Recovering (3 page)

 Maya catches
on. “People are stuck in their homes.”

 “Exactly.
Confusion. Chaos. It’s the perfect killing ground.” I give her details about
the patterns I found going years back. Bodies showing up after hurricanes,
power outages, even tornados.

 Maya cuts
right to the chase. “You think we’re looking for multiple wings?”

I scratch Sir
Hopsalot behind his floppy ear. “Lots of bodies,” I tell her.

 “Are you
sure we’re even dealing with angels?”

 “Nope. No
way to be sure until we check it out.” I suck in my breath.

 “We?”

 “I already
have a bag packed. Let me know when you’re ready.” That’s a lie, but she
doesn’t need to know that. Maya gives me a look that says,
There is no way
in the seven hells you are going on the mission with us.

 Yeah, but
what are you going to do to stop me?
I think back.

 Maya opens
her mouth, and I expect a barrage of arguments. “So, did you ever find anything
out about The Totem, or whatever, that group who posted that YouTube video?”

 Geez,
non-sequitur much? I think back to the craptastic home video I dug up two
months ago. Besides being good for a laugh, it wasn’t worth sweating over.
Basically a bunch of Losers, capital L, decided to throw on some cheap animal
masks and tell the world about angels via YouTube. It was obvious that they’d had
some kind of encounter with the enemy, but half the details were wrong.
Amateurs. No, that’s too kind. Butt-faced amateurs who are going to get their
legs torn off and their masks shoved into very small orifices if they manage to
accidentally stumble across any more angels.

“Even if they
manage to stumble across an angel, they’ll get dead real fast, problem solved,”
I tell my sister.

“Serves them
right,” Maya agrees, but her eyes have gone all distant. She’s been weird about
that video from the first time she saw it. Probably worried about the poor
dopes. As far as I’m concerned they’re digging their own graves. Not much to be
done except to step back and try to avoid any flying intestines.

 “So, we
should start getting ready,” I tell Maya. It’s about fucking time for my
triumphant comeback.

 
Maya calls Tarren with my great and
wonderful news that there might be more people for him to kill. I sit on the
couch smoking a joint and dropping in helpful commentary throughout the entire
call. Tarren must ask how I’m doing, because Maya looks at me and questions,
“How are you?”

I give her a big smile dripping in
sarcasm. “Tell Tarren that I died. See what he does. You think he’d let you
take the time to bury me before you left, or would he just tell you to stuff my
body in the freezer until after the mission?”

Maya’s eyes
grow cold, and her body tenses. “He’s being a complete asshole,” she reports to
my brother. Oh yeah? You want asshole? Guess exactly how many times Tarren has called
to make sure I was still breathing? That would be exactly zero.

I’m obviously
a sucker for family dysfunction ‘cause I keep up with the snide remarks. By the
end of the call Maya is more pissed at me than I think I’ve ever seen her. To
be honest I prefer pissed to pitying. At least she’s treating me like a real
person.

 “Bet he didn’t
even say goodbye” I tell her when she hangs up.

 That does
it. Maya whirls around and snatches the blunt out of my mouth so fast that I
hardly see her hand move. She snuffs it out in the new ashtray that appeared on
the coffee table this morning.

 “What the
fuck?” I tell her. “That’s for medicinal purposes.”

 “Don’t be
mean about Tarren,” she yells back, seething with full-on rage. Of course Maya would
stand up for Tarren. Clearly that emotionless hulk is the victim in this entire
encounter. I’m ready to scream and shout, so that’s exactly what I do.

 “Yeah?” I
tell her. “Why not? He doesn’t even act human.” I mean who just runs away when his
brother is in a coma? If it were the other way around, I swear I wouldn’t leave
his bedside. I’d piss in a bucket if I had to. I’d give him anything, blood,
bone marrow, kidneys, my idiot heart.

 And he ran
away.

 “You have no
idea how much he cares,” Maya whispers. “What he was like when you got hurt.”

 She drops
her head, and damn, her face is haunted. What in the hell happened between them
when I went all coma sleepy time? What did Tarren do? I’ve always worried about
the way he pents up all his emotions. He’s liable to blow a gasket one of these
days. Maybe he did. That thought acts like a needle, popping the expanding
anger in my chest.

 “I know,” I
tell her. She doesn’t say anything, just turns around and goes up to her room,
probably to pack. I guess I deserve the cold shoulder. When did things get so tangled
between us? I try to think of the last time we spent half a night up on the
roof gazing at the stars and talking about anything other than the mission or
the old life she lost.

 I head up to
my room and pack. The process feels good, like I’m finally doing something that
matters. I pull open drawers and throw in stacks of long underwear and the
fitted black shirts and pants that cost a small fortune at REI. The stuff is
flexible, rain resistant, tough as nails, and also looks hell-a good, if I say
so myself. Totally worth the Godzilla-sized price tag.  I find two Berettas
placed side by side on my dresser. I wonder what nooks and crannies Maya found
them in during her cleaning spree. I throw the heat in my bag along with some
extra mags and an armful of vitamin bottles that Dr. Lee gave to me. If I’m
going to be day-saving again, I need to get back up to full strength ASAP. By
the time I’m ready, my duffle bag looks like it’s been hitting Old Town Buffet
like a bad crack habit. I just need to remember to grab the case of lettuce mix
Sir Hospalot likes.

 Speaking of
my sidekick, I find him flopped on his side and passed out on the floor next to
my awesome bean bag chair. His head jerks up when I sit down next to him. I
give his soft fur some strokes then put him in his carrying case. I bring my
bags to the garage and watch with amusement as Maya checks the tire pressure on
the shiny black jeep that somehow replaced our Murano SUV a few months back.
She tops off the oil and goes over the contents of the back about twenty times.

 This is her
first run at gearing up for a mission, and she’s being all perfectionist about
it. Her small face scrunches up in concentration, and those pale blue eyes seem
to dart all over the place looking for even the tiniest imperfection. It’s
crazy cold in the garage, enough to turn a dribble of spit into an icicle
before it hits the ground, but Maya hardly seems to notice in her tight jeans
and plain gray long-sleeve shirt. After another lookover of the back, she tears
off a big sheet of tarp, folds it up, and adds it to the supplies.

 Finally, she
looks at me. Her eyes travel over the bags at my feet and her expression turns all
sad and pitying. Then she notices the keys to the jeep in my hand. I snagged them
this morning as a well-considered precaution.

 My sister
sighs, just the way Mom used to. I can’t help but smile remembering how many of
those same sighs I rung out of our mother. Not as many as Tammy managed, but
who could ever compete with Tammy when it came to anything, especially annoying
the hell out of Mom?

 “I could
just hotwire the jeep,” Maya says.

 Damn,
probably shouldn’t have taught her how to do that. “Yeah and Tarren would be
really happy about that,” I answer her.

 Maya looks
so small right now, just like the frazzled college girl she’s supposed to be. I
realize for the millionth time how much I hate that she’s going on missions and
putting herself in danger. I’d hoped that after she sent Grand packing to hell
(Don’t
let the ebony gates of eternal torture hit your ass on the way in)
she
wouldn’t want to hunt wings anymore. But I’m starting to realize that she’s got
too much of Tarren in her. He’s infected her with the mission. The stupid, wretched
mission. I’m all for killing bad guys, but Tarren and Maya treat it like a
sacred duty handed down from Heaven. That means I have to look out for them,
make sure they don’t hand their souls over for one extra kill.  

“I want to go
this time,” I tell her. “I can handle it, I swear.” I give Maya my biggest,
saddest puppy dog eyes. These babies literally got me out of jail once.

 Her face
hardens. “No.”

“Why not?” Anger
churns up inside me, all hot and volatile just like when Tammy and I used to
have our spectacular fights. Maya looks at me, and her doubts are all over her
face. She thinks I’m weak, a liability. Without a word, she hits a button on
the wall, and the garage door rumbles to life. The cold attacks like a
bloodhound. Maya walks past me to the work bench and lifts off a roll of duct
tape.

 Oh this is
going to be good.

“What, you
going to duct tape me to a chair or something?”

 Maya turns
and walks toward me. Her face is scary cold. For the first time, I realize that
she could be capable of anything. Killing Grand changed her, and all this buddy-buddy
time with Tarren isn’t doing her any favors in the soft and cuddly department.
I don’t like this hardened version of my sister.

 Maya reaches
for me, and I have to force myself not to flinch. In a blur, she tugs my lucky
hat off my head. I grope for it, but she’s too fast. Now she runs out of the
garage straight for the big maple tree in the front yard.

 That tree.
Of course that fucking tree. It’s been my lifelong arch-nemesis ever since
Tammy tied me to its trunk for an entire night using jump ropes when we were
kids. An endless night of getting eaten by mosquitoes while my dislocated
shoulder throbbed in agony and I waited for the inevitable moment when a huge
grizzly would rear out of the forest and tear my head off. 

 “Oh come
on!” I call to Maya as she leaps into the tree and bounds up the branches like
a goddamned monkey. Her stellar acrobatics would be impressive if she weren’t
holding my lucky hat hostage. She moves like she’s got feathers for bones, that
dark ponytail swinging up and down with each leap. In less than thirty seconds,
she’s halfway up the tree. The tape comes out, and my lucky hat gets a duct
tape bath as she secures it to a branch.

 I groan.
We’ve already done this dance before. She taped my hat to the very top branch
of the evil tree last year as a practical joke, but I turned the tables on her
when I climbed my ass up there and got it back. I still remember the look on
her face when I brought the hat down. The forces of good prevailed that day.

 I wrap my
arms around my chest, but it does nothing to keep out the cold. It’d seemed so
easy back then to get up those branches. All instinct. I’ve been climbing trees
and fences and scrambling onto roofs my whole life. Now, the distance looks
intimidating. Can trees gloat?

 Once my poor
hat is secured, Maya leaps out of the tree, arching into a perfect backflip.

 “Cute,” I
tell her and run a hand through my short, prickly hair. I look up at my hat. It
was my dad’s, the only thing I have of his. Mom used to tell me I was his
spitting image, but I’ve spent hours gazing at the few pictures we have left
and I don’t see it. My dad is strong, confident, and handsome. Mom said he had
a great sense of humor before he became an angel hunter.

 I pull my
eyes away from the hat and look at Maya. “You think I won’t go just cause I
don’t have my hat?”

 Maya’s
playing at something. Her face is a mask. “If you get it, I’ll let you come on
the mission. Not a day sooner.”

“Really?” The
wind doesn’t feel so cold. I glance up at the hat. It’s only half way up the
tree. Only half way.

 “No
cheating,” Maya says.

 I can get
it. I know I can. This tree is my bitch.

“Fine,” I
tell her. I set my bags down in the garage, shrug out of my coat, and stare at
my nemesis.

 There comes
a time in every comic book arc where the villain beats the superhero into a
bloody pile of splintered bones, punctured organs, and crapped pants. Our hero
isn’t just down and out, he is ass whupped, and the villain is tearing the
entire world apart around his pulped carcass and probably fondling his
girlfriend too. Any other person would give up and sulk off to a corner to die
but the hero – because he’s a superhero and this is what they do – stands up
one more time and finds a way to win the day.

 This is my
moment. I’m going to do it. Doesn’t matter how. It’s gonna happen, because I’ve
got to protect Maya and make sure Tarren actually sleeps. I’ve got to get out
of this claustrophobic house.

 I run at
that tree, every step powerful with promise. I hardly feel the aches in my
knees, the fingers of cold in my bones. I leap, and my arms find the first
branch.

 My ribs
explode with pain, but none of that matters. I’ve just got to get up and
around. My momentum carries me over…almost. Right at the apex of the swing, I
slow and come back down.

 No way in
hell I’m letting go of this branch. Not ever. My ribs are weeping, but I pull my
legs up. I hang upside down, bear hugging the lowest branch. There’s got to be
a way.

 This. Is.
My. Fucking. Moment.

 My hands begin
to slide.
DON’T,
I warn them.
DON’T YOU DARE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS.

 Then I’m
falling, hitting the ground. Maya’s there, her hands on my back to keep me from
putting my ass in the snow.

 “Get away!”
I tear myself from her touch. My body screams at me in a hundred different
directions, but it doesn’t compare to what’s happening in my chest. My heart
cringes.

 Maya stands
next to me, and her face is artic cold. I’m losing her. I can feel it.

“Give me the
keys,” she says in a hard voice.

Go fish!
 I heave the keys into the woods, but
they don’t go far.
Pathetic.
 

 “Classy,”
Maya says.

 “Have fun,
don’t get dead,” I retort back. I grab my stuff and stomp to the house.

 “Gabe,
wait.”

 I turn
around, hoping against hope that she’s changed her mind, that she’ll crack a
smile and be the sweet sister she was before I made a disaster of everything.

 “It’s
because we care, because we love you.”

And isn’t
that the biggest load of bullshit the planet has ever known.

 “No, it’s
not love.” I stare at her. It’s so obvious. “I know what it really is. I can
see it in your face.”

 Maya’s mouth
tightens. Her eyes are a pale blue. They change color sometimes almost to a
smoky gray. Tarren’s eyes do the same thing. “What? What do you see?” she asks.

 “Pity.” I
slam the door to the garage, leaving her to the snow and the cold.