Crap!
A surge of Wild Magick erupted like a well-placed firecracker. That shockwave of unpredictable cosmic power rolled out over the tall grass, curling blades and knocking Ed and Donnie to the turf. True to form, my Darkling absorbed the majority of it, which gave me an opportunity to grab the younger Ed’s wrist and make a run for the gate.
“What about my dad?” he cried, looking back at the scene unfolding.
“We’ll figure something out, I promise, but first we have to keep from getting killed ourselves. Do you trust me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I pointed back to my recovering darker half. “Sure, you can stay with him.”
“No thanks.”
We reached the gate and hit the deck. Together we scrambled under the black steel bars, while behind us all hell broke loose. We could only watch helplessly as Donnie melted away into black tar, his body consumed in the slow-moving wave of liquid evil.
“Donnie!”
Ed was next. Realization flooded his face, but it was too late. The Demon Hunter stumbled forward, grabbing at his arm. For a moment, I thought he had the upper hand, but it didn’t last. The Eternal Shame was too strong. It knew his weaknesses, and exactly how to manipulate him. Twisting strands like black licorice snaked around my old roommate’s shoulder, wrapping his neck and trapping his chin.
“Dad,” Little Ed cried, scrambling to get back under the gate.
I grabbed his arm and wrestled him back. “No, you can’t leave the cemetery.”
Ed Lovely, my oldest friend, faded beneath the tar until only his eyes remained, hatred burning in their fiery depth.
The Darkling now had his own Midnight Riders.
“No, Dad!” Little Ed broke my grasp and scrambled for the gate. “No!”
“He’s not your dad anymore.” I caught the younger man’s collar. “At least not right now.”
The Darkling stretched out his arms then turned to face us. “Weak-willed me is right, as much as I hate to admit it. It’s just not worth the hassle right now. First, I get the mirror, then I’ll come find you.”
“Maurice!” Little Ed tried to get the attention of the last member of the peanut posse. Somehow I’d forgotten about the senior roasting assistant now coming to his senses in the back of the pickup.
“Hey guys,” Maurice said, rubbing at two black eyes. “Wow, that packed a wallop.”
Little Ed grabbed at the black steel bars. “Run, Maurice!”
The last member of their merry band shook the sense back into his head, then caught sight of the new Midnight Riders and took a step back. “Donnie? Ed? What the heck is going on?”
Evil Gene brushed off his sleeves and popped his collar back up. “Well this is just perfect. Gentlemen, if you would save me the trouble.”
The Midnight Riders’ unholy screams echoed in the misty air.
Little Ed banged on the heavy gate. “Dad!”
“Fight it, Ed,” I cried, joining the young man.
The pitch-covered Demon Hunter approached the pickup, a black-as-night saber solidly in hand.
Maurice hesitated. “Ed?”
His old boss didn’t respond.
Maurice scrambled off the pickup, only to find Donnie on the ground waiting for him.
“Run, Maurice.” Little Ed banged on the metal bars.
My Darkling nodded. “Yes, please run. It’s so much more fun when the prey gives a little chase, right?”
I pointed to the truck. “Salt, Maurice! There’s got to be some salt in the truck bed, if you can get a circle going you might be able to stop them.”
The Demon Hunter pulled down on the rear gate and reached for a bag of peanut salt, but his hand didn’t stay attached. Donnie’s blade cleanly separated it from his body, leaving Maurice’s blood to splatter atop the snow-white salt.
Maurice screamed and clutched his arm to his chest, making a futile attempt to stem the blood.
Little Ed tried to squeeze his body through the bars, but I held him back. “Damn it, kid. I’m not losing another one of you today.”
Evil Gene brushed at his hair and checked his nails, giving the dying Demon Hunter no more attention than an injured cockroach. “Come on, gentlemen. We have a long ride ahead of us.”
Two new heavy choppers rolled into view from behind the pickup, called up by the Darkling’s power.
Donnie climbed aboard one and made room for Evil Gene.
My Darkling swung his leg over the seat before pointing to the struggling Maurice. “Finish it.”
Little Ed slammed his fists against the iron. “Don’t do it, Dad! This isn’t you. Listen to me it’s not you. You’ve got to snap out of it.”
The eldest Demon Hunter hesitated with his black blade perched against Maurice’s throat.
Can he do it? Can Ed Lovely beat the Eternal Shame?
The black pitch oozed along his face and arms, covering all that remained of the man’s skin and clothes.
Evil Gene shook his head. “He can’t hear you anymore, all he hears now is me.”
“Dad!”
Ed rammed the saber home, ending Maurice’s life at the edge of that black-blade. In that moment, I had my answer. Maurice dropped like a stone, his blood soaking the ground and his gurgling voice fading beneath rumbling choppers. Ed joined Evil Gene, and together they kicked up gravel and disappeared into the misty night.
Little Ed hung against the darkened gate, his shoulders slumped.
“That’s not your dad, kid. Trust me.”
The Demon Hunter’s son white-knuckled the bars. “I didn’t do anything… I’m a coward.”
“Kid, there are moments where it makes more sense to retreat and live to fight another day. This is one of those moments. Trust me. Discretion is the better part of valor, or however the quote goes. We’ll figure this one out.”
The wind picked up, blowing across my back and carrying with it the faint moaning of the dearly departed.
Little Ed turned around. “Gene?” he said, pulling on my jacket.
I turned to find a full regiment of spectral warriors in perfect alignment behind us. These weren’t New Dead, with their scorched and blackened souls, nor were these the chaotic and unpredictable Old Dead, which was too bad, since I had experience with both of them.
This was something all together different, but just as terrifying.
“You see them?”
Little Ed nodded. “What do we do?”
Seven soldiers stepped forward with rifles raised.
“I don’t know.”
Part II
The Road To Hell
10
Wing-halla Awaits
I slumped back against the steel bars. The small white piece of Private Petty’s cross tumbled out of my jacket and landed just outside the gate.
“Now that’s a send off,” said a familiar young voice.
“Private Petty!”
The spectral soldier I’d thought the unmaking had destroyed stood next to the piece of road-side cross outside the gate.
“Who’s that?” Little Ed asked, his head on a swivel between the advancing firing squad and the saber-carrying spectral private.
“That’s Private Petty, he saved my—hey, wait a second, how are you seeing all this?”
Little Ed turned back toward the regiment and ignored my question.
“Ready,” a deep, ghostly voice cried from the firing line.
Little Ed dropped to the ground and crawled under the gate. “They’re going to shoot us.”
“I don’t think so…”
“Aim!”
“Aw, hell,” I said, crawling out behind the junior Demon Hunter. “I’m not going to stay here and find out. Wait for me.”
“Fire!”
The air shook with the force of seven rifle shots. I scrambled to my feet on the other side of the steel bars and pat down my body. “Were you hit?”
Little Ed brushed the dirt off his chest. “No. You?”
“Nop
e.”
Private Petty sighed and removed his beret. A single tear glinted in his eye
“Maurice,” Ed’s son cried, racing to the body of his fallen friend. He fell to his knees at the bloody mess of what had been the assistant roaster. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Dang,” came the smooth drawl of a ghostly Maurice, standing over his mutilated corpse. “Well, that just sucks.”
The regiment commander barked out another command. “Ready.”
“Maurice? Is that you?” Little Ed asked, still kneeling next to the corpse.
“I think. Damnation, I took it right in the neck, eh?”
“Aim.”
“He didn’t mean it, Maurice. I know he didn’t. That wasn’t my dad, that was something else. He didn’t mean to…”
The spectral peanut vendor rubbed his neck. “Yeah, I hope not. That looks pretty gruesome.”
Private Petty approached the spectral Demon Hunter. “Pardon me for asking, but did you serve in active duty?”
“Afghanistan, yeah.”
“Fire!”
Seven more shots rang out in the misty night.
Private Petty saluted Maurice and stepped aside. “Godspeed.”
“Maurice,” I said, helping Little Ed to his feet. “You are going to get a ride any second. I need you to take that ride. You understand?”
The thin mist that clung to the tall grass like snarls in the shag carpet shifted, floating closer to the Demon Hunter.
“Eh? I think. What sort of ride are we talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter. You just take it. You got it? How many Demons did you banish?”
Maurice bent down to fiddle with the bloody gash on his corpse’s neck. “Um, by myself or with Ed? I’d say we did at least fifty, wouldn’t you agree, Eddie? Yeah, fifty.”
The mist swirled, sliding between the Demon Hunter’s legs like a hungry python.
“That’s exactly what I was afraid of. Until your ride gets here you’re fair game, and I don’t have anything in the way of Magick to protect you.”
“Ready,” the regime commander barked again.
“Hah! Hey, that tickles,” Maurice said, pulling his spectral foot up out of the mist.
“Don’t leave your Death Spot,” I said, trying to keep the newly deceased from stepping too far from his corpse.
“Well you should tell that to whatever is tickling my—” the Demon Hunter vanished, pulled under in the rising mist.
Little Ed lunged for the spot his friend had been. “Maurice!”
“Aim.”
The Demon Hunter’s spectral hand appeared briefly in the frothing white before being dragged under again.
“Crap. Okay, Petty, can you grab him?” I asked, but the ghost was gone.
Gah!
“What do we do?!” Little Ed shouted, pawing through the mist for his friend.
Maurice’s hand appeared again and frantically waved in the air like he was caught in a fast-moving river. The mist had dragged him a good distance from his Death Spot.
“Get one of those bags of salt from what’s left of the trailer.”
Little Ed jumped to his feet. “What are you going to do with it?”
I chased after Maurice’s hand. “I’m going to keep him from missing his ride. You worry about the salt.”
“Fire!”
The final volley exploded into the night air, and that meant his ride would be here shortly.
The Demon Hunter’s hand vanished into the mist again.
“Damn it, you peanut-roasting bastard,” I shouted, digging through the mist. “Your ride is coming.”
A clarion blast rung across the empty road.
Mist swirled around my legs. “Oh man, you may not know this, but you don’t get a lot of chances at this. Do not miss your ride, trust me. I don’t know what you’re doing down there, but whatever it is you'd best man the heck up and punch it in the nose—your ride is almost here!”
“I’ve got the salt!” Little Ed ran back toward Maurice’s Death Spot with the heavy rucksack clutched to his chest.
“Good work…”
“Where’s Maurice?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Damn it, kid. I’m working on that. Just give me a—” The Demon Hunter’s hand appeared in the swirling mist and I lunged for it. “I got you.”
Maurice’s face appeared above the mist, his eyes wide in terror. “Gators!”
“Did you banish a Sobek?” The hunter’s face slipped below the mist again and I caught the flash of dark scales. “I’m going to take that as a yes. Crap.”
A Sobek, named after the Egyptian god of the Nile, was the patron spirit of the race of Alligator Men that lived along the spine of the state. I’d tangled with Alligator Men once, down in the Everglades, and once had been more than enough for me.
I caught the edge of Maurice’s fingers and yanked his head above the mist. “How’s my salt coming, Eddie?”
Ed’s son gave me a confused look. “What do you want me to do with it?”
More dark scales, like the mountainous ridges of a bull gator’s back, surfaced in the hazy mist. “Hold on, Maurice,” I cried, dragging the oversized, ghostly Demon Hunter through the clinging white like I were trolling bait. “Circle the wagons!”
Little Ed set the bag down. “Huh?”
“Make a salt circle around his body. Don’t get any on him and make sure the ring is big enough for us to stand in.”
“Oh, got it,” the young man said, tearing open the industrial-sized bag of salt and pouring it heavy on the sandy earth.
An alligator tail slapped against my leg, and I thought for sure I was going to fall smack into the Sobek’s snare. “Damn it, Maurice. Can you kick or something?”
“I’m trying.” The recently departed’s head dipping below the mist again.
“Try harder!”
I dragged the peanut vendor to the edge of the circle. “Wait, kid, you have to leave a spot for him to get in. Don’t close it.”
Little Ed stopped, then kicked aside a pile of salt on the far side of the circle. “Shoot, sorry.”
“The other side, really?!”
The sound of horse hooves on the hard pavement grabbed our attention.
A chariot? Maurice dies, and he gets a damn chariot.
It wasn’t just any chariot. The ornate, gold-plated Roman taxi rumbled down the black asphalt toward us. An honest-to-goodness Centurion stood tall on the back of that ride to the hereafter, the reins in one meaty hand, and a long spear in the other.
I dragged the Demon Hunter out of the mist just long enough for him to see his ride. “That guy looks like my great-uncle Steve.”
“Move.” I pushed Little Ed aside and tossed Maurice onto his Death Spot. “Close it!”
Little Ed dumped the last of his salt bag across the ground, closing the Demon Hunter up on salt island.
“Gene?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to catch my breath.
“Since we closed him up in the salt circle how will he catch his ride?”
“He’ll… Damn it, kid.”
Little Ed pointed at the approaching chariot. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I figured you had a plan for that.”
“I… I’m working on it.”
The chariot rolled along the pavement, the war horse’s powerful hooves scoring the asphalt.
Little Ed smiled. “Great! What is it?”
“Give me a minute.”
Thick black gator scales brushed against the edge of the salt circle. The Sobek might not have been here for me, but he appeared ready to claim a prize and wasn’t going to let something like a Magickless Magician stand in his way. “You ever wrestled an alligator?”
“What?” Little Ed cried, dropping the empty bag. “Just cause I grew up in the Green Swamp doesn’t mean I wrestle alligators.”
“Can you?”
“That was one time,” Little Ed held up a single finger, “I was a kid, and it was a baby gator…
”
“Works for me. On the count of three.”
“Wait,” Little Ed cried, fumbling with his shirt.
The chariot tore over the black pavement. “Running out of time…”
The junior Demon Hunter gave up on his buttons and instead just pushed up his sleeves. “Let me at least—”
“Three!” I shouted, kicking the salt circle apart.
The monster gator’s head erupted from the mist, jaws wide and reaching for Maurice. True to his word Little Ed pounced on that demonic reptile like he was going to ride it into the sunset and clamped its mouth shut with his scrawny arms.
The chariot rolled to a stop outside of our circle, and then the Roman soldier leaned down and extended a hand to Maurice.
“Take it!” I shouted.
The Demon Hunter didn’t have to be told twice, he grabbed onto the soldier’s strong arm and was quickly hauled into the golden chariot.
“No shit. Is that you, Uncle Steve?”
“Heck yeah it’s me,” the rider said, completely breaking my mental image of what a golden-armored chariot driver should sound like.
“What’s Heaven like?”
The Centurion smiled and cracked the reins. “It’s like a never-ending order of hot wings and cold beer.”
“No foolin’?”
The gold chariot raced down that empty highway, Maurice and his Uncle Steve at the controls. The Demon Hunter’s last words echoed in the misty gloom. “Are there wing girls too?”
“It’s Heaven, ain’t it?”
11
Home Wrecker
Little Ed and I tossed the last of the peanut bags on to the truck bed, along with anything else that had the Lovely name on it.
“What about…” The junior Demon Hunter gestured to Maurice’s body.
The sky was quickly lightening. What had been velvety darkness was now a deep purple—dawn was coming fast.
“Viking funeral,” I said, pointing to the torn-up and largely empty trailer.
Beaten Path Page 6