Falling (12 page)

Gabe and Tarren hole up in what Gabe refers to as “The Fox
Cave” and what I refer to as the weird-smelling room in the basement where an
old projector and a big map of the country sit on two rickety card tables
pushed together.

I am not invited to this conference, so, with dignity, I lay
flat against the sticky linoleum in the kitchen and listen through the floor as
Gabe presents the evidence, and the brothers develop a plan to track and kill
the angel.

This part takes fifteen minutes. The next half hour is spent
arguing about me.

“We have to watch her at all times,” Tarren insists.

“Why are we going over this again? I get it,” Gabe retorts.

“Gabe, she could lose control at any moment. You have to
realize that. Anything could set her off. We need to take her to Lo.”

Gabe’s voice jumps an octave. “She’s not a lab animal; she’s
our sister. Plus, I hate that little fucker.”

“We need to know the extent of the change, what exactly
we’re dealing with.”

Their words echo in my mind, growing loud and mean
: lab animal, dealing with, anything, anything, anything could
set her off.

“…develop a cure,” Tarren is saying. “Come on, we’re wasting
time.”

“Tarren,” Gabe says, and in the silence that follows, I can
only imagine that the brothers are exchanging one of those powerful looks that
they keep in reserve for taut moments like this. When Gabe speaks again, his
voice is so low I almost miss his words.

“She’s trying real hard,” he says.

“I know,” Tarren replies. He pauses. “But that doesn’t
change the risk she presents.”

I roll over on my back and stare at the cracks racing across
the ceiling. There is a wild banshee scream building inside me, fueled by
Tarren and so many other things, but mostly Tarren. I wrestle it down, try to
let the wretched notes seep out of my body. The basement stairs groan as the
brothers climb up.

* * *

Our first mission. I’m not sure what to expect. Dramatic
theme music?  An extensive scene where the boys change into high-tech fighting
costumes? Tarren narrowing his eyes and growling “let’s go” and stomping the
gas so hard that the tires squeal?

Instead, Tarren backs us out of the driveway with his usual
restraint, stops at each stop sign and turns on his blinker even when no one is
around. Gabe munches on a PowerBar, reclines his seat back and puts his feet up
on the dashboard.

“Off,” Tarren says.

“What?” Gabe whines but his feet slide off.

A little while later, he looks out the window. “Farewell to
Farewell,” he calls as we turn onto the highway and the little town recedes
quickly behind us.

“Money,” I say before any silence can get a foothold.

“You need some?” Gabe asks.

“How do you make money?”

“That’s all me.” Gabe looks at his brother, grins. Tarren
remains silent, but his energy ticks with hints of orange.

“I’m assuming some sort of fraud here,” I say.

“What?” Gabe turns in his seat to look at me with feigned
offense. “I am an upstanding, law-abiding citizen as far as anyone knows.”

“Except when you’re killing people.”

“Only the ones who deserve it,” he laughs easy and loose,
and I don’t know how he can do it. “If you must know, I perform the very
honorable and noble service of facilitating romantic relationships online.”

Another flick in Tarren’s energy field, but his face doesn’t
betray any emotions. He keeps his eyes on the road.

“You’re an e-pimp?”

“Dating websites. Niche. I’ve got SeniorsSecondChance.com,
LittlePeopleLotsOfLove.com, HippyBliss.com, and I just got
HatersHatingTogether.com, you know for those people who hate everything. They
can, I don’t know, go to the movies and complain about it to each other the
whole way through.”

“Oh come on. You make money from that?”

Gabe nods proudly. “Google Ads baby. People visit the site,
click on the ads, and Google thanks me with a little tip to my PayPal account.
PayPal sends me a cashier’s check. Farewell’s got this shitty little check
cashing place that gives me a 10% haircut with no questions asked, and the cash
goes on prepaid credit cards. Wha-la!”

I study those elf eyes. “Oh God, midgets? Really?”

“Actually, they prefer to be called ‘Little People’,” Gabe
corrects, “and little people have big hearts. They deserve to find love just
like everyone else. Even those people who hate everything.” Gabe tips his head
ever-so-slightly in Tarren’s direction.

Tarren notices. “I don’t hate everything.”

“Guns aren’t people,” Gabe says. When I laugh, Gabe turns to
me. “Neither are books.”

He’s right; books are so much better than people.

“Anyway,” Gabe continues, “the sites don’t bring in a lot,
but it’s enough. Keeps gas in the cars” — he pats the glove compartment — “beer
in the fridge and bullets in the guns.”

“Bravo!” I clap, and Gabe gives me a little bow.

I press on with my questions, but teasing answers from the
brothers is about as easy as moving a pile of sand using chopsticks. Tarren is
obstinate, answering in a clipped monotone when he acknowledges a question at
all. Gabe is a freestyle art form all by himself, skimming across wide-ranging
topics, taking random detours, diverting away from direct answers and launching
into wild, epic adventures starring himself whenever I ask something too
personal.

I learn that there are areas, lots of them, that the
brothers have somehow agreed are off limits. I’ll see it first in Tarren’s
energy field — yellow hues pulsing at the edges — and then Gabe will inevitably
shift the conversation with only the slightest hesitation as he recalibrates. I
don’t understand what this means, what secrets they hold back from me, why Gabe
is so much more careful in Tarren’s presence.

Despite a valiant effort from myself and Gabe and no
assistance whatsoever from Tarren who is a big, mean, angry-eyed lug, our
conversation dwindles and dies. In its place, silence takes seed and grows into
a solid wall of thorny vines, sequestering each of us off into our own little worlds.
I hate this. My world is an apocalyptic landscape filled with burned out
buildings and ghostly memories drifting through the charred husks.

We drive straight to Arizona, stopping only for gas,
restrooms and a pet shop where Gabe buys me three terrified little mice. I ice
two of them before we set off again and save the last for later.  The snack
dampens my hunger for a while, but, inevitably, night falls and the song takes
up its willowy call.

Its tantalizing notes grow louder and louder, tingling down
each nerve and building up heat in my hands. I sit on my hands, try to gaze out
the window at the bright, cutting headlights from the other cars and the many
different faces coming into relief as we pass each other. But my head is always
turning back, eyes landing again and again on Gabe’s sapphire aura.

I’m getting that overwhelmed feeling again, so I lay down
across the back seat and take off the stupid floppy hat that Tarren instructed
me to wear at all times.

“Maya, put the hat back on,” Tarren says immediately. He
seems to notice everything.

“It’s hideous.”

“It’s for your…” Gabe takes a deep breath, trying to contain
his laughter, “…your own good. Think of it as being undercover.” He smirks.

“If anyone recognizes you…” Tarren begins.

“I’m wearing these huge, stupid sunglasses.”

“That’s not enough…”

“At night, which is only what assholes do. And my hair is
completely different.”

“I had to dress up as a clown once,” Gabe says.

Tarren and I stop our bickering and look at him.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Tarren muses. “Put the hat
on Maya.”

“We had to get into this guy’s home,” Gabe continues. “An
angel. It was his kid’s birthday. Fancy gated subdivision.  We were hanging
around the front trying to think of a way in, and this clown comes driving by.
Remember?” Gabe glances at his brother but gives him no time to respond. “We
jumped him, and he was all crying, saying he didn’t have any money and his cat
had leukemia or something. Tied him up, took his costume, threw him in the
trunk. That was one unhappy clown.”

“Hat,” Tarren says.

I shove the hat on my head.  “Did you kill the angel?”

“Yeah,” Gabe replies then adds, “but, not like in front of
the kids or anything, and I used a silencer.”

“But you killed the kid’s dad on his birthday, and you
traumatized an innocent clown.”

“Well, life can be a suckfest sometimes,” Gabe shrugs and
twists in his seat to look at me. “That guy iced a lot of people before we
found him. Oh, you look…” elf eyes filled with mirth, “…oh god, you look
ridiculous.”

“Fuck you both!” I cry, and slump down into my seat.

When the sun finally peeks up over the horizon, I wonder why
it seems so weary, so slow to extend its light to us. We reach Arizona and
Tarren nudges Gabe awake.

“Can you get police dispatches out here?”

“I can get ‘em everywhere. Don’t doubt my mad skills.” Gabe
sits up, stretches, and I watch the colors shimmer through his aura. Tarren
catches me, and I turn and gaze out at the desert around us.

“Sedona,” Gabe calls out a few minutes later. He eyes the
screen of his laptop. “Body just got called in. Right off the 40. Fits the
pattern. Wings is going East.”

“Damn,” Tarren mutters. “If he fed, then he won’t turn up
for another day.”

“Hmmm,” Gabe’s fingers skate lightly across the keyboard.
“The pattern of victims, they aren’t as far away from each other as you’d
think.” Gabe looks up at Tarren. “Suppose he doesn’t drive the whole day. Maybe
he rests after he ices his victim, hangs around. We’ve seen it before.”

“Not likely,” Tarren replies.

“Doesn’t hurt to check. Let’s stop by the crime scene, see
if the cops got any leads.”

Tarren looks at his brother. “It’s dangerous.”

“Come on,” Gabe’s eyes are bright, and he’s got that teasing
smile on his face. “I bought us a perfectly good pair of Border Patrol badges
that we’ve never gotten to use.”

“Sedona isn’t near the border, and we don’t have uniforms.”

“Border Patrol owns Arizona. They can go wherever they want.
Plus we’re plainclothes Border Patrol agents on a secret, undercover mission.
No uniforms.”

“Border Patrol goes plainclothes?”

“Yeah, why the hell not?” Gabe shrugs. He looks back at me,
winks. “Gotta have fun with your job.”

“You have too much fun with your job,” Tarren mutters.

Gabe laughs. “Doing okay with all of this?” he asks me.

“Peachy,” I manage, though I am, in fact, nowhere near
peachy. I’m suddenly all twitchy and out of breath, and my mind is starting to
spray paint bright, graffiti words across my brain.
Words
like murder, danger, blood, bullets, bat shit insane.

As if he can read my mind, Gabe’s face turns serious. So
does his energy. All the playful greens fade away.

“I know how it sounds,” he says, “but this is it; this is
the life.”

I’m not sure how to respond, so I don’t say anything at all.

Gabe seems to have a particular talent for picking out the
cheapest, filthiest motels on the planet.

I get dumped in a place that charges by the hour. On our way
to the room, we actually pass a Hispanic guy with an eye patch. A fucking eye
patch. Even without stellar hearing, the groans of male and female pleasure and
the sharp cracks of spankings emanate clearly from the other rooms as we walk
by.

Gabe smirks. Tarren pretends like he doesn’t notice.

We stop in front of a door. The knob is rusted and, after
some struggle with the key, Gabe heaves it open.

“There we go,” he says.

I give Gabe a beseeching look. The smile wavers from his
face, and those gold-flecked eyes turn serious.

“Trust me, you’re getting the better deal,” he says.

We all just kind of stand there, peering into the room. I’ve
never been to a place like this, never smelled a room so overwhelmingly stale
or seen so many moths clinging to the walls. Mold seeps through a yellowed
stain on the ceiling and rat droppings gleam on the carpet.

Gabe glances in the room and wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, this
one is pretty bad. We’ll probably only be gone an hour or so. As soon as we’re
done, we’ll leave.”

“Stay inside the room,” Tarren instructs. “Don’t make any
calls, don’t let anyone in unless it’s one of us.”

He stares are me, waiting for an affirmation. Sometimes
Tarren’s eyes turn almost colorless, like frost. I can almost hear the churn of
his thoughts as he weighs the risk I represent, the need for delicacy in
dealing with me. His words echo again through my mind.
Anything
could set her off.

I know I have to be good about this — me wallowing here,
them going off to kill someone. I swallow, nod, ignore the tugs of energy all
around us from the other motel patrons.

“I understand. I’ll be okay here. Good luck.”

“Here,” Gabe offers his PSP. “I’ve got
Zombie
Hordes
in there right now. Just make sure you don’t save over my game.”

I take the video game player, careful not to brush his skin.

“Just this one time,” I say. “Next time I go with you.”

“I know,” Gabe says.

They leave, but not before Gabe offers me a few unsolicited
Zombie Horde
hints and Tarren gives me an especially stark
glower to tide me over during his absence.  I shift the curtains aside and
watch the Murano pull out of the parking lot. Off they go to do whatever it is
that angel hunters do in order to find their prey.

I feel like I should shiver noticeably, or drop the curtain
and turn broodingly into the shadows. Instead, I just stand there like a dolt,
feeling adrift.

* * *

The hours lapse upon each other like large, slow waves. I
take off the hat, the sunglasses. I don’t want to go anywhere near the bed, so
I sit Indian style on the cleanest part of the rug. For a while I stare at the
door and think about how small a thing it is to turn a knob, to pull open a
door, to step into the sunlight. My old life is still out there. Karen. Henry.
School. Shakespeare II.

I try to play
Zombie Hordes
. I
write apology letters to Ryan’s family, and this causes sweet torrents of pain
to course through me. I beg forgiveness from his skinny, sallow-skinned father.
I tell his plump, nervous mother that I would have gladly given my life for
his. Then there’s his sister, Amy, who has Down Syndrome and who hugged with
such abandon when we met for the first time. What can I say to Amy so that she
will understand? What is there to understand about this at all? There are no
lessons learned. No spirits strengthened through suffering. There is no comfort
in the memories of beautiful moments and whispered endearments. Memories only
bring pain and the aching helplessness of knowing that something has been
irretrievably lost.

The third mouse goes after this, and when I’m done I hide
the little frozen body under the bed, because I don’t know what else to do with
it.

After three hours in the room, I break Tarren’s rule and climb
onto the roof from the back window. I sprawl on the dirty concrete and let the
sun filter directly onto my skin. Arizona has lots of sun to give me, and my
body greedily soaks in the energy it provides.

I wait. The boys don’t come back. I try not to worry or
incessantly imagine multitudinous scenarios where one or both of them end up
dead, torn to pieces by the bloody talons of an angel. Angels don’t have
talons, I know, but this doesn’t stop my mind from engineering them along with
leathery bat wings ripping from the angel’s shoulder blades as he sinks his
fangs into Gabe’s neck.

After another hour, I slip back into the room and vow to
start searching for Gabe and Tarren if I don’t hear from them by nightfall. I
know this is an empty threat, and so I vow all the more passionately. The truth
is I am half convinced that Tarren finally persuaded Gabe of my true danger,
and the boys abandoned me here in this hellhole. My consolation to this thought
is that Tarren would never just abandon me. No, he would finish what he started
— a bullet through my brain. One less angel to worry about.

* * *

It must have been the whetting sunrays on the roof, because
without meaning to, I let my book fall out of my grip, lay my head down in my
arms and drift off to sleep on the floor of the motel room.

My dreams are blurry and meaningless. A voice whispering
daughter, daughter.
Ryan swooping down from the sky and
snatching me up in his arms. We kiss as his brown, leathery bat wings beat
against the air and lift us up to the stars. Gabe is standing below us
screaming, “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Our lips part. I look at Ryan’s face. “Baby, you’re dead,” I
tell him.

Then — suddenly — I am fully awake, crouching low, muscles
tensing without knowing why or where I am. The room is dark around me. A noise.
The door handle turning. Squeaking hinges. I feel a flow of energy come into
the room.

Tarren. His face gives nothing away, but his body does. A
spray of blood arcs across his long-sleeve shirt all the way up to his neck and
jaw.

“Oh my god,” I gasp. Something strange is tugging inside my
chest.

“It isn’t mine,” Tarren says as he crosses the room with
long, powerful strides. He goes into the bathroom, shuts the door. The shower
hisses to life.

“Where’s Gabe?” I ask the spot where Tarren was.

“Right here. You miss me?” Gabe walks through the door
carrying a duffle bag on each shoulder. I look him over, assessing his aura for
any hints of red. The normal bright blue of his energy is muddied and pale, but
it’s stable.

I scan his body, wincing when he reaches across the bed to
turn on the lamp. There are drops of blood on his sneakers, and smudges between
his fingers where a quick washing didn’t get them off.

“Were you sleeping on the carpet?” Gabe catches my stare and
smiles.

I put a finger to my cheek and feel the imprint of the
carpet fibers on my skin.

“What happened?” I ask. “Did you…uh.”

Gabe sets the duffle bags onto the bed. “Uh-huh. Got lucky.
This sicko liked to hang around his own crime scenes. You know, get off on it.”

He unzips one of the bags and picks out a set of clothes. I
know these are Tarren’s clothes not only by the smell, but also because Gabe
pulls out a long sleeved shirt and jeans with no holes in them. Gabe knocks on
the bathroom door, opens it and drops in the clothes without looking.

“We noticed him at the crime scene,” Gabe says as he closes
the bathroom door and then carefully avoids the rat droppings as he makes his
way back to the bed. “Followed him until he was alone and…well,” Gabe shrugs.
“Clipped his wings.”

“Killed him,” I say.

The shower stops.

“So, how far’d you get with
Zombie
Hordes
?” Gabe asks. I don’t have time to answer. Tarren is out of the
bathroom in two minutes ordering me to the car. Gabe is already pulling a
bottle of bleach out of Tarren’s duffle bag.

“Put the hat on,” Tarren calls after me as I slink out the
door. The Murano smells like blood. The seats look clean. I follow the smell
back toward the trunk. With shaking hands, I lift the latch on the backseat and
pull it down just a little. A lumpy bundle wrapped in a tarp lies in the trunk.

Gingerly, I put the seat back in place. I turn around, fold
my hands in my lap and try not to give into the maniac tears, laughter or
screams that all struggle for release.

The boys are done cleaning the room in minutes. I wonder if
they found the dead mouse under the bed. Gabe gets behind the wheel.

“Seatbelts,” he calls.

“We’re going to meet a friend in Las Vegas,” Tarren tells me
from the passenger seat. “We’ll make it in about five hours.”

“Is there a body in the trunk?” I ask.

Gabe — “No.”

Tarren — “Yes.”

The brothers look at each other. Gabe frowns. Tarren shrugs.

“It’s just a bundle of, uh, hockey sticks,” Gabe says.

“It’s too big to be hockey sticks,” I say, and can’t keep
the waver out of my voice.

“Yeah, of course,” Gabe replies. “But, ah, that’s because
it’s a crash test dummy holding hockey sticks.”

“That’s even less believable than just the hockey sticks,”
Tarren informs his brother.

“Shut up.” Gabe starts the car. We pull out of the parking
lot. I hear the body listing in the trunk. A little warbly moan catches in my
throat.

“Maya, just don’t think about it,” Gabe says.

“Okay,” I say and try to put some power in my voice so it
doesn’t come out like a croak. I search for my sunglasses and shove them on my face
even though it’s dark outside again. I don’t want the boys to see me crying. I
don’t want to be crying. I’m so damn tired of my own tears.