by Peter Nealen
I paused. “Shouldn’t we do something about that?” I asked, pointing to the web of symbols on the floor.
He looked back. His eyes narrowed. “It’s too late to make any difference by destroying it,” he said. “But you’re right; we shouldn’t leave that lying around.” He raised his pistol. I covered my ears and closed my eyes as three thunderclaps shook the entire building, and the light hammered my retinas through my eyelids. When I opened them, the sigil on the floor was gone, replaced by a huge scorch mark, with flames licking along its borders. “Let’s go,” he said simply, and continued up the stairs.
I followed. There were more scorch marks on the carvings in the foyer when we got up there, that I hadn’t been able to reach. He’d wiped out the demonic scribblings there, too.
When we stepped outside, if anything, it had gotten even darker. It was well past twilight; except for the forks of disturbingly colored lightning, the sky was midnight black. Rain and hail lashed down, driven by winds that seemed to howl with voices well beyond the usual noise of wind through trees and buildings. He strode out into the street, utterly unaffected by the storm.
When I followed him, something big and slimy hit me in the side of the face. It was a frog. I looked around and saw more, some whole, some splattered by impact. Oh, that was just great. The storm and the demons weren’t enough; now it was raining frogs.
“You said it was too late to make much difference,” I shouted over the unholy noise of the storm. I was still looking around, but couldn’t even see the psychos tearing people apart anymore. In fact, the town looked deserted. It didn’t make me relax any.
“He’s coming through,” he said. “That’s no longer avoidable. I’ll have to force him back into the Abyss.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Abbadon,” he replied. “Leave him to me. You concentrate on the sorcerer and the sgilli.”
So that was the being “Sam” had showed me stirring at the edge of the Abyss. I was really scared now, archangel or no archangel. Abbadon is one of the prime lieutenants of the Prince of Darkness himself. His arrival, and subsequent orgy of death and destruction, is supposed to be a pivotal part of the apocalypse. He’d been the subject of attempted summonings during both the Spanish Civil War and World War II, by fools who thought they could manipulate him into being their personal weapon of mass destruction. Fortunately, they’d all failed, or been stopped before they could complete the rituals.
He started striding up the street, heading out of town, toward the sawmill. I jogged to keep up.
Looking up, against the pummeling of rain, hail, and frogs, I could see a whirling conflagration of lightning, cloud, smoke, and what looked like fire forming in the sky over the sawmill. Even with the Captain next to me, this didn’t feel like it was getting any better.
Chapter 12
We saw no movement aside from the storm as we walked toward the edge of town. There were several corpses, and a few fires burning, in spite of the rain. I suspected that the nasties didn’t want to tangle with the enormous figure stalking through the storm in front of me.
That didn’t mean they were averse to taking a crack at me when they thought he wasn’t looking.
I didn’t hear anything; the storm was making too much noise and my ears were ringing from the battering they’d taken already. I just kind of felt their attention, kind of like that feeling you get when you’re a kid, and you’re sure there’s something in the open closet, watching you, and waiting for you to go to sleep so it can eat you.
I spun on my heel, already bringing my rifle up. The sight that met my eyes probably would have made me want to run and hide in any other circumstances, but like I said before, I was already pretty desensitized by then.
Two of the possessed were standing in the street, which was positively alive with shadow snakes. And all of them were slithering toward me.
There was no hesitation. I shot the nearest snake through the head, and it dissolved into black filth, soon studded with hailstones and frogs. I shot two more in rapid succession, but there were a lot more of them than I had bullets, and once I’d fired all eighteen rounds, between my rifle and my pistol, they’d be all over me before I could reload.
My towering companion fired over my shoulder twice, the earth-shaking reports blending together in to one rolling, cataclysmic noise. Both possessed disappeared in splashes of oily smoke. The shadow snakes went with them.
That big cap-and-ball of his wasn’t a gun that you or I could pick up and shoot. It was an extension of his will. And let me tell you, from personal experience, I am eternally thankful that he’s on our side, because that will is terrifying. Fighting next to him felt a little like jogging on the side of an active volcano, and even that analogy isn’t sufficient. I cringe a little now when I see the pretty, soft-faced paintings and statues of St. Michael. They seem like such trite representations of a being with the capability, should the Lord command it, to unmake worlds.
“Come on,” he said again. “We haven’t got a lot of time.”
He forged uphill into the darkness, leaving behind the lights of the town, and I was right on his heels.
About a half mile outside of town, “Sam” joined us. He looked a little haggard, but apparently he’d won. “Captain,” he said gravely to my companion, which earned him a nod and confirmed my suspicions, as if I needed any more confirmation beyond the fact that he was going up the hill to come to grips with one of the worst of the Fallen, and didn’t seem even remotely bothered by the concept.
The sawmill was still surrounded by a few piles of stacked lumber, though it was mostly just scrap anymore; the mill wasn’t used enough for a lot of good stuff to be left around. It was only open maybe a month out of the year for anything besides tourism. A lot of the rest of the scrap got taken away for firewood. The vast majority of the old yard was now an expanse of muddy, empty ground, covered in dazed frogs.
There were no lights around the mill. The power hadn’t been run there in ages; when it operated it did everything on an old diesel generator that was turned off when it wasn’t being used. But that didn’t mean the whole thing was dark.
Cracks in the shrunken boards of the main building leaked a bilious blue-green glow, that didn’t seem to actually illuminate anything, but just looked rotten somehow. The entire building somehow oozed menace now. The windows on the top floor were still darkened, and seemed like eyes watching malevolently. I’d thought I was deadened to the horror by that time, but I’ll admit, I had never been so terrified in my life. I knew what was probably in there, and really didn’t want to face it.
A massive hand, that seemed as solid and heavy as the rocks of the mountains themselves, even though its owner wasn’t technically a physical being at all, descended on my shoulder. “Steady, Jedediah,” The Captain rumbled. “Look at me.”
I obeyed. His pale eyes seemed fathomless. “You are being asked nothing that you are not equal to,” he said. “He never asks more than you are capable of. Trust me.” The emphasis on “He” was about as subtle as a sledgehammer, leaving no doubt whatsoever Who he was talking about. “We are here, and we’ll handle the Fallen. As for the others…” He leaned close. “The sgilli is an old, old shaman, granted many gifts by the Powers of the Abyss. He can make you see things that are not there. Concentrate on what is true, and you can beat him. As unnaturally long-lived as he is, he is still mortal, no greater than you. Remember that.”
I nodded, flexing my hands around my rifle. I really, really hoped he was right. “Pretty sure he could still tear me apart, though,” I replied, mentally cursing the little shake in my voice. I’d seen some of what the Shadowman was capable of, and it didn’t engender a lot of confidence.
“Of course,” The Captain replied. “There is always that chance. You will not live forever. It is the fight that matters. And what better way to die than fighting evil?”
Most people expect angels to be these boringly serene, kind of stuffy beings. I guess on some level,
so did I. It was a little surprising to see the roguish grin on that ageless face. “Let’s go, shall we?” he said, lifting that monstrous cap-and-ball pistol.
The Captain knows how to make an entrance. When he kicked the front doors of the mill open, he took the doors and most of the frames out. He strode into that rotten glow, and I had no choice but to follow him. “Sam” clapped me on the shoulder and went in beside me.
The inside of the mill was easily as spooky as I expected. The entire place was carved with demonic symbols, which were glowing with that disturbing luminescence that lit nothing. Disgusting fetishes were hung from the rafters, and in the center of the room, a figure was nailed to an upside-down cross.
I almost didn’t recognize him, and not just because of the gloom. The last few days since his disappearance had definitely taken their toll on Bob. Being crucified upside-down as a sacrifice to bring the Lieutenant of the Prince of Darkness through the veil from the Abyss didn’t help anything, either.
Not seeing anyone else, I went straight to Bob. He was still alive, but barely. “Bob, it’s Jed,” I told him. “I’m going to get you down from here.”
“Jed…” he whispered, his voice labored and harsh, “Get out of here…he’s…he’s here…”
I didn’t have to ask who. The shape looming out of the darkness behind the big, dusty ripping saw answered that question.
At first it was just a deeper darkness, blotting out some of the sickly glowing symbols. But as it heaved itself over the log track, it got clearer.
It was vaguely human-shaped, if far, far bigger. It even loomed over The Captain, though he didn’t seem particularly worried. Strangely, even in the oppressive gloom of that cursed sawmill, I could see The Captain fine, as though he provided his own light, without being obvious about it.
There were no horns, at least not that I could see. In fact, the demon’s head looked like it was shrouded in a deep hood, though eyes glowed like coals from deep inside. The only other facial feature that was visible was a grin that was way too wide and too toothy.
It seemed to be swathed in a ragged, dark coat or cloak. But arms were unfolding from the shadows of the garment. Too many arms. I stopped counting at six, shuddering. They were also too long and covered in spines, with massive talons that looked like they could cut me in two with a flick.
The Captain calmly stared at it. “I didn’t take any especial joy from throwing you into the Pit last time, brother,” he said, that unflappable, conversational voice vibrating every surface in the old mill. “This time, though…” He glanced down at the big pistol in his enormous hand. “This time, I think I’ll enjoy it. Especially after what your cronies have done here.” His voice went hard with a cold rage at the last sentence that put chills up my spine. Remember when I said I’m glad he’s on our side? Yeah…hope you never have to be that close to a pissed-off archangel.
He whipped up that big plow-handle and let rip, the thunder and light threatening to burst the entire mountain apart. I couldn’t see Abaddon in that inferno, though somehow I knew it was going to take more than that to put him down.
I hadn’t seen Mayhew or the Shadowman anywhere in the gloom, so I went to work trying to get Bob down. If I could at least get him flat, he would have more time while I tried to get the nails out, and get him down to the church. I couldn’t see much in the actinic flashes of The Captain’s wrath, but from what I could see, Bob was in bad shape.
In retrospect, it really was no wonder I didn’t see him coming. There was so little light in that old, creaky building that it was hard to see Bob clearly, and he’d made himself into darkness incarnate a long time ago. He was probably standing behind me the whole time, hiding in the blackness.
A limb as cold and hard as ice whipped around my neck and everything went black.
I found myself in a cave. There was enough wan, pale light coming from the entrance to see that much. The air was dank and cold, though not as cold as the arm that was still across my throat like an iron bar.
The Great One has left you to me, a voice that creaked like old, cracking leather hissed in my ear. I told you what would happen to you, up on the mountainside. The woman might be beyond my reach here, but that will not last. When the Great One stretches his hand out over the land and turns your cities to ash, she will be rooted out of her hole. I will leave you just alive enough to see what happens to her. You will not die quickly.
I reached for the holy water flask, but it wasn’t there. Neither was my knife, my pistol, or my Winchester. It was just me and this old wickedness, hand-to-hand.
I lashed behind me with an elbow, connecting with a hard skull that felt like a rock, only colder. I hit it again and again, driven to fight by sheer animal desperation. This old thing scared the crap out of me, and while I might not have the weapons to take it down, I’d sure as hell make sure it knew it had been in a fight before I went down. If I could keep it busy long enough, maybe “Sam” or The Captain could come find me and get me out. If I survived.
I must have gotten some halfway decent shots in, because the Shadowman snarled and threw me away from it. I hit the rocky floor of the cave hard; the pain took my breath away for a second. Then the Shadowman was on me again, lifting me up by the throat.
My eyes had adjusted to the gloom. It was the first good look I’d gotten. Whatever this place was, the Shadowman was now manifest as something more than man-shaped blackness. His new look wasn’t an improvement.
He was so withered he didn’t even look human. He looked like a drowned man who had been left in the sun until what was left of him was leather and bone. But there was a terrible strength in those scrawny limbs, and his eyes were still very much alive, and full of hate.
I hurt awfully, and I was already starting to see little flecks in my vision from lack of oxygen, but I was not going down easily. I started punching him in the face. When that didn’t work, I stuck a thumb in his eye.
That got his attention. He screeched and let go, holding his hand to his ruined eye. The noise was so bad it hurt as it reverberated off the walls of the cave. I dropped to the floor, got my feet under me, and kicked him in the groin. I remembered what The Captain had said; behind all the sorcery and the “gifts” from his demonic masters, he was still mortal and apparently getting hit in soft spots still hurt.
Getting kicked in the gonads didn’t even faze him. He calmed down, and looked at me with his one remaining eye. The sheer hatred in that cyclopean stare looked like it could almost kill a man with its intensity alone.
I wasn’t a regular man anymore. I was mad clear through. Somehow, coming to grips with this thing had cleared away the fear and just pissed me off.
I launched myself at him, pummeling him with both fists. He hadn’t been ready for it, and I’m a pretty good fighter. I drove him back, hammering at his face, then his ribs when he tried to cover the ruin of his head. It didn’t last, though.
As hard as I was hitting him, he was too tough, hardened by old sorceries, to take much damage from my punches. He got his balance back, and spoke a word that slammed me back six feet, while making my head swim from the sheer insanity of the sound. Then he got nasty.
He opened his mouth, wider than any human being should be able to, and a cloud of fat, black blowflies roared out. The cloud hit me like a sledgehammer, knocking me to my knees while the flies swarmed over every inch of skin, biting and stinging. It was agony.
I thrashed and writhed, trying to drive the bugs away, but they weren’t going anywhere. It felt like a million red-hot needles were being driven into every exposed piece of flesh, and they were starting to crawl in my shirt, and trying to force their way up my nose and into my mouth. I didn’t even want to think about what might happen if those things got inside my mouth or my lungs. The only reason I wasn’t screaming at that point was that I was keeping my lips pressed tightly together to keep them out. My eyes were squeezed shut too, as they tried to burrow into my eyelids.
I was certain, at that poin
t, that I was going to die. “Sam” and The Captain were occupied with Abaddon. I had been responsible for stopping the Shadowman, but he’d gotten the drop on me, and I was done.
In that brief moment of despair, amid the haze of pain and horror, The Captain’s words came back to me. “He can make you see things that are not there. Concentrate on what is true, and you can beat him.”
I knew the Otherworld. There is some freakish, impossible stuff involved, but I’d never heard of a Shadowman being able to teleport, much less do so with someone else. Which raised the question, how had I gotten here?
Was here even real? Or was this the battleground chosen by the Shadowman, and projected into my mind? I knew it could put visions into people’s heads. That was how it had destroyed Janice Robinson, and opened her up to the demon that had possessed her.
So were my weapons really gone?
I reached out, concentrating hard, as difficult as it was with the searing agony of the flies biting me everywhere. I could hear the Shadowman stepping closer, a dry, hissing chuckle coming from its ruined lips. I will make this last even longer, now, it said. You will pay for my eye for a decade, at least.
My groping hand brushed something. I grabbed and pulled.
My Winchester was there, in easy reach. He had stuck it in my head that it was gone. It had been there all along.
With a sudden movement, I palmed the rifle’s stock and whipped it around. I still couldn’t see, thanks to the flies, but I knew he was there. I lunged forward, struggling against the pain.
He didn’t see it coming. I think he started to realize what had happened, but by then my rifle’s muzzle was touching his chest.
I didn’t waste time on one-liners. I was way too strung out to think of one anyway. As soon as I felt the barrel touch that leathery, wasted torso, I pulled the trigger.
