Studying the rolling mountain range in the distance, I asked, “Where exactly are we?”
“Smoky Mountains. East of Johnson City, Tennessee. Passed through here with the Union Army. Burnside marched us for twenty-five straight hours all the way down this ridgeline to beat the Confederates to Campbell Station. Pissed rain on us the entire way. Pure misery.”
“Ambrose Burnside? The Civil War general?”
“Yeah, long story,” he muttered. “At any rate, I came back thirty years later. Bought this plot and the couple hundred acres surrounding it. The whole damn area was nothing more than a meadow back then. Planted this entire forest myself.”
“Why?”
“I like trees.”
“No, jackass. Why did you buy the land? What’s so special about it?”
Lighting his cigar with a match, he matter-of-factly said, “Needed a spot to set up my moonshining operation during Prohibition.”
“Right,” I muttered, instantly regretting I asked.
“And, of course, there’s the small fact that I realized this piece of ground sits in a supernatural rift. Only one I’ve ever found in all of North America.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means it’s hidden in plain sight, slick. Veiled from the Heavens and any other type of Being armed with the Sight. The perfect spot to lie low for a guy in my line of work.”
“And then you turned it into a trailer park?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s the perfect cover. To anyone concerned — it’s just another Airstream park sitting squarely in the middle of Jerkwater, U.S.A. Humans come and go and nobody’s the wiser.”
“You have any security measures in place?”
“No need for it,” he muttered, as we pulled up to within a few feet of the log cabin. “There’ll be a goddamned Pizza Hut on the freaking moon before anybody finds me here. Trust me, ace. I know what the hell I’m doing.”
And no sooner did he complete that very statement did an athletically built, thirty something dude saunter from the shadows of a large oak tree to our immediate right. Although not incredibly tall, he had the frame of an NFL linebacker marked by powerful shoulders that angled into a thick, chiseled neck and blocky head. Wearing designer skinny jeans, peculiar leather booties that went up to his knees, and a ridiculous fur coat like you’d expect on a viking, the curious stranger had a more than satisfying smile plastered across his rugged face.
Surprisingly, the aura radiating from his stocky silhouette was even more bizarre than his wardrobe. It basically looked like an ethereal, raging dust storm of dark energy that perpetually enveloped itself.
“Still smoking those cheap cigars,” the suave newcomer said with smooth bravado as he casually removed his wayfarer sunglasses and propped them on top of his expertly manicured mane of thick, jet black hair. “How are ya, buddy?”
“So, on the moon,” I said to MacCawill, “Is it fair to assume that a large pepperoni will come with a side of oxygen? Or you think that’ll cost extra?”
“Kruger,” he muttered at the newcomer, ignoring my snide commentary. “You look well.”
“You seem surprised.”
“You should be dead.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because I killed you.”
“Apparently not.”
“I’ll be sure and try harder next time.”
“That a boy!”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” He mischievously chuckled, taking a bold step in our direction. “Come on, buddy. Did you really think you could cash in on the bounty of a millennium without me? We’re partners, remember?”
“We were partners. Until you double crossed me. And cut my arm off. And left me for dead.”
“Did not.”
“Did so.”
“Lies, slander, and denigration. Erroneous on all counts.”
“Cut the shit, Cyrus. What the hell do you want?”
“The Deacon, Roy. I want the Deacon.”
“You can’t have him.”
“Let’s agree to disagree, buddy.”
Then, with a dismissive flick of his hand, the smooth talking stranger lifted MacCawill off his feet with an unseen force and launched him backward at breakneck speed. Covering a couple hundred feet in the blink of an eye, my trench coated pal uncontrollably slammed broadside into his prized Airstream creating a rather impressive, gaping hole in the aluminum carcass. Without slowing down in the least, he then hurtled like a six foot three projectile into the darkness of the forest until he faded from sight.
Rather pleased with his handiwork, MacCawill’s estranged partner smiled at me and said, “Roy and I are old friends. Go way back.”
“You just launched him into a frigg’n motor home,” I replied.
“It’s a complicated relationship.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Cyrus Kruger,” he said, like I should know already know.
“Cyrus Kruger?” I chuckled. “Seriously?”
“So, you’ve heard of me.”
“Nope. Just think that name’s a little to cute to be real. Got a suspiciously premeditated ‘mid-level henchman with delusions of grandeur’ ring to it. You look more like a George. Or a Ralph. Or maybe a Hank.”
“That’s funny,” he said, widely smiling and strangely appreciating my sarcasm. “I heard you were funny.”
“So you know who I am.”
“I do,” he replied, with a wolfish grin. “Captain Dean Robinson. Soldier. Deacon. Mutinous conspirator. Heavenly outlaw. Fugitive on the run from the seraphic court.”
“You’re another bounty hunter, I take it.”
“More of a mercenary, actually. Unlike Roy, I’m not as selective with regard to my clientele. I tend to gravitate toward those with the biggest pocket books.”
“Like the God Squad.”
“Not that I’m a big fan of the halos, but unfortunately for you, my cloaked friend, they’ve put a bounty of unmatched proportion on your head.”
“I bet you say that to all the fellas,” I muttered.
“That’s great,” he chuckled. “You really are a funny bastard.”
“Right,” I muttered, thinking Kruger was definitely a few sammiches shy of a picnic.
“So,” he said, regaining his composure. “Don’t suppose you’re going to let me take you to Tenth Heaven without pitching a fit are you?”
“I wouldn’t let you take me anywhere, pal. You’re not my type. That legging and fuzzy coat combination is a little too BeeGees with a twist of Liberace for my taste.”
Getting a real kick out of that one, he just stood there laughing for an awkward couple seconds.
“Okay, seriously, last chance, Deano. You sure I can’t talk you into surrendering? Make things a lot easier all around.”
“Pretty sure, Hank.”
“Figured as much. Well, good talk. Genuinely enjoyed it.”
“Is this the part where we start fighting?”
“No,” he snickered. “This is the part where I shoot you with Holy Flame and then cart your comatose’d corpus to Gabriel. I usually tell people it doesn’t hurt — but that’s total bullshit. It hurts like hell. Oh, and, just so you know, it’s nothing personal.”
And then the rotten bastard pulled an old fashioned flint lock pistol from his stupid-ass coat and blasted me in the chest with a fiery purple orb. As the Holy Flame musket ball slammed into the cloak and promptly fizzled out like a firecracker tossed into a pool of water, a dark smile curled across my face.
“Bummer,” he said, as his happy go lucky façade instantly gave way to something between shock and disbelief.
“I guess that didn’t work out the way you planned it, eh?” I shrugged.
“No. Not so much.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I replied, closing the distance between us and willing the gauntlets into being. As they instantly manifested in the form of unbreakable, ashen hellstone, I c
lenched my hands into tight fists. “Is it my turn now?”
And as that was really more of a rhetorical question, I focused all my super-natural strength and punched that smug son of a bitch right in the mouth.
Although I was fully expecting to knock him into next week with the crushing force of the blow, I was more than a bit surprised when my stone covered hand plowed a hole straight through his face and his head subsequently exploded in a violent poof of reddish-brown dust.
“What the hell?” I scoffed as the rest of his body instantly turned to the same earthy material and simply crumbled to the forest floor in a macabre pile.
Making the mental note to lay off the protein shakes, I turned to find MacCawill stomping his way through the campsite toward me.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Where is he?”
Willing the gauntlets into retreat and pointing at the dust pile, I said, “If I had to guess, knock knock knocking on Heaven’s door.”
“Shit,” he grumbled, unholstering his grenade launcher. Cracking open the breech, he loaded a fresh round and scanned the forest anxiously.
“What are you looking for?”
“Kruger, you idiot.”
“He’s gone, Roy. We chatted. He shot me. I punched him. He turned into a pile of dirt. I think he’s dead.”
“Don’t give yourself that much credit, slick,” MacCawill grunted, carefully maneuvering toward the log cabin while pulling a bullwhip that would make Indiana Jones proud, from somewhere in the bowels of his rawhide trench coat. “He’s not dead.”
“Ah, he’s a pile of dirt.”
“Trust me. That wasn’t him. It was a golem — a copy. Kruger’s still here.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He’s an adamite — a terramorph. “
“A what?”
“A terramorph. A class of nepher that can perpetually regenerate the physical construct of their body from organic matter — especially dirt. They can also create golems — identical clones of themselves that share a hive mind.”
“So?”
“So we’re in the middle of the freaking woods, genius. Surrounded by nothing but miles and miles of organic matter.”
“Come on, man,” I scoffed. “As you saying that jackass can turn himself into an army of dirt twins? Bullshit.”
“I’ll admit, whipping up an entire army might be a stretch,” Kruger replied, casually emerging from the front door of the log cabin wearing the same absurd outfit. “But a legion, on the other hand, I can do that with my eyes closed. Let’s dance, bitches.”
Raising both his hands high in the air, the forest floor instantly erupted into a swirling landscape of unnatural, man-sized funnel clouds that voraciously pulled the surrounding dirt, shrubbery, and anything else in the near vicinity into whirring columns. And before I knew what the hell was happening, the endless sea of mini-tornados produced an endless horde of pissed off Krugers. And they were all smiling at me. Wickedly.
“Fuck,” MacCawill grumbled. “Now you’ve done it.”
“Me? He’s your goddamn friend,” I grumbled back.
“It’s a complicated relationship.”
“If we survive this, I’m so gonna bury you with an elf.”
“Whatever.”
Chapter 13
Admittedly, my career choices have put me in some rather precarious situations over the years.
Case in point, during my mortal existence I chose the path of a soldier — a U.S. Army Ranger. As such, exchanging bullets with professional bad guys was fairly common practice. It was part of the job. An occupational hazard. Came with the territory. Hell, throughout the course of my ten years in uniform, I’d cheated death more times than should’ve been possible for a human being. That’s just how it was.
Okay.
Fine.
And then, when death finally caught up with me, I put on the cloak and came to the arcane realization there was a whole new level of bad guy out there. Lurking just beyond the mortal veil were disgruntled fallen angels, roided-out giants, heavenly half-bred beasties, blah blah, yada, yada, and so on and so forth.
Yep.
Got it.
But let’s get real for a quick second, folks — to find myself literally surrounded by an otherworldly mercenary that possessed the ability to spontaneously create his own goddamned clone army out of frigg’n dirt? Come on. That’s some serious bullshit.
You know I’m right.
At any rate, as MacCawill and I stood shoulder to shoulder amidst the unnatural mob of Kruger lookalikes, I couldn’t help but think that I should’ve been a dentist. Or an IT guy.
Or maybe even a smart ass, yet incredibly handsome novelist that wrote outlandish acts of fiction in the comforts of his very manly study. Damn the bad luck.
As the cloak rippled anxiously about my shoulders indicating some serious shit was about to go down, I willed the shotgun into being and instantly felt the presence of the scabbard-like holster on my back. Calling for the gauntlets, they manifested in a spectral flash and perfectly encased my fisted hands and forearms in argent metal. Game on.
“Stand down, Cyrus!” MacCawill yelled, pointing his grenade launcher into the hostile crowd poised to pounce on us with bad intentions. “Robinson is coming with me.”
Evidently the Krugers thought that to be rather humorous because the entire forest erupted in hearty laughter.
“You never were much of a diplomat,” replied the Kruger clone standing to our immediate front.
“But I’ll tell you what,” said another one on our left who eerily picked up where the first one left off. “Since we’re pals, I’ll cut you a deal. You help me bag and tag the Deacon — we’ll split the bounty. Just like the good ole days. Whaddaya say?”
“Look, dipshit, there’s more at stake here than a goddamn paycheck. You don’t understand what’s going on.”
As the Kruger mob began to close in, yet another one said, “Nor do I care. And neither should you, buddy. It’s business. I told you a long time ago that your conscience would be the end of you.”
“It probably will. But not today.”
“Come on, Roy. It’s two of you against five hundred of me. You can’t possibly think you’re walking away from this.”
“He’s right,” I piped in, ripping the semi-divine Winchester free of its sheath. “We can’t fight five hundred of them — ah, him. Whatever.”
Then I pointed the shotgun at the nearest Kruger and blew a sizzling hole through his chest. As his smug grin vanished and he exploded in a dusty poof, I said, “But four hundred and ninety-nine seems manageable.”
“We finally agree on something,” MacCawill muttered, as he followed suit and unloaded the holy grenade launcher of Antioch into a gaggle of Krugers, while simultaneously reducing another one to dust with a mighty lash of his bull whip.
Momentarily dumbfounded by the brazen maneuver, the doppelgänger brigade took a collective step backward in apparent confusion. Unfortunately, that only lasted for a second or two before they got really pissed.
And, much to my chagrin, the situation deteriorated pretty quickly from that point forward.
Typical.
In a violent display of brute force and ignorance, the Krugers then descended on us like a Mongolian horde in fur coats and skinny jeans. As the unnatural band of miscreant mercenaries slammed into my trench-coated colleague and me like a tidal wave, we were instantly blown backward, and clear across the campsite.
Amidst the chaos, the shotgun flew from my hand as a blinding barrage of clenched fists relentlessly pummeled my face and torso. Making the mental note that things weren’t exactly going to plan, I instantly realized what it felt like to be a punching bag.
And for the record, it was not pleasant.
In a rather feeble attempt to beat back the perpetual onslaught, I managed to land a couple Ivan Drago quality haymakers just before being completely overrun by the rabid mob of assailants that were literally
launching themselves at us from all angles — to include the surrounding trees. Unable to stand my ground any longer, I lost my footing and toppled into MacCawill.
And judging from the cacophony of grunts, yelps, and winces emanating from my apocalyptic cowboy partner, it was fairly apparent he wasn’t doing much better than I was.
“You okay?”
“I’m getting tea bagged by three Krugers — so, pretty fucking not okay,” he grunted, as we collapsed under the crushing weight of the dogpile and slunk to the ground in a rather pathetic, two-man heap. “If you plan on doing some Deacon shit — now would be a swell time.”
“Yeah, I got this,” I muttered, thinking he was probably right and it was high time to quit acting like a cloaked piñata. “Standby.”
Momentarily ignoring our absurd set of circumstances, I slowly pulled in a long, deliberate breath.
Cleared my mind.
Focused my thoughts.
Found the Balance — the perfect balance between wrath and clarity.
As the unfathomable power welled up in the deep recess of my soul and the expected sensation of calmative awareness washed over me, the blaring sound of an iconic guitar lick filled the forest.
Wait. What?
“Fucking theme music?” MacCawill barked. “Please tell me you can do better than that.”
“Guns ‘n’ Roses,” I muttered under my breath as a wide smile formed on my battered face. “Stoner?”
And it was right about then when things took an interesting turn.
In uncanny, perfect rhythm to Welcome to the Jungle, a deluge of barzel tipped arrows and bluish-white energy balls slammed into the herd of Krugers with sniper-like precision until MacCawill and I were able to free ourselves from the dirt clone manwich.
As the golems systematically exploded in turbulent poofs of reddish-brown dust around us, I stood up just in time to see a familiar canary yellow, 1963 Volkswagen van cutting a wide swath through the Kruger filled camp-site like an ambiguously gay bulldozer. Better yet, was the vision of Stoner and Coop peppering the battlefield with arcane projectiles as they shuffled across the roof in a synchronized Axl Rose snake dance.
Disturbing?
Perhaps.
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 11
