by Bryan Smith
“We have to go now.” Her voice was a flat monotone. “I’m taking you back to the dark place for a while.”
Andy frowned. “Why?”
“Because if we linger any longer we’ll all be dead.”
Lucien nodded at Lana. “She goes with us, then. She tipped me off to the magician’s gun.”
Jack’s breath caught in his throat for a moment--because all at once they were no longer standing on the stage of the Maverick Grande Theater. He was in darkness, suspended in some strange void. He was terror-stricken at first, then he heard the voices of the others and realized he was in the ‘dark place’ Raven had mentioned.
Which, in a way, was nowhere at all.
* * *
Mona Faust’s vision was improving. She could see the old gangster standing down there in the orchestra pit. He was a blurred figure, but she saw him. Soon she would see as well as she ever had. At which point she would dispense with this sham of a negotiation and pounce upon the old man. A shiver of pleasure went through her at the thought of simultaneously regaining the Eye and tearing the man’s throat out.
Standing at the edge of the stage, she stood with her hands on her hips and smiled at him. “Bugsy Siegel, give up the charade--you’re not one of the good guys.”
She leapt off the stage and landed on her feet.
Siegel shuffled backward. “That’s right, doll. But you’re using the wrong tense. Bugsy Siegel was not one of the good guys. Bugsy was a murdering, no good son of a bitch. But I am not that man. He died a long time ago.”
Mona shook her head. It never ceased to mystify her why humans as flawed as this man and Jack Grimm found the notion of redemption so attractive. They were hellbound and would be better off embracing their dark sides.
“Give me the Eye, Bugsy, and I’ll make your death quick and merciful.”
A lie, of course.
A sad smile dawned on Siegel’s face. “We’re both about to die, Mona Faust.”
Mona stopped in her tracks. She again experienced that unfamiliar emotion--fear. But this was silly. The old man was broken. He was no threat to anyone anymore. Still, that sense of unease remained. Worse, it intensified.
“What do you mean, Bugsy?”
The old man’s free hand went into his coat and came out with a knife, a pearl-handled switchblade. He thumbed the switch and a gleaming five inch blade popped out.
Mona laughed. The fear ebbed out of her. She shook her head, unable to believe she’d actually felt threatened by this old buffoon. “You mean to kill me with that? Seriously?”
Siegel shrugged. “In a way, yes.”
Mona’s shoulders shook with laughter that verged on the hysterical. “Hilarious. Bugsy, I’m about to take that blade from you and use it to cut off your shriveled old cock. Then I’ll feed it to you.”
Siegel shook his head. “No, Mona.”
He turned the knife so that the blade was pointing at his own chest. “A long time ago a great man named Hex Rainbolt gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever received. A cleansed soul. I made a vow, then, to never again kill an innocent. And I’ve kept that vow. Until now.”
Mona frowned. “What’s this to do with anything? You’re more feeble than I imagined.”
Siegel smiled again. “I’m an innocent, Mona. In this incarnation. I’ve had a good second life. But now it’s over.”
Then he dropped the Eye of Sylvain, gripped the handle of the knife in both hands, and stabbed it into his chest. Once, then again. Then, the knife handle still protruding from his chest, he toppled over and lay still.
Mona’s frown deepened. Siegel’s suicide baffled her. The act was a mortal sin. For a man so concerned with redemption, it seemed an extraordinarily stupid thing to do. He would wake up in hell for sure now. Oh, well. It didn’t matter. Probably he’d just been too much of a coward to face her wrath.
She bent to retrieve the Eye of Sylvain.
Ben Siegel drew in a ragged, gurgling breath.
Then another.
Then he was gone.
And Mona never heard the immense explosion that consumed her.
* * *
Jack sighed.
“So…what he blew himself up?”
He heard Raven breathe a shuddery sigh. “Yes.”
“But…how?”
“Hex Rainbolt’s failsafe. A bomb…” A bitter laugh. “…a magic bomb planted inside his regenerated body. It was to keep him in line should he ever feel tempted to succumb to his old ways. The bomb would trigger if he ever took the life of another innocent. Which is what he just did.”
“So he sacrificed himself to save us all?”
Raven sniffled. “Yes. It was the only way, though I didn’t want to accept it at first. The Eye of Sylvain was too powerful to leave in the hands of a thing as evil as Mona Faust. It was hidden for a time in that other world, but my uncle believed that merely concealing it wasn’t good enough anymore. The mere fact of its existence made it a threat too large to ignore. With its destruction, my talent for manipulating people and things has greatly diminished. But I still know the things the elder Rainbolts taught me when I was young. I can still fight the evil in our world.”
Jack said, “Come home with us. We do a bang-up business in the fighting-of-evil field there.”
Raven’s voice was a barely audible whisper: “Maybe I will.”
Andy cleared his throat. “Say, how much longer do we have to stay here? I’d like to get back to the Sherlock Holmes Pub. There’s a pint with my name on it waiting for me. Several of them, in fact.”
Raven sighed again. “Yes. It’s time to go.”
Then the darkness was gone and they were back in the world, standing in the still-smoldering ruins of the Maverick Grande Theater. The explosion had also demolished a big chunk of the Maverick itself. An emergency worker in a yellow coat screamed at their sudden appearance and fainted. A bewildered-looking Lana cast a wide-eyed gaze at the heaps of shattered concrete and twisted girders.
Then she addressed her saviors in a voice numb with shock: “Okay. Thanks and all, but I’ll be leaving now.”
And she walked away, pausing a moment to kick off her platform heels before continuing on her way.
Andy lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the sky. “Looks like the bad guys in this city are gonna need a new base of operations.”
Raven kicked at a piece of debris. She looked up and smiled. “Thanks to my uncle, there aren’t as many bad guys as there used to be.”
Lucien patted Jack’s back. “So…you’re a free man. What do you want to do now?”
Jack gave him a wry look. “What do you think?”
Andy laughed. “Yeah. Let’s go get drunk.”
So they did.
EPILOGUE:
SINGIN’ THOSE NASHVEGAS BLUES
Jack Grimm fired up a Lucky Strike and took in a deep drag of nicotine and toxin-filled smoke, which he then expelled into the frigid January air. He stood on the landing outside his office, which was located on the second floor of a two-story building on Elliston Place in Nashville. It was a somewhat hipster-infested part of town, with trendy shops, bars, and burger joints lining each side of the small strip.
Jack had grown up in Nashville and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Sure, maybe there’d be a smidgen more evil to fight in bigger cities like New York or L.A., but Nashvegas (as the locals frequently referred to the city) was too much in his blood for him to ever seriously consider relocation. Just across the street was a bar that had for many years been his hangout of choice, The Gold Rush. But the former dive bar had remodeled and now catered to the fucking hipsters. It was okay, though, because Jack and the former Gold Rush regulars had just taken their business across the street and up a block, where the boys behind the bar at the Sherlock Holmes Pub gladly accepted an alarming percentage of their cash on a daily basis.
Jack leaned against the second floor railing and saw Andy and Lucien approaching from that direction even now. They saw Jack and w
aved before disappearing into a general store located directly beneath the offices of Grimm Investigations. Jack took one more drag on the Lucky Strike, dropped it on the landing, and extinguished it beneath the heel of a boot. Then he went back into the office.
Raven Rainbolt sat on a chair behind a computer monitor at the receptionist’s desk. ‘Receptionist’ was Raven’s official job title, but only because he had to call her something for tax purposes. She was on equal footing at GI with Andy and Lucien. Even Jack, her nominal boss, had little real authority over her. And that was cool with Jack, who would hate to rein in a free spirit like Raven anyway.
Jack walked behind the desk and leaned against a file cabinet. He frowned at the image of a Berserker Demon on Raven’s monitor. “Oh, shit. Not one of those fuckers again.”
Raven swiveled in her chair and smiled up at Jack. “Had a supposed sighting in the Murfreesboro area. Pretty sure it’s genuine, from the description.”
Jack groaned. “Shit.”
Raven shook her head. “You shouldn’t complain. It’s another paycheck.”
Another groan from Jack. “It’s depressing how everything comes down to money in the end.”
Raven smiled. “We may be all about fighting evil and saving people, but we’re not a charity, Jack. That Sherlock Holmes tab won’t pay itself, you know.”
Jack sighed. “I know. God, do I know.”
The front door opened and the pungent alcohol fumes that rolled in announced the presence of Andy O’Day and Lucien before the men were even inside. The door swung shut behind them as they moved toward the desk, both of them still laughing at some private joke.
Then Andy got a look at Jack’s glum expression and some of the booze-fueled good cheer seeped out of his face. “Who pissed in your Cheerios, mate?”
Jack shrugged. “Still having a bit of an emotional hangover from the Vegas thing, I think.”
Andy grunted. “Why, mate?”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “Because a lot of innocent people died when the Maverick got blown to kingdom come. I mean, yeah, we’re lucky the explosion wasn’t some atomic inferno, but more than a hundred guests of the hotel were incinerated along with Mona and Siegel. That’s a hell of a lot of innocent blood on our hands.”
Raven stood up. “Look at me.”
Jack looked at her--and strove not to wilt beneath the power of her intense stare.
“It’s true,” she said. “Innocents died. It’s a rotten shame. But the truth is that if we hadn’t allowed my uncle to do what he did countless more would have died later on. Millions, Jack. Hundreds of millions.”
Lucien said, “Billions.”
Jack rubbed his eyes and leaned wearily against the wall behind him. “You’re right, I know. But I still have trouble accepting the snuffing of one-hundred and some souls as a justifiable sacrifice. Every night I imagine the suffering of their families and it’s all I can do to get to sleep. How can I ever make peace with that?”
Andy approached him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t, Jack. That’s your answer.” He reached into his jacket and brought out the bottomless flask of Jameson’s. He screwed the cap off and offered the flask to Jack. “Which is why God invented alcohol.”
Jack took the flask and sipped some whiskey. Then he sighed again. “Heavenly.”
Andy was smiling again now. “There. See? It’s fucking medicinal.”
Jack indulged in a larger swallow of Irish whiskey. Then he passed the flask back to Andy, who screwed the cap on and returned it to his jacket. “Medicinal, you say? Hmm.” He snorted laughter. “What do you say we head back down to the pub and take our medicine there?”
Lucien said, “Excellent idea.”
Andy said, “Sterling.”
But Raven was shaking her head. “But you guys just came from there!”
Jack caught her eye and smiled. He was pleased to see her smile back. “You, too, girl. We’ll all go get fucking healthy at the pub.”
Raven was smirking now. “Thanks to all the medicine there, right?”
Jack pointed a thumb and forefinger at her, mimed the firing of a gun. “Bingo, doll.”
Raven shrugged. “Well…when in Rome, as they say…”
And with that, they departed the office and headed down to the pub. Grimm Investigations was closed for the day.
Unless, of course, something unexpected were to happen.
* * *
The young valet driver pulled the gleaming black Bentley up to the curb in front of the Grand Hyatt hotel in New York City. His name was Carmine Vincetti and he was a nineteen-year-old Italian kid from the Bronx. Carmine was enamored of life in this ritzy part of town and he loved to drive the big luxury cars the rich folks always showed up in. He took care never to ding up their gorgeous rides, and he was always careful to leave their interiors as spotless and sparkling as they’d been when they’d come in. His big ambition in life was to one day graduate from NYU and lead the same kind of glamorous life he experienced vicariously as a valet for a luxury hotel. One day he hoped to walk through the doors of this very establishment with a beautiful blonde on each arm.
A woman like the one who stood at the curb waiting for him now. Carmine got out of the Bentley, stepped up onto the curb, and handed the woman her keys. Man, but she was a looker, probably one of the finest women he’d ever laid eyes on, and this was in a city full of the most beautiful women in the world. Tall and statuesque, she wore a black dress that came to her knees, black stockings, a black hat with a wide brim that curved down over her eyes, and stylish black sunglasses. She looked like was going to either a funeral or a high-priced S&M joint.
Carmine cleared his throat and tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice. “Here are your keys, Miss Faust.”
The woman studied him for a moment. Carmine squirmed beneath her gaze. His cheeks felt hot. He felt like the total opposite of the smooth operator he one day hoped to become. The moment seemed to go on for hours.
Then she pressed the keys back into his hands.
“You have a new job, boy.”
“I...do?”
She nodded. “You’re leaving this life behind, Carmine.”
He frowned. “How did you know my name?”
She ignored the question. “The bellhop is on his way, so you’ll need to load my things into the Bentley. Then we’ll have a long drive ahead of us.”
Carmine was still frowning. “But...I can’t.” He laughed. “This is crazy. I can’t just leave without telling anybody. What will my boss think? What will my folks think?”
“These things are of no concern to me.”
“But--”
“Do as you’ve been told.”
The command conveyed by her voice was the most singularly compelling thing he’d ever experienced. There was no possibility of disobedience. It was as if his mind had been hijacked. So he loaded the Faust woman’s luggage into the car and got behind the wheel while she slid soundlessly into the back seat.
Carmine turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
When they were clear of the city, the Bentley headed south.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bryan Smith is the author of numerous previous novels and novellas, including House of Blood, Depraved, The Freakshow, The Killing Kind, Soultaker, Deathbringer, The Dark Ones, Kayla and the Devil, Kayla Undead, and The Diabolical Conspiracy. Most of these were first available via mass market paperback from Dorchester Publishing. Some have since been reprinted by Deadite Press. All are now available in Kindle editions. A new novel, The Late Night Horror Show, was released by Samhain Publishing in March of 2013. A second novel from Samhain, Go Kill Crazy!, is slated for February 2014. Bryan lives in Tennessee with a wide array of pets. Visit his home on the web at www.bryansmith.info.
A NOTE FOR ANYONE WHO STUCK AROUND AFTER THE CREDITS ROLLED: A small number of you may have recognized that I dedicated this digital edition of Grimm Awakening to fictional cha
racters created by two different authors, Richard Prather and Tim Dorsey. Congratulations, you win a cyber-Twinkie.
Table of Contents
GrimmAwakening
PART TWO: BAD CRAZINESS
Midpoint