by Hunter Blain
“Satan easily had Silver killed when the opportunity presented itself,” Depweg pondered. “How would Locke be able to compete with that?”
“Exactly! And I don’t think Locke would be able to handle the stress of going back. On top of that, Satan clearly has tabs on his warlocks and would probably be able to track his exact location. At the very least, he’d be aware of a mortal warlock in Hell, right? When he first died and went to Hell it took some time, but Satan still found him, even though he barely had any powers, at least compared to his power level now, I mean. Imagine a live warlock.”
“Good point,” Depweg sighed as if already deep in thought. “What about me?”
I could feel my face go stone solid as I looked into his eyes. Then I uttered one of the hardest things I’d ever had to say to my best friend, “Because you aren’t strong enough either, man.” Depweg blinked while his head tilted back as if I had jabbed him in the face. “Dude, when I was in Hell, I was put in my literal worst nightmare. I watched my mom die from my prison cell. I couldn’t do anything to help her. Then when I tried to convince myself it wasn’t real, Hell fucking put me inside the Lilith-damned bull with her so I had a front row seat to her being cooked alive.” A cold claw raked down my spine, making me shudder from the vivid memory.
Depweg stared at me with hurt, cold eyes, and I asked, “Do you think you could mentally take your worst nightmare? I hate to say it, but you fucked up and let the beast out when you thought the Shadow Court had Joey. But I’m willing to bet that wasn’t your worst fear, was it? How about reliving the moment you were tricked into killing Benji, over and over again?”
Depweg let his heavy gaze fall to his lap before setting his chin and looking out his window. I could see his glistening eyeballs, and knew the blow I had just inflicted, but he needed to know his limitations for something of this level of universe-ending importance.
“I’m sorry, man. I know how strong you are, but this has to be me.”
Depweg held up his hand, palm out, gesturing for me to stop. He pulled his eyes away from the window to lock onto mine and said, “No, you’re right. It’s important I realize and accept my faults. Self-delusions get people killed.”
I gave him a half smile, impressed at his level of self-realization, and then turned in my seat to face out the windshield.
After a few minutes of riding in silence with only the steady hum of rubber over road, Depweg asked, “How do we plan on getting the spear from Ulric?”
“I don’t know, man. We need to talk to Locke first and put all of our heads together.”
Depweg grunted in affirmation as the car went silent again. The tension in the air was thick like the humidity of Houston in the summer.
A handful of minutes later and we were pulling into the cemetery. I got out, leaned back down, and asked, “You wanna come in, Doc?”
“No, thank you, John. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be of very much use to you on the matter. That, and I need to get back to the clinic. I just got a notification that my contractor has arrived.”
“I’ll ask Locke to transfer the money to you. Fifty thousand pesos, right?”
“Thank you, John,” Doc Jim said while ignoring my last question.
With that, I started to close the door when the doctor called out, “Oh, what code would you like to use on the pin pad?”
“How about…one, one, one, one?”
“Choose for him, Doc, and send it to me. I’ll make sure he gets it,” Depweg suggested as he pulled himself out of the back seat with a grimace.
“Understood. Good luck, my friends.”
Doctor James Hunt pulled out of the parking lot, leaving Depweg and me alone.
“Fine. One, one, one…two?” Depweg ignored me.
We made our way to the mausoleum where my were-friend punched in his code, and carefully descended the steps to my front door.
Once inside, I helped him to the couch before saying aloud, “Anyone home?”
“In here,” I heard Magni call out from Locke’s room. One eyebrow went up while the other went down in confusion.
Tiny Tim looked up from the recliner to regard me and yipped a few times before sensing something was off.
I strode over to Locke’s room, barely stopping to pat Tim’s head, and stepped through the door to see an unconscious man-child asleep on the bed. He looked used and abused like a set of car tires nearing the hundred-thousand mile mark.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
“I-I-I don’t know!” Magni admitted, clearly overwhelmed.
With a scowl of concern scrunching my face, I asked, “Where’s Ludvig?”
“He’s resting. He got hurt too, but not like this,” Magni said, gesturing at Locke’s sweat-coated form.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked, coming over to sit on the bed next to Locke.
“Broken arm. Deep cut across his thigh. Broken leg, and I think hip, too. There’s also bruising on his ribs over here.” He waved his hand on the same side of Locke’s body as the rest of his injuries.
“Holy crap. Did Asmodeus hit him or something?”
“I-I don’t know,” Magni said, beginning to edge toward hysterical again.
“Hey, buddy. You did great getting everyone back here, okay? They’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you.” I ended my pep talk by lightly punching him in the arm. He flinched a tad, letting me know he was more fragile than I thought. Magni rubbed his arm and forced a smile, the relief evident on his face. It could be hard to have people counting on you while you’re feeling completely helpless at the same time.
“What are we going to do?”
“I got this,” I told him as I placed a hand on Locke’s exposed torso. Whatever had hit him had ripped his shirt. A thought about his battle robes sprang forward, and I understood whatever the attack had been, it must have been powerful indeed to travel through his enchanted armor.
With my hand on his chest, I closed my eyes and willed my blood out and over the right side of his entire body. I focused on his injuries and transferred my healing and blood energy into him. His body responded by closing the cuts, though I wasn’t able to heal his broken bones. Fortunately for us, the cut on his thigh wasn’t from the spear, or so I guessed from how it healed at my command.
The emptying well of power at my core rumbled its anger as my throat became dry. I needed to eat real blood. The TV dinner equivalent Doc had given me had barely wet my whistle. I briefly wondered if there was another prison nearby as full of naughty bad guys as Huntsville.
“What are you doing?” Magni asked, concerned.
“Shh. I need to focus,” I breathed out as I healed Locke as best as I could. “Get me one of his soul stones,” I instructed as I lifted my chin to point at the glass box on Locke’s dresser. Using my senses, I inspected for any internal damages and was met with an overwhelming sense of destruction. “Oh man, that’s bad,” I said to myself.
“What? What is it?” Magni said from the dresser as he searched for a way to open the box.
“Use iron or silver to cancel the containment spell and it should pop open,” I suggested as Magni pulled a silver knife from his belt buckle and punched through the glass case.
“That’s one way to do it,” I whispered just below hearing level.
Magni came back with one of the stones and held it out to me. With my free hand, I grasped the cold stone and lifted it above the unconscious warlock. I froze, unsure how much the stone would heal Locke’s severely damaged body.
Still poised above my friend with the soul stone, I focused on my blood carefully piercing Locke’s flesh and stitching his organs back from where they had been dislodged. I sucked the blood that had hemorrhaged internally into myself, knowing it would do me good to have his energy and that humans weren’t supposed to be bleeding on the inside, anyway. I healed the wound the blood was leaking from before moving upward, and was shocked to discover one of his lungs had collapsed, on top of being punctured by the broken
ribs. I pushed the rib cage back into place and willed my blood to heal the bones, which was a new one for me. I had never tried something like this on the inside of someone’s body. After I fixed the ribs and inflated the repaired lung, Locke took in a deep breath and opened his eyes wide, like a drowning man breaking through the surface.
Once his body was healed of its most life-threatening wounds, I retracted my blood, feeling a tad light-headed from the effort. I think he had been near death, requiring more of my energy to keep him alive.
Locke’s wide eyes shrunk to their normal size and he lay staring at the ceiling as he took deep, steadying breaths.
“You alright, man?” I asked Locke, moving my hand from his chest to his arm.
Without looking at me, he slowly nodded while tears welled in his eyes. I lowered the soul stone to his hand and closed his fingers around it.
Lifting the container, he inspected it for a moment before understanding dawned and he slammed his fist against his chest, shattering the soul stone. Power rushed into him, but not in a way I had seen before. The last time I had witnessed Locke use one of his healing rocks, he had been depleted of energy from our battle with King Oberon. He had seemed fully reinvigorated after absorbing its power, whereas now it was like drinking a mere cup of coffee.
“What happened to you?”
Locke tried to speak, but couldn’t form the words. My eyes searched around the bed and I saw a bottle of water on the nightstand. I grabbed it and handed it to him. He took a few sips, spilling more on his chin and down his neck than actually got in his mouth.
Once his throat was rehydrated, he looked at me and said in a hoarse voice, “Wh-when Asmodeus…threw you…I saw my chance to attack. I-I-I thought I was strong enough to attack the demon lord. I wasn’t, John. I wasn’t strong enough. I threw everything I had into a single attack, sensing my opportunity. It bounced off of him like shooting a bullet at a train. He-he just turned and swatted me away like I was some sort of flying insect. I don’t remember anything after.”
“Oh man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were that bad. I would have grabbed both of you had I known.”
“Bo-both of you?” Locke croaked out, trying to lift his head and look at me.
“Depweg was hurt really bad. Silver almost cut him in half, so I took him to see the doc.”
He perked up at this and asked, “Is he—”
“He’s fine,” I interrupted, quickly alleviating his fears. “He’s resting on the couch right now.”
“Oh, good,” Locke said, letting his head drop back to the pillow and closing his eyes.
“Hang in there a minute, Kemosabe. We need you to let us know what to do about Ulric becoming the brand-spank’n-new Crunchwrap Supreme.”
His eyes shot open and he propped himself up on his elbows. “What?”
“Shit, sorry. That’s Taco Bell. I mean—”
“Ulric is Grand Master Warlock? Are you sure?” Locke began hyperventilating as I nodded my confirmation. “This isn’t good. Oh God.”
“Why’s that? I mean, besides the obvious.”
“Lucifer himself chooses the Grand Master and bestows upon them vast, unimaginable power. I mean, look at me compared to Silver: I wasn’t even able to tickle Asmodeus with a surprise attack that was imbued with all of my power, and Silver had him under his command. I’ve never heard of a supe being made a Grand Master in all of our history. He-he might have the power to destroy the entire planet with a single spell for all I know!”
“Worst fears, meet reality,” I said to myself. Magni and Locke ignored my commentary. “So, wanna pop a squat in the living room and help ed-ju-ma-cate Deppyweg and me on ways we can—oh, I don’t know—stop him?”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Locke said as he got to unsteady feet with my help.
“Careful there, buddy. With all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, I was barely able to put Humpty Lockey together again.”
Once again shrugging off my levity, he made his way into the living room and plopped down heavily in his favorite spot. The energy in the room was sapped and barren, which tended to happen when you got your ass royally handed to you.
“Mag, wanna get Lude?”
“Sure,” he answered as he gently knocked on the Swedish supernatural hunter’s door. When there was no answer, Magni opened the door slowly and the unmistakable sound of snoring flooded the room. He stopped and looked at me, wordlessly asking me if he should continue. I nodded, and he disappeared into Lude’s room.
A few seconds later and the snoring was cut off by a loud snort and then the sleepy call of, “Jag, är vaken!” which translates to ‘I’m awake!’
Once everyone was in the room, and Tiny Tim was sound asleep in my lap, I said, “Okay, guys, we got a real problem and need to find a way to fix it. First things first,” I pointed a finger at Locke, “wire the doc fifty thousand dollars.”
To his credit, Locke didn’t even flinch at the number. Instead, he nodded and brought up his phone hand, which hadn’t been crushed, and began typing away. I could see it took a few different apps to complete the process for such a respectable sum. After a few moments, he looked up and nodded. Job complete.
“Second, I need to catch Lude up on the situation. Plus, it might be good for you and Depweg to hear it out loud again.” I retold the events of the evening, ending with Ulric disappearing after telling me my part wasn’t played yet.
“Oh, dat’s heavy,” Ludvig commentated unhelpfully.
“Thank you for that,” I said with an incredulous scowl.
Ludvig responded by staring at me with questioning eyes, apparently confused at what I had said and the tone with which it had been presented.
“I—” I started and then sighed, “I was being sarcastic, man.”
“Ah. Why?”
“That’s like asking why the wind is blue,” Locke added while rubbing his eyes, both at the gravity of the situation and how difficult I could be.
“But, ah, the wind isn’t…blue?” I said hesitantly. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“Exactly my point, John.” Locke answered without looking at me. It was evident he hadn’t fully recovered yet. “But that doesn’t matter right now. We need to figure out where Ulric will be next.”
As if my unlife were some kind of thriller television series, a polite knock sounded at the front door.
Eyes flew to scan faces, searching for one person to raise their hand and say something along the lines of, “Oh, I ordered pizza,” but no one did. Once the gazes determined no one was expecting anyone, heads slowly rotated to lock onto the door, where another triple rap of knuckles sounded. Tim roused and perked his ears up before launching into a yipping fit, as all dogs did when someone doth approach their territory. I moved my puppy from my lap to the floor, where he scrabbled in place while trying to sprint at full-speed at the intruder.
With a scowl, I rose to my feet and walked purposefully to the front door, fighting back the terror that was growing in my stomach. There were no coincidences in the story of John. Locke said a name, and the universe heard.
“Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear,” I whispered to myself as my hand gripped the door handle. I took a deep breath, steadied my nerves for what I knew was going to be on the other side of the door, and opened.
20
The Archangel Gabriel stood smiling with his hands clasped in front of him. His eyes were warm and welcoming, holding an infinite expanse of wisdom collected over a period of time that wasn’t remotely fathomable, even for me.
“Well, I’m no Devil, but I wanted to appear anyway. If that’s alright, of course.”
I blew out the breath I had been holding. Maybe my nerves were a little more on edge than I thought because a fleck of spit landed on Gabriel’s chin. Without losing his smile, he simply moved his hand up, wiped it away, and then let his arm drop to clasp his hands again.
“Sorry about that,” I apologized, embarrassed. “Come in.” I opened the door wide
r and gestured for the angel to enter. Tim seemed to recognize the man, or at least his celestial nature, and began wagging his little tail while trying to jump up the angel’s legs in excitement.
After bending down and petting Tim—who attempted to lick his hand to death—Gabriel made his way to the edge of the circle we had created around the coffee table and greeted, “Good evening, everyone. I do so hope you are all well.”
As I shut the door and walked back to sit in my chair, I noticed Ludvig straightening his stance a tad. It wasn’t a defensive movement, more of a sizing-up of the angel who was oozing confidence. A warrior could always detect another of his ilk. Without realizing it on a conscious level, Lude crossed his arms over his massive chest and tilted his chin up slightly.
Gabriel shot him a quick glance and broadened his smile before speaking again to the group, “Ulric is of little concern at this moment. Don’t misunderstand me; he will become a cataclysmic threat that must be dealt with, in time. For now, might I suggest a broader view of the chessboard in play.”
“Depends, Gabe. Are you going to be up-front with us or continue playing your little word games?” I squinted, crossing my arms.
“I tell you precisely what you need to hear, Jonathan,” he responded without letting his smile falter. Damn it, he was likable.
“Fine. What do you suggest?” I asked, letting my face fall to neutrality.
“You have a decision to make,” Gabriel said while looking at the coffee table. My brow crinkled at this because he was normally decisive with his gaze, at the very least.
“About what?” I asked, my voice a tad softer, feeling the importance of what he was trying to convey.
“For you, John, you must choose between hunting Ulric—who has vastly grown in power—or, as much as it pains me to suggest, go to Hell and retrieve the scrolls…along with that other thing.” At this, he stared right at me, tilting his head down in emphasis.
“What other thing?” Depweg asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” I derailed the conversation before quickly adding, “How do I get to Hell without Ulric’s staff? I mean, that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to go after him.”