Hell Freezes Over - A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  “Oh, I don’t think you’ll mind killing this one. I’ve heard you have developed quite the soft spot for innocent young women? Well, this is right up your alley, Mr. White Knight. This magician, let’s call him Danvar the Magnificent, goes through lovely assistants like some guys go through underwear.”

  “Not seeing the problem, Morty. So the guy has issues with women, and he fires a lot of assistants. What’s the big deal?”

  “I never said he fired the girls. I said he goes through them. He hires them, brainwashes them into mindless pleasure drones, uses them up, and when he’s tired of them, he wipes their minds and leaves them in whatever city he happens to be in when he gets tired of them.” Mort watched my face as his story unfolded, and the glee in his eyes told me that I wasn’t nearly as good at hiding my emotions as I wanted to be, particularly when dealing with a demon. Lock it down, Harker, or you’re gonna get yourself killed. Or worse.

  “Okay, that’s pretty bad. And it’s definitely on the list of things I don’t approve of. But why do you care? This guy sounds like the kind of guy I’d expect you to invite over for milk and cookies instead of hiring somebody to take him out.”

  “Pretty good, Harker. I never thought you’d be able to hold out that long without making a joke about the new body,” Mort gestured at his chest. “The last one ran out of steam, so I had to go take over a new one. It was that or go back downtown, and I’ve gotten accustomed to the weather up here, if you catch my drift.”

  I did. I was a little nauseated by it, but I did. Mort’s old body died, which happens eventually to bodies inhabited by demons, and he went to get a newer model. I could only hope that the kid who used to walk around in that body died before Mort took it over. Otherwise he was still trapped in there, his consciousness shoved off to the side while Mort used his body. Yeah, that’s the guy I was working for. A real prince.

  “So where do I find this magician, Mort? And how do I verify your story? I’m not just going to murder this guy on your say-so.”

  “Ri-ight,” Mort drawled. “You’ve grown a pair of morals since coming to Charlotte. Or is it since you started running with that delectable little policewoman you left out in my bar to entertain the boys. Tell me, Harker, does she wear the handcuffs, or does she put them on you?” He leered at me, a disconcerting image coming from a kid who should be entranced by cartoons and comics, not sitting in the back of a bar hiring a hitman to take out an evil magician.

  “You probably want to leave Flynn out of this, Mort, she can more than take care of herself.” Just to be sure, I sent a thought her way. You okay out there?

  Fine, but bored. Nobody out here is stupid enough to start anything with me. I thought I’d at least get to arrest somebody. I could tell from the tone of her thoughts that she really was bored, so that was reassuring.

  “I’ll look into him, Mort. I’m not making any promises, but if he’s as bad as you say, he deserves anything I can do to him. One question, though. What did he do to cross you?”

  “Why Quincy, old pal, can’t I just want to help clean up my community?”

  “One, we’re not pals. And two, no, you can’t. You’ve never cared anything about a community as long as you can make a profit and wreak some havoc. So since this guy is just doing exactly what you usually want people to do, I want to know what he did to piss you off.”

  “He killed my mom,” the boy’s voice came through for the first time, and all the hair on my arms stood up. “She went to see a magic show, and she didn’t come home all night. A couple days later the police came to my house and told me my mom was dead. I’m not stupid, so I went on the web and looked it up. She was…raped a bunch of times, then she walked out in front of a bus and killed herself. So I called Mort to help me get the man that did that to her.”

  This was bad. This was more than bad, this was some epic awful. The boy wasn’t just still alive inside his body with Mort wearing his skin suit, he’d invited the demon in to get back at the man who killed his mother. The worst part was, I couldn’t blame him. I thought about some of the things I’d done in the past driven by grief, and summoning a demon wasn’t anywhere near the worst of them.

  “So, you gonna help us? Me and little Bobby here, I mean.” Mort’s voice returned, and it was easy to look in his eyes and tell that the demon was back in control. I shuddered a little, knowing now that the boy was a willing passenger to everything Mort was going to do with his life.

  “Like I said, I’ll check it out. If this is for real, I’ll make sure Danvar the Molester’s show has a shortened run.”

  “Bring me proof, and I’ll tell you everything I know about Our Lady of Holy Comfort and what’s going on there.” He held out a hand, and I shook it.

  I looked into the demon/boy’s eyes, and they went human for just a second. He had blue eyes, the boy did.

  “Please get the man that killed my mom, Mr. Harker. I don’t want to be stuck in here forever for nothing.”

  Before I could say anything in response, its eyes went black again and Mort smiled up at me. “Happy hunting, Reaper.”

  I took my hand back and turned for the door. I stopped with my hand on the knob and turned back to Mort. “Mort, you know I’m not just a stupid human, right?”

  “I know what you are, Harker. Maybe even better than you do.”

  “Then you know you do not want to jerk me around on this. Because if I come back here and I find out you’ve played me…”

  “Spare me the threats, Harker. I stopped being afraid of humans somewhere around the Crusades. Now go be a good Reaper and kill something, won’t you?”

  I walked out, feeling not for the first time in my career like I’d made a deal with the devil. And that always ends well.

  Flynn was sitting at the bar sipping on a Stella when I walked out. Christy was polishing a section of bar top as far away from where Flynn sat as possible while still being behind the bar. The wood and Plexiglas surface was glowing a deep maroon all around Christy, but faded to a cool blue-green at Flynn’s seat. Whatever had Christy riled up, Flynn gave not a single fuck about it.

  “What did you do?” I asked in a low voice as I stepped up beside her.

  “Nothing much, just played a game of pool or two,” she replied. I looked around, but the lone pool table was abandoned, and the green felt showed no new bloodstains.

  “What happened?” I pressed.

  “There was a disagreement about the break, so I did.”

  “You broke?” I asked. “What exactly did you break?”

  “That guy’s nose, and his brother’s jaw. But they’re fine. They’re weres, so they heal fast, and I think they’re jackals or something like that, so it was the only way to keep from killing them.” Her voice stayed low and calm, but we were collecting some looks. A lot of people wouldn’t mess with Flynn if they thought she was under Christy’s protection, but everyone in town knew I was fair game.

  “What about Sanctuary?” I asked.

  “They touched me first, so I was clear. Christy’s not happy about it, but she’s a woman, so she’s letting it slide.”

  “What do you mean, they touched you?” I was a little surprised at the anger I heard in my own voice, and I zeroed in on the lycanthropes drowning their pain in a couple pitchers of beer over in one corner.

  “It’s not a thing, Harker. And don’t start trying on the shining armor. I don’t need one, and the suit won’t fit you anyway.” She was right, of course. Rescuing damsels in distress never ended well for me. They always ended up inside my head.

  “What do I owe you, Christy?” I asked.

  “Six months of staying the hell out of my bar and a promise that I never see her again at all,” the fiery manager shot back.

  “Can’t promise anything, so here’s some cash for the beer you had to comp the dogs.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the weres. “But tell them to be more careful who they’re sniffing around next time. All humans aren’t created equal anymore.” I dropped a coup
le of twenties on the bar and we walked out onto the street.

  “Where to now, boss?” Flynn asked with enough snark in her voice that you could cut it with a knife.

  “I need information, and Glory can’t or won’t give it to me,” I replied.

  “I thought that’s what you went in there to find? Don’t tell me I got felt up by two shapeshifters with dog breath for nothing.”

  My vision blurred a little red at the mention of the were-jackals mauling Flynn, but I blinked a couple times before she noticed. I hoped. “I got some information, but I need to confirm it. So I’ve got to go get help from the last person in the world I want to ask.”

  “Smith?” Flynn asked.

  “Smith,” I confirmed, and slid into the passenger seat. Flynn put the car into gear and we headed off to admit to my boss that he might know more than me about something magical.

  Chapter 7

  We pulled into the garage underneath police headquarters and headed to the elevator. “What’s your plan?” Flynn asked.

  “What kind of plan?”

  “To get the information you need out of Smith?”

  “Well, I thought I’d ask,” I said, honestly confused.

  Flynn looked at me like I’d grown another head. “Yeah, when has that ever worked?”

  I stepped into the elevator and turned to her. “What are you talking about, Becks?”

  “Look, Smith is the single most tight-lipped human being I’ve ever met—”

  “The jury’s still out about that whole human thing,” I reminded her. “I, for one, am not a hundred percent sure what Smith is, but I don’t think he’s human. Not totally, at any rate.” There was definitely something magical about Agent John Smith. He looked human from the outside, but there was something in the eyes that spoke of too many years for a normal lifetime. And he was definitely stronger and faster than a typical human.

  The doors dinged open, and we stepped off into the second-floor offices of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. I followed Flynn as we meandered through cubicles and hallways until we came to the small block of offices “temporarily” assigned to Agent John Smith and his Department of Homeland Security Domestic Terrorism Task Force. At least, that’s what it said on our badges and business cards. In reality, we were one team of the government’s Paranormal Division. Basically, if something went bump in the night, we bumped back. Harder.

  Flynn went to her office and I stepped up to Smith’s door. I raised my hand to knock and the door swung open on its own.

  “Come on in, Quincy,” Smith said from his seat behind his desk. He was dressed like he always was, in a pinstriped charcoal suit with a muted burgundy tie and an American flag lapel pin. He looked up at me over a pair of reading glasses that I suspected were just for show, and his gray-blue eyes locked onto mine.

  “What can I do for you, Harker? How are things at Mort’s?” He motioned to a chair, and I sat in front of his desk. I noticed immediately that the chair was low to the ground, giving Smith an uncommon height advantage. He’s not a small man, but I top out several inches over six feet, so I usually look down on him a little. This time he was the tall man in the room. Oh well, his room, his playing field.

  “Mort’s fine,” I replied. “Christy sends her best. I need to know about a magician by the stage name of Danavar.”

  Smith leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “Why?”

  “Because Mort wants me to kill him. Says he’s basically a serial rapist , and he’s operating without Mort’s permission. So he wants him dead.”

  “And you’re now playing hitman for demons?” Smith asked, one eyebrow climbing toward his brush-cut gray hair.

  “Mort has information I need,” I said.

  “Information on what?” Smith asked.

  “Our Lady of Holy Comfort Catholic Church,” I replied.

  “What do you need to know?” Smith’s eyes were flat, revealing nothing, but that was no different from every other day. Still, I felt like there was something underneath this conversation, something he was either waiting for me to ask, or something he didn’t want to tell me.

  “I need to know everything. Hell, at this point I’d settle for knowing anything. Something serious is happening there, something so big that Glory won’t talk to me about it. No, scratch that. She’s not allowed to talk to me about it.”

  “Which makes it completely irresistible to you,” Smith observed.

  “You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “So what’s the deal?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard some rumblings, and I know Flynn’s homicides yesterday morning were members there, but there’s been nothing from my sources about the place.”

  “And who are your sources, Smith? Where is your thumb on the pulse of the dark underbelly of the Carolinas?”

  “Let me tell you one thing, Harker. You don’t ever want to know how I get my information. I promise you that.”

  For some reason, I believed him. Smith had the eyes of a man who’s seen some shit in his lifetime. And since I’ve seen more than my fair share of shit myself, I didn’t push. “Yeah, I didn’t figure you’d know. That’s why I went to see Mort.” I let that one just lay out there, the assumption that a demon knew more than him was exactly the kind of thing that would grate at Smith.

  “How’s Christy?” he asked, not batting an eye. I hate inscrutable motherfuckers like Smith. They make me work twice as hard for every scrap of information.

  “She’s fine. Buxom. Badass. Still taking zero shit and giving zero fucks.”

  “Good to hear. I like that girl. Hate she got mixed up with a dick like Mort, but I can understand it, given the circumstances.” He said that like I was supposed to know how Christy got tangled up working for Mort, but I had no idea. And of course, phrasing it like it was common knowledge meant that I couldn’t ask what the deal was without revealing my ignorance, which would give Smith insight into another hole in my knowledge. If he really knew at all and wasn’t just playing me. Which I would never figure out without asking him about it, the one thing he’d just insured I’d never do. Bastard played the game better than me, even in his off-the-rack suits.

  “So, how old is Mort this time?” Smith asked, taking a file out of his desk drawer and opening it.

  “Looks like he’s hopped into an eight-year-old,” I said, trying but not quite managing to keep the disgust out of my voice.

  “That’s not cool,” Smith said.

  “No, it’s fucking disgusting,” I replied, the bile I felt making its way into my voice.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Smith interrupted me with a hand. “I have an arrangement with Mort about his continued existence on this plane. ‘No deals with kids’ is very much a part of that arrangement. He and I are going to have a conversation about this.” I had a distinct feeling that conversation wasn’t going to be a whole lotto fun for Mort and would probably result in a fair amount of broken furniture. Or people.

  “So why Danvar? And why you?” Smith asked.

  “No idea,” I replied. “I just know the magician is mind-slaving his assistants, raping them into oblivion, and then casting them aside. I don’t think any of that would be a problem, except he picked up a woman in Mort’s territory, and now Mort wants a message sent.”

  “And he wants you to send the message,” Smith said.

  “I think me killing Danvar is only part of the message. If the local monsters think I’m under Mort’s control, they’ll fall in line pretty quick. Between Mort and me, we pack some pretty serious punch. I wouldn’t mess with the two of us.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” Smith agreed, more out of politeness than any sincerity, I thought. I’ve watched Smith open fire on a dragon with a handgun and not back down a single step. It was an illusionary dragon, but he didn’t know that at the time.

  “But you can’t kill Danvar,” he continued.

  I started a little. Smith was generally pretty hands-off on my life outside the cases we worked tog
ether. This kind of directness was a little unprecedented.

  “Why not?” I asked. “Is he not really a child molester? I wouldn’t put it past Mort to lie about that kind of thing.”

  “No, he’s everything Mort described to you, and more. He drains the life force from women, abuses them inside and out, bleeds them of their happiness and their life force, then sets them loose on the world as husks—lifeless, soulless walking shadows that torment their loved one by their mere presence until a few months later they commit suicide.”

  “And eventually you’ll get to the part that says why I shouldn’t kill this asshole.”

  “Yeah, I will. He’s my informant. I’m working on turning him to give me inside information about Mort and his operation. That’s why Mort wants him dead. Not some suddenly rediscovered noble purpose bullshit about not wanting the poor kids to be victimized.”

  “Still seems like a pretty good guy to come down with a terminal case of dead,” I said, reeling at the idea of Smith using somebody like that as a source.

  “And most of the time, I’d agree with you. But I’m pretty close to bringing this douchebag over to the side of the angels, and part of that is him agreeing to cease his less savory activities.”

  “Smitty,” I said, knowing full well he hated that nickname, “purse-snatching is a less savory activity. Fixing a horse race is a less savory activity. Sucking out somebody’s life force and personality so you can live forever is just fucking disgusting, and this guy needs to be put down.”

  “No.” Smith didn’t bother meeting my gaze this time. He knew he was wrong, and he didn’t care. When he finally looked at me across his desk, his eyes were cold, just gray chips in his stony face. “This isn’t negotiable, Harker. Stay away from Danvar. I’m not asking.”

  “I didn’t come here to ask permission, Smitty. I came here to see if this guy was as much of a threat as Mort claimed, and if you had information about the church. Since the answer question one is yes, and question two is no, I guess I’m gonna have to go kill the rat bastard.”