Sin Eater (39 page)

There was a pause, then he came back into sight with soup and a spoon, taking his place next to her on the sofa again. He shrugged once he was settled. “I don’t know. I’d like to think you get to go to a place you’d always wanted to see. Peaceful.  No pain. No evil. And everyone you’ve ever liked will be there, too.”

“That sounds nice. I hope that’s where she went.”

Vinnie smiled down into his soup. “Missus Dean
definitely
went to the good side.”

The thought made Iola smile. “To see her husband.”

“And all those dogs they used to have.”

Iola laughed, remembering how Missus Dean had been able to remember the name of every dog they’d had on the farm growing up, and that had been about four dogs at any given point in her life.

“You will definitely be going to the good place,” Vinnie said around spoonfuls.

“How do you know that?”

His spoon froze halfway to his mouth, and he lowered it back down to the bowl. He shrugged off her question absently. “I just know it.”

“Is that where you’re headed, too?” She meant it to sound playful.

Vinnie’s eyes met hers, his face serious. “Sometimes … I don’t know how I know things, I just do. And I know that once this life is done … something important will happen to me.”

All kinds of thoughts swirled through Iola’s mind right then, all along the lines of
Oh shit, this is what’s wrong with him. He’s a religious nut bar.

As though reading her mind, he laughed and set his soup bowl on the table, turning sideways to put his hands on the outsides of her legs, rubbing them gently, absently. “I’m not some Jesus freak, you look absolutely terrified.”

She laughed, letting her head fall to the back of the sofa. “I’m sorry.”

Vinnie took her hand and kissed it, smiling brilliantly. “Maybe it’s you. Maybe you make me feel like I’m headed for bigger things.”

She smiled shyly. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Then he kissed her hand again.

“I want you to get used to hearing nice things.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Can I finish my soup now?”

Iola laughed again, rewarded by his dimply smile and a twinkle in his eyes. The he picked up his bowl and Iola dozed off again to the sound of his spoon on the bottom of the bowl and the occasional soft chuckle from the man she was starting to really fall for.

Essum took shape in the living room of the lesbian woman’s apartment. He could hear the shower running in a room down the hall, so he assumed he was alone for the moment.

He’d had enough waiting around. He was going to get his way, and he wasn’t waiting another goddamn night. He’d freak out this woman to the point where Voro would sense it, get Jasper and Charlie here ASAP, and then just get this friggin’ thing over with. Before that doctor came back to visit the
frustro
next door.

If he’d had solid hands they would be trembling. He had a nervous sensation, a buzzing of bees in his subconscious. He’d be nauseous if he had a stomach. He hadn’t been this anxious since … hell. The last time he’d seen Daphne.

He forced himself to solidify in Claudia’s smallish living room, sinking down on to one of her footstools. He put a hand over the centre of his chest. Yeah, it still hurt. After all this time … the very thought of her still gutted him.

Thomas Cromwell was the man she was engaged to marry, arranged by her family to consolidate a large amount of fertile, well-producing land. The worst part of it was
that she really seemed to like the guy.

Essum had fumed watching them take their walks together. When he saw the man kiss her one afternoon, right on her perfect lips, it took everything he had to prevent himself from lurching towards them, fists curled, making a much uglier picture of the handsome fiancé.

He was as territorial as a guard dog when it came to Daphne. He acted without thinking, and of course
that’s
what killed him. Moving too quickly, not thinking far enough ahead. The night he met his demise was after one such vision, his precious Daphne caught in the arms of her fiancé. The man’s arms were tight around her waist, holding her chest to his. His sweetheart made a low moan in her throat, a sound that was as much a welcome under her skirt as an unconscious murmur of approval.

Essum had fought off the urge to peel him off her, beat him within an inch of his life and then spirit her away. Where he could take her he had no idea. But he couldn’t
…
wouldn’t
have her marrying this man.

They parted ways in the dusky light of a clear sunset, and Essum followed him. It wasn’t hard, there was a lot of traffic on the road to town that night, and the man on the horse a few strides ahead of Essum didn’t notice another galloping trail behind him.

Thomas stopped at a tavern in town, and Essum saw his chance. He spotted the man as an occasional drinker, and he knew that Cromwell would likely have one helping and then call it a night. And he was right.

A half-hour later Thomas Cromwell left the tavern, approached his stallion, and that’s when Essum struck.

He wrapped one arm around the young man’s neck, gaining leverage by curling his hand into a fist and holding that fist in his opposite hand. Thomas batted pitifully at the arm that was choking him, robbing him of oxygen. It did nothing, and even if Thomas had more strength it would take a group of ten or more to get him free from Essum’s hold.

Or a woman’s voice, as it turned out.

“Sin Eater,” a voice said sharply behind him, and he turned, keeping his grip on Thomas’s neck. It was Daphne.

He felt like the lowest form of dog shit as her sharp eyes took in the scene, and when she saw who he was attacking they reddened and were immediately wet with tears.

“Essum,
” she added softly, covering her mouth with one gloved hand.

“Daphne …” he stammered inelegantly. “What … what are you doing
in town this late? Alone?”

She just shook her head, hand in place, still not believing what she was seeing.

Thomas took the opportunity to elbow him in the gut, and as he lost his breath the little bugger twisted in Essum’s hold, getting free and giving him a good, hard shot across the jaw.

As Essum lay on the ground, trying to keep up with what had just happened, he looked up at Daphne, and she gasped, moving her hand down to her throat. “Essum … what’s … what’s happening?”

He frowned as he studied the blood he’d wiped from his lip. “What do you speak of?” Then he looked up again.

Now Thomas was staring at him, a startled expression making him look even dumber than he had before. “Your eyes … what’s happened to your eyes?” The other man muttered.

Essum looked back to Daphne, and she stepped away from him. Something was off here … his skin felt like it was on fire. He needed … he needed to tear it off or he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

He stumbled to his feet, pulling at the stiff collar of his fine silk shirt and jacket, his throat closing up like his tonsils were trying to reach out and hug each other. His vision was swirling, blending edges and colours until he was sure he’d been drinking and poisoned all at once.

He tripped over something he couldn’t see, sprawling out in the muck and filth in front of him. But he couldn’t see it, smell it or taste it. It was like his very senses were melting. Sounds were echoing around him. His olfactory was solely picking up on rotten eggs. Shit, that was
him
he was smelling. All he could taste was a slow, steady burn on his tongue.

Essum heard a shriek, realized after a delay that it was Daphne. He held her booted ankle in one hand. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to her, or how he’d been able to find her, but he did. She kicked at him, screaming repeatedly.

He heard the unmistakable sound of metal being drawn from a leather sheaf. He stilled, and thought one word as Daphne whispered in a voice that was not even her own: “You have to cut off his head.”

Fuck
.

That was all he knew. In the many years afterward he’d pieced it together. The three of them in close quarters like that had initiated the process. It struck him down first, so the other two could kill him.

He to this day had no idea what his eyes were doing at that time. He imagined they were maybe glowing red, that’s what they did on the Other Side. Like the three of them in close contact had brought out what he really was. And how she knew to cut off his head … who knew. Again, maybe when the time came the
frustro
just
knew
.

At least it hadn’t hurt when he’d
died
. And he really
hadn’t
died. Here he was, back in the saddle and itching for another chance to walk amongst the humans.

That night the two of them had been planning to elope, he learned later on. But then there was the “robbery” by a mad man, and Daphne was so shaken and her family so scandalized that eloping was out of the question. She would be marrying Thomas Cromwell in the proper manner. And that chapter he’d managed to get back for, he caught the sad end almost totally by accident.

Essum suddenly heard the water turn off in the lesbian woman’s shower, and he turned to face the hallway and wait for her to enter the living room.

Voro found Raphael at Burger King this time, biting into a Whopper and closing his eyes to savor it as though it was the sound of Gabriel’s horn. Voro sat down opposite the angel, who opened his eyes and smiled around his mouthful. He gave Voro the thumbs up and swallowed.

“Man. I really missed the Whopper.”

“Listen, I need your help.”

Raphael stopped himself from taking another bite, frowning. “With what?”

“The
decipio
.”

Raphael set his burger down on the paper it had come wrapped in. “Voro - ”

“Don’t give me any bullshit about how you
can’t
. I know you want Essum stopped. I help you, you help me.”

Raphael thought about it briefly before shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

“Essum can’t win. I promise. I can get rid of him. But if Iola kills the
decipio
, if she’s really convinced that Claudia or Vinnie are in danger, she can kill him. She would do it to defend her friends.” Okay, so he wasn’t entirely convinced but he needed the argument. “If she does it, I’m mortal and she’s a Sin Eater, right?”

Raphael nodded, looking around to see if anyone might be listening to the couple of nut bars in the next booth. No one was.

“What if someone divine … someone pure … someone like
you
forgave her? Could you take that away?”

Raphael balled a napkin up in his hands. “I don’t know, Voro. Techni
cally she’s ours and will be no matter what. But
your
side is just as powerful, remember? If we take one of yours, you get one of ours. At least for a little while.”

Voro rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I’m begging Raphael, see what you can do.”

“I’ll brainstorm it, that’s all I can promise.”

“Good. And thanks.” He waited until Raphael was swallowing his next bite before asking, “So, which side is that doctor on?”

Raphael frowned and took a sip of his fountain drink. “Who?”

“Iola’s boyfriend. That doctor from last night.”

“Oh.” Raphael shrugged. “I don’t know
everything
Voro.”

Voro grit his teeth. They don’t lie but they aren’t obligated to answer everything either.  “I wish I could scramble your brains,” he growled, stealing one of Raphael’s French fries.

Raphael just laughed. Fucking angels. “Oh Voro,” Raphael said, shaking his head as though the Sin Eater was just plain
silly
. “There’s always a way around everything. But trust me … you won’t like it.”

Jasper got back in his car, watching Charlie through the windshield. The guy’s back was straight with purpose, his resolve was apparent in the set of his jaw. Charlie was still terrified, and it made Jasper feel awful. But where Charlie was going, Jasper couldn’t follow.

Well, not yet anyway. Who knew where Jasper’s chips would fall when this was all done. He had the feeling that he might wind up dead.

A strange calm came with that thought. Death maybe wasn’t so scary. Not as scary as Essum, anyway. It might be a nice break, even if there is
nothing
.

He rubbed both hands over his face impatiently. His mind seemed cloudy for some reason. No matter what he was thinking, he kept going back to Essum and wanting to kick the guy in his mystical nuts. Jasper was developing an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Jasper watched Charlie walk through the glass doors slowly but with a purpose, and Jasper had to smile. This part had actually been Charlie’s idea. He had no reason to feel guilty but still … he felt like the guy was his responsibility.

Jasper put the car in drive and took off, headed in the general direction of Iola’s apartment complex. It would take him about two and a half hours to get there, but he just
had
to. Who knew the
why
of anything he did lately. Maybe he just wanted to catch one more glimpse of her before he died.

Claudia was toweling off when she heard her cell phone ring in the bathroom. Taking the towel with her, she went to the dresser and picked it up. Trevor Vance was calling.

“Trevor?”

“Claudia, thought we should let you know. We found a third vehicle registered to that Portia Torregrossa.”

Claudia’s instincts perked up. “Really? Where?”

“It got towed in a few days ago, it’s been in the impound lot over at the fourth ever since. Someone finally ran the registration and the name set off a few red flags, as you can imagine.”

“Did you find out where it was?”

“Downtown, I’ll get the exact address. The towing company said it had just been left there. The four-way flashers were still on when they got there, keys in the ignition.”

“What was the car?” Claudia felt some confusion, since there
was a Jaguar registered in the Torregrossa woman’s name that had been found at a ritzy downtown hotel, and there had been a Lexus SUV still parked in the double garage.

“Nice one, brand new. Only a few days off the lot, a really sharp car. It’s a uh …” there was a shuffle of papers as Vance was apparently checking details. He knew she’d want the exact info, not his
best guess
. “Ah. It’s a 2010 BMW X6-M. Holy crap. How much are those things worth?”

“More than either of us make in a year,” Claudia replied absently, a sick feeling in her stomach.

Vance gave a whistle, then there was a pause. She could just see him leaning back in his office chair as he flipped a folder closed. “The guys over at the fourth went to talk to the salesman right away. They say it was sold to a man. Tall, intense-looking. Couldn’t remember much more about him. But her co-workers said they thought she had a boyfriend or lover or whatever the kids call them these days. Some guy that she regularly met at that hotel where we found the Jag. I think he might be of interest to us, considering there were no signs of forced entry at her front door …”