by LW Herndon
“To time,” she said. “Eternity is a very long time. These children will live for several centuries, which would be immortal by human, if not demon, standards.”
I stepped toward the demon. She came to my shoulder, an illusion of tiny and defenseless. Yet I had felt her power earlier, and I was pretty sure she had been holding back. “You gain what by saving these children?”
“It’s not about saving children. At least for me, and you don’t need to pretend detachment.”
I raised a brow and attempted a menacing scowl, getting tired of the wordplay. “What do you gain by saving these children?”
She pushed past me to stroll around the apartment. Her fingers trailed on the table, then over the back of the sofa, and finally lingered on the Bible on my bookshelves. A gift given to me by a woman who felt I needed some spiritual guidance.
“She’s correct,” she said with a smirk.
“Get out of my head.” I felt her mental touch’s slight buzz. Annoying and surprising. I was immune to demons’ penetration of my thoughts—or so I had assumed.
“Shield yourself.”
“What do you gain?”
“It’s not a simple answer.” Turning back, she looked at me. Her hand still rested on the Bible. “Do you value your soul?”
“Whether I do or not, doesn’t matter. Demons don’t have souls, so I fail to see the relevance to you.”
“No, not now.” She turned away from me and crossed her arms. “Either way, these youths have value.”
“So you want them for your own purposes. To manipulate?” I returned to the counter and opened the jar of capers, popped one in my mouth, and waited. Her gaze followed my every movement. The lust cycled back with a vengeance, but I focused on the salty brine in my mouth and ignored the sensation in my groin. “Perhaps to devour their souls.”
“No.” Her spontaneous jerk signaled truth. “The children need to fulfill their—” she frowned, “destiny.”
I tapped a finger against my nonexistent watch again.
She sighed. “These immortals are cogs in mankind’s final assessment.” She tapped the Bible again. “The ultimate judgment.”
“By saving these children you get what?”
“I do what I’m told.” She settled on the couch arm to watch me.
“So your clan wants the children alive.” I doubted that, but she remained silent, not bothering with an alternate explanation. “To what end? To contribute to humanity’s demise?”
“Ye of little faith. This isn’t a poker game, and I’m not playing with the deck. If it were a game of skill, and understand me well, I’m all about the sure thing—the proper order of things—I play to win.”
I thought about it for a few minutes. The existence of humans who mutated into immortals didn’t ring a bell, but in the grand scheme of long-lived beings, I possessed an infant’s equivalent of insight on the knowledge slide rule. There were plenty of things I didn’t know. Would never know. “If there are pre-immortals, then there must be full-fledged immortals?”
She nodded once.
“No doubt they’ll save their own children.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, as she appeared to deliberate some detail, and then decided to give some information. I doubted it would be everything.
“Immortals are a mutation in the human DNA. These children aren’t born in a lineage. They evolve randomly. So it’s difficult to anticipate where they’ll show up.”
I leaned forward toward the counter, my hands braced against the edge, and squinted at her. “But you have a way to anticipate where they’ll show up, or you wouldn’t want my help.”
“Yes.”
“And the adults?”
“They are few and secretive. They may not know of the danger to their kind. They may not care.”
“Seems unlikely.”
“I don’t have insight into everything, Kane.”
“We aren’t on a first-name basis.”
She raised a brow, yet remained silent.
“And you still haven’t given any reason why I need to be involved in your pet project.”
“You have special talents.”
I felt another scowl coming on. My talents weren’t common knowledge, and I wasn’t up for the highest demon bidder. Though probably better to know what she knew. “Specifically?”
“You have enhanced senses for finding things: people, demons, sorcerers…immortals. You will be able to detect these children. Unfortunately, as they approach sixteen or seventeen, their blood begins to change, and others can detect them also. My bet is you can detect them sooner.”
I moved around the counter toward her, wanting to find some sense of truth in her eyes. Demons don’t work that way. “There are demons with enhanced ability of scent.”
“True, but you sense more than just scent. You also have immunity to some of the downfalls demons face from the enclave organizing this extermination.”
Great, I was Plan A. “So I’m expendable.”
“You are not without skills to defend yourself. You also have more motivation than demons.”
“Evidently, present company excluded.”
“My reasons are personal. I will lend my assistance.” Her blank expression shut down more information on the topic. “You’ve dealt with the Consortium before, as well. They may view themselves as an evolved corporation, an elite membership of dark magic, but deep down they are nothing more than petty thugs. Besides, this is right up your alley of charitable causes.”
“I don’t have charitable causes.” Some days it seemed everyone knew more than a comfortable number of details about me. My world was getting smaller by the minute.
“Funny man. These children are plucked off one by one. Tell me their deaths don’t appall your sense of righteousness.”
I waited.
“You’ll be rewarded generously. Gold, if you require it.” She opened her fist, palm up. A chain of gold links threaded through her fingers and spilled off her hand. At my lack of response, it disappeared. “Or a pound of flesh, if that’s your pleasure.” Her eyes roved again, changing from amber to a deeper bronze hue.
My eyes closed. I tried to fend off the images of sensual flesh she slid through my mind. “You can stop with the payment menu.”
“Okay, so we’ll hold on the flesh. I’m certain I can match Shalim’s payments of gold.”
I briefly considered having her help place the boy, but demons were predictable about using anyone close to you as leverage. He was too vulnerable for me to cut him free, which meant I needed to retain responsibility for his safety. I passed on the idea, especially since her offer held more questions than answers.
The gold, on the other hand, might provide a lot of goodwill. Buy some favors. Buy a life, several, maybe. Lives are disgustingly cheap these days.
She watched as if she were tracking all my thoughts and nodded when she seemed to guess I had resolved the issue. “We start with the gold. If this arrangement works out, perhaps I can add something of a more personal nature.”
“Not the boy.” I whipped away from the counter toward the demon. She had the good sense to disappear. Only a waft of burnt tallow and cinnamon bore witness to her presence. The only thing left, since I didn’t even have her name to summon her.
Great.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Three hours since Chaz had dropped me off at the hospital. Shalim would be fuming. I had no doubt this new demon’s offer wouldn’t please Shalim. Demons weren’t big on shared loyalties, for obvious reasons.
Well, ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. Shalim would have to wait just a bit longer. I still had one more errand.
I grabbed Chaz’s jacket and headed out.
CHAPTER 4
The shutters nailed closed and the exterior paint’s original color long since obscured beneath the dense abstract graffiti on the walls, the homeless shelter on the corner of Albemarle and Fifth was nonetheless functional and in business.
I knocked until the dead bolt clicked. The front door opened a fraction, still restrained by a thick steel chain.
“Kane, I don’t have time to talk right now. You know how it is before we open.”
“Tal, I just need a minute. I’ve got another one to place.”
She shook her head with a weary expression. Small wisps of gray on black escaped from her braid of hair. “You’re a regular refugee magnet.”
I spread my hands and tried my best beguiling smile. “It always brings me here.”
The smile didn’t work, but she stepped back to let me in, then closed and locked the door behind me. “I don’t know if I can help, but you can have ten minutes. Make yourself useful.” She nodded to the stacks of folding chairs against the wall. “So what’s the situation with this one?”
“About twelve. Abducted, drugged, and cut up pretty bad.”
She stood back, hands on her hips, and gave me a stern look, one that aged her beyond her sixty-five years. “And you ran across this one in what, the grocery store? What the heck do you do with your free time?”
“You know me, Tal, just out looking for trouble.” The sad truth was, trouble always found me. Always had.
Her snort declared her opinion. “Doesn’t he have family? You know there’s no help for older kids. Not even foster care wants to touch the kind of trouble you spouted.”
“I don’t think he’s trouble. Just in a bad place.” I thought back to the buckets of blood and had to look away from her frank stare.
“Aren’t they all, darlin’.”
“They’ve got him in critical care. When he makes it out—”
She shook her head. “Kane, there’s no way I can find a place for a kid with a habit. Even if I could, it would take money.” She paused, and I knew what was coming. “Just because I find him someplace doesn’t mean he’ll stay.”
“He didn’t do it to himself. I can come up with money for him.” She was a softie. I wasn’t above pushing every tender button. “He just needs somebody to keep an eye out for him.”
Her eyes widened, startled with concern, and then she looked away. Talia flagged personal accountability as her number one rule. “The person who did this to him?”
I leaned back against the table. “Had an unfortunate accident.”
“Kane—”
“Wasn’t me.” I patted my palms on my chest. “Swear to God.”
She contemplated me for a moment and then turned to the chairs. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter.”
I opened chairs and slid them across the wood floor with more force than necessary, trying to spin off excess energy in a safe manner.
“These kids are like shadows.” After a shake of her head, she paused. “I don’t see them. Or I would have to call social services. They stay clear of me. But you—”
“They’re just trying to survive, Tal.” She’d been burned too many times. It wouldn’t stop me from asking. In spite of her reluctance, she had an incredible number of resources and cold-steel courage.
“Don’t you think I know what their lives are like?” One knuckle rubbed at a spot between her brows, the gesture a telltale sign I was making headway. “I grew up here. I’ve seen it. I lived so close to that edge I can feel its clammy hand on the back of my neck. So I know there are things you can’t fix, Kane.”
I pulled a chair around, sat on it backwards, and looked her in the eye. “Not ready to give up, Tal. Just not quite there yet.”
Talia sighed and rested a hand on my arm. “I’ll ask around anyway, see what I can do.”
I nodded. She always did everything she could, and sometimes she pulled out a miracle. “How’s volume lately?”
She reached for a chair and then paused, turning back to me. “A couple of the regulars have been missing: Deke, Stanley, Pedro. They stay pretty much holed up under the interstate overpass, but at least they were consistent about coming in for dinner.” The chair flipped open under the pressure from her hands. The harsh snap and clank of metal on wood seemed to punctuate her thoughts. “You knew that.”
I knew more than I wanted to. I had run across Stanley’s body in a sorcerer sighting two weeks ago. The recon of a sorcerer’s scout led us to the body. A disappointment for Chaz—no hot site for sorcerers. A disappointment for me—Stanley’s late-thirties body, sun-leathered and worn on top of his natural walnut coloring, had been dumped by a scout. Several days deceased, he no longer resembled the reclusive alcoholic whose occasional quirks of humor sparked through his darker recollections of honorable military service. Existing day-to-day somehow crossed Stanley’s path with the Consortium’s for reasons I hadn’t yet determined. A full-blooded human, the homeless man possessed no signs of the anomalies I encountered in the children. Perhaps he’d only been an option to use as another scout and rejected for reasons defined by the sorcerers.
There wasn’t a need to tell Talia. She couldn’t do anything to help Stanley now.
I kept an eye out for the others, since I ran these streets a lot. The way in and out of the underworld isn’t paved through suburbia. It’s paved through all the dark back alleys of Talia’s neighborhood and ones like it. I had seen my share and then some. Perhaps an odd perspective, but my life with demons was in many ways better than the average person’s on these streets. I couldn’t compare my struggles with the level of fight, flight, and betrayal these people dealt with every day. Or maybe I was just good at denial.
Tal wanted to guard them all. In her own way, she was a gatekeeper for death in this neighborhood—she kept it away a little bit longer. I tried to keep an eye on her charges when I had time.
“Wasn’t sure,” I said. “Those guys fall under the radar easily. I’ve heard a group in town might be trying to benefit from their obscurity.” The Consortium didn’t used to prey on children. The homeless and indigent could disappear with only the notice of people like Talia. And me. No muss, no fuss. The migration to younger kids didn’t rule out that the sorcerers were still taking homeless off the streets.
She opened her mouth but reconsidered whatever she intended to say. We have sort of a “don’t ask and I won’t have to lie to you” policy.
“I don’t know any specifics that would help. If I did, I would tell you.” It was all I could offer her.
She nodded. “Would it help to bring the police in?”
I shook my head. “Too fringe of an element for them to catch.”
“How do you know that?” Fingering the cross on the chain over her sweater, she held up a hand. “No. I just don’t want you to become another statistic.”
How close she was to the truth. I gave a rueful laugh and stood to kiss her on the cheek. “Tal, I’m just too wicked to go away.” I put my chair back in formation.
She followed me to the door, prepared to lock it behind me. “Peace, Kane. Be safe.”
***
I walked along the line of men waiting to get into the shelter for tonight’s dinner run and nodded to a few of the regulars. Two blocks down, the line of bleary and forsaken warriors ended. I crossed the street and headed toward the church on Mission Street. The doors were always open, for in the poorest part of town, there was little here to steal, and the destitute, drunk, and drugged needed access to God as much as the next man.
From the entry, I took a side stairway to the bell tower. The irony was that this place of grace provided equal access to the faithful of heaven and the most treacherous of hell. At the top of the tower, I turned, opened a recessed door in the pillar, and stepped through into a quick-space of darkness, heat, and power.
For any normal human being, the step would have been a quick and final fifty-foot trip down to the sidewalk below. For me, and the demons of this part of the world, the portal accessed a breach in reality to the subterranean fault line. It provided subway access to the various residences of things that go bump in the night. We could ride the power and breach of the earth’s mantle, surfing the energy tubes to any location. It was also the fastest acces
s to my employer’s domain.
A part-time job it might be, though one I took more seriously than death itself. While death for me had been a little elusive, torture at the hands of Shalim’s clan could last forever. He hadn’t called me home on this particular job, but he did have a limit to his patience.
Highways traveled through much of the underworld, but to step off the fault lines into a particular territory still required the knowledge of where to step and approved access. For my clan, I had both.
I rounded the corner into the main courtyard, a rocky, cavernous expanse. A thick red muscled arm grabbed me around the neck and slammed me into a wall. Shrinking down, I managed to miss the fist coming in for a close pounding of my rugged features. Well, at least, human features.
“Get up, you wretched half-breed.”
Nice to know nothing had changed with life in the lower echelons.
I struggled up and backed away. My hand’s swipe across the back of my head came away wet—blood. Great, I’d attract every hungry blood demon on the way home. “Look, Brazko. Shalim is waiting for me.”
The large demon moved closer. His hot breath fanned my face. The scales around his eyes reflected a deep purple, the same color as the ribbed horn protruding from his head. “He was waiting for you. Now he just wants your miserable carcass brought before him.”
“I can make it there on my own, thanks.”
“Too late.” The muscle-bound, horned demon dug his claws into my shoulder and pulled me up. He dragged me along with the toes of my boots not quite touching the ground. Not a small feat either, given my six foot two stature. I had no chance, given that my height almost matched Brazko’s width, with his height clocking in closer to eight feet. They grow them big in the underworld, and most look much better in human form, though that’s only my opinion.
Luckily for me, most demons don’t have powers in proportion to their size, strength, or egos.