The spa, at least the main pool area, is usually a fun place to be, with off duty operatives and center staff letting off steam in a place with few restrictions beyond the standard “Do no harm.” I just wasn't in the mood, so skirted the main chamber and went to the smaller, more private rooms and buzzed for Sol. The calls to the parents, always rough, had reached a peak with the last call. I didn't know Jennings was only 15, we are never given irrelevant information during trial.
Yes, technically I am a murderer, but don't particularly like being called on it. Strip and lay down on the massage table, wearily closing my eyes. Sol arrives, puts a beer, complete with straw, down next to me within easy sipping reach, and starts his magic. All in total silence. We have known each other a long time. We worked together frequently before his crisis of faith killed his career as an Operative, and nearly killed him. Now he is a touch healer, his faith stronger than ever. He spends his time putting Operatives back together. His strong fingers trace out and slowly relax the tension in my muscles. The soft music in the background winds its way into my mind.
The door opens quietly. Sol's hands do not stop, or even hesitate, so there is no call for me to open my eyes. A creak as someone lays on the next table.
“You have new scars, both of the body and the soul, my son.” Nyasi's voice is barely louder than the background music.
“It's a rough business, but someone has got to do it.” As always, flippancy is my first option, even in the face of a man widely considered to be a living saint. “At least we didn't lose too many candidates this time.”
“Seven good souls gone.” he says, sounding sad. “Peters died of wounds 25 minutes ago. I notified his parents and his wife for you.”
We lay in silence for a while, the only sound the music and the rhythmic swishing of hand across skin.
“Sometimes, I wish we were back in the times of persecution. Things were simpler then. We still lost people, good people, but never the way we do now.” He sounds distant, like a man pondering an abstract problem.
“Sir, you told me once, the genie can't be stuffed back in the bottle. Someone has to guard and protect the helpless. Guess that is us.” Am I reassuring him, or myself? Hard to tell, Nyasi is a sneaky guy.
“Why do you do it, Cat? You are not a believer, not really. Oh, you go through the motions, and you try hard, but when it comes down to it, you reach for the Sword, not the One.”
“What can I say? It is a noble thing to do? The stinking masses need protecting from their own foolishness and arrogance? I believe in leaving the world a better place?”
“None of those are your reasons, son. Admit why you do what you do, if only to yourself. Understand that it is a perfectly fine reason, or you would not be here. It will heal your soul.” He rises and leaves without another word. Sol continues working out the new tensions that have cropped up. He taps my side for me to turn over.
“Sol, what do you think?” I ask.
“I'm not the one you should be asking, Cat. I don't interfere in other people's therapy.” He looks down at me, tracing a scar on my chest. “War litch?”
“No,” absently, “Dragon. Only a small one.” The rest of the session was in silence. Sol knew when I answered the question Nyasi had asked.
I kill them, not to protect the defenceless, not for the One, or Him or God, or whatever you want to call it. Not for the adulation, the respect, the power. Not even because it is what I am best at.
I do it because I love the act – and because I can.
* * *
Three hours to briefing, 14 until sunset at the last known visitation of the Reaver. Call in to the tracking stations, where all demon appearances and movements are reported to and collated. It is the standard slice of organised chaos, targets being acquired, mainly over the night half of the globe, and operatives being dispatched to banish them. The Reaver is still not showing on the monitors. Update the tracking orders, now we have confirmation on at least 6 of it's entourage.
“After the Reaver, concentrate on the Bile Demon and the Ghouls. They are the slowest, and the only ones with it that we know are immune to light. No Operative to be dispatched to Toronto at all today”
“Should we recall the investigative team?” The chief of tracking is new to me. I give him the once over – that possession at the heart of the Society has made me more nervous than I care admit. He is clean.
“Recall them one hour before sunset, and send in observation team B.” I'd prefer A, but they got pretty badly mangled and are currently in rehab. “Route any updates both to Briefing 4 and to my phone. I am going out for a bit.”
I am one of the very few from Demon Central who visits the surface for pleasure, though many other residents of the Free State do so constantly. As the Free State has many and complex dietary and social restrictions to be respected, hold overs from the initial, rather uncomfortable, formation of it, there are a wide range of shops, restaurants, bars and brothels just across the Tiber which cater to Free Stater's who want to kick out against the restrictions once in a while. Rise to surface level and exit St. Peter's Square by the Colonnade. The Free State guards salute. The Rome side border guards give me a cursory check – most of them know me well – and wave me through the barrier. A 5 minute brisk walk brings me to a dingy cafe, paint peeling and the sign, as always, threatening to fall and decapitated the unwary pedestrian. Push, with some effort, through the door, to be enveloped in warmth, laughter and the smell of superb food.
“Cat! Where have you been? Ti fa bene?” A short man, almost as round as he is tall, breaks off his conversation and barrels out from behind the bar. He nearly breaks my spine with an exuberant hug and kiss on both cheeks.
“Marta! He bellows, “Cat is here! And looking tropo magre. L'Inglese, molto presto.!” He leads me to a table, then bustles off to get me a cold Moretti. The other customers, all regulars, give me a nod and a smile before returning to their meals. I know most of them. Though not as well as I know Luigi and Marta.
* * *
Unlike the historical image of them, ghouls, like hyenas, prefer fresh meat and are perfectly capable of getting it for themselves. Fortunately they are not pack demons, preferring to hunt in pairs.
The gentle, warm breeze blowing in of Naples Bay keeps stirring the litter of paper and dead leaves, making me start nervously every time. My detector, slaved to project on my right eye, is giving me intermittent readings – they are on the move. The streets are dark, quiet and almost totally deserted thanks to the curfew I imposed for tonight. Still some people slinking through the shadows – Naples is, and always has been, a paradise for smugglers, thieves and other members of what I call 'the night trade', but even most of them have had the sense to shut down operations for one night.
Round a corner and the detector flares. The ghouls are in line of sight now. Flick to hunting mode – they are not in the street. One of the buildings then.
A scream. I start to run. There! A shattered window in that cafe, security bars bent and twisted like soft taffy. Pull the Magnum and blow the door out with one explosive round. Through before the debris finishes hitting the floor. Drop the magnum, draw sword, one ghoul down. Spin – too slowly. The other hits me like a train and rides my back to the floor, kicking and biting, trying to get in a disabling bite to my spine through my armour. I trigger one of the flares built into the neck of my coat. The ghouls screams and recoils, but is still on my back and too heavy for me to twist. A dull thump of metal hitting flesh and I can suddenly move again. Roll, sword coming up, then down, cutting the ghoul in half just below the chest and spraying me with hot, acrid blood. Rise to one knee and the back swing beheads the beast.
Glance around. A man, on the ground, bleeding badly. Call the medics. A woman standing heavily pregnant, blood spattered, still holding the silver crucifix she had used to knock the ghoul off my back.
“I have called the medics.” I say to her as I crawl over to the man and apply pressure to the wound. “But it looks like he will be OK.”
“Tu Inglese?” she asks.
“Si.” My Italian is horrible, but I manage to make her understand, as the sirens of the medics come closer, that her husband will be fine. The bleeding is already stopping. She smiles, bends and kisses her husband, and straightens to look straight at me. Speaking like a child, who has memorised a speech, she smiles shyly and asks:
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
* * *
I am still smiling as Luigi comes back with my beer and his wine. He looks at me and starts to laugh.
“Ah, I was truly blessed, the day I met Marta! Now, amico, what has you coming in here, and looking like il temporale?” He pours his wine and me beer and we touch glasses. “Trouble?”
“Some trouble, yes. Bad this time.” Luigi, once he had recovered, had, with the dogged persistence that harks back to a small city winding up ruling the known world, immersed himself in the lore of demons, helped by me getting him an unlimited pass to the library of the Free State. I helped them find and buy a café on the Free State borders, and was proud to stand as godfather to their first born.
They are friends, no, family. By their choice. But, by Him, I am grateful for them.
Marta comes out of the kitchen and, after giving me a kiss, puts down my meal. L'Inglese, also known as a proper English breakfast fry-up. She sits and Luigi pours her a glass of wine. The nearest customers courteously move to tables further away, so they cannot overhear.
I briefly outline the current problem. Luigi looks grave. “A Reaver. The gaze will tear your soul from you before you can strike.”
“I know, old friend. All I can do is distract it, letting the others get close enough to banish it from our plane.”
“You will die.”
“Yes. But others will live.”
Marta leaps to her feet, and disappears into the kitchen. She returns after two minutes, smiling. “Wait. Seraphina comes.”
Luigi starts to laugh. “But, of course! There is no need for you to sacrifice your life, old friend. Just wait.” I am confused, but my friends usually know what they are doing. I wait, and finish my breakfast. Leaving any of Marta's cooking on your plate, or even letting it get cold, is a capital offence, in my opinion.
The door opens slightly to admit a waif. Looks about 12, one of the countless strays that cities still throw up despite the best attempts to give everyone a good life. The people who fall through the cracks in the system. Dressed in cast offs, skinny, big eyes. As she comes closer I revise my age estimate upward to 20.
“23 actually.” She speaks to me but her mouth doesn't move. “Sorry, it is such a relief sometimes to not to have to use words.”
Oh. Fuck.
A witch.
No comments:
Post a Comment