by Michael Todd
Ravi was smug. I told you I was good at this stuff. Now all I have to do is get you to invest in new boots, and we will be on the right track.
He looked defensively at his footwear. These will do for now. They aren’t even worn yet.
She groaned theatrically. Yeah, yeah. I guess I can’t be too picky. I got you farther than I thought I would.
Damian returned the books to the safe and hung his new bag in the closet. Ravi protested. Do you mean to tell me you’ll hide a beautiful leather satchel that you just paid twenty-five-hundred dollars for in the deep, dark recesses of your dungeon closet? Oh, no. No! I cannot allow this.
He muttered and removed it, then walked to a dining room chair, and hung it over the back. The demon wasn’t pleased and, conceding defeat, he hung it on a hook on the wall. Better?
She sniffed. I can live with that.
The priest smirked and removed the letters from his jacket pocket. Quickly, he returned to the safe and slid them into the fallen angels book, and after a short hesitation, he locked the safe and opted to pursue his search another night. Needing the distraction of human contact, he knocked on Max’s door. When he didn’t get a response, he knocked again and waited, finding it hard to believe the trainee would be asleep at that hour of the day. Finally, he creaked the door open and peeked inside.
Max wasn’t in his room, and his bed was made. Damian scratched his head in thought and shut the door, then meandered through the dining room to the kitchen. Everything was spotless, and the young priest was nowhere to be found.
Ravi sniffed. I smell him and his demon, so he is here somewhere. Maybe he discovered that closets are comfortable after all. See what you did to the kid? You damaged him for the rest of his life.
Damian rolled his eyes. I did no such thing. If anyone damaged him, it was him. He’s the clumsiest person I have ever met in my life. No motor skills at all.
She snorted. Maybe he will grow into them.
He chuckled as he grabbed a grape and tossed it into the air, then caught it deftly in his mouth. I saw his shoes on the stoop when I came in, so he is either here somewhere or is wandering the streets of London barefoot.
Ravi grimaced. As much as I love this city, I would not advise that.
Just then, a loud crash sounded upstairs, followed by Max yelling and groaning. Damian looked at the ceiling with wide eyes and rushed to the stairs. He raced up them two at a time and swung around the wall, taking the corner fast. At the door to the training room, he stopped. Ravi tried to hide a laugh. Oh my.
Max hung upside down, his shirt over his face. He had managed to somehow get his foot caught in one of the full-sized practice dummies and now swayed back and forth, his head hitting the plastic leg.
Damian shook his head in disbelief. “How in God’s name did you get yourself into that predicament?”
The young man lifted his shirt from his face. “I kicked the damn—I mean, dang—thing and somehow got stuck. Then it tipped over and swept me right off my feet.”
His foot slipped, and he hit the floor at a ninety-degree angle with his back flat but his sock still trapped. All Damian could do was laugh as he walked over and pulled. Max tried to pull with him, but it only tangled the material more firmly in the plastic, and the older man struggled to hold back his laughter. “Hold still. You can’t— Stop pulling or I’ll leave you like this.”
Finally, Damian simply yanked the trainee’s foot free. “You need to make sure there is supervision when you train. Apparently, it’s more dangerous than fighting demons.”
Max pushed to his feet and straightened his shirt, frowning at a hole near the hem. “Hey, I had some serious momentum going there. That thing attacked me.”
His mentor regarded him in stunned silence for a moment before laughter overwhelmed him. He pushed the dummy with one finger, and it fell and bounced across the floor. “Oh, sure, this seems like a real mean one. Maybe we should get some rope and tie this bad boy up. We wouldn’t want him attacking anyone else. We live here, and he could kill us in our sleep. I’m glad you tamed the beast, though. You’re a real hero.”
The young man faked a laugh and yanked his towel off the bench. “You don’t know what I go through. You had an entire team of mercs to train you when you started out. I have you—and you’re lost in books most of the time—and my demon. He’s an asshole most days, but at least he helps me.”
Damian smirked. “Oh, yeah, he came running straight to your aid when the killer plastic man attacked you.”
Max frowned. “I guess it’s not his fault I have no coordination. At least the dummy was there. I might have gone straight through the window otherwise. You would have found me in the courtyard with crazy Ms. Rose trying to drag me back to her lair.”
“Oh, I don’t think she’ll be much of a problem anymore,” he responded cheerfully. “At least, not for a while. She had a bit of a meltdown earlier, and I had to scare her demon into the recesses of her soul. Hopefully, it stays there for a while.”
His companion raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Does that explain the shards of wood on the doorstep and the hole in our doorframe?”
Damian exhaled a long breath and shrugged. “That it does, but don’t ask. It was a wild ride. In the meantime, you are tackling the villains at our backs.”
Max’s face dropped, and the older man smiled and draped his arm around his shoulder and shook him gently. “Hey, we all get attacked by an inanimate object at some point in our training. Luckily, I was here to save the day.”
“Really?”
Damian shook his head. “No, you are definitely the first. Go ahead and take a shower, get dressed, and come downstairs. I know this little place that serves tapas and amazing coffee. I think both you and your demon will enjoy it. Sound good?”
Max nodded as Damian walked down the hall. The young priest flipped the lights off and rolled his eyes at the dummy. “Fucking mannequin.”
His mentor hopped down the steps, his grin wide. “Language!”
Exasperated, Max threw his head back and shook his fist in the air, then tripped over the small table near the top of the steps and flailed wildly. “Whoa…whoa.”
Damian stopped at the bottom of the steps and turned with his hands on his hips. Solid thuds were interspersed with Max’s pained grunts as the trainee thumped all the way to the bottom and rolled onto the hardwood floors. He groaned and held the top of his head, staring up at the ceiling. Damian gave him a quick once-over, relieved to see no blood or protruding bones.
He looked at him and shook his head. “I’d have to say, you’re doing much better at exorcising than hand-to-hand combat. That’s a compliment. Trust me. If the opposite were true, you’d be missing a limb or two.”
Max opened his eyes and moaned pitifully. His mentor smiled widely and tapped him in the side with his boot. “Come on, slacker. Let’s go. We got tapas to eat and coffee to drink.”
Damian walked away, and the young priest stared up at the rafters, willing his head to cease pounding in his skull. It didn’t help that Astaroth was having a field day with the entire situation. That was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life, the way you hung from that mannequin. The only thing that would have made it better is if it pulled your shorts down.
Max stood belligerently. I’m glad you find this hilarious. You just went silent. Thanks for that.
The demon was still laughing. What could I do? I figured it would be best to hide. This, though? The tumble down the stairs like an old lady? It was fucking priceless. We need to film you.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The night sky sparkled with stars, and the moon was full and bright. Damian had purchased a portable firepit and set it up in the alley near the garage. He dragged a chair around from the courtyard, sat, and tipped his head back to gaze at the heavens. In his lap, his hands gripped the letters from Lucifer and Pandora tightly. It was no secret that Katie had a demon inside her. The whole world knew that, but it wasn’t in their face, so the
good deeds she did outweighed the bad.
The information in these letters could be devastating if it were to become public knowledge. For them to know she’d aligned herself—even inadvertently through Pandora’s history—with the very being they blamed for thousands upon thousands of deaths would start a witch-hunt. Knowing it and seeing it firsthand were two completely different things, especially for people who didn’t understand what it was like to be infected. Damian knew that Pandora was not the woman who had once been married to Lucifer. He knew that she had changed—or changed back, whatever the case might be. She had aligned with the right side, and that was what mattered most. She saved lives on a regular basis and made sure to help Katie out of tough situations.
Damian looked at the letters and accepted that he owed Pandora. She had saved his life—or helped Katie do so—on multiple occasions. He couldn’t possibly find it in himself to betray her trust and leave something that delicate out in the world for anyone to find. It was a difficult decision because it meant he kept one person’s trust while betraying that of an entire religious institution. They might never know about it, but he would.
He leaned forward and opened the letters, then read each one again carefully, committing it to memory. They contained nothing that would help anyone defeat the demons in the war. The only thing they could be used for was to slander Pandora, and ultimately Katie. As he held Lucifer’s letter in his hand, he looked at the ink. It shimmered like glitter in the light of the fire. He wondered if it had been written in his own blood imprinted into the skin of a human victim. He read Pandora’s letter one last time and tried to imagine her sitting somewhere on Earth while writing it.
The words held a suggestion of her, but nothing close to what she had become. Instead, it read like a woman who had found her freedom and ran from a relationship that had driven her into the ground. It was a letter that he imagined thousands of women across time had written to a man in their life, women who were strong and valiant and able to break free of the chains of an oppressive man. It was a testament to the strength of her gender, showing that suppression could be broken even between two of the most powerful beings alive…or dead.
Whichever way he looked at the letters, they were incredibly intimate. It was a matter between the two of them, and more than that, Pandora’s legacy. It was something he felt that even he shouldn’t have had the privilege of reading. He knew that if he felt that way, no one else on Earth, above in heaven, or below in hell should have the right to read them either. He hoped that one day if someone found his journal, they would feel the same way and keep it hidden.
Damian sighed and folded each of the letters carefully and meticulously into small squares. He looked at the stars and exhaled a deep breath that puffed out as a small cloud. He knew exactly what he needed to do and groaned as he grabbed the fire poker. The heat washed over him as he stoked the blaze and stared into the dancing flames. He listened to the sing-song crackle of the wood, and small sparks floated toward the sky.
When the fire reached its zenith, he tossed the letters into the grate. He watched as Pandora’s missive curled slowly and the corners caught fire. Flames consumed it until it dissipated among the coals. Lucifer’s letter bathed itself in shimmering blue and red light. It crackled as it unfurled, growing brighter, and finally erupted into ash—just as the demons did when they exorcised them.
Damian nodded, glad he had found the letters. He knew that one day he’d tell Pandora he’d found them, although even Katie wouldn’t hear about it. He figured that after everything they had been through and everything that lay ahead, he owed the demon. She was an unexpected ally in the war of the Damned. Hers was the hand that had helped them win against the tyranny of Moloch and his beasts. If no one else in her entire existence had shown her kindness, he would make sure he did.
He sat once more, smiling to himself for a moment. Ravi cleared her throat. That was a good thing you did.
The priest didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. He grabbed the cardinal’s journal, something he had no intention of setting aflame. He turned to the next page and paused. Oddly, several symbols were scribbled across the top of the pages. The handwriting was erratic, and the sentences seemed sporadic, short bursts instead of his normal paragraph form.
January 13, 1966
A day of reckoning has come to me. The truth does not set me free.
On 3 June 1963, the world saw the death of our dear Pope John XXII. He was a kind man with a good heart. No questions were asked.
Just yesterday at the meeting of the Kings, something no one knows about. Revelations. Oh, so many revelations. Pope John was murdered. His death was at the hands of…oh, Lord, save me. I know the truth.
They are rising, and fast. They will find me if I do not go. I know the secrets. I must get away, but where will I go? They know all and see most.
They will attack the Vatican again, just as with Pope John. They will kill, and blood will flow through the halls of the holiest place on Earth. I must get away.
I must cloak in this darkness and go to the place where the leaves fall twice. There, I will find the answer to my sanctuary. God keep me safe. They are everywhere. The red is coming.
Until next time.
Damian scowled and read the passage over and over. It was written sloppily and almost frantically. He could almost feel the cardinal’s fear through the strokes of his pen, a scary reality and even more so since the passage talked of the death of a Pope at the hand of a demon. The Catholic church had always maintained silence regarding the wars. How could they do that if one of their own had been murdered? There had been no record in anything he had read in the past about an attack on the Vatican.
The priest closed the book and stood, no longer feeling the familiar comfort under the stars. The cardinal had once walked beneath the same ones with fear pulsing through his veins. The man had secrets that only he knew, and it was disconcerting. Damian grabbed the bucket of water beside him and poured it slowly over the flames. Steam rose high, and he stared at the billowing smoke and wondered where the missing man might be at that exact moment. Was he even alive? He had not disappeared before, at least not for a long period of time. Whatever made him run off or had killed him had to be worse than the assassination of a Pope.
Damian glanced at the journal in his hand, tempted to stop reading. He wasn’t even halfway through the first, and things already looked bleaker and bleaker with every entry. The writings now made him privy to secrets that he was not supposed to know, and that put him in grave danger. He was suddenly glad that neither Max or Wally knew anything of the contents and that the mystery would remain unsolved for the foreseeable future. With the number of twists and turns in this man’s life, it would take Damian a long time to find him. Whatever he did, though, he knew he had to keep those journals secret. It was possible that the future of the church and the life of the cardinal hung in the balance.
He shook his head as he headed for the door. This new adventure had become way bigger than he’d imagined. If nothing else, he wouldn’t be bored for a very long time.
The door to the house closed, and Damian locked it behind him. The smoke from the firepit still simmered and billowed upward toward the bright full moon. A few embers in the grate shimmered red and yellow as the ashes cooled. A cold breeze blew through the alley, shifting the smoke toward the fence on the other side of the walk.
From the shadows, a figure stepped forward and through the puffing smoke. His feet barely touched the ground, and he wore a hooded cloak. As he stepped into the light, he pushed the hood down, revealing his long, flowing silver hair. Beneath his cloak, he wore draperies of gold and white adorned with silver thread. His face was kind, and his ice-blue eyes shimmered brightly.
Gabriel walked serenely to the firepit and removed the once again-fully-intact letters. He read them quickly and glanced at the door through which Damian had just passed, and a smile touched his lips. You have done well, Damian. Your journey will be f
illed with danger, but you will forever be shrouded by the light of God. May peace find you in your dreams.
The angel tossed the letters into the firepit and watched as they instantly burst into flames once more and fell to dust among the embers. His eyes flashed a brighter blue as he pulled his hood up and disappeared into the shadows.
Death Becomes Her
Have you read The Kurtherian Gambit, from Michael (Todd) Anderle?
Available at Amazon
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Written November 13, 2018
THANK YOU for not only reading this story but these Author Notes as well .
(I think I’ve been good with always opening with “thank you.” If not, I need to edit the other Author Notes!)
RANDOM (sometimes) THOUGHTS?
So, I’ve been in talks (it feels like negotiations) with the JIT (Just In Time) team about this series.
I feel like the general thought among readers is that Damian (on his own) is not a fun character. He doesn’t have the humor of Pandora and Katie arguing or Ella’s snarkiness going for him.
In short, he is kinda dark and dreary at times. We worked to liven things up with his sidekick and the lady across the street trying to kill him with pies, but in general, the stories haven’t clicked.
So, we were planning on closing things down until the JIT started asking “where is book 04?”
Well, we have to do a book 04 for closure (we didn’t get that totally right), so we WILL have a book 04.
But, we could use some feedback on what YOU think of the series, and what might have gone right and gone wrong with it.
Love to hear your comments – send them to [email protected], please