The Damned – Part 2

My wife and I woke up to an emergency.

Her car was ruined.  Not in the ‘it got a few dents in it and now it’s RUINED’ sense.

No.  Her car was ruined in the ‘some guy/gal got insanely drunk and ran his or her vehicle across the entire front of my wife’s vehicle’ sense.  The entire front assembly, including the grill, parking lights, lower headlights, turn lights, and bumper, is just gone.

Her car is likely totaled.  I used to work in insurance for a few years, and I’ve seen my fair share of vehicles in various damaged conditions.  I’ve seen valuations versus payouts, total repair costs, etc.  You name it.  I would highly doubt that a Hyundai (which loses value in steady, rhythmic fashion) as old as hers with that extent of damage would BE repairable.  Bumper?  Sure, you just keep that repair check and drive with a dorky looking car.  But the entire front assembly?  Which means new quarter-panels, new paint, new grill, and all the fiddly bits that are required?  PLUS the possibility of damage to the engine block or any parts of the engine because I’m not a mechanic?

Yeah.  So we’re about to go from one car payment to two car payments.  We had JUST gotten it paid off.  Less than six months of not having her payment is now over.

Then, to top it off, when I was left the damaged vehicle to drive to work, my wife didn’t give me a key.  Bless her heart, she had a bit to think about.  So she had to take time off work (which we will not get paid for) to deliver me keys so I could drop the child off at school prior to the cut-off time, and then so I could drive her busted vehicle to work.  Hoping the entire time that it doesn’t fail, because I have no cell phone.

Oh?  I didn’t mention that?  Yeah.  My cell phone charger cable tried to set my apartment on fire.  It was damaged somewhere in the connector that links to the phone, and it overheated dangerously and began melting.  That was just two days ago, and I’m still not sure if the phone is damaged or is what CAUSED the damage.

All that is for me to say this: No book in June.  Likely no book in 2018.  No teaching this fall because I can’t afford to meet the requirements.  I’m going to keep working on the blog, because I can and it’s not costing me anything.  I’m going to continue working on Patreon, because maybe one day it will actually get me money to do so. 

For now, expect a lot of drama.  I’d apologize, but it’s not like I’m manufacturing the stuff on purpose, so I’m not about to.

Let’s see if I can wash my brain out with a few paragraphs of story.  We shall see if I have more than that in me.

The Damned – Part 2

I, Jessica Hartwell, stepped out into the glaring light of day, my long tan trench-coat settling about my shoulders as I swept my hair back, planting a black fedora across my unruly blonde locks as I adjusted my eye-patch to a more rakish angle. 

It didn’t matter where the ‘eyepatch’ was physically located: as long as the spell-scrolled leather was touching my skin I could see out of it exactly as if it were in the sunken crater that used to be my left eye.  But for the sake of piratical appeal and to hide the fact that I had in fact lost the fight with the demon I stole it from, I wore it as an eye patch.  It blinked of it’s own accord, pulling the leather as a make-shift eyelid as it did so.  It never actually affected the strength of the leather, the spells woven into it, or any other physical object as far as I could tell.  I was under the sneaking suspicion that it did it to creep people out.

I’d die before I let it know that it was doing a damned good job. 

The streets before me were as clean of debris as they had been when I ducked into the small abandoned garage I owned specifically for the purpose of shooting up in privacy.  Several cars zipped by, silent and graceful as they wove through the air on the heat-shimmer wakes of helfire engines.  When cars could fly, the parking garages of the past had become rather cheaper than their owners had hoped.  I smiled as I whirled the keys I had just used to lock my door, and safely deposited them into my duster.  I kept a lot of things in there; like most of The Damned, I didn’t usually stay in one place very long.  It made things easier, not having attachments.

There were no vagrants either.  For a busy section of LA before the fall of Lucifer, that would’ve qualified as A Problem.  Instead, it was simply another sign of the times.  When the elder demons had united against Lucifer and the War on Heaven, most of humanity was astounded at how much easier life got when demons weren’t actively working against humans.  Oh sure, you still got the occasional nasty one that didn’t wish to go quietly into the darkness (see: eye, left, lack thereof), but for the most part even demons got tired of seeing so many people suffer needlessly.  Those elements of Hell had finally broken free, yearning to save those they could from the same suffering they themselves couldn’t or wouldn’t avoid. 

So now they lived among us, working with us, trying to save us from our worse natures.  They couldn’t over-ride our agency, but it was amazing what humanity could do without Lucifer stirring the pot.

We, The Damned, fought against those elements of Hell that would follow their captain to the grave.  No one thanks us, no one fights with us.  We simply fight because someone has to.  So I moved from town to town, city to city, continent to continent, tracking my prey so that no one suffers at their hands. 

To be continued…

Demonfully,
Justin