Chance Damnation

by DeAnna Knippling

  He heard a hissing noise from behind him in the kitchen and turned to look. It was Aloysius, trying to whistle through his fingers and discovering that his demon mouth wasn’t made quite the same as his human one.

  Jerome slid through the serving window.

  Theodore was there already, kneeling over Celeste Marie’s body. The hide was nowhere to be seen.

  “Sebastian?” Aloysius asked. Jerome shook his head and looked back out the window.

  There were fewer of the demons coming out of the tunnel now. It was still a stampede, but a less pressured one; the demons seemed to be running ahead rather than being pushed from behind.

  Jerome wondered whether the collapse from the demons’ world would make its way to theirs but thought, on the whole, probably not.

  “There!” he said.

  Aloysius went out the kitchen door and grabbed the staggering demon carrying the black book in a bloody hand. The line of demons coming out of the tunnel had become a fast-moving stream, howling as they came.

  Jerome leaned out the service window on his elbows and tried to look down the tunnel. More smoke was pouring out, and he could see a red glow fast approaching.

  A few more demons came out, crawling on their elbows and knees. The smoke stung Jerome’s eyes, but he didn’t move. The floor of the tunnel collapsed, and a few of the demons slid backwards into the red glow, which wasn’t a wall of flames so much as a flat, red plain that smoked black ash.

  The cinderblocks shimmered across his vision, and the tunnel was gone. Jerome looked down at Celeste Marie.

  Still dead.

  “Where’s Connor and Nick and Maeve?” Aloysius said.

  Jerome looked around at the pile of human bodies on the other side of the room. Aloysius was right; they were gone.

  “Granata came back,” he said. “They were killed after he was, so they should still be alive. Unless the Urgda get them first.”

  “Come on,” Theodore said.

  Jerome pulled himself backward out of the service window. Theodore was heading up the stairs, with Sebastian behind him. Aloysius was waiting for him.

  “What about Celeste Marie?” he said.

  Aloysius sighed and picked up the girl. “Are you sure we can’t leave her here with the others?”

  Jerome considered that. It would be a good hiding place, leaving her body among the dead. “No, this place isn’t safe.” He was about to explain in more detail, that he was afraid that someone would set the church on fire after all, in order to dispose of the bodies, and he wouldn’t be able to convince them to give him one particular body before they did so. However, Aloysius was already tossing drawers on the floor. He found a tablecloth and wrapped Celeste Marie in it, then hefted her in his arms.

  “Anybody asks…” Aloysius cut himself off and went up the stairs. Jerome followed him. The carpet on the stairs was nothing but rags, and the church itself was almost as bad.

  The demons were, for the most part, outside the front of the church. The ground was still black and leafless. The last few demons were still inside the church entryway, pushing to get out the doors to where they could hear Bahgoral speaking from on top of a charred picnic bench that had been dragged into the parking lot.

  Jerome couldn’t hear the demon speaking, but he was sure it was some kind of pep talk from the way the demons nearest to him cheered. He snorted when the demons around him cheered too, even though they clearly had no idea what they were cheering for. Aloysius elbowed him as he yelled for the greater demonic good, and Jerome cheered, too.

  First doubt and now cynicism. If these things were gifts of the spirit, he’d just as soon wrap them up and give them to someone else.

  A truck drove by the front of the church, slowed, and sped away.

  “Uh-oh,” Aloysius said.

  Bahgoral kept talking. The red-striped demons near him, however, started to mill around, walking around the edges of the group—not going more than a few steps away from the nearest demon—and looking for something, probably other ways around the church. They found the way to the playground and pointed toward it, showing each other and nodding.

  Bahgoral seemed to be winding up his speech; the demons cheered more often and louder. One of the red-stripe demons came up to Bahgoral, who bent over and nodded. Bahgoral shouted something and pointed toward the playground, then jumped off the picnic table and ran that way.

  The red-striped demons followed, then the others.

  Aloysius said, “Get down” and backed toward the stairs to the basement. Jerome stood and watched the demons going around the corner until a gray-green truck pulled up in front of the church, and about twenty men—humans—in green uniforms jumped out and started firing into the crowd of demons.

  Then Theodore grabbed him around the stomach and carried him down the stairs after Aloysius. Jerome was facing backward and could see the demons following each other around the corner, panicking, but still following the demon in front of them. A few of the demons attacked the humans, but not many. The warriors.

  The rest of them were just regular demons, evacuated in the rush.

  Sebastian clutched his Bible and followed them.

  Theodore set him down at the bottom of the stairs, and they ran for the back door.

  “Probably covering the back door,” Aloysius said. He put his big ear flat against the door and listened.

  Theodore tapped him on the shoulder and took Celeste Marie.

  “They’ll shoot us on sight,” Aloysius said. “That’s why they were killing people. When they came through the tunnel, we knew they didn’t belong. When they took the places of people who did belong, we didn’t know. Except we did. I wonder why.”

  The thing about Aloysius was that he’d figure it out eventually, even if Jerome didn’t feel like waiting for him most of the time.

  “Jerome,” Theodore said.

  “Yes?” he said.

  Theodore shook his head.

  Aloysius took a deep breath and cracked open the back door, then opened it wider. “Go.”

  He ducked sideways out the door. Theodore followed him, then Sebastian, and finally Jerome was waved through by Sebastian’s thick, gray fingers.

  “Maeve,” Theodore said.

  Jerome saw a black demon waving at them from around the corner of a house. He didn’t know how Maeve recognized them; it was another minor miracle.

  “Wait,” Aloysius said. He looked around the corner of the church. “All clear. Run.”

  The four of them ran toward the house. Gunshots were spraying on the other side of the church; Jerome couldn’t blame the humans for going crazy at the sight of the demons. Either the demons would run around the side of the church, the soldiers would follow them and see his brothers and shoot them too, or they wouldn’t.

  He supposed the warriors at the front of the group would have turned around and led the fight back to the soldiers, which was why they hadn’t been seen yet.

  They ran around the corner of the house, and then Jerome was struggling under the weight of Celeste Marie’s body as Theodore kissed Maeve.

  “I smelled you,” she said. “I knew you weren’t dead. I smelled you.”

  Jerome sank to the ground and set Celeste Marie down. She seemed even tinier than when he had been human.

  Chapter 45

  Aloysius said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  Sebastian said, “This used to be the Black Dogs’ house. There’s a cellar in the back.”

  Aloysius picked up Celeste Marie in her tablecloth. She was getting a little stiff, but settled comfortably in his arms. He didn’t know how they were going to get her straightened back out to bury her, unless they waited for the stiffness to wear off. He wondered how long Jerome was going to want to drag her around.

  Hell, they’d probably be dead soon anyway. To the humans, they were demons, and it didn’t look like they’d be changing back anytime soon.

  Sebastian was looking at the cellar door, which was padlocked. Theodore p
ointed at the lock, and Sebastian shook his head. He opened his book, said, “Oh,” then something else, and gestured at the lock.

  Aloysius, expecting an explosion, ducked back around the corner, but there was a soft click. Theodore was opening the door, and Sebastian was leading the way inside.

  Sebastian said, “Leave the lights out.”

  Jerome was the last one down. He struggled with the heavy door but managed it by himself.

  Aloysius put Celeste Marie in a corner. She fell forward, like a doll.

  The light in the cellar was dim but hardly dark compared to the darkness he’d survived in the corridors. Besides, his demon’s eyes seemed to adjust to the low light more quickly.

  Aloysius slid down a wall. He heard the clink of glass as someone brushed against the rows of jars that were probably along the far wall. He sighed.

  “What happened to you?” Maeve asked.

  There was no answer from Theodore, of course, so Aloysius said, “It’s a long story.”

  “What happened to the galuk?” Connor asked.

  “She’s dead.”

  Connor clucked his tongue. “You shouldn’t have let that happen.”

  Jerome said, “You shut up.”

  Connor said, “He is your brother.”

  Aloysius said, “Connor, if I hear another word from you about how me or any of my brothers failed or somehow let you down or are in any way at fault for this situation, I will kill you. If Theodore doesn’t kill you first. I know he’s in love with your sister, but I will bet you money it won’t stop either one of us. And treat my brother with respect, or I will beat the shit out of you.”

  Connor snorted.

  “Don’t push it,” Aloysius said.

  “How did you become Urgda?” Connor asked. “Some spell from the book?”

  Sebastian said, “No. We don’t know how it happened.”

  “Why are you Urgda?” Connor demanded.

  “I didn’t do it,” Sebastian said. “I don’t know.”

  “You’ll betray us to the grays,” Connor said.

  “They won’t,” Maeve said.

  Aloysius was too tired and heartsick to listen to them argue. “Who cares?” he said. “Last we saw of the grays, they were getting shot down. They’ll be killed. The humans will search from house to house and find us, and then we’ll all be killed, or taken prisoner and have medical experiments performed on us until we die. You worry too much.”

  The rest of them shut up. Maeve and Theodore were taking advantage of the dim light to wrap their arms around each other.

  “Where is Granata?” Nick said eventually.

  “He’s dead.”

  Connor shouted, “My brother is dead!” There was a thump, and glass shook as Connor’s dark form stood up on the other side of the room. A few of the jars crashed on the floor. “How did he die? You killed him, didn’t you?”

  Aloysius wasn’t sure who Connor was blaming, but he wasn’t about to let him attack Jerome. “That’s right, I did. He was killing the girl, and I killed him.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Jerome said. “I did. First I ripped out his ear chains, and then I killed him.”

  For some reason, that shut Connor up. He brushed the broken glass out from under him—it crunched and tinkled—and sat down. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You had every right.”

  It must be some kind of weird demon tradition, Aloysius decided. As long as it kept Connor from yelling at the top of his lungs and giving them away, he was all for it.

  Maeve was crying softly; at least, she was making a sound like crying. Aloysius, from his own experience in a demon’s body, suspected that it wasn’t possible to shed actual tears.

  Nick said, “I didn’t like him anyway.”

  Connor struck him, and he groaned.

  “What now?” Aloysius asked. “We can’t hide here forever.”

  “We wait,” Jerome said.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Next suggestion?” Aloysius said. “Sorry, Jerome, but we can wait for something unknown to happen while we do something else.”

  “All right,” Jerome said.

  “And I’m tired of the dark,” Aloysius announced.

  “Go back to the farm,” Maeve said. “It might take them a few days to find out there aren’t any humans there. You can talk to the other humans on the telephone; they won’t know any different.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Aloysius said. “Anyone else?”

  Connor said, “I don’t know whether the plane is intact after the bomb, but I know your truck has been ruined.”

  “We can’t all fit in the plane.”

  “Take Nick,” Maeve said. “The rest of us will fit in Theodore’s truck. I saw it before; it looks all right.”

  Connor hesitated. “You’ll take care of her, won’t you?”

  “I will,” Theodore said.

  “Then we’ll go,” Connor said. “Come on, Nick.”

  Aloysius didn’t know whether to wish them well or not. They all stood up, and Aloysius picked up Celeste Marie. He handed her to Theodore. “Take her, will you?”

  Then he climbed the cellar stairs up to the door and leaned forward to listen.

  The door jerked away under his ear and the bright sunshine blinded them all.

  Aloysius was jerked out of the cellar to the sound of cheering. He was surrounded by a half-dozen gray demons holding rifles and jumping up and down. The cheering increased as Sebastian was dragged into the sunlight, but when Theodore and Maeve came out together, it faded.

  “She’s a Makkur,” one of the Urgda said.

  “She’s mine,” Theodore said.

  “What is that? Your calf?” another of the Urgda asked.

  Jerome and Nick were pulled out of the cellar, with Connor behind them.

  “They were hiding with Makkur.”

  “That’s Granata’s brother.”

  Aloysius looked to see who had said the last and found himself face to face with a red-striped demon. The demon looked at Aloysius and said, “Are you traitors? What’s going on?”

  Aloysius considered himself lucky that Theodore had been holding Celeste Marie; otherwise Theodore would have had one of the demons’ stolen axes halfway through a demon’s head by now. “The humans attacked. The Makkur offered us a place to hide. Do you have a problem with that?”

  The Urgda said, “Not as long as you kill them now.” He looked down at Aloysius’s waist, which was bare of a gray belt or, in fact, anything else. “But you are no warrior.”

  He looked at Theodore, who was wearing the same type of belt he was. “That one is. Kill the female.”

  “Mine,” Theodore said.

  “I don’t care about your illicit love affair! Kill her now or be turned away from the herd.”

  The other Urgda stepped away from the red-striped demon and Maeve.

  “Where’s your axe?”

  Theodore shrugged.

  “Are you challenging me?”

  Theodore shrugged again.

  “Someone, give him an axe.” The red-striped Urgda pulled his axe out of his belt, and another demon handed him a second axe. The Urgda tossed it toward Theodore, who knocked it aside with his shoulder and let it fall on the ground. He handed Celeste Marie to Maeve, kissed her cheek, and picked up the axe.

  “You make our victory wander lost when it should lead us home,” the demon said.

  “She is mine,” Theodore spat. He raised the axe. The Urgda raised his axe to block a blow to his head, and Theodore turned the axe and dragged it across the Urgda’s chest. The Urgda chopped at Theodore’s head, but Theodore was already out of the way, punching the axe handle under the Urgda’s throat. He choked but kept moving, taking a few steps backward, then getting a breath and jumping toward Theodore.

  Theodore let the Urgda charge him, turned aside, and kicked the Urgda in the back of the leg. The Urgda went down rolling, and Theodore ran after him, swinging the axe at his side. The Urgd
a got another cut, but it wasn’t deep enough to keep him down.

  “Stop playing with him,” Aloysius said. He looked around at the other demons while Theodore dragged things out.

  They were just standing there, waiting. Maeve peeked under the tablecloth and shuddered. Connor and Nick were standing together, not running, Connor with his arm around Nick’s shoulders.

  “Don’t you understand?” Aloysius said. “You think you defeated the humans. You didn’t. There are millions of them. Millions! They’re like, I don’t know, ants! Termites! And they’re all going to want to get revenge on you. They don’t care whether you’re black or gray—to them, you’re all the same. They’re going to kill, um, us all. Why are you fighting? Can’t you get along well enough just to leave each other alone, to die by the hands of these demons instead of each other?”

  He couldn’t believe it. He was trying to make peace between two rival demon factions. Admittedly, it was to save his own skin, but he still couldn’t believe the bullshit that was coming out of his mouth at the moment. It was like he was drunk.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the Urgda start to shift its weight. The Urgda was one of the warrior types, with a belt across its hips, but his axe wasn’t visible. Aloysius sucked in his breath and stopped babbling, reaching out with both hands.

  There was a demon in his way. He shoved him aside and kept moving forward.

  “Sebastian!” he yelled. Sebastian was standing next to Maeve.

  Sebastian looked toward him and saw the same thing. The Urgda was swinging his axe over his head. Sebastian reached toward the handle and caught it, but there was too much force behind the swing and not enough time for Sebastian to pull it aside. The blow went home, hitting Maeve solidly in the back of the skull.

  Chapter 46

  Theodore took a gash in the arm as he turned. Maeve fell forward, trying to keep her feet under her and not drop Celeste Marie’s body, but it slid out of her arms and she stumbled over it, then fell.

  Maeve’s arms kept moving.

  Sebastian had yanked the axe out of the back of Maeve’s head as she fell and was sitting on the ground with the axe in his lap.