by D V Wolfe
It was now Friday evening and I was facing the part of this plan I was dreading the most.
“Stop fussing with it,” Rosetta growled at me. I couldn’t help it. This thing was uncomfortable. I couldn’t remember ever wearing a dress beyond the age of seven. Dad had never made me wear a dress after Ma died. Mostly because they cost money and I made do with his old clothes.
“I look ridiculous,” I grumbled, staring in the mirror over Stacks’ bathroom sink. The girls had put me in a black button-up dress with a long dark red wig.
“You look fine,” Rosetta said. “You just have to blend in.”
I let Rosetta drag me out of the bathroom and down the hall.
“Let’s do this,” I said, crossing to the table and picking up a handful of stakes and my .45. I’d loaded a clip of wrought-iron rounds I’d borrowed from Rosetta, just in case the stakes weren’t enough and we needed to make a quick exit. There really was no way of telling how many demons we were about to go up against. I reached down with my gun and stakes, searching for my pockets. I looked down. The dress didn’t have any pockets. And it didn’t have a waistline where I could stick my gun. I didn’t really want to stick it in my underwear and try to dig it out in the middle of a crowd full of demon-possessed worshippers. Ditto that for where to stick the stakes.
“Not sure where to stick your firepower?” Gabe asked with a snort.
“Here,” Rosetta said, handing me a bag. “This is where women in dresses put their guns...and stakes.”
“Bane with a purse,” Noah said. “Something about that seems really, really wrong.”
“Don’t I know it,” I muttered.
“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “I think she looks ok.” We all turned to look at him. “I mean, I think she’ll blend.”
“Well, are we all ready?” Stacks asked. I turned to look at him. Of the five of us, Stacks was the only one dressed normally. Well, and Rosetta, who always wore dresses. Noah had on his FBI suit. We’d never gotten around to replacing his dress shirt after the ghoul had sliced him up in it, so Noah was wearing his dirty t-shirt under the jacket. It wasn’t too noticeable as long as Noah kept the jacket closed. Gabe was actually the most unsettling in appearance. He was in a black suit that fit his hulking frame in sharp lines. I honestly couldn’t even make fun of him. He looked too good.
“What’s with the suit?” I asked Gabe, raising an eyebrow.
Gabe shrugged. “Had a buddy’s funeral a couple of months ago and I needed a suit.”
“And you just happened to have it on you on this trip?” I asked.
“Haven’t been home since. So, I still had it with me.”
“Ok,” Stacks grumbled. “It’s not like Gabe is the only guy who ever wore a suit.”
I slid my gaze to Stacks and smiled. Stacks was wearing a black hoodie and black sweatpants.
“Not at all conspicuous to be running around a church parking lot in that get-up on a Friday night,” I said.
“Hey,” Stacks said. “I need the pockets. And black is my best color.”
I rolled my eyes. “I thought ‘grease’ was your best color.”
He ignored me. “I’m going to head out now. I need to pick up some supplies,” Stacks said. “You better head out children or you’ll be late for Sunday school. And the Lord cannot abide that.”
We all moved out onto the porch and headed towards our cars. “Stolen or not,” Rosetta huffed, looking over the white Taurus. “It looks a lot safer than that hunk of junk you usually drive.”
“She never did like Lucy,” Gabe said.
“Tell me about it,” I said. Noah stopped next to Rosetta’s car to shoot Gabe a dirty look before opening the passenger side door and climbing in.
“You want to drive?” Gabe asked.
I shook my head. “It’s not a manual. It feels unnatural. Stacks and I almost crashed a couple of times on the way back here. You drive.” I climbed in the passenger side and stared down at the purse.
“I really hope this works,” I muttered.
“Of course it will,” Gabe said, folding himself up enough to get behind the wheel. His hair brushed the ceiling in the car and his knees were on either side of the steering wheel. “It’s a ‘shit plan’. It has to work.”
“That’s comforting,” I said. “Thanks.”
Gabe grinned. “Let’s roll.”
The church lot was already pretty full when we rolled up. We climbed out and Gabe came around the front to meet me holding out his arm. I just raised an eyebrow at him.
“We’re...we’re supposed to look like a couple,” Gabe said on a sigh. I opened my mouth to protest and he raised a hand. “Don’t Bane, just, for today, can we not? Can we just….”
I rolled my eyes and took his elbow as we crossed the lot. I studied the church in front of us. It looked ordinary enough, but it did feel strange to not be in pain as we approached it. It was like muscle memory. I expected to burn and itch at the sight of the steeple.
There was a steady stream of people milling about and slowly entering the doors. I involuntarily tightened my grip on Gabe’s elbow when I noticed the man standing by the door, greeting visitors, the same malevolent smile on his face. He was the man that had appeared, wagging his finger at me as I left after talking to Nigel.
“What’s up?” Gabe said, keeping his voice low.
“That’s the customer that I saw on Wednesday when I was leaving. I kind of felt like he might know I was involved with offing his fellow demon-evangelist,” I muttered to Gabe.
“Seems like a real friendly dick bag,” Gabe said smiling and nodding at him. I turned my head as we got closer, feigning a sneeze. I felt Gabe’s other hand covering mine on his arm as we moved past the demon. A blast of cold air hit us as we passed into the foyer. Not completely unexpected being summer in Indiana. Behind us, I heard the demon sneeze.
“Maybe these hex bag necklaces are actually working,” Gabe muttered.
The foyer was fairly packed, except for one corner where only a thin woman stood by herself, clutching her elbows and looking a little lost. It was a pretty good vantage point and we needed to watch for Rosetta and Noah. I tugged Gabe over to the open area near the woman.
“Hi,” I said to her brightly. “It’s our first time here and we just needed a place to get out of the way.”
The woman gave me a timid smile, “Thank god, I thought I was the only new one. My shrink said I needed to be bold and try something, put myself out there.” She forced her smile across her face and held out a hand. “Mary Alice.”
I took her hand. “Ba...uh,” I turned to look at Gabe. “This is…” I was going to let Gabe come up with our names.
“Cyrus Mellenthal,” Gabe said. “And this is my wife...” Gabe gave me a blank look and then said, “Sadie.”
Oy. Sadie. I smiled back at Mary Alice, and then I heard a familiar voice just to my left.
“Now you wait right here, Peter. I shouldn’t be more than a minute. My old digester must be on the fritz.” Rosetta was standing next to the door to the women’s restroom and Noah was right beside her. She handed him her purse and pinched his cheek and then turned on her heel and pushed through the restroom door. Noah turned to look at the crowd and our eyes met. He lowered the purse and I saw color rising in his cheeks.
“Excuse us,” I said to Mary Alice. “We’ll be right back.” I tugged on Gabe’s sleeve and we strolled over to him, nodding and smiling at the people in the crowd. I stopped next to Noah, letting Gabe fill in the gap directly across from him to cover the exchange from the casual observer.
“I forgot to bring stakes for Rosetta and I,” Noah breathed. He was sweating and I could tell he was only a notch below panicking. I had five stakes in my purse. I made eye contact with Gabe who nodded that he understood.
“Nice to meet you, young man,” Gabe said. “Cyrus Mellenthal and my wife, Sadie.” He stealthily took Rosetta’s purse from Noah’s hand and flipped it open.
I looked up at Gabe.
“Really? Sadie?” I muttered.
Gabe rolled his eyes and cleared his throat.
“We’re new in town,” I said to Noah as I pulled two of the stakes out of my own bag, careful to keep them in front of me as I dropped one into Rosetta’s open purse. Noah took the hint. He took a step closer to my side and I slid the other stake up his jacket sleeve as I shook his hand. “And we just read in the paper about the preacher here and he made so much sense, we just had to come and hear it for ourselves.” Gabe surreptitiously looped the handle of Rosetta’s handbag over Noah’s arm and started looking around.
“There are about seventy or eighty people here,” Gabe said, keeping his voice low. “Lots of witnesses it if we fuck this up. That’s a lot of mental clean-up for these innocents if they see...anything.”
“Think positively,” I said. “If we really fuck this up, there won’t be any witnesses, because we’ll all be dead.”
“I suppose that’s a point,” Gabe said. “Not sure in what direction, but a point nonetheless.”
The wig was itching like mad and I had to keep stopping myself from screwing with it. “Let’s get this show on the road. Fast. So I can take this ridiculous thing off,” I said.
“I think you look kind of cute as a redhead,” Gabe said.
I raised an eyebrow. “And you’re darling as a mute,” I said. “What’s your point?”
“We should probably do a little recon of the exits, the principals, the biggest baddies that might object to our ‘shit plan’,” Gabe said.
“You’re really annoying when you’re logical,” I said. “It’s not a good look for you.”
Gabe snorted and we both fell silent as we moved away from Noah.
There were three more men I could have picked out as demons with my eyes closed. I wasn’t sure why it was so easy for me. They smelled, I guess. No one else seemed to ever be able to pick it out, but I guess having Hell’s potpourri rammed up your nose for twenty plus years ingrains it in your brain.
“There,” I said, nodding at a roly-poly man in a red vest and a black suit jacket. “And there,” I said nodding at a tall, skinny man in glasses talking to a man with a thin mustache.
“You sure?” Gabe asked.
I nodded. “They’ve got the hell-stinky.”
“That’s kind of a dumb name,” Gabe said.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. “I didn’t patent the term. It’s what Rosetta calls it. She can’t smell it either. She said I’m like a dog with those high-pitched noises.”
“Utterly fascinating,” Gabe said. “I hope Stacks knows what he’s doing. There are a couple of fellas in this crowd I definitely would rather not have pissed off at me, especially when they have a means to hunt me down.”
I shrugged. “Well, if Stacks screws up and we still manage to get away, we can always beat him up.”
“First dibs,” Gabe said.
There was a short, squat man leaning against one wall by himself. I recognized the flat cap. Nigel. I caught his eye and smiled. He stared for a moment and then recognition crashed into him. I guess the dress and wig were unsettling for him as well. He grinned and he gave me a wink.
“Who’s that?” Gabe asked.
“Nigel,” I said.
“Poor sap,” Gabe said. “He has no idea that he’s actually doing lookout for Heidi Hellion.” I cut my eyes to him as the crowd began to file into the sanctuary.
“Showtime,” I said.
Gabe and I tried to sit at the end of a row but the crush of people didn’t give us much choice. The people around us were glassy-eyed, but smiling and making small talk to each other as if their mouths weren’t actually connected to the rest of their bodies. Besides the generic pleasantries they were exchanging, these people were moving like they were zombies. What the hell had these demons done to them?
“Quit staring,” Gabe muttered out of the side of his mouth. “You’re drawing attention.” He nodded up towards the raised black stone platform. The man with the thin mustache was standing to one side, staring at me. I forced a smile and his gaze moved on. There were lights overhead today that hadn’t been on when Stacks, Noah and I had been in the sanctuary on Tuesday. Dark red flags hung from the ceiling around the stone platform, the symbol printed on them in white. A door behind the platform opened and four men in suits came out.
“Welcome, my friends, my family of New Covenant,” a voice said. For a moment, it seemed to boom down on us from somewhere up above. And then, from behind the first four men, the tall blond man that I recognized as Simpson, emerged. “Blessings upon you all for making your way here today to hear the good word and fellowship with one another,” he said as the other five men on the platform fanned out around him.
The skin on my chest under the dress was starting to itch. I couldn’t tell if it was the fabric or his words.
“We will open with a prayer,” Simpson said. He started the prayer and everyone around me bent their heads. The itching feeling was beginning to climb up my back and under the wig to my scalp which was already irritated. The itch was turning into burning and I was taking shallow breaths, trying to keep myself inside my skin. I could feel every fake hair of the wig touching my shoulders and my scalp, every bobby pin Rosetta had skewered my scalp with, every micrometer the wig cap underneath moved as it tried to work its way off my head. I was going to burst. There was something wrong. It wasn’t just the clothes. But it wasn’t the same kind of pain I felt when I was near other churches. This was more of an itch that desperately needed scratching. My heart was pounding in my chest. Would I even be able to do my job? A hand grabbed my wrist and I felt a flash of anger when I realized it was Gabe’s.
“Let me go,” I hissed at him.
“You itch through one more button on that thing and I’m going to have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you out of here,” Gabe said. “A man can only take so much.” He gave me a sheepish grin.
I was confused and then I looked down at my lap. The bottom four buttons of my dress were open, my right hand absent-mindedly itching up my thigh while he held my left. I pulled my hand away from him and re-buttoned my dress.
“What’s going on?” He asked. I didn’t answer him because I wasn’t sure.
“Amen,” Simpson said from the front. “Now, as we are making a New Covenant together, at this time we would like to invite all our newcomers to come to the front to sign our membership book and become part of our family.”
“Thank god,” I said, realizing too late I’d said it out loud. The itching was almost unbearable at this point and I was ready to get what we came for and get out. I was the first one to my feet and I was pushing past Gabe on my way to the aisle, stepping on toes and half-sitting on laps as I struggled to get to the end. Others were moving to the aisles around me. I heard Gabe swearing under his breath as he came after me, men grumbling and women hissing in pain as he stepped on the toes I’d just stepped on. I reached the aisle and headed right for the front. The black leather book was open on the altar behind the pulpit where Simpson stood. He had turned to greet the people coming up. I was third in line, but the realization of what the two people in front of me were about to do had me pushing them out of the way. No one else was going to get hell-screwed if I could help it.
“Excuse you,” the woman in front of me huffed as I pushed her aside. The man in front of me moved, his back to me, blocking me from getting past him. I reached up and pinched a few black hairs at the back of his neck, ripping them out and distracting him. I wanted this dress and wig off now and I wanted that damn book. I was done with dress-up and demons and all the bullshit that went with it. These assholes were preying on people at their most vulnerable and they weren’t getting any older than this service.
“Eager,” Simpson murmured to me with a smile as I pushed past the man. I thanked fate that he didn’t seem to recognize me from my time in the Messina police station.