by James Hunter
The smell of red-sauce and grilled meat drifted from the kitchen, while the faint aroma of cigarettes and stale pot filled the room. I could hear a handful of muffled voices, mixed with the clink and scrape of silverware. The soft blare of a television, from elsewhere, carried the nasally laugh of Sponge Bob, followed shortly by the high-pitched shrieks of delighted children. Maybe my mind had been fried by the tranquilizers, because I couldn’t figure this out.
I went through the last few things I could remember:
I’d been pumped full of tranquilizers, busted a hole in the back wall of The Full House, got shot in the ass, and had, eventually, passed out in dog pee under a car. Right?
So how’d I ended up Saran-wrapped to a table in white-picket suburbia? This was too small-time to be the Kings, which meant Morse had found me. But why bring me here, of all places?
It didn’t make a damn lick of sense. Morse and the Saints must have had buildings better suited to holding captives, like that bar of theirs—or maybe a clubhouse or even an auto body shop—but not a place where there would be children present. Generally, bad guys don’t torture people in front of their kids. That’s taboo even for the worst of the worst.
A safehouse maybe? No, I doubted it. This living room felt … too lived in. Yeah, that was it. The piled junk mail on the table, the worn and picked through novels on the bookcase, the overall care of the abode. It all spoke of a loving, if busy, hand.
There was also a faint energy lingering in the air, kind of like the hot, muggy atmosphere of a New Orleans night—a palpable, if unseen force. It was the slow, dull, power that builds up around a home with a domicilium seal. Wherever I was, it was a place where people lived; a place where dishes were done and meals cooked, where teeth were brushed, and good night kisses issued. This house carried the weight of reality, charged overtime by the mundane and commonplace—it was more than merely a house, it was a home. There was only one reason I could think of for bringing me to a place like this …
A glance at the antique wall-clock, hanging by the TV, confirmed my suspicion: Five PM. I’d been out for nearly fifteen hours. It also meant it was Saturday evening and that the nightmare, who’d been tearing up LA, was only a few hours away from putting in its weekly horror-show performance.
Here I was, strapped to a table among Morse and his crew—a tasty appetizer for whatever was going to rip its way through the front door when the sun fell.
Morse was planning to use the seal of this home to try and ward off whatever had been targeting their club members over the past month. Morse may not have looked like much of a threat, but he was smart—the home’s natural seal would be more likely to stop a supernatural baddy than all the humdrum human security defenses folks usually employ: concrete, bricks, razor-wire, or guns. Admittedly, those things are awfully handy to have around, even when the enemy you’re dealing with has claws, fangs, or gooey tentacle thingies.
Never underestimate the power of good ol’ vanilla human ingenuity.
The scrape of a chair cut off my thoughts—someone was sitting not far behind me, just out of view.
“He’s awake, boss,” said the sentry, his voice filled with the sounds of slight panic. “He’s moving around—what should I do?”
A door opened and the stifled sounds of eating spilled out with greater clarity for a brief moment, before the door swung shut.
Someone drew near, given away by the muffled sound of footfalls on carpet.
“You sure know how to show a guy a good time,” I said. “Good scotch, gun fights, intravenous fluids, and even Saran-wrap—pretty kinky.”
“Glad to see the tranquilizers didn’t do any permanent brain damage,” replied Morse, “would’ve been a real shame to lose such a sharp wit and keen mind.”
“I’m glad you recognize my invaluable gift to humanity—I am the great philosopher of our age, you know.”
“Obviously,” he said.
His tone annoyed the piss outta me. It was the same tone a long-suffering adult might use with a particularly petulant and dense child. I had thirty years on this guy, easy—age has to count for something, right?—though I suppose I could’ve been a little more grown-up considering the seriousness of my circumstance. But hey, if you can’t crack a few jokes when the chips are down, what’s the point of living? Sure, you can tranquilize me, shoot me, strap me to a table, feed me to a demon, or bore me to death with bad villain monologues, but you can’t make me something other than I am.
“Has your keen philosophical insight given you some clue why you’re alive?” Morse asked, drawing into my periphery.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve given it some thought, but it’s generally not my policy to divulge valuable info to the guy who’s holding me hostage.”
“Okay, Yancy—maybe it’s better you don’t talk anymore. That big mouth of yours is tempting me to put a bullet in your head, on principle.” He took a deep breath, pulled a padded folding chair into view, turned it around, and straddled it with a hunter’s ease. “Let me lay a few things out for you, so that you know why you’re alive and how things are going to go down tonight.”
“Please do tell,” I said.
He pulled out his Ruger and set it on the table, six-inches away, muzzle aimed at my head. “How ‘bout you just try real hard to listen.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“I don’t think you’re the asshole behind this and I don’t think you’re the fucker responsible for calling up this demon, or whatever. So I’m gonna take a gamble on you—I’ve got the whole crew here. The twenty one members left, plus their girlfriends, wives, and kids. Everyone. Can’t tell who the Conjurer’s gonna pick, so if we’re all here, the monster has to come here. Right?”
“That’s a terrible idea. If your plan falls through it’s going to be a massacre.”
“Yeah,” he said. “If this thing goes tits-up, it’s gonna go tits-up for everyone.” He pointed a finger at me, “You included. I figure we got a better shot of winning this way though. We’ll fight when we’re at our strongest instead of waiting to get picked off one family at a time. And, assuming you’re on the level, we’ll have you too. Best game plan I can think of.”
Reckless, foolhardy, and borderline suicidal, but as plans go, it wasn’t bad I guess—kinda courageous even. He was willing to do terrible things for power and money, but he was also willing to die for his people. That didn’t make him a good man, but it did make him more than a hoodlum and thug.
People like Morse were the reason mankind is at the top of the food chain, even though there are creatures from Outworld whom are smarter, bigger, stronger, and more powerful. Humanity as a whole is an evil bunch of bastards, but when push comes to shove, the villagers can put aside their inner devils and take up the pitchforks and torches against a common enemy.
Still though, talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.
“Now, I admit I could be wrong about you,” he said after a time. “You might well be the fucker calling up the demon, so I’ve worked out a vetting process. I figure if the demon does show, you must be innocent—you couldn’t be the asshole responsible for calling it since I’ve got you here, right under my eye. Now, in this scenario, the demon shows, you get to live, and you help save all our asses. Following?”
“So far,” I said.
“But, if the demon doesn’t show … I’m gonna think that maybe you are the Conjurer and I’m gonna blast you into little pieces just to be on the safe side.”
I’ll say it again, Morse is one smart crook. I mean, I knew I wasn’t the bad guy, but Morse couldn’t be sure of that. This was a pretty solid vetting process and gave him the best of both worlds: if I was “guilty” he’d smoke me well and good, and if not, then he’d have a Fix-It man mage backing his play.
“So, you gonna play nice, or should I just cap your ass now?” he asked.
“I get my stuff back right?” I asked. “I’m gonna need my gear—and also being cut loose would be pretty handy.”
At a quarter to seven, I found myself standing in a room which hardly resembled the one I’d woken up in—a room made ready for war. Couches and tables had been up-ended with sandbag barriers erected in front of each, a maze of potential covered shooting positions. Thick boards secured over the windows, the back door reinforced with thick gauge steel, while the front door stood wide-open, save for the thin screen. An open challenge if I’d ever seen one. Morse and his crew didn’t intend to merely fend off their territory, they meant to kill whatever walked into this home.
The bikers had likewise undergone a similar metamorphosis as they prepared for the fight. All had donned para-military gear over their leathers: thick, beige flak jackets—sporting SAPI plates, no less—drop pouches, and about a million magazines each. And there were guns. Lots of guns. SAW M249 light machine guns. A refurbished M240. Couple of AA12 machine shotties—shotguns featuring a 32-shell drum and a fire rate of 300 rounds per minute. And a whole slew of customized, military-grade M-4s.
The fifteen men arrayed themselves in a staggered semi-circle, laying out unrestricted lanes of fire, ensuring that the only thing in line for a bullet was whatever came through the door. Or me. I was the front line defense, positioned squarely in the middle of the room, with the door to my front and all of those heavy-duty armaments fanning out behind me.
If this friggin’ demon stood us up, these guys would riddle me full of bullets like a target at a firing range, and I’d be hard pressed to stop them. The drugs had worn off, sure, so I had access to the Vis again and I even had all of my gear. But this room was a friggin’ death trap. Deflecting handgun rounds from a few shooters is one thing. Stopping a hailstorm of high-caliber bullets, fired from multiple positions, is another thing entirely.
Dying light trickled in around the curtains. Only a few scant minutes till the lights went down and the curtain came up on the evening monster movie. I could feel the tension growing in the room, mounting ever higher as the sun traced its course for the horizon. I tried to ignore it, focusing instead on all the half-formed constructs I had waiting for the party guest. In the hour Morse had given me to prepare, I’d cooked up some real doozies: all big hitters that’d land like a super-charged punch from Mike Tyson.
I was tired of getting ambushed—pushed around, kicked in the teeth, and generally made to look like an imbecile. Yraeta’s guys had caught me unaware in the Big Easy, the Rakshasa had ninja sneak-attacked me in Las Cruces, and Morse had caught me with my pants down at The Full House. It was my turn now, someone or something was about to have a helluva bad night, which made me smile a little bit, a feral grin.
All that was left to do now was wait—wait and hold all of my ungainly constructs in place—but it wouldn’t be long. There was power in the night and I wasn’t the only one who felt it either. A quick glance around the room showed me necks and arms tensing, fingers easing toward triggers.
The energy building and rippling through the ethereal plane signaled the ritual was under way, approaching like some kind of fast, yet unseen, tsunami. The Conjurer was close—maybe within a hundred mile radius of this location—an important piece of the puzzle, which I filed away for later examination. There was no time for thinking now though. No time for fear or anxiety, or room for speculation and self-doubt. I was present, a knife being drawn from the sheath, a trigger squeezed tight just before the point of firing.
A dark energy seeped through the ceiling, an invisible mass of vile power, composed of thin strands of fire, wrapped in thick cables of earth and air, tied and bound with pillars of will, and immersed throughout with the Vim that comes from a taken life. Something—maybe a small animal or even several—had been sacrificed to help power the summoning.
That energy latched on to one of Morse’s men: Uncle Frank, the good-natured, tree-trunk-armed guy from the bar—he would act as the anchor and the homing beacon for the summoned fiend. He was the primary target.
“I’m running out of patience,” Morse said, his voice echoing around the room.
Morse’s impatience was misplaced though, the waiting was over. A gargantuan form, shrouded in darkness and obscured by the grainy texture of the screen, manifested not ten feet from the front door.
THIRTEEN:
Fight Night
I didn’t wait for the creature to get close enough to start throwing punches. I was well prepared and ready to figuratively smack the thing right in the damned kisser. My first defensive trap had been inlaid into the front lawn and concrete walkway: a seething mass of razor-thin strands of earth and rock, all looped about and reinforced with weaves of water and held together by my overburdened will. The creature surged forward with the speed and power of a stampeding elephant, but it didn’t matter, all I had to do was release the pent up Vis stored in the ground. It was the matter of a thought.
Before the beast had gone three steps, a small forest of scalpel-sharp spikes, three-feet high—some the width of my wrist, some only the size of my pinky finger—leapt from the ground. The yard turned into something that vaguely resembled a porcupine. The spikes were a real piece of work. Instead of fortifying the LA top soil, I’d reached deep into the earth, pulling from the igneous and metamorphic bedrock, rapidly heating and cooling the substance until only scalpel sharp obsidian remained.
The spikes tore through the thing’s feet and legs, gouged into its groin, and left it pinned in a pool of oozing black sludge.
The attack should’ve been a deathblow and it surely would have been to any mortal unlucky enough to end up on that lawn.
The creature was no mortal.
A dreadful growl of frustration and pain rang through the night like a tornado siren, setting off car-alarms, while dogs of all sizes took up a howling chorus. A hurricane of force and will exploded from the pinned creature, turning my neatly manicured yard of death-spikes into a whirlwind of shrapnel—glittering obsidian blasted through the door and into the living room proper like a swarm of venomous bees.
“DOWN!” I roared, as I thrust out my left hand, bringing my second defensive construct to bear. A shimmering bank of reddish fog coalesced into the air before me, fanning outward across the room and upward toward the ceiling. This was a super-charged version of the friction shield I’d use in the alley against Yraeta’s thugs—it would superheat the incoming projectile particles, breaking them down into smaller less harmful particulates, while simultaneously deflecting and dispersing forward inertia. In theory the plan was great—I’ve used this construct loads of times without ever having an issue.
But the incoming projectiles weren’t bullets, they were thin pieces of sharp obsidian glass. My shield worked exactly as intended: it obliterated the large rough-cut pieces, resulting in a swirling cloud of glittering glass dust. The shit would temporarily—or perhaps even permanently—blind anyone who was unlucky enough to get a face full of the stuff. Smooth move Yancy … that’s why you’re the expert getting paid the big bucks.
I heard several men—the few who had been too short sighted to don ballistic goggles—let out shrieks of agony as the powdered glass contacted their eyes. I let two of my partially formed defensive workings unravel, refocusing that pent-up energy into a large column of air, which sucked inward with a thunderclap of sound, before propelling the obsidian particulate cloud out through the front door and squarely into the face of the incoming creature. It dazed the approaching horror momentarily, but then the creature shrugged the stuff off like an MMA fighter getting slugged by a four-year-old.
That’s the awful reality of fighting things from Outworld—they almost always have the advantage in virtually every imaginable department. Attacks that would easily wipe out a small army of mortals were a mild inconvenience to many things from the darker regions of existence. The cards are stacked heavily against us, I’m afraid. In some ways, I guess, that kind of gives humanity an edge, even if only in an unconventional sense.
Things like this are always overconfident, always underestimat
ing what we, the little people, can put together with a little foresight. Often this means they never see the cliff until it’s too late. This King Kong shit-head was standing right on the edge and I was gonna push it over.
Long talon-tipped fingers—rubbery black, slick, and each the size of a banana—ripped at the screen door, tearing the fragile aluminum structure from the house and pitching it into the air, quickly swallowed by the dark of the night. That was okay, the screen door had been the foci for my mega defensive construct. By removing the screen from the home, the creature triggered my housewarming surprise.
A freight train of force walloped into the black-skinned hulk, driving the thing through the evening air like a golf ball sent sailing down the fairway. Perhaps the creature wouldn’t have ripped the door off its frame had it seen all of the Vis embedded sticky notes I’d plastered to the backside—nearly a hundred of the little buggers. Individually, they wouldn’t have done much to the monster, when bound together, however, their cumulative effect was spectacular.
As the thing glided through the night, spinning topsy-turvy with a degree of grace impossible for a creature so large, the second prong of my construct lashed out. The house itself discharged a shimmering red-gold mist, the nebulous haze of a small sun, which coalesced into a tightly woven net of super-heated, lightning-fast energy. The net intercepted the beast midflight, wrapping around it like a second skin. Thin razor wires of golden power bit into slick flesh, carving out squares of black skin that splattered to the street below. A patter of wet thuds.
Ha! Eat that, ass-hat! Power through superior planning.
The last phase of my three-pronged defense came into play before the creature smacked into the light pole across the street and three houses over. The energy net continued to burn with the power of a small personal sun, yet I’d designed it to undergo a metamorphosis as it neared the end of its short-lived life. Originally, I’d fueled the net by pumping a ton of raw Vis into it. Once it had consumed all of that pre-stored energy, it drew in energy, specifically heat, from its surroundings. The temperature at the center of the net dropped to a hundred or more below zero—a layer of frost flash-formed over the thing’s pebbly hide.
