by R W Thorn
If the tar man could have sensed the scale of Jack’s hatred for him, he would have stopped laughing. His confidence would have evaporated like a mist under the sun, and he would be shivering in fear for his very life.
Jack let out an inarticulate roar of fury mixed with disgust. Without breaking stride, he swung the pitcher around in a low arc, flinging the water over as broad an area as possible. Most of it splashed down on the heaving mass of feculent goo that the tar man had conjured. But some splattered over the restaurant customers to the sides, and a droplet or two splashed back over Jack himself.
Without waiting to see if the water remained holy enough to do any good, Jack cast the pitcher aside and took a double-handed grip on his gun.
“Time to meet your maker!” Jack bellowed at the tar man as he squeezes the trigger.
Bang!
With the edges of his trenchcoat swishing about behind him and his formidable stance, he looked like the hero from a fifties pulp fiction detective novel. But despite his determination and rage, a single shot wasn’t enough to do the job. The tar man once more proved how agile he was. He had already moved by the time Jack’s bullet punched a hole in the wall where he’d been just an instant before, ducking and rolling and launching himself to the side.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Jack adjusted his aim on the fly. Three more bullets ripped through the restaurant dining area. Three more chances to score a hit.
The first bullet smashed into the wall in the tar man’s shadow.
The second bullet made a hole in the tar man’s coat before passing through it completely.
The third bullet was better. Jack couldn’t see exactly, but he thought he might have creased the tar man across his ribs at the side.
Jack knew that if he had unleashed a fourth shot, likely he would have scored a direct hit. But the tar man moved too quickly. He had already reached the first of the diners, a young woman of about Lennox’s age. As the vast, pulsating blob of inky putrescence in the middle of the room started to give off a high-pitched shriek of agony, the tar man hauled the young woman to her feet and ducked down behind her.
The young woman had already been cowering in terror. Now, she experienced a threat beyond anything she ever imagined. She burst into spontaneous tears at the same time as letting out a terrified wail to match that of the demon spawn mass.
Jack tried to aim around her. The tar man giggled like a madman and popped his head out to her left, then to her right, then stayed hidden for a moment.
“To shoot, or not to shoot,” he said, his voice a pool of oily slime. “That is the question, is it not?”
“Careful,” Amelia whispered.
Bang!
Jack fired again out of sheer frustration, but he deliberately shot wide to avoid hitting the woman. The tar man let out a cackle of true laughter, and the woman started to hurl a string of vile abuses in Jack’s direction.
Jack knew the holy water remained potent enough to work. His hand where it had been splashed burned as it had been acid instead, but that didn’t compare with the effect it had on the demon spawn mass. Great clouds of steaming putrescence were filling the air, and the sticky black mass of demon spawn no longer undulated, but instead started to vibrate. Soon it would begin to dissolve in on itself, Jack thought with relief.
It was the tar man he had to stop now.
Before he could come up with a coherent plan of attack, the tar man acted. As well as being nimble, the tar man proved unexpectedly strong. He picked up the woman as if she weighed next to nothing and charged directly at Jack using her as a shield.
“Look out,” Amelia said, but there wasn’t anything Jack could do. Then the tar man flung the woman at him, and both she and Jack went down in a tangle of limbs. The woman panicked. As Jack tried to extricate himself, she continued to swear at him, at the tar man, at everything, and she punctuated her swearing with punches and kicks.
Jack couldn’t blame her, but it irritated him beyond belief. It took a convulsive effort, but he managed to heave her off him and then climbed back to his feet.
The tar man had vanished. Worse, Jack no longer held his gun. The collision with the woman had knocked it out of his hand, and he didn’t know where it went. At the same time, the mass of demon spawn was going through its death throes, filling the air with an acrid, sulfurous stench that made it hard to breathe.
Jack judged that the surviving diners would be okay and dismissed them from his thoughts.
Then, weaponless apart from the blades sheathed at his back, he cursed under his breath and headed back to the stairs.
Concrete and Rage
If Jack could have flown, he would have done so. As it was, he hurled himself down the stairs as fast as his wounded leg would allow. He had to get to the tar man. He had to find out what the tar man knew and stop him from doing more harm.
The tar man had already reached the restaurant floor. Jack could see Lennox finishing off the demon spawn down on this level. Once more, she appeared lost in a fervor of maniacal glee. She attacked the last few vile black blobs with exuberance, deliberately slicing them up with her blades before pressing the runic symbols into its loathsome flesh.
She didn’t appear to notice the tar man run by her.
Again, Jack feared that the demon blood in Lennox’s veins had come too close to the surface. He feared that it was close to taking control.
“Lex!” Jack bellowed, and Lennox whirled about. Her expression was drawn into a rictus of madness, and she had fire in her eyes. For a moment she glared at Jack as if furious at the interruption, and Amelia gasped out loud in Jack’s mind at the sight. But then the fire in Lennox’s eyes faded away and part of her humanity returned.
“What?” she yelled back in reply.
“The tar man!” Jack shouted, and pointed.
The man in question had nearly reached the restaurant entrance. Lennox pronounced a series of words that made Jack’s skin crawl, the same spell she’d used against the wight and the Hell-beast earlier in the day.
It had a similar effect.
A blast of Hellfire magic arced from Lennox’s hands even though she still held onto her knives. It was powerful and concussive and seemed to shake the whole restaurant. The blast caught the tar man as he reached the door. It picked him up and threw him out onto the sidewalk beyond, shattering the glass door around him at the same time.
Jack hadn’t paused. He’d reached the bottom of the stairs before the last echoes of Lennox’s blast had faded. Lennox herself started stalking after the tar man, but Jack had other ideas.
“Finish the demon spawn!” he shouted to her. “I’ll deal with the tar man!”
For a moment, it seemed that Lennox might ignore him. Her face became a grimace of annoyance. But she knew as well as Jack did that they couldn’t leave any demon spawn alive. She gave a sharp, slightly resentful nod as Jack charged past.
Jack wasn’t the fastest of runners, and the wound in his thigh robbed him of some of his usual speed. Yet his fury and determined gave him power. He refused to let the tar man escape and threw himself across the restaurant floor as fast as he could.
The outdoor dining area had become deserted. The tar man no longer laughed, but, surprisingly, Jack found him already picking himself up off the concrete. Jack wasn’t sure that he could have shrugged off the force of Lennox’s blow so easily. Nevertheless, he didn’t slow down. Instead, Jack let out a roar of primal fury and launched himself onto the tar man’s back.
The tar man collapsed back onto the concrete. Jack didn’t even think about his knives. Instead, he gripped the back of the tar man’s coat in his fists and, still roaring, bashed him into the concrete again and again.
The wet slap that the tar man’s face made as it connected with the sidewalk sounded like a child jumping into a puddle of mud. Jack didn’t know if the wet sound was caused by the tar man’s blood or the black, sticky mucus that dripped from his face splattering on the concrete.
Nor
did he care. Jack just kept smashing the man into the ground again and again, as hard and as often as he needed to in order to appease his rage.
“Jack, remember. You need him alive,” Amelia said.
Jack snarled, wanting to kill him but knowing Amelia was right. Once the harshest edge of his fury had been satisfied, he flipped the tar man over onto his back and gripped the front of his jacket.
“Was it you?” Jack demanded. “Did you break into the Brotherhood’s Lair? Did you steal the Daemonicon?” Jack punctuated his questions by smashing the tar man into the concrete between each one. “Did you murder Samuel?”
The tar man had blood mixed in with the loathsome black tar on his face. His eyes were already swelling shut and it looked as if Jack had broken the man’s nose very badly. And yet, as Jack asked his questions, the tar man broke into a broad grin and started to laugh.
If he’d consciously sought for the best response possible to infuriate Jack even more, he couldn’t have come up with anything better than that. Jack’s blood started to boil. He wanted to grind the tar man’s face into a body pulp, and the only thing that prevented him from doing so was Amelia’s reminder.
“What did you mean by ‘we’?” Jack bellowed. He bashed the tar man into the sidewalk so hard he feared he’d gone too far. The tar man’s eyes opened wide in shock despite the swelling, and he paused in his laughter. But a moment later, he started laughing again.
He wasn’t a man at all, but a comic-book character, a caricature of a fictional villain. Indomitable. Stronger than all expectations.
Jack felt frustrated beyond belief. He thought of drawing one of his knives and pressing the blade against the tar man’s flesh as he had done with the demon spawn. It would burn him just as the splash of holy water still burned Jack’s hand. Perhaps that would loosen the tar man’s vile tongue.
But before Jack could move, the tar man started to speak.
“All this time, and you know nothing,” the tar man said, his voice burbling as if he spoke through a throat full of mucus or blood. “Less than nothing. You and your people are just a joke,” he said.
With that, the tar man cackled with legitimate glee.
Once again Jack snarled with undiluted rage. He smashed the tar man against the concrete again and again and wanted to continue to do so forever.
But something had changed. The odor of sulfur and rot seemed stronger than it had been before. And there a new weight had appeared on Jack’s legs.
Jack cursed his own foolishness. He didn’t need to check to figure out what had happened. While Jack had been smashing the tar man into the sidewalk, the tar man had been conjuring one of his demon spawn.
Nor was that the end of it. As Jack realized the danger, the tar man twisted and writhed in his grip. The demon blood in Jack’s veins gave him an edge in strength over that of a normal man. But the demon blood in the tar man’s veins gave him an edge as well. With the distraction of the demon spawn on his legs, Jack couldn’t hold the tar man down. The tar man wrenched himself free and stood up in one fluid motion. Jack tried to regain his grip, but the tar man shoved him away and then aimed a kick that caught him squarely in the face.
Jack found himself on his back on the sidewalk with his nose and cheek aching as if he had been struck with a piece of two by four. He snarled in anger, certain that the tar man would now seek to attack, and drew out his blades. At the same time, he felt the slimy burn of a demon spawn on his leg. It had worked its way to the cuff of his trousers and was slithering up his calf. Already, the muscle felt weak, as if his flesh had become withered under his skin.
But the tar man didn’t press the attack. His expression had changed from a mad grin into one full of scorn and derision.
“That’s twice you defeated my children,” he said, and this time there wasn’t even the slightest hint of a laugh. “Once more, you surprise me. But you are not the only one capable of surprises. I know where you’re heading. I know your purpose.” His sneer became even more pronounced and he loomed over Jack like a living threat.
“It is my task, my purpose, to stop you achieving yours,” he said, his voice dripping with acid. “Madame Brigette won’t be able to give you the information you seek once I am done with her and her Arcane Emporium.”
Jack couldn’t help but be dismayed at the tar man’s words. How could the man possibly know?
He made a convulsive effort to launch himself at the tar man despite the increasing pain in his leg from the demon spawn. But the tar man stepped nimbly aside and laughed with pure malice before turning away.
Jack had no choice. He had to deal with the demon spawn on his leg. He couldn’t stop the tar man from reaching his motorbike and accelerating into the night.
Once more, he let out a guttural, primal roar, but this time it was to give voice to his frustrations and hate rather than his rage.
Breaking Out
The concrete sidewalk felt cold and hard. The demon spawn wrapped around Jack’s leg pulsed rhythmically, and with each pulse, Jack experienced a new wave of pain. But what he felt most was a combination of disappointment and remorse that cut as deep as humiliation.
He had let the tar man escape. Worse, somehow he’d led the tar man to Madame Brigette. How that could be, Jack didn’t know. He did know that some of those with demon blood in their veins had psychic abilities. Jack himself experienced occasional premonitions. Could the tar man have the ability to read minds as well as being able to conjure demon spawn? And what did he mean by saying “It is my task, my purpose, to stop you achieving yours?”
Who had given the tar man this task?
Jack could feel sympathy from Amelia, but instead of offering answers, the ghost of his wife offered only advice. “One problem at a time,” she said. “First, deal with that spawn leeching your strength.”
It was sage advice. Jack could no longer feel his leg. He couldn’t even stand, and he could be in real danger if he let the demon spawn to continue to sap his vitality. Snarling like a dog caught in a trap, he reached down with his knives and sliced open his pant leg to expose the awful black glob attacking him.
He cursed out loud. He wanted nothing more than to rip the demon spawn into pieces with his bare hands. But he knew that if he tried that, every piece would reform into a new whole.
Instead, he laid the flat of his blades on the demon spawn’s flesh in a move that seemed almost delicate.
The demon spawn began to squeal almost at once. Its flesh started to boil and give off the usual putrescent vapor. Jack kept his blades where they were until the demon spawn collapsed in on itself and dissolved into a horrible sludge on his leg.
He did his best to wipe away the mess with what remained of his pant leg and then climbed laboriously to his feet.
As he did, Lennox emerged from the restaurant.
Jack felt a moment of relief. He thought the tar man wouldn’t get too far ahead. They would be able to set out after the him right away, and with the way Lennox rode, they might even be able to catch up.
But, in his mind, Amelia reacted with shock.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
At first, Jack didn’t know what she meant. He looked around, seeking some danger he’d overlooked before, perhaps another demon spawn. But there was nothing.
“Lennox!” Amelia said so sharply it was almost a hiss.
Jack took a single look at Lennox and his heart almost stopped in his chest. There was a lust for violence in her eyes that couldn’t be mistaken human, and the grin she favored him with was borderline demented.
The demon blood in Jack’s veins gave strength to his rage and hate, but otherwise had been under control for nearly two hundred years. He had never been close to letting it escape. But Lennox was younger. Her demon blood appeared to be both stronger and much closer to the surface. She took a regular dose of suppressant to keep it in check, but there was still a danger of her non-human part taking over.
Only moments before, she’d been
in control of her demonic nature. Now, she was a hair’s breadth from growing a forked tail and letting out a demonic cackle. Jack could almost see the Hellfire burning in her eyes.
“Lex!” he exclaimed, his voice strong and commanding enough to cause her to flinch. He feared she had lost all control.
Lennox looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. It was a long, lingering look that took in everything from his worn purple sneakers all the way to his untidy, unwashed hair. When she was done, she licked her lips in an expression far less wholesome than normal desire, and her grin returned with a vengeance. With her hips thrust forward, she casually dropped her knives to the ground. Then she strutted toward him.
Her usual playfulness and teasing banter were gone. In their place was something far more direct. Far more confident and challenging, like a cat toying with its prey.
It forcefully reminded Jack that some demons had an appetite for more than just violence. Some had a supernatural talent for inspiring desire.
“Say my name one more time, my handsome fellow,” Lennox said, her voice almost purring. “I like the way it sounds on your lips.”
Jack’s throat became suddenly dry. He had forgotten how to swallow. The way she looked, the provocative way she moved and sounded, the overt hunger in her expression captivated him. He experienced desire for her far beyond any he had felt in decades, and every fiber of his being urged him to act on that feeling. He felt hot all over in a way that had nothing to do with the effort he’d expended in fighting the tar man. He imagined himself picking her up and crushing her onto one of the tables in an act of unfettered violence and passion, and he could barely stop himself from doing so.
Lennox saw his reaction and her grin became triumphant. She stepped in close and wrapped her arms confidently around his neck. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” she murmured.
Even though he understood that this was part of the power of her blood, Jack almost gave in. It was as if every lustful thought he’d had since Lennox became his partner had freshly awoken in his mind and compounded tenfold. His pretense at being no more than her mentor, her partner in vanquishing demon-kind, had been swept aside as easily as gossamer before a storm.
