I drew in my will and muttered “momentum torporos.” I released the spell, and a ball of flickering blue-white energy shot toward the man. He intercepted the spell with one of his knives, slicing it out of midair.
I followed up with a bolt of pure energy, this one much more solid and red in color. He blocked the onslaught with his other blade, seeming to absorb it into himself.
“Is that all you’ve got, spirit!” He laughed, a big grin splitting his grim face. “That won’t be enough to keep me from draining what remains of your life force!” He charged me again, twirling his blades around his hands like the star of a badly dubbed kung fu movie. I spun to the right and conjured a gleaming blade of pure power, a soul blade capable of carving this bastard to ribbons, even in my spirit form. I slashed at his hamstring, but there was no hamstring there. He stopped on a dime, gathered his legs under himself, and leapt backward over my head, landing about two feet in front of me.
He grinned at me as I stared at him, mouth hanging open, and thrust both daggers for my exposed midsection. “Die, you dead bastard!”
I didn’t bother to point out to him just how odd that sounded. I was too busy knocking his blades aside and shoving one hand into his chest up to the wrist. I might be incorporeal, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t affect things in the material world. When my spirit hand closed around his heart, his eyes went wide with pain and shock.
My astral form was made of energy, so I couldn’t really squeeze his heart until blood poured out of his eyeballs like I wanted to. But since I was currently made of energy, I could disrupt the normal rhythm of his heartbeat, leaving him feeling like someone was playing bongos inside his chest. It didn’t look very pleasant, judging by how pale he went, and by how quickly he dropped both knives and clutched his chest.
I withdrew my hand and took a step back. “Can we talk like civilized people now, or am I going to have to do something rude to your bladder? You’d be amazed what organs are susceptible to low-grade electrical impulses.”
He rubbed his chest and stepped farther back from me. He made no move to pick up his magical blades, so I didn’t see a need to pursue him. “You speak?”
“Yeah, I speak. My girlfriend tells me I speak was too much, and my shrink says I don’t ever really say anything, so the jury’s still out on that bit. But I speak. For now, though, I’ll let you have the floor. Who the fuck are you, pal, and how did you learn to use those pig-stickers?”
“You don’t know who I am?” He looked confused, but at least he stopped darting glances at the knives on the floor like he was going to dive for them and start after me again any second.
“I have no fucking clue who you are, dude. All I know is there’s some kind of serious magical mojo in this house, I’m guessing those knives, and that this place is built like a motherfucker of a ghost trap.”
“So you’re not here to punish me for neglecting my duty?”
“I’m not into that, man. I’m sure there are plenty of ladies in the ATL who’ll cater to whatever fetish you’re into. Or dudes. Whatever, it’s none of my business. But no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for the knives. Well, really to keep somebody else from getting the knives.”
“Who would want my Spirit Blades?”
“Do you really call them that? A little pompous, don’t you think?”
“What else would you call them? They’re blades that can send ghosts to their final rest. They’ve been called The Spirit Blades of Callanwolde as long as I can remember. They are passed down to the firstborn of every generation for safekeeping, so when I came of age, my father bestowed them upon me and dubbed me the newest Knight of Callanwolde. It is our duty to defend the city against mystical threats and cleanse haunted locales of restless spirits.”
“You talk like a guidebook entry,” I said. “Who told you that bullshit?”
He looked offended. I guess I couldn’t blame him, but I only have so much patience for people who try to stab me. It’s a miracle I’m as chill around Gabby as I am, given the circumstances of our first meeting.
“That was the charge laid upon me when I came of age, to take up the mantle of the Callanwolde defenders and keep the civilians safe from vengeful spirits and evil specters. I have not fulfilled my obligations of late and am willing to accept whatever judgement the keepers of the spirit realm wish to lay upon me.” Wow, this guy really took himself seriously.
“Look, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt because it sounds like somebody has fed you a line of crap, and it was probably somebody you trusted, like a parent or something. So, it’s not really your fault you’re an idiot, it was obviously drilled into you from a very early age. But let me make something clear—you are not Ghost Avenger Batman, I am not an evil spirit, and there is somebody very big and very bad coming for those knives, and if he gets them, you will be fucked beyond belief. And not in a good way.”
He didn’t look convinced, but I didn’t have a chance to use my “pretty please” voice because just then the front door exploded inward, and a pair of demons stepped into the foyer.
“Fucking great,” I muttered. “Party crashers.” I turned to the superhero wannabe. “Run!”
He did. Except instead of running away like any sane person would when a pair of seven-foot dudes with crimson skin, goat legs, horns, yellow eyes, and fangs crash through their front door, Captain Stupid ran forward, scooped up his knives, and charged the demons.
It went almost as badly as I expected it to go. I got the hell out of his way, pushing off from the floor and sailing halfway up the staircase before turning to watch the carnage. The demons either couldn’t see me or rightly didn’t consider me a threat because they focused their attention on Sir Callanwolde, or whatever his name was.
He was fast, I had to give him that. That was about all he had going for him against a couple of heavily-muscled monsters that made Hulk Hogan look like Bill Gates. His initial charge took the demons off guard, and he actually scored a hit on the left-hand demon, carving a deep groove in its chest with his knife. The monster howled and lashed out with a wild looping punch that Callanwolde ducked effortlessly, then darted in to stab the demon under the armpit. It screeched in pain and dropped to one knee, rolling away from the crazy human with the glowing knives.
I had a moment of hope for the guy when it looked like he was holding his own and getting some good licks in. Then the second demon stepped in, and it all went to shit. While Callanwolde was focused on the first beastie, its partner clubbed him across the back of the neck with both fists. I heard the crack of bone all the way across the room, and the formerly courageous defender of Atlanta fell in a heap to the marble floor of his foyer.
I fired off a blast of pure power at the demon as it raised a foot to crush the downed man’s skull. I caught it right on the side of the head, with all the effect of a fruit fly on a semi-truck. I think it might have noticed, but my energy was depleted from the fight, and some more powerful demons have certain types of magical resistance. Looks like I found one of the ones resistant to psychic blasts. Just my luck.
The demon’s foot came down on the dark-haired man’s skull, and the sound was like a melon dropped from a great height, a wet cracking sound followed by the splat of his brains squirting across the gleaming floor.
The second demon reached down and hauled the first one to its feet, then picked up the knives and tucked them into its belt. It looked up at me and smiled. “Normally I’d kill you for that cheap shot, Harker, but Orobas has something special planned for you. It’s okay, though. He promised me I get to flay you for a century or two after you die, so we’ve both got that to look forward to.”
The other demon grinned up at me, then said, “But don’t worry. You won’t have to wait long. Orobas is going to turn this shitheap dimension into a brand new Hell soon enough, then we can play with what’s left of your tattered, pitiful soul. Bye for now.” They turned and walked through the shattered door out into the night, unfurling their w
ings and leaping to the sky as soon as they were clear of the building.
I hurried after them, but they were out of sight before I cleared the front steps. Becks, are you there? I felt our connection as strong as ever, restored when the homeowner/magician died and his jamming spell was abruptly snuffed out.
Yeah, where the hell have you been?
Long story. Have somebody head over to this address with a body bag and a spatula. I’m coming back to you. I lost this one, but we’ve still got to try and keep the other artifacts out of Orobas’s hands.
9
I blinked quickly, adjusting my vision to the physical spectrum and physical eyes. Flynn sat at the side of the table, her sidearm out and her chair positioned where she could see me and the door without moving.
“You’re taking this whole bodyguard thing pretty literally, Detective,” I said.
“You have a way of making people want to kill you, Harker,” Becks replied with a sideways grin. “Even people who like you. So, I thought it might be a good idea to stay armed while I was watching over you.”
“And here I expected to wake up with pictures of dicks drawn all over my face.”
She grinned at me. “Who says you didn’t?”
I laughed as I got up from my seat to go piss, then grabbed at the table for support as my rubbery legs almost gave out. Flynn stood up like a shot and got my arm over her shoulders, providing a stable base.
“Shit, sorry about that,” I said. “I forget how draining astral travel can be.”
“Not to mention astral demon-fighting,” Flynn replied. I’d filled her in on the scrap at the magician’s house on my way back.
“Yeah, that’s not the best, either,” I agreed. “I’m good now, just needed a second.” I straightened up, but kept my arm around her, more for internal stability than physical this time.
“Look, Rebecca…” I started, but she put a finger to my lips.
“I know,” she said, cutting me off. She looked up into my eyes, her brown pools deep with emotion. “We’ve got a lot of shit to sort out when this is over. But the key part of that is when this is over. We can’t figure out what we’re doing until we know there’s going to be a world to do it in. So, let’s put all kinds of talk about the future on the shelf until we kick Orobas’s ass back to Hell and make sure we have a future. Then you can tell me how much you adore me, and we can talk about this ring.” She pulled on a chain around her neck, and the diamond engagement ring I bought for her came into my view.
I looked at her, feeling a familiar jumble of emotions through our psychic link. She loved me, just like I loved her, and when we were this close, there was no chance of hiding that. But she was also scared. Scared of what it might mean to be with me, scared of the world I lived in, scared of losing me, and of losing herself in me.
I knew those feelings all too well because they rattled around in my head all the time. I felt all those things and more. I felt the fear of the inevitable pain of losing her, the pain of a man who’s lived more than a century looking like he’s thirty and knows that he has to watch his loved ones grow old and die while he just stays stuck in the same place forever.
We stood there, and the moment stretched out as we looked in each other’s eyes, a lot of unspoken communication passing back and forth through our link without words. Just feelings flowing back and forth as I enjoyed the feeling of her in my arms.
But biology eventually won out. “I gotta piss,” I said, breaking contact and heading the hotel room’s surprisingly large bathroom. I looked in the mirror after washing my hands and decided she was right—I looked like refried shit.
“You’re right, babe, I look like ten miles of bad road,” I said, walking out into the war room. “As soon as we kill this motherfucker, we’re going somewhere with white sand and umbrella drinks.”
I cut off as I saw we weren’t as alone as I thought. Watson, Gabby, and Jo sat around the table with Flynn. The map was rolled up at one end of the table, and Watson sat behind an open book with a grim look on his face.
“I’m guessing you don’t look like you just ate a lemon raw just because I piss too loud,” I said.
“No, and I wish I were only concerned with your bathroom habits,” the slightly prissy British man said. It was a little hard to reconcile this slender man with a perfectly groomed beard and a limp with my memories of his portly ancestor. John Watson was a man with a ready smile and a peppermint in his pocket for the neighborhood children, his “Baker Street Irregulars” that served as his lookouts, his intelligence network, and his errand boys. I remembered him as an older man, but there was always steel beneath his love for fine Scotch and good meals. This new Watson hadn’t shown me anything like that, but he acquitted himself well against the Reavers, and Becks trusted him, so he must not be a complete douche.
“Well, spill it, Doc,” I said, pulling out a chair and leaning back with my arms across my chest. “What did you find out that’s worse than knowing that Orobas plans to use a metric fuckton of magical artifacts to tear open a gaping doorway between Earth and Hell?”
“We found out what it takes to cast the spell in the first place,” Watson said. His voice was somber without a hint of the pompous attitude he’d displayed ever since I first met him. I took a closer look at the man, taking in the dark look in his eyes, the pallor of his skin. He was shit-scared.
I took a deep breath. “What does it take, other than a metric fuckton of powerful magical artifacts?”
“Life,” Watson said.
I let out the breath I was holding in almost a laugh. “Well, yeah! We knew that. I mean, shit, Watson, it took the combined life force of half a dozen people just to try and open the Gate Orobas wanted to open in Charlotte. I figured somebody would have to die to make this hole in the universe.”
“Not somebody, Harker. A lot of somebodies,” Jo said.
I looked at her. She looked just as rattled as Watson. “Am I missing something?” I asked. “How many people are we talking about?”
“The book doesn’t say,” Watson said, sliding a huge leather-bound tome across the table to me. “But it seems to indicate that the loss of life would be somewhere near double the population of Paris at the time the book was written.”
I took a second to look at him, thinking about the French city I knew. “When was the book written?” I asked.
“The original text dates to the thirteenth century, give or take a few decades,” he replied.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I’m not that old. Part of me really hates to ask, but how many people are we talking about?”
Watson just looked at me. It was Jo who answered. “It looks like the spell requires the energy of about a hundred thousand souls to fuel it.”
“Holy fuck,” I said.
“Yeah, pretty much.” Gabby spoke for the first time. Even she looked rattled by the potential loss of life, and she was pretty much a psychopath.
“Where the fuck are they going to find that many people? And how are they going to harness that many souls at one time?” I asked.
“They’re going after the Georgia Dome,” Flynn said.
I turned to see her on her laptop. “What?” I asked.
“The Falcons have a playoff game tomorrow night, and there’s a country concert at Philips Arena at the same time. Between those two events, you’ve got well over a hundred thousand people concentrated in a couple of blocks.”
I stood up and slid the book back over to Watson. “Give me that map,” I said to Jo, who handed me the rolled-up paper. I spread the map out, concentrating on the area around the Georgia World Congress Center and the Georgia Dome, just a few blocks from the building we were in. I poured a tendril of energy back into the map, reactivating the sympathetic spell I’d cast earlier, and opened my Sight. The lines of power flared into life all over the representation of Atlanta, with brighter points glimmering at the intersections.
“Looks like I remembered right,” I said, pointing to the map.
“Remembered what?” Watson asked. “I can’t see anything.”
“Oh yeah, sorry,” I shifted the spell slightly so that the lines showed up in the normal spectrum, and the others gasped.
“What is that?” Jo pointed at the lines and glowing dots.
“Those are ley lines,” I said, giving them the condensed explanation of lines and nodes and how they moved magical energy around the world. “And that,” I added, pointing to a spot near the Ferris Wheel attacks we’d foiled just the day before, “is a big-ass node right in the middle of the park.”
“Just a block or two from the arena and the football stadium,” Flynn said.
“Yep,” I nodded. I released the spell, and the glow faded from the map. I sat down and looked around the table. “Orobas is going to try to open the rift in the middle of the park, probably under the Olympic Fountain. The summoning yesterday was probably just a test run to see how strong the node is and how active the lines in that part of town are.”
“If the size of the monsters summoned is any indication, they are both strong and active,” Watson said.
“Pretty much,” I agreed.
“So he’s going to destroy Philips Arena and the Georgia Dome to open a doorway to Hell in the middle of downtown Atlanta,” Flynn said.
“And this time when we use the words Hell and Atlanta in the same sentence, we’re not talking about changing planes at the airport,” Gabby said.
We all sat silent for a long moment before Gabby spoke again. “Well, if nobody else is going to ask the hundred-thousand-dollar question, I will. What are we going to do about it?”
I looked around the table at a whole bunch of eyes staring back at me. Sometimes it really sucks being the oldest guy in the room. It means that everybody looks to you for answers, no matter how unqualified you might be. And this was a situation where I was starting to feel uniquely unqualified.
Heaven Can wait: A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella Page 6