The Demons of King Solomon

by Aaron J. French

  Hector laughed and opened his leather portfolio, ready to get down to business.

  The odd grin slowly faded from Jim’s face, but he continued to stare at his boss. Warwick looked away first and gazed down at his notes.

  Hector asked him a question about the Sunday edition deadline and he answered, then quickly looked back at his notes again.

  It didn’t matter. He could still feel Jim Hall’s green eyes on him.

  BUER

  Buer, a great president of Hell, apparently has fifty legions of demons at his command. The Lesser Key of Solomon the King describes him as the tenth goetic spirit, appearing in Sagittarius: “That is his shape when ye [sun] is there; he teacheth Phylosophy [both] Morall & Natural, & ye Logicall arts, & ye virtue of all hearbes and plants, & healeth all distempers in Man.” He is also known for giving good familiars. A nineteenth-century engraving designed by Louis Le Breton and engraved by M. Jarrault shows him as having the head of a lion and five goat legs, which is hard to reconcile with the claim that he appears as Sagittarius, whose form would presumably be that of a centaur.

  HUNTER HUNTERSON AND THE PRESIDENT OF HELL

  SCOTT SIGLER

  Howdy.

  The following pages will recap my family’s battle against the President of Hell. But first, bear with me while I catch you up on a few things.

  It’s come to my attention that some jackass hacker sumbitch good-for-nothing spec of horseshit got his electronic mitts into my computer and released the chapters of my War Journal. This misbegotten miscreant released said chapters out of order, which means people are stumbling across my entries with no contextual wherewithal to figure out just what in tarnation is going on. Maybe you haven’t read about The Case of the Haunted Safeway, or The $15 Burger, or even Homefront. If you have perused those lovely tales, hang in there, we’ll get to the good stuff right quick. However, if you haven’t read about my family and I, allow me to elucidate.

  My name’s Hunter Hunterson. This is my War Journal, where I document the various endeavors of my family business. What business, you may ask?

  The business of monster stompin’.

  We work for the Netherworld Protectorate, an organization committed to protecting humanity by way of fighting any and all evil supernatch. My family and I are good stock from the hills of Kentucky. Huntersons been stompin’ going back five generations. Up until a few months ago, we lived in Salyersville, KY, known to the locals as “Slayerville.” That’s where the biggest dimensional fault line is, you see, and hence the place most demons, vamps, zombies, ghosties, goblins and whatnot pour out and try to set up shop in the real world. My clan and other clans like us find the supernatch, then we stomp ‘em, bag ‘em, tag ‘em and bring them in for a reward of cold hard cash. It’s a dangerous living, sure, but it runs in our blood.

  About six months back, the NP transferred my family from glorious red-state conservative Kentucky to San Francisco, America’s bluest of blue bastion of liberalism. We had to replace the city’s existing NP team, which got eaten. We’re still not sure if it was a pissed-off Oni, a gun slinging goblin or, perhaps, the worst nightmare of any monster-stomper—a rabid unicorn.

  Man, do I hate rabid unicorns.

  My family’s voted straight-ticked Republican since the days of Rutherford B. Hayes, so you can imagine how moving to San Francisco has been a bit of a culture shock for us.

  Let me give you a quick rundown on my clan, then we’ll get into the Case of the President of Hell.

  First and foremost is Betty Lou, the love of my life. We’ve been crazy about each other since we were in the sixth grade. Married at eighteen. First child at twenty. We’ve never looked back—I was made for her, she was made for me.

  Betty Lou is an empath. She can read emotions and whatnot. She’s also got a knack for magical potions and carries around a big old bag of charmed-up costume jewelry. She’s a bit too sensitive for this line of work, but she balances me out—from time to time, people might describe me as “too intense,” which is a really nice way of saying I’m a toned-up sonofabitch that would rather knock out a vamp’s teeth than have a chat about whether or not it’s right to bite some poor bastard’s neck. In short, I punch first, talk second, and sometimes that ain’t the best policy.

  I have three sons. My eldest, Billy Mac, is a lazy piece of shit that sits in the basement all day and plays video games. Boy gives me the willies. Spiders seem to like him. He’s opted out of the family business, so I don’t talk about him—or to him—all that much.

  My youngest son, Luke, is fourteen. He’s whip-smart with computers and such. He ain’t the biggest or strongest boy in the world, mind you, so we tend to keep him out of the most dangerous bits of the business. That angers him to no end. Boy has a temper. In that way, he’s just like his daddy.

  My middle son, Bo, he’s adopted. If you ever see us together, you might figure that one out all on your own. I’m a good-sized man, 6-foot-2, about 290 if I haven’t been to Golden Corral too many times that week. Bo, he’s from different stock—6-foot-3, 275 pounds. And he’s only sixteen, for cryin’ out loud. Oh, and here’s another subtle hint: I’m white and he’s black. Sometimes that gives it away.

  Lastly, there’s Sunshine, the apple of my eye. Think your life is hard? Try being the daddy of thirteen-year-old jailbait that looks 18, easy, the kind of girl every hetero male this side of the Mississippi wants to get a piece of. Hell, monsters will probably never have a chance to kill me—I’ll be in jail for murdering some horny boy who tried to take advantage of her. Of course, I highly doubt any boy could make her do anything she didn’t have a hankering for, on account of she’s a dead shot with a bow and carries a charmed-up switch blade in the pocket of whatever scrap of fabric she calls “shorts.”

  That’s my clan. We live together, we fight together. There’s a lot of love in our family.

  And as a family, we had us a rather nasty run-in with a president. No, not the President of the United States—we locked horns with the literal President of Hell.

  Here’s what happened.

  ***

  I’ll never get used to living in a mansion.

  Take our dining room, for example. It’s got more square footage than our entire house back in Slayerville. That’s right, just the dining room—I’ve measured it. And you could comfortably sit thirty people at this ridiculously long-ass table.

  My family and I clustered at one end of the table: me, Betty Lou, Bo, Luke and Sunshine. Billy Mac sat at the far end, on account he hadn’t showered in a few days. Betty Lou was happy just to have him out of the basement and joining us for once.

  Everyone but Billy Mac was dead tired. While he stayed in the basement, getting plenty of sleep, the rest of us had been burning the midnight oil dealing with a recent spike of supernatch appearances. In the last three days alone, we’d bagged a valravn, an orang minyak and a kasa-obake. The latter one was a real bitch. Thinking about it made me touch the big bandage on my left forearm. If you’d have told me that a one-eyed umbrella hopping around on one leg could be tougher to bring down than a pack of coked-up goblins, I’d have told you that you were crazy. Live and learn, I suppose.

  We’d all gotten only a few hours of sleep, but Betty Lou made all of us come down to breakfast. Luke and Sunshine had to go to school. Bo and I could have slept in, but my wife wasn’t having it—when you got no idea what each night will bring, breakfast is often the only meal the family can enjoy together.

  The spike in activity had to be from a new dimensional fault line. Something in the San Francisco area had cracked open, creating a fissure between realities. Bad juju was coming out. The longer a fault exists, the bigger it gets. If this new one got too big, it couldn’t be closed, and we’d be faced with another Slayerville situation—except this fault would be dead smack in a city of 750,000. Hence, the NP had us working overtime. Not that I minded the time-and-a-half, but we’d made no progress in tracking down the source. Neither had the rest of the NP.


  The valravn had whacked me pretty good. It had also broken Bo’s arm, but Betty Lou had fixed him up right with an old-school bone-mending spell. My son looked no worse for the wear. Ah, the energy of youth. Me? I felt like the losing end of a mule-kick, and I looked as battered as a red-headed stepchild.

  Betty Lou had made plenty of food: platters of scrambled eggs, toast, grits and loads of ham. Sure, vegetarians might rule San Francisco, but none of ‘em live in my house.

  The platters were all closest to my son Bo. Maybe that’s on account of his size—gravitational pull of large bodies and all. I don’t know me much physics, but if a wayward satellite was drawn into my son’s orbit, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

  Bo doesn’t talk much at breakfast, mostly on account of how much food he’s shoveling into his maw. My son Luke ain’t much better. Don’t know where Luke puts all the food he eats. Fourteen years old, barely a hundred pounds, yet he can wolf down a large pizza all by himself. I should have him checked for a tapeworm one of these days. There ain’t no lack of conversation at our table, though, on account of the chattiness of my wife and daughter.

  “Then there’s Samuel Carter,” Sunshine said. “He’s in my math class. He’s so cute, he has eyes just like the Beib’s!”

  I’m not sure what’s more disconcerting to a country music-loving father—the fact that his daughter is starting to moon over boys, one of whom will someday take her away from me, or that she actually listens to Justin Bieber.

  Betty Lou frowned as she scooped more eggs onto Bo’s plate.

  “What about this Samuel Carter’s grades?” she asked. “Appearances aren’t everything. Just look at your father.”

  I grunted. “If that’s a compliment, I’d hate to hear your insults.”

  Betty Lou waved her hand at me the way she always did when I said something stupid.

  “Hush, Hunter. You ain’t no supermodel, but you’re the best husband a woman could ever ask for. What do you think about that, Sunshine?”

  My daughter rolled her eyes in the way only thirteen-year-old girls know how to do.

  “Ma, I don’t want to marry Samuel. Dang.”

  Luke grinned, spoke through a mouthful of eggs.

  “Sixteen and pregnant is a good show,” he said. “You’re way ahead of schedule.”

  Bo choked on his milk, which started coming out of his nose even as Sunshine whipped a piece of toast at Luke, and—true to form—hit him right between the eyes, smearing butter on his face.

  Betty Lou slapped the table, making all the kids jump. I jumped, too—an angry Betty Lou is not to be taken lightly.

  “Sunshine,” she said, “you don’t throw food like some white trash idiot! Luke, jokes about teenage pregnancy ain’t funny, especially when your sister’s involved! And Bo, you stop that milk from coming out your nose, right this instant!”

  I sat very still. I wasn’t about to defend the kids and draw Betty Lou’s wrath on myself. I might stomp monsters for a living, but I ain’t stupid.

  Then, my boss came strolling into the dining room.

  “Good morning, Hunterson family,” he said. “I hope you’re all enjoying this lovely, lovely morning.”

  Yngve Sjoelset is his name. I can spell it, can’t pronounce it to save my ass. I just call him Ing. He’d grown a mustache since last time I’d seen him. A pencil-thin thing, jet black like the hair he must spend hours getting just-so. With his button-down white shirt and yet another of his horrible argyle sweater-vests, he’s not exactly the kind of guy I’d typically hang out with. But he’s a decent fella, as far as bosses go.

  Except for the fact that he was in my dining room, and no one had opened the front door for him.

  “Morning, Ing,” I said. “How’d you get in?”

  He smiled. “The Netherworld Protectorate owns this house. We have keys.”

  That wasn’t going to cut it with me.

  “Mister, my wife and daughter live here,” I said. “I can’t allow someone to just come strolling in anytime they like.”

  “Hey,” Luke said, pretending I’d hurt his feelings, “what about Bo and I? Don’t we need protecting? Only protecting the women-folk is sexist, Pa. We learned about the patriarchy in school.”

  That damn boy and his smart mouth. I gave him a warning glance.

  “Luke, you’d best not step into something you can’t finish. Because I’ll finish it right here with everyone watching.”

  The smile faded from his face. “Sorry, Pa.”

  I kept my eyes on him until he looked down, then I turned my attention to my boss.

  “Ing, I want them keys.”

  “I’m hardly going to harm your family, Hunter.”

  “Probably not. But if you got the keys, that means someone else can take them from you.” I held out my hand. “Give ‘em up.”

  “I came to talk about an urgent matter,” Yngve said. “We can discuss the keys later.”

  I curled my fingers inward. “Give ‘em up or turn your ass around and walk out, then you can handle your urgent matter your own damn self.”

  Yngve sighed. “And here I’d heard so much about southern hospitality.”

  “Back home we call what you did trespassing,” I said. “Want to find out how we handle that down south?”

  “I most certainly do not.”

  He handed me the keys.

  I’d lost my temper a bit. Not that it wasn’t justified—I don’t think you’d like it much if the middle-aged man your daughter moons over had a set of keys to your house and could stroll in anytime he liked—but I dialed my anger back down.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I assume you’re bringing word about the new fault? Y’all find it yet?”

  Yngve started to answer, but Betty Lou spoke first.

  “Speaking of southern hospitality, Mister Sjoelset, would you like to join us for breakfast? We have plenty.”

  Ing flashed a smile that seemed well-practiced.

  “I’ve already eaten, thank you. But I’ll sit with you and tell you what we’re facing.”

  Sunshine stood up, all doe-eyed and eager.

  “How about some coffee, Mister Sjoelset?”

  She pronounced it perfectly. I’ve always said my kids are smarter than I am, they just don’t know as much as I do. Yet.

  “Thank you, Sunshine,” Yngve said. He smiled at her in a way I wish he wouldn’t. “That would be delightful.”

  Sunshine scurried off to the kitchen. Betty Lou and I shared a glance, the unspoken communication of parents—we’d both keep an eye on Yngve when Sunshine was around. Just in case.

  He sat next to Luke, which put him across the table from me.

  “So, that fault,” I said. “Your people find it yet?”

  Fault lines are tears between planes of existence. They allow some supernatch to enter the physical plane. The Slayerville fault is the biggest in the world, with so many fissures and facets we can’t even find them all. We don’t know how faults start, but once they come into existence, they grow. If you find them early enough, you can close them with a simple spell. Betty Lou’s done that at least a dozen times. If you don’t find them early enough, though, if they get too big, then you can’t close them at all.

  “I’m afraid we’ve found nothing,” Yngve said.

  Not the news I’d wanted to hear.

  “Charting sightings and appearances of paranormal activity indicates the fault is in San Francisco proper,” he said. “That helps, but it is still a large area.”

  “Forty-six point-nine square miles,” Luke said.

  Yngve smiled at him. “Very good, young man.”

  Luke grinned. Sunshine wasn’t the only one who enjoyed being on Yngve’s good side.

  “We think it’s been open for a year or more,” Yngve said. “Only in the last few months has it opened wide enough for the non-living to come through.”

  “Well, last night, we were up late fighting a psychopathic, one-legged umbrella,” I said. “The bigger the fault
gets, the badder the things what come out of it.”

  Yngve nodded solemnly.

  “We’re doing the best we can,” he said. “We have to narrow down the search, somehow. But that’s not why I’m here. We have a situation—there is evidence that a group is trying to influence the election of the President of the United States.”

  “Gotta be those commie reds,” Betty Lou said. “It’s the Russians, isn’t it? We should have whooped Putin’s ass a long time ago if you ask me.”

  Yngve shook his head. “I wish. It’s not the Russians who are trying to influence the election—it’s Hell. In particular, a demon named Buer.”

  The name meant nothing to me, but Luke perked up, a forkful of ham almost to his mouth.

  “Buer? The President of Hell?”

  “One of them,” Yngve said.

  I looked from my boss to my son.

  “There’s more than one president of Hell?”

  “Twelve,” Luke said, instantly. “Depending on how you count.”

  Sometimes—most times, even—I appreciated the fact that my youngest son was smarter than I was. Other times, I found his knowledge a little annoying, particularly when my lack of knowledge made me feel like a dummy.

  “How can there be twelve presidents of Hell?” I asked.

  Luke had forgotten his forkful of ham. The pinkish meat bounced in time with his excited motions.

  “Pa, there’s 196 countries in the world right now, each one with its own leader. Around 150 billion people have died on this planet, in total. If even ten percent of them went to Hell, we’re talking fifteen billion souls in Hell. So, if there’s almost two hundred nations in a world with seven billion living souls, seems to make sense Hell might have room for more than one president.”

  My son’s estimate that a mere ten percent of people went to Hell was the kind of optimism only the youth can show.