by Tiana Laveen
Gripping her by the throat, he kissed her.
“Xenia, you make my personal angels sing and calm my inner demons. I need you like I need water and air. Without you, I can’t fuckin’ breathe…”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jagger’s eyes strained as he looked into the darkness.
The tunnels in the subway were small, underground worlds filled with wiry-haired rats and shiny, russet cockroaches that had stood the test of time. Hell Night had officially begun, and much to his chagrin, it was happening on a full moon. The televised news stations couldn’t keep up with report after report of bad incidents—from mysterious house fires to shots fired in a local watering hole. His heart skipped several beats as he got a flash of a large black horse sporting a gaping wound filled with maggots, and from which something dark and gelatinous poured through. The stallion was ridden by a larger-than-life Demonic Knight.
Cruz was right. He had summoned a true-blue son of a bitch, and just as the two had apparently agreed, the monster appeared on Hell Knight and had given the dead army explicit instructions, much of which Jagger was not privy to. The words were spoken in a dead language, one most didn’t know, but Cruz paraphrased to Jagger by simply explaining, ‘It will be a night many will never forget.’
Jagger stood on the platform, chewing his jaw as he stared up at the thing. The Duke of War glared down at him with sunken, ominous black eyes that flashed red. Perched on his stallion, he spoke to him telepathically, and even the demon’s words made his soul tremble.
You’re a soldier. You’ll know what to do.
Jagger nodded in understanding, loathing how, for the first time in his life, he was actually concerned about his damn safety. The monster could kill him in the blink of an eye. This was an entirely new level of Evil, something one could never unsee. No one else could see it, a fact proven by the chuckles of drunken twenty-year olds who paraded towards the platform eagerly awaiting the next train for their much-anticipated bar crawl. How he and the colossal monstrosity arrived there was still a mystery; the Duke must have led him to this place clairvoyantly. From his understanding, Lawrence was in Times Square with many from the dead army, and Saint in the Bronx, monitoring his place of birth. The army of the dead were fractured, bits and pieces of their energy floating here and there.
Every now and again, Jagger got a glimpse of them. The Bloods were in red, their wispy bodies eddying upward like rubicund incense towards the ceilings. They gave off an ungodly heat and moved like lightning. He’d seen a Crip or two, their energy blue and icy cold, methodic and heavy. The Savage Skulls and Savage Nomads were a dull white smoke, their energy old and ancient, slow and powerful, and they moved about with purpose … true intent. Suddenly, a scream echoed from a distance.
“Don’t!” an older Jewish man yelled, pointing to a young man who teetered on the edge of the platform as the train approached. A mere whisper could knock him down. Then, Jagger spotted two Demon Children snickering about six feet away.
You bastards! You’re putting suicidal thoughts in his head!
Jagger marched towards them with fisted hands, catching their eye. They hissed and bared their teeth, their pupils turning muddy brown and the whites of their eyes dark gray.
“Let him go!” Jagger yelled at them, reaching into his coat and producing a revolver.
“You’re too late!” One of them cackled as a crowd gathered. Suddenly, the young man’s leg was off the platform, and as he stumbled and fell forward to his promised death, invisible arms jerked him back. People screamed and gasped as Jagger stopped in his tracks, stunned out of his mind. Red wisps of smoke had curled around the man’s arms and yanked him back onto the concrete, forcing him to fall back onto the platform. People rushed to his side to see if he was okay, until Jagger could no longer view him through the crowd. He scanned the space and caught the two misfits racing away like the cowards they were. Jagger took off after them, a big smile on his face, and his hand on his concealed gun, the nozzle shoved through a carefully placed hole in his jacket.
“Playtime is over for you two tonight. Consider yourself out of commission.”
Jagger charged after them up the subway steps. Firing three shots, he landed two in the back of one of the fucker’s head and the other in the back of the bastard’s neck, which had him drop to his knees on the steps as if praying to a higher power. Screams echoed throughout the subway. In the distance, he could hear horse’s hooves barreling towards him. He frantically turned in the direction of the sounds, but saw nothing but black smoke. Turning on his heels at lightning speed, he was soon swallowed by a crowd a couple of blocks away.
“Well done…” came a deep, guttural voice that shook him. A stallion rushed by and the cold breeze of the demon flying past him made him catch a chill in his very bones.
Jagger jammed his hand in his pocket and kept a fevered pace, blending in like the smog against the backdrop of the night…
“Yeah, I’m sure, I heard him on the phone.” Hassani sat in the corner booth of the kitchen whispering to Angel while they ate pizza and downed large glasses of Gatorade. After a night of watching horror movies and chatting it up, they decided to go downstairs and polish off the rest of the pizza pie Mama had ordered for them.
“Hell Night, huh?” Angel’s eyes twinkled with expectation. “No wonder your father told me to spend the night with you, and not leave until the morning. Usually he doesn’t want me over here for even an hour, let alone the entire night.” He chuckled.
“We need to go and help.” Hassani bucked up, sticking out his chest.
“You can’t.” Angel gobbled the crust of the overstuffed pizza and wiped some marinara sauce that dribbled down the corner of his mouth. “Your father would kill me.”
“But that’s not fair!” Hassani threw up his hands. “I’m supposed to be takin’ over for him one day. How can I do that if he never lets me get any practice?”
Angel stared at the boy for a while, then nodded, his jaws packed to the brim. Taking a swallow of his drink, he shoved the chewed dough down, then belched.
“You make a good point.” He didn’t miss the gleam in the boy’s eyes. “All right, we’ll go. First, we need to grab some weapons from around the house. Secondly, you need to get out of your pajamas and put on some clothes. And Hassani, you have to stay right by me. No runnin’ off. I’ve never been to a Hell Night, but I’ve heard about them. You never know when they will strike, but all kinds of messed up shit can happen.”
“I won’t run off. I promise. I hate to tell you but my dad has all of his stuff locked up. The guns, everything. Uncle Jagger has some good shit, but I know there ain’t no way I could get my hands on it, either.”
“We don’t need it. This entire kitchen is filled with knives. We’ll grab the biggest and sharpest ones available.”
“Mama has pepper-spray, too, and Grandma keeps a switch blade in her purse. She’s a hard sleeper. And I can go to the garage and get the hammer and all sorts of stuff.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Just then, Dakarai entered the kitchen wearing a wrinkled wife-beater and emoji printed pajama pants. His bare, flat little feet slapped the floor as he headed to the refrigerator like some zombie. He removed the gallon of milk, barely able to hang onto the thing without dropping it. Angel snatched a napkin from the table and wiped the pepperoni grease off his fingertips.
“Careful now. You need some help, little man?”
“I don’t need no help! I got muscles … just tired is all,” Dakarai snapped, sounding like an old man. Hassani and Angel chuckled and shook their heads.
“That’s Grandmama’s milk, Day-Day. We’re supposed to drink the almond milk. Mama said milk from cows gives you gas.”
“It don’t give me no gas! I can drink whatever milk I want.” Dakari poked his lips out like a duck, his little arm shaking while he tried to keep the jug steady. The flow of white liquid filled the plastic Minecraft cup, almost spilling over.
�
��It does give you gas. Last time you ate ice cream, you ’bout killed everyone with the fumes. Your farts are deadly! Deadly, Dakarai! Yo’ butt is a toxic weapon.”
“Too bad we can’t bottle it then and blast it on the Demon Children,” Angel whispered, causing Hassani to giggle so hard, he choked. Dakarai grew red in the face, clearly embarrassed, but half-asleep to the point his usual witty comebacks eluded him.
“Uh… Dakarai, hurry up and go to bed. It’s like two in the morning.” Hassani seemed to grow suddenly anxious, as if realizing that his little brother could put an end to their newly hatched plans.
“You ain’t my daddy.” The boy grimaced, his dark brows bunched. He crossed his ankles and glared at Angel and Hassani, giving them the ‘fuck with me if you want to’ face.
“Day, take your little ass to bed!”
The boy gulped the rest of his milk down and slammed the cup on the counter as if he were at some bar after a hard day.
“What was you and Angel talkin’ about?”
“What are you talking about?” Hassani wore a look of innocence quite well. It was impressive, if Angel said so himself.
“What’s Hell Night? I wanna go, too.”
“Awwwww, hell!” Hassani twisted around in his seat, his angst more than apparent. “You can’t! You’re too young.”
“If I can’t go, then I’m going upstairs and tellin’ Mama if you leave the house.”
Angel grimaced and looked over at Hassani.
“Look, we’re not going far. I figure we can go a block or two, look around and come back,” Angel interjected as he mulled over their options.
“I don’t want him to come!” Hassani yelled. “He’s not going. He’ll ruin everything, Angel!”
“Maaaaaama!!!” Dakarai screamed, pushing up on his tippy toes and straining his neck, hoping to ensure his voice carried. Hassani leapt to his feet, raced towards the boy, and clamped his hand on the wailing little mouth.
“Shut up!” He snatched his palm away and stared down at the annoying pintsize toad. “All right, you can go, but you better be quiet and do as I say.”
“As I say,” Angel corrected as he got to his feet. “Let’s grab some things and get going. Dakarai, you’ll need to put on your coat, socks, and shoes before we head out but first, let’s get strapped.”
The boys searched the kitchen, carefully opening up various drawers and closet doors, confiscating things that could poke and prod. Angel watched Dakarai unplugging the toaster and cradle it under his arm.
“Hey, little man, what do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“It gets hot… we could burn ’em with it,” the little boy stated proudly as if it were a no-brainer.
“You dumb little fool!” Hassani called out. “Toasters run on electricity; ain’t nowhere to plug it up at. And besides, what were you planning to do? Toast ’em to death?! They’re Demon Children, not Pop-Tarts, idiot!”
At this, Angel gasped for air as he fell into a series of guffaws.
“Yo mama is an idiot!” Dakarai retorted, his lower lip trembling with rage.
“My mama is your mama, so you just called our mama an idiot! Just put the damn toaster down and let’s go change.” Hassani made his way out of the kitchen and towards the steps.
“Here, little man. Hold on to this spoon, all right?” Angel placed the silver piece of cutlery in the boy’s palm.
Dakarai stared at it. “Spoons don’t do nothin’.”
“Yes, they do! You can gouge out their eyes with it!” At this, the little boy smiled with glee before heading to the mudroom to slip on his sneakers. A few minutes later, Hassani crept towards them with his coat fully buttoned, a scarf around his neck and a bookbag full of utensils. “I got Grandma’s switchblade, too. She almost woke up, but I got real still and then she went back to sleep.”
“All right, let’s go check it out. Just two blocks, all right? I heard most of the action takes place in Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Harlem, but we can’t chance going over there.”
Hassani looked disappointed, but cooperative nevertheless. The three boys exited the kitchen and made their way to the front door. Hassani turned off the alarm, then opened the front door.
“AHHHHH!!!!” he screamed, causing Dakarai to fall to the ground. The metal utensils he’d shoved in his coat pocket rattled and clinked as he hit the floor. Forks, butter knives, spoons, and cake spatulas spilled out.
There Mama stood with a scowl on her face, her hands on her hips, donning a heavy white fur coat and hair that Grandma had sewed in her head whipping in the wind like skinny black serpents.
“GET. YOUR. ASSES. BACK. IN. THIS. DAMN. HOUSE!”
Dakarai got to his feet and scrambled away the fastest, leaving the two behind in a cloud of dust. Hassani turned and bailed, almost falling in the metal debris with Angel hot on his tail. The three raced away, fearing for their very lives. Angel heard the front door slam behind them and the lock click. He could feel the woman stomping towards them, but he didn’t dare look back.
“Hassani!” Angel screamed out, huffing and puffing up the steps, praying that once they entered his bedroom, she’d let the whole thing go.
“What?!” Dakarai’s bedroom door swung open at the end of the hallway. He slid in like a panther, slammed it shut, and locked it as if he were trying to keep out the Devil.
“I’d rather fight a hundred Demon Children than fuck wit’ your mama!”
“You and me both!”
Saint drove slowly down to the front of the Ingersoll Housing Projects near Fleet Walk in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. Smoking a cigar to camouflage the white smolder that swirled out his mouth and nostrils, he kept his window down on the cold evening as he passed several apartments glowing with fire. Hundreds of people milled about, some screaming of devastation at losing their possessions while others hollered at the police for arriving so late on the scene. The firefighters marched to and fro with hoses, doing their best to contain the flames.
The fire pulled him into a trance. The last time he’d been in such a state had been when Krishna had put him under to conduct a healing…
In the morning, he’d be on a plane to India to attend Krishna’s funeral. The man’s eldest son had done him a favor, and delayed the ceremony so Saint could make it there on time. Saint shook the solemn thoughts of Krishna out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. He’d just left the Bronx an hour earlier, and after speaking to the other guys, had found they’d all been having similar experiences in various boroughs throughout the city.
The dead army was saving lives.
Tales erupted all over town of bodies being dragged from burning beds, babies tossed and caught out of windows by some invisible force, victims of assaults suddenly watching their assailant get attacked by some imperceptible savior. And, of course, he didn’t miss the charging sound of a horse every now and again. The cool, icy air that accompanied the invisible stallion chilled him to the core. Saint counted in his head, figuring he’d stabbed, shot, and snapped the necks of at least thirty-seven Demon Children that night alone. Amazing how many murders one could commit during a frenzied riot.
He must have gotten good at it, but truth be told, the narcissistic crowds paid more attention to their Snapchat and Facebook feeds rather than the manic Angel Children seeking revenge right by their side. His human army of Angel Children were following Jagger’s orders to the letter. They’d circumvented more than a few planned attacks, and didn’t interfere when witnessing the dead armies work. Rather than join in the mayhem, the ghostly militia undid, interceded, rewound, and reversed hundreds of attacks all over the city.
The demons who’d ordered such attacks must’ve eventually sent notice to retreat, especially after crowds began to pour into the streets, screaming for peace, their heads bowed in prayer. Candles were lit and songs sung in honor of the lost. People of all ethnicities, faiths, and creeds gathered around, using their combined love for their fellow man to look Evil in the
eye and say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For each person stuck in their selfish, egotistical world, uncaring for their fellow man, there were two more who did, and demanded that the violence cease at once.
No one would ever believe that a high-ranking demon was orchestrating the good deeds, betraying his brethren for a pretty prize. Soon, the night would give way to daybreak, and the dust would settle, bringing a new day of blessings granted and a chance for redemption. The dead army would return to rest at the first break of dawn, this time, hopefully, with a bargaining chip to offer the Creator. Hell Night had been turned into Heaven Morning, but Saint knew well that all ‘good deeds’ came with a price…
Saint and Cruz stood amongst a crowd of thousands in Hyderabad, India. Dressed in white from head to toe, Saint barely moved a muscle during Krishna’s wake held outside in the vast area full of lush foliage. Krishna’s eldest son held the service there where he resided. His father’s remains would be cremated, per Hindu custom. Angel Child services, however, allowed various faiths to be blended with their own rules. Rather than cremate Krishna’s remains twenty-four hours after his death, his body was kept on ice so that Angel Children from around the world could arrive in time to attend the service. The blood in Saint’s body seemed to be running slow, and his head was in a fog as he filled like an open goblet with unsurmountable grief.
Not since James had died had he dealt with such a mournful blow. Hymns were read and the Karta officiated over the proceedings. When it was time, Saint presented a bouquet of white flowers and placed it on Krishna’s casket. Typically, the casket would be open, but since Krishna had been beheaded, this wasn’t an option. Tears flowed as he stood there with his arms crossed over his chest. There were no words he could utter to make it better, to remove the thorn in his heart. The warmth of Cruz’s hand touched his shoulder, reminding him a legend would never be forgotten, and the man’s absence did not destroy his legacy. Krishna’s shoes were entirely too big to fill. Moments later, the fire sacrifice of the service commenced. More than an hour had passed, but it felt like a mere few seconds.