From Hell

by Tim Marquitz

  From Hell

  A Demon Squad Novella

  Copyright 2013 Tim Marquitz

  www.tmarquitz.com

  ~

  Edited by Tyson Mauermann

  Cover design by Carter Reid

  (Check out his amazing art at: www.carterillustration.com/ and www.thezombienation.com/)

  ~

  Created in the United States of America

  Worldwide Rights

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form, including digital, electronic, or mechanical, to include photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author, except for brief quotes used in reviews.

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  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Also Available in the Demon Squad Series

  Armageddon Bound

  Resurrection

  At the Gates

  Echoes of the Past

  Beyond the Veil

  One

  Some days you’re the hammer, some days you’re the nail.

  Meh, who am I kidding? I’m always the nail.

  “Feint to your left and throw your right; not feint then throw it. At the same time, boy.”

  That’s Uncle Lou shouting directions, Lucifer to those less cozy with the Devil.

  “I do know how to fight.”

  Baalth shifted with me, taking the bait, or so I thought. I was wrong. He dropped low, my punch sailing over his head to knock the shit out of empty air. Overextended, I didn’t see the uppercut until right before it connected, knuckles colliding with my chin. I felt it, though. Not gonna lie. Felt it all the way to my nuts.

  My head snapped backwards and for a split-second I was sure I could see my ass before everything went blurry. The floor jumped up and gave me a welcoming hug. Thump. Next thing I knew, I was staring up at the cavernous ceiling, the dark stone wavering before my eyes. My jaw throbbed.

  “Not very well, it seems.” My uncle’s words were sand in my ears, crunchy and abrasive. It sounded as if he were miles away. Just like my consciousness had been a few seconds back.

  Baalth appeared above me. “How many times do I need to tell you to not talk when you’re fighting? Keep your jaw clenched.” He stroked the point of his dark goatee, his smile just as sharp.

  I shrugged. “A couple more, I’m guessing.”

  He shook his head and sighed as he helped me up, his eyes on my uncle. “It’s like training a rock; a slow, stupid rock. He’s never going to fill Longinus’ shoes.”

  “He doesn’t need to be anything like that bastard. He just needs to keep his head on his damn shoulders,” Lucifer answered, the last spilling out in an exasperated growl.

  He put his hands on his hips and drew a deep breath. In his usual form, old, gray and dumpy, he was hardly an imposing presence…as long as I didn’t meet his eyes. Feral like a shark’s, narrow, calculating, something unfathomable churning in their depths, Uncle Lou wasn’t someone you wanted to disappoint no matter what appearance he took on. Sadly, I’d been doing it for hundreds of years. You’d think I’d learn.

  Lucifer stared at me for a few moments. I could feel the heat of it, but when he spoke his voice was calm, collected. “Pack your bags, Triggaltheron. I have a job for you.”

  My heart leapt into my throat and I tried to swallow it back. Work for my uncle always meant trouble for me.

  “He’s not ready to go it alone,” Baalth said. He was always my biggest critic, but I couldn’t help agreeing with him this time. I’d been planning a nap, and being sent off to die would really screw that up.

  “I suspect we’ll know if that’s true soon enough.”

  “You’re going to get him killed.”

  My uncle grinned, brilliant white teeth glaring. “Imagine all the money we’ll save on booze and get well cards for the syphilitic victims of his love life.”

  “Hey now. It was just one girl, and it wasn’t even my fau—”

  “Of course it wasn’t your fault, Frank.” He waved me to silence. “You leave tonight.” My uncle turned to look at Baalth, his stern expression brooking no dissent. “Tonight.”

  Baalth nodded, saying nothing more as Lucifer left the room, heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor. Old Lou had made up his mind and not even God could get him to change it. So let it be written, so let it be done, or some shit like that.

  I had no idea where I was going or what I was supposed to do, but Lucifer didn’t send me out on my own very often. I mean, I’d run tons of missions for him since I’d arrived in Hell, but Baalth or one of the other lieutenants were normally with me. This one couldn’t be that important or he’d have dispatched someone else to be sure stuff got done right. I glanced at Baalth for support.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Frank, so get it out of your head now.”

  “What?” I raised my hands in mock innocence.

  “This mission your uncle is sending you on is important. He’s not sending you because he wants to but because he can’t spare anyone else.”

  “So I’m expendable?”

  Baalth chuckled. “You more than most, Frank.”

  I sighed. Never ask a question you don’t want to hear the answer to. “But—”

  “No buts.” He waggled a finger. “Go grab your gear and meet me in your uncle’s quarters in an hour. We’ve much to go over before you leave for Earth.” Baalth gave a half-ass bow and spun on his heels, leaving me to my thoughts.

  I farted my displeasure and stood my ground in defiance…

  …Until the smell hit me.

  Ale and yak ribs are a fetid combination.

  With the stink chasing me out of the room, I went to get my stuff ready. It didn’t matter how close Lucifer and I were, when the Devil says jump, you jump and worry about what you land in later.

  Two

  London in November is ghastly.

  The frigid rain drummed a steady beat atop my head, the brim of my hat just wide enough to keep it out of my eyes. Water ran down the back and sleeves of my long jacket, pooling at my feet and threatening to swallow my boots. Every breath swirled from my lips, billows of white smoke in the night’s cold. It was perfect weather…for a funeral. I only hoped it wouldn’t be mine.

  Baalth filled me in on my uncle’s mission, and I admit, I had mixed feelings about it. The corpses of several hookers had shown up across London’s East End, out in Whitechapel, over the last few months. The women had been butchered, cruelly cut apart and tortured without mercy. Their throats had been slashed to the spine and their bodies mutilated after the fact, bits and pieces of their inner workings plucked out and taken as trophies, or something worse. Half a kidney of one had even been sent to the leader of a local vigilance group to make a point. That’s just plain brutal and disturbingly perverse even for a demon like me.

  On the other hand, though, there were hookers. Sometimes you just have to look on the bright side. While there wasn’t a bunch of time to play, any job with boobs was a good one.

  The kidney hors d'oeuvre had been accompanied by a letter. While I’d
been told it looked like it’d been written by a dread fiend on an opium binge, the letter had put the spotlight squarely on my uncle’s shoulders with the title ‘From Hell.’ Lucifer was not pleased. While he never shied away from taking care of business on Earth as he did in Hell, he didn’t go out of his way to wave a red flag in God’s face, either. It was never a good thing to draw the Almighty’s attention when you lived south of the border. That’s the kind of disrespectful shit that got Uncle Lou kicked out of the inner circle in the first place.

  So, by dint of there being no one else to put on the job, I found myself in an alley, in the middle of night, being pissed on by the churning clouds looming above. I’d ask how much worse it could be, but I knew better. So, with only a vague idea of which way to go, I started walking. Guess I should have looked at the map a bit closer.

  The dimensional gate had opened in the dark recesses of a small alley, the rain and clouds making sure my arrival wouldn’t be noticed. I glanced at the nearest windows to find them boarded up tight to keep the night out, which was fine with me. Lucifer wanted my little adventure to be clandestine, or as Baalth put it, as sneaky as I was capable of.

  You gotta love a man with low expectations; second only to a woman with low expectations.

  Just wanting to get the job done and get home, I pulled my collar up around my cheeks and made my way out of the alley. I felt the puddles splash with every step, but the staccato of falling rain drowned the sound out. Thunder rumbled above, a slow growl that dragged on and on, but there were no flashes of lightning to be seen. That made it easier to sneak about, but a tickle invaded my nose and wouldn’t go away, the soggy wetness of London a sharp contrast to the dry heat of Hell. I did my best to ignore it and walked on. A good sneeze would ruin my attempt at stealth.

  The dark stones of the surrounding buildings looked as though they were bleeding. Trickles of water spilled through the cracks in serpentine waves. Shadows hung heavy between the buildings, and I heard a dog howling its misery in the distance.

  “Sorry, pooch, but you’re not the only one stuck out tonight.”

  I sighed. Given that my contact had to be smarter than the dog, or me, for that matter, he was likely holed up at home, reveling in the warmth of a good fire and a nice, warm bottle of something-or-other. Even murderers would take a night like tonight off, but there I was, dripping from head to toe. At least I didn’t have to worry about catching a cold.

  My teeth clenched to keep me from complaining too loudly, I strolled—well, more like shambled—out of the alley and ran straight into a bundle of soft flesh. The woman squeaked and fell on her ass into a puddle, water gushed from beneath her butt. Her doe eyes were wide below the bonnet she wore to keep the rain off. They were locked on me.

  “Oh! I am so sorr—” was all I got out before she let loose with a banshee’s wail.

  She tumbled backward as if she’d seen a ghost. Palms slapped the wet sidewalk when she fell. She kicked up a froth when she flopped over and got to her feet. She’d barely caught her balance before she was on the run.

  “Wally!” Her shriek rang on echoing through the night.

  Two other women, whom I hadn’t noticed cowering beneath a nearby overhang, joined in with the first and shot off down the sidewalk. Their screams climbed onto the back of the first and set my ears to ringing.

  “Wait! I…” my sentence trailed away as they ran without looking back. I’d have to yell for them to hear me, but I didn’t see the point. They were doing more than enough, already. Clandestine buggered all to hell not three minutes into the mission, I went to cross the street and slip away when a yell of another kind drew my attention.

  “Leave my whores alone.”

  I turned to see a mule of man storming toward me. His clenched hands were meaty hams at the ends of his long jacket sleeves. Fury raged in his eyes, glimmers of brightness visible despite the gloom. This was, no doubt, the Wally the woman had called for.

  “Easy, big fella. Wally, is it?” I raised my hands, palms up, as he approached. The rain parted at his momentum, sheets rolling off his bulk. “It was just a mistake. I meant no harm.”

  Wally walked right into my personal space and shoved me. “Damn right it was a mistake, bloke.”

  I stumbled back a few feet but kept my balance. “Come on now, that’s not necessary.” The shrill blast of a whistle sounded nearby, but if Mister Charming heard it, he didn’t seem to care.

  “You’re not touching my girls, you hear me?” He advanced with fists at the ready.

  “Heard you the first time, buddy.” This wasn’t what I was here for. Lucifer would be pissed if I fucked things up this early, and Baalth would laugh his ‘I told you so’ ass off. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to knock your girl over.” Another whistle sounded in the darkness, this one even closer than the last. The bobbies were on their way. That was the last thing I needed, and Wally didn’t look like he was planning on letting me off the hook.

  Done being polite, I did what I do best. I resorted to violence.

  Muted voices grew in the distance as I reached out and grabbed a handful of Wally’s shirt and spun him into the wall. Something sharp stabbed into my palm as he hit with a grunt, but I ignored. His eyes went wide, and then narrowed in a flash, the instinct to stomp me bloody sinking in to his lizard brain. I beat him to it. A quick uppercut clacked his teeth together. He wobbled, and I was left holding all of his weight as he went out.

  “Son of a—” The thing digging into my hand only got worse, so I let big boy go before I did any more damage to myself. He slumped to the sidewalk. My palm itched as the tiny wounds stitched together.

  I looked down at the unconscious pimp while my hand throbbed. Dots of red colored his shirt, the rain blurring them to soft pink. Two sharp points had ripped through the material, silver shining even in the dim light. It was a necklace; a star of some kind. Another whistle sounded at my back. This one was much closer, and I could pick out words in the approaching chorus of noise. It was time to go.

  Heavy booted steps slapped the sidewalk just as I reached another alley and ducked into it. Shouts rang out at my back followed by a hail of screeching whistles. They’d seen me. Cursing under my breath, I ran full out as the yips of hounds sang an out of key serenade. I sighed and stuffed my hand in my jacket pocket. If the dogs caught my scent, I’d be forced to whip out my own dog; the Webley Bull Dog I’d carted up from Hell. The pistol was a last resort, but I was glad to have it. The cold steel was comforting.

  Certain it was stupid to even think about using the gun, I pulled my fingers from the grip and ran on, pushing even harder to elude the bobbies and their pets. I didn’t worry about where I was going, only that I kept moving. The rain and dark streets conspired to aid me. Shadows swirled about as I splashed through narrow alleys and across empty streets. The fear of an unrepentant killer and a caravan of police dredging the district had chased the last of the reprobates indoors, which I didn’t mind at all. It made it easier to get away unseen.

  I bolted out of an alley and started down a quiet street made up of dozens of tiny apartments stacked like stones one on top of another. They looked as though a strong wind might knock them down, cracked, gray mortar running between the rooms, worn by the weather and years. The subtle scent of refuse joined the acrid waft of coal smoke that lingered in the air. Though the cold and rain had had dulled the bite of its stench, there was no mistaking the bitter stink of poverty. This was where the killer preyed.

  The sound of police still echoing through the night, I ran down yet another block of tenement homes and headed deeper into the maze of the East End. As I passed a dark stairwell that led to cavernous apartments beneath the street level, a weird tingle of energy hit me. Faint, little more than a whisper in a loud room, the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention for an instant, and then the feeling was gone. I glanced at the steep stairs but saw nothing to assign the strange sensation to. No time to worry about it, I kept running.

&n
bsp; Once I was far enough from the police to have lost the dogs in the rain, I slipped between two of the taller buildings nearby and scampered up one of the thick drainage pipes that ran the length of the wall. It creaked and groaned as I climbed, threatening to dump me on my ass, but it held. A moment later I was on the roof. There, I stepped away from the ledge and dropped to a seat against a smoking chimney. The bricks were warm against my back. It felt good after slogging through the rain for so long. I hunkered down, reveling in the heat, and listened for the hounds. They were far enough off that I could take a moment to catch my breath.

  “Why am I not surprised to find you running from the police?” a sharp voice asked over my shoulder.

  My heart slammed into my ribcage, and I scrambled for my gun. I growled and left it in my pocket when I saw who’d scared my sphincter shut.

  My cousin Scarlett winked at me as she stepped from behind the chimney.

  Three

  “Do you have to sneak up on me all the damn time?” I asked once I was sure I could talk without squeaking. “I’m beginning to think you hate me.”

  “Hate?” Scarlett shook her head. “Hate is such a strong word, Frank. I could never hate you; we’re family, after all, right?”

  I chuckled imagining all the things she could think of me, knowing not very many of them would be nice. On the other hand, there were a hell of a lot of things I thought of Scarlett, the vast majority of which ended up with her in a muzzle, hogtied, and screaming the Almighty’s name in glorious rapture.

  Tall and lithe, Scarlett was every demon’s wet dream, with me being no exception. It didn’t matter we were cousins. Growing up in Hell, a guy learned pretty quickly to take what pleasures he could wherever he could, the more sinful the better. This ranked up there nicely with coveting thy neighbor and carnal affairs with somebody else’s goat.