by R W Thorn
He landed on his back in a puddle of what he hoped was just water. An instant later, Lennox completed her spell.
Instead of the concussive detonation Jack expected, Lennox’s magic had a different effect.
The door gave a distinct click as it unlocked.
Then Lennox stepped through, grinning broadly. “I told you I’ve been practicing,” she began, but her grin faltered slightly when she saw Jack on the ground. She tipped her head to one side in an expression that mixed confusion with amusement. “What are you doing down there?” Lennox asked. Then she shook her head in mock disappointment. “You don’t have time for a nap! We’ve got work to do!”
With that, she breezed past Jack as if it was him messing them about, making no move whatsoever to help him up.
It was more than enough to set Amelia off once again, but Jack felt intensely irritated. He understood that Lennox could have unlocked the door whenever she wished. She just chose not to do so until after he had wasted the time and effort to climb over.
Glaring at her retreating form in frustration and annoyance, he sat up and shook the water from his trenchcoat.
“Poor dear,” Amelia chided once she had regained control of her laughter.
Jack quietly admitted that the women were right. It was funny. But, given they were on their way to face a full Hell-beast, but he didn’t let on that he was amused.
The alley took Lennox and Jack in behind the building which housed the department store. The stonework on this side wasn’t the rough-hewn stone and columns Jack still associated with this part of town. Instead, the stonework here was mass-produced cinderblock.
It wasn’t pretty. The alley never saw the sun, and as a result the walls had become blackened with mold and grime. In some places, it looked like there was slime dripping from it.
As he followed Lennox along, Jack quirked a half-grin of his own. He couldn’t see her face, but her body language shouted more loudly than words. The alley disgusted her. She picked her footing carefully and made sure her elbows were in to avoid scraping them against the wall on one side or the garbage stacked on the other. And the smell!
In Jack’s mind, it was a fair reward for Lennox’s teasing of him. He knew she was just being her usual playful self, but he hoped she would learn when to put all that aside and focus on the task at hand.
For himself, Jack didn’t much care about the smell or the filth. He had known worse places. He had slept in worse places, and maybe one day would have to do so again. It was all the same. He cared only that this alley would take them to the Hell-beast.
That Jack got to enjoy Lennox’s discomfort along the way, at the same time as he admired the view, was just a bonus.
“Perv,” Amelia said.
“Make up your mind,” Jack muttered in response, speaking quietly enough that Lennox wouldn’t hear.
Abruptly, the object of Jack’s perving came to a stop. “This is it,” she said, indicating a steel door painted light blue. Lennox no longer wore her characteristic grin. Instead, she grimaced with revulsion, and Jack almost laughed out loud.
The door fit the doorframe so well there were no gaps, and instead of a standard keyhole, there was a heavy door latch that had been padlocked into place. Jack could probably have levered the latch off the door, given time. But there was another option. He turned to Lennox.
“Well?” he said.
Lennox took his meaning. For the second time in a matter of minutes, she uttered words that were unfit for the ears of most people. They sounded sibilant and set up an ache at the back of Jack’s jaw. Though he didn’t have the talent to work such spells himself, Jack could still feel the power of Lennox’s words. They vibrated in his veins, and the feeling was unpleasant.
A finger of demon fire reached from Lennox’s outstretched hand and arced toward the padlock. An instant later, the padlock clicked open.
Lennox turned to Jack and grinned as if she were proud of herself. “After you,” she said.
Jack didn’t argue. He knew what they would find on the other side of this door, and Lennox was still in training. Jack had always intended to be the first one through.
Department Store
The door opened to a narrow corridor that was bright, clean and, surprisingly, full of people. More than half a dozen of them.
Jack stood at the entrance for a moment, unsure what to say or do. The people were just ordinary folk, men, women, and children, who had chosen the wrong day to visit the department store. There were a couple of store workers among them as well, still wearing their tan and gray uniforms with their plastic name tags on display.
“They were trying to escape but they couldn’t get out,” Amelia said.
Jack saw she was right. Most of the people were huddled on the floor. Some had been crying, and all of them were just as surprised to see Jack as he was to see them.
For a moment, they looked at him, their faces filled with fear and desperation mixed with hope. Jack imagined that captives locked in containers by people smugglers might have had the same look upon being rescued.
“What are you waiting for?” Lennox asked.
Jack hadn’t opened the door fully. She couldn’t see past him. He stepped out of the way, and Lennox stiffened in surprise at the sight of the people. But she understood and recovered more quickly.
“You’re safe now,” she said to them. “Let’s get you all out of there.”
Lennox’s beautiful, friendly face and soothing words were enough. The people climbed to their feet and filed out, their expressions a mixture of disbelief and joy. It was like they never expected the door to open for them. Nearly all of them offered their thanks as they passed, and more than one reached out to Jack and Lennox like worshippers might reach out to their savior.
To Jack, it was an unexpected and unfamiliar experience. He usually worked in the shadows and slipped away long before those he helped could thank him.
Lennox accepted their gratitude with a broad grin on her face. When the last of them had left the corridor, she turned to Jack. “It’s nice to see the faces of the people we help,” she said.
Jack just grunted. “There’s more to do yet. Let’s get to it,” he said. Yet he was pleased to have helped the people as well.
The corridor opened to the ground floor of the department store. Jack and Lennox passed by doors that said ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ in clear, unambiguous fonts, and paused at the corner.
There were no doors at this end of the corridor, and Jack could see the chaos in front of them clearly. The department store looked like it had been hit by an earthquake. Ceiling panels and fluorescent lights were hanging down from their corners or had crashed to the floor. It wasn’t as light in the store than it should be, but Jack and Lennox could still see.
Kitchen appliances that had once been displayed neatly on stands were now in disarray. The stands themselves were twisted and broken as if trampled by a herd of beasts. Further in, there were piles of cushions and soft furnishings in among kitchen tables and chairs that had been splintered and broken.
It looked as if the Hell-beast’s rampage had been deliberate and thorough. As if it had taken the department store apart in a methodical way, looking for prey. In that, it had been successful. Jack could see several patches of red in the wreckage that could only be blood.
Those half-dozen people Jack and Lennox helped to escape had been very lucky indeed.
“I can smell it,” Lennox said.
Jack breathed deeply, and he too picked up the distinctive whiff of sulfur in the air. But it wasn’t strong. The Hell-beast had definitely been in this part of the department store, but it wasn’t there now.
He nodded and shrugged the duffel bag from his shoulder. “What do you want? Crossbow or shotgun?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice low.
Lennox’s eyes lit up at his words. “Shotgun!” she said eagerly. She was already wearing the Amulet of Ducent.
Jack handed it over. Then he prepared the crossbo
w for use, clicking the steel bow into place and testing the cord. It was an automatic bow with a dozen bolts in a circular cartridge. If he needed to do so, he could discharge the whole cartridge in under a minute.
With the crossbow in his hands, he felt ready. “The Hell-beast must be upstairs,” he said. “We’ll take the escalator. Keep your eyes open.”
As if to confirm Jack’s statement, the Hell-beast again let out a shriek from above that sounded like the rending of metal, muted a little by the ceiling between them.
“Be careful,” Amelia breathed.
Jack took the lead with Lennox behind him. He could almost sense Lennox’s enthusiasm. She seemed eager for combat, excited to see a creature from Hell she hadn’t come across before. Nor, in Jack’s estimation, was this a bad thing. Better to be excited than paralyzed with fear and unable to act.
As for himself, Jack’s anger and hate had yet to kick in. Instead, he was wary. He knew exactly how powerful and dangerous Hell-beasts could be. He wasn’t scared of them, not exactly, but he feared what they could do. He was afraid of the damage they could do to those around him. To Lennox.
Despite his instinctive urge to protect her, Jack knew he couldn’t simply leave Lennox behind. She had chosen to be here, and she was ready. She had been fighting Hell creatures at his side for some time and knew how to look after herself. And, of course, her talent for magic might prove useful.
They picked their way through the wreckage to the escalator. It wasn’t working. Perhaps the Hell-beast had damaged it, or perhaps someone had turned it off. Either way, it was now no more than a staircase.
Without saying a word, Jack and Lennox cautiously started to climb.
They moved quietly past a sign hung on an angle that advertised everything from Menswear and Electronics to Toys and Cosmetics. When they reached the top, they crouched low to avoid the Hell-beast seeing them before they were ready. Jack planned to steal a quick glance or two around the edge of the handrail to confirm the Hell-beast’s position before approaching it.
This plan lasted only until the Hell-beast screamed once again.
It was an awful, raucous, ear-splitting sound that could only be made by monsters from Hell, although Jack thought that predatory dinosaurs could once have sounded the same. All by itself, the noise could freeze strong men in place and turn their guts into water. Not even Lennox and Jack were entirely immune. Lennox grimaced in discomfort and Jack could feel the blood drain from his face.
But what he heard next was far worse.
It was a whimper. A human sound of pure terror, pitched too high to have been made by an adult.
Amelia gasped in Jack’s mind. “There’s a child!” she said.
She was right. Somehow, a child had survived the destruction, and now feared for his or her very life. Who it might be, how the child had survived for so long with the Hell-beast on the prowl, Jack didn’t know. He knew only that the Hell-beast would murder the child without hesitation unless he and Lennox could do something to stop it.
Hell-beast
“Hell and Damnation!” Jack’s anger would not let him stay silent. He’d been a hunter of demonic creatures and their ilk for many decades. It was a way for him to channel the rage and hatred he’d carried in his heart for so long. Since he’d witnessed a gang of imps murder his family.
Jack had been little more than a child himself and had been unable to do anything to stop them. They killed his adoptive mother, father, and three younger siblings. That none of them were related to him by blood didn’t matter. They were the only family Jack ever knew, and he’d loved them as much as they’d loved him. He’d survived the attack only because of the demon blood in his own veins and the unnatural durability it afforded him.
The screams of his brother and sisters haunted his dreams until he’d met the woman he would marry. While she lived, he’d known something akin to peace.
But when Amelia had been taken from him as well, her ghost proved unable to keep the nightmares at bay. The screams and tormented dreams returned.
He would not let the death of a child add to those dreams, so he surged to his feet with the confidence and strength of one born to battle and looked left and right. This floor was just as damaged as the one below. The stench of sulfur nearly overwhelmed him even with the shattered window letting in fresh air. It was akin to standing next to a volcanic vent.
It took only an instant for Jack to locate the source of the stench. The Hell-beast had its back turned toward him as it rummaging through piles of clothing that were no longer on hangers.
It was monstrous. The shape and size of a rhino, but darker, more heavily muscled, and it gave off an impression of power no rhino could match. Despite how it looked, its behavior was far from what a rhino might display. It didn’t graze on the piles of clothing. Instead, it snarled and pawed and tossed items about as if in a fury. It was like a rabid dog bent on murdering a rabbit, grown to monstrous proportions.
Yet even that wasn’t an exact representation, for the Hell-beast had three separate heads.
Even though it faced away from Jack, he could see that the Hell-beast’s heads were set on sinuous necks and looked awful. The very sight of it was enough to set Jack’s teeth on edge. It filled him with a hate that was almost physical. His skin grew hot, and his spine became stiff. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around its throats and squeeze with all of his might until the Hell-beast’s eyes popped from its skulls and it collapsed dead at his feet.
Jack knew that his reaction was due to the demon blood surging through his veins. He didn’t care. He knew that unlike with Lennox, it was deep within him and difficult to ignite. It would not take control of him completely, and its power was useful. It gave him strength and dexterity beyond that which he normally possessed.
The Hell-beast was engrossed in its hunting and hadn’t yet noticed Jack or Lennox. It didn’t know the danger it was in. If eyes were like lasers, Jack would have already bored holes through the Hell-beast’s spine.
Out of habit, he checked his Daemon Ocularum to learn the creature’s strengths. As had happened with the wight, this monster’s primary attributes appeared within the device’s depths:
Identity: Hell-beast (Cerberus)
Strength: 22
Speed: 14
Awareness: 9
Intelligence: 7
As expected, the Hell-beast was far stronger than the wight. It would doubtless prove to be a considerable challenge.
“Save the child,” Jack snarled to Lennox. “I’ve got the Hell-beast.”
He didn’t give her a chance to argue, but knew she would do as he said. He strode toward the Hell-beast with his crossbow aimed and ready and the duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hey!” Jack yelled at the Hell-beast. “I’m talking to you! It’s time for you to go back to Hell!”
The Hell-beast startled like a hound that had set off a trap. It froze for only an instant, then snorted and spun right around, giving Jack his first true look at its faces.
It was a creature of horror. Jack had already seen the horns, but he hadn’t seen the overabundance of fangs or the way its tongues dangled and drooled. Nor had he seen the yellow, swirling madness in its eyes.
The multi-headed monster was loathsome to Jack on a cellular level. Vile and repulsive to his instinctual self, it could give rise to nightmares despite all the terrors Jack had already seen in his life. He felt Amelia shudder in the depths of his mind. Not even the wall of hate and anger he’d built could prevent a cold seed of visceral terror forming at the base of his spine.
Someone less familiar with the spawn of Hell might have given in to that terror. They might have stood quaking at the knees or gibbering uselessly in fear. But Jack just used it to feed his hate even more and kept striding forward.
The Hell-beast uttered another sickening shriek and launched itself toward Jack as if it thought he was prey.
He wasn’t. Despite his roiling emotions, despite the fac
t that the Hell-beast must have weighed several tons, Jack held his crossbow with steady hands. He aimed at the base of the Hell-beast’s throats and pulled the trigger. At the same time, he dived to his right, heedless of the broken cosmetic stand in his way. As he landed in a cloud of perfume that almost overpowered the sulfur, he saw the crossbow bolt bounce harmlessly from the Hell-beast’s hide.
The monster crashed into the end of the escalator where Jack and Lennox had so recently been. Completely undamaged, it scrabbled its claws against the linoleum floor to gain purchase and launched itself at Jack again.
Jack was dimly aware Lennox had moved off to one side of the store, where the toy section once stood. Cardboard boxes and brightly colored plastic were strewn about in all directions. It looked like a scattering of plastic blocks on a much larger scale, and Jack knew that Lennox’s instincts were good. He believed she would find the child somewhere within the mess.
He rolled to his feet, fired the crossbow at one of the Hell-beast’s heads, and started to dash toward the windows, away from Lennox.
The Hell-beast could move scarily fast, much faster than Jack had expected despite what the Daemon Ocularum told him. He’d only traveled half a dozen paces before the monster drew close enough to breathe down his neck. Jack ducked and wove, using his smaller size to his advantage as best as he could. He managed to stay out of its way for another couple of paces. He could feel jaws snapping at the back of his head, and the stench was like he had dunked his head into a bucket of rotten eggs.
Then the foul creature caught Jack by the back of his trenchcoat. It did not have a good grip, but the Hell-beast was hideously strong. Jack had time to think he’d been snagged by a single jutting fang, and then he was tossed to the side.
He landed heavily, bruising his shoulder, and came to rest on his back against one of the columns supporting the ceiling. He heard Amelia say something in his mind but couldn’t spare the attention he needed to find out what she said. The Hell-beast proved shockingly nimble for so massive a creature. It changed direction completely and in far less than a second loomed over him with fangs bared in multiple jaws.