The Innocents Read online

  Back in the jeep, it took a relentless spin of tires to send Slade and Sean on their way - more attention - and Fiona’s fingers tapped an impatient cadence on the steering wheel as Garcia ordered Armand and Jim out.

  “Did you get it all?” Garcia questioned as they climbed back in a few seconds later, tossing the crystals of glass they could clear off the street over the seat, and Fiona started through the intersection at a fast crawl, her eyes on the rearview. When police lights flickered into the reflection, she turned down a dark street, knowing she would have to circle back to more well-trod routes if she wanted to prevent a trail that could be easily followed.

  “As much as we could,” Armand returned, and it was hardly a comfort.

  Pulling along the curb five cars down from a similar-model SUV a few turns later, the sparse streetlights felt like the first stroke of luck they’d had all night. Under the glow of a pen light held by Armand, it took Jim less than two minutes to lift the bulb and headlight cover to replace the one Slade’s jeep had damaged. Fiona knew with absolute certainty, because, eyes shifting between the road and her watch, she was ultra-aware of each second as it passed.

  The window a far trickier issue, they made do with two pieces of cardboard and duct tape. Throughout the quick patch job, Fiona watched the crossroads, waiting for Garcia to come to his senses and realize they had drawn far too many eyes. If they were going to act without consequence, they would have to wait it out a few days, let events cool and see if anybody could potentially recognize them. At the very least, they needed transport that didn’t bear obvious signs of having just been involved in an accident.

  That was how the job was done. Risk everything for the reward, except yourself. There was no prize higher than freedom, no dollar amount that could buy one’s way out of the path of an enemy bullet. Whatever the job, it was never worth risking prison or your own life.

  “Let’s get this done.”

  Those were the old days, Fiona reminded herself, watching Garcia swing back into the passenger’s seat, and Garcia wasn’t that guy. He was the guy who thought it worth the risk, idiotic as it may be, and she was the one who’d teamed up with him by choice, which clearly made her an idiot too.

  Brushing the remnants of glass in her seat onto the floor, Fiona settled back behind the wheel, and the window crunched as the door slammed shut.

  Though seeing Slade and Sean was pretty much last on the list of things she wanted to do that night, or any night, she could say one thing about their run-in with her old crew. When witnesses started chattering, and they would, she imagined not too many of them would remember a boring black SUV, or anyone inside it, when there was a red jeep spinning through the intersection, horns blaring, a towering brute and a man with a glittering grin.

  There was no sound, not a blip from a machine or a moan in the night. Margie woke on instinct, a sixth sense developed over thirty years of caring for those in no condition to care for themselves.

  Arms sinking into the pink and blue polka dot robe she kept at the foot of the bed, feet into her slippers, she moved into the dim hallway. Before she even reached his room, she could tell Mr. Winters was awake, and that it wasn’t pain or thirst that had him staring into the night as she walked in, but a worry he shouldn’t have cause to feel.

  “Trouble sleeping, Mr. Winters?” she softly asked, and, though the old man’s eyes turned to her, Margie didn’t need him to answer. “I’m sure her flight is just delayed.”

  Walking to the bed, she wished she could believe it herself. Nothing bad had happened to Mr. Winters’ daughter, she was certain of that. It was far more likely Becky had simply decided not to come and hadn’t bothered to tell anyone about it. Margie didn’t know if the young woman was unable to recognize how ill her father was, or if she couldn’t cope with the reality. Either way, every time she failed to show, she was cutting into the precious little time she had left with him. And even if that meant little to Becky, it mattered a great deal to Mr. Winters.

  Glancing to the window as sleet tapped against the panes, Margie picked up the water cup on the bedside table, putting the straw to Mr. Winters’ chapped lips. “Let me get some balm,” she said once he had his fill, but before she could make it around the foot of the bed, the anticipated knock came.

  Mr. Winters’ face lighting instantly at the sound, Margie forced a smile for his sake, hoping Jesus couldn’t read her thoughts as she told Mr. Winters she’d be right back and went out the door to fetch his truant daughter. Aggravated as she was at Becky’s late arrival, though, she wouldn’t say anything. She never did.

  Robe clutched tight in anticipation of the cold about to blow in, Margie glanced through the spyhole, frowning at the unfamiliar face in the oval frame.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, and, through the eyepiece, the man gave a shiver against the wind.

  “Uh…” He blinked in the direction of the door, and Margie’s gaze fell to his ripped coat, before the stranger pressed so close, the spyhole filled with the top of his face. “I hope so, Ma’am.” Words slow and slurred, he sounded drunk. “I had some trouble in my car. It slipped in a ditch. I had a phone. I’m not sure what happened to it.”

  Hands moving down the front of his coat as he leaned back again, as if in search of the elusive phone, the man’s face caught the porch light. Blood trailing from his hairline onto his cheek, he seemed unaware it was there, and, realizing those signs of perceived drunkenness might be actual symptoms of shock, the nurse in Margie opened the door to him at once.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, but, when the man looked her way again, the confusion dissipated from his gaze, replaced by something solemn and unnerving.

  “Are you Margie Jackson?”

  Biting wind no match for the cold that gripped her insides at the question, Margie’s legs froze in place.

  “I’m sorry,” the man uttered. “I wish you could understand this.”

  “Understand what?” Margie whispered. It only occurred to her she should have used the chance to scream when the man’s hand pressed against her mouth.

  Carried back into the living room by unrelenting pressure, Margie’s gaze widened as three more strangers streamed in, their wet boots trampling Mr. Winters’ clean carpet.

  Mr. Winters, Margie remembered the old man helpless in his bed. Who would take care of Mr. Winters?

  Fighting her hardest, she found the grip of the man who held her so firm she could scarcely bend within it, and when the woman with him punched a hole through the ceiling, peeling pieces of plaster away until she could loop a rope over a beam, Margie thought to scream again, but it was wasted effort behind the heavy glove.

  One last opportunity coming as the noose passed over her neck, Margie seized it, but the tightening of the rope cut off the call for help almost at once, leaving her capable of producing no more than gasping sobs, until she was yanked suddenly off the floor and couldn’t cry at all.

  Hands going to the rope, she tried to claw free, but her fingers felt weak, her heart aching as it tried desperately to keep beating. Spinning around, the blurry faces of the strangers appeared at every turn, until they blended into one, a single monster she’d let in from the night.

  “Margie,” Mr. Winters cried out for her, but she had no voice left to answer.

  Awareness blinking slowly away, a sense at a time, Margie had nothing left at all.

  “Margie,” the old man called again, and something innate and frantic galloped in Armand’s chest as he stared down the gray hallway.

  The name punctuated by haggard breaths, it clearly took the man a great deal of effort to produce it, and Armand couldn’t help but wonder if, left alone, he too would perish.

  “Let’s go,” Garcia ordered, and, though Jim and Fiona filed instantly toward the door, Armand knew the command was meant mostly for him.

  Pausing just one moment more, to whisper a prayer - that someone would find them soon, that the old man would live - he at last turned away, wiping the fake bl
ood from his temple, haunted by the parting image of the woman’s feet - one clad in fuzzy pink, one bare from her struggle - dangling two feet off the floor.

  2

  Twenty years of mass, and still Chelsea fidgeted. Even as an adult there of her own accord. Even wanting to believe there was something beyond uncertainty and a worldly life that was frequently less than satisfying. Intention, it seemed, was little defense against a sermon that went on too long, and no one could drag out a short point like the church’s second-rung priest Father Dave.

  Watching the two boys in front of her knuckle-punch back and forth until their father at last noticed they were beating on each other in church, Chelsea shifted her gaze to the stained glass rendering of the crucifixion as they settled into relative obedience. Transfixed, for a moment, by the sleet that pelted Jesus on the cross, she forced her eyes to the resurrection instead.

  Not everything had to be so hopeless.

  So, she had made a few mistakes that added up to a big one, and her means of escape were few. Things could always turn around. More miraculous things had happened.

  Staring past the rolled away stone, into the depths of Jesus’ empty tomb, Chelsea saw the shadows shift, like something lurked deep within, and, with an uncertain swallow, she tried to remember if she had taken her meds. She had been pretty good about it lately, keeping herself on an even keel. Responsible, her mother even called her. The changes in her hormones had her brain in an almost permanent fog, though, and, these days, she found herself forgetting more than she remembered.

  Shadows moving again, Chelsea looked harder, wondering if Jesus’ impending return was closer than any of them could have anticipated when yellow eyes flashed suddenly her way and she flinched back into the woman beside her.

  “I’m sorry.” Reaching out, she found the woman sturdy and real.

  “Are you all right?” the woman asked, and Chelsea’s gaze went back to the window. Dark figure darting across the gray cave, she watched as it fell past the browns and greens at the bottom of the stained glass and out of sight.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  Heart pounding, her stomach squirmed in response, and Chelsea put her hand over it, comforting or protecting, she wasn’t entirely sure, though it was instinct to do both.

  Spilling through the church doors a few minutes later with those members of the congregation devout enough, or in need of guidance enough, to be dragged out in the painful weather, Chelsea shoved her hands into the pockets of her old wool coat, scolding herself for neglecting her gloves again. Not just unusual, the cold was downright unreasonable, making it a challenge to leave her flat for anything and simply refusing to release its grip on the city. Slipping in at both hem and collar, it put haste in Chelsea’s steps as she headed toward home.

  As did the lack of fellow pedestrians. Normally, when she left church, be it day or night, there were plenty of others headed the same way. Cold and Christmas preparations keeping them indoors, her footsteps fell louder in their absence.

  It was a block from St. Anthony’s, beyond the distance a cry for help might be heard, that Chelsea noticed they didn’t fall alone. Just out of time with her own, a second set of footsteps marched a divergent beat through the gray fog, growing quicker as they grew closer, but Chelsea resisted the urge to look over her shoulder until she felt them right at her back.

  Breath stuck in her chest as the man continued past, as anxious to get out of the cold as her, Chelsea let it out in a sputtering laugh as she followed his procession to the door of an old building. Trying to shake free of her overactive imagination as he slipped inside, she started once more down the street, making it only a step before a violent embrace lunged from a dark lane.

  First of her scream lost to the unrelenting wind as she was dragged between buildings, the rest was knocked from Chelsea as her back came into painful contact with the brick wall.

  “Shu’ up.” Rancid breath pouring from the mouth of her attacker, the hand that curled brown fingernails into Chelsea’s cheek reeked of something equally indescribable, until the man’s face drifted closer and she could see the source of the smell. Flaps of rotting skin hanging from his cheeks and forehead, the man’s eyes floated in murky yellow. It was a level of decomposed Chelsea had been forced to look at in biology class once and never needed to see again.

  God, she had forgotten to medicate.

  The rotting man growling with something like anticipation, Chelsea knew the danger, at least, was real, could feel it in the punishing grip that held her chin in place. Though, it was danger that was difficult to believe. More like something out of a nightmare than something that just pulled her off the street.

  When the man’s mouth yawned wide, baring fangs that were not the sharp points Chelsea would have expected, but a few jagged edges that looked as if they had broken down over time, or from overenthusiastic gnawing, Chelsea’s own mouth opened on a scream, but she only choked on a mouthful of putrid hand.

  “Well now, what do we have here?” The voice that poured through the darkness brought instant reprieve. Eyes snapping open, Chelsea tried to follow the sound to its source, but could see no further than a body width in the thick haze.

  “Looks like a rodent at a feast,” a deeper voice responded.

  “That never ends well for the rodent,” the original speaker declared, and, at last coming into view, the woman who possessed the voice proved every bit as hypnotic as her tone. Adorned in black from neck to toe, hair and eyes a near match, they served as marked contrast to her skin, which was almost ethereal in its porcelain glow. Aside from the dark brows and lashes that cloaked her gaze, soft pink lips were the only color on her face, and they turned upward with some amusement, as if the entire situation was a novelty for her.

  “Fuckah, Der’ph.” The rotted man’s grip on Chelsea only grew tighter, and Chelsea groaned at the bruises being pressed into her cheeks.

  “The dross speaks.”

  Pain still present as the woman in black’s eyes met hers, the corresponding fear released its grip on Chelsea.

  “So, it does,” her female companion said.

  Slightly shorter than the other woman, the blonde’s skin was several shades darker. Golden hair falling just past her shoulders, her deep blue eyes cut to the mocha man with the close-cropped hair and dark brown gaze who stood on the woman in black’s other side.

  “It’s almost a working vocabulary.” Dimples pushed into his cheeks as he looked back to the blonde.

  Though the woman in black smiled along, her eyes never strayed. Nor blinked. Nor did they, for even an instant, lose the feral glint that did nothing to alter Chelsea’s tangled feelings. Knowing somehow that the woman, and her equally alluring companions, was every bit as dangerous as the man holding her against the wall, Chelsea was still soothed at their presence, though her position had little changed.

  “Impressive,” the woman in black uttered. “But now it’s time for you to slink back through the cracks in the wall where you belong.”

  “Go ‘way,” the rotted man cursed. “Let me eat.”

  “The world is full of leftovers, Rat,” the woman said. “This feast is not for you.”

  Producing a decidedly rodent-like twitch at the statement, the rotted man stared for a prolonged beat, as if he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Then, with a swiftness that took her by surprise, he turned on Chelsea, decayed mouth flapping wide, and Chelsea rediscovered her fear as the jagged edge of a tooth scratched her skin.

  Jerked back before the bite could sink deeper, the rotted man howled at the mocha man’s grip on his hair, and the woman in black bent, coming up with a shard of split wood that she sank into the rotted man’s chest. The action having little apparent effect, when the woman in black gave the makeshift weapon an upward twist, the rotted man’s eyes rolled back and he dropped to his knees. Tottering there for a moment, he at last keeled forward, and Chelsea could see the orange glow in his eyes as he stared out at the light from the street,
spasms moving through him like a fish tossed to a boat’s floor.

  Placing a heavy boot on his head, the mocha man held the rotted man down as the blonde pulled a small packet from inside her coat. Ripping it open, she tossed it on the rotted man, and he screamed as flames erupted down his back. Completely engulfed in the time it took the mocha man to pull his leg out of harm’s way, an instant later the only thing left of Chelsea’s assailant was an outline of ash on the ice-covered ground.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Chelsea’s instinct for self-preservation raging back up at the sight, it warped again as the woman in black came closer, and, though she knew it was exactly what she should be, the request stole the desire to run from Chelsea’s body, making way for it to long for other things.

  Unable to move as the woman untied the scarf from her neck, Chelsea felt no cold when the wind slid down her collar, but only warmth, a warmth that wanted something from the woman, from all of them, she couldn’t entirely define. Burning low and irrepressible in her belly, it woke the sleeping thing within that kicked in equal anticipation.

  Hands moving to the top button of her coat, Chelsea watched the dark gaze intent upon the task, red tongue slipping out to wet pink lips, and she realized how much she wanted that which she feared only moments before, to be taken by a stranger in a dark alley. Three strangers, in whatever manner they so desired.

  Yearning forward in submission, she moaned as the woman in black’s nose and lips brushed her neck.

  “It only hurts for a second, I promise.” Fingers trailing the column of her throat, Chelsea clutched the leather of the woman’s jacket, staring into eyes tinted deepest red, like garnet, as the woman pulled back, wanting nothing more than to believe whatever she said.

  Hand on the side of her neck, Chelsea’s eyes drifted shut as supple lips slid against her throat, sob escaping and fingernails etching into leather at the burning stab through skin and vein. It did hurt, more than she was expecting, but, as promised, only for the briefest of moments. Discomfort rapidly pushed out, the recesses left behind were filled with something utterly alien and undeniably euphoric. Blood rushing through her, it converged at the spot where the woman in black sucked at her flesh, as a reciprocal, penetrating sensation tightened her lower abdomen.