All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (57 page)

I stiffened and
sucked a breath between my teeth, tensing in readiness for the
snapping of my spine. The two actions shot pain through my limbs
suggesting the damage the creature caused wasn’t limited to my
ribs.

What now?

I opened my mouth
to inquire. If I was in this bad of a shape, how much worse would
speaking make it? The pain proved too much to form words through.
The pressure of the touch on my back increased, causing more pain at
first, but then a warmth began flowing, sending an electrical pulse
along my back.

A buzz flowed
through me, filling my torso first, spilling into my arms and legs
until all my muscles tingled to the point of numbness. My teeth
chattered, my eyelids fluttered. I tried to curb them, to wrest
control back with no success. My breath came in short bursts,
sucking dust from the ground which I longed to cough from my lungs.
Just when I thought the dust would choke me and the electricity
would squeeze the air from my chest, the touch disappeared and the
buzz vanished. I regained control.

First I coughed and
spit to clear my mouth.

After a moment
recovering from my hacking spasm, I tested my limbs and ribs, found
them pain free. Carefully, I pushed myself to sit, wiped gritty
spittle from my chin, and faced my rescuer.

When I saw her
while hanging upside down, her blond tresses had been hidden beneath
a hat. It had fallen from her head during her confrontation with the
elephant-beast. Her hair fell across her forehead, hung in her eyes
hiding her expression.

Poe.

Behind her, the
creature lay on its side, one leg stuck up in the air like a swatted
fly.

“
Is
it...?”

After the words
came out of my mouth, it occurred to me I should have thanked her
first. She responded without giving me the opportunity to correct my
oversight.

“
Stunned.
Go before it wakes.”

“
Poe,
I--

“
Go.”

She tossed her head
to clear the hair from her face, and I saw a hardness in her
expression that wasn’t there before. Her jaw was set, her eyes
unreadable. No timid smile or caring look. This was a different
woman, and yet it was Poe.

I condemned her
to Hell yet she saved my life.

“
Why
did you--”

“
Go!”

The force in her
word startled me to my feet. I stumbled back a step and then opened
my mouth again, determined to ask my question, determined to get an
answer. Her eyes flashed, silencing me, and she pointed past me.
Behind her, the elephant-beast stirred. Its trunk flicked toward
her.

“
Poe--”

“
Go
now.”

Her words spun me
around against my will, made my feet carry me toward the fissure in
the cliff. I wanted to look over my shoulder at her but needed to
concentrate on my footing as I navigated the corpses. I jumped over
the last one and reached the opening, then stopped and looked back.

The elephant-thing
gripped Poe around the waist, its trunk cinching tight, yet she
continued staring at me, eyes urging me to go and not look back. As
I turned away, I saw the beginning of the glow I’d seen her
utilize before, though it wasn’t golden this time, but gray. I
knew I didn’t need to worry about her, at least not when it
came to what would happen in her struggle with the creature.

I
jammed myself between the sides of the fissure, forcing myself in,
and tried not to think about it as I wriggled my way through,
stranding my guardian angel in Hell
.

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

The path through
the fissure twisted and turned, switching back on itself uncountable
times, sometimes running straight for miles. It widened to the size
of a banquet hall and narrowed until damn-near impassable. At one
point, damn-near impassable and switchback came together as one and
I got stuck for a panicky minute. I wriggled and gyrated, eventually
working my way around the corner to find the path widened and
straightened beyond.

And, not too far
ahead, it ended.

The green-painted
door set between the stone walls sported a push bar worn silver with
use and might have been the exit door out of any school in North
America. I slowed my pace to sneak up on the door, untrusting.

How does that
come to be here?

It’s Hell,
stupid. What do you think?

Twenty feet away.
It didn’t move, only stood placidly, keeping me on this side
away from whatever lay on the other. I stopped and listened: no
electric hum, no screams, nothing. I moved closer.

Ten feet. The
ground didn’t become quicksand; dead hands didn’t
scrabble through the rocky ground to grasp my ankles and pull me
into their graves.

Five feet. The
earth didn’t quake; rocks didn’t tumble from above to
crush me before I escaped. No voice boomed warning me away; no
ancient runes scrawled in the rock promised a grotesque and hideous
fate if I crossed the threshold.

Something’s
wrong.

Closer.

I reached out with
shaking hand. My finger brushed the push bar where the paint was
worn off. I pulled my hand away immediately like a child touching a
hot stove.

Cold metal.

It didn’t
shock me or burn me. No man-eating slime leaped onto my flesh. If
felt exactly the way it looked.

Someone’s
fucking with me.

I touched it again,
wrapped my fingers around the bar—smooth except where a
stubborn chip of paint clung tenaciously to the metal. I traced its
edge with my finger and wondered why the bar was so worn, how many
years the door had been here. The fact the bar was on this side
suggested its job was to keep things out rather than to keep me in.

I filled my lungs
with warm, gritty Hell-air, using the breath to collect enough nerve
to push the door open and find out what lay on the other side. My
pause stretched on for several seconds as I thought about Poe, the
elephant-thing’s trunk wrapped around her waist, squeezing,
squeezing. I glanced back over my shoulder, down the path to the
impossibly narrow switchback. No way to get back to her, not before
one of them destroyed the other, or maybe both. Even if I could, she
didn’t want my help, not now, not after my betrayal.

And I had to
consider Trevor.

I turned back to
the door, took another breath, and did what a push bar is designed
for.

Nothing happened.

I jiggled the bar,
the metallic squeak echoing off the sides of the miniature canyon.
Still nothing, so I examined the door frame for a lock or something
jamming it shut. Everything looked fine. I tried again, this time
throwing my shoulder into it as I pushed the bar. The door flew
open. I stumbled through, light streaming through with me, briefly
illuminating the room before my feet caught and I tumbled into a
stack of green plastic patio chairs. The door closed, leaving me in
darkness.

At least I knew
where I was.

I untangled myself
and clawed my way up the stack of chairs to my feet. A minute passed
as I leaned against them, waiting for my eyes to become accustomed
to the dark. Soon, I discerned the large flat boxes containing
tables broken down into parts, the stacks of cushions and bunches of
umbrellas. I looked back at where I’d come through and saw a
set of shelves stacked with boxes reaching to the ceiling. No door.
Was this the warehouse I knew or was I still trapped in some
fiendish Hell?

A fiendish Hell
where they enjoy patio furniture.

I made my way
through the maze of boxes and shelves and, after a few turns,
realized I could see the color of the cushion fabric, read the
letters on the sides of boxes even though the lights weren’t
on and I’d seen no evidence of windows. The light source lay
somewhere ahead; I decided it should be my goal, for better or
worse.

A few more corners,
including one leading to a dead end, and I emerged into an open area
cleared of boxes and shelves. It took a second for me to realize
something other than Detective Williams standing in the center of
the room cast the glow.

Michael,
resplendent in white leisure suit and crimson shirt, leaned against
a stack of lawn chair skeletons. The suit itself looked crisp enough
to cause the glow. I glanced at the archangel but chose to ignore
him for the moment, directing my attention to Williams instead.

“
Are
you okay?”

He lifted his tired
eyes and his mouth twitched into an approximation of a smile. Not
much of an expression, but he squeezed volumes into it: relief,
appreciation, desperation, embarrassment. I wondered which of the
above he’d choose to express in words.

“
Yeah,”
he said after a couple of seconds. “Thanks.”

I
considered prompting more out of him about the way he’d acted,
or to chastise him for leaving me behind like in those rapture books
by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the
Left
Behind
series,
but more important matters demanded my attention. I regarded the
archangel and his misguided attempt at fashion.

“
Where’s
my son?”

He smiled, the
shine of his teeth matching his jacket, and raised an eyebrow. A
shiver of worry ran down my spine. Maybe it wasn’t Mikey I’d
seen in Hell, maybe it had been an illusion. Maybe Trevor wasn’t
safe.

“
Trevor.
Where is he?” I demanded.

“
The
boy is safe,” God’s right hand answered finally. I
suspected he enjoyed the moment of worry his pause inflicted on me.
“He awaits you outside. Where is your guardian?”

His eyes flickered
to the detective and I looked, too. Williams had slouched down onto
a small pile of cushions and sat with his elbows propped on his
knees, head hung like a man too tired to hold it up anymore. When I
looked back at the archangel, his smile was gone. He glared at me,
forcing me to answer.

“
I
left her.”

Hearing the words
come out of my mouth drove home what I’d done—I’d
left my guardian angel to an eternity of torture and despair.
Mikey’s forehead creased, he pursed his lips.

“
And
you brought back this one instead?” He gestured toward the
detective.

I nodded and
steeled myself for the archangel’s wrath. He looked at me a
moment longer, then nodded once.

“
I
will take this man where he needs to go. Collect your son and get
him home. It is cold outside tonight.”

The archangel
walked to the detective, put his hand on his shoulder. Detective
Williams jumped at the shock of Mikey’s touch, then looked up,
the exhaustion in his expression replaced by wonder.