Double-Barreled Devilry

by D Michael Bartsch

  We had driven for twenty minutes before I had an idea of where we may end up, and it was so damn poetic. I got unreasonably angry at life.

  Holy Cross Cemetery was south of the city. It was out of the way, quiet, and ridiculously large. Sure I'd seen larger cemeteries, but at that point it was just semantics. There are a hell of a lot of bodies in the ground, and I had a rather bad feeling about it as we arrived.

  Andrej pulled over at an auto shop up the street from the Cemetery's main entrance. A black iron gate surrounded the entire property. We wouldn't be able to drive in, but the fence wasn't nearly enough to keep a person out.

  We all got out of the car. Andrej popped the trunk, and we pulled out our gear. I shrugged the duffle over my shoulder, sliding it around, so it was on my back. Andrej grabbed two sheathed katanas and began strapping them on his back.

  Ajax moved into the driver's seat. He looked scared, his shifty eyes dodging back and forth all over the place as he moved around to the other side of the car. Andrej leaned down into the open doorway.

  “Keep the lights off and the engine on. We may have to come out in a hurry. We'll need to be ready to move.”

  “Got it,” He said, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he did.

  Andrej turned back to me.

  “Our priority is Balthazar. We eliminate any threats standing in the way of getting him out, and avoid any unnecessary conflict that could endanger him further.”

  “And stopping the Demon Lord from coming into the world to murder all of us, where does that fall on the list of objectives?” I asked.

  “It doesn't. If we can get Balthazar out alive, the Demon Lord won’t be here. If the Demon has already made its way into our world, Balthazar will most likely already be dead, and we will follow shortly.”

  He had me there.

  “We need to take out Sartre regardless.”

  Andrej nodded.

  “Agreed,” He said.

  “Let's do it to it, Lars.”

  Andrej darted across the street. I followed him, moving far less gracefully. When I reached the gate, I tossed the duffle over the top and started to climb. My ribs ached with the effort, but it didn't take long to hop over to the damp grass on the other side.

  Andrej landed in a low crouch beside me and slid a katana free of its sheath. I unzipped the duffle and took out the L85A2. I zipped the bag back up and slung it over my back, slipping the rifle's tac-sling on after and tightening my grip on it. We got moving.

  Andrej walked with the sword held in a reverse grip, the pointy end hovering a few inches above the ground behind him. He was looking down at the compass in his left hand as he walked, following the needle. I was walking behind, rifle tucked into my shoulder and sweeping back and forth, the barrel an extension of my eyes. I was also making sure to avoid any embarrassing accidents by running into a razor sharp ninja sword floating in front of me.

  We stayed low, weaving in and out of the gravestones and marble mausoleums. Everything was dead quiet, the way a graveyard should be. It was also dark as hell. The moon hid behind a wave of foggy mist.

  After five minutes of wandering in the dark, I felt an unholy rush of energy surge past me. I took a knee as my stomach flipped. Andrej turned back, his eyes wide. He had felt it too, which meant that there was a shit ton of magic pooling somewhere in front of us. My skin crawled as it slid across my body and oozed through my pours. My heart was stampeding in my chest, and my stomach was stuck at the moment right before you throw up. It felt like gravity had been shut off inside of my chest cavity and everything was floating aimlessly.

  It started to rain, hard. A monsoon started to pour out of the sky above us. Thick drops exploded off of my body as I looked up to the sky.

  “We may be too late,” I said.

  Andrej tapped me on the side of the face with the compass to despell it before tossing it aside. I felt the snap as the magic sucked into my body, dissipating. Ever the professional, Andrej knew the thing would have continued to track Balthazar even after we grabbed him if I hadn't touched it. Now, the only thing it would be find was north.

  Pulling me up with his free hand, Andrej pushed forward. I was able to get ahold of myself after a few ugly steps. I still felt like I was permanently stuck in an elevator plummeting to an inevitable doom, but I was able to start thinking again. Gotta learn to appreciate life's small victories. I rocked my rifle back to my shoulder and got ready for whatever shit show was waiting for us out there in the dark.

  We hadn't gone twenty feet before something melted out of the shadows in front of us. Andrej moved quickly. The katana made a faint whistling as it split the air. I saw drops of blood mix with the rain and heard a thump as the body dropped to the wet ground.

  Andrej plunged the sword deep into the chest of the fallen body, sinking it halfway to the hilt. Only then did he release his grip and see what he'd killed. Luckily, it wasn't a groundskeeper or some poor bastard spending a night in a cemetery on a dare.

  Pulling back the black hood, pale flesh showed in the near darkness. The bald head had a carved Hellion sigil. The blood had congealed but had yet to scab over. The wound was relatively fresh. The sigil was Moloch's personal crest. We were definitely in the right place.

  “Son of a bitch.” I said. “Should have guessed there would be cultists here.”

  Cultists show up anywhere demonic hoodoo's going down. Demons used them as fodder for both the Venatori Hunters and Hellions looking for a snack. The misguided bastards are mostly harmless unless you wander into a pack of them. Either way, it was an added threat no matter how small.

  “We stick to the plan.” Andrej said.

  Andrej, ever the bullet in flight, capable of only one direction, forward.

  We came to the edge of a street running through the cemetery. The road poured into a roundabout and on the inside of it, there was a patch of grass about two hundred feet across with a giant tree in about as close to the center as you could get. I saw an awful lot of red light shining in the darkness.

  I don't know what it is with evil warlocks, death cultists, or people who just, in general, try and use magic to screw up everyone else's life; they always go with the hideously stereotypical magic that glows red in the darkness.

  I could see the outline of at least a dozen shadowy figures roaming around the grass. I sighted a few of the shapes through the Eotech sight on the L85A2. They were all roughly human sized, but even in the darkness, I could see some had tails and reptilian snouts, Ravagers. I could also feel the unmistakable presence of the Rift. I'd felt something similar once before when I'd walked into the Void.

  I could barely make out a large group of bodies at the center of the island. They were sitting or crouched down on the grass. No doubt those would be the sacrifices needed to fuel the ritual. Balthazar would probably be in that group if he were still alive. There was a large moving truck parked on the far side of the roundabout. That would have been how they transported everyone.

  Sartre would have drawn a circle in the gutter of the street surrounding the small island of grass. That's what I would have done. He would need a giant circle to pull Moloch and his army out of Hell, even with the Rift. If they had already closed the circle, I could ruin the whole ritual just by walking across it.

  I turned to Andrej.

  “I need to get inside that circle. If they've already started, I could ruin the whole spell just by crossing over. You'll be able to move back and forth without having to worry about it, but if I cross back out of the circle once the ritual is finished, I could cut off the portal and leave us stranded here with a Demon Lord.

  “I'll deal with the Sartre. He's got magic stored up from all the Warlocks he's killed over the years, and I have no idea of knowing what he can throw at us. That means you'll need to keep the rest of them busy.”

  “Not a problem. Balthazar must live. Everyone else is expendable. Everyone.”

  He meant me, the missing homeless, and whoever else might be over ther
e. Mostly, I'm pretty sure he meant me. Prick.

  “Fine, but try and not leave me for dead.”

  Andrej smiled, his teeth catching the reddish glow in a way that was unsettling beyond all words. He shifted his weight and disappeared into the darkness like a creep, probably more like a dangerous predator, but I stand by creep.

  I turned my attention back to the roundabout in front of me. I had to get across, but I could still see the outlines of the Ravagers and cultists wandering around the perimeter. It was time to think on my feet, but the only thing that came to mind was to get real loud and flashy. It had to do.

  I dropped the duffle onto the grass and pulled out two grenades. Andrej had insisted on taking some flash bang grenades, and I hated to admit it, but I was happy that he did. I had one of those and one of the good old fashioned exploding kind.

  I looked over the headstone in front of me again. I couldn't see any ominous figures looking in my direction. I took that as a good sign. I pulled the pin on the flash bang and hurled it off to the right side of the island. I ducked back behind the headstone. I wasn't about to be caught looking at it when it went off. I double-checked the electronic ear plugs I'd grabbed from the storage locker to make sure they were snug, and waited for the blast.

  I knew from experience that Ravagers didn't have great vision, especially at night. Like snakes, they relied heavily on their sense of smell and taste as well as their hearing. With the rain providing a decent amount of white noise to cover my approach, the flash bang would disorientate them.

  The explosion was dampened by my earplugs, and I saw a flash of white light bloom off of the blackened storm clouds. There were screams after the blast. They sounded filled with pain and a good measure of rage. Perfect. I did a five count, using the standard Mississippi method, and pulled the pin on the second grenade. I lobbed it in the same direction as the first, threw the duffle over my shoulder and ran across the street, heading for the left side of the island.

  I pounded across the asphalt and hit the grass at a run. I didn't feel any magical boundaries break as I crossed. That was one thing that went right. Now I just had to hope that the other thousand things would as well.

  I was almost to cover when someone stepped out from behind the mausoleum I was running too. I didn't have time to do anything but react. I unshouldered the duffle bag and tossed it at the shadow. I heard a man's surprised grunt as the bag hit squarely in his chest. Another cultist. That was good news. Moving at a run, I lowered my shoulder and plowed into him.

  His feet came out from under him, and he was suddenly struck by a hands on physics lesson as we both slammed into the stone wall. His head whipped backward, hitting the wall with a sickening crack. His body immediately went limp.

  I went down to my knees, hiding in the opening of the small mausoleum. The second explosion cracked through the air and was met with the sound of more screaming from inhuman lungs. I peeked around the corner of the marble structure. I could see the cloud of smoke rising from the other side of the grass. Hopefully, I hadn't completely desecrated any corpses. That's the kind of shit ghosts haunt you for.

  I heard Sartre's voice through the rain.

  “Don't group together! Spread out you idiots!”

  He continued to curse in garbled French after that, before barking one cruel word of Hellion speech. I felt the circle snap into place ten feet away from me. There was the sudden feeling of a thousand microscopic needles pushing into my skin. Magic was trapped inside of an invisible dome, and with nowhere to go, it was building inside of it. My body was sucking it up like a dry sponge, and the effect was nauseating.

  I gulped down some air and pushed my free hand into the grass. It was soaked through, and I scooped up some water to splash on my face. I tried not to think about what was mingling in the water with the dirt. Mainly, the essence of dead people.

  I grabbed the cultist and felt for a pulse. It was slow, but I could feel the vein moving beneath my fingertips. I rolled him over, face down, and pressed his face into the wet grass. Pushing his face deep into the mud, I held him for thirty seconds before letting go. His limp body stayed exactly where it was when I released him. If he hadn't drowned already, he was seconds away.

  I opened the duffle and got the AA12 ready. I stopped. The shotgun would work fine on the perimeter, but I wouldn't be able to fire anywhere near the center of the island. There was too much risk that something would hit one of the hostages. Mainly, Balthazar. If I accidentally shot him, I'd have about two seconds of happiness before Andrej drove a ninja sword in my back.

  Grenades wouldn't do either; throwing them around the perimeter would drive the Hellions to the center. Rifle it was. I still grabbed two more grenades for good measure and hung them on the semi-Batman like utility belt on the armor. They would be useful if I had to fall back to the car with a bunch of bloodthirsty idiots coming after me.

  After that, I took a few deep breaths. It was time to move. If I waited too long, they'd find me.

  I brought myself to a low crouch, rifle held securely at my shoulder and began to weave my way through the graves. The ambient red light had intensified, the runes drawing in more and more power now that the outside world was closed off. The rain was still falling in sheets, and I would have been pissed that my visibility was lowered, but I knew that it gave me the advantage. The bad guys would have a harder time hearing me move or smelling me, until I fired the rifle anyway. After that, all bets were off.

  I posted up by a gravestone, kneeling down and resting the rifle barrel on the granite. I glanced down at the name. I doubt Derik Scott had spent his last moments in life knowing that his gravestone would get used as a makeshift tri-pod in a fight against a psychotic Warlock and his summoned minions from Hell. I'm assuming he would have been pretty excited if he did, though. I know I would.

  I ducked my head, staring down the sight and lined up my first shot. I honed in on my target, a shadowy mass of darkness skulking between the headstones. I aimed and waited for one of the red lights to end up behind it, outlining the shadow more precisely for me.

  I took a breath as it did, lined up my shot, and pulled the trigger, three round burst to the melon. I had one second to watch as black liquid burst out of the shadow, mingling with the rain. After that, all Hell broke loose.

  I got to my feet and took off running, looking for something else to shoot as I did. I could hear Sartre screaming for someone to kill me. My plan was to run around the island in a spiral, closing in on the center. I wasn't sure where Andrej was, but I was pretty confident that he wouldn't stab me on accident as I ran around in the dark. Then again, it may not have been an accident if he did.

  Pushing myself to run faster and faster, I scanned and fired. I kept the rifle in three-round burst. Shooting at a dead sprint is a pain, reloading is something else entirely. I know I didn't hit something with every shot, but enough of them did. I watched cultists go down as 7.62 rounds punched through soft skin and muscle. Thankfully, people are far less resilient than Hellions.

  I'd made almost a full loop by the time my magazine ran dry. I couldn't hear Sartre anymore. That worried me. If he was done shouting orders, that meant he was probably performing the ritual. I dropped the empty mag on the run and wrestled another from the pouch on the front of my vest.

  I slowed down long enough to rock it in the butt of the gun and pull the bolt. Then, something slammed into me from behind. I stumbled forward. A gravestone caught me just above the knees, and I tumbled headfirst over it, into the wet grass. I'd managed to keep ahold of my rifle as I did, thankful for the body armor as I landed in a heap.

  I twisted into a roll and brought the rifle up, pulling the trigger to blind fire at whatever had hit me from behind. There was one satisfying bang as the rifle kicked and then, nothing but a click. I swore, loudly, in a string of words that wouldn't technically be considered a complete sentence, but anyone who may have heard got the point.

  The L86A2 may have been a favorite of mine, but
it wasn't perfect. You had to treat it right, or it would crap out on you. I must have knocked the magazine around when I fell on it.

  Lying in the wet grass, useless gun in hand, I had a few brief seconds to curse and reflect before a five-foot long tail came slashing down at me. I grabbed the barrel of the rifle with my left hand, bringing it across my chest and was able to shift the momentum of the blow.

  Instead of squashing me like a bug, it slapped into a pool of water and filled the air with a miniature tsunami. Dropping my grip on the gun, I rolled and swung myself to my knees. I grabbed a handful of muddy grass on my way up to my feet and hurled it at the Ravager in front of me.

  I missed, naturally, and had to duck out of the way as the thing's tail swung at me again. I'd like to say that I was able to move gracefully, but when you have a giant lizard trying to smash you, you don't have a lot of time to watch where you are stepping.

  Cemeteries are filled with pieces of rock protruding from the ground all over the place. It's pretty damn easy to have one catch you in the back of the knees as you are backpedaling from a hideous monster.

  Needless to say, I walked into another gravestone, it caught me at the knees, and I took a hard fall backward. Thankfully, the watery ground was pretty mushy, and I didn't get the wind taken out of me by falling flat on my back. That's about the only positive.

  The Ravager pounced, jumping into the air and coming down on top of me. It's clawed feet came down on my stomach, which did drive the air from my lungs in an exaggerated poof.

  That didn't stop me from hip firing five rounds into the bastard before it could finish me off. In all fairness, I'd pulled the S&W 500 out while falling, and was getting ready to shoot it when the bastard came into view. I'd like to say that I was able to expertly handle the weapon, even without a single molecule of air left in my lungs.