All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (18 page)

Then the light went
out.

The man blinked and
saw the shape every time his lids closed, the image temporarily
burned into his retinas, the memory etched indelibly in his memory
and his soul. Tears spilled down his cheeks and he pushed through
the crowd, desperate to call his father and see how he felt.

†‡†

Trevor opened his
eyes and stared up at the ceiling: white, plain, a cobweb dangling
in one corner. Could be any ceiling, but not the ceiling of his
bedroom—no Lamb of God poster pinned over the bed. He sat up,
half-expecting it to be a struggle and his body full of aches and
pains. It wasn’t.

A quick glance
around the room and he realized he was in a motel room: generic
dresser, nondescript art on the walls and possibly the last
remaining tube TV in the known universe. Knowing his locale did
little to ease his nerves.

A sound caught
Trevor’s attention: running water. He shifted on the bed and
looked toward the bathroom door which stood ajar half-an-inch, a
sliver of light shining through. He swung his legs over the edge of
the bed, not sure whether he intended to creep to the bathroom door
and attempt to see who was behind it, or if he would creep right on
by, out the front door and find his way home.

Before he stood,
the decision was wrested from him.

The bathroom door
swung open and a man stepped through—tall and broad, big by
any standards, and wearing a black shirt open at the throat, black
dress pants and a red blazer. His blond hair hung past his shoulders
and he held a hand towel, drying his hands after washing.

“
Ah,
you’re awake,” the man said and smiled. His white teeth
and golden eyes glimmered.

Trevor nodded once
in reply but said nothing. He felt a familiarity about the man, like
he’d met him before, but it eluded him. A friend of his Mom’s?
A parent of a classmate? Neither option felt right.

Then who?

The man tossed the
towel over the worn arm of the desk chair and spread his arms in a
welcoming gesture.

“
You
look confused, Trevor. Don’t you remember me?”

The teenager looked
at him for a full minute, scouring his memory while discovering
nothing but the feeling you get when you hear a song and know the
title but can’t quite fish it out of the bowels of your brain.
Finally, he shook his head.

“
I’m
not surprised, really. You weren’t in the best condition last
time we met.” The man crossed the last two paces to stand in
front of Trevor, hand extended expectantly. “I’m
Michael.”

Trevor’s eyes
widened and he sucked a whistling breath in through his teeth.

The archangel.

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

Boarding
a subway car in Hell didn’t seem like the best idea. I’d
seen too many horror flicks and read too many stories in which
shitty things happen to people who ride subways:
Jacob’s
Ladder, The Midnight Meat Train, Another Man’s Shoes
and
a whole raft of others. Subways are famous for providing havens for
demons and ghouls of all sorts.

Piper took a step
toward the train’s open doors.

“
I
don’t know, Pipe.”

“
We
don’t have much choice.”

I looked up and
down the platform. The subway station ended in a blank wall at each
end of the train with no doors, windows, alcoves or flights of
stairs in between. Not so much as a line of graffiti marred the
white surface; the door through which we’d come was gone. It
seemed my angel friend was correct in her assessment.

“
This
place is fucked,” I commented, not really intending to do so
aloud. Piper looked at me and raised a sarcastic half-smile.

“
No
kidding, Sherlock.”

“
The
phrase is ‘no shit, Sherlock’.”

“
Whatever.”

Tony looked nervous
standing between us. His eyes darted side to side as he shifted from
one foot to another like a kid who needed to pee. “Can we get
out of here, guys. I got a bad feeling.”

“
There’s
nowhere else to go,” Piper said taking a half-step toward the
doors.

“
That’s
what worries me.” I breathed deep, collecting myself as the
other two watched, awaiting a plan. How a guy like me ended up being
the leader of a rescue team making their way through Hell is beyond
me. Actually, I know exactly how it happened, but that still didn’t
make it a good idea.

“
Fine.
Let’s go.”

I grabbed Tony by
the elbow and led him through the train’s doors with Piper
close behind. Every nerve in my body tingled, ready for whatever
nightmare the subway might throw at us. But no door in Hell seems to
lead where you think it should. It looked like we were stepping onto
a brightly lit subway car and we ended up in a dark room.

“
What
the...?”

I turned back to
see if the platform was still there, but the door slid closed behind
us, locking us in before my eyes registered what room it was. I
tried the door: gone. My hand still gripped Tony’s arm and I
felt a presence to my left—Piper, by the feel of it—so
it seemed we’d all made it through. Better check, anyway.

“
Piper?”

“
I’m
here.”

“
Where
are we?”

I swear I heard her
shrug.

I breathed deep,
looking for a little courage from the air, but found only the dank
smell reminiscent of a basement. With Tony’s sleeve bunched in
my fist, I stretched my other arm out before me, waving it in the
empty air, and followed that up by sliding my toe forward, scraping
it along a bare floor. When I determined the floor remained solid
beneath my shoe, I completed the step then repeated the procedure.

Pitch, inky,
absolute; no night was ever this dark. A line of cold sweat formed
on my forehead as I moved, never knowing what I might touch or when
the floor might run out beneath my feet. In the still of the
darkness, my breath sounded a monsoon in my ears, my pulse beat like
a Japanese Taiko drum ensemble. The noise fouled my brain almost as
completely as the blackness robbed me of my vision. I wiped the
sweat on my forehead away with my sleeve.

The monsoon roared,
the drummers hammered away and paranoia built in me like water
threatening to overflow a dam. I rubbed my fingers together to feel
the cloth of Tony’s shirt, hoping it would anchor me to
reality, but I felt only the fleshy pads of my fingertips and
realized it had been a very long time since I heard the sound of my
companions’ footsteps through the din in my head.

“
Still
with me, Pipe?”

“
I’m
here, Icarus.”

The sound of her
voice quieted my brain. “Ric.”

“
Piper.”

“
Whatever.
Keeping up okay, Tony?”

No answer.

“
Tony?”

Nothing. I stopped
and Piper walked into the back of me, throwing me off balance and
sending the usual jolt up my spine.

“
Tony,”
I called, louder this time, and looked around at the same black in
every direction. “Where are you?”

My voice echoed
from unseen walls then died away, replaced by what I’d
describe as a grumble. Not an ‘I don’t wanna eat my
peas, Dad’ grumble, but the grumble of distant thunder or the
sound of a minor earthquake.

“
What
the fuck is that?”

Piper grabbed my
arm in answer and rushed me into the impenetrable dark. I resisted
but the shock of her energy flowing through me precluded anything
except obeying her every wish.

Death and torture
filled my head instead of lustful visions. Panic clogged my throat
and I gave up any idea of resisting. If the panic I felt flowed from
her to me, I harbored no desire to know its cause.

We stumbled forward
and the rumble followed, creeping slowly closer with each step. Out
of habit, I glanced over my shoulder, but saw nothing beyond the
gory images Piper’s touch planted in my head. I followed her
blindly.

We slowed and Piper
jolted like she ran into something. The sound of metal scraping
metal followed, overwhelming the grumble at my heels, and a gust of
cool air against my cheek startled me. Piper pulled me ahead and my
feet caught, spilling us through the emergency exit door she’d
opened and onto pavement developing a rime of frost. My injured arm
smacked the ground sending a lance of agony through me.

The door slammed
shut behind us.

“
Shit.”
I sat up cradling my arm against my chest. “That fucking
hurt.”

“
Sorry.”

I forced the pain
from my mind and looked around feeling a bit frantic.

“
Where’s
Tony?”

“
I
don’t think he made it.”

“
Dammit.”

Logically, I should
have been disappointed—all that work for nothing—but
relieved was how I really felt. After what we saw of him in Hell,
the decision of Tony’s salvation had been wrested from me. Did
I actually want to bring him back, send him to Heaven?

“
Maybe
he shouldn’t have been brought back,” Piper said echoing
my thoughts.

“
Maybe.”

She rested her hand
on my injured arm, filled my limb with warmth and forced dueling
regret and relief from my head. No illicit thoughts or torture
scenes this time; instead the electricity concentrated on one spot,
clung to the break in my bone. The pain eased, overwhelmed by
warmth. I looked at her hand, half-expecting a glow radiating around
it, a pulsation, the sound of a choir singing. There were none of
those.