Stone Angel (8 page)

Turning toward the rest of the group, he
said, “Good night all.”

A chorus of goodnights echoed around the
table.

When Irving was safely in the elevator in the
hallway, Martha cleared away the paella to make room for tres
leches cake and dark chocolate mousse cups, accompanied by small
snifters of Grand Marnier.

Liam took small portions of the cake and
mousse, then startled Amanda by passing the plate to her, almost as
if he’d noticed she’d barely been able to eat at all this
evening.

It was
sort of weird, because Aaron was doing the same thing for Rosamund,
and John for Genny, and Samuel for Isabelle, and Caleb for
Jacqueline. Liam was probably giving them all the idea he and
Amanda were a couple. The completely
wrong
idea.

“So the idea is for us to both get into the
Sculptor’s house,” he said, “grab Sophia, and I’ll change back into
myself to help get us all out again without being killed by the
Others or worse, changed by the Sculptor?”

Amanda grimaced. “Yep, that’s what I’ve got
so far.”

“The plan has a few holes,” he said.

“Yes. But the only other option is letting
Sophia be killed. That’s not an option … for me.” Tears stung her
eyes, and Amanda deliberately shut down, cut off her emotions,
tried not to feel anything for Liam and his perfect blue eyes, his
beautiful Irish lilt … tried to remember that he was here for the
money.

Liam met her gaze and said firmly, “Then
we’ll get her back.”

THE SCULPTOR could feel them watching him. It
was like an itch under his skin, a prickling on the back of his
neck. As he walked through his front hallway, he would sometimes
glance quickly over his shoulder, arm lifted to prevent a blow to
the head.

But no one was ever there. The hallway was
always empty … except for all those frozen statues, plastered white
to disguise the pinks and browns and blacks of their skins, the
glisten of their eyes, the open, screaming mouths.

Nothing could disguise their frightened
expressions. No one smiled in his gallery of horror, and he
constantly felt them glaring at him, hating him for what he did to
them.

This was what he got for making a deal with
the devil.

Yes. The devil. Because the Sculptor was
quite sure that was who Osgood was.

None of the goons seemed to realize exactly
who they worked for. None of the Others he had known before or
since had been sure.

Idiots, every one of them.

There were whispers among the ranks that
Osgood was a fallen angel.

Who did they think the devil was, but the
archangel Lucifer, thrown from heaven for daring to challenge God
Himself?

And
Osgood
was
the devil
here on Earth, for how else could he have the power to pluck the
Sculptor out of his former life, if it could even be called that,
and guarantee him health, wealth and longevity?

Years before, the Sculptor had been forcibly
retired from the Others. For what use was he if he couldn’t stop
motion? He could never do it for long – a few seconds, even a
minute or two in his heyday. But those few moments really came in
handy for eluding the police, exploding a bomb at just the right
second, or stealing a baby out of the orphanage.

When he was in his forties, he noticed his
gift fading … he would stop motion on someone, and the person would
shake it off. Soon he became a joke, the Other no one picked for
their team.

So after a youth spent aiding in Osgood’s
drug rings and prostitution schemes, they shoved him aside, sent
away from all he had ever known, with no job prospects and no
talents. Soon he began to waste away with a disease that science
had yet to cure, his brain failing, his eyesight nearly gone, with
no money and no family to care for him. Everyone had forgotten
about him.

During that time he often thought that this
long, torturous death must be payback for the life he had lived,
for the people he had maimed, for the innocent lives lost at his
hands.

All that
time, Osgood had been gathering his power. When the time was right,
he had come seeking the Sculptor. He promised youth again,
with
power
. More
power. Glorious, intimidating power. The power to vanquish Osgood's
enemies by turning them into stone-like statues. Clearly, Osgood
had been watching him, waiting for the moment when the Sculptor
gave up hope … and so the Sculptor accepted without a second
thought.

He only found out later how many people he
would have to change to satisfy Osgood’s lust for revenge on his
enemies.

Osgood had so many enemies. Mostly people who
had not held up their side of a bargain, who one by one were
brought to the Sculptor, so he could use his “gift” on them.

Yet with power had come restrictions. Rules.
Fears and cautions and the Sculptor's own kind of terror.

Power had become a bitter pill to
swallow.

Look at him. He had no females fawning on
him. He had no freedoms, no pleasures.

He spent his life surrounded by frozen people
with terrified expressions.

Never was he allowed to leave his home … he
hadn’t been outside, felt the sun on his face, had a drink, talked
to people for over ten years.

And always, he worried whether he could meet
Osgood’s quota on souls damned to an eternity of stillness.

No wonder he felt it necessary to apply
plaster to each figure, vainly hoping that he could trick himself
into thinking they were truly statues instead of people who had
dared to cross Osgood … or fail him. As inevitably, the Sculptor
himself must fail Osgood.

Because,
of course, the more the Sculptor worked at his craft, the more
Osgood demanded. The Sculptor was roused day and night by the
brutal goons Osgood hired. They thrust the screaming, fearful souls
into the workshop and roughly told him to do his thing. They showed
no respect for his craft. They cared nothing for his fatigue. He
hardly had time to sleep. His hallway was getting crowded.
His
nightmares
were
getting crowded….

The Sculptor still wasn’t sure if the statues
could feel anything, if they knew what their lives had become…

Some had been here so long, he had watched
them age. A few had simply disappeared. One night they were there,
looking haggard and wrinkled beneath their white coating. The next
morning all that would be left was a pile of dry plaster.

Whether they could feel their lives passing
by or not, the Sculptor would swear that they watched him, those
wretched, pained, vengeful expressions on their faces.

The little girl in his workshop … she was
different.

She had been a true innocent. When they had
brought her in, she had not known why she had been taken, or by
who. Even when the Sculptor questioned her, she could only guess
that the Others sought her for her power.

The Sculptor had tried to explain his plan to
Sophia. He had tried to tell her that he was only freezing her
until Osgood decided what he wanted to do with her. He told her,
several times, how Osgood planned to break her of the bonds of her
old life and convince her to fight for evil.

Even when Sophia had at last realized that
her fate was the same as the statues surrounding her, the girl had
only wanted to know her sister was all right. She had tried to
bargain, to extract promises from the Others not to harm her
sister. In the end, after all those tears and messy emotions, he
had been glad to change Sophia into a statue.

The Sculptor didn’t understand Sophia’s kind
of flagrant loyalty. He had been abandoned by his teenage mother.
The Others were the only family he had ever known. He would use any
one of them as a human shield when the bullets started flying. And
that child, that Sophia, had been abandoned by her parents, too, or
she wouldn’t have a gift. Why did she make such a big deal about …
love?

So he simply hadn’t understood why the girl
wouldn’t stop screaming “Mandy!” and fighting against her bonds,
trying to rescue her unconscious, bleeding sister.

Eventually, the Sculptor had given up, and he
had changed Sophia. Now she was a lump of stone like all the rest,
the tears frozen on her cheeks, her arms outstretched to her sister
… and he suspected Sophia of watching him, too.

At least in the matter of the two sisters,
the Sculptor proved his value to Osgood. It was he who realized
that part of Sophia’s value lay in utilizing her sister’s
willingness to do anything that would free the girl from her statue
state and her eventual turn to evil.

The Sculptor ordered Amanda to work her way
into the Chosen Ones’ confidences, report on their inner workings …
and eventually, to bring him Irving Shea.

If she did not, Sophia would die.

Actually, Osgood would never kill Sophia, or
at least not unless he had tried to turn her and failed, so they
were bluffing. But Amanda didn’t realize that, or if she did, she
was too terrified to challenge Osgood's anger or his power.

Smart girl.

However, weeks turned into months, more than
two months now, and still Irving was not well enough to leave the
mansion. Amanda was of value; she handed over crucial information
about the Chosen Ones — their movements and how they spent their
time. She kept the Sculptor informed of Irving’s movements and his
strides in rehabilitation.

But not
too long ago, the Sculptor had been old. He knew what it was like
to feel his body giving out, to feel himself dying little by
little. There was a good chance Irving would not recover enough to
ever go outside. And Osgood wanted access to Irving
now
. He wanted
the information Irving held
now
. He
wanted to use Irving to make the Chosen Ones suffer … now.
Now.
Now
. Before it
was too late, and Irving was dead.

So when the Sculptor received an ultimatum
from Osgood, he threw a tantrum composed of rage, desperation, and
terror. He had lifted his hammer and threatened Sophia’s statue,
and for one moment he had considered smashing her into bits and
ending all their agonies.

Then … then something happened.

He would have sworn Sophia’s green eyes
moved, and looked at him. Really looked at him.

He dropped the hammer. He backed up to the
wall. He told himself he had seen nothing but a shadow; it was his
imagination, his weirdly active conscience.

Sophia couldn’t move her eyes. She couldn’t
project fear and loathing.

Yet his heart pounded and he broke a cold
sweat, and for the first time, he wondered what would happen if all
the statues came to life.

What would happen to him then?

For a moment, he shivered in terror.

Then he
realized he had better make sure that never happened. He needed
Amanda to deliver Irving, and he needed it now. Now.
Now
.

So he pondered how best to send a message to
Sophia’s sister. She needed to know that she was out of time.

First he sent for Liam. Then he changed his
mind.

Liam wasn’t the man for this job. He had
displayed a lamentable fondness for Amanda. In fact, Eric and the
boys had beaten the crap out of Liam for trying to help her.

At the time, the Sculptor hadn’t paid much
attention. The boys were always jostling for position, lying and
blackmailing, trying to get ahead on a stepladder formed of fallen
comrades. As far as the Sculptor was concerned, Liam’s talent and
ambition more than made up for any softness of character.

But this was important. He couldn’t take a
chance that Eric was right about Liam.

And he didn’t trust Eric. Eric was the
go-between for Osgood and the Sculptor, and he smirked and
swaggered every time he handed over Osgood's orders. He had no
respect for the Sculptor's talents, and no fear of his reprisal.
No, it would be like Eric to “forget” to tell Amanda that she had
only three days to bring Irving to the mansion.

So the Sculptor called in Robbie.

As an evil henchman, Robbie made a pretty
good plumber. He wasn’t smart. He didn’t think on his feet. He
could not remember the details of any plan. But he always did as he
was told, no matter whether how difficult or how violent.

So the Sculptor called him in and handed him
a note to give to Amanda, a note that spelled out her deadline and
the dire consequences that would occur if she failed.

Robbie had taken the note, put it in his
pocket, nodded solemnly, and went off to watch over Liam’s Sunday
meeting with Amanda.

It wouldn’t be long now, and the Sculptor
waited for Irving to emerge and for the Others stationed around the
Chosen Ones’ mansion to bring the old man to him.

If the Sculptor could pull this off, Osgood
would reward him.

If the Sculptor failed … if he failed, he
shuddered to think of the consequences.

SOPHIA … HER green eyes are glassy like peridots, her tears
frozen in trails along her cheeks. She holds her arm toward Amanda,
calling, “Mandy
!
Mandy
!
Help
me
!”

With a gasp, Amanda sat straight up in bed,
her forehead slick with sweat, her body trembling. She pressed her
hands to her eyes, holding back her own tears, then she wrapped her
arms around her waist and rocked back and forth, back and forth,
trying to find comfort where there was none. She knew there was
none; the dream came to her every night, and every night she was
once again desolate and broken.