Demon Jack

by Patrick Donovan

  I stood, leaving Maggie where she was and slipped outside, lighting a cigarette. In the parking lot, the meth heads were still peddling their wares, addiction and dedication apparently going hand in hand. Light pollution from the city cast everything in a faint orange aura.

  “Can’t sleep?” Lucy asked, appearing beside me without a sound. One minute emptiness, the next minute, there she was. It was starting to get a little creepy. Hell, it reminded me of Alice.

  I shrugged in response, taking another drag off the cigarette. She didn’t have the scarf over her mouth, and even in the gloom I could see the hint of fangs. Her eyes, pale and milky, seemed to scan everything once before turning back towards me.

  “How hungry are you?” I asked.

  “Really fucking hungry,” she said after a long moment, turning her face away from me. “You owe me some explanations.”

  I nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  “I want them.”

  “When this is all said and done.” The truth was, I simply didn’t want to tell her. A part of me still resisted, feeling I didn’t owe her a damn thing. I knew it was wrong, and so I was simply trying to divert the whole thing. Rather poorly at that.

  “Or now,” she said, turning to face me again. Anger clouded her features, drawing her angular features into taut, hard lines. “I have to understand this, why it happened.”

  I sighed, a long slow sigh, exhaling cigarette smoke. I tossed the cigarette over the banister, watched it trace a slow arcing orange line of light through the gloom and lit another.

  “Alright,” I said finally. “What do you want to know?”

  She leaned on the railing, arms folded. She didn’t look at me.

  “What did Adam mean when he said you owed him? I mean, what really happened, what led to this? That's what I want to know.”

  “I killed someone he cared about,” I said.

  “Go on.”

  I sighed, putting the story together in my head. Tracing back over years of memory, before prison, before living on the streets, when people had a healthy dose of respect and fear for me in certain circles.

  “I worked for a guy named Mister Lin, he was one of those mob types... Sort of. He had an issue with Adam. He told me to send a message, so I did.”

  “How?”

  “He had another childe, a girl. I killed her.”

  “Just like that?” she asked, turning her eyes towards me. I could see the hints of revulsion on her face. Something in my gut stirred, a part of me which hated that look when it came from her. Something else let me know that I loathed the fact I had put it there even more.

  For a moment, I said nothing and fought to put those feelings aside. To look at her as I looked at everyone else, with little to no regard. I knew I was lying to myself. It was past that, for her and Maggie both. I had somehow become invested in their well-being, in them, after what they had been through because of me.

  Lucy especially.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “He paid me.”

  “Just like that, he paid you so you killed someone?”

  “Just like that,” I said, my voice colder than I’d intended. I sighed. “Adam caught me. He beat the shit out of me. I mean he really kicked the shit out of me. Could’ve killed me. Instead, he told me I had to replace her.”

  “And?”

  “I agreed, and then tried to put as much distance between myself and Adam as possible.”

  “You ran?”

  “Like a scared little girl,” I said, with absolutely no shame whatsoever.

  “And that’s why you live like you do?”

  “One of the reasons,” I said. “It’s harder to find someone who, in a lot of ways, doesn’t even really have a name, a home.” I took another drag from my smoke, sending it over the railing to join the first.

  She seemed to think this over for a long moment, letting her gaze move over the parking lot in long sweeping arcs. She turned to face me, arms crossing beneath her breasts.

  “So what about Adam?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s going to come looking for me isn’t he?” she asked

  “Oh hell yes.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  “I’m still going to help you,” she said finally.

  I didn’t answer.

  Her eyes stayed locked on my face, searching. Without a word she turned, heading back inside her room. I didn’t go to her, try to comfort her, or tell her it was going to be alright. It wasn’t. Her life, her very existence as it had been before she met me was long gone. There was nothing I could say or do to fix it.

  Eventually, Adam would come for her. I’d gotten lucky, fighting him during the day when he was weaker and with at least a partial element of surprise, when I could hope to match him. If he came at night, I was right and proper fucked if I tried to stop him. As much as it created a nagging voice in the back of my head, the knowledge that he would indeed come for her, and probably me to boot, I was going to have to just hope he didn’t come until after we had gotten to Legion.

  Chapter 21

  Maggie had set up the meeting with the Ordo members at a coffee shop. We went without Lucy, who stayed at the hotel sleeping the day away. The coffee shop was a street side affair, though given the weather the outside tables and chairs by the sidewalk sat deserted, each coated in a thin layer of ice and sleet. Inside, aged hardwood floors creaked beneath my feet. Music, something new and folksy, piped over the speakers. It was about as appealing as the whine of a dentist’s drill. A massive picture window at the front allowed sunlight from the outside.

  Several of the tables were filled with college kids drinking coffees with names I couldn’t pronounce, and typing on computers I couldn’t afford. The few who bothered to look up from their computer screens regarded me with a look of utter disgust. Maggie stood beside me, completely oblivious to the clamor of caffeinated youths around her, searching the faces of the crowd. She wore a thick coat, the sleeves long enough to cover the bandages around her wrists and forearms.

  “I don’t see ‘em,” she said.

  I didn’t answer, choosing to slide into a seat by a table near the door. I kept the hood of my sweatshirt up and my back to the wall, doing my best to make my scars as invisible as possible.

  Maggie paced a slow circuit around the shop’s interior before stopping at the counter. She ordered two cups and took a seat across from me, sliding one across the table. I picked it up, took a long, slow sip. The scalding liquid stung my throat the whole way down.

  “So what are you ‘oping to discover by this meeting exactly?” she asked, voice pitched low enough to almost be lost in the drone of the shop’s conversations and the horrible music.

  “Way I figure it, if my theory is correct, Legion has known where we are, when we are. Seems to me that information has to be getting out somehow. Figure you calling them, they’d send it here,” I said.

  Maggie blinked.

  “We’re bait? In public?” she asked.

  “I like to think of it as luring them into very well exposed trap.”

  “And you think this elementary plan is going to work? That they’re just gonna send some demon rolling up in 'ere to eat our faces? And assuming they do..?” She made a motion indicating the rest of the coffee shop and its patrons.

  “They tried at the hospital,” I said, shrugging. “Besides, who's gonna miss a few yuppie college kids?”

  “You’re an idiot, Jack,” she said, shaking her head.

  Al Dossari entered a moment later, Hernandez and Yavetta following a step behind him. They were all hunched in heavy overcoats, scarves wrapped around their necks to ward off the cold. They ignored the counter, opting to simply fill in the rest of our table.

  “Told you,” she said.

  I sighed. Apparently, I was in fact an idiot.

  “I see you are well, Maggie,” He
rnandez said, “Al Dossari filled us in on what happened at the hospital. Also, I figured you'd want this.” He grinned, handing her a messenger bag nearly identical to the one she'd had before she'd ended up in the hospital. “Your spare, as requested.”

  He turned, regarding me with a skeptical eye, before adding, “And you. I see are still alive and kicking.”

  I offered up a little wave.

  “I hope you have something important to give us in regards to this situation,” Yavetta said. “Especially considering the risk you've exposed us to.”

  “Legion,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” Al Dossari asked.

  “Legion. Its name is Legion, well it’s a legion, not really named Legion. It probably has a lot of names,” I grumbled.

  The three holy men exchanged a curious glance, each looking to the other as if they wanted to say ‘can you believe this shit?’.

  “And you know this how?” Yavetta asked me.

  “Inside source,” I said flatly.

  He eyed me for a long moment, and then turned to Maggie, putting his hand over hers. His eyes shone with almost grandfatherly pride.

  “So, my dear, tell us why you’ve actually called us here. What have you managed to discover that is worth such a risk, outside of Mister Draughn's nonsense?”

  “Actually, it was Jack’s idea,” she said, her features darkened somewhat with irritation. “'e believes that one of you is actually behind this whole thing.”

  The three holy men looked between each other, their faces awash with emotions ranging from indignation to amusement to downright insult and back again.

  “That’s preposterous!” Al Dossari exclaimed.

  “You can’t be serious,” Hernandez said, shaking his head.

  “Absurd,” Yavetta said quietly.

  “And what do you ground this accusation in, dare I ask, Mister Draughn?” Hernandez said.

  I shrugged. “Not important, I was wrong,” I said, resigned. On top of being wrong, I was right back where I started. Whatever this thing was, I had no idea where it had come from or who brought it here. I took a sip of my coffee.

  “Oh no, Jack, do share with the group,” Maggie said, obviously taking a bit of joy in watching me squirm.

  I opened my mouth to speak, and then stopped short. The lights had dimmed. Not just dimmed but were being obscured. It seemed like someone had covered every light source in the building, even the storefront windows, with heavy-duty tinting. The shadows seemed to grow, stretching across the floor. A slight rustling lifted napkins and papers from tables pushing them towards the floor. Warbling feedback whined through the coffee shop’s stereo in an ear-splitting howl, before fading out into dead air.

  It passed just as quickly as it had come, the radio fading back into another folksy tune. The shadow slipped away, leaving the winter sunshine once more filtering in through the windows, and the lights once again casting a yellowish glow over the hardwood floor.

  Silence settled over us. It was a heavy, oppressive silence that seemed almost tangible, broken only by the store’s stereo. The five of us looked between each other, before Maggie muttered, barely above a whisper.

  “Bollocks.”

  Every eye in the place was on us, staring in cold, silent rage. Set upon set of green glowing orbs, each casting a sickly glow in the interior of the tiny shop, pointed in our direction. It was almost dizzying, the interplay of light from demonic eyes and the warm glow of the surroundings clashing in such a way that it seemed to change the very nature of the room from inviting to a hellish mockery.

  For a long moment, nobody moved. Nothing changed. The heater hummed to life, pumping warm air into a room that had already seemed to grow ten degrees hotter. The five of us watched no less than thirty possessed individuals, all staring at us with the look of hungry predators who were the slightest provocation away from bursting into action. The tension in the air became almost palpable, something that could be reached out and strummed like a guitar string. We were outnumbered and didn’t have a sadistic vampire to throw in with us. We were right and proper fucked as Maggie would say.

  It was the chime over the door that set them off, some poor sap coming in to get his morning cup of coffee. It was almost like a drop of blood in shark infested waters, the reaction was so immediate. Movement exploded as every body in the place rushed toward us in a tidal wave. The guy who had started it all decided in a flash of insight to get his coffee elsewhere and boogied back out the way he had come.

  The only thing that kept them from instantly over running us was that there were so damn many of them. They literally had to climb over each other and not so stable furniture to get to us.

  I bolted to my feet and grabbed the table, launching it into the oncoming horde. It hit the point man, a college kid in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. He batted it aside without so much as missing a single step. It hit the floor, slowing others down, tangling in their legs and sending them sprawling. The others just trampled over them.

  The holy men wasted no time, launching into a recited litany of prayer and blessings. Symbols of faith were produced, the air around us practically buzzing with the power of belief. The green eyes slowed, seeming to wade through mud as they came towards us. The three prayed, backing towards the door. Maggie and I were a step behind them, covering their escape as a matter of coincidence. I grabbed up another table, holding it in front of me like a shield as we stepped out into the winter chill, forming a huddled mass on the side walk, all five us in a group, our backs together.

  The storefront exploded in noise and glass, several of the demon possessed bounding out onto the street through the now broken storefront window. They moved like a swarm of insects, fighting over each other to get to us. The first one that got close got the table full in the chest. I pushed him back into three others, though he held one of the legs and managed to pull the table out of my grasp. Another lunged at me, and I swung, my fist connecting hard to its side and slamming it into a parked car. The car's alarm went off from the impact.

  Maggie drew her knife and with another prayer and slice across the palm of her hand called up wind, pushing them back, slowing their advance. Three more came, and fists battered me. I managed to stay standing, but barely as I felt hammer blow after hammer blow fall on my body. I kicked one away, throwing punches at the other two. I connected weakly, little more than enough to push them off of me and give me breathing room.

  Behind me, the wise men had broken off and were running down the sidewalk, four of the demon possessed in hot pursuit. I saw what was coming in slow motion, a second before it happened. Al Dassari slipped on a patch of ice. The demons fell on him like carrion birds. They rained blows on his prone form, one using the laptop it had been typing on only moments before in the coffee shop as a makeshift club. Al Dassari cried out and it only served to fuel the attack. There was a wet sounding thud and he started to twitch, his muscles spasming. After that, he went silent, their blows unanswered. There was the shattering of plastic keyboard keys raining across the sidewalk as the computer broke over his face. I didn’t watch after that.

  I grabbed Maggie, pulling her across the street, putting the parked cars lining the sidewalk on each side between the green eyes and us. The only real chance we had at the moment was to run, to run and try and put as much distance between them and us as possible. I just hoped we could keep ahead of them enough to lose them in the maze of Boston. Hernandez and Yavetta, still running, were a half a block down. Their once pursuers were still focused on Al Dossari. Hernandez and Yavetta, meanwhile had managed to reach their car, a long black sedan that was parked at the corner.

  I could see Hernandez, in the distance, slide into the driver’s seat. He fired up the engine, clouds of steam rising from the back of the car as the heated exhaust met the chill winter air. Yavetta opened the door to the passenger side and turned to me, watching me as I ran.

  For a second, everything slowed down. The screams of the maniac possessed died away. Even t
his far away I could see it. The glowing eyes, radiating pure green hatred beneath Yavetta's wide brim hat.

  I almost stopped in mid-stride, a well of vindication rising up in my chest. I wasn't sure of the specifics, but something in my gut told me I had been right, goddamn it. I had been right the whole time. I had been right and it wouldn’t matter now because no one would believe me. Maggie was ahead of me, running towards the safety of the alleys and the twisting rows of back and side streets. The set up had been perfect too, completely and utterly perfect. Anything that came out of my mouth after this would make me look either desperate or, at worst, traitorous.

  No one would believe me now, not after this had gone to shit like it had. Not with Al Dossari lying in the middle of the sidewalk dead, beaten to death by the green eyes. Not with all of us fleeing from an attack.

  Yavetta stared me down from almost half a block away and his smile widened. Around me, the coffee shop's clientele were returning to normal, shaken and confused to find themselves outside, when the last thing they'd remember was sipping their Chai frappa lattes or whatever the fuck they were called.

  Chapter 22

  We trudged through the hotel’s parking lot, breathing heavy and sweating despite the chill of the winter air. Maggie had paled, two stains of bright scarlet high on her cheek. She staggered a bit as she walked, the adrenaline of the chase giving way to weariness. She still wasn't a hundred percent and it showed. The throw-down at the coffee shop had only exacerbated her condition.

  My mind rolled over the idea, over what I had seen and more importantly how to convey it, to make something out of it. I knew at least part of the story. Yavetta or Hernandez, for whatever reason, was the one behind Legion - in some way shape or form. With such a simple counter to my oh-so-genius scheme, any argument I could use to rally the troops behind me was shot to hell. They’d never believe me, and whichever one it was would have the death of Al Dossari to hold up as proof. I had been outstepped at pretty much every turn. Maggie had probably served as an unintended well of information to the culprit.