Daddy’s Little Boy, Part 6
Hide in the alleyway on the backside of a glass building downtown; a precaution, Nerissa said. Fine by me. I was looking for an excuse to ignore my Algebra homework by flipping channels. Mom went out on a date with Mr. McGee, court stenographer. Yeah, he looked as exciting as his name sounded. He made her smile, so I kept my big mouth shut.
It was a standard scenario: monster du jour in the basement of some high-rise, being conjured up by a bunch of occult super wizard wannabes. Nerissa and Evie applied their feminine wiles to break up the little teeny-bopper, occultfest and stopped said nasty from busting up our city and/or our plane of existence. It was the first time right downtown though. Most evil overlords pop-up in the suburbs, don’t ask me why. Someone should do a study on that.
I heard her heels running down the sidewalk. Boss lady was the only one of us who bothered with designer shoes. Sure, they made her ass look great, but I couldn’t figure how something so small could cost so much.
“I guess you took care of everything. You didn’t even need to call -” I caught my boss as she slammed into my shoulder. She was heavy. Nerissa yakked blood as I struggled to hold her up. She didn’t make another sound. She went dead weight and we both slid down to the sidewalk.
* * *
“Mom? What do you do if someone doesn’t like you?” I sat on the kitchen counter while she cooked breakfast for dinner. Her spatula dropped into the skillet of scrambled eggs while she looked at me with an expression that asked if I was a little too old to be asking the question. I pointed at the bacon to remind her not to let it cook too long. She pursed her lips and tended to the limp pork.
“Who doesn’t like you, kiddo?”
“It’s not like that.” I held the paper towel-covered plate for the bacon. Mom dropped it in. She looked good – happy, even, in her ratty, Van Halen tee shirt and Goodwill sweats. I wondered what was up for a second. “There’s this girl who has an opinion of me that’s wrong and I want to change it. How do you do that?”
“Well, Uncle Steve does it all the time.” She picked up the skillet and flicked cooked eggs on to plates next to cooling hash browns.
“Mom. He’s not my Uncle. He’s your boss.”
“Well, in court, he tends to use certain tactics. He appeals to the jury or judge based on his client’s character, motivation, and humanity. When he’s trying show a client’s worth, he tends to play up the best in one of those three areas.” She clipped the sizzling, stiff bacon with wooden tongs. Once the grease dripped, she put it on the plate. My stomach rumbled. It smelled good.
“So, if I want this girl to change her mind, I have to tell her – ”
“Well, yeah.”
” – about my character, motivation, and humanity?”
“Yes.”
I picked up one of my pieces of bacon. The fat and grease should have burned my fingers. “No offense, Mom, but that’s a load of shit.”
* * *
I managed to race out the door at the end of second period to the chemistry lab. She walked out by herself with her clean, blonde hair waving around her shoulders. The girl walked with a perpetual skip, like she was fooling anyone.
“Hey, Nikki.”
Her smile turned vicious like a cat in heat. “Why, hello, Nathaniel.”
“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you – you know.” I looked around. It felt weird walking down the school hall talking about, well, you know.
“Sure you want to talk about this now?” Nikki chirped. She flashed her pearly whites. Man, she could really turn my stomach.
“Okay, look, what do you know about me?” With a skip of my own, I turned around to walk backwards so I could face her. I wanted to look her in the eye. “Seriously, I’m cool. I’m a good kid. Ask anyone.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“Yeah.” Her baby blues dropped. She wouldn’t look at me. “When you turn twenty-one, it isn’t going to matter a bit what you’ve done. You could be Jesus Christ, walking on the water, curing the blind, and it wouldn’t matter.”
“How do you know?” I stepped in front of her and stopped. She skidded to a stop against me. Her soft sweater brushed against my Wal-Mart tee shirt. I stared down my nose. She turned her eyes up.
“I know everything about you, Nathaniel. How do you think I found you?”
* * *
He floated down the fire escape like he weighed nothing. Mellathion landed as quiet as a cat. He pulled Nerissa off me with one hand. His bow was in the other. “Nerissa? Nerissa, what happened?”
“Where’s Evie?” I looked down the street. Nothing. It was weird to see a city block without pedestrians or cars.
“Nerissa?” Mel dropped his bow to try to rouse the boss lady. Her sunglasses fell from her face and clattered on the cement. I couldn’t stop staring at the blood on her mouth and chin. I had never seen so much blood. She lolled like a marionette with her strings cut.
“Where’s Evie?”
“Stay here.” Like she weighed nothing, Mel placed Nerissa in my arms. I had never been so scared. Not crying scared, but that kind of scared that comes when something major’s going down. It reminded me of when I was younger: I watched my buddy fight on the playground. The air was thick with something – like I knew something big was going to happen. I could taste it in the air, like now.
He ran down the street in the same direction that Nerissa had come. He was fast and silent. I couldn’t stay to watch. With boss lady’s arm wrapped around my shoulder, I hobbled in the other direction. I dug my phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed nine-one-one.
* * *
“How do you know I’ll change?” My lunch tray bumped into hers as I sat down. The cafeteria bustled with beat-your-meatloaf day. It was the best thing the place ever served. I dropped my backpack on the floor under the crappy, folding table.
Nikki snorted as she munched on a crinkle-cut carrot stick. With a little OCD, she moved her tray back to its original position. “What?”
“What if all my good deeds buy me more time? Or stops what’s going to happen?” I picked up my fork and stabbed a dab of instant mash potatoes from the worn-out, plastic tray. I jabbed it in her direction. “You don’t know.”
“Neither do you.” With her disgustingly dainty fingers, she wiped the corners of her mouth with her paper napkin. Nikki smiled. I bet she never had anything stuck in her perfect teeth.
“But I don’t want this to happen anymore than you do.” I gobbled the mushy spuds. “I am trying to make sure it doesn’t happen. I swear.”
“Careful, Nathaniel.” As she stood, Nikki straightened her skirt. She picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder. She looked disapprovingly as she picked up her tray. “Daddy might be listening.”
* * *
“And you swear you don’t know her?” Mr. Square-jaw cop held his pen to his pad. Over his shoulder, I watched as the paramedics loaded Nerissa into the ambulance. Bags with fluids lay on her chest. She looked paler than usual, but somehow better. I scratched the itch on the back of my head.
“No, man,” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “She just came up to me on the street. Coughed up a lot of blood. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I walked with her until she passed out. I called you guys.”
With his pen wiggling, the cop took careful notes. He flipped his pad closed after grabbing my name and cell. “Head home, kid. We’ll call you if we need you.”
“Yes, sir.” He didn’t have to tell me twice. I watched the ambulance pull away with its sirens blaring over my shoulder as I hustled down the street. After I headed back towards where I was when all this fun started, I dashed down the alley. Behind a rusty, green garbage bin on wheels, Mel sat with his back against the wall. He was holding his guts in with his hands.
“Come on,” I reached down to pull him up, but he shook his head.
“No, no, you have to find Evie.” He panted. The tips of his loose hair were black with dried blood. His mouth was stretched tight. “She could be stuck or hurt.”
“What was it?” I took his blood soaked hand. Mel used me to pull himself to his feet. It had to hurt, but he didn’t yell or nothing.
“Don’t’ know. Didn’t see it.” He panted. With a shuffle of his feet, he turned away. “Too fast.”
“Mel?”
“I’ll be all right, once I reach my forest.”
* * *
My ass was cold as I leaned against the hood of her car. I’d told Maggie I had a ride. She’d given me a look. I would be questioned later like an ex-con on the stand, but I had to do it. With my arms folded to balance the pack on my back, I waited and watched the school door.
Nikki walked out talking to Mr. Johnston. The drama teacher was gay as every stereo-type imaginable, but that didn’t slow little miss sunshine from flirting her little heart out – or at least, it looked that way. They were all chummy. He laughed and pushed his glasses back up his face with one finger. He actually wore a tweed coat with suede patches on the elbows. What a dork.
“Hey,” she said as she put her key in the driver’s side door. After she opened the door, she leaned in and dumped her books on the passenger seat.
“Hey, listen,” I didn’t even wait for her to come back out of the car. “I have a Mom. I’m the only person in her life. She needs me.”
“Well, maybe, if she – ”
“Don’t.” I wagged an angry finger in her face. I bit my tongue. “She didn’t know – she had no way to know. She’s a different person now. She’s been a good mother. She doesn’t deserve this.”
For the first time, I saw Nikki soften. Her face dropped its perfect smile. She folded her arms and sat down on the driver’s seat with her too-white sneakers flat on the pavement. She sighed. “Nathaniel, it’s not my fault. I don’t want to be this any more than you want to be that. But we don’t have a choice.”
“We always have a choice.” Before I could say something that could get me in trouble, I turned and walked away.
* * *
“Hello, Eligos.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t tell if it was the whiskers on his cat face or the forked tongue that hissed between his fangs, but it sounded like he sneezed. I could have been in shock. I was staring at a refugee from the Island of Doctor Moreau. He had leopard spots on his fur from his face, over his shoulders and down his arms. His eyes burned fire – literally. Flames out of the eye sockets. He wore black sweat pants and black fingerless gloves. Apparently, it was 80s Night in Hell.
“No, you are not Eligos. Not yet. What does he call you, boy?” His golden fur rippled in the torch light. It was dark in the basement of this rundown high-rise. Water coated the walls and pooled on the bare cement floor. I tried to concentrate on feline face instead of the five, black-robed humans dead at his feet. Blood covered the floor. I could tell by the smell.
“Childe.” Not a half bad imitation of Dad, if I do say so myself. But the longer the silence stretched, I realized Mr. Kitty Head wasn’t going to do anything else until I answered him for real. “Nathaniel.”
“Pleased to meet you, Nathaniel.” He cracked his paw knuckles against the palm of his paw. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling with the whole cat face thing. He sounded like he was smiling. “I don’t suppose your father told you the way of things.”
“You mean, other than the fact that he’s going to walk the Earth on my twenty-first birthday. No.”
Snake-tongue kitty laugh was creepy. My skin crawled. He stepped silently out of the body heap. I walked opposite to keep the same amount of distance between us.
“Ah. So you know nothing of Hell.”
“Other than it sucks? No. Where’s Evie?”
Flames rose up out of his eyes when he laughed. He turned one way, then another, and pointed around the cylinder block corner. In a small room, a floating dot of white, sparkling light floated. A hand twisted and turned in the center. It looked to be trapped, like in a jar. I recognized the rings.
“Dad?”
Aye, childe?
“I need your help.” As I walked, my feet rose from the floor. Everything around me turned red. I reached for the light with big, red hands. Total goatsee: Dad pull from the inside out until the hole grew in size. I heard Evie yelp in gratitude before she pulled her hand free. When we let go, the light disappeared with a pop.
“Hello, Eligos.”
Salutations, Flauros. Well met.
“Who is he, Dad?”
Behold a Great Duke of Hell, my son. None greater than perhaps myself. To what reason do we owe you this honor?
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?” Flauros licked his paw and then ran it over his head. “Let’s just say I beat you to the punch, old man.”
How so?
I rolled my eyes. The other demon snickered. Thanks, dude.
“I walk among the mortals, Eligos. I am here. You are not.”
“Oh, he’s here all right.” I ran towards him. If I thought about what I was doing, I didn’t know it. I swung and hit Kitty Face in the jaw with an upper cut. He went sailing until he smashed into the wall. The blocks cracked and crumbed. Part of the wall fell on top of him where he fell. And then he laughed.
“Oh, here I thought this was going to be boring and easy. Thank you, Eligos. You’ve made my day.”
* * *
I have no idea how I made it to the gym at the school. Black spots danced in my vision. I could feel my eye swell with a lovely, painful throb. As I pushed my way through the door, my arm caught in the stainless steel bar of the latch. I spun and hit the high-wax floor of the gym. It sounded like one hundred pounds of dead flesh hitting water.
“Oh my God.” A dozen sneakered feet squeaked across the floor. I could feel them gather around me. I opened my eye to see bare legs and short, pleated skirts circled around me. For a second, I thought I might have died and gone to heaven.
“Nat!” She pushed her way through the rest. Her small hand felt cool against the back of my sweating neck. Nikki lifted my head and shoulders off the floor so I could only see her. “Are you all right?”
I coughed. No blood. Yay, me. “I need your help.”
All Short Stories by Mary Lewys is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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