, not on
the field.”

“
I
saw those boys around you. It didn’t look friendly, so I
thought I’d help.”

“
I
don’t need your help.”

I
was nearly killed by a dead priest and met an archangel,
he
wanted to say.
What
help could you give?

He’d wanted
to say things like that many times since what happened at the
church, but he always kept his mouth shut like Icarus had told him.
Nothing good would come of telling people, unless you considered
being institutionalized good.

“
Don’t
be like that. We all need help sometimes.”

She pulled a hanky
out of her purse and wiped at the mud on the back of his jeans.
Trevor danced away.

“
Stop
that.”

“
You
can’t sit in the car like that.”

“
Fine.
I’ll change into my gym gear.”

He broke off the
conversation and began walking toward the school hoping his mother
would take the hint. She didn’t. He heard the splash of her
heels in the mud following him.

“
I’ll
meet you at the car, Mom. Don’t make it worse than it already
is.”

He kept walking as
the sound of her footsteps stopped. A part of him buried deep inside
wished that she would have kept after him, insisted on helping. It
was the same part that had been relieved to see her wobbling across
the field toward him, but he couldn’t let her know that part
existed. He wasn’t a boy anymore. Since the church, he hardly
felt he was human anymore.

When he was almost
to the school, he looked back and saw her crossing the field toward
the parking lot. Her shoulders were hunched forward as she watched
her feet, avoiding as much of the mud as she could. He’d hurt
her feelings, he knew, but there was no helping it lately. How could
he live a normal life after what had happened?

He needed to talk
to someone about what happened. He needed to see his father, but he
was in hiding. They wanted to blame Icarus for the deaths, probably
for the explosion at the church, so he understood why he hadn’t
been able to see him. That didn’t make Trevor miss him any
less.

Trevor stopped with
his hand on the door handle, hesitating before he entered the
school.

When was the
last time I missed him?

Years, that’s
how long. Enough time that he didn’t cry when muggers killed
his father, though by then he’d been convinced Icarus wasn’t
really his father.