The first book he gave me was Hagakure. He quizzed me over it as we sparred, forcing me to use my mind and my body at once. I can honestly say, I got so caught up in learning about this foreign and exotic culture, I forgot to be a hoodlum.
Once we moved past hand-to-hand techniques and on to weapons training, he gave me The Book of Five Rings, and my studies continued. They still continue. Every time someone comes out with a new translation of one of the classic texts, I’m there. Sometimes, someone even writes something new, relating bushido to modern life. Countless businesses cite it in their ideals, alongside Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
I admire people who try to keep the code. Honor and duty are fairly good concepts, no matter what credo you maintain. But I am the only practicing samurai I know. Even Carl can’t say he ever used his training in actual combat.
The world has changed a lot since the days of the samurai. The rules have changed. So what does being a samurai mean for some gangly white boy in today’s modern America? It means when in a darkened parking lot, the samurai takes the extra moment to see that a young woman gets to her car safely. It means he watches a lost child until her mother returns for a tearful reunion. It means he sees to it that the local vandals are caught and prosecuted. Yeah, the neighborhood watch took on a whole new meaning when I moved into the area.
I still study the notable names of Japanese bushido. Every day, I choose some quote or teaching to meditate on, most lately revisiting the works of Miyamoto Musashi and his Book of Five Rings. I practice battōjutsu, the art of drawing and sheathing a sword. Don’t laugh; it’s harder than you think. I practice kendo and jujitsu, both for combat and for exercise. I also practice down-and-out redneck brawling. It’s the one thing enemies never seem to expect from someone they view as a trained combatant.
But most important, I practice honor. All I want is for my little girl to say, “My father was an honorable man.” I’ve seen people aspire to less.
For nearly two hours, I put my body through the rigors of my own training, as well as the physical therapy assigned by my doctor. I stretched to cool down, feeling the scar tissue down my left side pull slightly. After almost four years, it rarely bothered me anymore. No one could guess that something had tried to carve my heart out through my rib cage.
My left hip was aching when I finally sat down to meditate, and the angry muscles in my right calf were twitching spasmodically. Neither had healed as I would have liked. I was lucky to still have the right leg at all. I had never dreamed that the Scuttle could inject poison through its legs, too, so it hadn’t occurred to me to negotiate around it. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
I cleared my mind, moving past the pain to a place of peace, and focused on my breathing. The sun was higher, beaming over my bare shoulders. It promised to be the first truly hot day we’d had this year. Spring was nearly over, brief as it was.
My quote for the day came again from the Hagakure. “There is a way of bringing up the child of a samurai. From the time of infancy one should encourage bravery and avoid trivially frightening or teasing the child.” I thought on that quote a lot—pretty much every time I looked at Anna. Yamamoto said that parents shouldn’t make their child afraid of the lightning, or dark places, because cowardice was a lifetime scar. But I knew what was waiting in those dark places, and I had a hard time coming up with a justification to leave my daughter ignorant. Granted, at five, she was too little to understand. But when she was older, if I was still around, what would I tell her? I had yet to figure out the answer.
I don’t know how long I’d been sitting in meditation, working the white river pebbles between my fingers, when I heard the scrabbling of claws on stone. I opened my eyes to find a bold squirrel sitting atop a rock not three feet from me. It looked to be a healthy little thing, all fat and sassy, with slick red fur and gleaming button eyes.
I tilted my head to the left. It mimicked the movement. I tilted my head to the right; it did the same. With a sigh, I raised my right hand and flipped it the bird. It repeated the gesture and burst into little rodent snickers. I threw one of the stones at it, and it ducked.
“What do you want, Axel?” My peaceful meditation was officially over.
“Just paying my usual morning visit.” The squirrel scampered off the rock and zipped over to perch on my water bottle, guaranteeing I wasn’t going to reach for it. “I hear you’re working from home this week.”
The first time I’d seen this trick pulled, I’d expected it to speak in squeaks, like the cartoon chipmunks. Instead, the squirrel’s voice was a pleasant tenor and sounded too much like my own. It was creepy. With a groan, I pushed myself to my feet. “I have a client in town, yes.”
“Any chance you’re wanting an edge? A little boost to put that victory in the bag?” The creature’s eyes gleamed an unnatural red for just a moment. “Just a little wiggle of the fingers, a little mojo extraordinaire, and you can be the demon hunter you’ve always wanted to be.”
“Shame on you, Axel. Selling out one of your own?” The eerie little creature followed me as I grabbed my T-shirt off the patio table and pulled it on. A glance through the glass door told me Mira and Anna had disappeared into the depths of the house, and I placed myself where they couldn’t see the possessed squirrel if they came back to the kitchen. There are things I’m just not ready to explain to Anna.
“Spilled milk. You’re worth it.” It zoomed up the back of the wrought-iron chair, tail flicking spastically.
“First, they won’t accept my challenge if I don’t have a soul to offer. Second, you know I’m not going to take you up on it. Don’t you have something better to do than annoy me?”
“Nope. You’re it. As long as I’m hounding you, I don’t have to do anything else.” I swear, the squirrel grinned. I didn’t even know squirrels had those muscles. “And I am, if nothing else, a being of leisure.”
Now that Axel was off my water bottle, I retrieved it to take a long drink. “That’s the same as being lazy, right?”
The squirrel pouted. “You are an uncultured cretin, you know that?”
“That’s the rumor.”
Axel hopped to the top of the patio table. “It’s my move, right?”
The top of the table was worked in a checkerboard pattern. I hadn’t picked it out on purpose, but it turned out to work quite nicely as a chessboard. The pieces were stone, heavy enough that a breeze wouldn’t knock them over. I’d been playing against Axel for a couple years now.
He knew very well that it was his move. After a few moments of studying the board, he nosed a bishop forward a few spaces. “Your turn!”
Damn. He’d put me on the defensive with that one move. I was going to lose this one if I didn’t start paying attention. “I’ll think about it.”
Vicious barking broke out on the other side of my neighbor’s fence, and the possessed squirrel flinched. The thick boards shuddered as the mastiff on the far side tried to smash its way through to get at the demonic presence in my yard. “Tybalt, stop that! Get back over here! Sorry, Jesse!” my neighbor called over the fence.
“S’okay, Ellen. Have a good day at work.”
“Filthy smelly mongrel . . .” The squirrel’s eyes began to glow red again, and I thumped him on top of his furry little dome with one knuckle. Axel gave a very squirrelish yelp of pain, then zinged under the patio table to glare at me, rubbing his head.
“Ahht! You know the rules, no touchy. You don’t want the dogs to chase you, quit possessing the local wildlife.”
“I could always visit you in my true form. I could eat that dog’s heart and spread its entrails over their trees like garland. Think your neighbors would like that?” He was angry now; his tail was twitching all over the place. He really hated dogs. They felt the same about him.
“I think if you don’t want me to have Mira ward the yard, you’ll behave.” After the talking cockroach incident, she put protective wards on the doors and windows. Axel hadn’t come anywhere near the house sinc
e.
The squirrel burst into a stream of profanity in both English and Demonic, ran a couple laps around the patio, then fell over dead as the demon vacated its little body.
“Dammit, Axel!”
Just once, I’d like to start my morning without having to bury some furry corpse. I’m running out of places to stick them in the yard, and I secretly harbor the fear that they’re all going to get up some night and come knocking on the sliding glass door à la Pet Sematary . Like I said, I don’t do zombies.
The neighbor’s dog fell silent the moment Axel disappeared, proving that the demon really had departed. I went in search of a shovel.
We had a strange relationship, Axel and I. His job was to con me out of my soul, something he went about with the bare minimum effort. And my job . . . I liked to think it was to make his life even worse than Hell. We enjoyed baiting each other, playing the occasional game of chess. Sometimes, we even talked philosophy. I can’t even imagine how old he is, but it gives him an interesting perspective.
His name isn’t really Axel, of course. It’s a “Sympathy for the Devil” reference, and he really didn’t strike me as a Jagger. I don’t know his real name. I never want to know.
I didn’t know his true form, either. He was too intelligent to be a Scuttle or a Snot. The most Snots could manage was the occasional menacing belch. I was pretty sure he was a Skin; possibly even a Shirt. The beast and humanoid demons were equally nasty to deal with, for various reasons, but Axel could fit either profile.
I’ve been told there is a fifth class of demon, above even the Shirts. Those would be the actual angels who fell from Heaven once upon a time. I don’t know anyone who has seen one. It may be our own champion version of an urban legend.
This of course begs the question, do I believe it? Y’know, I can probably believe there’s a God out there—big G and everything. But why he’d want to take a close personal interest in this ant farm down here, I don’t know. There are demons, so I suppose at least at one time, there had to have been angels. But this is Missouri, the Show Me state. So until I see it, I’ll file it in the maybe pile.
Regardless, Axel was no angel. I was certain of that.
Mira was getting shoes on Hurricane Annabelle when I finally made it back inside. I frowned a bit. “You girls have big plans today?”
“I’m going to work with Mommy!”
Mira nodded. “Yes, but we’re not going to color in anything but our coloring books this time, are we?”
The red pigtails bobbed as Annabelle nodded. “I promise.”
I scrubbed the dirt off my hands in the kitchen sink. “Mir, I could probably take her today. You can just sit behind the counter at the store and rest. Dee could do the heavy stuff.” I should know better. Nothing is going to get my wife to stubborn- up like my implying she can’t do something.
“I’m fine, and Anna and I are going to have a fun day.” It was that “Are we clear?” voice. You know, the one that does not invite further argument. “What are your plans for the day?”
“I guess I’m going to head over to Marty’s, see if he’s got my gear ready. I’ll probably have to go out late tonight, too.”
“You still need to get your mother a present, while you’re out,” she reminded me.
“I’m gonna call Cole, see what he got her. I don’t want to duplicate.” If my baby brother had ponied up for something big, maybe I could just split the cost with him and it could be a joint gift. I really suck at this whole gift-giving thing.
I got the girls out the door and on the way to Mira’s bookstore, but I really wasn’t happy about it. Mira should have stayed home and regained her strength today. Nice to know my wife listens to me.
I went to pull on some real clothes and get my hair under control. The day’s T-shirt said I’M MEAN BECAUSE YOU’RE STUPID. Add jeans and a ponytail, and you had the all-purpose uniform. I tucked my cell phone into my pocket. Ivan hadn’t called back, and I was starting to get worried—well, more worried than before. The scrying was ominous, at the very best, and no matter what I’d told Mira, I didn’t think Miguel had survived that battle.
I was no shrink, but even I knew that worrying without action accomplished nothing. Since I could take no action at the moment, I decided to run errands instead. Regardless of Miguel’s fate, work was still work and staying alive was pretty high on my priority list. I’d start that process by getting my gear back from Marty. The rest . . . Well, everything else pretty much had to wait until I touched base with Nelson Kidd.
I didn’t figure he’d wimp out. It took guts to come so far and admit so much. People like that don’t cave. I didn’t expect anyone to back out once they’d asked me for help, but I always gave them the choice. Who knows, someday someone might surprise me.
To occupy my mind, I made a few more ticks on my mental to-do list. If Kidd was still willing to go through with it, I’d be summoning a demon tonight, and that required advance planning. You don’t just walk into a demon summoning unprepared. I’d done that. To say it didn’t end well is the edited- for-TV version. I’m damn lucky to still have my soul and all working organs and appendages.
7
Once upon a time, when Mira and I were still in college and we lived in the only ratty apartment we could afford, we had some bachelor neighbors. They were rowdy, uncouth, and basically good guys. Eventually, we got older, moved out of the mold-infested apartment building, started doing the whole grown-up responsible shtick. But we never lost touch. Marty and Will are still my two best friends in the world, and I exploit them shamelessly.
Marty is a walking anachronism. He’s a welder by trade, but a blacksmith by passion. He wears a kilt whenever he can get away with it. The man doesn’t even own a TV. I mean, do you know how hard it is to not only find a blacksmith, but one who knows more than horseshoes and yard ornaments? It’s a dying art. We’re a dying breed, both of us men out of our time. That’s probably why I get along with him so well.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to his house, and in that time I crossed from neatly mowed suburbia into nearly rural territory. Yards in this neighborhood bordered on fields and pastures, and the once- paved streets had long since gone to gravel. The last event of note here happened last summer when some cattle got loose and spawned a seven-mile low-speed chase. (Rumors of my alleged involvement in that bovine escape are highly exaggerated.)
I parked in the front yard and waved to Marty’s wife, Melanie, as she pulled out of their drive. “He in bed yet?”
She rolled down her window. “Nah, he’s out in the shed. There’re pancakes left in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks, Mel!” I must look positively emaciated. People are always trying to feed me.
Marty worked nights, so I had even odds of catching him before he went to bed for the day. It seemed to be my lucky day so far. I could hear the static spit of the arc welder as I walked around the house to the workshop.
A detached garage in a previous life, the shed had been converted into the manliest of manly domains, a refuge for all who revel in testosterone. The back corner was largely taken up by the forge and anvil, but there were also four motorcycles and one lawn mower (don’t ask) in various states of disassembly, an arc welder, and most important, a beer fridge.
I didn’t bother to knock. He wasn’t going to hear me.
Duke greeted me first. The young brindle mastiff rose from his pile of shop rags near the door and padded over, his tail swaying happily. He was the product of my neighbor’s last litter, and Marty had been more than happy to take the runt. If Duke was the runt, I didn’t want to see his siblings. At only seven months old, he was still growing to be the size of a large horse in short order. I couldn’t wait to see what he weighed in at, fully grown.
Despite his impending hugeness, he had the sweetest temperament I’d ever seen in a dog. It never fazed him when Anna pulled his ears, crawled all over him, stepped on one of his enormous paws. The big wimp would turn and run from any une
xpected noise, and he cowered at the sight of the Chihuahua next door.
His doggy breath was warm on my hands, and it was an effort to keep him from bathing me with that huge pink tongue. I scratched his ears, and he rumbled in contentment, leaning against my thigh hard enough to almost knock me over. “You spoiled thing.”
Marty, bare chested but welder’s mask firmly in place, was working over something I didn’t even recognize. It takes a real man to weld with no shirt on—or an idiot. He was possibly both.
The welder threw off strobes of light, casting his extensive tattoo sleeves in strange dancing shadows. The stylized Celtic wolf on his right forearm almost looked as if it were snarling at me. I shielded my eyes from the glare, looking away. The welder hissed and spat a few more times until I heard the knobs on the power supply being dialed down. Marty, his helmet perched atop his head now, smirked at me when I dropped my hand. “Wuss.”
“Bite me. You’re wearing a mask.”
“I’ve eaten, thanks.” He laid the helmet and torch aside, then ran a towel over his shaved head. I still can’t figure out why, when a guy thinks he’s going bald, he shaves his head. It didn’t keep me from seeing the hints of gray in his black beard. And he was two years younger than I. I resisted the urge to check my own facial hair for signs of aging. “Go lie down, Duke.” Obediently, the mammoth mutt padded off to curl up on his bed again. “You’re here for your stuff?”
“Yeah, if it’s ready.”
“It’s ready. Not sure I wanna give it to you, though.” He cast me a disgruntled look as he rose from his stool. He was built like a fireplug, short and stocky with muscle mass attributed to long years of work at the anvil. In all truth, although I towered over him in height, I wouldn’t want him getting his hands on me in a fight. I firmly believed he could break me in half. “What the hell did you try to do—chop down trees with it?”
It is a fact of life. Marty’s swords are his babies. Mistreat them at your own peril. “You knew it was going to get used when you gave it to me, man. And it’s held up to everything I’ve thrown at it.” Yes, Marty knows what I do. But he’s never seen it. I think there’s a large leap to be made between knowing and seeing. He couldn’t fathom the things that sword had been through.
A Devil in the Details Page 7