Succubus Tear (Triune promise) (42 page)

After it all, Al’bah had a strange expression on her face, like a cloud that went over the moon. “Did he mention anything about me?” she said quietly.

“Aside from referring to you in conversations we were having? No.”

“You are lying to me,” Al’bah said, her voice almost a whisper.

“What?”

“Either you are lying to me, or you are keeping something from me.”

“Oh! Yeah,” Cain said, now remembering. “Purity asked me if I knew what a Succubus’s purpose is.”

“Oh.” Al’bah seemed abashed.

“I get the impression you don’t know, either.”

“No, I do not. I know what most Succubi do now, and how they devote themselves. Paralleling one of your first statements to me: ‘stealing souls, tempting mortals,’ and the like. But it is not the original purpose of my specific race, I am sure of it.”

The conversation died for a moment until Cain was reminded about something else. “Al’bah, what can you tell me about the Demono?”

“Cain, please keep your word to me.” Al’bah sighed.

“I am. You are Demono, and so I want to know more about your nature and, by proxy, you.”

Full Circle

“Chief Turnovits? Yeah, looks like two of your own were traitors. I say ‘were’ ‘cause the dead can’t betray anyone.”

—Shane Harper

Charlie stepped out of the passenger’s side of the sleek, black Land Rover he rode in at the receiving lane of the Richmond International Airport. He turned and opened the rear passenger door and held his hand out, which Stella took, and she stepped out.

“Y’all serious about traveling that light?”

Charlie grinned, adjusting his backpack and still carrying Stella’s. He was always one for traveling as light as absolutely possible. “Don’t you worry about us, Harper-san. I’ve always traveled light.”

Stella took her backpack and closed her door. “Good-bye, Agent Harper.”

“Detective.”

Stella shook her head. “Not anymore—they took my badge. I just gave it to you to bring back to them.”

Shane appeared to internally chastise himself. “Apologies, ma’am. But if I might be so daring to say, once a detective, always a detective. Just like they say back home: once a Texas Ranger, always a Texas Ranger,” he added with a tip of his hat.

Stella stared off into the distance, considering what he said.

“How ‘bout this: I’ll pull a few strings to see what I can do to getcha into something over there in England. I know a few people from way back, you never know.”

Stella shrugged. “What do you want in return?”

Shane took off his hat. “Ma’am, this is the Texas hospitality my momma raised me up with, and all the decency my pa put into my nerves. Favors serve people well enough, but friendly gestures with no thought of gain tend to add another scoop onto your sundae when the boss ain’t lookin’.”

“Uh, sure,” Stella said with a slight grin.

“Yee-haw, and with that we need to catch our flight, before the airport security guy giving us the stink eye loses his shit. C’mon, blondie.”

“Blondie? You are not going to be calling me that,” Stella said over her shoulder as she strode into the waiting doors.

“Thank you, Harper-sama,” Charlie said quietly now that he had a moment. “I didn’t think you were going to believe her and me.”

Shane shrugged. “Just remember the terms the DA brokered with you and Stella. You check in with the local authorities once a month and with me once every four months. No traveling without reporting it.”

“Excuse me, sir, you need to move your vehicle.”

“Hold your horses, son,” Shane said, handing over his FBI badge. “And most of all, you must always be available to be contacted.”

“Got it. Say, why do you believe our story?”

Without breaking eye contact, Shane put away his badge that the security personnel handed back to him. A million questions seemed to rush behind his eyes but never reached his lips. He pulled out a small notepad and handed it to Charlie, and drove off.

“Took you long enough.”

Charlie grinned as he slid next to Stella, who was already in line. “Hey, don’t be like that, blondie. Us boys had to have a man-to-man. You know how it is.”

“Seriously, stop calling me blondie,” Stella said, trying and failing not to smile. “A man-to-man, huh? Well at least I didn’t have to watch a woman pee right in front of me this time.”

Charlie broke out laughing, and everyone seemed to stop for a moment to stare. A few security personnel glanced but shook their heads, continuing their mandated and regulated apathy.

“But, seriously. I wanted to know why he believed our stories. He wouldn’t tell me, but he gave me this.” He thumbed the small notebook open and saw that only one page had been written on.

Location of truck appropriation = anomaly

Location of Stratton Law Firm vs. supposed location of Cain = anomaly

Time index of supposed murders vs. waste dispatch notifying authorities of appropriated truck = anomaly

Time index of activated alarm in Stratton Law firm garage vs. other time index(es) = anomaly

Forensic evidence of bullet wounds in all victims not matching S & W 629 or Colt 1911 = anomaly

Creditability of witnesses of murders = poor

Case Index File No. 52945 at Precinct # 10

All evidence triple verified, creditable, and admissible in court.

“Holy shit, Stella. Look at this!”

Stella scanned the single page and flipped through the book. “The bastards,” she muttered.

“What does this mean?”

Stella sighed and pocketed the notebook. “It means they
know
I am innocent, and that Cain is innocent. I think Agent Harper gave this to you so I would eventually be able to come back home, or rise up and fight this now.” She shrugged. “Once Cain is proven innocent of murder, I will no longer be an accessory. I will be able to fight for my badge and be on the force again.” She looked up with an intense expression. “And Cain would be free, too.”

Charlie nodded. “Do you really think Cain would want to go back? Work construction for the rest of his life? I think Al’bah came into his life for a reason. There will be time enough for all this to blow over and prove his innocence. But I think it would be best if he
lived
for a while.”

“Geez, Charlie, you’re assuming a lot on his behalf. But maybe you’re right. Even so, just imagine their lives now, versus what it would be like if they didn’t have to run.”

Charlie moved forward with the line. “So, does that mean you wanna go back? Fight for yourself? For some justice?” He swallowed and decided that he’d better test his relationship with Stella sooner rather than later. “I’ll come with you. I’ll even help you.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Hey, why not? You helped my best friend out of a tough jam, and I kinda like ya.”

“You
kinda
like me?” Stella said. She seemed to master herself at last in front of Charlie and offered no “tells” for him to guess at her thoughts.

“Well, no. I—”

The departure personnel called out, pointing to Charlie. “Next, please!”

Now’s not the time to be a pussy, Charlie! Say it!

“If there was ever a woman I could love, it would be you, Stella. And even if that meant leaving this line and going back to win justice for you and your life. Even if it meant never seeing you again afterwards, I would do it.”

Stella smiled and took Charlie’s hand. “And miss seeing Europe with you? Not a chance.”

Al’bah’s Worth

“I misjudged this mortal.”

—Taint

—Purity

“Oh.” Al’bah sighed. “My knowledge of the Demono is hard to speak about, Cain. It would be even harder to believe, to tell you the truth.”

“Well, we have nothing but time. And to be honest, after all that has happened, I can’t imagine you telling me something that would be hard to believe.”

Al’bah nodded. “Cain, I will tell you—really, I will—but could it wait for tonight? I would like to accompany my tale with something special,” she said with a smile that was a bit mysterious.

“Ugh, why can you get away with ‘I’ll tell later’?” Cain said, trying to sound annoyed.

“Because my stories are better,” Al’bah said simply.

“Humans have quite a few good stories, you know. Speaking of humans, how is it you know so little about them? And at the same time, you have these little bits of obscure, sometimes extremely insightful information?”

That was something that shocked Cain over and over again. Al’bah entered the world with not even the knowledge of what a toilet was. And yet, she knew what food was, what an oven was, and how to cook. She understood the concept of mass transit, but she had no idea what a car was. She could read, but it took half a day for her to understand what she was seeing on a television set. She could sing with a voice that made an entire restaurant fall silent with rapture. But she enunciated her words in a strange way that made rhyme impossible. And at times when they stopped to get gas or to eat, she would dance, for no reason but that she declared herself to be happy.

All these little peculiarities filled Cain with a sense of wonderment. Al’bah was truly something that had no place in the world, except by his side. Her almost childlike enthusiasm for the experiences of the world around her gave Cain a new pair of eyes. Her amazement, her awe, and frustrations poured onto Cain’s senses. With Al’bah, Cain felt
alive
.

For the longest time he was so weary of what the world had to offer him. One might even have said he was just waiting to die. But with Al’bah, the world was turned over, polished and revealed to him with a new sense of worth. Perhaps it was the way Al’bah would look at him; for her, the worth of the entire world was him. And to her, Cain was all that mattered.

She would show him things that were beyond explanation. Sometimes she would hold him. Hold him so tightly and whisper words that he couldn’t understand. Yet her words would evoke feelings of such fierce protectiveness that it shocked him.

To think that I almost thought she was just a dream.

“Cain, are you listening to me?” Al’bah said, rousing him from his thoughts.

“Oh, sorry. What were you saying?”

“My explanation of how I know some things, while ignorant of other things,” Al’bah said, drinking more water. “Surely you know of the sort of person or people who are into the occult? Well for the spiritual race, it is the same. But it is easier for us to contact and interact with your world than it is for you to ours. You see, our kind can use the intangible that humanity cannot understand, to peer into your world.”

“Like what?” Cain asked.

“Well, for one, mirrors that are seen by no one,” Al’bah said quietly. “Especially when a human falls asleep in front of a mirror, we can ‘see’ them.” She tapped the empty bottle against the dashboard of the ’87 Accord and went on. “Dreams are another way, but dreams are a two-way interface, more or less. I could go on and on, but the most recent and perhaps the biggest wealth of knowledge is what you call ‘deleted information.’”

“What, deleted information? Like on computers?” he said, with slight confusion.

Al’bah shrugged. “I do not know what a computer is for sure, but what I do know is humans think that if they delete information it no longer exists, but it does. Deleted information just transitions into a different state. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can be uncreated; every thought, every idea, and every song that existed still exists. All it takes is the right person with the right recollection, and when a thing like the ‘only copy’ of a great piece of artwork or literary masterpiece is destroyed, it then belongs to the spiritual. Angels and Demons can claim these things.”

Cain was absolutely floored by the implications of this revelation. The very idea of every scrap of knowledge that ever existed
still
existing was
incredible.