devil 02 - tween a devil and his hard place

by Sam Cheever

  Emo looked at me and pointed down the mall, where another demon had a shrieking woman by the back of her coat and was holding her up in the air, chewing on her short, curly blonde hair as if it was the finest gourmet meal. “I’ll get that one. You can have this one.”

  I nodded and started after the quickly retreating pair at a run. The woman had apparently given up on trying to pull her jeans back up and had discarded them, taking off at a full-out run down the mall in her lacy pink underwear. The demon caught her easily a few stores down. I caught up with them just as the demon grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up against his scaly body.

  He grabbed her wildly swinging legs with his other arm and held her so she couldn’t move. He rubbed himself against her and allowed the supra demons on his head to caress her horrified face. I threw a power jolt at the very tip of one writhing supra demon to get his attention.

  The thing shrieked like a banshee and flung itself off the demon’s head, crashing to the floor. It lay writhing there until I zapped it again just for fun.

  Disgusting things.

  The demon host dropped the woman and turned toward me. “Mx. Phelps, come to join in the fun?” he said to me in his gravelly demon voice.

  I shrugged. “Only one of us is gonna have fun here maggot boy and it isn’t you.”

  He laughed, apparently he’d already assumed the mantle of power my mother’s expected coup promised and thought I’d buy into the power shift.

  Unfortunately for him politics didn’t enter into my daily calculations. I tend to function under only a few very simple concepts.

  Like a preschool reader for little demon slayers.

  See demon.

  See demon run.

  Zap demon’s ass.

  Move on to next demon.

  I gave him a shot of everything I had right between the eyes.

  The laugh died on his scabby lips as he started to pitch forward.

  “To Hades with you fool, for God hath tired of you.”

  As he fell I could hear all of the supra demons shrieking like tiny little star coaster riders. I took a couple of minutes to zap them too before I moved on.

  The next demon held an old man by one ankle over the railing that overlooked a laser skate rink below. The man’s age-shrunken wife was banging the demon on one of his green, tree-like legs with her purse and screaming at him.

  I felt a deep respect for the woman’s pluck, particularly considering her size and age. But I cast my eyes worriedly at her husband, who was trying to hold very still and yelling at his wife to get back.

  I knew that if I zapped the demon he’d drop the old man onto the slate floor below. That would not be a good result.

  The demon put a huge hand on the woman’s head and pushed her backward so her arms swung feebly and she could no longer reach him with the purse.

  I approached carefully from behind the demon and the old woman saw me coming. She opened her mouth to speak but I held a finger to my lips and motioned her with my hand to continue swinging at the demon so he wouldn’t know I was there.

  She was a sharp old bird and she quickly picked up what I wanted. In fact, since her arms couldn’t reach the demon she reached out and bashed him on the shin with her foot, then proceeded to stomp on his toes.

  The demon barely felt her assault but it kept his attention on her and not on me.

  I walked directly up behind him and, reaching between his legs from the back, I grabbed the family set and gave it just enough of a twist to catch his attention.

  He grunted and swung around. I stepped with him until the old man was clear of the railing and then gave the set a nice twist that made him howl.

  “Put the old man down now, very gently, or I’m gonna add a jolt of power to this nice twist I’ve got goin’ on and finish off the family future for you, wart boy.”

  The demon bent its green, scaly head toward me and opened wide lips to show me a set of black, chipped teeth. He squinted at me through the pain. “Phelps?”

  I felt a certain discomfort. Why did everybody know my name? It was almost like they had known I was coming…

  Holy shit!

  I gave the demon a jolt between the eyes and grabbed the old man’s arm to pull him out of the way before the demon fell on him.

  Emo! We’ve been had. This was a diversion. We need to find my father. Now!

  We can’t just leave these demons here. They’re gonna kill somebody.

  Shit! He was right.

  Dammit! Okay, move faster. Let’s clean this place up and get the hell out of here.

  Emo thought a salute at me. Yessir!

  It took us another twenty minutes to find the last of the demons in the mall. They left a lot of human angst and physical devastation behind that we couldn’t do anything about. It was hard to walk away from the tear-stained faces and wails of pain and fear but I knew I had to.

  As I jogged toward the spot where Emo and I had shifted into the mall I contacted Dialle.

  Dialle? I need your help.

  Astra?

  I think your demon infestation at Court and my excursion into shopping hell were orchestrated by my dear old mother. I need you to meet Emo and me at the clearing in the wildlife refuge.

  A long silence told me he was digesting the news.

  Finally he said, I’ll bring troops. The demons we’re torturing have told us what your mother is up to. We’ll need backup.

  Emo ran up to me and grabbed my hand. “Where?”

  “Clearing, wildlife preserve.”

  And we were off.

  We landed amid a cacophony of sound and smoke and screaming that made what Emo and I had just experienced at the mall seem like a day at a Venus beach sipping frosted rum drinks with the cute little umbrella sticking out of the glass. I particularly like the pink ones.

  Oh… Sorry.

  We’d landed just at the edge of the woods and hadn’t been seen yet. We were frozen into immobility by the scene in front of us.

  Angel fought angel in the sky above our heads, looking exactly the same and making it impossible to differentiate by looking between the dark angels and the light.

  On the ground demons and gargoyles, which by themselves would never be able to best an angel, attacked in such numbers that I could see angels lying around on the ground with missing limbs. One was even missing a head.

  The angels, it appeared, were vastly outnumbered. I wondered why the Big Guy hadn’t sent more help.

  Around the altar, witches in long, dark robes were on their knees with joined hands and dropped heads. Beneath the horrendous noise of fighting and death I could hear the steady drone of chanting.

  I strained to see who was on the altar but the air above the dark celebrants was filled with smoke and bubbled with power and it was impossible to see anything beyond a vague shape.

  I felt a change in the air of the clearing and one of those spike-covered demons from the fires of Hell popped into the clearing. He immediately spread his knobby lips and a wave of fire emerged from between them. An angel turned just in time to stop the fire with a wall of magic but as she did, two other demons jumped her from behind.

  She went down under the demons and their ’goyles and the last thing I saw was a bloody leg flailing around.

  I ran toward the pile of demons, forgetting for a moment about the fire-breathing monster a few feet away.

  Emo threw a wall of power up between me and the spiky demon just before it could turn me into a Tweener toasty. I screamed thanks to him over my shoulder and blasted the nearest ’goyle in the pile.

  He flew up into the air when my power hit him and landed about ten feet away with a fist-sized hole smoldering from the middle of his chest.

  Hmmm. I guess I was running on a pretty strong cocktail of adrenaline.

  I blasted the nearest demon and then finished off the rest of them that were covering the angel. She looked up at me from a blood-covered face and tried to smile.

  The holes in her ches
t and arms and throat were frightening.

  I didn’t think, I just reacted. Kneeling down beside her I put my hands on the largest wound first and focused my power into her body.

  She jerked and her green eyes widened as my power coursed through her body, searching for damage and repairing it in a not-so-gentle way. I moved to her shoulder next, which was ripped so deeply the arm was almost dislocated from her slender body.

  Emo’s shout from behind me had me jerking around without even standing up and I shot everything I had into a tree-sized demon and his pet gargoyle that was about to take a bite out of me.

  They didn’t go down with smoldering holes. They went down in smoking pieces.

  I turned back around and the angel was trying to get to her feet.

  I helped her stand. “Why aren’t there more of you? You need help.”

  She shrugged. “We expected Myra to be here by now, your father said she’d bring help.”

  My heart sped up at this. “My father? He’s here now?”

  She nodded, pushing a wave of chestnut curls off her now wound-free shoulder. Then she placed a soft hand on my cheek and gave me an angelic peck on my forehead. “Go with His blessing and under His care, Astra Q Phelps. And…” She brushed a tear off her cheek. “Thanks, for saving me.”

  I squinted at her, feeling embarrassed. Mostly I just blew stuff up. I wasn’t used to dealing with mushy feelings like gratitude.

  I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  I stuttered something incoherent at her and turned away to find Emo battling the fire demon. I added a good-sized jolt of my power to his. The demon screamed that eardrum-shattering scream and I refocused my power to its mouth. The horrifying noise cut off immediately and he went down.

  He exploded into fire as he died.

  Emo ran to me. “Do you think it had time to call more?”

  I shrugged. “If he did we’ll just have to deal with them.” I looked around. “Where the hell’s Dialle?”

  “Right behind you.”

  I swung around. “Holy shit! Why are you always sneaking up on me?”

  He shrugged and grinned, looking tall, dark and yummy. “I don’t sneak, Astra. You’re just always distracted by some sort of calamity.”

  I shrugged. He had a point.

  “I have to find my father, he’s here somewhere. Can you take care of them?” I motioned toward the witches, who were busily cooking up mischief around the altar. “They’ve already called one of those fire demons and I think they’re trying to summon up another one.”

  Dialle motioned to Gerch.

  “Don’t kill them,” I told the blocky devil. He cracked his wide craggy lips and saluted me. “Yes, my princess.” And he turned away.

  “Don’t call me that, dammit!” I screamed after him.

  He either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore me. I was betting on the latter.

  I turned back around and found myself mere inches from Dialle. He dragged my body fully against his and slanted his head so his lips could consume mine completely.

  I struggled for a second or two and then felt myself getting pulled into it, completely forgetting whatever sense of urgency I’d been laboring under since arriving in the clearing.

  Emo yelled out and Dialle jerked his lips from mine and shot a powerful jolt over my shoulder. Something behind me screeched.

  I blasted a gargoyle behind Dialle and it flew backward and took out a demon. The two of them went down and the angel I’d just saved finished them off.

  She gave me a thumbs up.

  Dialle and I grinned at each other.

  “I insist on a date later.”

  I nodded. “As soon as we finish saving the world.”

  He nodded and raised both hands over my shoulders. Two more screams erupted behind me and something slimy and dense hit the back of my leg.

  I turned and looked down. “Shit! Why do they always bleed on my boots?”

  King Dialle sauntered up with a royal she-devil on each arm. He looked like he was attending a ball, all spiffy and elegant. Around him chaos reigned but you’d never know it to look at him.

  I grinned. “Your Highness.”

  He lowered his head a fraction to acknowledge my greeting. “Mx. Phelps. I see you have things well in hand.”

  We all looked around together. It was definitely a soap opera moment.

  My gaze took in the piles of dead demons, gargoyles, ghouls and goblins and various dark disgustables I hadn’t even noticed were present. Here and there an angelic robe shimmered from a crumpled pile and my heart jumped in my chest.

  Power jolts fired past us, blasting chunks out of trees and nearby rocks.

  I watched one jolt land in the middle of the chanting witches, narrowly missing one of my Dialle’s guards as they jerked the witches, one by one, from the circle and knocked them unconscious with rock-like fists.

  High above our heads a black dragon fought a red dragon with blasts of fire and ripping claws and teeth.

  And sprinkled amidst the mess, fairies darted here and there, hitting their prey so fast the victims didn’t even notice they’d been hit until the fairy was long gone and the blood started flowing from the mangled flesh the fairy magic left behind.

  The air was filled with the sound of screaming and growling and blood-curdling shrieks and smelled a bit like a butcher shop.

  “I have a little work to do yet,” I told the king.

  He nodded.

  A ghoul grabbed one of the king’s lovely ladies on her slender, silk-clad shoulder and she raised an elbow, drove it into the ghoul’s throat and then blasted him into pieces when he let go of her to grab his crushed throat.

  I spit ghoul dust out of my mouth and turned to find Emo.

  He was standing in the middle of a growing pile of carnage. He caught me looking at him and nodded, grinning widely. Then he raised a finger and blew on the tip.

  I laughed. “Come on, pal. We need to find my father.” Then I turned to my Dialle. “You coming?”

  “Try to keep me from your side, my princess.”

  “I said don’t call me that.” I swung away in a fit of temper and stalked through the bedlam toward the spot in the distance where light exploded in powerful bursts high above the ground. As we moved away from the clearing, the only light in the night came from the fireworks above our heads.

  Looking up I realized this was where the real battle was being fought. Compared to this the other stuff was just a skirmish.

  In the sky and on the ground angel fought angel. I saw my father in the sky, one black and singed-looking wing making it hard for him to stay above the ground. He hung in the air in a lopsided way, favoring the burnt wing.

  Still he held his light before him and it was a thing to behold, though it wavered a bit at the edges.

  My gaze swung to the place, high above my head, where my mother stood with a shimmering chain on her wrist and Enoch, looking despondent and beaten, crouched before her and, with arms and huge wings spread around him, emitted a wall of light and heat that reached from him to my father, beating against my father’s light and, as I watched I saw, fraying it at the edges.

  I knew that Enoch’s formidable power was being supplemented by my mother, who was incredibly powerful in her own right.

  I decided there was only one way to help my father and I really didn’t want to do it.

  I looked at Emo. “I have to take her on.”

  He shook his head. “Not by yourself.”

  My eyes found his and he read what I would do there before I could do it. “No, Astra!”

  He knew me so well.

  My voice came out in a choked whisper, I wasn’t sure he even heard me. “Take care of yourself, Emo.”

  Dialle grabbed for me but I winked away, praying as I drifted through time and space that I wouldn’t end up in a tree or something worse—like something that moved and had big teeth.

  I landed on the cliff behind my mother and immediately felt the pounding heat of E
noch’s power. My skin broke out in moisture immediately. I felt as if I was standing in the middle of a fire.

  Leaning forward I looked down to where I’d left Emo and Dialle. They were pounding on the bubble of power I’d wrapped around them.

  As I watched a huge gargoyle flung itself at the bubble and bounced off, landing hard on the ground at their feet and shaking its head as if stunned.

  Emo lifted a finger and made a nice hole in the center of the ’goyle’s head. Then turned to look up at the cliff where I stood, shaking his head.

  I grinned. I thought it was a pretty nice piece of work, magic out but no magic in. They were safe and effective at the same time.

  Prince Dialle didn’t look like he appreciated my efforts.

  Go figure. I shrugged and turned to the problem at hand.

  My mother.

  Ish!

  She hadn’t noticed my arrival but I suspected my father had because he seemed to be redoubling his efforts to get at Enoch. His light grew until it started pushing Enoch’s back but he strained visibly with the effort.

  I studied the shimmering chain between my mother and Enoch carefully. My sensing power told me it was made completely of dark magic.

  I knew from my studies that the chain could only be broken by the one who’d created it. Either on purpose or through that creature’s death.

  I was betting Danika Phelps wasn’t going to release one of the Big House’s most powerful angels on purpose and I couldn’t even bend my mind around the other option. So I was really hoping there was a loophole in the rule.

  As I studied the chain I became aware of a change in the air around me and I glanced down to see an empty spot where I’d left the boys.

  “Shit!” I murmured and swung around.

  Two devilishly handsome faces with devilishly scowling faces greeted me.

  I shrugged at them and grinned.

  Okay, so I’d have help.

  I didn’t want to admit to myself how relieved I was.

  Unfortunately their arrival did not go unnoticed.

  My mother turned and gave a jolt of surprise.

  “Astra? What is the meaning of this?”