The Fell Clutch of Circumstance

Author's note:

Please see part 1 for blurb and content warnings. And, if you haven't read Part 1 yet, I strongly suggest you do so before proceeding.

All sensuality (on page or otherwise) takes place between characters who are eighteen or older.

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Twenty-Three

"Get out of the way old-timer," a distant voice growled. "Not everyone's driving to their own funeral."

The harsh sound of a terrestrial radio being tuned was followed by a stern voice declaring, "... receiving sketchy reports of a terrorist event in western New Hampshire this afternoon. Authorities say there were no casualties following a lengthy stand-off outside a women's clinic. However, the clinic itself was destroyed by the fire which witnesses say was started by the gunmen. A spokesman for the Gibson police department has said that their investigation continues, although they admit that they do not yet have the gunmen in custody."

"God dammit!" a furious alto voice snarled. "They were fucking unconscious, you worthless imbeciles. How in the name of fuck did you lose them!"

"Where am I?" Aaron croaked.

"Just shut up," came the clipped response, "because I amnotprepared to deal with your shit right now."

Aaron inspected his surroundings to discover he was in the cargo area of a station wagon, and that said vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed along a forested two-lane road. As he looked toward the front seat, his gaze fell upon the back of a woman's head who he knew at once, by benefit of the unwelcome sensation of the Glamouring, was the towering woman he had encountered twice previously.

"We have to quit meeting like this," Aaron groaned.

"We have to quit meeting at all, you fascistic piece of rotten monkey shit."

He crawled forward into her back seat before slumping breathlessly against the door. A gentle probe of the back of his head revealed dried blood, and a goose egg the size of a golf ball, but he could detect no permanent damage. He interrogated his limbs for further injuries and discovered that he had emerged from the altercation unscathed beyond the head wound. He scanned their surroundings once more, focusing intently in the direction of the setting sun to verify that he had none of the light sensitivity which normally accompanied a concussion.

"What's our status?" he mumbled.

"I'm not going to tell you again to shut up," his Valkyrian helmswoman barked from the driver's seat.

"I wasn't talking to you," Aaron retorted.

"You are not currently being followed in any fashion that I can detect," Bethany replied. "As for the rest, I'd suggest you not allow this golden opportunity go to waste by talking tome."

"Thanks," he grunted under his breath. He then raised his voice and added, "I'm not with that woman you were arguing with the day we met."

"Could have fooled me, fascist."

"My name is Aaron."

"Good for you."

His eyes flipped skyward and groaned in frustration. "Why am I in your car if you despise me this much?"

"Because, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, you saved the lives of a bunch of women back there. Including me. I had an obligation to get you out of there before the cops showed up and decided that the best thing to do with a Good Samaritan was to lock him in an interrogation room for a few days."

"I appreciate that," he said gravely, "but how did you manage to get me out of there with another gunman on the loose?"

"My obligation to you does not extend to the sharing of information, Mr. Bearuch."

"Listen," Aaron barked. "I know you don't know me, and you have no reason to believe me, but I swear to you that my affiliation with Mary Bearuch ended the day we met."

"You two certainly looked like you were about to fuck each other's brains out when you dragged her away from her protest. Don't try to deny it."

"As much as I wish I could, I cannot."

She was quiet for several long minutes before exclaiming, "I can't believe you fucked her! Can't you see that she's fucking crazy!"

"Of course I see it," he replied lamely. "Now."

"How could you not see itthen! I have never met someone who looked more like a God damn maniac than she does."

"Could you not do that," Aaron pleaded.

"What? Yell at you for embodying every negative stereotype aboutmen!"

"You're welcome to heap as much judgement on me as you like. I deserve that and more. It's just, if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer you not mention Yahweh. I'm kind of trying to keep a low profile here."

She glared at him in the mirror as she retorted, "You honestly expect me to believe you're not with that Jesus freak when you object to me violating the third fucking commandment? Read my lips, fascist, God fucking damn Jesus right in his hateful non-virginal ass."

"Wow," he replied with a smirk. "You've got quite the command of the English language, as-yet-to-identify-herself human. And please don't misunderstand my motivations. You're not offending me... you're endangering me. Both of us, really."

"You're suggesting your fellow zealots can use my blasphemy to track us down?"

"Something like that," he muttered. "Listen, do you mind if I climb into the front seat. Or perhaps you could pull over for me to swap."

"What makes you think I want you that close to me?"

"Come on," he groaned. "I know you feel it too."

"What the fuck are you talking about."

"The Glamouring! That surge of mind scrambling arousal you feel whenever you're in my presence."

"That is officially the worst line that I've ever heard," she barked pointedly. "And I've heard some doozies."

"Then just let me out of the car."

"We're in the middle of nowhere."

"And? You fulfilled whatever obligation you thought you had to me. I've confirmed that no one is following us. Just let me out and I'll leave you in peace so I can get back to what I actually came up here to do."

"And that is?"

"I thought you didn't care."

"I don't. I also havezerointention of allowing you to live in my head rent-free for the rest of the day. Now answer the damn question."

"You've got yourself quite the conundrum then, don't you? Either you give me a chance to explain myself, or I leave you wondering."

She stared at him via her mirror for several awkward moments before snapping, "If you touch me, I'll break your fucking fingers. And then I'llreallystart hurting you."

"Of that I have no doubt."

She slammed on the brakes, sending him tumbling into the back of the passenger seat. Her wagon skidded to a stop on the gravel, and she turned to glare at him with righteous indignation. "Well?"

Deciding it was worth the risk that she would just drive off once he exited the vehicle, he climbed from the backseat. He did, however, wait until he had the front door open before closing the entrance to the rear of the vehicle. He took a seat beside her and buckled himself in as she once again set off.

"I'm trying to reconnect with my daughter."

"Lemme guess," his enigmatic companion grunted as she focused on her driving. "Her mother was so smitten by your objectively attractive exterior that she stupidly ignored every warning sign..."

"I'm going to stop you right there, ma'am. Cast aspersions at me all you like, but I'll thank you to leave my family... former family... alone. I lost touch with them... a long time ago, and I'm just trying to reconnect. I was doing some research, and it turns out my daughter has made quite a name for herself as an author. I knew her as Emma, but her pen name is Mattie Mayson. I think she lives..."

"Oh, you dumb bastard," she chuckled judgmentally.

"Pardon?"

"Next time you want to make up a bullshit story, maybe do a little research. I mean, hell, just taking a quick peek at her picture would have told you that she's at least a decade older than you."

"She's forty-four. She'll turn forty-five on July 23rd."

"My point exactly! You're what... thirty?"

"The driver's license in my wallet indicates that Aaron Merthyr was born on the third day of March in the ninety-third year of the twentieth Gregorian century."

"How very formal," she retorted drolly.

"It's also a complete fabrication. Aaron Merthyr has existed for... let me see... forty-three days. Prior to that, I spent the preceding thirteen-and-a-half days in Hell where time passes much more slowly."

"Bullshit," she groaned. "Is there truly not a single male on the planet capable of even a shred of honesty?"

Recognizing that he had passed the point of no return, he pressed ahead, "I wasactuallyborn Sergio Aaron Martirio in Monterrey on, as my mother was fond of reminding me, the last full moon (otherwise known as the 'cold moon') of 1946. I lived as a completely unremarkable, and I'd like to think positively regarded, man until the moment of my death at the end of 1999."

"I've got to tell you, Aaron," she chortled. "I didn't have you pegged as a zombie."

"I didn't say I died," he muttered. "I said I had arrived at the moment when it was my destiny to die. But, before that could happen, I was pulled from the mortal plane, and into Hell by a demon named Eshe. She..."

"She?"

"That's correct. The face she most frequently used was that of a female. Although, in the interest of full transparency, she disclosed that she, along with all other divine beings, is hermaphroditic."

With a tone which was growing more playful by the moment, she teased, "So, you're a devil worshiper?"

"Do you want to hear this, or don't you?" She gestured for him to continue, so he said, "To answer your question, Iwasan avowed agnostic. Meeting not-a-few divine beings cured me of that right quick, but I still have no interest in worshiping anyone from the celestial plane. Nor, incidentally, did I get the impression that any of them expect, or even welcome, such devotion. Despite her power, Eshe is a friend, not a being I revere. She healed the disease which was on the verge of killing me, quite painfully I might add. Then she asked me if I would help her save Creation."

"Is that all? I take it your presence here implies that you accepted?"

"It does, but there's a lot more to it than that."

She split her attention between Aaron and the road for a long moment before prompting, "Well... I'm listening..."

"Can I safely assume, based on your earlier comments, that you're not a Christian?"

"Picked up on that, did you?"

"Does that mean you're an agnostic?"

"Of course not," she enthused. "I'm in the presence of Faust himself, returned from the underworld to recruit minions for his dark master in return for being gifted with the body of an adonis."

He snickered at her teasing and said, "You figured me out, ma'am. I need only collect a thousand souls to repay my debt."

"Not going to suggest you always looked like this, mister claims-to-be-nearly-eighty-fucking-years-old?"

"Strictly speaking, I'm still only fifty-three. Subjectively. I was born nearly eighty years ago, but twenty-five years passed in this realm during the not quite two weeks I spent in Hell. To speak to your accusation... no, I did not always look like this. Not even when I was in the Navy during a war which everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten. But Eshe didn't give me a new body. She just healed me of everything, including things which weren't remotely life threatening. And she asked nothing in return. It was only later, after we had both healed, that she asked me to help her."

"What was wrong with her?"

"She healed me by absorbing the disease which tried to kill me. Since she's immortal, she was in no danger. Just in ceaseless agony until she was healed."

He noticed a brief change in her expression, spotting something which might have been sympathy before she regained control.

"How does one heal a demon?"

"The same way one tickles the tail of a dragon," he replied with a smirk. "Very carefully."

"So, you're back on Earth, with the body of a gay porn star..."

"Excuse me!" he exclaimed.

She ignored his outburst and continued, "What's the plan? If you're not meant to collect souls, what is it your dark master wants?"

"I have no intention of just letting that gay porn star comment lie. What would you do if I chose to speak of your exquisite beauty by saying you have the body of a lesbian porn star?"

"I didnotsay you were attractive," she snapped heatedly. She glared at him for long enough that he grew concerned for their safety (considering they were still traveling at a healthy rate of speed through the forest). When she continued speaking, her voice quickly shed its emotion in favor of an almost dreamlike quality. "I said you look like a sex worker. I definitely didn't say that you were good looking.... nor did I say you were devastatingly handsome... and I absolutely wouldn't have said that you make me want to..." Her eyes narrowed and she reached over to smack him, hard, in the chest. "What are you doing to me?" she hissed in unrestrained fury.

"I already told you," he muttered as he rubbed his chest. "It's called the Glamouring, but I'm not doing it to you; it's happening to both of us. And I'd thank you not to resort to violence."

"Why?" she growled. "Worried you can't take me in a fight? Halfling?"

"Because it is unbecoming to commit violence against someone who won't respond in kind."

"Says the puppet of the mistress of evil."

"That's just it. She isn't evil. No one in Hell is, just like no one in Heaven is good. Good and evil are human concepts. The denizens of the celestial plane are simply servants who ensure their master's will is obeyed. And, since the current Creation is of Yahweh's making, everyone in Hell mostly spends their time waiting for the Apocalypse, whereupon it will be Lucifer's turn to try to craft a Creation which can answer the unanswerable, scrute the inscrutable."

"How lyrical. Do you have anything to back up your story, or are we pitiful mortals meant to take this load of bullshit completely on faith?"

While her attention was on the road, he unbuttoned the top half-of his shirt and pulled it open to reveal his breastbone. He looked down to see that the ouroboros emblazoned there was pulsing with energy, and its eyes were blazing with an inhuman light. As he watched, the ouroboros looped through itself, weaving its body into a triquetra. He returned his gaze to his companion and mused, "Well... there's this?"

A tiny moan escaped her lips as she glanced over. She stared at his exposed chest with an intensity which caused no small amount of arousal to stir in his loins. Almost as though driven by forces beyond her comprehension or control, she reached across the divide to touch the tattoo. He noticed intricate runes tattooed on her fingers and opened his mouth to inquire as to their meaning, but fortune intervened.

"Aaron!" Bethany shrieked. "The road!"

He reached past his enigmatic companion to grab the wheel, yanking the vehicle back into the proper lane before they collided head-on with a logging truck.

This shook her from her reverie, and she returned her eyes to the road, but her attention remained on him as she asked in an awed whisper, "Who are you?"

"Just Aaron, ma'am. And you are?"

"Riley," came the soft reply. "Riley Ardern."

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Riley. Might I enquire as to where you're taking me?"

She blinked firmly before answering in a much stronger voice. "I honestly have no idea. It's true that I got you out of there to keep you away from the cops, but I also heard the gunman that I stomped muttering about 'that tall bitch with the Satanic tats' as I was loading you in the car. It sounds selfish, and it likelyisself-centered, but this is as much about me laying low as it is about you."

His eyes turned hard upon hearing her admission, and he vowed, "I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Riley."

"Why? You just met me, and I've been nothing but nasty to you. This better not be about trying to sleep with me."

"I was raised to do what's right," he replied evenly. "Not what's convenient, or what's most likely to benefit me. You're in trouble, so I offer my assistance. The fact that the reason you're in trouble is that you helped me only deepens my obligation to assist you."

"I'm in trouble because a bunch of right-wing maniacs decided to burn down the clinic where I was doing a security assessment (if you can believe that) and execute everyone inside. They are the bad guys here, Aaron."

"Does that mean you've decided I'mnota bad guy?"

"The jury's still out," she replied honestly.

He smiled and said, "I can live with that. Regarding our need to continue to avoid notice, perhaps someone I know could assist us."

"Another demon?" she asked not unkindly.

He chuckled and said, "Not exactly," as he glanced skyward to see the black shadow of his avian minder flying high above him and trailing a faint wisp of smoke.

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Twenty-Four

"Their lips collided with the moist enthusiasm of two raw steaks," Aaron quoted in disbelief. "Are you fucking kidding me with this shit!"

He flipped his newly acquired e-reader aside in frustration, scarcely able to believe the slop that was on offer in the 'Trending' shelf of his e-reader's preferred marketplace. Flopping back onto the bed, he stared at the uncaring smoke detector affixed to the ceiling of his room.

"Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?" he asked the ceiling.

When the ominous red light resolutely stood mute, Aaron reluctantly climbed out of the bed and crossed to the sink to fetch a glass of water. As he drank, he turned and leaned against the counter. This gave him a direct line of sight to the bedside alarm clock which indicated he was smack dab in the middle of the witching hour: a time he had grown to loath after (upon reaching middle age in his prior life) sleeping through the night became a less frequent occurrence than a full moon. His instincts told him that, despite being in possession of a body which was (as near as makes no difference) in perfect health, he had yet to develop a resistance to insomnia.

Recognizing that he faced a choice between continuing to lie sleeplessly in bed until dawn, and just throwing in the towel and getting up, he chose the latter. He stepped into the shower, giving silent thanks to the instant availability of hot water. As he went through the routine of cleansing himself, the thought occurred to him that he had developed a frustrating immunity to scalding himself (since the flip side of that particular coin was that he could never get the water hot enough to enjoy the soothing sensation of a relaxing shower).

Aaron emerged from the steam-filled bathroom, shivering in spite of the choking humidity. "This sucks," he muttered in self-pity.

He dressed in one of the three outfits he owned, noting that he would either need to visit a clothier or a laundromat in the very near future. His eyes strayed to his irascible e-reader, but it took only moments for him to decide he had had quite enough of that device's shit for the day (despite the sun having yet to rise). He pulled the curtain aside to find that it was a cloudless night, so he collected his effects and stepped from the room.

It was only by the barest of margins that he restrained a shout which rose from his chest as he started in fear upon spotting Bethany standing calmly on one of the roof rails of Riley's car. She clucked softly before lifting a strange looking cigarette to her beak and taking a long drag.

"What is that?" he asked after collecting himself.

"Cacao husk," she replied in his mind as she extended the dark, thick blunt to him.