Demon Jack (2 page)

“I doubt that.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Anyhow,” she said with a sigh, patting me on the knee, “I’m old and I needs my beauty sleep. ‘Sides I hear Father Hernandez is making rounds with his Roach Coach tomorrow and I’m not going to stand in line all morning. Want me to bring you a plate?”

“You do that.”

“I’ll do that.”

She stood up, arthritic joints groaning in protest.

“Try and get some more rest, Jack-Jack. You look like ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag.”

“You’re too kind,” I muttered.

“Yeah, yeah I am.”

I waved, settling back and watching her walk away before I closed my eyes, letting my thoughts drift towards a few more hours of sleep and leaving the sandwich to settle in my stomach. What felt like a few minutes later, I felt something stir the air and ignored it, focusing on sleep.

The screams started just as I was hitting that weird spot between being half asleep and half awake. It was a terrified, high-pitched wail of horror counterpointed by an animalistic snarl of rage – almost like the two sounds were competing with each other, fighting for space in the stale air. The snarl won, its opponent turning into a wet, bubbling gasp.

I made the transition from near sleep to wide-awake in the span of a heartbeat. Prison had left me with a fair amount of paranoia, and an even better set of reflexes when it came to situations that could potentially result in bodily harm to yours truly.

Something came flying towards me out of the gloom. I rolled to the side, scraping my knees and hands against concrete and broken glass. A body, an actual human body, slammed into the wall where I had been sitting only a second before. If I hadn’t moved, I’d have been crushed by about three hundred pounds of very broken and very dead wino.

I stared at the body for a moment in utter disbelief, my hangover forgotten. Oddly enough, it wasn’t so much the corpse, but the fact that someone or something had just thrown a body at me. Lifeless eyes, red from years of alcohol and vacant in death, stared back at me. There was a torn, ragged hole where his throat used to be.

I pulled myself to my feet and started moving on sheer instinct, staying as low to the ground as I could without actually crawling. The interior of the building was, for the most part, a massive open space littered with a few empty fifty-gallon barrels. Half of them radiated the orange glow of lit fires. That same glow would display my shadow on the floor like it was a movie screen. It didn’t leave me a whole lot of options as far as cover went. I kept moving, heading towards one of the few barrels that didn’t contain glowing embers.

I still didn’t know what was happening. It’s not everyday someone starts throwing dead bodies around. More importantly, I was currently too busy devoting the majority of my focus to keeping my own ass intact to care. If a few other people died, well, they should have run faster. I ducked in behind one of the drums, taking a quick minute to catch my breath and figure out what in the holy blue Hell was going on.

My hands burned, pieces of broken glass wedged under the skin. I ignored it. In a few seconds they'd be completely healed.

Behind me, I could hear the sounds of panic, shoes scraping on concrete mixed with frightened cries as people ran for cover. Something, or someone, growled. It was a low rumbling sound like the thunder of a distant storm.

I shot a quick glance around the barrel. Essie was alone in the center of the room. She had a feral look stretched across her features. It was a far cry from the kind, somewhat crazy old bag lady I had recently shared a sandwich with. She was crouching, her hands resting lightly on the floor. Her face was streaked with blood, and something less than pleasant hung in thin, glistening strings from what was left of her teeth. She was sniffing at the air like an animal. The growl was coming from her.

I wasn’t exactly swimming in options. I could stay and hide behind my barrel or make a break for it and head for the door. To do that, I’d have to get past Essie. Given the evidence, it was a safe bet that Essie wasn’t exactly acting in a manner that would be conducive to my making a hasty retreat without her intervening.

So, I took a chance.

“Essie?” I said, keeping my voice light and stepped out from behind the barrel. I kept my posture loose and relaxed, trying to appear non-aggressive. Granted, aside from the scars, that wasn’t hard. I wasn’t exactly a big guy, barely five and a half feet tall and a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet.

Her head snapped towards me, and there was nothing left in her eyes that looked even remotely human. Cold, primal fear ran through me. They were glowing. Literally glowing a pale nauseating green that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. The color reminded me of toxic waste, of cancerous sickness. A wave of heat, feverish and oppressive washed over me, mixing with the ice water bite of fear. I felt my stomach revolt, threatening to toss the sandwich and soda back up my throat. Apparently my impromptu dinner had a stronger drive for survival than I was currently displaying. I had to force myself to focus, to push past the inherent wrongness radiating off her tiny form.

Her whole body tensed. I could almost physically feel her eyes sliding over the scars on my face. I felt my stomach drop when I realized what she was doing.

She was reading.

Honestly, I didn’t even know what the contract scarred into my flesh actually said. I couldn’t read Infernal. Granted, I had a general idea having signed it with my soul and all.

Shit.

“You are a Host,” the thing that had been Essie said. Its voice, modulated in and out to the point it sounded like there were fifteen or so of them, speaking all at once in contrasting tones. They rolled over each other like feedback.

I ignored it and spoke to Essie, or what I hoped was left of her.

“Essie… you in there?” I asked, hoping my nervousness wasn’t showing through in my tone.

“Dead. She is dead,” Essie, or the artist formerly known as Essie, said.

“Sorry. I don’t buy that.”

The Essie-thing growled, crouching lower to the ground, muscles taut and ready to pounce. The motion triggered a burst of adrenaline that set my muscles and nerves to the point of combustion. Everything around me seemed to slow down, and I could see with perfect clarity, despite the gloom.

“Essie, if you’re still in there. It’s Jack. Think you can try and get a word in?” I said, keeping my voice as even and neutral as possible. I didn’t know what had Essie, but anything that can take a body over has to beat the host’s will to do it. It has to be able to shove the original personality aside and then maintain that control. Regardless, it was a fight, and this thing had won said fight real fast, taking her over in a matter of minutes.

There was a slim chance Essie was in there, somewhere. If I could get through to her, reach past the thing that had her with the right words, I could get her to at least try to force it out.

If it didn’t work, I’d have to kill her. It wasn’t a notion I was keen on, but it wasn’t something that would keep me awake at night either. I liked Essie, but I wasn’t expecting this thing to just let me walk out the door. In a situation of me or x, there is no “or”.

“Host.” It growled again, its voice echoing off the walls. The building had emptied out, leaving just me and what had once been the closest thing I had to a friend staring at each other across an expanse of refuse littered concrete.

“Essie, listen to me. That thing, whatever it is, can only stay in there as long as you let it.”

Essie’s face contorted with pain, the green light radiating from its eyes dimming. She shook her head violently, a thick, wet snarl echoing out of her throat. Her eyes fell on me again, the light brighter, almost radioactive.

She had tried to fight it, and she had lost.

That settled it.

“Essie, if you can hear me, I’ll try and make it quick,” I said.

She burst into motion at the same time I did. She was fast, I mean really fast. Her muscles far exceeded what a woman Essie’s age would or should be capable of in a sane world. She became a literal blur as she moved, circling me to come at me from my flank. I tracked her, moving my sprint out wide in counterpoint, fighting to keep distance between us.

I had been in more than my share of fights. Most often, a fight, a real fight, devolved into a chaotic mass of flailing limbs and wasted motion within seconds. It was the guy that could keep his head in a fight that won out every time over the guy that could hit hard. Strength and speed definitely helped, but they weren't the key to an assured victory. More than anything, it was about patience. It was about waiting it out, defending for a chance at offense and picking your shots.

She leapt at me. I took two running stops and dropped into a slide, baseball style, slipping under her and rising back to my feet only to duck down and avoid a clubbing blow that probably would’ve taken my head off if it had connected. She swung at me again, and I stepped in taking the blow on the shoulder instead of the side of my head.

It was like being clubbed with a wrecking ball.

Whatever had Essie fought with the instincts of a half crazed animal. It swung for the fences every time, nothing was controlled or measured. I ducked or sidestepped every shot as it came towards me, compensating for my disadvantage in the speed department by constantly moving, making her work to adjust to my position and keeping her guessing as to where I’d be next.

I stepped to the side, a punch aimed at my gut only missed by inches. I realized that the wild animal act had been a total ruse the split second before her right hand connected with my jaw. She caught me just beneath my ear and a cloud of red-hot pain blossomed through my already aching head, sending torrents of agony running down my neck and into my shoulder. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I hit the ground about ten feet away, my breath knocked out of me in one massive rush of air.

I lay on my back on the cold concrete, blinking stupidly at the ceiling, too dazed to think. Sounds came to me from far off, the sound of footsteps, labored breathing, a slow undulating growl thick with phlegm and sickness. A shadow fell over me, and with it the knowledge that whatever came next was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a lot.

I fought to pull scraps of coherence together into something tangible. I tried to remember all the kindness Essie had shown me after my release from prison. I thought about the times we had camped under overpasses, in the Commons, anywhere we could find warmth. I thought about sharing food and stealing cigarettes, passing a cheap bottle of hooch back and forth while we panhandled before she'd quit drinking. I thought about staying up with her while she detoxed, helping her get through the worst of her addiction with sheer perseverance. I grabbed those memories and pulled them together, ramming them into a ball of resolve and choking it down in one large bitter pill.

This thing was going to kill me. It was going to do it while wearing the skin of one of the few people in recent memory that had shown me real kindness. I had literally sold my soul to keep from dying. I’d kill a friend to avoid that fate.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to die here.

I rolled onto my stomach and out of the way a split second before its fist crashed into the concrete where my head had been. Chips of splintered stone cut into my still aching cheek, tiny bee stings playing harmony to the much larger pain that had been inflicted upon my poor skull.

I pushed up to my hands and knees, and rather than stand, I launched with both legs driving my shoulder into her hips. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I let my momentum propel us both back to the floor. The thing holding Essie flailed, slamming her fists into my back and sides. This close they were damn near ineffectual without the leverage to put a good swing behind them. They still hurt, but it was a pain I could ignore.

She rolled on top of me, straddling my waist. My head snapped forward slamming into her nose. There was a loud crunch, a resounding echo of agony shooting through my skull. Blood splashed into my face, into my eyes. She gave a long, warbling growl of pain. I threw my hips up at the same time I rolled, reversing our positions. I wrenched my fingers into her hair and used her own seizure like thrashing against her. There was a dull thud as I slammed the back of her head into the concrete floor, and the toxic green eyes clouded over. I rammed her head back again, harder this time, and was rewarded with another crunch, her eyes returning to normal, to human.

“Jack-Jack?” Essie said, her voice thick and drunk sounding.

I hit her head against the floor one more time.

That did it.

I closed my eyes, gently easing her head down. I sat beside her on the floor for a long, silent moment. Her eyes, still open and unblinking, stared back at me.

I closed them with two fingers.

“Hands behind your head, asshole!”

I snapped my head towards the new voice and was instantly rewarded with another wave of dizziness.

A plain-clothes cop stood maybe twenty feet away. He had his badge hanging around his neck on one of those stainless steel beaded chains.

His gun was drawn and leveled on my head.

Chapter 2

I knew the drill. I closed my eyes and lay face down on the cement. I laced my fingers behind my head, and stayed as absolutely still as possible, mental images of a jumpy cop shooting me over a nervous twitch playing out in my head.