“Rory,” I said. “I need you to organize the cavalry just in case we need rescuing. Can you help me?”
“I don’t know if I can,” the old ghost said, “but I will try. You are a princess, after all.”
Lesson 176: Whether your concern is a contract, a job or an attack on an evil demon mage who can bestow immortality or kill everyone, always have an exit strategy.
18
Rory disappeared in a blink. That’s his thing. I found Psymon outside the van looking at the sky and taking deep, slow breaths.
“How you doing, Psy?” I said.
“I read your — ”
“Mind?”
“Book. You had a lot about him in the first book. The way he popped in kind of freaked me out.”
“You okay?”
“Not being able to hear that guy’s radio kind of freaks me out. I guess I’m used to a station always being on in the background. Static is too weird. I’m so used to weird, now normal is weird, you know?”
“I know,” I said. But I didn’t think looking in the mirror and seeing horns could ever feel normal.
“Do you want to sit down? You’re not feeling well.”
“Are you a mind reader, too, now?” he asked.
“Body language. I always feel better with that old ghost around,” I said. “Without Rory, it’s like we’ve lost our radar. I guess you’re our evil detection system now.”
“Rory can do things I can’t,” Psymon admitted.
“Never mind that. If all goes well tonight, we’ll grab the demon and be out of there.”
“You want Rory here, not me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sorry. When I’m feeling stressed, the telepathy is a lot harder.”
“Psymon, I have a backup plan involving Rory but I hope I won’t need it. If we do need him, half the plan depends on you.”
Sweat gathered on Psymon’s forehead. The heat of the day had eased considerably as cool winds blew over Palo Alto. It wasn’t the temperature that was making Psymon sweat. It was the pressure.
“You find the old ghost more comforting than having me around. He can watch you but I can be inside your head.”
“Things don’t always go smooth with Rory around, you know. Actually, it turned out less than perfect on my first mission for the Choir. Rory told me to run away at a crucial moment.”
“And you didn’t.”
“Castrated a demon, instead.”
“So, like a normal day in your life.”
“I miss that old ghost,” I said. “I felt like he brought me luck, even if he doesn’t believe in luck. But I am glad you’re here. You contributed half of the genes that Fawn got so I’m pretty sure you have to be one of the good guys.”
“Do you believe in luck?”
I was sure Psymon already knew the answer, but he was making polite conversation now. He probably did that a lot. “I guess I don’t,” I said. “I guess I believe stuff happens and you’re either there for it or you’re not. Preparation, skill and happenstance. It’s all luck in disguise.”
Psymon pointed at his watch. “We better lean hard on skill. It’s just about time.”
He handed me a big floppy Santa hat that he had tucked into his belt. The hat was far too big for me. “Largest Manny could find,” he said. “Ready?”
I looked at the sky. The guards’ shift change was at 9 p.m. There was time to practice and set some believable context before going for the sting. “We’ll start on the opposite side of the street.”
“If you can’t be good, be loud,” Psymon said.
“You know the backup plan?”
Psymon stared in my eyes a moment. “Yup. I’ll work on my deep breathing techniques and try to stay relaxed.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “What you’re asking is a tall order but I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all anyone can ask. Thank you, the Great Psymon, Psymon the Inimitable!”
The Santa hat stood tall on my head, but Manny and Wilmington wore Santa hats, too. Malta didn’t wear a hat, but she had the songbook.
“Choir Invisible?” I said as I approached my best sword singers. “Assemble! I’ll stick to the back and try to be invisible.”
“What are you going to do about that huge sword?” Malta asked. “Dead giveaways will make us dead.”
I smiled. “Hide in plain sight.” Keeping Excelsior in its sling, I held the sheathed weapon high. Excelsior’s gold and silver hilt shone. “It’s not a sword. It’s a cross.”
“Cool. What’s first?” Manny asked.
“Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” Malta said.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Manny said.
“That’s the spirit,” Wil said. Then she goosed Manny and the ensuing giggling made me feel a little better.
We closed ranks tight so the fact that I was holding a huge sword was less obvious.
“Caroling?” Manny said. “This is ridiculous. Is this a midwest thing, Iowa? This is taking the whole Choir Invisible thing way too far.”
“And that’s why it’s going to work. I’ve already covered this ground with Anguloora. Now let’s hit up the old demon’s neighbors first. I want to make sure we’re in tune for the big show.”
Wilmington grew up in a southern Baptist church before her family went Buddhist. She’d been in a church choir and had a lovely voice. Manny looked like a model but she was tone deaf.
“Manny?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re hurting the cause. And our ears.”
“Sorry.”
“Hum.”
“M’kay.”
I’d played plenty of classical piano so I knew the notes that Malta sang that came out flat.
Together, my strike squad sounded like the Mormon Tabernacle Football Team. We murdered a few hymns. That all sounded dour and dire so we switched to Christmas songs that were supposed to sound happy when sung by more competent voices.
One elderly couple gave us some hot chocolate out of pity. Most of the good people of Palo Alto ignored us and some gave us money to go away.
We didn’t sound good but we sang anyway. We carried on in that delusional way every grand scheme must start with before it gets rocking.
Lesson 177: Look around. Everything’s all screwed up. If you’re not acting like a Normie, you’re probably on the right track. Just go with it.
19
As soon as the gate opened for the Barracuda, we slipped in behind the bodyguards, caroling merrily. As we made our way forward, the gate closed behind us automatically. If my plan went awry, our escape route was closed and we were trapped with a pissed off demon mage on our six.
Two members of the Circle of Knives slowed and stopped. They peered back at us. They were about to kick us out, I’m sure, but Manny’s hot. Doors open for her everywhere.
The passenger — a blond guy in a crew cut — popped out of his seat as soon as the car came to a stop. He looked us over and leaned on the rear fender. “Hi, girls! What’re your names?”
“Cupid,” Manny said. “And these are my friends, Comet and Donner and Blitzen.”
“Cool. I’m into reindeer games.”
“Do you know Jesus?” Wilmington asked.
“Uh…”
“Hit it, girls!” I said.
We broke into Deck the Halls and, in my nervousness, I sang fa and la too many times.
Chronos’s guards stared. “Hey!” the driver called. “This is private property!”
“We’re all God’s children!” Wilmington said. “Bless your heart!”
We kept walking toward the house. The driver told us to stop but Wilmington just sang louder and we kept going. When the driver honked his horn in protest, we waved and smiled as if he was encouraging us.
Lesson 178: The hard part of bluffing your way through is trying not to hurry.
We kept a steady pace but we acted oblivious and entitled. When you’re being a sneak, the key is confidence and acting like you belong exactly where you are,
no matter where that is.
By the time we hit the mansion’s front steps I was sweating and starting to worry my horns were so sharp they’d poke through my Santa hat. However, when two more guys came out of the front door, they were shirtless and laughing.
Wilmington had the strongest voice, so we followed her into We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I’d heard it many times every December back in Medicament but I hadn’t really paid much attention to the lyrics before. It was perfect for our mission. We were wishing the bad guys a merry Christmas, but the song is also very insistent about getting figgy pudding and that we weren’t leaving until we got some.
The shirtless guys joined us in song and one even waved his arms like a conductor. They were both a little drunk. I could smell alcohol on their breath. They’d had beans and barbecued ribs for dinner. Though fairly cute and buff, they were both, unfortunately, quite flatulent.
Sharp demon senses sound cool, but one of the downsides of heightened awareness was smelling farts. The vegans in the van had been bad enough. These guys had eaten chili with a heavy dose of garlic and turmeric. Farts occur much more than ordinary humans are aware. I wondered if I’d ever get used to all that methane. I could hear a sly fart across a crowded room.
Note: when you’re wondering what your dog is thinking about you, he’s probably contemplating what you ate a couple of hours ago.
The guards wore matching gold necklaces that ended with a medallion that hung between their nipples. At the center of the medallion was a tiny green leaf and a small twist of dark wood. The leaf appeared to be alive. I assumed this was some weird symbol for the Circle of Knives. It looked like once or twice a week they would have to water their jewelry. The Choir Invisible has a few strange quirks, too, so who was I to judge?
The driver of the Barracuda stepped out of his car. The new arrivals stood next to each other on the front step. They crossed their arms and conferred, pushing their hands under their biceps to make them look bigger. They were trying to decide how aggressive to get about kicking us off their boss’s property.
Still, the demon didn’t come out and my play wouldn’t work unless he did. To keep the remainder of the Circle of Knives out of the battle zone, at that moment, Spider and Dallas were using superglue on every exit of the guard’s home down the street.
We got to the end of the song. Wilmington started the loop again and went solo. The rest of us joined in on the next chorus with Manny humming as loudly as she could.
I could tell Malta was getting too eager. She shook with nervous energy and reached for her belt. I put out a hand and squeezed her wrist.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Keep singing.
Not yet.
Professor Alphonse de Spina poked his head out of the door.
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Wait…
Our target, looking bemused, stepped out of the door and came toward us, reaching for his wallet.
I stood at the edge of Psymon’s range of extrasensory perception so I thought hard: Now, Psymon! Then I whispered the same message into my bluetooth mic.
The van carrying the vegans screeched to a stop at the closed gate down the driveway. I couldn’t see them but I heard the van’s side door roll open.
That was our cue.
Malta whirled on the guards by the Barracuda and ran at them while Manny and Wilmington whipped out Tasers from beneath their jackets. The barbed darts shot out and caught the drunk guards by surprise.
As 50,000 volts shot through their bodies, the guards on either side of Alphonso de Spina stiffened, shuddered and fell to the steps. Manny and Wil didn’t stop shocking them. The ticking of the Tasers went on as the men rolled down the steps, entangling themselves in the wires delivering the current. Their nervous systems disrupted, all they could do was moan.
We learned a couple things in the next moment.
First, just because they called themselves the Circle of Knives didn’t mean they fought with blades. I guess their title was more of a metaphorical sort of thing because the dudes standing by the Barracuda pulled big, shiny .45s as Malta charged them.
Second, Devin Anguloora was just as good with a bow in real life as he had been in practice back at the Keep. His first arrow took the driver in the neck. As the guard went down, he knocked his partner’s first shot at Malta to the side.
Third, the vegans weren’t all talk. When the first time displacement wave hit us, I thought I might throw up. The air shimmered and I said, very slowly, “We…are…out…of…time.”
My voice sounded strange and deep and slow, as if someone had made a recording and slowed us down to a James Earl Jones pace. I was bored with talking by the end of my sentence.
Out of time. Figurative and literal.
The professor was looking at me. He was smiling and opening his mouth to speak in slow motion. I began my leap.
20
There is a moment when absolute clarity is achieved. For most of us, it happens when we face death. I recommend yoga and meditation on a mountaintop as a safer and more peaceful alternative to how I found it.
As I left the ground in slow motion, I felt the pang of hunger in my eye teeth and a yearning ache in my gut. It was the hunger a devoted meat eater might feel after being deprived of protein for a long time. I felt like I was starving downwind of a steak barbecue.
Merlin had warned me of my demon nature, how it had always been deep beneath the surface, waiting to emerge. I felt the thrill of the attack so strongly it came as a surprise, as if caught in a sudden cool rain in bright sunlight.
When I was very little, Mama used to say rain that came in sunshine meant that the devil was beating his wife. “It’s an old saying,” she’d told me. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
But, among the Magicals, everything had significance. The origins of words were magic spells. If a raven flew to the east, it meant good fortune. If two ravens flew to the west, it was a bad omen. The Magicals live in a rich world, constantly searching for meaning. The Normies seem increasingly convinced that nothing means anything.
And then there was me, caught between worlds, half demon and half girl from Iowa. In the moment I leapt at Chronos, I found the balance between worlds. The attack was visceral and there was no room for doubt.
How many humans had killed themselves or made their lives miserable by entertaining so much doubt? Self-help and religious books sold by the millions, each conveying one message: do not doubt. I think a lack of doubt is arrogant and unwise. However, certainty is popular because it feels so good.
As I spun my sword free of its sheath, I was free for a moment and eleven feet off the ground. Not bad for a girl who couldn’t dunk in high school. Then the first wave of time displacement ebbed and the world began to speed up. I could hear the vegans, Paul and Polly, chanting a weird discordant refrain that began to harmonize as I came closer to the old professor. His slow gaze rose to meet mine.
The shirtless guards writhed below me, still electrified. Manny and Wilmington didn’t look like statues anymore. They were moving, trying to stay close enough to their prey that the wires wouldn’t go taut and pull an electrified dart free.
Then the second wave of time displacement hit and the scene slowed again. I heard a shot behind me. I guessed it must be a pistol shot, but at this speed, it sounded like the long, lazy roar of a cannon.
I worried for Malta’s safety but I knew Anguloora would cover her.
To my left, I saw Minneapolis, racing at Chronos. Leaning forward, eager to enter the fray, I could tell by Minnie’s long stride that she was coming to my aid at the limit of her speed. She had climbed the fence as we sang our way up the driveway. Now she emerged from the shadows swinging a morning star. If I failed in my mission, she was to complete my task.
As I began to descend on the demon, my blade held high, I longed for the second wave to ebb. The displacement wave held me back, like I was trying to run underwater in a dream.
> As the scene sped up again, I would be on the demon mage, the pommel of my sword striking the top of his head, bringing him down with all the strength I could muster. I would stop Alphonse de Spina from uttering one killing word.
The second wave did begin to ebb and my speed increased again. I felt my grip tighten on the hilt and every sinew in my arms braced to deliver the stunning blow.
I’m sure I was smiling when I felt the impact vibrate through Excelsior. My enemy crumpled beneath me and it took all my will not to use the usual, business end of my blade to open him.
A couple of disjointed lines from a high school Shakespeare class returned to me and, for the first time, I felt like I truly understood the savagery of the words from Macbeth:
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution…he unseamed him from the nave to th' chops,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.
The Bard was talking about opening the enemy from the waist to the jawbone, steam rising from the hot, bloody blade in the cool air.
The air here was too warm for that, of course, and I was supposed to take the demon mage alive. I have to admit, in the pulse-pounding quickening of battle, I wanted blood. When Shakespeare’s words came to me, my reaction was ecstatic. How delicious.
I saw Merlin’s gray eyes again beneath the tortured topography of his many scars. I heard his warning again. Don’t give yourself over to the demon self. You might not find your way back.
I was about to strike the demon mage again, but I hesitated. Bleeding from the head, the demon’s human form looked too pathetic. “Chronos!” I screamed. “Show yourself!”
And so he did. At the utterance of the demon’s true name the thing beneath me was transformed. Its skin was a riot of scales. The red blood went black. He had horns like mine, but longer, more jagged and entwined with what looked like green moss and fungus. Down his back, sharp spines protruded at odd angles, like a mutant cactus ripping through his white dress shirt.
Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3) Page 11