chapter 26
WE EMERGED IN A DARK, DANK ROOM THAT STANK OF something indescribably awful.
“Guano,” Trsiel said in response to my gagging. When I gave him a “huh?” look, he translated. “Bat shit.”
“There’s a special name for it? Can’t imagine why that never entered my vocabulary before. What’s guano doing in—”
I stopped as my brain made an abrupt logical click. Where there’s bat shit, there must be…I looked up, way up, and saw rows of little bodies suspended from the ceiling. I shuddered and wrapped my arms around my chest.
Trsiel smiled. “You’ll wrest a burning sword from an angel, but you’re afraid of bats?”
“I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t like them. They’re…furry. Flying things shouldn’t be furry. It’s not right. And if I ever meet the Creator, I’m taking that one up with him.”
Trsiel laughed. “That I’d like to see. Your one and possibly only chance to get the answer to every question in the universe, and you’ll ask, ‘Why are bats furry?’”
“I will. You just wait.”
As Trsiel prodded me forward, I tried hard not to glance up. Judging by the damp chill and the flying rodents, we were either in a cave or a really lousy basement. The stacks of moldering boxes suggested option two.
“I thought we were going to the jail,” I said.
“We are.”
I scanned the room. “I think your teleport skills need a tune-up, Trsiel.”
“Close enough.”
He led me through a door and into a cleaner part of the basement. As we walked, he made good on his promise to explain about Shekinah and Balthial.
Earlier, Trsiel had mentioned a structural reorganization in the angels’ ranks, whereby only ascended angels went out into the world on missions. The full-bloods did other tasks, higher tasks. Most of the full-bloods were more than happy to leave the daily grind as “divine instruments of justice” to the ascendeds. A few, though, like Trsiel, chafed at this new world order like career beat cops assigned to desk duty. Can’t say I blamed him. Give me the down-and-dirty life of a warrior over a sanitized office job any day.
That, Trsiel explained, was part of his “philosophical difference” with Shekinah and Balthial. They were glad to be out of the trenches, away from the taint of humanity, while Trsiel embraced that “taint,” and all that went with it.
“It’s not that I want to be human,” he said as he led me through the basement. “It’s just that I don’t see anything inherently wrong with being human. Wait—oh, this way.” He swerved around a corner. “It comes down to one question. Who do angels serve? We serve the Creator, the Fates, and the other divine powers. That’s a given. But do we also serve humanity? I think we do.”
“And they disagree?”
“Vehemently.” He paused at the bottom of a rotted set of unused stairs, then took my elbow and guided me up them. “So that’s part of the problem. The other part, not unrelated, is that I’m younger than they are.”
“So you weren’t all created together?”
“For full-bloods, there were three waves. As the human race grew and expanded, the Creator saw the need for more angels. I’m from the third wave, the last one. Since then, the ranks have been increased by recruited ghosts. The ascended angels.”
“So how old are you?”
“Only about a thousand years.”
I sputtered a laugh. “A mere tot.”
He tossed me a smile. “Well, according to the old ones, that’s exactly what I am. A child—a willful, uncouth, inexperienced child—one who definitely shouldn’t have been assigned this job.”
“Seems to me you’re doing just fine.”
Another smile, broader. “Thanks.”
We found Amanda Sullivan sleeping fitfully in her cell, jerking and moaning with dreams…or visions of the Nix. I hoped they gave her nightmares, horrible nightmares, the kind that disturb sleep for months and scar the psyche forever.
Again, Trsiel offered to scan Sullivan’s brain for me. I refused.
Since he’d been here only minutes before, he knew exactly where to look for the visions, and zipped me over to that part of her sleeping brain without so much as a glimpse at the putrid wasteland elsewhere.
As we coasted to a stop, I braced myself. Colors and sounds flickered past. A man’s face twisted in anger. Ripples of simmering frustration. A pang of envy. A woman’s taunting laugh. A newspaper clipping. More clippings, like a scrapbook. A grainy photo of a sprawled body. An announcer’s voice with feigned gravitas, words cutting in and out. “Deaths.” “Wounded.” “Notorious.” “Manhunt.” A wave of excitement. Then harsh words raining down like hail. “Stupid.” “Ugly.” “Useless.” “Wasted space.”
The images flipped faster, out of focus, like a movie reel hitting the end. Then nothing. I waited, straining for voices, but nothing came. After about ten minutes of this, Trsiel pulled me out. When I opened my eyes, I saw Sullivan on the cot, sleeping soundly.
“So that’s it?” I said. “She’s gone?”
“It seems so. Her old partners aren’t connected to her all the time.”
“We can’t sit around here, popping in and out of this woman’s brain, hoping she links up with this new partner again.”
“And what would you suggest? Unless you noticed more than I did, there wasn’t anything to go on. Only a few news articles with no solid connection to the partner herself.”
“No? What are they, then? Random images?”
Trsiel shook his head. “The Nix is plucking them out of her memory, showing them to her, hoping to incite a reaction.”
I slumped against the wall. “So we have nothing, then.”
“Be patient. More will come.”
We spent the rest of that night in Sullivan’s cell, with Trsiel logging in to her brain every five minutes, checking for fresh data. At about four, he suggested I go hunt down the little boy, George, see how he was doing. Very considerate…though I suspect he was just tired of watching me pace.
Morning came, and a guard roused the women for breakfast. Sullivan stayed in bed. The other women were released from the cells, but no one even stopped at Sullivan’s door. Maybe she wasn’t a breakfast person.
After every other woman had filed out, Sullivan rose, groggy and sulky, and yanked on her clothing. A few minutes later, a guard brought her a food tray.
“It’s cold,” Sullivan whined, without even taking a bite. “It’s always cold.”
“That so?” the guard said, hands on her broad hips. “Well, Miss Sullen, we could always let you go down and eat with the rest of them again. Would you like that?”
As Sullivan turned away, her hair tumbled off her shoulder, revealing a slice across her neck that had yet to scab over.
“Didn’t think so,” the guard said. “Be thankful for the room service.”
The guard strode away.
“Fat cow,” Sullivan muttered.
She scooped a spoonful of oatmeal, then stopped, spoon partway to her mouth. Carefully, she lowered the spoon, head moving from side to side with the wariness of one who’s learned she has reason to be wary.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
When no one answered, she rose, noiselessly laying the tray aside, and glided to the cell door. A long, careful look each way, head tilted to listen. The cell block was empty.
“I can hear you,” she said. “I hear you singing. Who is it?”
I looked at Trsiel. The same thought passed between us. If Sullivan was hearing voices in an empty cell block, they could only come from one place. Trsiel reached for my hand and transported me back into her mind.
I came to a stop in a pit of darkness. Sure enough, after only a moment, I picked up the whisper of a voice. Someone humming off-tune. Then words. I’m usually damned good with songs, but it took me a moment to place this one, probably because the singer kept mangling the lyrics.
“Invisible” by…someone. Didn’t matter. The voice only sung a few lines from the refrain, and when she hit the end of those lines, she started over again. Something about being treated like you were invisible.
I vaguely remember the song, probably because it had always triggered a childhood memory of the neighborhood grocer. I’d stood head and shoulders above all my friends, but the grocer always served all of them first, then served every other customer in the store, only taking my money when I tossed it onto the counter and walked away with my candy bar. I figure now it was anti-Semitism—East Falls being the kind of small town where even Catholics are eyed with suspicion. My mother never talked to me about stuff like that; she preferred to pretend it didn’t exist. When I told her about the grocer, she’d said I was imagining things. I knew I wasn’t, and being unable to put a label to his dislike, I had assumed it was my fault. Like my teacher, Mrs. Appleton, he saw something bad in me, something no one else noticed.
“Invisible,” the woman crooned. “Oh, yeah, I’m invisible.” A sudden shriek of laughter sent me jumping like a scorched cat.
“That’s me,” the woman chortled, voice shrill with manic glee. “Miss Invisible. They treat me like I’m not even there. And they sure as hell don’t care. Dah-dahdah-dah. Miss Invisible.”
Another voice, the soft, insidious tones of the Nix. “And what are you going to do about it?”
“Make ’em notice me, of course. Make ’em stand up and salute. All hail, Miss Invisible.” The woman’s laughter screeched like nails down a blackboard, drunken bitterness infused with a teaspoon of madness. “Gonna show them that I’m somebody. Somebody important. Somebody who can make them tremble in their pretty little Pradas.”
The darkness cleared and I found myself in the young woman’s memory, inside her body, looking out her eyes, as I had with Sullivan and the death-row inmate. I stood in a long hallway, sweeping the floor with a wide, industrial-size broom. Two well-dressed women walked past, chatting and laughing. One unwrapped a stick of gum and dropped the wrapper. Dropped it right where I’d just finished sweeping. The woman laughed.
Laughing at me—at the stupid, ugly cleaning girl. No need to find a garbage can. Not when Lily is right there. That’s her job. Make her earn her pay.
If the Nix was retrieving this memory for Lily, it had to be important. I struggled to pull myself away from Lily’s thoughts, to look around for myself. Long hallway. Well-dressed women. An office building? Look, Eve. Look harder. You’ll need to find this place. Farther down the hall, sheets of paper dotted the walls. Notices of some kind. Dog-eared and brightly colored. Not very businesslike.
“Hey!” a young man’s voice shouted. “Hey, that’s mine!”
Three giggling girls streaked past, nearly knocking me—the woman, Lily—flying. They kept going without so much as a “Sorry,” not surprising, considering they were about thirteen and being chased by a boy their age.
Bitches. Stuck-up little bitches, just like their mommies. Too good to say “Excuse me.” Why bother? It’s only the hired help. The cleaning lady.
I squirmed free of Lily’s thoughts. The three girls ran shrieking down the hall, plowing past the two women without an apology, either, but Lily didn’t notice that, didn’t care about that. One of the girls lifted something and waved it like a flag as she ran. A boy’s bathing suit.
“Give me that!” her pursuer yelled.
They threw open a door and zoomed through. The barest whiff of chlorine wafted back.
As the boy skidded after them, my gaze went back to those distant sheets on the wall. I honed in on them, concentrating, but was only able to invoke half my usual power, just enough to make out a few of the headings. SPRING FLING. TUTORS WANTED. MARCH BREAK MADNESS.
Two men strode in front of the bulletins, coming toward us. Both were in their early twenties, both dressed in sweat-drenched shorts and tank tops, both damned fine-looking. My pulse quickened, heart tripping, a slow burn of longing plunging through me—pretty creepy, considering these boys were about half my age. Fortunately, since I had neither a pulse nor a heartbeat, I knew this lust attack wasn’t mine.
Brett. The name fluttered through Lily’s mind. Her gaze lingered on the shorter of the two, following him up the hallway.
“Next week is going to be my week,” Brett said to his companion. “You just watch. I will beat you so badly, you’ll—”
“Die of shock?”
Brett cuffed the other man and they bounced down the hall like overgrown puppies.
Look at me, Brett. I’m right here.
The two men passed Lily without a glance her way.
I’ll make you look, Brett. I’ll make you see me. Just wait—
An alarm wailed. Lily shot up, blinking fast, heart racing. The bedside clock-radio continued to screech. She slammed the Off button, then stared at the blurry red digits. Seven-thirty.
“I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go,” she muttered.
“Oh, but today will be different,” the Nix whispered.
Lily chortled and reached for her glasses. “Oh, yeah, today will be much different.”
With her glasses in place, the room came into focus. She leaned over and opened the nightstand drawer. Inside were a few dog-eared magazines. She reached underneath, fingers closing on metal. She pulled out her prize. A semiautomatic.
The scene faded to black.
After a few minutes, Trsiel pulled me out.
“Is that it?” I said. “I need more. Did you see the flyers on the wall?”
“I saw papers, but I couldn’t get a good look. I’m restricted to what she sees.”
I started to pace. “So was I, but I could zoom in a bit. It was a community center. Indoor pool, ball courts, bulletins for a dance and March Break activities—she works in a community center. And that’s where she’s headed now. With a gun.”
As I passed Trsiel, he grasped my shoulder, forcing me to stop pacing.
“Eve, we need to—”
“Slow down and think. I know that. But I think better when I’m moving.”
He let me go. I wheeled and strode across the cell.
“Let’s see what we have,” Trsiel said. “Her name is Lily and she works at a community center as part of the cleaning staff.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Still walking, I rubbed my hands over my face. “Okay, she just woke up, so it’ll take her a while to get to work. It was seven—Wait. What time is it now?”
Trsiel walked through the cell bars and looked around. “This clock says just past nine-thirty.”
“Then we’ve got a two-hour time difference. That means she’s somewhere west of Colorado. American accents, so definitely in the country.”
“Upper West Coast accents,” Trsiel said. “North of California.”
“Right. Thanks. I’ll talk to Jaime. We’ll search the Internet for community centers on the upper West Coast with mentions of a Spring Fling and March Break Madness. Once we’ve narrowed it down, she can see whether any have a janitor named Lily.” I stopped pacing. “A game plan. Good. But it’ll take some time. With any luck, that guy she’s after won’t be heading to the community center for a while today.”
I paused, then looked at Trsiel. “So she wants to kill this guy because he doesn’t notice her. Besides the seriously f*cked-up logic behind that, there’s one thing I don’t get. What is this boy to me?”
Trsiel frowned.
“The Nix is doing this for my benefit, right? A demonstration of her power. A lesson for me. So—” I stopped and met his gaze. “Look, if she succeeds in killing this kid, I’ll feel bad. Anyone would, right? But it won’t—well, I don’t know him. If this is a lesson, either I’m missing the point or this Nix has me pegged all wrong, thinks I’ll fall apart over the death of a stranger.”
“She knows you’re working on something usually reserved for angels—”
“So she probably assumes I’m typical angel material—protect the innocent no matter who they are. Makes sense.” I glanced at Sullivan. “Should we check in her skull one last time? If I could get a better look at the flyers in that hall—”
As I said the words, I pictured the flyers again and my words froze in my throat. The pink poster. TUTORS WANTED. I’d seen that before. Months ago. My memory pulled up an image—a soft, pretty hand reaching for the tabs along the bottom of the flyer, ripping one off, silver rings flashing. A deep sigh sounded somewhere to the left.
“Literacy tutors? Oh, please. Don’t you do enough of that crap already?”
“It’s not crap. And it’s only an hour a month.”
“Like you’ve got an hour to spare! Geez, Paige—”
I spun on Trsiel. “Portland. The community center is in Portland. My daughter—oh, God, Savannah goes there.”