by J. R. Rain
And then it was just me, the Devil, and the couple that had gotten us into this mess in the first place.
Chapter Twenty-five
“You have no right to keep Maria here,” I said.
“Oh, she’s here of her own volition,” said the Devil. “Unlike my own version of paradise, those in heaven can come and go as they please. Not so much for those in hell.”
“Except you let the Count come and go,” I said.
“But not as he pleases. He and I have a deal, you see.”
I knew the deal, of course. His soul in exchange for being with Maria’s corpse every ten years. Except now, he was staring at what looked very much like flesh and blood, at what very much looked like Maria in person rather than in spirit or in carcass.
I knew we were at the Weigh Station, not quite Purgatory, but certainly not hell either. How powerful the devil was, I didn’t know. Whether he was less powerful here than in hell, I didn’t know that either. I knew that he was the Prince of Darkness. I knew he was the Beautiful One, who was cast out of heaven for thinking a little too highly of himself. Truth was, we all suffer from that sin, don’t we?
One thing led to another, and the old boy was cast out of heaven, and one third of the angels went with him. Now fallen angels. Or demons.
The devil could materialize and dematerialize. He had potentially thousands of these demons at his service. If he wanted to play dirty, he could play very, very dirty.
But—and this was a big but—I suspected he still had to play by a certain set of rules. After all, what would stop Lucifer from unleashing all his demons across the earth, terrorizing and destroying anything in their wake?
Something stopped him from unleashing hell on earth, and I suspected I knew what that something was.
His equivalent.
God, Christ, or someone else.
And I suspected I had seen that someone else on the way into the Weigh Station.
How much power did the Devil have in his own realm? Could he control the elements? Could he exploit my biggest weaknesses? Could the Devil, in fact, kill me?
As if to answer my question, Lucifer held out his hand. Something flashed in it. Something metallic.
No, something silver.
It was a dagger, and the bastard tossed it from hand to hand.
Yeah, he meant to kill me and, since I had no soul, to wipe me out of existence. So the Devil had been behind all of it—Dylan’s love spell, the attack in the pizza van, the merging of Parker’s and Maria’s spirits.
Could the devil be killed? I didn’t think so. Only stopped.
So, how does one stop an all-powerful entity from destroying you? I didn’t know, but delaying the inevitable seemed a good place to start.
“All of this was to lure me here,” I said.
“You seem nervous, Spider.”
“You can’t attack me in the physical world. Not without using others.”
“Perhaps,” said Lucifer, walking toward me. “Perhaps not.”
“I think not,” I said. “You knew I was in Key West. And you used your demons and servants, or whatever it is you call them, to curse Dylan...and to get me involved.”
“The Devil’s in the details,” said Satan.
“What I don’t understand is why,” I said. We were now circling each other in the chamber. The great scale stood between. “Why go to all this trouble for me?”
We continued circling. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Creatures were flying higher up, alighting on perches in the darkness. I could see their red eyes. Demons. And lots of them.
“You know why, Spider.”
“Because you wanted me to join forces with you.”
Lucifer laughed. “The offer is still on the table, vampire, but I can see that even I can’t tempt you. No, Spider, you caught my eye when you started doing...good in the world.”
The Prince of Darkness truly looked pained forming such words. “Vampires don’t do good. Vampires kill and destroy. Vampires feed and take what they want. Whether they know it or not, they are fighting my fight. I approve. They have my consent. They are, in essence, part of my team.”
More movement above me. They could have been so many bats flitting through a bell tower. But these were much bigger than bats, and much blacker. Blacker than even the darkest shadows. For now, I kept the scale between us, but I knew that at any moment, one of the demons from above could drop down, or more than one. Hell, all of them. Then I would be in the middle of a shit storm.
“So you lured me here.”
“‘Lure’ is such a sneaky word. Come to think of it, never mind. I like it. I like it a lot. Yes, Spider, I lured you here.”
“To kill me.”
“No, Spider, to destroy you. Completely.”
And with that, he sprang forward, dagger flashing. He hurdled the scale completely, an impressive feat in and of itself. Then again, I didn’t expect anything less.
Luckily, I had just fed, and luckily my reflexes were pretty damn fast.
I caught the Devil’s wrist before the dagger could hit home. He slammed into me and I would have oofed loudly, had I any air in my lungs. I didn’t. Instead, we rolled to the ground, and I must say, the devil was a lot stronger than I anticipated. He really didn’t need his demons to finish me off, but he called on them anyway.
Now, as they dive bombed out of the sky, talons extended, screeching, red eyes flashing, I decided that it was time to call my backup.
As something pierced my shoulder—thankfully not the silver dagger—but a black, hooked talon, I said loudly, “If you can hear me, Ernie, I could use some help...”
And what happened next delighted me and royally pissed off the devil. And anything that pissed off the devil was alright with me.
A man appeared in the chamber, in the middle of the swarming demons. The man was not just any man, but Ernest Hemingway.
Of course, the man wasn’t Ernest Hemingway either.
In fact, he wasn’t a man at all.
If my guess was right—and I think it was—what I had assumed was the ghost of Ernest Hemingway was in fact...
“Michael,” hissed the devil.
“That would be me,” Hemingway said.
For the first time in a long while, I smiled.
And that’s when the fun began.
Chapter Twenty-six
So a fatalistic alcoholic writer who committed suicide was actually an archangel, who apparently happened to be my guardian angel.
I’d always thought God must have an absurd sense of humor, and this was evidence.
Best of all, it probably meant that God kind of liked me. And that was absurd, too. Maybe all that good I’d been doing, the stuff that pissed off Lucifer so much, had caught God’s all-seeing eye as well.
I didn’t have time to think about the deeper meanings right now. The Devil was still armed with a silver dagger.
“If you’re the archangel Michael,” I asked Hemingway, “where is your sword?”
“An angel’s got to change with the times,” Hemingway said. He reached behind him and pulled a big black revolver out of a hidden pocket.
“That’s cheating,” Lucifer said, the smile no longer on his face.
“You’re a fine one to make that claim, old boy,” Hemingway said. I was kind of relieved he was wearing his head. He was a lot easier to understand when he had a mouth.
“Whatever,” Lucifer said. “The odds are still in my favor.”
He signaled to the darkness above and the air exploded with wings, squeaks, and claws. Demons swooped down toward us. I dropped into battle stance, but Hemingway calmly lifted his gun and fired. I don’t know how he managed to fire hundreds of bullets from a revolver with only six chambers, but he raked the air with a hail of celestial steel that caused shrieks of agony. I covered my head as dead demons rained down all around us.
When the smoke cleared, Lucifer appeared visibly annoyed among the heaps of bodies. “It took me twenty centuries to build that army.”
Hemingway blew on the barrel of his gun and stuck it back in his pocket. “You’ve read the Book of Revelation, right? Who do you think wrote it?”
“This...this is Armageddon?” I asked.
He winked at me. “No, this is just a dress rehearsal. But I hope you’re on our side when the time comes.”
During the battle, the Count had circled around to Maria’s side and the couple was holding hands and making goo-goo eyes at one another. That really made me miss Parker. Love was silly and dangerous and seemed to happen at the most inconvenient times, but it seemed like the one thing worth fighting for.
“That’s right,” Hemingway said. “I think you might have a soul, after all. I think it’s time to pass the sword.”
“Do you mean...?” I began.
“Do you think the archangel Michael is just one person? Have you ever considered that it’s a job that gets passed from one noble soul to another throughout history?”
“No way,” I said. “I have enough trouble just trying to help the people close to me, not to mention that I love to bite people in the neck and suck out all their blood.”
Hemingway shrugged, which caused his head to fall off. He picked it up, set in back in place, and said, “Nobody’s perfect. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a fishing boat with my name on it.”
“You’re going to leave me to fight the Devil alone?”
“Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls,” Hemingway said. And with that, he vanished.
Now I was facing down the Devil with only my fists, fangs, and wits. And he had a silver dagger. He was mad as hell, but he was also grinning, as if looking forward to chopping me into tiny pieces.
Just as I was bracing for his attack, Hemingway’s voice popped into my head: “Whoever said you would be alone?”
The sword dropped from somewhere and clattered to my feet with a metallic ping. The blade was golden and the handle sported blood-red rubies that seemed to be on fire. In fact, when I scooped up the sword and held it aloft, flames danced along its edges.
“Oh, shit,” the Devil said.
“Indeed,” I said.
His silver dagger now didn’t seem so big. I beckoned him forward, half-expecting him to drop his weapon and run screaming down into one of the dark crevices around us. Instead, he bellowed with rage and charged.
I swung the blade neatly, feeling stronger than I had in years. The blood Parker had fed me combined with the energy coursing through the sword to make me feel supernaturally powerful. I mean even more supernatural and powerful than usual.
The blade sliced right through Lucifer’s wrist. He squealed as the dagger bounced free from his fallen hand. “Oh, you bastard,” he said. “I’m going to destroy you so hard.”
He dodged my next stroke of the sword. Blood poured from his stump in a sweet stream, and the sight of all that yummy goodness caused me to lose focus. That’s when the dagger pierced me in the side. The Devil had apparently commanded his disembodied hand even from a distance.
The silver immediately coursed through me, making me dizzy and weak. Maria rushed to my side as I fell. The Devil laughed, but the Count curled his lips in a jealous pout.
“Mr. Spider, please don’t die,” she said.
“Well,” I said, wincing, “since you said please.”
“This is no time for jokes. You’re hurt. Is there anything I can do?”
“Well,” I gasped, “there is one thing, but it means you won’t be good anymore, and they may not let you in heaven.”
“You risked your life for me and the men who loved me,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”
“Your forearm,” I said, showing her my fangs.
She understood, and she peeled back the sleeve of her shirt and put her wrist to my lips. The devil realized what was happening, but before he could make a move, the Count jumped on him and held on with all his strength, buying me precious seconds in which to feed.
I thanked her with my eyes, then stood, rejuvenated, swinging the sword in great arcs. By the time the devil tossed the Count aside, I was on the Prince of Darkness, or POD, as I’ve come to know him.
I showed him no mercy. I chopped and hacked and slashed, until Lucifer was little more than a bloody, pulpy pile. But he wasn’t dead. I knew that much. It would take more than a vampire to destroy the world’s greatest evil. I saw the bits of him wiggling and shimmering and struggling. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
He would be back, I knew, taking up another form, no doubt. Or miraculously healing this one. Either way, I held the sword toward the hidden sky in triumph.
I figured God was up there watching somewhere. I didn’t know if I’d earned back my soul, but for now, just kicking Lucifer’s ass was enough.
“Go on,” I said to Maria and the Count. “Hurry, while you have the chance.”
“I have to stay,” The Count said. “I made a deal.”
“No,” Maria said. “Why do you think I came here of my own volition? Because you were willing to die for me, I realized how much you really care about me. And I want us to be together now.”
“I’ll take care of your end of the bargain,” I said to the Count. “Go on. Just treat her the way a woman deserves. Which means no more creepy stuff with corpses and wax masks. ‘kay?”
He nodded solemnly. Then Maria took his hand and they walked to the scales. I thought the Devil might have booby-trapped them, but apparently Maria’s goodness was more than enough to make up for the Count’s questionable ethics. They disappeared, off to what I hoped was happily ever after.
Me? I did what vampires do. I scrounged around for Lucifer’s neck and drove my fangs deep into his flesh, sucking out whatever juice remained in his veins.
What can I say, God? Nobody’s perfect.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“What took you so long?” Parker asked when I got back to the hotel.
“I was hungry.”
She cast me a sidelong look, reading my mind. Or most of it, anyway. “Oh, I see what went down. Playing hero again, huh?”
I shrugged. “I’m Spider. It’s what I do.”
I thought Dylan might ask about Maria, but apparently the love spell was so completely broken that he was already chatting up a tan brunette in a tie-dye tank top. Ah, Key West.
“There’s something different about you,” Parker said.
“I don’t feel any different.”
She kissed me on the cheek. “Whatever it is, I like it.”
I didn’t want to talk about souls or serious stuff like that. And one day she’d probably read my mind and wonder if I was really an archangel now. Hell, I still wondered it myself. I guess I would have to keep on being good, just in case.
But some things never change. If I was an angel, I was going to be a vampire angel.
“I’m hungry again,” I said. “And I’m feeling a little...devilish.”
“Our hotel room?” Parker asked.
“Unless you have something better to do.”
She didn’t.
The End
~~~~~
And so ends The Spider Trilogy.
We hoped you enjoyed his tale.
~~~~~
Read on for a sample from Ghost College,
also by J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson.
Return to the Table of Contents
Also available:
Ghost College
The Ghost Files #1
by J.R. Rain
and Scott Nicholson
(read on for a sample)
Chapter One
The place didn’t look haunted; then again, they never do.
We were standing in the polished entrance hall to a small Christian college called Faith University. It was after hours, and so the building was mostly empty. To either side stretched dimly lit hallways. Further down, wedges of light poured from a couple of night classes and faint sounds of an instructor’s lecture spilled from one, the word “Leviticus” jumping out of the drone.
>
The hallway stretched to our left, devoid of human traffic, but it wasn’t humans we were looking for. At least, not living ones.
I adjusted the sack of gear dangling from my shoulder and surveyed the atmosphere. The place did look sort of gloomy and forlorn, which was surprising considering it was a faith-based institution of relatively new construction.
You would have expected some sort of shimmering glow about the place, like the halo of a saint, or some clouds spilling down from a set of golden stairs. It wasn’t much of a university, really. It felt more like an extension of Cal State Fullerton, which was located across the street.
“What do you think?” I asked, keeping my voice low and reverent, like you would in church even if no one was there.
Ellen had taken a step or two in front of me and was currently peering off down a darkened side hall. “Oh, it’s haunted, alright.”
“Just like that?” I asked. “We take one step into a place and you can tell it’s haunted?”
She turned to me and flashed me her brilliant smile, the sort that always gave me a fluttering out-of-body experience. Love. Talk about your supernatural powers.
“What can I say?” She reached over and slapped me lightly on the cheek. “It’s a gift. You know that. We’ve been through this a hundred times before.”
“And all one hundred times, I have yet to see a ghost.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“Right. They’re invisible. Why can’t I see that?”
To be honest, I didn’t know what the hell I had felt, seen, or imagined in the past. A cold breeze at the back of my neck. A suspicious moan or two that could have just as easily been the wind. Flitting images that were probably distant headlights sweeping across a window. The mysterious creaking of floorboards, of faint touches on necks and shoulders and forearms, inexplicable goose bumps and soft whispers in my ears.
All of these occurrences, or non-events, could be summed up easily enough: too many long hours working into the middle of the night, hoping for real evidence in a field where everything was built on faith.
