Secrets of the Hanged Man (Icarus Fell #3) (An Icarus Fell Novel) (11 page)

“Ric!”

Hearing her address me in the manner I requested made the thought of putting up with her incessant questions a smidge more appealing. It didn’t hurt that she hurried past the coffee table to throw her arms around my midsection as though I was her long-lost puppy finally returning home. I didn’t hug her back because that wouldn't be professional. And I didn’t want to get attached to a soul who’d be moving on, one way or another.

“What are you doing here?” she asked leaning back to gaze up at me.

“
Looking for you. What are you doing here?”

This manner of conversation made me suspect we were characters in God’s cosmic sitcom.

She shrugged and moved away. “I didn’t know where to go after the two men broke into your motel room.”

I stared at her, forgetting for a moment the necessity of breathing.

“What men?”

“
They looked like you.”

“
Tall and handsome?”

“
No.” She giggled and waved her hand, dismissing my poor humor. “They wore black coats.”

I looked at my black overcoat and suppressed a shudder. I’d taken it from the remains of a carrion who’d tried to get into my motel room to steal another soul a few months back. Then, he’d been unable to enter and Gabe disposed of him for me. How’d they get in this time?

No you, dummy. And no Gabe.

I put my hands on Dido’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“Yep. They didn’t see me.”

“
Were they looking for something?”

“
Maybe.”

I raised an eyebrow. Carrions were the bad guy versions of me, so they should be able to see a spirit hanging around my motel room. How did they miss her?

“How did they miss you?”

“
I hid.”

“
Where?”

She smiled. “Like this.”

Her form smudged for an instant, the way they block out non-sponsor logos, people’s faces or naughty bits on TV shows, then she disappeared. It shouldn’t have surprised me such a feat was possible, but this type of spirit stuff was new to me. A couple of seconds later, she flickered back into being, but she appeared different: older, taller. It must have been a mirage caused by her disappearance, because after I blinked twice, it was the same Dido.

“
What? How...Hmph.” I didn’t bother finishing the question. If Mikey and his band of merry angels hadn’t told me of the carrions and their powers before one of them came close to flash frying me, why bother mentioning a wayward spirit’s ability to disappear? “Never mind. What were they looking for?”

“
Me, I think.”

I made a conscious effort to keep my forehead furrow from making an appearance. “You? Are you sure they weren’t looking for me?”

She shrugged. “Not sure. They did say something like ‘we have to find her,’ though.”

That meant my life might have just become a whole lot more interesting and dangerous...like I didn’t already have enough of both.

“Why come here instead of going home?”

She shuffled foot to foot and looked at the floor, hands clasped in front of her. It took a second for her to answer, but I should have known what she’d say before she did. So much for having a heart.

“I didn’t want to go back.” When she raised her head, her eyes shone, teetering on the edge of tears. “I’m glad you found me.”

As is the case with most men when it comes to a female’s tears, I didn’t know what to do. At a bit of a loss, I did what came natural. I put my hand on her shoulder, nodded once, and changed the subject.

“Have you searched the house?”

“
No. I was watching SpongeBob SquarePants, hoping you’d come.”

I made a face, because I didn’t know who this sponge person was, and covered my mouth and nose with my hand to block out Mrs. Medlin-Williams' ripeness.

“Let’s have a look then, shall we?”

I turned to the second closed door and decided to barge in this time, throwing the door open and jumping in like the guy arriving late to the surprise party. Again, no one.

The room smelled musty like far too much time had passed since someone last cracked a window. A splinter of light fell across the floor from between the drawn curtains showing the space to be pristine. The bed was made, no clothing on the floor, no pictures on the wall, and no personal effects strewn around the bare top of the dresser. Besides the layer of dust on it and the bedside table, the room sat empty.

I turned to go back to the living room and nearly walked into Dido standing right behind me. She smiled up at me and I recognized the torrent of questions shining in her eyes, so I decided to take action before the flood came.

“You check in here,” I said, doing my best to make the task of searching an empty guest bedroom sound important. “Don’t move anything, though. I’ll check the living room.”

I swallowed hard after saying it because, truthfully, I didn’t want to go back in. Meg’s bouquet bordered on sickening, but I didn’t have any choice, we’d searched everywhere else but Meg’s room. I still wanted to avoid it.

Breath held, I left Dido peeking under the bed and crossed the hall to the living room. A bookshelf stood against the far wall; I made it my first destination. The selection included a ton of books I had no interest in reading: Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts,
Fifty Shades of Grey
, Nicholas Sparks. A macramé owl hung on the wall beside it and another shelf held a display of figurines—children dressed in white parkas frolicking in the snow, most of them chipped or glued together.

Nothing helpful.

I paused in front of Meg, blocking the corpse’s view of the TV. The cartoon about the guy with square pants had finished and a local news anchor droned on reading the latest headlines. I didn’t care, so I looked around until I spied the remote control sitting on the couch, resting against Meg’s thigh, but I didn’t want to get that close. Where I stood, the stench covered me like a wet blanket and made me suspect I’d have to wash my clothes, I didn’t want to find out how much worse it must be right beside her.

Where Dido was sitting.

Apparently, disembodied spirits lack keen olfactory senses.

I shut up the annoying television newsman by poking the power button on the TV and took a step into the dining room to inhale. With a resigned sigh tasting of rotten meat, I realized I needed to return to the first bedroom to search through her dresser and the dust bunnies trapped beneath her bed. I didn’t relish the thought: who knew what I’d find in the underwear drawer of a woman in her late-thirties who appeared to live alone. Before taking another step, Dido walked in.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“
No. You?”

“
I don’t know what I was looking for.”

“
Something to prove she has—had—a son. Preferably a picture so we have a face.”

“
No. Didn’t find anything like that.”

She went and sat on the couch beside Meg’s body, her weight squeaking the springs and making the corpse bounce a little. She eyed the remote, her fingers twitching as if she wanted to pick it up. She looked at me and smiled.

“I don’t know how you can--”

I meant to finish the sentence with
‘sit beside that stinking piece of meat’
or a line equally as poetic, but when I glanced from her to Meg’s bloated face, what I saw—or rather, didn’t see—stopped me.

Something different about Meg.

My breath held to keep the flavor of her death off my tongue, I moved toward the couch with Dido’s eyes on me and sensed her open her mouth to ask a question, but I held my hand up, stopping her while I leaned in to get a better view of dead Meg. Her glazed eyes stared at the blank TV screen, the crust of the murderous sandwich still flirted with the inside of her lips. With the unhealthy purple hue in her cheeks diminished, I became aware of the change in her appearance. The glob of jam was gone from her cheek.

He’s real, and he’s been here.

I nodded. “Thank you, Meg.”

The words had just cleared my lips when the front door knob rattled under someone’s grasp.

I lunged over Meg’s outstretched legs, caught my toe on her knee and nearly ended up in her lap, but maintained my balance. On the way by, I grabbed Dido’s shirt sleeve, heaved her off the sofa and herded her toward the dining room. Part of me wanted to look back to see who’d end up coming through the door, but the smart part, which was hard to find, yet in there somewhere, concluded it wouldn’t be anyone I wanted to confront: cops, carrions, or a kid the dead woman called the devil. Nice choice.

We stumbled into the kitchen and skidded to a stop, my shoes squeaking on the yellowed linoleum. Dido pulled her sleeve out of my fingers and her eyes shot a question my way.

“Why did we stop?” her mouth followed up to make sure I understood.

“
Don’t know who it is,” I said, stretching to peek out the kitchen window into the backyard. “Or how many.”

“
It doesn’t--”

“
Sshh.”

Her expression became reproachful and she crossed her arms so I’d grasp her unhappiness with being interrupted, but she went quiet. I listened intently, sure I’d hear the door swing open, footsteps in the hall, but didn’t. For a second, I doubted my ears. I might have imagined the rattle of the doorknob, or misinterpreted some other sound—a passing car or a kid on a skateboard. The thought seemed appealing until I glimpsed a flicker of movement and black cloth through the curtains.

Carrion.

Not happy to see them, but it explained the jiggling doorknob instead of a key entering the lock. Meg’s son would have expected the door to be locked because he'd have been the one to lock it last time he left. I hurried into the dining room ushering the young soul in front of me. She resisted.

“What are you doing? Stop pushing.”

“
Those are carrions,” I breathed, keeping my voice quiet and hopefully encouraging her to do the same. “The guys who came looking for you at the motel.”

“
Oh.”

We rushed into the living room on our way to the front door; I forgot to hold my breath and inhaled the fog of Meg’s death stench, gagging and swallowing around my rising lunch. The back door slammed open before we reached our escape.

“Shit.”

I grabbed the knob and yanked hard, forgetting it was locked and losing precious seconds better spent fleeing.

“Fuck.”

“
Language.”

I slipped her a disapproving glance and twisted the dead bolt, but my fingers slipped off and clicked loudly. Behind us, footsteps clomped across the kitchen, approaching the hall. I fumbled the lock again, got it working, and jerked the door open.

“Hey!”

I jumped down the porch stairs dragging Dido along with me as booted feet hammered the hall floor behind us. We made short work of the path through the yard and I navigated the gate’s latch open on the first attempt, then went right, toward the overpass, without checking it was the best way to go. Bad choice.

“Icarus Fell. I should have guessed you’d be involved. It explains everything, really.”

I stopped suddenly, pulling Dido to a halt with me and wrenching my shoulder. The man before us wore the requisite long, black coat over a black button-up shirt and black jeans. Worn cowboy boots and a big silver buckle on his belt completed the carrion uniform. Sunlight gleamed on his freshly-shaven head and his neatly trimmed goatee made it difficult to accept the expression on his lips as a smile. I’d run into this guy before, when Sister Mary-Therese died. He’d tried to kill me, and Poe, and I’d broken a few of his ribs and destroyed his partner in a manner I still didn’t understand. I glanced back at the man who’d come out of the house to make sure I really did kill the other guy and saw his new partner sported a full head of red hair and freckles that made him resemble the Conan O’Brien of carrions.

“What brings you two fellas here?” I asked through a sneer and coaxed Dido behind me.

“
Oh, I think you know.”

“
You’re mad because I gave you a boo-boo?”

His laugh sounded like the bark of a dog with an attitude problem. “Hardly. You think you can hurt me?”

I shrugged, hoping to engage him for a bit and give myself time to figure out how to get us the hell out of here. My eyes darted up the street—no cars coming to push him into their path, no one with a bazooka to offer assistance, no help.

“
Really? I see you’ve got a new partner. What happened to the old one?”

“
An unfortunate accident. Where is your guardian angel?”

Touché.

I glared at him and Dido wriggled behind me, so I grabbed her arm tighter, hoping she’d understand I meant she should calm down because I had this under control, but instead of calming, she let out a quiet squawk. I loosened my grip a touch.

“
Enough talk, Icarus Fell--”

“
Ric.”

“
Enough talk...
Icarus
. Give us what we are here for so we can leave this stinking world.”

I peered back at the red-haired carrion; he’d passed through the gate and stood on the street, perhaps seven strides away. My feet left the sidewalk, touching the pavement of the street as we backed away.

“I don’t know what you want,” I lied.

“
Give us the girl.”

“
What do you want of a little girl?”

“
Orders. Now let us have her.”

The smirk on the bald carrion’s face molded itself into an impatient frown. The red-headed one took a step toward me, so I took two steps back, keeping myself between them and Dido. Whatever they intended couldn’t be good. The bald dude’s hand started to glow with a dim light, confirming my suspicion.

“Ha,” I scoffed. “You tried that before. Didn’t work out so well, did it?”

His frown remained, but one eyebrow ratcheted up a couple of notches on his forehead; he raised his hand, holding it between us like he held some prized possession to show off. The intensity of the light increased, intertwining through his fingers and around his hand like a luminescent snake.

It’s green.

My gaze flickered from his hand to his face.

It wasn’t green before.

His lips curled into a cruel smile and I realized he’d read my thoughts.

“Don’t try me any further, Icarus Fell. Give me the girl.”

“
No way. I--”

Dido extricated herself from my grasp, interrupting me. I didn’t take my eyes off the carrion, but sensed her presence beside me; the bald guy’s gaze, on the other hand, darted from me to the young girl. The nasty smile plastered to his kisser disappeared and his eyes widened. The urge to turn my head and find out what caused this reaction threatened to overcome me, but the increasing brightness of his glowing hand convinced me not to. Dido took a step toward him, and a ball of green flame shot out of his palm, swirling across the space between us.

I jerked my face away and threw my hands up defensively. In the instant before green light engulfed me, I saw the spirit girl standing beside me, but she wasn’t the same. Young and old, beautiful and hideous, and more all at once. She—or it—wrapped around me, then the world became a brilliant shade of green before everything went black.

***

The odor of burnt rubber insinuated itself into what I assumed a dream. In it, I floated, though I was unsure if I did so on the water or in the air. My mind was clear, my body free of the aches and pains left in the aftermath of my Hell-creature bites; the air my lungs inhaled tasted clean and crisp, until the smell hit me.

I gagged on it and heard myself coughing, then other sounds returned—a bird singing, the roar of traffic. Next came light. A red-yellow glow shone through the thin skin of my eyelids, painting random patterns, flowing, changing. Finally, the aches returned to my shoulder, my gut, my calf, my chest.

With a groan, I sat up suddenly, blinking fast and hard and sputtering like a drowning man pulled out of the water. Hard, rocky ground pressed on my hands and against my ass, and I saw Dido crouched beside me, her teeth showing. It freaked me out for a second, then I realized she was smiling.

“
Good morning, sleeping beauty.”

I gulped a mouthful of car exhaust-flavored air while my eyes darted from the young spirit to our surroundings: cracked gray sidewalk, low cement walls with flaking white paint and graffiti.

The overpass.

I gave my head a shake and forced myself to concentrate—a difficult task with Dido staring at me. I looked at my hands, then at the worn footpath and a stray clump of grass struggling to grow through one of the tight cracks. The last thing I recalled was standing in the street outside Meg’s house, protecting my spirit friend from a bald carrion and a Howdy Doody-looking one. And then green and black engulfed me, then nothing. I shuddered.

“What happened?” I asked and Dido’s eyes lit up, like she awaited this opportunity.

“
I made us disappear.”

The crease again, worming its way across my forehead, reminding me of my age.

“But how did we get here?”

She shrugged. I sucked a deep breath through my nose and let it out sharply; it didn’t relieve the odd frustration of waking up somewhere I didn’t expect.

“What did you do?”

“
I stepped in front of you.”

When she said it, I remembered her moving out from behind my back to stand beside me.

“And then?”

“
Green light came out of his hand.”

“
So you don’t know how we got here?”

She shook her head.

“What do you know?”

“
I didn’t want them to hurt you.”

I relaxed a little. Her smile had faded during my questioning, but now returned to one corner of her mouth like a nervous twitch she couldn’t deny. A large vehicle rumbled beneath the overpass, vibrating the sidewalk against my ass.

“So you didn’t do this.”

“
I wished we were far enough away to be safe.” Her half-smile quivered and disappeared; she looked away from me, gazing over the side of the overpass at the traffic on the highway. “Why do those men want me?”

“
Not sure,” I said with a grunt and drew myself up to my feet, brushing dirt and pebbles off the backside of my pants. “There’s something special about you, I guess.”

I turned to walk away, not exactly sure where to go and fully expecting her to follow; I didn’t expect her small, cold hand in mine. I stopped and looked down at her staring back up at me.

“You don’t know why they want to take me?”

“
I know where. I don’t know why.”

Strangely, that seemed to make her relax. “I didn’t like those men.”

“Me neither.”

“
What are we going to do?”

Thirty seconds passed, my lips and teeth pressed hard together in what I hoped might seem intelligent contemplation rather than the reality: a desperate search for a good answer. Finally, I remembered my conversation with Mikey, which wasn't much help, but I had nothing else.

“We have to find Chan Wu.”

Her forehead did its best to mimic the line mine developed when I was confused, but if she thought to give me competition, she’d have to try a lot harder and put a few more miles on her odometer.

“Who’s Chan Wu?” she asked as we resumed walking. Her hand stayed in mine and I let it.

I shook my head and shrugged, just to clarify my own lack of knowledge. “Don’t know, but we have to find him.”

What else could we do?