by Debra Dunbar
Vincent shook his head and sighed. “Pain in the ass.”
“Daft bastard.”
And with that he was gone, exchanging pleasantries with both Alton and Branna, leaving Hattie giddy and breathless with an unfamiliar excitement, and a sense that somehow everything was going to be alright.
Chapter 9
The old abandoned warehouse stood in defiant right angles to the wintery cloud-choked sky above. By the time Hattie had traversed the littered courtyard for the double-doors atop a concrete stoop, one of those doors was already open. Sadie watched from inside as Hattie climbed the steps to greet her.
“Didn’t think I’d see you so soon, Malloy,” Sadie called out.
“Nor I.”
The other woman nodded for her to come inside. The temperature within the abandoned building wasn’t much warmer than outside, but at least there was no wind. Hattie unfurled her scarf, pulling it from her neck and folding it into her coat pocket.
“What brings you to the Charge?” Sadie asked as she dropped into her wingback, swinging her boots into the air.
Hattie searched for another chair. She hauled one from an adjacent room, its legs squealing against the warped floor boards until Hattie positioned it directly across from Sadie.
“You grew up in the system,” Hattie began. “In Chicagoland?”
Sadie nodded.
“It stands to reason, then, that there are gaps in my understanding. Gaps you could serve to fill.”
Sadie stared into space, then nodded once. “What do you want to know?”
“I’ve had a few experiences, now. Experiences with creatures from…for lack of a better word, from Hell.”
Sadie’s attention re-centered onto Hattie as she swung her knees around to face her straight-on. “Demons?”
“Aye. The very same.”
“You’ve seen one?”
“I’ve seen two,” Hattie replied, lifting two fingers in a V. “One just this morning, in fact.”
Sadie released a low whistle, shaking her head. “And you survived?”
“Barely.”
“Hattie Malloy, you are a mystery.” Sadie leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers together. “Most pinchers never even learn of the existence of demons, much less witness one firsthand. And here you are, a certified expert in such matters.”
“I wish that were the case,” Hattie grumbled. “I still don’t have the first clue what it is they are. Or what they have to do with…” She ceased talking. What would confessing any sort of connection with a demon serve, at this point?
Sadie shrugged. “I’m no one to come to for answers—let’s just straighten that much out right now. But, I do have some books.”
“Books?”
Sadie stood up, offering a hand to help Hattie to her feet. She led Hattie up a flight of stairs, tip-toeing past four children sprawled in bunk style beds. At the end of the second floor was a sort of office. A wide carved-oak desk dominated the window wall, its ornamentation long since eroded or chiseled away by some stray animal or juvenile pincher. Sadie ushered Hattie inside the office, closing the door gently so as not to awaken the children. She pulled open one of the desk drawers to produce a thick leather-bound book caked in dust. With a dramatic exhalation, Sadie sent too much of that dust directly into Hattie’s breathing air.
“Sorry,” Sadie muttered with a smirk before settling the book onto the desk top.
Hattie leaned in as Sadie thumbed through the pages. “What is this?”
“It’s a codex,” Sadie replied. “History and information including a list of pinchers and abilities over the last century. Names.” She looked up to Hattie with heavy eyes. “Names.”
Hattie realized how dangerous a book like this would be outside of its intended market. She wondered why Sadie hadn’t destroyed the book already.
“You update it? With…” she glanced down the hall to where the children slept.
“Heavens no. I keep track of pinchers’ names, abilities, and locations in a separate book. Everything is in code, and it’s hidden. But this…” she held the codex up, “…some of these people in here might still be alive. Or have children. And the people who put this book together didn’t take the precaution of using a code.”
Hattie sucked in a breath as she thought of what might happen if this information got into the wrong hands. “Where’d you find this book?”
“The founder of the Charge,” Sadie replied. “He was an old pincher who’d emigrated from Poland. He got the codex from his father, who’d lifted it from some private library in England. The first part is in Latin or something, then the middle section in English. There’s about six years of notes that are in what I’m assuming are Polish, then I’ve added to the more recent parts in English.” She looked up at Hattie. “The knowledge inside these pages has kept the Charge a step ahead of the powers that be. And worse. For example…”
Sadie flipped page after page until she reached an illustration, a figure inked in red, yellow and black. The figure had the semblance of a human male, but with flames rising from its eyes and mouth.
Hattie retreated a half-step.
With a grin, Sadie asked, “Look familiar?”
“Aye. That it does.”
Sadie ran her finger along a line of handwritten text as she read aloud, “The creatures of infernal origin are often mute, though with their hearing intact.”
Hattie nodded as Sadie continued.
“Taking the appearance of a man or woman, these demons are reclusive in nature though prone to violence when impinged upon.”
Hattie crossed her arms. “All accurate by my experience.”
Sadie peered up at her. “You really saw one of these things?”
“Two,” she reminded Sadie. “One as recent as yesterday. And it was on a tear. Barely survived’t.”
“But not the first?” Sadie asked.
Hattie gritted her teeth.
“You might as well be forthcoming, Malloy. If you want answers. No sense in hiding anything from me. I’m not here to judge.”
Hattie balled her fists, then released a breath. “I have a friend in Baltimore. He’s a pincher as well, though, he works for the Crew.”
“Vincent Calendo with the Baltimore Crew?” Sadie asked, jaw set hard. “I know you’ve had some run-ins with him in the past. I can’t imagine you’d think someone like that would be a friend.”
“He is…he’s a friend. He and I had business down by Richmond.”
Sadie stepped away from the desk. “Bimini?”
“I was there, Sadie. My friend and I? We found the man who’d spent all those years laying a trap for free pinchers.” Hattie stepped forward, thrusting her finger into the desk top. “I know you can’t imagine Vincent as a friend to me, but if it wasn’t for him, I would have gotten nabbed at Bimini. I was looking for the mythical elixir last May. Vincent and I found the island and Capstein. We fought. And we put him down.”
Sadie’s eyes went wide. “That was you?”
“It was.” They’d had help, but she wasn’t sure how much to trust Sadie yet with tales of a demon that seemed to have a connection with her and Vincent—a connection that demon up in Pennsylvania definitely didn’t have.
“Capstein had been…he was…” The woman was visibly shaken. She turned away from Hattie to stare out the grimy window at nothing in particular. She wrapped her arms tight around herself.
Hattie asked in softer tones, “Was he the one that captured your husband?”
She shook her head. “He killed a friend of mine. A colleague.”
“I’m sorry,” Hattie said.
“But you killed him?” Sadie prodded.
“Dead as Judas.”
Sadie spun around, reaching for the book with both hands. She rifled through the pages with renewed fervor.
Hattie watched in muted alarm. Whatever Capstein had done to Sadie’s friend, she felt happy to have played a part in the bastard’s downfall.
Sadie pl
opped the book down against the desk top in a plume of dust. She leaned close to inspect the shaky handwriting. After reading several lines quietly, her mouth moving with the words, Sadie stood up and asked, “Have you ever heard of a Hell pincher?”
Hattie nodded. “I have.”
“Here,” Sadie urged, spinning the book around toward Hattie. “There are whole chapters on them here, and in another book I have. These demons, these blasphemous beings are apparently summoned by Hell pinchers.”
Hattie eyed the book with shallow breaths. “I’d figured that much out, already.”
“Yeah? Well, did you put together the connection between summoned demons and pinchers?”
Hattie blinked at Sadie. “What…connection?”
“The…connection.”
Hattie gestured for her to elaborate, thinking this might be the information she and Vincent had been looking for since May.
Sadie indicated passages of texts as she explained, “In order for the Cosmos to maintain a balance, if someone practiced in the infernal arts conjures a Dark Soul from the Abyss, so too must a Bright Soul become manifest.” She looked at Hattie. “You follow?”
She shook her head. “Not even remotely.”
“Come on! Bright Souls!”
“Maybe I need some sleep, because I don’t know what Bright Souls are.”
“Pinchers!” Sadie shouted.
A stirring from the other room caused Sadie to wince. She continued in more muted tones. “Where do you think pinchers come from?”
Hattie shook her head. “I’ve never given it much of a thought, to be honest.”
“It’s known that pinchers beget pinchers. Right?”
Hattie nodded, remembering the plans Capstein had with Betty Sharp.
Sadie pointed at her own chest. “My parents were both pinchers. Thus, here I am. But what about you, Malloy?”
Hattie blinked, then frowned. “My parents aren’t pinchers.”
“Right! So…why the hell do you have magical powers?”
Hattie glanced at the book, then back to Sadie. “I…”
“You never thought about it. That’s it, right? You were just different. Gifted, I think some of the book-sniffing academics up the East Coast like to call us. You were born with powers, and that’s all there was to it.” She made a slashing motion with her finger. “Wrong. People like us don’t just happen, Hattie. People like us are created.”
“By whom?”
Sadie flipped a page and lowered her index finger onto a hand-sketched image of a man sporting a long, black beard. He wore a turban and a robe that parted down the middle to reveal a scimitar cinched at his waist by a length of silk.
“Hell pinchers.”
Hattie shook her head. “I thought they summoned demons. Are…are you telling me that we’re—?”
“No, no. I read it to you already. So too must a Bright Soul become manifest.”
Hattie screwed her brow into a question, considering the words. “Pinchers…the ones who aren’t born from parents…we’re Bright Souls?”
“The opposite of demons,” Sadie declared with a spread of her hands. “Angels, if you like. I don’t know, it sounds a bit Messianic when you put it that way. But, yes. First generation pinchers are nature’s answer to a demon summoning. A way to correct the profanity.”
“Bright Soul,” Hattie repeated, staring into space. “So, a natural born pincher like me is equal to one of these creatures?”
Sadie frowned, then flipped another page. “Not exactly. Here’s the problem with that.” She stabbed at a new illustration, showing a diamond split into two pieces. “The spiritual energy required to balance that of a manifested demon is simply too much for a human form to house.” Her finger traced a line to the image of two individuals, a man and a woman. “So, the Bright Soul is split into two, sometimes three people. Basically God, or whatever, flings a Bright Soul into the world when a demon is summoned. It splits and attaches to whatever newborn it lands on. They could be across the world from each other, but these babies are soul twins or sometimes triplets. That way the human body can house such magic, but the cosmos has its ledgers balanced.”
Sadie stood back crossing her arms with an air of satisfaction.
Hattie, on the other hand, was anything but satisfied.
“That would explain the sickness,” Hattie muttered. “When we use too much power. Our bodies weren’t meant for it.”
Sadie shrugged. “Does that surprise you?”
“But…we didn’t feel sick at Deltaville. In fact, our powers were magnified. I felt like I could do anything.”
Sadie uncrossed her arms. “Tell me about Deltaville.”
“There was a demon there. It…knew me. Seemed to, anyway. All the others, it wanted to kill. But me and Vincent…” Hattie clamped her jaw shut. Too late, now. The cat was out of the bag.
Sadie stared. “You and your friend were bound to it.”
“I suppose that’s so.”
Sadie’s face broke out into a grin. “Oh my God in Heaven! Do you know what this means?”
Hattie stepped back, shaking her head.
Sadie jabbed her finger at the corner of the open page. “Bright Soul meets Dark Soul! It’s the joining of both, together, in one place.”
Hattie eyed the page. At the end of Sadie’s fingertip was a symbol. A familiar symbol.
Hattie leaned forward for a closer look. Yes…that was it! The same symbol the Deltaville demon had sketched into the sand. A circle surrounded by three arcs.
“I’ve seen this,” she whispered.
Sadie’s voice was full of awe. “That demon is your dark twin, Hattie. And your friend…Vincent?”
Hattie peered up at Sadie.
“He’s your soul twin!”
She stared at the other woman “What does that even mean?”
“The two of you share the same soul that was conjured into existence when some Hell pincher summoned your fiery-faced friend in Deltaville.”
Hattie frowned and shook her head. “No, Vincent’s older than I. By about three or four years. He can’t be my soul twin.”
With a shrug, Sadie said, “May not be your first body.”
“Come again?”
“Babies die. Kids die. And being a pincher doesn’t mean you’re immortal. Say he’s four years older. Maybe when his soul twin was four years old, he got sick or had some accident? I don’t know I’m not a fortune teller.”
Hattie held her head. “This is too much.”
“Well, you asked. But if you and your soul twin came face-to-face with your dark twin, that’s kind of a big deal.”
“How big?”
“Think of all the people in the world. The chance that a Bright Soul would meet their twin is pretty close to zero. That the two of them would come together and manage to come across their Dark Soul? We’re talking divine intervention level of odds here.”
Hattie lifted a hand to her head. “I need to sit down.”
Sadie circled the desk and helped Hattie sit on its surface. She reached for the book, pulling it onto her lap and paging through it.
“Could I borrow this book and read up more on it?” she asked.
“Absolutely not,” Sadie shot back. “There are names in this book…lineages. I know you trust your friend, but I don’t. He’s owned by the Crew, completely brainwashed by them. If he were to turn over these names, free pinchers would find themselves hunted down and enslaved.”
“I need to know more. Vincent and I have faced two demons this year—one our Dark Soul according to what you’ve told me, and the other one most definitely not our Dark Soul. This Hell pincher is near. And we’re not sure what his intentions are.”
Sadie hesitated, indecision written on her face. “How about you come here and read from it anytime you like. I’ll show you where I keep it.”
Hattie blinked in surprise. “I’m welcome here? Anytime? And I can come here and read this book even if you’re not here?”
&nbs
p; Sadie laughed. “Of course you’re welcome here, girl! As far as I’m concerned, you’re part of the Charge. Just as long as you let me know what you find out—especially if it affects the freedom of my pinchers, okay?”
Hattie stuck out her hand and solemnly shook the other woman’s. “Okay. You’ve got a deal Sadie O’Donnell.”
Chapter 10
The car shuddered as a wheel slammed into a pothole. Vincent cringed as Lefty shot him a sour look. Just a hair south of the Maryland-Virginia border a bolt of sunlight pierced the cloud cover overhead. Vincent cast a glance out the window to blue sky opening to the west, then cringed as he ran through another pothole.
Lefty grumbled, “If you’d like to turn around, there are one or two you missed back in D.C.”
“Smart ass.”
“You’re positive approaching by road is the right call?”
Lefty had taken this tone with him ever since the whole mess with Hattie four months ago. He’d let Vincent lead, plan, strategize, and outside of his usual acerbic comments, he kept a loose hand on the reins. He’d become less of a handler and more of a mentor.
And, honestly, closer to family than Vincent had ever imagined.
“Hattie and I tried Richmond by water,” Vincent explained. “Betty Sharp has consolidated the Bianco Fiore into some kinda private army, almost all of which are on the waterways. From what the man at the fuel stop said, a good bit of the original Upright Citizens gang left. It’s pretty much her, a handful of the original Citizens, and these Bianco Fiore rubes.”
“I remember those Bianco Fiore rubes weren’t exactly shy about pulling the triggers,” Lefty commented drily. “Tell me why we’re going this alone?”
“I got reasons.”
Lefty unbuttoned his coat and twisted to face Vincent in the seat. “Let’s hear those reasons. It’ll put my mind at ease knowing you’ve at least attempted a plan.”
“Fine. First, I’m convinced it’ll be easier getting into the city in small numbers. Bringing a war party down will just start the fireworks, and people will get killed.”
“People are gonna get killed anyway. Vito is tasked with taking these fools out, if you don’t remember.”