by D V Wolfe
“I know you can’t do anything about the stone right now. I’m talking to contacts, trying to figure out what the best thing to do with it would be. So far, throwing it into a block of hardening concrete and throwing that into the middle of the ocean is all we’ve got.”
“I like that plan,” I said. “What about shooting it into space?”
“Have you seen the price of rocket fuel these days? It’s highway robbery,” Nya said. “Seriously though, Bane. You have to watch your back. These demons are closing in. They’re circling you, just waiting for the right opportunity to pounce.” Oh, Nya. So dramatic. I allowed myself a grin. Nya couldn’t see it anyway. She told me once that she had been an actor in college and sometimes the dramatics came out of her as easily as breathing.
“Like a bunch of cats?” I asked. “Should I just roll myself in catnip and get a mouse toy to draw them out?”
“Well since you’ve already installed the litter box where your brain used to be, I say, go to town,” Nya said. She paused and her voice didn’t have a trace of sarcasm in it when she spoke again. “You know what I mean, Bane. You have to be ready.”
I sighed. “Nya, I’ve got loaded guns, some demon-killing shish kabobs, and I’m on the move. What more can I do to be ‘ready’?”
“I don’t think those demon stakes are going to be enough,” Nya said. “Not against anything above the level of Empty House demons.”
“You’re just giving me all kinds of hope right now,” I said.
“Well, hang on,” Nya said. “I think there might be another way to kill them. I’m about to meet up with someone who has a lead on a super that might have what we need.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“A sword,” Nya said.
“A sword,” I said. “Can I hold it towards the sky and invoke the power of Greyskull with it?”
“No,” Nya said. “You can use it to kill these asshole demons.”
“What makes you think some sword will work?” I asked.
“I’ve come across this particular sword in several places in the lore I’ve been reading. It’s called the Ukkin sword. It was forged by the archangel Uriel to vanquish demons but was stolen and no one’s seen it since,” Nya said.
“Sounds like a good bedtime story,” I said. “And you think you’ve found someone who knows where it is?”
“We’ll see,” Nya said. “I’m meeting him this afternoon. If he gives me something I can work with, I’ll keep digging until I track the super down.”
At Sicily, I’d had to face a few things like how much the people in my life meant to me and Nya was my sister, so I had to cut in. “And then you’re going to call me to come with you to get the damn thing from the super,” I said. “You’re not going after that thing by yourself, right?”
Nya sighed. “Fine.”
I grinned. “Feels different when the demands are being made of you instead of by you, huh?”
“Yeah,” Nya said. “I’m not a fan.”
We were rolling down a long stretch of countryside. Lucy lurched suddenly and there was a hard grinding noise coming from under the hood.
“What’s that?” Nya asked.
“I don’t know,” I said as Lucy sputtered and smoke began to come out from under the hood. “Something’s wrong with Lucy. I need to look her over.” I pulled to the side of the road, eased into neutral, and stepped on the parking brake. “Call me after you meet with your contact,” I said.
“Will do.”
“And be careful,” I said.
“I will if you will,” Nya said.
I hung up the phone and looked at Noah. “Well, don’t just sit there, pit crew, go find out what’s wrong with her.”
Noah looked at me blank-faced, his eyes wide. I snorted and kicked my door open.
“You’re a jerk, Bane,” Noah muttered. I heard Lucy’s passenger side door squeak open.
“I know,” I said. “I’m just pissing everyone off today.”
3
I popped the hood up and stood over the engine, glaring, hands-on-hips. This was unprecedented. Lucy never had trouble. That was part of the deal. My ‘soul tab’ or whatever hoodoo they were using to track my topside expenditures would take care of the cost of her gas, but my lawyer had made sure that Lucy had a few specialty clauses rolled into the process. She had a set of tags that disguised, confused, and redirected any Johnny Law that was itching to pull us over, and she was supposed to have something like a supernatural engine that would mean I wouldn’t waste my time getting her fixed. That was how it had been for the almost ten years I’d been at this. Granted, she’d sat in a junkyard behind Tags’ house in Prosper for three of those years while I was waiting on Empty House number three downstairs, but Tags had told me that every six months he’d look her over and she was pristine. I stared down at her engine and I couldn’t see anything that was apparently wrong.
“Do you think it’s the carburetor?” Noah asked.
I looked over at him. “Do you know much about cars?” Noah looked like he was going to nod but then his eyes met mine and he shook his head. “Well if it was black smoke coming out of the tailpipe, then I’d say you were right on the money, Mr. Zeppelin,” I said. “But white smoke usually means that something is amiss with the coolant getting into the fuel line.”
I leaned over the engine and started pointing out components and doing checks on the fluid levels, explaining things to Noah as we went. The road around us was silent, not another car drove by while we were working. Finally, I stepped back and went to get a rag out of the toolbox for Noah and I to wipe our hands on. I’d just opened the lid and started digging around when I heard the sound of a car approaching. Even from a distance, I could see it was a black SUV. I let myself breathe for a moment. I wasn’t sure if I was more thankful or disappointed that it wasn’t a Lincoln Town Car, driven by Sister Smile, coming right at us. We had to find her and get Joel out of this mess I’d gotten him into. Then, I needed to end Sister Smile. She could already be recruiting new members to her tribe. She knew her game. She was much stronger in numbers than by herself. The only reason she probably felt safe at the moment was that she had Joel to use as a bargaining chip, knowing that if push came to shove, I was going to let her go in exchange for Joel. I moved back in front of Lucy and handed the rag to Noah before leaning back over the engine to check the seals that I could see.
I expected the SUV to speed past us, but the sound of the car slowing down made me pause. Then, there was the crunch of gravel as it pulled to the side of the road behind Lucy.
“Good samaritans,” I chuckled to Noah. “Do you want to go let them know that we’re fine and they can move along?”
“Bane, what if we’re not fine? What if we need to get a tow? Maybe they can help.”
I looked over at him. “Noah, this truck is almost supernatural itself. We’ve checked all the obvious possibilities of what could be wrong and found nothing. What’s a mechanic going to do? Our next step is going to be calling Festus and figuring out how to get the demon triple-A up here to get us back on the road.”
Noah still looked torn, but he nodded, handed me back the rag, and headed around the passenger side of Lucy. I heard car doors open as I swiped at something black on the outside of one of the hoses. I could hear talking and Noah protesting, telling them we were fine. I swiped at the substance and then brought it close to my face. The smell of sulfur struck me first. The black substance was either ectoplasm or one of the liquids that leaked out of demons. I didn’t want to think too hard about which one of their liquids it could be. The voices were louder now. I backed up and closed Lucy’s hood. I moved around to the driver’s side and paused to watch Noah in action. Noah was standing with his back to me and his hands in the air telling them again that we were just fine and they could head on their way. In front of him were three men and one woman, all wearing black suits and sunglasses. Apparently, they’d just come from filming a police procedural drama.
“Rea
lly,” Noah was saying. “We’re fine. Please don’t trouble yourselves.”
“Oh it’s no trouble,” the man at the front said. He had slicked-back hair that made him look like a casino pit boss and he was flicking his right wrist, almost like a nervous tick. “We know a thing or two about this truck.”
Noah wasn’t talking now, he seemed as if he was rooted to the spot. The man in the front took his sunglasses off and I saw his red eyes as they locked onto me. “Hello, Bane. We’re here to take you back home. The big house hasn’t been the same without you.”
Time was moving too quickly. The four demons had drawn guns. Three of them waited, watching the pit boss demon. “I want her. You grab the kid,” he boomed at them.
Like hell they would. I would have added ‘over my dead body’ but I didn’t want to jinx myself. I yanked Lucy’s door open and dove in sideways. I heard his shots ricochet off the driver’s side door and one drilled me in the shoe, taking a bite out of the side of my right foot.
“Son of a bitch,” I yelled, through gritted teeth. I’d left my sawed-off in the toolbox because of its illegal status and the fact that we’d been posing as FBI agents. Of course, now, I wished I’d thought to put it back in the cab before we got back on the road. I pulled the seat forward and came up with the ten-gauge. The back window shattered and I ducked as I rolled the cylinder to find it was fully loaded. Good on ya, Noah, for taking the initiative. I usually didn’t leave the ten-gauge loaded because it didn’t have a safety catch and with my luck, I’d take a corner too fast and blow my ass off. I leaned out the driver’s side door and fired in the demon’s general direction before dipping back inside. The rock salt must have connected with someone because there was screaming.
“Grab the kid!” The pit boss demon screamed again, laying on the ground and holding his leg. I scrambled out of the cab and tucked the ten-gauge into my shoulder. I really had to give Noah some mad props when this was over. I had forgotten just how hard the ten-gauge kicked. I marched straight at them, two of them were trying to get Noah over their shoulder. He was fighting them. When the pit boss demon had taken fire, it must have interrupted the enchantment he was putting on Noah with that wrist motion. Noah scrambled free and hit the ground. One of the demons trying to get Noah off the ground was bent over, ass towards me. I blasted him and he fell forward screaming and grabbing his ass and then his head after it came into contact with the asphalt. The cylinder clicked in rotation and I fired again, hitting the other demon in the side as she struggled to drag Noah towards the SUV. She let go of Noah and fell to the ground beside him, grabbing her side and screaming. Noah let out a string of curse words and curled into a fetal position on the ground, covering his head.
“Sorry!” I yelled at Noah. I looked around. That was three down. The fourth one was scrambling back for the SUV. Screw these fuckers, they weren’t getting away this easily. Noah was grabbing Lucy’s bumper and dragging himself to his feet.
“Assholes,” I heard him mutter.
“Grab the sawed-off out of the toolbox,” I yelled at him, moving towards the last demon, the ten-gauge still tight to my shoulder.
Noah half-fell, half-ran around the truck, and I heard the clang of the toolbox lid. The fourth demon was scrambling with the keys in his hand, trying to get the driver’s side door unlocked. This had to be the demon ‘C’ or ‘D’ team at most. Who locks their car when they pull over to kill and kidnap people on a deserted road? And besides the ‘pit boss’ demon, none of them could shoot or seemed to even know how the guns in their hands worked. The last time they were topside could have been pre-firearms. I shot the last demon in the side and he hit the ground, screaming as the rock salt penetrated his skin. Beside me, Noah was back, two handing the sawed-off.
“Cover me,” I said and I set the ten-gauge down on Lucy’s bumper to grab the pit boss demon. He was heavy and I ended up having to drag him. This was not easy. He was squirming, trying to get away and that was making him scream louder due to the pain from the rock salt wound in his leg and crotch. I dragged him past the driver’s side door and opened the door to the back seat of the SUV. He was cursing at me and spitting, his eyes bright red and full of hate. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “You assholes want me home to carve the turkey but family dinners with you all are a real drag.” My voice had a considerably higher amount of bravado than I felt. The fact was, October 31st, 2020 was my last night on earth, just as November 1st, 2010 had been my first. Well, since 1952. I would be back in Hell for the holidays.
The demon was spitting and seething in Enochian now and I thanked myself again for not wasting valuable topside time in becoming fluent. He was muttering something and I recognized the word mother in it. I didn’t think I needed a translator to guess what he was calling me. I punched him in the face, making him fall back sideways into the seat so that I could cram his legs in behind him. I hit the interior lock and closed the door. If this was this demon’s first time with a modern automobile, it might take him a minute to figure out the door lock situation. I turned to the scrawny demon on the ground by the driver’s side door and I tried to get the keys away from him. He was rolling around, trying to stuff them under himself and roll over on top of them like a seal.
“That’s just fucking embarrassing,” Noah said. I had to agree. I put the toe of my bloody sneaker against the wound in his side from the rock salt and he screamed and turned over. He still had the car keys in his hand and I ended up having to stand on his hand to get him to release them. I picked them up and tossed them at Noah. He didn’t catch them but he moved to stand on them so that the demon wearing the woman, who was still down by his feet couldn’t pick them up. He pointed the sawed-off down at her and she rolled away from him. I grabbed Mr. No Keys Anymore and was inwardly thankful that he was built like Noah. I had him under one arm and I yanked the SUV driver’s side door open, catching him with it on the top of his head. He let out a muffled yell.
“Sorry,” I muttered. He squirmed feebly but for the most part didn’t put up as much of a fight as the pit boss who was now rocking the SUV from side to side, trying to figure out how to unlock the door by forcing it. I had to pick up speed. I stuffed skinny guy behind the wheel and locked his door before slamming it shut.
“Aren’t we going to stake them?” Noah asked.
“Yeah,” I said with a grunt as I grabbed the woman at Noah’s feet under the arms and started dragging her towards the car. “But I only have the one stake left and it’s lost some of its coating. I thought about just asking them to stand in an orderly line but I thought they might not be into that.” I stuffed the woman into the passenger’s side, locked and shut her door and hustled back to Lucy.
“What about this guy?” Noah called to me as I dug through the toolbox. “Should I shoot him again? He’s trying to stand up.”
“Stand on his crotch,” I called to Noah, grabbing the roll of salted tape. I ran back to the SUV and started running a line of salted tape down the door seam of the driver’s side door. The skinny demon inside watched me in horror and tried the door handle but he hadn’t figured out how to unlock it either. The boss demon was more of a problem. He let out a roar and started trying to break the window as I ran the tape. He yanked at the lock on the inside and then kicked the door open and into my gut before I’d gotten the tape half the way down. He knocked the air out of me and I stumbled back, but I caught myself before I fell. Something about him getting the door open triggered a blaze of anger inside me and all the frustration I had because I couldn’t find Sister Smile and Joel, and because of these fucking demons that wanted me dead, converged together. I threw my whole weight behind the door to slam it shut again. There was the sickening crack of what sounded like bone and then the interior of the SUV was filled with the muffled howling and screams of the pit boss demon. Something hit the ground at my feet and I looked down to see two severed fingers. The ring and the middle finger. Pity. I finished running the tape and sprinted around to do the other backseat door. He wa
s still screaming and rolling around in the backseat, black blood coating the inside of the SUV windows. The demon wearing the woman in the passenger seat was leaning forward, her eyes vacantly watching me, her forehead resting against the glovebox. Yeah, definitely the ‘D’ team, except maybe for the pit boss in the back seat. I thought about running a line along the back doors but they wouldn’t be able to open them from the inside anyway. Noah was standing tentatively on the last demon’s crotch and he was definitely taking advantage of Noah’s hesitance to be brutal. He was squirming, causing Noah to lose the ability to watch the SUV and him at the same time. Noah had to keep hopping around on one foot to keep a foot on the guy’s crotch.
I put my hands on Noah’s shoulders and moved him to the side. “You’ll wear yourself out that way.” I landed a heel kick to the guy’s groin and he went immobile, his legs coming up, curling him into a fetal position.
“You bitch,” he fumed, his voice coming out in a whisper as angry foam collecting at the corner of his mouth.
“That’s how you know you hit the sweet spot,” I said to Noah, patting him on the back.
“It’s just, he’s a dude too. I mean, I know he’s not because he’s a demon but still, it just didn’t feel right to kick a guy in the crotch,” Noah said. The demon still had his shades on and I reached down and snatched them off his head. The demon’s red eyes were murderous and almost glowing. “Ok,” Noah said with a nod. “That helps.”
“Now remember,” I said. “He starts squirming again…”
“Crack his nuts,” Noah finished. I climbed into Lucy’s bed and moved back to the toolbox.
“What are you doing now?” Noah asked.
“Stake, Noah. Since it was the last one, didn’t we wrap it in a plastic bag to keep the coating from falling off, and put it in the toolbox on the passenger side?”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “It’s in that cardboard box of fairy crap from Kess.”
