Ordinary Angels

India Drummond

Description

Most of Zoe's friends are dead, but she doesn't mind because they died long before she met them. Then one Tuesday night an angel takes her salsa dancing and turns her world upside down. Grim reality closes in when she discovers a body in her company's boiler room and Higher Angels accuse her best ghost friend of murder. Knowing she's the only one who can stand against them, Zoe resorts to lying, stealing and summoning, all while trying to determine if what she's feeling is real. In the end, getting blood on her hands forces Zoe to question herself, and her angel to question her. Contains supernatural sizzle.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Trindlemoss Publishing
• Date de parution: 14 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908436160
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
A Note from India Drummond
More by India Drummond
Blood Faerie - Chapter 1
Ordinary Angels

by
India Drummond
Copyright © 2011, India Drummond. All Rights Reserved.
Book design by Trindlemoss Publishing
Trindlemoss Publishing electronic publication: September 1, 2011
http://www.trindlemoss.com
eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United Kingdom by Trindlemoss Publishing, 2011

epub ISBN: 978-1-908436-16-0
print edition ISBN: 978-1-908436-05-4
To Colin, who understands my artistic temperament and loves me anyway.
My very own angel.
Acknowledgements

Warm, heartfelt thanks to: Marsha Moore and Mollie Bryan for helping me through those early drafts and Daniel Mahgerefteh for showing me the secret life of a Tuesday dancer.
To John Ponderoyn, Ute-Christine Klehe, and Rhonda Kurz: You were there at the beginning of this writer’s journey, before this story was even a twinkle in my eye. Thank you.
Most of all I owe deep gratitude to Kate McIntire. Your never-failing faith and encouragement made so many things possible, including this book.
Chapter 1

All but one of Zoë Pendergraft’s friends were dead. This didn’t bother her, because most had died long before she met them. Henry, for example, died in 1883. Not in the Fiskers building itself, obviously, since the Fiskers building wasn’t constructed until 1924. Of all the spirits she saw living their afterlives, she only called a few friends, and Henry topped that list.
She looked up and down the corridor once more to make sure no one could see her. “Henry?” she called as she stepped into the company’s vast, dank boiler room and closed the scuffed, dirty door behind her. “It’s me. Zoë.” She’d had to avoid several co-workers on the way to the maintenance area, but she had a special reason to visit Henry today.
“I know it’s you, Miss Zoë. I always can tell.” Henry appeared from behind a series of pipes along the north wall. He must have been handsome when he was alive. She saw the appeal, even though he wore the overalls of a railway worker from the nineteenth century. Henry’s wide, dark face broke into a grin, showing a full set of gleaming teeth.
“I brought you a present,” Zoë said, matching his smile with her own.
“Now, you didn’t have to do that. You know it’s enough that you come see Old Henry and chat once in a while.”
With a dip into her jacket pocket, she closed her hand around the small metal object. “Guess what it is,” she said.
“Why I couldn’t begin to guess, Miss Zoë. You’re always full of surprises.”
She held out her hand and revealed an antique key. The decorative top, or bow as Henry had taught her to call it, had blackened with age, but she could still see the intricate scrollwork forming the cloverleaf design. The post had two identical bits on either side. Viewed together, they looked like two capital Fs back to back.
“I found it at a shop on Union Street. Isn’t it great?” One of the things she loved about San Francisco was the fantastic antique stores dotted all over the city.
Henry towered over her and peered at the key in her hand. “That’s just fine, Miss Zoë. The finest one I’ve ever seen.” His weathered face glowed for a second as he placed a hand over the key.
Zoë could have sworn the key shimmered blue when he got closer, but the effect passed so quickly she dismissed the thought. “Shall I put it with the others then?” She crossed to the farthest, darkest corner of the boiler room where a pegboard hung in front of a forbidding and disused metal door. On the pegboard was a mismatched collection of odds and ends from a century past with a few things even older than Henry. She placed the new key on an empty peg somewhere in the middle, above a line of trinkets that included a pocket watch, a small knife, and a carved piece of ivory. Nothing was particularly valuable, but they had each caught her eye, and she knew Henry loved old keys. “There.”
When she turned around, Henry looked teary. He pulled an old hanky out of his pocket and wiped his nose.
“Oh, Henry, I’d give anything to be able to give you a hug right now.”
Henry smiled. “You sit yourself down, Miss Zoë, and I’ll tell you a story.”
About nine months ago, shortly after she had started coming to see Henry, she’d smuggled down an old quilt to cover a long metal box. It wasn’t enough to make the seat soft, but it did protect her from the worst of the grime. She made herself comfortable on it now, settling in for a chat. Henry put his hand over hers. It went right through, and a deep chill made her bones ache. She tried to suppress the shiver that sliced through her body, because she wouldn’t want to offend her dear friend.
“In 1878 I worked for Southern Pacific as a stake driver,” Henry began and then interrupted himself. “Have I told you this before?”
“Don’t think so,” Zoë said, although he had. Dead people, she noticed, had a horrible sense of anything that happened after they quit living. Time got fuzzy and days, weeks, even years ran together into an insignificant blur.
Henry had a gift for storytelling though, so she didn’t mind the repetition. The images of the men working in the hot sun floated in her mind as if she’d blistered her back alongside them. Painting scenes of life in another age, he often talked about the “China House” where he’d bunked with the Chinese railway workers, and sometimes touched on his time in the gold mines in Lament, California. She’d noticed spirits rarely talked about how they died. Although she was curious, it seemed rude to ask, and Henry was such an old gentleman that she didn’t want to offend him. She’d been able to see ghosts for all her twenty-five years, and she’d learned which topics to avoid.
When her watch beeped once, Zoë couldn’t believe how the hour had sped by. She looked up at Henry, who hadn’t noticed the sound. He was in full swing, talking about his foreman, Bill Bradshaw, and the argument one day over water that nearly got him and his friend Li killed.
“I’m sorry, Henry. It’s time to go back to work.”
“Time,” he said and shook his head sadly. “I thank you for the key, Miss Zoë. It’s a real beauty.”
“It’s nothing,” she said as she stood to straighten her skirt and slip her shoes on.
“I met a lot of people in my life, Miss Zoë, and I’ve met even more after it.” He smiled and his eyes glistened. “It’s not nothing when a young, pretty girl takes the time for an old man like me. You should be out doing whatever it is girls do nowadays. Going to the shows or something.”
“I do, Henry. Just not at lunch time.” She made her way to the door, wanting to leave before he got to fussing about her social life and telling her to find some man to settle down with and have babies. There was no way a spirit could understand what it meant to be able to see him and the others, and how it made talking with regular people painful at times, and finding that special someone a distant dream. She waved when she got to the door, wiggling her fingers and grinning. “Bye, Henry. See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Miss Zoë. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be here.”
Zoë breathed easier after her visit with Henry. Tension and work headaches melted. She happily took the stairs two at a time back to the main floor. On the way, one or two guys in gray jumpsuits with bright yellow reflective stripes across their torsos waved and smiled. They’d gotten used to her coming into their domain nearly every day. As far as she could tell, they didn’t think anything of it, except maybe they thought she was on the odd side for taking her lunch hour in the boiler room.
Before she returned to her desk, she ducked into the ladies room to dust herself off. It was always wise to check if her brown curls had gotten unruly while she lounged below. She pondered her reflection, considering getting highlights, and then dismissed the thought.
While she applied some lip-gloss, a wisp of light reflected in the bathroom mirror caught her eye. The wisp shuddered for a moment as a small girl flickered into the room.
“Have you seen my mommy?”
Zoë turned around and did her best to smile at the child spirit. “No, honey. I haven’t.”
“My house shook, and I got stuck. After I got loose, I couldn’t find her.”
Without thinking, Zoë bent down and reached toward her. The spirit extended a tiny hand. As the cold chill of her touch bored through Zoë’s fingers, the girl vanished.
The bathroom door swung open as Zoë straightened up, and Marilyn Baker walked in. Marched was more like it. Zoë fought not to roll her eyes. “Hi, Marilyn,” she said.
“Are you all right?” Marilyn made everything sound like criticism. Today she wore her short black hair tight around her face, making her look even more severe than usual. Her black vest showed too much cleavage, and her high heels made her at least five foot ten, tall enough to tower over Zoë’s petite frame.
“Yeah,” Zoë said, walked to the tra