by John Everson
“I think we’ve told you everything already,” Joe said.
“You will go back to the mission with us,” Barela said. He didn’t sound as if there was room for argument.
Mistral nodded. “Now.”
“I guess I can,” Cheyenne said. She looked at Joe. For the first time in the hours he’d known her, she looked unsure. And he understood why. He got a weird vibe from the cops. Mistral seemed very stilted, compared to the way he’d been before he went up to the Birchmir. What had they seen up there? And why would they want to take him and Cheyenne back there? What good would that do? So they could point to the floor where they’d been laid out? Something didn’t feel right.
Mistral motioned for them to walk ahead. Joe tucked his roll of clothes under his arm. Cheyenne did the same, and then they all turned out the door and walked down a hall to the back of the station. There were voices ahead, and laughter.
As they passed a common room, with a vending machine and a couple lunch tables, Joe saw two officers standing inside with cups of coffee in hand. A woman stood next to them. She was young and blond, and held a cup of coffee herself. One of her hands was in the air, gesticulating as she made a point. It froze as they stepped into view.
It would have all seemed natural, except that she had no clothes on. That and the fact that there was a long gash across the side of her throat. Blood still appeared to be dripping from the wound; her right breast was glossy with crimson. She didn’t seem to notice. When Joe slowed to look into the common room, she stepped behind one of the men in uniform. The conversation ceased. Six eyes followed them as Joe and Cheyenne passed. Joe felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. That had to have been one of the ritual victims, and she was here. Standing on her own two feet.
In front of them, Officer Barela tripped and staggered. Mistral put a hand on his elbow and he recovered. Neither officer said a word.
Joe caught Cheyenne’s eye and made a face. She nodded faintly. They both felt it.
Mistral opened a glass door that led to a parking lot, and motioned them through. Barela led them through, but, a few steps across the parking lot, he stumbled again. This time Mistral wasn’t there to support him, but he slapped his thigh and recovered on his own. “You’ll pay for that,” the cop said to the air.
Somewhere nearby, somebody screamed. Mistral walked around them and opened the front door of a police squad. Barela held the rear door open for them to enter. The shriek came again; this time it lasted longer. It sounded like something from a haunted house, even though they were outside in the bright, late afternoon sun. Neither cop even looked towards the sound.
Cheyenne slipped her hand around Joe’s arm and squeezed. When he met her eyes, they were wide with fear. She shook her head “no” and he nodded slightly.
“Enter the vehicle,” Barela said. In front of him, Mistral slid into the driver’s seat and put a key into the ignition.
As the engine roared to life, Joe twisted slightly and loosened Cheyenne’s grip on his arm. He took her hand in his and squeezed.
“I think we’ve had a change in plans,” Joe said. He pulled Cheyenne two steps away from the car. “Run,” he said.
They dashed towards the exit of the police lot, just three cars away. Behind them, Barela screamed for them to stop. His voice suddenly sounded not at all calm and subdued. It sounded uncorked – shrill and furious.
Cheyenne let go of his hand and the two of them turned the corner to the left and kept going. Joe could hear the sound of pursuit behind them.
The light at the corner was yellow, but Cheyenne suddenly surged ahead of Joe. “Don’t stop,” she called, and ran across the intersection. Joe followed, and saw the light turn red when they were not even one-third of the way across.
Cheyenne didn’t slow. Behind them, cars began to move. Luckily the drivers ahead saw what was going on and didn’t hit the gas when they got the green. Joe and Cheyenne vaulted up the sidewalk on the other side and tires squealed slightly behind them, as irritated drivers punched the gas to move forward. Joe risked a glance behind them, and what he saw made him call out to Cheyenne. “Wait.”
Mistral stood at the corner. Barela was not there yet; he walked leisurely towards the other officer.
“Run all you like,” Mistral called. “We can find you anywhere.”
“Come on,” Cheyenne said, grabbing Joe’s hand. “That light won’t last long.”
They ran across one strip mall parking lot, around a gas station, and entered the lot of yet another strip mall.
“Wait,” Joe gasped, and leaned over with his hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath.
“Outta shape, jock?” Cheyenne said. She was breathing heavy too… but still standing up straight.
“I was never a jock,” he said. “Is anyone behind us?”
“Coast is clear,” she said. “But we should keep moving.”
He nodded. “Maybe we can duck out of sight for a minute.
“You just want to go shopping,” Cheyenne said. “I get it.”
He shook his head, but saved his breath for gasping.
“How about there?” she said, pointing to the store at the end of the row. Guillemette’s Book & Tea Garden.
Joe shrugged, and started walking in that direction.
“I’m not much of a reader,” he said, as they reached the door.
It was Cheyenne’s turn to shrug. “That’s okay,” she said. “I hate tea. Unless it’s a Long Island Iced.”
“Probably not going to get that in a bookstore,” Joe said, pushing the door open.
They stepped into another world.
Bookshelves, not surprisingly, dominated the space. They rose floor to ceiling, and wire racks also took up some of the space in the front window. The atmosphere was cloistered, quiet. The glare of the desert sun was instantly gone, replaced by a cool feeling of solitude. The store was a respite.
Joe took a deep breath, and worked to finish stilling his huffing.
“Care to look for any books on demonology while we’re here?” Cheyenne offered.
He snorted, but shook his head.
At that moment, a woman walked out of one of the middle aisles carrying a silver tray with a handful of steaming mugs on it. Each was a different franchise; Star Trek, Harry Potter, Twilight.. She herself wore a T-shirt that boasted the Star Wars logo, and the word Princess.
“Can I offer you...” she began.
But before she could complete the sentence, a man bellowed from the rear of the store. “Leah!”
“Excuse me, that’s my husband” she said, and ducked back down the aisle she’d just come from.
Joe turned to say something to Cheyenne, but before he could get the words out, there was a loud crash from the back of the store, and the brittle sounds of breaking glass.
A woman screamed.
Joe and Cheyenne ran down the aisle to see what had happened. They stopped at the end of the aisle, where a strange tableau was playing out.
In a small open area in the back of the store, the tea woman lay on the ground, a litter of broken mug shards around her. A big man in jeans and a sweat-stained grey T-shirt sat astride her chest, holding her down with his bulk as he stuffed a rolled up magazine into her mouth.
A young, brown-skinned girl stood on the other side of the area. She looked about seventeen, and wore abbreviated denim shorts and a pink tank top. Her wrists were thick with bracelets and chains, but it was her hands that Joe noticed.
They held a long, ornamental sword. She’d apparently already used it on the man; his shirt lay shredded on the floor, crimson slices cut across his broad chest.
“Here’s what I’m thinking, Joe,” she said in a voice that sounded childish and shrill.
Joe started; her back was to him, how did she even know he was there? And then he realized she did not;
she was talking to the half-naked man.
Joe realized that these must be the store owners, Joe and Leah Guillemette.
“Let her go,” the man begged.
The girl shook her head, brandishing the sword. She lifted the tank top with her other hand, rubbing one naked breast provocatively in his face. “You hurt my feelings,” she said. “You wouldn’t touch my boobies when I offered them to you. You said you were in love with Mrs. Guillemette over here. Joe and Leah G, sitting in a tree. She just looooves your guts out, doesn’t she?”
The girl laughed suddenly, a strange, hysterical cackle. And then with a sudden swipe, she brought the blade across the man’s belly. And instant splash of blood spattered the electric pink of her tank top as the man screamed and doubled over.
“Eww,” she said, “you messed up my shirt!” Then she shrugged, and slid the blade up the front of the tank, slicing it off herself. When it fell in shreds to the floor, she walked around the back of the man, who held both hands to his gut, trying to hold himself together. The store owner was a big guy, but suddenly he seemed small.
Helpless.
The girl didn’t stop. She climbed up his back from behind, nearly toppling them both. But she was light, and thin, and in a moment, she held the blade across his throat as she pressed her chest to his back. She whispered something in his ear, and he moaned. She rubbed her chest against his shoulders and said out loud, “I said, do you like them now?”
“No,” he said.
She whispered in his ear again, and he shook his head. Tears were streaming down his face.
“Kevin,” she said to the man still stuffing a magazine down the woman’s throat. “Feed her those fucking mugs.”
The man picked up a handful of broken shards and began to stuff them down the opening in the magazine that led to the woman’s mouth. She struggled and shrieked on the floor beneath him, but couldn’t break free.
“No!” the dying man begged.
“Then do what I tell you,” the girl said. “Now!”
He was crying, and blood streamed down his pants, but the man staggered forward anyway, trying to meet her demand.
When he stood over the woman’s head, the girl said “Good. Perfect. Stay right there.”
“Let her go,” Joe Guillemette begged once more.
“You let her kiss those guts you think she loves so much, and she’s free to go. Do it. Five. Four. Three. Two...”
Joe stopped holding his belly together, and instead reached a hand inside. The pink of his intestines was instantly visible.
“That’s it,” the girl said. “Let it all hang out.” She bucked up and down on his back, as if she were riding a bronco. “Feed that bitch your meat. Show her what she’s been loving all these years for real.”
Joe stepped forward from the aisle finally. “Stop it!” he yelled. “Get off of him.”
The girl cackled and pulled the blade tight to the man’s throat. “One more step and I take off his head,” she warned.
Joe stopped. Cheyenne gripped his arm. They were helpless to help.
“Now or never,” the girl said, still holding the blade tight to Guillemette’s throat. The store owner’s eyes bugged, and his whole body trembled, but with his two hands he grabbed at the flaps of his gut and pulled.
Cheyenne buried her face in Joe’s shoulder as loops of intestine suddenly fell from the sheathe of muscle that had held them in, to hang bloody and wet in his wife’s terrorized face. The man astride her had tossed away the magazine and now held his hands on either side of her face, forcing her to see the guts of her husband dangling just centimeters away from her lips.
“Kiss your hubby,” the girl demanded. “Eat his meat!”
“No!” the woman screamed, and the girl laughed.
“See?” she said to her helper. “That’s love for you. Skin deep.” She shook her head and returned her attention to the woman on the floor. “One more chance. Kiss the meat of the man you love... show him you care.”
The woman shook her head and cried, “No. Please... just let us go!”
The girl shrugged and drew the blade across the man’s neck. “Sorry, but you lose.”
The girl hopped to the floor as the man’s body toppled. With a deft swipe, she buried the sword in the woman’s gut.
“I would have let you go,” she told the woman. “It would have only taken a kiss.”
Cheyenne pulled Joe backwards. He didn’t protest.
“Hey don’t leave,” the girl shrieked, as they turned and ran to the front of the store. “Stay and have some tea. Blood Tea,” she laughed.
Joe slammed through the door of the store and ran as hard as he could, Cheyenne at his side. They cut through the yard of an apartment complex behind. After running two more blocks, Joe finally staggered to a stop, collapsing to the ground.
“What the fuck was that?” Cheyenne gasped, falling next to him on the lawn.
Just then, a scream erupted from a few doors down. Joe pushed off his knees and stood again. There were two figures struggling on the lawn of an apartment building four yards away.
“What the hell?” Cheyenne said. “Not again!” She took off towards the trouble, and Joe followed.
“Leave her alone!” Cheyenne screamed when they reached the yard. A stocky man in a button-down and jogging shorts sat astride a thin older woman. She looked forty-ish and pale, with dark auburn hair and a long chin. Joe noticed her hands were weathered and her nails short, because she held them against the man’s chest, trying to push him off her. But she couldn’t budge him. Instead, with one hand, he yanked her bra off, without bothering to unlatch it. He simply used brute force to stretch it until it snapped and then tossed it to the side to join her ripped yellow blouse on the lawn.
Cheyenne ran at the man in a football tackle move, never slowing. But even though she plowed into his shoulder, the man didn’t let go of the woman beneath him. His body fell sideways, but he kept his legs locked around the topless woman, and with one hand grabbed Cheyenne by the throat, throwing her easily to the sidewalk nearby. She yelped as her arm hit the concrete.
Joe followed her lead, and dove at the man, but the guy turned two fiery eyes on him and laughed. A fist caught Joe in the belly and he doubled over. His momentum took him over the woman’s body before he collapsed on the ground. He couldn’t breathe. He opened his mouth but no air came in. “Oh my God,” he wheezed. It sounded like a whisper. Tears pooled in his eyes.
Cheyenne stood up nearby.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
She didn’t listen to him. Instead, she picked up a paving block from the landscaping wall near the apartment entrance. “Get off of her, asshole,” she threatened.
The guy turned his head and looked at her with a strange expression. “My name is Lionel, not asshole,” he said. “It says so right here.” The man laughed as if at some incredibly funny private joke. He pointed to his shirt, which had Lionel Ray Green stitched above the pocket. It looked like a gas station attendant’s uniform. “You really want me off of her?”
Cheyenne nodded.
The guy shrugged. “Okay.”
He stood up, and Joe could now see just how big he was. He looked like a football player and he must have stood over six feet tall. But it wasn’t his size that was frightening. It was his eyes. They looked… insane. Bright and crazy.
“But if I get up, I need to make sure that she can’t,” Lionel said, and with that, he launched a kick right between the grounded woman’s legs.
The woman screamed and drew herself up in a ball on the grass. Her sobs were filled with undiluted pain.
Joe forced himself to his feet as Cheyenne ran at the man with her brick.
“You’re going to have to wait your turn,” the man said. He reached out, grabbed the brick from her hand, and smacked it against her forehead. Cheyenne wen
t down.
She lay still.
Lionel returned to the woman he’d kicked. He tore the jeans off of her, before dropping his own shorts. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time,” he growled. “Centuries.”
Joe staggered to where Cheyenne lay. The man ignored him. Cheyenne’s mouth was slack. There was a raised bump on her forehead where the brick had played her false.
“Cheyenne,” Joe whispered in her ear, keeping an eye on the crazy man a few feet away. He was lost in the legs of the broken woman. There was nothing erotic about his motions.
Cheyenne didn’t stir. “Damnit,” Joe murmured. His belly hurt like hell and he felt like he could barely walk himself, but he pulled her arm over his shoulder and slipped an arm beneath her. Slowly, he levered her upright and dragged her towards the sidewalk. He knew in his gut that they needed to get out of sight of the man behind them before he finished with his current interest. They would no doubt be next.
“Wha?” Cheyenne mumbled into his ear.
“Thank God,” Joe said. Her eyes were fluttering open.
“Cheyenne, can you hear me?” he asked.
“What?” she answered. She still sounded confused. “Ow.”
“We have to walk,” he urged. “Can you walk with me?”
He eased her weight back on her own feet, but kept an arm around her shoulders. She took a couple steps, then stopped, pulling Joe to a halt.
“We have to stop him,” she said, trying to turn back.
“We can’t,” Joe said. “I’m sorry, but we can’t stop him any more than we could stop the girl with the sword. They’re not human.”
“What do you mean?” she said. Her voice was getting less slurry. “He’s an asshole, yeah, but he’s definitely human.”
“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “I think he’s possessed. Just like the cops and that girl. I think the Curburide are here.”
“The Curburide?”
“The demons I was looking for,” Joe said. “I think they opened the door at the mission last night and for some reason it hasn’t closed!”
