by Ash Krafton
Mack turned his head, his jaw bunching as he bit off each word. "I do not know of what you speak."
"Bullshit, Mack. Look, you just spilled the holy mystery of why I only see the ghost of angel's wings on you. That's pretty big stuff. This is infinitely smaller but monumentally important to me. Can hell gates be opened here? On this plane?"
Mack looked rather uncomfortable discussing it. "Aye, if a demon were to do it. But demons are not permitted to walk upon this plane. Thus it is a moot point."
"Is it, really?"
Mack looked away. "I am sorry you are troubled by your memories, Simon. I will pray for you to find peace."
Simon slammed the glass down, making a guy across the bar jump and fumble his bottle, spilling beer across the bar. The bartender shot a reproachful look at Simon, who just waved him on with an impatient gesture. Get him another beer on me. Get him ten. I don't care.
"You do that." Simon gritted his teeth. "You go pray somewhere. In the meantime, I'll just do. I'll do without waiting for a favor or help from a divine hand. I'll roll up my sleeves and put on my boots because there is a ton of shit for me to do out there, even without you giving me the extra-credit work."
It was the truth. He sensed trouble, even now. Felt it like a storm coming, a change in the air pressure. If there were horses nearby, they'd be restless or something. Whatever. He didn't need horses to tell him someone was out there that needed doing.
He glared back at Mack but his angry resolution faltered a little once he saw him. Mack had gone strangely still.
Simon eyed him. No longer sitting with elbows on the rail, Mack had gone all tall and statuesque, his odd eyes gleaming. On angel alert. Whatever trouble Simon had sensed, Mack had sensed it, too.
"Well, I'm gonna head." Simon leaned back and dug into his front pocket for his money. Time to settle the tab and start another one somewhere else. "No sense sitting here drinking by myself."
"You should stay here." Mack raised a palm, his voice weirdly hollow. "I believe there is a Ladder forming. You will wait here for my return."
A slight warming in the center of Simon's chest made him rub it. Funny. The itchy spot was right under his amulet.
Which meant, it had just expended power to protect him.
And if it just expended power to protect him, then it meant someone just tried to use magic on him.
And Mack had just commanded him to wait here.
Hmm.
Mack had never spelled him before. Simon never even thought that he could.
Or suspected that he would.
He measured each breath, forcing himself to appear relaxed. Poker face, Simon. Something big just happened and he doesn't want you to know.
Poker face was easy. After all, it was just his regular expression. Those thick Irish eyebrows came in handy sometimes. Wouldn't be the first time someone tried to force his hand.
Just the first time that someone was Mack.
"Yeah." Simon said slowly. "I think I'm gonna order some wings. I'll just wait here until you get back, if that's okay."
He tapped a cigarette out of the pack and looked over at Mack as he lit it. "What? Oh. Was wings the wrong thing to order? I never thought—"
"It's nothing. I will return."
Another slight warming under the amulet. Simon grinned, crocodile wide and just as sincere. Mack nodded once, his foggy cloak swirling around him as he dissipated.
Simon's grin dropped. Still that looming sense of something big.
Of darkness, rising.
He rolled his shoulders and reached for his cigarettes again, tilting the pack. Instead of a cigarette, he spilled a chicory stem into his hand.
In a moment, he'd be rendered invisible. Just a parlor trick, when a guy thought about it. The disturbing thing at the moment, however, wasn't his ability to vanish.
It was Mack. When had he become so…transparent?
Rubbing his amulet and the memory of the itch Mack's influence had caused, he touched the twig to the embered end of his smoke, exhaling the spell with a lungful of smoke. Something big was happening somewhere. Time to find that event horizon.
Funny thing about event horizons.
Simon took a bolstering breath before pulling open the door. To the naked eye, they look normal. Shiny, well-lit places that drew you in. You think it's your own volition, never realizing it's the gravitational pull of the big fricken black hole behind it.
He walked out of the bar, closed his eyes, and let his feet take him there.
It was a simple technique that was less magic and more simple-minded. He never fooled himself into thinking his feet had any brains. He knew it was the black hole of darkness that drew him. He respected it and he acknowledged it and he hoped he'd be able to get his eyes back open in time to keep from falling in.
Across streets, through traffic, around trash cans and utility poles and dumpsters. He walked for about thirty minutes without even peeking. All he had to do was open his mind and let the dark power do the rest. It wanted him to find it. A paperclip, he was, being dragged to a magnet the size of the moon.
Easy as sin.
Then he stumbled over his feet, or what he thought were his feet; the next breath he took was tinged with a current that felt like electricity wrapped in cotton. He blinked and found himself in the center of a giant parking lot.
And he saw the darkness he'd been tracking.
There was no doubting it.
A hell gate. Here. On earth. In plain sight of the entire mortal plane.
No. It couldn't be. Every law of metaphysics ensured that a hell gate opening was the last thing a mortal on earth ever had to worry about.
And there it stood, all the same.
Hell gate. The very name inspired a special brand of terror.
Hell: everything one feared it might be, plus a shit ton that cannot even begin to be imagined.
Gate: a portal. A passage. A way.
He shook his head. Screw Kent. Screw academics. Screw Crowley's fricken ghost because less than fifty yards away stood a hell gate. He knew it in his gut. It resonated through the moral fibers of his very being.
The impossible was possible. It was real. And it was here.
His eyes stung from the acridity, even standing relatively upwind. How many nights had he sat in Kent's dusty library, listening to the old boy read his notes? His theories on hell gates were complex and fully-explored—probably would have made for a great dissertation. Well, you can take the man out of Cambridge but blah diddy blah, right? That was the trouble with those academic types. They always came off sounding so—academic.
But none of those lessons could have prepared him for this sight. Nothing.
Theories of hell gates had him envisioning great stone arches with the fiery colors of satanic fire glowing within. A sense of architecture, of actual structure in a defined time and place. But this—
This was a rip in the air. A massive tear, like a great claw had just dug in and yanked down. The sky was split, the ground was scored. It was a violation of nature.
And from between the jagged edges of what had once been perfect Earth shone through a blackness that Simon not only saw, but also felt in the marrow of his bones. It wasn't a color. It was a void. It had the shape of most grievous loss, it burned with the heat of a terrible lust, and it tasted like deepest despair.
That blackness looked out at him. It recognized him. And it smiled.
So much more frightening than flames or a devil waving a pitchfork. There, within the jagged edges of the hell gate stood a glimpse of true Hell—and Simon knew with frightened clarity that it was entirely personal.
Strange gases seeped from it, the elements of brimstone and hellfire. Those elements had no place on this plane. They blackened the earth surrounding the hell gate, poisoning the air, withering the grass.
What else would it kill? He didn't want to find out.
Sobered, he pulled up his big boy pants and cracked his knuckles. So. A hell gate was ope
ned in Charm City. It was time to close that ugly bitch down.
He spread his hands, feeling for ley lines. Nothing more than a trickle, and even that came from a distance. At least the gate wasn't tapping into that kind of power source.
Dammit, Prof. Couldn't you have thought this through? All that talk about fricken gates and how impossible they were—
Well, the Prof had prepared him for this night, however inadvertently. Maybe it was time to go back to school and pull out his old lesson book. Hell gates weren't the only thing Prof had taught him.
He shrugged off his jacket, letting it slip to the ground. He unbuttoned his left sleeve and cuffed it in a series of quick flips, all the way up past his elbow. Had he known there was going to be a hell gate, he'd have worn short sleeves.
Oh, well. Magic wasn't always practical.
Maybe he could design a shirt with tear away sleeves, kind of like a stripper cop with a Velcro uniform, for those times when a mage wanted to dress sharp but didn't want his ability to wield magic hindered by cumbersome tailoring.
The tattoo tingled as if stimulated by the energy of the gate, a slight flush that warmed his skin. He rubbed the inside bend of his elbow, tapping it like a junkie. Turning his wrist, he tugged his wand free of its place beneath the strap of his wristwatch. Not like anyone wore a watch to tell the time these days.
He grimaced. This was going to hurt. Well, magic always had a price.
He stalked the perimeter of the anomaly, squatting at times, trying to get a sense of its dimensions. Needed to see the edges, see what direction it had been opened in. Hell coming out? Or someone going back in? He'd paced about sixty feet when he realized he wasn't moving around it. No matter where he went, it always looked the same. It was moving with him. Like it knew he was there and was squaring off at every step.
Not good. Simon scratched his head. If it had been a space-time thing, he could have warded it then pinched it shut by pulling the energy out of the sequestered area.
So much for that.
Maybe he needed a second opinion.
ROARRRRRRRR
A horrid sound grew around him, rumbling through him with a sinister vibration. The hell gate shifted. Activated. Simon groaned. He'd done it. He knew it. That tiny moment of doubt as half-intended as it was. Two-thirds sarcasm. Didn't matter. He had thought to himself that he needed help and the gate responded, sensing his weakness.
Quickly, he clamped down his emotion. Had to remain impassive. Emotions could get him killed.
Or worse.
Or…
He smiled, cold and cocky. It responded to weakness, did it? That might be a good thing. Because if it responded to one emotion, it would respond to another.
Simon pulled a tarnished silver compact out of his pocket. Flipping the latch, he dumped the herbal contents into his palm. The compact safely stowed once more, he cupped his hands together and rubbed, whispering a spell.
The herbs crumbled and atomized, forming a gritting cloud, hanging in the air just a moment. He centered himself before uttering the final word of the spell, which dispersed the herb cloud in a hum like a plucked cello.
His senses hitch-hiked on the enchanted herbs, his awareness expanding outward, down through the ground beneath his feet. Everything seemed intact, untainted, despite the proximity to a turnpike to Hell. Good. Anchoring himself to the earth, he envisioned the words of the chant he needed to wake the wand. The words appeared, one by one, in the front of his mind, lighting briefly like fireworks, burning themselves into his focused awareness.
He lifted the wand, gripped it like a syringe, his thumb over the hilt. Centering it above his tattoo, he readied the strike.
A sudden gale force wind smashed into him and blew the wand clean out of his hand. The hot ferocious gust twisted him into fighting to keep his balance. He nearly lost his footing. Almost went down.
The scalding rush of air carried upon it a scream. No, not a scream. A chorus of agonized voices, screams of pain that seared themselves into his soul, a sound unforgettable.
And above them all rose peals of laughter that curled the pit of his stomach.
ALLIANT.
His name, spoken by the one voice he had desperately hoped never to hear again. Bile soured his mouth.
The wand lost, his spell faded before he could use it.
I THOUGHT I SMELLED SOMETHING. YOU. I REMEMBER YOUR SMELL. THE SCENTS OF FEAR AND FAILURE. HAVE YOU COME TO BE DEFEATED ONCE MORE?
The laughter thundered through his head and he looked back to the gate and saw it, saw that fearsome countenance, and despair hit him like a truck.
Balazog stood within the maw of the gate, arms crossed and laughing.
Oh, he was a terrible sight to behold. The Corinthian, a general of Hell, enormous and scaled from head to foot. His armor was ancient but impenetrable. The leader of Hell's army needed no armor. Not when the power of Hell coursed through its rotten veins. Demons of that rank were legend.
Simon cursed himself for not cursing the demon.
ALLIANT. YOU CANNOT HELP YOURSELF. YOU HAVE ALWAYS RECOGNIZED TRUE POWER. YOU ADMIRE IT. YOU SEEK IT OUT. YOU SEEK ME OUT AGAIN. WHAT PETTY TRIAL DO YOU HAVE FOR ME? WHAT PRETTY PRICE WILL YOU PAY?
Anger exploded like a pipe bomb deep in Simon's belly and it flushed him through. His cardinal rule forgotten. No emotion. Never anything the enemy could use.
His voice was ragged with hate. "You will leave this plane."
I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO MARCH UPON YOUR WRETCHED LITTLE PLANE. Balazog chortled. YOU ARE WEAK. YOU ARE A PRETENDER. THAT IS WHY YOU CAN NEVER DEFEAT ME.
"I don't need to defeat you. All I need to do is shut you down."
YOU CANNOT.
"Like hell, I can't."
Simon thrust out his hand and forced the chant to reappear in his mind. It hurt, too soon after the last impotent summoning. Simon bit down, staring into the wretched eyes of the Corinthian, the mirrors of his eternal guilt, and decided it was time to give something back.
His wand, in his hand. Didn't know how, didn't matter. The spell surged into his mind, glowing like hot coils, re-igniting. He smiled, nothing cold about it.
Jabbing downward with the wand, he held his breath, bracing for the bite and the pain and the rush—
"Simon! Don't!"
His name called in a trill of fear. A child's voice. He choked, recognizing it immediately.
Balazog reached out through the gate. Simon stood, paralyzed by that voice, crippled. The demon wrapped his power around Simon and squeezed.
breath gone
pain exploded in his eyes
white around the edges
feet disappeared
knees hit the ground
face forward
mouth full of dirt
He flopped onto his back, rolled his eyes back to the gate. Blood tinged his vision bright pink.
Laughter. God-damned laughter.
Balazog leaned and smiled, the gleam of sharp teeth in a darkened face.
YOU ARE TOO USEFUL TO ME. WHICH PART DO I KEEP? THE PARTS THAT SCREAM? OR THE PARTS THAT BEG?
Simon drew up his knees and rolled onto his side, heaving a foamy cough. Gathering his knees beneath him, he pushed up, sitting on his heels, each breath a searing pain.
Fumbling in his pockets, he worked his Peruvian binding rings onto his thumbs. Looking back into the eyes of the abyss that would forever haunt him he chanted, a mumble that tasted like pennies.
"In the name of the Light…" He spat out a bloody mouthful. "I draw thee."
YOUR SPELL IS USELESS.
"In the name of the Light, I bind thee. In the name of the Light, I cast thee back into darkness."
I OWN YOU, LITTLE MAN.
"In the name of the Light, I command thee. Thou shalt do my will."
YES. BECAUSE YOU PAY ME WITH THE SOULS OF CHILDREN.
That was it. That was all he needed. That gave him the strength to get to his feet and face his demon, even with all of Hell standing
behind it. He didn't only have his magic and his training behind him.
He had Chiara, wherever she was. That made him a force to be reckoned with. "You know your place, you bastard. Your place is below."
NOT FOR MUCH LONGER.
"Go back to your place below!" Simon screamed with everything he had, his voice a ragged rasp, an old lion that would fight to the death surrounded by hyenas and staring down the monster that wanted its teeth in his throat.
He jammed the wand into his tattoo, his mind and his will and all he was or ever would be just laser-focused on one thing: get that hell gate shut and that demon's ass off his plane—
Something inside him ignited and just blew, like every fuse in the city exploding at once. His sense of self, the edges that defined his existence, swelled like a supernova. A tidal surge of power, his power, rose and took him on a headlong rush. He exceeded his limits too quickly for his mind to keep up. But when he did catch up to it…
Oh, the enormity.
Part of him laughed, child-like, open-mouthed, spinning on the razor's edge of infinity. He had no idea there was so much to himself. And it was him. All him. Of that, he was perfectly sure.
The other part, the part that didn't get swept up in the dizzying joy, smiled, harder and colder than he ever had smiled in his life. Harder, colder, solid absolution. He twisted his will like a flick of his wrist.
The hell gate, that wretched hole in the air, snapped shut, zipped closed with a boom that made his eyeballs thump.
The air cleared. The silence was deafening. The pressure in his chest exponentially increased and he choked, unable to breathe through the pain.
Simon was out before he even hit the ground.
Chiara stopped walking. Something was wrong with Simon.
She picked up her head and listened. No sound, no call that she could hear. But she didn't have to hear him. She could feel him.
This was different than the other night when she'd popped in to find him being accosted by that trashy demon. He'd sent out a curious vibe. She'd only meant to observe. Hadn't even planned on letting him know she was there. The possessed bar tramp was purely coincidental and she couldn't have remained hidden after it attacked.