by Sam Cheever
I scanned the next several entries, which were pretty much the same, to the last two.
Year 2096, eighth month, day twenty-eight
Today, when I took him his food, I found him lying in a pool of blood. He barely raised his head to look at me as I said my prayers for him. He wouldn’t speak. I fear he won’t last much longer. They had visited him again. I heard his screams from my office. My prayers don’t seem to be helping. Perhaps my God will not help him. I fear for his soul. I have decided to contact the woman, the halfling. She is my last hope.
Year 2096, eighth month, day twenty-nine
I had a dream last night. An angel of God spoke to me and told me how to break Nille’s prison. I sensed fear in the angel’s manner and asked him what he was afraid of. He told me the forces I was dealing with would prove too much for me, that I would die, but that I would have a place in Heaven if I could save this one soul. My dream was shattered when something dark flew at the angel and the two spirits, the dark and the light, spun away in a horrendous struggle. I woke in a sweat, sure that my dream had been purely symbolic. But I will try what the angel told me to try. I have nothing to lose.
~SC~
I heard the heavy door at the front of the church slam shut and jumped. DD Raoul’s footsteps sounded heavy and slow on the staircase. He called out to me as he reached the second floor hallway. “System off, remove previous entry from memory.” I quickly stood up and walked away from the information unit, hoping I didn’t look as guilty as I felt. I called out to him, “In the office.” I met Raoul at the door.
He whistled and gave the door a once over. Crouching down, he ran his hand over what appeared to be claw marks on the wood doorframe, a couple of feet from the floor. I hadn’t noticed those. “Looks like our friends came back.”
I nodded. “I ran into them upstairs last night.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Them? More than one? And you survived?”
“Don’t ask.”
He gave me a long, measuring look and then a slow smile. “You are amazing, Mx. Phelps. Now, you can buy me lunch and we’ll talk about what you need from me.”
I frowned as I flipped off the light and followed him out into the hall. “Whatever happened to you buying me lunch?”
DD Raoul wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a friendly squeeze. “Now you know it’s your turn, Astra. I bought last time.”
“That didn’t count, it was a rapid restaurant.”
He merely shrugged. “Rapid or not, I paid. It counted.”
I shivered as we left the church and he glanced sideways at me. “You cold?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to tell him I’d felt a current of evil as we’d closed the door and started down the steps. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something shimmer and turned my head. A human-like form was standing in the shadow made by one of the tall, stainless steel buildings as it towered over its squat, stone neighbor.
The figure in the shadows was tall and slim and held itself stiffly, as if in pain. It was only there for a second, but before it faded away I saw its eyes. They were pale blue and filled with pain. I’d seen those eyes only once before. They belonged to my lost Prince.
I ran toward the spot where the shadow had been, but Prince Nille had already shimmered away by the time I got there. DD Raoul pounded up behind me as I closed my eyes and threw out my sensing power.
A blast of arctic air hit me full force as I opened my senses to the aura in that shadowed spot. Although Prince Nille had gone, there was magic in the air where he’d appeared, I could feel it. Concentrating hard, I extended my arms and probed the core of my power, pulling it outward. The power surged away from me in electrically charged fingers to saturate the atmosphere around my body. On some level, I heard DD Raoul gasp and felt him move outside the sphere of power, but I was beyond the physical plane and couldn’t respond to him.
Shrill, probing whispers of air swirled around me, touching me with icy tendrils that coated my power and muted it. From somewhere in the midst of the swirling tendrils a voice was emerging. At first, the words were overwhelmed by the whispering sounds and were hard to understand. They danced in the swirls of icy wind like sheets of loose paper in a storm and finally emerged one by one, filled with pain and fear.
“...save... spirits flown... must intervene... power... much power... I have failed... lost...”
Though the words emerged in a disjointed and scattered fashion, I could easily read the message of despair they carried.
The tendrils suddenly disappeared and the frigid air that had contained the vision leached away until the natural warmth of the day touched my flesh again. I regained my sense of reality on a frantic gasp. In that first instant of return, I found myself struggling to breathe.
DD Raoul grabbed my arms, holding me up as my knees buckled. “Lean on me, Astra.” He led me to the stone steps of the church and helped me sit. The steps had gathered the heat of the sun into their concrete pores and seemed eager to share it with me as I sat there shivering. After a few minutes my flesh started to regain its natural warmth and I could think clearly again. “Shit.”
Raoul was sitting next to me on the steps, rubbing my arms and staring into my face with worried eyes. “What the hell happened there, Astra?”
I turned to look at him and shook my head. “Hades if I know, DD. But I think I just communicated on some level with a missing devil prince. And I’m afraid he might have been dead.”
~SC~
DD Raoul followed me and the Viper home to make sure we made it all right and then followed me into my food service area to make sure he got some of the strong, black coffee I was going to make.
We sat companionably sipping for a while until some of the color returned to my face and then he acted like a good Detective and started asking questions. I didn’t have a lot of answers for him about what had happened outside the Church of the Twined Hands, but I did tell him about my strange encounter with the evil Barbie and her brain-dead fan club the night before. I left out the part about not knowing who’d tucked me safely into my bed. I didn’t think I could stand another of those raised eyebrow events right at the moment.
Then, when guilt started to set in, I told him about the entries in Deaver’s electronic diary I’d illegally accessed.
DD Raoul leveled his hard, brown cop’s eyes on me and said nothing as I explained how I’d breached security on the information unit and read the files. He didn’t speak when I admitted I’d gotten Deaver’s assistant’s name and address from the unit and copied it so I could find her. He simply stared at me until I gave up babbling and offered him my arms, palms up. “Okay, just take me in now, Raoul. I broke the law. I’m guilty. Arrest me.”
Having made his point with nary a spoken word, he lowered his eyes and went back to sipping his coffee.
“So are you gonna help me find this Susan Cooper woman?”
He flicked a spilled drop of coffee off his dark blue uniform jumper. “Oh yeah.”
I grinned. “Great!”
He looked up then and what I saw in his eyes ripped the grin right off my face.
“No, it’s not great, Astra. It’s not great at all. You see, your Mx. Cooper, or what’s left of her, is piled up in a drawer at death central right now, with a crematorium tattoo on her left foot.”
I felt my brief affair with hope leave me as my stomach clenched. “Shit.” I thought about it awhile longer and then slammed my fist on the table between us. “That just sucks.”
He drained his coffee and stood up, arcing a dark eyebrow at me and nodding. “Yeah, I’m sure Mx. Cooper would agree wholeheartedly with that assessment.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tuck and Roll
The silvered wings did whip her face, until it was quite red,
And then the gilded Angel of God, did pop her on the head.
It turned out that, among the horrible holograms DD Raoul had been looking at that morning, had been one showing the tattered remains
of Mx. Susan Cooper. Mx. Cooper, it seemed, had been unfortunate enough to be in a well-known demon nightclub when things went a little sour and a fight broke out. According to Raoul, one of the club’s younger demons, who got his kicks out of terrifying the clientele, let his mask slip just enough to send a pretty, young woman running for the exit, screaming for her mommy in language only a sailor’s mother would appreciate. The demon that’d started the ruckus didn’t seem to like having his date escape him so easily and had gone after her. This caused several of the non-demon male clientele to come to her rescue and the place exploded into a party mix of teeth, fists, claws and various flying bodily fluids.
Strangely enough however, only Mx. Cooper had been killed. Her newly segmented body had been found behind the club, stuffed into the trash compactor, but not, as yet, compacted.
I asked Raoul, as carefully as I could since he was already pissed off at me, if he didn’t think it was strange that she’d been killed and stuffed in a trash compactor when everyone else had just been bloodied up a bit in the brawl.
His answer was to level those hard, brown cop’s eyes at me again and leave. I guess that meant the distinction had, at least, occurred to him.
~SC~
Myra shimmered in as I was placing the coffee cups into the flash cleaner in my food service area. She leaned against the counter as I worked and smiled at me. Having gotten used, over the years, to her scowling countenance, her jovial presentation made me distinctly uncomfortable.
I narrowed my green eyes at her and stepped back to give her the once over. “Been eatin’ those poor little canaries again, Myra?”
Myra’s laugh reminded me of the sound crystal makes when you run your fingertip around the rim of a half filled goblet. Coming from her it pulled the hairs on my arms to attention. “Ok, what’s up?”
My angel shrugged and raised her golden eyebrows, cocking her head toward the drink valet. I sighed and programmed in another cup of the black nectar. At this rate I was going to have to bill the Big Guy for refreshment costs.
As the coffee brewed, Myra lowered herself weightlessly into a chair at my well-used table. Looking at her, a thought penetrated my loggy brain and I had to smile. It had occurred to me that in the last twenty-four hours a royal devil, my best human friend, a death detective and an angel of God had all used that same chair. If wood-look, fire-proof, non-petroleum-based man-made furniture product could only talk, what a story that chair could tell its friends.
I handed Myra her coffee and sat down across from her.
She sipped noisily, closing her eyes in pleasure. Then, before she put me out of my misery she cocked her head and gave me that damned smile again.
“What?! You’re really roughin’ up my edges here, angel.”
She laughed. “I was just wondering what you were thinking when you woke up in your own bed this morning.”
I slapped an open hand against the tabletop. “It was you!”
She nodded, still grinning. I rarely saw her smile, it was a very pretty smile, but at the moment it was really pissing me off. “I should have known. Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know what a fool I made of myself with that...” Suddenly it occurred to me that I might want to put a clamp on it.
Myra’s grin faded, “With who, Astra? Or should I say what?”
It was my turn to shrug and grin. “Never mind. So tell me what happened. How’d you find me at the church? Was I dead?”
Myra wrinkled her brow the way she always does when I talk about dying. I guess she really does care—a little. “Of course not you stupid girl. You actually were beginning to heal yourself when we ran that evil woman off.” Her face changed, became more guarded. “Princess Rayanne really hates you, Astra. What have you done to her?”
I stood up and went over to the drink valet so she couldn’t see my face. How was I supposed to tell my angel that Rayanne thought I wanted to steal her man and take over her chair on the devil court? In fact, as much as it made me hate myself, I wasn’t even completely certain I wouldn’t mind doing the first one of those two things myself. “Hades if I know.” Avoiding her gaze, I programmed in a cup of coffee I didn’t really want.
Sitting back down, I suddenly realized what she’d said. “Did you say I was healing myself?”
She nodded, frowning. “Astra, these powers of yours seem to be growing rapidly. Do you have any idea why?”
I shook my head. “None.” A sudden thought occurred to me. “Myra. Have you ever heard of a halfling with these powers before?”
“Only once and she gained her powers very slowly, over time. She didn’t achieve your level of ability until she was very old, nearly two hundred years I think. I’ve known you since you were six years old. When your Aunt Diedre first tried to school you in your powers I thought the woman was crazy. At that point the only thing you could do was gentle frightened animals with your mind and move a few lightweight objects around. I guess she knew something I didn’t.”
“That’s one hell of an understatement.” I thought about the bit of information from my past for a minute and then had to ask.
“Angel?”
“Hmmm?”
“Is there any chance these powers came from my good side?”
My angel cocked her golden head and touched my hand. Her ocean-blue eyes turned sad. “No child. I’ve never heard of an angel with such powers. We only have the power to heal others and to protect the innocent from evil. Our powers would never let us destroy to protect ourselves. And I’ve never seen an angel heal itself. You can use your power to heal others as well as yourself, Astra.” She pushed the coffee mug around the tabletop thoughtfully and her frown deepened. “To tell you the truth, Astra, I’m not sure what the source of your power is. It scares me.”
My gaze jerked to hers. As she said the words I felt her fear as my own. Or maybe it was my own. I’d never seen Myra afraid before and I’d certainly never heard her express fear of any kind. Hearing it in that moment didn’t make me feel any better about my situation.
When Myra left I discovered that I was restless and filled with nervous energy. It may have been due to the five cups of coffee I’d had, or it might have been the result of an incredibly unsettling morning. I knew I should go into the office and prepare for a job I had to do later in the week, but somehow the idea of sitting behind my desk just didn’t appeal.
I quickly cleaned up my food service area and then remembered the cylinder I’d dropped into my coat pocket before DD Raoul arrived in Deaver’s office and interrupted me. Maybe I could make some sense of the whole Prince Nille thing if I went over Deaver’s diary again. There had to be something in there that would help me. Something I’d missed the first time through.
Retrieving the cylinder, I sat down in front of my information unit and slid it into the memory core. “Pull information and present.”
The unit gave a little chirping sound and the first file opened on the screen. Much to my surprise, the words that I’d copied from the screen in human English had been transformed somehow into a script I didn’t recognize. Squinting at the hieroglyphic type text brought me back to my years in school studying demonic phonics. I thought I could almost read a couple of the words. Just as I deciphered the word, “daemon” the file flashed off and another took its place. I had barely focused my eyes on the strange text before the file again flashed off and was replaced by another.
As the contents of the screen flashed by with increasing speed, the unit started to emit a low-pitched, monotonic hum, the sounds merging into words and then phrases and eventually coming out as some kind of chant. The voice that chanted from the unit was a gravelly screech. Not in the least human.
I tried to tear my eyes away from the screen, which had become a blur of whirring files that sped past my aching eyeballs at an intimidating speed. Not only could I not look away, but my brain was beginning to feel mushy and loggy. With a start I realized I’d entered a trance-like state and I didn’t seem to have any control over it.
The voice in my head softened and began to alter, a few grooves at a time, like an old vinyl record that was being played backward in my aching head. I continued to fight to recapture the use of my hands, my legs, my head, but it was as if I’d been painted with six inches of cement and baked in hell.
Sweat poured down my face and under the reverberating audio playing in my head I could hear myself whimpering with the struggle to break out of the trance.
Then abruptly the audio stopped. The visual stopped almost immediately after, as the screen on my intelligence unit faded to black with a tiny, spark-like blip. Holding my breath, I waited in fear to see what would happen next.
That was when I realized I was no longer the only one in the room. In small but steady increments, the air around me began to thicken with cold, gelling around my static body in a clammy, tension filled embrace. My ears, which I realized had been ringing since the chanting stopped, gradually began to pick up the dark sound of something heavy and wetly dense shuffling across the floor behind me. I sat there, a small, sweaty statue in a fake leather desk chair and felt the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up in response to whatever was coming at me from behind. Goosebumps filled with horror popped up along the length of both of my immobile arms and down my useless legs.