by Tim Marquitz
For a split-second I weighed ripping his head off his shoulders the moment he stepped into the hallway, and then doing the same to Veronica right after, but the loudest voice in my head right then was the most improbable: reason.
Shaw and Trinity had us on the run, stumbling through the maze like beaten rats without a clue. Yet here was the opportunity to change that, to skew the odds no matter how minor it might be, and all I had to do was hold off killing two pieces of filth who sold my child to the reaper.
That was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make.
I was down the hall and in the nearest room before Thud even reached the doorway. He stomped out as if he owned the place, not even realizing I was watching him through yet another cracked door. He never looked back, stepping through the emergency exit and clanking his way down the fire escape. He hit the ground with a muffle thump, and then he was gone. Veronica sauntered out into the hall a few moments after he left. Again, I had to mentally restrain myself.
It hadn’t been the first time Veronica had betrayed me. She’d a long history of selling me out to the strongest bidder. I’d let all those times go—for the most part—because it was her nature as a succubus to surrender to power, a compulsion even. It was who she was at the very core of her existence. But this was different. She’d crossed the line by involving Abby. There would be no coming back from this.
She called out to Rala, her voice loud as it reverberated through the building. I waited, not daring to breathe for fear she might hear me. Finally, the little alien appeared, the sound of her feet trotting down the hallway. Though I couldn’t see her orange and black-striped face, I knew from memory the ugly face she was pulling at being summoned like some wayward pet.
“What?” she asked, attitude in place.
Veronica ignored it. “I need you to stay here until I get back. There’s something I need to take care of.”
Rala’s mood shifted gears, and I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. For all her toughness, she was still a kid caught up in a world that would eat her alive given the chance.
“When will you be back?”
“Soon,” she answered, and I sensed the barest flicker of Veronica’s power leaking out to massage the moment, smooth things over. “Just stay quiet and wait for me. Will you do that?”
And just like that, Rala was hooked. “Of course. I’ll be right here, waiting for you to get back.”
Veronica muttered something vaguely appeasing and shooed the kid off, back to wherever she’d been hiding. As soon as her footsteps faded, Veronica started down the hall. I leaned away from the crack in the door so I wouldn’t see her and lose control, but I have to admit I almost lost it. Only when I heard the outer door slam shut and be bolted, did I draw in a lungful of air and loosen my hold on my gun. My fingers tingled, and I barely managed to slip the .45 back into its holster without dropping the damn thing.
Holding back my rage had drained me dry. Weariness washed over me, and I just wanted to lie down and sleep for an eternity or two. I’d never put much faith in Veronica—and she’d certainly never given me reason to—but she’d gone and done something I never imagined her capable of, even as selfish as she was.
I stumbled out of the room, closing the door behind me, unsure of what to do, where to go. I thought about grabbing Rala and Vol but they were as safe where they were as anywhere given what Veronica had just done. It was best to leave them for now so Veronica didn’t suspect anything.
Shaw couldn’t be trusted, but she had only sent Thud to do her bargaining. Had she wanted to hurt the aliens, it would already be done. No, she’d rather use them against me for as long as she could, and that kept them safe for a bit.
A stress headache coming on, I made my way out by a side window so Veronica wouldn’t come back to an unlocked door and get suspicious. She’d made her decision, and I didn’t want paranoia getting in the way of it. Her Benedict Arnold routine had shown me a door I hadn’t known existed.
I didn’t want anyone getting in the way of my kicking it in.
Twelve
They say anal violation is the mother of all invention, or some stupid shit like that. I’m paraphrasing obviously.
Still, if Veronica hadn’t stabbed me in the back, I would have taken her and Rala and the old man back to Hell and we’d all be sitting there waiting for the hammer to drop. Though, from the sounds of it, there might not be a hammer at all if Thud was to be believed. His unintentional confession made me more comfortable about the situation regarding Hell. They hadn’t found a way in or they wouldn’t have used Veronica to draw me out like they had. That was the best news I could hope for considering the circumstances.
Better still, Shaw had shown her hand without knowing I’d seen it. She’d stacked the deck and had five aces in her hand already, but she’d made a mistake by cheating. She’d made me desperate, and not in the begging for an alleyway toss-job from a homeless guy kind of way. Her going to Veronica forced me to really think about how few friends I have and how few people I could count on.
It made me think outside the box. And when that particular box is the one from the Hellraiser movies, you never know what you’re gonna get. In this case, it made me go in a direction I’d have never dared if I hadn’t been so screwed.
Still in Old Town, I circled around, taking the long way to ensure I didn’t stumble across Veronica flitting around, and finally came to a dilapidated laundry that hadn’t seen a customer in fifteen years. The liquor store beside it, however, had weathered every storm thrown its way. It helped that Baalth’s money funded it, and I’d kept the checks coming after I deposed the old lieutenant. Mind you, I used Baalth’s money so it wasn’t exactly an altruistic move on my part, but it helped to ground Old Town. The people there needed something stable to cling to.
Also helped that I’d paid the store owner to open a tab for a guy who was down and out on his luck and needed the fugue of booze to keep from dragging a razor blade across his wrist.
I waited until the liquor store was empty before stepping in, a battered brass bell jingling to announce me. The owner, an Indian gentleman with more beard than face, grunted at me from behind the counter. It wasn’t until he looked up and saw me that his attitude went from gruff to pleasant, all within a blink of an eye.
“Mister Frank. A pleasure to see you,” he called out, waving as if we were the best of friends. Given who he dealt with all day, maybe I was.
“How’s it hanging, Anjasa?”
“Very well indeed,” he answered. “Have you come to see him?”
I nodded. “Unfortunately, yeah, I have.”
The smile faded from Anjasa’s face. “He is, how do you say, in a mood today.”
Of course he was. I snatched up a bottle of Jack Daniels off the shelf, showing it to the store keep so he could account for it. “That’s okay, I have the cure to all his ails.”
Anjasa shook his head. “He is on his second bottle already. Coffee might suit your needs better.”
I chuckled. “I don’t want him sober, my friend. I need him agreeable.”
“He has never been that, Mister Frank.”
Don’t I know it?
I thanked Anjasa and went through the door at the back of the shop that led to the stairwell connecting it to the room above the laundry. The steps creaked as I made my way up. Anjasa kept them maintained but there was no mistaking their age. One day I’d probably get a call telling me the troll above the laundry had fallen and broken his drunk neck. While that wouldn’t exactly be bad news, it just couldn’t be today.
Today I needed him alive.
At the door to the apartment, I didn’t bother to knock, pushing it open wide and stepping in like I owned the place. I mean, I kind of did. What was Baalth’s was mine these days. Inheritance by murder. The taxman might not see it the same way, but no one else was challenging me for it.
“Come the fuck on in, asshole,” a slurred voice call to me from the couch, nothing but ratty socks on
meaty feet jutting out for me to see.
“Always a pleasure, Marcus,” I answered. “And it’s Mister I’m the One Who Keeps You up To Your Rectum in Liquor Asshole to you.” The stench of the place hit me straight away. Nothing in the apartment had been washed in ages, and that included Marcus’s ass. The place was sweltering, nothing but bad air circulating.
“Here two damn seconds and I already want you to die, Trigg.” Marcus pulled himself up to a seated position—well, sorta—and hung limply against the arm of the couch. “That’s not really a record, though.”
The best part about my relationship with Marcus D’anatello was the complete lack of fucks given by either of us. I wouldn’t be there if I didn’t want something from the shithead and he wouldn’t entertain my presence if I couldn’t kick his ass six ways to Sunday. We had an understanding.
I went over and dropped down on the raggedy chair that sat across from him, a coffee table sat on the floor between us. It was a memorial to the booze that I’d been having Anjasa feed to him. Bottles of every kind stood tall on the face so there wasn’t a hint of wood to be seen. An army of glassy companions littered the floor around the table and couch. A number of the bottles had a dark, beer-looking liquid in them that stood in odds with the brand of liquor advertised on the labels.
“I see you’ve perfected squeezing your dick into the mouths of vodka bottles finally.” I wiped my brow. “Whew. I was worried you’d never be able to scratch that one off your bucket list. I am Jack’s bloated sense of relief. Or maybe that’s just gas.”
Marcus stared at me, likely thinking of something to say, but he didn’t bother. He lifted the bottle in his hands to his mouth and drained the dregs, tossing it on the floor to join the others. “Give me the damn bottle and tell me what the fuck you want, cocksucker.”
“I like when you sweet talk me.”
I tossed him the JD, which he caught to my amazement, and pried the lid off with gumption. He down a couple mouthfuls before coming up for air, but he held the bottle close to his chest as if I might take it away from him. He knew me pretty well.
“Come on, Frank,” he said, leaning forward a bit unsteadily, one hand on knee for balance. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
The guy looked more and more like a mummy that’d just been dug up rather than the slab of beef he used to be. Where he’d been a mountain of muscle, he now looked wasted. He’d probably lost fifty pounds or more. The fact that he wasn’t eating much showed in the gauntness of his features. His eyes were like dusty rocks in their sockets, and his normally shaved head hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a razor since the last time I’d seen him—though that was the pot calling the kettle black. My ragged hair and beard would make a hipster cry. His, however, only made him look old. Years of steroids or human growth hormone or whatever the fuck horse meat he chowed down on back in the day had hit his hairline hard. He looked like Bozo the Italian Mob Guy with an unfortunate fascination with vomiting on his shirt.
“You got someplace else to be?”
“No, just don’t have time for you.” He emphasized the point by swilling down more Jack, most of it making it into his mouth.
I watched him for a few moments while I debated what to tell him. He looked a mess, just as he had the last time I’d seen him, but he’d improved one thing in his life apparently. He’d become a professional drunk. While the liquor he was sucking down still messed with his equilibrium, he hadn’t stuttered once since we’d been talking. There was no tremble to his hands, nothing.
“Do you have time for Poe?” The question was out before I could stop it. I promptly kicked my own ass inside my head.
He bolted upright and knocked the menagerie of bottles off the coffee table. “What the fuck are you playing at, asshole? Poe’s dead.”
I cursed myself for bringing up the mentalist. I’d said I wouldn’t, but drastic times called for drastic measures. I’d never been all that trustworthy, so why start now? “You sure about that, big boy?” Means to an end was a mantra I’d have to get used to.
Marcus glared at me. If he thought he could kill me, he would have tried. Shit, I was thinking he still might attempt it given the way he looked at me. “Don’t mess with me, Frank,” he said once it sunk in that I wasn’t just having fun at his expense. He knew as well as I did how the supernatural world worked. Not everyone stayed dead. I hoped for a similar miracle for Karra, myself.
“As much as you and I hate each other, Marcus, that’s the one thing I wouldn’t lie to you about.” I ran my fingers through my hair to get it out of my face. This was a serious dick move, to him and Poe, but what choice did I have? “He’s alive, Marcus. Alive and well, and I know where.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
His fingers played about the neck of the Jack Daniels bottle unconsciously, and I was afraid he might snap it off. Instead, he took a huge gulp and met my gaze once he was done, a trail of whiskey leaking from the corner of his mouth.
“And just what will this information cost me?”
There it was, out in the open. I’d blackmailed him and he’d given in to it. “I need you to do something,” I said, not bothering to deny his implication. There wasn’t enough time for me to pretend I wasn’t a manipulative prick.
“Of course you do.” He leaned back into the couch, exhaling loudly. “Spit it out then.”
“I need you to talk to a few folks and put some things in motion,” I said. “All this needs to be done right now, though. It can’t be put off.”
He chuckled, not bothering to say anything. He’d expected exactly that, so he just waved me on, certain he was gonna hate everything I had to say. So I told him what I needed from him without dragging it out.
He stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Clearly he’d been right about hating it.
“No, I’m serious.”
“Do you think these guys are going to give a good goddamn what happens to you?”
Damn that was a lot of Gs.
“Nope, but I bet they’ll care when they miss out on the opportunity to mount my head over their fireplaces and the DSI comes knocking on their doors, looking to provide community cavity searches.”
“You really think they’ll listen to me?” Marcus went to take a drink and thought better of it. He set the bottle on the table.
“Tell them to turn on the damn news if they don’t want to believe you. My pretty face is all over the place these days. If the DSI gets me first, where does that leave them?”
“Pissed as all hell.”
“No doubt, and shit outta luck on top of it all. You can also assure them that I will burn every bridge I know if I go down. There will be no peace left in this world for them. Drop Baalth’s name if you have to.”
Marcus sighed, realizing what I was stirring up. “You sure this is how you want to play this, Frank? There’s not going to be a lot of chances to turn this back around.”
I hesitated a moment before nodding. If Marcus was cautioning me—good old dense Marcus of the solid fists and tiny brain—I was probably taking things too far, but I hadn’t started this war, and a war it was. There were no half-measures left to fall back on. My finger was on the red button.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Now are you going to do it?”
“I really hope you know what you’re doing, asshole.”
Do I ever?
“Just take care of this shit like I asked and I’ll deliver you to Poe. Now do we have a deal?”
“Why the fuck not?” he answered. “I’ll get to see him one last time before the world crumbles down around us.”
I shrugged. At least he’d get that much from it before shit fell apart. Karra was still gone.
“Get to it, then,” I said, tapping my knuckles on the coffee table as I stood. “The apocalypse is waiting on you to kick start it.”
Thirteen
After Marcus’s apartment, Hell felt like a resort spa. I stepped through the gate, slipping into the
God-proof room, grateful once more for the silence that came with being home, not to mention the clean air. My visit to Marcus had been a necessary evil, but it sure as shit didn’t improve my dislike of humanity in general. These days Earth was an out of control gay gangbang, assholes everywhere.
I peeled open the room and slipped out, hoping Hell hadn’t imploded while I was gone. It hadn’t. The halls of Lucifer’s chambers—one day I might actually think of it as mine—were crowded with DRAC operatives with nothing more to do than hover. The terror of the situation had calmed a bit, so those without some close friend in the hospice waiting to die, there wasn’t anything to keep them occupied. It was, essentially, a medieval castle located in the remotest part of the world disconnected from the rest of existence by a dimensional wall only a few folks in attendance could open, and only those who I allowed. No internet, no phone, no TV or porn—not counting my personal collection, of course, and I wasn’t sharing—these folks were gonna go stir crazy before the week was out. There’d be some great job opportunities for therapists in the near future.
I pushed past the sullen groups and went into my chambers where I figured I’d find everyone since the fiends hadn’t built us a conference room yet. Sure enough, Katon was sprawled out on my bed alongside Scarlett, little Abby using them both as a jungle gym while Chatterbox watched with a lopsided grin. She gurgled happily as she played. Katon’s head turned my direction, hearing me come in, but there’d been little progress in his healing. Scarlett smiled at me over the baby. People to play with, Abby was oblivious. I swallowed a sigh and left her to the company of angels and vampires.
CB thumped off the bed and rolled over to me. “Duude!” I picked him up and held him in the crook of my arm. He was the puppy I never wanted. At least he was housebroken. Sort of.
“Should I ask where you’ve been?” Rahim asked.
“Seems you just did.” I plopped down in one of the chairs that littered the room, rolling CB into my lap. It was damn good to relax for a minute. Too bad it wouldn’t last. “If you must know,” I grinned, “I was out visiting the ex-wife.”