Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel) (6 page)

The scroll sat on the table between us. I stared at it for a few seconds, then moved my gaze away to the golden eyes of the archangel Gabriel. As usual, I struggled to suppress the shiver and lusty thoughts her gingerbread hair and freckled cheeks stirred within me, but they were weaker than normal. This time, wishing Poe sat across the table from me and the nagging presence of an annoying eight-year-old girl’s homeless soul distracted me.

“I have to do this?”

She nodded. “You know you do.”

I sipped my coffee and tore my gaze away to look out the window. The swallows that escorted Gabe everywhere perched on the garbage can outside the coffee shop, the tables and chairs, the bike rack. Their iridescent blue feathers glimmered in the mid-morning sun, their shimmer making it equally as difficult to remove one’s gaze from them as from Gabe’s endearing sprinkle of freckles.

“
What should I do with her?”

I nodded toward my unexpected companion seated alone at the coffee bar. No one noticed her, of course; no matter how many times she waved at the busy barista or how much she chatted, she remained drinkless. Sucks not to get a coffee when you want one.

“Not my department.” Gabe shrugged. “Take her with you, I guess.”

“
But she’ll get in the way.”

“
Stop worrying, Icarus. She is a spirit. What could happen? You might find her useful.”

I doubted it. “So you think I should keep her around?”

She nodded and smiled, an expression bright enough to alleviate a New York blackout. Usually, it lit me up like a Roman candle, too, but today it lifted my mood marginally more than a helium balloon tethered to a brick. I leaned toward Gabe and inhaled the aroma of baked goods clinging to her that smelled so good it might cause a streak of jealousy in the treats for sale at
The Caffeinated Cowboy
.

“
If I leave her,” I whispered, my gaze flickering to Dido to make sure she wasn’t watching me, reading my lips, “what will happen to her?”

“
Nothing. She will become a wanderer, roaming the world alone.”

Dido: the wanderer. More of a smarty-pants than I realized. “Forever?”

Gabe answered with another shrug. “You would not let her, Icarus.”

“
Ric,” I said, distracted. I glanced over at the girl at the coffee bar, talking and smiling despite the inability of everyone around her to see her. “I guess not.”

“
Good.”

I drained the remainder of my coffee and thumped the porcelain mug that was big enough to drown a rat in on the table. “Are you sure you can’t take her with you? You must know someone at the pearly gates. Slip him a fiver.”

“There are no pearly gates. Some comedian created them.”

“
A lie. Like angel’s wings.”

She nodded and smiled; I fiddled with the mug, spinning it around, picking it up and considering the last drop of morning nectar at the bottom that never seems to make it out, and thought of Poe, and Piper, and Dido. It seemed I possessed as little luck with women in death as in life. I put the coffee cup down and sighed.

“Any word about Poe?”

Gabe reached across the table and laid her hand on top of mine. Static electricity jumped from her fingers, crawled up my arm and tickled my ribs. If I didn’t move my hand from hers soon, the sensation would claw its way into my brain and leave me with my toes dangling over the edge of euphoria.

I didn’t want to move my hand.

“
You have to let her go, Icarus.”

“
Ric.”

She smiled and her whole face glowed. “You did the right thing. I know it might not seem it now, but you needed to make a decision and you did. Let it go. In the end, things will work out in the manner they need to work out.”

Comforting. Like saying ‘don’t worry, the fall will stop when you hit the ground.’

She stole a glance toward Dido, then patted my hand once and stood, the legs of her wooden chair scraping the gray tile floor. Every head in the place swung toward her and took the time to watch her stride to the exit. When she passed through the door, the swallows lifted off and swirled around her in a cloud of blue and white before heading skyward. Gabe stopped outside the window and raised her hand to say good-bye; all of the
Cowboy’s
patrons and employees abandoned their coffees or jobs and waved in response.

The archangel smiled again, tilted her face toward the sky and closed her eyes, enjoying the sunshine before she left. When she disappeared, the coffee shop returned to normal as though nothing happened, the noise level rising with resumed conversations, coffee cups clunking on tables, and the coffee grinder springing back to life, but the mood slipped a notch without Gabe’s presence.

“All right then,” I said to nobody and pushed my chair away from the table.

Nobody looked up at the sound of its legs scraping the tiles, except the woman whose seat I bumped into. I smiled an apology and she returned to pecking the keys of her Dell laptop.

Fucking coffee shop writers taking up valuable real estate.

I scooped up the scroll Gabe left behind and jammed it into the inside pocket of my overcoat without opening it; that could wait until a time when I had a little more privacy. People in coffee shops can be nosey, as evidenced by my attempt to peek at the woman’s computer screen to see what so consumed her attention. She shifted to block my view and shot me an annoyed glare. I shrugged.

“Time to go, Dallas,” I said wending my way through the labyrinth of chairs.

“
Dido,” she said hopping off the high stool at the bar, lips pursued at me in reproach. “If anyone in the world should care enough to get a name right, it should be you...
Icarus
.”

She deliberately drew out my name, emphasizing it, and her ploy worked. The sound of it scraped across me, her words fingernails on my blackboard brain.

“Fine—Dido. It’s a stupid name, though.” I regretted saying it—seemed immature, even to me. I didn’t tell her, though.

“
You’re right. Icarus is so much better.”

“
Ric.”

“
Fine—Ric. Who was the cute lady you were talking to,
Ric?
”

Same tone she’d used when she said Icarus, same irritation for me. Maybe it wasn’t the name grating my nerves, but the speaker.

“Gabe.”

She lifted an eyebrow at me.

“Gabriel, the archangel. She’s the messenger,” I said.

“
And did she bring you a message? About me?”

I pushed out the door and dodged a woman pushing a baby stroller the size of a SmartCar. She glared at me for...I don’t know, using the sidewalk to walk on, I guess. I shook my head and returned my attention to the girl at my side, the weight of the scroll bouncing against my chest as we walked.

“No.”

We joined the flow of pedestrians shuffling their way along the sidewalk from store to store in the chill air and bright sun. A beautiful day, but my mood didn’t seem capable of finding joy in it; perhaps the presence of the perpetual question machine walking beside me quashed the ability.

“No message, or not about me?”

“
Neither...um...both.”

“
What’s in your pocket, then?”

I let an exasperated sigh escape through my nose and pulled her aside, out of the way of the mid-morning foot commuters. I held her by the shoulders and looked into her blue eyes.

Weren’t they brown before?

“
Enough questions. Gabe only visits to give me scrolls with instructions.”

“
Instructions? What does the scroll say?”

I gave my head a brisk shake at her additional questions. Did she do it on purpose? Did she know how it tightened my insides into the over-wound spring of a cheap watch? Seemed to me she wanted to see how much winding it took to break it. I drew a deep breath of winter air chilly enough to make the teeth I sucked it through hurt before answering. It wouldn't be a good situation for either of us if I lost it on an eight-year-old in the middle of the sidewalk.

“The scrolls tell me everything I need to know to harvest a soul, like I did with your parents.”

Her face brightened and she clapped her hands together three times rapidly. A guy in a business suit and no overcoat hugging himself against the cold frowned at her.

“Sounds fun,” she said, her face all bright smile.

I considered telling her I wasn’t going to take her, that her job was to ensure no one broke into our motel room, but some quality in her expression made it impossible to resist her. Before I could stop it, I’d agreed to let her accompany me. After I realized it happened, I decided I better say something to make the decision sound begrudging.

“Fine,” I said starting down the street and leaving her to catch up. “But stay the f...stay out of my way.”

Ten paces of silence led me to believe her questions might have finally come to an end. No such luck.

“Are you sure Gabriel didn’t say anything about me?”

My head started to ache.

***

We crossed over the highway using the pedestrian walkway on the walk to our designated pick up point. Giving it a generic term like ‘pick up point’ helped me deal with the fact I was going to watch someone die. At least, it distracted me until I arrived and witnessed someone getting shot or dropping a barbell on themselves. Grisly business, death.

I walked at a brisk pace, both because Gabe didn’t give me much time and because I wanted to stay ahead of my new, unwanted companion to prevent more of her never-ending questions. My longer legs proved useful.

Listening to the clop-clop of her shoes on the pavement as she strove to keep up distracted me from the work ahead and made me consider the displaced soul again. Would they find a home for her some day? What if they didn’t? The suspicion I might have an adolescent tag-along for far longer than I was comfortable with settled in, though we’d passed my comfort level some hours ago. I didn’t enjoy the possibility of life as a baby sitter.

The part of town inscribed in the scroll had been nice in the early fifties, but fell on hard times by the seventies. It lay far enough from downtown that the houses boasted small squares of front lawn, most of them cluttered with garbage, broken appliances, or cheap toys belonging to children who likely didn’t know their fathers. The houses to which the tiny patches of grass belonged begged quietly for a coat of paint and a visit from a handyman; many of them might have been wise to consider trading their pathetic yards for new roofs, screens without holes, or crack-free windows.

I found the street listed on the scroll and glanced at my watches.

“It’s going to be close,” I said and immediately bit my tongue. Speaking to Dido equated to an invitation for her to open a can of questions on my ass. She accepted my inadvertent offer.

“
Which house is it?” she asked, jogging to catch up. “Who are we harvesting?”

“
Let me worry about it. Your job is to...stay out of the way.”

She continued walking beside me, her short legs hurrying to keep up my pace; I didn’t bother looking over to see the disappointed expression I’m sure I’d find plastered on her face. I possessed no desire to gaze upon pouty lips.

We traversed the street watching for the address on the scroll, a task made difficult by the numbers missing from many of the decorative wooden ovals mounted beside the doors.

How do these people order pizza?

“Judging by the houses, I don’t think many of these people order pizza,” Dido commented.

I stopped dead in my tracks; the girl continued on for two steps before realizing I’d halted. When she faced me, she’d see my expression wrestling between surprise and anger.

“What did you say?” I spoke the words slowly, careful how I’d sound to her.

“
That ordering pizza would be difficult here.” She answered in much the same tone as I’d asked.

“
Why did you say that?”

She waved her hand toward the houses, then regarded me as though she thought me a little slow.

“Most of the houses don’t have numbers.” She leaned close, her hand held up beside her mouth, shielding her lips from anyone who might try reading them. “And they don’t seem like they have a lot of money, either.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, raised one eyebrow. Did she expect me to accept it was a coincidence she’d read my mind like angels do?

She’s not an angel. Has to be a coincidence.

“
What?”

“
Nothing.” I shook my head. “We’ve got to go or we’ll be late.”

We continued down the street, me throwing the occasional suspicious look her way, her whistling a song by some pop singer I recognized from the radio but couldn’t put my finger on: Katy Perry or the Bieber kid. We walked past a house missing more white pickets from its fence than it had left, another with a rusted-out car on blocks in the driveway. A black cat zipped across the sidewalk in front of us.