Fear to Tread Page 9

  “Laura, you’re not, I swear,” he said. “All of it was real, I promise. Look at me.”

  She made herself open her eyes. He was standing in front of her, an angel, as solid as the kitchen cabinets all around her, as solid as her own flesh. Everything she had found so beautiful about him was intensified, brought to full perfection in the glow of golden wings. Just looking at him, she felt a rush of joy, a fix of madness like a drug. But it was all a dream, a projection of insanity.

  “You’re not real,” she told him. “You’re a delusion.” Just like her mama, she had a mind that liked to play practical jokes. Just like she had always promised, now that Jake had gone, Mama had sent her an angel.

  “Laura, I promise you, I am.” He looked confused. “Of course I am.” He took her hand and pressed it to his naked chest. She could feel the heat of his flesh and the powerful beat of his heart. But she had seen such solid dreams before.

  She looked up into his eyes, brilliant, burning blue. “Do you love me, Caleb?”

  He looked as sad and broken as she felt, the perfect, mad reflection of her heart. “I do.” He bent and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “I have fallen.”

  From a real man, the words would have sounded glib. From her make-believe angel, they crushed her broken heart. For one sweet, fleeting, impossible moment, she pressed herself against him, let herself feel the full length of his body. So easy, she thought, savoring the warmth of him, feeling golden wings folded over her, strong arms cradling her close. Letting go would be so easy, letting the delusion have her. She had been thinking only days ago that she wanted to die. What better way to go? She could let herself forget everything real, forget to eat, forget to feel the cold. She could stay with her angel forever. She heard him sigh, felt the rustle of his wings.

  But then she thought of Jake, the real Jake, the man who had fought so hard to save her, fought death to stay with her so he could protect her from this madness, protect her from herself. “I won’t let it get you,” he had promised, holding her tight beside her mother’s grave. “I’ll scare the boogeyman away.”

  “Caleb,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “You have to leave me.” She had wrapped her arms around him; now she made herself let him go. “You have to go away and never come back.”

  “Laura?” She felt him touching her face, willing her to look at him. She thought of her mother, the words she had used. “I don’t understand.”

  “Leave me,” she said, pulling back from him, her eyes still closed, tears pouring down her face. “In Christ’s sweet name, begone.”

  She heard him gasp, then a rush of violent wind. In a single moment, all the light and warmth in the world seemed to be gone. She couldn’t feel him any more. She was shivering, abandoned in the dark. She opened her eyes, and he was gone.

  She slumped down to the floor and let the tears come.

  Chapter Sixteen—The Devil You Know

  As soon as Laura said, “Begone!” Caleb felt a rush of wind like a tornado lifting him off his feet and hauling him backwards away from her. He had cast out hundreds of demons in his life; now suddenly he knew just how they’d felt. He was jerked straight through the wall of her apartment, down the hall and through the wall of the building, shards of wood and plaster and metal and glass shattering around him without a sound. In Laura’s world, the walls were intact, but in the new plane her words had created, everything was falling apart. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the snowy street outside, then he was moving too fast to see anything but streaks of color.

  He came to a stop in another world of dull gray concrete and dim winter light—a city in the space between. The space between worlds encompassed many smaller pockets like this. It was constantly growing and contracting, constantly changing. The urban landscape was a double for Laura’s city on the mortal plane, but it was a very different place. Laura had cast him away from her the same way any mortal with the faith and will to do it could cast out a demon. Because he was an angel, she couldn’t banish him to Hell or deny him access to the mortal plane. If he wanted, he could go anywhere on earth…except her presence.

  “No,” he said out loud, refusing to believe it. He willed himself back to Earth, back to the city, and found himself in front of his own apartment building. He closed his eyes, listening to the babble of voices all around him. He focused his angel senses, going deeper than sound, searching for Laura, the feel of her, the sure knowledge of her living presence in the world. As a seraph, he should have been able to pinpoint any mortal soul on the planet.

  But Laura was gone.

  Heart pounding, he went to the broken phone booth on the corner. The phone book hung in tatters, but a simple act of will brought it back together, the atoms that had made it once rushing back together from miles around, the newly remade pages rustling like feathered wings. He found the number, Jacob Ross at Laura’s address. The receiver on the phone had been torn off long ago, but he used his power to make it grow out of the frayed wires like an exotic bloom. He punched in the number, waiting, feeling the connection as it reached out, snaking through the earth and back into the air. Then the receiver shattered in his hand, sparks flying, a pandemonium of gibberish and laughter coming through the speaker as it melted in his grip.

  Without thinking, he roared in frustration, and the phone booth exploded around him. Glass and twisted metal flew in every direction, this time for real in the physical world. A nearby chain link fence peeled back like a candy wrapper from its metal frame. A deep crack opened up in the sidewalk under his feet and snaked its way out into the street. He fought to control himself, fists clenched tight, and he could feel hot blood pounding in his temples, a very human rage. Eyes closed, he heard footsteps coming toward him and a mocking laugh.

  “Your master’s truth, Caleb,” Lucifer said. “You are so perfectly fucked.” His brother was in human guise again, leaning against what was left of the fence. “I love this girl.” His mortal costume melted away, leaving the massive dark shape that was his true demonic form. His limbs and torso were as perfect in shape as Caleb’s, but his skin was crusted over with glossy, greenish-black scales, and his folded wings were leathery and tattered. A long, thick, spiked tail grew out of his back and writhed over the ground like a snake, and his feet were cloven hooves. His eyes glowed blue and orange like embers at the center of a furnace, and his hands were curled, the fingers tipped with lethal claws. In this form he was invisible to mortals, but dark, forbidding clouds began to gather in the sky above them. Caleb shed his mortal skin as well, glowing as white as Lucifer was dark, his burnished golden wings outspread. “Very impressive,” the Fallen One said. “You’d look awesome on a Christmas tree.”

  Caleb raised his hand, slamming energy straight into the demon’s chest, knocking him back and sending him flying. He landed hard in a nearby vacant lot and skidded backward, leaving a steaming trail in the snow before crumpling like a wounded bat, his broken-looking wings cloaking him completely for a moment as his body flopped without grace. The gathering clouds split open with a blinding flash of lightning.

  “Perfect!” Lucifer said, his laughter echoing the thunder. “What better way to save your girlfriend than to have it all over now?” He moved closer, circling, as lightning flashed again, and icy rain began to fall. “Destroy me, and Laura will be safe.”

  “No,” Caleb said, his hands shaking with fury and sudden fear. If he were to battle his opposite here, the entire mortal plane might be destroyed.

  “Use your power to surround her,” the demon went on. “Split this world apart. She’s in her apartment right now, bawling her eyes out. Let her live while all the others die; take this world as your kingdom—I’ll give it to you as a present.” He was close now; the raindrops steamed on his burning skin. “What hope does the mortal plane have if the Evening Star has fallen?”

  Caleb looked into his brother’s burning eyes. “I have not fallen,” he said. “I will not fall.”

  “Of course you will.” The demon’s
breath was rank with the stench of burning flesh. “You won’t even need my help. You’ll fall and take her with you.”

  “I won’t,” Caleb said. “I will keep her safe.”

  Lucifer laughed. “And who will save her from you?” He melted back into his human form, but blue flame still flickered in his eyes. “She may beg me to take her from you before it’s all over.”

  “Stay away from her,” Caleb said.

  “No, brother,” he said, his grin becoming a leer. “You’re the one she banished, remember? You stay away.”

  Chapter Seventeen—The Priest and the Painting

  At dawn, Laura got up from her kitchen floor, put her coat back on, and went to the church. No one was around, but the sanctuary was open. She sat on the floor in front of the stained glass window, the angel visiting Mary with his golden wings and smug, unfeeling face. How could she have been so stupid? How could he have seemed so real?

  “Miss?” The black-bearded Irish priest who had frightened her the day before came towards her, the skirt of his cassock rustling like wings. “Dear heart.” He crouched beside her. “Please, let me help if I can.”

  She stared at his worn, black leather brogans. “The man who was here with me yesterday, Father,” she said, a tiny glimmer of hope sparking in her memory. The priest had seen Caleb, too; he had even spoken to him. “Did you know him?”

  “What man, love?” She saw pity in his eyes. “You and I were alone.” She took a ragged breath, a sob threatening to overwhelm her. “You said you wanted to light a candle.” He offered her his bony hand, and finally she took it. In the light from the stained glass window, the scar on his cheek looked like a purple question mark. “I asked you who it was for, but you told me it was private.”

  “I said that?” she said. “That was me?”

  “Of course.” He lifted her to her feet with no apparent effort. “I left you to your privacy, and I heard you in here praying alone.”

  “Praying,” she repeated with a lunatic snicker.

  “You’re obviously troubled, child.” She pulled her hand from his. “Won’t you let me help you?”

  She shuddered. “You can’t. Thank you, Father.” She hugged herself, suddenly freezing. “I have to go. Tell Father Tom I hope he feels better soon.”

  “You shouldn’t face your burdens alone, dear heart,” he said. “Give me your confession.”

  “Good-bye.” Pushing past him, she walked out of the church. She barely saw the people passing by her on the sidewalk, barely felt the wind. She was so cold now she couldn’t feel any colder. A cab slowed down beside her, the driver calling to her, but she barely heard him and didn’t stop.

  She walked all the way home, time standing still again, barely feeling her feet. She walked up the steps into her building and up the stairs, walked into her apartment, leaving the door hanging open behind her. She dropped her coat on the floor in the living room and headed up the hall.

  She went into Jake’s studio and flipped on the light. Seeing the unfinished painting propped against the wall, she suddenly realized. He had known. That last night when he had known he was leaving her, he had seen that this would happen. She went to the sink and got his brushes, the ones she had cleaned so carefully as soon as she came home from the hospital, the first thing she had done when she came back to the apartment after he was gone. She poured a few inches of turpentine into an empty mayonnaise jar, the sharp smell waking her up. Forcing herself to take every step, she walked over to the unfinished painting. She faced her own image, the Laura Jake had loved with the rough sketch of the angel hovering behind her. She had hated this painting, had seen it as a cruel joke. She had thought Jake’s pain had made him want to hurt her, to remind her of what she had been. But that wasn’t true at all. He had wanted to warn her, to protect her the same way he always had.

  She squeezed paints onto a palette, gold and pink and brown and icy blue. Taking a long, ragged breath, she started to paint.

  She didn’t stop until she was done, sixteen hours later. She had taken off her skirt and sweater to keep the paint off them at some point. Now she stood in her underwear and tee-shirt with paint smeared on her face and hands and the other places where she had wiped her face and hands, looking at the painting she had just finished.

  The paint was still so wet it glistened. A near-photographic image of Caleb, her beautiful hallucination, now covered more than half the canvas. The angel of her dreams now loomed over Jake’s portrait of her, standing behind her. His perfect hands were reaching for her shoulders, almost but not quite touching her; his golden wings were spread. His beautiful face wore the look of terrible sadness he had worn when she sent him away. The woman in the painting seemed oblivious. She was Jake’s Laura. She didn’t know what was coming for her.

  Suddenly the phone rang, making her jump. For a moment, she considered ignoring it. But if it were Jason, he’d just come over instead, and she couldn’t face him, not when she’d ruined the painting he had loved so much. “Hello?” she said, answering it.

  “Laura?” It was Jake’s voice, unmistakable. “Honey, is that you?”

  “Hello?” she said again, starting to tremble all over.

  “Laura, this is Lucas Black.” A lump of ice formed in her chest. “The cop from the alley, remember?”

  “I remember.” She had been afraid of him.

  “Laura, I need you to come to County General Hospital,” he said. “A friend of yours has been attacked. A Mrs. Sylvia Berman.”

  “Oh my God.” He’s lying, she thought. But why would he lie? “Is she all right?”

  He made a noise that could have been a sneeze or could have been a snicker. “Not remotely,” he said. “She’s asking for you.”

  “No,” she said. “I can’t come.” She had sworn the last time she’d left County General she’d never set foot there again.

  “She says she needs to talk to you,” he said. “She’s been gravely injured, maybe fatally. The doctors don’t know yet. Whatever attacked her has put her husband in the loony ward. And she seems to think you’re in danger, too.”

  “Put her on the phone,” Laura said. She thought about the blood in the alley, the poor homeless woman he had said had been slaughtered there. She thought about the men who had attacked her, the ones Caleb had…but Caleb wasn’t real.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” He was starting to sound angry. “Laura, are you in some kind of trouble? Do you want me to send a squad car to pick you up?”

  “No,” she said. “I have a car…I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Eighteen—The Hospital

  The ambulance bay streamed garish green light into the night. Laura pulled Jake’s car halfway up on the sidewalk and threw it in park. She drew the collar of Jake’s coat tighter around her throat and plunged out into the falling snow.

  An orderly in pale green scrubs and an orange parka was pacing the sidewalk under the awning, bouncing a little girl in a pink coat in his arms as she cried. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he was crooning. “Everything’s going to be fine.” When his eyes met Laura’s, she saw it was a lie.

  She ducked around an EMT as he was coming out. “Hey miss!” he called. “Is that your car?”

  She hurried to the reception desk. “Sylvia Berman.” She stripped out of her gloves. “Is she here?”

  The nurse paused for a moment before answering. “She is.” She knew I was coming, Laura thought. She’ll call Black. “If you’ll just have a seat.”

  “Thanks very much.” She reached across the desk and punched the big red button that controlled the heavy swinging doors to the exam rooms, squeezing through the crack as soon as they started to open. She checked her watch as she hurried down the hall…seven minutes since she’d spoken to the cop on the phone. Maybe three minutes before he found her here.

  She pushed past the weeping family gathered in the hall outside the first exam room, looking away from their faces. The second room was empty, the bed cranked high and b
are, the lights turned up bright. The third, across the hall from the nurse’s station, was mostly dark. “Miss, can we help you?” a male nurse said, standing up from behind the counter as she passed.

  “No, thank you.” In Exam Room 3, a single light was burning behind the bed. Lying on the bed was a woman swathed in bandages and blankets with her long, curly brown hair spread on the pillow—Sylvia. Moving closer, Laura saw her throat was wrapped with bandages, stained red at the edges. More bandages crisscrossed her chest and shoulders under the thin hospital gown and braceleted both arms. A deep, blood-black scratch peeked from underneath the gauze at her wrist. She was hooked up to monitors, and the hesitant chirp of her heartbeat made Laura feel sick. How many nights had she listened to that sound, waiting for the moment it would stop?

  “Sylvia?” She touched the back of her hand above the IV drip. “Can you hear me?”

  Sylvia’s eyes snapped open. “Laura?” Her voice was a raspy whisper, and her eyes were wild. “Is that you?”

  “It’s me.” Sylvia was trying to grab her hand; she slid her hand under hers and held it lightly, being careful of the needle. “What happened?”

  “Where’s the angel?” Sylvia said, the words half-garbled in a nasty, gurgling sound in her throat. “Caleb…where’s Caleb?”

  “What did you say?”

  “Falling….” She tried to raise her head from the pillow. “Laura, run.”

  “Excuse me, miss,” a woman’s voice said from behind her. “Are you Laura?” The voice was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She turned and saw the nurse in silhouette, the bright light of the hallway behind her. “There’s a policeman here,” she said, moving closer, and Laura saw her face. “He says he has to talk to you.”

  Laura thought she must be dreaming. She recognized this woman—this was the homeless woman she and Jake had walked past barely seeing nearly every day for years. The woman Lucas Black had told her had been murdered. But why would Laura dream her beautiful? The thin, white-streaked hair was now thick and glossy black, barely contained in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Her lips were lush and glistening with scarlet lipstick. Her whole face was plump and seductively painted, and her nails were perfectly groomed scarlet talons. As she moved closer, Laura caught a whiff of thick, spicy perfume over something nasty—the stench of rotten meat. The nurse smiled, and Sylvia moaned, her eyes falling closed. “He’s being very persistent.”