by Sawyer Black
Henry didn’t care. The man was old and didn’t have a camera phone. Who cared if he told some people about the guy in jeans and a hoodie. The old man had only seen the back of his head, and a demon’s voice was hard to identify.
Henry’s hand tightened around the mugger’s neck, his fingers pressing deeper into the man’s flesh as he lifted him up and slammed him into the brick. The man shrieked in pain, and a surge of energy coursed through Henry, a hundred times better than the best of his drugs. Flavors exploding across his palate. Aromas rising into his nostrils.
“Ah, that's grrreat!” Henry yelled. Like Tony the fucking Tiger. He roared, pulling the mugger back like his body was an empty sack. He launched his cargo forward, smashing the mugger flat against the wall, driving a fist into his chest.
Something broke under his knuckles, squishing past his fingers as his hand made contact with the wall. Henry pulled his hand out of the mugger’s broken body, and the stinking heap slid to the ground. Henry bent and grabbed the mugger’s ankle. He took a breath filled with the power of his kill then hurled the body into the open dumpster.
Power coursed through him, begging for use. He spun and sped into the night, swimming through the shadows like a shark. He ran blind until instinct became an arrow directing him from one of The Burg’s points of pain to the next.
The night’s second mugger also attacked the elderly, this time a woman. That alone would’ve sent Henry into a rage. He warned her before turning his attention to the mugger. “Run as fast and as far as you can. Even if you hear him screaming”.
She nodded, thanking Henry while trying not to cry, taking several steps back before finally turning and racing away.
Unlike the first mugger, the second showed no fear. Probably too high to think straight or too stupid to recognize a demon and his inevitable death. Henry barreled into him, and the mugger sailed through the air to land on his back. Henry rushed across the alley to plant a foot on his chest, but the man only stared with a derisive smile.
He took the mugger’s indifference personally, as though someone were sitting in the front row of one of his shows refusing to laugh. The man’s silence seemed especially bold since he had no leverage, lying flat on his back with Henry’s heel pressing into his sternum.
The mugger growled and spit, even though the spittle only managed an inch from his lips before splatting back on his cheek. He finally yelled, “Who do you think you are, motherfucker?”
Henry wanted the second mugger to see what he was too stupid to fear, so he lowered his hood and showed him a nightmare with a face.
The mugger laughed.
Henry had no choice but to assume something was wrong with the asshole’s eyes, so he mashed his thumbs into the mugger’s sockets and turned them into two tiny bowls of pink jelly.
Finally the man screamed, arms and legs kicking out. Thrashing as if controlled by electricity.
Henry grinned. “Oh, didn’t like that last one, buddy? That’s a shame. That one usually kills. Get it? Kills?”
The mugger bucked under Henry’s foot. Henry felt a rush of the man’s fear. The excitement of the kill.
“Damn.” Henry shook his head. “Some people just don’t get sophisticated humor.”
He snapped the man’s neck and waited until he stopped moving.
The first encounters came close to each other, but Henry had to growl through another couple of hours while waiting for the next one. A guy setting up shop and selling crack on the corner.
Before the dealer, Henry ran into a pair of taggers defacing a building with crude slogans. Graffiti was a blight in any neighborhood, but not worthy of a death sentence. Now, staring from the shadows twenty minutes after letting the taggers go, waiting to catch the dealer in the act, Henry thought back to the graffiti. A red circle with the F and C. Matching the tattoos of Tiny Eyes and the domestic abuser.
That’s why he recognized them now. Henry had seen the tags spray painted on walls around The Burg, many times throughout the last year or so. He figured they were some sort of gang signs or pop culture reference someone his age, or living in a six-million-dollar mansion, wouldn’t understand.
If Henry’s enemies were part of a gang, that meant numbers. How many more were out there? And why target him?
He waited in the shadows until the buyer left. He had no quarrel with him. Drugs were an addiction Henry understood all too well. Vermin like the asshole on the corner, siphoning misery to profit, deserved to die.
Unlike the two muggers, Henry snapped the dealer’s neck without ceremony and realized what most of him had ignored before. He was feeding from the murders, but a part of him was also thriving from the emotional pain and fear of the victims he was trying to save. Not having a witness to the dealer’s murder, and the old lady running off before, had lessened Henry’s high.
Worse yet, a part of him was tempted to go back and kill the victims he’d saved. He imagined the joy of sparing them, only to murder them in the heat of their gratitude. Leaving them alive felt like something left undone, an emptiness in need of filling.
A sudden and overpowering hunger gnawed at his gut, followed by a shame deep enough to keep him from chasing the buyer. He rocked back on his heels, pulling the shadows in tighter around his shoulders.
Why do I want to kill them?
Am I not being led to victims to help, but rather to turn their pain to certainty?
Henry tried shedding the notion, but nothing else made sense. He was a lightning rod for the misery that fed him. And it wasn’t long before Henry found his way back to the trough.
He ended his evening catching a rapist, red-cocked. He had his pants down with his victim, a thirty-something redhead, pressed up against the wall. The man was panting and ready. Rapists were almost the lowest form of animal in any kingdom, exactly one layer of scum above anyone willing to harm a child.
Henry tore the rapist’s cock from his body, shoved it deep into the bastard’s mouth, driving to cover the rapist’s fleeing scream with a fist that broke teeth and tore the skin from his lips. He pinched the rapist’s nose until he finally choked to death on his own dick.
The woman sobbed, fumbling with her torn skirt. She stumbled a few feet away before stopping to hold her ruined clothes against her, turning back to stare at him like an accident on the wrong side of traffic.
“You okay?” Henry asked, though the hunger to kill her swelled inside him. He closed his eyes, trying to drown out the thoughts.
Let her go. She’s been through enough, you monster!
She said nothing. She turned to run, and Henry felt the woman swallow her scream. He sighed as she vanished around the corner. Out of sight, but only slightly out of mind.
I’m going to be the worst demon ever.
It was Henry’s recurring thought as he returned to the apartment. Once inside, he crashed on his mattress and slept like the dead.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Henry woke up to the news, hearing the broadcast before his gummy eyes opened to the TV’s blue glow lighting his dark bedroom. On his third blink, Henry saw Boothe standing in front of the televison.
How long had the demon been in the apartment? Did he come to rub his nose in the reports of his exploits? Henry worked up enough bitter saliva to swallow, sitting up and scooting back to lean against the headboard and watch the report.
“Oops,” he said.
The coverage was brutal.
The anchor, a black woman in a red sweater, said, “While police have yet to confirm if the murders are related, sources within the department tell us that witness descriptions all mentioned a man wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans, and black boots. Residents here are saying they’ve been blessed by a vigilante they’re calling the Hooded Angel.”
“Hooded Angel, Henry?”
Henry shrugged, spreading his hands and laughing. “What?”
“This amuses you, does it?”
“Hey, I did exactly as you said. I followed my instincts. Was I su
pposed to do something different? Did I misunderstand? I followed the sorrow like a wolf to prey. Just like you said, Boothey.”
Ha, Boothey, I’ll have to call him that more often.
The demon stared, and for a moment Henry thought he might explode, grab him by the neck, and drag him back to Nowhere. Fine by Henry. He could return to Amélie.
Boothe never boiled. Instead, he looked at Henry as if he were the village idiot.
“I can’t understand why you feel such an incessant need to insult me with shaded honesty, Henry. We both know a lie when we hear it, white or black. You know what you’re saying and why. If you were following your instincts, you wouldn’t have left witnesses. You do realize the number one source for witnesses are people whose hearts are still beating, correct?”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not that kind of demon.”
“You think I’m complaining.” Boothe smiled, approached the California king, sat at its edge, retrieved the remote from the bedside, and aimed it at the TV. “I’m not. Your little hero streak might’ve given us some excellent leads. Let’s peek at the story.” He nodded at the screen and cranked the volume from fourteen to forty-four as a pair of familiar faces flashed across the screen. The asshole and his girlfriend from a few weeks before. HOODED ANGEL’S FIRST VICTIMS scrolled by in bold underneath.
Another witness, an old Hispanic woman said, “Yeah, he was just beating the -beep- outta the man, right there on the street! He musta’ seen that pendejo kill that poor lady.”
“Not quite how shit happened.” Henry was more amused than anything. “I never beat the guy to death. I threw him, or actually, dropped the fucker from the roof of his building. Then I jumped down after him. I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t see that, huh?”
Looking at the TV rather than Henry, Boothe said, “You’re still linked to the crime.
The anchor continued, “Police are asking for anyone with information on this, or any of these crimes, to call the anonymous tip line for a possible five-thousand-dollar reward.”
“Would you happen to have any tips for the boys in blue, Henry?”
For the thousandth time, Henry wished he could kill him. Boothe paused the broadcast.
“Wipe that look from your face, Henry. You can’t kill me, and you should stop thinking about it. Remember, we’re in this together. I’m on your side. Not Randall nor anyone else. Not Samantha or Amélie. No one. I can do more for you right now than anyone else in this universe can, and I’m sick of arguing. Perhaps you’ll learn to appreciate me once I disappear and leave you alone to fend for yourself.”
Boothe pointed the remote back at the TV, rewound the DVR about twenty seconds, and turned the volume even louder. “Pay attention. This part is important.”
The news anchor reported that police had linked the dead couple to another crime, the murder of one Kurt Hammond, whom Henry knew as Tiny Eyes. All three had worked at a bar called the Raven’s Club.
“Well, well,” Boothe said. “Seems Sherlock uncovered a clue.”
Henry smiled, hating Boothe a little less. “Think the others might hang out there?”
“You floor me with your powers of deduction. Yes, that’s a reasonable assumption. If not, I’m sure someone might be able to help you find them.” Boothe laughed. “Whether they want to be found or not.”
“So what the Hell am I supposed to do? Stroll into the bar and start asking anyone who’ll listen, ‘Hey, have you seen the people who killed me?’”
Boothe clucked his tongue. “Henry, Henry, Henry, you’re too linear. Old ways are dead, and new ones have been born. Use your ample gifts. Stick to shadows, listen, gather information. Perhaps you’ll get lucky. If not, at least you’re further than you were before. Just make sure the cops don’t see you, not with that sketch on every channel. It is an uncanny resemblance, don’t you think?”
The TV showed an artist’s pencil sketch of Henry in his hoodie. They’d gotten part of his transformed face right. Enough that someone might recognize him, though they’d missed the worst atrocities of his bald, swollen skull.
“Should I wear something else?” Henry asked.
“No, it suits you. And you don’t want to worry about anything so silly as what to wear. What matters most is that you stay unseen. And for the love of God, Henry, don’t get your photo taken. Agreed?”
“A little more instructions might have been nice.” Henry looked down at the sheet covering his lap.
“If only you would listen. Create your own reality, Henry. The mind wills, and the body follows.”
“Okay,” Henry nodded, planning his next move. It didn’t involve the Raven’s Club.
He had to find out what had happened since he last saw Sam. Their eyes, and maybe their souls, had touched the night Boothe dragged him back into Nowhere. He wondered how much of him she’d seen. Was it mostly shadows she could easily pass off as fevered imagination or stone-cold certainty she’d seen a ghost? Or monster?
Henry’s plans must’ve been all over his face, since Boothe was looking at him with a knowing frown.
“I suggest not leaving the loft until early evening, though I’m quite sure you’ll do as you wish anyway.”
“You know me so well.”
Boothe disappeared and Henry leaned his head back with a sigh, rubbing the heels of his hands into his gritty eyelids.
He got dressed and ate some of everything in the fridge while pacing with impatience. Then, finished eating, Henry went to the rooftop for practice. Sinking into the slim line of shadows at the base of the ledge that wrapped the building’s roof in two feet of safety behind the roof access door, he tried blinking himself back down into the apartment. But every time, the folds in space straightened out until he stood panting under a darkening sky. The sun finally grew tired enough to trade places with the moon, and Henry exchanged preparation for action.
He leapt into the night, across the asphalt chasm below, to the building on the other side, marring the white moon with a smudge of his darkness along the way.
Henry ran, not to Samantha, but to the Burg Spires Church of Hope.
He felt like a bitch not going home. And the only thing worse than feeling like a bitch was feeling like a demon’s bitch. He’d had to die to find that one out, but it didn’t matter. He had to talk to the pastor.
Still, Sam needed him, and on the way, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had seen him, and he knew it, even if she didn’t recognize him right away. He longed to be face-to-face with her again. To touch her. To stroke the side of her face. They could take turns leaning on one another’s shoulder.
A few blocks from the church, Henry realized with a creeping confusion that he never thought of Sam sexually. Not anymore. Not since he’d died. Before, the thought was almost constant. Everything from a light breeze to Two Girls One Cup made Henry think about fucking Samantha. Or making love on Valentine’s Day, and like nine other nights a year. The shock of his discovery slowed Henry’s progress to a crawl.
Sam was hotter than a branding iron and liked it fast and nasty. In all their years, there wasn’t once when they’d had sex when Henry hadn’t wrestled the thought that he was a lucky sonofabitch who didn’t deserve someone as hot as Sam. Now, especially in his hideous form, sex was the last thing on his mind. Instead, he wanted to hold her in his arms and never let her go. Just feel her against him, hear her voice in his ear.
Henry reached the church and hovered in the shadows of the entry, shrouded in darkness and watching Pastor Owen. He had hoped to catch him alone, but the many flyers festooning the doors said it was the Thanksgiving Play night, which explained the pastor sitting beside Mrs. Brennan on a long wooden bench, and the two dozen children in a semicircle at their feet. A few parents sat in the audience, while most of the others had likely dropped their kids off until returning for the performance later tonight.
Play nights at the church were one of Samantha’s favorite things, even when Amélie wasn’t starring. Sh
e loved hearing the children sing. Thought it the sweetest thing in the world.
“Yes, Mrs. Brennan,” two dozen kids said in chorus.
“Okay, everyone together!” Mrs. Brennan stood, beaming at Pastor Owen. She turned to the children. A boy in front, with a face made by Pillsbury and cheeks as red as his shirt, stood first. The rest of the children followed in a wave behind him.
Pillsbury started to sing, making Henry want to forget.
Memories fell on top of him anyway, too fast to prevent, mostly from when Amélie had performed in the Burg Spires Thanksgiving play the year before. Cuter than a stuffed animal as second lead turkey, singing as though her voice wasn’t cracking and well off-key.
He wiped his eyes. The church had a great group of kids. Henry knew half by sight but only a few of their names.
Pastor Owen smiled at the children. He turned to Mrs. Brennan, leaning in to whisper in her ear. She nodded, laughed, and lifted her eyes back to the children.
A tall, skinny girl that looked the same age as Amélie marched across the stage to stand in front of a kid that Henry always called Toby. Samantha had frowned at the name, but Henry had sworn that the kid would grow up to look exactly like Toby from The Office and the name had stuck in his mind. He was dressed as the king, and the girl demanded he give her family their land back.
Ten minutes into dress rehearsal, and Henry had moved from tears to a surprising half-smile. Then he turned and caught the looking directly at him. He whispered to Mrs. Brennan again, then stood and walked over toward Henry, still shrouded in shadows at the back of the church.
He wondered if the pastor could see him. Unlike the time before, they weren’t sharing proximity. He figured he was being paranoid, like Sam always said he was, until the pastor stood a few feet away, still holding his stare.
Smiling, he whispered, “I was wondering if you’d return.”
Henry was silent, afraid to say anything.
“Would you like some fresh air?” Without waiting for an answer, the pastor broke their gaze, walked the aisle to the exit, then left the church without looking back. Henry flew to a cross-shaped shadow draping over the door and bled into the night.