Jovienne

by Linda Robertson

  Andrei stalked past them, eager for a drink, but when he reached the corner, he twisted to look at the young men’s legs stretching out onto the sidewalk. After a moment, he allowed the chasing lights of the pub’s marquee to draw back his attention. A squat brick building housed the dive bar known for good food and cheap beer. McGhee’s even had the distinction of being grandfathered in as a smoking establishment.

  Andrei’s own pedagogue, Vincent, never drank anywhere else.

  A sad smile crept across his face. Regardless of the fact that Andrei had been underage, Vincent always bought him a drink, citing that Andrei trained like a man and therefore earned a man’s refreshment. In the days after Vincent died, McGhee allowed him to drown his pain in vodka.

  Forehead wrinkled and biting the inside of his jaw, he pushed open McGhee’s door just enough to peer inside. The wood-paneled interior was as he remembered it: worn and torn padded barstools patched with duct tape, outdated laminate tables, and McGhee the barkeep. The jukebox droned classic rock from days gone by. Cigarette and cigar smoke provided a haze and aroma that completed the semblance of stepping back in time. For a heartbeat, the last decade could have been a dream.

  The large flat screen TV, however, was definitely new. On it, a sportscaster blathered on about a NASCAR race. The footage showed a car flipping through the air, pieces flying off before it slammed down atop another car.

  Andrei felt his gut twist. His chin dropped. He couldn’t pretend the last nine years hadn’t happened. This wasn’t who he was anymore. He pulled back, letting the door shut.

  “Andrei?” McGhee’s inquiry slithered around the shutting door. “Is that you?”

  Who am I? A man who failed. A man alone. Both are the kind of man who drinks vodka to silence that damned little voice in his head. Andrei pushed on the door again and walked in.

  Of the ten other patrons, some grouped around a table playing cards, while others hunched over their beers at the bar. Everyone checked the door because of the barkeep’s shout.

  Crossing the room under their scrutiny, Andrei’s rubbed the back of his neck.

  “I thought that was you.” McGhee pointed to Andrei’s unoccupied favorite barstool. “C’mon. Sit down.”

  McGhee hadn’t changed. The man’s ruddy round face was topped by short curls of fading strawberry-blond. He slid a clean snifter into the rack and flicked the drying towel over his shoulder. “Haven’t seen you in twenty years!” His Irish accent was thick and joyful.

  Andrei sat. “Nine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s only been nine years.”

  The man appraised him. “Are you sure?”

  Andrei straightened his shoulders. “Yes.”

  They held gazes until the barkeep chuckled and relented. “Well, you’ve aged twenty years. You look like Hell.”

  “That’s no way to earn a tip.”

  “Seein’ you again is worth more than a tip.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  The barkeep grabbed a rocks glass, and plucked a bottle of vodka from an ice bucket. “The usual?”

  An unfamiliar label wrapped the bottle. “Where’s the Stolichnaya?”

  McGhee snorted. “Boru is Irish. I am Irish. My people know drinking.”

  “But I am Russian. My people know vodka.”

  “Try it.” McGhee pushed a double-shot at him.

  Andrei sipped. “Wow. Sharp.”

  McGhee leaned his elbow on the bar and asked, “What happened to you, m’boy?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why’d you stop coming around? What’s brought you back?”

  He answered the latter question. “I’m getting to be a sentimental old man.”

  McGhee frowned. “At least you look the part.”

  “I’ll be thirty soon.”

  “Ha! Is that all, lad?” McGhee stopped leaning and crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “Has someone else’s vodka been draining the color from your hair? Good God, man. It adds ten years! You know some of my competitors refill their top shelf bottles with lesser spirits at the end of the night. My Boru is the real thing and my fingers are not as thin as theirs.” He wiggled his kielbasa-like digits in the air. “You must come here for Boru if you intend to drink.” He stabbed a finger down on the bar for emphasis. “I will not steal your vigor with false spirits.”

  Andrei spun the glass around slowly. “What is it people say? It’s the mileage, not the time.”

  The barkeep’s expression sobered, and he reached across the bar to grasp Andrei’s forearm. His voice was soft as he asked, “Have you traveled that far since Vincent passed, lad?”

  “Yeah.” Andrei nodded in agreement, but it felt like a lie. The ‘mileage’ hadn’t all been forward. He’d retreated inward, putting distance between himself and Jovienne’s tempting dark beauty.

  Being a pedagogue required him to teach the moral-heavy subject of theology. He’d estranged himself from the Catholic Church after Vincent passed, so the curt lessons were full of words that tasted bitter. Incongruous as it was, pedagogues were not required to attend services. A ‘free will’ loophole, he assumed. The angel never came back to make issue of it.

  Besides, how could he guide her along a spiritual path when his own was so overgrown and weedy? Her religious decisions shouldn’t be his to make. He wasn’t her father.

  You were happy to be her father-figure until she touched you.

  He downed the Boru. The vodka was peppery, the finish warm.

  The barkeep asked softly, “‘Nother shot, laddie?”

  Andrei shook his head ‘no’ even as he said, “Yeah.”

  “Empty and cold is the house without a woman.” McGhee dispensed another shot. “What’s her name?”

  “What?”

  “Ah, laddie. I see it now. It’s a woman that’s got you in here.”

  Andrei opened his mouth to deny it.

  McGhee waved his chubby arm. “Don’t. I know the look. I’ve seen it thousands of times so don’t waste your breath lying to me, m’boy. It is what it is, and there’s no hiding it.”

  Andrei snorted. “I knew this day would come. But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “It never does.”

  He dug in his pocket and pulled out the twenty. Get a hold of yourself. Stop acting like it’s a break-up. “I had to let her go. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Satisfied at the ring of parental notes in his voice, he scooted the cash across the bar.

  “It must be time, laddie.” McGhee snagged the cash in his big hand, pushed buttons on the register, made change, and came back. He laid the same twenty on the bar and winked at Andrei. “It’ll all be dandy in a few days, m’boy. You’ll see. It’ll be Easter in a week. Spring renews everything.”

  “Hey, Suzie Sunshine over there.” The man at the far end of the bar with a scraggly beard and a Navy ball cap lifted his empty glass. “If you’d let me interrupt your discussion of chocolate bunnies and cream-filled eggs, I could use another Pabst and a shot of Jack over here.”

  McGhee left to tend his other patron, muttering, “A Pabst and a shot of Jack,” as if it were sacrilege.

  “Why do I keep comin’ here?”

  “Oh, I dunno, Eddie,” McGhee said sweetly as he poured the shot. “Is it not m’ charm or the hominess of m’ quaint establishment?”

  “Hell, no!”

  McGhee retrieved the beer from the cooler, pulled the tab, and set it in front of his patron. “Then it must be ‘cause ya don’t hafta get off yer arse to smoke!”

  “Oh, yeah.” Eddie opened his wallet.

  Andrei knocked back what remained in the glass, and then eyed the twenty given to him twice. Now, go do something positive.

  Thinking of the trio, he grabbed the cash and stood.

  “You leavin,’ laddie?” McGhee strolled back, frowning.

  “Staying here and emptying a bottle will only make the walk home that much harder.”

  “But two shortens the r
oad.”

  “Not tonight.”

  The barkeep’s chin thrust forward as the ends of his mouth curved upward. “You’ve grown up, m’boy. Vincent would be proud.”

  With a single up-nod, Andrei turned to leave. His legs were a little rubbery, but he would be fine. Outside, he headed to the corner.

  The flash and strobe of police lights snared his attention. A crowd gathered, a mix of locals and vagrants. Yellow police tape kept them back. A woman, probably a hooker judging by her heels, stood some distance away with a police officer. She wiped tears as she talked.

  Andrei stopped in the back of the crowd. A moment later, an ambulance rolled to a stop beside the patrol car. Another followed it. The vagrant in front of him removed his knit cap and scratched his frizzy hair. “Such a fuckin’ shame.” Leaving, he nearly ran into Andrei. “Sorry, man.”

  “What happened?” Andrei asked.

  “Local boys got drugged up. One had some kinda fit. Roxy say one tried ta flag down a car.” He pointed at the woman talking to the officer, and then gestured into the street. “She say he hit so hard his head split open on th’ road.” A sheet-covered body lay partially hidden beside a police car.

  I shouldn’t have gone to McGhee’s.

  “She say she come a-runnin’, but she can’t run in them hookin’ shoes. By th’ time she got close, th’ last one had already cut his wrist down to the bone an’ was holding the knife wif his teeth so he could cut th’ other.”

  There were two more bodies lying covered by a familiar storefront.

  The vagrant walked away. “One poor whore in six-inch heels is th’ only help we got in th’ Tenderloin.”

  The words punched Andrei in the gut.

  He tried telling himself he obeyed the angel’s rules by not interfering, but that did nothing to abate the heaviness he felt. If God was testing him, Andrei had failed again.

  McGhee’s words drifted back: ‘You’ve grown up, m’boy.’ It was time he started acting on what his heart told him to do.

  THREE

  A LIGHT SHIMMERED IN the center of the fantastic concrete pool, glowing far below as if the image of cement was merely a reflection. The deafening drums rumbled louder, and as the accent beats kicked in, Jovienne’s feet itched to dance.

  She recalled a photo of her mother wearing the traditional Hawaiian grass skirt. Her forebears danced on ocean sands surrounded by blazing torches. Maybe that was why the tribal rhythm filtered through her skin and resonated in her bloodstream, begging her body to answer this need to move, but she dared not surrender. If mired in the dance, she might be lured into the pool to drown…or worse.

  Reaching over her shoulder, her thumb flicked loose the snap that held the gladius in place. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt molded to fit Andrei’s larger grip. Touching it, she felt more resistant to the drums.

  In moments, one of the burnt-looking things that Gramma aptly called ‘cinders’ would rise. The coming of these things caused the visceral reaction in her and Andrei that sent them into the heights every sunset. She knew the cinders freed the demons, somehow.

  An idea occurred to her: she was here to kill a demon, but what if she killed the cinder instead? Normally, they moved too fast to catch, but the warehouse wasn’t that big and this one would have to do its work here first to bring the demon to test her. It would be busy. Distracted.

  Putrefied hands reached through the center of the concrete circle before her. What little skin clung to the white-tipped phalanges was blackened. The finger bones clicked as they curled to latch onto the watery cement and part it. The head crowned slowly, twisting and bobbing, before wresting its way into the world.

  Desiccated flesh stretched tight to form its face. Its eyes had long ago rotted out. Even so, the thing’s black sockets were trained on Jovienne as if it could see.

  Her mouth went dry, but her palms were slick with sweat. She readjusted her grip and drew the sword. The circle’s size would not allow her a solid step close enough to strike, but maybe she could get closer after it arose.

  The torso lifted, covered with decaying flesh like a moth-eaten jacket. Underneath, a black, rotten heart pounded in time with the drums. Scraps of scorched muscle hung from the arms. Tendrils of burnt rope encircled the wrists. The ribcage gave way to a single column of white spine before widening out to hips and down to legs as ruined as the arms. Its half-fleshed feet also dragged a short length of burnt rope.

  A fetid scent made her gag, and she held the weapon one-handed to pull the neck of her tee shirt up to cover her mouth and nose.

  The thing’s face contorted, ripping the dried flesh at the corners of its mouth like dusty sackcloth. The jaw opened much too far. With a groan, the cinder twisted away and disappeared into the darkness, moving as all its kind did: in accelerated jumbles of fast-forward, concealing its actions in blurry spurts with awkward twists and abrupt turns.

  Jovienne tried trailing it, but the thing zigzagged around the warehouse, misdirecting her. When it finally stopped in the left corner, it crouched and became a blur of movement. Jovienne closed in and positioned herself to behead it, determined to make a forceful chop.

  As she swung, the creature sped away in a jagged path. She gave chase, but the bony feet reached the exact spot of its entry before she covered half the distance. Since it wouldn’t engage her, she drew a star from her pocket, aimed, and threw. The point lodged deep into the cinder’s spine.

  Its scream was a sound like sandpaper on sandpaper. Skeletal hands clenched. It spun and reached for her, then sank, swallowed up by cement. The sound of drums followed it into nothingness.

  Her ears rang in the silence.

  Gooseflesh rippled in fast waves over her body.

  Over her shoulder, she studied the left corner.

  Step by slow step, she returned to that area. No more geist entities pretending to be demons for training purposes. Some Hell-spawned monster was coming.

  The ground rumbled and protested. Something was digging and scratching under the surface. A demon, having clawed up from the depths of the earth, slammed against the bottom side of the cement, cracking it.

  She angled her stance, ready to slay it as it emerged, but the demon broke through in an explosive blast that knocked Jovienne off her feet. She curled up protectively until the chunks and debris stopped raining down, then scrambled to her feet and brought the sword into a defensive position.

  Hot, dusty air crawled over her and the stench of brimstone filled her nostrils. Tense, like a constricted throat aching to scream and afraid to betray her position, she remained motionless and listened.

  A dark head pierced the haze. The red mouth opened wide, glowing red-orange from within and roared its wrath. When the bellow ended, its eyelids didn’t so much as open as slither back, recoiling into the head. Eyeballs missing, the glow of hot coals filled the spherical scarlet sockets too high and wide to be even vaguely human. Deep grooves spiraled into the inner skull, where purple shadows could lead the weak-willed into the demon’s mind and down an eerie path into the heated abyss.

  The roar ended and its lips curled as it hissed at her. It unwrapped leathery wings to flap them like a bullfighter snapping his cape for attention in the center-ring.

  According to her training, demons came in hundreds of breeds, colors, and sizes. Regardless of those factors, however, they fell into one of three classes: possessors, imps, and changelings. Defense tactics wouldn’t change much, but knowing how to slay this beast meant figuring out its class.

  Before she could make that determination, dark figures materialized before her and glided up from under the curled corners of the old tiles.

  A legion of the geist.

  These spirits, nearly mindless like feral animals, fed on blood or carrion energy. They were drawn to violence and the promise of a painful death where they could feed their hungers the most.

  Their faces warped as they mimicked the demon’s form and taunted, snarled, and cackled at her. They crowded
around her, circling like a ghastly carousel, hovering up and down and surging back and forth. The discordant moans created a harsh and mournful dirge.

  Although normally neutral, geist would follow the lead of the true evil in their presence. This demon’s presence inspired their aggression and a few even bolted forward to shriek in her face as if she was the scary thing.

  When all of them showed empty eyes and wicked wings, they bolted to the right where the demon joined them and they all ascended the steps.

  Jovienne followed, but used the ghost hands to determine the lay of the room beyond before entering. Inside, the ceiling was much lower than the warehouse below. Desks corralled a heap of chairs piled against the eastern wall. Strewn across the industrial tile flooring was silt, small pebbles, and the feather and bone remains of some feral cat’s long-ago feast. On the western side, the geist gathered around the demon.

  Extended use of the ethereal hands advanced the initial tingling to a numb, cold-in-the-bones sensation. Even so, she wrapped them around her like a shield. In time, this would fatigue her physical arms, but the quintanumin made her hyper-sensitive to the presence of geist and this many overloaded her. She had another reason to shield herself, too. A demon’s lingering touch could sense details and memories of a soul, and then use mind tricks to manipulate her.

  Drawing the concealed dagger from her right forearm, she held it ready to stab. This put her thumb and forefinger close to the end’s decorative screw-cap, which hid the hollow hilt with blessed water. Thus, she entered the upper room facing west.

  Weak shafts of the last light fingered through broken windows in murky upward slants. It darkened the wall below and hid her quarry.

  When she neared the center of the room, the horde rushed to circle her again. She assumed a defensive pose as they bobbed to varying unheard beats and floated at different speeds. Her senses congested by geist, finding that one polluted demon presence among the many was not going to be easy. She could work her way through them all or she could do something different.

  Stretching one arm out before her and loosening her grip on the dagger, she let the energies they stirred flow over her palm. Long ago, Gramma taught her to feel energy. It did not take long to detect one that provoked her disgust. Moving counter to their ghostly flow, she sorted through this whirlpool and pinpointed the lone evil among the multitude.