The Dark Storm

by Kris Greene

  “On a student budget, are you kidding? What’s the matter, De Mona?”

  De Mona sniffed the air and frowned. “Which way to the closest subway station?”

  “Just over on Lexington.” He motioned with his head. “De Mona, what’s wrong with you? What’s going on?”

  Without warning De Mona grabbed Gabriel by the arm and yanked him towards her. He was surprised by the suddenness and the force as he flew by De Mona and into a parked car. He’d almost thought she was attacking him until he heard the loud crashing behind him. When he was able to see straight he saw a man dressed in an off-the-rack brown suit that had its back cut out, like the corpses they dressed in funeral homes. The creature turned its dead eyes to Gabriel and hissed, showing broken and jagged yellow teeth. Gabriel started to bolt, but he was cut off by another man.

  The man was handsome. Not movie-star handsome, more like an easy-on-the-eyes pro athlete. He had a thin, angular face with Asian eyes and skin the color of soft moonlight. His stringy hair, that was so black that it could’ve passed for blue in the right light, hung freely around his broad shoulders. A black motorcycle jacket hugged his frame like armor, bearing patches from different wars. In ancient times he was the warlord of the death god Thanos, but now he served Belthon.

  “Knight!” he roared. “I am called Riel, Shepherd of the Dead and King Maker. By the will of my lord Belthon, I have come to claim your weapon and your head!” he shouted, and waved the blade in a low arc, leaving an eerie trail of greenish smoke. Under the streetlight Gabriel could see the scorch mark that ran up the blade’s crease and fanned out to cover the point. It was called Poison, the burning death, and a strike from it would cause just that.

  “I’ve already sent one of you boys home packing this week, hell spawn; don’t make yourself number two,” De Mona warned.

  “You shouldn’t throw stones, little girl,” Riel laughed. He turned and addressed the walking corpses: “The hunt has been called and the prize is flesh!” Riel pointed Poison at De Mona.

  “Flesh!” the Stalker in the brown suit snarled before slamming its shoulder into Gabriel, sending him crashing over the hood of the car. He hit the ground, shattering his glasses and feeling like he’d cracked a rib, but it was nothing compared to what the advancing Stalker was going to do when it reached him. The Stalker had just about closed the distance when something grabbed the back of its tattered suit jacket. It turned to see a pair of moonlit eyes staring at him from the face of the girl. With Gabriel being out of sight she could take the gloves off, and that meant trouble for the Stalker.

  When Gabriel hit the ground the fork slid down the street and lodged itself under a car’s wheel. The dazed boy managed to stagger to his feet and move his gut out of the way as Riel tried to splay him. The demon came around in an arc, trying to split Gabriel in two with his cursed blade, but the former acrobat was able to bounce out of the way. When the blade hit the concrete it left a scorch mark.

  Gabriel shuffled his feet once and hit Riel in the jaw with an awkward right cross. Riel smiled the blow off and retuned the favor with a blow to the chest. Gabriel hit the ground and bounced twice before landing in the middle of the street. Before he could even shake the cobwebs, Riel was lifting Gabriel by the front of his shirt.

  “What cowardice.” Riel shook the frightened young man as if he were an unruly child. “One of God’s chosen shakes in the face of evil.” He pulled Gabriel close enough so that he could smell the sickly stench of the grave on Riel’s breath. “Where is your God now?”

  In response Gabriel grunted and slammed both of his legs into Riel’s chest and rolled backward into a crouch. Riel swung the blade, but Gabriel was quicker and managed to scramble under a car.

  “Come out, Knight. I promised to make your death painless,” Riel taunted.

  Gabriel lay under the car shaking like a leaf. He had come across some unexplainable things in his studies of the forgotten and unknown, but nothing compared to what he was witnessing in the flesh. He shut his eyes as he saw Riel’s fingers grip the edge of the car’s fender and begin to lift. Slowly the automobile began to come off the ground, and Gabriel knew he would soon be exposed. “Somebody please help me,” he whimpered, covering his head with his hands.

  “Release me.”

  Gabriel almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the voice. It sounded like the speaker was whispering in his ear, but there was no one else under the car.

  “Release me and know my name,” the voice went on.

  Gabriel looked near the front wheel and saw the fork peeking out of its wrapping. As if of its own accord, his hand shot out and grabbed it. This time it was hot to his skin, almost to the point of burning. A wave of energy went from the fork up through his arm and settled around his heart like a warming calm. Holding the fork by its broken shaft, he rolled out from under the other side of the car. If the thing intended to kill him, then Gabriel would die on his feet.

  “So, you’ve decided to fight?” Riel smiled. “Good.” Bounding over the car, he charged Gabriel.

  Gabriel stood with his head half-bowed, waiting for the death blow that the demon would surely deliver. Overhead there was a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance, but the meteorologist had predicted clear skies that night. Lightning whipped from the ground, running up through the fork and dispersing into the sky. The dull fork began to glow softly, radiating power through Gabriel’s body. The power soon pulsed so brightly that Riel had to back away, but the light didn’t harm Gabriel. He looked curiously yet knowingly at the fork as it began to change. The shaft extended until it was twice the length of a man’s arm, with runes appearing along its side. The two points straightened, passing lightning messages between each other, occasionally consulting the shaft. The broken fork was now a glowing rod of tremendous power.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  De Mona danced around like a pro boxer, landing quick punches on the thing’s exposed chin. Her fist landed with the force of small jackhammers, breaking its jaw and eye socket, but the thing kept coming. The brown-suited Stalker charged her awkwardly, slashing its claws at her midsection. She managed to avoid one clawed hand, but the other tore the front of her shirt.

  “You gotta do better than that,” she said just before delivering a roundhouse kick to the thing’s head, cracking its skull. The Stalker backpedaled but was back on her before she had a chance to catch her breath. The creature raked a hand across her face, causing De Mona to reflexively reach up to protect her eyes, leaving her stomach exposed. With inhuman strength it drove its talons into her gut, tearing through the shirt, but when it made contact with her stone-like skin the bones in the borrowed fingers snapped. The air around De Mona wavered and her body seemed to bulk up beneath the tight black shirt. The full light of the moon shone in her eyes as she let her gaze roll over the thing in the brown suit. Her control had slipped.

  De Mona let out a sound that couldn’t be produced by anything human. The Stalker swung its good arm around and raked its nails across De Mona’s face, but they couldn’t even break the skin. Drawing on all its might, it slammed a fist into De Mona’s gut, breaking every bone in the already-damaged hand. Just before she plunged her index and middle fingers into its eyes, spearing its brain, the monster got a glimpse of the face beneath the mask and it shuddered.

  Tossing the already-decomposing corpse to the side, De Mona looked for Gabriel, intending to rescue him from the thing that called himself Riel. What she saw froze her. The fork had changed into its true form in the hands of young Redfeather. Though he claimed to be ignorant concerning the artifact, the thing answered to his every whim as he matched Riel strike for strike. The way Gabriel moved, you’d have thought he and the relic were old friends. She still intended saving his ass, but when the battle was done he would tell her what she needed to know about the fork whether he wanted to or not.

  Before she could move to help, another Stalker seemed to appear out of thin air and slammed into the distracted girl. This one must
’ve been a pro wrestler in life, because it was built like a tank with tree stumps for limbs. At the same time the creature made its second lunge, De Mona threw herself out of the way. Pain shot from her scalp and spread throughout her face as the Stalker grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked. Instead of trying to pull away, she spun towards the creature like a tiny cyclone, ripping away chunks of flesh each time her clawed hands struck the creature. The flesh just over the corpse’s ribs and heart sizzled as the poison from her nails killed the flesh. The creature howled and loosened its grip enough for her to slip out of its reach.

  De Mona snapped her hands at the wrists, flicking the Stalker’s bodily fluids and the excess poison to the ground. She raked her nails across one another, causing a faint spark, and glared at the Stalker. “Come get it.”

  “You’ll need more than a light show to save you, Knight,” Riel said, circling Gabriel while trying to shield his eyes from the trident’s glare. “But it’s good to see that you do have at least a little fight in you.” He tossed his blade from one hand to the other. “Let’s have at it then.”

  Riel moved with inhuman speed as he charged Gabriel, Poison swinging in a high arc, only to meet the head of the trident instead of Gabriel’s throat. When the two ancient weapons collided they sent a ripple of power out like a stone hitting a still pond. Riel tried to force Poison into Gabriel’s neck, but the man’s strength rivaled that of the demon. Gabriel’s brown eyes seemed to melt in on themselves, leaving behind two silver pools. Within these pools identical storm clouds rolled over a barren hill, lightning flashing in their wake.

  “This cannot be,” Riel hissed, with fear edging into his voice.

  Gabriel smiled triumphantly at Riel. “Ah, but it is, lapdog of the dark lord. The storm master has returned.” With the force of his will Gabriel pushed outward, flinging Riel backward. “And my rain shall cleanse the earth!”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay dirty for a while,” Riel said smugly, staggering to his feet. When inhabiting a host’s body he also adapted some of the demon’s resilience but could still be broken. The host’s ribs had been cracked, but the body was still functional. “Lord Titus will have your heart for this, dog!”

  Gabriel cocked his head as if he’d heard something in the distance. His face suddenly twisted and the thunder became louder. “You serve the betrayer? The whore of Belthon was supposed to be as a god, but instead he commands an army of half demons and walking corpses,” Gabriel chuckled in the voice that wasn’t quite his; lightning webbed his lips when he spoke. “I think his death shall be sweetest. But first, back to hell with you.” Gabriel pointed the trident for emphasis.

  Riel took a defensive stance. “Surely I’ll be sitting with my master soon enough, but not this night,” Raising his Poison in the air, he shouted, “Attend me!”

  The air whistled behind Gabriel and he moved barely a second before another Stalker shot out from behind him. Gabriel grabbed the thing by its decomposing neck and held the head of the trident near its face. The Stalker cringed as the skin on its cheek began to smoke.

  “Behold what the mighty armies of hell have been reduced to.” Gabriel tossed the Stalker roughly to the ground. “Borrowed flesh!” Gabriel howled as he raised the trident high above his head and plunged it into the Stalker’s heart. White light began to pour from its eyes, mouth, and ruined ears. For a brief moment Gabriel could see what the host had looked like before becoming a victim of Belthon’s evil. The portly man even seemed to be smiling as his spirit rose from his body in a wisp of smoke. His soul was finally free, and all that was left of his body was the clothes he had been buried in and a pile of charred flesh. Gabriel turned his attention back to Riel, but the demon was gone.

  De Mona seemed to be holding her own against the wrestler, but the hulking corpse was wearing her down. She threw a wild punch at the thing, which grabbed her and slung her onto a car, breaking the windshield. De Mona tried to recover, but the hulk had her by the neck and was lifting her off the car. She hit it with a series of lefts and rights, but it didn’t seem to want to let go.

  Gabriel raised the trident over his head and began twirling it like a baton. With every pass the wind picked up until he found himself standing in the center of a small storm. Lightning rolled up his legs and passed through his arms, like veins transporting blood. With all his might he hurled the trident at the creature. The creature shrieked as the trident buried itself in the hulk’s back and released its soul.

  Gabriel stood over De Mona with a strange look in his eye. The storm was gone, but he was changed somehow, almost as if he had aged since they’d met in the library. Reaching down with his free hand, he helped De Mona to her feet. Her skin felt a little rough, but otherwise she had returned to normal.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “My throat is sore as hell, but I think I’ll live.” She massaged it for emphasis. “Neat trick.” She motioned towards the trident.

  “I didn’t do it. One minute I’m about to get my head chopped off, and the next I’m all fuzzy. I knew I was fighting, but it was like I was moving off instinct rather than courage. This won that battle.” He tapped the shaft twice on the ground as if he was trying to test its authenticity. The shaft vibrated and began to shrink. Within seconds it was the head of a fork again but had retained its luster. “Unreal.” Gabriel shook his head.

  “I got the feeling you ain’t telling me everything, Redfeather,” De Mona accused.

  “I could say the same. I don’t see a weapon on you, yet the thing that jumped you is dead.” He nodded towards the rotted corpse.

  She shrugged. “I got lucky.”

  Gabriel clearly didn’t believe her, but he didn’t press it. “You and me are definitely gonna do some talking, but not here and not now. With all the noise we made, the police are surely gonna come, and I really don’t think they’ll believe us about how these bodies got here.”

  De Mona looked around at the damage they’d caused. “Okay, you got that one. Where to?”

  “Harlem, to see my grandfather,” Gabriel told her, stuffing the fork down the back of his pants.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The first patrol car had barely been at the scene for five minutes when it was joined by a midnight blue Dodge Viper. The officers hadn’t had a chance to call the crime in yet, so they knew it couldn’t have been one of theirs. The senior officer on the scene went to tell the driver to move along, but the door swung open before he had a chance.

  The man who emerged from the vehicle was tall, with an athletic build. A subtle wind played with the hem of his leather jacket, exposing the two Colts holstered under each arm. If you looked closely you could see the runes carved into the barrel and grip of the one on his left. His face was a smooth chocolate color, with an angular chin and a wide nose that he had inherited from his Guyanese mother. Though there was no sun, he wore heavily tinted shades over his eyes. Neatly twisted locks were pulled into a tight ponytail, which hung down his back. A lit cigarette dangled from his full lips, sending flecks of ash floating on the breeze. He was quite handsome, yet most people tended to forget his face right after seeing it, which was how he preferred things. Secrecy was his edge. Flicking his cigarette away, he approached the crime scene.

  “Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to get back in your vehicle and move along. This is a police matter.” A chubby cop with a beet-red face blocked his path.

  “It’s cool, man. I’m with the department.” Rogue flashed his identification.

  The chubby officer squinted to read the name beneath the blurred picture. “ ‘Jonathan Rogue,’ ” he read aloud. “I’ve heard of you. You aren’t a cop; you’re some kind of bounty hunter or something.”

  Rogue grinned. “Or something, that’s cute.”

  Rogue’s name was notorious amongst law enforcement in New York. He had once been a third-generation cop, who had a promising future with the Dade County narcotics division down in Florida until his temper got him suspended. A
little girl had overdosed on heroin in one of Carol City’s housing projects. Rogue’s own sister had overdosed years earlier, so he took the girl’s death personally and took the law into his own hands. He hadn’t intended killing the dealer, but things got out of hand and Rogue found himself sitting in front of the Internal Affairs review board. Because of his family’s deep connections in the department, the death was ruled a justifiable homicide, so Rogue was able to avoid jail time, but because of his history of being especially brutal on dealers he was kicked off the force.

  The fact that Rogue had been a good cop earned him the respect of criminals and law enforcement, but it was his gift for spell casting that made him the scourge of the supernatural world. In addition to being a third-generation cop, Rogue was also a seventh-generation mage. The mages were spell casters, but not like witches or sorcerers. The difference was something like that between a pancake and a crepe, the same but different. Though hardly as gifted in the blood as sorcerers, mages made up in knowledge what they lacked in natural ability, dissecting and reconstructing age-old magics to suit their own dark purposes. The mages represented another spectrum of the magical wheel where light and dark were irrelevant and only power was absolute.

  Like the witches, the mages also had covens of sorts called houses. Rogue’s family represented the house of Thanos, the death cult. Thanos was one of two remaining mage houses in the modern world. The followers of the fallen god were said to be masters of death magic and traffickers of the dark. Some even whispered that their powers derived from the spirits they held prisoners in their black towers.

  However, Rogue and his family didn’t adhere to the general practices of their lineage. Since Rogue was a little boy his father had always taught his family that their gifts should only be used to help humanity and uphold the law. A sound philosophy until you learn that the line between law and lawlessness has become so blurred that doing the right thing feels wrong. Still, law and order was in Rogue’s veins and the situation demanded his attention.