by N. P. Martin
“I guess you know the score already,” Frank said just as the demon charged at him, his massive arms outstretched ready to grab Frank by the throat. When the demon was almost upon him, Frank leapt into the air and brought his fist down on top of the demon’s head. A flash of blinding white light erupted from Frank’s fist as it impacted hard with the demon’s skull. The source of the light was the energy channeled through Frank himself. A handy little gift from the archangel who created the Nephilim bloodline millennia ago. The energy—or bad grace, as Frank liked to call it—magnified the power of the punch many times so that even thick headed demons could feel that shit rock their skulls.
The demon almost dropped to its knees as it went crashing into the shelves next to him, bottles smashing all around it, exploding liquor staining that expensive suit. Before the demon could recover, Frank pulled his Watcher knife from the sheath sown inside his jacket. A second later and the knife was pushing up under the demon’s chin. “You know what kind of knife this is, right?” Frank asked the demon as it froze when the point of the knife broke the skin under his big square jaw.
The demon barely nodded, fear in its less glowing red eyes. Demons weren’t afraid of much, but being sent back to Hell to start at the bottom again, losing all the power and freedom they’d fought tooth and claw to attain, that was too much for most of them. Including this one. “Please,” the demon pleaded. “I’m just watching the door. They’ll destroy me if they let someone like you in.”
“In where? What’s back there?”
The demon didn’t answer.
Frank pressed the knife harder into the demon’s jaw. “You’re about one second away from going back to Hell.”
“Alright! It’s a blood bank.”
“A blood bank?”
“Yeah. It’s where demons go to get high.”
Frank frowned. “You bullshitting me, demon?” He’d never heard of demons getting high of human blood.
“No, seriously. I’m telling the truth.”
And I thought I’d heard it all, Frank thought. Demons getting high. Jesus Christ.
Frank shook his head. “You demons have been on earth too long. You’re all going native.”
“You might as well stab me,” the demon said looking resigned. “I’m fucked anyway.”
“Your bosses going to put you on the elevator, that it?” Putting someone on the elevator was demon speak for sending them back down to Hell. Euphemisms weren’t their strongpoint.
“Something like that.”
“And this boss, he owns the bar next door? He the one been running around stealing souls?”
The demon looked surprised. “How did you know about that?”
Looked like Lucas was right. “How many are in your little gang?”
The demon looked unsure if he should answer.
“Just to be clear,” Frank said, pushing harder on the knife, drawing more blood. “You don’t have a choice about whether to answer me.”
The demon blinked. “A dozen. Maybe more.”
“Where are they now?”
“The bar, most of them.”
“The boss?”
“Back there.” He nodded his head towards the door behind the counter.
“What’s his name?”
“Krakus.”
Frank smirked. “What’s this Krakus up to then? What’s his endgame?”
“I don’t know. We just enjoy ourselves up here. That’s all.”
“You’re not trying to drag the city down so you can take it over?”
The demon shook his head. “No. That’s bullshit.”
“Well,” Frank said. “I’ll find out if it is or not soon enough, I’m sure. In the meantime, I can’t have demons running around stealing souls, or stealing the blood of humans to get high on either. Crazy shit like that just upsets the delicate balance in this fine city, and unfortunately for you my friend—”
“No—”
“—I’m charged with protecting that balance from upstarts like you, so—”
“—Wait!”
Frank drove the knife to the hilt under the demon’s jaw in one swift move, held it in there for a second while the sigils carved into the eight inch blade did their work, decimating the demon on a molecular level, opening up a portal inside the meat suit that led straight to Hell. Then he pulled the knife out and took a step back while a blinding amber light seemed to escape from every orifice in the demon’s body, including his eyes, ears and mouth. A second later the light stopped, faded away into nothing. All that was left now was a meat suit that used to belong to some unfortunate human, a meat suit that was now charcoaled on the inside.
After he’d sheathed the knife again, Frank retrieved the whiskey from his jacket pocket, unscrewed the cap and took a long swig from the bottle. He stared down at the once human shell still slumped into the shelves, surrounded by broken glass and soaked in booze. Whoever the human was before the demon stole his body, Frank doubted he could ever have foreseen his life ending in this way. Of course the guy was dead the second the demon took possession of him, to all intents and purposes anyway. When a demon possesses you, you have no control over your body and mind anymore. None. Your consciousness is relegated to the back, where you have to sit and watch, not to mention feel, every single thing your new demon host does, for however long it does it. If a demon gets attached to a body, that could be a long, long time. By killing the demon, Frank had also released the consciousness and soul of the human that was possessed in the first place.
“You’re welcome,” Frank said, raising the bottle to the body at his feet.
Then he turned to look at the door behind the counter.
CHAPTER 6
It was just an ordinary door, made of plywood. No metal. No security measures in the form of locks that he could see.
Frank took out his Beretta, the magazine of which was loaded with iron-tipped 9mm bullets that he made himself at the cabin. Most supernatural entities have an aversion to iron. It repels them, the way a Christian cross might repel a rookie vampire. It also hurts them if you use it on them as a weapon. Demons were no different. A 9mm iron-tip might not destroy them, but it would hurt them enough to slow them down so that other more lethal weapons could be used to finish them, such as the Watcher knife Frank never left home without.
He cracked the door open a touch and listened for a second. There was no sound except the hum of an air conditioner.
The door laid out to a hallway, at the end of which was another door. Frank moved down the hall and paused to listen at the other door. This time he could hear weird noises coming from the room beyond. Like moaning sounds.
What the fuck? he thought.
Slowly, he turned the door handle and pushed the door open slightly, the Beretta held by his side. The door was only open an inch, but it was enough for him to see inside.
He soon wished he hadn’t.
Frank figured the room was once a large storage area until the demons had got their hands on it. Where once the storage area may have been filled with boxes of booze and cans and bottles, it was now filled with black candles and a nest of naked demons.
Now you see, Frank. That’s what happens when your damn curiosity gets the better of you. Jesus Christ...
The demons writhed all over each other in their meat suits, men and women, taking those things on the ultimate test drive for pleasure. They sucked and fucked and bucked and writhed and licked and bit and spat and came as the flickering shadows thrown by the dozens of candles danced across their bodies.
Their eyes smoldered in their sockets, in some cases eight ball black, in others a fiery blood red. Frank had never witnessed so much pleasure in one room. Not that he was turned on or anything. Maybe, if he couldn’t see most of their real forms behind the meat suits, the grotesquery of some of them.
Most of all the grotesquery of the demon in the center of the clusterfuck. And the terror it inspired. Four huge horns attached to a head with burning yellow eyes, und
erneath which was a snubbed nose like a dog and a mouth that engulfed more than half the face. Two huge fangs were the centerpiece of the mouth, flanked by smaller pointed teeth and what looked like sharp tusks curving in either side. Below the neck the demon still looked human.
A demon in a blonde big breasted meat suit sucked madly on the bigger demon’s cock, who roared as he appeared to cum. The blonde demon kept sucking. The bigger demon roared again, the pleasure unmistakable in its inhuman voice.
When Frank had gotten over the shock of the scene, he figured the demon in the center was some kind of leader. Maybe even the leader of the gang Frank was looking for. He could burst in there now while all the demons were occupied and high and take his chances.
But that was the drink talking again. Somewhere inside, his sober self told him such a plan of action would only end with him joining the party—and not in a good way.
He would hold off. Sit in the car at a distance somewhere. Keep an eye on things. See who came and went. Wait for an opportunity to nab one of the demons when they were alone, and then interrogate them. See what gived.
Just as he was pulling the door closed to go back down the hall again, Frank felt a thick arm encircle his neck and begin to squeeze like a gorilla. Frank lost about two seconds to shock. When you’re hurtling towards oblivion, two seconds make all the difference. An extra two seconds would have given him time to use his gun or effect some other countermeasure.
As it happened, by the time he even thought about reacting, it was too late. He was half choked out already, which made his movements too slow and too unfocused to be of any use.
After five seconds he lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 7
When Frank came to, he found himself tied to a chair in the middle of a cold basement. The only light was from a single bare bulb that hung from the center of the low ceiling. He looked around, his head still groggy. Save for a few stacks of cardboard boxes, the basement was empty. A set of wooden stairs along the wall in front of him led upwards towards a door. Frank could hear music coming from the floor above him. Loud rock music it sounded like. His kind of place. He figured he was in the bar owned by the demon gang, or rather the basement underneath. Where they keep the scumbag Watcher’s, presumably, he thought.
He wished he could get to the whiskey in his pocket to clear his groggy head. As it was, his arms were bound by duct tape to his sides, while the rest of him was taped to the chair, except his legs. At least that was something. Idiots. You’d think they’d have taped his ankles up.
But just as Frank was about to stand up and attempt to break the chair of one of the four steel support beams in the room, the door at the top of the stairs opened, throwing light and loud music down into the dimly lit basement. Two men and a woman came down the stairs, the woman closing the door behind her.
“I’m glad you’re awake, Watcher,” the man in front said as he came down the stairs and walked towards Frank. “We need to have a little chat about what the fuck you think you are doing sneaking around my property.”
The guy doing the talking was tall, slicked back dark hair, an arrogant smile. He probably thought he was bad ass in his black jeans and black leather jacket. His cohorts stood either side of him, a blonde woman who Frank recognized from the fuckfest, and a huge biker dude with massive tattooed arms and long straggly hair, who Frank just knew was the one who choked him out, given those forearms.
“You must be Krakus,” Frank said.
The guy in the black jeans lost his smile for a second.
Frank smirked. “Almost didn’t recognize you there without the, you know...horns coming out of your head.” He looked at the blonde woman, who wore a tight fitting black dress. “And you...you got skills for a demon. I guess you guys were really milking those meat suits for all they were worth, huh?”
The blonde woman narrowed her blue eyes at Frank.
Krakus laughed and started pacing slowly around Frank. “You’re right, Watcher. These meat suits are fucking great for having fun with. Mix in a little injected human blood and then things get interesting. I hope you enjoyed the show.”
“Bit too demonic for me,” Frank said, his gaze straight ahead.
“I’m sure,” Krakus said coming back around in front of Frank and stopping. “But then your kind don’t really like us demons, do you?”
Frank tried to shrug, but couldn’t move. He settled for a quick tilt of his head. “I wouldn’t say that. Your just vermin that have to be controlled, that’s all.”
The hook punch Krakus threw at Frank’s jaw almost knocked Frank out cold again. His head dangled loose for a few seconds until the flashing white lights in front of his eyes dissipated. “How’s that for controlling vermin, motherfucker?”
Frank managed to lift his head up and keep it there. He spat blood onto the floor.
“Enough of this shit,” the blonde demon in the black dress said, walking toward Frank and grabbing him by the throat. “Why are you sniffing around here? Watcher’s stay out of the Southside.”
The bitch had a grip on her. It felt like an anaconda was locked onto his throat, slowly crushing his windpipe. He was glad when Krakus stepped in to take the girl’s arm away.
“Alright, Seran, let’s not kill him before he tells us anything.”
“Fucking hate Watcher’s!” Seran spat.
“Don’t we all,” Frank said hoarsely, coughing, wishing he could rub at his throat.
“Fucking smart-ass too!”
“He is that,” Krakus said. “Probably not for long though.” He stepped around in front of Frank again, leaned over so his face was inches from Frank’s. “I’ll ask you again. What are you doing here?”
Blood still dripped into Frank’s mouth. He spat it at Krakus, who never flinched, just hardened his stare. “I can’t tell you how much you are going to regret that petty little act of defiance.”
“Fuck off.”
Krakus’s forehead smashed into Frank’s nose, who cried out in pain as his head flew back, blood already flooding down into his mouth, dripping down his neck. He forced his head forward to stop the blood getting into his eyes.
“Told you!” Krakus said.
The bitch in the black dress laughed, clearly reveling in Frank’s every moan of pain, his every splutter as he struggled to breathe properly through all the blood, which felt like it was gushing everywhere.
He closed his eyes. If he’d only been able to pull that trigger on himself earlier tonight at the cabin, he thought, then he wouldn’t be sitting here now, duct taped to a chair while demons beat the shit out of him.
See, Frank. See what your cowardice has cost you?
Not now, Rachel.
Pain. It’s costing you more pain, Frank. That’s all that’s left for you. Pain and sorrow.
“Hey!” The slap across his face forced Frank’s eyes open. Krakus was in front of him. “Don’t even fucking think of closing those eyes. Not until you tell us what you’re doing here and how you knew my name.”
Frank decided then that if he ever got out of that chair alive, he was going to get shitfaced drunk. It was all about the minor pleasures, right? “I was...just lost,” he said, choking on his own blood.
“Wrong answer,” Krakus said. “Marv.”
Marv was the big biker dude. He slowly walked over to Frank and stood towering over him. His crotch was about level with Frank’s face. Just as Frank looked up he saw Marv bend his arm and then bring his elbow down like an axe towards Frank’s head. This was quickly followed by a sickening sharp pain on the top of Frank’s skull, a pain which seemed to increase in intensity by the second. It was all Frank could do to stay conscious. The only thing that stopped his skull from cracking open like an Easter egg was the bad grace that flowed inside him, offering some reinforcement at least.
The voice of Krakus, cutting through the pain. “I know you can take a beating, but another few of those elbows to the top of your skull from Marv here and you’re gonna end up a vegetable.
”
Frank took hardly any of that in. His head felt like it was going to explode. A horrible sick feeling came over him and he vomited all over himself. By the cries of Krakus and Marv, at least some of that blood and vomit mixture made it on to them as well.
The blonde bitch laughed, the sound of it hurting Frank’s head even more.
See, Frank? Pain. Why don’t you just let them kill you since you can’t do it yourself?
“No.”
“What was that?” Krakus asked.
Frank did his best to concentrate, which was difficult given that his head felt like a rapidly swelling balloon that was about to burst. Somehow, he managed to connect with the bad grace inside him. Managed to gather every ounce of it to his center, condense it down into a tiny ball no bigger than an atom.
Pure, condensed energy.
Bad motherfucking grace.
The demons didn’t know what hit them when the grace exploded out of Frank, going off like a sun exploding inside him, the whole basement flooding with blinding white light, with Frank at the epicenter, the chair exploded to splinters around him, the duct tape no longer binding him, but snapped to pieces by the burst of sheer power that accompanied the explosion of light for just a second.
Frank was on his feet. Nothing like an explosion of bad grace to clear the head, which, although the pain was still there, now seemed to be functioning properly, at least enough for Frank to run to the stairs, the three demons laying on the floor behind him, motionless.
The demons weren’t down completely. They’d be up in a few minutes. Frank needed to make it back to the car before that happened. All he had to do was go through the bar upstairs and out to the car before the demons came to.
That’s if he even made it through the bar at all, which he was sure was probably full of demons.
Fuck it. There was no other way out. He had to go through the bar.
He tried to run up the stairs, but couldn’t. His body wasn’t ready for that kind of movement yet. The most he could manage was a kind of slow gallop.
