by Sating, Paul
I reached into my cargo pocket and pulled Creed out.
"A stick. Impressive."
Checking over my shoulder, hearing Sergeant Jones still engaging the anxious crowd, I activated Creed with a shake.
Tamika jumped back, a small yelp escaping her lips as the halberd extended, the wavy single blade at the bottom and the double ax head at the top, burning blue with the Hellfire. "Creed, meet Tamika. Tamika, this is Creed, a magical halberd gifted to me by Aries, a first of his name. He gave it to me during a mission the Third Council sent me on about two years ago. As I said, your secret is safe with me, because now you know mine."
"You're a … a …"
"Demon." I gave her the warmest smile I could under the circumstances.
Now it was her turn to shock me. Her face crumbled, and she collapsed into me, crying. I wrapped my arms around her in an awkward hug while attempting to collapse Creed.
"Thank Lucifer," she said in between quiet sniffles. "You don't know how trying this has been. I've been alone this entire time, and I'm so exhausted." She pulled back, her eyes returning to the soft vulnerability of before. "Are you the only one?"
Before I answered, I checked over my shoulder to ensure we were still alone. Whatever Afra was doing in the back room, she was taking her time.
"No, the Council started a draft and selected thousands of us. There's two guys out there right now, lifelong friends, who are also one of our kind."
Tamika stepped away, running a hand through her chaotic hair. "This is good. Good. Really good."
She was more mumbling to yourself than talking to me.
"I can imagine, especially if you've been the only one in the city."
She turned to me, her hands dropping to her side. "Not just that. I need help."
I looked around at the empty beds. "I'm not sure what we can help you with. I mean, there's a few medics I can ask questions of or maybe have them sneak supplies to you, but beyond—"
"Not here, not healthcare."
"Then what do you need help with?"
"Removing a curse."
12 - Baghdad
"Why does she need to talk to the three of you?" Sergeant Jones snapped.
I wanted to spew the truth, that the fate of an immortal was in the balance and we were compelled, if not obligated, to help. That the freaking state of the Balance was at risk. But I stopped myself because I don't know where the Army puts crazy soldiers, but I'll bet it's worse than Iraq. Even pausing would raise suspicions and put everything at risk.
"I told you, sir," I started my lie over again. "She needs help to rearrange beds, but she doesn't want too many soldiers in there because that will break the trust the locals have with her. And we're the lowest ranking in the squad, so she'll feel less threatened if it's just us. Plus," I lowered my voice and added a spruce of conspiracy notes to make it enticing to Sergeant Jones, "Sergeant Smith might not have had the chance to tell you this, but this nurse is the major source of intel for our patrols. He kept her out of the reports to keep her safe. She's an important source and we can't lose out on what she might have to say." I backed away, resuming my normal level and cadence of speech. "I promise, sir. It won't take long."
His eyes narrowed. "Is that so?" His voice rose. Loud. Haughtiness mixed with the heat of embarrassment of one of his soldiers knowing more than he did—though it was not true. "Well, this one is too lazy, and this one is too pretty to be effective securing the perimeter," he continued with pompous confidence after insulting Bilba and Ralrek equally. "We need to report in, so don't screw around. Get in, get the job done, and let's get out of here."
Permission granted, I waved for Ralrek and Bilba to join me inside the makeshift clinic where Tamika waited to meet the two demons.
She was pacing when we entered, spinning as if we surprised her.
"These are the two I was telling you about," I said carefully. "They're good guys, though they can be asshats from time to time. We're from the same Circle. I know them like I know the back of my hand."
"You mean, the palm," Bilba quipped and blushed when Tamika's head snapped toward him.
I cleared my throat. "If you need help, these are the only two I trust fully. They won't betray you."
She nodded and shook their hands, then turned away and waved for us to follow her into the cramped back room. When we were together, she explained. "I'd rather do this in here. If anyone in your squad gets curious about what's taking you so long, at least this will give us a few seconds to cover our conversation. It will still be awkward, but I'll take that chance. I'm more interested in getting your help. Plus, Afra can be quite the bulldog if anyone, even your commander, tries to barge in here. Trust me, she knows how to manipulate your rules of engagement."
I smiled. "We don't have a commander on patrol, so we're safe there. And, honestly, part of me would like to see Sergeant Jones put in his place by her. She's scary."
But she wasn't in the mood for humor. "My name isn't Tamika. That's the name I use for the mortals, but my actual name is Cancer Nijal."
Cancer. It didn't fit her. I wondered if she would allow me to continue using her human name.
"Nice to meet you, Cancer," Bilba said, fumbling with his rifle which clunked against the small medication refrigerator, leaving a small dent as a sign of his presence.
"Careful doofus," Ralrek said playfully, even though I imagined taking a swipe at Bilba helped balance the unresolved tension between them.
I peeked around the open door into the patient area. "This attack that hurt the boy will get a quick response and Sergeant Jones won't fall for the lie I gave him for long. I'm not sure how much time they'll give us, so let us know how we can help or it might have to wait, and I have no idea when we'll be back."
Cancer wrung her hands, biting the corner of her lip. "I understand. I hate it, but I understand. I'm just happy that we met each other, even if it was by accident. Like I told you, I need help with a curse."
"I'm not sure what we can do about curses, except listen and maybe find someone who can." She didn't need any false hope, especially since the Army kept us restricted to the post when not on patrol.
Cancer leaned against a shelf holding bandages, medical tape, and linens. "I have to be careful who I involve because ... well, that doesn't matter. To understand the curse, you need details about my family, because I'm not the only one it affects."
"It affects everyone in your family?" I asked.
Cancer shook her head, her mass of loose curls swaying back and forth even after she stopped. "Not everyone. Sometimes it skips entire generations. But it affects too many of us. For one demon to be cursed, it's bad enough, but when so many in your family are, it becomes everything."
"I imagine," Bilba said, trying to take a seat on a stool and almost toppling over. "Curses are no joke."
"What do you know about them?" Ralrek looked down at Bilba with a hint of disbelief in his expression.
Bilba's eyes narrowed, focusing on Ralrek like he was the only other demon in the room. "I know they're real. I know demons can cast them with Hex magic for anything like giving someone back luck, making animals sick or causing crops to fail. And I also know that major demons can curse other demons and even mortals. What do you know? Do you know that Celio Darviolos was the first demon to cast a curse?"
Ralrek snickered. He didn't sound humored. "Don't know that name."
"Oh, but you try to call me out?"
"Guys, we're on a time crunch here," I reminded them. "Who is this Celio?"
"You wouldn't know him," Bilba said, his voice losing the heat he responded to Ralrek with. "An ancient. Just someone I did some reading about."
"Never heard of him."
"You wouldn't, Zeke," Bilba said. "He lived more than five hundred thousand years ago."
I jerked my head back. "Hex magic goes back that long?"
"Probably longer. It's an ancient Ability; maybe even one of the first created after the Fall. According to what I've read
, there are a small percentage of demons who still have it, though it's mostly a weak Ability now, for some reason. I don't even know if there is a single major demon with it anymore."
Cancer gave my seated friend a sad smile, likely finding his clumsiness adorable. "My family's experience with it started with my great-grandfather and a feud with a rival. He was an accountant."
"I never thought of accountants having beefs with each other," I said.
Cancer shook her head. "Not with another accountant. His was with one his customers. He supposedly filed a report on the customer's finances that got the customer in trouble with tax authorities. Going to jail type of trouble."
"I can see how that would upset somebody. Jail isn't fun," Ralrek said with a quick sideways glance at me over our shared experience.
Cancer registered his reaction but continued without prying. "He was justified in what he did, because he would have been liable if he didn't report the inaccuracies. His customer's family saw his actions as antagonistic. His customer wasn't in jail for more than a few days before his family started harassing my great-grandfather. And that's when it happened."
"The curse?" I concluded.
Cancer nodded a few times in stunted dips of her head, making her loose curls bob beyond her face. "The customer's wife was a renowned witch in the Second Circle. That's where my family is from."
"Oh, I'm familiar with the Second Circle," I said with only a hint of humor to cover my immediate thoughts of Cassie, the spy who had been part of the angelic attack at Gemini's failed execution. She was also the one who helped me see more of my nature than anyone in the Underworld bar Dialphio, so she was not all that bad.
"You've been there?" Cancer said, straightening.
Ralrek answered before I could. "The Council had a job for us there."
Cancer blinked, her shoulders dropping and lifting as her full lips spread out in a impressed smile. It looked like an invisible weight had been lifted from her. "Imagine my luck tripping across demons who have done work for the Council."
"It's not as glamorous as it seems," I said with a laugh I didn't feel. Jitters were setting in. This was supposed to be a quick furniture-arranging mission to cover as an intel run that would elevate our squad leader's impression of himself. Much longer and he would start suspecting something else was going on. "We're running out of time, Cancer."
"This customer's wife, Adadi Vicu, visited great-grandfather to confront him, and slipped a powder into his tea, setting the curse in motion."
I shook my head. "He never knew what hit him?"
Cancer's shoulders sagged. "No. And they did that to him, to our family, because he'd done his job. He wasn't the one who falsified records or tried to hide coin from the Council. He just did what was right."
"And they cursed him for it," Bilba said in a raspy voice.
"And the curse is perpetual, genetic. It is a powerful spell; passed down through our genes."
"That's gross," Ralrek complained. "If you've got a problem with somebody you take it up with them, directly. You don't beat around the bush, or get others involved. You handle it like an adult."
His outburst cast silent speculation over the room. The heat in his comments was grounded in something much deeper to him than Cancer's familial curse. His barbed comments were intended for Bilba, whose issues with Ralrek's attraction to mortals still hadn't been addressed.
I rubbed my face, frustrated at keeping this focused so she could share what she needed to about this supposed curse. "And it was passed on to you?"
Cancer gazed at the floor, giving us a tiny nod of her head.
"What happens?"
She looked around the back room with an air of nostalgia, her eyes disconnecting from the here and now, drifting off to another place and time. "The curse is a rot that slowly eats away at its victims. The infected demon doesn't even notice it until long after it has taken hold and started breaking them down. Tortuously. It's terrible. I've seen so many of my family …"
"That's barbaric," Ralrek snapped. "Who does that to another demon?"
"The Vicu family," Cancer said the familial name as if it was the most blasphemous curse someone could pronounce.
Bilba got up from his seat and walked to her, whispering. "Has anyone tried to break the curse?"
Cancer reached out, wiggling her fingers for Bilba to give her his hand. When he did, she took it in both of hers. "Believe me, we have tried, even long before I was born. My mother and aunt looked for ways to break it too. No one has been able to. The Circle's Council isn't interested. We've met with the Vicu family, but the talks constantly break down. And as far as countering it? Nothing."
"Out! Get out!" Afra yelled from the front room. "No more soldiers! No more!"
Bilba jumped. I peeked around the corner and saw Cancer's elderly assistant blocking Sergeant Jones and Muhammad in the doorway.
I turned back to our small group, urgency pushing bluntness. "We have to go. Tell us how can we help, because you might not see us for a long time."
"There is a way to remove it," she said. "But it has to come from the family. Only a Vicu can break it, and it has to be voluntary. Coerced if necessary, but the choice still has to be theirs."
I cocked my head. "Coercion isn't voluntary."
"Semantics. Take this," she said, handing me a slip of paper. "One of them just has to recite this counter-spell. Word-for-word. That will end the curse."
I took the paper and tucked it into my pocket. "We want to help, and I'll try, but we're obligated to the mortal Army for our entire year. It'll be months before we return home. We can't do anything until then."
Her soft eyes locked on mine. "You don't need to go back to the Underworld to break the curse."
Footsteps stomped in our direction.
"Privates," Sergeant Jones yelled. "Where in the hell are you? Get your sorry asses in gear."
"There is a member of the Vicu family here in Baghdad," Cancer smiled.
At least there was someone in the family in the immediate vicinity, meaning we might be able to help after all. Maybe.
"I have no idea how we could get to an Iraqi even if they lived across the street. The Army watches us too closely. They control everything we do, especially around locals."
Cancer's smile spread. "You don't have to worry about that, because he isn't an Iraqi. He's serving in the American Army."
13 - Baghdad
"Why is it so hard to creep?" Bilba said as he slumped against the aluminum picnic table, almost dropping his tray that held three slices of pizza and a super-sized soda.
My eyes grew as large as his stomach would when he ingested that meal. "I thought you were serious about taking better care of yourself?"
"I'll care about that when I'm allowed to paint my fingernails black again. Plus, I am," he said defensively, and then looked at the content of his tray. "I just haven't eaten in a few hours and I'm starving. Plus, we're burning tons of calories every day. I'm basically just trying to maintain now."
"With that much food you won't need to eat for another day," Ralrek said, spreading strawberry cream cheese over his bagel and taking a huge bite. He smiled behind the bagel.
"You guys are jerks," Bilba said as he sprinkled pepper flakes over the pizza. Anyone caught in the shit trailer with him after that meal would regret their timing.
"But you're right, it's harder than heaven to find a single soldier in a sea of them," I said as I watched a squad hurry past to reach the coffee stand line before another group.
Even in Baghdad, Americans excelled at over-consuming unhealthy diets, something Bilba was becoming too comfortable with as our deployment stretched on. Pizza stands, hamburger vendors, coffee shops, exquisite bagels, a bakery; you name it and this single food area, one of many around the compound of Army posts and Air Force bases, had it all. Though I'd never been to the Third Circle, I imagined it looking a lot like this, which was fine until the mountain of useless calories started catching up. These young sol
diers didn't seem to mind because deploying to the desert was doing wonders for everyone's waste band, mine included. With nothing to do when we were not working, nowhere we could go, and only so many films to watch in the recreation tent, the food court was a popular stop for those tired of mess hall food.
So I, too, felt justified eating this crap food. It would undo all my hard work in getting a rippled stomach, but it was a glorious way to pass the time on this recon mission to find Chax Vicu, the soldier who Cancer claimed was stationed on the compound. The problem was, there were over seventy-five thousand soldiers around six different posts, and that didn't include a few thousand fortunate enough to be with the Air Force at the two smaller air bases. Cancer had said she saw him on patrol. That meant he had to be embedded with an Army unit, not the pampered flyboys—I have no idea how female mortals in the Air Force feel about that moniker. Chax was around here, somewhere.
In the ten days since our visit with Cancer, we'd spent every non-working, waking minute searching for her family's enemy. Our boot camp in the Underworld taught us how to blend in, which was great for survival, but a pain in the ass when it prevented us from finding a single soldier among a small city's population of them. Name tags blurred together, becoming an amalgamation of names the more of them I sneaked glances at. Recreation tents, volleyball courts, outdoor movie area, swimming pools, the outdoor tracks, too many food courts to count; we'd searched them all, over and over.
"I have no idea how we're going to find him or if we ever can," Bilba said between huge bites of the greasy pizza, which added a shine to the corners of his mouth.
"We keep looking," Ralrek said around a mouthful of creamy bagel.
Three more soldiers passed, two of them smoking. If they weren't dodging bullets or bombs, they taunted death with those stinking pollutant sticks. What was it with mortals doing everything they could to accelerate their own demise? None of their name tags read Vicu.
"It might be easier if we spend more time trying to catch everyone's name then staring at food menus or swimsuit calendars over at the PX," I said, knowing I was as guilty as any of us—hey, deployments are long and boring, and there are not a lot of females on them.