The Demon Deception

by Mark Harritt

  “Well, let’s go ahead and eat, shall we? We have a long drive ahead of us,” Lilith didn’t like the tack that the conversation had taken.

  Darcy looked down at her plate. In a quiet, sad voice, she said, “But I’m a witch.”

  The conversation was suddenly over. They ate in silence after that, punctuated by the sound of knives and forks on ceramic.

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  Chapter Nine – Daddy’s at the Steak House

  They arrived in Amarillo eight hours later. Sam drove into the Amarillo Downtown Marriott Courtyard parking lot. They grabbed bags and walked into the lobby. Lazarus used one of his other identities and credit cards to get four rooms. Before the four went in different directions, Lazarus pulled Lilith aside, “I need to talk to you.”

  Lilith used her hand to tuck a lock of hair behind one ear, and smiled, “If you want to get me alone, you don’t have to be so serious. I’m more than happy to meet you in your room, or mine.”

  “Stop playing the seductress. I have information that you need to know.”

  She studied his face, and he watched the conflicting motives on her face. He wondered what hidden agendas were concealed there. He knew her plans revolved around her desire to bring him back to her master. That would always be her main goal.

  She acquiesced, “Okay, when do you want to meet?”

  Lazarus looked at his watch, “How about six-thirty. We can have dinner together.” He scrutinized her intently, “but, there won’t be any collateral damage tonight. I’m not in the mood for your games.”

  She hesitated, and then nodded her agreement.

  Sam and Darcy watched them as they talked. When Lilith nodded her head and accepted Lazarus’ invitation, Sam turned to Darcy, “What about you? You up for some chow later on?”

  Darcy looked up at Sam, then looked over at Lilith. Lilith gave a small nod. Darcy turned back to Sam, “Sure, I guess we can get dinner.”

  Lazarus knew what Sam was up to. Sam was going to try and get information from Darcy. Sam was an experienced interrogator, and when he turned on the charm, his dark, good looks and bad boy persona could elicit information better than anyone. Hopefully he’d be able to get Darcy to talk over dinner. Lazarus had a feeling that Sam had other motives as well. Lazarus couldn’t blame him. Darcy was a lovely, young woman. Sam was a handsome, though large and dangerous, young man. Nature would take its course.

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  He met Lilith downstairs in the lobby. She hadn’t changed her clothes. Everyone in the lobby was staring at her. One man tried to talk to her, but she waved him off before he could get a word out. She saw Lazarus, strode forward and fell in beside him. They walked towards the door.

  “There’s a steakhouse halfway down the block. I thought we could eat there.”

  She didn’t say anything. He enjoyed the silence, opening the door for her as they exited the building. It was cold outside, and Lilith crossed her arms against the chill. They walked down the sidewalk, and cars honked. Lazarus didn’t have to look. He knew that every person was watching Lilith’s mesmerizing stride.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were at the steakhouse. Heads swiveled as they were escorted to their table. The men were jealous of Lazarus, and the women were jealous of the way their husbands and boyfriends looked at Lilith. Lazarus and Lilith took off their jackets, and placed them on the back of the chairs. Lilith’s breasts strained against the flimsy material of the t-shirt she was wearing. Lazarus, and everybody else in the restaurant, was very aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “It’s very cold outside,” Lazarus thought.

  “Ya’ll want some biscuits?” the waitress asked. She placed silverware and menus in front of them. She was in her mid-thirties, dressed in a gingham top, tight blue jeans, and boots.

  “Butter?” Lazarus asked.

  “Honey butter,” the waitress answered.

  He smiled, “even better.”

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “I’ll take sweet tea.” He motioned towards Lilith, “What do you want?”

  Lilith leaned back, drawing the fabric tight across her chest, “I’ll take sweet tea, also. Oh, and can you bring me a chardonnay?” The waitress noticed the strained fabric, and stammered as she told them she would bring the biscuits out with the tea.

  Lazarus shook his head, “Do you have to do that?”

  Lilith looked at him with a quizzical look on her face, “Do what?”

  “Wind up everybody you meet?”

  Lilith idly waved her hand as she read the menu, “It’s fun. Plus, I have a job to do. My work is never done. You know that. You’d be amazed at some of the offers I get. Strangely, I rarely have to work hard to glean souls for my master. They’re all so willing to walk that path with minimal guidance.”

  Lazarus smiled at the waitress when she brought the biscuits and sweet tea back. She walked away, and he grabbed a biscuit and began buttering it, “Do you really need his approval that much?” The biscuit was warm and soft. The waitress came back with the chardonnay and placed it in front of Lilith.

  She laughed as she picked up the glass of wine, “Oh, I think you misunderstand the situation. It’s not about my boss at all. I enjoy this.”

  He made a circular motion with the butter knife, encouraging her to continue.

  She leaned back against the chair, “It’s a good thing the boss likes what I’m doing. But it’s not about him.”

  “And you don’t care about damning souls to hell for all eternity?”

  Lilith shook her head, “If you think I’m the reason they end up there, you don’t understand humans. Every soul I’ve ever turned would still be headed down the same path. I’m just the facilitator. Like I said, I don’t tell them to sacrifice children. That’s their own sick fantasies floating to the surface. I don’t create the evil, I just take advantage of it. It’s already there, under the surface.”

  She picked up a biscuit, and began eating. It was a good biscuit, and she slowed to enjoy it. She ate the entire biscuit, took a drink of chardonnay, and picked up another one. Lazarus pointed at the honey butter with his knife. She thought about it, picked up her butter knife and took a dab and spread it on the biscuit. She continued, “I like to think, it’s more about a job well done.”

  Lazarus ate his biscuit, enjoying the softness, the heat, and the sweetness of the honey butter. He let her talk. The more she talked, the more he might learn. It would be a long time before he could talk to a demon about their power structure again. Any intelligence was good intelligence. Of course, a lot of what she was saying was complete nonsense. There was nothing human in her motivations. “I suppose it has nothing to do with beating the other demons? Nothing to do with the amount of souls that you divert from the righteous path?”

  She considered this, “Well, I guess that’s part of it as well. It brings a certain amount of satisfaction. But the other demons are not even in the same league as I am. They don’t have the capabilities, the finesse that I do.”

  “I think that Mephistopheles might disagree with you on that point.”

  She stopped eating the biscuit, and placed it on the plate in front of her. Her demeanor changed. She was colder, the chill in her voice apparent, “When did you talk to Mephistopheles?”

  Lazarus kept eating, enjoying the biscuit, and enjoying Lilith’s reaction, “I ran into him in St. Louis. Or, maybe I should say, he tracked me to St. Louis, and I had a devil of a time getting rid of his agents. No pun intended.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I wanted to see your reaction when I mentioned his name.”

  She picked the biscuit back up, and then her butter knife. She put more butter on the biscuit, “And, he told you what?”

  The waitress stopped by the table, “Do ya’ll know what you want to eat yet?”

  Lilith looked at Lazarus and asked, “Are you buying, Eli?”
>
  “Yes, I’m buying,” he replied.

  Lilith ordered a New York strip, medium. Lazarus ordered a T-bone, well done. The waitress wrote down their orders and walked back to the kitchen to place them.

  Lilith asked again, “What did Mephistopheles tell you?”

  Eli was done with the biscuits. If he ate any more, he wouldn’t be able to eat his steak. He placed the butter knife across the small plate.

  “Well, Les was upset with you. He seems . . .”

  Lilith held up her hand, stopping him, “Wait, what. Who’s Les?”

  “Mephistopheles. I call him Les. His name is too damn long to keep repeating.”

  Lilith was amused by Lazarus’ explanation and laughed out loud, “Oh, that’s rich. I bet he hated that. He is such a dilettante. He hates for anybody to be disrespectful to him.”

  Lazarus nodded, “Yeah, I got that.”

  There was delight in Lilith’s eyes. Lilith was back to her old, seductive self. She ran her finger around the rim of the glass, and looked at Lazarus, her eyes filled with lust, “You are such a delight. It’s amazing the way you make me laugh.”

  Lazarus dismissed the obvious invitation, “Sorry, you can put that right out of your mind. It’s never going to happen again.”

  An indolent smile played across her lips, “Such a shame, I really enjoyed our time together. I wish we could re-live some of the good times we had.”

  “What say we get back to our previous subject? We were talking about Mephistopheles.”

  “Spoil sport. Okay, back to Mephistopheles. What did he have to say?”

  The steaks arrived and they stopped until the waitress took away the old plates and put the new plates in front of them. They both cut into the steaks, and took a few bites before they began the conversation again.

  “So, Mephistopheles,” she paused, smirking, “or Les?” Lilith said, as a reminder.

  Lazarus finished chewing, and swallowed, “Yes. Les was upset about you working on this project with me. He seems to think that you have ulterior motives not related to our current mission.”

  Lilith rolled her eyes, “of course I have ulterior motives. You know that.”

  Lazarus nodded, “Yes, I do. That’s why I brought Sam along to watch my back. I don’t trust anything you do.”

  “Exactly, that’s my point. You would be a fool to trust me to do what I say I’m going to do.”

  Lazarus cut into his steak, “True, but I think he wasn’t talking about me. I think he was talking about your relationship with your boss.”

  Lilith stopped cutting her steak, placed the knife and fork on the plate, “What, he thinks I’m going to betray the Great Deceiver, the master of intrigue? How the hell is that even possible?”

  Lazarus sat back and interlocked the fingers of his hands. He pondered for a moment, and then spread his hands apart, “I don’t know. Maybe by working with the enemy?”

  Lilith shook her head, “So, I betray my boss by working with an entity from another reality? That doesn’t make sense. I’ve worked hard to get to where I’m at. If I work with another boss, I just go to the bottom, and have to work my way back up. You know, prove myself again. Right now, I’m on top. There are no others even close. The boss is pretty happy with me. So, better the devil you know. No pun intended.”

  Lazarus nodded. He didn’t believe her, and told her so, “You know that I don’t believe a word that you’re saying.”

  Lilith smiled, “Oh, of course. You would be a very foolish man if you did. One thing you’ve proved to me over the years, Eli, is that you’re not foolish at all. If you were, you wouldn’t still be alive.”

  Lilith took another bite of steak, “So, if you aren’t prepared to believe me when I tell you that I’m not prepared to betray my boss on this mission, why did you tell me about Mephistopheles?”

  Lazarus cut the last piece of steak from the bone, and put it into his mouth. He chewed, enjoying the smoky taste. He swallowed, and then took a drink of sweet tea.

  “Well, I thought it would be a very good idea to let you know about Mephistopheles, because it might cause dissension between two major demons. Also, I thought you needed to know that he’s using ATF agents to track us.”

  Lilith finished her steak, “Good point about the dissension. Good idea to let me know about the ATF agents as well. I assume we’ll probably see them again?”

  Lazarus nodded, “Yeah, I think we may see them again pretty soon. We lost them in St. Louis, but it’s just a matter of time before they track us down. Sam and I have some heavy duty munitions that we have to pick up. I have no doubt that they’ll be on our trail.”

  The waitress stopped by again, filled up the glasses with sweet tea, and asked Lilith if she wanted any more wine.

  “No thank you, but since Eli is buying, what kind of desert do you have?” Lilith asked.

  The waitress left and came back with two desert menus. Lilith oohed and aahed about the various deserts, then settled on a decadent brownie with vanilla ice cream and a maple syrup glaze. Lazarus decided he might as well get a dessert, and ordered apple pie a la mode, with coffee.

  Lilith started talking about Mephistopheles again, “He’s always been jealous of me. He hasn’t done anything original since he convinced the Catholic Church that it needed Quaestores to go around and sell indulgences in the Middle Ages. That brought us a lot of Bishops. Avarice is an amazing thing. Then Martin Luther had to go and spoil everything for him. He hasn’t come up with a good idea since. I don’t know why the boss keeps him around.”

  “So, you two have a competition for the Deceiver’s attention?” Lazarus asked. He was trying to keep Lilith talking, trying to get some insight into the workings of the political power struggles in Hell.

  Lilith nodded, “It’s all about getting attention. We constantly compete. If we don’t get attention for our successes, we get attention for our failures. I can guarantee that you don’t want the boss’s attention for failures. Not a good idea at all. And, Mephistopheles seems to be getting a lot of attention for his failures, lately.”

  Lazarus decided to let the other shoe drop, “You know, it seems I’ve been having a lot of success lately with tracking your operations.”

  Lilith took a sip of her tea. The waitress came back with their deserts and Lazarus’ cup of coffee.

  “Yes, you do seem to have insights into my operations. I’ve wondered about that.”

  Lazarus nodded, “It seems that Mephistopheles may have had something to do with some of my intelligence successes.”

  Lilith had taken a bite of brownie and ice cream on her spoon, and was about to put it into her mouth. She stopped and stared at Lazarus. He could see the anger flash into her eyes. He could understand her ire. It was one thing to have your sworn enemy fight against you and win battles. It was quite another thing to be betrayed from within your own organization. She recovered from her momentary lapse, and put the brownie and ice cream in her mouth.

  “Oh, wow, this is really good.”

  Lazarus took a bite of his apple pie and ice cream, then followed it with a drink of coffee. The coffee was very hot, but it complemented the apple pie a la mode perfectly.

  Lilith played with her desert, trying different combinations of brownie, ice cream, and maple topping, “You know, I may have to review my organization and see what’s going on, now that you’ve told me about Mephistopheles.”

  “Afraid you might have a loyalty problem?” he asked.

  She didn’t say anything. She kept eating her brownie. “If what you’re telling me is true, and I find out it is, I think the boss may have some things to talk to Mephistopheles about.”

  Lazarus smiled. He might lose some information in the short run, but having two major demons fighting each other would be a coup for him. “I think you might just be jealous of Mephistopheles. Does he get to spend more time with the boss?”

  She waved the spoon, negating his statement, “No, I don’t have any problems with the boss. T
he others know their place. I guess I just have to remind Mephistopheles where his is.”

  “You sound like a bunch of children trying to compete for the attention of daddy.”

  Lilith stared into space after he said that. Then she shivered, and spoke loud enough for others in the room to hear, “Mmmm, daddy. I like the idea.” She looked into his eyes, “If you want to spank me, I could call you daddy.”

  Lazarus’ body responded to her invitation. It was instinctual, visceral. Lilith was incredibly desirable. Men would, and had, given up their souls for one night with her. Lazarus struggled with his physical reaction and took another sip of coffee. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

  The entire restaurant was suddenly quiet, however, with all of the men, and some of the women, contemplating the visual that Lilith had just supplied. Lazarus took another bite of his apple pie. Slowly, the sounds in the restaurant returned as the sexual tension ebbed. Everyone seemed to have woken from a spell. In a way, Lazarus guessed they had.

  They finished their deserts. They stood, and Lazarus put bills on the table for the tip. They walked over to the hostess, and Lazarus paid the bill. Lazarus opened the door for Lilith. The rain was gone, but there was now a fine mist. If they hurried, they would be able to get back to the hotel before the rain started again.

  They walked. Lilith was in a much better mood on the way back to the hotel. She linked an arm through his, and he didn’t pull away from her. He deluded himself, imagining that he was just going along to get along. The touch of her body against his gave him an intense thrill.