Evil Origins
Looking at the old power plant with its four rows of giant windows, the only thought that filled my mind was that this wasn't going to end well for me. The minute I walked through the doors, my safe, simple life would never be the same. My entire life I had had the convenience and safety of watching the world live their lives as a bystander who might envy their happiest moments, but never had to worry about the saddest times that ultimately followed. I had pain and heart break, but most of the time it was the fact that reality didn't correspond with the visions that my imagination had built up. In my mind, I’d paint a sunny day with a warm breeze, but the real world brought nothing but rain. Now though, there was a good possibility that those rainy days were going to be replaced by a tornado. My heart couldn't be sheltered from such a storm. Especially not if I stepped through those metal doors.
Looking at The King I asked, “Is everything ready?" I hadn't really thought about it, but even if I won this battle I was going to be trapped in a war that would never end. Owning Jenny's heart was going to have a never-ending cost, but once this deed was done The King owned me just as much as a cross roads demon owned a man's soul. The only problem was, I wasn't quite sure which was more evil.
Leaning against the doors The King looked more like banker than a two-bit thug with his custom-tailored suit and spit-shined shoes. Adding in the way he spoke, it was too easy to imagine him sitting in a boardroom with executives and VP's planning business ventures and hostile takeovers instead of drug deals and prostitution. He was the ultimate example that looks can be deceiving.
"They finished wiring the whole place. The bottom two floors, at least. This had better work." He opened his jacket and patted his gun with his hand as he said, "If it doesn't though, I’ve always got Bessie. The tried and tested way of dealing with problems. Bullets are hard to swallow and I have a handful."
The idiot still thought that he could blast his way through this thing. Our only chance was that my plan would work. Taking advantage of a little folklore and a little modern technology was our best chance of not only winning this battle, but staying alive. There was terrifying feeling I had though, that even if we managed to win this war, there would a bloodier war that would follow. I was certain we would destroy one group of monsters tonight, but the other set I wasn’t so sure about.
Reaching into my travel bag, I removed a flashlight and handed it to him. He took it, but seemed more concerned then he should have been as he pulled it from my hand.
“What am I supposed to do with this? Beat him over the head with it?” he muttered, shaking it in his hand. “This thing won’t even leave a bump on their head,” he said as he swung it through the air. “It you want a club or baseball bat, I have some nice ones in the trunk of the Lincoln.”
I wanted to ask him how stupid he could possibly be. He was still looking at them as a human problem. Bullets might slow them down, but I think pissing them off was more likely to happen. I took a second flash light from my bag and twisted the handle. I watched the bright UV light breaking through the night. I let it shine right into his face and watched him cower away like he was the demon being tortured by the light.
“This is the only way we can win this. Bright powerful UV light.”
Squinting his eyes, he raised his hand as he tried to block the light.
“Get that out of my face, priest.” He said before I turned the light off, carefully placing it back into my bag. “So we’re going to blind them?”
“No, think of what’s inside there as a bomb,” I said as I pointed towards the door. “And the flashlights act as handguns. If the bomb doesn’t take them out, we will need these to stun them until we can run away.”
“I don’t run. I’m the reason other people run,” he said as he pushed the flashlight into his pocket. “One way or another, this ends tonight. I can’t keep losing young men to these two.”
Stepping towards him I pointed and said, “Just remember our deal.”
Opening his arms, he replied, “How could I forget? You haven’t shut up about it since we made the damn deal.”
“When you make a deal with the devil you want to make sure that there isn’t any fine print.” I enjoyed reminding him of such deals. He saw himself as a good catholic boy, and comparing him to a devil made him shiver. Well, maybe it was just being compared to one by me.
“You will get Mrs. Bailey. Broken like a two-year-old filly and running to you in search of a hero. Giggling, he added “Especially once we take out Wilson.” I didn’t like that part of the plan. It seemed wrong to kill a man just to claim a woman. Even if that man had used up all the goodness inside her until there wasn’t anything left but shredded fragments of the woman I used to.
“Just keep your part of the bargain.”
“Like I said Father Mike, you have huge balls. I might even say even bigger than some of the wise guys I grew up with,” he said, snickering. Shaking his head, he muttered, “A priest with big balls, who would have figured?” The only thought that was going through my mind was that I hoped they stayed that big, as the more scared I felt the smaller they seemed to be getting.
The inside of the factory was almost eerie, covered in spider webs and dust. It was hard to balance myself as I stepped across the cracked, uneven floor.
“This is my secret entrance. It used to be one of those hand elevators.” He motioning pulling with his hands.
“I had these spiral stairs put in a few years back. Safer than the main stairs,anyhow. You have to walk along the outside wall, otherwise you might find one of the weak spots. One wrong step and you’ll break your leg like Jumbo did last year.” I had no idea who Jumbo was, but the point was well taken.
We twisted our way up the stairs and the only sound was the echo of our footsteps pounding on the metal steps. The brick walls buckled outward and I was certain that at any moment that were going to collapse inward.
"Don't worry, Father Mike. This is the safest part of the whole building. I have enough soldiers hidden around to do the dirty work while we watch from a safe room."
It was the first indication of fear that I had ever seen in him, but then again if I had the option to watch other men die or join them, I would choose to watch too.
"So why did you bring Bessie if you have no intention of using it?"
"Just in case. I am by no means dumb enough to run into battle when I can sit back and stay alive instead. Being a hero is much nicer when you’re alive rather than dead. " As we made it to the top of the stairs he stopped and patted me on the shoulder. "We have that in commonyou and me, Father Mike. We don't want to be heroes, we just want to appear like them. True heroes might be brave but they always die such horrible deaths." I hated him for what he said, but I wasn't sure if it was because he grouped us together like evil soul mates or because there was a touch of truth in his words.
A riveted steel door was hidden around the corner from the stairs with a faded number pad on the wall beside it.
"This is my safe room. Nobody knows about it and it's hard as hell to see." Pointing behind us towards a wide rusted door he said, "Everybody sees that big bastard and stops searching for the real treasure." Opening the door, he was beaming with pride over his so-called brilliance. He was proud of his little hidden gem and I could see its value, but was it going to be help us to stay hidden from non-human eyes?
The room was smaller than I expected. It had reinforced cement walls with long steel plates that ran along the walls and ceiling. A normal man couldn't stand up without knocking their heads on the ceiling. It was more like a crawl space than anything else. I wouldn't even call it a closet.
"So our safe room is a cement coffin?"
The big man was almost crawling as he made his way over towards a chair.
He laughed, "This little coffin as you call it is a state of the art safe room equipped with security cameras and a bullet-resistant door." The King pressed a button and two small doors slid open, revealing twelve small televisio
n screens that flickered as they came on one by one.
Climbing into the chair beside him, I was rather impressed by the picture. It was higher quality then I would have expected. Not like those cheap-ass cameras that you see at local convenience store. No, these were high quality infrared cameras.
Sitting forward he muttered, "I didn't build this hole, the previous owner of the building did. When he built it they called him a survivalist, but the trendy word these days is ‘doomsday prepper.’ Don't worry Father Mike, he believed in monsters too," as he pointed towards the corners. "He had crosses placed in the corners to keep out demons and shit like that."
"It's rather impressive. A safe house designed to repel anything that goes bump in the night."
"No, it's damn impressive. Didn’t do him much good, though. He found himself torn apart one night. Just another unsolved murder in a city that seems to have a lot of them these days. Did you know Nathaniel? Seeing that you and his two brothers are such close friends?"
"Nathaniel? What would he want with a broken-down place like this?" I knew Nathaniel had many holdings, but this place shouldn’t have had value to a man like him. Well, maybe commercial value, but despite his business success Nathaniel didn't care about financials. He had been living in his brothers’ shadows for so long, he saw being better than them as his life's greatest challenge. He had to be smarter than Harrow and sweeter than Renaud.
It looked like he was about answer when a flash came across the bottom screen.
Pointing, the King muttered "Now who is that?"
The figure had a massive pair of arms wrapped around him as he struggled unsuccessfully to break free. He kept punching upward trying to escape, but he never came close to connecting with his target.
"Look at that ugly bastard’s face. It looks like he climbed up the ugly tree, fell down, and climbed back up again." The man’s hands were trying to break the grip of the arms held him. His face was darkening as he struggled to breath. His feet were flying upward and striking the wall, forcing his upper body forward with each blow. Every time his feet connected with the wooden wall, dust and plaster came tumbling down to the floor.
Laughing, the King mumbled, "That's my guy, Holland. Dumb as an ox, but just as strong as one. Once he gets his hands on you he’s never letting go." The figure’s arms were weakening and going limp. Whoever he was he had lost this battle, but he sure as hell gave it everything he had. Before his strength had been completely stolen, he swayed and seemed to be scream something.
Sitting on the edge of my chair I exclaimed, "Is there any sound?"
Waving his had he said, "No sound on that one, just in the two main rooms. I’ve never had a reason to want sound in the hallway before."
I wished that he had upgraded the whole damn lot of them. A small-framed woman in a torn dress slipped across the screen. She kept looking back and immediately started scanning the whole corridor as she slid against the wall directly across from the body of the dangling figure.
Jumping up, the King screamed “That back stabbing little bitch is trying to escape!” I was surprised that he hadn’t slammed his head into the low ceiling.
“Maria is going to get it good for this betrayal, after all I did for her too!” The little woman vanished from the screen and the King started scanning all the other cameras one by one. Pointing at the original camera he grabbed his phone and dialed a number. “Tell Holland to let go of the freak and get Maria,” He said, tapping his foot on the floor. “I don’t care if he thinks the guy is still alive. Tell him to drop everything now and get Maria, unharmed.” Slipping his phone back into his pocket he snarled, “I am surrounded by idiots.”
The figure’s lifeless body fell to the floor like a puppet who just had his strings cut. A second figure leapt down on him and immediately dropped her head to his chest. I couldn’t see her face, but there was something about the way she moved that seemed similar. Slow and sexy at the same time. There was passion even in the way she ran her hands across his chest. It seemed more intimate then the event should have been.
Pointing at the third screen, the King said “There’s your friend breaking into the place.”
I saw a hand smash through the door. It had to be Harrow. He wouldn’t show any kind of fear. I wasn’t even sure if he knew what fear was anymore. The door was ripped open, sending little splinters of wood flying as the frame gave way under his strength. A flash followed and I saw Harrow fly backwards. “That’s going to leave a scar.”
“No, it’s going to piss him off,” I said. Shaking my head, I muttered, “And don’t think that metal door is going to save you.”
“Oh now it’s not just me that needs to be saved. No Father Mike if the shit it’s the fan we are both screwed.”
"There's Holland. Look at the beautiful bastard. He will snap up Maria and drag her ass here." In the corner monitor I saw three men walking down the hallway. The massive one had to be Holland and he looked as mean as a rattlesnake. "He will be disappointed that you friend Harrow is dead." They turned the corner and jumped to another monitor. The bigger man didn't waste any time attacking the woman that the King called Maria. Grabbing her by the hair, he drove her face into the wall. "That's got to hurt,” the King said under his breath. I watched helplessly as the man abused the poor young woman relentlessly. With one hand he lifted her off the floor, gripping her hair like she weighed nothing at all.
Another man grabbed hold of Jenny and yanked her to the floor. I could see the pain etched in her face like a blood stain on a white shirt. She was kicking and screaming as they hauled her away. This wasn't part of the plan, not by a long shot.
"Tell your man to stop hurting her!" I cried out, unable to keep watching.
"No, Father Mike. This is the first step in giving you what you always wanted. I just hope you don't mind a few scars scattered here and there." He was smiling with his hands crossed in front of him, rocking back and forth. "You’ve heard the saying, no pain no gain." I watched as the men pulled the women behind them as they went. The young one looked unconscious, but Jenny was a fighter and fought every step. As her tantrum increased, the man charged with apprehending her stopped. With a single punch he knocked her out. This wasn't what I asked for. Not even close.
"Son of a bitch," the King said as he sat back down, lowering his head. I stared at the screen he was entranced by. Harrow had burst into the building. Blood was gushing from his eye, or at least where his eye was supposed to be. If the King wanted a display of strength, he just got it. The door was torn in two like he was ripping through a piece of paper. "That can't be real. He was shot in the head. That's just not possible…" I slipped out of the room, leaving the King to see what kind of monster he was fighting. I was about to fight a monster of my own. My monster was dragging the woman I loved down the hall because I didn't read the fine print in the contract I signed with the devil.
Chapter THIRTY TWO
Harrow