ANGEL ™: avatar

by John Passarella

  “If I received recognition, it wouldn’t be selfless.”

  She laughed. “Point taken. But not everyone who needs help is penniless. The segment would bring in new business. Face it, this would be great promotion.”

  “Even without promotion, the helpless manage to find me.”

  “But your firm could be doing better, right?”

  “Of course, but I take it as it comes.”

  “I could give you more clients than you could handle, Angel.” Her smile was provocative this time.

  Angel cleared his throat. “I don’t doubt that, Ms. Monroe.” She was an attractive woman who was attracted to him—and probably for more than just the boost in ratings a segment on him might lend her show. Still, he had to remind himself that what she saw in him was not reality, only the image he projected to the world. And while she might find him physically attractive and his mission laudable, the implicit lie of his real nature and the curse on his soul separated them like a chasm that only he could see or even acknowledge.

  “Please, just Chelsea.”

  Angel nodded. “Chelsea, then. But understand that in my line of work, a low profile works to my advantage. Sometimes anonymity has benefits.”

  “Anyone else would jump at the chance for the kind of exposure I’m offering.”

  “Just call me contrary.”

  “You’re unique,” she replied. “As corny as this sounds, I really believe you’re one of the good guys, Angel.”

  “The other options aren’t too appealing.”

  Chelsea sighed, then stood up. “Well, here I am, foiled again.”

  “Careful,” Angel said, rising as well. “It could become a habit.”

  “I’d love to know what makes you tick.”

  Angel came around the desk as she plucked her jacket off the hook. He held it for her while she slipped into it, then held the door open for her. “Oh, just the usual,” he said. “Truth, justice, and the American way.”

  With a long, manicured finger she reached out and drew a slow S on his chest. Her green eyes stayed focused on his face all the while. “Superman, huh?”

  “Nah,” Angel said. “I never looked good in tights.”

  “Well, the dinner offer stands, whether we talk business or not. I’m completely intrigued now. I want to know the real Angel.”

  “Is that the reporter talking? Or the woman?”

  She winked. “Let me take you to dinner and find out.”

  This is an impossible situation, yet I continue to flirt with her, Angel thought. Am I simply taking Doyle’s advice? Is this just part of the human dance? Or do I wish there could be something more here, something real.

  After she walked out the door, Doyle and Cordelia continued to stare at him. “What? What did I do?”

  “Oh, nothin’,” Doyle said. “Only steamed up a few windows.”

  “We were just flirting,” Angel said. “It was harmless.”

  Cordelia’s eyes were wide. “She totally wants to jump your bones.”

  “She’s just trying to charm a story out of me.”

  “I think she’s expecting a little more than a story after that dinner,” Doyle commented. “And I don’t mean dessert.”

  “No dessert,” Cordelia was quick to add, a trickle of fear in her voice. “We all know what happens when Angel has . . . dessert.”

  “You’re overreacting,” Angel said. “Nothing is going to happen. No dessert, no dinner, or anything else. Doyle, are you ready to meet Dink?”

  Doyle frowned. “If that’s it for the fun and games, yes. But first we gotta make one stop.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Angel drove down Hollywood Boulevard in his black convertible, keeping his eyes steadfastly forward. Most of the businesses that relied on tourist dollars had shut down for the night. The bustle of daytime sight-seeing crowds had given way to late night stragglers and insomniacs. Angel drove past Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Roosevelt Hotel. High on a hill to his left, the Hollywood sign was floodlit, stark white against the darkness.

  Doyle sat in the passenger seat, watching Angel curiously, a white take-out carton balanced on his knee. Finally, Doyle asked, “You all right?”

  Angel sighed. “It’s not like I have no self-control.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I’m capable of having dinner with a woman, even a romantic dinner, and letting that be the end of it.”

  “Sure. I meant what I said, about the dance and all that. I think you should do it. You want to make a turn at Vine.” Angel frowned, but not at Doyle’s instructions. Doyle said, “Don’t mind Cordelia. She’s overreacting.”

  Maybe she has good cause, Angel thought. She was there the last time. “So why do I feel as if taking that step would be like peering into the abyss.”

  “A little like playing with fire?” Doyle asked.

  “More than that,” Angel said. “It feels false, somehow. Even though it would probably never become serious, it’s knowing there’s a dead end, that there will always be a dead end.”

  “Havin’ a little fun doesn’t mean you have to become what you once were. Just know when to say when.” Doyle sat up straighter. “Okay, turn here, at the souvenir shop.”

  “What’s this place called?”

  “Two places,” Doyle said. “Upstairs, Radley’s Refreshments caters to the tourists and locals. We’re just interested in the basement. It’s off-limits to the rank and file of humanity. It’s called the Underbar. Take a left here, then a quick right. There should be parking in back.”

  All but one streetlight had been broken, making the back street a mugger’s paradise. Angel parked the convertible in one of several herringboned slots. He noticed several people standing in a rough semicircle, watching a pair of combatants, urging them on. An unusual number of the onlookers wore bulky coats and hats.

  Angel pushed his way through the onlookers and saw that the aggressor in the fight was a few inches over seven feet tall and heavily muscled. He was also yellow-skinned with a black topknot. Demon. Gold chains crisscrossed his bare broad chest like bandoliers. Green-and-black camouflage pants and high black leather military boots completed the look. Short hooked claws bristled from the knuckles of his sledgehammer-size fists. His opponent was less than five and a half feet tall in a long gray coat with a wide upturned collar obscuring a pale face. With his small hands held up in front of him, he seemed on the verge of prayer. Not a bad idea, considering he was pressed up against a dark brown–painted cinder-block wall, and the yellow-skinned demon outweighed him by two hundred pounds and had twice his reach. Angel’s first thought was Why isn’t the little guy dead?

  As the demon swung a fist in a great arc, Angel learned the answer. The claws scored four white parallel tracks through the cinder blocks with an earsplitting screech. The little guy had ducked under the blow, incredibly quick, with the flitting grace of a hummingbird. But backed up against the wall, he was fast running out of room to evade the large demon’s clawed fists.

  “Crush him, Gahryen!” a woman called.

  Standing beside a fire-engine-red Kawasaki, she was tall, over six feet, wearing a black leather bustier, a matching leather miniskirt, and thigh-high black leather boots with four-inch heels. Her exposed skin was a brighter shade of yellow than her companion’s, but her hair was just as black, pulled back and tied severely, almost whip-like, in a ponytail that hung down to the backs of her knees. Like her companion, she also wore a gold chain crisscrossing her torso, with a multifaceted amber-colored gem in the center, just beneath the cleavage revealed by the bustier.

  “This will teach you to be rude to Slyora,” Gahryen said, obviously referring to the female demon. Taking her bloodthirsty comment to heart, Gahryen jabbed his left fist toward the little guy’s head. Fortunately, the little guy bobbed aside a moment before the cinder block behind him imploded with the impact.

  “I wasn’t whistling at her,” the little guy protested, his voice mumbly. “I sneezed.” Angel no
ticed for the first time a bunch of tendrils sticking out of the little one’s mouth.

  Gahryen wasn’t listening to the excuses. He swung his left leg, dropping his small opponent.

  “Doyle,” Angel said, “you go talk to Dink. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Slight problem with that plan.”

  “What?”

  Doyle pointed at the little guy curled up on the ground. “That’s Dink.”

  “Then we better keep him alive long enough to find out what he knows.”

  Gahryen was about to introduce a size eighteen boot to Dink’s rib cage.

  “Gahryen,” Angel called, stepping forward out of the ragged line of spectators, “why not pulverize someone your own size?”

  Gahryen whirled around, surprised at the interruption. His wide grin revealed a mouthful of pointed teeth almost as yellow as his skin. “They don’t make ’em my size.”

  Angel spread his arms wide, glanced down. “I’m close enough.”

  He walked toward the huddled form on the ground while keeping his attention on Gahryen. The demon turned in steady increments to match Angel’s progress, like a compass needle tracking magnetic north. “Dink, go to Doyle, over there. I’ll take care of Gahryen.”

  “Your funeral,” Dink said, darting out from the wall. Angel frowned. Well, at least he seemed grateful. Angel had caught a glimpse of stubby, writhing gray tentacles under Dink’s flattened nose and realized he too was a demon.

  Dink ran toward the circle of onlookers and looked as if he would have kept running if Doyle hadn’t caught him around the throat with an extended arm. “Not so fast, Dinikyllesus,” Doyle said.

  “C’mon, Doyle! If your friend wants to get himself dead, that’s on him. I for one don’t need to hang around and watch.”

  “Have a little faith, Dink. Angel can take care of himself.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Dink said. “Marzekian demons don’t just kill you; they make sure nobody can I.D. the remains.”

  Angel held up his hands, willing to talk his way out of the fight if he could. “This seems to be a little misunderstanding.”

  “The only misunderstanding is you thinking you’re gonna be alive five minutes from now.” Gahryen swung his clawed knuckles at Angel’s head.

  Angel ducked and blocked the blow with his left forearm while drilling his right into Gahryen’s bare left side, below the ribs and beside the crisscrossed chain and the amber gem that matched Slyora’s. The demon grunted with the impact, but that was the extent of his reaction. “You’re right,” Angel said. “I’m not gonna be alive five minutes from now.” His face morphed into his vampiric countenance, revealing his undead nature. “Then again, I haven’t been alive for over two hundred years.”

  Gahryen seemed mildly surprised but unconcerned. With a shrug, he drove his knee up toward Angel’s groin. Angel leaped back, pressed his hands against the wall and swung a kick toward Gahryen’s jaw. Proving faster than Angel anticipated, the demon caught Angel’s foot and swung it higher, upending him.

  Angel wrapped both arms around Gahryen’s legs and pulled hard, bringing them both down. He rolled off the demon but felt clawed knuckles rake across his abdomen, tearing through cloth and gouging his flesh.

  Doyle saw Gahryen connect and grimaced. The amber gem at the intersection of the crisscrossing chains glinted briefly in the weak glow of the streetlight. Doyle turned to Dink. “A Marzekian demon?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Angel!” Doyle called.

  A claw-knuckled fist whistled through the air, just missing Angel’s face. “I’m kinda busy right now, Doyle.”

  “He’s a Marzekian demon!”

  “Thanks for clearing that up,” Angel replied as a cinder block shattered beside his left ear.

  “All Marzekian demons wear banishment gems.”

  Angel twisted sideways to avoid a left jab and drove his right elbow into the demon’s throat, momentarily stunning him. The banishment gem glittered in the middle of the demon’s chest. Angel caught Gahryen’s right arm in a lock and brought it up behind his back even as he drove the edge of his foot into the back of the demon’s knee. Gahryen stumbled forward, and Angel shoved hard, using the demon’s own momentum in combination with Angel’s vampiric strength to drive him into the wall. Angel heard the ground-glass sound as the gem shattered against the wall.

  Break the gem and banish the demon.

  He released the demon, who staggered back, face leaking blood the color of pus. Nuggets of the shattered gem tinkled to the ground like loose change. Gahryen looked down, an expression of horror and surprise on his face. Where the gem had been, a circle of darkness throbbed rhythmically, spreading with each pulse. Fissures began to split the demon’s chest, exposing a black void. Gahryen bellowed in outrage. His body began to crumple, as if being crushed by the hand of an invisible giant. A hot wind buffeted bystanders and stirred up dust and debris. Paper food wrappers swirled about. Gahryen was pulled inward into the void, winking out of existence. Abruptly the wind died and an eerie silence fell upon the alley.

  Then, behind Angel, a shrill scream.

  Doyle called, “Watch out!”

  Angel spun around as Slyora charged him, pulling a long dagger from a sheath strapped to one of her high leather boots. She held it overhead, ready for a quick downward strike. Angel braced his left forearm, catching her wrist as the point of the blade stabbed down at his face. “What’s good for the goose . . .” Angel said, prying the blade from her hand and slamming the metal hilt into the gem.

  “No!” Slyora shouted. But the gem was already fractured. She attempted to hold the pieces in place, a stunned expression on her face.

  “I’m sure Gahryen already misses you,” Angel said. He waved. “Bye now.”

  “It’s not fair!” she cried. Blackness engulfed her chest, spreading across her body like dark veins. With a rush of sound, she was pulled into the darkness.

  “Show’s over, folks,” Doyle announced.

  The onlookers scattered, some departing, others descending the steps to what Angel presumed was the Underbar.

  As Angel joined Doyle and Dink, Doyle turned to the little demon. “Insulting a Marzekian demon, Dink? I would have thought you’d have more sense.”

  “She bumped into me and I sneezed,” Dink said in his mumbling fashion, pointing to the ring of writhing tentacles surrounding his mouth. The tentacles were a couple shades darker than his pale gray complexion, and his wide eyes were burnt orange with long, vertical pupils.

  “And when you sneeze, it sounds just—”

  “Like a whistle,” Dink finished.

  “Anyway, Dink, I brought you a little present,” Doyle said, hoisting the take-out carton in front of Dink’s face. “Your favorite.”

  “Live night crawlers?” Doyle nodded. “Ooh, gimme! Near-death experiences always give me an appetite.”

  “You have a lot of near-death experiences?” Angel asked.

  “Well, just about everything gives me an appetite,” Dink admitted. “But I try to stay out of trouble.”

  Doyle handed him the carton. Eagerly, Dink opened the lid, peered inside, and emitted a contented sigh. “Still squirming in their native soil. Nothing better. No doubt.” With two long fingers and his thumb, he fished out a long, segmented worm. Tilting his head back, he lowered the morsel toward his mouth. The ring of tentacles substituting for lips rippled with the hypnotic rhythm of a sea anemone. They clutched at the wiggling worm and stuffed the end into his mouth. He slurped it up like a strand of spaghetti. After chomping on it for a few moments, Dink mumbled, “So what’s up, Doyle? You don’t bring me worms for nothing.”

  “Now that you mention it, I need a little favor.”

  “Exposed!” Dink exclaimed. “Worms always make me thirsty, so it’s only fair you buy me a drink.”

  Dink walked toward the cinder-block building, grabbing the railing beside the steps that led down to the basement entrance. Doyle whispered to Angel, “Every
thing makes him thirsty.”

  “No doubt,” Angel replied.

  A green neon sign mounted to the upper panel of the glass basement door blinked “Underbar” at them. Beneath was a white plastic sign with red lettering: Private Party. Invitation Only. Without hesitation, Dink walked through the door.

  Angel glanced a question at Doyle. “If you’re demon, or part demon,” Doyle explained, “you’re invited.”

  The Underbar had a counter along the right wall lined with a row of three-legged stools. To the left were scattered tables. The place was about half full. Most of the patrons were obviously demons of one sort or another. Even the bartender, who was six and a half feet tall and dark as obsidian, had startling pink eyes and a spiral horn protruding from the crown of his bald head. On a shelf behind the bar, he had a small wire cage filled with live white mice. Occasionally, as if tossing back peanuts, he popped one or two into his mouth.

  Completely undisturbed by a single, lazy ceiling fan, a smoky haze filled the long room. As near as Angel could determine, the smoke issued from a gray demon with folds of flesh where his face should have been. The mist spilled from the demon’s pores.

  Another pair of green-skinned demons played a game involving daggers and quick reflexes. One demon would place his gnarled hand palm down on the table and wait for the other to take a literal stab at it. The idea was to pull the hand back before the blade came down. They took turns, and now that they’d each quaffed a few intoxicating beverages, there were more howling hits than misses. No one else seemed to mind if the pair cut their hands to ribbons.

  In the near left corner, looking like a lost exhibit from an Art Deco museum, stood a dusty jukebox with an Out of Order sign taped to the front of it. Beneath the official notice, someone had scribbled with a pen, “Again!” Beneath the sign itself was a gaping hole, obviously the result of a conflict over tastes in music.

  Doyle spoke softly to Angel. “Mitch Radley owns both the upstairs and the downstairs. Rumor has it he’s some sort of demon that passes for human.”