Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3)

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  That was half my heritage over there but the only sense of loss I felt was reserved for my friend. When the Choir Invisible sings of her sacrifice, her name is now Wilmington, Demon Army Slayer.

  Samantha pushed Victor away and ran, splashing her way to me. “Tamara!” she said. “Your father gave me a gift to defend myself. I want to give it to you!”

  Sam slipped a dagger from her right sleeve and stabbed at my throat. Without my demon genes, I’m sure I’d be dead. There was no hesitancy in her thrust, but she was only human. I can’t slow time like the vegans can, but I can move faster, perceive faster and twist a wrist faster than any middle-aged funeral director.

  I drove Sam to her knees and wrenched the weapon from her hand. Samantha Biggs, the second friend I made in New York, collapsed at my feet and wept as the Magicals chanted and prayed, their cadence unbroken, undistracted from their task to seal the rift.

  “You killed my son!” Sam wailed. “You murdered my son!”

  “I’ve killed a bunch of demons mostly,” I said. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Patrick,” Victor said. “She means Patrick.”

  “Trick was your son? Hold up,” I said. “I’m going to need an abacus and a scorecard.”

  The old man sat on the ground beside Samantha and held her as she wept. “You knew him as Patrick Aonghus of Dungarvan. Your half-brother, Samantha’s child. Do you understand?”

  In point of fact, Mama shot Trick first, but that was splitting hairs. I stared at Sam. “You? You and Peter Smythe?” Trick’s curly hair was as blonde as Sam’s. Looking at her now, I could even see the family resemblance.

  “Before Sam and I got together,” Victor said, “she and Peter had a child. To keep him safe from your father’s influence, I sent Patrick away to Ireland. That was ultimately why we broke up. Sam went on to have two fully human children who have nothing to do with the Choir with a man who does not even believe in demons.”

  “You took Patrick’s power,” Samantha moaned. “You took his legacy.”

  Victor shook his head. “When Patrick came of age he returned to us. There was no sending him away again, much as I wanted to. We can dodge fate only so long. I’d hoped that when his demon half was brought out, he could be like you, Iowa.”

  “I should never have let you send my baby away, Victor.”

  The old man patted her shoulder. “I was trying to do the best thing for him. For everyone. If things had gone a different way…Peter found him, I suppose, and filled his head with promises of glory.”

  “He might have had that glory, but you kept him from that,” Samantha said. “If not for you, Patrick would be standing there instead of this girl. Patrick was my baby.”

  “Forgive me, Samantha. If I had taken him under my wing…” Victor trailed off, choked with emotion. When he could speak again, he said, “All those years ago, we should have stayed together. I shouldn’t have sent your boy away. I was blinded by jealousy. I thought of the baby as Peter’s boy. I should have thought of him as yours.”

  Samantha circled her arms around Victor’s neck and cried into his shoulder.

  The Choir’s conductor rubbed Sam’s back gently. “I should have made him my son. He should have become Patrick Fuentes.”

  Some steel came into Sam’s voice when she said, “But you didn’t.”

  There are many rules which are mutable. Thou shalt not kill is generally true except where war and self-defense is involved. Thou shalt not steal other people’s stuff, but what if your child is starving and a cherry pie is sitting on a window ledge to cool? You’d be crazy not to steal that to save your kid, right?

  The truth is, Truth may not exist. Maybe it’s subjective and relative and different across dimensions. However, there are two eternal truths I know. First, old men do not have a young demon’s reflexes. Second, nobody expects the hostage to be packing a second dagger up her other sleeve.

  One minute Victor was choked with emotion. The next, with blood. And that blood was black.

  Remember Lesson 189? “All truth comes out eventually.” Victor said that.

  As he breathed his last, he sank to the ground and Samantha went to the ground with him, almost gently.

  Merlin bent to lift the glamor spell from the old man’s face. When the wizard stood, Samantha did not hold Victor Fuentes. She held a green demon, dead in an elegant three-piece suit.

  Every Magical stopped chanting and praying. They stared. Manny and I stood transfixed. Merlin looked at me and smiled, proud of his greatest and longest running magic trick.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Choir Invisible!” Merlin announced. “I give you the truth of your fearless leader: Victor Fuentes, was born Rei Negal. He was a rebel to the demon king Ba’al. He was a lover of all things human, or as the Ra might put it, an enemy sympathizer. A traitor. Mostly, he was the consummate liar and the greatest humanitarian on our tiny planet. The man was a fool. Had he stayed in his own dimension, he might have ruled Hell instead of being a servant in Heaven. We are forever in his debt.”

  Lesson 194: just when you think you’ve got a handle on Weird, things get weirder. Every day in every life, there are millions of things we do not see: light outside our spectrum of perception, the way a bee smells the world, how trees of a forest communicate with each other through their root systems. We miss a lot is my point.

  I sure didn’t see that coming.

  34

  Samantha wept more as Victor bled out. I forgot his demon name as soon as I heard it. That seemed right. He’d been among us as a human much longer than he’d been a demon. Or, at least, I supposed so.

  I wondered how much of what he’d told me could have been true. How old was he really? He’d once told me a story about how he’d seen his first ghost as a boy. Was that a lie, or part of the glamor spell? Maybe he’d simply omitted that he was adopted by humans.

  Whatever he’d once been, it didn’t matter anymore. Victor died as the conductor of the Choir Invisible. We didn’t love him all the time but I don’t suppose he would have been doing his job right otherwise.

  Two Shaolin monks from the cleaner crew stepped to either side of Samantha and gently extricated her from under Victor’s slumped body. They were silent but they were kind. Once she was up and walking, the monks looked to Merlin for guidance.

  “In my salad days, we’d lock her up in a tower,” Merlin said. “It’s been a very long time since I was up top. I don’t suppose we have a tower, do we?”

  “We have guard towers,” Manny said, “but they aren’t really set up for prisoners.”

  “Samantha Biggs can take my place, then. The Lady of the Lake can guard her. If the woman is suicidal, she could try to swim for it but I don’t recommend it, as Iowa will attest. Death by drowning is so unpleasant. I suggest we put something heavy on top of the trap door at the top of the ladder and I’ll take the elevator key on my way up. Samantha Biggs, I sentence you to imprisonment in this dungeon.”

  “When can I go home to my children?” Sam asked.

  “I’ll let you know,” Merlin said. “As for me, I’m really looking forward to watching the sun rise and set. And I shall walk among people. I’ve been seeing this thing called the Mall of America on television. It looks intriguing. I’ll leave the woman my Netflix and HBO subscription. Am I not merciful?”

  Merlin looked my way and tilted his head ever so slightly. “I haven’t forgotten you, demon girl. I thank you for your service, as well.”

  “Great.”

  “You’re a bit of a hothead but you have done well, though you don’t know it. What you fail to understand is, everything you want has a cost. Quid pro quo. Bills must be paid and nothing is free.”

  “Wil didn’t have to die. We could have figured something out. A timer or something. You’ve lived so long and Wil lived so short. That’s on you.”

  “We all serve the same cause,” Merlin said, “but everyone pays and everyone sacrifices in their own way to achieve what they will. Samantha
Biggs lost her son and her way. Victor lost his life. They paid for their mistakes.”

  “It didn’t have to be this way.”

  “Yours is the cry of a child who doesn’t want to accept what is. You love your lessons. Have you not learned the simplest, most trite lesson? Life is not fair.”

  “But we’re supposed to try to make it that way.”

  Merlin sighed. “You made your father pay a little debt today. He had a child with your mother and Samantha Biggs and your half-brother was sacrificed.”

  “Killed in self-defense.”

  “And your father killed your boyfriend. You seem to have no issue with claiming that debt but does your attack bring your boyfriend back?”

  “No.”

  “You believe in quid pro quo when it suits you. Your father lost a chunk of his arm today, though I take it that is not all he owes you. A deposit, until next you meet, I think. Your father was good with a sword, you know. It will be quite a duel when you see him again. It won’t be easy for you. He was unarmed this time.”

  “Then I’m glad I disarmed him a little,” I said. “You know, Merlin, for a guy who was given a place to hide while Victor paid your bills, I would have thought you’d be more in favor of generosity.”

  “I delivered a victory to the Choir today,” he said. “My debt to Victor is paid. As for generosity, that’s a fairly new concept in the world. For a very long time, people understood that if you don’t pay, you don’t value what you receive. Be a demon woman and grow up.”

  No lesson here, Dear Reader. I refuse to accept this one. Not from him. Not now. Not ever. I still believe a gift can be given freely. We can do the right thing. We don’t have to be selfish. If Earth is worth saving, there has to be room for charity in it.

  “Growing up is overrated,” I said.

  Merlin smiled. “You say that, but you’ll change your mind. For instance, I’ll pay my bill now. I owe you something and you’ve earned your reward. Step forward. I’ll make your horns invisible for you, just as I did for Victor. You’ll be able to go anywhere and no one will know what you really are. Quid pro quo.”

  “I know what I am, Merlin. And I know what you are.”

  He gestured at his wand theatrically. “It’s just a flick of the wrist and a few words for a glamor that lasts as long as you do.”

  I stepped back. “No thanks. I’ll keep the horns. And you can still owe me.”

  “What? Why, girl?”

  “Because owing me will bother you.”

  “I don’t — ”

  “I didn’t want to be a freak so I risked my life to come to you. That was stupid. You didn’t want to be a freak, either, and look what that made you do. Look what it made you be. Like Mama would say, ‘See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya.’”

  I tossed Excelsior to the ground at the wizard’s feet. Then I removed the short sword he had given me and threw it so its point stuck in the dirt. Its hilt vibrated between his feet. “Keep it.”

  The wizard chuckled. “I have trod this world for centuries. Still, I want to keep on living because, occasionally, there’s something new to see. Thank you for showing me something unique. Your choice, girl.”

  “I am Iowa, Castrator of Demons. If you call me ‘girl’ again, I’ll find a way to add greedy wizards to my title.”

  “You don’t have that power.”

  “You have to sleep sometime, old man. All magic has its limit and every Magical has a weakness. You taught me that.”

  Merlin’s smile faded. “You are unusual…Iowa.”

  “You’re such a dick, Merlin.” I turned away and left with Manhattan.

  The rest of the Magicals were pretty cool. They applauded. Even the Amish warlocks smiled at me.

  35

  I made my way to the parapet so I could watch New York from the top of the Keep.

  Manny came up beside me and gave me a hug. I hugged her back and we watched as the city slept. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  “I almost forgot it was Christmas. I guess Wil gave the world the gift of life, at least for a little while longer.”

  Manny took a long, shuddering breath. I could feel the weight of what she wasn’t saying.

  “Yes?”

  “You sure you want to keep the horns?” she asked finally.

  “I’ve still got the stupid hat.”

  “I’ll get you more stupid hats,” she said. “What happens now?”

  “Did you know that in the history of the world, there have only been a couple hundred days of peace? Think of that! We couldn’t even make it a year without war.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I read it on Facebook so…sure.”

  “The Ra will be devastated,” she said. “This is a major victory, right?”

  I looked in Manny’s eyes. They were wet and her mascara had run black down her cheeks. But I told her the truth. “Wilmington did not die in vain, but this is a victory, not the victory. As much as I hate my father for what he’s done, I do see his logic. Victor was one of the Ra once, but I don’t think we’ve won any hearts and minds over there.”

  “But, Iowa, it was a nuclear freakin’ weapon! We took them out!”

  “The Ra is a place, a planet and a people, Manny. It’s a whole dimension. If somebody blew up Los Angeles with a nuclear bomb, that wouldn’t decrease our chances of going to war, would it?”

  “Heh. No,” she said. “Definitely not.”

  “I remember in high school, I watched a movie about Pearl Harbor. The Japanese devastated the American fleet. That didn’t end anything. It was the beginning. A Japanese admiral said, something like, in attacking America, they awakened a sleeping giant.”

  “But Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war,” Manny said. “And that was with a nuclear bomb.”

  “The Japanese didn’t have the bomb so they surrendered. But think about it. The device we used on them, we stole from the demons. I doubt Chronos had it lying around for gits and shiggles. They were going to use it on us.”

  I looked out over Brooklyn. Soon all those oblivious Normies would be opening Christmas presents and searching for batteries for toys and loading up on turkey. For a few minutes there, I thought the bomb would go off on our side of the dimensional divide. Merry Christmas, New York. Merry Christmas, world. We’re still here.

  I began to count on my fingers the number of people I knew personally who had already been lost to the secret war. “Wilmington, Minneapolis, Chumele, Vlad, St. Charles…much of my hometown. Then there was Rory’s torment and Devin Anguloora getting turned into roast asshole…everyone dead at Castille…and now Victor. “I’ve run out of fingers,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Just figuring out the butcher’s bill.”

  “It was all worth it, though, right?” A tear slipped down Manny’s cheek. “You aren’t saying it wasn’t worth it, are you?”

  “Their sacrifices bought us time,” I said. “We’re still here and the demons aren’t running around turning everyone into deli sandwiches. So, yeah, it was worth it.”

  “But you don’t think we can win, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe not. I guess. Since everyone shares just about the same destination, we’ll have to enjoy the journey.”

  “You going to put that in your next book?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she said. “It sounds kind of corny.”

  “Noted.”

  A light snow began to fall. Soon, New York City’s dirty snow would be covered in a fresh white blanket.

  “The Choir will need a new conductor now,” Manny said.

  “Mr. Chang is the logical choice. He’s the only remaining founder of the Choir Invisible.”

  “Kevin Chang thinks more pushups are the answer for everything.”

  “You think your pushup bra is the answer to everything.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “I was going to get you another for Christmas,” I said, “but
things got a little crazy in Palo Alto and I got distracted — ”

  “Excuses, excuses.”

  “But I do have this.” I dug into a hidden pocket and held out my palm.

  “A charm? What does it do?”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “It is, thank you.” She held it in her hand to admire it.

  “It also finds lost things,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “I have a few thoughts.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I heard a rumor in the mess hall that, somewhere in the armory, the sword of Damocles is hidden away somewhere.”

  Manny pursed her lips. “Well, you do need a new sword since you gave up that kickass one.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll find a badass one instead.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well,” I said, “there is the matter of the Circle of Knives. We left two of those douchebags alive.”

  “And they probably still have that special jewelry that keeps you young and healthy and fierce,” Manhattan said. “The Tree of Life necklace has that green leaf that clashes with most of my wardrobe but it could be really helpful. I could buy new clothes to match.”

  “Yeah, it’s not immortality exactly, but it could give us an advantage at the end of the world. Interested?”

  “Road trip?” Manny asked.

  “Definitely. I love the snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but by late afternoon, I want sunshine, palm trees and a beach again. Wilmington bought us time. We should use it right.”

  “I loved her, Tam.”

  “She loved you, Poala.”

  Manny managed a smile. “Poala. I didn’t know you remembered my birth name.”

  “Of course, I do. I’m your sister. I love you. We’re all about the love.”

  “And all this schmaltzy badass kickass stop-the-demons, save-the-world crap.”

  We didn’t have it in us to laugh but we stood on the parapet, leaning on each other and sharing our warmth for a long time.

  When Manny began to shiver, it was time to go. She stopped me and asked, “Do you think we’ll ever get tired of doing this? Being this? Do you ever wish you’d stayed Tamara Smythe?”