Hard Case (Quentin Case Book 1)

by John Hook

  Rox came up behind me. "Thanks for the cover. I'm going to stick close to you if you don't mind." Her clothes were torn and blood was still running from cuts in her head, but they were superficial. Her eyes glowed black and deep. I could sense the danger and that I was incredibly attracted to that face, the one with those eyes. She ran her tongue over her lips, catching some blood and winked at me.

  I reluctantly returned my attention to Janovic. "I'm not coming up there. You want to have a fight, come on down here. We can probably uselessly smack the heck out of each other. Probably it will get a lot out of both of our systems. The end will be the same. I'm taking Rox and walking out of your little mind theater here.”

  “You can never leave here. I have created this place for you. We may have to struggle for eternity, but you cannot leave this place for I am its creator, not you." He was raving, but something in his words suddenly struck me. "I will find a way to take your power and make it mine."

  It was a hunch. It was because he was so obsessed with me. He was right: So long as he controlled this world I was his prisoner. The power had, for now, equalized us. I didn't think fighting it out was my key, even though it might be his. I had to find the key to take away his power over this world. What I hoped was that, in his obsession, he had given it to me.

  I took Rox's hand and fled the boiler room, heading back down the long passageway to return to the entrance hallway. Rox started to speak, but just fell in behind me, willing to see what I had in mind. Just before we made it to the stairs, I could see the purple glow at the end of the passage.

  "Where are you going, Case? There is nowhere to run. You are trapped here with me."

  He had no idea what I was doing.

  "Go ahead, Case. I'm in no hurry. You will see. There is nothing you can do."

  "Do you have a plan or are we just making this up as we go along?" Rox finally asked as we climbed to the entrance hallway.

  "Do I ever have a plan?"

  "Good. I was worried you knew what you were doing."

  We emerged from behind the mailboxes. Rox had clearly expected to exit the apartment building but instead we headed up four flights of stairs. Janovic had created everything that was important to him in exquisite detail. That is why there weren't other people. He didn't care about them except as playthings for torture. This building was very important. Every detail of the stairwell and landings was correct, but darker, more sinister.

  We reached the landing at the top. I walked the landing and stood in front of the door to my apartment. I saw the purple glow from the stairs that indicated Janovic was coming up. He was still moving slowly, supremely confident in his control over his world.

  "Now what?” Rox’s sly smile didn't manage to completely hide a twinge of nervousness in her voice.

  "Have I ever shown you my apartment?"

  "I hope it has a fire escape," she said, looking back.

  I opened the door and ushered Rox in, then closed the door and threw the deadbolt.

  "With luck, we won't need one.” I was sounding a lot more confident than I felt. This was still his world and he could control the physics. The deadbolt wouldn't hold him back long. In fact, if it kept him out at all it would only be because he was indulging me to see if he could get what he wanted.

  It was comforting to see the first part of my hunch was right. The room and my furnishings were rendered in absolute detail: shelves, books and knickknacks. In the middle of the room was my desk, my chair and, in the center of the table were my typewriter and a stack of paper. It was a perfect reproduction, right down to a pesky cracked key on the keyboard.

  The door made a dull thud as Janovic tried to come in. He pounded.

  "Case, you can't keep me out!"

  "Apparently not. How much time did you spend in my apartment when I was out?"

  "Sometimes when you were asleep, Case."

  I shuddered. He knew everything about me. Maybe he even knew I would come down to the basement if he shut off the heat and left the basement stairs open.

  I sat at my desk, took a piece of paper and put it in the typewriter.

  "You are going to write?” Rox cocked her head slightly, puzzled but interested in what I was up to.

  "I told you, I'm not sure what I am doing, but this typewriter is my best shot. It is a symbol that means something to both Janovic and to me. Guido indicated the power locked in the platform might be a magical weapon and I had to figure how to use it. I think the focus for that power needs to be this symbol which is a bridge between me and Janovic.”

  I began to type:

  The world was all of Janovic, the ultimate glamour, all focused from one being. There was the city and the apartment building and at the center was Janovic.

  The typewriter and the table began glowing purple and glowing brightly despite the fact that I was focusing my blue energy into the typewriter.

  "That doesn't look good." Rox commented.

  I kept typing. As was usual with my writing I knew where I had to start out, but wasn't sure where I needed go and just hoped it would come to me as I wrote.

  Every atom and fiber of this world was Janovic, the landlord of all he surveyed. He controlled everything unchallenged. This was his world. He had made it.

  The entire room, even the walls, were now glowing purple and tongues of white energy were licking at the edges.

  "Quentin?" Rox's voice was edgy, but otherwise she looked calm.

  The door broke open and Janovic stood in the doorway. "Case, I don't know what you are doing, but I feel stronger. If you have come to your senses, give me your power now.”

  I ignored both him and Rox and channeled all my focus into the typewriter. My mind was a blank, but I didn't panic. I let my energy flow to my fingers and I typed four words. Suddenly blue light burst from around the typewriter and spread out in all directions, filling the room. It flowed out the door and engulfed the landing.

  "Case, what have you done?"

  I stood and turned to Janovic. "It's my world now."

  Janovic wasn't listening to my words. For the first time I saw an expression on his face akin to fear. He sensed he no longer had any real power, over others or his world. Without a word, he bolted across the landing and down the stairs. He was headed for the only place that was truly his place of power. He was going to the boiler room.

  "Not bad." Rox winked.

  "I still have to finish this off."

  "Do you know how?"

  "Not really."

  "Then you are still making this up as you go."

  "Yup."

  "Seems to have worked so far."

  “Do you know how you did what you just did?”

  “Sort of. It was a hunch.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.” Rox rolled her eyes playfully. Despite the playfulness, we knew the situation was still serious. As I left the apartment, I noticed Rox looking at the paper in the typewriter. Then she followed me out as we ran down the stairs to the entryway. I skidded to a stop, Rox close behind me.

  I had no idea what to make of the scene before me, but it certainly wasn't anything I was expecting. Janovic had fallen to his knees. Above him towered what appeared to be an angel. She was elevated a couple of feet off the floor. She wore layers of something woven from light. Her skin was almost rose colored and her hair was like spun gold, the eyes a starling, crystalline blue. The angel-like figure turned those eyes on us.

  "Rox, is that what I think it is."

  "I don't know. I've never seen anything like her before."

  Angels in Hell? I didn't know, but I knew I didn't feel comforted by her looking at us. And I didn't feel safe. This was something new, something unpredictable. Janovic turned his head back in our direction. At first there was pleading mixed with fear, but it quickly turned to fury.

  "Case!” Janovic turned back to the creature. “Let me destroy him, I can still do it!"

  There were rumbles throughout the building and debris began to drop down from above a
s what I had done was beginning to unravel this world. Everything except Janovic and the angel-like entity had a blue glow. Janovic rose. The angel returned her gaze to Janovic and in a single motion that was faster than I could follow had torn Janovic down the center, casting off his lifeless, twisted, bloodied remains like scrap. Blood filled the hallway, but none of it had touched the glowing creature who now held a glowing ball of purple energy.

  The roof was collapsing. I pulled Rox out of the building and out onto 14th Street. I looked back. The angel floated out and her eyes locked with mine. I knew this was no angel. I felt some deep biological terror from those eyes, something ancient from the base of the hindbrain, basic animal fear. However, I immediately sensed another presence next to us. I had no idea where he came from, but it was hard to miss Guido. He said nothing and made no sound. The angel's eyes shifted from me and I instantly felt relief. Guido and the angel regarded each other silently for what felt like a very long time. He finally made a single shake side to side with his head. The angel faded away and was gone.

  Guido looked at me and smiled. "Hard casssse.” He looked at Rox and turned back to me. "Return to the cafe. I will keep this world from collapsing.” With that, he was gone.

  Rox was weak. I took her arm and held her up. She smiled wanly. She took a piece of paper out from where she had stashed it and handed it to me.

  "Really? This is what did it?"

  I looked at the paper. It was what I wrote upstairs, including the last four words. I really hadn't known what I had written, only the intent I had projected into the typewriter with my power. I had started with a description of what the world had been to turn Janovic's world into a narrative. I needed a narrative hook that would change the direction of everything. I hadn't quite appreciated how easy it is to change the direction of a narrative before. The last four words were: "And then everything changed..."

  "A little hackneyed. Not quite as much as ‘And then some idiot turned out the lights...’"

  "I think I'm probably glad you didn't use that one."

  “Everyone’s a critic.”

  I had to help Rox walk. Apparently there had been more damage than it looked when Janovic had slammed her into those pipes. Nonetheless, we walked back out the way I had come, made our way uneventfully to just above Herald Square and found the entrance to the dark little jazz bar.

  24.

  We walked into the bar. Guido was sitting in his usual spot. Saripha, who had been sitting next to him, hurried over and helped me ease Rox down into a booth. Saripha had a bag on her shoulder. She laid it down on the table, opened it, and took out some poultices for Rox's wounds.

  "Your training worked,” Rox mumbled as she let the healing set it.

  "I had a good student."

  "I hated Janovic. I felt violated by his control."

  I interjected. "You knew that the real Rox was buried under Katrina and that Janovic controlled her?"

  Saripha looked at me a moment and then back to her work. "Actually, I didn't know anything for sure, but I sensed it and acted on it, training Katrina/ Rox in such a way that if Rox ever fully emerged, she would know how to take control.”

  Saripha finished her work and stood. She turned to me and, smiling, put her arms around me and held me. "I'm glad you are back and safe, Quentin."

  "Me too. I could have done without the rusty meat hook. They have tetanus shots in Hell?"

  I turned to Guido. He met my gaze. He said nothing, but I sensed amusement in his eyes. "I see you kept your word about Saripha.” He said nothing.

  "He's not really talkative, but that's just his way."

  "His way? He kidnapped you. You talk about him like he's an eccentric uncle."

  "Actually, he did it to protect me. Janovic was learning to probe outside his crucible. He had sensed me in the original battle at Rockvale. He was preparing to draw me into the crucible. We are lucky, actually. Had Guido not also become attuned to me by our unexpected visit, he wouldn’t have realized what Janovic was doing until too late.”

  I looked at Guido, and then I looked where the door had been. It was a wall now.

  “Janovic? He’s really dead? No proto, no resurrection?”

  “He is gone.”

  “You are the regional manitor. He worked for you.”

  “No. I was not his patron.”

  “The angel?”

  “It would be better if you did not know much about the…” Guido paused. I suspected he had a different word in mind but decided not to use it. “…angel.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me about her?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t?”

  “Same reason she could not harm you. We had a bargain. I merely had to remind her of the terms of that bargain.”

  “Bargain?”

  “This place is big on bargains.”

  “What about that juju I absorbed? Is that why the Rygen were so afraid of me? Was that my power?”

  “Not exactly. It is a power. It was attuned to your power.”

  “It appears to have left me.”

  “You have no immediate need for it. You let it go and it is back in the container.” Guido shifted his gaze to the platform we brought back. “Most wouldn’t have.”

  “Good, it can stay there. I don’t trust glowing magic stuff.”

  “It served you well.”

  “What are you really? Are you going to explain what’s going on?”

  Guido sat silently for a long time. I was impatient, but I managed to wait him out.

  “I can tell you a few things. There is much you don’t need to know yet, and there are things you have to learn for yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “It is how this world works.”

  “So, what can you tell me?”

  “You have a power within you that was awakened when you crossed over here. I don’t actually know much about that power except that it is rare. The container holds a magic that is attuned to that power.”

  “You are telling me it’s rare, but both I and my landlord had it?”

  “Janovic didn’t have it. He stole it. He wanted to steal yours, combine them. He would have tracked down others as well. He knew how to return to your world in mortal form.”

  “Stole it? He couldn’t steal mine.”

  Guido smiled. “Can only steal it by convincing the owner to give it to him.”

  “What happened to the one who gave Janovic their power?”

  “They are gone as well.”

  “So the danger is over.”

  “No. Janovic was the weapon, not the wielder.”

  “The angel?”

  “It is more complicated than that, but it is not my story to tell.”

  “Who are you? What are you.”

  Again, there was a long pause.

  “I belong to an ancient race that belongs neither to this world or yours. There are few of us left. However, we have an interest in what happens in this world.”

  “Hell?”

  “That’s what you call it.”

  “But you won’t tell me what your—ah—interest is?”

  Guido smiled. “My interest in you is part of it.”

  “And that’s all you are going to tell me.”

  Guido said nothing.

  “So now what?”

  “You may go.”

  “Just like that. Nothing has changed.”

  “I am giving you Rockvale and the surrounding lands.”

  “We’re still dead. We are still trapped in Hell.”

  Guido didn’t say anything.

  “But we have earned the right to autonomy.”

  “Until someone tries to take it away. It won’t be me.”

  “Why? What do you get out of this arrangement?”

  Silence.

  I was tired and still not fully recovered. I could deal with what I didn’t know another time. I wanted to get Rox and Saripha back to Rockvale.

  “We can go now?”


  Guido nodded. “You are all free to go. You are still under my protection.”

  Outside the jazz cafe, a wooden wagon had been harnessed up to a pair of creatures that looked vaguely like clydesdales, except they had armor, like a rhinoceros, covered with short but sharp studs and rather wicked looking tusks. I was glad I wasn’t the stable hand for those. In the driver’s seat was a cloaked figure, barely human, with wiry long hair over its entire body, upraised pointed ears and a long, thin snout. An Anajin, I guessed. Azaroti were gathered about, sleepily watching.

  “Wow, public transportation. Why doesn’t Guido just blink us back to Rockvale?”

  Saripha shrugged.

  We climbed in the wagon and were off. Nothing bothered us on the journey back. Maybe that was what Guido meant when he said were still under his protection.

  “The manitor is not going to move against us?” Paul asked. We were all sitting around the large table in the conference room Paul had set up in the “mayor’s suite.” No one could figure out what kind of a conference Rockvale would ever have, but Paul liked conference tables. We were all here, the new ruling elite of Rockvale, the border town: Paul, Izzy, Kyo, myself, Saripha, Sidney and Zeon. Even Rox was here.

  “No, he won’t,” Saripha replied.

  “That would be my guess too,” I added.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he said so,” Saripha quickly answered.

  “And you trust this creature that kidnapped you?”

  Saripha was quiet for a moment. “I do.”

  “Why is he—it—leaving us alone.”

  “I don’t know.” I had been working this out in my head for a while. “I think he appreciates having some humans willing to fight back. Hell politics maybe. We aren’t a threat to him, so why not.”

  “Quentin is right in that there is a struggle going on in Hell. I couldn’t get a line on it. Guido won’t refer to it directly. It is as if talking about it would violate a pact the manitor lives by. His help involves pointing us in a direction, but then he has to stand back and let things happen. He has indicated to me that there are larger forces at work here that Quentin has some part in. There is also something important about those different color energies. That’s about as much as I could make sense of. Rox, do you know anything about this?”