I squirmed in my seat. “You sure know how to instill confidence, Gabe.”
He leaned forward, patting the side of my knee. “We’ll be alright, Jordan. We always are.”
Just then, the intercom beeped and I heard the Captain’s voice. “We’re beginning our descent into Edmonton. Your attendant will come by to pick up trash momentarily. Make sure you have all your items and have a pleasant stay.”
“He wouldn’t be saying that if he were coming with us,” I muttered. Nine hours on a private jet, even a nice one like this, had made me antsy and restless knowing that Hell was literally waiting for us down there. I refused to sleep during the flight for fear of Belial contacting me through my dreams again.
There was a limousine waiting for us when we landed—Gabriel didn’t believe in public transportation, amusingly enough—that took us through the city to its outskirts. Belial had left a number for us to use when we arrived as well as the address to the Door. He had offered to pick us up, but we both firmly declined, which amused him. He knew it sounded like a trap, but that didn’t stop him from asking anyway. The only way to get out of this situation was to stay smart and getting our own reliable transportation was the first step in the right direction.
To my surprise, the limo stopped in front of an abandoned paper mill about ten miles outside of downtown Edmonton. Snow had fallen that morning, leaving several inches for us to crunch through in our boots. I was used to cold weather having lived in both New Jersey and Albany all my life, but Canada cold was a completely different animal. I had about three layers of clothing on yet the bitter wind still nipped my cheeks and forehead.
Gabriel leaned down and tapped on the car window. The driver was an angel, and according to Gabriel, a rather effective bodyguard so I felt a bit safer.
“We should be out in less than thirty minutes,” Gabriel told him. “If you see anything suspicious, or if we take longer than that, send for back up. I’ve got a team on standby for extraction.”
The bodyguard nodded and rolled his window back up. Not a moment later, a second limousine glided up over the black ice and stopped. I tensed, sliding my gloved fingers into the pocket of my parka to touch the rosary I always carried. Calm down, Amador. It’s just a car.
The door opened and Belial unfolded his tall frame from inside the car. He wore sunglasses and had braided his long hair to keep it out of his face. The rest of him was covered in black, as usual, but I felt a little better knowing that even he couldn’t pull off alluring in this kind of weather. Too much clothing.
“I trust you had a pleasant flight,” the demon said when he was within earshot of us.
Gabriel smiled, ever polite and civil, but it was as frigid as the ice beneath our shoes. “Of course. That’s what private jets are for.”
“All these years and you’re still as posh as ever, Gabriel. I find it charming. You really should try to impart some of that on your brother.”
He angled his face towards me, his smile widening to a grin. “Jordan. You look positively fetching. Like a female Michelin man.”
I rolled my eyes. “No one looks sexy when they’re cold.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
“Can we go inside now or are you going to continue flirting out here in the freezing cold?”
“How rude of me. I can certainly do that inside. This way, if you please.”
He started across the empty parking lot towards the side door of the old building. The outside walls were such a dark grey that they looked almost black and they were caked with ice and snow. Surrounding the building were several acres that eventually stretched into the forest. The street ran past it for miles, but there were no houses or businesses in this particular area. No witnesses. Sounded like the perfect place for the entrance to Hell.
Gabriel went in after Belial for safety reasons and I followed, shutting the door behind me. The inside looked no better—old, rusty machines populated the floor dimly lit by the holes in the roof. I expected demons to pop out from the corners with weapons, but nothing happened. Just an empty, suspicious factory.
“Nice place,” I said. “How much did Leatherface make you pay for it?”
Belial took off his sunglasses and clucked his tongue as he walked over to the nearest machine. “So cynical. You should know by now that things aren’t always what they seem.”
He peeled off his gloves and yanked a large black-handled lever. The panel slid out of sight and revealed a shiny metallic one beneath with a keypad and palm-recognition pad. Belial punched in a six-digit number and placed his hand on the pad. It beeped twice and the ground vibrated beneath us. We stepped back as the paper machine slid aside to reveal a set of stairs down a narrow passageway. There was one bare bulb to light the way.
“That’s not suspicious,” I said, unable to help myself.
Gabriel sighed, shaking his head at me. “Ever observant, aren’t we?”
“Why, Jordan, are you saying you don’t trust me?” Belial asked, widening his blue eyes to look innocent. It almost made me laugh. Dammit.
“I’d trust Hannibal Lecter before I’d trust you.”
He flashed me a toothy grin, altering his voice to sound like the cannibal himself as portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins. “I hate rude people.”
Gabriel and I shared a look. He shrugged. “Well, you walked right into that one.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I turned to Belial. “I’ll go down your Death Stairs, but you go first.”
Belial bowed his head. “With pleasure.”
The demon began his descent. I glanced at Gabriel and couldn’t disguise my reluctance.
He squeezed my hand, dropping his voice to a murmur. “If anything happens, run. Do not wait for me, do not hesitate, do not be a hero, just get out of here. Understand?”
I nodded. He turned and went down the stairs. I took a deep breath and forced myself to follow him, placing both palms against the cool stone walls as I went. The rough solidity helped me stay calm despite my limited line of sight. Our footsteps echoed in the constricted space, seeming to punctuate the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. The bulb served as my vantage point. I had counted about fifteen steps when I passed it and figured we were about halfway down. All at once, the vibrations from earlier rumbled down the walls and then I heard a heavy, slithering sound.
“What’s that?”
I whipped around to see the panel sliding back over the entrance to the stairwell, eliminating the last bit of light other than the bulb. My breathing hitched up. I fought to stay calm as I turned back around to continue down the steps.
Belial spoke and the narrow stairwell made it sound like he was all around me. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” I said, attempting to sound unaffected. “How much farther is it?”
“Not far,” the demon replied in a dreamy voice. He was playing with me. Bastard.
We kept walking and everything disappeared in the inky depths, so dark I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. I waited for something to grab me or for a knife to be jammed into my side, but then I stepped onto a landing and bumped into one of the guys.
“Forgive me, there is another door here. I always have trouble finding the key,” Belial said, and I could hear him moving around.
“The key? How can you possibly see the lock right now?”
“I have excellent night vision. You’d be surprised at what I can see.”
I felt hot breath next to my face and jerked backwards, colliding with Gabriel in the dark.
The archangel steadied me, hardening his voice. “Enough games, demon. Let us in or I will make you.”
“Killjoy.”
I heard the click of locks sliding back. Light spilled onto the landing. I squinted, putting my hand up as my eyes adjusted, and walked through. The room wasn’t much of a room at all, but rather like a hallway leading to yet another door. There were two hulking men standing with their backs to the adjacent walls decked out in armor as if they were on so
me sort of SWAT team. The energy bubbling around them told me they were demons, and powerful ones at that. The automatic weapons in their gloved hands also spoke volumes about their purpose.
“Gentlemen, we need to see the Puppeteer,” Belial said.
The two men glanced at each other through their goggles and nodded. “You’ll need to be searched,” one of them said.
I glared at the back of Belial’s head. “You didn’t say anything about that.”
He turned enough to give me his profile. “It must have slipped my mind.”
I stepped forward and Gabriel caught my arm. “Relax. It’s nothing we can’t handle, right?”
“Right,” I muttered, unzipping my parka.
The man on the left took it, hanging the garment on a hook nearby. He searched all the pockets, finding my rosary and three vials of holy water, while I unzipped my second coat. He took that one as well, discovering my .38 Chief Special Smith & Wesson, and glared at me. I shrugged and took off my jacket last. He went through it, finding nothing but peppermints, my cell phone, and my wallet. He motioned for me to put my arms against the wall.
I pressed my palms to the concrete, reminding myself not to panic as the tall guard came up behind me and started patting me down.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can take over for you?” Belial asked the guard.
“Shut up,” Gabriel and I both chorused. The demon merely chuckled in response.
Once he was sure I was weaponless, the guard went back to his spot by the door and the second guy searched Gabriel. When he finished, he regarded us both with a heavy expression. “Don’t make us have to come get you.”
When he opened the door, I expected to see another huge door with flames belting from around it and maybe some sort of mystic chanting. Wrong.
The first thing I noticed was that there was music playing—some sort of Bollywood 1960’s swing tune—and we were no longer on the lower most level of the place. Metal clanked underfoot leading up to a huge computer console with six monitors. The acrid stench of sulfur permeated the air. Several feet behind the computer was the Demons’ Door.
The Door stood at about nine feet tall and was hidden behind thick glass panels on three sides. There were three chambers on either side of the panels with intercoms built into the glass and a metal tube coming from the top of each one. The Door itself looked like a portal from a sci-fi film. It didn’t appear solid but rather like something between a liquid and a gas. Every few seconds, something would make it ripple and the color would change from dark brown to umber to emerald and then back to brown. I would have stared at it forever had I not noticed something else.
An enormous leather chair had been pulled up in front of the massive keyboard of the console. Propped up on one side were two skinny brown legs with varicose veins mottled over the skin.
Belial cleared his throat when we walked over and the chair turned, revealing an old black woman with short grey hair and dark freckles spotted on her cheeks. She held a half-eaten Kit Kat bar in one bony hand, regarding the three of us with eyes the color of chimney smoke.
“Well, now. Wot de hell you doin’ here, boss?”
My eyebrows rose at the sound of her thick Jamaican accent. Demons never failed to surprise me.
“We are in need of your services, Morgana,” Belial said.
She bit into the chocolate, eying him. “Wot fer? Ain’t you got it all figured out, boss man?”
“Brilliant as I am, I’m not omniscient. You know this better than most.”
Morgana snorted. “Got dat right. Why you bring de angel and de girl fer?”
“A truce. We need to find someone.”
“Ah, ah!” She chortled, dropping her feet to the floor. “I know wot you come fer, boss man. Been waiting fer your call.”
“Good, then you can make this quick—”
“Not so fast, sweet talker,” she interrupted, pointing the candy at his chest.
“You got to have sometin’ I want too, y’know.”
Belial glowered at her. “I am one of the Princes of Hell. I don’t need to bargain with you. You have no choice but to obey me or—”
“Or wot? Ya send me back? I been in Hell before. You can’t make de experience any worse fer me.”
“She has a point,” I admitted.
Belial sent me a dirty look. Morgana eyed me, eating the last piece of her Kit Kat before speaking. “A Seer, hmm? You got to be de one giving him all dis trouble.”
I hesitated, not sure where she was going with her comment, but then the old woman grinned. “You a hero, y’know. He tink he know better den alla us, but you prove him wrong. Makes you kin.”
I bit my lower lip to keep from smiling at Belial’s annoyed expression. “Uh, thanks.”
“Shall we get back to the task at hand?” Gabriel interjected.
Morgana frowned. “Always business, Gabriel. No time fer fun. Don’ miss dat about you.”
She faced Belial again. “So wot you gonna give me if I help you?”
“What do you want?”
“I want off dis job. Seven centuries I been here. Cold. No food. No interesting thing to talk about or do. Jes give dese demons bodies and dat it. You give me dat and I tell you where he is.”
Belial stared her down for a handful of seconds. She didn’t flinch. Brave woman.
Finally, he extended one hand. “Deal.”
She shook it once and wheeled around, going to work on the console. She had to swipe at least ten empty Kit Kat wrappers out of the way before she could get to work. A demon with a sweet tooth. Who knew?
“Mebbe six months ago, we get an angel here askin’ fer a human body. In all my years, I never hear of sometin’ like dis. I tell him to go back but he plead wit me, promise he give me sometin’ in return. Again, I tell him to go back. He say he know sometin’ about de Apocalypse. I thought dat might be worth de trouble comin’ so I make him a body.”
“Apocalypse? Perhaps you’d like to clarify?” Gabriel asked.
She tossed an annoyed look over her shoulder. “Bright lights. Trumpets. Four horsemen. How much Bible you done read, boy?”
Gabriel sighed. “Did he mention what would facilitate this so-called Apocalypse?”
“No. When I ask him dat, he say I will know when I see it. But he had sometin’ wit him, sometin’ important dat came through wit his spirit.”
“What did it look like?”
She paused. “Mebbe a page of sometin? Like from a book?”
Gabriel nodded, his face settling into a frown. “Unusual. I’ll look into it. What kind of body did he ask for?”
“Nuttin’ special. Wanted sometin’ plain, sometin’ dat would make him blend in wit de rest of de humans. I got it right here. Hold on.”
Her bony fingers went to work typing and clicking with her wireless mouse. Eventually, she pulled up a photo. My entire body went cold.
It was the redheaded man from the restaurant.
I stumbled, catching myself on one side of the console after my knees went weak.
Gabriel immediately came over to me. “Jordan, what’s wrong? Do you know this man?”
“He was…he was at the restaurant a few days ago,” I whispered, hating how my voice trembled when I spoke. “He could have killed me, Gabriel. I wouldn’t have even seen it coming.”
He rubbed my shoulders, trying to calm me down. “It’s alright. You’re safe now. That is what counts.”
“But why didn’t he try to kill me?”
Gabriel opened his mouth to answer, but Belial did it for him. “I’m sure he knows that you’re married to Michael. Killing you would constitute a betrayal and so he left you alive out of respect.”
“Why would he care about respect? He’s butchered six innocent people.”
Belial shrugged. “Even murderers have a code of honor.”
I glared at him. “You would know.”
The first sign of anger flickered across his face. Gabriel squeezed my arm in warning. H
e was right. I was scared and so I wanted to hide it by picking a fight. Stupid and childish of me.
I took a deep breath and cleared my mind. “Morgana, is there any way to track him?”
She sucked her teeth. “Course der is. We can’t let dem all run amok. Dey got a tracking chip implanted in each body.”
The demon went to work again and activated the man’s tracker. The computer screen brought up a globe and started to search for the signal. Seconds later, we heard a beeping sound and red letters appeared at the top of the screen: SIGNAL LOST.
Morgana’s jaw dropped. “Dat can’t be right.”
“Check it again,” Belial ordered.
She typed in the code again, but received the same message. “Dis can’t be.”
“Why?” I asked.
Morgana pointed to her breastbone. “De trackers come implanted right next to de heart. If dey try to get it out, it causes cardiac arrest. Don’ know how de hell he managed to remove it.”
“That means he had to have seen a very talented heart surgeon,” Gabriel said. “At least we have somewhere to go from here. Pull up his last known whereabouts.”
She retrieved a list of coordinates. The globe spun around until it landed on Cleveland, Ohio.
“Print off this and a photograph,” the archangel continued. “We need to get moving immediately. There’s no telling when the next Seer is going to Awaken and we have to find him before that happens.”
She obeyed and gave the papers to Gabriel and another copy to Belial. “If dat is all, I got bags to pack. Seven hundred years of de world to catch up on.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “Good luck with that.”
Morgana grinned. “Same to you.”
We went back up to the surface and got in the limo.
“Let’s return to the airport,” Gabriel said. “Call your husband. He’ll want to know what’s going on.”
I nodded and dialed Michael’s number. He answered on the second ring.
“Hey, gorgeous. How’s it going?”
“Oh, just dandy,” I answered with an exhausted sigh, leaning my head back on the leather seat. “We found out who the rogue angel is. It turns out he’s the guy who left that hundred dollar bill for me at the restaurant a few days ago.”
Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More Page 215
