Blood on the Bar
Page 4
“Your powers?”
He peered glumly into the swirling brown coffee for a moment then had a thought. “Vetta, take my hand for a moment.” She frowned at him, but he persisted, shoving his hand out towards her. “Please. I just want to try something.”
Hesitantly, she took his hand in hers and looked at him nervously. Lucas closed his eyes and concentrated, but all he felt was cold. Vetta’s skin was icy, the room itself was not particularly warm, but there were no other sensations coming off her. He could not read her soul, or even sense what she’d had for dinner yesterday, no matter how hard he tried.
He slumped back against the pillows. “I’ve lost all that I was.”
“You are no longer The Devil?”
“I haven’t been The Devil for a long time, Vetta. Now I’m nothing.”
“Last night, I come to you because you are nice man with big smile. I did not know you were something else.”
“What’s your point?”
“That you are not nothing,” she said. “Last night in bar, you are good man. Man who spend time laughing and joking with my friends. What has changed?”
“How about the fact I’m impotent, mortal, and,” he sniffed himself, “sweaty.”
“You have bad dream that make you sweat. I wake you, no problem. And you are not impotent.” She nodded to the slight rise beneath the sheets.
Lucas blushed and covered himself with an arm. He hadn’t meant that kind of impotent and told her so, but then he considered her assertion that he’d been having a bad dream. His mind flashed with images of a great beast crushing his bones to dust, but he could not bring the beast properly into focus. Was it normal for humans to dream such things? Was that sleep? Or was it his memory? Had he seen a glimpse of his lost time?
“I was having a nightmare?” he reconfirmed with her. “What was I doing? How do you know I was dreaming?”
“You thrash. You speak.”
“Speak? Speak of what?”
“My English is not perfect, but you say about…” she squinted as if trying hard not to mispronounce the words. “Red Lord. You say, ‘Red Lord come’. A different name for angel you see last night?”
“No. Gladri’s only nickname is tit-head, and I gave it to him. Did I say anything else in my sleep? In my dream?”
Vetta got up from the bed and brought over his clothes. “Nothing else. Get up. We have breakfast. Scrambled egg on toast. Mama always told me that good breakfast mean good day.”
She left him alone while he got dressed, and when he went out into the lounge, a plate of food was waiting for him on the small side table beside the sofa. Vetta was already eating, plate perched on her knees, so without prompting, Lucas took the food and sat down beside her.
He had always enjoyed drinking more than eating, but now he found the act quite pleasant. The bread was soft in his mouth, and the eggs had a gentle flavour that made him hungry for more. Once he’d finished, he put the plate back on the side table and turned to Vetta. “Thank you for all your help. I’ll get out of your hair now.”
“Where will you go?”
He shifted back and forth on the sofa awkwardly. “Perhaps back to the pub. Maybe Gladri left something behind. If he did, I might be able to contact him. If not, I’m screwed. I can’t survive as a man. I don’t even know where to start.”
Vetta placed her plate on the floor and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. After swallowing, she looked at him grumpily. “How old are you?”
Lucas frowned. How old was he? Time was a human construct, so not something he kept particular track of. “I’ve been alive since the beginning, since before mankind existed. God made angels to protect his creations.”
“Then you should know everything,” she said. “You should know how to be a man. Have you not watched people?”
Of course he had. He’d spent thousands of years observing mankind and corrupting it, before changing his ways and trying to save it. During that time, he had seen the entirety of human history, but that didn’t mean he understood how to cook eggs or make toast. Or earn the money to pay for them. “I can’t be like you,” he said, crossing his ankles in front of himself for some reason. “I would rather not exist.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Vetta pulled a face that was unkind. “Being human is not so bad,” she said. “What choice do you have, anyway? Stop complaining. You are man who has lived forever and knows much. Life should be easy.”
There was an odd logic to what she said, however much he didn’t like it. Lucas did know a lot about mankind—especially the machinations of powerful men—so perhaps he could bend the world to his will with knowledge alone, but when he tried to consider how, he couldn’t find his way through the quagmire of his feeble mind.
He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa again and said, “I… I don’t know anything. It’s all gone.”
Vetta frowned. “What do you mean?”
He wasn’t sure for a moment. His knowledge wasn’t gone. It was just… smaller. Before, he had known everything—every little detail of the world before him. He was omniscient. Now, he still knew things, but also didn’t know things. “My knowledge is spotty,” he said, “like my mind isn’t capable of holding the knowledge I had as a celestial being. It holds as much as a human brain can—which is extremely finite.”
“So, you are still smart?”
“Ask me something.”
“Who is American President?”
“Donald Trump. Wait, is that true? Kind of feels like I made it up.”
Vetta smiled. “Is true! What is capital of Slovakia?”
“Bratislava.”
“Largest animal?”
“On land or sea?”
“Sea?”
“Blue Whale.”
“Best… um… Justin Bieber song?”
“That’s a trick question!”
She grinned. “Yes! See, you know many things still.”
Sickeningly, the simple praise made him smile, but his mood soon settled back to darker thoughts. “It makes no difference,” he said. “I was one of the most ancient and powerful beings in the universe. You expect me to live happily as an accountant or a butcher or… something? I can’t!”
“You are arrogant!”
He uncrossed his legs and turned on the sofa to face her fully. “I am tens of thousands of years old! You could never understand.”
“No, I do not understand,” she snapped. “I have only one life. One life where I grow up poor and have to work as soon as I am able. One life where I come to UK for better life and to send home money for my mama and sister but get called nasty names and made to be scared. One life where I get to clean tables at fast food shop. One life I get. Unlike you, Lucas, who has lived many. You have lived forever and still you want more.”
Lucas squirmed on the sofa, shifting back and forth. The depravity and despair he had witnessed throughout history left him with no illusions of how hard it was to be human, yet it still did not compare to what he was going through. “You are not nothing, Vetta,” he said, softening a little. “You’re a girl kind enough to help The Devil, and that is something special. Life is hard, I know, but there are many worse off than you, believe me. Humanity is a cruel organism. It devours itself, little pieces at a time.”
She placed a hand on his knee and gave him a half smile. “You are afraid.”
“I fear nothing!” He shot up off the sofa, grabbing at himself awkwardly. “I-I need to leave.”
“You go to bar?”
“I don’t know what to do or where to go. I just… I just need to go.” He jigged about anxiously, unable to keep still.
Vetta met him in the centre of the room. “You should not be alone, Lucas. You are vulnerable.”
He clenched his fists and danced from foot to foot. “I am not vulnerable. I am not… I am not… Damn it, what the hell is wrong with me? I can’t keep still.”
Vetta giggled. “You need wee. Toilet is next to kitchen.”
She frowned. “You go fight angel?”
“I will do whatever I have to. I am Lucifer, Lord of Darkness, and rightful monarch of Hell. Now, take me to the toilet. Quickly!”
“What are you looking for?” Vetta asked for the third time. A willing companion, certainly, but not especially helpful. She rooted around the grubby pavement alongside him, kicking aside litter and bits of old brick, but it was aimless searching as he hadn’t yet advised her what to look for.
“I’m looking for anything Gladri might have affected,” he told her. “If we can find something he touched or influenced, I can perform a ritual and summon him.”
“You can summon an angel?”
He nodded.
Vetta lifted the lid on a bin to peer inside, then winced and closed it quickly. “I am thinking this alleyway needs a clean and tidy.”
“No such thing as a nice alleyway.” Lucas half-expected the scorch mark on the ground to have disappeared, but it was still there on the pavement, even clearer in daylight. He brushed his fingertips over the burn and they came away sooty, smelling of something familiar—iron and sulphur. Iron should have burned him, but as a human it was a mundane substance—present in his very blood.
That he also detected sulphur made it pretty obvious where he’d arrived from.
“You find something?” asked Vetta, clutching a pair of plastic bags as though they might somehow help the situation.
“Iron and sulphur,” he said. “I was in Hell.”
“You are The Devil. Not so strange.”
But it was strange. Strange because he had obviously been there recently, during a time he couldn’t remember. Then something had brought him here. He pointed at the scorch marks so Vetta could see them. “I was either forcefully expelled from Hell or yanked away by something on this side. Iron is the binding component of certain spells and keeps condemned souls confined to their tortures. Sulphur was the base-substance used to create Hell when the universe was formed. Earth was made from hydrogen and carbon, Heaven of silver and gold. Have you found anything Gladri affected yet?”
She shrugged. “I do not remember him touching anything. He arrive, flap wings to make wind, and then stand here until he leave.”
It was what Lucas was afraid of. Gladri detested Earth too much to dirty himself by touching it. He pictured the scene from the previous night and tried to re-enact it in his mind, but he knew Vetta was right—other than his wings, Gladri had not moved a muscle.
Yet, perhaps that was enough.
Maybe the answer was right in front of them. “Vetta, where did you find those plastic bags?”
“On floor behind bins.” She pointed. “Angel do not touch these though.”
“No,” said Lucas, “but it doesn’t have to be something Gladri touched. Those bags hold an echo of his presence. I saw Gladri affect them with his wings when he was flexing his divinity-erection. I can use them.”
Vetta smiled and waved the bags about like pom-poms. “This is good?”
“Very good! Well done.”
“You are welcome. You do ritual at my flat?”
“No, we do it here. We do it right now.”
“Here? Now?”
“Yes!” He took the plastic bags from her and held them out to either side. “I want my powers back right this second.”
“How will you make Gladri give them to you?”
He shook the bags, making them swish. “I’ll need to think on my feet, but I’m smarter than that self-righteous lickarse. Let him try to match wits with me.”
“But you’re human now.”
“Thanks! That little confidence boost is exactly what I needed.”
She blushed. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just stand here, right in front of me.” She shuffled her feet and did as he asked. She looked nervous. “Good,” he said, repositioning her marginally so that she wasn’t standing in gum. “I need you to put both hands on my neck. Our bodies will create a circle.”
“A circle?”
“Just an industry term. Now, allow me to say the words. The invocation will pull Gladri before me and hold him in place.”
“I am not so sure I want to do this,” said Vetta, but she put her hands on his neck and kept them there as asked. Her nails dug into his flesh.
Lucas began to speak the words known only to an illustrious few—words unknown even to most angels—the secret tongue of the High Choir. Images of his dearest brother, Michael, passed through his mind and almost stopped him.
Almost.
Sod Heaven. Sod Michael.
The alleyway whooshed to life—dirt and rubbish rolling across the pavement—wind gathering rapidly and whipping Vetta’s hair across her face. She instinctively tried to remove her hands from his neck, but he barked at her to stay in contact. Holding the plastic bags aloft, he focused on them, making them a conduit to that which he sought—Gladri.
Even as a human being, Lucas could feel the power flowing through him—ancient knowledge woken from its slumber. Vetta had been right, his wisdom gave him advantages even as a man. Knowledge was a part of who he was, and no one—Gladri or otherwise—could take that away from him.
He began to sweat. Hands numb. Tongue swelling. His human body was unsuited for wielding power as great and as ancient as this—the words of the Indomitable Prayer—a prayer no angel could ignore. Yet he kept the words flowing, needing to complete the ritual. Soon this would all be over, and he would never again allow himself to fall victim to Heaven’s self-righteousness.
Vetta jolted. Her eyes widened, and her jaw bulged. A trickle of blood escaped her lips. She tried to release his neck again, but now it was too late—the spell had tethered them together, woven their bodies into an unbreakable lightning rod. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she moaned. Soon Gladri would inhabit her body, unable to leave until Lucas allowed it. The horror of being entombed within a human vessel would be enough to break the angel’s will and force him to undo what he had done. The irony of it was almost too delicious. This was why knowledge always beat power.
You’ll need longer than an eternity to outwit me, Gladri, brother. You should have learned that lesson long ago.
Blood spewed from Vetta’s mouth as she bit down on her tongue. Her lips quivered, but no words came out. Her body wasn’t holding up. The spell was killing her. She just had to hold on a little while longer. Almost there.
Just a little bit longer. Come on, girl.
Lucas shouted in Vetta’s face, “Speak to me, Gladri. I know you’re in there.”
Blood dripped from Vetta’s chin, staining her blouse. Her eyes turned black and her jaw cracked wide open, releasing a booming voice from her throat that was not her own. “LUCIFER? IS… IS THAT YOU? I KNEW IT! LAST NIGHT, IT WAS YOU!”
“Yes! I have you at my mercy, Gladri, so do as I demand. Restore me now!”
Vetta trembled. Her blackened eyes bulged in their sockets. Blood erupted from her nose. Her jaw cracked open wider, almost turning her head inside out. “RELEASE ME NOW!” the voice boomed.
Lucas shook Vetta, making her fingernails pierce deeper into the back of his neck. “Restore me!”
Vetta screamed. Lucas couldn’t tell if it came from her or from Gladri. “LUCIFER! YOU SHALL PAY. FINALLY, YOU SHALL PAY.”
Lucas grinned. He could hear the agony, the pleading. He was close.
Vetta’s body bucked, chest heaving in and out in great gasps—dying gasps—but they meant nothing if he got his powers back. Lucas would heal her the second this was over with. He just needed to see this through. Restoring his powers was more important than a single girl’s suffering.
A girl who has done nothing but try to help me.
What am I doing?
/> “Damn it.” He released the plastic bags and the spell broke. Vetta’s body folded like an ironing board, and he had to ease her to the ground gently before she cracked her skull on the pavement. “Vetta?” he urged. “Vetta, speak to me!”
She was unconscious and showed no signs of waking. Her blood stained his palms, and he stared at them in horror.
How could he do this?
Gladri was right. Deep down, I’m the same selfish monster I’ve always been.
I’m still The Devil.
“My God!” someone behind Lucas said. “What on earth happened?”
Lucas turned to see the Black Sheep’s landlord stepping out of the pub’s rear exit. The stumpy man held a bag of rubbish in each hand, but they fell to the floor now as he stared at Vetta in shock. “Please, help her.” Lucas begged. “Please!”
The landlord nodded. “You’d better bring her inside.”
Hair of the Dog
Lucas carried Vetta in his arms like a rescuer, but he was no such thing. He’d done this to her. A selfish act of a selfish being. Her blood-streaked face summoned more unwelcome emotions inside him, and he wished he could claw them away. He was a monster.
The landlord—Julian was it?—asked him what had happened. “I happened,” said Lucas, hurrying Vetta over to the worn leather sofa by the pool table. She remained stone-still as he lay her down, and if not for the slight rising of her chest he could have mistaken her as dead. Housing Gladri’s spirit had seared her insides badly.
The effect of demon possession was a slow, drawn-out degradation—a relentless rotting of the mind and body—but the summoning of an angel was to take in an intense flame. Lucas had known what he was doing but had done it anyway.
“I’ll call for help,” said Julian, turning to leave. He seemed utterly confused, and he paused to frown at Lucas. “You’re… you… you were both here drinking last night, yes? What on earth were you doing out back?”
“GO!” Lucas bellowed. There was no time for conversation.
Julian fled, muttering under his breath and leaving Lucas alone with Vetta. If he had still possessed his powers, he could have healed her in an instant, but he was powerless, conflicted in ways he’d never before experienced.