by Jamie Davis
“Because, Miss Trenton, I need you to go over there do something to close off that gate. As soon as the demons discover its hidden location, they will start pouring into this world and overrun it just like they’ve overrun the world on the other side.”
Marci glanced at Kurt, then at the gateway.
Jonesey spoke up first. “If there are demons on the far side of that gateway, Kurt, we need to make sure they stay there. It would take days or weeks for the government to assemble the forces needed to stop a serious demon incursion through a gateway of that size. The entire city could be overrun before then.”
Kurt nodded. He remembered the days right after the Newton’s Gate incident when hordes of monsters and hostile armies flowed through the new portals bent on conquering or destroying a virgin world.
“Do it, Marci. Close the gateway.”
Marci stood and crossed over to the gate. She raised her hands and began chanting in what sounded like Latin as she pressed her glowing hands up against the edges of the portal.
Kurt moved over to stand beside her in case something tried to come through while she was casting her spell. He knew it could take her a few minutes to work this kind of difficult magic.
Three minutes later Marci lowered her hands and took a step backwards. Her shoulders sagged. Her hair was sweat soaked and plastered to her face from the exertion. She’d just spent a huge amount of magical energy.
“That should hold for several days, maybe a week. This particular gateway isn’t intended to open and close on command. All I could do was bar traffic from the other side and mask the entrance there. Eventually, the spell will wear off, so we need to notify the authorities.”
“No feds or cops,” Cappo said. “I’m not letting them get their hands on this gateway. It belongs to the Hell’s Gaters.”
Kurt shook his head. “Look, Cappo, you can’t keep this hidden. If the demons on the other side are as dangerous as they appear to be, we have to tell someone before it’s too late. Millions of lives could be at risk.”
“That’s why you’re going to do the job I have for you, Kurt, my boy. You owe me and now you’re going to pay up.”
“I thought we already had terms arranged for the next few payments. I found a source for the chips you wanted.”
“The terms have changed. This is far more important.”
“That’s good because if I’m going to go into some demon realm for you, it’s going to be for more than just the cost of a few months’ payments. If I go through there to deliver or retrieve something, I expect it to wipe out my debt.”
Cappo stared at Kurt for several seconds, then nodded in agreement. “Very well, if you make the delivery as intended, I will make sure your debt is cleared with the clan.”
“All right,” Kurt said. He didn’t like taking missions without knowing more details but the terms here were too juicy to pass up. “Why don’t you tell us what a biker gang is doing fighting a demon war in another realm?”
Cappo sighed. “Come downstairs to my office. I need a drink. Kendall was a friend. I’ll tell you about it down there while we toast his final service to the clan.”
Chapter 7
Fifteen minutes later, Kurt, Marci, and Jonesey sat around a small office with glass tumblers in hand. The short gang leader poured each two fingers of scotch from a crystal decanter then poured some for himself before sitting down behind his desk.
Cappo sipped from his glass and smiled as the liquor passed through his throat. “I needed that.”
“You still haven’t told us what’s going on with the other side of that gateway up there,” Kurt said. “Whatever is happening, it isn’t going your way. You obviously need me to help you set things straight or you wouldn’t have made the offer you did.”
“About two years ago, the clan received the deed to this building and the gateway it contained as payment for a debt owed to us. Ownership of an unregistered gateway with a land full of untapped resources on the other side would put the clan in a whole new level of financial status. The only problem we had was that there’s another gateway on this other world and it leads to some sort of demon realm. On the other side, they have been fighting a losing the war to hold on to their world against the demons. I soon realized, if we were going to be able to capitalize on the resources there, we were going to have to pitch in and help the people fight back against demons.”
“So, what happened?” Marci asked. “You should’ve been able to supply them with modern weaponry that would’ve made short work of demons.”
“It’s not that easy, Missy,” Cappo said. “The demons are nearly invincible when it comes to standard weapons, even modern firearms. Only edged weapons made from a specific silver alloy found on this planet can kill them. We believe that is why the demons are fighting so hard to take it over. If they control this planet, they control the only way to kill them.”
Kurt nodded. “You’ve been funneling people and weapons to the other side in an effort to take this planet back with the people on the other side. Now, you’re losing, right?”
“We just needed them to hold on a little longer. We’ve been able to transfer enough of the silver ore here to this side to enable us to create a special set of weapons. They are what is needed to defeat the demons once and for all. All we had to do was have it blessed by powerful enough religious leader while they cast a spell to destroy evil on the weapon. We finally created the first of the weapons and just received it back from the Pope at the new Vatican in Florence.”
Kurt remembered Vatican City in Rome was one of the seven cities instantly destroyed after the Newton’s Gate incident. All that was left was an empty crater. No other evidence remained that the place even existed. It was the same with Jerusalem, Mecca, Lhasa, Varanasi, Salt Lake City, and New Orleans. All disappeared without a trace.
“Wait,” Marci said. “You got the Pope to bless your weapon and cast the spell on it?”
“The church owed us a favor because of a little job we did for them on another world. Unfortunately, it looks like we got the weapon back too late to put it to use. That’s where you come in, Kurt. You’re going to deliver the holy glaive to the soldiers on the other side. It sounds like they’ve had to retreat from the area around the gate so you’re going to have to fight your way through any demon forces on your way through to the human lines. Once delivered, they will designate the chosen champion to wield it in battle. It will enable their forces to begin taking back the planet.”
“What’s a glaive?” Kurt asked.
Jonesey laughed. ”You really need to do a little more studying on your medieval weapons. I believe is a type of pole arm. It usually has some sort of ax head and a spike on the end. It’s funny now to hear all this. I heard a rumor from another elf that the Pope was blessing weapons for a new holy war. At the time, I discounted it as poppycock. I guess I owe that friend a beer.”
“So, I have to deliver this weapon to your soldiers on the other side,” Kurt said. “Soldiers, I might add, who appear to have been driven back from their battle lines defending the gateway. So I don’t just have to deliver the weapon, I’m going to have to fight my way through a horde of nearly invincible demons to make the delivery.”
“Ah, but you’ll have the glaive,” Cappo said. “With that, you’ll be able to defeat any demon getting in your way.”
“You know, Kurt,” Marci said.” We need to get on the other side of that gateway, anyway. Why not kill two birds with one stone?”
“She’s right,” Jonesey said. “It sounds like, without this glaive, you won’t have much chance of getting anywhere on the other side to find out who was casting the spell. You and Cappo need each other.”
Kurt grumbled under his breath. He didn’t like being backed into a corner like this. It was happening too frequently lately. “All right, I’ll take the job but I want a guarantee of my debt being canceled before I leave to do it.”
“What makes you think I would pay you before the job’s even done
?” Cappo asked.
“Because you know I’m honorable enough to finish what I start. If I say I’ll make your delivery, I’ll make your delivery. I have no such history with you.”
Cappo considered Kurt’s words for a few seconds, then nodded. “Fair enough. I accept your terms. If you agree to make this delivery, I’ll make sure I wipe your debt out before you leave. Understand, though, if you try to double cross me in any way, I’ll reinstate the blood debt. If I do that, we won’t except anything less than your death in payment.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a deal, then,” Kurt said. He held out his hand across the table.
Cappo leaned forward and shook it. “Deal,” The gang leader said. “How long will it take you to get ready for the job?”
Kurt looked at Marci. “What do you think? A day or two?”
Marci nodded. “We can’t take much longer. The spell I cast on the gateway will only hold for so long. We must go in within two days, three at the outside.”
Jonesey smiled. “I think I’m going to have to come along on this one with you, Kurt. Given what we need to do for Marci over there and this little side quest with the glaive, you’re going to need an extra pair of hands, I think.”
Cappo shook his head. “I’ll give you one day. That’s all. Then I expect you to be back here ready to get the delivery done.”
Kurt new getting everything prepared in one day would be difficult. He also got the impression that the gang leader would not take no for an answer. He’d accepted the deal and now he had to accept the client’s terms.
“Fine, we’ll meet back here same time tomorrow. Don’t be late. I want to get in there and get this job done before the demons know we’ve even showed up.”
Kurt got up, setting his glass down on the gang leader’s desk. His two friends joined him by the door.
Cappo raised his glass in their direction. “See you tomorrow.”
There was something about the little man’s smile that bothered Kurt. He looked as if he’d just won a huge hand in poker and Kurt wasn’t sure he liked the implications of that.
He shook his head as they headed back to Marci’s condo building. They didn’t have a choice though. They needed to get to the other side to find out who was trying to control Marci. Kurt couldn’t afford to wait for whoever it was to succeed and get ahold of the Chaos Crystal on the second attempt. The unknown spell-caster must be stopped.
Chapter 8
It took nearly the entire twenty-four hours to gear up for the coming mission. Lucky for them, Jonesey new of some elf friends who had encountered the demons from this other world before. Apparently they’d already crafted a store of weapons to be used for fighting these demons.
The next morning, before heading over to pick up Marci and go to the gateway for transit, Kurt stopped by Jonesey’s warehouse to pick up the tech mage.
When he buzzed the intercom to see when she was coming out, Jonesey’s voice sounded through the speaker. “Come on in. I have a few things I need you to help me carry out to your car.”
Kurt pulled the door open and went inside. After getting buzzed past the interior cage door, he headed in to Jonesey’s workshop. He stopped at the door of the shop, trying to make sense of what he saw there. She had set up a small gas-fired forge furnace and was pulling an iron crucible from it as he came in.
“Just stay over there for a minute while I finish pouring this alloy into the molds.”
Kurt stopped by the doorway. He always followed Jonesey’s instructions when inside this warehouse. He didn’t want to do anything to piss her off.
The elf puffed away at a cigarette while she poured the molten silvery metal into the top of a rectangular iron mold, filling a series of 12 holes in the top. Then Jonesey set the crucible down on a ceramic plate sitting at the corner of her workbench so it didn’t burn the wooden bench top. She reached over and turned off the gas feeding the furnace and beckoned for Kurt to approach.
“I remembered that I’d collected some ore from a black market dealer. He told me it was the specific type of silver alloy that could be used to kill demons. I didn’t believe him, or at least not completely, but I bought it anyway. You never know when you’re going to need some demon-killing silver around.”
“So, you just had this stuff lying around?” Kurt asked.
Jonesey shrugged. “Sure, I have all sorts of stuff lying around in this warehouse. I believe in keeping everything because there will always be an opportunity to use stuff like that in the future even if you don’t know when it’ll be.”
“So what’s in the mold?”
“I didn’t have much of the ore once I found it. It wasn’t enough to make more than a small camp knife or two. I had to come up with something that would be both effective and portable when we were through the gateway. So I came up with this.”
As she finished talking, she grabbed the mold with her leather-gloved hands and split it in half dumping twelve, newly formed, silver bullets on the top of her workbench. She scooped them up and held them in the palm of her leather glove while she moved over to a standard ammunition loader mounted on a table in the corner.
Kurt watched Jonesey work. She moved with expert precision as she seated each silver bullet into a brass casing pre-filled with propellant.
“Perfect,” she said holding the last of the twelve bullet cartridges up in front of her. “Now we’ve each got four guaranteed kills when we need them the most. Everything else is will have to be killed with old-fashioned close up blade work.”
“I don’t suppose you have some swords or axes made from that material lying around?”
Jonesey shook her head. “No, but I’m pretty sure our friend Cappo does. That’s got to be why it was important to hold on to the gateway. That’s how he was supplying weapons to the freedom-fighters on the other side.”
“So that looks like a pistol round. What caliber did you make?”
“A standard 1911.45 caliber Colt should take care of it. I can outfit each of us with one. They’ll give us each four shots to use when we’ll really need it.”
“I guess for bullets are better than none when fighting demons. I hate guns, but with demons what else am I going to do?” Kurt scanned the workshop and spotted a pile of gear in boxes by the doorway. “You said something about needing me to carry something out to the car? Is that stuff it? We should get going or we are going to be late. I don’t think Cappo will be happy if we are.”
It took three trips, but Kurt finally got everything loaded up. Jonesey had set aside special gear for them to take on this journey.
Kurt was still surprised that the elf was coming along with them. He wondered if there was some other motive at play. Still, he wouldn’t turn down the help of someone as accomplished and well-traveled as she was.
Marci was waiting for them at the restaurant supply shop when they pulled up out front. She came over and helped he and Jonesey carry the extra gear and supplies inside.
Cappo waited for them at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the gate. “I’ve got a choice of weapons for each of you upstairs. The blades on each are made of the silver alloy needed to kill these demons.”
He noticed the holstered pistols the three of them carried. “You won’t need those. Guns are useless over there.”
“You don’t have Jonesey working for you,” Kurt said. “She figured a way to cast a small amount of the alloy into bullets. We don’t have many but they’ll make a difference when it counts.”
“Elf,” Cappo said. “We need to talk when you return. It seems we might have some special orders to place with you.”
Jonesey nodded. “I look forward to doing business with you.”
Kurt smiled and started changing into gear for the mission. In addition to wearing standard woven Kevlar fatigues and ceramic plate body armor, Kurt also strapped on an equipment belt with a holstered.45 caliber semi-automatic on one side and his stunned baton mounted on the other. He had camping equipment, survival gear, and som
e food in his backpack which he slipped into last of all.
Marci was wearing similar black body armor and looked at the holstered pistol Jonesey handed her. “You sure this’ll work against these demons.”
“I was able to manufacture a limited number of bullets for each of us. This will give us a little bit of an edge when we really need it. We’ve each got only four shots, though. Use them carefully.”
“If you all have everything ready,” Cappo said. “Let’s head upstairs and get this show on the road.”
The three of them followed the gang leader up the steps. Kurt went last. He noticed a round bulge in the top of Marci’s backpack. That was probably the Chaos Crystal. She hoped they’d be able to use it to track down whoever was using her to try to recover it.
A table was set up next to the blue glowing gateway. Cappo had arranged a nice collection of silver alloy edged weapons. There were one-handed and two-handed battle axes, short and long swords, and a single pole arm. Kurt knew that longer weapon must be the holy glaive blessed by the Pope.
He reached out and picked up blessed weapon. It was lighter than he expected. He spun it through a few training maneuvers and felt the quality and balance of the weapon. He realized how the fine manufacture coupled with its magical properties made it quite a powerful weapon. The spell cast upon it seemed to both strengthen it and make it easier to maneuver in combat.
“I think I’ll take this one. I’ll buckle on a short sword just in case, too.”
Marci selected a matching set of tomahawks. She held one in each hand and wove them through a series of spinning maneuvers that Kurt could barely follow. She was quite an impressive woman, he had to admit. It was fun watching her try out the weapons she’d chosen for this mission.
Jonesey selected a long sword and dagger combination and threaded them onto her sword belt before buckling it around her waist. Of all of them the elf looked most at home in the ancient weapons. That sort of made sense though. She probably fought with them in medieval times.