God Touched - 01

by John Conroe

  Plasma was on Third Ave., about ten blocks north of my apartment. The smells from all the restaurants immediately drove me crazy. It was like I could almost pick out the individual spices and foodstuffs. The single best part of living in the City has to be the incredible array of food. Turkish, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Scandianvian, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, German, French, Jewish, Middle Eastern, you name it and I’ll lead you to the restaurants that serve it. If gambling was Gramps’s vice, food was mine. Gotta have something to fill in for all the sex I wasn’t ever going to have. And with my workout schedule, I burned it off as fast as I ate it. Although, it did strike me as odd that I was already hungry forty minutes after that huge breakfast I had scarfed down.

  Finally, I stopped and grabbed a shawarma sandwich from a Middle Eastern place. Hot spicy beef and lamb strips in pita with tahini. Yum. I ate it in five bites while running, the spices bursting on my tongue.

  Plasma occupied an unassuming two- story brick building, with almost no exterior features of interest. Before I got near it, I swung down a side street and ran a circuit behind it on Fourth Avenue. I couldn’t see the back of the building, so I stopped running and walked down an alley between a news store and kosher deli. As I walked, the thought struck me that the vampires probably didn’t live in the club. The Demidovas were sure to have a big expensive residence someplace, but I didn’t have a clue where. Suddenly panicky, I visualized the Hellbourne breaking into some huge brownstone and slaughtering Tatiana as she slept.

  Idiot, I hadn’t even thought it through. Now what the hell was I gonna do. Oddly, I flashed to a memory of Gramps teaching me about survival. We were with the Search and Rescue group that he helped regularly and he was instructing me in how not to panic. “What do you do if you’re lost, Chris?” He had asked. One of the other guys, a local sheriff’s deputy, had chimed in, “Drop your pants and start to jerk off! Someone’s bound to see you!” When the laughter had died down, Gramps had pushed me for an answer.

  “Stop and take stock? Then prioritize?” I said.

  “Very good, Chris. Always prioritize. Think your way out. Use your big brain. Not your little brain, like Steve over there.” He said, pointing to the deputy.

  So I thought about the Demidovas and who might know where their house was. Michel St. James was a freelance society reporter, whose articles appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and half a dozen other publications. He sometimes hosted a cable station show of similar ilk and that was how he knew Paige. I met him one night when Kathy and Paige threw a party. A couple of acquaintances had crashed the party and were giving Michel a hard time. Abrasive and condescending, he had an irritating effect on people. Coming back from a house “cleansing” I interrupted the unpleasant scene and threw them out. It would be worth a phone call. 411 had his number and he picked up on the third ring. “Hallo, theeeese is Michel.” His accent was very affected. “Michel, this is Chris Gordon, Paige and Kathy’s neighbor.”

  “Yes, I remember,” he drawled nonchalantly, but I could hear curiosity in his voice.

  “I’m trying to get to Galina Demidova’s place and I wondered if you knew the address.”

  “Why would you be going to Galina’s place?” His voice was a subtle mix of condescension, disbelief and wariness.

  “Look, I am supposed to do some security work there and none of the other guys that are working are picking up their phones,” I lied. Michele knew I was a cop, and it would make perfect sense for me to be acting as security. Certainly there could not possibly be any other reason. It was also a not too subtle reminder of my help with his own security.

  “Weell, of course I’ve been to her place. Brooklyn Heights, Willow Street if I recall. Let me look it up.”

  I hailed a cab while he rustled up the street number. No way was I gonna run all the way there. Not enough time. I told the driver Willow Street in the Heights and then Michele’s fake French accent came back on the cell.

  “Ett is 119 Willow, Christian.” I thanked him roughly and hung up, repeating the number to the driver, whose name was Ismahel, according to his cabby card.

  The Demidova residence was a five story brownstone in the glitzy, nose in the air neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. There was also a basement below street level. It probably went for four to six million and must have had over seven thousand square feet of space. I had the taxi drive past it and then got out on the opposite side of the street, eyeballing the place for detail. The front would be well guarded, as would the back.

  A vision hit just then. A deck, a French door and a bland reflection in the glass of the door. I broke into a jog and ran around the block. Of course, the house was located right in the middle of the block, giving me the longest possible run to get behind it. Immediately, I spotted the deck, on top of a bump-out from the first and second floors. The deck was likely accessed from the third floor, but I could see how easy it would be for a demon-ridden meat shell to climb the exterior, after first getting into the first level’s walled garden space. Discreet security cameras were visible to my trained eye, but the human security guards would not likely notice the Hellbourne. Not wanting to get shot, I pulled my badge from my chest pack and dangled it around my neck. Then I studied the garden wall.

  About eight feet high and clear of any climbable objects. Piece of cake for the eerily-quick demonkind, but a pretty good obstacle for me. Backing up, I visualized a big Rottweiler chasing me (for inspiration), then ran hard at the wall, bounding off my right foot. The fingers of both hands caught the top, fingers scrabbling on the crumbly brick of the old wall. Just like that I was up, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

  Then two things happened simultaneously.

  The whirring of a security camera spinning caught my ears and the oily dark presence of Hellbourne pressed on my aura like a bowling ball on a trampoline. It was here, close and moving. I jumped to the stained concrete surface of the garden, knocking over a potted cedar tree as I landed. The outer walls were lined with fruit trees and bushy conifers. An ornate yellow metal trellis was centered over a pair of sitting benches, the top curved like the golden arches of McDonalds. Ahead of me I could see the brick wall of the bump out that held the deck as its roof. The back door opened and two burly men in dark suits came out, their steady stares glued to me like frat boys watching a beer truck. “Sir, stop right there, this is private property,” said the first, a wall of crew cut beef with pale blue eyes rolling toward me in a great impersonation of an Abrams main battle tank. The second, even bigger, black with black eyes, hove into sight behind him like a naval vessel. Where did they grow these guys? I ignored his comments, as a rustle – smack sound announced the bland man-thing landing ten feet from me and moving toward the bump out wall. I raced to intercept it, the security guys completely ignoring it. The Abrams tank guy held up a salad plate sized hand , but I swerved around him like he was in slow motion and grabbed the ankle of the Hellbourne as it climbed the wall. It climbed with my full weight hanging from it for a moment, then fell back to the garden, its grip slipping. The two security hulks had stopped to process the unexpected sight of the demon. Once my hand touched it, its cloak was shot and it had become visible to them. I couldn’t be bothered. I was busy getting a modified arm bar on it to hold it just long enough to rip it loose. Jujitsu and wrestling are heavy components of my own style of unarmed combat, as much of my time is spent getting my prey into position to rip them from their shells. Its left hand was under my right armpit, my right hand pressing the center of its back, my left on its chest. Time is short in these encounters as Hellbourne are not put off by things like broken elbow joints or choke holds. A lifetime of practice made it easy to force my will and aura through the demon’s body from my right hand and pulling the foul thing free of the meat shell with my left. Noxious sulfer stink burned my eyes, nose and mouth like a hunting camp full of overweight beer drinkers after a night of cheap beer and pickled eggs. The demon made an audible wet ripping sound as it pulled free from the bo
dy, and I was left holding a roiling blob of greasy blackness in my left hand. Quick as thought, I flung the noisome thing straight up while calling >Kirby< in my mind. The dark shadow-hawk form of the Collector popped into being above us, gripping the black form of the Hellbourne in both smoky talons. Two flaps of car hood sized wings and it popped back out of our plane of existence, hauling the demon to who knew where. I lay there panting like I had run a marathon, tangled in the limbs of the suddenly dead body.

  Chapter 3

  By the time I could get untangled and sit up, a forest of beefy legs, all dressed in cargo pants and dark blue polo shirts surrounded me. The original set of security guys had drawn sidearms and my view of them was obscured by the Holland tunnel muzzles of twin Sig Sauer .45’s. “Benson, Hedges -- holster those weapons, now!” barked a voice that would have made my Academy instructors cower.

  A compact block of muscle shouldered through the crowd, short blond hair, tan weathered face and a Semper Fi tattoo on his right forearm. He watched me warily, taking in the scene. “Officer Gordon, I presume. I was warned you might appear.” He looked at the meat shell. “Is that secure?” I nodded. He detailed the two giants to haul it away, the body starting to smell like a porta potty. He surveyed the area, noting the ripped and shredded ivy where the Hellbourne had tried to climb to the deck above, the knocked over cedar tree and my generally scraped up appearance.

  “My name is Deckert, I run the daytime shift.” His voice was level, not friendly, not hostile, all business. A straight-forward, mission first operator. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and surmise that was a demon?” he asked. I nodded, still trying to catch my breath. “It didn’t show up on the monitors,” he stated.

  “They can cloak themselves,” I panted. One eyebrow raised but that was it. Just another day at the office for him.

  “My employer would like you to hang out till she…arrives,” he stated, making it sound like a real good idea.

  Right then my chest started to vibrate. “Wait one please, Mr. Deckert” I replied. My cell was lit up with a text message from ‘Peter G’.

  r u free for cleansing t-nite?

  Peter Gillian ran a local paranormal investigation group. He obviously had a problem entity that normal exorcism had failed to remove. Pete acted as my clearing house for these kinds of things, only bringing me in when it was really bad.

  I texted a reply:

  How bad?

  He came right back:

  Kid in danger!

  Kids were often the target of demonic entities and always commanded my immediate attention. My response was immediate.

  Needs be tonite. shift change t-mrow.

  8PM?

  With Bells on!

  He sent me an address on Second Avenue, not too many blocks from my apartment.

  Deckert was watching, arms crossed, evaluating me.

  “Mr. Deckert, I’ll have to decline your employer’s request at this time. I have another matter to attend to.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at me, as he considered my response. His men closed in around us. Many private security types in the City are ex-cops. Not these guys. Deckert and the rest of his guards were blatantly ex-military types. Marine Force Recon, SEALs, Spec Ops, Army Rangers and that ilk. Growing up to be a demon hunter, I had fantasized about getting that kind of training. Learning to kill bad guys with drinking straws and camel patties, improvising explosives from twenty dollars worth of convenience store items, rappelling down 30 story buildings on a batman utility belt. Useful stuff like that. The problem had always been one of time commitment. Military basic training was like six months, twelve months for more specialized stuff, three and four year tours of duty, that sort of thing. It added up to some real time. I get two to four visions per month, each requiring a foray into the stuff of nightmares, hunting down things that inspire serial killers. Near as I could figure, most military units frowned on trainees popping out of camp to cap some monster in a meat shell. So, Gramps and I did the best we could with what we had. When I was thirteen, I shut down a minor demon that was haunting a family in Potsdam. The dad was an ex-Ranger, who had been totally helpless to protect his own family. He threw himself into training me with everything he could, calling in favors to have other guys come by and help educate me. I enrolled in every martial arts school in the area, wrestled on the high school team, and played football. In football, I played safety and the guys I hit went down hard enough to lose memory. I was playing only to learn how to take down stronger, faster people. To me it was life or death.

  The local cops were on board after I helped with a Hellbourne who wounded two cops and slashed a housewife. I was the only fourteen-year-old who regularly had firearms training with the sheriff’s department Special Response Team.

  Deckert’s men moved in to restrain me, and my adrenaline ramped up. This would be interesting. The group opened a bit and a guard came through with about a hundred and ten pounds of German Shepherd straining its leash. Dogs don’t scare me. Mostly ‘cause they haven’t made one that will bite me. I think it must be God’s consolation prize. Here Gordon , you’re gonna live a short, brutal, loveless life, but at least dogs will always like you.

  The Shepherd pulled his handler right up to me, sniffed my hand, licked it and sprawled at my feet. Deckert snorted in disgust and held up his hand to wave his guys back, nodding to me. “My employer indicated that we were not to harm you or restrain you in any way. Vadim made that point particularly clear.” He gave me a curious look. I shrugged.

  “Probably want to save me for dinner.”

  None of them thought that was very funny. Tough audience.

  Turning, Deckert led me through the first floor of the house, which was tastefully decorated with antiques that probably cost more than my whole Precinct’s annual budget. When we got to the front door, he paused.

  “Vadim was adamant about keeping my guys from harming you. Seemed to think it would be bad for our health if anything happened to you. Any thoughts as to why that would be?”

  I could see that Deckert didn’t like mysteries, particularly those that posed a threat to his men. I just shrugged, not able to answer his question, although the image of Tatiana facing down the hulking Arkady came to mind.

  “I helped the black haired one last night. Tatiana. Maybe she told him not to hurt me.”

  “She doesn’t talk,” he said, frowning.

  “She did last night.” I said, staring right back.

  Our little stare down went for about ten seconds before he finally sighed.

  “Gordon, you’re leaving me with nothing to tell Ms. Demidova,” he said mildly.

  “Well I’m sure she’ll track me down if she is interested, but you could tell her that I have to help a kid with a problem. Of the demonic type,” I replied and then trotted down the steps and out into the warm October day.

  The encounter with the Helbourne had left me drained. I’m not sure what my power is or where it comes from, but sometimes I use up a lot of it. Getting away from Demidova’s house was the first step in recharging before tonight’s house cleansing party. My stomach was demanding attention again so I stopped at an Italian deli and got a Pannini sandwich, cup of pasta fagioli and an ice-cold diet Pepsi. I eat a lot, but my metabolism seemed a little overboard even for me. The deli had a few tables and chairs outside and I decided to sit and indulge two of my favorite past times, eating and people watching. My life is hunting, work, working out and hunting. There is a certain satisfaction in helping people with unholy problems, but that has worn thin over time. It would be appropriate to consider the tapestry of my life to be woven from chain mail. Hard and unyielding, protective and coldly pragmatic. But I really wished to have some cotton and wool interwoven with the steel links to soften the feel and warm my soul. Family, friends, relationships and emotional bonds all seem normal and commonplace, unless you don’t have them. I had Gramps, five hundred miles away. Oth
er than him, I had no one. I liked music, to listen to and try to play on my guitar; I liked reading; I loved New York’s museums (mostly of science and natural history), and bad sci fi movies are fun. At home I had the woods, a place where very few Hellbourne ever go, not because they can’t but because they thrive on the despair and agony of people. The woods are relatively empty of people and are therefore a wasteland for the demon kind. So to try to fill the empty spots in my chainmail tapestry, I like to watch people. Couples, families, joggers, kids on bikes, gangs, street performers, bums, the old, the young and the busy. All fascinating, all potential stories that I could imagine and try to understand. High school had been hell, but it had taught me to go relatively unnoticed and I was able to observe fairly discreetly. It isn’t much of a hobby, but it keeps the dark clouds that hang over my life at bay. A little.

  As I ate my sandwich, I watched a young couple with a toddler, feeding, wiping, playing, holding, reassuring, chasing and protecting, all within twenty minutes.

  It was intriguing and a little scary. Facing Hellbourne was often terrifying, but ultimately if I screwed up, only I felt the pain. Raising children meant much wider consequences for others. All your actions, both good and bad, would impact another’s life, even after your own was over. I admired the couple’s bravery.

  I was finishing my soup when I noticed a couple of girls walking a dog and automatically watched them. Attractive, fashionably dressed, requisite toy dog on leash – a fairly common sight in Brooklyn. Chatting away as they walked, their gazes passed right over me without pause. I wondered if it was my lack of expensive clothes or other signs of social status that regulated me to the “ignore” bin. Almost as effective as a Hellbourne’s cloak. Most likely just not putting out the right signals. It’s another aspect of people watching: assigning motives, personalities, observing social behaviors. I had noted over the years that men were invariably drawn to looks and women to status. The two material girls had almost passed me, when the little dog caught my scent, me – God’s gift to dogs. It was one of those little ones, possibly a Pomeranian or Shiatsu (or is that a massage?). Gramps calls them ‘kicking dogs’, as he sees no earthly use for them. I’ll admit to being partial to a more robust canine, but little dogs are still dogs when you get through all the manicured fur, bows and bling bling collars. This little thing just bee lined for me, pulling the rhinestone encrusted leash right out of the blonde’s hand. Both girls whirled, panic stricken, only to find Fluffy or Pierre’ or whatever its name was, swarming around my legs in a wiggly happy dance. Catching the leash in my hand, I patted the little beast until the girls arrived in breathless drama to reclaim him(her).