Hellhound on My Trail

by D. J. Butler

  “I want to deal,” Rafi said. “I want to be on the team.”

  “No way,” Eddie shot back. “I don’t make bargains with supernatural forces.”

  “Once burned,” Adrian added, “you know the rest.”

  “Besides,” Twitch threw in, “what do you have to offer us? We’re here. We beat you.”

  “Did you?” Rafael smiled. “Where’s the hoof, then? Where’s your escape route? Those demons can smell the water and don’t want to fall into it, but sooner or later they’ll find another way in, or they’ll get desperate enough to become reckless and jump anyway. And if they don’t, you’re stuck here forever. What’s your plan to deal with them? And where’s Jim?”

  The Hound howled bitterly.

  Mike realized he hadn’t seen Jim inside the pyramid—the singer’s silence and the darkness had made him forget the man. Eddie spun around, shining his light until he found a wet mass by the side of the cistern, trembling in silence.

  “I don’t think falling into the water was a very pleasant experience for Jim,” Rafi said. “His father certainly didn’t like it.”

  “His father?” Pieces clicked into place for Mike. The rapid pace of events around him had kept him from making all the connections, but now he saw it. “Of course. Jim is Azazel’s son.”

  “Poor bastard.” Eddie handed the shotgun to Adrian, knelt by Jim and shook him. “Jim, are you awake?”

  Adrian shone the light around the room and scrutinized its walls and ceiling. “Don’t get any ideas, angel,” he said coldly. “We still have the fairy, and he knows how to bite.”

  “Where’s the hoof, though?” Twitch wondered.

  “I needed you,” Rafael said. “I have been the keeper of this prison for six thousand years, but I have never known how to open it. I wasn’t given any key, wasn’t told how. That was deliberate policy, of course, on the part of Heaven. They couldn’t have me developing sympathies and betraying my trust.”

  “Yeah, I know that’s what I immediately think of when I hear the word angel,” Adrian muttered. “How sympathetic you guys are.”

  Mike remembered Rafi almost yanking his arm from his socket as he threw him sideways and stole his gun. “Amen,” he muttered.

  “I needed you to open the crypt. And now I could just take the hoof and go, but I want to join you. I want to aid you in your quest.”

  “Bullshit,” Eddie disagreed. “Who do you think I am, Sir Lancelot? You don’t care about my quest one way or the other, anyhow, you lying sack. You have your own game.”

  “Fine,” Rafi admitted. “I have my own game. But we can play our games at the same time. I’ll tell you where the hoof is, we defeat the Hound and the bugs together, and then we go put the hoof to good use.”

  “I don’t want to put it to good use,” Adrian said. “A leopard can’t change, et cetera.”

  “Bad use, then!” Rafi snapped.

  And then Mike knew where the hoof was.

  “He can’t get it,” he told Adrian. “Rafi—Raphael can’t get the hoof. He’s frustrated. He still needs us.”

  “Of course he can’t get it,” Eddie agreed. He was helping Jim to a sitting position. Jim groaned. Adrian shone the light on the singer and he looked pink, like someone had thrown boiling water on him. “Or he wouldn’t be bargaining. But where is it?”

  “It’s like he said,” Adrian added. “Heaven didn’t want him to grab the hoof, either.” He turned on the angel, shining the light on him and stalking closer. “What is it you want, Raphael? Freedom? Do you just want to lay your calling down and go? Power? Are you hoping you can bargain your way into the Infernal Council? Or maybe get a promotion in Heaven? Who outranks the archangels? The seraphim? Is that it, you want to be one of Heaven’s six-winged pool-boys, basking forever in the golden light of the throne?”

  “Do you care?” Anger flashed in Rafi’s eyes. “Does it matter to you?”

  “It matters!” Adrian snapped. “I have plans for that hoof!”

  “What do you want?” Rafi asked. “You want to be a real wizard, don’t you? You want to cast the big spells, and you don’t want to fall asleep when you do it. And Eddie there wants to save his soul. Jim, I can guess. You’re like Dorothy and her friends, on a twisted road to Oz to see the wizard. And you’re going to trade the wizard his hoof in return for brains and courage and a heart and a return ticket home.”

  “I guess you get TV reception in Dudael,” Adrian chuckled.

  “I can get what I want from Azazel,” Rafi said firmly. “And I can help you all get what you want.”

  “No deal,” Eddie’s voice was flat. He pushed Jim to his feet, his shoulder under the big man’s arm. Jim was groggy, and slow to respond. “Not now, not ever.”

  “We already have someone who can talk us out of traffic tickets,” Adrian sneered. “You just don’t bring anything to the table.”

  “I’ll tell,” the kid said. He sounded petulant, and since the moment when he’d stolen Mike’s gun and thrown him off the kiva, he’d never looked more like a little kid.

  “Azazel?” Eddie snorted. “We’ll tell him ourselves.”

  “I’ll tell Heaven.”

  “Tell them what, exactly?” Adrian shone the flashlight into Rafi’s eyes, and the angel held up his hands to block the beam. “Tell them you went behind their back and tried to cut some kind of deal with Hell?”

  Rafi laughed. “Of course not! I’ll tell them how you overpowered me and stole the hoof, and where you’re headed. And then I’ll laugh as Heaven’s pool-boys chop you to pieces with their flaming swords.”

  “Aren’t you afraid Heaven can hear you now?” Adrian asked.

  “Of course not!” Rafi laughed. “Do you think Heaven wanted Azazel to be able to just call for his friends, and be rescued? This place is warded to silence so deep, nothing can get out. You could set off a nuclear bomb in here, and no one would hear. The screaming of a thousand damned souls wouldn’t get past the roof.”

  Adrian pulled something from his pocket and held it over his head. It looked like a smartphone. Click, Mike heard, and then Rafi’s voice repeated, I’ll laugh as Heaven’s pool-boys chop you to pieces with their flaming swords.

  “You recorded me?” Rafi sounded incredulous.

  “There’s an app for that,” Adrian sneered.

  “But …”

  “Don’t mess with the gadget guy, bitch!” Adrian spat. The kid stepped back and his face twisted into an expression of anger and fear. “Now stay out of the way, or you’ll be the one with his nuts on Heaven’s anvil!”

  “That doesn’t solve our basic problem,” Eddie observed. “It’s funny as hell, of course, but we still don’t know where the hoof is. If it’s even here at all.”

  The Hound howled at them above, as if to emphasize the point. Mike felt goose pimples on his arms and he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, and jumped into the pool.

  He wasn’t a very good swimmer, and as he thrashed his way to the bottom of the pool, grabbing handfuls of water and pushing them up, exhaling and trying to sink his own weight and wishing he were a little thinner, he wondered what he was doing. He didn’t know how deep the water was, he didn’t know what might be at the bottom, and he wasn’t really sure he wanted to be further pissing off the archangel Raphael, who was already probably irritated at the repeated tasering Mike had given him.

  Plus, he couldn’t really be sure he was right about where the hoof was.

  But he wanted to take a stand. He wanted to show his worth to the team, and he wanted to be part of something. He wasn’t afraid of the water, however bad a swimmer he was—it seemed to have healed his burns, and that made him feel that it wouldn’t drown him, either. Totally irrational, but that’s what he felt in his gut. Besides, maybe, whatever the band was planning to do with the hoof, it could also be used to help him with Chuy. It sounded like they were going to go bargain with the devil. Well, if the devil could make Adrian a real wiz
ard and give Twitch a brain, or whatever it was she wanted, maybe he could set Chuy free, too.

  And that might free Mike.

  He hit the pool bottom and almost immediately found the hoof.

  It was huge, as long as Mike’s forearm and curved like a scythe. For a moment he thought it must not be what he was looking for, but Adrian was shining down the light from above now, and Mike could see the bottom of the pool—it wasn’t very big, and there wasn’t anything else. Besides, the thing he’d found felt like a hoof, like a gigantic discarded nail clipping. He grabbed it in both hands.

  Then he saw his pistol. No sense going unarmed, not in all this craziness.

  Mike scooped up the gun, jammed it into his belt and kicked off for the surface.

  He surfaced from the water, shaking himself like a dog. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a shattered heap of plastic and wire on the brick beside the pool. It was Adrian’s smartphone, he realized, stomped into fragments. Looking up, he found Adrian standing in the beam of the flashlight with his hands over his head.

  “Who’s got the gun?” he asked, and then he saw Twitch behind Adrian, blood on her mouth like she’d been hit. Jim and Eddie stood behind the drummer, the singer still leaning heavily on his guitar player for support. “Oh,” he said.

  “Slight miscalculation,” Twitch told him with a wry shrug.

  “I got cocky,” Adrian grumbled. “Should have given the gun to the fairy.”

  “Thank you, Mike,” Rafi said. He sounded polite and amused. “Go ahead and bring me the hoof.”

  “Don’t do it!” Adrian snapped, but Rafi’s voice was warm and pleasant and anyway, Rafi was Mike’s friend. Mike dragged his soggy carcass out of the water. He belly-flopped onto the soft green grass like a beached whale, but his friends wouldn’t care, and besides, the sun was warm and the breeze was gentle. He smiled as he handed the gigantic toenail clipping over to his friend Rafael.

  “Good job, Mike,” the boy grinned, and took the hoof.

  “Hell,” Eddie said. Poor Eddie, he was always so grumpy, Mike thought. Even when the weather was perfect, like this.

  “Not Hell,” Rafi said, “Eden. Now, Mike, would you please go get that ladder and set it up? There are some friends I’d like to join us.”

  “Of course.” Mike found the ladder on the green sward and grunted as he tried to pick it up. “It’s kind of heavy.”

  “Adrian,” Rafi suggested. “Would you mind helping?”

  “Not at all.” Adrian and Mike together picked up the ladder and hoisted it up against the ceiling. Except there was no ceiling, there was only blue sky above. Mike’s brain skipped like a vinyl record with a scratch on that thought. There was blue sky above, but he had just placed a ladder up into an opening in the sky. Something didn’t quite click, and he felt his brain skipping again.

  Far away, maybe in the forest over the hill, some big creature made its presence known with a shriek that thundered through the trees and sounded like it would uproot them all by sheer sonic power. It might be a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Mike thought.

  “Calling for your father won’t help,” Rafi said pleasantly. He was talking to Jim, who looked tired and haggard despite the pleasant surroundings, and leaned on Eddie for support. “Assuming you’d want to. But maybe you can play with his servants.” Mike heard the buzzing of flies, a small blight on the beauty of the day.

  “Jim!” Eddie snapped.

  “Phthonos!” Jim shouted, and suddenly the illusion of the garden and the forest and the sunshine and the distant sea snapped to shards like a stained glass window with a brick thrown through it. Jim’s voice echoed deep and strong—it did have reverb in it naturally, Mike would have sworn—and the inside of the super-kiva returned to view.

  But who was Jim yelling at?

  The Hound jammed its head through the opening at the top of the pyramid and howled. Jets of blue and red fire crackled from its rows of jagged teeth, lighting the interior like a carnival funhouse ride.

  Was Jim calling the Hellhound?

  “Jeez,” Mike muttered. He felt sick.

  The archangel Raphael stood in the corner of the kiva, shotgun in his hands. The pyramid began to fill with Zvuvim and smaller flies, buzzing incessantly in a cloud of clacketing steel and black fly-demon flesh that descended out of the ceiling. The stink of rotting meat choked the air inside the chamber.

  Inside the cloud, rattling down the ladder one heavy step at a time and shaking dust as it came, the Baal Zavuv descended into the kiva.

  “Phthonos!” Jim shouted again, and something in the big man’s voice heartened Mike without any apparent intent to do so. “Attack!”

  ***

  Chapter Ten

  Mike charged.

  He jerked the pistol from the back of his belt and drew a bead on the archangel Raphael, squeezing the trigger.

  Click.

  “Huevos!” Mike cursed.

  Boom!

  He saw the muzzle flash of the shotgun and thought he’d bought the farm, but Rafi wasn’t shooting at him. Eddie and Jim tumbled to the ground together, and then Mike crashed on top of the archangel in the body of the little boy.

  He raised his fist over his head and clubbed Rafi over the ear with the pistol’s grip.

  “Ouch!” The kid staggered under the blow.

  Mike saw in his mind’s eye what would happen next. The angel would blow him to bits with the shotgun, unless he managed to stop it. So he dropped his pistol and threw himself on the bigger gun, wrestling for control.

  Buzzzzzz.

  A knife sank into his back and then another, and Mike screamed in agony. He felt the legs of the Zavuv on his back and legs and smelled the dry-dust stink of the fly-demon, but he couldn’t let it stop him. He grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and threw his weight against it, trying to fall and rip it bodily from the angel’s hands.

  Boom!

  The gun went off, and Mike wasn’t dead.

  “Get off!”

  Rafi backhanded Mike across the face and hurled him across the room—

  Buzzzzz! a second Zavuv intercepted Mike in midair, sinking its mandibles into his chest—

  Mike screamed again—

  “Per Volcanum—” Adrian shouted, and then Rafi clubbed him in the face with the shotgun and he fell like a sack of grain—

  Mike landed in the cistern of holy water.

  The Zvuvim on his body exploded into flame and he sank, fire burning him before and behind, and at the same time feeling the delicious ice-cool soothing touch of the waters. This was some kind of insanity, Mike thought. Feeling two opposite things at the same time, like loving and hating someone.

  Though as he thought of it, he realized that’s how he felt about Chuy.

  Which, of course, might be madness.

  At the bottom of the pool, the smoldering flies fell away from him and he bounced back toward the surface. Mike emerged from the water feeling refreshed and whole.

  ROAR—CRACK!

  The Hellhound smashed its shoulders against the entrance in the ceiling, knocking loose bricks and dust that fell and peppered the water around Mike. Eddie and Adrian both lay prone and still, and Jim fought the Baal Zavuv.

  Jim was a wild man, like a monkey or a comic book character. As Mike stared, Jim ran up the corner of the room like it was a flat surface, dodging a swipe of the Baal’s enormous claw. From over the Baal’s head, Jim kicked off and flipped backwards through the air, landing with both heels on the Baal’s shoulders. The Baal raged and swiped, but Jim dodged, moving from one foot to the other with casual grace, batting and slashing aside dive-bombing Zvuvim all the while.

  His balance and speed were inhuman, Mike thought.

  Because, of course, Jim wasn’t human. Jim was the son of Satan.

  Twitch dashed around the Baal, landing blows on it as she could with her wooden batons, but mostly smashing Zvuvim to the ground, keeping them off Eddie’s and Adrian’s bodies.

  The archangel Rapha
el stood back in the corner of the room, holding the shotgun and the hoof of the rebel Azazel and laughing his head off.

  “Phthonos!” Jim yelled again.

  The Hound answered him with a long, loud hollering cry that was almost mournful.

  Mike shook himself. He needed to act.

  Adrian was closer. Mike crept forward, hoping that the spectacle would distract Rafael until he could grab the organ player’s leg. Fortunately, Adrian was a small man. Mike wrapped his fingers around the wizard’s ankle and pulled, dragging the little man into the pool.

  As they both splashed into the water, Adrian started thrashing around. Mike grabbed the wizard by the collar of his jacket and pushed off the floor, bringing them both up to good breathable air again—

  and staring into the open mouth of the shotgun.

  “You’ve been a lot of trouble, Mike,” the archangel Raphael snarled through the mouth of the little kid. “Time to say good-bye.”

  He pumped the shotgun, pointed it at Mike’s head and squeezed the trigger—

  Boom!—

  Mike threw himself back into the water—

  he felt the shotgun slug tear into his chest and felt the flesh healing up behind the projectile immediately, his whole body tingling like electricity.

  Boom! He heard another shot while he was underwater, muffled, and felt another slug hit him in the hip. He felt the bone break, and felt it knit again, almost instantly.

  Mike came up again spluttering, ecstatic and totally disoriented. Jim and Twitch fought the Baal and its Zvuvim in the background, the flies swarming around them like a curtain, opaque and buzzing.

  “Damn you!” Raphael shouted. “Get out of the water!”

  “No!” the shout came from Eddie, who had struggled to his feet. Blood ran down his chest from a hole in his shirt and he looked worn and broken, but he broke into a charge. “You get in!”

  Eddie rammed the kid with his shoulder and wrapped both arms around him, launching both of them into the air—

  out over the pool—

  and splash! into the water.

  Rafi hit the water and lit up like an incandescent bulb. Light seemed to burn inside him and rocketed from the entire surface of his body as he and Eddie sank. He looked like a living X-ray image—Mike thought he could see bones glowing through his skin, flailing and trembling as he sank. Mike grabbed for Eddie and was nearly blinded by the glow of the kid beside him. He managed to dig his fingers into the guitar player’s army jacket and drag the man up, out of the water.