by Declan Finn
I generally make fun of the asylum city concept. I think there’s a balance between “deport everyone” and “let everyone stay.” Since I wasn’t in politics, I could not affect any change on a policy level. Personally, the latter concept had devolved to a point where defying immigration laws included letting actual rapists and murderers go free. That and only that had kept Rene Ormeno out of jail and in the city.
In this particular apartment complex, if ICE hit it, it would have been half empty from the time they started the raid until end of watch.
But that wasn’t my problem right now. Alex and I took the elevator, and we pressed the button for the top floor. We got out on the top floor, and I took a deep breath. There was nothing evil on the floor. There was barely a hint that Ormeno was even in the building.
From there, we walked down the stairs.
The smell didn’t really catch me until the fifteenth floor. Once it was strong enough for me to get a lock on it, I looked to Alex. “He’s definitely here.”
Alex sighed. “Damn it. Of course he is.”
He reached for his holster and undid the snap on it. He had gotten too close to the demon once. He wasn’t willing to take any risk with someone as close to the demon as Ormeno.
“The last thing I need is to be caught in a firefight between you and whatever fresh Hell might be unleashed on us this time.”
The scent led us to the 13th floor. I grabbed the door, and Alex rolled his eyes. “Of frigging course it is.”
I smiled. I had never known him to be superstitious, but after the first demon and a few zombies, I couldn’t blame him.
I stuck my head out into the hallway for a quick peek. No one was there. They were all trying to avoid the police. It was one of the only two reactions I had ever seen to murder: either the surrounding area came out to play tourist, making it a social event, or they avoided cops like we carried a plague.
I strode out, gun in hand. Alex duplicated me. We walked casually down the hallway. Our guns were held low, behind the thigh so it wouldn’t be that obvious. One of the last things we really needed was for someone to open a door and see we were carrying. After that, there was no telling what would happen next.
I sniffed until the foul odor led me to an apartment. Apartment 1313.
Alex said it perfectly before. Because, of course, it was.
I stood before the door and raised my foot to kick it in.
I smashed the door open with one good kick, nearly knocking it off its hinges.
I came face to face with Rene Ormeno. His face was even more covered with tattoos than the last time I’d seen him—probably to signify his imprisonment in the mental ward. He was a stout fellow, a few inches shorter than me. It looked more like he had spent 24/7 pumping iron in a prison gym than strapped to the wall of a padded cell.
Before him were a dozen gunmen, on one knee, gun ready.
Ormeno smiled. “Surprise, pendejo.”
Alex grabbed me and yanked me back as the gunfire started. He held my collar in one hand as he tossed a grenade in with the other.
I drew my gun and called out over the bullets, “I thought we were leaving the heavy weapons in the trunk.”
“We said guns, not grenades!” Alex yelled back.
The barrage of gunfire continued, unabated until the grenade went off. I guess they didn’t notice the grenade at all.
The explosion rocked the floor of the apartment building. We had braced for it, so we wheeled into the apartment doorway immediately after the grenade went off.
We held our fire. The gunmen had all been in the way of the blast. I went right, Alex went left. We swept the apartment, just in case someone was in another room. Everyone in the apartment was dead.
But there was no Ormeno.
The central window was broken, but the panes on either side were undamaged. I ran to it and looked out. Ormeno had jumped from there to a guy-wire outside. He gripped the wire with both hands, then hauled himself up, onto the wire, and started running along it. No one saw him. Not only were we at the back of the building, away from the more eye-catching and entertaining crime scene, New Yorkers never looked up.
“Damn,” Alex said at my side. “Parkour running? I didn’t think that would ever catch on.”
I holstered my gun, my eyes locked on Ormeno. “You take the stairs. I’m going after him the quick way.”
Alex gaped at me. “You can’t be serious. Did you see that drop? I—”
Alex grabbed me again and pulled me down behind a couch. Automatic gunfire slammed into the furniture, punching holes above our heads. Alex casually pulled out another grenade from his jacket, pulled the pin, flipped out the spoon, and waited a few seconds before casually hurling it over the couch.
It went off, and we sprung up, guns drawn. We made it to the doorway and peeked out, guns first.
Every door in the hallway was opening, and MS-13 gunmen poured out. It was like Ormeno had already known how D had laid out his security at his Bayside apartment and duplicated it.
Of course, I thought. It’s enemy territory. He had to have a strong presence. Otherwise he’d be screwed when the Latin Kings came around.
“Too many,” I stated as I opened fire.
Alex and I pulled back as the entire hallway opened up in gunfire.
Alex pulled out two more grenades.
I gaped and looked him up and down. “How many of those do you have?”
“Six.”
“Why?”
He gave me a look as he pulled out the pins. “Given the last time we dealt with your supernatural crap, I’m taking no chances.”
Alex backed up, then hurled a grenade in either direction down the hallway. “Only problem is that I don’t think I have enough grenades.”
“And Ormeno is getting away.” I frowned. That window was just so big and open and inviting. And I had levitation abilities … from time to time. This time, I wouldn’t even be asking for much—less “levitation” and more “slow descent.”
I grabbed him by the arm. “Come on. We have to go.”
Alex looked at me, looked at the window and looked back. “You are not taking me out through that window.”
I jerked my head back towards the hallway as the grenades exploded. “You’d rather face all of them?”
Alex frowned. He stared at the apartment door. “Maybe.”
I grabbed him around the stomach, lifted him off the floor (I was big, he was skinny) and ran for the window.
“Tommy, I’m going to get you for thhhiiiiissssss—” he screamed as I leaped through the broken window with him in tow.
Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name—
My levitation kicked in four floors down. By the time I touched down on the sidewalk, we had slowed enough so that it felt like I had jumped in place. The area was still relatively clear of people. Given the neighborhood, I was relatively certain that it was devoid of security cameras—especially if Ormeno and his crew were in the area for any length of time.
“I think I need adult diapers now,” Alex muttered.
I placed Alex down on the sidewalk. “I’m after Ormeno. Keep up if you can.”
I turned towards Ormeno and ran. I was able to track him by smell from rooftop to rooftop, even though I was still on the street. I dodged around pedestrians, jumped over mailboxes, jump-kicked over a bike courier, then leaped onto a telephone pole with grips for climbing. I partially levitated my way up the pole, going from handhold to five handholds up. I leveled off with the tallest fire escape and jumped from the pole to land on the escape’s guard rail. I leapt from there right onto the roof, turning after Ormeno.
Ormeno, meanwhile, leaped from roof to roof, taking a straight line the entire way. Nothing stopped him or got in his way. He cartwheeled in the air over an HVAC unit as tall as I was. He smacked his hands against the flat side of a roof access door and used that and his momentum to vault onto and over it.
I figured he was in trouble when the next r
oof was blocked by the gap between two streets. It was at least four lanes wide.
Ormeno jumped. As his arc began to descend, he somersaulted in the air, kicking out towards the next roof.
And he landed without a scratch.
How the Hell … exactly.
I ran faster and tried to pray harder. This wasn’t requesting a little extra distance, nor was it asking for gravity to not kill me when I hit the pavement. This was a prayer to virtually carry me across 96 feet of traffic lanes, parking lanes, and sidewalk, as well as bringing me down within the low wall surrounding the roof.
I will lift You up, O Lord, for You have lifted me up … I suspect no one ever meant the Psalm quite that literally.
I ran for the roof’s edge and sped up. O Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. O Lord, You have brought me up from the grave. You have kept me alive so that I will not go down into the deep.
I jumped.
Chapter 10
Bad Dog, No Cookie
I didn’t clear the street.
I didn’t land on the roof Ormeno jumped onto.
I overtook the street and landed right on top of Ormeno.
I slammed Ormeno to the roof. Pro wrestlers would have approved of that body-slam. He went sprawling as I flattened him. His hands were outstretched as though he had deliberately prostrated himself. I grabbed Ormeno’s hair with my left hand, and drove my right forearm into the back of his head, grinding his face into the roof.
“How did you do it, Rene? Huh?” I elbowed the back of his head for emphasis, then pressed my sharp elbow into his skull. “How’d you recover from being driven insane by a demon? How did you really get out of the nuthouse?”
Ormeno pulled his hands in, as though he were going to do a push-up. I based my legs around him. I was more than willing to hold on no matter how much bucking he did.
“I’ve been upgraded, esse,” he rasped as he shoved off of the roof.
We went flying back. He and I came a good ten feet off the floor before we started to come down. On reflex, I twisted in the air, putting him face down on the roof again.
His legs shot out for the roof, and he landed hard. It didn’t seem to slow him down from shaking like a dog, trying to dislodge me. My arm whipped around his neck, and my legs wrapped around his torso.
Maybe I should have had my gun out while I was running. I could put a bullet into him now and be done with it…
Because that won’t get a website taken down, you idiot. You need him alive … even if only to disprove that he’s not the one who put a hit out on you.
Ormeno charged for an HVAC unit, bending at the waist so that I would take the brunt of the damage. I reluctantly let go. He stopped before he got to the HVAC and spun.
For the first time today, I met Ormeno’s eyes.
They were glowing a bright, fiery red. And this wasn’t “the light caught his eye, and his pupil held a little red flash.” His entire eye socket looked like they were filled with fire. The next thing was for his head to explode and become one giant flaming skull.
He grinned at my slack expression. When he spoke, I could hear not only his voice but the dark echoes of other voices, other forces, each one more dissonant than the other. Each voice spoke in its own dark tongue and its own horrid curses, and each voice was a different type of pain.
“I told you to watch for the warlock,” Ormeno taunted. “You didn’t listen, Tommy. Too late for you. Too late for everyone.” He threw his head back and laughed like a lunatic. “This entire city will burn!”
I reached for my gun. Ormeno reared back and punched into the HVAC system. He twisted back to me, hurling the unit fan like a discus. I drove forward, towards him and under the fan. I came up in his face, driving a right hook into his nose. His head snapped back and recoiled instantly. It was perfectly placed for my left hook, followed by my right backhand. I reversed my left elbow, driving that into his face. I segued that into a left hammer fist into the side of his head. I followed that up with a punch to his throat that should have either crushed his windpipe or send his Adam’s apple into his mouth. Either way, it should have sucked for him.
Ormeno laughed.
I performed a flying knee, driving my knee right into his mid-thorax. I grabbed both sides of his head and screamed, “The power of Christ compels you, you sonuvabitch!”
The fire in his eyes dimmed, and he roared in pain. He grabbed my shirt front and threw me away, nearly across the roof. I slammed into the roof gravel and skidded into the wall at the roof’s edge.
Ormeno fell back, grabbing his head in pain. He gave a feral growl, raised his fingers to his lips, and whistled like he was calling a dog.
Then I heard real growls. Two of them, from two directions.
Wolves. Powerfully built wolves the size of a large draft horse, with ebony fur and burning, fiery red eyes. The roof smoked where their paws touched the gravel, as prints of flame burned through the stone.
Ormeno waved at me with a lunatic smile as he backed up. “Don’t play too rough. Hellhounds can bite.”
Ormeno fell backwards, off of the roof, and I was certain that it wouldn’t be the last I saw of him.
I didn’t wait for the hellhounds to do anything. I made it to one knee, then drew both of my guns—from the hip holster and from my backup at the small of my back. I dual-wielded my weapons, pouring lead into both wolves.
The bullets smacked the wolves at multiple points—head, eye, neck. They staggered back under the impacts, but didn’t fall over. When the slide on both guns locked open, the wolves shook their heads as though they shrugged off water.
They opened their mouths at the same time and roared… only the roar came out as a stream of white-hot flame.
I leaped back, on top of the HVAC unit, then dropped behind it before it became too hot to be near. I dove to my right, making sure to keep moving as I reloaded.
Lucky I did. One of the hellhounds smashed right through the HVAC system like it wasn’t there. Red-hot metal flew everywhere. It roared again, and I dove over the edge of the roof.
Thank God I landed on a fire escape. Considering that the wolves were on fire and I needed to escape, I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate.
The wolf howled in rage. It’s gigantic footprint slammed down onto the roof edge. I scrambled to my feet, bracing for impact.
The wolf’s muzzle came over the edge of the roof, jaws agape and drooling acid that steamed when it landed and burned a hole through whatever it touched.
I thrust my gun forward into its open mouth and emptied the magazine.
The wolf sagged and dropped to the roof, out of my sight. I ejected the magazine and reloaded. Next time, I’m bringing the MP5. No matter what.
I rammed the magazine home and slid the chamber back in time for the next hellhound to smash through the wall around the roof. I fell back as it slashed for my face. Its claws barely grazed me, but even that opened up three huge welts in my left cheek. I slammed on my back against the fire escape landing. As I stabbed my gun at the hound and pulled the trigger, I reached into my right-hand suit jacket for a flask.
The bullets didn’t do much against this hellhound. It kept coming through the hole it made. I kept pushing myself back with my feet, sliding along the escape.
It slowly closed with me. It was either angry enough that it didn’t mind the bullets, or tough enough that bullets didn’t phase it now that it had a taste for them. Either way, it didn’t stop closing.
My back pressed up against the rail for the fire escape. I was out of room. I pulled the flask out and opened it with my thumb.
“Nice doggie,” I said. “Want a drink?”
I splashed the hellhound with holy water.
The hellhound’s fur burned while it fell back. It cried and whimpered at the attack. This time, I stood up, leveled my gun at its eye and fired, emptying the rest of the magazine. It took the right eye from the monster, snapping its head to one side.
It
growled, faced me, and lunged forward. I sidestepped to its blind side, smacking it over the head with my gun. It reared back, claws in the arm, roaring in both rage and pain.
That’s when I delivered a roundhouse kick to one of the back legs touched with holy water. It was a low kick, close in. I drove my shoulder into its side before it crashed to the fire escape.
It instead went right over the side, crashing down to the street. It landed on its back.
I saw the wounded creature struggle to rise again. But it was too late. One of Manhattan’s many construction trucks smashed into it.
I turned, double checking that the other hellhound was truly dead. It was in mid-immolation. If it even had any bones, they had burned away.
Thank God they’re self-cleaning. Otherwise, we’d have a really hard time explaining this.
Chapter 11
Going to Warlock
“So, what the Hell, Tom? Is Ormeno possessed now?” Alex nearly yelled in my ear as we drove away from Spanish Harlem. “Do we have another freaking demon to battle? I don’t want another demon. If we have another demon, I am going the Hell home and holing up with my shotgun.”
I let Alex rant for a while. There was no way we would make a speedy getaway from Spanish Harlem. It was still Manhattan. Bumper to bumper traffic stopped only after midnight. The mayor’s idiotic regulation that made twenty-five the mandatory speed limit for the entire city made it even worse (Supposedly, it’s better to be struck by a car going 25 than 30. Yeah. Sure).
But we made it to Broadway and headed south.
Why south? Why not? It gave us time to plan our next move by driving the length of the island. And since I wasn’t in a rush, I drove in the slow lane and let all the other cars on the road fight each other.
Why Broadway? Because it runs the length of the island. It’s also so crowded that it would take even more time.
I needed that time to think.
I didn’t know the answer to Alex’s questions. Ormeno didn’t exhibit the signs of being possessed. There was no speaking in tongues. There was no telekinesis. There was nothing that added up to the traditional signs of being possessed. No extra voices.