by K. B. Draper
I tested my theory after I got some feeling back in my toes. “You’re—” I coughed up my right lung with the help of my left. “Evil,” I finally finished.
She cackled. For real cackled. “What do you expect from a bartender in Hell?” She grabbed my twenty and stuffed it in her bra or her front pants pocket. Hard telling since they were both in the same general area.
It took a minute to get my feet back under me. No, literally, they were paying zero attention to my move-it-or-lose-it commands. Eventually my soles hit the sticky floor and I was off to clear the bar. The pool boys were no big deal. I scribbled “Free Lap Dance Coupon” on the back of a couple of cardboard bar coasters and sent them off to Frenchy’s Fun Hole. Yeah, I had no idea, but neither did they.
The two game watchers were next on the list. All I had to do there was palm one of their phones, send a quick selfie to “Rebecca” and then slip the phone back into his unsuspecting back pocket. Five seconds later, the same phone rang. Two seconds after that, the dude’s next door neighbor’s rang and both were quick drawing their car keys and sprinting out the door.
And now on to the bigger issue, the biker gang. A few options came to mind. One, activate the sprinkler system. There were a whole lot of leather pants in the mix, and as I and a cowgirl-themed go-go dancer from Cheyenne can attest, leather and water don’t play well together. Two, do the FBI “freeze” thing. Or three, fuck it and go with the truth.
I’d probably have gone with the sprinkler plan if there’d been one. And I wasn’t feeling very FBI-y, well, maybe the Scully and Mulder version. Instead I decided to go straight-up real deal. I tapped the biggest dude in the room on his ginormous shoulder, because that’s just how I rolled. “Excuse me, do you mind if I have a quick word?”
Big dude stood. Turned. And holy Goliath, Batman. Dude wasn’t big; he was industrial freezer-size big. I looked up. And up some more until I met crystal green lagoon water eyes. The wrinkles at their edges played like he was amused at my mere existence. A well-groomed beard, black with a streak of gray at his chin, covered everything from cheekbone to nipples. He crossed linebacker thigh-size arms over said nipples. “Yeah? You got a problem?”
“I’m so glad you asked. Actually, I do. See I need you all to pack up your …” He cocked his head to await my next few words. “… annual toy drive meeting?” I tried. “Maybe move it down, oh say a good thirty, maybe forty miles down the road.”
“No.” He turned and sat back down.
I sighed. I’d really hoped I wouldn’t have to do this. I tapped his shoulder again. “I’m afraid I must insist.”
His chair scooted out farther this time, making me have to take a step back.
“Listen, here’s the deal. You seem like a super cool guy and on any other day I think we’d be friends. We’d have a few beers, talk bikes, but today I don’t have time for this because as batshit crazy as it sounds, Lucifer, like real-deal Lucifer, is headed this way to do the whole apocalypse thing and—”
He smiled. “Why do you think we are here?”
And my gut twisted. Up until this very moment, I hadn’t considered that there might be other players in this game. Kind of a duh moment. I mean if there were angels hanging out taking little vacays over here at Spa Earth, why couldn’t demons? And who’s to say one wasn’t playing human in this pretty boy biker skin. I stepped back and slapped at my hip a couple of times like one does to a dead remote. “Hell of a time for your batteries to go out, Norm.” Mega-dude gave me a questioning look. “Sorry. I have a wonky hip.” I leaned to my right to see around his elbow, and as suspected the entire group of bikers were now focused on me. “Please tell me you’re Sammy’s friends.”
Big dude’s grin went full aurora borealis, all bright and super-dupery pretty, and my knees went a little marshmallow. “We are.”
I chuckled in lieu of happy relief tears. “Oh, thank God.” And that wasn’t just a throw it out there saying this time. I seriously wanted to thank them. I should send a card. Or maybe one of those edible arrangements fruit dohickeys, you know, if I get through this and all.
“And I’m going to guess you’re the one and only AJ?” He stuck out a hand.
I took it. “I am. And sorry about assuming ...”
He waved me off. “We get it all the time.” He leaned in close. “That’s why we do it. It’s kind of our shtick, all big and bad. In the winter we switch it up and pretend to be a traveling superhero-themed burlesque troop and travel through the South. We always park our vans, which we have all painted up, across from some preachers that are doing the holier than thou routine, which is so far from God’s words I can’t even tell you.” He waved a hand as he chuckled. “Oh man, it’s so fun.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re my new best friend.”
“Well then, bestie, I’m Rex.” He went around the room introing the rest of the crew—twenty-eight in all. “Need us to do anything? We cleared the houses. And we still have a couple of the crew over there keeping an eye on things.”
“I don’t think so. Right now we’re in wait mode,” I said. “Things are quiet. Danny and Mia are monitoring the situation. I’m going to go back out and check in on them.”
“Alrighty. We’ll get the kitchen staff and Ms. Kitty out of here.”
And now the Hello Kitty eyepatch made more sense. “That’d be good. Sammy and Ariel went to talk to …” Here I pointed to their homeland. “They’re trying to get a little more help. Otherwise, I guess just stay close, and again thanks for the backup.”
“No problem. We’ll be here just chatting about our upcoming Knittin’ for Homeless Kittens campaign.”
I had questions, but I left them for another time and hopefully another day.
Ashlyn met me at the door. Checking on me I’m sure. I’d be insulted, but again you know me, I know me, and she knows me so here we are in the middle of a wellness check. “Hey, sexy mama,” I said in greeting.
She stepped back. “Plan B, knock Lucifer out with your breath?”
“Necessary evil,” I explained.
“Right. All good in there?” she asked, slipping her hand into mine.
“All good. Just Sammy’s friends. They are standing by and a few more in the field. Anything new out here?”
“Not really. Mia did say there was a small tick upward, but still slow in coming.”
I took in a deep breath. “How long?”
“At this projection, they said we’re looking at two hours? Maybe a little less.”
We were quiet the last hundred feet. Grand was staring out over the lake, his hands raised in what I knew was his way of communicating with the elders. Danny was head down at his computer. Mia’s head was resting on his shoulder, her finger pointing randomly at things on the screen. And damn it, my heart conga-lined it around in my chest.
“They’re sweet together,” Ashlyn said.
“Yeah.” And I’m going to keep them that way. Well, the together part; they were on their own with the other stuff. “Anything new?” I asked the two lovebirds as we approached.
“We’ve got a few possibilities, but right now I’m leaning toward this one,” Danny said. “There may be a way to open a veil into the spirit world without taking you or any of us out of the game, temporarily or permanently. I’m thinking that’s what the knife does; it pierces the veil. But I’m still working on it.”
“More than we had before. Keep going. What’s Grand doing?”
Danny looked over his shoulder. “Same thing, Just different search engines.”
“I’m sure Ashlyn told you that we’re starting to see a tick upward. It’s small, but just enough to get a more accurate pinpoint. It’s dead center out there,” Mia thumbed it over her shoulder toward the lake.
“Middle of the lake?”
“Yeah, I’ve been overlaying old maps, and this used to be a river. They dammed it up to create the lake.”
“And here we are without a sub and a torpedo,” I muttered.
�
�Danny and Mia did bring you some new toys, though,” Ashlyn offered.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, we made some stops along the way.” Danny got up from the table, holding out his hand to assist Mia. “This one has some super shady, but super useful contacts.”
Mia wiggled her eyebrows. “I called in some favors.”
They led us to the back of the parking lot to the solo van that was parked there. Danny hit the remote, and the lights flashed twice to indicate it was unlocked.
“Going to offer Luci some candy and trick him into getting in?”
“Or …” Danny said, sliding back the side door as Mia took up a The Price is Right product model “ta da” pose on the other side of the opening.
I leaned inside. The back of the van was nearly full, floor to ceiling, with boxes and hard black cases. Danny leaned in to slide a large case out from under the bench seat.
“I think you’ll be especially excited about this one,” Danny said, spinning the case so the double latches were front and center.
“If that’s what I think it is, we’re totes going to be kissin’ cousins.”
Danny paused his fingers on the latches. “Promise to never say that again.”
“Danny mentioned you always wanted one, and I happen to know a guy,” Mia added.
“Say it isn’t so?”
“It’s so.” Danny flipped the latches and lifted the top.
I swooned. “I always wanted my very own bazooka,” I said, petting its matte black finish. “He’s so beautiful.”
“Oh lord,” Ashlyn muttered.
“Hello, Jimi.”
“Jimi?” Ashlyn asked.
“Jimi Hendrix,” I explained, as I lifted him gently out of his padded case.
Mia laughed. “Jimi because he’s going to shred some shit?”
I gave her a grin. “Hell yeah he is.”
I held Jimi to my chest lovingly, wrapping him up as if we were slow dancing at our first junior high dance.
“I’ve been replaced,” Ashlyn said. I reached out and took her hand, bringing her in to the step and sway with Jimi and me. She lasted three steps. “Okay, lovefest over.”
I did a few more slow spins before laying Jimi back in his case. I kissed my fingertips and placed them on his barrel. “I’ll see you soon, Jim-bo.”
“Moving on,” Danny said. He tapped the bottom row of cases, “These cases are ammo for the guns and for …”
“Jimi?” I asked with, I’ll admit it, a supersized amount of glee in my voice.
“And for Jimi,” he confirmed with an eye roll. “This row of crates is full of some other fun things.” He pulled down the closest container and popped the lid.
And I totally girl shrieked. “I—” Danny slapped away my hand. “Hey.”
“No,” he shut the lid. “No touching the grenades until it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t trust you not to pull a pin just for the fun of it.”
“Good call,” Ashlyn said.
“I just want to pull one.” I whined. “With my teeth. ERrrr. Then I promise I’ll put it right back.” Three unconvinced looks swung in my direction. “Fine. And probably a good call.”
“Last but not least …” He ran a hand across the top layer of four boxes. “These boxes are random things.” He lifted the top to the last box, which was packed in layers. The first layer had a number of handguns, all 40 cal. Next was a set of curved knives for which I called dibs, leaving the four sets of straight blades for anyone who wanted them. The last two layers had two AR-15s each and extra clips.
“I think I like your friends,” I said to Mia, already spinning and playing with my new knives.
“They’re cool. We help in situations where the police and military can’t.”
I stopped spinning my knives. “Situations? And ‘we’?”
“Mainly drug and sex trafficking. I help from the computer side of things, mainly hacking and shutting down websites, but they’ve taught me to handle myself too.”
“So you’re the …” I started, a smile widening on my face.
“Chick that stays in the van,” she growled. “But, I’m also the chick that handles this.” She reached between the seats to pull out a large hard case, popping the lid to reveal something that looked like it came out of a sci-fi war movie. She ran a loving finger over it, much like I had on Jimi. “I call him Swoop Dog. He can swoop in and drop a beat on your ass.”
“Nice.” I held out a fist. She checked it.
“He can give us eyes on things. He can also carry out and drop grenades or small detonation devices.”
We ran through the list for the rest of their cache, which I had to say was impressive and quite the morale booster. What wasn’t doing much for my confidence was the missing winged backup I’d been hoping for. I checked the sky, a little worried that Sammy and Ariel’s chat with Super Saint Pouty Pants Michael wasn’t going in our favor. “I’m going to run out and check on Michael, Apoc, and Six. I think we should move this stuff back. We don’t need bitch boy to open up a giant hole and we lose all of our pretty new toys.”
“When Grand is done, we’ll move it down the road. Figure out a place to stage, maybe even split it up,” Danny said.
“Whatever you think.” I moved to kiss Ashlyn. “Stay here or want to go?”
“I’ll stay and help them here. But text or call me if they need something.”
I pulled out Woody’s keys and held them out to her. “Will do. You take these. I wanna run and burn a little of my attitude off. Let me know if Sammy and Ariel get back or if anything changes.”
“Don’t burn too much attitude, I have a feeling we might need it later.”
“No worries. I have a reserve tank.” I kissed her and was off.
I bypassed the roads and town, running through fields and hurdling fences, shortcutting the trip by several miles and making me second-guess times twenty Apoc’s proximity to this party. I knocked as I entered. “It’s me.” Michael leaned out of the kitchen to greet me, a dish towel in his hand and another thrown over his shoulder. The simple image of a father trying to have a normal life with his son stoked the flames that were already burning in my gut. I was going to do any and everything possible to give him that life, to give Apoc that life.
“Just cleaning up. How we doing?” he asked, as he ducked back into the kitchen.
I followed. “Been slow, but starting to see a little movement. Danny and Mia are thinking a few hours unless they decide to ramp up all of a sudden. We have the town cleared; well, it’s not really a town, but we have it and the immediate area cleared. Sammy called in some help for that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to keep all this contained to the area.”
“They will likely move in this direction,” Michael said, drying the last of the glasses and putting them away.
I nodded. “And Pinckney is between here and there. We’ll need to try to get it cleared out as well.” And if we have to, the next town and the next one after that.
“I should be out there with you,” Michael said.
“We don’t have time to go through all that again. You have to be here to protect him. I don’t even like that you’re this close.”
“He won’t go. I just walked out the door with him earlier and, poof, he and Six were back in the bedroom.”
“About that? Is that some new angel thing?”
“We angels have to use our feet or our wings, and we can move fast, but we can’t simply disappear.” He headed off my next question. “And no, it’s not a demon thing either. I have no idea,” Michael said.
“He in the bedroom?”
“Yeah, I put him and Six in there after we ate. I was hoping they would get some sleep, but when I walked by a bit ago, he was just chatting away.”
“I’ll go check on them.”
He was definitely not crashed out. It looked more like the kid was mid-rave by all the light dancing from underneath the door. I knocked before entering, Six meeting me at the door, Apoc’s light sh
ow going dim. “AJ!” And dang if little kid greetings aren’t the best.
I gave Six a good ear rub. “Hey, big guy. You protecting our boy?” I got a woof in return and took it as an affirmative. “This seat taken?” I asked, picking up the Buzz Lightyear doll and taking its place on the bed next to Apoc. I patted the other side of me, and Six jumped up to join us.
“How’s my favorite dude?” We’d recently started the knuckle chuck thing and we pounded fists. Three times. Which took a little “special” off the top, but it was still cute so I went with it. I scooted back to lean against the wall. “Your daddy said you were supposed to be going to bed, but I saw lights. Were you having a pre-sleep party?”
“Party!” He did a double fist in the air and butt-wiggle dance. Thanks again to Auntie AJ.
“I heard you talking to someone. Were you talking to Six?”
“No, mama,” he said.
And wasn’t that one giant F-me to the heart. “Oh yeah?” What else was I supposed to say, ‘That’s impossible, little dude, because I killed your mom when I was in Hell.’
“See mama?” he asked.
“That’s okay, buddy, I—” Apoc clapped over my stumbling objection, and a light the size of a flashlight beam came front and center. Apoc snuggled in next to me, where we sat hip to hip. The light began to spin, growing larger with each rotation.
“Mama,” Apoc repeated.
And holy fucking mirror, mirror on the wall, a face began to take shape within the light. A face all too familiar because I’d seen it in my recurring nightmares. A face that I’d last seen in hell. Right before I killed her.
“You are supposed to be going night-night, sweetheart,” the woman said, “Oh my. I’m sorry.”
“What the ever living—or should I say not living hel—heckle?” I asked, catching the curse before it formed.
The woman smiled a wide and, unless my asshole meter was on the frits, kind smile. “It is nice to see you again.”
“You’re—” I suddenly realized I only knew her as the Spider Queen or flaming bitch from Hell. I really didn’t feel like that played at this moment so I went with “Um …”
