Double-Barreled Devilry

by D Michael Bartsch

  I needed some answers before I went after him again. I wanted to rip Prufrock a new one for sending me in there blind. Really, I wanted to hurt a lot of people at that moment. I promised myself I would, just not in a straight fight. I remembered the survivor's code. Hit them first, hit them hard, and hit them from behind.

  I fished out an old napkin from under the seat and spat. A pool of red stained the napkin around the piece of skin I'd spit into it. I had some of his blood and skin, and while I may not have known what the hell was going on, I did have an idea of what to do with the skin.

  It took me an hour to reach the Siren Club from Glyph's place. Traffic was heavy, and I was too tired to hurry. Part of me wished that the place would have been on fire when I got there and whatever had come out of that summoning circle had killed Balthazar, Talia, and Andrej. I would settle for just horribly maimed in Andrej's case. It would sure as hell make my life easier. If they were dead, the job would be off the table, and my debt wiped clean anyway.

  I parked in a red zone, in front of a hydrant and everything, just in case a fire did break out. The ticket would be worth it if the placed burned down.

  They let me in through the back entrance without any problems. I took the stairs to the waiting room. Zaria was there, looking gorgeous as ever. She gave me a raised hand to signal I was supposed to wait. I couldn't help but notice that she didn't bother to even look up. Women. I strode past her desk and gave her the finger, pushing the door open and walking in.

  Balthazar was at his desk. Andrej was with him. I could hear them arguing as soon as the door cracked open.

  “Explain to me how she vanished. I would love to know how my daughter, who I've specifically asked you to protect, just vanished. Surely this isn't your first time keeping tabs on someone.”

  “No.”

  “Then how did she slip away unseen? What were you doing?”

  “I had four men in the house, and I was in the next room. I don't know how she got out of the house.”

  “Find my daughter Andrej, or I'll find someone who can. I do not abide failures.”

  Balthazar noticed me walking in.

  “Lost the Boss's daughter? I worked so hard to get her back.”

  There was a stiletto in my face before I could blink. Andrej wasn't a fan of guns. He knew how to shoot well enough, but he preferred knives. That had been my first clue that he wasn't to be trusted. The only people I know that prefer knives to guns are all bat shit crazy.

  “Andrej,” Balthazar said.

  I didn't give him the satisfaction of looking at the knife. I knew he honed all of them to a razor edge and how well he knew how to use it. He'd gotten plenty of practice knife fighting with shivs in the Gulag.

  He waited long enough to make a point before lowering the knife, making it disappear up his sleeve. He growled under his breath at me.

  “Down boy,” I said.

  “I trust you have something to tell me,” Balthazar said.

  I stared Andrej down for a moment before turning to Balthazar and ignoring the Serbian prick. He wanted me to be wary of him, keep an eye out. I knew it would piss him off to no end to be ignored like he wasn't worth the time to pay attention to.

  I took a seat in one of the leather guest chairs.

  “Ajax already check in?” I asked.

  Balthazar nodded.

  “I would like to hear from someone who was there.”

  I kicked back, popping my feet up on his desk.

  “Found a warehouse with the Ravager in it. The thing was already dead when I got there. Whoever did this wanted to be tracked. They set up the trap. I was neck deep in ghouls when they closed the circle. They knew you would be going after Talia, and they knew you'd be able to track her. They just didn't expect me.”

  “I know of the details. I want your opinion on the situation. Ajax tells me that the circle was designed to pull out something from Hell.”

  “He wasn't trying to make a love potion.”

  Balthazar was silent. Staring into the middle distance, thinking.

  “I'm told the larger footprints most likely belong to an Ogre.”

  “Circle that big definitely could have managed it. It would take a powerful warlock to control an Ogre. They're dumb, but they're also fond of eating people dumb enough to summon them.”

  “Nothing has changed then. There is still at least one Hellion and the man who summoned it.”

  I had some choice words for him. As far as I was concerned there was a big difference between a four hundred pound Ravager and a three-ton Ogre. I didn't have a chance to voice that, though.

  The door burst open.

  I turned around to see Talia sauntering in. Apparently, she'd found her way back, but lost most of her outfit on the way. Jean cutoffs stopped just below her crotch, the pockets poking out of the bottom. She was also wearing a wife beater as a shirt, the dark outline of her bra visible through the sheer fabric. The strangest part had to be the white satin gloves on her hands. The whole thing was very white trash and looked pretty damn good on her, strangely enough.

  “Talia,” Balthazar said. “Where have you been?”

  “Out.”

  No one looked happy with that answer except for her. To be honest, I didn't really give a shit, but Balthazar and Andrej both looked pissed. Can't say I blame them. One of them was the father, and the other would end up with his balls in a vice if anything happened to her. Both of them would most likely make my life a living hell because they were pissed at her.

  “I hope I didn't miss anything. I've never felt safer knowing that he's out there looking for the thing that attacked me.”

  She directed a rather disgusted look at me when she said that. If I hadn't known better, I would have said she was a fan of my work.

  “You didn't seem so uppity when I was saving your pretty ass from that pack of ghouls,” I said.

  “Cain,” Balthazar said. It was a warning to be civil.

  “Drunk bastard,” She said.

  “Bitch.”

  “Cain!” Balthazar bellowed.

  I'd only heard him raise his voice a handful of times. I looked back at him. His eyes were on fire with rage.

  “I will not tolerate you speaking to my daughter that way,” He said, his voice returning to its normal, controlled monotone.

  Talia smiled at me and gave me the finger.

  Balthazar leveled his gaze at his daughter.

  “Behave, or you'll find yourself chained to a chair.”

  That took her back.

  “You can't talk to me like that,” She said.

  Balthazar cut her off.

  “Do not forget your place. I do not care if you are my daughter. If you don't learn to follow simple instructions, you will be dealt with.”

  “But.”

  “Enough.” He said. “Speak out of turn again, and you will not see the sun again until this matter has been resolved.”

  She looked pissed but kept quiet. She ended up grabbing the bottle of Macallan off the desk and stocked out of the room with it. She looked good leaving, but I was sad to see her take the bottle with her. Attractive women who like good booze are my kryptonite. Well, more so the booze than the women if I'm honest.

  “Kids,” I said.

  Balthazar looked at me.

  “I trust you have a plan,” He said.

  I nodded.

  “Ajax is downstairs right now. I have him looking into something for me.”

  “What?” He asked.

  Andrej was still in the room. I looked his way and then back at Balthazar.

  “You brought me in to take care of things because you can't trust your own organization. I'm going to play things close to the chest until I know more.”

  Andrej growled under his breath. I smiled.

  Balthazar mulled that over. He kept his eyes on me. They were hard, calculating, but I could tell he was tired. There was a lot more going on underneath the surface that I had no idea about. I needed to find the wa
rlock quickly and get the hell out before everything blew up.

  “What do you need?” He asked.

  “Couple more guns. Lost a few fighting off the ghouls.”

  “Andrej can get you anything you need.”

  “A little money to grease some wheels around town wouldn't hurt either,” I said.

  There was a rather uncomfortable silence in the room. I could tell the older man was trying to figure out if I was just trying to take more of his money. To be honest, I was. Bribe money was always good to have on hand, but I also needed some food. I was out of beer too.

  Balthazar nodded and opened a drawer in his desk. He pulled out a single stack of cash and tossed it to me. I caught the banded stack in the air and looked at it. The hundreds were crisp.

  “Put it on my tab,” I said.

  “Get me that warlock's head or you'll have bigger things to worry about than stealing money from me,” He said.

  I took that as a cue and stood.

  “I'll get it done,” I said.

  I walked out. Andrej was dogging me as I did. I gave him the finger and hit the stairs.

  I met Ajax in the basement. He was bundled up in his oversized jean jacket with a grey hoodie underneath. He was playing on his phone when I walked in. There was a large black duffel bag on the table in front of him. I had called him on my way to the club and asked him to bring a specific item with him. I was happy to hear he still had it. When I left Balthazar's employ, he had just purchased the item from a Czech fence.

  Pocketing the phone, Ajax looked up as I walked over.

  “I'm glad you didn't get bored and sell the damn thing,” I said, gesturing to the bag.

  Ajax smiled.

  “You know how much I paid for this thing? I wouldn't trade it for my left nut.”

  “What about the right one?”

  He laughed as he opened the bag. Inside was a two-foot tall marble bust. The ancient white stone was polished smooth and gleamed in the fluorescent light. Setting it upright on the table, he tossed the duffel on the floor.

  The head of the bust was smooth and egg-shaped. There were no facial features, no ears, and no hair, just a blank canvas of stone. The torso was bare and minimally carved, the shoulders and chest distinctly androgynous.

  I reached out and placed a hand on the stone. It was cold to the touch. I could feel the hum of magic inside the stone, some of it leaking in through my hand.

  “I don't think I could ever get used to that,” Ajax said. “Not being able to use anything anymore.”

  I took my hand away.

  “You get used to it.” I lied.

  I fished the bloody napkin out of my pocket and handed it to Ajax.

  “That's disgusting,” He said. “Where the hell did you get this?”

  He peeled back the layers of paper to look at the skin.

  “Bit someone's finger off.”

  “Why didn't you just bring the finger?” He asked.

  “Well, I almost bit someone's finger off.”

  “Awesome.”

  Ajax grabbed a water bottle off the table and unscrewed it. He placed the dried up napkin on the top of the bust's blank head. He poured a little water onto the napkin. Rivulets of pale red washed down the marble. As they did, the stone began to change.

  Like molten wax, the bust began to quiver. A nose pushed its way out in the center of the head; ears protruded from the sides. I watched as wavy lines appeared on the top of the stone, forming medium length hair.

  The busts magic was fairly simple. All you needed was some DNA, and if you placed it on the bust, it would change shape to a perfect replica of the person the DNA belonged to.

  It didn't work for me of course, but it would for anyone else. Ajax had wanted it to track down anyone dumb enough to leave DNA behind at a scene. Balthazar had fronted him the money with the understanding that he would pay back the loan or lose more than the bust. Between a tracker and a replica of the person you were looking for, it was pretty easy to track down anyone who needed finding.

  Generally, the process took less than a minute. As I looked on, the bust couldn't seem to make up its mind on what it wanted to look like. The features kept morphing, half forming and melting away again before they could set. One second they had the hardened features of an older man, the next the smooth face of a young woman. After that I thought I recognized Glyph's jawline mixed with the sultry mouth of a young woman. The hair grew and shrank back into the head in a variety of different lengths and styles.

  I watched, knowing what I was looking at and hating every second of it.

  “What the hell?” Ajax said. “Is there more than one person's blood on the napkin?”

  “No,” I said. “I got it from Glyph, whatever's left of him anyway.”

  Ajax turned to me. “Glyph?”

  “I went to his place earlier. I saw him, or at least I thought I did.”

  “Why were you there in the first place?”

  “Doesn't matter.”

  I wasn't about to tell anyone about Prufrock and his ominous threats. If Balthazar found out I was splitting my focus when his daughter's life was at stake, I don't think I'd live to see tomorrow.

  “What does it mean?” Ajax asked.

  We both looked at the unsettling, half-formed faces on the bust. I leaned down and stared into the empty, formless eyes.

  “Soul Monger.” I said.

  “No way.”

  I reached out and touched the forehead of the bust with my index finger. I felt the snap of magic rushing into my body and dissipating. The stone froze instantly, a blank canvas once again.

  “Nope.”

  I turned around.

  “No one knows about this.” I said.

  “But Balthazar.”

  “No one, especially not him. With everything going on with Talia, this will make it worse. I'll handle it.”

  “Glyph's been around a lot lately. I don't know what he was working on, but I know it was something big. If this thing killed him, it had a reason. This has gotta be connected to the attack on Talia and the crap that happened in the warehouse. Probably the break in too.”

  “That's exactly why I need you to shut up and keep it off of everyone's radar. Someone on this inside has to be helping this guy. We don’t trust anyone.

  “I'm gonna go back to Glyph's place and get some answers.”

  Ajax sighed.

  “Fine. Between this shit and running around the whole damn city closing down rifts, I feel like a bag of beat dicks anyway.”

  “Rifts?” I asked.

  A rift was a weak spot in our reality. The cosmic shit that holds everything together wasn't just glue for Heaven, Hell, and Earth, but it was also a barrier that kept everything separated. Rifts pop up naturally all over the world, but they’re rare. It was unheard of for more than one to pop up in the same area.

  “Yea. They've been popping up more and more for the last couple years. Lately, they've been showing up all the damn time. Anymore, I feel like I spend all my time cleaning up Hellion remnants that Andrej and his boys kill and closing the rifts they came out of.”

  Demons and Hellions can use rifts to cross over to our world depending on how large they are. The summoning circles that had been in the warehouse were essentially artificially created rifts. Instead of the barrier naturally weakening until something popped through, a hole was torn in it on purpose.

  Having one pop up in an area was bad news. If they were popping up all over the city frequently, something very bad was going on.

  “Andrej's been hunting down Hellions?” I asked.

  “Yup. After you bounced out, he took over the resident badass role even more than before. He made turtle soup out of Kapa that showed up by Fisherman's Wharf last week.”

  That definitely shouldn't be happening. Not unless someone was summoning them, and to my knowledge you couldn't summon a rift without a circle and sacrifices to power it.

  “Do you have any idea what's causing them?” I as
ked.

  “Hell if I know. Shit's getting old, though, that I do know. Closing one of those bitches down takes some doing, and it's getting harder.”

  Rifts and Hellions. What the hell had Balthazar gotten himself into?

  “Thanks for bringing the bust.” I said. “I gotta find out what's going on.”

  “Stay safe.”

  “I'll do my damnedest.”

  7

  The light blinded me as I shuffled into the Hall of Angels. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I felt an overwhelming sickness wash over me. I collapsed, falling hard on my knees. My stomach roiled, and I started to heave. If I'd had anything in my stomach, I would have retched.

  My stomach was floating, bubbling and frothing over. My intestines churned and shivered. Something was wrong. I had entered the Hall on three previous occasions, and even before I'd gone through the mantle ceremony, I'd never felt anything like it. I knew it was my shame. It was unbearable. The Hall of Angels was the last truly Holy place left on Earth. A place where Angels could walk freely among men in their purified form. I was a disgusting sinner, and my shame had tainted this place. I knew what I was feeling was the result of God's displeasure.

  “Stand on your feet.” Gabriel barked. “Face judgment like a man. Groveling will not see you spared.”

  I took a ragged breath and put my hands on the ground. Moving was difficult, bound in iron and doubled over by the presence of Holy Wrath. I was able to rock myself back on my heels and stand. The feeling of overwhelming power still draped through my entire existence.

  Gabriel grabbed my arm and started to drag me towards the end of the hall. The marble floor bloomed with ambient light. All of the stone seemed to glow. I could see the feet of the marble pillars that lined the room.

  If I'd been able to look up, I knew I'd see the carved pillars, shaped like mighty seraphim. Their six wings were covering their bestial bodies. The walls beyond the pillars held great reliefs, carved with scenes of the Great War. They spoke of Lucifer's betrayal and the ensuing war. They spoke of the Venatori's creation, and it's mission to keep the children of God safe from the vile evils of Hell.