by John Conroe
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that. It's just that I don't have any idea of what you're telling me.”
“Oh, don't be so obtuse. You understand it. And if you need to do something, you'll know how. Look, I've got to be going. You're not my only assignment you know. Sure you're all important and everything, but I do have other responsibilities.”
He brushed past me and I spun to try to get some answers but he was gone. Vanished from one step to the next. No noise, no poof, nothing. Even Tatiana at her fastest would have left a breeze in her wake. And he had felt solid as he brushed by me.
I stood staring down the hall, when suddenly his voice spoke from behind me.
“Don't forget to come back soon!”
I spun again, but there was nothing and no one in the hall behind me.
I slid into the spot next to Gramps, still stunned by my encounter. He was chatting amiably with the older couple next to him and he pretty much ignored me which gave me an opportunity to sit and ponder my visitor's odd words and actions. The Mass started and I went through the motions until a word, spoken during the sermon, caught my attention. “ -- The Archangel Michael and the other led by Satan.” the Pastor said. Wait, what had he been saying? Something about armies, squaring off or something. My visitor had used the name Michael twice. I listened to the rest of the sermon which had to do with Satan being thrown out of Heaven and the priest wove it into a general discussion of angels and humans, and their interactions.
After Mass, Gramps and I stood in line, waiting our turn to meet and be greeted by the pastor. Gramps was giving me sidelong glances, no doubt, wondering at my patience. I usually tear ass getting out of church as quick as I can, but here I was standing in line like everyone else. When our turn arrived, Gramps thanked Father Turnick for an excellent sermon and complimented the church's beauty and magnificence. Then the stout little priest was shaking my hand and looking me in the eye.
“Father, I have a question if I may?”
“Certainly.”
“Have you ever heard the names Barbiel, Briathos and Eae?”
His eyes widened and he nodded. “Of course. Barbiel is the angel of October. Briathos is an angel who fights demons. I'm not so sure about Eae, but that one may also be a demon fighter. Why do you ask?”
“Well I heard the names mentioned in passing and wondered about them, that's all. But can you tell me what Michael's charge is?”
He nodded again. “He is the Angel of Protection and Courage. Patron angel of law enforcement and military. You have a look of one or the other about you, so he may well be your Patron.”
“Thank you, Father.”
I took advantage of the long line behind us to move past him, although I could tell he was curious about my questions.
“What was all that about?” Gramps asked, when we were fully outside.
I gave him a quick rundown of my strange encounter with the confused and possibly angelic young man who called himself Barbiel.
Epilogue
We remained mostly quiet on the way home. Any attempts to discuss my odd experience at the church petered off as we each struggled with the implications. Instead, by mutual, if silent consent, we ignored it and spent the rest of the day roaming about Brooklyn shopping for some things that Gramps was interested in (mostly books), and sampling the international foods. Gramps went home to the farm the next day and I returned to work. I was waylaid by Briana Duclair right after seeing Gramps off. His Ford pickup had no sooner pulled away, when a black government SUV pulled up in front of me and the head of D.O.A.A. popped the rear door.
“Hey, Gordon, let me give you a ride to work. Our introduction last week seemed too short.” She smiled as she said it but her eyes were hard and the two beefy guys in the front looked ready to try to force the issue. I actually contemplated letting them have a go at it, but decided it was early in the week for a charge of assaulting federal agents. So I paused long enough to let the tension ramp up, then shrugged.
“Sure, it'll give me a chance to ride on the government’s dime.”
I climbed into the back seat next to her and the door no sooner closed then we were pulling into traffic.
“So, Gordon, you're pretty tricky for being just a tracker. But then you're not just a tracker are you?”
It was apparently a rhetorical question, because she continued without waiting for answer. “Took me a while to track down the specifics on you.”
She was smiling and it reached her eyes, but there was a harshness to her that set me on edge. She was brassy and aggressive, the kind of woman who really enjoyed going head to head with men and trying to dominate them. Me, I'm not that big into the whole pack dominance and status thing. To many school bullies had tried to use my outcast self as a social step stool over the years. It never worked out well for them and left me with a bad taste for the human social structure. I would make a lousy werewolf.
“So, I find out that you're not only a demon exorcist, but, if the reports are to be believed, an incredibly effective one at that. Then I'm told you're the individual who stopped the 'Thing in the Pit', as your brothers in blue are calling it,” she shook her head. “And your talents are being wasted in Roma's outfit.”
I was starting to actively dislike her, some of which she must have read on my face.
“Oh, don't get me wrong. He's done okay for what he has to deal with, but he just doesn't have the full resources of the federal government behind him. Chris, I would like to bring you by our offices sometime and show you what we have to work with, the kind of cases we handle and the kind of perks I can offer someone of your talents.”
The muscle head in the front passenger seat was watching me throughout her spiel and a grimace of anger flashed across his features. He was a guy who wouldn't approve of my coming aboard. He caught my eye and made a little show of tapping the dashboard with the law enforcement grade Taser he was holding in his right hand. Did he know that Tasers weren't effective on vampires and weres? I'm not sure what effect they would have on me, but he might be in for a surprise, if he ever zapped me with it. Briana caught our stare down and immediately rapped the back of his seat.
“Simmons, stay the hell out of this!”
Like a scolded school kid, he turned back to the front, his shoulders and the stub that passed for his neck rigid with anger.
“Well, Briana, maybe I'll drop by some time and check it out. Sounds interesting.”
I would have said no right off the bat, but I was thoroughly enjoying taunting meathead Simmons.
“Oh, we'll make it happen. You really need to see what you're missing out on. Right guys?” she asked the two in front. Simmons grunted, but the big black guy driving smiled into the rear view and gave a hearty “Hell Yeah!”
His sly glance at his partner told me that he also enjoyed baiting the Neanderthal next to him.
I tuned out much of her speech on the rest of the ride. It mainly consisted of telling me what a great leader she was and how much better her team was than anyone else's. For all her vaunted prowess, her sources hadn't linked me to the New York Coven, club Plasma and certainly not the New York Pack.
When I finally got to work I was feeling pretty pissed off. Roma held a morning meeting and update, wherein Fran announced a veritable flood of visiting vampires leaving the city, Chet reported a break in and container theft at a certain dockside container yard, and I told them the reasons for both, conveniently ignoring my own role in the events of Friday night and Saturday morning.
“So let me see if I got this right,” Roma said. “A faction of the vampires was in league with the Hellbourne to spread chaos and Hance throughout the world, then step up as rulers. You stomped the demon at Plasma, and your girlfriend and an Elder named Senka stomped the others?”
“Pretty much.”
“ Now Senka is on her way to Europe to take charge of the vacuum left by Fedor’s death, taking Galina with her. Your girlfriend is in charge of the New York Coven. The other North and
South American covens have their own division heads , all of whom will report long distance to Senka, is that right?” he asked.
“Anything else to report? Anyone? Okay, I’m going to brief the Commissioner. For once we are ahead of Duclair.”
He dismissed us and rushed off to his office to fill in his boss. The rest of us broke up, but Gina pulled me aside and asked if we could talk in her office.
“Chris, I noticed you grimace when the Inspector mentioned Briana’s name. Has she been in touch with you?”
I gave her my annoyed look, which slid off her pretty features without effect.
“You seem to spend a lot of time watching me, you know that?” I asked, noticing that she was wearing a wedding band. The other times I had seen her it had been missing, but a lot of police officers took off rings when working. They don’t always mix well with the street.
“Actually, you are right. You are my pet project, per the Commissioner’s orders. He feels that you’re too valuable and your abilities are not well understood, so I’m your handler for want of a better term,” she said. “But back to my question. When did you see Briana?”
“She ambushed me this morning and insisted on giving me a ride to work.”
Gina just nodded so I continued.
“She is aware of my demon banishing abilities, at least the exorcism ones. She also knows I had a hand in the Hancer lab debacle, but didn’t elaborate. She never mentioned the Demidovas or Plasma, the Hellbourne or anything about weres.”
“Knowing Briana, she would most likely say something if she had that information. What about your physical speed, strength or senses? Or your rapid healing and excessive metabolism?” she asked.
I just stared at her. To my knowledge I had never divulged any of that. After a moment she smiled.
“Bingo! We’re not stupid, Chris. Brian told me you were holding back during his evaluation, a lot. We all saw you save Jacobella from falling. I’ve seen you with cuts and minor wounds on several occasions, that were gone hours later. In the pit, you ran down two flights of stairs in the pitch darkness, without night vision goggles, avoided all the cops down there and located the Damnedthing and the demon. Most of what I said was an educated guess, but your responses tell me I’m right.”
She smiled again, but it wasn’t a smug smile.
“I can understand your reluctance to talk about this with anyone. But I have to ask you, are you becoming a vampire?”
I was still stunned by her perception, but I managed a head shake. She frowned.
“A were?” She asked.
I shook my head again, then managed to find words. “We don’t know what I am.”
She frowned at the word ‘we’ asking a silent question.
“The vampires have their own doctor. He’s the one who recognized the base origin of the Hance molecule. Anyway, he has a theory that I inherited a mutated version of the viruses that cause both vampirism and lycanthropy. When I was exposed to the virus in Tanya’s blood, my own mutated again, leaving me with attributes of both vamps and weres. It’s all very complicated and I don’t have the science to understand much of it, but it seems to fit. My demon abilities are all tied to it as well.”
I waited for her to push for additional information, but she changed directions.
“Chris, has the Damnedthing left or have you encountered it since?”
I sighed, figuring lying wasn’t worth the effort.
“He’s still around. I think he’s kind of adopted me. He’s a bit….protective.”
Her eyes got big as she wrestled with the idea of an ancient elemental animal spirit with godlike powers following me around.
“I don’t think he will cause trouble. He doesn’t seem to eat anything that I can figure out. He won’t attack my friends,” I assured her.
She looked a little dubious.
“You’re not going to tell me that he’s not dangerous are you?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, he’s incredibly dangerous. He’s the one who killed Fedor. Crushed him like a caterpillar. But he is intelligent, hates demons and has declared himself to be my friend.”
She picked up a pencil and tapped it on her desk top.
“You know, I used to think this was an interesting job. Then you showed up and I’m only just starting to find out the meaning of the word interesting.”
She shook herself a little, then pinned me with a look. “Now what did Briana offer you?”
“Well, I can pretty much expect the sun, moon and stars, plus I’ll have the daily privilege of basking in her glory and wisdom. Did you know that if Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet, Briana Duclair would have?” I asked, with a straight face.
She laughed, reassured that I wasn’t jumping ship immediately.
After that my life started to settle into a pattern of sorts. By day I worked for the Special Situations group, keeping hours as I saw fit. By night, I helped, dated, hung around with and generally continued my fall into love with the future queen of the vampires. And she insisted that I begin training with her, learning the vampire way of combat. I needed every bit of accelerated healing I could get, as she was by far the toughest instructor I ever met. But she made up for it in ways none of my old instructors could have, not that I would ever want them to.
Thanksgiving was fast approaching (which Gramps was coming down for) and the skies stayed mostly gunmetal gray. I was helping Chet with setting up a new piece of equipment that was supposed to measure neutrinos. He was working on particle physics, a direction first hinted at by Dr. Singh,
Olivia appeared in the doorway, excited and bearing news.
“The Inspector just called. He and Fran have confirmed a demonic haunting in the Bronx.”
She handed me a slip of paper with the address on it, then stepped back a little breathless. It took me a second to realize that she was watching me for a reaction. I turned to Chet and he was doing the same thing.
“What? It’s just a demon,” I said.
Chet snorted. “Just a demon he says. You hear that ‘Liv, ‘just a demon’? Dude, this is our first chance to see you in action.”
“Whoa there cowboy. No one is going in with me. It doesn’t work that way,” I said.
“Yeah, but you can wear that new Chris Cam I put together. And I can send my little robot in to measure EMF, radiation, and all kinda stuff!”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Sooner than I anticipated we were at the scene. The entire team was assembled and as Chet wired me up for video and sound, Fran and Roma gave me the run down.
“Family just moved in,” he pointed to a black couple holding two kids. “Landlord offered them a hell of a deal on rent. They were no sooner in, when all hell broke loose. Both kids scratched, bedroom doors shutting themselves and resisting all efforts to open them, you know, that kinda thing.”
Roma was almost as excited as Chet, who was now sending his little tracked remote controlled robot in with a complete sensor suite.
“Fran, tell him what you sensed.”
“It’s mean, maybe a six on the scale,” her voice dropped to a whisper. “And I think it knows you are here.”
“Good. Makes things easier. Did you get a name?” I asked, in a normal voice.
She nodded and handed me a slip of paper with the word magottus on it. I grimaced at the name.
“What’s the matter, is it a bad one?” Fran asked.
“Nah, its name sounds like squished maggots! Can’t these things every sound normal?” I smiled to let her see I was joking. “Alright, let me chat with the kids a minute and let’s get this party started!”
The boys were four and six, and quick to jump in with names for the mountain lion fetish I pulled from my rollout bag. The four-year old was in favor of ‘Big Kitty’ but the six-year old
was heavily lobbying for ‘Alex’ after the lion character in Madagascar. I tried for a compromise.
“How about ‘Big Alex’?” I asked.
Something
in my voice must have conveyed my diminishing patience, because the both agreed.
“All right. I’m heading in. Don’t get too comfortable, this shouldn’t take long.”
As I climbed the steps I could feel a chill emanating from the house, a chill that had nothing to do with the deepening gloom of the November evening. A hostile presence awaited me within. Suddenly, I felt another presence arriving behind me, to the high pitched howl of a German motorcycle, and turning, I looked at the lithe form riding it. She pulled off her helmet and her electric blue eyes sparked in the darkness. From the corner of my eye, I could see the team looking at her in surprise. But her gaze never strayed from mine. I smiled and winked, then spoke softly, knowing she would hear me above the noises of the city.
“Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.”
For the first time in my life, as I did what I was born to do, I had friends behind me and a girl waiting for me. I smiled to myself as I walked through the open door.
“Hey Magottus! Get your greeeeasy ass out here!”
The door slammed itself behind me.
The End
Look for Chris and Tanya in book 2, Demon Driven.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
