Read Online Demons by John Shirley - Free Book Online

gray walls, pipes criss-crossing the ceiling; Nyerza standing, leaning against the wall, as most chairs were too small for him, Paymenz sitting cross-legged on a plastic chair that was hidden by his bulk so that he seemed to be seated on air, with a carafe in one hand and a plastic cup in the other, drinking and talking, one knee bobbing nervously. He looked sickly pale under the fluorescent lights. There was a chunky black SFPD cop standing guard at the door, staring wistfully at the wine bottles on the table, chewing his lip. Nyerza was lighting an oval cigarette. The cop almost said something to him about it, then I saw him shrug. Demons were tearing up the city—and he was going to give him shit about the no-smoking rule?
    Melissa and I were seated on two plastic chairs. I had my arm around her; she leaned against me. It was more need for mutual comfort than anything intimate.
    I wanted to tell her something.
    If the end is coming, we should be somewhere else, making love and enjoying each other and, perhaps, praising God for whatever good there has been in our lives; grateful for one another and the goodness of our last moments together. . . .
    But I knew I probably wouldn’t say it. And if I did, it would avail me not.
    Suddenly she interrupted Nyerza and Paymenz, who stared at her as she said, “That poem he recited . . .”
    “Yes, do you know the author? It might hold a clue,” Paymenz said.
    “Yes, I do. It’s actually a song lyric. I’m the author.”
    “You!”
    “Yes. It’s a song I wrote two years ago, when I was in that folk group, The Lost.” She was staring at her hands on her knees. “I was going through a depression when I wrote it, and I was sort of— I was almost as morbid as Ira. And then, the demon looked at me and recited it: A song I wrote . . . wrote thinking about how my mom died, and how death doesn’t care if it comes at a, you know, reasonable time, and it just took my mom, and I . . .” She stared wonderingly into space and repeated, “That thing recited a song I wrote.”

 
     
    5
     
    They’d brought two folding cafeteria tables down into the basement room, pushed them together, and spread taped-together printouts over their Formica tops. “Please forgive this hasty presentation,” Nyerza said as he smoothed the printouts with his enormous hands. We were gathered around the tables, the professor and Melissa and Nyerza and me.
    I was noticing Nyerza’s frequent glances at Melissa. He was suddenly very interested in her. She seemed drawn to stand close beside him. She glanced up at him; her nostrils quivered; her lips parted; she leaned just half an inch closer to him.
    Oh yeah. Like I could compete with a giant black intellectual power broker from Central Africa.
    On the printouts, taped together with Scotch tape where the images connected, was a map of the United States. There were six cities designated in black letters: New York; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Chicago; Miami; Detroit. Concentric circles in light red were drawn around each city, as if it were the epicenter of some outrippling force: each city the center of a bull’s-eye. The circles overlapped. Yellow dots marked the map in rough lines from each city—almost like the impact lines extending from the center of a lunar meteor strike. The meteor hits the moon, there’s a crater, and impact lines radiate from the crater in every direction. But the actual bull’s-eyes seemed slightly off center from the city marks.
    “The yellow dots,” Paymenz said.
    “Yes,” said Nyerza. “The demons. Where they appeared. We have here . . .” He drew another long printout, like a laser-printed scroll, from a briefcase and unrolled it over the map. “San Francisco. You see the epicenter of the strike points is over here—an industrial area to the southeast across the bay.”
    “Where the accident happened,” I blurted. “Hercules!”
    “Yes, the little city of Hercules,” Nyerza said, “all but wiped out a