“It’s what we do,” Vic responded and tipped his hat. “Sir, we aren’t here to mess with any of your business but we ran into this guy even before we met your niece and nephew so we’re in this now. We paid a visit to Limbo and the rumors are starting to spread there, even with people trying to keep it under wraps. It won’t be long before official action is taken, no matter what you do to keep this quiet.”
The capo took a long drag from his cigar and let the smoke billow from his mouth. “Ain’t that the truth?” He began to walk to the curtain. “Come here.”
The three followed as the two guards parted the drapes and they entered a smaller room with brown walls and golden accents. He sat on a large couch and poured a glass of stygian wine for himself and Vic, one of which the soldiers handed to the ghost detective while the visitors each sat in a chair.
“I suppose a good deed should be answered in kind.” He sipped his wine. “We’ve been on this freak’s case since he showed up,” he stated. “Every squad we send out to deal with him either can’t find him or end up in pieces, drained of their essence. Nasty stuff.” He pointed to another guard and gestured at one of the dressers. “We’ve put considerable leg work in trying to find this guy but he appears in random places.”
“We have reason to believe it’s multiple guys—bonded ghosts,” Vic told him and sipped his wine. His bones brightened from the stygia.
Gabriele nodded. “So have we.” The guard returned with a large envelope and handed it to his boss. He opened the seal and dumped the contents on the table in front of him. Johnny took one of the photos of a large black skeleton with white light shining in its eyes and from its body. “We’ve found out about some kind of fraternity calling themselves the ‘cult of the ax.’”
It certainly sounded familiar and the trio looked at each other. Vic was the first to voice their collective thought. “Capo, have you ever heard of the Axman of New Orleans?”
The blue ghost nodded and took another long drag from his cigar. “Damn right we have. I guess you are up to speed. We don’t know if it is the Axman himself or someone claiming to be him, but he plays into this somehow.” He exhaled a lazy trail of smoke. “What I can’t understand is how he’s so powerful, even if it is him. It’s not like the guy was Ted Bundy or nothing. Sure, he has some clout down here and maybe in other places, but if he’s some kind of vengeful spirit, his power can only be linked to his infamy, right?”
“Not to mention that no one ever worked out who it was officially,” Marco added. “That muddies things, right?”
“Typically,” Vic agreed. “But the more I learn about the situation, the more I begin to wonder if we’re dealing with something that is not exactly—” Jazz music began to play from the room outside, slowed down and filled with static.
“Hey, what the hell?” Gabriele shouted and thumped a hand on the table. “Keep it down in there. I’m in a meeting!”
“It wasn’t us boss!” someone shouted. “It turned on by itself.”
The capo snorted and leaned back but his eyes narrowed on his guests. Vic’s eyes lit up and Johnny and Marco had paled. “Hey, what’s wrong with you guys?” He snickered and took another puff. “Have you seen a ghost?”
Downstairs, the first screams shattered the calm.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Get down there!”
“What is that?”
“Boss, boss!”
Many shouts erupted in the room as the doors were thrown open and both ghosts and humans rushed to the first floor.
“What the hell is going on?” Gabriele demanded as Vic, Johnny, and Marco stood hastily.
“I think he’s here, Uncle Gabe,” his nephew stated, spun his bat, and stepped through the curtains.
“Who’s here?” he demanded as Johnny drew his pistol and followed.
“It looks like you don’t have to find him,” Vic stated and turned to look at him. “He’s come to you.”
The ghost capo’s eyes flared. “You mean—” The detective nodded and Gabriele pointed to one of his guards. “Get me my gun!”
By the time the two young men reached the stairs, guns were already being fired. Johnny peered through the railings between the stairs as the killer’s familiar dark outfit was riddled with holes from both physical bullets and phantasma shots. He counted at least seven patrons dead, but they were still hacked corpses so he hadn’t started feeding yet.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Marco demanded and tried to push past before his companion yanked him back. “Do you think he’s after me?”
“Maybe.” He held his pistol up. “Or it could be all that leg work your uncle was talking about. Maybe he simply got tired of that and came to take care of it.”
The mafiosos stopped firing when they ran out of bullets. Some began to reload while others watched in dread as the figure turned and stormed toward them.
“Figlio di puttana!” Marco gasped as a couple of the mafia soldiers drew knives and attempted to attack him.
One was a ghost, who got an ax stuck in his ribs that the killer used to swing him and hurl him into another who tried to reload. The second was human and he sank his blade into the attacker’s neck, only for him to grasp his hand and crush it in his fist before he lifted him. The man screamed in pain as he was pounded into the floor several times.
With a grunt that became a roar, the monster whipped the body around and slung it at some of the mafiosos who stood in a line and knocked them down. He charged into those still standing, took a hatchet out, and threw it up the stairs, where it struck one of the human soldiers in the neck. Blood spurted onto Johnny, Marco, and a couple of other mob soldiers as the killer began his full onslaught. He cleaved through ghost and living alike with his ax, which was now much bigger than he remembered it being before.
The young detective looked at the gun Valerie had given him and his spectral energy flowed into it. “I guess it is time to test this,” he muttered and aimed as the killer was about to bring his ax down on a ghost he had trapped under his boot. He fired at the weapon and while the shot didn’t break it, the strike jarred it out of the giant’s hand. The ghost glowered at him and produced another before Johnny fired a shot to the head and knocked him back a step, which allowed the ghost to stand.
Marco used this opportunity to leap off the stairs. His blue ether coated the bat as he swung it against the side of the killer’s head and upended him. He immediately began to beat the monstrosity. Some mobsters joined him with knives, chairs, kicks, and anything they could get hold of or had on them, and a few others fired rounds into the body.
While he was being pummeled and shot, he remained motionless. As Johnny descended the stairs with his gun still trained on him, white light flashed under his hood. “Shit—get back!” he yelled.
The killer uttered a roar that the young detective had never heard from man, beast, or ghost. He lurched up suddenly and flung many of the mobsters aside before he caught hold of two of the ghosts. Their color drained rapidly and flowed into the creature before he flung their forms aside and they burst into pieces that were immediately obliterated, much to the shock of some present.
Marco reared for another swipe, but as he arced into the hit, the being snagged his bat in mid-strike and dragged it out of his hands. He threw it at Johnny, who ducked so it careened into the wall, then grasped the young man by the neck and lifted him high. His captive kicked at him and struggled to free himself to no avail as he studied him. “You are not the one he needs,” he intoned, his voice heavy and muffled. “But he could still make use of you.”
“Marco!” Johnny yelled and tried to get a shot at the killer’s head but the human was in the way. The sound of a gun being loaded and racked preceded a loud blast before the killer’s hand was blown off. Startled, the detective looked behind him to where Gabriele and a few more mafia soldiers held shotguns. The capo’s gun smoked.
“You gonna come in here, wreck my place of business, kill my men, and attack my n
ephew?” he asked, racked the shotgun, and grinned. “I would be steaming mad if it weren’t for the fact that you saved us considerable work by bringing yourself here for your execution.”
Johnny pulled Marco away and handed him his bat as the giant looked at the new threat. He didn’t respond and simply retrieved the severed hand, positioned it where it belonged, and moved his fingers after only a couple of seconds. When he extended the arm, his ax flew to him and he hefted it in both hands as he began to march forward.
“Finish this idiot off, boys!” Gabriele ordered and he, his personal guard, Vic, Johnny, and every mobster still able to fire a gun complied. The normal machinegun and pistol shots did about as well as they had done previously, but the shotguns had an effect. Each blast made the killer halt or forced him back a step or two. His clothes were slowly shredded to reveal dark-gray skin beneath.
When the flesh was stripped away, it revealed a black skeleton with wisps of white seeping from the bullet wounds. The killer sliced into a couple of mobsters who came too close before he bellowed again, swung the blade, and arced it into the floor. A massive crack formed and generated a force wave that thrust back ghost and human alike.
Johnny collided with a box one of the soldiers brought down and looked inside to see explosives. “Did you plan to blow this place?” he asked Gabriele as he pushed to his feet.
“As a last resort,” the capo replied as he selected shotgun ammo that was white with black rings and loaded his gun. “I have both real stuff and ethereal. Which do you think works?”
The young detective fumbled in his pocket for the ether barrier device. “Probably both. Get everyone out and we’ll blow this asshole to Hell!” The mobster ghost saw the device and nodded as Johnny looked at Vic. He tossed him one of the live grenades and took one of the ether ones before he kicked the box over. The contents tumbled all around the restaurant.
Gabriele helped Marco out of the building while the other guards with shotguns kept the killer at bay. As soon as the last few were at the door, the two partners pulled the pins and lobbed them inside before they ran out. Johnny placed the device on the closed doors and activated it to create a barrier around the restaurant.
Everyone retreated when they saw the killer stride toward the doors. He tried to open one but was stopped by the blockade. They kept their guns trained on him as he began to batter the barrier with his ax and cracks formed. Fortunately, the grenades detonated and set off all the others in the restaurant. Both fiery explosions and bursts of green ethereal energy erupted and consumed him and the restaurant as the barrier broke.
Everyone in the parking lot fell prone to dodge the explosion and shrapnel, which was now coated in the ethereal energy that could have left the ghosts as screwed as the humans.
They stared at the crumbling restaurant, where smoke billowed with hints of green wisps entwined with it. Gabriele laughed, then sighed. “It’s a damn shame. That place has been up for decades.” He sighed again and looked at Vic. “But we got that son of a bitch, right?”
The ghost detective nodded. “I doubt he was the mastermind, though.”
With a shrug, the capo leaned his shotgun against his shoulder. “We’ll get him too. At least there is one less of those bastards running—”
“Boss!” one of the soldiers shouted and pointed at the ruins. A dark figure emerged from the smoke, tall and skeletal. A white mist emanated from him and he held what appeared to be a corpse in each hand.
“No way,” Marco muttered, his eyes wide.
“Are you kidding me?” Johnny roared and looked at the capo, whose lights had shrunk in his eyes.
“Diavolo.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Hey, wait—go back.” Annie requested as they flipped through channels.
“To what?” Val asked and began to reverse the sequence.
“The news. I thought I saw something.” She leaned forward on the bed when her companion found the correct channel and they both watched the video from a helicopter feed of a burning building and a dozen people in the parking lot. To specters like them, the couple of dozen ghosts that flickered occasionally were identifiable if not as clearly visible as they would be in a real-time scenario.
“We are at Luca’s Italian Cuisine where there has been pandemonium this evening,” the announcer began. “Terrified customers and staff had fled the building minutes before the restaurant blew sky high in a fiery blaze. Some other figures can be seen on the ground below. What has caused this calamity is not yet known but the police are on the way. According to our sources, the supernatural department is involved.”
Valerie leaned closer, almost out of her chair. “Don’t tell me that’s—”
“Oh no,” Annie whispered as a figure emerged from the smoke.
A bright light shined on Johnny and Marco and they looked up briefly at a helicopter. Police sirens wailed in the distance. “Well, I guess there’s no way to keep this quiet now.”
“That’s no longer in our hands, kid!” Vic said as he pointed his gun at the figure. “He doesn’t care about keeping a low profile either.”
“Boss, the cops are here!” one of the mafia soldiers reported but Gabriele was too busy looking at the killer to reply.
The being growled as he sank his skeletal fingers into the charred flesh of the corpses. White phantasma seeped into him, accompanied by faint screams. “Is that their souls?” Johnny asked and looked at Vic. “If they were already dead, they should be in Limbo by now.”
“It looks like he found a way to trap the souls,” his partner surmised and the idea brought a feeling of dread. He pointed his pistol at the killer. “Why are we standing around? Eliminate him before he has a chance to get back to fighting shape!”
He fired his revolver and the young detective followed suit. The other mobsters joined in and Gabriele snapped out of his stupor and fired on the monster as he advanced. Each shot seemed to affect the killer this time, but as he finished draining the corpses and flung them to the side, his skin began to grow again and the lights in his eyes shined brighter.
The capo soon ran out of ammo and he hurled the shotgun at the monster before he yelled, “Fucking bastard!”
Marco ran forward and pulled him back. “Uncle Gabe, come on! Let the cops deal with this. Everyone is running out of shots.”
“They had better.” He seethed but returned to his cohorts. “What are we paying them for otherwise?”
Almost a dozen cop cars arrived along with two trucks. Many of the cops exited and aimed their pistols and rifles at the monster while others opened the back of the trucks and began to take a large device out of each one.
“Get down on the ground!” a voice ordered over a megaphone. “We will open fire if you do not comply.”
“Obliterate that asshole,” Gabriele demanded. “He’s one of the killers who has been sucking everyone dry.”
“Get the cannon set up!” one of the officers shouted. A stationary gun with a large barrel and wires running through it was positioned at the back of one of the trucks and another was quickly unloaded from a second vehicle.
“That looks like something the Agency would use,” Johnny mentioned as a stream of ether was pumped into the cannon.
“I guess the tech is starting to trickle down,” Vic replied. “We need to get back, kid. He’s juiced up again.” The killer had regained most of his flesh. When he extended his hand, his ax crashed through the debris and flew into it. He lifted it and roared as a dark-green glow surrounded it.
“Ah, hell—get away!” the ghost detective shouted and he, Johnny, Marco, and the mobsters scattered quickly. The cops were unaware and began to fire as the weapon impacted the pavement. Cracks splintered through the entire parking lot, flipped a few cars, and hurled all of the officers back.
He surged into a charge and swung his ax wildly as the cops began to fire on him again. Their weapons seemed to have more punch but the being was in a blood frenzy now. He hacked through a car behind whi
ch two cops hunkered and sliced one of them as well before he caught hold of the other, snapped his neck, and drained his soul.
“He’s repairing himself!” Johnny shouted. “They aren’t putting him down. All this is doing is revving him up.”
“Dammit!” Gabriele looked at one of the officers in charge. “Get it done! Where are those cannons?” The first was crushed under one of the cars and the other was flipped, but the cables and wiring were still intact. “Get it going. Your peashooters won’t do jackshit.” He dashed to the cannon and tried to right it himself but cried out in surprise and pain when he jumped back from it and saw dark markings on his skin. “What the hell?”
“It’s pumping with ether!” Vic exclaimed. “We can’t touch it without it burning us.”
Marco hit Johnny on the shoulder. “We got it!” The two young men ran to the weapon as the officers continued to fight—or perhaps more accurately distract—the killer, who hacked through them in a frenzy. They flipped the cannon and found a cop pushing to his knees. “Hey, do you know how this thing works?”
He nodded as they helped him to his feet. “Yeah, it’s almost ready.” When he moved behind the weapon and flipped a switch, it began to hum as the ether coursed inside. “It’s warming up.”
“Warming up?” Johnny yelped and they looked at the killer, who advanced relentlessly. “You have thirty seconds at best—fire!”
The cop tried to move the cannon to aim at their adversary but it only turned part way. “It’s jammed!” he shouted and tried to push it more to the left. “I can’t move it.”
Johnny and Marco joined him and pushed against the head to shift it slowly into position. The frenzied monster was now only a few yards away. “Fire, dammit!”
Back From Hell (Revenant Files Book 1) Page 14