by G. P. Ching
“What is it?”
“When I was a child, there was an old woman who used to watch us while we were working. She told us a story about how her daddy had come from Africa and how, in his tribe, they would carve stories on elephant tusks. It’s how they kept their important memories. Now, this tusk seems to be telling the story of a king who died without an heir to his kingdom. But it turned out he’d had a son. He’d thought the boy was dead, stillborn, and the wisest midwife in the tribe could not get the boy to breathe. The king tied a red string around the infant’s wrist and left him in the jungle, where he prayed the gods would take him home. But a witch doctor found the infant and brought him back to life with magic and herbs. The witch doctor, thinking the king didn’t want the infant, raised the boy himself into a healthy young man. But when the witch doctor became old and ill, he told the boy the truth. The boy returned to the tribe and presented the red string to his true father. He was welcomed as a prince.” She smiled. “Do you think this is your family? Are you descended from a king?”
Mike blinked up at her and shook his head. He’d finally stopped shaking. “No.” In truth, he didn’t actually know. No one knew anything about his father. He didn’t know his heritage or his true ethnicity. All he knew for sure was that his skin was dark. He was a black man. Beyond that, anything was possible.
She handed the tusk back to him. “Difficult times. Not many of us know where we came from no more.” She passed him the cup of tea, and he watched a few loose leaves swirl in the water. “Don’t mind me saying so, but it’s easy once you’ve been owned to always feel like you aren’t worth more than being owned. Maybe you having this is a sign that you should think of yourself as a descendant of a king. If you don’t know where you came from, it seems like that’s as good of a thing as any to believe.” She handed the tusk back to him.
Mike inspected it, following the carvings that depicted the story. He stared at the last one the longest. It was of the boy king holding his hand above his head, rays of light shining down upon his people. It looked like… magic.
“There now, drink up.” She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I’ll find you something to wear. You need to let those clothes dry.” She rose and crossed the small cabin to a room in the back.
Mike looked down into the tea, the leaves swirling like they were caught in the wind. He would no longer fear drowning. After all, he’d already done it twice and survived. He ran his fingers along the tusk that had saved his life and for the slightest fraction of a moment, he wondered if he could be related to a king.
13
You Slay Me
There were things Hope could control and things she couldn’t. She could slay the demon they were hunting with the help of Jayden who was by her side and Jenny who was scoping out the bar where they were heading. She could not, however, change how distracted she was with Damien. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about the angel. He was giving her space, walking along the rooftops, watching out for them from afar.
And every time she stole a peek to see where he was, he was looking back.
Why didn’t he ascend to Heaven like other angels? It was infuriating.
“Jenny has visual confirmation,” Jayden said. “The demon is in a bar called the Third Piglet.”
They were in Atlanta today, hunting down a target that Jenny said should be easy. After the fiasco at the warehouse, they all agreed they needed a win. This demon was posing as a bar owner, preying on drunk customers. She’d been careful to keep most of them walking, although a few pints short of blood. Others had mysteriously gone missing.
Hope smoothed her hair. The neon sign for the Third Piglet glowed ahead of them. At least there was one less thing to worry about today. She wasn’t a Healer anymore, which meant the demon wouldn’t detect her. Damien, on the other hand, would have to keep his distance. He smelled like the world’s best potpourri: citrus and cinnamon spice.
Which was why she was surprised when he landed next to her.
“Hey, you can’t go in there. You’re not exactly inconspicuous,” she said to him.
“I can hide what I am.”
She snorted. “No, you can’t. I can smell you coming a mile away.”
He gave her a hard look and shook himself like a dog. A ripple ran along his body, his hair taking on a tinge of gray, his nose widening, and his eyes darkening from gold to brown. Even his clothing degraded to a more wrinkled state. Hope sniffed. Nothing.
She crossed her arms over her chest and popped out a hip.
“You look more human than me,” Jayden said to him. “And ignore Hope. We need you. With Finn gone, we’re one short.”
Hope nudged Jayden hard, but the guy ignored her. They entered the dark and dingy tavern without any trouble. Jenny had made them fake IDs, but there was no bouncer to ask for them. The place wasn’t crowded. Aside from Jenny, who sat in a booth pretending to drink a beer, the only other patron was an elderly man, who looked like he’d fallen asleep on the bar. The bartender, a woman of about forty wearing mom jeans and a Braves T-shirt, greeted them with an unwelcoming scowl.
Hope slid onto a stool at the bar next to Jayden, disguising a sniff by rubbing her nose. Demon. The place was ripe with the saccharin-sweet stench. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Damien slide in across from Jenny. The Helper reached across the table to squeeze the angel’s hand. Hope flinched.
“Two drafts,” Jayden said.
The bartender poured and slid the drinks across the bar. “Where you folks from?”
“All over. You?” Hope asked.
“None of your business.”
Jenny stood, glanced at the sleeping patron, and raised an eyebrow in silent question. Could they do this without moving the old man? Hope nodded. It was a go. They’d keep him safe. Jenny strode out the door. As soon as she was safely on the other side, Hope hopped off the barstool and locked the front door, then whirled to face the demon.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The bartender’s hands disappeared under the bar.
“You’ve used that body long enough. It’s over,” Jayden said.
Eyes locked on Jayden, the bartender pulled a shotgun from under the counter and aimed it at Jayden’s head. “Get out.”
Fire exploded across the top of the bar, knocking the bartender back a step. As promised, the fire stopped before burning the old man, who didn’t even flinch. Was he breathing?
The gun went off, but Jayden had already dropped beside his barstool. Damien stood, ready to help. But they had a plan, and it was Hope’s turn to step up.
Clenching her gut, she focused on the wooden floor, on the weeds that were growing under the foundation, the roots of a tree that had split the concrete down below. With a stomp of her foot, Hope sent her Soulkeeper gift into that life, raw energy that made those living cells stretch and grow. Vines shot up around the bartender, snaking around her body and tearing the gun from her hands. She struggled, but Hope pulled her fists toward her stomach, tightening the vines and binding her to the shelves behind the bar.
In one slick move, Jayden sprang through the flames, drawing his dagger and bringing it to her neck. “Get ready, Damien. I’m opening this bitch up.” He drew the blade across her throat. Hope was expecting the black ooze of a demon to explode from the cut, but instead, bright red blood gushed from the wound.
“No,” Jayden yelled, pressing his hands over the cut. “She’s human!”
Out of habit, Hope rounded the bar, ready to heal her. Then she remembered. She couldn’t heal anyone anymore.
“Hope.” Damien had moved to block the door. Over the flaming bar, Hope saw the old man, off his bar seat and pointing the gun at the angel’s chest.
“Move out of my way, or I’ll blow a hole in you big enough to fit through.”
“The old man is the demon,” she blurted.
“Hope? She’s dying. What do I do?” Jayden asked, breathless.
She looked between Damie
n and the woman. He was the only one who could heal her, and the only one who could take a bullet like that and survive. She had to act fast. Thrusting both hands forward she sent her power into the earth again. Vines tangled around the old man’s body as fast as she could grow them. The gun fired, but with a twist of her neck, she used the vines to turn the gun in time. The bullet blew a hole in the wall next to Damien’s shoulder.
“Jayden, go.” Hope pressed her hand over the woman’s wound and pushed her friend into action. He leapt straight up, landing in the fire on top of the bar. His blade circled toward the old man’s neck. Decapitation was the only way to kill both the clone’s body and the demon residing in it. But the man jerked back at the last second. Jayden’s strike connected with the demon’s chest.
The explosion of black that broke from the old man’s body was a buzzing mass of ill intention, a whirlwind of acid and fiendish mayhem. Hope screamed as the skin from the top of her cheek to her collarbone was torn away, the black wind sizzling through the bar, burning and tearing her flesh. It felt like she was being boiled alive. The worst was the sound. A million bees, each one stinging. On top of it all, the grating screams, Jayden’s, the woman’s, her own.
After a hellish eternity, the light came. Damien’s hands connected and holy tongues of fire blazed through the bar, lapping up the black buzz and digesting it into ash. When every last wisp of darkness was gone, Hope toppled to the floor, her vines and roots going back the way they came. The bartender fell too. All Hope could think was that she was a ghostly white. Bleeding to death.
“Hope?” Damien was by her side, pressing his hands against her face. Warmth flowed through her.
“Heal the woman.”
“No.”
Jayden moaned, and Damien reached up to clasp his hand, which dangled bloody and torn over the side of the bar. Hope tried to protest, but couldn’t deny Jayden needed healing. She watched his flesh stitch back together and his skin glow with Damien’s healing light. Hope was glowing too. She pushed Damien’s hand away, trying her best not to enjoy the warmth of his touch.
“I’m fine. Help the woman,” she said again, and it took all her strength to push him away. She was dying of thirst and turning away a glass of water.
But Damien fought her. “It’s too late for her.” He shook his head. “I can’t help her anyway.”
“No.” A sob bubbled up from her throat. They’d never killed a human before. Never. This was wrong. How could they not have known she was human?
With a groan, Jayden sat up and dangled his feet over the side of the bar. His fire was gone, and he looked spent, like he could hardly hold his head up.
“What’s happening to her?” he asked.
The bartender’s body was shriveling, folding in on itself like a drying prune. Hope reached for her, some inherent part of herself overwhelmed with sadness over the woman’s death. But Damien gripped her wrist.
“Don’t.”
He’d stopped her just in time. At that moment, the woman popped. There was no other way to describe it. Her shriveled body made a sound exactly like a popping balloon, and her flesh, like latex rubber, shrank and imploded until she was nothing more than shredded bits of leathery flesh. Her remains wouldn’t have filled the empty whiskey bottle she’d left behind the bar.
“We killed her,” Hope sobbed, the tears breaking through. “We killed an innocent human.”
But Damien was shaking his head. “It appears she was his host. The reason she smelled of demon was that he was pulling her strings. I’m not sure this one even had a soul. It was a parasitic relationship. She would have died when you killed the demon no matter what.”
“But…” She looked between Jayden and the woman.
Jayden scratched behind one ear. “Human women don’t shrivel up when they die like that, Hope. And they don’t stink like demon. I think Damien is onto something here.”
Relief flooded through her and she couldn’t help herself; she reached her arms around Damien’s neck and squeezed.
“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s okay.” He stroked the length of her hair. She pulled away, forcing distance between them, and collected herself.
Jayden cleared his throat and turned away, hopping down off the opposite side of the bar and unlocking the door. Jenny rushed in, pulling him into a hug.
“Everyone okay?” She flashed Hope a wide smile that wasn’t returned.
“How could you not know it was the man and not the bartender?” Hope snapped. “This is your job, Jenny.”
“What are you talking about?” Her platinum ponytail swung as her gaze darted between Jayden and Hope.
Jayden held up a hand. “Relax, Hope. I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
Jenny frowned and tapped the earpiece she was wearing. HORU appeared in all her kitty-cat splendor. “HORU, show Hope a picture of the student who attended Revelations.”
“My pleasure, Jenny. Here she is and her contract.”
A high school portrait of a girl that was unmistakably the bartender beamed against the paneled wall.
“That can’t be right,” Jayden said.
“She bled. She was human.” Hope turned toward Damien. “What does this mean?”
The angel glowed brighter. “It means, the list we have has its limitations. It appears the demons have ways to jump bodies. This one was using its original clone as a protective puppet.”
Jenny frowned. “Which means, this isn’t going to be as easy as we thought. The demons could be anyone.”
14
Demiurge
Dressed in a Greek gown with a crown of laurel leaves on her head, Victoria Duvall plucked the ancient-looking lyre in her hands. She’d used the instrument as a prop since they’d started production of Demiurge, and although they’d had to make some adjustments following the loss of Finn, the show must go on. Orelon had taken over the aerial act. It had been years since the instructor had performed, but he hadn’t forgotten how to woo an audience. Their troupe might be dwindling, but the show was as good or better than the first time they’d performed it.
She played a short song, and a thousand dancing lights swirled around her like stars. In this production, she was a muse, a deity with power over the creative universe. She smiled broadly into the stage light and introduced the show.
“I am Euterpe,” she began, explaining she was the daughter of Zeus and she was in trouble. She did this every night, framing up the story that would carry the production forward. Only, something felt different this night, like the audience watched from behind a window. She ignored the sensation and threw herself into her act, performing several feats of magic to open the show. From her pocket, she produced a lily-white dove that circled the audience before folding in on itself. Its feathers turning to paper, it floated to the stage transformed into a paper airplane. With a wave of her hand, she made lightning branch across the ceiling of the theater and thunder rattle the walls.
“Sit back, dear patrons,” she continued, “and watch as we unveil a show worthy of the gods, where all the light in the universe will gather to dance in their praise. Please help me welcome our first act, Hephaestus and Hestia, the god and goddess of fire!” Her hand brushed the strings of the lyre as she exited stage left, replaced by Fuse and Jayden.
Fuse twirled to the center of the stage, graceful as a prima ballerina, while Jayden sauntered onto the stage, looking every bit a boy of sixteen. Beauty and the brute. The redhead fired up his hands and juggled tongues of fire, manipulating his creation around Fuse’s dancing form. Flames flitted under her knee as she pirouetted across the stage and over her shoulder with every leap. A barrage of his fire assaulted her until she was backed into the corner of the stage. But then the tide shifted. Fuse’s hands ignited, and to the delight of the audience, she attacked Jayden, turning the tables. Her feminine energy flicked and flitted around his masculine till they were both juggling flames as they cartwheeled and sparred across the stage.
As alwa
ys, they were spectacular, but the audience reaction was weirdly tempered.
“It feels different tonight,” she said to no one.
“I have a bad feeling.”
Victoria whirled to find Damien in the shadows behind her. “I didn’t see you there. Do you sense it also? It’s like half the audience isn’t completely here.”
“I smell demon.”
“Demon?” The angel was almost always with Hope. Victoria worried he’d sought her out because this was beyond even Hope’s abilities. Damien was worried for her. “Where do you smell demon?”
“The audience.”
Victoria searched the rows of the small community theater in Mobile, Alabama. The place used to be a classroom and the cushioned seating still had foldaway desks. She took a deep breath. Beyond the scorched smell from pyro’s act, she could make out a hint of acrid sweetness, a sick smell, like a fetid wound under a thick layer of perfume.
“I smell it too,” she said, her hands balling into fists. “Which one is it?”
Damien moved toward her, into the light. “I’m not sure. I can’t narrow it down without getting closer.”
Pyro finished their act and bowed to rabid applause.
“Do you see that? That man in the front row isn’t clapping.” Victoria conjured the blessed dagger from her dressing room. Across the stage, Hope stood off curtain, holding her balance ball. Her act was about to begin.
“Tell her not to go on,” Damien said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Victoria nodded in agreement, but it was too late. The audience applauded as Hope took the stage. Balanced on top of the ball, she walked it into position and started to flip.
“Victoria,” Damien warned. “Front row.”
The man who hadn’t applauded reached into his coat. He had something in his hand, something dark. A gun. Hope was concentrating on her flip-flops with no idea the peril she was in. Victoria didn’t hesitate. She hurled the dagger. Her aim was true, but its purpose was not. Although the blade impaled the man’s wrist, there was a pop, pop from the gun. Victoria disseminated, moving in the blink of an eye between the bullets and Hope. She formed in time for the bullets to sear her shoulder.