The Taken

Chapter Five

In addition to the death senses, Grif was relieved to find he’d retained his celestial ability to unlock things. He entered Craig’s ranch house without even having to touch the keyhole, bypassing the red blink of a security camera with the wave of his hand. Yet he’d already discovered the ability was clearly meant only for use in locating Katherine Craig. The one time he’d tried to open the back door of a gentlemen’s club-just to ask for directions, of course-he’d been yelled at and chased by the owner’s dog. Briefly caught, too, he thought, scowling at the ripped hem of his pant leg. He’d have given the fleabag a mouthful of feathered daggers if he’d had his wings. As it was, he had to stick to the plan. He couldn’t shield himself from attack, never mind Craig.

And though he still felt vulnerable without his full celestial powers, the limitations were also a comfort. Like a rainbow, their absence was an intangible promise. He’d be back in the protective lap of the Everlast in a few short hours’ time. Just an angel’s blink, really.

Though still long enough for a woman to die.

Pulling the autopsy papers from his breast pocket, he looked up Katherine Craig’s time of death. Ten fifteen at night. Just over two hours from now, and not even a full twenty-four since Rockwell’s murder. At least Craig wouldn’t have to live with her grief for long, Grif thought, tucking the papers away.

He looked up, squinting into a darkened hallway. Outside the home, the chalky white walls had gleamed beneath the full moon, the Spanish tile roof a red convex helmet above shuttered eyes. Inside, the dark wood floors creaked under Grif’s weight as he moved out of the foyer, pausing at the entry of a sunken living room with ceiling beams in matching black chocolate. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something both comforting and disturbing about the room. He liked it, though he knew he shouldn’t.

A chandelier sat in one corner, a cascade of translucent capiz shells falling nearly to the floor, and a floor screen divided the large room in half, though a giant free-form sofa was the real focus. Grif could almost see Craig lounging there, sable curls thrown back against the silk brocade pillows, creamy neck bowed in a revealing arch. But he shook himself of the image as soon as he imagined her smiling, tilting that jet-black head his way.

A boxy television anchored the north-facing bay windows, and Grif crossed to it. How about that? It was the same model he’d bought for Evie right before he’d died. She’d wanted the most modern available, of course. Said it was important to show that he was a thriving independent contractor. Success, she claimed, made people want to trust you.

Because the thought of Evie made him smile, he reached for the knob next to the television screen and gave it a hard twist to the right. Black-and-white static immediately filled the room, but the sound was off, which Grif gave thanks for a moment later when the static cleared and a woman’s image popped on the screen.

Grif jolted as Katherine Craig emerged from the same foyer he just had, dropping her bag and briefcase onto the sofa and kicking off her shoes. She disappeared into the room behind him, then emerged moments later with a tumbler in one hand, climbing the short steps with slumped shoulders, then turned in to a hallway.

The shot cut off there, and the next image was of Craig entering a darkened bedroom, but time had clearly passed. She was wrapped in a bathrobe, hair wet, tumbler empty. She was headed back into the kitchen with her glass when the shadow rose up behind her.

The first blow was just to stun. After all, rapists didn’t generally want to roll in blood. Craig lifted her right hand, as if to fend off the punch that had already come, but a second fist flew from nowhere and the crystal tumbler shattered. Strong fists ripped at that shining mane of glossy black hair, pulling Craig up even as she fell. Two attackers, Grif realized, as Katherine Craig disappeared beneath a relentless onslaught of grabbing hands and pummeling knees.

Grif turned off the television. He didn’t need to see it twice.

He didn’t go directly to the bedroom. He couldn’t, so soon after what he’d just seen. Instead he crossed to the fireplace, red brick lacquered white, and stared into an antique mirror with scrollwork that swirled up like gold smoke. Unable to meet his own reflected gaze, he studied the snapshots that’d been tucked haphazardly into the ornate frame, a casual juxtaposition that somehow worked.

He was immediately drawn to a woman who reminded him more than a little of Veronica Lake. She had a cascade of glossy blond hair that obscured one side of her face while revealing a long neck that looked translucent. The dim light gave it the blue-white aspect of a still-developing negative.

But it was the wide smile that caught Grif’s breath-the smile within a smile, he thought, touching the photo’s side-and that was how he recognized Katherine Craig. How many incarnations did she have? he wondered, eyes skimming photos, finding others. Her face was painted differently in all, her hair dyed in colors that defied nature’s rainbow. She was even clearly bewigged in some, but in each she still wore that trademark smile, a radiant blast that warmed even the sepia tones.

She had a lot of friends, Grif saw. His Evie had always said she was a man’s woman, that boys were simpler and made better sense. “Like solid corner pieces of the world’s puzzle,” she’d explained, and Grif couldn’t argue. But Craig was obviously a woman well liked by other women.

Moving on to the frames housed on the mantel, he honed in on one of Craig with a slim blond man, arms thrown about one another’s waists, both of them posing like Egyptian statues. They were close, he thought, though they didn’t give off the vibe of a couple.

Not that it mattered anymore.

Grif wasn’t surprised to find most of the photos also included Nicole Rockwell-my best friend is waiting outside-or that she, too, was a fan of varying appearances. One photo showed her with hair so red he could almost feel heat and scent flame. But by now she was tucked into the Tube in the Everlast, until she could forget enough to heal and move on to Paradise.

Turning away, Grif saw that the adjacent wall was lined from floor to ceiling in rough-hewn bookshelves, the top rows lined in hard covers, spines so cracked they looked like torture victims. The pulp fiction was piled up below that, tilting in dangerously angled stacks. Baskets of magazines filled the bottom shelf: hot rods in one, full-sleeved comics in another, and a name he recognized from the Everlast, Oprah. So that was the woman who kept so many souls from using a disadvantaged childhood as an excuse for poor behavior.

Even without another person in it, the house radiated life. Shaking his head, Grif stopped short of entering the kitchen. Cursing his mortal sight, he rubbed his eyes, but no. It was all still there. Excluding a gleaming white pedestal table perched in the corner, something pink had seemingly puked all over the room. The oven was pink, the stovetop. Even the icebox. Though larger, it was also the same basic layout as the kitchen in The Honeymooners. Grif snorted. After fifty years, and a dip in the forgetful pond, that memory had somehow stuck.

One of these days, Alice, he heard Ralph Kramden saying, and POW! Right to the moon!

He replaced Audrey Meadows’s face with Craig’s.

One of these days, Katherine. Pow! Right to the Everlast!

A covered patio sat on the other side of the room, and wincing, Grif slid the adjoining door open for some fresh air. The past and the present were mingling, joining forces to knock the breath out of him. Anas had said he had no place in the Everlast, but he wasn’t adapting so well to the Surface, either. He couldn’t tell if having been alive once before was more of a help or a hindrance.

It’s probably just these fragile new lungs, he told himself, sucking in a deep breath. Yet it was more of the same outside. Loungers with diamond frames cushioned in colorful patterns. A rolling patio cart adorned with pink flamingoes and a coal barbecue that’d been turned into a planter for succulents.

Life so vibrant against the still, dark night that it practically screamed.

You’re projecting, Grif told himself, and maybe he was. But the collision of old and new in this house unnerved him. It echoed eerily of the way he’d plowed head-on into Katherine Craig’s life, and his stomach roiled at the thought of all this vitality ending because of him. And it scared him how much he wanted to take it back.

Returning to the kitchen, needing this night over with, Grif almost missed the ripple. It slid behind him, like a breeze sneaking into the windless night. He whirled, squinting hard, but saw nothing. Yet the air purled like curtains parting to reveal a new act. As one of the younger Centurions, Jesse, liked to say, There’s a disturbance in the Force.

A ripple was a forward thrust, the gears of the Universe picking up speed as fate shifted onto a one-way street toward inevitable conclusion. For Grif, and for Craig, it meant there was no stopping what would happen here tonight. It had, in some sense, already happened. So he wasn’t surprised at the way the sliding door vibrated when he touched it, sending out an eddying pulse-one attached to everything else in the world.

This was violence’s point of entry.

Grif stared at the door. He had no wings, no celestial shields or weapons to prevent the attack. Just the ability to open doors and lose himself inside. But he relocked the door anyway. He’d already made it easy enough for the world to rob Katherine Craig of her smiles.

Finally, he moved down the darkened hallway, and into the back of the house, where he found himself having to choose between rooms. He turned right, into the one with the largest doors, and didn’t even need the pulsing force of fate to let him know this was where Craig would die. The bed was made, pristine in the burgeoning moonlight, but Grif could make out the plasma ringing it like an etheric chalk outline.

You gotta watch this one, Griffin… and feel the death as if it were your own.

Turning, Grif searched for the best place to do that, deciding quickly on the mirrored folding screen that turned the room’s left corner into a Hollywood boudoir. It was a tight fit but he could stand behind it unseen. Lie down, too, because that’s what he needed just now.

Sinking to his knees, Grif simply tilted over to drop his forehead to the floor. Yet when he closed his eyes he saw the television screen again, and Craig’s mouth, wide with silent cries as her battered body disappeared into a vortex that narrowed and shrunk, until only a diminishing star remained, centered in his mind. It, too, finally disappeared.

Pow, Katherine! Right to the moon.