by Matt Wallace
“What’s going after Moon?” she asks him. “Santa Claus?”
Ritter’s voice is heavy and grim when he replies, “I hope not.”
“You’re serious right now?”
Ritter throws her a look that says he’s deathly serious.
Cindy sighs. “Okay, then. I guess we gotta go save his skinny white shanks. But after that I want to know what the fuck is going on.”
She pauses, and it’s clear it was more of a question than it sounded.
“Yeah, I guess we gotta save him,” she repeats, with more finality.
Ritter grins to himself.
EROS
It’s difficult to tell whether Moon’s apartment has been ransacked or whether this is how it’s supposed to look.
While the rest of the team took time and care and put thought into where they settled upon relocating to New York City with their fat signing bonuses and copious new, hazard pay–filled salaries, Moon simply picked the first shithole he found on Craigslist that’s relatively close to the office. It’s a first-floor walk-up in Jamaica, Queens. Ritter and Cindy make the trek up the broken brick steps to find the lock on the door busted.
Cindy unsheathes a large dagger from beneath her coat and frees her tactical tomahawk from its tie-down rig on her leg, holding both weapons at the ready.
She nods at Ritter.
He opens the door and they move strategically inside, covering the conceivable blind spots beyond and each other.
The front room seems empty at first.
Well, “empty” may be a misnomer.
Moon gets most of his meals in a box from Crown Fried Chicken around the corner from his building, and most of those boxes are scattered on the floor, or filling every useable inch of space atop the Ikea furniture.
The coffee table is the only sacred space, and that is because it’s piled high and corner to corner with weed paraphernalia.
Stale fried chicken and bong water is a less than welcoming olfactory combination.
The one slightly kept spot in the whole space is Moon’s entertainment center.
They always wondered what he did with his money.
Towering shelves of every video gaming console and equipment imaginable wall a dominating 110-inch television, the largest either of them has ever seen in a home. Most of the game consoles are new if not outright futuristic-looking, but a few vintage systems are included. Many are covered in non-English writing. The shelves end in speakers that are less like speakers and more like columns in a Greek ruin.
“My God. I knew this day would come,” Cindy remarks, mock-darkly. “And it’s even worse than I imagined.”
“Focus,” Ritter says.
“On what?”
Then they hear the gentle weeping.
It’s coming from the corner.
They peer through the Hoarders episode of Moon’s front room and see a slight figure curled up there.
The figure is completely hidden under a blanket, but visibly shivering and convulsing with each new spasm of tears.
“Moon?” Ritter ventures carefully, weaving toward the corner. “It’s okay, pal. Whatever happened, it’s okay.”
He reaches out and grips the rough-hewn blanket, easing it away gently.
“Aw, what the fuck is that now?” Cindy asks, Ritter’s brows furrow in confusion.
“It’s Cupid,” he pronounces, no hesitation, no doubt.
The three-foot-tall creature curled up in the corner of Moon’s apartment certainly fits that bill. The bloated cheeks of its cherub’s face are more swollen than any human’s could possibly be. It has small, harplike wings, and is indeed clutching a crude-looking bow, a quiver of arrows strapped to its back.
It pays no attention to Ritter, or even acknowledges their presence.
It seems totally absorbed in its own miserable state, continuing to weep unabated.
“Damn thing shot me in the ass!” Moon shouts at them from behind.
Ritter and Cindy both spin around in surprise, Cindy raising knife and tomahawk at the ready.
Moon stands in the entrance to his kitchen, fisting a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
He’s bare from the waist down except for a pair of tighty whities that appear to be a size small even for him.
“Dammit, Moon,” Ritter chastises.
“Boy, put some pants on!” Cindy demands, shielding her eyes with one arm.
“I can’t,” Moon complains, turning three-quarters to reveal a bloody bandage hastily and sloppily applied to his right butt cheek.
“Then wrap a towel around your waist! Damn!”
He shrugs, popping another chip into his mouth. “No clean ones.”
“I’mma faint from surprise.”
“It shot you?” Ritter asks, talking over their bickering as he’s often forced to do. “With an arrow.”
Moon nods. “I think it was supposed to make me sad or something. I dunno. The spell must have bounced back onto him. He’s been crying like a little bitch for over an hour. I can’t get him to leave!”
Ritter and Cindy exchange baffled looks. They’ve both seen his body’s natural ability to repel curses, hexes, and other harmful spells in the magical food he ingests (his one and only practical value to the team), but this is another level.
Cindy openly marvels at him. “I don’t know what you could have possibly done so right in a past life.”
Moon doesn’t even hear her. “And look at this shit here!”
Moon limps past them, over to his video gaming shrine.
He picks up what looks like a futuristic headset that’s been mostly smashed.
“He fucking broke my PlayStation VR, man!” Moon whines. “This was a prototype. Fuckin’ burns that Oculus Rift vaporware bullshit. Now it’s chucked. Do you know how hard it was to get? No, fuck that. Impossible to get?”
“You’re lucky to be alive, you asshole,” Cindy says. “This thing came here to kill you.”
Moon stares at her suddenly, mouth agape, then he looks over at the shrilly weeping Cupid.
“Oh.”
Cindy nods. “Yeah.”
Moon looks back at them, wearing a confused expression.
“Why? What’d I do now?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Ritter says. “For now, find some pants and let’s go. You can sit on one ass cheek if you need to. We’ve got to get to Sin du Jour.”
Moon gestures to Cupid with his rumpled Doritos bag. “What about him?”
Ritter looks around briefly.
“What damage is he going to do, Moon?”
Moon recognizes that as a slam on his place, but he can’t seem to work up the indignance to retort.
“Yeah, fine. Whatever.”
He limps off to the small bedroom in the back, presumably to find pants.
“Did I tell you Pumpkin Dick torched my collection?” Cindy asks Ritter.
“Arms or dresses?”
“All my fashion.”
“Oh,” Ritter says, suddenly and noticeably less interested. “Sorry.”
Cindy frowns. “I need more friends with lady parts.”
“We work with a bunch of ’em.”
Cindy just grunts.
“Hey!” Moon calls to them from the back. “Can one of you check my ass bandage?”
Cindy’s eyes widen.
“That is all you,” she informs Ritter.
HORSE SHIT
After hours in Sin du Jour’s main kitchen, Dorsky fills six shot glasses with Wild Turkey for him and his line.
Rollo, Chevet, and Tenryu all gather around the station where Dorsky is serving.
James, having spent the evening bailing sea-salt-and-vinegar-speckled hay onto minotaurs’ plates the size of manhole covers, finishes wiping down a pair of newly cleansed and sterilized pitchforks, and hangs them both on a rack filled with likewise unusual implements for a fine-dining kitchen.
“James, let’s do this thing!” Dorsky barks at him in his usual gruff line boss way.
/> “You got it, Chef,” James says, unperturbed, and jogs quickly over to the station where the shots are waiting.
“I poured an extra one for you there, My Horse Has the Trots-skys,” Dorsky tells Rollo.
The rotund, bearded Russian is the only one of them who has already showered and changed out of his serving whites.
Chevet, Tenryu, and James laugh, not because it’s a particularly good pun (it’s not), but because the memory of a drunken centaur lifting his tail and expelling the remains of the dinner Rollo so diligently helped prepare all over him will never not be funny to them.
“Goddamn half-and-half abominations, all of them,” Rollo grumbles in his thick accent, downing the first shot immediately and picking up the other one to toast.
Dorsky, suppressing his own laughter, raises a shot to them.
“To a job well done, and to not having to serve a wine-soaked barnyard for another year,” he toasts.
They all touch shot glasses and throw back their contents.
James coughs several times after, unaccustomed to hard liquor on anything resembling a regular basis.
Rollo holds his empty shot glass up to the light, examining it ruefully. “What you think newbies are doing right now? Eh? Rubbing asses with movie stars who do not accidentally shit on you?”
Dorsky shrugs. “Bronko wants ’em under his wing until they’re ready to fly on they’re own, that’s all. He did the same thing with your big, dumb Cossack ass. He did it with all of us. It’s his way.”
Rollo grunts, but he can’t argue with the truth of that statement, any of it.
“Y’all did good tonight,” Dorsky tells them, sounding very much like Bronko in that moment. “Any asshole can fork hay and cut up apples, it takes a real goddamn chef to cook the hell out of it so it’s real people food. And that’s what we do. Turn bullshit into real damn food.”
“You mean horse shit, oui?” Chevet asks.
That sets them all off laughing again.
Except for Rollo, naturally.
He pours himself another shot and downs it.
Dorsky looks up, his laughter fading as he stares across the kitchen at Boosha, occupying the entrance arch with a severe look on her ancient, slightly inhuman face.
He’s never seen Sin du Jour’s resident ancient foods and culture expert outside of her ramshackle apothecary, let alone in his kitchen.
“What’s up, Boosh?” he asks neutrally.
“Something comes,” she says with a heavy, if vague, finality.
Rollo looks to Dorsky with a derisive laugh and questioning eyes. “What she says?”
Dorsky just shakes his head, his attention on Boosha.
The inside of his stomach suddenly feels hollow, and the booze he just put there stings.
“What’s coming?” he asks the old woman.
“I smelt eyes of oracle in pot. Read signs. I have little oracle in me. Something comes for us tonight. Something unnatural. Something . . . from below.”
“Bullshit,” Rollo immediately insists.
“Horse shit?” Tenryu offers.
He, Chevet, and James share another chuckle.
Dorsky frowns, familiar with Boosha’s occasional inability to retrieve not only English, but human words.
“‘Below’?” he asks her.
Before Boosha can explain further, the room and the entire building around it is rocked from side to side with a deafening boom, hard enough to smash an overhead light and rain plaster dust from the ceiling and walls.
They all grasp the station counter to steady themselves.
Boosha braces her brittle-looking form against the frame of the archway.
All of their ears are ringing.
It sounds like a bomb has gone off somewhere in the front of the building.
James runs over to the archway where Boosha stands, both of them looking around the corner of the main kitchen.
However, the lights suddenly cut out before they have the chance to peer down the corridor to where it opens onto Sin du Jour’s lobby.
But they all hear the screams that erupt from that direction.
Dorsky stands and walks over to a magnetic strip of two-foot-long butchering knives bolted to the far wall.
He grips the handle of one of them and rips its blade free of the strip.
“Everybody out of the kitchen!” he instructs his line and Boosha. “Head for the back and go out the service entrance. James, you’re in charge of the old lady.”
“Am not old lady!” Boosha fires back, incensed.
“Do it now!” Dorsky thunders, his voice more powerful and commanding than any of them have ever heard it.
At the entrance, James takes Boosha gently by the arm.
Chevet and Tenryu move to join them.
Rollo walks over to his regular station and reaches to the hanging rack above it, pulling down a meat cleaver blade affixed to a two-handed haft.
He looks to Dorsky. “I am with you,” he says, and it’s not a question.
Dorsky just nods.
Together the two of them usher the others through the archway, and, blades held aloft, they plunge into the darkness beyond.
SATURNALIA
Ritter’s Acura TL and Hara’s Gunbus turn onto 10th Street from opposite directions at almost the same time.
Ritter signals to the giant on the absurdly large motorcycle, and Hara falls into formation behind him.
They drive up the street toward the corner where the dusty red brick fortress that is Sin du Jour sits.
Ritter is forced to stop short suddenly several yards away because of a large object blocking the middle of the street. They all quickly realize it’s Sin du Jour’s front doors, and each one has been folded in half.
Apprehension bubbles in Ritter’s throat like acid and he chokes it back.
“Jesus,” Cindy whispers beside him in the front seat.
“What is it?” Moon asks from the back seat.
Without answering, Ritter kills the engine and hits his hazard lights, disembarking quickly from the car.
The others follow suit.
Running around the vehicle, Ritter pops the trunk and removes a bulky surplus duffel bag, slinging it over his shoulder.
“What’s that?” Cindy asks.
“Backup,” is all Ritter says as he sprints to the exposed front entrance of the building into the dark interior.
Ritter’s orders come fast and resolute. “Hara, go around back to the service entrance, see if you can find Ryland. Meet us in the middle. Moon, go with him.”
“I need to get a gun or something,” Moon whines, but doesn’t protest further.
He follows Hara down the sidewalk and around the corner.
Beside Ritter, Cindy unsheathes her weapons.
They enter Sin du Jour slowly and with extreme vigilance.
“Why didn’t the security system kick in?” Cindy whispers to him. “The fucked-up cartoon dog thing?”
“Same reason the dampening field in my place didn’t work on that fucking demon rabbit,” Ritter says. “This isn’t Earthly magic. This is the power of Hell itself. It’s different. It comes from a different place, a different reality. It can’t be contained by earthbound magicks.”
“And the things that came after us?”
“The False Idols. It’s like Hell’s elite hit squad. They’re only sent after very select targets. I heard about it years back. I thought it was a myth. Not even that. A bad joke.”
“Why would the damn devil create killer Easter Bunnies and fucked-up pumpkin monsters?”
“Because he thinks it’s funny? I don’t know.”
The lobby of Sin du Jour has been completely destroyed. The bunkerlike front desk has been reduced to rubble. Ritter surveys the disaster zone in complete disbelief, his eyes coming to rest on a prone body half-covered in debris.
“Shit!” Ritter sprints forward and slides on his knees beside the body, seeing white hair gleaming even in the darkness.
It’s White Horse.
He’s still breathing, staccato and pained. There’s a large, jagged shard of wood sticking out of his side, blood pooling around it, soaking his faded shirt.
“Can you hear me, Granddad?” Ritter asks.
“Not your damn granddad,” White Horse says around wheezing breaths.
Ritter examines the wound as best he can in the dark. “What happened? What’s hit us?”
“Ritter!” Cindy calls.
Ritter looks over in alarm, but all he finds is Cindy standing over Little Dove. The girl is hugging her knees against the wall, rocking back and forth, makeup-muddied tears streaking her face.
“Is she hurt?” Ritter asks.
“Shell-shocked, I think.”
“She saved me,” White Horse says.
“I didn’t!” Little Dove suddenly screams. “I didn’t do anything! It wasn’t me!”
She sounds as if she’s trying to convince herself more than them.
Cindy kneels down and puts her arms around the girl.
Rather than fighting it, Little Dove leans into her, sobbing anew.
“She has power,” White Horse whispers for Ritter’s ears alone. “I had no . . . I didn’t know. She has . . . it’s too much for her . . . too young . . .”
“All right, all right,” Ritter soothes him. “We’ll deal with that later. What’s here, White Horse? Where are the others?”
The old man just shakes his head.
Ritter sighs. “Okay, fine. Look, don’t yank this thing out of your guts. Just leave it. Don’t move. You’ll be okay. We’ll come back for you.”
“White lies,” the Hataałii says, laughing, and the laughter doesn’t seem to cause him half as much pain as the coughing it turns into.
Ritter steadies him with both hands. “Don’t start with that shit, all right? I never signed a treaty in my life.”
He stands up, walking over to Cindy and Little Dove and crouching down in front of the girl.
He looks up at Cindy. “We need to keep moving, recon the building, and find the others.”
Cindy doesn’t speak, but she looks down at Little Dove pointedly.
The girl has stopped sobbing, but she’s still clinging to Cindy.
“Lill?” Ritter says softly. “Lill? Look at me, okay?”