On Unfaithful Wings (17 page)

“It’s too late. He’s already seen your failure. Do you know what happens to failures?”

A lump rose in my throat, choking me so I couldn’t answer. I swallowed to clear it but it wouldn’t go.

“Do you?”

I shook my head and more tears leaked from my eyes.

Father Dominic leaned in close so his lips brushed my ear when he spoke.

“They go in the closet.”

My eyes darted to the plain wood door in front of me with its brass knob and ancient keyhole. A sob tore from my throat.

“No,” I cried, my feet scuffling against the floor in an attempt to push away. The priest’s grip held me. My shoulders burned.

“Yes.”

“What did I do?” I screeched. “What did I do?”

“Be quiet.”

He pushed me forward, my socked feet skidding on the hardwood floor. A noise grew in my throat, a tension like a spring drawn back and waiting to release--I felt it in my chest, my belly. His fingers dug deep into my arm, threatening what would happen if I let it out. The scream died in my throat.

We reached the closet door and he circled my chest with one arm, pressing me against his body to hold me while he yanked the door open with the other hand. I stared into the gaping doorway, terror freezing me.

A few sweaters dangled from hangers and a battered suitcase sat off to one side, but there was nothing else in the closet. At least, nothing you could see in the light.

“Get in.”

“No.”

My paralysis let go. I twisted in his grip, nearly won my freedom. If my feet hadn’t slipped on the floor, I might have gotten away. Instead, Father Dominic shifted, caught me by my aching shoulders, and pushed me into the closet. I opened my mouth to beg, to protest, to scream.

“It’s the voice of little boys that wakes the demons,” he said.

My mouth snapped shut and Father Dominic closed the door. For a few seconds, a tiny shaft of light shone through the keyhole, a symbol of hope, then he put the key in and locked the door, shutting me in and the light out.

I stumbled back against the interior wall and slid down to the floor, eyes darting but seeing nothing in the darkness. I knew in my head the closet was small, that it contained only the sweaters and suitcase, but in the dark it could have stretched on all the way to Hell.

I drew a shuddering breath, smelled moth balls and must.

What does a demon’s breath smell like?

My breath came out a sob. I slapped my hand over my mouth. Would that be enough to draw there attention? I sat with my knees pulled hard against my chest, breath held, and waited for a clawed hand to grab my ankle, for the heat of fire-and-brimstone breath against my throat. When I could hold my breath no longer, a ragged sob escaped my lungs, the sound startling me. Another followed it.

I rolled onto my side, knees still hugged against my chest, and the tears came in earnest. With each sob, each tear rolling down my cheek, each squeak at the back of my throat, I expected death to come out of the darkness and take me. After an eternity, I began to wish it would.

I awoke in darkness, but not in the closet. The wool of a blanket pulled tight by my face irritated my chin; a sliver of moonlight shone through a gap in the curtains. I shifted to look around but saw only shapes and shadows outlined in the dark. Any one of them could have been the demon who dragged me back here to my room. I pulled the blanket over my head, smelled the pee soaking my pants I’d been unable to hold while in the closet, and whispered to God that I was sorry for whatever I’d done.

“Fuck that,” I murmured.

I gritted my teeth, touched the hardness of the shotgun in the deep pocket of the trench coat I’d rescued from the ground outside my motel room. The gun would likely be useless, but the feel of it calmed the emotions swirling through my chest, tingling my limbs. I felt the decades-old fear of the priest and something else I’d never felt in his presence: excitement.

I would witness Father Dominic’s death.

I strode to the cobblestone walk meandering to the rectory door and looked at my watch. Father Dominic’s assigned time of death: 2:12 a.m. Six minutes. I wondered why they chose to send me for the priest’s soul. Didn’t they have anyone else to do the job?

I tried the door--locked.

Damn it.

I twisted it again and this time the door swung open before me. I stared down at my hand, flexed my fingers.

Nice.

No time to waste.

“Icarus?”

I jumped at the sound of Poe’s whisper and spun to face her, ready to...what? Defend myself? In my instant of surprise, I forgot the shotgun in my deep pocket. Nice job. I shushed her with a finger to my lips and gestured for her to follow. She’d said Mikey wanted her to chaperone, but when I made it this far without seeing her, I thought she’d gotten stuck on a yacht somewhere and left me to my own devices. It was good to have her there.

I stole through the dark entry hall like a light wind; Poe was quieter. While the stairs creaked under my feet, they made no noise at her steps. With each sound, I paused, waiting to be discovered, but silence reigned in the old building. At the top of the stairs, we headed down the hall to Father Dominic’s room at the far end.

An electricity tingled my flesh, stood the hair on my arms on end, as I paused before opening the door. A closet-full of demons lurked behind this door, and a switch once used to sting my flesh. I didn’t want to enter the room and revisit the past. I didn’t want to save the priest’s soul.

I filled my lungs to capacity, let out a slow breath, and sensed Poe behind me, silently urging me on.

I wish you’d stayed on the yacht
.

The door swung open on creaky hinges; I cringed at the noise. Ushering Poe in, I scanned the room to be sure no one sat with the priest in his sickness--my own story of concern at the ready just in case--then shut the door behind us. The room looked just as sparse and cold as it had when I was a child. My gaze lingered a second on the closed closet door before settling on the old man snoring softly beneath a thick duvet.

I crept to the bed and looked down at his face.

Disease and the passage of time left him ravaged. Drooping jowls replaced the square jaw I remembered; the severe widow’s peak receded to reveal a scalp spotted with age. Since our last encounter, his face had degenerated into one of those old-person faces so wrinkled as to be impossible to tell what he looked like in his youth. He couldn’t have been any older than his mid-seventies but looked ancient--a modern-day Methuselah. In his fitful sleep, with his breathing ragged, he no longer looked like the monster who lived in my memory but like any feeble old man clinging to the last thread of life.

The hardness in my heart softened a little. He’d been tough, cruel, but he raised me. Running away, drugs and booze, they were choices I’d made, not things he’d forced on me. The urge to pull him out of his death bed and force him to stand, arms extended, until he couldn’t hold them up, disappeared. Here lay nothing more than a man at the end of his life.

A sharp snore startled him, his breath catching in his throat, and his eye lids fluttered. Broken capillaries etched tiny red lines across his yellowed eyes. He glanced around, unfocused, until his gaze fell on me.

“Icarus Fell.” No more than a rasp in his throat, my name sent a tremor through the waddle his neck had become.

The sound of his voice broke the spell that this was anyone other than Father Dominic, the man who branded me, named me after a boy who failed so spectacularly he’d earned a place immortalized in mythology. For decades, I’d hated him, and the old hatred woke along with him.

“Father Dominic.” My words like dry ice.

“I thought you dead.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“Is this my life passing before my eyes, then?”

“Not exactly.”

His lips twitched. He’d never been good at smiling.

“You’re the last person I expected to see on my death bed.”

“Why?” I demanded, ignoring his words. “Why did you treat me the way you did?”

“Your soul’s tainted.” He coughed, phlegm spattering his chin. “Was from the start.”

“What are you talking about? I was only a child.”

“Child of a beast.”

“But I--”

“Your mother was a saint. He ruined her, damned her soul. You’re the embodiment of it.”

Poe stirred behind me, discomforted. I closed my eyes. My mother had been a nun at this church, worked and prayed alongside Father Dominic. She died birthing me--a happening the priest declared my fault--but no one ever told me who my father was. The old hatred burned brighter.

“Who was he? Who was my father?”

His eyes clouded and he coughed again.

“I loved her,” he said, his voice barely more than a breath. “In my own way.”

“Tell me who my father was.”

His mouth twitched once more and a last breath sighed between his peeling lips, exhaling the last of his life from his lungs. I didn’t rejoice as I thought I might; even our worst enemies have a hand in molding us.

A second later, a younger, healthier-looking version of Father Dominic with a cruel twist to his lip sat up on the bed and looked around. His eyes fell on me, and I stared back, unwavering.

“Tell me,” I said.

Surprise widened the spirit’s eyes, but the look dissipated quickly.

“You can see me.” A statement, not a question. “Mary said you were back. So you’re the one come to get me, then? I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were dead, but they brought you back, didn’t they?” The corner of his mouth crinkled in a sneer. “They should have sent you to Hell.”

I pulled the shotgun out of the trench coat pocket and leveled the sawed off barrel at him, though I’m not sure why--the man was already dead, a spirit. What was I going to do, ruin his wallpaper?

“They didn’t. Tell me about my life.”

“You got what you deserved. Your poor sweet mother’s death spared her years of humiliation and embarrassment.”

I heard Poe move behind me, felt her electric touch on my shoulder.

“Icarus,” she whispered. I shrugged her hand away.

I glared at the priest, unable to dredge up words hateful enough to express my feelings. Thoughts buzzed through my head on the heels of the vodka’s nearly-worn-off effects, one horrible notion rising above the others.

“Are you my father?” I asked through a jaw clenched so tight a crowbar would have snapped in its grip. “Is that why you hate me? Because my mother died and you blame me?”

He looked like I’d slapped him--not a bad idea.

“It’s your fault she died, but I would never defile myself or your mother to be the sire of someone like you.”

“Who then?”

“Icarus, let the poor soul be.”

The man’s voice came from the doorway. I whirled around, grazing Poe with the stubby shotgun barrel as I actually remembered to point it. It took an instant to recognize him: dark clothes, dark coat, black hair past his shoulders, olive skin. A knot of fear in my throat strangled my breath.

“Azrael,” Father Dominic growled behind me. The word made the short hairs on my neck stand straight. Poe backed away, terror distorting her face. An instant of concern for her was overcome by the angel-of-death’s presence.

“What do you want?” I managed.

“Oh, I think you know.” His slow, deliberate words and melodic tone mesmerized. He stepped into the room, boots thudding dully on the hardwood floor. “I want the same thing you do.”

I backed away, shielding Poe with my body. Once, he’d been an angel. I didn’t think a shotgun would have much effect on one of God’s children, but I kept it on him anyway.

“You’re right, it wouldn’t harm me. The noise would wake others, bring the police.” He smiled; not the evil smile I expected, but beautiful like every other angel’s, maybe more so. “You don’t want to go back to jail, Icarus.”

“Don’t listen to him, I’m a man of God. Take me to Heaven, Icarus. The angel said you would.”

I looked sideways at the priest. The angel of death laughed.

“Do you think a collar around your neck absolves you, Dominic? I was the hand of God, one of his chosen, and look where I am.”

“I know all about you and what you did. You got what you deserved.”

“As will you.”

My sweaty palm made the stock of the gun slick in my hand, but I didn’t put it down despite how useless it might be. I glanced from Azrael to Poe, then to Father Dominic. The priest’s gaze locked on mine, fear flashing plainly through his eyes. A rill of guilty satisfaction seeped into my mind. How many times did he bring the same look to my face?

“Don’t let him take me,” he pleaded. I backed away from the angel of death, guiding Poe along, putting the bed with Father Dominic’s body and soul between us.

Azrael stopped and spread his arms. “By all means, harvester. Complete your duty. I won’t stand in your way. Or, you can take the opportunity to make him pay for what he did.”