ANGEL ™: avatar

by John Passarella

While Terrance was changing his position, Willem had crouched down, then dropped to his stomach to extend both arms into the darkness and pull the demon’s feet up through the gap. Given its length, the corpse seemed to weigh less than it should have—a result of the loss of all bodily fluids, Willem reasoned. By the time he had his trembling arms around the corpse’s hips, Clifford’s pale face had emerged from the darkness.

  Squeals sounded from below. “Rats,” Clifford wailed. “Lots of them.”

  Seeing that Clifford was about to lose his composure, Willem yelled, “Stay focused! We’re almost done!”

  Panicked, Clifford shoved the corpse up through the gap. The left arm snagged and spun the corpse awkwardly in his hands.

  More squeals. Too many. Clifford screamed, “They’re biting me.”

  Terrance moved the flashlight about. “There’s nothing down there!”

  Clifford was beyond reasoning. He would have scrambled through the gap if the corpse hadn’t been blocking him. Willem tugged as Clifford shoved the shoulders of the demon’s corpse, and the left arm shattered into thousands of bits of black debris. Terrance pulled the corpse clear so Willem and Clifford could climb up after it without causing further damage.

  The black particles floated around Clifford’s face like dust motes, but larger. Willem climbed out of the hole, then looked back when he heard buzzing. What seemed like hundreds of flies darted around Clifford’s face. Willem blinked away the image, shook off the sound, but Clifford thrashed about, swatting at the particles. Angry red welts appeared across his face. He began to wail, a low keening sound growing louder by the second.

  Dropping into the hole, Terrance raised a crowbar over Clifford’s head. “Faithless bastard, you’ll ruin everything!”

  Though Willem turned away, he could still hear the sickening crunch of the crowbar splitting Clifford’s skull, followed by the muffled sound of his body tumbling back into the dark pit. Then the rubble and larger debris shifted around them with a shriek of metal and stone grinding against stone. “Cave-in,” Willem warned.

  Terrance tossed the bloodied crowbar into the deeper pit, then clambered up out of the hole. Together he and Willem dragged the demon’s corpse toward the fence.

  The whole mound sank a few inches, pausing for a brief moment before everything started to crack, groan, and collapse, and a sinkhole began to form. Tons of debris collapsing into the open chamber where the demon’s corpse had waited for almost a hundred years.

  “Get the tarp,” Terrance ordered. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  With the passing of another day, Elliot’s deformities had progressed. His left leg had become thicker from thigh to ankle, the skin gray and leathery, while his foot had become wider. He’d had to slit the sides of his left sneaker just to wedge his foot inside it. Some masking tape wrapped around the sneaker managed to hold it together. The only clothes he could pull on over his legs now were baggy pajamas, Bermuda shorts, and fleece sweatpants.

  Elliot was bothered more by the leg deformity than he’d been by the left arm and hand, mainly because it affected his mobility. He now walked with a sort of one-sided bowlegged gait. His brief vision of GOS—the wondrous Grundy Operating System he would soon bring to the world—was enough to keep him focused on helping Yunk’sh finish the ritual cycle, and almost enough to make him forget about the innocent twelve who must be sacrificed so that he, Elliot, could become rich and powerful.

  During the course of the day, the demon had appeared only for brief periods, long enough to gauge Elliot’s progress in finding the next candidate for the ritual, but not long enough for the cult’s sorcerer to fix his position.

  Elliot’s search for a suitable candidate was limited to what he could do during the day. Most of the preliminary acquaintances he’d made in the chat rooms had day jobs and so were unavailable to be lured to a physical meeting. True, he had found a few on-line, but when he insisted on a meeting that evening, he’d scared them off. Either they sensed his desperation or the increasing number of news reports about the murders made them cautious. Fortunately, the press seemed ignorant of the gruesome nature of the killings so the reporting hadn’t been too sensational . . . yet.

  After Elliot had scared off the umpteenth potential candidate, his head flared with pain and a wave of nausea roiled through his stomach. The air rippled beside him and he turned to greet the demon. “No luck,” Elliot said, before the demon could even ask the question.

  Yunk’sh now resembled an animated mannequin, a noticeable improvement over the runny wax face. As he talked and gestured, the motion of jaw, mouth, eyebrows, and forehead all appeared natural, but the skin was smooth, without blemish, like molded plastic or rubber. Of course, this was just Yunk’sh in his improved neutral state. When he took the form of a real human, the disguise was perfect.

  “This delay is unacceptable, Elliot.”

  Something in the neck muscles underneath the skin was wrong. Maybe because the demon’s shape was unsupported by even a facsimile of human musculature or skeletal structure. Molded from demonic clay, Elliot thought. “There’s not much I can do until these people get home from work.”

  But the demon was focused on something else now, his gaze distant. “I sense danger.”

  Elliot stumbled out of his chair. His deformed leg was a real hindrance. “What kind of danger?”

  “Unclear,” the demon replied. “But question not my premonitions. We must hurry.”

  With a nervous glance at his wristwatch, Elliot said, “Give me a little more time. That’s all I ask. You still need two candidates. And you can’t do both in one night.”

  “When next I appear, Elliot, be sure you have good news.”

  With that warning, Yunk’sh vanished in stages, from solid to translucent to transparent to ghostly, leaving behind a swirl of air to mark his passage.

  As Elliot’s headache eased, he sighed. Gotta find number eleven.

  “Any luck?” Angel asked Cordelia.

  “Oh, there are plenty of horny guys on-line,” Cordelia replied. “But none of them seem to have actual horns just yet.”

  “In other words, no demons?”

  “None,” Cordelia replied. “I found a couple of possibilities. Each time they wanted to meet up close and personal, I suggested one of the killer’s former meeting places and they agreed. Since our killer avoids return visits to the crime scenes, I blew them off.”

  “Did you spend a lot of time weeding them out?”

  “At first. But then I had a flash of inspiration.” Cordelia flashed one of her dazzling smiles. “I decided to use a computer for what it was meant for.” Angel shook his head, unwilling to play a guessing game. “Multi-tasking,” she explained. “For the last hour, I’ve had four separate chat room windows open at once. I’m pretending to be a different person in each window. It’s actually cool. Like improvisational acting, making up all these different characters and playing them.” She frowned. “You can’t develop multiple personalities from this, right?”

  Sitting in a chair beside her, Doyle rubbed his forehead. “No, but I’m getting a god-awful headache trying to follow all your chat room conversations.”

  “I’ve had years of practice flirting at crowded parties,” Cordelia boasted. “Who knew that could turn into a job skill?”

  “You’re keeping it local, right?” Angel asked.

  Cordelia nodded. “And I’m including the missing zodiac sign names in each screen alias.”

  “That should put a bit of chum in the demon-shark-infested waters,” Doyle commented.

  Angel handed Cordelia a folded piece of paper he’d been holding while they talked. “Maybe this will help.”

  Cordelia scanned the page. “A list of chat rooms? Good, I’ll use them right away.”

  “You’re supposed to not use them.”

  Cordelia rapped her knuckles against her head. “Okay, maybe there is some mental impairment at work here. I thought you just gave
me this list and said not to use it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, so you’re the one losing your marbles,” Cordelia said. “Doyle, I feel so much better now.”

  “You and me both, Cordelia.”

  “Kate compiled this list of chat rooms from the victims’ computers,” Angel explained.

  “So why shouldn’t I use them?”

  “Because I promised Kate we wouldn’t.”

  “Then shouldn’t you wink when you tell me not to use the list?”

  “That’s not where I’m going with this,” Angel said. “Kate only gave me the list after I promised her I wouldn’t attempt any sort of entrapment in any of the chat rooms.”

  “And she believed you?”

  “Kate’s baffled by this, more than she wants to admit, I think. It’s hard for any human to fit this kind of predator into a rational worldview.”

  “She should move to Sunnydale,” Cordelia commented. “She’d either get lots of practice deluding herself or a whole new worldview.”

  “It’s no secret she wants my help. Just a question of how far she’s willing to let me . . . interfere.”

  Doyle reasoned, “Why give you the list, unless she really wants you to work it?”

  “Maybe. But I wanted the list for a different reason. To eliminate certain chat rooms from our surveillance.”

  “Eliminate them?” Cordelia asked.

  “Just as the human servant never sets up a faceto-face meeting in the same location twice, I believe he’ll avoid picking more than one victim from the same chat room. Regulars in a chat room might overlook one person dropping out, but if several disappeared without word, they might suspect foul play and notify the police.”

  Doyle pursed his lips, nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “The list Kate gave me confirms it. Only one duplicate chat room.”

  “That’s the one the police will target,” Doyle surmised.

  “Probably. But I think the duplicate is pure coincidence, a blind alley.”

  Cordelia had been comparing the list Angel handed her to the chat room windows on her computer screen. “Two matches,” she remarked.

  “Drop out of them and look for two that are not on that list,” Angel advised. “If the demon is nervous about the cult binding him, he may sacrifice some of his caution for a quick kill.”

  “Speaking as the bait in this entrapment scenario,” Cordelia said, echoing Angel’s words, “could we avoid words like ‘kill,’ ‘murder,’ and ‘mutilate’?”

  Elliot sat up straight in his chair. What caught his attention was a woman’s chat room name. The screen alias included the name of one of the two missing signs, specifically the sign Yunk’sh said would be the most powerful one to acquire next in the cycle. Whenever possible, Elliot had selected a victim with one of the astrological signs the demon said would be most beneficial for each stage of the cycle. Usually the demon gave him three or four to choose from, and they weren’t in any perceptible order. And now that they were down to two signs, the demon had stated his preference for one over the other, and that sign was staring right at him.

  He typed a question, asking the woman if the sign in her screen name was her actual sign. When she replied that it was indeed, he took the easiest New Age shortcut that came to mind. He typed, “My psychic told me I would meet an important woman in my life and she would have your sign.”

  She took the hook and ran with it, asking him if he could possibly be an Aries. He smiled and typed, “Born April tenth. How’d you guess?” Add a little detail and they never question it. Already she was thinking they were destined to be an item.

  When Cordelia’s chat room session marathon entered its third hour, Angel returned to his office to examine the case files one more time, hoping something new would come out of another pass at the 911 transcripts, the witness statements, and the police and medical examiner reports. Having watched Cordelia type messages for over two hours, Doyle picked up one of her Web design books, shaking his head anew with each turn of a page. He nearly jumped when Cordelia grabbed his hand. “I’ve got a live one!”

  Doyle stared down at her hand clutching his, and for a moment he was spellbound. He felt as if he were in another time and place, where they had gotten past all the obstacles to an actual relationship and it just felt right.

  Cordelia realized he was staring at her hand and said, “Oh, sorry.” She pulled her hand away, and he resisted the urge to grab it again, if only for a moment. “I just got a little excited.”

  Doyle’s voice was a little thick around the lump in his throat. “No apology necessary.” He cleared his throat and examined the computer screen. “What’s happened?”

  “Right off, he asked if that was my sign in my screen name,” she explained.

  Doyle put the book aside and leaned forward. Having an excuse to increase his proximity to the lovely Ms. Chase was a bonus.

  “So I guessed his sign,” Cordelia went on, “and know what?”

  Doyle flashed a wry grin. “You won the Kewpie doll.”

  “Bingo!” She frowned. “Or whatever it is they say when you win the Kewpie doll. So now he’s inviting me into a private room.” Cordelia clicked a button and said, “Yes.”

  “He’d better not be thinking cybersex.”

  Cordelia gave Doyle a withering stare. “He’s not interested in cybersex. A private room means no chat room witnesses.”

  “Right.”

  Cordelia spoke as she typed. “My real name is Cordelia. What’s yours?” She waited. “Says his name is Richard. But he prefers Rich.”

  “Does he, now?”

  “Why are you getting bent out of shape?”

  Doyle realized he was being foolish and shrugged. “No reason.”

  “Oh . . . he’s aleady asking to meet me somewhere. In public, of course, somewhere safe.”

  “Ah, the proverbial moment of truth.”

  “Where we separate the lonely men from the disgusting demons.”

  Cordelia didn’t catch the way Doyle flinched when she said “disgusting demons,” but in all fairness to her, the particular demon responsible for the skinny murders was nothing if not disgusting. He just hoped she wouldn’t paint all demons or—specifically, half-demons like him—with the same broad brush of loathing.

  She typed her suggested meeting place into the computer. “How about CyberJoe’s?”

  Doyle’s fists were clenched. “Come on, Mr. Demon Servant, you don’t want to go back there again, do you, boy?”

  Cordelia clapped, excited. “He says the ambience is too cold there. He’s suggesting a dance club, asking if I like to dance.” Cordelia typed and spoke simultaneously again. “I love to dance.”

  Doyle looked at her. “Really?”

  “That part’s true,” she admitted, without looking away from the screen.

  Doyle nodded, filing the information away. It might come in handy someday. “You’re doing great, Cordelia. Keep it up.”

  Angel came out of his office, a thick manila folder under his arm. “What’s up?”

  Doyle said, “Looks like we hooked one demon servant.”

  “Okay, he suggested a place”—she looked down at a sheet of paper—“and what do you know, it’s not on our list!” She looked from Doyle to Angel. “Do I agree to meet him?”

  Angel shook his head. “Not so fast. It’s nearly midnight. If you look too eager, you might scare him off.”

  “Not if he’s as desperate as we think he is,” Cordelia reasoned.

  “True,” Angel agreed. “But let him be more desperate than you are. Wait . . . That didn’t come out right.”

  “It’s okay. I know what you meant. Besides, it’s not me; it’s just a character I play in chat rooms.”

  “Right,” Angel said uncertainly. “Tell him it’s late; maybe you should meet tomorrow.”

  Cordelia typed the message and waited. She read back the reply. “He says, it’s fate that we should meet tonight. He’s willing to be impulsiv
e if I’ll meet him halfway. This is one desperate demon boy!”

  “Vacillate,” Angel said. “Give him a chance to convince you.”

  Cordelia typed and spoke her response again. “I don’t know . . .”

  She waited a moment and laughed. “He says, if we are meant to be together, just think of the story we could tell years from now.”

  Cordelia typed as Angel dictated. “He’s swayed you, but it won’t be an official date, just a brief encounter.”

  Cordelia frowned. “Okay, but you’re making me sound flaky.”

  “Not you,” Angel said evenly. “Just the character you’re playing—a hopeless romantic.”

  “He wants to know how we’ll recognize each other.” Cordelia had a mischievous gleam in her eye. “If this demon really can look like whoever I want, I think I’ll put him through his paces.”

  “Be casual about it. You don’t want him to suspect a trap.”

  “Spoilsport.” She typed again. “Describe yourself.” She waited and smiled. “He’s telling me to describe my dream guy so he’ll know how he measures up. Ha!”

  “The hard sell,” Doyle commented.

  “He’ll be too good to be true,” Angel said grimly, “unfortunately for his victims. Now’s your chance, Cordelia.”

  She rubbed her hands together, then typed rapidly. “A cross between . . .”

  “. . . Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme . . . and Jude Law,” Elliot’s speakers said in an electronic female voice. The current chat room was text only, no caricature avatars, but he’d still assigned computer voices to screen names.

  “Oh, gimme a freakin’ break,” Elliot said. He typed, “Big shoes to fill, but I have similar vibes.”

  The electronic woman spoke again, “Ha-ha . . . can you prove it?”

  Elliot said, “Oh, I’ll prove it all right.” He called to his demon, “Yunk’sh!” He typed, “This chat room doesn’t support live Web cams, so I’ll send a photo.”

  Electronic woman said, “Okey dokey.”

  “Dammit! Yunk’sh!” Elliot winced with the sudden pain. Blood dripped out of his nose. The air in the room wavered. A ghost image appeared and solidified: Yunk’sh in neutral mannequin mode. “Hot prospect,” Elliot told him. “You can meet her tonight, but I gotta send a picture, quick.”