Monstrous 2

by Sawyer Black

  “Hypnotic fervor, huh?”

  “He enlisted the help of a pagan priest, sort of a precursor to theistic Satanism.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Essentially, he swore to ally himself with the only power that would possibly provide support against the Usurper. Or the Oppressor of Man.”

  Henry wished he had a watch to look at. “And who was that?”

  “The only one who would parlay was a demon named Anameloch. A female spirit of the moon. Her symbol was the branches of a tree bending in to block the light of the sun.”

  “It’s always a woman, amirite?”

  Zeke shook his head in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Anyway, Lucilius’s family adopted that symbol on your phone and in Owen’s Signa Diabolicum. A mash-up of Saint Simon and Anameloch. Over time, the name eventually became Lucius.”

  “Lucius, huh? Sounds familiar.” Henry felt a wave of nausea track through his gut. “Lucius? Malcolm Lucius? The fucking mayor of Burg City?”

  “I believe so. They have a family crypt with that very symbol on the doors.”

  “Motherfucker!”

  “What?”

  “It’s in the Prince Hill Cemetery, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. How’d you know?”

  Henry sat back and covered his face with his hands. “You didn’t happen to hear anything about an explosion there recently, did you?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Of course not. You can cover up anything when you got a whole city behind you.”

  The fucking mayor of Burg City.

  Perfect.

  CHAPTER 19

  Henry was getting sick of hoodies and jeans.

  The hood blocked his peripheral vision and filled his ears with his breath, covering the sounds of anybody approaching. He dropped the hood with a rustle of fabric and strained his ears into the silence. Nothing but his heartbeat and dry swallowing.

  He was also starving. Water kept his energy up, but the gnawing in his gut kept him reaching for the ring. Owen’s disapproval would hang in his mind, and Henry would drop his hand and close his mind to the sweet suffering in the city around him. He could do it. Save Amélie without killing, and maybe rescue himself in the process. Somebody would be proud of him then.

  Believe it or not, I’m still coming, sweetie.

  He crouched in the shadow of a dump truck in the center of Prince Hill. Burg City Works had wasted no time in starting repairs on the sinkhole. Apparently, a recent reduction in the water table had left a void beneath the cemetery.

  Fucking global warming.

  Nothing to see here. Just a fleet of trucks and bulldozers and city workers getting over time. But not double time. The work area was clear and dark. Still, like it was frozen.

  Henry shivered and moved deeper into the property, skirting the treads of a backhoe and squinting at the map Zeke scribbled on the back of his business card. The stars made the paper glow.

  The front was covered in religious symbols. Ezekiel Crown ~ Occult Consultant ~ When you need to know.

  “When you need to know what?” Henry muttered. “How to get a ghost out of your Kindle?”

  The closely-packed headstones and monuments gave way to broad paths and crypts. Ornate mausoleums and carved slabs. Edged grass and tended flowers. Just like El Matanso, this part of the cemetery was covered in money. But unlike Henry’s private neighborhood, Prince Hill Cemetery was old.

  Here before the settlers, it was started with the burial of a Choctaw prince who converted to Christianity. Some believe it was a myth of history. Some thought Panther Grissom was some kind of saint. Burg City started as a tourist attraction where believers flocked to the unmarked grave for a mystical blessing. In the twenties, city founders installed a hand-carved monument in the prince’s honor and set the surrounding twenty acres as a preserve and cemetery.

  It wasn’t long before they needed to erect a fence to keep folks from boning up against his headstone and on the grass and the graves to either side and in the trees and … everywhere, really. Dark rituals in the dead of night left the grass scorched, and enough animal offerings to make the place smell like a dog food factory.

  To subsidize the cemetery’s reclamation, the city sold exclusive plots for rich industrialists making scratch on the backs of immigrants. Soon, the oldest part of the cemetery was the richest, and the immigrants were laid to rest at the bottom of the hill in plain pine coffins.

  Henry’s shoes squeaked on the wet grass. He froze, waiting for any sound that might alert him to a follower. He imagined the light of a black helicopter snapping on to surround him in blinding bright light as he shit his pants in surprise.

  As long as it’s not a Tracker.

  He pressed his back against the smooth granite wall of a massive crypt. Roman carvings and columns. Bas-relief horses dragging a banner with a Latin phrase etched into it. Quae Descendum Volo Videre.

  Scraping from around the corner sent Henry’s heart into palpitations. He bit back an exclamation and eased to the edge of the wall, waiting for a demon or even a fucking raccoon to shoot out of the dark.

  Orange light flared, and with another scraping, the light died. He peeked around the corner. In the space between a fluted column and the crypt wall, Henry could see a sliver of flickering light in the gap between the doors of the Lucius Family’s burial vault. The rayed sun behind the inverted cross. The reaching trees. The carving sparkled with reflected light like Gandalf had spoken friend and entered.

  Henry crept around the column on his tiptoes, his shoes scuffing against the stone steps. He pressed his eye to the split in the doors.

  What the actual fuck?

  A naked old man sat in the center of a pentagram drawn on the floor in blood. Two headless chickens dribbled the last of their lives in a widening puddle of sticky crimson. There had to be forty candles pouring black smoke into the crypt entry, and their combined light flashed and danced on a giant oval frame that looked like pewter. A Victorian mirror with no glass, the frame held up by iron worked into an ornate filigree of twisting serpents.

  The old man’s hair stuck out in wispy spike that fluttered as he bent to press his forehead into a spot of blood before his knees.

  Now, that’s flexibility.

  The old man rose with his arms crossed over his chest, and he tipped his face to the ceiling. “Sestama fendo anamo enGAR!”

  What is that? Span-Latin?

  “Sestama fendo aNAmo enGAR!”

  Portugeezer?

  “Enla farn ALto SEN! SesTAma fendo aNAmo enGAR!”

  Red sparks exploded from the air in the center of the frame, showering the old man with arcing pinpoints of fire. Red light split with gold like flowing lava filled the oval, and a thrumming vibration crashed through the vault.

  “Holy shit,” Henry whispered.

  He eased the stone door open, its scraping across the top step lost in the mirror’s growing hum. Henry turned to make sure the door was closed completely, wincing with a squealing hinge.

  “Yes,” the old man shouted in breathless joy.

  Henry closed his eyes and shook his head.

  I don’t want to turn around.

  “Yes!”

  I don’t want to look.

  Henry turned and cracked his eyelids open to slits. A cloven hoof stepped through the rippling fire in the mirror’s center. Liquid flames dripped from the leg as it extended to the floor. A clawed hand gripped the top edge, and a horned head slid through.

  Henry’s eyes sprang open, and his jaw fell to his chest.

  The demon pressed through the opening like he was squeezing through a window to get ahead of an apartment fire. His face reminded Henry of the grotesqueries carved into a Samurai helmet. The old man stood, blocking the view, and Henry stepped to the side to see what came next.

  The demon’s glowing eyes flicked to his movement, his eyebrows falling in a snarl. He halted his progress through the fra
me and drew his arm back inside.

  “No!” the old man shouted.

  The demon bared his fangs and ducked back through the fire. Lava dripped to the floor, sizzling into the stone.

  “NO!”

  The cloven hoof returned to Hell, and the light disappeared. The mirror became an empty oval, scorched by the fire of another world, and the old man dropped his head. The candles’ guttering flames made shadows dance in the corners. The old man’s shoulders twitched with his sobs, and Henry threw his hands up in frustration.

  “Suck it up, for Christ’s sake!”

  The old man turned with his eyes wide and his mouth open in shock. He fell to his knees, leaning back and extending his hand to the dead chickens.

  “What? You’re gonna cluck me to death?”

  The old man sprang to his feet with a spryness that Henry didn’t think even he could muster. A bloody dagger trembled in the old man’s fist, aimed at Henry’s chest. The old man took a firm step out of the pentagram, his face clouding with anger.

  Nope.

  Henry switched the ring to his monster hand and stepped forward with a growl.

  The old man fell back, his face filling with awe. The knife fell from his fingers, clattering and bouncing out of reach. He smiled and clasped his hands under his chin. “You’re one of them.”

  “That’s right,” Henry snarled.

  The old man’s smile became a grin of perfect dentures. He squared his shoulders and stuck out his hand. He marched forward with his sagging balls bouncing off his withered thighs, and Henry found himself shaking the hand of a naked old man covered in chicken blood.

  “I’m Hennessy Lucious. Pleased to meet you.” He tipped his head, waiting with a polite smile.

  “Um … Henry.”

  “Henry?” Hennessy dropped his hand and stepped back, looking up into Henry’s eyes in disbelief. “That’s it?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, what did you expect?”

  “I don’t know. More?” Hennessy cocked his thumb at the mirror. “His name was Thamuz.”

  Henry sighed and put the ring back on his right hand.

  “Look, I’m sorry for interrupting … whatever the fuck that was, but I’m looking for something.”

  Hennessy walked to the corner and picked up a pile of folded clothes. “Aren’t we all.”

  Henry looked everywhere but at the old man as he wiped the blood with lemon-scented baby wipes.

  “I didn’t really expect anybody to be here. I was just kinda looking for clues. I need to find the Purveyor.”

  Hennessy spun around with his shirt half-on. A blue silk number with white buttons that gleamed in the light. “The Purveyor?”

  “Yeah, you know him?”

  “Of course. That’s where I got the mirror.”

  “Well, I need to find the Horn of the Lamb.”

  Hennessy whistled. “Now, that’s an item of some interest.”

  “You know about it?”

  “I should say. I sold it to that very gentleman last week.” He ran a white silk tie under his collar and busied himself with tying it while Henry winced in mental pain.

  “Why?”

  “I needed the money.”

  “Did you blow it?”

  “The money or the horn?”

  Henry sighed. “The horn.”

  Hennessy dropped his hands and leaned forward to fix Henry with a look reserved for the insane. “Of course not, and I told him not to, either. Doubt if either of us could, anyway. It’s an angelic instrument. It would probably kill him to try.”

  “And he still wanted it?”

  “I still wanted it.” Hennessy tucked the tails of his shirt into tailored gray slacks then slid a glossy leather belt through the loops at his waist.

  “You don’t really look like you’re hurting for money, though.”

  “Not the kind of money you’re thinking of. I’m not just a seller. I’m a buyer, too.” He squatted down, showing off those flexible joints and tying the laces on a pair of black wingtips that shone like a calm pond.

  “So what are you looking for?” Henry asked.

  Hennessy stood and shrugged into a tailored jacket that matched the slacks, looking at Henry from the side of his eyes. “Something that will let me live forever.”

  “Can I talk the Purveyor? The man you sold the horn to?”

  Hennessy shook his head. “He is a very private man. He usually doesn’t accept calls, but if you have a phone of your own? Perhaps one like this?” He lifted a brass brick out of his pocket that looked like Henry’s own hotline to heaven.

  “You have a Holy Phone of Antioch, too?”

  “That’s very funny, yes.” Hennessy latched a heavy gold watch to his wrist and slid a sparkling gold ring onto his pinky finger. “He will call you after I speak with him, I’m sure. You will need to offer him something in trade.”

  “Like what?”

  Hennessy slapped his thighs in exasperation. “I don’t know. You’re the demon. Think of something.”

  “All right, all right. Tell him to ask for Mike Serafino.”

  “Not Henry?”

  “No. Henry is … my demon name.”

  Hennessy drew a comb slick with pomade out of his inside pocket. He pulled it through his hair with practiced strokes then replaced the comb and patted his goatee flat. He shook his head. “Henry.”

  He shot his cuffs and straightened his tie, and when he turned to present himself, Henry caught his breath.

  “Holy shit, I know you!” Henry shouted.

  The door scraped open, and Henry jumped to the side, his fingers on the ring. A man in a dark suit leaned into the crypt. His eyes roamed the corners, flickering over Henry and immediately dismissing him. They landed on Hennessy, and he lifted his wrist, tapping his watch with a gloved knuckle. “It’s time, sir. Were you successful?”

  Hennessy Lucius, the mayor’s brother, squinted his eyes in thought. He smiled and shrugged with his hands at his waist. “Yes and no.”

  The man in black tipped his head and held the door wide. “Very good, sir.”

  Hennessy nodded to Henry on his way by and stepped out into the night. The security stiff shut the door behind him, leaving Henry in the Lucius family vault, his eyes burning from the acrid candle smoke.

  “Hey! I’m not cleaning this shit up!”

  CHAPTER 20

  Henry sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the sky between buildings. The sun was rising, and he’d been awake all night. The city’s victims called to him. Every angry shout. Babies crying. Like a migraine’s point pounding into every splintered crack in his resolve.

  A whole pizza and some smothered nachos hadn’t touched the gnawing in his belly, because that was a hole that couldn’t be filled. A twelve-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and then dessert.

  Every time he closed his gritty eyes, he saw Samantha curled up next to Stone, a smile on her face and blood in her hair. Amélie smiling up at her tormentors. The hollowed-out terror on the faces of the children at the Viazo Grand auction.

  He let himself fall back into the mess of blankets and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. He didn’t have the energy to kick off his shoes. His eyes drooped, and he was sinking. His eyes closed, and he was under water. Fire roared across the surface, but he was safe in a current that let him drift like the breeze.

  A ringing phone splashed him with ice and shattered his dream.

  Henry bolted upright, shielding his eyes from the blazing morning that beat against them. He leaned over to dig the phone out of his pocket. He slid his thumb across the screen, but it continued to ring.

  He shook it. Slapped it against his palm, and still it filled the room with its scream.

  What the Hell?

  The sleep sat on his brain like the chunky fat in the top of a can of beef stew. He growled and slung Meyor’s phone across the room. It spun like a disc, hit the floor, and skipped under the dresser.

  A ringing phone, and Henry realized it was coming from his oth
er pocket.

  “God DAMN IT!”

  He leaned the other way and fished in his other pocket, jerking the phone out with a snarl. It stuck in the lining, and he screamed in frustration, snatching it up and tearing his pocket to shreds.

  He flipped it open and jammed it to the side of his head. A flap of fabric poked into his eye. He batted it away and took a deep breath. “What?”

  “Hold for your party, please.”

  Henry dropped the phone in his lap and pressed his fists into his eyes. Another calming breath, and he lifted the gently against his ear.

  A baptist choir singing Victory in Jesus.

  Click. “Good morning, pal.”

  Henry rolled his eyes and fell back with a whump of the mattress. “Good morning, Mr. El. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  Mandyel took a deep breath and exhaled in a huff, making the speaker crackle. Henry knitted his brow with suspicious thought. “Are you smoking?”

  “Yeah, I am. What of it?”

  “Whoa, calm down. I was just asking a question. So, the toothpicks didn’t work, huh?” Henry smiled and settled in.

  “No, it wasn’t the toothpicks, Henry. It was my choice to give in.”

  “Free will and all, right?”

  “That’s right, pal.”

  Henry giggled. “Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. It’s what all the junkies do.”

  “You know, I was actually calling to apologize, but I don’t think I will now.”

  He pictured Mandyel hanging in the air in front of him. The terrible, beautiful rage on his face. Henry’s own panty-pissing fear.

  Maybe I’ve pushed him far enough.

  “Nah,” Henry said with a joviality he didn’t feel. “That was weeks ago. All is forgiven.”

  “Thank you, Henry.” The angel’s sober tone wiped the smile from Henry’s lips. “That means a lot to me.”

  “Come on, nobody got hurt. Don’t mention it, buddy.”

  Mandyel snorted laughter. “He said you were funny, but he never said you were smart. You surprise me sometimes, pal.”

  “Hey, thanks. So who we talking about?”

  “Boothe.”

  The phone fell onto Henry’s face. He jumbled it back into his numb fingers and sat up. “Come again.”