Demon Accords 05.5: Executable (33 page)

Suddenly nervous, I turned and opened the banquet room door, almost knocking over the waitress, Emilee, who was looking hopefully into the room, carrying a full pot of coffee.  Waitress reflexes took over and she automatically stepped out of the way.

Her expression fell in on itself in disappointment when she saw it was only me, but then her eyes got huge when Tanya came through after me and even larger when Chris came after her.

Ah, that’s it.  Hoping for a glimpse of the purple-eyed guy huh?
  I gave her a smirk as I realized the reason for her attentive service.  Time to play.

“Ah, Chris, are you hungry by any chance?  Emilee would probably be glad to get you some breakfast, right Em?”

The poor girl could only nod, her cheeks flushing red.

“Oh, you know, that would be great!  I’m actually starving!” Chris said, his face lighting up like it was Christmas morning.

Tanya chuckled.  “You’re always starving, dear one.”

“What do you recommend, Declan?” he asked me, waving away his girlfriend’s comment.

“Woodsman’s Special is my favorite, but only if you like eggs, toast, hash browns, bacon, and pancakes,” I said.

“That sounds awesome!  Can I get three of those?”

“Ah, Chris, each one is three eggs and four pancakes with four strips of bacon, four pieces of toast and a pile of hash browns?”

He considered this information, then nodded.  “Good point, make it four!  Thanks so much… ah… Emilee, was it?”

He was three feet away, looking her straight in the eyes, and I think she came a hair’s breadth from passing out. 

I took pity.  “Em, we’ll be in the living quarters. Bring it on in when it’s ready, please,” I said, snapping her trance and getting a shaky nod in response.

Tanya was amused as I led them out of the restaurant, where curious gazes from customers and staff followed us.  “He has that effect on women.”

“Well, excuse me for saying it, Tanya, but I’m pretty certain that
you
have the same effect on men,” I said, instantly regretting my big mouth.

Chris laughed.  “I wholeheartedly agree, Declan!”

I gave them the grand tour and, after Tanya asked where my room was, I showed them the container room, as well.  They both spotted my mom’s photo and commented on the resemblance. 

“I lost my whole family when I was eight.  My grandfather raised me,” Chris said, staring at the photo.  “A demon in a human skin killed them with an axe.”

“I don’t know who killed my mom, but it was likely someone from her home town,” I said.

“What about your father?” Tanya asked, watching me carefully.  I think I may have flinched a bit.

“Mom was raped.  I don’t know anything about my father other than he was from Croatia and he should probably die.”

They both looked at me, startled by my words, but they didn’t say anything else.

We went back into the main family quarters where Emilee was slowly setting the food out.  I mean, it was obvious she was dragging butt, waiting to get a glimpse of Chris.  Tanya just smirked at her boyfriend, then stretched out on the couch, crossing her ankles and putting her arms behind her head.  Her eyes closed and she just went quiet.  I couldn’t tell if she was even breathing.

Chris attacked the food like it was a super villain and I shoed Em out the door, promising I would let her know if we needed anything else.

I broke the chocolate milk out of the fridge and asked if he wanted any.  A quick smile, a nod yes, and he was back in the food.  Pouring us each a glass, I set his in front of him and left the jug on the table.  Four breakfasts were gonna require a lot more than one glass of milk.

“I thought my friend Caeco ate in bulk,” I commented, pretty much in awe of his intake rate.  He laughed around a mouthful of pancake, swallowed, and drank half his glass of milk before replying.  “How is Caeco?”

“She’s good.  She’ll probably be here by lunchtime.  We texted earlier,” I explained.

“Good, I’d like to see her again,” he said.  “As to eating, I’m kinda like a shrew… if I don’t eat, I die… victim of my own metabolism.”

“Like werewolves? Levi told me that weres eat a ton.”

“Yeah, like that, only worse.”

“Ah… will Tanya need to eat… er… drink or whatever when she wakes up later?” I asked, wondering if having a vampire queen around was a good idea.

“She will,” he said, nodding, a slight smile on his face.  “But I’ll feed her.  She won’t drink from anyone else.  That’s another reason I eat so much.”

“Oh, ah, that’s good, then,” I said awkwardly, but thoroughly relieved.  Then my stupid mouth went ahead and asked the main question I’d been harboring.  “Ah, like… what are you?”

Shit!  Did I really just ask that?

He stopped eating and sat back, looking at me full on, pausing uncomfortably for like five seconds that seemed like five minutes.

“You know, Declan, I get that question a lot, and I don’t really like to answer it,” he said, making me feel like a complete dick.  “I usually just make up some wiseass remark.  And I don’t like witches much… but I really like you and your aunt.  Plus… I really only sort of found out what I was when we were both in that silo in New Hampshire.  So, I’ll tell you.”  He paused and got a kind of thoughtful look on his face, then laughed.  “I can’t really remember how I got this way… just bits and pieces… but I can now tell you what this way is.  How screwed up is that?”

It must have been rhetorical because he didn’t wait for an answer.

“Anyway, my main lot in life has always been hunting demons.  From twelve years old on.  You could say that I’m kind of a demon-exorcising savant.  I don’t need a Bible or Holy Water, just my hands.  Then I met
her
,” he said with a nod at the beautiful girl on the couch.  “I don’t remember a lot about the last two years, just faces and moments in time, and that’s an improvement from where I was when I first got shot.  But I do remember meeting Barbiel,” he said, trailing off.

“Barbiel?”I prompted.

“He’s an Angel—the one assigned to me.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.  I mean, I had a vampire sleeping or lying daydead or whatever the hell she was doing on my couch and I was a witch, so why should discussing Angels be weird?  But it’s easy to talk about dark stuff—demons, vampires, and weres—although my outlook on vampires and weres had improved quite a bit.  But to talk about Angels, the direct agents of God, seemed surreal.  Like everybody wants to know they’re on the side of good and right, but how many religious-spouting whackjobs claim to have seen Angels and been directed on some mission or other by God?  So it threw me.

“Yeah, weird, right?  I didn’t believe it myself.  But he convinced me,” Chris said, reading my expression.

“You didn’t believe him?” I asked.

“You don’t believe me now!  Why would I believe some guy when he said he was an Angel?  Although he never really came out and said it.  Plus he kept disappearing.  Anyway, over time, I started to believe.  You see, the religious people in my childhood all told me I was God’s Warrior—that I was Touched by God.  Barbiel explained that I was a carefully planned upgraded soldier in an arranged battle that has been going on for thousands of years.  A struggle between Heaven and Hell.”

“And you remember all this, but you don’t remember meeting
her?”
I asked, incredulous.

He frowned, and I suddenly got nervous. 
Good job, idiot. Piss off the uber warrior.
  Then he looked embarrassed and shrugged.  “I know, right?  I mean, look at her!  Nobody should look that good.  And I don’t remember the first time I laid eyes on her.  I have glimpses and glimmers and I get more all the time, but my first look at her
had
to be huge!  And I’ve got none of that,” he said, closing his eyes in obvious anguish.

I felt like a complete shithead. 
Dick move, O’Carroll
!

“Well, at least you’re getting stuff back right?  It’ll come back,” I said lamely.

“Yeah, maybe.  Anyway, the thing is when I died back there in that missile base I had a… meeting of sorts.  Barbiel was there, and others.  And they welcomed me as a brother,” he said, looking at me and then away, pausing to eat an egg.

“Others?  Like other Angels?  So if you’re their brother… oh!  Oh, I see,” I said, as the whole thing came clear.  He looked embarrassed.  Which was odd.  Shouldn’t he be proud?  If not outright braggy about it?

“That’s the implication.  And her, too.  They said that she and I have always been together, like forever,” he said.

The more I thought about what I had seen him do, the more I decided that I believed him.  Plus, he was so damned humble about the whole thing.

“I asked Toni what you were, and she said you were her Guardian Angel.  It makes sense,” I said.

“She said that?” he said, pinning me with his violet eyes. 

I nodded.  “She was telling us about how you would be coming to get her.  You and Tanya and Awasos… and Grim.”

He froze at that, staring at me.  “She told you about Grim?”

“Yeah, she was preparing us, I think.  She said that Grim was scary, trying to get us ready, which frankly no one could have.”

“She’s afraid of Grim?” he said, putting his fork down and staring at his third plate of food morosely.

“Ah, no.  That’s not what I said.  She was telling us that your other… er… that you… well, that you might scare us.  But she wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of you or your Grim side.”

His head snapped back up.  “What?”

“Ah, dude, I’m sure you know this, but that’s one tough-as-nails little girl.  Smart, too.  She was all alone in a secret base, locked in a jail cell, listening to some high school kid tell her Chuck Norris jokes and she was absolutely, hard-as-granite certain that you were coming to get her.  She warned the AIR people.  Told them they would regret it.  And she admitted she was afraid of the rescue.  Said she didn’t like the loud noises and the explosions.  Frankly, I thought she was a little unhinged, but then you ripped the door open, tore the cell apart, and scooped her up.  And I almost crapped myself.  Caeco was even scared, and
that
girl was designed to be a badass.  But your goddaughter was never, even for a second, afraid of you or your other half.  She kept hiding her head in your shoulder for Chri… I mean, for Heaven’s sake,” I finished, trying to cover my almost flub.  Taking the Son of God’s name in vain in front of what was possibly an Angel made flesh was not my best idea.  He caught it anyway.

“Hah, I do that a lot myself,” he said, grinning.  “But you really believe she’s not afraid of me?”

“She’s absolutely not afraid of you, the vampire goddess over there, or that giant, fang-filled beast that follows you around!  I was shitting myself and she was giggling!  She missed her parents the whole time, but it was you that she
knew
was coming to get her.”

He just stared at me for a moment, then he slowly smiled.  “Thank you Declan.  When I found out I had a goddaughter, it rocked my world, maybe more than finding out I am what I am.  Then I saw how everyone around me is afraid of me.  I thought she might be, too.”

“I understand that whole people-afraid-of-you stuff.  Virtually all the kids at school are afraid of me, except my friends.  It gets kind of old.”

He tilted his head to one side, then glanced toward our back door.  “Speaking of friends, I think Caeco is here, with her mother and another… a boy maybe your age?”

“Probably Rory, my best friend,” I said, getting up and heading to the door.  Sure enough, the three of them were almost at the back door, Rory chatting away, Caeco smiling at me, and Dr. Jensen looking pained at Rory’s nonstop spiel.

I held the door for them, letting them troop past me and on in.  As I came in behind them, I saw that Tanya was now standing behind Chris.  Freaky.  She had been flat out on the couch about five seconds ago and now she was across the room, looking like she’s been awake for hours.

“Ah, Chris and Tanya, this is my friend Rory.  Rory, these are the folks I mentioned that we met in New Hampshire,” I said, covering the introductions.  “You’ve already met Caeco and her mother, Dr. Jensen.”

Chris came around the table and held out his hand to Rory, who automatically shook it but was having trouble forming words.  Looking back and forth between Tanya and Chris and blushing bright red was about all he could manage.  I think he got a little faint when Tanya smiled at him and reached past him to shake Dr. Jensen’s hand.  Truly fantastic, ammo I could use against him for years and years.

“Hello again, Doctor.  I’m not sure I got to really meet you before,” Tanya said to Caeco’s mom.

“Ah, Dr. Jensen was one of the youngest graduates of Stanford’s genetic engineering program,” Rory suddenly said, then went brighter red, if that was even possible.

“I know.  I read her thesis paper on Transgenesis,” Tanya said.

“You read my paper?” Dr. Jensen asked, thoroughly startled.

“You stalked my mom?” Caeco asked Rory at almost the same time.

Leaving the two women to discuss viral vector techniques in genetic engineering and Rory rapidly explaining himself, I turned to Chris, who was stacking the now-empty plates onto the tray they’d arrived on.

“So, I’m gonna do a quick walk around the perimeter to check Aunt Ash’s wards.  It won’t take long but it does get us outside if you want to go along?” I asked.  He nodded, smiling as he watched his girlfriend chatting easily about advances in recombinant technology.

“She’s so much smarter than I am, it’s scary,” he said.

“Really?  ‘Cause Caeco’s the same way,” I replied.  “Plus, she’s got like this built-in computer thing going on.  Not fair.”

He laughed as we walked out the back door, leaving the two women talking at the table while Caeco and Rory followed us, still discussing Rory’s online etiquette or lack thereof.