by R W Thorn
Jack tried a third time. “Lex, are you okay?” he said.
“What is this stuff?” Lennox said, still not really responding to him directly. “It’s going to take forever to get it off my jeans. The Brothers will think I’ve enrolled in the Jackson Kade School of Personal Hygiene!”
Jack was still trying to figure out if Lennox was okay or not. He had dropped to his knees in the same muck that Lennox was complaining about. He had a hand draped over her shoulder in a way that he hoped she would find comforting. Yet her words were unexpectedly humiliating to him.
He tensed involuntarily. Froze in place like a rabbit caught in the Ducati’s headlight. Jack knew he was often lax when it came to cleanliness. It had never been a priority to him, and he knew that he could get to the point where he looked and smelled like a bum. Somehow, he’d never thought that it mattered that much. But he caught an undertone in Lennox’s words that hinted at a negative judgment.
Jack wondered that he ever even thought that he and Lennox could become more than the partners they already were. He wondered that he’d ever interpreted Lennox’s flirting as more than just her usual manner.
He didn’t know how to respond.
“Oh, Jack,” Amelia said, chiding him gently.
It seemed that Lennox sensed his discomfort. There was a moment of silence, and then, surprisingly, she barked a laugh. Yet she wasn’t laughing at him, exactly. She was simply enjoying the moment. And if that wasn’t enough of a surprise, she turned to face him more squarely, pulled him closer, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Silly man,” she said. “You know how I feel about you. Or at least you should by now. But I have to say, your old-fashioned morals are just about the most irritating thing in the whole world.”
It was too dark for Jack to see Lennox clearly. He had no idea whether she was teasing him or not, and felt more confused than ever. Despite the many years he had been walking the Earth, he had never met anyone who could get him as flustered as Lennox.
As Amelia snickered in the back of Jack’s mind, Lennox turned slightly away, as if whatever confidence or playfulness that led to her words had faded. He suspected she was starting to blush.
“I’m fine,” Lennox said into the darkness, finally responding to his question. “Just lost traction. Maybe because of this slimy, sludgy stuff I’m sitting in.”
All at once, Jack remembered the Brothers’ message of a demonic disturbance. He climbed to his feet and winced at the pain in his thigh, then offered Lennox a hand.
“Come on,” Jack said gruffly. “We’ve got work to do.”
As Lennox stood beside him, he heard laughter from within the shadows. The laughter was low and malignant, full of hate and designed to provoke, and it reminded Jack of the shout of fear that they had heard before.
Tar Man
“Who is there?” Jack demanded of the darkness. “What do you want?”
The laughter continued unabated. No answer was forthcoming.
To Jack, it seemed like the temperature had dropped, and the odor of sulfur and rot grew perceptibly stronger. Jack glared into the darkness with a snarl of anger already twisting his lips. He knew what had happened. He and Lennox had stumbled into a trap.
The Ducati’s headlamp lit only part of the road. Other than that, it was too dark to see, but he could hear movement in the shadows. It was like rats creeping over crumpled newspapers, or shy beetles chirping to each other in the blackness.
It was an unnerving, ominous sound, made more so by the way it seemed to come from every direction at once.
“Lex,” Jack said, his voice low and tense. “Let’s see what this darkness is hiding.”
Jack was more than irritated. More than angry. He had been fighting creatures from Hell for most of his life and hated it when something happened that he failed to predict. He hated such failures almost as much as he hated the creatures he faced themselves. And yet, hate was not his only emotion. Despite everything he had been through, he couldn’t help but feel a shiver of fear.
The darkness, the cold, the creepy laughter all combined to give him a sense of foreboding beyond what was normal even in a world filled with supernatural dangers.
In response to Jack’s suggestion, Lennox pronounced words in an ancient tongue that was awful to hear. Somehow, the words she said tasted metallic to Jack, as if he had a mouth full of his own blood. It set up an uncomfortable resonance within him that grated at the base of his skull.
It sounded as discordant as a death metal song played in reverse, but it had impact. Almost at once, a ball of angry, red demon fire appeared between Lennox’s hands. The ball swiftly grew to match the size of the helmet Lennox had looped about her elbow. It became bright enough to cast a red glow over the road, bringing what was hidden into view.
Jack saw a man standing in the shadows.
As wiry and unkempt as Jack himself, the man looked like a homeless person in his tattered overcoat and torn, dirty jeans. Yet the most obvious thing about him wasn’t his clothing but the way the lower half of his face was covered in a black, oily substance that looked like tar.
The man reminded Jack of Samuel. Not in build or appearance, but because of the blackness on his face. Samuel’s Hellfire burns had given him a similar look.
The sight of the man was enough to make Amelia shiver. “Be careful, Jack. This one is dangerous,” she said.
Jack nodded in the darkness, as unsettled as the ghost of his wife. He brought out his Daemon Ocularum and focused through it, and the man’s main attributes appeared within the device’s depths:
Identity: Demon-human hybrid, Demon ascendant
Strength: 10
Speed: 9
Awareness: 8
Intelligence: 8
Power: Spawn conjuration
Strong, fast, and clever, with an insidious power. This man, this tar man, was more than dangerous.
Jack dropped the Daemon Ocularum. As fast as he could, he drew his gun and aimed it. “Who are you?” Jack demanded, unconsciously echoing his earlier words. “What do you want?” And then, as the thought came to him, “Was it you who stole the Daemonicon?”
The tar man just laughed even harder.
Jack snarled in anger. He wanted to pull the trigger out of nothing but spite. Before he did so, he heard Lennox stifle a gasp.
“Look,” she said in a voice that was both shocked and disgusted. “His hands.”
Jack glanced down and immediately saw what Lennox had noticed. Like the lower part of his face, the tar man’s hands appeared covered in a thick, gelatinous blackness. But unlike on his face, the oily substance at his fingers was moving. It was dripping onto the road as globs of putrescence. The tar man was exuding it as if it were sweat.
And the globs of putrescence were alive.
Once again, Jack felt Amelia shiver with revulsion.
As soon as they left the tar man’s fingers, they started to grow. Within seconds, they were as big as a man’s head. They were repulsive to look at. Somehow wet and slimy, almost glittering in the darkness. They were like slime molds given life and mobility. There were dozens of them, maybe more, and they had already covered large parts of the road.
All of them were slowly heading toward Jack and Lennox. To move, they extended pseudopods out in front of themselves, tendrils with which to pull themselves slowly along.
“Get out of there, Jack,” Amelia said. “Do it now.”
“What in all of Hell?” Lennox muttered. She had managed to get the ball of glowing fire in her hands to be self-sustainable, at least for a moment. Her tone was filled with disgust and loathing, and she took an unconscious, fearful step back.
“Demon spawn,” Jack spat. He now understood why there was so much of the slippery sludge on the ground. These vile Hell creatures secreted it, like slugs secrete the slime that helps them to move. The tar man had set the trap that Jack and Lennox had sprung. He had been conjuring these loathsome things as he hid in the dark. And the cry of fear J
ack and Lennox heard had heard was the worm on the hook.
The realization was enough to turn Jack’s anger into rage. He couldn’t do as his wife suggested. He couldn’t run and leave such as this behind.
Without hesitation, Jack’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Bang!
But Jack’s bullet found nothing but empty space before plowing into a wall. The tar man was already gone, leaving behind only echoes of laughter that had little to do with real joy and a road filled with spawn.
Jack muttered a curse under his breath. He wanted to chase after the tar man, to catch him and see if he could outrun a bullet fired straight into his chest. Jack wanted to find out who the tar man was and if he had anything to do with the events with the Brotherhood. Although that already seemed unlikely. There had been no sign of demon spawn at the Lair.
And yet, this was the third demonic disturbance in a single day. In Jack’s mind, there had to be a connection.
But he couldn’t focus on the tar man as yet. The demon spawn on the road were a more urgent problem. They were vile and loathsome and slow, but they were relentless and dangerous as well. Jack and Lennox couldn’t leave them for others to find.
“Revolting things!” said Lennox. Then, before Jack could warn her against it, she began pronouncing words in the same, ugly language as before.
“Wait!” Jack shouted, but it was already too late. A tongue of liquid red Hellfire arced out from the center of the ball of energy Lennox was still holding toward the demon spawn. Jack uttered a curse as the Hellfire engulfed half a dozen of the vile, amorphous shapes. There was a strong odor of ozone and the air crackled with power. It was like lightning, bright enough to cast a glare over the road, over the walls of the buildings looming over them, and over the stacked piles of garbage that lined the sidewalk.
For an instant, Jack could see the expression of gleeful anticipation on Lennox’s face. She expected her fire to turn the demon spawn into knee-high balls of flame, or to boil them where they stood. Either way, she expected her use of magic to be effective.
But Jack knew better. He had faced the likes of these before.
“Stop it!” he shouted.
The demon spawn caught in Lennox’s fire produced a high-pitched squeal like some plastics make when burning in a grate. At first, it looked as if Lennox’s magic was working. The demon spawn started to bubble like they were boiling in acid.
Even so, Lennox respected Jack’s command. She looked at him in confusion as she cut the tongue of fire off.
“Why? It’s working! Look at them!” Lennox said, her voice filled with accusation and uncertainty at the same time.
“Wait,” Jack said. “And watch.”
They did so. The demon spawn continued to squeal and bubble as if they were in pain. They spat out pseudopods in every direction. It seemed as if they were coming apart, as if their substance was failing them. It looked as if they were dying.
But the squealing continued. The pseudopods that the afflicted demon spawn had ejected faded along much of their length, leaving shapeless globules of their hideous flesh behind. It was like what the viscous, oozy slime sold to children as a toy would look like after being smashed by a hammer.
Still, it appeared as if Lennox’s attack had been successful. She had broken the demon spawn into pieces.
Then the smaller pieces started to grow. In moments, they were half the size of their parents. Seconds later, they were the same size, and the squealing had stopped.
Jack and Lennox were now surrounded by nearly twice as many of the demon spawn as they had been facing before.
Lennox stifled a gasp of shock mixed with revulsion. “Son of a…” she began, and took another involuntary step backward. She looked left and right. “How do we kill these disgusting things?” she asked, breathing hard. Jack could hear the first hint of real fear in her voice.
As for himself, he was angry. He despised creatures like this. Hated them with such passion that it made his blood boil. If he could, he would grab them in his bare hands and tear them to pieces, then stomp those pieces into the road until nothing was left.
But he couldn’t. Instead, he put his gun away and drew the pair of inward-curving knives that he had sheathed at his back.
“The old-fashioned way,” he snarled in answer to Lennox’s question. His knives had been inscribed with occult symbols on both the blade and handle. The only reason the same symbols didn’t hurt Jack’s hands was that the handles had been bound in black leather. “Don’t let them touch you,” he said. “They will drain your vitality if they do.”
“Great,” Lennox replied. “Any other good news?” She launched the ball of demon fire into the air with a muttered word that made Jack feel slightly nauseous, then drew her own knives. They were straighter than his, and had also been etched with occult symbols. She held them with the confidence and ease that came with many hours of practice.
The ball of demon fire hung in the air like a glitter ball in a club, casting a reddish light in every direction.
“Yeah,” Jack grunted. “Cutting these things into pieces will have the same effect as your Hellfire. Use the flat of your blades. The symbols will burn them.”
With that, Jack gritted his teeth in suppressed fury and got to work, laying about himself with the enthusiasm borne of hate mixed with disgust.
Clouds of Putrescence
Everywhere Jack’s blade touched the vile, oily, wet-looking flesh he was rewarded with a sound like the sizzling of bacon and a cloud of noxious vapor. The demon spawn squealed once again, but this time there was no corresponding bubbling or spontaneous ejection of pseudopods. This time, the squealing seemed more like that of agony, if these vile things could feel such a human sensation.
This time, instead of spawning others of their own kind, the foul Hell creatures writhed in pain.
But they didn’t die easily. Jack had to burn each one for some seconds with the flats of his blades before they began to fester and collapse in on themselves.
Jack started to swear in frustration under his breath. He could sense Lennox beside him getting frustrated as well as she laid about herself with her own knives. Neither of them was in serious danger, not yet, but the sheer number of the demon spawn was enough to make it a difficult task.
Nor was it entirely safe. More than once, Jack felt the grotesque, slimy burn of a pseudopod striking his hands as he sought to keep his knives pressed against their vile flesh. It stung like the venom of a bee at the same time as making his muscles feel numb. How many times a pseudopod slapped against his trenchcoat or trousers, Jack didn’t know. He knew only that he couldn’t withstand the vitality-sucking strikes of these monsters forever.
Nor did he have to worry about just himself. Lennox also spat occasional curses that sounded like winces of pain. Only Amelia was immune to the attack of the demon spawn. There wasn’t much at all that could hurt her any more.
“Don’t these foul, miserable monstrosities ever give up?” Lennox snarled. “And how many of them are there?”
Jack could hear the anger in her voice and could feel his blood boiling as well. They had been fighting for some minutes now, and the number of demon spawn seemed undiminished. With a howl of rage, Jack wound up and kicked one of the spawn with his purple sneaker.
It was a mistake. His wounded leg buckled under the strain. Jack could barely stay upright. If he fell among these vile beings from Hell, it could go very badly. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The spawn he kicked latched onto his sneaker and lower leg. It was like he’d stepped into a vat of molasses that wrapped itself around his trousers. As he stomped to try to dislodge it, Jack felt the vile creature extend its tendrils up his trouser leg. Within moments, his calf muscle started to burn and his leg felt leaden.
Jack gave voice to an inarticulate snarl of rage and hate. He was incredulous, beyond furious that this thing would touch his flesh in this way. It was like a defilement, and Jack felt instantly unclean
. He laid the flats of his blades against the demon spawn on his leg and pressed into its flesh so that clouds of putrid vapor burst into the air. He pressed down with all of his strength and felt the moment when the spawn gave up the fight and dissolved.
Then, limping, he stepped back from the fight.
“Try not to do that again,” Amelia admonished. If it had been anyone else, her words might have sounded condescending, but this was Jack’s wife. The woman who loved him as much as he loved her. There was nothing more than genuine concern in her ethereal voice.
There seemed to be just as many spawn now as there had been to start with. Lennox was lost in the madness of battle and partly obscured by the cloud of vapor that erupted around her. She was a wild woman, howling in fury as she lashed about, but her efforts were more hopeful than effective. She wasn’t taking the time to ensure those she struck were done.
The demon spawn were not diminishing.
Even so, Jack couldn’t help but admire her vengeful enthusiasm. She fought with fluidity and grace to complement the strength and ferociousness of her attacks. Even without her magic, she was formidable. It was a joy to watch, but Jack wouldn’t want to face her one-on-one.
He had to accept that there were too many of the spawn for them to deal with this way.
Jack sheathed his knives. He still had his handgun, but that wasn’t his first choice of weapon against so many foes. Instead, he reached into an inner pocket of his trenchcoat and withdrew a vial of clear liquid. To the quiet sound of Amelia’s approval, he removed the rubber stopper at the end and did his best to spray the holy water it contained over as many of the demon spawn as he could.
Demon Blood
It worked. The demon spawn erupted into a chorus of ear-piercing squeals. Foul clouds of noxious steam filled the air, through which Jack could see the spawn writhe and shiver as if they were in pain. He watched with grim satisfaction as they started to dissolve into the sludge they had left on the road.