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

by J. A. Kazimer

  She shrugged. Shrugged for fuck sakes, as if my last eight months of Messiah-laced hell mattered little in the big picture.

  “So why did you do it? Why keep it all a secret? Wasn’t it in hell’s best interest to tell me the truth?” I stepped back, waiting for Lilith to enter the apartment. Her shriek of disgust almost made up for her deceit.

  Apparently, I wasn’t Nemamiah or a decent housekeeper. Served her right.

  After a few minutes of bitching and violent hurling of heavy objects at my head, Lilith sat on the couch. Deflated.

  I moved a nacho cheese covered couch cushion to the floor and sat next to her. “Sorry about this.” My hand waved around the filthy room. “Guess I’m not a good maid.” Which was partly true.

  A loud sigh erupted from her. “Forget it. In the scheme of things, a cheese soaked couch doesn’t seem quite that bad.” She twisted to face me.

  “Jace, I really am sorry about lying to you. God thought it best to keep up the charade, at least until...”

  “Until what? I died?” Stupid fucking dogma. “And you listened to Him? What? Are you fucking God now too?” Yeah, I’m an asshole. A sudden question popped into my head, and my hand fisted. “That’s why you’re alive again? Give God a blow job and it’s resurrection time.”

  A flash of light shot through the apartment, narrowly missing my left foot. A crack of thunder followed, as did a right hook from Lilith.

  Smack. My brain rattled inside my head, and an explosion of blood shot from my cracked lip.

  “Fine, I deserved that.” My fist uncurled, and I wiped at the trail of warm blood dripping down my chin. “But tell me it’s not true. For once let’s try for a little honesty.”

  “And ruin a perfectly good relationship?” She smiled, and for a minute, my rage disappeared. Her beauty had grown on me. Slowly at first, but since the day I’d met Lilith, I’d felt as if we belonged together. Forever.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  She smacked me. “You don’t have to make it sound like a curse,” her voice rose with each word. “And you want honesty? Here goes, you and Jesus should’ve never met. You and me should’ve never happened, and you should be dead right now. How’s that for a reality check?”

  Yeah, I could’ve done without it, but at least we were getting somewhere. Me being dead for one thing was a topic I’d liked to pursue further.

  Rubbing at my bruised face, I said, “Explain to me again how the angel mistook me for Nemamiah.”

  “All right, but it doesn’t change anything.” Lilith launched into a tale of stupidity, lack of angel GPS, and an overall comedy of errors.

  It seemed that following the Myrrh explosion; the angel was given an address in New York City. An address for the real Nemamiah.

  In true idiot angel fashion, he took the wrong train. But the stupidity did not end there. Instead of asking for help, he decided to wander the streets.

  This eventually led him smack into the Grim Reaper, literally. And according to Lilith, the Grim Reaper was on a mission of his own, namely to collect my wayward soul.

  In the clichéd collision, the angel accidentally pocketed my address, and unfortunately, for Nemamiah, Death ended up on the protector of innocents’ doorstep.

  My brow furrowed. “So Nemamiah’s dead?”

  Lilith shot me a crooked smile. “Not exactly.” Her story continued...

  Death realized the mistake quickly enough, but by then, it was too late to stop the angel’s and my fated meeting.

  God decided, in His vast wisdom, to wait and see how things worked out. After all, Jesus had taken an instant liking to me, and it wasn’t like I had much else going on.

  I held up my hand in disbelief. “You’re telling me, God just gambled on the life of the Second Coming with a semi-suicidal ex-soldier?”

  “Not exactly.” Lilith wrapped a strand of her blue-black hair around her finger, and finished the tale in a far-off voice.

  On the day Jesus arrived on my doorstep, God called forth Nemamiah, and together they came up with a plan. While I protected the kid, by His heavenly order, Nemamiah would protect both of us. But with one condition, because with God there was always a hoop to jump through, Nemamiah could not interfere unless I asked for intervention.

  Everything was going great until the night the kid disappeared.

  Nemamiah watched the kidnapping, pleaded with the Lord to intervene, and was denied.

  It wasn’t until the next night, in a darkened hell’s pit, that Nemamiah broke her vow with God…

  Fifty Two

  “What?” I pushed from the couch, caught the edge of my pinky toe on the coffee table, and screamed. “You’re fucking kidding me right?”

  Lilith shook her head. “It doesn’t change anything. It’s just a name.”

  “The hell it doesn’t.” Hopping on one foot, I paced the living room; drips of toe-blood spilling onto her now dotted pink carpet. “How did Lilith, evil incarnate and mother of all succubae, become the protector of innocents?”

  “I’m good with a resume?” She grinned, unrepentant. “I didn’t start off evil, Jace. A cheating husband and a shitty job pretty much killed my wholesome, human glow, though.”

  “So how did you get here?”

  “After Adam’s betrayal, I was so angry, so filled with hate, I turned to Samuel. He offered me something I never had. Power. Power over life. Over death. Sure, there were drawbacks.”

  “Samuel being one of them, right?” Jealousy turned my voice sharp.

  She nodded. “After a few years with Samuel, I realized power wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. And I was sick of being the mistress of evil. It wasn’t like it was my life’s ambition or anything. And then came the day, everything changed...”

  I couldn’t take it in. Lilith was Nemamiah, and I was nothing but a plaything to the asshole ruling the Heavens. Like a cat with a ball of string, Lilith had molded my every move. Was that what Adam had come to tell me before he conveniently incinerated at my apartment?

  Fuck.

  She was saying, “The First Coming gave a sermon on the side of a mountain around 30 AD, that day my true path was clear.” Her eyes sparkled, yellow irises dancing in the sunlight poking through the windows.

  “I swore I would do whatever I could to save him the second time around. And so God in all His infinite wisdom—” surprisingly she said this without sarcasm “—forgave me, the Mother of all Succubae, and granted me His love, and the name Nemamiah, and all that it entails. When Jesus was kidnapped, God asked me for help, and I gave it without question.”

  “How noble,” I sneered, each syllable echoing my disgust. After all, she’d done nothing but question and argue with me since the day we met.

  What made Him so special? A second bolt of lightening barely missed my toe. I stomped out the small fire burning her carpet. “So Nemamiah, where do we go from here?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and before I knew what hit me, she’d tackled me to the floor. Her lithe body pressed intimately to mine, like the lovers we once were. And would never be again, I vowed.

  But my penis had other plans though. My fingers threaded around her waist, pulling her closer until our naughty parts folded into one.

  I stroked the small of her arched back, exploring the ridges of her spine. Her breath, hot and fast against my neck, smelled of temptation. When her tongue darted out between her lips, my will was lost.

  Awash in the need to feel her naked skin, and to watch as her control slipped away to reveal the woman beneath the deity, I swallowed a groan before losing myself in the taste of her skin.

  “I have to find Jesus, alone,” Lilith whispered, her mouth pressed against the hollow of my throat.

  “Later.” I kissed her hard, taking my time.

  We had plenty of time left. Of that, I was sure. I knew where the kid was, thanks to a small tattoo, and unless I was an idiot—a possibility I’d rather not think about—the kid would be safe until I arrived.

  ~ *
~

  I smiled down at a sleeping Lilith, our limbs tangled together from a frenzy of animalistic sexual positions, and bodily fluids.

  Protector of innocents she might be, but after what we’d done, no one would mistake her for wholesome. The claw marks covering the back of my calves bore witness to that.

  Untangling my arms from Lilith, I kissed her forehead. “Don’t wait up,” I whispered as I eased from her white-sheeted bed and wiggled into a pair of jeans. My finger grazed the scar on the back of her neck.

  Looking back on the last week or so, my rage faded, replaced by self-disgust. I’d been stupider than the angel had. Lilith hadn’t tried to kill me.

  She’d been protecting me. In her own fucked-up way, she’d saved my life.

  The pit of hell was a great example.

  To keep me from catching the mini-van, and dying in a hail of gunfire, she’d employed Satan and a hell-pit. Fucked-up, right? All the same, warmth filled my heart.

  Well, no more safety net, today I’d face my enemy and bring the Messiah home. After that, who knew? Maybe I’d turn water into wine, or part the Red Sea.

  Fifty Three

  I grabbed a cab outside Lilith’s apartment, surprising since I dragged Tyrfing in my wake. But the taxi driver barely glanced my way. I guessed what they say was true; New York cabbies had seen it all, and if they hadn’t seen it, they’d sure as hell had cleaned it off the floor of their cab.

  On the street in front of the Heavenly Grace Buddhist Temple, I paid the cabbie, slung Tyrfing over my shoulder, and marched into my final reward. My destination was clear, at least it was to my mind. People on the street might’ve wonder why I carried a sword into a Buddhist temple, but it wasn’t their place to question.

  The front door was locked, so I rang the bell and awaited my fate.

  “I'm sailing away…la…la…la…,” I began to sing, my mind focused on what was to come.

  “Shut up,” CPA Buddhist Number One declared, throwing open the temple’s door. “I hate that fucking song. Where exactly were they sailing away to anyways? Does anybody know?” His eyes focused on me, and the sword in my hands. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want? More masticated flesh of an innocent cow?”

  “Where are they?” I pointed Tyrfing in his direction, its tip inches from his robe-covered heart.

  “Who…?” The CPA shook his bald head.

  Tyrfing slid through my hands, and straight through CPA’s black-heart. Blood welled from the wound, spurting at intervals like the flapping of butterfly wings. He coughed once and dropped to the floor, dead.

  In another life, I might have felt bad. But today, fuck it, he’d gotten in my way. I stepped over his flabby body, pulled Tyrfing from his gut, and entered my very own pit of hell.

  The temple looked the same as it had a few days before. Simple, clean, and no new Jesus smell. My eyes scanned the hallway, quickly gathering intel, and a way to escape.

  A closed door led to what I assumed was another room, but really for all I knew, it was a Buddhist bathroom. Did Buddhist bathe? The ones at the airport never smelled too clean. More like marijuana and brownie mix.

  Damn, I wished I had more time. Time to think of a better plan. Time to say goodbye. Carefully, I crept along the hallway, glancing around corners and peeking through doorways. The place appeared empty, not a dude in a robe anywhere.

  For a let-go-of-material-things religion, their temple had all the glitz one could imagine. I was a little surprised the floor wasn’t plated in gold.

  Lining the hallway were Monets, Picassos, and a knocked-off Warhol or two. My fingers, blackened with dust, brushed the paintings frames as I admired the balls it took to hang such a collection, here, out in the open, in one of the most dangerous cities in America.

  That brought up an interesting question. Either these Buddhist had a hell of an insurance premium, or something otherworldly protected their lair.

  A low moan from the upstairs sent a shiver up my spine.

  I climbed the steps, a whisper of dread creeping along the soles of my feet. The temple all but vibrated with danger. Doom, death, and, I sniffed the foul air. Sulfur.

  “The kid better make a hell of a Messiah,” I said, reaching the top stair. Two doors stood in front of me. A choice. A path. Choose poorly or wisely, I was fucked either way.

  I closed my eyes, and reached for the door handle on the right. Why the right one, one might ask? Was it a premonition? Some secret feeling?

  Nope. Which was good because the door swung open easily in my hand. The room was empty. I mean completely empty. Not a stick of furniture. Not a cockroach in sight. Nothing.

  Now I knew for sure the temple was protected by something evil.

  What New York building didn’t have roaches?

  I backed out of the room, almost tripping over Tyrfing. The air around me turned frosty, but the stench of sage and slut overpowered the coldness.

  “Hello, Jace.” Mary appeared behind me, a nine-millimeter clutched in her hand. My nine-millimeter to be precise. Bitch.

  My eyes roamed over her. Pink coral painted toes. Strappy pink heeled shoes. Tanned, long legs. Pinkish, high-rounded breasts peeking through the thin material of a pink fuck-me dress. Lying maroon stained lips.

  And to top it off, a pink cotton candy colored barrette taming her bleach-bimbo-blonde hair. I didn’t know if I should stab, or marry her.

  Stabbing won out.

  Praying she hadn’t invested in bullets, I charged with a war cry, my rage funneled through Tyrfing and into the air.

  Mary fired the empty weapon. Click. Click. Click.

  I smiled a grim grin of pleasure.

  Her eyes widened. “No, please, no.”

  The blade, inches from her stomach, halted, freezing like a hooker in Alaska. I tried to push it forward, to destroy Mary in order to protect the kid, but Tyrfing refused to budge.

  Fucking sword.

  It was her turn to smile.

  I waved my other hand in front of the sword. Nothing. No wires or string. What the hell was holding the sword back? I wanted her dead, and therefore, following the sword’s past logic, she should die. But no, there was always a trick. Some fucked up mysterious way to keep me from succeeding.

  “Why?” I glanced to the heavens.

  “The sword can’t kill what you do not hate.” Lilith appeared next to Mary, her yellow eyes flashing. She looked ready to kill. Unfortunately, her murderous expression centered firmly on me.

  “But I do hate Mary.” I grabbed Lilith’s hand, dropping Tyrfing to the floor and nicking my big toe. Blood filled my boot, but it barely registered. “I swear it. I feel nothing but contempt and hate for her.”

  “He’s lying. He loves me,” Mary said, sliding closer to me, her long nails stroking my shoulder. “He came here for me, so we could run away together.”

  “Shut up.” I shoved Mary away. “It’s not true. I love—”

  Lilith held up her hand. “I know, and you’re a fool. But that doesn’t change the fact,” she pointed to the smug Mary, “this whore won’t die.”

  Fifty Four

  “Whore? Who are you calling a whore?” Mary foolishly stepped in front of Lilith.

  “If the vagina fits,” Lilith answered, a small smile curling on her lips.

  Mary growled, and Lilith’s smile deepened. She was provoking Mary on purpose. Was Lilith jealous? I grinned at the thought.

  “Funny.” I winked at Lilith. “But you wanna fill me in? Why won’t Tyrfing take her life?”

  Lilith sighed; apparently disappointed Mary hadn’t jumped at her baiting. “It will kill her.”

  “Now you’re just fucking with me.” Running an angry hand over my face, I added, “Will Tyrfing kill her or not?”

  “You know I’m standing right here, don’t you?” Mary shifted her weight to one leg, and jutted out a tapping foot in a practiced supermodel pose. “I can hear you.”

  Ignoring her, I waited for Lilith to answer. And if I got another of
those, it will kill her but not kill her answers, we’d find out if Tyrfing had any qualms about running Lilith through, again.

  “I thought I answered that already.” Lilith blew out an annoyed breath. “Can’t you pay attention for more than a millisecond? Talk about A.D.D…”

  “God dammit, Lilith. Answer me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  Lilith rolled her eyes. “Yes, Tyrfing will kill her.”

  “Fine. Good.” I hefted the sword again, pointing the tip around Mary’s cold, black heart. “Okay then. Here I go.” My hand stayed steady, true, on the hilt of the sword as I prepared to end Mary’s existence.

  Mary blinked up at me, tears forming at the corner of her lashes.

  Just do it, my mind ordered like the cheesy Nike commercial. She had to die. It was the only way to protect the kid and Lilith. Closing my eyes, I pressed the sword into Mary’s firm body.

  She didn’t let out a sound. No wailing or death-rattled scream. No blood curdled, high-pitched whine. Nothing.

  Sickness rolled up my esophagus. I’d killed before, but not like this.

  Never like this. “Forgive me,” I whispered as Tyrfing’s blade slumped toward the ground.

  “Forgive you for what?” an alive and well Mary asked from a few feet in front of me.

  I cracked an eyelid open. “Shit.” Tossing the worthless sword to the floor, I stalked over to Lilith. “I thought you said it would kill her.”

  She shrugged. “I did.”

  “And?”

  “It will.” Lilith picked the sword from the ground, its blade reflecting off the yellow of her eyes. This time Mary looked scared. Her face had lost its pink perfected color, and her eyes grew wide.

  “No, please, no.” Mary backed up a step, running into the wooden banister. “Jace, you cannot let her kill me.”

  Was she serious? I’d just tried to kill her twice, and now she asked me to save her? “And why the fuck not?”

  Mary’s eyes darted between Lilith, Tyrfing, and me. “Because I’m pregnant.” Suddenly Mary burst into a round of glimmer tears. Perfect tears.