A Time of Demons and Angels Read online

  “Yeah, and might have got himself hurt.” Morey had been a bouncer at an assortment of bars when he’d been young and still thought he could throw a punch like a man two decades his junior. He couldn’t. His arthritis wouldn’t let him.

  “Boy, Sis. They were smashing the booze and the mirrors behind the bar as we were getting out of there. See that? Front window shattered. Broken tables, chairs, everything. It’ll cost a fortune to make it right. Poor Morey. Poor us. I liked working there. A lot.”

  Cassandra exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “We should give Morey a hand cleaning and fixing it up if he needs it.” That would be a way to assuage her guilty conscience a little for hightailing it as they had.

  “For a price right?”

  She sent a sideways grin at him, not taking her eyes off what was in front of her. “I suppose we could ask for some money. Heaven knows we need it. We’re both handy with a dustpan and a broom and, thanks to Uncle George, we know how to use a saw and a nail gun.” Their uncle was a carpenter and had taught them well, believing a person could always use building skills and he’d been right. They’d saved a load of money by remodeling their uncle’s house themselves.

  She didn’t want to worry her brother, but the rain was coming down so hard, the winds so strong, she could hardly stay on the street much less see it. The wind shimmied the car all over the place. And ending up wrecked in a flooded ditch somewhere wasn’t what they needed to end their perfect night.

  “First thing tomorrow we’ll go in and offer our services to Morey then, huh, Sis?”

  “I think we should. Least we can do.” Right then what she wanted was to get her and Johnny home. Get safe and dry behind solid walls. Forget about the strangeness of the night they’d just come through. Climb into bed and sleep.

  “You think Morey’s going to pay us for tonight?” Her brother was making funny doodles on the foggy window with his fingers.

  Cassandra laughed softly. “We played less than two hours, Johnny. Maybe he’ll half pay us since two hours is half of four.”

  “Be better than nothing. I need the money no matter how little it is.”

  “You,” she retorted, “always need money.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” he quipped, but there was weariness in his voice. “Gosh, I’m tired. Being caught in a bar fight takes it out of a person.”

  “I’ll say.” And seeing her brother hurt had taken it out of her. But he hadn’t been hurt, thank God. He was okay. She looked at him and felt what she always felt. Unconditional love.

  He was all she had left of them. Her family. Her three sisters, two brothers, and mother and father. They were all dead and gone twenty years now. How swiftly time had passed. Yet she still missed each one of them so much.

  She was blessed to have Johnny and never forgot it. Not for one millisecond. Maybe that was why she couldn’t get mad at him about anything, not his carelessness with money or his nonchalant approach towards life. To her, he would forever be the boy he had been when he’d thrust his small trusting face up towards hers, the flames reflected in his terrified eyes, as she led him from their burning house that night so long ago.

  She’d saved him then, but he’d saved her in so many ways so many times since. She’d lay her life down for him or Aunt Ellie or Uncle George. They were her family now.

  She’d have to say a prayer before bed thanking God that Johnny hadn’t been hurt and light a candle before mass on Sunday. Make that two candles: One for her brother’s near escape and one for the souls of her dead family.

  Strange thing was she could have sworn that beer bottle had hit Johnny. She was sure she’d seen the cut and the blood.

  Forget it. He’s fine. That’s all that matters.

  “Now that we don’t have to go to the hospital and I’ve saved you all that money, are you hungry, Cassie? Want to hit a drive-through and pick up hamburgers to eat at my place?”

  “You don’t have any food at home?”

  “There’s not a thing at my apartment fit to eat. I swear. Not even enough for a mouse.”

  “You got any money on you?” she countered teasingly.

  He pulled something from his pocket and waved it around. “Whoa, I found a twenty dollar bill. Doggone. Imagine that.”

  “Yeah, imagine that. But weren’t you going to use that to fix your car?”

  “I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Right now I’m hungry.”

  “All right. You treat, then.” She chuckled. “But I can’t believe after what happened to us tonight you can think about food.”

  “Hungry, that’s why.”

  Typical. She shook her head. A McDonald’s loomed up ahead on her left. “You’re always hungry. But never mind, the drive-through will get us off the road and out of this heavy rain for a couple of minutes. Maybe the deluge will slack off by the time we’re through.”

  Before she turned off the highway, something skittered out in front of the car and she narrowly missed it. A wispy, floating snake of a thing that crept from among the wet, shadowed trees along side of the road. What the hell?

  It’d been a bad night. She was still imagining things. That’s all. Calm down. Get a grip. Get a cheeseburger. A large shake with extra chocolate. That’d help. Warm food always did.

  Back at Johnny’s apartment, a dingy little dwelling he had the nerve to call home, the cheeseburger and shake filled her stomach and took the edge off her nerves. She and Johnny made jokes about the bar fight and how frightened they’d been. Talking about it put it in perspective. It’d been a close call, but they’d gotten out of it in one piece. Just a part of the bar life.

  She had other problems.

  The whole trip back to her flat, driving carefully through the pelting rain, she couldn’t focus on anything but the strange things she’d been seeing; the strange way she felt. Her perception was subtly distorted and everything felt unreal lately. She hadn’t felt this way since the night of the fire.

  Bad enough she could see the soon to be departed, but now those other things, too? Perhaps she was crazy. One of those thousands of people who lived on the fringe of normal sanity. Not quite nuts, but not quite in her right mind, either. She’d touched Johnny’s wound and it’d disappeared.

  Yeah, sure.

  She was relieved to get home, because nothing could hurt her there. No apparitions or wispy creatures hiding in her closets or in the dark corners. Her aunt and uncle had the house blessed by a priest every year. She was protected there.

  Chapter 5

  Cassandra

  PARKING THE CAR, CASSANDRA would have made a run for the outside stairs to her residence, but seeing the lights on at her aunt and uncle’s, she detoured and knocked on their door first.

  It was just after eleven, so they might be awake, or her uncle anyway. A night owl, he often stayed up to watched television while Ellie went to bed early.

  Her uncle answered the door with a smile. “What the heck you doing home so early, sweet pea? You two didn’t get fired, did ya?” Once, he’d been a big, tall man whom the passing years and hard times had shrunk. His long iron-gray hair was streaked with white and his kind blue eyes were rimmed in age lines. But his caring nature and smile were always genuine.

  “No, we didn’t get fired, but I didn’t feel like going home yet. I need to talk. If you put a pot of coffee on, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “I was thinking myself how nice a cup of java would be with those cinnamon rolls I made this morning. Got ’em from a can. You know, the kind you tap on the sink and it pops open? But they’re not bad. Sit down. First I’ll fetch a towel so you can dry off. You look like a drowned kitten.” He hobbled out of the kitchen. His legs must be hurting him again. “Start talking,” he said from the other room. “My hearing’s the one thing that hasn’t gone yet.”

  That’s what he thought. Lots of times she’d say something and he’d mishear it. But she’d never tell him that because she didn’t want to hurt him.

  As she settled int
o a kitchen chair, her uncle returned with the towel, tossed it at her, and stood at the sink making coffee. His hands moved slowly and his shoulders sagged. It was awful, she thought, watching him get old.

  “We had a bit of trouble tonight at the bar.” She dried her face and hair. “A couple of yahoos decided to start a free-for-all and the place got a little busted up, I’m afraid.”

  “Anyone get hurt?”

  “Nah, don’t think so,” she fibbed. No sense in upsetting her uncle with the truth.

  “You two okay?”

  She didn’t tell him about wrongly thinking Johnny had gotten hurt. She didn’t tell him about the men in the crowd whose faces melted to reveal monsters underneath. Oh, no. She didn’t tell him any of that. “Sure. We left before it got too rowdy. It was only a fight.” Another lie. There’d been massive property destruction and people had gotten hurt. She’d seen the damage; heard the shocked cries of pain. Her head was spinning from the bad memories.

  “Oh, my,” he clucked as the coffee began to perk. He took the rolls out of the microwave. Cassandra liked them warm. “You two had quite an exciting night. At least there were no casualties. Except for Morey’s bar. I hope you still have a job.”

  Her uncle placed the rolls on the table.

  “Me, too.” She’d had enough of talking about the fight, so she picked up a roll and sunk her teeth into it. “Thank you, these cinnamon buns taste so good. They hit the spot.

  “So, how was your and Aunt Ellie’s day?” Cassandra hadn’t seen either of them all day. She’d been out running errands and tidying her apartment.

  “Uneventful. The way I like it. Ellie helped me make breakfast, did the cleaning up by herself, and was fine company...for most of the day. Until after supper, when she threw a fit and broke a couple pieces of our best china because she thought I’d called her a name. Oh, and that I’d been cheating on her with that painted neighbor lady.” He snorted, canting his thumb in the general direction of the woman’s house. “She threw a hissy-fit tantrum over it.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “Yeah, she did. But the name calling and that cheating stuff is all in her mind, you know.” He tapped the side of his head with his finger, his smile sad.

  “Of course it is.” Cassandra laid a hand over his. “You okay? You look tired.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. And I should look tired.” A quick grin. “It’s after my bedtime.”

  Uncle George was the sweetest of men, devoted to his wife, and certainly not the kind to fool around with anyone, especially the woman next door. Mrs. Valerie Tyler, a widow, was nice and all, but a clown would envy the amount of cosmetics she wore and her behavior reminded Cassandra of someone who didn’t always live in the real world.

  Even Cassandra’s friend, Sarah, thought Mrs. Tyler was a little off. And for Sarah to say that was saying a lot. Sarah was the queen of off.

  “I hate this illness Ellie has,” her uncle muttered, gazing around, exasperation and loneliness etched into his face. His hands around his coffee cup shook slightly. “Never know what she’s going to do next. Never know if my Ellie is with me at any time or if that other Ellie is.”