Woo. Felon knew what that meant. The Incubus was interfering with Balg’s attempt at manipulation or outright possession. Incubi and their female counterparts, Succubae, were Demons. They were a subclass of that Infernal type, much like Cherubs were of Angels.
He nodded. Felon knew that Incubi were dangerous creatures that could use sexuality as a weapon. Not Fallen, but killing them wasn’t easy.
“I’ll need access to her home. And there’s the chance she will see me. I don’t like that and if she’s yours, I can’t put a bullet in her.”
“Of course not, Felon. No. No. No bullet’s in her—please! Remove the Incubus. I understand there is a great deal of risk. But like anything,” Balg said with a chuckle, “you will have a price, Felon. Do not worry about access to her bedchambers; I have a copy of her house key for you. And I know her habits and patterns. I watch her,” he said huskily, a string of saliva suddenly running past his fangs. “I shall tell you exactly when you can enter her home.”
“You whack him,” Felon growled. “Family. You’ve got the right.”
“Actually, Felon he is family.” Balg’s eyes glowed along with his cigar. “Stahn is a relative of mine. I suppose a nephew in your terms. I would be uncomfortable punishing him personally.”
“Price,” Felon started, before any more information was imparted. The assassin didn’t want to know the rest until his price was accepted.
“Of course.” Balg’s smile resembled a snarl. “Fifty thousand dollars in lost Incan gold. That is the ore value, some of the artifacts are worth twice that, should you endeavor to sell them as is.”
“Eighty grand in ingots,” Felon said. He wasn’t interested in fencing antiques. “Forty up front delivered to the Coastview Hotel by six tonight.” He lit another cigarette, turning to conceal the shiver that ran through his hands.
Eighty grand and you take the starch out of that little prick.” Smiling, Balg drew a tube of rolled parchment from his coat. “The customary contract.” He handed it to Felon.
Moving under the flickering fluorescent, Felon unrolled the parchment. He scanned it while searching an inner pocket for his magnifying glass. The assassin had bargained for information about such an item with another employer. A special film on the lens showed any magic script. He went over the contract with the treated glass. Balg’s invisible seal was there, a disemboweled ram crucified on jagged swords, but that was customary. He put the glass away.
“Pen.” The Demon reached around him. Felon took the steel quill from the heavy hand, and punctured the fleshy part of his thumb with it. Dark blood seeped up the length of the nib. He signed and handed the quill to Balg who drew some of his own blood and signed.
“Very well, Felon.” Balg put the contract away, before giving him an envelope. “The address, her habits, and the key I mentioned are inside.”
Felon shook the envelope.
“It’s a pity you can’t kill him slowly,” Balg said, bloodlust bringing more saliva from his fangs. “But I understand the limitations of your abilities.”
“I will remember your interest in my limitations.” Felon slid the envelope into his coat. “When?”
“Kill Stahn tonight.” The Demon’s lips drew back in a grotesque grin. “You may have to leave town soon. Everyone’s talking about the Cherubs. Paid for one and he whacks the other for fun.” He showed his canines. “Contact my office uptown for the rest of your fee.”
Balg faded out of sight. The magical fires flickered and were gone. The assassin shivered on his way up to the car. Felon got in, started the engine, and turned the heat up to full. He would look in the envelope when he saw the gold.
14 – Distraction
Mr. Jay had a thing for women. That’s what he called it: a thing! Dawn regretted asking him about it. “Look at them, Dawn. How can I love just one?”
Well what was that supposed to mean? Dawn didn’t understand his wandering eye so it frightened her and being permanently prepubescent left her little to work with.
“You won’t understand,” he explained whenever the subject came up. “You aren’t built for it—and you may never be. The whole business must be alien to you—picture books or not. Understanding why is irrelevant.” A spider of his fingers ran through her hair. “They are honey to me. And I’m a bee.”
Well what was that supposed to mean? Dawn liked honey too and loved finding it on their travels in broken hives and abandoned houses. But she didn’t think she was a bee. She loved honey, but knew it could be trouble. Dawn warned, “Too much will give you a sore belly.”
“If only, darling,” Mr. Jay moaned wistfully. “If only.”
It was because of his thing for women that she still didn’t know why the men were chasing them. In her heart of hearts the forever girl knew that his thing for women would never harm her; but it filled her with dread just the same. She just didn’t understand it. So she was sometimes overwhelmed by a fear that Mr. Jay would one day prefer the company of women to hers. Dawn felt queasy just thinking of the things women could do. She’d heard enough from some of the older kids at the Nurserywood. And a bad one Kevin once showed her a magazine. Yuck!
Dawn’s inner voice suggested that Mr. Jay might meet a nice woman who would like Dawn—perhaps a woman like her mother. But the forever girl hesitated to accept that. She just couldn’t take the chance.
Dawn contemplated these notions where she hid under the stairs that led up to this new woman’s apartment. Waiting was okay; she did a lot of waiting. And hiding too, there was lots of that. Mr. Jay was her only friend, and she knew he cared about her—in fact he went out of his way for her. His thing was beyond her and she had to learn to let it go.
This woman had caught Mr. Jay’s wandering eye not long after the taxicab dropped them off. She was dark-haired and of a pre-Change twenty or so—though Dawn was never good at guessing grownup ages. This woman showed off her bumpy woman’s body in tight black clothing and wore sunglasses. Sunglasses? The forever girl couldn’t believe it. The sun hadn’t broken cloud in a hundred years.
It was Dawn who first caught the woman’s eye—dressed as she was as a dark-bearded midget.
“How sweet!” the woman trilled from the doorway of a coffeehouse. “Such a cute little man.” She dropped to her knees so quickly that it startled Dawn—her nerves still blazing from the chase.
“Forgive me, little friend!” The woman gasped, shocked by the speed with which Dawn had moved. The forever girl watched her from behind Mr. Jay’s knees. “I just wanted to see your face!” The woman rose to her full height, eyes locking on Mr. Jay’s before exclaiming, “Your little friend is shy!”
“Wouldn’t you be?” The magician looked her up and down replying. “Frankly, the world has become a frightening place for me!”
The woman regarded him quickly before replying, “For me also.” Her features softened as she smiled down at Dawn’s bearded features. “I’m so sorry.”
Dawn only managed a suspicious half-smile and growled assent before Mr. Jay began, “We’re entertainers…”
His voice took on a tone that Dawn knew all too well. He had a voice for entertaining on the sidewalks and one for talking to Dawn, and another voice for talking to women. After a few minutes discussion, Dawn discovered that the woman’s name was Carmen, was marooned in the City after the Change so long ago, and still didn’t know if her parents in Paris were alive or dead.
This whole exchange had taken place in the awkward space between a low brick wall and a wooden fence that ran out to the street in front of the coffeehouse. As people made their way in and out of the door, Dawn had to keep herself as small as possible.
The whole time that Carmen had talked, Mr. Jay listened and nodded and spoke and before long she invited him back to her apartment. Mr. Jay said it was on their way anyway so why not.
As she sat under the stairs and waited for the grownups to finish their thing in the rooms above, Dawn remembered the first time she had recognized a change in Mr. Jay’
s voice when he spoke to women. She rarely spoke to other people, so her knowledge of Mr. Jay’s voice was intimate. It was the third or fourth time that he had used this voice that she asked him about it. He smiled.
“You’ve got to give me something,” Mr. Jay said blushing. He picked at the ragged hem of his coat and twirled his dirty top hat. “I’m not much more than a beggar without it… And as much as I trust these women’s hearts—their eyes, well they are another matter.”
Dawn pressed the issue: “Is it a trick?”
Again Mr. Jay blessed her with his secret smile. “Not like a card trick or some sort of illusion that confuses the senses. It’s really just listening.” Her friend pondered the point for a little. “In fact, it’s mostly listening. You have to hear past the words to feel the emotion behind them.” Then he laughed. “And there might be more to the process. It’s hard to tell; but who would blame me if there were. I was too duty bound in my former life.” He squinted in a villainous way. “But, I’ve always had a thing for women.”
The forever girl drifted back to where she hid under the stairs like a troll. Carmen was nice to her during their walk to the apartment, but upon their arrival Mr. Jay had insisted that his friend, Mojo wait for them on the main floor—somewhere out of the way. He pointed with his walking stick. “My associate has had a terrible time learning a certain few card tricks. I must implore him to use the time practicing. We shan’t be long, Mojo.” He handed Dawn his pack, and the pair walked up the stairs to Carmen’s apartment. The building was very old, like it was built just after the Change. Stairs at the end of the hall leading down suggested that the building protruded through the Level they were on. It was an old structure so Dawn had no trouble finding a place to hide behind some trashcans under the stairs.
While she scooted around for comfort, Dawn wondered what was going on up there. She remembered Kevin’s magazine and felt like puking about what that crazy boy said. But she was curious just the same.
Mr. Jay’s descriptions of what actually took place were vague and misleading. “We had tea…” Was the one he tried at first, until he realized that Dawn could have tea too, so he added quickly, “And talked about things that grown ups have to talk about. Adult communication, Dawn.”
Dawn brooded on her backpack chair and picked at her sticky beard. Mr. Jay would soon come skipping and whistling his way down the stairs very soon, but she couldn’t shake the anxious thoughts just the same. She knew it was sex up there or something like it, but she couldn’t understand its attraction. Usually after these adult communications, Mr. Jay would call her out of hiding, and the pair of them would make their way back to wherever their hideout was. As she stewed, her mind turned to dark imaginings.
What if Mr. Jay stayed up there all night? Or worse, what if Mr. Jay fell in love with this Carmen. Real love, not just the love he felt for them all. Dawn knew that sex and love were sometimes talked about like they were the same thing, but she didn’t know what either was really. And as always it was while keeping these sad obsessive thoughts from her mind that she most had to fight the urge that inevitably sprang into being. I have to go get Mr. Jay! Make sure he’s okay!
Only once, not long after she had first taken up with Mr. Jay, had she found that urge impossible to resist. That time, she was hiding in a backyard garden shed while Mr. Jay was busy having adult communications in the house with a big breasted woman who had really liked their act. They entertained that night at an inn Mr. Jay described as something from Henry Fielding but with rain. An old gas station he said less imaginatively, later.
Dawn only knew that it was in one of the dirty little villages that had cropped up after the Change—at a crossroads in the wild lands far to the north and west of any of the bigger cities and the highways. But as Dawn hid herself in this garden shed she struggled with this fear and the urge. What if Mr. Jay was tired of her company? It was only two years since her mother disappeared and a year since she found Mr. Jay.
The fear became too much, and leaping from her hiding place she ran into the woman’s house—hot tears pouring over her round cheeks. Dawn felt terrible replaying that particular memory, but the shame always kept her dangerous urge at bay. She wasn’t embarrassed surprising Mr. Jay naked in bed on top of the yellow-haired woman—also naked—not then, and not now. It was what Mr. Jay said after that made her cheeks flush red.
He had followed her back out to the shed when she ran. A light rain gave the grass a shushing sound as his boots slipped through it. Orange light from a lamp jumped in front of him. At first she had thought she would be punished, but even then, she couldn’t imagine Mr. Jay punishing her. Instead of that, when he found her cowering on some tarps in the far corner of the shed, he had gently called her out. Dawn could remember the look on his face, he was sad not angry.
And he said: “I am sorry that things have to be the way they are, but they do. The open world is not safe for you, and yet I must live my life too. I will not deny it. Dawn, all I want you to do is trust me, have faith in me. I will never lie to you.”
And he never had, as far as she could tell. But the memory always calmed her down, made waiting more fruitful than fearful. Mr. Jay would return, he always did. Hugging that hope to her chest she started dozing. But a thought brought her back. Why did those men chase them?
15 – Night Creature
Sister Cawood climbed out of the taxi. The driver stared in the rearview as she threw one, then another leg out the door. His eyes flashed wide when her spandex miniskirt rolled up her thighs. Outside the cab she paused to wriggle it back into place. Feeling his eyes staring at her every action caused pleasurable impulses to ripple over her skin. She bent at the window to pay him. His face held a look of passionate disbelief and desire.
“What?” She threw money in his lap. “You never see a girl without her panties before.” Cawood didn’t wait for an answer. A succulent and abhorrent realization tugged at the corners of her mouth as she wondered what he would have thought had he known she was a nun.
Orgasmic tremors ran down her legs at the thought. To look at her that way, had he known—especially if he was Catholic. The notion sent a pulse of pleasure over her abdomen and up her spine. She turned from the cab, pulling the purple and pink miniskirt over her butt. In addition to this provocative gear she wore a lavender plastic jacket and white cotton tube top. She had bound her hair on top of her head with a pink scarf. Purple pumps and matching rubber hoop earrings completed the picture. From a small belt purse she pulled a compact and cosmetics clutch. She touched up the bright lipstick without catching her gaze in the mirror.
Mary, Mother of God we confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil.
The music pounded out of time to the rhythmic flicker of the neon sign. The sound, like all sound in the City came out distorted and strange as it bounced first off the buildings around and across from it, then as it returned from its echo off the solid Level above. Hissing car noises came from everywhere, echoing and reverberating among the City’s many facets. A light mist fell on a dark and noisome breeze. The pavement sparkled with the same pink as the neon sign across from her.
The bar was called “Carthage.” A stylized elephant was worked into the polished steel sign over the door. The name and image briefly conjured ancient memories from history lessons almost forgotten—brought vague references to Hannibal crossing the Alps.
“When in Rome,” she heard her voice say. It was a different voice from the one she used in Archangel Tower. This was deep and resonant. It was throaty and free. She snapped her belt purse shut and strutted across the street toward the entrance.
There was a lineup. Forty people from all walks milled behind a barricade. There were no telltale distinctions of class, just the type of thing you could find at a Level Four nightclub. It was a low enough Level to be exciting but high enough to be respectable without being too public—an example of the complicated end of the world social ethic. The rich tried to fuck the
poor and the poor tried to fuck the rich. Nothing new, just more extreme—there were few illegal drugs anymore and most of them were sold at the counter alongside over proof alcohol.
As Sister Cawood jogged out of the way of a retro-Beetle van a number of Bully Boys in line started crowing. Bully Boys ran in gangs. She’d heard enough about them in talks with clients at the Relief Center to be wary of them. They promoted a sadomasochistic lifestyle with the onus on omnisexual behavior. Gang members could be identified by their habit of staining parts of their anatomies—usually bright neon reds, oranges or blues. They dyed the flesh around their eyes, ears and orifices. Their clothing was rubber and leather, with chrome and steel accessories.
She was thrilled and repulsed by their lewd suggestions and their graphic appreciation of her body. She could not resist smiling at their taunts or feeling guilty at her response. The catcalls she received caused her abdomen to pulse with pleasure. Her face flushed. For the moment, she felt safe from them, since they were stuck close to the front of a growing line behind a barricade, and would be unlikely to break ranks just to hassle her. Still, she imagined what would happen if a gang of them ever got her alone—really got their hands on her. Her nipples tingled.
Their vocal approval turned to roars of indignation as she walked past the lineup and approached the two bouncers who stood like stonework before the door.
“Back of the line.” A blond man with a spider tattooed over his left eye gestured with his chin. He wore leather pants and a T-shirt.
“Oh fuck off!” she said, moving closer, running a fingertip up his arm to a steroid-enhanced biceps. “I’m freezing.” She dropped her gaze knowing the bouncer’s eyes would follow, and with two fingers slowly lifted her skirt a few inches exposing more pale skin. “You don’t want me to freeze…”
The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two Page 8