Читать книгу Nephilim - Mary Ann Loesch - Страница 5

3

Nathan stared at the woman. He’d sensed the commotion on the street before it occurred. Curiosity had driven him from his apartment above Hell’s Leak to see what would happen, though he had no plans to intervene or stop the event. That wasn’t his place.

As he stepped outside, Nathan could smell her. She’d stood outside the shop earlier, her blond hair shimmering like a halo in the red neon glare of the Hell’s Leak sign.

Ahh…a new client. Let’s hear the hum of her sin.

But she’d walked away after shaking a finger at him, almost as if she knew what he’d been thinking. And then there was the hum. Though he always had the metal music he favored cranked up in the shop to block the grating tone of the ever-present hum, it usually managed to rise above everything else, pleading to be noticed, but not with the woman. He’d heard nothing that singled her out as being special enough to sit in his chair.

Maybe she was strong enough to resist temptation.

Or maybe she was one of the Others. The thought made him frown. What could they want with him?

When he’d seen her take the dying woman’s pain, Nathan’s first instinct had been to withdraw. He hated dealing with the piousness of the Others! Yet the woman’s scent was different, not quite angelic. It drew him down the street almost against his will.

“You smell earthy. Ancient. Not like an angel.” He watched her steady herself. Whatever she’d done for the dying woman came with a physical price.

“So you’re saying I smell like old dirt?” She brushed off her skirt.

“Maybe. Who are you?”

“Faye McCoy.” She stuck out a shaky hand, which he looked at curiously.

“What do you want?”

“To get off the street for starters.”

“Who sent you?”

She dropped her hand and glanced around. The cops were interviewing witnesses. Pretty soon someone would turn around and point her out. He could sense her anxiety and tried to look within her head at her thoughts.

“That doesn’t work on me,” she said, turning back to him and touching her head. “I learned a long time ago how to block my thoughts.”

The admission surprised Nathan and he tilted his head to the side, studying her.“C’mon.” He expected her to follow him back to his shop, but she hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. “You wanted to get off the street.”

“I’m not going into your shop,” she said.

“Why?” The sudden stubborn plant of her feet intrigued Nathan, as did her refusal.

“I’m not…comfortable with that.”

“If you want to get off the street, the other option is my apartment upstairs.” He smiled and let his wolfish gaze wander down her body. “Comfortable with that?”

“Do you ever tattoo people from your apartment?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she said, but he heard the wariness in her tone. “I’ll go up.”

She kept pace with his long strides as they headed away from the noise of the crime scene. Nathan noticed she fidgeted with her dress, glancing nervously behind them as he unlocked the street door next to the shop. As they climbed the stairs, he found her smell a distraction. It surrounded him in the small stairwell, tickling his senses, though he still couldn’t quite place it. Something not fully human. At the top of the stairs they stopped in front of a green door. Nathan muttered his password and it slid open.

“Well, that’s a new one. I thought doors swung open,” Faye said.

“I created a vision for anyone who might be too curious about me.” Nathan peered into the room. “I don’t like letting people in my true domain.”

“We could just have easily gone to a coffee shop,” Faye pointed out. “But you don’t seem like a coffee shop kind of guy.”

They stepped into the apartment. It wasn’t much, just one big room that stretched across the second floor of the building. Dusty books were stacked floor to ceiling, and boxes teetered on top of one another. Toward the back lay an old white mattress with the sheets tangled in a heap. In the middle of the room sat a stained couch that might have once been a fashionable red. A few feet away, the matching recliner sagged at the bottom, and its lumpy stuffing poked out from various holes in the upholstery. A worn coffee table covered with newspapers, pizza boxes and a baited mousetrap sat between the couch and the recliner.

“Hmm…. I think I’d rather see what the tourists view when the door swings the other way. Your domain is a mess,” Faye said, her gaze sweeping over everything as she brushed off a spot on the couch and sank down. She touched a hand to her forehead.

“Does it hurt to do what you do? To take someone else’s pain?” Nathan asked. She shifted on the couch, the motion causing her short dress to ride up a little.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then why do you do it?”

“I can’t help it.”

“The call is just too great for you then?”

“No.” Defiance glimmered in her eyes as she turned her attention back to him. “I don’t have a call. I ignore anything that resembles a call. I just feel compelled to help people when they need it.”

“So you work for the angels?”

“Not anymore.”

Nathan shut the door and strode over to the windows behind the couch, staring out into the night. The cops still worked on the homicide down the street. The red and blue glare of their presence flashed on the walls of the surrounding buildings.

“I saw you before,” he said, sensing her tense again. “You were standing outside my shop. Most people only see an empty building, but not you. You could see it, but you didn’t go in.”

“I’m not really interested in getting a tattoo.”

“Few people can resist the temptation to come inside Hell’s Leak once it’s revealed to them,” Nathan said. When she didn’t respond, he prodded. “You followed one of my customers.”

“I did, but to tell you the truth, that was a letdown. Nothing much happened there.”

“That you saw.”

“Unless his tattoo has something to do with his inability to, shall we say, close the deal with a woman, then what I saw wasn’t too exciting.”

Nathan gave a low chuckle. “The tattoo has everything to do with it.”

“Maybe you’re overestimating your skills.”

“Check the papers tomorrow. You might change your mind.”

Faye looked at the newspapers spread out on the messy coffee table.

“Are you a big fan of the Austin American Statesman, Mr. Ink?”

“I keep track of current events. Especially if they pertain to me.”

She picked up one of the papers, and scanned it. Her brows knitted . Nathan wondered if she would see them. Would she be able to tell which articles related to his clients?

“Azal sent you,” he said. Her fingers stiffened on the paper before she tossed it back to the table.

“Not exactly.”

“But you know him.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Do I detect a hint of dislike for Azal? The lucky one? The bringer of good fortune,”

“He’s a showoff.” Faye stood. “And, yes. He visited with me earlier tonight. Azal thinks you are a rogue angel, that you tattoo people with designs of the seven deadly sins.”

“I do. That’s not a secret among my kind.”

“Azal is under the impression the mortality rate of your clients is high once you’ve tattooed them. He wants me to investigate you, see how far rogue you’ve gone.”

“And will you?”

“I don’t play for the Heavenly All Stars anymore.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Pure chance,” she said. “You caught my healing act on the street. I hadn’t decided if we were going to meet at all.”

“Some angels might call that fate,” he said, marveling at her resistance to the confines of a higher power. He couldn’t help but admire it.

“I’m no angel,” she said.

Nathan nodded, pushing away the grin that sprung to his lips. He concentrated on her cool green eyes, trying once more to probe her thoughts. She shook her head at him.

“Uh-uh. That path is closed. Stay out of my head.”

He ignored her, trying to get past the basics. She was about medium height with blond hair, which she wore pulled up into a loose bun. Bustier than the average girl, she was definitely not unpleasant to the eye. Athletic legs probably meant she jogged or walked a lot. He liked the way her feet looked in her green high heels–delicate, but ready for an ass kicking. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, but he knew that could just be a glamour spell. The interesting thing, the thing that made him curious, was the scent she carried. She had the soft smell of the ancients and yet, it was just as she said. Faye McCoy was not an angel. So what did that make her?

“I’m twenty-seven,” she said, and grinned. “I know you were wondering.”

“All right. So your name is Faye McCoy, and you have some sort of gift that allows you to take pain from others,” Nathan said, and leaned against the windows. “You’re in touch with angels, though you claim not to work for them, and best I can tell, you are not one of us. Does that about sum it up so far?”

“You forgot about the part where I’m supposed to investigate your rogue activities,” she said.

“Right. Azal is making you his errand girl.”

He had to give her credit. She managed to ignore the goad in his words. Faye closed her eyes, and Nathan felt a slight pressure in his head as she tried to probe his thoughts. Though impressed with her tenacity, he kept his mind locked. At his warning look, the pressure faded away.

“You must be very special if Azal came to me.” Faye moved closer. Her scent wrapped around him, and to his surprise, he felt a stirring of desire. “We didn’t part on good terms.”

“I am special.”

“Especially arrogant maybe. I believe your sin is pride.” She laughed. “I haven’t seen anything that leads me to believe you are above average. So far my best summation is you are a messy angel who asks a lot of questions, and is rude enough not to offer a glass of water to someone he knows is in pain.”

“I don’t have any clean glasses.” Nathan picked up one of the newspapers from the coffee table. “Take this. It might assist you in your investigation. I think you’ve recovered enough to slip away unnoticed now.”

“Trying to get rid of me by providing dirty secrets, are you?” She took the paper, folding it under her arm as she started for the door. Once there, Faye turned back to him. “You can’t fool me, Mr. Ink. You gave me the tourist version, after all. This pigsty of an apartment is what you wanted me to see. It didn’t work, you know. I can pierce the veil to the truth.”

She closed her eyes. With a wave of her arm, the room transformed. The boxes, books and clutter vanished, revealing a tidy space. An ornate wooden bed replaced the old mattress on the floor. Art hung on sandstone colored walls capped at the ceiling by white crown molding. Several sconces placed about the room gave off various degrees of warm and soothing light. There were shelves and bookcases, holding all kinds of trinkets and oddities as well as books. Tucked into the wall between two CD racks filled with music sat a massive stereo system. The small spotless kitchen area revealed a stainless steel sink, refrigerator and stove. A glass cabinet held amber glasses and light brown plates.

“You must really like IKEA,” Faye said.

Nathan heard her high heels click on the stairs as she left, and a few seconds later, she appeared on the sidewalk. She walked away without looking up.

He found he wanted her to look up.

Before he could examine the feeling, another figure standing on the opposite side of the street caught his attention. The glow of a street lamp illuminated the worry on his old colleague’s, Azal, face. How the angel of good fortune had changed!

Well, that’s not my problem, Nathan thought, and drew the shade down on the window. Settling on the red couch, he opened a carved brown box on his coffee table, pulling out a pack of American Spirits and a crystal ashtray. As he lit a cigarette, his mind lingered on Faye and the job she had been commissioned to do. He knew there were some angels who considered his methods unconventional, but still, he got the job done. If he couldn’t take a little creative license with the work, then what was the fun in being an angel?

With a gentle wave of his arm, he cast out his power and the wall sconces dimmed. Better. Now he could think.

What did Azal really want? Why send Faye to check on him? The rogue label–just a convenience, a red herring. Perhaps the time had come to pull back the veil and take a peek at the other side. Get the latest gossip, as the mortals were found of saying. He preferred to have no contact with such things. The longer he stayed on the earthbound side, the better he understood the vices of humans. Nothing like wallowing in the muck and mire of sin to help you appreciate your job.

“Dammit.” Nathan stubbed out the cigarette. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Hands pressed together in prayer pose, he took a long breath and focused on first blocking out the noise of the mortals. The city sounds faded away until only the hum of sin, the only sound Nathan could never completely shake, remained. With his eyes closed, he whispered an old Hebrew chant. A soft swirl of wind tickled his body, lifting his hair and engulfing him in a wave of peacefulness as he slid into the comfort of being behind the veil. A strong sense of homecoming coursed through him.

A new sound nudged at his keen sense of hearing, desperate for his attention, but Nathan kept his eyes closed. It grew louder until he recognized it as weeping. Higher and more melodic than the cry of humans, it was heartbreaking and beautiful all in the same moment.

“An angel is crying,” Nathan whispered.

“There’s more,” Azal’s strong voice rang in his head. “So much more, Nathan. Your brothers and sisters need you.”

“What’s going on, Azal?” Nathan felt his head would burst as the lament and mourning grew louder, heavier. There were feelings here he couldn’t quite absorb. Under the anguish, another emotion brewed and threatened to bubble over. Fear.

“Angels are dying.” Nathan could barely hear Azal above the roar of sorrow. “We need your help, Nathan.”

Nathan covered his ears and tried to block the rush of noise. He pushed himself free of the veil, his body soaking up human essence like a balm as he returned to Earth. He opened his eyes, relieved when the sounds stopped. After a few deep breaths, he tried to stand. Dizziness forced him to steady himself before moving toward the kitchen. He rummaged in his cabinets looking for the small vial he kept hidden behind the spices.

Gulping down the amber elixir in the bottle, Nathan staggered toward the bed. He fell against his sheets, grateful for their softness, and managed to roll over so he stared up at the ceiling. His heart pounded, threatening to burst free of his mortal shell. He couldn’t shake the deep sorrow he’d experienced.

What had been happening behind the veil? What had Azal said?

The soothing effect of the amber liquid forced its way into his aching head. Just as he succumbed to it, Azal’s words floated back.

Angels are dying.