by N. P. Martin
The music got louder as he neared the door. Normally such loud music wouldn’t have bothered him, but thanks to Marv the demon’s elbow, his skull was already protesting at the sonic torture about to be unleashed when he opened the door, which he had to do.
His Beretta was missing. No surprise.
The knife however, was still in his jacket. As already stated: amateurs.
Frank took the knife out, glad to have at least some protection going into the bar. He took a breath and opened the door, choosing to move quickly forward as opposed to carefully.
There was no time for carefulness. If the demons in the basement woke up, he’d be dead as soon as.
Walking into the bar was like walking into a wall of sound first of all. The heavy rock music seemed to pound on his head immediately like a rapidly opening and closing vice against his skull.
The pain was debilitating, causing him to stagger, put one hand to his head like he was trying to stop it from falling to pieces.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he reacted out of pure instinct and turned towards the threat, bringing the knife forward at the same time, the blade stabbing into flesh. Frank barely looked at who it was he just knifed. He just knew it was a demon when the amber light exploded in front of him.
He quickly turned and tried to orientate himself as he staggered along. He was moving past empty tables and alongside the bar, behind which stood a shocked barman who could only stare at the demon dying behind Frank.
Frank never gave the barman a second glance. He had spotted the front doors, just past the end of the bar.
I can make it easy, he thought. No other threats around. The path is clear.
Stay sharp, Frank.
Easy for you to say when you’re all the way in Hell, he thought.
The barman didn’t seem to be making any moves. No one in front.
Six feet to the doors and then out to the car.
Frank never even saw the guy that tackled him and drove him into the bar. The guy just seemed to burst from the shadows and slam into Frank like a raging bull.
Luckily for Frank, his attacker never capitalized properly on his element of shock and surprise, continuing to lean into Frank like a football player, pushing him into the bar, maybe in some attempt to crush Frank’s ribs. Whatever, it didn’t work.
Knife still in hand, Frank swung the blade up and around into his attackers back, who froze solid for a second before jumping on that elevator. Frank pushed him back and immediately headed for the front doors.
He burst out the doors and staggered into the cool air outside, which was another shock to his tortured head.
The car was twenty yards away.
He somehow managed to run most of that distance. Staggered the last few yards.
Opened the car and fell inside. Struggled to remember where the keys were.
Jacket pocket.
He put the key in the ignition and started the Chevy. Looked up to see the demons come piling out of the bar, Krakus and the other two from the basement, plus another one.
Frank slammed the car into reverse, hit the brakes briefly and then sped forward. “Fuck you, Krakus,” he said as he disappeared into the dirty streets of the Southside.
CHAPTER 8
As Frank gunned it out of the Southside, hardly slowing as he crossed the bridge back to relative civilization again, he reflected that things could have gone slightly better tonight.
The drink had made him reckless. Again. He’d have to watch that.
Under other circumstances when he wasn’t quite so inebriated, he maybe wouldn’t have stirred shit up the way he did in the liquor store. Maybe he would have taken things a bit more slowly, sat in the car for a while, scoped the place out first. Maybe.
It didn’t matter now anyway. His skull, which felt like it had been cleaved in two and superglued back together again, didn’t much care about what he would have done. It only cared about the pain he had caused it.
He needed to lie down for a while, to rest. He would heal then, though not as quickly as he would like due to the fact that he used up almost of all his reserve of grace. It took time to replenish within him, a fact that always pissed him off. Apparently, since he was only half angel, he also only got half the grace, if that. Angels never ran out of grace. It was like the archangel who created the second generation of Nephilim left his creations with only the dregs of his grace, after he had kept most of it for himself obviously.
Frank had no idea what time it was since the clock in the dash was broken, permanently stuck on two minutes to midnight. Neither did he care what time it was either. He only cared about getting a few stiff ones before putting his head down for a day or two. In reality though, he knew he would only get an hour or two at most. Sleep wasn’t a big feature in Frank’s life these days.
The cabin was too far of a drive. He doubted he would make it anyway. The massive concussion he was in the grip of was threatening him with unconsciousness. That Marv guy had one hell of an elbow strike on him. A lesser mortal would be dead by now.
A thought struck him. Eva.
He didn’t know where the thought came from as he struggled to see through the windshield which appeared to be zooming in and out of view as he drove through the thankfully quietened down streets of the city. He hadn’t seen Eva since the funeral. A bit much to be landing at her door at whatever time of the morning it now was.
Since when did you care about things being a bit much, Frank? You just do what you gotta do, right?
Sure. Whatever he had to do.
He took a hard left and headed towards Jocelyn Park.
Sometime later he parked the car across the road from the central park, down the street from the main entrance gates, which were shut at this time.
Eva lived in the brownstone he was parked right outside off. Frank sat in the car, grateful he didn’t have to drive anymore. The effort of trying to stay focused so he didn’t veer into some lamp post or pedestrian had drained him. Almost by instinct he reached into his jacket pocket and felt the hard smoothness of the Jack bottle. He took out the bottle and took a slow drink of the whiskey inside, swilling it around inside his mouth to try and get rid of the coppery taste of blood. His decimated nose throbbed like a bitch and he realized that he couldn’t breathe when he covered his mouth with the bottle. He almost choked on the booze as he tried to breathe through his nose, a once automatic action that now caused him searing pain.
That motherfucker, Krakus. Frank resolved to destroy him just for tonight. Just for busting his nose.
That would have to wait though.
With great effort he managed to climb out of the car and haul himself up the stone steps to Eva’s front door.
He knocked the dark green door three times with his knuckles and waited, leaning against the wall with one hand, holding himself up.
“Yes?” said a voice on the other side of the door. Wary, but unafraid of what might lie on the other side. A subtle hint of threat in the voice too, an almost unconscious warning of you’d better not be trouble or else...
“It’s Frank.”
A few elongated seconds later and the door opened half way, a dark haired woman’s head peering from around it.
“Eva,” Frank said.
“Jesus, Frank,” Eva said when she saw the state of his face. Frank figured it must have been bad because Eva didn’t shock that easily. She came around from behind the door and took him by the arm, helping him into the dark hallway. He noticed she had her Watcher knife in her other hand, which she placed on a small table in the hallway so as to support him with both hands as she directed him down the hall to the kitchen. Eva turned on a light when they got to the kitchen, which made Frank’s eyes hurt and consequently his head. “Sit at the table.” Eva sat him down on a chair by the big wooden table in the dining area of the kitchen.
“Sorry for turning up like this,” Frank said. “I was having a bit of difficulty. This seemed like a good idea. I’ll go if you want.”<
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“Wise up, Frank,” Eva said, as direct as ever. “Look at the state of you. What happened to your face? You’re covered in blood. And your nose.” She narrowed her gaze at his nose, which was probably spread around half his face.
“I had a bit of bother with some demons. Nothing new.”
Eva retrieved a first aid kit from a cupboard in the kitchen. “You could have called me, you know. Asked for my help.” She pulled a chair up right next to him and sat down.
“I haven’t seen you since...in over a year, Eva.”
“And?”
Frank focused on her for the first time since he’d got there as she started pulling things out of the first aid bag, setting them on the table—gauge, bandages, antiseptic. She hadn’t changed a bit since the last time he saw her. Even with his currently impaired vision, he could see there wasn’t a single line on her face that wasn’t there a year before. Her huge blue eyes were as focused and as intoxicating as ever as she took an antiseptic wipe and began to dab at the blood on his forehead. She probably still smelled as alluring as he always remembered her to be, but he couldn’t tell since his sense of smell was as damaged as the rest of his nose. “You’re too forgiving.”
“No, Frank.” Eva grabbed a fresh wipe and went to work on cleaning away the blood again. “You’re just too hard on yourself. We all grieve in different ways. Obviously for you that involves whiskey and nearly getting yourself killed by demons.”
“There’s another way?”
“Yes. You could try talking. We were friends once.”
“So you are pissed off I haven’t called.” She pressed the wipe in her hand against his nose, causing Frank to yelp in pain. “Shit! I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You’re actually not as bad as I thought.” She shone a small pen light into both his eyes. “You are however concussed quite badly.”
“You’re telling me.” He pulled out the whiskey bottle, ignoring the shaking of Eva’s head. “I’ll be okay when the healing kicks in. Could take a bit longer than usual though. Kind of used up most of the bad stuff earlier when I had to pull a blinder.”
“You did a grace explosion? Things must have been bad.”
“They were,” Frank said, disappointed to see that he had finished all the whiskey in the bottle. He sat the empty bottle on the table.
Eva glanced at the bottle. “Drinking on the job now? You never used to do that.”
“Only have myself to worry about now,”
“That really seems to be working out for you by the looks of things.”
Frank shrugged. “I’m not dead.”
“Not yet anyway.” Eva stood over Frank in her figure hugging dark green robe. Frank knew she had no underwear on underneath. She gently placed both her hands on his face. “What are you doing?”
“Healing you.”
He pushed down on her thin wrists. “No. Don’t drain yourself on my account.”
“It’s fine. Really.”
He shook his head. “No.”
Eva frowned. “Anyone would think you want to keep the pain. Do you?”
Frank stared back at her. Said nothing.
“Frank, Frank,” she said, a soft smile on her lips. “At least let me heal that nose. It’s bad. You can’t even breathe properly. You can keep the headache.”
A slight smile of resignation crossed Frank’s lips and he realized then that he missed Eva, missed her lack of judgment, the enigmatic way she had about her. It was that essential mystery at Eva’s core, the unashamed and deliciously dark sexuality that seemed to ooze effortlessly from her every pore that drove him into bed with her once. If he hadn’t of fallen into mutually assured destruction with Rachel, him and Eva might have developed their own little twisted love affair. As it was, Eva remained aloof out of respect for Rachel, who was Eva’s best friend, if such a thing even existed in the Watcher life. “I’m glad I came here tonight.”
Eva’s smoky blue eyes seemed to smolder for a second while she considered him. “Don’t get all sentimental on me now, Frank,” she said.
“Alright. Heal the mess on my face so I can raid your booze cabinet.”
“Well, it looks like this is your lucky night,” she said, placing her hands over his busted nose. “Since you won’t be drinking alone for once.”
Frank smiled up at her, even though her hands covered his mouth as well. He kept his eyes open just as white light began to emanate from her hands. As he looked into her eyes, he saw a light dance around inside of all that blueness. Within seconds he felt the cartilage in his nose begin to repair itself, cracking back together again. At the same time the tissue around it pulled back into shape, the blood vessels and nerves bursting back into life again, the skin knitting back together. Soon he could breathe freely through both nostrils, which was a relief, the improved airflow even helping to subdue the pain in his head. When the white light went out and Eva removed her hands, Frank no longer felt like he was slowly dying. The headache was still there though. “Why do I feel like I have a hangover?” he said. “I didn’t ask you to cure my liver as well.”
“I think your liver is plenty cured at this point,” Eva said, looking down on him with her arms folded across her chest, pushing her breasts up to expose her ample cleavage.
“Whatever,” Frank said. “Show me to your finest whiskey.”
Eva shook her head and pursed her lips slightly. “Follow me.”
They went down the hall and into the living room, where Eva switched on a lamp in one corner that threw just enough light into the room to make it seem intimate. Heavy red curtains were drawn over the large front window against the dark outside. The room was as Frank remembered it the last time he was in there, which would have been a few weeks before Rachel died, when the three of them were having a drink together after sorting a case they were all working on. God, he wished he was back in those days, when the darkness hadn’t seemed quite as insufferable as it did now.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Eva said as she went to an elegant looking drinks table and set about pouring bourbon into two glasses.
Frank sat down on the cream colored fabric couch and resisted the urge to put his feet up on the large square coffee table in the middle of the room. “Still a clean freak, I see.”
Eva walked to the couch with the two glasses of bourbon and handed him one. “You know,” she said as she sat next to him, but not too close. “Just because we hunt scum doesn’t mean we have to live like them as well.”
“Are you saying I’m a scumbag?”
Eva chuckled. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You know it isn’t nineteen seventy nine, right? When’s the last time you saw a barber?”
“You’re right,” Frank said, smiling. “I’ve let myself go a bit.”
“I’m just joking. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you the last year.”
Frank downed his whiskey in one, pressed the empty glass into his leg. “Not really. You?”
Eva smiled tightly. “The first six months were hard. I’m coping now.”
A massive wave of guilt washed over Frank as he stared at Eva. He hadn’t even called to see how she was doing because he was so wrapped up in his own grief. She could have been in a bad way for all he knew. She could have needed him. And he wasn’t there. “I know I was being a selfish asshole by staying away,” he said. “But why didn’t you reach out to me? Not that I blame you for not reaching out. I mean, I get it.”
“I did reach out, Frank,” Eva said before getting off the couch and walking to the drinks table again.
“What do you mean?”
Eva snatched the bottle of bourbon of the drinks table and brought it back to the couch, where she refilled both their glasses. “You ignored all my calls. You told me to go away and leave you alone the one time I visited you at the cabin. You didn’t even open the door.”
Shame added itself to the guilt in Frank as he suddenly remembered the night Eva had called at the cabin. He had forgotten about it because
he had been blind drunk at the time. “I’m sorry.”
Eva shook her head. “You wanted to deal with things alone. I thought it best if I let you do that. I knew you’d show up again at some point.”
Frank smiled at her, for the first time in a long time not feeling like he was completely alone. The warmth he felt from that familiar connection with her seemed to thaw some of the ice in his veins. Why did Rachel have to be the one to capture his heart so completely? If he could have chosen, he would have chosen Eva. He never did have a choice on that one however.
Now you do, Frank. I’m not around anymore. What’s stopping you?
You know what’s stopping me.
Because you still love me? Or because of guilt, Frank?
“You okay?” Eva asked.
“Sure,” Frank said, nodding. “Why don’t you tell me about your latest case? What are you working on?”
Eva seemed to consider him for a long time, then she smiled, put her glass on the table. She leaned over, took his glass as well, set it on the coffee table.
“What are you doing?” Frank asked.
Eva lithely straddled him on his lap in one swift move, fixed him in her spellbinding blue eyes. He always said, someone of Eva’s character, she should have been a witch, not a Watcher. “Just relax,” she said hoarsely.
Frank didn’t say anything. As surprised as he was by her sudden advances, he was already completely drawn in by her. He couldn’t resist her. She obviously needed it. So did he, he realized.
As she leaned down to kiss him with her soft lips, he pulled her in tight and soon he was lost in her.
Soon, they were lost in each other.
CHAPTER 9
Afterwards they both got dressed, still in the living room, Frank feeling slightly shell shocked by the whole situation, although he had to admit he felt better in himself than he had done in a long while. He couldn’t help wondering however, how long it would take before the guilt came along and shattered his current state of serenity.
“Now we can talk,” Eva said as she tied her dark green robe, looking perfectly poised like the sex had taken nothing out of her.