One
Seriously, y’all, I have no idea how this shit keeps happening to me. I was running away from my problems. How the hell did I get into more trouble? My worst issues should have been trying to find a job and keeping a low profile.
Instead, I’m tied with silver chains to an altar in a broke-ass church, waiting to be sacrificed to a demon by a whackadoo cult in league with my asshole big brother.
And all because my dead father – who I never knew when he was alive – came to me in a dream and told me to hook up with this hot guy, who could teach me how to use my powers. Well, he didn’t exactly tell me to hook up with him. I did that part on my own. But Dear Old Dad definitely told me I should find this dude.
How does this shit keep happening to me?
Right, I spose I haven’t given you a lot to go on. I tend to do that – just jump right in at the crisis moment and ask you to understand.
All right, since I’m about to die, and I’d like someone to know what happened to me so they can explain it to Felicia and Ben, I’ll back up a bit.
This whole thing started with a vampire named Gerard Dulac. Well, that’s not exactly true. It really all began with my birth, but that’s way too long a tale. I don’t have that much time. Big Brother Asshole is waiting to plunge a knife into my heart.
So I’ll skip ahead to the bit where I killed a vampire, put my girlfriend Felicia’s life at risk, and incited the rage of a jealous half-brother who wants me dead.
Still not making sense? Shit. Okay, how about this:
I had to skip town, so I boarded an Amtrak train headed for Chicago. . . .
***
Hi, I’m Sassy Kincaide, and I’m pretty much a horrible fuckup. I hurt everyone I love, and everything I touch turns to vomit. Not like literally, but you get the idea. Six months ago, I found out I’m Nephilim – sort of a half-angel with special powers. Ever since then, people have been trying to kill me, fearing I’m this prophesied destructor – the N’Chai Toroth.
So, I figured the most logical thing to do was run away. Remember the part about me being a horrible fuckup? Yeah, that.
I hopped a train from Cincinnati – the only place I’d ever lived – to Chicago, where I’d never been in my life. The damned train only stops at Cincy’s Union Terminal at one-thirty in the morning. Listen, I’m twenty-six and enjoy my nightlife, but the past couple days had been real shit, what with almost dying at the hands of a vampire – twice. So when I boarded my escape pod to Chicago, I was worn the hell out. I sighed heavily after a finding a seat and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, the car was empty. There had been ten or twelve other people when I got on. How many stops had I slept through?
Weirder still, everything was black and outlined in white. It was like the world was a blackboard and the details were drawn in chalk. I looked at my hands. They were normal, as was the rest of me. I was like a photo that had been cutout and taped onto the board. I didn’t seem to belong here.
I was definitely still on the train. Everything appeared the way it had when I went to sleep. It’s just that now it was this negative image. I could still hear the wheels running over the tracks. The car swayed as it had before. I couldn’t see anything out the window, but it was dark outside, so that was no surprise.
Ahead of me, the door opened, and my father walked through it.
My eyes popped open wide. Like I mentioned, Dear Old Dad was dead. He’d been on his way to meet me for the first time, when he was murdered by a demon. After they found his body, the police arrived at my door. They showed me photos of him and said he had my name and address in his pocket.
That was how I found out who he was. Nice, right? For twenty-five years, I’d wondered what happened to him, why he’d abandoned Mama and me. Then, it turns out he’d been looking for me all that time, but before we can finally meet, he gets murdered – by the same demon that subsequently tried to kill me. That was how I found out about magical creatures.
Anyway, when you look on us, we’re obviously related despite the fact that I’m Black and he’s White. He had these bright green eyes and freckles on his face like me. His skin was super-pale, and his hair was red, greying just a little at the temples. He wore it short. My mama was a light-skinned Black woman, and given that Dad was a pale Celt, my own skin was so light I could almost pass for White. I had long, black, kinky hair that, along with the jut of my chin and the width of my nose, made it plain I was actually a Black girl. But despite the fact that we were clearly of two different races, we looked eerily alike.
Still, given that he was dead and all, my father should not have been able to walk into the train car.
Like me, he was all in color – another photo cut from a magazine and taped to this strange chalkboard world. He wore a grey, pinstriped suit, with a blue tie and shirt.
He approached me without smiling and sat down next to me.
“Hello, Cecily,” he said.
That immediately pissed me off. Yes, my name is “Cecily” on my birth certificate. But my actual brother, Ben, couldn’t say that when I was born. He was only two, and he kept pronouncing my name, “Sassy”, which Mama thought was cute. I’ve been “Sassy” ever since.
And, yeah, why should my dad know that if he wasn’t there when I was growing up? But I was beginning to strongly suspect this was a dream, so what the fuck? My own brain couldn’t get it right?
“It’s, ‘Sassy’,” I said.
He just stared at me. A terrible sadness covered the face that was mine but not.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Something about the way he said it, the somberness in his eyes, told me he wasn’t apologizing for fucking up my name.
“For what?” I asked.
“For Ephraim,” he replied.
He turned his head forward, as though there were something in front of us I should see. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop myself.
The scene changed. We were no longer on the train. Instead, we were in . . . Hell, I guess?
Ephraim – my half-brother, my father’s son – stood on a tall rock, wearing nothing but pants. He was Nephilim too, as was our father. That was how I got my abilities; it was hereditary.
All Nephilim have enhanced combat reflexes, making us badass fighters. And we also had one other power – sort of like we were superheroes. Ephraim’s was to turn his skin into steel. He could switch it on and off like Colossus from the X-Men. The son of a bitch had nearly broken my hand by using it against me in a sparring session when I was training for a mission.
He had his armor up now, and a female demon – a succubus in a chainmail bikini – clung to one arm and ground her pelvis against his hip. She had enormous, black wings, a tail, and her skin was fire-engine red.
They both roared with laughter, and Ephraim pointed down, as though he were directing some great army that marshaled at his feet. Huge flames leaped and swirled all around the rock on which they stood. And below them, in the fire, were hundreds of demons of every variety.
My eyes widened at the sight of them. They looked on me with hunger. Their mouths were wet with slobber. They gnashed their teeth in anticipation.
What the fuck was happening here? I knew Ephraim had gone rogue from The Order – the supernatural police force whose job it was to keep magic and monsters a secret from normal people. But he had a demon army now?
Before I could think what to do, before I could even react, Ephraim raised his finger and pointed it directly at me. The demons rushed forth from the pit.
Now listen, I’m a badass fighter. I’m a third-degree Kenpo black belt. I will fuck you up eight ways from Sunday before you even realize you’ve been hit. But one against a million isn’t even close to fair odds
.
I turned and ran like hell.
Sickening, delighted laughter pursued me. The demon horde cackled and brayed as they gave chase. And though I ran as fast as I could, my heart pounding in time to my feet, it was as though I moved through quicksand. My legs seemed capable only of slow-motion steps. The ground never seemed to allow me forward.
In seconds, a thick, black tentacle wrapped around my waist. I screamed, and another got hold of my right arm. I thrashed wildly, but I couldn’t break the grip. Soon, appendages of every gross variety imaginable were coiling around me, pulling me down.
I was lifted from my feet and thrown roughly onto my back, landing on a stone altar. Twelve demons roped and chained me to it, forcing my arms and legs apart. Terror surged through my brain. I fought savagely against my bonds, but they would not break.
Ephraim came forward, a savage, vengeful light gleaming in his eyes. He held a huge knife before him like some sort of holy symbol. He towered over me and raised the knife above his head. I struggled wildly, but the chains and ropes wouldn’t budge.
No, not like this!
Ephraim brought his dagger crashing down towards my heart, but before the blade could penetrate my skin, a staff blocked it. I turned my head and saw this wild-looking White dude with fire coming from his eyes. Like Ephraim, he was bare-chested, and tattoos of demons covered his chest and arms.
He jabbed Ephraim with his staff, knocking him back. Then he turned and leered at me with those burning eyes.
***
I awoke with a start. I was back in the actual train car. We’d come to a stop at a station. I had no idea where we were or what time it was. It was still dark.
Jesus, my head was fucked up. Ephraim was out there looking for me. He blamed me for so much, including his fall from grace. The pindick little shit couldn’t take even an ounce of responsibility for his own failure. He preferred to blame it on me.
I hated him. God, I hated him more than anyone I’d ever hated in my life.
And the feeling was mutual.
My brain was clearly obsessed with this shit. I couldn’t get away from it, even though I’d slipped out of Cincinnati with no one being the wiser. God damn him.
As I rubbed my eyes and tried to scrub the thought of Ephraim and our father from my brain, a new passenger boarded the train. He was tall and White, with long, straight, black hair that fell halfway down his back. He wore a long trench coat, shirt, jeans, and combat boots, all of which were black. He carried a small black satchel in his left hand, and a wooden staff, with a bunch of runes and sigils carved in it, in his right. The staff had silver caps on both ends. In fact, he resembled the dude from my dream who had saved me.
I sighed and shook my head as he passed. He looked like so many of the customers at the game store I used to work at. Dude probably thought he was some sort of badass wizard. Hell, for all I knew he was. I mean, magic is real after all.
I doubted it, though. That would be too big a coincidence. This guy was almost surely a gamer or comic nerd, who struggled to separate reality from his favorite fandom.
The doors closed, and the train shuddered into motion. I leaned back and closed my eyes.
The car instantly transformed to the negative image of my dream. I tried blinking to force myself to wake up or something, but it didn’t change. Was I dreaming again? Or was I actually in some other dimension? Did Magic Boy do this?
My father was back, sitting behind me this time, the only other person on the train. He leaned forward, so his head was sticking over the back of my seat.
“You must find Alistair Devlin,” he said.
“Who?”
“He will train you to fight Ephraim.”
I shook my head. This had gone from weird to ridiculous.
“And where the hell do I find him? The Dagobah System?” I said. “What, are you – some half-assed Obi-Wan Kenobi telling me to go find Yoda to complete my Jedi training?”
I turned around to look at him, to hit him with my most condescending stare. But he was gone. I shook my head. I was about to face front again, when I spied this little, old, White lady, who I swear had not been on the train before, sitting six rows back. She was your stereotypical grandma type. She had on a hat that perfectly matched her plaid, wool coat, and a pink purse the exact same shade as the scarf around her neck. She smiled at me and waved. Weirded out, I waved back.
Facing front again, I sighed. My brain really needed to quiet the fuck down and just let me sleep. This was stupid.
I was about to close my eyes and try to either go into a better dream or actually fall asleep, whichever it was, when the old lady was suddenly standing next to me.
“Hi, dear,” she said.
“Uh, hi,” I replied.
She shuffled around me and sat down. She put a hand on my upper arm, as if she wanted to comfort me.
“I just wanted to tell you how much we’re going to enjoy killing you,” she said.
Her tone was sweet, and she had this warm smile on her face, like she was planning to give me the best gift for Christmas.
“What?” I whispered.
“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice still happy and delighted. “We’ll pull off your skin an inch at a time as we listen to you scream. Then we’ll cut off your arms and your legs, so you can’t get away. And just when you think you can’t endure any more agony, we’ll pry open your ribcage, remove your heart, and make you watch while we eat it.”
I recoiled from her. The woman’s eyes had gone black – like they were two pits of darkness. She chuckled like a happy old lady, but then the laughter transformed into huge, monstrous guffaws. Black blood ran from her mouth down her chin and stained her pretty, pink scarf.
***
I woke up again with a silent scream stuck in my mouth. My heart pounded in my chest. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Daylight streamed through the windows of the car. The train was approaching its terminus in Chicago.
My brain reset, and my body started working again. I sucked down a huge gulp of air. My arms and legs shook as the adrenaline left my bloodstream.
Jesus Christ. Was I having PTSD? What the fuck were those dreams? I mean, two nights ago, I’d slain a three-hundred-year-old vampire. He’d mind-fucked me and almost killed Felicia. So, yeah, it wasn’t surprising that I still had the willies. He was one of the reasons I’d had to leave Cincinnati. But I was never gonna get better if I kept dreaming like that.
Thank God we’d finally made it to Chicago. I could start over here. Maybe I could leave all this scary dream shit on the train. A new start, a new life, and a new attitude were waiting for me in the Windy City.
As usual, I wasn’t even close to being right.
Ephraim
E phraim Silverman gritted his teeth and set his shoulders. Was he about to betray everything he’d ever believed in – The Order, The Veil, his comrades?
No.
They’d betrayed him. First, his father had cheated on Mother and slept with a whore. Then he’d obsessed on his lovechild daughter, Sassy Kincaide, instead of his legitimate son. Then he’d tapped her for the mission to slay the dragon D’Krisch Mk’Rai that should have been Ephraim’s.
And when Ephraim had quite legitimately maneuvered Sassy into a trap, put a vampire in position to humiliate and murder her, that little-shit half-breed, Ashrael Shinoch, had gone over his head. Convinced The Arcane Council that Ephraim was the traitor.
So, no. He wasn’t betraying them. They had turned on him. After a lifetime of service, of training almost from the time he could read to defend The Veil, keep the magical world safe and secret from ordinary humans, after he had risen through the ranks as a highly accomplished soldier in the army of light, they had cut him loose. They had cast him aside. They treated him like he was the traitor.
So now, he was doing what was necessary to survive, to take revenge.
“Are you ready?” Miriam asked, squeezing his arm.
He looked on her. It
was hard to get to used to. He’d only known she was a succubus for an hour. Now, in her true form, with her bright-red skin, jet-black hair, black horns, leather wings, and a tail, it was as though she were an entirely different person – someone he knew but didn’t. An intimate stranger.
How could he not have known his girlfriend was a demon? Had she set him up? Was this all by design? Or was it just a happy coincidence?
“Miriam” seemed a strange name for a succubus. It was far too . . . holy-sounding. In the Bible, it was the name of Moses’s sister, who followed his basket down the Nile to report to her mother what became of it. That didn’t seem appropriate to a demon, especially a succubus.
And now, she wanted him to join her side, whatever it was. She’d promised him revenge. But what would it cost? He’d never met the demon who didn’t have an ulterior motive, wasn’t running an angle. So there was definitely a price tag in there somewhere.
The real question was: How much did he care, if at all?
“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”
They stood before the door adjoining the next room in the fleabag motel in which they’d holed up. He yearned to escape the smell of desperation and shame that infused the air.
She offered him a key, the old kind – large, iron, a single tooth, rounded at the end. Nearly a foot long, it looked as though it was meant to unlock some massive gate in the Thirteenth Century.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with that?” he asked.
“Take it, my love,” she purred. “And unlock that door.”
Ephraim snorted.
“I’m not sure you realize this, Miriam, but it’s 2019. That’s not going to unlock anything here.”
“Are you sure?” she said.
He stared at her. Ephraim had been around magic most of his life. He knew appearances were deceiving, that normal people relied too much on science and the evidence of their eyes to form their beliefs.
But he couldn’t help but be skeptical. This place, with its hourly rates and dirty sheets, was not the realm of powerful beings.
Personal Demons Page 1