“Most of them,” Suki added, “deep down inside, don’t believe that they are actually invoking the Powers of Darkness. And the few that really do want to sell their souls to the Devil—well, they know more effective means than acting out symbolic rituals.”
“We’re here to put down real evil,” Mooncloud finished, “not hurt some overgrown children playing dress-up in the dark. . . .”
The first hour was almost exciting: I waited, clutching the general’s halberd, crouching in waist-high pasture grass while Suki and Lupé reconnoitered the outer perimeter of the gathering. Both were pros at this, able to move silently through the brush and foliage while I still tended to glide like a drunken rhino. Small wonder I was told to stay back and wait. Though both promised to check in with me from time to time, only Suki made good on her word.
The second hour was a lot less thrilling.
To help pass the time I experimented with my extended senses, counting crickets and determining the gender of toads by their individual voices. And checking the time. I had yet to find a watch whose luminous dial lasted much past sunset but, even though the moon was new, I could clearly see that it was a little before midnight. Comforting to know that for the rest of my un-life I could get by on cheap watches.
By hour three I was trying to tune out the audible and visual spectrums, opting for a zenlike approach to my boring vigil. Which is why I was slow to react to the sound of a footfall behind me: perhaps Lupé was finally making an appearance. More likely that Suki was making a return visit. Lupé had been distant and formal—even a bit frosty, of late. When she wasn’t ladling the sarcasm, that is. . . .
I was getting a cramp in my back and, since we were far enough back and into the trees that no one would see us, I straightened up, using the halberd for leverage.
The ache in my lower back exploded into a burst of agony.
I would have cried out, but the breath had already been driven from my lungs. My stomach cramped and, as I pressed a hand to my abdomen, I found something poking through my shirtfront.
Three somethings poking through my shirtfront!
I turned around, feeling a bit woozy and definitely off balance.
It wasn’t Suki or Lupé. It was a couple of guys dressed in black robes with their hoods thrown back.
One was big and middle-aged, over six feet tall, with sparse hair and a big, bushy black beard. The other was short and old with greasy, silver-white hair and about three days’ worth of stubble on his pinched face.
“What’d you let go a’ that pitchfoke for?” the short one said, doing a more than credible imitation of Strother Martin. He raised the shield on the hooded lantern that he was carrying.
“I got ‘im, Henry,” the big one said. “He oughta be fallin’ down now.”
“Hist! You imbecile! Don’t say my real name!”
“Oh. Sorry, ‘Asmodeus.’ ”
“Asmodeus?” I was I was giddy with shock. “And what do they call you?” I asked high pockets.
“Uh, Belial.”
Asmodeus tugged on Belial’s robe. “Don’t talk to him! We’re supposed to kill him!”
“Well, I stuck him with the pitchfork, Henry. What else am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t call me that, you big, stupid—”
“Boys, boys,” I said, trying to keep my voice low: the last thing I wanted to do was bring the rest of the coven running. “I’m really sort of unhappy about this pitchfork thing—” More than a little unhappy and having no luck in trying to dislodge it by myself. The best I could do was get my left hand behind me to grasp the base of the handle and keep its weight from unbalancing me any further. “—it itches something terrible. Now, if you’ll just pull it back out, I might be inclined to let you go without tearing your heads off first!”
“Don’t lissen to him,” Asmodeus said. “He’s about ready to fall over!”
“Now, Henry, do I really look like I’m about to fall over?” Matter of fact, I was, but no point in letting them know it. “Think about it, if I were human, wouldn’t a pitchfork through the middle do me right in?”
Belial nodded. Asmodeus just looked like he needed to find an outdoor privy.
“But I’m not human. I should think that was rather obvious. Especially to a couple of experienced Servants of Darkness like yourselves.”
“Hey,” said Belial, his face lighting up like a two-year-old’s at Christmas. “You’re a demon, ain’tcha?”
“Bingo.” I was getting more than a little woozy.
Asmodeus wasn’t convinced. “But them other demons that come through yesterday said we’s supposed to kill these folk! Said that Satan commanded it.”
“You boys obviously haven’t trafficked much with demons.” I slid down, onto one knee, no longer able to keep my balance.
“Trafficked?” It was obvious that Belial was totally out of his element now. “Ya mean like drive with ‘em?”
“Look, what did these so-called demons promise you in exchange for performing this task?” His expression indicated my wording was too obtuse. “What are you supposed to get for killing us?” Now I was down on both knees.
“Lord Satan is s’posed to raise us up,” Henry/Asmodeus preened, “give us power in his kingdom!”
Yeah, that and twenty-five cents will get you half a cup of coffee.
“Exchange?” Belial had finally decoded my previous question. “Them other demons traded Bob Sommer that purty black car for his old chevy van.”
Belial’s face took on an expression of calculation. “So, if you’re a demon, too, what’ll you give me if’n I pull out that pitchfoke from your back?”
Your head on a stick, I wanted to scream. Then I saw the grey wolf creeping toward them through the weeds. “See that wolf?” I asked, pointing straight at Lupé. She hesitated, having lost the element of surprise. “To show you that I’m a more powerful demon than the false ones who visited you yesterday—”
“Uh, last night,” Henry corrected.
“—last night,” I continued, feeling some disorientation setting in, “I will invoke the Powers of Darkness and change that beast into a beautiful woman—a—a naked love slave—who will—will—” where was I going with this? “serve the one who pulls out this—this—thing.” I pointed at the pitchfork with my right hand, starting to slide toward those dark waters of unconsciousness.
“Oh, now what kinda fools d’you take us for—” Belial began.
But Henry poked him with an elbow and said: “Go ahead, demon: show us your stuff.”
I looked at the wolf. Who looked back at me. And, for a moment, got the impression that these two fools were the least of my problems. “Okay.” I pointed at Lupé and tried to think of something arcane to say. I drew a blank.
“C’mon, mister big mouth demon. Show us your power or we’ll show you that we got more farm implements where that pitchfoke come from.”
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, feeling the handle of the pitchfork bump against the ground behind me. All of my joints were starting to unhinge. “Eenie meenie,” I said, “chili beanie; the spirits are about to speak. . . .”
“Are they friendly spirits?” Belial wanted to know.
“Yow!” said Henry.
I opened my eyes and caught the final stage of Lupé’s transformation back to human form. My, my, my. . . .
“Ooooh!” she cooed, arching her back and running her hands through her long, night-dark hair. Then she smiled a wicked smile and positively sauntered over to where I was standing. “Thou has summoned me, Master?” she exclaimed breathily. Draping herself across my shoulders, she proclaimed: “I am Hell’s love slave, here to do thy bidding!” In my ear she whispered, “Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?” I murmured. “This damn pitchfork is killing me.”
“Which of these lusty servants of Satan are you giving me to?” she asked. “Or do you wish for me to serve both?” Sotto voce, she added, “When I get done with you, you may wish
the pitchfork had killed you.”
“No,” I answered for our audience’s benefit, “I am giving you to the one who draws the pitchfork from my back.”
The fight was short and brutal. In less than a minute, Asmodeus was writhing on the ground where he was in an excellent position to look for his teeth. “Gently! Gently!” I coached as Belial planted his foot against my back and started yanking on the pitchfork. “Or no love slave!”
When the deed was finally done, I held myself up off the ground with trembling, rubbery arms, fighting off waves of unconsciousness. Dimly, I heard Belial ask for his reward.
“Come with me,” Lupé said, “and I will see that you get all that you deserve.”
The bleeding had miraculously stopped and I felt as if my partially transformed body structure had already mended some of the damage. But I was still in a very bad way: the internal repairs were progressing too slowly to get me out of the woods anytime soon. I still fought to retain consciousness.
“Uh, mister demon?”
I looked up, tried to focus my eyes.
It was Asmodeus. Crawling toward me on his hands and knees.
“What do you want, human?” Hard to sound surly when you’re getting ready to pass out.
“Um, I was just wondering if there was something I could do to get me one of them love slaves?”
“Love slaves, huh?” I mumbled.
“Y’know, do you some kind of favor or somethin’. Can I get you somethin’ you need?”
“Huh. Got any blood?”
“Uh, blood?”
“Yeah, Henry; blood. Red stuff.”
“Blood?” His mouth turned up in a terrified grin. “Now, where would I get blood, mister demon, sir?”
“Henry,” my words were starting to slur, “you humans are full of it. Blood, that is.”
There was a strangled screech from a dark clump of trees behind us.
Henry’s eyes grew huge. “What was that?”
“Love-slave passion, no doubt.” My chin dropped to my chest. “Tell you what, Henry. I’m fresh outta wolves. But I like you. So I’m gonna make you a special love slave.”
“You is?”
“Ri’. But you gotta get ‘gredients.”
“Tell me what! I get ‘um!”
“Gotta catch a skunk.”
“Ketch a skunk?”
“Barehanded.”
“Barehanded? What if’n it bites me or—you know?”
“Better for the spell,” I mumbled. “Gives ‘em more—somethin’. Bigger—you know. . .”
“I do?”
I nodded and thought my head would come off. “Then you gotta take it and—and stand in the middle of Highway 69 at high noon—”
“Holding the skunk?”
“Ri’. High above your head.”
“In the middle of Highway 69?”
“At high noon. Naked.”
“Nekkid?”
“No clothes.”
“Anything else?”
The temptation was overwhelming, but I had no energy left. “Go away.”
“Go away?”
“Now.”
“Yessir. Thank you, mister demon, sir!” He crawled away into the darkness.
Another screech sounded from the trees where Lupé had taken Belial. This time it sounded like Lupé.
I grabbed the halberd and levered myself up from my knees to one shaky leg. The trees around me began dancing the Highland fling. I straightened the other leg into the semblance of a stance and leaned on the ancient weapon, sucking night air and willing the landscape to settle. Then I began lurching toward the trees on rubber legs.
Suki came out of nowhere, passing me on the fly, and crashing into the treeline a good fifteen yards ahead of me.
Now it got really noisy!
I hobbled over and caught the branch of a tree with my free hand just as the bones in my legs turned to jelly. The result was a sort of barber pole effect that left me curled around the trunk like a serpent on a caduceus. Somehow, even twisted up as I was, I had a ringside seat for the show.
Suki had just discharged her crossbow and was fumbling with another wooden quarrel, trying to reload.
Lupé was hunched in midtransformation, the body of Belial, crumpled on the ground, behind her. She reared up on her (hind) legs with her arms crooked before her. While her arms still looked human—albeit rather furry—her hands were another thing altogether. The fingers were blunt and powerful looking, tipped with two-inch claws that curved like rows of small, black scimitars. Her face was neither human nor canine but something of an amalgamation of the two. A mouth full of teeth and then some added to the inhuman effect. She was covered in fur and it was rising in hackles from head to hips.
It was easy to see why.
The creature facing them only appeared to be more human at the first glance. It was tall and thin and more spidery than humanoid. Oh, it had the requisite number of arms and legs and the face contained two eyes, a nose, and a mouth in what should have been the proper places. But there was something wrong with the sum that was more than the individual parts, something deeper than the surface appearance. Something that overshadowed the net effect.
As I said, it was tall: six-six at least, maybe six-eight. And thin—as if someone had taken a man of normal height and stretched him like a piece of warm saltwater taffy. The mouth was also stretched, sideways to an inhuman width, and filled with teeth the way a can of sardines is filled with little fish. Its forehead was deformed, the brow ridges protruding like a neanderthal’s and then sweeping up into the hairline like twin v’s: it looked a little like one of those alien whatchamacallem’s—the Romulans—on Star Trek, or Meatloaf in that music video a few years back—the one with the Beauty and the Beast motif.
Two crossbow bolts protruded from its blackclad body: one from its back where Suki had undoubtedly loosed her first shot upon her arrival, and a second that had just caught it high in the chest on the left side. Either shot would have killed a human being and should have incapacitated anything else. This thing only looked annoyed.
While Suki was trying to cock her crossbow, Lupé snarled and grasped a small sapling. I say small in relation to the other trees around us: this was a good seven feet in height. She grabbed the trunk just below the midpoint and the muscles in her arms corded, her shoulders bunched. It came out of the ground with a tearing sound and another three feet of tangled roots were added to its overall length.
The creature didn’t seem perturbed. Even when Lupé broke the four-inch thick trunk across her knee to make her makeshift weapon more manageable.
>KiLl yOu, JaCKelBItCh!<< The words ice-picked into my mind like stabs of electric current. >Kill CAtbITch!<< The thing glanced over its shoulder. >TheN Finish You Off, HalFThiNG!<< it thought at me.
The words were chilling enough. The mental voice that uttered them was worse. Beyond either were the thought-images that accompanied the telepathic messages, images of pain and carnage that were personalized for each of us.
A surge of adrenaline shocked the strength back into my limbs, the ancient biological failsafe of “fight or flight.” I disentangled myself from the tree, recalling the images he had compressed into the thoughtburst blasted at me: pictures of two cemetery plots; of spidery hands digging into the dark, black earth; of Jenny’s and Kirsten’s coffins being splintered, broken, broached. . . .
“Sonofabitch!” I hissed, hefting the halberd and staggering toward it. It was gathering itself to spring at Lupé while Suki still struggled with the crossbow. It heard my approach and hesitated. My adrenaline rush was good for about five yards, then the physical realities of shock and blood loss kicked in: my legs went from rubber to Silly Putty. My momentum carried me forward for a few more feet and I swung the halberd as I fell. I wasn’t sure whether I swept its feet out from under it or if it just stumbled, tripping itself in a little dance of indecision, but the creature followed me to the ground.
>kIlL YoU!<< its mind screamed. >>t
Ear YoUr FlEsH!<<
Then Lupé was standing over us, raising the broken tree trunk above her head. The creature screamed and I echoed with sympathetic pain that rang against my own skull. Then the splintered trunk came down with a horrible crunching sound and the ground shook with the force of the impact.
I rolled away and managed to sit up with the last of my strength. The thing was pegged to the ground, impaled on the shattered tree trunk like a moth on a display pin.
It should have been enough. But the thing writhed and squirmed like a worm on a fishhook. Using the halberd, I pushed myself back up to my knees and hauled the bladed end toward me. Lifting the oddly weighted weapon was almost too much: I nearly swooned but caught myself as the image of Jenny and Kirsten’s coffins flickered against the back of my eyeballs once more. The thing turned and looked at me as I brought the ax-blade up.
>I HaVe TheM<< it thought at me. >>I hAvE ThEM bOTh. I WiLl ShOw YoU WhAT I WilL Do wITh tHem. I WilL ShOW—<<
But it didn’t show me anything. The muscles in my arms turned to water and the blade came down with nothing more than the force of gravity. But it was enough. The axehead sheared through the thing’s throat like a gingsu through margarine.
The night became black water and I was slipping beneath its surface.
Death is here and death is there, Shelley wrote, Death is busy everywhere, / All around, within, beneath, / Above is death—and we are death.
“Chris!” A hand cradled my chin, lifted my face. I looked up into Suki’s face. “How do you feel?”
“Like . . . death. . . .”
“We’ve got to get him back to the bus.” It was Lupé’s voice. “We’ve got to get some whole blood in his system.” Hands grasped me under my arms, lifted.
“What about the others?” I mumbled.
“Gone,” Suki answered grimly. “Along with two vampire handlers. When the first one went up in smoke the others just scattered. I followed Gruesome here, but I wasn’t able to get a good heart shot.”
I looked over at the headless thing pinioned by the sapling, but the shadows beneath the trees had swallowed it in a deeper darkness.
One Foot in the Grave - The Halflife Trilogy Book I Page 20
