Hell Freezes Over - A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  While I admired his devotion to the f-word, I quickly grew tired of hearing him scream, so I stepped forward and punched him in the jaw, really hard. His eyes rolled back in his head and he flopped back onto the bed, out cold. I looked around the room, and it was pretty well destroyed. The door was bent at almost forty-five degrees and was laying in the closet. The table and chairs were overturned, and they were the least damaged things in the room. The TV was crushed into the carpet, and the room’s occupant was bleeding all over the comforter. All in all, a good start to my visit.

  Chapter 14

  Danvar the Magnificent woke up in his boxers and wife beater, tied to a chair in a cheap motel with his own belt and neckties, with a towel duct-taped to this wrist to staunch the bleeding from his missing right hand. It was not his best morning ever. Then there was the matter of the wizard sitting on one of the beds in his motel room juggling balls of fire.

  Danvar’s eyelids fluttered open, and he shook his head to clear it. He let out a groan, then tried to move his right hand. His eyes flashed wide open then, and his mouth opened to let out a scream.

  “Don’t do it,” I said, flicking a fireball at his face. It stopped three inches from his nose and exploded, showering the scrawny magician with little licks of flame. He let out a little shriek and tried to move away, but his ankles and wrist were secured, so he was going a whole lot of nowhere, and fast.

  He looked over at his latest victim, who sat on the bed filing her nails and watching the whole proceeding with the kind of detached disinterest that is only found in the deeply unconcerned or the tragically damaged. I’d looked in her eyes, and she definitely fell into the second category.

  “Amelia, untie me,” Danvar demanded.

  I laughed, and the little bastard’s attention locked back onto me. “What’s funny, you little illusionist? She is my assistant, and she will never sit by and let you torment me so.”

  “First off, jackass, I’m about as real as it gets, so don’t even think that any of this is illusion. Secondly, her name is Amanda, you rotted prick. And third, she’s totally saved you already. Who do you think cauterized your stump so you wouldn’t bleed to death?” Danvar’s eyes went back to his right arm, so I flicked out my fingers and severed the rope holding that hand down.

  He held up his handless arm and gaped at me. “What kind of monster are you?” he asked.

  “I don’t really know. I might even be human. But here’s what I do know. You’re a magic-wielding assclown who kidnaps women and brainwashes them into being your sex slaves and assistants, then when you get tired of them, you wipe their brains and dump them wherever it’s convenient. Somewhere along the way you pissed off a demon named Mort, who hired me to kill you in exchange for information I need.”

  Most of the time when someone’s lost a lot of blood, like a hand, they get a little pale. The level of pale Danvar hit when I mentioned Mort was far beyond blood loss. I’d blown off his hand, tied him to a chair, and as much as told him I was going to torture and kill him. But one mention of the little demon club owner, and the Magnificent One was shitting in his boxers.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Danvar stammered.

  “Don’t bother lying to me, Danvar. What’s your real name, by the way? I feel stupid calling you by your lame-ass stage name.”

  “Rupert,” Amanda said from the bed. “I looked in his wallet once while he was sleeping. He never told me, just made me call him Master, or Magnificent, or SuperCock.” Every word out of her mouth was just tossed out there with no inflection, like she was reading from a teleprompter, or like the computer voice in a cell phone.

  “SuperCock?” I looked at Danvar. “Everything I learn about you makes me hate you a little more. Look, I’m not an assassin. I’ve killed plenty of people in my time, but I don’t make a habit of doing favors for demons, and I usually only kill people who are actively trying to kill me. So let’s make a deal—you tell me everything you know about what’s happening at Our Lady of Comfort Catholic Church, and I won’t kill you.”

  “You’ll let me go?” SuperCock asked, and by the light in his eyes, I knew he didn’t understand exactly what that would entail.

  “Oh sure,” I said. “I’ll let you go. I’ll cut off all access to magic, and I’ll probably make you impotent just out of some twisted sense of justice, but I’ll let you go.”

  “Fuck yourself,” he grumbled.

  “Biologically impossible,” I replied. “I’m gifted, but not in that level of either endowment or flexibility. So do want to tell me about the church, or do you want me to just shoot you?” I drew my Glock and leveled it at his forehead.

  “Wait! Stop! Don’t shoot! There are people who will miss me. Powerful people.” His eyes narrowed. “I can put you in touch with them. Maybe they know something about your church.”

  I looked at him. Really looked him over. He was giving off all the normal signs of being terrified, but none of the standard tells people give off when they lie. “How do I get in touch with these people?”

  “In my phone,” Rupert said. I grabbed the phone and opened up the contacts browser.

  “You really should lock your phone. I mean, anybody can access your personal information this way,” I said. “Who am I looking for?”

  “I don’t know his real name, but he’s in there under Smith. That’s the name he goes by here.”

  My stomach sinking, I scrolled through the numbers until I got to the name Smith. Sure enough, the number was familiar. Fuck. I pressed SEND and then switched the phone to speaker.

  Smith’s gruff voice filled the room after the first ring. “What do you want, Rupert? I told you that we’d contact you when we needed you to move again. For now, just work on getting back in Mort’s good graces and stay the fuck out of sight. The guy that’s looking for you is the real deal, and he will kill your worthless ass if he catches up to you. I’m trying to talk him down, but he’s a stubborn fuck. So what do you want?”

  “Hi Smitty, stubborn fuck here,” I said.

  “Goddammit, Harker,” Smith said. “Do not do anything stupid. I need that fucker to get close to—”

  “I don’t care, Smitty. He doesn’t know shit that can help me, you don’t know shit that can help me, my fucking angel can’t tell me anything that will help me, so the only thing I can do is go to Mort, tell him I killed this sorry motherfucker, and see what he knows.”

  “Harker, I am ordering you—”

  “The fuck you are,” I said. “The list of people I’ve taken orders from in this lifetime is pretty short, and your name is nowhere on it. But don’t worry, I’m not going to kill your precious rapist informant, Smitty. I’m gonna take the pieces of his hand I blew off back to Mort and hope he buys that as proof that I killed SuperCock here.”

  “SuperCock?” Smith said, and I shook my head.

  “Long story involving his latest victim, who’s at this location and is going to need a lot of fucking therapy before she can—Goddammit! Fuck!” I swore loudly at the gout of blood that squirted across the phone’s screen. I looked up and Amanda was kneeling on the bed, right behind Danvar, with her nail file buried to the hilt in his eyeball.

  “Never mind, Smitty,” I said. “You traced this call, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m about three minutes away. I’ve got a breach team and an ambulance with me.”

  “You’d better call a meat wagon, too. Our victim just opened Danvar’s carotid artery with a nail file, then stabbed him in the dick a couple times before burying her cosmetic implement in the magician’s eyeball.”

  “Fuck,” Smith’s voice was a little awed.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Impressed me, too. But look on the bright side, I don’t have to lie to Mort about Danvar being dead.” I turned my attention back to Amanda. “No, sweetie, you probably should just leave the nail file in his eye now.”

  She looked back at me, confusion all over her face. “But I broke a nail when I stabbed him. How am I supposed to
take care of that?”

  I turned back to the phone. “Drive faster, Smitty.”

  Two minutes later the parking lot was full of black SUVs and flashing lights. Smith stormed into the room, his flat-top quivering with rage.

  I stood up as he walked in. “Smitty, I’m sorry,” I said. “I really had decided not to kill him, but I guess hearing that set Amanda off, and she—”

  Smith nailed me right under my jaw on the left side of my face with a right cross that landed hard enough to slam my mouth shut and drop me straight backward on my ass. I sat there for a second looking up at my assailant, who was also kinda my boss, then I got to my feet.

  Smith stood there breathing hard, his nostrils flared and his heart beating fast enough for me to hear it without enhanced senses. He didn’t speak, just clenched his jaw and fists and squared up for a fight. I took a deep breath and looked down into his face. I could almost see the lightning in his storm-gray eyes.

  “That’s your one,” I said. “I figure every friendship, or business relationship, or partnership, or whatever we are, gets one shot at the other. One punch, with good reason, and you’ve got one get out of an ass-kicking free card. You just used yours. I deserved that for fucking up your operation.”

  I stepped forward, until we were almost touching. I felt more than saw the agents behind Smith move their weapons to the ready position, or thumb the safeties off, or if they were really smart, twitch a little closer to the door in case they had to run.

  When I spoke, my voice was low, and had all the sincerity of my century on Earth behind it. “But let me be very fucking clear. If you ever lay hands on me in anger again, we will throw down. And I will not hold back. And only one of us will walk away from that fight.”

  Smith looked up at me, his five-ten and stocky frame bulked up to my six-four lean form. Our eyes locked, and before either of us spoke again, volumes were said and received.

  “That day’s coming, Harker. But you’re right. Today ain’t that day. Now get the fuck out of my crime scene before I change my mind.”

  Of course I didn’t move. I’m not smart enough to walk away from trouble, or an armed government special ops team with a leader that wants to beat my head in. Instead, I pointed to Amanda. “She needs help. Serious help. The kind that takes years, costs serious money, and keeps people in rooms with soft walls until it works. You gonna make sure she gets that?”

  “She’ll be well taken care of, Mr. Harker. That’s why Agent Smith brought me into this case.” I looked past Smith and saw a heavyset woman in a business suit standing in the doorway. She carried a briefcase instead of a gun and wore pumps instead of combat boots, but this woman exuded the same type of confidence that the special operators around her did. She was either one of the best in the world, or thought she was.

  “And you are?” I asked.

  “Dr. McColl,” she replied, stepping forward and holding out her hand.

  “Don’t look like any Irishwomen I’ve ever known,” I said, shaking her hand.

  A grin split her face, and a broad white smile stood out in stark contrast to her ebony skin. She laughed, and said, “I married an Irishman. Sergeant Sean McColl, 82nd Airborne. We met in Iraq.”

  “He on the team, too?” I asked, only to see her face fall.

  “He didn’t make it home from Iraq.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said. I sensed something more to her story and remembered something I’d heard about from Luke a few years back. “Djinn?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “His unit stumbled upon a Djinn ruling a small village like a king. Sean objected, and the Djinn wiped them out. The Army called it a ‘training accident.’ Even crashed a pair of helicopters to cover it up.”

  “But you didn’t buy it, poked around into too many rabbit holes, and ended in the Freak Squad,” I finished her story.

  “Pretty much covers it,” she agreed.

  “Doctor McColl helps civilians and our personnel alike deal with the aftereffects of encountering the supernatural for the first time,” Smith said.

  I chuckled a little.

  “Something funny about that?” McColl asked. I could tell she was sensitive about her work.

  “No, not at all,” I said. Might have been useful for me, if my first encounter with the supernatural hadn’t been in utero. “I guess when you’ve walked the walk as long as I have, the supernatural isn’t so super anymore. Anyway, I’ll leave you to the cleanup. I’ve got a crime scene to walk, a demon to interrogate, and a ghost to lay to rest. Good to meet you, Doctor. And Smith, we’ll finish this later.”

  “Count on it, Harker.”

  Chapter 15

  I was in a foul mood when I walked into Mort’s, which is exactly the wrong mindset to be in when you walk into a room where most of the inhabitants want to eat you, kill you, maim you, or some combination of three. The second I stepped through the door, the room fell silent, except for a pair of twenty-something weres, maybe foxes, making out in a back corner. The anger was rolling off me in waves, and I’m sure every sensitive being in the room felt it. I stepped up to the bar as a couple of humans scurried for the door, their eyes never leaving me.

  Christy came over to me, a Stella in hand. “Here, take the edge off,” she said, sliding the bottle to me.

  “Why, whatever do you mean?” I asked.

  “Harker, I like you, for no good reason, I might add. But understand that my rules apply to you, too, and if you break Sanctuary out here, your safe passage will be revoked, you will be banned, and you will be removed from my bar. With extreme prejudice. Everyone in here will get a shot at you, and I don’t care how good you are, I don’t think you’re walking out of that. So please, before you start something, understand that I will finish it, no matter how unpleasant that becomes.”

  I thought about it for a minute, then decided that if two people usually on my side think I’m far enough gone that they have to threaten me with epic ass-kickings unless I get my shit together, then maybe the problem isn’t with the rest of the world, maybe it’s with me. I sat down on a stool, drank my beer, and brought my emotions under control.

  “Sorry, Christy. This case is a motherfucker, you know?”

  She leaned on the bar. This had the dual effect of bringing her close enough to talk without the whole bar overhearing and pushing up into my eyesight some of the most expansive and impressive cleavage this side of the Mississippi. “They’re all motherfuckers, Harker. That’s why motherfuckers like you have to deal with them. If this shit were easy, the mundanes could handle their own problems. But it’s not, and they can’t. So come on, Ethel. Put on your big girl panties and do the job.”

  I gave her a little half-smile and said, “Is that supposed to be motivational? Because if so, I think that job at Hallmark is out of the question.”

  “Nah, the look down my shirt was motivational. The talking was just cover.” She reached under the bar and buzzed open the door into the back room. “Go on back. And remember, there’s no Sanctuary back there, that’s only for the public part of the bar. So be careful.”

  I drained the last of my beer and set it on the bar. “Thanks, Christy,” I said.

  “You’re welcome, Quincy. Good luck.”

  I’ll need it, I thought as I walked back into Mort’s lair. My mind as racing as I stepped into the room that not twenty-four hours before had looked like nothing so much as a theatre, but now was a nicely-appointed office, with a full wet bar, dark hardwood floors, a pair of leather couches in a seating area, an oak desk the size of a small car, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all filled with leather-bound volumes with gold lettering on the spine.

  Mort sat on one of the couches, a can of Coke in his hand. A pair of minotaurs stood behind him. I couldn’t tell if they were the same minotaurs from earlier or not, but they didn’t have any obvios perforations, so I assumed not. I’ll admit to being a touch speciesist, but I’ve never cared enough to learn to recognize individual minotaurs.

&
nbsp; “Harker,” Mort nodded, and raised his Coke can to me.

  “You know that’s creepy as fuck, right?” I said, sitting down. I turned to the nearest minotaur. “Get me a Coke, would ya?” He glared at me, then looked over at Mort.

  “It’s fine, David. Just get one from my mini-fridge.” The minotaur turned and walked over to a section of wood paneling that wasn’t covered in bookshelves. He pressed a piece of moulding, and the panel slid out of the way to reveal a small refrigerator. He opened the fridge, grabbed a Coke, and closed everything back up. He brought me the soda and handed it to me without comment.

  “Thanks,” I said. The minotaur grunted.

  “Now that you’ve peed on the hydrant by being an ass to my security, can we get on to business?” Mort asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Danvar’s dead.” I didn’t elaborate because I wanted to get my information and get out. “Now what’s going on at the church?”

  “Hold on, Harker,” Mort held up a hand. “Our deal was that you kill Danvar. Did that happen?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Did you kill Danvar, Harker?” Mort’s voice got low. “And know that I can tell if you’re lying.” Of course he could.

  “No, I didn’t kill him. But he is dead.”

  “What happened, Harker? How did he get all dead if you weren’t the one one doing the killing?”

  “His latest assistant,” I said. “She opened his carotid with a fingernail file then jabbed it through his eyeball into his brain. All I did was blow his hand off. And beat him up a little. She did the rest. Sorry,” I said. I was about as unsorry as I could possibly be, but maybe with enough contrition, I could get Mort to tell me what was going on at the church anyway.

  No such luck. “Oh, that’s too bad, then, Mr. Harker. Our agreement was very clear—you kill Danvar, you get information. You didn’t hold up your end of the deal, so I am understandably disappointed, and unfortunately for you, under no obligation to tell you anything about the happenings at Our Lady of the Holy Comfort.”