A Guardian of Innocents (26 page)

*          *          *

I don’t completely remember how I got to Ground Zero. I think I went temporarily insane from a combination of the immense shock and unbearable grief. I can vaguely recollect a cab ride. I don’t even recall what the cabbie looked like. I was dropped off half a mile or so from the barricade the police had set up.

The powderized concrete drifted through the air like snow. Those around me who weren’t crying just looked dazed and incoherent. It seemed fire engine horns and police sirens were echoing from every direction. Without much else to do, I walked the streets, confused. None of this seemed real. Everything looked two-dimensional.

I lit a cigarette with jittery fingers. I was hungry, but felt no desire to eat. I had lost the one person in this world I truly loved and cared about.

—tomorrow, consider all I’ve said—

I stopped where I was.

—you might hate me afterwards—   

I gasped, my eyes widening. “Son of a bitch!”

That piece of shit
knew
this was going to happen today! Did he know Desiree worked in the World Trade Center? Hell, did he even know who Desiree was? What the FUCK! If he had told me... If he had only told me, I could have convinced Des to call in sick. Even if we’d thought he was full of it, we would have still taken the precaution.

My stomach seized up as I coughed out a few dry heaves. The fact my belly had nothing to surrender to the Manhattan sidewalk seemed to make the motions of vomiting all that much more painful.

Where are you, you son of a bitch?
I thought as I looked around at all the shell-shocked citizens of New York,
Where are you hiding? I know you’re watching me.

The sky above looked like watered down milk. An approaching fire engine blared its horn, urging pedestrians to get out of the damn road.

Tired of walking aimlessly, I sat down on a curb. I couldn’t help but think about Des. I couldn’t help but think about how I was never going to see her again. I’d never hear her laugh again, or see her smile. I thought about the slight dimples she got when she smiled after I complimented her about something, and... Oh, God—

I lost it. My body curled into a fetal position as I wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my face in my knees. I rocked back and forth slightly as I screamed and wailed as loud as I possibly could into the muffled darkness I had created for myself.

Several people were watching me. I could feel them. I didn’t give a fuck what they thought about me, but their thoughts came to me nevertheless. What surprised me was they all felt they understood why I was crying. Why I’d broken down. They sympathized with me because most of them felt like doing the same thing themselves. The horror of it all was just too much of an emotional overload.       

It was then that I decided to commit suicide. There was no
Should I?
or
Will I have the guts to?
. The only question I had for myself was
“How?”
By what means was I going to end my life?

It was that question I pondered as I started walking in the general direction of home. I figured if I got far enough away from the chaos of Lower Manhattan, I might be able to find another cab.

*          *          *

I walked a lot further than I’d planned. I spent long periods of time in a zombie-like trance. It was amazing someone hadn’t run me over during my long trek through the New York metropolitan area.

It was the urgent need to take a piss that pulled my mind out of auto-pilot mode. I relieved myself in an alley and looked out towards a sun that was about an hour away from setting. How long had I been out of it—seven hours maybe? The sunlight was now coming in at such an angle, it was refracted by the smoky sky, bathing the city in a sickly orange hue.

When I stepped back out onto the street, I realized I was almost home. As soon as I thought that my legs should be killing me, they began to give out. My legs had felt fine until I had a conscious thought concerning them. I was never so glad that our apartment was only on the second floor and no higher.

Our apartment. I guess it was just mine now. Wait. No. I never put my name on the lease. I just lived there with Des. Oh, well. It wasn’t going to be anyone’s apartment for awhile, at least not until my remains had been cleaned up, and the chalk outline of my body had been erased from the floor.

I had decided to hang myself, but I couldn’t find any rope that I thought was strong enough to support my weight, and as I checked out the ceiling of each room in the small one-bedroom apartment, I discovered that rope was a moot point since there was really nothing for me to hang
from
.

My next plan was to try to get to the roof of my building. I’d go out as a jumper instead of a dangler. Hell yeah. I even told myself I was going to jump head first, just to eliminate any possibility of survival. Something told me the door to the roof of this ten-story building was probably going to be locked, so I took a crowbar with me.

I slid the short wrecking tool up the sleeve of my jacket and rode the elevator to the highest floor. I found the only door without a number on it and tried the knob. Unlocked.

I went two flights up a dimly lit stairway and tried the door at the top. No such luck this time. But it was a wooden door, pretty brittle looking. The paint was peeling away where the wood was splintering. I didn’t see any hinges, which meant the door opens outward.

Fuck, I didn’t even need the crowbar. I let it fall to the floor, paying no attention to the clang that echoed in the stairwell. I swung my right leg into the door with a roundhouse kick that popped the doorknob right out of the rotted wood.

The cool air hit my face as I walked out and felt the first light droplets of rain dampen my hair and shoulders. I looked upwards and thought if Hell has a sky, then surely this is what it must look like. The charcoal gray smog choked out the few rogue stars capable of shining through New York’s normal luminescence.

I wasn’t really sure if there was a Hell, or a Heaven, but I figured hey, I’m about to find out. I approached the edge of the roof with slow steps, my shoes crunching into the loose gravel. But the insistent desire to kill myself was beginning to wane. My mind was considering the possibilities. What awaits me after my head splatters onto the asphalt of the street below?

“Depends on who you’ve served,” a voice answered.

I spun around to find the man in black a few yards behind me. My foot slipped on the pebbles and I almost fell over.

“Careful,” he said. The slight grin on his face told me he’d enjoyed sneaking up on me.

“You’re right,” he answered in response to my thoughts, “I take pride in my stealth. I enjoy creeping up on people. Some of my colleagues even nicknamed me Creeper, or sometimes
The
Creeper. I suppose it’s because they have to call me something, since I refuse to tell anyone my real name.”

“You have an ordinary name?” I asked.

“Of course! I told you I’m a man, same as you. But in the world of magic and sorcery, giving someone your true Christian name is like giving a voodoo witch a lock of your hair or drops of your blood. It gives them a small bit of power over you.”         

“You knew all this shit would happen today. Didn’t you?” I accused him, motioning in the direction of Ground Zero.

A fleeting grimace of shame fell across his face as he looked away.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied, “You cannot know how sorry I am for your loss. I know it will offer you little comfort, but today was the day that Desiree was meant to die. I am very powerful, but one thing I cannot do is interfere with
fate
, and had I told you anything last night that would have prevented her from reporting to work today... well, let’s just say it would have gone very badly for me.”

I stared at him, savoring the rage as it ignited within me.

“You think I give a shit!” I yelled as I charged at him, fists swinging and mouth cursing.

The apparition made no move to block my attack. He stood straight with a blank expression on his face and let my knuckles pound away on his face, chest and stomach. But no matter how hard I struck him, I couldn’t get any part of his body to move. He wasn’t made of steel; his skin was too soft and pliant. It was like I was punching a flesh-covered statue.

As he finally made a move to dodge my last blow, I felt something serpentine wrap itself around my feet. I was then hoisted into the air, hanging upside down.

“I am a man of near infinite patience,” the man in black stated as I dangled in the air before him, “But I don’t take this kind of shit off of anyone, least of all some punk kid. The only reason I’m not ending your life right now is that it would be a shame to waste such potential.”

I looked upwards at my feet which felt as though they were cuffed together by shackles of ice, though nothing visible bound them together. He let me hang there a moment longer, then mumbled something in another language and I was dropped. I winced from the pain as I landed on the right side of my head and neck, my body collapsing onto all those sharp, little pulverized stones.

He stood over me with a solemn face. “I can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. You can decide which later, but for now I just ask that you hear me out. I came here tonight to offer you a gift—a gift that will end all the pain that you feel now... Will you listen to me? You will never feel pain, never feel shame, sadness or humiliation ever again. Will you hear me, Jeshua?” 

I rolled over and sat up to a sitting position, leaning against some kind of large metal pipe. The pain in my neck was pulsating. I was pretty sure I’d torn a muscle.

“I’ll listen to you,” I said, “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to kill you later on.”

He threw his head back and laughed out loud, “I like your attitude, kid. I really do.”

Chapter 13

“I’ll begin by saying I am here before you now in the flesh as I was last night, yet all the other times I have appeared to you, you saw only my spiritual projection. I am capable, through the black arts, of leaving this body in a near comatose state and visiting any place on earth I choose. I am very likely the most powerful warlock this world has ever seen. I can command and direct any spirit to do my bidding. I can even fly and hover if I so desire. I am nearly indestructible.”

“So why the hell do you need me?” I asked, annoyed by the egotism dripping from his voice.

Ignoring my question, he continued, “I have acquired this set of powers through the demons I have given my body and soul to. With each demon that takes possession, I am granted new capabilities, new strengths.

“But the higher daemons, the fallen seraphim, refuse to share a body with their lesser brethren. And only one who is gifted with such extreme psychic talents as we share can possibly hope to contain and control such a powerful entity.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little at his ridiculous speech. “We are Legion, for we are many,” I croaked, doing my best to imitate Linda Blair’s voice from The Exorcist. The lecturing apparition didn’t seem to find it too funny.

He knelt down and stared into my eyes. His soft brown irises seemed to recede into a total blackness, and I was transported into a long corridor with heavy steel doors on both sides which appeared to stretch to infinity. Animalistic screeches and howls erupted from every jail cell. Twisted, gnarled and burned hands reached towards me from some of the barred windows in these doors.

The floor on which I was standing was slippery. I looked down and noticed the stench. The floor was covered in shit. And not just the normal kind. It appeared as though this prison cell block had been mopped with light brown diarrhea, with traces of red which I assumed were blood.

I could feel the anger emanating from every cell, the rage, the hatred.

I entered back into reality, into the face of the phantom stranger.

“Didn’t like what you saw, did you?” he asked, “The illusion you witnessed is purely figurative, but it really isn’t so far from the actual truth. It’s a representation of a place within my soul where most of my demons reside, until called upon.

“The seraph I wish to call is named Salyssi. If you were to allow him sanctuary in your body, you would be granted unspeakable power. You would never feel pain, physical or emotional, ever again. Your aging process would slow to a turtle’s crawl, and you would be blessed with a preternatural strength and speed. Just think of all the guilty you could punish in your lifetime.”

“You just need me to consent to it,” I finished for him.

Becoming excited, he began to speak more rapidly, “I promise. I can teach you to
control
this daemon. Through you, I can use him to both our advantages.”

“And if I turn you down?”

“I would be disappointed, of course. But I would not harm you for it. I cannot force you to accept my offer. You must give yourself to Salyssi willingly for the ritual to be a success.”

I shook my head, unable to wrap my mind around it all. “How would any of this benefit you?”

“I can’t go too deeply into that,” he replied, “Let’s just say I would need your help from time to time, with certain tasks and projects.”