by C. T. Phipps
“You can duel it out in the old way when this conflict is done,” Lucinda said to me, speaking as if she was talking to a small child. “In the meantime, we need every ally we can get.”
“We can’t trust him!” I snapped, wanting to tear his heart out.
“Enil is my creator,” Jackson said, walking up to Blade’s corpse and growling. He was wearing the tattered remains of his earlier suit. “I’m going to rescue him from whatever crazy nonsense he’s found himself in.”
“Jackson, you are way out of your league,” I said, looking at him and completely failing to be intimidating because I was being held upside down.
“I am willing to do whatever is needed,” Jackson said, utterly sincere. “I’m not your slave or Enil’s anymore, but I am going to make sure my people are protected.”
David walked up to the body beside Jackson, casually picked up a silver stake from his bandolier, and stared at him. “Jackson, you’re right. We need to trust one another.”
“Et tu, David?” I asked.
“Thank you,” Jackson said, looking around. “Now will someone tell me what the hell is going on?”
David then jabbed the silver stake into Jackson’s heart, causing the crime lord to make a yowl of pain. You could tell Jackson didn’t see it coming because it was David. I mean, David. My best friend grabbed Jackson by the neck and ripped the crime lord’s head clean off. As powerful as the hybrid was, apparently a zombie was just as strong.
Jackson’s flesh melted to the age it would be if normal decay had continued past his death five years ago. Rotting meat and bones fell to the ground, signaling the end of one of New Detroit’s most successful sons. Also the end of the man who killed my brother.
Lucinda dissipated her shadow tendril, dropping me on the ground. “That was very wasteful of you, David.”
“Why?” I asked, staring at the very clearly dead form of Jackson.
David looked back at me. “I thought you’d like it. Do you?”
I looked at the bones then back at him. “Sure, man. Thanks.”
Truth be told, it was like having a rug pulled out from under me. I’d spent more than a decade hating Jackson and watching him killed by my best friend wasn’t the way I wanted to see him go. It was kind of hilarious but also left me feeling empty. I’d relied on that hate to keep me going many nights, and there wasn’t that much else in my life.
Yay, my brother is avenged. Except, he was still dead, and Damien probably would have preferred if I had done something better than kill his old boss for him—like name a basketball court in his honor or something. It reminded me of the first time I ever killed someone, back in Iraq. I’d been standing with a few of my buddies when someone had opened fire from an alleyway with a pistol. The asshole had managed to kill two of my buddies before I gunned him down with my M4. In the end, it had turned out to be some kid barely into puberty trying to avenge his dad who’d been in the wrong building when bombs had fallen.
Vengeance is an exotic dish, Thoth said, mentally. Best served cold.
A good Klingon proverb, I thought back.
It’s from the French novel Mathilde, Thoth said. I have avenged myself a hundred wrongs, but unlike the Count of Monte Cristo, I have never found it a liberating experience. I am just simply unable to forgive or forget.
I’m more concerned about the fact David has become a hardcore killer. That’s like six people tonight. This is the dude who yelled at me for drinking blood from deer.
It’ll be more in the future, Thoth said. He is a creature of war now. Much like us.
Sam surprised me by speaking in our conversation. Perhaps you should have just let him rest in peace.
The dead are never at peace, Thoth said. In heaven or in hell.
Thoth walked over to the fallen form of Wyatt and removed the Bowie knife from his heart. “I believe we can compensate for the death of an uncertain ally with the addition of other uncertain allies.”
“Thoth, is that such a good idea?” I asked, wondering what he was thinking.
I could feel someone watching us. I wasn’t sure if it was Enil, Gog, or something else. With my luck, Satan himself and L. Ron Hubbard were planning to mess up my day.
“Yes,” Thoth said.
Wyatt popped up like a zombie. The expression on his face was mildly bored rather than terrified. “Okay, what do you want for my people to walk out of this?”
“Your aid in fighting Gog,” Thoth said.
“That’s suicide,” Wyatt said.
“He’s going to kill you anyway, and we’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Wyatt nodded. “Alright, fair enough.”
“Are we really going to trust the people who just tried to kill us?” I asked, half expecting Enil to show up and avenge his dead creation. One who had displayed a lot more loyalty to his traitorous creator than he deserved.
“If I went after everyone who tried to kill me then I’d have no friends among vampires at all,” Thoth said.
“Vampires know the value of currency. By sparing his life, Wyatt owes a great debt to Thoth,” Lucinda explained. “Most of us come from a time when all a person had was their word. Breaking such a contract is death among vampires.”
“So vampires work on Wookiee life debt rules,” I said. “Huh, you learn something new every day.”
“You’re also not allowed to take revenge for your fallen brethren,” Thoth replied.
“I understand,” Wyatt said, looking over at the still-burning flames where Belladonna had been destroyed. “Honestly, I feel like a fool for trusting her in the first place. The dead soldiers can be replaced, but I feel the loss of the Oddity.”
“The Oddity?” I asked.
“The big alien thing,” Wyatt said. “No idea what it was. Had nifty powers, though. Also did an amazing Jack Benny impression.”
“Uh huh,” I said, having no idea who that was.
Wyatt pulled out the sword I’d plunged into the heart of the Blade wannabe who immediately woke up. “Thomas, my son, you really underestimated the bellidix of this community. Next time just use a shotgun.”
“Sorry, father,” the vampire said, getting up and regenerating his wounds.
Wyatt also bit his wrist before pouring blood onto the badly deformed head of the war hammer-wielding vampire. Wyatt dressed like a cowboy, but I had the idea he was a much older vampire since the Viking looking guy almost immediately recovered, looking angry and ready for round two.
He shouted something in what I assumed was Swedish and then pointed at both Yukie, Thoth, and myself. I recognized some of the subsequent words and they were not ones you said to two black men or an Asian woman without starting a fight.
“Yes, Odin,” Wyatt said, impatiently. “That’s a good idea. Start a fight with the people who explicitly kicked our asses before. I remind you Lucinda created me and is old enough to know actual Vikings versus sixties rockers who pretend to be one.”
Odin looked chagrinned.
I smirked and made a kissy face at him.
Odin lifted his hammer and prepared to charge as I raised my claws. “Ready and willing, ya Hell’s Angels piece of trailer trash!”
Mina grabbed me by the shoulder. “He’s here.”
“Who is...oh,” I said, stopping in mid-sentence.
I turned my attention and watched Enil move from the darkness of the amusement park. As he did so, the various rides and buildings all started turning on. For a moment, I thought it was a weird freaky-deaky vampire thing before I realized someone had probably just turned on the power. Still, it was strange seeing a creepy, pallid, bat-faced Ancient walking past a carousel and bumper cars. The bumper cars were driving themselves, by the way, which was considerably harder to explain than the power being turned on.
“Nightlife Baby” (a.k.a “Let’s Go”) by The Cars started playing on the speakers around us. The incongruity of the jumpy peppy music to our circumstance almost made me laugh. Except, I didn’t laugh because I was faced with
a six-thousand-year-old vampire that could tear not only us apart but probably every other vampire in Detroit without breathing hard. Huh, I needed another way to say that. Without exerting himself? Without feeding that night? Never mind, it’s not important right now.
Do you have ADD? Sam asked me, mentally.
I was never diagnosed, I responded. Also, do I have to repeat myself? Stop reading my mind!
Sorry! Sam responded. It’s just hard not to.
Thoth took a step forward, showing just the barest hint of hesitation. “Enil, Second Eldest, we have come to bargain. You have committed grievous sins against your own kind. You have broken the Compact of Babylon, the compact you yourself drew up, forbidding the undead from working for the forces of hell.”
Enil shook his head. “You should not have come here. This is a private matter.”
“Bullshit,” I said, speaking before I realized how stupid I was. “You’re working for Gog. You’re going to kill all the people involved in taking down Magog. Which is stupid because you were involved in it too.”
Thoth felt his face.
Lucinda giggled as if what I’d done was outrageously funny. It was a bit like listening to a hyena before it went for the jugular.
“Your access to the Sight grows stronger with each passing night, Young Peter,” Enil said, looking down at Jackson’s skeleton. “I had hoped to create something like you, but clearly I overestimated the material I was working with. I blame the wolf blood.”
Damn, even I felt bad for Jackson in that moment. “Gog has got your family, doesn’t he? That’s why you’re doing this.”
Enil chuckled and it didn’t sound like a hyena, no, it sounded like the wailing of the wind through a deep dark cavern. Man, what was it with old vampires that they all sounded super creepy and shit? I mean, can’t we just get a nine-hundred-year-old guy who likes checkers or something?
“You believe I would betray the world and the whole of vampire kind for something so immaterial as their lives?” Enil said, sounding both bitter and defeated.
“Did you not?” Thoth asked.
“No,” Enil said, staring at his clawed hands. “My son did a very foolish thing and damned himself to something far more difficult to free him from than death. Gog compelled him to sign away his soul and turn himself into a petty wizard. I would have made him into a vampire if he had but asked, but I wanted to give him time to become more than he was. My wife killed herself upon the discovery of his demonic allegiance, perhaps compelled to do so by Gog.”
“Uh huh,” I said, what kind of dumbasses sold their soul to Satan for power. I mean, even if you were a complete scumbag, you should know that magic and demons indicated heaven was for real as well. If you wanted to avoid hell, then you should seek immortality.
I mean, I’d encountered that freaky BOSS wizard, his buddies, and that idiot at the convenience store.
Alexander.
Like Enil’s son was named.
Oh crap.
Thoth seemed to understand. “Gog is holding your son’s soul ransom. Eternal damnation and torture await him unless you comply.”
“What a monstrous choice,” Lucinda said. “It is why I destroyed Magog. The archdemon could not be allowed to live after trying to corrupt my daughter.”
Yukie looked over at Lucinda. “Mother did not give her soul to Magog, even when he pretended to love her and adore her for decades.”
“Then you cannot comprehend my grief,” Enil said, now standing in front of us. “Or what I will do to protect Alexander.”
Thoth was less than sympathetic. “Your son was responsible for his own actions. If you wish to save him from hell and his archdemon master, then you should join us in destroying Gog.”
“Ha!” Enil laughed. “You have no idea what it took to bind the Elder Gods to the world and speak casually of the process of fighting them. The monstrous atrocities, mass human sacrifices, and millennia of servitude to learn the barest fragment of their true names. You seek to stem the tide of the Biblical Flood with a teacup.”
“I know Gog’s true name and Magog’s,” Thoth said. “I learned them from the Angel of Death in hell. Just a small number of the secrets I allowed myself to be sacrificed by Kim Su to learn. I know your true name as well, Enil, though I never wanted to use it.”
Wow, Thoth had some balls on him for making that claim.
Wyatt exchanged a glance to Lucinda as Mina stepped forward in front of David and Sam protectively.
Enil stared. “Your lies, Dragonson, are no use here. You, your bride, and kin will die now.”
“Appear ______” Thoth said his next words in an incomprehensible record scratch like noise.
Gog then appeared beside Enil, looking confused.
Ho-lee shit.
That was when Gog pointed at me. “He killed your son, who now roasts in the lake of fire! Destroy him, and I will rescue him from perdition!”
Ah hell.
Literally.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Yeah, well, I’m dead.
I managed to focus all my Time Manipulation powers on Enil, but that just meant he was moving at me at a runner’s pace and I was already dead. Ironically, that gave me a sense of slowed-down time in the more traditional metaphorical sense. The whole, “when your life flashes before you” moment. There was absolutely nothing that could stop Enil from tearing me to pieces and, honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t deserve it.
Who knew that asshole in the bathroom was the son of the second oldest vampire in the world? It was a stark reminder that everyone you killed had a family somewhere. Jackson certainly hadn’t thought anyone would miss Damien or that he’d end up getting murdered by a friend of mine on the eve of saving the world. A friend of mine he hadn’t thought of as a threat because he’d known him as a dorky kid from high school.
A friend I’d made into a killer.
I wasn’t about to just let Enil kill me, even though I was sure there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I was going down, but I was going down swinging. Lifting my claws, I bared my fangs at the guy. Lucinda struck Enil with a massive hail storm of shadowy arrows as well as an enormous fist made of Stygian darkness. Mina lifted an anti-tank rifle one of the vampire posse had possessed. Lucien the dragon, became a dragon again, and breathed out fire akin to a space shuttle’s liftoff. Wyatt’s people all fired pistols and shotguns at Enil. Even David lifted a trash can and threw it at him.
Yeah, that didn’t do much.
Thoth, meanwhile, clapped his hands together and slapped them down on the ground. The entirety of the amusement park around us became a fiery, distorted Silent Hill-looking version of itself as we were suddenly inside an enormous Enochian circle. Which, in simple terms, meant there were all sorts of crazy glowing runes on the ground around us, and it looked like it was barely keeping out hell itself.
“Thoth, what did you do?” I asked, trying to keep Enil slowed down. The ancient vampire had his body shredded to pieces only for it to twist and deform into a blackish mist that swirled into a Lovecraftian collection of eyeballs, teeth, and tendrils. It also grew and became eleven and then twenty feet tall.
“We are in hell now,” Thoth said, simply. “The power to open and close the gateways between worlds is restricted purely to those who might be human.”
“I have no idea what you said beyond we’re in hell!” I yelled back at him.
“It is the only place where Gog can be defeated!” Thoth shouted.
“Fool!” Gog shouted, laughing. “I am at my strongest here. I may be imprisoned upon your world, but this is the world of nightmares upon which I may rule all.”
“It is also the place Enil can force you to return his son’s soul,” Thoth said, simply.
That was when the twenty-foot-tall monster turned around and threw itself at Gog. The tiny homo erectus man was consumed by the hideous malformed thing, and they both disappeared into the cracked smoldering concrete beneath us.
Sam fel
t her head and fell to her knees. “The horrors around us. I feel all of it. The pain, the suffering, the terror! My husband’s soul is here, I can feel it.”
I could feel her making a connection with the horrible energies of the place. Outside of our protective circle, I saw burning people banging on the air around our circle. Some of them looked familiar, and for a second, I saw the jealous and hateful eyes of my brother. He mouthed a few words at me and shook a fist, furious at the fact I was alive and immortal.
“T, tell me this place is full of illusions,” I said, looking at Damien. “That I can’t trust what I see.”
“You can’t trust what you see,” Thoth said, clasping his hands together.
“You need to return us to the physical world,” Lucinda said, turning to Thoth. “Let us abandon Enil and his master in the prison all our kind are condemned to.”
“I am trying,” Thoth said, sounding more than a little stressed.
“Trying?” Wyatt said, waving around his gun at the spirits around us.
I could see the gathering souls around us included people I’d killed, people from the Wild West, knights, and more. There were a few BOSS agents and vampire hunters too. I was only making a guess, but I suspected the souls we’d sent here were interested in having a rematch. Given your average vampire killed at least one person a year even if they were of a genuinely kind sort, I didn’t want to think about what that said we were likely to encounter here.
That was when the ground shattered beneath me, and an enormous frigging worm burst through the hellish ground. I mean, I’m talking full on sandworm of Dune sort of massive thing, complete with enormous mouth and thick slimy body that I could see nightmarish wings sprouting out of.
“We have worm sign!” I shouted, charging at the creature because I was too scared to run away. No, I wasn’t sure about the logic behind that. “Is this Enil or Gog?”
“Both!” Thoth shouted.
I will wear your race’s flesh like my own skin, Gog’s voice spoke in my mind. With the power of this ancient blood, I will enslave the vampire race and make you gather the millions of sacrifices necessary to awaken my brethren. I will—