“Shut up, kid,” I snarled. “You know nothing about me.”
Sparks put a hand on my shoulder. “She’s just a little girl, Reaper. Take it easy.”
“She’s about as much an eight-year-old kid as I am a—”
“A human being?” said Charlotte, finishing my sentence. “We must discuss these existential questions another time, death-dealer. For now, I am your charge and we must find a safe place to hide.”
I grunted as I eyeballed the little girl who talked like a philosophy professor. After that diatribe, part of me wanted to just dump the kid, (yeah, I know, I’m a jerk.) but that was just because she hit a little too close to home. That and a knee-jerk reaction to being dragged into heavenly politics yet again. Yes, I would protect her. Somehow.
The only question running through my mind now was simple: who was going to protect Sparks and me?
10
We gathered supplies from my now destroyed bunker and loaded up Sparks’ SUV. Within minutes we were bouncing down the grid road and heading out to the highway. Sparks placed her smartphone on a mounting bracket attached to an air vent and swiped the screen with one hand while keeping the SUV from falling into one of a multitude of large potholes that pockmarked the roadway with small craters. That terrible grid road was one of the reasons I’d purchased the land and bunker at a government auction: in my business, you always need to buy yourself some time. Bad roads slow up the bad guys. You know, assuming they’re human. If they’re not human, well, you’d better think fast.
“We’re on the move, Reaper,” said Sparks as a map flashed on her smart phone’s screen. “But where are we headed to?”
I glanced at Charlotte and she threw me a shrug. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be of much help until she had a felt marker in her hand and a large wall to draw on.
“I dunno, where do people on the lam like to hide out? You’re the expert, Sparks.”
She grunted and said, “Off the grid, mostly. But they eventually do something stupid and illegal to tip us off to their location. And anyway, we’re not criminals. Also, the cops aren’t on our tail, creatures of myth and legend that I am just now starting to get my head around, are. I can’t imagine anywhere is safe and, I should add, I am still ticked off at you for introducing me to this messed up eternal order of things. I was happy being blissfully unaware that God, the Devil and everything in between is real. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that vampires and werewolves cruise up and down Robie Street when the sun goes down.”
I reached for my cigarettes and slipped one between my lips. “There’s lots of scary stuff out there, Sparks. Best not to think about it too much.”
With one swift move, Sparks tore the cigarette out of my mouth. She opened the driver’s window and tossed it out onto the grid road. “No smoking in my vehicle. Also, you need to set a good example for Charlotte.”
I looked at the girl through the rear-view mirror and said, “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you, kid?”
“It’s pretty gross, Mister R,” she yawned. “I’m sorry that you both have to hide with me. That you have to protect me from stuff.”
I pivoted my waist and leaned over the armrest, I eyeballed the girl closely not knowing why I had been chosen to protect the girl. She knew the truth of me. She’d written my host’s surname all over her bedroom wall. Had she been visited by Ambriel? Did my new guardian angel come to the girl in her dreams and tell her my host’s name? There were too many unanswered questions and I had the feeling that the part of Charlotte that spoke in an adult’s voice had all the answers.
And that part of Charlotte was pretty tight-lipped about divulging too much information when pressed. There was something dark about Heaven’s involvement in all of this. The guys downstairs are straight-up evil: I’d expect them to kill a little girl to suit their aims because that’s just how they roll, but angels from on high? They are supposed to be reflections of His grace. They exist to give comfort to those afflicted with pain and suffering. To offer hope where no hope exists.
Unfortunately, I’d been learning the hard way that Heavenly creatures are often just as bad if not worse than those arseholes from the dark place. Now they had a little girl in their sights and that just pissed me off even more.
Come what may, I was going to protect Charlotte. She was as innocent as any other eight-year-old. Her life bore no resemblance to the lives of any other child on the planet. I considered for a moment that she might be harbouring an angel because she sure as hell didn’t have a demon inside. Maybe the older Charlotte wasn’t the girl at all but some weird-ass inter-dimensional entity with omnipotent powers.
Maybe it was one of the old gods.
I decided to keep my interactions with the older Charlotte to a minimum. I just had to keep the kid alive but to what end, I didn’t have a clue. But maybe Dave might know. After sundown.
***
We hid Sparks’ SUV in the woods, just off another grid road about thirty miles from my now destroyed bunker. I spent about half an hour collecting branches thick with leaves and covered the entire vehicle with camouflage. (Not that I was certain camouflage would hide us, but it made Sparks feel better to do it, so I did) We’d made a short stop in Truro to pick up some food that you don’t need a can opener to access, along with a few necessities. Sparks bought Charlotte a new pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I chipped in a few bucks and got the girl a new pair of sneakers and warm coat from Walmart. We didn’t think there would be much risk of attack in a busy shopping mall – Heaven and Hell are never ones to draw too much attention. They typically like to work from the shadows or come at you when you’re alone and defenceless. It took us another forty minutes to find a good spot to hide the vehicle. Sparks was pretty ticked off when she backed her SUV into a thick copse of blue spruce and the tree branches scratched up the doors and roof.
I took turns with Sparks guarding the girl. Charlotte slept like a rock for a full six hours until the sun went down. I forced myself to sleep. As an elemental, I don’t need sleep. Human hosts that I’ve rebooted from the land of the dead, on the other hand, do. I just reclined the passenger seat and stared at the ceiling while my host’s body recharged. We pulled out of our hideaway shortly after 10:30 PM and headed back into Halifax. By midnight, Sparks’ SUV was prowling up Robie Street, the busiest street in Halifax. I pointed to the Brisk Mart sign up ahead.
“We’re going to a Brisk store?” Sparks griped as she pulled into a parking lot littered with crushed coffee and fast food containers. “You should have bought cigarettes back in Truro.”
“I need to see a guy,” I said, as Sparks slipped the SUV into park and killed the engine.
She threw up her hands. “Fair enough. While you’re at it, maybe ask your guy why this is the only Brisk Mart in town that has never been robbed.”
“Trust me, it’s a safe place. Hugely safe.”
“It bloody well better be,” Sparks griped.
I glanced at the girl and as if she could read my mind, she threw me a small shrug. “See, Sparks? The kid isn’t getting any weird vibes from this place. And besides, the guy who works here is a friend of mine. Sort of.”
Sparks emitted a loud snort. “I thought I was your only friend.”
“I’ve been around for more than a century, Carol,” I said as I opened the door and stepped out of the SUV. “I’ve got a few contacts and some of them I’ve been known to drink hard liquor with on a regular basis. Would you keep an eye on Charlotte, I’ll be back in a bit. It’s time to talk with Dave. “
***
I strolled into the Brisk Mart and my nostrils filled with the smell of grease mixed in with various volatile organic compounds of everything from nachos to hot dogs to fried chicken, all in their individual wrap or containers and each sitting beneath a heat lamp that could probably cause skin cancer if you got too close. I scanned the store and saw there was a sketchy looking male of the douchebag persuasion wearing white sunglasses and a jean jacket with the
arms cut off. He quickly looked around the store to see if staff were watching and then grabbed two energy drinks and stuffed them in the pockets of his dirty jeans – you know, the kind where the wearer’s boxers are clearly visible because the jeans hang off your ass. Apparently, this looks cool on some distant planet of douchebags.
This particular douchebag didn’t stand a chance. He was a dead man walking and didn’t even realize it because the manager of the Brisk Mart is a fifty-year-old man who has been working at the convenience chain since he was fresh out of high school, and almost always on the night shift.
Dave Exner is an anomaly, I think. The reason for this is because I do believe he has actually found the elusive secret of happiness that human beings spend their entire lives searching for. He has somehow managed to build a three-decade career out of working in a convenience store chain and it’s entirely possible that he experiences joy the moment he doffs his Brisk Mart Dickey and heads out the door each night. He’s human, by the way. And he’s seen everything.
No, seriously. He’s literally seen everything there is to see when it comes to nocturnal activities of criminals, junkies, supernatural beasties and late-night shift workers with hardcore coffee addictions. I’ve known him for more than a decade after having stumbled into his shop covered from head to toe in green goo after I disembowelled a ghoul who thought it might be a nice idea to make a meal out of my former host one night after a serious evening of Jägermeister shots. Dave didn’t even cock a wary eyebrow when he first laid eyes on me because, as mentioned, he’s seen it all.
Oh yeah, I should mention that he’s also in possession of a nasty-ass theft deterrent agent and that’s why the douchebag with the sunglasses didn’t stand a chance the moment he decided that swiping a couple of cans of Red Bull would somehow enrich his life. In fact, the douchebag’s life was about to end and he didn’t even know it. But I knew it because I’d seen what was about to happen before.
Dave nodded my way and then snapped his fingers. He pointed to the back corner of the store where the energy drink thief had just stuffed the two cans in his pockets and there was a sharp gust of wind that blew straight down the centre aisle.
Except it wasn’t a stiff breeze inside the Brisk Mart and the douchebag’s mouth dropped open as if on a hinge when the imp revealed itself at the last second. Yeah, you read that right, too. I said imp—as in demonic minion. He goes by the name “Phil” (short for Filisiaspazuzu) and he ain’t no accountant. The creature was visible for less than three seconds when it simply opened its maw and swallowed the douchebag whole; spitting out the two cans of Red Bull which landed on the floor covered with slime.
As Sparks alluded earlier, this particular Brisk Mart is the only one in the entire chain that hasn’t experienced a robbery for the past fifteen years? Phil is the reason for that and Dave is Phil’s best friend. Sort of.
“I’m assuming you switched off the security cameras, Dave,” I said as I lit up a cigarette.
“Is that you, Reaper?” he said with a whistle. He swept a crop of heavily greying feathered hair out of his eyes and pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose with an index finger. “You know, I had to do a double take there for a second. You look different. This must be what you meant about hitching a ride on a freshly squeezed corpse. What happened?”
“Long story,” I said as I looked back at Sparks’ SUV and saw that her eyes were bulging out as she opened the driver’s door. Obviously, she’d seen the end of the douchebag, not to mention a split-second glimpse at Phil. I gave her a knowing look and then shook my head. She screwed her face up into a knot and then shut the driver’s door.
“I’m here all night,” he said with a deliberate drawl. “Actually, I’ve been here every night for two decades. Help yourself to a coffee.”
I shook my head as another sharp gust of wind blew past me. Phil appeared behind the counter next to Dave. The creature’s eyes were little more than a pair of inky black pools set deep in its skull. Its leathery skin was covered with tattoos in some ancient form of Hellion. I glanced at Dave who stood about a little under five foot eight. He was wearing his Brisk Mart shirt along with a red name take that said he was the store manager. Both of Dave’s ears were pierced, the left with a tiny Iron Maiden symbol and the right with a pentagram. Black Sabbath’s Crazy Train crackled through the old speaker system and I noticed a number of multicoloured wires sticking out of an old Hitachi ghetto blaster that looked like it had been rescued from 1983. Inside, a cassette tape was playing and I had to wonder for a moment if this was something a much younger Dave Exner would have taped off the radio back during the first Reagan administration.
“Can we talk? I need help.” I said as I leaned across the counter. Phil emitted a loud sneeze and sprayed Imp snot all over Dave’s Wrangler jeans.
Dave wiped the greasy mess with a rag and tossed it in the trash. He pointed to Phil and said, “Stun only. Got it? Don’t eat anybody, that’s an order.”
Phil’s inky black eyes blinked and the creature threw my friend a short nod.
“You’ve got him trained,” I said.
“Barely,” Dave said. “Follow me.”
A moment later we were inside Dave’s tiny office that looked like a document shredding company’s wet dream. Stacks of paper from floor to ceiling rested against three of the walls, sometimes four stacks deep. It was certainly enough protective insulation against anything shy of a 105-millimeter squash head round.
I kept the door open even though there were three security camera screens on top of Dave’s cluttered desk and I could even see Sparks inside her SUV grating her teeth together. “I’m here because I’m protecting someone and we need a place to hide,” I said as I handed Dave a cigarette and lit one of my own.
Dave lit his cigarette and took in a deep haul. “You know, I really shouldn’t be helping you right now, Reaper,” he said, eyeballing the glowing end of his cigarette. “Phil informs me you’ve made some enemies of the guys from upstairs and downstairs.”
I blinked. “And your demonic little buddy would know this because he calls home every weekend? How does that work?”
Dave reached for a heavily stained travel mug that I assumed was filled with fine Brisk Mart coffee and took a swig. “Reaper, I have been working the night shift for a long time. Before Phil, I’d been robbed on more than twenty occasions. I’ve seen three people shot to death in the parking lot and I’ve interacted with every kind of creature, beastie, angel, demon, blood-sucking parasite and flesh-eating shape-shifter you can think of. Hell, even you are now occupying a completely different body from the last time I saw you, and by the way, that’s a HUGE mind fuck, but I digress. I’ve always thought it was interesting that all these supposedly mythical creatures want to hit up a convenience store during the darkest hours of the night, but weird beings have walked through those doors on a lot of nights since I started here mopping the floors back when Nirvana was a thing.”
I raised a finger. “That’s a badge of honour, brother. I don’t know many people who could stand two decades of night shifts at a convenience store.”
He took a drag off his cigarette and flicked some ash into an ashtray that was swimming with cigarette butts. “Yeah, well I like to keep it simple. I thought working the graveyard shift at the Brisk would help me stay out of shit. I used to steal cars before I worked here, you know. I was a kid, of course; but when you’re on the wrong side of the law it’s just a matter of time until you fuck something up and find yourself in jail. I like to think that working here kept me out of the penitentiary, but who knows, right? Phil keeps me in the know about a lot of dark shit that’s lurking in the shadows. He might eat petty thieves, but he’ll only mung out on them if he can see there ain’t nothing worth saving in their soul. That guy who tried to steal the energy drinks? He was on his way to much darker stuff. Phil can see the future, the past. I’m hoping you aren’t losing sleep over an imp who is just doing what imps do. It’s just like whoever is on your
tail – they’re just doing their job, right?”
I stubbed my cigarette in the ashtray and glanced at the security monitors. I could see Sparks talking with Charlotte. I could also see that she had her Glock at the ready in her right hand. “I need a place that’s off the grid. Way off the grid. A pocket dimension would be nice but the last one I visited is called Pitfalls’s Province and I barely made it out of there in one piece.”
He nodded. “Oh yes, Valerie Stevens. You worked with her a few years back.”
“Yup. We had to fight our way in and out of Pitfall’s Province. Calgary was experiencing a necromancer problem and there were flesh-eating creeps popping up all over town.”
“Ah, Calgary. My hometown. Anyway, the reason you’re here has to do with the two people in the car, right? Who needs to hide, the little girl or the grown up?”
“The grown-up is a cop and don’t worry, she knows the truth of things that you and I deal with, though it’s a miracle she didn’t come in here blasting away with her Glock when Phil dispatched that douchebag. No, it’s the little girl. She’s important somehow, on a celestial level. I’ve known the kid for about sixteen hours and already we’ve survived attacks by the guys in white and the guys in black if you know what I mean. I’m here because I’m desperate to save her. I don’t know why, but I think she’s a part of the mechanics of the universe. It’s complicated.”
Dave snorted. “Shit, that’s deep. There are angels and demons trying to get her? What do they want with a little kid?”
“They want her dead,” I fretted as I glanced at my watch. Daylight would be in a couple of hours and I wanted to keep moving. “And I’m not about to let that happen because she’s just eight, man. Heaven and Hell are trying to kill an eight-year-old girl and that, my friend, is pure bullshit. I need to find out why and I need to keep her alive long enough for me to discover the truth.”
The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 9