A Grim Situation

by Whit McClendon

  “Look with your heart?” Jim mocked Ariana’s tone. “What kind of bullshit is this? Let’s see some ID!”

  “Wait a minute, Jim.” Avery’s voice was quiet but firm, and although he was still confused, Jim shut his mouth with a snap.

  Avery’s eyes never left mine. I could feel the energy around her, slowly rising and swirling as she stared at me. Her power had an unusual feel to it, and although I couldn’t put my finger on where, it dawned on me that I’d felt it before. I remained still as she regarded me, my hands raised, my stance unthreatening. Ordinarily, I’d be frustrated with anything that got in the way of our investigation. I was built to kill bad guys, and I love my work. Cops tend to run in slow motion compared to what I’m used to, and they just get in the way. That said, everything in me felt that it was important to make peace with this woman. When I get a feeling that strong, I’ve learned that it’s foolish, even dangerous, for me to ignore it. All I could do was wait and hope that she came to the understanding that we were on the same team. More or less.

  The moment stretched on forever, and I felt her power tentatively reach out for me, gently caressing me, getting a sense of who I was. I doubt she even knew how she was doing it. I let her energy mingle with mine for a few seconds, and then felt it retreat. It was strong, as strong as any I’d felt in a long while. I heard her sigh, and her gun finally lowered. Keeping her eyes on me, she slowly shook her head, then slipped her gun back in its holster.

  “All right,” she sighed, “Let’s just say that I believe you two about all of this. What now?” She nodded to Jim, and he also put away his gun. He still didn’t look thrilled about it.

  My eyes flicked over to Ariana and we both relaxed and slowly lowered our hands. “We’ll look around and see what we can find. You already stumbled across his computer files,” I said. “Ariana can look at those safely without triggering any of the spells that might be present in the text.”

  “Seriously?” Jim scoffed. “You were talking about actual magical spells?”

  “Yep!” Ariana said brightly. “Look, I told you that you might not believe it at first. There is an awfully big world out there that you don’t know anything about. We would leave you out of it if we could, but unless you’re willing to walk away from this right now, you’re about to have your eyes opened to some very interesting and scary stuff. But you’ll have to trust that what we say is true. What’ll it be?”

  Jim’s expression remained skeptical. Pretty much what I expected from him. I glanced at Ariana and sent my thoughts to her. I think it’s best if they don’t know what I am until it’s absolutely necessary for them to know.

  Gotcha, Ariana replied quickly, I’ll be the witchy one. Hey, can you help me out a little here? Help me put on a little show for them? Most of my good stuff isn’t very flashy, and might be dangerous in here.

  I smiled. Sure. Hold up one hand and say something fancy. I’ll do the rest.

  Ariana slowly raised her right hand as if she was about to swear an oath. “I’m going to cast a small spell. It won’t hurt you. Ready?” Without waiting for their response, she uttered a few sharp words in old German, something about a cat in a doghouse. I cast a simple glamour around her raised hand, and it suddenly burst into intense flames. Avery and Jim gasped at the sight and took a step back, but did not draw their guns again. Their eyes were wide as they stared at her hand, a brightly flaming torch. Ariana let it burn for a few seconds, slowly gesturing for effect. When she figured they’d seen enough, she said another few words, shaking her hand as if to put the fire out. I let the illusion die, and watched the two detectives try to wrap their minds around the fact that magick was actually a thing.

  I began to speak, gently lacing my words with a calming enchantment. Jim responded right away, as I saw the tension leave his body. I didn’t know how much of it would get through to Avery, but she was no longer on the defensive, and whatever natural shield she had against my power might have fallen away when she relaxed. At least, I hoped so. “Magick is real. A great many of the creatures you believe to be myths and bedtime stories are also real. You don’t see them because they don’t wish you to, and they use illusions to keep themselves hidden from humans. Many of those creatures are harmless, some are quite dangerous. There are real witches out there as well. Most of them are good, very much so, in fact. They use their skills and talents to help others at every opportunity.” I gestured at Ariana, “She is one of the good ones.” Ariana smiled and gave a little salute. I continued, “Unfortunately, there are also those who would use magick to harm others for their own benefit, or amusement. Very bad people. Evil witches and sorcerers dabble in dark arts that are not only dangerous, but they corrupt those who use them. Where they might have only been assholes before, they become truly evil, and can cause a lot of pain and suffering for innocents who get in their way. I’m sworn to stop those assholes wherever I can.”

  Avery’s grey-green eyes bored into me as I spoke. When I fell silent, she glanced at her partner, who was already looking at her to get her take on this new information. His brows furrowed, and then he spoke in a low voice, “Witches? Magick? How exactly do you suggest we write that up in the report?”

  Avery paused in thought, then started to speak. I don’t know what she was going to say, though, because that’s when the back door was ripped off its hinges and an impossibly loud hissing filled the room like a thousand angry cobras on steroids. My eyes darted to the now-open doorway and what I saw there…what’s that they say…? Oh, yes…shit just got real.

  Chapter 10

  The moment he stepped into view, Avery felt the icy-cold shock of recognition. It’s him, it’s him, oh God, it’s him, and the little girl that lived deep inside her started screaming.

  She had always felt things about people. Her intuition was always dead on, even when she’d initially been confused about what it was telling her. She’d learned to trust it over the years without thinking too hard about it. It was just a part of her, like the sound of her heart beating or the way she breathed hard when she trained. Most of the time, that intuition was present but not overpowering. But when Kane appeared in the open doorway, her senses almost overwhelmed her. His power, the sheer force of his presence, buffeted her and penetrated her.

  She staggered back a step. She’d have known the feel of that power anywhere on earth, even though there was no way it should have been possible. Nearly forty years had passed since she had last felt it, and the ensuing nightmares had spanned that same amount of time. Her grandfather had been talking with a man that night, a man with Kane’s face. There had been angry words and then suddenly, the man had blurred, then vanished. In his place, there had stood…something else.

  Her grandfather had been killed, his chest and body slashed open before her eyes by a shadowy, man-sized shape. Its claws glinted under the full moon’s light and its eyes shone silver when it turned to see the young Avery, clenching her fists to her mouth to keep from screaming. It hadn’t worked. When the shape turned toward her, she had screamed with everything she had. All of her terror, all of her anger, everything that had welled up inside her when she saw the blood on her grandfather’s face, it had all flowed into that scream. The figure jerked as though struck, and she remembered it had sprinted away from her and vaulted a fence to disappear into the night. She had passed out, exhausted beyond reason, and only awakened when her parents found her lying in the grass the next morning.

  That night had scarred her, but all scars fade over time. And then, impossibly, he had appeared before her again, unchanged. His features had blurred somewhat in her mind, but the feel of him was clear as ever. It was him. Wasn’t it?

  Now, though, she was confused. It couldn’t be him; he looked the same. And although he felt like the man from back then, she sensed just as strongly that he meant her no harm. In fact, there was a solid thread of…nobility...in her sense of the man standing before her.

  Kane stood there with his hands raised, calm and quiet, radi
ating that odd sense of power. Everything in her said that he was there to help. His words, and those of the woman called Ariana, matched everything she felt from both of them. She looked at Jim, who inquired as to the strategy of the inevitable paperwork, and then her world went off the rails as something ripped open the back door and brought chaos to them all.

  A loud hissing filled the room, almost unbearable in its intensity. At first, it was all she could do to press her hands to her ears to shut it out, but then she got a look at what was coming in the door, and one hand pulled her gun from its holster again.

  Two greenish, scaled hands gripped the sides of the open doorway, black talons digging into the wood of the doorframe. The hissing came again, even louder, and the head of the creature became visible as it entered the room. Any nightmare Avery had ever had suddenly seemed like a cartoon in comparison.

  The creature was an insane hybrid of snake and man—a hugely muscular man, at that. Its thick torso was covered with greenish scales on its back and yellow along its front, but it was distinctly humanoid. Below the waist, its body was that of a giant serpent, most of which was still outside the room. Its head was a horror show, scarlet slitted eyes in a frighteningly human face, framed by a flaring cobra’s hood. Its mouth opened, and hinged impossibly wide, brandishing two daggerlike fangs longer than her fingers. The creature hissed, and thin green droplets fell from the fangs to spit and smoke where they hit the wooden floor. Its blood-colored eyes fastened on her and widened a touch, as though recognizing her.

  Avery squeezed off several shots at the thing’s center of mass. Beside her, Jim fired repeatedly as well, and her ears rang as the gunshots echoed in the small room. The creature jerked with each impact but didn’t go down. In fact, although it had taken several shots to the chest and torso, there was no blood to be seen. The beast shook its head, then flexed its mighty arms and chest, demonstrating its invulnerability to their weapons. Avery heard the clanking sound of metal hitting wood and stared incredulously at the flattened bullets that fell from its thick skin onto the floor. Their aim had been true, but none of the rounds had penetrated. In fact, they appeared only to have upset the beast. Avery’s mind raced as she tried to come up with a new plan, but shock and surprise were having their way with her and she drew a blank. Opening its deadly jaws wide, the snake-creature flung itself at her and Jim with impossible speed.

  Something slammed into her, and the air exploded from her lungs as she was knocked to the floor along with Jim. Kane had somehow tackled them both an instant before the unnaturally quick creature could reach them. She struggled to sit up, but a strong hand pushed her back down. She met his eyes for an instant that seemed to last an eternity.

  “Stay down!” he growled. Authority and power infused his words, and she found herself complying. With animal quickness, he turned towards the creature and crouched protectively over both detectives.

  The monster’s attack had missed them completely, thanks to Kane. Ariana had somehow gotten around behind the creature and wrapped one of her arms around its throat. It was struggling mightily to free itself, but its heavily muscled arms were not flexible enough to reach her.

  “Kane!” she yelled, “get the knife! From my backpack!” The snake-thing snarled and thrashed, but it could not dislodge Ariana from its back. She managed to slip the hand of her choking arm into the crook of her other elbow, intensifying her hold tenfold as she wrapped her legs around the creature’s scaly torso. Avery recognized the move from her Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training, wondering if it would work on such a beast. “The silvery one with the emerald!” Ariana yelled through clenched teeth. “Hurry it up, you slacker!” The creature slammed her bodily into the nearest wall. Sheetrock broke and buckled, and Ariana grunted in pain, but she held on.

  Faster than a thought, Kane darted to the fallen backpack, dug inside, and produced a wicked looking dagger with a gleaming emerald embedded in the pommel. The beast suddenly whipped its tail upwards and struck Ariana in the head with it. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell limply to the floor, unconscious. Seizing the opportunity, the snake-creature balled up both enormous fists and lifted them high, intending to slam them down on her head. Avery reached out and latched onto Ariana’s wrist, yanking her body clear. The powerful strike slammed into the floor like a wrecking ball, sending broken planks and shards of wood everywhere. Avery and Jim quickly pulled Ariana’s inert body as close to them as possible, shrinking against the wall as they tried to put more distance between them, but there was none to be had.

  The snake-thing saw the three helpless humans backed into a corner and hissed in triumph. It slowly reared until its flared hood nearly touched the ceiling as it towered over them. It opened its mouth wide and extended its dagger-like fangs in preparation for the first strike.

  “Hey! Ugly!” Kane’s voice thundered, striking like a physical force in the small room. The monster flinched and turned towards the sound. Kane stood a few yards away, glaring balefully at the creature as if daring it to strike. It stared at him, its tongue flicking out to test the air once, then again. Its bloody scarlet eyes lingered on Kane for a long moment, then shifted to the cowering humans in the corner. It chose the corner.

  Avery screamed as she emptied the last few rounds of her handgun into the beast, but it did not slow. Its mouth opened wide once more, then lashed out, striking faster than her eyes could follow as it sought to pierce her body. Avery flinched and closed her eyes at the last instant, awaiting the impact of its fangs. It never came.

  When her eyes sprang open again, she saw Kane standing between her and the snake-thing. My God, how could he be so fast? He had his left hand on the beast’s throat, his fingers buried deeply into the scales just beneath its chin. Huge, three-fingered hands struck at his unprotected face, but he somehow rolled with each strike and avoided its sharp talons. Its thick tail curled around his body, trying to crush the life out of him, but he stood fast, tensing against the ropy, steel-like coils. The creature began to panic, hissing frantically as its mutated windpipe slowly crumpled under Kane’s powerful fingers.

  Without saying a word, he raised the dagger high and then stabbed it down into the top of the snake-thing’s head, slamming the blade deeply into its skull. The beast convulsed and emitted a loud, gargling rasp that quickly faded. Kane held it in an iron grip, staring into its glowing crimson eyes as the gleam of power slowly dwindled and disappeared. The coils continued to undulate and move, but there was no intent in them anymore, only nerves and muscles misfiring as the creature died. When the light had gone completely, leaving eyes of dull green glass in the thing’s slack face, Kane walked to the open doorway that led to the back yard. He yanked the dagger from its skull and then contemptuously threw the upper torso of the monster’s corpse out onto the grass. A few coils of its long body remained in the room, but he ignored them as he stepped over to the two detectives.

  Both Avery and Jim still had their guns out, but lowered them as Kane approached. He went down on one knee next to them and gently placed the dagger on the floor nearby. Its blade was coated with a slimy red substance far too thick to be ordinary blood. He carefully examined Ariana, who moaned softly, but seemed to be largely uninjured. Avery was still in shock to some extent. Nothing at the police academy, nor anything she had encountered on the streets, could possibly have prepared her for what she had just witnessed. Some part of her wondered if others might be driven mad by such a thing.

  “Are you two all right?” Kane said quietly. His voice soothed and warmed her. “It didn’t hurt you at all?”

  She stared at him blankly at first, then her powers of speech finally came back online. “No…I think we’re all right,” she said, glancing at the coils that remained inside the house. “What was that?”

  Kane tossed a quick look over his shoulder before cracking the faintest of grins. “Lesser demon.”

  Jim spoke up at last, his voice cracking, “That was a lesser demon?”

  Kane’s smile wide
ned, “Indeed. Admittedly, it was higher up on the scale of lessers, but still not even close to the greater demons. Those are some real heavy hitters.” Kane paused and thought for a moment before continuing, “If you want to get a better look at it before it’s gone, you’d better hurry.”

  “Gone?” Avery asked, confused. “It’s dead, right? Where’s it going?”

  “Just trust me. Hurry it up. I’ll see to Ariana; she’s all right.”

  Avery pushed herself to her feet, and she and Jim carefully traversed the damaged floor on their way out the back door to examine the snake-thing. The backyard was overgrown and unkempt, and the beast’s upper torso lay in the tall grass just outside the yawning doorway. A security light winked on, triggered by their movement as they stepped outside onto the few irregular stepping-stones that lay there. Avery felt a chill run down her spine as she moved away from the house, but shrugged it off and kept her eye on the demon.

  “We already know our guns won’t work on this thing,” Jim muttered, even though he kept his aimed at the unmoving, scaly creature.

  “Granted, but being able to shoot it anyway makes me feel better,” Avery responded as she worked her way towards the front of the body, slipping a fresh magazine into her gun as she went. The demon’s corpse stayed still and silent, and she strongly hoped it would remain so. She worked her way around near its head, which she nudged with the toe of her boot. There was no movement, and she finally let out a sigh of relief. She holstered her weapon and pulled out her phone. “Okay, he was right. It’s definitely dead.”

  “You calling it in?” Jim asked as he tucked his own sidearm away and pulled out his notepad.

  “Oh, hell no,” Avery laughed. She pointed her phone at the creature and began taking pictures. “I have way too many questions at this point to even think about calling in the team. What are we supposed to tell them? ‘We were attacked by a lesser demon in a sorcerer’s house?’ They’ll laugh us right out of the precinct!”