Holy Socks And Dirtier Demons (23 page)

shoved my foot inside before it banged closed.

Score one for me. Okay, maybe half a point.

I entered the apartment, scanning it for signs of life. Not that I

expected any. Mary wasn’t dumb enough to stick around after what she’d

done.

137

The room was empty. No pink furniture or knickknacks. No smoking

gun or matchbook with a hotel’s name. No giant map with X marking the

spot. Nothing. I sniffed the air. Well, maybe one thing. Dead fish.

I searched the rest of the rooms, finding a half-eaten peanut butter

sandwich, and a pair of my boxer shorts tossed into a corner.

The kid started to fuss when I walked into the bathroom, his chubby

legs kicking, just missing my little jaces.

“Watch it,” I said, shifting him higher in the babypack.

“Mine. Mine.” He pointed to the tub and the ring of fish guts circling

it.

Damn it. Fish. Another miracle I should’ve picked up on. “Sorry, kid.

Next time I’ll get it.”

He shot me a toothy grin, and settled back down in the kid cozy. I

shifted through the vacant bathroom drawers, searched the medicine cabinet,

and underneath the sink, finding a compact packet of birth control pills, two

left, a dull razor, and an empty test tube labeled DNA. Yew. I dropped the

vial, and wiped my hands on my jeans.

Further into the depths of the medicine cabinet, I discovered a stick

of Clary sage incense. I smelled the incense, and a suddenly, overwhelming

lust swept through me. Shit. She’d drugged me with sage yesterday. That

bitch. I felt violated. Sickened. Okay, maybe not, but it did piss me off.

Would I have fucked her without the incense? Probably. So why drug

me? And more importantly, what did she gain from fucking me in the first

place? I wasn’t Brad Pitt, or Johnny Holmes by any stretch of the

imagination. So why? A distraction? To keep me under her spell?

A noise in the hallway drew my attention. I raised my gun, and

waited. And waited. Nothing happened. Shit. I lowered the gun and crept into

the hall.

Sid leaned against the wall, picking at something in his teeth. “Bones

of the buried surface at first light.”

“Okay.”

He pulled a white toothpick from his mouth. “They also make good

toothpicks.”

I grinned and pointed to Mary’s apartment. “Have you seen her

around today?”

“Today is a drop of moonlight on a rose, fading fast and drying

before my weary eyes.”

“So that’s a no?” The kid shifted in the pouch, kicking his feet

against my thighs. I stroked his nearly bald head, and he calmed down.

“Deep in the core, we find our desire.” Sid wiggled his eyebrows,

emphasizing the word core and desire.

I scratched my head. “Are you hitting on me?”

He rolled his eyes. “I saw the blonde girl at the Core, you idiot. Why

do I even bother? You’re as dumb as a rock.”

138

“Why didn’t you just say so?” I pushed past him, jogged down the

steps, and into the smog-filtered daylight. I smiled at the kid, who quietly

sucked his thumb. “I really hate that guy.”

He popped his thumb from his mouth. “Mine.”

“Glad we’re in agreement.” I tucked the kid deeper into the

babypack, and headed off to challenge Satan’s son while wearing God’s only

son as a fashion statement.

How could I lose?

139

Forty Two

The Core looked bleak in the daylight without the bright neon signs,

and fancy dressed people waiting outside. The outer red paint peeled from

the building, and rats raced across the sidewalk.

I examined the deserted street and the slightly opened doorway. It all

but screamed trap. Then again, who’d be stupid enough to break into a pit of

hell in broad daylight? Sadly, the answer was me.

I raised my eyes to Heaven. “A little help would be appreciated.”

What I really wanted was a babysitter, but I’d make do with an angel, even

the moronic one. Taking the kid into the Core didn’t seem like the smartest

of ideas. But at the moment, it was the only one I had. Mary was inside, and I

had to stop her.

“Here’s the deal.” I twisted the babypack onto my back. “We’re

gonna sneak inside, and you need to be very quiet. If anyone touches you,

you smite them and forget the resurrection part.”

“Mine.”

“Okay, let’s do it.” Taking a deep breath, I pulled my gun and

slipped through the doorway banging the kid’s head on the frame. “Sorry,” I

whispered. He whimpered, but didn’t cry.

I counted off my steps; much like I had the night Lilith and I met. An

evil blackness crushed the daylight outside, sending me closer into hell.

“I do not like the darkness,” a voice on my right hissed. I twisted in

that direction and fired. The nine-millimeter recoiled in my hand, shock

waves jumped along my already frazzled nerves.

Thud.

Something heavy hit the floor, and a smattering of feathers flew into

the air.

The kid shook his large head. “Mine.”

Shit. I grabbed a lighter from my pocket and flicked it. A bluish

flame shot from the top illuminating a fallen angel. His white blond hair was

covered in greenish blood. I rushed to his side and dragged him to his feet.

“Are you okay?”

He blinked a few times. “You request my presence and then you

140

shoot me? That’s just cruel.”

I gave him my standard eye roll. “It was an accident. And where the

fuck have you been?”

“I had a doctor’s appointment, if you must know.” The hole in his

head healed before my eyes returning his face to an angelic glow.

“No you didn’t.” I squinted, examining his shapely eyebrows. “You

had your eyebrows waxed. Me and the kid could have died while you—”

“Overgrown eyebrows are the Devil’s playground.” He smiled,

looking plastic, serene, and superior.

I punched him in his freshly polished face. The punch failed to

register. His face remained blank. I hit him again. Still nothing. “Son-of-a-

bitch. You got Botox too,” I said, incredulously.

“It was a two for one sale.” His lips pulled tight into a smirk, or I

think it was a smirk. It was hard to tell.

“Are you boys done with your lover’s quarrel?” Samuel crawled

from behind the glass bar. A trail of red lights flickering behind him, giving

him the devilish glow rarely seen outside the movie theater. “Wanna tell me

what the fuck you’re doing here?”

I spun to face him, pointing the nine-millimeter at his chest. He

looked the same as he had days ago, like a rejected underwear model after a

drug-fueled binge. His forked tongue flicked out, and a tonic cloud of funky

demon breath filled the space between us.

I unstrapped the kid, and passed him to the angel. “Go,” I said,

shoving them both toward the door.

“I do not think—” The angel backed up a step.

“I know.” I shook my head, but kept my eyes and gun focused on

Samuel. “But for once, don’t let it be an issue and do what I say.”

The angel’s lips tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he wrapped

the kid in his feathery arms, and disappeared through the exit door, a trail of

olive colored blood following him.

Waving my gun at Samuel, I asked, “Where is she?”

He raised an eyebrow. A pointed, perfectly shaped, and most likely

waxed brow. “Who?”

“Don’t fuck with me. I am not in the mood.” I fired a round into his

big toe. “Where is the little whore?”

When the bullet struck his foot, Samuel yelped. He hopped around

for a few seconds until the wound healed itself, and then he turned his red,

hate-filled eyes on me.

Just for fun, I shot him again.

“Stop that,” he said, doing another bullet dance.

I waited with one bullet left for him to finish jumping around. When

he stopped dancing, he let out an annoying screech, calling up his entourage

of hell beasts and teenagers.

They seeped from every surface, big, dumb demon thugs wearing

141

gold chains and velour sweat suits. Some fingered automatic weapons while

others carried steel pipes and pentagrams.

But I wasn’t afraid. I shook my head, pocketed my gun, and pulled a

silvery ball from my pocket. The demon gang frozen like a finely organized

army of garden gnomes. I grinned, running a finger across the smooth

surface of my new toy. A toy I’d found stuffed inside the glove box of

Lilith’s Gremlin, oddly enough, in a bag labeled, 'Lilith’s Bag of Tricks'.

“Is that a…” the nearest demon gulped, “God’s Ball?”

“Yep.” I stared into the terrified faces of evil and smirked. “And I

know how to use it.”

142

Forty Three

Actually, I didn’t have a clue how to use a God’s Ball. The directions

on the package read: ‘Piety Guaranteed with Just One Dose’. I held the ball

up, letting the red lights of the club flicker across it.

Samuel gnashed his pointed teeth. “I swear I will kick your mortal,

white a—”

“Uh-huh.” I tapped the ball. The ping of my nail against the metal

echoed in the now silent room. “But before that, why don’t you tell me where

Mary is?”

“Mary, Mary, Mary. What happened to Lilith?” Samuel shot me a

shiny plastic grin. “She claimed you’d be her salvation. I guess she was

wrong.”

Guilt twisted inside me. My grip tightened on the God’s Ball. “What

do you know about her murder?” Had he helped Mary destroy Lilith? Was he

there watching in the shadows as she bled to death? I stepped closer to him,

rage overriding my common sense. His row of demon support moved back.

Gotta love God’s Balls.

Samuel’s lip curled in disgust. “I know that Lilith begged for her life.

Begged.”

“You’re lying.”

He laughed, and my thin thread of control snapped. The God’s Ball

in my hand forgotten, I jumped him and slammed my fist into his jaw again

and again. For a second, I felt satisfied, invincible.

Then his entourage pulled me off, my knuckles scrapped and

bloodied from Samuel’s busted teeth. He stood and snatched the God’s Ball

out of my hand. His eyes never left my face as he gave the order to his

demon mafia: “Kill him, and this time, make sure he stays dead.” He spit a

fleshy piece of tongue from his mouth and grinned.

“Bad idea, Sam.” I struggled with the two thug demons who held my

arms, as I waited for an opening to go for my nine-millimeter. It came soon

enough in an explosion of harp music.

Samuel and his demon patrol glanced up. I reacted, elbowing the

nearest thug. He doubled over, and I ripped the gun from my waistband. As

143

suddenly as it had begun, the music vanished, and I was left pointing a nearly

empty gun at Satan’s son.

“What? You think one bullet is going to stop all of us?” Blood

spewing from Samuel’s healing lips as he laughed.

I nodded and fired.

Boom. The bullet nicked the edge of the God’s Ball, sending it

crashing to the floor and the demons running for cover.

The ball sat on the concrete. Just sat there. Fuck.

The demon closest to me rammed his fist into my spine, and I

dropped onto my stomach, choking back bile. Carefully, Samuel stepped

over the God’s Ball. He grabbed a fist full of my hair and lifted my head to

meet his eyes.

“Mysterious ways, huh?” His foot caught my jaw. My head snapped

backwards, crackling as my vertebrae shifted along my spine. “Lilith chose

poorly,” he added. “And she paid for her mistake. Too bad you won’t get the

chance to make things right.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I whispered through my broken jaw before sweep

kicking Samuel’s legs. My foot tangled between his calves. He stumbled

backward and tripped over his feet, landing hard on top the God’s Ball.

A buzz and the sound of a cracking filled the air.

A blue light, so intense it singed my eyelashes, burst from

underneath Samuel’s ass. Quickly, I threw my arm up to protect my face

against the powerful and unexpected rays. Demons cried out, their feet

thundering in all directions.

A sudden feeling of euphoria arced over me. My eyes opened wide.

Frightened by the happy feeling, I swallowed hard, willing happiness to a

dark place inside me. I needed my anger and grief. It kept me focused. It kept

Lilith alive.

The God’s Ball’s light winked out, and I peeked from under my

newly tanned arm to survey the damage. Two demons lay on the concrete

floor, curled in the fetal position, whispering prayers. A couple of others

shambled around the room in a daze, ramming into furniture and apologizing

profusely. But it was Samuel, sitting stunned on top the shattered God’s Ball