ANGEL ™: avatar

by John Passarella

  Excited shouting echoed from the sanctuary.

  Angel crossed the narthex then stopped, short of the nave. Most of the arched ceiling of the church had been lost in the fire, but the burned and splintered beams still jutted out like the broken ribs of a giant’s rotting carcass. The remaining pews were broken and charred as well, while the floor revealed treacherous gaps, the result of fire and water damage. Black candles flickered in the sanctuary, providing the only illumination.

  By the fluttering golden light, Angel counted twelve cult members as they streamed out of the sanctuary, revealing a banquet table with a charred corpse atop it. A couple of the cult members were already brandishing long knives. The bald sorcerer, with his freshly bandaged nose, stayed back. “The vampire!” He turned to the oldest cult member. “Vincent, get the stakes!”

  The old-timer reached into a canvas bag in front of the shattered altar rail and pulled out several crude wooden stakes. It mattered not how crude they were; the points were plenty sharp enough. Cult members grabbed them, an eager light in their eyes.

  “Some people never learn,” Angel said, loud enough for them to hear.

  “Circle him!” Vincent yelled.

  Since Vincent and the sorcerer weren’t all that eager to jump into the fray, the odds were ten to one against Angel. Four came down the wide center aisle of the nave, and two filed down each of the narrow outer aisles. As long as Angel stayed near the narthex doorway, his back would be protected.

  The flanks attacked first, but space was limited and they had to come at him one at a time. The one to his left held a stake aloft, while the one on the right had only a knife. Angel lunged to the left and rammed the pointed end of the crowbar into the gut of the first man, who doubled over screaming as blood spilled over his hands, the stake forgotten. Even as that man dropped to his knees, Angel swung the crowbar around behind him, clipping the second man across the cheek. His head rebounded off the wall and he collapsed, moaning.

  The next attack was from the four coming down the wide central aisle, although only two could attack at once. Angel swatted away a raised stake, then rammed the crowbar into the teeth of another man. But he had stepped forward into that attack and someone was quick to jump on his back, raising a stake high overhead. At that moment, Angel let his vampire face out. He grabbed the arm of the man with the stake and tossed him over his head into the next two coming from the front.

  A knife sliced across his forearm.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed another stake flashing downward, and he rolled forward away from the attack, slamming into a charred pew. Before he could climb to his feet someone else was on top of him, plunging a knife into his shoulder, scraping bone. As Angel reared back, he saw the sorcerer and Vincent moving down the nave, each carrying a stake. Now Angel had their undivided attention. He noticed movement up in the sanctuary, but he was quick to look away lest he draw attention to the others.

  The moment Angel kicked down the front door of the church, Doyle, Cordelia, and Elliot entered through the back door. They passed what was left of the choir rehearsal room and turned down the hallway that bordered the sanctuary. A side door led into the ruined chapel, which was adjacent to the sanctuary and partially hidden from the nave. The door into the sanctuary was missing, leaving a narrow doorway with two steps leading up to where the cult had set up the banquet table and laid out Yunk’sh’s remnant corpse. Here they crouched, waiting until the last two members of the cult moved down the nave to join the fight against Angel.

  Doyle led them to the banquet table. He grabbed the shoulders of the charred demon corpse, which was missing most of one arm, while Elliot shambled over to lift the legs. Cordelia kept a watchful eye on the fight, and the look on her face told Doyle that Angel had his hands full. Doyle tried to block the thought from his mind. His priorities were to steal the corpse and perform the spell. Besides, the plan called for Angel to take on the entire cult as a distraction. Doyle kept telling himself, It’s all part of the plan. It’s all . . .

  Right up until the moment the cult’s sorcerer yelled, “Thieves! They’re stealing the remnant corpse!”

  “Take it,” Elliot said, shoving the charred legs toward Cordelia, who grabbed them despite the look of instant disgust on her face. “I’ll hold them off.”

  “Go!” Doyle shouted to Cordelia.

  The demon’s corpse was surprisingly light for the size of it, and they made good progress down the corridor. Doyle backed into the push bar of the door, which banged open, scraping the sidewalk.

  Cordelia dropped the feet of the corpse, then scrambled to pick them up. “This really gives me the creeps,” Cordelia said.

  “Me too.”

  “It’s missing an arm,” she commented.

  Doyle forced a grin. “Resurrections usually cost an arm and a leg. I’d say he got off cheap.”

  He’d left his gym bag inside the carpet warehouse, figuring he’d need his hands free to transport the demon corpse. As they bent low and ran across the back of the parking lot, a large gray shape bounded across the front of the lot. Doyle and Cordelia both dropped to the ground behind some overgrown bushes. The dark shape smashed through one of the boarded-up windows of the condemned church.

  Cordelia gasped. “What in hell was that?”

  “Out of hell,” Doyle corrected, his face pale. “The Vishrak demon. And he looks none too happy.” He nodded toward the back door of the carpet warehouse. “Let’s go!”

  Angel tossed two cloaked cult members off his back and jumped on top of a split pew. Elliot had stayed behind to stop the sorcerer, and there was nothing Angel could do to help him at the moment. He’d lost his crowbar and was currently surrounded by cult members wielding knives and stakes.

  Elliot was unarmed, and the cult’s sorcerer was merciless. He shoved his long knife up under Elliot’s ribs, twisting it to slice as many internal organs as possible. Yet Elliot had one trick up his sleeve, literally—his left arm. It was thick, toughened gray skin with three oversize clawed fingers. He curled it into a fist and clubbed the sorcerer on the side of the head. Stunned, the sorcerer stumbled and fell, knocking over the bare banquet table with a loud clatter. With his human right hand, Elliot attempted to hold in the slippery ropes of his intestines amid a gush of blood, but he was too far gone. All the strength fled his body and he toppled forward.

  Angel kicked the nearest cult member in the face, clipping his chin and driving him backward. The floor beneath the tilted pew creaked, then cracked and began to cave in. Angel jumped clear, throwing his body sideways and taking down two other cult members.

  Attempting to free himself from the tangle of limbs, Angel was too slow to block the crowbar as a standing cult member swung at his head. A quick backward jerk saved him from the full impact, but the blow landed hard nonetheless, splitting his scalp and cracking bone. Angel tumbled back, momentarily losing control of his legs. He rolled onto his hands and knees but sensed that he was too slow. Silently he wished Doyle and Cordelia luck.

  Plywood shattered, followed by an inhuman roar as the demon Yunk’sh, in his re-spawned and still growing body, crashed through what had been a tall stained-glass window. Stones shattered to accommodate the demon’s bulk, and a spray of old mortar billowed into the church in choking clouds. The demon was nearly eight feet tall now, with powerful arms and legs and a long, barbed tail that slammed into the ruined pews with the force of an ax.

  “The demon,” the sorcerer cried as he climbed to his feet. “There is still time to bind him.”

  “Your time is at an end,” Yunk’sh roared. “You were fools to think you could bind me to your will.” To demonstrate the point, Yunk’sh grabbed the nearest cult member by the throat, hoisted him into the air and ripped an arm right out of its socket to the wet sound of skin and muscles tearing. The bones popped and cracked, loud reports in the night. Blood spurted from the stump, spraying another cult member in the face. This one screamed as he wiped at his eyes. Yunk’sh dropped t
he first man and batted the second one’s arms away, grabbing his head in his oversize hands and twisting in one violent motion as he yanked up. The head tore free of the falling body, trailing the ruptured stub of the spinal cord. Yunk’sh hurled the head at the sorcerer, who was pawing through the contents of a lacquered wooden case. The head struck the remains of the altar rail and toppled it.

  “Stall him!” the sorcerer shouted to the others.

  He needn’t have worried. The demon hunted the cult members down one by one, ramming one man’s head through a wall, punching his three-fingered fist through the chest cavity of another. To Angel it seemed as if the demon was gaining inches and pounds with each kill, growing before his eyes. The floor groaned beneath his increasing weight, boards cracking and shattering with almost every lumbering step.

  Angel pushed himself up to a standing position and was surprised when he staggered. Blood covered one side of his face from his hairline down to his neck. His vision blurred, and he saw ghost images around everything, like bad television reception.

  Willem held a knife in either hand and approached the demon cautiously, arms extended, blades up. When he spoke, he couldn’t keep a slight quaver out of his voice. “We will bind you!”

  The demon’s laughter filled the condemned church and rose up into the starry night. Willem raised the knives defiantly. Yunk’sh lunged forward, a blur of motion, catching one of Willem’s wrists in each hand. He pulled outward, ripping Willem’s arms from their sockets. Then the demon turned the man’s severed arms against him, driving both knives completely through Willem’s chest and pinning him to the floor.

  Only Vincent and the cult’s sorcerer remained alive.

  Fingers still numb, Angel bent to retrieve his crowbar. As a vampire, he healed quickly, but the process was not instantaneous. He needed time to regain his strength, let alone his wits.

  “Where is my remnant corpse, sorcerer?” Yunk’sh demanded. He flung a split pew out of his way. It landed with a resounding crash ten feet away. The demon stormed up the nave of the church.

  Vincent stood nervously in front of the sorcerer, a knife clutched in a double grip in front of him. “Omni, are you prepared to bind him?”

  “Just a second,” the Omni said, applying the green salve to his fingertips. Once all the fingers were coated, the salve began to glow. The Omni stood. “I am prepared.”

  Yunk’sh blurred forward again, ripping the knife from Vincent’s hands. With one quick slash Vincent’s throat was gushing blood. He pressed his hands against the flow but stumbled and collapsed.

  The Omni reached out with glowing hands and took a step forward. “Yunk’sh, I bind you to our will and purpose.”

  “You are alone, sorcerer!”

  “You will live to serve us. When I place my hands upon you, you will kneel before me!”

  The knife flashed lightning quick, a forehand and backhand in quick succession, followed by two thumps as the Omni’s severed hands fell to the floor. The green fingertips no longer glowed. Blood gushed from the stumps of the Omni’s arms.

  “You were meant to serve us,” the Omni cried in disbelief, holding his arms out before him. “It is our right!”

  “You bore me, mortal,” Yunk’sh said. Another brutal forehand and the Omni’s bald head slid off his shoulders. The body swayed, then crumpled forward. The demon looked up, as if scenting the air. “I sense the remnant corpse nearby.” His voice was the dry rumble of thunder before a storm.

  Everything was happening too fast. Had Doyle and Cordelia begun the spell? Would it even work? Angel had to stall the demon long enough to find out. He emerged from the shadows and called to the demon, “You forgot about me.”

  Yunk’sh spun around to face Angel.

  “Ah . . . the vampire, Angel.”

  “Accept no imitations,” Angel said as he assumed a fighting stance, the crowbar held in front of him.

  “You are puny. You will never defeat me now.”

  “Call me foolish, but I’m willing to try.”

  Yunk’sh charged, thundering down the nave, a one-demon stampede.

  “Not my best plan,” Angel muttered.

  A circle drawn with chalk surrounded them. The flame of a single white candle provided their only illumination.

  Cordelia gripped the knife and grimaced as she made a long vertical incision in the desiccated neck of the demon’s remnant corpse. As she wedged the glass orb into the incision just above the collarbone, Doyle flipped to the page he’d marked in the frayed tome. He shoved the book over to Cordelia, then removed a meat cleaver from the canvas gym bag. Clutching the handle with both hands, he held the blade about a foot above the orb, to better line up the blow. Doyle whispered, “Read the spell three times. Substitute the demon’s name, Yunk’sh, wherever it says ‘daemon.’ ”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Doyle said. “Hurry!”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “We won’t be alive long enough to worry about it.”

  Clutching the book to her chest, Cordelia read the spell three times, her voice becoming stronger, more confident with each repetition. “Yunk’sh, tibi impero ut in hoc corporem regrediaris. Yunk’sh, tibi impero ut hanc ampullam animes. Yunk’sh, tibi impero ut in hac figura habites.”

  In his own mind, Doyle translated the spell into English: “Yunk’sh, I command you to return into this body. Yunk’sh, I command you to animate this vessel. Yunk’sh, I command you to abide in this form.”

  They waited, staring at the still dark orb, then glanced at each other. Finally, Doyle spoke, “We’re dead.”

  Angel raised the crowbar, but Yunk’sh barreled right into him, hurling him backward with the collision. Rolling heels over head, Angel knew he only had a moment before the demon would crush him. He was on one knee, crowbar raised, when the floor collapsed under the demon’s weight. Yunk’sh’s foremost foot crashed through the wood and the demon fell forward. Still, he caught Angel’s ankle, dropping him to his back, then grabbed the foot and pulled Angel closer. From a sitting position, Angel held the crowbar in a two-handed grip and shoved the narrow end into the demon’s chest.

  Yunk’sh roared in pain but continued to tug Angel closer. With his free hand, the demon scooped up an abandoned wooden stake, raised it high and was about to impale Angel with it when the demon’s whole body shuddered. “What’s happening?” Yunk’sh bellowed.

  Angel lashed out with his free foot, striking the demon square in the face. He felt the nerveless hand release his leg and he slipped out of the demon’s reach.

  Yunk’sh clambered out of the hole in the floor, then shuddered again and was unnaturally still. A green glow bathed his eight-foot-tall body and wafted away like mist. The demon’s body began to tremble uncontrollably.

  Doyle stared at the dark glass orb, willing something to happen. Finally a pinpoint of green light winked into existence in the center of the sphere. Slowly it expanded within the confines of the glass container until it was almost too bright to watch. The charred corpse began to quiver and vibrate on the floor.

  Cordelia shrieked and jumped back. “Do it! Now!”

  “My pleasure,” Doyle said. Gritting his teeth, he brought the cleaver down through the charred throat and shattering the orb as he severed the head. A loud implosion sounded as green light flared, momentarily blinding them.

  The light from the white candle flickered, guttered, and held.

  When they could see again, the charred corpse was a pile of ash.

  “Is it over?” Cordelia asked. “Is the demon really dead this time?”

  Doyle nodded. “Gives a whole new meaning to that old saying, ‘If at first you don’t succeed . . .’ ”

  EPILOGUE

  “So Kate’s happy?” Doyle asked Angel.

  “Glad it’s over, anyway,” Angel commented. “When she responded to our anonymous call, she just found the bodies of the suicide cult.”

  “Whatever happened to the demon’s re-spawn
ed body?” Cordelia asked.

  “It never had time to establish itself on the physical plane. It just faded away.”

  “He should’ve asked for a money-back guarantee,” Doyle quipped.

  “And after Elliot died—or maybe after Yunk’sh died—Elliot got his wish. His corpse reverted to human form. Hairless, but human.”

  The telephone rang. Cordelia answered, then displayed a frown that progressively deepened. “What are you talking about? No, you pervert!”

  “What was that?” Doyle asked.

  The phone rang again. Cordelia answered a little more tentatively this time. “No! And you’re a disgusting little creep!”

  “Same guy?” Angel asked.

  Cordelia shook her head, but the phone began ringing again before she could explain. She picked up and said, “Hold, please.” The second line rang and she put that one on hold as well. “What is going on here?”

  Arnold Pipich arrived, grinning from ear to ear. “Have you seen? We’re up to five thousand hits on the site!”

  “What? How?” Cordelia asked. “Wait a minute! These phone calls . . . Arnold, what did you do?”

  “First, I registered on the search engines, but that wasn’t enough because, you know, there are millions of sites out there. So I started the contest. Win a night of passion with a hot young Hollywood starlet.”

  Cordelia’s eyes went wide. “You what?”

  “I, um, borrowed your portfolio, the one you keep in your desk, scanned in some of the eight-by-ten glossies, and posted them on the site. Then I made announcements on various e-mail lists. Mucho traffic!”

  “Are you crazy? Every geeky little pervert in L.A. is calling here!”

  Arnold winked. “Don’t worry. “I rigged it so I’ll be the winner.”

  “Read the fine print,” Cordelia told him. “This contest void where you’re prohibited.”