Authors: Erik Schubach
The older woman narrowed her eyes again and said, “You don't need to be here street rat. I've got Angelina here. Your being here just makes things more complicated.”
I almost got whiplash over how fast the dark-eyed girl snapped back, “She's mine. I found her.” She paused and took a deep calming breath. That little glimpse into how close her... gifts... had pushed her grasp on reality to the edge shone through, and it was a little heartbreaking. She quieted and looked down at her eggs before lifting a huge bite with her fork. She spoke softly around her chewing, “Where Angel goes, I go.”
Then she looked over to the former soldier and said almost as a dare, “Besides. I can be... helpful.” She stared at the window and said, “Stacy says the bald asswaffle has driven past the building a couple times this morning. They are looking for Angel.”
Hailey nodded and seemed to grudgingly accept her presence even if she seemed dubious of all the spirit talk.
She exhaled and put on a short leather jacket that just accentuated her assets and amplified those teasing glimpses at her abs.
She started toward the door and paused. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folding knife and tossed it onto the counter and then pulled what looked like a set of brass knuckles from the other and placed them by the knife.
She gave us a wicked smile and then stepped out of the studio, saying as she shut the door behind her, “Back in a flash. Keep away from the windows.”
I quickly locked the deadbolt after her.
Then without a word, Dorian took the now empty plate from my hands and started actually washing the dishes. I felt sort of guilty so I started gathering the food wrappers from everywhere and tidying the space up. It sort of felt cathartic, doing something as normal and domestic as that. Keeping my mind off of what was likely to come.
I had a sneaking suspicion that it was Dorian's intent since she seemed a little smug and wouldn't meet my eyes as we cleaned.
***
A couple hours later, we heard someone coming up the stairs, the locks rattling as someone unlocked them, Hailey called out, “Just me girls.” I relaxed, not realizing just how tense the sound had made me. I noted my wings were half spread like I was ready to dart away at any moment. I growled internally, knowing that I got more than just wings, knowing now with certainty that my fight or flight balance was all fucked up now.
Our purple haired protector froze when she was half way through the door with some bags in her hands. She blinked and asked in an accusing tone, “What did you two do?”
Dori shrugged and said like she was explaining something to a child, “We cleaned up this pigsty.”
She seemed to deflate and stepped in, kicking the door shut absently with the side of her foot. She said in a dejected tone, “But, everything was just how I liked it.”
Dorian just stepped up to her, nonplussed, and took the bags from Hailey, who didn't protest. As she rooted through the bags, she admonished our host, “I live on the streets and my place is more organized than yours was.”
Hailed exhaled, looking like a beat puppy as she looked around. Then she said, “I think we can get you in to see Willamina.”
Willamina? Then my eyes shot wide. That was Billie's name? She would never say. How did Hailey... Ah, it was probably best I didn't ask.
Dorian grinned in triumph and held up a box of hair dye, saying, “Ah ha!”
Hailey squinted an eye in apology as she asked, “You're not attached to your gorgeous long hair are you?”
I blinked in understanding and joked lamely, “Not necessarily, but it seems to be attached to me.”
Dori pulled stepped over to grab the scissors from the desk and snipped them in the air with the glee of a mad scientist, muttering, “Not for long.”
I glanced over to where the maniacal woman seemed to be sharing a smile with someone and I pleaded, “Help?”
Dor said, “She's not helping you out of this one, Angel. Let me put away the groceries and we can work on your mop.” She glanced down at the dye and smiled. “Raven black. Inspired.”
I swallowed.
Then imagined the bizarre contrast. Black hair and white wings. That got me thinking again as I looked over my shoulder to said wings. But they seemed to retreat from me and turned back as I turned. I almost growled and tried not to think about them and was able to get one to move back in view. I was starting to gain some conscious control it seemed.
I asked, “What about these? I'm a freak.”
Hailey snagged another bag from the counter and grinned. “I have an idea about that. She held up an extremely wide roll of Ace bandages, the type used to bind chests of people with broken ribs. And a black sweat jacket and some oversize shirts.
She asked, “Kyphosis anyone?”
I blinked, she knew the medical term for hunchbacks. She was full of surprises. But I realized that this was about the only way to hide away my wings. To bind them to me, and pass the deformation on my back off as some sort of kyphosis or scoliosis. It could actually work.
But with half the county looking for me, thinking me to be another victim of the attackers, would even black hair be enough to disguise me?
I looked at her and asked, “How did things go down at the station?”
She exhaled loudly and shook her head, saying, “They aren't going to press charges against me for killing the men. There are more than enough witnesses and my own surveillance video showing I came to your and Billie's aid. Good Samaritan laws and all. The second man was self-defense. I'm just glad I used my registered shotgun and not any of my other toys.”
Other toys? I looked around before I could stop the action. We hadn't come across anything like that when we cleaned. But then again this was a big building, why would she keep the implied weapons in her room? Why would a club owner need weapons anyway?
I answered myself when she shrugged out of the leather jacket and almost tossed it to the chair before Dorian's scolding look made her hang it on the hook by the door. The motion pulling up her short sleeve a little revealing her Special Forces tattoo again. Right. You can take the girl out of the service, but you couldn't take the service out of the girl.
Then I resigned myself as the two woman came at me like otters to a ball pit.
An hour and a half later I was just staring at myself in the mirror in the bathroom, with two satisfied looking women admiring their handiwork.
I had to blink at the stranger there. My now short cropped black hair was so shiny it reflected the overhead lights and the little sunlight filtering in through the frosted window high in the wall. My brilliant violet eyes were so very odd to see. I had never worn color contacts before, and they were making my eyes water a bit, but I never realized how fundamental our eyes are to our external identity until that moment.
But the most striking thing that changed my appearance, at least in my eyes, were the henna tattoos. Hailey had drawn twisting vines tangled with fishnet going down the left side of my face, snaking down the neck and disappearing under the neckline of the new forest green blouse I wore. They seemingly reappeared out of the sleeve at my wrist where they exploded into a set of wings on the back of my hand.
With my wings bound tight to my back, causing me to sweat, I looked like some sort of co-ed emo who was trying to draw the attention away from her obvious deformity.
I looked sort of, I don't know... dangerous? Even though they couldn't completely do away with what Stace called my girl next door factor. I knew it was true since I looked like somebody's kid sister trying to look edgy, but it worked. I doubt my old foster parents would have recognized me if I walked into their living room.
Before they bound my uncooperative wings for me, I had spread them wide for effect with my new look. Hailey had smirked with a glint of something undefinable in her eyes, and Dorian fanned her face and sighed audibly, causing me to blush into the seventh dimension.
Hailey cocked her head and said, “Ok. Let's see if we can't get in to check on Willamina.”
I was in higher spirits and said to her as I took one last look at the stranger in the mirror. “You do know that she'll try to kick your ass for calling her that, special forces or not.”
The grin she shot back was full of amusement as she asked, “Why do you think I do it?”
We stepped back into the studio, and our purple haired guardian held up a hand and said, “Hang on a moment.” She snagged a belt that looked like a bunch of little silver shields laced together and wrapped it around my waist to hang low off my hip.
I squinted my eyes, did I look like a fashion diva or something? She grinned at my reaction and stepped closer, causing me to step back, bumping my back against the wall as her grin became a smile as she reached for the belt buckle.
I swallowed hard, and I swear Dori was growling.
Then with a smooth movement, the woman who was heating up the room to unbearable levels with her closeness to me grabbed the belt buckle and pulled up, it came apart, and a little blade slid out with the half of the buckle now in her hand.
She stepped back, allowing my libido and me to breathe again. Good lord.
Then she offered a blade to me. It looked like the top of the buckle formed a little t-handle for the small blade. I took it, swallowing as the heat in me died down a bit, and I looked at it as she said, “If someone is hunting you. You need to be able to defend yourself, darlin'. Don't go anywhere unarmed. That's a punching knife, it is better than nothing and can be concealed easily.”
She looked over to Dorian and pulled the folding knife from her jeans and tossed it to her. “You too, street rat. If you insist on tagging along with our girl, you should be armed with something other than a clipboard.”
Dori caught the knife with both hands and then gave a grin that was so toothy, I wondered if she had swallowed a shark when we weren't looking. She said, “Then I won't be needing this.” She reached under her shirt and slid out a big butcher's knife. Where the hell did she get that?
Hai growled, “That's mine.”
My brunette companion shrugged and slid the smaller knife into her pocket. The woman beside me bristled, and I saw her arm muscles flexing as she huffed in restrained anger. Then as she turned away from Dori, I caught the slight smile on her face which betrayed her tough act as she started toward the door, snagging the hoodie she had brought me along the way.
She said, “Shall we, ladies? We need to get back before this afternoon when my people come in to start setting up for the night. I called some repairmen earlier, to patch the wall in the back hall and clean up the...”
She paused before she finished the sentence. I couldn't say it either. The blood.
Before we stepped out into the back alley, Dorian laid her hand on Hailey's arm to stop her from opening the door.
The two did not mix. Oil and water they were, but Dori wasn't intimidated by her and for some reason that made me smile. My mousy savior told her. “Just hold on for a moment. Let my friends check things out. What good are invisible friends if you can't shamelessly exploit them?”
Then she added to thin air, “Oh shut up Stacy.”
I chuckled, imagining the lip my friend was giving her.
Dorian looked expectantly toward the door and just stared expectantly.
Then I staggered again, the now familiar disorientation washing over me in a wave as the whispers and wishes of those around me threatened to overwhelm me. I felt the burning need to do something, to help with the snippets of wishes that seemed to come at me from all around.
I knew exactly where each person was in relation to me. It seemed to stretch out for a mile or so around me, fading into whispers too distant to make out. “I wish mommy didn't have cancer.” “I wish I could afford a new TV.” “I wish I had Julie's confidence.” “I wish I didn't hate myself.”
I gasped as the wave passed, leaving me back with my friends. I realized to my horror that I was getting used to it. I was still on my feet, and I had barely swayed in the current of whatever godforsaken power was inside me against my will as it tried to reach out to the voices.
I glanced over to Dorian, who had a steadying hand on my shoulder, a concerned look on her face. I shook my head and assured them both, “Just another of those wish waves.”
That's what it felt like, like waves lapping up on the beach. Maybe when the number of people around me making wishes reached critical mass, they broke out into a wave like that, and that was what I was feeling.
I remembered hearing Hailey's unspoken wish last night when we had touched and wondered if that was a fluke or if... I placed my hand on Dorian's. Nothing. Then I heated up as she grasped my hand and lowered her's from my shoulder, keeping mine in hers.
I winced as my bruised wing tried to drape over her shoulders from its binding. The pain made me realize how quickly I had gotten used to doing that with her.
She smiled but then turned from me, distracted, and she nodded and said, “Ok.” Then to Hailey she said, “They say they are two blocks out, sweeping back up the hill toward Coit Tower. It's clear.”
Hailey shook her head, a lock of purple falling across her eyes and she pushed the back door open, holding it for Dori and she pulled me out by my hand. Hailey closed the door, making sure it automatically locked then she grinned at us.