He was, but he needed to be better than good until this was over. The sight of my desk, unused and gathering dust, didn’t help. Ivy’s piano, seldom played but utterly dust free, didn’t help, either. Kisten’s pool table, the felt still burned and charred from a “white” charm a coven member had thrown at me, slid my mood clear back into depressed.
“I’m sorry, Kisten,” I whispered, touching it as I passed it on the way to the foyer and the narrow staircase to the belfry. I had meant to get it refelted a long time ago, but life kept interfering. I’ll call the rec place right after I call Marshal, I thought, feeling a pang of guilt. Marshal probably wouldn’t return my call, but it was either him or trusting the I.S.
I entered the dark foyer, still lacking a light and pitch-black. How long had I been promising myself to wire one in? I wondered, counting it in years now.
I can do better than this, I thought as I pulled the narrow door to the stairway open with a soft creak, and a faint tap, tap, tap echoed down in the slightly cooler air smelling of wet shingles. Wayde was working on his room again, and I started up, thinking there had been too many things I wanted to do, and none of them was getting done. I’ve got to start taking care of things, I thought, vowing to do something this time.
“Hi, Ms. Morgan!” a high, resonant voice called out, and I jumped, nearly falling backward down the stairs.
“Holy crap, Bis!” I exclaimed, looking up to see the cat-size gargoyle clinging to the sloping ceiling like a weird bat. “You startled me!”
The small teenager grinned to show his black teeth, his red eyes glowing slightly in the dim light of the stairway. He had lightened his pebble-gray skin to match the raw wood brown of the walls,
and his clawed hands and feet dug in as he wheezed/laughed at me. As I watched, his skin shifted color again, and he swished his lionlike tail. It even had a tuft on the end that matched the long hair on his ears. It helped him balance in flight, apparently.
“Sorry,” he said, his pushed-in, almost ugly face turned up in a smile. Leathery wings spread, he jumped to my shoulder and wrapped his warm tail around my neck. I braced for the sensory overload that never came … and sighed. Before my bracelet, his touch had sent every ley line in Cincinnati singing in my mind. Now there was nothing, and I breathed in his odd scent, a mix of old iron and feathers from the pigeons he ate.
“I don’t think you’re sorry at all,” I said mildly as I started back up, and his tail tightened. Immediately, I forgave him. Bis was a good kid. He’d been living in the belfry for almost a year now, having been kicked off the basilica for spitting on people. Jenks thought that was just fine, and Bis paid his rent by watching the church and grounds the four hours around midnight that Jenks liked to sleep. Where else was the little guy going to go?
“Wayde is decent, right?” I asked, again hearing the faint tap, tap, tap come again.
“Decent?”
I could understand Bis’s confusion. He usually didn’t wear clothes—they interfered with his ability to go chameleon.
“Uh, maybe you could just warn him that I’m coming?” I said, slowing as I neared the top, the steady glow of light coming through the wide crack under the door.
But then Wayde’s easygoing voice echoed down. “I’m decent. Come on in.”
The tap, tap, tap started again, and I continued up the stairs, trying to decide how I was going to do this without hurting his feelings. Wayde had been fixing up the belfry—he liked the space better than camping out in the back living room. I hadn’t been up there yet to see what he’d done. There’d been lumber deliveries and several furniture vans, and I was curious. Last time I’d seen it, the room had been an empty hexagon with the church’s bell hanging over it and no insulation. It had been a nice place to sit and watch the rain, but not to live in.
“Wait until you see,” Bis said proudly. “Wayde made a shelf for me in the steeple.”
I smiled as I ascended the last of the stairs. “I didn’t know you wanted one. Sorry, Bis.”
Again his tail tightened, and I almost choked. “It just kind of happened,” he said, and I could breathe again. “You know, extra wood and stuff.”
Electric light? I thought, looking at the slice of warm yellow glow coming through the crack under the door as I neared the last steps.
Bis jumped from my shoulder and my hair flew as he landed on the door to swing it open. Another wing pulse, and he was in the air again, darting up past the huge bell making a false ceiling. Light had spilled out, and I heard the thump of a hammer being set down. “Come on in. What do you think?”
Head swiveling, I came in as Wayde turned from the window he’d been working on. The old slatted frame was out, propped up against the wall beside him, and the dark square of the rainy night was beyond him. A new, stickered window was next to him, ready to go in. His shirt was off and his lightly tanned skin glistened from either sweat or the mist coming in off the roof. I blinked, taking in his tattoos. I’d seen only a fraction before, but the man was covered in them. They moved as his muscles did, and he had a lot of those, too. He looked good over there with his tools and stuff. Really good.
“Nice,” I said softly, and Wayde ducked his head, smiling slightly.
“I meant, what do you think of the room?”
I stood in the doorway and eyed him. “What did you think I was commenting on?” But when I actually looked at the room, my lips parted. It was nice. The original oak floor still needed to be finished, but a large circular rug added softness and warmth. Wallboard had gone up, already mudded and with insulation behind it, I was sure, from the rolls I’d seen in the sanctuary last week. The cathedral ceiling around the bell was finished, but the original heavy beams still showed. The metal rings that held the rope to ring the bell had been polished of rust, and they gleamed dully.
Amazed, I craned my neck until I spotted Bis on his shelf. It ran along the entire interior of the steeple, and it looked cozy. “I didn’t know there was electricity up here.”
“I ran a line up through the walls,” Bis said proudly, shifting his wings in a leathery hush.
Wayde exhaled as he sat on the sill, his back to the night, one booted foot dangling, one touching the worn floorboards. The rain on the roof sounded nice—it smelled even better. “That kid is better than a snake,” he said, and I didn’t think he meant the living kind. “Three minutes, and he had it to me.”
“Wow, you guys do good work. This looks great!” I said. There was a single camp-style bed in the corner, almost hidden behind the antique marble-top dresser that had been here when we bought the place. A small electric heater sat across the room, humming faintly. The faded fainting couch was beside it, and the shelf where I’d once had my demon curse books. I felt warm as I remembered what Marshal and I had done on the couch, then shifted awkwardly.
“It’s small,” Wayde said, eyes on the huge bell acting like a fake ceiling. “But I like it. It’s the first time I’ve been in any one place longer than a month. It feels good to settle, I guess.”
I came farther in, fidgeting inside as I tried to find a graceful way to bring up his work habits. My old folding chair was set beside the bed, the one I used to sit on when I’d come up here to get away from everyone and just watch the rain. “I’ve never lived anywhere other than Cincinnati. Long term, that is.”
Wayde had gone back to his work, and he picked up his hammer, ripping the last bit of molding out. “You name it, I’ve been there.”
“Detroit,” I said, thinking his back looked strong, from running probably, since his muscles were smooth, not chunky from weights.
I flushed when he turned, catching me ogling him, but he was pointing to a skid-mark tattoo on his arm. “Detroit,” he said in challenge.