The Demon Deception

by Mark Harritt

  The pout reappeared at this very slight, though powerful move. She was Lilith, men didn’t resist her, “That’s not a nice thing to do. I remember our times together fondly. You remember that night when . . . “

  He raised his hands to forestall her trip down memory lane, “That’s past. It won’t do you any good to try and use it against me.” He pointed up towards the ceiling, “I’m in good graces now, and I plan on staying there.”

  She leaned back, the façade of seduction dropping from her face. The soft, inviting angles of her face became hard and unexpressive, “I should have these men kill you.”

  Eli felt the mood of the room change. The patrons and staff were cued to her emotions. Eli could feel them looking over at his table, aggression apparent. He nodded, “yes, you certainly could try. I’m notoriously hard to kill, though. Just ask your pet vampire.”

  Lilith sighed. She ran her long, red nail around the rim of the coffee cup. “I really don’t know why we’re here, talking to each other. I would prefer to settle our long differences right now, with your corpse on the floor.”

  He took another sip of the coffee, “Ah, but then your master would be very upset with you. You know what he does when he’s upset. I imagine it would be centuries before he finished with the punishments he designs for you. From what I understand, he’s quite inventive when it comes to punishment for those who fail him.”

  The fear in her eyes betrayed the truth of his statement. She leaned back, the hard edges of her face softening. “Point taken. One question before we start.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Did you enjoy killing the twelve women of the coven? That’s brazen, even for you.”

  He put down the coffee cup, “That offense, I put at your feet. Those women already made their decision. They murdered, and were willing to murder again. I’ve lost my taste for trying to rescue those who don’t want to be.”

  She smiled, the seductress once again, “What if I told you that one of those women was a police officer. She was investigating the disappearances of children in the area. She infiltrated the ‘coven’ to discover who had stolen the children. She was about to blow the whistle on everybody down there. You killed an innocent woman.”

  It was his turn to smile, “You mean Detective Gaffigan, who was paid by the mafia to turn a blind eye to their operations. The same one who helped them kill a transvestite hooker that knew about her activities with various organized crime members?”

  The smile disappeared from her face. She knew she had been outmaneuvered.

  He spoke, “Now, can we get down to business?”

  She looked at her manicure, seemingly unaffected, and nodded.

  “Something new has occurred. There’s going to be an incursion.”

  “Incursion? What do you mean? An incursion of what?”

  “From another reality.”

  He sipped his coffee. She had forgotten hers completely. The conversation had taken an interesting turn and intrigued her, “Continue.”

  “Our masters are jealous masters. They vie against each other, but they brook no interference from interlopers.”

  Her face stayed non-committal, “Fascinating. I’ve heard rumors about this happening before.”

  It was his turn to show interest, “Really, when?”

  She shrugged, “I’m not sure. Before you were alive, certainly. Before I proved my worth to the Master.” She inhaled, her chest expanding deliciously, “And what is this to us? Why am I here?”

  He didn’t like what he was about to say any more than he thought she would.

  “We have different strengths. Yours are the ways of magic, the use of demonic powers, subtle treason. Mine are the ways of the warrior, tactics, strategy; the use of weapons against the monsters your master has created.” He paused, not wishing to say what he was about to say, then continued, “Our bosses wish for us to combine our strengths. They want us to work together.”

  She stared at him, and then began laughing. Her feminine laugh made the restaurant patrons look towards her again, the sexual tension rising in the restaurant. She laughed for a good, long time, “Oh, that’s rich. We’ve been circling each other for millennia, two dogs vying for the same bone. Now, they want us to work together? That’s foolish.”

  He wasn’t enjoying this at all. The entire restaurant was watching them. He understood the reasons that had been presented to him, but he knew that she would use every opportunity to attack him, to betray him. It was her nature. There was nothing he could do about the situation, however. He would have to play frog to the scorpion. He was trapped in this swim across the river.

  “Evidently, everybody else is busy.” He held up a hand to stop the question on her tongue, “And no, I don’t know what they’re busy with.” He put the hand back down on the table, “There is no one, or no higher beings that are available to deal with the situation, as it is. They want us to deal with it, our past beside the point.”

  Her laugh tinkled across the restaurant again, “And when is this supposed to occur? If they’ve decided this, did they tell you where or when we should work against this ‘incursion’?”

  Eli nodded, “yes, I know the place, and, approximately, the time. I don’t know who all is involved, or the magnitude of the response that’s needed to contain it.”

  She put her finger in the coffee, then slowly put the tip of her finger in her mouth, looking innocently at him as she did so, more seduction. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it.

  “When and where?” she asked.

  He slid a piece of paper across the table to her, “That has the information on it. We have a fortnight to get there. Here’s the phone number I’ll be using for the duration of this assignment. Text or call, and I’ll pick you up on the way. Bring whatever you need. I’ll be bringing resources with me as well.”

  She sat with her finger in her mouth, alternately sucking it, and licking it, “So, two weeks from now. Do they not understand, that we’ll be as interested in killing each other as we will in stopping this ‘incursion’?”

  Eli smiled, “I think we can assume that once we’re finished with this mission, and the incursion is stopped, that hostilities can commence again.”

  She continued to suck on her finger, “I hope you’ll be a gentleman, and give me notice when you decide when the dance will commence anew.”

  An expression of innocence appeared on his face, “Of course. When have I not been a gentleman towards you?”

  Genuine mirth played across her smile at this statement, neither one foolish enough to believe that the other one would play fair, whatever ‘fair’ might be. If either one could achieve the upper hand, they both knew that the situation would be exploited.

  The meeting was over. She slid across the bench seat, moving slowly, seductively, her décolletage wiggling as she did. Eli sat with stone face though he did enjoy the view. He would never let her know that, though.

  She stood, and used her hands to straighten her coat. In actuality, it was just a chance for her to accentuate her curves with her hands. She did it with a wiggle that drew the eyes of every man in the room. There was a group of four at the front of the room that were entirely too interested in her movements. One of them, a large man with prison tats scrawled across his skin, stood up and walked over to Lilith. The man’s tattoos and attitude indicated a brutality that would be used if he felt the need. His muscularity indicated time spent in the prison yard lifting weights.

  The man walked up and put his arm around Lilith’s waist, “hey, pretty lady, how’s about you come over and spend some time with me and my friends. I promise you, we can show you a good time.”

  Lilith giggled, and wiggled again. The thug pressed his case. “I think you should come on over. My boys and me would be real interested in talkin’ to you.”

  As the thug talked, his hand slid down. Lilith looked over the table at Eli, and put one hand over her mouth, aping surprise, “I guess he’s serious. I think you may have
to defend my honor.”

  The thug sneered at him, “Little man, if you know what’s good for you, I suggest you sit there and shut up. I’ll crush you if you get up.”

  Eli kept sipping coffee, and continued to sit. Lilith’s eyes darkened, hellfire flashing, “If you want my cooperation, I suggest that you do your bit here.”

  He sighed. He knew it would come to some kind of confrontation. It always did when it came to Lilith. He reached for his gun, but Lilith swayed, blocking any shot that he might have. He considered shooting through her, but he didn’t think the bullet would penetrate far enough to kill the thug. He started sliding across the seat. The thug stepped around Lilith, and put a hand in his shoulder, “I said stay out of it little man. You won’t like what hap . . .”

  He grabbed the thug’s hand with his right hand, his fingers on the outside of the hand, his thumb in the meat between thumb and forefinger. He twisted with the right, and used his left hand to give more leverage. He continued his slide out of the seat, turning tightly, the hand and arm of his adversary coming with him as he turned, and the body following. He stopped, turned in the other direction, and the thug flew through the air. The thug landed on his stomach, arm extended behind him, the impact shaking the room around them.

  Eli put more pressure on the wrist. He felt it snap. The thug began screaming as the bones ground together. Eli finished by stomping the back of the thug’s neck. The screaming stopped. The thug’s friends started to stand up, hands clawing at their waistbands. He pulled his XD, and shook his head. The three sat back down, hands up in the air. Everybody else in the restaurant shrank from the confrontation. One man kept saying, “it’s cool man, it’s cool.”

  Eli holstered his pistol, watching the three at the front table. They watched everything he did, hands still in the air. He picked up the coffee cup, and took another drink, watching them over the rim. One of them started to lower his hands. Eli sat the cup back down. The hands went back into the air. He walked over to the counter, and pulled his wallet out. He pulled out a twenty and sat it on the counter.

  He smiled at the waitress, “Sorry about the inconvenience. You serve very good coffee here.”

  Carol studied him, a look of unease on her face, suddenly afraid of Eli. The situation had changed dramatically and now she was afraid he was going to shoot everybody in the restaurant. He smiled, “Don’t worry, we’re leaving now.”

  He looked back at Lilith, “Well, are you coming with me?”

  She looked at the corpse on the floor, then looked back at him. “You’ve become too familiar with the use of violence. What happened to the man I once loved.”

  “You never loved me. You seduced me, turned me against my family. I’m only here by the intercession of the Carpenter, and the prayers of my sisters. If they hadn’t begged him to save me, I would’ve spent all eternity in hell. As it was, he took pity on my sisters, and on me, and brought me back. I’m very lucky he decided to use me to make a statement to your boss. So, now, can we dispense with the false tears?”

  Eli motioned towards the door. Lilith stepped over the corpse on the floor, and walked in front of him, her hips swaying suggestively from side to side, the slow, erotic stride punctuated by the click, click, click of her heels. He hated himself for it, but his humanity responded to her sensuality. Still, he didn’t lose his caution. He walked behind her, ready to deal violence if necessary, paying particular attention to the three friends of the man he had just killed. As Lilith approached the door, he leaned forward, and opened it.

  “My, always the gentleman,” Lilith stepped out into the cold of the early morning. Lazarus stepped through the door behind her, watching the sun of the new day as it begin to lighten the eastern sky.

  The police arrived thirty minutes later. They canvassed the crowd, but they weren’t able to get a good description of the man who had killed Marcus Santiago. Nobody could remember the incident at all. It was as if they had all wakened from a dream and found the body on the floor. The police were puzzled, but they didn’t worry about it too much, not with Santiago’s police jacket. They felt that whoever killed him had done the community a favor. Being a saint had its perks.

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  Chapter Three – A Cat named Mooch

  Lazarus’ first stop was the neighborhood of little Caughnawaga, in Brooklyn. Lazarus walked down the street, the tree leaves orange and red in the October cold. Old brownstones framed the riot of color. A few leaves were just starting to litter the street. It was Sunday afternoon, and children were playing under the watchful eyes of parents or older siblings. It was an inviting street, reminding Lazarus of an older New York, a time before drugs flooded in, making entire neighborhoods untenable for families.

  Mohawks were the ironworkers that built most of the spectacular landscape of New York, and Little Caughnawaga had been their home for decades. The size of Little Caughnawaga had shrunk in recent generations as work became more competitive and jobs were harder to find. This section was still firmly Mohawk territory, though, with brownstones that had been in the family for four or five generations. Sam Diabo was one of those Mohawks, and had family that had worked on all of the major construction projects in New York City.

  Lazarus was here to see his old friend. He hadn’t seen him in almost two years. The last time Lazarus had seen Sam was before Brazil. Sam Diabo was a Mohawk ironworker and warrior. Sam was a decorated war hero who had joined the Marine Corps right after September 11, 2001. Part of it was the warrior tradition of his people. Part of it was patriotism, even though his tribe was a separate nation. Sam had been born in the USA. His family had lived and worked here for generations. It was this reason that he felt that he owed something to the country. A lot of it had to do with his family’s legacy as well. His grandfather, Joe, and his father, Jimmy, had worked on the twin towers. The terrorists had destroyed his family legacy when the Twin Towers came down, so Sam felt justified to destroy theirs.

  Lazarus met Sam after a confrontation with three men. Lazarus watched the situation go down from across the street. Three men walked up to Sam, gang bangers with something to prove. They probably picked Sam because he was the biggest guy on the street. The leader of the three said something that Lazarus couldn’t hear. The leader pulled his shirt up to show Sam the automatic in his waistband. Lazarus could call the three mistakes from where he was. First, the gang toughs were on the wrong street. Second, they had messed with the wrong guy. Third, they didn’t have their guns in hand when they accosted Sam.

  Most people would have frozen in fear. Not a decorated Marine who had survived the battle of Fallujah. Sam kicked the tough right square in the groin. It wasn’t with his toe. Instead, he caught the groin with the top of his foot where it met the ankle, giving a solid blow. From where Lazarus was standing, it looked like a size fourteen or fifteen foot, so there was a lot of surface area. The tough guy rose up onto the tips of his toes, hands instinctively shooting down to cup his crotch. The blow was hard enough that Lazarus heard, and winced at, the impact from across the street. The fight didn’t stop there, however.

  Sam had great instincts, and knew what was going to happen if he only went half way. He stepped forward, holding the gang banger up with one hand, and pulling the pistol with the other. As soon as he had the pistol in hand, he let go of the gang banger, allowing him to fall to the ground, whimpering, holding what was left of his crushed testicles. Sam racked the slide, not relying on the hope that there might be a round in the chamber. Then he shot the other two, who, surprised at the result of the confrontation, were still fumbling for the pistols in their waistbands. They hit the ground, cooling rapidly from the double taps that punctured their hearts.

  The leader was mewling on the ground, curled in the fetal position, hands cradling his destroyed manhood. Lazarus walked over and held up his hands as Sam rounded on him. Sam lowered the muzzle of the gun towards the ground, “Who are you?”

  Lazarus nodded
towards the bodies on the ground, “I’m your witness.”

  Sam looked cautious when he asked the next question, “What do you mean, my witness?”

  Lazarus explained, “Well, I was walking down the street, when I saw this one,” he pointed at the tough on the ground, holding his groin and moaning, “Shoot those two. Then I watched you disarm him so that he wouldn’t be a threat to the neighborhood.”

  Sam smiled at the explanation, “You know, I wasn’t even thinking that far ahead.”

  Lazarus nodded, “Yeah, I kind of figured that. I thought I would lend a hand. You have some people around here that can corroborate?”

  After that introduction, Lazarus visited the gang that the three had come from. More dead bodies persuaded them that Little Caughnawaga was not an area to mess with, and that they shouldn’t think about approaching Sam or his family. Lazarus found a fast friendship with Sam, and began mentoring him in uses of controlled violence. When he was satisfied with Sam’s capabilities, Lazarus told him what he did. Sam didn’t believe it at first. It took a visit to Wall Street before Sam understood what he was up against if he worked with Lazarus.

  Sam was a Marine. He had been raised as a Catholic, and still attended church. When he found out who his friend Eli was, he’d been in awe. He jumped at the chance to help Lazarus. It didn’t hurt that Lazarus was willing to supplement Sam’s income. Ironworkers made good money, but property taxes in New York had risen steadily, making home ownership more expensive. Eventually, the awe subsided as they continued to work together and train together. Their partnership had parted ways on a mission in California. That was when Lazarus had gone to Brazil.

  Now, Lazarus walked down the street, smiling at the children, waving at people that he recognized. They waved back, recognizing Sam’s benefactor and mentor. Some yelled greetings, some asked where he’d been. This was a tight knit community. The people were friendly as long as they knew you belonged. If they didn’t think you should be there, though, Sam would get a call and he would deal with the situation. Nobody had a problem with Lazarus though. Where Sam was concerned, Lazarus slept with the angels, literally. Still, there was that problem with California, but he didn’t think that Sam would hold that against him. Lazarus walked to Sam’s brownstone, checking the address to make sure he was in the right spot. He walked up the sidewalk, onto the steps, and rang the doorbell.