Just Another Day - Part 7

There are moments when the world seems to writhe and plummet. Moments when all expectations are subverted and what was once orderly descends into the dizzying unknown. Demons were not simply dangerous, they were the stuff of nightmares made all the worse by the fact that nobody knew exactly what they looked like, or what they were, or where they came from. Only that to get tangled up with one of those wild aberrations was to invite death.

Ruth clamped her mouth shut tasting something metallic as her tongue was caught between her teeth. Glancing around, nobody else in the cafe seemed to have overhead them. Somehow that only made it worse.

“Why?”

Jennifer took a moment to get her story straight.

“A few years ago… maybe a decade or two,” she began, staring off into the middle distance, “I got a call from an old couple who lived near Chaswick. Do you know the place? Lots of audacious gardens.”

Her companion nodded impatiently until Jennifer continued.

“Well they were having some problems with a demonic infestation. One had slithered into their wine cellar and they wanted to avoid getting the police involved. That sort of thing can spiral into a scandal, if you know what I mean. So they paid me to kill it. Not that I could, of course, not like that.”

“How do you kill a demon?” Ruth butted in with an air of urgency.

“You don’t.”

There was a moment of silence as the conversation jolted to a stop. Ruth felt the beginnings of a cold sweat prick her skin as Jennifer waved a hand over the table, thinking how best to explain.

“A demon is not a thing of flesh and blood,” she murmured almost to herself, “it is a thing of fear. And fear can never be conquered, only captured and hidden. So that is what I did in the hope that one day I might… well, you know, learn how to defeat it.”

“And did you,” Ruth pressed, “did you learn anything?”

In the end Jennifer could only give an awkward shrug. “Just that I should have left it in the wine cellar.”

Someone coughed, jerking the pair out of their musings. Outside the shower was starting to abate giving way to a sickly half-light. Ruth shook her head.

“What you have done,” she said slowly, getting to her feet “is all kinds of illegal. We have to find this thing.”

Jennifer munched on a steaming mouthful of food, seemingly aloof to her friend’s distress. “It will return. Demons always do.”

Somehow that sounded worse than having to scour the city for a shadow. Ruth sank back down on the chair, her panic seeping away into the smudged fabrics.

“You could have warned me of all this.”

“What good would it have done?” Jennifer would not meet the other woman’s eyes, “It was hardly my intention - “

“I had a right to know.”

The elf glanced around that melancholy interior, taking note of the damp plaster - the decay - and for a moment she seemed to fit in perfectly here.

“This is my problem,” she stated, face impassive “let’s go see your family and afterwards you can forget this ever happened. There is no danger. Not for you.”

Not for me, Ruth repeated in the safe confines of her own mind like some double-edged mantra, not for me. That was not good enough, but what could she do against her friend’s destructive nature? She recalled all the stern lessons of childhood that took so long to learn and yet, on this rainy afternoon, were so easily forgotten. Let that be the end of it, then. Ruth no longer had the luxury of youthal thinking.

“Very well,” she said after a moment, “your problem it is.”

Outside the steady patter of rain slowed to be replaced once again by a sickly half-light. As the buildings and shops and people were cast in a mellow silhouette Ruth felt an impassable clarity descend on her psyche. She wondered if this was what sanity felt like.

It was well past midday already if the ragged clock on the wall was to be believed. “We’ll never make it through the rush hour except on foot,” Ruth explained, straightening her back, “if we go it has to be now.”

Jennifer nodded with an almost childish formality. “Yes, yes let’s do that.”

The car would be safe enough where they had left it. Nobody would want to break into that old thing anyway; no sense in delaying. The two of them walked back out into the street in silence, heading eastward to the polished boulevards of Whitechurch. This was no small trek. It would take them through the city’s beating heart and, Ruth only now realised, the swelling mob of protesters that were clogging up the urban arteries. Certainly less than ideal.

As they stepped quietly on pavement worn by a thousand footsteps Ruth heard a dull rumbling. Looking up she saw a stretch of railway track only now visible just left of the road. As she watched a thundering locomotive of steel and smoke roared its way past them sending tremors and the squeal of pistons through the street. She winced at the sudden cacophony but Jennifer remained impassive, well used to such fearsome displays of modernity. It was heading further, deeper into the maze that was Whitechurch where a distant yet greater noise was swelling. The sound of people - angry people.

“That will be the protests,” Ruth noted, “I wonder what they are arguing about.”

Jennifer was already replacing her hat with a thick grey cap that covered her pointed ears. “They’re protesting against me. Me and my kind that is; those that threaten the local normality. I suggest we tread carefully.”

It was a good suggestion. Before long they were wading through a growing tide of bodies, all making their way towards the centre of Whitechuch like moths to a flame. Some were painted with the national green and blue while carrying placards now too soggy for their messages to be made out. Nevertheless, the intent was clear enough. Jennifer kept her head down and made sure not to meet their eyes. It was just the right time of day when the sun grew bold for a quiet demonstration to flare up into violence. They hurried onwards until the crowd grew turbulent, beginning to harry them from all directions. Despite herself Ruth was forced to take her friends hand simply to avoid being seperated in this broiling ocean of humanity. Her skin was surprisingly warm. Someone shouted in a street nearby accompanied shortly after by a shrill police whistle and the sound of smashing glass. Ruth felt a sharp tug on her arm as she was pulled into a side road still slick with rain. The crowd was a little thinner here and the faces seemed less confrontational. Yet there was still an undercurrent of feverish excitement tinted by fear as the realisation set in that nothing was watching over them now besides the looming alien trees of steel and glass that dotted the city skyline.

Jennifer knew these streets well and it was all her human friend could do to keep hold of her hand as they slipped their way through Whitechurch towards the gilded boulevards of polite society. Even with her guidance it took the best part of an hour for the simmering chaos to fade behind them.

Ruth let out a long breath before surveying the new environment; a long, winding road that snaked its way through the outer city flanked on either side by the glistening houses of the comfortably retired. Jackson Street. An oppressive silence clung to the air as it always had done. Ruth remembered running along this road as a child wishing that something, anything would break the relentless quiet. At least now the muffled sound of back garden chatter mingled with a low growl from the city centre showed that this was more than some picturesque film set.

“This is where your family lives?” Jennifer asked, biting the edge of her lip. Ruth nodded.

“At the end of the road.”

“I’m guessing there’s no chance of me hiding behind you this time?”

“None.”

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Apologies for the delay - new episode next week