Resurrection

Chapter Eight

I stared off at the horizon as we walked, the sun climbing into the sky at a snail’s pace. A subtle, growing warmth challenged the chill while dawn arrived to chase away the gloom; the darkness that is.

Our personal gloom was dead set on sticking around. The feeling in my arm and leg had returned, at least enough so I could move a little. There was a lasting stiffness that pricked at my nerves as I got up. It was an uncomfortable pins and needles kind of feeling, but not horribly limiting.

Veronica’s function returned a good while later as we made our way back toward Old Town. I’d carried her for a while as the poison worked its way out of her nervous system, and until she regained movement in her legs.

Lucky for me, her mouth was the first to come unstuck. I had to listen to her rabid complaints the entire way. Trudging through the desert, wooden-legged and slow, it made for a long, unpleasant trip. It didn’t take me long to remember why I’d dropped her off in Hell all those years ago.

Beautiful on the outside, what spewed from the inside would make a sailor blush and a demon pray the rosary. She had a way with words, my Veronica. I kept my sanity by thinking of creative ways to shut her up. If I hadn’t been so afraid to lose a body part in the process, I’d have acted on a few of them.

At last, my ears burning, we kicked the dirt from our feet and stumbled onto the ruin of Fiesta Street. I never thought I’d be so glad to see this place during the day.

Veronica, at home in Old Town, suggested a place we could go to recuperate before heading back out after…

…we’ll just pretend she said Karra.

Not interested in having to answer to Baalth, I waved her on. One ass kicking in a day was more than enough for me. Still steaming, she stormed off without argument. I could hear her muttered curses for several minutes after she’d disappeared.

Just glad it wasn’t me she was pissed at, I wandered down the street to find a phone. For once that was easy. I went into one of the sex shops hit by the zombie raid the night before. Still unlocked and surprisingly un-looted, I headed for the counter, by way of the video racks.

What?

Testosterone is at its peak in the morning, I couldn’t help it.

Anyway, after my perusal, I gave a call to DRAC and waited, checking out the rest of the store. It wasn’t but a few minutes before I heard Abraham’s charming voice inside my head.

“Find anything, Frank?” He still sounded upbeat despite our being in the dark as to what Reven intended. Rachelle must be one hell of a lay.

There were a couple of things on the shelves that had caught my eye, but I knew that wasn’t what he meant. “Turns out our necro-buddy has his zombies kidnapping people so he can drain their blood. He made away with about three tubfuls last night.”

“Last night?” I could hear the surprise in his voice. “I hadn’t heard of any attacks.”

“Yeah. I ran into some of his pets out here in Old Town. Figuring you guys had the cemeteries covered, I went looking elsewhere. Come to find out, he’s got his own little graveyard out in the desert.”

Hole sweet hole.

Abraham paused a moment then piped back up, his voice agitated, “If he’s gathering blood in copious amounts, he’s looking to raise an army, or perhaps even a powerful soul of some sort. We need to figure out what he’s doing.” His concern wafted through the telepathic connection.

He hadn’t thought much of Reven’s power, deemed insignificant compared to what we’ve faced before, but it was clear the necromancer had big plans. We just needed to know what they were before they blew up in our faces. “Perhaps Baalth knows something.”

I whistled a few bars of Chopin’s Funeral March. “I don’t think so. He’s had me and Veronica out hunting zombies. If he knew anything, I’d have heard about it by now, seeing how I’m doing his grunt work. Besides, he seems a bit out of it. He’s got other problems right now and based on how he’s coping, Reven’s antics are probably the last thing on his angry little mind.”

“What kind of problems?”

“No idea, but they’ve got him chomping at the bit pretty hard. He’s on edge. And I do mean right on the edge. I know we’ve got enough to deal with already, but I don’t think it’d hurt to keep an eye on him. He’s wound tighter than Paula Abdul.”

Abraham sighed, his disappointment bleeding over. “With Rahim injured and stuck in the office, and Katon doing what he can to make up for both him and our members murdered by Asmoday, we’re falling behind in our intelligence. We need to resolve the Reven issue quickly so we can focus on Baalth. We can’t afford to have him lose control.”

The thought sent a chill rattling down my spine. Given Baalth’s newly acquired powers, any temper tantrum on his part could bring about serious destruction. It wasn’t something any of us wanted to experience. Even if he didn’t blow up and go on a rampage, he needed to stay on top of things.

Though not common knowledge, Baalth’s influence was what kept the majority of the supernatural drama on Earth to a bare minimum. Looking to create his own Hell, he didn’t take kindly to folks muscling in on his territory or spoiling his plans. Only the suicidally brave, or just the plain suicidal, crossed swords with Baalth. But given the opportunity, Baalth’s iron hand slipping, we’d be up to our neck in supernatural shit. Demons are the definition of opportunistic.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I’m sure I didn’t sound confident. I certainly wasn’t feeling confident. “Dig up what you can on all of the local dead baddies,” I told him as I thought back to my encounter in the desert. “Reven still has a gang of minions with him, so I don’t think he’s looking to make more zombies, but you never know. Maybe we should spread our watch out to the closest counties, keep an eye on their morgues and cemeteries.”

“I’m not sure we have the manpower to spare for all that.” He didn’t sound pleased, no doubt once again remembering the blow Asmoday had dealt DRAC. “I’ll let you know what I come up with.” He broke the connection, leaving me alone inside the shop.

At least I had porn to keep me company.

Grumbling, all the bad news dampening the excitement of free whack material, I headed out to get some coffee. I needed some caffeine to help motivate my sluggish brain.

Out on the street, I headed for downtown. Not much better than Old Town, it would at least be open and serving breakfast that wasn’t cooked in a spoon. I’d made it a few blocks when a long, black limousine rolled around the corner and headed my way. Way out of place, dark tinted windows obscuring the interior, my hackles were up. I made a show of pulling out my gun as the limo pulled up alongside me. Ready to go, I waited as the back window rolled down with a quiet whir.

“You won’t need your weapon, Triggaltheron,” a smooth, sensual female voice drifted out through the window.

If it hadn’t been so sexy sounding, I’d have ripped into her for daring to use my given name. I hated when people did that. The worst part was it meant she knew me, likely giving her the upper hand in whatever her purpose was here. I peered inside to see if I recognized her and whether she was half as attractive as her voice. The answer to both questions was yes.

There, sitting in the limo with casual confidence was Lilith; the Devil’s wife.

Well, not exactly wife.

Not fond of commitment, my uncle never made their relationship official, but it’s always been easier to call her his wife. The chick the Devil used to bang just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Though, technically, they’d split up a while back.

Their relationship had been open, in the most unconventional sense of the word, but she’d apparently become too attached to one of her side flings. She’d fallen in love. Satan, a wee bit on the jealous side-and deeply wounded by her betrayal-ended the fling, and the man’s life. After that, he sent Lilith on her way. It’d been a long time since I’d seen her last. She looked exactly the same as she had back then. That was a good thing.

Her long, black hair flowed like waves of water over her narrow, pale shoulders. From her flawless face, her sea green eyes appraised me, a hint of a smile creeping onto her full, red lips. Her low cut dress cut out the middle-man of my imagination, the rounded fullness of her breasts hidden from full view by nothing more than a slip of thin, satiny cloth. Her smile widened as she caught the direction of my lingering gaze. My pants tightened remembering all the times she’d teased me as a young man before my uncle sent her packing. Some things never change.

“Come inside,” she told me. I nearly did. “Can I offer you a ride? We can speak as we go.”

Like a kid being offered candy, I was gonna take that ride even if it meant getting molested. In fact, I insisted upon it.

The door swung open and Lilith slid sensually across the leather seat, making room. I put my gun away and took a second to admire the view of her shapely thighs, her dress ending dangerously close to her hips. With a little effort, my jeans way too tight to allow casual movement, I managed to slip inside the car. She gestured to the seat across from her and I dropped down with abandon, reckless and otherwise.

The driver, who I hadn’t seen get out of the car, closed the door behind me, then returned to his post. A few seconds later, we were pulling away, creeping down the Old Town streets.

“It’s been a long time, Triggaltheron.”

Distracted by trying to see past the shadows that hid the prize that lay just beyond the hem of her dress, it took me a second to answer.

“Uh, can you call me Frank?”

She gave a sour smile, small dimples forming in her cheeks. “Why? Do you not like your name? Your uncle gave it to you. You should be proud of it.”

I shook my head. “Those times are past.” A shadow crossed her face, wiping her smile away. “I’m just Frank now.”

She nodded, appearing disappointed. “Then Frank it is.”

She took a second to look me over. I crossed my legs and laid my hands in my lap as casually as I could. It’s not like she didn’t know how she affected me, having gone out of her way to tease me for decades, but I didn’t see any reason to make it obvious. She wanted something and I wanted to bargain from a position of strength. Sitting there with my hard-on out in the open, twitching against my jeans, didn’t exactly promote fair terms on my part.

Though I was enjoying the view, I needed to hurry things along. As the mother of all succubi, Lilith was not a woman you tempted fate with. Her powers of sexuality dwarfed even those of Veronica, who could get me to dance with little more than a gentle tug on my string…er, strings. I do have to admit though, the mother-daughter angle was forefront in my mind right then. It’s too bad they weren’t getting along these days.

“You said you wanted to talk. What about?” I got straight to it. I didn’t think my jeans could hold out for much longer.

Lilith’s face warmed. “You are so much like your uncle.” I didn’t think she meant it as a compliment and she didn’t bother to explain. “I’ve heard of your recent troubles with a necromancer. Reven, is it?” She asked as though she was unsure. We both knew she was.

“Where did you hear this?” Two could play the game.

“Here and there. I still have connections to the supernatural world, though I tend to avoid its drama as much as possible.” She cast out her bait.

Like a good fish, I bit. “Unless you have good reason not to?”

Her lips curved upward. “Or if someone I care for needs my help.” She leaned forward resting her hand on my thigh. Little shocks of electricity ran up my leg and exploded at my crotch. Her long nails, filed to sharp points, dug in gently. “I promised your uncle I’d look after you, keep you out of trouble.”

I knew she was lying, but the throb in my pants didn’t care. She had her reasons for showing up, and regardless of her motive, if she passed on something useful it was worth putting up with the act. If her flirting and rubbing up on me was gonna help take out Reven, I’d be more than glad to take one for the team. Two even, maybe even three. I’m generous like that.

I nodded. “Just what is it that has you so concerned?” I uncrossed my legs to let her think she was getting to me. I lied to myself, repeating it over and over in my head that she really wasn’t, while her hand slid a little further up my leg. I was gonna have to replace the zipper later.

She leaned in further, the gentle scent of strawberries and sweet red wine drifted to my nose. “Reven seeks power.”

Tell me something I didn’t already know.

She did. “He intends to raise the most powerful man to ever wear the mantle of the Anti-Christ, Maximus Artorius. This cannot happen.” She dropped back into the seat, her body limp.

Holy crap. “Longinus?”

She nodded, saying nothing, letting it all sink in.

Maximus Artorius, or Longinus as history remembers him, was the first to bear the title of Anti-Christ. Present at the crucifixion of Jesus, he pierced the side of Christ with his spear to confirm the Savior’s death, or so the historians would have you believe.

In truth Longinus was Hell-born. A demon whose fateful spear thrust empowered him with the earthly energies of Christ, returning the Son to God’s pasture. Crumpled to his knees in the midst of a soul transfer, proclaiming Christ truly to be the son of God, Longinus’s actions have been forever misrepresented by humanity. To them, he is a martyr, a saint, venerated for his acceptance of the existence of Christ, and thus God. To the supernatural world, he’s either a legend or a villain, depending on who you ask. I’d met Longinus only a few times, but my uncle spoke of him often, though never in what could be termed a good way. Despite his history, his service to Lucifer, my uncle never forgave him. It was he who Lilith chose to love.

He’d paid for that love with his life, shackled and buried beneath a gnawing mountain of dread fiends. Now, sitting in a limo some four hundred years later, the woman whose feelings unintentionally helped him into his grave campaigned to keep him there.

Something was very wrong with this picture.

Though Lucifer kept the affair quiet, both prideful and mindful of the damage such news could have on his rule, Lilith had to at least assume I knew about it. She’d known how close I was to my uncle, saw it firsthand. As such, none of this made any sense.

No idea where all this was going, I figured what the hell? I’d play along. “So, you want to stop Longinus from being resurrected?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She shuffled about in the seat, her dress creeping up just a little further. While I can’t say I wasn’t interested in looking, it was too obvious a ploy to distract me. I kept my eyes on her face.

Mostly.

“You know what we had together?” She already knew the answer, but I nodded anyway, letting her set things up. “I never meant to hurt your uncle. Things just spiraled out of control, caught me off guard. I fell for Maximus and there was nothing I could do about it.”

She paused a moment, her eyes moistening. If I hadn’t known her daughter so well, known her kind, I’d have fallen for it.

“I still care for Maximus, but he’s been gone a long time. As much as it hurts to say it, he’s dead.” She drew in a sharp breath. “It won’t be him who the necromancer raises, but an empty, soulless creature whose will is tied to Reven, his powers at the necromancer’s beck and call.” Her white-knuckled fists clenched the hem of her dress, the Pearly Gates slipping into full view. “It’s bad enough they’ve stolen his body from its place in Limbo, but I will not have him tortured by being resurrected as a mindless slave. I will not let Reven torture me like this. He must be stopped.”

I thought about it for a second. Though I had doubts as to why Lilith would bring all this to me, her playing the selfish angle seemed to fit. It wasn’t so much about Longinus’s suffering as it was about how his return would affect her.

The worst part was, if what she was telling me was true then the world was in serious trouble. Killed by dread fiends and not by my uncle’s hand, Longinus would have retained the powers he’d stolen from Jesus, as well as any other souls he’d collected along the way. While not on par with Baalth-the earthly incarnation of Christ nothing compared to His true self in Heaven-it was still a whole hell of a lot of power in the hands of a guy whose passion, whose entire existence, was predicated on death.

In a few short weeks Reven managed to rack up something neighboring a hundred deaths. I could only imagine what the body count would be if he had Longinus under his control. Things were gonna get bad.

“Do you know where Reven is?”

She shook her head. “I’m unable to find him, his nature impossible to track.” I must have made a sour face because she waggled a finger at me. “I can, however, point you in the direction of his pet, the demon Karra.”

I hadn’t realized Karra was a demon, but it certainly explained a lot. What it didn’t explain though, was why Lilith was sending me off after Karra when she knew where she was and had sufficient power to go after her herself. I was starting to think people wanted me dead.

Baalth had done the same thing earlier. It definitely got my paranoia up and running. It was bad enough being a pawn-I’d accepted that-but I wasn’t looking to be sacrificed for someone’s endgame.

“Not to sound ungrateful for the information or anything, but why leave this to me when you can handle it yourself, or pass it on to Baalth to deal with?”

Her eyes dropped to her lap. “Baalth and I are not on the best of terms these days. Karra’s current location is deep inside Old Town and I dare not go there. It is one thing to skirt the edges, passing through, but it’s entirely something more dangerous to stroll into the heart of his territory. I would not survive such boldness.” She raised her eyes, meeting mine with a steely gaze. “I’d also rather not give him the pleasure of striking down Maximus-he always hated him. It would wound me to my core were he to possess Maximus’s soul.”

I could agree with that sentiment even if I didn’t trust her motives. The last thing we needed was Baalth inheriting Longinus’s magic. He already had far more than enough to screw the pooch in ways I didn’t want to think about.

I did anyway. Bad mind.

“Were it you who brought it all to an end, I believe I could accept that.” She smiled, leaning forward to rest her hands on my legs again. The game was still on. “I’ve grown fond of life since Lucifer’s departure and have no interest in the past returning from the grave to take all that away. I’d be in your debt if you were to handle this.”

Though she talked a good game, her words were hollow, pure manipulation. The only value in what she said was what I could make of it, reading between the lines as to her true motives. It was still better than nothing. “Tell me what you know.”

“My spies have tracked Karra to an abandoned mental institution in northern Old Town called Gailbraith Manor. I imagine you’ll find her there, amidst the memories of the tortured dead.”

Crazy and creepy. Nice. My kind of girl.

My mind flashed back on what I remembered about the asylum. Its basement was said to have been converted into a makeshift morgue when its administrators realized they could make more money harvesting the organs of their patients than caring for them. Caught in the act, the institute was shut down and condemned. Like everything else in Old Town, it had been forgotten, left to rot. It was a great hiding place.

“Is Longinus’s body there as well?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know for certain, though I believe not. My men were unable to get inside without giving themselves away. Capture Karra and she can lead you to him and her master as well.”

If only it were that easy. Karra was vicious with the skills to back it up. I wasn’t looking forward to scrapping with her again. Though somewhere deep inside my head, I couldn’t help think I might not need to. She’d been reluctant to kill me despite knowing I intended to keep coming after her. There was something there I couldn’t understand. Some factor in play I didn’t know about. It nagged at me.

“Anything else I need to know?”

Lilith shook her head.

Conveniently, the limo slowed right then, and drifted off to the side of the road. Just a few blocks from the business area of downtown, it came to a stop. The driver got out and moved around to open the door on my side, letting the bright light of morning in.

“Thank you, Frank.” She motioned toward the door. “I’ll be in touch should I learn anything that might be useful to you.”

Finished with me, she turned away, her eyes facing straight ahead. I climbed out of the car and the driver shut the door behind me with quiet efficiency. Without so much as a glance my way, he got back behind the wheel. Seconds later, they were gone.

Despite all the unknowns piling up in the equation, at least now I had some kind of direction to go in. That was more than I had an hour ago.

Since my coffee run had been interrupted, I headed off to remedy my need for caffeine and to put another call into DRAC to let them know about Longinus. I left out the source of my information, as usual, adding that it was all just speculation at that point, but I wanted to float the possibility. From there, I went home and fixed myself up, showered away the dried blood and nastiness, and took a long nap. After that, I figured I’d head down to the insane asylum.

I had a feeling I was gonna fit in just fine.