Demon Squad 6 The Best of Enemies (10 page)

I stumbled to a halt as that thought hit me. My constant companion took advantage of my distraction and started a drum line in my head, not one of the bastards on point. A silvery haze fluttered before my eyes.

“You okay?” Rala asked, suddenly right beside me. Even CB looked concerned, his maggots draped across his corneas, the tiny dots of their eyes staring at me.

I nodded and waved her forward. “I’m good, just need a second.” She looked like she didn’t believe me. I wasn’t even sure I believed me, but she left it at that and slipped through twisted the wrought iron gate that led into the building. My gaze scaled the gray heights once she was inside.

It was funny Veronica had chosen the mental institution for us to hide out in. I wasn’t sure if that was a statement as to what she thought of me or if, like Karra had, she had decided it was a damn good place to hide out. Either was possible, but the reason really didn’t matter. The Manor was off the grid even for the folks of Old Town. Filled with ghosts and haunted by its cruel history, you had to be crazy to step inside its cloistered walls.

I drew a deep breath of the night air and followed after Rala. Ghosts were easy. As long as you didn’t try to exorcise them, they’d pretty much leave you alone, happy to go about their ghostly duties of walking back and forth and remembering shit long gone. The upside to ghosts was the free air conditioning that came along with their presence. I felt that as soon as I stepped inside, the temperature dropping several degrees in an instant.

Rala stood in the middle of the lobby, clutching CB and the tome close as she spun in a slow circle, checking the place out.

“Why don’t you have any hiding places with maid service?” Rala asked when she heard me come in. “Or at least one that doesn’t involved trash and spider webs?”

“People don’t
hide
at the Hilton. They go there to spend their boss’ money and sleep on clean sheets someone else has to wash the crust off.”

“Now you’re getting the point.” She sighed, turning back to look at the elevators. Both were still taped off like they’d been the last time I was there. “So, which way to the ‘guest rooms’?” She did air quotes as she asked.

I pointed to the nearby doorway.

“The stairs,” She said, reading the posted sign. “Should have known.” She went over and yanked the door open. Poofs of rust exploded at the hinges and the door swung open to a symphony of mangled cats. “Lovely.” With that, she shook her head and went through the doorway, her footsteps echoing down the metal stairs.

I followed behind, overtaking her a way down the first flight so I could lead the way, not that she could get lost down two flights with only one exit. Despite that, it was as if I was on autopilot. My feet hurried down the steps and forced me past the bottom doorway and through the empty hallways as I made my way toward the room where Karra had sprung her trap.

There was none of the hesitation I’d had that first time, none of the uncertainty, but still there was plenty to think about. Karra kept popping to mind, but it was as though I were resisting any thoughts of her. I’d think about her and the baby, but the images would be washed away in a whitewash of static, like the snow between TV stations. No matter how hard I tried to focus on her, the thoughts were fleeting. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to care anymore. I sighed as we entered the surgery amphitheater.

Rows of unpadded white benches, like stadium seating, were set on a decline. A line of stairs split them in half. At their end was a low wall with an aluminum frame, which looked as though it were intended to contain a window. Shards of shattered glass lay on the floor at the bottom, just as it had before. None of the surgery lights were on as they had been last time, but I knew they worked, so that was a good thing.

“Here?”

Rala’s voice cut through my neutered reveries, and I nodded. “Yeah. There are beds down below, and lights. Plenty of room to hang out and get your magical groove on.”

She looked over at me. “You get hit in the head a lot, don’t you?”

“Come on.” I didn’t respond to that since the answer wouldn’t have been very flattering.

I went over to the window and dropped over it, landing in the surgery theater. Rala tossed the book and Chatterbox down to me, and I set them on the small, blue cooler Veronica had dropped off for us. Then I helped Rala over. CB was humming “Diary of a Madman” and while I wasn’t exactly an Ozzy fan, the song had a good rhythm. I found myself humming along.

Rala flipped the rubber mattress of the surgery bed and plopped down with a sigh, looking back and forth between CB and I. She had
that
look on her face.

“What?” I asked. We’d spent two months in Hell together, and I was getting damn good at reading her expressions.

She sighed again, and I waited for the drama to subside. “It’s just that…” her voice trailed off.

“Jesus, girl. Tell me.”

Rala bit her lower lip, letting it slowly slip free of her teeth. She was quiet until it did. “I don’t think this is a good idea…the book, and all.”

She was like a broken record. I tapped my arm thinking the translator worm had a repeat button, and I’d been hearing the same translation over and over. “Look, it’s not that I think it’s a good idea either, okay?”

Rala just stared.

“There’s more to this than you or I understand, and it has everything to do with that damn book and the portal you’re calling up.”

“Maybe, but every time we do it some weird monstrosity pops out.” Her eyebrows tented over her wide eyes. “There’s only some many times you can get hit in the face with a rock before you realize it’s not good for you.”

I thought about arguing but decided the mental institution might not be the place to take that particular stand. “I know, I know…” She had a point, but I couldn’t help thinking there was something I needed to do with the book. “Here, I’ll tell you what. Let’s leave it be tonight.” My head was killing me, and I needed a nap if I was gonna go play Whac-A-Mole with Mister Hobbs. “We can discuss this in the morning, okay?”

Rala fell back into the bed and nodded. “Sure.”

I went over and dropped down on my own wheeled bed, listening to it squeak as I settled in. “I’ve got to be up for the trap at the cemetery, so if you don’t mind, can you wake me at two?”

“Hideouts with alarm clocks would be nice,” was her answer.

I muttered something I thought sounded vaguely like agreement and was asleep before my head settled against the mattress.

Nine

Dark, roiling clouds devoured the sky, brilliant flashes of lightning bleaching them gray in rumbling spats. The last rays of a feeble sun drowned beneath the airy waves, shadows swallowing the remnants of distant blue. Thick droplets of rain pelted my naked skin, each collision welting flesh, the crack of a divine whip. The pain drove my breath from my lungs in ragged gasps. I steeled myself against its blows and looked out across the masses gathered on their knees beneath the jutting precipice that trembled beneath my feet. Above them, an emerald green star cast a sullen pall.

Voices rose up in terror as the waves battered the beach, as if prayers and pleas might hold back the water. They were fools, all of them. He had divined the end, the coming of the flood, and there would be no reprieve from His decision. There was no mercy in His world, no forgiveness for all the flowery words and cloying sentiments.

No, the end had come for this particular season of humanity, and it was my duty—my penance—to watch them scrubbed from the world before the coming of yet another new dawn.

I wiped the rain from my eyes with roughened hands, flakes of rotten skin sloughing off with the motion, carried off in the growing breeze, the bones withering away. The coppery tang of blood coated my tongue, doing little to ease the acrid stench of charred meat, which clung to every breath. Ash fluttered in the air, defying the downpour. The motes floated over the congregation of the damned.

This was God’s answer, His final judgment borne rancid fruit. This was the ash of angels.

How could humanity pray for more than He had offered His own, the holiest of His minions? No, the choice had been made and now there was nothing left but to watch the end approach.

I stood against the fury of the rain and watched as the ocean rose and took angry bites from the shore. Though in my defense, I had been given no choice save for whether to witness the last moments of Earth on my knees or on my feet. I chose to stand, but there would be no blocking my vision or turning away.

My eyelids had been cleaved from my face, the frigid moisture rolling down my cheeks alongside my crimson tears. The ground clutched at my feet, weaving vines and roots through the bones, holding me in place as though I were a part of the dying world.

But no, God had made it clear I had another role, a mission yet to be fulfilled. I would not die today, but what happened here was to be my burden, carried forever in the ruins of my soul.

And as the waves lashed across the beach, tearing the heretics from their pitiful obeisance, their screams filled my ears. They clutched at the sand, but earth and sea betrayed their feeble holds. The end came as they were carried into the deeps. They were the first, but they would not be the last. Soon there would be no more.

Ten

“
Wwaakkkeeey, waaakkkkeeeyyy, eeeeggggzzzz and bbaaakkkkeeyyy.
”

Chatterbox loomed over my face as I peeled my eyes open, his leathern lips curled back in what was supposed to be a pleasant smile. Black and rotten teeth hovered inches away.

“And all sorts of breakfast funk.” I sat up, palmed his face, and pushed him aside. Rala shifted back to get out of the way, her hands palming his skull so she could take him with her. “What time is it?”

“See, Chatterbox. He’s not always a dick, just when he’s awake.”

CB chuckled while I glared at the two comedians. I must have slept, but I sure as hell didn’t feel like it. My brain rattled inside my skull as though it had broken loose of its moors. I rubbed at my temples, massaging away the worst of it, but I could imagine this was how people felt after walking up in a bathtub in a foreign country after having their kidneys plucked out. The room swam around me.

Rala must have found some pity for me because she handed me a bottle of water. I popped the top and guzzled it down. It tasted like shit, but it washed away the sick taste of bile that had built up in my throat. I glanced over to see that Rala had turned on one of the surgical lights and had shifted it so it illuminated the room with softer tones rather than its glaring brightness, for which I was grateful. The light flickered, its quiet hum sounding louder for a moment before settling in.

“It’s two,” Rala said as soon as I glanced over at her, rubbing at her eyes. She looked even worse than I imagined I did. “Just like you wanted.”

I eased up from the mattress, wiped at the drool that had crusted my chin, and sat at the edge, my feet dangling over. “You get any sleep?”

She spurted out an obnoxious chuckle like a hyena, so I raised my hands in surrender. I didn’t have the energy to fight with her and the Hobgoblin, or whatever the fuck his name was. Rala kept on chuckling as I crawled off the bed and wandered over to the cooler. Her voice followed me, an annoying buzz in my ear.

“It’s not
that
funny, you know?”

“You have no idea,” she answered, flopping back against the mattress with a loud huff. “Oh, almost forgot; Veronica told me to give you this. She passed a folder piece of paper over. “And turn the light out before you go.” Rala rolled over, presenting her back to me. Chatterbox snuggled up in the crook of her knees and closed his eyes.

“Yes’m,” I answered, though she was snoring before I even got the word out. A quick glance pretty much confirmed my thoughts, so I wadded it up and tossed it aside.

I downed another bottle of water, which only tasted slightly less like ass than the first, and slipped out to make my supposed
ambush
at Rest Land. While I was in the mood to kick some ass, according to Veronica’s note, there wouldn’t be much of that going on, which was probably a good thing. Whatever sleep I’d gotten had only made me feel worse, which was a hell of an accomplishment seeing how bad I’d felt before. At least when Hobbs was a permanent resident of the cemetery, I could come back and relax.

I was pretty sure the DSI would try to hit back at me, though I figured it’d be a few days before they reorganized. Typical government. DRAC was another matter altogether, but if Hobbs were kicked out of the equation, things would settle down with them because I could disappear for a while. They’d been cool with Baalth, for the most part, so they needed to get it in their head that I would be filling essentially the same role…only doing it with more style.

On the way to the cemetery, I stopped off in Hell and gave the fiends marching orders. While I knew not to expect a full on war, I wanted to be sure I had some numbers on my side in case Veronica’s intel was wrong. All the distractions at the safe house made it clear my focus needed a metric fuck ton of work, so I wanted to alleviate that issue and prepare a little surprise for anyone hoping to corral me at the graveyard. My magic seemed to work of its own accord, so I didn’t want to take any chances of mystical dysfunction. There aren’t any pills for that.

When I arrived at Rest Land, my senses immediately picked up on two different presences. Though they weren’t exactly bad guys, I wasn’t all that happy to spend more time with them.

“And here I was thinking I’d be ambushed by someone who liked me more,” I said as I walked up alongside Katon and my cousin, both staring at me, their arms across their chests. Twin towers of nonchalance.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” the enforcer answered, his cold dark eyes meeting mine.

Once upon a time that might have scared me, but I was over it. “Awwww, how quaint.”