by D V Wolfe
Stacks shook his head and went back to the book in his lap. “Take it up with the tourism board.”
“Bane,” Tags barked.
I held the phone away from my ear. “Volume control, Tags.”
“Well pull your head out of your ass then and listen,” Tags said.
“I’m here,” I said. “Was there more?”
“You mean besides the fact that you are the number one topic on Hell’s talk shows right now?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Really? The number one topic?”
“I have no idea what you stepped in Bane, but I’m not screwing around. From the way those demons were talking, this is ‘end of the world’ type stuff,” Tags said. I didn’t know how to tell him that we kind of got that from our demon interrogation without making Tags’ blood pressure sky-rocket. “Have you heard from Rosetta?” Tags asked.
I could hear Rosetta moving around in the kitchen. “She’s here.”
“In Messina?” Tags asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “She was going to go to Disneyland, but she rolled the dice and ended up in Messina.”
“I’m on my way,” Tags said. “I’ll be there tonight.” And the line went dead.
I flipped the phone closed and tossed it onto the table. “Set another plate at dinner,” I said.
Stacks looked up from his book. “Tags is coming to join the party?”
There was a crash in the kitchen behind me and we all turned to look at Rosetta.
“Fucking hell,” I heard her mutter as she bent to pick up the broken plate.
“You ok there, Rosetta?” I asked. Noah caught my eye and grinned.
“Stuff it, Bane,” Rosetta said. “And get your ass in here and help me.” I winked at Noah and then resigned myself to kitchen duty.
“So what did Taggert have to say,” Rosetta asked, her tone clipped.
I tried my best to keep my grin to myself. “Well, he was worried about where you were for some reason.”
Rosetta snorted. “Bull. Why is he coming here?”
I shrugged. “Something about the end of the world and hell being on its way here, so I guess he wanted to get a front-row seat.” Rosetta didn’t say anything and I glanced up at her. “What?”
“Living room. Now.” Rosetta said. I raised an eyebrow at her but followed her out of the kitchen and into the living room.
“All of you sit down,” Rosetta said, and then she turned to face me, crossing her arms. “Now what exactly did Mr. Sinclair have to say?”
I looked from Gabe to Noah to Stacks and then back to Rosetta and I shrugged. “You know Tags, he can be overly dramatic.”
“What exactly did he say?” Gabe asked.
“He said the block on Walter being able to see anything was coming from Messina. And things in Hell must be really slow because they’re obsessed with us at the moment and apparently headed...our...way?” I said, slowing down as I saw the look on Gabe’s face turn ashy. “What?” I asked. “He’s just being dramatic. I mean, hell is already here. Legion of demons, blood oaths. That has to be what he’s talking about, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Stacks said. “What if the legion is getting reinforcements?”
“We need a plan,” Gabe finally said. “If hell is coming to breakfast, we need to figure out how to protect ourselves and get Bane the hell out of town.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “I’m not booking out while these ass monkeys are blood oathing people into the pit or whatever. Until this mess is cleaned up, I’m not leaving Messina. Besides, with Walter blocked, I’d be chasing my tail out there anyway. I have a hunch that whatever is stalling Walter’s engine, is tied to New Covenant.”
“What makes you so sure?” Noah asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. But Messina is only so big and it’s highly unlikely that there are multiple factions of evil planning crap in this two-horse town.”
“Probably a safe assumption,” Gabe said. “Regardless, we need all the intel that Tags can give us. How does he know all this by the way? Has he been working some seances or something?”
I shook my head. “I thought you already knew. No, Tags had a run-in with some demons awhile back and while they were trying to make him into a Toyota Corolla for them to tool around in, they were interrupted. They didn’t finish the rite so they can’t ride him, but now he’s wired into their little game of telephone.”
“Wow, that’s lucky,” Gabe said.
I nodded. “Occasionally the other side fucks up and it’s hard to not let that put a little spring in your step.”
“So,” Stacks said. “A human demon-radio-antennae is on his way to us, so that’s good. But, we have a pack of pissed-off, bad suit-wearing demon underlings who are working on collecting blood oaths for some kind of uprising, and the only one we talked to, killed himself after realizing what little he told us was too much. Oh, and more demons may be on their way. And that’s bad.”
“You think?” Noah asked.
“Ok,” Rosetta said. “What would happen if we just got Bane out of here? Would that pull the heat off of Messina?”
“Two things,” I said. “One, I’m not leaving until these blood oaths or whatever they are, stop.” I felt an icy hand tightening in my chest. These might not be regular deals, but I wasn’t going to let what happened to Ashley, happen to another town. “And,” I said. “How do we know the heat on Messina is because of me and not New Covenant? I mean they were here first. Walter was blocked before I got here. Even though Tags heard demon radio talking about me and Messina, it doesn’t mean one thing is connected to the other. I mean, what are the odds?”
Every face was suddenly interested in something else in the room.
I rolled my eyes. “Ok, so maybe they’re connected. But the point is, I’m not leaving until this mess is cleaned up. Got it? So moving on.”
“Well,” Gabe said, scratching the back of his neck. “The first thing we need to figure out is what exactly this ‘Reign’ thing is, and what the ‘prophecy’ is that calls for blood oaths.”
“Ok,” I said. “And while you’re doing that, we’ll ask the coming mob to take a number and a camping space on the lawn, while we do some research. It’ll be like Woodstock. Demonstock. We can sell t-shirts.”
Stacks rolled his eyes. “Ok, fine. You and Gabe fortify this place and cover our ass,” Stacks turned to Rosetta and Noah. “These two can help me with the research.”
“Wait,” I said. “Why don’t Rosetta and I or Noah and I do the fortifying?” I wasn’t going to catch Gabe’s eye.
“Because,” Stacks said, “Noah can actually navigate the internet. No offense, but out of all of you, he’s the only one born after the internet, and Gabe might, but the rest of you wouldn’t know a web browser from an operating system.” I opened my mouth to protest. I’d been on the Google before. Stacks raised a hand to silence me. “Don’t tell me about the time you accidentally found yourself on ‘the Google’. It’s embarrassing, Grandma.” I gave him the finger but he continued. “And don’t take this the wrong way, or do, I don’t care, but your seance skills are crap, Bane. I need Rosetta to reach the other side.”
“But Gabe’s good at seances,” I said.
Stacks rolled his eyes. “No offense to Gabe, but I’m going to defer to Rosetta’s specialty at seances. Suck it up, Bane. You and Gabe have shit to do.” I gave Stacks an “eat shit and die” look and moved to the table, not making eye contact with anyone.
“Ok,” Rosetta said to Stacks. “Hand me the Ars Goetia.”
Stacks handed it over and turned to Noah. “Laptop is by the couch.” Noah didn’t move. I glanced over at him and saw he was glaring at Gabe. “Noah,” Stacks said. Noah looked back at Stacks. “Laptop. Over there,” Stacks said pointing to the couch. Noah got up and retrieved the battered laptop before settling himself on the couch.
I picked up the second duffle bag and emptied it onto the table next to the first.
“You two mind taking that
crap out on the porch?” Stacks asked. “We need quiet and a place to spread out and work. Besides, if there’s a welcome wagon coming by, you’ll have advanced notice.”
I knew I wasn’t going to win an argument for staying around the table inside so we’d have a constant audience and I wouldn’t have to be alone with Gabe. They would need the space and it would be good to have an eye on anything coming. I hated logic sometimes, especially when it came out of Stacks. I scooped everything back into the duffle bags and pushed past Gabe, heading out of Stacks’ front door. I heard Gabe moving behind me and I headed for the far end of the porch. I dropped the duffle bags onto the dirty porch table that was already piled high with burned-out computer parts and pizza boxes that had molded together in the spring rains and dried out again in the summer heat.
“What was the point of the tunnel?” Gabe asked, coming to join me and dropping his own duffle next to mine.
I shrugged. “I honestly think it’s just for Stacks’ anxiety. Someone was watching his house. He’s pretty sure it was the church. Not sure why they would have bothered. He wasn’t really bothering them until we came to town. You know Stacks. He’s not exactly an ‘active’ hunter.”
Gabe shrugged. “But he does research and he’s gotten more active I suppose since you started hanging around.”
“I don’t know if I had anything to do with it. When we were here a couple of weeks ago, I already felt like something was off in this town. He said he felt it too. It’s bizarre. Why Messina? Why this speed bump of an Indiana town? Why not go for New York or at least Indianapolis? Bigger population to work with and easier to stay anonymous.” I opened one of the duffle bags and began to stack empty shotgun shells, hex bag materials, and rolls of salted tape on the table. This wasn’t so bad. Just keep the topic on the hunt and away from...anything else.
“Why did you come here in the first place?” Gabe asked, opening his own duffle and pulling out his hunting knife and some leather pouches. “Before St. Louis. I mean, Stacks ratted you out to the Feds.”
“I needed information,” I said, with a shrug. “And Stacks was the only person I knew who might have the answer.”
“The answer to what?” Gabe asked, looking up. I caught his eye and I didn’t miss the hurt. I used to call Gabe when I needed some lore or some tips on taking something down. But that was before…
“On how to ice a demon,” I said.
Gabe frowned. “And why didn’t you just exorcise them? Or destroy their Empty Houses?”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t have counted in my soul count. I had to actually kill them. I was big game hunting. I needed to get some big-ticket items under my belt. I mean I only had…” I looked down at the duffle and started fishing around in the bottom, pretending to look for something. “I only have...a few months left.”
Gabe was quiet and he didn’t move. Finally, the duffle I was digging through was empty with nothing else for me to pull out and fidget with. I tugged the empty bag out of the way, dropped it to the ground, and kicked it under the table. “You didn’t happen to see what became of my .45 while we were at the church, did you?” I asked, staring down at the table.
I finally glanced at Gabe’s face and the painful crushing feeling dug into my chest again. I couldn’t tell very well in the low light of the sunrise, but the space of skin between his eyes and his beard on his cheeks had wet streaks. He cleared his throat and looked away. “No, sorry, I was a bit busy getting clawed at and stabbed in the back and the ass.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, coming around the table and trying to get behind him. Gabe sidestepped and put his hands out to stop me.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
I sighed. “Will you just hold still? I need to look.” I pushed around behind him. One advantage of him being a big guy. He could move in combat like a juggernaut. Not graceful, but more like an unstoppable force. In regular interactions, however, he was still a really big guy and I could usually move around him pretty quickly. Of course, I took too big of a step and I sucked in some air, feeling the stab wound in my ass cheek break the scab and shoot pain down my leg.
“Is your side still hurting you?” Gabe asked softly as I lifted his shirt to look at the stab wound at his back.
“Nah,” I said. “Our little ashy friend took me by surprise at the truck.” Gabe’s wound was still seeping. Thankfully, he’d been stabbed in the love handle on one side, at least six inches from his spine and it didn’t look deep enough to have hit a vital organ, but Gabe wasn’t the best clotter. He pulled his shirt away from me and whipped around, his big hands gripping me by the shoulders.
“Where did he get you?” Gabe asked, his eyes scanning my midsection. I knew he was looking for a fresh bloodstain on my very, very dirty a-shirt.
I rolled my eyes. “In the ass. He stabbed me in the ass cheek. I’m fine.”
Gabe shook his head. “Seriously, what is it with these dickbags and stabbing people in the ass?”
I shook my head. “Some kind of morbid fascination, I guess.”
“Well, speaking from two experiences now...three if I count you kicking me and ripping the stitches out,” Gabe said. “I know that those hurt like a mother. Let me see.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. I don’t need you to look at my ass.”
“It’s not like it’s something I’ve never seen before,” Gabe muttered under his breath.
I felt heat climbing my chest and neck, all the way to my cheeks. That weekend...But we were drunk and full of stitches. His butt, my side. And we’d fought. And after that, we hadn’t talked. Then things had gotten better, but mostly because we never went back down that road again. I was sure of it. Then, at Rosetta’s, he’d tried to go down that road again. I’d never admit it out loud, but I’d wanted it too. Which was the fucking problem to begin with. I felt a cold fist punch me in the gut from the inside. Nothing had changed. If we weren’t careful, we were going to have the exact same fight we did at Rosetta’s. The variables hadn’t changed. We both still had the same incompatible obligations. We just needed to fortify the trailer and make it through the day. The brain trust inside would come up with a plan, Tags would get here and give us more intel. We’d execute the plan, hopefully, save the poor dumb bastards at New Covenant, ice the baddies, have a cold one and go our separate ways. I’d get back to hunting and racking up those numbers and Gabe would...go do what Gabe needed to do.
“Yeah, well,” I said plopping down into one of the rusted out chairs. “That was a bad idea.” I glanced at him and saw his mouth flatten out into a straight line, his gaze moving to the surrounding trailers. I threw up my hands. “I take full responsibility. I’m pretty sure I’m the one who started it.” It was true. I think if I’d gone to Hell when I was older, maybe with some experience with intimacy and sex, I wouldn’t do such stupid stuff now. With Jo, Andi, and Joel, it had been fun, friendship, and closeness. With Gabe, it had been something entirely different. I guess it made things easier in some ways. Just avoiding going down that road at all with Gabe, meant I was able to focus on what I had to do. Most of the time. I knew that weekend with him had been mea culpa. I’d started it. Drunk on scotch and Cocoa Puffs and Looney Tunes and laughter and his, dammit, intoxicating smell of leather, pine, and bacon. I’d leaned in and kissed him. I shouldn’t have. We both knew it. We both knew it was doomed.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Gabe said. “I wanted it. At that moment, you were just braver than I was.”
“Or just dumber,” I said, picking up a hex bag and tossing it from hand-to-hand.
“No,” Gabe said, his voice quieter now. He sat down in the other rusted chair and leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring out across the trailer park. “It wasn’t dumb. As stupid as it feels to say out loud,” Gabe paused and then blew out a breath. “I think it was supposed to happen.”