All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (25 page)

“
Get
the fuck off me.”

I rolled the other
way, tossing my head side-to-side with the same result. When I
rolled back, I hit something solid.

It felt like a leg.

I froze, panic
coursing through my veins as I realized whoever or whatever stood
over me had me at their mercy. Pictures of leering demons jumped
into my head. I thrashed and pushed away but a hand on my shoulder
stopped me.

“
Icarus.”

The voice was
lyrical, familiar, female.

“
Piper?”
Where
were you?

“
Yes.
Be calm.”

“
Untie
me.”

“
Trevor’s
here.”

I
held my breath, mind swirling.
Did
I hear her right?

“
Trevor?”

“
Not
here
,
but in Hell.” She paused; my breath rasped in and out. “Poe
brought him.”

Any questions about
where Piper had been fled my mind.

‘
Trevor’s
here. Poe brought him.’

The two fragments
didn’t seem to go together. Poe was an angel—my guardian
angel.

Why would she
bring Trevor to--

A memory flickered,
something Piper said. I’d been angry at the time and didn’t
give her words much credence, but they came back full force as I lay
on Hell’s burnt soil with a bag over my head.

‘
Some
are suspicious. They think Poe might be playing for the other side.’

“
Where
are they?” I demanded. “Take me to them.”

“
I
can’t, Icarus.”

Ric, God damn
it.

“
Why
not?”

She paused and it
seemed like a wind blew across the scorched plain, a sigh of warm
air bearing her words:

“
Because
I’m not here.”

With the breeze and
the whisper, a shiver shook my spine and the pulsating rope binding
my wrists disappeared. Despite my anger at Poe for involving my son,
I was shaken. I sat up cautiously, rubbing my wrists and expecting a
ring of slime. Instead, I found them dry and raw, chafed like the
hands of someone who’s worked hard in their lives. I hadn’t
experienced it, but I’d heard of such a thing.

I brought my hand
up to the hood, listening to the sounds around me as I did. A wind
which no longer touched me rattled pebbles across hard ground; a
flap of huge wings passed high overhead. Someone laughed—a
low, mirthless, throaty laugh.

And it was close.

The hood slid off
my head easily, making me wonder why I couldn’t remove it
before, but the thought evaporated like a drop of water on a hot pan
when I gazed up at the man standing before me. His filthy coat hung
in tatters, his bare feet were covered with blisters long burst and
turned to weeping sores. He held his hands in front of his chest,
rubbing them as if trying to clean them without benefit of soap and
water. Streaks of soot obscured his face, hiding the crosses carved
into his forehead and cheeks, but no amount of dirt could hide this
man’s identity, not after all our history together.

“
It’s
hot enough down here to melt a man’s wings, eh, Icarus?”

I frowned, my
molars grinding against one another, and I wished they did so with
him between them. The last things I needed while trapped in Hell
with my son roaming the abyss with a rogue angel was this man and
his corny mythological references.

I spat his name on
the dry ground at his feet.

“
Father
Dominic.”

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

Trevor turned
slowly, breath held, and thought he felt Poe stir minutely in his
arms. He glanced down at her, but her eyes remained closed, her
limbs limp, so he raised his eyes and looked at the thing which
plucked them from the abyss.

Trevor’s
mouth fell open as he looked into the face of a demon.

No horror movies
could have prepared him for the thing; no amount of prosthetics,
make-up, masks or latex could have created it. White maggots
squirmed across its face, dragging themselves out of one fissure and
into another; its black skin stretched to the point of breaking
across misshapen muscles no body builder would wish upon their
greatest rival. Leathery wings creaked as they moved, shifting
slightly like a tightrope walker’s pole as the thing stood on
taloned feet not designed for the purpose.

Trevor’s skin
went cold with goose bumps despite the heat the creature emitted.

The demon’s
chest heaved as it gulped air in through its mouth and blew it
heavily through flapped nostrils set in the middle of its noseless
face.

Fuck me.

Trevor took a step
back and found the mob of damned souls crowding behind him, their
desire to be close to the angel greater than their fear of the
demon. One reached out tentatively and stroked Poe’s hair,
pursed its lips and started the chant again, so quietly it may as
well not have been there.

“
P.”

For a moment, there
was no response. The demon’s purple eyes darted back and forth
across the wall of souls surrounding them, his gaze daring them to
pick up the mantra. Trevor didn’t think any would, not in the
face of the monstrosity, but one was finally overcome.

“
Oh.”

A sigh, nothing
more; or it might have been one soul breathing louder than the
others. The demon needed no more provocation. It leaned forward,
mouth open to reveal two rows of pointed teeth dripping saliva, and
screamed, a sound part fog horn, part siren mixed with the roar of a
lion. Deafening. Trevor flinched and cowered away as the beast
grabbed the closest soul and flung it over the edge of the canyon.
It went over without exclamation, the chains binding it to the next
clanking then going taut and pulling its neighbor along with it,
then the next and the next. A dozen or more toppled into the chasm
in succession like the coils of a giant slinky but with no next
stair to land on. The other souls backed away.

Poe stirred in
Trevor’s arms.

He looked down and
saw her eyelids flutter then close, shielding her sensitive eyes
from light. She shifted and Trevor became acutely aware of the
weight in his arms, an awkward weight he’d been carrying a
long while. His shoulders felt as though they might detach from his
body and his arms drop to the rocky ground with the angel in them.

“
What’s
happening?”

She whispered the
words like a child waking, but it wasn’t Trevor alone who
heard. A gasp rolled across the crowd of souls; the demon reared
back, wings spread in a menacing pose, its face twisting into
further grotesque contortions. Trevor held his breath, waiting to
see what would happen, whether he would survive.

The damned souls
held their ground, undeterred by the possibility of following their
compatriots over the edge of the canyon. The demon leaned forward,
propping itself on its knuckles in a gorilla-pose, its head three
feet from Trevor and Poe. The nostril flaps quivered and danced as
it sniffed the angel. What passed for its lips pulled away from its
teeth, a growl reverberated in its chest.

Poe’s hand
shot out and grabbed it by the throat.

†‡†

A dream. It’s
only a dream.

It was beyond hot
in the dream—sweltering, scorching, burning—and dark.
Sounds came and went; first the sound of feet walking, then labored
breathing, a muffled shout she didn’t hear. None of this made
her afraid in the dream, they were simply there, like the people
touching her which came next, the chanting of her name and finally
the sensation of falling.

It felt nice, the
falling. Wind whipped her hair and she imagined it to be flying
instead of falling. She liked flying. It gave her the freedom and
solitude she craved but never got. She only flew in her dreams.

The flying stopped.

Nothing happened
for a minute. It wasn’t that she was asleep and not
dreaming—she was aware, but there was nothing of which to be
aware. Darkness. Quiet.

Then the scream
woke her.

She’d heard
such a scream before, in a time she wanted to forget and place she
never wanted to be again. A place to which she’d now returned.
Without opening her eyes, she knew—the smell told her. She
tried to stretch her aching muscles, felt arms supporting her and
remembered everything: following the Carrion, the trip to Hell with
Trevor, passing out. Her eyelids resisted opening but she caught a
glimpse of the teenager looming above her.

Trevor.

“
What’s
happening?”

She felt the
reaction to her words as much as heard it. Trevor wasn’t the
only one here. She sensed thousands of presences, all of them lost
and afraid, except one which overpowered the others with its rancor,
its hatred. She felt it close to her, the rumble of its growl shook
her core.

Poe opened her
eyes.

The thing leered at
her, rage gurgling in its chest, readying to spill out on her, on
Trevor. It only took a glimpse to recognize the beast and the
severity of the situation. She reached out her hand and grasped the
demon by its throat. The movement unsettled her in Trevor’s
arms and he dropped her but Poe moved lithely, twisting herself to
land on her feet without losing her grip on the demon.

“
Abaddon,”
she said. “Angel of the Bottomless Pit.”

“
So
it is you, Poe,” the thing replied. “Thought never to
see you again.”

“
You’ll
soon wish you hadn’t.”

The beast stood to
its full height—easily nine feet to the top of its head—but
Poe didn’t let go. Her feet left the ground, dangled level
with the creature’s waist. It shook its head and shoulders
sharply like a horse dislodging a fly; her grip remained strong.

What am I doing?

She looked up into
the beast’s face and terror filled her lungs, threatened to
gag her. She wanted to let go, to drop to the ground and run, seek
refuge amongst the damned souls watching with uncharacteristically
agape mouths, but her fingers wouldn’t obey her wishes. Their
grip continued to hold fast when the demon stretched its wings and
took to the sky with a powerful stroke.