Holy Socks and Dirtier Demons (v1.1) (clean fmt)

by J. A. Kazimer

  “I’m Lilith.” She stuck out her hand.

  “Mary.” Mary glanced at me for an explanation. Her eyes burned brightly with anger, or interest I wasn’t sure. “Are you a friend of Jace’s?”

  Maybe Mary held some kind of torch for me after all. Lilith and I answered at the same time.

  “No, she’s helping me find—” I began.

  “Yes, we are good friends,” Lilith stressed the word friends. “As a matter of fact, I’ll be staying with him for a few weeks.” She paused, grinning. “You know, keeping him in line, protecting him from himself.”

  Mary and I both glared at her, but Lilith merely smiled. Why had she lied? Was she trying to make Mary jealous?

  Whatever Lilith’s game, one look into Mary’s envious eyes and I decided to play it. For me, this was a win-win. Lilith would help me find the kid and get the girl.

  “I see. Well, it was nice to meet you.” Mary turned toward her apartment, but Lilith stopped her.

  “I think we’ve met before.”

  Mary laughed. “I doubt it.”

  Ouch. The claws had come out. I loved a good catfight, so I stepped back and let the fur fly.

  “Oh, I’m almost sure of it.” Lilith smiled, her teeth gleaming against the dark red of her lips. “Don’t worry, it will come to me.”

  “Don’t strain yourself.” Mary grinned, an evil smirk that heated my blood. “You’ll need all your energy to handle Jace.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Lilith said, her voice strained with laughter. “But for your information, I can HANDLE anything.”

  This was getting out of hand. Next they would be comparing notes and for some reason, I didn’t think I would come out a winner. I needed a distraction and I needed one right now.

  The roar of a .357 Magnum fired at close range did the trick.

  Eight

  “Fucking rats.” Siddhartha, my neighbor from the end of the hall, fired another round into the plaster wall of the hallway. On the other side of the wall, a squeak, followed by the thud of a small corpse hitting the floor, sounded. We all glanced at the hole in the wall, and then at the demented guy with the gun.

  “Hey, Sid,” I called, happy to see the crazy old man the other tenants jokingly referred to as “The Pillsbury Doughboy.” I. however, suspected Sid was a lapsed Buddha from the shape and smell of him. Something like fat, bald guy, spoiled beer, and enlightenment. Worse, he spoke in meaningless, fractured sentences that annoyed me. At times, squeezing the life out of him held more appeal than pressing his tummy for a cheap giggle.

  Sid glanced at us, his eyes raking over Mary and Lilith. “Do not have evil-doers for friends. Do not have low people for friends. Have virtuous people for friends. Have for friends the best of men.”

  “Ummm, thanks.” I shrugged, “How are things with you?”

  Lilith smiled, and responded in some foreign tongue. The words flew from her mouth, sounding exotic and hot. I had no idea what she said, but whatever it was caused Sid’s face to wrinkle. He flipped her the bird and walked back into his apartment.

  I raised my hands in question. “What’d you say?”

  She rubbed her chin. “I have no idea. I don’t speak Tibetan.” I raised an eyebrow, but before I could question her further, she said, “We should go. Now.”

  I frowned, but the look on her face convinced me quick enough.

  “Okay, but what about Bob?”

  “Angel you mean?”

  Shit. “Yeah, Angel.” I yawned, overcoming by an intense exhaustion.

  My legs felt heavy, so heavy I couldn’t raise them. I closed my eyes, preparing to lie down and take a tiny, little nap.

  A sharp, stinging slap across my face knocked me from the trance.

  Lilith rubbed her palm, a smile on her face. “I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I met you.”

  “Glad I could fulfill that fantasy.” I shook my head, ridding it of whatever spell I had slipped under. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I grabbed Lilith’s hand and ran down the stairs. Mary stood at the top step, her beautiful face glowing in the sunlight. Her eyes sparkled indigo waves, eyes like the calm waters of the ocean before a storm.

  I stopped at the bottom of the stairwell. “Mary.”

  “Damn it.” Lilith twisted her fingers in my belt loop and dragged me out the door.

  On the street, she pulled me into a pale blue 1972 Gremlin. Yeah, a Gremlin. The lamest car ever built, and probably a decade older than Lilith.

  “Nice ride.” I waved to the rust-spotted vehicle.

  “It gets me around.”

  “And in style.” I opened the passenger side door and slid inside. The interior seemed new, clean, and smelled of foreign tobacco and feminine mystery. “Where are we going?”

  “To see my ex-husband.” Lilith shoved a key into the ignition, pumped the gas a few times, and punched the dashboard before starting the engine. I raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. “I’m a bit superstitious.”

  The car turned over with a pop, and we took off down the street.

  So there we were, rushing across town on the way to visit Lilith’s ex-husband, in hopes of finding the son of God. Even odder, a blond-headed angel ran after the Gremlin, his white robe flowing behind him, hair rollers bouncing in the wind.

  I glanced in the passenger side mirror and laughed. Lilith looked over at me and I shrugged. We were better off without the angel anyway. I rolled up my window, and cracked up the radio to drown out the angel’s cries for us to stop.

  The radio newscaster was saying: “People in Newark area are flabbergasted by the spoiled milk. Is it some sort of terrorist attack on our nation’s dependence on dairy—”

  I flipped the radio off, and rubbed my five o’clock shadow. “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?”

  “Not really, but I will if you insist.”

  “I insist.”

  She sighed loudly. “Fine. Mary.”

  That was it. Mary. Was it supposed to mean something? “What about her?”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Her eyes widened. The sun reflected off her black pupils, and a stirring of something deep inside me grew. Fear?

  Lust? Evil?

  Lilith braked hard and pulled into an empty alleyway. She stopped the car, got out, and started pacing.

  I stepped out too, but wearily. “Are you jealous?”

  Her cat-eyes exploded into burning amber embers. “Jealous?” Her fist caught me in the solar plexus.

  I doubled over, trying hard not to puke. “What the fuck was that for?”

  “Do you know the danger you’re in?” She bent down next to me, raising my face to meet her eyes.

  I pushed her away. “No, and you do?” Danger? I’d lost God’s kid.

  How much more danger could I be in? Hell might be too nice of a place for me once the Big Guy got word of how badly I’d fucked up.

  “Don’t trust anyone, not even your own eyes. Forces are at work. Evil forces sent to—”

  I cut her off with a wave. “Destroy me and the very universe. Yeah, I’ve heard it before.”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “I never said it was.” I straightened, sucking in a polluted breath of city air. “While I appreciate your concern, I don’t need it. What I do need is to find the kid, and find him fast. So you either help me with that, or leave me the fuck alone.”

  “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I smiled. A warning I could live with. Another fist into the gut, and she and I would have problems.

  Nine

  Thirty minutes later, the Gremlin pulled to the curb of the Ministry of the 2nd Coming Church of Latter Day Southern Baptists, or MCCLDSB for short, even though the acronym wasn’t all that short.

  The building looked like any other on the Upper East Side; Madison Avenue wealth mixed with 5th Avenue pretension. Decorated in floor to ceiling stained-glass, the church resembled a whorehouse, but without the fu
n.

  “Your ex works here?” I shielded my eyes from the intense glare reflecting off the brightly colored building. Lilith didn’t strike me as a church going gal, and she seemed too young to have been married and divorced. But then again, I’d been married three times in my thirty-three years on Earth. So what did I know?

  “Yeah. He wasn’t always a saint.” She winked once, and climbed the stairs to the double brass church doors.

  I followed behind, watching the hustle and flow of the congregation.

  People smiled serenely at Lilith but didn’t approach, almost as if we had a protective bubble of jaded religiosity.

  “Where is he?” She motioned to a smiling poster of a cap-toothed minister with bleached blond hair and a plastic grin.

  A woman with the same affected smile answered, “He’s preparing for tonight’s sermon on the sins of the flesh. Sex outside the marriage bed is a sure path to damnation.”

  I hoped so. What fun would it be otherwise? I tried to get Lilith’s attention, but she barreled through the flock. She was a woman on a mission.

  I caught up to her a few seconds later as she opened a heavy wooden door and slipped inside. A shout of surprise sounded, followed by a squeak of pain.

  Fearing for her safety, I rushed in, only to find the blond minister holding his bloody nose, and a girl probably no older than sixteen on her knees in front of him.

  Lilith helped the girl to her feet, said something in a sharp voice, and punched the reverend again, this time in the nuts. He dropped like a brick, eyes rolling back into his head.

  “Jace. Meet the esteemed minister, Adam Just, my sleazy ex-husband and all around rat bastard.” She punctuated the statement with a kick to his ribs.

  “It’s a pleasure.” I took two steps into the richly decorated room, gently closing the door behind the parting teenager. I guess God paid well.

  “So should we ask for his help now or wait until his testes crawl back down from his throat?”

  She laughed. “Oh, he’ll help us. Don’t worry about it.” Walking around the reverend’s desk, she plopped into his chair and tapped a few keys on his computer keyboard.

  I took the time to study Adam. He wasn’t what I had expected. The bad-boy, Samuel, from last night’s beat-down seemed much more Lilith’s style. This guy looked like every mother’s wet dream, an MBA with good genes and a healthy disposable income. He was older than Lilith too, much older, maybe mid-forties.

  “How long were you married?” I bent down, and lifted Adam’s eyelid. Whiteness stared back.

  “Less than two months,” she responded. “I came home and found him fucking a girl five years younger than me, and worse, she was enjoying his fumbling a hell of a lot more than I ever did.”

  “Ouch.”

  She shook her head. “You know what I got in the divorce settlement? A burial plot in Hebron. That’s it. I get to spend all eternity planted next to this asshole.” Her fingers waved to the floor and the man groaning on it.

  “And his trophy wife, Eve, who—get this—changed her name from Emily so they could create a religious empire.”

  “I hear Hebron’s nice this time of year.” I tried for funny, but the glare she shot me said I missed the mark. “So if he’s such a prick. Why are we here?”

  “Never underestimate the faithful. In this case, I mean the morons who hang on Adam’s every word. They are like an army of informants, all ready to squeal on thy neighbor at the drop of a hat.”

  “What makes you think they’ll know anything about the kid?”

  She glanced up at me, speaking slowly as if to a child. “What makes you think they won’t?”

  My lips tightened. “Before we go any further, you have to promise me something.”

  She nodded, looking like a little girl playing dress up, who is not quite sure how to walk in high heels.

  “No more answering questions with a question. From now on, when I ask you something, I want a straight answer. None of this Zen bullshit.”

  Relief flashed in her eyes. “Whatever you say, Grasshopper.”

  I rubbed my chin, debating just how long a stint I would serve if I strangled her, surely not more than twenty years. Hell, with God as a character witness I might get out in ten.

  Beep.

  The desktop computer drew my attention. Lilith tapped a couple more keys. “Bingo.” She hit print, and out shot a flyer with the kid’s picture on it.

  “Where did you get that?” I pointed to the paper.

  She tossed her black hair and smirked. “I’m more than just a pretty face.”

  I took a menacing step toward her.

  “Fine. Social Services. They keep track of all children in foster care, especially those places with… less than desirable foster parents.” She emphasized the last part for my benefit.

  Like Social Services, I knew just how undesirable a parent I was. Just last week, I fed the kid a box of cat chow for dinner. In my defense, cat was spelled kat, like kit-kat, so it was a mistake any parent could make.

  “You hacked the foster care computer?” I wondered what else she could do. Maybe erase a few traffic tickets?

  “Not really.” Her eyes sparkled. “Adam runs an orphanage, so his computer is linked to the mainframe. I just used his username and password to get in.”

  “And how did you know his username and password?”

  “BigManlyMan and GodsRightHand. Real tough. I was married to the guy after all.” She pushed from the desk, stood, and wandered to the puddle of Adam lying on the floor. “Wake up.” She smacked him on the forehead, none too lightly.

  “Ahaaaaa.” Adam’s eyes watered, but at least he was conscious.

  “I’m looking for a fourteen-month-old boy, and I need your help.”

  “Fuck you.” He shoved her away.

  Off balance in a pair of six-inch black leather platform boots, Lilith teetered before tipping backward onto Adam’s desk. The helpful computer flipped off the edge, and crashed onto the floor. Glass shattered and Adam shrieked.

  I grabbed Lilith, steadying her before advancing on Adam. He labored to his feet, swaying back and forth while gripping his package.

  Being a guy, I felt almost sorry for him. Almost. I smacked my fist into his stomach, and he dropped to the floor once more.

  “We’re going to try this again. A child is missing, and you’re going to help us find him, or else I’m going to rip you apart.”

  “Who are you?” he wheezed.

  Lilith answered, “Sorry. Adam, you know Nemamiah, the righter of injustice, and protector of the innocent. Remember, he destroys evil pricks like you who prey on innocence?”

  I choked. That damn name. I raised a questioning eyebrow. If she knew that name, what else did she know? Did she know about the kid? Or more importantly, why the hell was the kid given to me for protection? And why the fuck everyone believed I was Nemamiah in the first place? I decided to play along, acting the angel part even if it dammed me.

  “Now is not the time.” Her eyes bore into my quizzical ones. I gave a small nod, letting it go for the moment.

  “Nemamiah? Really?” Adam licked his lips.

  Exposed and dirtied by the look in his eye, I shook my head to rid myself of the feeling. What had Lilith seen in this douche? “No, I just go around telling people that. Now tell us what you know about the child before I—” What did angels do? Blow fire? Play really bad harp music?

  “One of my flock reported seeing a glowing child, but I didn’t pay him much mind.” He wiped the drying blood from his face. “He claimed the child turned a gallon of milk into whiskey, but what kind of miracle is that?”

  I grinned. I’d taught the kid that trick. “Where did he see the kid?”

  But I answered my own question, thinking back to the news report I heard on the radio. “Newark.” Hell’s own lair.

  Lilith’s face paled.

  “We need bigger guns.”

  Ten

  I drove the Gremlin through the deser
ted streets of Newark, New Jersey, with trepidation. Lilith, in the seat next to me, flexed her fingers on a big-ass gun, a .50 caliber Smith & Wesson Magnum 500 big-ass gun. This gun could take out a brick wall, three bodies, and a cow if fired right.

  “It’ll be okay.” I glanced at her for the tenth time, reassuring her more than myself. After all, I had nine lives and a moronic angel to watch my back. What did Lilith have? Me. Yep, she was good as fucked.

  “Stop saying that!” The crack of her palm against my jeans clad leg emphasized her desire for me to shut up. “Let’s just find the child and get the hell out of here.”

  While that was my plan, I couldn’t help but think it would be nice to know who pulled the strings. Neutralize that threat, and I’d have no more worries.

  The obvious answer was Satan, but why? And why now? The Alpha and the Omega guaranteed one thing, real estate prices in hell were about to skyrocket.

  “Pull in there.” Tapping the Jesus GPS planted in the dashboard of her Gremlin, Lilith grinned, and then pointed to a dark underground parking garage in the worst section of the city. Even the cops refused to stumble around down there.

  I did as she asked, braking hard as we slipped through the concrete structure. “You’ll be able to track the kid?”

  She nodded, pulling the Jesus GPS from the dashboard. It resembled a cell phone but thinner. We exited the car, taking a minute to adjust to the stench of New Jersey, and car exhaust. Once we got our bearings, she booted the GPS up, and blinked at the glaring beaming of light that burst from it.

  I jumped back, afraid of being burned by the whiteness. The light circled the car, and exploded into fifteen different glowing pinpoints.

  One of the beams shot through my chest. An odd feeling, sort of like a caress, but amplified by a couple thousand volts. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it also wasn’t a feeling I’d want to repeat. The light winked out after a few seconds, and I felt saddened by the departure.

  “What the hell was that?” I rubbed at the place where human had met flashlight.

  “Have you ever heard the saying: God works in mysterious ways?”