by Lori Selke
“Oh my! I’m so sorry!” she said, believably but untruthfully, “I’m such a klutz!” Nicholas backed away a step, and leaned down to pick up Vera’s things.
“Nah, never mind that, I shoulda been watchin’ where I was walkin’. I’m the one that’s sorry.” He said earnestly as he started grabbing her belongings from the sidewalk.
“Looks like you need directions, huh?” he said as he handed her map back to her. Vera thought she could almost hear the gears in his brain turning as he figured out what angles he could work with her.
“Aw, look at that, you lost yer coffee. Lemme at least buy ya ‘nother one.” He handed her the big black tote, and was busily brushing at the droplets of coffee that clung to it with a handkerchief.
“That would be so nice of you, but please, you probably have somewhere important to be. Don’t waste your time on me…” she said in her most innocent tones. She happened to notice, then, the small golden glistening cross that hung on a simple gold chain, tangled with the other, thicker, more ostentatious gold chains hanging from his neck. A Catholic. Beautiful.
“Sweetheart, I’ve got plenty of time for you.” He lied smoothly. He was due any moment at a meeting with some of the higher-ups, and she knew it would probably get him in trouble with them, even though most could give a guy a break for running into a beautiful woman and having to make things right. Especially a guy that couldn’t get any, and would probably be a life-long bachelor. She was certain she had him, but she’d carry on the ruse to its natural conclusion. No point in wasting his feeble attempts at being a nice guy, when she was sure all he wanted was up her skirt.
She blushed mildly, and let him lead her back down the sidewalk, in the direction from which he’d come.
“Thank you so much for helping me. I’m so sorry to be taking up your time. Maybe I can make it up to you somehow?” she said naively enough.
“Well, you can start by calling me Nick.” He said happily. The irony of his name wasn’t lost on her, and she giggled slightly.
“Sure thing, Nick.” And she giggled again, “My name is Vera.” She batted her lustrous eyelashes at him and wondered for just a moment, looking into his nondescript brown eyes, if he was actually falling for her just a little bit. She sighed. After this many centuries, all the humans had started to look exactly alike, but she had to admit there was something a little different about Nick. Maybe it was his earnestness. At least he seemed genuine, and that was, at least to her mind, a little attractive. She was beginning to look forward to this. Visions of lengthy and energetic sex entered her mind, and she felt a little flushed at the thought. She just wished that impatient feeling would go away.
* * *
Nicholas wasn’t aware at the time just how lucky he was, if you can call it that. He thought he was lucky because a hot chick probably wanted to fuck his brains out. He might even be lucky enough that she wanted to keep fucking his brains out, on a semi-regular basis. He thought that making a good impression might be a good idea, so he kept up with the gentlemanly behavior, just on the off-chance it would lead to something more.
Vera sat across from him at the tiny table in the café down the street, sipping her coffee, patently aware that Nick was thinking those things, as they chit-chatted and passed the time. Even though she was sick of humans, she felt a small twinge of something from being around Nick. He had a rough honesty to him that stood out amongst all the polite plastic fakery surrounding them, and as she watched his hands, imagining them roughly touching her, the combination of the two made her head spin. It was an unexpected reaction, and she wondered at it briefly—but then she suddenly heard a sound that no mortal could. It was a singular noise that stilled her and made her hollow demon insides fill with hot molten steel. She set her coffee cup down hard and shakily, sloshing coffee over her hand without feeling the hot liquid.
“Hey babe, what’sa matter?” Nick said, because suddenly she had cocked her head like she was listening to something only a dog could hear. He worried that she had changed her mind about him and was going to get up and walk out of his life forever without him ever getting to kiss her deliciously red lips, feel her incredibly full breasts, or listen to her delightfully sultry voice whispering naughty things in his ear.
She stood up then, and despite the thought that she might regret it later, she pulled Nick from his chair, grabbed him tightly, and made them both disappear.
It was exactly 9 a.m. on a lovely Thursday in June, and God had decided the jig was up. It had been a beautiful if ordinary day otherwise, up until then.
* * *
“OH MY GOD!! WHAT THE FUCK?!” were the first words out of Nick’s mouth, before he bent over and vomited heartily onto the bare Earth. For miles around, not a single building, tree, or living person existed. The world had come to a very abrupt End.
Vera, in a moment of panic, had zapped them out of existence for just a split second. Time, however, had passed. They now stood where New York City had been, exactly where the tiny café had been, a scant six months after God had Spoken—but to Nick, it was still only 9:00 a.m. on a fine June day. That tiny moment of non-existence had taken a small toll on him, as he continued to gush all of the contents of his stomach loudly and painfully onto the ground.
Vera stood patiently waiting while Nick wiped his face with his handkerchief. She looked around at the utter nothingness: just brown dirt everywhere, an occasional flake of concrete from a building here and there, or a tiny blade of dead grass—but otherwise nothing. She could see in the very far distance some lumps that were probably all that remained of the city: some ruins, or perhaps one of the small ridges that had run through Central Park. The sky glowed a dim and angry red, with not a cloud to be seen. Nothing stirred, no wind, and no sound, other than the racket that Nick was making. It seemed a shame, really. She had rather enjoyed the unique beauty of the Earth, even if it had been of God’s making.
* * *
The sound of retching finally ended, and Nick shakily stood straight up again. She watched as he slowly looked around, taking in the emptiness, then reached under his jacket and pulled out a very large gun and pointed it at her with an unsteady hand.
“Look here, I don’t know what the FUCK is going on, or who the fuck you are, but you’re gonna take me back.” And he jabbed the gun at her as if to emphasize the importance of what he had said. “Take me back to the goddamned café!”
Vera looked at him curiously. He was very bold, pointing a measly gun at a demon. He had balls, that was for sure. She realized of course that he didn’t know she was a demon, but still, it impressed her slightly.
“Well, Nick, I’m afraid it’s like this—” And suddenly Vera was interrupted by a sound. A voice. She turned to see a scrawny rag-covered woman slowly limping toward them. She didn’t know where the old lady had come from in all this emptiness. A straggler of some kind. As the woman neared, Vera could see she was covered in horrible oozing pock marks that glared in the red light. The woman wheezed with every step.
“Help…Help me, please…Help me.” She moaned.
Vera reached out one hand, and grasped the woman’s jaw, turning her face back and forth quickly, looking for something. There was a gut-wrenching sound then, of crunching bone, and blood oozed slowly from the woman’s head in several places. Vera withdrew her fingers, which had turned into long spikes, and the woman slid from her grasp to the ground in a heap of filthy rags.
“What the HELL?! What in the fuckin’ HELL?!” cried Nick, surprising himself by being shocked at what he had seen.
Vera turned back to him slowly, her fingers becoming normal and beautifully human again. Her perfectly manicured red nails glowed sullenly, the same color as the old woman’s blood, now smeared on them. She made a gesture with those murderous hands, a sort of shrug.
“She was one of the Damned, Nick. The Mark was on her face.” She said to him mildly. “She couldn’t be helped…I couldn’t help her.”
She watched Nick’s face changi
ng, disbelieving, awash in the red sky glow, and continued to watch as various emotions played across his features. It was fascinating to her; she’d never been this interested in a human before now.
His hands slowly raised to his chest then, and his face took on a look of both horror and, surprisingly, peace, and Vera wondered what that could possibly mean. Then Nick’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he fell to the ground and lay prostrate before her.
“Nick?” she said, worry creeping into her voice. She hoped that she hadn’t put his life in danger bringing him here, and wasn’t entirely sure why that was even important, but it was. “Nick?” she asked, and she bent down to check on him. She inhaled a deep breath, and knew that the air was fine, and was puzzled by his lack of consciousness, when a loud stentorian voice rang out behind and above her.
“BEGONE DEMON!” said the voice in perfect Aramaic.
Vera turned just enough to glimpse the blinding light of the angel that had approached them on utterly silent wings, and wondered what it would feel like to be destroyed in the moment before she passed out on the ground next to Nick.
The angel sighed a hearty sigh, his Holy Light fading somewhat, and came to rest on the other side of Nick. He realized with great shock what he was seeing, and promptly disappeared.
* * *
“No, I’m not kidding. Look for yourself! They’re right down there, in plain sight!” the angel said. A large group of other angels, all Principalities charged with patrolling the Earth, had gathered around to hear the tale. “I don’t know what to do! This isn’t…Well.” And he paused a lengthy moment for effect. “This isn’t in the Book,” he said quietly and with great drama, and the angel rustled his wings nervously. The other angels began rustling their wings nervously as well. A muttering arose from them, enough of a sound in the utter silence that was in the End, that an Archangel soon arrived to see what all the fuss was about. Upon hearing the tale the lesser angel told, the Archangel disappeared with a loud clang that, if space had been able to carry the sound, would have been heard all the way to the Horse Head Nebula, if it had still existed. On Earth, tiny trickles of blood came from Nick’s nose.
* * *
Vera woke and in a flash was standing and looking around, certain that only a short amount of time had passed, perhaps half an hour. The angel was gone, but Nick still lay on the ground. She noted that he had bled some,and quickly checked to see if he was still alive. What a relief…He still breathed. Again, she wasn’t entirely sure why that was important to her, but her fingers lingered just a little longer on the pulse in his neck. She felt, no…She knew that she would regret it terribly if Nick was dead; that if she never saw his eyes gazing at her again she would somehow be lessened by that. She didn’t know what to make of these feelings, but she was finally beginning to process them. She hoped she was wrong about what she was thinking.
She was greatly puzzled by the angel’s absence. Why hadn’t it tried to kill her? She was no match for it, of that she was certain, and she hoped fervently that it wouldn’t return.
Nick began to stir then, and he let her help him sit up. He looked at her, uncertainly at first, but eventually retrieved his gun and placed it back in its holster. Nick wasn’t a terribly bright guy, but he knew enough, oh yes he did. He remembered the lessons the nuns had taught him, even though he’d spent years trying to forget. This was IT. The End of Days. He appeared to have missed most of it, thanks to her. He looked at the woman beside him. Vera was frightening, obviously a demon, but he found her amazingly still quite attractive. He wondered if it was some kind of trick she was pulling, a spell of some kind, and maybe she was actually ugly as sin. He chuckled then, he couldn’t help it. He reached out a hand, delicately for him, and touched Vera’s face. Her skin was smooth as silk beneath his fingers, and Vera trembled a little at his touch. He knew long ago that he was bound for Hell, and here was proof, right at his fingertips, and yet…She had saved him. No one, absolutely no one had ever done that for him before, through all the rough times and bad scrapes he’d been in. No one had ever cared enough about him. Not once. Not ever. ‘Til now. He looked at her with fresh eyes, and despite his reputation as a complete hardass, he felt them moisten.
“So what now?” he said. “What the hell do we do now? Are you gonna take me to Hell or what?”
“Uh…” she stammered. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I didn’t plan this. It just sort of…happened. I, uh…I heard the Word, and I just reacted. I don’t know why I saved you.” She lied a little, but went on, “I just did. But no, I won’t do anything to you. I can’t…I…won’t.” In that moment everything began to come together. She felt physical pain at the thought of harming Nick, even though his bright but rotten soul had tempted her initially. Instead, it now drew her, innocently, like a moth to a flame, and she knew quite well what was going on here, finally. She closed her eyes then, and the thought crossed her mind that she might be insane. It wouldn’t be the first time. There had been many demons that had been…retired…over the years. But this was unusual. It typically was a demon that went rogue, mad with power, and so bent to darkness that it consumed them. Killing humans was great, but not when it didn’t follow the Plan. But this? Love? The thought sickened her, but she thought maybe in the same way it made humans sick.
“So you saved this puny human? Do you know why?” said a gently soft-spoken voice. Vera and Nick both looked up to see a grizzled old man standing a few feet away. They hadn’t heard him arrive at all. He had a few days’ worth of gray whiskers on his face, and wore a very rumpled and dusty black trench coat. He clucked his tongue a couple of times, shaking his head.
“Ah. You don’t know who I am, I see. My appearance. I could show you but you both would die rather spectacularly, I’m afraid.” Continuing in a firmer tone, he said “Now answer the question, Demon.”
“I don’t know.” Vera answered untruthfully. She knew very well why. She had fallen—no, been smitten with love. Love at first sight. A seeming impossibility.
Her questioner raised a bushy gray eyebrow.
“I really don’t know! “ she said, panic creeping into her voice. What else could she do? How could she not lie to God? It was practically a requirement for her very existence. There was a lengthy silence that filled Vera’s mind with dread. She clutched at Nick’s hand. He seemed unaware of the danger they were in, bless him, and sat looking at the Old Man with a fair amount of innocent interest.
“Very well, then. It is what it is, and being the Creator of Love, and every other damned thing, I can’t very well ignore that, now can I? I perfected Love. How could I know it would be so perfect a thing that even a DEMON could experience it?” And he shook his head again. “Thus you’ve reminded me of the reason for all of Creation: my singular mission of Love for all things, and with your reminding you’ve carelessly thrown a wrench into my otherwise perfect Plan! Damn it.” His bushy brows gathered together in a fierce scowl, and he pointed a wrinkled but well-manicured finger at them. “It WON’T happen again.” But then his face softened a little, and he looked slightly insane before chuckling quietly, “At least not until next time.”
Vera and Nick leaned into each other, their arms encircling, feeling like they didn’t have much time left. They knew they wanted to be in each other’s arms, and in this moment, knowing they loved each other, it was enough. Just then they disappeared once again.
* * *
Vera blinked. Once more, they sat in the café together. Her coffee cup landed hard on the saucer in front of her, sloshing coffee over her hand. She shook the burning liquid off, noticing the red mark it left. Everything came rushing in at once, and for a moment she thought she might actually pass out. God, she thought. God.
“Hey babe, what’sa matter?” Nick said, because suddenly, Vera looked like someone had walked all over her grave. No, forget that. She looked like someone was having a damn fine party on top her grave, and he thought maybe she was gonna pass right out, right in the mid
dle of the damn café. He suddenly wondered if she had changed her mind about him, and was going to walk out of his life, and he’d never see her again. He looked at her stunning green eyes, and thought maybe he’d like to look at them for a very long time. He was shocked at thinking that, but at the same time, it made him feel warm and happy, a very rare thing for him.
Vera looked at her watch. 9:01 A.M. She stood up, gathering her things, and stepped next to Nick. Leaning down, she looked deep into his eyes, seeing the bright and slightly marred soul burning bright behind them, and marveled at it, drinking him in fully, knowing that this could not be, was not meant to be. She lingered for a moment more, her chest aching with what she had to do. She caressed his cheek lovingly, kissed him gently on the lips, then turned to walk away.
“Wait a minute, hey wait!” he chokingly called out, and he stood, reaching out toward her, hoping he could get her to stay and not understanding what had changed. Damned if it didn’t feel like his heart was breaking, and he couldn’t fathom why he would feel that way about a stranger. She turned back, looking at him once more, soaking in all his human beauty and faults. She suddenly understood so much about humans, the World…Everything. Damn it.
“Nick.” She said, almost whispering, her quivering hand momentarily fluttering to her lips like a hungry bird, knowing she’d never say his name again. “At least we’ll always have 9 a.m.”
She turned quickly, before she could change her mind, and walked away forever from the only man she had ever loved.
~ ~ ~
Hunger Pains—Diana Pharaoh Francis
Diana Pharaoh Francis is a fantasy novelist with three series in print and a number of short stories in anthologies. Her Path of Fate novel was nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, and her Horngate Witches urban fantasy series is highly regarded. Although her short story here is not directly related to that paranormal setting, succubi would be right at home in the worlds of her creation.
