The Taken by Vicki Pettersson Read Free Book Online

the door shut behind him. “Who drew this? An amnesiac monkey?”
    Because the map looked deliberately confusing. Red lines, yellow ones, blue. A big squiggly in the middle that meant blast-all. The topography made no sense. He couldn’t even locate the Marquis, the grand hotel where he’d died, and was considering popping out back and asking Jimmy exactly where they were when a tinny voice swept through the room.
    “Griffin Shaw,” it boomed, causing the knobs where his wings had been torn from his body to pulse with pain. “Did you really tell one Melinda Childers that a rap on the head was the nicest thing her husband ever did for her?”
    The voice had Grif jumping, not because he’d thought he was alone but because it was so familiar. “Frank?”
    Whirling, he looked for the Pure who was in charge of the Centurions, but he saw no one.
    “Up here.”
    Grif turned back to the register.
    “Up.”
    Grif’s gaze rose to the security monitor behind the counter. Gone were the live shots of the building that’d divided the screen before. In their place was the Pure who appeared to each Centurion in the guise they most identified with authority. For Grif, that meant a sergeant in a detectives’ bullpen, something he’d long stopped questioning.
    Glaring through blurred static, and a picture that rolled every few seconds, Sarge crossed his great arms and gave Grif a cold stare. His wings, as black as the rest of him, took up the whole of the screen, though Grif could still see the tips, currently gold-tipped with fury. Hard lines drew his mouth down like a thin hook, and his jaw clenched reflexively. He hadn’t seen Sarge this mad since Harvey brought home the wrong soul.
    Frank leaned back, and the celestial camera—or whatever was allowing Grif to view him in the Everlast—pulled wide to reveal a desk that was as broad and imposing as the Pure behind it. “Childers?” Frank repeated, pointing to some papers on his desk.
    Grif glanced outside to make sure the cashier wasn’t looking before he answered. “What is that? My folder?”
    Sarge just stared. Like Anas, he had no pupils, though instead of her hot open flame, the rounds of his eyes held mist swirling over black marble. “And you told Simon Abernathy he wouldn’t have gotten dusted if he’d stuck to shilling fish and chips on his side of the pond?”
    “He was an illegal.”
    “Shaw.” Sarge threw down his pen. “You are a Centurion! You are greeting people in the most vulnerable moments of their afterlife. Don’t you remember what that was like?”
    “Sure I do,” Grif said, tapping out one of his smokes. He lit it behind a cupped palm, and exhaled before meeting Frank’s restlessly churning eyes. “Though the part right before that gets a little fuzzy.”
    Frank narrowed his gaze. “We’re not having this conversation again.”
    “Good.” Because Grif had been murdered. No amount of yapping would convince him to forgive it. And, for some reason, he couldn’t forget. “Then maybe we can talk about what the hell I’m doing on this mudflat. In flesh. ”
    “You have sensitivity issues, Shaw.”
    Despite those, or maybe because of them, Grif just blew out a stream of smoke. “Maybe I could put on a dress. Sing a little show tune?”
    Frank just stared back at him from the video screen. With his angelic nature hidden behind this familiar guise, it was easy to forget he was created in and of Paradise. Yet, unlike some of the other Pures, Frank didn’t seem to resent the Centurions. Sure, they were celestial misfits; no longer mortal, not truly angelic. But Centurions had still been created in God’s image, they remained His beloved children, and Frank said it was his job to see those souls at peace.
    Admittedly, Grif didn’t always make it easy.
    “That it?” he asked, when Frank just kept eyeballing him. “You knocked me back to the mud just to talk about my bedside manner?”
    “No, smartass.” Frank’s curse was cause enough