“Wait,” Meinie choked. “You can’t leave me here.”
I didn’t even turn to look at him. “You made your bed…now wallow in the wet spot.” I stormed out of the alley, my thoughts whirling a million miles a minute. Around the corner, I looked to make sure Eenie and Meenie hadn’t found me before hurrying as fast as I could toward downtown. I made it there in decent time, despite my oozing, aching wounds. At the car, I dug my keys from my pocket and unlocked the door. I slipped, inside stifling a moan. Motivated by adrenaline and a good dose of pain, I started it up right away and rolled out of the lot, heading for home. I had a lot of thinking to do.
A Light in the Dark
I drove the long way home, making random turns here and there to throw off any tails I might have picked up. However paranoid that may sound, it’s a habit, which has kept grief from my doorstep so many times in the past I’ve lost count. It was often enough to make the extra gas spent worth it. Once I felt comfortable, I aimed the car toward the east side of town, and home. Stiff and sore from the long drive, my wounds screaming the entire way, I pulled onto my block at last. I hit the automatic garage door opener and pulled inside. Out of the car, I went to the inner door and felt the familiar tingle of the scanning mechanism as it washed over me. Identification complete, I stepped into my kitchen. Home sweet home.
My first stop was the fridge. I pulled it open and snatched a cold beer. I twisted off the top and took a deep swig as I went into the living room, moaning in satisfaction at the first swallow. I’d needed a drink.
“Rough day?”
I shrieked like a little girl when I heard the willowy soft voice, but if anyone asks, I’ll lie about it. I fumbled my beer and it fell to the floor, splashing out onto the carpet like a foamy volcano. I ignored it as it certainly wasn’t the first to end up there, and looked to see who’d spoken. Rachelle Knight sat on the couch.
“Jesus, woman! You can call, you know? What’s the point of having telepaths if you’re gonna pop in uninvited?”
“I wanted to speak to you in person,” she replied. After a moment’s hesitation, her wide hazel eyes appraising me, she commented, “You look horrible.”
“Thanks. You too.” That wasn’t actually true. She looked pretty good even though I prefer women with a little more meat on their bones, not to mention a few decades younger. Though not my usual type, Rachelle carried all the grace of a super-model minus the revealing clothes, much to my regret. With no visible flesh of any perverse value to focus on, I dropped into my old recliner and stared at the spreading puddle on my carpet. This day just kept getting worse. Spilled beer and zero cleavage. Was there no mercy? As always, Rachelle seemed a bit lost, vapid. I used to believe it was a side effect of her connection to the supernatural world. Recently, however, I’d come to believe she’d just been a little too experimental back in the sixties. I could picture her at Woodstock, flowers painted on her face, offering the goods up to Jimi Hendrix, looking for an experience.
I stopped my thought process there. There were just some things that didn’t need to be imagined. I was treading dangerously close.
After a minute of awkward silence and her glancing about the room as I wandered about inside my head, she got down to business. “As you know, Abraham sent me to check the gates.” She laid out a small map of the city on the coffee table. I waited a few seconds after her voice trailed off, but it didn’t seem like she intended to continue. “And?”
Her eyes focused. “The gates themselves are stable. I sense no abnormal fluctuation in them. It would appear nothing of any significance has passed between the dimensions recently.” She tugged at the ends of her black hair for a bit before starting again, her other hand tapping at the map. “However, I have located three points off the grid where I believe the dimensional wall has been breached. I feel as though some great psychic trauma has been inflicted in these places, but I cannot be certain as to what caused it.”
Rachelle’s face was lined with doubt, the creases deep.
“Why not?” I’d never seen her look so uncertain.
“Something interferes with my senses. I feel it pushing back against me, distorting my perception like nothing ever has before. One moment I can feel the Demonarch’s presence seeping through, the next there’s nothing; a void. This is not natural.” She looked at the ceiling, her hand held up drawing invisible symbols in the air. “Though I cannot determine what lurks behind these abnormalities, I can be certain of one thing. There is much power to be found there; a dark, malign power.”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “Great.”
She pointed again to the map, her finger lingering at each location in turn. “The occurrences happened in that order, each two days apart. The last occurred sometime today.”
“So you’re thinking they’re connected and might happen again?”
Rachelle nodded as she rose to leave. I stood as well. She gestured to the table. “Seek out these breaches and find out what’s behind them. I’ve informed Katon, so expect his assistance as soon as he is able.” She turned away from me.
She waved her hand and I felt a sudden rush of magical energy coalesce inside the room. I took a step back as a tear began to open in the dimensional wall. Bright colors flooded out of the crack as it widened. Sparks of energy fluttered along the seams until the hole was large enough to accommodate Rachelle. I could see one of the DRAC offices through the shimmering veil of the tear.
“Be careful,” she told me as she stepped into the portal. Once through, it closed as quickly as it had opened. A breath later, it was as if she’d never been there.
I rubbed my eyes to clear the spots that had sprung up from witnessing the dimensions merging. Once I could see clearly again, I looked to the map.
I growled when I realized where the markers were. Not surprisingly, all three locations were deep inside Old Town. If something bad was gonna happen, you could pretty much guarantee Old Town was where it’d go down.
Distraction over, I felt my injuries crying out for attention. I pulled my bloody and torn sweat jacket off with a grunt and dropped it on the floor beside the now empty beer bottle. My shirt followed. I examined my arm and hand, both cuts deep and festering. An unhealthy blackness bubbled in the wounds like heated tar. I went to the bathroom and looked at my back in the mirror. The cut, while long, wasn’t very deep. I sighed, grateful for small favors.
I hated magically-forged weapons.
It’s bad enough my ex-wife sent a bunch of goons after me, but to arm them with the tools to allow them to actually kill me, was going too far. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hunt her down and wring her gorgeous succubus neck. I promised myself though, if I managed to avert Armageddon before it got too far along, I’d make the time.
Pushing away my petty, but oh so satisfying thoughts of revenge, I went to the bedroom. I walked to the back corner of the room and moved my nightstand to the side. Lifting the carpet below it, I rolled it back to reveal the tiled under-floor. I tapped on the corner of one of the innocuous tiles and it popped up, then I set it to the side. From the hole beneath it, I plucked out a small, felt Crown Royal bag. With my prize in hand, I went to the bed and sat down.
From the bag, I pulled out a handful of small, glass vials rubber-banded together. I slipped one loose and set the rest gently on the bed. I shook the tube and watched as the reddish-black liquid roiled inside, moving about within the vial like a lava lamp. Once it settled, I popped the rubber stopper off and took a sip. In an instant, I felt a surge of energy as the blood-Lucifer’s blood-ran down my throat. I replaced the rubber stopper as quickly as I could, my hands twitching like an epileptic’s all the while. I set the vial down just as the shakes started to wrack my body. A moment later, it felt like my skin was on fire. Sharp, tingling spurs of agony danced across my body as the blood took hold. And as fast as they started, the pain and shakes ended. A warm tickle replaced the rest, its fingers fluttering soothingly over my flesh. Goose pimples broke out everywhere as the warmth settled into my crotch. I shuddered as I felt myself harden against my will. A moment later, the feeling drifted off into a vague numbness. I drew in a deep breath and let it out in a loud sigh of relief. I looked to my arm and watched as the wound churned, a healthy redness creeping in to evict the black. In the span of minutes, the sickly darkness had been cleansed
