Devil Sent the Rain

by D. J. Butler

  As Mike had predicted, the former angels were once again twenty feet tall and bestial. Semyaz didn’t look quite as scary, though, flailing in a muddy soup like a naughty kid taking a bath in a puddle. Adrian almost laughed—

  until he saw the headless body of Mouser, the club gopher. The corpse lay with limbs in broken-doll positions against a pile of restaurant flotsam, shattered tables and chairs, pulverized china, ruined table cloths, bits of mantisoid demon burnt extra-crispy, and other junk, all piled into a blockage at the top of the stairs leading down. It was an accidental dam, and Mouser lay dead on top of it. That was why the water in the restaurant was so deep, Adrian realized. He tried not to think about the girl.

  Or Elaine. What had happened to Elaine Canning, who had helped him more than once?

  Adrian saw his taser on the pile beside Mouser and picked it up.

  “Run!” Eddie yelled.

  “STOP!” Semyaz bellowed.

  The Fallen sloshed to their feet, sending up colossal sprays of water.

  Adrian snapped his monocle to his eye and threw a glance around the restaurant. The wards were gone, ruined. Probably their energy had been diverted into creating the shadow-trap Adrian had sunk them all into, but that was an academic question at this point. The wards were gone, so the band could leave.

  Semyaz and Ezeq’el lunged for Jim at the same moment. He scooted between them, moving himself further away from the rest of the band and the stairs down. Fists pounded into the choppy water around him, and it looked like he was heading out the front door. Where’s he going? Adrian wondered. The van is totaled, and the only one of us who knows how to hotwire cars is Mike. Does Jim think he can just outrun them on foot?

  Adrian was close enough to help. He raised the taser and pressed its fire button.

  Fitzzzz. Nothing.

  “Hell.”

  Eddie charged towards Adrian. He jammed the Glock under one armpit and dug in his jacket pocket for shells as he ran, kicking up thick sprays of brown water. “Go!” he yelled, kicking Mike in the direction of the stairs.

  “Where?” Mike wiped water from his face and followed. “Mierda, where are we going?”

  “Anywhere but here!”

  Twitch pushed into Adrian’s face, snapping her fingers. “Are you awake, big boy?” the fairy asked him. Adrian felt the sexual allure of her Glamour and grinned. It was familiar and normal enough that it almost felt good.

  “I’m awake,” he said, and jammed the taser into his jacket pocket. “I’m trying to figure out if I should firebolt one of those big guys.”

  Together they turned and looked at the action. Jim didn’t run out the front door; at the last second he slipped to one side and ran vertically up the steel doorframe, his speed carrying him forward and into the air like Jackie Chan on steroids, despite the fact that his boots were designed for other things and were also soaking wet.

  Bull-headed Yamayol lurched forward, grabbing at Jim. He missed, and his barrel-sized fist punched through the steel of the frame, crumpling it—

  but Jim was already kicking off and leaping away into mid-air, flying backwards and leading with his head.

  Semyaz snapped with his tusks, and missed.

  Jim completed a reverse somersault and came down on Ezeq’el’s broad back. The centauress reared up, surprised, and rammed her own head and shoulders into the ceiling. Chips of concrete and a cloud of white dust exploded downward and were instantly swept into the flood by the wind and rain. Ezeq’el staggered sideways; Jim held his seat by virtue of having his two hands balled up in the long curls of Ezeq’el’s hair that flowed wet down her back.

  Adrian raised the Eye and tried to choose a target. He patted himself for the candle but couldn’t find it; that would make the spell harder, more exhausting, but they couldn’t leave Jim behind. For starters, Jim had the hoof.

  “Can you help him?” Adrian suggested to Twitch.

  “Can you?” the fairy countered, but she leapt forward into the wind, flapping her wings once and becoming the silver, horse-tailed hawk that was her avian form. She circled the fray, looking for an opening.

  “Come on, dammit!” Adrian heard Eddie yell. “Jim knows what he’s doing!”

  “No man!” Adrian yelled, and looked for his open shot. No man left behind was a stupid thing to say. They weren’t Marines, they were rock and rollers, and not very organized rock and rollers at that. But he hadn’t come this far to leave Jim in the hands of the Fallen.

  Besides, this was Jim’s body, and not just his name and ba. And Jim’s body had Azazel’s hoof taped to its belly.

  Yamayol jumped at Jim, swinging with both fists. Adrian winced, imagining the crushing pain that contact would inflict, and raised the Eye, taking aim at the bull’s forehead—

  but Twitch plowed into Yamayol’s face, clawing at the bull’s cheek and eye with her talons and emitting a high-pitched, piercing shriek.

  Yamayol stumbled and missed. He fell heavily with his elbows on Ezeq’el’s back and pushed her hindquarters down and into the flood. Ezeq’el slapped behind her with both hands. She shook her head, still a bit dazed from punching her head through the ceiling. Jim scrambled to his feet, clinging to her hair and writhing this way and that to avoid being caught.

  “Crap!” Eddie yelled. He and Mike opened fire. They’d have to make a ridiculously lucky shot to do any real damage, Adrian thought. Mouser had already tried this and failed—and died for her trouble. Adrian deliberately didn’t look at the dead club gopher.

  What Jim needed was a little support from the band’s big gun. That would be Adrian.

  Semyaz charged, roaring. Adrian raised the Eye again, to fire at Semyaz—

  Jim jumped. Narrowly avoiding both sets of giant arms grabbing for him, he hurled himself upward and into the porcine face of Semyaz.

  Blocking Adrian’s shot.

  “Son of a bitch!” Adrian snapped. Darkness clouded the edges of his vision and his heart pounded loud in his ears. He shook off the creeping fatigue and focused.

  Jim slammed into the Fallen’s chest and Semyaz staggered back. Somehow, Jim held on—was he gripping the former angel by his chest hair? Adrian wondered—and rode the collapsing Fallen down like a surfboard on a tidal wave.

  Then Yamayol whipped around, fist out like a tetherball. He bellowed like the monster that he was and his head scattered a halo of thick blood as he snapped in a circle—

  POW!—

  and punched Jim.

  The singer sailed through the air in Adrian’s direction. The wizard ducked and quickly shuffled to one side, and Jim splashed heavily against the dam of tablecloths, body parts, and restaurant furniture.

  Right on top of Mouser’s body.

  “Huevos!” Mike yelled. The big guy had been taking cover behind the piled up debris, and Jim’s landing soaked him again.

  Twitch touched down immediately after Jim, and she and Eddie pulled the singer from the water.

  “Downstairs!” Eddie barked. “The water’s draining, so there must be a way out!”

  “Water can drain through a toilet,” Adrian pointed out reflexively, and regretted it. However bossy he was being, Eddie was probably right. There was probably a way out on the bottom floor, at the level of the river. Depending on how long the rain lasted, they might not have much time to take advantage of the fact.

  Semyaz rolled in the water, regaining his feet. Yamayol wiped blood from his eyes and blinked to recover his vision, and Ezeq’el shook her head. They’d be after the band again in a moment.

  “Hey,” Mike said, and picked up something from the flotsam of the dam. It was Jim’s sword, and he held it out to the singer.

  Jim took his weapon and grabbed Adrian by the front of his jacket.

  “Can you make wards of commanding?” he demanded.

  Adrian hesitated. There was a crazy light in Jim’s eyes, even crazier than his normal driven mania. “Sure,” he said. “But there’s no point, without the true name of the person being boun
d.”

  “Get downstairs,” Jim snarled. “Do whatever you have to, and turn the downstairs into a ward of commanding. I’ll give you as much time as I can, but that will be very little.”

  “What are you doing, Jim?” Eddie asked. “Let’s run.”

  “I’m not leaving Elaine.” Jim’s skin was whiter than usual from the cold, and the veins in his temples and the cords in his neck stood out with the effort of speech. He turned back to the Fallen, who were lumbering in their direction.

  “And the names?” Adrian said. “For want of a nail … you know.” Jim was very tall, and his leaning over Adrian reminded Adrian of his own diminutive stature.

  “Leave them blank,” Jim told him. “And be ready.”

  He spun around and bounded back to the attack, sword slashing the air in front of him.

  Elaine?

  Adrian remembered something he’d glimpsed through the Eye earlier, so he held it up and looked again. It was still there: a pulsating red light on Semyaz’s chest, in the shape of a rose. Elaine, when she looked like Mouser in Adrian’s dream-shadow nightmare house of flesh, had been wearing pajamas with roses on them.

  That was what the Fallen had come to try to barter with Jim. They had his lover, and were offering to give her back. Her presence in the … object on Semyaz’s chest, whatever it was, had led to her being trapped in Adrian’s shadow with the rest of them.

  Adrian had a sudden sick feeling in his stomach that Semyaz’s offer was probably really, really attractive to Jim.

  No time to worry about that. He turned and ran.

  Adrian climbed over the debris at the top of the stairs. On the other side, water poured down the steps in a shallower stream. He shivered from the storm’s cold and dug with numb fingers in his pockets.

  He had chalk.

  The stairs zigged one direction, zagged the other and then the four of them sloshed into a short hallway lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. The water was up to Adrian’s waist again, and he noticed with disappointment that the ceiling was plenty high enough for the Fallen to force their way through. Of course it was. They’d chosen the location for the trap.

  “Mike,” Eddie gruffed. “Wait here for Jim.”

  “Carajo,” the bassist said. He snapped the clip out of his M1911 and pushed a few bullets into it. “Why me?”

  “’Cause if it’s you,” Adrian joked, “at least you’ll have your brother to keep you company.”

  “That ain’t as funny as it must have sounded inside your head, man,” Mike complained. “But maybe a good joke about your uncle would make us all laugh.”

  Adrian’s shoulders drooped. Ah, hell.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “Sorry.”

  “I’m the better sentinel, anyway,” Twitch offered. They all looked like they’d been roughed up, but she looked the worst. The hurricane of wind and water weren’t enough to wash away the blood from the wounds she’d received when she’d been smashed head-first into the concrete ceiling. Fairies were tough, Adrian thought. If he’d been in her place, he’d have left his brains behind.

  “I wish you were better-armed,” Eddie said, offering her his Glock.

  “Why would a girl need to be armed,” Twitch asked with a grin, “if she’s winged?”

  “Too much banter.” Adrian started off down the hall, looking for a room. He needed to enclose all three of the Fallen in a single circle, if he could, and he didn’t trust the smallness of the space. He pushed forward holding the chalk over his head in one hand and the lens in the other, and suddenly it occurred to him to wonder how he was going to inscribe a circle, when the floor was four feet under water.

  The sloshing sound of his friends at his heels didn’t reassure him. Whatever Jim had in mind, they were all depending on Adrian to get his part of it right. He breathed deeply, fighting back a constricted feeling in his chest. You’re the big gun, he told himself. Be the big gun.

  Then the hall ended in a large room, and his heart sank.

  The ceiling here was lower than it was on the upper floors, but still might be fifteen feet high. It would cramp the style of the Fallen to fight under it, but they’d fit. That wasn’t what made Adrian’s heart sink, though; there were boxes floating in the water, boxes and shelves stacked everywhere. This must be the Silver Eel’s stock room, he realized. However well-organized it might have been kept before, it was a disaster now. Soggy boxes of napkins and crates of frozen beef patties drifted around in the churning water like chunks of carrot in a stew of mud. Alcohol bottles puttered in circles like Sunday afternoon yachts, their labels slowly puffing up from the water. Shelves lay knocked over, with a folding ladder lying across the top of two of them. At the far end of the room, wind gusted in through shattered windows and a door that hung off its hinges.

  The water didn’t flow out of the stock room, it just eddied in a slow circle. Outside, the water was just as high, and Adrian saw the dingy white hulls of cheap boats drifting in the darkness and the fury of the storm.

  “Crap.” There were corpses outside, dead animals floating in the water.

  “What?” Eddie asked.

  “Jim wants me to draw a circle,” Adrian explained.

  “And?”

  Adrian pointed around at the water, the tipped-over shelving and the drifting objects. “The floor isn’t clear. Even if it was, I don’t think I can really chalk underwater and expect it to stick.”

  “Can’t you draw a circle with something else?” Eddie suggested.

  Adrian shrugged. He felt defeated. “Sure. Like what? A line of rolled-up napkins?”

  “Does the circle have to be on the floor?” Mike asked.

  Adrian snorted his derision.

  And then he thought about it. Did the circle have to be on the floor?

  “Actually,” he said, “I don’t know.”

  He racked his brains. His uncle had only ever taught him to put circles—and other wards—on floors, of course. Preferably flat, smooth floors, because the more perfectly drawn the ward was, the easier it was to power it and therefore the more efficacious it could be. But a ward’s influence was in three dimensions of physical space (as well as other dimensions more difficult to visualize), and Adrian realized that Mike’s question was a good one.

  Why not put the wards on the wall, for instance?

  Only on the wall, it would be difficult to chalk a ward that would capture three beings the size of the Fallen. They would have to be within the physical capture area of the ward, after all, and a ward was active in the direction perpendicular to its plane.

  “Like, a string, or something,” Mike said slowly, looking around.

  So the ward could be on the room’s ceiling.

  “You’re a genius, Mike.” Adrian patted the big guy on the back.

  “String?” Eddie sounded skeptical.

  “Nope.” Adrian pointed. “The ladder.”

  “Ladder?” Eddie sounded even more skeptical. “Nope, I don’t get it.”

  Splash!

  The sound came from the hallway, and it was immediately followed by loud knocking and rumbling noises. That would be Jim hitting the basement hallway, Adrian guessed, and the Fallen coming down the stairs after him.

  “Hurry!” he called. “I have to put the ward on the ceiling.”

  It would have to be quick and dirty, he thought, as Mike and Eddie grabbed the ladder and carried it over to him. Oh, well. Had he ever done it any other way?

  “Hold me steady,” he urged them, and climbed the ladder.

  “Good thing you’re a little guy,” Mike grunted. He and Eddie strained, chest-deep in the water, but they raised the ladder and put Adrian right up against the ceiling.

  CRUNCH!

  Sounds of fighting came into the room from the hall.

  “Steady,” Adrian repeated, and he gestured with his arm to show the area he wanted to encompass. “And walk in the best circle you possibly can.”

  “Easy,” Eddie said to the bass player. “This is just a
little stroll in four-four time.”

  “Says the guy who always comes in early,” Mike grumbled. They lifted the ladder and began moving in a wide circle. Metal clanged on concrete in the hall.

  “Someday I’ll play you a tambourine solo,” Eddie muttered darkly. “That’ll show you what real rhythm is.”

  “Sweet,” Mike said. “Until then, don’t give lectures on timing to the only guy in the band who has any.”

  “There’s Twitch.”

  “I said guy.”

  “Twitch sometimes has boobs, Mike. That doesn’t mean he isn’t one of the boys.”

  Mike looked embarrassed, shut his mouth, and focused on his footing in the deep water.

  Adrian chalked as quickly as they walked, inscribing the most perfect circle he could (it was terribly imperfect, maybe disastrously so, he worried) and framing it with suitable formulae in Akkadian and Doric Greek. The chalk was moist, which made it crumble alarmingly as he worked, leaving too much chalk behind on the surface of the ceiling and too little in his hand. He worried the chalk would run out entirely, but in the end it was enough, with a little left. Adrian ended his ward with a conduit on the wall, opposite the entrance, a tail that dropped down into a smaller circle, inside which he would have written the true names of the persons to be commanded.

  Per Jim’s instructions, he left this space blank, like the cartoon speech bubble of a mute.

  “Hell,” he muttered, as Mike and Eddie threw the ladder away.

  SPLASH!

  Jim and Twitch burst into the room on the crest of a surge of water in the hall, Twitch in her horse form and Jim hanging around her neck, riding and swimming and paddling with his saber all at the same time. Behind them, something huge and heavy crashed through the passage, pushing water and debris ahead of it.

  Bang! Bang! B-rap-p-p-p!

  Eddie and Mike opened fire into the hallway entrance.

  “Get back!” Adrian shouted, and they complied, crouching down behind fallen shelving to one side of the ward with the muzzles of their guns over the top and barking. Twitch transitioned from horse to hawk and swooped around, out of their line of fire, to join them.