by Max Jager
"They almost got a picture of my pretty face." He said. He felt his skin and watched it recede from a purple, burned and sickly color back to his tone of brown. Though lighter, less tanned.
"You destroyed a helicopter. You destroyed a couple thousand in property damage. Roads will need to be rebuilt, fences will need to be re-stood." The Priest was drooling. His dog face was drooping and his eyes would not blink. "It's anarchy out there and you're adding to it."
"A couple thousand seems like a better number than last time. It was just a couple scratches, some small infrastructure work." Darr said. His head was low in reverence to the rabid holy man.
Ajax touched his stomach. The bullets were coming out and falling on the floor.
"We killed it." Ajax said.
"I did." Darr corrected.
"You're right, I just got my face stabbed." Ajax said. "The point is it's dead. What's the big deal?"
"You couldn't have done it a little cleaner?" The Priest was slapping the back of his hand. There was no deal to broker though.
"Nothing is ever clean with hellspawn. Maybe you should do it yourself if you want it done better. Assuming you have the balls to pick up the sword in the first place." Ajax picked up one of the shells and laid it out in front of them all. The Priest slammed his hands on the table and watched the casing fall off.
"I'm your boss. Don't you forget it. When I tell you to do something, you do it." He said. He took his hands off it, he backtracked and touched the wall and looked at them both. They could barely look at him, only passed a glance before straying their vision away.
"Are you getting closer to these freaks, at least." The Priest said.
"Yeah. I have a name for a drug supplier that might have a connection to them." Ajax said.
"You dragged me all night for a name?" Darr asked.
"You seemed to have enjoyed yourself." Ajax said.
"This guy doesn't even know what the heck is going on?" The Priest rose and dropped his hands. "Maybe you should act, you know, like more of a partner."
"Another one with the fucking hecks. Is that hard to curse?" Ajax stood and threw his coat to his bedside. He walked over and laid himself on the mattress. His eyes were beginning to fall and he couldn't help but feel wanting of another nap.
"Whoever is doing this mess is an amateur." Ajax rolled around. "He's not really summoning demons, more so, personifications of demons. Very shallow stuff."
"What do you mean personifications."
"I mean to say, they're like puppets. He thinks the idea of one of the demons but doesn't really call upon him. For example, the first thing we killed."
"The bird." Darr shouted, as if in a game show with the buzzard ringing off to his joy.
"Yes Darr, the big bird. That was a very simple rendition of Amon, one of the lords in the second layer of hell. Of course, it wasn't actually Amon, more like the idea of Amon." Ajax traced fingers into a sky, imagining the incantation that must have taken place. "Yesterday's monstrosity took the shape of Bael, or at least, what we think of Bael. Lord of the third circle."
"Why doesn't he just conjure up the real things then?" The Priest asked.
"Because you can't just conjure up princes and nobles and lords, they're stuck in hell for a reason. For someone to undo the chains of God would require a godly power. That's equivalent exchange. For that reason, it's very hard getting a real, tangible prince or noble up here on. Demons usually appear as shades, ghosts, as animals or illusions. They're more interested in haunting, pushing people. They're rarely ever tangible and if they are, they usually aren't very strong." He said.
"Listen, I'm glad for your demonology lecture. But this only affirms one thing: you need to do your job better." The Priest went off.
"I'm putting the squeeze on them. It doesn't matter why this person is doing it, who he's doing it for, he'll be fucked in a couple days." Ajax yawned.
"You could speed it up if you got off your ass." The Priest tapped on Darr. "Convince your partner to stop being lazy. Sloth is a sin, after all."
"There's no convincing him. He's a dog. A stubborn dog."
"Part of catching a criminal is giving him room to breathe and you do want to catch the right criminal, right?" Ajax asked.
The Priest nodded and rubbed his scalp. He looked around the room and the mess of clothes and papers scattered about with important, giant red circles over them. He looked at the map and the threads and pins that wrapped around the city and it made his head spin. He felt anger for his powerlessness, his inability to understand and remembering last nights face only made his feelings worse. The idea that people were suffering, the idea that they bled and died underneath what he felt was his city made him yank his hair. In the end, he took a deep breath of air.
"By the way." Ajax started. "How'd you know there would be a demon last night? You of all people."
"Someone gave me a heads up."
"Did you bother to get his name? Address? License plate?" Ajax rubbed his chin.
"No."
"Right. Well, I'm going to sleep."
"And if you're going to sleep, then I'll pick up after your slack." Darr said. "I need to make the city safer since you won't."
Ajax began to laugh. "Go ahead superman, just don't cause any trouble."
"Not any more than you would." Darr said. The Priest exhausted his anger, felt something underneath his flesh that just disappeared into the environment like heat or energy. He could not move them, they were stones and he was too weak to push them on the incline. He felt like some Egyptian slave, empress-less, just pushing and moving and getting crushed. How could they not feel urgency? How could they not pity the weak?
He sighed. He scratched his head and the spot where his hair used to be. He let the small gray threads fall to the floor. They looked like broken cobwebs.
"Take some showers at least, you both smell terrible." He said. And he was gone, getting ready for the new day.
Episode 3 - July 20th, 2017
This had been the first time Jeronus would see his partner since he was nearly killed and it frightened him. He had thought about leaving four different times on the way to the receptionist desk. He had hidden inside the restroom on the way to the room. He had stared at his feet for half an hour at the door, the big '601' in black letters, and he had memorized the number of black tiles in the checkerboard pattern underneath his feet as he opened the door.
The first thing he heard was the strum of a guitar out of tune and how it made a hollow, low pitch note, like a bellow or a boat creak. He looked immediately from left to right. Everything was white and blue, clean and cold. He heard the noise of a machine and what it pumped into Officer Harde's tired lungs. He looked stuffed like a turkey roast, tubes and tape and bandages all over him to keep him from falling apart. Jeronus dropped a bouquet of flowers he had bought for the occasion. The laid on the bedside.
His injuries felt small now that he looked at his partner, an injured arm, some cuts, that was it. He could not think of any of his aches as any kind of meaningful pain. He felt small in front of the man lifeless on the bed. And then he heard the guitar again. He looked to his side, his mouth was open and his face searched for the noise. There was a little person, quivering, strumming.
Beady eyes looked back, they felt like bullets. It was a small face of a boy and he put his so close together as to seem like one small black tree brush, his hair like dead leaves, muddy, straying out.
"You must be his son, your mom told me you'd be here. How are you holding up?" Jeronus said.
The boy did not talk, only stared. It made Jeronus feel cold.
"You're here alone? I know your moms working but don't you have any relatives?" He asked again. Nothing. Jeronus smiled, it was fragile.
"I was his partner. He was very kind and brave, you're dad that is. Funny too!" His face felt weak. "I'm just here to pay my respects."
The boy nodded. He stared and when it felt like Jeronus could not bear the judgment of his glare
any longer, he started counting tile again. They were two mutes bound to by a respirator that was too oppressive for them. Jeronus couldn't look without being disgusted. None of what he suffered was enough, not enough to this coma. He clenched his fist and felt his stapled hands bleed. His knees shook. Then he just held his breath and the snot and tears that began to ride down his face. The beeping was so low but it felt like a hammer on his heart.
I wish I was on the bed instead.
He moved. He ran out. He would have reduced himself to a puddle if he hadn't. The thought was too heavy. He put a stray rose into the sink and let it drip water that carried the aroma out the room, out the receptionist office, out the giant glass sliding doors at the front. The boy, the doctors, the crowd stared and he wanted to rip his eyes out.
I know I'm terrible. Stop looking, I know.
"Fuck. Fuck." He told himself. A pair of doctors, smoking, moved aside as he came through the street. The hot air made his eyes burn and he just let go, all the way to his car, he wept. All the way to the liquor store, he wept. Through the day, through the night, he wept.
Drunk by his sadness, drunk because of his sadness. Bottle after bottle, he hed himself the shots.
Now, this is medicine.
He was parked by a sidewalk. A giant man holding a donut hung leered overhead, an empty box of donuts rattled underneath him. He moved his hand across his face to see how bad it was, he counted twelve fingers on one hand.
"I should have manned up. I shouldn't have let him take the lead." He remembered the night, the bird that made his shoulders shiver. The darkness, the spear, the fear inside of his gut. He could not find a single scene of heroism from himself, not even on the ride back. Or in the medal of honor lying on the passenger's seat. He remembered his urine stain, he remembered that.
Nothing felt good inside of him.
An hour into the stupor he had the idea to look outside, it was getting too hot and he opened his mouth thinking it would cool the burning in his throat.
"I need to let go." He told himself. His face was strained like he had eaten something sour. "Why the fuck should I feel guilty. I only did what was normal, what anyone else would have done."
He pulled his wheel and nearly stripped it with his mad grip.
"What the fuck do you expect of me. Huh?" He screamed at the sky.
He looked up, proud of his outburst almost. His eyes kept to the slow-moving cloud and stars that looked like streaking lights in his blurred vision. They made lines of bright white and he followed them, followed them and where they lead. He faced the west, his upper half was hanging outside the window as he followed the light. And then he realized there were no stores. That these lines were not still, that there was a light dragging across the sky. He saw it. A comet tail, azure like a bright blade of water cutting through the dark horizon. He followed it to the donut man and his giant, plastic, smiling face. Then he saw the donut man, the statue of him, decapitated. The head, blown into molten, dripping plastic. Jeronus laughed. Until the head fell on the rear of his car. Then he wobbled. Then he cried.
The metal was bending above, it anchored over him and he leapt out of the glass. The weight collapsed on his empty car and he crawled away, dragging his weak legs through the broken pavement. The light posts came down, the whole street looked like it would burst open and he found a nice corner, near a fence, to fall into fetal position. He kept his eyes shut as he heard the explosions, as the metal fell and collapsed and when it was all done, when all he heard was a raging fire he opened his eyes. The street in front of him, his car, were all swallowed into the sea of fire. There were people with him, looking, then firefighters, then paramedics.
"He's not hurt, just drunk." A paramedic said.
Hah. Only drunk.
The police officers looked at him, some of them familiar with his face. When it start, when did it happen, they asked. He did not know. He couldn't explain much. He only knew what they knew. The street was filled with brimstone. And the lake of fire had tried swallowing him whole.
8:06 AM
It had been three days since the sewer incident and they were pressed. Ajax bit his nails as Darr drove around the corner. They looked on outside to the shoeless children and the arcade cabinets they tiptoed in front of. Street fighter, or Metal Slug, they couldn't tell with how ripped and broken the cabinet stickers were. There were liquor stores every other house, it seemed. Then the houses disappeared, then the road did too. Wooden fences became chain link, dogs roamed around, eating off sewer gutters. Crows picked and dragged carrion from the mud roads and from a sidewalk they could see a man in a wheelchair with a sign that read, 'help a poor veteran' and the cup that laid below him.
The first thing Darr did when he stepped out was hand a few coins to the poor man. The second thing he did was shiver. He couldn't tolerate the feel in the air, though Ajax did. This was the real heart of the city and the darkness was everywhere. They walked towards a parking lot half transmuted into forest.
"They're gon' take me to the Saint Jones you bitch." A woman was flailing her arms in the air, blue plastic bags hung on her arms like the swollen, rotten fruits of trees. Her hair was held together by a rag, a piece of an American. It was red and white. "Those devils are gon' take me to the saint jones where the CIA live, let me tell you. They gon' fill me with poison, 'ell take my soul away I know it."
Another woman came by to drag her back to a small cove underneath a tree, a patch of blue tarp. She was apologizing to them with a very fragile smile.
"She's sick." She said. They sat and Darr couldn't take his eyes off them.
"Don't even try helping. Some things are beyond your control." He said.
"It just makes me feel wrong."
"Weak, you mean." Ajax said. "You can't punch disease in the face. You can't wrestle it. You just fight it, endlessly, until it comes for you. For all of us, really."
"Well, not us." Darr said. "We're different."
Ajax spat. He whispered yeah in a dismissive tone and wandered.
There was no path to follow, just an endless patch of black asphalt that bled into the forest. The homeless were scared but they gathered around the flowers. Some slept, some drank, some picked the little joys from the floor. It had rained yesterday, Ajax was reminded, by the heavy dew collected on the poles and tarps that drizzled when they shook. It was as if they were sprinkles, watering these poor whithered souls. Well, it hadn't done its job, Ajax thought. They all seemed dead.
"What are we doing here?" Darr asked.
"What's the matter. I thought you liked helping people, why don't you go around offering your services."
"I can't help any of them." Darr said.
"Hey come on, don't be such a defeatist." Ajax egged him. Darr frowned at the sound. "We're just here to get a name, there was a murder nearby. Some kid, Matthew 'Pip' Lafayette. I have a belief that his murderer was one of our guys. One of our many guys. I just want to see if anyone here has some information."
"Jesus Christ, that's horrifying." Darr clenched his fist. "Are you sure it was them?"
"No. That's why I'm here though, right?"
"What about the drug dealer?" Darr asked.
"He comes later. Don't worry about him. Just ask around. Here." Ajax threw a couple twenties into Darr's hand. "Go buy some information. Don't. Give it. Away."
"We're just giving them twenties?" Darr asked.
"You're right." Ajax reached for his hand. "That's more than they deserve."
Darr pulled back and glared at him. Ajax smiled and watched him wander about into the little town of homeless.
The poor were everywhere, walking in droves, hanging clothes by the tree branches, hanging themselves by the metal stakes stuck in the floor that held their little bright-colored roofs together. They ate bread and crackers, they boiled water on small portable stoves and drank from little flasks in their jackets. He went around them carefully, watched them stack up on each other in the trees like a tower. The tall grass hid
some sleeping on the floor and after a while Ajax became nervous to walk at all. It was like that for at least an hour. A dreadful hour, as he stared at their dirty faces and the way they looked at him like he was common place, like to some capacity, Ajax was like them. He hated being similar. He looked to his suit, it seemed neat and clean. He looked at his skin, it was not blemished or dirty like theirs. Yet they smiled, yet they passed him on as one of them. Ajax stepped on a man's foot and looked away. He would have been caught in a disagreement if he didn't hear the loud voice of Darr.
"There's just no speaking to you, is there?"
Ajax walked by. He touched Darr on the shoulder.
"You talk to him." Darr walked away. He opened the door of the car and slammed it and waited inside with his arms folded on himself. Ajax looked down to the man, it was the person holding the veteran sign who Darr had donated to.