Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,8
. . . you were the one. You saved me.”
He smoothed the wrinkles from some red gloves on his hands. “Not quite, Alison. You saved yourself by daring to defy the natural laws in the first place. The fact that you even tried to make that climb merited a second chance at life, yes? Courage paired with folly becomes abandon, which is an honorable trait where I’m from, and should always be rewarded.”
I squinted at him. “You were rewarding me for my folly?”
He held a top hat in front of him and stroked it as if it were a cat. “Your abandon.” A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest. “You’re an odd duck, aren’t you? You haven’t balked at me yet, nor have you questioned if I’m real. Or even how I know your name. It doesn’t matter to you one way or the other, does it?”
I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. “It doesn’t matter if I’m crazy, as long the madness helps me survive.”
He raised an eyebrow, obviously pleased and surprised by my answer. “Ah, spoken like a true netherling. Madness, like any other facet of irrationality, can be used as a tool and a weapon, in the right hands.”
I didn’t have the chance to ask what a netherling was because in the other room, the wing-backed chair’s wooden feet scraped across the tile floor and clawed through my nerves like talons. Wally was in the apartment.
My throat dried. I glanced outside at the slippery rails, then back toward the man with wings, now standing in full view next to my door. He was tall and graceful, around the age of nineteen or twenty, and dressed in lace and velvet, like a gentleman from another time and place.
“Are you . . . are you my guardian angel?” I’d heard of such creatures but had never believed they might be real. Yet in that moment, I was willing to believe anything if it would save me from my landlord or a broken neck.
My visitor flashed his teeth in a stunning smile that transformed his face to the devil’s playground—malice concealed within a veneer of lovely persuasion. “I’m the furthest thing from an angel, little ducky. But I am here to watch you dole out some righteous retribution upon a sinner most foul.” He placed the top hat on his head. A string of dead moths trembled at the brim in morbid tribute to the gusts fluttering my curtains. “Now, let’s have us a bit of fun with old Wally, aye?”
THE LONG LEG OF THE LAW
Wally the Walrus’s footsteps scuffled toward my door.
“You won’t let him in, right?” I asked the demon . . . angel . . . savior . . . whatever. He stood still as a statue, the gems on his face blinking through different shades of gold. You’re going to help me like last time?” My pulse pounded hard in my neck, and my vocal cords shuddered like a snare drum.
The creature’s wings spanned wide. “Oh, no, little ducky. You’re going to help yourself. After all, you’re the one with a direct line to the most ancient and heavily populated inhabitants on earth. They’re adept at more than conversation, Alison. They have skills. All you need do is ask for a hand.” He gestured toward a daddy longlegs creeping across the wall behind him, casting a spindly shadow on the white plaster. “Or eight feet. Whatever fits the bill.”
Before I could make sense of his riddle, my mystical guest vanished in a poof of sparkling blue dust, only to be replaced by a bird-size moth that dove back into the shadows.
The moth from my picture . . . from Mom’s sketch.
My gaze fell to the Polaroids that had spewed out from the opening of my tote bag. Before I could focus on them, the door crashed open, sweeping a pathway through the stolen memories.
My stomach turned as Wally stepped in. Glistening apricot pulp was tangled in his mustache. He used the back of his pudgy hand to swipe it off and almost tripped over my Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland book.
He picked it up and snorted. “Alison’s adventures in Wonderland? What’s wrong with you, girl? Are you crazy, or just stupid?” The moth picture slipped out of the book as he shook it. He watched it drift to the floor. “Wait, I’ve seen that bug. I was tryin’ to get it out of the building earlier. It’s what led me to your door—” Wally stopped