Let's Scrooge

by R. L. Caulder

  “This guy’s a real asshole,” Flint grunts from behind me. “Can’t we just pretend we got here five minutes late?”

  The guy’s eyes jerk over my shoulder, and he sneers. “What’s this? Your backup? Just like a chick to need a man to fight her battles. Not that he looks like much of a man. Why are you so pretty, pretty boy? You trying to pick up dudes?”

  “We could just go back to the start of the alley and walk really, really slowly,” Flint suggests, completely unfazed by the other man’s words. “It could be our gift for the holidays.”

  “Listen to your pretty boy, girl,” the guy grabs his belt and gives it a manly tug. “Let adults do adult things.”

  “I’m honestly regretting saving your ass.” I gesture with the baton. “Step aside, asshole.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” He takes a threatening step toward me. “Get lost!”

  Behind him, the drunk girl straightens, her legs and arms lengthening with little pops as she grows more joints. She reaches up with one claw-filled hand and pulls off her human face to reveal a maw filled with sharp, pointed teeth.

  I point my baton at her. “Stop, or I will stop you.”

  “He is a monster,” she hisses, the sound coming from the vicinity of her stomach. “Listen to your partner and go back to the beginning of the alley.”

  The guy whips around and lets out a high-pitched shriek as he falls on his ass. “What the fuck is that?”

  “That there is revenge,” Flint calls happily. “You took advantage of the wrong drunk girl, and this is her response, asshole.”

  The boogeyman takes a step toward the fallen man, her gate disjointed as she continues to expand. Her blond wig falls away, and limp, greasy black hair spills over her shoulders. Her cute party dress tears at the seams and floats down to the ground of the filthy alley, revealing a second mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth in her stomach.

  As the guy whimpers and pisses himself, I step between him and the boogeyman. “I said stop.”

  “He is filth, and I was called to deal with him,” the demon hisses. “His organs belong to me as payment.”

  I don’t move from where I stand. “I’ll get you some other organs. But you can’t kill this man.”

  “He will do this again.” The boogeyman clacks her claws together. “Better to kill him now.”

  “I kind of agree, boss,” Flint calls from his spot of safety. “Scum like this doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “That’s for humans to decide.” I lift my baton in warning. “If you kill him, I have to take you down. But if you let him live, I’ll just escort you back across the veil. It’s up to you, but be warned, that man right there”—I point to Flint—“will make sure when I kill you, you will stay dead. No going back to the demon plane. You’ll just be gone. So, choose wisely.”

  She hisses at me, a weird, dual-tone that grates on my eardrums. “Then, I will kill you, too.”

  The sound of a shotgun cocking comes from the other end of the alley. “I’d rethink that decision, if I were you.” Marc’s boots thunk against the concrete as he walks forward, his shotgun leveled on the demon’s abdomen. “I’m loaded with thistle and salt. It will hurt.”

  The boogeyman hisses and backs into the corner created by the dumpster. “Vigilante scum.”

  “Put your mask back on so we can escort you out of here,” I tell her.

  Slowly, the demon’s joints condense until she once more looks human-sized, if not human. She bends and picks her face up off the ground, giving it a perfunctory shake before slapping it back on. Flint passes her his jacket to hide the mouth in her stomach, and she glares as she pulls it on.

  “What about him?” Marc asks, gesturing to the piss covered piece of shit still cowering on the ground.

  I step back a pace to keep one eye on the boogeyman while I study the man. He really is filth, in more ways than one, but humans aren’t our job. “Leave him.”

  “What if he talks?” Marc grunts.

  I give the man a dispassionate stare. “He’s a dunk. No one will listen.”

  Marc nods, steps over his body, then motions with his shotgun for the demon to start walking.

  The two head for the street ahead of us to where our van waits.

  “Fucking freaks,” the guy on the ground moans.

  With a flick of my wrist, I crack him on the side of the head with my baton, and he thumps to the ground, unconscious.

  “Thank goodness. I thought I was going to have to do that myself.” Flint fusses with his vest, checking for dirt. “Think there are any other demons around who might be hungry?”

  “If there are, that’s not our concern.” I collapse my baton and slip it back into its holster. “Let’s go before the access point to the demon plane shifts, and we have to find it again.”

  Chapter 2

  TERROR FROM BENEATH

  The boogeyman hisses and grumbles the entire ride out of town. She’s safely locked behind the spelled bars that separate the front of the van from the back, and she won’t be let out until we’re at the delivery location.

  In the driver’s seat, Marc turns up the radio. “We could have at least been hunting krampuses tonight. At least, then, we’d have been saving children.”

  I scoot lower in my seat to prop my feet on the dashboard. “This was a favor. The girl’s mentor wanted her back whole. She’s only a kid.”

  The hissing cuts off, and the demon bangs her fist against the metal grate. “I am not a kid! Did Nickodemus seriously send you? Is that why you came after me?”

  Flint twists in the center seat to stare back at her. “How old are you?”

  “Two-hundred!” She bangs her fist against the grate again. “That over-protective asshole! This was my first outing!”

  “Maybe he didn’t want you tainting yourself with that asshole’s organs?” Flint offers with a smile. “Try the stuff in the bucket. It’s nice and fresh.”

  “Animal organs,” the demon hisses, but by the sound of plastic dragging over metal, she decided to finally investigate our offering. “Human is better.”

  “How do you know?” Curiosity fills Flint’s voice.

  Frowning, I nudge him to shut up.

  He turns wide, innocent eyes on me. “What? I’m just asking.”

  “Well, I don’t really know.” Meaty slurps come from the back. “But all the other boogeymen say human is better. I want to try them.”

  “Then wait another hundred years until you fully mature.” I rest my head against the cold glass of the window. “Kids are in too much of a rush these days. You don’t even have your third set of teeth, yet.”

  “Like I need three sets of teeth for scum like that human.” The slurping cuts off, and the grate rattles once more. “Hey, why do you let monsters like that live?”

  I close my eyes. “Because the humans are good at tracking their own. His disappearance would have been noticed.”

  “We don’t care about being tracked. We can just go back to the demon plane when the killing is over.” The slurping resumes. “You know, the girl who opened the gate for me? She’ll try again. Someone else will answer her call. You should have just let me kill him before he hurts another woman.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re going to give us her address before we hand you back over to Nickodemus,” Marc grunts. “There’s too much media. If she keeps summoning boogeymen, someone is eventually going to catch it on tape and expose demons to the human world.”

  “Good,” she grunts. “Down with the system.”

  Demons are careful about keeping themselves hidden from humans. After the last great war that destroyed the demon plane, a law was passed to let demonkind fade out of human memory.

  But humans continue to be persistent, and modern media isn’t helping. Humans even make monsters of their own, now. The imagination is a scary thing, and with enough humans putting energy into the same idea, they can make it a reality.

  It’s only a matter of time before they r
ealize the paranormal exists alongside them. Then, there will probably be another war.

  In the meantime, there are those out there tasked with eliminating security risks.

  “Hush,” I murmur, my eyes slitting open to look at Marc. “Don’t let others hear you saying that.”

  “Why? None of you are demons.” Then, her voice nears, and a quick check of the rearview mirror shows her pressed up against the grate, her long fingers poking through. “Wait. Are you? Shotgun guy, you smell human, but maybe you’re not? You got a rider inside you? Someone the council would want to know about?”

  “How about you go back to eating your organs and shut up,” Marc growls.

  A high-pitched titter fills the back of the van. “Oh, what is it? Let it out to play. I want to see.”

  In answer, Marc reaches out and cranks the music louder to drown her out, and Flint starts singing along rather badly.

  I pull earplugs from my pocket and pop them in, muffling the noise.

  Another hour passes before Marc pulls off the highway and follows the road to a state park. A little booth with a bar across the road informs visitors it’s closed for the winter, but Marc just steers the van off the paved path and drives on the grass until we’re past it before steering us back onto solid ground.

  The pavement soon turns to gravel, then dirt, and Marc turns on the brights, flooding the surrounding trees with light. I roll down my window a crack, letting in the scent of winter and forest to drown out the metallic tang of the boogeyman’s meal.

  We’ll have to hose out and bleach the back of the van when we get home, a task I don’t look forward to.

  At last, we come to a stop in a clearing filled with dead leaves and the beginnings of frost. By now, it’s almost three in the morning, and once Marc turns off the engine, a quiet shush settles around us.

  We climb out, frozen leaves crunching underfoot, and walk to the center of the clearing, where a slight haze in the air reveals the access point.

  Little pockets like this exist around the world, thin points in the barrier that separates the human plane from the demon one. It’s how people mysteriously vanish while hiking in the woods, only to return in different areas, if they return at all. The demon plane isn’t exactly hospitable, even to those who were born there.

  The problem is that they move around, which makes finding them annoying. This one has been here for about three months now, which means it will vanish soon.

  Flint hops up and down while chafing his arms. “Hurry. I’m freezing my balls off here.”

  “Then you should stay in the van.” Marc stomps forward, the humanity bleeding from his eyes to be replaced by something dark and ancient.

  He lifts his hand, his fingers hooked like claws, and rakes them through the shimmer in the air. Tears form in the air, allowing a warm, sulfur laden breeze to escape from the other side of reality. Then, the gaps widen, and muted red light spills out into the night. Which isn’t to say that Marc cut a hole into hell or anything. No matter what human religion says, demons don’t live in hell. At least, not the kind found in human religion.

  No, the wasteland revealed by the tears in reality is all the result of humans who destroyed most of the demon plane, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind. And the death continues to spread every year. Soon, even the protected oasis of the demon citadel will fall, and only the demons who feed on other demons will remain.

  Flint steps into the steady breeze that comes through the opening and lets out a relieved sigh. “That’s more like it.”

  Marc peers through the gap. “Where’s your contact, Pen?”

  I shrug and stay where I am, well away from the opening. “He’ll be here.”

  Marc checks his watch. “What if there was a time slide since you talked to him?”

  That’s the other problem with the demon plane. Time goes wonky over there. “Give him twenty minutes, then we just toss the boogeyman into the wasteland and let her fend for herself.”

  A loud shriek sounds from within the demon plane, followed by another, and Marc looks back at me. “The portal is drawing the attention of the akuzal. We might not have even five minutes.”

  In the distance, a dark shape streaks across the wasteland, followed by another. Akuzal are dumb, vicious demons, driven only by hunger for energy.

  I look at Marc. “We give him until three-thirty to arrive.”

  “This kind of mission isn’t worth the headache.” Marc stomps back to the van and grabs his shotgun from under the seats, loading it with new rounds.

  Akuzal don’t need anything fancy to take them down. Just a large enough gauge round to take out their heart and spine. Once their physical form is taken down, their brethren will take care of their core energy.

  Marc stomps back and points the barrel at the opening, his eyes human once more.

  I blow out a steady breath, glad to have him back in possession of his body. When his demon takes over, he starts to think he’s the one calling the shots.

  Another screech sounds from the right of the opening, and Marc steps to the side, his hands steady on his weapon.

  “Maybe I will go back to the van,” Flint says as he pulls out a revolver from the holster on his shoulder. “I’m not sure I want to spend Christmas being torn apart.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything get you,” I murmur.

  He takes up position behind me. “Because I’m your favorite, right?”

  “Hmm,” I answer noncommittally.

  The ground in front of the opening heaves, and Marc takes a step back, his shotgun swinging down toward the more immediate danger. Then a hand thrusts through the dried cracks in the earth, followed by elbows, more elbows, another set of elbows, then a head with a gaping maw of teeth.

  The muzzle of Marc’s shotgun doesn’t waver. “This your contact?”

  “Yep.” I give Nickodemus a bow of respect. “Welcome, Terror From Beneath.”

  Chapter 3

  FREE FALLING

  “I vote for tomorrow to be a pajama day,” Flint announces as we head back for town.

  Nickodemus had had little trouble forcing his apprentice to cough up the address of her summoner before dragging his protesting charge out of the back of the van and stuffing her down the hole he had crawled out of.

  He had even registered credits at the Demon Clerk’s office for us to use if we ever have to pay a blood debt. It’s not the same as real, hard cash, but demons like Nickodemus don’t come to the human plane often, and never for something as benign as a job.

  Flint elbows me in the side. “We can go chastise the summoner after Christmas, right? It’s not like she’ll know the creep’s not dead right away.”

  When I turn to level a stare on him, he pouts prettily, which gets him nowhere in my book.

  “Can’t risk it,” Marc grunts, his eyes focused on the dark road ahead of us. “What if something answers that she can’t control next time? You want her death on your hands just because you needed your nappies?”

  Flint twists to glare at him. “It’s four-thirty in the fucking morning. I’m not a night owl like you. I should have been asleep five hours ago.”

  Marc lifts a knuckle to his eye and wipes away an imaginary tear.

  I reach out to lay my hand on Flint’s thigh. “We finish this now, and tomorrow, we’ll have all the pajama time, okay?”

  “Matching pajamas?” he presses, and Marc lets out a beleaguered sigh.

  I nod in agreement. “You can even choose the set.”

  Flint’s eyes sparkle with renewed energy. “Reindeer penguins. No, wait, mistletoe llamas!”

  Marc swears under his breath but doesn’t refuse. Flint has given us matching pajamas every year for Christmas since we founded our company. It started out as a joke, but now, it’s something to look forward to as we all wonder when companies will run out of horrible holiday designs for Flint to buy.

  So far, he’s managed to find something new and horrifying every year, and every year, w
e put them on to make him happy.

  Flint straightens to sudden alertness. “Cactus Santa!”

  I smile at his enthusiasm. “Is that your final choice?”

  He bites his lip, giving the question serious thought.

  Marcus swears, louder this time and with real anger before he spits out, “We have company.”

  Flint and I twist to stare through the window at the far back of the van. A pair of headlights follow us a few car lengths back, which wouldn’t be suspicious if it weren’t at that weird time in the morning that’s too late for people coming home from parties and too early for those going into work. Especially with it being Christmas morning and us on the outskirts of the city, with the next major town miles behind us.

  “Are you sure they’re here for us?” Flint asks.

  “That’s an undercover police car.” Marc’s hands tighten on the steering wheel as his eyes jump from the road to the speedometer. “I’m not breaking any laws, so maybe they’ll pass once we get into the city.”

  Flint squints through the other car’s bright headlights. “How do you know? I can’t see anything past the light.”

  “Shape of the headlights.” Marc’s thumbs drum against the steering wheel. “I can try to outrun them.”

  Flint twists back around to gape at him. “That will make us look way too suspicious.”

  Marc’s eyes flick to him then back to the road. “We have a cage filled with blood and organs in the back. If we get pulled over, we’re going to jail until they figure out it’s animal guts, which could take all day. Then, we’re going to get a shit ton of citations for improper disposal.”

  “This is why we shouldn’t take jobs on Christmas,” Flint seethes as he hunches lower in his seat. “We could be safe at home right now and one less dirtbag would be in this world. Tell me how this is making the world better.”

  “His previous victim won’t have a murder on her conscience,” I murmur, though I have to agree with him.

  If I’d known the details before I took Nickodemus’s request, I might have declined picking up that call. I’d far rather be having a pajama party right now than sitting here in a van that stinks of slowly rotting organs and blood.