All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (16 page)

“
Hey,
Pipe. What’s going on over th--”

A head popped out
of the throng, halting my last word before it made it over my lips.
I recognized the head.

Marty.

Another lucky
coincidence? Possible...but in Hell?

Maybe God’s
not the only one who works in mysterious ways.

“
Hey,”
I yelled without waiting to see if Piper had heard me. “Marty!”

I pushed through
the crowd, bumping a dozen people on the way. When I reached the
edge of the sidewalk, I stopped, waiting for a break in the
bumper-to-bumper traffic. None came, so I took a page out of an
action flick and jumped onto the hood of the closest car, intending
to leap from one to the next and make my way across the road like
the frog in that old arcade game.

It wasn’t as
easy as it looked in the movies or playing ‘Frogger’.

As soon as my foot
hit metal, I lost my balance and left an ass-shaped dent in some
blank-faced guy’s hood. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled to
the next car, wobbled momentarily, then jumped to the next, arms
extended like a tightrope walker.

Imagine how
difficult this would be if they were going faster than three
miles-per-hour.

Horns blared. One
guy jammed on his brakes when I landed on his hood and I almost slid
off the front and under his wheels. I righted myself and flipped him
the bird; he stared back with empty eyes and taut lips. From its
place on the nearest corner, a gargoyle stretched its wings. By
then, only one lane separated me from my goal. I looked up and saw
Piper standing on the curb, hand extended, encouraging me. I leaped
from the last car landing awkwardly beside her without help. Maybe
if I’d accepted her assistance, I wouldn’t have twisted
my ankle.

“
How’d
you get here?”

She shrugged.
“Angel stuff.”

“
Hmph.
Could you have helped me?”

“
Yes.”

“
Why
the Hell didn’t you?”

“
You
didn’t ask.”

I glared at her,
wanting to be angry, but the thought of having found Marty—and
therefore, probably Todd—made it difficult to be mad. That and
her blue eyes.

“
Did
you see--?”

She pointed over my
shoulder.

“
That
way.”

I forced my way
through the robotic crowd, keeping an eye on Marty’s head
bobbing amongst them. The black coats he and Todd wore made them
easy to pick out of the gray crowd. They weaved their way through
the horde keeping a consistent distance ahead. If we sped up, they
sped up; if we slowed, they did, too.

I broke into a run
and they did the same, right on cue.

Damn it.

I tried to dodge a
blank-faced little old lady but failed, mowing her down. A pang of
guilt made me look back over my shoulder to see if she was all
right, but she’d already regained her feet and carried on as
if nothing happened. I turned back in time to see Marty and Todd
disappear down some stairs, but didn’t give myself enough time
to either stop or adjust my gait to the concept of descending
stairs.

I went down them,
anyway.

My hip hit the
stairs first, flipping me over and smacking my shoulder next. I
attempted to stop myself and, when I couldn’t, went for the
old tuck-and-roll—also with little success. My right arm got
caught between my body and the edge of a stair and pain exploded as
I heard a snap.

My spill down the
stairs ended flat on my back, head propped on the bottom step,
staring at the ceiling. I groaned loudly at the pain in my arm and
squeezed my eyes shut. Seconds later, I felt a presence at my side.

“
Are
you okay?”

I opened my eyes
and looked up at Piper bent over me, mild concern showing on her
face. I bit back the urge to curse.

“
I
think I broke my arm.”

I struggled to a
sitting position and looked at what I expected to be a subway
station but turned out to be a locker room.

“
Couldn’t
you have done something? What kind of guardian angel are you?”

“
Not
yours. Your guardian angel wouldn’t come to Hell with you,
remember?”

“
Right.”

She grabbed me by
the collar and pulled me up as I held my arm gingerly against my
chest.

“
Let’s
have a look at that.”

Her fingers brushed
my flesh and the buzz of static electricity followed it, standing
the hairs on my arm on end. After a second, she grabbed my forearm
on either side of the break. I felt the ends of the bone grate
together and sucked a breath through my teeth as I bit back the urge
to scream in pain. I wanted to pull away, but the pain subsided,
replaced by warmth and a tingling like I’d slept on the arm
wrong and woken with pins and needles. The sensation was pleasant
and uncomfortable all at once. In my mind, I saw the ends of the
bone knitting themselves back together under her touch. I put up
with it as long as I could, pulling away after a minute. My arm
didn’t hurt as much.

“
We
don’t have time for this right now. Where did Marty and Todd
go? Did you see?”

I wobbled and she
put a hand under my armpit, steadying me.

“
No.”

Something caught
her attention and she stopped, listening, fingers buried in my pit
sending a tickle into my chest. I brushed her hand away.

“
What
is it?”

“
Someone’s
coming.”

I surveyed the room
quickly—it looked like the locker room of a high school:
wooden benches, double banks of short lockers painted different
colors, sinks, toilet stalls, and an open shower area. There was a
blue door with a metal pull handle in the farthest wall I suspected
might lead to a gym, and a second door with a locking knob in the
wall to our right, across from the showers.

“
In
there,” I said moving toward it with my arm cradled against my
chest, though it felt considerably better.

I twisted the knob
and found it unlocked, barely making it through as the other door
flew open and the sounds of sneakered feet slapping tile floor and
the hoots and hollers of a team of teenagers flooded the room. I
twisted the lock on the knob and we leaned against the door,
listening to see if we’d been noticed. It didn’t seem as
though we had.

“
I
think we’re okay,” I said, ear pressed against the door.
My angel-friend didn’t answer. “Piper?”

I pivoted from the
door and found her staring across the room. I expected to see we’d
found refuge in a storage closet, but my expectation was incorrect.
Instead, we’d entered an office. I’d never heard of
anyone keeping an office off a boys’ locker room, but I also
wouldn’t have expected to find a locker room at the bottom of
stairs normally leading to a subway platform or a dog-fighting pit
behind the door of a doctor’s office waiting room, either.
Seems Hell is full of surprises.

I took in the
office with a quick glance: a four-drawer metal filing cabinet stood
against one wall, basketballs of different brands filled a rolling
rack nearby. A box in one corner over-flowed with whiffle balls and
the scoops for throwing them; orange mesh pull-over tops used for
differentiating teams spilled over the side of a second, smaller
box, tossed in by careless hands. A simple desk with two drawers sat
against the far wall, a man at it perched on the edge of a wooden
desk chair, his back to us. He didn’t seem to notice we’d
entered.

I stepped up beside
Piper and she raised her hand, stopping me. She extended a finger
toward the desk, pointing out the one thing I hadn’t noticed:
a closed-circuit television.

It looked like one
which might have been found performing security duty in a 7/11
sometime in the eighties, the screen no more than twelve inches
across, the picture in grainy black and white. I couldn’t tell
what was on the screen from where we stood, so we edged closer,
trying not to betray our presence. After a few steps, I saw multiple
figures moving around on the screen but still couldn’t tell
who or what, nor get an inkling of where the camera on the other end
might be. Intent on the screen, the man didn’t notice us.

Piper must have
realized what he watched before I did because she averted her gaze,
put her hand on my chest to stop me from getting any closer and
shook her head. A spark flared in my heart at her touch but I
brushed her hand aside and took two more steps, less concerned about
the man noticing my presence after seeing her reaction.

The picture
cleared: the boys in the locker room. Most of them were shirtless,
changing out of their gym clothes; a few had already stripped to hit
the showers, also clearly in view of the camera’s placement.
One boy stood at the center of the locker room, staring up at the
camera as if he looked through it and out the other side.

I looked away and
into the face of the man for the first time. He was older than I
remembered; his hair had receded a few inches from his forehead,
contacts replaced the wire-rimmed glasses he’d worn. He stared
intently at the screen, an unsettling look on his face.

“
Tony?”

He didn’t
hear me. The wooden chair creaked beneath him as he leaned forward
awkwardly, getting a better look, and I noticed his arms were tied
to the chair. He licked his lips and leaned back, his eyes
flickering down to his lap. My gaze followed his to the bulge in his
red gym shorts with white stripes down the side. He looked back up
to the screen and I recognized the unsettling look on his face as a
mix of desire and desperation—a staple of Hell’s
punishments.

My stomach did a
somersault, anger and disgust exploding in my chest. My foot lashed
out kicking the edge of the chair and sending it skittering across
the room on squeaky wheels.

“
What
the fuck are you doing?”

The man who was
once my youth soccer coach—and who also coached my son—looked
up, surprised. It made me angrier to see he didn’t seem to
have any guilt mixed in his expression.

“
Who
are you?”

I clamped my teeth
together, grinding my molars.

“
Ric
Fell,” I said, anger compressing my name. A sliver of pain
shot up my broken arm as my hands balled into fists. I ignored it in
favor of righteous rage. “What the fuck are you doing?”