Damnable

by Hank Schwaeble

  There were no options, Hatcher realized. This was the grenade in the foxhole, and someone had to throw himself on it. He bolted toward the Get in a dead sprint, angling to intercept. He lowered his shoulder and exploded with his legs as he reached it.

  The thing stumbled sideways a couple of steps but didn’t go down. Using the knife handle like a roll of coins, Hatcher threw the hardest punch he could muster directly across its chin. He slashed the knife toward the side of its neck as he yanked his fist back, but the thing wasn’t as stunned as he’d counted on. It caught his arm solidly at the wrist. Too fast, too strong. Its grip was crushing. It shook its head and roared again, an angry, earsplitting, atavistic sound, as it thrust its other hand under his jaw. Hatcher felt his neck stretch, felt himself jerked into the air. The Get snapped him back and forth a few times, then lifted him high over its head. The fingers pressing into his flesh and muscle seemed like they were going to pinch his head clean off. He was certain his skull was about to explode, but before that could happen the thing threw him into the first remaining rows of pews. The section he hit crashed into the one behind it, the wood cracking and splintering. Hatcher bounced off of it and landed facedown on the marble floor.

  Hatcher’s chest felt caved in. His head was a foreign object, only loosely attached to his neck. He couldn’t breathe, could barely move. The Get lunged toward him with long, menacing steps. It stopped a few feet away and screamed, a visceral, primal shriek. An echo from the birth of Creation, resonating from Hell.

  The Get watched Hatcher lie there for a few seconds before it turned back and refocused on the woman.

  “I suppose it would have only been fair to warn you ahead of time, but by touching him like that, you’ve damned yourself for all eternity. This is the crown prince of demons. So much as a brush against him, against this magnificent corporeal vessel I created, renders a person unclean. Unclean, with no hope of Salvation. Sorry, Brother.

  “Of course, it doesn’t really matter, because once Belial has fulfilled the final step, there will be no more Heaven. You see, there is no Prophecy of the Carnates, Jake. Never was. That was just something tossed into cyberspace to back up our story. There was only the ritual of the Book of Thoth. A ritual kept secret for thousands of years, hidden by cloaks of magic. Broken down and brought to pass, by me. By you.”

  Hot stabs of pain shot through Hatcher’s chest as he forced air into his lungs. His limbs were heavy and stiff, packed with wet cement that was starting to dry. Searing pangs shot through his back as he tried to push himself up. He raised his head, willed his eyes to flutter open.

  The panes of a large stained-glass window glowed dimly in the darkness on the side of the church. A depiction of Christ, head rounded with halo, tilted down and to the side, his arms extended outward. Surrounded by apostles.

  “I know I’ve never been much to you,” Hatcher said, his voice barely louder than his breath. “But I sure could use a hand about now.”

  Christ continued to stare, his gaze the same mix of compassion and apathy.

  “Figures.” Hatcher managed to roll off his stomach onto his back. Something dug into the bone of his spine. He reached behind him with great effort and removed it.

  The knife. His hand ached as he let go of the heavy handle, letting it slide to the floor. Hatcher dropped his head back and breathed. A gun would be nicer. If only the damn thing had a glass jaw.

  Hatcher tilted his head. The Get was circling the woman warily now, sniffing at her. It touched its penis as if it were uncertain it had one as it circled back behind her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was mouthing something over and over again, silently. He was amazed she didn’t scream.

  I’m sorry.

  Above the Get, Hatcher saw Soliya, observing intently. All the Carnates were rapt, their eyes fixed, their bodies tense with expectation. Wright still hung from the cable, kicking her legs, trying to swing. He shot a glance over to the young woman again, then back at Wright. Why doesn’t she make any sounds, either?

  Hatcher turned his attention to the stained-glass window one more time as a nascent thought squirmed, trying to emerge.

  The image of Christ remained impassive as Hatcher took it in.

  He remembered the Carnate on the street, remembered how she winced.

  Carnates, being the issue of a fallen angel of hostility . . . it is presumed they have inherited the infirmities of same, though perhaps to a less vexing degree, as their blood is not whole; iron blessed most hallow, the scream of a virgin pure, and the shattering of glass which carries the ring of God’s judgment, all may cause distress to their senses.

  The Get dropped over the woman’s back onto its long arms, a push-up position, snuffling at her hair, hovering over her.

  Taking a firm grip of the knife, Hatcher forced himself to his feet. What was it Sherman had said? He would freak if someone ever brought a gun in there. He looked at Christ one more time and cocked his arm. Don’t you be a tease, damn it.

  Please.

  He threw the piece of metal like a tomahawk. It tumbled end over end high into the air. He’d aimed right at the head of Christ. Watched it flip, flip, flip through space toward Him, rising in a triumphant arc, then curving down. It wasn’t going to reach.

  No . . .

  The object started to fall in a lazy lob. Hatcher held his breath. It was going to be short, it wasn’t going to reach, it wasn’t—the glass shattered with a loud crash. The knife had smashed through the bottom of the window, near Christ’s feet.

  The Get seized up, bouncing back onto both legs. Its hands shot to its ears and it let out a long howl. Its head was thrown back, twisting and shaking atop its neck.

  A few more panes of glass adjacent to the one smashed dropped from the window and shattered on the floor, causing the Get to screech in agony even more loudly. A crack raced up the window, winding its way through the image of Christ. It stopped abruptly before reaching His head.

  Almost simultaneously the Carnates’ hands shot to their ears and their bodies seemed to sag. Most stepped back from their bowls, blood dripping from their wrists. The expressions Hatcher could make out seemed contorted in anguish.

  He scanned the scaffolding, eyes skipping from one Carnate to another, looking for Valentine. He couldn’t find him.

  There was no time to worry about him. The creature looked vulnerable, but Hatcher had no idea how long that would last. Already it seemed to be catching its breath, shaking off the effects. Hatcher’s gaze jumped to the broken pew next to him. He needed a weapon. If he could find a large enough section of wood, he hoped that might be something he could use.

  Then his head erupted.

  Something jarred his skull from behind, setting it on fire, a dull, muted, flame of pain flashing over his thoughts. He placed his hand on the back his head and felt a scalding thrash, a crack of arm bone. He dropped to his knees, recoiling. He fell forward and instinctively rolled out of the way. The tip of the weapon bashed against marble.

  Valentine was standing over him. Eyes red, jaws clenched.

  “Do you have any idea how much time and money I spent? I devoted my life to this!”

  He slashed the baton toward Hatcher’s face. Hatcher was able to block it with his forearm. It left a singeing, stinging gash, and his arm threatened to fall limp.

  “I will not let the bastard son of a whore ruin this, my one chance at changing everything!”

  The end of the baton whipped down again. Hatcher took it more toward the elbow this time. He bit down on his tongue as the pain shot up his arm and through his head.

  “I’m going to see this through. Nothing—nothing—will stop me.”

  Pushing with his legs, Hatcher started sliding away, trying to keep as much distance between the baton and his head as he could. He glanced over at the stained-glass window. The cracking had stopped. No more panes looked ready to fall.

  He glanced the other way and saw the Get standing erect again, breathing heavily, still shaking its h
ead.

  Valentine stepped forward and drew the baton back.

  “Just tell me why,” Hatcher said, pulling himself up to a knee. He needed to buy time. Time to think. Time to recover some energy.

  “Why?” Valentine lowered the baton, but only slightly. “Do you know who my father was? Who our father was? A brilliant, brilliant man. How dare God decide he should spend all of eternity burning in Hell, simply because he didn’t believe? What kind of hubris is that? What kind of almighty being is so petty? So jealous? We’re supposed to worship that?”

  The baton fired downward, glancing off of Hatcher’s shoulder as he twisted out of the way. Hatcher grunted, clutched at it.

  “I spent every waking hour of every waking day of my life searching for a solution to a problem no one ever dared tackle. How do I save my parents from the lake of fire? The answer was simple. Damn everyone else. Then God will either have to give up on the ones He loves so dearly, the devoted followers who praise Him and feed His ego, or He’ll have to undo all of it. Once Heaven is done, He’ll have to allow the gates of Hell to open. He will have to start over. A new covenant. A new Heaven. A second chance.”

  “But what if you’re wrong? What if there is no second chance? What if it just means everyone goes to Hell?”

  Valentine sneered. “Then so be it. If my parents must burn in hellfire for all eternity, so must everyone else.”

  This was going to hurt. Hatcher watched Valentine raise the baton again, saw his arm cock, then threw his hand into its path, catching the whippy end in his palm and clenching it tightly.

  An agonizing sizzle lanced through his hand and up his arm, but he held fast. With an abrupt tug, he got Valentine to take an extra step forward, then threw one of his legs in front of Valentine’s shin and scissored him off his feet. He brought the baton down with a crack across the bridge of Valentine’s nose. A small burst of blood, then Valentine’s face disappeared behind his hands. He screamed into his palms.

  Hatcher managed to stand on wobbly legs just as the Get was starting to move toward the young woman again. He looked down at the baton. He wouldn’t be able to intercept the thing before it reached her, and wasn’t certain if something so small would do any good, anyway. He shot his gaze over to the stained glass window where he had thrown the knife, saw the cracks that had spidered through it.

  His thumb found a notch. With a click, he snapped the telescoping rod of the baton back into the handle. He reared back and hurled it as hard as he could. This time, the dense metal tube smashed through the center of the window.

  The sound caused the Get to seize up just as he reached the woman. Its back arched and it grabbed the sides of its skull. Pieces of the window started to fall rapidly, crinkling and cracking and shattering with a splash as they hit the hard floor below.

  The Get seemed to be in a tortured state. It spun around, frantic, holding its head like a carnival mask that wouldn’t come off, madness bulging through its eyes.

  Definitely vulnerable now, Hatcher thought. But obviously still dangerous, maybe even more so than before. Hatcher’s eyes raced around the room, searching for something he could use. Anything.

  Another chunk of glass broke free, shattering against the floor. Hatcher feared it was the last, but resisted the urge to look.

  His gaze stopped on the body further down the aisle. Reynolds.

  He bolted toward it, dropping to a knee at the nearest arm. The long machete blade was attached to a large leather hockey glove by some kind of adhesive. The glove was secured tightly to Reynolds’s arm by an array of leather straps and buckles. Hatcher fumbled them undone and removed the glove. He slid it on and ran toward the Get.

  The creature was flailing wildly now, a spinning, twisting, thrashing dervish of primal insanity. Hatcher looked for an opening, a chance to get one solid strike, a blow that would count. As he started to circle it, he glanced at Wright. She was bucking her body, mouthing soundless words, eyes bulging.

  A warning.

  Before he could spin to look, his head snapped back and he catapulted forward.

  He stumbled toward Wright, falling onto his hands and knees, the machete clanging as he went down. Valentine landed on Hatcher’s back, driving his face against the floor, and started to pummel the back of his head.

  “You won’t stop me! You won’t stop this! This. Will. Happen!”

  The blows wracked his skull. Hatcher’s body felt like it was about to give out. His head was being pinched in a vice, a corkscrew twisting through his brain. He tried to get up, but Valentine kept hitting. Hard, blunt shots, thrown without any apparent regard for the bones in his hand. Hatcher crumbled forward again, trying to fend off what he could. Wright was above him. He could feel her looking down at him. A hollow nausea churned through his gut. Failure.

  From someplace that seemed far away, Hatcher heard another tiny explosion of glass against the floor. Heard the Get howl yet again, an insane, strangling bellow.

  Valentine stood, sucking breaths. He seemed punched out, raw and bloody knuckles like hamburger meat over fractured bones. Hatcher started to crawl, ended up rolling to one side, onto his back.

  “I didn’t follow my own warnings,” Valentine said. “I underestimated you. That won’t happen aga—”

  Valentine stumbled sideways, trying to catch his balance. Through blurry eyes, Hatcher was able to see just enough to make it out. Wright had fired out with her bound feet, thrusting her legs enough to send her swinging backward. Enough to send Valentine staggering from the kick.

  Bent over, Valentine caught his balance as he came within a few feet of the Get. He slowly straightened his back. The Get’s wild eyes bore into him.

  A word started to come out of Valentine’s mouth, but before it escaped his lips, the Get shot forward, stabbing claws into Valentine’s chest with one hand, grabbing a fistful of hair with the other. The thing clamped its massive jaws across Valentine’s throat and tore the hair off the man’s head, taking Valentine’s scalp off with it. Valentine’s body collapsed to the floor. His skull dropped after it, a glistening net of red tissue surrounding white teeth and eyes. His face and his heart remained in the Get’s clutches.

  The thing flung both across the church and let out another screeching yell as the brittle shattering of a small piece of glass echoed. The heart bounced and rolled. Valentine’s face lay crumbled and eyeless, staring hollow at the ceiling like a discarded mask.

  Hatcher assumed the last piece of glass that fell was it, that the rest would stay put. His head was pounding and he was having difficulty thinking straight, but knew his options were limited. There were plenty more windows he could try to break, but he would have to find things to throw, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last. To walk would be grueling. He could tell at least two ribs were broken. His shoulder was certainly separated, and his head felt about to split open from the pressure building inside.

  He looked up at Wright. She blinked at him, her expression almost apologetic as she swung gently, her arms relaxing but obviously exhausted. She’d stopped trying to free herself from the hook. The message came through clear enough. No matter what, he had to finish it. There was no one else.

  Wincing, he pushed himself to his feet and adjusted the glove. His ribs hurt too much to stand erect, so he hunched a bit. The Get was standing over the blood-filled symbol on the floor, clutching at its hair, giving occasional shakes of its head.

  Just one opening, Hatcher thought. Just give me one.

  He stepped forward, each breath stabbing at his rib cage. His legs were shaking, but he felt a tiny surge of strength, enough to keep him moving. Enough for one last play of scrimmage.

  The Get saw him, snapped into an aggressive pose, baring its teeth and roaring, even as its eyes struggled to stay in focus, its head not fully clear.

  C’mon. Just give me something, anything.

  Beyond the Get, Hatcher noticed the stained-glass window. About the top fourth of it was still there, an uneven dia
gonal line zigzagging from right to left down through Christ’s neck. If only he could throw something else at it, dislodge a few more of the panes. Then he realized there were plenty of windows like it all around him. It didn’t matter. Unless he was willing to heave Valentine’s heart, there was nothing handy to throw, and he knew even that wouldn’t work. The glove and machete were awkward, but they were all he had.

  The sound of something crinkling, a faint spreading noise made him stop to listen. He could barely hear anything through the Get’s snarling. The thing seemed ready to lunge.

  Then he saw the remaining panes of stained glass drop from the window, falling as one section. Christ’s face, encased in halo, flashed as the glass rotated. It exploded against the floor with the crash of something bursting into innumerable tiny fragments, shards launching in all directions.

  The screech from the Get tore into Hatcher’s ears. The creature snapped erect, every muscle straining as if an electric shock was coursing through its system. Its arms were flung out from its sides, its back arched, head thrown to the rear. Its body seemed to start vibrating, and as it did the lines of its form became blurred. Another figure expanded outward from it, a magnified shadow, the enlarged shape of it taking on different features. The head was the vague imprint of a horse, with knobby horns on its skull and eyes that were more like portals to an endless void. It dwarfed the Get as it mimicked its pose, enveloping it, a transparent cloud the putrid color of a bloody stool. The shape of two dark wings fanned out behind it.

  A stench invaded Hatcher’s nasal passages like an angry swarm and he almost heaved. Something inside clicked, a battle instinct, and without hesitating he bounded forward. He pulled the machete across his body, swung it back to the other side as hard as he could. The blade sliced through the Get’s neck. The thing’s head fell off and rolled to a stop near Valentine’s heart.

  The shadowy form surrounding the Get remained, its dark specter of a head now above a decapitated body. The insane rage on its face grew and those views of the void seemed to focus on Hatcher. Before the look could stick, the shape was sucked down into the Get’s body with a force that caused the church to rumble. What was left of the Get stood there for a pregnant moment, a headless body uncertain what to do. Then it dropped to the floor.