Caitlin Kittredge - Devil's Business

“You may have come first,” Belial snarled. “But you never grew beyond a petulant child, and it’s time somebody showed you where you belonged.”

“ Finally, you grow some balls, ” Abbadon said. He and Belial circled each other, the ground shaking under Jack’s feet. He heard Belial scream as Abbadon turned on him, wrapping him in serpentine coils, snapping at his exposed neck.

Belial’s form shimmered and writhed in Abbadon’s grip. Abbadon put his claws through Belial’s wing, tearing at the membranes, causing a spray of oily black liquid. Jack winced as he heard a bone crack, and Belial crumpled.

“ We should have gotten it on a long time ago, demon, ” Abbadon said. “ In a stand-up fight, you’d never break me, and you knew it. ”

“Fuck you,” Belial gasped, as Abbadon dug his talons into Belial’s belly. Jack saw the meaty sheen of intestines, then rolled onto his back.

Stand up, Winter. You’re dead if you don’t get your arse up.

Belial’s blood stank of sulfur, and Jack felt the memory of the hot wind of Hell race across his senses.

“ Oh, we’ll get to that, ” Abbadon purred. “ Because now you’re going to be my bitch, demon , and you’re going to know exactly what it felt like for all that time, alone in the dark with ghosts for company. ”

Jack levered himself up on the smooth marble of Lucinda’s tomb. He didn’t owe Belial shite. He could creep away now and hopefully find Pete before the rest of Abbadon’s kind killed her or worse. Or he could never find her. Abbadon alone had nearly turned him into paste. The other three would swat him like a bug.

The memory of standing at the edge of the chasm, of hearing the faintest whisper, came back strong amid the screams and the smell of blood. Abbadon’s family had marked him, had marked him while he was in Hell.

Hello, Jack . Teddy’s voice, or perhaps Levi’s. It didn’t matter. When they’d gone free, they’d told Abbadon about him, and Abbadon had known the crow-mage would be the one to use for his mad schemes.

He was a game piece, just like he was to Belial. And he was fucking sick of it, Jack decided, sick to the core. Belial, at least, had always been upfront that he was using Jack. And having a demon who owed you one would go a long way toward taking the edge off Abbadon’s brood. Having a demon who owed him might be what saved Pete’s life.

Jack cast around. His talent was useless against Abbadon, that much was clear. He should have wised up and punched the bastard in the nose ages ago. The front of Lucinda’s tomb was destroyed, the stained glass in the door shattered, and the iron gate hung akimbo.

Belial screamed again, and Abbadon laughed. He had his snout in the wound now, and Jack heard the snap of teeth. Good. He’d be distracted.

Jack kicked at the gate until it came loose. The panel was about five feet tall but narrow, sharp latticework at the top covered over with green corrosion. He hefted it. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.

Abbadon didn’t look up as he approached, which was probably a check in the plus column, since Jack couldn’t be certain he was walking a straight line. Once this was over, he decided passing out face down in the nice, soft grass would be the ideal finale to the evening.

Jack raised the gate and stepped to the side, aiming it for Abbadon’s soft underbelly. He drove the latticework in far as it would go, jerked the iron back and forth, twisted. He wanted the bastard’s guts to rain down, to cover the ground with blood and make it so nothing would ever grow there again.

Abbadon reared back, and his swipe narrowly missed taking off the top of Jack’s skull. The wound around the iron began to corrode, black spreading across Abbadon’s flesh, lemon-colored pus dripping out. Abbadon convulsed once, shrieked, and then Belial reached up and twisted Abbadon’s scaly neck halfway round.

The snap resounded off the marble tombs, and Abbadon slumped, unmoving.

“Fuck, he’s heavy,” Belial grunted. “Get him off me, will you?”

Jack gripped Belial’s arm and eased him out from under Abbadon’s unmoving bulk. “Got some bad news for you, mate,” he said, looking into Belial’s pointed face, shredded wings spread underneath him. “You’re ugly as fuck.”

Belial bared his teeth. “Told you that you couldn’t handle the sight of me.”

Jack took quick stock. Belial’s wings were a wreck, and blood was dribbling from his mouth and ears. Abbadon had torn a chunk out of his guts, and Jack caught the stench of a rent bowel.

“I’ll be all right,” Belial said. “Eventually. But I have to go, Jack.”

“Oh no,” Jack said. “You owe me now, you bastard. You’d be a big pile of demon meat if I hadn’t stabbed that bastard.” He looked at Abbadon’s corpse. “He is dead, right?”

“Dead as I can make him,” Belial gritted. “If I stay here, I’m going the same way.”

“Pete…” Jack started.

“Pete is an arrow in your heel,” Belial cut him off. “Sooner or later, Jack, that woman is going to be the end of you. Drop your losses and move on.”

Jack let Belial’s head down. That was a demon. Do everything right and they still found a way to fuck you. “That’ll be it for me, then,” he said. “But it’s not going to happen today, and Abbadon doesn’t get to keep her.”

Belial laughed, though it turned to a phlegmy cough that caused a fresh flow of blood from his lips. “You’re an idiot, Jack Winter. Good luck.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Fuck you, too. Thanks for your help.”

“I’ve helped you more than you know, Winter,” Belial said. “Not my fault you don’t want to hear the truth.”

“Telling you,” Jack said. “Never had much use for the truth, me.”

“That’s why you’re going to see me again,” Belial whispered. “And why you’ll never really be free of Hell.”

“Today I am,” Jack said. “So shove it up your arse, mate. I’ve got three more Hellspawn to kill tonight.”

Walking was the hardest thing in the world. His ribs screamed with every step, and his arm was a free-flowing canyon of blood and missing flesh. Jack tore off his shirt and wrapped the wound as tight as he could stand. Stanching the blood helped a little, but he was still the walking dead.

He managed to flag down a taxi on Santa Monica, managed to mumble out the address of Sliver’s pub in Venice, and then mercifully passed out.

The dream boiled up at him, and this time it was as vivid as a memory. He stood barefoot on glass sand that pierced his flesh and left crimson footprints as he and Belial walked across an endless desert under a white sky. The City was far behind, and the only interruptions on the horizon were the black skeletons of dead trees. From each tree hung a bottle, blue glass, clinking gently in the endless wind. Inside each bottle was a wisp of white smoke.

“Souls,” Belial said. “Souls so corrupted they don’t even have bodies any more.”

Jack was naked, and the sand blew and swirled around him, digging into the flayed spots on his flesh, turning the blood on his face sticky, and stinging his eyes. “You bring me out here for this?” he said. His voice was little more than another whisper of air. Screaming for hours didn’t leave you with much lung power.

“No,” Belial said. He pointed to where the world dropped away, and Jack went to the edge of a canyon, iron sides held together with rivets the size of his fist.

He heard the screaming, from far below. Heard the bellowing of a massive body in unbearable pain. The sides of the canyon quivered, flakes of rust coming loose and falling into the void.