by Ryland Thorn
Lennox seems satisfied with his answer. “Right you are, gov’nor,” she says in a fake Cockney accent. The Ducati roars into life, and Lennox carefully maneuvers it off the pavement and onto the road.
<<<>>>
As soon as they reach one of the major arterial routes that keep the New Sanctum traffic flowing, Lennox opens the throttle so wide that the front wheel leaves the ground. Despite her helmet, Jack catches fragments of her exclaiming in utter delight. He doesn’t know what speed they are doing, but knows that it must be a long way past the limit. It is more than enough to turn his trenchcoat into a cape that billows out behind him.
On another day, he might have leaned close and yelled a caution through her helmet. Not that she would have listened. She finds too much joy in the danger of riding too fast.
On this day, however, at this time, he has no intention of asking her to slow down. The road is wide and they have the fast lane almost entirely to themselves. He has no fear that she will lose control, and the wound of Samuel’s death and the Daemonicon’s theft is still raw.
Instead, he silently wills her to go even faster, not to arrive at their destination sooner but out of a primitive need to feel something more than the anger and sadness that threaten to consume him.
He just wants to relax and enjoy the sensation of speed for as long as he can. It is like a balm for him, a freedom from the rest of the world, and just at that moment it is what he needs most.
Unfortunately, they have been on the road only a short time when he feels a familiar vibration at his hip. It is his pager, and he is surprised that it should go off at this time. Only the Brotherhood knows the number, and Deedee had told him and Lennox to go home.
Jack has ignored the pager in the past with dire results. He will not make the same mistake again. Holding onto Lennox with one hand, he awkwardly fumbles at his belt, clips the pager off, and rests it against Lennox’s back in order to see clearly.
- Demonic disturbance detected. Main and Chalice. Acknowledge message receipt to indicate attendance. -
There is no mention of what the disturbance might be. For all Jack knows, it could be just an imp scaring some children. Or it could be the sorcerer himself, although surely the message would have included that piece of information.
Either way, Jack can’t help but stare at the message in disbelief. The Brotherhood has other demon hunting teams at its disposal, and it is unusual for Jack and Lennox to attend more than one demonic disturbance per day. Sometimes there are stretches that last for days where they are not called at all. During those lulls, Jack whiles away his time either in his shabby apartment or at a bar somewhere, usually with a Scotch in front of him as he waits for something vile to show itself.
Sometimes he gets frustrated and ends up picking a fight. Sometimes he sits in deliberate isolation and does his best to pickle his liver. Occasionally, he will go for a walk and watch the clueless people going about their day-to-day lives. Other than that, he has long ago given away anything resembling a real hobby, and he has largely forgotten what he used to think of as fun.
He now lives to carve out the tripes out of those who have let the demon blood in their veins take control, and to send fiendish beings back to Hell.
Waiting is far from his favorite activity. But to attend three demonic attacks in one day? Jack is stunned. He cannot remember if such has ever happened before.
He looks about for a moment to gain his bearings. They are only half way to Madame Brigette’s Emporium. The corner of Main and Chalice is not far away.
“Lex!” Jack shouts over the wind. “Pull over!”
Chapter Four: Inner City Labyrinth
Lennox and Jack are no longer on the main road. Instead, they are making their way through a part of town that most sensible folk would avoid.
The streets are narrow and twisted and wind their way between grimy apartments that were put together with no effort to match the normal New Sanctum aesthetic. Instead of Gothic structures wrought from granite and speckled with gargoyle grotesques, these buildings are made of bland and ugly concrete. They are dismal, the type of buildings that breed despair and resentment among all those who live there. The type of buildings that can suck away any semblance of hope, and loom above the streets like mountains of corruption ready to fall.
It is darker here than on the main road. There are a few streetlights and the buildings cast ominous shadows. Lennox has slowed her bike to a crawl, and it feels as if they are winding their way through tunnels instead of streets.
All Jack had wanted was a moment of peace, of freedom on the back of Lennox’s bike. Instead, he is grimly alert. There are dangers hidden among the piles of refuse stacked behind the buildings, and those dangers are not limited to unseen potholes or discarded syringes filled with tranquilizers and disease.
This is where many of those who have given in to the tainted blood in their veins like to hunt.
The whole area is known by the residents of New Sanctum as Hope Town, mostly out of a sense of irony. It is unrelentingly squalid. If it were the setting for a comic book series, there would be dark, brooding heroes glaring down from the rooftops in search of miscreants up to no good.
Those miscreants are not hard to find. The demon blood in Jack and Lennox is strong enough to give them abilities beyond the norm, and it is kept under control. But there are many who give free rein to the cruel desires and vile needs that their blood yearns to explore. These are the thieves and druggies and murderers who prey on the homeless and weak. These are the revenants and low vampires who skulk in the shadows living on rats and reveling in their own filth.
Not that all such people have demon blood in their veins. There are plenty of ordinary humans who are either down on their luck or have abandoned normal society and choose lives less savory. It is just that having demon blood makes such choices more likely.
The throaty exhaust of Lennox’s Ducati echoes off the walls. It is the loudest noise that Jack can hear, although somewhere in the distance there is a police siren wailing, and every now and again there is the sound of scampering. It is hard to know if the scampering is caused by human or beast.
There is a miasma of foulness that hangs over the whole area. Like an open trashcan where the rubbish is starting to rot. Jack is largely immune to such odors, but after they have been crawling through the filth for a while, even his stomach starts to turn. It is enough to peel the skin from inside his sinuses and to make his scalp start to itch. It makes him start to feel even more unclean than usual.
What it is like for Lennox, he doesn’t know, but he is sure she must be glad of her helmet.
“So sad,” Lennox says. They are going slowly enough that Jack can hear the empathy and compassion in her voice clearly. She is looking toward one of the buildings, and at first all Jack can see is a pile of rubbish. Then he realizes that Lennox is looking at a pair of almost invisible bums huddling against the wall.
Jack has to agree. It is sad. Nor are these bums the only ones they have passed. There have been others, some warming themselves over open grates and others hiding in the darkness. Jack knows that but for a twist of fate, he might have been one of them.
It is a sobering thought.
Then he realizes that Lennox has never known her true parents. The Brotherhood raised her from when she was young. She knows only that either her mother or father had demon blood in their veins. Likely, that blood was strong, as Lennox’s is. But if the blood of both parents was tainted, it is possible that Lennox’s blood is stronger than either of theirs.
In that case, maybe her parents had spent much of their lives in places like this.
Jack gives an affirmative grunt. “Keep your eyes open,” he says in reply. “We are close to Chalice Street. There is no guarantee that whatever caused the disturbance has stayed where it was.”
“Yes, oh ancient one,” she replies, and her voice has regained its usual playful tone.
<<<>>>
It is only moments l
ater when Jack hears something from the darkness up ahead. It is scream of primal fear. He instinctively tightens his grip on Lennox’s waist and grates, “Hurry,” through jaws clenched with sudden urgency. He cannot help it. He is hard-wired to try to help.
Lennox doesn’t need more encouragement than that. She opens the throttle and the Ducati roars into life, chasing the light from its headlamp into the darkness.
The rapid acceleration forces Jack to lean back on his seat. He is peering into the gloom, trying to see the cause of the shout. Trying to see what might have given rise to the fear. But this is the darkest part of Hope Town, the narrowest streets, surrounded by the most awful of apartment buildings. The entire place is like a labyrinth, and he can see only a little ahead.
The fearful shout might be because of a demonic disturbance. Equally, in this part of the city, it might be due to a more mundane crime, a mugging or other kind of attack.
All Jack can do is hold onto Lennox and hope that whatever the cause, they find it soon enough to do some good.
Moments later, Lennox utters a curse that is equal parts shock and disbelief. Jack has no time to wonder at its cause before he feels a sudden drop. Instinctively, he flinches his leg up, jerking his foot off the passenger peg. Then the bike hits the ground with a crash! and starts to skid.
Jack tucks his elbows in as he tumbles and rolls to a stop. When he does, he takes a moment to breathe, to steady the beating of his heart and get over the shock of what has just happened. He has a new bruise on one of his knees, and the wound in his thigh is throbbing more painfully than it had done before. He is face-down with much of his weight on his forearms and his nose inches away from a layer of sludge on the road that smells faintly of sulfur and rot.
He knows what that odor signifies. Despite this and the shout of fear still echoing in his mind, his first thought is for Lennox. With the crash-induced adrenalin in his veins granting him a sense of urgency, he heaves himself up to his knees to look about.
It is almost as dark as the inside of a tomb. The Ducati’s engine has cut out, but the headlamp is still casting a beam of light against one of the walls. Other than that, there are no street lamps nearby, and the night sky above is a starless, inky black.
Yet Jack can sense where Lennox is by her grunting and cursing.
“Lex?” Jack says. “Are you okay?”
The light from the Ducati is pointing the wrong way. Jack can make out no more than a dark shadow that might be Lennox on her hands and knees. He makes his way over to her as she turns over and sits on the ground. He reaches out and awkwardly rests his hand on her shoulders in an attempt at reassurance.
“Are you all right?” he repeats.
Lennox is still cursing. She fumbles about at her chinstrap and then removes her helmet. “Stupid, dumb ass thing to do,” she mutters, then takes a deep breath and almost gags. “What the Hell?” she exclaims. It is too dark to see, but Jack imagines her face twisted into a grimace of disgust. “Stinks like the back end of a skunk!”
Jack tries a third time. “Lex, are you okay?” he says.
“What is this stuff?” Lennox says, still not really responding to him directly. “It’s going to take forever to get it off my jeans. The Brothers will think I’ve enrolled in the Jackson Kade school of personal hygiene!”
Jack is still trying to figure out if Lennox is okay or not. He is on his knees in the same muck that Lennox is complaining about. He has a hand draped over her shoulder in a way that he hopes is comforting. Yet her words are unexpectedly humiliating to him.
He tenses involuntarily. Freezes in place like a rabbit caught in the Ducati’s headlight. Jack knows that he is often lax when it comes to cleanliness. It has never been a priority to him, and he knows that he can get to the point where he looks and smells like a bum. Somehow, he’d never thought that it mattered that much. But there is an undertone in Lennox’s words that hints at a judgment that is far from positive.
Jack wonders that he ever even thought that he and Lennox could become more than the partners they already are. He wonders that he’d ever interpreted Lennox’s flirting as more than just her usual manner.
He doesn’t know how to respond.
It seems that Lennox has sensed his discomfort. There is a moment of silence, and then, surprisingly, she barks a laugh. Yet she isn’t laughing at him, exactly. It is as if she is just enjoying the moment. And if that isn’t enough of a surprise, she turns to face him more squarely, pulls him closer, and kisses him on the cheek.
“Silly man,” she says. “You know how I feel about you. But I have to say, your old-fashioned morals are just about the most irritating thing in the whole world.”
It is too dark for Jack to see Lennox clearly. He has no idea whether she is teasing him or not, and is more confused than ever. Despite the many years he has been walking the earth, he has never met anyone who could get him as flustered as Lennox is able to do.
He still doesn’t know what to say, and his confusion is made even worse when he senses a shift in the air. It is as if she has turned slightly away, as if whatever confidence or playfulness that had led to her words has faded. He suspects she is starting to blush.
“I’m fine,” Lennox says into the darkness, finally responding to his question. “Just lost traction. Maybe because of this slimy, sludgy stuff I’m sitting in.”
All at once, Jack remembers why they are there. He remembers the shout of fear that had caused them to crash, and he remembers the Brothers’ message of a demonic disturbance. For him, it is much easier to think about these things than to wonder what Lennox might mean.
Stifling a sigh, Jack climbs to his feet and winces at the pain in his thigh. He offers Lennox a hand.
“Come on,” he says gruffly. “We have work to do.”
As Lennox stands beside him, he hears laughter from within the shadows. The laughter is low and malignant, full of hate and designed to provoke, and it reminds Jack of the shout of fear that they had heard before.
Chapter Five: Tar Man
“Who is there?” Jack demands of the darkness. “What do you want?”
The laughter continues unabated. No answer is forthcoming.
To Jack, it seems like the temperature has dropped, and the odor of sulfur and rot grows perceptibly stronger. Jack glares into the darkness with a snarl of anger already twisting his lips. He knows what has happened. He and Lennox have stumbled into a trap.
The Ducati’s headlamp lights only part of the road. Other than that, it is too dark for him to see, but he can hear movement in the shadows. It is like rats creeping over crumpled newspapers, or shy beetles chirping to each other in the blackness.
It is an unnerving, ominous sound, made more so by the way it is coming from every direction at once.
“Lex,” Jack says, his voice low and tense. “Let’s see what this darkness is hiding.”
Jack is more than irritated. More than angry. He has been fighting creatures from Hell for most of his life and hates it when something happens that he failed to predict. He hates such failures almost as much as he hates the creatures he faces themselves. And yet, hate is not his only emotion. Despite everything he has been through, he can’t help but feel a shiver of fear.
The darkness, the cold, the creepy laughter all combine to give him a sense of foreboding beyond what is normal even in a world filled with supernatural dangers.
In response to Jack’s suggestion, Lennox pronounces words in an ancient tongue that is awful to hear. Somehow, the words she says taste metallic to Jack, as if he has a mouth full of his own blood. It sets up an uncomfortable resonance within him that grates at the base of his skull.
It is as discordant as a death metal song played in reverse, but it has impact. Almost at once, a ball of angry, red demon fire appears in between Lennox’s hands. The ball swiftly grows to match the size of the helmet Lennox has looped about her elbow. It becomes bright enough to cast a red glow over the road, bringing what is hidden into view.
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The first thing Jack sees is a man standing in the shadows.
As wiry and unkempt as Jack himself, the man looks like a homeless person in his tattered overcoat and torn, dirty jeans. Yet the most obvious thing about him isn’t his clothing. It is the way that the lower half of his face is covered in a black, oily substance that looks like tar.
The man reminds Jack of Samuel. Not in build or appearance, but because of the blackness on his face. Samuel’s Hellfire burns had given him a similar look.
To Jack, it is unsettling to see, made more so by the knowledge that comes with it. This man, this tar man, has demon blood in his veins. It is something that Jack has been able to sense for as long as he can remember.
As fast as thought, Jack draws his gun and aims it. “Who are you?” Jack demands, unconsciously echoing his earlier words. “What do you want?” And then, as the thought comes to him, “Was it you who stole the Daemonicon?”
The tar man just laughs even harder.
Jack snarls in anger. He wants to pull the trigger out of nothing but spite and a deep-seated feeling that this man is dangerous. Before he does so, he hears Lennox stifle a gasp.
“Look,” she says in a voice that is both shocked and disgusted. “His hands.”
Jack glances down and immediately sees what Lennox has noticed. Like the lower part of his face, the tar man’s hands appear covered in a thick, gelatinous blackness. But unlike on his face, the oily substance at his fingers is moving. It is dripping onto the road as globs of putrescence. The tar man is exuding it as if it is sweat.
And the globs of putrescence are alive.
As soon as they leave the tar man’s fingers, they start to grow. Within seconds, they are as big as a man’s head. They are repulsive to look at. Somehow wet and slimy, almost glittering in the darkness. They are like slime molds given life and mobility. There are dozens of them, more, and they already cover large parts of the road.
All of them are slowly heading toward Jack and Lennox. To move, they extend pseudopods out in front of themselves, tendrils with which to pull themselves slowly along.
