George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"It's the truth."

"And you never inquired?"

"I'm not the inquisitive sort. Was it one of you guys who winged a shot at him?"

"You most certainly are the inquisitive sort, Dr. Frederickson. If you weren't, the three of us wouldn't be in this unfortunate situation."

"When a friend asks me not be be inquisitive, I'm not inquisitive. Everything I've told you is the truth."

The man sitting on the edge of my bed stared at me for some time in silence. I stared back, reflecting on the fact that I had never felt more alone or helpless than at this moment, in my own bed in my own apartment, surrounded by neighbors around, above, and below me. I was cut off from everyone by pain, the threat of pain, and a wet towel.

Finally the older man stood up, turned to his partner. "I believe him," he said easily. "What do you think?"

The younger man nodded, spoke for the first time. "I think he's telling the truth. Apparently, Kendry never shared information with anybody, and he's still keeping his own council; executing this painting is as far as he would go. It's curious, but it does seem to be the case."

"Good," I said. "Now that you've got that right, let's close down this show. I'd appreciate it if you'd take these ropes off me and get the fuck out of my apartment. Go out and play in the traffic."

The man with the thick glasses looked down at me. "Do you smoke, Dr. Frederickson?"

"No," I replied quickly, glancing back and forth between the two men. I found the question decidedly ominous. "I was told it's unhealthy."

The younger man dropped the sap in his pocket and took out a can of lighter fluid. I started to yell, but the towel slapped down over my mouth. Then the older man wrapped it around the back of my head, tied it. I could no nothing but squirm and watch helplessly as the man with the cold brown eyes removed the top from the can, then thoroughly soaked the painting. This done, he walked slowly around the bed, soaking the edges of the bedclothes. He screwed the top back on the can, put it back in his pocket, and took out an expensive-looking silver lighter. He opened the cap, then flicked the lighter to produce a long blue and white flame, which he touched to a corner of the painting. The fluid-soaked painting instantly burst into flame. The younger man tossed the burning painting beneath the bed, and then, without a backward glance, the two men turned and walked quickly from the bedroom. A few seconds later I heard the apartment door open and close.

I immediately began tugging at the ropes, to no avail. Smoke was beginning to billow out from beneath the bed, and I struggled against the oxygen-greedy panic rising within me. Breathing deeply through my nose, trying not even to think of what it would feel like when the black smoke began to fill my lungs and the flames to touch my flesh, I groped with my fingers for the knots around my wrists. It was no use; the ropes were taut, and the knots expertly tied. Again, I thrashed my body and yanked with my arms and legs, trying desperately to get one limb, any limb, free. But it was not to be. The only way the ropes were going to disappear was to burn along with me, which they would, obliterating any evidence to suggest that my death was anything more than the result of a freak accident, perhaps a fire caused by a short circuit in the reading lamp beside my bed.

Smoke was filling the bedroom now, almost totally obscuring my vision. Soon, I thought, one of my neighbors was going to smell it, if that hadn't happened already, and call the fire department. Unfortunately, I'd be long gone by the time anybody reached me. Ironically, the burning bed beneath me formed a kind of baffle for the thick smoke, affording me a pocket of relatively clean air. But it was only prolonging the agony; flames were shooting up all around me, and the mattress on which I lay was growing very hot.

Sayonara, I thought with something approaching an air of resignation. I'd read somewhere that people who'd been burned at the stake usually died of suffocation before the flames finally reached them. I fervently hoped that was true, and that the same principle applied in bed as at stake. The litter of lives Garth had mentioned had finally been used up. My night visitors had nailed me quickly, and they'd nailed me good. I was going to die, and I would never know the reasons for it.

It was the last thing I thought before finally passing out from heat and lack of air.

I woke up coughing. To my considerable surprise it appeared that I wasn't dead-only slightly singed and short of breath, with lungs that felt as if they'd been painted with the drippings at the bottom of a barbecue pit and a mouth that tasted the same. There was a soft hissing sound that seemed to come from all around me, and after a few moments I realized that what I thought was badly blurred vision was due to the fact that I was looking at the walls of an oxygen tent. I started hacking again, brought up dark phlegm. As if on cue, a flap of the tent was pulled back and a reasonably attractive nurse appeared with a metal bowl to contain my own drippings. The large, familiar, and comforting figure of my brother loomed up behind the nurse, peered down at me over her shoulder. When I tried to speak and could only manage a huge yawn, I realized I was pretty well doped up on analgesics, expectorants, whatever. I finished hacking and spitting, then lazily waved to Garth and drifted back to sleep.

When I did finally come around for an extended stay, I had a splitting headache. My mouth still tasted like a furnace, and my lungs felt like leather, but it was considerably easier to breathe. When I took a physical inventory, I found that I was burned on various parts of my body, primarily the lower parts of my arms and legs. However, even though the burns were covered with light gauze, I was fairly certain that they weren't severe. My feet and legs, and particularly my knees, throbbed from the pounding the younger man had given my soles, but he hadn't broken anything. Incredibly, I was not only alive, but not even seriously hurt. Considering the fact that the last thing I remembered was passing out on a bed that was going up in flames, I considered my present condition most peculiar, if not downright miraculous. Try as hard as I might, I could not come up with any kind of plausible scenario that could explain my survival.

I pushed back the flap on the oxygen tent, pushed myself up into a sitting position and swung my legs over the side of the bed, groaned when pain shot through my body and pounded in my skull. Garth, who had been sitting in a chair near the foot of the bed, quickly rose, came to me, and very gently wrapped me in his arms.

"Thank God," Garth said quietly, then tried to push me back under the oxygen tent.

"I'm all right," I said, pushing back. "Just let me sit up for a time. How the hell did I get here?"

Garth pulled the chair up to the side of the bed, sat down, and lightly rested his hand on my arm. "What do you remember?" he asked quietly.

A very dangerous question, I thought as I looked at Garth. I thought I was beginning to understand at least a few of the reasons why Veil had reached out for my help in such a maddeningly problematic and circuitous manner, and now I was in a position where I had to be very cautious about how I did things. I believed I had convinced my torturers that Garth was a totally disinterested party who hadn't even seen Veil's mysterious painting, and that we hadn't had any discussions about the matter other than those the men had monitored on the telephone. If the men hadn't been convinced of this, I was convinced that I would have survived the fire only to be told that my brother was dead. I had myself a dilemma witli no means to resolve it, no loft to leave open and no lights to leave burning. The circumstances surrounding Veil's disappearance were now most definitely a matter for the police to investigate, but the price of telling Garth what had happened could well be his life. I wasn't certain what I should do, and I wanted time to think about it.