Blood Demons

by Richard Jeffries

  Gullan nodded. He would have to do something about that—starting that very evening, he decided. But first, he had come to see the Liberty Bell, and that was just what he was going to do. He took a quick look around. He had all day, and while the park was nicely populated with tourists and visitors, there was no mob or crush. It didn’t look like he’d have to wait in line, even at the main attraction.

  Gullan passed by the Christ Church Burial Ground, across from the Visitor Center. He wasn’t even tempted to go in. He figured any brochures or souvenirs there he could get later. Instead, he surveyed the expanded Liberty Bell Center, which looked like a steel and glass exclamation point lying on well-groomed, manicured, and tended gardens.

  He remembered his older brother talking about the times he and his hippie friends would protest nearby when the bell was on display in the 1960s, then reading about how it was moved from Independence Hall to a glass pavilion on Independence Mall in 1976, and finally the minor funding controversies when the Liberty Bell Center was being constructed at the turn of the latest century.

  Lot of fuss for a darn bell, he thought, and a cracked one at that.

  That attitude got an immediate adjustment when he stepped inside the building itself. But first, of course, he had to stop at a desk for a quick security screening. Gullan quickly identified with the guard, who reminded him of the hospital’s security guard, whom he had spent many a break meal with. Like the hospital guard, this one took his job seriously, but not too seriously, and he had an extra layer of pride. In the hospital guard’s case, it was from helping make sure sick people were safe. Gullan imagined that, in this guard’s case, it was working at a place that had so much history and unpretentious patriotism.

  “Another day, another bag search, huh?” Gullan said with an empathetic smile.

  The guard swung his squeaking “magic wand” up and down Gullan’s form and returned a pleasant grin. “One guy shows up with a hammer in 2001, and here I am,” he said, referring to the lone incident that changed the layout of the center. “I wish I could thank him for giving me a second career.”

  Gullan snorted. “Say, good idea. Today’s my first day of retirement!”

  The guard beamed. “Great. Enjoy. Just don’t go fishing for my job, y’hear?”

  “Deal,” Gullan said, feeling better already. “Guess you’ve seen it all, huh?”

  The man shrugged. “It’s not too bad. As long as you don’t show up with a pocketknife or pepper spray we’re okay.”

  Gullan chuckled and resisted making a joke about shoe bombs or containers with more than three ounces of liquid. “Deal,” he repeated.

  The guard nodded, seemingly appreciative that no wisecrack was forthcoming. “Have a great day and a great visit,” the guard said.

  “Thanks,” Gullan replied, and stepped into the center.

  It was nicely laid out, with inlaid bricks in a herringbone pattern as the floor, a wood panel ceiling of the same color, a white granite wall on one side, brick columns framing tall windows on the other, and handsomely designed displays in between. Gullan was planning to just saunter past them to get to the main attraction, but they were cleverly created to catch the eye.

  “…like our democracy, it is fragile and imperfect,” he saw emblazoned on a larger placard placed above some documents and pictures, But it has weathered threats, and it has endured….

  That hooked him, and he found himself almost a half hour later filled with respect and admiration for what had happened here, and around here. Now he knew that the two-thousand-pound bell was ordered for the Pennsylvania State House in 1751 and cracked on its very first toll. A repaired version was made in Philadelphia and served well for nearly a century when the crack reappeared. Gullan was most surprised that the now-famous crack was actually the repair job—a widening to prevent further cracking and return its tone.

  So, by the time Gullan reached the big, rectangular display “point” of the building’s exclamation-point design, he was completely in the spirit of the thing. So much so, that he realized he had hardly noticed anyone around him. Now, however, entering the viewing room, he surveyed the nineteen other visitors—all in their hoodies, jeans, T-shirts, running shoes, and jackets.

  As he looked, he felt that now growingly familiar pang. In addition to the teens, young adults, and middle-aged tourists, there was one small child. Like him, she was in the minority—Caucasian. He looked quickly away when she reminded him of his youngest daughter, Emily, when she had been this little girl’s age. This little girl couldn’t have been more than four years old.

  Gullan purposely looked away, concentrating on the bell. It wouldn’t do for a single, older man to be caught staring at a young blond girl. So, instead, he admired the elegant silver, thigh-high fence encircling the bell, which was elevated off the floor to about eye level by two silver posts. It was also framed by a large picture window looking out over Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and adopted.

  He watched and listened, because, instead of music, there was an informative lecture playing. “The Liberty Bell consists of seventy percent copper and twenty-five percent tin, with residue of lead, gold, silver, zinc, and even arsenic….”

  Try as he might, Gullan couldn’t get the little girl out of his mind. She was so different from everyone else in the room, including him.

  “It hangs from its original yoke, which is made from American elm….”

  She had been standing there, in a little raincoat and rain boots, holding what looked like a little orange juice container in front of her—as if it were an offering. Bet the security guard certainly checked that before he let her in.

  “It remains a shining beacon for lovers of freedom everywhere.”

  Gullan’s face clouded. The little girl couldn’t have come in alone. She was too young. He quickly glanced on either side of him, expecting to pick out her parents, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t.

  “And it will remain forever steadfast in the inscription from Leviticus 25:10 that it bears upon it—”

  Could she be here with a nanny or maid? He saw only three women of the correct age, and what was he going to do, walk up to each and ask, “Is that your charge?”

  “To ‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the land—’”

  Gullan was trying to decide whether to go ask the security guard when he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. The little girl was walking toward the elegant, open fence that encircled the bell.

  “‘Unto all the inhabitants thereof—’”

  “Hey,” said Stuart Gullan, taking a step toward her, his hand out. He wasn’t even totally aware that he had decided to take care of her in a way he hadn’t for his own daughters.

  The little girl kept walking—slowly, calmly—holding the orange juice container in both her hands. As she reached the thigh-high silver partition, Gullan was being jostled by others who had started noticing her.

  “Hey,” he repeated insistently, taking another step toward her so the others wouldn’t crowd him. “Don’t do that.”

  The growing concern dissipated when the girl, seemingly from his exhortation, stopped. Suddenly the room was quiet—the recording had finished, and was, apparently, rewinding. Gullan found himself holding his breath as the girl started turning around, as if she were on roller-skate shoes.

  When she did, her clear, almost crystalline, blue eyes focused on Gullan’s brown ones. He thought she might raise the juice carton, but she didn’t, so he could only concentrate on her face. He wanted to look away, but found he couldn’t. He wanted to involve the others around him, but couldn’t. He even wanted to look beyond her, to the bell or the picture window, but found he couldn’t.

  All he could do was stare at her beautiful, tranquil, ethereal face. He could think of only one word for it. Angelic.

  Then she spoke
in a tiny, sweet, innocent voice.

  “Zaman will keep going until you stop him.”

  Stuart Gullan did not have time to comprehend what she had said. It wasn’t because it was so unusual or unexpected. It was because as soon as she pronounced the “m” at the end of “him”—as soon as her little lips touched—she exploded in his face.

  Chapter 21

  The Cerberus team thought they were ready for anything. They were wrong.

  They had been fully expecting Z1 to try escaping. They expected him to try attacking mentally, and even physically, even though he now looked like a baked potato whose skin had erupted all along his body. Even his new fingers looked like mashed potatoes that had puffed up out of their skin. They were expecting pretty much everything except what they got.

  Laughter.

  But it wasn’t just Z1’s laughter that unnerved them. Had the creature laughed in a way that was understandable—hateful, mocking, evil—that would have been easily comprehended. But this laughter seemed honestly happy, delighted, even gleeful.

  Key got over his surprise about as fast as it arrived. He looked with great interest at the thing in the chair—practically feeling the powerful energy of their bodies, as well as the nearly staggering technology involved.

  Electricity surged through Z1, ebbing and increasing as he reacted. The same was true of the team’s brainwave-modulating earplugs. They altered their frequencies depending on the surges and dips of the energy brought to bear on different sections of the team’s brains, either by themselves or outside forces.

  Then there were Dr. Helen’s needles. She apologized for the “crudity” of her approach since the chair didn’t allow access to most of Z1’s underside. So she tried to compensate by actuating rarely used nerve clusters. At first, it looked as if she were dancing not just around him, but for him. Every place her hand waved, needles were left behind. They made his skull look like a pinhead and his body look like a pincushion.

  “His linghun tormented,” she gasped. “His soul—”

  “He still has a soul?” Lancaster asked incredulously.

  The old woman nodded. “Some is left. Some. But his wugu—innocence—is destroyed. So he seeks to torture and destroy others.”

  “The more innocent, the better,” Gonzales guessed with disgust.

  “Pure,” the old woman said, defending the choice as if she were talking about water or milk.

  Rahal stood stiffly off to the side, holding a scalpel as if it were a wriggling worm. She stared in shock at the doctor’s dance, seemingly feeling every needle the old woman placed. Finally Dr. Helen stepped back, her fingers waggling in the air like she was getting set to play an invisible piano.

  It looked like Lancaster was going to ask something, but he held his tongue since all Dr. Helen’s considerable energy was concentrated on the thing in the chair.

  Z1 started to laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed until his head began to nod and hisgaze started to dart from one team member to the other. Only then did Key step forward. He moved between Z1 and the rest, all but demanding the creature’s full attention.

  “I know what it is,” Key said directly into Z1’s face. “Something was bothering me, but I know what it is now.” He glanced over at Daniels. “No blood. There’s no blood in his veins, so there’s no red in his skin or in his eyes.” Key turned his head to look into the creature’s mirth-twisted face.

  “What are you laughing about, you disease?” Key asked as he motioned at Safar to engage the translating machine.

  The laughter was interspersed with robotic sounds that filled the room. Key glanced at Safar with a quizzical expression.

  “A mix of likely Indian languages,” the Arab-American quietly informed them. “Hindi, Tamil, Sanskrit, Vedic Sanskrit, Prakrits, Middle Indic, Kannada, Telegu, Malayalam…”

  But then the laughter changed. It was a second before even Key realized that the laughing had become a song—a song like the one they had heard from the Indian movie musical that led them to Varanasi. A song that Z1 was cackling in English.

  “You,” Z1 said with a whisper. It sounded more like an exhalation than a word.

  “What?” Key demanded.

  “I am laughing about you, my friend,” the creature said as clearly as he could from his warped mouth and ruptured throat. “For you, with you, to you.” He looked at each of the others from around Key’s head. “Yes, I know English. Of course I know English. English is the language of the oppressors.”

  “No,” Key countered, shaking his head and attempting to hold the creature’s attention. “You are only laughing for you. You, like your master, know something I do not. So even here, seemingly trapped, you are free.”

  Key succeeded in getting, and holding, the creature’s attention. The creature studied Key the way Key was studying him—almost as if they were doing a mirror exercise. Then Z1’s head dropped back, his jaw fell open, and his laughter returned.

  “Yes, free!” he cried. His head dropped to lock eyes with Key again. “Now, after all this time, I am free. Because, finally, I know the truth.”

  Key leaned closer. “You need me to ask you?” he inquired. “All right—if you require me to ask you, I’ll ask.”

  Z1 moved his head closer in return, the needles rippling. “Yes, hadda,” he said. “Ask.”

  The translation machine quietly said “wasp.”

  “Then hadda asks,” Key said.

  Z1’s head cocked to the left. “Yes,” he said. “First you were mait.” The translator quietly said gnat. “Then you were machchhar.” Mosquito. “Now you are hadda.”

  Daniels was sorely tempted to comment “Moving up the food chain,” but, with great effort, resisted. The thought was nauseating and he was afraid to open his mouth for fear of vomiting. Instead, he took the moment to grip the lightning rifle tighter.

  “So they know me, then,” Key responded.

  Craven nodded with pity. “They know you. But they do not fear you. They merely admit your sting.”

  Key moved a hair even closer, his head on the same level as Z1’s. “And you?”

  The creature’s face calmed. “I thank you,” he said with sadness. “For showing me freedom.”

  Key straightened, nodding, and playing his advantage. “Then I will not sting you,” he said, “if you tell me your name.”

  Z1’s barking laugh was bitter this time. “I have no name.”

  “Then what do I call you?”

  The laugh was even more bitter. “You can call me what they call me. Krevan.” He said it in Hindi, but they all heard it as Craven. Daniels’s expression clearly communicated the moniker’s suitability.

  The “they” clued Key that his supposition about Craven’s master was correct. “So, Craven, tell me,” he said. “What is the truth?”

  “Pilate.”

  “What?” Key asked.

  Craven grinned. “You are so…provincial. The same question is always asked, never answered. Consult your holy book.”

  Key understood, then: Pontius Pilate…Jesus. The question, “What is truth?” It was tough enough to stay focused with this impossible being. He didn’t have time or frankly the knowledge to match wits, traipsing through theology and history…though he did wonder, briefly, what Biblical figures might have been vampires. Was that how Lazarus came back from the dead?

  Key repeated the question, and the creature almost winked at him. His laughter turned hollow and accusatory. “They would never turn me. A little, yes. Each time, a little. But they would never make me one of them. Not completely. Not ever.”

  Key glanced at Dr. Helen, acknowledging that she was right about Craven’s remaining soul. He was a monster, but not yet a complete Blood Demon. That almost made what he did to those children even worse. “You know that now, Craven.”

  “I know that now. They had used me befor
e. But then they needed me. And, when the day, the hour, the moment they no longer need me—”

  “Needed you—?” Lancaster blurted, stopped by Key’s hand snapping back to shut him up. This was not the time to divide the creature’s attention.

  “Needed you how?” the team leader pressed. “What did they need you for?”

  Craven’s head started rocking, his laughter becoming more strident. “You maanav,” he finally gurgled.

  “Humans,” the translating machine said.

  “So moorkh.” Stupid. “So goonga.” Silly.

  “Why?” Key asked without shame. In fact, he couldn’t help but agree. It was this honesty that recaptured the creature’s attention and made his disfigured look show interest as well as derision.

  Craven started nodding, a look of realization and recognition in his bloodless eyes. “You are like I was,” he said. “So impressed, so envious, so afraid, so excited by their power. How could you know? How could you guess?”

  “Know what?” Key answered with consummate patience. “Guess what?”

  But Craven started trembling. Key snapped his head toward Gonzales as the mechanic’s hands flew across the chair’s controls while Safar raced over to help.

  “Careful, careful,” Lancaster quietly warned them. “It could be a feint, a trap.”

  But when Key turned back, he could see little flashes of lightning going from pinhead to pinhead, all across Craven’s body, until it looked like he was being woven into a net of fire.

  “Shut it down!” Key ordered.

  “No!” Lancaster countermanded. “We don’t know if we can—”

  “Doesn’t matter!” Key said, stabbing his hands at Daniels holding the lightning gun, and Nichols holding an electrified animal-control noose. “Shut it down!”

  Lancaster took a split second to decide, then slammed his own hand down on the abort button. He turned immediately back to Key, but Key had already turned back to Craven, who was drooping in the chair, his skin smoking. Key put his hands on a needle-free part of the creature’s right shoulder and left forearm.