Candy hits the overhead light. It’s only a sixty-watt. Candy liked the room dim when the band rehearsed.
I take a step closer, getting between the guy on the cot and Candy
in case he’s as unhinged as he looks.
“Is that better?”
Slowly, he opens his eyes. He keeps a hand up, blocking the bulb. When he can focus he stares at me.
“Where am I?”
“At Max Overdrive. Do you remember coming to me at Bamboo House of Dolls?”
He sits up and leans against the wall. Candy steps around me, fiddling with her phone. Who the fuck is she calling right now?
“Who’s that?” he says.
“A friend. What do you remember?”
He looks at the blanket, his hands, and the room like he’s never seen any of it before. When he looks at me I can see the gears starting to turn in his head.
“You’re Stark.”
“That’s right. And this is Chihiro. You met her the other night too.”
He stares at Candy for a little too long.
“That’s not her real face,” he says. “Or her name.”
Candy shoots me a worried look. I hold up a hand to say “be cool.”
“You can see through the glamour,” I say. “So, you really are an angel.”
He nods.
“The oldest, known to mortals as the Angel of Death.”
“Yeah. You said that the other night.”
“And you don’t believe me.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I’ve met my share of, let’s say, unstable angels.”
“You mean Aelita.”
“There were others but, yeah, she was the worst.”
“I’m not mad and I have no desire to be here or to be a burden.”
“Then why are you here? And why come to me?”
Death touches the gauze bandages over the hole in his chest.
“You closed the wound.”
“Not me. It was friends. And you haven’t answered my question.”
“It hurts,” he says, rubbing his chest. “Everything hurts. I’d forgotten what pain is. Do you have anything for it?”