Double-Barreled Devilry

by D Michael Bartsch

  I'd been the cause of him losing so much of the little he had. If I took this deal, he would die. If Prufrock didn't kill him, Moloch's army would wipe the city clean as their opening act. I may be a piece of shit destined for Hell, but Carl wasn't. The people he tried to save weren't either. In that moment, saving Carl meant more than my need to kill Sartre for what he'd done to Elena. It meant more than getting my soul back. It was finally time to stop running.

  I opened my mouth but didn't speak. I lowered my gun. I could see the look in Sartre's eyes that said he had won. I also saw his attention shift to my right hand as it tilted. I shot from the hip, the whole thing happening in an instant. I'd been aiming for the bastard's face, right in his stupid nose so the round would explode out the back of his skull. I ended up clipping the side of his head, tearing half his right ear off. I'd been lucky that I hit him at all, firing from the hip with one hand.

  The recoil jarred my whole arm, and I dropped the gun. Wet bark from the tree burst into the air as the fifty caliber round smacked into it. I made a mad dash for the circle, diving with both arms extended, hoping to get one tiny portion of my hand over the line. I wasn't that lucky, though. Being shot tends to make people jerk, especially if they don't die right away.

  Sartre's knife jerked, sending out a river of blood from under the long beard of the kneeling man. I made it to the edge just as the first drops of blood hit the circle.

  There was an influx of power. The pool of magic that had welled up around the island rushed into the center like a drain that had just been unplugged.

  The amount of magic rushing into my body was so great that I immediately threw up. I collapsed as my knees buckled. Vomit splashed into the water, and my head swam in a haze. I didn't have much in my stomach, and I stayed on the edge of dry heaving on my hands and knees.

  I looked up in time to see a line of darkness sliding down the trunk of the old tree behind Sartre. It was the antithesis of all light, like a black hole drawing everything into it. I'd seen a portal like it only once before, when I'd been sent to the Void. It was a tear in our reality, a split in the fabric large enough for something to push its physical presence through.

  My vision was still hazy as I pushed myself to my feet, knees wobbling. My ears were ringing, so I couldn't hear what Sartre was saying as he walked toward me, one hand clamped onto the side of his head. If I had to guess, though, he was finishing the ritual, the final piece being to call forth Moloch from the bowels of the universe.

  I decided it was a good idea to charge at him and cut his stupid head off before he got a chance to finish the ritual. It might have been a half-decent plan if I didn't feel like I'd been bedridden for a month. As it was, I moved slower than I’d ever remembered moving. I came at him with a machete regardless.

  I raised my arm, preparing to bring it down in a diagonal deathblow. Sartre may have been a thief, but he hadn't stayed alive so long by accident. He snapped a leg up and planted it squarely in my stomach, the ceramic plate taking much of the blow. It was still enough to knock me backward, the machete coming down a foot away from him as I wobbled backward. He followed that up with a right hook while I was still off balance.

  “Why couldn't you just take the deal?” He shouted.

  I rocked back and dropped to the ground with a muddy slap. Part of my brain irrationally hoped that I hadn't landed in my own vomit.

  He was on me before I could recover, grabbing the top of my vest and raining down punches with his free hand. I felt my brain slamming into my skull with each blow; the third cracked my nose, sending rivers of blood into my mouth as I gasped for air.

  I'd lost the machete somewhere along the line. I groped blindly, trying to defend myself, until I was able to grab hold of his shirt. I yanked him down closer to me, too close for him to punch with any real leverage. That didn't stop him from throwing hammer fists into the side of my face in rapid succession. Lying on the ground, getting my ass kicked by a three-hundred-year-old man, I did the only sane thing to do. I grabbed a fist full of his balls and squeezed.

  I heard him grunt in pain. The attack made him release his grip on my vest to try and defend himself. My head dropped back, my neck no longer caring to support it. I kept hold of the handful of shirt and kept squeezing on his junk. I don't care who you are, how old you are, or how much of a badass you are, if someone gets a death grip on your balls, you do whatever you need to do to stop it.

  I know that it's an unwritten rule that you don't hit below the belt. Honor isn't something you can afford when you are ten feet away from a Demon Lord's grand entrance to Earth after several thousand years of confinement. If you're in that situation, you do what you have to.

  Sartre managed to pull himself away from me, twisting to gain leverage before backhanding me. My already broken nose was screaming in protest as he connected. I was regretting not bringing the tac-helmet that went with the armor.

  I used my legs to push myself backward through the mud. Sartre cradled his crotch, no doubt checking to make sure nothing had been smashed into jelly.

  I kept moving backward until I ran into the Ravager I'd killed. I rested my head on its scaly back for a moment and tried to recover. My head was pounding, and my nose was gushing blood down my face. I would have to resort to being a mouth breather for the near future. Which is harder than you'd think when your nose is pouring blood down your face, directly over your mouth, as you lie on the ground at an angle.

  Forgetting Sartre for a moment, I rolled over, trying to use gravity to pull the blood away from my face. I slid my second machete free. I was just about to try and get to my feet when something rudely grabbed me by the neck.

  Sartre had gotten over the groin grab and was seriously pissed off. He had me on my knees, clutching at my neck.

  I moved to swing the Kukri backward when I felt a burning pain punch into my lower back. Sartre buried a knife in my back. The Ravager who'd almost drowned me had pried the vest up just enough to leave room for the blade to slide into my back.

  Burning pain shot up and down my back as he twisted the blade.

  “You could have had it all. You could have taken the deal, gotten your soul back, and gotten the hell out of here. You just had to be the hero. You've been a piece of shit for so long; you had to choose tonight to try and do the right thing. All for what? For a woman who died over a century ago. You'd lose it all for her?”

  I couldn't say he was wrong about anything. I could have taken the deal and avoided getting my ass handed to me, and more than likely dying. That's if Moloch would have kept his end of the bargain, which I doubted. It didn't matter, though. I'd made my decision, and I was prepared to live with it. Besides, Sartre had just needed a good murdering.

  I looked up at him in the corner of my eye. The rain was still coming down in sheets, and the only light came from the ever-present glow of red light. In that glow, I saw something catching the light around his neck. A chain that led down to a locket that he'd worn no matter what face he'd been hiding behind. I remembered what Prufrock had said.

  He'd found something, something that allowed him to store the souls he'd taken, to keep the chorus of madness out.

  I reached up and took hold of the chain, pulling hard, hoping beyond all hope that I would be right. I was. It's the little things.

  The clasp broke free as I pulled down on the thing, and the chain came free of his neck. I had done it before he knew what was going on, but once he realized, he freaked. Screaming, he abandoned the knife and grabbed for the locket. Clawing at my hand, he dug his nails into my wrist. He was desperate to pry my hand open.

  Tightening my grip on the machete, I brought it around in a whirling arc. Making sure to avoid hitting my own outstretched arm, the blade came down on his wrist, biting deeply into flesh and bone. The weight carried the blade clean through, sheering his right hand off. He screamed again, forgetting about his precious locket for a moment and cradling his stump of a hand.

  I took the opportunity to rol
l over, planting my shoulders into a headstone and kicked him in the crotch. Nothing like adding a hell of a lot more insult to a horrifying injury. His knees buckled and he dropped into the muddy water. I watched as he writhed in pain, no longer able to make sounds. Gagging clacks of pain were all that escaped his mouth.

  I wanted to close my eyes, just for a moment. The ground was a soft wet pillow that called out to me. My body was beaten and exhausted. I needed a weeks worth of sleep to undo what I'd put myself through. Something I doubted that I was going to get anytime soon.

  “Some things can only be bought with blood,” I said.

  Sartre continued to root around in the mud. I watched him. He'd been willing to sell out the entire human race to get his soul back. Selfish bastard.

  I was on the verge of pulling myself up to put Sartre out of his misery once and for all when he found something in the water. Grasping it with his remaining hand, his bloody stump held close to his chest, Sartre leveled a large revolver at my face.

  The S&W 500 was covered in muddy grass and water was streaming off of it. It was still intimidating to be on the business end of the weapon. The rational part of my brain knew that there were a hundred reasons why the gun wouldn't fire if he pulled the trigger. The rest of my brain was telling the rational side to shut the hell up and run.

  He was only four feet away; the big gun pointed right at my face. If he'd decided to shoot me in the chest plate, maybe I'd have a chance of not dying. Doubtful, but maybe. In the face, though, it would go in, liquefy my brain, and punch through the headstone behind me before flying away into the night.

  “The locket,” He said. “Give it to me.”

  I looked down at my left hand, which still clutched the golden object. I had to weigh my options. Handing it over would result in death. Not handing it over would also result in death. I'd already kicked him in the balls, so fighting dirty was definitely not out of the question. I just had to figure out how, and I was pretty sure that I had a good idea.

  “Take it,” I said.

  I held it up, my arm extended.

  He took one hesitant step forward, keeping the gun pointed at my face. He took another and another, each quicker than the one before it. He half skipped the last two steps. He reached out with his stump on instinct, forgetting that there wasn’t a hand there anymore. It was exactly what I'd been hoping for.

  Shoulders still pressed against the stone, right foot planted in the mud, I kicked out with my left with everything I had. My heel connected with the bloody stump. He roared, the gun roared, and I nearly crapped my pants.

  I barely felt the wind as the bullet passed inches from my face, plowing through the headstone with ease. Jagged pieces of the concrete bit into my face as the bullet punched through the stone.

  He dropped the gun and clutched at his maimed arm. I forced myself to my feet. In my mind, I was moving like a damned ninja, but I know that I was probably staggering the entire way up and over to him. I wrapped my hands around the back of his skull and yanked his head down as I swung my knee up into his face, UFC style.

  I felt the vibration of his nose breaking against my knee, the popping noise audible. He slumped over. I wasn't sure if he was unconscious or not, but it didn't matter.

  I used my foot to roll him onto his back. I stomped down on his bleeding wrist, driving it down into the mud. If he hadn't been awake before that, he was after. He wriggled on the ground like a grotesque worm, rolling and squirming away from me.

  I took a step and felt the fallen revolver under my foot. I didn't bother picking it up. I pulled the last S&W 500 from the holster at my left hip. I cocked the hammer and aimed. One squeeze of the trigger was all it would take to pop his head like a water balloon, putting an end to the whole thing. I was going to do it too. I didn't care. He'd been running from Hell for a few hundred years, might as well do my part as a concerned citizen and stop him from escaping.

  Finger on the trigger, I began to pull it towards me. The only thing that stopped me was a sound so horrific that I wanted to run and hide and never come out again.

  It was the sound of laughter, like a thousand tongueless corpses gnashing their teeth together in a chorus of vile joy. My stomach roiled as pure evil swept past me and invaded my body on the way.

  I turned towards the tree and saw that the portal was almost complete, and it was large enough for something to push through some of its will. Something big, evil, and pissed off.

  Moloch, The Lord of Hate.

  18

  I'd like to say I stood up valiantly when I heard the voice of Eternal Hate. Truth is, my first thought was running away. I turned around long enough to see Andrej in the distance tangling with Shrek. I couldn't see the second Ogre, but if it wasn't dead, it was out there somewhere. Which was bad news. I had a knife in my back, which was also bad news. I'd never get to the edge of the circle before something killed me, or I bled to death.

  Since running wasn't an option, I did what any sensible man would do. I tried to shoot the bastard. I aimed for the heart of the tree and let my trigger finger fly, squeezing in rapid succession. Nothing but the lovely sound of clicking as the hammer fell. I looked at the traitorous piece of junk with disgust.

  I hurled the damn thing at the tree, missing it by a few feet. Probably not the coolest thing I could have done, but I was running out of ideas. I was officially weaponless in the face of genuine evil, capital E. Not that fake movie crap. This was going to be a paranormal ass kicking before some attempted world domination.

  The worst part of it all was that laugh. He laughed even harder when I threw the gun and missed. Dick.

  Sartre fumbled on the ground grabbing his stump.

  “Lord Moloch.” He screamed. “I have done what you have required. Come forth and grant me, my soul. Kill this ingrate!”

  I assumed he meant me. Rude.

  The laughter continued for a moment as the power swelled. The pit of my stomach began to rumble, and my body felt like someone was pouring tar into every inch of my insides, I was drowning in it.

  I took a knee from the weight of it all. I was too damn tired to fight my way back to my feet at that moment. Besides, the presence of something that powerful is overwhelming. Normally, people can't help but collapse, overcome by fearful awe. I at least could keep the good sense to be pissed, even if I did end up on my knees.

  “You have done well.”

  The voice was disembodied, not so much coming from the hole in the tree but from the air itself, like all of nature was channeling itself to speak.

  “Your lives shall be the first trophies that I claim on this day.”

  Now, I was the one who couldn't help but laugh. The greedy bastard wasn't going to hold up his end of the deal. That meant Sartre was up hellfire creek missing his paddle and his pants around his ankles.

  I stopped laughing when I felt Moloch's attention shift to me. The weight of it was physically oppressive. It felt like every ounce of happiness I'd ever experienced or imagined disappeared in an instant. I was too tired and pissed to have the good sense to be truly terrified.

  I was afraid, but not the way that I should have been. He may have been an Elder Demon, but my magic gave me some protection from his Will. My power was partially driven by him after all. His hate added fuel to the fire whether he wanted it to or not.

  “The Fallen Hunter.” His voice echoed in my brain. “How I had hoped you would be here. When you were banished to the Void, I had feared my prize would be lost to me forever.”

  I kept feeling worse. My stomach was roiling. I felt myself wanting to dry heave. Sartre keeled over, and Moloch wasn't even focused on him anymore. That could have been from blood loss though I suppose.

  The rift was growing larger and each second it stayed open, Moloch was able to push more of himself into this world.

  I stared hard into the blackness inside the tree. The trunk split open into darkness itself. It was feeding off of the red light of the sigils. Inside, I could see somethi
ng growing. A shadow was forming inside of the darkness. It shouldn't have been possible for something to have been darker than the darkness. The thing inside wasn't only devoid of all light; it was consuming it, feeding on whatever minuscule amount of light remained within the darkness.

  “You can't kill me.” I said. “That would void our deal.”

  He started laughing again. Maniacal bastard.

  “On the contrary young hunter. You made our agreement null when you moved against me. Your actions to prevent my entrance into this world are a direct interference in my affairs. Surely, you remember our terms. It's been so many years, but you wouldn't forget that night.”

  To be honest, I did my best to forget that night as much as possible. I couldn't do it, but if I drank enough, sometimes I could escape the nightmares.

  Sartre found his balls somewhere during his groveling. He looked up and screamed.

  “I demand my soul!”

  He flailed about, swinging his stump hand.

  “We made a deal. I demand my soul!”

  I think he would have kept screaming if he hadn't been lifted off the ground and hurled through the air, crumpling on the ground a hundred feet away.

  I felt the power as he was flung away.

  I had to act quickly. If Moloch had been able to interact physically with Sartre, it meant that more than just his consciousness was in our world. He was able to assert his power in the physical world, even if he wasn't entirely through yet.

  I grabbed hold of a gravestone and pulled myself up. I felt like I had a thousand pounds strapped to my shoulders, pulling me down. I pushed against it anyway, understanding that the weight was in my imagination. His presence couldn't affect me physically, not magically. Everything I felt was mental, and I had to push through, tired as I was.