by Jessa Slade
She braced one hand on the door and the other on the frame, as if to hold her place. The metal creaked under her grip. “I’m alive. Forever, apparently.”
“Focus that anger. But not on me.”
“Isn’t that what Darth Vader told Luke?”
“We aren’t the dark side,” he said. “Only shadowed.”
For a long moment, she stared at him. Then she got into the car and sat with her hands tucked between her knees, shoulders hunched.
As he walked around to the driver’s side, he racked his brain for the words of comfort she so clearly needed. Bad enough to theoretically lose her old life to the demon inside her, but to have seen that old life brutalized must be devastating. Uneasily, he remembered how his wife’s inevitable aging, their retreat deeper into the forest so that none might question his endless youth, had eaten at him. If that had happened all at once, he would have been as torn apart as the men inside the Shimmy Shack.
“Nim,” he said as he climbed into his seat.
She turned to him. “I want to destroy them. Like you did that show-and-tell monster. I want to rip them into pieces so small we won’t even find their eyeballs to watch the dark creep in.”
Her voice was even. In the flat haze of the climbing sun, no hint of the demon’s violet flickered. She sat perfectly still, and yet he felt every muscle in his body tighten. She wasn’t asking permission. She wanted direction; she wanted to be unleashed.
And he’d wanted a weapon, he reminded himself. An uneasy chill followed the line of his reven down his back as his demon roused to the threat of her, the promise.
The most dangerous weapons were seldom safe.
The rattle of a jackhammer on concrete broke the moment. His gaze slid away from hers to focus on the construction crew gathered near the intersection. A flagger guided the single lane of traffic around the orange cones. The orderly progression, so unlike the teshuva’s frenzied energy through his damaged body, made him wonder. . . . “How did the tenebrae leave?”
She shook her head. “No one in the club—not even the bouncer—had a chance of stopping them.”
“I mean afterward. They got out without leaving a streak of ether, and a pack of blood-crazed ferales isn’t easy to move through the streets.”
Nim rubbed her temple. “Chicken Bob’s car was in the lot. He always stops in on his way to work, right before the club closes, so it must have been five thirty or so.”
“Chicken Bob?” Jonah asked. “Never mind. The sun is up before six these days, so that wasn’t much time to get the ferales out of there.”
After a moment, Nim said, “Both doors were locked from inside. Unless this demon wrangler you’re talking about took a key from one of the bodies . . .”
“They never left the club,” Jonah finished. He looked at the detour signs that blocked off an open sewer grate. “What if the building is above the old Chicago Tunnel Company passageways?” He frowned. “The league tries to stay out of there. Just too much opportunity for trouble, and we can find enough of that aboveground.”
“If that’s where the bastard with my anklet went, that’s where we’re going.” She fumbled for the door handle.
He reached across his body to grab her arm. “Not here. The place will be crawling with cops soon, and they’ll want answers we can’t give them.”
“I want answers,” Nim spit out.
“We want a map,” he said. “And backup.”
“Why don’t we—?”
“Because I can’t.” There was no demon in his voice, but she flinched.
He drove away from the scene of the crime. She slumped in her seat while he called Liam from his cell—although she gave him a sidelong glance as he steered with his knees. The league leader answered groggily, and Jonah heard Jilly in the background, complaining. They’d been out all night, subduing the tenebrae riled up for the last week by Nim’s unbound demon. But when he told them of the massacre, they fell silent.
“Wait for us,” Jilly said, her voice muffled.
“Wait for us,” Liam echoed. “We’ll call you with the closest access to the tunnel system and meet you there. Not everyone’s home today, but I’ll call in as many as I can.”
Jonah agreed and hung up.
“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Nim asked, obviously having taken advantage of her demon amplified hearing. “Drive around in circles?”
“We’ll get breakfast.”
She stared at him. She’d washed away the dark makeup at her apartment, but that just made the bruises of shock and weariness more visible. “Breakfast?”
“The morning meal. And it is still morning.” Despite all that had happened.
“I can’t eat after . . .”
“After what? Death? Murder? Demonic possession? If you wait for peace and quiet, you’ll starve.”
She averted her red-rimmed eyes to gaze out the window until he pulled up outside the hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and reached over to touch her arm. A pang of regret pierced him when she started, as if she’d forgotten where she was.
He wanted the poised, brazen dancer back. The teshuva would erase that external evidence of her distress, but inside she would still hurt. And like the demon, he had no cure for that. “Have some coffee, at least. It’s been a long night, and the teshuva’s first ascension takes more out of you than you might guess.”
She trailed him to the entrance, past a yellowed CLOSING SOON! Sign. Though he held the door open for her, she paused on the threshold, nostrils flaring. The familiar, sweet scent of corn porridge hit him, and then a wafting hint of lanolin pomade.
“Mr. Walker, hello again.” The woman behind the U-shaped counter opened her hands, her smile as white as the oxford that kept its points despite the contrasting shine of exertion on her dark skin. Her gaze shifted to Nim, and her crisp British accent overtook the long, native vowels. “A booth today? And then your usual?”
“We’ll take a menu, Ms. Mbengue, thank you.” He gestured for Nim to go ahead.
She didn’t go to the booth. Instead she chose a table pushed up against the padded bench along the side wall. Her wary gaze made the rounds, taking in the half dozen diners, the worn but clean linoleum counters, the plastic pastry case of sugared peanuts. After her experiences so far, Jonah thought her teshuva must be running close to the surface, amped up on lurking threats with nowhere to strike. When would the meltdown hit?
Ms. Mbengue returned with menus. Nim slouched behind the laminated shield. “Can I get a coffee, please? Extra cream and sugar?”
The woman nodded. “Cardamom chai, Mr. Walker?”
“Please.” When she’d gone, he said to Nim, “I can recommend any of the house specialties.”
“Ooh, she’s a gourmet chef as well as an impeccable laundress? Plus she has amazing skin. Another of your accomplished women.” Nim plucked at her tight T-shirt where a rusty stain streaked the white cotton over her navel. Dried blood.
He gave her a reproving look. “Ms. Mbengue is no chef, just a refugee who pulled herself from the brink after her children were killed in some unreported Congolese massacre and she was left for dead. And for the last year, her landlord has been threatening to condemn this block, which would leave me no place for breakfast.”
Nim slumped lower in her seat. “Life sucks. Where’s a demon slayer when you need one?”
“Demons weren’t responsible. Just men.” When she didn’t look up from contemplating her shirt, he suggested, “Go wash your hands and find your spine so you can sit up straight. I’ll order for us.”
She pushed to her feet, jolting the table a few inches toward him, and headed for the restrooms. Not quite stomping, which was hard to do in sneakers. At least the doldrums had been chased from her sea-change eyes.
He followed a moment later, to make sure she didn’t slip out the back. From the eddies of negative energy, he knew she hadn’t.
He lathered up his hand and hook, and returned to the table just as Ms. Mbengue brought
the flowered china on a tray. Without a single rattle of cup on saucer, she transferred the items to the table. “There you are, Mr. Walker. Now, what will you have?”
“Second thoughts?” He rubbed his forehead.
“Ah, but you must have first thoughts first. Which, perhaps, has not been the case here.”
“Probably not. Meanwhile, two bowls of ugali and we’ll share the kikwanga.”
She straightened as if to leave, but hesitated. “If I may suggest . . .”
He looked at the menu, wondering if he had missed something. “Please do.”
“Your young lady.”
His missing hand twitched. “Ah.”
“In her eyes, I see things. The sorts of things that chased me from my home and wake me up in the night when I think I have finally forgotten. I do not know whether to warn her. Or you.”
“Thank you for your concern,” he said gravely. “It is not misplaced.”
Her gaze searched his face. “Not all wars happen on the outside. I know this. Breakfast will be up in a moment.”
Jonah watched her walk away. At least the eternal supernatural war raging under her nose rarely erupted into the horrors he’d seen this morning. Would she want to help him if she knew he was proving as useless in this battle as his sermons had been in her country?
Ah, but now he had his weapon.
Nim returned with the front of her T-shirt soaked where she’d obviously tried to scrub out the blood. The stain, though fainter, remained, and now the thin white cotton—already fitted against her skin—was nearly transparent. He sighed and reminded himself that he’d decided earlier that her lack of a brassiere was the least of his problems.
Maybe he needed to reevaluate his many, many problems.
CHAPTER 8
Nim focused on adding as much cream and sugar to her coffee as possible without overflowing the pretty cup, until Ms. Mbengue brought their meal.
The woman studied the debris of empty packets and little plastic containers. “If you need anything—”
“Thank you.” As Ms. Mbengue departed, Jonah took the round bread, his hook neatly pinning the loaf to the board, and sliced off the end. “This will go easier if your belly isn’t growling along with your demon.”
“Is that what you told your African kids?”
He put down the knife and gave her his patented reproving look. “Sometimes we didn’t have that luxury.”
She stared at her plate. “What is it?”
“Grits and flat bread. Every culture has some version. Just like they all have some variation on the war between good and evil.”
“Why not tell them the truth?”
“And make them face what you faced this morning?”
“But the cleaning crew, then the police, they’re going to face it anyway. Only they won’t know what’s going on.”
“And do you feel better knowing?”
“But I don’t want to be the only one who knows.” She finally drank her coffee, all of it, in one long gulp, as if she could wash down the rest of the words bubbling up.
He lowered his chin, eyes half-closed, and she thought he was saying grace. “No one believed you when you were raped, but this time you are not alone.”
Shit. Had she been that obvious? She pulled her bowl closer and took a few bites, rather than meet his gaze.
He kept his voice low, knowing she’d hear—thanks to the teshuva—even if she didn’t want to listen. “Our task, with the demons’ help, is to fight evil and win our salvation. Everything else falls away.”
She put her spoon down, rattling the bowl. “Why did the demon even pick me? I never wanted to be saved.”
“The teshuva are never interested in restful souls.”
“Why’d the demon pick you? You had it all. A loving wife. A mission in life. Your God.”
It was his turn to put his spoon down, though more gently. His jaw worked for a moment, as if he didn’t want to speak but couldn’t curb his defense. “Yes, we were missionaries serving in Africa. A life of service was what we’d chosen.”
She was in the service industry too. She might have tweaked him about it, but the bleakness in his voice took the fun out of torturing him. “You just didn’t know that your life would be so long.”
“Or that hers would pass so quickly in comparison.” His thumb smoothed over the gold band around his ring finger, a tiny, endless circle, like a nun counting a solitary bead on a rosary. “We were supposed to be together, teaching others our joy in God, digging wells, building schools, planting maize. Instead . . .”
Joy? She tried to picture a joyful Jonah, that full lower lip curved in a simple smile, eyes bright not with demon lights but with laughter.
When he didn’t continue, she asked softly, “What happened? How did a man of God end up with a demon lodged in his soul?”
He rubbed his neck where the demon mark spread in a black-rayed starburst just above his collar. “I was bitten by a spider.”
“A spider brought you down?”
“Would you be more impressed if I told you it was a tarantula?”
“No, since a tarantula bite won’t kill you.” When he gave her a surprised look, she shrugged. “I did research on exotic pets when I got Mobi. A tarantula bite can make you ill, but it won’t kill you.”
“I was helping the men clear a forest plot and I didn’t want to stop. There had been some . . . jesting the white men could not work as hard in the jungle, that we were suited only for women’s labor. I wanted to prove them wrong.”
“Oh, that’s why this story doesn’t end well,” she said. “Pride is so not a virtue.”
“Not that you’ve even a passing acquaintance with the concept,” he grumbled.
She set one fingertip in the notch of her upper lip and flashed him her me-so-innocent eyes. “Which? Pride or virtue? Never mind. Go on.”
“I was nauseated and dizzy. Which is how I cut myself on the machete.”
“Luckily, that convinced you to go home.” At his rueful expression, she sighed. “Or not.”
“By the time we returned to the village the next day, I was feverish. My wife recognized the signs of blood poisoning right away.”
“I’m surprised you admitted any weakness.”
“I might have resisted,” he admitted. “Until I was completely out of my head, anyway. It was a long fight. At one point, I was on the verge of giving up. It was too hard to keep drawing another breath. But she saved my life.”
Nim tucked her hands between her knees. “She loved you.”
“That last night, before my fever broke, she told me I had sworn to love her, protect her, to keep the faith with her, and I could not do that if I died. That I would be betraying our vows.”
Nim knew the burn scars on her legs were all but gone, thanks to the demon, but she swore she felt the ache of them where her knuckles pressed. That vow sounded sort of like love. It also sounded like a selfish, impossible command.
Jonah must have felt her weighing the contradiction, because he straightened abruptly. “She was right. I’d made a vow. I kept it.”
Suddenly, Nim understood. “That’s when the demon possessed you.”
“That was my penance trigger, the weak spot in my soul the demon exploited. It tricked me with the promise I’d be with her till the end. I didn’t understand she wouldn’t be with me. That was my bane, my curse.”
They both stared down at their breakfast.
Finally he said, “You see now why I am committed to this fight?”
She looked up. That was why he had told her the story? “How many times can you make the same promise?” To a dead woman, she didn’t add.
He met her gaze. “Forever. Just as the demon promised.”
Perhaps Ms. Mbengue had felt the tension, because she whisked over with a carafe in either hand. “More coffee, ma’am? More chai, Mr. Walker?”
Jonah shook his head. When Nim pushed her saucer closer to the edge of the table, Ms. Mbengue said, “I’ll
bring extra cream and sugar.”
“Don’t bother,” Nim said. “I’ll drink it black now.”
Jonah’s phone rang. Ms. Mbengue drifted away politely. Nim picked up her spoon and pricked her ears.
A brusque voice came thinly across the line. “It’s Archer. There’s an access to the tunnel system that will put us ahead of the police when they get to the club. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pick up the tenebrae imprints.” He rattled off an address and disconnected.
“Drug dealers get calls like that,” Nim noted. “Hit men too. And cheating husbands.”
“Friends of yours?”
She gave him a smile, all teeth. “Just business.”
“So is this.” He stood to pull out his wallet and tucked a few bills under his cup.
She gulped the last of her coffee. “You left a good tip, right?” When he gave her a hard look, she shrugged. “Just asking. Since you never tipped me.”
“Almost twenty percent,” he said stiffly.
“Okay, then. It was just me.” She stalked ahead of him.
They drove back toward the club, then angled away a half dozen streets toward the given address. Nim twisted her hands in her lap. “Whatever is down in the tunnels could go any direction.”
Jonah shook his head. “It’s a maze, but it’s a maze with maps.”
“I’m so sure monsters follow maps,” she snapped.
“Except the ones that can bash through walls.” He parked in a row behind three nondescript dark sedans. “There’s Liam’s car.”
“Do you all drive such boring cars?”
“Fighting evil doesn’t pay as well as stripping.” He got out.
By the time he crossed to her side of the car, she’d already popped out and was staring at the four-story office building with its multicolored signs for a real estate office, a chiropractor, a CPA. “The doorway to hell is here?”
“No, the doorway to last century’s freight-tunnel system is here. The door to hell has better signage.”
He led the way inside and found the stairwell. The stairs leading up were smooth concrete. The stairs going down were metal grate with no hand railing.
At the lowest level, a voice called out Jonah’s name.