The imps are a motley collection of shapes, bipedal but otherwise sporting a varied number of limbs, heads, and teeth. Some of them carry hatchets, some have swords, and a couple are very pleased to have found scythes, judging by the number of rotting teeth they show me. Their skin is painted in any of four different pigments, but I don't know if the red, green, blue, and black signify any sort of impish hierarchy. They do not approach in any ranks, but rather in a rabid horde--a small horde of thirty or forty, I'm guessing, allied against one, since I notice my escort is scuttling away to keep out of it.
I get to feel confident and superior for all of five seconds, as my lengthened arms take out the vanguard and then the next few as well. But the imps keep barreling forward, counting on their numbers to overwhelm me, and it's a fine reckoning. I stab as fast as I can, black ichor spilling from them and unholy screeches tearing the air, but it's only a second more and their weapons are biting into my chitin, hollow thunks that sting but fail to penetrate to my vitals. The weapons get lodged there, and while the imps try to pull them free I stab them and they fall away. I backpedal as fast as I can, attempting to give my arms more room to dispatch them at a distance, but it's not as effective as I had hoped. They're already too close and they leap at me. One vaults over the others with a hatchet aimed at the space between my eyes, and I let the chitin shrimp hammers fly at him. He crunches without time to squawk, his skull and ribs shattered as he flies back into the press of his fellows, but I don't get to enjoy it for more than a fraction of a second before one of my tentacles is lopped off by a scythe and a bolt of pain lances through my body. The tentacle's nerves fire on the ground, and it writhes with one of the shit-covered swords in its grip, and while there are no bones inside, it's a pound or two of flesh I'm going to miss.
The ice knife is no more effective than a regular knife against these creatures. They have no souls, apparently, so I must stab into something necessary, not merely prick them with the tip. I discover this when one of them recovers from a stab to the gut to make a screaming charge and hack at my thigh with a hatchet. I fall onto the blistered, scalloped rocks and the imps follow me there, determined to end me. I fear they might be successful.
I lash out again with the shrimp fists, and that launches three crushed bodies into the air, but there are more doing their best to penetrate my chitin, and more piling on top of them. I won't be getting up on that leg with an axe buried in it. Time to change tactics by changing shape.
Choosing yet another form I learned from Jormungandr, I become a small sphere of protected organs surrounded on all sides by long spines, something called a sea urchin--except far larger than the real ones you find in the ocean. I won't be able to maintain it for long, but I don't need to; it impales every single imp covering me, and when I shift again, the spines slide out of them and their bodies provide me some cover from the remaining attackers, who are not sure what happened to their target. I launch myself out of the pile of dead reconstituted as a spider monkey, one of the most acrobatic creatures I've ever seen. I retrieve the ice knife and a sword with my long arms, balancing on them and my one good leg, and proceed to dance among the ten or so remaining imps, chest heaving from oxygen debt and enervated by the shifts and blood loss, hyperaware that I have no natural armor in this form. Metal slices through flesh with slithering noises, and howls rise into the fuckfurnace of hell as I spin, slash, and stab through opponents too surprised by my shift to understand what's happening. And when the last one collapses, I fall onto my ass, exhausted and unable to get a breath of clean air, it being actual hell. The imps' bodies bubble and hiss as they melt into sludge, and I see my bug-dog guide skitter forward to congratulate me.
"Masterful, sir, simply masterful! May I help in any way?"
I shift back into my accustomed human form, which allows speech instead of unintelligible screeches. "You can insert your head into the anus of a rhinoceros and take a deep breath."
The hellspawn looks around at the blasted land, helpless. "Should one appear, I will do my best, sir."
"Just get me to the nearest exit."
"Certainly. Please follow me."
I collect all my weapons from the ruin of the imp horde and limp after him, my head constantly craning about me, looking for new threats. None appear, and it's almost more nerve-wracking than if something concrete had materialized to attack.
Uncountable moments of heat and pain later, the hellspawn stops and raises an insect leg at the air in front of it.
"Here we are, sir. Just a moment." He mutters something unintelligible, his leg spasms in a pattern that must have some arcane significance, and the air puckers and warps in front of him before a rectangle shimmers and resolves into a window to the plane of Midgard.
Just as the portal pops into solid reality and I feel a cool gust of air from New Jersey that is no doubt putrid by human standards but qualifies as a benediction in hell, Lucifer appears to my left, unfolding himself out of the air in a flutter of cherubic feathers. I ready the ice knife in case he attacks.
"What now?" I bark at him.
~I merely wished to congratulate you on making it this far. Perhaps you will have more luck in your rebellion than I thought. I will not aid you, but as you have earned my respect, neither will I hinder you. Seriously, though, you need to get a clue about David Bowie and Prince. You missed quite a bit being bound for all those years in the bowels of the earth. Before you decide to burn it all down and start over, take some time to appreciate creative geniuses. For you wish to be one, correct?
"A creative genius? No, that is not among my ambitions."
~If I'm not being too forward, Loki, perhaps it should be. My father was a creative genius, much as I despise him. I hear Odin is, too. Quite a few of the beings I presume you'll be fighting against are creative geniuses. It would be wise to know your enemy, if nothing else. But also wise to have a plan to build your utopia once the day is won.
"I have a plan. No need to worry about that."
~Ah. Fair enough. Well, then. It's all very exciting, isn't it? This should be good. I'm off to make some popcorn. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Cherubim cannot actually process genemod corn--oh, never mind.
The wings fold around him, and he spins like a top in the air until he shrinks and pops out of existence. What a strange adversary.
I'm left alone with the Bosch horror who did nothing to help me--not even provide so much as a warning--against Lucifer's ambushes. I'd like to try out the ice knife on him and see if he has a soul it can drink. The heat of hell has taxed the blade; the red reservoir along the top has noticeably diminished during our trek. It looks thirsty.
"Please step through," the hellion says. "I can only keep the portal open for a few more moments."
Ah, clever to remind me of that. I can't afford to risk being trapped here. I nod as a measure of insincere thanks and step through to New Jersey. The portal closes behind me, and good riddance. If a large portion of humanity can imagine such a creature as Lucifer and a realm as bleak as hell, then Ragnarok will be a merciful fate by comparison.
Time to get on with it.
THE RESURRECTIONIST
CAITLIN KITTREDGE
"The Resurrectionist" is set in the continuity of the Hellhound Chronicles during the early 1930s. This is a collection of stories about villains, but Lee Grey is a monster hunter--a man who'd probably be considered a hero for protecting humanity. But Ava and the other characters populating the Hellhound Chronicles are monsters, and to them, a man like Lee, with special abilities designed to kill their kind, would be the ultimate enemy.
This is the very beginning of Lee's story . . . but far from the last time he and Ava will cross paths.
Los Angeles
1932
Louie Montrose told me to kill Tom Mason on a sunny September afternoon. He didn't flat-out say it, since Louie "the Rose" Montrose never used four words where fourteen would do, but I got the message all the same.
"You like cowboy movi
es, Lee?" he asked while he was pouring his third glass of whiskey. Louie had left behind the cheap suits and greasy hair on the East Coast, but he still had a thug's taste, and a thug's manners.
"I prefer detective pictures," I said. Louie puckered up his face, pink like a fat cabbage rose, and downed the whiskey. He hadn't offered me any.
"All the same, ain't they? Some dame with legs and a problem. Some mook with too much chin. Boring as shit." His window looked down on the back lot, and I watched a pair of covered wagons pulled by production assistants roll past an Egyptian throne made of plaster.
"You mind telling me why I'm here?" I asked. A guy dressed as a mummy walked behind the throne, smoking a cigarette. I hoped those bandages were fireproof.
"Tom Mason," he said. "Some old fossil from back in the day when this place was real cowboys and Indians. Studio used him on a few pictures as a consultant--you know, the guy who tells Tom Mix and Gene Autry how to sit on a horse."
I waited, because he could have wanted me to beat the hell out of the guy or find him a fancy hooker. You could never tell with Louie. He was mercurial--that was the word. Unpredictable, like a starving coyote.
"Tom's been working for a friend of mine down at our distinguished competition," said Louie. "Doing some B picture. Anyway, there was an incident with one of the actresses--nothing serious, just a girl thinking she's more important than she is--and now Tom is shooting his mouth off crazy-like, threatening to go to the cops."
Louie went to his desk and took out a small clear bottle, the kind you keep under lock and key in a hospital. "Visit him, Lee. See what he has to say." The bottle changed hands. Louie's were soft and manicured. You'd think he'd never administered a beating in his life. "He's an ornery cuss, so come bearing gifts. My friend's been keeping him sweet with this."
I rolled the bottle before I pocketed it. Morphine is a fickle bitch. Your best friend one minute, and a screaming, knife-nailed whore the next.
I didn't know Tom Mason, but I already felt sorry for him.
I felt worse when I pulled up at his house--the worst-off one on a street full of cracker-box bungalows where everything was covered in a sheen of dust. The Santa Anas were blowing, coating the entire city with a fine powder that worked its way everywhere. At night, the sky glowed orange with the sheen of wildfires in the canyons.
Tom Mason's porch sagged under my weight, and I squinted through a dirty window. I caught a glimpse of a sofa covered in laundry and a table littered with empty plates and bottles of the cheapest rotgut you could panhandle your way into.
Whoever this guy was, I didn't think he warranted the wrath of Louie Montrose. But what did I know? I was a leg breaker, nothing more. I cleaned up the vomit, shooed the boyfriends out of the lantern-jawed stars' stately homes, threw away the needles in the ingenues' dressing rooms, and bounced a union rep or two off a brick wall, as the occasion called for. A man in my situation couldn't ask for much more.
The front door to the place was locked, but not in any serious way. A few seconds with a lock pick and a shove, and stale, stench-laden air floated out to greet me. It smelled like a terminal ward and a hobo toilet had run off together and gotten married.
Hell, I'd smelled worse. I stepped in.
Light spoke in the darkness, a flash like a camera bulb, except it came with a roar of sound that slammed me high in the chest and knocked me on my ass in the doorway.
Someone grabbed my legs and dragged me inside. The door slammed, and everything went dark.
The someone prodded me over, found my wallet, and lifted it. They felt at my hip and found my gun, too. A nice little automatic that I was sad to lose, but I had bigger problems, like the gaping hole in my chest.
My lungs sucked when I tried to breathe, and I felt the weight of blood as they tried to inflate. The asshole who'd taken his shot stopped feeling me up and regarded me, bloodshot blue eyes buried in a mug that was more furrows than face. Ugly son of a bitch.
I sat up and head-butted him, square in his bulging, vein-riddled nose. There was a crack, and a scream, and he crab-walked backward, screeching.
"You son of a bitch," I said. I felt the front of my shirt. Blood, and underneath, hamburger. "This was my favorite suit."
"Jesus!" Tom Mason screeched. "Jesus fucking Christ!"
The big cannon was still in his hand--a Colt Peacemaker, the same kind Wyatt Earp had carried. Single-action, six chambers full of pure destruction.
I got up, even though it hurt. Tom Mason pissed himself, and the sourness tickled my nostrils.
"Relax," I said as I took away the Colt. The weight was good and familiar. I missed strapping on the iron, but fashions change, and you can't exactly stroll through the gates at Paramount with a holster on your hip.
Tom Mason had clearly not gotten the memo.
"Who . . . what . . . ," he started.
"Lee Grey," I said. "Louie Montrose sent me."
"You . . . how . . ." His eyes were bloodshot and glassy. He was fighting the dope, trying to understand.
"It's a long story," I said. "Mind if I sit?" My chest hurt like hell. It was going to take some time to knit that mess back together.
Tom Mason stumbled up, rattling the collection of bottles on his table until he found one that had an inch of liquid left. He drained it, never taking his eyes off me. "Few days ago, I would've said you were the devil himself."
"Not even close," I said. I could feel the slug sitting under my shoulder blade, a small dull flame that I'd have to cut out sooner or later. Now, though, I needed to find out what had Tom Mason so jumpy that he was unloading on anyone who walked up his steps.
"Louie sent you," he said.
"So you were listening."
"You tell that son of a bitch I'm not afraid of some cheap hood in an expensive suit," he snarled, and through the saggy skin around his eyes, the sores at the corners of his mouth, and the last stubborn wisps of hair clinging to his freckled skull, I saw the kind of man Tom Mason must have been back in the day when you carried a gun on your hip instead of in your pocket.
"I don't need you to be afraid of me," I said. "I just need you to tell me you ain't going to go blabbing whatever story Mr. Montrose is concerned about you blabbing." Tom Mason snorted, and I drew out the bottle. "He told me to give you this, but I don't want you to take it. A loopy old junkie is a lot more chatty than some ornery cuss with a forty-four."
His eyes lit up at the sight of the thing, and I sighed and put it on the table between us. Tom Mason snatched it, rolling it in his fingers. Then, surprising the hell out of me, he shoved it back at me. "I can't. I promised her."
Here was something. A junkie will do whatever it takes to get his next shot. He can justify anything, and if the worst of it is shutting his mouth about some bigwig roughing up some bit player fresh off the bus from Nowhere, Indiana, then he's getting off light.
Whatever was happening to Tom Mason, it had spooked him. Spooked him clean and mostly sober. "So who are we talking about, Tom?" I sat back and waited. At least the bleeding had stopped.
"No." He stood and opened the door. "You need to go."
Threatening men like Tom Mason gets you nowhere, and cajoling them only a little further, so I stood up, pulled my jacket over the bloody hole as well as I could, and left.
Tom watched me, and then pulled the curtains tight. I slipped through the neighbor's yard and over the back fence. The basement bulkhead was locked with a chain, but dry rot had claimed the sash. Since it was ruined anyway, I threw my jacket over the spot to muffle the noise and dislodged the lock with one good kick.
Blackness trickled out, and cool air, stale from a long time underground. Around me, dust whipped through the fences and overturned one of the rusted lawn chairs that populated Mason's backyard.
I flipped the top of my lighter and sparked a small pool of bright in the darkness. The stairs were half-rotted and sounded like gunshots when I descended.
The cellar smelled like earth, like a greenhouse th
at had died. Like a hundred other dark and shut-up places I'd been in my lifetime. I knew what I'd find before the flame searched them out--two indents of freshly turned dirt. A little scraping revealed a hand, pale and blue veined, presumably attached to an arm and the rest of the poor bastard buried in Mason's basement.
I sat back on my heels, considering what I'd found. This would account for Mason's performance up in the living room, but not for Montrose's sending me over here. Unless Louie's friend had gotten a lot friskier with the starlet than I'd imagined, there was no way he'd send me solo to clean up two bodies.
Lost in thought, I almost jumped out of my shoes when the hand moved. Twitched, clawed at the earth. The other dirt pile heaved, giving birth to a form that gave out a low moan.
A shadow dropped across the cellar stairs, and I managed to catch a glimpse of a pair of hands gripping a shovel before a flashbulb exploded inside my skull and I went dark.
"He's awake."
I floated slowly back to consciousness, a soap bubble rising and bursting in my brain. The scent of the cellar still clung to my nostrils, and the brick and dirt told me I hadn't gone far.
Tom Mason regarded me. He took a pull from a fresh bottle and spit on my shoe. "Told you he was a tough nut."
The woman who'd clocked me was a looker. Dim light and a concussion didn't change my opinion on that.
"Is he one of Drago's boys?" she asked. Her accent was soft and nubby as old velvet.
"Nah," said Mason. "Said he was with Montrose."
"Merde," the girl said. She leaned in, arms on either side of me. I did a little experimenting and found I was tied to the chair they'd sat me in. Behind the girl's bare brown shoulder, pale things moved in the dark.
"So what are you, dead man? Montrose doesn't have the kind of juice required to make something like you."
"That's 'cause he didn't make me," I said. "He just pays me, and not well enough to put up with this shit."
She leaned into my neck and inhaled deeply. Her perfume was light and airy, a direct contrast to her golden eyes and the dress that wrapped her so tightly it might as well have not been clothing at all.