Defending Angels Read online

  “If a lousy personality were a motive, we’d quadruple the current murder rate,” Bree said. The kitchen was getting cold. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, and thought about excusing herself to get a sweater. “How long ago was this?”

  Sam shrugged. “Eight, nine months. Very early in the project.”

  “And it’s still not finished. And then there’s the Island Dream condo project. Although I think one of Mr. Skinner’s very close friends lives there already?”

  “The surgically enhanced Miss Chastity McFarland. Yes, she does. She agrees with you, by the way. She thinks Skinner was murdered.”

  “Does she know anything we don’t know?”

  “Ms. McFarland’s interest appears to be limited to the state of Mr. Skinner’s personal finances. I talked to John Stubblefield, who’s the executor of his estate. Skinner didn’t leave her a thing. Ms. McFarland had every reason to keep Skinner alive.”

  “Oh,” Bree said, disappointed. “So she didn’t bump him off so she could inherit. Does anything at all change for Grainger and his wife because Skinner’s dead?” Bree asked, already knowing the answer.

  “That’s a good question. And the answer is that it doesn’t appear to.”

  “Does anything change for anybody now?”

  “He has a charitable trust. Most of the revenues subsidize public television programs.”

  “ ‘Brought to you by the good offices of the Benjamin C. Skinner Foundation,’” Bree muttered. “Oh, dear.” She looked around the kitchen a little crossly. “Is there another window open? Aren’t you getting cold? I can count the number of times I’ve had to have the heat on during our winters on one hand. And it’s never been in October.”

  Mildly surprised, Sam said, “No, I’m not cold.” He had his back to the archway leading to the living room. Sasha limped into view. His ears lay flat against his skull. He drew his upper lip over his teeth in a silent snarl. Beyond him, Bree saw a finger of the pus-yellow curl of water.

  Sam leaned over the table and looked intently into her face. “Is anything wrong?”

  Bree put her hand up to her forehead. “I ... no. I mean, yes, there is. To tell you the truth, I’m feeling a little bit under the weather. I’m sorry; it just came and hit me all of a sudden.”

  He got to his feet. “You really don’t look well at all. What can I do for you?”

  “Actually, my sister will be back in a bit. But if we could continue our talk at another time ... God!”

  The yellow stream curled around Sasha’s feet, swelled, and grew into a cloud of evil brilliance. The dog’s eyes glowed with a sudden, demonic red. He opened his jaws in a terrible grin. His eyeteeth were stained with something dark. He turned, awkward with the cast on his leg, and disappeared around the corner.

  “Look, maybe I’d better go down and find your sister. She’s at the Shrimp Factory?”

  “No! No. I just think I’m going to be sick. If you could come back tomorrow ... ”

  The vicious light was waist-high now, a horror-filled ball of glowing water. It pulsed with the beat of some terrible heart.

  “Of course.” Hunter turned and headed to the living room, where he had come in. He stopped in front of it. He didn’t see it. She knew he didn’t see it.

  “NO! Out the back door, please!” She grabbed his arm, pulled him across the tile, and almost pushed him out the kitchen door.

  She threw the dead bolt and stood there, her back to it all.

  And then she turned around.

  Sixteen

  I form the light, and create Darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the LORD do all these things.

  —Isaiah 45:7

  A river of hellish light poured from the mirror. Sasha, snarling, kept her at bay. She couldn’t get too close—the dog behaved as if possessed—but she faced it. Her heart pounded so hard that she trembled with the beat. But she faced it.

  And she didn’t know what to do. It didn’t seem fair, somehow, to curse her with these visions, these people, this mysterious task Gabriel Striker had laid before her, with no guidance at all.

  The dog’s snarls rose to a shriek, and then stopped. Sasha threw himself down, cowering, and began to crawl toward her, every muscle in his body quivering.

  In the mirror, through the mirror, a pair of giant wings rose and fell once, twice, three times, with the sound of a giant scythe.

  Bree’s fear almost suffocated her. Like Sasha, she fell down before the terror of the wings. She put her hands over her ears; the dog reached her, crawled into her lap, and shoved his head under her chin, whimpering. She knew with a sickening certainty that this thing, this being, this force, had done things to Sasha she hadn’t even seen.

  Suddenly, she was swept with rage. She scrambled to her knees, her dog in her arms. If she had one of the swords from Gabriel’s wall, could she fight it? The sickly light was shoulder-high now, and moving toward her with the deliberate, inexorable power of an ocean tide.

  She backed up.

  The light followed.

  She backed through the kitchen to the bolted door, and fumbling with one hand behind her, the other clutching the uncomplaining, terrified dog, she tried to throw the dead bolt.

  Behind her, the dreadful light spun, and began to coalesce. Bree glimpsed the shape of a huge, horned figure.

  Call for me, Bree!

  A huge and dread-filled weight pressed on her heart.

  Call for me, Bree!

  She drew in a great, shuddering breath.

  NOW!

  “STRIKER!” Bree cried. “STRIKE-E-E-E-R!

  A thunderclap split the air like a huge bronze hammer.

  She got the door opened and stumbled into the coolness of the night. A narrow planked path led from the kitchen door to the wooden patio in front. Bree got halfway down it, and then sank to her knees. Sasha wriggled out of her arms, and stood up. He licked her face with frantic swipes of his tongue. Bree sat down, her back against the handrail, and stared up at the evening sky. The stars wheeled overhead, their brightness dwarfed by the light and clamor of the shops on River Road forty feet below.

  “There you are, ducky!” Ronald crossed the small bridge that connected Factor’s Walk to her house—and he was real, wasn’t he? With those feathery curls combed forward to hide the fact that his hairline was receding, his elegant loafers, and his crisp striped shirt. Antonia trailed behind him, a large paper bag in one hand. She was looking down at River Road, calling to someone below with cheerful impudence.

  “Oh my, oh my,” Ron said softly. He bent down and gathered her in his arms. He smelled of soap and starch. “We did have a bad time, didn’t we? I shouldn’t have left you so long, but with that hunky lieutenant, I thought you’d be safe.”

  Bree realized, with some dismay, that she was sobbing. Ron set her gently on her feet. Then he turned, his tall body concealing her from Antonia’s sight. “Tonia dear. We forgot the praline ice cream.”

  “No, we didn’t. You said it was too fattening.”

  “Well, a girl can change her mind, can’t she? Scoot off and get it now, there’s a pet. And leave the shrimp with me.”

  “Is that you, Bree? What are you doing outside?”

  “She’s got Sasha out for a pee, of course. Tonia, the sooner you get the ice cream, the sooner we can eat it. I’m starving.”

  “Okay, okay. But,” she tossed over her shoulder, “there’s not going to be a dime left of that money you gave me, sis!”

  He waited until Antonia bounced back across the bridge, and then said, “Here we go. Upsa-daisy.”

  “I don’t want to go back in the house,” Bree whispered.

  “Of course you do,” Ron said robustly. “I’ll just go ahead and check things out, okay? You sit right there with Sasha.”

  “But Ron ... you don’t ...”

  The streetlights left pools of shadow around the town house; Ron stood in the warm darkness, tall, his fair hair glowing softly, his eyes kind. Bree was so rattled she tho
ught she imagined it; he was half-enveloped by a pair of feathery wings that swept from the top of his head to his feet. “I know,” he said quietly. “I know what came to plague you.” He clasped his hands in front of him, and then brought them to his lips. “What I don’t know is why.” He stood for a moment, quite quietly, and then he said, “Stay here.”

  He wasn’t gone long. By the time he returned, Bree had collected herself. She shoved the remnants of fear aside like so much garbage. Sasha was subdued, but physically fine. He was starting to bear weight on the broken leg, and the sores on his flanks and chest were scabbed over with a healthy pink.

  “All’s well on the home front,” Ron said cheerily. “But I’ve called for reinforcements. If you don’t mind, we’ll head on over to Professor Cianquino’s after dinner.” He bent down and ruffled Sasha’s ears. “Sorry about all of this, Sash. There are changes ahead.” He sighed. “I’m telling you, it’s always something.”

  This view of her experience seemed somewhat cavalier. “Something,” she said tartly, “doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  “Oh, I know, ducky, I know.” He smiled at her, with that rising-sun, joyous grin that was irresistible. “But you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  The living room was the same as always. The mirror hung clear and unclouded over the fireplace. The air was clean. Sasha took up his accustomed place by the couch and settled down. Antonia came back with a half gallon of praline ice cream from Savannah Sweets. Bree was astonished to learn it was only eight o’clock; she felt as if days had passed since she shoved Sam Hunter out the back door.

  “So,” Antonia said, “what happened with the sexy lieutenant? He’s hot, Bree.”

  “He had to leave.” Bree turned her shrimp salad over with her fork. It looked delicious. She couldn’t imagine stuffing it down her throat. Restlessly, she got up, turned on the television mounted under the kitchen cabinet, and sat back down again.

  “Don’t tell me you let him go without getting his phone number?”

  Bree laughed a little. “I have his card, idiot.”

  Antonia paused, her Po’ Boy shrimp sandwich halfway to her mouth. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said testily.

  “You don’t look fine. You look,” Antonia paused, her forehead furrowed. “I don’t know. Shocky.”

  “Leave her alone, Tonia,” Ron said. “Here, have an onion ring. I can’t believe I actually let you talk me into buying these. Fat, fat, fat.”

  “You’re trying to distract me,” Antonia said wisely. “Come on, what’s going on, Bree?” She frowned. “Hunter didn’t harass you or anything like that.”

  “Nothing like that. Will you shut up, Tonia? The news is on.”

  “So?” She looked incuriously at the screen. The TV was mounted underneath the cabinets built over the peninsula. “It’s just local stuff.”

  “It’s not just local stuff. It’s Doug Fairchild.”

  “So?”

  “So, he’s Skinner junior’s alibi,” Ron said. “He claims he saw Skinner senior clutch his Diet Coke can to his bosom and fall over the side like a lead sinker. Didn’t you pay attention to your sister this afternoon, ducky?”

  “I was too busy looking at those dresses you picked out for Bree. Did you decide to buy the one you’re wearing, sis?” She leaned forward, her sandwich dripping mayonnaise onto the tabletop. “What the heck have you been doing in that thing? It looks like you’ve been wrestling with a bear!”

  “Will you please shut up? I want to hear this.”

  “...my good friend and longtime partner, Bennie Skinner,” Doug Fairchild said to the perky anchor. “He was the real force behind the construction of Island Dream, one of the most innovative residential projects in Georgia today.” He stood in front of a ten-story condominium that looked like all the other new condominiums built in the Southeast in the past five years; pastel clapboard façade with porch-style balconies. “And I can’t tell you how much I miss that man today, as we dedicate the opening of one of Tybee Island’s finest structures yet.”

  “It’s the dedication of the new building, which was this afternoon,” Ron whispered. “It’s a slow news day apparently. They ran it at six o’clock, too.”

  “Who’s that muscle-bound guy behind him?” Antonia squinted at the screen. Carlo, wearing an orange hard hat, stood with folded arms, just at the edge of the camera range.

  “Carlton Montifiore,” Ron said.

  “Do you know him?”

  “No. But it says Montifiore Construction on his T-shirt.”

  Bree snorted.

  “... one of the most traumatic events of my adult life,” Doug Fairchild said earnestly. He was a beefy, red-faced man. He’d slung his blue blazer over his shoulder, and his rep tie was askew. “I saw my best friend die.”

  “The TV people just asked Fairchild about Skinner’s accident,” Ron informed her. “Look at Fairchild’s face. Do you believe that face?”

  “He does look pretty shifty,” Bree agreed.

  The camera cut away to the perky anchor at her news-room desk. “And that’s Mr. Douglas Fairchild, developer of Savannah’s newest combined office and residential building now available for rent.” She turned to the equally perky male anchor at her side. “That’s some office space, Frank.”

  “And now for the weather...That’s some tropical storm that’s headed our way, Sheila ...”

  “Bleah.” Bree clicked the TV off and tugged at her lower lip. “Shifty expression or not, Fairchild sounds pretty believable, doesn’t he?”

  “Sure does,” Antonia said. “Are you positive that this is really a murder? I mean, if the police, and Skinner’s own son, and now a witness all present the same kind of info, don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, you’re barking up the wrong tree?”

  “I’m right,” Bree said quietly, “and I’m not going to quit.”

  Ron smiled and touched her shoulder. “There’s a couple of people who need to hear you say that, Bree. Tonia? We’re going out. Don’t wait up.”

  “To which,” Ron said an hour later, “I say ‘bravo!’” He smiled joyously at the assembled group. “I’m just incredibly impressed. I don’t believe I could have survived the encounter half so well, especially since we didn’t prepare the poor girl at all. And she refuses to quit.”

  They sat at the round table in Professor Cianquino’s office: Gabriel Striker, Lavinia Mather, Petru Lucheta, Professor Cianquino, Ronald, and Bree herself. Sasha sat at her feet. The bird Archie stamped restlessly on its perch. For the first time since she faced the thing in the mist, she was free of fear. The people in the room didn’t scare her, or the animals, either. Although, by most rational standards she ought to be afraid of them, too. But if they were lunatics, they were harmless lunatics. And they seemed to be on her side.

  Whatever that side was.

  There was an odd, almost inaudible thrumming in the room as though they were near a source of great electrical power. The air shimmered, as if someone had thrown a giant handful of fine glitter into the air. Bree felt half-hypnotized.

  “I’d like to know what’s going on,” Bree said. She glanced at Gabriel Striker. He sat with bent head and his arms folded across his chest. There was a slight frown on his face. “According to Mr. Striker, you all belong to some secret society? He made some mention of Celestial Spheres? What do they stand for?”

  “They don’t stand for anything,” Lavinia said. “They just are.”

  Bree had had a long day, and she’d been badly frightened. She roused herself from the semi-trance the room’s atmosphere had induced. “Okay,” she said a little snappishly. “Fine. I asked the wrong question. Too open-ended. What did you say, Gabriel? That it’s impossible to give a truthful answer to an open-ended question? I’ll try to be less ambiguous. More specific. So you can feel as if you’re telling me the truth. What is a Celestial Sphere?”

  “The universe is ranked,” Professor Cianquino said, “and it is made of Spheres upon Sph
eres. God is at the center of the Sphere within; the Adversary is at the center of the Sphere without. All life, all being, all creation radiates out from the center of the Sphere within. That is the Celestial Sphere and it is the only one of its kind.”

  Bree shook her head, “I can’t believe this. You, of all people, a creationist?”

  Professor Cianquino smiled slightly. “No. God created Darwin, too. Who else set the train of evolution in motion but the Divine? And all the other marvels of the worlds of science?”

  The throbbing hum was so soothing that this not only made sense to her, it sounded true. Bree looked around the table. “And you all believe this? Does the sect have a particular purpose?”

  “I would object, I think, to the term ‘sect’. We are guardians,” Petru said. “We are several among many. Guardians have many purposes. Those of us here are members of your new and hopeful law firm. We are here to plead justices for lost souls. There are other guardians fulfilling other tasks elsewhere.”

  “My great-uncle Franklin,” Bree said slowly. “Was he a member of this ...” She paused, searching for the right word, but nothing came to her. “Whatever,” she said.

  “Company,” Petru supplied, with a rather condescending air. “He was not of us, but he was with us, you understand.”

  “I don’t understand a thing.” Bree tugged angrily at her lower lip.

  “You are resisting,” the professor said.

  “And no wonder.” Lavinia shook her head in sympathy. “After what happened to poor Frank, why should the chile want to know any more than she knows already?” She leaned over and patted Bree’s hand.

  “What did happen to my uncle?”

  “Died in that fire, didn’t he,” Lavinia said. “Metatron’s fire.”

  Metatron.

  Silence settled on the room like a heavy hand. Bree went cold.

  Petru cleared his throat.

  Gabriel smiled at her. It was a brief smile, but it warmed her. “And your first case is poor murdered Mr. Skinner.”

  “It was murder,” Bree said. The humming in the air made her feel a little drunk. “I believe that absolutely. And it sounds like a fine thing to save his soul from whatever basement it’s wandering around in, but how do I do it? I mean, say I find the murderer. And say I bring him”—she thought of the two-faced Jennifer and amended herself—“or her to temporal justice.” She bowed her head and thought about this. It sounded like a fine thing, temporal justice, so she said it aloud one more time. “Temporal justice. How does that help Mr. Skinner?”