Raising Hell - a Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  I walked over to young Mr. Entitled. “What’s your name, kid?” He was exactly the kind of kid I would have hated in college, if I’d gone to college. Tall, thin but with a layer of muscle that said he’d spent his time on the lacrosse field or cross-country team. The kind of confidence and good looks that come from decades of breeding and successful parents. He had perfect teeth, brown hair that curled artfully down just over his eyes in a tousle that looked like it took at least an hour to perfect. I wanted to punch him in his perfectly straight Roman nose.

  “I don’t have to answer any of your questions, fucktard. I know my rights.” He seemed determined to tempt me to violence.

  I took a deep breath, let the mental roulette wheel land on “fuck it,” and gave in to temptation. I punched him in the nose. “You have the right to tell me what I want to know, or you have the right to bleed. Your call.” I leaned in close, where his buddies couldn’t hear what I was saying, and whispered “I’m not a cop, you little shitball. I’m your worst fucking nightmare. I’m somebody who actually gives a shit about that little girl, and really wants to do bad things to the people that hurt her. And your name is on top of my list. So tell me what went down, and I might decide that you’re not worth the time and effort to destroy.” I pulled in a little of my will and lit up my eyes with soulfire. It’s a cheap parlor trick, but it scares the shit out of the mundanes. It did the job this time, too.

  “Fine, fine, I’ll talk, but not here. Let’s go to the library.” He stood up, and I backed off enough to give him a little room. He turned to the rest of his brothers and said “This is nothing, just a protective big brother who needs to look at some security tapes to make sure we didn’t take advantage of his precious little darling. Eric, can you come help run the computer for me?” He walked off, obviously expecting everyone to just go back to normal now that he’d made his proclamation. Must be nice to have minions. A big kid with close-cropped red hair and sprinkling of freckles that would keep him getting carded well into his forties got up and walked close behind. I shrugged and followed them.

  My idea of a fraternity house library was a room with a couple of ratty desks and a huge stack of Penthouse. These guys had different ideas. They led me through the house, every room looking pretty much like I expected, decorated in video games, beer signs and posters of half-naked women. Until they led me through a pair of heavy wooden double doors that opened into the kind of library that would make a dedicated bibliophile fall to their knees weeping. The room was lined with ceiling-height bookcases, and leather spines stared out at me from every angle. No paperback bestsellers here—I spied a complete set of legal manuals from three different countries, about fifteen different Bibles and holy books, and one entire corner shelf unit glowed in my Sight so brightly that the magical aura bled over into the real world, casting pale purple light on everything within four feet of it.

  The lead kid noticed my squint and chuckled. “Impressive, isn’t it? We have one of the largest occult libraries in the South, and no one suspects it. After all, what kind of idiot would trust a bunch of drunken frat boys with some of the most powerful magical texts in history?”

  “An amoral idiot that doesn’t care what happens to anyone who wanders by the front door would be my guess.” I sat on the arm of an overstuffed leather chair, making myself the apex of a triangle that let me keep one eye on the door and the other on the shelf of spell books.

  “Careful, Mr. Harker, that’s my father you’re talking about.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he held up a hand. “Yes, I know who you are. You don’t dabble in the occult circles in this town without learning who the other players are, so to speak. I knew you the second you walked in, all billowing duster and self-righteousness. How is little Kayleigh? Has she delivered yet? Is it a boy?” The smile on his face made me want to punch him again, and keep punching until my hand got tired, but I thought better of it. This kid was way more than he seemed, and I needed to know where he learned his tricks before I killed him, so I could go and kill his teacher, too.

  Just for the record, I don’t kill every bad guy I come across. I don’t believe that killing is the best solution to every problem. I’m not one of those “every problem is a nail” guys. I just kill the monsters that are so far removed from human that they’ll never feel or show a shred of remorse no matter what they do or who they do it to. And frat boys. Apparently, I kill frat boys, too, because this little bastard was in dire need of defenestration.

  I took a deep breath and shoved all my murderous thoughts way down deep inside. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage, Mr.…” I let the name trail off as I made my way over to the shelf of magical goodies. The texts there were pretty typical, if incongruous by their setting. There was a Necronomicon, a Satanic Bible, the collected writings of Aleister Crowley, a treatise on the Marquise de Sade, an entire shelf of introductory spell books, and several volumes of Martston’s Creatures of the Otherworlde, an encyclopedia of things that go bump in the night. I had about four volumes myself, but had never seen a complete set. The shelf before me was missing only Volume Seven - Sasquatch to Vampire.

  “Alexander Marlack,” the kid said, extending a hand. “And this is Eric Brown, our chapter President.” I shook his hand, managing to keep from wiping it on my jacket when he let go. Marlack gestured to a pair of sofas that faced each other across a coffee table. I sat in the center of the one facing the door. I watched Deadwood; I know what happens when you sit with your back to a door.

  “So you knew you were putting a demon inside that little girl,” I said as I sat down. I tried to keep my voice even, but it was pretty hard since most of my concentration was focused on not burning the two little bastards to ash where they sat.

  “We did.” Marlack’s face was expressionless, like we were talking about the weather.

  “Why the hell would you do something like that?” I asked. I suppose I hoped somewhere deep down that there was a piece of these little shits worth saving.

  “I wanted to see if we could actually summon a demon. And when we did, we needed somewhere to put it. Kayleigh wasn’t someone we’d miss, so I stashed the demon there.” The smug prick could have been talking about a tech stock split, the level of emotion he was showing.

  “And you knew that it would eat her from the inside out and then go on to wreak indescribable havoc until it was banished, right?”

  “That fit with what I’d read, but as I had never summoned a demon, I had no proof.” He leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other knee. “But what is that to you? Why are you here?”

  “Why am I—you soulless piece of trash—I’m here because less than four hours ago I put a cross through the back of that girl’s head to keep her from destroying the entire neighborhood.”

  “Oh, so you murdered a little girl and you’re here to make yourself feel better because we’re the monsters that put a demon in her?” His friend hadn’t spoken, but at least had the good grace to look ashamed at what he’d done. Marlack just grinned, stood up and started pacing the room like he was making a closing argument. “You killed that girl, Mr. Harker, not us. And don’t tell us that there was nothing you could have done—there are dozens of exorcism rituals available if you’re willing to look for them. You just didn’t look. You did what you do—you rushed in there, guns blazing, coat swirling in the mist at your feet and killed that child. Admit it, you’re worse than the demons you claim to hunt!” He timed himself perfectly, finishing his little spiel right in front of me, bent over with his finger in my face.

  The only problem for him was that I was a few years past being intimidated by rich college kids in expensive libraries. I stood up, grabbing his extended finger in my fist and bending it back sharply. As I stood, he dropped to one knee and started pawing at my hand, trying to get me to cut loose. Wasn’t happening.

  “Listen to me, you entitled little fuckbag. I came here hoping there was a better answer for what happened that night than statutory rape
and demon summoning, but now I find out that it was worse. You weren’t just an ignorant pawn; you knew exactly what the fuck you were doing. And instead of trying to find some way to make it right, or even show a scintilla of remorse about the little girl that died because of you, you rabid fuckmonkeys sit there and try to turn this around on me! Well, Mr. Marlack, I guarantee you one fucking thing. You’ve hurt your last little girl.” With that, I reached out into the world around me and drew in my will. I focused my eyes full of soulfire on little Alex Marlack and shut out everything but the screams.

  Chapter 4

  I walked out of the room about ten minutes later feeling pretty good about myself. That feeling lasted all the way to the front door, where I first caught sight of the flashing blue lights and the three cop cars surrounding my beat up Honda. There was a woman in a dark pantsuit leaning on the front fender of my car, and my heart sank through my kneecaps when I saw her.

  Detective Rebecca Gail Flynn, rising star of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, fervent non-believer in anything supernatural and spectacular pain in my ass. She’d decided a couple of years ago that I was a fraud, and that it was her sworn duty to bring me in. Since then I’d had a ridiculous number of jaywalking tickets, broken taillights, random license checks a block from my house and a couple of anonymous tips called in about my arsenal of automatic weapons. None of her best efforts had ever turned up anything incriminating, but they certainly made it harder to do business with a certain level of my clientele who are uncomfortable with their business dealings being observed by a mortal, much less a mortal police detective.

  Of course, I’d never killed a teenage girl in her bed and burned down her house three hours before running into her, either. Detective Flynn looked positively radiant illuminated in flashing blue LEDs as she walked toward me flanked by two gigantic officers with biceps the size of my thighs and no necks. Good thing I didn’t inflict any physical damage on the assholes here, I thought.

  “Mr. Harker, how are you this fine evening?” she asked.

  “Well, Detective Flynn, I’ll have to admit that I was having a glorious night until you showed up. Blue isn’t exactly my favorite color, you know,” I replied. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the frat house, arms folded. Flynn and her gorillas had me blocked from my car, and they knew where I lived anyway, so there was no point trying to get away from them. I decided to hang tight and see what her game plan was.

  “Let’s see if you prefer orange. I hear it’s the new black, you know.” She smiled at her pop culture reference. I didn’t. If she was talking orange jumpsuits, she must have thought she actually had something on me for a change. “Would you like to come down to the station and answer a few questions for me, Mr. Harker?” It was phrased like a question, but it had all the earmarks of an order. Too bad I’ve never been the obedient type.

  “Nah, I think I’ll just go home and catch up on Downton Abbey if it’s all the same to you.” I stepped forward, reaching out as though I’d open the door to my car, but one of the no-necks moved into my path.

  “It’s not. All the same to me, that is. Come with us, Mr. Harker.” She gestured to one of the waiting cruisers.

  “I’ll follow you in my car.” I reached again, and the no-neck put his hand on my chest. I looked up at him, judging whether or not I could take him. I could, but he’d slow me down enough for his friend to Taser me.

  “You’ll ride with me,” Flynn said, and walked past me to the most obvious unmarked car in the world. The dark blue Chevy sat a few yards in front of my car, engine running. I shrugged and followed her, since I wasn’t going to get to go home until I dealt with her questions. I slid into the passenger seat and pulled out my cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Flynn asked.

  “I thought I’d give my lawyer a call. Since I’m being held by the police and all.”

  “You’re not being held, Mr. Harker. You’re just being casually questioned about an assault that was reported by one of the fraternity brothers here.”

  “I’ve never seen you do anything casually, Detective Flynn. I might like to watch that sometime.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. And give me your phone. You don’t need to call anyone.”

  “I don’t think you get to make that determination,” I said, but handed my phone over. It didn’t matter; I’d already sent the text to Uncle Luke telling him that I was getting arrested again. It happened so often since Flynn put me in her sights that I had a shortcut programmed into the phone.

  We rode without speaking to the police station, Flynn tapping the steering wheel in time with the radio. It was never good for me when cops were in a good mood. I followed her into the station and down the hall to Interview Room #3. This wasn’t my favorite of the interview rooms, but I didn’t complain. They were all pretty much the same. Room #1 was a little bigger, but was often disgusting from previous interrogations. Room #2 was the same size as #3, but the chairs wobbled, and Room #4 was small, almost as though it were for juvenile offenders only.

  I took a seat on one side of the table and Detective Flynn sat across from me. There was a tape recorder in the center of the table, with a small microphone next to it. A pair of security cameras monitored the room from the corners of the wall near the ceiling, and the obligatory two-way mirror covered one wall. I murmured a quick disruption spell under my breath as Flynn closed the door, gathered my will and pushed out at the cameras and the recorder. I smiled a little as the red lights on the cameras winked out. I was pretty sure there didn’t need to be a record of anything we said tonight.

  Flynn sat down and pressed the button on the tape recorder. “Just to make sure we don’t have any misunderstandings, right, Mr. Harker?” Flynn said with a fake smile.

  I returned her smile with one of my own, equally fake. “Absolutely, Detective. I certainly want to cooperate to the fullest with the lawful authorities.”

  Her smile flickered momentarily when she noticed the tape recorder wasn’t working. She turned to the mirror and said, “The recorder in this room is out; can someone bring me a spare?”

  A few seconds later one of her no-necks came in carrying a fresh tape recorder. She set it on the table beside the one I’d already cooked and reached down to the floor to plug it in. As soon as her eyes were off me, I murmured, “Adflicto Affligo,” under my breath and pushed my will at the new device.

  Detective Flynn successfully plugged the recorder in and smiled as the red light winked on when she pressed the Record button. I smiled just as widely as it flickered out a couple of seconds later. She turned back to the mirror, but before she could speak, I said, “I’ll just break the next one, too, Detective.” I pitched my voice low, so the people on the other side of the glass couldn’t hear me, but there was no mistaking my words.

  Flynn whirled around and glared at me. “You did this?” She gestured at the recorders. “How?”

  “Magic. I’ve explained before that there are stranger things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Detective. But I’d suggest you keep your voice down or your compatriots on the other side of the mirror will think you’ve lost your mind. Again.” My last little barb was a reference to some department-mandated therapy the good Detective had undergone after being first on the scene to a school shooting several years back.

  Her eyes narrowed, and I could almost see her calculating the best place to start cutting to keep me alive the longest and still inflict the most pain, but all she did was turn back to the mirror. “This recorder’s on the fritz, too. I’m going to take my notes manually.”

  She turned back to me. “What do you know about a fire in Midwood this evening? The Garda residence, to be specific.”

  “I know nothing.”

  “Bullshit. You were seen leaving the house moments before the first 911 call was made. A girl died in that fire, Harker, and I know you had something to do with it.”

  “Let me guess. An anonymous tip placed me at the scene, righ
t?”

  “And then we pulled the Garda’s phone records and saw that someone in that house called your cell phone this afternoon and spoke to you for four minutes. That’s a lot longer than leaving a message, but not a casual chat. That was you, booking an appointment at the Garda’s for tonight, wasn’t it?”

  I tried my best to look chagrined, but I’m very bad at it, so I’m sure I failed. “Yes, Detective, I did have an appointment at the Garda’s house tonight, to discuss the possible possession of their daughter. But she was fine when I left her, and the house was intact.” Technically true, since in comparison to having a demon in her womb, dead was certainly further along the scale to “fine.”

  “And then what were you doing at the Omega Sigma Iota house?” Flynn asked.

  “I was working on a case.”

  “The same case?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

  “Get liberated.” Detective Flynn probably had a finely tuned sense of humor, with a rapier sharp wit and an appreciation for Jerry Lewis movies. It just never showed its face when I was around.

  “Yes, it was the same case. It seems a couple of frat brothers summoned the demon which possessed Kayleigh Garda.” I was never terribly cautious discussing the details of my cases with Detective Flynn, since she didn’t believe in what I did anyway. I’ve found that bland honesty goes a long way into making people ignore the truth, particularly when the truth is hard to believe.

  “What was Kayleigh Garda doing in a frat house?” Flynn asked.

  I felt my neck start to get a little red. “Well, Detective, I bet she was being stupid, which is the inalienable birthright of the high school student, which is why there are things like laws and police departments to protect them. But good job, Flynn. I bet you passed ‘Blaming the Victim 101’ with flying colors.”

  “Don’t give me that shit, Harker. I’m just wondering how anyone that young even finds out about a party at a frat house.”