The Demon Deception by Mark Harritt Page B

The thug
landed on his stomach, arm extended behind him, the impact shaking
the room around them.
    Eli put more pressure on the wrist. He felt
it snap. The thug began screaming as the bones ground together. Eli
finished by stomping the back of the thug’s neck. The screaming
stopped. The thug’s friends started to stand up, hands clawing at
their waistbands. He pulled his XD, and shook his head. The three
sat back down, hands up in the air. Everybody else in the
restaurant shrank from the confrontation. One man kept saying,
“it’s cool man, it’s cool.”
    Eli holstered his pistol, watching the three
at the front table. They watched everything he did, hands still in
the air. He picked up the coffee cup, and took another drink,
watching them over the rim. One of them started to lower his hands.
Eli sat the cup back down. The hands went back into the air. He
walked over to the counter, and pulled his wallet out. He pulled
out a twenty and sat it on the counter.
    He smiled at the waitress, “Sorry about the
inconvenience. You serve very good coffee here.”
    Carol studied him, a look of unease on her
face, suddenly afraid of Eli. The situation had changed
dramatically and now she was afraid he was going to shoot everybody
in the restaurant. He smiled, “Don’t worry, we’re leaving now.”
    He looked back at Lilith, “Well, are you
coming with me?”
    She looked at the corpse on the floor, then
looked back at him. “You’ve become too familiar with the use of
violence. What happened to the man I once loved.”
    “You never loved me. You seduced me, turned
me against my family. I’m only here by the intercession of the
Carpenter, and the prayers of my sisters. If they hadn’t begged him
to save me, I would’ve spent all eternity in hell. As it was, he
took pity on my sisters, and on me, and brought me back. I’m very
lucky he decided to use me to make a statement to your boss. So,
now, can we dispense with the false tears?”
    Eli motioned towards the door. Lilith stepped
over the corpse on the floor, and walked in front of him, her hips
swaying suggestively from side to side, the slow, erotic stride
punctuated by the click, click, click of her heels. He hated
himself for it, but his humanity responded to her sensuality.
Still, he didn’t lose his caution. He walked behind her, ready to
deal violence if necessary, paying particular attention to the
three friends of the man he had just killed. As Lilith approached
the door, he leaned forward, and opened it.
    “My, always the gentleman,” Lilith stepped
out into the cold of the early morning. Lazarus stepped through the
door behind her, watching the sun of the new day as it begin to
lighten the eastern sky.
    The police arrived thirty minutes later. They
canvassed the crowd, but they weren’t able to get a good
description of the man who had killed Marcus Santiago. Nobody could
remember the incident at all. It was as if they had all wakened
from a dream and found the body on the floor. The police were
puzzled, but they didn’t worry about it too much, not with
Santiago’s police jacket. They felt that whoever killed him had
done the community a favor. Being a saint had its perks.
     
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Chapter Three – A Cat named Mooch
    Lazarus’ first stop
was the neighborhood of little Caughnawaga, in Brooklyn. Lazarus
walked down the street, the tree leaves orange and red in the
October cold. Old brownstones framed the riot of color. A few
leaves were just starting to litter the street. It was Sunday
afternoon, and children were playing under the watchful eyes of
parents or older siblings. It was an inviting street, reminding
Lazarus of an older New York, a time before drugs flooded in,
making entire neighborhoods untenable for families.
    Mohawks were the ironworkers that built most
of the spectacular landscape of New York, and Little Caughnawaga
had been their home for decades. The size of Little Caughnawaga