by N. P. Martin
“Her body went to Hell with her,” Lucas said. “As long as her soul wasn’t bound to Hell anymore, she would return here like nothing happened. Well, almost. She would still possess her memories of her time spent in Hell.” Lucas leaned his head in towards Frank. “But you’d have her back, Frank.”
“Let’s say I believe you. Where do I find the demon?”
Lucas smiled. “We have a deal then? The feather for your…what was she to you? Girlfriend?”
“None of your business,” Frank said dismissively. “As for the deal… okay. I’ll get you the feather, long as you tell me where I can find this demon first.”
“That may take a little time.”
Frank shook his head. “Tell me where to find the demon first.”
“It’s not that simple. He’s not a crossroads demon anymore, he’s in intelligence, planted inside some top level government program. That will make him hard to find.”
“So find him. I get the feather, I keep it until you give me what I want.”
“Fair enough,” Lucas said.
“Why do you need this feather so bad anyway?”
“Like I told you, I can’t ever go back to Hell. The feather will insure that never happens.”
Frank nodded. “Better hope we both get what we want then,” he said before getting out of the car and walking to the cabin. When he looked back the car was empty.
CHAPTER 15
Underneath Frank’s cabin there was a cellar that spanned the whole area of the dwelling above it. The cellar had stone walls and was cold all the time, damp too, especially in winter. It was also where Frank stored nearly every weapon he owned. Down the full length of one of the stone walls, dozens of guns were mounted. Everything from 9mm handguns to revolvers to fully automatic rifles. He had used every one of them over the years to kill some supernatural pain in the ass or other. Guns didn’t kill everything though, didn’t kill much in fact, but they helped to slow down every supernatural creature Frank had ever come across. The secret was the bullets. Depending on what you were hunting, certain bullets worked better than others. Iron tipped bullets slowed down most things, especially demons. Silver would kill a werewolf if you managed to hit the vital organs. As simple a thing as a bullet dipped in essence of garlic would slow down a vampire, perhaps giving you enough time to use a machete to cut their heads off, the only sure way to kill a vampire. There were lots of other supernatural pests out there, but most of them were no more than wild animals and could be dealt with easily enough. Many of these pests arrived from Hell itself, the creations of demons mostly, put here to cause havoc and raise fear. Every monster myth you can think off is down to some demon’s creation, including the gray aliens. That’s demon’s just trying something new, feeding into the conspiracy theories and paranoia in existence since the cold war. It was the demons who led the charge on the side of evil. The rest were just pawns and lone mercenaries.
For the stuff you could not kill alone with a bullet or blade, there was magic. Frank hated the word, for it implied the asinine trickery of stage magicians and the magic he sometimes wielded had nothing to do with idle trickery for the easily amused and the all too easily deceived. The kind of magic he dealt with had real power and had nothing to do with trickery. Instead, the magic he wielded with effective and often destructive results was more bound up in rituals, incantations, spells and the delicate blending of rare and powerful ingredients. Frank had many such ingredients lining the shelves and bench along the back wall of the cellar. Glass jars and bottles filled with odd colored liquids and powders, parts of plants and animals that shouldn’t have been in existence if it were not for the genetic tinkering of demons. Demons liked to mix and match the animals on this planet. They had the knowledge and means to do so, and often created truly monstrous beasts that they would unleash on the world for their own amusement. Beasts such as the one Frank put down two years ago, a flying Anaconda with the head of a shark. That thing was vicious, killing half a dozen people in a town outside the city before Frank put a bullet in its brain. Afterwards, he burnt the corpse in a field. The public didn’t need to know about such devilish creatures in their midst. So says the High Council anyway. If it were up to Frank, he would tell everyone about the beasts, including about the demons who made them. But then, if he tried, people would just think he was nuts and lock him up. Such irony amused the demons and they reveled in the impunity to do whatever they wanted.
The arrogance that came from that perceived impunity to do as much evil as possible really stuck in Frank’s craw. It made him hate the demons even more than he should. Especially cocksuckers like Krakus and his gang. Thought they could come to Frank’s city, do whatever they wanted, and kill whoever they wanted.
Frank took a Saiga-12 shotgun off the wall. The shotgun was Russian made, in shape not dissimilar to an AK-47 (one of which Frank also had on the wall), only the Saiga-12 fired 12 gauge shells filled with iron shot (the shells Frank made himself). He liked the shotgun because it was fairly lightweight, had little recoil considering the power it had and it also blew nice big holes in any demon standing within a twenty to thirty yard range. Frank raised the shotgun to his shoulder, sighted down it. Imagined blowing Krakus’s head off at close range. Thought about how the demon's head would just explode. Then he lowered the weapon and set it against the wall. Taking two Berrata92S’s of the wall (preferring them over the Glocks which were also on the wall) he pushed them into the two holsters inside his jacket, liking the reassuring weight of them in there.
On the opposite wall, Frank kept all of his other weapons, mostly blades of some kind, but also maces, hammers, clubs, even whips with iron spikes on the end. He took a Watcher knife of the wall and slid it into the sheath on his ankle. The knife was lightweight so it didn’t restrict his movements any.
Over on the bench he put two spare clips for the shotgun in a canvas carry bag, as well as extra clips for the Beretta. Inside the bag there was also a plastic bottle filled with holy water (various uses, but mostly it burned demons like acid), a tin container of salt (for sealing entrances) and a hip flask full of whiskey. He took out the hip flask, unscrewed the cap and took a swig of the whiskey. Then he put it back in the bag, put the bag over his head and on his shoulder. Collected the shotgun that leaned against the wall.
When he left the cellar and went to his car, it was just starting to get dark, the sky above him spectacular in its oranges and pinks. He put the shotgun in the trunk and got into the car. As he sped off down the mountain road, rock music blaring from inside the car, he did his best not to think about Rachel and what it would be like to have her back.
CHAPTER 16
They met at the back of an old abandoned warehouse just on the edge of the river near the bridge that led to the Southside. By the time Frank pulled up in the Chevy, three other vehicles were already parked alongside the dilapidated warehouse. A black Range Rover belonging to Eva. A dark green Ford that Frank recognized as being Tyreese Locke’s car. The other car was a red corvette that Frank didn’t recognize, but knew immediately that it belonged to Jack Burnharte. Jack was always fond of his fast cars. Frank never saw the appeal. He parked beside Eva’s Range Rover. Despite himself, he’d been unable to keep his mind on the job ahead on the ride over. Thoughts of Rachel and the demon who took her soul—
I gave it to him, Frank.
—still clouded his mind. All he wanted to do was hunt down the demon and force it to bring Rachel back. But he couldn’t do that because he had to wait on Lucas finding out where the demon was.
He hated waiting.
Mind on the job, Frank, he thought as he got out of the car and walked to where everyone was standing a few feet away. He was glad to see Sam Wiltshire standing beside Tyreese Locke. The more the merrier for tonight’s assault.
“Swanson,” Jack Burnharte said. He was dressed in full combat gear, black from head to toe except for his steel gray hair. “Still appalling time keeping, I see.”
“Sorry,
guys,” Frank said as he stopped beside Jack. “Got held up.” He glanced quickly at Eva, who had that familiar look of knowing in her face, like she always knew what was going on with him. He quickly averted his gaze to Tyreese Locke and then Sam Wiltshire as he nodded hello at them both.
“Your damned excuses haven’t gotten any better, either,” Jack said, towering over him, Frank feeling like he was back in training again, under Jack’s hard ass regime. The only difference was, Frank was running the show tonight, not Jack.
“I take it Eva has filled you all in about what’s going on?” Frank said.
Everyone nodded. “Motherfucking demon party going on, right now,” Sam Wiltshire said with about as much feminine attitude as it was possible for a man to have before he crossed the line into being a woman himself. Sam was Asian, bald headed, in his early thirties like Frank. Unlike Frank, Sam liked to wear makeup on his face, as well as walking around in questionable items of clothing for a man, like the occasional dress, but more often just really tight clothes that looked slightly at odds with his heavy musculature. Tonight he had dressed down for the occasion, wearing tight black jeans and a dark hoodie. He had restricted his face paint to just black eyeliner and a touch of gloss on his almost feminine lips. If anyone didn’t give a flying fuck about what the world thought of him, it was Sam.
“Yeah, man,” Tyreese Locke said, a massive black guy, six five at least, with a build to match. He wore dark jeans and a plain black T-shirt that barely constrained his huge muscles. Frank remembered sparring with Tyreese when they were in training together, or more precisely he remembered the pain of trying to fight the next best thing to a solid brick wall. If he wanted anyone on this assault with him, it was Tyreese and Sam, two of the deadliest guys he had ever met and with a string of bodies to prove it, monster and human. “This city is going to burn unless we do something soon. Doesn’t look like the Council is getting too involved. According to Jack here, Cunningham is holding back.”
“That shithead is refusing to send out teams to deal with this crisis,” Jack said.
“How is he getting away with that?” Frank asked. “That just makes him look even guiltier. He’s behind all this somehow, he has to be.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jack said. “One things for sure, if he is responsible for this uprising, the son of a bitch has kept it quiet until now. There wasn’t even a whisper about this before around the Facility.”
Eva, dressed in her by now customary battle gear of black leather trousers and leather body armor that wrapped tightly around her chest and torso, leaving her thin arms bare, said, “We still don’t for sure how deep Cunningham’s involvement in this goes, or even if he is involved.”
Sam snorted. “Well from what I’ve heard so far, that fucking snake is looking guilty as fuck.”
Frank had never heard anyone say fuck as well as Sam. The way he enunciated the word gave it power somehow, made it far from casually said. “Guilty or not, we’ll find out eventually. Tonight, we got a gang of demons to put down the elevator. Except the leader, Krakus. We need to talk to him first, find out what he knows about all this shit.”
“This payback for you, Frank?” Tyreese said. “I hear you got worked over by these motherfuckers. That right?”
“The Frank I used to know wouldn’t let himself get caught before,” Sam said. “You slipping, Frank?” Sam wasn’t smiling when he said it, but his mildly playful attitude gave him away. Frank just nodded and gave him a look. Sam smiled at him.
“Alright boys,” Jack said like he was addressing two of his rowdy trainees. “Let’s get this shit done. How you want to play this, Frank?”
“I go in first,” Frank said.
Frank took the lead into the Southside, the other two vehicles following behind him. In contrast to the rest of the city, there didn’t seem to be much going on in the Southside. It was like all the residents had rushed off to join in the chaos elsewhere, probably looting and causing even more chaos. It was as quiet as Frank had ever seen the place, like a ghost town in fact, with only handfuls of people scattered around the empty streets. He didn’t know whether to be glad the place was quiet, or more nervous. It felt an awful lot to him like his presence had been expected, like they were driving into some kind of trap. As he neared the bar owned by the demons, he dismissed that notion as the drink talking.
He parked the car around the corner from the bar. Eva and the others parked a block away as Frank had instructed them to. He expected the demons to be on alert and he didn’t want to lose any element of surprise. He got out of the car, being careful not to slam the door, the canvas carry bag still wrapped across his person. As it was a windless night, and with so few people on the streets, the Southside should have been deathly quiet. But it wasn’t. Streaming across the river into the slum was the sounds of a city in chaos, a city in fear. Sirens blared, even the odd explosion and sounds of gunfire. If you listened hard enough, you could even hear the occasional scream puncture the night air like a bad omen. Frank grabbed the Saiga-12 shotgun from the trunk, glad to have such reassuring firepower in his hands. He looked around as he walked to the corner of the empty building beside him, around the corner of which was the small grouping of businesses, including the Viper Bar.
No one seemed to be around the square. All the businesses were closed as expected, including the liquor store. The only place that wasn’t closed was the Viper Bar. In the still night air, Frank could hear music escaping from between the two front doors. The windows on the front of the building were too stained underneath their iron bars to see any movement inside. Krakus and his gang could have been in there, or they could not have been. Frank didn’t know. He only knew he was going inside and anyone or anything that tried to get in his way was getting a blast from the shotgun he held in his hands.
He ran quickly towards the bar, pressing his back against the wall next to the front doors when he reached it. Stayed that way for a moment while he waited. Listened. The music was louder now that he was close. He even recognized the song, “Inna Gadda Di Vidda”. Good a soundtrack as any to assault a building to.
After a moment, Frank rifled through his canvas bag with one hand while holding the shotgun up with the other hand. He pulled a spray can from the bag and quickly stepped in front of the doors. Then he hurriedly began to spray sigils on the door. The sigils were old and powerful. They would insure no demon could walk through the doors.
When he had finished, he hurried around the side of the building, looking for other exits. He sprayed the fire exit door on the side of the building and the heavy iron gate set into the brick wall that enclosed the bar’s back yard. He was sure he hadn’t covered all the exits, that there were at least one or two others he didn’t know about, but he didn’t really care. By the time the demons realized what had hit them, it would be too late for most of them to run anyway.
Frank took his phone out, called Eva. Told her to get into position with the rest. Then he moved quickly around to the front of the building again, stopping by the front doors. His heart was pounding with anticipation and he took the hip flask from the bag and took a long swallow of whiskey, quickly returning the flask to the bag before the others came. As he waited for the others to show, hoping no one would walk out of the bar in the meantime, he couldn’t stop thinking about the feather. It had now become his ticket to some kind of salvation, at least in his mind. With the feather in his possession, he could finally put things right, or almost anyway. Some damage couldn’t be undone.
Eva rounded the corner first as she ran cat like towards his position by the doors, her two shiny short swords out, one in each hand. Right behind her was Jack, carrying some heavy looking automatic weapon Frank didn’t even recognize. Obviously Jack had helped himself in the armory at the Watcher Facility. The Facility always had the most hi-tech weapons on hand. Sam came next, striding with absolute purpose towards the bar, two fully automatic handguns by his sides. Tyreese appeared like the Hulk behind Sam, a machete in o
ne hand, Watcher knife in the other. Tyreese never shied away from getting up close and personal.
The five of them stood in front of the doors of the bar, weapons at the ready. Frank’s adrenaline was rising, along with his recharged grace. He raised the Siaga-12 to his shoulder and aimed it towards the doors. Jack stood beside him, his gun also raised. They would go in first, the rest behind.
Frank gave Jack the nod and they strode forward and each kicked in one of the doors, sending the wooden doors flying in towards the bar, the music from inside sounding loud to Frank’s now hypersensitive hearing.
The first thing Frank noticed when he made his entry into the bar was the amount of bodies inside. He was expecting maybe a dozen or so, but after a quick scan there seemed like twice that.
All heads turned towards Frank, Jack and the others. Everyone in the bar seemed to freeze for a long moment as they adjusted to what was going on.
Then the music stopped.
Dead silence descended.
Frank kept the shotgun firmly planted into his shoulder as he sighted around the bar, demon face after demon face coming into his vision.
Kill them all, Frank. Bring me back.
His finger was on the trigger of the shotgun, ready to blow a hole the size of a large melon in any demon that dared to make a move towards him.
He looked for Krakus amongst the faces. Didn’t see him
The crowd of demons stared back at Frank and his cohorts. Everyone knew what everyone else was, which was why most of the demons looked so tense, almost afraid in some cases. If Frank and the others had of been normals (fully human that is) the demons wouldn’t have looked so concerned. Demons didn’t fear humans. What hunter fears their prey after all?
Watcher’s on the other hand, they were a different story. The demons knew Frank and the others had the power to hurt them, to send them back to Hell. Only a stupid demon would chose to ignore that risk, and Frank had never met a stupid demon yet.
