Mark Stone - The Judas Line

Without a word, I opened the door and leapt out, taking the duffel with me (no way I could leave the Silver out of my sight now, not while on the run), tucking and rolling then bounding to my feet, making tracks as the plows made their turns toward the exit. The back door stood wide open, a cinderblock standing in for a doorstop. That made my life a little easier.

Inside, two precious seconds were wasted determining left or right. Left. Splintered black door. Shouts, screams from behind and I cursed myself because I’d promised Mike I wouldn’t use guns; the Kimber and Beretta lay nestled at the bottom of the duffel with my underwear.

Through the door, a fat guy behind the bar, shotgun in his hands, aimed at my friend’s back. No way in hell. My kick took him under his raised arm above his kidney and the shotgun dropped from his spasming hands. My fist hit the side of his lardy neck, then his jaw and he was down. The urge to finish him off burned like acid through my veins, but that’s not what I did anymore, not what I was about.

Breathing hard, I said, “Hey, Mike, see if you can get Alexander inside. Alone if possible.”

Mike grinned at me and went outside to poke the bear. “Hey, Alexander, we haven’t finished talking about your sissy little purse yet!”

My feet hit the ground at the same time Alexander hit the door so hard it shattered and began to have a little hoedown with Mike. I reckoned he could take care of himself, so I went after the few who had followed their master inside.

Time to play.

It’s funny how your muscles remember old patterns, old moves. I fell into the same routines of Krav Maga and Aikido that I’d learned all those years ago. A wrist trapped in my hands snapped so easily, the sound a crack of pain. Spinning, I threw an elbow into a screaming man’s face that smeared his nose across his face in a spray of blood.

A low kick broke an ankle while I turned a punch coming at my face into a hip throw that flung the man headfirst into one of the pool tables. He fell and lay very still.

Three down. Stiffened fingers jabbed hard against a throat. Four. A punch landed solidly on my chin, but I rode with it, despite the pain. I’ve taken worse. My response broke the man’s elbow across my knee. Five. Anger slithered through me like a snake of fire, but I didn’t give into the passion; instead I used it, let it fuel me, although desire to use magic nearly robbed me of my senses. No magic, I thought. S ave it, keep it handy just in case.

My hands grabbed a man’s ear and pulled. An ear is held on by skin and cartilage, and I peeled it off like a decal, tossing it aside. Six.

The last man stared into my eyes and ran. He must have been the brains of the outfit.

A crash came from behind, startling me, and I spun in time to see Mike fall out of sight before a flash of steel focused my attention on a knife slashing toward my throat. I leaned away and the tip missed my neck by a fraction of an inch.

“Baphemaloch,” I growled at the demon wearing Alexander’s face. “So you’ve come into your own.”

“A Baphemaloch no more,” he hissed, lips curling unnaturally. “With sentience comes a new name. I am Cazzizz.”

Alexander was gone, or at least, the thing that made him Alexander, eaten by a spiritual parasite that had become a demon. Leslie’s son was gone and that hell-thing was going to pay.

“Well, Cazzizz, let’s have some fun.” With that, I struck.

And missed. Fast , the demon was faster than anyone I’d ever met, even Burke, and he was the quickest form of death I’d ever met.

Horny black knuckles hammered into my cheek, knocking me sideways. A boot to thigh sent a bolt of pain up my hip and knocked me to the floor. Cazzizz’s toe took me in the ribs, breaking several, spraying my torso with needles of pain and driving the breath from my lungs.

While I choked and gasped, Cazzizz walked slowly around my thrashing body, savoring his victory as if it were heady wine. “You have no protection against demons, Olivier.” He smiled even wider, the edges of his lips touching his ears like an obscene clown’s. “Oh, yes. I know who you are. Hell is full of those looking for you; I can hear them clamoring their envy and rage. Your death will bring me great power, such great rewards.” He raised a leg, boot heel hovering over my head. I closed my eyes. It had been a good run, longer than I thought.

The blow never came.

“Demon, you looking for this?”

Mike! My eyes snapped open.

My friend stood behind the bar, bleeding from his mouth and ear. In one hand he held a purple bag with gold thread, the kind expensive scotch comes in and I knew what lay inside.

“Mike,” I choked with what breath my lungs had left.

Too late, the demon attacked

With a bloody smile, Mike held up his cross-a small, silvery thing that didn’t look like much, but was empowered with the unshakable faith of one simple man. That alone imbued it with the strength of the Lord.

The greater demon in New Mexico had been a real bad ass. It had taken a rite of exorcism to banish it. Cazzizz was a newborn, a demon newly formed from the soul of an evil man.

It took only one command.

“Begone.”

Like a pressure wave caught on high-speed camera, the sound, the force of the command rolled over and through me in a swirling, argent flow, but I felt no pain, just a sense of warm comfort.

The demon, however, didn’t get off so lucky. Howling, it was caught in mid-leap like an insect in silvery amber, frozen for one millisecond before simply vanishing with a faint pop and a hint of whitish smoke, leaving the whole bar trapped in a moment of perfect peace.

Oh, God, that felt good.

And then pain. Lots of it, buckets and barrelfuls, almost more than I could stand, coming from near every part of my body. Hurriedly, I let off with a Healing that took just enough edge off the agony for me to push out another one. I sneezed with the scent of cinnamon clogging my nose.

“Oh, I don’t want to do that again,” I moaned, finally levering myself upright. Staggering over to where Mike lay half on the bar, I clapped a hand on his back and smacked him with Healing. Then another, because he looked white as a sheet.

“Thanks, Morgan,” he sighed in relief, stretching. After a long bone-popping moment, he held up the purple bag and teased apart the puckered-shut opening. Long fingers dipped inside and pulled out the Holy Grail.

Sure didn’t look like much-a small green, ceramic bowl with a beige rim and a small crack, more of nick really, on the rim. It fit snugly in the palm of Mike’s hand.

“This is the Grail?” he said skeptically, turning it this way and that. “Looks like a high school art project you’d make for your mother, not the cup of Christ.” Still, despite his hesitation, I noticed he cradled it very, very carefully.

I smirked. “Nine out of ten people used pottery for their wine cups. It was the norm.”

He stashed the Grail back into the purple bag. As the cup disappeared, there came a faint ringing sound from his clothes. Mike patted his pockets and eventually fished out the cell.

I grabbed the phone before he could answer and threw it through the broken door, sending it clattering and shattering on the cold asphalt outside.

“Why’d you do that?” he exclaimed.

The look I gave him could’ve fried eggs. “You know anyone who has the number of a phone I bought yesterday ?” How the hell did the Voice find us? The newborn demon?

Mike had the grace to blush. “But why didn’t he call you ?”

Reaching into the pocket of my coat, I pulled forth several shards of broken plastic. “This is why. Must have broken when the demon kicked me.” Not bothering to linger, I vaulted the bar and grabbed the duffel I’d set there before my encounter with the demon Alexander. Wetness filled my palms.