Lucifer's Pride

by G. P. Ching

  “Oh!” Victoria yelled, grabbing the wound.

  “Ms. D!” Hope was by her side, the red ball rolling off the stage. Vines shot up from the floor and contained the demon, forcing its arms to its sides. Pop. Pop. Pop. The gun fired harmlessly toward the floor, but it was enough to send the audience screaming for the exits. Victoria swayed on her feet.

  “Help!” Hope yelled to Damien. Victoria cursed but allowed Hope to help her to the floor. Damien was trying to reach them, but as the crowd parted, pushing and shoving out the exits, it was clear the demon wasn’t acting alone. At least five demons rushed the stage.

  Damien clapped his hands together, producing the purple flaming sword he preferred to use. He lopped off the head of the second demon before it could burst its human skin. Jayden and Fuse bounded past them to take on demon number three. Fuse lit it on fire and Jayden split its skull like a watermelon. He finished the beast underneath with a second blow to its head.

  As demons four and five attacked, Damien and Jayden met them head-on. Victoria cringed as people trampled each other in an effort to escape. “Orelon?” she yelled toward the rafters. Then she concentrated and threw her power toward the attendees. “Befuddle,” she commanded.

  The crowd settled. Orelon dropped from the rafters and helped usher the confused patrons out the door. “Remain calm. Single file. As quickly as possible.”

  At that moment, the first demon exploded. A black fog rolled through the theater. Victoria choked and coughed on the foul air, her throat constricting. Hope couldn’t breathe either. Her face was red and her eyes bulged. A bomb went off, light blazing through the place. Damien. The fog parted and Victoria and Hope gasped for breath.

  The fourth demon retaliated, delivering a blow to the back of Damien’s head that knocked him to the floor. “Help him,” Victoria said to Hope.

  But Paul and Amuke appeared and leapt into action the moment they saw what was going on. In the form of a bear and a panther, they landed on the fourth demon and tore it apart with their teeth and claws. With a slash of his mighty paws, Paul rendered the dark, oily demon inside into ash.

  That left the fifth demon, still sparring with Jayden. This one wielded a dark scythe, meeting him blow for blow. Fuse was trying to light it on fire, but it was like the demon had learned. It refused to burn.

  “More than one way to skin a demon.” Hope leapt to her feet and cast her hands toward the creature. Branches covered in thorns, wrapped around the demon, tightened, and shredded it apart. The black beast inside didn’t stand a chance. Jayden was there, stabbing into the split flesh until the demon popped like an ash-filled piñata.

  Hope grunted as the roots and vines she’d summoned retracted through the cracks and crevices of the old classroom to recede into the earth.

  “Is that all of them?” she yelled, scanning the theater.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Jayden said.

  Orelon dropped down from above. “I’ve locked the doors. We’re alone.”

  Black dots danced in Victoria’s vision. She was still bleeding. All her limbs felt heavy and she’d broken a sweat.

  “Damien!” Hope jumped off the stage out of Victoria’s line of vision. But after a few minutes, she saw Hope and Paul carrying the angel toward her. A wound in his skull was leaking silver blood and he was barely conscious. They lay him down next to her.

  “Put his hand on her wound,” Hope said.

  Victoria cried out as Jayden pressed the angel’s hand over the gunshot.

  “Come on, Damien. Heal her.” Hope shook his shoulder violently.

  The angel blinked rapidly and the hand started to glow. Victoria felt the warmth flow through her and the bullet move in sharp increments toward the entry point. With one last flash of pain, it exited her body with a jet of angry blood. Then the wound stitched itself up. There was more warmth and the wound ached, itched, and disappeared at last.

  Damien’s hand dropped and the angel passed out again.

  Victoria sat up, alarmed. “Will he be all right?” She hovered over Damien’s sleeping form.

  Hope answered, “He’s immortal. He has to be.”

  But Victoria thought she looked worried. Perhaps Hope cared more than she let on.

  “How did they find us?” Victoria asked, Jenny who’d came out of hiding and was checking Jayden for wounds. She turned from Jayden’s side and looked Victoria in the eye.

  “It’s worse than we expected,” she said. “I think they know who we are and they know what we’re doing.”

  Victoria frowned. “How?”

  “When we took down the warehouse, we killed the demon we were after, but Lucifer went free. He must have spread the word. The demons know that Revelations Theater is our cover. Now they’re using it to hunt us.”

  “Are you sure?” Victoria swallowed hard. She did not want it to be true.

  “HORU saw chatter online. This isn’t like the island. The show isn’t a secret anymore. People have posted pictures of our act. It’s everywhere. And now the demons know.”

  Victoria allowed Jayden to help her up. The Greek toga she was wearing was ruined, stained with blood. Paul and Amuke had shifted back, and along with the others, they circled her. She frowned at the blood and black filth that covered them all.

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” she said. “We cancel the show. Revelations is officially out of business.”

  15

  The Second Test

  When Mike woke, the fire had died and Moses was gone. He sat up. Had he actually met Harriet Tubman? He rubbed the back of his neck. Of course it hadn’t been the real Harriet, only an illusion, a mental construct, part of this In-Between world’s magic. But oh, how he wished he could tell his aunt about this. A real-life hero had saved his life last night. Harriet… and the tusk. He picked it up and rolled it between his fingers, admiring the carvings. First challenge down. On to the second.

  He was naked aside from some thin white shorts Harriet had given him to sleep in. Thankfully his clothes had dried overnight. He reached into the pocket of his vest and retrieved the pocket watch.

  “Oh no!” He scrambled to his feet. He’d slept late. Half the second day was over. He leaped up and dressed as fast as he could, tucking the tusk back into the inner pocket of his jacket. It promptly disappeared. He patted the pocket from the outside, but there was nothing between his hand and chest aside from the material. Cursing, he reached into the empty inner pocket. Was this some kind of magic? Yes. His fingers met the base of the tusk as they had the night before and he drew it out again. When he replaced it in the pocket and removed his hand, both the tusk’s weight and mass were gone.

  He repeated the process twice, experimenting with the empty cup he’d drank tea from the night before. Anything he placed into the pocket both wondrously fit and disappeared until he chose to retrieve it. But had the tusk been in his pocket the entire time or did Michael’s need for it cause it to appear? There was only one way to find out. Michael concentrated on his growing hunger and reached into the pocket. His hand met the smooth skin of an apple. He bit into it. Delicious.

  “Cool,” he whispered.

  His head shot up at a scuffle outside the front window; a dark blur whizzed past. Was it Harriet returning from a morning forage? The door flew open, and a disheveled man rushed in along with a blast of freezing air. He grabbed Michael with one shackled wrist. “You gotta run. They’re coming. They’re coming for us.” The man retreated through the open door, his wild eyes searching the snowy woods outside the cabin.

  “Who’s coming?” Mike wondered. The sound of dogs barking in the distance met his ears.

  He cursed. Clearly, the man was one of the others who Harriet had expected, a slave looking for safe passage to freedom. And the dogs? That meant this safe house wasn’t safe any longer.

  Mike rushed out the door in time to see the man disappear into the snowy woods to his right along the mountainous terrain. When he looked left, he saw who the man was running from. A gr
oup of heavily garbed men on horseback were crossing the lake where he’d fallen through the night before. They had torches in their hands and guns hanging from their hips. When they saw him, they pointed and started to yell, spurring their horses forward.

  Why couldn’t the lake swallow them too? Mike thought bitterly. He bolted for the woods, following the snowy footprints of the slave who’d gone before him. Driving deeper into the forest, he weaved between trees and shivered in the winter wind. He was fast. Always had been. But the dogs were faster. He could hear them panting and huffing behind him. Following his scent. Closing in.

  Up ahead and several yards to his right, the man who had warned him picked his way through the snow. Mike changed course to catch up with him. Maybe they could help each other. But it was not to be. Mike stifled a scream as one of the Confederate soldiers on horseback bound forward and swept the man roughly from the ground, throwing him across his horse’s shoulders. More were coming. Mike couldn’t outrun them; he had no choice but to hide. To his left, he saw a crack in the mountain, barely wider than his profile. He wedged himself sideways into it… and got stuck. The barking dogs and stomping hooves closed in. Panicked, he let all the air out of his lungs and pushed. It felt like being born. He squeezed through the stone, scraping his skin until it hurt, and burst through into the mountain.

  His heart pounded and his breath shook. As his eyes adjusted, he realized the inside of the crack was bigger than the outside. This was a cave. The rhythmic pounding of the horse’s hooves approached. He held his breath and backed deeper into his hiding space. He could hear the mob curse and mumble about losing him. A dog sniffed at the crack he’d squeezed through but eventually moved on, as did the others. Find a tree, he heard them say.

  He gasped. They were going to kill that man. If only he were stronger and could make a difference. But he didn’t even have his triquetra. And even though he thought he might be able to draw a weapon from inside the pocket of his coat, he wouldn’t know how to use it. He’d never finished his training with Hope. It had stayed behind when he’d come to the In-Between. There was nothing he could do. He was only one person, after all, and they had guns.

  “Michael.”

  He pivoted. The whisper had come from the back of the cave.

  “Michael.” It was a woman’s whisper, familiar but strange.

  One step, then two. The darkness was absolute.

  “Who are you?” he said quietly. His voice echoed through the cavern.

  “Michael.”

  Unable to see, he dug in the inner pocket of his jacket for the tusk. Last night, it had glowed. Perhaps he could use it to find whoever was back here. His fingers seized the round base and he pulled it forth. At the same time it was revealed, torches flamed to life. Their light flooded the cave. He was standing in an antechamber before an ornately carved stone door. At the center of the door was a groove the exact size and shape of the tusk.

  Mike looked at the curved length of carved ivory in his hand and placed it carefully in the groove. Grinding gears, stone on stone, rattled the walls. The door opened.

  What he saw inside struck him mute with fear. Beyond the door was a spider the size of a small bear, and all eight of her eyes were staring at him. She was close, hanging above the door in a silver web, a web that stretched tightly from one side of the cave to the other. One leap and she could sink her fangs into him. He’d be wrapped in her web like a fly in a heartbeat.

  Slowly, he took a step back. Only a few more steps to the opening of the cave. He could escape if he ran.

  “Wait,” the spider said. “You’ve opened my door. Don’t you want to see what I have to show you?” Her voice was equal parts sinister and sweet.

  Paralyzed with fear, Mike froze. The last thing he expected to find in this cave was a talking spider roughly the size of a pony, or a web that was glowing to life with the reflective nature of a computer screen. As he watched, the spider repositioned herself in the corner of the web, resting her head on her furry front legs. A picture appeared across the silver filament beneath her, a woman’s face forming larger than life as if it were projected on the web.

  “That’s… that’s my mother,” Mike said. She was exactly how he’d pictured her, partly from dusty memory and partly from the photo albums his aunt had shared with him. Her brown eyes twinkled and her hair shone with dark copper highlights in the light from the window. The image panned down to show she was holding a baby.

  “And you,” the spider said.

  This, Mike had never seen. He didn’t have any baby pictures where his mother was holding him.

  “And your father.”

  Mike stopped breathing. Behind his mother was a handsome, distinguished dark-skinned man, smiling brighter than the sun. He kissed the side of his mother’s head and whispered, “Michael is a perfect name.”

  “What is this?” Heat rose through Mike’s torso, tightening the muscles of his jaw.

  “This is the day you were born,” the spider said.

  “No. My father abandoned my mother. He wasn’t there.” He’d been told as much by his aunt since he was old enough to understand.

  “Your father never abandoned your mother. It was a sad misunderstanding that resulted when the world changed after the Great Battle. Do you want to see what happened to your father?”

  Mike didn’t answer, but he didn’t move either. He continued to watch the web.

  The scene changed. His father was smiling, pedaling a bike down a city street on a cold winter’s day. On the corner of Michigan and Wacker, he pulled his bike into a parking space and dismounted. Chicago. That’s where Michael was born. There were two homeless men huddled against the building with a cardboard sign that read Please Help.

  His father delivered a package to the owner of a hot dog cart. The owner gave him a similar package, which his father accepted and stored in the wagon behind his bike. He could see his father hesitating, thinking about something, and then after a quick transaction, he handed two hot dogs to the homeless men.

  “You gotta keep movin’, you two,” he said. “You stay in one place too long, and they find you.”

  “You have a kind and generous heart,” the older homeless man said, tilting his face up. He removed his glove and offered his right hand to Michael’s father.

  Shaking the man’s hand, his father whispered, “You better keep those gloves on. There are only a few of us left. We’ve got to be careful.”

  “Generosity is more contagious than you might think,” the homeless man said. “Perhaps all you need to expand your operation is a leader.”

  Michael watched as their coupled hands started to glow and his father’s dark eyes lit from within. With his free hand, the homeless man reached into his coat and presented Michael’s father with a copy of Tom Sawyer, an original by the looks of it. The illumination of their touch passed to the book.

  “I don’t understand,” Michael said to the spider. “What happened here?”

  “In the days before the Great Battle, no human could buy or sell goods without the mark of the Devil. Your father was part of the resistance. His generosity earned him favor with God. He became Tom Sawyer, the code name for the mastermind behind the black market that allowed resistance fighters to buy goods without the mark. He helped the Soulkeepers survive during the Great Battle,” she said. “Those were hard times. Your father created a means of survival that saved the Soulkeepers from starving. He was the embodiment of God’s gift of generosity. Sadly, fallen angels killed him in the last days of the war. But he was a hero, and he was loyal to your mother up until the very end.” The spider dropped from the ceiling and turned into a lanky Indian woman in a red dress.

  Michael trembled as four hair-covered limbs disappeared into her abdomen.

  “You come from a long heritage of leaders, Michael,” she said.

  “How would you know?”

  “I am Fate, the weaver of lives. Call me Fatima.”

  He shook his head. “Why are you s
howing me this?”

  “Every choice you’ve ever made thus far in your life was based on a belief you’ve held deeply inside yourself, so deep you didn’t even know it was there. The assumption that you come from nothing, that you were abandoned as a baby, that you were somehow not wanted, an unfortunate victim of your parents’ poor choices… this thinking has followed you everywhere. But it’s a lie. The thing you desire most is to be normal. But you are not normal, Michael Carson. You are the descendant of kings. You are the son of a gift from God. And now it is time for you to release this belief.”

  “My mother told my aunt my father abandoned her.”

  “He didn’t. She believed he did. Your aunt wasn’t lying to you. But she was wrong. All memories of the Great Battle were wiped from humans living during the time. Because your father had died during the war, your mother and aunt couldn’t remember things clearly after the world changed. But your father loved you. He always loved you, and he died doing God’s will.”

  Michael shook his head. “I…” He couldn’t believe it. But why would Fate lie?

  “Your mother loved you too. You come from love, Michael. You come from a father who risked his life to do what’s right.”

  They sounded like happy words, but they didn’t make Mike happy. He had a weird feeling deep within his chest. If this was true, it changed everything. The entire reason he’d refused to go back to Revelations in the first place, and the reason he didn’t think he’d make a good Healer. If this was true, he was like Hope. His father was important to the cause, and so was he. But if this was true, it also meant he had no excuse. His failures were his own. And that was a thought he wasn’t quite ready for.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” he said. Wasn’t he supposed to be completing a test? “I should go. I’m supposed to follow the path.”