Angels on Fire (2 page)

One Sunday, when she was about three years old, Brother Peacock smiled and motioned for Lucy to draw closer, showing her where to grab the rope. She peered upward, trying to see through the narrow hole cut in the ceiling and catch a glimpse of the bell. Brother Peacock gave the rope a mighty tug, then quickly stepped back and let go of the pull. The moment Brother Peacock released his grip, Lucy sailed upward as if pulled aloft by the hand of God. She felt no fear, only delight. And she knew, at that very moment, that this was how the angels flew. Then, as quickly as it had begun, Brother Peacock resumed control, and Lucy had no choice but to drop back to earth.

She had come closer to experiencing God during that brief moment than she ever had seated in the straight-back pews. But there was no way she could have explained that to her parents. She was too young and lacked the ability to express herself. Even if she could have, it still would not have changed things.

By the time she was old enough to enter elementary school the church’s directorate voted to remove the old bell and replace it with a public address system that played taped carillons. It even chimed out ‘Joy To The World’ during Christmas time. The day the old bell was removed, the diminishment of her faith began. Odd that she would have forgotten that until this moment. But with the resurgence of the long-buried memory came a flash of insight so simple in its profundity she couldn’t help but laugh. As far back as she could remember, whenever she dreamt of flying, the sensation she experienced in her sleep was not that of swimming, as everyone else seemed to describe, but of being plucked from gravity’s relentless grip and drawn higher and higher—to the very vault of Heaven. To think that such a small thing, that happened so long ago, had stayed alive in her dreams without her being aware of it. With a laugh, she regained her footing and hopped back down to the safety of the roof.

This was no way to deal with all that Nevin had done to her. For one thing, it would only make him think he was more important than he already. She could easily picture him sipping cheap Chablis from a plastic cup at an opening, shaking his head in disdain while telling everyone how she couldn’t face life without him.

And she could just as easily imagine what Cousin Beth and the others would make of it as they clustered in Mam-Maw’s remodeled kitchen, guzzling coffee while their husbands stuffed their faces with deviled eggs and cold cuts. If she closed her eyes she could hear Cissy Tildon, the town gossip, hissing like a goose: “
What did I tell you? Just like her mother!”

Her heart was still fluttering, like a finch trying to escape its cage, as she made her way back to the stairs. What she needed was a nice hot cup of tea liberally laced with whiskey. Then she’d put on some music to help her put things in their proper perspective—say, Janis Joplin or Bessie Smith. After that she’d take a good, long, hot soak in the tub; the kind that fogs your brain like a bathroom mirror. Yeah, that was definitely better than jumping off the roof.

She was so preoccupied trying to recall whether or not there was still any Dewar’s left in the pantry, she didn’t see the thing sprawled at her feet until she tripped over it.”What the fuck?” she exclaimed as she struggled to get back to her feet. The heels of her palms stung from striking the roof’s tarpaper surface, but she was otherwise unharmed.

She wondered what she could have fallen over. There weren’t any TV aerials or vents anywhere around. Then she saw the arm, as white as marble against the tar-paper roof-top near her foot, near her foot. She gasped and dropped solidly back down on her rump.

There was a man sprawled face down less than a yard away from her, with a blanket of some sort draped over his back. Judging from what she could see of his arms and legs, the man was otherwise naked. His head was turned so that the face pointed away from her, but she could tell that he had long, fair hair. She couldn’t make out if he was breathing or not.

Her first thought was that some junkie got onto the roof for a fix and had o.d.’d instead. But that was impossible. She scanned the whole area the moment she got there. And there was no way someone could have come onto the roof without her noticing since she arrived. And any junkie worth his salt who saw her half-assed balancing act wouldn’t have stayed around to shoot up. They liked privacy, and they certainly didn’t care for cops poking around asking questions. So, if he wasn’t a junkie, then where did he come from?

He couldn’t have dropped out of the sky—could he? Maybe that thing across his back was a parachute. But somehow she doubted nude night-time skydiving over Manhattan was a new fad she’d missed seeing mentioned in the Lifestyles section of the
Times.

Maybe he fell out of a plane? But she hadn’t heard an explosion overhead, and even if she
had,
that wouldn’t explain the guy being bare-assed naked. Besides, she suspected that someone plummeting from a disabled aircraft—starkers or not—would have made a far splashier landing than this guy had. In any case, no matter how he managed to get on the roof, the poor bastard was probably dead.

Lucy eased forward, steeling herself for the sight of blood and brains. As she moved closer, the cloak across the man’s back began to gleam, reflecting the dim light from the surrounding buildings. It possessed an iridescent quality that seemed oddly familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. As she bent to get a better look, her eyes widened and she gasped aloud. What covered the man’s back wasn’t a blanket or a parachute.

They were wings.

They grew out of his shoulder blades and were roughly three feet wide and, although folded, easily twice that in length. The feathers were dark and shiny, like those of the hummingbirds that used to flit about Mam-Maw’s back porch, sipping sugar-water from the feeders she set out for them.

Even though Lucy knew what she was seeing was indisputably real, her mind was still reeling in disbelief. With a trembling hand, she grasped the angel’s bare shoulder and rolled it onto its back. She’d expected it to be heavy—or at least to possess the weight of a grown man—but it proved surprisingly light.

As shocked as she’d been by the wings, the rest of the angel left her speechless. One thing was for sure: it certainly wasn’t the kind of angel they’d taught about in Sunday School. Although it was at least six-and-a-half feet tall, with broad shoulders and a deep chest, it was as smooth as a Ken Doll between the legs. There wasn’t even a hole to pee out of. The lack of sexual organs was so startling, it took Lucy a moment to register that the angel was also lacking a belly button and nipples.

The face was undamaged and was an eerie mixture of feminine and masculine features, the chin as hairless as its chest and crotch. She gingerly pressed the flat of her hand against the angel’s breastbone. It didn’t seem to be breathing, nor did it have a pulse or heartbeat, yet the skin was warm to the touch. It must have crash-landed on the roof just before it died. That would explain that sudden gust of air that nearly toppled her off the ledge.

She didn’t want to dwell on what might kill an angel. What was important was that she’d found it. It looked like things were finally beginning to look up for her, after all.

“You’re coming with me, pal,” she grunted as she hoisted the dead angel across her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Like they say: finder’s keepers.”

Chapter 2

For once she was glad she was living in New York City, where people minded their god-damned business, even when little old ladies screamed at the top of their lungs. She didn’t want to have to explain herself to any of her neighbors if they happened to look out their door and see her hot-footing it down the stairs with a dead angel draped over her shoulders. She was relieved to discover the body weighed no more than a large bag of groceries, and she was able to balance it easily enough with one hand as she dug into her jeans pocket for the keys to her door.

The apartment was dark—which was fine with her. She didn’t want anyone across the way looking out their window in time to see her drag what looked to be a nude man into the living room and deposit him on the red velour couch she’d scrounged from the Broadway Flea Market.

What to do? What to do? Her mind was racing so fast it was almost impossible to think coherently enough to act. The media. She needed to notify the media immediately. The newspapers, the networks, the tabloids....But which ones? And which one first? Should she call The
Times?
The
Post
? The
Daily News?
The
Journal? Newsweek
? The
Inquirer
? The
Star? Weekly World News?
Associated Press? Reuters?
Rolling Stone? Spin? Christian Science Monitor?
CBS? NBC? ABC? CNN? The BBC? Fox? MTV? CBN? Oprah? Sally Jesse Raphael? Geraldo? Or maybe she ought to call the big kahunas themselves direct—Rather, Jennings, Walters, Brokaw? Hell, maybe they could get ol’ Walter and Dave out of retirement for this one.

She had a vivid image of herself splashed across the front page of the
Choctaw County Courier
, standing next to the dead angel, dangled by its ankles like a prize swordfish, with the banner headline:
Local Woman Discovers Proof of Afterlife.
Yeah, that’d make ‘em sit up and take notice at Dooley’s Diner out on the highway, for damn certain. In your face, redneck muthers!

Telephone book.
That’s
what she needed. The telephone book. She had to start calling around immediately. She frowned, scanning the darkened room for the phone. She liked being mobile when she talked on the phone, but she didn’t trust cordless models. It was too much like talking on a kid’s walkie-talkie for her tastes, so her telephone had an extension cord long enough to use for a double-dutch jump-rope competition. She spotted the length of white extension cord leading up the narrow hallway to her bedroom. She sprinted after it, dragging the phone out from under the bed like a recalcitrant pet.

She was going to be so famous her face would be on postage stamps! And she was going to be
sooooo
rich! Just thinking about it made her start to giggle. It was the same nervous, half-mad giggle she’d experienced at her grandfather’s funeral years ago, only now she didn’t bother trying to smother it with a clutch purse. She was going to be so rich she could hire people to cook for her, clean for her, drive for her, even shit for her, if that’s what she wanted! Hell, she’d be wealthier than a thousand Gwendas! She’d have more than enough money to bring Nevin running back to her, begging forgiveness.

And maybe—just
maybe
, mind you—she’d think about taking him back.

No doubt the Smithsonian or the Vatican or some super-rich weirdo would want to buy the dead angel from her for several million bucks. Maybe a billion or two. Or she could put it on tour, like they did King Tut, and charge people five bucks a pop to see a real-live dead angel. That was definitely worth thinking about. Then there was the licensing, of course. T-shirts, coffee cups, satin baseball jackets, lunch-boxes, Under-Roos, the whole nine yards. She’d need an agent to handle that for her. She had a friend whose brother was a writer who was repped by William Morris. Naw. Not enough clout. It had to be CAA or nothing. Then there was the movie version of her story—maybe they could get Winona Ryder to play her, and Sissy Spacek to play her mom? If they could get Johnny Depp for the angel, that would be
really
cool.

She tucked the phone under her arm and hurried back down the hall towards the kitchen, which was located just off the living room. She kept the NYNEX phone book on top of the refrigerator, alongside the cookie-jar shaped like a bear and an ever-growing pile of Chinese home-delivery menus. Surely the Yellow Pages had listings for all major news-gathering agencies in the city...

As she headed in the direction of the kitchen, a shadow moved towards her, blocking her path. Lucy screamed and dropped the phone, which shattered as it struck the bare wood floor. She took a rapid step backward, trying to distance herself from the figure blocking her path, only to have it move forward. As it came towards her, light reflected from the street revealed that what was standing in front of her was not a man—but the dead angel.

Except it was no longer dead.

It towered over her, its golden crown brushing the eight-foot ceiling, looking down at her with strange, colorless eyes that had distorted pupils. She hadn’t realized the thing was so tall, and then she saw that the angel was levitating—although hardly the same way David Copperfield floats Buicks and Claudia Schiffer around. The angel’s multi-colored wings were beating so furiously they were nothing but blurs, allowing it to hover in place like a hummingbird, its arms outstretched as if welcoming an embrace.

“D-don’t hurt me!” she whispered, her voice tight with fear.

The angel tilted its head to one side, and a look of mild puzzlement crossed its androgynously perfect features.

“Get back!” Lucy said, gesturing violently with her hands. “Get back or I’ll
scream!”

The angel tilted its head to the other side, its gaze fixed on her hands. It did not move away, but neither did it come closer.

“Just stay where you are—understand?” She had no idea if it spoke English, or any language at all, but it seemed to find her hand gestures meaningful. “Don’t come any closer, okay?”

The angel looked her in the eye and smiled the most beautiful, disarming smile she’d ever seen on anyone besides a baby. “Okay,” it said, in a voice like the dawn.

Relieved, she returned the smile and lowered her hands.

The angel promptly swooped towards her like an owl going for a mouse. Lucy turned and fled, shrieking, down the narrow hall to her bedroom. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the angel looming behind her like a rogue Macy’s balloon, its toes skimming six inches above the floor. Choking on a scream, she dove into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her, locking it with trembling hands.

Gasping for breath, she dropped onto the toilet and, head in hands, stared at the door through her fingers. She could hear the angel moving about on the other side—or rather, she could hear its wings, which made a sound like cicadas in summer. She closed her eyes and struggled to calm herself. She had to regain control. She needed to think her way out of this. She could kick herself for freaking out and boxing herself in. Her bedroom might not have a lock on the door, but it
did
have a fire-escape that led directly to the street. While the bathroom door had a lock, its solitary window was the size and shape of a gun-slit. Even if she were contortionist enough to wriggle through it, it still left her five stories up and nowhere to go but down—and quickly, at that. She was trapped, plain and simple.

Lucy slid down off the toilet and onto the cool of the tile floor, slumping against the bowl. “Shit,” she groaned aloud, to no one in particular. Well, at least she was in the right room for it.

So, the angel wasn’t dead after all. It must have been stunned or something. Although she could have sworn it hadn’t been breathing and didn’t have a heartbeat. Then again, maybe angels didn’t have hearts or lungs? It’s not like she was an authority on angel physiology. Hell, now that she thought about it—maybe it wasn’t even an angel. Maybe it was a member of some alien race that was the source of all the angel myths, kind of like those ancient astronauts.

She couldn’t let this get her down. She had to look at the positive side of it. She would make just as much money with a live ancient astronaut as she would with a dead angel—it didn’t really change much at all. If anything, this was actually an improvement! She just had to figure out how to work things to her advantage.

But first she needed to think for a few minutes...

Lucy started awake, uncertain how long she’d been asleep. She knuckled her eyes and spat out fluff from the pink synthetic toilet cozy that was her makeshift pillow. At first she was confused by her surroundings, then remembered how she’d come to be locked in the bathroom.

She pressed her ear against the door, listening for the tell-tale drone of the creature’s wings, but instead heard what sounded like human voices. She opened the door a crack, peering around the jamb into the hallway. The voices became slightly clearer and seemed to be issuing from her bedroom. She recognized one of the voices as belonging to a particularly obnoxious early-morning talk show hostess.

Had she left the television on when she left the house for work the other day and simply forgotten to turn it off? No—she distinctly remembered the apartment being dark when she returned the night before. And when she’d retrieved the phone from under the bed, the portable set perched on her dresser had been as blank as a blind eye.

She quickly closed the bathroom door and rested her shoulder against the jamb, chewing her thumbnail. She had to regain control of the situation, and there was no way she could do that by cowering in the john. Still, she was unwilling to sally forth unarmed against what was, quite literally, The Unknown.

She cast about the room, searching for a possible weapon. The only thing that came close was the plumber’s helper under the sink. It wasn’t much, but it had a wooden handle and the heavy rubber cup provided a certain heft she found comforting on a cave-woman level. And, if the thing tried to jump her, she could always spray it in the face with some perfume, which might give her the time she needed to make her getaway. Thus armed with a toilet plunger in one hand and an atomizer of perfume in the other, Lucy eased out of the safety of the bathroom and cautiously edged her way towards the bedroom.

The door was ajar and there were flickering shadows cast by the light from the television screen. Holding the plunger in front of her like a lion tamer’s chair, she eased the door open a little further and looked inside.

Nothing had been moved, as far as she could tell. The dresser and wardrobe were in their usual state of disarray, with their drawers half-open and the contents hanging out like tongues. The collection of purloined milk-crates that passed for her bookcase were still overflowing with used paperbacks scrounged from the Strand, and her bed remained unmade from the day before. The only thing different, as far as she could see, was the angel perched on the back of the ratty easy-chair beside the bed, staring with rapt attention at the television’s glowing screen.

As she moved farther into the room, she marveled that something as large as the angel could stay perfectly balanced atop the chair. It hunkered with its knees pulled up to its chin and arms wrapped around its calves, the wings occasionally twitching and shivering of their own accord without the angel seeming to be aware of their activities. As Lucy drew closer she could hear the angel muttering to itself under its breath, although it never once removed its gaze from the screen.

The early-morning talk-show hostess, her hair sculpted into something between a helmet and an ornate sea-shell, was blathering on about a certain celebrity’s aerobic exercise video. When the camera cut to a clip of said celebrity hyperventilating to the Oldies, the angel suddenly swiveled its head toward Lucy, like a cross between a barn-owl and Linda Blair in
The Exorcist.

Lucy gasped in alarm and jumped back, raising the plumber’s helper over her head. If the angel perceived this as an aggressive gesture, it did not register as such on its face. Instead, it smiled the same disarmingly open smile as it had before and pointed at the television, announcing in a voice as clear and pure as an alpine spring: “Free wee-wee pads at Puppy City!”

Lucy laughed so hard she dropped both the plunger and the atomizer. And all the angel did was watch, with a slightly perplexed look on its perfect face.