Raising Hell - a Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  “Good lord, woman, did you even go near a college? You don’t have to know about a party at a frat house, there’s always a party at a frat house. All Kayleigh Garda had to do was walk past the house on the sidewalk wearing a little bit of makeup and her slutty best friend’s shoes and they would have thrown open every door and poured her first drink for her!” I’ve found my tolerance for police stupidity has decreased as I’ve grown older, and I’m older than almost everyone I know, dashing good looks aside.

  “Can the attitude, Harker. I don’t need it. I’ve got a suspicious fire with your fingerprints all over it, a prominent citizen’s kid getting harassed, again with you neck-deep in it, and a dead teenager in her house with injuries that don’t look like they came from a fire, and once again the evidence points straight at you, so maybe, just maybe, you want to cooperate with me for once instead of giving me a bunch of bullshit about demons and witches and things that only exist in fairy tales. What do you think of that?”

  “I think I want my lawyer.” I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. There was obviously no way I was getting her to see sense, so I may as well move along to the “spend the night in jail” portion of my evening.

  “Fuck your lawyer. You tell me what I want to hear or I’ll put you under the fucking jail.” Flynn leaned over the table and got right in my face.

  I leaned in, getting uncomfortably close to her, but she couldn’t back down or she’d lose face in front of everybody watching through the glass. Then I whispered, so low that she had to get even closer to hear me, “You want to know what happened tonight? Well here’s the real fucking deal, Detective. I’ve shit all over your cameras and recorders so nobody can hear this but you, so here you go. Those overindulged fucktards at the frat house summoned a demon and let it play with Kayleigh Garda. It fucked her fifteen-year-old body and destroyed her mind. Then it impregnated her, with a demon. Not a baby, not a human, but a fucking demon that ate her from the inside out, starting with her soul.

  “By the time I got there tonight, Kayleigh’s soul wouldn’t fill a thimble, much less her body. I stopped the demon from completely destroying her soul, and sent it back to Hell where it belonged, but it killed Kayleigh in the process. Then I went to the frat house and found a couple of junior sociopaths who don’t give a fuck who they destroy so long as they don’t miss their tee time. I had just finished bringing down a fuckton of fiery vengeance on the little bastard who called up a demon to rape and destroy Kayleigh Garda when you showed up. I know the drill from here, so why not just call one of your pet apes to take me down to holding for the night until my Uncle Luke shows up to pay my inflated bail in the morning?”

  She leaned back, shook her head briefly, then leaned in and slapped the shit out of me. “Fuck you, Harker. And fuck your bullshit stories. One of these days you’re going to fuck up and leave some evidence we can use, and then you’re done. Game fucking over.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a handcuff key. She dropped it on the table and said, “You know your way out by now. Don’t make me waste the time walking you out.”

  “Keep your key, Detective,” I said, shaking my wrists and letting the loosened handcuffs drop to the table. “I was out of those things before you ever stepped into the room.” I stood up, brushed some imaginary dust off the front of my jacket, and headed for the door.

  I bumped shoulders with the no-neck partially blocking the door in the hallway, and forgot to check my strength until I’d almost knocked him flat. I flicked out a hand and caught the front of his uniform shirt before he hit the ground and pulled him back to his feet. No point in completely pissing off every cop in the building.

  Chapter 5

  Uncle Luke was waiting for me outside the station, his Mercedes convertible purring in a No Parking zone and roundly ignored by all the dozens of cops walking past. Uncle Luke looked the same as ever—short, high cheekbones, wavy dark hair, skin the white of a fresh notebook paper and piercing eyes that took in everything around him. Uncle Luke didn’t miss anything, and didn’t mind people knowing it. I walked around the car and slid into the passenger seat, flipping the radio to a classic 90s station. Luke immediately flipped it back to show tunes and we battled over that for a while before Luke finally snapped the radio to OFF and reached over and cuffed me on the back of the head.

  “What the hell were you thinking, setting fire to the house?” he asked me, his sibilants getting that extra little hiss that told me his fangs were out and he was really pissed at me.

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my head. Uncle Luke, as he had decided to be called this generation, packed quite a punch for an old dude.

  “Much to my chagrin, your mother said the same thing about conceiving you.”

  “And look how awesome that turned out, Unc. Her and pops both rotted away to dust, but you and I are still kicking! Ain’t immortality grand!”

  “Oh, fuck off.” He drove in silence for a couple of minutes, but it didn’t take long for his curiosity to get the better of him. “What was it?”

  “Demonic possession. A bad one. It had a little girl. I had to take pretty drastic measures.”

  “You couldn’t exorcise her?”

  “Possession isn’t the right word, I guess. It was more like demon impregnation. And she was about to give birth to it.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “Fuck us all. If that thing had gotten out…”

  “You couldn’t banish it.” For a converted bad guy, Uncle Luke had a pretty good handle on right and wrong.

  “Nope. It would be native to this plane. An immortal, amoral, incredibly powerful monster that could never be sent home. Just what I want hanging around the suburbs.”

  “Yeah, that would send property values straight into the shitter.” When you live as long as Luke, real estate speculation is a long-tail game.

  His cell phone rang as we were turning into his driveway. He pressed a button on the steering wheel and spoke into the air. “Card here.”

  A reedy voice came over the car’s speakers. “Master, sunrise approaches. Will you be home in time?”

  “I’m almost home now, Renny.”

  “Very good, Master. I will prepare your rooms.”

  “Renny? I’ve told you not to call me Master. It’s a new century. We need to change with the times.”

  “Yes, Master, I’ll try to remember.” Renfield clicked off and Uncle Luke just shook his head.

  He looked over at me. “They never change, do they?”

  “At least as often as you do, Mr. Luke Card. Or Mr. Alucard. Isn’t that the name you used when you hired Dad? Why not just own it? Be fucking Dracula. I bet nobody would believe you.”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t, but I don’t want to take the chance. Besides, if I have to invent new identities every few decades, what of it? It just gives me opportunity to see the world.”

  “At night,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, at night.” Luke let out a little sigh as we pulled into his four-car, light-tight garage. His entire house, all eight thousand square feet of it, was outfitted with lightproof shades and light locks for all the doors. Luke slept most days, but if he needed to be up, he could go anywhere in his home safely. And since those shades were all bulletproof and the walls reinforced with plate steel, pretty much anyone inside was safe, too.

  We walked through the garage into the kitchen where Renfield waited for us. He’d been a college student in the sixties, studying hotel management. Uncle Luke was looking for a replacement for his last Renfield and offered this one a live-in position as housekeeper, butler, personal assistant and chef. He didn’t mention the blood-drinking thing until the contract was signed. But Renfield VI took it all in stride and deposited the paychecks. He was getting close to retirement age now, and had begun looking over recent Johnson & Wales hospitality majors for a replacement. I wasn’t sure what Luke had planned for Renfield when he retired, but I’m pretty sure it involved memory wipi
ng and white sand beaches. I’d been with Uncle for four Renfields counting this one, and he always provided for their well-being after they left his employ.

  “Master, you didn’t tell me you were bringing Mr. Quincy,” Renfield chided. Only the Renfields got to scold my uncle; it was a perk of the job. I guess if you’re going to be Dracula’s manservant, you’re going to grow nuts of steel pretty quick.

  “My apologies, Renny. My… nephew wasn’t planning on visiting today, but he ran into some difficulties last night that required my services.”

  “Oh dear. Mr. Quincy, are you injured? Should I fetch my sewing kit?”

  “No, Ren. I’m good. I just got arrested for burning down a house, that’s all.”

  “Oh. Well, if that’s all, then. I shall fix you some breakfast. Eggs and bacon?”

  “Kippers?” I asked. Some things you never outgrow, and I’m a turn of the century boy at heart. Turn of the twentieth, that is.

  “No, sir. I’m sorry, but North Carolina seems to be lacking in good kippers.”

  “You can only expect so much from the Colonials, Ren. No matter how far they’ve come, they still drink shit beer and don’t understand proper football. I’ll take the bacon and eggs, though. Poached, please.”

  Renfield laughed at my soccer joke and went off to the kitchen, happy to have someone to cook for. I knew that Uncle sometimes sat with him and smelled the food just to make Ren feel better, but it wasn’t the same. I made my way into the den, where Luke sat waiting for me. I took a chair across from him and waited for it.

  He didn’t make me wait long. “So you burned down the house to hide the evidence of demon infestation?”

  “Yep.”

  “How did you get caught?”

  “I went after the assholes who started the whole mess. They summoned the demon, raped the girl, then let the demon play with her. I think I convinced them that was a bad idea. One of them had a rich daddy. He made up some bullshit about seeing me leave the house right before the fire broke out and called the cops. There’s no evidence. I can’t be convicted.”

  “It may be inconvenient enough for you to merely be charged. Your identity cannot become known.”

  “I have good documents.”

  “I know. I had them forged for you.”

  “So what’s the worry?”

  “Who was this rich daddy you speak of?”

  “Some asshole lawyer.”

  “Good god, child, talking with you is like pulling teeth. Does the asshole lawyer have a name?”

  “Have you ever thought, Uncle, that maybe the reason I don’t always give you much information is because it’s something I want to handle on my own, without you drinking the bad guys. Maybe every once in a while I don’t want you to get involved.”

  “I am involved, Quincy. I just got you out of jail.”

  “Fair enough. His name is Jacob Marlack, and he’s got a serious collection of black magic texts that he lets his idiot son play with.”

  Uncle Luke didn’t respond for a long time. I hate it when he does that; he gets all super-still and just sits there, like a statue covered in clown white makeup. After a couple of interminable moments, he looked at me and said, “Fuck.”

  Uncle Luke doesn’t swear much. And when he does, it’s usually pretty old-school stuff. For him to drop an F-bomb was a big deal. “What’s the deal with Jacob Marlack?”

  “I know him. He’s a powerful witch. I met him many years ago when he was just beginning his study of the dark arts. I thought I had persuaded him to stop. Apparently I was wrong.”

  “Why don’t I know this guy?” I’ve worked with Uncle Luke almost since we moved to the States, right after my parents died.

  “I met him before I met your father. He tried to kill me in Romania.”

  “Wait, what? You knew him before—”

  “Yes, before all that. Before your mother, before your father, before that fat shite Van Helsing, before any of them.”

  Yeah, all that happened, apparently. All I know outside what’s in the book (which Uncle Luke wrote, by the way) is that as far you’d know from Luke, Van Helsing’s first name was “fat shite.”

  Uncle Luke went on. “Marlack was a young wizard then. This must have been shortly after your President Lincoln was shot by that actor.”

  “John Wilkes Booth,” I added.

  “Yes, him. Well, a few years after that, I was in my home in Romania when I heard a pounding at the door. It was rather uncommon for me to receive visitors at my home during those years—”

  “On account of the whole ‘eating the villagers’ thing, and the fact that everyone for fifty miles was terrified of you.”

  “I could do with a little healthy fear on your behalf, young man.” He smiled when he said it, so I was pretty sure he didn’t want to rip my throat out, but it was good to keep in mind that Uncle Luke was really Dracula every once in a while. This was shaping up to be one of those nights that I didn’t want to lose track of the fact that one of history’s greatest monsters was sitting ten feet from me.

  He continued. “I answered the door, hoping it was just a lost traveler. It was late, and I felt the need for a snack. But when I opened the door, I faced a man holding a massive silver crucifix and brandishing it in my face. I instinctively flinched, but there was no power in the talisman other than the native pain I feel in the presence of silver. I felt nothing of the repulsion I had often felt when in the presence of holy symbols and holy men. That’s when I realized two things: that holy objects only held sway over me when wielded by true believers, and that this man had no more faith in God than I do.”

  “I’m pretty sure he believes God exists, but I don’t think they’re friends on Facebook,” I quipped. Renny brought my eggs with a large glass of orange juice and a Coke. He set the whole meal up on a little folding tray complete with silverware and tiny solid gold salt and pepper shakers. It was just like room service, but I didn’t have to tip. I started to eat as Uncle Luke went on.

  “I smacked the fool’s hand away and pulled him inside. I looked into his eyes, wondering what kind of fool comes to a supposedly haunted castle in the middle of the night, and saw no fear there. That gave me pause, and as I hesitated, the fool pulled a clove of garlic out of a coat pocket and shoved it in my face.”

  I snorted back a laugh and orange juice almost came out my nose. Luke continued. “Exactly. I pushed the garlic away;, not because it harms me in some way, but because the smell was so strong it made me gag. My senses are very heightened, so strong smells are unpleasant, and I never liked garlic even when I was alive. The Gypsies cooked with garlic. It makes me think of them. And I hate Gypsies. So I looked at the man and asked him if he had anything else he wanted to try. He pulled out a vial of holy water, but I stopped him before he could throw it on me. I think I broke his arm at that point. I dragged him into my den and put him in a chair, then demanded an explanation as to why he had sought me out.”

  “He told me his name, Jacob Marlack, that he was from the United States, and that he was looking for books of magic. I told him I had none, and that for humans to meddle with forces beyond their reckoning was folly. I then offered to feed him to my wives so that he could gain a greater understanding of the powers of which I spoke. He declined my offer, and demanded to be given my magical texts. I repeated that I had no such things, and he grew angry with me. I have long since lost any fear of a mortal’s anger, but this was something more. This Marlack was no longer just a man, and as his rage grew, his scent changed. He no longer smelled human, but began to reek of sulfur. I wanted him out of my home, so I called upon my servant to dispatch him.”

  “Was this the first Renfield?” I’ll own it—he had me wrapped up in the story. Luke doesn’t often talk about the old days, so any time I get a chance to see behind the curtain into his past, I’m all over it.

  “No, this was Curtis. He was my valet and my guard. Curtis had spent time with the English Army in India or some other sweltering place, an
d he was a man of some size and great strength. But when he laid hands upon Marlack, the American flung him aside as though he were a child. Curtis’ skull smashed against the stone walls and he died instantly. I was quite annoyed at this point, for good servants are difficult to find, and discreet ones even more so. I rose and advanced upon Marlack, determined to drink from the fool and perhaps bespell him into a few decades of servitude for his insolence, but when he spoke, the voice was not his own, or anything belonging to this world.

  “It spoke of power, and hunger, and ageless times before men walked the earth. It spoke of destruction like I had never witnessed, even I, who had walked the earth for half a millennium, and I was afraid.”

  Luke looked at me, and I’d never seen that expression on his face before. “I was afraid of that creature then, and I am afraid of it now. I forbid you to pursue this investigation further. I will speak no more of this.”

  “The hell you say,” I said. “You don’t forbid me shit, Uncle, because I’m not your kid, I’m not your blood, and I’m not your goddamn servant. I’m going after this motherfucker, and I’m going to bring him down. Now you can either finish the story, and maybe I can get some good info out of it on how to bring him down, or not. But either way, there will be justice for Kayleigh Garda, and I’m going to bring that justice down around Jacob Marlack’s old demon-possessed ears. I’ve fought demons before. They don’t scare me.”

  “A fact I understand all too well. But this is more than just a demon, and it’s more than a sorcerer. It is some evil blend of the two, and you should be scared.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  “Not the first time that charge has been levied, Unc. Now what happened with you and Marlack?”

  He took a deep breath and looked to the sky as if for help. Both were oddly human gestures for a vampire as old as Uncle Luke, and they made him seem more vulnerable somehow.

  “He spoke to me for a long time, Marlack did. He tried to persuade me to work alongside him, using my natural abilities and his magic to enslave entire countries. I was not interested. I was still a feudal lord at heart; I had my keep, I had my villagers paying tribute, I had my servants—I had no need for globalization. I was perfectly happy with a virgin to eat once a month and plenty of donors for the between times. Once Marlack understood this, he ransacked my library looking for magical texts that simply weren’t there, then left, muttering about ‘provincial fools’ and ‘bumpkins’ under his breath the entire time. I stood atop my battlements and watched him go, hoping that my path would never cross his again. I know that humans consider me to be a monster, and perhaps I am a creature of my appetites, but that man is more than a monster—he is pure evil.”