wings.” I wasn’t sure if Tyrfing would affect the angel, but I wasn’t going to
take the chance.
“You should leave the mean one.” The angel gripped the sword with
my sweatshirt after passing me the Baby Jesus. “Her place is here.”
“No.” I lifted Lilith over my shoulder in a makeshift fireman’s carry,
and tucked the kid underneath my other arm. Using my body to shield him, I
trudged from the gates of hell, and into Times Square.
Screams from passing tourist reverberated through my aching head,
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but I paid them little attention, focused instead on locating Lilith’s Gremlin
and getting the fuck out of there.
“Where is it?” I motioned to the angel.
“Two blocks south.” He smiled, as if he’d solved all of my problems.
I shook my head and headed north. Sure enough three blocks later,
the Gremlin sat parked against a curb. A sign warned of the dangers of
parking in that specific spot in the NYPD’s stiff, intimidating language.
Lilith, God love her, had left a fuck you note to parking police on the
windshield, and the keys in the ignition.
Shoving the kid into the backseat, I buckled Lilith in the front and
jumped into the driver’s seat. The angel huffed, but climbed into the back
without further comment. Once we were all settled, I cranked the ignition,
pounded on the dash, and pumped the gas.
The Gremlin coughed once, sputtered, and died.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pounded on the dashboard, a tear of frustration and rage rolled
down my cheek. A manly tear. Lilith’s voice whispered in my head, “Suck it
up, you big baby. Do you see J.C. crying?”
I grinned, probably delusional, but comforted all the same. I twisted
the keys again, and laughed when the engine roared to life. Things were
looking up. I slammed the Gremlin into drive, and without a destination in
mind, sped up the avenue.
~ * ~
In the dead of the night, I drove an angel, a dead girl, and God’s son,
his diaper filled with shit, to Queens.
My mind raced, connecting the dots of today’s events. Mary had
stolen the kid, kept him locked away, but to what end? She wasn’t working
alone. I was sure of it. So who dared to fuck with God, and the Devil?
Samuel.
His named popped into my head, and my knuckles whitened on the
steering wheel. I glanced into the darkness, and then into the backseat where
the angel sat. “Wait here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The angel nodded, his eyes leery as I picked up Lilith’s body and
carried her through the gates of the Calvary Cemetery.
The gravestones looked the same as they had days ago. I weaved my
way through the headstones and angelic statues, memories surging like the
scent of death surrounding me. Ahead the marble stone of Steve Brodie’s
mausoleum glinted under a single, bright star.
I smiled, a lifetime had past since Lilith locked me inside, actually,
two lifetimes. Leaning her body against the cold stone, I pushed the door
open. Inside the crypt smelled of stale air and black candles. Homey.
Wrapping Lilith in my arms for the last time, I held her close and
inhaled the scent of her. Exotic tobacco and sin. I kissed her forehead and set
her down on the icy ground.
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“I will make this right,” I promised over the lump in my throat. My
lips brushed hers, and for a second, I imagined a spark of life in her frozen
corpse. But unlike Sleeping Beauty, Lilith stayed dead.
I swallowed hard and glanced to Heaven. “I’m not fucking Job. Get
it? Bring her back.”
Silence filled the chamber. Dead, thick silence.
“Stubborn prick.” I flipped God off, and bent over Lilith once more.
“Don’t give up on me.” I grabbed her bluish hand, kissed it, and staggered to
my feet. My eyes burned with tears, but I refused to let them fall. Tears were
for the dead, and I’d be damned if I’d give Lilith up that easy.
At the entrance of the crypt, I lit another candle and said goodbye
before I closed the door for the last time.
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Thirty Nine
“Here.” Hades handed me another beer followed by a shot of milk-
turned-whiskey.
I slumped on a bar stool at the Underworld, drowning myself in
liquor. Cheap liquor. The angel and the kid sat at the opposite end of the bar
watching a stupid cartoon about the tribulations of a yellow square. The kid
looked bored, the angel mesmerized.
“I just don’t get it.” I shook my head, warding off duel images of
Hades, and swallowed the shot. “Why didn’t Mary try and kill me sooner? It
wasn’t like she didn’t have the chance.”
Hades patted my shoulder. “Who knows with women? Persephone
threatens to smoother me in my sleep every night, but come morning, I’m
still breathing.”
Cupid, Hades’s long-time rival for Persephone’s affections, crawled
on top the barstool next to me. His breath reeked of alcohol covered by
breath mints and ass. “Mary’s the blonde one, right?”
“Yeah, that bitch.” I chugged my beer and motioned for another.
“When I find her...”
“I can make that happen.” His heart-shaped eyelid winked at me.
“Fuck off, you sawed-off Romeo.” Hades pushed Cupid, knocking
his diaper-wrapped ass to the floor. “Jace don’t need your help.”
“No, wait.” I stumbled to my feet, my brain swimming in the deep-
end of a whiskey pool. “Do you know where Mary is?”
Cupid shook his overly large cherub head. “Not exactly.”
“Don’t listen to him.” Hades gestured to the shorter demi-God. “He’s
a hack, Jace. A weasel. A drunk.”
I waved Hades off, and focused on Cupid. “Tell me what you know.”
He inched himself back onto the bar stool, and said, “Well, I know
for a fact love is in the air.”
I rolled my eyes. Fuck love. What had it ever done for me? I’d
married for love, fucked for love, and died for it. None of it mattered. Lilith
was dead. Mary was an evil bitch, and I was drunk enough to listen to a dude
in a diaper.
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“I’ll have you know during the month of February more babies are
conceived than any other time of the year.” Cupid nodded his head.
“So?” I sat down again, and drank half of the beer Hades set in front
of me while waiting for Cupid, who oddly looked like a lollipop, to make his
point. “What the fuck does that have to do with Mary?”
Cupid frowned. “Nothing. But it has plenty to do with the seed
planted inside the other one.”
“What?” I jumped from the stool, tripped over my feet, and landed
hard on my ass. “Lilith was pregnant? Why didn’t she tell me?” I pictured a
small demon child in her womb with her cat-eyes, and Samuel’s boy band
sneer and bad bleach job. What kind of mother would Lilith have made? A
good one, I bet, but with Samuel as a father, the poor kid never had a chance.
Demon spawn times two.
“Maybe Lilith didn’t know, but my point is, preventative measures
shoul
d always be taken.” Cupid smiled, as if everything he said had made
perfect sense.
“What?” Hades shook his head, and grabbed the glass of amber
liquid in front of Cupid. “You’re cut off.”
“But—”
“No. Get the fuck out of here and sober up.” Hades lifted him by his
tiny wings, and booted Cupid out of the door. Then Hades turned to me.
“Sorry, Jace. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Do you think he was telling the truth? That Lilith was pregnant?” I
shuddered at the thought. Had I destroyed two lives tonight? Lilith and her
unborn child?
Hades pressed another shot into my hand. “It doesn’t matter now.
Either way. You have to focus on protecting little J.C., and finding that
spiteful bitch, Mary, before she hurts anyone else.”
I nodded. “You’re right. It’s time I got my priorities in order.”
“That’s my boy.” Hades slapped me on the back.
“Hades?”
“Yeah Jace?”
“I think I’m going to puke.” And that’s what I did. Bright
Technicolor streams of vomit burst from my mouth splattering everything in
its path.
The angel ducked, but not soon enough. Bits of my stomach lining,
bile, and beer dripped from his hair and down his robe.
The kid, not a spot of vomit on him, smiled and laughed. “Mine.
Mine. Mine.”
I gave him a small wave, and dropped face first onto the floor.
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Forty
The angel screamed and slammed on the breaks just in time, or so he
swore, even though the bus he’d swerved to avoid was about a mile ahead.
Like GPS, God had not installed the ability to drive in his angels, which
made for one hell of a ride home to Lilith’s apartment.
I rubbed my dashboard-dented head and glanced into the backseat to
check on the kid. He poked his head from the makeshift car seat, and smiled
at me, looking ridiculous in a taped up UPS box and bubble wrap. But
knowing the angel didn’t know how to and that I wasn’t in any condition to
drive, we’d made do. There was enough duct tape and bubble wrap around
him to ship ten crates of ‘Jesus is my co-pilot’ statues.
“Watch it,” I yelled to the angel as he flew past a motorcycle cop,
inches from the cop’s tire. A blaze of red and blue lights exploded behind us.
The angel started to pull over.
“What the fuck are you doing? Go. Go.” I slammed my foot on the
gas pedal, and the Gremlin redlined and raced up the street. The angel
screeched and closed his eyes.
“Open your eyes and drive, damn it.” I wrenched the wheel, sending
us spinning into the right lane, and out of the path of oncoming traffic.
“Pull over,” the cop’s voice boomed from a speaker behind us.
“We must do as he asks.” Blindly, the angel pressed the brake pedal.
I kicked him, and smashed my foot on the gas again. “No fucking
way. I’ll go to jail, the kid will go to foster care, and you’ll go to the pound.”
“I am not a bird!”
“Tell it to the judge.” I steered us around the corner of Canal, and
whipped up Broadway. Traffic was light for this time of night, and the chase
reached speeds of thirty miles an hour. Fucking Gremlin. There was no way
we’d lose the cop without help.
The kid bounced in his box. “Mine. Mine. Mine.” Funny how I used
to think that was cute, now I couldn’t wait until he learned a new word.
Maybe I’d teach him a dirty one.
“Mine. Mine.” His chanting rang through the car, growing louder and
louder.
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“Shah. Mine’s trying to think,” I told him.
His lower lip quivered, and he burst into a full fit of tears. Big, fat,
wet tears.
With a crack of thunder, the sky opened and a downpour of rain
mixed with hamsters erupted from the clouds as snotty tears ran down the
kid’s face.
Son-of-a-bitch. No offense to the Virgin Mary intended. The
motorcycle cop swerved a few times to avoid the barrage, and finally lost
control. The cop’s bike tipped over, and he skidded across the slick concrete
stopping a few feet from the curb. I watched as he stood, brushed his uniform
off, and limped away.
Patting the kid's leg, I flicked on the Gremlin’s windshield wipers
with my other hand to scrape off splattered hamster pieces and salty
raindrops.
~ * ~
I picked the lock on Lilith’s apartment door, and ushered the angel
and kid inside. The room looked empty and dull without Lilith. The bright
white faded into a dingy gray.
“Yowl.” Bodhi curled around my legs.
I bent over and stroked his sleek fur. He returned the favor with a
claw to my index finger and an annoyed hiss. Fucking demon cat.
“Mine’s?” The kid pointed to the cat.
“Have at it.” I lifted the kid from the angel’s arms, and sat him next
to the spawn of Satan cat. Served the cat right.
The kid jabbed a finger into the cat’s mouth, and squeezed his bushy
white tail. “Yoooowwwell!” The cat’s hackles rose, as the kid stuffed
Bodhi’s tail into his drooly mouth.
I left the cat to the kid’s torture, and headed to the bathroom. Sober
now, exhaustion had taken over. I wanted to clean up and crash for the next
ten hours.
My clothes reeked of blood, dried brains, vomit, and hell fire. I
stripped, cranked the faucet to hot, and stood under the burning water until it
ran cold. I willed my mind to go blank, to forget the look of evil on Mary’s
face, and the scent of Lilith’s blood.
Picking up a bottle of Lilith’s shampoo, I inhaled the aroma, a blend
of coconut and cherries. It was so surprisingly girly, I smiled. There was so
much about Lilith that would forever remain a mystery to me.
Scrubbing at my skin, I washed away her blood. A green swirl
circled the drain, disappearing forever. How had I let this happen?
I shut the water off and climbed from the tub, standing naked in the
fogged mirror. I wiped my hand across the shiny surface.
Like a ghost, Lilith’s image floated in front of me, her eyes dancing,
face full of life. I touched my fingers to the glass wanting to feel her skin one
more time.
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The angel opened the door, and Lilith vanished into the mist.
“Fuck.” I smashed my fist against the mirror, shattering it. Bits of
glass stabbed my hand, slicing it open, but I was beyond feeling physical
pain.
“Here.” The angel handed me a fresh pair of jeans and an equally
clean t-shirt, two sizes too big.
“Thanks.” I pulled on the jeans, and walked barefoot to Lilith’s
perfectly made bed. The white linen called to my tired body, sapping the last
of my energy. I lay down, my fingers brushing Lilith’s pillow. It smelled of
her. I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
“Nemamiah?”
The angel’s fetid breath hit me, and I opened an eye. “What?”
“Your wetness is making the ink run.” He smiled at me, his head
tilted to one side.
“What ink?” I half-sat, and
searched the bed for ink stains.
The angel pointed to my pillow. Sure enough, a wet white envelop
lay against the ink-tainted pillowcase. Across the front of the letter was my
name in solid, block script.
I swallowed and ripped it open. Three folded sheets of paper fell onto
the bed. My eyes scanned the pages, smiling at Lilith’s handwriting. No 'i's
dotted with tiny hearts, or girly scrawls for her.
My smile changed into a frown as I read her final words: protect J.C.,
kill Mary, and feed my cat.
Fuck.
I glanced at the kitchen floor, and the half-filled dish of cat food. The
kid glared across the dish at the cat in a kat-chow standoff. Bodhi growled,
and the kid growled back. The kid touched his finger to the tip of Bodhi’s
nose. “Mine.”
Bodhi dropped dead, his whiskers twitching once before he headed
for the bright white light.
“No. Bad.” I wagged my finger at the kid.
His bottom lip sucked under his top, and he appeared ready to cry.
I shook my head no.
His eyes filled with tears.
“I’m going to count to three.” Then what, I asked myself? How do
you punish Jesus? Send him to bed with out a last supper?
“Mine.” He stuck his head stubbornly into the air.
Like father like son. “One… two...”
The kid tapped Bodhi’s nose, and the cat shot to its feet with a
terrified meow. The kid smiled, grabbed the cat, and squished it to his sticky
chest. The cat let out a smothered cry, but didn’t fight the kid’s affections.
Lilith’s order to feed her cat presented a slight problem. But I’d sure
as hell protect the kid, and kill that deceitful bitch, Mary. For once, I’d do
things the right way. For Lilith. For the kid. And for myself.
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Forty One
I climbed the last stair, a heaviness pulling at my chest, a thirty-two
pound heaviness with drool-coated hands and kat-chow breath. I glared down
at the kid, who smiled up at me from the baby-sling. I felt like a fucking
kangaroo, but the chick at the Babies R Us swore it was the latest in
fashionable baby-wear.
“This is a stupid idea.” I tugged at the straps trying to find a
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