What if? What if? Boss whines. Such a pussy.
Azael’s head turns, scanning the area around the hole.
My heart races as I flatten like a pancake, hoping to camouflage into the ledge. Then a dull pain tugs at my spine, and I levitate a few inches off the ground. This magic is beyond Boss’ capabilities.
I reach for the box, but it slips between my fingertips. Azael whips me across the open space. My backbone smashes against the opposite wall. I fall limp, head spinning, and try to move my legs, but they won’t respond. Great, I say to Boss. Your big mouth got me paralyzed.
He has no quick comeback this time.
Until immortal healing kicks in, I exhale a steady hum to distract from the pain. This is the first time I’ve been injured this badly. Curing shattered vertebrae could take minutes or hours. When butterflies churn in my stomach, it could be the antidote or fear this fight will end before it begins.
Azael stands with his back to me, staring at the hole. In unison, his glutes twitch and his head tilts side to side. “I see you, priest.”
Father Timothy rides the fallen angel’s tractor beam through the gap, albeit smoother than my trip. He floats to the sacrifice table, then hovers while the expectant mother shoves the dismembered nun to the ground. The Butcher bounces with joy, clapping a palm against the fist clutching a dagger, her now sharp utensil of choice.
“A holy heart for my holy bride.” Azael’s voice reverberates throughout the cave.
Worried that Trisha will punish me if anything happens to the priest, I yell, “Hey, Sister! Over here! I taste better!”
Quite an offer, considering flies would pass by your corpse.
Boss, you started this. Help end it.
You want a miracle, he says, ask God.
After a long sigh, I manage to wiggle a toe. Not what I’d hoped for, but I’ll take it.
I whistle and try to entice her again. “My biceps will bleed in your mouth, not in your hands.”
The nuns chained to the wall join the opposition by singing a chorus of, “No, Sister, no, Sister!”
Oblivious to our pleas, the Divine Heart Butcher lifts the dagger and aims, but abruptly jerks to one side and clutches the base of her pregnant belly. “Ah…” With a contorted face, she hisses short puffs of breath.
Could she be going into labor?
The priest takes advantage, rolling off the table and backing away. “Sister Ruth, put the knife down. It’s me, Father Timothy.”
I clench my teeth and arch my spine to realign my vertebrae. It allows me to wiggle my legs, but standing is still out of the question.
Azael shifts his attention between the priest and me as if sizing up which one of us to slaughter first. He leaps my direction, grabs my shirt, and lifts me nose to nose. Sweaty, jock-strap odor accosts my senses, burning my eyes. “You will join me,” he says.
“Never.” I choke and clumsily grope at my suffocating collar. For the first time in my life, I’m popular, attracting the attention of an angel apprentice and fallen angel in one day.
“Stupid courier. I want your demon,” he says, knocking me back to reality. Azael tilts his bronze head and laughs. Chunks of flesh are stuck to his jagged bronze teeth.
The fallen angel places three fingers against my sternum, the place where Boss’s essence—his physical spine—had first entered to possess me. The curvy black tip of his coccyx pokes through my skin and cuts through my shirt to meet Azael’s grip. I cry out in pain. Blood splatter soaks the fabric. The ornate spinal column writhes, resembling a bristly pissed off snake. Help me! Boss says. It burns! For some reason, he’s heating up and glowing a bright orange, which is wrong on every level. I’ve witnessed the removal of a demon, and a spine never tempers like hot metal, even when it resists.
What’s happening? I ask Boss, my skin fusing around vertebrae.
Ulla and Inez’s curse, keeping me inside you. Boss oozes between Azael’s fingers, the fallen angel impervious to the heat. They said I’d know.
What? While I’d like to ponder a life forever melded with Boss, I’m too busy weakly kicking a re-mobilized leg at Azael, not that a hit would matter.
“Release, demon. Release.” The fallen angel grits his teeth and waves at the molten particles, but the curse holds strong. Loose globules hover in midair for only a second before returning to the essence. “I command you to release, or I’ll shred your host into hamburger for my lady.”
Something tells me he’ll do it regardless.
I’m about to faint when the priest calls out, “Azael!” He’s returned to the ledge and holds the box containing the Sword of Sin above his head. “Take this.” He throws it to the cave floor, where it splinters apart, releasing the sword’s crippling energy.
Azael releases me and drops to his knees. Boss falls limp, steam rising at my waist as his essence regenerates.
Get up, Boss says. Get the sword.
But my arms and legs are too weak. I’m stuck on my side, drool streaming from my mouth. The rock floor chills my cheek. “Get it yourself.” Every aching bone in my body cries out for me to give up. Another wave of cramps and long-winded farts tells me I’m better off dead. “Azael can have you…and my head.”
Your head’s too far up your ass for him to find it. Boss flip flops near my chest and creeps forward, as if he’s trying to drag me with him.
“Where are you getting this energy?” I manage to lift my torso. “Hell, how are you still outside my body?”
You really want to waste time, contemplating Azael’s powers? Boss says.
Across the cavern, Sister Ruth screams and waddles toward Azael, her breathing ragged between contractions. “What’s wrong?” she asks while holding his arm.
“The sword. Find it. It’s weakening me.” He sways and stumbles.
“What?” she says. “Where?”
He points in the direction of the broken box. “Remove it from the cave.” Azael struggles to his feet and moves, one slow stomp and groan at a time.
How is he standing? Boss asks.
Trisha said he’d be incapacitated, but Father Timothy had mentioned Azael strengthening with each escape. Has he built up a resistance to the weapon? I spit blood, then shimmy a few feet on all fours. A few seconds later, I race to the nun, dragging a limp leg.
She turns and swipes the dagger, slicing into my arm. I hold the wound while Boss lifts his coccyx and readies to strike her pregnant belly. Let me at her, and the little bastard.
His proposal sends a chill through my body. No matter who’s the daddy, attacking an expectant mother and an unborn baby isn’t a part of the deal I had made with Trisha. Still, there’s no stopping crazy Sister Ruth as she edges forward, circling a protective hand over her stomach, glazed eyes focused on me. She looks as though she’d kill anyone who threatens her dysfunctional family.
From behind her, Father Timothy approaches. “Sister, please set the knife down. This isn’t you.”
She whips around and drives the sharp blade into his shoulder, but something seems to snap her back to reality. Maybe it’s the priest’s shocked expression, or the amniotic fluid gushing from between her legs, but she weeps and hugs him while holding the dagger firmly in his flesh. “I’m so sorry.”
The priest console her while guiding her hand and the knife out of his shoulder. Not sure I could be that forgiving. Then again, absolution is his job. His face squinches and he sucks air through gritted teeth as he gestures toward the Sword of Sin. “Get it,” he mouths at me.
I hobble across the cave.
Faster, Boss says.
“It hurts.”
Wah, wah, wah, he says. Would you rather be birthing the spawn of a fallen angel?
With him halfway outside my body, I feel like I already am. I grunt and pick up speed, then slide in and grab the sword. The ancient handle detaches, and the blade falls to the ground. “Damn it!” I throw it aside, reach for the tang, and wave the heavy weapon. It’s bad enough I’ve never brandished a sword. Wit
hout a grip, it’s difficult to balance.
Hurry, Boss says. Drive it through his chest before he tries to yank me out again.
As usual, it’s all about him first, humanity second.
Back on one knee, Azael narrows in on Boss.
It’s now or never. I go at Azael, full-force, clutching the tang tightly, the metal edges digging into my hand. The blade pierces his breast plate, but then whizzes out of my grasp, landing on the opposite side of the cave. Azael raises his elbows at his sides and clenches his fists. “Warriors!”
This can’t be good, I tell Boss. Did the blade even penetrate?
You better hope so, he says, because he’s one pissed off angel.
I glance over at Father Timothy, the only nearby expert on fallen angels. He’s delivering a baby. At the same time, a chained nun dresses his injury.
Look, Boss says.
Azael’s upper-body expands and bloats in size. His chest plate detaches and falls to the ground. Black liquid sprays from his wound. It freezes in midair, as if time stands still, then reverses direction, returning to its host.
Is that his life force? I ask Boss while backing away.
All I know, he says, is you better get the sword in case you still need to finish him off.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Upon return, I’m ready to rush him, pop him like a balloon when the bloating stops. And the bulge drops. Between his legs. Touching the ground.
God help us, Boss says. Look at those gargantuan balls.
Azael stands bowlegged, staring downward at his atrocious sack of manhood. He growls and lifts his head, narrowing in on me.
I stifle a wet burp and shiver. “How do we destroy him now?”
How should I know? Boss says. I can’t stop staring at his balls.
Five yards away, Father Timothy stands with a baby in one arm and his eyes glued to the fallen angel.
“Father,” I say. “Is this supposed to happen?”
Again, he’s of no help, other than mouthing a prayer and signing the cross over his heart.
He better not be blessing those monsters, Boss says.
A dozen white warriors flock into the cave and buzz around their new master’s head. We’re screwed if the other eighty-plus Trisha had mentioned show up. “Take me outside,” Azael says to them. He tries to spread his wings but they go limp. And the warriors can’t lift him. His hefty balls acting like cement anchors.
Stab him in the nuts, Boss says.
“Hell, no.” By the looks of Azael, it could create a black hole. Instead, I aim the sword at his chest and take a few steps forward. This is impossible.
Do I have to do everything? Boss whips his spine around the blade and yanks it from my hand. The curse kicks in, turning him molten and pliable.
“Demon!” Azael stomps a foot forward, stretching his scrotum. “Throw the sword to the warriors. I’ll release you from your curse and place you in a younger body. Any of your choice.”
I pull back. “Don’t do it.”
Boss’ toothy bones weave over the handle.
Sure his silence means he’s considering the offer, I tear at him to unravel his hold, but it’s like juggling hot pokers. “Damn it, Boss!”
“Azael’s tricking you.” Father Timothy joins us, clutching a bloody veil to his wounded shoulder. “Whatever he promises, God can do better.”
The fallen angel holds his head and sways as if he might collapse backward. “God despises demons. I protect them. Hurry! Throw the sword to the warriors!”
“Boss, please!” I plead and cut my hand on the blade. We’ve been together fifty years. It has to mean something.
Again, no response.
I’m about to pivot and run from the warriors, when Boss flings the sword at lightning speed.
I heave forward and stumble. Heat intensifies in my gut.
This time the blade plants deeply inside Azael’s chest.
Boss cheers. Direct hit, bitch!
Still red hot, he collapses against my crotch. My pelvis jerks backward, and I yell, “Careful!”
Settle down, he says. You never use it.
Save your insults, I tell Boss then warn everyone. “Look!”
Azael’s chest points skyward and his arms fall limp. The weapon liquefies, and a silver funnel spirals with the same black goo he’d first expressed. Above him, the warriors whirl at high-speed. Their wings contort and snap amid their panic to escape a forming tornado. The outpouring of more goo from the fallen angel’s torso streams over their bodies, locking them in with their master.
I back away, struggling against sweeping winds to reach the sacrifice table, where Boss and I hold on for dear life. Off to our left, Sister Ruth and the other three nuns wrap the chains around forearms and wrists. Father Timothy huddles behind them, clutching the Nephilim baby tightly against his chest.
At the base of the funnel, Azael’s testicles inflate, taking in the white warriors and anything else not fixed in place.
Imagine spending an eternity imprisoned inside a fallen angel’s balls, I say.
No thanks, he says. Being devoured over and over again by Satan in the worst level of Hell is a carnival ride in comparison.
The four remaining white warriors buzzing around Azael’s head lose their struggle. Then a steady screech sounds while the wind dies down and he shrivels in on himself. All that remains is a fifteen-foot cocoon of wiry-haired gonads.
When the sword shoots skyward, out of the nut sack, and clinks against the cave floor, my grip on the table re-tightens.
After a few calming breaths, I ask, “Is it over?”
Father Timothy stands at the same time. “According to the diary, that’s his captive form.”
In case there’s another surprise, I pick up the Sword of Sin and approach Azael’s remains. The cocoon, now half its size, continues to recede and small patches of bronze flesh turn solid black.
I clutch my back and stare at Boss. “Why’d you throw the sword at Azael? You could have had freedom and possibly a kingdom.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Admit it. You can’t live without me.”
He snaps back, I serve Satan.
No, I say. The two-headed lady took your ability to serve Satan. You’re my bitch, which means I control your porn feed. You wouldn’t make that choice unless you couldn’t live without me.
Boss’ spine quakes. Do over! I want a do over.
I’d like to give him more shit, but Azael’s balls have shriveled to the size of a charcoal briquette. I lift my cowboy boot and take aim with the heel.
“Don’t you dare do that,” Trisha yells. She staggers in through the main entrance, drunk from the effects of the sword. Three white warrior follow.
“Trisha, watch out.” I run toward them, waving the blade.
“Back off! The warriors are with me.” She steps between us, rubbing her forehead. “Right now, the only threat is the sword. Quick, someone put it in the box.”
“We can’t,” Father Timothy says. “I broke it.”
“Great.” She weakly points at one of her minions. “Milar, take the sword to the convent before I pass out. Also, tell the nuns to come pick up everyone.”
Milar holds out his clawed fingers. I take a few steps back, reluctant to hand it over. For the first time in fifty years, I’m face to face with a white warrior who wants something other than to rip off my head. When their kind is relaxed, they’re almost human, except for their pale skin and naked, sexless body.
“Pete!” Trisha stumbles. “It’s not yours. Give it to him.”
“How do you know we can trust him?”
“These warriors remained faithful to me after Azael took over the others. They were also outside the crevasse and created the rockslide with the Bronco to stop Margery and the mercenary from taking off your head.”
“That was you guys?” I ask.
She nods. “They carried me out of the canyon and we’ve been beheading the traitors to cancel their
agreement with me. Hell’s refugee camp has seventy-five new guards.”
I turn to Father Timothy.
He nods while stroking the baby’s wet crown of dark brown curly hair.
This time I hand it over. Milar is quick to fly away.
“Thank you,” Trisha says, quickly recovering her huffy attitude. Then she points at Boss. “What happened?”
“Ulla and Inez’s curse happened,” I say. “Azael tried to break it.”
Trisha laughs. “Man, I wish I could have see that.”
“Yeah, well, Boss was the one who struck the fatal blow that turned Azael into that.” I point at the fallen angel’s remains. “The way I see it, Boss deserves a reprieve from the curse.”
Hell yeah!
“Maybe, but I’m not crossing Ulla and Inez.” Trisha flips her brown ponytail off her shoulder and turns up a wicked grin. “The ladies will have to put the demon back inside you. Up to them to release him from the curse. They might even be willing to take him out entirely.”
And end up in one of their potion jars. Boss snorts. I’d rather risk spending an eternity with your rotting corpse.
Careful, I tell him.
“The good news,” Trisha says, “is you’re forever free from Satan and Margery. And your safehouse awaits. You can pick up the keys at the convent when Ulla and Inez fix your limp demon problem.”
Boss stiffens and pokes out his coccyx. Sit on this, angel wannabe.
Lucky for Boss, Sister Ruth interrupts by crying out, “Kill it.” Everyone’s heads turn toward two nuns, holding her away from the baby.
Father Timothy hands the swaddled newborn to Trisha.
Sister Ruth’s voice echoes and her struggle intensifies. “Kill the baby!”
What’s her problem? Boss says. No chance for child support?
I shake my head and ask, “Is she going to be okay?”
Trisha holds the baby over her shoulder and bounces. “Azael’s love spell has worn off.”
“And regret for the events of the last few hours has set in,” Father Timothy says. “Regardless, we need to get her out of here before she hurts someone. Let’s hope she’ll calm and return to normal once I’ve baptized the boy.” His face contorts into a lopsided squint while he rubs his shoulder.
Fall for Freedom Page 4