A Fiend in Need - MaryJanice Davidson

A Fiend in Need - MaryJanice Davidson

Prologue

Bev Jones took a deep breath and stepped out onto the roof. She’d snuck to Chicago’s Chinatown on her lunch break because she wanted to die with the smell of fresh potstickers in her nose.

She walked slowly to the edge of the roof and peeked over. The winter wind ruffled her short, dark hair, but for a miracle, it was almost a nice day—nice for Chicago, anyway.

It was a typically busy Friday afternoon… the Friday before Valentine’s Day, in fact. And if she had to spend one more Valentine’s Day alone—or worse, with only the company of her psychiatrist—she would kill herself.

People said that a lot, but Bev never said anything she didn’t mean. And so here she was.

She put her hands flat on the ledge and got ready to boost herself up. Given that she was wearing snow pants and a down-stuffed parka, it might take a while—say, her entire lunch break. Ah, well. If nothing else, she was mildly curious to find out if there was an afterlife. Would there be potstickers and noodle nests in the afterlife? She didn’t—

“Bev! Hey! Wait up!”

She started—the last thing she’d expected on a rooftop was to hear someone calling her name—and turned around. And instantly assumed she’d gone crazy: there was a woman running toward her, a woman who—whoop!—just jumped over the Chinese arch separating the two buildings. And now—was she?—she was! She was hurrying right over to Bev.

“Thanks for waiting,” the strange woman who could jump like a grasshopper said. “I was running a little behind this morning and was worried I’d miss you.”

“Miss me?” Bev gasped. Holy crow, it was like Touched by an Angel! “You mean you’re here to—to save me?”

The woman—a tall, lean brunette with striking dark eyes and the palest, softest-looking skin—blinked in surprise. Bev had never seen such skin before; maybe the grasshopper/angel was also an Irish milkmaid.

Then she laughed. It wasn’t, Bev thought a little sullenly, a very nice laugh.

“Save you? Save you?” Again, the laugh. The woman actually leaned on the ledge so she wouldn’t fall down. “Honey, you’re such a dope you actually showed up for work the day you planned to kill yourself.”

“How did you—?”

“I mean, of all days to call in sick to your dreary, hated job, don’t you think today’s the day? And you know damn well the fall won’t kill you. What is it, like two stories? If you really wanted to ice yourself, why not use the shotgun you keep in your closet? Or one of those Japanese sushi knifes you saved up six months for, really do the job right?”

“I—I—”

“No, you have this stupid idea in your head that swarms of people will gather on the street below, and some good-looking Chicago P.D. monkey will coax you down and fall in love with you. Among other things, you watch too much television.”

Bev stared. She was mad, and getting madder, but the grasshopper/angel/demon had said nothing that wasn’t true. Hearing it out loud made her feel like a real pigeon turd. It was more than attention, right? Wasn’t it?

“Save you! You don’t want to be saved! You want a date for next week! Ha!”

“That’s it,” Bev snapped. “I’m jumping.”

“Oh, stop it, you are not.” The brunette pulled her away from the edge with a casual strength that nearly sent Bev sprawling onto the blacktop.

“I am, too!” She managed to wrench her arm free, nearly dislocated her own shoulder in the process. The stranger was fiendishly strong. “I—I’m clinically depressed, and I can’t take it anymore.”

“You’re mad about not getting the promotion, not having a date, and your mom forgetting your birthday.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Antonia. And the reason I’m here is to tell you the fall won’t kill you. In fact, it’ll break your neck and you’ll be a quad in a monkey hospital for the rest of your life. It’ll wreck your mom—her insurance company won’t cover you because you’ve been out of the house too long, and your insurance sucks. She’ll spend the rest of her life in debt and visiting you, and you think you’ll be able to get a date from a Shriner’s bed? Bottom line, you think your life is in the shitter now? Go ahead and jump. You’ll see the shit fly.”

“But how do you know?” Not, “that isn’t true” or “you’re on drugs.” Antonia had the creepy ring of truth in everything she said. Even weirder, Bev had never met someone as obnoxious as she