I hate irony.
I bludgeoned the second kid with the first one, and tossed them both to the far side of the room. The kid-thing on my back was really beginning to annoy me. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed a handful of demon hair. It took a couple of tugs, but the little brat finally came loose from my neck, and I pitched her over to join her friends beneath one of the basketball goals.
I drew my Glock and started plugging away at demon children, who apparently weren’t bulletproof, just annoying. For every demon that I managed to kill, an unconscious little girl appeared in its place. I didn’t understand the transformation, didn’t have time to ask anyone who would know, and frankly didn’t care all that much. All I knew was that if I shot them in the head enough times, they stopped trying to gnaw out my spleen. And since I’m uncharacteristically fond of my spleen, shooting them in the face seemed like the best option available.
After a few minutes of shooting, Greg and I were the only monsters left standing, and with the little demon girls taken care of, we returned our attention to Bun-head and whatever hell she was trying to raise.
“Oh crap. This is not good,” I muttered when I saw what was going on at center court.
“I think we’re gonna need a bigger gun,” Greg said.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“I think Hell is exactly what that is, bro.”
That was a huge beast spinning slowly in the air where Sabrina had been floating barely a minute before. It was at least twelve feet tall, with long curving black horns protruding from a bony forehead that looked like a cross between a wolf and a huge bull’s head. The monster had arms the size of pine trees, with foot-long claws at the ends of hands the size of Christmas hams. Its legs were human in shape, but bigger around than my waist. It had bare feet with three claws in front and one backward-facing claw, all razor sharp and shiny in the red light. Its skin was red like the little demons, and it had a double row of teeth that glinted as it smiled down at Bun-head. The demon stopped revolving and floated slowly to the floor directly in front of Bun-Head, then smiled down at her with a hundred pointed teeth.
The voice that came out of the demon made my skin crawl. “You have done well, my daughter. Now shed that weak mortal shell and assume your rightful shape.”
As we watched, Bun-Head morphed into a female version of the beast. I could tell it was female because it wasn’t terribly modest about hiding the eight teats that hung grotesquely off its chest.
“Dude,” I whispered to Greg. “Where’s Sabrina?”
“Dude,” he answered, “I think the big thing is what Sabrina turned into.”
“I was really afraid you were going to say something like that.” I looked around for the cavalry I knew wasn’t coming, drew my backup piece with my left hand, and stepped in front of the beasties. “Hey, assface!” I yelled.
Both of them turned toward me, and I yelled, “Where’s the girl, dental nightmare?”
The big one looked down at me. “More minions? Good? I was looking for a snack. I appreciate the tasty virgins you gathered for me. In thanks for your loyal service, I shall kill you quickly.”
The female formerly known as Bun-head whispered something to Baal, and he turned to me and grinned. “Never mind. Belial says that you were no help at all. That means I get to play with you a while before I kill you.”
Baal stepped out of the remnants of the circle, and I felt the floor shake with his weight. The glowing magical barrier winked out of existence, and there was nothing standing between me and a monster straight out of my childhood nightmares except about twenty feet of faintly brimstone-scented gymnasium air. Whoever first wrote that high school was hell had no idea just how right they were.
“Greg, you got any bright ideas?” I asked without taking my eyes off the demons in front of me.
“You take the big one, and I’ll fight the one with all the boobs?” He sounded about as scared as I felt. Neither of us wanted to show it.
“You only want to fight the chick so you can cop a feel and claim you got to second base.”
“Yeah, but that would give me a score in a new decade, so I’d be ahead of you.” He fired off a clip at Belial’s head and then launched himself at the demon. I was amazed to see that he actually knocked her off her feet. I began to think we might have a shot at surviving this after all.
Then I took stock of Baal. As an opponent he was a couple of feet taller and a couple hundred pounds heavier, with muscles in places I was pretty sure I didn’t have places. I hoped Greg had enough sense to run like hell when Baal killed me.
“All right, tall dark and drooling, let’s do this.” I emptied my backup into his kneecaps, and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t even flinch. Had to try.
I drew my big knife and jumped at the monster, and a second later found myself looking up at a disco ball hanging from the gym ceiling. “Ooooh. Pretty.”
Next I saw a massive clawed foot rushing at my head. I rolled to the side before Baal could stomp my head flatter than a fast-food hamburger. His claws dug deep into the hardwood, and all I could think was I am not picking up the tab for refinishing that. I kept rolling and he kept stomping until I finally ran out of floor. I expected to feel my brains squirt out my ears at any moment.
This was where we’d find out if pancaking a vampire head is just as good as a decapitation. His foot came rushing down. I’ll admit it—I closed my eyes. I couldn’t handle the thought of watching my death come in the form of a size forty-eight bunion.
But no squashing happened, just a huge crash a few feet away and a bellow that literally shook the rafters. A volleyball that had to have been wedged up there for at least five years came down and landed next to me, flat and dusty. I opened my eyes, and when I didn’t see a demon getting ready to step on me, I sat up and almost wished I hadn’t.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Greg had beaten Belial down pretty hard, but she was fighting back and they were slugging it out at one end of the gym. But the bigger, better weird show was center court, with a glowing sword in his hands. Baal was down on one knee a quarter of the court away, glaring at Phil with glowing red eyes.
“What are you doing, Zepheril? You’re one of us!” shouted the demon, and I could feel the heat from his breath all the way across the gym. I could smell his breath, too. Baal seriously needed to reevaluate his dental-hygiene regimen.
“No matter what I’ve done, I never have been, and never will be one of you, demon.”
The way he said demon was like it was the vilest curse he could throw at something. And maybe to him it was. I’d never seen Phil like that—his wings were unfurled to their full width, at least twelve feet tip to tip, and he wore a kind of armor that almost glowed. It looked old, like a flickering light bulb trying to come on that didn’t quite have the juice. His sword, which had hung at his side looking normal in my apartment, had grown to about six feet in length, with a huge hilt and a blade that was blinding white to look at.
Baal glared at him, and after a long minute said, “So be it, angel. Prepare to meet your little God again.” And he spread wings of his own, gigantic bat wings that I would have sworn weren’t there a few minutes ago, and soared towards Phil with his claws out and teeth bared.
Phil flew back at him, and for a few moments all I could see was the flash of the blade and claws, they moved so fast. Then my attention shifted over to the corner of the room where Greg and Belial were still fighting. She was holding Greg up with one hand and beating his face in with the other. I took a running jump and grabbed Belial’s arm and spun her around. She dropped Greg and backhanded me. I stumbled backward, but caught myself and spun into her with a right cross that came from my heels.
Maybe the little nibble I had of Lilith did make me stronger, because Belial flew clear across the gym before crashing into the bleachers against the far wall. I shifted my attention to Greg, who was getting to his feet gingerly. He looked like you’d expect a vampire to look after being
used as a sparring partner by a demoness—like a bag of crap.
I crossed the gym to within a safe distance of Belial. “Where’s Sabrina?”
“You mean the police tramp?” She hissed at me from what looked like a broken jaw.
Good. I hoped it hurt. A lot. “Yeah, her.”
“She’s gone, vampire. Gone like the idiot woman that drew me to this plane. She was my final sacrifice to bring my father to this world. You’ve lost, now. Give up. Die like the sheep you are.”
“Baa-Baa, bitch,” I said, and I emptied the clip on my Glock into her face hoping that enough silver bullets in a small space would be enough to send her back to Hell. Finally, after all seventeen rounds lodged in her frontal lobe, she dropped like a rock. “Looks like those silver bullets work after all.” I put a fresh clip in the pistol and turned back to where Baal and Phil had been duking it out in the Main Event.
The angel and the demon were breathing heavily, both looking the worse for wear. Phil had blood oozing from a gash on his side, and there was a hole in his shoulder where it looked like Baal had pierced him with a claw. Baal only had one wing left, and it was hanging in tatters. They were circling warily, each probing the other’s defenses. Now and then one would take a cautious swipe with claw or sword.
Phil noticed me out of the corner of his eye and nodded to me slightly. I saw him trying to maneuver around so that Baal would be between him and me, so I could get a clear shot, but Baal just stood in the middle of the gym and laughed.
“It will be a cold day below when you can lead me into that trap, Zepheril.” The monster chuckled.
“It was worth a try, demon,” the angel replied, a wry smile on his lips.
“Why are you helping these mortals, Zepheril? You’ve always sided with the winners before now. You know that only the strongest survive, so why are you throwing in with these weak sacks of meat?”
“I picked the wrong side once, Baal. If I’ve been given the opportunity to correct that mistake, I’ll not let it go by.”
I flashed back to Sunday School and realized they were talking about the war in Heaven, the big one where Lucifer and all his angel buddies were tossed out after trying to lead a revolution.
Then they were at it again. Faster than my eye could follow, Phil went after Baal with the sword. Baal swatted the slash away with one huge forearm, and lashed out at Phil with his razor-sharp claws. Phil ducked under one slashing blow and stabbed at the monster with his sword. Baal actually caught the blade with one hand, but white fire flowed over his clawed fist and the demon yanked his burned hand back.
Phil followed with a slashing overhead blow, but Baal was too fast, dancing backward with a grace belied by his giant size and massive muscles. Baal lunged forward with both arms, stabbing at Phil with his claws, but the angel spread his wings and flew over his attack and slashed at the monster’s back. The blade drew a thin line of white fire down the demon’s back, and he let out a howl that blew the glass out of backboards all around the gym.
I saw a split-second opening while Phil was clear and the monster was distracted. I took my shot. Squaring my feet, I emptied my last clip of silver ammo into the back of the demon’s head, and had the satisfaction of seeing the beast fall face-first onto the gym floor. Phil landed beside the fallen demon and raised his sword high.
“Nooooo!” I screamed and launched myself at the angel, catching him in a tackle worthy of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wetumbled head over heels across the gym as I tried to keep him from killing Baal.
“What are you doing, vampire?” I looked down when we had stopped to find a very pissed-off angel inches away from my face. He stood up, taking me with him, and grabbed me by the shirtfront. “I had him beaten. I’ve waited centuries to make this right, and now you decide to interfere? What the hell are you thinking?”
“Sabrina,” I croaked. He had more than a little throat in his grip. “We’ve got to save Sabrina. You kill Baal’s body, what happens to his host?”
“Idiot! His host isn’t even on this plane of existence anymore. She’s in Hell, you moron! He traded places with her, that’s why you could kill all those little girls without murdering a child. Or didn’t you think of that?”
“How do you know?” I know Phil had been around since the beginning of time and all, but some things I wasn’t quite ready to take on faith. Phil didn’t speak, just waved his arm around the gym. I followed his hand and saw a bunch of dazed little girls where demons had been lying, and an unconscious substitute home-ec teacher sprawled on the bleachers where Belial’s body had been.
“Oh,” I quietly said. “As you were then, back to the killing big demon things.”
Unfortunately, Baal was no longer where we’d left him. Why is nothing ever easy?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Of course the demon wasn’t lying where we had left him, all nicely posed for a killing stroke from an angelic sword. Demons aren’t exactly renowned for obedience. That’s why they’re demons and not angels, I suppose. Baal had gotten to his feet and pulled himself back together on the other side of the gym, with his back to a wall. He looked a little the worse for wear, but only a little. I hate fighting things that heal faster than me, so I made a mental note. He definitely had the edge on me in the healing arena.
I took a quick inventory. I had exactly one knife, a .380 pistol with eight rounds of regular ammo, a Glock 17 without a bullet to be had, and a bad attitude. Phil had a really big, magical sword, and Greg had two fists and a concussion. The more I thought about it, the worse our odds looked. I did what I always do in those situations—I stopped thinking before the odds convinced me to stop trying.
I jumped as high into the rafters as I could and yelled out to Greg, “Go low!” He dove at Baal’s feet while I dropped from the rafters on his head, hoping to accomplish something besides getting cut in half by Phil’s oversized toothpick. Baal was too fast for either of us, though, swatting us both out of the air like mosquitoes. Really big mosquitoes in Greg’s case, but you get the idea.
I managed to adjust my course enough to land on a broken basketball backboard, and turned back to the fight to see Phil wading in with his sword. He and Baal were weaving a deadly ballet in the air over the gym floor, Baal’s wing and Phil’s shoulder healed enough to make the fight too evenly matched again. Thrust, dodge, thrust, slash, duck, repeat. It was almost beautiful to watch, except for our pressing need to help the an=and get Sabrina out of Hell. I made another mental note to ask Mike’s Wiccan friend Anna about different planes of existence if I lived long enough to see her again.
I looked frantically around the gym for something heavy enough to hit Baal with, but other than a pile of shattered party decorations and an overturned apple-bobbing tub, there was nothing of any size lying around. Then my eyes lit on the still form of Bun-head, curled in a fetal position beside one set of bleachers. I yelled over to Greg “Make sure big ugly stays off me, I’ve got an idea!”
“How do you suggest I do that?” he yelled back.
“Keep Phil alive!” I dashed across the gym. Pieces of ceiling fell around us as Baal and Phil’s battle raged on. We were going to have to finish this pretty quickly, or there wasn’t going to be anything left of the gym.
I got to Bun-head, reached out and shook her shoulder. “Hey, lady. Janet!” I shook her harder, and finally she looked up at me and screamed. I forgot that I had my fangs on display, and that tends to worry humans, even ones that sometimes summon demons. I slapped her across the face, and she stopped screaming long enough to slap me back.
“What in the world is wrong with you, young man?” she asked tartly.
“Wrong with me? Lady, we don’t have that much time. Anyway, do you know how to banish this big red bastard?” I pointed over to Baal, and she turned a really gross shade of pale green. I moved back a little, in case she was going to puke, but she got herself under control. Even as I moved back, I realized the irony of not wanting to get a little puke on me when I was covered in d
emon brains and blood both demonic and vampiric. But we all have our little hang-ups, and one of mine is being puked on.
“How would I know anything about banishing monsters?” She looked more confused than anyone who had caused this much trouble had any right to look.
“You’re kidding, right? Lady, you frickin’ summoned him! I would think that knowing how to put the genie back in the bottle would be one of the first things they teach you in Demon Summoning 101!”
“Demon summoning? What are you talking about young man? And what is wrong with your teeth?”
“We’ve got way more important things to deal with right now than my teeth. Like the fact that the big red guy over there is Baal, an Archduke of Hell, and that you summoned him, and now I need you to put him back where he came from because there is a very attractive lady cop that is currently hanging out in Hell, where Baal is supposed to be, because when he came here, she had to take his place down there. Are you getting this? Hell. An innocent woman in Hell.”
I was pretty proud of the fact that I hadn’t hit her yet, but she was running out of time before I started punching things, and she was the nearest target.
“I did no such thing, and bring those families back together?” Not a peep.
“Then what the hell was it?”
“The lottery.” She said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her.
“What?”
“I asked the angels to help me win the lottery. It’s up to $165 million, and I could use the money to do so much good.”
“I bet you could. If you live long enough to collect and if there are any people left to help.”
I couldn’t believe it. A string of kidnappings, a zombie infestation, a pile of demon possessions, a parking lot full of trashed cars and a gymnasium that looked like Armageddon was just the opening act, and it was all for money. Root of all evil in-flippin’-deed. “When you called these ‘angels’ did you use a spell or pray?”
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