Angels

David Novara, CEO of the global consultancy firm Novara Engineering, stepped out of the shower, drying his hair vigorously with a towel.

His girlfriend, Claire Broussard, was standing in their opulent room at the Mandarin Oriental, looking out over Central Park. It was another typical New York summer night, hot, muggy and threatening to rain.

“Let’s do something exciting tonight,” she said.

David considered their options. “We could go to the Milk & Honey, on the Lower East Side. I think the Roxtons said they would be there tonight.”

“Please, I said exciting.” She looked down at the dots on the street fifty four floors below them. “We could jump.”

David paused. He could have the equipment there within the hour. He did the mental calculations in an instant… gravity, horizontal and vertical acceleration, lift and drag coefficients, with safety factor, without safety factor. He looked out over the park, picking possible landing sites. It wouldn’t be the craziest thing they had ever done.

David shook his head. “Not tonight.”

“How about Cancun, or Cairo?”

“I have to stay in town until the Davros deal is finalised.”

He stared at her reflection in the glass.

“You look lovely tonight, angelo mio.”

My angel. She did look angelic. Her skin was sleek and tanned, her hair long, silky and dark. She didn’t have to tell him he was beautiful, either. Looks, wealth, intellect, he had it all and he knew it. As a couple, they were nothing but amazing. David slid a hand around her waist, but she pulled away with a playful pout.

“Take me for a walk.”

“Where? Out there?”

“Yes, in the park. Let’s find somewhere quiet, somewhere secluded.” Her eyes were bright. “You know what I mean,” she whispered.

They dressed quickly and casually and slipped out through the service entrance, crossing the busy roundabout and walking down Central Park South. Already, fat drops of warm rain were pattering around them. The turned left on Center Drive and then hurried through the trees onto the quiet path around the Pond.

###

Not far away, deep inside the labyrinthine jumble of pipes below the city, in the stink and the darkness, water lapped quietly over a pile of rags. Only a few days before, the rags had been a fashionable black dress. Now, they were just scraps of cloth, carelessly abandoned, as was the murdered woman they hung from. Scrabbling claws drew closer; marauding rats were patrolling the city’s waste. The scent of her rotting flesh summoned them like a dinner bell.

The woman’s injuries were horrific. Her arms and legs had been hacked at until the flesh was shredded. Her guts spilled out through the deep gouges in her belly. Her face was battered, smashed, and her throat hung open like a second gaping mouth.

The rats rushed forward for their supper, then stopped dead, rising up on their hind legs, their whiskers quivering. Where there should only be the stillness of the grave, they could sense movement. The corpse ahead of them was twitching, juddering, then it was trying to stand, trying to move, trying to make use of its severed tendons and ligaments. It rose crookedly, and then started to walk, clumsily, lumbering through the sewer with terrible purpose, the terrified rats fleeing squealing before it.

###

The rain was heavy now, washing over David and Claire as they walked. It was like they were walking through a warm shower. David lifted his shirt over his head and let if fall forgotten on the path and they kissed, the droplets or rain glinting in the streetlights, the necklace she had bought for him in Rome glittering around his neck. The moment was magic. Claire wished she could freeze it forever.

Footsteps headed towards them.

“David, stop… listen!”

They could hear someone running towards them. She felt David stiffen in her arms, poised for action. She felt like she was holding an Olympic athlete waiting for the starting gun. His senses were fantastically alert. He was poised, ready for action. She flushed, trembling. God, this was incredible. When he hit his peak, he was godlike, so pure.

A jogger appeared around the bend.

“Yes, David,” Claire whispered. “Do it. I want you to.”

David focussed on the jogger with laser intensity. She was a red head, young, fit. She looked vaguely familiar to him, like he had seen her in a magazine or on TV. He bent down, reaching to his ankle, when he heard more footsteps. Two blue uniformed NYPD officers appeared ahead of them.

David stood up again and the jogger ran by, bumping Claire as she passed, calling out something. The romantic mood was spoiled completely. David shouted after the jogger.

“Hey, you stupid bitch, watch where you’re going!”

“David!” Claire pulled her hand away from her chest. It was not only dripping with water. It was dripping with blood.

“I’ve been stabbed!”

Within moments, they were surrounded by a crowd of police, uniformed and plain clothed. Officer Mazzaferro looked David over in the ambulance on their way to the hospital.

“You’re David Novara, the big shot businessman, aren’t you? Your people are Italian, from Piemonte.”

David shrugged, holding Claire’s hand.

“You have no idea how lucky you are,” told them. “We were running a surveillance operation in the park. Over the last thee weeks, four women have gone missing in the neighborhood. I’m second generation Italian, myself. That’s funny, because the jogger, she said something in Italian.”

“Did she?”

“She said ‘non sei un angelo’. Do you know what that means?”

“Will we be there soon, officer?”

“That means ‘you’re no angel.’ That’s odd, isn’t it? Does that mean anything to you?”

David shook his head.

“Ma’am?”

Claire turned her face to the window.

###

Officer Mazzaferro stepped into the office where his boss and the quiet Interpol agent who was helping out with the surveillance operation were working.

“Yeah, you were right, boss. He acted like he didn’t understand what she said. Still… are you sure this stuck up northerner is our guy?”

The detective nodded.

“Do you think the woman knows? She didn’t say anything when I asked him.”

The Interpol agent looked up from the files. She had striking hazel eyes. Her accent was strong, French, but her grammar was better than his boss’s, not that that was saying much.

“How was it Adrienne Rich put it?” she said. “‘Lying is done with words and also with silence.’”

“She knows.”

###

David woke up. The clock said it was still late and he was drowsy, but he had an odd feeling, like there had been a noise. He hovered between sleep and waking, unsure if it had been a dream.

No, someone was bumping around in the hallway. Claire. She shouldn’t be walking around by herself. She was still weak and still coming to terms with the scar.

There was a stirring in the bed. He reached out and felt Claire right next to him. He could feel her soft breathing.

He slipped out of the bed, gracefully, like a jungle cat. He slipped a wicked, gleaming knife out of his suitcase, opened the bedroom door and saw that the front door of the suite was wide open. The light was on in the sitting room. He crept in silently, ready to strike.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

The smell hit him like a brick. Some madman had broken into his suite and put a rotted human body on a chair at the mahogany dining table. The body was absolutely disgusting, so much raw meat. He couldn’t make out any features except for its long blonde hair. It was facing towards him like it was looking at him.

Even in the sweaty heat, a chill went through him. Impossibly, the body moved, slowly raising its arm, extending a finger, pointing behind him.

“What the hell?”

He spun around. A pretty, slim red head was standing in the doorframe. She looked familiar. He noticed that she had a cut across her midriff. The jogger!

“You bitch!”

He leapt for her, slamming his blade into her chest. She grimaced, then punched the heels of her palms into his ribs, knocking him stumbling backwards. She slammed the door shut and he crawled over to it, wrenching at the handle, trying furiously to pull it open, then pounding on it, shouting.

There was a scuffle next door. He heard Claire’s voice call out.

“David? David! Help me!”

“Damn you!” David screamed. “Open this door!”

There was a sucking noise from the table. David swung around, grabbing his knife off the floor. As he stared in horror, patches of the corpse’s skin became visible. It was like it was healing as he watched.

“What the hell is going on!” he shrieked.

The screams from his bedroom were growing louder, frantic. The jagged slash on the body’s neck sealed, like a zipper being zipped. The hairs on his neck prickled. He could hear meaty, wet sounds coming from the bedroom. He thought he was going to be sick.

“Do you know her?” the body croaked. Its face was appearing now, like dents being pulled out. It might have been pretty once. Beautiful, even.

“Do you know the woman with the red hair? The jogger?”

“She stabbed Claire, in the park. Open the door!”

“Do you know her from before that?”

“No.” Did he? Had she seemed familiar?

“Rome?”

“Ahhh…”

That was where he knew her from. There had been so many women, in so many different cities, so much excitement. It had given his life new purpose, a new dimension. The meticulous planning, the chase, the kill, always making certain that not a shred of evidence was left behind. How many fools like that Calabrian had he bested?

No. He would not allow this.

David sprang forward, viciously slashing at the blonde with his favourite weapon, but every slice healed before the next landed. He hacked at her in a frenzy, then fell back, drenched with cold sweat. She was untouched.

“What are you?”

The screaming from the next room stopped. There were lumbering footsteps in the hall, then the sitting room door swung open. The red head stood in the doorway. She was horrible, mangled, dripping blood, internal organs exposed. He tried to make sense of it, and then he understood.

“No… not her… not mi angelo…”

The blonde was completely healed, pristine now, calmly sitting in the chair as though nothing had happened. She was wearing an elegant, low cut black dress. He stared at her, his face grey.

“Do you recognise me now?”

He nodded. He had killed her two, three weeks ago. They had picked her up in a club in Soho.

“What have you done?” he asked.

“We stole from you, David. Why not? You had it all, and still you stole from us.”

The red head had collapsed in a corner of the room.

“You stole our lives, David. We were young, beautiful, full of life. You stole all the days ahead of us, our careers, the warmth of our lovers, the laughter of our children, our future, our joys, everything. My mother doesn’t even know I’m dead.”

The red head twitched, then, gradually, as David stared dumbfounded, she too healed, transforming into a person again… no, not a person… a pair of red wings unfolded from her back. She knelt, head on her knee, looking lost and forlorn.

“What are you?”

“All angels come to us disguised, David.”

She stood up from the table, a pair of yellow wings unfolding gracefully from her back. She gently helped the red angel to her feet, and they were gone.

David Novara did not go willingly. He was utterly certain that the guards were sending him straight to hell. The soft spoken French woman was there when they executed him. The last thing he saw before the injection stopped his heart was the woman’s lovely, hazel eyes. The eyes of an angel.

Word count: 2000