“Jace, please.” She touched my arm. Fear radiated from her. The scent of it heightened the predator instinct inside me.
Kill. Destroy. “Don’t get in my way.” Her eyes widened and wetness swelled at the edges. I took a deep breath, softening my warning. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
~ * ~
Lights flashed, blue and red, off pools of melting snow. Cops directed traffic past the small church on the corner of W. 49th Street. St.
Malachy’s church. The saint of prophesies. The church for actors. Douglas Fairbanks married Joan Crawford within its stone walls. Had the sainted Malachy predicted that?
Lilith stopped the Gremlin a block from the yellow crime scene tape.
She touched my hand with icy fingers. “You don’t have to come with me.”
Yeah, I did. I shot her a sad smile, opened my car door, and stepped into the frigid night.
The church hid between skyscrapers and landmarks. Its steeple welcomed the faithful, but not this night. I patted my nine-millimeter and stepped under the crime scene tape. A brown-skinned cop held up a hand to stop me, but I shoved him aside.
“Hey, buddy.” The cop charged me, his hand hovering over the gun tucked safely in its holster. With a glance, Lilith froze him in place much as she’d done to Hades the night before. She whispered to him, “Now is not the time.”
The cop gurgled with what I assumed to be agreement, and Lilith and I disappeared inside. Entering the church, I half expected her to burst into flames, but not even a hair on her head appeared out of place.
“It’s not like in the books,” she said, reading my thoughts.
I nodded, but a white sheet draped over the wooden cross at the alter drew my attention. I raised my eyes to heaven and cursed. I cursed God, who sacrificed his son twice. I cursed the bastards who killed an innocent child.
And I cursed myself. The kid had trusted me and I let him down. What kind of man failed a child? I was no better than the man who’d fathered me and walked away.
I pictured the kid’s chubby cheeks, and his random ‘miracles’ like making his pooh dance in the toilet during potty training, or raising fleas from the dead after I bug bombed the apartment. I’d miss him.
A plainclothes detective stepped in front of me, snapping me from my memories. She wore an ugly blue suit with wide shoulder pads and a butch haircut. Her demeanor screamed cop, but her clothes yelled for a dry cleaner. Her eyes drifted past me, to Lilith, and back to me. “You can’t be in here,” she said.
“He’s his guardian.” Lilith gestured to the wooden cross.
The detective raised an eyebrow. “Really? Is that what they call it?”
Lilith frowned at the woman, but I ignored her. Instead, I walked toward the cross. My stomach knotted. I wanted to puke, to rid myself of the grief and guilt. Bile crawled up my throat, an acidy burn that stayed with me even as I swallowed it down.
Gripping the edge of the sheet, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The fabric felt rough, prickly against my fingertips. It was an unworthy blanket for the kid underneath.
Lifting the edge, I peered at the body of God’s only son, and started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. Mirth bubbled from deep inside me, exploding from my lungs with gales of laughter.
Catching my breath, I peeked under the sheet just to make sure. Yep, a two-foot, transvestite Chinese hooker dressed in black leather and holding a riding crop stared back at me. His dead eyes twinkled like twin black holes.
As suddenly as my laughter started, it died at the sight of the black book in his hand. My Bible. The one I’d left on the street the night before. I glanced around the church. Was this a warning? Or a setup?
“Are you all right, Jace?” Lilith stroked my shoulder as if I’d lost my mind. Was she offering me comfort or looking for a place to stick a knife?
Was my paranoia showing?
No, I wasn’t okay but now was not the time to discuss it. Relief warred with my growing paranoia. Wherever I went, an unknown force followed, always one step ahead of me. I shook my head, and motioned to the Bible in the dead guy’s hand. Lilith’s eyes widened and she let out a small gasp.
The detective shot us a questioning look. Shit, it was time to go. I reached for Lilith’s hand and headed toward the front doors. For once, she didn’t argue but meekly followed my lead.
“Wait.” The detective held up a hand to stop us. “I need to see some identification.”
“Now would be a good time to use that freezing thing,” I whispered to Lilith out of the corner of my mouth.
She winced. “I can’t. Hallowed ground.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. I turned to smile at the detective. “I lost my wallet.”
She rubbed her chin. “You look a little like a suspect we’re looking for. Jace Miller? He’s traveling with a black haired woman with tattoos.”
“Really?” A wrinkle arched in my forehead. “Can’t say I’ve seen them.”
She pulled out a pair of thick steel bracelets. “Mr. Miller, you’re under arrest for murder.”
“What?” I backed up a step. “Of who?”
The detective smirked. “The man founded incinerated inside your apartment, and your girlfriend’s,” she waved to Lilith, “ex-husband, the reverend Adam Just.”
Twenty Four
Lilith’s eyes flashed to mine. “Did you really kill Adam?” She stepped between the detective and me, and gave me a hard shove.
“Hell, no.” I pushed her back, and she, arms flailing, fell into the detective. The impact knocked the shorter woman to the floor. Her eyes rolled around like dice in her head before settling on snake eyes.
“I’m so sorry.” Lilith reached to help the woman up, but instead of assisting her managed to take the detective’s handcuffs, and shackle her to the nearest pew.
“Time to go.” Grinning, I grabbed Lilith’s hand and we ran for the front doors. Lilith frowned, but didn’t slow her steps. “And just when things started to get fun.”
We flew down the church steps, pushing through the crime scene tape and across the street before anyone tried to stop us.
The buzz of a taser sparked to life behind us. “Stop or I will be forced to apply non-lethal force in the form of a taser. A taser is a handheld electrical device that propels twin prongs into the skin of the person of interest. These prongs act as conductors to a specified amount, the amount is adjusted in accordance with the state and local regulations, of electricity or volts, if you will. Following application, you, as the person of interest will be rendered…”
I glanced back, eyeing the same cop I had assaulted earlier. He readied his taser while reading off a list of warnings and side effects. “A taser can cause burns, epilepsy, and even death. It should not be used on persons who are pregnant or may become pregnant.” He flipped the card over.
“Occasionally an erection lasting four or more hours can occur.” He paused before reading further. Lilith and I stopped running, and stood waiting for the poor guy to finish.
“The use of the taser does not imply guilt. By acknowledging the taser warning, you agree to forgo all legal right to sue the NYPD, or any of its subsidiaries, for any and all harm perpetrated by your tasing. Do you understand these warnings as I have just read them?” The cop looked expectantly at me.
I shrugged. “I do?”
He nodded and aimed the taser. I wasn’t stupid, so I took off again, running at full steam to the Gremlin parked a hundred feet ahead. Fifty feet.
Ten.
The buzz of electricity sent chills up my spine, but I didn’t feel anything. No zap of pain. No frequent burning or irritation. Nothing.
Ahead of me, Lilith stopped, and my momentum carried me over the top of her. “Look,” she said, pointing to the cop. My eyes followed her finger to the cop, who stood in the middle of the street covered in burnt angel feathers. The angel, his face black with rage, hovered a few feet off the ground berating the poor officer.
“I should smite you.” The
angel wagged a wing at the horrified policeman.
“Ummm… Angel?” I cleared my throat. “No smiting. Pick up your—” I pointed to the feathers on the ground “—stuffing and let’s get the hell out of here.”
He glared at me, but did as I ordered; scooping up bits of burnt angel, licking it, and sticking it back on. The cop bent over to help, and together, they glued most of his feathers in place.
“Sorry about that,” the cop muttered. “They warned us in the academy never to use a taser on a bird.”
~ * ~
I stretched out on Lilith’s white sheeted bed and stared at her white painted ceiling. Her entire apartment lacked color with its white walls, white furniture, and white cat, a white cat currently chewing on a napping angel’s wing.
“Bodhi, no.” Lilith waved the cat away. “If you get an angel ball mommy will be mad.”
The cat hissed, swatted at Lilith’s hand, and scampered off. To do what, I wasn’t sure, but I planned to sleep with one eye open just in case. The cat all but purred pure evil.
“What’s with the white?” I turned on my side to watch Lilith. She was making up a spot on the couch for me to sleep, but I had other ideas.
Tossing a pillow on the cushion, she said, “I like white.”
“Okay, but why?” I chuckled. “Aren’t you supposed to decorate in sacrificial blood and black leather?”
“You’re one to talk.” She fluffed the pillow, and added a blanket. A white blanket. “The best decorating ever done to your place was a three alarm fire.”
“Started by you, by the way.”
She shot me a dirty look. “Was not.”
“Was too, but I’m not going to argue the point. I do, however, have to ask.” I sucked in a breath. “What the fuck was Adam doing in my bed?”
“You’re irresistible?” She sauntered toward me, running her hand across her colorless comforter. “He couldn’t control himself?”
“That’s a given.” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away. “But why was he there? Did he know something about the kid?”
Lilith sat on the edge of the bed. Not close enough to touch, but the scent of her tickled my lust. She gave me a measured look. “I don’t know. And your Bible, how did it wind up in a dead hooker’s hand?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not how you think.”
“Maybe we’re going at this all wrong.”
Frowning, I said, “How so?”
“Instead of searching for J.C., why don’t we make him come to us?”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” I crawled across the bed, my hands and knees sinking into the softness.
“He does like to raise things from the dead...”
“No.”
“Come on, Jace. It will be fun.”
“Fun? ” I grabbed her shoulder and knocked her back onto the bed.
“Killing me does not sound like fun.”
With a laugh, she said, “It does to me.”
Twenty Five
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” a priest said as the first clumps of Earth crashed against the coffin. My body lay inside, choking on wood chips and dirt. A chorus of amens and wailing followed. The wailing came from my mom, and the amens from Lilith. Sweet Mary and the angel rounded out the attendees at my mock funeral.
The angel, too busy comparing himself to the statue of an angel on the grave next door, failed to respond to my death glares from the cloud above. Yeah, cloud. One more thing the angel had lied about.
God patted my shoulder. “Is your cloud not to your liking?”
“No, it’s great.” I smiled at the Benevolent One, and wondered again how he managed to be God and look like a hippie. He wore Birkenstocks, for fuck sakes. “Thanks for letting me stay here,” I added after a long pause.
“No problem.” He smiled through that lie. The fight between God and Satan over my soul had taken days. I hovered somewhere between life and death while some heavenly accounting nerd listed my every sin. God claimed they were minor vices, a boy merely sowing his wild oats. Satan, on the other hand, argued breaking almost every commandment constituted damnation, or at least, a day spent watching reruns of last season of American Idol.
Oddly, the decision came back to the woman who’d killed me in the first place. Lilith had pulled Satan aside, and after a brief consultation, I was fitted for a pair of lopsided wings and my own cloud, white of course. So there I sat, waiting for the kid to free me from Heaven, so I could send his kidnappers to hell.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Mary hugged my mom, squeezing a few more tears from the older woman’s eyes. “Jace was a great man.”
My mom gave her a watery smile. “Did you know him well?”
“Yes.” Mary sniffed into a lace handkerchief. “I planned on having his babies.”
Babies? Wait a minute.
Lilith planted a protective arm on my mother’s shoulder, knocking Mary back a step. “Jace had faults,” she said, drawing my mom’s attention.
“He liked to drink, slept with the occasional hooker, and used the Lord’s name in vain, a lot.”
My mom looked horrified.
Mary rushed to my defense. “But he also protected those he considered defenseless, and he helped old people across the street.”
“If they gave him a dollar.” Lilith shrugged and glanced down at her black painted nails.
That bitch. When I got off this fucking cloud, I was going to ring her neck. A sudden realization struck me. What if I never got off this cloud?
What if the kid didn’t show? Had Lilith talked me into this to get me out of the way?
Below a girl-on-girl catfight erupted. Clothing flew in various directions. Jenna Jameson replaced my mom, and things got interesting.
~ * ~
Smack. “Pig.” Lilith lay on her big white bed next to me, her hand stinging from the smack to my cheek.
I cracked my eyes open. “Hey, it’s my fantasy. I can have whoever I want naked in it.”
“Okay, it’s a bad idea.” She rubbed her chin. “We don’t even know if J.C. has the power to raise the dead yet, and even if he does, why the hell would he want you back on Earth.”
“There is that, and I doubt I’d be waiting around in heaven.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I have my doubts about that too.” Her palm struck my cheek again with a thwack. “And why am I always a bitch in your fantasies and Mary’s so fucking sweet?”
“I call it like I see it.”
Lilith rammed her foot into my side and kicked me from her bed.
“Well, see it from the couch then.”
I stumbled to my feet with a grin. “Come on, I was teasing. Mary has her flaws.”
“Oh yeah. Name one?” Lilith tucked her arms across her chest. “I’m waiting.”
“She’s not a natural blonde.” Whether she was or not, I had no idea, or did I care? But Lilith seemed to consider my words.
“What else?” She licked her lips.
“Well, she’s a morning person, and she sings in the shower.” Both traits, that while endearing at first, after ten years of marriage became motive.
“Oh, I hate that.” She smiled. “Adam used to wake up at five every morning. Said something stupid about a bird, and a worm. So one morning when he woke me to make him breakfast, I fried up a pound of worms and told him it was sausage.” She rubbed at a scar above her left eye. “He was not amused.”
I was glad he was dead; otherwise, I’d have to kill him. No wonder Lilith had left him for Satan. How much worse could hell be?
“I didn’t leave Adam for Satan.”
God, I hated when she read my mind. “How’d you end up,” I motioned to her, “like this?”
Instead of taking offense, like most of the woman of my acquaintance, she said, “How did you?”
“What do you mean?” I frowned. “The angel came to my door with the kid in his arms and I let him in.”
“But why?”
Good question. “I don�
�t know.” That was a lie. I’d let the kid in because I’d had no choice. It was him or the voices, and as annoying as the kid was, the voices were worse. Deadly, in fact. Nevertheless, the voices were something I didn’t plan on sharing with anyone, let alone the queen of all succubae.
“Liar.” She pulled the sheet over her, and flicked off her bedroom light leaving me to stumble to the couch in the dark. “’Night, Nemamiah,” she said. “Try and keep me out of your dreams.”
Twenty Six
The rest of the night, I spent tossing on the too small couch dreaming about Lilith. The morning brought both good and bad news. I woke to the delicious aroma of frying eggs, and sausage—not worms—cooking in Lilith’s all-white kitchen.
Staggering from the couch, I pulled on a pair of jeans and followed the scent of food. The angel, missing a chunk of cat-chewed wing, stood at the stove, a pan of perfectly scrambled eggs and seared sausage in front of him.
“As she left, the mean one said not to wake you.” The angel glanced from the pan. “I did not want to get hit, so I did as she ordered.”
I glanced around the apartment. The cat stared at me from the kitchen table, coughed once, and spit a ball of angel at me. It landed on the floor at my feet. Kicking it under the table, I sat down. “Where did she go?”
“To visit the blonde one.”
“What?” I stood quickly. “And you let her?”
“I am your keeper, not hers.” He stuck his chin in the air. “Now, do you want your eggs with cheese?”
Shit. I searched the kitchen for enough cash for a taxi. It was hard being a kept man. The angel asked again if I wanted cheese, this time with a huff in his voice.
Tossing open the stove drawer, I yelled, “Forget the eggs, we have to stop Lilith.”
“But why? One is no match for the other.”
“That’s my point.” I hit pay dirt in the cookie drawer—ten one hundred dollar bills. I peeled off one, wrote an IOU, and raced out of the apartment.
On the cab ride to Mary’s I pictured various scenarios, each ended with Lilith beating Mary into a mushy pink mess. What I didn’t imagine was the scene that greeted me.
Holy Socks and Dirtier Demons (v1.1) (clean fmt) Page 10
