should’ve shot you a few more times.”
Samuel growled, lunging forward like a junkyard dog.
“Don’t.” Lilith put a hand on his arm. “He is my toy.”
“Then be done with it,” he ordered, his fingers digging into Lilith’s
skin. Trails of blood leaked from her arm. Tiny demons danced around the
raining blood, evil glowing in their yellowed eyes.
“Come.” Lilith flicked her wrist, and in a daze, I followed. She led
me through the club, down a flight of stairs, and into a dungeon. Screams of
the innocents echoed from the stonewalls. People had died here. Painfully. I
swallowed, ready to face whatever evil she had in mind.
Blood still seeped from the claw marks on her arm, and for some
reason her grimace of pain snapped me from my trance. I shook my head.
“Great relationship you and Sam have.”
Her face tightened. “Like you know anything about it. Three ex-
wives and an STD.”
I laughed, but sobered when she paused outside of a steel door. The
stink of burning flesh drifted from underneath it, as did screams of the
dammed.
“Any chance we can talk about this?” I motioned to the door.
Her smile tilted wickedly at the corners. “No, but I’ll give you one
last request.”
“But will you grant it?” I took a step closer, captivated by the vein
pulsing in her neck.
“Probably not.”
“Then I don’t feel quite so bad.” I reached into my pocket and pulled
out a vial filled with clear liquid. Before she could stop me, I tossed the
substance in her lying face.
She screeched, clawing at her skin for a second and then let out a
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laugh. “Holy water doesn’t work, Jace. You should have studied the demon
manual a little harder.”
“You’re right. Holy water alone doesn’t work, but holy water and
sugar…”
Her cry was real this time as the water crystallized against her demon
flesh, turning her into a big stick of rock candy.
“Damn you. We are not enemi—” Her lips froze, rendering her
helpless.
Now it’s “we’re not enemies” when ten minutes ago she was kicking
my ass. “Tell it to your maker.” I pulled a hammer from the other pocket of
my jeans, and poised above her head to smash her into a million dastardly
pieces.
A tear glittered behind the sugary shield of her eyes as I swung the
hammer back. It slid along the curve of her cheek, and dried against her
heated skin, evaporating, and disappearing forever.
I pictured a world without Lilith, a world without her saucy wit and
killer left-hook. The hammer fell from my hand, clattering against the
limestone floor. “Stay out of my way, and keep your hands off the kid.” As I
walked away, I knew I had made a mistake, but killing her would have been
a worse one. In my life, the edge between good and evil had blurred many
times, but never far enough to condone outright murder. Commandment six,
or was it eight? Did they have a Bible for Dummies?
Sneaking from the dungeon, I searched the shadows for Samuel, or
any of his minions. But the place appeared deserted, no sign of Hades, or the
rest of the Gods-crew either.
Once upstairs in the club, I located my nine-millimeter underneath an
overturned chair. Gooey brown stuff stuck to its barrel, and no matter how
many times I wiped it away, it remained. I aimed and pulled the trigger. A
bullet, smelling of sugar and gunpowder, whipped through the barrel,
disappearing into the disco ball above the dance floor. Mirrored bits flew off
it, and with a groan, it crashed to the floor shattering much like Lilith would
have.
I smiled, shoving the gun into my jeans. At least it still worked.
Heading out the backdoor and into the alleyway, I did a quick mental review.
My ribs hurt. My face hurt. Hell, even my fingers hurt. Tonight had not gone
as planned.
Dreading the subway ride home, mostly because I’d have to jump the
turnstile since I’d spent my last four bucks on three pounds of sugar, I limped
up the alley, wondering when my plan had going to hell. It should’ve
worked. It was simple, really. With the help of Hades and his crew, I’d kill
Lilith’s Gremlin sat at the end of the passageway. It would serve her
right, I thought as I opened the door and climbed in. The keys hung loosely
in the console. I sent a prayer to the big guy, pumped the gas, pounded on the
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dashboard, and cranked the key. The engine purred to life.
The passenger side door flew open. Hades crammed himself in and
looked me over. “Well?”
“Lilith won’t be a problem anymore,” I lied. Why worry the God of
the Underworld after all?
“Good.”
“Yeah, great.” I shoved the Gremlin into first gear and we set off,
Hades eyes boring into the side of my face.
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Seventeen
I dropped Hades off at the Underworld, and a few minutes later, a
loud pounding rang from the hatchback like a one-armed drummer on crack.
I turned up the radio—out of hearing, out of mind.
“Apple farmers are bitter over their latest withered crops. Many
associate the dying trees to a recent wave of vandalism in the area,” the radio
reporter for the weekly crop report gave me the dirty details. I shook my
head, and flipped the channel to an 80’s rock station. Personal Jesus burst
from the speakers.
Oh Shit. Dead apples. The kid hated apples. He spit, flung, and
puked apples at will. It had to be him. I swerved into the opposite lane to
pass a slow moving car. Where did apples grow in the city?
A garbage truck blew its horn, its headlights blinding me. I spun the
wheel, overcorrected, and slid up and over the curb on 11th Street.
The car crashed through two fences and dropped into the Dry Dock
Pool with a splash. The water parted, sinking the Gremlin to the bottom,
before sloshing over the top, and trapping me inside.
“Fuck,” I burbled as the Gremlin filled with chlorine treated piss
water. Jerking the door handle didn’t do any good, and the window refused to
budge. Wonderful. I’d fought a succubus, saved myself from an eternity in
hell, only to die in a 1972 Gremlin.
“My hair curls when it’s wet,” a voice bubbled from the hatchback.
I whipped around, rubbing my bloodshot eyes. “Angel? I thought
Lilith killed you.” I smiled at him, happy to see him, but that smile turned to
a choke as water entered my lungs. “Can you get us out of here?”
He shrugged. The car began to rise from the water, hovering just
above it like the kid during his nightly bath.
Water rushed from the interior of the car as I put it into gear, and
drove across the pool, over the downed fences and onto the street. Gawkers
stopped and stared. I waved and roared up the street, the Gremlin, and the
angel clucking like wet hens.
~ * ~
I rubbed at my wet chest with a dishtowel, careful to avoid bumping
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my ribs. After my dive into the pool, I’d come home and spent forty-five
minutes under a boiling hot shower, waiting for the ache in my bones to
settle.
Now I stood half-dressed in my kitchen, watching the angel brush his
flowing hair one hundred times, as he stared into the shiny refection of my
toaster. “Where have you been for the last two days?” I asked, tossing the
sodden dishcloth at him.
The angel answered with a sigh, “Locked inside that devil car.” He
pointed to a black stain on his white robe. “Tire grease. That will never come
out.”
“If you heal these, I will buy you a new robe.” I paused, touching my
broken ribs. “Two robes.”
The angel rolled his eyes, but the pain in my side receded. For the
first time in an hour, I took a deep breath, enjoying the rush of air clogging
my windpipe. Everyone should have his or her own personal angel. Imagine
what it would do for the hangover industry.
“How did you get locked in the hatchback?” I scratched my chin.
“Your girlfriend broke in, and dragged me from the apartment.” He
sniffed once. “I missed the final episode of the O.C. Now I will never know
if Suzanne Somers sells the last Thighmaster.”
I slapped my head. Stupid angel. “That’s not the O.C., it’s QVC. A
home shopping network.” My eyes narrowed. “You haven’t called the
number, right?”
He shot me an angelic smile so bright it stung my eyes. “No. I
ordered online. It saves time and money.”
A pain in my jaw radiated up, forcing the vein in my forehead to
thump twice. “I’m turning off the cable. Now tell me what happened after
Lilith dragged you away.”
“I do not know, Nemamiah. I was locked in the trunk.” He reminded
me, as if talking to a slow child.
“It wasn’t a trunk. It’s a hatchback, which means you could have
signaled for help, or opened the damn thing yourself.” I took a fast breath,
pulled a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, and poured myself an eight-
ounce glass. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Have you learned anything
about the kid? Like where he is being held, or maybe why?”
“Yes.” The angel plucked at his eyebrow.
“And?”
“I cannot tell you.” He didn’t look disappointed by the news. “But I
can tell you this.”
“What?”
“God is not happy with His Chosen One. I wouldn’t want to be in
your shoes when He smites you.” As concerned as the angel seemed, we
might have been discussing the weather.
“Well thanks for that.” I dropped onto a chair, and drank deeply from
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my glass of whiskey. It tasted sour, like cheap mash. I spit it into the sink,
missing the kid more and more.
The angel fluffed his hair and pointed at my cell phone lying on the
table. “It’s for you.”
The phone hadn’t rung so I glanced at him in question. He shrugged.
A second later, the phone twerped and I checked the caller ID. Unknown
name. Probably a telemarketer.
“Miller here,” I answered.
“Please hold for God,” the nasal voice of God’s secretary sounded in
my ear. Shit.
A few clicks later, the Big Guy picked up the line. “My son, we need
to talk.”
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Eighteen
I frowned into the receiver then glared at the angel. Had he sold me
out to God? Would this be the last conversation I ever had?
His Holiness was saying, “If I didn’t know everything I’d think
you’re avoiding my calls. I had to borrow my secretary’s—” He paused,
listening to his secretary. “—Sorry, administrative assistant’s cell phone to
reach you.”
“I’ve been busy.” My eyes roamed the apartment looking for any
excuse other than the truth.
“How is my son?” The Lord cleared his throat, but a thread of
fatherly pride snuck through. “Did he get the deck of saint flashcards I sent?”
“Um, yeah. He studies them every night just before his nightly
prayers like a good prodigal son.” Broken commandant number eight. As
soon as the cards had arrived by special messenger, Saint Jude in this case, I
trashed the deck and bought the kid a coloring book. He deserved a little fun
before making any grand sacrifice.
“Let me speak with him,” God said.
“He’s not here right now.” I scratched my head. “He had a play
date.”
“A play date?” Suspicion buzzed in his voice.
“Yeah, a play date.” A sudden crackle in my brain sent me to my
knees. The tide of voice, once calmed by the kid presence, broke free, and for
a second I went mad. Like a switch, the voiced flicked off and silence filled
my skull.
“When my son gets home from his play date, call me. And it better
be soon.”
A few clicks later, His secretary came back on the line. “The Lord
would like to remind you Easter is fast approaching, and you have yet to give
up anything for Lent. He suggests lying, but leaves the final decision to you.”
The line went dead.
Damn. “Thanks for your help.” I hung up the phone and kicked the
angel’s chair.
He raised his wings in an innocent gesture. A feather drifted to the
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floor. “What did I do?”
“Never mind. How long do I have?” I chugged the rest of my
whiskey, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
“Before He smites you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, but more importantly, how long to find the
kid?” My certainty that he was safe was beginning to unravel.
A knock sounded at the front door at the same time my phone rang.
Torn, I checked the caller ID, and smiled.
“You just can’t get enough of me, huh?” I chuckled into the phone.
“You son of a—” Lilith screeched.
I interrupted, “Nice of you to ask, I’m feeling fine. The ribs healed
nicely, thanks to the angel you locked in your trunk.”
“It’s a hatchback.” Her voice tightened. “What did you do to my car?
It’s all wet, and smells like… toilet water.”
Uh oh. I ran to my window, and watched the Gremlin’s taillights
disappear around the corner. “I had a little accident, but lucky for you and
your insurance company, nobody was hurt.”
“You bastard. When I get my hands on you… Hell is too good for
you. I’m going to peel away you flesh with a rusty knife, and—”
The phone in my hand grew hotter with each syllable. I pulled it from
my ear, and smoke curled from the mouthpiece. “Ow!” I dropped the now
red hot metal, but her tirade continued. Muffled, but filled with bloodlust.
A fist banged on the door, reminding me Lilith wasn’t my only
concern. “Coming.” I pulled my nine-millimeter, and a cross made out of
Popsicle sticks. The kid had even drawn in a picture of a guy hanging off the
cross. I hoped like hell that he didn’t notice the resemblance.
“Yeah?” I threw open the door, and quickly stepped back a few feet.
The biggest, greenest demon I’d ever seen hunched in the hallway, his lizard
skin lined with pus and boils. Munkar, the Muslim gatekeeper. Shit.
“Who is your Lord?” Munkar bowed his head.
Question one of three. To answer any one of them wrong meant a
brutal beating unlike any I’d ever experienced. Allah sure knew how to get
respect. I smiled politely. “I think you have the wrong apartment.”
“You are not the protector of the innocents? Keeper of justice?” He
frowned, swishing his forked tail. It crashed through the plaster, leaving a
six-foot hole in the stairwell.
“No. He lives four doors down on the right.” I pointed down the hall
to the apartment of a creepy hobbit named Michael. His lack of hygiene and
mountains of muse-bondage magazines eased my conscience.
Munkar licked his plump lips, probably debating eating me, before
backing down the hallway. I shut the door, threw the dead bolt, and headed
for the window.
“Do we have more visitors?” The angel looked excited by the
prospect.
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“Nope. Wrong apartment.” A scream echoed from the hallway,
followed by the unmistakable sound of chewing. Bad way to go.
I grabbed a book from the table, and hurled it through my window.
Not wasting a second, I climbed out of the window, glass digging into my
palms, and down the fire escape. The angel gazed at me, his head tilted in
question.
“I dropped my Bible.” I picked the book off the ground, and flipped
through the pages. “No harm done.”
An angelic screech followed by a burp rang from overhead. Feathers
and green gooey floated from my open window.
A few seconds later, a stuffed green demon exited my building. He
paused in the center of the street. Belched again, and exploded before my
eyes.
The angel swiped at a spot of demon guts clinging to his robe, but
looked no worse after being digested by Munkar. Michael, the hobbit, on the
other hand, didn’t look pleased at all. His torso had a large bite mark, and
half of his hair was missing.
“How am I gonna pick up chicks now?” He pointed at the gaping
wound in his stomach. “It’s hard enough being a three-footer, but a three-foot
tall freak with half a head of hair and a colostomy bag ain’t gonna get no