Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1)

by Ambrose Ibsen

  The guy in black stopped in front of me, his polished black boots so close to my nose that I could smell the farm that'd produced the leather. “I'm only gonna warn you once,” he bellowed. “Back the fuck up.” This guy seemed to be on my side, but he wasn't one for delicacy. “You want to stay on the force? Collect that pension someday? Step away and maybe I'll give you that chance.”

  “Now look,” said one of the cops, trying to keep his voice low. He was speaking more calmly, putting on his negotiator's voice. “This perp's got a rap sheet a mile long. He got up to some serious shit last night and we're not just going to let him walk out of here. You know how many good cops he assaulted last night on his way here? I've got the city's ICU's full of injured officers, I'll have you know. Theft, arson... The guy's an animal. If you had any sense you'd let us put him down right here, right now. We're entitled to use deadly force after all we've seen him do, and he's had repeated warnings to surrender--”

  “I don't give a shit. Get the fuck out of here. Else you can talk it over with my superiors.” Outside, the sound of several vehicles approaching could be heard. Tires pounding pavement and brakes screeching. Then, footsteps. Lots of them.

  It was with no little muttering that the cop backed up and removed his rifle from my person.

  Before I knew it, I was being lifted off of the ground by my handcuffs by the guy in black. My shoulders ached as he pulled, and I quickly gained my feet, glancing around the room at the tense cops with all the fear of a lamb in the slaughterhouse. Without another word, the guy in black gave me a shove towards the doorway. Then, in a move that left me stunned, he grabbed one of the high-powered rifles from a nearby cop and shot the chain that held my cuffs in place. The chain broke easily and everyone in the room startled. Guns were pointed at us both.

  “Relax,” said the guy in black, straightening his sunglasses and throwing the rifle to the ground. He led me out of the building, across the lawn and past the wall of cop cars, towards a black SUV parked some ways away. Its windows were tinted a deep black, too.

  Damn, I guess this guy really likes the color black, eh?

  A few other black SUVs of the same make and coloration were parked behind the cop cars, and from these there came a number of SWAT-looking guys. They didn't have any badges on, nor any lettering on their uniforms to let us know what department they were with, but one thing was for sure-- they were scary as hell. Some of these guys were big. I mean NFL big. Broad shoulders, a good foot taller than me, and so muscular in their tight black outfits they looked carved from stone. They ambled to the house, guns strung over their shoulders. This must've been my rescuer's backup.

  The commandos coming out of the black SUVs started arguing loudly with the cops, but before I could glean the nature of their disagreement, which almost certainly had to do with me, the guy in black was throwing open the passenger-side door of an SUV and shoving me in.

  This vehicle didn't have any plates, which gave me pause. I'd been rescued from the cops, but who were these guys? Had I just been tossed from the pan, into the fire? This reeked of the sort of covert ops you see in movies. This beefy motherfucker who was now dropping into the driver's seat, dressed in all black and wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the sun had barely risen, was the kind who made people disappear for a living. What had I gotten myself into?

  I cleared my throat, the smell of my piss stinging my nostrils. I was too damn scared to be embarrassed, though. Sniffing, I wiped at my eyes and dried the last few tears that still crowded their edges. “So, uh,” I said in my steadiest tone of voice, “what the hell is going on, man?”

  The man removed his sunglasses, tucking them into the breast pocket of his jacket. His skin was a little pale, and he ran a hand through his dark hair. His eyes, deep-set and intense, narrowed as he stared out of the windshield and tore onto the main street in a hurry. “Still trying to figure that out, Lucy.”

  I cringed. “Lucy”. I'd been called that before. Everyone and their mother liked to call me “Lucy” for short. Kids in school had done it when I was young as an emasculating insult, and still others had done it as a misguided show of endearment. My older brother, Conrad, had always called me that, too. I hated it, but wasn't about to correct him.

  He knew my name, though. How? I'd never met him before, I was certain.

  “Who are you?” I asked. Then, I added, “And how do you know my name?”

  “Chief Kubo,” he said without missing a beat. He slammed the accelerator and sped around a turn, starting for the highway entrance ramp. We were headed out of Flint in a hurry, though I couldn't say where to. “I'm with the Veiled Order,” he finished.

  The Veiled Order. Wasn't that the organization Amundsen had mentioned in the hospital? The one who'd done this to me, and which had such great plans for me in the future?

  I guess they'd sent those guys out to collect me, their precious possession. I was a dog that'd gotten loose, and they were the dog catchers, these guys who traveled in jet black vehicles and pushed the cops around. Did they have ties to the FBI or something?

  “So, are you a federal agent?” I chanced.

  Kubo didn't reply to that one.

  “Are you taking me back to that hospital?”

  Still no reply.

  We were on the highway, coasting along at a cool eighty miles per hour. Kubo eased it up to eighty-five. He was the kind of guy who could afford not to give a fuck how fast he was going. No one in their right mind was going to pull him over, even without plates on his car.

  “Why have you come for me?” I asked, exasperated by his silence.

  He sighed. “Because it's my job. I'm your boss, idiot. Your babysitter, whatever.”

  Now, what was that supposed to mean? “B-boss?” I tried the word out on my lips, but it didn't sound right.

  That must've been because, to the best of my knowledge, I'd never signed up to work for this guy. I watched the highway scenery as it was lit up by the dawn and dropped my hands into my lap. “I don't remember signing anything... interviewing for any kind of job,” I said quietly.

  Kubo smirked, but said nothing. He didn't give a damn.

  TEN

  When we made it to the facility and had parked the SUV in a large lot blocked off by tall gates sturdy enough to keep Godzilla out, Kubo led me inside by the arm. We walked in through a set of sliding double doors. The way forward was locked tightly, and it was only after he swiped a keycard and entered a ridiculously long string of numbers into a keypad that the inner door finally opened, revealing a lobby of great extent, and furnished with sleek furniture.

  Not that there was anyone to be seen there.

  We stepped inside and the door closed behind us with a hiss, effectively blocking the outside world from view. This was the kind of place where intense shit went down; dangerous, experimental pathogens might be developed here. Maybe this was where the President kept that infamous red button of his, for launching nukes. It occurred to me, too, that this could be the kind of remote facility where terrorists got spirited away to. Am I about to get water boarded for busting out of here last night? I wondered shudderingly. Kubo let go of my arm and took on a slightly more relaxed stance as he led me out of the lobby and down a narrow hall, accessed by-- you guessed it-- another long sequence of numbers.

  “Is this some kind of FBI holding facility?” I squeaked as he started down the meandering hall. Like the lobby, this space was done up in a greyscale color scheme. The carpeting was a faint black color, the walls were slate and the ceiling a very light grey. The doors, of which there were several along the way, were of a dark black coloration; some kind of thick wood, stained with a rich varnish. The fluorescents were harsh, made the place feel sterile, and even as we turned a corner there wasn't a single window to be seen.

  “No,” said Kubo. “We're not FBI, though we sometimes lie to law enforcement just to speed things along. It's easier to lie than to tell them the truth.” He charged ahead,
picking one of the countless unmarked doors and pushing it open. A light came on automatically and he waved me inside. “We do have some members who are employed by the FBI, however. It helps us grease the wheels on those rare occasions when we have to deal with the feds.”

  By the looks of it, it was a conference room. Looking and feeling like utter shit, I couldn't help but laugh. What, we were going to sit down and talk business with me looking half-dead and still damp with piss? It was ludicrous. I took the seat that was offered to me, a firm, leathery chair of which there were several, all arranged around a solid grey table. There were screens on both sides of the room and a massive projector bolted into the ceiling, with lenses on both sides. It reminded me of a lecture hall, and was every bit as stuffy. Not a hint of outside air had ever touched this space.

  Well, I thought, setting my hands on the table and staring down at the cuffs that were still locked around my wrists, It's not the first time you've shown up for a lecture feeling like crap. I remembered my college days, stumbling into Monday morning classes after weekends of hard drinking. Looking back on it, it was a miracle I lived, much less graduated. Kubo plucked me from my reverie as he dropped down into a chair of his own and cracked his big, beefy knuckles.

  The guy looked Japanese, and with a surname like Kubo he almost certainly was. He was bigger and stockier than any Japanese guy I'd ever met, though; a bit taller than me and far more muscular. I made my living roughing people up, but this guy walked on higher ground. Power radiated off of him in great peals like invisible thunder. Just sitting across from him was enough to get a taste.

  Kubo tugged at the collar of his shirt and yanked off his jacket. Then, rolling up his sleeves and revealing forearms of incredible thickness, he glanced me over narrowly. “You remember anything about last night? Where you went, what you did?”

  I pursed my lips, shaking my head. I couldn't remember a damn thing, though if my run-in with the cops that morning had been any indication, then I'd gotten up to something mighty bad. Up to that point I'd only ever been arrested once. Bought some weed in high school and got picked up by a family friend who was a cop. They threw me in the county lockup overnight to try and scare me straight. It didn't work; if anything else, it only taught me to act more discrete when making transactions of that kind. My encounter with the police that morning, however, had been completely different. Those cops hadn't planned to just arrest me, to take me downtown and let me sit in a cell with a bunch of other criminals. They seemed like they'd been planning to gun me down on the spot, put me down like a rabid animal. I got shivers just thinking about how close I'd walked that line. Shit, I still do, to this day.

  “The demon in you took over,” he said. “It was the night of the new moon. This was to be expected. We should have locked you in the containment room, but the doctor wasn't sure whether you were stable enough to make the transfer. I guess you were. The Veiled Order will handle the legal issues; don't worry about last night. We'll need to be more careful in the future, however.”

  I didn't need him to tell me the demon had taken over. I could still remember the moment the thing had gained full control, the moment I'd leapt from the window of the hospital.

  Glancing around the room, I asked Kubo a question of my own. “What is this Veiled Order everyone keeps talking about? No one's given me a great answer, yet I get the impression that I'm on their payroll now. What's up with that? And, uh... if they're so damn important, what are they doing hanging around Detroit of all places?”

  “The Veiled Order is older than any of us can say. It has descended from secret societies throughout history, and its core members are comprised of a lineage that has ruled since times immemorial. The Order has its fingers in every pie you can imagine; every field of influence, be it government, finance, biomedical research... the list goes on. When tinfoil-hat wearing kooks talk about secret societies pulling the strings, the man behind the curtain, it ain't the Bilderberg Group or the Trilateral Commission. Not the Illuminati, either. The real manipulators, the only ones, are the members of the Veiled Order. Nothing of real import happens in this world that they don't know about. They've got their ear to the ground constantly and have such a wide network of members and associates that it gives me a headache just trying to describe it.” Smirking, he added, “And Detroit? Well, ain't it just the perfect place for all of this secret shit? No one would ever think to look in Michigan for the high-ranking members of a secret society. Think about it, Lucy.”

  I didn't really know what to say, so I didn't say anything at all. Instead, I just shifted my thighs uncomfortably, trying to get over the cold spot that plagued the front of my shorts. Didn't they have a shower in this joint? A change of clothes?

  “The mission of the Veiled Order is to protect humanity from what dwells in the Beyond. There is a veil that exists between this world and the next, and sometimes, that veil thins out, grows weak. Outsiders cross over. It's our job to beat back those outsiders and maintain the status quo. If not for us, then the species would have died out long ago.”

  This was all a little hard to believe. “OK, that's pretty cool, I guess...” If what Kubo was saying was true-- and I guess I didn't really have any reason to doubt him, aside from the sheer enormity of this disclosure and its far-reaching implications-- then every other conspiracy theory I'd read about in the past seemed quaint by comparison. The JFK assassination? The moon landing? Who could possibly give a rat's ass about those when this group was keeping demons, witches and who knew what else hidden from the public?

  “I bet you guys know a lot about conspiracies and such, eh? What about, say, Kennedy? Was it actually the guy on the grassy knoll, or...?”

  Kubo arched a brow. “Actually, Kennedy was put down by a member of our organization. He'd infiltrated the highest ranks of the US government without the public realizing he wasn't human.”

  I chortled. “What? JFK wasn't human?”

  “No. A werewolf, as a matter of fact. The bullet that took him out was forged of pure silver and thoroughly blessed.”

  “Huh.” I folded my hands in my lap and straightened out my gown a little bit. “Didn't expect that.” I looked around the room. “So, what are we doing in here? You think I might be able to shower or something?”

  “We're getting straight to work,” he replied. “When we're through with this briefing, you'll be free to go, princess. Till then, you need to stay put.”

  I grimaced. Awesome. One minute I'm getting possessed by a demon. The next, I'm getting shaken down by murderous cops. And now it's time to punch the clock and pretend that none of that happened.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” bellowed Kubo.

  From the hall there entered two individuals. First was a girl, very thin and slightly hunched. She was dressed in a bizarre outfit; it looked like a burlap sack with a hood sewn onto it. There were some designs embroidered onto the rough-looking fabric in black thread, but they were chaotic and bespoke an unpracticed hand. Long, black hair escaped the edges of this hood and framed her youthful face. Glassy eyes looked into the room, blinking rapidly. Though she looked rather young, perhaps a teenager, she stooped and ambled about like an old woman. She said nothing, but slowly navigated her way to a seat. Then, sitting down, she began to twitch and mumble to herself.

  The other individual, a young guy, looked like a greaser straight out of an old movie. His brown hair was swept back with a thick layer of pomade, and his thin frame was draped in a well-worn leather jacket. A pair of ratty jeans, a pristine wife beater and a pair of black boots with pointy, silver tips completed his ensemble. I could see a switchblade tucked into his back pocket. He leaned against the other end of the table, nodding to Kubo and appraising me frigidly. “Who's this guy?” he asked, clicking his tongue. “He reeks of piss, chief. You hiring hobos now?”

  Kubo smirked. “Sit down, Joe.” When Joe had splayed out into his seat with a sigh, Kubo stood and pointed at me. “T
his is Lucy. He's a new hire. The Demon Heart you've both heard about.”

  My face reddened as the three of them squared me up. I had to admit, though-- “Demon Heart” was kind of a badass title.

  Joe picked at a hole in the knee of his jeans and snickered. “Lucy, eh? The hell kinda name is that? They gave this pussy the demon's heart? Woulda made more sense to put it in Isabella over there, don'tcha think?”

  The twitching girl with the glassy eyes turned to him, cocking her head to the side. “Isabella doesn't want a demon's heart, thank you.”

  Either Isabella wasn't presently in the room or this weird-ass chick referred to herself in the third person. The latter seemed most likely.

  “So, you're Joe,” I said, nodding to the greaser, “and you're Isabella?”

  The two of them nodded, except that Joe had to take exception to something, assert his dominance. This would become a common theme with him, I could sense it even then. “Actually, the name's Fire Joe. But maybe I'll let you call me 'Joe' someday.”

  I held back a chuckle, but my grin betrayed me. “Fire Joe? Why's that?”

  Pulling a silver Zippo lighter from his pocket, Joe gave it a flip and switched it on. A small flame danced about, and to my horror, he held a fingertip over it for several seconds. When he finally drew his finger away, he reached out and took hold of my arm with his other hand, slowly tracing a line against the cuffs that still hung around my wrists. One after the other, the cuffs fell noisily to the table, the metal sheared apart easily, as if it were paper. It was incredible. The small line glowed, had been super-heated by his fingertip. It was like he'd gathered up the heat and then focused it in one spot. He was a human blowtorch. Rubbing at my wrists, I sat back in my chair. “H-how did you do that?”

  Joe reclined, giving a toss of his shoulders and donning a satisfied smirk.