The Demon Deception (6 page)

He cut into the eggs to let the yolk run. He
applied salt and pepper liberally, and used a piece of toast to dip
into the yolk. He liked the taste, and kept eating. The food
disappeared quickly, and he piled his silverware and the napkins on
top of the plate to make it easy for the waitress to collect. She
came back, grabbed the plate, noticed that he needed more coffee,
went to the counter and came back with the coffee pot. She smiled
at him again, showing more interest in him as she refilled his
coffee cup. He returned the smile.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to keep
drinking coffee for a while. I’m supposed to meet someone here.
They should be along soon.”

“Don’t worry, honey, you take your time. It’s
a cold night out there. You get free refills anyway.”

He thanked her. Some of the night club
refugees were beginning to leave the restaurant. He sat there,
waiting for the inevitable. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to blows,
but you never knew how these things might end up. If she was in a
particularly spiteful mood, she might have the entire group attack
him. He wasn’t willing to put it past her to do so.

He knew she would be pissed off. She wouldn’t
show it, but she didn’t like it when he spoiled her projects. She
was very good at what she did. Men and women often committed
horrible crimes for the touch of her hand, or a whisper from her
lips. He thought about it, remembering what he had done in his
past. Thank God for his sisters. They saved his life, and
ultimately, his soul.

The door opened, and she walked in. All
motion in the restaurant stopped. As soon as she entered, every
head turned to drink in the sight of her. Even people facing away
from the door felt her presence, and turned around. He watched as
lust replaced the normal expressions on the faces of the patrons
and employees. He continued to sip his coffee.

She was beautiful, amazingly so. Today, her
hair was red, not like it was dyed, but naturally red, with copper
highlights you can’t get out of a bottle. Her hair was shoulder
length, cut in a page boy hair style. She was wearing a mid-length
black leather coat, a black mandarin dress that was mid-thigh, slit
to accentuate her long legs, and cut deep in the front to show off
her décolletage, which was ample for her frame. She had on four
inch, red, gladiator high heels. Her skin was pale, with subtle
freckles across her face.

She looked around, and saw him at the back of
the restaurant. She had a large smile on her face as she put one
hand on her hip, and pointed at him, “You! You’ve made me so mad. I
can’t believe what you’ve done. You are one very, naughty boy.”

At that point, every man in the restaurant
wanted to be her naughty boy. Now that she had made her entrance,
and everybody knew that she was there, she walked through the
restaurant, the four inch heels clicking on the floor. She had one
hand on her hip, the motion of her hips exaggerated as she walked.
Every head in the restaurant followed her. Her hips synchronized
the heartbeats in the room to her rhythm. The rhythm was sensual,
sexual. She walked to his table, put one finger down, showing off
the red finger nail polish, and tapped the surface of the table.
She still had the hand on her hip. She pouted.

“I can’t believe you did that to poor Marty.
Do you really believe that he deserved that?”

He motioned to the seat across from him, and
she slid in, slowly, to accentuate the movement of her voluptuous
figure. He raised his hand to attract the attention of the
waitress, “Another coffee please.” He turned to her, “How are you
Lilith. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other.”

The waitress grabbed another cup and the
coffee pot. Eli took a sip of coffee, not willing to play her
games. Lilith pouted at him, then smiled at the waitress as she
brought the coffee. Lilith asked for cream and sugar. Carol licked
her lips with the tip of her tongue, feeling the sexuality of
Lilith deep in her psyche. She took her time pouring the coffee,
basking in Lilith’s approval. Eli took it all in, knowing the power
that Lilith welded.

The waitress went back for the cream, and he
pointed out the sugar on the table. Lilith picked up the sugar and
began pouring it into her coffee, stirring the coffee as she did.
Carol brought the cream, and Lilith took it without acknowledging
her. Carol looked hurt at the slight. Eli touched Carol’s hand. She
looked at him, and seemed to wake from a trance. Eli smiled at her,
paid for the coffee, and gave her a dollar tip. She smiled at him
and topped off his coffee. She turned and walked back to the
counter.

He replied to Lilith, “Marty was his name?
How ordinary. When I first ran across him in Yugoslavia, he called
himself Magnus Dragomir.”

Lilith nodded, “yes, he was always dramatic.
Truth was, I found him selling used cars in Ashtabula, Ohio.” She
waved her hand in the air at the memory, “Oh, he was sexy, but he
had no real ambition. He did have a taste for bondage, though, and
exploiting women. I introduced him to magic, and from then on, he
was mine. Still, sixty years was a good run.”

She took a drink of the coffee, then stared
at him over the top of the cup. It was a sultry stare, and he
pushed down emotions that he hadn’t felt in many years.

“Did you miss me, lover?”

He cleared his throat, “That was a long time
ago. And no, I never looked back.”

The pout was back. She reached across the
table, and ran one finger against the back of his hand. It was hard
to ignore the sensation of her finger against his skin. The pout
changed into a seductive smile, “That’s not a nice thing to say to
a woman. You’re supposed to tell me that you love me, you miss me,
you’ve thought of me every minute since we parted. That’s how you
seduce your lover. You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it. We used
to have such fun.”

It had been an extremely long time since they
were in the same room together, and at that time, they were naked.
She had been his downfall. Afterwards, much later, he began to work
against Lilith, and others like her. Since then, they had spent the
time dancing around each other, never in the same place, trading
blows in the fight between good and evil.

He didn’t have the defenses back then that he
had now. He had been so naïve. He shifted his hand back from her
finger, just far enough so that she would have to move towards him
to continue. It wouldn’t do for him to fall to her seduction, not
after what his sisters did for him. They found the only person that
could save him, and brought him to Eli’s side. He was very lucky
that a statement against the forces of darkness needed to be made.
Eli was given a second chance to make amends, a chance that he
would never waste.

The pout reappeared at this very slight,
though powerful move. She was Lilith, men didn’t resist her,
“That’s not a nice thing to do. I remember our times together
fondly. You remember that night when . . . “

He raised his hands to forestall her trip
down memory lane, “That’s past. It won’t do you any good to try and
use it against me.” He pointed up towards the ceiling, “I’m in good
graces now, and I plan on staying there.”

She leaned back, the façade of seduction
dropping from her face. The soft, inviting angles of her face
became hard and unexpressive, “I should have these men kill
you.”

Eli felt the mood of the room change. The
patrons and staff were cued to her emotions. Eli could feel them
looking over at his table, aggression apparent. He nodded, “yes,
you certainly could try. I’m notoriously hard to kill, though. Just
ask your pet vampire.”

Lilith sighed. She ran her long, red nail
around the rim of the coffee cup. “I really don’t know why we’re
here, talking to each other. I would prefer to settle our long
differences right now, with your corpse on the floor.”

He took another sip of the coffee, “Ah, but
then your master would be very upset with you. You know what he
does when he’s upset. I imagine it would be centuries before he
finished with the punishments he designs for you. From what I
understand, he’s quite inventive when it comes to punishment for
those who fail him.”

The fear in her eyes betrayed the truth of
his statement. She leaned back, the hard edges of her face
softening. “Point taken. One question before we start.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Did you enjoy killing the twelve women of
the coven? That’s brazen, even for you.”

He put down the coffee cup, “That offense, I
put at your feet. Those women already made their decision. They
murdered, and were willing to murder again. I’ve lost my taste for
trying to rescue those who don’t want to be.”

She smiled, the seductress once again, “What
if I told you that one of those women was a police officer. She was
investigating the disappearances of children in the area. She
infiltrated the ‘coven’ to discover who had stolen the children.
She was about to blow the whistle on everybody down there. You
killed an innocent woman.”

It was his turn to smile, “You mean Detective
Gaffigan, who was paid by the mafia to turn a blind eye to their
operations. The same one who helped them kill a transvestite hooker
that knew about her activities with various organized crime
members?”

The smile disappeared from her face. She knew
she had been outmaneuvered.

He spoke, “Now, can we get down to
business?”

She looked at her manicure, seemingly
unaffected, and nodded.

“Something new has occurred. There’s going to
be an incursion.”

“Incursion? What do you mean? An incursion of
what?”

“From another reality.”

He sipped his coffee. She had forgotten hers
completely. The conversation had taken an interesting turn and
intrigued her, “Continue.”

“Our masters are jealous masters. They vie
against each other, but they brook no interference from
interlopers.”

Her face stayed non-committal, “Fascinating.
I’ve heard rumors about this happening before.”

It was his turn to show interest, “Really,
when?”

She shrugged, “I’m not sure. Before you were
alive, certainly. Before I proved my worth to the Master.” She
inhaled, her chest expanding deliciously, “And what is this to us?
Why am I here?”

He didn’t like what he was about to say any
more than he thought she would.

“We have different strengths. Yours are the
ways of magic, the use of demonic powers, subtle treason. Mine are
the ways of the warrior, tactics, strategy; the use of weapons
against the monsters your master has created.” He paused, not
wishing to say what he was about to say, then continued, “Our
bosses wish for us to combine our strengths. They want us to work
together.”

She stared at him, and then began laughing.
Her feminine laugh made the restaurant patrons look towards her
again, the sexual tension rising in the restaurant. She laughed for
a good, long time, “Oh, that’s rich. We’ve been circling each other
for millennia, two dogs vying for the same bone. Now, they want us
to work together? That’s foolish.”

He wasn’t enjoying this at all. The entire
restaurant was watching them. He understood the reasons that had
been presented to him, but he knew that she would use every
opportunity to attack him, to betray him. It was her nature. There
was nothing he could do about the situation, however. He would have
to play frog to the scorpion. He was trapped in this swim across
the river.

“Evidently, everybody else is busy.” He held
up a hand to stop the question on her tongue, “And no, I don’t know
what they’re busy with.” He put the hand back down on the table,
“There is no one, or no higher beings that are available to deal
with the situation, as it is. They want us to deal with it, our
past beside the point.”

Her laugh tinkled across the restaurant
again, “And when is this supposed to occur? If they’ve decided
this, did they tell you where or when we should work against this
‘incursion’?”

Eli nodded, “yes, I know the place, and,
approximately, the time. I don’t know who all is involved, or the
magnitude of the response that’s needed to contain it.”

She put her finger in the coffee, then slowly
put the tip of her finger in her mouth, looking innocently at him
as she did so, more seduction. He wondered if she even knew she was
doing it.

“When and where?” she asked.

He slid a piece of paper across the table to
her, “That has the information on it. We have a fortnight to get
there. Here’s the phone number I’ll be using for the duration of
this assignment. Text or call, and I’ll pick you up on the way.
Bring whatever you need. I’ll be bringing resources with me as
well.”

She sat with her finger in her mouth,
alternately sucking it, and licking it, “So, two weeks from now. Do
they not understand, that we’ll be as interested in killing each
other as we will in stopping this ‘incursion’?”

Eli smiled, “I think we can assume that once
we’re finished with this mission, and the incursion is stopped,
that hostilities can commence again.”

She continued to suck on her finger, “I hope
you’ll be a gentleman, and give me notice when you decide when the
dance will commence anew.”

An expression of innocence appeared on his
face, “Of course. When have I not been a gentleman towards
you?”

Genuine mirth played across her smile at this
statement, neither one foolish enough to believe that the other one
would play fair, whatever ‘fair’ might be. If either one could
achieve the upper hand, they both knew that the situation would be
exploited.

The meeting was over. She slid across the
bench seat, moving slowly, seductively, her décolletage wiggling as
she did. Eli sat with stone face though he did enjoy the view. He
would never let her know that, though.

She stood, and used her hands to straighten
her coat. In actuality, it was just a chance for her to accentuate
her curves with her hands. She did it with a wiggle that drew the
eyes of every man in the room. There was a group of four at the
front of the room that were entirely too interested in her
movements. One of them, a large man with prison tats scrawled
across his skin, stood up and walked over to Lilith. The man’s
tattoos and attitude indicated a brutality that would be used if he
felt the need. His muscularity indicated time spent in the prison
yard lifting weights.