Smokedawg “Tales of the Poisoned World: Between Demons and Angels”

About the Author

J. Jefferson (aka Smokedawg) is a middle-aged editor and journalist manifesting his mid-life crisis with a flurry of fiction writing instead of a sports car and trophy mistress. He write erotica (mostly smoking fetish-related) at his blog “Better With Smoke” (http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com) but also writes stories for the Celis T. Rono Writer’s Collective, SmokingStories, Pillow Talk and elsewhere with erotic and non-erotic themes, in smoking and non-smoking forms. You can e-mail him at: pseudojeff@msn.com.

He began his “Poisoned World” stories with the “Venomous Passions” trilogy at: http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com/category/venomous-passions-trilogy/

This fictional near-future world also made an appearance in the a “Scenic Saturday” themed story on my blog at: http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/scenic-saturday-sweets-for-the-sweet/

Other stories in this setting (without smoking fetish overtones) have appeared here at the Celis T. Rono Writers Collaborative as “Tales of the Poisoned World” and you can find those others by clicking on the link to my stories here: http://celisrono.wordpress.com/category/smokedawg/

This is the third “Tales of the Poisoned World” story.

Tales of the Poisoned World:

Between Demons and Angels

Night in the city was never safe, not even behind the walls of a church—in fact, maybe less so some nights.

Having been born and raised in New Philadelphia, Reverend Jason Nguyen-Williams had seen a lot in his 27 years of life—hell, he had experienced his first encounter with a thrill-killer at the age of 6 when he and his mother were caught out on the street later than was wise. His mother had gotten him away from that intact, and the man had been captured soon thereafter, though Jason still had a little silver scar on his left thigh to remind him of the incident.

It still squidged him inside out that when he had gone to see that thrill-killer in prison several years ago as part of his forgiveness colloquium in seminary, the man looked into Jason’s eyes for all of three seconds, smiled, and asked, “So, can you still see your scar? Does it bring you back to your childhood, boy?” Just from looking into his eyes, the thrill-killer had remembered. Chilling, but good preparation for his current duties, which were dangerous simply due to his proximity to the Sprawls, and the hours that he was called upon to work.

Still, when straightening up the sanctuary after dark—alone—right on the border between the Gray Zion sprawlhood and the mid-strata neighborhood of Goldborough, there were some things a man of God just didn’t have preparation for. Things one just didn’t know how to react to.

A tall, nearly naked woman with ruddy reptilian wings and bright red eyes was one of those things.

Once Jason knew that someone had entered the room, his hand had immediately shot to the pocket of his long black preacher’s coat, where he kept a very expensive flechette pistol. A religious man who relied only on God to protect him in this city was a religious man who would be visiting Heaven long before he had earned any gray hairs. Or, in the case of most of the religious men in this particular church, they’d probably end up in Hell, but that was a whole other matter.

When he had turned around, he had guessed the unexpected visitor would be either a SilverScream addict on a rage-frenzy, a rape or robbery victim seeking sanctuary, a pimp looking for a wayward pedwhore, or a police officer asking questions. Those were the top four night-time patrons around here.