Heaven Can wait: A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  “Nice sword,” Adam said, giving me a nod.

  “Yeah,” I said. “If I’d known it was a demon-slayer, I would have been carrying this thing for the last seventy years instead of letting it hang on the wall in Luke’s study.”

  “But where’s the challenge in that, right?” Adam asked, and for just a piece of a second, I thought I saw a smile flit across his face.

  “I could use a few less challenges, old pal,” I replied. “Now let’s get rid of the rest of these bastards and see if Luke needs a hand.”

  “You take the last three Torment Demons,” Adam said. “I’ll go back up Flynn and the others.”

  As much as I wanted to be the knight charging to Becks’ rescue, he was right. The Reavers were nasty little shits, but they could be killed with mundane weapons, or even Adam’s bare hands. I had the only weapons we could really use against the Torment Demons, my magic and this shiny new toothpick in my hand. I nodded and set out to clear the plaza of demons while Frankenstein’s monster rushed off to save my girlfriend.

  My new weapon proved to be way more than Oro’s army of dickheads could handle, and just minutes later, I joined Flynn, Gabby, Watson, Adam, and Jo as we converged on the scrap still taking place in the middle of the fountain where Orobas’s circle used to be. His spellground was totally wrecked with ritual elements scattered all across the brick. Becks was covered in blood, but she assured me none of it was hers, and the team looked largely uninjured, with the exception of a growing shiner on Jo’s left eye and blood dripping from Watson’s knuckles.

  Orobas had all he could handle with Luke and Mort both taking chunks out of his ass almost at will. Luke went high, and Oro threw up his arms to block the Vampire Lord from literally ripping his head off, and that left his gut open for Mort to slash across his belly with his sword. Then Oro doubled over to protect his midsection, but that left the back of his head exposed for Luke to rain down elbows on his exposed head that would make Royce Gracie proud.

  “They’re just playing with him,” Jo said.

  “This isn’t a game,” I replied. “They’re going to torture him until he knows just what kind of pain they can inflict, then they’re going to hurt him some more. Maybe sometime right before sunrise they’ll kill him. But only if they get tired enough.”

  I stepped forward to end the scrap and put Orobas out of all our misery, but stopped at the sight of a man stepping into the far side of the fountain. He was a big man, at least six-and-a-half-feet tall, and thickly muscled, with close-cropped brown hair and a dark brown beard. He wore a tailored suit and shoes that looked more expensive than my car, although that set the bar pretty low.

  I walked around the torture scene in the center of the fountain to meet the man. “Reginald Barton, I presume?”

  “You do, indeed, Mr. Harker. You presume a great deal,” the man said with a terse nod. He gestured to the destroyed ritual and demon bodies littering the landscape. “You presume to interfere with my plans yet again. You presume to massacre my minions, disrupt my ceremonies, and generally stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong again and again. I begin to tire of your interference.”

  “Well I guess it’s a good thing you’re here, then. This way you can ask me nicely not to fuck up your plans to destroy the world, and I can tell you to your face to kiss my lily-white ass. Now, do you want to get back in your car and go back to playing Aleister Crowley in your McMansion on the hill, or would you rather I beat your ass a little first?” I sheathed my sword and summoned a trickle of energy from the nearby ley lines. Power flooded into me, and I channeled it into glowing balls of crimson energy floating above my readied fists.

  “You think to threaten me, human?” Barton asked, an incredulous look passing over his face. “You must truly be the stupidest mortal this hunk of rock and celestial shit has ever produced.” He raised his hands to the sky. “Look upon my true form, mortal, and kneel before your Lord and Master!”

  White light poured from Barton’s body, growing in intensity until it was painful even through my closed lids. My concentration shattered; my energy globes vanished with a crackling pop. I turned away and covered my face with my hands, only looking back when the light finally faded. Through the multicolored spots in my vision, I saw a tall figure, nearly seven feet in height, clothed head to toe in white robes, with a nimbus of light surrounding its head and giant wings of purest white peeking out over its shoulders.

  Fuck me, it’s a goddamn angel.

  14

  The angel formerly known as Reginald Barton sneered at me. “Now do you understand the heights of my superiority, mortal? I am not just an incredibly wealthy human. I am of the seraphim, placed in dominion over this world by God Himself, destined to rule over all of the inferior beings such as yourself.”

  I couldn’t help it. I tried, I really tried not to be an asshole to the angel, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not even Flynn in my head warning me to shut the fuck up could keep my mouth shut. “If you’re so goddamn superior, show me your dick, you neutered assclown.” Then I took two long steps forward and punched the angel right in the face.

  I liked the angel a lot better when he was looking up at me from his now-soaked ass in the middle of the gorefest that was the Olympic Fountain. His robes looked a lot less impressive covered in water and demon blood, too. I knew the second I did it that it was a mistake, but it didn’t matter. This celestial cocksucker was responsible for all the pain Orobas, and by extension Smith, had wrought, including Renfield, Christy, Dennis, and God Himself only knew how many others. If that didn’t call for a good right cross, I didn’t know what did.

  Barton glared up at me from the ground, then quicker than my eye could follow, he stood before me again, this time clad in gleaming white armor. “You dare to lay hands on one of The Host, you sniveling worm?”

  “I’ve been called a lot of things, pal, but sniveling has never been one of them.”

  “You have interfered with my plans for the last time, Quincy Harker,” he said, reaching out and wrapping a hand around my throat. He didn’t even seem to strain as he lifted me off my feet. I gasped in his grip, kicking my feet in futility.

  “Don’t bother to struggle. It will only make this hurt more.” The angel grinned up at me, and spots started to dance around in my peripheral vision.

  Then a shot rang out, and the angel dropped me to the ground. I slammed into the bricks in a heap, rolling to the right to create some space between me and the pissed-off celestial. The angel stood with a hand pressed to its back, a look of shock spreading across its face. Flynn stood about fifteen feet away, her service weapon in a standard grip leveled right at the angel.

  “Don’t move, asshole. I might not be Homeland Security anymore, but I will still put a dozen rounds in your ass if you touch Harker again.” From the look on her face, I believed her.

  The angel smiled, and my heart sank. He turned to Flynn, waved a hand, and she flew back into Adam, knocking him into Watson and making a huge pile of bowled-over Shadow Council scatter like tenpins. “Do not presume to assault your betters, mortal. Now all of you lay there and let the grownups talk.”

  He turned his attention back to me, which was marginally better than trying to kill my girlfriend, I guess. “All I wanted to do was open a little bitty doorway to Hell and take over Heaven. Is that so much to ask?”

  “I don’t give a shit what you do with Heaven and Hell, but when you use Earth as a landing zone, that’s when I get a little grumpy. So why here? Why not just go straight from Hell to Heaven?” I thought if I could get him talking, I could maybe come up with an idea for how to beat up a celestial being before he got bored with monologuing and just crushed me like a gnat.

  “Because what better way to get the attention of the Father than by destroying His favorite children?”

  “Huh?” I was honestly confused. Of course, it’s always been tough to keep track of who was God’s chosen people at any given time.

  “Man, you idiot. If I th
reaten the very existence of humanity, then God will have to take notice again,” the angel replied. There was definitely some shit going on that was above my mystical pay grade, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was keeping this fucker’s attention while Mort and Luke crept up on him from behind.

  “You mean God isn’t paying attention to Earth anymore, and you want to… make Him?” I asked. My cavalry was almost within striking distance. I just needed a couple more seconds.

  “I mean that no one has seen the Father since the end of the war on Heaven, you idiotic mortal! God, Lucifer, Michael, and the rest of the Archangels—they’re all gone! They’ve been gone for millennia, and no one can find them. So if I kill enough of you fucking overgrown gorillas and let Orobas relocate a few million demons to right outside the Gates, He’ll have to come back and take care of things again! I’m tired of cleaning up your fucking wars, and disease, and poverty, and… fucking filth! How are you all so dirty? It’s truly disgusting. And stop that.” He waved a hand behind him, and Luke and Mort flew back, bowling over Adam, who had just made it to his feet. It was like slapstick comedy, only way more terrifying.

  The angel stepped over to me, holding out his hand. A blade of pure white light materialized out of thin air, and he raised it high over his head. I reached over my shoulder and drew my own sword, barely getting it up in time to block his decapitating stroke.

  Barton stepped back, shock written all over his face. I was pretty surprised, too, since I was staring up at him from behind a blade suddenly wrapped in flame. There was heat coming off the sword, but none of it hurt me. The hilt didn’t get warm, the flames didn’t scorch my eyebrows off, nothing like that. It just lined the edge of the blade in a bright red-yellow inferno. Sometimes I love magic.

  “Where did you get that?” the angel gasped.

  “Oh, this old thing?” I replied. “I took it off a Nazi in France a long time ago. Your pal Oro seemed to think it might be important. Looks like he was right.”

  “Important?” The angel’s face was incredulous. “Oh, you ignorant ape. That is the sword of the Archangel, the blade that Michael wielded in the war with Lucifer. That sword is far too powerful and sacred to be sullied with your touch.”

  “Well, then you’d better back the fuck up, pal, because otherwise I’m gonna do a lot more than touch you with it. I’m gonna stick it so far up your ass fire shoots out your ears.” I scrambled to my feet, sword in front of me.

  Barton grinned. I hate it when the bad guys smile. It usually means that my life is going to get a lot more complicated. The grinning angel raised his blade of Heavenly light over his head and ran at me, raining blows down upon my head and shoulders. I parried the best I could, but I started to wear out in seconds. Swords are heavy, and angels are fast. I put all my power into one big block and shoved him back, then conjured a circular shield of force around my left forearm. Now I could deflect with my shield and strike back with my own sword.

  I went after him, my own sword ready for battle, but quickly realized that fighting with a sword and shield is a lot harder than it looks in the movies. I got my feet tangled up in each other trying to move, swing, and defend all at the same time, and with a flick of his sword and a quick kick to my left knee, Barton toppled me to the ground, my sword again skittering across the ground. If I couldn’t hold onto it any better than that, maybe the angel was right and I didn’t deserve to wield the thing.

  I looked up at the angel. He smiled down at me, a grim, tight smile that held no real mirth. “It’s time for this to end, Harker. You have fought valiantly and well, for a human, but I marched across the plains of paradise to throw back Lucifer’s horde. You could never stand against me in battle.” He raised his blade over his head and brought it down to cleave my skull and end me once and for all.

  I’m sorry. I love you, I thought to Flynn as the blade rushed down at my face. I closed my eyes, hoping that if there was someone upstairs taking notes, that my good deeds finally outweighed my sins.

  Then there was a ringing crash, and the blade struck brick inches from my cheek. I opened my eyes, and there was a blade hovering six inches from my nose, but it wasn’t the white-lined blade that Barton tried to kill me with. This was a sword outlined in brilliant blue light and held by decidedly feminine hand.

  “Stop this, Barachiel. Your insanity ends now.” I knew that voice, but not the tone. I followed the arm holding the blue-lit blade all the way up to the face of Glory, my guardian angel. She had been peculiarly absent through most of this endeavor, particularly to show up now, right before I was going to get my head split open. Of course, I guess that is what guardian angels do.

  “You?!?” Barton, now Barachiel I guess, gasped. “Get away from here, cherub. You have your orders. You are not to interfere in my plans. You cannot disobey me. I outrank you.”

  “You do, and you are right. I cannot disobey an order or a duty. It is not possible. But I was also ordered to protect this man, and those orders were given long before you embarked on this mad attempt to recall the Father and the Archangels.”

  I rolled out from under Glory’s sword and stepped behind her, stooping to pick up my sword as I went. I was no kind of match for Barachiel in a fair fight, but if I got lucky, maybe I could find a way to cheat.

  “That’s a loophole, cherub, and you know it. Now get out of my way and let me destroy this mortal,” Barachiel said, raising his sword.

  “I cannot,” Glory replied, her face grim. “He is my charge, and I am his guardian. That is my role, to protect his line. I have done so for millennia and will not stop now just because it inconveniences you.”

  Millennia? Who the fuck are you, Harker? Flynn asked in my head.

  Fucked if I know, apparently, I thought back. I leaned forward and whispered to Glory, “Can you take this guy?”

  She didn’t bother to lower her voice. “Not a chance. But I will defend you from all threats, or surrender myself in the attempt.” With that, she raised her sword and charged Barachiel.

  She made a better go of it than I did, but not very much. She immediately spread her wings and took to the air, but Barachiel responded in kind. They danced an aerial duet of blades and flame for almost a minute before Barachiel parried a thrust and responded with a long slice across Glory’s belly. She doubled over, and the seraph’s blade flashed across her back in a looping slash.

  There was an explosion of white lights, and Glory crashed to the ground, crushing bricks to red powder and leaving a foot-deep crater with her impact. Barachiel floated down above her, his sword held high in his right hand, and in his left, dripping with glowing golden blood, he held Glory’s wings. He stood over her, wings held high in one hand. While he spoke, the beautiful white feathered wings turned to ash and drifted off onto the wind. When the last of the wings had disintegrated, Barachiel opened his hand and let Glory’s holy essence blow away into nothingness.

  “Now you are not even a cherub. You aren’t fit to soar across the heavens. You shall never again pass through the Gates. You are worse than a mortal. At least they live out their pitiful little powerless lives with the hope of getting into Heaven. But you? No, Glory. You will die here and your essence will be scattered across the ethereal plane. You are nothing, and to nothing you shall return.”

  “You talk too fucking much,” I said, shoving my flaming sword through Barachiel’s back. A foot and a half of fiery sword emerged from his chest, and he let out a howl like nothing I’ve heard even in my worst nightmare. Red-orange flame spread from his chest to engulf his entire form, from head to feet, and he erupted in a brilliant flash of purest white light.

  I sprawled to the bricks, knocked loopy from the force of the explosion. I dimly noted that every bruise, scrape, cut, or torn muscle was instantly healed by the outpouring of divine energy. I raised myself up to my elbows, looked around the plaza at my friends and the bodies of dead demons, and managed to croak out, “Does that mean we won?”

  Then I passed out.


  Epilogue

  The sun rose on Atlanta again, something none of us could have guaranteed mere hours before, and we gathered in the war room for one last debrief before heading off to our various homes, or what remained of them in Luke’s case.

  Glory sat at the table with us, her face pale. She was dressed in a spare t-shirt of Flynn’s, and it turned out she and Gabby were close enough in size for Glory to borrow pants and other clothes. She hadn’t said much since the battle ended, and I was a little worried. Glory was usually pretty quick to let me know what was going on, usually in the snarkiest way possible.

  “So is he dead?” Jo asked, grabbing a cruller from the middle of the table. Adam, being the most considerate among us even though he didn’t eat or require caffeine, had made a coffee and donut run while the rest of the team showered and searched for unbloodied clothes.

  “He is,” Glory replied. “His essence will return to the fabric of Heaven, from which we all were formed.”

  “I don’t know what all that means, but I’m good with it,” Gabby said. An almost-solid line of powdered sugar rimmed her mouth, making her look somehow even more psychotic than usual.

  “What about Orobas?” Adam asked. “He was the one that started this whole mess, after all.”

  “Well, sort of,” I said. “It turns out, even Oro was a little bit of patsy in Barton… I mean Barachiel’s plan.”

  “But is he a dead patsy?” Adam persisted.