Holy Socks And Dirtier Demons (10 page)

I stopped and turned to her. “We’re not talking about a hamburger,

right?

Her brow furrowed. “Why would you seek a hamburger?”

“Long story.” I flexed my fingers on the nine-millimeter. “Tell me.”

“No, you tell me. What is the going rate for betrayal?”

“What are you talking about?”

The demon shifted into the beautiful body of the murderous Lilith.

She smiled, and slapped the gun in my hand away at the same time I pulled

the trigger. The shot went wide, but her fist didn’t. It caught me right above

the eye, and sent my nine-millimeter and me spiraling to the floor.

Hades jumped to my aid, but Lilith froze him in place with a glare.

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“This is his fight,” she said, pointing a talon-like finger at me. Hades blinked

in acknowledgement.

I slowly got to my feet, wiped the blood from my eye, and smiled.

“Is that all you got?”

She laughed. “What do you think?”

The next punch rattled my ribs, cracking a few. At least this time, I

stayed on my feet and even landed a blow of my own. Too bad, it glanced off

her right shoulder, not doing any real damage.

“You shouldn’t have come here.” She wrapped her arms around me,

squeezing the breath from my lungs.

“You shouldn’t have betrayed me.” I broke the chokehold with an

elbow to her mid-section, and stepped back a few steps.

“Believe what you will, but you will die a believer.” She vanished in

a plume of steam, only to reappear thirty feet away, her arms pressed into the

flesh of Samuel.

I clutched my ribs and laughed. “If it isn’t the pretty-boy. Guess I

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, maybe pretty boy Samuel too, and then track the kid down.

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