Midnight Rider

by D V Wolfe

  “We’re going to get these fuckers,” I said to him. He nodded slowly and waved me away with the cigarette perched between two crooked fingers.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Save your Braveheart speeches for the other humans. Don’t you have some swinging toys and trading cards to play with? Let’s put a match to this dumpster and push it down the hill.”

  I smiled. “See with a campaign slogan like that, I would vote for you as President of hell or whatever the top leading job is downstairs.”

  Festus rolled his eyes but he couldn’t stop the smirk that stretched across his face. “Kings are the top rank. And you don’t ‘vote’ for Presidents in Hell. They just are.” He sighed. “All I want is to go back to being anonymous and get the boot above me off my neck.”

  “I’ll do my best to make both dreams come true,” I said. In five months, this mission would be over, either way, and Festus wouldn’t be my accountant anymore. He could become an uncredited demon again and if what he’d told me was true, if I was able to take down the big daddy demon, it should open up the wrung above him.

  I headed back inside as an even happier thought skipped through my mind. If this big daddy demon was the asshole who held my contract and I managed to kill him… I gave myself a little shake out of fantasy-land. We hadn’t even nailed down where he was and I was already counting my demon throats before they were slashed.

  Stacks was surveying the concrete square while Noah kept sweeping at a stubborn patch of dust on one corner of the cement. The warehouse was still in decent condition and the bay was big enough for us to park our vehicles inside. I needed to call Rosetta and tell her and Tags where to come when they hit town. I was about to tell Stacks when we heard the crunch of another vehicle on gravel. Stacks turned to look at me. “Did you call Rosetta or Tags and tell them where we’d be?”

  I shook my head. “I was about to say that I was going to go call them.”

  Stacks swallowed hard. “Did you check for a tail while we were coming here.”

  I nodded. “But I could have missed them.”

  I started walking as softly as possible towards the open bay doors. When I was ten feet from them, the sliding doors rocketed across their tracks and slammed together. I heard the click of a padlock. But it couldn’t be. I’d cut the padlock that had hung on the doors with the bolt cutters. Noah, Stacks and I were plunged into total darkness.

  I heard some scuffling behind me and the sound of the wooden broom handle hitting the concrete.

  “Noah?” I asked. The whispered question sounded like a shout in the silence. The warehouse was insulated and I couldn’t hear anything that was happening outside.

  In the darkness I heard Stacks say. “And not one of us has a flashlight, match, lighter or cell phone on them, do they?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re the one with the bag. Don’t you have some source of fire for the spell?”

  “No, I was going to ask you to get the lighter from the car,” Stacks said with a huff. “Why do I have to do everything around here? Where’s your cell phone?”

  “In the truck,” I said.

  “Geez did you just leave everything in the truck?”

  “I do have a pair of bolt cutters, Stacks,” I said. “Keep talking and I’ll bet I can use them to find you.”

  We were quiet for a moment. I felt around me and took a few steps to my left, finding the wall. I inched along it, away from Stacks who was now muttering and it sounded like he was digging through his bag. Noah sounded like he was feeling his way around like me because the sound of him tripping over the broom and swearing let me know I was going the right direction, away from them. Finally I felt the corner where the sidewall of the building met the short side with the sliding doors. I felt along the short wall and I found the man door. I followed the edge of the frame and my hand found a doorknob. I turned the lock in the knob and gave it a twist. The door didn’t budge. I gave it a kick and it swung open. I had the bolt cutters on my shoulder, not sure what to expect when I got out the door. What I didn’t expect was for everything to look the same outside. Everything, except that Festus wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Lucy looked exactly the same. I checked the padlock on the sliding doors and saw that it had been repaired. I cut the lock again and slid the doors back open.

  “Festus?” I called. No answer. Of course it was possible he just got sick of waiting or sick of being on this escapade and took off for parts unknown. On foot….since he couldn’t “translocate” as he put it. Something wasn’t right.

  “Festus is gone,” I called to Stacks and Noah.

  “Figures,” Stacks called back. “Rats abandoning ships and all that.”

  I got my cell phone out of the truck and dialed Rosetta. I walked back to Commercial and looked up and down the road to see if I could spot Festus having a smoke, but somewhere in my gut I knew he’d gotten in the car with whoever had been here. Why, was the next question.

  “How’s the tree branch and elixir coming?” I asked when Rosetta answered.

  “Oh fine. We picked up the Cypress branch without much trouble. We’re just lucky that the ‘God’s Tears’ elixir doesn’t take that long to whip up. Taggert is almost finished with it,” Rosetta said.

  “Oh it’s ‘Taggert’, now is it?” I teased.

  “Bane, I love you, but kindly mind your own business,” Rosetta snapped.

  I grinned. “Yes ma’am. I don’t really want to know that business anyway, now that I think about it.”

  I walked over to the cable spool while I was talking. “Oh and Rosetta I know you’re coming from Tags’ up north but avoid 55 if you can and come by the back roads. We’re in the Big Al’s Boat Repair warehouse off Commercial on the riverfront, east of Columbus Square.”

  “Will do,” Rosetta said. “Everything go ok with the Solomon’s Spice?”

  “We think so,” I said. “We tried the individual ingredients out on Festus and the results were promising.”

  “Good,” Rosetta said. “Finally found a good use for that shifty…”

  “Rosetta,” I interrupted. “I’ll see you when you get here. I need to get back.”

  “Sure thing. Good hunting,” She said and then the line went dead. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My gaze had fallen on a splash of dark red on the flat round surface of the spool.

  It was a smiley face. In blood.

  I turned and stumbled as I hurried back to the warehouse. I sprinted inside and tossed the lighter to Stacks. “Let’s get this show on the road. Noah, search the wall over there for a breaker box. We need to get some lights on in here so we can lock up.”

  “But the building is abandoned,” Stacks said. “There probably isn’t any power coming in.”

  I shook my head. “Last time I was here, I found out that the same guy owns this entire block of warehouses and he never got around to canceling the utilities for this one. Noah, if I remember right, the box is somewhere behind that stack of metal drums in the corner.”

  “Bane,” Stacks said. “What’s the matter?”

  I didn’t answer. I needed to get Lucy inside. I jogged back through the open bay doors, climbed in the truck, and guided her into the bay. I jumped out and pulled the sliding doors back to where they met. Ballast lights flickered overhead. I closed the man door and relocked the knob lock. I searched the scraps leaning against walls until I found a couple of pieces of 2 x 4 which I used to jam the sliding doors so they couldn’t slide open on their tracks. Relieved, I turned to look back at Noah and Stacks who were both watching me.

  “What’s up?” Noah asked.

  “We were followed,” I said.

  “Demons?” Stacks asked, getting to his feet.

  I shook my head. “Not unless they are using the same call sign as Sister Smile’s cannibal tribe.”

  “Shit,” Noah and Stacks said. That about summed it up.

  “And unless some miraculous coincidence occurred, I think they might also have Festus.”

  “But they’re
gone now?” Stacks asked. I nodded. “Ok then,” he said, turning back to the mat he’d laid out.

  “Well I can see where Festus stands with you,” I said.

  Stacks shrugged. “He puked in my ear.” He placed the deck of tarot cards, the city map he’d purchased at the gas station, and the pendulum on the mat in front of him. “Ready when you are Bane.”

  It was possible that Festus had left and then the tribe had stopped by, but I knew Festus had been the one who had closed the sliding doors and relocked them with the padlock. I had an itching urge to get in Lucy and go looking for him. It was insanity. The tribe would literally eat me alive. Was Festus still alive? I wasn’t overly fond of Festus but he served a purpose and he’d been helpful in his way. I guess I considered him something like a friend.

  “Bane,” Stacks said, pulling me from my thoughts. “One problem at a time. The sooner we find out where these demonic dickbags are, the sooner we can worry about where Festus is.”

  I nodded and leaned in to watch Stacks work. Stacks drew the Enochian symbols at the five points around the map to focus the spell and then flicked the lighter and lit the map on fire. He spoke the incantation and on the word, Berith, the ground under us shook.

  Noah stumbled to his knees and I covered my head, hearing the beams overhead groaning as they were twisted with the movement of the building.

  “Hurry up Stacks!” I shouted.

  “It needs one more sec….” He said and then shouted, “Extinctus!”

  The ground beneath us stilled and everything was silent. I glanced up at the burned map to see that a perfect circle had burned around the Johnson Meredith building, just off of 10th and Pine Street.

  “Well that’s not where I would have expected them to be,” I said. “What is that, an insurance building? Demonic insurance agents?”

  Stacks picked up the deck of tarot cards and handed them to me. “Time to see what the spirit world has to say about this now that we know the location. Don’t forget to hold the address in your mind.” I tried to push the cards back at him, but he shook his head. “I can’t get the other side to talk to me like you can,” Stacks said.

  I took the deck and did a quick shuffle before revealing them and setting them out one by one.

  “Should we be worried about the earth tremors and Ber-... you-know-who figuring out where we are?” I asked, placing the last card in alignment.

  Stacks shook his head. “I don’t know. I had to say his name to get the location. Technically it was a spell searching for all sources associated with him, but it’s as pinpoint as we can get and should still give us the same results. What do the cards tell you?”

  I looked down but didn’t say anything. Noah and Stacks came over to stare over my shoulders at the reading.

  “Crap,” they both said together. Stacks and I turned to look at Noah.

  “My mom,” Noah said. “She’s a….she runs a palmistry and psychic shop back home. She does some tarot too. She tried to teach me once. I’m not very good at it but I know what the cards mean.”

  I gave Stacks a look with raised eyebrows. “Learn something new every day about this one.” I nodded to Noah.

  They were right though, the reading was bad-news-bears.

  “Well,” Stacks said. “I expected the devil card and the hanged man is obviously you, Bane.”

  I rolled my eyes. Noah asked, “Why is it you?”

  I pointed to the card. “When it’s in this position, it always means me. It means I’ve made my bed and now I gotta lay in it. Take responsibility for my actions, etc. As if I didn’t get the memo.”

  I looked back at the reading, “Here’s one I haven’t seen in a while. The hierophant inverted. That’s what? Bad counsel or a bad counselor?” I looked at Stacks and Noah. Noah shook his head, looking as stumped as I felt.

  “Probably just telling you that going to Sister Smile for counsel was a bad idea,” He said.

  “Or coming to you,” I grinned. “Nya tried to warn me.”

  “Well that was a given,” Stacks said. “She never has liked me.” He leaned forward studying the reading. “This is interesting.” He pointed to another card. “I didn’t expect the death card to be in this position. I thought it would be here.” He pointed to where a different card sat. “It’s telling you to finish old business rather than showing that death is in your near future, that’s a good sign, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have that much faith in my tarot abilities,” I said. “I probably placed it in the wrong position.”

  There was a banging on the man door at the other end of the warehouse and we froze.

  I crept over to Lucy and leaned the seat forward to get my sawed-off and then I headed for the door. Maybe Sister Smile’s crew was back for seconds or back to return Festus, though I doubted it was the latter.

  “Rosetta?” I called softly.

  “Y-Yes! It’s me, Rosetta!” A fake, girly voice said.

  “You idiot,” a second, much deeper voice said. “She doesn’t sound like that. Now she’s not going to open the door.” I waited.

  “Ok Bane,” the first voice said, now in a deeper tone. “We’re not your ‘Over-Sixty-Five Hunters Club’, but you should open the door anyway because if you don’t, we’re going to set the place on fire and then we’ll peel the skin off your buddies and eat it like pork rinds while we make you watch.”

  21

  “Is that right?” I called through the door.

  Noah was standing behind me when I turned around. “Who’s that?” He whispered, then he saw the smile on my face and his terror turned to confusion. “What’s so funny?”

  “Bane, we don’t have all day, what’s your choice going to be?” The second voice barked through the door.

  “I know these ass monkeys,” I said to Noah. I turned back to the door. “I’m impressed Mick, sounds like you finally mastered sit and stay, if you’ve moved on to learn arson.”

  There was silence outside the door. “Vince, she’s made us,” I heard Mick mutter.

  “Are they friends of yours?” Noah asked.

  I snorted. “Hardly. But they’re not demons or cannibals.” I waved him over to Lucy. “Better safe than sorry though, best to be armed.” I looked over to see Stacks had cleared up the pendulum and tarot cards and was frantically stuffing everything back into his bag. “Stacks, you might want to follow Noah and get some hardware to ease your mind.”

  I checked that there were five live shells loaded in the sawed-off and called back through the door, “What do you fleabags want?”

  “Why don’t you open up the door and we’ll talk about it?” I recognized this voice as Vince.

  “And why would I want to do that?” I asked.

  “Like I said,” Mick grunted. “If you don’t we’re going to burn the place down.”

  Noah and Stacks were standing next to Lucy. Noah had given Stacks the ten-gauge. He was looking it over and I had to turn away to hide my smile. Well played, Noah. Noah had the Colt .45 and he was two handing it, aimed at the floor.

  “Five bucks, neither of you butt-sniffers remembered a lighter, so why should I open this door?” I asked. There was silence.

  “Mick, tell her you about the blow torch you brought,” Vince said.