Holy Socks and Dirtier Demons (v1.1) (clean fmt)

by J. A. Kazimer

  I searched the rest of the rooms, finding a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich, and a pair of my boxer shorts tossed into a corner.

  The kid started to fuss when I walked into the bathroom, his chubby legs kicking, just missing my little jaces.

  “Watch it,” I said, shifting him higher in the babypack.

  “Mine. Mine.” He pointed to the tub and the ring of fish guts circling it.

  Damn it. Fish. Another miracle I should’ve picked up on. “Sorry, kid. Next time I’ll get it.”

  He shot me a toothy grin, and settled back down in the kid cozy. I shifted through the vacant bathroom drawers, searched the medicine cabinet, and underneath the sink, finding a compact packet of birth control pills, two left, a dull razor, and an empty test tube labeled DNA. Yew. I dropped the vial, and wiped my hands on my jeans.

  Further into the depths of the medicine cabinet, I discovered a stick of Clary sage incense. I smelled the incense, and a suddenly, overwhelming lust swept through me. Shit. She’d drugged me with sage yesterday. That bitch. I felt violated. Sickened. Okay, maybe not, but it did piss me off.

  Would I have fucked her without the incense? Probably. So why drug me? And more importantly, what did she gain from fucking me in the first place? I wasn’t Brad Pitt, or Johnny Holmes by any stretch of the imagination. So why? A distraction? To keep me under her spell?

  A noise in the hallway drew my attention. I raised my gun, and waited. And waited. Nothing happened. Shit. I lowered the gun and crept into the hall.

  Sid leaned against the wall, picking at something in his teeth. “Bones of the buried surface at first light.”

  “Okay.”

  He pulled a white toothpick from his mouth. “They also make good toothpicks.”

  I grinned and pointed to Mary’s apartment. “Have you seen her around today?”

  “Today is a drop of moonlight on a rose, fading fast and drying before my weary eyes.”

  “So that’s a no?” The kid shifted in the pouch, kicking his feet against my thighs. I stroked his nearly bald head, and he calmed down.

  “Deep in the core, we find our desire.” Sid wiggled his eyebrows, emphasizing the word core and desire.

  I scratched my head. “Are you hitting on me?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I saw the blonde girl at the Core, you idiot. Why do I even bother? You’re as dumb as a rock.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so?” I pushed past him, jogged down the steps, and into the smog-filtered daylight. I smiled at the kid, who quietly sucked his thumb. “I really hate that guy.”

  He popped his thumb from his mouth. “Mine.”

  “Glad we’re in agreement.” I tucked the kid deeper into the babypack, and headed off to challenge Satan’s son while wearing God’s only son as a fashion statement.

  How could I lose?

  Forty Two

  The Core looked bleak in the daylight without the bright neon signs, and fancy dressed people waiting outside. The outer red paint peeled from the building, and rats raced across the sidewalk.

  I examined the deserted street and the slightly opened doorway. It all but screamed trap. Then again, who’d be stupid enough to break into a pit of hell in broad daylight? Sadly, the answer was me.

  I raised my eyes to Heaven. “A little help would be appreciated.”

  What I really wanted was a babysitter, but I’d make do with an angel, even the moronic one. Taking the kid into the Core didn’t seem like the smartest of ideas. But at the moment, it was the only one I had. Mary was inside, and I had to stop her.

  “Here’s the deal.” I twisted the babypack onto my back. “We’re gonna sneak inside, and you need to be very quiet. If anyone touches you, you smite them and forget the resurrection part.”

  “Mine.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.” Taking a deep breath, I pulled my gun and slipped through the doorway banging the kid’s head on the frame. “Sorry,” I whispered. He whimpered, but didn’t cry.

  I counted off my steps; much like I had the night Lilith and I met. An evil blackness crushed the daylight outside, sending me closer into hell.

  “I do not like the darkness,” a voice on my right hissed. I twisted in that direction and fired. The nine-millimeter recoiled in my hand, shock waves jumped along my already frazzled nerves.

  Thud.

  Something heavy hit the floor, and a smattering of feathers flew into the air.

  The kid shook his large head. “Mine.”

  Shit. I grabbed a lighter from my pocket and flicked it. A bluish flame shot from the top illuminating a fallen angel. His white blond hair was covered in greenish blood. I rushed to his side and dragged him to his feet.

  “Are you okay?”

  He blinked a few times. “You request my presence and then you shoot me? That’s just cruel.”

  I gave him my standard eye roll. “It was an accident. And where the fuck have you been?”

  “I had a doctor’s appointment, if you must know.” The hole in his head healed before my eyes returning his face to an angelic glow.

  “No you didn’t.” I squinted, examining his shapely eyebrows. “You had your eyebrows waxed. Me and the kid could have died while you—”

  “Overgrown eyebrows are the Devil’s playground.” He smiled, looking plastic, serene, and superior.

  I punched him in his freshly polished face. The punch failed to register. His face remained blank. I hit him again. Still nothing. “Son-of-a-bitch. You got Botox too,” I said, incredulously.

  “It was a two for one sale.” His lips pulled tight into a smirk, or I think it was a smirk. It was hard to tell.

  “Are you boys done with your lover’s quarrel?” Samuel crawled from behind the glass bar. A trail of red lights flickering behind him, giving him the devilish glow rarely seen outside the movie theater. “Wanna tell me what the fuck you’re doing here?”

  I spun to face him, pointing the nine-millimeter at his chest. He looked the same as he had days ago, like a rejected underwear model after a drug-fueled binge. His forked tongue flicked out, and a tonic cloud of funky demon breath filled the space between us.

  I unstrapped the kid, and passed him to the angel. “Go,” I said, shoving them both toward the door.

  “I do not think—” The angel backed up a step.

  “I know.” I shook my head, but kept my eyes and gun focused on Samuel. “But for once, don’t let it be an issue and do what I say.”

  The angel’s lips tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he wrapped the kid in his feathery arms, and disappeared through the exit door, a trail of olive colored blood following him.

  Waving my gun at Samuel, I asked, “Where is she?”

  He raised an eyebrow. A pointed, perfectly shaped, and most likely waxed brow. “Who?”

  “Don’t fuck with me. I am not in the mood.” I fired a round into his big toe. “Where is the little whore?”

  When the bullet struck his foot, Samuel yelped. He hopped around for a few seconds until the wound healed itself, and then he turned his red, hate-filled eyes on me.

  Just for fun, I shot him again.

  “Stop that,” he said, doing another bullet dance.

  I waited with one bullet left for him to finish jumping around. When he stopped dancing, he let out an annoying screech, calling up his entourage of hell beasts and teenagers.

  They seeped from every surface, big, dumb demon thugs wearing gold chains and velour sweat suits. Some fingered automatic weapons while others carried steel pipes and pentagrams.

  But I wasn’t afraid. I shook my head, pocketed my gun, and pulled a silvery ball from my pocket. The demon gang frozen like a finely organized army of garden gnomes. I grinned, running a finger across the smooth surface of my new toy. A toy I’d found stuffed inside the glove box of Lilith’s Gremlin, oddly enough, in a bag labeled, 'Lilith’s Bag of Tricks'.

  “Is that a…” the nearest demon gulped, “God’s Ball?”

  “Yep.” I stared into the
terrified faces of evil and smirked. “And I know how to use it.”

  Forty Three

  Actually, I didn’t have a clue how to use a God’s Ball. The directions on the package read: ‘Piety Guaranteed with Just One Dose’. I held the ball up, letting the red lights of the club flicker across it.

  Samuel gnashed his pointed teeth. “I swear I will kick your mortal, white a—”

  “Uh-huh.” I tapped the ball. The ping of my nail against the metal echoed in the now silent room. “But before that, why don’t you tell me where Mary is?”

  “Mary, Mary, Mary. What happened to Lilith?” Samuel shot me a shiny plastic grin. “She claimed you’d be her salvation. I guess she was wrong.”

  Guilt twisted inside me. My grip tightened on the God’s Ball. “What do you know about her murder?” Had he helped Mary destroy Lilith? Was he there watching in the shadows as she bled to death? I stepped closer to him, rage overriding my common sense. His row of demon support moved back.

  Gotta love God’s Balls.

  Samuel’s lip curled in disgust. “I know that Lilith begged for her life. Begged.”

  “You’re lying.”

  He laughed, and my thin thread of control snapped. The God’s Ball in my hand forgotten, I jumped him and slammed my fist into his jaw again and again. For a second, I felt satisfied, invincible.

  Then his entourage pulled me off, my knuckles scrapped and bloodied from Samuel’s busted teeth. He stood and snatched the God’s Ball out of my hand. His eyes never left my face as he gave the order to his demon mafia: “Kill him, and this time, make sure he stays dead.” He spit a fleshy piece of tongue from his mouth and grinned.

  “Bad idea, Sam.” I struggled with the two thug demons who held my arms, as I waited for an opening to go for my nine-millimeter. It came soon enough in an explosion of harp music.

  Samuel and his demon patrol glanced up. I reacted, elbowing the nearest thug. He doubled over, and I ripped the gun from my waistband. As suddenly as it had begun, the music vanished, and I was left pointing a nearly empty gun at Satan’s son.

  “What? You think one bullet is going to stop all of us?” Blood spewing from Samuel’s healing lips as he laughed.

  I nodded and fired.

  Boom. The bullet nicked the edge of the God’s Ball, sending it crashing to the floor and the demons running for cover.

  The ball sat on the concrete. Just sat there. Fuck.

  The demon closest to me rammed his fist into my spine, and I dropped onto my stomach, choking back bile. Carefully, Samuel stepped over the God’s Ball. He grabbed a fist full of my hair and lifted my head to meet his eyes.

  “Mysterious ways, huh?” His foot caught my jaw. My head snapped backwards, crackling as my vertebrae shifted along my spine. “Lilith chose poorly,” he added. “And she paid for her mistake. Too bad you won’t get the chance to make things right.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I whispered through my broken jaw before sweep kicking Samuel’s legs. My foot tangled between his calves. He stumbled backward and tripped over his feet, landing hard on top the God’s Ball.

  A buzz and the sound of a cracking filled the air.

  A blue light, so intense it singed my eyelashes, burst from underneath Samuel’s ass. Quickly, I threw my arm up to protect my face against the powerful and unexpected rays. Demons cried out, their feet thundering in all directions.

  A sudden feeling of euphoria arced over me. My eyes opened wide.

  Frightened by the happy feeling, I swallowed hard, willing happiness to a dark place inside me. I needed my anger and grief. It kept me focused. It kept Lilith alive.

  The God’s Ball’s light winked out, and I peeked from under my newly tanned arm to survey the damage. Two demons lay on the concrete floor, curled in the fetal position, whispering prayers. A couple of others shambled around the room in a daze, ramming into furniture and apologizing profusely. But it was Samuel, sitting stunned on top the shattered God’s Ball that shocked me the most. Tears streamed down his reddened cheeks as he hugged his knees and rocked back and forth like a child.

  I stumbled to my feet, and took a few steps toward him. My hand slipped into my jeans pocket and produced the six-inch knife I’d stolen from Lilith’s kitchen. I raised the blade, ready to plunge it through Samuel’s horned head.

  Thou Shalt Not Kill.

  My arm froze above my head. The knife heated, burning my fingers.

  Smoke poured off my melting flesh until I dropped the knife. It clattered harmlessly to the concrete floor.

  Mother Mary and Joseph. Jumping Jehovah. What the heck had come over me? The urge to reach down and comfort Samuel flooded through me. I slapped myself instead.

  “My father never cared about me, not in the way a father should.”

  Samuel wiped at his leaking nose with the edge of his sleeve. “I wanted to do right, be a good son….”

  “Shut u—” The p caught in my throat. Piety sucked. “Where’s Mary?”

  Samuel curled into a ball. “Your father who art in heaven….”

  “Come on, man. Where the fudge is Mary?”

  “Thy kingdom come, Her ruling be done...” On and on Samuel went.

  Jiminy Cricket. I rolled my eyes at the big, bad son of the devil.

  “Peace be with you.”

  Shoot, I hadn’t meant to say that. I had to get out of here before I started forgiving and living righteously. A fate worse than heckfire.

  Forty Four

  I staggered from the Core and into the grayish daylight. The angel and the kid stood across the street. The angel gave a you-hoo wave, and I skipped across four lanes of traffic.

  An SUV screamed to a stop, brakes smoking as I pranced past.

  “Asshole,” the driver barked.

  I shrugged, gave him a vague smile instead of the finger, and raced onto the sidewalk where the angel waited.

  “You’re alive.” The angel examined me, putting a finger to my busted jaw. It healed under his touch. “We were worried.”

  The kid popped his head from the babypack. “Mine.”

  I smiled at him and then at the angel. Love filled me, easing the coldness surrounding my heart. Tender feelings of concern for—I smacked myself in the eye. The after effects of the God’s Ball were stronger than I’d thought.

  “Did you find the blonde one?” The angel frowned at my blank expression.

  “No.” I smiled, picturing Samuel, the pathetic deity. “But I don’t think Samuel will be a problem anymore.” At least I hoped not, but a sudden feeling of impending disaster came over me. “Come on, let’s get the heck out of here.”

  The angel nodded, scooped up the babypack, and followed me up the street.

  A block north of the Core, a woman ran toward our ragtag group.

  She wore a dark green leaf-like dress. It shivered and swayed like a palm tree in a hurricane, finally settling around her toned calves when she stopped in front of me.

  “You bastard,” she screeched.

  Her words didn’t shock me nearly as much as her right hook. After planting her tiny fist into my jaw, she pulled back for another punch. Pain exploded inside my brain, but displaced by shock and the kid’s howls from inside the babypack, it disappeared quickly.

  “Quiet.” I tapped the kidsack and turned to the abusive woman.

  “What the heck was that for?” I ducked her next punch and stepped to the side to put some distance between us.

  “You murdered my husband.” She emphasized her point with a left sucker-punch. I caught her hands, twisted her around, and pushed her to the ground. Sprawled on the pavement, she stared up at me, her face a mask of female rage. It was a look I’d seen from two out of three of my ex-wives.

  I released her arms and scratched my head. “Who’s your husband?”

  The angel frowned at me. I shrugged. What could I say? I wasn’t an angel. Okay, according to heaven, I was, but that didn’t erase my past.

  The angry woman rose to her feet. She was pretty
with golden hair and plump lips that glistened even in the weak sunlight. I started to lose myself in her green-apple-colored eyes.

  “Adam.”

  “What?” I stared blankly at her. She rolled her eyes. “My husband. Adam.” She stabbed her fingertip into my chest. “Burned to cinders inside your apartment. Does that ring any bells?” With each word, her voice grew louder until she reminded me of a screeching hen.

  I knocked her pointy finger away. “I had nothing to do with Adam’s death.” Even if I wasn’t too choked up by it. Lilith’s ex-husband was a douche bag, and the world was better off without him.

  “Liar.” At the edges of her eyelids, tears glistened, growing larger until the droplets spilled down her cheeks.

  Poor Eve. Years spent making up for original sin had taken a toll.

  Her tears didn’t fall prettily anymore, or maybe I was immune to Tammy Faye waterworks.

  “Listen, I’m sorry for your loss.” I wasn’t really, but after losing Lilith, I understood her pain. “But I didn’t—”

  “You might not have set the fire, but you’re responsible. You and that slut Lilith.” Her eyes burning with anger. “After your visit, Adam changed. Suddenly he wanted to confess everything.”

  “Like what?” Confession was good for the soul, or so they told the suckers who flocked to the confessional every week.

  Eve wrung her hands. The action reminded me of a child, but I wasn’t about to repeat Adam’s mistake. I had never liked the taste of apples.

  “He went to your apartment to tell you—”

  Tires squealed and I spun as the muzzle of an AK-47 poked its head from the tinted window of a white minivan for a second time. Glass exploded behind me, sending shards of sharp projectiles at the back of my head.

  Bullets whizzed past.

  I dove for the angel, not to save his worthless hide, but to protect the kid. In that instant, I knew the truth. I would give my life, my soul, and even my collection of tasteful erotica to keep him safe. Not because he was God’s only son, but because I cared about him, a relatively new feeling for me.