Echoes of the Past

Chapter Twenty-Two

Once I was back in Hell, I went to the God-proof room to take care of a couple things-like find some clothes-before I headed out with Katon. Chatterbox greeted me at the door with a rousing rendition of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” that sent shivers down my spine. I seriously needed to ask Karra if he’d been a psychic medium or a conman before he died. He always managed to sound off with something prophetic, or just vague enough to be deemed prophetic, when I was running off on a mission.

It was creepy.

No time to worry about CB’s choice of soundtrack, I dropped off the flesh tablet and gathered the last of Lucifer’s blood, all two vials of it, and stashed them carefully into the pocket of a pair of absconded slacks. While I cherished the gift, I hadn’t been bothered by consuming the blood of my uncle before, but now, knowing Lucifer was my father, it seemed strange to be drinking the same blood that ran in my veins already. It made me wonder if only I were able to feel the effects beyond the healing. Would anyone else turn into Mongo-Frank if they consumed more than a few sips? Guess it didn’t matter since I only had a little bit left. No one would be drinking it but me.

As I paced and waited for Katon to arrive, I asked Chatterbox to send Karra a message and tell her I was okay. The zombie’s eyes rolled back in his head and fluttered there for a few minutes while I wore a hole in the carpet. Just when I was starting to get annoyed with him, CB’s eyes thumped back into place and he stared at me, his gray cheeks quivering.

“ Ccannn’ttt fffiiinnndd,” he said in a voice that sounded as distraught as a zombie voice could possibly sound.

“What do you mean you can’t find her? You’re connected, right?”

He did his best to shake his head. “ Ggggonneee. Nnooottt ttthhheeerreee.” His teeth clacked together, over and over. “ Nnoottt tthheererre.”

My throat constricted as I thought about what that meant. “Can you take me to her?”

Again, he shook his head, his eyes lolling in their sockets. “ Ggoonne.”

“What’s gone?” Katon asked, coming into the room.

I spun around, gun in hand. My breath ached in my lungs. “Karra. CB can’t find her; can’t reach her.”

“Is that normal?”

“No. I’ve never known CB to be out of touch with her. She’s his master.”

He looked to Chatterbox and then back to me. “He’s still animate, so my guess is that she shut down the connection from her end for some reason. You piss her off?”

“No more than usual, I imagine.” I thought back and couldn’t remember having done anything that would cause her to shut me out. Then again, pushing for her to stay home with daddy when she was more powerful than me was probably a kick to the parts for her. “Shit…maybe.”

Katon rolled his eyes. “Maybe she and Scarlett are off vacationing, lounging around the pool and bitching about how frustrating you are.” He cracked the tiniest of smiles. Even he didn’t believe that.

As much as it stung, though, it was entirely possible. I turned back to CB. “We’ve got to go check something out. Keep trying to reach Karra. We’ll be back soon.” With everything going on, I couldn’t worry about Karra, too. Scarlett was a pit bull, capable of tearing a guy apart limb by limb, but she was gullible, naive in a way that made her vulnerable because she wanted to believe in the goodness of people.

Karra was none of that. She wore her paranoia on her sleeve and didn’t walk down a dark alley without nuking it from orbit first. Besides, she had Longinus camped out in her house, and he sure as hell wouldn’t let anything happen to her. I’d take the Anti-Christ against any of the muck-a-mucks present in our universe right now. No alien slime ball would dare to stick anything even remotely probe-like near Karra without her father snapping it off and shoving it someplace horribly uncomfortable and quite indecent.

“Let’s go,” I told Katon, doing my best to block out my anxiety.

He nodded and told me the coordinates Rachelle had provided. I felt bad involving her only a few days into her mourning, but the world was an inconsiderate place. Bad things still happened, and they didn’t care much for your state of mind. That didn’t make me feel any better about it, but it sounded good. At least it was Katon that hit her up for the info, and not me. He wouldn’t rile her up any.

Once I knew our destination, we went to the gate and plugged it in, and off we went. It was a place far across Hell; a ghetto so to speak. It had been largely abandoned after Lucifer moved on, free will and open portals to exotic locales pretty much taking a toll on the population of the down under. Outside of a few folks who believed the rest of the world to be a greater Hell than the real one, and the wandering dread fiends heading to and from the fields in their endless drudgery, it was a pretty deserted area. We wouldn’t have to worry about our hubcaps being jacked. That wasn’t necessarily the case before, but now, we were pretty safe; all things relative.

I made sure my gun was loaded and secured the extra clips, and we hit the gate running. Rather than land right on top of anyone, I chose a portal that was a little further away. It took us a few minutes to get there, but it made more sense than popping in without knowing what we were getting into. We made our way through Hell, doing our best to stay out of sight. It seemed to work pretty well. There was no one along the path I’d chosen. After a few minutes, we were just around the corner from the location Rachelle had pinged.

As we drew closer, I could smell the tangy scent of charred wood and a hint of burnt hair. Katon leaned against the wall and peered around the corner. He turned and looked at me with widened eyes.

“The place has been bombed,” he whispered.

I shrugged. “That would be me. I gave Mihheer a going away gift as he hightailed it into the portal.”

Katon shook his head and looked back around the corner. “I don’t hear or smell anything alive in there.” He drew his sword, a replacement for the one he had crafted out of the Spear of Longinus, and let it hang loose in his hand. Katon didn’t wait for me. He slipped around the corner, silent as a shadow, and made for the room.

I followed after. The hallway was filled with rubble and bits of smoking char. Wisps of black ash fluttered in the air by the entrance, and the wall across from the room was covered in blackened soot and pitted and scarred by flying debris. Rubble littered the floor. I’d made a mess.

For a few seconds, I felt pretty good about the wreckage I was seeing, and then it hit me: Scarlett could have been in there. I hadn’t given it a thought when I’d chucked the fireball behind Mihheer. I guessed he was heading to his master, but it didn’t click until right now that I could have killed my cousin. A cold chill settled over as I walked at Katon’s back. I certainly didn’t want to tell him what I was thinking. If Scarlett was dead in the room, I’d probably just turn my gun on myself before Katon had the chance to kill me. That’d be my luck. I’d save her from Gorath by taking her out myself.

Katon crept to the entryway and glanced inside. My breath stuck in my lungs. I let it loose when he waved me forward and didn’t turn and try to take my head off.

Inside, the room looked a ton worse than the hallway. There was carnage everywhere, rubble scattered across the room and tiny flash fires still burning in what I presumed had been bookshelves before I dropped the bomb on them. The walls, ceiling, and floor were scorched obsidian except for an area about thirty feet around. Katon pointed at it and I nodded.

“Shield,” I said unnecessarily. Gorath or Mihheer had blocked the blast well enough that the floor hadn’t been scored by it. That meant they hadn’t been either. I sighed as we went deeper into the massive room to find it dead-ended. The air thick with a rank odor, I looked back to Katon. “Why do I smell French-fried-dog?”

“Because your effort to end my servant’s life injured a few of my newfound associates,” a deep voice spoke from the doorway.

Katon and I spun about, our weapons raised. There stood Mihheer alongside another fellow I could only presume to be Gorath. Piled balls deep behind them were a gaggle of werewolves and a number of the shadowy black vampire soldiers that had made the run at Heaven. My pulse masquerading as a techno beat, I looked to Gorath and let my senses loose. He didn’t strike me as a world-beater, but I knew better than to judge him by his current state. Besides, he’d come with an army of fangs and fur. That alone was a big enough threat.

I was surprised to see he didn’t look as alien as Hasstor, or even Mihheer. In fact, he looked a lot more human than I expected. He was tall, easily close to seven feet, and built wiry. He wore black robes with no markings of any kind, and his wild, jet black hair hung damn near to his knees as it spilled over his shoulders. Only his eyes and skin marked him as inhuman. Mottled green with gray spots kind of like a radioactive Dalmatian, he’d look right at home in a plague ward or a zombie flick. His eyes shimmered with a bright yellow-orange, just like Mihheer’s. They were probably related in a cousin-brother-uncle-sheep kind of way.

“Where’s Scarlett?” Katon asked, straight to the point as always.

Gorath grinned. Obsidian teeth made his mouth look as though it were a black hole, a wiggling yellow slug in its midst. “Ah, is that what she is called?” He laughed, the tone setting the hairs of my arms on edge. “She wasn’t conscious long enough to tell us her name.”

Katon advanced and the mass of werewolves and vampires stepped past Gorath to block the way. Even with all of them filing into the room, the hallway was still full. Unconsciously, I started counting the bullets I had. I didn’t have anywhere near enough. Even Katon hesitated. As much as both of us wanted to put a fork in Gorath, it didn’t look all that likely.

“Let her go,” I told Gorath.

“Why, demon? We know well enough that Lucifer no longer resides in your universe, and we know where he is.” His grin grew wider as more of the critters piled in. “You’ve proven to be more trouble than you’re worth. Scarlett, however, went down without a fight. She’ll prove much better inducement to draw Lucifer out when I am prepared.”

“Lucifer doesn’t-“

I cut Katon off with a hard stare. We both knew Lucifer didn’t care about Scarlett, as she’d pledged her heart to Heaven, but as long as Gorath thought she was useful, he would keep her alive. We’d have a chance to rescue her. The second he felt she was expendable, like me, he would kill her. Unfortunately, judging by the wall of furries and fangs bunching up, if he settled for Scarlett, Katon and I were gonna die. Katon must have caught on to what I was thinking because he let his statement fade incomplete.

“Release her to my partner here, and I’ll surrender to you,” I offered. Gorath didn’t want little old me, he wanted Daddy Devil. If there was a chance Lucifer was gonna ride in on his black horse and rescue someone’s ass, it’d have to be mine, now that I knew who I was supposed to be. “I’m Lucifer’s son, not some distant relative like Scarlett. Take me instead.”

Katon didn’t even look sideways at me, probably figuring I was just baiting the hook. Gorath only waggled a finger. “I think not, demon.” He gestured to the weres and vamps. “I’d suggest you take advantage of this opportunity and die. Should you survive, I will slay your Scarlett and spread her pieces across the universe for Lucifer to find. I will have my vengeance…one way or another.” He turned to Mihheer. “Stay behind and see that it is done.” With a flicker of yellowish-orange energy, he disappeared.

Mihheer showed us his pointy whites and shrugged. “So it shall be.” He waved the critters forward and stepped back into their frantic midst.

Katon gave me his Oh Shit look and set his stance to wait. I just started capping dogs. It’s not like I could miss with them piled up so closely. As gunshots echoed in my ears, I raised my free hand and willed fire to it. With a quick sweep of the floor before us, I set out a wall of searing flames between us and the horde. It slowed the wolves down a bit, but the vampires just walked right through it.

Katon put his sword to work and met the first vampire to cross the fiery line. It fell away in pieces, as did the second. The third managed to get a step closer before I put a bullet in its ugly face. Katon followed up by taking its head off, and kicking it back through the flames. Against humans, brutal tactics like that might have dissuaded them, but we weren’t dealing with humans. They just kept coming.

Blue lights flickered on the other side of the wall and the flames vanished. Werewolves charged toward us, their growls drowning the room in a locomotive rumble. Nowhere to go, we stood our ground and fought. Between Katon’s sword, my bullets and magic, we’d built a pyramid of bodies in front of us that would make any serial killer proud. It just wasn’t enough.

I pulled back a few steps to reload and saw a werewolf latch onto Katon’s sword arm. That was all it took. He slowed for just an instant and went down under a pile of furry claws and teeth. Sickness churned inside me as I watched him swallowed up by the horde. I slammed the clip home and tried to clear them off, but it took me away from the ones nearest me. A vampire crashed into my arm and sent my gun flying. Werewolves dove in right after. The smell of their rancid breath filled my nose, and then there was the coppery tang of blood; mine, mostly. I managed to toss a few critters aside, but the rest bore me down. I felt the sting of every claw that ripped through my flesh and tore a piece away; every bite that filled my blood with the sickening burn of lycanthropy.

My vision went white as the disease seared through my veins, the beasts tearing me apart, bite by bite. I crumpled to the ground as my legs lost their strength and buckled. Even though I still fought, it wouldn’t be long before I lost my life, as well. My thoughts drifted to Karra and how I’d let her down. We’d found each other again only for it to end so soon. A flutter of anger welled up inside. It wasn’t enough what we had. I needed more.

Buried under a sea of weres, I rolled and tucked my arms beneath me, digging my hand into my pocket. I found the vials waiting. Unsure if I was just opting for suicide rather than being murdered, I pulled both of them out, and popped the stoppers. Before I could talk myself out of it, or the mutts could knock them from my hand, I swallowed the contents of both.

No longer defending, one of the wolves latched onto my throat and clamped down. I could feel the rest of them tearing at me somewhere deep down in the muddled haze of numbed sensory feedback. It felt like they were eating me whole. I only hoped I gave them the shits.

My vision tunneled as the werewolf chomped down harder on my carotid artery and the blood stopped flowing to my head. I could hear them grunting and slavering over top of me. My heart fluttered in my chest, but I couldn’t feel Lucifer’s claret kicking in. In a pool of crimson, my last thought was that his blood had spilled out of me just the same as my own. Like a cartoon character shot full of holes drinking a cup of water, I pictured my last hope squirting from me as though I were a fountain.

I heard one last grunt as the bastards took my ear off, and then I heard nothing.

The lights came back on with a mule’s kick. My eyes popped open and I met the startled, red gaze of a werewolf who’d apparently been leaning into take a bite. It paused and let out a surprised grumble. I smiled.

Daddy had come through again.

Lucifer’s blood ran through me as if I’d been corn-holed by a volcano. My veins shrieked with the searing agony of its touch, the claret healing me faster than I’d ever healed before. Flesh and bone knitted together and drew back into form; tendons and muscle were strung and stretched back in place quicker than the werewolves could gnaw them away. The wolf in front of me stared wide-eyed, and a few of the others started to notice their meal was filling back out. The pain of being a werewolf chew toy was dialed down to zero as the blood flushed away all but its own incendiary touch.

The feeling was a mix of phosphorous and Viagra mainlined through my bloodstream, my head a maelstrom of fury, chaos, and lust. I couldn’t think straight. The only thoughts sticking to the Teflon of my brainpan was the urge to fuck and fuck something up. Given the hairy asses in front of me, the latter won out, but it didn’t stop me from being aroused.

As I started to peak, I let the rage shoot from my brain into my limbs, and I let loose. I leapt to my feet and flung a dozen werewolves aside. Lighter than children, it looked like a hairy pinata swatted by Godzilla. Weres were tossed everywhere. I could hear their bones snapping as they slammed into the walls and ceiling. Startled yips sounded as I plowed through their ranks to get to Katon. His will rang quiet against my senses, but he was still alive-living? Undead? — whatever he was. He was still with me.

A number of weres were still latched onto me as I ran, but I ignored them. So caught up in the ecstasy of the double-shot Lucifer latte, I couldn’t feel the teeth or claws they were using to stay put. I didn’t care. The critters chewing on Katon saw me coming and a bunch of them jumped up and backed off. I laughed as I pictured what I must look like. My clothes eaten as an appetizer to the main course of my ass, I was naked and covered in blood from head to toe. I was also sporting the most painful erection I’ve ever had. I didn’t doubt the look on my face told the weres I was looking for someplace to stick it. There weren’t any volunteers.

Without slowing down, I crashed into the werewolves on Katon and ripped them limb from limb. Up to that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me to use my magic. My heart thundered in my chest, a perfect storm of malevolence and sadism that only wanted to slaughter my enemies with my bare hands. I wanted to feel their blood splatter warm across my chest, and taste the virulence of their disease that was nothing more than seasoning.

I gouged and clawed and ripped and bit, fur and pieces of stringy meat in my mouth and wedged between my fingers. Katon moaned and crawled slowly to his knees as I cleared the weres off his back. His healing was kicking in now that he was free. Though he was immune to lycanthropy, it’d be a little while before he was whole and healthy. Somewhere deep inside my head I recognized the clock was ticking. It wouldn’t be long before the boost from Lucifer’s blood would start to fade. I’d crash a few seconds after and then we’d be right back in the world of shit we’d just dug out of.

It was time to get serious.

I spun around to face the shifting and uncertain mass of lycans and vamps and turned on the blowtorches. From my extended hands, jets of fire burst free and swept through the lines. Modeled after a flamethrower, I sprayed the room from left to right. After a moment of that, I pictured the inner workings of a pipe bomb to help cull the herd. Tiny balls of energy complied with my imagination and sprang up inside the flames. En masse, they hurtled toward the burning lines and exploded.

The weres that weren’t already crispy were pelted with a dump truck-load of magical shrapnel. With all the energy directed away from me and Katon, I pushed every ounce of magic I had into the assault and laid waste to the room. The howls of the wolves were drowned out by the shrieks of the vampires being shredded within the conflagration. It was all music to my ears.

With only one chance to do it right, I marched forward, leaving no room for any of the shitheads to creep past and flank us. They probably didn’t have it in them, anyway. Just a minute before they’d been chewing on our bones, now they were going up like an arsonist’s wet dream. If ever Hell had been unleashed, this is what it would look like.

When the screams and cries petered out, I turned off the fireworks and stormed forward. I heard Katon at my back, scraping along but there in furious spirit. The room was filled with roiling black smoke and the scent of cooked meat. Still caught up in the throes of Lucifer’s claret, it smelled divine; barbeque beast.

My hard-on throbbed as I strode through the carnage, my feet splashing in the puddles of boiling blood and melted muscle. It squished up between my toes and splatted soothing against my shins and knees. I stomped harder as I used magic to push aside the cloying black clouds so I could see.

Near the entryway, I came across what I was looking for: Mihheer.

He lay amidst the wreckage of his master’s grunt force. All around him were charred pieces of werewolf and vampire, arms and legs scattered everywhere as though I’d blown up a mannequin factory. Covered in blood and chunky pieces I couldn’t recognize, he looked up at me as I approached. Apparently, he’d managed to deflect most of the magic I’d thrown around, but he was clearly hurting. One of his hands looked deformed and a number of his teeth had been knocked from his mouth. I noticed that when he sneered at me.

I kicked him in the face for his defiance.

He tumbled back into the hallway, and crashed into the wall. I wasn’t done yet. Still under the influence of the blood, I was feeling feisty, know what I mean? If any of the weres or vamps survived the onslaught, they’d turned assholes and elbows and headed for home. There wasn’t a single one anywhere nearby. That left me free to focus on Mihheer.

The alien grunted and looked up at me coming toward him. I kicked him again, and again, and again, a brittle crackling sounding at every blow. He crumpled and spit blood across my foot. I kicked him for that, too.

“Where’s Scarlett?” I screamed at him, emphasizing every syllable with yet another kick.

He raised his hands to cover his head and I stepped over top of him. Had I been able to see things through Katon’s eyes, I might not have been so eager to have my naked crotch hovering so close to another man’s face, but Lucifer’s blood fueled a rage in me I couldn’t shut down. There was no reason or modesty buried anywhere in the deep murk of my primordial brain. This alien was getting tea-bagged.

“Where’s Scarlett?” I shrieked, pummeling him with my fists. Over and over I alternated from left to right, pounding and pounding. Subconsciously I heard the snap of his bones, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Katon shouted behind me and I felt him trying to pull me away, but his strength was like a gentle breeze. I shrugged him off and kept hitting Mihheer. At some point, the alien had gone unconscious, but I couldn’t say when.

Even more irate that he’d dare cheat me out of his agony, I reached down and grabbed ahold of one of his horns. I locked my fingers around it and leveraged my legs against the floor. I pulled. It came loose with a grinding crunch. Mihheer screamed into wakefulness and frantically clutched at the empty socket where his horn had been.

I stepped away triumphant, holding the horn over my head as a warm fluid rained down atop me. Katon shouted my name and I felt his voice worm its way inside my ear as I celebrated. It pierced the murk that churned inside. I paused and he called to me again. Flickers of light danced before my eyes. I turned to find Katon standing in front of me, his lips moving out of sync with his shrill voice. Blinking my eyes, I stared at him as he looked back. His face wavered from side to side and I couldn’t understand what he was saying anymore, his words oozing out of his mouth in slow motion. I tried to tell him to talk faster, but my own tongue wouldn’t work.

Lights popped in my head and Katon disappeared. There was a sudden sense that I’d stepped off the edge of the world, and then a cold solidness thumped against my cheek.