I emerged from the now devastated park on Marginal Road and cut through the Canadian Pacific Railway line until I hit the far end of Barrington Street. I glanced at my watch and saw that it had been destroyed by whatever kind of angelic energy blast Sariel had laid on me. I tore it off my wrist and tossed it in a trash can. The sky was clear and the stars twinkled brightly as I limped into a convenience store and headed up to the front counter.
“Players King Size,” I said. “And a lighter.”
The morbidly obese shopkeeper eyeballed me closely for a moment and then reached under the counter and tossed the package of cigarettes on the counter. “The lighters are in front of you,” he said, still eyeballing me. “Mister has anyone told you that you look like shit.”
I swiped the cigarettes off the counter and palmed a Bic disposable lighter. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a fat bastard with a big mouth, pal?” I shot back.
He pointed to the enormous convex mirror above his head. “No, seriously. You look like shit.”
I glanced up at the mirror to see a suit that was torn to ribbons, mud caked all up my legs and a face that looked as if it hit every branch in that spruce tree after Sariel had dropped me. I tore open the pack of cigarettes and slipped one in my mouth.
“Long story,” I said, turning on my heels. “Thanks for the smokes.”
I left the convenience store and spotted a cab approaching from about a block away. I was just about to wave my hand to hail him when I remembered what happened the last time I hopped into a taxi. Instead, I hoofed over to a phone booth across Barrington Street, ignoring the catcalls from a pair of hookers who’d decided that there wouldn’t be enough money in any John’s wallet for either of them to turn a trick with someone looking like they’d been dragged behind a car for ten city blocks.
And that suited me fine as I dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed Sparks’ number. She picked up after the second ring.
“Carol,” I said, taking a deep drag on my cigarette. “It’s me.”
“R-Reaper?” she said hesitantly. “You sound so different.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes,” I replied. “Different host, different face, different voice. I’m like Doctor Who that way. If we survive the next twenty-four hours, you and I can get shit faced and I’ll tell you a bunch of war stories about who I’ve been over the past century. In the meantime, can you come and get me? We need to move quickly.”
“What’s taken so long, I haven’t heard from you for more than four hours!”
I stubbed my cigarette on the sidewalk. “Again, it’s a long story. Epic battle, holy revelations and yet more brain melt. Yadda-yadda. Can you get me? I’m on Barrington across from the old Halifax Burial Grounds.”
“Be there in fifteen minutes,” she said. “But wait … how will I know it’s you?”
“I’ll be the only guy in a business suit who looks like he’s been run through a meat tenderizing machine. You can’t miss me.”
“Alright – I’m leaving now,” she said, hanging up.
I exited the phone booth and walked up to pedestrian bench directly across the road from the three-hundred-year old cemetery. I took a seat on a bus bench and exhaled deeply as I waited for Sparks to pull up in her Crown Victoria.
***
Sparks arrived within fifteen minutes and averted her gaze as I climbed into the front seat. She’d had her mind blown more times than I cared to remember in the last few days, my showing up in a new body, one that looked like it had fallen off a high speed train probably wasn’t helping much.
“We need to get back to my flat,” I said, watching her grip on the steering wheel tighten. She still had her eyes fixed firmly on the road. “Somewhere out there is Amy and we’ve got to find her. It’s my goddamned fault that she was taken and if anything happens to her … fuck!”
“Alright, just take it easy” she said. “I can get you in, but it’s still taped off.”
“Fair enough – are you going to look at me, Sparks? I don’t bite.”
She quickly glanced at me through the corner of her eye as she wheeled the car onto Gottingen Street. “You look like shit,” she said after a short moment.
“You’re the second person tonight to say that. Sorry I’m not in my Sunday best but I was just the victim of an assassination attempt by an angel named Sariel.”
“What?” she gasped. “An angel tried to kill you?”
I nodded. “Yeah – but I killed him first. This was after he put the boots to me. Don’t ask me how I did it because it’s complicated and frankly I’m dead dog tired right now.”
“Okay,” she said firmly. “I won’t ask questions.”
“Thanks for doing this, Sparks. I just- “
She raised a hand. “Shut up, Reaper … okay? I’m here and I’ll get you back into your flat. I told you I would.”
I threw her a slight nod and stared out onto the street. “You sound like you’re bailing. That’s cool. I think I know who the killer is inside Amy’s body and I’ve got something in my flat that will help me locate him so …”
She flared her nostrils and pulled into a spot behind a graffiti covered bus shelter. “I didn’t say I was bailing, Reaper, so don’t throw a freaking guilt trip on me, okay?”
I nodded again. “Okay, Carol.”
She pursed her lips tightly for a moment and said, “I did a lot of thinking while I was waiting for your call and I decided that if there is a higher power that has asked for your help then that same higher power wants my help, too. I’m still having a lot of trouble accepting the reality of everything that I’ve seen over the past couple of days, but maybe there is a plan, you know? I never really put a lot of stock into God and the Devil and going to hell, but I’ve learned one thing in over ten years on the force.”
“What’s that?”
“Hell on earth exists,” she said with no shortage of conviction in her voice. “I see it every day. Bad guys are bad guys; murder is murder – it doesn’t really matter if the perpetrator is some scumbag mobster or a husband who uses his wife for a punching bag or even an angel. It doesn’t matter if I’ve had my body invaded by a freaking grim reaper for a goddamned ride to a hospital so he can steal a body at death’s door, either. You’re a supreme asshole, Reaper, but you’re not one of the bad guys. I deal with bad guys every day and while your methods aren’t exactly legal, I know that you understand right from wrong. What happened to your friend Amy is wrong. These killings are wrong. It makes no difference if the victims are human beings or the stuff of myth. If we’re going to end this, you need my help.”
My lips arched up into a thin smile and I reached into my pocket for a cigarette. I slipped it between my lips and was just about to light it when Sparks punched me hard in the shoulder.
“Ow! What the hell was that for?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “No smoking in the car, Reaper. City ordinance.”
I chuckled mildly as I pressed the power window button and tossed my cigarette out the window. “You’re a class act, Sparks.”
24
We broke the seal on the door to my flat and stepped inside. It looked like a disaster zone. My furniture was torn open and there were overturned chairs not to mention a number of blood stains on the carpet. Home sweet home. I helped Sparks flip the couch onto its feet and replace the cushions. She took a seat as I strode down the hall and into my bedroom.
My bed sheets lay in a pile at the foot of the bed and the mattress had a huge tear down the middle of it. I guess the Halifax Police must have felt I was a drug dealer and were looking for my stash, and I made a mental note of how much of my twenty-thousand-dollar payment from the Catholic Church would be left over once I found a new place to live and bought some furniture to replace the stuff that had been destroyed in the gun battle with Emil Vachon and his thugs. Probably enough for a carton of smokes, and a fridge full of groceries, but not much more.
I peeled off the tattered business suit and threw on my robe. My body
ached like I’d been stomped all over by a pissed off elephant and I looked at myself in the mirror to see my entire torso covered with angry looking bruises. Clearly I’d tapped enough living energy from the park to heal the major injuries – I was just going to have to live with throbbing pain for a few days until my new body completed its healing process.
“I’m going to have a quick shower!” I shouted.
“Fine … just hurry it up, Reaper. We need to get out of here as soon as we can!” Sparks answered back.
I groaned a little bit as I stepped into my bathtub and turned on the hot water. It poured out of the tap with a billow of steam and in seconds a high pressure stream of piping hot water splashed down my shoulders.
And it felt incredible.
I poured a capful of shampoo into my hand and lathered my hair as I considered the best possible way to draw out Ezekiel. I could summon him with my Roman finger bone, but that would be too obvious and he’d be expecting it. It would probably just piss him off and then I’d have the angelic version of World War Three inside my flat. After my battle with Sariel, there was also the question of how many angels Ezekiel had recruited in his plot to overthrow the Supreme Being, so it was likely he’d have a posse of backup alongside him, each with enough power to smite my sorry ass about a dozen times over.
If I was going to find him, I’d have to resort to tracking him through Amy. The only problem was that I didn’t have any blood that I could latch onto and there was always the risk of my new body bursting into flames like the last one. I can usually find pretty much anyone when I draw on my essence, but it causes a shit storm among any nearby death spirits going about their gruesome business in the human world and it can alert anyone with enough sensitivity to supernatural phenomenon.
But there was another way. A more spiritual way.
I shut off the water and stepped out of the tub, quickly drying myself off. I ran a comb through my hair and threw on my bathrobe as I raced to my bedroom.
“I got an idea, Sparks,” I called out, as I slipped into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. In minutes I reappeared in the living room to see Sparks opening a shopping bag emblazoned with the words Halifax Shopping Center in bright red font.
“What’s your big idea?” she asked, handing me a brand new trench coat that she’d bought with some of my advance money. “This cost like eight hundred bucks and I don’t know where the receipt is so if it doesn’t fit, suck it up.”
I slid my arms inside and tugged on the collar as my nostrils filled with the scent of good quality leather. “Fits like a glove … you still have my guns in your car, yeah?”
“And the sword – they’re in the trunk. What’s your plan?”
“Divine help,” I replied. “I put a guy in the hospital the other day – he was a kiddie diddler. The pervert was going to hurt a little girl, so I shot him in the foot. It turns out the little girl was another angel named Jael who was trying to save his wayward scumbag soul and she could have taken care of the guy with a flick of her pinkie. Anyway, if I can contact this angel then I think we can find Amy – I’m pretty sure we can exorcise Ezekiel’s sorry ass and get him out of her before he kills again. I just have to convince Jael to …”
“I’m sorry, did you say, Jael?” Sparks interrupted.
“Yeah – why?”
Her eyes narrowed sharply and she said, “There was this guy we questioned at the hospital three days ago. He said he’d been shot when he was at the Commons and he kept yammering on about jail and a promise of eternal peace and some stupid crap about everybody getting back together with their brothers and sisters. Damn it! We thought he was talking about going to freaking prison, Reaper! We told him that with his record that he’d find lots of peace in the pen – we didn’t know he was referring to a goddamned angel!”
My jaw dropped.
Eternal peace and getting back together with his brothers and sisters? Shit on a stick! I had the killer sitting beside me not three days ago and I didn’t even freaking realize it! But Ezekiel had tempted me. He tried to stop me from shooting Abraxas. I saw my former boss’s past when I tapped into the angel Sariel.
I raced to my office hoping like hell the finger bone was still there. Sparks followed me down the hall as I rifled through my desk drawers.
“Shit! Where is it?” I barked.
“Where’s what?” said Sparks. “What’s going on?”
I found the small box containing the finger bone underneath an old issue of Hustler. I ripped off the lid and held it before my eyes like a gemstone.
“This is a Holy relic,” I said, trying to contain the panic in my voice. “I’ve been played big time, Sparks. The killer is Jael – I was so sure it was Ezekiel, but your talk with that guy in the hospital and that line about getting back together with his brothers? Eternal peace? That’s what I caught a glimpse of when Sariel was trying to freaking kill me. I don’t yet know Ezekiel’s part in all this, but it’s high time we found out.”
“So what’s the next move?” she asked.
I palmed the finger bone and thrust it into the pocket of my jeans. “We go to the Commons and end this. Tonight.”
***
I slipped my arms in my shoulder holsters and then put on my new trench coat as Sparks cocked the shotgun she’d taken out of the dashboard cradle of the Crown Victoria. On our way over, I’d explained that the dead angels and demons were God’s former generals in the battle that cast Lucifer out of Heaven and the ninth general was the next victim waiting to happen. I hypothesized that the human hosts who’d been taken over by Jael were probably people with sick minds like the pedophile I shot in the foot. It made sense to simply use human beings as puppets to perpetrate heavenly homicide. Disturbed people are always ripe for the picking if you’re an angel tasked with saving souls or a demon charged with adding them to hell’s ranks. Jael wasn’t trying to save the kiddie-diddler, she was sizing him up and preparing to possess his soul.
But why Amy? She wasn’t messed in the head. Sure she’d made some bad choices for her life, but she was trying to start over. No, Jael had taken her because she knew that I cared about her. I glanced uneasily at Sparks as she threw on her bullet-proof vest.
“You’re not going to need that, Sparks,” I said, buttoning up my trench coat. “Actually, you probably should go – for your own safety.”
She snorted. “What safety, Reaper? The end of the world happens if we don’t stop this Jael character, so I’m dead anyway as I see it. I have every intention of not dying, so let’s take this asshole down.”
I stuffed some loaded clips into the pocket of my trench coat. “I have no freaking idea what’s going to happen next, Sparks. I don’t know if it’s a trap or whether I’m the catalyst for the end of days. I’ve been screwed over since day one and the best place for you is as far the hell away from me as possible. Seriously, you should go.”
“Would you bloody well stop with all this macho bullshit? I’m going with you. It’s the least I can do given that you dragged me kicking and screaming into your shit show of a life. So how and why are you going to summon this Ezekiel?”
I felt for the finger bone in my pocket and gave it a small pat. “Because he’s the key to ending all of this, so I’m going to use a kind of summoning spell. I just call out to him using my Power and he’ll respond if he feels like. That’s how it works.”
“If he feels like it! Well, what if he doesn’t feel like it?”
“He’ll come. All I have to do is mention the name Jael and I guarantee he’ll show up.”
“Sounds simple enough,” she said. “And when he gets here?”
I sighed wearily. “Then it’s anything can happen day, Sparks. Ezekiel is an asshole with a big hate on for me. He might go into smite mode but he can’t harm you because you’ve got no quarrel with the guy. You ready for this?”
She chuckled nervously. “No, but the sooner we can stop your killer, the sooner I can get back to having something resembling a normal life. Yo
u still owe me a forty-ounce bottle of whatever the hell I want when all this is done.”
“Make it a Texas mickey,” I said, patting her one the shoulder. “Let’s do this.”
***
A sharp gust of cold wind blew against our backs as we trotted through the damp grass of the Halifax Common. It was three in the morning and surprisingly there wasn’t a drug dealer or gang banger in sight. Thick black shadows reached out across the park’s enormous lawn like giant claws waiting to tear us apart.
Hell, I would have expected it the way things were going. Giant oak trees on the northern edge of the park appeared as ghostly sentries amid the ambient glow of the street lights on Robie Street. To our front was the western slope of the Halifax Citadel and I shuddered as I watched a fog bank drift over the two-hundred-year old stone fort like a death shroud.
We decided the middle of the park would be the best place to summon Ezekiel, not that it mattered much at this point. I clutched the sword tightly in my right hand as I dropped to one knee and reached for the finger bone in my pocket.
I glanced up at Sparks who had her Glock at the ready. “Time to see what the end of the world looks like, Carol. Whatever happens, I want to thank you for everything.”
She snorted. “You know something? For a hard-ass player for hire, you sure as hell get emotional a lot. Just get on with it, Reaper. I’m getting old here!”
I shut my eyes tight and reached out through those same shimmering pools of energy, only this time there were no angry voices pelting me with their collective rage. There was only silence and a distinctive feeling that something had been taken from the realms of the Infinite. A cascading series of golden waves burst forth from the darkness, seizing me with a sense of immeasurable power mixed with a healthy dose of fear. A tremor of energy shook the ground and I opened my eyes to see a pair of perfectly sculpted calves only this time it wasn’t Ezekiel that was standing before me. It was someone much more important.
Immortal Remains: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 20