Balance - Book 2
Page 67
CHAPTER 27
Soon after I arrived at an address on the east side of town and exited the car. It was heading towards midnight. The structure before me stretched up like an injured finger. It had every similarity to an establishment occupied by one or more deranged scientists, lacking only a sky laced with lightening to complete the picture. It had been abandoned for years.
I approached via a weed-infested path and headed for the lobby. At the building’s flank a long abandoned car sat, nested in piles of garbage. Ahead of me, looking like a snapshot from a war-torn country, double doors gave entrance to the lobby. They hung skew and clung to their last shards of glass. I approached them and limped through, nostrils drowning in a smell of human waste. The homeless had taken residence here, in the damp cement alcoves. And judging by the empty sleeping bags and still guttering fire had left in a hurry. I turned, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and was startled by a rumbling boom that drifted down from the cement ceiling. It penetrated from the building’s upper floors.
Boom.
I waited, listening. It came again.
Boom.
Louder, shaking loose dust and debris.
My eyes adjusted. I spotted a ‘stairs’ sign and headed for it, trying to ignore how loud my echoing footsteps seemed.
Boom!
The steps vibrated through the soles of my boots. More debris rained down, illuminated by shafts of cold moonlight that penetrated dust-coated windows.
Boom!
I exited the steps onto the first floor.
Boom!
Higher, up to level three.
BOOM! BOOM!
A light fixture, which had already given up its bulb, jingled merrily on the ceiling. The sound was coming from directly above, one floor up. I continued on, mounting dusty steps with heart pumping in preparation. Halfway up the fourth flight the booming stopped. The building sank into a suffocating silence. I froze, my boot hovering. No more booms followed and all at once I was acutely aware of my surroundings. The lifeless cement pressed in and radiated cold. I cocked my head, listening. There was a new sound, one that originated from the fourth floor and floated down to meet me. A female voice crooning the most mournful lullaby I had ever heard.
‘Manuelita una vez se enamoró
de un tortugo que pasó.
Dijo: ¿Qué podré yo hacer…?’
Words; unrecognisable. Half lost in the cement and half faded with distance. Not English.
‘En la tintorería de París
la pintaron con barniz.
La plancharon en francés
del derecho y del revés…’
The moment drew on. The sound was so sweet, yet somehow so heart wrenchingly sad, tears prickled at the corners of my eyes.
“This should not exist,” I told myself, “This situation should not be happening. No sound so sweet should ever be heard in a place so foul.”
It was magic, I knew, and held the Spell at bay. But still felt my feet continuing up to the fourth floor. I stepped out into the corridor and the voice became clearer. Tears trickled down my dusty cheeks. I listened and turned right, heading up a naked corridor and facing the lullaby head on. It washed over me like slow moving rapids. At the far end of the corridor light escaped around the frame of a door, creating a white rectangle. I headed towards it.
‘Tantos años tardó en cruzar el mar
que allí se volvió a arrugar
y por eso regresó
vieja como se marchó…’
I paused outside the door fighting back the well of emotion. Calm was locked down. Then I reached out, took the door handle, and pushed.
Light stung my eyes. I was in the interior of an apartment and it was immediately clear this was where the booming had occurred. The scene resembled a landscape having endured days of bombing. Walls, floor and ceiling were pockmarked with impact craters; a replica of the hotel room days ago. Candles, a dozen, were placed strategically around to offer illumination.
The singing was coming from my right and I turned. The buzzing exploded in my head.
Kneeling in the centre of the space was the Gloria-demon, face looking at me in bemused surprise. Her skeletal body appeared to float in candlelight. Below the face, looking like the contracting limbs of a dying spider, its arms cradled a human figure. The creature continued to sing, its eyes never leaving me. And a deeply unsettling smile slowly turned up its lips. The arms moved and my breath was stolen.
Selena was lying on the floor before the creature, half dressed in dirty rags. Her head was cradled on the creature’s lap and naked legs drawn up in a foetal position. She was serene, eyes closed. As I watched the demon stroked her hair.
A wave of euphoria bathed me. My eyes moved over the scene, heart halfway between exploding and freezing. I knew the moment should be horrifying me, that the nature of the moment declared Selena so far into the darkness she might be lost forever. I realised then, tears streaming down my face, that what had appeared to be a red rug beneath her body was in fact a thin coating of blood. There were multiple self inflicted lacerations on her thighs, somewhere near a dozen. Each was fresh and glistening with blood.
For what seemed an age I stood and stared, watching Selena’s motionless form. The demon continued to sing. Its voice was a chorus of angels. When at last the lullaby stopped I wanted nothing more then to comfort her. Protect her and keep the world at bay, ensure no harm came to her. I wanted to curl up on the floor and sleep beside her. Allow the demon to embrace me. And be safe knowing that I was a part of her story.
The demon crooned invitingly. Selena’s eyes opened.
“Jet,” she said sleepily, “Am I dreaming?”
“Selena. Come with me.”
Her brow creased. “What?”
“Come with me,” I insisted, “Let’s go. Come with me and let’s leave this city. I’m tired and I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I just want to go far away. And I want you to be with me. Please, come with me.”
She stared, trying to comprehend. But a light was growing in her eyes. She rose up on an elbow.
“Come with me,” I repeated, reaching out, “Come with me, Selena. Please.”
She looked at my hand as if it were a strange foreign object.
“Come with me.”
“Where will we go, Jet?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just leave with me now.”
She hesitated, face contorting. The demon, however, had set its face into a mask of irritation. It did not like how things were panning out.
“Oh, Jet,” Selena whispered, “I’m so scared.”
At last she reached for my hand. And then my fingers were being crushed.
“Selena,” I groaned, “that hurts...”
I looked down. The demon had reached passed her and was grasping my hand. It sneered at me.
Selena blinked. Her eyes settled on me and burned.
“You,” she hissed.
“Please don’t…”
She drew in a deep breath and the air was suddenly alive with blue sparks. I gasped, making a clumsy effort to brace, but my broken body forbade it. Her palms thrust forward and I was swept up, torn from the demon’s grasp and sent skating backwards. There was a jarring impact as my back struck a wall. For a moment I was sure I would be crushed, body forced into bare cement. My stomach dampened, stitches burst, hand screamed. But, desperately, part of the energy was drawn in and the pressure eased. The wall was not so lucky. As the bombardment continued I felt it give way behind me.
“Selena! Stop!”
I was flying backwards into the still night air, surrounded by chunks of debris and an endless black void. My body tumbled, part of me said goodbye. Then the sensation of rushing air ceased and my teeth rattled. Air burst from my mouth and something in my chest crumbled. The ground buckled a fraction, then I was recoiling a foot back into the air. There came the rhythmic sound of debris pounding asphalt.
All was still.
I tri
ed to steady my singing head and get to my feet. The first realisation was that my hands were grappling about on a metal surface. I had landed on the roof of the old car. The second realisation, one that caused significantly more alarm, was that I had not taken a breath for more seconds then was normal. I attempted to inhale, failed, and was soon racking my body with spasming attempts to draw in air. When finally I did it was followed by immediate regret. My expanding chest shrieked with stabbing pain.
“Oh God,” I heard myself gurgle, “Oh no, oh God…”
An echoing shriek drifted down from above. I craned my head, grimacing in pain, and caught sight of an odd shape detaching from the building. Barely visible against the moon. Seconds later I realised it was descending towards me and flung myself off the car. I struck asphalt and multiple parts of my body howled in agony. Then beside me came an enormous squeal of metal crushing into metal. Gloria was looking down at me, her scowling eyes now void of affection. Beneath her spidery legs the car’s roof had pan-caked.
I scrambled backwards, trying to ignore stabbing pain that accompanied each breath. One of my arms was dragging beside me. The demon, purring, stepped down from the car and advanced towards me.
“Obsession!” it screamed, “Obsession! Obsession! Obsession!”
“Gloria, please…”
“Obsession! Obsession!”
A hand closed around my neck and I felt the ground falling away beneath me. I did not fight back. There was one resource remaining to me. And I called it.
“Help me…” I gurgled through a constricted throat, “Help me!”
The shadows sank deeper. My demon moved to obey, swooping in like animated liquid. It smashed into Gloria, dragging her off to the side. I flailed and fell back Earth.
From nearby came a muffled BOOM and debris cascaded over my body. I looked towards it, shielding my face, but saw only a blur of movement. Two bodies swirled around one another in a mess of semi-invisible shapes. The ground exploded beneath them as Spirit was released, and the shapes darted from one position to another, tearing up the asphalt. Strangled squawks and shrieks followed in the wake of the chaos. There was another earthshaking BOOM, and the shapes were darting up, ricocheting off the building’s second floor exterior, exploding the wall, and streaking back down to Earth. The ground shook.
I watched, mouth hanging open. Even trying to make sense of the proceedings made my head hurt. Finally the blurring shapes froze. Gloria was on her back pinned by my demon’s knees. She squealed in apparent agony as my tuxedo wearing counterpart attempted to rip her head from its neck. She flailed, swatting at him, but with a sound like a tree uprooting, her head detached. The headless body faded first. But the head remained a few seconds, clutched in my demon’s hands. A moment before vanishing Gloria’s eyes rolled in their sockets towards me. Then she was gone.
I sighed and lay back. Above me the yellow moon looked down without comment.
“She reached for my hand,” I said to my demon. Each gasping breath resulted in a wincing stab. “If I had taken it…”
The demon said nothing.
“You saved me,” I said, grimacing.
It did not respond. I coughed, blood ejected like mist.
“I’m in bad shape here. I believe… I need to get to a medical facility. I’m dying.”
It did nothing.
“Pick me up, you son of a bitch. Carry me to the car. I’ll die here. I’ll die, and without me you’re nothing. You know that.”
It considered the proposal. Then reached into its pocket and offered a bottle of painkillers. I blinked at them.
‘You’re giving them to me?”
Its hand did not move. I took the bottle. It crouched and scooped me up in its arms, lifting my weight like I was made of feathers. But a moment before we set off I glanced up. A faint flicker of candlelight could be seen escaping a gaping hole. And, for just a second, I heard the distant sound of crying.
The demon deposited me into the Enforcer van. I picked up the radio and reported my location, then took two pills and lay back. I watched as the creature faded.