Demon Underground (2)

by S. L. Wright

  I wasn’t sure about that. “Ram says we’ve been discovered periodically throughout history. But it’s always distorted, never the real truth.”

  On the TV, the reporter was trying to maintain his professionalism, but he practically babbled as Cherie’s smug, aristocratic face covered the screen. She seemed very satisfied with herself, preening as if she were at a modeling shoot showing off her angles.

  “People won’t believe it,” Shock declared. “They’ll think it’s a hoax. Like sawing a girl in half or making an elephant disappear.”

  “Maybe,” I said doubtfully.

  The crawl at the bottom of the screen read MIRACLE IN BROOKLYN? More shots were shown panning the circle and the crowd right after Dread cut off Cherie’s head. It paused on a close-up of Lash’s face—Prophet Anderson’s dignified, aging wife, returned to stand faithfully by his side in his finest hour.

  Crave laughed out loud. “I wish I could see Glory now! I bet Lash turned on her the moment Dread crooked his little finger. He sure got one over on her this time.”

  “There are bigger things at stake here,” I told him.

  Shock shrugged. “Like I said, we should have tied her up and bargained with Dread directly. We would have stood a chance that way.”

  I was wringing my hands. “This is awful.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Crave asked, putting his arm around Bliss’s shoulders. “Cherie will burn out in a couple of weeks, and this will all blow over.”

  The anchorwoman deftly took back the broadcast. “Cherie is being taken to NYU Medical Center now for tests. We’ll report to you live from that location.” Then she segued into talking heads. They were scornful in their disbelief, talking down the Fellowship of Truth as a “religious self-help” movement with some political influence and a socially progressive agenda.

  The worst had happened. “It’s a terrible con on humanity, a monumental lie,” I told them all. “No good can come from this.”

  It didn’t take long for the disruption on the streets of Williamsburg to turn into a full-scale riot as even more crowds poured into Brooklyn. Helicopters hovered overhead taking shots of the Williamsburg Bridge jammed with people and cars as police on horseback tried to forge a path for emergency vehicles. There were reports of heart attacks inside the Prophet’s Arena among those who had watched Cherie’s resurrection, and more people were hurt in the crush outside.

  The church was accepting a “small donation” to allow the faithful to pass by the stage to see the bloody altar for themselves. The news channels continued to show the streets around the Prophet’s Arena, marked by flashing police lights, while traffic was at a standstill.

  I started to hear shouts outside as cars backed up and snarled in my own neighborhood. The riot lapped up from Delancey Street, where the bridge was completely blocked, and started rippling through Manhattan.

  I leaned out my front windows. There was a feeling of anything-goes in the air, as the street noise grew louder. People were running, everyone desperate to get somewhere else.

  I called Glory, but all I got was a busy signal. The circuits were overloaded. I really wanted to hear what she had to say about all this.

  Then Shock was called in to work during the emergency. As soon as she saw the number on her beeper, she got that eager, glazed expression. She wanted to feed off the misery this tragedy was causing. Ugly, but true.

  She took only a few moments to insist that I stay locked up in my apartment. I had to promise not to open the bar. Then she was gone to feed her inner beast.

  Crave and Bliss, with her hair flying wild, left soon afterward, diving into the seething humanity on the streets.

  Neither of them bothered to ask if I would be all right alone. It didn’t occur to them. Maybe they knew I wasn’t demon enough to enjoy the thought of mixing it up in the middle of mayhem.

  After they left, I wandered aimlessly around my apartment. I had to admit that some tension had eased. There was a certain relief in finally having the worst happen. I’d been fighting it from the moment I saw Zeal’s slick infomercial. Now I no longer had to dread it.

  The only thing I could do was deal with it. I had to see Cherie for myself.

  Frantic honking filled the air. The “miracle in Brooklyn” had clashed with the evening rush hour, making for maximum disruption. People were dashing across the street, edging between the cars, with everyone in a hurry to get somewhere else. I took one look and knew that my only option was to go by foot. NYU Medical Center was thirty blocks north.

  After a few blocks of being jostled and bumped by people racing past me, I wished I had a way to contact Mystify. There was probably a tunnel right underneath me that I could use, if I only knew how to find the entrance.

  But it was lucky that I was on the street because I passed by a medical supply store, and was inspired to buy a set of scrubs for camouflage so I could sneak into the hospital to find Cherie. I pulled them on over my leggings and tank top right outside the store as I looked around for Ram.

  Was he following me?

  Thousands of people had the same idea as I did to see Cherie, and they were milling about, blocking the streets around NYU Medical Center, as cops tried to clear lanes for emergency vehicles. I looked longingly after a familiar white and red truck with the yellow strip down the middle, wondering if Shock was inside. She could have gotten me into the medical complex in a snap. But she would be angry to know that I had left the bar.

  The cops saw me in my scrubs and made way for me, gesturing which way to go to enter the hospital. I was afraid I would be stopped at the door without any ID, but in the mass confusion my scrubs got me close to the building. I was routed toward the Ambulatory Care Pavilion along with people holding bloodied cloths to their heads or trying to soothe screaming children.

  I slipped past the pavilion and entered the main lobby of Bellevue, a soaring pavilion of glass pasted onto the front of the old brick mausoleum that housed the hospital. The place was rocking from the influx of injuries, and with nearly two thousand physicians and interns on staff, nobody looked twice at me. I made sure to ride others’ coattails, getting through ID-locked doors on their heels. There was so much rushing around that nobody noticed.

  But I kept one eye trained behind me, always looking for who was following me. I half expected to see Ram on my heels any moment. I ignored the faces and concentrated on the clothes and shoes. I didn’t see any repeat themselves, and I knew that I had lost him. If he had been following me in the first place.

  It took some searching around, but I listened in on nurses and orderlies gossiping about Cherie. I followed up a dead lead that said Cherie was here in Bellevue’s trauma center, but I couldn’t find her. Surely wherever Cherie was, Dread would be. So I kept my senses open, casting around for Dread.

  I finally sensed him in the NYU Cardiac and Vascular Institute in the building on the next block. Zeal’s signature was with Dread. Closer to me, in a different part of the hospital, was Cherie. Her signature was a receding sensation as if I were being pulled backward, very disconcerting. Elude, to avoid . . .

  I could only hope that my mild buoyant sensation would be lost in the push-pull competition between Zeal’s and Cherie’s.

  I zeroed in on Cherie until I knew she was on the other side of the wall, but I was blocked from the lower entrance. Up a flight of stairs, I found the mezzanine of a training operating room with tiered seating where over a hundred people could observe. It was packed to capacity, with the hallways outside crowded with doctors and nurses, many on their cell phones despite the rules against their use.

  I elbowed my way inside.

  “What are they doing?” I asked the guy who I had squashed into the fellow next to him.

  He rattled off a series of words that had no meaning to me, but I did catch “incisions.” Standing on my toes, I could glimpse the masked, gloved surgeon down below making a series of deep cuts down Cherie’s bare back. Blood was flowing, being soaked up by nurses wi
th forceps stuffed with cotton. As they scrubbed Cherie’s back clean, the flesh pulled together by itself, leaving a red and then pink line where her skin had healed. Then it faded and disappeared: from gaping wound to smooth skin in less than a minute.

  I was more fascinated by the watchers. After all, I had seen this unbelievable sight on my own body, albeit using the coarser steak knife approach. Everywhere I looked there was openmouthed shock, disbelief, revulsion, and horror. Even worse were the ones who leaned forward instead of back, whose cold eyes were already assessing the possibilities. Those were the ones who wanted to strap Cherie to that table and experiment on her for the rest of their lives.

  I shuddered. Didn’t she know the danger she was in?

  But she only spoke to the doctors working over her, and I realized that we were behind mirrored glass. She didn’t know everyone was watching.

  I staggered into the poor guy next to me, feeling off-balanced. It wasn’t due to Cherie; it was Dread, coming closer with Zeal. Probably to claim Cherie as his prized property. Apparently if you were a religious prophet, you could get away with beheading a supermodel on TV.

  There was a sudden hush as Cherie sat up, holding the sheet to her breast. The surgeon stood back, still masked and mute, shaking his head in amazement.

  Her voice rang with conviction. “It’s a miracle. You won’t find a scientific explanation for this. Miracles defy belief. They defy conventional wisdom. By its very definition, a miracle can’t be rationalized.”

  Some of the observers around me were actually nodding.

  “I am one with God now,” Cherie told the doctors. “I have perfected myself through absolute truth, making myself a pure vessel of immortality. God communes with me, through me, to enlighten everyone and bring about a new world order, one based on peace and harmony through self-knowledge ...”

  She continued to spout the Fellowship creed mixed in with memories she had acquired from Fervor, an intense young Glory demon who was drawn to religious extremists, much like Zeal. Having seen some of Plea’s memories, I could only imagine what Cherie was remembering—snake handling and talking in tongues must be the least of the bizarre rituals Fervor had indulged in.

  Those memories must dovetail perfectly with Cherie’s fanaticism. As she stood up and slipped on her robe, thanking the surgeon for his work, she seemed remarkably composed. I had gone from babbling on the streets to landing in a psych ward right after I was turned.

  Cherie is stable.

  There were all sorts of reasons Cherie could and, by rights, should burn out, but I had a sinking feeling that she wouldn’t. Either Dread had been extremely smart in his choice of Fervor, or her kidnapping was a fortunate accident for Cherie.

  This con was going to stick. I could already see it in the faces around me. Too many people wanted to believe in something bigger than themselves. They had lost touch with their spiritual wonder, and here was Cherie handing it to them gift wrapped. All they had to do was accept themselves completely. As much as they were put off by her rant, they wanted to believe.

  I had seen enough.

  12

  I had to get out before Dread arrived.

  Unfortunately the examination broke up, and Cherie was whisked away. I was caught in a sea of medical professionals all speaking a language I didn’t understand about what they’d observed. As I edged into the hallway and inched toward the stairs, I managed to gather that they had already sent for samples from Cherie’s previous plastic surgeries to analyze along with the samples they had just taken, along with X-rays and various scans.

  I was stuck in the stairwell, with everyone stopped around me, grumbling and calling out for those ahead of us to move, when I felt Dread pass by in the lobby below.

  Holding my breath, I waited for him to veer and turn toward the stairs where I was trapped. But he continued on and converged with Cherie’s signature in the glass lobby. Zeal was not far away.

  My heart was racing. Apparently my signature disappeared in the midst of their powerful energy vibrations. I stayed at the top of the stairs, stuck between retreating to a dead end and trying to stay as far away as I could. There was no other way out of the mezzanine of the operating theater, except down to the lobby.

  It was nerve-racking, but I didn’t bolt. I eased down the stairs and saw Dread and Cherie marching through the lobby with a phalanx of lawyers and hospital administrators. They were leaving. I couldn’t see Zeal, but I could tell she was just outside.

  Emboldened, I slipped through the revolving door at the end, following them out of the medical center. Surely they wouldn’t sense me in the midst of three clashing, and very strong, signatures. It had gotten dark outside while I had searched through the hospital, but the glare of artificial light made it seem like day. The sidewalk was a sea of faceless people being held back by blue police barriers and rows of NYPD officers. Media cameras and satellite antennas on white trucks nearby accounted for some of the glare.

  A roar went up when Cherie emerged. Dread held up both hands in victory, smiling the prophet’s patented smile. Projecting his voice to reach down the block, he announced, “Cherie is the first member of the Fellowship of Truth to achieve immortality by following the tenets of self-perfection set forth by our first prophet, Dale Williams. Perfection is the state of balance with one’s self achieved by accepting ultimate responsibility for the reality of our lives. Come pray with us to be absolved of your conflicts, your inner doubts and miseries! Come join the Fellowship in savoring the unique individual that you are. As Cherie has done.”

  With a flourish, he presented Cherie to the crowd. She was more glorious than she had ever been in her youth, her natural beauty enhanced by her demon powers to remove every flaw. She looked like an angel come down to earth. She repeated almost word for word what she had said in the operating room, and this time I was struck by her trembling hands and shrinking back in the face of so many flashing lights and shouting people. She had practically been raised as celebrity; I expected her to be eating up all this attention. But something was wrong.

  I looked for some sign whether Dread knew I was nearby. Maybe he didn’t care if I was. Zeal also didn’t look in my direction. She was in the middle of the crowd, wearing the persona of a young, gangly guy who looked like an ordinary college student.

  I was confused by it until Zeal raised her hand, pointing a sleek black gun at Cherie. Dread turned her slightly to make a broader target for Zeal. Nobody else noticed.

  Zeal fired three rounds in rapid succession, striking Cherie’s chest with every one.

  The explosions split the air, echoing against the buildings around us. Cherie was thrown back, her chest a gaping blackened smear.

  Screams rose as I was battered by everyone trying to flee. People were trampled and pushed as the temporary police barriers were turned over. I cried out as a guy stomped on my foot, shattering the bones. I rolled away into a ball and took the hits on my back and side, protecting my head.

  Like a sea of calm in the center, Dread knelt next to Cherie. The news cameras recovered quicker than anyone else, jostled around them catching every second of her radical resurrection.

  This time I had a ringside seat.The stampede receded, leaving behind hundreds of people, some of whom were on their knees praying amid the crying injured.

  Cherie’s chest healed rapidly, reforming into the luscious white flesh of her breasts. Her dress barely clung to her hips, threatening to expose her entire body.

  As she sat up, there was an outcry that grew and swelled. Dread dragged her upright for the cameras. She was cringing as she covered herself with one arm. He spoke to her under his breath, forcing her to raise her arms along with him, lifting their palms high to the night sky.

  Her body didn’t have a mark on it. Her breasts were perfection, full and round with the pinkest of nipples. Washed in blood.

  She twisted slightly but didn’t break away from his grasp. I was directly to one side of her so I couldn’t see her expression,
but her movements said she was deeply uncomfortable. This from a woman who used to walk the runway practically naked, and whose red-carpet outfits left nothing to the imagination.

  But from her body language and the flush of purple in her aura, it seemed as if Dread was forcing her to do this. Did Cherie understand what was really going on?

  Zeal took Cherie’s other arm, back in her usual earthy minister’s guise. Apparently no one, not even me, had seen her transformation from assassin to trusted friend.

  They were quickly surrounded by cops, who thrust them back inside the NYU Medical Center. It all happened so fast that I was pushed back down the sidewalk. The cops drove everyone away, and I stumbled off among the wounded.

  People from all around were converging on the medical center. The towering white antennas at the entrance to the hospital meant that Dread’s little assassination display had been carried live, as he intended. Young and old, they were flooding in to gawk and point and stare and not really believe, but wanting to believe that something out of the ordinary was happening and they were a part of it.

  I took the streets that seemed to be the least clogged and was driven north and west. At Forty-second Street, I realized I was close to Grand Central, and that reminded me of Mystify. His casa was somewhere down below, but I didn’t have a key to get in through the condos or from the subway tracks.

  That left the message drop. It was another forty blocks north.

  It was times like these that I wished I could just go home and curl up in bed and fall asleep. Worry about it tomorrow, when I was fresh and could think straight. But I didn’t have that luxury. I had to keep on going, keep burning . . . forever.

  I didn’t want to think about the fact that I hadn’t stopped Dread. In fact, I had let myself get distracted by everyone else while he put his plan into motion. In spite of all my efforts, I hadn’t stopped the resurrection.

  I felt responsible for it.

  Ram could have stopped Dread, but he didn’t care. He was probably glad it was Dread who was engineered our outing. He would stand back and watch the slaughter as humanity crushed his offspring for him.