Heaven Help Us (Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Book 7)

by John G. Hartness

  "See," Buprof said, "it's not safe around here. You should go." He glared down at Watson, and I would have sworn I saw a yellow gleam in his eyes. Was everybody in Homeland Security a demon? I could believe it about the TSA, but this was more than I was expecting.

  Watson didn't bite. He didn't lose his cool, although anger flashed across his face so fast I almost didn't believe I saw it. He simply stood up, dusted off his pants, and looked at Buprof with the disappointed gaze of someone dealing with a particularly stubborn child. I knew that look well. After all, I was dating Quincy Harker.

  "I'm not leaving. In fact, you are," Watson said, stepping up to just inside the boundaries of polite distance from Buprof. "We have a right to be here, and you are outside your jurisdiction. We have clearance from Captain Herr to look over the wreckage and remove anything of value before it is stolen, so long as Detective Flynn ensures that we do not compromise the police department's evidence gathering. Here is the notice to that effect." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  Buprof glared at him, then held out his hand. Watson handed him the paper, Buprof read it over once, then passed it back to him. "Fine, but be quick about it. I'll give my team their lunch break, but you'd better be gone by the time they get back. And I'll be watching you personally."

  "So long as you watch us from the seat of your vehicle, that will be fine," Watson said, tucking the paper back into his coat.

  Buprof stomped off, yelling at his team to clear out for thirty minutes. Watson turned to me. "Do you have any idea what they would be looking for?" he asked. His eyes were a little wild and there was a hint of sweat on his upper lip. He looked decidedly un-British.

  "No clue. Good thing we've got some time," I replied.

  "We probably don't have that much time," Watson said.

  "Why not?"

  "That letter was somewhat less than genuine," he said. "I might have printed it at Harker's condominium and signed your captain's name myself."

  "You forged my boss's signature? On a document you gave to a Deputy Director of Homeland Security?" I shook my head. "You're all insane. Every single one of you. It's not just Gabby and Harker, you're all nuts. What does it say for your organization when the vampire is the least crazy one of you?"

  "That we picked the right vampire?" Watson gave me a rakish grin. "Now, about that searching..."

  "I'll take care of that," Mort said. "Whatever that little piece of Pit trash was looking for, I should be able to sense it as easily as he could." Mort started walking toward the rubble, but I grabbed his arm.

  "Slow down, there, Speed Racer," I said. "At least keep your eyes open. Luke didn't have any real idea what Buprof was looking for, but that doesn't mean it's not hidden in some trapped chest or something."

  "What do you think this is, Detective? A computer game? Most magical artifacts require activation. It's unlikely that the Count ever realized the true power of the item he possessed, since he has no magical affinity. I would expect it to be something triggered or activated by the ritual that Agent Smith was trying to complete before our dear Mr. Harker interrupted him."

  "Then it would be over there." I pointed in the general direction of the front rooms of the house. I didn't know exactly where in Luke's place the ritual had happened, but I knew roughly where the explosion emanated from. I followed Mort to the piles of debris that used to make up Luke's house, picking my way through the still-smoking wreckage.

  Mort motioned me back, and I stopped at the edge of what used to be the house. Mort walked farther, stopping every now and again to kick aside a chunk of rock, or to lift a section of wall and peer beneath it. He always put everything back exactly where he found it, taking a lot of photos with his phone, furthering our ruse of documenting all this rubble for insurance.

  After several long minutes, Mort stopped and turned to me. "You should come over here, Detective."

  I did, trying not to turn an ankle and bust my ass on the treacherous footing. "What is it, Mort?"

  "I believe this to be either your friend or the former Agent Smith." He pointed to a large slab of wood that looked like the underside of Luke's gargantuan dining room table. I could just see what looked like a finger sticking out from under it. "I wished to give you the opportunity to say goodbye if that is something you desire. I understand that is something that humans do."

  "Thanks, Mort." I didn't want to see Renfield's body under that table, and didn't know if I wanted to see Smith's either. I wasn't sure if I would spit on him or kick his corpse, and just thinking about poor Ren made me well up a little. "I think I probably shouldn't disturb the body, though," I said, stepping back.

  Mort looked at me, momentarily puzzled, then nodded. "As you wish, Detective." His oddly formal cadence was somehow reassuring. I think it would have bothered me if he just behaved like everything was normal. This proper speech pattern, while unusual, gave me something else to focus on instead of what might be my dead friend's body beneath a few inches of oak.

  He leaned over and picked up the table, swinging it up on one end with no apparent effort, even though I knew that table weighed several hundred pounds. I couldn't help myself, I looked at the body beneath it.

  It was Renfield. He was face down, thankfully, but I recognized his trim form instantly. He still wore his black dress pants and the burgundy cardigan that was his favorite item of clothing for relaxing after work, protected from the worst of the fire by the heavy table, which was too thick and treated to burn easily. One bedroom slipper hung from his left foot, with only a tattered sock on his right. I had a sudden urge to find his other shoe and put it on him. It just seemed too un-Renfield to be seen with only one shoe, even in death. I blinked back tears, then started as Mort pushed the table away to crash amidst the rubble.

  "What the hell, Mort?" I exclaimed, almost falling but catching myself on a jagged chunk of wall that still stood.

  "I believe this is what your Director Buprof was looking for, Detective." He bent over and pulled a sword in a battered scabbard from underneath Ren's body. It looked old, and dirty as hell, with some scorch marks, but since everything I knew about swords began and ended with "put the pointy end in the bad guy," that was all I could see.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "It is a sword, Detective. They are implements of war, used in combat since time immemorial."

  "I know it's a sword, Mort. What I don't know is why Buprof would want it."

  "And you don't need to know, Flynn. All you need to know is that you're lucky I don't have you fucking sent to Gitmo after the stunt you and your limey bastard lawyer just pulled. This letter is a fake as his leg, you traitorous bitch. How dare you come in here and interrupt my investigation into the murder of a federal agent. John Smith was my friend, he was a loyal agent, and he was—"

  "He was a demon, you pitchfork slinging pit monkey," said Glory, who appeared out of nowhere at my left elbow and stepped between me and Buprof. "I know what you are, and I know you're out of your depth here. You don't have any real juice, imp. You're just making this all up as you go along. Well, you stepped in it now because the Host knows what you're trying to pull, and they aren't happy. Now why don't you crawl back into whatever burning craphole you slithered out of and leave Detective Flynn alone?"

  I shrank back in horror as Buprof underwent a complete transformation before my eyes. The portly, tight-assed Deputy Director and shrieking functionary vanished as a nasty smile crept across his face. Buprof's face reddened even further, until his skin was a dark crimson, and his eyes went yellow, with vertical slits for pupils. He opened his mouth in a wide grin, and I saw a double row of pointed teeth in his now fully revealed demonic face. He held the grin and let his true face shine through for a few interminable seconds, then slammed his disguise back into place before he spoke.

  "The Host? You think I'm afraid of the Host? You're more even more deluded than you are sanctimonious, you bitch. The Host aren't going to stop us, the Host..." He cu
t himself off short, then gave Glory a sneer promising a host of terrible things.

  "Never mind the Host. They aren't a problem. You are. You're not just pissing me off, you're interfering with a federal investigation, and I want you to get the fuck out of here before I throw every last one of you under the nearest jail." Buprof was back in bureaucrat mode, and I think I liked the demon more.

  "Try it." Mort's voice was cold, and my hand dropped back to the butt of my gun. I felt goosebumps crawl up my arms, and I suddenly wanted to be anywhere else in the absolute worst way.

  "Mortivoid, how absolutely fucking typical," Buprof said with a wide smile, turning his attention to Mort for the first time since we arrived. "How's the family?"

  Mort shoved me to the side as he went at Buprof, and it was only Glory's quick reflexes that kept me from crashing to the ground. I guess there's some value in having a guardian angel after all. Tossing the sword aside, Mort tackled the burly agent around the midsection and drove him to the ground. The two rolled around in the dirt and wreckage for a few seconds before I drew my Sig and fired a single round into the dirt beside the two wrestling demons. Mort and Buprof separated, both clambering to their feet to stare at me.

  "Cut the shit, you two, unless you want the only real human Homeland agent in the state to wonder why you two are rolling around in the dirt like pissed-off kindergarteners.” Buprof threw a nervous glance at one of the nearby Suburbans, confirming that not every Homeland Security agent in the state was an escaped demon.

  The Deputy Director Demon got up and dusted himself off, then stepped up to Mort again. "I will give you but one warning, Mortivoid. Leave. This does not concern you. The Legions have ignored your dalliances with mortals for far too long, and they are no longer inclined to do so. Interference with our plans here will not be looked upon favorably."

  "Murdering my daughter is not looked upon favorably either, Burferon. So tell your superior, whoever he is, that he has made a powerful enemy. I will see someone suffer for what happened to Christy, and I spent enough time in the Pits to know suffering. Intimately." Mort picked up the discarded sword from the rubble and wrapped his hand around the scabbard, preparing to draw it.

  Buprof's face went ghost-white as his eyes locked on the weapon in Mort's hand, and his bottom lip started to quiver.

  "Count yourselves fortunate. I have to go. There's...something I must attend to." He turned around and hurried off, looking for all the world like something scared the crap out of him, rather than him being scariest thing in the area. Within half a minute, he was tearing away from the house in a black Suburban with a dozen agents loading all their gear into matching SUVs and rolling in his wake.

  "What the hell was that all about?" I turned to Glory, who shrugged.

  "Can't say," the angel replied.

  "Can’t, or won't?" I asked. I was still pissed at her for holding back information that might have wrapped up our investigation earlier, and maybe kept Renfield alive, and here she was doing it again.

  "Does it matter, Detective? If I can't, I won't. And if I won't, I won't. So the two words are interchangeable in this case, aren't they?" If all angels were like this, I was beginning to understand why Harker enjoyed being a sinner so much.

  "Whatever." I turned to Watson and Mort. "Judging from his hasty retreat, that might be exactly what he was looking for." I pointed at the sword in Mort's hand.

  "I knew that from the moment I picked it up. Now please take this blessed thing." He held the sword out to me.

  I stared at it, not terribly interested in holding something that made Mort nervous and sent Buprof running for the hills. "Why me?"

  "It doesn't have to be you. It can be the angel, it can be the cripple, I don't care," Mort said, and his voice crept high with pain. "But I have to put this piece of hallowed tin down before it sets me alight like a candle!"

  I took the sword. I didn't feel anything weird about it, but the way Mort sighed with relief, you would have thought he was sunburned and I just dropped him in a vat of aloe. "What's wrong with you, Mort?" I asked.

  "The sword," he grumbled, rubbing one hand with the other as if to restore feeling in it. "It burns me. It must be blessed or divine in some way. It hurts to touch it."

  "You didn't appear to be in any pain when you were confronting Director Buprof," Watson said, stepping up beside Mort, gingerly picking his way across the rubble.

  "I was raised in the Pits, Mr. Watson. You learn at a very young age to hide pain. Or not. If you choose not, you don't get to an old age. So I didn't let on that I was being cooked from the inside out."

  "Probably a good idea," I said. "Glory, you want to shed any light on the origin of this little pigsticker?"

  The angel looked at me, then shook her head. "I'd love to, Rebecca, but..."

  "You can't," I finished the sentence for her.

  "Exactly."

  "Some help you are."

  "We all have rules, Detective. Even angels."

  "I don't," Mort said.

  "Say that in the presence of the Morningstar," Glory countered.

  "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not," Mort demurred.

  I sighed. "If you two are done debating theology, can we get back to the house and see if anyone knows anything about this damn sword?"

  "A lovely idea, Detective. Shall I drive?" Watson asked.

  "Do what you like, I’m not riding with you,” I said, striding back to Mort’s Harley. “You still haven’t figured out which side of the road you want to play on!”

  11

  "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here?" spat the woman standing in "my" classroom at nine o'clock on a crisp fall Friday night. I decided that I liked her, despite her alarming tendency to throw fireballs first and ask questions later. Throw enough f-bombs around, and I'll probably get on board with what you're saying. What can I say? I appreciate a good poetic rhythm to swearing.

  "I'm Quincy Harker. I hunt demons. I'm here because somebody is calling up nasty shit around here and turning it loose on kids. That's not cool." It was more the summoning demons thing and less the siccing demons on teenagers thing that had me concerned. I think most teenagers are assholes that would benefit from a little up-close time with a good old-fashioned Pit Lord or even a run of the mill Torment Demon.

  "You're a demon hunter?" She looked dubious.

  "Yup." I honestly didn't give a fuck if she believed me or not. I just didn't want to kill her if she turned out to be one of the good guys. My soul had enough black marks on it already.

  "Prove it." She wasn't throwing fireballs anymore, which was good. She was just standing in the fourth row of desks staring at me with her arms folded across her chest.

  "No." I stopped proving shit to people after World War II. If there's one thing I picked up from Luke, and frankly there are many, it's that being the oldest person in your zip code means you don't have to answer to anybody.

  "Why not?"

  "It's not a fucking parlor trick, lady. It's what I do. Take it or leave it, it's the truth. You don't believe it, I don't care. But you start flinging those little fireballs at me again, I'm going to blast a hole in your ass big enough to drive a truck through, and fuck the cleanup crew."

  I could almost see the wheels turning behind her eyes. She looked me up and down a couple of times, then finally nodded at me. "Don't you want to know who I am and what I'm doing here?"

  I cocked my head to the side. It looked like she'd come to a decision, but I wanted to confirm it before we moved into the "getting to know you" part of the evening. "Are we gonna fight some more?"

  "I'm not planning on it."

  "Then sure, go ahead." If I didn't have to kill her, then I didn't mind learning who she was. If I was just gonna have to hide the body, then it didn't matter.

  "I'm a witch."

  "No shit, Sherlock." I got to know Holmes briefly before he died. Fun guy, but he fucking hated that phrase. So, of course, I used it every chance I got aro
und him. Made me almost misty-eyed thinking about it now. Nah, not really.

  She held up a hand at me, so I held off on any more smartass comments. "Let me try that again. My name is Beth Kirkland. I teach English here. And I'm a witch."

  "Good to meet you, Ms. Kirkland. At least while I'm here, I'm Harold Quinn. I'm filling in for Coach Karan, who is unexpectedly absent for an unspecified time."

  "And I suppose you know nothing about that?" She gave me one of those looks that says "fill in the blanks."

  I was feeling charitable, so I figured I'd give her a little more rope to hang me with. "I don't know anything about Coach Karan actually being a demon and getting tossed back into Hell, that's correct."

  "I never liked that son of a bitch."

  "Me neither." I don't like demons as a rule, and I certainly don't like the ones that try to kill me.

  "But if Karan was the demon, why are you still here, Mr. Demon Hunter?"

  "I said he was a demon. I never said he was the demon, Ms. English Teacher. He wasn't strong enough to juice up a whole football team, even if everyone on the coaching staff was a demonic minion. Which they aren't, by the way."

  "I know. I cast a divining spell on them during last week's game. Only some of the coaches are demons. There are a few that are completely human, except for one latent wizard and one werewolf."

  "Rocco," I said.

  "Yes," she agreed. "A perfect job for a wolf, a strength coach for a high school. Lets him get his natural aggression out lifting weights all the time, and gives him another pack to be part of."

  "You teach sociology, too?"

  "Minored in anthropology. I spent a lot of time focusing on Xeno-Anthropology at Notre Dame."

  Now it was my turn to fold my arms over my chest and raise an eyebrow. "Exorcist?"