Avenging Angels (17 page)

She woke to a light in her eyes, and an unfamiliar voice. “Ma-am?” the voice said. “Ma’am? You all right, ma’am?”

Bree blinked awake. She was seated in a swivel chair at a utilitarian steel desk. A gray filing cabinet sat against the wall in front of her. She sat up, halfway supported by the guard from downstairs. There was one window in this room, and it looked out over Bay Street.

It was dark outside, and the moon was high.

Franklin’s office.

Sasha put his paw on her knee.

“Man,” the guard said. “You was some asleep.”

“Sorry.” Bree took a deep breath and got up.

“You always sleep like that?” the guard asked. He backed away, worry in his face. “Like the dead? It took some doing, waking you up. You didn’t come down for some time, ma’am, so when the third shift come on, I told him, ‘You wait on me,’ I said. ‘I gotta go up to the sixth floor and check on Miss Beauford.’ And here.” He took her arm gently. “You done hurt yourself on something.”

Bree looked at her arm. Something had grabbed at her and missed. Blood beaded her wrist.

“Beaufort,” Bree said. “It’s Beaufort. And I’m so sorry.” She faked a yawn. “You’re right. I just sat down for a minute . . . and I’ve been putting in some long hours lately. I’m truly sorry for your trouble, sir. I appreciate the time you took to come and wake me.”

“Yeah, well. You’d best get along home, now. You got someone to call? You want me to get you a cab?”

“No, no. I live just down the street.” She reached out and shook his hand. “And again, I thank you.”

“You go on out ahead of me. I’ll just turn out these here lights and I’ll be right along.”

Bree looked around carefully. The floor was carpeted in that utilitarian gray indoor-outdoor stuff that was a favorite of car dealers everywhere. The walls were a prim beige. The furniture was standard office-issue steel and Formica-topped. No place for monstrous shapes here.

Sasha nudged her out into the hall. She waited for the guard and trailed him to the elevators, not speaking as the car sped them down to the ground floor. She thanked him one final time as he ushered her out onto the street.

Miles and Belli sat under the streetlamp, their eyes glowing red-yellow in the half-light.

“I thought I recognized that bellow up there,” Bree said. “I think you two showed up just in time. Thank you.”

“Whuff,” Miles said. He put his great head against her hip and gently nudged her toward home.

Oh, Threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!

—Edward FitzGerald,
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

 

 

 

“I don’t know what it was,” Bree admitted. “It started out as Uncle Franklin and then something else showed up.”

“Them Pendergasts,” Lavinia said glumly.

“No,” Bree said, “it wasn’t the Pendergasts. It was something—I don’t know. Older, I guess.”

Five of the seven members of Beaufort & Company sat in the small living room of the house on Angelus Street: Ron, Lavinia, Sasha, Petru, and of course Bree herself. Bree didn’t know if Miles and Belli could be counted as employees; she rather thought not. They sat on either side of the small fireplace, massive and stolid. She was very glad they were there.

The painting of the slave ship hung above them all. When she’d arrived that morning, Bree had been unsettled to discover a change in the seascape. The waters of the ocean were redder, and the sun a more sullen yellow. The faint outlines of a hook now loomed behind the billowing sails of the ship. Bree squinted at it. Maybe it was a beak. The thing that had dived at her had a beak.

“Older, you say,” Petru said. “You can perhaps be more descriptive?”

“No. I can’t. I wish I could.” She moved restlessly in her chair. Sasha sat on the floor next to her. Ron and Lavinia crowded together on the small leather couch. Petru stood behind the couch, hands folded over his cane. Bree dabbed at the wound on her wrist. It was shallow, a mere bird scratch, but the blood wouldn’t clot. The small, steady seepage had soaked through the Band-Aid she’d placed over it the night before. Her bedsheets had been lightly freckled with bright damp spots when she’d wakened.

“I got something else I want to try on that cut on your arm,” Lavinia said. “You sit right there, child.” She got up with a small grunt of effort and stumped out of the room and up the stairs. There had been another change in the old house that morning. The first angel at the bottom of the richly colored frieze on the stair wall that led to the second floor had changed direction. She? he? it? (Ron had informed her some time ago that angels were non-gender-specific) wore a rich purple robe and had silver gilt hair the color of Bree’s own. The angel didn’t look up, now. It had turned halfway, to look back.

As if something were chasing it?

“An anomaly, then,” Petru observed. “I have no knowledge of what this might be.”

Lavinia came back, a clump of sweet-smelling moss in one hand. “This here’s direct from home, from the banks of my river.” She took Bree’s hand and gently patted the fungus over the cut. “And look there, chile. I do believe it’s stopped right up.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Ron said. “Funny. I was reading about pollution on the Nile just the other day. It just,” he added obscurely, “goes to show you.”

Bree, who’d been wondering at the elderly Lavinia scouting the banks of the Savannah for medicinal herbs, suddenly remembered that “home” was Africa. “Whatever it was, whoever it was, I don’t think it was looking for me. It picked me up and dropped me before Miles and Belli jumped to the rescue. Not,” she added, addressing both dogs, “that I wasn’t completely grateful for your help. I am.”

Belli yawned.

“Well, I don’ like to see you move into Franklin’s old place, that’s for certain sure,” Lavinia fussed. “Who knows what all can walk right in that door?”

“It’s getting awkward, not having a temporal facility,” Bree said. “My family asks questions. My friends think it’s odd that they can’t come to my office.”

“There is that,” Ron said. “So what do you want to do?”

“I wondered if any of you had any idea what attacked me last night.”

“A mystery,” Lavinia murmured. “A disturbing mystery.”

“I shall talk to Armand,” Petru said. “But I would think, perhaps, that this is outside of his experience, as well as mine.”

“And the changes in the painting? And the angel on the stairs? What do you think this all means?”

“Something approaches,” Petru said. “But what it is, I cannot say.”

“Ron, do you think Goldstein might have a clue?”

“Only if there’s a case precedent,” Ron said. “He’s a recording angel, not a prophet. But I’ll put out some feelers. Some of the clerks might know something. They scribble away on all kinds of documents throughout Time.”

“Beazley and Caldecott,” Bree said. “What about asking them? They showed up to warn me about this. I’ll bet they know more about this than they’re telling. How do I get in touch with them?”

“I’ll ask them to call on us,” Ron said. “But those two—they’ll only cough up what’s absolutely required. And they’ll want something in trade, Bree.”

“Like what?”

“Your firstborn son. Who knows?” Ron rolled his eyes. “Depends. But it’s never something you want to give up. I can guarantee it.”

“Striker,” Lavinia said suddenly. “He’s been a warrior since the Word, I reckon. He ought to know something about all this.”

“Maybe,” Ron said. “But there was a lot of Dark stuff before the Word.”

“Dark stuff?” Bree asked. “What do you mean, ‘Dark stuff?’ ”

“Pre-Sphere,” Ron said, as if this explained everything. “I’ve never paid much attention to it myself. You’d need an Historian for that.”

Bree made a mental note. An Historian sounded just the ticket. Maybe Goldstein could point her in the right direction.

Petru tugged at his beard. “It is interesting to consider the lack of Striker. He was nowhere in the vicinity last night?”

Bree shook her head.

Petru nodded decisively. “Then the threat is over.”

Ron’s eyebrows rose. “That’s absolutely true.” He leaned across the chest they used as a coffee table and patted her hand reassuringly. “Whatever grabbed you, Bree, isn’t likely to grab you again. If Striker wasn’t there, it wasn’t after you.”

“You think so?” Bree said. “But Miles and Belli were there.”

“They’re the muscle. Striker’s got the Power. Big difference,” Ron said.

Bree decided to let the distinction between the two drop for the moment. There’d be time after this case was over. She was more interested in what had grabbed at her and why.

“It’s Striker’s job to see you safe, chile. And he’s always up to it.”

“Up until now,” Petru said sourly.

“What do you mean by that?” Ron demanded.

Petru shrugged.

Lavinia sank back against the couch with a relieved sigh. “You two hush up. Striker’s good. It’s not a worrisome thing, except for that scratch on her wrist and I took care of that. We should have thought of Gabriel in the first place.”

“You’re all sure about this?”

“Positive,” Ron said with confidence. “Whatever it was—it doesn’t seem to be after you. It picked you up and dropped you back down again, right?”

Bree thought of that long, long fall and shuddered. “Right.”

“Right.”

“Like it was searching for something and thought it was you. Picked you up. Then said: ‘Bah! Wrong person. Next!’ ”

“I suppose so,” Bree said dryly. “But if it wasn’t looking for me, who was it looking for?”

“Hm,” Ron said. Then, to the others: “This is why she gets the big bucks.”

“I will talk to Armand,” Petru said. “But I, too, believe there to be no danger.”

Ron smiled happily. “So we can consider renting the Bay Street office after all.”

Bree ran her fingers over the wound on her wrist. Lavinia’s Nile poultice worked. The blood had dried. And the scratch was healing fast. “Okay, then. About the Bay Street office. My biggest concern is the expense.”

“We have a fair amount in the checking account,” Ron said. “I deposited Mrs. O’Rourke’s check early this morning.”

“It didn’t bounce?”

“Don’t think it will. Bank seemed impressed with the Cayman address.” Ron’s desk sat in the far corner of the living room, and he got up to go over and rummage in the top drawer. “Here we go. I make it a total of forty-five thousand dollars deposited since we opened up three months ago. Our monthly expenses, including payroll, utilities, insurance, and the like, run to about eight thousand.” He shrugged. “Up to you, boss. Actually, I think we’re doing pretty well. And with the opening of the Bay Street office, you’re sure to get more temporal clients.”

Bree’s draw on the Company account had been just to keep up her personal expenses. She wasn’t taking a salary. Her angels were. She took a breath. “Do you all . . . I mean . . . Do you actually need . . .” She stopped, momentarily flummoxed.

“You’re going to cut our paychecks?” Ron said.

“You goin’ to stop payin’ rent?” Lavinia said. “Oh, my. And the social security doesn’t cover all it should.”

“My sister, Rose, depends upon my contribution to the household,” Petru said heavily.

Ron, Petru, and Lavinia stared at her in blank dismay. Sasha yawned and went back to sleep. Miles and Belli didn’t move a muscle. But then, Sasha didn’t get a salary, unless you counted his dog food, and Miles and Belli were guns hired by somebody else. So her clumsy proposal—not that it was a proposal—didn’t affect
them
one little bit. But it clearly affected her human-styled staff.

“Of course Rose needs your help, Petru,” Bree said hastily. “And of course social security is just this pitiful little amount, Lavinia. I didn’t mean that I can’t pay you. I just wondered if you needed . . .” she trailed off.

“If we spent our off-hours on some other plane of existence?” Ron said. “We don’t.”

“We have lives of our own, you see,” Petru said.

Bree’s head started to throb, and it wasn’t due entirely to lack of sleep the night before.

“Sorry,” Ron said, with very little sympathy. “So your little effort at reducing expenses by slashing payroll is not going to work. Unless you think we’re not
worth
a paycheck.”

“Of course you are! You’re invaluable.”

“My goodness,” Ron said. “I should hope so. Two successful cases, and we’ve only been in business three months.”

“We have not yet had performance reviews,” Petru reminded Ron. “We do not actually know how invaluable we are. It seems not so much.”

“I think you’re splendid at your job, Petru,” Ron said forcefully.

“And I, you, Ronald.”

When it came to employee-management relations, it was clear that the two angels formed a temporary alliance. Bree wanted to clutch her hair and pull it, but she didn’t. “I absolutely did not mean anything by my question about pay. You are all doing a terrific job. I wish I could pay you tons more. But I can’t. I’m close to broke as it is.”

“And there’ll be the new hire, too,” Ron said thoughtfully. “But any bank in town will give us a line of credit.”

“The new hire?” Bree said. “For the Bay Street office, you mean? I thought we’d split our time between the two.” This time she did clutch her hair. “I can’t afford another employee.”

“You essentially have two separate practices,” Petru said kindly. “It is only practical to set them up that way. We cannot help you in any significant way on the strictly temporal cases.”

“We’ll run an ad in the newspaper for a part-time employee,” Ron said. “And I’ll ask around. Or better yet, I’ll call the temp services place. They always have people looking for permanent employment. I’ll take care of that right away. And I think a part-timer is best, don’t you? We’ll use a messaging service for the phones, at least until we can afford someone full-time over there. And that furniture. Ugh. Strictly awful. I’ve already scouted some much nicer stuff at Second Hand Rows. As soon as you get the lease squared away, I’ll have it sent on over.” He sat at his desk and reached for his phone. “Do you have time to meet with the facilities manager this morning?”