by Tim Marquitz
The general wavered as though he might collapse, a shudder rattling his heavy frame, visible even beneath the silken fall of his robes. At last, he peeled his gaze from the carnage of his legion and turned his bulbous eyes to me.
“God sends his regards, general,” I told him as I darted forward. The surviving mystic would tell the tale of Ilfaar’s downfall so there was nothing left to do but rid Kurikal of the parasite that had infested it.
Ilfaar whipped his blade up in a clumsy parry, its efforts just enough to turn aside the killing blow. He cursed as steel collided, and I cut a shallow trough between his lower ribs. The general stumbled back while I pressed on. Yellowed teeth flared as he clenched them against the onslaught of silvered trails. He was quicker than I’d given him credit for, but it was like calling one donkey’s ass prettier than another.
I sidestepped a feeble counter and severed Ilfaar’s sword hand. A volcano of crimson spewed from his wrist, his rings reflecting the dim light as they spun toward the dirt. He roared his agony, and I added to it by slicing away a piece of his knee. The general stumbled into me and clasped his remaining hand on my belt to keep from falling. All about being helpful, I thrust my sword into his gut to hold him aloft. He grunted as the hilt thudded against his belly.
“Alitere will have your head!” Dots of spittle peppered my face, each word a phlegmy curse.
“Do not fret, Ilfaar, your master will have his opportunity.” I stared down at the general, gracing him with the sincerest of smiles. “But alas, you will not be there to see it—”
His eyes narrowed with serpentine quickness, his gaze shifting to my belt. Before I could stop him, his remaining hand burrowed into the pouch where I’d placed the cipher, snatching the stone from within. He fell to the ground clutching at the cipher while calling out in a wild, distorted voice, the language alien yet familiar. My heart battered my chest as I realized what he intended.
Mystical energy erupted at my back, and there was no mistaking the telltale seep of merging realities. He’d torn the dimensional wall open. A presence loomed in the rift as Ilfaar continued his chant, giving me but seconds to react as I felt a being bearing down on me.
I ducked aside and reached out to grasp the general’s leaking stump, spinning him so his bulk was between me and the beast that crept from the other world. Ilfaar’s measured mantra shifted into a stutter as the squid-like tendrils that had been reaching for me seized him instead. He squirmed against their grasping thickness, losing another two fingers as they slipped across one of the dozens of mouths that lined the purplish limbs.
I moved further from the portal as its energies waned and the edges of the rift began to stitch together. Ilfaar screamed while the tendrils wrestled him through the closing gate. There was a wretched snap as he was twisted sideways against the grain of his spine. A flutter of white drifted to the ground just before the general’s head was yanked into the portal, silencing the last of his howling defiance. His booted feet kicked with futile abandon until they, too, slid into the breach and were gone. The remnant tendrils followed after as the wavering gate fluttered, and then failed, closing in on itself. The portal vanished with a hiss, all trace of its energies gone.
It was only then that the true gravity of what happened settled over me.
I grabbed the weathered scroll that had fallen from Ilfaar, and unrolled it with trembling hands. Before the alien words and symbols resolved in my head, I knew what I held and the truth of how the enemy had invaded the worlds so deep within our territory. It hadn’t been entirely the mystics’ work as we’d presumed. My wide-eyed gaze snapped to the empty space where the portal had just been, a sour understanding settling over me.
“You pompous fool,” I shouted, the words spit out with no ears but my own to hear.
I had imagined myself the singular witness to God’s museum of abject failures, but the scroll I clasped in my hand told me otherwise. The Alitereans had been using His prison dimension to reach the worlds cut off by the sealing of the Shal Ko’ra. My heart quickened its pace as the pieces fell together.
Trapped in a pocket out of time and space, the prison could be aligned with any dimension by the cipher to give the Consortium access. If they learned the way of it, there would be even more surprise attacks with no way to determine where they might strike next. It would only be a matter of time until they reached Earth and…
The last of that thought withered in my skull, its ashes brushed aside by another: Triggaltheron.
What have I done?
Prohibition Black and Blues
Originally published in Betrayal 2011
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something inherently uncomfortable about having the barrel of a gun named Tommy shoved in your mouth.
“You tell Capone and Lou to keep their fingers out of North Side pockets, or Bugs is gonna cut ‘em off, you get me?”
“Mmeha, mwii watchuh.”
“What?”
I rolled my eyes toward the gun and raised my eyebrows. It took Paulie a couple of seconds, but he got it.
“Damn it, Jimmy. Take the gun outta his mouth so I can figure out what the hell he’s saying.”
The monolithic unibrow of the caveman standing in front of me wiggled like an angry caterpillar, and I could have sworn I saw a dim light flicker in the windows of his eyes. He grunted and took a step back. The barrel yanked loose of my mouth with a wet pop. The grey steel was shiny with my spit, and I ran my tongue over my teeth trying to get rid of the taste of gun oil. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d had in there, but I can’t say I wanted a second helping. Paulie growled to remind me he’d asked a question.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I gotcha,’ Paulie.”
“See there, Jimmy? I told you Frank was smarter than he looks.”
I almost blushed at the compliment.
“You go on home now, and tell your uncle what I said. If he don’t convince Capone to keep his business out of Bugs’ territory, folks on the south side of the line are gonna get shot.” Paulie laughed and Jimmy joined in, chuckling like a gelded donkey.
The two turned away and started toward their car. As Paulie opened the driver’s side door of his black Model-T, he glanced over at me. His smile bent his cheeks wide. “Hey, Frank, I’m curious. What kind of name is Ceefer anyway? It sure don’t sound Italian.”
I smiled right back. “It’s an old family name.”
“Well, you just make sure old Lou gets the message.” He slid into his seat.
Jimmy shook his head. “Lou Ceefer. Sounds foreign, Paulie.” He laughed as he hopped in the other side of the car. The barrel of his gun poked out the window after he closed the door. I could see them grinning behind the windshield.
If they only knew.
Lou Ceefer, my uncle, wasn’t much for subtle. Of course, when you’re the Devil, you don’t have to be. That’s why he sent me.
He’d ordered a torch job on a speakeasy Moran had just opened, right across the north-south line. In a better neighborhood, with the cops on the take, Bugs’ place was drawing Capone’s regulars and their money across the split. That didn’t sit well with Capone.
Don’t let it ever be said that Lucifer doesn’t look out for his own. You make a deal with the Devil, you can bet your soul he holds up his end of the bargain.
I’d been casing the place, waiting for the night crowd to finally drift home, when Paulie cruised past. On foot, trying to be inconspicuous, I couldn’t get off the street before the headlights hit me. On my way toward the club at four a.m., Paulie stopped to take a closer look. We’d bumped into each other a few times, so he recognized me. He knew I wasn’t out sampling the night life. That’s when I got to be cozy with Tommy.
Fortunately for me, Paulie isn’t smart enough to figure out who Uncle Lou is, let alone put it together he isn’t human, or that, by extension, neither am I. While a machine gun burst in the mouth would hurt worse than President Harding’s economic policies, it wouldn’t be fatal. Messy, certainly, but no
t deadly. Sure, I’d be on a liquid diet for a day or two, but I’d get over it.
Paulie probably thought I was just some punk kid following my uncle into the business. Guess he figured he could scare me a little and maybe I’d beg Lou to back off, afraid I’d get hurt or something. He’d thought wrong.
As the Ford roared to life outside the empty speakeasy, I waved to Bugs’ goons, keeping the dumb smile on my face. It’s always best if people think you’re slow.
I strolled toward the driver’s side, casually stuffing my hands into my coat. “Hey, Paulie, you think Bugs might need another guy? You know, some extra muscle, or something?” It also helped if they thought you were a coward.
Paulie’s grin nearly made his eyes slant as he barked out a laugh. “You thinking of switching sides there, champ?”
Alongside the car, I gave a halfhearted shrug. “It seems to me—five—a guy’s gotta—four—look out for himself—three—you know?”
Both Paulie and Jimmy stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“What you countin’ for?” Jimmy asked as Paulie’s eyes went wide, the gears engaging somewhere inside his skull. There was no question as to who was the smarter of the two.
“No reason—one.” I blew a kiss at Paulie as I slid the grenade through his open window. It landed in the floorboard with a solid thump, and I didn’t hang out to see how they took it.
No cover on the street, I ducked low and ran with my hands over my head. My only consolation for waiting so long to bug out was that having burning pieces of steel embedded in my ass was nowhere near as painful as swallowing a load of bullets.
You gotta look for the good in things.
The car went up with a roar. Shards of it peppered my back, knocking me flat on the street as a wash of heat whipped past. I barely felt the ground when I hit, the barrage of fiery bee stings lighting me up from behind. I wasn’t winning this game of pin the tail on the jackass.
I kept my arms over my head and my cheek pressed against the cold road until the ping of shrapnel stopped and I didn’t feel the bite of it any more. Through the tinny hum in my ears, I could hear the crackle of the flames that had engulfed the car. Couldn’t hear much else though, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before sirens rang out in the night. Bugs had the cops in his pocket and he’d be shaking them like his keys to get them out here to see what happened.
Up on my feet, I took a quick glance at the damage. Couldn’t see much, but I imagined the whole of my back looked like what I could see, speckled with glimmers of silver and dots of red. My trench coat was pinned to my skin by metal debris and blood. It felt like a really bad case of sunburn, but it wasn’t too bad.
I glanced over at the Model-T and whistled. Compared to those two, I’d gotten off easy. I peeled my coat off and half-embedded shrapnel pulled loose and clinked onto the street. I tossed the trench aside. My back would heal fine, but the coat had seen its last.
It wasn’t but a second later when I heard the first of the sirens, off in the distance. I whistled, impressed. Normally, I’d beat feet and get my obviously involved ass down the road, but I still had a job to do. While the explosion had shattered the windows of the club, it was still standing. As much of a message as torching Bugs’ goons was, it wasn’t the one I’d been sent to deliver. Uncle Lou wasn’t big on independent thought.
With my grenade gone, I’d have to do things the hard way. I looked to the burning remnants of the Model-T and smiled. Everything I needed was right there. The sirens grew in the background, so I ran to the car and peered inside. What was left of Paulie was charred and smoking in the seat. The steering wheel had melted and was covered in dripping red and black, one of Paulie’s hands now a permanent part of it. I glanced down at the tires and saw that they too were gone, little more than black goop that puddled on the pockmarked street.
No time left for finesse or rational thought, I reached my hands beneath the side of the car and grabbed ahold. Flames licked at my fingers and I felt my palms burn, but it couldn’t be helped. My legs bunched beneath me, I rolled the Model-T over onto its side. It hit with a crash, shattered glass crunching beneath it. I shoved the car again, my hands smoking, blisters bubbling up. The T flipped, landing on its roof. Pieces of Paulie and Jimmy dripped down in long, wet streamers of red as I hit the T one last time, sending it sliding into the front wall of the club.
The wood creaked and I heard a few timbers crack, but the wall held. I saw the curtains go up inside the shattered windows, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough as close as the police were. The wail of their sirens tickling my ears, they’d be able to put the fires out before it spread to the liquor. So, with desperation puckering me in unpleasant ways, I back up a few steps and charged at the T. I put my shoulder into it and felt my back twinge as I hit. My skull rang like a church bell, but I heard the wall give way.
The sharp snap of wood echoed through the night, burying the sirens for just a second as the steel frame of the T groaned and gave itself over to gravity. In an instant, the car disappeared, tumbling to the sound of thunder down the stairwell just beyond the front door of the club. It was so loud I almost didn’t hear the screech of tires behind me.
My heart in my throat, I spun around to see another black Model-T, identical to Paulie’s, jerk to a halt not twenty feet from where I stood. There weren’t any markings, and no sirens blared from it, so it had to be Bugs’ guys. The driver was your standard goon; wide of forehead and thick across the jaw. I wouldn’t have to worry about him until he hauled his bulk out of the seat and got his machine gun ready. His passenger though, was a different story.
Little more than a twig, the guy was out of the car before it even stopped rocking. He was almost completely bald, with little tufts of white hair floating above his ears like tiny clouds. His suit was two sizes too big for him, bunched at the elbows and ankles. It looked like a stiff wind could knock the guy over, but there was something threatening about him. His hands were empty, and though he didn’t even seem to be carrying a gun, there was a threat in the dark green of his eyes.
Without even thinking about it, I let my senses loose. Invisible tendrils reached out, grasping for anything out of the ordinary. Even as dull as my senses were, they found different in spades. Of course, the shimmer of blue-green energy at his fingertips would have been obvious to a blind man.
I ducked and ran, slipping down a nearby alley as a burst of magical force ripped apart the street where I’d just been standing. My balls cradled in the well of my ass, I ran until I crossed the north-south line and then kept on, not stopping until I was sure I’d put some healthy distance between me and Bugs’ boys. They didn’t bother to follow.
Deep in the heart of Capone’s territory, I finally slowed, taking a second to catch my breath before I headed home. While I’d done the job I’d been sent to do, I just knew Uncle Lou wasn’t gonna be happy.
#
“Are you certain?” Lucifer asked, his voice a quiet rumble like a distant storm.
“The guy was a demon, I’m tellin’ ya.”
My uncle leaned back in his seat, his hand at his chin. While nothing of his thoughts showed on the surface, I knew he was furious. There was a slight tremor in the earth that vibrated my chair. I fought the urge to go fetal and waited for him to decide what he wanted to do, knowing better than to rush him.
Though he didn’t look like much, Lucifer didn’t earn his reputation by appearing mean…he simply was. A few inches shorter than six feet and slim, but with a bit of a paunch, my uncle looked more grandfatherly than dastardly. He had gray hair that was cut fairly short, wisps of it sticking out like wings. There weren’t any horns or hooves, or even red skin. He was kinda pasty actually, and could probably use a little sun. Wrinkled and covered in age spots, there wasn’t anything about Lou that set him apart from the rest of humanity, until you looked him in his eyes.
It was like peering into an abyss of wickedness. The whole of the world’s cruelty, its anger, its depravity, stared
back at you when you locked gazes with my uncle. Every dark and sinister secret hidden from the light, every horror ever perpetrated on man, angel, or demon, was there to be seen, to be experienced in all its terrible grandeur. The first of the evil in the world, Lucifer was the epitome of it all, the entirety of it buried in his eyes. I looked away as the darkness churned in their depths.
“Did you recognize him?”
I shook my head. “I was too busy running for my life to bother checking if he was cute.”
“Don’t be vexsome, Triggaltheron.” I could feel the weight of his stare on me, and simply nodded. At last I felt him turn his gaze away, the leather of his chair squeaking as he settled. Only then did I dare to look back. “It would seem Moran has found his own infernal assistance, though I can’t imagine who would be so foolish as to interfere in my business.”
Neither could I. While there was an unwritten rule that those of the Demonarch—the demon realm—were pretty much expected to wreak havoc where they could, there wasn’t a demon still breathing who didn’t know better than to muck up Lucifer’s plans. If the big guy was cooking, you stayed the Hell out of the kitchen if you weren’t invited.
Lucifer sighed. “Go and rest, boy, and send Baalth in on your way. I’ve another job for you in the morning, and I want you healed, just in case.”
I didn’t waste any time. After I’d told my uncle’s lieutenant the boss wanted to see him, I made my way to my room. The stink of gunpowder and charred meat still clung to me. I crawled into bed without bothering to wash. Since I didn’t suspect I’d be getting screwed in any fun way in the morning, I didn’t figure it mattered if I stank.
We’d all smell the same dead.
#
Morning came around early. We rolled down North Clark Street, me squeezed behind the wheel of the nice new Cadillac sedan Lucifer had rushed into town overnight, headed for the SMC Cartage warehouse. While I wasn’t privy to all the details, I’d overheard some talk about Bugs and his demon flunky supposedly being there. Didn’t take much imagination to realize this wasn’t a social call. The shotgun Baalth was holding kinda helped.
