Life and Limb

by Jennifer Roberson

  Remi and I exchanged a glance. In his eyes I saw the decision made not to get cocky, and he probably saw it in mine. Getting torn to pieces was, well, kinda undesirable.

  Lily poured herself whiskey but did not immediately take a seat. She stood by the cabinetry, and the interior illumination highlighted the red of her Mohawk, painting her eyes greener than ever. It glinted off her piercings, off her arm cuffs.

  With nothing else immediate to say, I mentioned we had met Aganju.

  Her smile went wide. “And what was your impression?”

  Remi resorted to a Texas-ism again. “Big as a Brahma bull.”

  I had no scale for that, so I asked. “How big is a Brahma bull?”

  “Between eighteen and twenty-four hundred pounds.”

  I was stunned. “A cow?”

  “Bull.”

  My disbelief was manifest. “And you ride those things?”

  McCue nodded. “Bulls and broncs.”

  I reassessed him. He was tanned, and his hands were callused. A couple of shallow squint lines at the corners of his eyes suggested a fair amount of sun and good humor. Good-looking son of a bitch; and I say that because we do resemble one another.

  I’d known him four days. It felt like four months. Still much to learn about him, but I was far more comfortable than I had been. I barely knew him, but trusted him. And trust had absented itself from my feelings during my trial. If that trust was an effect of primogenitura, it might come in handy. Grandaddy had said McCue would have my back, and I’d have his. It felt right.

  So, there was biker tough, ex-con tough . . . and, apparently, cowboy tough.

  I looked at Lily again. “Ganji is a very imposing man. God. King. Whatever.”

  “He sings to volcanoes,” Remi added.

  Lily nodded. “He can sing them to life.”

  McCue looked doubtful. “This one is extinct, not dormant.”

  “Doesn’t matter. All wake to him.”

  “Okay, we don’t really need the singing and waking,” I said. “We’d prefer he didn’t do that, actually.”

  She disapproved and apparently thought we were terribly naïve. “If Lucifer climbs his way out of hell, there will be worse than volcanoes and lava fields. Would you have everyone on earth die of spontaneous combustion?”

  Remi cocked his head. “Dying is dying, ain’t it? Means don’t matter.”

  Lily studied him a moment, then said, “Just don’t make Ganji angry.”

  Well, yeah. Okay. A good goal. He looked badass all on his own, but as a god who could raise volcanoes? Yeah, let’s keep him friendly. I attempted a casual tone, but had the feeling she saw right through me. “So, you know one another? You and Ganji?”

  Her smile and the bright snap in her eyes suggested she knew exactly what I was asking. “We all of us know one another, now that we are aware again, and here. The angels made it so.”

  “That’s another thing,” I said, “you speak with an Irish accent—”

  “I’m Irish.”

  “—and he speaks with what I assume is an African accent—”

  “Igbo.”

  “Ee—okay. But Gaelic is nothing like—Igbo. You’re ancient. Yet you both speak English.”

  Lily was highly amused. “I’m speaking Gaelic.”

  Remi stared at her, frowning, and alert as if he were listening for subtleties. “It don’t sound anything like Gaelic. Trust me.”

  Lily smiled. Once one looked past the tattoos, the piercings, the Mohawk to the woman beneath—she was striking in an almost eerie sort of way.

  She said, “He speaks Igbo to you. We don’t speak in English, we speak in our own languages. But English is how you hear it, as does anyone we speak with. Angels—and others born of heaven—know all languages on Earth.”

  “But we don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t speak any foreign language.”

  “I speak Spanish,” Remi said, “and, well, Latin. But we’re hearing nothing like either.”

  She nodded; apparently this topic was expected. “You will. When you’re older. For now, you will understand the language of those you work with directly. When you become angels, all languages will be yours.”

  Huh. Heavenly Rosetta Stone, maybe? “About that,” I began, again attempting to sound casual, “Just when does this—promotion—happen?”

  Lily was amused, but not blind to my play for information. “That is for Jubal to tell you—but he probably won’t. Angels are secretive.”

  “No shit,” I muttered.

  She opened a drawer, retrieved a slip of paper. “Now it’s time for you to leave. Take the bag—it’s your starter kit—and return to the Zoo Club. Settle your things. Then go to this website.”

  I frowned. “What web—wait, we have a computer?”

  “In the common room.” She held out the paper.

  The URL was foreign to me, except for the triple W. I handed it to Remi who took it, frowned over it, was clearly comprehending no more than I had.

  “Wupatki,” she said.

  “Woo what?” My natural inclination was to think of the term woo-woo, denoting crackpot New Age followers and UFOlogists.

  She spelled it, letter by letter. Oh, it was wu as in woo, pat as in pot, and a kee. Which told me absolutely nothing. “What’s a Wupatki?” I’d never heard of a Wupatki in folklore. Some kind of monster?

  “Not a Wupatki,” Lily clarified. “It’s a place. A National Park. Indian ruins. Where there is a barghest.” She enunciated clearly. “A black shuck.”

  “Legends,” I said tightly. “Real, now? All of them?”

  Lily nodded. “Mythology, tall tales, fictional villains: all alive. The surrogates are riding them.”

  Remi looked perplexed. “What’s a barghest? What’s the legend?”

  Lily’s tone was sharp. “It’s not a legend, it’s a demon. Gabe will fill you in on the folklore. Now, go home. Type in the URL. The site is deep web, and you will find what you need to know there.” Her smile was wide, showing small white teeth. “You must kill it, this black shuck demon.”

  Okay—or, well, maybe not okay. I’d go along for now, but I was curious. “What’s it doing?”

  “What demons do,” she replied. “And in that form, it’s shredding humans. Tearing out throats. Adults, but also children.”

  I hadn’t looked at a newspaper for days, or watched TV. Remi’s stunned expression suggested the same. If people were being killed by a beast, surely there would be coverage. We needed to check it out.

  Lily’s tone was level. “You must kill it tonight when the moon is full.”

  Now my brows ran up. “What, like a werewolf? That’s not in any of the legends.”

  “The full moon has nothing to do with the demon in barghest form.” She looked at me, then at Remi. “It has to do with how, in the night, you’re going to see well enough to kill it. Now—go.”

  So go we did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Zoo’s parking lot was empty; last call had come and gone, which meant it was after two in the morning. After a prison regimen with lights out at ten p.m., all the action and revelations were catching up to me.

  We parked bike and truck around back. I unhooked my saddlebags; Remi climbed out of his truck with the bag Lily had given us as well as a larger duffle. He’d put the two shotguns in the gun rack across the truck’s back window, safed below a handsome long gun stripped of bells and whistles. Winchester 1873, a model based on the original made in 1873, known as “The Gun that Won the West.”

  I tried the back door and found it unlocked. Not a particularly safe thing, but then I imagined a god could strike down—or, in Ganji’s case, behead—anyone who came looking to steal stuff. Or maybe wake the volcano and lava the thief to death.

  As we entered and thumped across the wooden floor in
motorcycle and cowboy boots, supersized Ganji, who currently was not out singing volcanoes to life but rather incongruously washing glasses at the sink, greeted us with a smile.

  He pushed a manila envelope across the bar. “Something came for you.”

  My brows ran up. “I thought with the domicile cleared—I think that’s the terminology—no one knows we’re here except for Grandaddy, Lily, and you.”

  He put his finger on the envelope. “Gabriel and Remiel. Are there more of you with the same names?”

  Remi said in a dry tone, “You might could actually open it and find out.”

  I walked to the bar, dropped my saddlebags on a stool, took up the envelope. Remi put his duffels down as well and leaned slightly toward me to view the envelope as I tore it open.

  A single sheet of 8.5 by 11 paper. Just plain old paper. I tilted it so Remi could read it, too. The brief message was formed of letters cut from newsprint, magazines, all in different fonts, different colors. Just like ransom notes in the movies. But this was not a ransom note.

  Five words changed everything: ‘I know who you are.’

  “What the hell?” Remi reached out, took the paper from me. “No signature, no name at all, not even in cut-out letters.”

  Ganji said, “Demons know you are here.”

  I shook my head. “Like I said upstream—the domicile is cleared. We killed the demons in ghost form, and Remi exorcized the one in the cop. Then I burned up the bastard’s cockroaches.”

  Ganji’s eyes were knowing. “What of the woman whose arm you broke that first night, the one who sought to strangle you? What of the Grigori?”

  So, he knew about those instances. God grapevine? Or: “Lily told you.”

  Ganji nodded. “She told me, yes, but would not have spoken of it to anyone else other than your grandfather. And the domicile was cleared. No demons are here, nor will they be.”

  “Huh,” I said. “So, they can’t just gang up on us when we step outside? We’re safe here, even if our blinking neon beacons are transmitting?”

  “You are safe here,” Ganji clarified, “and the clearing affords some protection immediately outside this building. But they know you are here, and they have access to you elsewhere. And since you are to seek them out, you must be vigilant.”

  Vigilant. Yeah. “They could just lay in wait for us. Watch, and wait for us to leave.”

  Ganji’s tone was dry. “Vigilance.” He drew two mugs of draft beer, set them on the bar, implicit invitation. Apparently a god didn’t care if he was breaking the law by serving after last call. “When you, Gabriel, can discern a domicile, and you, Remiel, can discern a demon before it strikes, you will find it easier to survive.”

  “And when is that supposed to happen?” I asked. “Tomorrow? A week from now? A month? It probably would help us with the whole vigilance thing.”

  “It happens when it happens, as all things do.”

  “Not very helpful,” I muttered, and Ganji laughed.

  Remi’s turn. “And what exactly is ‘clearing a domicile’? Clear it how?”

  “I do not know how,” he answered, “only that it must be done by angels—or those born of heaven—after a demon’s death, or the place might be renewed as domicile.” His smile was slight, but a spark lit up his eyes. “Not very helpful.”

  I looked at the sheet of paper with its simple but discomfiting statement. “I’m assuming you didn’t see who brought this.”

  “I did not. It was in the mailbox.”

  With no address or stamp on the envelope, it meant whoever it was had brought it personally to the Zoo. Which suggested that yes, other demons knew exactly where we were.

  “Well, shit.” I cracked an involuntary yawn, then sighed. “I’m going upstairs. I’m beat.” I grabbed the beer with a nod of thanks to Ganji, grabbed my saddlebags, then headed toward the stairs. Remi was right behind me.

  Grandaddy had shown us the bedroom on the right. I poked my head in the one across the hall, saw it was identical, said, “I’ll take the other.”

  Remi didn’t care. Just walked in and dropped his duffle on the bed, put Lily’s bag on the desk. I went into the opposite room.

  Now that it was mine, I took a closer look at the room’s decor. All was rustic, made out of lodgepole pine. The woven bedspread and desk chair’s upholstered seat seemed to be some kind of Native American design, but not like the omnipresent Pendleton patterns back home.

  Dresser, and closet. I needed neither, though I guess I could throw my two pairs of pants, handful of shirts, and underwear into a drawer. I had lived so long in prison clothing with no true possessions that it felt odd to look back on my life before and remember things I’d owned. I’d discovered I didn’t need any of them. But I missed my books.

  Missed, too, the girl who’d broken off our engagement after I was charged with manslaughter. Around eight months after I went to prison, a brief letter arrived with interesting news: ’I got married. His name is Paul.’

  Now I stripped off my jacket, threw it over the chair, and was in the midst of downing my beer when Remi appeared in the open door, tapped the jamb with one hand. “You need to come see this.”

  “No, man. I just want to crash. If we’re going demon-killing tomorrow night, I need some rest. It can wait until morning.”

  “First of all, it’s demon-killing tonight, since it’s past midnight; and no, it can’t wait.”

  He looked deadly serious. I heaved a sigh, nodded, followed. He led me into what Grandaddy had indicated was the common room.

  Four-seater table in the middle. A computer on the desk. Floor to ceiling shelving jammed with books. A brown leather nailhead couch, and against the wall a flatscreen TV in a modest entertainment console.

  “I input that URL.” Remi gestured toward the computer. “Take a look.”

  Crime scene photos. Autopsy photos. Two adults—male and female—and two children maybe eight, nine, boy and girl.

  Newspapers do not print graphic crime scene photos, and definitely not autopsy photos. Lily had said the site was deep web, not accessible to others. We, Remi and I specifically, were meant to see these.

  The throats were torn out so badly that pearly neck vertebrae were visible in the mess of shredded flesh. The children were the worst because they had smaller necks. Long stripes, looking like claw marks, also scored all four bodies.

  I said all I could manage. Nothing else sufficed. “Holy fuck.”

  Then I stood up, turned, took three steps away. Stopped and stood there feeling nauseated. I sucked air in, then blew noisy breaths out repeatedly.

  Christ, if we could stop things like this, the “deployment” was worth it.

  Remi’s tone was subdued. “I tried to access other sites. Facebook, Twitter, Dallas Cowboys homepage, etc. Page errors all over the place. The only website comin’ up is this one.”

  I returned to the chair beside Remi’s. Abruptly, with neither of us touching the keys, the computer ditched the photos and posted a one-word message: Table.

  “Table?” I found it utterly baffling. “What?”

  Then another sentence replaced the first word: Phones pre-loaded with pertinent numbers.

  I turned around and looked at the table. Two cell phones were lined up with precision, side by side. A tag on one said ‘Gabriel,’ the other ‘Remiel.’

  And next to them, credit cards. Black, with a silver pentagram and our names stamped in silver.

  More words showed up on the monitor: Phones will not dial other numbers. Cards not for frivolous expenditures.

  I needed some levity in the midst of serious shit. “So, what constitutes a—” I made elaborate air quotes “—frivolous expenditure when we’re trying to save the world?”

  Remi picked up his phone, studied it. I grabbed mine, turned it on, pulled up Contacts, found four names and numbers: Re
mi, Grandaddy, Lily, Ganji.

  “Check out the back,” McCue suggested.

  I did. Impressed into the black case was the same design as on our rings, and on the credit cards: silver pentagram. I turned the phone back over, looked at the front of the bezel and screen. “No brand.”

  Remi nodded. “Maybe iAngel?”

  I selected McCue’s name, pressed a fingertip against the screen. Sure enough, his phone rang. Or, rather, it emitted a series of five tones.

  “Oh, come on!” Now I was getting aggravated. “That’s from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

  Remi looked thoughtful. “Maybe those aliens were actually angels.”

  I scoffed. “No angels we’ve seen look anything like those Roswell rejects aboard the Mother Ship.”

  Remi’s face went very still for a moment, eyes distant. “What if the humans who got on the ship were intended to be angel hosts?”

  “It was a movie! With actors. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t real!”

  “It might could be,” McCue said. “What if Steven Spielberg was hosting an angel when he made the film?”

  And then he grinned.

  I called him a vulgar name, turned on my heel and stomped back to my bedroom—but not before I picked up my credit card—where I closed the door firmly. Maybe he’d get the message.

  Steven Spielberg—an angel? My ass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I woke up to someone knocking on my door. Sunlight poured through the windows. I found my phone—my normal phone, the one that did dial other numbers—and saw it was 8:00 a.m.

  I did not feel refreshed. I needed more sleep. I bellowed, “What?”

  Remi’s voice sounded odd. “You need to come see this.”