Death's Apprentice: A Grimm City Novel

by Gareth Jefferson Jones K. W. Jeter

  Blake—that was the man’s name. A flood of memories, all that Blake remembered, swept over Nathaniel’s own thoughts. He saw caves in Afghanistan, an abandoned farmhouse, a boy who had hardly been more than a child … Adeeb; that was the boy’s name …

  The memories ended in gunfire and explosions, ashes upon the smoke-tinged air and blood seeping into the ground. The soldier’s blood—for that was what he had been back then, and not the abomination he was now—and the blood of his comrades. The ones that he, in his delusions, had killed. The ones for whom he grieved, as he grieved for the boy Adeeb, of whom no trace had been left. No trace but memory.

  Nathaniel let the spell fade away again. He pulled his fingertips away from the shrouded glass vessel. He had found out what he needed to know.

  This soldier, Blake—the man was here in the city, right now, sealed in the garment that was attempting to kill him. Blood and filth, pain and despair—but still moving forward, driven by nothing but his own will, and those memories that would never fade away.

  I can use him. This former soldier had come back to the city for a reason. To kill someone; Nathaniel had been able to discern that much while his spirit had been joined with Blake’s. And I can help him, Nathaniel realized. There were things they could accomplish together … that might save them both.

  He picked up the key from the chamber’s floor. Too much time had gone by already; he’d have to hurry, to get the key back where it belonged before Death returned. And then he would have to head back out onto the city’s streets—

  To find the soldier.

  10.

  He had already saved her a couple of times. And she didn’t even know.

  Hank crouched at the edge of one of the city’s rooftops, watching Ling as she ran through the dark streets below. The Guan Yu shrine from which she had fled, into the alley at the back of The Dragon’s Talon restaurant, was located next to one of the city’s worst districts. The pelting rain hid him as he followed her. He knew he had to keep her in sight—he wouldn’t have entered this zone without readying himself for a fight with some vicious bastard, or a whole pack of knife-wielding punks, at every corner. A beautiful young woman on her own would be easy prey for that kind. But Ling, blinded by her own tears, grieving for her stolen baby, obviously didn’t care what happened to her right now.

  That was why he didn’t want her to know that he was following her, and was making sure that she didn’t get killed. She was running from him, as much as all the other bad things that had happened to her, a whole cascade of horrors from the moment she had discovered her baby Ren-Lei missing. If he caught up with her now, there would be no way of talking to her, of convincing her that he wanted to help. And if he told Ling that he loved her, just from those few moments of watching her through the grillwork of the Guan Yu shrine—what would she do, other than try to plunge a furious knife into his heart? Just wait, he told himself again. That’s all you can do now.

  Or perhaps a little more. One of the alleys behind him held a stack of unconscious bodies, one of the gangs that he had spotted stalking her. He had made short work of them, blocking their slashing razors with his forearm, then driving his boulderlike fist into their faces, one after another. He had used one of their shirts to wipe the blood and snot from his knuckles, then climbed back up the nearest fire escape in order to keep track of Ling.

  A pair of loping predators, working the alleys with a chain strung between them, had actually been more of a threat. Hank had encountered them before, and knew the nasty way they worked, and what little was left of their prey when they were done. Those two he hadn’t let live, but instead had pinned them to the ground with his boots, while pulling the sharp-edged chain tight around their throats. If Ling had heard anything behind her, their last gasping struggles for breath, she might have thought it nothing more than the wind scraping bare tree branches across an alley wall.…

  He could hear something going on below. He ran across the rooftop to which he had just leapt, and looked down.

  In districts such as this, the troubles just never seemed to end. During the few seconds in which Ling had been out of his sight, another pack had caught her in their midst. They’d have her pinned to the ground in seconds if he didn’t hurry—

  Or not. As he swung down to the fire escape’s bottom level, he saw that Ling was already taking care of business, despite the tears that streamed down her face. Two of the pack were already splayed facedown on the pavement. A third flew backward, his face imploded into a red mess by the impact of Ling’s roundhouse kick. Before that one hit the ground, the rest of the pack had wisely taken to their heels, fleeing down the nearest alleyway.

  She wasn’t aware of him standing behind her. That gave Hank the opportunity to admire her fighting prowess as one of the fallen punks got to his knees and lunged at her with an open clasp knife. She dodged the blade’s glistening point, then used her attacker’s shoulder as a pivot point, cartwheeling above him, and brought her whole weight, knees first, down onto his spine. The knife skittered out of his lifeless hand.

  “Why,” she spoke low and fierce, “are you following me?”

  Ling had seen him there, silhouetted in the mouth of the opposite alley. She didn’t wait for him to answer, but instead put her head down and charged. Her small fist came at his chin like the point of a spear as she leapt straight toward him. The impact numbed his forearm as he parried the blow, but before he could react, her other fist caught the corner of his brow. He could feel his brain slam against the inside of his skull, blurring the rapid sequence of kicks and punches that followed.

  Nearly blinded, all Hank could do was throw his arms wide and grab the woman in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet and squeezing her tight to his chest. There was no way that she could hurt him; the difference in their size made the combat like that of a field mouse desperately hurling itself against a stone mountain. He was more concerned that in her fury, she might actually break her own wrists as her futile blows struck against his chest.

  Caught in the straitjacket of his massive arms, she howled and fought to break free—

  Her struggles ceased as quickly as her attack had been launched. Hank blinked and tried to focus his gaze, feeling rather than seeing her go limp in his arms. For a second, he wondered if it was a feint, a maneuver to lure him off his guard. Then enough of his vision returned for him to see her head lolling back, her empty eyes turned toward the dark, grey clouds obscuring the sky.

  Ling burst into sobs, her despair-wracked body contorting in his grasp. He sank down to the pavement, still holding her tightly. She laid her face upon his shoulder, letting her tears stream down the front of his jacket.

  “It’s okay…” Hank leaned back against the alley wall. The ground was strewn with the city’s garbage and rubbish, the rain scouring it toward the overflowing gutters. He rocked the woman back and forth, stroking her dark hair with one hand. “Don’t worry … everything’s gonna be all right…”

  “No … it’s not…” Her voice was a wailing moan. “She’s gone … my baby … and it’s all my fault—”

  “Don’t say that—”

  “But it’s true. I’m her mother … I was supposed to watch out for her…”

  “Okay, now look.” Hank gripped her shoulders and held her in front of himself. “They stole her. The dwarf and that bitch of a nanny, Anna. They’re the ones who did it. They’re the ones who are responsible. Not you. You can’t blame yourself for what monsters like that do.”

  She went on crying, turning her face away from him in shame.

  “I’m going to help you,” said Hank. “I’m going to find your baby.”

  “But…” She looked up at him. “But how…?”

  He didn’t want to tell her that he knew the dwarf. Not until he was absolutely sure that there was no mistake. “There was a note,” he said after a moment. “You said there was a note that was left in Ren-Lei’s crib. Do you still have it?”

  “Yes—” Ling nodded
quickly. She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “I kept it—it’s right here—”

  “Great.” Hank took it from her. Holding it by one corner, he turned it so that the scrawl of words was revealed by the yellow glow from the nearest unbroken streetlamp. The rain blurred the ink, but left the words still legible. Just as Ling had recited them, when she had thought she was telling her story to the Mountain Master. He could imagine the dwarf’s mocking voice as he read it. At the bottom of the note was the symbol she had described.

  He had seen it before. It took him a few seconds to dredge up the memory, then it flashed complete inside his head.

  It is him. The symbol was on the ring he wore.

  Ling peered anxiously into his face. “What do you see?”

  He still couldn’t tell her. Given everything that was going down, it could be too dangerous for Ling to know.

  “Gotta think about it.” Hank folded the note and stuck it in his shirt pocket. “There might be something.”

  His decision had already been made. As the sheets of rain from the approaching storm lashed against his back, he helped Ling to her feet. The lawyer who had hired him—that was who he needed to find. And if that bastard didn’t help him …

  Well—he rubbed the knuckles of his fist—he’d just have to take it up with the guy at the top.

  11.

  Some things are easier than others.

  Blake already knew that. But trudging through the city’s rain-soaked streets, pushing past the sodden rubbish spilling from the alleyways, the truth of that adage weighed even more heavily in his thoughts. His boots splashed through a gutter, its drain clogged by old newspapers and the empty-eyed carcass of a dead cat. And I still haven’t figured out a way, he thought angrily, to find the Devil.

  Problem was, there didn’t seem to be any difficulty in encountering all the rest of the city’s criminals—and getting into fights with them—but none of them seemed to lead to the guy at the top. He was supposed to live in one of the big downtown towers—the whole tower, not just one floor. But if that were true, Blake hadn’t been able to discover which one. He had prowled around on those wide, ill-lit streets with no results other than a crick in his neck from staring up at the grimy façades lining them—no amount of rain ever seemed to be able to wash the soot and smoke from the towers. Not to mention the hard glares from the security guards peering out from the buildings’ lobbies. He would have had no problem taking care of those sag-bellied rent-a-cop types if any of them had been stupid enough to try and chase him away, but if enough regular police were called in to overpower him, finding himself in a precinct station’s holding tank would have seriously impaired the search for his quarry. So, he had gone back to the city’s shabbier districts, looking for any connection, any break that might lead him to the Devil’s back door.

  And hadn’t found any. You’d think, he grumbled to himself, that some of these bastards would at least know where their paychecks come from.

  He stopped in the middle of an unlit intersection. To the left and in front of him, there wasn’t anything other than more run-down tenements, with rain trickling down the concrete steps to the watering holes in their basements. When Blake turned his head to the right, though, he saw a church.

  There had never been many of those in the city, especially in districts like this. Over the centuries, only a few had managed to attract even a meager following. But when those faithful had died off, their meeting places had been boarded up or torn down, either all at once with a bulldozer or bit by bit, starting with the lead being stripped from the roofs by recycling scavengers. The derelict churches slowly crumbled into ruins, mice scurrying through the empty pews, silverfish breeding in the pages of the rain-soaked hymnals.

  This one, crammed in between a rubble-filled vacant lot and a shuttered brewery, looked similarly neglected—its steeple tilted a few degrees to one side, as if it were about to topple over completely—but there was at least some light seeping through its stained-glass windows. Faint splotches of yellow and blue glistened on the wet street in front of the church’s doors.

  Blake stood staring at the apparition for a long minute, as if wondering what it meant. At last, he turned and headed toward the steep-roofed building. If nothing else, this was something he hadn’t tried yet.

  In the covered porch at the entrance, a statue of the archangel Michael stood above the stone font. Covered in years of dust and pigeon droppings, the stern-looking figure drove a double-bladed spear into the horned Devil writhing at his feet. Blake nodded in approval, figuring that was how wars against the forces of evil were supposed to end. He grasped the door’s ornate brass handle and pulled.

  Inside, he closed the tall wooden door behind himself and looked around. His breath clouded before him—the church’s interior wasn’t any warmer than the streets outside. A pair of flickering candles on the altar cast the only illumination across the empty pews.

  “Can I help you?”

  He saw then the priest watching him, from the aisle at the side, where the front pew ended.

  “Maybe—” Blake walked slowly down the church’s nave, toward the altar. “I’m looking for something—”

  “There’s a soup kitchen around back.” The priest stepped in front of him. “You can get a hot meal there.” The age-lined face above the plain white collar showed a gentle smile. “I don’t have much else to offer you, other than that. There’s nothing here of any value.”

  Blake knew that churches, in this city, always had plenty of robberies and pilfering from the poor box. He didn’t blame the priest for showing some signs of wariness toward someone as ragged and dirty as him.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I need another sort of help.”

  “Oh … Well, if it’s a personal problem you have, let’s talk about it.” He gestured toward the pew’s bench. “Sit down. Tell me what’s troubling you.”

  Blake squeezed into the pew, leaving room for the priest to sit down beside him. “It’s difficult…,” he said. “But here’s the deal. I’m looking for the Devil. I need to find him.”

  “The Devil!” A frown appeared on the priest’s face. “Why would you want to find someone like that? That’s how people lose their souls.”

  “I want to find him…” Blake rested his grimy hands on his knees. “Because I want to kill him. For all the pain he’s caused the world.”

  “And … that would be worth doing, I suppose … if it were possible. But I’m afraid it isn’t. Evil exists—that’s the fallen state that mankind is cursed with. And as long as we’re that way, then the Devil exists as well. You’d be better off to forget this ambition of yours. You want to defeat the Devil? Fine—you do that through prayer. And through love. You might not believe it yet, but those are the weapons that God gave to us. Pick them up and use them, as He told us to.”

  “I wish it were that easy.” He looked down at the stitches in the overcoat he wore. “And maybe if I were smarter, I’d take your advice. But I’m not, and I can’t. So, I’ll just ask you this: do you know where the Devil lives?”

  “Other than in the hearts of men?” The priest shook his head. “No … I don’t. Nobody does.”

  “But he lives here in this city. I know that.”

  “But those are just tales. Legends…” The priest gave a shrug. “Maybe they’re true, maybe not.”

  “I just need an address, that’s all.”

  “But who could give you one? The only people who might have it are those poor fools who bartered their souls to him. And they’re all too much in his debt to betray him.”

  “Because they’re scared of him.” A current of anger moved inside Blake. “Everybody in this crummy town is. Including you. Hell, the Devil could be living in the building right next door, you could’ve seen him going in and out—and you still wouldn’t say a word.”

  “That’s a little harsh,” said the priest. “You should understand—people need to be careful.”

>   “Yeah, well, the only problem with being careful is, that’s how the Devil stays in power. That’s how he runs this place. He’s got his boot on everyone’s throat in this city—and everybody pretends like he doesn’t even exist. Like somehow, if they don’t talk about him, things won’t get worse.” Blake’s matted dreadlocks brushed his shoulders as he shook his head in disgust. “As if that were even possible.”

  The priest said nothing.

  “Okay.” Blake stood up. “Thanks for your help. I mean that.”

  The priest followed him along the nave as he headed for the church’s door. “If there’s ever anything else…”

  He stopped and looked back at the priest, then nodded. “There might be,” he said. “Someday.” He pushed open the door and stepped out into the chill night.

  “Please—” The priest called after him. “I understand what you’re trying to do. But it’s not too late to reconsider. Violence won’t solve anything—”

  Blake paid no attention to the other man. He found himself again looking at the statue of the archangel Michael. A soldier, he suddenly realized. Like me. That’s what the angel was. With shield and armor, fighting the great enemy. The same thing that he was trying to fight—he could almost hear Michael urging him on, a comrade in the struggle.

  But there was a difference between the two of them; he could see that as well. The archangel had a spear, a magnificent thing with flaming blades at either end, burning with the fires of Heaven. But what do I have? Nothing but his own bare hands, begrimed with dirt and dried blood. For armor he had only the Devil’s own overcoat, encasing him in its evil and despair.

  He lowered his eyes, catching sight of his reflection in the stone font. A disgusting image, with its long, matted hair and hideous face. How was something as degraded and loathsome as that supposed to fight the Devil? Weaponless and alone, with no comrades but those that marched silently through his guilt-wracked memories.