The Demon Pool (36 page)

The night was comfortably warm but uncomfortably humid.
The do-rag with the sewn-in sweatband helped. Using the night vision goggles,
Jim made good time through the moderate underbrush that clogged his route from
the Charger to the fence line at the northwest end of the estate.

Reaching the fence, Jim paused and lifted the
goggles away from his face. The night was not pitch-black, but it was damn
close. He slipped the sleeve of his shirt up above his watch again. The faint
glow of the tritium microcapsules set into the watch’s hands and numbers showed
Jim that it was eleven forty-five. He had fifteen minutes to cut through the
fence and make his way to the back of the estate’s main house.

Jim pulled the sleeve back down over the watch
and centered the goggles back over his eyes. Sliding off his backpack, keeping
the noise to a minimum, he found and removed the fence pliers. He cut a gap
just large enough for him to slip through. He put the pliers back into the
backpack, pulled the sides of the breached fence apart, and squeezed through.
He pulled the backpack through behind him.

He had made a virtually noiseless entry onto the
estate. He took a moment to check his weapons and Taser. Everything on his
tactical belt was blacked out and secured so as not to make noise during
movement. He had made himself tactically invisible. Kat and her clown posse
would not know what hit them until it was too late. Neutralized or dead, it
didn’t matter. His concern was getting Carl out alive, and it looked as if that
would be easier than he had anticipated.

The brush around the northwest perimeter of the
estate was thicker than on his initial route, but with the night vision
goggles, Jim had little trouble finding his way. He pushed though one
particularly thick section and popped out into the clearing where the pool was
located. Even through the green glow of the night vision goggles, the clearing
and pool had the feeling of an oasis.

Jim moved quickly and silently across the soft,
lush grass that blanketed the west side of the pool. The wind blew stronger
now, as evidenced by the swaying of the surrounding vegetation. Yet inside the
oasis, the air remained surprisingly calm. As he looked around, the wind buffeting
the adjoining undergrowth reminded him to finish this mission as soon as
possible. He did not relish finding himself caught in a hurricane.

He pushed through the wall of brush at the south
side of the clearing and found himself on a narrow trail leading toward the
back of the house. He paused inside the last line of vegetation and trees
behind the mansion.

Peering out from the woods, he saw that the
downstairs was dark and quiet. Upstairs, a faint light flickered from a window.
He moved carefully toward the east side of the house, staying inside the tree
line. Three vehicles sat near the rear of the house. He recognized Kevin
Williams’ van and Bruce York’s Viper. The third car looked like an Asian import
sedan.

He dashed across the clear space between the tree
line and the building and stopped behind the little Klingon’s van. He peered
around the vehicle in both directions. The downstairs was still dark, and there
was no sign of anyone moving around outside.

Jim looked up at the upstairs window. The light
threatened to overwhelm his night vision optics and he pushed the goggles up,
out of the way. A woman’s silhouette appeared in front of the light. He had
seen enough of Kat Connors to know the silhouette was likely hers.
One
upstairs, probably two downstairs.

He crouched, then slipped past the back of the
Viper and the sedan, stopping at the corner of the house. A set of steps led up
to a rear entrance. Even with the wind blowing harder now, he didn’t want to
try the rear door, possibly alerting Kat’s clowns and getting Carl killed. Jim
moved back around to the side of the van. He would wait, hiding around the
corner, until someone came out to unlock the gate, and then drop them with his
Taser.

Knowing that Williams had Carl’s gun, he expected
Williams would be the one who came out when Uncle Jack arrived. Tasering
Williams would be a pleasure. Then he would take care of York and Kat. After
all, once he took the little Klingon out of the picture, the others would
likely be unarmed. It was a good, simple plan and he doubted, at this point,
that anything could go wrong.

Although the demons that worked their evil in South
Florida had little opposition most of the time, tonight they could not locate
their target. Something, or someone, was interfering with their ability to both
distinguish the target in the darkness and to communicate with each other. Jim
Demore had dropped off their radar.

They knew that the preacher and the girl were
together in her apartment, but an impenetrable wall existed between them and
the interior of her dwelling. The strength of her relationship with Adonai
created a spiritual force field around her life. Demon princes had assigned
dozens of lesser demons to harass and tempt her since she first made her
confession of faith in the Nazarene. They had had little success. She
maintained her relationship with Adonai on a daily basis, reading his accursed
book, fervently praying, and fellowshipping with other believers. The demons
hated her.

When Saffi left the apartment with the old
preacher, the demons watched from a distance. They heard the prayers of the two
God-lovers going up to heaven as the two walked toward Saffi’s car. The
connection became obvious. They were praying for Jim Demore, and their prayers
were powerful enough to influence the spiritual world. The demons could not
find Jim because these two were mucking up the heavenlies. They had to be
stopped. While Saffi and the preacher prayed in earnest for Jim Demore, in
their haste, they had made a gross tactical error. They had recruited no one to
pray for them. The demons went to work.

***

“Hurricane party,” the red-headed kid said. “I got some
righteous weed here, man. Truly primo stuff. The folks went to Orlando to see
my Gram and ain’t no way they’re driving back in a hurricane.”

“I thought we were saving that stuff for something
special, like the first time we get laid,” his friend said.

“Man, that could be weeks or months. Even years,
dude. What better way to ride out the hurricane than getting stoned, drinking
beer, and playing video games? And what better place than my folks’ place on
the beach?”

His friend smiled. “Could be cool. Yeah,
hurricane party. I like it.”

“Well, grab a case from the fridge. We got a
brand new game console and a 60” ultra-HDTV at the beach house, and I got
Special
Ops: Kill ‘em All 4
and
Grand Theft: Road Rage 6
. If we leave right
now, we could be sitting across from Ft. Myers Beach in less than an hour.”

“Yeah, and if we toked up as soon as we leave, we
could have a good buzz on before we even get there.”

“Cool. I’ll grab my old man’s keys,” the redhead
said. “It’s going to be a hell of a party.”

***

Saffi drove and both she and Uncle Jack prayed aloud. They
prayed for spiritual covering for Jim as he made his way toward the de la Garza
estate. She prayed for God’s grace and mercy as Jim risked his life for his
friend. She prayed that God would use this opportunity to open Jim’s heart to
the truth of the gospel. She and Uncle Jack prayed for everything, except
themselves.

Little traffic shared the road as Saffi
drove east past the freeway. The road narrowed to two lanes and then curved
southeast. The wind battered the sedan. No rain yet, but heavy, black clouds
foreshadowed the storm bearing down on Florida’s gulf coast.

Her car’s digital clock said eleven
forty-five. They had fifteen minutes to be at the gate. They would stop for a
few seconds to switch drivers a couple of miles from the estate.

Up ahead, the high-beam headlights of an
oncoming vehicle bounced wildly above the pavement. Saffi suspended her prayer
for a moment to concentrate on the oncoming vehicle. High intensity Xenon light
flooded the interior of Saffi’s car.

Uncle Jack opened his eyes. He stopped
praying for a moment as he shielded his eyes from the light.

And for that
moment the two prayer warriors found themselves unarmed.

The redhead shoved his dad’s
Best of Ozzy Osbourne
CD into the truck’s player. He liked driving the old man’s truck. It was an
older truck, an ‘83 GMC Sierra Classic with a six-inch lift kit that looked
like crap on the outside. But it had a rebuilt Vortec V6 with a 4-barrel carb
and a decent CD/mp3 stereo system. Ugly, fast, and loud.

Unfortunately, the restoration money had run out
before his dad got around to upgrading the stereo, so the system did not
include a GPS. The result being that the boys had been lost for close to an
hour, driving on the back roads somewhere east of Ft. Myers, the product of a
“really good” short cut.

By the time they found the road into Ft. Myers,
the weed had kicked in full force, and they’d downed a six-pack. The redhead
was rocking with the radio screaming out the words to “Flying High Again.”

The music’s driving rhythm offset the usual
slo-mo effect of the pot and beer. The truck flew around a curve at twenty
miles over the speed limit, the redhead oversteered, and they crossed the
double yellow line into the path of an oncoming car.

At the last possible second, the redhead jerked the
steering wheel to the right and the truck flew back into its own lane. The
oncoming sedan went to its right, hit the soft right shoulder, and rolled three
times, landing upright against a stand of young trees and thick brush.

***

The demons assigned to the two party boys watched from
the back of the pickup truck as Saffi’s car left the road and rolled repeatedly
until it came to rest at the bottom of a ditch, flanked by the road on one side
and by the tree line on the other.

The truck swerved back to the right and skidded to
a stop in the middle of the dark highway.

The demons were sure that even if someone
actually survived the crash, they would be in no condition to interfere with
Prince Baalzaric’s plans. They had accomplished their mission and destroyed the
prayer covering provided by their master’s enemy. Now it was time to reap the
rewards of their newest human relationships.

They doubted that Baalzaric would mind if they took
advantage of this unexpected opportunity to expand his influence into the
intoxicated bodies of these two boys. After all, didn’t all demons have the
same goal? To expand Lucifer’s kingdom in the human realm and having a good
time doing it?

***

“Shit, man. What happened?” the glassy-eyed passenger
asked the redhead.

“Dunno, bro. I saw lights.”

“Yeah, cool. Close encounters, dude.”

“Yeah, cool, but, I got a feeling we need to get
the hell out of here.”

The redhead shifted the transmission back into
drive and stomped on the accelerator. The rear tires spun for a moment and
suddenly gained traction. Ozzie and the redhead now sang about going off the
rails on a crazy train and the boys flew on toward Ft. Myers, chattering about
the possibilities of close encounters with low-flying UFOs and video games
improving reaction times.

Saffi did not know how long she had been out. Her car
was not running, but the headlights were still on. A deflated airbag hung from
the center of the steering wheel. Squinting out through the fractured
windshield, she could see that the car was off the road, but she was not sure
how far off. Her face hurt and she felt something dripping from her nose. She
needed a tissue and reached for the glove compartment. That was when she
noticed Uncle Jack.

His face looked peaceful, as if he had fallen
asleep the way people sometimes do on car trips. But something was wrong. His
neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. It was obvious that Uncle Jack would
not be doing anymore praying tonight, or any other night, for that matter.

Tears flowed as she opened the glove box and took
out a travel-sized package of tissues. She wiped her eyes and then her nose.
She looked at the ball of tissue. It was stained bright red.
Crap. God, what
else is broken?

She took more tissue, twisted it into two plugs,
and pushed a plug up each nostril. It hurt like hell and Saffi assumed that the
air bag had broken her nose. She reached up, pulled the driver’s side visor
down, and opened the lighted makeup mirror. The light came on and revealed a
blackening eye and her bloody and broken nose.
Okay, not pretty, but not
dead either
.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to
organize her thoughts. The throbbing pain in the middle of her face distracted
her. Suddenly dizzy, she tried to suppress the urge to vomit. No luck.

She managed to shove her door open, get her seat
belt unbuckled and lean out of the car before she emptied her guts. When she
was finished, she spit as much as she could, before her mouth went desert dry.
She wiped it with a tissue and threw the tissue out the open driver’s side
door. No time to worry about litter laws. Saffi looked in the mirror again.
Saffi,
you have to do a better job with your makeup
.

She looked over at Uncle Jack. The one comfort
she had was that he had not suffered. She also had the assurance given to all
born-again believers that to be absent from the body was to be present with the
Lord. However, while that assurance was comforting, it did nothing to help with
her current situation.

She needed to move. She could not just sit in the
car with a dead man. She opened the door again and stepped out. The wind blew
hard and the world spun madly.

Saffi opened her eyes
.
She was on her
back, staring up at the dark sky, seeing hundreds of black shadows streaking
past. Her first thought was of the need to get to Oz ahead of the flying
monkeys.
No flying monkeys in the Bible, Saffi. No Oz either.

Slowly, conscious reality came home. She dragged
herself to her feet.
Not Oz. The estate. Get to the estate. Help Jim.

Her body reluctantly obeyed her brain. She
half-walked, half-stumbled up the side of the ditch to the road. No yellow bricks,
no Oz. Nonetheless, somewhere ahead, down the dark road, there would be a
wicked witch.