by Jake Bible
I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head. “What the hell did you do to the Mars Hill dragons? Why would they have a beef with you?”
“The reason is rather insignificant and wouldn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, but then all of this came up.” He waved one pistol at the truck and Harper twitched. The pistol was instantly back in place and aimed for her midsection. “No. Don’t even. What you are going to do is put that Magnum away and open the doors behind you. Then I slip out and you two get to party with some blood ghasts.”
“They’ll hunt you.” I glared at him. “We’ll hunt you.”
“Yes, the DEX, or some part of it, will come for me. Militias will try to come for me. Kobolds will try to come for me. So many factions all out to take my hide. You? Not so much, Chase. You’ll be splattered across Interstate 81. That’s just how things are going to end up for you. Too bad. That Dim trick of yours is pretty darn neato.”
“I’ll live, pal. My friends will live. We’ll find you.”
“Keep that spirit alive, Chase.”
He took a step forward with both pistols aimed for Harper. The son of bitch didn’t see me as a threat at all.
“Gun down, Harper,” he said.
“No,” I said as I brought up a shield of Dim and thrust it between us.
His guns fired, Harper’s gun fired, the bullets hit black and tumbled to the floor of the truck. The One Guy didn’t even hesitate. He leapt forward and shoved the Dim shield into Harper, knocking us both out of the way so he could grab the door and shove it open.
I banished the Dim shield and created a rope that I tried to lasso around him, but he was gone. Even Harper couldn’t get a shot off in time before he was out of the truck and lost from sight.
“Chase,” Harper snarled as a nightmarish face popped up into view.
A blood ghast was crawling its way into the back of the truck, nasty claws digging grooves into the floor as it grinned its death grin in our direction.
“Here goes nothing,” I said and threw together a Dim box as the blood ghast came at us.
The monster was swallowed up by black smoke and I closed the lid fast. I didn’t bother taking a key. Snap of my fingers and the box was sent into the Dim. What the results of that would be, I had no idea, but there was one less blood ghast haunting I-81.
Violete moaned and shifted behind us.
“Check on her,” I said as I scooted my ass to the edge of the truck and hopped outside.
“I stay with you,” Harper said.
“No,” I insisted. “We need the Exiles to”—
“I’m fine,” Violete whispered as her eyes fluttered open.
“You don’t look fine,” I said.
“I live and that is what matters,” she replied in a quiet, pained voice. “You two do what needs doing. Save the others outside. They are left unprotected.”
She wasn’t kidding about that. Blood ghasts were flying everywhere and so were the bullets. Panicked and pained screams were pretty goddamn plentiful too.
“Stay in here,” I said to Violete as Harper dropped down next to me.
“I have no desire to leave,” she said and closed her eyes.
I shut and latched the door then hit the ground as Harper shoved me to the pavement, her Magnum erupting where my head had been a second before. The blood ghast she shot exploded everywhere, but it quickly began to reassemble. I let it become solid then sent it on a one way vacation to the Dim.
“Two down,” I said.
“Don’t get cocky,” Harper said.
I stared at the insanity that surrounded us.
“Yeah, not gonna happen, Harp. I don’t think I could manage cocky right now if I wanted to.”
She blasted a blood ghast then pulled her goblin sickle and hacked it into manageable bits so we could get past it and throw ourselves to the ground to dodge the next one. The monsters were everywhere. Every-goddamn-where.
Harper rolled onto her back and sliced a blood ghast from stem to stern. Ectoplasmic guts fell upon her, but she brushed them off and kicked up onto her feet. The sickle slashed again and again and she dropped two more.
I did what I had to do and sent those three packing. They were sentenced to hard time in the Dim with no chance of parole. Or I hoped. Still no goddamn clue as to what was going to happen if those blood ghasts managed to fight their way out of their boxes. I may truly have become the defiler of dimensions.
“Lawter!” Maaike shouted from on top of the truck. A truck that was changing back into the flesh wagon it truly was. “Get your Dim ass up front and help out!”
“I thought I was helping!” I shouted at her.
“Get out front and you’ll see,” she replied then unleashed a full magazine of heavy caliber rounds on a blood ghast that dropped straight down at her from the sky.
Maaike was quite the badass if she was holding her own by blowing blood ghasts away again and again despite their ability to reassemble. Quitting wasn’t in a valkyrie’s vocabulary.
Diane threw herself from the top of the truck and wrapped her arms and legs around a blood ghast that went flying by. She sank her fangs into the monster’s neck and it shrieked louder than I’d heard any of them do before.
“What the fuck?” Harper muttered as the blood ghast began to shrivel under Diane then collapsed in on itself, sending the vampire falling to the pavement.
Diane picked herself up, brushed off her t-shirt and jeans, gave us a bloody smile, then went sprinting after another blood ghast as it streaked past her.
“Go!” Maaike yelled at us and pointed towards the DEX roadblock.
Two more blood ghasts came at us. One from the left, one from the right. I made a large Dim box, threw it up into the air, then fell to my knees as the blood ghasts collided with each other and fell into the box. Lid closed and fingers snapped, the box was gone. A two for one deal.
Lassa jumped out of the cab, his body coated in blood, and stood there firing his shotgun until it clicked empty. Then he swung it into the face of a blood ghast that came at him from the front of the truck. The blood ghast was sent flying back a few yards, but it regrouped and tried again. Too bad for the beast, I’d walked up next to Lassa and was ready.
“Nice, dude,” Lassa said as I banished that blood ghast to Dim purgatory.
I glanced in the cab and wished I hadn’t. Goss was everywhere. I mean everywhere. Verber was alive, but he was clutching a nasty looking wound in his left side. He gave me a wink then his head disappeared and I was staring at a rotten stump of a neck. The truck fully turned into the dullahans’ flesh wagon. The illusion was gone. Verber obviously couldn’t keep it together by himself.
“I’ll live,” Verber said. No head, no mouth, but the words still reached my ears. “Help me out, will ya?”
Lassa reached in and took the guy’s hand. It was all dried skin and gnarled fingers. Bones stuck out of flesh and his knuckles looked like they’d come apart at any second. But he must have had some strength because Lassa winced at the man’s grip.
“Thanks,” Verber said as he steadied himself then turned towards the rear of the wagon. “Time to have a chat with the One Guy. Tell me his name so I may end this all.”
“He’s gone,” I said. “He’s the one that called the blood ghasts down on us. Then he bailed. Elias and Teddy are dead.”
Headlessly, he gasped. “Violete?”
“She’s hurt, but alive,” Harper said. “And for future reference the One Guy’s name is Leonard Maguire.”
“Thank you, miss,” Verber said and gave a quick bow.
A blood ghast flew at him and he punched it in the face, dropping it to the pavement with one blow. It started to struggle and get back up, but I sent it off to an eternity of nothing.
“That wil
l have consequences,” Verber said as he watched me banish the Dim box.
“Probably. Not much I can do about that now,” I replied.
“This is true. I will attend to Violete. You do what you must.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Chase?” Lassa said.
I turned to him and he was facing the roadblock. I followed his gaze and swallowed hard.
“Goddamn,” I said as I stared at the shit that was in front of us.
“We have to get through that before we can get home,” Lassa said.
“In what?” Harper asked, nodding at the flesh wagon. “Can’t really roll up in this thing.”
“Phone me,” Lassa said.
“We tossed all the phones,” I said.
“Harp?” Lassa said, ignoring me.
Harper sighed and reached into her left boot. She pulled out an ancient looking flip phone and tossed it to him.
“We’ll have a troll here in less than an hour,” Lassa said as he flattened himself against the cab of the flesh wagon. “You two feel free to get started without me.”
“Thanks, pal,” I said. “And tell the Teamsters we’ll pay double if they bring something armored against blood ghasts.”
“Yeah, that’s way out of our budget,” Lassa said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
Harper patted me on the shoulder and we walked away from Lassa, both of us headed into Hell.
32.
THE BLOOD GHASTS had torn through the ranks of the DEX agents and their allies with such brutal efficiency that Harper and I were walking through inch deep gore by the time we got within a few feet of the roadblock. The blood filled the road and the flesh chunks were piled up all over the place like snowdrifts made of people. Shredded people.
That wasn’t the Hell part. The Hell part was the nightmares created by mixing the hex protections the DEX folks had put up with mojo from the blood ghasts. We saw a lot of hybrid nightmares moving about, attacking those not yet murdered by blood ghasts. I’d have called them zombies, but that would have been disrespectful to Sharon and her kind. And they weren’t exactly shambling, either.
“Wraiths,” Harper said, giving a name to what I was seeing. “The DEX agents have become corporeal wraiths.”
“Corporeal? Well, shit, that ain’t good,” I said.
“Except it means we can punch them. To death.”
“Fair enough.”
Several of the undead creatures whipped their heads around as soon as the words left my mouth.
“They’ll be fast,” Harper said.
“I can see that.”
“And strong.”
“Got that part too.”
“Don’t let them bite or cut you.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“I mean it, Chase. Not sure what will happen. These wraiths aren’t exactly alive or dead or ghosts or what.”
“They’re ugly, that’s what,” I said as I created two long, sharp Dim blades and held them out in a warding gesture like a cross. Harper raised an eyebrow. “Worth a try.”
The wraiths came at us.
I threw one of the blades and impaled the closest one then created a replacement blade and slashed hard and fast at the two that shoved past their fallen comrade. Before I could take out another wraith, Harper had stepped in front of me and dispatched the two with her goblin sickle.
The sound the wraiths made was beyond anything I’d ever heard. I wasn’t even sure I actually heard it with my ears. The death wails they let loose vibrated up my legs and plucked my bones like guitar strings.
“Goddamn,” I gasped.
“Keep on your feet,” Harper said.
I nodded and followed her as she waded through the gore and went after two more wraiths. There was a sickening sucking sound from my right and I looked over to see three wraiths crawling up out of the bloody muck and piled DEX agent parts.
My first swing missed and the closest wraith reached for me, her former fingers now long, sharp claws. Similar to a blood ghast’s claws, but with more human, fingernaily attributes. I side-stepped her and brought my blade up, taking her hands off at the wrists. More bone shaking wails.
The other two wraiths hesitated in their attack. They eyed me and split up, one going left, the other going right, while their handless friend fell to her knees and continued to shriek at me.
“Shut up,” I said and took care of the shrieking with a hard swing to her neck.
Her friends leapt at me from both sides and I managed to hack one arm off before they collided with my ribs. I hit the ground in a sploosh of bloody gunk and tried to get my arms up, but they were pinned beneath the wraiths.
One lifted his head, opening his mouth to show me his newly impressive dental work. Six inch fangs that dripped with black saliva. He brought his head down at my neck, but didn’t make it more than an inch before the head was no longer there. Then I heard the rifle shot.
My walkie squawked. I’d forgotten I still had it on me.
“Shove up, Lawter!” Maaike shouted over the walkie.
I wriggled my arms free and grabbed the second wraith, who was about to relieve me of my shoulder meat, and shoved her head up as far as I could. Then I closed my eyes as that head went goodbye.
“Thanks,” I said as I kicked free of the corpses and got up onto shaky legs.
Working the Dim was taking its toll. Maaike’s meals were about worn off and I could feel the fatigue trying to take me down. The hunger hit almost as hard as the wraiths. Which was a problem since there were still blood ghasts to deal with on top of the newly made undead hybrid sons of bitches.
One came for me and I managed to wrap the blood ghast in Dim and send it packing. The space between dimensions was filling up fast with nasties. But I couldn’t think about that at the moment. Not with three more blood ghasts swooping down from directly above.
Three rifle shots and the blood ghasts went swirling off to the side, giving me time to work up one big box. I snapped the Dim trap closed once they regrouped and came in for a second attack. But before I could send the box away, the ground shook so hard that I was knocked back down, my shaky legs too wobbly to handle the concussions that rumbled up from the pavement.
The giant.
The huge being raged across the highway, swinging its arms wildly to ward off the blood ghasts that were attacking from above, and kicking its legs out to stop the wraiths that were attacking from below.
“Harp!” I called as I shoved back up and started throwing Dim left and right to try to get the giant free from the monsters that swarmed it. “Harper!”
“I see it!” Harper shouted from across the road.
I risked a glance her way and could see she was slightly occupied. Down on one knee, she swiped and slashed with her goblin sickle, dispatching DEX wraiths and blood ghasts as fast as she could. The wraiths weren’t an issue, they dropped like flies under her constant attacks. The blood ghasts weren’t so cooperative.
I switched the direction of my Dim throws to the blood ghasts that continuously regrouped and went for her. I wrapped them fast and banished them with hand throws and finger snaps that didn’t seem to end until the last blood ghast was off her back. Literally and figuratively.
“Go help it,” Harper snarled as the giant roared in pain.
“Not an it!” the massive being responded, stomping its way over to us, a line of dead wraiths left in his wake and a still swirling attack of blood ghasts hovering around his head. “Kasper.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Duck.”
The creature glared down at me then fell to his knees, nearly knocking me off my feet.
I threw as much Dim as I could up at the blood ghasts. Three of the five were wrapped and shipped off to the Dim. Two ma
naged to dodge my throws and came at me so fast that I couldn’t even get my hands up before they were on me.
The blood ghasts froze in mid air then were yanked backwards as the giant grabbed them by their shit-brown swirly tails. He slammed both into each other then threw them onto the ground where he proceeded to stomp them over and over until they looked like stains on the pavement.
That made banishing them slightly difficult, hard to separate the blood ghasts from the highway, so I ended up sending away good chunks of road with them, creating some seriously hazardous potholes. I took a couple deep breaths then steeled myself for the rest of the fight.
“Good job,” Harper said as she staggered over to me, a nasty gash splitting her shirt across her ribs, right under her boobs.
“Nearly got a cheap mast”—I started to say. The punch to my shoulder stopped me.
“Really, Chase? Don’t be a prick,” she responded, punching me in the shoulder again. And much, much harder. “Prick.”
“Thank you,” Kasper said as he squashed the last couple of wraiths. He looked pained as he did it, but there wasn’t any hesitation. Former colleagues of his or not, they needed to go. “You should leave before the cleaning crew arrives.”
“I assume they clean minds as well as blood stains,” I said.
“They clean souls too,” Kasper said. “Go. Now. I will cover for you.”
His voice was like a waterfall crashing down on million-year-old boulders. It wasn’t exactly painful, but I didn’t want him narrating audiobooks anytime soon.
“Why?” Harper asked him as she flicked goo from her sickle, wiped it on her pants, then slid it into its holster. She withdrew the Magnum and held that next to her thigh as she stared up at the bloodied giant. “Your bosses won’t like it that you let us get away.”
“Let you?” Kasper laughed. He bent close, showing us his bare arms. They were covered in gashes, bites, and claw marks. “I know what you and your friends can do. That is why the DEX brought me along. I’m in no shape to fight you.”
