Misfit (26 page)

They reach the top of the hil . Nestled into the spot where the slanted street meets the base of the bridge is a twenty-foot-high statue of a trol . It’s hunched forward, long hair partial y covering its brooding face.

The endless rains of Seattle have stained and eroded its face so that its one exposed eye seems to weep.

In one hand it clutches a life-size VW Bug.

“Trip trap, trip trap,” mutters Britt.

“What?” says Jael.

“Huh?” says Britt. Her eyes grow wide in the harsh yel ow streetlight. She suddenly smiles, the corner of her mouth stil twitching, and a thin line of drool rol s down her chin.

“Monsignor was unworthy of performing the exorcism.

So God al owed you to defeat him. But I have found someone who is worthy.” She turns toward the trol , and Jael fol ows her gaze.

Three figures in white monk robes now stand at the base of the statue, their hoods pul ed low over their faces.

“Britt . . . ,” says Jael.

“This is Brother Jack of the Ancient Order of Vetis,”

says Britt, her voice dreamy. “And he is here to exorcise the demon from your soul.”

Belial steps out from the line and pushes back his hood. He’s in his mortal form, but his long black hair sweeps up to the sides, suggesting his horns, and his pale blue eyes glitter like gems.

“Jael, darling,” he says. “What a delight to see you again so soon.”

“Britt, you’ve got to snap out of this!” says Jael in a low voice. She grabs Britt’s arm and shakes her.

“This is the guy who kil ed my mother!”

Britt’s crazy eyes waver slightly, and her fixed smile droops.

But then Belial cal s out, “Remember what we talked about, Brittany.”

“Yes, Brother Jack!” says Britt, her smile lighting up again, the twitch working overtime. “It’s exactly like you said.”

“Britt,” barks Jael, “I wil drag you out of here by your hair if I have to.”

“Do what you want to me, demon!” yel s Britt, and throws her arms around Jael. “I wil do whatever it takes to save my friend from your evil clutches!”

“Britt! Stop it!” says Jael. She tries to peel her off, but she doesn’t want to hurt her in the process.

“Don’t worry, Jael,” whispers Britt. “I know you’re stil in there somewhere. I won’t give up on you, even if I have to burn with you in Hel .”

“Touching, isn’t it?” says Belial. He’s right beside them now.

He lays a pale hand on Britt’s matted, dirty hair. “See what her love for you has reduced her to?”

“Okay, asshole,” says Jael. “You got me. Now, let her go.”

“Jael, my darling, you’re missing the point entirely,”

says Belial. “I already had you. The real fun is using you to destroy this sad little creature and watching you suffer for it.”

“Britt! Can’t you hear this? What is wrong with you?”

“Some mortals are astonishingly easy to beguile,”

says Belial.

“She only hears what I want her to hear. Her mother was a rush job, but this one I spent some time on. I slowly infected her spirit until I became almost an extension of it. Then I began, very careful y, to change it. If you’re too rough about it, they usual y just go mad, like her mother, and are useful only as distraction.

But if you do it just right . . . .” He taps Britt on the forehead.

“That’s enough, dear,” he says to her. “We can take it from here.”

Britt lets go of Jael and col apses to the ground like a dol .

Belial turns back to Jael. “If you do it right, you have a very fun and useful toy! Now, I brought some old friends of yours along. Wel , perhaps ‘acquaintances’

is the more appropriate word.” He steps back and gestures to the two cowled monks behind him.

“Boys?”

The two monks step toward her. Beneath their hoods, they have human faces, but their eyes flash with a luminous glow that is anything but mortal. One is massive, with hulking shoulders and an almost square head. The other is tal and thin, with a long nose, pronounced overbite, and glittering amber eyes.

“I believe you’ve met Baal and Amon already,” says Belial.

“My, my little girl,” says Amon, leering at her. “How you’ve gro—”

Jael slams him in the chest with a firebal and he flies backward into one of the cement pil ars supporting the bridge.

She snaps a second firebal at Baal, who staggers, but doesn’t fal .

“Put him down,” says Jael, and a blast of wind responds by slamming Baal to the ground so hard that the asphalt cracks beneath.

While the two struggle to rise, Jael slings Britt over her shoulder and makes a break for an intersecting street. There’s a mass of people just a few blocks away. Belial has kept a low profile so far, and Jael hopes he won’t attack them out in the open.

But then Belial cal s out, “Brittany! A little assistance, please!”

Britt suddenly explodes in a fury, scratching and biting at Jael like a wild cat. Jael grits her teeth and holds on to her as she runs. Britt starts bucking and flailing until her leg gets caught between Jael’s legs. Jael can’t stop in time, and she trips.

She hears a sharp crack as Britt’s leg breaks, then they both topple over in a heap.

Once they’re on the ground, Britt hisses and spits, stil clawing at Jael’s face with her fingernails. Jael tries to contain her without making her broken leg worse.

“Thank you, Brittany,” says Belial.

She goes limp. As Jael struggles to untangle herself, Amon and Baal come at her from either side and slip a loop of thin wire around each of her wrists. They hold the glittering wire with thick leather work gloves and when they pul in opposite directions, the wire cuts into her skin and draws blood. She sucks in a breath and swal ows a scream as they stretch her arms out to either side.

“It’s silver, if you’re curious,” Belial says, nodding at the wire. He grins wide enough for her to see his sharp little teeth.

Then he lifts the unconscious Britt up by her neck and holds her at arm’s length. Her eyes are rol ed back in her head so that only the whites show. Foamy yel ow spit dribbles from her lips.

She’s covered in scratches and bruises, and her lower leg is tilted sideways like a half-broken tree branch. Stil holding her aloft, Belial walks back toward the trol statue. Amon and Baal fol ow him, half dragging Jael across the asphalt by the silver wires.

They stop in front of the trol and Belial gazes up at the massive sculpture. Amon and Baal hold the silver wires so tight that Jael’s arms are stretched out to the sides as far as they wil go. Every time she strains at the wire, it slices deeper into her skin. Blood runs down her forearms and drips from her elbows to the asphalt.

“Ah, Three Bil y Goats Gruff, wasn’t it?” says Belial, stil looking at the trol sculpture. “Trip, trap, trip, trap!

Who’s that tripping over my bridge?” He pats the stone trol ’s massive fist fondly. “Charming story. And there’s a moral, too. Crossing bridges is dangerous stuff. So is wanting more than you deserve.”

He regards Britt for a moment, then lets her drop to the ground.

“On your feet, girl,” he says.

Her head jerks up and she slowly gets to her feet. Jael can hear quiet crunching sounds as the bones of her broken leg grind together.

“Sister Brittany,” says Belial. “I believe your friend can be saved, but it wil take a serious sacrifice.”

“Anything,” Britt whispers, her mouth slack. “I’l do anything.”

“But are you worthy?” asks Belial. “You have so many sinful thoughts in that head, you little whore.”

“Yes, yes, yes . . . ,” whispers Britt. Tears col ect in her glassy eyes.

“You must beat out the sin before you can save your friend.”

“Yes . . .” “You know what you must do.”

“Yes.” Then she hobbles slowly over to the statue, her broken leg bowing out more with every step.

“Britt, stop!” yel s Jael. She struggles against the wire until her arms are slippery with blood, but she can’t shake the loops.

They have cut so far into her flesh that they’re embedded in her skin.

“Belial, that’s enough!” she yel s. “I’l do whatever you want.”

“No, my dear,” he says. “It’s not nearly enough. And you’re already doing what I want you to do. Suffer.

Which I am enjoying immensely.”

Britt reaches the statue. She clasps her hands together in prayer. Then she smacks her forehead into the gritty cement fist. When she lifts her head back up, a dark bruise is already forming.

“More, Brittany!” shouts Belial. “Beat out al the sin!

Make yourself clean!”

Britt slams her head into the concrete again, then again. A purple lump grows on her forehead.

“Britt! Stop!” yel s Jael.

But Britt keeps pounding her head into the trol statue.

A spot of blood is starting to form on the concrete.

She sways from side to side in between each hit, clutching the statue for support.

A pointed jut of bone is clearly pressing against the inside of her jeans.

Jael turns to glare at Amon, and he looks back at her with a smug grin. She stares into his eyes, trying to dril down into his soul to grab at anything she can. But there is nothing. No passage. Only his cruel amber eyes.

That doesn’t make sense. Everything has a spirit, even demons. She felt her mother’s spirit in those bushes. Belial himself said that demons had a soul.

So why doesn’t she see anything past his eyes? It real y seems like there’s nothing there.

There is nothing there, says the air. Something is occupying the space, it says, but it’s not there.

There’s nothing standing there, says the earth.

Something is pressing down, but there’s nothing there.

Her uncle told her that Hel -born demons are only in Gaia in spirit. The reason she can’t see the spirit in Amon’s eyes is because he is al spirit. But if Amon is nothing but spirit, then he’s just another element she can influence.

“Go,” she says.

Amon flinches and his human appearance melts away to reveal his true form, the wolf-headed serpent creature. But then he shakes his head and growls at her, giving the wire an extra-hard tug. She can’t force him any more than she can force any other element to do something it doesn’t want to do.

“Fine,” she says. “Let’s see if I can convince you to leave.”

She asks the air in his lungs to leave. It does so, gladly.

Amon’s eyes go wide as the vacuum begins to turn his lungs inside out, and he drops the wire, clutching at his throat.

She brings her free hand up, ready to hit him with a firebal .

But then something slams into her so hard that she flies through the air and smacks into the stone trol ’s face. Baal has changed into his true form—the ox of iron, wood, and stone. He charges at her again, his red eyes blazing within his stone bul ’s face.

Jael holds her bloody hands clasped together, stoking the rage within. She remembers that image of him stepping on her uncle.

She remembers how terrified she was of him as a little girl, and the nightmares that fol owed for years afterward. When she releases that rage, a jet of fire blasts Baal’s face so hard that both he and Jael are knocked off their feet.

Jael struggles to pick herself up off the ground, but her hands aren’t working too wel and she feels dizzy from blood loss. Baal’s wooden parts blaze with fire now, but he is able to get back to his feet. He snorts and smiles a crumbling ash grin.

He paws the earth, preparing to charge.

“Sing,” she says, and stretches out one pale, red-soaked hand.

As Baal begins his charge, the fire that clings to him grows higher.

“More,” says Jael, and she stands her ground.

The flames thicken, burning almost blue with heat.

Baal roars in pain, but continues his charge.

“More!” says Jael.

The flames leap up high enough to touch the bridge overhead. There is a thunderous crack and Baal crumbles, skidding in several directions at once.

She looks at the smoldering pieces of Baal that stil struggle to rise, then at Amon, writhing on the ground, clawing at his throat. Their spirits are weak, now.

Easily commanded.

“Leave Gaia or I wil destroy you,” she says.

They disappear.

Jael turns to Belial. He has also shed his mortal form, and his razorlike body glitters coldly in the streetlight.

“Wel ,”

he

says.

“It

appears

I

may

have

underestimated you.”

“You and me both,” says Jael, and hits him in the face with a firebal .

He hisses with a voice like steam, clawing at his face.

Then he hurls a sheet of ice at her, but she waves her hand and it melts, the water splashing the concrete in front of her. She tosses another firebal at him, but he’s ready for it this time and easily knocks it aside.

Jael gathers the silver wires that stil hang from her wrists and comes at him, skating on a layer of air. He pauses for a moment, confused. It’s al she needs.

Just as she’s about to run into him, the air flips her up and over him. As she passes over his head, she loops the wire around his neck. She lands behind him and pul s as hard as she can, ignoring the searing pain in her wrists. The wire pul s tight around Belial’s neck. He claws at it for a moment, panic on his face.

But then his eyes narrow and he grabs at the wire between them and hauls Jael toward him.

“Please,” she says. “Help me.”

The earth rumbles beneath them. Belial’s eyes go wide for a moment. Then the ground beneath him splits open and swal ows him up to his shoulders.

“You can’t kil me, you idiot!” he snarls.

“I don’t need to,” she says. She winces as she pul s the wire from her wrists. Then she gives it a jerk hard enough to make him gasp.

“What are you . . . going to do,” he wheezes. “Wish me away

. . . like you did . . . those fools?”

She takes a deep breath, gathers everything she has, and screams, “I banish you!”

He flickers, then disappears.

For a moment, there is silence. Jael takes a slow, deep breath as the adrenaline begins to fade and the pain in her sliced wrists gets louder.

But then Britt turns from the statue, wobbly on her broken leg, her face a mass of blood and dirt. She laughs like crackling static. “Stupid halfbreed!”