The Balance Omnibus

by Alan Baxter

  ‘We’ll see.’

  The priest smiled and wandered slowly back where he had come from. As the door closed, Samuel grunted. ‘What a pompous fuck!’

  Isiah ignored him.

  A moment later the main door of the church swung open, bright light shafting down the aisle. Isiah and Samuel looked around to see Baker, his two gorillas looming behind him, silhouetted in the doorway. He paused briefly, presumably for effect, before making his way toward them.

  The two gorillas stopped a few paces back as usual, looking uncomfortably around themselves. This was probably the first time they had been in a church, except, maybe, for their mothers’ weddings.

  Isiah stood as Baker approached. ‘Thanks for being so prompt.’

  Baker took his outstretched hand, looked around himself. ‘No problem. Why we meet in a church?’

  ‘Why not?’ Isiah could not be bothered to even attempt an explanation. He indicated Samuel, still sitting on the pew. ‘This is Ezekiel.’ He suppressed his own smile when he saw Samuel grin. Sticking with the biblical prophets theme seemed like a good idea.

  Samuel stood, shook Baker’s hand. He stared hard at the middle eastern man, smiling inwardly at the total lack of recognition obvious on Baker’s face.

  Isiah spotted Samuel’s game, stepped in between them. ‘You have the envelope, Mr Baker?’

  Baker nodded, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a small manilla envelope. Samuel reached out, took the envelope, checked its contents. While he rifled through the various papers and maps, Baker asked, ‘So what information do you have on Harrigan’s whereabouts?’

  Isiah answered before Samuel could. ‘Ezekiel managed to track him down to a town not that far from here. Apparently he was holed up there somewhere, then he moved on. Tell us, Ezekiel.’ He hoped his prompt would be enough.

  ‘Well, he went first of all to see a Filipino guy, who he had as a contact for false documentation.’ Samuel obviously didn’t need much of a prompt, and began spinning an intricate yarn of the imaginary journeys of Samuel Harrigan.

  Isiah waited out the elaborate tale, hoping that Samuel didn’t confuse himself, make a stupid mistake. After a few minutes, with the erstwhile Samuel finally located at a lodge in the Austrian Alps, Ezekiel the bard ended his tale.

  Baker nodded thoughtfully, pulling out a small pad. As he made a couple of quick notes he said, ‘Good, good. I will see if I have contact nearby who may verify that Harrigan is still there. You are very thorough people it seems. However, what about this Guatemala business?’

  ‘That,’ Samuel quickly jumped in, ‘has been put off until the Austrian connection is finalised.’

  Isiah turned away to hide his smile. Samuel sounded like a bad James Bond villain, and Baker was swallowing every word. No wonder Samuel had got the money out of him so easily.

  Baker slipped his notepad back into his inside jacket pocket. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. I will contact you as soon as I have some further information. You can still be reached on the same number?’ he asked Isiah.

  ‘Of course,’ Isiah replied. ‘We’ll hang on to this for the time being.’ He pointed at the envelope in Samuel’s hand.

  Baker nodded. ‘Very well, I have copies. I will talk with you soon.’ He turned on his heel, strutting proudly from the church, his gorillas tagging along behind him like puppies on anabolic steroids.

  When the main doors had closed, Samuel began to laugh. ‘What a fucking idiot, man! Shit, I wish we weren’t in a church.’

  Isiah was smiling too. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to kill the fucker! I won’t kill him in a church because that would be far too Satanic, which is something of a departure for me as it goes, but I’m being a little more careful for a while. And if I follow him out to fuck him up, Old Nick may well find me, right?’

  Isiah nodded. ‘As soon as you step outside this church you’re at risk again.’

  Samuel sighed, slumped back onto the pew. ‘Oh well, never mind. Maybe another time.’

  Isiah sat beside him, taking the envelope. He looked over the map. ‘Looks like we’ll have to get an internal flight when we get there, then trek up through the jungle a way. Does that suit what you were originally planning to do?’

  Samuel nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

  Isiah thought for a moment. ‘We need to be near the airport so that we can get there easily in time for the flight. The airport will be pretty crowded at any time of day, so it should be fairly safe in there, for a little while a least. Even in the middle of the night, when it seems quiet, there are people around. Some travellers, cleaners, security, that sort of thing.’

  ‘So we need to hang out in churches until tomorrow night, then leg it for the airport?’

  ‘That about sums it up. Trouble is, there’s a service starting here soon. You want to sit through it?’

  Samuel shrugged. ‘What choice do we have?’

  Isiah sighed, leaned back in the pew. ‘None, I guess.’

  They sat there for several hours, waiting. They ground their teeth during the chubby priest’s sermon. Apparently, it was only through the love of God that anyone could expect anything from life or death.

  Throughout the sermon and in the quiet hours that followed, something was bugging Isiah. He had forgotten something, or missed something, yet could not put his finger on what it was. He could sense something wrong, something amiss, but he had no idea why. As late afternoon began to draw towards evening he began to think about another church, nearer the airport, and the best way to get to it. There was another mass at seven that evening. He wanted to be out of there before he had to listen to that chubby prat preaching again.

  Samuel sat dozing on the pew, his breathing heavy, snoring occasionally. Isiah looked over at him, wondering if they were going to make it. As he was thinking this, the heavy wooden doors at the front of the church swung open. A feeling of dread swept over Isiah, making his skin crawl. Immediately he knew his mistake. What an idiot! But how was I to know? I would have known! Samuel woke, sat up straight, aware of the evil energy that suddenly flooded the church.

  They both turned as the slow, measured click of wooden heels echoed down the aisle. An immaculately dressed man, of indeterminate middle age, walked toward them. His face was dark, close cropped beard, long, black hair, swept back in a loose pony-tail. He grinned broadly, evil, as they looked at him, red eyes over sharp yellow teeth.

  Samuel began to mutter, incoherent noises of fear. Isiah looked at him sharply. ‘Shut up, Samuel, he can’t touch us in here. He can intimidate us, threaten us, curse us, but if he lifts a finger in violence it’ll be his biggest mistake. He knows that, so chill out. He can not hurt us in here.’ That didn’t mean that he couldn’t wait till they left, but Samuel didn’t need to know that right now.

  The dark prince sat down beside Isiah, staring up at the effigy of the crucified Christ. A deep, rumbling chuckle rose from his chest. ‘He looks so good up there, doesn’t he? Wears it so well.’

  Isiah took a deep breath, steadying himself. He could feel Samuel trembling beside him, trying to shrink away. ‘You take quite a liberty, coming in here.’

  ‘I’ve told you, Interferer, I will have his soul. You didn’t realise that your friend, Baker, was a Christian, did you?’

  Isiah shook his head. ‘I should have, but for some reason I didn’t. I don’t understand.’

  That deep chuckle again, distant thunder. ‘Because neither did he. It didn’t take much effort to convince him. Even less to destroy him once he told me where you were.’

  Samuel whimpered.

  Isiah sighed. ‘You’re bending the rules to breaking point again, Lucifer. Why make it so hard? How about a little give and take, huh? You know what’s going down here.’

  Satan’s chuckle rolled out into a resounding laugh. ‘I’m bending the rules? You think I would do anything to help you, Interferer?’ His demeanour changed rapidly, anger seething from him as he leaned close to Isiah, his breath hot, foul. ‘
You trespassed into my most personal halls, you fucking slime. You stole away that which is rightfully mine. I will make a Hell so horrifying for the both of you that you will scream for the relief of plain agony.’

  ‘I took him back once, and I’ll do it again. I’ll do it as often as necessary to get my work done.’

  The Devil looked past Isiah, grinning maliciously at Samuel. ‘You can’t keep doing your little disappearing act, Interferer. Look at him. I can see the cracks beginning to form already. Travel with him that way again and you’ll be handing him to me on a platter!’

  ‘I know. I have more tricks than that. We’ve fought before, Lucifer, and you haven’t beaten me yet.’

  The Devil swung his face back, nose to nose with Isiah, but was distracted as the door behind the altar creaked open, the chubby priest stepping out to disturb them. He wandered over to them, smiling beatifically. The Devil laughed softly, watching the approaching priest like a lion watching a mouse.

  ‘I see you gentlemen are still here,’ the priest said, addressing Isiah. ‘Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you?’

  Isiah shook his head. ‘Really, Father. We simply wish to rest in the grace of God for a while.’

  The Devil’s laughter at this was horrifying, like blood gurgling through fetid halls. The priest looked at him, his face paling in shock, though he didn’t know what scared him so completely, filled him with such pure dread. He whimpered quietly, a dark stain spreading on the front of his robe, as Lucifer smiled a terrible smile.

  Isiah felt it coming a second too late, as Samuel leapt past him, grabbing the priest around his chest. He swung the stunned clergyman around in front of him, pulling his head back by what little hair he had left. His other hand rose as Isiah jumped up. There was a flash of steel reflecting candlelight. Where did he get a knife? The priest’s brief scream cut off suddenly with a gurgle. A red shower arced across the Devil as he sat on the pew, stunned, Samuel’s voice uttering rapidly in a language both archaic and horrible.

  Lucifer’s face twisted in rage, impotent, forbidden to act in the house of God, one hand reaching out, flexing horribly. Samuel obeyed no such restrictions. Isiah struck Samuel hard, sent him sprawling back into the altar, the knife clattering across the stone floor. It was a ceremonial dagger, inset with jewels, probably just used as a letter opener now. It must have been in the refectory, somewhere in the church where Samuel could have found it while Isiah had been out.

  Samuel yelled out the last words of his spell, the blood enough, red floor, pew, dripping. The Devil pointed one long fingered, sharp nailed hand at Samuel. ‘You will suffer for this, human!’ he roared, as his form twisted and split. He vanished with a rushing sound, like wind through dry trees.

  Isiah strode over to Samuel, stepping over the blood soaked corpse of the priest. His face was a mask of fury as he bent down, picked Samuel up by his jacket collar in one hand. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he bellowed into Samuel’s wincing face.

  ‘What’s the problem, man? He’s gone, isn’t he? We can move now, he won’t be able to catch us again for hours, we’ve got time to find another hiding place.’

  Isiah drew one fist back, desperately trying not to punch Samuel’s head clean off his shoulders. ‘He couldn’t hurt us here. You killed a priest in a church! You find a bucket to puke in, but murder a priest in a fucking church?’

  Samuel cringed from Isiah’s yelling. ‘It’s all a matter of priority, man. He couldn’t hurt us in here, but he could have waited outside, couldn’t he? What the fuck do I have to be scared of, man? What’s worse than the Devil himself chasing me down? It’s not like I haven’t offended God before!’

  Isiah threw Samuel hard against the pew. He landed awkwardly, grunting in pain. ‘I told you to let me handle it. If you do anything remotely like that again, I’ll let him fucking have you! Get up, we have to leave.’

  Isiah looked down at the priest, lying on the cold stones before the altar in a widening scarlet circle. He looked away, apologising wholeheartedly to the Christian God, and strode from the church. Samuel picked himself up off the pew, holding his bruised ribs. He chuckled quietly as he followed Isiah down the aisle.

  10

  The day outside was darkening, early evening becoming dusk. Isiah stood by the heavy wooden doors of the church, breathing deeply of the crisp evening air. He was trembling slightly, his rage barely contained. Samuel stepped out behind him, stood quietly. Isiah turned, looking hard at Samuel. ‘We’ll have to go across town. There’s a church about a mile from the airport where we can hole up. Think you can make it there without killing anybody?’

  Samuel grinned, wolflike. ‘I’ll try.’

  Without a word Isiah began walking down the street, trying not to consider the explosion of activity that would accompany the discovery of the priest’s body. It was the kind of case that simply would not rest. The media would have a field day, Holy Man Victim Of Satanic Bloody Murder Spree. The police would put double time into it, have to get a result. Isiah wondered briefly who would end up taking the fall for it. His fingerprints could not be traced. If they traced Samuel’s fingerprints, assuming they were on file, they would come up with an athlete that died a few days before the priest did. That would make for a confusing prime suspect. The only people that might be able to identify them would be the various church goers that would have seen them during the service, which would be a considerably varying set of accounts. It was remarkable what people didn’t see.

  Isiah knew that they were safe from recriminations on a legal level. But he wasn’t looking forward to seeing Gabriel again, especially as he already owed him favours. What a way to start paying them back. He was so tempted to just stand back and let Lucifer have Samuel, deal with saving the Amazonian god himself, but he knew it didn’t work that way. There was a reason that it had to be Samuel that killed the mercenary, however subtle and insignificant that reason might seem. All would be revealed in the end, assuming they pulled it off.

  As he walked, ignoring Samuel for the time being, he realised that he had not recognised the language of Samuel’s spell. That was unusual. He was able to converse in just about every language that had ever been known to man, fluent in most, the blessing or curse of his enhanced mind, memory. But the words Samuel had spoken were completely alien to him. He had felt the energy that the words created, the power within them. They weren’t a call to a deity, invoking divine intervention like most magic. The existence of gods was a direct result of the average persons subconscious manipulation of the energy of the universe by their beliefs. Magic which called on those gods was simply a personified route of access to that energy. That was why so little magic existed in any powerful form, it was all watered down by conflicting beliefs. And that’s why Samuel’s magic was so powerful, as it pulled directly from the source of all things, a call to the self, not some perceived other entity. But what were those words?

  It bugged him enough to make him turn to face Samuel again, find out. ‘The blood magic you use. How much do you understand it?’

  Samuel shrugged. ‘Not as much as I’d like to. But I know enough to make it work.’

  Isiah nodded, not really surprised. ‘You realise that you don’t actually need the blood to make it work. It’s a shame you believe you do.’

  Samuel rolled his eyes. ‘There you go again, you believe this, you believe that! Why the hell are you so obsessed with belief?’

  Isiah ignored his question. ‘The words you use to invoke your spells, what language are they?’

  Samuel shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’ve memorised the spells, the incantations, but I have no idea what they actually mean.’

  Isiah stared at him for a moment, his disbelief overwhelming. ‘You really do play with fire, don’t you,’ he said eventually. ‘You have so much power, such innate ability to be so strong, yet you juggle around with things you barely understand then wonder why you end up in all this shit.’

  Samuel smiled, carefree. ‘It�
�s all a bit of fun, and usually works out in the end.’

  ‘Where did you learn it?’ Isiah asked, dreading the answer.

  Samuel thought for a moment. ‘When I was a bit younger I was more into the general occult. You know, witchcraft and that. I wasn’t really a Satanist in any particular way. I’m not now. I mean, really, what the hell is a ‘Satanist’ anyway? Then I met this old man who claimed to be over two hundred years old. I doubted that at the time, but I’m not so sure now.

  ‘Anyway, he was a weirdo, man. I mean, really fucked up. He had this place out in the country, fully self sufficient, in the middle of nowhere. And it had all the windows painted black and the whole place stank. I don’t want to think what of, but it was disgusting. He had bits and pieces of people hanging all over the place, like dried up arms and heads and shit.

  ‘He was an evil old bastard. I mean really evil, like in the old way, you know? He wouldn’t think twice about killing a baby and drinking its fat. I know that, because that’s what he did while I was trying to talk to him one day. Kinda put me off a bit.

  ‘Anyway, he taught me all the magic I know, taught me the power of blood. It wasn’t till I started getting some vague results that I decided he wasn’t having me on. Slowly I learned some good stuff, some pretty powerful magics. I learned real curses and enchantments, divination and summoning evil shit, you know. Then I actually managed to contact Satan and make a pact and... well, you know the rest.’

  ‘And you used the same teaching to keep Satan at bay?’

  Samuel nodded. ‘Yeah, man, same stuff.’

  ‘And who is this evil old man you’re talking about?’

  Samuel smiled. ‘No, man, I ain’t telling you that. Come on, confidential sources and all that. You’ll never track him down anyway. He has the ability to only be found by people that he wants to see.’

  ‘So how did you find him?’

  Samuel shrugged. ‘I didn’t. He found me. He said he’d been watching me and I was strong. Whatever that means. I’d been dabbling with magic for a while by then.’