The Brimstone Series

by Robert McKinney

  A quick glance around at the patrons of the diner show me the source of the change. The table full of cops at the other side of the room are acting differently. They still joke with each other, slap backs and show smiles, but the laughter I’d noticed before, the levity, appears to be gone. When I look at them for a little while longer, I notice that several of their number seem to be taking turns sending little looks and sharp glances to another part of the room.

  I track their gaze to find them looking at the doorway of the diner, not far from me. There’s a young, sandy haired man standing there. He’s tall and muscular, but not overly so. Whatever strength he has is built for endurance, as opposed to display.

  My first clue of his backward is the hair on his head. A little shaggy, but not too many weeks removed from a military crew cut. My second clue is even better - a black and white U.S. Marine Corps tattoo on his arm. If he’s active duty, but on leave, then he won’t be my problem. The deputies here will know how to deal with him if things become the usual kind of rowdy.

  There is, however, another option. The one that’s chewing away at the back of my mind, given the most recent guest at my table.

  Mercenary.

  My lip curls up as I come up as I connect the dots. The devil wearing Tom has fucked me over. Tom had access to all kinds of shooters, so it makes sense that he’d send one after me for a bit of wetwork. For a moment, I wonder why he hadn’t had the balls to do it himself, but then I remember the first rule of brimstone bargaining. While in creation, a devil can’t kill a human who’s got an ongoing pact with another devil.

  None of this tells me why he’d want me dead in the first place. But then again, I’ve never known a devil who’d needed a reason to be a dick.

  In the time it takes me to think this through, the young mercenary takes a look around the diner. He skims the table’s worth of cops, before finally coming to a stop on me. He doesn’t look my way for long, but there’s no mistaking the look of recognition on his face. Whoever this is, he’s come here for me. And while I can’t remember my time under the control of that bastard Ole Beeze, what I actually can remember of my last encounters with a mercenary shop is unpleasant, to say the least.

  I take that as my signal to get the Hell out of here. I stand up from my place at the diner booth, and pray that my legs hold steady as I do. I’m rewarded with a wobble that only lasts for a moment, before I start walking, jelly legged, over to the cash register perched up on the bar seating.

  The waitress from before shows up and takes station behind it a few moments later. She smiles at me, and when I ask her if I have anything left to pay on my bill (it’s a bad idea to dine and dash when sharing a room with police) she shakes her head and tells me that the man who’d been sharing my table took care of the bill.

  “Thank you.” I say, then a moment later. “Would you mind pointing me to the ladies’ room?”

  The woman makes a gesture over to the far side of the diner, near where the table’s worth of sheriff’s deputies are now busy eyeballing the mercenary at the door. They may not be able to recognize him for exactly what he is, but they can sense trouble enough. After all, it’s hard to mistake a guard dog for a show pony, even if you can’t guess it’s breed.

  I walk over, past the table of cops, without attracting a second glance from any of them save for the old retiree. He dips his head and sends a crooked smile my way as I head to the bathroom. The expression is a bit too intimate for my comfort. I can’t tell if he’s being a letch or just a nice southern gentleman offering the reassurance of his protection to little ol’ me.

  Whatever the answer, I offer him a nod and timid smile in return. His friends already have their attention on the biggest threat in the room. I don’t want any of it diverted to me.

  I enter the door marked for the bathrooms, and find a small hallway with three short branches inside. I look around each corner to see if one of the hallways has a window, or better yet, an employee’s exit to the driveway outside. Two branches are marked as bathrooms, and the third leads me nowhere but a stubby broom closet. Disappointed, I enter the ladies room and am pleased to find a window inside, maybe eight or nine feet from the floor.

  The exit isn’t much, a squat pane of glass that measures maybe one foot by three. I do a hop, and a grab, and try to pull myself high enough to hold onto the edge. From close up, I’m able to catch a view of the latch keeping the window shut, but can’t actually grab it and open the window one handed. I try again, this time bracing my leg on a nearby sink bolted into the wall. My body is either still too weakened from the process of regaining myself from Ole Beeze, or simply weaker than what I’d remembered being before. Maybe Ole Beeze skimped on leg day while walking around in me. Either way, I need a new way out of the diner before things get dicey.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Disappointed, but unwilling to just stand in the bathroom and wait for the mercenary to find me, I turn on my heel and head back outside to the diner at large. When I exit, I can see that the mood I’d fled earlier has intensified in my absence. The mercenary before is now inside of the diner, his hands held loose and ready at his sides but pretending the read the oversized menu on the wall. It’s the kind of stance you’d see in a gunslinger from the wild, wicked west, or their modern equivalent in a black market’s back alley.

  I’m not alone in having noticed the stance, because the table of deputies, situated near the window to my right, gave up the pretense of maintaining their jokes and farewell party. Most of the men are now turned around in their chairs, and a few of them are even standing up on their feet. The oldest amongst them, the retiring man who I now recognize as a sheriff from the badge pinned to his chest, has his shoulders squared and is facing the mercenary.

  The two are silent for a moment, before the sheriff starts to speak. Like the other deputies, his accent is Creole layered on thick. He uses a few tried and true phrases that small town lawmen like to roll out, including my favorite, “We don’t like trouble makers around here.”

  For the most part, the mercenary ignores him, and continues to stand just inside the diner’s doorway. Instead, the man’s eyes and attention are again focused on me. He glances over to the doorway leading to the restrooms at my back that I’d tried to escape through earlier. When his gaze returns to me, he nods, his face is empty, and turns around without speaking. The diner doors make a metallic sound as they close behind him.

  Satisfied with the quiet that follows, the sheriff lets out a chuckle and turns back to his table. He looks relieved and more than a little full of himself.

  “That was damn weird, huh?” says one of the deputies at the table. This one is young, his skin still peppered with bright splotches of acne.

  “Damn weird I can deal with.” Says the old sheriff. ”But I’ll be damned If I have to deal with a scuffle on my retirement da--”

  A flash of light and clap of thunder cut off his words.

  The sound and flash light up the window facing the parking lot outside. Adrenaline shoves its way through my veins, and my heartbeat spikes from a low rumble to a jack hammer sprint. The patrons of the diner flinch away from the blast and throw themselves to the floor. The clumsiness still clinging to my limbs slows me when I try to follow suit, but even then, flatten myself to the floor not far behind anyone else.

  Breath ragged, I press myself against the tile flooring of the diner, waiting for another blast to come. While I’m there, I realize that what I’d heard hadn’t been a clap of thunder, but a roll.

  That matters.

  Explosions, no matter how large or how small, have a character that’s unique to their source. Gunshots can sometimes come out as sharp pops or even loud barks that at close quarters slap at faces and make ears ring. Grenades are different, and their roars are stretched out over longer periods of time. Bombs are the loudest, and come with the most variations. Some begin and end with a lone, deep pulse of
sound while others, the weaker ones fueled by gasoline instead of C4, tend to ramble on and expand even while their own echos are forming.

  This explosion, the one outside of the window, is more like the latter. I look up at the window to see that it’s still standing - which means that whatever blew had more in common with a gas tank lighting or a propane canister igniting than anything spawned by a military grade ammunition or bastardized IED. I’ve seen enough of the former while testing out weapons on abandoned cars for clients operating out of slums. I’ve also encountered my share of the latter - mostly when those same clients became angry, or greedy, about the terms of our deals.

  If this was a gas explosion, as the ongoing glow and lack of dust indicate, then it means that whoever set up the blast either lacked the knowledge to make a very large boom, or the time to place such a device where it would have the most use. The timing of the explosion, mere seconds after the mercenary had stepped out of sight, leaves me with little doubt that he was behind it, and rushed enough to try improvising.

  There’s a silver lining to that last bit, I think to myself, as someone in the diner lets out a scream. While a man who can improvise is a dangerous thing, it still pays best to have a plan that’s been well thought out and prepared over time.

  I can survive this, I know it, but to do so, I’ll first need a few tools of my own. While a gun would be the first choice of most of my normal clientele, I’m personally a fan of fire. It’s good for more than distractions or causing pain. When you’re like me, and have said yes to a devil and one of their deals, fire also offers something far more valuable.

  Freedom.

  With a flame, one close enough to grab in my hands, I’ll be able to drop through hell and land elsewhere in the world. I may not have anywhere specific in mind, but anywhere is better than what’s happening in this diner.

  Goal in mind, I start crawling from table to table, looking for a lighter. While I do this, I notice that most of the deputies are getting to their feet, still others start crowding near the window to look outside. The front parking lot holds a car that been completely enveloped in flame. The fire raging outside is too far for my uses, but still close enough to make the deputies sweat.

  Two of the lawmen start walking towards the door, shielding their eyes as they come closer to the blaze.

  One of them is the sheriff, his brow knit into a steel etched look of determination. The other, the younger deputy with the breakout covered skin, follows closely behind. Unlike the old sheriff, who seems quite calm for a man whose retirement party has been ruined by an explosion, the young deputy looks nervous, and fiddles nervously with his badge.

  Nervous or not, the pair are obviously brave.

  In my experience, it’s the brave ones who die first.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I hear new noises, shotgun blasts, that come in a quick pair. Unlike the explosion, which rumbled through the floor of the diner, these come with a bark like that of a Rottweiler, albeit with its voice dialed up to maximum volume.

  The pellets from each blast slam into and shred the deputies standing outside. I watch the youngest one crumple after being hit, as if he were an oversized puppet with its strings cut by an impatient master. The sheriff stays standing for a while after being hit, and for some reason I’ll probably never understand, keeps striding forward a few steps before lowering himself, wobbly and slow, to his knees.

  Moments later, a third shotgun blast takes him in the side. He tips forward and falls face first into the gravel parking lot. All the while, the blood he leaks out seems to dance in the firelight of the car burning nearby.

  I don’t catch sight of whoever shot at him, because the following sound of half a dozen handguns, those belonging to the surviving deputies, opening up on the parking lot distract me too much to keep track of the carnage.

  The remaining deputies keep firing, and start scrambling for whatever cover they can find in the open diner. One of them takes the time to shove me behind the bar counter near the cash register before taking a position near the door, his head peeking out a few inches beyond the frame.

  Another shotgun blast flashes out in the darkness, and the next thing I know, the deputy’s fallen and is clutching at his neck.

  I let out a curse and duck down lower behind the bar counter. While I still haven’t caught sight of the shooter outside, the gunplay I’d just seen is terrifying me. I’m an gun runner, so I know how precise shotguns can be in the right set of hands. The muzzle flash that I’d seen in the darkness before the last deputy had gone down had come from the outside edge of most buckshot’s effective, one hit knockdown range. The man using that weapon outside wasn’t just someone with some experience in loading a few shells. He was an expert, or an artist, if you were twisted enough to find beauty in that kind of thing.

  Anyone with enough training to make a shot that far and that quickly would be too savvy to merely sit outside in the dark, pinning down a room full of deputies. Even in a place that looks as out of the way as this diner, a response for other deputies or even highway patrolmen, couldn’t be any further than a few minutes away. Staying out in the darkness with a gun is a dumb waste of time.

  Or at least it would be, I realize, if the man who’s been shooting outside is acting alone.

  Like the explosion, this shootout is just a distraction for someone else, maybe several someones, to swing around and come inside from another direction.

  I take a chance and poke my head up from the bar counter just enough to catch another view of the layout of the diner. Open doorway near the front, complete with the corpse of the lawman I’d watched get shot in the neck. Windows on each of the walls. No exit near the bathrooms save for the window I’d been unable to sneak out of… and a doorway, currently open, at the back of the kitchen area, in plain sight of my hiding spot behind the bar counter. If push comes to shove, and I can’t find a lighter, that back exit may be the only chance of escape I have left.

  Cursing again to myself, I scramble over th the entrance to the kitchen area of the diner, and try to place myself in a spot where I can’t be seen from either of the open entrances, front or back. I partially fail on both counts, but sweet Jesus, that’s ok, because while moving, I see the one thing worth chopping off my right hand, if only I could hold that item in my left.

  I’m talking, of course, about the open pack of cigarettes I notice on the floor near the cash register. Inside of it are three bent cigarettes and a small, bright blue plastic Bic lighter. I’m not sure, but I think the waitress must have dropped it once all the commotion started up. If I survive this, and she does as well, I’m coming back to giver her the biggest damn tip she’s ever seen.

  I reach a hand out for the pack of cigarettes that lay discarded and forgotten on the floor. The package looks crumpled, as if someone stomped on it. When I pick it up, I see that the three cigarettes inside are tattered or bent, but the lighter appears to be fine enough when I take it out and give it a once over. The lighter lacks the cool, comforting slickness of the old Zippo that I’d carried along with me on jobs for several years. I can live with that, though, assuming it calls a flame. Give me that and I’ll find a way to get the job done.

  Right then, I hear a sound that raises the hair up on the back of my neck. It’s coming from behind me, from the direction of the kitchen in the back of the diner. For a moment, every fiber of me wants to lean out around the frame of the door that I’m crouching beside so that I can catch a glimpse of whatever it is that I hear lurking in the back of the building. I don’t know why I want to do it. It’s not like seeing whatever’s back there with my own eyes as opposed to hearing it with my ears will make me any safer. Quite the opposite, in fact, if whoever’s back there sees me in return.

  My desire to take a looksie is quickly replaced by a hope, a stupid, irrational idiotic hope, that the sounds I am hearing are just the cooks, or maybe a cat.

&nb
sp; That’s bullshit, though, because from my hiding place I can still hear the movements, and worried panting of everyone else inside the diner. The people around me are clumsy with their movements, dropping pistol magazines because their hands are shaking too much or bumping into tables because there’s just too much damn fear in the air to do something like watch where they’re going.

  The sounds I’m hearing from the kitchen area, however, are different. Measured, purposeful, and like the shotgun blasts that I’ve seen earlier, precise. No cook is moving back there. It’s the mercenary from before. Him, or one of his friends.

  They’re coming for me, and if I stay here, they’ll find me before they do anyone else. For a moment I consider shouting out a warning to the other deputies before I leave. But if I did that, I’d give my position away. The men coming after me from the kitchen already have the element of surprise. I don’t want to hand them my one advantage - a bit of stealth and their not knowing where I am in the building.

  I shake my head at the thought as I take out the lighter. It trembles in my hand, but when I flick it, a flame catches, and I use it for a drop.

  The sensation of a drop is kind of hard to explain to someone who’s never been through one. Old Beeze tried, once and briefly. He’d said that it was little like the sensation of sinking deep into water. A kind of weightlessness, or floating, that was gentle in its own way.

  It only took one drop for me to learn that Ole Beeze was a fucking liar.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Even when you’re used to them, drops can still be fucking scary. I’ve heard skydivers describe a weightless sensation after hopping from a plane. I don’t think they’re lying, it’s just hard to describe what happens downstairs with anything close to words that peaceful.