Blue Diablo

Waiting for a Miracle

Chuch and Eva lay slumped up against the wall. It looked as though they’d been heading for the door when... whatever, struck them down. They looked pale as death, and my heart clenched.

Please, not them too.

The dog whined out in the hallway, as if pleading with me not to go in there, but I had to know. To my vast annoyance, Chance pushed me behind him and went in first. He knelt and felt for a pulse. “They’re alive.”

I let out a long breath and tipped my head against the door. “Can you wake them?”

Several minutes passed while he tried to do that. “No. I’m not sure what’s wrong.”

At that Chuch’s eyes snapped open, but it wasn’t him. The intelligence staring out at us seethed with malevolence. “You wanted to find me so badly... well, here I am. Come get me. You know where. I sensed your presence earlier today, but you lacked the courage to confront me on my home ground. If you want your friends to live long, healthy lives, you won’t make me wait.” Chuch’s eyes closed.

“He’s going to kill them anyway,” I said numbly. “And us too if we’re dumb enough to march in there.”

“What do you suggest?” Chance swung Eva’s unresponsive body into his arms and carried her down the hall to the master bedroom. With a strength contrasting to his whipcord build, he managed to do the same for Chuch.

“Should we call the paramedics? They’re going to need fluids if this goes on long.”

He hesitated. “I don’t think it will come to that, Corine. If we can’t wake them within twenty-four hours, they’re dead anyway.”

“What does that mean?” God, I was sick of all this metaphysical gobbledygook, sick of magick and cryptic phrases. I missed my shop, missed quesadillas for dinner and a bad Mexican variety show before bed. I liked the one with the fat lady in tight spandex pants.

“There’s a silver cord that binds the soul to the body,” he explained after a brooding silence. “It’s only perceptible in the astral plane. I lived with a girl once who dabbled in out-of-body experiences. One morning, she... never woke up.”

There was the loss he’d never articulated—the one that made him enforce emotional distance with me. First time I’d heard of her, and it hurt. I wondered how much he’d loved her for it to change him so profoundly. Did he wonder whether his luck had tainted her astral explorations? Was she lost because of him?

“The cops said her heart just failed,” Chance went on. “But afterward, I did some reading... and it seems that the longer someone remains in spirit form, the more nebulous the cord becomes. After twenty-four hours, it dissolves entirely. So if we miss that window, we won’t be able to bring them back.”

Fantastic.

“Let’s see. We’re completely vulnerable here, and the wards are fucked. Chuch and Eva are helpless if we leave them unguarded, and we have less than a day to take out this warlock.” I sighed. “Well, at least we have his address, thanks to Lenny.”

Butch barked.

“That’s looking on the bright side.” Chance tried for a smile and failed. I think we both knew how astronomical the odds were. We needed a miracle.

“And we have to... destroy that thing outside.” I shuddered, remembering its uncomprehending anguish.

Butch yapped in agreement. It probably bothered him even more than me.

In the end, we went after the poor little creature with a set of barbeque tongs and stuffed it into Chuch’s grill, where it twisted, squalled, and oozed foul, putrid blood. Chance doused it with lighter fluid, and whatever it used to be, the critter screamed until a column of black smoke boiled forth. Then it disintegrated into ash, inert once more. I hoped to God this bastard necro couldn’t animate ashes; this poor mammal had suffered enough.

With a moue of disgust, Chance closed the metal lid. “We owe Chuch a new grill.”

“That’s the least of what we owe him,” I said. “What are we supposed to do? If you have hidden resources, this would be a great time to fire up the Bat-Signal.”

Chance gave me a weighty look. “Let’s get back inside. I don’t like the air out here.”

No wonder, considering what we just set on fire. I held my tongue, though, and scooped Butch into my arms. The dog refused to let me out of his sight.

For what little good it would do, we locked the windows and doors, and then turned on all the lights in the front of the house, as if they could stave off the dark. Figuring the size of my ass counted as the least of my problems at the moment, I ate half a plate of butter cookies while Chance mulled over our problems.

Butch reminded me with a bark that I still needed to unload his stuff, so I headed out to the Mustang to get his lamb and rice chow, his squeaky toy, and his fuzzy wool bed. The dog watched me through the screen door, barely able to see out while standing on his hind legs.

He must be hungry for dinner. I didn’t know that much about dogs. How often should he eat? I should look it up on the Internet and maybe touch base with Booke too. He might have a helpful suggestion about the warlock we faced.

My arms loaded up, I spun and came up hard against a tall, male figure. He smelled oddly of ammonia, as if he scrubbed himself with Lysol each morning. Kel Ferguson had shorn his hair and acquired some bizarre ritual tattoos on his skull that coiled down the nape of his neck. If I didn’t fear what it meant, I’d say that was celestial script.

Oh, shit.

“You prevented my doing the Lord’s work,” he said in his strange, flat voice.

Bad to worse.

“How did you find me?” I fought down panic. If I tried to push past him, he would break my neck one-handed, but surely Butch would sound the alarm soon. I just needed to stay calm.

The maniac regarded me from eyes so pale they shimmered like crushed ice in the faint starlight. “God sent me.”

My voice wavered. “Oh, really?”

Anytime, Butch. I’m in trouble, boy. Big trouble. The dog disappeared from sight.

Movement in my peripheral vision drew my eye away from Ferguson. For a moment I thought Chance must be coming to my rescue, stealthily making his way around the garage, until I noticed the shadow had no one attached. Darkness sailed toward me, and it carried the unmistakable aura of the grave.

Ferguson hadn’t seen it and I hoped it would veer toward him, seeking the nearest source of warmth. I remembered the thing in the cemetery and knew I couldn’t let it get close enough to immobilize me. But it kept coming, slick as oil and darker than night, roiling over the cracked cement with a hiss that was as much felt as heard. Given the choice between waiting for a closer look at that shade and startling the holy killer, well, I threw my armload of dog supplies at Ferguson and bolted.

Just in time too. A frigid burst of air grazed me as I turned, and my whole arm went numb.

Any minute I expected one of them to grab me. If Ferguson did it, my bones would break. If the dark thing did, I imagined it would feel like death, icy cold and full of hunger that nothing could assuage. Shit, this was bad. As if we didn’t have enough enemies, this warlock had sprung my worst one. I couldn’t imagine how that was possible, but I didn’t have time to speculate. My heart thudded in time to each footfall, fear spiking through my veins in an unpleasant rush.

Nothing but dead grass, rocks, and open plain lay between me and the highway. Unfortunately, the road lay two miles off. I couldn’t run forever, but I didn’t see anywhere to hide. I just knew I had to get away. I thought I heard footfalls behind me, but I couldn’t tell if they were gaining on me. I wasn’t dumb enough to turn and look.

I ran blind. My foot caught on a rock, and I stumbled, tried to compensate, and still went down, skidding onto my knees. In scrambling back up I saw the shadow looming over me, Ferguson not ten paces behind. My vision blacked as the shade wrapped around me, drawing the heat from my skin and the air from my lungs.

For a moment I felt nothing and then my whole body burned, not with the fire that seared my palm but with a soul-swallowing emptiness. Terror flashed through me as I felt the numbness spread. Soon I would know nothing at all, and—

Oh, shit, I saw the light. What a rip-off. My life didn’t flash before my eyes or anything. I did want to see my mom again, though.

Except I didn’t see a tunnel either, and I hurt.

A sharp sting on my left cheek reinforced the notion that maybe I hadn’t died. I cracked an eye open. Ferguson stared down at me, pale as corpse flesh, his arm up-raised as if to give me another whack. Shit, I’d almost rather have died than find Kel Ferguson straddling me.

“Where did it go?” I croaked.

He lowered his arm slowly. Something trickled from his fingers. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Great. Crazy Bible talk. I ached all over. Not even the time I got salmonella from some bad chicken felt like this. When he reached into his pocket, I flung my hands over my head. He must have saved me—though I have no idea how—to finish me off himself. I had no hope of fighting him, no hope of running.

The thing in his hand squeaked when he squeezed it. I peered through my fingers and saw him offering me Butch’s play pizza. “You dropped this.”

After some hesitation, I took the toy. He eased off me then, sending a sick rush of relief to my already unsettled stomach. Ferguson extended a hand to help me up. I accepted it instinctively, and then thought about what I’d done.

As we walked—well, he walked; I limped—back toward the house, I squeezed the pizza in a nervous gesture. “How did you get here?” I wondered aloud.

Had he tracked me all the way to Mexico City and back?

“He gave me the means to transcend my earthly prison,” he said in a voice that sent shivers down my spine. “Then He guided my steps to your store. I do not understand why a good man like Alvarez chooses to work for you, but following you from there was easy.”

“So you’re the one who’s been hunting me?” A chill rolled over me. Maybe he intended me to lead him to Chance, who certainly shared the culpability for putting Ferguson in prison.

“I’m not hunting you. While I’d never choose to sully myself with you or your causes, I am the Lord’s hand and I work His will. I don’t pretend to understand His agenda. He sent me to help you vanquish a great evil, so tell me what you’d have me do.”

It took me a moment to process that. “You mean you’re not here to kill me?”

His icy eyes didn’t even flicker. “I am here to banish the forces of Hell back to the eternal fires from whence they sprung.”

“Um...” I exhaled slowly. The house came into view, all quiet inside. I picked up the bag of Hill’s Science Diet and the fuzzy dog bed. “Maybe you want to come in then?”

“I await your orders,” he said.

There’s nothing scarier than a fanatic.

“Chance,” I called unsteadily as we came into the living room. “We have company. He says God sent him to help us fight a great evil. He also just saved my ass.”

“Twice,” Ferguson said, “if you count the time in the cemetery.”

Squinting, I saw that he was wearing a black sweatshirt. Shit. I dropped into a chair, feeling like death warmed over.

Chance crossed the floor in four steps, cast a questioning glance at Ferguson, and knelt beside me. “What happened? Are you all right?”

I told him.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Chance shook his head. “Only you could go out for dog food and come back with a man.”

“Not just any man. Remember Kel Ferguson?” I braced myself for the reaction.

Maybe we could fight fire with fire, if we used him. A sane person would call the cops as soon as we could get to a phone. Maybe he was toying with us. I couldn’t begin to comprehend what went on behind those zealous eyes.

Chance straightened slowly, asking in an undertone, “Did you bump your head or are you just crazy for bringing him in the house?”

“You wonder why I’m so pale,” Kel said with a strange half smile. Chance’s expression said he had, in fact, been wondering that. “I’ve bathed in the Lord’s light. God’s Hand is not bound by your laws. I see farther. I do not blame you for trying to interfere with what you do not understand, but prison bars will not hold me, nor will they stop my doing His work.”

“You’re saying God wants you to kill?” Chance kept his hands in plain sight. He probably didn’t want to risk setting Ferguson off and having him snap my neck.

“Only those who will perpetrate great crimes against humanity.”

I raised a brow. “Even that little girl you stole?”

Over the years, I’d resisted the urge to check on her, figuring she wouldn’t want to be reminded of her narrow escape. But I thought of her from time to time and wondered.

“I didn’t take her,” Kel said quietly. “I killed the man who did. By which, I averted a worse future than you can imagine. If God’s Hand had walked on earth at the right time, there would have been no Holocaust.”

Chance and I exchanged a look. How do you argue with crazy? Well, you don’t, if you’re smart and you have two friends lying helpless and de-souled in the bedroom. I played along.

“Why didn’t you attempt to defend yourself at your trial?”

“There are laws against vigilantes,” he answered. “And I am a killer. With my DNA at that crime scene... and others, they would have incarcerated me, regardless. But such walls cannot hold me. It was an inconvenience, a delay, nothing more.”

Given that he stood in Chuch’s living room, I couldn’t argue that.

“He makes a good point,” I said to Chance.

The funny thing was, Butch didn’t growl once. He lay curled up on a couch cushion, fast asleep. That reassured me more than anything, which established my state of mind. At this point I trusted a Chihuahua’s judgment more than my own.

Chance eyed me as if he wondered whether I’d snapped. “Does he?”

“If you really mean to help, we need some guarantee that you won’t hurt us.” I didn’t think he could be offended by that simple truth.

Ferguson’s pale gaze roved the room and then appeared to fix on an ornate wood crucifix hanging down the hall. Wordlessly he took it down and dropped to one knee. “I swear by His grace that I will not harm you or yours while we are united in this fight.”

By his expression Chance didn’t think too much of Ferguson’s promises, but we both knew such things had weight. I decided to give Kel some rope.

“We’re planning an assault on a warlock’s lair tomorrow. He’s likely to have an army of shadows like the two you vanquished today, and maybe worse stuff for us to wade through before we get near him. To be honest, our chances don’t look good. We’re light on manpower, firepower, and every other kind of power. Is that really what you came for?”

He nodded, as if I hadn’t said a single surprising thing. “God sent me.”

After exchanging a look with me, Chance shook his head as if we were all crazy. That was when I knew we weren’t calling the cops, at least not until everything went down tomorrow. What happened after we stormed the compound on Halstead Creek Road was anyone’s guess.

“Well,” Chance said. “Welcome aboard. What can you do?”

“This,” the maniac said, and the living room lit up like a star gone nova.

Five minutes later, my eyes still stung from the flare. “That’ll take care of the shadows. We already know they don’t react well to light. But there might be other enemies we haven’t even seen yet.”

“I have something in mind,” Chance said. His smile alarmed me.

In response to his gesture, I followed Chance back out to the garage while keeping a careful eye over my shoulder as well. I didn’t like having Kel behind me. But he didn’t seem inclined to sit in the living room and watch TV.

Despite seeing his holy smite-light, I couldn’t get past the fact that he had killed. Maybe those people would have made a different choice down the road, assuming he was telling the truth. Maybe something would have happened to redeem them. I didn’t trust the uncompromising quality of his judgment. I didn’t want to believe anything was set in stone.

Because I didn’t have much to lose at this point, I asked, “How can you punish someone for something that hasn’t happened yet? How is that fair?”

Pausing, Chance shot me a look. “Maybe we could talk philosophy another time?”

I finished the cautionary lecture myself. Are you crazy? He lit up the living room like the Fourth of July. Don’t antagonize him.

A valid point. If I recollected Booke’s crash course in hermetic magick, wizards possessed power over the elements while warlocks worked with demons and death. So if he wasn’t a holy warrior, Kel might be an unhinged wizard who killed people who looked at him funny. We didn’t need any more enemies, and right now we appeared to be on the same side. I felt dirty for allowing that.

This whole situation was pretty messed up, no other way around it. I wondered if it ever occurred to Chance to walk away. Just leave Min to her fate. But I wasn’t sure that would get this crazy son of a bitch off our backs at this point. We’d come too far and poked around too much. People who wielded this kind of power, no matter its origin, didn’t take kindly to being thwarted.

Nothing in my life had prepared me for this. Even knowing there were bad things didn’t measure up. Holy shit, I was a lobster, neck deep in boiling water, and reflecting that the bacon bits in the trap really hadn’t been worth it.

The washer buzzed. What a funny, ordinary sound.

“Your laundry’s done,” Kel said mildly.

Smothering a nervous laugh, I crossed to the washer, popped the top, and loaded my wet stuff into the dryer. Chance crossed the shadowed garage and uncovered a stack of boxes. Inside we found an astonishing array of weapons. I could’ve started a small war with what Chuch had stored casually out here. Rummaging, I found a flamethrower, a crate of grenades, several AKs, and assorted ammunition. I might be able to make use of the grenades; I used to pitch a pretty mean game of softball.

“Just what the hell did Chuch do before he became a mechanic?” I asked.

“Arms dealer,” said Ferguson, as if he read from an invisible scroll of our secret sins. “Mostly to Nicaragua. He retired when he met Eva.”

I glanced at Chance for confirmation, and his expression revealed a shocked horror that told me our nutty new ally must’ve been right on the money. Shit. We might really have God’s Hand on our side. That scared me more than a simple maniac.

Heaven help us.

Oh, crap, it already had.