On Unfaithful Wings (40 page)

***

I arrived at the address on the scroll ten minutes before the allotted time--I’d learned my lessons the hard way. The nerves I’d felt on my way to the address dissipated when I saw the name on the building: Shady Oaks Retirement Home. Pretty good chance no one here would be a murder victim.

I hoped.

Pretending to be the devoted grandson--the one who’d never been to visit before--I inquired at the front desk about my ‘grandmother.’ Mrs. Emily Carter was in the garden, a pleasant woman told me. I strode down the hallway, perusing colorful reproductions of landscapes and animals in faux-gilt frames. When they built this place, they’d done their best to make it look like a turn-of-the-century mansion with high ceilings and elaborate crown moldings, but the effect fell short. The rust-colored carpet and cream walls were pleasant enough, but a smell reminiscent of a hospital smothered in Ben Gay permeated the place and no amount of architecture or interior design would disperse it. Most of the doors were open a crack, many leaking the sound of soap operas or game shows through the opening, but a few stood wider, revealing octogenarians sleeping peacefully in their beds. At least, I assumed they were sleeping. I didn’t see any wayward spirits hanging about.

I exited through a door looking more like it belonged on a storefront than leading to a patio, and entered the Shady Oaks’ garden. A hodge-podge of vegetation, all neatly trimmed and arranged, cluttered the little courtyard. A huge old oak dominated the middle of the yard, while a spiky monkey tree grew in one corner and a palm in another. A variety of flowering bushes and shrubs looking rather empty and bland at this time of year filled the gaps.

Emily Carter was the lone resident of Shady Oaks--though it should have been ‘Shady Oak’ since only one oak tree grew on the grounds--taking advantage of the garden. She’d parked her wheelchair in the middle of the lawn, away from the meager shade of the barren oak. A wool blanket in a tartan pattern nestled up under her chin, an oxygen bottle hung on the back of her chair. As I approached, the way she sat made me think of Gabe, face toward the sky, basking, enjoying the sun for the last time.

What a nice way to go. Beats being knifed.

I crossed the lawn, steps quieted by grass which should have been cut once more before putting the lawn mower into hibernation for the winter, and stopped at Mrs. Carter’s shoulder. The shallowness of her breathing made it hard to believe her lungs drew air at all. I glanced at my watch: still a couple of minutes until she’d join me. To pass the time, I sat cross-legged on the lawn beside her, ignoring the autumn-dampness of the grass, and joined her in enjoying the beautiful day. The sunshine warmed my cheeks, energizing me in spite of the coolness in the air. It was easy to understand why an angel like Gabe who doesn’t get to be human all the time dug it so much.

I knew I’d made the right decision.

“Are you here for me?”

I opened my eyes and looked at Mrs. Carter’s spirit standing in front of me, casting no shadow. The soul looked very much like the Mrs. Carter sitting peacefully dead in the wheelchair beside me, but a few years younger, not quite so wrinkly. I pushed myself to my feet, wiping at the dampness on the ass of my jeans.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The muscles in my thighs tensed, ready to take off after her if she decided to flee. Being in her seventies, I assumed I’d be able to catch her. I glanced around the courtyard and saw no one watching: no humans, no carrions.

“Good,” she said slipping her arm around mine. “I’ve been waiting for you. What took you so long?”

I smiled and she led me back to the building, through the corridor and into the street beyond, chattering all the while about her life and all the things she learned this time around and how she couldn’t wait to see what the next life held in store.

Maybe this isn’t such a bad job after all.

####

About the Author

Bruce Blake lives in a small town on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. When pressing issues like shovelling snow and building igloos don't take up his spare time, Bruce can be found taking the dog sled to the nearest cafe to work on his short stories and novels.

Actually, Chemainus, B.C. is only a couple hours north of Seattle, Wash., where more rain is seen than snow. Bruce is the father of two and trophy husband of burlesque diva
Miss Rosie Bitts
.

Bruce's first short story, “Another Man's Shoes” was published in the Winter 2008 edition of
Cemetery Moon
.
“Yardwork” was made into a podcast in Oct., 2011 by
Pseudopod
. On Unfaithful Wings
is Bruce's first novel but there are many more to come.

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www.on-unfaithful-wings.com

Coming Soon:
“All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel)”

Chapter One

When your guardian angel and her friend, the archangel Gabriel, tell you to stay put, it’s probably a good idea to listen.

I should have, but I have inexplicable difficulty with authority figures.

An old Buick sat to the right of my motel room door looking like it hadn’t moved in a decade or so, and it certainly hadn’t budged since I checked in; a few other cars were parked in the motel’s lot but there were no people. I stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind me, the click of the lock firecracker-loud in the winter night.

I paused. Still no one around. I breathed deep and stepped away from the door, the first time I’d been outside the dingy, musty-smelling room in weeks.

A month ago, the police found a tranny prostitute named Dante Frank dead on a bed in a five-star hotel, hairy chest and hairless vagina exposed for the world to see along with the biblical references his killer carved in his flesh. Dante, who I’d known as Danielle Francis, was the last victim of the serial killer dubbed the Revelations Reaper by the media. The police had a suspect in the string of killings: me.

I didn’t kill them but, if the truth be told, their deaths were on me.

Forget the angels telling me to stay indoors, the fact the local news had been flashing an unflattering picture of my face on the screen every night until a week ago should have kept me inside my seedy room. But you know what they say about common sense...it ain’t so common.

Icarus Fell: living proof.

I didn’t think that because they finally stopped plastering my face all over the six o’clock news they’d stopped looking for me. Every cop in the city likely still carried my picture but, after four weeks in my motel-room-prison, the prospect of remaining inside held no appeal. I’d spent every moment of the last month thinking about my role in the deaths, wishing things were different. Another minute trapped alone with my guilt might prove one too many.

I slipped away from the motel and down a side street, disappearing in shadows and down alleys where ever I could. The taste of impending snow in the early December air fortified my lungs.

As I ranged farther from the motel, the garbage strewn on the streets and graffiti spray-painted on walls became less frequent until it disappeared completely. I’d made my way to a neighborhood where people cared, a fact which should have rang alarm bells in my head and made me more careful, but the lack of hookers and drug dealers lifted my spirits and my worry ebbed taking caution along with it.

Dumb ass.

I paused at the intersection, the lights of an approaching car reflecting on the frost-rimed pavement as I waited to be sure it would obey the stop sign. Without the fresh air loosening my wits, I’d have waved him through, but freedom made my head light in the way of a non-smoker after a few drags on a cigarette. The car’s brakes squeaked as it rolled to a halt. I stepped off the curb and raised a hand in thanks, squinting against the lights, but couldn’t see the driver. Hand replaced in pocket, I continued on my way, thinking nothing of it until I heard the hum and chatter of a power window in need of repair.

“Hey you.”

The words weren’t spoken with the timbre of someone in need of directions. The caution and worry the beautiful night had leeched from me flooded back; I quickened my pace.

“Stop.”

I broke into a run before his engine roared and tires chirped. Cutting across a well-manicured lawn, I hopped a fence, ran through a back yard dominated by an inter-locking brick patio and an in-ground pool emptied for the winter, then vaulted another fence into a rear lane, cursing my stupidity with every step.

Despite a house between us, I heard the car’s engine rev and labor as the driver gave chase. I dove through a line of tall shrubs, their branches scratching my face, and into another yard, keeping my flight to places the car couldn’t go. Ten minutes of fence-jumping and shrub-diving later, I emerged on a sporadically lit street. Familiar graffiti scrolled across the side of a building. Close to my motel. My lungs labored, the cold air hurting my chest instead of refreshing it as a stitch in my side dug in and grabbed hold. I stopped to catch my breath, bent at the waist, hands grasping knees like a marathoner run out of steam, but rest didn’t last long. A siren wailed behind me and I forced my legs back into action.

I darted into an alley and the all-too-familiar stink of garbage and piss, depression and decay hit me immediately. I’d lost so many days and nights of my youth in alleys like this, sleeping off a bottle of vodka or poking a needle in my arm. I forced the thought from my mind. This was no time to self-analyze by way of shitty memories.

Tires screeched at the mouth of the alley. I didn’t look back, my attention taken by a figure stepping out of the shadows into my path. A Carrion, I assumed–a human-shaped demon sent to collect souls and make my life difficult–but I quickly realized the silhouette was smaller and more feminine, leaving two possible people. Angels, really. I halted a few paces beyond arm’s-reach in case I was wrong.

“Hey, mister. Long time, no see.”

I recognized the voice immediately. The angel stepped into the light and I saw her gingerbread hair, glimpsed the freckled skin of her cheek.

“Gabe.”

The Archangel Gabriel is the messenger. She brings scrolls with my assignments inscribed on them: who’s scheduled to pass, where, when, and where to take them when it’s done.

I couldn’t think of a worse time for her to show up.

“Did you miss me?”

Her pure voice echoed off the alley walls and a chorus of swallows which always accompanied her, but that I couldn’t see in the dark, chirped and chittered on a fire escape overhead.

“Don’t have time right now, Gabe,” I said breathlessly and glanced over my shoulder. The alley remained empty, but it wouldn’t for much longer.

“Here.”

She offered a scroll which hadn’t been in her hand a second before.

“Really, Gabe? I don’t--” I gestured toward the alley at my back, offered a pleading look. She shook the scroll at me and raised an eyebrow.

I’d learned the hard way that harvesting wasn’t the kind of job you could slack off at; the hard way seems to be the way I choose to learn everything. I gave in without any real fight.

My finger brushed hers as I grasped the rolled parchment and an electric charge prickled the hairs on my arm, bringing with it a longing to spend time with her, to be in her presence as long as possible. I nearly forgot the man chasing me.

“Gabe, I--”

She smiled and shrugged. “You don’t have time, remember?”

Swallow wings beat the air above my head as she walked away. I stared after her for a second before pulling myself from the angel-induced stupor to look at the scroll in my hand. This was my second assignment since everything went down: the deaths, the media frenzy, the explosion at the church. What happened to souls during my seclusion? Did they make other arrangements or were they okay with everyone going to Hell for a few weeks while I got my wits about me?

Unrolling the scroll unnerved me. After being given one inscribed with my son’s name, I couldn’t help but hold my breath. Probably would every time I did it.

Shaun Williams.

I set my captive breath free. Didn’t know him. The address scrawled on the yellowed parchment wasn’t familiar, either, but I knew the city well enough to recognize it was close. I read the time of death then checked my watch.

Two minutes from now.

The sound of shoes hammering pavement reverberated off the alley’s brick walls. I got my legs moving again and took a corner, feet tangling in a pile of garbage bags and spilling me to the pavement. My shoulder hit hard and I skidded a couple feet along the damp ground, filth snow-plowing onto my jacket. I scrambled to my feet, glanced ahead and behind as the footsteps grew louder, and realized the futility of my flight. Facing my pursuer seemed the only option. Maybe I could talk my way out of it before my appointment came and went.