Demon Driven (16 page)

Okwari had once cut some handcuffs apart for
me with a single claw. Bear claws are like meat hooks, pointed but
not sharp in the inside curve. Chet Aikens had analyzed the cut
links and theorized that they had been cut with a monomolecular
edge. That somehow, Okwari could form his claws with edges a single
molecule in width. Such an edge, Chet told me, could cut through
pretty much anything.

I pulled my aura back into my hand and the
silvery line disappeared. Whether Okwari had sent me that image or
some part of myself had figured it out, I couldn’t tell.

I Sighted my bear and found his normally
smooth mixture of purple, red and green to be rent and shredded on
his back. Once before I had healed him with projections of my aura
and by concentrating on maintaining a very light violet color, my
projected energy had the same effect this time. At least until my
aura sputtered and faded.

The times I have been bone weary tired since
taking Tanya’s blood could be counted on one hand. Today was the
worst. I dragged myself home, slugged down a six pack of protein
shakes and collapsed into bed.

Chapter 17

I woke the next morning to find a large
visitor on the apartment floor. Okwari sometimes stayed with me,
especially in the evenings. At such times, he somehow compresses
his form to the size of a mere inland grizzly, say six or seven
hundred pounds. Even then he has to stay curled up on the floor or
it’s impossible to move around my tiny studio apartment. This was
the first time he had spent the night.

I threaded my way around his invisible bulk
till I could get to the kitchenette and the coffee machine. Once
the java was dripping, I turned my attention to the object sitting
on my kitchen table. Flat, light-sucking black, crudely cut, the
witch’s gem was the size of a child’s fist. It was set into a ring
of gold, the edges of which were carved with glyphs and runes that
hurt to look at. The whole combination raised the hair on my neck
and made my stomach turn. At the same time, the blackness inside me
was fascinated by it, wanted me to touch it and hold it close.
Which I didn’t, thank you very much!

I needed to get rid of it or destroy this
thing, but I didn’t know the first thing about it.

There was really only one source of
information, but I wasn’t up to that conversation today. The witch
and warlock battle had left me drained.

We spent the day hanging out, me eating
non-stop and him sleeping. I placed one call to a friend in data
entry, looking for some information to help me with my plan. She
promised to see what she could do.

I splurged on a Movies-on-Demand order of
Transformers
, thinking the giant robots would be as far away
from vampires and weres, hellhounds and warlocks as possible. Tiny
problem…Megan Fox looks a little too much like a certain vampire
princess I know.

My bear went back to wherever he goes and I
went to bed early, but sleep evaded me for hours, blue eyes
accusing each time my eyelids closed.

* * *

The day was warm, sunny and smelled of
growing things. My fellow New Yorkers were springing with every
step, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of gloom and depression that
clung to me. It emanated from the black jewel, and it didn’t just
affect me; people that got too close cringed without knowing why,
shying away from my presence without conscious thought.

The Church of All Saints loomed ahead, the
largest building in sight. The giant stone saints sculpted at the
top of its outer walls looked down at me, their granite eyes
seeming to follow my every move.

I entered the front and found my way to the
sanctuary, sliding into the last pew. The room was lighted but
empty.

“WHAT is that stench?” Barbiel asked from my
right side.

I had promised myself that I wouldn’t jump
this time, but damn! He just came out of nowhere!

I hefted the plastic bag in my lap and opened
the top.

“I suspect that it’s this, ’cause I showered
today!” I said.

He peered warily at the silk-wrapped bundle I
pulled from the Walmart bag. Not owning any silk myself, I had
borrowed it from my neighbor, Paige. She had looked at me oddly
when I asked to borrow an old silk scarf that I would replace with
a new one. Somehow I didn’t think she would want this one back
after it touched the gem.

Barbiel sucked in sharply when the flat black
jewel appeared.

“Oh my! Oh! Where did you get
that
?”
he asked.

I explained my encounter with the witch, the
warlock and the five hounds of hell. It sounded like a children’s
book title. But my angel liaison looked grim when I was done.

“It is a Tear of God. Yahweh shed them when
Lucifer betrayed him,” he said.

“A tear?”

“Yes. Yahweh’s tears are filled with the
despair, grief, disillusionment, anger, and fear that he felt when
his best and most loved angel attempted to wrest Heaven from him.
The tears fell with Lucifer Morningstar as he crashed down to Hell.
They are powerful. This one has been used to enslave and damn
countless souls and spirits. I can feel it!”

“Well, can you take it and destroy it?” I
asked, not wanting to be near it.

“No! It can’t be destroyed! And I cannot
touch it!” he said, his expression panicky.

“Well, what do I do with it?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, for once thinking
before answering.

“I’ll be right back. I need to ask the others
about this.”

He blinked out of existence before I could
protest, leaving me sitting there alone, a stupid expression no
doubt gracing my face.

But he was back a second later.

“Okay, we have to take it out of its setting.
You’ll need to pry it free,” he instructed, like we were baking
brownies.

I pulled out my Emerson CQC tactical knife
and flicked the blade open one-handed. Gingerly, I slipped the tip
into the tiny gap between the jewel and the crude gold setting.

“What are you doing?” he asked, just as my
favorite knife snapped into two pieces. “You can’t pry it out with
tools!”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before I broke
my knife?” I asked. I had barely touched blade to gem when the high
quality stainless steel had shattered like ice.

“I didn’t know what you were doing,” he
said.

“So tell me, oh angelic one, just how am I
supposed to pry this thing free?”

“With your aura, of course!” he said, like it
was the most obvious thing in the world.

“My aura? Riiight! How the he…heck do I dig
it out with my aura?”

He looked at me like I was the slowest
student in the class.

“You really don’t remember any of this?” he
asked, exasperated.

“See, this is exactly the point in our
conversations when I get completely lost! How could I remember
something I never knew?”

He sighed, then pointed at the necklace.

“Hold it in your right hand … ” he
instructed. “Good! Now put your left hand over the top of
it….that’s it! Now, push up through your right hand and pull aura
with your left, visualizing it popping out of that setting.”

I did as instructed. The ugly gold setting
felt somehow foul and unclean. Nothing happened, so I upped the
amperage, and then upped it again.

The jewel came free from the ugly gold
setting with an audible pop, driving up into my left hand. I
quickly dropped the old setting back into the Walmart bag, then
looked at the plump jewel in my hand. My skin tingled where it
touched the gem, which seemed to vibrate at some superfast,
ultrasonic frequency. It was black, black, black, the light in the
room just sinking into it without effect. Like holding a black hole
in your hand.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we make a new setting!” he looked around
the sanctuary, for what I have no idea. “Hmmm, I’ll be right
back!”

I expected him to disappear again, but he
just got up and walked into the side room where the priest pops out
at the start of Mass. The sounds of intense rummaging came a moment
later. It sounded like he was ransacking the place. The noises
stopped and he came back into the sanctuary, a wide smile on his
face. He was clutching a silver cross, about seven or eight inches
high, in his right hand.

“What are you gonna do with that?” I
asked.

“Make a new setting!” he said, puzzled.

“We can’t use that! It belongs to the
church!” I protested.

“Actually, I believe it belongs to God. It
has been consecrated in his name.”

“But the church will miss it!”

He frowned at me like I was simple, then
started to shake his head.

“No, it will be as if it was never here,” he
said.

Sitting next to me, he held the cross on his
lap and began to just kind of run his hands across it. The solid
piece of silver started to sort of slump, then
flow
into new
shapes. First a long chain formed, the ends connected to a lump of
formless silver. He held the lump in both hands for a moment, his
head down, lips forming words that seemed familiar but
unintelligible at the same time.

“Okay, now hold the silver in your left hand,
and press the gem into it with your right,” he instructed.

Doing as he said, I felt the gem vibrating
against the palm of my right hand. He covered my hands with his own
and spoke a
word
. A flash of light blinded me for a moment,
and I could feel intense heat flow through my hands. The sparkles
gradually vanished from my eyes and I looked down expecting to find
black char marks where my palms used to be. They were fine, but I
didn’t waste much time looking at them, ‘cause the black jewel was
now centered in a tear shaped setting of gleaming silver, slightly
smaller than a playing card.

Looking at it now evoked a sense of something
lost, not the skin-crawling revulsion it had before.

The chain links were tiny drops of silver,
somehow flowing from one to the next. Try as I might, I couldn’t
quite see how they linked together, they just did.

“Okay, now what do we do with it?” I
asked.

“
We
don’t do anything with it.
You
, however, keep it with you. It will come in handy, I’m
sure,” Barbiel answered.

“You just told me that this was used to
enslave beings and now it’s somehow okay to have around?”

“The Tear is neither good nor bad. It just
is. Within it resides a small measure of Yahweh’s grief,
disappointment, anger and despair. The demons used the despair and
the depression brought on by it to enslave others. You can use the
anger and loss to help you in your fight.”

“How? Point it at someone and make them
angry?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

“You misunderstand. I mean the fight with
yourself … your dark side. This jewel, as we have set it, can help
you stay … yourself. To not become that which you fight. Do you
understand?” he asked.

“But won’t the depression part hit me too?” I
asked.

“In its old setting it projected those
emotions. This setting enhances the need to prevent loss, and will
strengthen your resolve. Now put it on, please,” he directed.

I hesitated. Fighting a rogue werewolf,
banishing a demon, sparring with a vampire – easy. Putting on the
Tear of God – scary as anything I’ve ever done. But I did it, and
the links seemed to weight a ton, the pendant with its galactic
black gem was like a Buick, sitting on my chest. Then, after a
moment, the weight evaporated, to the point where I had to check to
make sure it was still there. I stood up and walked, checking how
it carried. It was as if it wasn’t there. I looked a question at
Barbiel.

“It is adjusting to you, and given time, it
will become useful.”

“How?”

“Each is different; each forms a unique
relationship with its user.”

“You mean like the witch?”

“Well, that was with the old setting. Think
of the jewel as a kind of …..battery? Yes, that is the word,
battery. The setting is like a machine of sorts, the Tear is the
source of its power. You will see,” he said.

Chapter 18

I left him a short time later, and headed
toward Manhattan, my new bauble feather-light around my neck. I
checked my phone and found a text message from Sharra, a data entry
specialist in Police Plaza that I had gotten to know during my time
with the Squad. I had asked her for a favor and she was
responding.

S: I have what you asked for, but it will
cost you.

C: What is your price?

S: Lunch at Steiner’s.

C: Done!

Steiner’s was a popular deli near Police
Plaza and a favorite of many officers and Plaza administrators.
Entering the German deli about an hour later, I spotted Sharra
sitting with two other data specialists that I had seen around.
From their nervous glances at one another, I figured out that the
real cost of my information wasn’t just paying for lunch.

I greeted her. She smiled nervously.

“Hi Chris,…ah, meet Leia and Tara. They work
with me in the data center.”

Sharra was of Mediterranean descent, with
thick curly dark hair and dark eyes. Her features were not so much
pretty as strong and she had a confident presence. Her skin was
beautiful, a dusky olive hue. Her friend Leia was a tall, shapely
girl with dark mahogany skin and almond shaped eyes. Tara was
average height, average looks, mousey brown hair, and a touch on
the plump side. All three were giggly and nervous, in that high
school kind of way that girls get when their around a guy they find
attractive. It wasn’t lost on me that I was that guy, but it made
me kind of sad, because they obviously had some mental image of who
I was, and whatever it was, it couldn’t be remotely near the truth.
I was absolutely certain that I didn’t measure up to it.