Highways to Hell

by Bryan Smith

  The sun was a burning orb hanging high in the sky, projecting intense heat that felt absolutely unfiltered. Ozone layer, Jack thought deliriously. What goddamned ozone layer?

  “So any idea where we are?”

  Andy chuckled. “The desert.”

  Jack sneered. “You know what, Andy? Believe it or not, I’m not in the mood for sarcasm. I know this is a desert. So I’ll clarify. Which goddamn desert?”

  Andy shrugged. “Dunno. Looks familiar, though.”

  Lucien groaned. “No. It can’t be.”

  Jack shook his head and sighed. “Nevada. Again. Christ.”

  “Makes sense,” Andy said, nodding as he stripped off his shiny blue button-down shirt, exposing flesh so pale Jack figured the guy would be bright red within minutes.

  Jack’s own flesh was only marginally darker, so he resisted the urge to shed some of his own garments. The heat was suffocating, but he figured he could endure that better than becoming one big man-sized sunburn. Bad enough that he’d left his wingtips on that Florida beach. The desert sand beneath his feet was blisteringly hot. The heat was so oppressive he didn’t even feel like lighting a cigarette.

  Lucien, though, didn’t appear too bothered by the heat. It figured. A hellhound wouldn’t be too adversely affected by conditions such as these.

  Lucky son of a bitch.

  Jack directed a smirk Andy’s way. “You might want to work up some SPF 50 mojo, bro. Unless you want to wind up a crispy red blotch on the desert floor.”

  Andy winked. “Already taken care of.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Freaking wizard. Always one step ahead, eh? And by the way, why in the hell does being back in Nevada make sense?”

  Andy lit a cigarette.

  Jack glared at him.

  Andy snickered. “Ah, well. It’s like this, Jackie. Any time I have to work out mystical coordinates on the fly like that, when time is really of the essence, I have to make some shortcuts, let the portal take us back to a previous destination.”

  Jack frowned. “And you let it take us here? You’re aware Satan’s minions are everywhere here, right?”

  “Everywhere, eh?” Andy made an exaggerated show of scanning the wide-open desert landscape around them. “Huh. They must be invisible.”

  Jack snarled and ripped the pack of cigarettes from Andy’s hand. “Oh, screw you. Think you’re funny, huh?”

  “Sometimes. And for your information, no, I didn’t pick this destination.” Andy hesitated. An almost sheepish look stole over his handsome features. It was an odd sight. Andy almost never seemed abashed about anything. “It sort of…well, on the fly like that, as I was saying…um…it sort of happens at random.”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. His stomach did a slow, wrenching churn. He tried to say something, but the right words momentarily eluded him.

  Lucien supplied them: “We could be in Greytown right now.”

  Jack gulped. Greytown was a section of Hell. A sort of outlying suburb that resembled New Jersey more than any fire and brimstone preacher’s lake of fire visions of that netherworld. It was where he’d met Lucien.

  That moment of awe and absolute terror passed. Anger took its place. “Andy, I give you a lot of crap, I know, but you know I’ve got great faith in you. You’ve gotten us out of a lot of tight jams. But dammit, man, you know how screwed we’d be, hell, how screwed the whole world would be, if we wound up back in Greytown.”

  Andy sighed. “I know. Okay? But we’re not in Hell. Things worked out.”

  Lucien snorted. “Right. We’re in the desert. Near the earthly home base of our most serious adversary.” He shook his head, making long, sweat-drenched black locks flop about his shoulders. “We should’ve just run for it.”

  Jack nodded. “Damn right.”

  Andy heaved an exasperated sigh. “I get the point, okay? I screwed up but what’s done is done. Hindsight’s 20/20, all that jazz. In a minute, I’ll do a more precise portal spell and get us the hell out of here. But before we jump back into the fray home, let’s take a moment to take stock of things.”

  Jack shook a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, unable to resist the impulse of deep addiction any longer. “Fine. Advise us, oh wise one.”

  Andy nodded. The old fire came into his eyes again and he spoke with his usual authoritative confidence. “Here’s the lowdown on the aliens. They’re not invaders. They’re not part of an advance guard paving the way for the colonization of earth by legions of little green bastards. They’re rogues. Criminals. A gang. Think of them as being like the first New York mobsters who entered Florida way back when. That’s what they’re doing in Nashville. Establishing a base of operations.”

  Jack drew in a lungful of sweet, bracing smoke, then slowly expelled it. “Okay. Which better explain why it’s not a job for the government. Hell, for all we know the local gov’s taking kickbacks from these guys.” He frowned. “So…er…what exactly sort of crimes are these Plan 9 mafiosos into anyway?”

  Andy’s expression grew grim. “Lots of the usual. Racketeering. Prostitution. Stuff we wouldn’t even bother with under normal circumstances.”

  Lucien abruptly cocked his head and turned away from them. He moved several feet to the east and raised a hand to his brow, squinting against the blazing sun and refracted light on the horizon. “Um…guys?”

  Jack said, “I’m assuming there’s something else at work here, right? Something unusual?”

  Andy flicked his spent cigarette butt away. “We’re talking about human slavery, Jack. These extraterrestrial sons of bitches are snatching people and shipping them back to paying customers light years away from here.”

  Jack gave a moment’s thought to what sadistic aliens might do with their human slaves and felt a fresh surge of molten anger. “You’re right. We’ve got to stop them.”

  Lucien’s voice came louder this time: “Shut up! Something’s coming.”

  The urgency in the hellhound’s voice at last drew the attention of his comrades. Jack and Andy abruptly dropped further discussion of the alien dilemma and moved to where Lucien was standing. They each mimicked his hand-to-brow stance and squinted at the hazy horizon.

  Jack gulped.

  Lucien was right. Something was coming. Multiple somethings, in face. Black specks hurtling across the desert from several directions at once, all of them apparently intent on converging on one spot.

  THIS spot, Jack thought glumly.

  “Um…hey, Andy…”

  “Working on it already, mate.”

  Jack looked at his half-brother. He’d quickly shrugged back into his jacket and shiny blue shirt, which hung open over his pale torso. He moved several feet away from Jack and Lucien, closed his eyes, and, with great deliberation, began to intone the pertinent Latin phrases. Jack frowned. Andy normally didn’t close his eyes for this. He was likely working to blot out the fast-approaching danger and focus on the spell, hoping, Jack guessed, to avoid a repeat of the random portal debarkation debacle.

  Andy’s lips continued to move, the arcane phrases emerging quietly from his mouth, weaving an aura of magic layer by careful mystical layer. Jack appreciated the effort, but he was tempted to urge the wizard to a quick finish. They’d just have to take their chances, because if they weren’t zipping through interdimensional space within a matter of moments they’d either be dead or on their way back to Hell alive.

  Dead would be better. Jack knew this from experience.

  In Jack’s case, he was destined to arrive in Hell eventually. He was one of the Damned. Just one of the very many unsettling things he’d learned during his time there. But he’d like to delay his return to the infernal realm as long as possible. This, perhaps, being the most cosmic understatement he could imagine. Long enough to maybe redeem his tarnished soul and avoid it altogether. There were a few things of which Jack was absolutely certain and this was one of them—that redemption had not yet occurred.

  Jack’s gaze flickered rapidly back and forth from Andy to
the oncoming hordes. They were close enough now that he could hear the buzz of engines, coming at them on black jeeps and motorcycles. A few of the former looked to have military-issue machine guns mounted in the rear. The men manning the weapons wore black masks and big, glassy goggles. They looked like they should be hounding Mel Gibson on a post-apocalyptic Australian landscape. Jack didn’t bother reaching for his .45, nor did Lucien shift to hound mode. There was no point, no way they could hope to defend themselves against such overwhelming odds.

  Andy’s lips were still moving. Jack couldn’t hear the Latin words anymore. They buzz of the engines had become a low roar. Jack’s breathing quickened and his heart thummed like the plucked string of an electric guitar. The air nearby grew hotter as the outline of a portal began to take shape a foot above the desert floor. It was an oval ring of faint light with a grayish center. Andy’s lips moved faster and the center darkened. But it wasn’t happening fast enough.

  One of the machine guns began to chug, spitting shell casings high into the bright desert sky. The shooter was still too far away, but Jack figured that would only remain the case for perhaps another thirty seconds. If they were lucky.

  The portal’s center was now as black as the heart of darkness itself. The ring of light surrounding it intensified and abruptly gave way to dancing flames.

  More machine guns opened fire. The desert floor seemed to vibrate as the dozen of speeding vehicles bore relentlessly down on them.

  And still Andy’s lips moved.

  Jack made a decision. “Oh, fuck this.”

  Lucien said, “I second that emotion.”

  They each grabbed Andy by an arm and dragged him toward the portal. Andy didn’t resist, but his mouth kept working, strengthening and refining the delicate spell with each precious remaining second. Jack could hear the Latin phrases now. As always, it sounded like gibberish to him. But, he hoped, effective gibberish. The wizard was still working his mojo when Jack and Lucien tossed him through the portal.

  Lucien glanced at Jack and stepped in after him.

  Jack started to follow, but a mad impulse made him hesitate. A defiant spark of pissed-off attitude from his self-destructive side. He turned to the approaching onslaught of Satan’s minions, raised both hands high into the air, and showed them two proudly raised middle fingers.

  A machine gun bullet whined by his head.

  Another nicked the sagging sleeve of his blazer.

  Jack at last surrendered to common sense and dove through the portal.

  4.

  Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here

  He landed painfully on the hardwood floor of his Elliston Place office in Nashville. Several machine gun bullets passed through the portal an instant before it closed, punching a zig-zag pattern of holes through the wall separating the outer reception area from Jack’s actual office.

  The portal closed with a whooshing rush of air, the space it occupied sizzling and glimmering for a moment before returning to normal. Jack got to his hands and knees with a groan and heaved a big breath.

  He heard Andy’s voice first. “You all right, mate?”

  Jack looked up. “No. I’m about as far from all right as I can be and still be drawing breath. How the hell did that happen? How did they find out we were there so quickly and get so many of their people after us within minutes?”

  Lucien extended a hand to Jack and helped the weary detective to his feet. “You know why, Jack. That place is the center of their power in your world. We were lucky not to be squished like bugs the moment we landed in the desert. They’ve obviously been maintaining a vigil ever since we took down their old Vegas headquarters last year, hoping we’d be stupid enough to one day wonder back into their territory and give them another shot at us.”

  Jack chuckled in a dry, humorless way. “Which is just what we did.” His gaze went to Andy. “But I’ve got to applaud you this time, brother. You did good. Nearly got us killed from taking so long, but that’s beside the point.”

  Andy acknowledged the compliment with a nod. He took out his flask and spun the cap off, drinking deeply before passing it to Jack. Jack took a quick nip and passed it to Lucien. Andy waited until the flask was back in his hands before speaking. “Okay, we’re back. We’ve had a series of close calls, and while it’s tempting to take a bit of a break, bitter reality won’t allow us that relief. It’s time to deal with the aliens.”

  Jack started to say something, but the words died at the tip of his tongue, quashed by the sound of a key turning in the front lock. Lucien growled, and Jack and Andy went for their guns.

  Then the door swung open, admitting Raven Rainbolt and the ghost of Harlan Calhoun. Raven didn’t flinch at the sight of the guns pointed in her direction. She smirked and said, “Hi, guys. Where have you been keeping yourselves lately?” She bustled past them and made a show of wrinkling her nose at the scent of whiskey on their breaths. “Harlan and I have been busy, seeing new clients, doing some actual investigating. Basically keeping the business afloat while you guys stay out partying.”

  The slim, diminutive black-haired girl moved behind the reception desk and plopped into her usual seat. She glanced at the bullet holes in the wall behind her and smirked again. “Been shooting off your popguns indoors again?”

  Andy cleared his throat. “Listen, missy—”

  Jack cut him off. “It’s not like that. We just had a narrow escape.”

  Raven arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Jack nodded. “A series of them, actually.” He sighed. “I’d give you a rundown of events, but we’re in an emergency situation here, one of those ‘time is of the essence’ kinda deals.”

  Raven laughed and shook her head. “Let me guess. The fate of the world rests in our hands. Again.”

  Jack frowned. “Well…not quite the ‘world’…such as.”

  Now it was Raven’s turn to frown. She looked at Andy. “Mr. O’Day, does this have anything to do with the situation we were discussing last week?

  Andy said, “Yes. Probably. Maybe. That was, er…yesterday. I thought.”

  Raven pursed her lips and regarded him the way one regards a raving lunatic. She, like the rest of them, was used to Andy O’Day’s often eccentric behavior, which included his tendency to show up when you least expected him to, his frequent and wildly inappropriate conversational non sequiturs, and the uncanny way he was nearly always several steps ahead of everyone else, regardless of the situation. Andy O’Day, as Jack so succinctly put it on more than one occasion, could freak you right the hell out. This time, however, Raven’s expression indicated a certainty that he’d at last thoroughly lost his mind.

  She shook her head slowly—her eyes narrowed to a suspicious squint—and said, “Noooo. That was last week. The alien thing, right?”

  Andy nodded. “Ah. A-ha. Well…yes, the alien thing.”

  “Good.” Raven smiled brightly. “That was definitely last week, then. I remember it clearly. It was the day before Jack’s showdown with Heinrich.”

  Jack, Lucien, and Andy all exchanged nervous looks.

  Jack coughed. “Say, Raven…what’s today’s date?”

  Raven glanced at her desktop Onion calendar. “The 28th of May.”

  “Whoa.” Andy whistled. “That’s one hell of a time gap.”

  Jack scowled at Andy. “That’s six days, Andy. Six…fucking…DAYS!”

  Andy shrugged. “To be fair, you didn’t let me finish my incantations.”

  “That’s because we were about to be perforated by a hail of high-caliber bullets.”

  “A technicality.”

  The ghost of Harlan Calhoun chuckled and appeared to walk through the reception desk. He sat in a chair next to Raven, folded his arms, and said, “You ever think how much duller things would be without these guys in your life?”

  A smile twitched at the corners of Raven’s delicate mouth, but she suppressed the expression. “Mostly I think of how nice a normal life would be. You know, living in the suburbs,
having a family, raising 2.5 kids, going to church on Sunday.” Her tone became one of mock reverence and wonder. “The American Dream.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re as normal as I am sober.” The comment elicited a round of general laughter, which Jack acknowledged with an annoyed, impatient wave of the hand. “Okay, so technically we’ve been out of action for a week. I assume you’ve been following up on whatever it was you discussed with my spell-mangling brother last week.”

  “Indeed I have.”

  “Elucidate, please.”’

  Lucien grunted. “‘Elucidate.’ What’s that? Your vocabulary word for the day?

  Jack’s gaze remained on the girl as he raised a middle finger in Lucien’s direction. “Well, Raven?”

  Raven sat up straighter in her chair and wheeled closer to the desk. Her hands went to the keyboard in front of the flat-screen monitor and rapidly tapped some keys. After a pause, she tapped some more keys, studied what was on the screen a moment longer, then leaned back in her chair with a sigh and looked at the men.

  She clasped her hands in front of her, steepling the forefingers in a way that made her look like an intensely focused young professor examining a complex equation scrawled across a chalkboard. If Andy was the mystic guiding spirit behind the Grimm Detective Agency, then Raven was the brains of the operation.

  And what am I? Jack wondered.

  But he knew the answer to that question. Much as he was loathe to admit it, he knew he wasn’t quite the intellectual equal of Andy or Raven, or even Lucien. His function, beyond being the agency’s namesake, existed at a much more primal level. He was the guts of GDA. Its beating heart and its tattered, but resilient soul. The other guys were no slouches when it came to facing danger, but everyone knew Jack was the go-to guy for getting in the faces of the bad guys. And he had a strong hunch he was about to be called upon to play that pivotal role yet again.

  Raven’s dark eyes locked on his own. He saw a spark of something there that had nothing to do with the current investigation. There was a chemistry between them strong enough to make Jack’s breath catch in his throat in moments like this. The attraction had never been acted upon by either of them, not even in the vaguest way, but the erotic potential was a tangible thing.