by James R Tuck
All hellhounds are rabid.
They're not dogs, they just look like them. They're actually minor demons from some level of Hell brought to this plane of existence and wrapped in rotten flesh. They stink like wet dog . . . if the dog is soaked in hobo piss.
Being enfleshed means you have two ways to deal with them.
Cast them out with an exorcism.
Or kill the sumbitches.
Guess which one I'm going for.
My hand draws the .45 from under my arm. It fills my fingers, the grip solid in my hand. It feels right, a part of who I am.
The hellhound growls.
It's going to try again. I can feel it getting ready to jump, to leap, to grab my throat in its crushing jaws and drink my blood down its open maw. It's fast, faster than hell.
But not faster than a .45 caliber bullet.
Not faster than my trigger finger.
The bullet hits it just under the nose as it leaves its feet, lunging toward me in an explosion of demonic fury. The bullet does it's job, taking off the square skull just above the muzzle.
The hellhound drops and immediately begins to smoke, it's corporeal form disintegrating into brimstone.
“Lay down. Play dead. Good doggy.” No one's there to hear my joke.
It wasn't that fucking funny anyways.
The bees start buzzing inside me again.
I turn and the kid is just a few feet up the path. He's got his portfolio open and he's reading. The words twist in the air, spilling mangled from his mouth, words not meant for human tongue.
It takes four steps and I'm in front of him.
I knock the portfolio from his hands. It flips through the air, paper spilling out of it. They're thin parchment, vellum and papyrus, covered in gnarled lettering and obscene drawings done in black ink and a brownish tone that I'd bet dollars to doughnuts is blood.
He's been carrying around a fucking grimoire.
My hand fills with his shirt, jerking him to his toes. “What the fuck're you doing?”
“Get off me man!”
I shake him. “I don't think so. Is that,” I point at the grimoire, “thing something you found or something you made?”
He stutters.
I shake him again. “Answer the damn question.”
“I found it. I found it!” He struggles weakly. “I thought it was cool and then it let me do things.”
I shove him and he falls on his ass. “You brought a fucking demon to this world, man. Don't you understand the serious implications of that?”
“I'm an atheist.”
“You're an idiot.” I have to stop myself from kicking his balls up into his throat.
“I'm a warlock.”
I step over him and point the .45 at his face. I've been on the other end of a gun. I know how big it looks when it's stuck in your face. Like the bullet that could come out would tear the world in two.
He's scared. Skin white, shaking, sweating, little muscles around his eyes and mouth twitching.
But he's also, deep down, pissed off. I can see it all the way at the bottom of his brown eyes.
Somebody has fucked this kid up good and it wasn't me.
Most kids who dabble in the occult have emotional issues. Not the kids who try Wicca or paganism or any of the other alternative religions out there, those guys are usually just searching for Truth, but the ones who turn to Satanism, Sorcery, and Black Magick? Those kids, nine times out of ten, come already fucked up. It's the trauma in their lives, the scars on their souls, that make them susceptible to the thermonuclear crack that is magick.
Dammit, I suck at this part.
I squat down, moving the gun away from pointing at him.
“What's your name?”
His eyes narrow. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just tell me your damn name, kid.”
“Randy.”
“You live in the neighborhood on the other side of the woods here?”
He nods.
“Gimme your ID.”
He stares at me, suspicious, but pulls it out and hands it over. The picture on his license makes him look like a child; shorter hair, clearer skin. The address is just around the corner. I put it in my pocket.
“Hey!” he says.
I put my hand up.
“Listen to me. I'm keeping your ID and I'm keeping that book. I'm going to send somebody over to your house today and he's going to take you to coffee. You're going to go and talk to him.”
“I don't need to talk to nobody.”
“Yes you do, Randy. Doing magick NEVER ends well. This is real bad shit you're messing with and my friend can help you. Believe me, you want that, because if you keep fucking around with demon shit then I'll be the one to stop you.” My mind trips. I shake it off. “Do you want that?”
He looks away. “I never want to see you again.”
“Good. Now go home, gather anymore of this shit you have into a trash bag, and wait for a priest to come to your door.”
“A priest?”
I nod.
“Aw man, I'm an atheist.”
“Shut up and get moving. He'll be there in an hour or so.”
He stands and starts walking down the footpath. He doesn't look back at me.
When he disappears I holster my gun and start gathering the loose pages of the grimoire. It's sick shit and makes my power go jingle jangle inside my chest, but it's a lesser grimoire, maybe a hundred years old and American. Kid is lucky he didn't get a hold of one of the ancient European ones. Those fucking books are steeped in evil, taking on the aspects of the demons locking in their pages. One of those would have pushed him to the point of no return. To the point that I would've had to put him down.
I pull my phone out.
Father Mulcahy will get him straightened out.
And he'll find out where Randy got this book. If someone's selling real occult items to people then I'll be paying them a visit.
I smile at the prospect as I walk to the Comet.
* * *
“Damn mang, that was some trip to the car.”
I look down at my arms and shirt. I'm covered in a tacky layer of hellhound gut-juice.
“Shit. Sorry. Let me clean up before we start.”
James waves his hand. “Bathrooms in the same place.”
I go in the first white door on the left, flick on the light, and am nearly blinded by the sun yellow color that the whole bathroom has been painted. Once my eyeballs stop jangling in their sockets I wash up in the sink, thinking about Randy.
Father Mulcahy answered when I called. I gave him the rundown and Randy's address. He was on his way there before the kid could get squirrelly and bolt.
He'll save the kid.
He will.
I realize I'm just standing at the sink with the hot water running.
My chest is tight. After the run in I had with some satanic witches recently and how everything got so damn fucked up, I really want . . . no I need Randy to be okay. I don't know the kid, and truthfully, he seems like a pain in the ass, but he's still human, still redeemable. I believe that. I have to.
I take a deep breath.
Let it out.
And wash up.
* * *
I step out and walk over to where James sits at his station. He pulls out a pair of latex gloves, slipping them on. I pull up the leg of my jeans, rolling it to my knee. There is a long strip of bare skin between the sugar skull on the back of my calf and the Batman tattoo on the front of my shin. He hold the stencil of the pin up over it.
It's a perfect fit.
A shave and a lather later the stencil is in place and I'm sitting awkwardly on the adjustable tattoo chair so my leg lays flat.
James hits the foot pedal, making the tattoo machine hum to life.
He looks at me. “So, everything okay from where you went outside?”
“For now, yeah.”
“You don't look like it's okay.”
I'm still think
ing about Randy, and demons, and all the shit that happened with Selene and her coven of witches, and all the pain and bloodshed and bullshit that came out of that.
I still miss her.
I look down at the design on my leg, the stencil waiting for a needle to commit it to my skin.
“I'm here for a tattoo, not a counseling session.”
“Pain is therapy.” he says.
He lays the needle into my skin with purpose. The first sting is the worst, hot and sharp and sucktastic as all hell. He pulls the line and it clears my mind of everything but the here and the now. Right this moment my whole world is the tattoo. And it works. I settle back, giving in to the experience of getting new ink and having a clear head.
Bring the pain.
And now the best of all. A sneak peek at the beginning of Deacon Chalk: Season 2.
The next story arc will be one continuous story, novels 4, 5, and 6 all telling the main story. You will see some novellas in Season 2, but they'll be outside the continuity of the three full-lengths. Things to look forward to: Deacon going to Texas, a young Father Mulcahy story, a great story with two characters who don't seem to have much in common but make a great team, and a Phoebe Fluffenstuff story.
Buckle up and hang on, it's gonna get wild in here.
FIRST LOOK AT SILK AND SCALE
(DEACON CHALK BOOK 4)
I sat on the edge of the stage, a tumbler full of bourbon in my left hand and a loaded Colt .45 in my right. Both the bourbon and the gun were there to ease my nerves.
Why was I nervous?
If your phone rang ten minutes ago with the call mine did you'd go for the bottle and the bullets too.
I took a swallow of the whiskey, letting the burn sit on the back of my throat as my thumb rubbed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on the safety. Alone, I could still smell the sawdust and new paint in the air from construction finished just last night. The bar had already been stocked even though three days separated us from Opening Night.
Priorities.
Would I shoot him as soon as he came in the door?
I might. It'd probably be the wisest course of action.
It wouldn't be much longer so I needed to make up my mind.
Another swallow finished the glass. High quality bourbon, the best Kentucky had to offer, it left the glass clean and clear. Warmth lay heavy in my belly and everything was cool man, all sharp edges smoothed out by the 80 proof and everything on an even keel. Bottle in hand, I was ready to pour another when he spoke.
“Two glasses and loaded gun. Which of those for me?”
The voice was stilted, weighed down with a heavy accent. After 1500 years you'd think he'd of lost that but he never had. English was his third language.
After Russian.
After human.
I froze, eyes scanning the shadows around the room. I didn't see him and I hadn't heard him come in, but I hadn't expected to. Hell, I'd left the door unlocked. A locked door wouldn't have stopped him anymore than it would've stopped me.
“I'll give you whichever one you came here for.”
“I came for your gun but I never turn down drink. Would be insult to do so.”
My finger slid into the trigger guard. “Come on down and I'll gladly pour for the both of us.”
Tension clenched my shoulders. C'mon out and let's do this.
Movement made me look as he stepped from a shadow by the bar. He stood for a long second, hands out to the side, before walking toward me. He swivel-hipped through the tables at the end of the room, expensive three-piece suit wrapping his lithe frame. Solid, damn near stocky, he still moved with the predator grace of a tiger.
As he drew near I stopped watching his hands and started watching his eyes. They were dark lights in deep caves on either side of a craggy nose. His face looked half-sculpted, like the artist started then decided 'fuck this' because the stone was too damned hard. He wasn't ugly or handsome but he had a damn interesting face.
He stopped a few feet from where I sat, to the left just far enough that I could watch him with one eye and still pour. He didn't move as I filled both glasses and held one out. As he took it I glimpsed the black tattoo that spilled from under his sleeve and onto the back of his hand. For a second, it looked like the tattoo moved under his skin.
It wasn't a trick of the light.
Lifting the tumbler to his nose he sniffed. “Black Dragon?” His mouth quirked. “Is irony.”
I shrugged. “Not really. Just the best.”
“You are true Southern gentleman my friend.”
I raised my glass in my left hand.
He did the same with a small nod. “Zadorovya.”
We tossed back together, the whiskey smooth and delicious, all caramel and woodsmoke and a hint of chocolate, not as hot now that my tongue had been exposed. I lowered my glass. “Now Ivan, why don't you tell me what the hell it is you want.”
He didn't blink. “Perhaps I come to see your new business.” He looked around. “Is nice place.”
“Thanks. We worked real hard on it.” I raised my gun, pointing it at his face. The laser sight painted his cheek red. He didn't blink. “Now cut the shit. I know when you call someone and tell them you're coming it's your way of giving them time to prepare and meet their Maker.”
“Da, is true. You think is why I called you?”
“Is it?”
“Have you done something that would bring me to your door in this manner?”
“Ah hell, I don't know. Maybe I killed something or somebody that somebody else thought didn't deserve it. Maybe they reached out to you, you took their money, and now we find ourselves here in this prickly situation.”
“You have killed someone who fits that description?”
“It's been a busy year.” The gun was getting heavy in my hand. .45's ain't light, you can't hold them up forever. I slid off the stage to stand, tightening my grip. I wasn't in the shaky zone yet, but heat was building in the muscles under my arm and I could feel it coming like a steady moving train. “Now, tell me why you're here or I pull this trigger and we do this dance.”
“You would not give me chance to draw? Make a fair fight?”
“Fuck you. This ain't the OK Corral. This is my house. You came here knowing what I am and what I do.” I shrugged. “Not my fault if you're a piss-poor planner.”
“And you would shoot a friend just like that?”
I laughed. “We're two sides of the same coin, Ivan. A monster hunting evil humans and a human hunting evil monsters. I'm not sure that's enough to put us in the 'friend' zone.”
A look passed over his face like an eclipse. His voice came quiet to my ears. “Is more than I have with any other human in this world.” Near-black eyes stared at me.
Aw, hell.
I lowered my gun. “Tell me what kind of trouble you're in.”
He blinked. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You are good man, Deacon Chalk.”
I shook my head. “If I were a good man I wouldn't be the kind of help you're about to ask for.”
He looked sad. "Is true. Truer than you know."
A voice spoke from the darkness behind me.
“Stand with the dragon and you'll be the next to die.”
Want even MORE?
Then Check out:
This Way Lies
Madness
A Lovecraftian tale of terror
on the edge of space!
Also by
James R. Tuck
and the fine folks at
Blammo!
Available in print and ebook
Want even more?
Then check out:
Hired Gun
Crime fiction the way it is meant to be written
Like a knuckle sammich
right across the kisser!
also from
James R. Tuck
and the fine folks at
Blammo!
A
vailable now in print and E-book!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In addition to being a writer and a handsome devil, James R. Tuck is also a Professional Tattoo Artist who owns Forever Inked in Marietta Ga and a talented photographer. He lives with his lovely wife, son, four dogs and has a daughter in college.
He does many conventions around the country and you can keep up with all the latest news at:
www.jamesrtuck.com