by N. P. Martin
Inevitably, some of them tried to run out the front and back doors, but the Hellbastards, knowing the score, already had all exits blocked, and anyone who tried to run soon fell into the Hellbastard’s clutches where they were slain without mercy, their blood mingling with the crimson lake that passed for a floor.
Despite the shock and awe of this full-on, bloody assault, Carlito held his ground up on the stage, holding his gun to Scarlet’s head. He knew we were there for her, and that as long as he didn’t move from her, he’d be safe. Safer than the rest of his crew, anyway.
After throwing some guy over my shoulder who tried to grab me from behind, firing off a burst from the MP5K into his face when he hit the ground, I paused for a second to take out my phone, texting quickly to tell Pan Demic and Artemis to hit the lights again.
Before the power came back on, I blinked rapidly three times to return my vision to normal, and a second later, the previously dark club became flooded with light, the spotlight hitting the stage once more to illuminate Carlito standing behind Scarlet, holding onto her with his gun still to her head.
Even his defiant face dropped in shock when he saw the extent of the carnage inside his club. Bodies lay everywhere, many of them in various states of dismemberment, some still alive and crawling through the blood as if trying to make their escape.
The Hellbastards, dripping with blood themselves, made sure no one made it out. Same with Haedemus, who went around stomping heads with his massive hooves.
Hannah kneeled in the middle of the dance floor, her hands cupped as she scooped blood from the cavity of a dead guy’s stomach, raising her hands in front of her as she allowed the blood to run down over her face. Her demon Visage loomed imposingly behind her, dark wings outstretched, horns spiraling off toward the ceiling. When she opened her eyes to look at me, I saw the full amber glow in them, and the pure darkness that swirled in her irises.
“Hannah,” I whispered, knowing there was nothing I could do right now. The torment she suffered in Hell had risen to the surface, turning her mind dark, and she didn’t seem to care. She smiled as blood poured down her face and into her mouth.
“The blood is the life,” she kept repeating, laughing to herself as if she found this amusing.
It was all I could do to stop myself from going to her to bring her back from the brink if I could, but my priority now had to be Scarlet.
I made my way toward the stage, my MP5K discarded on the floor, the P30L pistol now in my hand as I pointed it in Carlito’s direction. I didn’t have a shot, however, for he kept moving around Scarlet’s suspended body, knowing I wouldn’t take the chance in case I hit her.
“What have you done, Ethan?” he roared as he peeked around Scarlet, surveying the devastation before him. “My fucking crew is all dead, you fuck!”
“Step away from her, Carlito,” I said as I advanced closer to the stage, trying to find a shot. “It’s over. There’s no escape for you now. Step away from her.”
“Fuck you, Ethan!” he shouted back. “You’ve done it this time. You’re all going to pay dearly now. Mark my words…”
In the blink of an eye, Carlito just seemed to disappear. One second he was there, the next he was gone. “What the fuck?” I said, wondering how he could’ve just vanished like that.
Despite not knowing what happened, I rushed up onto the stage. Going to Scarlet, I stood by her for a second. “Scarlet, can you hear me?”
She whispered something back as blood spilled from her mouth, though I couldn’t make her out. At least she was still alive, which was a goddamn miracle considering the damage she had taken. “Someone cut this fucking rope!” I shouted.
Within seconds, Scroteface was up on the stage, his whole body dripping with blood. “Got it, boss,” he said and then jumped up high, a single swipe of his clawed hand enough to sever the rope. As Scarlet’s weight dropped, I held her up and then let her fall over my shoulder before I shouted for Haedemus, who came to the stage, standing sideways to the stage so I could drape Scarlet across his back. She needed a hospital, but given the circumstances, there was no way I could take her to one. I’d have to take her to Larry’s instead and hope that he could treat her. If not, then I would call Jacklyn Turner on the off chance that she would want to even help, though I doubted it, given that I couldn’t save her son.
As I was about to tell Haedemus to take Scarlet outside, my Infernal Itch flared up suddenly, heat spreading across the back of my neck and shoulders as my tattoos swirled madly beneath my skin. I froze for a second and then spun around to the sound of heavy footsteps, but there was nothing or no one there.
Or so I thought, for a split second later, what felt like a massive fist punched me right on the chest, sending me flying back off the stage where I landed on the blood-soaked floor, skidding across it for a few feet before I came to a stop close to Hannah, who was still on her knees, bathing herself in blood.
Sitting up as I tried to catch my breath, I said, “What the fuck was that?”
As if in answer, a deep, almost monstrous voice answered from the stage. A voice that I still recognized, despite the drop in pitch. “You’re not going anywhere, Ethan,” the voice boomed. “None of you are.”
“Carlito?” I said in surprise.
On the stage, under the spotlight, there was a kind of shimmering effect for a moment, and then a figure appeared out of nowhere. It was a towering, heavyset figure covered with thick slabs of dense muscle and reddish-brown skin. The creature had massive clubbed feet and hands the size of shovels that were balled into fists. As my eyes moved up the creature’s body to its face, I realized with utter surprise that the beast was Carlito. It still had his face, though with massive ears like a rodent, a huge wrinkled nose and a wide mouth full of pointed teeth. “That’s right,” he growled. “It’s me, Ethan.”
“What the fuck are you?” I asked him, wondering how the hell I never knew Carlito had this monster inside him. Why hadn’t my Infernal Itch detected this MURK before?
“Back in Cuba,” he said, “my mother used to tell me about a creature called a chichiricu. My brother and I thought she made it up, to keep us away from the rivers and deep lakes. We were wrong…”
“Great,” Haedemus said, backing away from the stage. “Now we have a Cuban lycanthrope to contend with. Quick, someone hand him a cigar, it might shut him up.”
“Insolent hell beast!” Carlito growled, and dived off the stage at tremendous speed, landing a punch to Haedemus’ jaw on the way down, which was enough to send Haedemus toppling over. As he fell, so too did Scarlet, and she would’ve been crushed by the Hellicorn’s weight had something not kept her hanging in the air as Haedemus hit the deck.
I turned my head to see Hannah still on her knees, but with one hand out as she used her telekinetic power to hold Scarlet up for another second before slowly moving her across and setting her prone body down on the stage. After nodding my thanks to her, I turned to look at Carlito again, but he seemed to have turned himself invisible once more.
“You’re all going to die in here!” he called out from across the other side of the dance floor. “I will crush every one of your skulls!”
The Hellbastards were running around crazily looking for Carlito in his beast form, sniffing at the air and floor as if trying to trek his movements, and it wasn’t long before they found him, launching themselves at his invisible form as they gripped onto him.
Carlito cried out as the demons began to bite and tear at his skin, becoming visible once more as he ripped the Hellbastards off him one by one like irritating ticks, launching them with his powerful arms so the Hellbastards went flying across the dance floor, wailing as they went until they bounced off tables and walls before finally landing on the floor among the piles of bodies. They didn’t seem to be too hurt, but they were wary about attacking again, choosing now to keep their distance.
With Carlito occupied with the Hellbastards, I jumped to my feet and started shooting at him, squeezing off
several shots before he cried out with pain and turned invisible again. Ejecting the clip from the pistol, I dug out a full clip from my trench pocket and reloaded, keeping the gun out in front of me as I turned to look for Carlito again.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Ethan,” Carlito said, sounding like he was off to the left now, which is the direction I swung my pistol as I advanced, stepping over bodies as I did so.
Hannah was on her feet by this point, turning slowly as she appeared to look for the beast that was Carlito. For a moment, I made eye contact with her and hardly recognized her at all. Her eyes were glowing nearly full amber, and her face—dripping with blood—seemed to have distorted into something barely human. I also noticed her hands had become claws, and her skin had darkened a good deal, something I hadn’t seen before with her.
There was a pregnant silence inside the club for a long moment, until the sound of heavy footsteps made me turn around, and I saw the bodies on the floor get crushed under invisible feet. Instinctively, I extended my weapon and started firing, but the footsteps kept coming, and the next thing I knew, I was being grabbed around the throat and lifted off my feet.
Still with the gun in my hand, I kept firing downward, eliciting a scream of pain from the beast holding me before it swiped the gun from my hand and squeezed my neck even harder. The Hellbastards rushed in again, attacking en masse as they viciously punched, kicked, bit and clawed at the creature. If it weren’t for them, Carlito would’ve broken my neck.
As it was, they forced him to drop me as he tried to get the Hellbastards off him once more. “Fucking stinking demons!” he roared as his form became visible again.
As I lay choking, I saw Carlito grab hold of Snot Skull and rip off one of the demon’s four arms before flinging the screaming Hellbastard away from him. He tried to do the same with Cracka, but Cracka was too fast and agile, and while Carlito tried to catch Cracka as he danced across his back, Toast unleashed a blast of fire into Carlito’s face, causing Carlito to scream and clamp his huge hands over himself to put out the flames.
Within seconds, the smell of burned flesh co-mingled with the stench of blood and human offal inside the club.
Meanwhile, Scroteface clung to Carlito’s back as he continually punched the back of Carlito’s head, who turned himself invisible again in defense, but it was too late by then.
Snot Skull, never one to stay down for too long, came rushing back again, more pissed off than ever now that he was an arm short. As Carlito staggered back, his invisibility glitching until he was fully visible again, Snot Skull shouted, “Fucking bastard!” and jumped onto Carlito’s leg, gripping his thigh before unleashing a stream of acid vomit that slapped down onto Carlito’s foot.
Carlito roared in pain as the acid melted the flesh and bone of his foot, but he was still somehow able to stay upright, and using one of his fists, he knocked Snot Skull off his leg.
That’s when Haedemus came charging at him from behind and speared Carlito through the back, the Hellicorn’s horn bursting from Carlito’s chest. As Carlito screamed, Haedemus started jerking his head upward as if he was trying to saw Carlito in half.
“No one sucker punches this pretty mouth and gets away with it!” Haedemus snarled, as angry as I’ve ever seen him. “I lost another tooth because of you. Teeth don’t grow on fucking trees, you know!”
When Haedemus finally slid his horn out of Carlito’s back, Carlito toppled over onto the floor, Scroteface and Cracka still clinging to him as he fell onto the bleeding bodies of his crew. He could only lie there, groaning in pain and defeat, most of his right foot now melted off, a massive gash in his chest that leaked dark blood.
To humiliate him further, both Cracka and Scroteface stood over Carlito with their cocks in their hands and pissed their acidic urine all over his face. Carlito tried to move his head away, but couldn’t, much to the Hellbastard’s amusement. “Eat piss,” Cracka said, laughing.
“Agghhhh,” Carlito cried, his voice gargled from his chest wound. “You…fucking—”
“Shut up,” Scroteface said as he directed his stream into Carlito’s mouth, making Carlito choke and gag, which only further amused the Hellbastards.
“Oh-oh, I know,” Haedemus said, sounding like he was enjoying himself now. “I could cum all over his face. No wait that might take too long. I know...”
Haedemus turned around and backed himself over the top of Carlito, who was shifting back into his human form again. As he did so, Haedemus unleashed a stream of stinking excrement from his rear end; excrement that was nothing like the grassy nuggets a horse would make. No, this was the half-digested remains of Haedemus’ last meal—a stinking stew of human flesh and bone that spilled down onto Carlito’s face like so much raw sewage. It was so vile, I had to cover my mouth against the smell, though it didn’t seem to bother the Hellbastards, who rolled around the bloody floor in fits of hilarity like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.
“You crazy horse!” Cracka shouted.
“Ahh, that’s better,” Haedemus said when he was done. “Now who wants to wipe my ass for me?”
Carlito was fucked by this point: covered in blood, shit and his own vomit, though he still managed to say defiantly, “Fuck…you…all.”
“Alright,” I said, standing up. “He’s done. Did everyone forget about Scarlet?” She still lay on the stage, unmoving, hopefully not dead.
“We’re not done yet.”
Everyone turned to see Hannah standing there, glowing eyes staring at us. She thrust out a hand and used her telekinesis to lift Carlito off the ground, so he hung in the air, shit and blood dripping down his naked body. “His soul still needs condemning to Hell.”
As Hannah—or Xaglath at this point—began to speak in Hellion in a low, deep voice, the floor beneath Carlito soon cracked open and pulled apart to reveal a fiery pit that even the Hellbastard’s jumped back from in fear. As I chanced a glance down into the hole which radiated an intense heat and sulfurous fumes, my blood turned cold as I realized I was looking into Hell itself.
Carlito must’ve realized this also, for he soon started screaming, begging not to be dropped into the fiery hole. But Xaglath, with a sneer on her lips, moved her arm down and Carlito fell screaming into the burning pit, never to be heard from again.
As Xaglath smiled with satisfaction and the rest of us stood with disturbed looks on our faces, the hole in the floor closed up, much to everyone’s relief.
“My goodness,” Haedemus said as he looked around at us. “I feel ten pounds lighter after that. Nothing like a good shit, is there?”
10
By the time I bundled Scarlet into the back of my car, I was hardly sure if she was alive or dead. Putting my fingers to her neck, I felt a faint pulse, indicating she was at least alive. But she had lost a lot of blood—pints of the stuff—and I wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to hold on.
Playing on my mind also was the fact that The Brokedown Palace had over two dozen dead bodies lying inside it, though Hannah—or rather Xaglath—said she would take care of them. “There’s plenty of room in Hell for them all,” she said with an evil smile that, frankly, freaked me the fuck out. Even the Hellbastards couldn’t wait to get away from here, just in case she ended up sending them back to Hell too, which for the Hellbastards, was the worst thing you could do to them, given how attached they’d become to living here on Earth.
The only one who stayed with her was Haedemus, and probably only because he felt peckish after all the activity and excitement, and because his belly now had room after he had emptied the contents of his rotten bowels over Carlito’s face earlier, which I still couldn’t believe he did. I swear, I think sometimes I’ve surrounded myself with a bunch of fucking degenerates.
Driving as fast as I could through the early afternoon traffic, I soon made it to The Tattomb without incident. Grabbing Scarlet from the back seat, I kicked the door of the parlor open, scaring the shit out of Larry, who was busy smok
ing a cigarette as he stared at a paperback, the room empty of customers.
Which was just as well, for if anyone had seen me standing there with a blood-soaked naked woman in my arms, they probably would’ve shit themselves.
Larry’s cigarette nearly fell from his mouth when he saw the state Scarlet was in. “Jesus Christ, Ethan,” he said. “I know I told you not to leave it so long next time, but this is fucking ridiculous, son.”
“I got nowhere else to go,” I said. “Get your shit together.”
“Ethan, that girl needs a hospital, not—”
“Just fucking do it, Larry!” I barked as I carried Scarlet into the back room and placed her on the cushioned gurney. Everywhere I looked on her, she was bleeding from some wound or other. Christ, I thought, if she makes it, it’ll be a fucking miracle.
When Larry started examining Scarlet, he just shook his head at the damage done do her. “Ethan,” he said. “This is bad. Very fucking bad. I don’t think I can fix her.”
“Fuck’s sake, Larry,” I said. “You used to be an ER doctor. I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”
“Maybe so, but in a hospital, I’d have what I needed. Proper equipment, people to assist me.” He shook his head. “This girl needs blood and lots of it. And that’s just for starters.”
“Tell me what you need. I’ll get it.”
“I just told you. She needs a hospital.”
I glanced at Scarlet laying there on the gurney, unconscious, looking like fucking roadkill. Then I shook my head and took out my phone, calling Jacklyn Turner on her cell number, which I’d kept from the last time she phoned me. She’d no doubt be home alone, mourning the death of her only son. As soon as she realized it was me calling, she’d probably tell me to go fuck myself. But I was out of options. Scarlet’s injuries were beyond a few simple procedures and a bit of homemade medicine. She needed extensive treatment that only a hospital could provide, or at the very least, a good surgeon with access to the right equipment. “Do what you can for her,” I said to Larry as I waited on Jacklyn Turner picking up. “Try to make her stable.”