by R W Thorn
It was gone. Dead. Defeated. It would not bother them again.
“Go back to Hell, foul creature,” Jack spat at the remains, his hatred mixing with satisfaction at a job well done. From Amelia, he felt a sense of profound satisfaction that the battle was over. Above him, Lennox had returned to look into the hole. What she saw started her whooping and hollering with pure joy.
“Yes! Take that, you monster!” she yelled. “We blew your ass up! Yeah!”
Jack couldn’t help but give her a smile, but it lasted only a moment. They still had much to do. “This day isn’t over,” he said. “We have to get back to the Lair.”
They made their way to Lennox’s Ducati without stopping to check on those still out in front of the department store. The drizzle had stopped completely, but the clouds still remained. For Jack at least, the gloom seemed fitting. He felt as if he was on the way to a funeral, and sunshine would be out of place.
Jack limped a little, but the wound in his leg wasn’t major, and he didn’t have time to see to it. Lennox had emerged from the battle unscathed save for a small tear in her leather where the Hell-beast had caught her.
Unscathed, but quieter than usual. The euphoria she’d displayed when they defeated the monster had already gone. In its place was a sense of dread that cut out any possibility of teasing and mirth. She tried to call Nathanial a couple of times as she walked, but received no answer.
For his part, Jack could have asked her what she heard on the phone but did not. His premonition and sense of doom were more than sufficient. He knew they would learn the truth of what had happened soon enough.
And Amelia had lapsed into silence. Jack knew it took effort for her to make herself heard, and she had done a lot of talking this day. Likely she wouldn’t return for hours.
They climbed onto the bike without a word but full of grim determination. Lennox fired it into life, and moments later, they were speeding down the road with Jack’s trenchcoat billowing out behind them.
They made the trip back to Hybrid Lane in record time. Lennox didn’t waste a moment trying to be subtle. She parked directly outside the row house and almost ripped her helmet off, such was her urgency. She and Jack were both off the bike and up the stairs in an instant.
Their fears were confirmed before they entered. The door wasn’t the solid barrier to entry it had always been any more. Although it remained in place, the frame around the bolt had been splintered, and the hinges were twisted. For a door that had been designed to open out, it looked as if someone had gone to great effort to force it in.
Lennox gripped the handle without hesitation. Jack saw that she intended to rush in, but stopped her with a hand on her arm.
She spun toward him with a snarl of anger twisting her face. “What?” she demanded, and there was little of the usual Lennox in her tone. She appeared to have lost all patience, like she was desperate to know what had happened and would brook no delay.
Jack understood. She was anxious and scared, but he didn’t flinch. “Wait,” he said quietly. “We have no idea what we might find in there.”
Lennox grimaced in frustration. Even so, she took her hand off the door and looked at him.
Jack had left the crossbow back at the department store. Lennox had thrown the empty shotgun at the Hell-beast, and neither of them had thought to retrieve it. Jack still had the grenade launcher dangling from its canvas strap around his back, but they had run out grenades. His only remaining weapons were his hand gun and his knives.
Knowing that Lennox could call upon her demon-fire at need, Jack drew his gun and held it at the ready. “Let’s go,” he said.
Both of them were tense and willing. Lennox wrenched open the door.
A single glance told Jack there was nothing waiting for them. The foyer was the same empty room it had always been, with flat, stone-clad walls that gave intruders no place to hide. The only difference between now and when they had visited before was Samuel, who wasn’t at his desk.
Instead, he lay on the floor, face-down and unmoving. Something about his position brought to Jack’s mind the security guard at Coven Street station.
“Samuel!” Lennox said. She charged in and got down on her knees beside him. Jack noted randomly that she hadn’t ever called Samuel by his full name before. To Lennox, the old man had always been Sam. Like she called Nathanial Nate, and him Jack instead of Jackson.
Jack lowered his gun but didn’t put it away. He headed over and could see at a glance that Samuel was dead. Somehow, someone or something had reached him before he could trigger the Lair’s defenses.
“Lex,” Jack said, keeping his voice low and gentle.
At first, Lennox didn’t acknowledge him at all. But then she straightened. “Let’s go,” she said, her face hard and angry. “We have to find whoever did this. Whatever did this. And we have to find out what they wanted.”
Jack gave a grunt of acknowledgment. A cold ball of dread had formed in the pit of his stomach. He feared he already knew what they wanted, whoever they were.
During his premonition, he’d thought of the Daemonicon under its dome of glass.
“We’ll start at the bottom,” he said grimly, “in the drawing room.”
With that, he headed over to Samuel’s desk. Before he could hit the button that would lower the platform to the right level, something hissed at him from under the chair. Nergal, Samuel’s cat. She was terrified.
For some reason, the sight of the poor creature acting so scared in the dark hit Jack harder than even Samuel’s death. He knew that if Nergal had hissed at him on an earlier visit, Samuel would have responded with violence. But now Jack couldn’t help but feel sad for the creature.
There wasn’t anything he could do for her now, so he just planted his thumb on the button and hurried to the platform.
Premonition
The platform operated as smoothly as always, but there was an air of tension between Jack and Lennox that hadn’t existed before. Both of them understood that Samuel’s death might be the least of what they might have to face.
In silence, they waited to reach the bottom floor of the Lair. Jack could only guess what Lennox might be thinking. As for himself, he imagined horrors.
When the door finally opened, Jack couldn’t help but let out a curse, and Lennox made a sound of dismay.
The room they stepped into no longer felt warm and inviting. No longer did it remind Jack of an early Victorian drawing room or a period display in a museum. Instead, it reminded him of the department store after the Hell-beast had turned it into a shambles.
Only the heavy metal door that closed any access to the stairway at the back gave Jack hope. Other than that, the room was tragic.
The elegant chairs, the display cabinets with stained glass on the front, the marble-topped table, all of these had been damaged or broken. The artifacts, weapons, and books of lore were scattered onto the floor. Some of the artifacts had clearly been smashed, and many of the books had been ripped into pieces.
It looked like someone had been through the room intent on destruction.
All by itself, this was enough to reawaken Jack’s rage. He wanted to find whoever had done this and wring their necks. He wanted to find a target for the bullets in his gun. Yet he intuitively knew that whoever had done this had done what they came to do and had already left. Why else would the platform have been back up at the top?
Even so, Jack didn’t let down his guard as he and Lennox surveyed the damage.
Just as Jack’s premonition predicted, the Daemonicon was missing. The Singed Grimoire, the most powerful, dangerous book of demon lore ever known, no longer rested in its place on the table. Someone had taken it. The glass dome had been removed and shattered onto the floor.
Because of his premonition, Jack had thought the missing tome would be the worst of it. But, however bad the theft might become, it wasn’t as immediate as what Jack saw next.
Deedee. She lay on the floor amid the wreckage.
At first, Jack feared she might be dead, like Samuel in the foyer above. The thought made his heart lurch in his chest, and his mouth became suddenly dry.
“Lex,” he said. He could barely force the word through his throat. Jack had known Deedee for decades, for most of her life. A long time ago, before Amelia, they had been close.
Jack knew that the demon blood in his veins meant that he would outlive nearly all those around him, but he’d somehow thought Deedee might be an exception. In his mind, the elegant old woman was too tough to die.
Lennox heard him. As with Samuel in the foyer above, she reached Deedee’s side swiftly. Jack gave the room one more look then lowered his guard. He waited anxiously for Lennox to say something.
“She’s alive,” Lennox said after what felt like forever. Jack briefly closed his eyes against waves of relief that he hadn’t expected to be so strong. When the waves passed, he holstered his gun and joins Lennox on his knees.
More than just alive, Deedee was starting to wake. Her eyes slowly opened. She looked pale and shocked, but there were no obvious wounds. For the moment, she seemed lost and confused, much as Lennox had been back at the department store.
Then, with Lennox and Jack both crouching near her, her eyes snapped into focus. She looked around, and looked at Jack with what could only be an expression of affection. She reached for him in a way she might have done decades ago, then changed her mind.
“Don’t just sit there staring,” she said with a smile. “I’m not a goldfish in a bowl. Help me up.”
Jack and Lennox exchanged a quick look. They did as she said, helping her into a sitting position.
Before either Jack or Lennox could ask any questions, Deedee coughed to clear her throat and started giving them answers. “It was a warlock,” she said. “Powerful. Waltzed in here with all the confidence in the world, and he knew what he was after.” Deedee paused a moment to cough again, but when Lennox moved to offer her help, Deedee shook her off.
“I tried to stop him, of course, but what could I do?” She shrugged. “Took my gun out of my hands with magic and flung me against the wall.” Then Deedee gave a grim smile. “He probably thought I was done right then. But I’m not dead yet. Tougher than I look. I put the whole Lair on lockdown. Nothing in or out, not even cellphone signals,” she said.
Jack realized that this might be why Lennox had been unable to raise Nathanial on her phone, but he didn’t interrupt. He was going to need the information Deedee was providing. He knew that it would be up to him and Lennox to stop this warlock.
“Not that it mattered much to him. He got what he wanted,” Deedee’s eyes turned almost involuntarily to the table on which the Daemonicon had sat, then back to Jack and Lennox. “Near as I can figure, it was him that raised the Hell-beast. Probably did it as a distraction to get a bunch of us, including you two, away from here when he came to call.”
She paused then as if she were hesitant to say the rest. But then she continued. “The wight, too. I figure that was his way of finding us. Best guess, he tracked you both here.”
Jack shut his eyes. Deedee’s words rang too true to be wrong, and he was disgusted with himself. How could he and Lennox have been followed without them knowing?
He shook his head. “We’ll find him,” he grumbled. “Count on it.”
Deedee looked at him with a piercing gaze. “I am counting on it. A warlock with his level of power and the Daemonicon? There’s nothing he won’t be able to do. Given sufficient time to master it, he could summon the Prince of Hell himself and command him to do his bidding. He could become the Prince of Hell, if that’s what he wished. Mark my words, we’ve not seen the end of this by a long shot.”
Lennox looked positively frightened at the old woman’s words. Her habitual grin and playfulness were long gone. In their place was an expression of unfamiliar seriousness and worry.
As for Jack, echoes of his premonition still haunted him. Once more, he felt the cold hand of dread clutch at his spine, and the small hairs on his forearms stood on end. He knew that Deedee spoke only the truth, and envisioned a world given over to Hell. A world where those he cared about were under constant threat.
He found himself gazing at Lennox. Jack had spent his entire life fighting against the spawn of Hell in an effort to satisfy an unquenchable need for vengeance, but now there was something else he fought for as well.
Lennox’s teasing combined with Amelia’s approval had woken a part of him he’d long since buried. Though he had yet to admit it even to himself, he was starting to think of Lennox as more than just his partner.
He’d lost much in his life. The thought of losing her as well was too much to bear.
He would sacrifice anything to keep her out of harm’s way.
Frustration and Death
Despite her age, Deedee proved as tough as she claimed. Jack’s first instinct was to help the elegant, older woman to the infirmary to make sure she was okay, but she would have none of it. The Lair was her responsibility. It was her job to see to its safety.
But that didn’t mean Jack and Lennox had to let her go through the protocols required to take the Lair out of lockdown alone. They followed and did what they could to help out, and although she said little to them, Jack got the impression she appreciated their presence.
It was more than half an hour before they made it back to the foyer. By then, they had gathered a following of nearly a dozen Brothers who, like Jack and Lennox, were there to offer whatever assistance they could. Yet when Deedee saw Samuel’s body on the floor, there was nothing anyone could do.
Deedee’s grief and anguish were obvious as she sank down to the floor and gathered Samuel’s body close.
“You old fool,” she muttered. Although her words were quiet, the granite walls and floor caught every sound, no matter how gentle, and ensured that all could hear. “I told you so many times this job would be the death of you. But you never listened.”
Deedee wept openly as she cradled the dead man’s head. Samuel had been lying face-down when Jack and Lennox had found him, but Deedee had turned him over. His injuries were clear. His usually jovial face had become slack, and his eyes were fixed wide open in an expression of shock.
He had been scorched with Hellfire. The lower part of Samuel’s face had become blistered and blackened, as had his neck and most of his chest where his security uniform had been burned away. The odor of charred flesh and fabric still lingered in the air.
It was enough to sicken Jack. Enough to awaken his rage. Not just the death of a man he’d known for decades, but the violation of the Lair. Somehow, an unknown warlock with demonic blood in their veins had managed to take Samuel by surprise. That was the only way Jack could see it happening given the weaponry hidden in the walls.
Jack wasn’t the type of person to accept such an attack calmly. He was a slayer of demons and other loathsome creatures that sought to spread their vile corruption throughout the city of New Sanctum. He wanted to curse out loud at this affront. Instead, he bit his tongue and kept his expression of rage to no more than a grimace that twisted his lips into a snarl.
After holding on to the dead man for several minutes, Deedee dried her eyes on the back of her sleeve. Then she looked to the Brothers in attendance.
“We will inter him here, of course,” she said. “In a place of high honor. He has a granddaughter. In Italy, I believe. We will contact her, but I doubt she will be able to attend.”
Deedee’s voice was full of sadness and unexpected vulnerability. She and the Brothers were lost in a world of grief, yet Jack smoldered like a spark ready to ignite. He had been content to help Deedee take the Lair out of lockdown, but wasn’t happy to stand around in the foyer surrounded by this sadness. It reminded him too much of other, more personal deaths.
He needed to act. The wound gifted to him Hell-beast didn’t matter. He had to do something tangible to help or he would go mad, caught up in the grief of others.
He wanted to make the
warlock pay. He wanted to locate him, wrap his hands around his throat, and throttle him until the man’s eyes bulged from their sockets and his lips turned blue.
Jack was so lost in this private world of outrage and frustration that he flinched in surprise when Lennox gently touched his shoulder. He turned to her, expecting to see her characteristic, playful grin. But her expression showed empathy and concern. She understood Jack’s need for action and the inadequacy of just standing around.
Like Amelia would have done, Lennox understood Jack had to express his grief and sense of violation in his own way.
“Do you want to get out of here?” she asked.
On another day, Lennox’s tone would have been teasing. Almost flirting, as if she were making her words sound like an invitation and wanted to see how he would respond. But today, there was nothing more than sympathy and sadness in her voice.
Maybe because of this, Jack couldn’t help but take a moment to admire her. To him, she was stunning in her leather jacket and jeans. Even the pair of small bulges at her temples, a legacy of the demon blood in her veins, seemed right to him.
For a brief eternity, Jack almost forgot about Amelia. In that moment, only Lennox mattered and he felt the faint stirring of something he barely recognized: happiness. Or at least the hope that he might one day be happy again.
If Amelia had been with him at that moment, Jack imagined she would have expressed satisfaction at this thought. But she hadn’t made an appearance since the defeat of the Hell-beast.
He gave an affirmative grunt. “Yeah,” he said.
“Let’s go, then,” Lennox said. “See you!” she said, much too brightly to suit the melancholy mood of the foyer, and the Brothers and Deedee offered whatever murmurs of acknowledgement they could muster.