Grimm Awakening

by Bryan Smith

  Mona ignored him. “I don’t want to hear any excuses, Commander Rollins. Humans don’t just go into a room and disappear.”

  Rollins risked a trembling upward glance. The tremors rippling through his body increased in intensity as he met Mona’s penetrating gaze. “We have reason to believe these are not ordinary mortals. The squad you dispatched to fetch the Eye of Sylvain was slaughtered by these men. They clearly have the ability to move between worlds.”

  Mona’s brow creased. “That can’t be. O’Day and the hellhound have certain talents, but feats of that nature require great power. Only a very advanced wizard could do such a thing.”

  There was a desperate appeal in the commander’s shiny eyes. Jack had a feeling the man was telling the truth as he understood it. But Andy didn’t have that kind of power. Did he? He knew his friend was capable of a number of things ordinary men were not, but this went beyond--far beyond--anything he’d personally experienced. Nor did he believe Lucien capable of doing what the commander described.

  Which left Raven Rainbolt. Of course. That had to be the answer.

  “There is another among them, highness. An unidentified man. An older man able to change his physical appearance at will, according to the accounts of the surviving squad members. Perhaps he is the wizard.”

  Jack frowned. He had no clue who the mystery man might be.

  Mona slapped the commander. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you say ‘surviving squad members’?”

  A blazing red imprint of a hand bloomed across the commander’s cheek. “Yes, highness. We--”

  Mona slapped him again. “Why have these men not been beheaded, commander? They failed me. You know the penalty for that.”

  Rollins couldn’t meet her gaze this time. When he was able to speak again, it was in the hollow, haunting voice of a man who knows his life is about to end. “These men were sent to collect the Eye. And this they did. It was their only objective. The presence of Grimm’s friends was an unfortunate coincidence.”

  Mona was seething. “You have all failed me. You most grievously, commander. I told you I wanted no excuses and I’ve heard nothing but. I expect the people under me to be competent and that includes being able to adapt quickly to fluid situations. If O’Day and the others had been eliminated over there, they would not be here now. It really is that simple, commander.”

  Rollins continued to shake and sob--and he apparently was out of things to say.

  Mona’s voice rang out like a cannon blast: “STAND UP!”

  It was a struggle for Rollins, but he managed to get to his feet. She thrust a finger at his face. “YOU!” The finger moved to include the rest of squad members. “All of you! Shed your weaponry. Every bit of it. NOW!”

  There was no hesitation. The visors obscured the expressions of the other men, but Jack was certain they were as frightened as their commander--yet there wasn’t the slightest indication of resistance. The men threw down rifles and machine guns, removed handguns from holsters and discarded them, unsheathed knives and let them fall to the floor. Ammo belts and concussion grenades joined the growing pile on the floor.

  Mona’s cold expression grew even frostier. “Off with the helmets, too.”

  Rollins’s men removed the helmets at once and cast them aside. Most of the men were much younger than the commander. Jack was struck by how ordinary they looked divested of the paramilitary trappings--nothing at all like servants of hell.

  Now Mona turned away from the commander and pointed in a new direction. “Into the fire. All of you.”

  Horrified, Jack watched the commander walk past her en route to the fireplace. Again, there was no hesitation as he stepped into the flames. The commander thrashed and screamed for a time. The smell of burning meat made Jack’s eyes water. The rest of the men--still in an orderly column--moved toward the fire. One by one, they stepped into the leaping flames and did the screaming dance of death. Jack felt his gorge rise and turned to look away. It didn’t matter that these men--for reasons he could never fathom--had pledged allegiance to the greatest evil in existence, they were still men. Humans. Watching them march uncomplaining to their deaths was beyond awful. How anyone--even someone as malefic as Mona--could exert her will in this way was beyond Jack’s understanding.

  Mona gripped the back of his head and forced him to watch.

  “See them burn. Isn’t it lovely?”

  Jack watched. One body pitched forward and a blackened arm and forehead fell out of the fireplace. Another burning, screaming man pulled the wayward corpse back into the flames before falling over himself.

  “Their screams are the sweetest music.”

  Mona squeezed his neck harder. “Soon, you’ll sing for me just like that.”

  Jack watched until the ‘singing’ came to an end and the last man fell over dead in what was now a funeral pyre.

  And he imagined himself walking into those same flames.

  Could almost feel the searing heat on his flesh.

  21.

  Bright white light gave way to more darkness. Then that was gone and a softer light filled the room. Lucien turned and saw Raven with her hand on a dimmer knob. She turned the light up a little brighter and then strode across a large room that was more luxurious than the one they’d left behind. Instead of two twin beds, there was a large four-poster bed with a heavy velvet canopy and skirt. She moved past the bed and stood before a huge, ceiling-to-floor cabinet. The cabinet was varnished brown wood with gold inlays and knobs. It was maybe four feet across and about twenty-five feet tall. Raven gripped both of the gold knobs and pulled the doors open.

  Inside the huge cabinet was a vast array of glittering steel.

  Andy whistled. “Wow. Just...wow.”

  Lucien approached the open cabinet like a religious pilgrim entering the gates of a holy city, with awe and reverence. Before him was the grandest selection of edged weaponry he’d ever had the pleasure to behold. There were machetes of varying lengths with blades of varying thicknesses. He saw swords and daggers and hilts made of gold and inlaid with diamonds. He saw thick clubs with spiked, metal heads attached by lengths of chain. A closer look revealed an array of throwing stars, as well as foot-long metal tubes he guessed were blow guns--each of these was strapped to a silver case he imagined was filled with poison-tipped darts. Aside from all the weaponry, the cabinet also housed a wide selection of chain mail tunics and clunky pieces of body armor.

  Raven said, “This is the armory of the Guild of the Black Sun.”

  Andy approached the cabinet and stood near Lucien. “Well, with a name like that, they must be a fun bunch of guys. Who are they?”

  “The assassins in black.”

  Lucien reached into the cabinet and removed a sword. It was very long and somehow more lethal-looking than all the others. He inspected it from hilt to deadly tip and detected not even the faintest flaw in the metal. Not even a nick along the edges. Perhaps it’d never been used in battle. An inlay of large, flawless diamonds distinguished the curved ends of the hilt and these Lucien caressed with his fingertips.

  Siegel said, “I think the boy’s in love.”

  Lucien stepped away from the cabinet and gripped the hilt in both hands, hefting it the way he’d seen it done in movies, with the right elbow extended and the left pointing straight down. He swung the blade like a baseball slugger swinging a bat and he marveled at how cleanly it cut through the air.

  Madeleine yelped.

  Andy said, “Whoa, watch out, Errol Flynn.”

  Lucien faced Raven. “This is all very impressive. And I think I’ll keep this sword. But what does this have to do with our mission? These weapons are exquisitely made, but they are no use against guns. Dozens of those guildsmen came at us with these weapons in O’Scanlon’s and we killed every one of them with our firearms.”

  Raven made her own selection from the armory. This was a slightly shorter weapon than Lucien’s, with a thin, tapered blade and an even more ornate hilt. She slashed at the
air once, twice, and flashed one of her patented cryptic smiles. “This is a rapier.” She nodded at Lucien’s choice. “Yours is a broadsword. A warrior’s sword. A king’s sword. Only with a weapon of this sort could you hope to kill Mona Faust.”

  Lucien frowned. “Why should this artifact succeed where bullets, I assume, would fail?”

  “Because Mona Faust is a demon. And no ordinary one, at that. The Faust family is one of the most powerful royal clans in all of hell. Mona is Lucifer’s number one agent on earth. To kill her, you must behead her. To behead her, you must deliver a blow of singular power.” She demonstrated with an imitation of Lucien’s previous home run swing. “Like this.” She did it again, swinging the rapier in a wide arc that caused the others to jump back a step. “Then, when you have liberated her head from her shoulders, you must drive the point of the blade into her chest.” She gripped the hilt of the rapier with both hands and pointed the blade at the floor--then she drove the tip of the blade through the carpet. She looked at Lucien. “Reach into her chest and pull out her black heart. Toss the head and the heart into the soul furnace.”

  Andy made his own selection from the armory--a broadsword marginally less imposing than Lucien’s. He did a practice swing or two of his own and looked at Raven. “The what furnace?”

  “Inside the Royal Suite is what at first glance appears to be a normal--albeit very, very large--fireplace. An infernal flame burns within it, a flame fueled by the bodies and souls of men and women. The soul furnace helps power the magic that protects the seventy-fifth floor and enhances Mona’s own abilities.”

  Andy laughed. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s get a firehose up there.”

  “The soul furnace cannot be extinguished by ordinary means. Infernal fire is impervious to water. Our only real option is to feed Mona to the flames.”

  “I reckon my opinion doesn’t count for much in these weighty matters,” Madeleine said, sounding a tad peeved. “But if this place is the domain of the Black Sun men, perhaps we shouldn’t linger long.”

  Lucien looked at Andy, then at Raven. “She’s right.”

  Andy nodded. “So let’s go kill ourselves a she-demon.”

  Raven’s gaze went to Madeleine. “She should stay behind.”

  A look of indignation crossed the prostitute’s face. “Where the hell would you have me go? I’ll not stay here, I’ll tell you that.”

  “I’m sure we’d be a more efficient fighting force without this refined young lady in tow, but making her stay behind is the same as sentencing her to death.” Andy paused to light his first cigarette since their emergence from the dark place. “I can’t be a part of an operation willing to make a move like that.”

  Madeleine gaped at him. “That’s the first remotely kind thing you’ve said to me. Thank you.”

  Andy shrugged, puffed smoke at the ceiling. “It’s just a general principle I live by. Call me old-fashioned.”

  Raven twirled her rapier. “I don’t like this, but I’ll not argue the point further. We need to go.”

  “Agreed.” Lucien looked at Raven. “You’re our guide here. What’s our next step?”

  “It couldn’t be simpler.”

  She approached the suite’s front door. “We’ve come as far as we can via trickery. Now we can only walk straight into the lion’s den.”

  The others followed her out of the room and down a hallway. They stopped and stood before a closed elevator. Raven pushed a button and the elevator car opened instantly. She stepped inside, then pushed a button to hold the door open. With varying degrees of reluctance, the others followed her inside and the door slid shut.

  Andy heaved a nervous sigh and glanced at Siegel. “What was that you said about the bad guys freezing us in one of these things with the push of a button?”

  Siegel shuddered. “You had to bring that up.”

  Raven said, “They won’t do that. Not now. Mona wants us to come to her.”

  Andy grunted around his cigarette. “And here we are…playing right into her hands.”

  Lucien looked at him. “We have no choice.”

  And that was the end of the argument, because at that moment the elevator car’s brief ascent came to an end and the doors slid open. Raven was first out of the elevator. The others followed her into the same long, ornate hallway they’d first glimpsed on the security center monitor. The hallway’s lone door stood at the far end of the passage and Raven led them swiftly in that direction. As they neared the door, Lucien and Andy raised their swords like medieval assassins sent to snuff the life of an enemy king. Siegel popped fresh clips into his .45’s. The tip of Raven’s rapier glided lightly along the wall to her right. Madeleine, apparently determined to keep as many bodies between herself and whatever awaited them in the Royal Suite as possible, brought up the rear.

  Raven paused before the closed door and glanced backward. “Try not to get killed.”

  Andy puffed smoke. “Or to at least bring the bitch down in the process of getting killed.”

  Raven almost smiled. “Right.”

  She gripped the doorknob and turned it. Unlocked. She pushed the door open.

  22.

  “Here they come.”

  Jack heard the door open. His would-be rescuers were near. He looked at Mona, who showed him an expression somewhere between a smile and a smirk. She seemed remarkably untroubled for a woman who’d just sent her most elite troops to their deaths. Jack set the scotch bottle down and got out of the recliner.

  Raven Rainbolt was the first to enter the room. She smiled a little when she saw Jack, an expression that made his heart race and fill with hope. She walked past the canopied bed and moved toward the center of the room. Andy O’Day and Lucien came after her. All three were brandishing swords. Fucking swords. What the hell? The next man into the room was a powerfully built individual, with a handsome face and chiseled chin. If not for his grubby clothes, Jack would’ve taken him for a screen idol of the 1940’s. He had a large caliber gun in each hand. Jack hoped the man would raise those guns and empty their clips into Mona Faust’s face. But he didn’t do that and Jack got the feeling he was awaiting some subtle signal from someone else. The last person into the room was an attractive woman who looked like a Victorian-era prostitute.

  Mona chuckled. “So here’s the cavalry. With weaponry pilfered from the Black Sun armory, I see.”

  Jack caught Andy’s eye. “Good to see you, O’Day.” Now his gaze went to Lucien. “And my favorite hellbeast.”

  “Same here, friend.” Andy’s gaze swept around the suite, taking in the shattered door, the pile of discarded firearms, and the little spray of ashes in front of the huge fireplace. “I gotta tell you, though, I expected more of a welcoming party.” He nodded at Mona. “I know this lady’s one bad-ass chick, but she can’t take us alone.”

  Mona folded her arms beneath her breasts and stood with one hip cocked outward. “That’s where you are in error, Mr. O’Day. Or should I say…Mr. Grimm?”

  Andy’s grin vanished.

  It took Jack a moment to get Mona’s meaning. Then understanding dawned and his mouth dropped open. “Andy...?”

  Andy looked at Mona. “Still the same manipulative cunt you were ten years ago. No surprise there, I guess.” A sad smile quirked at the corners of his mouth. “Okay, Jack, here’s the big secret. And, really, it’s not that big a deal. I’m your half-brother, the bastard result of a brief affair between Allyson O’Day, my mother, and your father. Really, the only embarrassing bit is how fucking soap opera it is.”

  Jack frowned. “But…my father--”

  Mona’s laughter was loud and imbued with sneering cynicism. “Is not the pure soul you’ve always thought he was. Are you shocked, darling?”

  Andy rolled his eyes. “Right. Whatever. Jack…in his youth, our father was given to indiscretions of the flesh. No one is perfect, as you know. That he took me under his wing from an early age and guided me should stand as testament to his character. Don’t let Mona fuck wi
th your head, okay?”

  Jack sighed. Andy was right. “Fine. Whatever. I’ve got a brother. Could you guys just kill this bitch now?”

  Lucien took a step toward her and began to raise his sword.

  In the same moment, Jack noticed one of the women his friends had walked in with doing something disconcerting...

  His eyes went wide. “Look out!”

  The prostitute had a dagger in her hand--produced, perhaps, from a sheath hidden in the many folds of her dress--and had already surged past the gunslinger in the grubby clothes. She buried the blade of the knife in Lucien’s back, jerked it out, then thrust it in again. Lucien’s knees buckled and his mouth opened in a silent scream. He twisted away from another knife-thrust and swatted at the woman’s hand. The edge of the blade raked down his arm and drew a thin line of blood. Jack’s heart pounded at the sight of all that blood pouring from the wounds in Lucien’s back.

  Andy was in motion faster than anyone else, bringing his own sword around in a swift, powerful blow that should have decapitated the woman. But she proved quicker and more agile than Jack would have guessed. She leapt backward off her feet and spun in the air, landing well out of striking distance. Then the suite was filled with the booming of gunfire as the gunman opened up on the would-be assassin. She moved left and right, left and right, angling her body in positions that appeared to defy gravity. She was an almost invisible blur during this and every one of the bullets crashed through the windows overlooking the suite’s balcony.

  When the man’s guns were empty, she stood erect and grinned. “You missed.”

  She flipped the dagger over to hold it by the blade, pulled her arm back, and whipped her hand forward, sending the blade slicing through the air so fast it was nearly invisible. It punched through one of the gunman’s hands, dislodging the weapon it held and eliciting a pained cry. Another knife appeared from the folds of her dress and she gripped it in the same manner--but she held off choosing another target for the moment.