by Michael Todd
Damian smiled. I know. I’ve known since the first day that I met her. Her eyes give it away.
The demon was shocked. What? You’ve known she was a demon, and you haven’t even attempted to exorcise her? I mean, I thought that was like your duty or something.
He shrugged. It’s complicated. First and foremost, they said an exorcism on her would kill her because of her age, so she is protected by the church. Secondly, even if she wasn’t protected, there are some pretty strict rules I have to follow on who I can and cannot exorcise. Technically, I’m supposed to stick to only the people they send over as my targets.
I don’t know. That sounds like a load of excuses. I can’t believe you wouldn’t do it anyway.
Damian watched Rose, sipping his whiskey. In reality, I have all the plans in the world to exorcise her, but I’m playing it safe right now. I just got here. Though I’m pretty positive I can do it without killing her, the church will be a lot more forgiving if I’m vital to their program. Right now, I’ve only done two jobs. They can do without me if they really need to.
Ravi didn’t believe it. I think they’re just making you feel that way. I can feel the desperation in those old fogies you call the Wise Men. One of them more than the others. But I digress. It’s your career, your choice.
In all honesty, he really hadn’t given it too much thought. If she was incredibly dangerous, I would obviously take measures, but she’s an old lady with an idiot for a demon. She’s really not that scary, except for maybe the poisoned baked goods she sends over, but they would merely give you a stomach ache.
And probably diarrhea. Nobody wants that.
Damian grimaced. No, I don’t think anyone wishes for that. Maybe that’s the demon’s whole ploy. Maybe it isn’t trying to kill but merely torture anyone who isn’t like him. I feel that if he was trying to kill, it would have been something much bigger than a pot that fell from that window.
Ravi giggled. I don’t get how Max doesn’t see it. Seriously, those biscotti weren’t even the normal color of anything edible. Who makes green biscotti, and oh, my Lucifer, the smell. I could smell it from inside you.
He laughed, his belly bouncing from the humor. I know. I sure do like that kid, but sometimes, he is oblivious. I mean, I think he knows, but he is trained to respect his elders. He obviously had parents who raised him that way. I think he doesn’t want to admit to himself that the little old lady could be anything but an angel.
At that point, she couldn’t control her laughter. That look on Max’s face when the pot came dropping out of the sky. It was priceless. Rose was so pissed that she had missed. I could see her already plotting the next attack. This time, it was dirt. Next time, it’ll be a rhododendron. She’s moving up.
Damian set his glass down, trying not to spill it from laughing so hard. Before long, it’ll be raining fucking apple trees in the courtyard. If you don’t die from the biscotti, you’ll become an apple pie for the next fool that moves in.
Oh, oh, stop. I can’t stop…I don’t even have a stomach in here, and it hurts.
He wiped the tears from his cheeks. You’re making my eyes water. All I can see is cloudy with a chance of apple trees.
What’s that human saying? An apple a day keeps the doctor away? More like keeps the ability to walk again away.
Damian shook his head and took a deep breath. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I am so curious as to what Rose’s face would look like if she actually got one of us. Would she even know what to do?
Ravi hadn’t laughed like that in so long. She’d probably do laps around the courtyard on her broom, wearing her favorite pink flower dress and tennis shoes. I can just see it now, streaks of that silver hair whipping around the stone walkway and a dead body stuck under a fallen tree.
He nodded. Apples spread all over the ground.
Damian reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, rubbing the tears from his face. He chuckled a couple more times, glancing at the number on the screen. His mood went quiet. It had been a really long time since he had seen that number.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Well this is a surprise,” Damian said enthusiastically. “Father Wally Okenhoff, what devious things are you up to now?”
Wally shook the comment off. “Devious, yeah, that…that’s definitely not my style.”
He chuckled. “I know. There’s not a bad bone in your body.”
Damian was actually really glad to hear from Wally. He hadn’t had a chance to connect with him since coming to London. They had met about fifteen years before when the man was barely twenty and already making a good impression on the Vatican. He was a very devout Catholic priest, but like most of his friends, very odd as well.
“I’m sorry I haven’t welcomed you to this side of the pond. I’ve had a lot of artifacts coming into the vault. I don’t remember the last time we stood face to face.” Wally had never been very good at keeping up with people, but he considered Damian family.
“Yeah, it’s been a few years, but the merc business was crazy busy, and I can only imagine what the Catholic artifact business has been like. Remind me of your title again?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Oh, I’m the Keeper of Secrets. I know it sounds like some kids’ movie.”
Damian nodded. “That’s right. You are the guy in the basement of the Vatican, handling artifacts the rest of the world has no idea even exist. It’s a good job for you, though. You’re the most meticulous and detail-oriented guy I know.”
Wally laughed. “You aren’t too shabby yourself on that one, but I know you won’t cross over to the dark side of Catholicism.”
He sneered. “Yeah, you guys are too strict for me. Not like that’s stopped you from trying to recruit me all these years, but I don’t think that will ever happen. How is Rome? It pretty much does nothing but rain here in London.”
“Oh, you know. The bells toll, but I don’t hear them. The rain falls, but I don’t feel it. I just sit down in my underground lair, playing with old toys of the church. No, but really, it’s been great. I can’t stop researching some of these items.”
Damian walked to his chair and sat. “Even when I met you back in the day, you were a curious one. Probably how you got yourself in the situation that I had to get you out of in the first place.”
Wally blew out an exasperated breath. “Yeah, that demon came out of nowhere. But there you were in that silly hat and bow tie, young and ready to kick some demon butt. I always wished I had that kind of bravery. You guys are really something to look up to. But since I don’t, I serve the church using my gift for history and my brain.”
Damian smirked. “And your incredible ability to keep a secret. I don’t know how you do it. I would be running home every day bursting at the seams to tell someone about what I found.”
“That’s probably why they keep me so closely under lock and key. Ten years and not a single accidental slip of any information.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Accidental slip?”
Wally went quiet then changed the subject. “I heard you’re mentoring someone now. That kind of blew my mind. I mean, one Damian in the world seemed wild, but two? I don’t know if the world is ready for that.”
Damian glanced at Max’s closed door. “He’s not like me. Maybe talent-wise, but he has a huge heart.”
His friend laughed nervously, immediately catching his attention. Wally was a nervous guy by nature. His job added to his already jittery spirit. This time, though, there was something about the tone in his voice that made it all the more suspicious. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the man wasn’t acting normal—or normal for him.
After a few moments of silence, he couldn’t take it any longer. “You all right, man? I mean, I love hearing from you, but is something going on?”
Wally lowered his voice. “Everything is okay, but something came in earlier today that really struck me as off the mark. It was an artifact, a stone of some sort.”
Damian leaned forward in his c
hair. “A stone? Is it magical? Does it do something?”
His friend paused as if listening for anyone around him before continuing. “The church has no idea at this point.”
He bit the inside of his bottom lip. “Interesting. I haven’t ever seen anything like a stone or trinket in my work with demons. I’m assuming it has something to do with demons since you’re calling me.”
Wally groaned quietly. “I’ll be honest. I’m not totally sure about anything right now. The thing is, it’s not the stone that is the interesting part to me. It was where it was confiscated from that is really the wild ride. There was a cardinal with the church, a guy who always seemed to be in the background of everything. I rarely talked to him, but I noticed him because he always seemed like the odd one out, and I know what that feels like.”
Damian smiled. “Wally, you are going off on a tangent.”
His friend lowered his voice again. “Yeah, sorry. So anyway, this cardinal just up and suddenly goes on some vacation, or so they said. I didn’t even think that clergy in the church took vacations. That is neither here nor there because the notes with the stone say that it was found in the cardinal’s room, along with other not yet identified objects all having close connections with demons.”
Damian was immediately stunned. “Wait, did you just say demons? Are you saying a major member of the Catholic Church had some sort of connection to the demons? That is huge, Wally. I need to know what the other artifacts they found were. Maybe putting them together can tell me something. I mean, I’ve seen a ton of sacrificial altars in my day, and it’s possible that something you found might spark a memory for me. Of course, I wouldn’t want to automatically link this guy with a cult, but that doesn’t sound good at all.”
Wally shushed him. “Look, I want to tell you all about it, but I can’t talk anymore over the phone. Things are getting strange here in Vatican City, and I don’t know who may or may not be listening.”
For the first time since he had met the man, Damian felt like he might not be overreacting. “Okay, how about I fly out to Rome on Tuesday next week, and we meet at that café where we first had coffee?”
He cleared his throat and yelled at someone in the background, “I’ll be right there!” He shuffled the phone as if he were putting it in his robes. “I’ll see you then. Eleven at that café.”
With that, he hung up.
“Right, left, punch…ouch!” Max stumbled forward, his ankle giving out on him.
Sweat poured from his forehead as he started from the beginning, practicing the katas that Damian had shown him the day before. Frowning a little with concentration, he punched right, then left, taking one large ungraceful step at a time. He twisted and kicked his leg out to the front then squatted, making a strange whining noise in his throat like he had seen in the movies.
“And out punch,” he repeated out loud.
He thrust his fist out then stood up, raised his arm up, and slammed his fist down onto the mat. Max cringed, pulled his arm back, and shook his hand. He had forgotten that the mats weren’t quite as soft as they appeared. It was the third time he had done that, and his knuckles were starting to bruise.
Slowly, he stood, wobbling back and forth on his feet as he bowed. When he whipped his head up, he slammed his fist into his palm, frustrated. He hadn’t had much training in close combat, and he felt like he was simply throwing his body around like a boy who’d just watched Karate Kid for the first time. Still, the frustration was doing something for him. It pushed him to practice over and over no matter how ridiculous he felt or looked.
Max’s feet stuck to the mat as he walked over to the table and picked up the two daggers he’d used during the fight in the church. He whipped around and began slicing them through the air, kicking high between like a ninja. Awkwardly, his hands flew about without any real rhyme or reason, but he felt kickass, and he could sense the energy in his hands as he gripped the wooden handles. If he had done it during the incursion, why not in practice?
He whirled around on one foot and slashed his arm quickly through the air. The dagger in his right hand slipped out of his grip and flew across the room, sticking firmly in the wall. He grimaced and ran over, pulling hard with one foot on the wall. When the dagger dislodged, he stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet and landing on his back. He held the daggers above him, trying desperately not to be that guy who stabbed himself while fucking around in the training room. With his luck, it would be non-fatal but incredibly embarrassing like so many other accidents in his short life.
Astaroth sighed. Get up. Place your feet shoulder-width apart and twist your body to the side. You hold one knife low near your waist and one high, the point down near your head. When you are moving, think short bursts of fluid energy.
Max didn’t argue. He jumped to his feet and did exactly as the demon had instructed. Soon, he held the position almost perfectly and began to switch his hands back and forth with short quick movements.
Astaroth was impressed with his ability to catch on so fast. Good. Now, switch your feet by shuffling them and turning your body with it. It can seem awkward if you overthink it, so just move. If you don’t get it right, you can try again. Oh, and for God’s sake, be careful with the knives. I really don’t want to spend the next month writhing in pain because you pierced your finger on the blade.
He switched his feet, almost falling over, and sighed, stood, and stared at the two daggers. Max shook his head as he dragged his feet back to the table and set them in their places. Grabbing his towel, he took a seat on the weight bench he had pulled back in the room and wiped off his brow and neck. He reached down and picked up his water bottle, tilting his head back as he squirted water in, choking slightly.
Max wiped the water from his chin and set the bottle on the floor. I can exorcise. I can pray, but dammit, this fighting is hard. I feel like I’m the most uncoordinated person on Earth. I honestly don’t know if I will ever be good enough to really survive this job once Damian is out of the picture.
Astaroth’s response contained no emotion. You’ll be with Damian for quite a while, I promise you. You’re not being fair to yourself, and in turn, you have zero confidence. You will never get good at it if you don’t trust yourself.
He rolled his eyes. How am I supposed to trust my feet when they do whatever they want, whenever they want?
The demon sighed heavily. All right, fine. I don’t know why you couldn’t have simply asked me. Get up. I’ll show you some stuff.
Max perked up. Really?
Do it before I change my mind and let you get your ass kicked out there.
He tossed his towel on the floor and shot up, jogging out to the middle of the room. Astaroth centered himself before starting the lesson. First and foremost, you must be focused. You have to let all your fears and jitters float right out of your body. Focus on your opponent. Start taking deep breaths in through the nose and let them out through the mouth.
Max followed his instructions, breathing in deeply, then blowing it out. He closed his eyes as he did so, picturing himself moving through the motions. The demon began pumping out instructions, the sound of his voice the only thing echoing through his head. Hold your hands by your sides with your fists balled. With a quick, sudden movement, step forward, bending your right knee and stomping your foot to the ground. Twist the top half of your body, bending your arms and swirling around your upper half. When you feel the urge, strike by starting with your right shoulder thrusting out, sending your fist into your opponent, and then quickly reverse it.
Determined, he pushed all insecurities and fears out of his mind, feeling the flow of his body as he followed the instructions. Whenever he finished a move, they would flow right into another until Astaroth was dictating a full kata and felt him dance across the sticky, warm mat beneath his feet. They went on and on for several hours, Max so deep in his moving meditation that he didn’t even notice the time passing so quickly.
By the time he was done, he was
completely and totally exhausted. He walked over and took a drink of his water. His clothes were soaked through with sweat. Man, that was the hardest but most awesome workout I’ve ever had. I feel like I actually did it—like I actually soothed my fears and moved through the whole thing. I couldn’t see myself, but I felt like every step was right where it was supposed to be.
Astaroth thought he did well, but he wanted to push Max harder. It was okay for a beginner. Personally, by reading your body stats, I think you can do much better than that. I think you can have a full level of meditation, and by the time you’re done kicking ass, you won’t have realized how much time passed. You could be awesome if you have the gumption.
Okay. But I can’t do it on my own. I don’t know any of the techniques or moves. When I did them for Damian, I was like a squawking chicken. I think that if you train me, then I could really get somewhere with it. You can read my body, so it’s literally like having a personal trainer inside me.
The demon snarled. That did not sound right at all. You priests have issues. Here’s the deal. I will absolutely train you. I mean, the better you are, the less pain I have to endure every time you are involved in an incursion. In return, I want one bowl of ice cream—that lavender kind—every night that is possible with a rerun of the soaps. Those are my terms.
Max didn’t think those terms sounded bad at all. You have a deal, but you can’t let the ice cream sit on me. I already move slowly. I don’t need to get fat and move even slower, or I’ll be a buffet for the demons when we go out.
Astaroth grinned mischievously. This will be absolutely amazing.
Chapter Twenty-Two
That next morning, Damian yawned as he took his normal cup of coffee into the courtyard. He looked up as he walked toward the table and paused, shocked to see his trainee already awake and sitting there. He looked like he had been working out all morning, which was definitely a surprise. In all honesty, he didn’t think Max was the workout kind of guy. He wouldn’t call him on it, though. It was a good habit and not something he should be ashamed of.