Abandon All Hope

by Dick Denny

  The ginger twisted her arm, trying to wrench the Spear free but Gretchen kicked out using her aikido or jeet kune do or just idiot reflex and caught the ginger in the back of her elbow, causing her to drop the Spear.

  I tugged her hair and bucked my hips hard enough to drag her off me and she rolled onto the floor as I tried to get my footing.

  I got to my feet just in time. The ginger did one of the flying leaps Zadkiel had tried to use on me at Gretchen, but I got her by one arm and by her belt and pivoted, throwing her through the large pane window at the front, through the bars, and into the street.

  Yuri and a visibly frightened Mary Jo came out of the locked gun room where they’d been hiding. I grabbed Jammer’s Kimber off the ground and tossed it to Yuri, then looked to Gretchen and told her with surprising calm, “Go on, babe, I got this.”

  Gretchen had Yuri lead the way and she took up the rear. I stepped into the gun room and grabbed a double-barrel shotgun off the wall. I don’t know if I was guided to it or if I’d just grabbed it at random. I heard horrific screaming out on the street and figured it was the ginger. I loaded the Stevens 1960s vintage side-by-side double-barrel with double-ought buckshot and stuffed shells into my pockets. I stepped back into the storefront and looked out to the road.

  The ginger pulled her hair from her face. She had high angular cheeks but a weak chin. She was pale as porcelain and was offset by the red leather jacket she wore zipped to the throat and black leather pants. Three things stood out. First, her hair floated and danced like it was made of fire. Second, she held a glowing sword of light in her right hand. Third, wings had sprouted from her back, each one as long as she was tall, so both about five-and-a-half feet. Uriel’s eyes burned as bright as her blade so that they were like looking into LED lights.

  She screamed the same horrific scream I’d heard a second ago in challenge.

  I started stepping toward the shattered window and I let go with the Wrath. I thought about what Lucifer had told me. It wasn’t a Sword it was a weapon.

  I watched my right hand wreath and become encased in fire. I watched a long, wide, rounded end blade extend from it. I lifted it and the blade formed teeth of fire and they began to whirl with a roar of a two-stroke motor. I held up the double-barrel shotgun and used the whirling blade to cut it down to an illegally short length. Over a foot of the two steel barrels fell to the concrete with the ping clink of falling metal.

  I stepped out of the broken window onto the sidewalk, double-barrel sawed-off in my left hand, a chainsaw of fire encompassing my right.

  I smiled. Bruce Campbell would be pleased.

  “All right, She-Bitch, let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Come Get Some

  “Wasted Years” Iron Maiden

  You sometimes notice weird shit in life-and-death situations. As she did the crazy angelic flying jump at me her blade was pointed straight forward like her goal was to skewer me. Instead of blocking it with my fiery chainsaw hand I raised the sawed-off 12-gauge and shot her sword made of light and charged forward obliquely to the left. Her sword was knocked off target and I ducked under her white and golden wing as I slashed up with the roar of the fiery chainsaw ripping along, it tearing off chunks of giant feathers, which smoldered and disintegrated like burning tissue paper floating up into the air. That was when I noticed the oddly surreal fact that she was barefoot.

  Her wounded wing seemed to crumple in on itself, and she landed outside the broken pawn shop window. She spun and a shield of light materialized on her left arm. She spun and lashed out with her non-injured wing and her long, thin rapier-like sword. My fiery chainsaw roared and I swung it in an overhead arc as I let fly with my remaining shotgun barrel. The double-ought buck knocked the blade off-target as I blasted her hand. The fiery teeth of my chainsaw hand tore into her left wing. I put all my strength into it and let the teeth dig in. There was no blood, only sparks of light. I was so intent on trying to cut that damned wing off I didn’t notice her shield plant into my shoulder and damned near knocked me over.

  Even as I stumbled I thumbed the barrel catch and breached the shotgun. I hooked it over my right forearm and tugged out the two spent shells. My Wrath of God Spider-Sense told me to duck so I didn’t question it. I dove forward and somersaulted forward. Then I instantly rolled to the right while tugging two shells out of my pocket and slid them into my side-by-side shotgun. I pushed up to my feet. I closed the shotgun breach with a flick of my wrist and faced her as she came at me.

  Her wings were gone like they’d de-materialized or sucked back in her body or something. I didn’t have time to ask questions as I brought my fiery chainsaw around to parry her rapier. In reality, there was no way I could whip a real chainsaw around as fast as I was, but the good news was the Wrath of God is basically weightless.

  Her eyes burned like the bits of phosphorous that broke off a star cluster flare. Unlike Zadkiel, her outfit’s basis was economy of motion as opposed to looking like a purple-clad celestial pimp. Her shield dematerialized and was replaced by a three-bladed, blade-breaker dagger. Her form was so perfect in her attacks I half expected her to tell me, My name was Inigo Montoya you killed my father, prepare to die. The only thing that was keeping me in the fight was the skill imparted to me by the Wrath, idiocy, and sheer fucking balls.

  Her attacks were relentless. It wasn’t like in a movie where the fighters come together in a clash then break, pause, and attack again. She came at me again and again without respite or hesitation. We ended up moving down the street away from the Pistol and Pawn. Fighting under the glow of the street lights, even though had it been total darkness, she created enough light with her eyes and weaponry to illuminate a freaking stadium.

  I sidestepped a thrust and saw her drive three-quarters of her blade through the hood of a car and into the engine block. I brought the whirling blade of the fiery chainsaw down on the blade and tried to drive it up to her hand, but it was stopped by the light blade’s guard. She stabbed the breaker blade forward and hooked the bar of the chainsaw. I felt her trying to rip it from how it encased my hand.

  I wasn’t sure she could rip the Wrath of God from me, but I wasn’t changing it. I pushed sawed-off barrels of the shotgun to the side of her head, right against her ear, and gave her both of them, point-blank. Her head rocked to the side and she stumbled away from me. Zadkiel had said at best gunfire was a bee sting. But a bee sting to the ear, I was pretty sure anyway, would fuck up anyone. On top of that a shotgun shell didn’t let loose one bee sting, but a fucking hive’s worth.

  I quickly breached the shotgun over my arm and reloaded as I kept my eyes locked on her. She slowly regained her equilibrium while I caught my breath. She glared at me with her glowing eyes and let fly that soul-cracking scream.

  “Fucking Christ, lady…” I sighed and flicked my wrist to close the breach of the boom stick. “Are you not even going to monologue or anything?”

  I watched as the breaker blade and rapier in her hands melded together and morphed in a blur of light into a double-bitted ax. Maybe it was obscure trivia in the back of my head or it was the Wrath telling me it was a labrys.

  I breathed heavily and slowly exhaled. “Okay. Okay…” I motioned with the shotgun and rolled my head on my shoulders. I was a little disturbed by the wrapping paper crinkle sound I heard as I rolled my neck then my shoulders. I looked to the glowing-eyed archangel. “Come get some.”

  With the rapier, her attacks had been staccato jabs and quack batting parries. Her entire form exuded economy of motion, in a lot of ways a minimalistic force. Not that she wasn’t trying to kill me, but that she was trying to burn as little energy as possible in the ending of my miserable life.

  With the labrys, that changed. She didn’t chop with it as much as she gave arcing sweeps of the curved cutting edges of the ax. One fore sweep turning into the returning back sweep. One motion blending into another. Each pass of the labrys left the illusion of a light streak in the way a kid�
��s glow stick did when waved around. Hers weren’t the hard chops of a lumberjack; she was dancing a bladed ballet of which the finale would be me dismembered or fucking dead.

  Sparks of fire and light showered around every time our weapons clashed together. She was driving hard with her whirlwind attack until we were fighting in the middle of a three-way intersection of the road we were on and an alley to the right. This was the first time she’d broken off in the attack.

  We were still close, only three feet beyond the reach of our hand weapons. Her eyes dimmed and I started reloading the double-barrel shotgun that I had discharged again in the fight. I was nowhere near as quick at reloading it as Ash Williams appeared to be.

  “Tired?” Her voice was far more pleasant than it had been on the phone.

  “Now you’re going to monologue?” I got the fresh shells in the barrels.

  “No.” She smiled, and it was utterly without warmth. “But you did forget what your military taught you.”

  “Bitch, I’ve forgotten pretty much anything anyone has taught me.” As comebacks ran, it wasn’t my best or most self-complimentary, but I was fucking tired.

  There was a flash of light behind me that flashed my shadow down the road. Then there was a flash of light from the alley. I half-turned putting the shotgun toward Uriel as I looked. There were two, identical-looking men dressed in white turtlenecks, pants, shoes. Both men were bald but wore gold bands around their foreheads. They both drew short swords of light.

  I sighed. “Motherfucker…” I looked at Uriel. “This where you tell me to give you the Fiery Sword?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll simply take it from your corpse. It’ll be in my possession before you even get to Hell.”

  I felt myself shake my head. “So what did I forget?”

  She gently cocked her head slightly to the side as if she were trying to figure out if I were kidding or not. “Maintaining a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree situational awareness and security?”

  “Oh,” I chuckled. “That. Well, never tell me the odds.” I started charging at the angel in the alley. If I could kill him quickly, that would give me either a place to run or at least funnel both the other enemies into one lane. I had thought what would Han Solo do? but pulling my pistol and blasting would have just ended up with angels pulling a Darth Vader and landing all the rounds on their hand to no good effect. So, sadly, this seemed the best plan.

  I got in the alley before the other two got to me, but I knew they were closing. They all seemed surprised by my movement like they’d just expected me to stand in the road and take it like a punk bitch. The angel readied his blade, and I didn’t pause in my running. I shot his blade hand with the shotgun, causing his entire arm to fly wide. I stepped to the free side and half-lept, half-sprinted forward while lashing out with the Fiery Chainsaw. I felt the flame teeth bite but keep spinning. My feet planted and I half-turned dragging my blade arm forward. All of a sudden it came easy as the angel’s head fell off his shoulders, having had his neck chainsawed through.

  I turned and got the sawed-off shotgun up just in time to let the second barrel loose six inches from Uriel’s rage-filled face as she moved to swing the labrys. I must have caught her in her eyes because she reached up grabbing her face with her free hand as her head snapped back from the shot.

  The headless angel flashed in a soundless explosion of light but did no physical damage. But it did teach me a lesson. I saw the reaction on the remaining angel’s bland face. Want to know who is afraid of dying? An immortal. The angel instantly locked up, unsure what to do, powerless in the face of proof that there could be an end to a being, which up to that moment had wholeheartedly believed itself to be timeless.

  To my utter shock, the action he decided to go with was to run. He put his back to me and sprinted away as fast as his legs would carry him. He turned the corner back onto the road and I saw the flash of light. I was really hoping that flash was him teleporting away and not him saying Sup? to his buddies who had just shown up.

  I turned and saw Uriel pulling herself to her feet, her face contorted with rage. I threw the empty boomstick at her and, like Superman, she dodged out of the way. They can take the bullet, no sweat. Slam a knife into their chest and let the blade crumple, no problem. Smile as they’re punched…easy. But you toss something at them and Superman and archangels get the hell out of the way.

  I watched the wings appear from her back. They beat once and I felt the gust of air. But I reached out and grabbed the wingtip. I had a good grip and I used all the strength the Wrath could give me I yanked. It started pulling her out of the sky but she swung her labrys and I barely got the Fiery Chainsaw up in time to block it. I had to brace my forearm with my other to even soak the impact. The air beat down on me and Uriel took off into the night sky.

  I was alone in the alley, the only evidence of our fight was a sawed-off shotgun on the ground and an inch-wide gold band, which used to be a halo, laying on the concrete.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Problem With Speeding Across Town In A Ferrari

  “Here I Go Again” Whitesnake

  The halo was heavier than I thought it’d be, but then again it was—probably anyway—solid gold. I slid it over the barrel of the shotgun and carried the weapon over my shoulder. A shotgun sawed off that short was easily worth ten years in prison, but I was keeping it anyway. The problem with that was hopping in a bus was out of the question, and the one Uber I summoned with my phone sped away when the driver saw it, so zero stars for that asshole.

  This lack of options left me walking.

  I hummed White Snake’s Here I Go Again as my Chucks carried me across the sidewalk. I was sticking to side streets and alleys to avoid any cops, do-gooders, or Imperial entanglements. I kept glancing about for something to hide the sawed-off in but kept coming up nil.

  I didn’t really have a plan for the halo, but it seemed stupid to leave it there. I kept glancing up, expecting Uriel to pounce on me like a hawk going after a barn cat. Finally, in an alley I found a bit of old carpet. I tore it and wrapped the sawed-off boomstick in it with the halo. After that, I looked like a guy carrying around a fucked up bit of carpet as opposed to a guy carrying around a felony.

  I stopped on the sidewalk and leaned my odd parcel against a wall before fishing my flask from my pocket. I wasn’t going to say I needed a drink, but I definitely wanted a drink. I screwed the cap off the flask and took a long slow pull of Macallan. I let it sit in my mouth tingling over my tongue before swallowing with a slight shudder before it got too warm in my mouth. I thought about it then took another. With the cap screwed back in place, I slipped it back in my pocket and started walking.

  My hands tucked in my pockets I got about forty feet before I turned around and jogged back to pick up the carpet bundle that I had left against the wall. I stepped back off with a purpose, not that I had any idea what to do next. I knew from Baalberieth that Uriel was reconning but I had no idea what. Six months ago this is when I would have called Jammer. Now that option was worth as much as a fart in a tornado. With Jammer dead and Switch laid up, Gretchen off with Yuri; my bench was pretty damned thin.

  I saw a bus stop up ahead and thought about getting a ride but thought about the rolled-up bit of carpet with the shotgun. Really, I just needed to think, and walking was good for that.

  The gas station was quiet that time of night; the disinterested clerk didn’t even look up from behind his bullet-resistant glass as I stepped inside. I pulled a Dr. Pepper from the cooler and a package of bungee cords and a light cargo strap from the aisle where you could get generic wrenches and motor oil. I carried them up to the counter and put them in the drawer. The guy didn’t take his eyes from the TV as he pulled the drawer back and rang me up. I dropped a ten-dollar bill into the slot that reminded me of a peep show, but instead of a few minutes of fantasy I was getting something tangible. I went outside and put the carpet bundle on top of a newspaper machine and wrapped the bundle up with t
he bungies. Then with the strap, I rigged up a sling strap and tossed the whole thing over my shoulders. I stuffed my right hand in my pocket and carried my Dr Pepper in my left, sipping from it every few steps as I started ambling down the sidewalk back toward the office.

  I figured Gretchen would end up back at the office eventually. Then it dawned on me that I could call her and see what was up. Unlike her, I was old enough to remember when cell phones weren’t an everyday thing. I remembered the world of high school—kids showing off their pagers and setting them on the hoods of cars and letting them race on the vibrate setting. I started to pull my phone out then remembered she had a phone, too. She could just call me, so if she wasn’t calling maybe she had a damned good reason for it. I kept my hand in my pocket, I sipped my Dr Pepper, and I kept walking.

  My brain went back to the lack of intel problem. It dawned on me, what good would knowing do anyway? If Uriel was—mind the phrasing—hellbent on kicking off the end of the world, what the fuck could I do about it? What could anyone do? If she’d found a local place suitable for the end of the freaking world could I make it unsuitable? Get Lucifer to stack the place with demons or shit to rob it of any tactical value? That option was predicated on me knowing where shit was going to go down. That looped me back around to having a thin fucking bench; the ouroboros of bullshit in my life.

  I turned the corner and groaned as I saw a few hookers working the block. Hookers are strippers who had given up on their dreams. I prefer strippers. At the same time, where you found hookers you found pimps nearby, and pimps were pains in the ass. I had to deal with pimps in the P.I. game. Easiest way to find out if a client’s husband was cheating on her was to find where he was finding his girls. It was either someone he already knew or he was hiring pros, and that meant finding the pimp and handing some cash over for info about the next time the mark calls. Most pimps are scumbag pieces of shit, and they treat their girls exactly how you’d expect them to. But here’s the thing…do those girls deserve better? Probably. Is it my job to save them? No. An alky will tell you, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the shit I cannot change, the courage to change the shit I can, and the wisdom to accept the fucking difference.” I could spend my days trying to bust up every asshole who gave a working girl five across the face, and you know what? It wouldn’t make a fucking difference. It’s warning labels on packs of cigarettes. No girl goes into that game not knowing the bullshit involved. Yet for some reason or another, they go into it. I never met a working girl that wasn’t a sad story, and at the same time I never met a working girl that wasn’t there for a reason, and at the end of the day, they chose to be there.