The Judas Line

beer taps.

My 220 lbs hit those three steel taps hard enough to bend them, but not hard enough to break. Before the searing agony in my back rendered me unconscious, I fell to the floor behind the bar, landing on something that gave way with a muffled pop.

Fade to black.

Chapter Seventeen

Jude/Morgan

“Look at me when I talk to you!” shrieked the voice from the cell in my hand. The other was in the breast pocket of Mike’s uniform. Two disposable phones purchased the day before, a quick and easy way to eavesdrop on Mike’s encounter with the gang.

I started. From beside me, Jim, the owner of the local snowplow service, swore. “Let’s go, man!” I urged, slapping the dash. “This isn’t going to end well for Mike if we don’t get there on time!”

The young bartender, who introduced himself as Trev, along with walrus mustache man and a donation of a few hundred dollars, had given me the lead on the dispatcher at Danzinger’s and the snowplow guy.

Bernie, the dispatcher, had just been for sale, but Jim and his brother/co-owner Dale, were enthusiastic haters of the Blood. Seems like Jim’s youngest son was a victim of the meth the gang was slinging and was a friend of Trev’s. The two brothers, both with Popeye-style forearms and the beginnings of beer guts, would’ve worked for free, but when I shoved fifteen grand into Jim’s hand for his son’s rehab, I not only had the use of his two plows, but a friend for life.

Several phone calls later and the rest of my plan had come together. I just hoped no one would get killed. Especially me.

While Jim put the truck in gear (we were a few hundred yards away, parked at a truck stop along the Dalles-California Hwy), I raised Dale on the CB and told him to get his ass in gear.

Both plows were almost to the Hard Way when I heard, “Your purse, Ace.”

Was Mike suicidal? Wasn’t killing yourself frowned upon by Catholics?

“Dale to the left, Jim to the right,” I shouted into the CB as we made the turn into the bar’s parking lot. Motorcycles were parked in a big U around the building. It wasn’t hard to spot Alexander’s Pan Head; it was the only Harley that had a wide clearing around it on the right side of the building. “Jim, you and Dale going to be okay?”

Jim’s wide face smiled savagely as the blade of the plow hammered into the row of motorcycles, twisting and tearing bright chrome and polished leather. “Don’t you worry about me, son,” he shouted above the din. “We got this! Oh yeah, we got this!”

Metal grated and ground underneath the plow’s tires and I could imagine sparks flying. Bits of chrome and steel were flung sideways into the building, rattling the whole structure. My smile matched Jim’s mean for mean and the ride along motorcycle corpses was quickly over, the plow peeling off behind the building. I saw Dale maneuver his truck on the gritty flatland just outside the lot coming the other way, raising a cloud of gray dust.

Without a word, I opened the door and leapt out, taking the duffel with me (no way I could leave the Silver out of my sight now, not while on the run), tucking and rolling then bounding to my feet, making tracks as the plows made their turns toward the exit. The back door stood wide open, a cinderblock standing in for a doorstop. That made my life a little easier.

Inside, two precious seconds were wasted determining left or right. Left. Splintered black door. Shouts, screams from behind and I cursed myself because I’d promised Mike I wouldn’t use guns; the Kimber and Beretta lay nestled at the bottom of the duffel with my underwear.

Through the door, a fat guy behind the bar, shotgun in his hands, aimed at my friend’s back. No way in hell. My kick took him under his raised arm above his kidney and the shotgun dropped from his spasming hands. My fist hit the side of his lardy neck, then his jaw and he was down. The urge to finish him off burned like acid through my veins, but that’s not what I did anymore, not what I was about.

Breathing hard, I said, “Hey, Mike, see if you can get Alexander inside. Alone if possible.”

Mike grinned at me and went outside to poke the bear. “Hey, Alexander, we haven’t finished talking about your sissy little purse yet!”

My feet hit the ground at the same time Alexander hit the door so hard it shattered and began to have a little hoedown with Mike. I reckoned he could take care of himself, so I went after the few who had followed their master inside.

Time to play.

It’s funny how your muscles remember old patterns, old moves. I fell into the same routines of Krav Maga and Aikido that I’d learned all those years ago. A wrist trapped in my hands snapped so easily, the sound a crack of pain. Spinning, I threw an elbow into a screaming man’s face that smeared his nose across his face in a spray of blood.

A low kick broke an ankle while I turned a punch coming at my face into a hip throw that flung the man headfirst into one of the pool tables. He fell and lay very still.

Three down. Stiffened fingers jabbed hard against a throat. Four. A punch landed solidly on my chin, but I rode with it, despite the pain. I’ve taken worse. My response broke the man’s elbow across my knee. Five. Anger slithered through me like a snake of fire, but I didn’t give into the passion; instead I used it, let it fuel me, although desire to use magic nearly robbed me of my senses. No magic, I thought. Save it, keep it handy just in case.

My hands grabbed a man’s ear and pulled. An ear is held on by skin and cartilage, and I peeled it off like a decal, tossing it aside. Six.

The last man stared into my eyes and ran. He must have been the brains of the outfit.

A crash came from behind, startling me, and I spun in time to see Mike fall out of sight before a flash of steel focused my attention on a knife slashing toward my throat. I leaned away and the tip missed my neck by a fraction of an inch.

“Baphemaloch,” I growled at the demon wearing Alexander’s face. “So you’ve come into your own.”

“A Baphemaloch no more,” he hissed, lips curling unnaturally. “With sentience comes a new name. I am Cazzizz.”

Alexander was gone, or at least, the thing that made him Alexander, eaten by a spiritual parasite that had become a demon. Leslie’s son was gone and that hell-thing was going to pay.

“Well, Cazzizz, let’s have some fun.” With that, I struck.

And missed. Fast, the demon was faster than anyone I’d ever met, even Burke, and he was the quickest form of death I’d ever met.

Horny black knuckles hammered into my cheek, knocking me sideways. A boot to thigh sent a bolt of pain up my hip and knocked me to the floor. Cazzizz’s toe took me in the ribs, breaking several, spraying my torso with needles of pain and driving the breath from my lungs.

While I choked and gasped, Cazzizz walked slowly around my thrashing body, savoring his victory as if it were heady wine. “You have no protection against demons, Olivier.” He smiled even wider, the edges of his lips touching his ears like an obscene clown’s. “Oh, yes. I know who you are. Hell is full of those looking for you; I can hear them clamoring their envy and rage. Your death will bring me great power, such great rewards.” He raised a leg, boot heel hovering over my head. I closed my eyes. It had been a good run, longer than I thought.

The blow never came.

“Demon, you looking for this?”

Mike! My eyes snapped open.

My friend stood behind the bar, bleeding from his mouth and ear. In one hand he held a purple bag with gold thread, the kind expensive scotch comes in and I knew what lay inside.

“Mike,” I choked with what breath my lungs had left.

Too late, the demon attacked