Demon's Debacle, John Stormm [best summer reads of all time txt] 📗

TALES OF THE WITCH CLAN
DEMON’S DEBACLE


     Khu Lim is the loveliest demoness in Southeast Asia. Her snowy white hair and fine blue skin luxuriated in the cold mountain air near the temple. She never tired of this place. It was a beautiful, ancient temple, tended well by its monks. Pilgrims would climb it’s Ten Thousand Steps every year for the privilege of praying so close to the gods.

Mostly, they pray to Lord Buddha these days, but some still name the Old Ones in their prayers. When Khu Lim heard a petition that moved her, she was not beyond granting a prayer. Not that anyone ever prayed to her, demons are secretive about their true names. Knowing such could give one power over another and she was careful not to let that happen.

For some, it would be worth the arduous climb. One had to be particularly determined to make such a hike up this mountain. Most mortals expired before they would ever get enough inspiration to haul their short lived carcasses to this holy place.

Khu Lim had no regard for such. Her icy gaze was reserved for those made of stronger stuff. Such a soul was approaching even now.

Up the notorious Ten Thousand Steps, leaden limbs burning from exertion, breath puffing through lips turned blue from the cold, thin air, trudged a tiny Vietnamese woman named, Yin Nguyen. She had traveled all the way from America to pay her respects to her dying grandfather. Her elder brother, An Nam, a Buddhist monk, had suggested this pilgrimage would be a worthy task for her. She would prove her Asian-ness to her family and pay a singular honor to her grandfather. She was a pretty woman, and inspite of her four foot, eleven inch stature, her willingness to take on difficult work hardened her twenty six year old frame considerably. She thought herself grotesque, but Khu Lim smiled on her beauty of spirit.

The demoness hovered near as Yin paid the prerequisite coin for the incense for her prayers and made her way into the holy site, bowing and chanting respectfully at every step. Breathing in, she tapped the ether of the mountain for the knowledge she might need. This was the benefit of this holy place. Little Yin was praying her heart out for her grandfather’s spirit and her family’s well being when Khu Lim erupted in a winter fury.

“That callous old wizard!” she howled furiously, “He lives his life, and makes his debts, and then shuffles them onto his granddaughter to endure for his own cowardice.”

Yin and the other pilgrims cringed in terror within the temple as the bitterly frigid wind shrieked outside. There was much concern with how the already tired petitioners would make it back down the mountain. But for the moment, Khu Lim would vent her rage in the elements. She knew that Yin’s grandfather was an Asian hedge wizard that had made some enemies in the Otherworld. When faced with a Kuei who would collect his blood debt, the old wizard made a pact to repay with one of his granddaughters, one born in the prestigious Year of the Snake. The Kuei would return to collect his debt after the wizard passed on. Of all the family, Yin was not allowed to read the family book of magick. It was determined by her grandfather, that she must not have the means to defend herself against the Kuei, who could only be fought by magickal means. As the debt was karmic, even Khu Lim could not stand in its way. If she had but a single ‘dong’ for every Asian male, who thought it only right to dump his bad karma on a lowly Asian woman, she could purchase Tibet. She was indignant, and would see to it that little Yin would have a fighting chance against the Kuei, albeit, indirectly.

Little Yin had no clue as to her grandfather’s treachery against her and was praying selflessly for his eternal well being. Khu Lim ceased her tirade and let the pilgrims leave in peace, but she would scrutinize Yin Nguyen’s life for possible allies against the Kuei. While Yin was making her way down the mountain, Khu Lim was searching her place of employment, half a world away, in upstate New York.

* * *

     Snapix Corporation was a city within a city. It’s cameras and film commanded a global market. Little Yin, worked in the pack center here as a light industrial assembly worker for T.E.M.P. Services. Among the co-workers, Khu Lim hoped to find someone she could inspire or empower to help. There were many humans from all walks of life and all parts of the world who came looking for the American dream, and wound up as cheap, expendable corporate labor.

She did not see much hope until the silver gleam of an enchanted medallion caught her eye. It was attached to the muscular neck of a very tall blond man, dressed in all black. His waist length braid snapping like a whip as he hefted a large wooden pallet onto a tall stack with one hand, while carrying a large roll of stretch wrap under his left arm to a wrapping machine. He was so casual with the cumbersome load as to be conspicuous. His six foot, five inch frame not withstanding, he made it look too easy for a human.

Khu Lim moved in among the humans gathered at his assembly line. A large portion of them were women, and she related to women very well. She would tap their minds for more information on this man. The short Hindi woman knew his name was Storm, and was attracted to him. He probably exploits these women for their labor, thought Khu Lim. Another thought he was a “biker”, but closer examination showed the tattoos on his forearms were not gang related, but Chinese power glyphs. This man was a master of some Chinese discipline, as much wizard as warrior, and certainly not a gangster. Two more women in the line were in fear, but of some other men, and not him. They felt protected in his crew. Khu Lim was excited at this prospect. She looked closer.

     The men everyone most feared were a muscle bound pair of work release parollees on the neighboring assembly crew. Tiny and Tito probably spent more time leering at, and propositioning the women than in actual labor. Some of these women had requested to work on Storm’s team, and he always seemed to give them their space in his line. They gave him their best work, and he gave them respect. On the corporate bulletin board, his crew was listed as one of the most productive in the pack center. His attitude was lucrative in corporate incentives paid to his entire crew. It appeared also, that many men feared the enigmatic biker-who-wasn’t. This might explain his casual way with loads that would strain a normal man. He was gently reminding men like these that they should give him due respect. In her own frosty way, Khu Lim was warming to this man already. She decided she would be paying him a visit later tonight.

* * *

     Tiny was in excess of six foot tall of powerfully built white trash. His corded neck muscles bulged threateningly out of the top of his tight black muscle shirt. His shaved head and broken nose further accented a face engraved with a perpetual scowl. His friend, Tito, was a light skinned Cubano, whom at five foot ten, massed at two hundred and eighty pounds of brawn with the deceptively lithe grace of a dancer in his movements. He was busted running cocaine on a ghetto street corner, and boasted some “connections.” Fancying himself a ladies man, he was eyeing a bright little Dominican cutie on Storm’s line and merengued on over to introduce himself to this lucky woman. Tiny was right beside him wearing what he probably construed as a smile, but was taken for a leer instead.

“Say, chiquita, may I introduce you to over two hundred pounds of love muscle?” Tito crooned obscenely.

“It’s ‘señora.’” the woman replied testily, “I have a man, and he is not you.”

“Oh, but you could be so lucky.” Tito continued unabashed, “If he is latino, then you are not his only woman, so you could have some time with me too. It’s only fair.”

“It would be fair,” Storm cut in unexpectedly, “If my crew could continue working at a rate that would make us all a bonus and people from other lines didn’t come over to socialize. We don’t get paid that well. That bonus is important to us all.”

“Man, we were just introducing ourselves to the help.” Tito complained, “You shouldn’t be such a hard ass, ya know?”

“If there’s not enough work on your line,” Storm retorted, “I can arrange to let you off early today. We’ve got work to do. You boys need to get busy, elsewhere.”

“For an old man,” Tiny cut in menacingly, “you could hurt yourself pushing so much weight around.”

“It’s so considerate of you lads,” Storm said sweetly, with steel gray eyes flashing, “to advise a poor, decrepit, frail, old fool like myself about my health.”

Smiling only with his lips and his gaze never wavering from Tiny’s eyes, he smoothly pulled an eighty pound CHEP pallette off the forks of an immobilized forklift with his left hand, and tossed it neatly onto a stack, six feet away.

“You ain’t natural.” Tiny said, shaking his head.

“Hey, we got some pallets to wrap and roll, man.” Tito observed, “We gotta go,” and he tugged at Tiny’s elbow to leave.

Khu Lim was feeling very good about little Yin’s prospects now. The Chinese glyphs gave her some thought that he might just find Asian women attractive. She would use this to pull him in. A big, protective male with Otherworld power against a Kuei. Khu Lim smiled to herself.

* * *

     It was late in the evening when Khu Lim made her appearance at Storm’s small apartment. He had just crawled into bed when the air in his bedroom became as frigid as the high mountain air. Frost glistened on his bedroom walls as he watched his breath escape as a fog.

“I have a visitor,” he said to no one in particular, “They might politely state their business before I become much too tired and cranky to be reasonable.”

Khu Lim appeared at his bedroom door, eyes glowing whitely. As she would never dream of introducing herself by name to a human, she allowed him a long look at her magnificence, to which he raised only one eyebrow and nodded.

“Do we have business, cousin?” Storm asked, without rising. One arm cradled his head with the other draped over the far side of the bed fingering the hilt of a scabbarded short sword.

Khu Lim smiled at him. Her fine white fangs glistened in the dim light. It was not so much ‘mirth’ in her smile as it was a means of communicating that her place on the cosmic food chain was significantly higher than that of a human, though he did amuse her. He then smiled back, stormy eyes flashing brightly and showing only slightly smaller canines of his own showing he was still not intimidated. He is a strong one, this one, she thought.

“I have a woman who needs your help,” Khu Lim stated.

“So a fine Sidhe like yourself can help her,” Storm replied indifferently.

“Karmic law dictates that I cannot personally intervene in this matter,” she went on. “But if you care about her, you can possibly save her. If not, she will not survive the year.”

“I’ve done the damsel-in-distress thing,” he retorted. “I’ve gotten worse wounds from the damsels