Highways to Hell

by Smith, Bryan

  Raven said, “Andy and Lucien did a good bit of digging into this matter while you were in Florida.” She smiled slightly. “They were perhaps less subtle with their inquiries than usual. It’s the reason the bad guys were able to spring that trap on you at the pub last week.”

  Andy made an exasperated sound. “Here we go with the blame game again.”

  Raven shook her head. “No, we’re long past that. They were homing in on us. They knew that we knew their secrets. An attempted ambush would’ve happened regardless of our actions from that point.” Her gaze settled on Jack again. “I have a job for you, Jack.”

  Jack straightened his tie and nodded. “I figured.”

  5.

  A Stunning Reversal

  Jack had been telling Andy the truth on that Florida beach. He’d known of the presence of aliens in Nashville for some time. Allusions to them had come up from time to time over the course of various investigations through the years. These usually occurred in the course of interrogating assorted stooges and minor-league bad guys, most of whom were looking to trade any random scrap of info to avoid being either turned over to the police or having to face another mouthful of Jack Grimm’s brass knuckles. Most of the time, these minor leaguers weren’t very smart. They didn’t realize how infinitely more likely the latter was than the former.

  Jack and the NPD didn’t get along. Well…that was the nice way of putting it. They hated each other’s guts was Jack’s preferred bullshit-free way of putting it.

  Over time, though, Jack became intrigued enough by these wildly swirling underworld rumors of Visitors to do a little off-duty digging on the subject. Despite some initial resistance among the small local Visitor community Jack soon learned the rumors were true. He ruffled enough alien feathers to warrant a visit from a representative of the community, an individual who claimed to be the highest-ranking authority among the several dozen or so members of his people living in the area.

  The alien’s true name was something Jack figured he could only pronounce if some brand of radical and horrendous surgery was performed on his vocal chords. The human name he used was Bill. Bill looked like a very average white man in his mid-forties, with short, receding brown hair going to gray, a slight beer paunch, and little tufts of wild hairs growing out of his ears and nostrils. He wore wire-rimmed bifocals, khaki slacks, loafers, and a not-very-stylish button-down shirt with a blue-and-yellow checkered pattern.

  He looked a lot like Jack’s late uncle, Patrick Grimm.

  However, as Bill revealed to Jack during their conversation, the bland human appearance was only a masquerade. The aliens had the ability to craft humanoid constructs in which they could comfortably exist during their time on earth. Bill demonstrated the pliable nature of the synthetic flesh by pulling back a big flap of skin from his neck, revealing a white substance that resembled marshmallows. He then pressed the skin flap back into place, adjusting it with a slight motion of his fingers that erased any hint of seam where the flesh had been pried away. Seeing that apparently smooth, unblemished flesh had creeped Jack out a little.

  Bills personality, on the other hand, put Jack completely at ease. He was so amiable, so easygoing and open about who and what he was. Jack found himself buying Bill’s explanation of his presence—and, by extension, the presence of the other visitors—on Earth.

  Earth, Bill said, was one of a handful of planets popular as a relocation choice for retirees from his world. Earth’ atmosphere, he said, was more hospitable than that of his own world, which had become poisoned through too many centuries of industrial emissions so noxious and extreme they made the pollution problems here seem as harmless as a bath in a natural spring. We think of Earth, Bill told him, the way many humans think of Hawaii. A paradise.

  So Jack let it go. He liked Bill. He believed his story.

  It was really too bad he’d turned to be such a lying sack of alien shit.

  He was also late.

  Jack looked at the fake-gold-plated Rolex (Tijuana-issue) strapped around his left wrist and sighed. He was in a booth at the Gold Rush, a once-notorious Nashville dive that had recently undergone an extensive renovation in an effort to attract a more upscale clientele. Jack liked dives. He wasn’t an upscale kind of guy. The Gold Rush had once been his favorite hometown watering hole. He did not care for the refurbished and sparkling clean new version. That it had kept the name of the old joint seemed a travesty.

  However, it did possess a strategic value the Sherlock Holmes Pub lacked. His gaze went back to the plate-glass window that provided an excellent view of the sidewalk and the street beyond. There would be no sneak attack this time. Jack reclined slightly in the booth and studied the passerby, searching for any hint of alien presence. He was pretty sure the people walking by were all human, or at least of earthly origin. The people out and about in this early dusk hour were mostly attractive young people, college students out to drink and hook up.

  One slim young blonde in a tan miniskirt and white blouse stopped in midstride and turned to look through the window. Her gaze went right to Jack and she smiled. Jack returned the smile. She was a stunner. Her shiny hair was pulled back in a shorn ponytail, exposing delicate earlobes pierced by glittering diamond studs.

  Jack’s right hand curled about the handle of the .45 laying on the booth bench.

  The blonde’s smile tilted higher on the left side, becoming a smirk. She raised a hand and waggled a forefinger at him, and mouthed the words, “Naughty, naughty.”

  Jack swallowed hard and began to raise the .45.

  The blonde leapt at the plate-glass window and crashed through it, landing cat-like on her feet as glass shards flew over the bar and skittered over the hardwood floor. Jack slid out of the booth and aimed the gun at the girl as startled patrons screamed, gibbered, and scrambled to get out of the line of fire.

  The girl rose to a standing position, brushed glass out of her hair, and smiled again as she began to walk in an unhurried way toward Jack.

  Jack thumbed back the .45’s hammer and said, “Don’t think I won’t shoot a dame. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. So stop right there, okay?”

  The girl chuckled. “Dame? Honestly. Newsflash, big fella, it’s a new century. You ought to upgrade your lingo.”

  She was still coming toward him, still in that deliberate way—not too fast, not too slow. In another moment or so she’d be right in front of him. The thought made Jack grit his teeth. A part of him really hated to ruin something so aesthetically pleasing, but a bigger part of him did not relish the idea of being torn apart by an alien. He squeezed the .45’s trigger, sending a bullet straight toward the tip of that button-cute nose.

  There was a flash of motion, then the girl was standing there with her hand cupped in front of her face.

  Jack grimaced. “Aw, shit.”

  She opened her hand and the bullet tumbled harmlessly to the floor.

  Her smirk deepened. “Want to try again?”

  Jack lowered the gun. “How did you do that? The other ones couldn’t”

  “Mere foot soldiers. Hired hands. The interstellar equivalent of brainless, inbred rednecks. In retrospect, sending them against the likes of Jack Grimm and his compatriots wasn’t the wisest course of action.” She licked her lips and eyed him up and down. “I should’ve handled things personally from the beginning.”

  Jack frowned. “Who are you?”

  The girl laughed. “You previously knew me as ‘Bill.’”

  Talk about your fucked-up paradigm shifts. Knowing the embodiment of hotness standing before him had looked like his uncle the last time he’d seen her

  him, it, whatever…

  abruptly rendered the frankly appraising way she…it…was sizing him up infinitely less sexy.

  “Huh.” He returned the useless .45 to his shoulder rig and straightened his jacket. “Well…um…Bill.”

  The girl/alien/whatsit tittered. “Call me Candi, with an i.”

  “I think not. You
should go with Jill. Bill, Jill. Get it? There’s a symmetry there, makes things less confusing for the rest of us.” Jack chuckled. “Relatively speaking, we humans don’t change genders with such ease.”

  She smiled. “More’s the pity. Would make the dull little lives you dumb animals lead more interesting.”

  “Dumb animals, eh?” Jack smirked. “If we’re so uninteresting, why the slave trade? Would seem to be a contradiction there, Jill.”

  The alien laughed softly. “Not at all. You’re pathetic beings through and through, but useful in performing menial tasks, and amusing when made to perform in certain ways.” She laughed again. “You make good pets.”

  Jack grimaced. “Don’t go quoting Porno For Pyros at me. That alone is grounds for termination with extreme prejudice.”

  “Such a funny man, Mr. Grimm. But your jokes won’t save you.”

  “There’s no need for threats, Jill. I think we can resolve this matter peacefully.”

  The alien smiled. “You lie. And stop calling me that.”

  Jack coughed. “Look, here’s the thing. Police will be here soon. Thanks to this…er…ruckus you’ve caused we can’t very well conduct negotiations at this location.”

  “There will be no negotiations, human.”

  She took a slow step toward him, then another, swinging her hips sinuously.

  “Oh?” Jack took a shaky step backward, sweat starting to form on his upper lip.

  “Mm-hmm.” She nodded and did that extraordinarily disconcerting lip-licking thing again, though now she looked more like a predator sizing up dinner than a seductress. “This time I’ll just rip off your head and be done with it.”

  “What about the cops.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll rip their heads off, too.”

  “Great.” Jack grunted humorless laughter. “At least you’ve got it all thought out.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I’m very thorough, Jack. Unlike you.” She laughed again as she neared him—she was almost close enough now to pounce on him. “You were so very easy to dupe before. You should’ve investigated further. Such a sloppy work ethic. And look at you now, caught so thoroughly unprepared and off-guard.” She sneered and shook her head, disdain evident in the curl of her lip. “You deserve to die this way.”

  Jack smile. “Probably. But it’s not happening today.”

  She threw her head back and laughed, a lilting sound full of girlish contempt. A perfect pose for the moment, really, Jack decided, as Andy swung the axe in a perfect arc and lopped the alien’s head off its shoulders. The head flew to the left and landed on a table amidst a platter of nachos and salsa dip. The head, still sentient, hissed and the headless body lurched at Jack with outstretched hands. Jack stumbled backward as Andy raised the axe high over his head and brought it down with great force, cleaving the head straight through the middle. The two halves toppled sideways, one into a plate of nachos, the other into the dip, white goo mingling with salsa in a way that made Jack’s stomach churn.

  The headless body sagged, then fell limp to the ground, the outstretched fingers of one immaculately manicured hand brushing the cuff of Jack’s trousers. Jack kicked the hand away, heaved a relieved sigh, and looked at Andy. “You waited long enough to make your move brother.”

  Andy removed the ballcap he’d been wearing and sailed it over the bar. He then peeled away the fake dark beard and let it flutter to the ground. “That’s where you’re wrong, Jack. I had to play the part of the cowering bartender long enough to allow the creepy crawly to believe you were defenseless. Any sooner, and she would’ve still been on-guard for a rear flank attack.

  Jack indicated the axe with a nod. “Good call on the axe.”

  Andy smiled. “Yeah, a much quicker and more efficient kill-method.”

  “At least in close quarters.”

  Jack’s gaze went to the shattered window and the people milling about on the sidewalk. Two coppers stood among them, listening impatiently to the excited jabbering of witnesses. The boys in blue abruptly drew their weapons and moved toward the bar’s entrance.

  Andy followed Jack’s gaze and said, “We really ought to get out of here. Can’t afford to be dallying with the puppet authorities. Our work’s not done yet.”

  By the time the police entered the Gold Rush, Jack and Andy were gone.

  6.

  Team Grimm Assembles

  A homeless man awoke from a bad dream to face a waking nightmare. The largest and scariest-looking dog Duke Carlyle had ever seen growled at him, its black lips peeling back to reveal teeth that were abnormally long and sharp. Some wispy substance puffed out of its flaring nostrils.

  Steam.

  Not exhaled breath fogging in cold air, but honest-to-God actual STEAM.

  Well, that just wasn’t possible. No animal Duke knew of breathed anything other than oxygen. So Duke decided there was only one possible explanation for the impossible vision before him—the pooch from hell was a hallucination, just the latest in a long series of phantasmagorical delusions generated by his terminally booze-damaged alkie brain. It wasn’t unusual for Duke to snap awake and see things that looked like demons or werewolves tearing apart helpless, screaming victims.

  Things that clearly couldn’t be real. Like this here hell-pooch.

  So Duck did what he always did in these situations—he took a big slug of warm booze from his paper bag covered bottle of Nightrain and passed out again.

  Lucien stopped growling the moment the old bum started snoring again. He considered barking to wake him again, or perhaps even taking a small bite of his flesh, but instantly dismissed these possibilities as untenable. Making a lot of scary hellhound noises hadn’t worked the first time, and even the tiniest nip of the man’s filth-covered flesh could trigger a hunger for more. That most primal part of his nature, the need to rip open living flesh and feel the warm blood of an innocent soul filling his mouth, was a wild thing that required a vigilant, intensely focused effort of will to control. ‘Innocence’ was a relative term, of course, perhaps even more so than usual in this case, but this walking human casualty was no adversary, no threat. Therefore he was off-limits, at least as long as the hellhound wished to remain on the side of the righteous—and he did, fervently so. Lucien didn’t like to consider what might happen if his resolve ever faltered. Not that he needed to think about it. He knew what could happen.

  I’d be Damned again.

  My opportunity for Redemption gone forever…

  So Lucien did the only thing he could do—he seized a mouthful of the old man’s dirty clothes, and dragged him across the abandoned warehouse’s pothole-dotted parking lot, depositing him behind an overturned trash can next to the rusted chain-link fence that ringed the gone-to-seed property. The man remained in a deep alcoholic slumber the whole way, even when his head thumped in and out of the occasional pothole

  Lucien trotted back to the property’s rear entrance, where he sat back on his hind legs and hoped no one inside had witnessed his work to clear the area outside the warehouse.

  A nearby patch of air shimmered and grew black at the center.

  Jack and Andy stepped out of the portal, both of them carrying pump-action shotguns. Jack had an extra weapon slung over his shoulder. Lucien shifted to his human form and took the second shotgun from Jack.

  Lucien jacked a round into the chamber. “We ready to do this thing?”

  Andy O’Day removed the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “Just about. We’re not all here yet.”

  A moment after Andy’s portal closed, the air where it’d opened grew hot again. Then a black slash in the fabric of reality opened, and Raven Rainbolt stepped through it. She made a hand gesture and the slash closed like a zipper. She was dressed all in black and was carrying an Ingram M10 submachine gun. A band of extra clips was slung over her shoulder and knotted at the waist.

  Raven worked a different kind of magic than that practiced by Andy O’Day. She drew upon
entirely different types of energies, and her method of traveling through the spaces between worlds was also vastly different. It was like literally moving through a dark hallway. That obliteration of consciousness that occurred with Andy’s portals wasn’t there. Jack frequently wished she’d teach the method to Andy, but didn’t want to instigate a conflict of magical ideologies.

  Lucien glanced at his shotgun, then nodded at Raven’s weapon. “No fair. I want one of those.”

  Jack laughed. “Maybe next time, pal.” He chambered a round too, then propped the gun’s barrel over his shoulder and fished his cigarettes from a jacket pocket. Jack always had a smoke in the last moments before heading into a firefight; it helped calm his nerves. He fired a smoke up with his Zippo and looked beyond Lucien at the warehouse. “You sure this is the place, then?”

  Lucien nodded. “Positive.”

  Jack took another drag off his cigarette, nodding as he exhaled more smoke. “The scent is that strong? You followed it here all the way from Bill’s apartment?”

  Lucien nodded again. “Their stench is almost overwhelming, at least when I’m in full-hound mode. Followed it like a beacon. They had some people keeping watch outside, armed guards.” He grinned. “They’re no longer a factor.”

  Jack let his half-smoke cigarette fall to the cracked and faded asphalt, extinguishing the still-glowing ember beneath the heel of a wingtip. “Let’s do this.” He looked at Raven. “It’s your time to shine, Rave.”

  Raven remained expressionless as she strode past the men, climbed the short set of stairs to the back entrance, and positioned herself to aim a kick at the steel door.

  Lucien frowned again. “Why is Raven taking the lead?”