by Tim Marquitz
A shield rippled to life in front of me before they could even pull their triggers, bullets thudding into it as soon as they started. But all that was for show. I let them burn rounds, the gunshots echoing as though a million children were banging metal spoons on pans. Trained to be fearless, they just kept on firing, making a racket that could be heard on Mars.
Just like I wanted them to.
I gave them a little time to be heard, and then turned up the juice. In all the noise, no one had noticed that the rounds weren’t being deflected by my shield, left to ricochet around the room. Instead, I’d been collecting them.
Hundreds of bullets undulated in the shimmer of my shield, maggots dancing in the rotten center of a discarded Pop Tart. They squirmed and turned until they faced the soldiers like a ballistic porcupine. Only then did the men start to realize what was happening. By then, it was too late.
I triggered all the bullets at once, sending a spark of magic through the shield holding them. An instant later, a hail of lead flew back at the soldiers and shredded them without mercy. Ammunition designed to ignore armor and punch through steel turned against them. Their defenses were paper against a hail of meteors. The men screamed as death tore them apart, but the sound was fleeting. They convulsed to the impacts, unable to fall until the bullet rain had run its course. They collapsed in a heap of gore, the hallway painted in blacks and reds that would never be washed away.
“Scarlett and Rahim are finished with their teams,” Michael told me, his voice loud in the sudden silence. “You?”
“Done,” I said aloud. I always sucked at this telepathy bullshit. “Where do we stand?”
I heard him mumbling in the background for a moment, then he popped back in. “They just showed up. Get ready.”
Teeth clenched against the inevitable fury, I went over and glanced out the window, a sense of power pecking at my senses. Trinity hovered in the air near Karra’s body. Their eyes swarmed over the buildings we’d raided. Just seeing them beside her set my heart on fire. I wanted nothing more than topple the building over on them, but they’d have to wait.
“Time to go.” Mike’s telepathic nag set me in motion.
I summoned a ball of energy as a portal opened at my back. A runty dread fiend stepped through. His feet had just barely steadied on the tiles when I pressed the ball of energy to his chest. The fiend grunted as the magic sank into his flesh.
“They’re coming!”
I nodded out of habit, though Michael couldn’t see me. Regardless, I was done.
“Time to play hide and don’t get caught, big boy.”
The fiend was gone before I’d even finished talking. He bolted down the hallway and around the corner, trailing my essence, and I stepped through the portal just before it sealed shut, back in Hell once more.
“How long will that fool them,” Rala asked, having joined our group earlier. She held Abigail to her chest, the kid watching me with goo-goo eyes.
“Not nearly long enough,” I said. “Let’s go, folks.” I blew Abby a kiss and turned to the mystic. There was no way I could look at Abby any longer than that and still do what needed to be done.
Rachelle sniffed her annoyance at me in lieu of words and peeled open another portal. She didn’t have my demon endurance, and she was wearing herself out. We’d been going full on for what seemed forever, already.
“I hope you’re right about this, Frank,” Scarlett said as she drew her sword and stepped through the new rift.
“You and me both.” I went through on her heels, Rahim just behind. “Keep an eye on the place while we’re gone, Katon!” I shouted. He gave me the finger, which I felt more than saw.
If we failed, he’d be Abby’s new daddy. I kicked myself as that thought rolled through my head. So much for leaving my baggage at home.
We landed on a wide roof speckled with air conditioning units, the combined hum of them covering our arrival. A stairwell hut stood just a few feet away.
“No offensive wards,” Rahim said as we advanced on the hut. Just like the last building I’d broken into, this one was defended by complicated security magic that limited teleportation and portaling in or out. It’d take forever to bypass them so we did it the easy way.
Scarlett took Rahim’s statement as her cue. She booted the door, collapsing it inward. It clanged down the stairs, ripped free of the hinges, and we went in after it. We found it embedded in the wall of the first landing and dodged around it on our way down. Fortunately, we didn’t need to go anywhere near as deep this time.
The operations office of the DSI enveloped the top five floors, but it was the top floor they were using for their special operatives. I knew this because I’d tagged Venai just like I had Fido. Poe’s intel helped, too.
We hit the floor with conviction. Rahim blew through the office door—reinforced, but hardly on the level of the one at their home—and we charged in, guns a’ blazing. Security met us inside, our entry loud and obvious. The humans didn’t do much for their cause. Bullets flew and men shouted, but we mowed them down and pushed on, leaving a wake of battered men behind. They weren’t the targets.
The first hint of real resistance came in the form of Kit.
“Incoming,” Scarlett called out at seeing the metal-mouthed little girl. And sure enough, she was packing.
In each hand she carried a pistol that looked like the ones Princess Leia used in Star Wars. She came out firing. Bolts of blue energy buzzed around us, but Scarlett’s warning had been good. Those blasts that might have done real damage met my shield without doing anything. That didn’t deter her, though. She just kept on shooting, bold as brass.
“She’s setting us up,” I whispered to the others, and then changed the paradigm.
Instead of leaving my shield sit where it was, I willed it to advance down the hallway, closing the space between it and Kit. She snarled when she realized what I’d done and started backing away slowly, clearly not wanting us to go any further than we had. I widened my senses then, expanding my search area only to ping on two more targets inbound.
“Damn it! Watch the flan—” I started to shout as a ham-sized fist burst through the wall beside me and clobbered me right in the face.
My skull slammed into the opposite wall, leaving an egg-shaped divot in the plasterboard. At the same time I’d been hit, another arm burst through the wall and struck Scarlett. She growled across from me, knocked opposite of where she’d been.
“Switch!” I said, and grabbed the arm that had hit Scarlett and pulled with everything I had. Venai was torn through the wall. At least she was clothed this time.
Scarlett followed my example, yanking Thud into the hallway with us, but we weren’t done yet. As if we’d thought the same thing at the same time, Scarlett and I spun our respective dance partners around in a tight circle. They both eeped! in unison; right before they collided. The impact was like two sumo wrestlers doing belly flops off the high dive.
It wasn’t enough to take them out, but they sure as shit would be feeling that later. That was fine with me. We’d only one purpose in raiding the DSI building. That was to do as much damage as possible before we were forced to leave.
Rahim stepped through the hole made by Thud and starting tearing shit up. His magic sang against my senses as he leveled the offices and anything that got in his way. Kit went after him, pushed out of her choke point at the end of the hallway.
Scarlett took her frustrations out on Thud.
“What the hell, Tits!” the demon shouted, just before she smashed his teeth in with the pommel of her sword. He stumbled back, swinging at her despite it all, but with the little stubs of his arms he didn’t land anywhere near.
Venai had more luck. She grazed me with an elbow as she broke free of her companion, but there wasn’t much on it. I rabbit-punched her kidney a couple of times and ducked the spinning back fist she threw. Then I headbutted her into the wall.
“I’ve seen your hoohaw,” I said. “Arby’s should hire y
ou to promote their sandwiches.”
Apparently suggesting she use her God-given attributes for the good of mankind was the wrong thing to say.
She roared and charged, trying to tackle me, but it was exactly what I’d wanted her to do. I turned sideways and matadored her into the wall. If there was one thing I’d learned in all the time spent fighting with this woman, it was that she was predictable. She grunted as she hit, and I helped her on through with my boot in her ass. The ass I was picturing naked right then.
I groaned as I realized what I was doing. Fortunately, Michael’s psychic bullhorn cleared that image from my head. I just hoped he hadn’t take a peek before he started talking. Now that would be embarrassing.
“They’ve found your lure. Portal’s up in five…” he said, starting a countdown.
Rahim stepped back into the hallway just as Scarlett sent Thud flying into the offices at the end of the hall. He screamed something about having copped a feel before he disappeared into a tumble of cubicles. He was clearly a demon after my own heart.
Thunder rumbled somewhere above us, and Rachelle’s portal tore open at our backs, the air sizzling in its wake. None of us said a word as we ran through it, a massive explosion tearing up the offices behind us just as Rachelle closed the rift.
The sound had been Trinity arriving.
Back in Hell, the stress I’d been fighting off damn near flattened me. “Did it work?” I shouted, my voice trembling.
“Over here, Frank.”
I spun to see Rala step into the room, her orange and black face a mask of sadness and sympathy and I don’t know what all else. She looked as if she carried the weight of the world.
She pretty much did.
In her arms was the limp and headless body of the woman I loved: Karra.
Nineteen
I don’t know how long I spent cradling Karra’s body, but by the time I’d emerged from my fugue, I was alone in the room with her, the place dark. My face was crusty, and just the effort of blinking made it crackle. I sat up and rubbed at my face until I felt somewhat human, and then staggered to my feet.
Rala sneaking out and stealing Karra off the cross had been the greatest thing ever. I could only imagine the scene as a dragon appeared out of nowhere and made off with the maiden right in front of the entire city. Sooner or later I’d have to watch the news footage on that, but there was still more for me to do. I had Karra’s body, now I needed to reclaim her head.
At least that was easy in the grand scheme of things.
A quick pop out to Siberia, a little digging, and I was back, the two parts of Karra reunited. I carried her into the room where Styg waited, and set her gently on the ground near a mystical circle he’d drawn using the supplies the fiends had gotten him. The others knew nothing of why I wanted her body back beyond the most obvious of needs. I was grateful, however, that they’d helped me get her back. They couldn’t know how much it meant to me.
“Ah, we have a body at last,” he said with a golf clap. “Now I have something to do besides chat up these charming fellows you left me with.”
I knelt beside her body for a minute before climbing back to my feet. The coldness of the room made mist of my breath. “If you do anything but bring her back, I will crawl inside your guts and climb out through your mouth, do you understand me?”
“That is an excellent visual, I have to say. You should write that down.” I stepped toward him a growl welling in my throat, and he raised his hands to placate me. “Easy now. We’ve already established my role here, so no need to get flustered with the help. As long as you’re true to your word, I’ll be true to mine.”
“How long?”
He shrugged. “It’s always different. A day or two at most if you don’t mind me sacrificing some of your guard dogs for the blood needed.”
“Do what you have to, but make her live again, Styg,” I told him, turning away to leave. “Make her live.”
If he said anything after that, I didn’t hear him out in the hall. I slammed the door shut and made my way back to my quarters. Scarlett met me there, Abby cradled to her chest.
“You’ve such a brilliant daughter. She clearly takes after me.”
Abby grinned and played with strands of Scarlett’s hair, twirling it around her chubby little fingers.
“All that’s from her mom,” I argued, my thoughts lingering on Karra and the process she was undergoing through Styg. Despite living with a necromancer, I had no real clue how any of that brand of magic worked.
“I was kidding, Frank.” She stared at me until I raised my eyes to meet hers.
“Ah, yeah, right. Sorry.” I couldn’t stop thinking about Karra, my brain already slipping back to the maudlin possibilities.
“It’s okay,” she said, leaning Abby in so she could give me a squishy wet kiss. I reveled in it. “I have the answer from Heaven.”
My focus snapped back to Scarlett. She handed me a folded sticky note she’d scribbled on.
“Be careful,” she told me, but I was already halfway out the door.
#
There weren’t a whole bunch of folks up in Heaven who would take my calls let alone make an effort to come all the way down to earth and chat me up, but Duke Forcalor wasn’t just any angel. We had a history.
He met me in the desert a few miles from town.
“You lead an interesting life, young Trigg,” he said, greeting me with his version of my preferred name. He’d always done that, choosing not to antagonize me with Triggaltheron like everyone else did. It was part of why I respected him so much.
“I’m nothing if not consistent.” I took his proffered hand and shook it, his grip firm, skin soft as though he’d never worked a day in his eternal life.
He looked just like he always had. His loose shirt and pants were made of the finest silk, and the shimmered with stars as he moved. The white tail of his hair was tied behind his head, and there was no trace of facial hair to be seen. All of it lent him the look of a twenty-something pirate rather than one of the most renowned of demon lieutenants to rule in Hell. Still, it was a pleasure to see him again despite our last meeting being full of the fire and brimstone of Heaven’s wrath.
Forcalor had once been my father’s greatest advisor, a surprising advocate for peace between the factions of Heaven and Hell. He’d fallen with Lucifer but he’d never given up hope that one day he could return to Heaven and fulfill his role as an archangel to the Throne. I’d helped him to make that dream come true, at least to a degree.
Now that God was gone and not coming back, and Metatron sat in His place in Heaven, the duke was home, his advice finding the ear of the new ruler. That had a lot to do with Forcalor carving out the time to help me when he could. He was nothing if not grateful.
“Were you able to find anything out?”
He nodded. “Of course, but my vows to Uriel and the Voice of our Lord keep me from offering that information to you.”
I groaned. This was the way it was with the supernatural world. No one wanted to do anything for anyone without it coming with a price tag or a commitment for service. The shit was getting really old.
“Then what was the point—?” My voice crackled with frustration as I started to read him the riot act.
“Don’t let your temper get the best of you,” he told, cutting me off before I could do just that. “I’d thought being separated from Azrael might cool your ire some, but it seems I was wrong. Heaven will not be pleased to learn this.”
I bit back what I really wanted to say and offered up a gesture of peace, my hands clasped before me. “I’m besieged on all sides by an enemy who’ve killed my woman and threaten to do the same to my child. Forgive me for my lack of patience.” Unconsciously, the furnace of my power ignited as a warning. For all the duke’s status, I was still the inheritor of the lion’s share of Longinus’s magic, its energies manifested of the soul of the Earthbound Jesus Christ. I was no bug to be swatted aside.
A prince of politics
, he must have realized that. “Forgive me, young Trigg. I did not mean to make light of your dire circumstances. I also did not mean to imply I wouldn’t help you, but that I cannot do so directly, as I am forbidden by Metatron.”
I nodded, still a little ticked off, but I could understand his position. The same power I’d taken from the former Anti-Christ was exactly what had put me on the no fly list with Heaven. It hadn’t helped that I’d mistakenly allowed a piece of the Angel of Death into my heart, quite literally. My decisions had always been suspect, but with him influencing my actions, things had quickly gotten out of hand.
“There is a church with no name, not too far from here,” Forcalor went on. “The priest there can offer you the peace of mind that I cannot.” His gaze narrowed on mine. “He will be waiting for you. But be warned, treat with him honorably lest he find you wanting.”
I laughed. “I’m the Devil and he’s a priest, Forcalor. How can he not find me wanting?”
He shrugged. “I have done what I can for you, young Trigg. Make the most of it.” An image of the church appeared in the air before me, shimmering with the duke’s magic. I’d just enough time to digest the information I needed before it and the duke were gone, nothing but the barest whisper of brimstone left in the air.
#
The church was exactly where Forcalor had said it would be, settled in a derelict area of west El Paseo, more slums than suburbs.
It was a rundown, shack of a thing. The roof looked in need of new shingles, and the boards of the walls were so warped as to look like waves running down toward the dusty yard that encircled the place. A pitiful cross jutted from a raised watchtower at the front of the building. Rust had gnawed at the thing so it looked almost entirely orange, only splotches of white standing out.
I made my way up the wooden steps, each creaking a warning as my weight settled on them. The stained-glass windows that bookended the double doors had faded over the years, their colors subdued and gray. The religious images in the glass were dim and hard to define. I wondered what kind of priest might be lurking inside the ramshackle church, but the obvious answer was the crazy kind.