The Seventh Age: Dawn

by Rick Heinz

  Mike woke up to the jostling of the barrel as it was tipped on its side. The left half of his face burned with such agony that Mike wished he would just die. It was that tiny spot where the hole was drilled. Fear of that spot gripped him with terror. Even though the sun had long since set, he went unconscious from screaming in his own head hours ago. The barrel came to a halt, and he was released from his wooden sarcophagus. Several hands picked him up and set him on a table. He was blind in one eye. His face was nothing more than charred, dead flesh. It felt like his spine was still on fire.

  Sweetness. The taste of peaches and spiced plums was forced into his throat. He then felt as if a hundred small insects crawled on his face, tiny ants picking up bits of the pain and carrying it away as his vision came back into focus. Doc leaned over him, shining a small penlight into his eyes.

  “Looking for pupil dilation on an undead corpse? You don’t know anything, do you?” said a girl about half his height with short red hair cut into a bob. She wore some sort of black face paint and a gray coat with the hood pulled back.

  Doc gave her a piercing look. “Despite vampires being around for centuries, I’ve never had this chance. How many vampires have undergone experiments on their biology, type, classifications, and psychology?” He paused as he checked Mike’s other eye. “Only the Nazis and my father have a clue about what exactly we are dabbling with. Most of the Unification just accepts it as corrupting your divine soul, whatever that’s supposed to mean. So, let’s just say it might be you who doesn’t know anything.”

  The girl said, “I come from a long line of demon hunters and have trained my entire life for this. I know exactly what I’m dealing with. There are plenty of recorded studies before the Unification came into existence. Rational blokes ignore the magical and then spread that toxic science drivel, but that’s not the way the world works. Angels make the sun rise, your soul can be stolen, and anything magical tastes like peaches.” She gave a curt nod.

  “You know gravity is a thing, right? Does God just hold your feet magically to the ground? Lucy, if you show any scientist a double-blind case study, they will believe anything,” Doc said, and put his hand on the bolt in Mike’s chest. “All right, buddy. I’m going to pull this out now, on the distinct promise you don’t punch me. I’ve only tasted the blood at this point. I couldn’t survive a full punch from you. Understand?” He yanked the bolt out.

  Mike was gone the moment the bolt was removed, tossing back all instruments on the workshop table with the force of the wind alone. He’s gotta be close. He willed his legs to carry him faster out of this place. He checked the bathrooms, throwing open stall doors so hard they flew off their hinges. Pictures on the wall were still in midair as he sped through the hallway, hitting the ground long after Mike was gone. Inside clear. Smoking. Entrance. Security. He’s security. He’s outside. The main door.

  The steel doors to the first floor of the warehouse were blasted off their hinges. Mike could see Morris with a smoke still in his mouth fixing up his scarf and talking to the barefoot camo kid. The flame from the lighter went out before Morris could even react as Mike snarled, leaned back, and kicked him with all his momentum. The kick was so strong Morris created a dent in the side of a dump truck. This time Mike was confident he had knocked Morris out. The barefoot kid was trying to light some expensive brand of hipster cigarettes and had frozen in that position as she looked at Mike.

  “I’m Mike. Nice to meet you,” he said, gesturing to the pack. “Mind if I bum one? I just had the worst day of my life.” He felt ashamed to admit that was not a lie. Was that really worse than living through everyone’s death? Memory of the barrel flashed before his eyes. He leaned against the wall to brace himself. It would be easier to live through the day his own son died than live through another day in a barrel. He tried to shake it off.

  “Akira. Charmed. Sure thing, Boss.” Akira handed over a smoke and even lit it for Mike. She was short and wiry. She reminded Mike of a gutter punk or a street rat. Her skin had been enhanced with tattoos along her neck. Bright-blue insects.

  “Boss?” Mike forced himself to inhale. It was unnatural, a conscious thought. He focused on the feeling of the burn and the smoke inside him. He could feel his nerves calming from his indulgence in the decade-long habit.

  “Well, I ain’t too keen on being on your bad side, seeing as you just put that guy’s head up his ass. Listen, pal. They ain’t so good with sharing the demon hearts. You let me fight with you and don’t hoard the hearts. I wanna eat one, so why not?” She shrugged. “You can be Boss.” The way she twitched her head was almost like an insect.

  “What is it you do for O’Neil anyway?”

  “Nobody notices the homeless. So I kill people for him. Or listen. Pretty easy when nobody pays attention to you.”

  “All right, don’t kill any of my friends and we got a deal.” Mike offered his hand to shake.

  “Accepted! Good thing too. I was gonna have to do it for free. Bigger Boss wanted all of us to help you out. Now I get demon hearts out of the deal instead of just blood. World is coming up, Akira!” She smiled and shook Mike’s hand with both of hers.

  “I’m not big on hoarding anyway. I’m a card-carrying socialist after all.” Mike flashed a grin and pointed to a red fist button pinned to his green coat. “Think I went too far on Morris. I’d better go make sure he still has teeth.”

  Mike walked over to Morris and pulled him up. Ah crap. It’s not Morris. I got so focused on the scarf. Who the hell is this? Mike didn’t recognize him. He was, however, more than dead. Blood oozed out of his nose and his body seeped liquids like someone shot him with a shotgun. Oh God, no . . . no. “Hey, buddy, wake up. It’s going to be okay.” Mike laid the body back down and took off the cabby hat. He didn’t recognize this guy at all.

  “That’s your dinner,” said Morris. He was standing outside the dock door with a stone-faced demeanor. “Figured you would be pretty pissed when you woke up, friend. As much as I like having to repair my internal organs, I wasn’t feeling it this evening.”

  “Dinner,” Mike said. “Dinner.” Mike stood up. “Dinner?” Mike’s fists began to give off steam.

  “Yeah, dinner. Blood, food, lunch, breakfast. Whatever you wanna call it, big guy. Don’t worry about him. He was a murderer. Killed his seven-year-old daughter and his wife with over fifty stab wounds. Told him if he could survive the night, he was free to go.” Morris held up his hands. “Now chill, friend. I knew you weren’t going to eat just any old schmuck for your first meal. You have too much vigilante in you.”

  Mike looked back at him. These guys have always lied, or spoken in half-truths. “Prove it.”

  “Pull him in. Akira, go grab the newspaper.” Morris flipped his cigar onto a gravel path and walked inside.

  By the time Mike got inside, Akira showed him the newspaper story with the man’s face plastered on the third page: “Local Man Wanted for Double Homicide.” Well, I take back feeling sorry for kicking you, douch nozzle. Mike walked up to a column and sat down, propping his back up against it.

  He felt like crying, not only from the killing, but from everything. All the days put together were beginning to catch up to him, and Morris was right. He was ravenous. Using his newly acquired strength and speed drained him, and all he craved was blood. Everyone else in the room stood there letting the awkward pause hang in the air as Mike started knocking his head against the column.

  Doc Daneka was picking at his neck skin again. “Right, I think each of you should talk to me first. Even though I’d like to continue documenting this process for a case study, let’s give Mike some space. He’s going to need a minute to adjust.”

  “I’m not your research assistant,” Lucy said, her voice deep and almost growling.

  “Ah, but years of training burn inside of you. You’ll want my father’s notes to further your knowledge. That means joining us, doesn’t it?” Doc said. “Come on. You first, then.”

  In procession they foll
owed Doc back into the side rooms. Morris shook his head with a warning at Mike and walked out after O’Neil.

  Mike was alone in the warehouse at last. He walked up to the dead murderer on the table. “I really hope you ate Mexican food today.” Mike’s fangs popped out instinctively as he bit in. It was only lukewarm, but it was sweet and sour at the same time. He felt his body absorb each drop he sucked out like a sponge. It replaced all fear, nervousness, and apprehension he had with raw satiation.

  When the last drop was gone, Mike looked up and saw a little ghost looking at him. A small girl with knife slashes across her face. She smiled and skipped through Mike, who spun around to follow her. Three women kneeled down and gave her a hug as they started to fade from view back into the world of the dead. Well, at least seeing the dead isn’t a thing that has changed. One . . . unsettling comfort.

  CHAPTER 23

  Leaning over the drained body, Mike was lost in the reverie of his imagination. He pictured himself using his newfound powers to right all the injustices in the world while looking awesome doing it. The moment was broken when Patrick O’Neil and the rest of his merry band of misfits strolled in.

  O’Neil held up a gloved finger to everyone and shook it as he walked up in front of Mike. He put both his hands in his long brown coat and started rocking back and forth on his feet while looking around the room. Mike raised an eyebrow and started rocking the same way. I’ll hand it to him. He dresses real well. O’Neil continued letting silence fill the moment. Mike looked for answers on the faces of others. Doc, Matsen, Winters, Morris, and Akira all had expressions of equal confusion and had started looking around themselves.

  The girl with a hood and face paint had brought an axe with her. She brooded in the corner. Another girl in a tight black jumpsuit stopped chewing her gum. Damn. Of course, I’m dead and I end up in a room with a girl like that. Even the large man in fireman’s boots and pants, with the red suspenders and a Superman shirt underneath, looked sheepish. Patrick O’Neil continued swaying with his hands in his pockets. Okay, I can’t take it anymore.

  “What?” Mike said. Hands flinging out to the side, displaying new holes in his fingerless gloves from meat hooks. Patrick said nothing. He just kept rocking. “All right. I’m sorry I punched your guy and told everyone to defend their families by eating demons.” Patrick only lifted a single eyebrow and pursed his lips. Mike was a terrible liar. “Okay, I’m not sorry I tried to lead a revolution against puppet masters who have kept the working class down. I draw the line there. That’s all you’re getting out of me. Take it or leave it.”

  Still nothing from Patrick. Okay, this situation is getting close to a day in the barrel. Just the thought of that made him shiver. “Fine, the sun hurts. Your barrel had a lesson. I get why you did it. Can we get on with saving the world now?”

  “Thought you would never ask, kid,” he said at last. Everyone in the room sighed with relief, and the group relaxed.

  “Mike, meet your new family. They already met you at the bar earlier, but you were . . . different then. Lucy Carter is a demon hunter. Her job is obvious.” O’Neil pointed to the girl with face paint and a hood in the corner. “That’s Phoebe, my messenger. She can do the fastest ride from Lake Shore to Lemont. She’s got her own crew of crotch-rocket fiends.” As O’Neil nodded to the girl in skintight leather, she popped a giant bubble and winked at Mike. “This man in the fireman outfit is called the Captain, one of my imbedded agents at the Twin Cities while it was being readied.” The large fire-fighter leaned in to get a better look at Mike. O’Neil continued. “You’ve already met my troublesome assassin, Akira. She handles things that go awry.” O’Neil put a cigar in his mouth and the barefoot girl street rat lit it for him. “Welcome to the O’Neil family.”

  Mike stood up. “A family?”

  “A family of those who gambled with death.” Patrick produced two small golden pins and handed them to Mike. They looked like coins from ancient Greece. “We serve Lady of Fate. All here, including Doc and you, have been marked. You’ve gone farther than most.”

  Mike pinned the coins to his coat, underneath a frowny-face button that read: “POWs Never Have a Nice Day.” Another medal from a protest.

  “Kid, you’ve become nobility among the damned. You slew an arch demon and consumed its heart rather than making a deal. Golgoroth’s heart and all his power, strength, speed, and rage are bound to you. Frank and Morris each have their own, but one thing binds all you monsters together. People who have stolen a heart are banished from sunlight forever.” O’Neil walked over and gestured for Morris to pull out a chair and sit down.

  “What about you? Are you . . . ?” Mike asked.

  “Don’t worry about me. Just know that I’m cursed to be forgotten by anyone and everyone every time an age ends. As if I was never here.” He let out a small chuckle. “When this is all over, kid, you’ll look back and forget I even existed. Makes for a real lonely life when everyone dies around you from old age and everyone immortal forgets about you.”

  “If everyone forgets about you, how do you stay employed?” Mike said. There was not a soul in the room who didn’t seem interested in the answer.

  “That’s going to remain my secret for now.” O’Neil let slip a look of remorse past his aged demeanor. Regret seemed to weigh him down and made him look older for a brief moment.

  “I’ll get your story someday. Not gonna forget you. You ain’t gonna forget me. So, saving the world. Are demons still crawling out of the earth?”

  “Yes. It’s only getting worse and at a faster pace, like racehorses out of a gate. Lady of Fate chose us to operate the Second City, my city, to help the Unification conduct its ritual. They were expecting an odd occurrence here and there, something money could fix or maybe some muscle in the right spot. I was expecting hell on earth.”

  “Where is it all coming from?” Mike asked.

  “Here?” O’Neil asked, letting on that it was happening elsewhere. “The Twin Cities, but we are directly connected, and it looks like I was right. So I’ve sent Frankie up there to get field intel. We’ve got a guy up there figuring out a plan.”

  “All right. Why is this happening?”

  Patrick paused at that question, his gaze focused at his feet. “A lot of us asked that question. I suppose I don’t have a satisfactory answer, kid. The creatures that go bump in the night were tired of being confined to the night perhaps. What’s done is done.” He brushed some nonexistent dust from his clean pants, a nervous habit, Mike supposed.

  “You brought the world to an end because you were afraid of the fucking dark? Ever hear of Netflix? Watch some damn marathons,” Mike said.

  O’Neil held up a single finger. “Never me. Do not ever associate my name with this plan of the Unification. I am just an old man forgotten and forced to see this through. Do you understand?”

  Mike looked at him and took in his eyes. They were full of sadness and pain, old eyes that were full of loss. Mike nodded with empathy. “Okay, so they did this. I’m down for defending this place. Are all demons like the ones we’ve been facing? They keep getting bigger and bigger . . .”

  Lucy set her axe down and spoke. “You got lucky killing an arch demon, Golgoroth. It will take you decades of study to learn all the classifications of those past the Innocence, where all divine things reside. The ones you gotta watch out for, though, are those who look like humans. Aspect demons, lords of hell, and fallen angels.”

  Doc pushed up his glasses. “From what I’ve read, aspect demons usually go by demon of x. Where x equals whatever aspect gives them power. Demon of war, demon of lies. The inverse is also true for their heavenly counterpart.”

  “Since when the hell are you religious?” Mike pointed at Doc.

  “Well, I’m not religious, but it’s hard to ignore the evidence. While you’ve been running around on rooftops and being difficult, I’ve been reading my father’s journals on the science of how man becomes monster. Boils down to you are what you eat.
Eating Sparkles might cure a case of the sniffles, an aspect demon of rage and you get . . . well . . . ragey stuff. Good info to know when deciding on what to eat.” Doc stopped as Mike waved his hand.

  “Already boring, don’t care, have things to punch. Hey, O’Neil, people who eat a heart are stronger than those who just drink the blood, right?” Mike asked.

  O’Neil smirked. “Yeah, but it’s a gamble, kid. You really wanna throw those dice?”

  “Well, I figure Doc’s already got the important parts. You said only a few are nobility or whatever. Screw it. Let’s upgrade. Akira mentioned hearts are a rare thing, held in secret or, you know . . . because they aren’t on fucking earth normally. Well, now they are. You got your group of misfits. Let’s go fucking hunting and get us all on the same page. Why sit around and pass up this chance? If you wanna save this place, you’re putting a lot on the shoulders of . . . how many of us are there?” Mike paused to count, mouthing the numbers.

  Morris looked like he wanted to object, and Lucy shouldered her axe. O’Neil held up his hand. “Save it, Morris. Kid’s right. Time to restart the family business. I think it’s high time the O’Neils take their place as the best helldivers again. My plan, why I chose all of you, is to put some wild cards on the table.”

  Mike laughed and shook his head, recalling his conversation with Frank two nights ago about all of this.

  “I’m bound by an unbreakable pact to see this through to an outcome. You are under no such contract. What’s going on is worldwide, but it’s all connected. You’ll be able to make your mark soon enough.” O’Neil turned to the Captain. “Lay out how it works for us. You helped build the unholy setup.”

  The large fireman stepped forward with a cocky smile and snapped his suspenders. “That I did. That I did.” The looks of disapproval caused him to visibly shrink. “I’m a sorcerer who was accepted by the council to help guide the ritual, but it’s better if you think of me as one of the noble Bothans who stole the Death Star plans.”