angel, and Heaven to me is a cold beer, a naked woman, and a hockey game.
So you tell me, why am I the chosen one?”
“You’re God’s—”
“Come sail away, come sail away…” The boom of music through the
bar room speakers cut off Lilith’s words, and broke the spell of intimacy,
leaving me flushed. I pounded my fist on the bar with frustration, both sexual
and spiritual.
Lilith jumped from her barstool and motioned to the bathroom. For a
second she seemed to glow like the fires of hell, then she disappeared into the
crowd, leaving me staring after her.
Lilith’s wine glass was empty, so I flagged Hades down and gestured
for another round. As our drinks arrived the jukebox fell silent, and the bar
door opened. Intense white pissed-off angel light flew into the room followed
by one pissed off angel.
He stomped toward me, halting an inch from my nose. “Do you
know what those men did to me?”
I wiped at a glob of stinking angel spit clinging to my shirt, and
raised an eyebrow. He didn’t look hurt. If anything, he wore a new layer of
protoplasmic glow.
“They… I…” The angel swallowed hard. “They made me
blaspheme. How could you—”
I reached behind the bar, and handed him a foamy clear drink with a
red umbrella and two cherries. “Here. I got you a Zima.”
His eyes misted, and the angry glow flicked off like a light bulb. “For
41
me? I thought they didn’t serve it here.”
“I stopped at the liquor store next door.” I hadn’t really. Instead, I
had filled a glass with seven-up and vodka. He would never know the
difference. Angels, unlike their demon counterparts, could not indulge in
pleasures of the flesh, including eating and drinking, or so the angel had
mentioned a million times in our short acquaintance.
“Thank you.” He sniffed once, and like the crying Christ statue in
Bolivia, a blood-red tear slipped down his face, staining his robe pink.
“You’re welcome.” Yeah, I’m an asshole. “I need a favor.” Anyone
else would have looked suspicious at my sudden gesture of friendship, but
not the angel. His serene smile pricked my conscience, but I shook it off. “I
want you to lie to God for me.”
“What?” The ”Zima” in his hand crashed to the floor. He looked
around as if he was being Punk’d. “Lie to God? Are you insane?”
Probably. “A small lie.”
“But He’s omniscient.”
I’d heard that. “Sure, but He’s also a busy guy. What’s one little lie?”
“No.”
“Just don’t mention the kid’s missing when you give your weekly
report. That’s all.” I smiled, trying to instill confidence. “Come on, friend,” I
said, nearly gagging on the word. “I just need a little more time to find the
kid.”
The angel gave a barely perceptibly nod, his ectoplasmic glow
dimming. Slapping the angel on the shoulder, I waved to Hades. “Get my
buddy here another Zima.”
God taken care of, now I had to find the kid, defeat the kidnappers,
and figure out what Lilith was before it was too late. Because, she wasn’t
what or who she appeared to be, and that made her even more dangerous.
Returning from the bathroom, Lilith threw back the full glass of wine
on the bar, and smiled at me. “What do you say we get out of here? Make
tonight a night never to forget?”
Hell of an idea. Weeding Lilith through the bar packed with Gods
and Goddesses, I called over my shoulder to the angel, “Don’t wait up.”
Outside of the Underworld, the night closed around us. An
ambulance siren screamed in the distance, and steam rose from the metal
grates, but here, in our dark corner, it felt as if we were the only people left
on Earth.
I brushed a strand of hair from Lilith’s cheek. “So where to?”
“Queens.” Moonlight illuminated the starkness of her skin, and for a
moment, her yellow eyes burned red.
I should have said no, pleaded exhaustion or dysentery, but stupidly I
nodded, hailed a taxi, and slipped to the dark side.
42
Twelve
cemetery in Queens. What could possibility go wrong?
I lit a match. The brief flare of light bounced off the gravestones of
some of the biggest names in mobster history. Joey Diamonds. Lupo the
Wolf. Lefty Guns Ruggiero. Cold blooded killers sleeping with the worms.
Romantic.
“What are we doing here?” I shook out the match before it burned
my fingers. Lilith didn’t answer. Instead, she slipped between the headstones
like a child at a playground. In and out she weaved, the blackness of her hair
and dress absorbed by the darkness.
Losing her behind a stack of headstones, I jogged to catch up, but it
wasn’t fear that quickened my steps. I didn’t fear the dead, worm riddled
bodies or decomposing flesh. Nope, it was the damned who scared me. Those
that had shuffled off their mortal coil, chained to this world by the lives they
lived, or in some cases, lives unlived.
Dammed if you did, and dammed if you didn’t.
Queens smelled bad enough, but the stench of the cemetery curdled
my stomach. The aroma of death seeped from rotting graves, swirling around
the blackness like a disease, ready to strike. Lilith looked right at home.
“Come here.” She crocked her finger at me, and then to a marble
mausoleum a few feet away. Like an idiot, I followed, pausing outside the
heavy stone archway.
“This isn’t going to turn into one of those late night horror movies,
the one where the hero follows the succubae to his death?” I stepped inside,
taking shallow breaths until my nose acclimated to the smell. “If so, don’t tell
anyone I fell for it.”
She laughed, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a flask. She took
a long drink, and passed it to me. “Singular for female demon is succubus,
plural is succubae. And what makes you think you’re the hero?”
“I’m the guy with the white hat.” I pointed to my dingy gray
skullcap. It might have been white at one point.
“I’ll try to control my desire to kill you then.” She pushed me further
43
inside the small room. Behind me, she struggled to pull the heavy door
closed. The scraping sound of marble and metal exploded in the dark silence,
but somehow instead of being frightened, I felt reassured. Safe.
In the blackness, Lilith took my hand, or I hoped like hell that it was
her hand. A match flared, illuminating Lilith and a fat black candle. She lit
the candle, and the mausoleum burst into light. A rush of something curled
along my spine; lust, desire, terror?
She smiled, reading my dark, dirty thoughts, or maybe she
recognized the gleam in my eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.” After all, she didn’t
strike me as all that innocent.
“You wanna tell me what we’re doing here?” I sat on the icy floor,
sucking in dust-mite dead guy air. The things I do to get laid.
“Your apart
ment is condemned.” She lit a few more candles, all
black. The flames danced, wavering back and forth in the slight crypt breeze.
“I know it’s not the Ritz.” I shrugged. “But it ain’t that bad.”
“No, it’s damned. You and I both felt it this morning. There are
powers at work. I don’t know if they’re good or evil, but they’re there.” Her
fingers traced the gold inlayed placeholder for Steve Brodie, the first guy to
supposedly jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live. “And I’d rather not deal
with that tonight.”
“There’s more to it, isn’t there?” I gave her my best Clark Gable
smile, complete with shiny white teeth.
She sighed. “I got a phone call before we left the Underworld. A tip
if you will. A couple of angry demons planned to pay you a visit tonight.”
That wasn’t quite what I expected to hear. Damn. “And?”
“And I don’t want you to die, so I brought you to the one place I
know you’ll be safe.”
“Who are you?” Suspicion crept into my voice. She knew too much
about me, about the kid, about the darkness to be human. My brain searched
for a name, for a description of the sexy form in front of me. What did I
know about her? Her ex-husband, Adam, preached submission to
brainwashed idiots. Her boyfriend smelled like brimstone and owned a pit of
hell. Hades called her friend, but could I count on him?
I wanted to trust her, to believe she would lead me to the kid, but I
wasn’t born-again yesterday.
“Who do you want me to be, Jace?”
“I warned you about that.”
“About what?” She smirked, knowing damn well. Striding past me,
her long, lean legs swung to a hypnotic rhythm uniquely Lilith. I reached for
her, knocking her into my lap. She fell willingly enough. Her hands slipped
around my neck, and she nipped at my lower lip.
“Tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” She traced
my mouth with the tip of her tongue. She tasted of wine, cigarettes, and salt.
Salt. Shit.
44
The flask.
GHB.
“You date-rape drugged us.” I blinked, more stunned than angry.
“What the fuck for?”
“Not us, sweetheart.” She shifted positions on my lap and kissed my
forehead. “You.”
Heaviness descended on me. “I trusted you.” My lungs felt sluggish
as my heart rate slowed. Was this it? Death by date rape drugs? A part of me
almost hoped so. It would save me from God’s wrath, not to mention the
embarrassment of being drugged by a girl. The angel couldn’t save me this
time.
“Hush baby.” Lilith brushed a piece of hair from my eyes. “It won’t
hurt a bit. Just relax and go to sleep.”
45
Thirteen
“Ahhhha,” I moaned and clutched at my fractured skull, feeling
around for fragmented bones and blood, but finding none. My head remained
intact; it just felt shattered into a million pieces. Next, I checked my jaw,
chest, arms, legs, and penis. All still there and ready to go, some parts more
than others.
What the hell? I crawled to a sitting position, considered puking, but
decided against it. In the dim, seemingly never ending candlelight, my eyes
inspected the mausoleum. With the exception of a missing Lilith, nothing
looked out of place. I stumbled to my feet and toward the door.
Check that. A missing Lilith and a broken door handle.
Fuck. I was trapped, pissed off and claustrophobic too. I had to get
out. The walls warped, shrinking in my mind’s eye. Running full tilt at the
door, I slipped on a puddle of candle wax, hit my head against the marble
archway, and knocked myself unconscious.
Lord knows how much time had passed when I awoke to the rumble
of the granite door opening. A cooling breeze drifted into the room,
extinguishing the flickering candles. I inhaled deeply, sucking in the fresh
scent of cemetery air.
My savior spoke, “Jace? Thank God. I was so worried.” Mary ran
into my crypt, threw her arms around me, and hugged me tight. She smelled
of woman, turpentine, and oil based paint.
Heaven scent.
“How’d you find me?” My voice bounced off the stone, sounding
louder than it had inside my head. I winced at the sound, but slowly rose to
my feet, keeping her body close to me.
“Someone slipped a map under my door. It said you were in trouble,
so I got here as fast as I could.”
Ah, the angel. He said he couldn’t affect the timeline of someone’s
life, but he sure as hell interfered in mine at will. Just this once, I was
thankful for the intervention. Spending an eternity with a bridge jumper and
two dead New York City mayors held little appeal.
“What time is it?” I blinked at the glaring sunlight as Mary helped
46
me from the crypt.
“Noon.”
Shit.
“Thursday.”
What the fuck? I’d been trapped for two days? When I found Lilith I
was going to—
“Does this have to do with little J.C.?” Mary trembled, her body
absorbing my rage.
I swallowed the bile of hate, and lifted her face to meet my eyes.
“Yes, and it’s very dangerous. I want you to stay away from me and your
apartment until I get things settled.”
She shook her head. “I can’t, Jace. I have nowhere else to go, and
even less money to get there.”
She was so innocent, standing there with big violet eyes. My
protective instincts surfaced, and my thoughts shifted from search and
destroy to serve and protect. I would give my life to keep her and the kid
safe.
~ * ~
Mary and I stopped on Flatbush Avenue for supplies. Little Haiti, as
Flatbush was better known, served the needs of thousands of Voodoo
practitioners throughout the five boroughs. Pick any storefront, and behind
the fried plantains and bottles of rum were spells for all occasions.
I traded a golden cross I had worn since my baptism for two
protection spells and a couple of talismans, one of which was in the shape of
a blood-sucking succubus that reminded me of Lilith.
Pulling off my dog tags, I strung the talisman onto the heavy metal
chain, and looped it around Mary’s neck. The clasp caught a strand of her
white-blond hair. I gently removed the strand, taking a moment to thread it
through my fingers. Its soft, silky texture played havoc with my libido.
Pulling away, Mary lifted the tags and smiled. A possessiveness I
hadn’t felt since wife number one entered my heart. I kissed her, running my
fingers along her skin.
“I’ll keep you safe,” I promised, tasting her sweetness with hungry
lips. “As long as I’m alive, nothing will hurt you.”
She stroked my cheek. “Thank you.”
The blare of a taxi horn interrupted our tender moment. Reluctantly,
we climbed inside and returned to the real world. A world where only fools
made promises and dark-haired succubae ruled.
~ * ~
An hour later, Mary waited on the street while I crept into my
ap
artment. No sign of the angel or Lilith, but there was a huge pool of black-
red blood, and a trail of feathers on the floor. My heart sped up. No, not the
angel. Guilt at bringing death in the form of Lilith to our doorstep rocked my
otherwise iffy mental state.
47
I picked my way through the rest of my apartment. Someone had
searched it, knocking over my milk-crate dresser and cardboard-box
bookcase. The kid’s crib lay smashed on the floor. His ragged teddy bear, the
only toy he owned, lay decapitated in the corner. I focused on the bear parts,
channeling my rage.
From the kitchen counter my cell phone rang. I swallowed hard,
listening to God’s ringtone, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. Fuck. Could this
day get any worse? A small explosion on the street below answered that
question.
48
Fourteen
I ran for the window. Four stories below, Lilith stumbled to her feet,
the big-ass gun smoking in her hands. The barrel swung toward Mary once
more.
“No!” I yelled through the closed window. Lilith glanced up, her face
burning with rage, eyes glowing like diamonds. Why the fuck was she mad?
I was the one who had been drugged and locked underground for two days,
not her.
She turned to Mary, and the boom of the big-ass gun rocked the
street, setting off car alarms and fits of dogs barking. Lilith flew backward
ten feet landing hard on the ground. But Mary remained standing. How? Had
Lilith missed? It didn’t seem possible.
I ran from my apartment and down to the street, pulling my nine-
millimeter before exiting the building. I frowned, watching as Lilith’s pale
blue Gremlin disappeared around 11th street.
Mary ran to me, her face pale, limbs trembling. I folded her into my
body, running my hands over her unmarked skin. No bullet holes. No blood.
I lifted my dog-tagged talisman from around her neck and smiled. I’ll be
damned. It worked.
“What happened?” I tilted her chin to face me.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “One minute I was standing
there, waiting for you, and the next your girlfriend started shooting.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I mumbled.
“Then who is she, and why did she try to kill me?”