To Beat the Devil

by M. K. Gibson

  The room was small and cool, like an old-fashioned wine cellar. It was lit by dusty overhead lights and generators hummed in the corners. I saw a guy working the controls and managing the power cells for the energy shield. He was working nonstop trying to squeeze as much juice into the shields as he could. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he almost jumped out of his skin. He turned on me, arms up in a mock kung-fu defensive posture. He was a very tall scrawny guy in greasy overalls. He looked ridiculous, but I had no time to mock him.

  “Easy, bud. Name’s Salem and I am here to try and help you get the power up for the shields,” I said.

  “Taylor,” he said quickly, introducing himself, “and there is nothing you can do. The power cells are dead, man. That shield will be down in seconds and then you will have just enough time to kiss my sweet, scrawny ass goodbye.”

  I shoved him out of the way and moved to the power cell. There was a meter that showed 0.02 percent charge capacity. There was a main lead going to shield and what looked like an input for a charger. I took a second and bounced on my toes, stretching my calves, shaking my hands out, mentally preparing for what could be something horrible. I remembered the incident with T’s mechanical ants.

  “OK OK OK…let’s do this,” I said to myself, getting psyched up, anticipating the pain. I grabbed the input leads and…nothing. No pain and the meter still read 0.02 percent. What the hell? T said I was now a generator; I powered my equipment and potentially more. I thought about it. Come on man, use your brain. Hands are not contact leads for a hundred-year-old power cell. And this old thing was not built for wireless energy.

  Damn!

  There are two thousand people out there who are going to die if I don’t give Grimm’s zombie army time to deal with the demons. Think, man. Think!

  “Hey Taylor man, any ideas here?”

  “Aww, hell no, man,” Taylor said in a thick, almost fake Southern accent. He wiped his forehead with a greasy rag and stuffed it in his back jeans pocket. “They don’t make the parts anymore for that model. She’s a dinosaur. I can’t even hook up our main generators to her. The leads are wrong and I never really found a way to fab any new ones.”

  “Well, that sucks,” I said to the scrawny hillbilly.

  “Yup.” Taylor pulled out a flask and put it to his lips. Then he shook it, realizing it was empty. “TJ! Boy, get down here and bring me a drink.” A moment later a boy about twelve or thirteen years old—a smaller version of Taylor—appeared. He handed his dad a cup of something I could smell without seeing it.

  “’Scuse me mister, but can you fix that?” the boy asked.

  Hell. A kid. This just gets freaking better by the minute.

  “I’d like to. But I don’t have the parts,” I told TJ. The boy looked sad. I reckon I would be too if my short life were about to come to an end. Come to think of it, it was.

  “How do you make the parts?”

  “I wish I knew, kid. I…” I paused.

  Hard light projectors.

  T said he installed the portable projectors into my bracers, and they could replicate any attachment I needed. Holy shit, this might work. I studied the power leads into the cell, and activated the hard light projector. Light sensors probed out to the power cell inputs and began to coalesce. The proper leads formed and solidified. Before I had time to think about it, I slapped the leads onto the power cell.

  There was an audible crackle and SNAP. Sparks flew. And pain rocketed through me. It felt like everything I was became inside out. I could feel my very being draining away. The meter read 0.05 percent, then 0.1, then 1, then 2. The fleeting energy wasn’t the worst. It was the shelling the perimeter shield was taking. Each hit sent a ripple into the deflector, causing a fluctuation and drain on the energy reserve, which at that time was me. I felt every hit. I wanted to puke. It was so much worse than the ants. So much worse. My only thought was the people of Midheim. I had to hold out. I had to give Grimm the time he needed.

  Then my eyesight started going dark. I saw the meter read out 5.5. Then I thought I heard a phone ring.

  “Taylor,” Taylor said.

  ******************

  The being known as Father Grimm led his legion of the dead down the mountain pass. It had been a long time since he had animated corpses. Necromancy. Of all the humans to have ever walked the Earth who practiced magic, Grimm was the foremost expert in the necromantic art. No one else was the master of death that Father Grimm was. Only he truly understood death. For he had returned from the plane of death.

  Salem had run ahead to Midheim, to warn Vali of what was coming. Nothing could prepare the demons, though, for what was about to happen. Grimm ran hard and the tireless undead ran on his heels. Grimm’s eyes still glowed bright green, easily seen as the late autumn afternoon sun was on the horizon. Night was coming.

  Grimm saw the demon brigade attacking the domed energy barrier, trying to bring it down. The barrier was flickering badly. Then, as it looked like it would not come back up, the barrier came on, stronger than before. The people of Midheim looked surprised, and then cheered. Grimm decided that Salem must have done something. Knowing the boy, something heroically stupid. Grimm truly believed something great was in the boy, waiting to come out. And he was pleased by the selection of the boy by the entity known as Rictus.

  Grimm reached the rear gate of Midheim. To his left and right he could see a demon lord leading a division, barking orders in Denochian. Grimm came to a full stop, ahead of the zombies, and threw his arms wide.

  “DIVIDE AND DESTROY!” Grimm bellowed. The legion of dead rushed to follow the orders. The undead army split and charged into the flanks of the demon forces. The demon lords saw the undead coming too late. Zombies tore, slashed, cut, and bit their way through demon flesh. Orders were given to repel the walking dead. The human and cyborg contingent opened fire on Grimm’s forces.

  The zombies felt no pain, felt no fear, and did not stop. They maintained course, ripping into anything that moved despite the firepower being levied against them. Plasma blasts, .50 caliber rounds, and explosives tore into the zombies. Nothing stopped them. Driven by Grimm’s magic, the progenitors of Midheim continued the slaughter, echoes of the past defending the present. The demon force still had sheer numbers, but Grimm’s undead forces were unkillable. The ones that were rent limb from limb due to hellhound jaws or high-powered weapons still crawled to bite into the next adversary.

  ****************

  From atop the watchtower, the angelic Norse god known as Vali saw the carnage. He saw Midheim’s dead friends and relatives attacking the demonic forces. He was relieved and revolted. He understood now what Salem had meant. The energy dome was holding and had been for several minutes now. Salem must have done something to give it the energy it needed.

  “But what?” Vali thought to himself. The cyborg was very tough, but what could he have done to get new energy to the cells? The stabilized shield allowed Grimm’s undead to reduce the demon forces. Even if the shield went down, Vali believed the people of Midheim now had a fighting chance.

  The energy shield wavered for a moment but held. Vali grabbed a different communicator since the walkie-talkie did not have the range to penetrate underground. The direct line rang a few times before it was answered.

  “Taylor,” came the voice on the other line

  “Taylor, Val. What is going on down there?” Vali asked.

  “I have no freaking clue boss! Some rough-neck lookin’ sumbitch came in here yammering something about getting more power to the shields. Heh heh, more power to the shields,” Taylor laughed to himself.

  “Now is not the time for your Star Trek fanaticism!” Vali yelled.

  “Right, boss. Anyway, this idiot grabbed the power cell and sparks and shit flew and next thing I knew, the meter started filling. But now it looks like this guy is basically dying. What do you want me to do?”

  “Hold tight. I will be right there,” Vali ordered Taylor.

  “Like I’m
going out there,” Taylor sniffed.

  Vali turned to his advisor and gave him an instruction: Should the shield fall, give the general attack order. The advisor nodded and Vali jumped the rail, landing below. He ran inside, but not before he made a quick stop in the private antechamber behind the main table of the mead hall.

  ************

  From a deep, dark, distant place I heard Vali’s voice yell “CLEAR!”, and then something like lightning mixed with a steroid orgasm shot through my system. I felt supercharged and ready to take on the galactic empire. I opened my eyes and Vali stood over me. I saw a dumbstruck Taylor behind him with little TJ behind his dad, trying to get a better look. What took me a moment to realize was that Vali had something pressed into my hands and against my chest. It was the hammer of Thor. Mjölnir. Eleven-year-old me just geeked in his pants.

  I got up and shook my head a bit, clearing the cobwebs. Wow, that thing packs a hell of a punch. I held the Norse weapon and admired it. Different from the comics, but far from a traditional Scandinavian weapon. It was its own beautiful and terrible piece of deadly art.

  “Just a relic?” I asked Vali.

  “A relic, yes. I never said it didn’t work. Can you keep the shields up for a while longer? Grimm’s forces have slaughtered a fair amount of the demons. But they will eventually give out and when they do, I want the full strength of Midheim ready to go. But we need that time and that shield. Can you do it?” Vali asked me. I could hear the desperation and hope in his voice.

  “You are damn right I can hold out. You tell me when to drop the shield,” I said, determined and ready.

  “Good man,” Vali said to me. “Taylor, be ready to relay my command to Salem.”

  “Uhh, sure boss,” Taylor said as Vali ran out of the room and back up the stairs.

  I held Mjölnir and then took up my place at the power cell and reconnected to it. Unlike last time, the pain was diminished. I felt an abundance of energy in me that the power cell could not siphon. I watched the meter begin to climb at a higher and higher rate. Seven percent, ten percent, fifteen percent. I barely felt anything.

  I stayed connected to the power cell for another half hour, and to be honest, I was getting bored. The meter read 78 percent now. I was itching to go into battle and crack some demon skulls. My body was completely regenerated from my fight with Vidar and I wanted so badly to get out of there. I wondered if this was how Thor felt all the time.

  I heard the communicator line ring and Taylor answer it.

  “Uh huh, got it boss. Ok, buddy, Val says you can come on up. The power cell has more than enough juice for now. I am going to drop it in a few minutes and he wants you to be ready to fight with him.”

  I disengaged from the power cell and the power of the hammer washed over me again. Oh yeah, this was going to be great.

  “One last thing, chief. Val says you have to leave that here. Something about it not falling into the wrong hands.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Not my call, bud. Hell, I’m not allowed to touch it n’all. Val said it would blow my arms off, and you only could hold it because you are part machine. That true?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I looked at the hammer and it took a lot of willpower to drop it. Mjölnir hit the ground. I felt less. But I also felt like I had just come down from a trip. I swayed a moment. Wow, that thing was a hell of a drug.

  “Thanks for watching my back,” I said to Taylor and to TJ.

  “Ain’t nothin’,” he said back. TJ just waved at me.

  I ran up the stairs into the mead hall and out the main doors. From atop the watchtower I saw Vali. He pointed for me to take up position at the main gate. I gave a two-fingered salute and ran through the town, toward the gate Grimm and I originally came in. I got there and joined the other warriors. They were waiting and watching. From my point in the line, I could see what was left of the demon forces expending ammunition and foot soldiers dealing with the last remnants of Grimm’s army. The forest outside Midheim was a battlefield now. Destroyed equipment, scorched craters in the ground. And blood. Small streams of it flowed. The forces of Hell, which numbered around six thousand before, were now down to about two thousand.

  Numerically, an even fight. But the demons’ spirits were broken. And these people wanted nothing more than to finish the job. I heard Vali’s voice come over the PA.

  “Now, people of Midheim, WIN THIS DAY!”

  Cheers went up as the shield went down. I charged into battle with them, my pistols out. I roared and fought alongside the people of Midheim.

  It was a good day.

  Chapter Seventeen

  To Toast and Brag and Exult and Live

  That night in the mead hall, we drank like kings and fools. Hell’s forces had come and we had sent them to the grave. I was proud. Not so much of myself, but of man. Of what man was capable of in desperate times. Not because of battle. But because of the human spirit. That need to drive on even when there is no hope. We make hope. I guess that spirit is our soul. And maybe that is what the hosts of Heaven and Hell, in all their incarnations, want. A touch of our essence to give their own lives power and purpose.

  Damn, I was drunk.

  I sat there raising flagons—yes, actual flagons—of home-brewed beer with Vali and Vidar, recounting stories of battle. The people of Midheim officially welcomed me as one of their own. Especially when Vali told everyone that it was I who kept the energy shield up at the risk of my own life. Vali embellished a touch, but the people didn’t care. We laughed and drank and wept for the noble dead. Fallen comrades. I truly felt accepted. Which made me almost immediately retreat.

  Time after time I have made friends and then watched them die, whether from old age or a deal gone wrong. That’s why I’ve always preferred acquaintances. When Vidar got into an arm wrestling match with three women and Vali was refereeing, I grabbed a full bottle of the local whiskey and walked outside the mead hall.

  I stood there for a moment, leaning against the wooden rail, and watched the night sky. I lit a smoke and I was reminded of the night at the old harbor and the events that led me here—meeting Father Grimm and being whisked away on his little crusade. Jensen was convinced Grimm was a bad man, and I had been inclined to agree. Especially during the torture. But having seen him in action and what he was willing to do to save people, I saw him now as the dark hero. The guy willing to get his hands dirty.

  Hell, I was really starting to like him.

  “Evening,” Father Grimm said from a dark patch of shadow behind me, along the railed porch attached to the hall. I nearly jumped. I was getting really sick of that. How did he always sneak up on me? I switched my new eyes into night vision mode for a moment, and I saw everything clearly. Grimm had found two chairs and two glasses. He was sitting back in his chair, his feet on the rail. He waved me over and I plopped into the chair beside him. He handed me a glass and I filled it with the liquor I brought. I filled his as well. We toasted and drank, not speaking for a little while.

  “So, raising the dead, huh?” I asked. That’s me, subtle.

  “Yes,” he said, taking a deep drink. “Necromancy.”

  “Is that an everyday thing for you?”

  “No. It is something I try and forget. Yet it is a tool from time to time.”

  “Where did you learn it?” I asked, already guessing at the answer.

  “I learned from the same source as the rest of my magic. As I said once before, I had a near-death experience, which opened my perceptions. Animating the dead became something of a fascination of mine, for a time.”

  “Why?” I asked. I took a drag off my smoke and a swallow of the fiery alcohol. It tasted like whiskey mixed with diesel fuel.

  “To bring back the ones I cared about. I tried many times, to perfect it. After failure upon failure, I finally realized that life was the domain of God alone. No angel and no demon can bring back that which was taken.” Grimm’s eyes were distant. “You must know what it is like. To love ot
hers, only to have them die off.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. I was just pondering that before you made your spooky entrance. How do you deal with it? The immortality. After two hundred years, I’m tired. I don’t know if I can do this forever,” I said, letting the booze remove my brain-to-mouth filter.

  “The way you treat your body, I would say you do not have to worry about that.”

  “Thanks, asshole,” I said, and Grimm smiled a little.

  “You deal with it the same way you deal with anything. Time and practice. When you feel detached from the world, isolated, abandoned, betrayed and unfairly treated, you have to set aside the ‘poor me’ and focus on something bigger than yourself. For me, it was humanity. When I was reborn, I tried to live normally. It was only later I realized my return to life came with a price.

  “Lifetime upon lifetime I spent. I tried to raise a family, have a wife, over and over. I tried living in solitude. I tried living with another man. When time has no meaning, all the world’s possibilities are at your disposal. Yet, again and again, people would die and I felt cursed and alone. Eventually I decided that for the race I loved so dearly, I would become its protector. And thus, Father Grimm was born.”

  Grimm finished his drink and held out his glass for a refill, which I obliged. I was really beginning to like drunk Grimm. I thought about my own existence. After my parents’ “passing” and my own time during the demon wars after G-Day, I’d tried to live, I guess. Mostly I hoarded things, and waited. Sure, I had fought some, in the beginning. But that didn’t bring me any sense of purpose. And after today’s battle, I saw why. We humans had spirit, sure, but when God left us, we all felt abandoned. We didn’t fight in those days for a cause; we fought because we were afraid of losing what we knew as “normal.” I guess that was why I was so quick to abandon my fighting man’s ways and become a profiteer.