On Unfaithful Wings (9 page)

I left the muscles from Brussels perusing a magazine and went into the weight room where I found more people punishing their bodies with weights at ten forty on a Tuesday night than I expected. A moment of panic nestled in my gut. How would I know Alfred Topping?

Five minutes.

I wandered past weight racks and worn benches a decade beyond their best days. The odor of sweat multiplied in here, every piece of equipment and hard-working body exuding it like an air freshener gone horribly awry. A few patrons glanced at me and I was thankful for my new jacket covering my skinny arms and less-than-Conan-like pecs. I quickly realized evenings must be the favored time of the hard core guys: no one in the room possessed biceps smaller in circumference than my thigh. Even the woman doing squats alone in the corner made me look like the skinny geek whose face she would have kicked sand in.

Two minutes.

Despite the warm, thick air in the room sticking itself to me like a band-aid, a line of cold sweat trickled down my spine. Minutes remained until I’d know the truth of my circumstances. All those years railing against the church and the idea of God might come to an end. If it did, I didn’t want to let my new employers down.

One minute.

Three men gathered around a fourth in the bench press area raised a cheer. I looked over but couldn’t see through the forest of tree trunk legs, so I moved closer. The man lying on the bench pushed a barbell skyward with so many plates on each end you’d need a math degree to figure out how much weight it held. The bar bowed slightly in the middle as he pushed upward, the other men urging him on.

“One more.”

“You can do it.”

“C’mon, Alfie.”

Alfie: short for Alfred.

Thirty seconds.

All the muscles in my limbs tightened as I watched Alfred grunt and strain, legs bouncing with the effort, purple veins standing out in his neck. The man standing near his head put his hands under the bar, spotting him, but Alfred shook his head and huffed a quick breath; the man stepped back. The bar rose until he locked his elbows, then he lowered it again, bouncing on his chest, and pushed up once more. Halfway to the top, he stalled out.

Fifteen seconds.

I felt sweat on my forehead but made no attempt to wipe it away--I wasn’t sure my arms would work.

Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to happen.

Seeing the way his veins bulged, I expected a heart attack to take Alfred’s life, if anything, and either thrust me into my new profession or send me packing for the mental hospital. It surprised the hell out of me when the bar slipped from his grip.

It surprised everyone else, too.

The man standing at Alfred’s head snatched at the bar but missed, tipping it off course. I swear I heard his fingers brush the gnarled steel. The barbell crashed down onto Alfred with a sickening crack, snapping his lower jaw and crushing his throat with his own chin. Breath blew out through his broken mouth, spraying blood three feet in the air. His arms, still aloft trying to press the missing barbell, jerked and twitched. The man who’d been the spotter turned his head, Alfred’s blood on his face, and lost his dinner on the rubber mat-covered floor. The others stumbled over one another to grab the ends of the bar and lift it off their companion. It took two on each end. They removed it too late.

10:47 p.m.

My head swam, my throat constricted. I stared.

Oh my God.

The sight of the man’s blood running from his face, dripping from the edge of the bench, and the coppery smell of it mingling with the pungent odor of sweat made my stomach roil. I wondered if Sister Mary-Therese felt the same when she found me dying on the grass under the oak tree. The carnage of Alfred Topping’s face--worse than any horror movie special effects--held me transfixed, the way a car accident does.

What the hell?

No one else noticed the child sitting on Alfred Topping’s chest. Correction: sitting
in
Alfred’s chest, as if the man were a wading pool. The boy’s disheveled blond hair looked as though someone had placed a bowl on his head and cut around the edge; his short-sleeved button-up shirt looked like he’d arrived here from an episode of
Leave it to Beaver.
His expression suggested he’d woken from a long nap, face pinched and eyes hooded. He stretched and surveyed the action around him, his manner changing to surprise.

Everyone in the gym gathered, some to help, some drawn by morbid fascination. The good Samaritan side of me wanted to join them, help attempt to save his life, but their massive bodies left no room. And I knew their attempts were futile. Alfred’s body twitched as nerves fired for the final time, his arms finally falling limp. The boy stood and removed himself from the noisy throng.

No one noticed.

“Call 9-1-1,” someone yelled.

“I’m a nurse,” the woman said and a couple of men moved aside to let her through.

The boy backed away from the panicked group, his eyes never leaving the crowd collected around the body of Alfred Topping. I could no more look away from him than he from them.

“Alfred?”

The boy looked toward me, tears overflowing his eyes. As I looked at him, I realized he wasn’t completely
ther
e. What’s the word: translucent?

Ghostly.

“What happened to me?”

“You died.” The words left my mouth before I considered how they’d sound. Not much of a bedside manner.

“No.” He glanced back at the blood-soaked bench. “I don’t want to be dead.”

I shivered.
Me either.

“I don’t think you have a choice.”

“No.”

“You need to come with me.”

“No.”

He took three quick steps toward the door and it struck me this might not be as easy as Gabe said. Thoughts raced through my mind about God and life and death and the nature of insanity making it difficult to concentrate on him.

“Whoa, hold on a second, Al. Can I call you Al?” I held my hands up in a gesture of surrender, showing I wouldn’t hurt him.

“Alf.” He took another step toward the door.

“My name’s Icarus. Call me Ric. I’m here to help.”

He shook his head hard enough to send tears flying. I took a tentative step toward him and he bolted.

“Shit.”

He slammed through the door and out onto the street before I reached the entryway, barely avoiding the brick wall receptionist as he emerged from behind his clear partition to ascertain the source of the commotion.

“Hey.” His fingers caught the sleeve of my jacket, nearly pulling me off my feet.

“There’s been an accident,” I said pointing toward the bench press corner. His gaze followed my finger; I looked, too. People backed away, avoiding the pool of blood spreading beneath the bench, others trod through it, tracking it across the rubber mat as they attempted to help. The gorilla’s face blanched. If I stayed any longer, I’d probably see him either faint or puke, but his grip on my sleeve loosened and I didn’t hang around to see which.

I burst through the outer door, the autumn night a slap in the face after the muggy air in the gym. I glanced both directions in time to see Alf round a corner to my right and took up the chase. He had youth on his side, but I possessed longer legs and was a few days more used to the ins and outs of being dead, or whatever you called this thing I’d become.

I rounded the corner and a woman shrieked as I bowled her over. Alf raced ahead, weaving through pedestrian traffic. Being a spirit, he probably could have run right through them--an attribute I didn’t possess--but he didn’t know that, and I hoped he wouldn’t figure it out. If he did, he’d dart through a wall and leave me wondering how to track him down.

Sirens wailed behind me: probably an ambulance on the way to pronounce Alfred dead. I dodged a hot dog vendor and pushed through a group of Japanese tourists inexplicably snapping photos of a store front. Each step brought me a little closer to the boy.

“Alfred.”

He peeked over his shoulder then shifted his young legs into overdrive, ducking down an alley. Three seconds later, I ran down the alley behind him, footsteps echoing off brick walls as we leapt over piles of stinking garbage and ran beneath rusty fire escapes. The alley took a turn and he disappeared.

Rounding the corner, I found him stopped a few yards ahead. I pulled up short, runners skidding on pavement. My labored breath made me think about returning to ocky’s 24 Hour Fit ess Center to inquire about the cost of a membership, but the thought disappeared when I saw what had halted the boy.

The man stood at least six inches taller than me; black hair tumbled past his shoulders in loose ringlets, framing his olive-skinned face. Black pants, black boots, black button-down shirt and one of those long rain coats like Peter Falk wore playing Columbo--also black. His eyes glowed yellow like a cat’s.

“Hello, Alfred,” the man said, his voice deep, the words deliberate, almost drawled. He turned his gaze on me. “And a new harvester. Hello, Icarus. It’s good to finally see you again. Michael has been busy.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention. If God existed, a Devil must, too. I had the feeling I’d just met him.

“Ric,” I told the stranger. “Who are you?”

“Mmm. That doesn’t matter now. You’ll find out soon enough.” He took two steps toward us, each as purposeful as his words. “Like you, I’m here for the boy.”

Alfred glanced around, seeking an escape route, but with the man ahead of him and me behind, he held his ground. I had the feeling his choice might prove a poor decision for us both.

“You can’t have him.”

The man laughed, a rumbling sound in the back of his throat which didn’t require his lips to part.

“Take him, then.” He waved dismissively and his eyes flared reminding me of the way Michael’s flickered. “There will be others.”

I made a face at his comment and stepped toward Alfred, hesitant.

“Really?”

“Of course.” He smiled, adjusted one of his black gloves. “But you have to get away from them.”

He nodded past us and I turned to see two men blocking the alley at our backs, each of them dressed like a smaller version of the man in black. One had close-cropped dark hair flecked with gray. The was other bald with a pencil-line goatee. They stood, legs shoulder-width apart, arms at their sides, like gunslingers awaiting the signal to draw. Maybe they were. The man in black stepped aside and swept his arm toward the far end of the alley.

“You may have a head start.”

Alfred didn’t move, neither did I. It seemed like a trick, a trap.

“No trick.” The man raised his arm and tapped his wrist. “Time’s ticking.”

No choice.

I surged forward, grabbing Alfred by the arm, dragging him toward the alley’s exit. Compared to the men in black, I guess he decided I wasn’t such a bad choice. The big man eyed me as we ran by, then barked a command. Too busy willing my legs to go faster, I didn’t catch what he said. It became apparent soon enough.

A boom reverberated down the alley; chunks of brick exploded from the wall by my head as I skidded the boy around the corner. Apparently they secreted cannons beneath their trench coats.

Great.

Damn you, Gabe.
Why didn’t you tell me about these guys?

Survival instinct forced all thoughts of Gods and Devils, reality and insanity out of my mind. I had no way to protect myself, no idea what to do. The scroll didn’t say I’d need to defend myself, it said who’d die, when and where, and where to drop off the ‘package’.

The drop was our only hope.

I glanced back. The two men gave chase, moving faster than an out-of-shape guy with a panicked boy in tow, but I didn’t see guns in their hands. Maybe we had a chance. My years living on the street had developed a mental map of the city and I referenced it now. The closest street sign told me we were a couple blocks away from the drop address.

The boy looked back at the men chasing us. When he looked up at me, his face was splashed with terror.

“Don’t let them get me.”

“Run faster, then.”

Another thunder-thump of sound. I threw my arm around Alfred’s shoulders, ducking with him. Something flashed over our heads and the newspaper box sitting on the sidewalk ahead of us dissolved into a puddle. We jumped to avoid slipping in yesterday’s news.

“This way,” I gasped yanking Alf around a corner, out of the line-of-fire of whatever they used to try to kill us. My heart hammered in my chest, pumping adrenaline through my veins. We ran by store after store, bumping into people, ignoring their indignant shouts to watch where-the-fuck I was going.

Why don’t businesses in the city put the street numbers on their doors?

Finally I saw a business with an owner conscientious enough to realize prospective customers might want to find his store: ten two thirty-four. The drop point was at ten four fifty-eight. Two more blocks, this side of the street. I looked behind us and saw one of the men put on a burst of speed and close within steps. He reached out to grab the scruff of Alfred’s neck. Without thinking, I stopped and ducked as low as inertia would allow. The man flew over us, knocking us over, a startled cry following him to the ground. The element of surprise was on our side:
I
knew I was going to fall over, he didn’t. I rolled, doing my best to protect the boy, and popped back to my feet, pulling Alf with me, briefly impressed at the unexpected physical prowess. We took off again, leaving the man to sort himself out.