Tim Marquitz - At The Gates

I looked to Scarlett and saw she’d taken out one of the vamps, but was still busy with the other one. Things didn’t look good; for me.

Right then, I caught a flash of movement out the corner of my eye. Grawwl hesitated as his gaze shifted toward the motion. His smirk morphed into a sneer.

Out of the shadows, between the buildings, stepped an old man. Wild gray hair flowed over the bronzed plates of his battered armor. He wielded a gilded broadsword with intricate rune work etched down the length of the blade and woven into the hilt and pommel. His face was like a worn leather hide, deep wrinkles streaked throughout, etched by time. Two fierce blue eyes glimmered from lined and sunken sockets, crow’s feet gone pterodactyl at the corners.

He faced Grawwl, his blade set before him. “You might want to watch your back,” he said over his shoulder, his voice thready.

Remembering the vamp, I drew my backup pistol and spun to see my dance partner sprinting toward me. I decided to lead this time and unloaded what was left in the clip into his sour puss. He screeched and howled as he dropped. His hands went to his face in a frantic attempt to tear the bullets out.

Not interested in him getting up again, I reloaded and held the barrel over his throat. In a sweeping motion from right to left, I fired fast, each bullet shredding a section of his neck. His screams turned to gurgles as the bullets tore through his vocal cords. Bubbling blackness squirted from the wounds as though I’d struck oil. His face went rigid as spasms shuddered across his body.

With little more than tattered remnants of meat holding him in one piece, I pulled back my foot and soccer-kicked his head from his shoulders. It gave way with a wet ripping sound and flew up into the air, splattering my boot and the street with a warm, dark rain. I fought the urge to yell, “ Goooooooooooooooaaaaaaaallllllll,” as his head split the frame of a nearby doorway.

I turned back around just in time to see Scarlett drift toward me. The last vampire twitched on the asphalt behind her, his body diced neatly into a couple dozen dripping parts even Dali would have found disturbing.

Much to my surprise, all I saw of Grawwl was his furry ass as he hightailed it out of sight. I added a bullet to speed him along. Can’t say I was sorry to see him go.

Grateful for the rescue, I looked to the old man. “You got a name?”

He shook his head and gestured the way the werebear went. “No time. The vampires and shifters know what’s going on in the Kingdom.”

Scarlett gasped, her eyes going wide. “But-”

The old man waved a grizzled hand to cut her off. “They and the Nephilim seek a key to turn the tide against Heaven. It must not be them who find it.” He gave a curt nod and raced off after Grawwl.

After he was gone, I looked to Scarlett. I imagine I had the same dumbfounded look on my face.

“Today just keeps getting better and better.” My adrenaline fading, the gashes in my back started to throb. A sudden chill prickled my skin as the pain settled in.

“Should we follow?” Scarlett asked.

“No.” I waggled my finger. “Let grandpa deal with Grawwl. If the lycanthropes and vampires have set aside their differences to go against Heaven, we’re neck deep in some serious shit. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Scarlett’s green eyes met mine, a glimmer of resignation welling up. “Baalth?”

“Baalth.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

“I’m sorry, Mister Trigg,” Poe answered, his voice like silk. “Baalth is unavailable.”

“What do you mean, unavailable?”

“That would be the opposite of available.”

I just stared at him, imagining choking some color into his expressionless face.

A mentalist of impressive power, Alexander Poe was Baalth’s right-hand man and confidante. I’d grown to respect the man’s integrity and courage, and could even say I liked him on occasion, depending on how many drinks I had in me, but the dark stare and rigid detachment grated on my nerves. He was one cold fish, but his loyalty to Baalth was unquestionable. If the big guy told him to stonewall me, I wasn’t gonna get a damn thing out of him.

His dim-witted tank of a partner, on the other hand…

Marcus D’anatello sat at the back of the room, his eyes on the floor, his bald head a rosy pink. The last time I’d seen the hulking bruiser, I’d saved his life. Of course I beat him halfway to death while doing it, but that’s beside the point.

He fidgeted in his chair, his knuckles a bright white as he clenched his fists in his lap. He obviously didn’t want anything to do with me.

Too bad. That only egged me on. “Where’s he at, Marcus?”

“Unavailable, Mister Trigg.” Poe stepped between us, his words fierce but still composed. “Time for you to leave.” He gestured to the door where Scarlett stood, her arms overlapped in front of her chest.

Meeting Poe’s steely gaze, I saw his eyelid twitch subtly. He was brushing me off. There was more going on than he was telling me. I looked past him to the weakest link. “Tell me where he is.”

Marcus shook his head, the muscles in his jaw clenched in a visible knot. Poe told me to leave again, but I ignored him.

“Don’t make me come over there, Marcus. Tell me.”

“We don’t fucking know, all right?” Marcus screamed as he jumped to his feet. He looked ready to explode, his face a deep shade of red.

Poe snarled and Marcus dropped back into his seat with a graveled huff. Poe glared at me with open hostility, and I realized what Marcus said was true; they had no idea where Baalth was.

“He just up and disappeared?”

Poe stood there without answering, the vein at his temple throbbing as though he were sending a message in Morse code. I stayed quiet as well, meeting his withering gaze. At last, he sighed and his eyes dropped away as though letting go of a burden that had been too heavy to bear. He ran his hand through his thinning gray hair and gave a shallow nod.

“When?”

“About a week, now.” He went around the desk and sunk into Baalth’s chair. He stared down at his hands. “He’d sent us on an errand and when we returned, he and Veronica were gone. He left no word as to where he was going or when he’d be back. He gave no operating directives.” Poe met my eyes once more, his calm expression returning. “Outside of Mister D’anatello and I, only you two know he is gone.”

The warning was clear. Baalth’s presence was a major factor in minimizing the supernatural hijinks in the area since God and Lucifer sauntered off for parts unknown. Only the bravest, or dumbest, stirred up trouble anywhere near the demon’s territory. If word got out he was missing, all Hell would break loose-literally.

“He picked a great time to go on walkabout. You hear about Heaven?”

Poe nodded. “Our network is still in place, so our information lines remain constant. Though without Baalth, our resources to respond are limited.”

“What about The Gray?” I hated the redneck, Santa Claus lookalike, but there was no denying he had the power to go toe-to-toe with angels. He’d done it before. We could use him.

“Unfortunately, Mister McConnell has yet to recover from our adventure in Limbo. Were he to summon his magic, it would kill him.”

Torn between laughing at The Gray’s misfortune and sighing at ours, I chose the latter. The already short list of help was getting shorter by the minute, and we were running out of time. I could be a vindictive ass later. “You know anything about the weird storm that hit the city?”

Poe shook his head. “None of our sources have seen anything like it before, nor do they have any idea what might have caused it.” He leaned back, rubbing at his chin. “No, that’s not entirely truthful. There is one who might know something, though he would never deign to tell me. Perhaps he might be more willing to speak to you.”