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

by J. A. Kazimer

  “Did you hear the one about the three Wise men—” the giant began, his pale eyes glowing with humor. The name patch on his mechanic’s shirt read Bob, but I had my doubts. No Bob was who he said he was.

  “They were not that wise,” the angel argued. “What wise man does not warn of the explosive properties of Myrrh?”

  To hide my laughter, I poked my head into the babypack to check on my charge. Bodhi hissed at the intrusion, but the kid just smiled, unconcerned.

  Bob stopped walking. “What’s with him?” He pointed to the angel.

  “No sense of humor.” I shook my head sadly. “It’s a curse really. So where is the car?”

  “Beyond those busted up Pintos.” Bob pointed in a far off direction, above waves of rusted car parts. “If I was you, I’d leave the baby here with that weird blond dude. It can get hairy back there, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen…”

  Nodding, I unstrapped the babypack and handed it to the angel. “Do not let the kid out of your sight.”

  “I will give your life to keep him safe,” the angel reassured me with a blank smile.

  Great. I motioned for “Bob” to lead the way, and together, we climbed the rusted metal piles like trained mountaineers. My boots slid across polished fenders, crunched over broken windshields, and waded through a sea of yellow-foamed seat cushions, finally landing on solid ground a few yards from Lilith’s prized Gremlin.

  The Gremlin looked a little worse for wear, with a broken headlight, and flat tire, which oddly improved the car’s overall appearance.

  “How much to get it out?” I reached into my jeans for a wad of cash borrowed from Lilith’s cookie jar. It wasn’t like she needed it anymore.

  Bob scratched his scraggly beard. “Well there’s the impound fee, plus towing charge, not to mention the storage fee.” His eyes watched the cash in my hand.

  “I’ll give you two hundred.” I smiled. “Cash. No paperwork, no fuss. You give me the keys, and I give you the cash.”

  “Deal.”

  We shook hands, his lizard like one grasped in mine. Seconds later, Bob passed me the Gremlin’s key. My throat constricted at the sight of it.

  Memories of Lilith rose inside my mind, pictures of her wicked smile and tattooed limbs. Her scent filtered across my senses, exotic tobacco, and woman.

  I swallowed hard, and took the key. It warmed in the palm of my hand, heating so rapidly the edges burned my skin. Shoving the key into the ancient ignition, I pumped the gas pedal and pummeled the dashboard.

  Bob stared at me, a look of disgust etched in the lines of his face. A look that said, ”let her go son. She’s way past her prime.”

  As much as I might agree, the Gremlin would suit my needs. I needed a way out of the city, and the Gremlin, flat tire and broken headlight aside, would carry the kid and me through the Lincoln tunnel and into the Garden of Evil State. Once inside New Jersey, I’d ditch the angel and shoot up I-80, disappearing in the cornfields of Iowa.

  Maybe I’d buy a farm some place, raise cows or something. The kid could have a normal life; have friends and a chance to be more than a sacrifice. I pictured the kid at eighteen, scared and desperate, as his sixteen-year-old girlfriend says she might be pregnant. Hell, even that would beat being stapled to a cross for a second time.

  I twisted the key and waited for the gurgling engine to catch. Brrrrrr.

  Grrrrr. Click. Click. Click.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” I yelled, slamming my fists against the steering column. I glared at the heavens. “WHY?”

  “Sounds like the alternator.” Bob leaned in the Gremlin’s open window. “Want me to take a look?”

  I jerked open the door, causing him to jump back. The hood creaked as I released the latch. Black, thick oil and grime like a decaying corpse covered the engine block. Wires stuck out everywhere, and damn if I could make any sense of it.

  Bob had followed me to the engine. He gave a soft whistle. “It looks like rats chewed through your battery cables.” Pulling out a red-coated wire, he shook his head.

  Not rats, hamsters. Angry sky-falling hamsters.

  “I can maybe rig it so it’ll start.” Bob shrugged, his giant shoulders bobbing up and down like the Golden Gate Bridge in an earthquake.

  I closed my eyes, and took a Zen-calming breath. It didn’t help.

  Fuck. “Do it.” I shoved another hundred dollars at him.

  He glanced down at the money and smiled. “You ever hear the one about the soldier and Saint Peter?”

  Forty Eight

  “Okay boy, you hold that wire tight while I start her up.” Bob nodded at the red wire clutched in my grease-coated hand.

  I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead. “I’m not going to get fried, right?” As much as I wanted the Gremlin fixed, I couldn’t shake my distrust of the overly friendly Bob. What kind of mechanic only charged a hundred bucks?

  Bob grinned at me and my perspiration covered sweatshirt. “You got insurance?”

  I shook my head. “The car’s not mine.”

  “I meant life insurance, boy.” His booming laughter bounced off the metal stacks of cars, making my head ache. “Now you hold tight,” he said, crawling into the driver’s seat of the Gremlin.

  A sudden shock of electricity curled around my body. My arms danced, jerking like an electrocuted toad as the wire dropped from my burnt fingers. The unattended wire sparked once, twice, and went still.

  The Gremlin’s engine followed suit. It jerked once, twice, and with a sputtering cough died. A slow whistle of steam burped from the radiator, but that was the extent of its resurrection.

  Fuck.

  “Damn, I thought we had it.” Bob maneuvered his large frame from the driver’s seat. “Did you let go of that wire, boy?”

  I wiped my tingling hands on my pant leg. “Nope, I held tight just like you said.” For the most part. “How about we try it one more time?”

  “Fine.” Bob raised an eyebrow like he didn’t quite believe me. “But if I see you let go of that wire, I’m gonna pound ya.”

  I grinned. “Why don’t you hold it, and I’ll start her up?”

  Instead of answering, he dropped back into the Gremlin and gave me a thumbs up. I closed my eyes, grabbed the hot wire, and prepared for a few thousand volts.

  Buzz. Zap.

  The skin on my fingers melted into the red-coated plastic. Pain seared from the battery to my brain, every nerve ending sparking with General Electric power.

  Bzzzzz. Crack.

  The ends of my hair danced high above my head. Electrical sparks shot from my toes, scorching my black leather boots and the ground beneath them. My teeth slammed together, crunching under the brutal assault.

  Boom!

  Fire exploded underneath my hands, and the Gremlin vaporized before my eyes. Simmering waves of hot air and a violent barrage of Gremlin parts and Bob epidermis splattered me.

  Fuck.

  A bomb, I thought, seconds before blackness devoured me.

  Forty Nine

  “What the fuck did you do to my car?” a woman screamed in my newly restructured eardrums. The blast had scrambled all five of my senses, and even addled my sixth sense.

  I now saw dead people.

  And boy did Lilith look angry. Beautiful, but pissed. But appearance could be deceiving. Or not, I thought as the palm of her hand smacked me in the back of the head.

  “Lilith?” My voice sounded overused, like a teenaged girls favorite CD. I rubbed away the black soot staining my eyes. Was I dead? Had the explosion killed me?

  “No, stupid.” Lilith chuckled, swiping at her mud covered sleeve.

  “You’re not dead, and neither am I. Next time make sure the resurrection didn’t take before you bury me.” She bent down beside me. “Your pant leg’s on fire.”

  “God, I missed you.” I slapped at the burning denim, and smiled.

  Having her next to me felt right, like the world was finally in order. Of c
ourse, I’d just cheated death, so that might have been part of it.

  “I missed you too.” She pulled me to my feet, and held me while my equilibrium caught up with the rest of my body.

  My fingertips traced the curve of her neck, feeling the tattooed ink under the pads of my fingers. The blood rushing in my ears dispersed lower, filling my thoughts with lustful visions of Lilith naked under me.

  Again she read my mind, and pushed my wayward hands away.

  “Now’s not the time for a reunion. Someone just blew up my car.”

  I weaved back and forth, shaking Bob parts from my ear canal. “And Bob too.”

  “Who’s Bob?”

  “That’s Bob.” I pointed to a blackened spot on the ground where pieces of charred Bob had landed. “He looked better before, but not by much.”

  Lilith shot me a look, anger burned in her eyes. “How can you joke? You nearly died.”

  I shrugged. “I’m getting used to it. Bright white light. Sweet smell of roses. Saint Peter and a harp.” Frowning, I added, “Tell me, when did Heaven start smelling like a whorehouse?”

  Softly Lilith’s hands brushed the battered, broiled skin of my face, running over the edges with careful grace, or dare I think it, love. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked, biting her lower lip.

  No, I wasn’t all right. My dead lover was alive, leaving me with a thousand questions and a million insecurities. What if our feelings had been a fluke, a desire to protect the kid that turned into more? What did I really know about my demon lover?

  Smack. Lilith slapped me hard across the back. “Knock it off. We don’t have time for this. We have to get you into hiding.”

  I shook my head, focusing on her words. “Me? It’s the kid they’re after. They want to use him to create…” I realized my mistake as I said the words. The less the demonic Lilith knew about the prophecy the safer we’d all be.

  “Jace, I’m sorry.” Tears grew in her yellow eyes. “There’s so much I have to tell you.”

  “Tell me what exactly?”

  The stench of sulfur swirled around us, thickening the already burnt air.

  “Later.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me over steel mounds of automobile corpses, and tractor bones. “I’ll tell you everything later. Please,” she added, voice breaking on the plea.

  I nodded, and followed her across the wreckage of the junkyard.

  With each step my need to know the truth receded, replaced with a frantic desire to find and protect the kid. I broke into a run, leaving Lilith in my wake.

  I rounded a stack of burned out Pintos and stopped dead. On the ground lay the angel, greenish blood pooling around his serene face. In the angel’s arms was an empty kidsack. The kid and cat gone.

  “Who did this?” I bent down next to the angel, wiping an aqua tear from his perfect cheek. My eyes scanned the automobile graveyard, seeking and searching for a target. Someone, anyone to blame, but the truth was there, reflecting off the rusted metal bumped of a Volkswagen bus. Me. I was the only one to blame.

  I was the angel, Nemamiah. The protector of the innocent. And yet, I’d lost the most innocent of all, not once, but twice.

  Jesus, I sucked at this.

  “Nemamiah, grant me one last wish…” the angel said in a choked whisper. Blood spilled from his pearly pink lips, staining them a muddy green.

  Tire screeched a hundred yards in front of us. A white mini-van spun around a row of junked cars and into the busy street. In the passenger seat, a bald-headed man with a tattooed wrist held the kid in his muscular arms. The man grinned at me, a gold tooth shining from his mouth.

  Fuck.

  I started to run, pushing every ounce of energy through my limbs.

  “What about my last request?” the angel called after me.

  “Later,” I yelled, continuing after the mini-van.

  “Jace, wait!” Lilith screamed, but I ignored her and kept running.

  My legs took on a life of their own, muscles straining underneath battered skin. I hit the street seconds after the mini-van rounded the next corner.

  Don’t fucking lose him, my brain ordered.

  Five blocks from the junkyard, the mini-van took a left onto Broadway. I ran behind, eating up the distance between us in the mid-afternoon traffic. My appreciation for the city grew. Nobody went anywhere fast. Unless faced with divine intervention—yeah right—I would not lose the kid a second time.

  A pain in my side formed just below my ribcage. Not intense, more of a steady burn. The kind of burn marathon runners and escaping criminals know all about. I shifted my gait to relive the pressure, and barreled ahead.

  Even if it killed me, I wouldn’t let the kid down again.

  The driver of the mini-van sped up, whipping around the avenue, tires ripping up the pavement.

  Shit.

  A hole the size of Rhode Island opened in front of me. The stench of hell fire rose from its depths. Thick clouds of blackness shot from the pit, covering the street in darkness.

  I slammed on my mental brakes, stumbled, and flew headfirst toward the pit of hell. Could this day get any fucking worse?

  Fifty

  Stupid fucking question. Dangling by the tips of my fingertips over the black hole of hell forced me to reevaluate. Yeah, as a matter of fact, shit could, did, and would get worse.

  Dead dammed hands caressed my legs, tugging me into the blackened depths. Voice called from down below. Sweet, feminine appeals much like Odyssey’s sirens, but their song was anything but pleasant.

  “Come sail away, come sail away…”

  Goddamn Styx. If I survived this, I’d make it my mission to kill off every member of that fucking group.

  I swung my leg toward the edge of the hellhole, using my body as a pendulum. Back and forth my lower limbs swayed, until, by the grace of God, my boot heal hooked the edge of the blacktop.

  Pushing up with my last threads of strength, I climbed back from hell and kissed the filthy New York sidewalk. Oddly, it tasted much like a Wisconsin sidewalk, and bubble gum.

  As quickly as the hellish hole had formed, it disappeared, leaving a pentagram burned into the avenue inches from my puckered lips.

  I glanced up the street, praying for a sign of the malevolent mini-van.

  It had vanished too, as had my one and only charge. Some fucking protector I was. For a second time in a week, I’d lost God’s son. But this time, I had an idea where to find him, and there would be hell to pay when I did.

  ~ * ~

  “He can’t be dead.” I shook my head, my eyes darting around the packed bus. Lilith and I rode across town on our way to her apartment. A bum snored in the seat next to Lilith, drooling on the sleeve of her jacket.

  “I’m sorry, Jace,” Lilith said, pushing the bum away and tentatively touching my hand.

  I brushed her away and gazed out at traffic. After a second or two, I spoke, my voice filled with anger, “He’s a fucking angel for God sakes. Angels don’t die.”

  “They don’t die, not like you or I...” Her eyes drifted to the bright gray sky barely visible through the grimy window. “But he’s not of this world anymore. God called him home, and you can’t, no matter how much you want to, bring him back.”

  “Who says I’d want to? I’m better off without his constant bitching. I do not like this, or that,” I added in a fair imitation of the angel. “I’d have to be a masochist to miss him.” But miss him I did, like a cancer, or famine.

  “And we both know you’re anything but masochistic.” She winked at me. “However, there’s something more important to think about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Without the angel you’re as good as dead.”

  Some faith Lilith had in my abilities. Next she’d be fitting me for bubble wrap and health insurance. It wasn’t like I was completely useless. I’d survived thirty-three fairly violent years of life without an angel. What was a few more? I frowned, my beaten ego igniting my anger.

  �
��Don’t be like that.” She pushed a piece of hair behind her ear and focused on my face. “I just don’t want you taking any risks.”

  “Risks, huh?” I gave a bitter laugh. “In other words, put my faith in, and leave finding the kid to, you.”

  The bus lurched sending Lilith careening towards the gum-puckered floor. I caught her in time, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing harder than necessary.

  “Would it be so bad? Me finding Jesus?” Her eyelashes blinked at me. Pretty, black lashes. Innocent black lashes. Demonic lying lashes.

  Hell yes. I grinned, about to get some much-deserved payback. “But you’re just a girl.”

  Her eyes flashed red, burning with a strong desire to strangle me. Her murderous musings were telegraphed in the way she choked the empty kidsack in her hands.

  I smiled, which caused Lilith to growl. Shaking my index finger in front of her face, I warned, “Don’t do it. I’m fragile remember?”

  “God dammit, Jace.” Smack. Her fist connected with my jaw. “Be serious, please. I can protect him.” The “you can’t” was left unsaid, but it rankled all the same.

  “God dammit, Lilith.” I grabbed her chin in my hand, forcing her yellow eyes to mine. “I’m Nemamiah. Not you. It’s my destiny to protect the kid.”

  She twisted from my grip and bowed her head. “Yeah well, about that...”

  Fifty One

  “You fucking bitch!” I slammed my fist into the door of Lilith’s apartment, barely missing the back of her lying head. The door took its revenge though, busting three out of four of the knuckles on my right hand.

  Lilith held up her hand. “Relax, already. And I repeat, none of this was my fault. Eight months ago, I was lying on a beach being oiled up by naked Grecian men, not fucking up your pathetic little existence.” Her smile widened. “Blame your dead angel and God if you want, but leave me out of it.”

  “But you knew. The whole time you knew the angel had made a mistake, and I wasn’t Nemamiah.” A vein deep inside my forehead throbbed, swelling with the rising pressure of my rage.