Watcher

by Andrew Weis

  “Go ahead,” the dock master said with a scowl as he watched Tyrone and Coz step away.

  “Thanks, man,” Tyrone said.

  The dock master pressed a white button on a small metal box beside his keyboard. A buzzer sounded, then Tyrone pushed open a wide steel door beside the dock master’s booth. Behind the door was a back section of the dock that led to a large elevator.

  Coz followed Tyrone, made a sudden turn and kicked in the dock master’s booth door. After charging inside, he zapped the dock master with a stun gun.

  The dock guards rushed over to the booth with aimed rifles and ordered Tyrone and Coz to surrender. With six armed guards covering them, Tyrone’s weak attempt at robbing the Fed failed in record time. I moved closer to the edge of the wall. In a blink, all the guards on the dock inexplicably collapsed to the floor. What the hell?

  “T?” Coz asked. He was as perplexed at this anomaly as I was.

  From the other end of the dock, Ellis materialized as he stomped toward Coz.

  “Wonderful, Coz. You sure showed him, didn’t you?” Ellis asked, slapping Coz hard across his face. “You were in the door. You had the money for the taking, then you had to play hard ass!”

  “Hey, he might still hit the alarm or something,” Coz said.

  “You’re not getting paid to think.”

  “Is the old man dead?” Tyrone asked.

  Ellis pursed his lips while Coz squatted beside the dock master. Coz slapped the dock master’s face then lifted one of his eyelids.

  “No, he’s still breathing,” Coz said.

  Ellis walked over to assess Coz’s handiwork. Ellis took one look at the dock master and knocked Coz to the floor. Coz rolled over a couple times before getting himself reoriented.

  “Don’t you be hitting me again, son,” Coz said in a threatening demeanor.

  Coz had what I considered crazy courage. It was a well known fact in Hali that humans should never threaten an angel. Someone up there might want to make that fact more widely known.

  “You’re not running anything, Coz. I am!” Ellis shouted. “The guards won’t be down forever, so hurry. I’ve taken care of them, but you opened the door for other problems.”

  “Like what?” Tyrone asked.

  “Get your damned money, human!” Ellis bellowed.

  Tyrone propped open the cage door with his body.

  “Get the others out of the truck,” Tyrone said while he scanned the dock.

  Coz hustled to the armored truck. He swung open the back door and let out the crew. Why would Ellis, an angel, need to rob a bank? That still didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

  Nemo, Nero, Reggie and Daniel took quick looks around the dock then spotted the unconscious guards.

  “Holy crap,” Daniel blurted out. “You killed the guards?”

  “They’ll be fine. Get over there,” Coz said.

  “Coz and Daniel stay with me,” Ellis said. “The rest of you get going. We got about ten minutes until the next truck gets here. Move.”

  “That wasn’t the plan,” Coz said. “I was supposed to go with T.”

  “I need you watching for unfriendlies. Keep Daniel under watch and tie up the guards.”

  Coz gave Daniel a sinister grin. Tyrone, Nemo and Nero proceeded deeper into the bank, closer to the vaults.

  “It’s you, me, and a trillion dollars here, boy,” Coz said.

  “You’re only going to end up dead, Coz,” Daniel said.

  Coz’s smile dropped.

  “Coz, don’t waste your time on foolishness,” Ellis said.

  I ducked under the armored truck. With Ellis materialized, he couldn’t see me in my inrepped form. Should he inrep and, God-forbid spot me, he’d kill me and send my dumb blonde ass through turnaround. Ellis’s footsteps echoed off the concrete walls as he stepped closer to Coz.

  “I won’t. But man, carving up this pig would be righteous for all the years he dissed me,” Coz said.

  “Guess again,” Ellis said as he swung his hands behind his back. “Shortly, you won’t have any need for him or Jessa. You can’t waste time on small things, so start thinking big. Put Daniel into the truck.”

  While Coz battled untold demons warring in his head, he grabbed Daniel and shoved him into the truck. He slammed the door closed while Ellis beamed.

  “Now there’s a good boy, like the one I first spoke to all those years ago,” Ellis said.

  “What?” Coz asked.

  “Remember that first moment when you discovered you had feelings for Jessa? Do you remember how angry you got when you realized she liked Daniel instead of you?”

  Ellis took his time as he circled Coz. While he spoke, memories of childhood flooded my mind. I recalled when we were sixth-graders playing kickball in the gymnasium. Coz and Daniel kept looking at me, then argued about who liked me more. I got frustrated with them and blurted out that I liked Daniel better.

  “Remember your rage from when your brother died?” Ellis continued. “You wanted to get even with those who killed him, remember?”

  That was another crushing blow to Coz. Coz’s older brother Deon, a football legend at Roosevelt High School, was so good he could’ve played on a college team, maybe even the pros. Those dreams fell under attack when the neighborhood gangsters made other plans for him. One refusal to join the gang, one drive-by shooting later, and Deon was gone.

  “I was in middle school,” Coz said as his eyes welled with tears.

  The pain he harbored for all those years must’ve been brutal. Compassion for him sprouted in my heart.

  “Why are you telling me this, man?” Coz shouted on the brink of tears.

  “Because I have news for you,” Ellis said.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “What if you could get even or get your brother back?”

  Get even? In all my training in Hali, I heard nothing about helping humans get even. The Powers handled all the revenge work.

  “What are you talking about, man?” Coz asked as he wiped his eyes.

  “I’m talking about Jessa’s rejecting you, your brother’s death and all that pain. I know a way that can undo all that damage.”

  Coz stared at Ellis’s widening smile.

  “How?” Coz asked.

  “I need something, but I need your help first,” Ellis said in a soothing baritone that played off the cement walls.

  “What do you need?”

  “I’m looking for a note that Jessa gave Daniel. The contents are important.”

  “What’s on the note?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  I scurried around the concrete dividing wall, then glided up to the ceiling to listen from there. Ellis seemed to enjoy whatever mind game he played on Coz. Like a big sister wanting to protect her little brother, I wanted to believe there was still hope for him.

  “Jessa’s dead, man. Whatever note she had is long gone,” Coz said.

  “There are others to consider,” Ellis said as he looked at the armored truck.

  “Daniel don’t know nothing, man,” Coz said.

  “I agree, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use him to get it from her.”

  “Jessa?”

  Ellis’s eyes turned red as he nodded and stepped closer. Like a reassuring father, he caressed Coz’s head. I couldn’t believe what I saw when crimson leathery-looking wings flashed on Coz’s back. Coz closed his eyes.

  An angel couldn’t change a human into an angel since death was a prerequisite. Ellis once said the best time for a demonic possession to occur was when humans were at critically low emotional points in their lives.

  With so much despair in Coz’s heart, an evil presence slid right in undetected. Coz’s moment of possession likely happened right after his brother died. His actions now still reflected that traumatized boy.

  The whole human possession thing never resonated with me. I’ve always thought that only one spirit could occupy one body. Now that this happened, what became of Coz’s original spiri
t?

  Since Ellis was the resident archangel, he had more powers and means to offer greater temptations to Coz. What I couldn’t figure was why Ellis backed robbing the Federal Reserve Bank. My note to Daniel was the lynchpin.

  With all the evil Ellis had engaged, I assumed any permission he sought to access the Book of Ancients was illegal. His hiding it in a human was the safest place while he worked on his unprecedented scheme to extract it.

  My instincts told me Ellis must’ve been aligned with a Dominion in Hali. With that firepower, if it were true, Ellis held an excellent chance for success. That theory would need serious proving, and I didn’t have time for that now.

  Coz stretched out his arms, and his eyes opened wide as if he emerged from an intense purification ritual. He took in a deep breath.

  “What did you do to me, man?” Coz asked.

  Chapter 34

  COZ CARESSED HIS muscular arms and looked about himself in wonder. I imagined his reactions resembled what an adult human might experience if reborn and made aware of it.

  “Congratulations, Coz. You’re useful now,” Ellis said. “You’ve had abilities all along, but I didn’t enable them until now,” Ellis said.

  “What abilities? What do you mean?” Coz asked.

  “Time windows for the most part, like when I put you into Jessa’s car, or when I disabled Nemo and Nero at Daniel’s house. You also have greater strength and durability of which I’m certain you’ll use quickly. Now, pay attention, Coz. Tyrone’s on his way back. I need you to find that note Jessa gave Daniel when she was alive.”

  “You’re an angel; can’t you find it?”

  Ellis paced.

  “Jessa wrote it on a piece of paper. Since it exists in physical form, it’s no longer in her heart. Anyone can get their mitts on it. She gave it to Daniel on the day she died. Think about where he was that day.”

  Coz thought, then raised his head.

  “After our fight at school, he bolted. I didn’t see him again until later at the Metra yard.”

  Ellis huffed in aggravation.

  “That doesn’t help,” Ellis said. “Think harder. What happened before that, at that school when you fought? What were Jessa and Daniel doing before they first saw you? Think!”

  Coz struggled to come up with answers, which bought me needed time. A slamming heavy steel door shattered the stillness. A rattling cart wheel grew louder as Tyrone emerged, followed by Nemo and Nero, who pulled a skid full of bundled currency stacked like bales of hay through the chain-link fence gate. Ellis disappeared.

  “What are you doing, boy? Open the damn door,” Tyrone said as the skid’s wheels squealed across the concrete floor toward the door next to the dock master’s booth. Coz pulled open the door as Nemo and Nero pushed the skid through.

  “Where’s Daniel?” Reggie asked as he looked around the dock.

  “In the truck,” Coz said, hustling to the armored truck.

  Coz opened the truck’s back door. Daniel burst out, but Coz grabbed him by the collar.

  “Where are you going, boy? The party’s not over yet.”

  Nero and Tyrone pushed the cart into the truck. A bale of barcoded hundred-dollar bills fell over and tumbled at Tyrone’s feet. Tyrone reached down, picked up the bale and tossed it into the truck.

  Nemo removed a large revolver from his belt and pressed it against Tyrone’s head. Coz watched with a curious grin.

  “Nemo? There ain’t no time for this, man,” Tyrone yelled.

  “The green ain’t ours. We’re leaving it, T,” Nemo said.

  Nero removed a flat black pistol and aimed it at Coz’s head. Coz didn’t flinch, and his eyes flashed red. The grin on his face led me to think he understood the abilities the demon inside him possessed. Coz took an arrogant step back while crossing his arms.

  “You too, Nero? You dogs ain’t nothing but damn traitors,” Tyrone said.

  “Don’t do nothing stupid or you’re both dead. Like Nemo said, the green ain’t ours, so leave it,” Nero said.

  Daniel shuffled to Reggie’s side. Nemo searched Tyrone and took a gun away from him.

  “You whales are dead,” Tyrone said, his chest heaving with angry breaths.

  “Shut up!” Nemo said.

  While Nemo struggled to pocket Tyrone’s gun, Tyrone pushed himself away and removed one of the silent bomb detonators from his hip pocket. Tyrone smiled as he looked at Reggie, the bomb collar still wrapped around his neck. Reggie trembled as he looked at Daniel.

  “Dad?” Daniel said with a cracking voice.

  “Don’t do it, T. Not like this,” Reggie said.

  Tyrone proved his inhumanity in all its ugliness. Tyrone eyed Reggie and Daniel while they held each other.

  “T, it ain’t necessary to do that,” Coz said, the first time I heard him say anything humane.

  “Shut up!” Tyrone said. “We don’t need their asses anymore. I’m cutting strings. The money’s mine now.”

  Tyrone plunged down on the remote detonator button and flinched at the explosion that didn’t happen. Reggie removed his collar while Dionne Warwick’s, Then Came You played from Tyrone’s detonator. My plan to have Reggie rig an MP3 player in the detonator’s case worked perfectly.

  “Son of a bitch,” Tyrone said. “Reggie!”

  Nemo and Nero grinned and nodded.

  “Slick, my man,” Nero said.

  “You never paid attention to details, T. This time it’ll cost you,” Reggie said, tossing the collar to Tyrone.

  Tyrone caught the explosive and threw it away with attitude. He lifted his jeans and removed a Bowie knife strapped to his calf.

  Tyrone lashed out, slicing Nemo’s arm. Nemo stepped back, holding his bleeding forearm.

  “Damn,” Nemo said.

  “You okay?” Nero asked.

  “Damn T ruined my leather.”

  “The dude ain’t got no respect for a man’s armor.”

  Nemo grumbled as he removed his coat, then tossed it aside. His wound was long but didn’t appear fatal.

  “I got T,” Nero said, looking at Tyrone.

  “We both do,” Nemo said.

  Nemo and Nero hustled toward Tyrone, who took wild defensive swipes at them.

  “Coz, help me out, man,” Tyrone said in desperation. I’ll admit it was nice watching Tyrone squirm.

  “Looks like you’re doing fine, boss,” Coz said with a smile.

  Reggie and Daniel watched as Nero and Nemo wrestled Tyrone to the ground. Tyrone’s body went limp after striking his head on the concrete. His knife slid along the concrete toward Coz. Coz picked up the knife and gazed at the large mirror-like blade.

  “He okay?” Nero asked.

  Nemo checked over Tyrone.

  “Yeah,” Nemo said.

  Coz leaned against the back door of the truck. He watched Nero who took a keen interest in the dock area. The guards remained motionless on the floor.

  “What happened to the guards? Did you kill them?” Nero asked.

  “Nope. They’re handled. T made a deal,” Coz said.

  “With who?” Reggie asked.

  “Ellis,” Nero said.

  “Who’s Ellis?”

  Nero nudged Nemo’s arm, nodding toward the dock master’s booth. We all watched as Ellis materialized.

  “Holy mother,” Reggie said.

  “Check it. He’s a brother like no other,” Coz said as he strutted alongside Ellis.

  Ellis had Coz pegged for years, then debuted his protégé today, in the middle of a bank heist. That jerk timed his announcement well.

  Coz materialized a gun and shot Nemo in the leg. Nemo shouted, dropped to the floor and cradled the wound.

  “You’re crazy, Coz! Freak!” Nemo yelled.

  “We don’t need you two land barges anymore,” Coz said. “Daniel has what I need.”

  “Do you know something I don’t, Coz?” Daniel asked.

  Coz made the gun vanish as he stepped toward Daniel.

  “Yeah,�
�� Coz said, yanking Daniel away from Reggie with ease. Coz pressed the knife against Daniel’s throat.

  I dropped to the floor and landed beside Reggie and materialized. Ellis’s eyes glowed bright blue as I stared back at him. Then I locked eyes with Coz.

  “Let him go, Coz. You don’t need him anymore,” I said.

  Ellis looked at me, then shook his head. I didn’t care what my punishment would be, so I ran on my own agenda to get this stupid ARV out of my silky blonde hair for good.

  “You’ve killed her once already, Coz. Care to do it right this time?” Ellis asked.

  Coz glanced down before he looked into my eyes.

  “Tell me, Coz, how bad do you want to meet your maker?” I asked.

  Coz breathed faster as his eyes scanned the room like a cornered mountain lion looking for an escape. With such a violent life, it seemed an ounce of good still clung within him while he resolved his feelings.

  “You can’t trust Ellis, Coz,” I said. “He’s playing you.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Coz,” Ellis said. “True, she’s an angel, but you can beat her.”

  Coz looked at Ellis, then at me.

  “Think about it, Coz,” I said. “Ellis influenced you to harden you. He wants to make you his bitch for a much bigger job.”

  “What job?” Coz asked.

  “Only Ellis can tell you that, but I’ll bet he’ll throw your gangster ass in the trash once he gets what he wants from you.”

  “What are you?

  “I’m a Protector, Coz. If you keep on your current path, you’ll spend the rest of eternity in a hell you can’t imagine. Does that sound like fun to you?”

  Coz shook his head.

  “You don’t stand a chance, Jessa,” Coz said. “You played your hand. Now, I’m playing mine.”

  Coz stiffened his lip as he pressed the knife harder against Daniel’s neck. An intense red glow emanated from Coz’s angry eyes.

  “So, Coz, I understand you’re looking for a note,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Coz said.

  “If I tell you where, will you let Daniel go?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You held it in your hands for a couple seconds when you took that book from Daniel, remember? I took it from you, then you gave me this little souvenir,” I said, running my finger along my scarred cheek.