The Wings of Heaven and Hell (The Arcadian Steel Sequence Book 1) Read online

  “I don’t know anything about you either.”

  “You can see I don’t have wings, can’t you?” He glanced behind both his shoulders in turn.

  “That doesn’t mean that you’re on my side.” I crossed my arms.

  “No, I guess not. You’ll have to decide.” He snapped his fingers, and a large circle glowed alongside him like a tear in the space. A ripple fizzled like lightning and surrounded the circle. Inside was a gray scene, a road and buildings in the distance.

  “My boss sent me to rescue you,” said Bob. “Don’t make me go home empty handed. It could mean the Pit for me.”

  I stared into the hole as if the opening was a mouth that could swallow me. The tear looked like the one that the people in black climbed through. They saved me from that angel, unintentionally, but one of them let me live despite what I saw.

  Sim padded across the bed. Her black and gray form glided in front of me. I reached out for her, but before I could grasp her, her long, sleek body jumped into the tear. She looked out to me from across the gray street.

  Bob pressed the fingers of one hand to his thumb in rapid secession as if he played a flute. “Last chance, sweetheart.”

  FIVE

  I climbed through the bright portal. My stomach lurched, and my head swam. A force pulled at me like the momentum that jerks you when riding bumper cars.

  My guitar slung across my back, I clenched my backpack. A rush of air, scented like the breeze before the rain, hit me. I looked at the sky. The clouds were layers of gray. I couldn’t find the sun. Light came from the ground in the distance. The glow peered between the buildings and gave the whole street a dreamlike quality.

  The grimy motel was replaced by a five-star hotel, and all the buildings looked like modern art. One jutted out from the ground like a skyscraper. The building was a mix of grays, whites, and blacks. Another looked like a series of clean, smooth, white and gray boxes stacked on top of each other with floor to ceiling windows along one entire side of the building.

  No trash littered the street. No graffiti ran alongside the buildings. Everything looked clean, crisp, and slate gray.

  Sim rubbed against my legs, and I stooped to pick her up.

  The roar of an engine reared up behind me. I turned around, and Bob sat in a black convertible with the top down. He winked at me.

  “Get in,” he said. “Unless you want to walk.”

  The portal disappeared like the zipper on a jacket. The space was unblemished by the rip. The smooth space looked as if the wound could never be reopened.

  “Am I…trapped here?” I asked.

  “We’re all trapped here, sweetheart,” Bob said.

  That didn’t make much sense. After all, how could Bob be trapped if he could make portals appear and disappear at will?

  Bob’s suit was darker. The suit turned from charcoal black to obsidian. His tie was a bloodier shade of red.

  He flashed straight, white teeth. A shiny gold watch wrapped around his wrist.

  He looked like a well-groomed businessman, but something felt…sinister about him. At least he didn’t have wings.

  He was either part of my least crazy subconscious, or this was real. This felt real.

  I pulled open the passenger side door and got in with Sim. What choice did I have? The street was familiar, settled right under the bypass, but the buildings were foreign to me. I wouldn’t know where I was going.

  The car picked up speed and careened around the corner. Bob jabbed the pedal, and the car jolted forward.

  I dug my nails into the seat. Where did this guy learn to drive?

  We rounded a corner.

  “Where are you taking me?” I yelled as the car sped down the street.

  “Someplace much better than that ratty, old motel. Nash won’t mind.”

  Nash, I heard that name before. He was one of the men who crawled through a portal into my bedroom. He inadvertently saved my life, and he killed someone else to do that.

  “Who’s Nash?”

  “He’s the guy who owns this place.” The wheels screeched as we came to a halt in front of a mansion. A literal mansion. The place was lined with gray stone and plaster. It rose at least thirty feet in the air with plenty of large windows along the front face. The brick patio led to a set of stone steps. Lights glowed inside the building.

  Bob stepped out of the car, and I followed. He was very tall, at least six foot five maybe taller. He towered over me and the car.

  Bob opened the door to the mansion. Who keeps a place like this unlocked?

  I walked in after Bob. The walls were alabaster. Mirrors hung on the walls, and the illusion made the place seem larger. A marble staircase rose from the front entrance.

  Bob walked up the stairs and gestured for me to follow.

  “Why are we going upstairs?” I asked.

  “So, I can show you to your room.”

  “My room?”

  “You woke up pretty early,” said Bob. “It’s going to be a few more hours till morning.”

  “Wait, but what time is it?” I asked.

  “3:18,” he said, but he didn’t look down at his watch or cellphone.

  “But it’s light outside. Well, sort of.”

  “Overcast.” Bob said. “It’s always like that here.”

  He had to be exaggerating. The weather had to change sometimes.

  “Where’s here?” I asked.

  “Sheol,” said Bob.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Where is that from New Orleans?”

  “South.” Bob grinned. “Sheol is always south.”

  I shook my head and waited for a white rabbit with a pocket watch to scurry around a corner.

  “Is Nash home?” I asked.

  “Why? Do you want to meet him?”

  Do I want to meet the guy whose house I was staying the night in? “Yes,” I said. “I don’t want to wake him, but, I mean, I am in his house. Are you going to tell him?”

  Bob laughed. “He knows who you are.”

  How was that possible? I just met Bob. Nash did see me before he entered that portal, but it’s not like I stepped up and introduced myself.

  Bob stopped at a large frosted glass door and slid it open. The room was hospital white. The bed in the center rested on a glass platform that made the mattress look like it hovered.

  “You should get comfortable,” said Bob. “It won’t be long before Nash finds out you’re here.” He said that like I was a mouse, and Nash was a cat. Like he wanted to hunt me down once he knew I was in his house.

  Bob closed the door behind him as he walked back out into the hallway. His footsteps became distant.

  I slumped onto the bed with Sim still in my arms. I sighed.

  I tried to think of something, anything that could explain all of this. I couldn’t be crazy. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy.

  I shook my head. I pinched myself a thousand times since I met Adriel, and I didn’t wake up.

  I needed to go through with this, find out why a psycho angel was after me and go home, back to reality. But the death of my parents shattered my reality. What I returned to wouldn’t be the home I knew.

  Sim bounced to the floor. I laid on the bed. The mattress was firm, and the sheets were cool to the touch.

  My thoughts pulled sleep from me until exhaustion extinguished them.

  WHEN I woke, the light in the room glowed with the same intensity as the night before despite the large window. I sat up and looked outside. Bob wasn’t joking. The sky’s color did not change nor was the street wet with rain.

  I got goose bumps as I left the warmth of the bed.

  Two smaller doors of frosted glass stood in the room besides the door that led out to the hallway. I padded across the cold floor to the door across from the bed.

  Behind the door was a closet filled with clothes that hung on either side and a large mirror on the back wall. Recessed lights brightened every inch of the room. A large white chest of drawers was set in the cen
ter.

  I pulled a garnet red dress from the closet rod. The fabric touched the floor. I frowned and hung the dress back up.

  As I browsed through the clothing, I felt like even more of an intruder.

  Whose room was this?

  I left the closet and walked to the door across from the other side of the bed.

  Holy shit!

  A walk-in shower was built into one corner of the room. Curved glass surrounded the shower. Alongside the shower was a large marble platform with a small step leading up to it. Set into the center of the marble platform was a bathtub and hollowed out into the wall across from the tub was a built-in fireplace. Across from all this was a marble countertop and sink, above which was a wall of mirrors that stretched from one end of the bathroom to the other.

  I didn’t belong here.

  I turned the silver handle on the sink and wet my face in the basin. The water ran cool and clear and felt soothing.

  I washed my face with a bar of hard soap that didn’t have a scent, dried my face on a white towel, and peered at my reflection. My hair was in tangles. The dyed ends were wet from falling into the sink. My clothes were wrinkled. A bruise purpled along my jawline, and my bottom lip was split.

  I pulled open the drawer, and inside was a brush and comb. I ran the brush through my hair until the knots were out.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the burnt picture of my parents. My face tensed into a frown and lips quivered. The golden locket Jonah had given me hung around my neck. I searched the drawers and found a pair of cuticle scissors. I cut a heart around my Mom and Dad’s faces. I had to trim them a few times before they fit inside the locket. Their photographs were side by side nestled within two hearts.

  I wore the same clothes from three days ago. They smelled of sweat and blood. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out a t-shirt and cutoffs. They were wrinkled because I tossed them, unfolded, into the bag. I took off my old clothes and put on the new ones.

  I thought I should take a shower, but felt weird about it. I’d never been in a house this nice and pristine. I was sure whatever I did would leave a mark. I felt carsick.

  I smoothed out my shirt as best as I could. As I ran my hands over my stomach, it rumbled. I’d have to find food for me and Sim. The prospects of that were better than if I had snuck through the motel window.

  I didn’t like roaming around the house of a guy I never met, but I was eager to find the kitchen. Sooner or later, he would know I was in his house. I hoped he didn’t think I was an intruder. Didn’t Bob say that Nash knew me? Did he mean my name or what I looked like too? Did he know I was the girl he saw after he murdered that angel?

  I made a terrible detective. I couldn’t get the right answers if I didn’t ask the right questions. I should have told Bob what I knew about Nash. He might have given me more information, like why Nash jumped through portals and killed angels.

  I opened the door and tiptoed out of the room. The hallway was empty. Recessed lights bathed the hall in a sun-like glow and the air smelled clean and sterile like a clinic. Sim followed me.

  “No, Sim, you stay.” I lifted her from the ground and placed her back in the room before I slid the door shut.

  My steps echoed like footfalls in a museum. I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes shut. Should I take off my shoes?

  I crept down the marble stairs to the foyer. To my right was the living room. To my left was a hallway. I wandered down the hall and stopped.

  An entrance opened to the kitchen. White cupboards ran along the walls near the ceiling. Ivory counters settled above black cabinets along the wall and on the island. A stainless-steel refrigerator stood level with the upper cabinets. A coffee pot sat on the counter next to the sink. Light glowed from an oval, white light fixture hanging from the ceiling and from beneath the island.

  I pulled open the fridge and peered inside. On the shelves were vegetables, jars of jam, a pitcher of water, plum colored juice, and a bowl of peaches.

  I looked through the cabinets until I found an array of glasses and pulled one down from the shelf. I poured a glass of the purplish juice and drank it in a few gulps. The juice was sweet and sour.

  I took the cup from my lips when someone appeared through the bottom of the glass.

  Nash stood by the coffee pot. He pulled a jar down from the top shelf. He looked no older than twenty. He was tall with charcoal black hair, alarming against his pale skin. His eyes were so dark I couldn’t distinguish the pupils from the irises. He wore a thin, sleeveless t-shirt and boxer-shorts.

  My eyes hit the floor. “Sorry. Bob said…”

  “Good morning.” He scooped coffee beans out of the jar. He didn’t seem to recognize me although he only glanced at me.

  “You must be Nash,” I said.

  “That’s right.” He didn’t turn to look at me. He lifted the top of the coffee machine and filled the chamber with the coffee beans.

  I must have embarrassed him. Did he expect me to leave?

  The muscles of his back moved beneath the barely-there t-shirt.

  “You hungry?” He still didn’t look at me.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Tofu scramble okay?”

  “Um, you don’t have to cook for me.”

  “Okay. I thought you might be hungry.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Then how about the scramble?” He turned around and gave me a tight smile.

  “Sure.” Truth was I never had tofu. Mom used to make me scrambled eggs. She made the best scrambled eggs.

  “You can wait in the dining room. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Where’s the dining room?”

  Nash pointed to the frosted door on the opposite wall.

  I took my glass and ducked out, happy to leave the tension behind me. A marble table was in the center of the dining room. Ten gray, cushioned chairs surrounded the table. Two paintings hung side by side on the wall. One painting was gray with white lines scratched into the canvas. The other was cream-colored with charcoal lines in a mess of spirals.

  Dad’s paintings showed dark imagery, but they had meaning. I wondered what those paintings meant.

  I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket. I should call Jonah. I couldn’t tell him where I was. I wasn’t sure where I was. But I wanted to let him know I was okay.

  The screen lit up. No service. I walked around the room. Still, no service. Weird. Thirty percent battery charge. I turned the phone off and stowed it in my pocket.

  NASH walked into the dining room with my breakfast. He had changed into a white collared shirt and dark pants. He left the shirt untucked.

  He set my plate down in front of me. The tofu scramble looked like scrambled eggs without the yolks.

  Nash stood against the opposite wall and sipped his coffee. His eyes were pointed at the opposite wall where the paintings hung. Did he know the meaning behind those dark squiggles and those sharp, white lines?

  The texture of the tofu was spongy. The flavor was earthy, nutty, and spicy. The mushrooms and peppers gave it pops of color. As I chewed, I tried not to scoff the food down. My fork hit the plate with a loud clang. I cringed.

  I glanced up, but Nash’s eyes still focused on the opposite wall.

  I hated to ask, but I needed to get Sim something to eat too. “Um…do you have any tuna fish…it’s for my cat.”

  “Sorry. No.” Nash sipped his coffee.

  “Do you have any other meat or fish or anything?”

  “I don’t have any of that here.”

  That’s a little odd. Maybe he was vegetarian.

  “Okay,” I said. “Is there a store nearby?”

  “I’ll get you some this afternoon.” He took another sip of his coffee. “First, I’ll have to bring you into town. The boss wants to see you.”

  NASH climbed into the driver seat of a sleek red car. A tiny silver horse galloped on the grill. I settled down into the passenger’s seat. By Nash’s attitude back at the house, I guessed t
his ride would be painfully silent.

  Nash said we were going to see his boss, but he made no effort to tuck his white button-down shirt into his pants. Bob dressed in a fitted black suit and red tie. Did they work for the same guy? And why was this guy interested in keeping me safe from an Archangel?

  At least, no one I’d met since Adriel had wings. That was a plus on my reality meter.

  The sky was still the same dull gray. The air still smelled like it does right before a rainstorm, and I expected a downpour.

  Nash pulled the car out of the driveway and floored it down the street. I braced myself on the dashboard as he continued to zip down the road like he drove for NASCAR. Did everyone in this place drive like a freaking maniac?

  The images outside began to blur, and I got dizzy. I thought I might throw up. I grabbed my stomach as the car lurched to a stop.

  Nash got out of the car. I stayed in my seat and covered my mouth as I clenched my stomach. Nash’s face appeared in the window. He frowned. Was that concern?

  He opened the door for me, and I stepped out of the car. My legs shook like cymbals hit with a drumstick. Nash held my elbow to steady me. His touch was warm. The heat seeped beneath the sleeve of my shirt.

  We stopped outside a skyscraper that was several stories high like a corporate building. Clouds hid the top of the structure. The glass door slid open. A secretary sat behind a white desk that wrapped around in a semi-circle. Her round, clear face held a tight smile that spread from ear to ear and showed all her teeth. The wide smile made her cheekbones rise, and her eyes crinkle to slits.

  “Good morning,” she said. “You must be here for your 10:00 A.M. appointment, you can wait in room 1006.”

  Nash nodded to her as we headed for the elevator. Nash jabbed a button and waited with his hands in his pockets.

  I glanced at the button that still glowed: 1000. One thousand floors? That must be a joke.

  My body jolted as the elevator rose. The sickening feeling festered in my stomach as the elevator lurched upwards. I could feel my breakfast rising in my throat.