'Tween Heaven and Hell (23 page)

It moved suddenly and, at least internally, I jumped. It had
been watching me as I was watching it and, immersed in fascination, I had
almost forgotten for a few seconds that it was coming to eat me. Now it was
doing that heavy, wet, sliding and thumping thing toward me again and something
in its face was opening. As the long, slime-painted tongue slipped out I
realized with a jolt that it was the thing’s mouth. The monstrous
conglomeration slithered and bumped toward my helpless, rigid self, leaving a
trail of slime on my rug like a slug. I watched the thing that was its mouth
open and keep opening, to an impossibly huge size that looked wide enough to
swallow me whole. My heart jumped into overdrive as I realized the thing was
gonna lower that graveyard of a mouth over me and swallow me like a huge jungle-dwelling
snake. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut on the mental picture of that long,
wavering column of electrically charged matter undulating and bulging as my
helpless body moved down its length and then, lodged like a large marble in the
neck of a balloon, waited to be sucked dry in its tomblike innards.

Inch by inch it moved toward me, the putrid smelling mouth
gaping open with nothing but that evil-looking tongue and black, stinky air to
fill it. I watched the tongue lap at the air around the mouth, swinging here
and there as if searching for something and spraying globlets of gore as it
danced on the thick, fetid air that was draining from the thing like an open
sore.

I gagged as a wall of the stuff hit me full in the face and
gave a mental jump. Tears ran from my stinging eyes as the thing reached the
table between us and bumped it as if it hadn’t realized it was there. Well
duhhh, I guess I wasn’t dealing with a great intelligence there.

It stopped and seemed to be thinking, but I knew that was
probably a skill it didn’t have. Then slowly, almost tentatively, it tried to
move forward again and bumped the table, a little harder this time. The table
crashed toward me, hitting me just under my breasts and rearranging my ribs
just a wee, damn bit.

At no time since I had become immobile had I wished to be
able to scream more than when that table remade the physical geography of my
ribs. Although I couldn’t move or scream with the exquisite pain, I noticed
that my breathing was now coming in quick, sharp, painful jabs and my fingers
had found a way to spasm. This was good.

Apparently pain could override whatever was holding me
hostage inside my body. I wondered briefly what else would have that effect. I
didn’t have a lot of time to wonder because the thing shoved its wandering
column of ions into the table again and my ribs collapsed inward with a huge
cracking sound. My chair flew backward on its small efficient wheels and rolled
to a reluctant stop several feet away from the table.

This time it felt like one of the jagged ends of my ribs had
pierced a lung. Tears of pain filled my eyes and my hands flailed around on the
arms of the chair. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the knife-like
ripples of pain in my chest. I realized that another hit on my ribs would
probably finish me off.

I couldn’t, of course, let that happen. I opened my eyes and
realized that the thing was still pushing against the table, which was now
moving toward me at an alarming rate. Without being able to move my head, it
was hard to figure out exactly where I was in the room, but I thought I was
probably not too far from the door to my sleeping quarters. If I could just get
through that door at least the table wouldn’t be able to reach me. What I was
gonna do then was a problem for another moment. One problem at a time, that was
my mantra. I’d just figured out that mantra but it was going to be my guiding
chant from then on.

Now. How to get to the door? The table had moved to within a
few inches of me when I realized what I’d have to do. If pain would loosen my
rigid limbs, then pain I would have to inflict. I closed my eyes and took the
biggest breath I could manage and my chest exploded. I was sure I felt another
rib surging through the tender wall of my right lung and then an even deeper,
darker pain rode into town on the heels of the first shock of exquisite agony. That
was when I realized that my heart had taken a hit.

It felt like a fire-tipped arrow was poking through the
throbbing wall of my heart. My legs went completely numb with the wave of pain
that followed and my whole body became instantly drenched with a cold,
unhealthy sweat. It almost made me forget what I was trying to do. In fact, I
heard the scraping rumble of the table moving toward me and even felt the
treacherous edge of it brush against my flesh before my newly loosened feet
managed to jab against the floor and propel me backward, through the door of my
sleeping quarters.

I heard the table hit the door as the rolling chair hit my
bed and I toppled backward. I bounced off the bed and was propelled toward the
floor between the bed and the wall. As my head hit the floor with a resounding
bang, my chest caught fire again. It was finally enough. I let out a scream of
rage and pain that surprised even me. And then I lay in a panting, pain-racked
pile on the floor. Wishing the cursed thing would just put me out of my damn
misery.

The only good thing, I finally realized, was that my body
seemed to have broken completely free of whatever force had been binding it. I
could now move my arms and legs and, if I hadn’t been squashed between the
hard, unmoving platform of the bed and the equally hard, unmoving surface of
the wall, I could have turned my head.

Breathing was a nightmare and movement was an even worse
torture, but I was working under my own steam again. Life was as good as it was
gonna get for a while.

I heard the electrical monster slamming against the table
and pulled myself up painfully, with much cursing and panting, to look over the
bed at the door. I was surprised to see that it had changed form again,
becoming shorter and more square as it tried to muscle past the dense, heavy
imitation wood of the table. My information unit was now resting on its side
just inside the doorway, smoking and sparking indignantly. I knew how it felt.

Just as I managed to push myself to my feet, the hideous
electrical thing broke through the table with a roar and then just disappeared.
For a moment I thought it was really gone. Then the hairs on my arms jumped to
attention and my ears picked up the low, keening moan that I remembered from my
office experience. Life was decidedly less good.

Moving as quickly as I could, I dropped to my knees and crawled
along the wall toward the door. When I hit the end of the bed I looked around
for something else to shield me. If the thing had trouble dealing with physical
obstacles, I would give it as many of those as I could. The door into the
personal hygiene room stood ajar. I quickly crawled behind it and slammed it
shut, locking it and praying the thing wouldn’t make too quick a job of bashing
through it to get to me. My eyes flew around the room looking for a weapon. I
couldn’t see anything that the freak of nature on the other side of my door
wouldn’t view either as surmountable or edible. Finally my eyes landed on the
flat, black box that hung from the far wall just beside the shower unit and I
gave a shout of triumph. That’s when the thing on the other side of the door
decided it was time to intrude on my personal hygiene. The door exploded
inward, nearly blowing me to the back wall. My body crashed against the wall. I
felt my head split open from the impact. As I slid to the floor blood, hot and
sticky, gushed down my face, nearly blinding me.

The force, invisible again, bashed into me and I grabbed the
cross hanging from a chain around my neck and held it out. It had worked
before, maybe it would work now, just long enough to hold the thing off until I
could reach that black box. As extra insurance I tried to throw up my shields
and managed to put up a weak resistance that was fed by the power of the
manically vibrating cross.

When the monster came up against my shield and the platinum
cross, a howl of sheer rage filled the room and the thing took shape again
before my stunned eyes. It stood a mere five feet from me now, its mouth still
gaping open, the tongue flailing frantically through the air, spewing goo
around the room as it tried to find a vulnerability in my shield. Fortunately
for me the shield held just long enough for me to swipe an arm across my eyes
to clear the blood so I could see and then reach with one hand to flip open the
black box on the wall.

Just as the disgusting creature moved in, pushing against my
shield and ripping it apart, I slammed the palm of my hand against the power
bar at the top of the board and pushed it to two hundred percent power, a level
that was never meant to be used on the interior circuits.

The room erupted in sound and spark as a jolt of pure,
unadulterated nuclear-powered electricity tore through the walls and sent every
electrical thing within a one-block radius of my living quarters into overload.
There was a second of hesitation in the circuits, while the lights wavered and
my appliances spit and danced against the flood of electrical juice and then
everything went black and silent as the power source shut down in self-defense.

The slavering, gaping, electrically charged conglomeration
of trapped spirits that hung over me gave one final shriek and then dissipated
in a shower of sparks. It was gone. This time, I hoped, for good.

I slid to the floor and dropped the arm that had been
holding the cross, laughing in giddy relief as I rubbed my throbbing shoulder.
“Take that you ionic asshole.” I felt pretty good for about ten seconds and
then a jolt of hot pain helped me remember my mangled interior parts. “Shit, I
think a painkiller might be in order.” It would have to be a damn frunkin’ big
one.

Chapter Twenty

…and Into the Fire

The maiden’s friends did beg her flee and find a
kinder plight,

But the devil came and made her plea, for further dark
delights.

The doctor at the hospital, accustomed to seeing me all beaten
up and looking like I’d gone twelve rounds with a demon, which usually I had,
simply shook his head, pushed my ribs ruthlessly back into the shape God had
originally intended them to be and guided me into the bone-mending pod to set
them. After a mere twenty minutes of ultrasonic mending treatment, my ravaged
ribs were at least well on their way to regaining their former healthy state.

I watched quietly from my seat on the healing table, as a
cranky, overworked medical care assistant keyed in a terse scrip for follow-up
marrow building drugs. Trying valiantly to ignore the woman’s foul mood, I
looked around the Unplanned Care unit, swinging my legs and clicking the metal
heels of my boots together like the innocent I’ve never been. I bit my tongue
as the harried, unpleasant woman pushed the send button on the hand-held scrip
unit and centered her glare between my eyes. “Dissolve two of those on your
tongue twice a day for a week. And try to stay out of trouble long enough to
let your poor body heal this time, Astra.”

I gave her my brightest smile but she was having none of it.
Jumping down off the table I leaned to kiss my sister on her pale, cool cheek.
“I could have healed the ribs myself but I’m sure you’d rather I came to you.”

Darma’s scowl deepened and she threw her hands over her
ears. She looked so petulant I half expected her to stomp a foot with temper. “Don’t
even tell me that. You know how I feel about all that magic shit.”

Boy did I. Older than me by five years, Darma had always
tried to mother and boss me. Since our real mother had led a busy and secretive
life, which apparently hadn’t been entirely compatible with her role as a
mother, Darma’s inclination toward mothering had worked out fine for everybody
but me. She’d always felt it was within her rights to tell me how to live my
life. And she’d always been dead set against the way I make my living.

Darma’s the sturdy, serious, dependable daughter. I’m the
hotheaded, passionate and borderline psychotic spawn. I’m the dark side of a
pairing between a devil and an angel. Darma is the cranky and all too serious,
but light side. She has no powers and, with her size nine feet resolutely
planted on
terra firma
, she appears to have a severe allergy to all
things unearthly and magical. I think she must have been adopted, but my
parents won’t admit it.

She pulled her hands off her ears and her scowl softened as
she reached to push an errant strand of auburn hair off my cheek. “Besides, all
I really want is for you to get a new line of work. All of this devil and demon
shit is way not good for your health—mental or physical.”

I nodded agreeably. I mean, I’d have to be an idiot to
disagree with her. What she said was true. But there was no way in Hades I was
gonna do anything about it. Like Popeye of the ancient human cartoons, I yam
who I yam.

I gave Darma a hug and left the Unplanned Care facility. Since
the facility was built on a pedestal platform high in the Angel City sky, I
climbed into the floating walkway tube and programmed the level and location of
the hovering Viper into the tube’s directional panel. The tube pulled away from
the facility on an accordion-like appendage and moved slowly through space
toward where the Viper drifted in parking space. The mouth of the tube locked
on above the Viper’s air hatch and I waited for it to suction onto the Viper’s
exterior before ordering the hatch to open. As I dropped into the Viper’s cool,
fragrant, leather interior, I sighed, laying my head back against the self
molding seat as I fought the guilty feelings which always nudged my happiness
aside after spending any time at all with my sister.

Darma means well and she really does love me. I have no
doubt about that. However, her idea of real life and mine are vastly different,
which makes her just so much kindling in the fire of my life. Like my human
friends, I had to keep my seriously earth-bound sister away from my world as
much as possible. It was for her own good.