Focus.
I closed my eyes and reached for my Magick. That swirling cosmic energy flowing like a turbulent sea beneath my skin. It was there, just like it had always been, but now it was different. Ever since my deal with the House, the churning Magick trapped inside me floated beneath an oily sheen. Dark shapes squirmed within that layer of mental grime, angry and violent visuals I’d have to push through to reach my Magick. I’d done it before—many times, in fact—but in each instance I knew a little more of the House’s tainted Magick left its mark on my soul.
Somewhere a phone chirped. It wasn’t mine. Like a fool, I’d left mine in the car.
Maurice’s gruff voice read off the text message. “Mr. Ed’s a few minutes out and he said to rotate the peanuts.”
“I got it,” Donnie said, his heavy boots shuffling on the dusty concrete. “We never should have switched to roasted from boiled. It’s way too much work, and everyone prefers them boiled.”
Boiled Peanuts? Shit, these really are Demon Hunters.
The side-roads and byways of rural Florida were littered with boiled peanut vendors, and at least half of them moonlighted as Demon Hunters. It was an old tradition, one that I didn’t know too much about, but they had a reputation for zeal—it was legendary even in Magickal circles.
Now’s the time you get your butt out of here. Pronto!
I pushed aside my worries and reached for my Magick again. The darkness was still there, waiting and hungry. This time it brought terrible visuals, vicious and destructive visions of pain and suffering I couldn’t unsee. Thanks to the power of 69 Mallory Lane, these Demon Hunters wouldn’t know what hit them.
No!
I closed my eyes and focused on the room, painting a mental picture as best as I could. There had been three of them when the evening started, so I had to assume that was still the case. It was critical that I get this part right—the better the visual, the better the Magick.
A boiling peanut cauldron filled my mind’s eye, and inside I found my own head floating in the brownish water.
Stop it, Gene. You’ve got to focus. Think about the zip tie.
I shifted my attention to the tight string of plastic wrapping my hands. It was easier to imagine and had far less chance of turning me into a boiled Magician head. All I had to do was coax it off. It was plastic, so there was a good chance it’d stretch with a little heat. The key was to bring the burn gently.
The burn!
Last year when I’d closed the Hellgate and left my only daughter in the hands of a fast-talking Imp, I’d burned my wrist on the ring of fire that encircled that gate. The burn had healed, but only partially, and the skin there never stopped being hot. I supposed that was part of the sacrifice, but tonight it might serve an even higher purpose—saving my bacon.
I concentrated on that singed skin: its waxy pink color, the complete lack of hair, and finally the heat.
Oh, the heat.
I let my Magick gently rise, the House’s taint bubbling up with it. It started small, like the Dad Wagon’s hood after a long drive, but then it got hotter.
“Hey, Donnie, you smell that?”
“I only ever smell peanuts, man.”
Maurice sniffed the stuffy air like a bloodhound. “Burning plastic…”
“I smell it too,” the younger of the three voices said. “Did one of you leave something against the burner?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll check.” The squeaky hinge of the screen door echoed in the tiny room.
I kept up the pressure, fighting back against the darker inspirations the House had given me. It was a losing battle. I’d gone up against 69 Mallory Lane countless times since I’d left home, and in each instance it had succeeded in pushing me just that much closer to becoming someone, or something else, entirely.
Magick snaked between my wrists, and the tight plastic stretched ever so slightly against them.
Bang.
The screen door swung shut and Donnie spoke again. “Nope, nothing there… I smell it too, though.”
The phone chirped again. “Hey, Mr. Ed says he’s getting something from that chicken place off Main. Do you want anything, Donnie?” Maurice asked.
“Twelve piece, extra crispy.”
That’s what I’ll be if I’m not careful.
“Man, you are making me hungry. I can smell the fried chicken.”
Maurice wasn’t imagining anything. I could smell it too, because my Magick had gone off the rails, and I was now frying my arm like chicken, extra-crispy chicken to be exact.
Snap!
The zip tie popped in two and I scrambled into action. Sadly, my body had little interest in the panther-like moves I was imagining. All those late nights watching kung-fu movies and eating Chinese food hadn’t done me any favors. I stumbled to my feet and turned to face the three stooges of Demon Hunting. The twisted sheen of the House’s tainted Magick churned above my own.
“Don’t move,” Donnie cried, a cheap plastic Viewmaster in his fingers. Shaped like a futuristic set of cheesy binoculars, the toy shone in the stark fluorescent lights. The Demon Hunter jammed a white paper wheel with little black squares into the front and held it up to his eyes.
What the…
“Listen, guys,” I said, my hands raised. “I don’t want trouble.”
“Do it, Donnie!” Maurice slammed a hand down on the large man’s shoulder. “Do it before he does something to us.”
I shrugged my frustrated shoulders. “But, I’m not doing anything.”
The younger man reached for Donnie. “Wait, don’t do it. We don’t know what he is or if—”
“I’ve seen enough.” Donnie shrugged off the younger man and pushed the orange lever down.
Click!
An eruption of Deep Magick rocked the shed like a crashing wave. Cosmic power tore through me, peeling my soul apart like an overripe banana.
I screamed—with an immediate echo.
There were two Gene Laws in the room now. One with a little extra road fat, and the other: trim, dark, and terrifying.
Ah, hell.
3
Soul-Splitting Good
Soul-Splitter.
How on earth did Larry, Moe, and Curly get their hands on Deep Magick like that?
A puff of smoke drifted from the Viewmaster. It twisted in the air above an equally tiny flame that peeked out from the slot that held the paper wheel.
“Crap,” Donnie cried, yanking the burning circle out and tossing it on the floor. He licked his singed fingers. “You guys ever seen that happen before?”
Maurice frowned and stomped on the paper wheel, putting out the fire. “No. You broke it.”
“I didn’t break it.”
Donnie’s brother reached for the plastic toy. “Yeah, you sure did. You broke it and Mr. Ed’s gonna be pissed.”
Donnie pulled the toy back from his brother. “You were the one that told me to do it!”
The younger man, whose name I’d yet to discern, picked up the burnt paper wheel. “You used the Spanish one?”
“Well, we didn’t have a whole a lot left. Beggars can’t be—”
“Hola, me llamo Gene…” the dark half of my nature grumbled. Not unlike a house of mirrors, the Soul-Split version of Eugene Law was a twisted copy of the original. Evil Gene’s hair might have been slicked-back, and his five o’clock shadow looked a little closer to seven-thirty, but the rest of him was a spitting image of me—if I spoke Spanish and enjoyed glaring.
Maurice grabbed the toy. “What the hell, Donnie.”
“It was all I could find. It’s the one with that girl and her talking backpack, I don’t know—”
“Hola! Mi llamo Gene!” my shadow yelled, this time with a lot more gusto.
Soul-Splitting was an old-school Demon Hunter’s go-to Magick when dealing with the possessed. The reason it was old-school was that, more often than not, it backfired in epic proportions. It wasn’t hard to see why—splitting off the Demon from its possessed a
nd trying to capture the monster without getting your face chewed off was no small task. All of this was often made a lot easier by having an actual trap ready and waiting for when the evil made its curtain call.
The peanut brothers didn’t appear to have thought that far ahead, and worse, they didn’t know they’d violated a cardinal rule of Soul-Splitting, one that had been in circulation for as long as there’d been Demon Hunters crazy enough to try working that sort of Magick.
Never Soul-Split a Magician.
I’d learned that lesson the hard way a lot of years ago. While in the end it had worked out for me, it had been sheer luck more than anything remotely bordering on solid planning. The point remained, the number one rule among those combing the Sunshine State for Demonic entities was never, under any circumstances, Soul-Split a Magician.
“Hola! Me llamo Gene!” the split-half of my Magickal essence yelled in terrible Spanish. Sure, he was evil, and more than a little linguistically confused, but neither of those problems were the real concern. My real concern was that he had gotten all my Magick—every last drop.
Dark and twisted Gene placed his hands together, and the sudden surge of cosmic power was enough to set the hairs on my arms at attention.
“What’s it doing?” Donnie asked, leaning forward to get a closer look, a small black kazoo dangling from a chain around his neck.
Honk!
The kazoo went off like an ambulance siren, ramping up to holy-hell loud in an instant.
“It’s Magick,” Donnie cried, backing up from Evil Gene.
No shit, guys. This is what happens when you Soul-Split a Magician: near limitless access to Magick in the darkest half of his being. Great plan.
“Duck!” I threw myself into the trio of backwater Demon Hunters, knocking them to the ground just before a very powerful blast of soul-searing Magick roared over them. The plastic toy bounced out of Maurice’s hands and skidded across the concrete.
Once a soul is split, there were only a couple ways to get put back together. The hardest one was the reconciled merger. Basically, with the help of a lot of Magick and more than a little luck, one of the two halves got to take control of the newly re-joined soul. Seeing as I was the one without any Magick, it wasn’t hard to imagine who would get the top bunk in that merger. My best plan was to get a member of the peanut posse to use the Viewmaster on me and my evil twin, and quickly.
“What do we do?” Donnie scrambled to his feet.
“We don’t do that.” I yanked on his peanut-oil-stained flannel and pulled him back down. “It should take him a few seconds to—”
Boom!
Another blast of Magick hit the steel wall behind us, melting Donnie’s early warning kazoo to his chest, and scorching the arms of his heavy shirt. “Argh!”
“Hola! Me llamo Eugene!” the Shadow shouted. Magick dripped from his outstretched fingers.
Maurice rubbed his head. “What is he saying?”
Donnie pushed the other Demon Hunter away and grabbed a shotgun near the screen door. “I don’t give a shit what he’s saying—” he gave it a pump, enthusiastically chambering a round—“I’m going to put a hole in him a mile wide.”
This really was their first Magician Soul-Split, and based on what I was seeing this might be their last.
“Stop!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet to grab the gun. “Don’t shoot it!”
“Get him out of my way, Maurice.” Donnie’s brother and the still unnamed Demon Hunter pulled me back, giving the big man a clear shot.
“Eat silver, you son of a bitch!”
Boom!
If you’ve never been in a small steel shed when a shotgun goes off you should count your blessings and revel in the fact your eardrums are still intact and relatively happy.
A swarm of angry silver shot blew through my dark half. It ripped apart skin, flesh, and bone, spraying the back wall with all the above and leaving my shadow soul collapsed against the dirty ground.
Well, that’s just surreal.
Donnie chambered another round and took a step toward the shadowy Eugene. “Keep a hold on the other one, I don’t want him getting away.”
Maurice and company held me tight.
I struggled to free myself. “Guys, you don’t want to do that. You need to get your Viewmaster before—”
“Shut up before I put a round in you,” the melted-kazoo-wearing Demon Hunter said, reaching out with his gun barrel to poke at the shadow soul.
“Is it dead?”
It’s not living, so no, technically, it’s not dead. It lives on dark and violent energy—and you knuckleheads just blasted it with a shotgun.
The gun barrel pushed into my shadow soul’s cheek. “Sure looks like it.”
“Nice work, Don—”
Dark Eugene’s eyes burst open, and he grabbed the gun barrel. “Hola! Me llamo Eugene!” My shadow self yanked the hot steel forward, tossing the muscle-bound Donnie aside like a rag-doll, and slamming his body into the steel wall. Fire raced down Evil Gene’s flesh and closed the holes left by the silver shot, and if it was possible, gave him an even better chance of taking top billing in all my future nightmares.
“What the hell?” Donnie cried, trying to right himself.
Maurice and the remaining Demon Hunter let go of my hands and scrambled behind me, Donnie’s larger brother inadvertently kicking the Soul-Splitting Viewmaster to my feet.
“Where’s the trap?” I scooped up the Soul-Splitter.
The meatheads gave me varying looks of sheer confusion. “Trap?”
Dark Eugene got to his feet.
“Yeah, the trap. You guys Soul-Split a Magician without having a trap ready to suck up the high-voltage Darkling hellbent on teaching us Intro to Spanish?”
Two perfectly blank looks greeted me.
Splendid.
“Okay, typically there’s a sigil-bound object to hold the Darkling.”
Maurice scratched at this head, while the smaller un-named individual shuffled his feet.
Oh, come on, do I have to do everything…
“Hola! Mi llamo—”
“Stop. Enough already. I get it,” I placed a foot on the singed photo wheel. “Your name is Gene Law. But I’ve got news for you, muchacho. It’s not.”
The shadow tilted its head.
“That’s my damn name, and I’m not letting you have it without a fight.”
Evil Gene smiled, and somewhere in the corner Donnie’s melted kazoo honked like it was attached to a three-year-old high on pixie-sticks.
This is brilliant. You do realize you have no Magick, right?
I shoved the picture disc into the Viewmaster backwards and tossed it to Maurice. “When I hit him, you need to pull the lever.”
“Uh, I…”
“One… two… three,” I cried, launching myself at the Darkling. If Maurice came through I’d be re-united with the shadow-side of my nature, but also with my Magick. The scary part was that this entire exercise was dependent on a backwater Demon Hunter who for all the world looked like a deer caught in the high beams.
Don’t panic.
I had the Darkling in my sights and extended my arms for a full on tackle.
Come on, Maurice, where’s that click?
Twisted Magick crackled around Evil Gene like a cloud of angry bees.
This is going to hurt like hell.
The door to the shed swung open and my hands grasped at empty air. The Darkling had lunged to the side and avoided me, before whooshing past the latest person to join our party.
I was not that fast, and couldn’t defy the laws of gravity. Instead of catching my amigo, Evil Gene, and restoring my Magick, I crashed headlong into the shed’s corrugated steel wall with brain-jarring force.
And this day had been going oh so well…
4
Mr. Ed
A shadow crossed my face and I opened my eyes. Individual features were hard to make out in the newly wrecked staging shed, but one thing stuck out clear a
s day. I now had a finely honed machete blade pressed against my neck, wielded by a chicken-bucket-carrying gentleman who carried that weapon like he knew exactly what do to with it.
“Which of you morons used the Viewmaster on him?”
“That was Donnie,” Maurice said, throwing the other Demon Hunter under the bus with practiced grace.
“Never Soul-Split a Magician, Donnie, holy crap. How many times do I have to—” The man paused mid-sentence and leaned forward, his face blocking out the overhead light. “Eugene?”
Where do I know that voice from?
“Yeah…” I said, trying to make out the figure’s face.
“Eugene Law?”
Mr. Ed? Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.
“Ed Lovely?”
My old college roommate’s infectious grin emerged.
Ed and I’d lived together the first few semesters in college. To say Lovely was a unique guy was a gross understatement. He possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of Magick, which—when coupled with the fact that he lacked any Magickal ability whatsoever—made for a very interesting pairing. When I’d known him, Ed had been equal parts Demon Hunter and devilishly good-looking lady killer. The girls had swooned for those long blond locks—locks that appeared to have moved on for greener pastures.
My old roommate shoved the bucket of chicken into Donnie’s hands and lowered his machete. “Holy heck, Gene. How long has it been? And what the hell are you doing in Dade City?” He extended a hand out of the harsh light to help me up.
“It’s a long story—”
“Whoa!” My old roommate jumped back as soon as our hands touched and immediately dropped me on the floor. A small plastic spider ring twitched violently on his finger. Ed frowned and brought the machete back front and center.
“Yeah, listen, I can explain—”
“Sal’s Spidery Sense—I don’t know who you are, but there’s no way you’re Eugene Law. Donnie, get the Philips cap.”
Beaten Path Page 2