by Ted Minkinow
I’d been cavalier about putting my friends in danger and this painting was my reward. Part of me wanted to run out of the cathedral. Pretend I hadn’t seen four people trapped in some ancient painting so powerful in its evil that it could hold not just souls but entire living beings.
Powers I’d never known existed and thus could not understand or even know how to begin to counter. I manned up and looked right into Sister Christian’s face. Where I expected to see panic I saw a species of controlled fear. Except her eyes. They looked out of the painting in a wild, desperate plea for help. And her eyes were locked on mine.
I’d almost forgotten the nun when she spoke to me. The words came in a strained rush of deep resonance. A scent of decomposing bodies wafted from her mouth that could melt a shoebox full of Tic Tacs.
“Great art,” she said, and she might as well drop the nun disguise because the woman was definitely no lady.
In an instant, my teeth reached full extension. Primal strength flowed from the essence of my condition and filled my muscles with the both the ability and the desire to kill. And to eat. Maybe demons couldn’t die. I’d test that hypothesis for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. No Face wanted to tear away my flesh and to chew it with his teeth. I suspected his intentions had not changed. Fine with me.
“You’re dead,” I said.
No Face laughed. No sweat. I was about to see how he liked the name No Head.
Chapter 25
No Face understood my intention and shouted, “Stop.”
At least that’s what I think he was saying because my fist saved him all that straining by interrupting him in mid-syllable. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation anyway. I was in the mood to die.
My punch sent him flying across the floor and he ended up against one of the walls. I heard the fabric give way during his short flight. He should have bought the dress a couple of sizes larger. I mean, who was he trying to kid? No Face didn’t have the figure for the three-person tent he crammed himself into.
I covered the fifteen yards in a flash and kicked him back to where we started the dance…underneath the medieval painting depicting the torments of my friends. No Face curved to the right as he flew head over habit. I’d try for a curve to the left with the next kick. We could do this for weeks because that’s how long I’d last and I didn’t think we were really in the Aachen Cathedral.
I wanted to rip his face off and put it where the sun didn’t shine. But oops, he had no face, and I doubted the sun shone anywhere on whatever level of hell we’d reached. I’d heard of demon portals. Thought they were myths. The vampire community version of your alien abductions.
“Want another bite?” I said.
No Face said, “Wait.”
Wait for what? He didn’t need to adjust his makeup. He didn’t need any makeup.
“Like heck,” I said.
I leaned over and lifted him by his neck. The four hundred or so pounds didn’t register at all. He could save whatever he wanted to say for someone else because I cared only about delivering No Face’s next serving of pain.
I held him suspended by his scruff and he went limp. Even so I remained wary lest he turn the tables too early and all ended too soon. I might not leave my mark on the world but No Face’s remaining parts offered a smorgasbord of potential legacies. Left or right, I wondered. I couldn’t make up my mind so I spiked his head onto the brick floor the same way a NFL player spikes a football.
The squashing sound of head on pavement made me smile. I suppose it wasn’t a pretty smile but then I never planned on being a supermodel. No Face would remember me. He’d remember my friends. Each time I thought of them my anger threatened to blow through my skin. Each time I pounded No Face I relaxed a bit. Is there room in the crowded self-help market for a book on demon therapy? If idle hands are the tools of the Devil, I planned on working my way to sainthood.
I paused to consider whether I should change my tactics after I threw No Face against the wall for the fifth time. The demon seemed to be getting the hang of landing so things might be getting too easy on him. No Face spoke up during the brief intermission.
“Wait,” he said.
I walked over to where he laid in a heap. I’d change things up after all. Instead of throwing him across the floor and into the opposite wall I’d just heave him into the wall I was standing beside. Should cut down on his opportunity for aerodynamic calculations.
I reached for him.
“Wait,” No Face repeated.
“We’ve been through this already,” I said.
“They still live.”
I’d picked the demon up by his neck for act twenty of his acrobat routine. I stopped and let him fall back to the ground.
“Who still lives?” I said.
No Face answered in his growl/wheeze voice.
“The humans.”
I raised him from the floor again and cocked my arm. I’d been saving the ceiling shot for the right opportunity. I looked up. Definitely three-point range.
“Can you be more specific?” I said, “Or do you care to inspect the dome for water spots?”
“All of them,” he said. “All of your clan still lives.”
Not the most culturally sensitive way of referring to my baggers but I gave No Face a break. Demons aren’t wired for PC. I dropped him to the floor. He lay there submissive for a few seconds and then got to whatever passed for feet in Demonville.
“An Idiot’s Story” was at the top of the list for my autobiography title with “It Doesn’t Make Sense” a nose behind and closing. Once I saw the painting I lost all ability for cogent thought. But after I’d worked through a bit of the frustration—with critical assistance from my demon therapist—the whole setup still didn’t make sense.
Why were the demons still after us? I didn’t think my friends were the draw and while I’ve been known to screw the pooch from time to time, I could think of nothing I’d done that merited special attention. I’d thought they were after Sparky. But Sparky wasn’t even with us in Aachen.
So why? Word in vampire social media says demons declared victory in Europe and pretty much left in 1986. That made the current demonic activity illogical as they risked revealing themselves and starting the faith stuff back up.
And No Face said the gang still lived. The only way to tell when a demon lies is when they speak. Sure, No Face might be lying to me. But it didn’t feel like it. It felt more like a trap. The kind of trap the folks in Alabama use to catch that pesky possum and keep him alive to release five miles away on a friend’s driveway. The demons wanted me alive. And judging by the way they captured my friends to use as leverage, they probably wanted to speak with me. And if they wanted to speak with me? That meant they wanted something.
I decided to call halftime in the sporting activities and hear No Face out. I could always kick off the second half if I didn’t like what he said. Like I’ve already mentioned, I’d never dealt with demons before…not even spoken to one until the plywood tunnel. While beating No Face like a dirty rug left a satisfying afterglow, I decided to quit.
Caginess on my part was required. Receive information while providing nothing. I’d need to let him speak first and keep my answers to a bare minimum. The demons thought they needed me for something, and I had the feeling it was important that I not let them know that I knew they needed something from me. Another tongue-twister to master in your spare time. Bottom line: I’d be as crafty a pixie and quiet as an amoeba.
So I said, “What do you want from me?”
Uh-oh. Zero for two.
Two—make that three—eyes looked back at me.
“Why do you think we want something?”
Ah the old we. Either No Face let slip that more than one of his type was involved or he was pulling my leg. I tended to believe the group thing. But that would mean that No Face just took a beating from me for nothing more than appearances.
“We?” I said.
“Yes,” said No Fa
ce.
In case you haven’t notice, I’m a master of the one-word conversations.
“Where are the others,” I said.
I did the look around thing for emphasis, but I kept the acting down because I still needed to keep an eye on No Face. I suspected demons weren’t much on small talk. So the break in head banging might just be a ploy to improve his position. Or to wait for backup.
That last thought made me look around for real. No Face laughed that awful noise of his.
“You think we could not have many here if I needed them?”
“Could you?” I said.
“Dozens,” No Face said. “Enough to handle you, vampire.”
“Kinky,” I said, and then, “You mean you took a beating just to speak with me?”
No Face didn’t respond, so I took his silence as a yes. Come to think of it, he did seem a bit wimpy for a big bad demon. If it were true he ate what I dished out over the past thirty minutes on orders from higher headquarters, then I had to rethink how dangerous demons really were.
“And last night?” I said.
“Same,” No Face grunted.
“So you let me rip your face off just for a chance to speak with me?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled in amazement. I figured my breath was a bit gamey from the beer and schnitzels so I made sure to blow it where No Face used to have a face.
“What you did,” he said. “Tickles compared to what he would do.”
That explained it. Not. What I think he meant is that whoever held his leash would put a more severe beating on No Face if he strayed from orders. Was he in a volunteer army?
“And you and your friends vamoosed last night…” I said.
“Because of risk to your clan,” No Face completed my sentence. “If one of your clan dies then you will not think. You will not deliver.”
I noticed he stood straighter each time he responded. Demon pride. No Face was beginning to scare me.
“My friends live?”
“I said as much already,” he responded.
“And the painting?”
No Face turned his head and gave his masterpiece a glance.
“To make you angry and lose your mind. To make you beat me until we could talk.”
Right. “Where are they?”
“Not in the painting,” No Face replied. “But safe and comfortable.”
As if I had to be assured the gang would be safe and comfortable despite NOT being in that horror of a painting. Anyway, I didn’t believe him. I’ve already said the only way to tell if a demon is lying is if he’s speaking.
“How?” I said.
“We live in this world,” No Face said.
He sounded as if that explained everything. I thought about what he said for a second. Maybe No Face wasn’t being as cryptic as the answer would suggest. Demons lived in this world. And by “this world” I took him to mean the world humans inhabit. I knew that much already. They also seemed able to manipulate physical aspects of our world. Like the room we were in. I’m pretty sure it was just a demon kind of movie set and not the Aachen Cathedral.
So demons have access to an alternate dimension that humans can’t see. I would bet it’s where Helmet came from. After the firing squad. I suspected that alternate dimension coexists with our world and the demons could open and close portals. Perfect. More grist for the nightmare mill. I decided to flush the paranormal and get back to business.
“What’s the deal?” I said.
Looking for the bottom line. The reason No Face donated his eyebrows and lips to the cause. And the reason we were standing there and my friends somewhere else.
“Bring us what they want.” No Face said.
“Who, and what do they want?” I replied.
No Face didn’t respond, and I feared time for our conversation grew short.
“And you’ll return my friends?”
“Yes.”
And that was it. No Face disappeared without courtesy of a goodbye, a high five, or even a belly bump. Have you ever felt the undervalued one in a new relationship? The lights came on, or rather I just showed up where lights were already on, and I found myself in the Frauen—Women’s Room—back at the restaurant the gang and I had just departed. I’d just gained information of monumental importance: I was up against a demon with a sick sense of humor.
I was standing in one of two stalls. From the sound of things and the air around me, the woman next door was giving birth to the world’s smelliest child. Grunts and groans. She trumpeted a blast that the U.S. Geological Service likely registered on their earthquake instrumentation.
“Nice rip,” I said as I walked out the door. I leaned back in. “And how about a mercy flush.”
I found my way to the stairs. German restaurants usually put the public toilets on a floor other than the dining room. Echoes from Brass Band Lady’s performance in stall one made me realize the toilet custom represented at least one thing the Germans had gotten right.
It would have been easiest if my mind had made up the whole thing with No Face, to convince myself I’d find my friends sitting at a table of empty plates. Drained beer glasses and the same dining room I’d thought we left thirty minutes before…not subjects frozen in a medieval painting of hell. Easy to pretend, but why waste the ten seconds it would take to get up the stairs to see that cheap sort of hope evaporate.
I did expect to see the person waiting for me at one of the tables. Nothing other than a hunch compelled me to look for her as I made it through the door and into the dining room. I’d already traced a connection between the demons and her. And if I saw her, it’d confirm my suspicions.
I was certain she could solve all the mysteries that swamped my life like a hurricane over a tired levee. I needed information. After that, I’d likely need some help. The old marriage of convenience thing. She represented my best—and perhaps only—chance of retrieving my friends from the painting. Of saving their lives…and their souls.
I saw her sitting at the table for two they’d placed near the window. No surprise. My teeth strained to grow and I felt that ancient power flowing into my muscles. I reminded myself I couldn’t kill her. Kept my thoughts on the bagger gang. “Get them back,” I kept telling myself. “Kill her later.” And what a meal she would make.
The ashtray already held two smoldering butts as she brought a freshly-lit cigarette to her lips. Three cigs. Fast work. Even for her. She didn’t invite me to sit down, she expected it. We both did. I pulled back the empty chair as she took a drag.
She exhaled, and through the smoke I saw the most beautiful woman in Europe. That much I knew before. And I could add the most dangerous to her list of attributes. We locked eyes. She didn’t seem ready to say anything, I needed to get the show on the road. I didn’t know what the demons wanted, how to get it to them, or how long my friends could last wherever they’d been sent. A glass of water—the kind with bubbles—sat waiting on my side. She expected me.
My vampire inside wrestled for control. It wanted to toss the table aside and rip into that pretty head. To taste what was beneath. Not out of hunger, but out of vengeance. Vengeance for my friends and for me because I’d need to abandon the life in Wiesbaden. Something inside also screamed for a measure of payback for the lie she’d lived and things she’d made us believe about her. But didn’t that make us birds of a feather?
I took a sip of the water in front of me. My grip broke glass and water spilled across the table. Nobody noticed because the glass didn’t explode. Slow strangulation and it cracked into many pieces. An omen of things to come for the woman sitting across from me.
She looked from my eyes to the broken glass and a shallow smile crossed her lips. A bit confusing, but this was my week for confusion so this latest thing could take a number and get in line. I forced myself to calm down. My teeth protested, but eventually obeyed. I didn’t return her smile. I had work to do.
“Hello, Sarah,” I said. “Why am I not surprised to see y
ou?”
Chapter 26
I finally managed a smile as I leaned forward so that only she could hear what I had to say.
“I should kill you now,” I said.
I sat back and waited for a reaction. Gorgeous Sarah Arias took another puff, held it for a moment…apparently in thought. She exhaled.
“Would that solve your problems?” she said.
Good point. Killing her would compound things. And maybe sentence my friends to an eternity living in a world concocted in a demon’s mind. No matter how tight she was with the demons, The Seven, or whoever hired Soyla as blood feud centurion, Sarah Arias represented my best chance for resolution. I wasn’t ready to say my only chance, but I needed to protect her like the one golden egg of redemption.
“You would protect me?” she asked.
The mind reading thing again. I’d use spooky to describe it, but I’d just returned from an alternate dimension located in some unseen frequency on top of my own sweet earth and I’d been fifteen rounds with a faceless demon. Add to that a ghoulish painting of angels, demons, and monsters capering around my helpless bagger friends? Spooky took on a meaning greater than mere mind reading.
“Stop with the carnival tricks.” I said. “They’ll be pissing me off soon and you should get ahead of the game and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“How can I stop what I can’t do?” Sarah Arias said. “And if I could read your thoughts, it would help to decipher what you say versus what you really mean.”
Another good point. She’d picked up on my tendency to think one thing and say something else. On the other hand, some of my best conversations are the ones I have inside my own head. Forces me to pay attention. And Sarah Arias—evil mistress of murdering demonic forces or not—was firecracker hot stuff. Her crawling around inside my head might feel sexy. I reran the last thought.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Have you switched off that mind reading thing yet?”
Busted, I thought.
“Busted?” she said.
I nodded. First Helmet denying the obvious. Now Sarah Arias. Perfect. As if I needed something else to drive me crazy.