by R W Thorn
As the seconds ticked by, Jack caught fragments of Lennox cursing into the wind. She sounded angry as she pushed the Ducati to even greater speed. Jack related to her mood. He knew that at any moment, the tar man could conjure more demon spawn and cast them into the night. They needed stop him from doing so, and Jack willed the Ducati onwards.
Amelia whispered in Jack’s mind, urging him to go faster even though it was Lennox in control.
The distance between the two bikes slowly decreased. In the dark, the Ducati’s headlight shone brightly enough to show their quarry clearly against the road. The tar man was now no more than fifty yards ahead of them, and Jack could taste the anticipation along with the city’s familiar tang of pollution and smoke.
“A little closer,” he muttered under his breath. “Just a little more.”
The road wasn’t perfectly flat, and Jack couldn’t keep his aim steady. The bike juddered and vibrated over every imperfection. Nor did the tar man make it easy with his random swerves left and right. But Jack knew his gun well. He needed only a smooth half-second with the tar man holding his line. That, and a little less distance between them.
Lennox did everything she could. She knew how to get the best from her bike even on roads that weren’t the greatest, and the tar man seemed to be slowing down. Within just a few moments, they had closed the gap to no more than twenty yards.
Jack felt a surge of vengeful satisfaction as he got his smooth half-second. It was all he needed.
Bang!
Jack pulled the trigger just as the tar man made an abrupt left turn. Lennox and Jack both cursed at once with Amelia echoing the sentiment in Jack’s mind, and Lennox had to brake very hard to make the same turn. She did so, and they found themselves in a better-lit part of New Sanctum, with less garbage piled up on the streets.
They were out of Hope Town. The streets were wider, but that wasn’t good news. There were more people here, both in vehicles and just walking along the sidewalk. Lennox and Jack had come to a restaurant district, a picturesque area that surrounded a loop of the Styx river, and not even its proximity to Hope Town could keep people away.
It was just the type of place Jack had feared the tar man would lead them toward. There were too many people about in search of entertainment and a meal. It would be a bad place for the tar man to release his spawn.
Jack cursed again as Lennox pulled the Ducati over to the side of the road.
“Where is he?” she demanded over her shoulder.
For an instant, Jack didn’t answer. Despite the comparative brightness of this area, he too had lost sight of their target.
“Look for where the most people are,” Amelia said.
Jack acknowledged her point and scanned left and right. He spotted the tar man at the same time as Lennox pointed and shouted, “There!”
The tar man stood next to his bike, which he had parked in a crowded motorcycle parking space. He stared straight at them from a few dozen yards away, and although he no longer laughed like a madman, he had a wide grin on his oily, mucous-covered face.
He was in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating that nearly blocked the whole sidewalk. “Mario’s Pizzeria and Bar,” the sign cheerfully advertised in a mixture of reds and black on a white background. There were perhaps a dozen people seated at the outdoor tables under a scattering of gas heaters that resembled old-fashioned street lamps. Waiters and waitresses in crimson and black were taking and delivering orders.
Jack didn’t bother too much with restaurant food beyond the occasional messy burger and fries. He sometimes didn’t bother with food at all, and could go for days without it affecting him one way or the other. But to him, Mario’s looked like a nice place. He only hoped it would remain that way.
The tar man continued to taunt them. He gave them a grin that had all the attributes of a sneer and raised both middle fingers in their direction. Then he turned his back to them and walked into the restaurant as if he had a right to do so. The customers and the serving staff all recoiled. Lennox and Jack were too far away from him to smell it themselves, but they were familiar with his stench. It was like a pebble thrown into a pond, creating ripples of revulsion as the waves of foulness expanded.
In moments, the tar man had disappeared from view.
“Move!” Jack grated. Lennox opened the throttle at the same moment. The Ducati lurched into motion, and they reached the motorcycle parking bay within seconds.
Jack dismounted before Lennox stopped the bike properly. He put too much weight on his wounded leg and winced in pain as it started to buckle. He had to lean on the bike seat, gun still in hand, to steady himself.
“You all right, old man?” Lennox asked, her words echoed by Amelia in Jack’s mind. Lennox had removed her helmet and looked worried.
“I’m fine,” Jack grunted as the first shouts of shock and confusion were starting to ring out from within the restaurant. Soon the shouts would turn into panic and horror. Beyond that, there would be screams and anguish beyond measure.
“Let’s go!” Jack said.
Together, they stepped up onto the curb.
Panic
A big man stood next to a stand displaying the restaurant menu. Jack noticed in passing that as well as pizza, the restaurant offered a wide range of Italian and more international food, from pastas and risottos through to salads and steaks. The big man wore the black and crimson uniform of the serving staff. He had a round face and had shaved his head, leaving only a wispy moustache to decorate his top lip.
He looked anxious. Sweat shone on his scalp as he tried to watch Jack and Lennox at the same time as he tried to work out what was causing the ruckus.
Behind him, the diners at the outside tables were starting to shift in their seats. The increasing noise from within the restaurant had unsettled them. No one was eating, but only one or two had started to stand. The other serving staff had paused in their work and were looking nervously at each other.
As Lennox and Jack approached, the big man held out a hand as if to stop them.
“Uh,” the man said. He tried to focus his attention on Jack and Lennox. He gave Lennox a pass, but looked Jack up and down, taking in his trenchcoat, purple sneakers and generally unkempt appearance. Although better lit than the alley in Hope Town, it was a long way from daylight. The big man completely failed to notice Jack’s gun.
The lingering stench of demon spawn remnants were not so easy to overlook. The big man’s nostrils flared as if he had smelled something awful, and he started shaking his head. “Nah, man. You can’t come in. And your friend – he won’t be staying long, either.” Despite his uncertainty, the big man spoke with surprising confidence.
Jack glowered in anger. He didn’t have the time or patience to respond delicately. As Lennox smirked at the assumption that the tar man and Jack were friends, Jack batted the big man’s hand out of the way and started to shoulder past. But the big man had other ideas. He planted his feet solidly and took on a belligerent expression.
Jack glared at him and raised a single finger. “Don’t,” he said flatly. Then he grimaced in impatience. He raised his gun and the big man flinched backward in shock. But Jack wasn’t trying to threaten or scare him. He didn’t care about the big man beyond getting him out of his way.
With that thought in mind, Jack fired the gun into the air twice in quick succession.
Bang! Bang!
“Everyone, get out of here! Go now!”
The big man backed into a table, upsetting the food and drinks so that they spilled and some hit the floor. The diners at that table and the others reacted in various degrees of fear and shock. More food spilled as people lurched to their feet, and many who had a clear route to safety were already starting to scamper.
To Jack, all that mattered was that when he moved toward the restaurant proper, those few customers in his path were eager to get out of his way.
The glass door of the main dining area of Mario’s Pizzeria and Bar stood wide open.
As they approached, the shouts of outrage and confusion from within turned into the screams of real fear and horror that Jack had been expecting. At the same time, a stampede of diners tried to get out of the restaurant, and they were blocking the entrance.
Men and women were rushing to escape, their expressions a testament to the horrors they’d seen. Couples were holding onto each other for reassurance at the same time as they pushed and shoved their way through the crowd. There were shouts and curses and the occasional wail, and while as a group they were short of panic, real fear showed in their eyes.
The door acted like a spillway on a dam opened as wide as it possible. To Jack, every second was precious, and his blood started to boil in frustration. But he and Lennox had no choice other than to stand aside and wait for the flood to ease.
More than a dozen people surged through the doorway in a matter of moments and hurried as best they could away from the restaurant. Then they were gone, and Jack and Lennox could enter.
“Finally,” Jack grumbled as he stepped through with Lennox at his side.
Inside, the restaurant had a surprisingly modern feel. Jack had been expecting lots of wood on the walls and a decor made of rich reds and yellows. He had been expecting a design that conveyed warmth and comfort. But Mario’s Pizzeria and Bar was made of sharp lines, artificial materials, and pastel shades, and wouldn’t look out of place as a set for a ’70s science fiction show. Even the bar in the middle had been shaped from a single slab of white plastic, and there were pale blue and green cubes resting on it that might be decorations or drinking vessels.
The whole place looked like it should be a picture of peacefulness, of orderly neatness under lights that hinted at various colors. But because of the tar man, it had descended into chaos. Tables and chairs had been tipped onto their sides, and the floor had become littered with broken plates and glasses and wasted food.
“You take me to the nicest places,” Lennox quipped.
Jack just grunted in reply even as Amelia chuckled in his ear. As well as a more conservative decor, he had also expected to see the tar man laughing his maniacal laugh in the middle of the room as demon spawn dripped from his fingers. Jack’s gun wasn’t aimed, but he had both hands wrapped around the grip and he was itching to bring it to bear.
But there wasn’t anybody in sight. Yet Jack knew the restaurant couldn’t be empty. They’d watched the tar man enter, and he had not come back out.
And, just like in the alley, there was an odor of sulfur and rot in the air. It smelled like the gangrene ward of a hospital might have smelled in the late eighteen hundreds.
“There!” Lennox shouted, pointing toward the far wall. At first, Jack saw nothing but shadows, but then the shadows started to ooze and shift. He realized he was looking at more demon spawn.
Lennox drew her blades. Her expression became one of determination mixed with glee. But Jack swore under his breath. Demon spawn were fast becoming one of his least favorite Hell creatures to deal with. And where there were demon spawn, their master couldn’t be far away.
“Where is he?” Jack grated.
As if in answer, a terrified scream rang out through the restaurant. At first, Jack could only look around in confusion. He couldn’t see where the scream might have come from. Was there a hidden door to the kitchen somewhere?
“The stairs,” Lennox said, and he finally saw them. They were tucked away in the corner behind the bar.
Jack looked at Lennox closely, assessing her. They needed to find the tar man urgently, but there were risks. Jack knew that the demon blood in Lennox’s veins had been close to the surface and itching to get out. He had seen the demon in her face when they were battling the spawn in the alley. In a perfect world, Jack wouldn’t have risked her in another confrontation so soon after the last.
Sadly, the world wasn’t perfect. And at her core, Lennox had a sensible nature, despite her predilection to tease. She took her suppressant regularly. Jack had never yet had to offer her the backup dose that he carried.
“Are you ready for this?” Jack asked her.
“Always ready,” she replied. Then she gave him a wry grin. “What’s the matter? You getting a bit long in the tooth for this kind of thing?” Despite her tone, her stance spoke loudly of determination and strength. Her grin quickly faded. “How do you want to play this, old man?” she said, her voice calm and direct.
Jack couldn’t help but approve of her resolve, even if her flippancy irritated him on occasion. “You deal with these,” he said. “I’ll go upstairs and see to the tar man.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lennox said brightly, and Jack stalked toward the stairs with a slight limp, grimly aware of the danger of what they had to do. “Be careful,” she added, much more seriously.
Jack grunted in response even as he acknowledged how often Lennox and Amelia echoed the words of each other.
Then he gave himself to the rage singing in his veins. He wanted to finish this and return to their original task. But despite the growing urgency, he hesitated as he reached the bar. His gun wasn’t exactly useless against the demon spawn, but he had only a limited number of bullets, and those were meant for the tar man himself. Jack also still had his knives, but it was the holy water that had proved most effective against the demon spawn in the alley.
He had just one vial of holy water left and no idea how many foes he would face. The tar man seemed to be able to produce as many demon spawn as he wished.
“Make more of it,” Amelia said.
Jack wasn’t a priest, nor did he carry any relic holy enough to turn water holy. But a full pitcher sat on the bar, abandoned by whoever ordered it, and Jack thought he understood Amelia’s intent.
To the tune of an increasing number of screams and shouts from above, Jack dug into his pocket for his last remaining vial. He still held his gun, so he popped the stopper with his teeth and emptied the holy water into the pitcher.
Not knowing if he had diluted the holy water into uselessness or given himself more to work with, he spat the stopper onto the floor, tossed the vial aside, and snatched up the pitcher.
Then, with the demon spawn starting to whine under Lennox’s blade, Jack ran to the stairs.
Holy Water
Jack took the stairs two at a time, and would take them by threes if it weren’t for the wound in his leg. He had his gun in one hand and the pitcher of water in the other, and his face twisted into a snarl of fury and hate. The lethargy induced by the last demon spawn attack had become no more than a memory. His underlying anger toward all things Hellish gave him new strength.
The stairway, Jack guessed before he made it half way up, led to a secondary dining area upstairs. He sensed that this was where the tar man had done the most damage. The screaming and yelling had reached a crescendo, and through it all, Jack could hear an echo of the tar man’s laughter.
It was enough to make him want to spit. If his hands had been empty, he would have clenched them into fists. The tar man had been an annoyance in the alley, where no one beyond Jack and Lennox had been at risk. Now, with all the diners in this busy restaurant, the tar man and his spawn were a legitimate threat.
Jack dodged past one of the diners, a woman who stumbled down the stairs as he made his way up, wailing in a mixture of terror and relief. She barely looked at Jack as she passed, but when she did, she gaped in horror. She looked like she had mistaken Jack for the tar man, or maybe his clone.
It was an insult that Jack couldn’t bear. He let out a snarl of pure rage and hurled himself up the final stairs in a rush.
A quick glance confirmed his worst fears. This dining area matched the one down below in terms of both size and design. But the Pizzeria customers here had less chance to escape. The chaos was complete. Tables and chairs had been shoved to the sides, leaving an open space in the middle and people whimpering in terror against the walls.
Not everyone had made it. Jack could see three mummified corpses, their flesh withered and their skin st
retched tight over expressions of agony and fear. Who they had been before the tar man had struck, Jack would never know. Yet the sight of them dialed up his rage even more.
In Jack’s mind, Amelia let out an exclamation that mixed disgust with sadness and worry. But other than that, she kept quiet.
Nor did Jack know if these three deaths were all there had been. There could be more corpses in the very center of the dining area. Jack couldn’t tell, for that space was entirely covered by an undulating, viscous, oily mass of demon spawn the likes of which Jack had never seen before.
Instead of there being individual spawn, like globs of black mucus as tall as Jack’s knee, these had coalesced into one. They had joined together into an amorphous blob that looked like a heaving, surging pool of thick tar and smelled like the worst cesspool in Hell.
It was beyond repulsive. A semi-liquid, half-alive glob of odious vileness that made Jack want to vomit despite his long history of dealing with the most repulsive beings from Hell. As he watched, the center of the loathsome mass reared up until it stood more than Jack’s own height. He didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, but something told him that it was still forming, that its consolidation wasn’t yet complete.
What it would be capable of then, even Jack feared to imagine.
Behind the stinking black mountain of mobile sludge, Jack saw the tar man laughing like a comic-book villain as he stood against the far wall. His aura of confident triumph was palpable. And from Jack’s point of view, entirely misplaced.
Jack had no patience for this type of attack. He had no empathy for the tar man at all. He wanted only to rid the restaurant of the demon spawn blob and to introduce the tar man’s head to a silver bullet filled with salts.
And he had the tools with which to do so.
Jack had barely slowed down. He had taken in all of the carnage in a timespan no longer than that of a single heartbeat. His heart pounded in his ears from his dash up the stairs. The wound in Jack’s leg burned like it did when he got it. His rage had become incandescent.
