Devil Inside: A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Urban Fantasy Novella

by John G. Hartness

  “Will do, Bob,” I said, holding up a hand to stop traffic as I opened the driver’s door. A horn blared from a Mercedes SUV as a little blonde realtor or soccer mom rolled right up to me before stopping. I drew the Glock 9mm from my hip and leveled it at the woman, whose eyes went wide. Her head whipped from side to side as she looked for an escape, but there were cars stacked up behind her.

  I walked around to the driver’s window, gun still trained on her. I motioned for her to roll down the window, and she actually did it. I will never understand people. I leaned in the open window, pistol just kinda casually pointing in her general direction.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I said. “You shouldn’t honk your horn at people. It’s not polite. There are people who would respond very poorly to such bad manners.”

  She stared at me and nodded silently.

  “I’m not one of those people, so I’m not going to paint the ceiling of your car with what little brains are rattling around in that fucking head of yours. Let’s just consider this a friendly reminder to be considerate of others while driving. Sound good?”

  She nodded again. She still hadn’t said a word, which was probably good. I wouldn’t have shot her. Probably. But I might have turned her into a toad.

  I walked back to my car, holstered the gun, and got behind the wheel. Mitch sat in the passenger seat looking at me. “That was kinda mean, don’t you think?”

  “You’re the angel, pal. Not me,” I said as I put the car in drive and pulled out of the passenger pickup line, heading for the airport exit and downtown.

  Half an hour later, I walked into my apartment with an angel in tow. Another one. There were getting to be entirely too many heavenly bodies living in my building. “You can throw your bag in a corner. You’ll be crashing in one of the apartments down the hall.”

  “You own the floor?” Mitch asked.

  “I own the building,” I said, going to the fridge. “You want a beer?”

  “Dude, it’s seven a.m.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I put the beers back in the fridge and pulled out the orange juice. I poured two healthy glasses of orange juice, carried them over to the bar, and topped them off with a couple shots each of Grey Goose. A few seconds with a stir stick, and I carried the drinks to the sofas. I passed one to Mitch and sat down on the couch across from him. He laughed a little and held up his glass to me.

  We sipped our orange juice for a minute, then I asked, “So, you’re an Archangel, huh?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Man, I don’t know.” He took a big drink of his screwdriver. It’s one of the reasons I poured us each a stiff drink. One, because I hate getting up in the morning, and two, because I thought it might loosen our boy up a touch.

  “I know that stupid sword starts flaming like a Lady Gaga backup dancer whenever I touch it. I know the demon back in Phoenix sure thought I was special. Other than that, I don’t know shit. I poke and prod at my memory, but it only goes back about three years. I remember working construction for a while, fighting at night, then fighting full time, but nothing further back than that.”

  “Do all your memories involve Phoenix?”

  “Yeah. Literally the first thing I can remember is walking out of the desert, sunburned as fuck and hungry as hell, wandering up to a dude with a taco truck, and collapsing before I could even order. I woke up with a Mexican dude splashing water on my face and a crowd looking on. Some chick bought me a burrito and a Coke, some dude gave me twenty bucks, and that’s the first memory I have.”

  “Interesting,” I said. I had no idea what it meant, but his memories coincided with the time I started working with Flynn and the former Agent John Smith. “What do you think, Becks?” I asked the woman standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

  Rebecca stood there, shoes in one hand and her Sig in the other, glowering at me. “I think I want to know about it when you’re bringing strange men into the apartment while I’m in the shower. What if I had walked out here naked?” She wasn’t naked now, but she looked good nonetheless. A pair of gray slacks and a burgundy blouse outlined her athletic figure, and her long brown hair was down, hanging past her shoulders.

  “Our mornings would have been dramatically improved,” I said. She didn’t smile, but I felt a pleased little glow down the mental link we shared. I got up and walked over to kiss her, but she put a hand on my chest.

  “Not this morning, Harker. You smell like vodka, and I’m going back for my first day on duty after being a murder suspect. I’d rather not show up reeking of cheap booze.” She walked over to the couch and held out her hand to Mitch. “Rebecca Flynn. I’m Harker’s…girlfriend. I’m also a detective with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.”

  “Girlfriend?” I asked. I’d offered Becks a ring a few months back. She hadn’t returned it, but she hadn’t put it on her hand yet, either. We loved each other, and had been pretty close to inseparable in the weeks since we got back from Atlanta, but she wasn’t sure where she fit with all the other weird moving parts in my life. I wasn’t pushing. The last thing I wanted to do with a brilliant, smart, independent, gorgeous woman who could literally read my mind was to push her away.

  “For now.” She gave me a little half-smile. “As long as you don’t bring too many strangers into the apartment. Especially not strangers with arms like those.” She leered at Mitch, who blushed a little. “How cute, I embarrassed him! You should introduce him to Gabby. She’d like him. For lunch.”

  “Gabby?” Mitch asked, kinda like she’d mentioned a new type of venomous snake. She kinda had.

  “Gabby is another member of the Council. The group that Jo is a part of with us,” I explained. I didn’t explain that Gabby was Gabriella Van Helsing, granddaughter of the legendary vampire hunter. That always got awkward, especially once they met Luke and realized exactly who he was.

  “I’m off,” Flynn said, walking over and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Try not to get into too much trouble.” She picked up her keys from the table by the front door and her jacket from the closet and out the door she went. I watched her go with no shame. She was a good-looking woman, and like the song said, I hated to see her go, but I loved to watch her leave.

  “That’s your girlfriend?” Mitch asked. “I guess you’ve got more going on than meets the eye.”

  “Hey!” I exclaimed. “I’ll have you know that women on five continents have assured me that I am a very good-looking man.”

  “There are seven continents.”

  “I’ve never tried to get laid in Antarctica, and for some reason I’ve had shit luck with Australian women. They’re immune to my charms for some reason. Now, about that sword…”

  3

  Two days later, I had a sword that would burst into flames on command, a mopey vampire, an overworked cop girlfriend, and two powerless angels hanging around my place. If that sounds like fun to anybody anywhere, they’re on better drugs than I am.

  Glory, Mitch, and I were in my apartment, clustered around my minuscule table with a laptop and a pile of Bibles and other religious research material. Becks was at work, chasing down mundane criminals for a change, and Luke was in his apartment interviewing potential Renfields. I couldn’t speak for Luke or Becks, but me and the Heavenly Bodies were finally making headway in our angel hunt.

  “Okay, who do we have on the list?” I asked Glory.

  “There’s Michael,” she said. “We found him.”

  “For all the good I’m doing anybody,” the musclebound grump chimed in.

  “Hey,” I interjected. “Baby steps, pal. Baby steps. Let’s make sure we can find all the Archangels, then we can worry about making sure you all know who you are. Hell, for all we know, you’re the only one with amnesia. Maybe the others are just lazy or having fun playing human.”

  “I doubt that,” Glory said. “This whole being human thing sucks. I have to sleep, I have to walk places, I have to use the ba
throom! Do you have any idea how disgusting the digestive process is?”

  “Yeah, G,” I said. “I’ve been digesting for over a century. I’m pretty well acquainted with the process. Back to the matter at hand…” I waved a hand at the legal pad in front of her.

  “Okay, then there’s Gabriel, the keeper of the chronicles of Heaven. He’s basically God’s scribe,” Glory said.

  “Okay, the Celestial Secretarial Pool. Next,” I said.

  “Raphael is the healer. Metatron is the voice of God—”

  “I know that dude,” I said.

  “You do?” Glory and Mitch said simultaneously.

  “Yeah, he was on Supernatural. Didn’t the guy who played Booger in Revenge of the Nerds play him?”

  Glory sighed. “I don’t know why I even bother sometimes.”

  “Me neither,” I replied. “Next?”

  “Uriel is God’s punisher, and no Daredevil jokes,” Glory said, pointing at me. I motioned like I was zipping my lips. “Sealtiel is the herald of the apocalypse, and Azrael is the angel of death.”

  “He doesn’t sound like anyone I want to spend very much time with, so let’s leave him for last,” I said.

  “Probably a good idea,” Glory agreed.

  “So how does this whole thing work?” I asked. “Do all of you angels know each other? Is it racist to think that? Or are there like class divisions and the Archangels don’t hang out with the guardian angels, and the guardian angels don’t go out drinking with the…I don’t know, the rescue cats from trees angels or whatever. Is there a hierarchy in Heaven?”

  “There is, and it’s very rigid,” Glory replied. “The Seraphim rule Heaven, and they make all the day-to-day decisions. The lower-level angels, like me, don’t consort with the Seraphim unless we’re called upon to do something, and we never see the Archangels. Mitch is the first of the Highest Host that I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Sorry it’s not a more impressive meeting,” the Highest muttered.

  “Don’t worry, man. I’m sure you’re plenty impressive…sometimes…when you know who you are and stuff.” My attempt at reassurance sounded lame even to me.

  “Thanks, I guess,” Mitch said, leaving no doubt as to how ineffectual my words were.

  “So no, I don’t know all the angels. I don’t even know how many there are, honestly. It’s not like there’s a census,” Glory said, trying to get us back on something like a track.

  A thought struck me, and as usually happens, I didn’t bother processing it very much before I just spewed it out. “How do angels get made, anyway?”

  Glory looked at me, and I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “I…I can’t talk about that, Harker. I’m sorry, but that’s one of the few hard and fast rules about what guardians can and can’t do. We never discuss with mortals where angels come from.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” I pleaded. “Does it have anything to do with bells ringing?”

  She laughed, and it was good to hear that crystalline bell-tone again. There hadn’t been a whole lot of laughing since she got her wings sliced off and became human. But I got her. “No, Harker. Every time a bell rings, an angel does not get their wings. All that happens when a bell rings is that a bell rings.”

  “Okay, I can be satisfied with that. Is that all the Archangels?” I asked.

  “Well…” Glory didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Glory…” I used my best “dad” voice, which is harder to do when the person you’re talking to is both thousands of years old and just a few weeks old at the same time.

  “There’s another angel that technically may still qualify, but he’s a little more difficult to get in touch with, and a lot more self-aware than our buddy Mitch here,” she said, still not looking at me.

  “Come on, out with it, young lady,” I said. She laughed at my ridiculous attempt at authority, but quickly sobered.

  “Lucifer.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. I looked to Mitch, but he just shrugged and stared back at me.

  “Lucifer was one of God’s favorites, and he was one of the most powerful of the Host. I have no idea what status he retains in the hierarchy, or what kind of power he now possesses. But if we’re listing off the most powerful angels, he definitely qualifies.”

  “Fuck me sideways,” I said. “So if we want to get your wings back…”

  “Only God can make an angel,” Glory said. “I can tell you that much.”

  “And if want to find God?” Mitch asked.

  “The Archangels are the ones with the direct communication,” Glory replied.

  “But I’m an Archangel, and I don’t have any idea how to, I don’t know, call God or whatever,” he said.

  “That’s why we have to find the rest of them,” I said. “Because hopefully one of you will still have an idea what you are, or at least how to call Dad.”

  “And if they don’t?” Mitch prodded.

  “I don’t know, man,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s like box tops. You collect the whole set and you get a prize. I have no fucking idea. I just know there’s a bunch of rogue angels trying to take over Heaven and pretty much destroy all of humanity, and we need the Big Guy to get His ass home and take care of business. Barring that, we need all the big brothers to pick up the slack and beat some angelic ass.”

  “So we’re hunting angels,” Mitch said.

  “We’re hunting angels,” I confirmed.

  “This could get dangerous,” he said.

  “Danger is my middle name,” I quipped.

  “You have a lot of middle names, Harker,” Glory said. “But none of them are Danger. Now I have to pee again. I’m telling you, this body sucks!” She got up and walked to the bathroom. Mitch and I both watched her walk across the apartment.

  “I have to disagree with her,” Mitch said. “I think her body’s pretty awesome.”

  “Pig,” I replied.

  “Like you weren’t looking, too.”

  “I have a girlfriend.”

  “You’re not dead. And that is a woman who can fill out a pair of blue jeans.” He wasn’t wrong. On either count. I wasn’t dead, and Glory was a gorgeous woman.

  I still didn’t really think of her as a sexual creature, since not only was I in love with Becks, in my head Glory was still an angel, a sexless being who chose a gender at random. She could have just as easily decided to appear to me as a guy. Mitch obviously didn’t have those hangups since he was still checking her out.

  “Where do we start hunting?” Mitch asked.

  “That’s where I come in,” said a new voice. A unicorn head with a rainbow mane and horn appeared on the laptop screen.

  “Do you know how much I hate that avatar, Dennis?” I asked my disembodied hacker friend Dennis, who also answered to Sparkles the Magical Unicorn. Especially when he wanted to annoy me.

  “I do, Q. I know exactly how much you hate the charming visage of Sparkles, who wants nothing more than to bring joy to the lives of good girls and boys everywhere, coming down the chimney and turning their abandoned teeth into baskets full of toys and candy.”

  “That’s like three different myths all mixed up into one,” I said.

  “But you can never say I’m not a complex guy,” Sparkles replied.

  “What do you have for us, horn-boy?” I asked.

  “I don’t have any idea about the angels, but I think I found Gabriel’s book. If nothing else, the book shop can help us find old Gabe.”

  “Is that what you did with me, used the sword to home in on my location?” Mitch asked.

  “Kinda,” I said. “I worked on the assumption that there would be some kind of bond between you and the sword, so I cast a spell to follow the sword to its owner.”

  “You were able to track me all the way to Phoenix?” he asked.

  “I was able to do way more than that. Magical items like the sword of an Archangel warp the fabric of magic around them. Once I took a good look at how the sword bends the magical energy ar
ound it, I was able to pick out its unique power signature and locate you within a couple of miles.”

  “So it’s going to be easy to find the others?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” I admitted. “The spell was harder than I expected and took a lot more out of me than I thought it would. I was a little drained when we were finished.”

  “A little drained?” Glory said, coming back into the room and retaking her seat at the table. “He was unconscious for two days and too weak to leave his bed for the rest of a week. Just tracking you down almost killed him, and you were the most powerful of the Host. Finding anyone else would be harder because they won’t bend reality around them the way you do.”

  “What do you mean, bend reality?” Mitch asked.

  “You’re not from this plane,” Glory said. “So you shouldn’t be here. That means that everything around you is going to actively fight your influence or bend to your will.”

  “You make it sound like I’m some kind of infection.”

  I spoke up. “Hate to tell you, pal, but you kinda are. All that chaos is the world’s way of telling you to get your gringo ass home.”

  “Why aren’t the other angels as much of a blight on the world as I am?” The bitterness in his voice crept through the joking tone. I couldn’t really blame him. I wouldn’t want to be told that the universe was trying to flush me from its system, either. Although I’d certainly entertained the idea on more than one occasion.

  “You’re the dude,” I said. “You’re the badass boss Archangel, especially after Lucifer was cast out. It was your sword that cut the Morningstar’s face, scarred his perfect beauty and showed him that he wasn’t invulnerable. That one slice turned the tide of the War on Heaven.”

  “You know a lot about a war in the sky for a dude who claims to be human.”

  “I claim to be mostly human,” I clarified. “And I know a lot of people. Some of them were there, and they remember you very clearly. You were the Archangel. That’s why the others aren’t as reality-warping. Because they don’t have your stroke.”