Knight in Charlotte

by Edward McKeown

  “How did you invoke it?” Jeremy said.

  “I told you. Me modern injun, study a lot on the computer. Found a lot out about the legends. But I’m also a shaman. I knew some spells, minor stuff. Then along came those punk kids, giving me a lot of lip. Well me and Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh both dislike young punks. I told the kids I would show them some real magic. None of this Goth bullshit. I set up the pentagrams. One for me and one for them. Dumb shit Hans thought he knew about pentagrams. I summoned the ancient demon and well you have to give them something when they show up. I broke their pentagram.”

  “You gave it the kids,” Dietrich raged.

  “Yeah. I kept one of the girls for myself for a week or so. It ate the other two. Chased the boys into the forest for fun, I guess. I gave it the other girl when it came back later in the week.”

  “Bastard,” Dietrich swore. “You’re under arrest.”

  “No white man’s law up here, mister. Just my law. That law says you gonna die,” he raised his head and arms and began to sing.

  “He’s summoning,” Prosperine said.

  Dietrich’s M-14 came up in a smooth motion and he fired. A spark appeared in the heat shimmer around Adahy. He didn’t stop his chanting.

  “The pentagram puts him in a different space than ours,” Jeremy said. “Bullets can’t penetrate it.” As he stepped forward a shadow fell over him.

  “Down, Jeremy,” Prosperine shouted. She knocked Dietrich to the side. Jeremy dropped and swung upward with the sword, scoring on the huge shape swooping over him. A horrid croaking sounded in his ears and the weapon was nearly jarred from his hands. He heard Dietrich’s M-14 rattle out rounds as the reek of the monster swept over them. It bounded back into the sky

  “Should have stayed out of the mountains, white man,” Adahy taunted. “Guns and science won’t do you no good. Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh must eat. He likes souls but he’ll chew a body up good too.”

  Jeremy stared at the twenty-meter bat winged shape. The bloodsword has scored the cheek of the monstrous head. Its foul tongue slapped out to ease the wound. But it showed no sign of serious injury. Quickly he reversed the bloodsword, bringing the huge gem in its hilt level with his eyes and concentrated. The stone quickened to life. It’s blood red radiance filling the clearing with a soft glow.

  Adahy cursed and chanted the monster to attack. Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh swooped on them but pulled up with a screech when the red light fell on its skin, which puckered and bubbled. But the sweep of its wings sent them all to their knees. Jeremy’s concentration broke for a second and the stone pulsed weaker. The slavering mouth opened above him but Dietrich’s slung M-14 filled it. The teeth clamped on the weapon. Jeremy concentrated on the stone and the glow brightened. Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh backed away with a croak.

  “How long can you hold it off? Dietrich shouted.

  “Dammit,” Prosperine interjected, “I can’t change with that damn stone glowing. I can’t use my powers!”

  Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh hesitated, wary of the stone. Adahy’s chant grew louder, a note of anger in it.

  “He’s trying to force it to attack despite the pain,” Prosperine shouted.

  As the Cherokee’s voice reached a fever pitch, the shimmer of the pentagram grew and his image wavered. Above Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh croaked its protests but seemed dragged toward them by some great force.

  Jeremy raised the stone but its spiritual power was limited by his own and exhaustion was setting in the young Templar’s chest.

  “Jeremy, fling the sword at him,” Prosperine demanded. “It’s the only object that can get through the barrier!”

  “I can’t,” he grated. “It’ll be on us the instant I stop focusing on the jewel.”

  Suddenly Jeremy was clawing in his duster with his right hand. From the back of his belt he drew the White Hunter knife. He flipped it in his hand until he held it blade first.

  “Adahy!” he shouted.

  The Shaman’s eyes flicked to his though he did not pause in his song.

  “Take back your own, Shaman, made by you and of you.” Jeremy flung the knife. The weapon, imbued by the Shaman’s own spirit, flew through the barrier and lodged in his chest. Adahy staggered and yelled, blood staining his shirt.

  “A hit,” Jeremy exulted.

  “Not fatal,” Dietrich snapped.

  “Oh yes it is,” Prosperine’s said.

  The shimmer of the pentagram vanished; the lines on the ground went dead. Adahy screamed and started chanting, pulling out the knife.

  “Fool,” Prosperine shouted. “Your own blood is spilled, the pentagram is destroyed.”

  “Wait, wait,’ Adahy shouted as Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh turned toward him. The Shaman turned to run.

  The monster settled to the ground just behind Adahy, its wings corralled him, pulling the shrieking man toward its hideous face. Adahy screamed and begged but Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh gave a low obscene chuckle in imitation of the shaman’s. Then the wings pulled and the screams became agonized.

  “For God’s sake,” Dietrich said, horror distorting his face. “Do something.”

  “Not if I could,” Jeremy returned. “Or do you forget that he sowed this fate for five others? Let him reap the full measure of it.”

  “He’s lasting a while,” Prosperine observed over the screams and wet slobbering sounds. “Maybe it likes to play with its food.”

  The head rolled about to face them. Adahy hung half out of its mouth, his face distorted in mind-shattering terror.

  Even Jeremy felt ill at the sight of Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh’s cheeks sank as it sucked on what was left of the shaman, who gave a last despairing scream as he was pulled inside.

  Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh stared at them and Jeremy felt his blood chill and his will weaken under those horrid eyes, portals to some place that humanity had no business in. Next to him Dietrich staggered and fell.

  Prosperine squalled and struck him with her nails. He shook himself and raised the bloodstone, concentrating what was left of his power. The stone brightened. Dietrich seized a large rock and stood. Prosperine hunched, ready to change.

  Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh gave that horrid chuckle again, dark fluid running from the corners of its obscene mouth. It humped away from them, then launched itself into the air. It rose on its giant wings, impossibly quickly and steeply. In seconds it had disappeared into the night sky.

  “It’s gone,” Dietrich murmured as if afraid to believe it.

  “From this plane of existence, yes” Jeremy said, his voice dull with fatigue.

  Prosperine walked over to Jeremy, who sagged against her taut, powerful naked form. “Unnatural demons like that,” she said, “find our world painful. They aren’t grateful to be summoned and no magic creature loves those with power over its existence. Once it had its revenge over what forced it into our universe, it wasn’t interested in us.”

  “Thank God for that,” Dietrich murmured. “Though I suppose I really should be thanking the two of you.”

  “You can thank me,” Jeremy said,” with a damn good bottle of red back at the Grove.”

  Dietrich looked at Prosperine. “And you?”

  “You can turn a blind eye to the occasional loss of cattle and goats,” Prosperine said.

  Jeremy looked at her. “You coming back with us?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve had enough of the human world for a while. I want to run wild on my own. But I’ll be here, Jeremy. As I said last time, life around you is fun. Find me next time you need a familiar.” She leaned forward and kissed him hard on the mouth. Then she stepped back and the panther was there. With an explosive snarl that made both men flinch, she leapt into the darkness of the woods.

  *****

  Jeremy pulled up to his apartment, shouldered his bag and turned the key to let himself in. Inside Shadowheart lay on the couch, surrounded by junk food wrappers, watching TV. He recognized “Heaven can wait.” She raised an eyebrow at him and gave an elaborate yawn. “Oh well, look who’s back.”

  He gr
inned at her. “Miss me?”

  “Were you gone long?”

  “Long enough,” he said laughing.

  “Well now that you’re through slacking maybe we can take care of some evil.”

  He dropped on to the couch next to her, and put one arm over her shoulders and grabbed up a moon pie with the other. “After the movie.”

  The End

  Let’s Go to Hell

  Jeremy Leclerc, Knight Templar, rocked back on his office chair and stared at his guardian angel. “You want me to do what now?”

  “Go to Hell,” Shadowheart said. As usual his guardian angel had appeared in her guise of a fashion-conscious, snub-nosed, blond teen.

  “You want me to go to Hell?” he repeated.

  “Well, I’ll go with you,” she said pensively. “It’s clandestine, even though it is a rescue mission.”

  The world, he thought, is off its axis today. He saved his latest design project on his computer, then turned back to Shadowheart. Only the angel was no longer alone. A tall slim man in a fine suit stood next to her, but for the white-feathered wings towering over his shoulders, he looked like any lawyer or banker one might see stalking downtown Charlotte, NC.

  “Who is this?” Jeremy asked.

  Shadowheart gave the other angel an ambiguous look. “His name is Velos of the cherubim; he runs the Embassy in Hell.”

  “There’s a Embassy in Hell?” Jeremy said.

  “It’s temporary duty,” Velos hastened to add, “more or less a community service.”

  Jeremy turned back to Shadowheart. “How come he has white wings and yours are red and black?”

  Shadowheart grinned, an instant later she stood in her other manifestation, nearly seven feet tall, an Amazon clad in leather and mail, girt with a sword, with black hair falling to her waist and blazing green eyes. “He’s cherub; I’m so much more.”

  “Ah,” Jeremy replied. “So about my going to hell, if this is about that little three-way at the Old Edward Resort, both the girls were over 21 and quite satisfied with the whole matter.”

  Velos looked at Shadowheart. “You don’t have it easy do you?”

  She sighed. “This is a good day.”

  “You’re sure he’s a Templar?”

  “Don’t get impertinent, Cherub. If it wasn’t for your own weakness in the matter of succubi you wouldn’t have had your tour of duty in hell extended.”

  “Yes, yes,” Velos raised a placating hand. “No need to get your back up. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I find myself in need of help of a specialized sort. Have you heard of split personalities?”

  “Yes,” Jeremy said. The lanky twenty-five year old stood and walked over to the kitchenette in his suburban studio. He quickly poured iced teas, the lifeblood of the American South. Velos declined with a polite shake of the head. Shadowheart, once again the mall rat, took hers. She occasionally manifested enough to take part in earthly pleasures, usually involving sweets.

  “In extreme cases,” Velos continued, “it’s not only the mind that splits, but the soul.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “What does this have to do with a Knight Templar? My therapies are usually administered with the edge of a magical sword, or the occasional shot from my Walther.”

  “This has need of a warrior,” Velos said, his wings rustling slightly in annoyance, “as it will involve a journey into Hell”

  Jeremy looked at Shadowheart.

  “He shits you not,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t that involve like… death?” Jeremy asked.

  “Normally. I can arrange for you to venture into hell, temporarily to retrieve souls that ended up there by mischance.”

  “How does that happen?”

  Pain drifted across Velos’ perfect features. “By cruelty and narrow-mindedness, which happens when angels forget that they are not perfect, that they are not God. We are of the forces of law and of order, but both those, when carried to the extreme, are as brutal as any tyranny born of evil. This miscarriage was realized and I am tasked with redeeming it.”

  He paced about the floor. “Her name was Camille. She was fifteen when she killed herself. Her father was abusing her; it had gone on for a long time. To cope with this misery she developed an imaginary friend, a heroine to defend her. She chose Joan d’Arc. Joan became more and more real to her over time. One night the drunken beast came for Camille. She hid in her mind, which freed Joan to possess Camille’s body. Like the Maid of Orleans that she was named for, Joan seized steel and flew upon the oppressor. Joan loves Camille as well as any sister could. In the purity of her love and valor, Joan became real, she developed a soul.

  “But when the deed was done, the personality that is Joan was dispelled and faded. Camille was there all alone with the slain molester. She fled into the night, knowing the police would soon be there and it would all come out. More than Camille wanted anything,” the angel’s voice sank and his face turned ashen, “she did not want people to know of her abuse. There was a bridge and a river below…”

  “And she was sent to Hell?” Jeremy demanded, his voice quivering with rage.

  “Jeremy,” Shadowheart said, pain in her face as well.

  “No,” Velos said, “let him rail as he wishes. It’s merited. Shadowheart has told me of your doubts: about God, the meaning of it all, even whether Shadowheart and I are what we say we are. Today your doubts are justified. An angel looked on this and saw but a suicide and a murderer, one body with two souls. Camille who chose death over discovery and Joan who would not leave Camille even for fear of Hell, condemning herself for her sister’s – for I will call her that – for her sister’s suicide. Neither would defend themselves. Both believed they deserved Hell for what was done by them.”

  “Where was God then?” Jeremy said.

  Both angels stared at the floor. Finally Shadowheart sighed and said. “What would you have me tell you that I have not said before? The Realm of Earth is the dominion of Man, for better or for worse you must have your free will, else you are but puppets. More than that is not given to us to explain to living man.”

  “Why don’t you just get her out?” Jeremy asked.

  “Angels are powerful,” Velos said, “but not all-powerful. The universe is balanced so that good and evil have their places, rules and limits, or The End would be upon us now. In Hell, an angel’s power is restrained. It is the enemy’s place – the enemy’s rules. To petition for their release would be both fruitless and damaging through all the Realms in ways you cannot comprehend. Beyond that there is this truth: these souls, conjoined as they are, believe that they deserve their punishment. They must be persuaded otherwise, or they cannot escape Hell. Only another human can do this.

  “Will you risk a journey to Hell to save these innocents? Before you agree I must tell you that if you or Shadowheart are killed in Hell, you will never emerge from it, having travelled to that land of your own free will.”

  Jeremy shuddered. Only once before had he ventured beyond the dimension of Earth into a Faerie otherworld to rescue a human exchanged for a changeling. That suburb of Hell had proved dangerous enough.

  “I have no ally I could take with me. When Debbie Middleton came to the Faerie realm, the proximity to Hell almost overcame her.”

  “Debbie Middleton?” Velos said.

  Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “Vampiress, big boobs, sharp teeth, bangs humans for blood but doesn’t kill them. We have arrangements.”

  “Wow,” Velos said. “You really don’t have it easy.”

  “Don’t get me started. You should hear about the panther woman.”

  Velos looked intrigued, “Really?”

  “Excuse me,” interrupted Jeremy, “back on task. We couldn’t trust Debbie, or Prosperine… the… er, panther woman.”

  “As I said,” Shadowheart began, “I’m the one going with you.”

  “Shadowheart, you couldn’t even manage Faerie.”

  “Faerie is antithetical to angels. It was less that I could
n’t go than that I’d be damn near helpless. As for Hell, didja forget about fallen angels? I can’t go as I am, but in disguise, yes.”

  “You’d make a delightful succubus,” Velos said.

  “Smile when you say that, Cherub.”

  “Seriously, it would be an excellent cover, freedom of movement, hellish access everywhere. People notice succubi but they don’t take them seriously.”

  Shadowheart looked at her teenage self. “Well clearly this won’t do. My angelic form would get us attacked…” Her brows knit in concentration and she wavered like a heat mirage for most of a minute. When it stabilized Shadowheart stood as a voluptuous young woman, with blood red hair and ruby eyes, she stood on par with Jeremy’s six feet.

  “Excellent,” Velos said.

  “You’re butt-naked,” Jeremy added, disturbed as he hadn’t been since being joined with his guardian angel.

  “Yes, ah, which reveals a small omission,” Velos said, tugging at his collar. “Succubi have tails, slender, black, with a heart-shaped tip that some consider their most attractive—”

  “We get the idea,” Jeremy interrupted. He reached into a closet and tossed Shadowheart a long, black-leather duster.

  “I’ll have to work on the tail later,” Shadowheart said, her voice sultry. “It’s not easy for me to assume another form, quite a strain actually.”

  “When do we begin?” Jeremy asked. “How do we get to Hell?”

  “You’re certain?” Velos asked. “There will be no turning back once we begin.”

  “There’s a fifteen-year-old girl suffering in Hell right now,” Jeremy said. “We’re getting her out.”

  Velos handed him a passport folder and a suitcase. “I have arranged for you to appear as an agent of the Collectors, returning from harvesting damned souls. They wear a black suit and a tie from their training center. You would be one, a human soul but so long established in hell as to be essentially a trustee. Shadowheart will be your succubus.”

  “Oh, I am never going to live this one down,” she said. “You tell Debbie this and I will kick your butt over the Bank of America Tower.”