In Stone (9 page)

“Get ready with the knife,” Jack warns me.

“What? Why?” I ask, tightening my grip around the knife handle.

“Trust me. This is the bit you want to kill.”

The Pipe Cleaner faints and fades into insignificance as the giant glob of sputum dissolves. In its place is a naked female body with long jet black hair. Her skin is so thin, like tracing paper; it’s transparent. I can see her veins, tiny black lines running all over her skin and tearing it up like a road map. She’s so skinny, her bones are jutting out all over the place. Maybe a dozen small mounds run up the center of her back. She pushes herself up off the floor. Sprouting, delicate, but poisonous. A nefarious flower.

Her head cocks to one side -- she’s looking at me. At least she’s facing me, but there are only empty black holes where her eyes should be. She makes a clicking noise with her tongue. In a split second Jack is behind her. Dragging her arms behind her back and holding her steady. Her bottom jaw drops, unhinged by bone, it keeps falling. Before long, I think
, she will be able to swallow the room whole. A screeching sound explodes from her chest. It’s deafening. I feel pressure at the back of my eyes, in the center of my ears. The glass windows can’t handle it; they implode and spray fragments of glass all over the room. She claws at me, at the knife.

“Beau!” Jack screams.

I lunge at her with the blade poised, but at the last second I hesitate and instead  of causing any sort of substantial damage I only manage to knick the top of her arm. It starts to leak a black substance. Blood? She stops wailing and stares at it. Jack let’s her go and snatches my hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask breathless as he tows me toward the window.

“We’re leaving.”

“What about them?”

I look back over my shoulder to see the Pipe Cleaner stirring. The she-devil has retreated to a dark corner under the desk. She’s trying to hide, but a trail of black tar and the soft glow of her bright white skin gives away her location. She stares at her wound and then with the tip of her tongue tastes the black substance that’s dribbling down her arm.

“He lives. She dies.”

The scene is abruptly snatched away from me as Jack loads me on to his hip and springs on to the window ledge. I look down on the brisk forty, maybe fifty-foot drop. A gaggle of geese suddenly take flight in my stomach.

“Hold on,” Jack reminds me. Slamming my eyes shut, I throw my arms around his neck and cling to him like a spider clings to a web. What, no tail seatbelt? Apparently not. My stomach lurches and then bam, he hits the ground like ten tons of solid stone. The building we’ve just been in quivers. In seconds my feet touch down on solid ground beside him. I breathe a sigh of relief as I peel my arms from him.

“Intense,” Jack sums up in a nervous laugh. He takes hold of my cheeks and looks me in the eyes. “Are you okay?” He searches for signs of…sanity?

“Not sure.”

But I am sure. It’s not rational, it’s not normal, but I want to go again. I’m using every electrified muscle, every sparking sinew, to hold back a burst of laughter. A man shouts from the window we’ve just thrown ourselves from. Jack grabs my hand again, and we haul ass toward his car. He’s seated and belted by the time I climb inside.

THE CAR SCREECHES INTO
motion. My heart is wild, fluttering in my throat. Like a moth is caught in my windpipe and its beating wings are tickling my tonsils. I feel nauseated but pumped. I want to start whooping, yelling ‘we did it’ at the top of my lungs while dishing out high-fives and slapping my coconspirator on the back. We actually did it. We more than did it. We came, we saw, we kicked demon ass.

“You sure you’re not hurt?” Jack asks when the silence in the car starts to stretch. I shake my head. I’m not sure excitement is the appropriate emotion, and I know that words right now will come out dripping with it.

We make our way back to Plumbridge. Ragged breaths and the plink, plink, plink of the rain colliding with the metal of the car play us home. We gallop over the winding roads. My body jolts sharply from side to side at every turn. I’m so consumed by my thoughts that I forget to fight against the motion. It’s only when I butt shoulders with Jack that we start speaking again.

“You’re quiet. Too quiet. Silent reflection?” Jack asks.

He looks at me, then back at the road, then back at me again. He sucks in a sharp breath and holds it.

“So just that one tiny cut to her arm and she’s dead?”

He nods. “With the white knife, that’s all it takes. That’s why they all want it.”

Time moves on a couple of beats before he says, “Look, Beau, there’s no reason why you should feel comfortable with what just happened…”

I know what’s coming. It’s almost exactly the same opening Mom delivered seven years ago when I took it upon myself to explore the funeral parlor and came across the corpse of a woman. That’s when the fruit tea thing started. Like fruit infused drinks would somehow help me cope with the horrors of real life.

I’m right. Jack launches into a full on grief counseling speech about ‘the greater good’ and ‘having no choice’. I fade him out. I genuinely don’t need to be talked through this. We did what we had to do. No deep breath needed. Pipe Cleaner guy didn’t die and my conscience feels completely clean. I look down at the knife in my hand. Despite the heat seeping through my skin, it stays as cold as an ice cube. It’s small and not really anything overly impressive. Kind of hard to believe that something not shiny, not even sharp looking, not big or bulky or particularly ugly might be responsible for creating
all-out war. 

“I’m not really freaking out about this,” I blurt out, during what I suspect was intended to be a moment for the aforementioned reflection. “I guess I’m not so normal after all.” Jack’s top lip spikes at one side. “Should I be concerned about my capacity to deal?”

“No.” He pauses. His features twist into all sorts of new and undiscovered shapes. “Actually, it could prove to be quite an important component.” His body shifts, and he starts drumming an indistinct beat with his thumbs on the steering wheel. I’d done the same thing, found the same tune when I’d first climbed into his car, when I was feeling apprehensive.  

“Prove to be?” I repeat. “Didn’t it do that already?” A forced laugh flops from my mouth. I count the following seconds of silence out in my head.

I make it all the way to thirty before he says, “Beau, what were you supposing I would do with the knife once we got it back?”

I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, what with the whole doomsday speech and the encroaching breaking and entering plight, and the gargoyle revelation and…it’s a good question though. Alarm bells start ringing in my ears. I raise the knife to eye level. If he can’t touch it, what happens next?

“I need to ask another favor.”

Of course he does. Mentally, I’m head butting the dashboard. Physically, my spine straightens and I have to work hard to keep my breathing steady.

“You did great up there. Really, really gr--”

“Just make with the pitch,” I interject, chewing holes in the side of my mouth.

“The knife needs to be taken to the Rila mountains in…Bulgaria,” Jack continues.

“Bulgaria. Europe. You’re kidding, right?”

“Don’t let the location scare you.”

“It doesn’t,” I snap. I suddenly feel very hot, not like I’ve been sunbathing hot -- it’s on the inside. An overwhelming heat like the type that blossoms in your head and neck right before you faint. My hand squeezes the knife. I’m so angry I could give him a little knick on the arm, take pleasure in watching him lick his wound under a darkened table…

Whoa! Wait. What the fuck? I didn’t just think that. I didn’t. Mind wipe. I didn’t mean it; I could never do that. I’m just annoyed, tired. Everyone thinks things they don’t mean when they’re ticked off. My head flicks around to face the window, and I focus on the thick, black smudges, clusters of trees, and indiscernible buildings, whipping by on the horizon.

Jack keeps making a breathy sound beside me. False starts, I think, as he tries to figure out what to say. Please don’t talk to me. I don’t want him to talk to me because I’m scared something angry and poisonous might slip out. In the end, he chooses to say nothing at all. The air is smoggy with tension.

We still haven’t spoken when he pulls his car to a halt outside my house. I shuffle out. Jack looks at me with his bright blue eyes all soft and shiny, a still sea reflecting the sun. They’re solid in color, no varying shades of violet, or dark inflections like you find in human eyes. A faint smile sits on his lips; there’s possibly a hint of an apology in it. Then we’re  both transfixed on the knife in my hands. I trace its edge with my thumb. Wish I could melt it down with my mind. When I look back at Jack I can see he’s wishing the same thing.

“The painter, Vladimir Dimitrov, was from Bulgaria. People called him a saint because he was so selfless. The guy was always giving.” I don’t know why I tell him this. Yes I do. My head might want to drop the fate of the world on his front seat, but my heart wants to help him take it to Bulgaria. That word, selfless, is suddenly so big I wonder how the universe can even contain it.

In that moment I decide. I’m going with him. “I’ve never even been out of state,” I say. “What am I going to tell my mom?” I shove the knife in my back pocket, hold on to the roof, and lean into the car. The smile on Jack’s face widens, it touches his eyes, and just like that they flash silver.

“We’ll…”

Jack’s words are whipped away; his face vanishes. Gravity poof -- gone. My stomach swims as I tilt backward, and I’m on my back looking up at a figure covered in dry, scaly, black skin. My senses are assaulted by the stench of sewage. I’m too busy choking on it to scream.

I’ve been snatched by a demon. It holds me in its iron grip, pressing its frozen fingers into my shoulders. Two big arcs, pointed and bat-like, pull us through the air, heaving every time they flap. I can’t see this creature’s face, just a toothless mouth and a nose without nostrils.

Everything that happens next happens so quickly. It’s like I’m watching from the sidelines, and it’s happening to someone else. One second, I’m thinking about the knife in my back pocket; the next it’s in my hand and I’m reaching up, plunging it into the creature’s breast. This demon doesn’t slink away into a corner to die. It explodes in midair, and I am falling.

Demon shit, thick, black, and rotten, is raining down on me, and I am plummeting to the ground. I see a flash of my broken body, a jigsaw puzzle splayed out on the sidewalk. My eyes are closed, my body braced for impact, but when I finally hit something solid, I’m still in one piece. I pat my legs, arms, chest, and face. Nothing is out of place. I’m not smashed into a million pieces, not decorating the concrete with mangled chunks of my pulverized body. I’m in Jack’s arms. He sets me down on the pavement and holds on to my arm until my legs are firm enough to take my weight.

I’m covered in demon. Ice-cold, liquefied demon entrails. It’s in my hair and in between my fingers, dripping down my face. Running over my lips and pooling in the crevices of my collarbone.

“Whatever you do, don’t swallow any of it,” Jack warns as he holds out a cotton handkerchief.

“Really? ‘Cause I was gonna go get me a fork and have me a big ole mouthful of demon guts.” I snatch the handkerchief and wipe the splatter off my lips. At least the rain is washing away some of the stink. Undistinguishable parts of demon are being rinsed off my clothes and swallowed up by the drain.

“You still sane?” Jack slides a finger under my chin and tips my head up. His eyes search my face again. I wonder if he can see all the crazy swimming around inside my brain.

“Can’t possibly be, right?” The demon dropped me at the end of the street. We’re lucky this is Plumbridge and everyone goes to bed shortly after sundown.

“They know where I live,” I say, eyeballing my little house.

“It would appear so.”

“Then we have to leave soon. I don’t want them coming here.”

He nods. “Of course.” I hand him back the handkerchief. The crisp white cotton is gone, buried underneath a slick coat of black-green sludge.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, shoving the offending object back into his pocket.

“Yeah,” I say, nudging the toe of his sneaker with my boot. “Thanks for catching me.”

“Anytime,” he replies.

We begin the walk back to my house, traipsing through puddles, neither of us speaking. Our impending trip stands between us as big and as bold as an ogre with its arms slung over each one of our shoulders.

“How long will we be gone?” I ask when we reach the gate. I don’t know how I’m going to get past mom on this one. Maybe if I tell her I’m trying to save the world from a demon invasion she’ll let me off the leash. Maybe.

“Two, three days tops.”

“But we will make it back?” I don’t know where the question comes from. I wasn’t really thinking about not coming back. Was I?

“Of course,” he scoffs. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think I could bring you back.”

My teeth start chattering. The wind laps at my ears, making them sting.

“You need to go inside and get warm.”