The kiss seemed to last for days – but was actually about twenty seconds – and when it finished, Lucy felt a little weak in the knees.
“That’s all I needed to hear from you,” Tim said, holding her face in his hands and smiling.
Lucy smiled back, and the two just stood there for a while, looking into each other’s eyes and grinning like idiots. An observer would assume the two were drunk, and the observer wouldn’t be completely wrong. The two were drunk. They were quite intoxicated. But not from imbibing alcohol. Tim and Lucy were drunk on each other.
And so they started kissing again, quite oblivious to the three bears they currently occupied the small room with. Regardless of the stares, which turned into the loud and obvious clearing of throats, which came from both Burt and Beatrice, the two remained sealed at the lips.
Finally, Burt had to come over and physically separate the two.
Lucy and Tim both stammered a red faced apology, but they still couldn’t keep their eyes off each other.
Suddenly, from the bank of security monitors, Beatrice said the only thing that could have pulled Lucy from her spell, “Is this your husband?”
“What?” Lucy asked, spinning in Beatrice’s direction.
“Well,” Beatrice began. “I just came over to look into the security monitors and I’m seeing this man standing in our kitchen. He’s all in black. Is this your husband?”
Lucy and Tim rushed over to the monitor, and there he was. Doc Holliday. Dressed all in black and sporting two antique revolvers. A coldness crept into Lucy and she had to fight to stay on her feet.
Here was the man she’d been running from for the past few years, and he was in the house. Tears leaked from her eyes as she began to tremble. Tim put his arms around her, and while that helped, she still felt a cold stab of darkness in her heart.
Suddenly Doc was looking into the camera. No, looking through the camera.
“He can see me,” Lucy whispered. “He knows where I am.”
“Now that’s just nonsense,” Beatrice said.
But then the feed for the camera in the kitchen went out, and the four of them could see nothing now but snow and static coming from the monitor.
“He knows where I am,” Lucy repeated. “He knows where I am, and he’s going to take me.”
“No one’s taking you,” Tim said.
“He’s coming to get me,” said Lucy, her voice barely a whisper. “He’s coming to get me.”
Then the world fell out from under them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CARL DROPPED THE DUFFEL to the floor before pumping another round into the shotgun as the demon named Ed picked itself up off the floor. The demon was shaken. Carl was sure the thing hadn’t expected to be shot in the face, trusting that its demonic presence alone would place such fear in people that fighting back wasn’t usually the typical response.
“Okay,” the creature laughed. “I’ll give ya that one. You got spunk, kid. I won’t deny it.” Small trails of blood, the deepest of black, oozed from the holes in Ed’s face where the blast had taken him.
It bleeds , Carl thought. That’s something .
“Now, why don’t you put the toy down,” Ed used the sword in his right hand – a sword so large that Carl could have slept on it – to gesture at Carl’s shotgun. “You’re only going to get yourself hurt.
Carl shot Ed in the face.
Once again, Ed fell, this time with a grunt of pain. Carl ran to where Ed lay on the floor, stood over the massive red creature, and continued to pump round after round into the creature’s face and head until the the shotgun was out. Carl dropped the shotgun and went for his side arm. By this time, Ed had dropped both swords and had brought his hands up to protect his face. Carl emptied all thirteen rounds from the handgun into the thing’s head. Ed stopped moving.
Carl staggered back, breathing heavily, ejecting the empty magazine from the pistol, snatching a fresh one from his his belt, and slamming it into place before returning the Glock 21 to the holder at his hip. He snatched up his shotgun and went to the duffel, crouching and pulling a box of shells from the bag’s interior. He slid the last of the eight shells into place when Ed’s voice sounded from behind him.
“You finished?”
Carl stood, spun and, pumping a round into the shotgun, pointed the barrel at Ed’s mangled face.
“Whoa, there fella,” Ed spoke, one hand toying with the gold circlet that hung from the leather cord around its neck, the other hand reaching out in a gesture of peace. Carl wasn’t buying it.
Carl shot Ed in the face … at least, that’s what he had meant to do. He had aimed for Ed’s face, he had squeezed the trigger, but the shot went wild and blasted the ceiling above. It must have had something to do with Ed moving at the speed of thought and crossing the room to grasp the barrel of the gun with one dinner plate sized hand and pointing said barrel up into the air as Carl fired.
“That’s enough!” the demon barked, reaching out with the other had to grab Carl by the top of his head.
Carl felt himself rise from the floor, pain shooting through his head, down his neck, and into his spine. Instinctively, he dropped the shotgun and brought both hands up to grab Ed by the wrist, taking some of his weight off of his head and neck. It still hurt like crap, but luckily the agony didn’t last long. Unfortunately, the reason the pain in his spine went away was due to Ed tossing him bodily across the room like an unwanted G.I. Joe action figure. The one pain was replaced by another, an allover agonizing hurt as Carl collided, back first, with a bookshelf on the far side of the room. He slammed to the floor, landing on his chest and face, books from the shelf above falling atop him, the corners of the hardbacks digging into him as they fell. Carl thought for a moment that he was screaming as he flew through the air, he certainly heard someone screaming, but to him it had sounded like a little girl. He supposed it may have been him, but frankly he just didn’t care. He simply hurt too much.
“Stay down, hero,” Ed said, his voice moving closer. Carl could see its goat’s hooves crossing the floor toward him.
“ You stay down,” Carl said, trying for a bit of sass as he struggled to rise. He didn’t quite achieve the sass he had been aiming for however. His words came out in a faint croak. He fought with limbs that dared to disobey him, but eventually he began to pull himself up.
“Come on, kid,” Ed said, scratching at his chin. “You understand that it ain’t gonna mean much to me to kill you, right?”
“ You come on,” Carl, trying for sass again, paused to spit a glob of blood to the floor, “kid.” He really hurt. He’d never hurt this bad in his life. The human body just simply wasn’t made to be flung about like a toy. He imagined that he had one large bruise that covered every inch of skin on his body.
“Okay, son,” the thing spoke as it bent to retrieve one of the massive swords. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”
Carl knew that he was a dead man. The pain that coursed throughout his body was nothing compared to the hurt in his heart, the pain he felt for failing. Failing her. He had only two options left to him. Run, or stand and fight. He figured that either option led to a horribly unnatural death. Carl made his decision. He made the sign of the cross and launched himself at Ed.
Ed fell back in surprise as Carl slammed into him, wrapping his arms around the thing, clinging to the demon with his feet dangling in the air, fighting the urge to let go from the heat that burned Carl as he came in contact with the creature. But Carl didn’t let go. Instead, he slammed his forehead into the thing’s snout.
Ed roared and shook Carl free. Carl dropped to the ground and began pummeling the creature, and to h
is amazement, Ed just stood there and took it. Carl thought for a moment as he danced and punched and kicked that the demon was probably just toying with him. Letting him feel like he was doing well before the red jerk reached out and ended his life like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. It didn’t really matter. Carl was ready to die.
He soon found himself behind the large demon and seized upon the chance, leaping upon the thing’s back, wrapping an arm around the creature’s throat. Then, grasping his wrist with the other hand to gain leverage, Carl began to choke the life out of Ed, the demon that the man in black had put in his path.
Ed began to take the situation a bit more seriously at that point and managed to get a hand behind its back and grabbed a hold of Carl by the torso. Ed pulled. Carl clung with all his might. But Carl was really no match for the demon’s strength and soon felt that if he held on much longer, that the creature would simply pull his arms from their sockets. So Carl let go.
However, as Ed began to pull Carl away, Carl’s baser instincts kicked in, his will to live went into overdrive, and his hands and arms flailed about, trying to cling to Ed’s shoulders, its neck, its chest. For a moment, his fingers found the leather cord that held the circlet of gold, the cord that hung around Ed’s thick neck. Carl snatched at it as Ed gave one last heave.
The cord snapped, and the necklace came off in his hand. He held on to the necklace for dear life and the demon began to scream as it threw Carl across the room
He fell to the floor in a heap, landing on his back, looking up at the demon as it continued to scream. Cracks began to form all over the thing’s body, and as they grew larger – widening – smoke roiled forth and he could see inside the demon. It was like looking into a live volcano. Red hot magma began to ooze from the cracks as they continued to open and grow larger.
It took a moment before Carl had realized that the thing had stopped screaming. Instead, the demon trashed about; smoke, flames, and lava pouring out of its body. Then as sudden as it began, it was over. Ed stood frozen. One moment the demon flailed about violently, the next it was as still as a statue. In fact, Carl could see, Ed was a statue. The blood red hue of its skin replaced by that of stone. Smoke no longer rose, fire no longer burned, and lava no longer flowed. Instead, steam emanated from the stone body in great waves as the stone began to cool.
Carl picked himself up off the ground, his clothes torn, his body bloody and bruised, his bones aching. He crossed the room, retrieved his shotgun, pumped a round into the chamber, and shot the statue that was once a demon named Ed. Now it was only pieces of flaky stone as it shattered, scattering around on the library floor.
I’ll come back later with a broom and dustpan , Carl thought, snatching up the duffel and striding from the room.
He continued to move forward, but didn’t make it far. Something made him stop. He stood in a long hallway with art on the walls. He should continue on, but a small voice inside him told him to go back. He recognized the voice … the little girl. Carl didn’t question it, he just turned on his heel and went back. The girl wanted him to go back to the beginning so that’s just where he would go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THERE ARE MANY WORDS in the English language that one could use to accurately describe the mood in which Doc Holliday currently found himself in. Irate, furious, even irked would suffice. But in the end, it didn’t really matter which word you used, it all came down to the same thing. Doc Holliday was pissed.
He just wanted the girl. He wanted Lucy. She needed to be made an example of to any others who dared think to defy him. But the girl was locked behind a foot of concrete and steel. Not that that would necessarily stop Doc from getting the job done, it just made it more difficult. It meant that he had to expend more energy – use more magic – and he didn’t want to have to do that unless it was absolutely necessary.
Doc had spent enough dark energy just to get to this backwater hole. Then there were the cops outside that gas station, plus all those people out front. And now he had this do-gooder lawman creeping about. Officer Friendly. Friendly somehow survived the explosion at the gas station. That made him nervous, and Doc didn’t get nervous.
So he had used more of his power to try and drive Friendly away. He had tried an all-out assault on the boy’s senses. That almost worked, but the boy persisted. Then he had tried persuasion. That nearly worked as well. But the boy was still able to follow him into the house. He didn’t have much time. That meant using even more energy. He’d sent Ed, one of his minions from the Pit, to keep Carl from interfering. But now he no longer sensed Ed’s presence on Earth. There was no way that boy got past Ed. Yet … he tried not to think about it.
Focus on the plan, he thought. Focus on Lucy. Get Lucy. Go home. Simple.
Doc may seem all powerful to the useless human carrion that infested the planet, but the fact of the matter was that his power was not infinite. Not even close. Oh, he had ways of getting back that which he had used, but it involved a full moon, goat skin leggings, and the blood of a virgin. Three things he didn’t have immediately at hand.
There was one other option available to him, but he wasn’t too keen on it. He’d never had to use it before, and he wasn’t about to start. It meant calling upon his boss, facing him, and then asking for a favor. He already owed the Boss as it was, and he didn’t like being beholden to anyone, leastways the Devil himself. But knowing that the option was there – just in case – helped ease his tension just a little.
As it sat now, he didn’t have much of the dark energy left in him. Just enough to get in, get the girl, and get out. He would to have to rely on shock and awe. He needed to go in fast, expend a nice big chunk of power, blow some stuff up, put stars in their eyes, grab the girl, and then get the Hell out of Dodge.
He found himself in a room on the first floor, and he stood looking up at the ceiling. Above him, two floors directly above him, was the panic room. In the panic room was his prize. Lucy. The rest, the bears and that boy who calls himself the Beast, they were nothing more than cattle for the slaughter. But only if they got in his way. Doc didn’t have the time, nor the energy, for a drawn out battle.
The panic room was heavy, real heavy, but the walls around him were made up of steel support beams behind dry wall which held the panic room in place. He just needed to knock out those support beams and the room would come tumbling down. Then it was a just a simple matter of getting into the room and absconding with the girl.
He mentally checked his power levels. He would have to melt steel, twice, then he should have just enough power left to teleport a short distance. Teleporting took quite a bit of raw energy, otherwise he’d just teleport into the room, grab Lucy, and teleport out. But he only had enough in him for one jump. So he would melt his way in instead. Dropping the room down two floors should shake them up enough that he’d be a couple of blocks away before the rest of them would even know what happened.
Doc pulled his guns. Through them he was able to direct the Hellfire he had at his disposal. He aimed at the wall to his left with one pistol, and the wall to his right with the other. He squeezed the triggers. A bar of molten fire, as thick as the barrel of each gun, shot forth from both revolvers and melted through the wall at either side. Then he spun a full circle, once, as the fire shot from his guns, and the house started to rumble.
Doc casually stepped through the doorway and into the next room as Lucy, her friends, and the steel box they were hiding in came crashing down through the floor in a cloud of dust, splintered wood, and sparking electrical wires. He smiled at the sight of the ruin he had caused. He loved ruin. Ruin, chaos, anarchy – these were his bread and butter.
The room sat at an angle, resting on one corner. Before the dust could settle, he raised his right pistol and traced a bar of Hellfire i
n a circle – big enough for a man to fit through – on one side of the giant steel box. The circle complete, he kicked at it and it fell inward, into the panic room, leaving a nice hole in the wall that Doc stepped through.
Inside the room Doc found a chaotic mess. Everything in the room that wasn’t bolted down had slid to the downward pointing corner of the box. The occupants inside were dazed and lying on the floor. He located Lucy lying next to the Beast. She looked up at him in confusion. The confusion turned into recognition, which then changed to terror.
“Hello, Lucy,” he said as he picked her up and threw her over a shoulder.
She screamed and hit at him, clawing and kicking. He just laughed.
And just as he was about to teleport away, he looked down and gazed upon the Beast – the man whom Lucy truly loved. The Beast was handsome, he could see that. But he was still just a man, after all.
Doc teleported. His destination had been the smoldering parking lot of the Brick House Gas and Groceries just down the road. But that’s not where he ended up. Instead, he found himself still in the house. He stood in the front room. The front door, or the gaping hole in the wall that had replaced it, was there in front of him.
To make matters worse, standing between Doc and the outside was that blasted do-gooder cop, Officer Carl Friendly. He’d gotten past the demon. Doc couldn’t believe it.
“Howdy Doc,” the boy said, pumping a round into the shotgun he held. “I’m going to need you to lay the girl on the ground and throw your hands in the air.”
Doc felt a surge of rage build up inside him. He was Doc Holliday. There was a time when the name alone would turn a man’s insides to jelly, yet here was this law man, this boy , presuming to tell him what to do. It was preposterous, ridiculous, and frankly, a little offensive. But he was practically out of juice. A sliver of fear began to creep in. He fought it back, pushing it off into another room and locking the door.
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