by Noree Cosper
I walked to the side of the bed. The naked woman with long brown hair stared up at the ceiling with unseeing blue eyes. Her pink lips were parted, and her face was frozen in an expression of pleasure.
“I guess we can call the police to find her once we are gone,” I said. “Poor girl. She never knew what she had gotten into.”
“There are always people who will be victims,” Adrian said.
“But it’s our job to make sure there are less.”
Adrian glanced at the incubus. “He won’t be claiming any more. I think we’ve done our job. Shall we go?”
I sighed, defeated.
We wrestled the body of the incubus out of the window and down the fire escape, mostly by dropping him from one platform to the next. Demons were pretty resilient and tended to make the bodies they possessed so.
As Adrian hauled the incubus into the van, I scanned the ally, on the lookout for anyone or anything more suspicious than two people engaging in kidnapping. Something on the corner of the apartment caught my eye. Burned into the brick was a symbol with a straight line and circle at the top. Halfway down the line was a triangle attached to a horizontal curve that ended in a spiral, make the triangle look like a horn. A wave a familiarity rush through me and my fingers ran over the mark. This was an angelic symbol.
Gabriel.
The name came to me in a rush. My namesake. This was the symbol of the archangel Gabriel.
“Are you coming?” Adrian held open the driver’s side door, about to climb in.
“Yeah.”
I turned and headed to the van. We crawled inside without saying a word. Adrian started the engine and we backed out of the ally.
I glanced at the apartments as we drove away.
What as an angelic symbol doing on a building that housed a demon?
Chapter 9
Adrian and I brought the demon in and locked him in the specially made cell in the parking garage under the building. Jonah had buzzed with excitement and gone straight to his lab to prepare his possible cure. He’d said he’d let us know when he was ready to test the cure. What better way to use my time than to research the symbol I’d found in the library full of lore on all sorts of creatures and entities, including angels?
That had been hours ago, and the words were getting harder to concentrate on. The library felt desolate without the television and the smell of popcorn that had filled the room the last time I’d been here.
I yawned and rubbed my eyes. The words in the book I had open began to dance on the page. I leaned back, squeezing my eyes shut as I rubbed my forehead.
Come on Gabby, you can do this.
With a deep breath, I sat up and scanned over the page I’d already read twice without retaining much. Most of it was pretty basic information on Gabriel and its influence over magic. Gabriel was known as the Messenger of God whose name meant “God is my strength.” Gabriel held power over words and languages. The most interesting part was it controlled the ebb and flow of magic, like the moon’s influence over the tides. So, what did its symbol on the wall mean? Was it a part of something bigger?
I chewed the bottom of my lip as I turned the page. Gabriel’s symbol, the same I’d seen on the wall, filled the next page. Once again, the sensation of familiarity filled me. I ran my fingers over the inked edges.
The ding of the elevator drew me out of my reverie. Tres appeared from around the corner of the hall, shuffling towards me. He flopped down in the chair opposite of me and stared at the books.
“Hey.” He rubbed his hands together in a fidgeting motion.
I flipped the next page of my book. “I take it Jonah isn’t finished?”
“He kicked me out.” Tres sighed, running his hands through his hair. “He said I was being more annoying than helping.”
I chuckled under my breath. “Don’t take it personally. Jonah likes to work his alchemy alone. He’s fired countless assistants.”
“He had assistants? I didn’t think anyone was interested in alchemy. It’s pretty old fashioned. I tried to explain if he took the modern principles of medicine, his alchemy could be much more powerful.”
“And that’s when he kicked you out?”
“Yeah.” Tres leaned over to peer at my book. “What are you reading?”
“A book on the magical connections of archangels.”
“That sounds… completely boring. Why would you put yourself through that?”
“I found a symbol of the archangel Gabriel at the apartment building where we grabbed the demon. I’m trying to find its purpose.”
“Any luck?”
“A little. I think it was used to power some sort of circle, but it was the only one I found. If it was a circle, I should have been able to see the boundaries, but I only found this symbol.” I chewed the inside of my cheek.
Magic was composed of five practices: talismans, symbols, rituals, incantations, and alchemy. With training, anyone could learn to use magic, however, the practices had to be precise. Miscalculations usually lead to dire consequences. Circles were usually a beginning of a ritual, but they were composed of symbols and boundaries.
How did any of this relate to Faust? My gut twisted at just the thought of him and heat raced up the back of my neck. The vision of his face, a comedy and tragedy mask meshed into one, flashed through my mind. I wanted to smash that mask to pieces. Of course, I couldn’t. It wasn’t physical, and Faust was smart enough not to use Blasphemy to get stuck in one body. But my blade could hurt him. It was created to destroy demons. Once I found him, we’d have a very pointed conversation.
I glanced at Tres, pulling my thoughts back to the present. “So, is this test the only reason you’re nervous?”
He let out another sigh. “I guess. I mean if it works, we can help Delilah.”
“I thought you were over her. She was spying on us for Cambione.”
“Well, she’s been pretty much alone here and she needed someone to talk to…”
“Oh, Tres.” I shook my head. Best to change the subject. “You know that even if this experiment works, we will need to test Jonah’s cure a few more times before we use it on our patients. You know how drug trials work, Tres.”
“I know, but this is a start. I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere, but I feel like we’re running out of time. Especially the way Esais has been acting.”
I stiffened as a chill crawled up my back. “What do you mean?”
He keeps stopping by the area where we keep Delilah and the other two with that Irae girl. She’s mentioned a few times about purging the corruption.
“She’s kind of weird,” I said.
“Yeah, but Esais didn’t say anything,” Tres said. “I mean, Esais is the one who always goes on about saving lives and he just nodded at her with this creepy smile.”
First Marge, and now Tres, of all people. “Have you tried talking to Viktor?”
“He’s barely around,” Tres said. “Ever since Irae came… and Aaron started hanging around, Viktor’s made himself scarce.”
“I’ll look into it. Try to talk to Esais.”
The yawn crept up on me before I knew what was happening. I rubbed my eyes again as the words danced on the page.
“Not tonight,” Tres said. “You need some sleep. Go grab one of the beds downstairs.”
I stared down at the book. The paragraphs were no longer making sense. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Sleep well.”
I stood and grabbed Tres’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Hey, it will be all right. We’ll figure everything out.”
“I hope so,” he said.
I took the stairs down to the third-floor bedrooms. I was asleep almost as soon as I laid my head on the pillow.
Dimitri holds the door open to the sitting room and I step in. I breathe in the rich smell of dark wood on the paneled walls. My hand trails across the high-backed chairs, enjoying the soft red velvet on my fingertips.
I pause halfway in the ro
om. A man stares out of the large window that takes up the eastern wall. His arms are clasped behind his back, with a piece of paper gripped in one hand.
“Uncle Jonathon,” Dimitri calls as he comes up behind me. “I’d like you to meet someone.”
The man turns to us. He runs a hand through his salt and pepper beard, which matches his trimmed hair. His jaw is set, and his mouth has formed a thin line.
“Well, she has run off and done the deed.” Jonathon shakes the paper in the air.
“What has Lucy done now?” Dimitri wraps his arm around my waist.
“She’s married that bloody two-bit occultist.”
“Crowley?” Dimitri chuckles. “Well, Lucy has always been a wild one.”
“Yes, but I fear it may be too much for her this time. She takes after her mother, you know.” Jonathon pauses and then starts, as if seeing me for the first time. “Pardon me, Madam. Jonathan Harker.”
I take his hand and he studies me with his smoky quartz colored eyes. In moments, I feel that he has inspected me and I have been judged. It seems a fair judgment by the smile that comes to his lips.
“Gabriella Di Luca.” I give him a smile of my own. “Dimitri has told me great things about you.”
“And he said some fine things about you.”
“Would you like some sherry?” Dimitri asks.
He moves to the bar to prepare drinks for us. I cross my arms and clear my throat. Jonathon places his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet. I stare at a button on his tailored suit. The light from the sun catches it and I blink as the design shifts into a square-ish symbol. Two thick lines, one at the top and one at the bottom, thin out to form acute angles.
“So, Dimitri tells me you are a demon hunter?” he asks.
I blink back up at him. “Hmm? You could say it’s become my life.”
He chuckles. “I suppose that happens too many of us who encounter the supernatural.”
I nod at him. Dimitri comes back with the drinks. He holds his glass up.
“May we be victorious in our future hunts,” he says.
“I can drink to that.” I clink my glass to his.
“Here, here,” Jonathon says.
We laugh as we sip our drinks. It was one of the few times we would laugh as the days to come would be filled with grief and pain.
Chapter 10
A hand shaking my shoulder pulled me from my dream. I blinked back the bleariness and Tres’s form leaning over me came into focus. He glanced at the doorway and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed.
“Jonah thinks he’s got the cure figured out,” Tres said. “He’s going to test on the demon. Thought you might want to be there too.”
I sat up with a soft groan. “What time is it?”
“About three in the morning.”
“He’s been working on this all night?”
“You wouldn’t guess by how alert he is.”
Must have been his own alchemical treatments.
I stood and stretched out my arms, then grabbed my sword from the bedside table where I’d lain it. “All right.”
We took the stairs to the underground garage. In the back corner, Adrian had turned what had once been parking into three separate cages completed with iron and silver bars. Symbols and circles were inscribed on the ground and in the walls of the prisons.
Jonah stood in front of the cage on the left, the only occupied one. He held a small black case in his hand. Inside the cage, the incubus lay strapped to a metal gurney. Leather bonds crossed over his chest and legs, and his wrists and ankles were cuffed in silver with symbols inscribed on them. He’d been glaring at Jonah, but his gaze found me and he grinned. I ignored him and glanced at Adrian, who stood opposite of Jonah with his special gun drawn.
Lucy had described a genre to me called steampunk a couple of months ago. That’s what came to mind whenever I looked at Adrian’s gun. Futuristic and old fashioned at the same time. The barrel was long and had a small cone at the end. Two tubes extended from the barrel and traveled back to where barrel and chamber, which held six bullets, met. Adrian had explained that a gas was ignited and burned his special demon killing symbol in each bullet as it was fired. It was strange, and I didn’t quite understand it, but the gun had killed quite a few demons. That was the power of his muse.
“I didn’t think you’d be interested in curing,” I said.
Adrian raised his eyebrow. “I’m here for when things go wrong.”
He had a point. Things rarely went as smoothly as Jonah and Tres were hoping for. With a slight nod, I drew my sword and stood next to him.
Jonah smiled at us. “Hopefully that won’t be necessary.”
“You still have to get the syringe into the demon.”
“He’s bound by the circle,” Jonah said. “Besides, I’m not weak. And you know it.”
I smiled. Thanks to his treatments, Jonah possessed a certain amount of strength. It helped keep him fit and able to fight creatures such as demons and vampires.
He set his case on a small metal table and opened it. I leaned forward as he took out a syringe and a small bottle of a silvery, semi-translucent liquid. It shimmered in the dim light of the garage.
“This took a while to get the measurements of holy water, iron, and quicksilver just right,” Jonah said. “Too much of the first two would likely poison the demon and kill the body.”
“What exactly will this do?” I asked.
“It should separate the human soul from the demon’s. Then we should be able to expel the demon.”
“If the human survives,” Adrian said.
“How much of a chance is there that the human won’t?” Tres asked.
Jonah cleared his throat as he placed the syringe in his coat pocket. “This is a new procedure, so I’m not sure. I’m hoping the magical properties of the quicksilver will be able to assist with healing the eroded part of the human soul.”
Quicksilver was often mistaken for mercury by most people. Only the alchemists and the few studied in occult knew the difference. Even most couldn’t determine the exact source of the magical substance. However, it was useful in many formulas, especially against demons. Jonah once told me it seemed to have the opposite effect of brimstone. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, and a thought wiggled its way from the back of my mind. Brimstone was the residue left behind by demons when they possessed people, essentially making it demon blood. Could quicksilver be angel blood?
Jonah cleared his throat. “Shall we?”
He stepped to the door of the cage.
I stored that line of thinking for later and tightened my grip on my sword, striding forward. He wasn’t going in that cage alone.
The demon watched us with narrowed eyes from his laying position in the cage. His gazed hovered on me and his tongue glided over his bottom lip. I let out a soft laugh. The incubus was trying to use his power on me again, but he was powerless outside the binding circle we’d place him in. If I stepped inside, like Jonah planned to do, that was another matter.
Jonah unlocked the cage door and swung it open. The demon rose as far as it could with the leather straps with a hiss. If a human did that sound, it would have to look ridiculous, but with the horns and wings, the incubus was able to pull off menacing. Jonah drew out a Tazer and fired.
The two metal nubs embedded into the demon’s bare shoulder and he stiffened at the volts traveled through his body. He collapsed back on the gurney as his body convulsed. After a few seconds, he lay still.
Jonah smiled at me. “I have ways to handle things.”
“I see,” I said.
Adrian cleared his throat. Jonah nodded and pulled the syringe from his coat pocket. I held my breath as he crossed the line of the circle separating us from the demon.
Jonah leaned forward and jabbed the needle into the incubus’s hip. The syringe drained quickly. A scream rose from the incubus and echoed against the cold concrete as the demon twisted in its bonds, r
ipping free of them. Adrian raised his gun.
“Wait,” Jonah said as he backed away. “We need to see the reaction the formula creates.”
Like a striking snake, the incubus grabbed Jonah by his throat. The demon’s face was twisted in a snarl of pain.
Rage churned in my stomach and rose in my chest like hot metal. I’d lost too many to hellspawn. I wouldn’t lose Jonah to this one. I leapt forward and slammed the hilt of my sundang into the face of the demon. With a soft crunch, his nose collapsed under the force of my blow. The demon screamed, releasing Jonah, and staggered back. Jonah and I backed from the cage and closed the door.
“What now?” Tres asked.
“Now we wait,” Jonah said. “The formula should travel through his blood stream pretty swiftly.”
The demon staggered, grabbing the metal gurney to try to keep his balance. He fell to the floor and began to writhe, his screams growing louder. A soft pop went off in my head as I switched to my spirit sight. The world greyed around me. I ignored the flashes of apparitions that flickered in and out of the underground around us and focused on the demon.
The incubus in its full winged-and-horned glory was splitting from the human soul. However, large holes filled the wispy soul of the human, and they weren’t regenerating. The bottom half trailed away into nothing as the two completely parted. The human soul floated out of the circle and into the walls, leaving only the demon behind.
Chapter 11
With one last shudder, the human body fell back on the table limp. The winged immaterial of the demon rose out of it and hovered in the circle.
Tres rushed forward two steps. “What the hell!”
“The demon is still here,” I said. “But the human soul is gone.”
The incubus smiled at me as his gaze met mine. My grip tightened around the hilt of my sundang. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to leap into the cage and slice the smirk off the incubus’s face. It would do no good, though, as the demon possessed no body anymore. Even my demon slaying sword needed some physical conduit to actually kill it. Instead, dealing with demons’ spiritual forms were what banishing rituals were for.
