by Leo Romero
I didn’t let up. I sent him an uppercut. His whole body jerked upright, his face mashing up even more. Half his head was a ball of flame. His remaining eye whirled. He was disorientated, ready for the taking. I took up my stance, licking my lips. I curled that gauntlet up into a fist aimed right for his head and pulled back, winding up a final blow, the thought of fifteen big ones, ten feathers and an L45 form winging my way. “Death by KO,” I said in a stone-cold voice.
I went to throw that knock-out punch. Beelzebub’s eye zoned back into life. He saw what was about to happen and reacted on instinct. He puffed up his chest and released another of those blasts of radiant heat. This time were was a meaty pop alongside the invisible wave, which hit me like a hurricane. It knocked me off my feet, sending me flying back across the foyer like a ragdoll. I hit he marble floor where I slid back and hit Olev’s prone body, which was like hitting a giant cushion. The whole while my gaze was fixed on Beelzebub. While he did his exploding heat wave thing, his flesh burst away like he’d been fitted with an IED. Bits of pink and gray hit the walls around us all where they set alight and frazzled away into nothing. Now, Beelzebub was a walking inferno. A fire man. What appeared to be a blood-red skeleton surrounded by flames.
I gulped. Beelzebub just leveled up.
I shielded my eyes against the fires, half expecting him to come rushing straight for me. I leaped up to my feet, raising my gauntlet on the air. If he wanted a fist fight, then he’d get one. From within that flaming skull, Beelzebub’s lava-red eyes stared at the gauntlet for a prolonged second. Now jacked on some kind of extra strength, and extra stupidity to go along with it, I rushed toward him with a war cry.
Beelzebub pointed both hands at the floor between us and shot fire down and then up, creating a wall of flames. I came to a screeching halt. Through the dancing flames, I watched Beelzebub bounce on his toes before making a beeline for the front door. “We’ll meet again soon, Stone!” he snarled as he stormed out into the night. I went to race after him, but he shot more fire back behind him, stopping me in my tracks. I hopped back, fearful of getting caught in the inferno. Beyond the yellow, shimmering air, I watched Beelzebub disappear over the mansion wall.
I growled in frustration. Damn, there goes my money and wings!
I spun away in anger and as I did, my strength was suddenly zapped like I’d been turned to stone. Weakness wormed its way into my bones and fatigue rapidly overcame me like a bout of dehydration. I gazed down at that gauntlet and realized it was literally sucking the life from me. A wooziness came over me like I was about to pass out. I ripped the gauntlet from my hand and slung it to the side in disgust. It hit the marble floor and causally began walking around on its fingertips in that creepy manner.
I grabbed my forehead. As the seconds ticked by, my strength began to return like an empty gas tank being filled with juice. I staggered over to Olev and Aurora, almost falling on the way. My body and mind were going here and there, up and down, round in circles. I had to really push hard to gain control. I leaned up against the wall to steady myself, my head and heart pounding.
Aurora was bent down by Olev’s side. He’d returned back to human form. His chest was red raw, blackened in places like he’d been showered with burning coals. The smell of burned flesh and hair emanated from him like he was a barbeque grill. His glassy eyes zoned in and out, but his breathing seemed measured.
“You both okay?” I blurted, my chest struggling.
Aurora gave me a brisk nod. She gazed down at Olev, whose eyes were watery. “I’ll...live,” he managed through the pain.
“Good,” I said before collapsing to the floor, an exhausted heap, my mind racing in a million directions. “Okay, Olev,” I said in between heavy breaths, my gaze fixed on the blackened ceiling. “Start talking. What the hell is that hand thing and what the hell is going on?”
Chapter 7
The remainder of Olev’s guys came out of hiding and got to work dousing any surviving fires, albeit in a petrified state. Olev wisely had his mansion fitted with more fire extinguishers than a fire station. It was almost as if he’d been expecting Beelzebub himself to turn up in fire demon form. The foyer was a wreck. The front door smashed in, the walls and floor burned black, the Greco-Roman statues in pieces. Burned corpses lay strewn on the ground like the place had been hit with a napalm bomb.
While the guys either recovered or were busy putting out flames, my eyes fell on that hand. It was walking blindly around the foyer, occasionally bumping into a wall or a corpse and then heading off in another direction.
“It’s part of the Armor of Agony,” Olev said. He was sitting upright, still in pain and plastered in sweat, but was able to talk and think coherently. One of his guys had fetched him a robe to cover his nakedness.
“The Armor of what?” I replied, rubbing my head.
“Agony,” repeated Olev. “It was forged in Hell itself by the Six Diseased Disciples of Satan. It gives you a burst of superhuman strength, but then it begins to cannibalize its wearer, stealing their life. It wasn’t meant for fighting with, Stone. It’s for a ritual. To steal the life of the Dark Bearer.”
“Wait, that’s what Beelzebub called Aurora.”
Olev nodded slow and deliberate. Both of us turned to face Aurora, who was standing innocently off to the side. She caught us both staring at her. “What?”
“She’s the Dark Bearer,” Olev said with a nervous nod. “The one who’ll be sacrificed to open a permanent tear between Earth and Hell.”
“Why her?”
“She’s special in some way. Her blood is somehow special. It’s what’s needed to complete the ritual. The Dark Bearer comes around every few centuries or so to fulfill this sick prophecy of bringing Hell to Earth, and now she is the one. She has come of age, and Hell has sensed it.”
I looked at Aurora. She stood there, her mouth agape. Man, she didn’t know about any of this. Neither did I. She was special, I already knew that, I just had no frickin’ idea how special. I rubbed my head. This was deep. Went all the way down to Satan himself.
“Gabe?” Aurora said, her voice laced with nerves. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing, kiddo. Just scary stories is all. Nothing to worry about.” Man, that was a helluva lie, especially for an angel. I hoped the Big Kahuna wasn’t listening in.
My eyes fell on that gauntlet again as it bumped into the back of Sergei’s legs. Sergei spun around and cursed down at it. It waddled away, nonplussed.
“Where did you get that thing, Olev?” I asked.
“From the triads.”
“And where did they get it?”
Olev sighed. “The armor has been lost for almost three centuries since the last Dark Bearer ritual was thankfully averted. The protectors of the faith at the time scattered the pieces across Earth and the surrounding planes for safety. But with the rebirth of the Dark Bearer, darkness has been stirred. All the servants of evil, dangerous people, have been scouring Earth and the other planes to find the pieces of the armor. They almost have the entire set. From what we understand, that gauntlet is the final piece to be located. The vampires found it deep in the Netherworld. Luckily, our contacts within the Orthodox Church have been watching. Many people have lost their lives in this battle, Stone.” He crossed himself. “They found out about the triads having the gauntlet and informed us. We managed to trick the triads into bringing the item to Lincoln Park that night where we stole it from them. Then Beelzebub turned up and almost defeated us. Luckily, by the grace of God, we managed to escape with the gauntlet before he could get it.”
“But now he knows it’s here and he’s gonna be after Aurora,” I said.
Aurora’s eyes widened in horror. “Hey, if that guy’s after me, I’m outta here!”
“Don’t worry, kid, you’re safe with me,” I told her. “If there’s one person you wanna be around when a demon’s after you, it’s an angel, trust me.”
Aurora ran one hand over the other. “With all due re
spect, I don’t feel very safe against a man made of fire.”
“Hey, we got rid of him, didn’t we? You’re safe, okay!” I rubbed my forehead. I knew deep down she wasn’t safe. If Beelzebub was after her, he’d likely stop at nothing to get to her or he’d have Satan on his ass. I had my work cut out if I was gonna send Beelzebub back to Hell and protect Aurora, saving the world in the process.
I puffed my cheeks. Oh boy! “So where do the Dark Suits come into it?” I asked, changing track.
Olev’s gaze dropped. “They want the gauntlet too.”
“Why?”
Olev shook his head. “I don’t know. But we cut a deal with them. They supply us with arms to defeat the vampires, then we hand over the gauntlet. But I don’t trust them, so we haven’t kept up our end of the bargain.”
“Smart move, Olev.”
Olev gave me a stern nod.
I shook my head. “I don’t get why Ming would need all this to happen?”
“They’re vampires, Stone,” Olev reminded me.
“Yeah. And?”
“Hell on Earth, Stone, think about it. Satan’s reckoning will bring around a period of permanent darkness. Vampires cannot travel during daylight.”
“But, if there’s no daylight, there’ll be no humans for them to feed on.”
Olev shrugged. “No one ever said they were smart.”
I shrugged. True dat. “So who raised Beelzebub?”
Olev shook his head. “I don’t know who. Someone powerful. Someone who needed a fire demon to try and get that gauntlet.”
“Ming?”
A chuckle erupted from Olev’s chest. “Please.”
“The Dark Suits with the help of one of the Crazy Four?”
Olev shrugged. “Possibly. But, what would the Crazy Four get out of it?”
I bit my bottom lip. “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. Necromancers were dark sons-of-bitches, but were they suicidal? And as for the Dark Suits, what would motivate the ruling elite to bring Hell to Earth and potentially rival their grip on power? It was all a confusing jigsaw. I’d need time to put all the pieces together. But right now there were more urgent things to consider.
I watched that hand scuttle around in small circles like a dog chasing its tail. “So what do we do with it?” I asked, my gaze fixed on that creepy thing. “We’ll have to destroy it.”
Olev shook his head. “It cannot be destroyed. It’s made of material not of this world.”
“So what do we do then?”
“You have to take it to the Netherworld and hide it. It’s the only way.”
“Then what? In another few centuries some hellbent asshole finds it and the whole thing starts over again.”
Olev shrugged. “The war never ends, Stone.”
I blew out my cheeks in exasperation. An eternity of war between Heaven and Hell. What a prospect!
“Stone.”
I met Olev’s stare.
“You have to make sure he doesn’t get the gauntlet or the girl.”
I glanced at Aurora. She still had that look of concern stamped on her cute features. From nowhere, she was suddenly my responsibility. The hordes of Hell would now be after her and only I stood in their way. Nice. Well, I am half an angel after all so it was my duty. I gave her a firm nod. “He’ll have to come through me first.”
*****
We left the bears behind to clean up the mess Beelzebub caused at Olev’s mansion. Olev was more than glad for me to take the Gauntlet of Agony away from his home. But I didn’t feel the same. That thing sucked. Literally sucked the life out of its wearer. I got a bit of string and tied it to my waist where it dangled down on my thigh. Man, I didn’t like the feel of that thing so close to me, but I knew Beelzebub would be coming after it soon enough, so I wanted it close by.
The fingers continued to wiggle and curl around my crotch like we were on a date in the back row of the movie theater. It went for the big grab and I slapped it away. “Down boy!”
The fingers momentarily retracted. It then curled up into a fist and raised its middle finger up at me, giving me the bird.
“Back to you with bells on, buddy!” I sneered.
It flopped down by my side and hung there like a hunk of meat. I looked away in disgust. I didn’t know how long I could stomach having that thing on me. I wanted to get to the Netherworld asap and get rid of it, then take care of Beelzebub once and for all. The problem was my light magic wasn’t enough to kill him in his present form. I needed extra buffs, and I needed them now just in case we happened to bump into him anytime soon.
I checked the time. It was way gone midnight. This had been one of the longest days I’d ever known. Lucy would no doubt be wondering where I was, but there was no way I could go back to my apartment now without more protection.
I used a trick of the light masking spell on myself and Aurora. Now I was a little old man with a hunchback, and she was a paperboy with a cap on her head. Beelzebub was a high IQ entity, he’d likely see through the spell in a nano-second, but it didn’t hurt to try. We needed to go incognito. No doubt the vamps would be after us as well as Beelzebub and whoever else was working with the demons and the hordes of Hell, so we had a lot of people to hide from.
Aurora stared at my trick of the light spell with a smirk. “You look like Gandalf,” she told me.
“You look like you should be delivering me the morning news.”
She looked down at herself. “How do you do this?”
“I can bend light just enough to fool people for at least a brief moment in time, get them to see something that ain’t there. Unfortunately, you can fool some people some of the time, but not everyone all of the time. The illusion works at different rates for different people depending on their IQ. The dumb ones you can make believe they’re staring at Santa Claus himself, but others, it just doesn’t wash, not even for a second.”
She gave me a knowing nod. “So that’s how you win at cards.”
I kept my mouth shut.
She put her hands on her hips. “So why don’t you, you know, just become a professional poker player and enter those big tournaments on TV? You’d make a fortune.”
“Hey, haven’t you been listening? You want me to perform tricks of the light on national TV? In front of watching hundreds, thousands, millions? That ain’t gonna wash. Even the Big Kahuna himself would struggle to pull that one off. I have to keep things small, and yeah, I’ve played in probably every card house and casino from New York to Delhi and I’m banned from almost every one. Hell, I’m even banned from virtually every card game in the Netherworld too. It ain’t easy being me. People don’t like a winner, especially when it comes to gambling.”
“But you cheat.”
“Like hell I do! I only resort to tricks of the light when things get desperate. Any other time and I’m the greatest card player that ever walked the earth.”
She gave me skeptical look. “Just sound like a cheat to me.”
I shook my head. “Whatever. Let’s get moving.” I walked away from the parked Harley, gazing down at the long stretch of road like I was following some kind of invisible trail.
“Where are we going this time?” Aurora asked.
“The Chicago Underworld,” I said over my shoulder. “My light magic alone won’t defeat Beelzebub. I need ice and water to combat fire.”
“So, what’s the Underworld?”
“The most freakish circus you’ll ever visit.” I stared down at yet another manhole cover and shook my head.
Aurora was following up behind, gazing down at the road, nonplussed. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for a way into the Underworld.”
Aurora looked left and right. “All I see is a long ass road and nothing else.”
“To the untrained eye, that is all you’ll see.” I stood upright and looked around, rubbing my chin. Old buildings and streetlights stared back at me. “Come on, there must be one around here,” I said to myself. I squinted my eye
s and peered down the street. I set off looking at more manhole covers, all to no avail.
Aurora skipped up behind me. “You know, this isn’t the most fun way to spend an evening. Staring down at manhole covers.”
“Really?” I said over my shoulder, walking past another manhole. “We’re taking in all the sights. Vampires, bear shifters. And the night is still young.” I stood upright and puffed my cheeks in exasperation. I spun left and right.
“Maybe we should get off the street,” Aurora suggested. “I mean, that fire demon guy was pretty scary, and I don’t feel safe out here, and...”
I blocked her whining out of my mind and looked around intently. A glint on the ground up ahead caught my eye. A grin of hope spread up my cheeks. “A-ha!” I hopped into life, dashing over to the glint.
“Hey, what is it?” Aurora asked, setting off after me.
I scampered over to the manhole, my eyes wide in anticipation. On reaching it, I gazed down. I soon began nodding, biting my bottom lip. A manhole cover stared up at us that was different from the standard fare. It depicted a smiling crescent moon with twinkling stars. I focused some light magic in my palm and hovered it over the manhole cover. Electricity frazzled on the air between my palm and the cover. After a few seconds, the cover melted away into nothing, revealing a dark tunnel beyond, heading downward. I glanced over my shoulder at Aurora who was watching on keenly.
“Whoa,” she said. “What’s down there?”
“The Chicago Underworld. They like to keep themselves hidden.” I stood upright. “Follow me,” I said, taking a quick glance around. The coast was clear. I put a foot down on the rung on the inside of the tunnel and got moving.
“Oh boy, I don’t like this,” Aurora said, tentatively following me down into the darkness.
