NATHAN MARSHALL WAS vacuuming the waiting area of a dental office when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He switched off the sweeper and flipped the phone open. The screen flashed: “Restricted.” His shoulders slumped, but he answered anyway. “Hello?”
“Nathan! Nathan…Nathan. It’s Patrick.”
Nathan stifled a groan. He’d told his agent, Patrick Holder, that he didn’t want to do personal appearances anymore. He’d hoped his request would be honored, but he expected this call just the same. It was too close to Easter for ‘Slick Rick’ to resist setting him up. He pulled the cell phone away from his ear, ready to close it, and hang up.
But money was literally on the line.
“Nathan, you there, buddy?”
“Yeah. I’m at work. Look. I don’t want—”
“It’s a church in San Fran, buddy. They’re about to go belly up, close the doors, and stop spreading the good word. They need a touch. They need a miracle. They need you!”
“Mr. Holder,” Nathan sank into the nearest chair. “You know how I feel. And why. I’ve got a real job. It seems to be working out. I can’t take any time off.”
“Son, you are meant to help people. You’ve got to let me help you do that. That broom you push is beneath you!”
Nathan shook his head. It always bothered him that Slick Rick spun a conversation so that arranging ‘work’ for him was a favor. It wasn’t like Mr. Holder ever forgot to take his cut. In truth, Nathan wasn’t ungrateful, he just didn’t want these favors. “I’m no better than anyone else, Mr. Holder.”
“No better? Your humility is endearing, kid, but you are different. You can’t deny it. You’re special. You have a purpose. This is what you’re meant to do, not that dirty work. Think of how your talent could infuse this community in San Fran. You’ve seen it happen before. Think big! Besides, the Pope isn’t going to canonize someone who hates being a stigmatic.”
Canonization wasn’t Nathan’s goal, despite Slick Rick’s argument that it would send his net worth soaring. He didn’t want to be rich. He wanted to live a normal life in a small town and never bleed again.
Nathan crooked his neck to hold the phone with his shoulder while Mr. Holder jabbered on about the details. A sandy strand of wavy hair fell into Nathan’s face. He brushed it away and studied his palms. They looked so normal, but at any second they could split open and bleed.
“Nathan, I know you don’t want to do this, but this one is personal.” Mr. Holder’s rabid-spokesman tones faded. For the first time in his life, Nathan thought the man was talking to him, not selling him on an idea. “I was raised in San Francisco. Father Everly performed my Baptism, my First Communion and my Confirmation and…he begged me,” Patrick added, softer. “He said he kept old news clippings of you. He was on the verge of tears. I…I couldn’t say no.”
“You already agreed?” Nathan came to his feet. “You didn’t even ask me! You knew I didn’t—” Nathan stopped and forced himself to sit back down. He wanted to hate Mr. Holder, but that would have been wrong, hating anyone. Even someone as good at inspiring it as Mr. Holder.
“Look, kid. It’s a week-long tour of San Francisco.” The salesman vibe returned. “New places, new faces. Spreading the good word.”
“But Mr. Holder—”
“What you do restores people’s faith. How can you refuse them that? Your embarrassment is selfish.”
What Nathan did invited attention, but he’d didn’t want the spotlight. As an orphan under the care and guidance of nuns since birth, when the stigmata developed, they praised and exploited it. For a small admission fee, strangers could visit him. For a moderate fee, they could hold his small hands.
Most wanted him to pray for them. Because they could charge premium, the nuns made him memorize certain prayers. They scolded him if he showed any resistance to the old and sickly with cash in hand.
No one ever asked him what he wanted. No one protected him from the crowds and flashbulbs. They shoved the newspaper articles about him in his face and expected him to be pleased.
The nuns planned for him to become a priest and arranged for immediate entry into seminary after high school, but when he turned eighteen, he walked out of the orphanage and never returned. He did not complete high school.
Unprepared for the world outside the church orphanage, he’d ended up in a community shelter. One of the directors there called Mr. Holder invited him to come hear a trio who showed promise. Nathan stole the show when he bled.
Rumors earned him gigs at local churches, then some farther away. They paid for his appearances, enough that Nathan could get a small studio apartment on his own. He’d gotten jobs, but never kept them long after it was discovered that he sprouted open wounds for no reason.
The bleeding occurred without warning. He could go months without incident. Or he’d bleed once, or a handful of times, in a single week.
Evening and nighttime janitorial work, where no one was around and he could just clean up after himself when it happened, was perfect as long as he minimized his time on the carpeting.
He’d been on Mr. Scrubber’s cleaning crew now for five months. It was honest work. Staying financially afloat as an undereducated young man in Chicago proved difficult in the best of times. It didn’t seem much easier for a talent agent. Though the trio topped the rhythm and blues charts, they’d left Mr. Holder behind early on.
“I sprung for the tickets, Nathan. No need to repay me. They’re already printed for you.”
That was an unexpected bit of altruism from Mr. Holder.
“After work tonight, go home and sleep. When you get up, do whatever you need to do to make arrangements job-wise, then pack your things and come by. Your flight leaves tomorrow night, well, early Thursday to be exact. I figured you’d want a red-eye flight since that’s the hours you’re used to keeping.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yes. And I told Father Everly that you would catch a cab to his home, that he needn’t fetch you from the airport at such an early hour. I have cash for you as well.”
“Cash? They’ve paid in advance?”
“No. I told you this one is personal to me. Father Everly will pay you the rest once you’re there, and he’s doing so from his personal funds. The church isn’t able to pay at all. This one’s all about the good work, son. Truly it is.”
Nathan was stunned. The spirit never moved Slick Rick to pre-pay anything travel related out of his own pocket, let alone doing so without expecting repayment. Not even when the economy was better.
He wondered if Father Everly absolved Slick Rick for something. “All right, Mr. Holder. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
San Francisco, California
THE CRINGE!
Andrei nearly fell from his barstool. He stood up stiffly. Though he’d finished a pair of McGhee’s double-shots of Boru, he was far from drunk.
He fought against the sensation. He couldn’t do this here. In front of these people and McGhee—
This feeling flowing over him was not like any other time. His skin didn’t threaten to crawl away. This prickled like gooseflesh. This chilled him. It was a caress and it was… arousing.
He checked the clock. The cringe, or whatever this was, shouldn’t be. Sundown occurred more than two hours ago.
Something’s happening to her.
His glance slid across the sparse crowd, and then settled on the door.
“You all right, laddie?”
“I have to go.” Andrei dug into his pocket for cash.
Lightning flashed outside. The lights flickered and failed as thunder boomed through the streets.
“Holy shit,” a patron said.
Andrei heard McGee rambling behind the counter. Probably groping for a flashlight.
Someone said, “This shit isn’t possible.”
“What do you mean?” another patron asked, flicking his lighter to add meager light to the room.
“You need hot and humid air for thunder and lightning,” the first patron replied, scrolling through his cell phone for its flashlight feature.
“What are you a weatherman?” the other patron asked.
“Retired from the National Weather Service, so yeah. Our air comes down the coast from Alaska. Hell, even with global warming the Bay’s average temp is mid-fifties. Good conditions for fog, not thunder and lightning. As cold as it is, this shit isn’t possible.”
The electricity kicked on and light returned. Heavy drops of rain blasted the windows.
“Andrei.”
Never before had he heard a note of fear in McGhee’s voice. He studied McGhee’s face. The man was spooked. His own strange behavior followed by the outage and storm had caused it. The patron’s conversation didn’t help.
McGhee studied him back, then snorted a laugh as if amused with himself. He picked up a towel and wiped a glass that was already dry. “You can’t walk home in that, m’boy. Have another and see if it subsides a bit.” McGhee grabbed the Boru and refilled Andrei’s glass, and then filled the one he’d re-wiped. He lifted his glass in salute, indicated Andrei should lift his. “May the good Lord take a liking to you, m’boy, but not too soon.”
Andrei tapped his glass against the barkeep’s and they drank.
McGhee slammed his glass on the bar and made a face, then grinned. “It’s like a torchlight procession going down your throat! As I always say, two shorten the road. Again, laddie?”
Andrei nodded. “Pour. I’ll be right back.” He walked to the men’s room, washed his face with cold water, and waited until his erection dwindled before leaving.
Upon returning to the bar, he downed the shot before he sat. “Refill,” he called.
Crawl into a bottle. Crawl in and never come out.
TWO-FINGERED HANDS popped up at the edge of Jovienne’s circle. Another pair followed. A wiry little imp poked its dog-like head through the opening, skin blistered around orange eyes. Lips curled back and it snarled, flashing two rows of sharp canine teeth.
This little Chihuahua was all that would answer her summoning?
It hopped through the Hellgate and stood on two-toed, flat feet. Jovienne kicked out. The demon lurched away from her strike, clenching all four of its little fists, but it was not her target. Instead, her boot smeared the smaller circle. The flames died out and the demon’s passage home slammed shut, filling with scorched earth.
Seeing that, the demon scurried up her leg in a vicious rush, claws hooking in the leather and digging into her thigh.
Jovienne screamed as her skin tore. Her fist swung. The little mouth opened, stretching wide. Jaws clamped around her wrist, missing the spikes.
She thumped its head with her other fist and flung it away. The Chihuahua rolled onto its feet. Shaking all over, the little claws stabbed into its flesh and jerked down in jagged motions, slicing down its face, chest, and legs.
Jovienne felt sorry for the little thing. She’d terrified it.
Its eyes shimmered red and it bared all of its nasty little teeth. But it didn’t bleed Hellfire, even as it shredded its own flesh.
Her first assumption was wrong.
Another demon stepped out of this first one’s flesh, as though vacuum-packed in that doggie-suit. And this second one grew. Fast.
Jovienne drew her weapon. Imp with a chrysalis stage. By the time her sword was unsheathed, she faced an angry demon with mass like a bull standing on its hind legs.
Three times as broad as her, and a good three feet taller, it had a flat-topped head and a piggish snout with tusks like Brahma horns poking from the sides of its drooling mouth. Its hands ended in hooked talons and its feet were enormous hooves. A raspy wet sound wheezed from its snout as it breathed. The short white fur that covered it smelled like a soured wet dog.
Jovienne held her breath and pulled back for a two-handed thrust. There could be no missing such a huge thing, but a strong attack would be needed to stab deep enough to damage the heart and slay this imp.
Before she could plunge the weapon into that furred flesh, however, a talon shot forward and closed around her sword arm. This thing, huge as it was, remained as quick as the Chihuahua.
It thrust her backward against the barrier of magic, restraining the threatening weapon.
Jovienne was too short to punch it in the face, so she swiped her wing at the demon. Buffeting its head with feathers had little effect, but she kept flapping like a panicked bird. The thing snapped at her, gaining a mouthful of feathers. When she pulled away, black quills ripped free and she shouted in pain.
It slammed her against the magical barrier again and again, knocking the air from her lungs and the sword from her hand.
The size and strength of this demon outmatched her. If it kept ramming her against the barrier, it could knock her out. Changing plans, she jerked the left dagger from her thigh sheath and jabbed it deep into the flesh under its ribs. The demon squealed. Its hot breath was a foul, boiling spray.
Jovienne pulled the dagger out and stabbed again, but the blade was too short to hit its heart.
There was only one thing to do. And it was going to hurt.
Stabbing into its belly, she sliced downward to make an opening big enough to get the hilt through. Ramming her arm elbow-deep under its ribcage, she sliced back and forth as Hellfire burned her unprotected fingers.
Still, she couldn’t reach the demon’s heart.
With a shout, she turned the dagger within the demon and stabbed the tip outward from between the creature’s ribs. Using this as leverage, she kicked both feet up into the demon’s restraining forearm. She heard it snap.
The demon roared in pain, releasing her as it retreated. But all her weight hung by her grip on the dagger within it, and that meant the demon dragged her with it. Magma poured over the gauntlet and her sleeve.
She fought to get her feet under her, then matched its moves like a dance. Like this, she was able to turn the dagger within again, and planting her feet, she thrust upward with all her might and jammed her whole arm up inside this demon.
The blade ruptured its heart.
Releasing the dagger, she tried to remove her hand, but the studded gauntlet hooked on the inside of the ribcage. The imp stumbled forward. Desperate to free herself before the demon fell atop her, she yanked her arm as it staggered, again dragging her along. Finally, the spike came free and her arm slipped out.
Jovienne rolled away between its legs and screamed as the air made the burning pain in her fingers more intense. She gasped, jolting with pain. Every heartbeat made her hand throb more. The injury was grotesque and—
Her jacket was on fire.
Jovienne fumbled free of the unburnt gauntlet even as she dematerialized her wings. Thrusting the jacket off, the seared gauntlet ripped from her injured hand. She screamed as flesh tore away and the sleeve dragged over ruined, skinless fingers.
The smoking leather fell to the ground beside the black puddle of sludge that used to be a demon. She stomped on the leather to stifle the flames, and then crumbled to her haunches, cradling her wound. Even the residuals of her earned grace couldn’t diminish the horror of this.
Her fingernails were gone. She could see bone. Her knuckles were red and what skin remained was swelling. Ribbons of blisters trailed along her palm and over the back of her hand where drops of magma seeped under the leather. These stung like an electrical charge.
Burnt blood caked her hand. Black. Steaming.
Like I’m trying to make myself a cinder.
Maybe cinders were weavers who faced a demon and failed. But she hadn’t failed. She killed a five-hundred-pound after-the-chrysalis imp.
I did what I wanted. My way. Independently. The quintanumin answered for a demon I summoned.
Retrieving the sword, she severed the sleeves from the jacket. Sucking air through her teeth, she slid her burned hand inside the un-burnt sleeve to protect it.
Blessed blades didn’t cause this. It wasn’t going to mend immediately, and she couldn’t go to a trauma center. This would have to heal on its own.
She cast a narrow-eyed look at the oily slick of black goo seeping into the ground. The Hellfire magma blood, whether in heated or cooled form, didn’t have a permanent effect on this world because it wasn’t of this world, which explained why it could burn her: she was no longer completely of this world either.
After gingerly donning the now sleeveless jacket she wandered away from the junkyard, still invisible to human eyes. When the rain fell, she called the wings and used them like a giant feathered umbrella.
She walked. The cold drizzle lowered the temperature to near freezing. Passing under a bridge and, grateful for the shelter, she let the wings relax into their normal closed position and leaned against the cement support.
A light appeared in the sky, as big as a car and as bright as the sun. The light rocketed under the bridge and hovered over her head.
Holding her injured arm behind her hip and out of view, her other arm rose defensively before her face. Screened through her fingers, the pulsing, diaphanous illumination held no constant shape. Radiant rays stretched from its core, clear and colorful and blinding all at once.
“Jovienne.”
“What are you?”
“I am an angel, but unlike yourself.” The youthful male voice began like a singing bird, and ended like a hiss.
“Ease off on the super-nova.” The severed sleeve protecting her injury slipped a little.
“You are not permitted to gaze upon the seraphim. You cannot fathom such glory.”
“And yet you came to visit.”
“I am to censure you.”
“For what?” Jovienne asked innocently.
“It is known what you have done this night.”
“Known? What is known?” She wasn’t going to admit anything.
“You will never again do as you did this night. Many weep for your folly.” The staccato syllables reminded Jovienne of a chirping bird.
She stopped leaning. “You mean you’re reprimanding me for slaying a demon?”
“No. You are being censured for opening a Hellgate.”
Jovienne lowered her arm and angled her chin so that her brow shielded her vision, irritated at how much it felt like bowing. “The quintanumin were forced upon me with the intention that I slay demons and I did. You don’t get to bitch about how.”
“You acted not as an abhadhon.”
“So?” Jovienne shrugged and the severed sleeve slid off before she could stop it. She kept the arm hidden behind her. “I am not just an abhadhon, am I?”
When the seraph did not answer, she went on.
“If I could open a Hellgate and kill them one by one—”
“No!” the seraph boomed. “You will never seek to open another.” His radiance blossomed brighter.
Jovienne’s legs weakened. She collapsed to her knees before the seraph. Being put in her ‘dim’ place churned up anger. Her legs would not move, but her arms weren’t constrained by this glory. With a growl, she reached to the cement pole. Her blistered and ruined fingers scraped over the rough surface, leaving trails of blood as she sought a handhold and found none.
“Jovienne.”
Pain coursed through her as when she refused the Call.
A whimper pushed past her lips.
They could chastise her for choosing independence, but they could not make her accept this enslaved bow. She fought for a handhold, grappling, needing to stand on her own feet.
“Forget the ritual you performed this night,” the seraph said. “Offer no more of your essence to evil. It is commanded.”
Jovienne gritted her teeth; still her knees remained bent. “What difference does it make if I summon them or if the cinders do?” She shouted more from pain than effort to make a point.
“The olaim create doorways, but they can release only a single demon. You tapped the power of your—” Distant thunder stopped the angel mid-sentence. “You tapped old power. Your doorway is a Hellgate. It opens both ways.”
“It’s not like I’d go in and get them.” She was sweating with effort to force her way up.
“Hear me and understand! If the demons take you through the door you cannot be rescued.”
“I break that small circle once the demon arrives. The hole backfills. It’s shut.”
“You are commanded: Do not risk this action again! Should you die, your wall of protection will fall, leaving the Hellgate open for demons to overtake the world. Disobedience will be punished.” The light rose, leaving.
Suddenly her legs obeyed and she stood. Her blisters split and already bloodied flesh looked like so much ground meat after clawing up the cement to stand. Her head snapped up and she shouted, “Tell Eitan I need new gloves!”
Jovienne put the sleeve around her injury once more. When the light from the seraph disappeared, the rain abated and she headed home. Once in the safety of her elevator bedroom, she removed all her gear and left only the sleeve covering her hand. Her weapons lay strewn where they’d fallen and she nestled naked into her wings on the couch. Only then did she remove the sleeve to examine her disfigured hand.
Something thudded beyond the elevator.
Leaping to her feet, she instinctively armed herself, but her devastated fingertips couldn’t maintain a grip. Swearing, she stepped nearer the opening and listened. Her amplified hearing revealed soft steps coming her way. One pair of bare feet.
“I can hear you as well,” Eitan said.
She tossed the dagger to the couch. Calling the ghost hands and giving them a hazy bit of color, she wrapped them around her naked body and folded her wings around her. “Then why sneak up on me like that?” She padded toward Eitan. If he could barefoot it, so could she.
“Who’s sneaking? I stomped to announce myself.”
Jovienne paused and squared her shoulders. She held her burned fingers behind her, as with the seraph. Dangling there, her hand began to throb.
“I was told you requested new gloves.” He offered two pairs, one with fingers and one without.
Everything about his manner said he was pissed off. She just wasn’t sure if it was because he knew what she had done or if her need for gloves disturbed his off-duty time.
With her uninjured hand, she slid the fingered gloves from his grasp. She rubbed her thumb over the leather. The texture was smooth and supple. The studs were absent.
“You can have both pairs, just take them.” He offered the other set.
She drew her left hand forward.
Eitan sucked in a breath and dropped the gloves to grab her left arm and examine it. “What happened?”
“Class Two. Big one. Had to rupture its heart somehow.”
Head down, he studied the injury, and then abruptly his head snapped up to look her in the eye. “You reached inside it?”
“I said it was big.”
He studied her face as if seeing her for the first time. He released her and was silent for seconds, but he did not look away. “It will start to hurt more as the nerves regenerate. By morning the soreness should be gone.” His voice was soft and reassuring. “The nails will have reformed by then, too. The blistering will disappear by noon and the redness by dusk.”
“You mean by nightfall I’ll be ready to start all over.”
He nodded. “That is precisely what I mean.” His manner was sad, his tone serious.
She yearned for tears, but she didn’t seem to have tears. Maybe the abhadhim weren’t allowed to cry. “This probably happens all the time, huh?”
His focus trailed downward. “This? No. This never happens.” Something about his fallen gaze became pensive.
“The abhadhim don’t often get Hellfire burns?”
A long moment passed. He finally looked up. “It has been my experience that those who talk tough are most timid at the task. But you…” His fingers wrapped around her wrist and he lifted the ugly injury between them. “Your courage is obvious. Despite the rebellious nature of your actions and the blasphemy you speak, courage is a quality I respect.”
Assuming he was stingy with his compliments, she gave him a nod of thanks, noting his expression was a mixture of surprise, sympathy, and satisfaction. Maybe he expected her to whine about the pain or disfigurement.
“I brought you something else.” He reached behind him and pulled a wrapped bundle of canvas from his back. He held it out to her.
Unwrapping the cloth while he held it, she revealed two glistening daggers with hieroglyphs etched into the serrated blades, adorned with roaring lion heads at the tip of the leather-wrapped hilts.
“The heads are caps,” he said. “Unscrew them to reveal small wells in the hilts for hallowed water.”
“I already have daggers with wells.”
“These wells will never run dry.” He shifted his grip and lifted one of the weapons, removing the cap to show her. “This might ease the pain,” he said and poured the liquid over her burns. It fizzed and bubbled like peroxide, and at the same time it cooled as if she’d plunged her wound into a deep snow bank. Numbness set in.
“Thank you,” she said. She accepted the dagger with her right hand and twisted it in her palm, feeling the balance.
Eitan dropped to one knee before her, fingers opening the torn pants to see scabbed punctures on her thigh where the imp had clawed her.
When he touched her, a flurry of butterflies migrated through her stomach. She readied to scold him, but her gaze followed the trail of the braid down his back, and she studied his body, his muscles and skin, until he looked up into her face. “These will also be gone by mid-day.” He stood. “Before the sun sets, I will return with something new.”