Devil Inside
A Quincy Harker. Demon Hunter Novella
John G. Hartness
Contents
Quest for Glory
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
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Falstaff Books
About the Author
Also by John G. Hartness
Quest for Glory
The Story So Far
In The Cambion Cycle, Quincy Harker and The Shadow Council defeated the demon threatening to blow up most of downtown Atlanta and open an expressway between Heaven and Hell right through the mortal plane. In the final fight, Glory’s wings were severed, and she was transformed into a human.
Ringing bells have nothing to do with angels getting their wings—only God can grant or restore an angel’s divinity. The only problem is—God’s AWOL. Has been since the seventh day. Seems like He took that “on the seventh day He rested” to mean more like “on the seventh day He took a powder.”
The Archangels have the ability to find God and possibly convince Him to return to His throne. The new problem is—they flew the coop the same time God did and have been on permanent vacation since the dawn of time. Thus begins the Quest for Glory.
In Calling All Angels, Joanna Harrison, fighting under the name Jo Henry to honor her legendary steel-driving great-grandfather, found the Archangel Michael by using his sword to track him down. She deposited Michael with Harker for safekeeping and returned to what passes for a normal life for her.
Now it’s Harker’s turn to take up the hunt.
1
I called up “Amazing Grace” on my phone, pushed play, and set the sleek black plastic rectangle on a nearby headstone. I stepped to the head of the slightly bulging patch of ground, the sod still trying to take root even after a couple of weeks, and I started to speak.
“Sylvester Thomas Efor, IV. That was his name. That was the name he abandoned when he joined our family. It’s part ritual, part homage, and part convenience that makes the name Renfield into as much a title as a moniker. It’s a throwback, to be sure. It hearkens back to a time when things were less complicated, a time when it was easier to walk the night unseen, but still a time when some things had to be done in the light of day.
“When a man takes on the mantle of Renfield, we know we will outlive him. We’ve certainly done it before, more times than we care to dwell on. We know that our connections with the living and with the unenhanced are, by their very nature, fleeting. That doesn’t stop us from making those connections, from expanding our family, from caring.
“Ren was one of us. He was family, caregiver, guardian, partner, and brewer of lovely teas. He was brave; he was funny; he was stalwart; he was loyal. It was that loyalty that led him to save my life on more than one occasion, and it was that loyalty that cost him his life in the end.
“We have avenged Renfield, but that doesn’t mitigate our loss. We have balanced the scales, but that doesn’t fill the hole in our hearts. We have seen the debt paid, but we still miss our friend.
“Sylvester Thomas Efor the fourth, Renfield, we will miss you. May God bless you and keep you close to His bosom, and may you find rest and all the peace you deserve.”
I took a flask from my inside jacket pocket and twisted the top off. I poured the clear liquid in a continuous path around the grave, making an unbroken line around the perimeter of Ren’s resting place.
“Pater noster,
qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo.
Amen.”
With a tiny flash of brilliant white light, I poured my will into the blessing, offering protection for Ren’s remains and hopefully securing his soul from being dragged out of Heaven and used against us. The grave was empty, just a coffin with a light sprinkling of his ashes within, but even those tenuous bonds can sometimes be enough to conjure a shade. The blessing would hopefully keep that from happening and ensure my friend remained in the paradise he deserved.
“Amen,” Rebecca, Glory, and Adam said in unison. Luke didn’t say anything, just stood off to one side watching the ceremony.
I knelt on the ground and whispered, “Goodbye, old friend. May you find peace and comfort.”
I walked over to where the others stood, heads bowed and voices muffled.
“Don’t forget your phone,” Detective Rebecca Gayle Flynn reminded me. I nodded my thanks and retrieved it from the headstone, ending the song and slipping the cell into the pocket of my jeans. We certainly weren’t the most formal grouping to ever host a funeral, but when you’re burying people by moonlight, the dress code gets a little more flexible.
Adam extended his hand as I walked up again. “That was well-spoken, Quincy. If I could die, I would ask that you perform my funeral.”
“Well, old buddy, if we ever find anything that can kill you, it’ll probably take me out, too, so I think I’m off the hook,” I replied.
A grin split his scarred visage and he said, “That’s probably true, Harker. That’s probably true. Now I must take my leave. There are things I need to see to before I begin my hunt, and none of them are in North Carolina. We will speak soon.” The giant man nodded to the women, patted me on the shoulder, and walked over to where Luke stood alone.
“That is a very odd individual,” Flynn said.
“Becks, you don’t even know the half of it,” I agreed.
“I’m good with that,” she continued. She looked at the grave and sighed. “What’s Luke going to do?”
“Hire a new Renfield, I suppose. This isn’t the first time we’ve had one die suddenly or depart unexpectedly. Luke keeps a file of qualified replacements around, and it’s usually at least marginally current.”
“I hope so,” Glory said. “I’m not looking forward to having to wash Dracula’s socks.” She grinned when she said it, but I knew that living in the mundane world without her divine powers was really worrying her.
“It’s okay, G,” I said, trying to be encouraging. “We’ll get your wings back. I mean, come on, we just stopped a demon attack in Atlanta and kept the world from coming to an end. How hard could this shit be?”
“How hard could it be to track down the most powerful of the Heavenly Host, awaken them from their Earth-induced slumber, and convince them to find God Himself and put Him back on The Golden Throne? Nah, we should have this taken care of by lunch, no problem. Then this afternoon, we’re going to fix global warming and make David Letterman funny again.”
“I don’t think we need to be asking for miracles, Glory. Letterman hasn’t been funny in a looooong time,” I said.
“You know what I mean.” She folded her arms across her chest and scowled at me.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. But come on, Glory. We do the difficult in no time flat. Impossible takes a little longer.”
<
br /> “Harker, you sound like a Hallmark card.”
“I was going for motivational. I saw it on a poster in the CMPD the last time I was arrested.”
“Leave the motivational stuff to the ministers. You’re built more for the magical killing.”
I couldn’t argue with her. I try to make it a point not to get into debates with celestial beings, even the ones who have lost their wings. I walked over to Luke, who stood alone after his brief farewell with Adam.
“Quincy,” he said without turning around. That kind of thing unnerves normal people, but I’ve never been accused of normalcy.
“Luke,” I said, walking around in front of him and sitting on a headstone. Irreverent, I know, but I’ve met a lot of dead people, and none of them have ever expressed outrage at the habit. Some of them have tried to kill me, but that’s always unrelated to my nonchalance toward monuments.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Plan? I don’t have a plan, Quincy. I don’t have a home, I don’t have a manservant, and I most certainly do not have a plan.”
“Well, it’s not like there’s a shortage of things to do. We have a bunch of angels to find, and we need to get you a new place to live, for starters—”
“Are you kicking me out, Quincy?”
I spluttered for a few seconds before I looked at his face, startled into silence at the wry smile there. Even after all these years, I sometimes forget that Luke has a sense of humor. A very, very dry sense of humor. He got me. Again.
“No, just saying that you snore,” I said, then turned and walked off. It’s really the only way to get the last word in when you’re in a battle of wits with someone who’s outlived you by centuries. He really has heard it all by this point.
I walked back to my car with a chuckling vampire in tow and slid into the passenger seat. “Nice of them to let you keep your motor pool privileges. I didn’t think crossing guards got unmarked cars,” I said to Flynn as Luke got in the back seat beside Glory, muttering something about “shotgun.” I ignored him.
“They didn’t actually bust me down to crossing guard,” Becks said. “It turns out that a good word from the Director of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office goes a long way with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department. I didn’t even get docked vacation days; they just chalked it up to my being on interagency assignment to Homeland Security.”
“Pretty sure those days are over,” I said as Flynn put the car in gear and pulled us out of the cemetery.
“Oh yeah,” she agreed. “The Charlotte office of Homeland is completely shut down, and the few agents who survived the encounter with you at Luke’s house and were found to be free of Smith’s influence were reassigned.”
“What about the ones who weren’t free of Smith’s, how did you say, influence?” Luke asked from the back seat. He had a special loathing in his heart for the deceased Agent Smith, since he was the one who killed Renfield and blew up Luke’s house. I shot Smith in the face, but not before he’d done plenty of damage.
“Anyone the agency even thought had close ties to Smith was sent to a secure facility for interrogation and examination,” Becks said.
“What aren’t you saying?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her innocent mien fooling no one.
“You remember that I can literally hear you thinking, right?” I asked. “You’d be better off trying to lie to your mother about what you did after your senior prom.”
“And I can not only hear your heart speed up when you lie, I can smell the stink of deception on you,” Luke said, slipping into full-on Dracula creepy mode.
“That’s a load of crap,” Flynn said. She turned to me for a second. “Not you, him. I know you can hear me thinking, but I thought we could still mask specifics?”
“Is that why all I get is Kelly Clarkson lyrics? We really need to introduce you to Motorhead. You’re right, he can’t literally smell a lie. He can just smell the tiny bit of sweat that something like ninety-five percent of people emit when they tell a lie. Which is basically the same thing.”
“Exactly,” Luke said, leaning back in the seat. “Speaking of smells…”
“Don’t say it,” Flynn said. “You are in a cop car, after all. The motor pool tries, but some things don’t ever really come out of upholstery.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I said. “Where are the corrupt Homeland agents?”
“I honestly don’t know. They were sent somewhere, but I have no idea where. I just know the last thing I heard when I was leaving the building after turning in my badge was somebody talking about putting them on a plane south.”
“You think they got sent to Gitmo?” I asked.
“There’s also a place down in the swamps somewhere near the Gulf. I don’t know if it’s in Florida or Louisiana, but apparently, the government has some kind of facility down there with some pretty enhanced interrogation facilities.”
“Oh, you mean Fort Pontchartrain?” Luke asked.
I spun around in my seat. “You know about this place?”
“Of course. It’s where the United States houses any paranormal creatures it feels the need to contain and study. It’s part laboratory, part prison, all ungodly. I quite like the ambiance, personally.”
“Yeah, we know your decorating tends toward eighteenth-century European creepy,” I said. “So you think that’s where they would send these Homeland agents?”
“Almost certainly,” Luke said. “But why do you care? I thought you had angels to find.”
“He does,” said Glory, turning in from the window. “He has a lot of angels to find.”
“Yeah, I’d just feel more comfortable if the government had found a more…permanent solution to the corrupted agents. You never know when one will turn out to be possessed.”
“Oh, they will certainly discover that at Fort Pontchartrain,” Luke said. “The fort has a full complement of wizards and priests. I have used their services several times over the years. They are very competent at handling possession.”
“So my vampire uncle is tight with the wizards at the government’s secret supernatural prison buried deep in the swamps of Louisiana. This somehow surprises me not at all,” I muttered and turned to bang my head against the passenger window. Flynn didn’t comment, just drove us home with a little smile on her face.
2
The next morning saw me standing in baggage claim C at Charlotte Douglas International Airport at a ridiculous hour of the morning, holding a cardboard sign that had “Mitch” written on it in my barely legible scrawl. I watched another stream of passengers ride the escalator down from the concourse, and my eyes widened as an absolute monster of a human being walked up to me.
“I’m Mitch. You Harker?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Shit, Jo didn’t tell me she was shipping Andre the friggin’ Giant to me. Have you had breakfast? You know, did you eat a stewardess or anything?”
The big man laughed. “You think I’m big, you should see the guy we fought a couple nights ago. Last night? Shit, I dunno. The redeye always makes me all fucked up on my days. Sorry, is my language gonna be a problem? I kinda swear a lot.”
I looked up at him, not really believing that somebody just apologized to me for swearing, then I remembered where he’d just come from. “Nah, it’s fine. Jo’s the only one who objects to a little spicy language, and I think that’s mostly for her kid’s benefit.”
“And her mom,” Mitch added.
“Oh yeah, you do not want to piss off Cassandra. She will fuck your shit right up. You got any luggage?” I looked at the duffel he carried, which didn’t look like it held a lot in the way of clothes.
“Nah, I’ve got a couple things in here, but I travel pretty light.”
“Is the…” I looked around the baggage claim, but everybody looked pretty mundane. I quickly opened my Sight to the supernatural world and saw nothing other than one security guard with a minor protection spell glowing around his neck. P
robably a saint’s medal or something like that.
“Is the sword in the bag?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s what takes up most of the space. Doesn’t exactly fit in just anything, you know? How did you get them to let me go through without security finding it?” the giant asked. It wasn’t that he was all that tall. He was about my height, which put him several inches over six foot. And it wasn’t just that he was big. I mean, Adam was bigger, sure, but this dude was built like a damn brick wall. His hands looked like he broke rocks with his fists, and his shoulders and arms stretched against the fabric of the black fleece jacket he wore. Blond hair and a square jaw sat on a neck like a tree trunk, and he generally looked like somebody saw the Captain America movie and said, “I can do that. Just a little better.”
“I know a few people, and the Director of Homeland Security owes me a couple of favors.” Government agencies are big on promising favors and less big on paying them back, but when an entire division of the agency turns out to be working for a demon, killing that demon gives you a lot of leverage. Getting a sword through airport security wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t mention that the sword was magical and the guy carrying it was an Archangel. The government has plenty of ways to gather information. They don’t need me telling them every little thing.
“Well, if you don’t need to piss, and you don’t have any bags, let’s get out of here. I’m parked illegally.” I turned and walked toward the sliding doors, stepping outside into the melee of airport parking and passenger pickup just as a cop was motioning a tow truck over to my Honda.
“That’s me, officer,” I called out, holding up my badge wallet. Just because Flynn did the ethical thing and turned in her Homeland Security credentials didn’t mean I had to. I didn’t let the fact that impersonating a Homeland Security official was a federal offense bother me.
“Goddammit, Harker, get this thing out of here,” the cop yelled at me. I recognized him as Smith, or Jones, or some other generic-named cop I’d seen around police headquarters once or twice.
Devil Inside: A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Urban Fantasy Novella Page 1