Read Online All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) by Bruce Blake - Free Book Online

number. I stared,
open-mouthed.
    “ It
can’t be what it seems.”
    Piper shrugged—her
favorite gesture.
    “ Never
know until you try.”
    There were easily a
thousand names on the list. Luckily, and somewhat unbelievably, they
were in alphabetical order. I browsed from the a’s, watching
for recognizable names, only slightly deterred by occasional missing
letters, fallen from their spots to collect in the bottom of the
case like an alphabet soup sucked dry of its broth.
    I
finger-traced a path through the b’s and c’s, a few
names catching my attention—surely it couldn’t be the Ray
Charles—before reaching the e section and a name on the list
because of me.
    “ Elizabeth
Elton,” I whispered.
    Piper stepped up
beside me, her chin an inch from my shoulder.
    “ Who?”
    “ She
used to be my...neighbor. Father Dominic killed her.”
    “ What
luck.” She clapped me on the shoulder and that small touch
sent a jolt coursing straight for my groin. “With all the
people who’ve gone to Hell, what were the chances we’d
find someone you were looking for on the first try?”
    “ No
shit.” My finger traced a line from Beth’s name to the
apartment number. “It says she’s in twenty-eighteen.”
    There was no buzzer
beside the board. I looked high and low, then went to the opposite
wall looking for it, watching for some secret door hiding a phone to
call up and get buzzed in.
    Nothing.
    “ Damn
it.” I turned to Piper still standing by the board watching me
with the amused expression she liked almost as much as shrugging. “I
don’t know how to get in.”
    She tilted her head
at me and smiled, then walked the two steps to the front door,
grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
    “ Should
we try this?”
    “ Smart
ass.”
    She bowed her head
and swept her arm toward the open door, ushering me through. I went
sheepishly, thinking how different Piper was from Poe. When I first
met Poe, she was shy and nervous and had become only marginally less
so over the last few months. This woman was the opposite: outgoing,
playful, fun to be with. Too bad she was an angel and not a woman I
met in a bar.
    We entered a
massive foyer with crimson walls. No ash covered the smooth gray
floor; our footsteps echoed up to the ceiling forty feet above.
Other than four walls, a door, a ceiling and a floor, there was
nothing—no light fixtures, no comfy places for visitors to
rest, no mailboxes. Only the elevator doors set into the far wall
broke the monotony of emptiness. I strode across the slate tile
floor, the oppression of the dark walls and floor and the dim light
weighing on me with each step. I glanced over my shoulder to make
sure Piper was following and found her two paces behind me, walking
with the quiet grace of a careful cat.
    Halfway across the
lobby, I stopped.
    “ Did
you hear that?”
    She paused,
listening. “I don’t hear anything.”
    We remained there a
few seconds, a look of concentration on my face so she’d know
I was listening. I’d thought I heard a sound like rock
scraping against rock hidden amongst the echoes of my footsteps, but
now, listening for it, I heard nothing. We waited a few seconds
longer, then I borrowed a page from Piper’s book and shrugged.
    “ Guess
I’m hearing things.”
    We set out again,
and after a few steps, the sound returned.
    “ There
it is again,” I said without stopping this time. “Do you
hear it?”
    “ No.”
    She increased her
pace and looped her arm through mine. The electricity of her touch
filled me immediately, its buzz in my ears hiding any sound I may
have heard. Piper guided me—a little dazed and more than a
little aroused—to the elevator doors where she punched the
call button, then gazed up at the lighted numbers above the sliding
doors. I took the opportunity to peruse the smooth curve of her
neck, the drape of her hair across her shoulder, the fullness of her
lips. She hummed a tune at the back of her throat as she waited and
it