The Thin Black Line Between Infernal and Divine

by Andrew Seiple

  “But—” Moynahan started, and Coleman growled.

  “They can't hurt me. They won't touch her. Go do your job, agent.”

  Moynahan hesitated, then shook his head, “I don't like this, but okay. Okay. I'll trust you.” He walked forward and embraced the squishy supervillain.

  Grim chuckled. “Gonna apologize in advance for the suit, kid.”

  And then they were up and away.

  CHAPTER 4

  Moynahan shuddered, as he hung on for dear life. Below them, bullets rang out through the fog, shattering dead flesh, dropping two or three zombies with every shot. None missed, each found spines or skulls aplenty to perforate, blowing through to hit more targets. At Kingsley's back, a red glow rose as Coleman waded into the first line, fists flying and sizzling, searing flesh and breaking bone wherever they hit. Kingsley evaded, dancing along the tombstones and occasionally along the heads and shoulders of the zombies as she fired, pausing to reload now and again. Coleman simply ignored the claws and teeth that came his way, ripping grasping limbs away from his frame before they could latch on. She was the unstoppable force, he the immovable object.

  And above it all, Moynahan hung on for sheer life as Grim flew with no visible means of support or propulsion, a strange lurching gait that seemed to constantly adjust for his passenger's weight.

  “You're heavier than you look,” the villain grumbled, as Moynahan gasped for air, and his face slowly turned red. “About two hundred? Yeah, feels like it. Hey, what's wrong?”

  Moynahan vomited down Grim's back, and the skeletal villain's eyes rolled up in his head. “Oh. Yeah, that's great. Just great. Thanks buddy. I really mean that.”

  “Where-” Moynahan coughed, spat out bile. “Where are we going?”

  “Fucked if I know. This fog's thicker than a frat boy on weed.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do?”

  “Don't get your panties in a knot, kid. We're looking for something out of place. I had time to think up on that tree, and I'm pretty sure this is like an illusion, or some weird form of mind control, or some shit. When this stuff hits, there's always something... there. See that?”

  Moynahan twisted around, tried to get a look without slipping free. Squinted. “That light, you mean?” The roiling in his stomach started to return, and he fought it down. Didn't help he was up against a naked skinned guy. Don't think about that, don't think about that...

  “Yep. Haven't seen anything else in this place.” Grim started angling their awkward flight. They headed towards the lit window of the highest tower of a decrepit house that looked for all the world like a stereotypical haunted house; the kind you saw on old-school Halloween decorations.

  “Hang on to yer cookies, we're going in hot!” Grim yelled, then cackled as Moynahan dug in and spewed up the last contents of his stomach on the approach. They crashed through the round window, sending thin slats of crumbling wood spraying along with fragments of dusty glass. Moynahan had time to close his eyes before they hit the far wall, bounced, and ended up on the floor.

  He blinked, started to sit up and look around, and froze.

  “Whoo.” Grim sighed as he pulled a chunk of glass out of his face, taking an eyeball with it. He shook his head, spraying blood. After a second, another eye formed and expanded, filling the socket. “Man, that was a—”

  Moynahan held up a hand. “Sh.”

  “What are you—?”

  “Sh!”

  Grim shut up and in the silence he heard the rustling of feathers. The harsh squawks of birds. Large birds. Lots of them. He looked around.

  They were in the top of the tower. The arched ceiling was lined with hundreds of short rods protruding out from the walls. Set in tiers, each rod had a large black bird upon it. Crows or ravens, Moynahan thought. They stared at the newcomers with beady red glowing eyes. Candles lit the scene, thousands of them scattered in holders around the floor.

  In the very center of the room, where they must have just passed over her, was a girl. She was short and thin, and wore a jet-black dress. Her frizzy black hair stuck out of the back of a medieval plague doctor's mask, with a leather beak similar to those of the birds above. She was huddled in a picture of pure misery, with her arms hugged around her knees.

  “Hey. 'Will.” Grim whispered as best he could. She didn't respond. He tried again, a little louder. This time the birds stirred, a dry rustle that started nearby and spread through the room. Grim fell silent.

  Moynahan frowned, and started crawling toward her. Grim caught his wrist.

  “What?” The agent asked, in the lowest of whispers.

  “Just watch it. You cause her grief, I'll give you pain.” Grim stared him down. Easy to do without eyelids.

  Moynahan paused, looked between them. “What's her deal? What's her power?”

  “Empathic broadcaster. She sings, she can hit you with emotions.”

  “And the birds react to noise...” The agent glanced up. “They probably attack. It looks like that sort of place.”

  Grim rose, and walked over to Whippoorwill. He crouched down, and looked her over. And as he examined the puncture wounds on her bloodstained arms, and the tiny tears along her dress, his fists clenched. “Yeah,” he whispered. “They do that, don't they? Let me test this.”

  “What are you—” The birds stirred, and Moynahan lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “What do you have in mind?”

  Grim moved to the side of the room, away from his allies, and raised his arms. “HEY ASSHOLES!”

  The birds descended. With mad screeching, and a cloud of feathers falling about the room, the entire flock descended upon Grim as Moynahan watched in horror. Whippoorwill whimpered and covered her head, staying very still.

  After what seemed like forever, the birds rose up again. Grim was on his knees, blood flowing freely from torn vessels, his eyesockets hollow. But his gruesome regeneration kicked in, and soon he was whole again. Well, as whole as he had been before his mauling, at any rate. He rubbed his face, with a wet squishing sound. “Okay. What did we learn?”

  “That if I tried that I'd be crippled for life,” Moynahan murmured.

  “Besides that, bright boy. Jesus, I thought you agents were educated and shit.”

  “Er... that they only go for the one who made the noise?”

  “Yeah. We're in horror movie rules, now. So if you don't fuck up, the monsters don't get you. But if you make noise? You're it. So how do we use this to save 'Will and get our asses out of here?”

  A flash of red light through the window, and a rumble. Grim looked up, worried. “And we better do this fast. That was Coleman amping up his game. Wouldn't do that unless things were getting bad. You know they wanted you clear so you'd survive this, right?”

  “What?” Moynahan frowned.

  “Yeah. That hill battle's a no-win situation. So how do we win here, before they get eaten?”

  It stung his pride, that they'd sent him to safety. That they'd had to do so. He'd find a way to pull his weight, dammit! Moynahan looked up at the empty window, destroyed through their half-controlled crash. No way they'd get through it without making noise—

  Wait.

  “Grim?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If they jump you the second you make noise, how come they didn't jump us when we broke that window?”

  Grim opened his leering mouth, shut it again with a 'clack'. “You think they won't go after noise from there?”

  “They didn't last time.”

  “I take it back kid, maybe you got a brain after all. Alright, I got an idea but you'll hate it.”

  “I'm listening.”

  “You make some noise, I fly her out. Once she's out and I manage to calm her down, she sings the calming song. She sings it loud enough, it'll get the birds too. They wouldn't be here if they weren't afraid of her doing this.”

  “You're right. I hate it.” Moynahan looked up and sighed. “I don't see too many options, though.” He hunkered down into a po
sition like Whippoorwill's, and folded his arms, pushing his face into them. After a second he arranged himself so he was facing the corner, with his back and most of one side open to the room.

  “Do it.”

  “You got stones, kid. Speaking of that, keep those legs clenched. Testicles are easy meat to birds this size.”

  “Asshole. So now you're waiting for me to make noise?” He was proud of himself, for keeping his voice steady. This was going to hurt. Or it was going to leave him crippled or dead. Or any combination of the three. And here he was, trusting his life to two villains.

  And then, he felt a bony hand on his shoulder.

  “Hey. Kid. Relax, we got this. I know 'Will, and I know me, we'll do our part. You just keep yourself together. Shield the vital bits, you won't endure the full mauling I got. Keep your head, and if things go right we'll have 'Will up and singing before they can do any permanent damage. Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grim stepped back, whispering. “A one, and a two, and a-”

  Moynahan screamed, and the crows descended.

  CHAPTER 5

  Coleman fought for survival. Not his own, because he didn't care much about that these days. But Kingsley? That was another thing entirely. She talked tough, she put on an appearance of confidence so unshakable that one might think the end of the world wouldn't break her stride. But he knew different.

  Glancing back, he could see that she looked unshakeable. Each step was placed where the zombies would have to tangle themselves to get to her. Each twist out of the way resulted in dead arms missing her by millimeters. Every shot was designed for the perfect balance of effectiveness, economy of effort, and bullet conservation. Each second was planned out, mapped in an instant by the blue glow that poured out from around the concealing lenses of her sunglasses.

  It hurt to look at her while his powers were up, but he spared her another second of attention regardless of the pain. The beast in him roiled with an odd mix of hatred and desire. Not for anything as pedestrian or cliched as pleasures of the flesh, mind you, but for something that had been lost long ago. For the ease with which she worked with the world, and the world bent to her.

  But for all that, she was mortal. She would get tired. It was no good to see the way to victory, if your body couldn't follow through with the required actions. It was of no use to understand that you could win the fight with one good shot, only to fail because you'd spent all your bullets just getting to that point. Attrition would wear her down, eventually. It had before, and she'd gotten the scars to show for it. And seeing her marked so had angered him beyond his own expectations. No, he wouldn't let that happen again. Not on his watch.

  A dead hand clawed down Coleman's back, and he snarled. No time to waste. He jerked an elbow back, felt flesh give, and threw a hand around in a wide arc, letting the flames trail behind it.

  The claw marks down his back stung, but he knew there was no visible injury. The demon's skin lay just beneath his own, just deep enough that he still felt pain from his wounds. Just shallow enough that it didn't matter. It wasn't invulnerable, but it was tougher than boiled leather, on par with some of the softer metals. And anyone who managed to get through that? Well, they'd get a mouth full of hellfire for their troubles. But he was only mortal, too. And if he got too tired, or in too bad a spot, the beast could take over. And then bad things happened.

  He grabbed another zombie by the arms, whirled and threw it down the hill, sending it into the fog. Before it could disappear, he was already in motion, chopping other zombies with the edge of his hands. More effective than a punch in this situation, especially with heightened strength behind it. Between that and the focused burn of his hellfire, he chopped through limbs, struck off heads, and left ashen trails across the gray flesh of his foes.

  It wasn't enough. Unlike last night's encounter, these didn't get weaker when you fought them. They weren't slow, like the last bunch. They were relentless, and just as fast as the average human being, and there were a lot of them. They just didn't stop coming.

  Well.

  Time to kick it up a notch.

  He searched inside his mind for that cage he'd made of willpower and discipline. He found it, still as strong as he'd forged it over the years. The shard of the demon stirred, eager and full of malice. It knew what was coming.

  He let the cage slip open, just a bit. The aches in his muscles vanished. The fatigue from running through the cemetery evaporated. The pain in his back disappeared, and new skin pushed up from below, burning away the torn skin and leaving minor scratches smoothed out. Now his strikes landed with pulverizing strength, and he threw off the arms trying to grab him with contemptuous ease.

  But as always, there was a price.

  When he was fully human, when the cage was sealed and barred, he fought with a control that a martial arts master would envy. Nowhere close to Kingsley's mastery of order, of course, but he never lost sight of the goal. Never lost awareness of the situation, or took unnecessary risks.

  When the shard was active? He'd find himself getting reckless. Missing opportunities to follow-through. Taking hits he could have blocked or dodged. He had to let his perfectionism go, let his instincts take over more. No help for it— he'd opened the cage. Now he had to focus on keeping it just open enough that he got the benefits, without getting too many of the downsides. Or worse, letting it open more than he intended. That would be bad. It had happened before. If it weren't for Kingsley... he banished the thought as the distraction it was. But he couldn't help shooting her a glance, as he fought with renewed strength. She had gone defensive, conserving her bullets, maybe. Dancing among the zombies, using a hunk of jagged bone to smack them around, dodging around the tree for cover. Revolting, the part of him that wasn't him whispered. Should get my jaws into the bitch, tear a leg off, watch the angelspawn bleed out weeping-

  No! He put pressure on the mental construct of the cage. I'm in charge. I'm the master here.

  Grudging acceptance mixed with a feeling of hatred older than time and deeper than the void between the stars. It didn't have words to it, but twisted his thoughts, making them burn within his skull. Feelings, emotions, and none of them good. For now, it seemed to whisper.

  The distraction cost him. One of the dead men tackled his legs, made him stagger for a second. Three more piled on, and brought him to the ground.

  “Coleman!” He heard Kingsley shout. Then dead jaws gnawed on his head, gnawed on his ears and neck, twisting and tearing. Supernaturally tough skin flexed, and started to give. No choice! He reached deeper into the mental cage, and roared as loudly as he could.

  “Get clear!”

  He unleashed the hellfire. Red so dark it was almost black, flickering and fading as it screamed into the world.

  It was chaos, it was hatred made into heat and horror, it was the raw force of destruction. It was entropy made personal, and concentrated down into a focal point of HERE and NOW. It could snuff stars from the firmament, given time and opportunity and enough force behind it. Mind you, whatever was left of him after attempting such a feat would in no way be either human or living.

  Set against even a fraction of that force, a few dozen moving corpses had no chance at all.

  The waves rolled off of him, and the pressure on his back relaxed as his ears filled with a sound he hadn't expected to hear.

  The dead were screaming.

  In the brief few seconds that they were enveloped in the flame before their esophagi and lungs were shriveled and burnt away, they wailed in pain. Hellfire didn't care if you were living, dead, or undead. It hurt. It took joy from hurting you. Coleman felt the thing in its cage shift and grin, the malice at its core drinking deep a full meal from the agony of these undead.

  He'd thought they were dreamstuff, like the ones from last night. They hadn't felt pain, that had been one of the reasons he'd unleashed hell so easily. But no, these had once been human. They were as real as he was, and he was torturing them. Part of him w
inced, feeling guilt, hating himself for it. Hating more that a larger part of him rejoiced to hear them scream.

  He forced both parts down, and slammed the cage shut. He interrupted the remnants of the demon in its feasting, made it bellow in protest and rattle the bars. But he held them, as he always did. And in a minute he was fully human again, aching and sore and cold as the fog licked along his bare skin.

  Coleman sighed and opened his eyes. Twice in two days he'd had to unleash hellfire. He hated the fact that it got easier each time. But he stood and looked around, surveying the damage. The tree was gone, he was surrounded by heaps of ash, and the tombstones on the hilltop were charred black. The ones nearest him were crumbled and cracked from the heat.

  There was no sign of Kingsley.

  “Kingsley? Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit...” He moved through the rows of tombstones, hunting. Was she one of the ash piles? Had he finally done it, finally killed her? No. No, not like this. Impossible, she would've-

  He bent over to examine an ash pile with a black lump in it, and froze as he heard a familiar noise behind him. It was the click of a phone camera, and he felt tension leave him.

  “You asshole,” he growled, flopping down among the ash. “Had me worried a minute there.”

  Kingsley's grinning face poked up from a shallow grave, as she threw a burned corpse off of her. With an exaggerated flourish, she tucked the phone back in her jacket pocket. Then she sobered up. “You burned up all your ammo, didn't you?”

  He looked at the ground, and the puddle of cooling metal nearby. “Yeah.”

  She turned, scanning the fog, and shook her head. More shapes were already lumbering out of it, creeping forward at the same walking pace that they'd had before. “Got another one of those in you?”

  He tested the mental cage, and shuddered. “The next one's going to be worse. If I keep poking the bad side of me, my control's going to suffer. I don't know if you can survive it.”

  “Eh, I'll find a way.”