by J E McDonald
“They don’t know anything about it?”
Aubrey shook her head. “Nothing.” Uneasiness churned in her stomach. Where had it come from?
Crossing her arms, Stella looked toward the stockroom. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’ll leave it there for now.” Aubrey rubbed her arms and exhaled slowly. “Maybe my appraiser will have some thoughts, but he’s on a cruise right now.”
Having something show up with no explanation made her uneasy as hell. Her anxiety crept up toward her ears. She tried to ignore the unspoken questions in the perceptive gaze of her energy-reading friend, but she couldn’t hide anything from Stella.
Moving around the counter, her friend touched her shoulder, and an instant feeling of calm washed through Aubrey’s body. The witch’s talent had saved Aubrey from herself more times than she could count, and for that she was always grateful.
After a minute, Stella dropped her hand and reached for Aubrey’s phone. “Let’s see if you received any more notifications on Simmer.”
Aubrey snorted. “Have at it.”
“Oh, look at this one, he’s into role-playing.”
Interest piqued, Aubrey glanced at the guy’s picture. Straight-laced looking, with a short haircut and a button up shirt, the blond had the appearance of a banker. “What kind of role-playing?”
“Um, not sure, but he mentions feet here like three times, so I’m guessing podiatrist-patient?”
“Not into it,” Aubrey said, looking away. “Give him the swipe.”
On a sigh, Stella swiped him off the screen and kept searching.
While her friend sifted through her matches, Aubrey’s eyes went to the door of the stockroom, the curtain blocking her view of the crate. What was that thing? And why did she keep having the urge to go back there and break it?
4
The priest’s thready breaths echoed off the walls in the compact room. Roman braced his elbows on his knees, his gaze fixed on the patterns of wear on the carpet beneath his feet. After being away so long, he owed it Robertson to stay a while, even if they just sat in silence.
Which gave him too much time to think, to come to terms with his job and obligations. He would do what needed to be done to stop Wickwood’s destruction. He wouldn’t fail.
Lost in thought, he believed the old man had fallen asleep, when the weak voice startled him. “What of your…charge?”
Roman tensed. There weren’t very many moments they spoke of Moe since the day he’d brought the baby demon onto church property ten years ago. At the time, Robertson had been livid, but Roman hadn’t known what else to do. Where could a person take a baby demon with an untainted soul in the middle of the night?
The farmhouse he’d been sent to had stunk of piss and shit before he even stepped inside. Shutters hung off the windows, threatening to fall. Inside, the scent of death and decay had overwhelmed him—the worst site he’d ever come across to date after accepting the job from Robertson. Later, there’d been others just as bad. Furniture lay strewn in the living room like a great wind had come through the house and tumbled everything about.
Symbols, demonic ones, were painted on the wall. Not with paint, but blood. The windows were blackened too.
He didn’t want to remember how he found the family who had owned the property, all four of them dead and desecrated, but an image of their lifeless eyes couldn’t be forgotten. A woman had recently given birth, but a baby hadn’t been among the dead. A sick sensation filled his stomach at thoughts of what happened to the child.
When he’d assisted Robertson before leaving for the army, they’d always encountered air demons, the ones who possessed humans in their transparent form. After returning to the states, he kept encountering fire demons, fully formed and intelligent, making nests in homes of the unfortunates who thought there would be some gain in making a deal with evil. And somehow, these solid demons were finding it easier and easier to travel to their plane.
In the house that night, Roman found a nest in the basement, complete with fire demons, their skin red and cracked, their postures hunched. One was larger, the others smaller, minions too young for horns of their own. They’d hissed and spit at him, fangs bared, then attacked en masse.
Roman had quickly dispatched the underlings, slicing their heads off when they’d pounced, sending them back to Hell where they belonged. Only the larger demon remained, his arms wrapped around a dirty bundle of cloth. He had promised to make Roman his slave until he saw the scar on his wrist.
“You’ve been marked,” the demon growled, his accent serpentine. “You belong to another. He’ll return for you someday.”
“Counting on it,” Roman had returned. He’d like nothing more than taking revenge on the demon who’d murdered his father. The memory of the fire demon’s words created a clammy shiver down his spine and a tightness in his chest.
It wasn’t until Roman took the demon’s head and it had dropped the bundle it held, that he realized it has been holding something alive, a babe. But it wasn’t human. The bloody cloth had opened up to reveal a baby with purplish gray skin shifting from opaque to transparent in its distress.
And when Roman picked up the bundle and touched the baby with his bare skin, the bright of his soul reflected back to him. The babe was innocent, untouched by evil influence.
It took a few minutes for Roman to realize he held a cross-breed of a demon, part air and part earth, born of a human. The baby shouldn’t exist, but he couldn’t kill an innocent. Not knowing what else to do, he’d taken him to the church.
Since he’d been the one to spare the demon’s life, Robertson had made it his duty to take care of him. No matter the reason for his creation, Roman couldn’t have slit Moe’s throat any more than he could have slit his own. He’d had enough of that sort of killing, of following orders with numb emotions, to last him a lifetime. He’d taken the baby home.
“He’s fine, the same,” Roman replied when he realized Robertson lay there with expectant eyes. The priest wanted to know the quality of the demon’s soul. Roman had promised he’d end the demon’s life if ever his soul turned toward darkness. A promise, a duty that weighed heavy in his chest every single day.
“I should be going.” Roman shifted to stand.
Robertson reached out a shaky hand to stop him. “Forgive me. I have one more favor to ask of you before you go.” He swallowed, his eyes meeting Roman’s. “Tell me. Tell me if my soul will find Peace.”
Hesitating a second too long, Roman exhaled slowly, then removed a glove to take the priest’s hand. As soon as their skin touched, the state of Robertson’s soul shot through him. A sharp pain speared through his forehead like it always did, but he didn’t flinch or react to the sensation. He’d trained himself to remain impassive a long time ago. The priest’s soul wasn’t dim, nor was it bright. It lay somewhere in the middle as most people’s did. But even connecting with those types of souls had his head aching, his scar burning.
And he couldn’t help comparing it to Aubrey’s soul. Hers had been a shot of light, almost blinding him, painlessly.
After a moment of holding the priest’s hand, he could no longer see the luminance of the soul, and the pain faded. Roman tucked the limb beside the old man’s hip and gave his hand a pat before putting his glove back on.
“You have nothing to fear,” he said, not knowing if he spoke the truth or not. He wasn’t a gatekeeper. He didn’t get to decide who passed to the realm people called Heaven. He didn’t know how bright a soul had to be to achieve peace in the end.
“I’ve got to get going,” Roman said after a minute, and stood. There was nothing more he could do here.
“Roman.” Robertson’s voice stopped him at the door.
He looked at the priest over his shoulder.
“It was good to see you.”
Nodding, Roman closed the door quietly behind him. He let out a breath and the tension he’d been holding since he’d arrived. The nun who’d let him in
wasn’t anywhere in sight. Instead of returning the way he’d entered, he walked to the front of the residence, which led to the back of the church. He hadn’t been inside the cathedral for years.
As soon as he stepped inside the main part of the building, he realized nothing had changed. The heavy scent of incense, wood polish, and old books filled his lungs. Bleached columns of stone broke up the pews in intervals, then stretched upward to crisscross their stonework across the vaulted ceiling. Triangular stained glass windows filled the top half of the stone structure, colored beams of light splashing against the walls. The pipe organ perched above everything in the small balcony at the back of the long and narrow space, waiting like a bird of prey, ready to swoop down on its quarry.
An older man and woman knelt in the front pew, rosaries in their hands. Keeping quiet, Roman made his way along the side of the rows of pews to the front foyer. His footsteps slowed as he neared the baptismal font, the memories from that first exorcism he’d watched Robertson perform filtering through his mind. He shook his head to clear it. Everything he’d seen and done for the Church would always haunt him.
On either side of the arched doorway stood statues of Mary and Joseph, their expressions repentant. He passed them by and continued on to the main doors.
A voice stopped him before he could reach for the brass handle. “Roman.” Recognition made tension ricochet through his limbs.
The urge to rip open the door and leave immediately overpowered almost everything else. Instead, Roman turned to face the man he never wanted to see again.
“Jude.” He couldn’t keep the animosity out of his voice. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
He regarded the man standing on the top step of the stairs heading toward the basement, a small stone statue in his hand. The man who his father had called friend. The last sixteen years had aged him, putting gray in his hair. The wrinkles in his face highlighted three jagged claw marks across the left side of it. If it weren’t for the vicious-looking scar, Jude would appear scholarly, with his button-up shirt and glasses perched on the end of his nose. The man’s personal style belied the fact he’d killed more demons than Roman had.
The hopeful look in Jude’s eyes had him bracing himself. Whatever the older man desired from this encounter, he wasn’t getting it.
“I came to stay a while, you know…” Jude looked to the back of the church, toward the residence. “Until the end, at least.”
Roman nodded that he understood. At least Jude still honored some responsibilities, if not the ones that kept him by his partner’s side. A memory flashed in Roman’s mind, one where Jude was sick, some mysterious illness keeping him from his duties, leaving Grant Milone to fight demons on his own—to face Aym, a general of the fire demons, by himself.
“Robertson is having me go through some of the old artifacts in the basement,” Jude continued, like there wasn’t three decades of strain between them. “He said it was time for them to find their rightful homes.”
Jude’s experience in archeology, especially in ancient cultures in and around Sumer, would be helpful there. Roman’s eyes went to the statue in his hand.
“It might be Sumerian,” he explained, taking the last step up the stairs. “But I’ll need to carbon date it.”
Roman gave him a noncommittal grunt, not caring about the artifact but liking the idea Robertson was trying to make things right, returning the historic items the Catholic Church had confiscated over the years to their rightful homes, instead of hiding in the church’s catacombs as untapped wealth.
Jude took one step closer. “Have you ever considered my offer of partnering up?” he asked, his eyes searching Roman’s face. “Demon hunters should always work in pairs.”
“No.” And he wouldn’t. Why put his trust in a man who wouldn’t be there for him when he really needed it?
The day Roman’s father died, Jude should have been there. He and Grant had been partners, a pair of demon hunters who should have had each other’s backs. There was no way Roman’s father should have faced Aym on his own. His dad had died protecting Roman, but not before the fire demon had grabbed Roman’s arm, changing the course of his life.
The thought had the scar on his wrist heating, and he resisted the need to rub it. Roman still hadn’t forgiven Jude for leaving right after, abandoning him in the care of Mrs. Klassen. The man had carried Roman in his arms, and it was the first time he’d recognized a tainted soul. The pain had been unbearable, and he hadn’t understood what he’d seen of Jude’s soul until much later.
The scholarly demon hunter didn’t contact him for another twelve years, not until Roman was out of high school. Jude found him planting flowers near the cathedral’s stone steps on a cool spring day. A new wound graced his cheek, a jagged one that looked like he’d been clawed by a large, wild animal.
With Jude’s mouth full of apologies, Roman didn’t want to hear any of it, numb to anything to do with his father’s death. He walked away, and Jude stopped him with a hand on his arm. After all the exorcisms he’d helped Robertson with, the distinct mark of a soul who’d summoned was unmistakable. His dad’s former partner had a mark on his soul uglier than the one on his face.
Jude’s next words jolted him into the present. “I heard you had a talk with Gusion.”
“I searched him out.” Roman couldn’t keep the loathing out of his voice. “I didn’t summon him.”
Robertson wouldn’t let Jude on church property if he knew what the archaeologist had done.
“Yes, well.” Jude cleared his throat. “I’d wondered what Gusion spoke to you about. Robertson said a new prophecy but not much else.”
Fighting the tension in his body, Roman fisted his hands. Jude was after information, and if Roman hadn’t already been on edge with everything else, then that would have put him there. He hadn’t told anyone other than Robertson what the fallen angel had said to him. “We didn’t have a lot of time to chat before three fire demons took him on a fun road trip.” He’d often wondered how much those fire demons were able to get out of Gusion before he died.
Roman faced the church’s doors, letting out a breath. Judge not, he thought with no small amount of irony, a lesson Mrs. Klassen used to repeat. His own soul was probably the darkest of all. Years of tracking down and killing demons had tarnished him. Before that, it was all the death and horrors he’d seen in the military.
He should leave and forget he ever set eyes on Jude, but curiosity stayed his retreat and made him turn back. “One touch and I’ll see how far you’ve gone.” Taking off his glove, he took a step forward, his arm outstretched. How many summonings had Jude performed since that long ago spring day? How warped had Jude’s soul become? Was it as non-existent as a demon’s by now?
The statue tight in his hand, Jude jumped back so fast he almost stumbled down the stairs. As if Roman could spread a contagious disease from one touch.
“Didn’t think so.” Roman stepped away and slid his glove back on. Intent on leaving this place and all the memories behind, he wrenched open the thick oak door, bright light stabbing the darkness of the foyer.
“Will you be back?” Jude’s hesitant question hit him in the spine.
“No,” he threw over his shoulder without looking back. The tall door shut with a clunk.
Roman breathed in the fresh air and let the outdoors clear away the fog of memories and anger that came from the encounter. He didn’t know if it would ever be possible for him to forgive the man. He definitely couldn’t trust him. Another deep breath and he headed to his truck. He didn’t see Moe moving around inside and couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing until he opened the door.
Candy wrappers littered the passenger seat. Moe lay on his side on the floor, groaning, his little belly distended.
“I hope that’s only the candy in there.” Roman jumped into the driver’s seat, his eyes scanning the playground to see if anyone was searching for a lost dog.
“Yes. Yes. Much punishment had
. No volcano needed. No.” Moe groaned, then pulled himself up onto the seat, the short hairs all over his body lying flat against his mauve skin.
“You didn’t need to eat the whole bag.”
He started his truck, his eyes on the closed front door, waiting for Jude to come out. Would that be the end of it? Would that be the last time he saw Jude’s face, reminding him of all he’d lost? God, he hoped so. If the next time he saw the man was when they both landed in Plight, it would be too soon.
Then, thinking about Robertson’s question, he removed a glove and placed a hand on Moe’s head. Light came back to him, a different sort of luminescence than Aubrey Karle’s soul, but bright, only a light sting to accompany it.
Moe leaned into his hand, accepting the affection, then said, “Yes. Ate the bag too. So many regrets. Yes.” He fell on his back, his legs straight up like a dead bug. “It too shall pass. Yes.”
Shaking his head, Roman pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the house he rented for their stay in town while he figured out how to change the course of a prophecy he’d been assured wasn’t wrong.
“How many times have I told you eating plastic isn’t good for you?”
“Yes. Very bad for Moe’s environment. Off-gassing.”
5
Tuesday morning brought a sun-shower and puddles glistening in the early light. The early September rain shower slowed to a drizzle as Roman made his way on foot toward old downtown, his rented house only about ten blocks away from his target.
Briefly touching the tender spot on his forehead where the drill had landed the day before, he continually scanned the area with his eyes. Moe kept himself hidden, moving in and out of shadows. His form shifted to transparent, mimicking the world around him. No one would see him unless they were looking, and even then, only if they knew what they were looking for.
Halfway to old downtown, Roman’s senses alerted him to someone following. As he slowed his pace, his hands itched to grab one of the knives concealed under his jacket. Ever since Gusion told him that cursed prophecy, more and more fire demons had been trying to kill him out of the blue. He needed to be careful, no matter where he was.
