Johnny ran to the front entrance and looked out. It was storming but he did not see any monster approaching the station. “Do you think he’s coming through the back?” he asked as he took the bone bullet out of the case, opened the chamber on the side of his weapon, and slotted it in.
“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Vic said and continued to scan the area. “What about you?”
He flipped his eyepatch up and looked at the front of the precinct. “No, nothing, but this can’t be—” A cold chill filled his lungs and his skin began to tingle. Intense shadow coalesced on the left of his vision like half of the lights went out and he turned as a cloud of darkness swirled around the presentation hall. The confused murmurs grew into shouts and screams and the reporters and other civilians ran hastily out of the room. Everyone with a weapon trained it on the cloud, but they held off from firing. Most seemed uncertain that they could even hit whatever this was.
“You wished to draw me out? Bring me in?” An angry, raspy voice asked from within the dark substance. “All right, I’m here.”
The young detective noticed one of the cameramen still filming. “What are you doing? Get the hell out of here!” Something whistled past his head and glass shattered as the cameraman slumped. What looked like a metal chair leg had passed through his camera and lodged in his head.
“He’s talking, Johnny,” Vic pointed out and aimed his gun into the dark. “And not that growly nonsense the other guy did. I think this is a new model.”
Johnny turned back as the cloud began to harden around something within. “Or it could be the maker.”
A slow, snide laugh came from the being and the darkness parted to reveal a figure dressed in a black suit. While tall, he was not nearly as tall or bulky as the monsters they had faced previously. He wore gloves and shoes, but beneath his slouch hat was a dark skull. White phantasma poured out of it and he held a common ax in his hand. He looked around the room for a moment and lifted the weapon above his head.
“You should have heeded my warning from all those years ago,” he declared as the ax was slowly coated by the same dark substance he was. “The Axman is back from Tartarus, you fools!” he bellowed before he pounded the blade into the floor as shots were fired.
The ghost detective looked at his partner. “Kid, shoot him!”
He tried to get a shot in but the Axman’s attack didn’t merely send out a shockwave or crack the floor. At the point of impact, the floor broke open to reveal a chasm that spat phantasma and chilled the room.
“What the hell is tha—” He began to slip and looked down to see that he and a few other officers now stood on a broken surface. A little panicked, he attempted to jump out of the way but the floor ripped open. The last thing he heard besides the surprised yelps from the other officers who fell with him was Valerie calling to him.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Axman roared with laughter as he turned toward the back wall. “Now then, let me find my vessel.” He was only able to take one step before he was blasted from behind dozens of times by the remaining officers. With a growl of displeasure, he turned and lashed out with his ax, which should have hit no one as none of the officers were close to him. Valerie caught her breath when a widening arc of dark phantasma began to sweep the room.
“Get down!” she shouted and immediately fell prone along with other specters. Those who could not see ghosts were too preoccupied or confused to understand and they were cut down by the strike. “Dammit!”
The Axman tilted his head as he looked at her. “Hey, you’re her friend, aren’t you?” he asked and walked slowly toward her. “Or perhaps babysitter is more apt?”
She twisted and fired at him. Her shots halted his advance but if he was in shock or pain, he certainly didn’t show it. She increased the power of her next shot but before she could fire, he kicked her hands apart and the shot went into a wall before he stamped his foot on her arm. It appeared that despite the fact that he did not look as strong as the previous monstrosities, this was far from correct. Her arm broke under the weight and she uttered a hiss of pain.
“Get off me!” she demanded and drew her original gun with her free hand. Thankfully, it was pre-filled with ether bullets. “Or I will send you back to Hell one bullet at a time!”
The Axman continued to grind his boot into her arm as he peered at her and laughed. “I would say I admire your courage, lass, but given your position, it reads more like foolishness.” He lowered his ax so it was against her neck. “I was able to make this entire city fear me in less than a year when I was alive. Now that they will know that not even death can stop my reign, how do you think they will react? There are far more souls in New Orleans than there were one hundred years ago, both living and dead, and all who fear and reverence me will only feed me.” He brought the ax to the side, ready to behead her. “But I could certainly use you for sustenance. The brave last so much longer than the cowards.”
A blast rang out and he was knocked off her by only a step, but it was enough for her to roll away and aim both guns at him. “Get out of here, Officer Simone!” the chief demanded as he racked his shotgun. “Make sure the Maggios get out of here!”
She gritted her teeth in frustration and pain but nodded, raced out of the room as the other officers fired, and was able to get to the back of the precinct before she heard more screams. They had a back exit but she knew he would not stop until he had Annie, even if he had to tear through the streets of New Orleans.
And that did not account for whatever had happened to Johnny and Vic.
“Soooon oooof a bbbiiiiiiitttttcccchhh!” Johnny yelled as he fell through the darkness toward what he was sure was a very painful impact. Vic managed to snag a piece of rebar, caught him by the leg, and strained to hold them both mere moments before the young detective splattered on the ground. “Nice catch, Vic!”
“Yeah, well, I need…to hit…the gym!” He grunted and let go and they both landed hard. The impact hurt but it was far from fatal. The ghost groaned before he tried to get to his feet. “I think I dislocated my wrists and that fall was… Wait—why didn’t we simply phase through the ground?”
“I thought you were corporeal,” Johnny responded as he stood and looked at his partner. “How else could you have…caught—oh no.” They looked up at a decrepit building, hazy with phantasma, and an unnerving sensation traveled through the revenant’s body. “We’re in Limbo.”
Vic ran to a broken window and focused on a massive bank of darkness. Pieces of buildings and the street were drawn slowly into it. “Near the Big Dark as well. The Axman is able to cut portals into Limbo on a whim?”
“I’m not sure how it works, but it would explain how he was able to acquire his cronies if he can do the same to get to Hell,” Johnny reasoned and looked for others who had fallen in. “I don’t see any of the officers. What happened to them?”
The ghost checked his coat. “They might have been scattered. I don’t know how his portals work but I assume they aren’t as precise as ours. Given that living beings aren’t supposed to be in Limbo in the first place, they will be found by the authorities sooner or later—assuming they survive the fall and don’t become citizens.” His gaze darted around. “I can’t find my gun.”
The young detective’s eyes widened and he checked his holster and pockets hastily. “Dammit, mine either. We need it, Vic. It has the bullet!”
“Well, yeah. Okay, think for a moment. How long were you holding onto it?”
He shut his eyes. “I had it in a tight grasp just before we fell and I remember still having it maybe a few seconds before you stopped our fall.”
His partner noticed a door but continued to look around on the floor as he moved toward it. “Well, it’s probably a good thing as that means it wasn’t simply tossed out in another part of Limbo, but we still need to find it. Being this close to the Big Dark means it could get pulled in and lost in the abyss, which is only slightly worse than it getting lost in a r
andom place in the afterlife.” His eyes shined as he ran to an overturned chair, reached into the bottom of the seat, and held his gun up. “I found mine!”
Johnny sighed as he approached the door and peered out of the small window in the middle. “It’s great that you have your baby back and all, but we still need mine and it’s slightly…more— Vic, have a look at this.”
“What’s wrong, kid?” the ghost asked as he looked out of the window. Standing in the street and staring into the Big Dark was a child ghost, or at least pieces of one. From their angle, it looked like it was missing part of its face and ribs, and while it had two hands, it only had a left arm and right shoulder. “What in the name of Zeus is that?”
The young detective yanked one of the doors open. “Come on. Whatever it is might be gone soon if we don’t get it away from the abyss.” Vic nodded and they hurried out. Johnny felt the pull of the Big Dark almost immediately. It was a strange sensation. At every step, he felt like he would sink into the ground but his body felt lighter than air and like he would be pulled into the sky at any moment. The sound was also deafening but it was not the bellowing roar of a tornado or the frightening howl of a Limbo storm. It was an ever-present groaning like a giant creature about to swallow him whole.
Vic grasped his shoulder to steady them both and nodded to the kid only a few yards away. His young partner shouted, “Hey, kid! You need to get away from there!”
This seemed like almost pointless advice. How could anyone in Limbo, even a child, not know about the Big Dark? In fact, how had the kid not been pulled away already? He was only several meters away from the edge.
When the child turned toward them, he held Johnny’s gun in his hands. A surge of determination and hope surged through him when he saw it and he took another step forward. “Come on, kid! Come closer. That thing will swallow you whole!”
“Johnny!” Vic shouted and the revenant noted the shock in his voice. “Look at that kid’s face, or what’s left of it. He looks exactly like…”
The young detective paused to stare for a moment and almost collapsed in shock but the pull of the abyss forced him to focus. What he could see of the ghost’s face was very familiar. As a child, he had seen that face in the mirror every morning. “Me?”
Before they could voice any of the questions that rushed in, the ghost began to dissipate, including the gun. The partners both shouted, “No!” at the same time and dove forward. Johnny was able to snag it before it was taken away but now that neither of them was grounded, their confusion and surprise at the fragmented ghost were replaced by a new realization.
They would be lost in the Big Dark.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Up the ladder, Ann!” Marco yelled as he and a few officers turned when loud bangs came from above.
Valerie stepped behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “You too, Marco.”
He pulled himself away from her and held his bat up. “I can do more damage down here. It’s a straight passage so he can’t jump around. He’ll have to face me head-on.”
She grasped the back of his shirt and pulled him away from the group. “No, you’ll have to face him head-on! I only saw him for a couple of minutes and you will need the room to maneuver, so go protect your sister. Aiyana and I will be right behind you.” Marco looked like he wanted to argue, but playing the protection card seemed to work as he merely grunted and hurried up the ladder and out of the hatch with Aiyana behind him. A loud crash indicated that the Axman had broken through. “We need to go.”
“You first, Simone,” one of the officers stated as he steadied his shotgun. “You are on detail. Get moving!”
Now, she wanted to argue, but if she did there was less time for others to follow her. She holstered her gun and scrambled up the ladder behind Aiyana. Gunfire could be heard behind her and someone shouted. “Close the hatch and use a blocker!” She gritted her teeth, reluctant to leave anyone, but when she heard pained yelps and screams, she shut the hatch quickly, locked it, and took out an ether blockade. With a scowl, she placed it on top and activated it. “We need to move.”
“Where?” Aiyana asked. She gestured to both fleeing and curious pedestrians in the street. “We need to head in a direction where there aren’t pe—”
“We don’t have the time. Start running!” she ordered and drew her gun. “The rest will get a clue when he starts to make his way down the street.”
“Where are Johnny and Vic?” Annie asked. “I thought they were with you—he appeared in the auditorium, right?”
Valerie moved past the others and caught the woman’s hand to hurry her along. “Yes, they were. As for where they are now…” She thought back to the glowing crevasse the Axman had ripped open. “I can honestly say I have no idea.”
Vic caught hold of a lamppost and Johnny grasped his leg as they were being pulled into the Big Dark. The temporary respite did little good as the lamppost had begun to bend toward it.
“Kid, I can tell you are curious but we can take a swim through the Big Dark some other time.”
“I’m honestly not that curious,” he retorted and looked at his gun before he tried to hand it to his partner. “Take it and get back, Vic. They need you.”
“What the hell are you on about?” the ghost detective demanded when he was able to get his other hand on the post. “A living person needs to fire that shot, remember? And I won’t let you hurl yourself into the abyss out of sheer stupidity.”
“It’s called selflessness, jackass,” he countered and ducked as a piece of rock streaked overhead. “And it might sting like hell for you to shoot it, but you’re technically living too, or at least have part of my life. Unless you can pull both of us in, I’m merely an anchor.”
Vic tried his best, but the drag of the abyss was too strong and he wasn’t exactly a mass of muscle. “Come on, Johnny, you can’t give up now. You get a fancy new gun and you don’t even get to test it? Where’s the fun in that?”
He shook his head and uttered a low chuckle. “We’re about to be dragged into potential nothingness and all you can think about is new toys to—” He looked at the gun again and focused on the slider on the back. “Vic, get inside me.”
“Do what?” his partner asked flatly.
“Now is not the time to make jokes, Vic. Fuse with me. I have an idea.” He maxed the slider and showed it to him. “Let’s test it.” The ghost’s eyes shined for a moment before he nodded, turned translucent, and fused into Johnny, who began to drift off the edge again. He turned and held the trigger down. The pistol whined and shook in his hands before he fired and the shot blasted him in the opposite direction. He landed heavily on the street and a second later, Vic reappeared, grasped the leg of an old mailbox and his partner’s hand, and dragged them up and away from the pull of the Big Dark.
“Well, I’ll be…” He laughed and adjusted his hat. “That worked!”
“No kidding.” The young detective rolled his shoulders. “I think that would have dislocated a shoulder on solid ground.”
“You can have it looked at later. We need to find a crossing point and get back.”
Johnny pointed to the building they came out of. “We have one. The same way we came in.”
“That void?” the ghost asked and frowned at the building. “The upper floors are all busted. Do you think we can climb up to it?”
He twirled his gun and smirked. “We don’t’ need to worry about that, now do we?”
It was chaos on Royal Street as screams and crashes filled the air. For once, cops and street thugs worked together as a dark, ax-wielding monster marched down the street and slaughtered anything in its path. Shots were fired, both with ether bullets and regular ammo, and while one was certainly ineffective, the other didn’t fare much better. Aiyana took one of her totems out and clutched it in one hand while she raised the other, and an orb of fire flared in her open palm. She flung it at the Axman and caught him squarely in the chest, and the supernatural flames began to
coat his body.
All it seemed to do was surround him in a coat of fire and make him laugh.
“The spirit of fire doesn’t even faze him,” she said in a shocked tone.
Valerie fired empowered shots although they would only slow him at best. “He’s not simply some ghost or phantom. The regular tricks don’t work,” she bemoaned and glanced at the shaman. “He would need a special ritual or something.”
Aiyana nodded. “But we don’t even know what he is. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Yeah,” she admitted with frustration. “That’s the problem. Johnny had our best bet and I’m not sure if he’ll even come back.”
“We need to fill him with ether,” Marco suggested and held his bat up. “Like my uncle did. We can blow this bastard back to— Hell, look out!” The Axman pounded his weapon on the ground again and released a wave of white phantasma that hurled everyone in its wake away.
Valerie felt a searing pain throughout her body at first but it became an icy chill. She tried to stand but it felt like the life was being dragged from her body. “What is this?” She gasped. “I…I can’t stand. Phantasma shouldn’t do anything to the living.”
A boot landed beside her head. “My essence is far from normal,” the Axman said, his voice full of menace. “Exactly like me, and I’m sick of this little cat and mouse game.” He walked to Marco, hoisted him up by the neck, and held him in the air. “Come on out, Annie!” he bellowed. “Or I’ll make sure your brother and all your friends suffer before I send them to the other side. Their torment may even break their souls before they have a chance.”
“Stop!” Annie called and stepped out from behind an overturned car holding a pistol. “Drop him and spare everyone else here. No more killing and I’ll come with you.”
Back From Hell (Revenant Files Book 1) Page 20