Holy Socks and Dirtier Demons (v1.1) (clean fmt) Read online

  Champagne Books Presents

  Holy Socks And Dirtier Demons

  j. a. kazimer

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Champagne Books

  www.champagnebooks.com

  Copyright 2011 by j. a kazimer

  ISBN 9781926996967

  April 2012

  Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey

  Produced in Canada

  Champagne Books

  #35069-4604 37 ST SW

  Calgary, AB T3E 7C7

  Canada

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  Dedication

  For my own little demons.

  One

  Present day, New York City

  “Nemamiah,” crackled a voice from the dark.

  I opened one eye, and tried to focus on the sound. “That’s not my name. My name’s Jace, dammit.” Rolling over, I glared at the bedside alarm clock. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Nemamiah, it is time.”

  I picked up the timepiece and chucked it into the shadows. It struck the wall with satisfying force. “Leave me alone.”

  “The babe has been taken.”

  “What?” I shot from the bed, cracking my knee against the milk-crate nightstand. “Fuck.” I stumbled around, flexing my bruised bone. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  I hated the voice and its disdainful superiority that reminded me of my first wife. The day she strolled out of my door was the best day of my life. I took a calming breath. “Who took him?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  Stupid games. That’s all it was to them, amusement and parlor tricks, but it was my sanity on the line. Without the kid the voice would return, stalking me, until I lost what was left of my mind. “Fine. How long ago?” I snapped on the bedroom light and pulled on a pair of faded Levi’s and a grimy sweatshirt.

  The voice was silent.

  I groped in my dresser drawer for my nine-millimeter. Locating it buried beneath holey socks and boxer shorts, I checked the clip. Six rounds left. I slid the bolt back and sugar poured from the barrel. Fuck.

  “I could give you a hint…” the voice whispered.

  “And I could shoot you in the head…” I echoed.

  The voice went soft and angry. “Are you threatening me? A mere mor—”

  His words were lost to the sound of a bullet wrapped in cotton candy fluff ripping through the nine-millimeter’s silenced chamber. The recoil shot pain up my arm, but the bullet stayed muffled and true. The gooey splatter of ectoplasm and feathers flew about the room, splattering over my combat boots.

  “You were saying?” I chambered another round. A six-inch hole oozed greenish liquid from the center of what I assumed was his chest. Did angels have chests?

  The voice turned weary. “Like a child you are. Immature and selfish. Why you are in His favor I will never understand.” Before my eyes, the large chunk of feather, flesh, and bone the bullet took healed. Damn nifty trick.

  “His favor?” If living like this is a favor, I didn’t want to be on His naughty list. And I thought Santa Claus was tough. “Just tell me how long ago the kid was taken.”

  “He was kidnapped while you were otherwise engaged,” the angel said, a sneer in his tone. “Which did not take an abundance of time.”

  I shook my head, glancing at the unconscious woman buried under the dirty sheet of my bed. The angel’s insult didn’t bother me too much. My sanity and the fate of the world rested on figuring out who’d snatched little J.C., not my drunken prowess in the sack.

  “Do you know what will happen if harm comes to the babe?” The angel appeared and then floated across the room. Okay, it was more of a glide like a drag queen on roller blades, graceful and frightening at the same time.

  “Yeah, yeah. Pestilence, famine, war, and a plague or two of locust.”

  I paused, fighting the sense of failure growing inside of me. “I read the fine print.”

  The angel laughed in a grating tone. “All life as you know it will cease to exist.” He twirled to face me. “Is that something you can live with?”

  “I don’t have time for this. Tell me who took the kid, or shut the fuck up. I can’t think with your doom and gloom predictions hanging over my head.”

  The angel appeared offended, and I smiled. Good, it was about damn time. After being shackled with an obnoxious angel and a mischievous infant for the last eight months, a little payback felt good.

  A part of me wondered if the kidnapping wasn’t a test. A way to make me prove myself again, like the last time when I was beat down by a three-headed incubus and thrown off the Empire State building.

  I’d shattered every bone in my body with the exception of my right pinky. But by the grace of God, literally, I healed much like the angel before me, who now stared at his reflection in the mirror.

  For some reason, this angel had a nasty narcissism when it came to beauty. And he was beautiful, unearthly so, with long flowing blond hair and a serene, benevolent expression. Outwardly, he was perfect in every way, and he knew it. He couldn’t pass a freaking mirror without preening in front of it.

  I caught a reflection of myself behind him, and barely recognized the face that stared back. Gaunt and pale with dull, bloodshot green eyes, I looked tired and older than thirty-three. My black hair curled around my neck in greasy ringlets. I’d slipped over the edge of urbane and hip, and into dirty and degenerate. Not that I gave a shit, looks were for kids and moronic angels.

  “Hey.” I tapped him in the back of the head. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Not.” He stroked his white-blond locks.

  I rolled my eyes and headed for the door. Pausing at the threshold, I pointed to his full head of hair. “Is that a bald spot?”

  “What?” he screeched like a child. “Where?”

  I laughed, and closed the door on his wailing cries. Now, I just needed to find one small Baby Jesus in the midst of eight million people.

  Piece of Devil’s-food cake.

  Two

  After leaving the self-involved angel, I headed across the hallway to my neighbor’s apartment. I knocked on the door, listening to the wood rattle against the frame. I had to find the kid, and quick. If anyone would help me, it would be...

  Mary.

  She opened the door wearing a paint splattered towel and nothing else. Stunning beyond words. Mary was the kind of woman poets immortalized and painters sliced off body parts to possess.

  “Jace?” She glanced back into her apartment. “What’s wrong?”

  I blinked, overcoming my sudden drop in blood pressure. Lust, the first deadly sin, was like a chimpanzee on my back. “He’s gone,” I said, once my brain started functioning again.

  Her hand went to her
mouth and the towel slid an inch lower, revealing a rose-colored nipple. “What happened?” She pulled the towel back in place and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  “Don’t tell her.” The angel, in his invisible form, stood next to me, his funky breath making my stomach lurch. For Christmas, I’d bought him a bottle of Listerine, but the gesture went over his haloed-head.

  “Shut up.” I motioned him away.

  Mary frowned, a wrinkle forming between her pale eyebrows. “Did you say something?”

  “I… ah…” Damn. The angel played possum, disappearing at will to make me look like an ass and laughing inside my head about it.

  “Are you all right?” Mary touched the back of her hand to my forehead. “I’m worried about you.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m fine. Just concerned for the kid.”

  “So what happened? Did Social Services take him?”

  I shook my head, her words reminding me of my upcoming competency hearing. The State of New York felt I was unfit to raise a child after some do-gooding neighbor complained about the ripe stench of dirty diapers and spoiled milk seeping from my apartment. Not that I disagreed with the State’s assessment, but I had little choice. When He assigned a task, you didn’t argue. Well, you could, but it usually ended with a fiery pit and roasting for an eternity.

  “I don’t think it was OCFS.” I paused. Nope. They wouldn’t sneak in the middle of the night. “I’m going out to look for him.”

  “Oh, okay.” She clutched her elbow, rubbing as if it offered her comfort. “What can I do to help?”

  She was a saint, in the lower case sense, of course. Always there when I needed her, like six months ago when she babysat the kid while I spent seventy-two hours locked up in Bellevue.

  She never questioned my mental health, or my odd hours. She never asked about the kid’s parentage, or the fact that I often talked to invisible angels. I loved her for that, and for the occasional pity fuck she threw me when I was low on cash.

  I examined Mary’s indigo eyes and wondered why she helped me at all. I didn’t have a job, drank too much, and had lost God’s only kid. Hell, even I had grave concerns about me. I took a deep breath. “Can I borrow your bike?” A scooter really, but saying the word scooter aloud sliced at my manhood.

  She nodded, and reached inside for a single brass key. It shone like the Star of David in a Christmas pageant against her tanned skin. “The clutch sticks and the plates expired last Tuesday, so don’t get pulled over.”

  “Thanks.” I pocketed the key and kissed her cheek. She smelled like sunshine and roses. I wished things were different. That we’d met at another time, in another life.

  “Nemamiah, is it your time of the month?” the angel’s voice reverberated inside my head. “Quit pining and find the child.”

  I ignored him and smiled at Mary. “I’ll fill it up.”

  She grabbed my arm as I started to turn away. “Be careful and wear a helmet.”

  “Don’t worry I’m untouchable.” I flashed her a quick grin.

  ~ * ~

  Whisking along the avenues on a pale pink scooter with an angel in a white flowing gown riding bitch might have seemed gay, but my black aviator sunglasses and the rakish tilt of my skullcap boasted my masculinity.

  “I swallowed a bug.” The angel picked at his teeth with a long fingernail.

  “Poor baby,” I yelled over the angry buzz of the tiny engine. I revved it, forcing the scooter into third gear as we rounded the corner of 10th. The engine whined in response much like the angel.

  “You do not understand. Every living creature has its own lifecycle. A time to live and die. I cannot affect that timeline.” He spit a pea-sized gob of partially digested bug from his mouth. It flew forward, regenerating into a living creature. Two seconds later, it smashed against the grayish lens of my sunglasses.

  “If you can’t cross that line—” I wiped at the gooey-guts. “—what do you call that?”

  He shrugged. “His time to go.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, but before I could comment further, we’d arrived at our destination. I pulled the bike to the curb and ignored the laughter and catcalls from the transients and transvestites trolling the street.

  Like they’d never seen two men riding a pink scooter before.

  I jumped off the bike and ran into the storefront, hoping the angel would take the hint and stay outside. He didn’t, instead he followed me through the door of the Underworld Bar and Lounge.

  Men and women seated around the bar burped hellos. The room was crowded, packed with unemployed Gods and Goddesses waiting for a call back or natural disaster. For some reason, mythological figures picked one of two career paths—actors or insurance salesmen. Either way, they spent a lot of time sitting around waiting.

  I first stumbled into The Underworld a year ago, right before the kid showed up on my doorstep. Call it fate, or fucked up misfortune. Either way, I’d spent many a night drinking away the smell of diapers and putrid angel breath.

  Hades, the owner and sometimes bartender of the Underworld, set a Heineken on the bar top. “Jace, nice to see you. Are you here to pay your tab?”

  “Nope, but soon. Don’t set the leg breakers on me yet.” I took the beer from his outstretched hand, ignoring the stench of rotten flesh. No amount of Irish Spring covered the fact that Hades was the Lord of the Underworld. It was written on his face. Literally. He had a small tattoo under his right eye with that exact phrase, not to mention snake-lined dreadlocks, and a reaper robe and sickle.

  “How’s business?” I took a fortifying sip and glanced around the room, noting the new red-laced curtains hanging across the ruby colored windows. Everything inside the Underworld was red, from the thick carpet to the plastic shot glasses. Hell had nothing on Hades.

  The angel harrumphed to get Hades’s attention, but Hades ignored him, and instead said to me, “Business is good. You know how it is. People are dying to get in.” He waggled his tweezed eyebrows.

  I gave a polite laugh as the jukebox kicked in. Fuck. The chorus of Come Sail Away burst from the speakers. The regulars stopped drinking and joined in.

  And there it was, the other reason I hadn’t spent much time at the Underworld lately. The fucking jukebox played one, and only one band.

  God, I hated Styx.

  “Turn that fucking song off,” Persephone, Hades’s wife of the past two millennia, screamed from the back office.

  Hades laughed and flipped the volume higher. Singing at the top of his withering lungs, Hades danced around the oak bar. I put my hands over my ears, and begged God to kill me now. Anything was better than this.

  “‘A gathering of angels appeared above my he—’” The jukebox screeched to a halt cutting off the next verse. Boos echoed around the room causing Hades to flush a dull red.

  The angel rose from his seat and in high falsetto finished the song.

  Cheers met his final note. I picked up a moldy peanut from the bar and chucked it at his glowing head. It hit him mid-nose and bounced off with a ping. He ignored me, took a bow, and sat back down on his barstool.

  “What can I get you?” For the first time, Hades addressed the angel directly. The angel beamed, basking in his momentary acceptance. Being an angel must be hard, I thought, especially when you are so fucking bad at it.

  “Do you have any Zima?” The angel brushed a feathery hand across the sticky bar top.

  The respect in Hades’s eyes faded. “No, but I can piss in a glass if you want.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said to Hades. “We aren’t staying long. I have a favor to ask and then we’re out of here.”

  He nodded, motioning for me to continue with a polished fingertip.

  “When your wife left, you used a PI to track her down. I want to hire him.”

  A few years back, Persephone had shacked up with a younger and much shorter man. Well, not a man exactly. A cherub. Cupid to be precise.

  Hades hired
a detective, and within a few days, Ms. Lord of the Underworld was safely back at home. Since then, Hades had kept her locked in the back office. But what relationship didn’t have problems?

  I figured that if the PI could track Persephone to a doublewide trailer on Mt. Olympus, he’d be able to find the kid. Oh God, I hoped he could.

  With each passing minute, I was one-step closer to the grand finale and the end of the world. A whisper of voices, dark, crazed voices, flickered in my brain.

  No pressure.

  Hades scratched his head, snakeheads rattled with anger. “Let me make a few calls.”

  Three

  I sipped my beer and tried to eavesdrop on Hades’s telephone conversation. It wasn’t working. Next to me, Zeus and Hera, the ultimate odd couple, argued at top volume. Their shouts drowned out whatever Hades was saying.

  “I can’t leave you for a minute,” Hera said. “I turn my back and you’re off flirting with some bit of Goddess fluff.”

  Sparks crackled around Zeus. “She means nothing to me.”

  Stupid thing to say, I thought. A shattering of glass and flying beer bottle proved my words true. I’d said the same thing to one of my exes once, and she hit me with a chair.

  Ah, true love.

  Hades tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you own a suit?”

  “No.” I looked down at my moth-eaten Levis. Did I look like the type of guy who owned a suit?

  He shook his head and went back to his phone call. “No... yes... not bad...” His face grew grim as he listened for a few more seconds. “Yeah, okay.” Hades cupped the receiver and motioned to me. “What do you know about accounting?”

  What was going on? I shrugged. “Not much. Two plus two equals four, but after that my knowledge goes downhill.”

  He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the phone. “The Core? Are you insane?” He lowered his voice, and I lost the rest of his words when the angel started singing again.