The Demon Signet

by Shawn Hopkins

  The two men step close, seemingly unconcerned with the crowds of consumers pressing in around them. They remove their suppressed .22s and raise them in a single, fluid motion.

  Before the two bullets punch through Joab’s forehead, chapters of Solomon’s Testament come instantaneously to mind, attempting to answer for the last time so many unlearned mysteries.

  He falls backward, his eyes holding on to the huge star fixed atop the forty-foot Christmas tree that occupies the food court, the star of Bethlehem (Sirius to the Brotherhood) shining from its apex. As his life flickers away and the two men searching his pockets begin to fade, he thinks of the ring resting in the glove compartment of the rental car and wonders if his actions will work at all in preventing Lucifer from carrying out his ages-old “mystery of iniquity.”

  ****

  The room is dark, the electricity having failed hours ago due to the lightning storm being hurled at the earth. Though the more recent technologies have suffered, however, the stone architecture of the building itself remains unimpressed by anything the weather has in store.

  “They killed him?” The taller man walks away from the spectacle outside the window, a flash of branched energy scorching the sky and outlining him with purple light. His long robes drag across the stone floor behind him, slithering like a velvet tide always chasing its master.

  “Yes.” The second man is dressed in similar attire and stands hidden in the shadow of the room’s entranceway.

  “And the ring was not on his person?”

  “No.”

  “How did he get to the mall?”

  “That has yet to be determined.”

  The man by the window turns toward his fellow Brother. “What about his accomplice?”

  “Nothing yet, Jacob.”

  Jacob thinks. “We must seek guidance.”

  “What if Joab managed to destroy it?”

  A moment of silence passes as the question is considered. Thunder rattles the windows. Finally, Jacob brings his hands together and presses the tips of his fingers against each other. “You know that the Judgment ring cannot be destroyed.”

  “I know the legends hint at such, but—”

  “Contact him.”

  The man pauses, stunned. “Him? You don’t mean—”

  “Yes.”

  “Surely, you can’t trust him.”

  “Of course not. But his ability may be the only resource available to us. We will worry about what to do with Jonathan after he has found the ring.”

  “I don’t need to tell you of the mess he could create for us once he has it.”

  “What else would you have us do, Stephen? Give up on the Master’s plan? Surrender thousands of years of orchestration to the wind?”

  Stephen hesitates. “Perhaps it is not the only way to bring the vision about. Maybe the rings present just one of many opportunities by which we might bring it to pass.”

  Jacob steps forward. “And it is precisely this one ‘opportunity’ that has been entrusted to us. If it doesn’t work, its failure will not be due to our lack of trying.”

  “I understand, Jacob. It will be done.” He bows his head and steps backward, disappearing into the darkness of the corridor.

  Jacob turns his face back to the window and whispers into the night, “Come now, Jonathan, let us use you one last time, will you?”

  One

  She could feel it all closing in on her as each encroaching inch swung an ice pick into the frozen walls of her resolve, chipping away at the fortification she had erected around her delicate psyche. But she knew a breach was inevitable, and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation. For a moment she tried imagining herself in an endless field, exchanging the stuffed, cylindrical cell for open freedom. She knew it was all in her head, so if she could just get herself to—

  “You okay?”

  Ian’s voice came as a beacon, a guiding light sweeping back and forth through the fog, searching for her. But light wouldn’t help. She couldn’t grasp light, couldn’t relax as it physically pulled her ashore. “I need to get off,” she whispered, eyes still closed.

  “Hey, is she all right?” Marcus’ deep voice drifted over from the row behind.

  Ian shook his head while looking up and down the aisle for some sign of help, though he wasn’t sure what it would look like if he even found it. Other than an open door leading to a gleeful sprint across the open tarmac, there wasn’t really much that could be done.

  “It’s gonna be okay, Heather. Shouldn’t be too much longer.” Ashley was leaning forward and over the chair, rubbing her sister’s shoulders. It was a practice she’d been repeating for many years now, dating back to when she was just a scrappy thirteen-year-old not knowing how else to relieve her big sister’s pain. There was no evidence that the technique actually worked, but she continued trying, as if in hope that someday she might succeed in exorcizing the poison from Heather’s mind once and for all, drawing it into herself like some sin eater so that she could spit the black stuff—it had to be black, right?—onto the ground and watch satisfied as many a passerby trampled the evil underfoot.

  Marcus leaned over from the seat beside her and with his lips mouthed, the accident?

  Ashley nodded and began moving her fingers soothingly through Heather’s straight, golden hair. “It’s okay,” she repeated.

  The Accident.

  It was something Heather never talked about, but situations like this one made it impossible to keep a complete secret. Her closest friends knew most of the details, but not all. Not even Ashley knew them all.

  “Excuse me,” Ian called out to a passing stewardess.

  The woman stopped, and it took a second for her tired eyes to find him. “Yes?”

  “Any idea how much longer this is gonna take? A question you’ve been answering for the last hour, I’m sure, but my fiancée here has a bit of claustrophobia, and we’re just trying to gauge how much more of this she can take before…” He made his eyes into saucers and filled his cheeks with air, then made an exploding motion with his hands while blowing the air from his mouth.

  The stewardess tilted her head to the side a bit so that she could get a glimpse of Heather for herself. She sighed, defeated by her own helplessness in the situation, and said, “It shouldn’t be too much longer. If it’s an emergency—”

  “No,” Heather interrupted, opening her eyes. She forced a smile and tucked a few strands of blond behind an ear, freeing them from Ashley’s petting. “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.”

  “Are you sure?” Ian asked. “Maybe—”

  But she waved him off. “Please,” she whispered, “it’s embarrassing enough without having to be rushed off on a stretcher in front of all these people.”

  So Ian thanked the stewardess, releasing her from their plight.

  The woman, dressed in the airline’s proper attire—red skirt neatly pressed, red vest over white satin, and a nametag reading JOY—walked toward the cockpit, circumnavigating the flying complaints flung by an uneasy clientele. Things were starting to get ugly.

  “Hey, why don’t you just leave her alone,” Ian hollered at the angry mass. “It’s not her fault.”

  “Hey, pal, ya wanna ssstep ousside?” a voice came back.

  “Oh, pleassse,” Ian mocked.

  “Wasssat ssuposta mean?”

  Heather could make out a form rising across the aisle and laid her head down on Ian’s shoulder. She loved her fiancé’s willingness to stand up for the innocent, though she’d never actually witnessed him in a fight—and she wasn’t going to witness one now, not without the air marshall’s handcuffs coming out.

  Someone else tossed an obscenity-strung command at the man, telling him to shut up and sit down. That freed Ian from the man’s crosshairs, his aim shifting to the new target.

  “We need to get off this plane soon, or the marshall’s gonna have a riot on his hands,” Marcus said. He put one of his caramel-colored arms around Ashley as she leaned back int
o the seat beside him.

  Heather tried to concentrate on her breathing, to convince her mind that she wasn’t going to suffocate, that her feelings weren’t an accurate portrayal of the truth. She let her imagination run wild with Marcus’ statement, enjoying for a second the unfolding of such a scene, though interpreted as more of a comedic stunt rather than a horrific blood-splattered frenzy. But it was a short distraction, and she was beginning to think a stretcher ride would be worth it if it got her off the plane. “Does anyone even know where we are?”

  “Adirondack Regional Airport,” Ian answered, squeezing her hand and thumbing the rock he’d placed on it a couple months ago.

  Marcus turned his gaze out the window. “The middle of nowhere.”

  The scene beyond the plane held the afternoon sun in blankets of snow clouds, the mountains barely visible in the distance.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ashley said. But the sight didn’t dispel her concern for Heather, and she didn’t linger on it long.

  “We’ve been sitting here for,” Marcus looked at his watch, a stainless-steel chronograph with a floating compass, “sixty-eight minutes. This plane isn’t getting back in the air anytime soon.”

  Ian looked over Heather’s head, which was nestled cozily beneath his stubbly chin, and remarked, “I don’t see any other commercial airliners.”

  Marcus had his iPhone out in a flash. “Albany International is three hundred miles away. Don’t think they’re coming to help us.”

  “Which means,” Ian concluded, “we’re stuck here until the plane’s fixed.”

  “I wonder how long that’ll be,” Ashley muttered more to herself as she checked back into the argument unfolding across the aisle. The drama of the conflict had recruited a few more participants. “The captain better tell us what’s going on.”

  Indeed, no one knew why their flight to Dulles was parked in the middle of the mountains, though a few scrambling mechanics running about outside the plane did offer a hint.

  As if right on cue, the captain’s voice came slicing through the backdrop of garbled protest, and everyone settled down, their words cut off in mid-sentence, anxious to hear some kind of verdict.

  “Hi, folks. I am truly sorry for this inconvenience. I know you’re upset, and I certainly understand that. Um, we had a pretty serious incident, which is why we had to make this…emergency landing. The technicians here are doing what they can, but there’s no telling if or when they’ll, uh, be able to ensure that the plane is safe for flight. And if you’re wondering where ‘here’ is, we’re at Adirondack Regional Airport. I’m really sorry for keeping you in the dark for the last hour or so, but I was under strict orders to remain silent until…well, until we were sure that…uh…the incident wasn’t…something else.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” a woman cried at the tiny speaker above her head.

  “Rest assured,” the captain continued, “the issue is a mechanical one. Just be glad we had a place to land, and try and remain patient with us as we figure out where to go from here, which, as it turns out, is the terminal. So I need everyone to fasten their seatbelts as we’re taxied.” A pause. “Uh, once you disembark the plane, I’m being told that there will be staff members waiting to answer your questions. Again, I’m really sorry, folks, but I know you want to get to where you’re going safely. Happy holidays and enjoy your stay in the great state of New York. Bundle up; it’s going to be chilly getting off the plane.”

  It wasn’t exactly the news Heather was hoping for, but it was going to get her off the plane, and that was fine with her. As for the rest of the passengers, well, she was too busy fighting off the hordes of PSYOP agents hurdling her fortress walls to care about them. Besides, it was better for everyone that she got off as soon as possible. She heard the bing of the seatbelt sign lighting up, and minutes later the plane started to move. Thank you, she thought.

  “Almost there, babe.” Ian kissed her on the cheek, the dark shadow covering his jaw and surrounding his mouth tickling her and forcing her to smile.

  “I’ll be okay,” she said. She squeezed his hand tighter.

  ****

  Christmas music played happily throughout the tiny airport, but the mob didn’t notice a single note of it. Everyone was too preoccupied with the long lines leading to clogged toilets, sold out rentals, or half-stocked vending machines to let “Jingle Bell Rock” infuse them with holiday cheer.

  The personnel that the captain said would be waiting for them with further instructions had, as pleasantly as possible, informed the passengers that they were basically screwed. They could either wait for the plane to be fixed—no one had any clue as to when that might be, if even this side of the New Year—or they could take their chances with the two small rental companies that operated out of the airport and drive all the way to Maryland. The news did not go over well, and the people started shouting questions about their luggage, food, when other planes would arrive, and a hundred other questions that received no answer. Then, in the midst of that chaos, someone began spreading a rumor that no one would be allowed to leave the airport without first clearing customs, since they’d flown in from Canada. Of course, there were no customs agents here at the tiny airport in the middle of nowhere, which meant the doors were to be locked until either the plane was fixed or the FBI arrived. Airport officials quickly defused that powder keg by reassuring the mob that customs had already been cleared in Canada. They were by no means prisoners being held by the airport and were free to leave if they wanted. Such reassurance, however, did little to relieve the crowd’s anxiety. The reality of their confinement was still the same—whether forced or participatory—in that no one was about to try hitchhiking through the Adirondacks.

  “How you holding up?” Ian asked Marcus, patting him on the back as their line inched closer to the rental counter.

  “Fine. How’s Heather?” Both girls were off waiting in line for the bathroom.

  “Embarrassed.”

  Marcus nodded as his eyes went to the four skinheads that were standing around a nearby vending machine, perhaps trying to conjure up Hitler’s ghost for instructions on how to use it. He smiled, taking a few steps closer to what would hopefully be a rental car.

  Ian pondered what he’d just witnessed, completely at a loss as to how setting eyes on the racists could provoke Marcus to smile. The Nazis had been sitting three rows behind them on the plane, and it was obvious that their conversation had included Marcus for much of the flight. And while Ian didn’t understand German, he knew that Marcus did, which meant his black friend was treated to a nice, long discourse on The World as Seen by White Supremacy. “I don’t know how you don’t just lay that trash out,” he said.

  Marcus shrugged. “I feel sorry for them.”

  Ian shook his head. Anyone else, especially being as big as Marcus was, would have went straight for the three Nazis as soon as their feet touched the ground and pummeled them into pink goo right there in the terminal. But not Marcus. Never Marcus.

  “You know I’m not gonna let you go over there,” Marcus said. A lawyer for a small firm out of DC and his father an employee of the State Department, the Hatfield family hadn’t gotten to where it was by caring about the ignorant opinions of racists. Marcus’ mother would be proud to learn that he hadn’t carved swastikas into foreheads today, even if some of his cousins wouldn’t be. Mama, the good Baptist that she was, was always preaching love for one’s enemies. “Love your enemies, Marcus! Love ’em the way God loves you.” It wasn’t always easy, but with Mama’s example, Marcus had learned to persevere through most of the lingering prejudices that still targeted him. And what he’d told Ian was true, it wasn’t hatred he felt for the people who liked to joke about a slave owner “gettin ahold of yo’ great grannigger” (which was most likely what had happened), but pity. Pity for people who went through life carrying so much hatred in their hearts and who lived sorry lives in small, ignorant worlds.

  Ian shook his head again, w
anting more than anything to have a few words with the Reich. “Man, I don’t get it. How does it not bother you?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s bothering me,” he answered, “Ashley never telling her parents that I’m black.”

  Ian smiled. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Her parents aren’t like that at all. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ll be running blocks for you anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, seems I forgot to ask for daddy’s permission before popping the question.”

  Marcus blinked. “No, you didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “I never met him, but from what Ashley tells me—”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s gonna be pissed. And not only that, we still haven’t told them that we’re engaged.”

  Marcus laughed. “Well, just have Heather give the ring back. Get her father’s blessing tomorrow night, fake a proposal on Christmas day, and her parent’s will be none the wiser.”

  “Really?”

  “Either that or he’s gonna see you as an apolitical veterinarian who’s too chicken to step up to the plate when it’s time to do the proper thing. Doesn’t matter that she’s almost twenty-nine. It’s all about tradition in that house.”

  Ian winced. “Yeah, I think I’m liking your idea. Oh, but you should know, papa’s not gonna be much more thrilled with you being a registered Independent than he is with me not being registered at all.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus mumbled. He checked his watch as the line continued to move. “Pick a date yet?”

  “We had a tentative…”

  “What, you think she’ll say no if you give her another chance?”

  Ian sighed. “This is ridiculous.”

  “You shoulda asked the man.”

  “I know.”

  They were just two spots from the counter when Heather and Ashley rejoined them.

  “Are you sure you want to drive?” Heather asked. Her hair was pulled back, lips red, and cheeks slightly flushed. “What about our luggage?”