by Sam Cheever
Because they’d stayed silent and hidden, humans began unknowingly taunting them and decrying their very existence. As rumors of mutilations and strange killings began to move through the human underground, the police and elite scholar-snobs merely scoffed and proclaimed the degenerative effects of alcohol and drugs, which, along with cigarettes and chocolate were no longer legal but which could still be purchased on the black market if one knew where to look and had the means to purchase them.
The taunting served as bait to the spiritual world, which had hungered to be recognized and given the fearful respect it felt it richly deserved. So, gradually, the spirits left the filthy, malodorous underbelly of humankind and moved into the limelight. They cast aside their drunks and prostitutes and began killing the bright and beautiful people who lived in the clean, comfortable, church-going neighborhoods. They killed them with abandon and giddy pleasure, consuming unsoiled, sweet-smelling flesh and severing trim athletic limbs from lean, beautiful torsos. They were careful to always leave enough of the mutilated bodies behind for recognition. And gradually, even the most closed-minded of the humans had to admit that something decidedly malevolent, if not quite of the spiritual realm, had moved into the neighborhood. And whatever it was, it wasn’t looking to borrow a cup of sugar.
That was how the Strange Deaths Department had been born. With his unusual and only partially known background and training in voodoo and white witchcraft, DD Raoul had been an obvious choice for the department and had been one of the first to volunteer for assignment there. He’d quickly gained a certain notoriety as a tough cop with a nose for finding and prosecuting the bogyman. Since he’d been on the job, whether by coincidence or design, the number of strange crimes in the Angel City area had lessoned markedly and the bogyman seemed less inclined to practice his deadly art.
Raoul looked down at the petite rookie standing before us and gave her a beautiful smile filled with straight, white teeth. “You got a problem with halfling Phelps, Rogers?”
“She’s a halfling, sir”
His grin widened, but a dangerous glint touched his brown eyes. “That is a fact, Rogers. I repeat, you got a problem?”
Rogers’s pretty little nose wrinkled in disgust but she wasn’t stupid, she knew she was outnumbered. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her uniform gray slacks and shook her head. “No sir.”
Raoul’s smile disappeared as the dangerous glint in his eyes sharpened. “That’s good, Rogers, ’cause I got no time or patience for bigots in my squad.”
Rogers nodded mutely and walked away, her narrow shoulders drooping from the rebuke.
I sighed and stuck out my hand. “Why do you always feel inclined to defend me, DD? I’m a big girl.”
He turned a genuine smile on me and took my outstretched hand softly, almost caressingly. “I got my reasons. Besides...” a different kind of glint entered his liquid, brown eyes, “you’re kind of cute.”
I laughed and shook my head at him. I knew that DD Raoul was not nearly as flip as he tried to appear about bigotry. He’d fought the same battle many times, donning his white armor for other poor souls whose DNA wasn’t “human” enough. His reputation was well known throughout the force and even to outsiders like me. Bigots didn’t get very far around him.
Raoul was probably the most powerful DD in the strange crimes unit. His success rate was as good or better than any other cop’s in the country. His dedication to his job and sense of fair play were especially noteworthy under the current socio-political climate.
Since the equality movement really took hold in 2010, no one on the force or in the military was allowed to have a rank and no one was paid more than any other, no matter how successful he/she was. The not too surprising result was that most cops approached their jobs with an obvious lack of motivation and a slight chip on their shoulders. Why kill yourself if you’re not going to get any reward for it, either monetary or commendatory? Raoul was different. He cared about the cases he worked. He had his own personal reasons for everything he did. Most people didn’t know what those reasons were. I did.
He put an arm around my shoulders and walked me out of the office, which was filled to overflowing with cops and technicians. “You got any idea what did this, Phelps?”
I looked him right in the eye and smiled. “You don’t wanna know what I think.”
He smiled right back at me. “I’m sure you’re right, but tell me anyway.”
My eyes climbed toward the ceiling and I pointed upward with one finger. He frowned his confusion. I didn’t want to speak it out loud, but I didn’t seem to have much choice. Sometimes if you said their name out loud they woke up. You never want to wake up gargoyles if you can avoid it. They generally don’t wake up happy.
I decided to whisper it into Raoul’s ear. He groaned and closed his eyes. “I been tellin’ the Chief we need to round up all those little bastards and exterminate ’em. He says they’re protected until they do something. I’d say this is something.”
I nodded. “I am a little surprised though. Ever since the Big Guy took out that rebel group of them in ’49 they’ve just been sitting quietly up on top of their buildings like they used to before the Big War. If one of them woke up and did this, there must be something really big brewing.” I leaned closer to Raoul and lowered my voice. “Or they think they have adequate protection.”
“You know somethin’ you aren’t tellin’ me?” His dark eyes narrowed suspiciously.
I nodded. “Yeah. But I can’t tell you. At least not until I figure it all out myself.”
DD Raoul didn’t like that one bit. But there wasn’t much he could do about it except tell me to be careful. Which he did, as I left.
I bid Raoul goodbye and trudged wearily to the Viper. I was asleep before the Viper dropped gently into my vehicle shelter at home. I roused myself just enough to drag my weary body to bed and collapse on it. I was so tired I thought I’d probably sleep until well into the following day.
Which just goes to show you how naïve I can be at times.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Dreams Try Your Soul
I tossed and turned and flailed around and thought I was in hell
But how to justify those heav’nly thoughts that in my mind did dwell.
He loomed over me, his dark golden skin touched with soft, caressing light, his bottomless, black eyes fixed intently on my face. I seemed unable to move as he knelt beside me on the bed and touched my hair, which was spread across the pillow.
“Like silk, pretty one and heavy against my hand. Do you know that beautiful hair is a sign of power in the Devil Court.”
I opened my mouth to give him a snotty response but nothing came out. His fingers threaded through my hair and cupped the back of my head, lifting me toward him. His soft lips parted and I could see the sharp tips of his beautiful, white teeth. He raised me until I was entirely too close to that sensual mouth, until I was just inches from those eyes. Those velvety black eyes were pulling at my thoughts, making me dizzy and confused.
Just before our lips touched, I turned my face away and raised feeble arms between us. I tried with all my might to push him away. The wimpy result was embarrassing at best. It reminded me of that dream state where you keep trying to get somewhere but never do, like when you find yourself unable to reach the top of that staircase you’ve been climbing for about eight hours in your sleep...or like when you show up at an interstellar mud wrestling convention wearing nothing but a large, green snake and can’t seem to get your foot untangled from the frothing purple demon’s slimy hair ’cause the mud’s too slippery and the snake won’t stay still...well...I think you get my drift. Suffice it to say that my mind was willing but my body was frunkin’ worthless. Failing in my attempt to evade my dream devil, I gave up trying to kick his well-formed ass and gathered all of my hate and contempt into my eyes, which I then blasted at him like a laser weapon set on kill. Instead of dying from the blast of hate in my eyes, the damnable creature simpl
y laughed at me.
“You mustn’t fight your destiny, pretty one. It will do you no good and it will only increase my pleasure.”
That was too much for me. Even in my sleep I can’t resist a challenge. I squeezed my eyes closed and threw out my power, I felt it surge away from me and flow around him. I wrapped him in a tight, form fitting blanket of my power and opened my eyes to give him a smug smile. He laughed, that deep, throaty laugh that made me warm in places where I didn’t want to be warm.
I laughed too, because he actually thought I’d given him all I had. His eyes narrowed and he pulled me closer, his lips just touching mine as I tightened the power around him and ripped him off my bed and out of my, unfortunately reluctant arms. I watched his eyes grow round with surprise as he hung, suspended above my bed, his long legs crossed casually as though it had been his idea to dangle there. Then his beautiful mouth curved in a knowing smile and he disappeared in a silvery shimmer. Leaving behind only a whisper in my mind. “Sleep well, pretty one. We have only just begun this battle.”
“Bite me.” I murmured in my sleep and then I drifted soundly and thankfully into the sandman’s less-than-sexy, but eminently restful arms.
I woke up several hours later with a start. The dream still clung to me like a bad smell. As I went about my morning rituals I couldn’t seem to shake it. It had felt so real. Could it have been real?
Naaahh. It couldn’t have been. I don’t have the kind of power I’d displayed in the dream. I smiled as I had the thought. But it would be really crashin’ if I did.
After I’d showered and dressed, I fixed myself a breakfast hydrate and sat down in front of my information unit. I sent a quick note off to Emo, telling him I’d be in later to meet with a new client who was coming into the office and told him he would either have to make himself scarce or put some clothes on. I smiled as I sent the note off because I knew there would be some blue devil curses flying around at that piece of instruction. Then I put my mind to the job at hand, which was getting some additional information on the royal devil clan.
An hour and a half later I’d learned that devil royalty were nearly indestructible, which I already knew and that their beauty was directly proportionate to their power, which I already knew and that they could indeed invade your dreams, which I didn’t really want to know. Shit.
I was gonna move forward with the assumption that my beautiful devil had been in my head as I slept the night before. I wasn’t happy about it, but I was a realist. I would keep it to myself, however, just in case I hadn’t been invaded by anything but an overactive libido the night before. A girl doesn’t want that kind of thing to get around about her.
Sighing unhappily, I decided it was time for a conference with Myra. Putting my cross to my forehead I said her name in my mind and waited. It took her a full ten minutes to shimmer my way. When she finally appeared I glared at her. “I’m damned glad I wasn’t about to get eaten or something. What took you so long?”
She shrugged and yawned expansively. “I had a long night. Something’s stirring up the demons and minor devils. I had three maulings and a couple of people killed by demons last night.” Her smooth pink and white forehead creased in thought as she plopped herself heavily into a nearby chair, with her bare, pink feet dangling over the side. “I’ve never seen the spirit world so riled up. The council thinks something really big is brewing.”
I stood up and moved into my little food service area, to my drink valet, to make myself some more coffee. Pulling a clean cup out of the cupboard with one hand, I punched directions into the valet for a very hot, very strong cup of café mocha with the other. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Myra and she nodded.
Coffee is Myra’s weakness. Angels aren’t supposed to overindulge in human stimulants but, being angels, they pretty much work under the honor system. I knew from firsthand experience that, where coffee was concerned, Myra’s honor was a tad bit tarnished.
I filled the two cups and handed her one. Sitting down across from her I considered how much I should tell her about what I’d found out the night before. I decided I would start with Deaver.
She listened with uncharacteristic patience and sipped her coffee thoughtfully. When I’d finished she nodded and set her cup down on the low, glass table between us. “Now tell me the rest of it.”
I gave her my best, innocent look but she wasn’t buying. She’d known me since I was a little girl. Finally I shrugged and told her about my unplanned visit to the royal chambers.
Halfway through my tale she stood up and started pacing. Her movements became more and more agitated as I spoke. I wasn’t used to seeing my angel so troubled and it was starting to make me a little jumpy.
“What do you think this all means?” she asked me when I’d finished.
I shrugged. “My sense is that the two royal families are working up to a big confrontation. And if my hunch is correct, a gargoyle murdered a human last night. Add to that this thing that attacked me last night, which is like nothing I’ve ever battled before and it’s a little disconcerting. I don’t mind telling you I’m worried about how this is all gonna turn out.”
Myra nodded with that same furrowing of her brow. “I don’t like it either. The council has called a special meeting for tonight to discuss it. I’ll tell them what you just told me. Maybe they can come up with something to head it off.”
“I’d like to be there.”
She turned her pale blue eyes to me and they sparkled with laughter. “In your dreams, Astra.”
The reference to my dreams caused me to wince and she noticed. She cocked a golden eyebrow at me but, fortunately, she was too preoccupied to pry.
“I’m serious, Myra. I think I may be in way over my head here and I haven’t been able to learn enough about the royals to help me out. For some reason they’ve chosen me to be their little messenger girl and I have a very strong suspicion that I won’t survive the task. The more I can learn about them the better.”
The sparkle dropped from Myra’s beautiful eyes and she narrowed them thoughtfully. After a moment of intense scrutiny, she pulled her gaze from my face and nodded, giving me a very uncharacteristic pat on my arm. “I’ll see what I can do. It’s highly unlikely, but....well...we’ll see.” And then she was gone.
~SC~
The summons came as I was escorting my new client from my office. As I closed the door behind him I suddenly felt as if my limbs were lined with lead. I watched my hand slide away from the door panel in slow motion, my eyes tricking me into thinking I could see movement lines as it shifted. I heard a whoosh of air and my vision darkened to the point of blindness. After a few seconds, I realized that there was actually a pinpoint of yellow light at the center of my visual universe. I squinted at the light far off in the distance and tried to look down at my hands and feet, which I couldn’t feel. My head wouldn’t move but the light was moving steadily nearer, or I was moving nearer to it, I couldn’t really tell. Overall, it was a crashin’ strange feeling, but somehow I wasn’t afraid.
After what felt like several long minutes, I met the light and the feeling in my arms and legs returned. I realized I was standing in the back of a large room filled with warm, golden light. Before my startled gaze could fully comprehend my surroundings, I felt Myra’s presence beside me and turned to grin at her. She frowned crankily, motioning for me to follow her to a chair that was placed ridiculously close to a couple of tall, potted palms. I sank into the chair and realized I could barely see or be seen through the foliage. It occurred to me that Myra might not want anyone to know I was there. I craned my neck to view the room as it filled quickly with “people” for lack of a better word, who didn’t exactly glow, but whose skin was almost iridescent in the golden light.
I watched Myra take her seat at a long table in the front of the room. Unbidden, my mind made the connection to that other room I had recently found myself viewing against my will. Those critters had been like photo negatives of the crowd I was currently watc
hing. From the creatures themselves to the room’s décor, the two courts couldn’t have been more different. And what really bothered me was that I wasn’t at all sure I preferred the Angel Court to the Devil Court. A part of me had been more at home among the slavering disgustables in Dialle’s concrete and velvet world.
I shook off my uncomfortable thoughts and turned my attention back to the angel at the front of the room. Myra glared back at me as if to warn me not to move or speak. I grinned, waving enthusiastically.
She was not amused.
The last seat, located pretty much at the center of the table, was about to be filled by a tall, hard-faced angel with cappuccino colored skin and a lean, muscular body. He was dressed, or rather wrapped, entirely in swatches of cloth that appeared to be woven from gold thread. The gold cloth was gathered together at his narrow waist with a belt of intricate, mesh silver and fell to the floor, where it pooled around the spot where his feet would be, if he had any. I couldn’t see any feet and he seemed to be hovering above the floor. The stern looking cappuccino angel with no feet gaveled the room to silence as he floated into his chair. His chiseled features panned the room while those who were assembled there settled silently into attention. Apparently he was in charge. The cappuccino commander. Capcom for short. Being just a little over five feet tall myself, I’m really into short.
Once he’d ascertained that the room was sufficiently quiet and attentive, the Capcom turned to scan the faces of the other angels sitting at the council table. When he addressed them, his voice was surprisingly deep and invasive, insinuating itself under my skin and pulsing there. I shivered under the effect.
“We have called this council because we are in crisis. The spirit world is in an uproar of violent activity and we have been charged with the task of discovering why this is happening and figuring out how to stop it. Who will be first to report?”
