Vicki Pettersson - The Scent of Shadows

I glanced behind me, swallowing hard. There was a swatch of material hanging from the jagged glass, torn from my blouse when Warren pulled me out, but no sign of Ajax.

“Joanna?”

“Okay.” The word escaped on an exhalation and I nodded. We inched around the corner, my feet a mere inch shorter than the ledge’s width. I traversed the facade, gaining on him, but a gust of wind slapped at me, and Warren grinned as I hugged the facing.

The living room windows shone like gems in front of us, and the light inside was a beacon, calling me back to reality. What the hell was I doing out here?

“Ready?” Warren said.

I nodded, took a deep breath, and followed.

Ajax appeared inside the cozy living room, framed like a slide in a projector. He was in a warrior’s stance, legs wide, arms cocked, hands fisted around the pokers. Warren seemed unconcerned and kept inching along the ledge, a turtle on a tightrope.

“What do we do if he breaks the glass?”

“Try not to get hit.”

I turned around. “I’m going back.”

“Joanna.” His voice froze me in place. I turned to find his crazed eyes sober upon mine. “There is no going back.”

He was right. What would turning from a possible death to a more certain one do for me? It wouldn’t bring Olivia back, or change the fact that I’d killed a man without remorse; and I seriously doubted I could sweet-talk Ajax into changing his mind about doing the same to me. Besides, how many times had I prayed for God to take away the past? To change events so I could wake up and be happy and normal and…like Olivia. Never once had my prayers been answered.

Or had they?

I looked at the man leading me. Sent from the heavens or not—and I had to admit it was unlikely—I knew one thing: he was not who he seemed. He also held the answers to the events that had plagued me the past twenty-four hours. And I wanted those answers. Besides, I told myself, he was right. There never was any going back.

“I’ll follow you,” I said, and Warren’s face lit in absurd elation. “If you promise me two things.”

His brows drew together again.

“First, you have to tell me what the hell is going on, and I mean all of it.”

“Done! Easy-peasy,” he said, and leaned toward me confidentially. “And second?”

“And second? Take a fucking shower.” I wrinkled my nose. If he stunk before, he positively reeked now.

“Such a sweet girl. Glad you’re on my side.”

“I’m on my side.” I edged out, and Ajax appeared again, poised as he’d been before.

“You two finished yakking yet?” His lips moved on the other side of the glass, but his voice bloomed next to me. “Can we get on with this?”

“By all means. I’ve got a date with your mama. Gotta get a move on.” Warren hopped from one foot to the other with a sharp, jeering cackle. This infuriated Ajax and he rushed the window. I lunged for a vertical post, clinging to it with whitened fingertips. Warren did not, making himself a target.

I squeezed my eyes shut and averted my face as the poker lanced through the window. No crash came. Whirling back, I saw the tip slide through the glass as easily as trout through water. Warren dodged, wrapped his hand in the tattered hem of his duster coat, and seized the triangular blade before Ajax could withdraw. He yanked, the blade screeching and stuttering through the glass to the hilt. Ajax’s face slammed against the pane, and I gained another post before he’d recovered.

“Let. Go.” He spaced the words evenly, one eye riveted on Warren.

“You let go.”

Ajax must have sensed the futility in arguing with someone possessing the rationale of an asylum patient. That, or he was sick of eating glass. He pulled away and released the poker. “That’s okay. I have another.”

Viper fast, quicker than I’d have guessed, he had the second weapon spearing through the window, angling toward my gut. I assume everyone has a moment of terrified realization right before their death. I was no different. That sliver of a blade was the sharpest thing I’d ever seen. I anticipated pain, knew I’d be skewered through, and wondered if I’d feel the impact when I fell to my death.

Wondered, briefly, if Olivia had.

I didn’t feel it. I waited, eyes squeezed tight, and still it didn’t come. Having already braced myself for the hereafter, I found this relatively unnerving. I opened one eye. Ajax and Warren were staring at me, wide-mouthed and wordless. I looked down. Bending halfway to the hilt, the steel blade looked rubberized. Then its ruined tip began dissolving, dripping onto the stone ledge, and then down the side of the building like liquid mercury. Nonplussed, I glanced back up at the two men. Were supernatural beings supposed to look that surprised?

“Ah-ha! Eureka! I found her, Ajax! I found her!”

“I found her, you noxious bag of air.”

“Yes, but too late. Too late, and now look. She’s too strong for you! Just as we’d hoped. Just as I knew !”

“She’s not!” To prove it, Ajax yanked the first poker from Warren’s grip, which he’d loosened in his excitement, and thrust again. An inch away from my body it melted like snow. He tried again, with the same results, then dropped the stub with a cry of rage.

By now Warren was almost doubled over with laughter, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks as he wobbled precariously from one foot to the other. “Too strong! Too strong!”

“I don’t understand,” Ajax said to me. “You can’t have that kind of strength. You’re an innocent.”

“Yeah, that’s what Butch said. Right before I killed him.”

“Butch was here?”

“What? Can’t you smell him?” I asked nastily, bolder now that I was safe. Not counting the two hundred foot drop behind me. “Why don’t you use your nose? Sniff him out?”

They both stared, like I was the abnormal one there. Warren found his voice first. “You can’t smell the dead, Joanna. You’ve erased his scent, his essence. It’s as if he never existed.” He turned to face the man on the other side of the glass. “Isn’t that right, Ajax?”

Ajax had begun to shake. “You bitch. You fucking bitch.”

“Are you disrespecting me, Ajax?” Warren said. “Are you? Because if you are—”

“I think he’s talking to me.”

“Oh,” Warren said. “Go ahead, then.”

“I’m going to kill you, you know that?” Ajax told me. “I’m going to find you and I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“How?” Warren asked. “You can’t scent her, therefore you can’t find her.”

“Temporary. When the aureole wears off I’ll be on you like peanut on butter.”

Stupid thing for a homicidal anorectic to say.

“Or like a cat on a mouse.” Warren pointed at Ajax’s feet.

Ajax screeched, and wheeled backward. Luna hissed and began to stalk him, her butt swaying in a mean saunter, tail high and shaking. Ajax continued backing away, casting uncertain looks around him to make sure there were no other feline attackers. Shaking, he made his way to the door.

“This isn’t over,” he said, pointing at me. “Not by a long shot.” Then he fled out the front door just as Luna charged.

“We can go in now,” Warren said.

Luna met us inside the bedroom window. She was licking a paw—buffing her knuckles, it seemed—as she waited for us. She moved over as I climbed through, and wound about my legs, probably expecting a treat. I scooped her up and buried my face in her fur the way Olivia had. The purr shook her body and reverberated into mine.

“I didn’t know your sister had a cat.”

But somehow he knew I had a sister. Had a sister, I thought again, and felt the tears well. “Yeah. She did.”