Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) (17 page)

We were going to be living in the United States of Agamemnon very soon now, I feared.

TWENTY

The three of us limped down the street, narrowly avoiding an entire fleet of fire engines speeding towards the park. Man, that would be a wild scene. What would the newspapers have to say about this mess? SECRET SOCIETY'S HELICOPTER SMACKED DOWN BY KING OF ZOMBIES? That is, if we even had any newspapers come tomorrow morning...

“We need to get out of the street, to some place more private,” said Kubo. “Things could go south any second now, and we need to hole up somewhere before Agamemnon's guys start looking for us.” He worked his jaw over in his hand. “Can't speak for the two of you, but I'm not going to get far without a breather.”

I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard the Chief talk like that. He'd always been one to charge ahead, no matter the cost. With Kubo there was never any stopping till the job was done. Possibly he'd really run himself into the ground this time around, or maybe the gravity of the situation had him reconsidering his usually relentless approach. At any rate, I agreed with him. Joe was limping along like one of the zombies. Some rest and food were in order. Kubo could try and get ahold of Amundsen while we got our strength back, maybe arrange transport to HQ.

Then again, after all we'd seen, was HQ really all that safe? A wave of rampaging zombies had batted a military-grade helicopter out of the sky. Somehow I doubted that the big gates outside of the Veiled Order's complex would keep Agamemnon out.

I paused on the curb, looking around. I knew this area pretty well; across the street was a McDonald's I'd frequented as a kid. There was a shuttered department store across the street from that, where I'd once shopped for school clothes. Realizing just where I was, I had an idea.

“Hold on, guys. I think I know a place where we'll be safe. For the time being. It's private, at least.” I plucked my smart phone out of my pocket. The screen was cracked. While going through my contacts, I glanced at Kubo in my periphery. “I'm gonna need the Veiled Order to replace my phone when all this is over with.”

Kubo spat on the ground. “If there's still a Veiled Order after today, I'm sure we'll be able to work something out.”

I hit the call button and put the phone up to my ear, pacing along the edge of the curb and trying to keep my balance. There was a groggy answer on the third ring. “H-hello?”

“Hey, dad,” I said. “I know it's late, and I'm sorry for calling. I don't suppose me and some friends could stop over, could we? We're in a bit of trouble...” I hesitated. “Friend of mine got hurt and needs a place to rest for a minute. We're nearby.”

My dad yawned. “Uh... sure thing, sport. That's no biggie. I'll leave the door unlocked for ya.”

“Thanks. See you in a bit.” I hung up.

“We're going to your dad's place?” asked Joe. “He lives near here?”

I pointed past the McDonald's at the cluster of tightly-packed neighborhoods beyond. “Yep. Less than a mile that way. Come on, guys.”

***

Oh boy, where to start.

My dad, Gary Colt, is... an
interesting
guy. These day's he's pushing fifty and living by himself in a decent two-story house. He's got a lot of hobbies, most of them weird, and although he's friendly, most of my friends over the years have thought him kind of a douche. Chief among my dad's hobbies is his passion for model train sets. I can't tell you just how much money the guy has spent on that crap over the years; frankly, if he'd spent half that much on funding my college education then maybe I wouldn't have ended up having to take on a demon's heart just to pay off my loans.

But, I digress.

I was nervous about introducing my co-workers to my dad, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and I didn't know where else we were going to get this sort of privacy on such short notice, and free of charge.

So, we came up on my dad's place looking like hot garbage and walked onto the well-lit porch. The smell of cut grass was a friendly reminder of home, and as I pushed open the door, calling out to my father, I found the living room exactly the way I remembered it. Big-screen TV in the corner, my dad's well-worn leather recliner that he'd had since I could remember, the collection of withered potted plants that he could never seem to keep from dying. It was all there.

“Heya, sport!” came my dad's voice from the kitchen. “How're you doing?” He stopped at the dim threshold to the kitchen and watched the three of us limping inside, about as put together as day-old dog shit. His expression hardened, the closely-manicured mustache he wore cozying up to the bottom of his nose.

Here it comes
. He was going to ask me why it was we looked so rough, whether I was on drugs. My dad was always one to jump to conclusions.

When all three of us had made it inside, my dad walked over and squeezed my arm. “You been lifting weights, Lucy?” He leaned out towards me and patted his paunch, hidden beneath a baggy sweater. “Take after your old man, I see.” He nodded to the dust-covered piece of half-constructed exercise equipment in the corner. “You know, I picked up that great machine a while back, the one with the Chuck Norris commercials? Once this rotator cuff of mine gets on the mend, I'm going to start using it daily. You know, they say it only takes two weeks to see results?” He slapped me playfully in the belly. “Your old man's going to be swimsuit ready in just two weeks, bud. You'd better watch out.”

I chuckled nervously, glancing at Kubo and Joe. My face burned. This was the same kind of banter he always had with me; he'd talk about his stubborn rotator cuff, about all of the exercise equipment he'd invested in. I was pretty sure that heap of dusty crap in the living room was the exact same machine he'd been talking about during my last visit.

“And these are your friends, I take it?” He held out his hand to shake. Joe and Kubo offered theirs in return, shaking awkwardly. My dad eyed them curiously but didn't say much about their disheveled appearance. “Wild night, boys?” he said, nodding knowingly. “I had a few of those in my day. If you need to sober up I've got just the thing. Made a fresh batch of peanut brittle this afternoon. Lucy's favorite.” My dad wandered into the kitchen, leaving the three of us at the door.

Joe and Kubo actually chuckled, the bastards. “I see where you get your charm, Lucy,” said Kubo, smacking me in the back. “Why don't you go fill up on candy with your daddy while the world ends?”

I frowned. Hey, say what you will about my dad, but his peanut brittle is
off the hook
. These assholes were talking shit without even having tasted it!

“S-sorry, dad,” I said, “we aren't here for peanut brittle. We were hoping to crash for a little bit. Joe here got hit pretty hard and, uh... needs to rest. Mind if we go down to the basement for a while and let him lay on the sofa?”

My dad was leaning over the counter, carefully portioning out three paper plates' worth of peanut brittle. My mouth watered as I watched him work. “Oh,” he began with obvious reticence. “I don't know about that, champ. I've got something down there... something I can't have you or your buddies messing with.” He shot me a stern glance, and I knew he was serious. “It would be dangerous.”

“What, is Tammy spending the night or something?” I asked. Tammy was my dad's semi-serious girlfriend. She often stayed the night, and they'd hang out in the basement till dawn messing around like teenagers and tinkering with my dad's trains. Tammy was actually a really good-looking and likable woman, and I'd be the first one to admit my dad had quite the catch on his hands if not for the fact that her breath was
wretched
. I don't know what was wrong with her; my best guess is that she had a serious, unrestrained case of halitosis. Her breath could strip paint, and so I tried my best not to visit when I knew she'd be around.

“No, no, she went home earlier,” he replied, handing us each a plate of brittle.

“And how is she?” I asked, shoving a piece into my mouth. Holy shit, it was good. Perfectly crunchy and very evenly-poured. The uniform thickness of the stuff was unreal. I operated in a world filled with magic now, but how the man could pour the brittle in such an
even
layer was simply beyond me. He'd been liberal with the peanuts this time, and had even dusted the finished product in a bit of sea salt.

My dad's hair was getting to be pretty thin so that the shiny crown of his head reflected the light coming in from over the sink. “She's fine,” he replied. “I've scheduled her for an appointment with a really good gastroenterologist this time, and I
think
he's going to be able to fix her up.” He cleared his throat, a little smile teasing his lips. “Do, uh... do you fellas
really
want to head into the basement? I'll allow it, as long as you promise not to mess with anything.”

While shoving another sheet of brittle into my mouth, I nodded fervently. I'd known this would be a part of the deal before I'd even called him.

He wanted to show us his trains.

Running for the basement door, he threw it open and led us downstairs. “Oh, just wait until you see what I've been working on, sport!”

Joe looked at me confusedly. “Is, uh.. is your dad going to show us something cool here? Like, some weapon we can use, or...” He spoke around a bolus of brittle.

Meanwhile, Kubo fell into step behind us, leaving his plate of candy on the kitchen counter.

“What do you think you're doing?” I asked him. “That brittle's a work of goddamn art.”

Kubo looked down at the plate. “I'm allergic to peanuts.”

“No shit? That sucks,” said Joe, walking over and emptying Kubo's portion onto his own plate.

We started into the basement.

TWENTY-ONE

My dad pulled on the old conductor's hat and switched on the train set with a grin.

“Dad, do you
have
to wear that hat every goddamn time?” I asked, shrinking into the background.

He ignored me, standing behind the enormous replica of the local railroad circuit he'd built. Having grown up in Detroit and knowing how anal my dad was about small details, I had no doubt of its accuracy. Small local landmarks, like post offices and strip malls were featured faithfully. With the turning of a knob, the cluster of trains on the track started to wheel around in a circle. He pushed a button, sounding a train whistle. “I picked up that engine there at a shop in Wisconsin. How do you like it?”

“It's, uh... cool, dad.” I tongued the caramel off of my molars and slowly made my way over to the dusty, checkered sofa on the opposite side of the room. It was cluttered with bags of junk, which I set on the floor. My dad was something of a hoarder; not serious enough to get on TV, maybe, but enough to make his basement a total clusterfuck. There were boxes in the corner of this room that hadn't been opened since I was a kid, boxes whose contents he'd have been at a complete loss to detail.

Kubo watched the train go around the track with an incredulous smile on his face, but said nothing. God, he was going to give me a lot of shit about this.

Joe sank into the dusty cushions of the sofa beside me, hacking up a lung as he did so. “Cool trains, Mr. Colt,” he said, leaning his head back. His face was covered in small nicks and burns, and what I could see of his arms beneath his shredded jacket indicated serious bruises.

Finally, my dad shut the train set off and shot me a serious look. “I'm going to head upstairs for some popcorn if anyone's interested in joining me. Trying to catch up on reruns of Seinfeld on the TiVo.”

“T-that's OK, dad. We'll be... down here.”

Slowly, my father started up the stairs. “Just, uh... don't mess with the trains, all right?”

The door closed and I loosed a great sigh.

Kubo shook his head, but I was quick to intercept him. “Don't say a fucking word.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The Chief yanked his stack of seals out and started leafing through them. Then, pulling out his cell phone, he hit a few buttons and placed a call to HQ. “This is Kubo. I made it out of the park with Joe and Lucian, but we lost a lot of men back there. The necromancer toppled the chopper and the SUVs, save one. I know that Percival Sterling and a handful of men made it out, however I don't think Kanta pulled through. Emergency personnel were headed to the site. There may be survivors.”

I could hear Amundsen on the other end. “Are you in a safe place right now? Where should we send the pick-up?”

Kubo glanced around at the cluttered basement, fighting back the urge to laugh. He pushed one of the trains around the track with his finger. “Safe place? Yeah, I think we're safe here for the time being. We're going to get a bit of rest. We're in a house on Kenwood Drive. Send along an SUV, and be discrete. I have a feeling Agamemnon's minions will be looking out for more of our vehicles.”

Amundsen promised to send someone along and hung up. With that out of the way, Kubo joined us on the sofa and massaged his eyes. “Don't suppose your dad has something to eat that isn't full of peanuts?”

“I'm sure there are some leftovers or something. I'll go look.” I rose from the sofa with a groan. Despite Gadreel's healing abilities, I still felt like a wreck. It would probably take me a few days, several big meals and a good deal of sleep to get back to one-hundred percent.

A shame that we weren't working on that sort of time.

I climbed the stairs and walked in on my dad guffawing to an episode of Seinfeld. “Mind if I look in the fridge, dad?” I asked, peeking out from the kitchen.

“Go right ahead,” he replied, his eyes never leaving the screen. He rocked back and forth in the old recliner, its stuffing poking out of busted seams, and had a big laugh, almost spilling his bowl of popcorn.

The fridge was pretty well stocked, and I wasn't shy about picking out the good stuff. A few bags of deli meat and cheese, a big Tupperware full of cantaloupe melon and a loaf of freshly baked bread would be a good start. I tucked each of the containers under my arm and prepared to head back to the basement when I caught a glance of something in the back yard and almost dropped it all on the floor.