The Brimstone Series

by Robert McKinney

  “Of course I can’t kill you.” says Ole Beeze. “But I can take what you owe me. Three years, to begin after you bring Mary home.” His eyes flick up to the ceiling, as if staring through the floor and into the bedroom where I’d laid my sister down to rest.

  I feel that pressure start rising in my chest again, just as strong and ugly and as hot as it had been in the camps before. Ole Beeze was behind this, backing the men who took Mary just to get to me.

  The bastard moves his hand up to me, touches my face, and begins the process of stealing my body. His touch stings, then it burns as the sensation spreads elsewhere through me. I can feel the burn of it seeping down under my skin before things change and my flesh starts growing numb.

  While this happens, I feel my own anger and rage light into full flame. I know that it won’t cool down with time. It’ll be there, still burning in three years, and once I’m free, I won’t be the only one dancing in the fire it creates.

  “Enjoy wearing me while you can.” I say, my voice coming out as a snarl. “Because once I get free, I’m coming for you.”

  Ole Beeze does something else with his hand held off to the side and out of my line of sight. My vision starts fading, and in my last moments awake, I can see Ole Beeze smiling down at me.

  “From you, little imp?” he says, as my world turns to black. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

  END

  HELLFIRE DROP

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Good evening, little imp.”

  I wake up in a diner sitting across from a devil. The smell clinging to him, brimstone and a hint of fresh sweat, is the bulk of what gives it away. His face, or rather the face that the devil is wearing, looks familiar to me, but the the tone is one that I’ve never heard before.

  “You’re not Ole Beeze.” I say, naming the bastard who’d given me that nickname. Devils rarely wear the same faces twice, but you can identify them if you pay attention to their accents, their diction, and the way that they move. This one lacks the flair and busy hands of the one I know best. He’s new to me, which makes him no less dangerous.

  The devil just shrugs for a moment before answering.

  “Try and think of me as a simple admirer of your work.” he says. “There are more than a few like me out there, these days.”

  Uneasy with receiving direct praise from a devil, I look away from his face and down to the table between us. I see a half eaten waffle beside an empty cup of coffee sitting on the table in front of me. I don’t remember having ordered either of them, or how I’d come to this diner in the first place.

  I reach for the coffee, and find that the movement is clumsy and spastic. As if my body’s forgotten how to move, how to be. Almost as if I haven’t been using my body to do anything for a while.

  Shit, I think, as a trickle of anxiety begins flowing through me.

  I’ve been in this situation before, coming to my senses in a place I don’t know. It had been a while back, but it’s not the kind of sensation that one is likely to forget.

  “How much time did I lose?” I ask.

  “From what I hear?” replies the devil sitting across from me. “Three years.”

  His words feed the seed of anxiety in me. Three years is not something that I can afford to lose. My name’s Robinette Kohl. I’m a sister, an arms smuggler, and last but not least, a devil dog. The description, which is more of an insult than a title, comes from the fact that I’d once made a deal with a fallen angel in exchange for power. Ole Beeze, the devil I knew best, had given me the ability to leave creation, drop through Hell, and land anywhere in the world that I chose an instant later. It changed my life for the better, and my sister’s along with me. All he’d required in exchange was control of my body. A voluntary case of demonic possession, for the span of one year.

  I run my tongue over my teeth, then the inside of my cheek. Toothpaste, waffle and coffee are the only things I detect, which is a step up from the blood, none of it mine, that I’d gagged on after waking up last time.

  I never thought that I’d be willing to go through that again. And still, here I am, missing not one year, but three.

  “Do you know what I gained?” I ask, trying to be pragmatic. Whatever I’d traded for, it had to be big.

  The devil pokes a finger at the scar on his cheek.

  “Something to do with this, I’d say.” responds the devil. “This body remembers you giving it to him.”

  I take another look at the devil, or rather the man it’s wearing. His left cheek scarred with what looks like a combination of burns and knife-edged lacerations.

  Shrapnel, I think. A man wounded by an IED. I’ve had my fair share of his kind in my profession. Usually on the sidelines guarding those who can pay.

  While the devil’s borrowed form may have clear memories, I don’t recall a time where I’d blown up anyone with a bomb, improvised or otherwise. I shrug, and in response the devil across the table smiles at me. The expression is distinct on him, and not just because of the scars on his face. This smile isn’t a bad one, but seeing it makes something painful twist and start to shake loose inside me.

  I brace my hands on the table, my motions clumsy. It feels like I’m an inch away from recognizing the face that this devil is wearing. I bite my lip, determined to figure out who he is.

  It must work, because the answer comes to me a moment later. I flinch away from the devil, as a wave of memories floods into me. The tide is eager and almost overwhelms me. I feel a jolt of adrenaline pass through my limbs, making my arms jerk, my fingers twitch. The memories of my last hours, my last minutes, drag something else, something ugly, along with them. I clench my fists and fight to control my voice before I speak. I almost succeed, my voice only slightly breaking when I say, “The man you’re wearing now was an asshole named Tom.”

  My words are quiet, but ragged, as if the force of memory that’s come through me has damaged my throat, in addition to my heart. I take a deep breath and continue, bearing down hard on myself to take the edge from my voice.

  “Was, because I killed him.” I say, remembering everything. “Just like I’m going to kill Ole Beeze.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You may want to lower your voice, little imp.” says the devil, the nickname again sounding strange on his lips. “We’re far from being alone in here.”

  Fuming, I glance around the inside of the diner. My eyes are burning with the effort of holding back angry tears, but I’m still able to see the place clear enough. The walls are painted in a bland, orange-ish shade, and only half of the available tables and booths are occupied. Most of them have only one or two of their chairs filled, save for one table at the back, packed with tan uniforms.

  The sight of those uniforms, sheriff’s deputies by the look of them, makes me less than comfortable. I’m in the business of arms smuggling, and that kind of trade is rarely looked kindly on by the kind of men at that table.

  Fortunately, the deputies are not paying attention to me. Their loud voices, thick with Creole variations, are all aimed at an older man with an ill-fitting paper hat that says “Retired” on his head.

  Any of that could change in an instant, though, so I clench my jaw tight and lean back into my seat. The devil wearing Tom gestures towards me once I do.

  “You didn’t kill him.” says the devil. “You didn’t kill him or any of his men. Don’t feel bad. I assure you, their survival was not from your lack of trying.”

  His voice is casual, and despite his warning to me, apparently unworried with the possibility of being overheard.

  That’s also an understatement. Now that my memories have returned to me, the feeling of Tom’s neck in my grip stands out clear as day. Before Ole Beeze took over my body, I’d grabbed Tom and dragged him on a shortcut through Hell.

  Well, not through Hell. I’d actually left him behind in the flames, knowing
that they were far from the worst he had to face there. There are things in the deep places that burn alongside creation. Things like Ole Beeze and the one sitting across from me now. I have scars, just like Tom’s, from the few I’d had the misfortune of encountering downstairs while making drops. Most were encounters I’d barely survived, which is why Hell seemed like a good place to leave Tom after what he’d done to me. He had it coming, and then some. He killed my sister Mary.

  Him and Ole Beeze.

  I’m about to say something back, words I haven’t thought over or planned, when a new voice, this one at my back, interrupts me.

  “Can I get you anything, sugar?”

  I turn to find a waitress, her hip cocked, behind me. She looks wholesome, warm, and a little like Mary. The sight of her takes a little of the fire from me. Not much, but enough for me to swallow hard and remember all the people, cops included, sitting around us.

  “Yes, please.” I say. “Another coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  The waitress rolls her eyes at me, but there’s an exaggerated playfulness to the gesture.

  “Oh you don’t worry about me.” she says. “I’ll have a pot heated up and here for you in a flash.”

  The waitress leaves for the kitchen area at the back of the diner, and I turn back to the table once she’s out of ear’s reach.

  “I like your spunk.” says the devil wearing the man I’d apparently failed to kill.

  “And don’t feel too bad about failing.” he says. “I assure you, the man I’m enjoying did not get off lightly.”

  I snort, and turn my head to the side. The sun is setting, and the red, bloody glare of it on the window seems fitting for my mood. I turn back to the devil.

  “He’s alive.” I say. “And if he’s being worn, then that means he made a deal. I don’t see how getting to live, and come back with more power one day, counts as anything other than getting off light.”

  The devil leans back in his chair, his shoes jutting forward to counterbalance his weight.

  “Oh, he won’t be coming back anytime soon.” he says.

  I pause and scrunch my nose again, confused.

  “If he didn’t make a deal in exchange for power, what did he bargain for instead?” I ask.

  The devil smiles again, then leans in close, his back hunched and eyebrow quirked in a “just us girls” kind of way.

  “I bought this ride” says the devil, “for the low cost of ‘free.’”

  His smile widens and he leans back away from me. “All I had to do was stop torturing him.”

  “Wait, what?” I say.

  “Oh it took a while.” continues the devil. “He was stubborn. But I had time. So now tell me, little imp. Do you still think he got off lightly?”

  I stare at him, stunned into silence as I realize what he means. Devils can only take bodies from those who make deals of their own, free, uncoerced will. That’s a law built right into the fabric of creation. And yet, Tom hadn’t been in creation when he’d made his deal. He’d been stranded in Hell, alongside his men, because of me.

  Two separate feelings start to compete in my gut. The anger is still there, but also something newer. Disgust. Disgust in the things I’d done to Tom and his men. Disgust in having made this thing sitting before me, this fate worse than death, possible.

  The anger wins out though. Fuck the mercenary, and anyone else who helped him. He chose to be in this. No one could say the same for Mary.

  “He didn’t get off lightly.” I say, and notice, to my surprise, that I’m relaxing. “If it’s as bad as you tell me, the son of a bitch got off just right.”

  The devil smiles at me. This time, I don’t shiver.

  “I knew I’d like you.” he says. “That’s why I came here, made sure I was around when you came back to yourself.”

  “So you’re an admirer?” I ask.

  “And a grateful one at that. I’m not alone in the feeling, either.” he says.

  The devil takes his own turn at looking out of the window. The sun’s fallen even lower, painting the swamp ridden landscape stretching out past the diner with broad strokes of blood red and and almost Hellfire glow.

  “For most of us, it’s a rare treat to walk this earth.” He smiles again, but the expression doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and carries bitterness this time. “We can’t all be your ‘Ole Beeze’ after all.”

  As I watch him, I think back on the pieces of lore I’ve picked up since meeting Ole Beeze. While my old mentor was a common participant in most of those stories, I couldn’t say the same for others of his kind. In fact, in the half dozen years I’d spent dropping through Hell before making my last, disastrous, deal with Ole Beeze, I’ve never even heard of another devil, capital D devil excluded, walking the earth.

  No devils out of Hell, at least until me. I try to think about how many people I’d dragged with me and left down there in the deeps. A dozen mercenaries. A dozen of them at least, I think.

  The thought of Tom being worn until the ends of time is not a problem with me. But what about the others I’d dragged to hell along with him? What about the things that now walked in their bodies? Devils that are capable of unspeakable things.

  I close my eyes and think of Mary. Unspeakable things, and the devils that do them, aren’t my problem. Not now. I’ve got enough to worry about, because no matter how hard I try to suppress it, the rage won’t let go of me. I know what I have to do. I’ve got to kill Ole Beeze.

  “Ah, there she is.” says the thing sharing the table with me. “The little imp that everyone of us is talking about. That is exactly what I came here to see. Exactly why I came here, in person, to thank you.”

  I open my eyes and look at the devil. He’s no longer smiling at me. His gaze is intense, his expression serious.

  “That fire is potent.” says the devil wearing Tom. “I see why you’ve lasted so long. Hell. I see why Ole Beeze liked you, too.”

  Irritation pushes its way past, or at least alongside, the rage I’ve been feeling. I sneer.

  “That devil has a funny way of showing it.” I say, my mind turning back to the task of planning my kill.

  “Your sister?” says the devil, still looking out at the sunset. He shrugs. “People die. It is what they do.”

  There’s some truth in that. People die. And by the time I’m finished, Ole Beeze will too.

  The devil laughs, the sound rushing from him in a wheeze.

  “Ole Beeze won’t die, little imp.” he says. “He’s an angel, regardless of however far he has fallen, and still of the divine.”

  His mind reading thing, if that’s what it is, is getting old. My sneer turns into a snarl by the time I next speak.

  “That won’t stop me from trying.” I say, meaning it with every fiber of my being. Mary’s gone. Without her, there’s nothing left to lose.

  That draws a nod from the devil at least.

  “No, it can’t.” he says, then shakes his head. “And I won’t try to stop you, either. I owe nothing to your Ole Beeze. He’s made promises, sure. Offers to set me and others like me up with bodies to wear, days to spend on the earth.”

  He looks down, once again, at himself.

  “But I don’t need him for that now.” he says, “Thanks to you.”

  The devil exhales then places his hands wide apart on the table. He looks at me, then, while bracing his weight, leans so far forward his nose is only a few inches from me.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice, though.” He says. “From one monster to another.”

  I can feel something as he approaches. A literal heat that breaks me out in a sweat, like a furnace barely contained, radiating out from him. I want to lean back from him, to flinch. But I refuse him the pleasure.

  “Advice?” I say, attempting to keep my voice level. “Which is?”

  “
Do not come for him uninformed or alone.” he says. “It won’t end well if you do, and if you’re unlucky, it won’t even end with you dead.”

  The devil wearing Tom stands up before I have a chance to respond.

  “Take care of yourself.” he says, then leaves the table, and is gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The waitress shows up and refills my mug of coffee. I thank her as she heads off and take the steaming cup in my hands. The drink tastes like ashes in my mouth, but I think that has more to do with my mood than the brew.

  Ole Beeze is a devil, and can’t be killed. I don’t believe it, not fully, because anything that can feel pain can definitely die. What I can believe is that he can’t be killed by me. Not with what I have on hand, or can get access to easily.

  I’m not the kind of woman to limit myself to what comes easy, though. When I’d first gone into gun running after my deal with Old Beeze, I hadn’t known anything. I knew hunting rifles, sure, and the names of a few exotic calibers, but next to nothing about the weapons demanded by bad men in bad places. I’d learned though. I’d put my nose to the grindstone until I knew everything there was to know, and worked hard enough, taking advantage of my new abilities, to make sleep a thing for the past until I’d made enough to support Mary and me.

  Finding out just what, or maybe even who, I could use to kill Ole Beeze would be hard work. But I could deal with that, so long as he was dead when I finished; maybe this new devil could be a resource? I did supply him with this new body, however, unintentionally, so maybe he’d be grateful enough to lend a hand. I’d allow myself a moment to sit here at the diner and finish my coffee. Once done, the real work will begin.

  I’ve had a minute, maybe two, to think on that at the table to myself before I notice that the mood in the diner has changed. There’s a new, muted quality to the snippets of conversation filling the place now. It’s not a quieting, or a silence, but rather a shift in the pitch of the words I can hear - as if the speakers are constrained, or distracted, or somehow holding themselves back.