Fear to Tread Page 10

  “Caleb,” Sylvia said again, barely louder than a whisper.

  “Okay,” Laura said. If you’re real, I need you, she thought, willing the angel to hear. If you’re not real, I probably need you anyway. Either she really had lost it completely and she was imagining all of this, or Caleb was real. If Sylvia had seen him, if she knew him…but what was this nurse? Everything was falling into place—a fearful symmetry, Jake would have called it, a favorite phrase of his. She made herself smile back at the nurse that she was afraid couldn’t be human. “Let’s go.”

  Caleb had been walking the streets all night, desperate and helpless. Unless Laura called out to him and ended his banishment, he would never find her. She could have been standing right in front of him, and he would never have seen her. But he couldn’t just stop trying. Lucifer had made it very clear he intended her harm, and somehow Caleb would have to find a way to save her.

  Suddenly, he heard her voice like a thought inside his own head. If you’re real, I need you. If you’re not real, I probably need you anyway. He reached out to her again, and this time, he could feel her. She was in trouble, terrified and confused.

  He started to take flight, and two dark shapes rose through the sidewalk in front of him, uncurling from the concrete like thick, black plumes of smoke made flesh. A third slunk out of the shadows of an alley to join them. “Give me your wallet,” the tallest one said, pulling a long, silver blade that had been ancient when the whole notion of a wallet was invented. The silver piercing in his lip glittered like pus at the edge of a nasty, disfiguring scar. These were Lucifer’s minions, the same three who had attacked Laura before.

  Caleb drew his sword. With no Laura to protect, he could fight more efficiently, dispatch vermin like this almost without thought. He swung the sword in a wide, easy arc, cleaving the leader’s head neatly from his shoulders as one of the others attacked him like an animal, claws extended, shrieking like a cat. He caught this one by the nape of the neck with his free hand and shook him, the claws slashing harmlessly through his coat as he dragged the creature back. He flung him down on the sidewalk and stomped down hard on his chest, pinning him to the ground. The demon writhed and swore terrible curses in the ancient tongue as Caleb raised his sword like a scythe, screamed as the sword sliced off his legs. He clutched and clawed at Caleb’s leg, and the angel took his arms as well, cleaving each at the shoulder with surgical precision before kicking all four squirming, disembodied limbs down the sidewalk.

  “Hey psycho!” The third one, the one from the alley, had drawn a gun. His eyes were wide with fright; white showed all around each iris. But the gun barrel was steady. Caleb flipped the sword up and caught it, driving the blade into the creature’s chest as the gun exploded, firing wild.

  Hot human blood poured over his hands.

  The mortal he had mistaken for a demon gaped at him, eyes bulging, blood pouring from his mouth. Caleb heard the real demons behind him start to laugh as the mortal staggered. He withdrew the sword, and the man clutched his stomach, his eyes glazing over as he started to fall. Caleb dropped the sword and grabbed him, reaching out with his angel’s senses, finding the damage, struggling to put it right. But it was too late. The heart was split apart, and he had no demon’s blood to sustain him while the angel’s power did its work. With a final retching cough, the man slumped dead to the ground. Caleb had used his holy sword to kill a mortal.

  The limbless demon was giggling too much to speak, but the head lying in the gutter at Caleb’s feet had stopped laughing. “Oopsy,” he said, grinning up at Caleb. “Welcome to the family.”

  Caleb didn’t feel himself making a choice, didn’t think at all. Rage like a blinding white light exploded out of him, burning away every thought. Kicking away the sword he was no longer worthy to carry, he extended his bare, bloody hands and roared the word of destruction he was forbidden to speak in this realm, the word of power saved for battle on the fields of heaven itself. The demon’s head erupted in a gush of burning, stinking blood. His body was still lying facedown on the sidewalk, and it began to collapse, imploding, disappearing in moments like a crumpled wad of paper in a furnace.

  The limbless one began to scream, writhing on the pavement like a worm. “You can’t!” he sniveled as Caleb moved toward him. He tried to wriggle away, his severed limbs flopping and twitching just out of reach. “Absolute destruction is forbidden!” Caleb whispered the words through lips drawn back over his teeth, and the demon howled in agony. A massive, steaming crack opened up in the ground, swallowing the severed limbs as they melted into flaming sludge. The demon’s torso was melting, too, slowly, up from the hips. “It is forbidden!” he screamed again in the ancient language just as his head was consumed.

  Humans were starting to come out into the street to see what had happened. Caleb looked down at the blood on his hands. He could change his form to any shape he could imagine, look like anyone or no one, disappear from mortal sight completely. But nothing in his power could wash away this blood. He could still feel Laura calling out to him, needing him, a silent scream of terror. He let his bloody hands fall to his sides as a man from the jazz club on the corner reached him, staring at him in pity and horror. Meeting the man’s eyes, he extended his blackened wings, his shadow swallowing the mortal up, blocking the light of the streetlamp. The man crossed himself as the angel turned and took off into the air.

  Chapter Nineteen—The Waiting Room

  When Jake had finally died, Laura had missed it. His mother and sister had gone home to sleep. But she had been there watching him carefully, listening to every painful, shuddering breath, feeling his hand she was holding twitch ever so slightly once or twice an hour. But when the moment had come, her attention had been elsewhere; she had been lost in her own thoughts. The alarms on his monitors had been turned off for more than a day by then. He had been past all sense of crisis for the nursing staff. Heaven or hell only knew how long she had sat there holding the hand of a corpse, half-dozing, not knowing he was gone.

  When she had finally realized, she had stayed absolutely still for several minutes, staring at his empty face. His eyes and mouth had been open. After a few minutes, more quickly than she would have thought possible, his hand had gone cold and hard, the fingers still laced with hers. He had died alone.

  When the nurse had finally come in and found them, she hadn’t said a word. She had walked back out of the room and come back two minutes later with another nurse. Laura had known it was almost exactly two minutes; she had been watching the clock. This second nurse had come to her, speaking softly and distinctly, words Laura hadn’t understood. She had gently and carefully lifted Laura and Jake’s joined hands as she was speaking, untangling Laura’s living fingers from Jake’s dead ones. Taking Laura by the shoulders, she had lifted her bodily from her chair and turned her toward the door. She had kept on asking, “Is there anybody I can call?” Laura couldn’t remember now if she had ever answered. They had walked down the hall together, the nurse supporting her like she might have been a patient….to the same small waiting room the demon nurse was leading her to now.

  Lucas Black was sitting on the tattered love seat, flipping through a crumpled magazine. His left ankle was propped on his right knee, exposing his droopy, brown sock, and he was slurping mostly air through a straw from a white Styrofoam cup. “Hiya Laura,” he said, looking up. “Thanks for coming down.”

  Laura glanced back at the thing that was pretending to be a nurse. The demon smiled, exposing just a few too many teeth. Had she always been a demon, even when Jake had been making her a sandwich every night? Laura didn’t think so; this was something else, something that had taken that poor woman’s shape. “I didn’t really think I had a choice.” She didn’t smile back, just stared into the creature’s eyes. After a moment, it looked away, crossing its arm over its stomach as if it suddenly hurt.

  “Thanks very much, nurse,” Black said. “I think I can take it from here.” Head down, hunched over, the demon nodde
d, scuttling out. Black smiled at Laura. “Of course you had a choice.” He dropped his magazine on the battered coffee table with a slap. “That’s the great and awful thing about people like you, Laura—or people in general. You always have a choice.”

  “That’s awesome.” She made herself look him in the eye. “I’ll just go.”

  He got up fast, but he didn’t stop smiling. “That would be really, really stupid.”

  “Why? Would you arrest me?” He wasn’t scary, she thought, not like the ones who had grabbed her on the street, the other demons. Because that was what they had been, surely, and that was what he was. As soon as she had seen the fake nurse, she had known. In the deepest, most primal part of her brain, she had known it as soon as she’d seen him the first time in the alley. He was pure evil. But he wasn’t horrifying, really—except for the scar, he was actually kind of handsome. He didn’t smell bad the way the nurse had. Truth be told, he smelled kind of good, like a coal fire or gasoline or the freshly oiled barrel of a gun. But standing this close to him made her flesh crawl. “What for?” she said. “Murdering the woman who just walked me down the hall?”

  She saw a flash of anger in his flat black eyes, a tiny tongue of blue flame sparking in their depths. But his grin widened, twisting the corner of his scar. “Oops,” he said, taking a step closer. “So you figured that one out.” She stood her ground, meeting his gaze.

  “What are you?” she said. “Not a cop.” He shook his head, still smiling, bemused. “Not a human.”

  “I can be anything you want.” His beard grew longer, and his features thickened until he looked like the Irish priest. “Are you sure then you’ve nothing you want to confess, dear heart?” He laughed, making her stomach turn. Then he was changing again, his coarse black hair growing longer and finer as the beard and mustache disappeared, and his lips ripened to a familiar curve under the ghastly scar. Within seconds, Caleb seemed to be standing in his place, Caleb in an ugly suit and trench coat with flat black eyes and jet black hair and the stomach-churning scar. He opened his arms and turned around, modeling his new form, and she saw the gun in its holster still under his arm. “That was cute of you, casting Caleb out,” he said, facing her again. “Where is he, anyway?”

  He’s an angel, she thought. He’s really an angel; he really wanted to save me, and I sent him away. Her fear was like a clammy sweat breaking out on her skin, a phantom snake twisting in her gut. “I don’t know where he is,” she said, fighting down the tremor in her voice. “But if you try to hurt me, I bet you he’ll show up.”

  “Oh, I know he will.” His smile faded, but the flames burned brighter in his eyes. “Laura, baby, I am counting on it.”

  Before she could answer, he kissed her, taking her completely by surprise. His mouth was cold, but his hands felt burning hot as he grabbed her shoulders, even through Jake’s heavy coat. She pushed against him, and his tongue pushed deep inside her mouth, icy cold and much too long, slithering against her palette. He pulled her closer, crazy strong, and a weird, narcotic weakness overwhelmed her, sapping her hope and will away.

  She bit down hard on his tongue, tasting something hot and bitter in her mouth before he let her go. She stumbled back and almost fell, scrambling to keep her balance. “Stop it!”

  He was laughing, wiping his mouth. “Aww, come on, Laura,” he said. “Don’t be mad.” His smell and the sound of his voice were making her drunk, dragging her towards him like an undertow. His voice was changing again; the words were stretched out to a drawl so familiar, her scalp began to tingle. The change was happening faster this time, his face rippling like he was under rushing water, his body shifting, thickening. She stopped breathing, feeling sick. “Goddamn, Laura,” he said in Jake’s sweet Southern drawl, caressing her cheek with Jake’s hand. “I swear I could just eat you up.”

  “Just leave me alone,” she said, her voice coming out in a breathless rasp as she stared into his face, her husband’s face with the devil’s cold, black eyes. “Get away from me.”

  “He told you Jake was safe in heaven, didn’t he?” He grinned, the sexy, crooked grin that had always made her toes curl up on her husband’s face twisted by the scar into a nasty leer. “That nothing was your fault.” Blue flame flickered in his eyes. “That must have been a relief.” She put her hands over her ears to shut him out, but his voice went on inside her head. “What a crock of shit.” She shut her eyes tight. He was a better mimic than Caleb had been. Listening to him, she couldn’t stop herself remembering how formal Jake’s ghost had sounded and how she had thought at the time it was strange. Now she knew he had sounded like Caleb.

  “You and I both know where Jake is now.” He was so close now she could feel his icy breath brushing her ear. “And your mama, too.” A hand that felt so familiar she wanted to cry caressed her hair. “But they were both fucked before you got to them; you couldn’t have saved them. But Caleb?” He snickered. “Caleb’s fall is gonna be all about you.”

  “You’re lying.” She looked at his face then away again, focusing on a candy wrapper on the floor, trying not to hear him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh honey,” he said, laughing. “I know all there is to know about falling from grace over a woman.” His fingertips traced the shape of her jaw. “The Great and Powerful Oz made you all so pretty and so needy….and my brother loves you so much.”

  “Shut up.”

  “But you don’t love him.” He caressed her throat, tracing the line of her pulse. “You love the dead man burning in hell.”

  “He’s not in hell,” she insisted, fighting not to flinch. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “You think I don’t know who’s in hell?” he said. “Caleb wants so much to keep you safe. He wants sooo much for you to love him. But bless your sweet heart, you just can’t.” His face was barely inches from hers. “He’ll keep trying and trying and failing and failing. And all the time, I’ll be there, making sure you’re always in danger, giving him something to worry about.” He turned her face to his. “And eventually he’ll be just like me.”

  “No!” She lunged for him, barely knowing what she meant to do. He was still wearing the gun, a silver revolver strapped to his side in a shoulder holster. She grabbed it tight in both hands. “Shut up!” she shouted, pointing it at his face.

  “What are you gonna do, honey?” he said. “Are you going to shoot me?” She was shaking; the gun was still trained on his face, Jake’s face, Jake who she loved more than anybody she had ever known. He grinned as if he’d read her thoughts. “I promise it will hurt you way more than it will hurt me.”

  “Leave him alone!” She was screaming like a child, tears pouring down her face. “Leave Caleb alone, and let Jake out of hell! And my mama, too!” She clicked the safety off.

  “That kind of stuff’s not up to me, Laura.” She saw something in his eyes that looked almost like pity, but he grinned. “I’m just the innkeeper; somebody else does the bookings.”

  “You’re lying.” The gun was shaking, useless. “You have to be lying.”

  “Laura!” The door crashed open, cracking back against the wall. Caleb grabbed the demon Jake and flung him hard against the wall. He hit the television mounted there, and it exploded in a shower of sparks as he slumped to the floor. “Get away from her,” he roared, so loud the whole room seemed to shake. He sounded different; his voice was deeper and rougher. His golden wings were ashy black, and his arms and chest were bathed in blood.

  The demon was laughing before he hit the floor. “Oh my goodness, look at you,” he said, rolling to his back to look up at Caleb. “Brother, what have you done?”

  “Laura, come away from him,” the angel ordered. “Get out.”

  Laura looked down at the gun in her hands, then at the blood on Caleb. When he’d fought the demons in the street, their blood had barely touched him; he had stayed clean. But now he was dirty, and his wings were black. “You’re falling.” She put the gun to her o
wn head. “You said that, when you showed me what you were. You said you were falling.”

  “Laura, stop it.” He took a step toward her, and she stumbled back, the gun bouncing painfully against her temple, her hand slick with sweat. Caleb froze, holding out his bloody hands as if to steady her. “Wait!” He had the same heartbreaking expression she had painted when she had thought he was a figment of her own broken mind. “What he said to you was a lie.”

  “You said you were falling, that it was so easy to fall.” She was crying so much she could barely see; her heart felt twisted in a knot with pain. “You knew then….and it’s my fault.”

  “She’s as smart as she is pretty, Caleb,” the demon said. “You lucky dog.”

  “Shut up!” she screamed at him. “And Jake.” She could barely speak, but she tightened her grip on the gun. “He says you lied, that Jake’s in hell, and my mama is, too.”

  “He’s lying,” Caleb said. “Laura, please, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I deserve to hurt myself,” she said. “It’s all my fault. All of it.” She let out an animal howl, closing her eyes, and he lunged for her again. Again she stepped back, the gun barely waving, freezing him again.

  “Laura, please,” he begged.

  “I could have saved them both.” Horror was drying her tears; she hated herself too much to grieve. “But I didn’t.” She glanced over at the demon that still looked like Jake. “They belong to him now.”