by Tim Marquitz
“I’m feeling a bit exposed out here in Old Town. Why don’t we go back to my house and finish our discussion there?”
A hint of a smile graced her lips. “Of course. Let me get my things.” She dropped off the bed and started stuffing her belongings into a couple of small suitcases. She was traveling light. I guessed she’d thought her assassins would finish the job quickly. She should have known better. I’d always been pretty good at disappointing people. You’d think she’d remember that, being married to me and all.
I’d called a cab while I watched her pack, my car still at Coffee Hut. I didn’t imagine Meinie would swing back by to give us a ride. Too bad, he seemed like a nice enough fellow. He had good taste in music, at least. Once Veronica was finished, I grabbed her bags and headed outside with her. Much to my surprise, it was only a few minutes until the cab pulled up at the curb. The cabbie must have been desperate for a fare to have arrived so soon. The look on his wrinkled face when he saw us told me he thought he’d made a mistake. I didn’t give him the chance to change his mind. I gave him directions and a healthy cash incentive to get us there fast. Money talks and people listen. He heard me Page 173
loud and clear. We were on the road in a flash. I glanced at Veronica and despite the bruises and bloodstains marring her face it was still very apparent why I’d been so attracted to her in the first place. Her sharp features lent her a classic beauty that even all the damage couldn’t completely hide. It didn’t hurt I could see down her shirt. She turned and smiled at me, sliding down in the seat to snuggle beside me. I put my arm around her and sighed. It felt like old times. No matter how everything else turned out, no matter how bad things got, no one could take away the happiness I felt. With her boobs pressed into my side and her hand on my lap, the end of the world was a distant memory.
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Retribution
For the first time in days I felt relaxed. I held Veronica’s lithe body tight against me, feeling the warmth of her presence. Even though she’d tried to kill me three times, there was a sense of comfort that seemed to override all of that, a feeling of righteousness born of past intimacy. At that moment, it didn’t matter what either of us had done, it was as if we’d never parted. All that mattered was we were together. Or maybe it was that her hand, resting on my crotch, kept twitching. Regardless, I was feeling pretty good. That, of course, meant something had to ruin it. Without warning, Rachelle’s voice exploded inside my head. “Frank!”
I winced, jumping in my seat. Veronica sat up and looked at me like I’d let one rip. I could see the cabbie staring at me from the mirror, his eyes nervous. I tried my best to grin like nothing happened and turned into the seat so my voice would be somewhat muffled. I still didn’t trust trying to think my response, especially not with Veronica there stirring up my libido.
“I’m here.” Veronica raised her eyebrows, her eyes going wide. The cabbie just shook his head, no doubt regretting picking us up. I couldn’t say I blamed him.
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“We’ve been attacked.” I could hear Rachelle’s thoughts trembling. “Squads of Dread Fiends have struck at DRAC installations all across the city. Even worse, they’ve gone after our members at their homes.”
I hissed. “Is everyone okay?” I knew when I asked it was a foolish question.
Dread Fiends were the shock troops of the Demonarch. What they lacked in brains, they more than made up for in ferocity. More beast than anything, they were bred to fight, born to kill. They did both quite well.
I could hear the hesitation in her voice. “We’ve yet to assess the damage, but I fear for the worst. There are many of our brethren still out of contact. The fiends attacked in waves, picking targets spread too far apart to allow for quick or organized responses.” She paused, then continued as if having just been given new information. “Rahim has formed a search and repel party, but he is not optimistic he will be in time.”
I turned to look at Veronica. By her reaction, it was clear my face reflected my concern. “What do you need me to do, Rachelle? Should I join up with Rahim?”
Veronica must have realized what I was doing because her eyes narrowed and she sat back, listening and waiting for me to finish. She’d seen me do it before. The cabbie just drove faster. He knew crazy when he saw it and he wanted us out of his cab as fast as possible.
“There is little you can do, Frank. DRAC’s Page 176
headquarters are secure once more, and Rahim will do what he can for our people. Just be on the—”
I didn’t hear the rest because the cabbie stomped on the brakes. In unison, Veronica and I slammed into the divider between the seats. I felt a solid thud as the side of my head smacked into the plastic, pinning my face against it. My thoughts scrambled, the connection with Rachelle was lost.
We bounced back as suddenly as we hit, the car coming to a screeching halt. The two of us ended up in a tangled heap of limbs on the seat. It was like the game Twister, only minus the awkward sexual connotations.
“What the fuck are those things?” the cabbie shrieked, pointing at something in the street I couldn’t see, terror in his quaking voice.
I didn’t even need to look to know what he was asking about. With my luck, it could only be the Dread Fiends Rachelle was talking about. I whipped the door open and dove out, screaming at Veronica to do the same. She didn’t hesitate. On my heels, she hit the asphalt right after I did. Moving forward, I slapped the hood of the car and gestured for the cabbie to retreat. He wasted no time, grinding the gears into reverse, cursing the entire time. Spanish truly is an expressive language. With a choking cloud of burnt rubber swirling about us, I turned to face the fiends as the cab hurtled to safety.Clearly not human, four Dread Fiends stood in front of us as multiple rows of sharpened, rotten Page 177
black teeth grinned in their cadaverous mouths. Their leathery skin glistened with moist putrescence as a bubbling, yellowish-green fluid oozed from their pores. I wrinkled my nose as the bitter scent of rancid flesh wafted over us. I tried not to gag as it settled thickly in the back of my throat.
Though I’d seen many of the fiends before, it’d always been off in the distance. Their place was the far reaches of Hell, the soul pits, the torment fields. They didn’t mingle with infernal citizens, they were kept apart. I’d never had the odious pleasure of being so close to one of them. It wasn’t on my to-do list, that’s for sure.
Their elongated faces were chiseled in hard bone beneath shaggy mops of knotted, coal-black hair. Sharp yellow growths burst from beneath their waxy skin in bunches, making their faces look like the bastard sons of skeletal porcupines. Their oval eyes shone with an unnatural orange glimmer, focused to a murderous fine point on us. Thick muscles rippled across their wide torsos as they crouched and crept toward us, the sharpened talons on their hands twitching in eager anticipation of the blood to be spilled. Our blood. Less than thrilled about the prospect, I backed away slowly, pushing Veronica behind me as I angled toward the cover of a nearby abandoned tenement. They had no intention of letting us go. With ravenous snarls, which sent dancing shivers rattling down the Page 178
length of my spine, they charged.
I shoved Veronica toward the boarded-up building and yanked my .45 out of my waistband. In fluid motion, I swung the pistol up and squeezed the trigger as I went, foregoing accuracy for speed. Turned out, it really didn’t matter how fast I was. I was rewarded with a hollow click of an empty chamber. The gun had run dry.
I fumbled for another cartridge just as the first of the fiends reached me. I had barely ejected the empty clip, the fresh one nowhere near inserted, when the beast slammed into me. I likened the impact to being tackled by a Bullet Train; a stinky, greasy, hairy Bullet Train with claws. I felt my chest cave in as my legs, arms, and head were snapped forward only to whiplash back when we hit the wall behind us. Shards of brick exploded on impact, the wall cracking and giving way, tumbling down on top of us. A gray cloud of mortar dust choked the air as it billo
wed up around us. I felt the pressure on my chest give way some as the fiend, which lay on top of me, shrugged off the wreckage and stood up. Without mercy, it reared back, its claws shimmering in the hazy light, and slashed at me. I closed my eyes and tried my hardest to sink into the ground.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to rely on that highly overrated defensive maneuver. I heard a guttural gasp above me and felt the fiend pulled off, sliding past my Page 179
feet, and then it was gone. I opened my eyes in time to see Veronica Judo-tossing the stinky critter back toward his companions. It was a beautiful sight to behold.
“Get up!” she screeched.
Not waiting to see if I listened, she disappeared, the remnants of the wall blocking her from my sight. The fiends dodged their hurled buddy, which rolled past them to land in the street, and shot off after her en masse. They must have thought I was done. I muttered a curse and crawled to my feet. My head pounded out a tribal rhythm as my eyes swirled inside their sockets as I stood. I pushed down the nausea that bubbled in my gut and stumbled out of the hole. Despite it all, I knew what I had to do. I had to help Veronica. Outside, amidst the wreckage of the wall, I found my pistol. Without bothering to search for the loose clip, I pulled another from my belt and slipped it into the gun. I was priming the chamber just as the tossed fiend came lunging toward me to finish the job it started, its gnashing mouth spewing out graveledthroated growls. I showed it all the mercy it had shown me.
As quick as I could, I emptied the gun into the fiend. While my hands were shaking like a crack whore who needed a fix, my aim was true. One after another, each of the seven bullets ripped into the beast. The first struck it in the center of his face, which exploded in a Page 180
spray of vile rot. Its head whipped back as the second bullet caught it in the neck, silencing its growled complaints. The rest struck in rapid succession, each a little lower than the last as the force of the one before redirected the momentum of its upper body. The last bullet hit it in the abdomen with a gurgling thump. Wide eyed, the fiend slid to stop in front of me, its ruined head at my feet. I heard the click of the empty chamber, my hand still squeezing away, as I stared down at the fallen fiend. It wouldn’t be getting up. Still shaking, I was reloading the gun when I heard Veronica scream, her voice harsh, panicked. Without hesitation, I bolted off after her. At least I tried to. More injured than I thought, I stumbled, finding it difficult to put one foot in front of the other. My legs felt like Jell-o, my whole body wracked with pain. Unfortunately, Dread Fiends weren’t like the rest of demon-kind. Their souls, their power, didn’t transfer over on their deaths. I didn’t get a healing boost from the ugly bastard I’d just killed and that was gonna make things hard, considering there were three of them left. Between the beating Veronica had given me and the fiend, I was already half-done. That was when I heard Veronica cry out again and I realized my weakness would mean both of our deaths. I couldn’t let that happen. I resorted to something drastic. As I ran, I dug in my pocket and pulled out the wrapped vial of Lucifer’s blood. I gave silent thanks Page 181
to my uncle when I found it intact. Frenzied, I tore the washcloth off and popped the stopper. In one big gulp, I swallowed the contents, tossing the vial aside. It shattered against the wall as I raced around the corner to where I’d heard Veronica’s screams. What I saw turned my stomach.
In a whirling pile of demonic limbs, the fiends tore at Veronica like a pack of rabid hyenas on a fallen antelope. In the midst of it all, I could see her lashing out, fighting back against them. That gave me hope, albeit only a little. I sure wouldn’t be betting the house on her survival.
“Take your hands off—” my shout went unfinished as the full fury of Lucifer’s blood hit me, screaming through my veins.
My vision blurred and I felt my legs go out from underneath me. I hit the ground, my gun bouncing away across the asphalt. Numb and weak, I stared up at the out-of-focus fiends as they stopped their assault on Veronica and turned to glower at me. I got to my knees as the three barked amongst themselves, presumably about what to do. It didn’t take them but a second to decide. They did what they always do. They attacked.
One of the fiends grabbed Veronica and held her tight while the other two stalked toward me. I tried to stand to meet their approach, but felt my legs wobble hard. Once more, I collapsed. I started to worry. I’d Page 182
never taken so much of my uncle’s blood before. Though I knew what it would do in theory, I’d never had the courage to test it. Seemed I picked the wrong time for field trials.
Unlike when I had just sipped the blood, what I felt now was far from orgasmic. My veins burned as if molten lava rumbled through them. My skin felt two sizes too tight as my muscles throbbed beneath it, threatening to rip free. I could barely see through the haze that clouded my vision, my brain rattling about inside my head. I tried to stand again, but my body conspired against me. I felt heavy, as though someone had weighted me down with pocketfuls of lead. Unable to stand, I looked up at the fiends who smiled sharply back, realizing I was easy prey. I heard their teeth chatter and saw them pounce. I vaguely heard Veronica scream, her voice off in the distance, before the fiends were on me. I went down in a heap, incapable of holding them off.
I could see their claws tearing into me, but couldn’t feel them. Spurts of blood shot from the wounds, splattering us all in a scarlet rain. It pooled beneath us. I saw hunks of meat torn from my legs and torso, flung about like so much refuse. I watched in horror as one of the fiends went for the soft bits, its claws sinking into the flesh on the inside of my thighs, its snapping mouth closing in. My nerves came alive like a roadside flare.
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A screech like a million banshees filled the air, shattering nearby windows. Much to my surprise, it had come from me. The fiends paused, hovering above me, staring down in uncertainty as shards of glass tinkled down around them. I felt the pain of my wounds wash over me, but there was something else buried within it, something dark and ominous.
Something majestic.
As soon as the agony reared its head, it vanished, replaced by a soothing coldness that chilled me to the marrow. My mind and vision cleared a heartbeat later, my weakness vanished right after. Even more abruptly, I felt a power in me like I’d never felt before. It roared inside, straining against my rippling flesh to be free. I decided to oblige it.
I rolled away from the fiends, taking advantage of their confusion, and hopped to my feet. I laughed maniacally as I realized my wounds were healed. The missing chunks of flesh were regenerated in their entirety, leaving behind no trace save for the blood that still stained everything in dark shades of red and black. I clenched my fists, the cracking of my knuckles echoing loudly as I stared at the fiends. They simply stood there, uncertainty etched across their slack faces. I didn’t wait for them to pull it together, I went on the attack.
I leaped forward and drove my foot into the ribs of the fiend on the left. I heard a muffled snap as the Page 184
beast clutched its midsection and stumbled backward, bellowing a baleful howl. I didn’t wait to see where it ended up. I threw a right cross that caught the other fiend in the temple, before it could react. The blow knocked it sideways ten feet, where it crashed into the wall. It crumpled, eyes wide and unseeing. I glanced over at the one that held Veronica and it stared back with wide eyes. It stood there motionless, doing nothing to threaten me or Veronica. The fiend with the wounded rib didn’t have any such compunction. It launched itself at me, its claws extended forward. As surreal as it was, and as clichéd, it seemed as though it was moving in slow motion. I grinned as I took my time to set my footing, preparing for its arrival. Once it closed, I stepped out of its path and cinched my hands onto its wrists, redirecting its momentum into the ground. The fiend smashed into the asphalt, its face leading the way. Shards of teeth and bone spikes sprayed in all directions at the impact, blood and bittersmelling pus flowed right after. I heard a moist gurgle rumble from its throat as it th
rashed about in agony. Feeling less than merciful, I stomped down between its shoulder blades, my hands still wrapped around its wrist. I leaned my weight into it and rent its arm toward his back. I heard a pop and something that sounded like tearing paper as its shoulder came out of its socket, the tendons ripping free. It screamed and I shouted back, pulling even harder. I leaned further to Page 185
the side, twisting its wrist again and its pained scream turned into an eardrum-shattering screech. I didn’t let up as I felt the resistance grow tighter, then give way with a sudden snap. I stumbled off the fiend, regaining my balance a second later. I held a grisly trophy in my hands; the fiend’s arm.
In shock from the grievous wound, the creature shook violently, but stayed where it lay. Thick black blood spewed from its ravaged shoulder and ran down the street like a gory river. Satisfied it was out of the fight, I turned my attention to the fiend I’d stunned earlier. It had just begun to gather it senses and pull itself to its feet. That was unacceptable. I ran over to it, swinging the severed arm over my head. The fiend looked up just in time to see my weapon of choice. It cringed as the arm crashed into its skull. With a meaty thud, they collided, driving the fiend back to the ground. I discarded the arm, a surprisingly less effective weapon than one would think, and decided to go about this the old-fashioned way; pure and brutal ground and pound. Not giving the fiend the chance to defend itself, I pressed down on the back of its head and drove my knee into its face. The impact smashed its jaw, teeth exploding from its mouth. I felt it go limp, but I didn’t stop. Over and over again, I rammed my knee upward until the fiend’s face was nothing more than a seeping puddle that dribbled down its chest in shades of Page 186
reeking red and black.
Splattered in blood, my own and my enemies’, I spun about to face the last of the attacking fiends. I was surprised to find only Veronica there, staring at me through a mask of cuts and bruises. She wobbled on her feet.
