Anathema

by Bruce Talmas

  Rose faced forward again and watched the countryside slip by in shades of green and brown and gray. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t force the issue. He was playing devil’s advocate, quite literally actually, but his choice had already been made. If he truly believed what he was saying, why even join me in the first place, unless the prospect of killing Belial overrode any survival instinct he still had? That was technically a possibility, but he was here with me now, and my makeshift plan only required him to perform two simple tasks. I didn’t need him fully onboard. I just needed him to be present. The rest was on me.

  “Do you have a plan?” he asked, realizing, as I had, that his decision had already been made before he ever got in the car.

  “I do.”

  We were coming up on the farmhouse soon. I hadn’t come by the same route as before, instead coming the same way Rose had arrived earlier. It drew less attention to be driving on an actual road as opposed to a deer path, and it allowed me to scope the landscape ahead to find a good place to leave my car that was both secluded and close enough to provide a quick getaway if the time came. I told Rose my two reasons as well, leaving out the part that, if a quick getaway were needed, we’d be dead anyway.

  “Do you mind filling me in on the plan?” He asked.

  I pulled off the road and parked the car behind a copse of trees that looked as though they would provide adequate privacy from anyone coming down the road behind us. I motioned to Rose and got out of the car, sliding under the lowest branches of the trees to get to the rear of the car. I popped the trunk and opened my emergency kit, taking only those weapons I felt were absolutely necessary: the Masamune was one, Gaap’s Claw was another, the two Sigs and the Franchi accounted for the rest. I checked each of them before sliding them into position. The dual Sigs were both on my hips, the Masamune on my back, my tactical knife was strapped to my leg, and Gaap’s Claw was around my wrist. I carried the Franchi. It would be mainly for show, but if the shit hit the fan, it would be my second best bet after the Hellbombs to clear enough space to do what needed to be done.

  I then pulled a heavy tow chain from under the emergency kit and handed it to Rose, before going back and getting a second smaller chain from the spare tire compartment. I kept the smaller one and led him towards the as-yet-unseen barn. “I’m going to go into the barn. You’re going to take these chains, and lock me in there after I go in.”

  He stared at the chain in his hand, then at me, and back to the chain. He did this several times, his mouth opening a little wider each time. “That’s your master plan?! I’m going to lock you in there with those psychos?!”

  “No,” I replied, not breaking stride. “You’re going to lock them in there with me.”

  By the time we went over the finer details of the plan, Rose seemed marginally less horrified by it all. Only slightly, but it would have to do. I said goodbye to Rose and headed to the barn, only to stop in my tracks three feet away and scurry back to our hiding spot. The sound of a car’s engine growled up the tree-lined lane, in the direction from which we’d come.

  A familiar vehicle came into view from around the bend, visible to us but still hidden from the sight of the barn. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

  Rose turned to look too. “Well look at that,” he said. “We got backup.”

  Father Vickroy got out of the driver’s side of Barney’s Audi, while Abaddon, Angel of the Apocalypse slithered Junk’s flayed body out of the passenger seat. Barney was going to love cleaning that mess off of his leather seats.

  “What the fuck, Old Man?!”

  Vickroy shrugged at me as he plodded closer to us, the barn finally coming into view for him. He shuddered involuntarily, and I understood. The priest, even when he was a younger man, always seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to magic and the supernatural.

  “He told me he knew where to go,” he motioned to Not-Junk keeping pace with him. “I didn’t, so he seemed like my best option.” He looked over my shoulder at the barn. “Do we have a plan?” he asked.

  I sighed and went through the plan yet another time, less sure of my strategy with each retelling of it. Father Vickroy gave me a skeptical look, but otherwise remained mercifully silent.

  I waited a few seconds, just to see if we would have any other latecomers to the party. When no one spoke and no new arrivals announced themselves, I assumed it was safe to proceed. I gave a nod to each of them except for Abaddon, and went to the service door of the barn with Rose.

  I could hear voices on the inside, but it was impossible to tell how many. If they were trying to be stealthy, there may have been as many as thirty or forty. I figured they needed at least twenty in order to do what they'd come here to do. No way to be sure except going inside and seeing for myself. I nodded to Rose, who rolled the door shut behind me as I headed inside. A couple seconds later, I heard the chain wrap itself around the outside handles of the service door. Although I couldn’t hear it, I knew that Vickroy was currently doing the same thing at the main door, effectively sealing the barn off to the outside world.

  I edged through the small chamber and risked a peek into the main room. At least forty people were standing in a semicircle around the pentagram on the floor. Another figure stood off to the side, facing the audience and clearly holding their attention. He was facing at an angle away from me, so I couldn’t make out the details of his features, but he vaguely resembled Celeste’s description of our mystery Magician. He was young and tall, but I couldn’t tell if he had the cold gray eyes she’d described. I was just going to have to go in to take a closer look.

  I got about two steps in to the room before the first Satanist saw me. By some unseen communion, my presence was quickly recognized by the rest of the room. By the time I was five steps in, the Magician was no longer the center of attention.

  I was.

  A murmur arose among the gathered Satanists. The Magician turned slowly, as if unsurprised by the interruption. He saw me and I laid eyes on my nemesis—or at least one of my nemeses—for the first time. I didn’t see the resemblance Celeste had spoken of, except perhaps for the fact that he looked like an arrogant prick. But arrogant pricks are a dime a dozen. He lacked the cool factor.

  “Jacob, we’ve been waiting for you,” he said with a smile, his too-white teeth gleaming like a television evangelist offering to heal the sick for a fee.

  I ignored him. I was busy looking around the room for Katie. I didn’t see her, nor did I see Belial. The rest of the room was so much window dressing, including the Magician. He was a problem, but he wasn’t a priority. Not until I had Belial’s head in my hand.

  On cue, Belial walked into the light from the shadows of the hayloft. He held Katie in front of him, a human shield in case I decided to throw out a Hellbomb.

  Now that I knew where everyone stood, I turned my attention back to the Magician. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

  He laughed. It was actually a pleasant laugh, and seemed genuine. “No,” he said, “I would definitely remember meeting you. You’re a living legend. It’s quite an honor.”

  Well shucks. “So do I have you to thank for orchestrating this little shindig?”

  “Oh no, that came from well above my pay grade. I was just following orders. You could say that mine is a Heavenly mission.”

  “Heavenly?” This was the first direct reference to the unseen Angel pulling the strings. “I assume that’s the same Angel that shut down the emanation station on the radio?”

  “One and the same,” he replied. “But that’s all you’ll get from me. My boss has special plans for you.”

  I turned to Belial. “And what about you, Belial? Is it an honor?”

  “Honor? Fuck no. It’ll be a pleasure though.”

  I turned my attention to Katie. “You okay?”

  She nodded, but didn’t speak. This was as close to losing her cool as I’d seen her since she’d violated Jeung’s corpse. It was not surprising: Belial was an intimidat
ing figure, and he wasn’t one to make empty threats. If killing a puppy served his purposes, he would do it in a heartbeat. Being at his mercy was no place any rational human being would ever want to be.

  “You fucked up,” I told Belial.

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “You wanted to make a big show. Get me all riled up. Well it worked. But when all’s said and done, you still have to deal with me. That was the one great flaw in this whole plan.”

  Belial still had that slight bit of hesitation. He’d bested me in the alley, and had to be quite confident he could do it again, but I was still an unknown quantity. He wasn’t sure of my abilities, and thus wasn’t sure if I could actually hurt him or not. It was a small advantage, but one of several small advantages I had, not least of which was my willingness to—or, if I were being honest, my certainty that—I was going to die here.

  I turned back to the Magician. “So do I get an introduction, or do I just kill you and leave you as one of the many nameless dead?”

  He smiled again. He had a twinkle in his eye, I had to admit. If he weren’t such a prick, he might have been charming.

  “You can call me Faustus.”

  The way we’d positioned ourselves, the Magician was to my right, and Belial was directly ahead of me, with Katie being held hostage in between us. We made an interesting love triangle, with the rest of the gathering standing to my left as mute witnesses to whatever was about to happen here.

  “If that’s your name, you made a deal with the wrong devil,” I said.

  Belial grabbed Katie by the hair and pulled her head back, licking her neck with what I would have said was a lizard-like glee, but my relatively high esteem of lizards prevented me from saying it out loud.

  I didn’t react. We were beyond that. Katie might very well die with me today, in this vile place, but she wouldn’t die alone, and it would be quick. That was all I was capable of giving her. Whatever happened to her, I had to stay focused on the task at hand.

  “Clearly you wanted me here,” I said to Faustus. “Might as well tell me why.”

  “It’s simple,” he replied. “I want you to summon the Devil.”

  A shudder went through the crowd, and I could feel the exhalation of dozens of weirdoes span the room at once. I could feel the fetishists' perverse desires brush across my face like spiders dancing in anticipation of their coming meal. They viewed me as the fly in the center of their little web. Who was I to disappoint?

  “Why didn’t you just say so?” I asked, and walked towards the edge of the makeshift altar they had built at the top of the pentagram.

  I was pleased to see that this threw Faustus off-balance, and Belial as well. They’d been expecting a fight, or at the very least one of my famous temper tantrums. Easy breezy acquiescence hadn’t been on the menu.

  Faustus moved to block me, then realized I was doing exactly what he wanted. He was caught in limbo between outright hostility and curiosity as to whether I was actually going along with his plan.

  “Just like that?” he asked. “After everything you’ve done to provoke Lucifer?”

  “Just like that,” I said. “Everyone keeps assuming they know all about me and my motives. You think I give two shits what happens to humanity?” I asked. “What has humanity ever given me, except a bunch of scars? I’m just tired of being a pawn in everyone’s game, Lucifer’s included. I want out. I’m folding. Throwing in the towel. Tapping out. Whatever sports metaphor you want to use. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  Faustus looked at Belial, who simply shrugged in response. Neither of them had prepared for this.

  “We just need your blood,” he said.

  “And my blood you shall have,” I replied. “Just let the girl go.”

  Belial looked at Faustus, who gave him a slight nod. Belial relinquished his hold a bit, but didn’t let her walk away. We stared at each other for a while, but neither of us gave an inch.

  “I have one stipulation,” I said to Belial. “All you need to do is let her go and I’ll do exactly what you want me to do.”

  Katie tried to pull away from him, but it was like trying to pull her leg out of a bear trap. “You fucking pussy,” she said to me.

  Nice. Gratitude was so hard to come by these days.

  “I’ll let her leave once you perform the incantation,” Belial told me.

  I shrugged. It didn’t matter in the end. In fact, it would have been awkward if they’d let her go, only to realize they were locked inside the barn with me.

  I approached the pentagram. Faustus backed away from me, but he was clearly eager for what was to come. “Repeat after me,” he said.

  “I know how to do a Summoning,” I said. “I’m a fucking demon after all.”

  He shrugged and let me have the stage. Now he was to my back, Belial and Katie on my right, and the rest of the muddled masses in front of me. There wasn’t a sound in the room. No one even dared to breathe.

  “I Summon thee, Satan,” I began, referring to the office of the Devil rather than to his name. It was no matter to anyone there. The Summoning was the key. How I referred to the Summonee was immaterial. I proceeded through the rest of the ritual, always referring to the office and not the being. Finally, I ended with a few muttered phrases in Latin, managing to get through the entire ritual without uttering Lucifer by name.

  I pulled my tactical knife and carved a slit across my palm, letting the blood drop into the grooves of the pentagram.

  As the ritual came to an end, a hush fell upon the crowd. The Magician took an involuntary step toward the pentagram, bringing him within arm’s reach. Belial let go of Katie, who ran to the main door of the barn, only to find it locked. No one else was paying attention to her or the door though. They were all staring at the pentagram.

  My blood was flowing in rivulets through the lines of the star. Only one thing remained to complete the spell; all I had to do was to use the specific incantation to bring the summoned demon across.

  “Deyan Anay Tasa Gaap,” I said.

  Faustus turned toward me so quickly I’d thought he broke his neck. Belial, a little slower on the uptake, was still staring at the pentagram.

  “What are you doing?!” Faustus yelled.

  “Calling the cavalry,” I said, then I punched him in the face.

  As Faustus fell, Belial charged. I drew the Franchi and shot a round into his chest. It sent him hurtling backwards, but wouldn’t keep him down for long. While he was busy dealing with the shotgun blast, I unloaded the rest of the rounds into the Satanists gathered around me.

  Inside the pentagram, my blood began to boil. It thinned into a stream the width of a spaghetti noodle and flowed into every arc of the pentagram. It began to pulse and throb, reminding of the feeling I’d felt when I’d first leaned against the barn the previous day.

  But this time I was ready for it, and this time I knew what it was.

  Hellfire ignited all along the pentagram, it’s black flames licking at those unfortunate souls close enough to feed it, myself and Belial included. The humans within range shrieked at the touch of the flames, but Belial and I were demonic by nature. The fire did nothing but warm us as it flickered at the edges of our skin.

  The Satanists who’d been smart enough to back off the Hellfire gathered and turned their attention to me. I didn’t know how long it would take for my Summoning to work, but it seemed I was going to have to kill some time before it took effect. I drew both Sigs and started firing into the crowd with utter disregard to whom or what I hit. The Satanists, to their credit, took the gunfire and charged me in return.

  The nearest of them were just out of the reach of my Masamune when the pentagram exploded with the force of a hellish M80. The blast didn’t do much damage, but it kept them at bay for a while. And when the smoke cleared, a giant freak of a man stood before me.

  He looked less rhinocerosish than in Hell, but Gaap was still an ugly, ugly man.

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding
me,” he said as he saw me. As the rest of the scene came into focus, it didn’t lighten his mood at all. “Is this a goddamn joke?”

  “Sorry. Had to Summon you,” I said by way of explanation.

  “Well?” he asked in exasperation. He knew the deal.

  “Kill them all,” I told him.

  That brought a brief smile. At least I thought it was a smile. It was tough to tell on his nightmarish face.

  He turned to the crowd, and I could feel their collective courage leave them. It was too late to save themselves though. Belial fell upon them like the black plague, and death followed with him.

  I was just beginning to enjoy the occasion when a huge mass slammed into my side and sent me skittering across the rough wood of the floor. Belial stood over me, about six feet away, but still towering from my point of view. He didn’t look happy.

  I raised my hands in supplication. “What did you expect?” I asked him. He didn’t answer, but he charged me again.

  I was ready this time though. I threw my weight onto my left arm and sent a kick into Belial’s midsection. It kept him at bay long enough for me to get to my feet and draw the Masamune.

  Belial drew his scimitar and smiled. We were right back to where we’d been when Rose had so rudely interrupted Belial’s murdering me the previous night. I could tell he was relishing this.

  He said, “You are a goddamn genius when it comes to fucking up plans.”

  “It’s kinda what I do.”

  “Too bad you’re not going to be around long enough to enjoy your victory.”

  “So I’ll just get all the ‘I told you so’s’ out of the way now.”

  He just shook his head at me. It was the closest I’d get to a sign of respect out of him.

  “Told you so,” I said, and thrust the Masamune towards his midsection. He parried it easily and sent a slashing blow toward my right shoulder. I dipped out of the way and turned it into a clumsy spinning arc that met nothing but empty air.

  I caught a glimpse of Faustus heading toward the barn door. I couldn’t see Katie, but I knew she’d gone that way when the shit hit the fan. “Gaap!” I yelled, only to see him in the midst of a half dozen Satanists, most of which had already been maimed by his attacks. He gave me a look that told me he was busy and not to be disturbed, but I didn’t have a chance to respond as Belial moved in for another attack.