Demon Jack

by Patrick Donovan

  “That’s what you do,” she said, “you live.”

  I turned once more towards the window, watching the setting sun behind Boston’s skyline. I turned back, and Alice was gone.

  Just as well.

  Time to go meet a very new, very hungry vampire.

  Chapter 16

  I found Lucy sitting on the Parkman Bandstand steps. She had cleaned up, changing her clothes for something that had probably come out of a donation bin. On the plus side, they fit her well. She wore a long sleeved black turtleneck, the color faded to an almost greenish-blue, and tattered jeans. She had a scarf wrapped around her neck, the frayed edges hanging around her knees. She looked up, hearing my footfalls crunching in the newly fallen snow.

  She had tied her hair back, accenting the now stark features of her face. Her eyes had a look in them of desperation, of hopelessness which nearly broke my heart.

  It wasn’t a feeling I was used to.

  “Glad to see you made it,” I said, brushing leaves from the steps and sitting beside her.

  “It wasn’t hard,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m hungry though. I'm really hungry.”

  “Adam didn’t follow you, or try to?”

  “I haven’t seen him,” she said with a shrug.

  “Well, you probably wouldn’t. At least not until he wanted you to see him. He’s an asshole like that,” I said.

  “Where’s the little girl?” she asked.

  “Alice?”

  “I guess?”

  “She has a tendency to just pop in and out at random. Otherwise, I guess she’s here.” I tapped my head just above the ear. “hiding out.”

  “From?”

  “The things that...” I let my voice trail off. Piece one clicked, falling into place. I was surprised I hadn’t caught on to it before. I had been about to say the things that want to drag her back to Hell. I slammed the heel of my hand into my forehead, irritated.

  “Stupid Jack. Fucking stupid,” I muttered.

  “What is it?” Lucy asked me.

  “I have an idea. I think I know why this thing is following me, and probably how.”

  “Okay. Care to share?”

  I stood, pacing in the snow, trying to let the pieces fall into place.

  “The deal I made with Alice.”

  “The deal you made when you died?” Lucy asked, cutting me off.

  “Yeah. That one. It was a two-way bargain. Both of us wanted to stay out of Hell, Alice needed my body as a taxi, so to speak. She’s an escapee. She can’t exist here without tying herself to a mortal’s soul. Even then it’s not a very strong anchor, other demons can do it. For some reason, she can't.”

  “What do you mean, not a strong anchor?”

  “It’s complicated. Look, let’s just say she’s only here on a visa and not as a citizen.”

  “So the demon is after Alice?”

  “It would make sense,” I said.

  “What about before that, what about what happened to me?”

  I shrugged. “I guess maybe its coincidence it found me, I don't know. Maybe you were recreation. There’s no telling, I don’t claim to understand it, but this makes sense, damn it. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.”

  “Charming,” Lucy said. “So what now?”

  “Now we talk to Alice.” I said flatly, and as if on cue the little demon appeared standing perfectly balanced on the rail of the bandstand. Lucy jerked to her feet, her new vampiric speed making the action seem as fast as thought. One moment she was seated, the next she was simply standing with no motion in between. Alice stared between the two of us for a long moment, saying nothing.

  “I take it you heard the conversation?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Alice replied, voice flat.

  “And?” Lucy asked.

  “And what?” she said, settling her eyes on Lucy.

  “Is that what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” Alice responded.

  “Perhaps isn’t good enough,” I snapped.

  “Oh?” she said stepping off the banister. She floated, gently drifting forward until she was standing in front of me, staring up into my face. “I do not want you to die, Jack. If I tell you more than I have, then what?”

  I took a step back, though physically I knew there wasn’t anything she could do to me, at least that I was aware of. She stepped in time with me, keeping us merely inches apart. Her aura seemed to grow, to radiate something unseen. I could feel my skin lighting up with that weird pins and needles feeling you get from sleeping on your arm or sitting on your foot.

  “You go, find this Legion, try and destroy it?” she asked me. “You continue on this fool’s errand, one that has already led you so perilously close to finding yourself once more cast into Hell?”

  “Legion? As in the Bible story demon?” Lucy asked.

  “The same, no, but the same, yes,” Lucy said, her eyes still locked on me.

  “What does that even mean?” Lucy asked.

  “A legion is one of Hell’s soldier’s. Several of Hell’s lesser demons given a singular form, if one were to be technical. Perhaps these are demon’s from the story of the lamb, perhaps many the very same. There’s no way to know,” Alice said. “The fact however, remains that they will kill you, Jack. One may not, two may not, but they will continue, more and more of them will gather here, creating the bigger whole, until you are overrun and torn apart. It is how they operate. When they kill you, your soul will no longer be in my hands, under my protection. Your life will end, Death will find you, you will be cast into the pit and I will be stuck in between or back in purgatory. Simple as that.”

  “I’ll help him,” Lucy said, pushing every inch of defiance in her little body into her voice.

  “You’re a parasite,” Alice said, making no effort to hide her disdain.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. A parasite. A genetic mistake that subsists off the life of others,” Alice said, though she had still yet to take her eyes off me. “Do I need to spell it out for you more than that? The only reason I’m acknowledging your presence at the moment is the sheer fact that you can see me. Which, by the way, have you figured out why that is yet?”

  “Um, no,” Lucy said. “And parasite or not, if Jack wants to stop this thing, I’ll help him.”

  “Alice-” I said.

  She held up a hand silencing me.

  “You’re going to do this regardless of what I say aren’t you?” Alice said, her voice resigned.

  “I’m going to handle this,” I said. I had stopped backpedaling and stood staring down at the demon that owned my soul. She stared at me for a long time, silence settling over us, before she cast her eyes towards the ground. They grew distant, as if lost in thought before turning back up towards me.

  “I can’t dissuade you can I?” she finally asked.

  “No.”

  “And you are set on doing this aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucy watched the exchange, shoving her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

  “You can’t kill it.” She paused again, looking up towards the sky. Finally, she sighed. “I can.”

  “How?”

  “Find the one it’s bound to, and kill them. It’ll sever the anchor; it’ll exist solely as spirit. Without being bound, it won’t have a life sustaining it here, holding it. Then I can kill it.”

  “Any ideas who that is?” Lucy asked.

  Alice vanished.

  I shook my head. I had answers, but they were the answers at the end, not the ones that would get me there. I had to figure up someway to locate point B between A and C.

  “What a bitch,” Lucy said staring at the place where Alice had been moments ago.

  “Do you remember anything before you ended up in the hospital, before the whole going crazy thing?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing at all?” I pressed. “What you were doing, where you
were, nothing sticks out?”

  She turned her head, staring out over the Commons.

  “Last thing I remember, I was handling.” She shrugged. “That’s it.”

  “Handling where?”

  “Around Dot.”

  “Anywhere in particular?” I asked.

  “Just around, near the library.”

  “Kennedy?”

  She nodded again.

  “Alright, anything interesting happen there? Anything strange?”

  “No. People gave me change, or they ignored me. That’s how it works.”

  I sighed.

  “What about after that?”

  “I slept in a shelter.” She tilted her head again, a flash of insight sparking over her eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing probably, just... Weird nightmares that night. Really vivid. Scary shit. I wouldn't even remember, except they were just... horrible.”

  “Tell me about them,” I said.

  “Just... I barely remember it. It was depressing. Being alone, being cold, being hungry.” She sighed. “I’m not much help am I?”

  “Keep going. What else?”

  “I was being chased, I couldn’t see by what. It was like the closer it got, the colder, the more alone, the hungrier I was.”

  Jackpot.

  “What shelter?” I asked, already making my way towards the Common’s gate. She fell in step behind me, a second later, frighteningly silent.

  “I don’t know its name. I’ve slept in a lot of shelters. They sort of blend together. I can take you there though,” she said the last part with a slight smile breaking her lips. Despite how pleasant it was, the fangs lining her mouth made her look certifiably freakish.

  “Close enough. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 17

  It was well past dark when we got to the shelter. We rode most of the way on the T, which at this hour left us a car to ourselves. We made the trip in silence, both of us so tired or lost in our own thoughts that we didn't bother to converse. The last four blocks we covered on foot.

  It was a small, squat brick building on the corner of two side streets. Just outside the doors, a few homeless men muddled about, passing bottles in brown paper bags. They couldn’t bring the booze inside and were perfectly content getting their last minute drinking in before the doors closed and locked. A sign over the door read simply “Haven”.

  “This is the place,” Lucy said.

  “I’m familiar,” I said. “I stayed here for a few nights ‘while back, when I got out of prison.”

  As we got closer, the bums outside the door all turned towards Lucy. She was staring at them, her expression distant, her nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air. They stared at her for a long moment, a palpable silence radiating between them. The closer we got, the more they seemed to withdraw inside themselves, shrinking under the weight of her presence. Finally, they turned and retreated inside, the guy holding the bottle just dropping it on the pavement. Lucy shook her head a little bit, resisting the hunger that had washed over her.

  “Do I smell funny?” she asked, completely oblivious to the fact that for a moment there, she had looked every bit the predator that she had become.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what is it? Why’d they just bolt inside like that?”

  I stopped on the sidewalk, turning to her so we were face to face. For a long moment I stared at her, tracing her features with my eyes, trying to put the words to the truth, to find a gentle way to explain how this all worked. Adam hadn’t had a chance to teach her anything and in a sense she may have been better off with the sociopathic little shit. At least he knew, he could teach her to ignore it, to thrive despite what she had become.

  She was part of a different world now. One where the rules weren’t the same, where things were just plain fucked up as a regular occurrence. She was completely lost.

  “You’re not human anymore, Lucy.”

  “I get that.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t understand it,” I said.

  Lucy seemed crestfallen, cutting her eyes back towards the door of the shelter. She was doing a good job of keeping her hunger in check, but I had to watch her, just in case.

  “Then help me,” she said, a note of pleading in her voice.

  Now it was my turn to alternate glances between Lucy and the door. Most shelters like this had a cut off time, they locked the doors, everyone bedded down, and that was that, no in or out till morning. Judging on how long it had been dark, how long it had taken us to get here, we were pushing dangerously close to that line. The sooner I got in there and got a chance to peek around, maybe find something out, the sooner I’d be able to get this shit behind me.

  “Not now. I will, but not now.”

  “Jack, you owe me this. I’m not angry at you for what happened. I made my choice. But damn it, you owe me this! I have to know, I can't survive without knowing,” she said, the first notes of petulance creeping into her voice.

  “I know, just, let’s get through tonight first all right? Oh, and wrap the scarf around your face. Hide those choppers,” I said, joking.

  She looked towards the door again and nodded, though I could see that there was some unintended sting in my words from the way her face tightened. She started walking again, wrapping the scarf over her chin and mouth.

  “I, uh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “They are pretty gnarly.”

  The inside of the shelter was everything I remembered. The walls were still the same pale, faded blue. The floor was still the same old white tile, the kind they used in hospitals and schools: ugly, generic and -most importantly- cheap. Rows of cots, each one barely large enough for a full grown adult were laid out with almost military precision, five rows wide and maybe ten long. A set of double doors settled in the far wall led to a modest kitchen and offices.

  The air was heavy with the smell of old food, of sweat and other sundry bodily fluids, and stale coffee. Here and there, Boston’s downcast huddled in corners, or around a small TV. A few were playing dice off one of the walls, another already passed out and snoring drunkenly, the day’s newspaper over his face. I saw Lucy watching him, once more losing herself, before shaking her head and focusing on the floor in front of us.

  Alice flickered into sight, walking amidst the cots, her eyes distant, seemingly unfocused. She turned towards me, head lifted slightly and seemed to sniff at the air. Her nose crinkled and, on the creepy little shit, it was almost cute.

  “What?” I said, quietly.

  “It was here,” she said.

  “Recently?” I asked, keeping my voice near inaudible.

  “Reasonably,” Alice said with a small shrug.

  I nodded, turning to Lucy.

  “Now what?” she asked, her eyes narrowed and locked on my demon.

  “Honestly, still no idea. Hoping something just... jumps out at me,” I responded.

  The plan to come here, well, that had been sound, I guess. Now that I was here, I had no idea what exactly I was looking for. Alice confirmed that Legion had been here, but what now? Do I start asking folks if they'd seen crazy people with green eyes? The Devil? Elvis?

  “Excuse me, I’m Father John Davidson, can I help you with something?” I heard a voice from behind me say.

  The priest was, to put it lightly, a rotund individual. Actually, he looked a lot like Winston Churchill. Heavy set, his massive stomach straining against the confines of a black button up shirt. He wore jeans, which added a startling contrast to the white priest collar around his neck. He was mostly bald, the overhead fluorescent lights reflecting off his head. He smiled, and it was a warm, genuine smile. He held a hand out to me.

  I took his hand, shaking it.

  “Just looking for a friend, Padre,” I said, keeping my eyes moving around the room.

  “Oh?”

  Lucy did her best to fade back from the priest, turning, wandering about the cots but staying within earshot. I kept an
eye on her as she moved, especially now. Even as they slept, or were otherwise occupied, the residents of the shelter tried their best to steer clear of Lucy, to be unnoticed or unseen by the newly made vampire, some going so far as to head towards restrooms or into the kitchen area. Alice hovered nearby, still pacing, investigating the faces of those who couldn’t see her, getting almost nose to nose with some of them.

  “Yeah.”

  “You think they might be here?”

  I shrugged.

  “Who is it you’re looking for?”

  “A British girl named Maggie,” I said, blurting the first thing that came to mind. Yeah, I was lying to a priest. What of it?

  “Oh? Can’t say it rings any bells.”

  “Is there a roster you could check?” I asked, trying to keep the man in conversation, even if it meant compounding the lie while I tried to figure out what to do next.

  The priest’s glare started turning a bit suspicious.

  “Are you with the police?” he asked.

  “No sir, Padre, I definitely am not with the police.”

  “Why are you trying to find her?”

  “She owes me money,” I said flatly, the first hints of annoyance creeping into my voice.

  Father Davidson crossed his arms over his chest. The motion instantly changed his demeanor from pleasantly plump to something more akin to a massive mountain of sheer stubborn immovability. His eyes narrowed, sparkling with defiance.

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Now, I won’t turn you away if you need a place to stay, but if you’re done here I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” he said, his tone leaving no room for debate.

  “Excuse me,” Lucy said sidling up to the priest. She looked towards me, anxious, and I nodded for her to go on. If he wasn’t going to give us anything anyways, what’s the worst that could happen?