Death Takes Wing (19 page)

The French doors were closed, and the glass dusty with old cobwebs, but she could still see the kitchen that lay beyond.  She looked at Gabriel
beseechingly, needing to talk about something other than the derelict house.

“Your house,   The one you mentioned earlier,” she paused for a breath, “Let me guess.  A giant McMansion.”

He gently pushed her out of the way before getting a good grip on the doors and pulling.  His muscles bulged as the solid door stuck.  Amalia was rather enjoying the sight of his muscles working, but wondered if they were actually going to get into the kitchen that way.  He stopped pulling, narrowed his eyes, and caught sight of a small latch on top of the door.  Reaching up, he unlatched the door, pretending not to notice Amalia’s grin and smothered laughter as he opened it to the kitchen.

“I do
not
live in a McMansion,” he declared as he walked into the kitchen.  Someone had been living here, he thought to himself.  There was a sleeping bag, bits of foodstuff, an empty water jug, and some clothes.

Amalia walked over to a pile of papers sitting on the counter near the sleeping bag.  “Then where?  Why so secretive?  It’s not like I’m going to follow you home and stare in your front windows.  Not like you’d be there, anyways.”

“I do live there, you know.  Sometimes.”  He walked over to her and peered over her shoulder.  Seeing Jeremy Stolhagen’s name on one envelope, he plucked it from Amalia’s grasp, “Thank you.”

“Nope, I’d use cameras and upload the pictures for posterity,” she replied, trying to snatch it back unsuccessfully.  “What’s that say?”

He concentrated on the envelope.  “It’s a deed.  He’d just bought this place about a month ago,” he replied distractedly.  “This one,” he said, waving the letter, “was from the ‘Coursaire Company’.  Coursair,” he said, testing the name on his lips.  He turned to Amalia.  “That’s Owen’s last name.  What’s he got to do with Jeremy?”  He gave a thoughtful look at the letter.

“So Altrua’s really involved with Jeremy, but nothing about Patricia.  Is that what we were supposed to find?” she asked, brow furrowing.

“It’s possible,” Gabriel said slowly.  “I know who we’ll be visiting once we’re done with here.  And Owen...”

“Is he responsible for the missing people?”

“I doubt he physically did the kidnapping, but I’ve got a feeling that he’s in the middle of this mess in one way or the other,” he replied, the lines around his eyes tight.

She looked at him, and then cast her eyes to the formerly grand staircase that started just beyond the front doors.  “Upstairs?”

He gave her a small grin and shook his head.  “Oh, so now you want to explore?”

She gave a shrug punctuated with a grin.  “Well, now that we’re already here, inside.  Not to
mention, that call?  That might not have been what it was talking about.  And nothing’s eaten me so far, so…”

He grinned back.  “So do you really think I live in a McMansion?”  He explored the stairs leading to the second floor, carefully testing the steps.  “Try again.  Although, I do live in a big house.”  He paused.  “Probably too big of a house, but since my sister, Aimee, lives with me, I need the space. “

“Your sister lives with you?” she questioned as she followed him up the surprisingly sturdy stairs.

“She does.  Drives me ape-shit half the time, but it makes life more interesting, and less lonely.  A lot of angelus live with other angelus.  Usually family members.  It’s rare that we’ll live alone, but sometimes we do.  Take my brother, Michael, for instance.  He’d rather be alone.”

“So Matt?”

“Lives with Aleks.  Or, rather, Aleks lives with Matt, as Matt owns the house,” Gabriel said, softly stepping up the stairs.

“Are they-“  She stopped, then continued, “Together?  I mean, a couple?”

After the confusion in his eyes cleared, he started laughing, “Oh, good god no!  Just friends!  Both are very into the ladies, at least, Matt is.  They lived with me before Matt found his house.  Then, Aimee developed a huge crush on Aleks, so he moved in with Matt to escape her.”

“Wasn’t she good enough for him?”

“It’s not that,” Gabriel said, looking at her briefly.  “Aimee’s known for her…obsessions with guys.  Aleks didn’t feel comfortable with that level of attraction, so he moved out.”  Gabriel shrugged, largely unconcerned with his sister’s obsessions. “She’s got her eyes on another poor umbren.”

She took a faltering step, considering.  “So, I have an odd question.”

He reached the landing, and finding a rotting board, reached back to help her navigate around it.  “Don’t you always?”

She grinned in response.  “So, do the umbren need human blood?”

He grinned and shook his head.  “Well, that train of thought jumped the track.  Multiple tracks, actually.  Maybe even derailed completely.”  He started towards the right-hand side rooms, gently letting go of her hand.

“To answer that, we don’t
need
humanity for that.  We prefer to use human donations, but we can get enough from other angelus.  Primarily the solan, but we can use them from other umbren if we need to.  Most of the solan are very unwilling to donate, so we try and stick with human.”  He finished, his voice muffled and distorted as she started towards the other set of rooms.

“What, they’re all assholes like Owen?” she called from another room.

“Not all of them,” he said, loud enough for his voice to echo in the empty rooms. “You’ve met Aleks and Matt, but most of them…most of them
are
boorish gits who’d rather lord it over someone than actually help them.”

“Hmph,” was her unheard reply as she began to explore the left-hand side of the hallway while he took the right.  She only screamed twice.  Once, when she found a huge spider on a mirror, and a second time when a loose nail caught her sleeve.  The second time, she thought it was a ghost, not that she really believed, but if the evidence provided itself, she’d believe, and when something came out of nowhere and grabbed her…

Luckily for her, and her shirt, Gabriel came to her rescue with a hastily swallowed laugh.  He ran a hand down her flat stomach, heat irradiating from his gray eyes.  With a glare at him, she wandered into the last bedroom.  The walls didn’t match, she realized, as she explored.  The rest of the rooms, combined with this room…it didn’t match. 

Too much space and not enough rooms, she thought to herself.  So where was the missing room?  There was a wardrobe on the inside wall.  It shared a wall with the bedroom next door, she thought, or maybe it did.  She could hear Gabriel in that bedroom, and he seemed a lot further away than he should have been.  She called out to him, and when
she heard him answer, she knew that there was a room there.

Putting a hand against the wall that hid the room, she thought she felt a soft thump against her hand.  She pressed her hand harder, trying to feel whatever it was again.  Nothing.

“Gabriel?” she called out, turning to look for him.

  Gabriel came at her, a questioning look on his face. 

She pointed towards the wall.  “I’m pretty sure there’s a room there,” she said, trying to explain what had happened.  “I think I’m imagining things, but I could have sworn something hit the wall under my hand.”

He put his own hand against the wall and gently pushed.  Nothing happened.  Putting an ear to the wall, he listened.  There was something in there, he decided hesitantly.  He could hear
something
moving around in the room.  He was fairly certain of it.  Maybe mice or something.  He looked back to find Amalia gone.  He traced to the room he’d been exploring, seeing her search the room for a latch that would give them entrance to the room.

Searching the room, she couldn’t find an entrance.  She ignored the look of concern he gave her, and continued searching for a latch, a hidden door, anything to alert her to there being the entrance to a hidden room.

“Maybe the attic?” she asked herself, muttering under her breath.  Convincing Gabriel to help her with the explanation of what she was looking for, they found the entrance to the hidden room through the attic.

He insisted on being the first to go through the dark, small hole that the trapdoor uncovered.  He’d claimed that it was because he was scarier than her, but she knew it was in case there was another spider down there.  He barely managed to squeeze his wings through the tight space, but she quickly lost sight of him in the darkness.

Steeling her nerve, she looked in the dark hole, where she heard Gabriel moving around.  She hesitated before remembering that this was
her
idea, and reluctantly dropped down the trapdoor, finding the small wooden ladder with her feet as she dangled into the hole.  Landing on the dank carpet, she brought out her cell and used the flashlight app to light up the small room.  It felt…wrong, she decided.  Like they were intruding, or unwanted visitors.  Trespassers.  She suppressed a shudder as they looked through the small room.  She stayed close to Gabe, tight against his side, his wing right behind her.  She clutched his shirt so tightly her knuckles hurt, but there was no way in hell she was going to let go.

The room was mostly empty.  A bed on the far wall.  A small wardrobe to her right, and a side-table with an empty china basin sitting near the ladder. 
The shadows her cell phone created twisted the bed’s wrought iron frame into something from a dungeon.  Glancing over to the mirror above the side-table, she caught a glimpse of movement in the mirror.  She stopped and stared at herself in the mirror, the shadows and light creating a ghastly visage.  She turned from the mirror to look at the bed.

There was a shape on the bed.  She started shaking, feeling herself drawn to the bed, to the dark lump that resided underneath the holey quilt.  As she walked closer to the bed, ice started to fill her, chilling her straight to her core.  She wasn’t sure what the hell was under the moth-eaten quilt, but she needed to know.

Suddenly Gabriel held grabbed her arm and yanked her behind him, interrupting whatever had propelled her towards the shape on the bed.  With an inhuman snarl, he bared his teeth as the shape on the bed seemed to move.  The snarl changed his profile from a handsome umbren to a terrifying visage that highlighted his inhumanity.  The snarl changed to a throaty growl that echoed around the room as the shape on the bed moved, starting to push the cover off the figure.

She felt her breath, raspy in her throat, as she stumbled back, towards the ladder.

“Get out,” he said quietly, “Now.  Quickly.  Go.  I’ll be right behind you.”

She started to climb as quickly as she could.  Trying to a step on the ladder and missing, she slipped as she felt something grab her ankle.  A hand, fingers twining around her ankle.  With a vicious kick, she started to pull herself up the ladder, hearing Gabriel behind her.  The hand on her ankle disappeared, leaving a patch of searing heat and pain as nails raked down the skin.

As she pulled herself out of the oubliette, she was grateful to hear him climbing behind her.  She heard a sickening crack and saw a small cloud of dust rise from the hole.

Gabriel’s feet dangled into the dank stillness, the dark so complete he couldn’t see them.  The ladder had shattered underneath his weight, but he still gripped the remains of it in his hands.  With a grimace, he started to heave himself up, only to find something pulling him back.  Panic rose in his gut, making his adrenaline rise even more as he fought to escape.

“Gabriel?”  She cried, leaning over the hole.  She reached in the dark hole, mist rising out of the dank stillness.  A hand grabbed her outstretched hand, and she screamed, cutting the scream off when she realized it was Gabriel.  Panting, she had to fight to hold on to him.  With his free hand, he grabbed the edge of the hole, fighting something in the darkness to escape the hell below him.

Pulling him out of the hole with a surge of adrenaline she’d only read about, she fell back onto the dirty carpet as he finished pulling himself out of the hole, wings tightly wrapped around him, breath echoing in the hallway.  Something pulled itself out of the hole behind Gabriel.  Wings hung in tatters behind it, teeth bared in a feral, inhuman manner.  A growl emenated from the thin torso while the eyeless face searched for them.

With a breathless curse, Gabriel lunged to his feet, kicking the creature in the forhead, knocking it back into the hole it had hidden in.  He hauled her with him towards the attic entrance.  As he shoved her down the wooden steps, Gabriel looked backwards, stark fear etched on his handsome face.  When he heard her hit the floor, he jumped down the hole, landing feet first.  She slammed the door shut with a THUD.

“What the fuck was that?”  She panted as she bent over, wheezing from the exertion, and shaking from the residual chill.

He shook his head, sending motes of dust flying in the dirty light, his words punctuated with heavy gasps.  “An angelus.  Umbren.  I’m sure of it.”  He didn’t hesitate to shudder, unlike her previous suppression.  “Not a lot scares me, but that happening to me…that’s the stuff of nightmares,” he paused, trying to think of a way in English to explain what had terrified him.

“What do you mean ‘that happening to you?” she panted, hands on knees as she tried to catch her breath. 

He shook his head, trying to clear it. “That thing…that’s what can happen if an umbren doesn’t get enough blood.  Enough to stay alive, but only barely.  Just barely.”  He cut himself off, unwilling to share any more of his nightmares.