Hammer of Darkness (Veil Knights Book 8) Read online

  A female voice, a warm, husky alto. “Erica?” I asked. “This is you? You did this?”

  “I didn’t have a choice. A soul for a soul. I made a pact. It was either her or you.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said.

  “Moloch demands offering in his own way.”

  I thought about the indignity of Kay’s body. “I’ll kill you,” I said.

  “I don’t think the police will let you, if she doesn’t get you first.”

  “She? Who--”

  “You could have been with me,” she said. “You could have been beside me as I sit on the throne of the left hand of darkness.”

  “Oh, sweet Christ you’re insane. I loved you once,” I said. I realized I meant it, in my way, deeply. It was almost as if it had needed to come to this for me to truly understand how much I love her. I mean loved her.

  “Bullshit,” she half sobbed, half laughed. “I could never compete with a dead woman.”

  Dead woman, I thought, lost in the fog of the hex again. Kay? No, I suddenly realized and unbidden, the verse jumped into my mind and my heart hurt beneath my sternum.

  She was the loveliest on earth…more beautiful than Guinevere whose beauty destroyed the dream that was Camelot.

  Erica meant my wife, just as she had before. My wife who was dead, dead a long time ago. She’s talking about my wife. And she’s right, she can’t compete with her. No one could.

  “Why didn’t you kill me,” I said, tears burning the back of my eyes.

  “Suffer,” Erica shrieked.

  I heard her force her breathing to calm and then, in a much different voice she said a word I thought might have been Sumerian, or even Neolithic proto-speech. I was to fuzzy and confused to catch it.

  The line went dead in my hands. Then I heard the slow screeching of metal scraping on metal as something pulled the curtain rings back. In one long moment of fear, I abruptly realized the horrible possibilities of the glyph carved into the poor, slaughtered Kay’s stomach, of the horrible possibilities of Erica’s words.

  Chapter 16

  A rush of dizziness swept over me, and I paused until it passed, gripping the phone tight in my hand. I heard the tub groan, protesting as something slid and bumped inside of it, followed by rhythmic slapping of wet flesh on tile. At first the sound seemed tentative, each strike of skin against porcelain and linoleum an exploration.

  I looked away, casting about for something, anything, I didn’t even know for what. It was then that I saw the blood seeping out from under the closet door. I knew where Fallows and his boys were now. If I was caught in here with this slaughter Grimm would have the devil’s own time getting me out of murder chargers. They’d put me in a SHU in San Quentin and that would be it.

  Unsure, I stepped forward, eyes turning back to the bathroom door. I took another step, fighting vertigo, stomach churning, and I stretched out my hand. It shook and I knew something was off about me, something from the hex. I wasn’t a hesitant man. I heard a further confusion of sounds and I reached out for the handle.

  From behind the bathroom door the slap of flesh on tile exploded in sudden fury. The door burst open with enough force to make the wooden structure vibrate like a tuning fork and I stumbled back in surprise.

  A grotesque monstrosity came charging out at me, moving like some sickly deformed lobster, leaving gore in a slug trail behind it. Kay scuttled forward, belly up, balancing on hands and feet, her nearly decapitated head flopped, jerking like a balloon on a string. With every motion blood oozed from the deep cuts in her wrists.

  The necromantic glyph carved into her stomach reminded me of lovers’ initials cut into the bark of a tree. It was faintly luminescent, as if a sickly green light lay cradled in her bowels.

  The corpse scuttled straight at me like some gigantic arachnid and I froze, shock locking me in place. Only a moment’s hesitation, it was too long.

  Fighting my disgust and sorrow, I turned to jump out of the thing’s path and its heel struck me sharply in the side of my knee as I pivoted, knocking me down. Thrown to my side, I rolled onto my hands and knees, trying to get up. The corpse struck out again. This time the heel of her foot bashed along the curve of my jaw, my lip mashing against my teeth.

  Head snapped back, I tasted blood. Again.

  The blow hit me along the length of my face and I went tumbling back, instinctively rolling with momentum of the kick.

  “Uhn, uhn,” the thing grunted.

  Lungs still pumping, her breath came out the torn and ruined larynx, sounding like the chuffs and grunts of rooting pigs. I rolled over my shoulder, tried coming up onto my feet. Immediately, I scrambled to the side as it lunged at me. Landing beside the window I quickly glanced out. The street was deserted this hour of the morning, and held no trace of any patrol cars, but I knew they were coming.

  The thing scurried at me again and, jumping away, I snatched up the nightstand, bringing the table down. The table struck the body hard. Its right arm folded unnaturally as the bone broke, the nightstand smashing apart in my hands. It lurched over under the force of the blow, still struggling to right itself.

  As her corpse started crawling towards me, the injured arm kept giving out. I backed up into a corner of the room, holding two broken table legs in my fists. Body slick with sweat, I watched the crippled thing. A hex to weaken an already weakened man, the psychological horror of mutilating someone he cared about, nothing but a mass murder charge waiting for me if I lived through this.

  Hell hath no fury…I thought. I wanted to laugh but didn’t have the strength.

  Sensing my retreat, it scuttled forward. Unfeeling, it jarred the broken arm bone over and over as it tried to strike. I took my final step back, felt the heel of my foot came down against the wall of the room. Crouching down, breathing ragged, my hands stood out white-knuckled on the table legs.

  Locking its good arm into place, the thing reared back from the hips, preparing to drive both its heels into me. One leg already cocked, the thing collapsed back onto its shoulder. The other leg kicked and flailed as it fought to regain its balance.

  I rose quickly, and it kicked out. Again I jumped back, this time dropping the table legs and landing back up against the wall. The thing rushed forward, legs pumping like steam pistons, useless arm dragging behind it. I hopped to one side as the kicking leg recoiled.

  On the floor I saw the beer bottle and reached for it. With single-minded purpose, the thing homed in on the area of its last successful strike. The corpse’s heel struck me again, and then again, the force of the blows pinning me against the wall. Hunching over, I rode out the impacts on the muscles of my upper arm and shoulder. The fingers of my other hand slid closed around the smooth neck of the glass bottle.

  The thing struck me hard in the side of my face and pain lanced through my head as I tried covering my vulnerable jaw and temples.

  A foot struck me in the elbow, driving into the side of my head above my ear. The blow jammed my head back into the wall with another audible smack. The concussion rattled my teeth and I felt consciousness, ethereal, slipping away.

  Outside the sound of sirens came wailing into the room.

  Whipping up the bottle, I smashed it against the wall. Rising up, I started using the broken end of the bottle. I struck and pulled. Struck and pulled. Thoughts spun wildly through my head, twisting crazily in my mind. Look at what I’ve come too. Kay, I’m sorry.

  Then I dismembered her.

  Spinning red lights invaded the room and the sound of sirens was deafening now. Mind clouded with hurt, my body was slow to respond to my commands. Breath caught in my throat, my stomach knotted.

  Furious shouts and hammering blows sounded at the door of the room. Instinctively, I snapped my head toward the sound.

  “OPEN UP,” desperate voices shouted. “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THERE?”

  More flashing red lights blinked through the window, bright red zebra stripes crossing Kay’s corpse as it flopped, unable to do mor
e than spasm on the carpet. Reaching over, I lifted her head and placed it in my lap, single minded, the thing snapped its teeth at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her.

  Chapter 17

  I rose as the door crashed open and flung the gory mess of Kay’s body into the officers as they charged in. The bloody corpse hit the first man and pushed him back into the second whose gun went off.

  I came in fast behind Kay and drove through the second, stumbling cop. The dreary flophouse of a hotel was old, built after the Big Quake of 1906 on building designs no longer popular in architecture. It was a five story walk up, stairs running in a successive spiral upward around a central well that ran from lobby to roof.

  Still charging, I threw myself over the railing and into space. There was a moment where I drifted, weightless while below me the grimy ground floor seemed to rush upwards at me under its own volition. Then I struck the far railing one floor down.

  My body folded over the edge of the railing like a book closing, and breath rushed out of my mouth in a pained gasp. Behind me one of the cops opened fire and I scrambled over the guardrail, landing on the floor in a clumsy heap.

  Perhaps aware of how likely they were to strike innocent bystanders through the thin walls, the cops held their fire, shouting commands, radioing for backup. Staying low, I began scrambling lizard-like toward the stairs as soon as I hit the floor.

  I threw myself down the flight of steps, bouncing my chest and knees off the unyielding surfaces as I went. I half turned, half rolled, and came up to my feet as I slid down. Above, the cops’ footsteps thundered as they raced after me.

  Realizing I was only going to run into more coming up the stairs, I swerved and struck a door at random with my shoulder. The cheap deadbolt and chain exploded under my weight and I barreled into the apartment. The layout was different from mine, this was a bigger place, maybe a two bedroom.

  The entryway ran in a short hall and then became a narrow kitchen. A middle aged Chinese woman stood in a bathrobe at the stove, cooking something in a pot. A lit cigarette tumbled clear of her lips as she screamed.

  I shot past her into a larger space making up a dual dining and living room area. A Chinese man and much older woman looked up from the couch where they sat watching television.

  “Tíngzhǐ!” I shouted in Mandarin. “Tíngzhǐ!”

  It means “stop!” At least I thought it did. I hope it did.

  The windows behind the television were closed shut against the chill and rain of wintertime San Francisco. I turned and grabbed a wooden chair from the kitchen table as everyone in the apartment began screaming at once.

  I half-turned, spinning like a track-and-field hammer thrower, and busted out the window in an explosion of glass. The man popped up off the couch and came toward me. I hit him hard along the point of his chin and he went down.

  Coming out of the kitchen, the first woman started shrieking as she saw what I presumed was her husband go down. I tipped the table in her direction to keep her from charging, then used the chair legs to knock out more glass.

  The television was turned up loud, too loud for me to hear the cops chasing me, but they had to be close. I jumped, rolling with my body until my back was leading the way. I felt a scimitar of glass slice me open down the back of my ribs and then I was through and landing on the unyielding metal bars of the fire escape.

  I hauled myself to my feet, instantly shivering in the cold. The metal was damp and slick from rain as I plunged downward to the second story. Coming off the ladder, I flipped over the side and lowered myself to the length of my arms before letting go. My feet struck the dented metal lid of an old green dumpster and I rolled, spilling off the side and dropping into a cluster of greasy, dented garbage cans.

  Bags of rotting garbage burst around me as I fought my way to my feet. Looking up I saw one of the cops poke his head through the broken window. I took off sprinting hard down the alley behind the building. His pistol fired three times but I had no idea where the bullets struck.

  Reaching the mouth of the alley, I cut hard left and dodged around the corner.

  There is this concept of man the hero. A near religious belief in the ability of a human to rise above the ability of his peers and display uncommon valor, revolutionary leadership, and undaunted moral guidance. The Greeks, in their somewhat cynical view, ascribed these traits most often to demigods, men possessing a deity as one of their sires. This attribute giving them a leg up, I suppose, on the average animal with two mortal parents.

  I've seen such nobility, among men history and legend deem heroes and, more often, by common people that history promptly forgot. But man the hero is not something found as commonly as we'd hope, in my admittedly tired opinion.

  Man the villain is just as real, and from an evolutionary standpoint, just as viable. Pure selfishness is Darwinian legitimate. Good thieves eat well. Rapists pass on their DNA, psychopaths trick and master the less predatory and enjoy success, often rising to positions of power.

  Evolution cares only if you're able to eat enough to stay alive long enough to pass on a Genetic lineage, by any means necessary. Life is reduced to an endless exchange of proteins. As a result, as has been pointed out by wiser, more poetic men than myself, all the gods, all the devils, all the heavens and all the hells, reside within us.

  I loved Erica. Ached for her at one time in a way that made me ashamed for the memory a wife long dead by then. But that cold, broken and utterly weary, part of my soul carved deep with the word "survivor," knew she was capable of what she'd done. That her Darwinian reptile-brain so desired the security and rewards offered by the powers of her dark pacts, that she was capable of the worst things humans could conceive.

  Just as I also knew I was capable of killing her.

  I’m no hero. I’m capable of vicious violence against enemies and hold little compunction about it. Life has taught me violence is its most common and valued currency. I liked the idea of humanity, but I have grown weary of humans. I didn't fight for people; I knew too few good ones. I fought for the idea that there were populations of decency and nobility that existed and did not deserve living under the yoke of the beings that would emerge from a fallen Veil.

  I have the big, strong hands of a strangler, and given the chance, I would use them to choke the very breath from Erica’s body.

  Naked, streaked with blood, I raced down the street toward a major avenue. You can't outrun a radio, but you can become lost in the crowd. Just not naked and bloody. The deserted streets of only a few minutes ago had begun pulsing with the rhythm of a city coming awake for the day. Dawn in San Francisco is not a quiet time.

  Let's get something out of the way, in case there’s any possible chance for misunderstanding after all I’ve already told you. I'm an ends justify means kind of guy. Means are transitory, ends, as the name implies, are what you're left with. To let evil win in order to remain ideologically pure is not something I've ever understood. I see the temptation, but it encourages passivity in the face of destruction. "I won't go there," is another way of saying "I quit." Maybe sometimes that makes sense. But I wasn't arguing at the PTA or over office politics.

  I've been across the Veil, I see what is coming for humanity, the things that want to turn us into slaves and cattle. No one life, no hundred lives, is worth the thousand-year rule of Those Who Shall Not Be Named. This is not hyperbole.

  To stop the Veil collapsing I accept collateral damage. I will kill a cop; there are few, if any lines I will not cross, the struggle is not theoretical for me. I have stared long into the abyss and it long into me. But I am not indifferent to the gift that is life. I will not casually end it if I can avoid it.

  But I will do it. I hope I’ve made that point clear.

  So I didn't want the blood of innocents on my hands; I will run from police long and hard if I can. I will do it every time, go to almost any length, but if cornered one rule, one principle is pinnacle: The Veil Must Not Fall Shall Be the Whole of the Law
.

  This churned in my mind as I hit the street, running hard. This had become exactly the sort of situation where impossible choices emerged. The first officers on the scene hadn't waited for backup, but by now a battalion of patrolmen were descending on the area. Already, sirens echoed through these canyons of steel and glass, hunters running an animal to ground.

  Up the street a black and white took a corner on screaming tires, light bar flashing, sirens shrieking. They were on me. I cut through an alley to put space between us and break their line of sight. Running out of the alley I heard a woman scream at the sight of me. Must be a tourist, I thought.

  Down the street at an intersection, a short line of cars stood motionless at a stop light. The first car in the line was a Honda Accord, the woman behind the wheel had her head down as she texted, waiting for the light to change. I raced forward and went across her hood in a slide. She looked up, startled, as my body weight rocked the suspension.

  She froze at the sight of me and I jerked open her door. She started screaming and digging for her purse. She wasn't in the wrong to shoot me dead or burn my eyes out with pepper spray, but; The Veil Must Not Fall Shall Be the Whole of the Law.

  I pinned her to the seat with one shoulder and knocked the purse from her hands. She clawed at me as I popped her seatbelt. I drug her from the car just as the black and white came out of the alley and the street became a cacophony of siren wails.

  I hit the gas and shot forward. Cutting between a shooting gallery of traffic, I made it through, and spun the wheel right, running for the Bay.

  A baby started crying in the backseat. And I felt the tingling sensation of blood draining out of my face. Where's all your tough talk about ends justifying means now? I thought.

  "Goddamn it," I said.

  I cut across the boulevard, heading into an older neighborhood of rising, narrow streets, and up a narrow, curving hill. I saw a street peeling off down to my right and I fed the car gas, pushing it down and putting the Accord through its paces as I slam shifted from low into Drive and then back again. I caught a little air as I barreled downhill and the car shook hard when it touched down.