by Tim Marquitz
With no clue how I ended up in Russia, and lacking a ride home, I trekked across the tundra to find a portal. Fortunately, demons and angels have been traversing the world since the days of the dinosaurs. It’s become common practice to stash gates around the globe to allow for easy travel for the supernaturals who can’t teleport. I knew where a few were, seeing how I used one in particular when I came out to visit my mom.
Lucky for me it was only three miles away.
Yeah…lucky.
Chapter Nineteen
It was a long, cold walk to civilization. Being back only created grief of its own kind, almost making me wish I’d stayed in the quiet tundra. Normal communication from Hell was impossible, and I couldn’t go home with the DSI goons hanging out. They’d proven they weren’t looking to put me in cuffs anymore, preferring to put me in a grave; a literal one, not the metaphysical representation of the actual, real grave I’d fallen into.
Blame the confusion on my college psychology professor. I didn’t need more than one semester to realize I had an abnormal psyche. That and a five dollar bill would get you a hit television show.
Stuck for a place to go, I finally decided on the old DRAC base where we’d kept Lilith’s body after she’d been sacrificed to bring Longinus back to life. It had been attacked and everyone there murdered by the Nephilim, the half breed bastards of angels. Kind of like me, only from the other side of the supernatural tracks.
It was a pretty good bet no one from DRAC had even bothered to do anything but collect bodies and shut the place down considering all that’s happened since. I figured it was a chance work taking. I was right.
The place hadn’t even been sealed off. The DRAC workers apparently busted their asses to get all the people out and strip the place of anything that might be seen as out of the ordinary, but they left the mundane stuff there. The compound off the beaten path, they weren’t worried about anyone stumbling across the place before they could give it a proper shutdown. All the security systems had been deactivated. The place was abandoned.
I went inside and was amazed by how spotless it was. There wasn’t a hint of the bloodbath that occurred there. The desks and chairs and computer equipment were clean, though it was clear many were missing, damaged in the battle, but only someone who’d been there before would have noticed. I knew the hard drives on the computers would be replaced or removed and all the lines scrubbed and cleared of recording devices and electronic triggers that translated the coded messages sent over them in order to forward it to the appropriate responders.
Worried about Scarlett, I called her first, musing on the strange mix of magic and technology that allowed mundane conveniences to work in Heaven but not in Hell. There was no answer. I tried again and again but wasn’t able to reach her. I called Karra next, looking to let her know I was okay, but I couldn’t get a hold of her either. It was frustrating, and it scared me. With Mihheer able to track me down, he might go after Karra just out spite. She’d been there with me when he first showed up, so he may well have picked up her essence. At least with Karra, I could reach her through Chatterbox. Once I got back to Hell, I’d send a message that way and check in on her. Right then, I just needed to make sure Scarlett was safe.
I called Katon. A few seconds later a telepathic connection was opened between the two of us. “Hey, I need to find Scarlett. Have you seen her?”
His distinctive voice cut through the psychic ether and sounded inside my head. “I haven’t. What’s wrong?” I could hear the concern in his telepathic voice.
“I don’t know for sure that anything is, but I need to warn her…just in case. The alien and I duked it out over Lucifer. The guy got away, but before he left he told me he would hunt down another person on Earth who shared my uncle’s bloodline. That’s Scarlett.” I heard Katon growl.
“I’ll find her.” He got straight to the point, empty static ringing in my head right after.
He’d developed a crush on my cousin recently, so I could count on him to race to her rescue. Better still, he was capable of defending her, or at least backing her up more than proficiently as Scarlett could take care of herself in a fight. The two together could probably whoop Mihheer’s foreign butt. Figuring Katon had already cut the link, I headed out to hop a ride back to Hell.
Katon surprised me when he cut back in. “Frank?”
I nodded, and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”
“I couldn’t find anything about your alien buddy…”
Seeing how he was trapped in my uncle’s basement for a millennium, I pretty much expected that.
“…I did, however, come across a report of a couple of dimensional anomalies that happened during the fight for Heaven,” he continued. “The first one was just a tiny blip, several dimensions away. It happened at the height of the storms. The contact was blurred and unsteady, and only lasted for a few moments before disappearing or being shielded. It originated from somewhere outside of our connected dimensions so there was no way to trace its origin. The second one was a far more powerful disturbance. It came from within Hell and reached out into the unknown, right around the time we were gathered outside Eden. Rachelle wasn’t able to track that one either, but upon reflection, she said it probably lasted for several hours before it went away. She couldn’t even be sure where in Hell it came from, given how little attention she’d paid it.”
I sighed, thanking Katon for the information. He signed off to find Scarlett, promising to let me know as soon as he did. Once he was gone, I made my way to a portal to Hell, all the ones at DRAC shut down. It gave me some time to think about what Katon had told me.
The first blip was most likely Hasstor. He’d said his arrival would most be noticed, and it seemed he was right. While Rachelle had been with us then, she was still unconsciously scanning the integrity of the dimensional walls to be sure nothing came through and surprised us. A powerful mystic, she was in tune with the ether and would have reported the disturbances had she not been so distracted.
The second incident was Baalth’s little science project. He’d always underestimated Rachelle and her ability to pierce the gloom of protective wards and spells. She was far more powerful than anyone gave her credit for, her flighty and distracted nature the perfect cover for her astounding abilities. She, no doubt, picked up on Baalth’s gate as he tried to block it from view. I smiled at that, the information giving me something to dig at Baalth with. He hated being one-upped.
As I headed off to the portal, laughing, a cold realization popped into my head. My laughter died.
Baalth was already gone by the time we reached Iran. He was with Lucifer then.
All of sudden it made sense. It couldn’t have been Baalth’s portal that Rachelle sensed. It had to be another one; one that had been used to summon Mihheer to our universe.
Gorath was in Hell.
Panic fueled my rush to find a portal. If Mihheer could track me using just the tiny bit of my essence found in the vial I’d buried at my mother’s grave, would he have a problem finding Lucifer were Baalth’s portal to be opened? In the midst of a war, it was a good bet they’d be calling on the power fairly regularly, opening up a glowing beacon that led straight to my uncle.
Another thought came to me, smashing into the insides of my skull like a bullet train. Mihheer finding Lucifer wasn’t the worst that could happen.
Chapter Twenty
Back in Hell, my heart was drumming a blast beat in my chest. I ran through the corridors of Lucifer’s chambers and down into the fiend room. Barely able to breathe, I pointed at the wall where Poe had magicked his way into the hidden chambers and set the dread fiends loose on it. I didn’t have time to figure out how to open the door, but I sure as shit could tear it down. In a whirlwind of claws, hundreds of the sub-demons attacking it without hesitation, the wall gave way and revealed the corridor beyond. I waved the fiends aside and ran through the ravaged opening, sucking in deep breaths of gray dust, which had yet to settle.
Poe met me halfway and blocked my path, but I ignored him and looked over his shoulder to see Baalth. He stood before the tub, his hands aglow with power. Sweat streamed across his forehead as he unleashed burst after burst of magical energy to be absorbed by McConnell and the system they’d devised. The wizard’s shadow flopped about inside as Baalth fed more and more of his power into the tub. At last, the barrage stopped and Baalth crumpled to his knees.
Poe gave me a dirty look and ran to help his boss. I followed after. He gently eased Baalth to his feet. There was nothing resembling the demon lieutenant I remembered. He was exhausted, drained of nearly every drop of his energy. His essence felt like a trickle in the ocean against my senses.
Baalth hung nearly lifeless in Poe’s arm as the mentalist growled at me. “What the hell are you doing here?” He’d left out Mister Trigg, so I knew he was pissed.
“Has the portal been opened?” I asked him, in a rush. “Has it?”
Poe must have caught on to my panic and looked to Baalth. The demon nodded.
I felt my ball sack retract. “We’re in deep shit.”
Poe stared at me without understanding. “What are you-“ He didn’t get any further.
The door to the room exploded off the hinges and flew inward in pieces. Chunks of dread fiend came with it, coating the floor in stinky yellow bile and demon guts. I spun to meet Mihheer as he leapt inside. Poe twisted away to defend Baalth, the two hobbling off in the other direction.
Mihheer didn’t seem surprised to see me. He laughed as he charged straight ahead. There was a book in his hand, and it was glowing blue. I drew my power to me just as a swarm of mutant spiders exploded from the pages in an arachnid volcano.
Mihheer tossed the book in my direction. My first instinct was to throw up a shield. Thousands of creepy little twelve-legged spiders slammed into it as though it were a windshield on the highway to Hell. The book hit a second later and I spied the author’s name as it bounced off. I cringed when I noticed it was the Stephen King story, The Mist. Great read, but I sure didn’t want to be part of the story.
I batted away the mass of creatures, but they were everywhere. They crawled across the shield and around the edges, pushing their way underneath and dropping down from the roof above. A couple of them bit me as I was shaking them off, but it wasn’t too bad. I’ve had worse hickies.
Right then, I heard Poe scream.
I spun around and realized the spiders had been nothing more than a distraction. Mihheer stood before Poe and Baalth, both lying flat on their backs. Poe was holding his face. Blood bubbled up between his fingers, thick and dark. Baalth didn’t seem able to move.
I tossed a bolt of energy at Mihheer, but he sidestepped it and cast a counter spell. It wasn’t aimed at me. A glowing shimmer of red-orange magic sunk into the orb that hung above McConnell’s tub. There was muffled rumbled to thunder, sounding way off, and the room trembled beneath my feet. The color of the orb fluctuated and changed from emerald green to that of an orangey-sun.
Baalth reached up and let out a weak, “No!”
Another bolt of energy in my hand and ready, something grabbed my leg and pulled me off my feet. Sharp spikes of pain speared my ankle. I hit the ground and spun about, dragged toward the squirming sea of spiders. A grayish-green tentacle was wrapped around my leg, up to my shin. The bite of magic chewed at my skin through my jeans. A dozen more tentacles gyrated around the first, emerging from the book behind it. The spiders swarmed me as I was pulled into their midst. I wasn’t too worried about them, but I kept my mouth shut and my ass puckered, just in case.
Magic bolt still in hand, I threw it at the congregation of tentacles instead of the tendril holding me. I didn’t think it would do me much good to blast that one when there was a bunch more ready to take its place. The bolt hit the book and exploded, incinerating The Mist. A whiff of black smoke curled from the floor where the book had been, and I was suddenly free of spiders and tentacles alike. They’d all poofed.
Pissed I hadn’t thought of that when I’d fought the ice dragon, I jumped to my feet to go after Mihheer. The alien held Baalth before him, like a shield, and was moving up the steps toward the tub. I froze.
Mihheer laughed at me. “Isn’t it a shame we’re so bound to our masters that we hesitate when they’re threatened?”
I laughed. “You’re clearly not from around here, or you’d know I don’t work for old, Baalthy boy there.” My magic fluttered at my fingertips and I summoned a ball of fire. As I did, I cast a furtive glance at the demon lieutenant. He gave me the slightest of nods. “You’re not walking out of here alive, even if I have to kill everyone in the room,” I told the alien, taking a few steps closer.
A flicker of doubt danced in Mihheer’s eyes. I certainly didn’t want to kill Baalth, not that I thought I could even in his weakened condition, but I couldn’t let Mihheer get the upper hand. He didn’t care what happened to Baalth, and I had to make him think I didn’t either to keep things calm. It had to seem like I would go right through Baalth to get to him. Ultimately, there was only one thing the alien cared about.
“Stay back, demon,” he told me, making sure Baalth stayed in front of him as I drew even closer.
“Or what; you’ll kill your shield?” I twisted the fireball in my hand and mimed tossing it at the tub. “I’m guessing Gorath would be pretty damn pissed if I blew up the pool and shut down the portal, wasting all that precious energy. It must be hard to recharge after a thousand year nap and having to summon a servant from across multiple universes.”
Mihheer snarled, his free hand flickering with magic. I’d guessed his priorities right.
“Don’t do it,” I warned. “I’m betting I can destroy the tank before you can open the portal for your boss to siphon off the magic.”
Baalth glared at me, and it was pretty obvious he didn’t want me destroying the tank or the portal, but pushed to it, I would. My options were pretty limited, but I’d figured out what Gorath’s pet wanted most, and that was to refuel his master. The thing he tossed into the orb had probably redirected the portal to wherever Gorath was hiding, and he was waiting for the gate to open so he could drink his fill.
Unsure of what to do, I kept moving forward. If nothing else, I figured I could unsettle Mihheer while I thought of something to do to keep the portal in one piece, and Baalth, too.
All of a sudden, Baalth took matters into his own hands.
He spun and grabbed Mihheer and shoved him toward the tank. Unfortunately, Mihheer was the stronger of the two, all of Baalth’s energy having gone into the tub. The alien spun the lieutenant about like a doll and cast him aside without effort. He’d apparently done it without thought, as well. Baalth was flung backward…straight into the tank.
Mihheer’s eyes went wide when he realized it. A bluish shimmer erupted at his hand and I saw the orb swirl to life above his head. The sudden wash of the portal opening hit me, and I hesitated, torn between attacking the alien and saving Baalth. Mihheer was through the gate before I could decide. I heard Baalth hit the fluid and I knew it was too late for him, so I loaded all the power I could into the fireball I already had in my hand and chucked it into the portal after Mihheer.
That was when the world exploded.
I heard Baalth shriek, his voiced drowned out by a whistling hiss that built up in an instant and went mega-postal. There was a muffled boom — muffled because I think my eardrums shattered-and the room went white. Fiery energy obscured everything. I squeezed my eyes shut but there was no blocking the brilliant light. It blasted through my eyelids like they weren’t there.
My skin lit up like I’d snuggled with napalm, and then the force wave hit. It was so overwhelming, so powe
rful I didn’t even feel the impact. One second I was standing there, and the next, I was sailing through the air. I felt the crunch of something against my back and realized it was a body, and then it was the wall.
I felt that well enough. The extra clips exploded.
In total silence I screamed, unable to even hear myself. The wall shattered at my back and crumbled over top of me. The impact of each stone was nothing more than a dull thud across my body, but somewhere deep inside my mind, I recognized that each one must weigh hundreds of pounds. There had to be tons of rubble coming down, crushing me, but it all seemed so distant, as though it was happening to someone else.
My thoughts were in a fog as I lay there in blind numbness, vaguely noting the slowing down of the wreckage that thundered above me. I had no sense of time, no idea how long it had been since I hit the wall. There were no screams of pain or fear to focus on, none of the disaster staples I was used to. There was no sound at all, for that matter, save for the ringing in my skull that sounded like a Spinal Tap concert on steroids.
When it felt safe to open my eyes, the hint of shadows gnawing at the brilliance that seared my retinas, there wasn’t much to see but rocks. I was covered in them. Still numb, I really couldn’t tell if anything was broken-or more realistically, if anything wasn’t-but I tried to move anyway. The blanket of the wall tumbled away in chunks as I shook it loose. I pulled my arms free and rose up to my knees, clearing the rubble from my back with surprising ease. Though my eyes felt sunburned, I was surprised to realize I wasn’t crippled. In fact, I was unhurt.
I looked at my arms and chest and marveled at how I’d made it out of the maelstrom without a scratch. My borrowed hoodie had been shredded and there was blood all over me, but I didn’t see a single injury, or even a hint of one. Not until I looked to my legs.
