Hell on Heels - A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  He had my throat in one hand, then his left hand flashed out, moving faster than anything I’d ever seen before, and he pulled Gabby in close to both of us.

  “There are some three-person scenarios I’ve considered with Miss Van Helsing,” I admitted, “but sorry to say, Gus old boy, you weren’t in any of them.”

  “It’s long past time someone silenced your insolent tongue once and for all,” Gus hissed, spit and a little bit of blood from his nearly-healed throat splattering across my face.

  “While I often agree with that sentiment, Augustus, the time for that is not now, and the place for that is not yours.” Uncle Luke’s cultured voice rolled across the bandshell and everything stopped. Gus and his minions froze, Flynn and Smith stopped shooting things, and even the urgent alert from my bladder stepped it down a notch.

  Luke continued, stepping to the center of the stage. “Release my nephew, Augustus. Release my nephew and let us settle this like we should have many decades ago, like men.”

  “We are not men any longer, Vlad! That’s what you’ve never accepted! We’re not men and never will be again. And while you long for more time as a human, I revel in my greatness! I accept my superiority and thrive in it, like you never have! And when I destroy you, I shall rule over all the world!”

  “You shall die, Augustus,” Luke said, and I could hear the disappointment in his voice. “You shall die, and I shall be the one to do it.”

  And then, it was on.

  Chapter 14

  The last time I saw my uncle really throw down was in Tibet in the 1920s. We were wandering the Himalayas looking for enlightenment or some such crap, when we came across a band of particularly territorial yeti. Their clan leader challenged Luke to single combat, one of those “win and I won’t rip your arms off” kind of challenges. It was very ceremonial, and when Luke drew first blood, we were welcomed among the clan with drinks and roast moose.

  This was nothing like that. This was like a ballet set to Rob Zombie where all the dancers are psychotic mass murderers tweaking on crystal meth. It was easily the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve summoned Japanese sex demons for kicks. Luke and Gus flew at each other, and I mean that literally. They each took about two steps, launched themselves into the air, and crashed together a good twelve feet in the air. They spun around and around in midair, grappling for an advantage and tearing into each other’s biceps with their nails. Neither one would release their grip, so they spun around a couple of times, then crashed to the stage and rolled over and over, each man trying to gain purchase on the other.

  After a few seconds of struggle, Gus pushed off backward to get some space. His black shirt hung in rags from his arms, and blood streamed from a dozen little cuts on his upper arms. He ripped the rest of his shirt off and threw it behind him, and I saw more ribbons of blood running from little cuts all over his torso.

  Luke was in about the same shape, and he shrugged out of his suit jacket and tore his white dress shirt away from his body, reveling dozens of little holes in his arms where the other vampire’s claws had scrabbled for purchase. Luke shot Gus a nasty grin and leapt for him, covering the twenty feet that separated the two vampires in a single leap. Gus braced for impact, and caught Luke with a solid punch to the chest. A crack echoed across the stage as Luke’s impact broke ribs, and he grimaced in pain.

  Luke hung in there, though, with the increased pain tolerance that comes from living through the Industrial Revolution. And being a vampire. He wrapped his hands around Gus’s neck and started to squeeze, the muscles of his arms standing out in ropes. Gus hammered on my uncle’s arms, but Luke was too strong. I knew there wasn’t much to be gained from choking Gus, but crushing his throat looked like a good start. Gus got his hands in between Luke’s arms and broke the hold, but Luke ripped a chunk of newly regrown throat out when he let go.

  Gus kicked Luke off him and clambered to his feet. Luke did some wild vampire ninja flip thing and landed on his feet, then spun around to kick Gus in the jaw. Gus responded with several quick punches to Luke’s face, then landed a huge roundhouse on Luke’s jaw. Luke spun around, and Gus hit him several more times, staggering Luke. Luke ducked the next punch and lashed out with a kick to Gus’s knee, toppling the other vampire. Luke stood, then stalked over to where Gus lay writhing on the floor, holding his leg.

  He reached down, pulling Gus to his feet by his hair, then drew back his hand for a killing strike. His hand was different, transformed into something I’d never seen on Luke. It was more claw than hand, with elongated fingers and nails that curved into claws. His hand flashed down, but Luke wasn’t as hurt as he seemed, because he got his own claws up to block, and broke free of Luke’s grasp. Gus took a step back, measuring Luke, and I got my first good look at them both in their Nosferatu form.

  When vampires are injured, or starving, or hurt badly, all vestiges of humanity fall away and their monstrous nature is revealed. Luke’s face became very bat-like, his fangs were extended, and his hands were crooked into claws. Gus looked more cat-like, but similar, with arms elongated and his fangs very pronounced, Gus sprang at Luke, but instead of trying any funny moves this time, Luke just stood tall and snatched the oncoming vampire out of the air, then slammed him onto the stage floor.

  He slammed Gus into the floor, then picked him up and smashed him into the floor again. He repeated the process a third time, and this time when he picked Gus up, the other vampire hung limp in his grasp. He bashed him face-first into the wooden stage a fourth time, then he lifted Gus over his head, brought the thrashed vampire down across one knee, and snapped his spine like a rotten twig. The crack sounded across the bandshell, and Luke let the body fall to the floor. He stood over his old adversary, then with a long sigh, he reached down and ripped Gus’s head from his shoulders.

  Luke stood, holding Gus’s head by the hair, and stretched his arm high over his head. “Does any other dare challenge the Dracula?” he shouted, and his voice rang through the night. All Gus’s minions looked from one to the other, and I knew in my heart of hearts that it was over, that we were done with Gus, that Luke could switch back into this über-civilized form, and we could all go home.

  Gus’s minions weren’t that smart. They rushed Luke. Eight young and brutally stupid vampires against one old vamp who had just been through the fight of his life. They probably thought it would be a cakewalk, that they’d knock off a legend and be the hot new stuff on the bloodsucker scene. They didn’t have a fucking chance.

  Luke ripped the first one’s arm off and literally knocked him out with it. No shit, he caught the punch the vamp was throwing, put one hand on the creature’s shoulder, and gave a hard yank. He pulled the vampire’s right arm off, gripped the wrist like Babe Ruth, and hit the stupid bloodsucker across the face with his own arm. The vampire toppled back and laid flat on the stage, his unseeing eyes staring up at the lighting rig. Two more descended on Luke immediately after, and they fared no better. A single hard punch from Luke pulverized the heart of the first vampire, and the next fledgling died when Luke knocked him down and smashed his skull flat with one stomp.

  Two of the five remaining vampires chose discretion as the better part of valor, but Smith put a .308 round in each of their heads from fifty yards. That wouldn’t kill them, but it would keep them down long enough to decapitate.

  One turned to me and smiled, obviously thinking that a human would be a better option. I smiled back at him, put a hand on his chest, and whispered, “Fuego.” He looked puzzled for a moment until his clothes burst into flames. He almost made it to the moat before he was completely consumed. The last two vampires went at Luke together, and it went about like everyone, including the two idiots, expected. Luke twisted one of them around until he could look at his own ass and punched the other guy so hard in the chest his heart exploded out the back of his ribcage.

  I looked around the bandshell, silent except for the sound of blood dripping from the rafters and a few cicadas chirping i
n the distance. “Well, I’m glad that’s over. It is over, right, Luke?”

  I turned to see Luke and Van Helsing standing toe to toe. Gabby had a pistol in her right hand and a silver stake in the other. Luke had nothing in his clawed hands except blood and bits of dead monster. Gabby gave up half a foot in size and wasn’t fueled by magical mystery fighting mojo, but she also hadn’t had the shit beat out of her by a super-vamp in the last five minutes, so the scrap was looking pretty even.

  “This is not how my night ends, people,” I said, walking to the two of them. I stopped a couple of feet away, then glared at Luke.

  “Uncle, it’s time to look human again. You’re making the company nervous.”

  “The company wants to kill me, Quincy.” The fangs made everything Luke said extra-sibilant and menacing. There were times that was a good thing. This wasn’t one of them.

  “A lot of people want to kill me, Luke. Hell, half the time my own partner wants to kill me! You can’t hold that shit against people, or you’ll just spend all your time worrying about who wants to kill you today.”

  I don’t want to kill you nearly as much anymore, Flynn’s voice came from inside my head.

  But admit it, you spent years wishing I’d just drop dead.

  Oh yeah, like the first several years I knew you,

  “Don’t worry, vampire, after tonight we won’t have anything to worry about because you’ll be dead, and I will have finally honored my great-grandfather’s legacy.”

  At Gabby’s words, something snapped in Luke’s eyes, and for once in my life, it snapped in a good way. In the matter of thirty seconds, his hands returned to normal, his face returned to normal, and his fangs withdrew, cleaning up his speech a lot. It’s hard to speak clearly with spikes hanging out of your mouth.

  “You really are Abraham’s granddaughter?” Luke looked at Gabby, really looked at her for the first time. He reached out with one hand and touched her face. Gabby froze, her eyes wide as the leading figure in her childhood nightmares stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

  “Great-granddaughter,” she whispered.

  “No matter,” Luke said. “I see it. I see it in your eyes. The fire, he had that same fire you have. Whenever Abraham saw something he wanted, he got that fire in his eyes. He looked at me the same way you look at me now. Not like something to fight, like something to overcome. I am not your challenge, young Van Helsing. You are your own challenge. You must win your own battle before you can ever hope to vanquish me.”

  Gabby’s hands twitched, her finger tightened on the trigger, then relaxed. Tightened, then relaxed. I gathered my will, readied a spell that would throw up a barrier between the two of them, then let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when Gabby stepped back and holstered her pistol.

  She turned to me and tossed me the silver stake. “I think this is yours, Harker.”

  I caught it on the fly and stuck it through my belt. “Thanks. We all gonna be cool now?”

  “Once your uncle tells me why he let my great-grandfather go to his deathbed thinking he’d won.”

  “Because he had won, young Van Helsing. He had cost me my latest minion, my latest two brides, and my home. The only thing he hadn’t managed to do was kill me.”

  My blood ran a little cold at Luke’s admissions. He was talking about my parents as his bride and minion, which freaked me out more than a little.

  Luke kept talking, and I kept shutting up. Gabby was getting more ancient history out of Luke in minutes than I’d gotten in a century and change.

  “I became a different man after my encounter with Abraham and Quincy’s parents. They showed me that I could no longer behave as a feudal lord, as I had for centuries. From watching them and learning from them, I realized that the world was changing quickly, and I would no longer be able to stand apart from it as an overlord, but must drift outside the world, in its shadowy places. I believe your grandfather was unwittingly responsible for my survival all these years. For if it were not for him pointing me in the direction that the world was moving, the twentieth century certainly would have destroyed me.”

  Gabby laughed, a short ironic bark. “So by trying to destroy you, he helped save the thing he most hated.”

  “I don’t believe he hated me, not at the end. I believe he wanted to study me and wanted to render me harmless, neither of which I would ever allow,” Luke said with a slight smile. “But I believe we achieved some level of mutual respect. At least I did.”

  I remembered that night in the old man’s cold bedroom. I remembered the tears of Gabby’s grandfather, the stony expressionless mask on my father’s face, and most of all I remembered the tiny upturn of his lips as Abraham waved to the window and the old adversary standing out in the snow, always on the outside looking in. I remembered that night and felt a kinship with my uncle that I’d never felt even in all our travels and battles together. We were both destined to stand outside the window, looking in on a warm and normal life we could never truly know.

  Luke turned to me almost like he felt me staring at him and nodded to me. I nodded back, then let the moment pass like a shadow in the night. I turned to Smith. “This would be a really good time to tell me you have a cleanup crew on retainer. Or at least a budget for this.” I waved my hand at the entrails and puddles of blood and body parts strewn all over the bandshell.

  “Yeah, lemme make a couple calls. I’ll get the cleaners out here and get the movie shoot excuse planted with the security guards.” He pulled out his cell phone and pushed a few buttons.

  Flynn walked up to me and leaned on me, her arm on my shoulder. “Not a bad night, Harker. We got the bad guys and didn’t lose any of the good guys.”

  “True enough, but where’s Renfield? That was kind of the point of all this in the first place, wasn’t it?”

  “He’s in the Suburban, out like a light. Augustus had him drugged to the gills, so your uncle stashed him in the car while we took out the vamps. What’s so funny?”

  I chuckled again. “Sorry, it’s just ironic that after all this time tending to all of us, this whole mess was about us taking care of Renfield, and then he ends up sleeping through it all in the car.”

  So, of course, that’s the moment the dapper little manservant decides to reappear. “I assume by the fact that you’re upright that we won?” Renfield set a small red cooler down on the edge of the stage and passed me a beer.

  “How in the world did you find a cooler full of beer?” I asked, twisting the top off and knocking down half the beer in one long pull.

  “I put it in the back of the Suburban,” Smith said. “I figured if we lived through this shit, we’d need one.” He reached down and passed a longneck to Flynn, then popped the top on a bottle of his own. The four of us sat on the edge of the stage looking out over the lawn while Luke and Gabby talked about her great-grandfather.

  “You’re right, Flynn,” Smith said. “This was a pretty good night.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “We beat the big bad, and Gabby learned that not everything with fangs is a monster.”

  “Too often the monsters are the ones in suits, not a fang or claw in sight,” Flynn said.

  “That’s what the police are for,” Flynn said. “They take care of the things that walk in the daylight.”

  I raised my bottle to the others sitting with me. “And we handle the things that go bump in the night.”

  For information on appearances, signings, autographed copies, etc. please visit

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  Copyright 2015 by John G. Hartness

  Straight to Hell by John G. Hartness is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

  About the Author

  John G. Hartness is a recovering theatre geek who likes loud music, fried pickles and cold beer. John is an award-winning poet, lighting designer and theatre producer, whose work has been translated into over 25 lang
uages and read worldwide. He's been published in several online literary journals including The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, cc&d, Deuce Coupe and Truckin'. His poem "Dancing with Fireflies" was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize.

  His first novel, The Chosen, is an urban fantasy about saving the world, snotty archangels, gambling, tattooed street preachers, immortals with family issues, bar brawls and the consequences of our decisions.

  He followed up The Chosen with Hard Day's Knight, a new twist on the vampire detective novel and the first book in the highly successful series The Black Knight Chronicles. The Black Knight Chronicles currently consists of four books and is available from Bell Bridge Books wherever print and electronic works of fancy are sold.

  John has been called "the Kevin Smith of Charlotte," and fans of Joss Whedon and Jim Butcher should enjoy his snarky slant on the fantasy genre. He can be found online at www.johnhartness.com and spends too much time on Twitter, especially after a few drinks.

  For more information about appearances, signings, and other silliness, feel free to follow John on Twitter (@johnhartness), or on his website www.johnhartness.com.

  Also by John G. Hartness

  Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Stories

  Voodoo Children

  Ballet of Blood

  Ho-Ho-Homicide

  Tassels of Terror

  Monsters Beware - Bubba the Monster Hunter Vol. 1

  Cat Scratch Fever

  Love Stinks

  Hall & Goats

  Footloose

  Monsters Mashed - Bubba the Monster Hunter Vol. 2

  Sixteen Tons

  Family Tradition - A Bubba the Monster Hunter Prequel