The Girl On Victoria Road: A Tim Reaper Novel Read online

  I knelt again and held my right hand a few inches away from her head. “Okay, little girl —”

  She screwed her tiny face into a knot and said, “My name is Charlotte, and you better not touch me, Mister.”

  “Why’s that, kid?” I inquired, surprised at the fact that an eight-year-old was putting me in my place. Did I mention I’m not a big fan of children? The little beasts don’t have a filter or an off switch.

  She stood up, and her arms hung limply at her side. “Because the last man to touch me disappeared.”

  Sparks blinked. “Disappeared? Sweetheart, did a man hurt you? Was it the man who attacked your mommy?”

  The tiny child avoided Sparks’ gaze. She fiddled with her nighty for a few seconds and said, “It wasn’t supposed to happen. Mommy had a special friend over tonight. He was nice. He was going to give Mommy a ring, and then she could get married and have a princess wedding, but then he touched my hand.”

  I stood up and took a big step backwards. I knew exactly what the child was going to say next.

  “And the stuff in your head,” I said warily. “All the crazy math that you carry inside your mind … it crashed into the man’s mind, didn’t it?”

  Her eyes filled with tears and she sniffled as she nodded. “I told him not to touch me, but he bought me a ring too. He wanted to put it on my finger to promise that he would be a good daddy to me. And when he touched my hand …”

  The little girl started to cry, and Sparks reached out to hug her. I quickly threw a claw-like hand onto Sparks’ right shoulder and yanked her back with all my might. She flew across the floor and landed in a heap next to the door.

  “Don’t touch her, Sparks,” I snapped. “Don’t touch this kid ever.”

  “Jesus, Reaper — I was trying to comfort the little girl,” Sparks groaned as she stood up.

  I kept both eyes on Charlotte and reached out with my right hand again. I shut my eyes and drew on the ancient power from within, sending a thin tendril of my essence forward so that it brushed the tiny child’s face.

  And my brain exploded with information. The past, the future, everything that has happened and might still happen blasted through my mind with the intensity of a thermonuclear device. Distance became symbols for time and time itself became fractions of seconds, microseconds, hours, years and decades all at once. Faces I had seen ever since the day I first crossed over into the human world flashed before my eyes as thousands of tiny vignettes. Amy’s face was there. Her beautiful innocent face. The touch of her hand and the warmth of her body against mine; it was there and gone in an instant. Seasons came and went and returned over and over again. My skin prickled with electricity as any sense of who I became a flattened mash underneath the weight of every possible outcome that could ever be. I could feel my essence beginning to heat up, and if I didn’t pull away, I’d burn again like I did back in Das Bunker when my search for a missing Amy Curtis destroyed the body of my previous host. I grated my teeth together and forced my hand away from the girl. I dropped to both knees drenched in sweat.

  I leaned forward; my hands on the floor and I gazed up at the tiny girl. She stood before me and simply blinked in silence as I struggled to catch my breath.

  “That’s what happens when you touch her, Sparks,” I panted. A dribble of perspiration ran down the bridge of my nose and splattered on the floor. Then came a series of drops of blood from my right nostril.

  The little girl regarded me with a look of quiet surprise. “You sure aren’t a normal grown-up, mister,” she said flatly. “You should have disappeared by now.”

  Sparks draped both arms around me and helped me back to my feet. She put my right hand on my nose and pushed my head back. “Pinch your nostrils and cock your head back, Reaper. The bleeding will stop.”

  “That’s assuming my brain hasn’t been transformed into pudding by what just happened,” I said, sounding like someone had poured cement down my nostrils.

  There was a knock at the door, and a uniformed officer poked his head inside the room. “Detective Sparks, the social worker from child protection services is here.”

  “Shit,” Sparks muttered. “I think we missed our window, Reaper.”

  “We didn’t miss it, it was never there,” I winced as a headache ploughed through my brain like a bulldozer. “The kid’s right. You can’t touch her.”

  Sparks glanced at the girl and then back to the young officer at the door. She chewed her lip for half a second and said, “Alright, send her in.”

  “Roger that,” he said as he opened the door to show the social worker in. “The girl is right inside─.”

  The poor bastard didn’t even get to finish his sentence because a flaming blade punctured his throat. He fell to the floor as a woman with a pair of burning coals for eyes kicked his now dead body with enough force that it flew across the small bedroom, crashing into a wall and leaving a man-shaped dent. The tiny child screamed as I dove on top of her, my Beretta aimed at the woman now standing in the doorway holding a dagger with a blade comprised entirely of blue flames.

  “The person in the doorway is bad news kid,” I bellowed. “Stay still and for crying out loud, don’t touch me!”

  Sparks threw a small bedside table at the woman as she pulled out her Glock and took aim.

  “Put the knife down now!” Sparks roared. “Get your hands behind your head and get on the floor face-down. I won’t ask again.”

  I cocked my Beretta. “Probably you should listen to her. The detective is the She-Hulk with a handgun when she gets a knot in her face.”

  She stood before us, a middle-aged woman with grey-white hair pinned back into a loose bun. She was dressed in a navy-blue pantsuit and flat-soled shoes. Her face was a mask of stone; devoid of any emotion. Her eyes were a pair of burning coals; unblinking in their gaze at the little girl who was struggling beneath the weight of my body.

  She was on Sparks within a second, and that’s when the shooting started. Sparks fired three quick rounds that hit the social worker in the chest and having precisely zero effect and if the pair of burning coals for eyes wasn’t enough to prove that she wasn’t human, the fact that she took three in the chest and didn’t drop like a lead weight did. The woman flew across the room with blinding speed. I fired two rounds into her legs hoping to smash some bone and slow her attack on Sparks, but it was as if the rounds were a mere annoyance. She stopped in her tracks and looked down at her legs, then back at me.

  “Get off me, mister!” Charlotte shrieked.

  “Keep it down, kid and for crying out loud, no skin-on-skin contact!” I barked. “We’re trying to save your damned bacon here!”

  The child lay still as I fired another pair of shots at the social worker’s head; hitting her just above the right ear. A fine spray of bone and brain matter splashed against the bedroom door, and she spun around just as another pair of officers scrambled into the doorway and opened fire. What happened next is the stuff of nightmares.

  She spun around like a top; her claws slashing and gashing at the two uniformed officers. She dove into the pair; tearing out one officer’s throat and splashing her face and the door frame with arterial spray. She landed on the other officer like a tiger pouncing on its prey, and instantly her arms became a blur. The officer screamed in an inhuman voice as chunks of meat and offal flew out of her hands with every strike at his midsection. She was tearing the poor man apart, chunk by bloody chunk.

  Sparks raced up behind her and fired two rounds into the back of her head; bone and black ichor sprayed onto the doorframe and the carpet, but it had no effect on the social worker thing.

  “Get on the bed, kid!” I bellowed as I quickly got back to my feet and raised my power. “Sparks, get the hell away from her … you know what’s coming.”

  The detective didn’t even blink. She dove onto the bed with the little girl as I clasped both hands on the mash that once had been the social worker’s head and drove a fragment of my essence into the creature. It th
rashed and swiped at my chest, ripping my shirt and raking my skin with talon-like claws. There was no living energy anywhere that I could draw upon to take down the creature, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t tap into the monster itself.

  Red hot daggers of energy lashed at my hands and forearms as I pierced the social worker thing’s flesh with my fingers. I ground my teeth together as I pushed my will further into the creature, digging into its mind with the subtlety of a steam shovel. I threw my essence into her brain to see a twisting and churning labyrinth of images that appeared as flashing vignettes showing a widowed woman standing at her dead husband’s grave. She cursed the disease that took him. She cursed the doctors, the chemotherapy, the nurses and all those who said they could save him. His cancer had been found early enough. It shouldn’t have been a problem to bombard him with chemicals and radiation. Only he didn’t get better. It metastasized despite all their efforts, and her husband died six months after his diagnosis. Her bitterness poisoned her mind, and she called out to the darkness, to someone, anyone who could take the pain of loss from her heart.

  And so, it was that a demon promised her the relief she sought in an equitable exchange. Her husband was dead and her life was over anyway, why not let the darkness in?

  “Your name, hellspawn!” I snarled. “Tell me your name and I won’t destroy you like you’ve destroyed this woman!”

  A face appeared in the darkness. A man with horn-rimmed glasses and a grey fedora. It stared at me with a rictus grin on its face for a few seconds before revealing its true form; a red-scaled thing with the eyes of a goat and the face of a pig. It snorted a few times but I knew who I was dealing with so I let go of the woman’s head and stepped back.

  “Death-dealer,” Abraxas said with a grudging nod on a face that had been shot to pieces. I knew it was him because he’s the only demon I know who sounds like a bored accountant. “I see you and your detective friend have collected the little piglet. No matter. It won’t be long for her, and it won’t be long for either of you.”

  I clipped him in the face, a knee-jerk reaction when I’m dealing with assholes. I’d been shot in the chest by Abraxas a few months back. Then he whacked a priest who’d been assigned to help me solve the case involving Jael and her delusions of heavenly grandeur. Sparks and I cornered him at an old stone quarry near Three-Fathom Harbor and sent him back to hell with a few holes in his head. Why he’d chosen to possess the social worker to get the little girl was a mystery. He’d already killed three police officers at a crime scene involving a grisly murder of a single mother. Yep, Sparks was going to have a hell of a time explaining this one away.

  “Abraxas,” I rumbled while glancing at Sparks who looked ready to empty another magazine into the demon. “Dude, you are so in the shit now.”

  Sparks flew off the bed with a feral glint in her eyes. She grabbed the lamp on the nightstand and proceeded to bash Abraxas on the head repeatedly. “You just killed three innocent men who were doing their jobs!”

  If having a metal lamp smashed against your head repeatedly by an angry homicide detective doesn’t kill you, I honestly don’t know what will. At least Sparks had accepted that supernatural bad guys are all over the place and the best way to deal with them is to lay on the big hurt. I admire that. I grabbed Sparks by the hand just as she was about to deliver another blow to the demon’s head and motioned for her to calm down.

  “Sparks — it’s just like back at the quarry when you first encountered this sulphur-scented sack of shit! You can’t kill a demon; you can only send him back to hell!”

  She exhaled shakily and dropped the lamp. “I didn’t sign on for this crap, Reaper. Give me a regular bad guy any day of the week.”

  I turned my attention back to Abraxas and clipped him in the face with the pistol grip of my Beretta. “Alright, shit bird — talk.”

  The social worker-demon thing emitted a cold chuckle as it gazed at the two dead officers in the doorway. It rolled its eyes toward the bed and licked its lips as it stared at the terrified little girl who once again started rocking her body back and forth. “It’s too early to tell you just how bad things are going to get, death-dealer,” the demon hissed. “You don’t seem to understand what is happening here, right now, in this place.”

  “You killed innocent people, and you tried to kill a little girl,” I snarled as I placed my hand back on the bloody pulp that made up the rest of its face. I raised my power and Abraxas started to wriggle like a worm on a hook. “Why are you trying to kill that kid, hell-spawn? You’ll tell me right now, or I’ll flambé your ass. It’s a neat little trick I learned when I killed an angel named Sariel. I’m sure you’ve heard about it by now.”

  Abraxas thrust both hands onto my wrist and pulled with all his might, but I wasn’t going to budge. Not a chance.

  “I cannot speak of it death-dealer!” he cried out.

  I grabbed a handful of Abraxas’ coat and leaned in so that my face was less than an inch away from his. “Why the hell not?”

  The demon exhaled a mouthful of foul breath right into my face. I clipped him again with the pistol grip of my Beretta.

  “Strike me all you like; I will say nothing because I am bound. One peep out of me and I’ll be destroyed,” he crowed defiantly. “Do what you will to me death-dealer, send me back to the dark place. You’ll get nothing from me. But know this … more are coming. You’d better start running.”

  “Right then,” I growled. “Back you go!”

  “Reaper, no!” Sparks bellowed.

  I snapped the social worker thing’s neck as easily snapping a brittle twig. She fell onto the floor in a heap; her dead eyes staring at the doorway. In the distance, I could hear police sirens.

  I quickly glanced at the girl and then back to Sparks. “My car is a piece of shit Ford Tempo, throw me your keys, Sparks. I need to get this kid out of here ASAP!”

  The detective fumbled through her coat pockets for her car keys and tossed them to me. “I have no fucking clue how I’m going to explain what happened here. Three dead cops. A social worker with her head blown off and a broken neck.”

  “You tell them the truth, Sparks. The social worker shot those officers. I’d leave out the demonic stuff, though.”

  Charlotte crawled off the bed and stood beside me. “There is a backpack underneath my bed. I saw the social worker’s attack in my maths and that is why I reached out to you when I wrote on the wall. We must go now.”

  I blinked hard at the girl. “I’m sorry … you sound like you just aged thirty years in the last few seconds. Where’s the little girl gone?”

  What happened next caught me by surprise.

  She lifted her right foot and kicked me hard in the groin. So hard, that I felt my balls moving in opposite directions. “Right here, mister … We need to go now!”

  I doubled over as tears welled up in my eyes and a tidal wave of nausea splashed in my stomach. “Find her bag, Sparks! If I don’t get her out of here, she’ll kick me in the nuts again. Christ … she’s a kid, Sparks! What kind of kid goes around kicking men in the nut sack?”

  Sparks raced out of the room as I threw the girl over my left shoulder like a sack of flour. We met at the front door, and I grabbed the small backpack, again, in the style of My Little Pony.

  “My car is the red Crown Victoria,” Sparks said as she tossed me her keys. Go … I’ll be in touch.”

  I put a hand on Sparks shoulder and squeezed. “Sorry about this, Carol. We’re dealing with—”

  She swept my hand away and exhaled in frustration. “Heaven and hell. The realms of the infinite. I get it. Go, Reaper.”

  I nodded and headed out the door, stepping over the body of Constable Carter. A few feet away was his spirit standing alongside a reaper who, surprisingly, had decided against barking its hatred of me in the language of my kind.

  “Sorry, Carter,” I apologized as I spotted Sparks cruiser. “I gave you a head’s up, but I didn’t see the social worker coming.”

/>   “It was his time, Richter,” said the little girl using her school guidance counsellor voice. “He is going to a good place.”

  I snorted as I opened the passenger door and deposited the tiny child in the front seat. I snapped on her seatbelt and then quickly ran to the driver’s side and sat down next to her.

  “My personal experience with the good place, kid, is that it’s populated by beings who are just as rotten as the ones from the bad place,” I said starting the engine. “We’re going into hiding until we can figure out just what the hell you are and why Abraxas wanted you dead.”

  “Is it safe?” the little girl asked, once again reverting to her eight-year-old voice.

  I grimaced and said, “I hope so, little girl. I bloody well hope so.”

  3

  As we tore down Victoria Road, it occurred to me the last time I shared space with a child was a century ago, just before I was thrown out of my order. I was to collect the soul of a little boy infected with the same flu that I caused by allowing patient zero to linger on past his best before date. I could have prevented a global pandemic by simply doing my job as a reaper, but I chose not to. That little boy was the start of my punishment.

  I’ve adapted to life among mortals since then.

  I don’t really dislike children. As a matter of fact, I’m fairly neutral on the subject of miniature human beings because I’ve had so little interaction with them over the years. I have, however, seen all the Spielberg movies from the 1980’s and I’ve always been impressed with children’s resilience in the face of peril and conflict. In the film E.T., Elliot is the only one who sees the threat against his extra-terrestrial friend, but he quickly enlists the help of other children to plot a daring escape from government types dressed in suits who want to dissect the alien visitor.