Demon Jack (14 page)

“What?”

“She’s the enemy now. There is no ‘getting her back’. There is no saving her. She’s an enemy combatant because of a situation you put her in. Not to mention, there’s still the issue of this possessing...demon...thing...stuff...” She let the words trail off, fighting to put some type of explanation on something that was, at the moment, unknown.

“She’s not the enemy,” I said.

“Oy, she is. 'Ell, she’s a monster now. Just like you boyo,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “She's no different than Adam.”

“That right?”

She turned, glaring at me.

“Yer fuckin A right it is,” she said, her accent thick over the words.

“Not the way I see it.”

“At this point, the way you're seeing it 'ere doesn’t make much difference to me one way or 'nother.”

“Then we should probably go ahead and hop out of the car and handle this, because that's where this whole line of conversation is heading,” I said, putting my hand on the door handle.

She didn’t say anything. Instead, she stared at me for a long moment and then started the car, easing it back into traffic. She wouldn’t look at me while we drove. My mind fell back to Lucy, to the look in her eyes while Adam drained the life out of her. She stared at me and her eyes didn’t accuse me, they were just desperate. She wasn’t blaming me. I blamed me, and I was right in doing so. Maggie and The Three wise men be damned, I was getting Lucy back. I owed her that.

Fifteen minutes later I saw the church come into view. Maggie parked across the street, and we both slid out. She didn’t say a word to me. I fell in step behind her, shoving my hands in the pocket of my sweatshirt.

We both stopped at the same time, staring up at the church from the middle of the street. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. It was in the air, in the vibe of the place. There was a cold feeling, of something poisonous, something dirty invading an otherwise clean place. I knew the feeling all too well. I’d felt it in the air when Essie had gone all homicidal bag lady. I’d felt it when the nurse at the hospital had tried to kill me. This thing we had been chasing had found us.

The church was silent. Lights, which normally illuminated and cast soft glows through the stained glass windows, were dark. Aside from Maggie’s car the street was empty. Even the city itself seemed muted here - the sirens, the horns, the typical city sounds were hushed and far off.

“Something's not on the up and up,” Maggie said quietly.

“So it would seem,” I said.

We started towards the church together. The doors were open. Scratch that, one of the doors was open. The other door was torn completely off its hinges and was laying a few feet away. Deep, fist sized craters marked the normally smooth surface.

“Not a good sign,” Maggie said.

“Your powers of deduction amaze me,” I muttered.

She responded with another glare.

I moved up the steps, just to the left of the door. I made sure to stay out of the line of sight if someone were waiting to jump out with guns, claws or something equally horrible and the intent to do me bodily harm. Maggie was a step behind me, already pulling the blade from her pack. Now that I wasn’t about to be ripped in half by a vampire, or set on fire, I was able to get a look at the blade. It was a Marine issue Ka-Bar, solid black and sharpened to a razor edge. She had a bottle of drinking water in the other hand, one of those sports bottles with the little nozzle squirt tops. For a moment, we just stood there. I strained to hear anything, listening for a sign of something inside.

Silence answered me.

I crouched and peered inside. The place was a disaster bathed in shadows. Light filtered through the stained glass windows, painting pools of reds, blues and greens across the floor. Pews lay overturned and broken, hymnals scattered amidst the wreckage. The altar itself had been thrown halfway across the church’s interior and lay on its side in the center aisle. I stepped inside, moving slowly and staying as low as I could to make as small a target as possible. Maggie slipped in behind me.

I nearly leapt out of my skin both from surprise and complete and total amazement when Alice appeared in front of me. I stumbled backwards, right into Maggie, and almost knocked both of us on our asses.

“It’s empty, Jack,” Alice said, looking over the church’s interior.

“The fuck?” I said, completely forgetting the idea of staying quiet.

Maggie shoved me off of her and moved to stand beside me.

“So much for stealth,” she said.

“It’s empty,” I answered.

“Oh? Maybe I don't feel like taking yer word for it,” she said and turned, venturing deeper into the church's interior. She wandered around, checking behind broken pews, in closets, vanishing down the hallway for a moment before finally returning. After a few minute of searching she returned.

“You're right.”

“I'm aware.”

“So 'ow did you know then, smart ass?”

“Alice is here,” I said, looking back to the little demon, “which raises a hell of an interesting question.”

“Your demon?” she asked, her tone holding a touch of skepticism. Some people.

“Yes.”

“You seem surprised by that,” Maggie said.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a church,” Alice said quietly, her voice reverent. She started turning to stare over the interior, taking it all in.

“I am,” I said, watching Alice pace forward, staring around in rapt wonder. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything close to a full-blown emotion register on the demon’s face. She looked… lost.

“Right.”

“She can’t manifest on holy ground. Yet I’m looking at her now. I’m also not feeling like total ass at the moment. Which means...”

“This place has been desecrated.” Alice finished my thought.

“Which means?” Maggie asked.

I blinked, still a bit entranced at the fact Alice was completely awed by her surroundings. It was surreal.

“The place has been desecrated,” I said, repeating Alice's words and turning my attention back to Maggie.

“Ows ‘at?”

I looked at Alice, raising my own brows in curiosity.

“Something blasphemous happens,” the demon said and sat down on one of the still standing pews. She stared around quietly for a moment and the look on her face suggested she was fighting back intense emotion. “Something violent, a rape or murder most likely. Something that stains its godliness.” Her voice was a quiet whisper.

“Then we have a bigger problem,” I said.

“Oh?” Maggie asked.

I looked the place over once again, my eyes settling on the confessionals. They looked the same as they always had, untouched. It was enough amongst the wreckage to catch my attention. I didn’t answer Maggie. Instead, I stalked over and grabbed the first door, pulling it open. The interior was empty.

I opened the second and winced. The man hadn’t been dead long, his arm flopping out to brush my leg once the door was open. He had been older, in his early fifties or sixties, with hair the color of fresh snow. His eyes were open, a crystal clear shade of blue that was almost startling in its brightness. He wore simple coveralls and looked like the jovial neighbor from some 1950’s sitcom. His throat had been ripped open. Blood had soaked the coveralls, pooling around him in the confessional's carpeted floor.

“Shit,” I said.

I heard Maggie gasp from just over my shoulder. She closed her eyes for a long minute. She sighed and ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her face.

“That’s Ed, the janitor. He cleans the church part time,” she said after a moment.

“Well that explains that,” I said quietly, “We need to go.”

“Go? We can’t just leave him,” she said

“Yeah?”

“It’s not right,” she said quietly.

“Not right huh? Let’s ask Ed if he minds. Hey, Ed. Look man, you mind if we cut out?” I said to the dead man. “Don’t mind? Good.”

Maggie’s eyes damn near bored holes through my skull.

“Sorry,” I said after a long moment. “Point is, cops show up here we’re gonna be held up for more than a few hours. The way this place looks from the outside, I’m surprised they aren’t here now. That, and this thing’s looking for us. Actively.”

“Where do you propose we go?” she said after a moment.

“Well, not here would be a start,” I said.

She looked back at Ed, then towards me. She turned on her heel and walked across the church and out. I jogged to catch up with her.

“What about the Padre and the others?” she asked as we walked, heading towards the car, leaving the church behind us.

“Right now, not really concerned about it. We need to find somewhere to hole up. We can figure all that shit out later.”

She cast a glance back towards the church and sighed.

“Alright. Where to?”

I shrugged.

“Somewhere we won’t get eaten, I’m hoping.” I slid into the passenger side of the car. A moment later she joined me and started the car's pathetic, sewing machine engine.

“Genius plan. Care to give me some sort of idea where you think that might be?”

“Sure, like I said, not here.”

Chapter 12

For the next hour we kept moving without any real direction or plan. Maggie kept old punk music tearing from her speakers, something loud and violent. She drove in perfect, rigid silence, keeping her eyes focused on the road in front of her. There was a tension in the air, a humming buzz of emotion that radiated from her frame like the current you feel standing under high tension wire and seemed to once more amp up the fragrance which seemed to accompany her. It was pushing midnight when she finally pulled the car into a WalMart parking lot and killed the engine.

“We should talk about some things,” she said, turning the radio down to a level that didn’t require screaming to be a part of the conversation.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Alice said from the back seat. I turned, regarding her with mild annoyance before looking back at Maggie.

“Okay?”

“I’m not sorry about what I said to you. Or for punching you in the face,” she said.

I blinked. “Alright. Glad we cleared that up.”

She paused, swallowing hard. She turned to me, lips opening to speak and then stopped.

“What?” I asked.

“I ‘ate you.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I ‘ate you. You disgust me. You and yer little demon girlfriend,” Maggie said.

“Well that’s just rude,” Alice chimed in from the backseat. I cut her another glance over my shoulder. She waved her little fingers at me.

“Well, I'm glad you're able to get that off your chest.”

“Shut up,” she snapped, taking a breath before continuing. “But yer what I ‘ave at the moment.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Everything else I had just got wrecked.” Her tone was heavy with resignation.

“Yeah, well I’m not fond of this little partnership either. But keep in mind, you recruited me,” I said, laying my head against the passenger side window.

“I’m very not fond of it as well,” Alice chimed in. “I still say you should get rid of her.”

“Not helping,” I said to Alice without looking back.

Maggie, meanwhile just stared at me wearing her impatience openly.

“Like I said,” I said turning back towards Maggie, “you recruited me.”

“Oh no, I scooped you up, I was working under orders.”

“Semantics. So what’re you getting at exactly?”

“I...oy. Fuck. What I’m gettin at ya wanker, is that until this is said and done, we need to put our shit aside and handle business. We're a team, much as it pains me. A truly right and fucked up one, but a team none the less. Despite how much I wanna jerk ya up by yer neck and beat yer skull in.”

I most definitely wasn’t expecting her to offer up something resembling an olive branch, especially after making it quite clear where I stood in terms of her esteem. I was pretty sure some form of shock registered on my face and if she noticed, she didn’t say anything about it. We sat there, not saying a word, staring at the parking lot.

I finally sat up, rubbing a hand over my eyes and looked at her.

“Alright. So now that that’s all established. What’s your play in all this?”

“My play?”

“Yeah, I’m here under coercion. What’s your excuse?”

“I owe it to ‘em.”

“You owe it to ‘em?”

“You make a lot of mistakes in six ‘undred years,” she said not looking at me.

“How fucking old are you?” I asked.

Maggie glared at me, eyes narrowed dangerously. Something in the look she gave me chased that line of curiosity induced questioning a fair ways out of my mind. There was an intensity of regret there that was hard for me to face. I got the hint. I held up my hands in a gesture of submission and dropped it.

“Old enough,” she said.