Malakh

CHAPTER FIVE

  "Suzanne, you have to eat." To tempt me, he waved a fragrant piece of jerky beneath my nose, but I turned away.

  "What's the point?"

  "Survival," Russ said simply.

  I closed my eyes, easing their dry, gritty ache. "Again I ask, what's the point?"

  He didn't answer. Instead of pressing my point, I eased myself down into the grass, warmed by the fair summer day, and curled into a ball. We had arrived at this park while I had been unconscious. Russ had only briefly explained that we were going to Ian's house; I didn't recognize the tiny but well-kept square of recreational land. Trees dotted the flat landscape, offering shade on rare days when the sun beat down without mercy. Traffic was slow on the street that flanked it, and from behind us came the sound of water and boats.

  I think we were in the Montlake neighborhood—the area was upscale, the lawns manicured, the houses just a bit larger than necessary. Fresh out of college, Ian had gone to work for the Navy as an administrative assistant, and he'd lived modestly for a number of years, socking away most of his salary in his savings account and long-term certificates of deposit. He could afford to live here, although he'd always preferred to live in smaller, cheaper accommodations, such as my cozy apartment in Seward Park.

  When he moved out of my apartment, I had no idea where he planned to go. His packing had been done in bitter silence after a savage argument. The parting words he'd given me on his way out the door, the last of his belongings stuffed into a box and held carelessly under one arm, had been surprisingly gentle.

  "There's something not right about him, Suze. You let me know when you figure out what." In Ian-speak, that translated to I'll be here when things fall apart with him.

  No, I hadn't known to where he'd moved, but he'd never changed his phone number. I knew that because he called me every Christmas and birthday, and Caller ID doesn't lie.

  The terrible thought that I'd never get another of those calls was too much to bear. I curled up into a tighter ball, wishing the sun could chase away the chill in my heart that sank into my very bones. Ian had been at Zanna's, his ring was crushed into the dirt under the thick carpet of green grass, and my mind could put two and two together with remarkable, graphic ease: he was dead, and for reasons known only to his killer, he had been hidden so he wasn't discovered when Zanna was found.

  His killer. Raum.

  A hand smoothed down my back, and warmth and strength flooded through me. Russ. Russ and his damnable otherworldly powers. My life had been ruined by his kind; I didn't need his comfort or concern. I shrugged away from his hand, perversely welcoming back the chill, the fierce ache in muscle and bone, the gnawing hunger and persistent thirst.

  "I'm only trying to help."

  "Famous last words."

  He frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "Those are the very same words I said to Ian when Raum crashed on my roof and I mended him." Something bothered me about this, but I was too weary to chase it down.

  "I'm sure you meant well. You couldn't have known what you were getting into."

  "It's no excuse," I said flatly.

  A shadow fell between me and the sunlight. I opened my eyes to find Russ's face close to mine. His eyes shifted from blue to brown and settled somewhere near hazel.

  "We're almost done, Suzanne. Raum is close, I can feel him. And when it's all settled and he's dealt with, I can take away the memory of all of this."

  "You can do that?"

  "Yes. It's generally how we handle these … situations when they happen."

  I considered the very tempting offer. To forget the last five years since the malakhim had intruded in my life would be heaven. But would it change an essential part of who I was? I didn't want to lose identity; I just wanted relief from the unrelenting longing and sorrow.

  "It's a kind offer," I murmured, "but more than I deserve. Should we go?"

  "Once you eat," he said firmly. He pulled me upright and shoved the bag of beef jerky into my hands. I hesitated only briefly, considering refusing, but again—what was the point? Placate him until we went our separate ways, and then I could wallow in my misery until hunger or thirst ended it.

  Because I knew what he wouldn't admit: Ian was dead. His ring had been mashed into the ground in Zanna's back yard, which meant he'd been there. Wearing it. Dying with Zanna. Because of me.

  And now we were going to Ian's house, and I knew we would find either Raum or his last lure, leading us into his snare to live or die. I didn't care which.

  While I ate, he uncapped a bottle of Gatorade and set it by my knee. I wrinkled my nose, but I would drink it. It was full of electrolytes and God knew this trek around Seattle was taking its toll on me. Abruptly I stopped gnawing on the thin sheet of dried, teriyaki-flavored beef.

  "You shielded me so he can't find me. So why aren't we taking the bus or a taxi? Why are we walking?"

  "The most safety I can provide is to make you invisible. It would be quite a trick to catch a cab or a bus when no one can see us. How could we get the cab driver to take us where we want to go? What would the bus driver think when his door won't close after the last passenger he can see boards? Or the other passengers when the seemingly vacant space before them is impassable?"

  "I see your point." Losing interest, I went back to the jerky, methodically chewing through what was left in the bag without tasting it. I reluctantly chased it with the Gatorade, making faces as I swallowed but knowing I needed it. When I was done, he gathered my trash while I stood up and brushed the grass from my jeans. My clean, brand new jeans. For the first time I realized the shirt I wore was clean and smelled new.

  "You changed my clothes," I said, a note of accusation sharpening my tone.

  "You were very sick after we left Zanna's house," he said carefully. "I didn't think you would want to walk around Seattle in vomit-splattered clothing."

  I flushed. "I don't remember that, but you're right. I wouldn't have wanted to do that. But … I don't know. It just seems a little … creepy." Perverted, more like.

  "I've seen naked human women before. You have nothing I want, Suzanne."

  "So unlike others of your kind, you don't find us humans attractive?"

  "Of course you're attractive. I just have more control over myself than others of my species. Let's go, Suzanne. We don't have far to walk this time."

  We crossed the park and turned north on the first street we came to. I didn't pay attention to the street signs until the road curved west and became East Shelby Street. I knew where we were now; definitely the Montlake neighborhood. On the other side of the houses to our right was the Montlake Cut, a manmade waterway connecting Portage Bay to Union Bay. If we turned north on the intersection up ahead, we'd cross the Montlake Bridge, a drawbridge that allowed ships passage through the Cut and which connected the north shore with the south shore.

  I rather doubted we would cross, however; the north shore was dedicated mostly to the University of Washington. Sure enough, we intersected Montlake Boulevard and continued west on East Shelby. The houses were graceful but aging, lawns well-kept but not obsessively so. It was exactly the kind of neighborhood where Ian would live—not slummy or urban but not pretentious either, because he was none of those things.

  We walked side by side, Russ and I, our strides steadily eating up the distance between the terror of not knowing and a grief so deep I could barely fathom it. But I've never been a coward, and I didn't falter. Just as I had once been forced to confess to Zanna that I had committed the most heinous of the Best Friend's Unpardonable Sins, I didn't shrink from facing what was waiting for me in Ian's house.

  As we approached a curve in the road where East Shelby Street became West Park Drive East, Russ paused, turning toward a large Victorian on our right. It was obvious the owner was in the middle of painting it; large splotches of flaking paint had been scraped away, and a ladder lay along the side of the house. The trim was already neatly smoothed and freshly coated with rich color.
br />   "Are you ready, Suzanne?"

  I swallowed over a hard lump in my throat. "What are we going to find inside?"

  "I don't know," he admitted. "I didn't scout ahead. I didn't want to leave you when you were so distraught."

  "Is this really his house?"

  Russ sniffed the air, inhaling deeply, eyes closed, and he nodded. "Yes."

  I stared at the house, trying to envision Ian painting the lap siding sage green, applying the terra cotta red to the eaves, a lighter terra cotta orange to the trim around the windows. I could see his fetish for detail encouraging him to brush burnt yellow in accent X's above the windows and in various other small areas that made the whole color scheme pop.

  It didn't take much imagination. Ian was very creative, and earth tones were his bag. I could see him on a cool spring day, his wide-shouldered, muscled frame encased in an earth-brown pull-over sweater, raking a hand through his windblown hair as he matched exterior paint chips to find the best combination of colors for the Queen Anne Victorian before us now.

  I felt drawn to the house, pulled toward it as though coming home. The colors beckoned me, spoke of comfort and acceptance, rest and peace. I knew then that Russ was right: this was Ian's house, and he had painted it all the colors I loved best, all the colors that had pervaded our cozy apartment.

  He had painted this house for me.

  My feet stopped. I was unable to make them take another step, although walking was a relief compared to the ache from ankle to hip when standing still. Russ stopped beside me and simply waited.

  "It's my house," I whispered. "He did it for me."

  "Yes," he whispered back.

  "Why?" I was only vaguely aware of the tears pouring down my cheeks. "Why would he do that?"

  "He knew Raum had left you. He always knew that someday you'd come up this walk."

  "That's silly." But even if it was silly, it was also sweet. Sweet and sad and futile, because, as with Zanna, I'd come too damn late.

  "That's faith," Russ corrected softly. "What are you afraid of? Why did you stop?"

  I couldn't drag my eyes from the house. "You know why."

  "Say it and face it, Suzanne."

  "I'm afraid I'm too late. That he's … that he's … "

  "Dead?"

  "Yes."

  He inhaled long and deep of the afternoon air, scenting something on the mild breeze blowing across the Montlake Cut, but he didn't tell me what. The day had taken on the golden light of a summer afternoon, that ageless quality when you're certain that time has stopped and you can live an eternity without aging, drinking your fill of life and love and youth until your soul is drunk with it.

  It came to me suddenly in that still, timeless moment what had bothered me earlier when I'd been thinking of Raum.

  Can't you just … fly us somewhere?

  He lied to you about that. It doesn't work that way.

  "Russ," I said slowly, still staring out at the Cut. "Do you know how I met Raum?"

  "He was wounded and you found him, nursed him back to health." He shrugged, unconcerned.

  "He crash-landed on the roof of my apartment. We—Ian and I—lived in one of those classy old brick apartment buildings with a flat roof that was set up as a courtyard, with raised gardens and those quaint little wrought iron ice cream tables."

  He didn't say anything, just waited for me to continue, one brow raised over a copper-colored eye.

  "I was on the roof at one in the morning, drinking wine and thinking about Zanna. It was her birthday."

  My eyes didn't see the Painted Lady before me now; they looked into the past to the hot summer night that had changed my life. I don't know if I'd heard a sound or seen a shadow, but something had made me look up in time to see the angel descending from the sky like judgment itself, glorious wings unfurled, black against the midnight-blue sky. Black to match his hair.

  He saw me looking up. Perhaps I'd made a sound to alert him. He checked his flight in alarm, caught his foot on the roof of the enclosed stairway, and crashed onto the gravel with a shout of pain.

  Then his eyes caught mine, green like a verdant meadow, a green unlike anything on this earth, and that was the start of the unraveling of my will.

  "He should have been invisible. He never should have taken the chance and allowed you to see him."

  "I know. He told me. But I did see him, and from the first look it was too late. He'd fallen on his wing and sprained it, so he couldn't shift his appearance completely, just enough to make his wings mostly unnoticeable under a tee-shirt. He couldn't fly, either. So I took him downstairs to our apartment, gave him a shirt and a cover story, and woke Ian."

  And that was the beginning of our end. Ian became insubstantial when compared to the angel, and even though Raum had tried to fade into the background, in a small amount of time he completely eclipsed my human lover. I had let Ian go with hardly a qualm and had not regretted it once until after Raum had left me and I'd come back to my human senses.

  "But you didn't get the point of this story, Russ. He had wings. He was flying. You told me angels don't fly."

  He looked stunned. "When did I ever tell you that?"

  "When I first met you. I asked if you could just fly us to wherever we were going, and you said he lied to me about that, it didn't work that way."

  He stared at me openmouthed, and then began laughing. He laughed long and hard before he brought himself under control and slipped his arm around me.

  "Forgive me, Suzanne. That struck me as very funny."

  "I'm glad you think so."

  "It's just that you humans are so literal." He turned me around to face him, and cupped his hands on either side of my face. "I didn't mean we can't fly. I meant that we can't just fly you to wherever we need you to go. We're a marvel of balance and strength. Our wingspan and the strength of the muscles required to fly are enough to serve us … but not enough to carry a passenger."

  Hot color flooded my face and I tried to turn away. "Oh." I frowned again.

  "What else?"

  "You said you can't vanish from here and appear in Venice in an instant. Is that true?"

  He sighed. "Your instant or my instant?"

  "Is there a difference?"

  "Major difference. A year in your realm is just a blip in time for me."

  "So what looks like an instantaneous jump from one continent to another to me actually takes less time," I pointed out.

  "No. We don't … it doesn't work that way." He waved a hand impatiently, frustrated at my lack of comprehension. "It's so hard to explain to a human. When we move long distances, we don't move in this realm. It's easier for us in our own dimension. Time is different for us there, more like time is here for you. By your standards, we relocate instantaneously, but moving through my realm is to me like taking a long journey."

  "Then why not travel through mine?"

  "We can't fly across the ocean without a rest."

  "Can't you just land in the water and rest?"

  He quirked a wry smile at me. "Sure, if I want to drown. I can die just like you can, Suzanne. I have to swim to stay afloat. And then my wings get wet, and they have to dry before I can fly again." He shook his head. "Your species has some odd ideas about angels."

  I studied him with suspicion for another long moment, but he didn't flinch away from my gaze, and I finally decided he was telling the truth. I let a smile curve my mouth just a little.

  "All right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like I don't trust you."

  "You shouldn't trust me, Suzanne," he countered harshly. "I said I'm able to resist the temptation of your species, but I never said I was immune to your attraction. You're right to question me, to reserve your trust. You've already been ill-used by my kind."

  "But you're helping me track him down and bring him to justice."

  "That doesn't make me a paragon of virtue. I'm just as susceptible to temptation as the next angel."

  "Well, that doesn't exactly put me at ea
se."

  "Good. Now shall we go?"

  I turned my attention back to the house. Again the color palette called to me, beckoning me, seducing me. A house painted just for me, by a man who had every reason to hate me but, from all evidence, had not.

  "Yes, let's go."

  The walk was long and winding, carrying us past tasteful gardens. Flowers bloomed riotously, thriving in the capricious Seattle weather. The lawn was lush and freshly mown; the sweet scent of newly cut grass still lingered in the warm air.

  The flagstone walk ended, and now I could see the tools of Ian's labor on the front porch: paint cans, long wooden stir sticks, rags, rollers, brushes, rolls of plastic sheeting. And—so Ian that I nearly fell to my knees and wept—the brown pull-over sweater I'd envisioned him wearing, tossed carelessly over the back of a wooden Adirondack stained the same orange terra cotta as the trim around the windows.

  My knees trembled as we went up the steps. My whole body shook by the time we crossed the wide planks of the porch. I thought I might faint as Russ raised his hand and rapped on the screen door, and then opened it and turned the front door knob, letting us into the foyer.

  Ian's voice rang out from the back of the house—"Be there in a minute!"—for he hadn't heard our silent entry.

  He was alive!

  Russ fell in behind me as I tracked Ian's voice down the narrow hallway. His back was to us as we entered the kitchen, a snug tee-shirt flexed over his muscular shoulders as he cut oranges into wedges. My eyes drank him in, my heart swelling with relief, but I could take no more steps. A gulf remained between us, broader than the ten feet that separated us. It was the gulf of betrayal and pain and abandonment.

  The years had been kind to him, at least from what I could see. He was still trim and straight-bodied, well-muscled, and silver had yet to thread its way through his hair.

  Ian turned. His eyes behind the familiar gold-rimmed glasses opened wide with shock. The bowl of orange wedges slipped from his paint-speckled hands and shattered on the floor.

  "Suzanne!" Barely a whisper, his voice cracked, broke. "Oh my God, Suzanne!"

  Shock rooted me to the floor, mingled with a wild hope that my journey had come to an end. "You can see me? Please, Ian, tell me you can really see me!"

  "Of course I can I see you, but…" He broke off and rushed toward me, glass crunching under his sneakers. His hands closed on my shoulders, frantically clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing, reassuring himself that I was real.

  Relief crashed through me like a flash flood through a dry canyon. I hadn't disappeared, and I wasn't a ghost. Russ had brought me through, a little worse for wear, maybe, but alive and delivered into the hands of safety.

  Bewilderment creased Ian's brow, and his hands settled, gripping my upper arms. "Where have you been, Suzanne? I've been frantic!"

  A cold chill raced down my spine. "What are you talking about?"

  He took three steps to the right, snagged a newspaper from a careless stack on the breakfast table, and shoved it in my face. The same paper I'd seen at Zanna's, dated two days ago, but this time I could read the whole headline.

  Police call off search for missing bank executive Suzanne Harper after six weeks.