by Jake Richter
Spence snapped his fingers. “My old man owns a lot of property outside of the city. I’ve heard of the place. The Tavern’s some kinda crazy biker bar where you can acquire stuff that’s not normally available anywhere else.”
Ash nodded. “There’s a man in the bar who will hook you up. He goes by ‘The Man.’”
“That’s his name?” Alex asked.
Ash nodded. “I’m not crazy about the name either, but he’s got access to all kinds of good stuff.”
Ash turned her gaze to Minnie and Camille. “Keep an eye on these heartbeats,” she said, referring to Alex and Spence. “Get us what we need and we’ll rendezvous soon.”
Alex turned to Ash, who sighed. “Welcome to my world, Alex. Some people get hurt and others die, but don’t worry. When I get back, the motherfuckers who did this are gonna have hell to pay.”
“Grimwood’s onto us, isn’t he?”
Ash nodded. “There’s not much we can do about that. But we have to make sure we don’t have any more setbacks. The clock is evaporating, and we can expect things to get worse before they get better.”
Alex swallowed hard and Ash smiled. “Are we gonna make it through this?”
Ash grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “We have to. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance.”
Spence heard this and looked over. “No pressure or anything.”
“As long as you find us those weapons,” Ash said, “we’ll have a chance.”
“We’re gonna make Grimwood pay for what he’s done,” Camille said.
Minnie nodded and shouted. “HELLS BELLES, BABY!”
14
Alex, Spence and the Belles, Camille and Minnie, drove west through a rainstorm, the sky darkening, twilight fast approaching. Cell phone out, Alex called his grandmother’s landline again, but she still didn’t answer and that worried him. Willing away the bad thoughts, he made sure to keep to the main roads, wary of traveling onto less traveled arteries that might lend themselves to ambushes.
Camille was seated in the shotgun seat while Spence was snoozing in the back with Minnie.
“Do you think they’re out there?” Alex asked softly.
Camille glanced over, frowning. “Who?”
“Grimwood and his buddies.”
Camille barked a nasty laugh. “Yep. The guy’s a huge prick. He’s also relentless when he thinks somebody’s wronged him.”
“Ash said she used to know him.”
“Yeah, in the Biblical sense,” Camille tittered. “They were an item for a while…”
“And then?”
“And then the same thing that always happens happened. Ash got bored and kicked him to the curb.”
“He was pissed, huh?”
“Grimwood doesn’t get pissed. He gets even…and then he gets stabby.”
A shudder drove through Alex.
“Relax,” Camille said. “We’re not totally defenseless. I managed to salvage a few knick-knacks from the store.”
She pulled out her rucksack and opened it to reveal several items, including weapons, a few magazines of ammunition, a medic bag, and a small silver bird with strange symbols and runes etched on its exterior.
“What is that?” Alex asked.
“A bird.”
“Thanks for the news flash.”
She smiled. “A special bird. It’s like sonar for people and things from our world. It can detect dark energy within a ten-mile radius.”
Alex took the bird and placed it on top of the dashboard.
The bird suctioned onto the dash and bobbed back and forth like a bobblehead doll.
“How long have you been working with Ash?” Alex asked.
“This month it’ll be thirty-five years.”
“Were you always with Ash? On her team for soul transportation?”
Camille shook her head while removing a few bullets from one of the magazines. “You have to work your way up. Once you cross over you’re evaluated, to determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Yours truly was a hive-kicker back in the day.”
“You were in the military?”
Camille grinned. “I was a corrections officer in an FCI, a federal correctional institute in Upstate New York.”
“How’d you wind up down under?”
“Killed during a prison riot,” Camille said. “One my colleagues got ambushed out in the yard and I came to his defense which, in hindsight, wasn’t the smartest thing to do. There I was, standing out by my lonesome, surrounded by twenty-three of the baddest motherfuckers you have ever seen, and all of ‘em were carrying shanks.”
“What happened?”
“I took down thirteen of ‘em before they sent me on to my reward.”
Camille snapped the bullets back into the magazine and smiled wistfully. “If I could handle that, I can certainly take on Grimwood and his posse.”
Suddenly, the small silver bird started screaming.
Louder than a fucking jet engine.
Alex fumbled with the wheel, the Challenger sliding sideways. “What the hell is going on?”
Camille pointed to the side mirror and that’s when Alex saw it.
A car coming up fast behind them, swerving wildly.
“It’s Grimwood!”
Alex stomped on the gas and the Challenger roared forward.
Spence and the ladies shouted and grabbed the headrests. “Talk to me, Alex!” Spence shouted.
“He’s on our tail!”
“Who?” Spence asked.
“Grimwood!” Camille shouted.
Spence sat up. “Who’s Grimwood?”
“The Lord of Souls and defiler of the dead!” Camille said.
Spence registered this. “Oh, is that all.”
Something slapped against the rear windshield.
Alex looked back to see a dark form stuck to the glass. The form moved to reveal beady red eyes and leathery wings.
“It’s a hell-bat!” Minnie shouted.
“A lesser demon,” Camille said with a nod. “Carrion.”
Suddenly, the Challenger was enveloped in a cloud of bats that resembled a flock of birds. The small creatures slammed and slapped against the exterior.
Camille whipped out another item from her rucksack.
A small plastic holder.
She popped it open to reveal a CD.
“You’re gonna play music now?” Alex asked incredulously.
She nodded. “A very special kind of music.”
Camille slotted the CD into the dash-player and cranked the volume as a low chanting began, followed by the echo of what sounded like a chorus singing.
Camille smiled. “It’s a secret prayer from the nineteenth century that’s supposed to act as a repellant to things that go bump in the night.”
Alex looked over. “Supposed to”? She nodded. “Yeah, well, we’ve never actually tried it before.”
Alex powered up the windshield wipers which slapped the bats back and forth. It was
almost impossible to see the road ahead, there were so many bats on the glass. Then Camille powered down her window and the music reverberated.
Alex could see the bats reacting, could see their faces twisted in agony.
They began falling away as Spence and the ladies cheered and—
Something slammed into the back of the Challenger.
Alex’s head slammed into the wheel.
Alex knew it was Grimwood, coming in for the kill. His eyes shot to the rearview and
side mirrors. He flicked the wheel and rocketed between a pair of trucks, putting some rubber between the Challenger and Grimwood.
But the Mustang was only thrown for an instant.
It zoomed up and swerved around a passenger car.
Alex looked over to see Grimwood behind the wheel and Dante riding in the passenger seat. Dante was holding his ax up, aiming it like a rifle—
Alex tapped the brakes, drifted back and curled around another truck, driving down the shoulder and then speedin
g back up.
The Mustang pursued but was several car-lengths behind them.
Camille removed a crystal-clear orb from the rucksack. Sloshing inside the orb was a neon-green liquid.
“What is that?”
“We call it ‘Tears for Fears.’ It makes bad guys go away.”
She handed the orb to Alex who flung it out the window. The orb hit the pavement, glowed orange and then—
It exploded with a retina-searing flash that vaporized the blacktop under and around the Mustang.
Alex and the others watched the Mustang shear into two pieces which slammed into the bed of a tractor-trailer, creating a larger, more powerful fireball that spread over the highway like a wave of fire.
“Holy shit!” Spence shouted. “Did you see that?”
Alex nodded, then turned back to the road and drove on into the night, deep in contemplation, wondering what Ash was doing and what horrors they might encounter next.
Grimwood stood silently in the middle of the highway, enveloped in the flaming wreckage of the crash, watching the taillights of the Challenger as it sped off.
There were bodies and twisted metal all around him, but Grimwood didn’t care. He was surprised at how well Alex had handled the situation and surmised that he was more capable than he’d first imagined. The kid had skills, Grimwood thought to himself. No wonder Ash had recruited him to recover the sickle.
Something stirred in the fiery aftermath of the crash.
It was Dante. He was pulling himself out of what was left of the Mustang.
“What happened?” Dante asked.
“What happened is that we got our asses kicked,” Grimwood replied.
“They’re better than you thought aren’t they, sir?”
Grimwood nodded. “And please keep reminding me about that. I love it when people point out my mistakes.”
Dante grimaced as Grimwood grabbed his hand and pulled him free. “We’re going to need more people to take them down,” Grimwood said.
“Familiars?”
Grimwood nodded, then looked around at the bodies of the people who were involved in the accident. Some were dead, others were merely unconscious. He raised his hands and muttered the words the Grand Reaper had taught him. “All that is will always be, all that is lost still remains.” Without Ash or any other Asphyx to process the spirits of those who had passed, Grimwood merely repurposed them and allowed their spirits to awaken again. It was a small display of power and not nearly enough power to keep Grimwood content. No, he was after bigger and better, and the sickle represented another level of power over life and death. He watched the spirit awakening unfold.
Slowly, very slowly, the bodies began thrumming, as if live wires were jolting them.
The people groaned and stood, their eyes rolling over, black like dolls’ eyes.
Grimwood smiled. “It’s on now,” he said softly.
15
An hour later, the Challenger pulled up to the small town of Emporium, Illinois. Everyone was still talking about the run-in with Grimwood and whether he would try to attack again. Their attention was soon arrested by the blue-collar neighborhood teetering on life support that lay just up the hill. Spence told Alex that the town was the epicenter of vice and at the epicenter of the epicenter was a place called the Hades Tavern (or just simply “the Tavern” as the locals called it).
The Tavern, with its faded paint job and broken neon beer signs, sat at the top of a T-shaped intersection. Alex parked the Challenger at the bottom of the hill, hiding it behind a series of large industrial dumpsters. There were a lot of motorcycles and pickup trucks nearby, and the sound of country music blared from the bar.
Alex and Spence exited the Challenger first, followed by a sleepy Camille and a hyper-alert Minnie.
Alex did a circuit around the Challenger, looking at the damage from the attack by the hell-bats and Grimwood. If Fincher were alive, he’d be pissed that the side panels were dinged, Alex thought.
Spence elbowed Alex, who swung around and scanned the Tavern and the motley people that were entering it. “I think we need tattoos to get into this place.”
Spence smiled and pointed. “I’m sure the bouncer will let you slide.”
The bouncer was a short squat woman with silver hair and tattooed sleeves. Spence said he’d heard the woman was known as Silver Tongue Mo, and Alex saw that most of her exposed flesh was covered with all sorts of elaborate tattoos. She was busy manning the front door, allowing a few hot biker chicks to enter while keeping back a pod of hellraisers clad entirely in denim and chaps.
Silver Tongue Mo’s gaze narrowed when she spotted Alex and the others. She spit a long string of tobacco juice on the ground and cracked her knuckles.
“I don’t think she likes us,” Alex said.
Minnie purred. “I could take her.”
Camille followed. “Minnie, you’d take anyone.”
Alex looked to the ladies. “Let’s make a promise right now. That we won’t kill anyone.”
“I can’t keep that promise,” Minnie said.
“Promise me or I’m turning around.”
Minnie rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. I promise not to kill any mortals for the next fifteen minutes.”
“Great, because we’re gonna need you to wait here.”
“What? Why?” Camille asked.
Alex shook his head. “Ash explained how you are with humans, and there are gonna be a lot of them in there. We can’t have you fucking and fighting.”
“You’re no fun,” Camille said.
Spence puffed out his chest. “Besides, ladies, there’s nothing to fear. I’ve got Alex’s back while we’re in there.”
The ladies giggled and smiled.
Alex nodded and the ladies stayed behind as he and Spence struck off toward the bar. With every step, his fear-meter slowly started ticking up. Something about this place didn’t sit well with him. And the energy from the pearl he was carrying was starting to burn through the denim in his front pocket.
They made their way over to the entrance of the Tavern. Silver Tongue Mo was gnawing on a golfball-sized wad of tobacco and ready to deny entry to Spence and Alex when something caught her eye. It was the glow from Alex’s pocket. The pearl.
The old lady’s eyes slitted. “You ain’t never got a proper cover for your heat, son?”
Alex stammered. “M-my h-heat?”
Silver Tongue Mo chuckled and nearly coughed up a lung until she spat out some tobacco juice which found its home on Spence’s shoes.
“Guess Ash can’t teach you everything all at once.” She reached into her pocket and offered up a purple sleeve. “You slip that pearl in this. Will give you what you need without show and tell when you don’t need it.”
“How do you know Ash?” Alex asked, taking the sleeve.
Silver Tongue Mo tapped on her heart. “Yeah, you’ll learn how when you’re ready. But just know, she’s one of a kind. Don’t let anything happen to her. Now go on in. The man himself is in there.”
Spence piped up. “How will I know who’s the man?”
“Cause he’s like porn, sweetie. You know ‘im when you see ‘im.”
Alex and Spence took a step forward, but Silver Tongue Mo barred Spence from entering. “Only one can enter.”
Alex looked back at Spence. “I’ll be fine. Go hang with the girls and—”
Spence was already gone, running back to the ladies.
Alex sucked in a breath and slipped the pearl into the sleeve. Though the glow faded instantly, the powerful energy seemed to continue up Alex’s arm and move through his chest cavity and stretch throughout his entire muscular frame.
Alex turned and stepped into the bar.
A thick haze of smoke greeted him as he strode in, taking in all of the patrons, mostly hardcore tattooed biker types in all shapes and sizes with one important thing in common.
They were all women.
All women except for the tall drink of water throwing d
arts all by himself.
Alex smiled to himself.
It wasn’t going to be hard to find out who the man was after all.
But before Alex could take another step, a pool stick slammed into his chest. A muscular woman in tight ripped jeans and nose ring with heavy eye make-up stopped his forward progress.
The nose ring chick asked, “What’s your poison, hon?”
Alex looked around to see most of the women in the Tavern staring at him.
At second glance, these women were a rather eclectic bunch. Definitely human in appearance, Alex got a strong vibe that they weren’t the normal set one might find in any other hole in the wall. They were dressed in either biker finest and slutty jeans or fishnet wear intermixed with old-fashioned barmaids in skimpy St. Paulie Girl outfits. Sexy as all get out, their mannerisms were erotic with brute undertones.
The nose ring chick spoke again. “I asked what’s it gonna be?”
“What choices do I have?” Alex asked.
“Whiskey or tequila,” the woman replied.
“I work in a bar so typically I don’t really drink and—”
The nose ring chick smashed the pool stick against the wall and brandished it like a set of nun-chucks without the chain. “And typically I don’t kick asses, but either you drink or—”
“The man says he don’t wanna drink, Brenda,” a voice said.
Alex looked over to see The Man playing darts. He’d turned his attention toward him and was sizing him up.
The Man motioned and Alex struck off toward him, noting that he was wearing a black Stetson and matching black shirt and jeans. He wore mirrored cop glasses and his face was scarred by what looked to be a bad chemical burn. But the most striking feature was his boots.
Handcrafted, exotic caiman cowboy boots with titanium reinforced toe. Mostly black with red stitching that formed tiny intricate designs of sexy pin-ups from the Underworld.
The Man spun and retrieved a handful of darts, the footfalls from his heavy boots echoing as they plodded across the wooden floor.
He returned and tossed a dart backwards into the board.
A bulls-eye.