by J. L. Murray
I walked to my bedroom after the fastest shower I'd ever taken, trying not to look at Sofi's door. I grabbed some jeans out of my closet and a clean tee shirt. Tossing my jacket onto the bed, I dressed quickly. Then I pulled a box out of my closet. The real reason I'd wanted to stop here. My guns.
If Bobby was in as much trouble as I suspected he was, guardian Lucifer or not, I'd need some backup. I didn't know what I was capable of yet, and I sure as hell hadn't gotten used to the new and improved me. Best to be cautious. I filled the cartridge of my old Browning .22 caliber and tucked it into the back of my belt. I spotted an old derringer that Sofi had given me. It was an antique, and only held one bullet, but I loaded it and zipped it into the inside pocket of Sasha's leather jacket.
A man's leather wallet caught my eye and I reached for it. I knew what was inside. I blew the dust off and flipped it open. My old Department of Order and Chaos badge stared at me, its extraordinary metal gleaming. Sam had given me the badge when I started working for him. It seemed a lifetime ago that I had found the fat envelope outside my door, and opened it to find a pile of money and this badge. It had some sort of magic to it that made people want to tell me things. Bobby had one too. I hadn't thought of the badges in a very long time, assuming that when Sam was unmade the badges would disappear along with him. I tilted the metal back and forth and could see the magic shimmering. So it still worked, maybe. I flipped the wallet closed and shoved it into my jeans pocket. It might come in handy.
I went back to the closet and pulled another dusty box from the very back. I opened it and pulled out a pair of jeans and a blue button-up shirt. They'd be a little tight, but at least Lucifer wouldn't stand out as much.
I pulled on the leather coat and headed back to the living room. Lucifer was flipping through one of Sofi's photo albums, intent on what he was looking at. I cleared my throat and he looked up.
“You're ready,” he said.
“Fascinating stuff there,” I said.
He smiled. “I find humanity intriguing,” he said, closing the book. “The small victories always seem to drive them on. It's very...”
“Human?” I said.
“Yes,” he said, standing up.
“It's not like they really have a choice,” I said. “I didn't, anyway.”
“A choice?”
“The little things spurring us on,” I said. “The little things are usually all we have. We have to hold on to them. To us, the little things are not small. They're everything.”
“I suppose I never thought of it that way,” said Lucifer. “Do you miss it?”
“Being human?” I said. “I don't know yet. I won't miss most of it.”
“But you miss the people that came with it,” said Lucifer. I looked at him for a moment. He had a way of surprising me with how much he understood.
“Yeah, I do,” I said. “But there's nothing I can do about that.” I tossed the clothes at him. “You can change in the bathroom.”
When he came out, he had tied his hair back. The clothes actually fit him. He had pulled the jeans down over his boots. He looked...perhaps not human, but at least like he was trying to look human. He was a bit too magnificent to be of this world. And there was no way of disguising his eyes. I'd have to get him some sunglasses.
“You look rather pale,” he said.
“It hurts,” I said. It was true. I felt like my heart was about to explode and I could actually feel my blood pumping in my ears. “How do we do this? Will you follow me?”
“We'll go together,” he said. He held out his arms. “Take my hands.”
I did. They were hot against my clammy skin. A tingle ran through my body. I tensed slightly. “Now what?” I said.
“Let go,” said Lucifer. “Like you always do. Let it pull you.”
I stopped fighting the pull in my chest. I closed my eyes and let it take me like I'd been doing every day for months. I held tight to Lucifer's hands and felt an odd thrill run up my spine. We were spinning together, the idea of his presence a comfort to me. I usually felt anxious and wary of what was on the other side, but now I had someone with me. It felt less frightening this way.
I felt my feet touch down and Lucifer let go of my hands. I opened my eyes to see we were on a wet street underneath a steely gray sky. I turned towards a small yellow house with a tidy front lawn. Two children's bicycles leaned against railing on the narrow porch. I climbed the four steps and slipped in through the front door. I could feel Lucifer following behind me.
NINE
I found myself in chaos. Two children, a boy and a girl, were running circles around each other, screaming with glee. A smaller child in footie pajamas was jumping up and down on the couch, giggling uproariously at the madness. There were feathers littering the carpet, as well as something that looked like cereal. I couldn't help but smile at the joy in the children's faces. But, remembering why I was here, I suddenly felt hollow. I took a breath. I looked off to the left, where I felt the spirit pulling me. There was a hallway. I couldn't make my feet move.
“Niki?” Lucifer said.
“They're just children,” I said. “They're not going to understand.”
“You can't help them,” he said gently. “But you can help someone. All you should worry about is letting them cross over. If you worry about the survivors it's going to rip you up inside.”
“I can't help it,” I said. I stared at the children. They were so happy. “It's their mother. I can feel her. They're going to lose their mother.” A vision flashed through my head of my own mother, lying on a dirty floor with part of her head missing. There had been so much blood. I bit my lip. I hated being this weak, vulnerable side of myself. The pain in my chest was phenomenal. I gasped at it.
“Niki, help her,” said Lucifer. “You can't fight this. You're not strong enough. It's the way of things.”
I nodded. “I know,” I said. I forced my body upright. “I know it is. But I don't like it.”
“You don't have to,” he said. He took my hand and squeezed. Somehow that gave me the strength to walk across the room. I led the way to the hall, trying not to look at the children. Their joy would be short-lived. I had to let them have it. I walked down the hall and opened a door on the right. Steam burst out through the door and we entered the bathroom.
The white linoleum floor was slick with water and blood. A woman was crying and trying to touch the body. Her body. It was wrapped in the shower curtain that she had grabbed onto when she slipped. It looked like her head had hit the side of the tub hard and blood and chunks of something slid down the outside of the tub. The woman's ghost looked up when I stood next to her.
“No,” she said. “I can't go. My kids...”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “It's too late.” I felt tears welling up as I looked at her. She covered her mouth and crouched down, her body shaking with silent sobs.
“I don't want them to find me here,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Please. You have to keep them out. Until my husband comes home.”
“How long is that?” I said.
“I don't know,” she said, and her face started to crumple again. But she got a hold of herself and took a breath. “Near dark usually.”
“I can lock the bathroom door,” I said. “But I can't stay with them.”
“Is it going to hurt?” she said.
I tried to smile and failed. “No. It doesn't hurt. It'll be just like going to sleep.”
She nodded. “Okay. I'm ready.”
I touched her and she faded in bursts of whirlwinds. The only sound was of the shower beating water down on the poor woman's corpse. I looked away from it. I walked past Lucifer and turned the lock on the door.
“Ready?” I said, avoiding his eyes. “We've got some catching up to do.”
“Niki,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I'll be fine,” I said, hardening my voice. “Let's just get this over with, okay?”
He answered by taking my hands. I let the
pull take us.
The ghost looked out over a cold, choppy lake. I saw skid marks on the nearby road that ended at the edge of the water. A bubble rose from beneath the surface, presumably from the ghost's car. He spoke to me in German, his eyes dark brown and full of sadness. “I'm sorry,” I said, and touched his shoulder.
An elderly Mexican woman in a hot, dusty town cried while looking at four little dogs that yapped at her unmoving body. She cried in Spanish, words I couldn't understand. “I'm sorry,” I said. I touched her gently on the back.
“She said that if you take her, you have to take her dogs, too,” said Lucifer when the woman's ghost had disappeared.
“It doesn't work that way,” I said.
“She doesn't know that. You should learn some languages.”
“I'll remember that,” I said. “What with all the free time I have.”
“Point taken,” he said.
A man shot in a mugging on a dark street, in a large, foreign city. A bespectacled girl that had been reading a book while crossing the street. A speeding car had dashed her to pieces. The girl said something to me, shaking her head sadly, her ponytail wrapping prettily around her neck. Even as a ghost she was beautiful.
I looked at Lucifer. “What did she say?”
“She said that she isn't ready.”
I looked at the girl. “No one ever is,” I said.
“I've never been in love,” she said in English, her accent heavy.
“I'm sorry,” I said. I touched her face and she disappeared.
With every spirit, the pain eased. I liked having Lucifer with me, though I wouldn't tell him. I didn't know why, I just couldn't let myself get close to him. Or to anyone really. It seemed every time I let myself care, someone died. They might have died anyway, whether I cared for them or not. The pain of loss was worse than even the pain in my chest that labored my breathing and made me weak. But I couldn't deny that the contact, just touching someone so very living, eased the burden exponentially.
A large man with a sizable belly and a cowboy hat shook his head sadly at the woman that had plastered herself against the chest of his dead body. She was sobbing. “This is going to kill her,” he said. “She's such a delicate thing.” He looked at me with empty eyes. “This is going to break her little heart.”
I smiled sadly at him. “You'd be surprised how strong people can be when they have to be.”
He didn't seem to hear me. “This is going to break her heart,” he said again as I touched him.
“Are there many left?” Lucifer said after a moment. We both stood watching the small, middle-aged woman with dyed black hair crying over her husband.
“No,” I said. “Two maybe. No more.”
He slipped his hand into mine without looking at me. I closed my eyes and held his hand tight.
I was wrong. There were three souls. And they were all in one place.
“Niki, what is this?” said Lucifer after I had sent an inconsolable woman and two men to cross over.
I crouched down and looked over the carnage. It was dark outside, but a lamp lent a warm light to the room. The spirits hadn't been able to speak at all, except in sobs and gibberish.
The small bodies were always the hardest to look at, so I focused on the woman. Her face was smashed in, like all the others. The same way I'd seen all over the world. What the hell was going on? Who was doing this?
“You've seen this before,” said Lucifer, crouching next to me. I looked at him. He had the same way of staring straight into me that Sam had had. I nodded and looked away. “Where?” he said. “Where have you seen this?”
I met his eyes, the helplessness feeling heavier than any burden I'd ever had to bear. “Everywhere,” I said. The pulling on my chest was gone, but the activities of the day had left me absolutely drained. “All over the world. At first, there weren't many. I thought it was just a coincidence. But lately it's been every day. Sometimes twice.” I looked at him. He was still staring at me intently. “But there's no sense to it. They have nothing in common. They're not even in the same country. They've been all races, all nationalities, some families, some just single people. And none of the spirits knew what the hell hit them.”
Lucifer was quiet for a long moment, his expression indiscernible. Finally he spoke quietly. “I've seen this before, too,” he said. “The crushing is new. But the way they died. The suddenness. The feel of it. It's the same as before.”
He frowned. “It's impossible, though.”
“Why?” I said. “Who's doing it?”
“It was long ago,” he said. “A demon named Kane. He could have been very powerful, but he was cruel. He even made me uncomfortable. He had these strange eyes. Very unsettling.”
“So why is it impossible?” I said.
“Because Kane is dead,” said Lucifer. “I threw him in the Pit long ago. I was told that he died there.”
“Who told you that?”
He shrugged. “Abaddon,” he said.
I laughed. “I don't know if you know this, but Abaddon probably wasn't a fountain of truth.”
He nodded. “I heard. Thank you for stopping him. That must have been hard.”
“None of that matters right now,” I said. “How do we find this guy? You don't understand what it's like. Seeing this every night. I don't like feeling like this. I know it's inevitable, but it's too much. Seeing children with their heads bashed in. No one should have to see that. No one should have to die like that.” I frowned. “It's like they're nothing but garbage to him.”
“I understand, Niki,” said Lucifer. “We'll find him. We just need more time. I have no idea where to even start looking for him. I'm sure he's a long way from here by now.”
“How?” I said. “These bodies are still warm.”
“He had an ability,” said Lucifer. “He was a traveler.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“He could travel from one place to the other in the blink of an eye,” said Lucifer. “Much in the way you are transported to fulfill your duties. Only he can will it. Any time he likes. I can travel between worlds, so can you. But you and I, we have to find the weak spots to break through. Samael's tavern, my tower, there's a spot just outside of Erebos.”
“That's where Sam brought me the first time I went to Erebos,” I said.
“He favored that one,” said Lucifer. “But Kane doesn't need a weak spot. He can just disappear. It's why it was so difficult to find him the last time. Even with my powers it was troublesome. We would find him and he would just laugh. And we would be left clutching at the air.” He shook his head, staring at the bodies. “I have a very bad feeling about this.”
“So a powerful, mass-murdering demon is on the loose who faked his death to goddamn Lucifer, and he can just disappear to wherever he pleases.” I said. “Peachy.”
“It's no use to worry about it,” said Lucifer. “We'll figure out a way to find him. Let's just keep to the plan of finding your friend. Yes?”
“Oh,” I said. I had completely forgotten about Bobby with all the events of the day distracting me. “Right,” I said, resolved. “We'll find Gage, and then we'll focus on this Kane guy.”
Lucifer nodded. “Where should we start?”
“Where else?” I said. “Bobby Gage's house.”
I took Lucifer's hands and willed us back to where we had started: in my apartment. There was always a twinge scratching inside my ribcage until I had returned to where I started. As we released our hands back at my place, I finally felt myself again. I exhaled and it seemed like the first real breath I'd had since I'd come back from Erebos.
“If you want to rest for a while, I will understand,” Lucifer said.
“No way,” I said. “Let's go talk to Bobby's dead wife.”
“What?”
“I probably should have mentioned,” I said, grabbing my keys. “Bobby's wife is a ghost. He doesn't know she's living there. I promised her I wouldn't tell him. She said she hid from Deat
h when he came looking for her. Must have been years ago. I guess that was Sam.”
“If she didn't cross over,” said Lucifer, “it's not because she hid. It's because he allowed it.”
I frowned at him, pausing halfway to the door. “How does something like that happen?” I said. “Magic? Because when I help someone cross over, it's excruciating until it actually happens. Do you think Sam felt that way, too?”
“I'm sure he did,” said Lucifer. “I know he did. He must have had someone cast a spell.”
“A spell for the dead?” I said. “Who does that kind of magic?”
Lucifer looked grim. “A necromancer. Dark magic. I'm surprised that Samael would have anything to do with it.”
“Well, it's Bobby,” I said. “Maybe he thought he could bring her back.”
Lucifer looked sharply at me. “Who told you such a thing?”
“What?” I said. “I don't know. I was just...Wait, is that possible? Do people actually come back from the dead? Even years later?”
Lucifer narrowed his eyes. “It is not even to be discussed,” he said. “It is a dangerous subject. Men have lost their lives and their souls trying to get their loved ones back. The ones who do wish they hadn't. It is a very old, very dark kind of magic. Not for this world or any other. Put it out of your head.”
“Easy,” I said. “I was just asking. No reason to jump all over me.”
Lucifer closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “I've overreacted. I'm sorry.”
“Let's just go,” I said.
While we were driving to Bobby's house, I could feel Lucifer looking at me. I kept my eyes on the road. “You got something you want to get off your chest?” I said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I can feel you staring at me,” I said. “Either take a picture, or just say what it is you want to say.”
There was a heavy silence for a moment as he hesitated. “I tried to bring her back,” he said quietly. “After she died the second time. After I'd already brought her back once with a piece of my soul.”
