Chapter 7
Calise savored her lunch with Ron, then went directly back to her bungalow. She paced back and forth. Lucas and Carmen are different, like me. They know something is going on. Should I tell them about Anna? About what happened? The flood of memories assaulted her. Could Anna be a demon? Were people who exposed demons murdered, like Juan Torres? Even if Carmen validated it all, then what? Cancel her psychiatrist appointment and figure this all out back in the States? Alone?
Her gut told her to trust Carmen and Lucas. Even though her heart never doubted the feelings she lived with, her mind kept telling her none of it was possible.
She barely touched the dinner she later ordered in her room. She headed for Carmen’s restaurant as soon as it closed, armed with only a flashlight, picking her way carefully down the steep road from Ron’s resort to Main Street under the glow of stars and moonlight. She worried what animals or monsters watched her from the trees sandwiching the deserted road. The drone of insects punctuated with the creak of crickets drowned out her sandals crunching in the dirt.
A branch snapped in the brush. She whipped her flashlight toward the noise. Eyes stared back at her. Her heart thumped wildly. Stogey bounded out of the bushes, wagging his fluffy tail and whining for attention.
“Holy crap, dog. You scared me.” She paused on the road to let the pounding of her heart subside. Stogey trotted alongside her the rest of the way, and she welcomed his company.
The roar of the ocean and the smell of the sea mingled with the thick scents of the jungle at night. As she approached the restaurant, she glanced at Lucas’s hut shrouded in darkness and practically camouflaged by palm trees. Following the sound of music, she ducked through the entrance of Carmen’s and found the owner sitting at a candlelit table, next to a jukebox playing Elvis’s Devil in Disguise.
Calise eased herself into the chair opposite her.
Carmen slid a mojito in her direction.
“Subtle.” Calise pointed a thumb at the jukebox.
“Long live the king.” Carmen leaned back and crossed her arms, looking more like she was about to interrogate Calise than converse. “So, what do you think you know?”
Might as well start at the beginning. “Please hear me out. Ever since I was a little girl, I could sense things about certain people, like a life force. Some people are calming, some chilling. It’s like there’s an invisible force field around them I can’t see—but I can feel.” She risked a look at Carmen, whose poker face revealed nothing, neither belief nor disbelief. “Am I making any sense?”
“Yes, my child. But what’s that have to do with Mal Pais?”
“Your cousin came into my pharmacy a few days ago. Something happened, like invisible friction between him and a drug addict. Juan Torres told me demons were everywhere, and the only person who could help him, or me, was his cousin, Carmen in Mal Pais. He was murdered.”
Carmen widened her eyes but said nothing.
“When I met Anna, I knew something was off. She oozes sex but in a vile way. She talked about wanting Lucas. Then I saw her—I saw her with a married man. She’d seduced him. And twice I could have sworn her eyes…were red.” Calise exhaled. “I tried to tell Lucas, but…”
Carmen lifted her drink and took a long, deliberate sip. “What do you believe?”
“I believe there could be angels and demons among us, and I’m sick of walking through life in black and white when there is color. I’m not afraid of the truth, I’m afraid of leaving here without it.”
Carmen’s features softened, like a mother trying to explain to her child Santa Claus isn’t real. She reached for Calise’s hands and grasped them tight. “You are a precious and beautiful soul. You’re completely sane, never doubt that. Believe what your heart tells you, and it’ll lead you to the truth. But be warned, some truths lead to more questions.” Carmen released her hands and stood up. She collected their glasses and headed for the kitchen. “Good-night, dear.”
“Wait! I need answers! You haven’t told me anything.” Calise shoved back her chair and stood up.
Carmen paused at the swinging door to her kitchen and turned around. “I have told you more than I’ve ever told anyone. And I never promised you answers. Now go home and be safe.”
She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Calise alone in the night.
****
Entrance to Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve
After a few fitful hours sleep, Lucas got up and returned on foot to Cabo Blanco well before sunrise the next morning. Upon hearing voices near the entrance to the park, he hid and listened. Four people lingered by the entrance.
The stars and moonlight revealed an older demon couple and a young demon woman and transitor both around his age. He’d never encountered a transitor before, only heard about them and their gray auras. Lucas assumed this one had fallen since demons wouldn’t hang out with a transitor who might be on his way up.
He figured being a transitor would be the equivalent to purgatory—not up, not down, just trapped in the middle, holding a ticking time bomb. Like his father’s old cuckoo clocks, without God’s hand to rewind them, in a year they stopped ticking. Poof. Gone.
Lucas hoped this guy would make a good decision, and quick. He waited to see how they’d be denied entrance to Alejandro’s “consecrated ground.”
The young woman spoke first. “You had this on good information, Dad? Since when are Paymon and Nicor reliable? I don’t get the sense that there’s anything here.” She entered the park.
The transitor waltzed through the entrance after her. “Wait up, Nara.”
The older couple stopped cold.
“Fuck me, Ronwe,” the man said to his wife, “this place is consecrated and guarded!” He motioned to the girl. “Nara, get out of there! We have to turn around.”
The daughter paused to look at her father then fell to the ground, lifeless. The transitor ran to her. The older man yelled, “Pick her up! Get her out of there!”
The transitor rushed to lift her up and carry her back to the man. Once off the park proper, she gasped and her eyes fluttered open. “What’s wrong with her Abaddon?”
Lucas edged closer.
“These consecrated places can kill us,” the older demon said. “Forget about going in! We’ll lure the angel out and kill him.”
Lucas had heard enough.
****
When he finally got back to Carmen, woke her up, and told her everything he’d witnessed, she paled and poured them both shots of tequila.
“Dios Mío.” Oh my God.
“Tía, talk to me.”
Carmen went back to the bar for the entire bottle. “I suppose it’s time you knew. Our family descends from Nicodemus. Ever heard of him?”
“Nicodemus from the Bible?” He stared at her, trying to comprehend.
“He’s mentioned in the Gospel of John. He prepared the body of Jesus for burial with Joseph of Arimathea. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and Sanhedrin, but he believed Jesus was the Son of God.”
“He was a what?” Lucas threw back another shot.
“A Pharisee was a fervent Jewish rule-follower and the Sanhedrin were basically the supreme court of Israel. He was muy importante.”
“What does this have to do with us?”
“Your distant ancestor Nicodemus, kept a few souvenirs from Christ’s crucifixion and burial…some are inside the glass in your necklaces.”
Lucas examined his parent’s matching set. A rectangular piece of glass housed a shard of wood that hung around his neck on black ropes.
“That wood is a piece of the cross.”
Lucas turned them over in his hands.
“All the earth—how can I say it—‘soaks up’ the good or evil done to it. Trees, rocks, anything natural or organic. You see? Our world is built around maintaining balance. The tree that hanged Christ was stained by the worst act ever perpetrated by humans. That evil will never be cancelled out, but the piece of wood seeks balance.”
“Angels,” Lucas whispered. “It summons angels for equilibrium.”
“Sí. Demons want anything and everything with that kind of power destroyed. Demons hunt one of three things—seers, artifacts, or young angels. They figure if angels don’t reach adulthood, and no one can see them and there’s nothing to fight them with, they’ll have absolute control on earth.”
“Mierda.” Shit. “I’ve been wearing this around my neck! I’m both a seer and an artifact holder, I’m a walking two-for-one special!”
“I’m sorry, but our family is responsible for keeping these artifacts out of demon hands,” Carmen said.
“Alejandro and I were supposed to move the artifacts this morning. If the demons have already found the park, then how do we protect them? Besides these necklaces, what artifacts do we have, Tía?”
“Don’t worry about that now. The demons already here need to be stopped. You and I both know there is only one way to do that.”
****
Isla de Cabuya, Costa Rica
Lucas returned yet again to Cabo Blanco, where Alejandro stood just inside the park’s perimeter. “I know they’ve been here. We have to hurry.” The angel held four ornately engraved but rather ordinary looking breadbox-sized wooden boxes. He handed two of them to Lucas.
Lucas followed Alejandro on foot two kilometers from Cabo Blanco toward the beach town of Cabuya. A few hundred meters off the coast stood Isla de Cabuya, an uninhabited island cemetery where local Ticos buried their dead. Candlelit burial processions only happened at low tide, when a sand bar appeared to rise out of the ocean, making the island accessible. The families could then return to the mainland after the burial and rest assured their dearly beloved would have several hours of peace until the next low tide.
Today, low tide was at six in the morning. Alejandro murmured a prayer which he said would consecrate the island. Lucas now understood “consecrated ground” and the benefits for his family’s possessions. Demons couldn’t trespass without dire consequences, like the reaction he’d witnessed when the demon tried to enter Cabo Blanco.
Lucas followed Alejandro along the sandbar to the island. “This is everything?” He shifted the weight of the wooden boxes.
“Yes, we have it all.”
Lucas struggled to keep up with him.
“Hurry. We don’t have much time before the tide comes in and the walkway is underwater,” Alejandro passed under a white stone archway that read “cementerio” in gold block letters.
A dense, palm-lined trail led to the desolate cemetery. Lucas noted the eerie, unnerving calm of the place. Wind rustled the palm trees, and the ocean lapped at the shores of the island and the mainland. His eyes strained to see Alejandro, who continued to lead him deeper and deeper into the cemetery.
Alejandro stopped at a newly dug, unmarked grave.
“Will they be safe here?” he asked.
The angel frowned. “Do you have any idea how long these artifacts have been my charge? I promise nothing will happen on my watch.”
They set the boxes in the wooden coffin, nailed it shut, and labored to lower the coffin into the grave. The effort of shoveling in the dirt left Lucas covered with sweat. The morning breeze cooled his skin, and he shivered.
After concealing the grave, they crossed back to the mainland and stayed to watch the rising tide swallow the passageway. The sun rose behind them, illuminating the island. “What’s in those boxes? I now know what’s around my neck. What other relics do we have that so desperately need to be protected?”
“Ask your aunt.” The angel vanished.
****
More puzzled than ever, Lucas made his way back to Carmen’s restaurant. Apples from the kitchen made a quick snack for Gotzone who’d found respite in the cool dirt under a palm tree on the road. He wanted answers to all his family’s secrets, and Carmen was the key.
“How did it go?” Carmen wiped down tables in preparation for the breakfast crowd.
Stogey padded into the restaurant behind him and plopped down at his feet. “Fine, I guess. Did you ever talk to Calise?”
“She’s not a seer. A little psychic maybe, but not one of us.”
He told himself he had no right to be disappointed she wasn’t part of his world. He needed to forget her and let her remain in blissful ignorance of the world he knew. But his heart sank anyway. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Carmen nodded. “The artifacts are safe then?”
He buried his emotions for Cali. Back to business. “Yes. But I don’t understand, Tía. What do we have that’s more important than the necklaces?”
Carmen tucked the rag in her apron and motioned for Lucas to sit down with her. “We have other, more powerful weapons to use against the demons, should it become necessary. Remember I said we are descendants of Nicodemus? Well, when all his disciples were hiding in fear after Jesus was crucified, two men came forward. Two incredibly brave men history has conveniently forgotten. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus cleaned Jesus’ body of the pieces of the cross still stuck to it. They removed the crown of thorns imbedded in His skull. Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloe to use with linen to prepare the body for burial.
“They left the tomb with an arsenal of weapons to use against demons. Low level artifacts, like the pieces of the cross, can summon angels when demons are in the act of committing evil. Medium level artifacts—a thorn from Jesus’ crown, for example, are much more powerful. But what the demons really want are the two most important artifacts the men came away with. Joseph possessed the cup Jesus drank from on the cross and Nicodemus kept a fraction of the spices that dripped from the body. These most powerful weapons can—”
Stogey, who had been asleep on Lucas's feet, started growling and raced around the back of the restaurant barking an alarm.
“Do you smell smoke?” Lucas bolted out of his chair. They found Stogey snarling at some movement in the trees. Lucas saw three sets of demon eyes back away and a fourth figure with hollow white circles for eyes—the transitor. “Hey!” he yelled, reaching for his necklace to summon Alejandro.
“Don’t.” Carmen warned. “They want you to summon Alejandro. They want him out of Cabo, remember? Quickly, help me. We can handle this.”
Flames licked up the back of his aunt’s restaurant. The demons had set the garbage cans on fire, and he noticed a trail of gasoline going out in both directions around the building.
“We need the fire extinguisher from the kitchen,” she barked. She turned on the hose and directed the nozzle at the flames.
The fire extinguisher combined with the hose didn’t work fast enough. Some Ticos appeared, drawn by the commotion, and began to help.
“The phone is dead. Lucas, we can hold it. Go and get Ron! He can contact the local firemen…”
“No, Carmen. What about Anna? She must know what’s happening here.”
“You can handle her. Hurry. Please,” Carmen begged.
Lucas scanned the woods where Stogey stood watching. “Stogey, stay!” The dog wagged his tail and plopped down facing the woods.
Lucas whistled for Gotzone, still lingering nearby. He grabbed a handful of her mane and jumped on. The flames licked the roof of the restaurant.
Once Lucas reached the resort, he burst into Ron’s and Anna’s place realizing at once his terrible mistake. No Ron in sight and Anna looked as if she had been anticipating his arrival.
A trick.
“What can I do for you?” Anna purred. She was lying on the couch looking stunning as always. She gently brushed away the wisps from her long mane of hair that fell across her cheek. Her lean, bronzed legs glistened, and Lucas couldn’t help but trace their path to the bottom of her string bikini.
He pulled himself out of her hypnotic spell. “Where’s Ron?” No time to waste. Anna appeared nonplussed; she wouldn’t help. He needed to get back to the restaurant.
“I can call him for you. Bring me my walkie-talkie from the table. Ron will answer if he’s within a two mile range.” She smiled coolly.
Lucas grabbed the two-way radio and handed it to her. She put her hand on top of his and pulled him close. The heat from Anna’s hand radiated up his arm as if he’d plunged the right side of his body in a pot of boiling water. The reflex to jerk his hand away seemed temporarily disabled. His brain screamed “danger!” but his body didn’t respond. His heart rate sped up, and he closed his eyes to avoid the sight of her. That made matters worse, much worse. His other senses roared into overdrive. What was that perfume? He inhaled deeply and let the scent fill his lungs.
“Everything will be all right,” Anna said, but not in her voice, in Cali’s.
When he started to say something, she placed her pinkie inside his mouth, causing it to instantly water—she tasted like cool strawberries and fresh whipped cream, his favorite dessert. On his knees in front of her, she drew him still closer to her face. He kept his eyes squeezed shut and tried to back away, but couldn’t. Compelled to open his eyes, severe vertigo impeded his vision, and he swayed back and forth, intoxicated. Why am I here again? He’d forgotten. Sensory overload told him one thing: Take her. Here. Now. Fear became thrill, danger became seduction, with Anna as the ultimate prize.
“I’ve got him, the young seer. Why is he here? He’s supposed to be at the fire,” Anna said into the receiver. Lucas heard the words, but they didn’t register as anything significant.
“Keep him there. The angel is still here at Cabo, so we can’t get in. Do whatever you need to do to figure out how they summon then stall for time with the angel.” The crisp words over the walkie-talkie pulled Lucas out of his trance.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Anna turned the receiver off, crawled off the couch, and knelt in front of Lucas.
He edged away from her, his mind reeling and unable to focus. Anna grabbed his arm, and his body shook. The whole room faded to black except Anna. He melted under her spell, unable to fight her. The warnings in his brain dimmed to a hazy morning fog.
Eyes half-closed, Lucas moaned.
Anna looked happy to reciprocate. “Remember I told you, never say never.” She tugged the strings that held her bikini closed. Lucas shook violently now, every time she so much as brushed against him. She ran his fingers through her hair. The fine black strands passed through his fingers like the softest grains of beach sand.
Lucas’s mind was mush. Something hot needed his attention right away. Anna… No! A shadow of doubt nagged the fringes of his mind. A fire.
She paused, reaching for his two intertwining necklaces. “Well, what do we have here?”
Lucas inadvertently followed her hand and touched the necklace. The effect was immediate. Snapping out of his daze, his mind cleared, and he pushed Anna away.
Alejandro appeared next to them.
She lunged for the walkie-talkie, screaming, “The angel! HE’S HERE! GO!” as Alejandro lunged and grabbed Anna then tossed her through the front window. Lucas stumbled over the debris after them, cursing himself for letting her control him and see the necklaces. Alejandro had to kill her, or their secret was out.
Lucas rushed outside to witness their violent fight. When angels fought demons in earnest, the battle, messy with blood, appeared as a blur. Anna charged Alejandro, who stood like a wall of steel. He palmed a tangle of her hair and slid her against the ground, then dragged her toward the barn. She flipped up and slammed Alejandro in the jaw with her feet. He staggered a moment and released her hair. She screamed at him in a language Lucas had never heard. Her eyes burned with hatred. She ran at him to attack. Alejandro’s face went blank. She punched. He blocked. Between their lightning speed and intensity, Lucas felt as if he watched shooting stars play on the ground. Then in a blinding flash, they disappeared.