Chapter 13 #2
“Good, I’m glad. Can I get back to work now?”
Tina narrowed her eyes. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe you should take the rest of the night off. You might need to have your head looked at. How hard did you hit that table?”
“Not that hard. I don’t feel dizzy, I’m not seeing double, and the pain is relatively minor.”
“Relatively?” Her eyes narrowed further, becoming bare little slits.
He took her by the shoulders and said kindly but firmly, “So help me God, I’m finishing my shift. I need the money. You’re not the boss of me, Tee.”
She sighed. “I know. I just worry! You’re so quiet anyway. You come in, you work, and you leave. And then these guys show up out of the blue trying to cause trouble. Are you in some kind of danger? Do you need help?”
He smiled. Tina was good people. “Don’t worry about me.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m going to worry anyway; you can’t stop me. Do you want a couple of ibuprofen for that headache you’re going to have for the rest of the afternoon? I have a bottle in my purse.”
“Yes, please.”
And then he got back to work, shuffling from table to table and charming the money right out of people’s hands.
A few of them commented on the bruise on his head.
He gave all the witnesses a different excuse—he was on the run from the mafia, he owed them money for refusing to take the fall in an illegal fighting ring, he stole their prize alligator and returned it to the wild—and after they all left, he gave every table after that a different story, too, each more grandiose than the last.
By the time his shift was over, a thin line of sweat dampened the back of his white shirt, and his head pounded with every pulse of his heart.
His day was only half over, but at least he’d be able to sit in the quiet security room tonight and get some semblance of rest. It would be better than being on his feet in a crowded restaurant with kitchen staff watching his every move like they expected him to have a seizure at any moment. He was fine.
He clocked out at the machine and waved goodbye to the cook, who was manning a handful of steaks on the flat stovetop.
The parking lot behind the restaurant was quiet despite the hum of cars passing on the street in front of it. One lone street light illuminated the area back here, and as he passed under it, it turned off. His body prickled with awareness as he cast a sharp look around him.
He’d made fresh holy water during his preparations for the house, and he kept a small flask of it in his pocket, just in case.
It wasn’t enough to kill, but it could hurt a demon long enough for him to get away.
His car was parked at the back of the lot where the shadows were deepest, because he didn’t want anyone else parking there.
A concrete water channel was just a handful of steps through scraggly grass from the edge of the lot, a six foot drop and mired in shadow.
But as it turned out, it wasn’t demons he needed to worry about.
He was reaching for the door when a body slammed into him from behind, pinning him against the car.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t our favorite little coward.” Wallace’s breath was hot against his ear. “Where’s your little girlfriend with the phone, huh?”
Julian struggled, trying to push Wallace away or twist out of his grip, but he couldn’t find the leverage to free himself. “Get off me!”
“Gee, since you asked so nicely.” Wallace grabbed him and whirled them around, shoving Julian toward one of the other guys, who punched him in the stomach. His breath left in a whoosh. The next hit cracked ribs and sent him tumbling to the asphalt.
Everything was a blur after that. Punches and kicks landed with no rhyme or reason.
Julian curled into a ball, covering his head with his arms to protect himself as best as he could.
Pain lanced up his back, his sides. Someone’s boot crashed down on his knee, another crushed his fingers against his skull.
When it finally stopped, he tasted copper, everything throbbed, and the world spun nauseatingly.
His fingers scraped against the rough ground as he pulled himself away.
Their laughter followed, like hyenas circling prey.
He didn’t know where he was going. Where was his car?
Where were his keys? There was blood in his eyes, and he couldn’t see.
He just needed to get away from them long enough to find his bearings.
Hands dragged him to his feet, his back to their chest. An arm wrapped around his throat, squeezing tight, and a holy blade appeared before his face, glinting in the distant city lights. Panic lanced through him, sharper than all the pain.
“You can’t—do this,” Julian said haltingly. His eyes burned, and he scrabbled weakly at the arm around his throat. “I’m human. It’s murder.”
“Oh, no, I don’t see it that way at all,” Wallace breathed in his ear.
“The way I see it, you’re no better than the monsters we hunt.
You walked away, knowing what’s out there, knowing what those things do to innocent people.
You know, and you don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you a monster, too.
The world will be better off without you. ”
“No. No.”
The dagger slid into his stomach. Pain bloomed through his abdomen, but the shock dulled it. I’m dead, his brain blared. Dead, dead, dead. His body shook, choking on the air in his throat.
“There,” Wallace whispered in his ear as the blade withdrew with another burst of pain, “one less monster in the world.”
He shoved, and Julian’s world toppled end over end. He landed hard at the bottom of the mostly dry, concrete waterway, the cold puddle in the center pooling around him and soaking into his clothes.
Rolling onto his back, Julian stared up at the hazy, light-polluted sky.
His thoughts came to him sluggishly, each one slipping away like sand through a sieve.
He was cold, wet, bleeding, alone. No one knew where he was.
No one would come looking for him. A warm tear slipped from his eye and got lost in the hair at his temple.
Valac. He wouldn’t get to see him again. Nic and Danny. Would they find out what happened to him? Would they care?
Was this God’s plan? What was the point in any of it, if this was how it ended?