Anathema

by Bruce Talmas

  But Belial surprised me. He didn’t go in for the kill. He simply wore me down to the point where I couldn’t defend myself anymore, which, granted, was an embarrassingly short period of time. When I was sufficiently winded, he grasped my chest and tried to do the Temple of Doom grip. I didn’t know why he would want to rip my heart out, but I found it strangely encouraging. If he wasn’t willing to take my head, he was going to have a tough time of this. My head was just sitting there up on my shoulders—as heads are wont to do—practically begging someone to come by and chop it off. The heart, on the other hand, is deep inside the chest cavity, protected by the rib cage and various other muscles and organs. Both are killing blows for a demon, but the head is instantaneous while the heart can take several hours—sometimes even days for higher demons—before the body dies. The only reason an accomplished killer like Belial would go after my heart was because he didn’t want me dead yet, a fact which I could use to my advantage.

  Inexorably, though, his fingers dug deeper into my flesh. All my plotting wouldn’t do any good if I couldn’t fight him off here and now. He was screaming with effort, and then with pain. Although I didn’t have the strength or the voice to Summon Hellfire, it was acting on my defense without my having to. I could smell his flesh burning as he plunged his hand further into my chest. His fingers were now fully inside me, and I knew I didn’t have the strength to resist him much longer. I thought about the torments Lucifer had in store for me once I was back in Hell. The thought of Lucifer kept the Hellfire burning. Still, Belial pushed deeper and deeper.

  A gunshot rang out at the same moment I felt hot metal tearing into my side and left arm. Belial roared in pain and frustration and pulled his ruined hand from my chest. I could see the bones of his fingers, the mangled remains of his hand. I didn’t gloat though. I was completely spent.

  “Jacob!” Rose called out. I tried to respond but only an ashy sigh escaped my lips.

  “See you soon,” Belial said as he withdrew into the shadows.

  Once he was out of sight, I allowed myself to fall flat onto the cool pavement. It felt good. My body was a furnace overheating on Hellfire. As the threat of imminent death receded, the Hellfire abated with it. I could finally take a breath without tasting ash and sulfur. After a minute, I risked opening my eyes. Rose was leaning over me, but I didn’t try to speak to him.

  “Was that him?” he asked as he pulled me to my feet. I didn’t want up. I just wanted to lay there for a week or so, but I allowed him to get me off the ground.

  “Yep,” I managed to say.

  He leaned me against the car, and I managed to stay upright with more than a little help from the wrecked Charger. I even succeeded in putting a bent cigarette into my mouth and lighting it. The celebratory smoke Belial had denied me earlier. It was the little things that made life worth living.

  “It looked like he was about to end you,” Rose observed.

  Fuck you, I wanted to say. Instead I just repeated my previous reply.

  “Yep.”

  He threw my arm over his shoulder and started to lead me out of the alley. I let him.

  “He was a big fucker,” Rose said unnecessarily.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Even the shotgun barely phased him,” he said.

  “Speaking of,” I replied, “The next time you shoot in my direction, don’t use the shotgun. You blew a chunk out of my side.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t have time to think about it. He looked like he was killing you.”

  “Yep” I said once again.

  We struggled onward, one painful step after another. Above us, on the hilltop, I could see the police lights through the trees. Eventually, they might decide to look down here. It’d be best if we weren’t anywhere near there when that happened. The police would have their hands full at the Rose house for quite some time. I could see the flickering lights of flame reflecting off the trees. I didn’t know if the hellfire had set it off, or if Rose had lit it to destroy the evidence. Either way it did the trick.

  Rose led me to Barney’s Audi, which was parked in the next alley over from where I’d almost been run down. He must have driven it down and around from the neighborhood above. Lori was in the backseat, awake, but just barely. I nodded to her with no response as Rose opened the door and lowered me into the leather seat as gingerly as he could manage.

  The detective came around the car and got in behind the wheel. He checked on Lori as he got in, but didn’t say anything to her. He had a distant look in his eye. I just let him be.

  After a while, he looked over at me and asked, “What happened back there?”

  I didn’t know which part he was talking about, so I just shrugged.

  “In the alley. You were moments away from getting your chest ripped open.”

  I took a hit of the cigarette. “Oh, you saw that?”

  “Yeah I saw it.”

  “What can I say, he was bigger, faster, and stronger than me.”

  Rose guided Barney’s Audi away from the strip mall and back onto the highway. We drove on in silence for a while, but I could tell he wanted to say something. I sensed he was angry at me, but again, that could be for any number of reasons.

  “I thought you were the best.” He said in a mildly sarcastic tone.

  I didn’t even bother opening my eyes. I didn’t have it in me. My chest hurt, I smelled like a shitty barbecue joint, and I was tired. I finished the cigarette and flicked it out the window.

  “I said he was bigger, faster, and stronger,” I replied. “I didn’t say he was better.”

  Chapter 29

  I told Rose to drive to Saint Margaret Mary’s and spent the rest of the trip trying not to fall asleep. I didn’t know what kind of voodoo Belial had on his side, but I wasn’t taking the chance of going back to my house and leading him to my band of merry men. If he tracked us to the church, the most I risked was an old man and a cop. Given the situation, those would be acceptable losses. Vickroy probably wouldn’t like hearing it put that way, but he’d accepted that risk a long time ago. Rose and his wife were damaged goods, but the damage that’d been inflicted upon them had inevitably opened their eyes to the stakes we were dealing with. And we were playing with borrowed money, in a game heavily slanted towards the house.

  We ushered Lori into the empty church. She was able to stand now, but barely. We half-dragged her down the aisle and dropped her unceremoniously into the front pew. Father Pender came out from the vestry; he looked distracted and annoyed. I didn’t care.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Where’s Vickroy?” I replied.

  “He’s been engaged in his religious studies all night.”

  I didn’t know what the hell that meant. He’d been a priest for fifty plus years. I was pretty sure he’d studied everything he needed to study in that time.

  “Tell him we’ll be in his quarters when he’s finished,” I said.

  Pender paused like he was going to say something, then didn’t. I pushed past him, grabbed Lori around the shoulder and started dragging her back to Vickroy’s quarters.

  “A little help here?” I said to Rose.

  He hurried over and helped me lead her out of the church. I wanted to tell Vickroy we were here and explain to him what had happened, but I knew the man: he could be locked in his study for hours or days until he found what he was looking for. I didn’t have that kind of time to go over the finer points of demonic warfare. If he was a target, he’d figure it out soon enough.

  We got Lori put to bed in Vickroy’s room and went back to the living room. I melted into the couch, and Rose went off into the kitchen. I almost said something to him. I felt like an intruder. Or worse, like a teenager that had friends over without Dad knowing. His couch was going to smell like a tire fire for months. I was so busted.

  Rose came back a little later. I didn’t know how long. I was totally zoned out. He handed me a bottle of wine. A mildly rebuking voice in my head wondered where he got it, bu
t I was beyond caring. I took a swig, and he did the same from a bottle of Jack Daniels. What the hell, old man? Rose must’ve found Vickroy’s secret stash.

  “I’m going to take a page out of my wife’s book and get smashed,” Rose said to me. That sounded like a fantastic idea. I didn’t even bother sitting upright: I just tipped the bottle to my lips as my head was angled on the arm of the couch and let gravity do the rest.

  “You know, I’m not cut out for this shit,” he said.

  “What shit is that?”

  “Adulthood. I miss being young. I miss not having to worry about anything but homework and getting a driver’s license when I turned sixteen.”

  “I was murdering women and children by the time I was sixteen.”

  Rose looked over at me and took a pull of Jack. “You’re a terrible drinking partner.”

  I shrugged. “I guess nostalgia doesn’t hold quite the same enchantment for me as it does for most people.”

  “So what now?” he asked.

  I shrugged again. “We lay low for the night. Tomorrow we’ll go to my house and figure out how to kill a Prince of Hell.”

  Rose went to bed with Lori. I stayed on the couch and observed as the immense sense of unease grew in my chest. It felt like all the problems of a world I didn’t give a shit about had somehow settled on me. I knew there was no way I was going to fall asleep. Besides, I didn’t want to burn down my father’s house because I got drowsy.

  So I got up and went back to the church. Vickroy had never come back, so either he’d fallen asleep or he was still ensconced in his studies.

  Pender was there. I wondered vaguely where he lived. I didn’t really care, I just was curious what kind of life he could lead that staying in a church until four in the morning was deemed socially acceptable.

  “Can I help you?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Not your concern. Where’s Vickroy?”

  “He’s not to be disturbed.”

  I had to hand it to the guy, he had some balls for a pencil-necked douche. It wasn’t just annoyance I felt with Father Pender, though. Something about him put me on edge, and my instincts had served me fairly well in the past few days.

  I pulled my gun.

  “Where is he?” I repeated in the same tone, although staring down a semi-automatic probably made it sound more forceful than before.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” he asked me, sincerely shocked at the sight of the gun. Apparently he didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.

  “I’m the guy pointing a gun at your head,” I said. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know how he ever thought he could save you,” Pender said. I could hear the disgust in his voice. It sounded genuine.

  Fair enough.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I shot him in the kneecap. He screamed. I grabbed him by the throat to keep him from falling all the way to the floor. “Yes you do. Now what…did…you…do?” I began to squeeze harder with each word.

  “I did my job!” he yelled, his voice softer than he’d intended because of the restricted airflow. I let him go. He fell backwards and grasped his ruined knee. “We knew you’d come back. All I did was report back to my superiors.”

  “Your superiors,” I mused. “In the Catholic church? Or are you working for someone else?”

  “The Church!” he cried. “Who else would I be working for?”

  “The Church: One of the most corrupt organizations in the world. What good did you think would come of that?”

  He was rocking back and forth, grasping his knee. “Father Vickroy is my responsibility. I’ll do whatever I need to do to protect him.”

  “You idiot. You’re not protecting him. You’re going to get him killed.”

  “The only one who’s in danger here is you,” he said.

  “The fact that you would say that when I have a gun pointed at your head tells me how little you know.”

  As I said the words, Father Vickroy came into the church. At the same time, I saw a flutter of movement in the choir loft off to my right. Vickroy caught the movement at the same time I did.

  “Jacob no!” he yelled.

  Too late. I shot Pender in the forehead and dove to my right, narrowly missing a burst of automatic gunfire from above. I couldn’t see Vickroy, but I had to assume they wouldn’t take him out.

  The pews around me splintered under the barrage of gunfire. I kept my head down and waited for a reload. I wondered if Rose had heard the gunfire. And if he had, would he figure out that it was me under fire? And if he did, would he give a shit?

  The deafening sound lessened somewhat: two automatic weapons reduced to one. Which meant one was reloading. Which meant I had my chance, assuming Shooter #2 wasn’t all that great. Wars had been won and lost on narrower margins. Species had lived or gone extinct. Galaxies had formed or been ripped apart. The cosmic probabilities that came into play were infinite. But only one question really mattered:

  What were the chances that this guy, at this moment, could put one between my eyes?

  I leaned out and took my shot. The reloading shooter drooped to the side, a hole leaking blood where his left eye had once been. He should’ve taken better cover while he reloaded.

  As I turned to the second shooter, my cosmic question was answered. What were the chances that he could, at that moment, make that shot?

  Better than I thought, as it turned out. The bullet ripped through my right ear and part of my skull. It hurt like hell, but in the end was only a flesh wound. I shrugged it off and only squealed like a little girl for a second. Then I aimed, fired, and took the right side of his face and part of his neck off with a not-quite-perfectly placed shot.

  “Stop! Stop this madness!” screamed Vickroy, which I was happy to do since everyone else was dead. “This is a house of God!” He yelled.

  He hurried to the body of Father Pender and bent down over him. I could have told him it was wasted effort. He looked up at me in despair. “What have you done?”

  I stepped out from behind the pews. “Hey, don’t look at me. I was just defending myself.”

  “My God, Jacob! You just murdered a priest!”

  I came out and stood over the body of Father Pender, which now lay between me and Vickroy. “That priest just tried to murder me.”

  “May God have mercy on your soul.”

  “I’m pretty sure God doesn’t want anything to do with my soul.”

  He looked down at the priest’s body. “He was a good man.”

  “I seriously doubt that. He tried to kill me. And worse, he put everyone I care about in jeopardy. So if you want me to apologize, keep on waiting. I’ve outlasted the Devil, I can outlast an old priest with a heart condition.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He was a spy. He was only here waiting for me. And he just reported back to whoever his contact is in the Vatican…which means he just report directly to Lucifer himself, because I guarantee you he has spies in the Catholic church.” I thought about Katie, alone in my house with Vassago and Barnie, two demons with questionable sanity.

  “Did you tell him about my house?” I asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My house! Did you tell him about it?”

  The realization dawned on him. “Oh my God.”

  “Jesus!” I said without thinking. The irony of the interjection not lost on me.

  Vickroy understood. “I’ll get Rose and meet you at the car.”

  I turned away from him. “I’m taking Barney’s car. Just meet me there.”

  I didn’t look back to see if he listened to me.

  Chapter 30

  I nearly ran head-on into a garbage truck as I swerved around the corner to my house in Mount Washington. My demon-sense was firing in all directions. It was like trying to drive a pick-up into th
e heart of the sun. All my magical wards had been immolated. I wrecked Barney’s Audi into the retaining wall next to the driveway and jumped out of the car.

  The front door was open. A bad sign. I pulled the Masamune and stepped inside the house.

  The first thing I saw was Barney on the ground, bleeding from the head. The second thing I saw was Vassago keeping a band of demons at bay with a shotgun and a reckless willingness to shoot at anything that moved. I yelled his name so he wouldn’t shoot me by mistake.

  “Back door!” he yelled to me, and I plowed my way through the demons in my living room. The Masamune was lit up like a roman candle, its blade tracing arcs of light as it sliced through the horde before me. I didn’t wait around to see the damage it was doing; Vassago and Barney were alive, which left only Katie as an unknown.

  I reached the kitchen and caught a glimpse of her being led out the back door. She screamed for me, and I shouted back so that she’d know I was there. The noise marked me, and quickly a pack of demons descended on me. A couple of shots rang out. Fucking hypocrites. They always said they were above using guns, until the time came that a gun might come in handy. Then all bets were off.

  I didn’t waste time with the Masamune; I simply invoked the hellfire and turned everything around me to ash. The conflagration lit my enemies, the walls, the floor, myself and everything else afire. I didn’t care. Damn the house and everything in it. Belial had destroyed it all with his presence before I even got there.

  I ran to the back door, trying to keep Katie in sight. I heard her scream again from a great distance. I yelled back, but there was no response. Stepping into the back yard, I was instantly surrounded by Belial’s hellspawn. I summoned the hellfire again, but I’d been used up. A puny wisp of smoke puffed out of the top of my head like a birthday candle being blown out. The demons laughed in response.

  How embarrassing.

  If I couldn’t get to Katie, at least I’d have the satisfaction of wiping the stupid smiles off their ugly faces.

  A woman that looked like she was sixty but moved like she was sixteen was the first to engage. I slammed my fist into her throat with all the rage I could muster and ripped her larynx out of her body. She wheezed and crumpled.