by Mandy Lee
Gadreel glanced back down at his phone and shook his head. “Nope. Nothing useful, just muffled noises.”
“Guys! What’s with all the long faces?” Theo approached the table. The demon must have just arrived for the start of his shift.
Theo actually ran The Advocate, but preferred his place behind the bar to being seen as the boss. He’d always been a friendly sort, just laid back and casual. The only outward signs of his demonic nature were the two small horns peeking out through his light brown hair. “You look sadder than snowflakes in Sheol!”
“Hey.” The guys mumbled in greeting.
“Whatever happened to the new bartender you’d hired?” Gadreel asked. “She seemed good.”
Theo rolled his eyes dramatically and threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Don’t get me wrong, I really liked her…probably more than I should have, but I had to let her go. She kept eating the customers. That’s never good for business. You know my policy — I give them two warnings. Third corpse they’re out.”
“Vampire right?” Bill asked.
“Yeah, a new turn...she was taking folks home after her shifts and having a hard time controlling her thirst…they’re normally pretty off the handle for the first while.” Theo winced and glanced over at Sergei. “No offense dude.”
Sergei just shrugged it off and smiled. “I had a little extra ammunition on my side. I cast a great spell to help me control it.”
Theo snapped his fingers and pointed at Sergei. “Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re the witch…or whatever guy-witches call themselves. So the magic still works after your turn?”
“For the most part, yeah.” Sergei heaved a sigh. “I tried a summoning spell to reach the angels to see if they’d heard from B, but no dice.”
Theo frowned as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “That does make sense. I mean, technically, you’re part of the dark side of the balance now. That’s probably why you can’t call on the light…and you guys are….what?”
The former fallen angels all looked at each other and began piping up.
“Confused,” said Bill
“Who the fuck knows.” Al chimed in.
“Fucked.” Came Sam’s response.
Gadreel stared at his image reflected in the stainless steel dinner plate in front of him. “Neither light, nor dark, somewhere in the middle, but still stuck in our own personal Sheol.”
Sam’s laughter made Gadreel jerk his head up sharply. “There he goes, Mr. model, staring at his oh-so-handsome face yet again.” The others chuckled.
Gadreel’s chest felt hollow as he joined in with a half-hearted laugh. Seriously, he’d been listening to jokes about his vanity for decades...and his buddies never seemed to tire of them. They really had no idea who he was anymore. It was probably best that they didn’t. Gadreel and B shared a dark and painful secret that they’d decided to keep locked away long ago. They had each found a way to deal with the pain and shame that had been left behind. But in the end, they were bound together in a way their friends would never understand.
Gadreel hated the assumption that he was just a vain prick who couldn’t stop himself from looking into every reflective surface if his life depended upon it, but it was far easier than trying to explain the truth. How do you make your friends understand that you're looking for an outward manifestation of all the internal scars? He couldn’t stop himself from trying to see the angel he used to be. Now all he saw was a monster in the mirror. Gadreel spent his life looking for the evidence whereas B avoided it, numbing himself with sex and salvia.
None of the other guys knew about B’s drug use. They chalked him up as a man-whore and moved on with life, taking his smart-ass humour and easy smile as a sign that all was well in his world. Funny, Gadreel mused, that they were both seen as hopelessly shallow by their friends, but in reality they had so much swirling just beneath the surface.
Yanking himself out of his self-destructive thoughts, Gadreel turned to Theo. “How did you find out about our collective change in state?”
Theo’s eyebrows rose up to his hairline as he gave Gadreel an incredulous look. “You know how it is, my friend. News around here travels faster than a Sheolic brush fire.”
The group grunted in acknowledgement.
“Demons. Fucking gossip-mongers the lot of them.” Bill bit out as he grabbed up his pint and took a long swig.
“Hey, now! Don’t lump us all in together. It was actually some hot blonde that started running her mouth…. She’s been in here almost every day. Must be one of those chicks that spends her time panting over the lot of you.” Theo retorted with a roll of his eyes. “If I had a dollar for every demon that asked for one of your numbers, I’d never have to work another day in my life.”
Their group had won an epic victory against their former boss, Satan. Battle lines were becoming more clearly drawn than they’d been in millennia. There was a sense of restlessness within the demon population — a feeling that something big was coming, but nobody quite knew what. The gossip mill seemed to be running on overdrive.
“I’m sorry, you know.” Theo sighed.
Gadreel turned toward him with a frown. “About what? The women?”
“No. About Mo.”
Gadreel closed his eyes briefly and sighed. He nodded slowly as he looked down at his lap. “Thanks, man.”
Asmodeus, Mo as they’d nicknamed him, had fallen in battle, cut down as he tried to make his escape from Halja castle. They mourned deeply, none of them knowing quite how to process the loss of their friend.
If one of them had to go, Gadreel had always hoped it would be him, however selfish that was. On one hand he didn’t want to leave B alone in the world. On the other, death would finally release him from the eternal life sentence he was serving trapped in his mind and body.
Theo’s chair scraped along the wood floor as he stood, the sound rousing everyone from their thoughts. “I’d better head over to the bar. Let me know if you guys need anything, all right?”
The group nodded soberly as he turned and strode off. Each of them stared into their beers, lost in their own private pain. Gadreel sighed loudly.
“Is it time for us to go and start searching for B on foot guys? I think we can all agree we’re worried as fuck.”
Murmurs of agreement made their way around the table.
“There’s only one problem,” said Sam. “What are our limitations now that we’re not tied to Satan anymore? Can we defend ourselves if we’re attacked? Were any of our abilities affected...strength in a fight, healing?”
Gadreel nodded in agreement. “We can’t make any assumptions at this point. Maybe we can put a call out to Luc and Katia. They’ll definitely be willing to help.”
“No.” Heads swivelled to stare at Sergei as he shook his head emphatically.
“What?” Sam asked Sergei.
“We can’t bother them with this. They’re on their honeymoon. I think averting an apocalypse gives them the right to a bit of a break, don’t you?”
A collective sigh rose up around the table as the fallen reluctantly agreed.
“Well, if we’re not going to ask Luc for help, then I volunteer to go out and search.” Sam said. “My reputation for ripping souls out of folks will probably keep me safest outside of The Advocate...nobody will take the risk of messing with me.”
Sam slid back his chair and tossed some Sheolic ducats down to cover the bill. He saluted his buddies and made his way toward the door. The guys picked up their conversation, so nobody noticed the beautiful blonde that snuck out the door behind him.
Chapter Six
The gurney rolled down the hallway, one wonky wheel squeaking over the linoleum floor like a broken grocery store shopping cart. Mara glanced over at Alex; he was rocking his best poker face as they rolled their not-so-dead patient down the hallway toward the morgue. They nodded solemnly at colleagues as they passed, making sure they kept their expressions suitably morose. A few funny looks were levelled their w
ay; it wasn’t the norm to see two surgeons personally delivering a fatality to the morgue. Good thing they'd already paid a memory altering visit to security...body snatching caught on video would be tough to explain. Now the cameras had all been switched off.
“Almost at the exit.” Alex whispered.
Mara nodded almost imperceptibly. She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the door to the underground parking garage, the exit was directly across the hall from the morgue. The old saying “don’t count your chickens” came to mind as one of Mara's favourite doctors strolled around the corner.
“Working as orderlies now?” He asked with a confused look.
They stopped in their tracks, the body on the gurney shifted slightly and Baal’s arm slipped out from under the sheeting to dangle freely. The six-foot-five doctor, affectionately nicknamed Mr. Clean, raised his eyebrows.
“Doctor Watt…Howie. Um, we just wanted to deliver this one ourselves. It was a tough loss.” Mara trailed off, knowing exactly how rattled she sounded.
“I heard you two had been working on a stabbing vic with some pretty intense injuries. Guessing this is him?” Doctor Watt looked over at Alex. “I don't remember either of you actually losing a patient before...this must be hard.”
Alex cleared his throat. “Uh...yeah...”
Doctor Watt nodded solemnly and walked over to clap Alex on the back. “Sorry, man. Every loss is hard, but my particular condolences on this first one. I’ll leave you to it.” He squeezed Mara’s arm and began to turn away when Baal’s arm twitched, stopping him in his tracks.
“Did he just...?” Doctor Watt stood dumbstruck pointing at the arm hanging off the gurney. “I swear I just saw…” He turned to look at Mara.
Mara worked hard to control her face. She hated doing this to Doctor Watt, but she pasted on an expression of pure innocence as she looked back at her colleague. “What Howie?” Her heart squeezed as he shook his head and took off his glasses, cleaning the lenses on the hem of his pristine white lab coat.
“I could have sworn he moved,” Howie said, moving toward the gurney.
Alex shot Mara a desperate look as he grabbed for Howie’s arm, pulling him back far too quickly and easily. Doctor Howie Watt was built like a linebacker and wasn’t accustomed to being manhandled by anybody.
“What’s going on? How did you…?” He looked like his brain was about to melt. Mara decided it was time to do something that broke her heart.
“Howie, I think you need to hit an on-call room for a while. You must be going on thirty hours at this point. No wonder you’re seeing things.” She reached out to touch his arm gently and gazed into his eyes. Mara let go, allowing her preternatural senses to reach out and draw him in. She felt the power swirling through her and knew her eyes were a shimmering gold. Howie’s pupils dilated and his face went slack as his mind opened to her suggestion. Mara had sworn she'd never use her powers unless absolutely necessary and never on friends. Here she was, breaking her promises yet again. She’d turned someone, which she’d sworn never to do, and now she was violating the mind of a dear colleague. She kept telling herself that she was doing these things with the best intentions, but isn’t that what paved the road to Sheol?
Stuffing down her self-loathing, Mara began overriding Howie’s will with her own. In a calm, soothing voice she talked him around the problem. “You’re tired Howie. You’re going to go to the on-call room and sleep. You stopped to talk to Alex and me on our way out to the parking lot. Our shifts are done and we’re heading home. You will have no memory of this conversation. Do you understand?”
Howie nodded vacantly, his voice flat. “I understand.”
Mara pulled her power back slowly, not wanting to jar her friend’s psyche. Howie stood still for a moment, swaying slightly before shaking his head and throwing off the hypnotic effect. He gave Mara and Alex his usual good-natured smile.
“Nice running into you guys! Gotta hit the hay!” He stepped away and began moving down the corridor toward the elevator bank without a backward glance.
Alex reached out and touched Mara’s arm. “Mara, I…”
“Don’t. Just don’t.” She shook off his touch and moved back to the head of the gurney. “We don’t have time for a pity party. Let’s get moving.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Alex replied quietly as he moved to walk beside her.
The double doors of the parking lot swung open as they pushed the gurney through, slamming shut behind them. Mara instinctively headed for her car parked in the prime surgical parking near the door. It paid to be one of the top dogs in the hospital. As they neared her vehicle she realized they had a small problem...literally.
“Alex, we’re going to have to use your SUV. No way am I going to scrunch Baal up in the backseat of my Mini Cooper.”
Alex sighed and waved toward the Durango parked a few spots down. “Sorry, I should have thought of that. Lead the way. I’ll put the seats down in the back.”
They worked as quickly as possible to situate the fallen angel in the back of the SUV. He groaned and winced in pain, but stayed blessedly unconscious as he was moved. Mara slammed the trunk door closed and pushed the gurney back through the double doors into the hospital corridor, leaving it against a wall. Her brain was spinning. Where were they going to hide a fallen angel that clearly had a hit out on him? Her home wasn’t magically warded and she wouldn’t ask Alex to put himself in a risky situation he hadn’t signed up for. The Advocate was warded against violence, but there was no way of keeping Baal’s presence a secret when dozens of demons made their way through there on a daily basis. What on earth was she going to do with the two hundred pound liability in the back of her friend’s SUV?
With her brain still chasing its own tail, Mara slid into the passenger seat. In typical Alex fashion, he looked over at her and voiced her thoughts.
“So, we need to stash this guy somewhere. I’m not letting you take him home to play nursemaid and have you getting killed in the process.”
Mara turned and smiled tiredly at Alex. “Got any bright ideas, Oh Wise One?”
With a cocky smile Alex put the car in gear and backed out of his spot. “Just one, but you’re not gonna like it.”
Chapter Seven
“You’re such an asshat.”
Alex chuckled as he parked his SUV near a dimly lit door in a dingy alley. “I knew you wouldn’t be a fan.” He popped open his door and shot Mara a rueful glance. “Suck it up, Buttercup. Time to put on your big girl panties.”
“You suck.” Mara slid out of the passenger seat rolling her eyes to the heavens. This had to be the last place in the human realm she wanted to find herself holed up.
“Yes, my dear, I do suck…and so do you.” Alex replied as he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
Mara punched him in the arm. “Regular Johnny Carson you are with the bloodsucker jokes, Sir. Let’s just get this over with.”
Alex popped open the trunk and eyed the cargo. “You go talk to the owner. I’ll keep an eye on our friend here.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Mara held out her hand. “Knife?”
Alex fished around in his pocket, pulled out his Swiss Army and slapped it down into her palm. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
“Bite me.” Mara said as she walked toward the rusted door to the sound of Alex’s laughter.
Flipping open the knife, Mara made a deep slice in her palm. The blood flowed out ruby red, just enough for her to complete the ritual. As the cut sealed itself shut, Mara dipped her index finger into the pool of liquid. Reaching out, she drew the demonic symbol of the incubi on the door. The blood bubbled and hissed, steam rising from the surface of the metal. A glow began to emanate from the design, orange and gold like a fire, licking at the blood to escape its confines. The peephole slid open and a pair of jet black eyes stared out at her. Looking into that obsidian stare was like looking into an abyss. Mara shuddered. She had been a part of this underworld for centuries, but there were just some species of demon th
at would always give her the creeps. She closed her eyes briefly, drawing on the demon within herself. When she re-opened them, they glowed blood red.
The peephole slid closed with a snap and the heavy door opened with the creak of rusty hinges. It seemed as though WD-40 still wasn’t on anybody’s shopping list. Though, knowing the owner, he probably thought the creaking and groaning added to the Halloween-chic ambiance.
“Welcome back to Brimstone, Mara.” The seven-foot-tall demon grated out as he waved her into the long hallway with a pale, skeletal arm.
The hallway was long and narrow adorned in peeling green paint that showed layers of yellowing, patterned wallpaper beneath. The overhead fluorescent lighting pulsed to the muted beat of music that became more and more hypnotic as Mara moved down the hall toward a closed door. It had been more than a year since she’d visited Brimstone, but the slow and steady pull of the magic surrounding her felt like a warm, familiar embrace. The door was Wolframite, charmed and forged in the depths of Sheol. It glinted in the flickering light in all its unbreakable glory. Just like the owner of this establishment, it was unaffected by the passage of time, and impervious to everyone and everything. Mara reached out and placed her hand on the cool surface. Recognizing her demonic essence, the door swung open slowly allowing the pounding of the music and the scent of strawberries and cream to waft into the hallway and surround her. That was the beauty of this place — it was designed to draw in each visitor, the magic giving everyone exactly what they needed to sense.
Mara entered the packed nightclub. The enormous interior was modern, all chrome and clean lines. The strobe lights flickered off of every shiny surface and got lost in the fog rolling off the smoke machine set up near the stage. Demons and their human consorts writhed to the music; the curtained couches along the walls were all occupied. Some demons were feeding while others took advantage of the multitude of voyeurs to act out fantasies with their companions. Blood and sweat mixed as they reached for heights of ecstasy that could only be achieved in the confines of Brimstone. The proprietor of the establishment catered to the whims of all of his guests — be they chemical, sensual, kinky, or straight-up depraved.