Bad Grace (Watcher Chronicles Book 1) (11 page)

No one seemed to be around the square. All the businesses were closed as expected, including the liquor store. The only place that wasn’t closed was the Viper Bar. In the still night air, Frank could hear music escaping from between the two front doors. The windows on the front of the building were too stained underneath their iron bars to see any movement inside. Krakus and his gang could have been in there, or they could not have been. Frank didn’t know. He only knew he was going inside and anyone or anything that tried to get in his way was getting a blast from the shotgun he held in his hands.

He ran quickly towards the bar, pressing his back against the wall next to the front doors when he reached it. Stayed that way for a moment while he waited. Listened. The music was louder now that he was close. He even recognized the song, “Inna Gadda Di Vidda”. Good a soundtrack as any to assault a building to.

After a moment, Frank rifled through his canvas bag with one hand while holding the shotgun up with the other hand. He pulled a spray can from the bag and quickly stepped in front of the doors. Then he hurriedly began to spray sigils on the door. The sigils were old and powerful. They would insure no demon could walk through the doors.

When he had finished, he hurried around the side of the building, looking for other exits. He sprayed the fire exit door on the side of the building and the heavy iron gate set into the brick wall that enclosed the bar’s back yard. He was sure he hadn’t covered all the exits, that there were at least one or two others he didn’t know about, but he didn’t really care. By the time the demons realized what had hit them, it would be too late for most of them to run anyway.

Frank took his phone out, called Eva. Told her to get into position with the rest. Then he moved quickly around to the front of the building again, stopping by the front doors. His heart was pounding with anticipation and he took the hip flask from the bag and took a long swallow of whiskey, quickly returning the flask to the bag before the others came. As he waited for the others to show, hoping no one would walk out of the bar in the meantime, he couldn’t stop thinking about the feather. It had now become his ticket to some kind of salvation, at least in his mind. With the feather in his possession, he could finally put things right, or almost anyway. Some damage couldn’t be undone.

Eva rounded the corner first as she ran cat like towards his position by the doors, her two shiny short swords out, one in each hand. Right behind her was Jack, carrying some heavy looking automatic weapon Frank didn’t even recognize. Obviously Jack had helped himself in the armory at the Watcher Facility. The Facility always had the most hi-tech weapons on hand. Sam came next, striding with absolute purpose towards the bar, two fully automatic handguns by his sides. Tyreese appeared like the Hulk behind Sam, a machete in one hand, Watcher knife in the other. Tyreese never shied away from getting up close and personal.

The five of them stood in front of the doors of the bar, weapons at the ready. Frank’s adrenaline was rising, along with his recharged grace. He raised the Siaga-12 to his shoulder and aimed it towards the doors. Jack stood beside him, his gun also raised. They would go in first, the rest behind.

Frank gave Jack the nod and they strode forward and each kicked in one of the doors, sending the wooden doors flying in towards the bar, the music from inside sounding loud to Frank’s now hypersensitive hearing.

The first thing Frank noticed when he made his entry into the bar was the amount of bodies inside. He was expecting maybe a dozen or so, but after a quick scan there seemed like twice that.

All heads turned towards Frank, Jack and the others. Everyone in the bar seemed to freeze for a long moment as they adjusted to what was going on.

Then the music stopped.

Dead silence descended.

Frank kept the shotgun firmly planted into his shoulder as he sighted around the bar, demon face after demon face coming into his vision.

Kill them all, Frank. Bring me back.

His finger was on the trigger of the shotgun, ready to blow a hole the size of a large melon in any demon that dared to make a move towards him.

He looked for Krakus amongst the faces. Didn’t see him

The crowd of demons stared back at Frank and his cohorts. Everyone knew what everyone else was, which was why most of the demons looked so tense, almost afraid in some cases. If Frank and the others had of been normals (fully human that is) the demons wouldn’t have looked so concerned. Demons didn’t fear humans. What hunter fears their prey after all?

Watcher’s on the other hand, they were a different story. The demons knew Frank and the others had the power to hurt them, to send them back to Hell. Only a stupid demon would chose to ignore that risk, and Frank had never met a stupid demon yet.

As it turned out though, there was a first time for everything. One of the demons closest to him, wearing a young man’s meat suit, came charging towards him, the demon’s true face fierce and on display, sharp teeth bared, and sunken eyes burning red.

The demon got to move two steps before Frank blew his head off with the Saiga-12, the demon's head exploding in a burst of dark red.

Frank sensed a lot flinching going on in the bar. Even demons couldn’t remain ice cold when they saw one of their buddies get their head blown off, even if that head didn’t strictly belong to the demon, and even if that demon wasn’t strictly dead, as the trail of black smoke leaving the body of the headless meat suit attested to. The demon’s spirit was on the move, forcefully swirling through the bar until it disappeared through an air vent in one of the walls.

“Anyone else feel like leaving their meat suit?” Frank barked.

The room was silent for a moment, then a demon whose head was just a mass of black writhing tentacles piped up at the bar. “What do you want, Watcher?”

Frank aimed the shotgun at Tentacle Head. “I want your boss, asshole. Where is he?”

“Why?” asked the demon, his voice strangely watery sounding behind all those black tentacles.

Frank took a few steps closer to the demon, putting only a few feet between them. “Don’t fuck with me, demon. You know exactly why we’re here.” Frank tightened his grip on the shotgun, like he was about to fire at Tentacle Head. “Now where is he?”

“As if we would tell you anything… Watcher!” In the time it took Frank to blink, Tentacle Head had closed the distance between them and gripped the shotgun, managed to wrangle it sideways before the demon pushed the shotgun into Frank’s chest, practically lifting Frank of his feet, sending him flying back where he landed on a table, the table breaking in half on impact.

By the time Frank had even hit the floor, all hell had broken loose in the bar.

The sound of semi and automatic gunfire in the confines of the bar was deafening. From his stunned position on the floor, Frank saw every demon in the place charge forwards. Frank’s team remained tightly grouped as they fired at the oncoming demons. Within seconds the air in the bar was heavy with the smell of gunpowder. Charging demons took multiple bullets and kept on coming. Any that got close got cut down by Tyreese’s machete or Eva’s swords. Sam and Jack continued to lay down heavy fire in an effort to keep the demons at bay long enough to destroy their meat suits. Frank knew that wouldn’t be the case for much longer though. Clips would run out any second and there wouldn’t be enough time to change them. From then on, the fighting would be up close and personal.

He leapt to his feet, pulled out one of the Beretta’s from under his jacket and started firing at the nearest demon, which was all of them at this point.

A blinding white flash in his peripheral vision signaled to Frank that one of the group was using their grace as they fought.

As he kept firing the Beretta, Frank reached down and pulled the Watcher knife from its sheath attached to his leg. After he unloaded the remainder of his clip into the chest of an oncoming demon, he used the knife to finish the demon by stabbing it in the sternum.

He had no sooner retracted the knife when another demon punched him on the jaw, almost knocking him unconscious. Frank staggered back and kicked out at the demon who had hit him, forcing a blast of bad grace into the kick, white light exploding as his foot slammed into the demon’s stomach, sending the demon flying back into the bar. Still half dazed from the punch, Frank charged forward and swung the knife into the demon’s temple, bright amber light flashing out of the demon’s eyes and mouth as it took a one way trip back to Hell.

His adrenaline through the roof now, Frank snapped his head around to make sure his team were not in any trouble. He saw Jack first, knife in hand, stabbing and slashing his way through a crowd of three demons who were doing their best to overpower the man. Frank knew Jack had it handled so he looked for Eva, who had moved over into the side of the bar. Her two short swords flashed around her as she cut down anything that came close to her, her arms and legs a whirlwind of movement. If he could, Frank would have sat and watched Eva in action right then. He had never seen so much fierceness and raw fighting skill on display from anyone.

Well, almost anyone.

You’d better get in there, Frank.

After stabbing two more demons, Frank looked around for Sam and Tyreese. He found them at the far side of the bar, the two of them back to back as they struggled to take on a crowd of demons around them. Frank ran to their position, jumping over mangled meat suits as he went, stopping only once to finish off a demon whose meat suit was bleeding bad and full of bullets. Frank rammed the knife into the back of the demon's head and then kept moving until he had reached the crowd surrounding Sam and Tyreese.

There must have been at least eight demons around the two guys, most of them with their own blades. Nothing special about the blades, but they cut just fine as Sam and Tyreese were finding out. By the looks of things they had both sustained multiple stab wounds in the fight, though neither were slowing down, mixing grace strikes with stabs and slashes from the knives. Even that was difficult though when the demons you were trying to hit not only moved so damn fast, but also in some cases, teleported around you so you didn’t know where they were half the time until you felt their knife on you.

As Frank drew his other Beretta, he saw the look of relief on Sam’s face. Tyreese was facing the other way, in the process of holding a demon by the throat while he struggled to fend off another who was trying to stab him with a large kitchen knife. When Frank started firing, he caught most of the demon's attention, even managing to drop a couple before three of them rushed him.

He was ready for them though. As the first demon came at him with a long thin blade, Frank shot it in the face, dropping it instantly. The second demon managed to grab a hold of Frank, lifting him off his feet and slamming him against the bar, seemingly with no effort. The demon's hands went to Frank’s throat, but just as they did Frank shoved the knife upwards, the blade going up under the demon's jaw.

The demon had just started to light up when Frank noticed movement in his peripheral vision and he instinctively lent his head back, the blade of a knife slicing past his face. Frank looked at the demon who held the knife, panicked for a second because he was trapped between the bar and the flashing amber demon who had fallen into him.

Then something exploded out of the demon’s throat. A blade. A look of surprise came over the demon’s yellow skinned face, a look that rivalled the surprised look on Frank’s own face. The surprised look on the demon's face turned to shock a second later and then its face lit up amber before the meat suit fell to the floor to reveal Eva standing there, sword in one hand, knife in the other. She had blood spatter all over her face, but Frank swore at that moment that she had never looked sexier.

She’s enjoying herself, Frank. Just like we used to.

Eva gave Frank a dark smile and then turned her attention to the remaining demons, which were few in number at this point.

Mere moments later, all but one of the demons in the bar had either vacated their meat suits or took the express elevator back to Hell.

The one remaining demon was on the floor, Tyreese’s heavy boot on its chest, preventing it from moving while Tyreese spoke an entrapment spell that would stop the demon’s spirit from leaving the meat suit it was in. The demon cursed at Tyreese, struggled, but knew it was beaten.

Frank walked over to it after insuring his team was all intact. Every one of them had sustained minor injuries, but they were all okay. Still standing, at least.

“Tell us where Krakus is,” Frank said to the demon under Tyreese’s boot. “And maybe I let your black spirit fly out of here.”

The demon on the floor looked fearfully up at Frank, its demon face bulbous and ogre like, tusks bending out of its cheeks, pointing in towards its thick lipped mouth. “I don’t know.”

Sam stepped forward, his face and neck full of blood, though it was hard to tell if it was his own or not. “Wrong answer, motherfucker!” he said. He bent down and slashed the demon across the face with his Watcher knife. The demon cried out in pain. “You feel that? We can do that all night. Leave you looking like you slept in a bath full of razor blades. Hell ain’t got nothing on us, motherfucker.” He slashed the demon again.

“Just tell us,” Frank said to the demon. “And we’ll let you go.”

The demon's dark green eyes flitted back and forth between Frank and Sam before finally settling on Frank. “Krakus will destroy me.”

“We’ll do a lot worse,” Frank said. “How about a burial spell? Eva, you know that spell, right?”

“Of course,” said Eva, stepping forward.

“No,” the demon said, suddenly more afraid than before. “I know what that is. Please.”

“You don’t fancy being buried where you lie?” Frank asked the demon. “Spend your time deep in the ground, trapped in that meat suit, unable to leave it. Just you and your own miserable thoughts.
Forever
. How’s that sound?”

The demon looked like its head was about to explode from thinking too much. “Alright! But you’ll let me go, won’t you? If I tell you?”