Banisher Reborn

by Deck Davis

  Molly opened the boot of the car and heaved out a rucksack and set it on the ground. She pulled on a toggle and opened it up.

  “Josh, pass me the nurse uniform.”

  I pulled the crumpled, dirty uniform from my pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her.

  “This is why we needed something she’d worn,” said Molly.

  “She?”

  “Whoever owned the house. Even without the rats, there were signs. The smell, the aura. You felt it in there, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “Do you know what we’re dealing with?”

  Molly nodded at Wren.

  The Loremaster crossed his arms. “We have two clues as to which demon it could be – the sheep, and the rats. There are only three demons with a penchant for slaughtering animals, who can also command vermin.”

  “And how do we narrow it down?”

  “We need more signs. The nurse who owned the cottage…I’d bet my first edition copy of the Two Towers on her being the vessel.”

  “First edition? Wow.”

  “It’s a collector’s item.”

  “I read the trilogy on a training camp once. Loved it.”

  “Focus,” said Molly.

  Wren nodded. “The rats are the worrying part, because there’s one demon who definitely uses them.”

  “Plagus,” said Molly.

  “Right.”

  “Plagus?” I said.

  “I take it you’ve heard of the bubonic plague?” said Wren. “The Black Death?”

  “I’m not a total idiot.”

  “Plagus used rats to spread disease back then, and he decimated between forty and sixty percent of Europe. If it’s him…”

  “No,” said Molly. “The Grandmaster wards wouldn’t let him through. He’s too big, too high-level.”

  “I’m inclined to agree. If it was Plagus, the signs would be bigger. So that leaves Trickerie and Jonas.”

  “And I can’t banish the demon unless we find the vessel and speak the demon’s true name,” I said.

  “Yes. We have to narrow it down further.”

  “Well if we find this girl, I’ll just say both names. One of them will hit home.”

  Wren shook his head. “You only get one guess. Say the wrong name, you’re done.”

  “So, we need to find the vessel. The nurse. How do we do that?”

  Molly took a little glass vial out of the rucksack. It looked like the kind of tincture bottle you’d see in some side-alley herbal remedy store. The glass was tinted brown, and the liquid inside looked gloopy. She twisted the cap and pulled the lid away, and she poured some of the gloop onto the nurse’s uniform. It sizzled along the fabric and turned to foam, before soaking in.

  “This’ll let us track her,” said Molly.

  Chapter Eight

  Using the uniform and the gloop, Wren and Molly tracked the nurse to Manchester city centre. From there, we had to park the car in a multi-story car park. Molly and Wren left the vehicle and started walking toward the exit, where the bustling streets of Manchester waited.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I said.

  Wren raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Demon hunters need to pay for parking just like everyone else, I’m guessing?”

  Molly grinned. “Right. Anyone got any change?”

  After paying for four hours of parking to make sure the car didn’t get a ticket, we left the multi-story. Molly was the tracker now, and she guided us through the city. The dark throes of evening had spread across the skies of Manchester, and although it was a Tuesday night, the partiers and the drunks were out in full force. Manchester was a university city, and there were countless bars and clubs waiting to welcome the students with offers of two-for-one vodka and redbull drinks, a mix of alcohol and caffeine that would keep them going all night, while steadily dulling their senses.

  She led us to the city’s Chinatown, where glowing red lanterns were hanging from trees, and neon signs affixed to brick buildings advertised all-you-can-eat buffets and late-night karaoke bars. The smell of pork and peppers and beef and spring rolls stirred hunger pangs inside me. When I watched a group of lads stumble toward a buffet restaurant, laughing and joking and shoving each other, I wished I was one of them, that my Tuesday night held the promise of rich Chinese food and then beers and karaoke, instead of tracking the vessel of a rat-loving demon.

  A hen party walked passed us. The women were my age, and the hen wore a pink ballerina dress that was too skimpy for an autumn night. From the flush of her face I could tell that alcohol had given her a false sense of warmth. Wren couldn’t take his eyes off the party as they stumbled passed.

  “Hello boys,” said one of the party.

  Wren gave an awkward smile. “Hi.”

  “Focus,” said Molly, stopping.

  Molly hurried us on. Her tracking led us deep into Chinatown, to an alley that looked onto the backdoors of the restaurants. Rubbish was piled in mounds of black bin bags. At the far end of the alley, an Asian guy in a chef’s uniform smoked a cigarette, his face hidden by the shadows, with only the glowing ember of his cigarette visible.

  “She’s here, somewhere,” said Molly.

  “She might be in one of the restaurants,” I said.

  “No. The tracker led us to the alley, but it’s run out, and I don’t have anything else I can use. She’s around here somewhere but we’re going to have to look for her the old-fashioned way.”

  From here, the alleyway seemed to become a warren. It spun off into separate alleyways to the left and right, with another passage further ahead, near the smoking chef.

  “Let’s take the left,” said Wren. “Start there, then work our way back here.”

  “We’re going to have to split up, I’m afraid.”

  “Not a good idea,” I said.

  “If she leaves before we find her, we’re stuck. I can’t use her uniform anymore, and we can’t go back to the cottage to get anything else of hers.”

  Thinking back to the rats and their writhing rat king, I was inclined to agree. “Fine. You take the left alley, and Wren and I will take the right.”

  “I’m not going with you,” said Wren.

  “Jesus Christ. Are you going to let this drop? I know I’m not Capgrove, but you have to forget it.”

  Molly gave me a look now. Stern, accusatory. “Josh,” she said.

  I remembered what she said, that their old Banisher was like a brother to Wren.

  “Fine. You two take the left, I’ll take the right. If you see her, call me. If I see her, I’ll do the same.”

  “Just don’t engage,” said Wren, “And don’t talk to her. Remember; if she’s the vessel, it won’t be her you’re talking to. It’ll be the demon. Don’t let it inside your head.”

  “Stay safe,” I said.

  We took our separate turnings in the alleyway, Wren and Molly crossing left, me going right. As I heard their footsteps fade away, I’d have been lying if I said I didn’t feel nervous. As a fighting man that sounds strange, but it’s different in the ring. Boxing, for all its faults, is a civilized sport. There are rules, there are safety guidelines that try and stop you getting hurt too much. Or they should, anyway. But not only that, there were lights on you. A crowd watching.

  Here, the alleyway was dark, and there was nobody watching. Not only that, but there were no rules for my opponent to follow, no guidelines to keep things safe.

  I heard footsteps ahead of me, far along the alleyway where it turned into darkness. There were two sets, and it they sounded strange, like they were shuffling.

  I heard a woman’s voice. “Get off me!”

  I sprinted down the alleyway and took the turn, just to see another long stretch of alley ahead. At the far end of it there was a woman. A man was next to her, trying to pull the handbag off her shoulder. She struggled with him, but he slugged her in the gut and then grabbed her collar and dragged her out of view.

  She screamed. The sound echoed through the
alley.

  I took after them at a run. My thoughts thundered through my head. Was it her? The vessel? Or was the vessel a she at all? It could have been a man. We hadn’t had time to check the house; who was to say there was only a girl living there? Maybe it was a man, maybe the demon had taken a man as his vessel and this was him, and right now he was dragging an innocent woman into the shadows of the alley, far away from the drunken revelers of the city, pulling her to a place in the shadows where nobody would hear what he was going to do to her. Except me.

  She screamed again. The sound made my nerves flare, and adrenaline churned in my veins.

  I followed the sound, reaching the end of the alleyway, my lungs burning with the sudden sprint.

  I turned left. There was no sign of them.

  Another scream.

  I followed it, and as I ran, the alleyway sprang off into dozens of directions, more than should have been possible. It was as if the cramped side streets, lined by buildings that bore no sign of occupation, had become a maze, like somehow the twists and turns sprouted up from nowhere, confusing me, drawing me deeper and deeper into the heart of it.

  When I hit a crossroads with the alley sprang in left and right, I held up my right hand, palm out. When I aimed it at the left turn, the demon flesh tingled, and a voice spoke in my skull.

  Aura detected. Strength: 34%

  Power accumulated: 35% [65% to level 2]

  The stronger the aura, the more likely it was a real demon. That was why it’d been so low at the cottage; there, I was picking up on the leftover aura, the dissipating fumes of the demon’s entry after the demon itself had fled. That and the rats, of course.

  The screams were louder now. I was getting closer. I took turn after turn, and even though I was thankful for the extra conditioning in the bunker, my lungs still ached and my thigh muscles burned.

  Finally, I heard another scream, this one louder than the others. They were ahead, just around the corner.

  Only, the scream sounded different now. Deeper.

  When I took the turn, I found myself in a wider space. Still a decrepit alley, but with more space to move, and surrounded by grey, three-story buildings with darkened windows.

  There, in the centre of the space, was the man and the woman. Except, it was the man on the ground, and it was him screaming. He cried in agony as the woman, kneeling beside at him, bit deep into his stomach and pulled away a stretch of skin. Blood was smeared over her mouth.

  Dread coursed through me. It felt thick like tar, starting in my stomach and turning my insides to bile, before tremoring through the rest of me. I was scared. I was a fighting man, a veteran of the ring. I’d fought guys that dwarfed this woman in size, yet I was scared.

  The man tried to push her away, but he was weak. The woman hissed at him. Blood dripped from her chin.

  She was the vessel. It was her.

  I tried to shake my nerves away, but they wouldn’t go. My legs wouldn’t move.

  I focused. I took a deep breath. I turned my fear into an ally, and I imagined it coursing through me not as terror but as an energy, I imagined it flooding my legs, my arms, my chest.

  I ran at her. As I did, I let the energy flow into my left fist, and I felt the tremoring surge of power in my demon flesh. It was Blast, my demon power, primed and ready to use.

  Just as I reached her, a thought shook through me.

  This woman wasn’t the demon; she was its vessel. My Blast ability would crush the bones of her face, it would demolish her skin and her skull and maybe destroy her brain.

  Momentum carried me forward, and she’d noticed me now, and she hissed and leapt to her feet, and I knew I couldn’t stop.

  Instead of tearing her apart with Blast, I swung my right fist, my weaker one. Even as a southpaw I still carried enough power in my right arm to damage a woman, and when my fist connected with her cheek there was a sickening crack.

  She gasped and crashed onto her back, and she was still. The man lay beside her, his guts torn open, blood staining his shirt.

  The woman sat up. Her face was a mess of blood. When she looked at me, she didn’t show any pain. Instead, she smiled. It was a cruel smile, one that didn’t belong on a woman’s face, and especially not this woman; with her short, bobbed hair and her thin nose and lips and her wide, auburn eyes, she looked young, and she looked innocent. Or maybe she would have, at another time, in another place.

  But now, I wasn’t staring at a young woman. I was looking at something else, something wearing her face. Even as I saw her human-looking skin, soft and flushed, something else stared back from within her.

  “I know what you are,” she said to me. When she spoke, it was like two voices mingled into a single sound; one voice was hers, light and Mancunian, and the other was deeper, a voice filled with anger and a hint of deceit.

  “Ditto,” I said.

  She kicked the man with her foot. “Don’t shed a tear over him, hunter,” she said. “He had wicked intentions for the vessel.”

  I was about to speak, when I remembered what Wren had said. Don’t talk to the demon. Don’t let it inside your head.

  I took out my phone and rang Wren. The ringing tone played in my ear.

  “He was going to rape her,” said the girl. “Such a poor vessel. Doomed. I did her a favor.”

  “Shut up.”

  The ringing went on. Come on. I need you, Wren. We need to know its name.

  “The man deserved to die.”

  Come on, Wren. Pick up.

  The ringing stopped. A voice spoke.

  “Wren?” I said. “I need-”

  “Welcome to Orange answerphone. We’re sorry, but the person you are trying to reach…”

  “Damn it.”

  “No friends, hunter?” said the woman.

  I looked at her. The longer I stared, the more I could see it; the faint lines of corruption in her face. The pallor of her skin that had looked normal and healthy at first, but was discolored. A smell wafted from her, a faint stench of rot and bile and puffs off fire.

  What were the names Wren had mentioned? There was Plagus, and…damn it, what were the others?

  “You’re new,” she said. “I can smell it.”

  “Shut up.”

  So, there was Plagus, and…yeah – Trickerie! And what was the other?

  “There are rules, you know,” said the girl. “I have an agreement. It’s forbidden to send me back.”

  Forbidden? What the hell was she talking about? No – she was getting into my head.

  I wracked my brains for the last name. It was there, somewhere, buried inside my head, somewhere the repeated blows to my skull and the knockouts and the brain-jangling right hooks made it hard to reach.

  Come on.

  Jonas. That was the third name.

  I needed to speak the demon’s name to get it to show its true form. But if I said the wrong one, that was it. No more chances.

  A one in three shot, with the prize of a woman’s life at stake. I could banish the demon right now, I knew. I didn’t have to speak its name. I could hit this woman with my demon fist, and if the vessel died, surely the demon would leave. But could I kill her? No matter what was inside her, this woman was innocent. A toy for a rotting force, just a puppet with an unworldly creature pulling her strings.

  I heard the sound of feet now, but not human, and not just two. Something was heading toward me, scampering through the alleyways, and I knew it wasn’t Molly or Wren.

  “Come to me,” said the girl.

  Rats. It must have been rats.

  “Wren?” I shouted, hoping my voice carried. “Molly?”

  The scampering grew louder. I heard little claws scraping over pavement, scuttling over walls, hundreds of them, getting closer and closer.

  The girl stood up. She started inching away. There was an open alley behind her.

  I couldn’t let her leave. Stepping over the man, I approached her, ready to grab her.

  Then I stopped.


  A shape formed in front of me, the figure of a man drawn at first in shadow, but then gaining color, becoming real, with tanned human skin, with a face; eyes, a nose, a mouth. A face I recognized.

  It was George La Nana. The Babe.

  My throat tightened. I tried to breathe, but seeing him, the man I’d killed, the man whose face had plagued my nightmares for years, it weakened me. I felt my legs turn to jelly as if I’d been caught flush with a sledgehammer of a right hook.

  The girl laughed. “You’re no saint, are you?” she said. “Just like the rest of them.”

  The Babe didn’t speak actual words, but his eyes seemed to talk to me all the same. There was something in them, something pleading, something accusatory.

  “Speak with your Loremaster,” said the girl. “Ask him. How many innocents have died in their pursuit of demons? How many accusations have they made? How many bodies have the hunters burned over the centuries? They look for signs, but sometimes they see the signs they want to see.”

  Should I make a guess? Say a name?

  No, the Babe seemed to say. His eyes warned me. Told me to just leave.

  “Their crimes over the years go on even now. They act all high and mighty. They elevate themselves to sainthood,” said the girl, her voice growing deeper, angrier. “Did you know one of the hunters works for us? That one of your own called a demon to earth?”

  She was getting in my head. Playing with me. I had to shut her out, I had to look away, to ignore her. But the only other face was the Babe’s, and his stare of guilt.

  “What do you mean, one of the hunters works for you?”

  I knew I shouldn’t have asked. That I was playing into her hands.

  There were footsteps behind me. I turned, expecting to see an army of rats flooding over the paving. Instead, it was Wren, his black hair sweeping up over his head, his eyes wide. And then Molly.