Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 (21 page)

And Frank’s yelling, “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! . . .” Over and over again as if God is going to send her only son down to save him . . . personally. But that’s just how they think.

I smile from the mantel. Maybe she just did the opposite.

He stops barking fast enough that I know that bone was probably getting expensive to keep gnawing on. An arrogant dog can buy another bitch to bury his bone in, but a little tree squirrel, worried about losing his nuts in a nasty divorce. . .? I just did him a favor.

“Goddammit! What the fuck?” And he’s jumping around in his little black silk boxers with his little Chinese symbol tattoo on his chest, and he’s waving his arms at me. “Jesus Christ! Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. I got—I got credits.”

And there it is—credits. That’s his real god—buy his way out of Hell. “Ass-ram rich,” I think they call it. He hasn’t got a good look at me yet, or I’m sure he’d be looking to negotiate with something else.

I don’t even have time for the contempt, before his little spawn screams her way down from her loft on the second floor. Even in the dark, I can see the tan against her little wife-beater t-shirt and too-tight, pink hip-hugger panties. She’s freshly back from Cancun, Mexico, or some other plump paradise, busting bills with her pussy-posse of Parisy wannabes.

And she’s got her mother’s genes—no way Frank’s involved in the birth of this little supermodel-in-training. For some reason, I feel like I recognize her, but blonde-mommy was probably banging some State Revenue usage agent so he’d look the other way at all the contraband they got in here. Not even his own kid?

And she’s yelling at her own parents to find out what all the commotion is about, and why she’s getting woken up when she has to catch a flight in the morning. She’s a furious little shit, I’ll give her that.

And the whole flock of them are a walking, squawking cliche in the sky. I wish they weren’t—it might make this a
little
tougher. No matter, when she sees her mother’s blood-soaked corpse, she flips out and starts dancing and hopping and holding her mouth, and then she just vomits all over the place.

That’s the drugs.
I laugh out loud. I know, I know, but I just can’t help it. “Hey,” I say to her, “at least you won’t have to go in the bathroom and stick your finger down your throat.”

And I can feel them up in Heaven or down in Hell—wherever—judging me for my cruelty and indifference. Judge me? I am judgment—God’s judgment, her evil sidekick’s, maybe even the father’s, down on the street. But none of that is why I’m here. I’m here for my own. I would like to say I’m doing it for Amy . . . or Kelly, but that would be bullshit. This is about me.

“Shut up!” I yell at them both. It comes out as a deafening screech, and the glass doors to the deck of the penthouse blow out and so does the glass railing around it. And I laugh again and mutter to myself, “Glass houses. . .”

I think they get what I’m saying, because he shuts up. Her. . . She can’t help it and she’s sobbing and crying, grinding on my nerves.

“Just knock it off,” I say to her. “You’re hurting my head.”

And then I spread my wings out as far as they will go—give them a good look at the nightmare they just woke up in. And I flap them just enough to hop down from the fireplace and onto the floor. When I do, they both back up, and they go gaping-mouth silent.

“Oh . . . my . . . God,” he says.

Blondie-junior’s hysteria turns to awe—it’s not every day you see a winged man. “You!” she shouts it like she’s pointing to a jacker that just stole her purse. And she’s looking at me weird. “It was you.” Then she looks at her mother. “You—you killed my mother!” she yells. “You fuck!”

Guess it wasn’t awe.

“Mercedes,” Frank says to her, “don’t.”

I roll my eyes back. Of course. And I can’t wait until these pretentious fucks start naming their kids “Tesla” and “Prius.” And I fold my wings back in and pop out the talons on my left hand. That shuts her up.

And I walk to the woman’s lifeless husk, squat down, and look it over while they watch. Nothing is coming out yet. I wonder how long it takes?

It’ll be soon enough, so I grab hold of blonde-mommy’s chest and ribcage, and I feel my talons sink in deep—pop the sack of silicone shit on her other breast. The slippery slime oozes out onto one of my talons.
Sticky
. . .

And they both gasp hard when I fling her body out the hole in the glass wall. They watch with their mouths open—blondie-junior, trying to feel more by whining, and her father, silent, glad as shit that it’s not him. How do I know that? I can smell it on them both. And blonde-mommy and her oozing boobs arc and disappear over the railing.

Couple a seconds later, up comes that smacking, bone-splattering meat sound and “Mercedes” starts whining again.

“I told you to stop,” I say. “He’ll buy you a new one. You can probably share clothes. Win-win, if you ask me.”

I need all three of them, of course. So no one’s leaving the penthouse alive, but I’m not quite ready to let them know that. Something’s still itching me about this girl, though. And my mind is getting flashes of some kinda shit. Some roof, but not the—shit, I don’t have time for it. Cramming a year’s worth of revenge into a few minutes is difficult, even for a vengeful bastard like me.

I turn and look at Frank. “You know who I am, Frank?” He should know.

Even now, he thinks he’s important enough to banter. “Should I?”

“Don’t get cute.” And I start walking around the room slowly, hopping a little and tic-jerking my head from side to side, pacing my way back and forth.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’ve been lying on my back, busted up in a church. Maybe because this is like the “Christday” of revenge. Anyway, I’m antsy and I can almost taste the blood.

Blood’s coming soon enough, but right now, I take in a big whiff of the putrid piss smell of fear.

“Okay,” he says. “You’re an—”

“You’re a fucking angel,” little Mercedes says. Now she’s pacing, too, biting her nails. “I told them that shit. I told them. I saw you. I saw her. I—I saw the other one, too. Angels, I knew it.”

And I stop and look at her. She’s about as jittery as the father and his flask. But saw me. . .?

“I knew it, I knew it,” she says. “I
told
them I saw you. Bitches didn’t believe me. Fucking
doctor
. . . Therapy mother
fucker.
”

And that’s a little wrinkle in the parchment. I sniff in hard and then I smell it. The coke’s easy to spot. Of course she’s on coke—every rich brat and their mother can get the State’s coke—but there’s. . . Smells like . . . dove-angel piss . . . judgment or something. No idea how I know it, but it’s like a dog marked a hydrant—a familiar smell? “When did you—”

“She tried to kill herself,” Frank says. “We had to. . . The doctors brought her back and she was going on and on about angels. And—”

“I didn’t try to kill myself,” she says. Then she turns toward me. “I told him that.” And then she turns back toward him. “I told you that. Psych
asshole
.”

Psych doctor. No one but a rich bastard can get access to one of them. Average citizen tells someone they saw an angel—one way ticket, 5150 hotel. But money buys a whole lotta crazy, so little Miss Mercedes. . . She’ll be easy.

“It was an accident!” she yells at him. “I OD’d. I’m not some
loser
suicide.” And now she’s got her arms crossed tight, glaring at me. “Didn’t believe me. There he is, right there . . .
daddy
. Now what are you gonna. . .? Ha, you are
so
dead.”

And that last one is just—and I’m smack in the middle of an episode of “Beverly Bitches,” listening to the two of them get ready to use me for therapy. Not happening.

“Stop!” I yell. Whatever glass is left breaks and falls. There isn’t much, but it sounds like it keeps falling and the high-pitched sounds of shattering lasts too long. Then I realize it’s not the glass.

I don’t care that much about the sirens, but I can hear the faint sounds of dove-angel screeching. And now, I got no time for this shit.

And there’s no sense trying to carry
her
up—she’s marked already—some other angel’s cab credits. I move toward her.

She backs up a little. “No-no-no,” she says, “you said I could—”

But I grab her and out the window little Mercedes goes, screaming her way down, cussing at me all the way until she smacks and explodes meat on the street. Hers will be the guide.

“Holy fuck! Holy fuck!” he yells. And he can see it coming—powerless in his own ending. “I’m sorry. Jesus Christ, whatever I did, I’m sorry. Please-please-please! If I would’ve—”

And that’s how it is for everyone, I bet. I look at him and mock-wave my hands as I talk, “Oh, if I’d only known, I would’ve done it differently. I would’ve been nicer, I wouldn’t have forced your daughter to get those shots.”

And now he knows why, and he starts crying and begging. It’s pathetic, really. Jesus Christ, if you’re gonna play chicken with God—stick a dildo up her children’s asses your whole life—don’t be a pussy and turn the wheel at the last minute. You gotta plow head-on through the fence around her garden and do a couple of donuts in her daisies. Let her know what you really think about her “rules of the road.”

I tear him up just enough—make sure he’s still conscious for the flight down.
I owe the father that much
, I think.

And that is just a—no idea where that thought came from.
 

I got no time, those souls are coming out any minute. I look at him—any more and it might take a bucket to get his body down to the street. It’s not enough, not by a long shot. It’ll have to do. Today, I got bigger bitches to boil.

— XLI —

I GRAB FRANK by one of his flapping arms and I get a moan and then a scream back. Then I fling him out the broken windows, send him into his own final fall. And I hop to the ledge and jump, follow his whining body down in a wings-back power dive. I almost slam the pavement with him, trying to make sure that I don’t miss them, but I pull up at the last minute and his sack of meat cracks wide open like guppy guts. Brains and bile burst out the sides of him and splatter across the street.

And I open my wings wide—slam the brakes—pull up and flap over and then I hover, waiting off to the side of the street in the shadows of an ally. And then blonde-mommy’s husk—shit, her body is unrecognizable—starts moaning and her soul wriggles its way out of her titless, gutless pile of bile. And right on time, a dark-colored dove-angel—express driver to Hell—shows up, and apparently they got both flavors down there, because this dark girl angel is pulling and tugging at blonde-mommy’s soul. But it doesn’t look like the writhing little maggot is quite ready.

Who is, really? To tell you the truth, I was kinda counting on them not wanting to go. I’m counting on something else, too. We’ll see.

And there he is, just like I told him—lucky for him—and the father rushes from the dark doorway where he was hiding and, quicker than the little boozed-up priest should be able to, he slings his Rosary beads over the dark angel’s head, around her neck. Then he’s on her back and she takes off with both of them. And she’s squawking and screeching at him, trying to shake him off. But if he’s done what I told him to, he’s been chanting in that doorway for long enough.

I send a couple of sharp squawks and screeches at her, “He’s coming with you.” And quicker than that, she stops squawking and starts flapping slowly and the three of them are headed up. And I’m sure the father’s shitting himself, and I cluck out a chuckle and a little caw. Some things just work.

When little Mercedes’ maggoty butterfly claws its way out, a bright white angel screeches his way down through the fog and snatches her up.

The white angel hesitates a little—drops her to the street and picks her up a couple times—before he looks around and then looks up in the sky.

Whatever he’s waiting for doesn’t happen, and he flaps and starts flying up.

Apparently, blondie-junior didn’t try to commit suicide after all.
Even after all the other shit?
I think. And then I remember where we’re going. I don’t think it matters much which color “cabbie” picks you up. I think the point is where you are headed. Because, dark or light, these angels are all flapping in the same direction. And that’s what I was counting on the most.
Homing pigeons.

And then I hear Frank’s husk howling like a shot dog, and it’s my turn. I hope this works or the father is gonna have some explaining to do when he gets where they are going.

Then I hear it. Screeching and squawking down through the fog like it’s going to miss the last chopper out of Baghdad. And as soon as the sound breaks through the mist,
it
is a she. Tough luck, sister.

This one is gray, and she spins and darts in a beautiful display of flying that would make a hummingbird hang up her wings. This ain’t her first rodeo—the little chickie has mad flying skills. Too bad. . . No idea why I care, but. . .

When she swoops in on Frank, his soul is fighting her hard. And she’s flapping and squawking and beating her wings on him, but Frank is a fighter. He distracts her just enough.

When I slam into the back of the little gray angel, she’s caught completely off guard. I mean, who attacks an angel coming to pick up a soul? That’s probably the look on her face, but I can’t see it, because I sucker-punched her from behind. And she drops Frank’s soul and tries to screech at me, but I’ve got both sets of hand talons around her throat and my feet talons are buried ten spikes deep, through her back and into her chest. The sound comes out as muffled chirping. But no matter what language it is, it’s not hard to recognize the word, “No. . .”

I rough her up quite a bit before I drop her. I don’t want to kill her, but I can’t have her following me either. Regardless, I can’t be distracted if that bright bitch shows back up. I hover a little and watch as gray-girl flutters and limps her wings off into the fog.

Before all the judgment starts, angels are some tough fuckers. I got a cross through the gut that proved it, remember? So don’t go giving me any of that “beating up on women” shit, because I got my ass kicked by one of them. Regardless, the father was right—angel blood is red.