It snapped up, spoiling my aim, my shot searing a black crevice across its cheek, but doing little more than irritating it. Cursing, I tried to jump out of its reach, but it was faster-an occurrence so common I feel embarrassed to admit it. With a backhanded swipe, it sent my pistol flying from my hand, over the edge of the monument, and down the mountain. It seemed like an eternity passed as I watched it bounce down the hill to disappear behind a steep drop.
In reality, it was only a split second. Just long enough for me to end up on the receiving end of its follow through. Sharp claws raked my face, tearing burning trails along my check and jaw. Out of instinct, I rolled with the attack, whipping an elbow around through my spin. It connected to the back of the creature’s head with a satisfying thud, driving it forward and down into the dirt. I didn’t give it a chance to clear its mouth before I hopped on its back, wrapping my legs around its torso, my arms around its neck.
Undead, with no need to breathe, a choke would normally be a useless maneuver to pull on a ghoul. However, given my devil-enhanced strength, augmented by a couple of handy soul transfers, the position gave me the edge I needed. On its back, I was largely immune to the power in its hands, its claws unable to gain the momentum needed to do real harm. It also lacked the leverage to pull me off or shake me loose, my legs locked around its waist in a securing body-triangle.
It squirmed beneath me as I squeezed, working my shoulder into it to apply as much force as I could, arching my back. It grunted and screeched, tearing at my arms. I hunched up a little, pressing my full weight onto the back of its neck. Then with everything I had, I twisted my upper body, screaming with effort.
Its neck snapped with a horrific pop that rang inside my ears.
Though a broken neck wasn’t something that would kill a ghoul, their ferocity stayed only by overwhelming damage, I was content with separating the engine from the drive shaft, so to speak. Unable to coordinate its body’s movement, it could only thrash about on the ground once I’d gotten off of it, as its head swung limply, like a slobbering tether-ball.
Remembering Katon, I looked to see where he was. In the time I’d taken out my one ghoul, he’d finished off two and was on the way to ending the third, as well. It lay pinned to the ground with him sitting on top. The creature bucked and hissed as it tried to hold back Katon’s sword, it claws wrapped around the pommel.
I retrieved my gun and hurried over, but as I ran I realized Katon wasn’t trying to stab the ghoul, he was trying to pull his weapon free. The ghoul had locked its grip onto the sword and was pulling with all his might to yank the blade loose, snapping at Katon’s hands with its teeth.
While a bit thrown off by the weirdness of the situation, I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. Once I’d reached their sides, I let a kick fly, my steel-toed boot crashing into the ghoul’s jaw. Its growl turned into a gurgle as the force of the blow rolled its head to the side, pus-green spittle spraying the dirt.
Katon yanked his sword free and stood in a single movement, swinging his blade in a wide arc that circled over his head and swept down in a symphony of viciousness. An instant later, the ghoul’s head rolled free of its neck, blackish-green ichor streaming out across the dirt. One last startled snarl rumbled out of its mouth before it went silent, its un-life ended in a heap.
“You all right?” he asked.
My manhood swirling down the drain, I glared at him as I returned to the ghoul I wounded and stomped his head into jelly. “Yes, daddy, I’m fine. Thank you for rescuing poor, little old me from the big, mean bogeymen.”
He chuckled, a cold, pretentious chuckle, making me feel even more useless, and sheathed his blade. “They were after my sword.” He gestured to the re-dead ghouls. He seemed truly offended.
I did the math. “Undead, plus Longinus, plus an attempt to steal a sword made from Longinus’s spear, all seems to equal Reven.” I hoped I was wrong. If not, it would seriously hamper my chances of sleeping with Karra if I had to kill her master.
“There are still too many unknowns to make that leap for certain, but yeah, it does seem to lean that direction. With Reven being the only actor we know of who has the ability to raise the dead, I’d say he’s trying to stack the deck in his favor as much as possible. Longinus reunited with his weapon would be quite formidable.”
Forget what I said earlier. Katon was the new recipient of The Understatement of the Year award.
Frustrated, I wandered over to the edge of the monument, staring off at the desert below. Miles and miles of brown and muted yellows stretched out before my eyes, broken into giant rectangles by the harsh lines of fences that divided the ranch properties that spanned the area. I followed the dark stripe of a road and spotted where the highway met the private, narrow lanes.
At their union, I saw the Cattle King restaurant, a high-dollar steak joint built to capitalize on the owner’s monopoly of the region’s cattle ranches. Suddenly thinking of a t-bone, my mouth watered while my brain swirled, a half-formed thought bubbling up out of the muck.
“It can’t be that easy, can it?” I asked, mostly to myself.
Katon moved to my side. “What?”
My mind shuddered, the gears grinding as it struggled to engage. “The ranches.”
No doubt impressed by my ability to speak coherently, Katon stared at me like one would a toddler, waiting for me to put it all together into words that made sense.
“Michael said he saw the capital letter ‘B’ three times in Chatterbox’s mind.” I pointed down toward the steakhouse, my finger trailing off to the open fields a little ways beyond it. “The Triple B Ranch.”
Katon narrowed his eyes and let them follow the direction of my finger. He was quiet for a moment, no doubt deciding whether my suggestion was brilliant or bat shit stupid. “You might be right.”
The judges say, “Brilliant.”
“It might just be coincidence but it can’t hurt-much-to check it out. Besides, it’s all we’ve got. We’re still in the dark here.”
Right then, someone made me a liar.
Way off in the distance, the sky lit up in deep reds and searing yellows layered in black, a mushroom cloud of fiery hell erupting. The ground rumbled as a booming crack reverberated through the air, the clouds wavering before my eyes. I felt the pressure build against my ringing ears as I stared off toward the conflagration.
“That’s Old Town!” I sputtered as I watched raging flash fires spring up in the vicinity of what appeared to be Fiesta Street.
Katon, the glow reflected in his wide eyes, nodded solemnly. “We’ve got to get down there.”
Certain I knew who was responsible, I hesitated to agree as he put the call into Rahim.
I climbed down the hill and retrieved my gun, my eyes staring off into the distance as Old Town burned, the fires spreading through the slums and warehouses, consuming each with passion. Black smoke billowed up while licks of flames illuminated the blackness. It was like a war zone, a battlefield upon which Hell was unleashed. It wasn’t someplace I wanted to be. Even more so, I certainly didn’t want to confront the architect of its destruction.
Baalth.
Chapter Thirteen
Minutes later, Katon and I arrived in Old Town, Rahim with us. I’d asked the wizard not to come, his unhealed injuries a possible liability to his safety, but stubborn as always, he came anyway. Who was I to tell him no?
We arrived just off Fiesta Street, at the edge of the desert where tiny fires danced in the brush. Even from where we stood, the heat from the roaring flames was like sticking your face in a crematory. I felt my skin drying as I stood there, the moisture sucked right out of it. My cheeks felt like hard plastic with three day stubble, the scratches from the ghoul burning. Katon and Rahim grimaced, the heat getting even to them, as we surveyed the scene. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were thinking the same thing I was.
This was Hell.
As we decided which way to go, a cool breeze sprung up and swirled around us, shielding us from the brunt of the heat. I glanced to Rahim and saw his eyes fluttering with a bright red. Tiny droplets of sweat glistened on his forehead.
