by John Conroe
The priest was lying on his back, his neck bent at an unlikely angle. I stepped over him and moved closer, considering my options, still scanning the room. Between the beds, a small box lay open, the outline of an old-fashioned book lying open on the floor. Then I noticed a new concern. There didn’t appear to be a wall behind the beds. It was as if the back wall of the room had been sliced off, excised from the building, leaving an open box of a room. The opening where solid sheetrock or plaster was supposed to be was inky dark, darker than even my thermal vision could see into, and I found I couldn’t look straight at it although I tried.
My observations were interrupted by a flying chair. It lifted itself up and launched at the doorway, the children apparently tired of waiting for me to make myself visible. I dodged it but had to duck again when an entire vanity tried to occupy my personal space. Darting toward the girls, I reached to grab the closest, one of the twins by her size. The demon driving her sensed something at the last moment and moved, striking out with a child-sized arm. That little arm packed a pretty decent punch, with enough power to slow me minutely. It was enough to allow all three girls to dodge in three different directions: right, left, and up. The other chair lifted itself at me at the same time the biggest child swiped a claw-studded hand at me, shredding my tee shirt and drawing blood.
“You!” they all hissed at exactly the same time. Her physical contact had made me visible to them; recognition was instantaneous.
I succeeded in grabbing the partially transformed, fur-covered hand and yanked the girl toward me. That would have gone smooth like ice, except one of the dressers smashed me sideways, breaking my grip.
This wasn’t going well. They fought as a single entity, using both the bodies they controlled and their own demonic telekinesis. I focused on the one on the ceiling, punching my aura toward her and pulling on the demon inside. The whole child came instead, along with one from each side. Clawed hands ripped my back, arms, and chest as all three sliced and diced me.
I made an instant tactical decision, the best I could come up with under the circumstances…I got the hell out, moving vampire fast, too fast for them to follow, and was out the door and in the stairwell in the blink of an eye.
Awasos was sitting on the nearest steps watching me calmly. The faces below looked expectant.
“Well?” Stacia asked.
“I just got my ass beat by three little girls,” I replied truthfully.
“That’s not very reassuring,” she answered.
“Yeah, well, time for some new tactics,” I agreed. “But first, how old are the girls and when did they become able to Change?”
“They’re all twelve and they won’t be able to Change till about sixteen or seventeen,” Granger answered.
“Not even partially?” I asked.
“Hell no! That takes years to master. Why?” he asked.
I pointed at my bloody, shredded shirt, noting with some satisfaction when the light of realization struck them.
“How strong is the floor?”
“Huh? It’s really strong. Lloyd built to last,” Granger answered, confused.
“Strong enough to hold twelve hundred pounds or so?” I asked as my hand found ‘Sos’s head and ruffled the fur, which reassured me more than him.
“Probably. Why?” he asked. I waved him off, looking down at my fuzzy pal.
“New plan. We go in, you change and keep furniture and were demons off me while I grab them one by one. No squishy the girls, got it?”
His brown eyes flashed molten red and he huffed.
I glanced down at Granger and the hulking Jep. “I need you two up here on the steps. I’m gonna grab each girl, get rid of their hitchhikers, and hand them down to you. You pass them down to their mothers.” I watched to make sure they understood. They nodded.
“This is gonna get loud, real loud. There will be growls, curses, even, mostly from me. I suspect there will be some roaring,” I said with a glance at Awasos. “But no matter what you hear, you must stay here!”
The both nodded again.
“Right, then. Let’s do this,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
I opened the door and Awasos rushed through, Changing forms in mid-step. Two feet into the room, his body waivered and blurred, then expanded from a mere two-hundred, seventy-five-pound wolf to a twelve-hundred-pound Kodiak bear.
The three demon-ridden little darlings had been waiting for me just inside the door, obviously listening to my little pre-game speech. But they couldn’t understand about ‘Sos and his other form. His massive new body filled the sitting room to overcapacity and shocked the children of the corn into fleeing in all directions. Furniture flew at us, but I ignored the overstuffed chair aimed at my head, confident in my partner. The chair met a turkey-platter-sized paw and immediately disassembled itself into splinters, foam stuffing, and shredded material. The demon were-child that had mentally thrown it met me somewhere in the vicinity of the ceiling. She clung to the sheetrock and I got her back, as they say in jiu-jitsu. Having your opponent behind you is a bad position to be in. If they do it right, their legs are locked around yours and their arms are tight across your torso or, worse, wrapped around your throat in a choke hold. I did it right but skipped the choke in favor of forcing my aura from my right hand up through her body and Pulling the stinky, gooey-black demon crud onto my left hand.
As soon as I broke the hellspawn’s grip on the child, her ability to cling to the ceiling vanished and we fell. I landed softly on my feet and I switched her totally to my right arm, lifting the left and flicking the blob of evil up. Kirby answered my call instantly, snatching the load of devil crud and hauling it to Hell. One down.
Awasos had crushed the remaining chair and ottoman to scrap while deflecting the other demons, who screamed in rage at the demise of their partner.
On the stairwell, Granger took charge of the first child, which was one of the twins. His eyes were wide but he stayed steady. “I smell bear?”
Ignoring him, I darted back into the room to find the remaining two separating and coming at my bear from different directions. The larger one took his back as he swiveled to watch the other twin. Hands formed into wolf claws, the demon started to shred fur and bear flesh. ‘Sos handled it like a champ, ignoring the pain and wounds and instead turning so that I could easily take the demon child from behind and roll its roofing-tar essence up and out. Kirby caught the second offering, flapping out of earth’s dimension. Two down.
Granger snatched my burden from my arms and I all but flew back in to help my pal.
The last kid was pinned under a huge front paw, thrashing and twisting hard enough that the tiny human body was in danger of snapping its own spine. I moved across the room and squeezed the putrescent essence from the little girl, throwing the black snot ball to my shadowy God Hawk friend.
The last Granger twin safely in her father’s arms, Awasos and I turned back to the room. It still reeked of evil and despair, not to mention piss, shit, and vomit. The missing back wall was still missing, and the swirling blackness promised pain and misery. Houston, we have a problem.
Poor Father Prescott was still lying broken and dead on the floor. There was no way I could leave him there. Grabbing his ankle, I pulled him toward the door. Then he sat up. I decided to let the hell go of him. The shattered bones in his broken neck grated as his head bobbed upright and his sightless eyes fastened on me.
“Christian—you grow more like us by the hour,” his mouth said.
I freaked out a little bit. I’ll admit it. Hell, that was some damn creepy shit! I could say that I made a tactical evasion, but if you had seen it, you would likely say I jumped backward and landed on my ass. The God Tear necklace went from body temperature to burning hot in a split second. Acting on instinct, I grabbed the necklace with my left hand and pushed a blast of aura out with my right. The Hellbourne riding the good Father’s body scrabbled toward me on the floor, but the corpse shot straight back from the force of my
blast and right through the space where the wall was supposed to be. It just fell into the swirling black, spinning smaller and smaller while the Hellbourne laughed, till it was gone.
Chapter 5
The men were still on the stairwell, as was Stacia and the young were, Malcolm. The mothers had taken the girls to clean them up.
“Okay, near as I can tell, you’ve got some kind of gateway to Hell in there,” I said to Granger.
“Can you close it?” he asked.
“I don’t know the first thing about it. My gut instinct is that the book the girls found played a role in the whole ripping a portal to another dimension thing. I want to collect that and then regroup, probably tomorrow. And Ned…I wouldn’t recommend that anyone stay in the house tonight.”
He looked at me seriously from under heavy brows but finally nodded. “What do you need?”
“I need some silk, about a foot square or so, and something heavy duty like a fireproof box or safe.”
“There’s a firesafe in the office,” Jep rumbled. He turned and left immediately.
“I know my wife has silk, but I don’t know where it is,” Ned said.
“That’s okay, I got the silk,” Stacia said, immediately unbuttoning her white blouse. Under it, she wore a white cami that I realized was probably made of silk. She pulled the bottom of the cami free and then held up her right index finger. The long, manicured nail shifted under her focused stare, lengthening and becoming a wicked claw, which easily sliced through the white cami, starting just above her abdomen. She cut as far as she could reach, then looked at me for help. Forming a mono-edge on my own finger, I completed the cut around behind her and back to her front, ending up with a tube of silk material that would be sufficient to cover the book. Stacia sighed as she handed it to me, left standing in her short-shorts and what was now essentially a white silk tube top. Ned was staring at her in amazement, but I wasn’t sure if it was just because of her six-pack abs or the clawed finger she was willing back to normal.
“How long have you been a wolf?” he asked her.
“About two years or so,” she said with a shrug.
“Hmmpf,” was his only answer as he turned back to me.
“Okay, I’m gonna go get the book, then we’ll close this till I can come back tomorrow and do something about it.”
“I thought you didn’t know what to do?”
“I don’t, not yet. But I know someone who will know. I’ll see him tomorrow,” I said, turning back to the open door. 'Sos was waiting for me just inside, anxious.
“Okay, buddy, let’s grab this book and beat feet,” I said, heading into the bedroom and between the beds. The book was partway out of the box, so using the white silk like an oven mitt, I shoved it back inside the little wooden container, closed the lid, and wrapped the whole thing in Stacia’s torn cami. Awasos changed back to wolf form as we crossed the room.
>Come back again soon, Gordon. We miss you< The voice came from the swirling space where a bedroom wall used to be. We didn’t answer, just hurried our pace out of the room. The door slammed itself behind us.
Jep was standing at the base of the stairs, holding an inexpensive home firesafe in his hands. The lid was open, and it had been emptied. I dropped the silk-wrapped book box into the safe and closed the lid. A mono-edge on my right hand sliced the lock and bolt handles off, and my right hand on the exposed mechanism generated enough aura to fuse the whole thing shut.
“Okay, Stacia, there’s a floor lamp just inside the Grangers’ bedroom. Grab it for me please,” I asked. She nodded and took off in a blur. Ned and Jep were staring at me a little wide-eyed, but I ignored it and soldiered on.
“What do you need a lamp for?” Jep asked.
“I’ve gotta keep that door shut and people out of it. That’s a death zone in there.”
“What happened to Father Preston?”
“He left…the planet.”
Stacia brought me the lamp and I sliced off the top and bottom, both cuts at sharp angles. Then I cut the three-and-a-half-foot tube in half. One sharpened piece was driven through the door and jamb at angle above the knob, the other just below. Two eighteen-inch spikes to nail the door shut.
“Mr. Granger, I highly advise everyone to leave this house tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll see if I can’t close out your death portal to Hell, but it would be a very bad idea for anyone to stay here.”
“I heard you the first time,” he said tiredly, brushing one hand through his hair. There probably hadn’t been much sleep in the last few days.
“Where are the girls?” I asked.
“Our mates are cleaning them up,” Jep rumbled.
“Okay, I gotta run out to the car for a minute. I need to give each of them something.”
Stacia looked at me with raised eyebrows, but I just shrugged and headed outside. The trunk of the Volvo had what I needed, and I brought a whole handful inside with me.
“Jewlery?” Granger asked, puzzled by my Zuni fetish necklaces.
Holding the whole bunch in both hands, I channeled a strong flow of aura into the soapstone animal figurines that hung from individual leather thongs.
“Come on, Mr. Granger…bling is always a good idea, particularly for girls that have been through a lot,” Stacia said with a smile.
“Speaking of little girls, where might they be?” I asked.
The two weres led us through the master suite to the apartment-sized walk-in closet and attached master bathroom. The three girls had been washed clean and were all dressed in clean clothes. All three looked shellshocked.
“Hi girls. My name is Chris and this is Stacia. We have some gifts for you.”
I held out the bundle of necklaces, watching their eyes as they focused on the tiny animal figures. They looked spacey and tired, but in my experience, that was a very normal reaction. The two mothers hovered near them, torn between wanting to protect them from strangers and recognizing that those strangers had just saved them. Awasos pushed past all of us and flopped down at the girls’ feet. Instantly, all three dropped to the ground and started to pet him.
I handed half the necklaces to Stacia and held the other half in both hands to better display the variety. “Why don’t you each pick one?”
The twins reached almost as one for two of the necklaces in Stacia’s hands. A bear and a wolf were the choices. Awasos gave me a smug look as Stacia put the leather thongs around their necks. The third girl, Jep’s daughter Lindsey, chose a badger from my right hand. Her mother helped her get it over her wet hair.
“Now, there are two very important things about these necklaces. First, you must keep them on at all times, okay? And second, you each need to name your animal.”
The jewelry picking and furry wolf petting had revived them enough that their natural spunk was fast returning. One of the twins looked me in the eye, put one hand on her ten-year-old hip and announced, “Naming a necklace? That’s for kids!”
“Actually, these necklaces will protect you from the things that just haunted you. Naming them makes the necklace stronger.”
All three girls looked at me with big eyes while their worried mothers tried to rein in their sudden fear at my words.
“Mine’s name is Hugo,” the twin with the wolf said suddenly.
“Mine is Ollie,” Lindsey said.
After a pause, the other twin pointed at Awasos. “What’s his name?”
“Awasos. It’s Abenaki for bear.”
“Then mine is named Awasos!”
The damned wolf at their feet smirked at me.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, why don’t each of you take a necklace as well,” I said, handing out one to each of them. Jep’s wife, Lisa, reached for another bear, this one a bit bigger. I pulled it away.
“Oops, sorry. That one is taken. My fault.”
She shrugged and grabbed a mountain lion instead.
“Okay, we’re gonna go find a motel or hotel. We can regroup tomorrow.”
Granger stepped forwa
rd with some cards in his hand. “Gordon, the Pack owns a motel not far from here. We’ve already arranged rooms for you there, and they won’t give Awasos any grief. We’ll spend the night there as well and maybe we can meet for breakfast in the morning?” he said, handing us each a card.
It had the hotel address and logo on it, as well as a number and his signed initials.
“Great. We’ll see you in the morning,” I said, glancing at the wall clock. “Or I should say later this morning.”
They said goodbye, their faces a mixture of expressions. Jep’s broad face was forthrightly grateful as I took the safe from his arms; his wife’s was a mixture of weariness and fear. Rose Granger’s was tear-streaked but unbelievably happy, her arms clutched around her daughters, who looked at their new necklaces with curiosity. Ned’s face was thoughtful as he nodded goodbye to both of us, and the young Malcolm was slightly awed whether he looked at me or Stacia, but likely for different reasons.
