Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (12 page)

     Pale sunlight streamed into my
bedroom from the gap in the curtains.  Jazzy liked to sit in the
windowsill, but she never put the curtains back the way she’d found them. 
I cracked a bleary eye; sure enough she was bird watching again.  Her
fluffy white tail swished back and forth, back and forth, ever vigilant. She
could keep herself entertained for hours like that, if she thought I wasn’t
awake.  The minute she sensed life in me, however, she would be on top of
me, meowing loudly and demanding food.  Claws were usually involved.

     Pins and needles shot up my arm as
I stretched.  Must have slept on it in an awkward position.  I rolled
over and massaged it with my free hand.  I started to tell Jazzy good
morning, right about the same time my eyes fell on the enormous, almost-black
feather lying on my nightstand.  It was charcoal in color and about a foot
long.  Holy. Shit.  The whole evening came rushing back to me. 
He was real.  He was Asher.  He was Death.  And I was seriously
in over my head.  He had to have sneaked back in, and put it there for me
to find.  That was an unsettling thought.  I hoped I hadn’t been
snoring in my sleep, or God forbid, drooling.

     I sat up too quickly, and the room
spun.  No wonder, after the night I’d had. I grabbed the feather and
tucked in into my nightstand drawer quickly, before my dad saw it, and asked
questions. The chance of him going through my room was slim, but the way my
luck was running it wasn’t a total impossibility.  I really didn’t have an
explanation for it that wouldn’t make me sound like a crazy person.  I had
a headache starting, and knew better than to let it run its course; I’d have a
full-blown migraine by lunch if I weren’t careful.  I disentangled myself
from my covers and took off for my bathroom.  I found a bottle of Excedrin
in the medicine cabinet.  Perfect.  The cure for all that ailed me;
except maybe for the Angel of Death who was sort of stalking me.

     Jazzy met me at the foot of the bed
and nudged her head against the back of my leg, demanding her breakfast. 
I popped the top on the bottle I held and swallowed two pills dry, then I
picked up my kitty.  She put her paws on my shoulder and commenced to love
on me all the way down the stairs.  There is nothing more loving than a
hungry cat.  Nothing.  Once she got what she wanted, however, she
would be done with me for the rest of the morning.  There is also nothing
so fickle as the love of a kitty with a full stomach.

     After I got Jazzy squared away and
happily fed, I decided to start breakfast for the rest of us.  I liked to
cook; it gave me time to think, and I had a lot to mull over.  A big
breakfast was definitely in order.  I made scrambled eggs, pancakes, and
bacon with a side of biscuits and gravy.  My dad liked coffee in the
morning, and the smell would probably get him out of bed faster than anything. 
He’d been dragging the past few days.  Thanks to Asher, I now knew that
was probably because of me and my freaky new talents.  I felt like some
kind of vampire, or worse, a leech.  I had to learn how to control it,
before I hurt someone.  Well, more than I already had.

     “Something smells good.”  Gwen
let herself in through the back door, unannounced. “So, Betty Crocker, want to
tell me what happened last night?”  I almost had a panic attack before I
realized that she must be asking about Alex. Asher was still my secret, and I
wasn’t sure if I should tell her about him, or not.  I didn’t want to put
her in danger if I didn’t have to.  She plopped down at the kitchen table
and grabbed a slice of bacon to munch on.

     I turned around as I whisked the
pancake batter.  I stared at her, surprised.  At least I tried to
look surprised.  It probably looked more like I had a gas pain.  “You
don’t know?  Alex asked me to marry him, so we hopped a plane to
Vegas.  Soon, I will be knocked up with the first of my 2.5
children.  You’ll be their godmother, of course.” I smirked at her and
winked. “We are hoping for a nice house in the suburbs.”

     She gave me stink eye. 
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a smartass?”  She got up to help
herself to a can of soda from the fridge.  “I just wanted to know how your
evening went after I got Marc home.  Oh, by the way, remind me never to go
out with him again.  I know girls like the sensitive type, but he’s a
bigger girl than I am.” She sighed dramatically as she popped the tab of her
can.  “I need to find a nice caveman somewhere, but they just don’t make
‘em like that anymore. She took a long swallow of soda.  “In the meantime,
I plan to live vicariously through you. So spill it.”

     I turned back to the stove and dropped
a spoonful of butter into the iron skillet I had heating up.  It sizzled
nicely and began to melt instantly.  “Well, before it was over, Alex fell
and hit his head.  He’s fine, by the way.  It was no biggie.”  I
cringed inside.  I hated lying to Gwen.  She was my best, and if I
were being honest, only friend.  On the other hand, telling her the truth,
which was so far out there as to be laughable, seemed like a bad idea. 
Not only that, but I felt like the less she knew, the better.  I wanted to
tell her, but then I was afraid someone would show up and kill her.  It
wasn’t completely out of the question.

     Gwen sat back down and went back to
picking at the bacon.  She eyed me from under her lashes.  Uh, oh,
she was onto me.  “So how did you get him home?  Your little ass sure
couldn’t carry him.”

     “Some guy helped me get him to the
car and I drove home.  He was pretty much awake by the time we got
there.  He walked into the house on his own.”  I crossed my fingers
behind my back.  “With a little help from me, that is.  Then I walked
home.”  Keep it simple.  Another reason I hated lying was because I
couldn’t keep my facts straight for crap.  So much easier just to tell the
truth.  “So how are you feeling today?  You looked pretty rough last
night.”

     She shook her head.  
“I’m ok.”

     “Are you sure you don’t want to go
see a doctor?  You still look kind of pale, to me.” The doctor couldn’t
fix what ailed her, but I thought changing the subject might get her off my
back about Alex.

     She snorted.  “Straight from
the mouth of Snow White.  I feel ok. No blurred vision, or nausea.  I
can google it later, if I get sick, again.”  I knew she wouldn’t go see a
doctor.  Gwen was never
that
sick.  By the time she self-diagnosed the results would come back as
leprosy, or something worse.  I went back to pouring pancake batter.

     My dad came tripping down the
stairs about that time.  “Good morning, girls.”  He rubbed Jazzy’s
head in passing.  She just gave him kitty stink eye, clearly not feeling
affectionate, not with her belly already full.  “Breakfast smells
amazing.”  He poured his coffee and grabbed the newspaper I’d laid out for
him beside his plate.  He looked better this morning, not nearly as
haggard.  Maybe Asher was wrong.  Maybe I wasn’t draining the life
out of everyone around me.  My dad might have just been working too many
hours, lately.

     I placed the pancakes on my
grandma’s platter and set it in the center of the table before taking my
seat.  It was nice, having my two favorite people together and eating a
home-cooked breakfast.  I felt completely domestic, and even a little
normal, as I made me plate and took the first bite.  Mmmm… butter and
maple syrup.

     “So, what’s on the agenda for you
girls, today?”  My dad glanced up at me as he happily heaped food onto his
plate.

     I shrugged. “Depends.  We
could use some groceries.  If Gwen feels like it we could take a trip
downtown later, and stock up.  Jazzy is down to the food she loved last
week, but now can’t stand.  We need toilet paper, paper towels, stuff like
that.”  I batted my eyelashes at my best friend.  “Will you be my
chauffeur?  Pretty please, with sugar on top?”

     Gwen rolled her eyes at me, but
nodded.  “I’m in. I feel ok. Not awesome, but ok enough for Wal-Mart.”

    Apparently, my dad didn’t pay attention
to how bare the cabinets were getting, after my wreck. We were out of just
about everything in the kitchen cabinets and the toilet paper was seriously
low. I’d been able to grab some stuff, like eggs and milk, at the little market
down the street, but we really needed to stock up again.  Dad was so glad
to get out of grocery shopping he slid his debit card out of his pocket and
passed it to me, no questions asked.  

     I had been put in charge of the
family shopping just as soon as I got my license, but my wreck had kind of put
a stop to all of that. I was still supposed to be recuperating, for one thing,
and my car had been destroyed when I rolled it, so I lacked transportation
now. 

     “Thanks, Dad. Do you want me to
pick up anything in particular?”

     He rubbed his jaw, and considered
my question.  “I could use some more razors.  You could grab some
deli meat for sandwiches; turkey and ham.  Some new onions and tomatoes
wouldn’t hurt, either.”  He took another bite off his fork, chewed
carefully while he thought about it.

     Gwen grinned that evil little grin
she gets right before something shockingly inappropriate comes out of her
mouth.  “How about tampons?  Ya run out of those yet, Iz?”  My
dad choked.  Biscuit, covered in warm sausage gravy, slid past his lips
and lodged firmly in his throat.  His eyes watered and he gasped for
air.  Almost absently, Gwen reached over and thumped him on the back with
a little too much enthusiasm.  She still had that evil little grin on her
face.

***

     “You know, if Hannibal Lecter were
real, he’d probably look at the people in Wal-Mart as part of an
all-you-can-eat buffet,” Gwen mused.

     I snorted, I just couldn’t help
myself.  “Your mind works in mysterious, and terrible ways, but you’re
probably right.”  I grabbed a box of canned cat food for Jasmine. “And you
aren’t allowed to watch ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ without me, you know. 
Best movie ever.”  I grunted as I hefted an industrial-sized box of kitty
litter over the side of the cart. For such a delicate little thing, Jazzy sure
pooped a lot.

     Gwen held up a big bottle of
Jergens.  “It rubs the lotion on its skin.” I had to laugh at her. 
That line was a classic and cracked me up every time she quoted it, which was
often. She seemed to think about it seriously for a moment.  “Nah. 
I’m pretty sure Hannibal would have better taste than some of these a-holes.”

     “We,” I gave my cart a hard shove,
“are some of these a-holes.”  I always managed to grab that one cart with
the squeaky wheel that wouldn’t turn properly.  Every time.

     “Really? Cause I swear I just saw
Elvis go down that aisle over there.”  She pointed off towards our right.

     “Keep it down, I’m pretty sure that
was a woman.”  Mostly sure, anyway.

     “Exactly my point.  How did I
let you talk me into this trip again?”

     “Well, I needed a chauffeur, and
you might be slightly brain damaged, but you took pity on me.”

     Gwen grinned at me as she put some
nail polish in the cart. “Bless your sweet little heart, I just didn’t want you
wiping your ass on old tube socks.”  She couldn’t have timed that any
better; two, shall we say, larger ladies came around the corner on scooters
just as she said it.  I ducked into the next aisle so nobody would know we
were together.  I still caught the looks of disgust and outrage about the
tube sock comment, though.  Gotta love Gwen.  She always went for the
shock and awe factor when dealing with people.  Well, the shock part, anyway;
there was usually very little awe involved.

     I got about two seconds of warning
before I smelled that spicy scent that seemed to always precede Asher.  He
appeared right next to me, and in spite of my best intentions, I flinched and
yelped just a little bit.  Presumably, he was checking on me to make sure
I didn’t sprout fangs or something.  I had just about convinced myself he
was a figment of my imagination. I felt fine, after all.  I felt,
well…normal.  Uncommonly ordinary. Yet here he was, somehow larger than
life.

     I glanced back to see if Gwen had
caught up to me yet, but she was still looking at nail polishes.  I
dropped my voice, as much as I could.  “You couldn’t wait till I got
home?”

     Asher tried to look innocent, but I
wasn’t convinced.  “Are you well, Isabel?”

     “Uh, yeah. I’m good.” I wiped my
suddenly sweaty palms against my jeans and tried not to stare at him anymore
than I could help.  He was really pretty, though.  Way too pretty to
be what he was.  Death.  What a strange and freaky thought.

     Gwen came up and hit the cart with
her hip, blissfully unaware that we weren’t alone.  “Iz, are you talking
to yourself again?”  Well, crap.  I looked like a lunatic standing
there talking to herself.  Gwen couldn’t see Asher.  I was probably
destined for a padded cell somewhere.  They probably wouldn’t give me
anything sharp, and I’d have to write my letters home using crayons.

     “Just trying to blend in,” I
answered casually.  “I’m not the only one around here talking to herself. 
I think I saw a guy go by who’d peed on himself.”

     “Where?”  Gwen swung around,
looking.  Sadly, she probably wouldn’t have to look very hard to find
someone who fit that description.

     I gave Asher a dirty look.  We
needed to have a long talk about him popping in on me when other people were
around.  I did my best to avoid looking up at him whenever Gwen was paying
attention to me. If he found my little problem amusing, I really didn’t want to
know.  It would probably just piss me off.

     “Never mind.  I must have been
wrong.”  I took off for the grocery aisles at a fairly good clip,
considering I only had three good wheels that would spin on my stupid
cart.  Neither of my long-legged companions had any trouble keeping up with
me, however.  Must be nice.