BEYOND REDEMPTION: THE FORBIDDEN
by
Jax Alexander
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Jax Alexander
Beyond Redemption: The Forbidden
Copyright © 2008 Jax Alexander
Cover Art © 2001 Steven Stahlberg
Please direct all comments or questions to:
Note: I chose the pay what you want option because I believe the value of art should be set by the pleasure it brings rather than what its creator decides is suitable reward for time and effort. If you like what I have created and want me to write more, please set your price accordingly. That said, I hope you enjoy every page regardless of what you choose to pay. After all, the only thing worse than a bad book is a good book that no one has read. - Jax
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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This book is dedicated to my parents
who gave me the gift of life and everything after
and my wife who gave me opportunity and the gift of laughter.
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Author’s note: Believe whatever you want, but accept two facts.
A belief is a conclusion where you stop thinking and start defending.
It may also be a lie you tell yourself to rationalize what you cannot be rational about.
Prologue
In the rise and fall annals of not so great cities, Harrow Falls ranks lower than irrelevant. Founded on greed and built by lies, fools and followers erected a monument to high hopes a hundred miles north of nowhere. The silver-flecked hills attracted believers and deceivers, parasites and prey, and sundry riffraff wanting riches without effort. Even smart men were made stupid by the folly of easy money, so they brought families to a city suited to crooks not cradles.
While the sin merchants mined gold from the pockets of the exuberant, the city tunneled enough holes in the hills to find the mother-lode was a mother of a lie. Denial was a convenient remedy for fact, so the city swallowed a drunkard’s dose and kept expanding.
The shysters and the shylocks saw the fall coming before the deluded did and skipped town two steps ahead of the truth. What took forty years to build was abandoned in thirty days. The affluent moved out, the corrupt moved on, and the destitute moved to the Old Quarter; a charming rat hole where derelict brownstones and infested alleys are scenic sights. Not a “wish you were here” kind of place on a sunny day—let alone on a dark October night during a freak snowstorm.
While residents fled the biting cold to huddle indoors, a pale beauty in chic white leather was fleeing through the deserted streets three steps ahead of a nightmare. The eight-hundred-pound brute, draped in a tent-sized cloak and cowl and wearing size-twenty shoes, huffed like a crazed buffalo as it stomped after the woman and snatched repeatedly at the sparkling emerald bobbing like a lure at the tip of her long blond braid.
Beauty didn’t miss a step as she rounded a corner and slammed into the full force of the gale. The lumbering brute missed several when the wind billowed the great cloak into a drag chute and ripped the cowl off to expose a bald pate gargoyle head. The baboon snout bared finger-long fangs while luminous black eyes sparked with vexation as the prey scooted away. With a snarl at the storm and slaps at the flapping cloak, the beast resumed the chase.
The woman never gave her pursuer’s fearsome face a second glance. Despite her peril, pixie merriment twinkled in her lavender-hued eyes as she dashed between snow-covered cars to the far side of the street. When her grim-faced hunter pulled out a gun from under the great cloak, she flashed an amused smile, slid across the hood of a sporty import, and ducked into a dark alley. Grimface covered the intervening distance in a hurry and stormed in after her. The soft pop of silenced shots whispered that beast had finally caught up with beauty.
An hour later, a woman with a pixie sparkle in her dark brown eyes stepped out of the alley and dusted debris from her elegant white leather outfit. She moved with a sated panther’s lazy grace as she loped regally into the first fade of early morning light, her long red hair streaming loose in the waning wind.
1. Deadly Dreams
Michael Angelo recoiled from the gruesome sight; he wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, the existence of such a beast or what the woman did after she hacked its head off. He stepped away from the beastly corpse and tripped over the tangled blanket by his bed. Stumbling as the alley spun dizzily into a bedroom again, he fell into a black pit that ripped open beneath his feet. Icy grey coils speared out of the dark, wrapped around him like a ravenous python and jerked him toward a maelstrom of churning colors writhing in black space. Gagging down bile mashed up by the crushing grip, Mike was assaulted by the stench of decaying carrion as he oozed through the clashing colors into the center of the stinking swirl. Toxic thoughts filled with ancient anger forced their way into his head and fouled his mind with an oily presence.
“You are an abomination,” a silky voice said as the coils increased their crush. “You should never have been created. You must be unmade.”
Close to blacking out, Mike tried to block out the insinuating voice as it spoke longingly of annihilation and made devastation sound desirable. Despite the contradicting pain grinding his ribs, he began to believe the perverse exhortation. He might even have given in to the inveigling words if his dead mother’s voice hadn’t broken the spell.
“There is no horror worse than the one we inflict on ourselves. Stop torturing yourself. You could not save me.”
The maelstrom rippled, tried to reassert itself, then faded into a cold floor as a final silky whisper echoed in Mike’s head.
“The dead are fools. They cannot conceive what I am. I know you now, dreamer. You are the way. Dream me a door; release me from this shadow life. Dream and despair, for I bring salvation.”
Mike tried to suck air into his lungs, but couldn’t even manage a gasp. Twenty years of prophetic dreams had brought many tormented awakenings, but the vision tonight had ripped him out of reality while awake.
Drifting into a darkness blacker than the night outside, his last thought was of the alley where an improbable patch of pink and purple flowers sprouted in the spot where the severed head had been.
~~~
Bella sniffled back tears as An Affair to Remember came to an end. No doubt about it, the pragmatic professional by day was a late-night romantic.
The intrusive ring of the phone startled her out of the tender moment and she immediately thought of Mike although there was no reason for him to call so late.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Maltese? Sorry to wake you so early on a Sunday morning, but we have a peculiar case you should probably autopsy yourself.”
Morning? Had she really watched the entire love stories marathon?
“What have you got, Todd?” she asked her senior technician.
“Decapitated cadaver found in an alley about an hour ago. We have a body, but no blood, not a drop—and no head.”
Bella sighed, so much for a day off for the chief coroner of Harrow Falls. “I’m on my way.”
She hung up and thought of calling Mike. He was still an enigma after a decade of friendship. Introspective and reserved, he struggled with dream demons that would drive weaker men mad. How horrible to know your nightmares are really happening. No wonder he was a loner who never let emotion rule him. Almost never, Bella amended as she dressed; there was the time Mike nearly beat a killer to death when he caught the creep attacking a young girl. Knowing only Mike’s gentle nature, Bella had struggled for weeks to reconcile his disparate personalities. It took her a long time to realize that the real world was just another bad dream for Mike.
Another thought struck her as she pulled into the morgue parking lot, one that was on her mind a lot lately. In all the evenings she and Mike spent together in far ranging conversations, why had neither of them ever crossed the line of platonic friendship? Was he the problem or was she?
Thoughts of their perplexing relationship were pushed aside when she walked into the lab and saw the monstrosity spilling over every edge of the examination table. The mountain of pale pink skin was as high as she was tall. Mammoth arms hung down to touch the floor while tree-trunk legs stretched off the table so that the size-twenty-something feet had to be propped up on mobile instrument stands. The damn thing looked like a Hollywood special effects prop rather than something that was walking around a few hours ago.
“He barely fit in the ambulance,” Todd said sheepishly as he stepped out of the office. “I had to get the cops, the paramedics and the janitor to help lift the body onto the table.”
Bella could see why. The dead guy would make a linebacker feel like a midget.
“Did you find anything on the prelim?”
“That’s why I called you instead of starting the autopsy,” Todd said. He handed her a clipboard with the preliminary report. “I knew there was going to be a lot of scrutiny on this one.”
“And you figured better my ass in a sling than yours?”
Todd smiled innocently. “They would have insisted you re-exam anyway.”
“And you have a hot date,” Bella said, noticing Todd was dressed for going out instead of his usual scrubs.
“I’m taking Jennifer to the Galleria for brunch—unless you want me to cancel.”
Bella knew he would. Todd might be a serial dater looking for the girl of his many dreams, but he took his job seriously.
“Oh, go on. At least one of us has a love life. Who else is here?
Todd’s shoulders tightened. “Peabody is in the lab and Jeffries is scrubbing floors.”
“In other words, I’m alone.” Peabody was good at finding clues on clothes, but turned green during dissections. Jeffries was a nice man, but she could hardly ask the janitor to assist with an autopsy.
“It’s an on-call morning,” Todd said. “The Saturday party crowd was restrained enough to end up in hospital instead of the morgue.”
Bella saw his worried look when he added. “Jordy is scheduled to come in at noon. I could call and see if he can come in early.”
“Oh, take your puppy-dog pout and go already.”
“Thanks, boss,” he said and rushed out before something happened to keep him there.
A cursory examination of the corpse made a mockery of everything she learned in med-school. The sex of the victim was indeterminate. No obvious sexual organs or orifices. No distinguishing scars, tattoos or birthmarks. Not even a blemish. In fact, the baby-smooth skin didn’t have a wrinkle in it. There was definitely something wrong with this character that had nothing to do with a lack of blood or missing head.
Bella grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray then put it back. She was going to need something to stand on to be able to lean over the body. Lab stool in place, she stepped up and looked down at the hulking brute. There was something disconcerting about a body with such extreme trauma, but no blood or bruising.
“Ready or not big fella, it’s show time.”
She probed the chest for the sternum to start her cut, but wherever she poked it felt more like marshmallow than firm flesh or bone.
“Did someone steal your ribs as well as your head?”
Bella pressed the scalpel to the top of the torso and made a smooth incision down to the groin. She blinked in confusion. Did she imagine a delay between the cut and the skin actually parting? She cut deeper into the incision, disturbed that she didn’t scrape against bone.
“You’re beginning to creep me out, buddy.”
She glanced around embarrassed, suddenly conscious she was talking to a body without a head. Not that dead ears could have heard her any better. It just felt weirder this way.
Pushing her fingers into the incision, she braced herself to pry apart the rib cage—and almost fell into the gaping cavity when the bisected chest parted without resistance. The aroma of warm milk and honey confounded her senses almost as much as the ball of light tethered to the center of the hollow chest. No bones, no organs, just a sphere of soft orange light with pulsing white and gold filaments anchoring it.
Bella cautiously cut one of the gold strands with her scalpel. Sure enough, a viscous drop of amber liquid oozed out. She cut a white one and a milky substance dripped onto the light. She wiped the drop off the light with her finger—and the world exploded.
Monstrous faces flashed before her, each dimming the light sphere as it faded. At first she thought the faces were all the same, but after a dozen or so she started to discern differences. A chill settled on her as she realized there was a sadness in the beastly eyes that grew more pronounced with each new apparition. The headless body shimmered as a final face left it and enveloped Bella instead of fading like the others. The last thing she saw before neuron-numbing pain erupted in her head was the body start to change.
~~~
Jack Jury stared at the ceiling and smiled. Who would have guessed a pickup with the improbable name of Sarah-Sue would not only be willing, but insatiable to boot. The slim brunette wasn’t his usual fare; he preferred them top-heavy and full-lipped, but last night he’d settled for enthusiastic over alluring. The new arrival to the big city had been a fun pounce, but now it was time to get her out the door before she mistook delay as a more meaningful invitation. Jury knew better than to let a one-nighter stay for breakfast. Not only was it awkward for him, but the women always seemed to feel something special was implied if he shared a morning meal with them.
“Time to get up,” he said as the thin-lipped girl cracked open sleepy eyes and looked at him adoringly.
She misunderstood his meaning and reached down to massage his soft spot back into action. For a moment he was tempted to let her try, but to what purpose? Frankly, he was bored with her now.
“I have to go to the precinct,” he said firmly, “and you need to get dressed.”
“But it’s Sunday,” the girl complained as she reached for him again. Jury evaded the complication by slipping out of bed and putting on a bathrobe.
“Come on, Sarah-Sue, last night is over, today is a new day.”
This was what he enjoyed least about bedding women for sport, when their naiveté woke up and realized sex was a scant substitute for relationship. Typical of moments like this, the slim girl became self-conscious about her nakedness even though she shed clothing and inhibitions with equal abandon the night before.
“I’m not going to see you again, am I?” she said and pulled the blanket up to cover herself. Unlike many whose eyes welled with tears at this juncture, Sarah-Sue gave the handsome detective a hard stare, the kind he imagined she gave chickens before she hacked their heads off back on the farm.
“I told you last night I’m not ready to settle down.”
“Settle? We barely spent a night together! You’re a real bastard, Jack. You know that?”
Jury knew better than to answer, more expedient to ignore vexed womens’ complaints than argue. He picked up the girl’s clothes and tossed them on the bed.
“You can take a shower before you go if you want.”
“I’m surprised you don’t offer me money considering how you’re treating me.”
“Would that make you feel better?” he asked seriously.
“Screw you, Jack.” Sarah-Sue slipped the dress over her head, stuffed her underwear in her bag and hurried into the living room.
“I’ll call you a cab.”
“No thanks. Calling me a whore is enough.”
“I didn’t...”
The angry young woman snatched her coat from the couch and glared at him. “Yes you did, you just didn’t use the word.”
Abashed, he said, “Look, I know you’re new in town, so at least let me...”
He stopped talking and started ducking when the girl flung a wine bottle at him. He was quick enough to avoid the second one too, but gritted his teeth in pain when a third bottle hit him square in the chest. For some reason, he had expected her to throw only the empty ones.
The bull’s-eye seemed to satisfy Sarah-Sue’s rage, but the fire in her eyes said it would be safer if he didn’t escort her to the door. He made sure to lock it after she was gone though.
Jury cleaned up the broken glass and thought about going back to bed. He didn’t really have to work on a Sunday; it had been a ruse to expedite the girl’s departure. Now that he considered it though, the notion appealed to him. Weeks had passed since he found time to sift through the cold case files for a career-maker; an unsolved case that had stumped everyone else; one that would rocket him to fame. It was time the city learned who the real top cop of Harrow Falls was, a young and handsome detective, not that paranormal geriatric jerk, Mike Angel, who had to be pushing forty.
~~~
The dark apartment was silent. Roiling storm clouds kept the morning sun at bay, making dawn barely brighter than the night. Soft steps padded to the splayed body on the floor and sniffed. A rough tongue licked the cold face until it moaned with life.
Mike opened his eyes and forced sweet draughts of air into his cramped lungs. “Bad one this time, Isaac,” he croaked.
He got a head butt for sympathy. Cat and master were both glad he was alive.
“Pulled you down with the blankets, huh?”
The honey-brown feline ignored the question and set about grooming his ruffled fur.
Mike rubbed his raw nose; Isaac must have been licking for a long time before finally rousing him. He groaned when he sat up and the world started to spin.
“I’m fine, how are you?” he asked Isaac, talking mainly to keep from slipping back into unconsciousness.
Isaac nuzzled him and purred the every-morning question.
“It’s not time for breakfast yet, fish-breath,” Mike told his faithful friend as he scratched the cat behind the ear.
Hearing the magic word, Isaac stood on his hind legs and encouraged Mike with a few rough licks.
“Okay, maybe you did earn a treat,” Mike said before he performed the daring feat of standing up. He touched his tender ribs and thought he heard a mocking whisper.
He staggered to the kitchen, careful not to step on the happy kitty weaving between his feet. Turning on the light turned out to be a mistake. Fireballs exploded in his head and kept him hugging the wall for support even after he shut the light off.
Isaac was restless at the delay. Close to his feeding goal, he stood and clawed gently at Mike’s leg to urge him into action.
“Give me a minute, dark is looking kind of bright right now.”
When the fireworks dimmed, Mike opened the fridge, relieved that the subdued luminance didn’t ignite new pyrotechnics. Isaac was soon enjoying a can of tuna while Mike grabbed some orange juice for himself. Leaving the fridge open, he used the soft light to make his way to the table.
Isaac jumped up and rubbed his cheek on Mike’s arm.
“What do you say, Isaac, too early to call Bella? I could sure use her insight.”
The sated feline answered by settling into Mike’s lap and purring himself to sleep.
“Right, too early.” Mike wondered if he could reach the fridge door to cut off the chill without disturbing Isaac.
A prisoner of his cat’s comfort, he let his mind wander to the night’s events. The last thing he remembered before shifting out of reality was the evening news. Aberrant weather was unmaking the world. The Sahara Desert was a quagmire, drenched by more rain in a week than history had recorded in the last thousand years. Amazon jungles that had never felt temperatures lower than balmy were buried under four feet of snow. Even the underwater volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean showed signs of activity. And if that Ring of Fire chose to vent its pent up pressure, the tectonic upheaval could shift continents to a whole new configuration.
Bad as the news had been, Mike could discern no correlation with the bizarre waking dream. For the first time, one of his visions felt incomplete, as if a vital detail was purposely obscured.
He got up and tucked the snoozing bundle of fur under the blankets. Going back to bed was okay for Isaac, but sleep wouldn’t overcome the vivid images replaying in his head. Better to go to the precinct and see what turned up to validate his vision. Two decades of revelations had removed all doubts about his divinations. He’d even had occasion to help Interpol and the FBI, but for some strange reason, the dreams blurred when he left Harrow Falls.
Of course, there were also the other dreams, the ones that haunted him beyond the city boundaries—the ones he tried not to think about because they were too incredible to believe let alone share. He hadn’t even mentioned them to Bella for fear she would think he was as kooky as some of the more envious cops claimed he was. His record was ample rebuttal to their aspersions, but Mike was savvy enough not to give them extra ammunition. That’s why he kept the crazy angel dreams secret from everyone. They were probably just a peculiar legacy of his apostate parentage.
~~~
Back in the alley where beast cornered beauty, six men moved with military precision as they combed through the litter left behind by the police. A big man, apart from the others, frowned at the patch of pink and purple flowers. He scuffed his shoe through them on his way to boot a complaining cat away from a turned over garbage can.
“There is nothing here,” he said in a gruff voice. “Like always, hunter and prey leave no evidence of their passing.”
Other voices confirmed the lack of useful clues.
“We need to get a look at the body,” a man with a short gray ponytail said. “At least we are on the scene in time to examine that for a change.”
“If the police let us,” answered a gentle-faced man.
“Don’t worry,” Ponytail said. “We have a contact here who can help us circumvent police red tape.”
“Are you sure you want to reveal our presence, Dom? We have no reason to expect a friendly welcome—you least of all.” With that pronouncement, the six men with white tabs at the front of their black collars left the alley to check their weapons and pray for guidance.
2. Blood of Milk and Honey
Grimy gray clouds smothered the city in turbid haze, but Mike barely noticed the ominous dawn as his eyes and thoughts focused on the cars in his rearview mirror; he couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed. Arriving at the precinct did nothing to lighten his mood. The detectives finishing the night shift nodded politely; colleagues, not friends. Although Mike had helped all of them solve difficult cases, many were still unnerved by his preternatural sleuthing. His frequent reticence and introspective nature only compounded the problem, making for an uneasy alliance even after sixteen years on the force.
Few knew anything about his past, the aberration of his origin, or the pain that brought him back to the city of his birth. His youth, his mother, and especially his father, were a closed chapter as far as Mike was concerned; a chapter about to be disturbingly reopened by the blinking message light on his phone.
~~~
Bella was in a miserable mood, made worse by the pain in her head and the unwanted presence of the glib young detective grinning at her.
“Good morning, Dr. Babe,” he said with a wink. “Has the sexiest coroner in Harrow Falls had a chance to check out my stiff yet?”
Bella pulled off her glasses and tucked them into her tied-back auburn locks. Practical and professional, her prim appearance and piercing hazel eyes gave her the stern look of a scolding nun.
The impertinence of the young detective made her feel ages older than her thirty-six years—especially when he perched on her desk oozing boyish charm and offending with his indecent stare. There was no doubt where his mind was wandering while his eyes roamed the curves his hands would never be allowed to explore. Jury’s tendency toward overt familiarity had earned him a slapping reprimand from her once already. She had been bent over an examination table looking for clues why the blood on a victim’s shirt didn’t match what bled out of his wounds when Jury rubbed his hand on her backside and squeezed, ostensibly to remove a piece of lint. The force of her slap removed him several paces back. It didn’t stop his juvenile witticisms, just kept the licentious insinuations a safe distance beyond her reach.
“What do you want, Precious?” Bella said, sarcastically using the pet name Jury’s matron mother always cooed when she visited the precinct.
Jury scowled, but his annoyance was quickly masked by a beaming smile that had won over many a hesitant maiden.
“I came for the report on Ichabod,” he said, using the nickname the beat cops had tagged on the headless corpse.
Feeling petty, Bella nonetheless found satisfaction in needling the annoying detective. She flipped through the pile of case folders on her desk. “I don’t recall a Mr. Ichabod.”
Jury’s smile dipped a bit before being propped up again. Only the querulous look in his eyes communicated agitation. It bothered him to say it, but he knew Bella would remain pit-bull stubborn until he made amends for his lewd entrance. She was always so inhibited. He was sure there was a hot body underneath the cold exterior and that thought started him imagining the sexy underwear she might have on under the prim outfit.
“Ahem,” Bella said, pointedly bringing Jury’s focus back to the purpose of his intrusion.
With a sigh of regret, Jury let the enticing image drift away. He put on his most charming smile and proceeded with the necessary penance.
“My apologies, Dr. Maltese, my comment was inappropriate.”
He paused, waiting for Bella to speak, but her stony silence said she was still pissed off and more atonement would be required. If she only didn’t have such a nice pair of...eyes. Damn. He always had problems concentrating while his mind tried to figure out the combination to undoing a woman’s resistance.
Jury put on his best puppy-dog look, big brown eyes begging to be let off the hook. Bella was apparently not an animal lover and ignored his silent hangdog plea. Her buttoned-to-the-top white blouse reminded him of a nun’s habit and conjured up a host of irreverent images, most involving her squirming naked in his lap.
Bella gave him a sharp look, her brows pinching in annoyance as if she saw into his roving thoughts. The penetrating stare was unnerving and Jury blurted out a better apology before his imagination led him deeper into trouble.
“I was out of line, Dr. Maltese, I’m sorry. I will endeavor to be more circumspect in the future. Can I please have your report on the decap vic brought in this morning?”
Bella plucked her glasses out of her hair and put them on. “No.”
The befuddled detective’s mouth went as round as his bulging eyes. Bella could almost hear him think, What does the witch want, didn’t I sound sincere enough?
She saw Jury take a deep breath and held up her hand to cut off the impending protest.
“I have to speak with Spec Ops about some issues, so I’ll take the report up to Mike myself.” The anomalous anatomy of the cadaver was going to remain classified until she had a chance to talk to someone sensible. She certainly wasn’t going to share that she had an impossible corpse on her hands. Make that past tense. There was no body left, not after she touched the light.
Bella noticed Jury still standing there, his scrutiny betraying that he was trying to figure out a way to cajole the secret from her.
“You can go now,” she said and dismissed him, absently rubbing her left temple. The headache from the exploding light still lingered, but at least the visions of monstrous faces were gone.
~~~
Jury pursed his lips and bit back the bevy of questions vying for voice. He was sure this was the breakout case to launch him into celebrity. He just had to keep it away from Voodoo Mike and find out what Bella was hiding.
Without another word, he left the coroner’s office and hustled down the hall to Toxicology and a soon to be lucky lab technician named Mandy McConell. Jury knew the delicious blond was dying to be one of his conquests, although a more meaningful relationship probably fueled her fantasies.
With an inward shrug, he cast off thread-thin fetters of guilt. Everyone knew his motto: Jack’s looking for a bad girl that can make him a good boy. The quip, spoken in jest one day, stirred up hope in many ambitious young women. They took his motto as a challenge to seduce their way into the society pages. Thanks to his mother’s six marriages and smart business sense, Jury was rich and well connected.
He slipped into the Tox Lab, happy to notice everyone was gone for lunch. Everyone that is, except the sweet delight perched precariously on the edge of her lab stool. Jury admired Mandy’s long tanned legs stretching out from her hiked up skirt. One foot rested on a rung of the high stool while the other barely reached the floor. Oh yes, the buxom blond might be more than a one-nighter, maybe a whole week.
Jury was glad Ball-Buster Solomon wasn’t there. The ex-pugilist lab director was none too fond of the detective right now. Two technicians quit because they could no longer work or live together. One was angry Jury wouldn’t date her again after their weekend at the lake; the other, because his girlfriend let Jury talk her into going there in the first place. Solomon held a grudge because he still hadn’t found suitable replacements.
Athletic grace let Jury sneak up on Mandy unnoticed. He leaned close and ran his fingers sensually down her spine as he whispered. “Whatcha lookin at, gorgeous?”
Mandy arched her back from the unexpected caress and lost her balance as she spun around in surprise. She toppled backwards and grabbed what was nearest to hand. Buttons popped off Jury’s shirt, but the brief hold did nothing to help Mandy regain her balance. Fortunately for her, Jury was fast. He snaked an arm around Mandy’s waist and kept her from crashing her pretty head on the metal counter. Unfortunately for her, the arrested fall moved momentum elsewhere and put her buttocks in motion. She started to slide off the stool, but Nimble Jack came to the rescue again and grabbed a handful of soft leg just above the knee.
For a moment, Mandy hung half off the stool, legs splayed, one held high by Jury, the other floundering low in search of footing. Jury’s boyish smile was in full bloom as his eyes drank in the bawdy display. He watched red heat creep into Mandy’s cheeks and spread in a ruddy flush down her neck to the rosy cleavage of her up thrust breasts.
“Nice...outfit,” Jury said with a spine-tingling smile as his eyes traced down to the lacy trim of light-green panties peeking out from under Mandy’s bunched up skirt.
Mandy was breathless and could only nod to the compliment. Here was one of the most eligible bachelors in Harrow Falls holding her in a lusty embrace. She looked into his deep brown eyes and melted a little more. Dreamily, she realized Jury was rubbing her knee against his crotch, the rhythmic movement massaging the sweet spot between her own thighs into pleasurable sensation.
A movement by the door caught her attention and she saw Dr. Solomon. Flustered to find herself so flagrantly exposed in front of her boss, Mandy jerked her leg out of Jury’s hand and accidentally kneed the stunned detective in his inflated ego.
Jury folded with a whimper and clutched his wilting ardor. He looked up at Mandy accusingly, but the pretty lab technician was busy rearranging herself to hide the indecent display of legs and lace. He didn’t understand what was happening until he heard the acid-etched voice behind him.
“Jury, you little pissant, get out of my lab before I shove your dumb white ass through the shredder.”
Jury took one look at the ex-boxer’s stance and knew the glaring ebony giant could beat him to a pulp without spilling the coffee he held. Damn, now he would have to wait until later to find out if Mandy knew what Bella was keeping secret.
He glanced at Mandy, but the flustered girl was diligently focusing on her work. “I’ll call you later,” he whispered and hurried hunched over to the door, only to be blocked by the immovable girth filling the doorway.
Solomon straightened Jury with a painful jab in the chest using a thick finger that could probably break bricks. “Stay away from my staff, pretty boy,” Solomon growled and slammed his iron finger into Jury’s sternum again. “Amanda is a nice girl and not one of your jolly dollies. Make her shed a single tear and I’ll rip your spine out through your face, hear me?”
Jury swallowed back bile kicked up by Mandy’s unfortunate knee jerk and prodded perilously higher by Solomon’s jackhammer pokes. He was certain the bull-sized lab director would do more than promise harm if he puked on the immaculate white lab coat.
“Yes, sir,” he croaked and fled through the tight opening when Solomon shifted enough to let him squeeze to safety.
A few paces down the hall, Jury felt his excitement rise again. He was sure Mandy would be more than willing to offer touching apology to the injury she’d inflicted. Far from deflating his stimulation, the thick-necked doctor’s threat heightened it. Ever since his early youth spent spying on the private pleasures of the downstairs maids, Jury found the spice of danger an aphrodisiac without equal. He hadn’t felt this aroused since he bedded the niece and daughter of his fourth stepfather in the deacon’s own bed.
He would just have to make sure Mandy didn’t go crying to Solomon when he was done with her.
3. Father Priest
Bella gnawed at her lower lip. The cool-headed voice of reason she so badly wanted to consult was gone. Mike had been called away on a family emergency; his cell phone forgotten on his desk. There was no way to tell if or when he might be back; better to try him at home in the evening.
In the meantime, she would just have to check the city library’s collection of occult texts and reference books on her own. Her Internet search had been fruitless except for outlandish references to beasts from Hell stalking angels on Earth.
~~~
Mike was anything but level-headed as he stood waffling on the snow-covered steps of Holy Rosary Cathedral. The gothic arches, florid carvings and flying baroque buttresses were a busy architecture standing in stark contrast to the plain functionality of the half-empty office towers around it. The church’s tenant was eternal, but the abandoned business district was nearly as dead as the miscarried dream of silver that birthed it.
The chill turning his heart into an iceberg had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the message on his voice mail. He disliked answering the familial summons, but morbid curiosity had proven stronger than his hostility toward the summoner. Why couldn’t the specter of his boyhood anguish stay dead? Mike debated ignoring the call from his past, but it was a fleeting temptation. For better or worse, he had to confront the man responsible for his mother’s misery before her premature death.
Did it have to be a church though? Ever since he learned the truth about his father, places of holy worship made Mike feel claustrophobic. He hadn’t stepped into a church since his mother’s funeral twenty years ago. Confronted with entering one now, old resentments began to twist his gut. Standing there freezing his ass off, shivering not with cold but apprehension, Mike felt more like a little boy than a hard-nosed detective.
He walked up the steps and pulled open one of the ornately carved mahogany doors, an affectation from a time both church and city had money to lavish on frippery. His mother’s influence during childhood lived on a level below adult consciousness and Mike caught himself dipping his fingers in the basin of holy water. Irritated, he wiped them on his coat instead of making a sign of the cross and wondered what other subliminal lessons might surface here. His mother had been a nun and the fealty of her faith was firmly imprinted on Mike’s soul even if his own faith was fully expunged by his father’s betrayal.
Walking between the rows of polished wooden pews toward the heart of the church surged heat into Mike’s head and sent a shiver of apprehension down his spine. Retribution waited in the shadows, in the confessional, in the rafters. He stopped and took a deep breath, trying hard to calm the irrational emotions churning his usual calm into smothering anxiety.
He felt the same oppressive pressure that always accompanied the troubling dreams when his namesake angel haunted his sleep. Ten years of sharing the struggle to fend off madness had forged a vicarious bond between tormented angel and troubled detective. It was strictly a voyeuristic relationship; Michael suffered and Mike shared the angel’s anguish. The initial visions seemed to be memories of Michael’s time in Heaven because angels like Lucifer and Gabriel were present, but the dreams quickly tuned to a time where the archangel’s predicament was solitary and disturbing.
Mike shook off the supernatural burden. His own situation encumbered him with more than enough strain. The closer he came to the altar, the more his racing heart inflamed his thoughts and made breathing difficult. He was on the verge of tearing out of the church to the blessed relief of the numbing cold outside when a leprechaun in black robes stepped out of the alcove beside the altar.
The old priest’s diminutive stature made the dimpled pot-of-gold smile seem enormous. His short-shorn white hair showed traces of the original fiery red.
“Welcome to the Lord’s sanctuary, my son.”
My son? The suggestion of recognition froze Mike in his tracks. He dug deep to bring back the self-controlled adult he was instead of the forlorn boy his emotions wanted him to be. Was this the author of his summons?
“You know me?”
“If ye be Katrina’s boy. Mind ye were a mite smaller when yer folks brought ye ta be baptized.”
Mike tried to leech some of the serene old man’s tranquility and forced his taut muscles to unclench. He was glad the old man wasn’t the one who sent for him. There was something about the chuckling little priest that made him instantly likable and hard to hate. And, right now, Mike’s writhing emotions sincerely wanted a target to vent forty years of saved up fury.
The old priest’s gaze was wise and penetrated deep into the troubled detective’s squirming soul. “Ah, so that’s how ye’ve come.” Mike found the pitying look on the kind face strangely offensive. “I’d hoped ye were old enough ta be confirming yer facts afore ye apply the gallows noose.”
What was the old man babbling about? Mike had been ready to like the little priest, but the cryptic comment made him uneasy even as he tried to decipher it. His ragged breathing was coming back and so was the tension migraine.
“The one who sent fer ye is in there,” the disappointed leprechaun said and motioned to a poorly-lit archway behind him.
Mike took a deep breath and bulled toward the dark passage to meet the demon of his boyhood dreams. Childish hurts had healed into nettling scars, but the nearness of confrontation stripped the scabs off and ripped open the old wounds. It was time for a reckoning and Heaven help the soul that stood between Mike and the man he’d come to revile.
As if reading Mike’s intent, the old priest tempted fate and stepped in his way, the kind blue eyes seeking to soothe some of the anger from the avenging angel.
“Be kind ta him, lad.”
Mike choked on the suggestion and answered through gritted teeth. “Like the bastard was kind to my mother?”
“Hate him for what he is if ye like, but not fer what ye think he’s done. At least listen ta him afore ye judge.”
Why was the old priest getting involved? This was a family matter and Mike had absolutely no reason to be nice to the defrocked priest who had wed his mother. Less than a year after Mike’s birth, the abandoning bastard had taken his change of heart back to hide among his brotherhood of holier-than-thou black robes.
“Yer a fool, lad, and yer feelings are twisted the wrong way round. Yer folks loved one another till the day Katrina died. The man ye hate so bad loves her still.” A crafty look darkened the deep blue eyes. “An I guess she loved ye too; that’s why she bid me give ye this.”
The priest’s confident statement confounded Mike, but not half as much as the familiar writing on the envelope the priest handed him. His mother had remained silent on the reason for his father’s leaving, saying only that he was a good man who had done what was right. How could deserting his wife and newborn child be right? For the first time in a long time, Mike remembered how his mother cried when he burned the only photo she had of his father. He was fifteen then and the world was black or white. Understanding that truth was innumerable shades of gray came much later, a distinction lost again in the heat of the present moment.
“Yer be recognizing her purple prose,” the priest said with a disarming chuckle that referred to Katrina’s penchant for using purple pens. “Put aside yer hate and open yer heart.”
Mike dearly wanted to read the letter then and there, but decided privacy was needed to hear his mother’s postmortem message.
Without another word, the old priest walked past Mike and knelt in front of the altar, hands clasped, head bowed and lips moving in silent prayer.
Disconcerted by the priest’s unexpected gift, Mike uncharacteristically made a sign of the cross and looked heavenward. It may have been coincidence, but just then the sun cut through the clouds and beamed through the stained glass window high above the altar. Light bathed the old priest in a rainbow of color as if Heaven gave him its benediction.
Determined to enter with pride, Mike put the letter away and held his anger to a low simmer. He took a deep breath and went to meet his father for the first time.
4. Divine Madness
At the heart of Heaven stand two trees; one the seed of life, the other a conduit for knowledge. Both are eternal, yet one is dying. At the heart of the Heavenly Host stand two arch-angels; one seeks to sustain life, the other condemns the effort.
“How dare you?” Michael yelled. “It was forbidden!” The scowls on the chorus of angels backing him made it clear they agreed with their raging leader’s assessment.
“Desperate times demand exceptional measures,” was Lucifer’s calm reply.
“You mean reckless measures! I warned you not to tamper with divine providence.” Michael seethed as he stood before the Adversary. “What you did was reprehensible.”
“And your idea was better?”
“I obeyed the proscription.”
“You embraced our doom by doing nothing,” Lucifer said softly. “At least I tried to save us.”
“Save us? Your sacrilege has tainted us with transgression. You have condemned us!”
“No, the Tree of Knowledge condemned us by dying. I gave us one final hope for salvation.”
“Blasphemer!” Michael shouted, his hands clenching and unclenching as if he was subconsciously strangling his enemy brother. “You are a foul-tongued serpent that forks the truth.”
“Your truth is nothing more than faith in your convictions. While you bent your efforts toward avoidance, I acted on the only choice left.”
Lucifer’s continued calm at the center of the raging storm of denunciation infuriated Heaven’s leading hierarch further. “You soil all of Heaven with your sin and invite the Creator’s wrath by your arrogance.”
Lucifer raised his arms in a pose of crucified endurance and addressed the throng behind Michael. “Gladly will I accept His chastisement then, for it means He has not abandoned us as we imagine.”
“That is your pride, the infernal fire that burns within you—to know the mind of our Creator.”
“We both seek enlightenment, in this we are the same.”
An unnatural tranquility came over Michael and he looked at Lucifer with paternal patience. “No, my nefarious brother, in this we differ as night and day. My faith does not waver when our Creator tests my devotion. We may not comprehend His silence, but it surely has a purpose.”
“What purpose is served in cutting off our communication with Him?”
“We will know when He wants us to know,” Michael said as if it was the only rational interpretation. “There may still be hope for the faithful if our deeds remain devout.” The notion seemed to give him comfort and rekindled the fire in his eyes. “You, on the other hand, are forsaken. No amount of prayer can expiate your vile transgression.”
Lucifer looked at his eons-old friend and a visible sadness settled on him. “We both acted according to our beliefs,” he said. “You speak in absolutes, but right and wrong are a mutable truth.”
If Lucifer was seeking vindication in logic to forestall Michael’s vindictiveness it was wasted effort as the fire of the fanatic flared in Michael’s golden gaze. “Your truths are gilded lies. Better to perish than transgress the way you did.”
“Let Heaven accept its doom with unwavering devotion then, but I will not so easily accept our downfall.”
Michael's mouth twisted. “You are damned. Repent and find your way back to the faithful or abjure salvation forever. We live to serve and stay blessed only if we obey without question.”
“You mean obey blindly,” Lucifer said with equal disgust as he turned his back on Michael’s anger. There was an eternal sadness in his eyes as he surveyed the great withered trunk that marked their divine abandonment.
With an effort, Gabriel banished the haunting recollection. He knew it wasn’t Lucifer’s transgression that spiraled the Heavenly Host into self-destruction. Lucifer’s failure to prevent death from intruding in the cradle of life was only the first tragedy that pushed the angels toward an uncertain destiny.
The Tree of Knowledge dying cursed them in ways they could never have imagined. Being deprived of the erudite fruit, and through it the communication of purpose, taught them grief then dissension, which ultimately shattered their single soul into unshared fragments. After a lifetime of mind-sharing, psychic separation imprisoned them in the stark stillness of individuality.
Millennia of isolation taught them all despair and now pushed Gabriel to the brink of apostasy. Like Lucifer, he had no choice left except to consider the unthinkable—flee from the one place all of humanity would willingly die to enter.
Not for the first time, the despondent archangel stared at the Seal of Forbidding barring his escape, put there by Michael in a fit of fury to lock out the proscribed enemy. Enemy! Even now, Gabriel had difficulty ascribing such a vengeful label to angels who had served as one Host in ancient times. The seal didn’t look forbidding, just a smear of baked mud plastered over the seam between the great gold doors. Truth isn’t always apparent and Gabriel knew it was more than mud that warded the Gates of Heaven shut. Michael had used the Fire of Righteousness to burn divine vengeance into the baked earth.
“As I live, so do the seals remain secure,” Michael had told them. “Touch not the ward which bars the gates lest you perish in the attempt.”
Strange how the angels had come to doubt their own immortality after the Tree of Knowledge died. Paralyzed by indecision, they had watched the silver leaves tarnish and drop to the ground, never recognizing it as the augur of impending tragedy. It wasn’t until the fruits of knowledge began to rot into foul-smelling lumps of unformed erudition that they understood their predicament. By then the cause was lost, their only means of contact with the Creator putrefying into silence.
Gabriel recalled the surge of divine power and mind-expanding bliss that imbued an angel who ingested a ripe fruit. Thus blessed with instruction from the Creator, the chosen angel became a conduit for new knowledge, the instrument whereby the command seeded in the fruit could manifest into reality. One angel, one fruit, one command, that’s how it had always been—until Adam and Eve. They broke the rule and shared the last fruit. Shamed into exile, the progenitors of the aerth-born disappeared with the secret of the divided final message.
“Go into Paradise and find them for me,” Lucifer had whispered to Beelzebub as Michael stormed out of the Garden with his followers. Lucifer had then turned to Gabriel. “Remember this day, my brother, for it marks the beginning of our end.”
Beelzebub never returned. He and other angels on missions when the gates were sealed remained lost, locked out of Heaven, condemned in a way even Lucifer wasn’t.
With a forlorn sigh, something he seemed to be doing more frequently of late, Gabriel walked away from the gold prison doors. Countless excursions into the wasteland surrounding the City of Angels had deadened his senses to the blight around him. In the time before the Sundering, a profusion of flowers filled the air with the sweet smell of Spring. Now, every step crackled with dry death as a trail of dust followed him up the hill to a protruding boulder; a favorite spot to sit and brood down the hill at the barrier that was once a gateway to Paradise.
Gazing at the symbol of his desolation, Gabriel concentrated his will and sparked azure angelfire from his fingertips. The lavender lightning coiled around the nearby blades of dry grass, plucked them up, and wove the fine fibers into a sheet of parchment. As the paper settled on his lap, he pulled out a dead flower and ran angelfired fingers over the rootless stem to char the tip.
He hadn’t dared speak of his inner torment to anyone. Bad enough he was confounded by doubts, worse to infect others with his apostasy. Still, he needed to clear his muddled mind into some sort of sensibility, and writing down his turbulent thoughts was all he could think to do.
What have we done to ourselves?
When did we stop being divine and become damned?
The death of the immortal Tree put an end to our illusions of eminence and taught us how fragile our imagined superiority was. When it died, certainty turned to contention. We discovered discord as we grappled with the insecurity of individuality. We pretend the past by suppressing the new uniqueness that frightens us. We mask our despair with incessant prayer—seeking ambiguous penance for an uncertain sin. We deny the truth of what we have become, readily branding independent expression anathema, a sin of indeterminate transgression.
Michael has organized angels of like mind to form the Shepherds of Virtue. He has tasked them to watch over the flock and guide faltering steps back to the path of righteousness—as he defines it.
He concerns me. His power is growing, becoming unstable. His vexation is nearly constant now and his eyes burn with damning passion. What haunts him so?
Too many derive their faith from the strength of his conviction. They adopt his certainty as their own and refuse to question the maniacal zeal with which dissent is condemned.
I feel like I am confined in an asylum. Michael leads us, but his mercurial delusions dictate rules for our lives that contradict with absurdity from one to the next. He used to be our calming influence, now he spends his time ranting like a lunatic lost in...
Gabriel stopped writing. There was no need to go on. The theme of his disarrayed thoughts was evident—and damning. His betrayal was complete and swept him firmly out of indecision into unwanted sedition.
Delusion! Lunacy! Asylum! Disturbing facts, treacherous thoughts; frightening in their implication. The sour taste of unwelcome truth was hard to swallow, as was the bitter revelation that he would have to incite rebellion to save Heaven.
An eternity of denial was revealed with terrible clarity by sparse words that spoke volumes about Heaven’s predicament. He had just marked himself as a heretic and risked Michael’s wrath—certainly the condemnation of the Shepherds by committing dissent to paper.
He was so engrossed in thought that he didn’t realize someone had crept close until he heard the crunch of dry grass behind him. Before he could react, a chill voice confirmed that his private treason was exposed.
“You are a fool to say such things about our illustrious leader,” the raspy whisper accused.
Gabriel turned, backed away and stood to challenge, all in one move. Or at least tried to. In actual fact, he spun, slipped, and tumbled off his rocky perch to fall in a wretched tangle in the dust as a mocking laugh proclaimed his guilt
5. Transgressions
With a shake of his head and a faltering ability to keep his animosity in check, Mike left the illuminated priest to his prayers at the altar and walked through the dimly-lit passage to the vestry. He swung the door open quietly to the sound of a bellowing voice.
"You are an ignorant savage."
Staying in the shadow of the ornate archway, Mike peered around the corner to where five priests sat around a table by the window while a burly sixth pounded his fist on the table in anger.
“How dare you suggest voodoo superstition is the equal of Christian faith?” the burly priest said. “Just because your pagans corrupt our saints for their polytheist ceremonies, does not make voodoo a valid religion. For God’s sake, they butcher animals.”
The object of his attack, a lanky, Rastafarian-looking fellow, flashed his boisterous colleague a disarming smile.
“You not tinkin in contex, bro. De Bible be full of animal sacrifice for God’s sake, human sacrifice for His sake too. All I be sayin is Obeah be tousands of years older dan de Catolic fait. Our bible be borrowin just as much from odder beliefs as Obeah be takin from us.
The standing priest bunched his shoulders and sputtered at the statement he obviously considered blasphemy. Before he could unleash the bitter denunciation building heat in his flushed face, a gentle-faced priest piped in.
“You will never convince the rest of us, Josef,” he said to the Rasta. “The Bible is our rule book. It leaves no room for supplemental scripture, no matter the quality of the source. We are too tradition-bound to embrace your cosmopolitan view.”
“Dats wat I mean, bro. De King James Bible be an edited antology. It not even an exact copy of de original text. We limit our understandin—and our fait—by ignorin texts like de Gnostic gospels and Dead Sea Scrolls. Dey don make de Bible less, dey make de contex richer.”
The burly priest slammed his hand on the table. “You’re a fool, Josef. How did an idolater like you ever get on this team?”