Hard Day's Knight (23 page)

“Hey!” Greg’s head snapped up, and I could see how rough he looked. Even with his vamp healing, it was easy to tell how much his fight with Belial took out of him. He had a black eye, which looked about three days old, and his split lips were healing, but still seeping a touch. If he felt anything like he looked, then he felt like he’d been killed all over again. His eyes were clear, though, and something had obviously struck him.

“How did you get in here? And what about you?” He asked Phil, and then Lilith. “I thought you couldn’t set foot on holy ground without bursting into flames or something.”

“That was just him. I’m not a fallen anything, little vampire. I can go anywhere I like, I just didn’t want to get involved in your little mess.” Lilith looked at all of us smugly, as she was the only one who hadn’t been either possessed, nearly killed or beaten to a pulp by a demon.

“I couldn’t set foot on holy ground, but once Baal set the demons free and stepped out of the circle, the gym was no longer sanctified. The very touch of a demon corrupts any place that it alights, and only the holiest of places can withstand that touch. This place was not nearly holy enough to stay sacred with an Archduke of Hell walking around, so I was free to come in and rescue you two.” Huh. It made sense, and thinking back on it, I realized that once Baal was out of the circle, I hadn’t felt any more nausea. I’d thought that I was just too scared to be sick, but apparently there was something real going on.

“Yeah, and thanks for that. But why?” I asked again. I wasn’t sure he was going to answer me, but he and Mike exchanged a look, and then Phil took a deep breath and started to talk.

“I suppose after sharing the field of battle, you’ve earned an explanation,” the angel began. “I was one of the Heavenly Host since the beginning of time. We were made long before the earth, and eons before the Father decided to conduct his little experiment in free will and put you mortals in dominion over this little corner of the universe.

“I saw that for what it was – a slight against those of us who had served loyally for all this time. It was an insult to us, the firstborn of God, to have to watch you crawl around in the mud and learn to make even the simplest things, like fire. So when Lucypher led his assault on Heaven, I was one of the first to join him.

“The battle raged for millennia, far longer than you mortals can comprehend. Even you, James, with your artificial immortality, cannot understand the length of our conflict. Finally, though, we rebels were vanquished and brought in chains before the Father.

“The rebels who repented and promised to serve loyally were given their places back in the Host, while those of us who stood by our principles were cast out, forced to live among you worms as a constant reminder of exactly who the favorite children really were. And Lucypher of course was sent to rule in Hell. He took nine of his closest compatriots with him, and they became the Archdukes. Baal was one of them.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Baal was once an angel?”

“Of course, James. How can anyone be truly evil without understanding that which is truly good? Humans are not the only species that needs contrast for comprehension, and the dichotomy of the universe is the one thing that even the Father cannot alter. For there to be good, there must be bad. For there to be pure good, there must at some point be pure evil.

“But I digress. Baal joined Lucypher in Hell, and I became one of the Fallen here on Earth. I watched your civilizations, as if the word were even applicable, rise and fall. I watched your societies mature and decay, and over time I came to realize that I had been not only a fool, but a coward as well.

“I stayed on Earth because I was not willing to commit myself enough to evil to rule in Hell. But I wasn’t brave enough to accept my punishment at the hands of the Father, either. So I couldn’t return to Heaven, and I couldn’t go to Hell. I was trapped here until I could do something to warrant an audience with the Father again. I had to do something to make him notice me, to remember me, so I could tell him…”

“Tell him what, my son?” Mike asked, and I saw him as his parishioners must see him, as a wise man, a holy man. My oldest living friend almost glowed with an internal peace that made even me want to confess to him. But we didn’t have all night.

“Tell him I’m sorry and I want to come home!” cried Phil, and I saw golden-tinged tears running down his flawless face.

“You couldn’t have just asked?” Mike asked him, but when I looked at my friend, he was different somehow. The peaceful glow about him wasn’t just an internal thing. He was actually glowing. It took me a minute, because I’m not the sharpest fang in a jaw, but I realized pretty quickly that I was in the presence of something big. Even bigger than Baal, and he’d been pretty husky.

“F-Father?” Phil asked, and he kneeled in front of Mike. The rest of us followed suit, except for Lilith. Mike looked over at her, and raised an eyebrow. That clinched it; my old friend was totally possessed. He spent most of eighth grade trying to learn to raise just one eyebrow and never got the hang of it.

“Still, daughter?” He asked, and it wasn’t an impatient question, just the kind of thing you ask someone you’ve disagreed with for years to confirm that the argument was still where you left it.

“I don’t kneel. Ever. To anyone. It’s my thing.” She answered, and sat down at the table, leaning back in her chair and propping her spike-heeled boots on the table.

“I know, my daughter. I know.” He sounded tired, like a parent that had lived this argument time and again. Come to think of it, he sounded a lot like my parents in high school. “Now, my son. You had something to ask me?” He looked down at Phil and stretched out his hand. Phil took it and stood, looking Mike in the eyes that held more than Mike.

“Can I come home?” I’d never seen Phil look contrite before. Of course, I’d never seen him cry, or fight a demon before either, so it was another night of firsts for me. Yippee.

“Of course. All you ever had to do was ask.” And Mike put his hands on Phil’s shoulders, and the angel just vanished. Nothing happened for a moment and then he began to glow with an incredibly bright, white light. I could only stand a few seconds of the glare, and even squeezing my eyes shut I knew I’d be seeing spots for a while. When the glow faded, I opened my eyes, and Mike was standing there, with no angel in front of him, and no divinity in his eyes, either. That was a bit of a relief, really. It’s hard to take someone seriously as a deity when you used to sneak into R-rated movies together.

Lilith looked around for a minute, and then muttered “Crap. He didn’t leave me any instructions other than to take care of the club.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. She shot me a look that could kill someone who was actually living.

Lilith took a deep breath and said “I owed Phil a debt. Since he didn’t absolve me of it, I have to keep his business operations running until he does, or until the period of my service comes to an end. So I’m stuck here for a while.”

“How long?” Greg asked. He kept trying to sneak peeks up her skirt as she leaned back in her chair, but he was about as subtle as a hand grenade.

“Five hundred years, minus time already served.” Lilith answered.

“How much time have you served?” I asked.

She shot me another look. “Two weeks.” I looked around at Greg, Mike and Sabrina, and we all burst out laughing. After a few seconds, Lilith got up and stormed off without so much as a goodbye. She did not strike me as a woman who was accustomed to being laughed at. Oh well, we knew where to find her for the next few centuries.

After our little chuckle, I sat up straight and looked at Janet. “So how do you plan to put all this right, lady?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?
What do I mean
? Your little spell goes wonky and a passel of little girls end up kidnapped, a dozen zombies tear up most of Charlotte, a cop…”

“Detective,” corrected Sabrina.

“…detective gets sent to Hell, and we thrash an entire private school gymnasium. And all because you wanted to win the
PowerBall
!?!? That’s what I mean, you nutjob!”

“I was afraid that’s what you meant. Well for starters I promise never to do magic again, even the kind that summons angels.”

“Demons.” I corrected.

“Well I meant for it to summon angels. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Everyone around the table yelled in unison “NO!” Janet had the good grace to look ashamed, at least, even if she didn’t have a good answer. After a long moment, Greg broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Hey, look. The sun’s going to be coming up soon, and this building is no longer what I would consider light-tight, so at least a couple of us would like to get home. The rest of you are welcome to crash at our place if you like, but we need to get going.”

“I can’t. I have to get home to Mr. Kibble. He must be frantic with worry about me.” Janet said.

“Mr. Kibble?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine this crazy woman having a husband, but stranger things had happened I suppose. I mean, Greg actually had a date once in ninth grade.

“My Pomeranian. He’s very high-strung and gets terribly nervous if I don’t make it home in time for dinner.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she hadn’t been home for dinner in at least a week, and she walked out of the gym before I remembered that she might not have an intact car in the parking lot. Oh well, now that she wasn’t possessed by a demon, I figured the rest of her problems would sort themselves out.

“What about you two?” I asked, looking at Mike and Sabrina.

Mike shook his head, “I’ve got to get to the church for morning Mass, but I’ll swing by later for lunch. I’ll drive, though. My car is still in one piece and I moved it right up to the gym entrance.”

“I’ll come hang for a little while, as long as there’s no biting while I nap.” Sabrina said, standing and holding out a hand to me. I took it and she helped me up. I didn’t really need it, but the feeling of her warm hand in mind wasn’t something I was likely to pass up.

“No promises on the biting,” I said as we started toward the waiting car.

Greg limped past us, leaning on Mike and yelled “Shotgun!” back over his shoulder at us. I didn’t mind.

“So there’s just one thing I don’t understand…” I said in a low voice as Sabrina and I walked down the steps into the glow of the sunrise.

“Just one thing?” She asked. I punched her lightly on the arm, and she staggered a few steps sideways. Sometimes I forget that I’m not punching Greg.

“When you were taken, and Mike got thrown out of the gym, he mumbled something about you being an innocent.”

“Yeah?” She had that look that women get when I’m about to ask something that often ends up with me getting slapped.

“And if I remember right, there were certain criteria for being a sacrifice to raise this demon, and one of them was a very specific brand of innocence.”

“Yeah?” She repeated, and unlike Mike, Sabrina had obviously mastered the art of raising only one eyebrow.

“So by being part of the sacrifice, does that mean…” I trailed off and Sabrina interrupted me.

“Let’s put it this way, Jimmy-boy. If you finish the question, you’ll never know the answer.” She kissed me lightly on the lips, and we got in the car to go home, riding off into the sunrise like good vampire heroes.

I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank the folks that bought my first book,
The Chosen
, which was a heck of a learning experience. I applied some of that learning here and hopefully the book is the better for it. I once again owe a big thanks to Lindsay Birmingham for my fantastic cover, this time under a crazy deadline. And Rob Siders again proves to be the digital manipulation ninja for getting this out in ebook format.

The folks on the KindleBoards forums were also a big help in my development as a writer and an independent self-promoter. If you’re looking for a great place to find new books, check them out.

This book was written, like my others, with headphones screwed on tight, mostly to the soundtrack to the Broadway show
American Idiot
, with a lot of Ray Wylie Hubbard, Michael Franti and Roger Creager in the mix as well.

John G. Hartness is the author of
The Chosen
, a novel, and
Red Dirt Boy
and
Returning the Favor and other Slices of Life
, collections of short stories and poetry. His writing has been featured in the literary blog
Truckin’
as well as various gambling websites around the internet. John studied theatre at Winthrop University and has been very active in the Charlotte and North Carolina theatre communities. An avid music lover, John spends way too much money on music will happily trade book copies for CDs. John lives in Charlotte, NC with his wife, Suzy, their cat and dog. This seems short but I don’t know what else to write, so you should follow me on Twitter or look me up on Facebook or read my blog if you care that much. But you shouldn’t. Really. Why are you still reading this? Go out and ride a bike or something. Geez.