A Touch Mortal

Chapter 5





Ivy grew thick across the back of the house, the broken path across the yard lost under green tendrils. Gabriel didn’t bother hiding his presence, using his key to slip in the back door. It was an old servant’s entrance that opened to a narrow staircase. He didn’t turn on the light, his fingers finding the wall out of habit, using it to guide him.

There was no sound in the stairway, nothing from the hall. One fluid movement took him into Kristen’s room. The door swung on well-oiled hinges, clicking quietly shut behind him.

She didn’t look up when he entered, though he knew she was aware he’d arrived. He watched her for a moment, a long leg balanced on the edge of her vanity table as she painted her toenails a shade close to black. Finally, with a breath across the polish, she glanced up at the mirror, meeting his eyes through the reflection.

“You haven’t been answering your phone,” she said, not turning to him. She capped the polish and dropped it into a drawer.

“I came as soon as I could.”

Kristen swiveled the chair toward him finally, her face indifferent. The quiver in her lip was so slight, he almost missed it.

“Oh, Kristen,” he said quietly. He didn’t have to read her mind to guess her thoughts. “I should have called. Did you think I wasn’t coming?” She seemed to give in suddenly, forgetting the pedicure and hurrying across the floor to throw herself into his arms. He hugged her tight.

“How’s my little black rain cloud?” he asked, pulling her back. The dress she wore was dirty, the antique fabric tattered and torn, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary for Kristen. He’d half hoped that she’d been holding her own, even with her appearance. The room gave her away.

On the top of the dresser were ten writing utensils. Lined up in a row, the pattern was simple enough, a pencil higher than the blue felt tip beside it, the marker after rising again, even with the pencil. Up, down, up, down across the polished wood. Iambic pentameter in pens. On her nightstand, the hair clips seemed random until he counted them. A row of five, of seven, of five again.

“Kristen, haikus?” He cupped her chin in his hand. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You should have left a message! I would have come!” She started to speak but he shushed her, closing his eyes. He bowed his head, concentrating until he picked up her thoughts.

At first, he only heard her fears…. came back this time but what if I’m too much of a burden and are the pencils straight think of something else so he doesn’t see how bad…A rush of poetry assaulted him, the lines and couplets screaming past his ears in stereo. He raised his hands to her shoulders, his eyes still shut tight.

“Kristen,” he chided, then softened his tone. “You’re not a burden. Now let me fix it, okay?” He squeezed her shoulders. Under his fingers, she relaxed a bit, giving in. Every few weeks since he and Az found her, he wiped her mind clear. Saned her back to herself. It never held long; the roots of the disease had dug deep while she had been human. The residue of her schizophrenia slowly reclaimed her brain if left alone. He could only clean so much.

A jumble of words and thoughts coated her brain like plaque, flaring knots of insanity wrapping tighter the longer he left the schizophrenia alone. He narrowed his focus, untangling the damaged threads of thought. He’d nearly finished when he came across the patch of static. They’d appeared suddenly last year, strands of white noise he couldn’t get rid of, as if they were operating on a different frequency. He’d thought at first that she was getting worse and the disease was progressing anyway, but they never spread.

I should have been here, he thought. He swallowed, guilt tightening his throat, and pushed his own thoughts away. The volume skyrocketed, her mind opening to him, playing out like a song, the lines of static humming dully in the background.



Steam poured from the crack of the door, though the shower had been off for ten minutes. Gabriel flipped though a magazine, the glossy pages sliding past unread.

“You okay in there?” he called out. The door swung open in answer, the handle bouncing lightly against the wall. Kristen looked almost normal, save her sense of what passed for fashion. He eyed the black ball gown with distaste. “Look, I know you like to be different and all, but do you have to be so nineteen-forty-six debutante?”

She ignored him, opening one of the dresser drawers, sweeping away the pens and markers. “Silly, really,” she said, turning to him. “Anyone with their wits about them would know Sharpies make for bad inspiration. No wonder I hardly wrote anything this week.”

Gabriel tossed the magazine aside, pulling a pillow under his chin as he shifted to lie down on the bed. He ran the words through his head before saying them, trying to find the cadence to make them sound nonchalant. Of course, when he opened his mouth, they came out clipped and too quick. “I need to talk to you about where I was. Why you couldn’t get a hold of me.” The pause after was long enough to be theatrical. Kristen set the hairbrush down.

She said his name, her voice unsure and faltering. Hidden between the syllables were the questions her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask. When she answered, though, all insecurities had dropped away.

“Something serious?” The flash in her eyes dared him to attempt an excuse.

“Az has a girl.” Kristen twisted to the mirror, pulling the brush through the tangled wreck of her hair.

“Huh,” she mused to her reflection. “All this time I thought him celibate.” Gabriel shot her an impatient glare. “I hardly see how this is relevant to me.”

“She’s Pathless,” he finished. “She’s one of your kind. Or will be.”

She silently brushed blush over her cheekbones. “So Az thinks, what? She’ll go Sider and they’ll skip off into the sunset for f*ck’s sake?” Kristen’s jaw tightened. She went back to the mirror, pulling her eyelid taut, smearing kohl liner with an expert hand.

“This girl, Eden, she’s good for him. He’s doing better than he has in centuries. He’s hardly struggled against the Fall since he met her.” Gabriel closed his eyes, blotting out the distraction of the room, the collection of top hats shelved above the mirror. “I want you to take her in after she changes. Keep her safe until we figure things out.” He opened his eyes. A slow crescent chiseled its way onto Kristen’s lips.

“We’re nearly immortal, Gabriel. You know that.” Her brown eyes already glittered from his unintentional slip. “Keep her safe from what, exactly?”

Gabriel glanced away. “Luke.”

“I do recall you mentioning how he enjoys ripping apart Az’s love life.” She lined her other eye and tossed the pencil back into the drawer. “Last one was straight down the middle, right?”

“Really, Kristen?” Gabriel’s eyes flashed maroon and Kristen dropped her gaze, rummaging through her makeup drawer. “When she does go Sider, I want her in the best hands. Ones on the right side. You are the best hands, Kristen.”

“Of course I am.” Kicking a foot up, she shoved off the vanity. The chair hurdled across the floor, past her wall of filing cabinets, carrying Kristen to where it collided against the bed. She leaned closer. “And the best,” she said, her words humming against his ear, “do not babysit.”

She pulled back, giving the chair a lazy spin. The black taffeta of her dress bloomed around her, made her look almost innocent until she opened her mouth. “Dump her in Queens.”

“With Madeline?” Gabriel’s jaw dropped. “Now you’re just being cruel.”

Kristen’s hands plunged down into the folds of the dress, her head cocking incredulously. “And you’re being selfish. You’re asking me to put myself and every Sider in this house at risk in exchange for what, flattery?”

“What risk?” Gabriel argued. “It’s not like he’ll be searching her out. Luke won’t even know she’s a Sider. All I’m asking is that you give her a place to stay, teach her what she needs to know.”

Kristen tapped her finger against her lips.

“Just as long as it takes for her to get a handle on how things work for your kind. Come on, Kristen. We both know Madeline’s loyalties tend toward the Fallen. I don’t know the others well enough to trust them with something this important to me. You’re the only one I trust.”

She sighed dramatically, but a glint of satisfaction found its way to her eyes.

Gabriel slid around her, standing, his head dipped in apology. “Maybe you’re right. I was wrong to think you’d be up to the challenge, what with all your Bronx minions to keep watch over.” It was all he could do to keep the smirk off his lips. Twisting the babysitting comment against her had her face nearly purple. “I know how much you hate doing things out of the kindness of your heart….” He trailed off, waiting.

“It’s not that I don’t like to. It’s just there’s not much kindness in there. I save it for special occasions.” She dropped her foot over one of the armrests, letting it swing for a moment. “And what if the Fallen figure out she’s with Az? If they come after her here—”

“Luke doesn’t know she’s going to be a Sider. Hopefully, he never will. Right now, he’s looking for a mortal, but Eden won’t be one much longer.”

Kristen dropped her head back, staring at the ceiling. “This would be such an inconvenience.”

Gabriel held his breath.

Finally she lifted her head. “Well then, I suppose we have quite a bit of work ahead of us.” She smiled at his confusion. “Special occasions require a party.”