I heard Maggie before I saw her, chanting as she walked. Her voice was low, husky, rolling Gaelic syllables pouring from her tongue. Thanks to the bond I had with Alice, I understood the pleas to a variety of gods and goddesses, the offers of blood for favors as she recited spell after spell. She stepped into the office and I could see now what had gotten the vampire’s and his pets’ attention. Maggie was bleeding. Four deep cuts, slashes roughly three inches in length, ran across the inside of her forearm. She carried a knife in one hand, a lighter in the other.
In one fluid motion, she drew the blade across her skin, drawing up another cut, letting the blood flow down into her hand and over the lighter. As the blood hit the lighter’s flame, it seemed to grow, turning a dark shade of crimson.
“Morrigan, mother of the dying,” she muttered in Gaelic and opened the lighter, sparking it to life.
“How dare you!” Adam said snarling.
Maggie ignored him, still chanting, blood dripping from her fingertips to the carpet.
“Lend me your touch, so they may burn. Lend me your kiss, so they may suffer,” the words spilling from her lips, faster now, her breath coming in almost excited, sexual pants.
Adam roared, anger searing his voice. With one hand he grabbed the desk, which probably weighed more than I did and threw it at Maggie. I shrank back at the action, so sudden, so ferocious that it was. She didn’t flinch, simply made a beckoning motion with her hand. Fire leapt from the lighter and into her palm, forming a perfect small glowing ball of flame. It looked like a tiny sun, tendrils of flame twisting and snaking around itself. It didn’t even blister the delicate skin of her hand. She threw it, side armed like a baseball.
There was a small shockwave, like being hit in the face with a pillow and a sound like gasoline being ignited. For a quick moment, the air was drawn out of the room. The fireball and the desk collided in mid air, shards of wood once more raining down, flame searing their edges. The carpet had caught fire. The sudden rush of heat from a moment ago was slowly being replaced by a build-up of choking warmth, not as hot but just as uncomfortable. Smoke was rising towards the ceiling, crawling across it like a newly formed thunderhead.
The thralls, those that could still stand, were working their way towards Adam, surrounding him in a defensive line. They gave the fire a wide berth, or at least as wide as possible in the confines of the office. They managed to form a broken line around their boss, putting themselves between Adam and Maggie. To their credit, none of them really looked like they’d be game for staying if they had the choice. That said, Adam had eliminated the general notion of choice from their vocabulary a long time ago.
“‘Ow dare I?” she asked, flipping her hand again, motioning another ball of flame into it. She grinned, wide, and hungry in a completely different sense than Adam's own gluttonous grins only a few moments ago.
“Oh, I dare, baby. I dare,” she said with a grin.
She flicked another fireball towards him, and he ducked under it, letting it explode against the wall. I heard Lucy shriek in fright, trying to pull herself further into the corner. Alice appeared beside me simply standing and watching the goings on with that same blank expression she had when, well, anything happened.
“Witch...” Adam snarled, eyes darting from Maggie to Lucy. Maggie winked, motioning another ball of flame into her hand. She cut her eyes towards me, her tongue running over her lips, before looking back towards Adam. The fire at her feet had grown to roughly a yard across, and the hunks of burning wood had started at least four smaller fires on the carpet in different, random spots throughout the office. The room itself was getting hazy with smoke, every breath a burning hitch in my throat. I struggled against the chains again, albeit briefly, out of nothing more than instinct. They had proven again and again that they wouldn’t be breaking anytime soon.
“Vampire,” she said grinning, her tone teasing.
Adam narrowed his eyes, and in a flurry of motion, pulled Lucy off the floor, throwing her over his shoulder. He kept his eyes on Maggie and turned, blasting through the wall behind him in a full linebacker style charge, leaving a roughly Adam sized hole in his wake. The thralls, with their master gone, got the hint and began scrambling through the hole after him.
Maggie watched the place where Adam had stood for maybe half a second before she turned and moved towards me. She crouched, eyeing the lock that held the chains around my ankles. For a moment, she just stared at me. I could see indecision and warring emotions playing across her features.
The hole Adam had made had created some ventilation for the smoke, but the influx of air was causing the fire to burn a lot faster and a lot hotter. I could feel sweat running down my back and neck in rivulets as the flames crept closer, tracing their way up the wall and over the books.
“Mind helping me out here?” I asked.
She didn’t say a word. She pulled one of those lock pick guns from the pack over her shoulder. She inserted the picks into the padlock and squeezed the trigger, her hand working the gun in quick smooth motions. I felt the lock, roughly the size of my fist let go and started kicking the chains off my feet. She repeated the process on the chains around my wrists.
“Thanks. What now?”
She didn’t answer. She turned, head down, going back the way she had come.
As we went, I tried to take stock of my surroundings. The hallway on the opposite side of the door that Maggie had just decimated led to a single, metal door. An exit sign above it fought to shine through the rapidly amassing smoke pouring from the room, which was now spreading at a much more rapid pace.
“Where are we?” I asked
She still didn’t answer.
I kept my head down, marching down the hallway and grabbed the door, pulling it open on an empty parking lot. It was still dark out. Once we were outside Maggie turned towards me. She didn’t say anything, just stared, eyes narrowed. She near trembled with rage, and waves of pure violent intent radiated off of her.
I cast a quick look around for Adam. I didn’t think he’d come jumping out now, not after Maggie’s display. Still, better safe than sorry.
“What’s with the silent treatment?” I asked.
She answered by hitting me, a quick, hard cross across the jaw. Pain flashed up through my skull, and for a second, spots flashed across my eyes. Apparently, it was the will of some bigger celestial being than myself that every person I met was destined to add to my growing list of injuries.
“What the fuck?” I growled, fighting to hold back another wash of anger. I clenched my fists, swallowing the urge to hit her back.
“What the fuck?” she asked, incredulous. “What the fuck do you think?” she pointed back towards the hotel. It was a small, three story affair, built with brick. A sign hung over the door, the words “Paradise Hotel” were little more than stains hidden behind rust and dirt. “Ya did that! Ya did that, you made all that ‘appen! What ‘appened to her, it’s yer goddamned fault!”
I took a step back. I had known it in there, watching it happen. It really sank home now, reverberating in my skull with the authority of a divine decree. Maggie's verbalization of it just served to twist the metaphorical knife a little deeper.
“You did this, you goddamn disgusting filthy little abomination,” She growled. “You drug ‘er along, didn’t give a shit what happened to ‘er, I should’ve left you in there.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked quietly.
“Because I’ma treat you like you treated ‘er. At the moment, yer useful.” She pointed towards her car. “Get in.”
Chapter 11
We drove in silence for the majority of the trip back to Boston. Maggie kept her eyes forward, hands gripping the wheel to the point her knuckles had grown a startling shade of white. She practically radiated volatile anger. I tried to ignore it. I couldn’t.
“I’m going to get her back,” I said finally.
“No,” Maggie responded, the words clipped and harsh. “Ya aren’t.”
>
I stared at her for a moment, my jaw hanging open.
“What?”
“I said, no. Ya aren’t.”
I blinked, confused. Less than half an hour ago, she was ready to tear my face off for what happened to Lucy. Now, she was writing her off, leaving her to Adam.
“So what, you hit me in the mouth, then that’s it? Situation over, we move on?”
“For the moment,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I call bullshit.”
She pulled the car over, brakes locking. The seat belt dug into my chest, but not before my forehead smacked against the windshield. Behind us, car horns blared. She ignored them, seething and near trembling with a barely contained rage. For a moment, she just stared, her eyes locked on mine. I could see the storm behind them, the warring emotions, and the sheer disdain for me.
“Ya don’t get it do ya?” She growled.
“What?”
“She’s the enemy now. There is no ‘getting her back’. There is no saving her. She’s an enemy combatant because of a situation you put her in. Not to mention, there’s still the issue of this possessing...demon...thing...stuff...” She let the words trail off, fighting to put some type of explanation on something that was, at the moment, unknown.
“She’s not the enemy,” I said.
“Oy, she is. 'Ell, she’s a monster now. Just like you boyo,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “She's no different than Adam.”
“That right?”
She turned, glaring at me.
“Yer fuckin A right it is,” she said, her accent thick over the words.
“Not the way I see it.”
“At this point, the way you're seeing it 'ere doesn’t make much difference to me one way or 'nother.”
“Then we should probably go ahead and hop out of the car and handle this, because that's where this whole line of conversation is heading,” I said, putting my hand on the door handle.
She didn’t say anything. Instead, she stared at me for a long moment and then started the car, easing it back into traffic. She wouldn’t look at me while we drove. My mind fell back to Lucy, to the look in her eyes while Adam drained the life out of her. She stared at me and her eyes didn’t accuse me, they were just desperate. She wasn’t blaming me. I blamed me, and I was right in doing so. Maggie and The Three wise men be damned, I was getting Lucy back. I owed her that.
Fifteen minutes later I saw the church come into view. Maggie parked across the street, and we both slid out. She didn’t say a word to me. I fell in step behind her, shoving my hands in the pocket of my sweatshirt.
We both stopped at the same time, staring up at the church from the middle of the street. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. It was in the air, in the vibe of the place. There was a cold feeling, of something poisonous, something dirty invading an otherwise clean place. I knew the feeling all too well. I’d felt it in the air when Essie had gone all homicidal bag lady. I’d felt it when the nurse at the hospital had tried to kill me. This thing we had been chasing had found us.
The church was silent. Lights, which normally illuminated and cast soft glows through the stained glass windows, were dark. Aside from Maggie’s car the street was empty. Even the city itself seemed muted here - the sirens, the horns, the typical city sounds were hushed and far off.
“Something's not on the up and up,” Maggie said quietly.
“So it would seem,” I said.
We started towards the church together. The doors were open. Scratch that, one of the doors was open. The other door was torn completely off its hinges and was laying a few feet away. Deep, fist sized craters marked the normally smooth surface.
“Not a good sign,” Maggie said.
“Your powers of deduction amaze me,” I muttered.
She responded with another glare.
I moved up the steps, just to the left of the door. I made sure to stay out of the line of sight if someone were waiting to jump out with guns, claws or something equally horrible and the intent to do me bodily harm. Maggie was a step behind me, already pulling the blade from her pack. Now that I wasn’t about to be ripped in half by a vampire, or set on fire, I was able to get a look at the blade. It was a Marine issue Ka-Bar, solid black and sharpened to a razor edge. She had a bottle of drinking water in the other hand, one of those sports bottles with the little nozzle squirt tops. For a moment, we just stood there. I strained to hear anything, listening for a sign of something inside.
Silence answered me.
I crouched and peered inside. The place was a disaster bathed in shadows. Light filtered through the stained glass windows, painting pools of reds, blues and greens across the floor. Pews lay overturned and broken, hymnals scattered amidst the wreckage. The altar itself had been thrown halfway across the church’s interior and lay on its side in the center aisle. I stepped inside, moving slowly and staying as low as I could to make as small a target as possible. Maggie slipped in behind me.
I nearly leapt out of my skin both from surprise and complete and total amazement when Alice appeared in front of me. I stumbled backwards, right into Maggie, and almost knocked both of us on our asses.
“It’s empty, Jack,” Alice said, looking over the church’s interior.
“The fuck?” I said, completely forgetting the idea of staying quiet.
Maggie shoved me off of her and moved to stand beside me.
“So much for stealth,” she said.
“It’s empty,” I answered.
“Oh? Maybe I don't feel like taking yer word for it,” she said and turned, venturing deeper into the church's interior. She wandered around, checking behind broken pews, in closets, vanishing down the hallway for a moment before finally returning. After a few minute of searching she returned.
“You're right.”
“I'm aware.”
“So 'ow did you know then, smart ass?”
“Alice is here,” I said, looking back to the little demon, “which raises a hell of an interesting question.”
“Your demon?” she asked, her tone holding a touch of skepticism. Some people.
“Yes.”
“You seem surprised by that,” Maggie said.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a church,” Alice said quietly, her voice reverent. She started turning to stare over the interior, taking it all in.
“I am,” I said, watching Alice pace forward, staring around in rapt wonder. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything close to a full-blown emotion register on the demon’s face. She looked… lost.
“Right.”
“She can’t manifest on holy ground. Yet I’m looking at her now. I’m also not feeling like total ass at the moment. Which means...”
“This place has been desecrated.” Alice finished my thought.
“Which means?” Maggie asked.
I blinked, still a bit entranced at the fact Alice was completely awed by her surroundings. It was surreal.
“The place has been desecrated,” I said, repeating Alice's words and turning my attention back to Maggie.
“Ows ‘at?”
I looked at Alice, raising my own brows in curiosity.
“Something blasphemous happens,” the demon said and sat down on one of the still standing pews. She stared around quietly for a moment and the look on her face suggested she was fighting back intense emotion. “Something violent, a rape or murder most likely. Something that stains its godliness.” Her voice was a quiet whisper.
“Then we have a bigger problem,” I said.
“Oh?” Maggie asked.
I looked the place over once again, my eyes settling on the confessionals. They looked the same as they always had, untouched. It was enough amongst the wreckage to catch my attention. I didn’t answer Maggie. Instead, I stalked over and grabbed the first door, pulling it open. The interior was empty.
I opened the second and winced. The man hadn’t been dead long, his arm flopping out to brush my leg once the
door was open. He had been older, in his early fifties or sixties, with hair the color of fresh snow. His eyes were open, a crystal clear shade of blue that was almost startling in its brightness. He wore simple coveralls and looked like the jovial neighbor from some 1950’s sitcom. His throat had been ripped open. Blood had soaked the coveralls, pooling around him in the confessional's carpeted floor.
“Shit,” I said.
I heard Maggie gasp from just over my shoulder. She closed her eyes for a long minute. She sighed and ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her face.
“That’s Ed, the janitor. He cleans the church part time,” she said after a moment.
“Well that explains that,” I said quietly, “We need to go.”
“Go? We can’t just leave him,” she said
“Yeah?”
“It’s not right,” she said quietly.
“Not right huh? Let’s ask Ed if he minds. Hey, Ed. Look man, you mind if we cut out?” I said to the dead man. “Don’t mind? Good.”
Maggie’s eyes damn near bored holes through my skull.
“Sorry,” I said after a long moment. “Point is, cops show up here we’re gonna be held up for more than a few hours. The way this place looks from the outside, I’m surprised they aren’t here now. That, and this thing’s looking for us. Actively.”
“Where do you propose we go?” she said after a moment.
“Well, not here would be a start,” I said.
She looked back at Ed, then towards me. She turned on her heel and walked across the church and out. I jogged to catch up with her.
“What about the Padre and the others?” she asked as we walked, heading towards the car, leaving the church behind us.
“Right now, not really concerned about it. We need to find somewhere to hole up. We can figure all that shit out later.”
Demon Jack Page 10
